Hijacked by Lolita Lopez
Chapter Eighteen
“Lift your right hand. Flex each fingertip toward your palm. Good. Now, let’s try the left.”
Misko stood outside the testing room and peered through the glass wall as Andro underwent brain mapping testing. Andro had been awake for four days in safe mode. Physically, he was fine, except for nearly twenty-three pounds of weight loss. Packing that weight back on wouldn’t be an issue, not the way Andro demolished the highly nutritious meals provided by the hospital staff.
Mentally, though, Andro exhibited a few odd symptoms. His verbal responses lagged at times, and he often had trouble recalling the correct words or substituted similar sounding words. The neurologist diagnosed it as anomic aphasia and had assured them it could be treated, either through old fashioned therapies or replacing some of Andro’s hardware.
But, first, Sara demanded the techs and doctors map out every single part of Andro’s brain. She wanted visualization of every synapsis, blood vessel, processor connection and hardware implant. Andro had argued with her about the delay, but she had refused to even consider poking around in his brain until she had the information she deemed necessary. To say Andro didn’t much care for her was an understatement.
Branko chuckled next to him, and Misko glanced at his brother to see what was so funny. “Are you—?” He didn’t finish the thought. Instead, he smacked Branko on the back of the head. “Stop filming him!”
“Ow!” Branko cried dramatically and rubbed the back of his head. “Killjoy.”
“How would you feel if the roles were reversed?”
“I would find it hilarious if Andro took footage of me acting like a puppet and overlaid circus music to it,” Branko replied matter-of-factly.
“You really are unbelievable,” Misko muttered. “Erase it.”
“No.”
“Bran!”
“Misko?” Ayana, one of Sara’s assistants, gently called from the doorway.
Not done with Branko yet, he glared warningly at his brother before turning away from the testing room window. “Yes?”
“Sara needs you in the SCIF. Now,” she added urgently.
His stomach plummeted. If Sara had called him away from his brother’s side, it could only be because she had news regarding Camila. Branko reached over and squeezed his shoulder. Misko nodded at him, thanking him for that silent encouragement, and left the room.
Ayana said nothing as they exited the hospital and crossed the base to the SCIF building. He didn’t press her for information. She wasn’t the type to spill secrets or divulge any information without Sara’s express permission. Truthfully, he was glad not to be tempted to ask. If the news was bad, he didn’t want to learn it out here in the open. Better to hear it from Sara in a place where he would be afforded some privacy to handle it.
When he entered the main room of the SCIF, he found Sara and the closest members of her team inside. Sara had both hands planted on the data table and leaned forward over it, her head hung low and her body shuddering. Struck by the realization that she was crying, he froze. Everyone else in the room refused to meet his gaze, and his heart flip-flopped in his chest. No. No. No. No.
Finding his voice, he gruffly said, “Camila is dead.”
Sara’s head snapped up. Tears streaked down her face, left her eyes glossy with pain. With a shaky inhale, she shook her head. “No, not yet.”
The second of relief he experienced was eclipsed by the second part of her sentence. Sara beckoned him closer and wiped her face with the sleeve of her dark shirt. She cleared her throat. “Can we have some privacy, please?”
The room emptied, and he stood still, not moving, his heart racing and his stomach churning with dread. When they were finally alone, he said, “Tell me.”
“My contact on Kirs sent an encrypted message. There’s a delay because of the distance and the number of proxies we have to use.”
“And?”
“Cammy met with Shui yesterday morning at the palace. A friendly chat,” Sara said with a bitter laugh. “After, there was a press conference.”
Misko swallowed hard. “And?”
“And...” Sara tapped at the touchscreen on the data table and pulled up the recorded feed from Kirs.
The emperor’s extremely punchable face appeared on the screen. The simpering shithead stood behind his ornate podium and yammered on about the cyborg threat and the need for expanded war powers.
“How long does this go on?” Misko growled. “His voice grates on my nerves.”
“Yeah, mine too,” Sara said and swept her finger to fast-forward the footage. She slowed down her finger and allowed the footage to resume. “This is where it goes off the rails.”
The camera panned out, and Camila appeared on screen. The sight of her made his heart soar and ache at the same time. Even through the beautifully applied makeup and her intricately styled hair, her exhaustion was clear. Her eyes seemed dull, and there wasn’t a hint of mischief anywhere on her face. The blood red fabric of her tailored dress hugged her in all the right places. It wasn’t lost on him that her shoes and dress and jewelry matched the colors of the Civil Disobedience logo.
“Leave it to Cammy to give the emperor a giant fuck-you through fashion,” Sara remarked as if reading his mind. “Not a subtle bone in that woman’s body.”
“What is she playing at?” His fingers curled to fists at his sides. “Will she never learn to stop being so obstinate, so quarrelsome?”
“No.” Sara smiled sadly. “The day she does is the day she stops being our Cammy.”
“As we move forward in this fight against the cyborg terrorists and their collaborators, we must remember to be ever vigilant,” Emperor Shui droned. “We must remain ever watchful for the enemy within our midst. There are those among us who crave power and are willing to do anything to get it. Some simply desire anarchy, an upheaval in society that will allow them to upend everything we hold to be true, moral and just. And, then,” he said with a sigh, “there are those who have fallen prey to manipulation.”
When Shui glanced in Camila’s direction, Misko’s breath caught in his throat. Camila remained emotionless on the dais, not at all realizing that she was in grave danger.
“Those who have been corrupted by the lies and psychological tactics the cyborgs employ,” Shui continued, “are the cases most dangerous to us. They are the ones who feel things deeply, who desperately want to help those in need. The cyborgs know this, and they will target the weakest among us in furtherance of their treachery.”
Behind the dais, a screen displaying a static image of the emperor’s grand seal rippled to life. Camila glanced back and then did a double-take at the image. Her gaze jumped to somewhere off-camera as if scanning the crowd for a specific face.
“It’s our father’s office,” Sara explained, her eyes fixed on the screen.
“It pains me greatly to reveal this betrayal within my own family line,” Emperor Shui said with feigned sadness. “When I was told last night of the changing facts in the case of the hijacking and kidnapping of Camila Velders, I refused to believe it. I had her brought before me earlier to speak privately, openly, honestly, with each other.” His fake sadness deepened almost comically. He glanced back at Camila, and she stiffened, her eyes wide with panic and then narrowing with fury. “Even given the chance to confess all and be forgiven, she chose to lie.”
The footage behind the emperor began to play, but Camila kept her wrathful gaze on the emperor. On screen, Camila sat in a chair, her knees pressed together, a glass in her hand. “I helped the cyborgs escape. I convinced Jantus and the crew that I was being held against my will, got them onto the shuttle and let Mis—the cyborgs—capture me again. Once the crew jettisoned, I helped the hijackers find a safe place to seek refuge.”
“Why? Would you betray your family? Your planet? The emperor?”
“He showed me the truth.”
“He?” Her father scowled. “You did this because of a man? Because of a cyborg?”
Xavyr Velders swore and jumped to his feet. He strode angrily toward a bar cart and filled his glass, drank it and hissed through his teeth. “You stupid, spoiled little brat! You idiot! How could you allow yourself to be fooled by a criminal? A monster who wants you and everyone else on this planet dead? Your sister and I will not pay for your stupidity. You broke the law. You must be judged!”
On stage, Camila seemed startled by the words coming from her father’s mouth. Sara piped up and explained, “That’s been altered. It’s one of the best deep fakes I’ve ever seen, but they forgot to wipe all their code from the metadata.”
Chaos erupted at the press conference as members of the media rushed forward and clamored for answers. The emperor continued to display his faux sadness as he gestured for armed guards to haul Camila off the stage. She went wild, gnashing her teeth and kicking, punching and scratching. She screamed all manner of abuse at the emperor and her father, swearing she would kill them both someday.
At first, Misko was proud of her for refusing to go quietly, but when the guards knocked her to the ground and wrestled her into submission, he silently begged her to stop fighting. By the time they had her in ankle and wrist cuffs, she bled from her lower lip and had a nasty welt blossoming on her cheek. He watched, helpless, as she was dragged away, and the feed cut to static.
“Is she alive?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“As far as I know, yes.”
He pivoted toward Sara. “As far as you know? What does that mean?”
“It means I’m waiting for an update from my connection back on Kirs.”
“Do you trust this connection?”
“With my life,” Sara answered without hesitation.
“Where would they take her?” Misko’s brain went immediately to a rescue operation.
“According to my contact, Cammy was taken to IDM.”
Misko shook his head. “Is that a military jail? A civilian jail?”
“It’s not a jail. The Institute for Disordered Minds. Allegedly, it’s a state-run asylum that offers state of the art care for the mentally ill.”
“In reality?” he asked reluctantly.
“It’s a hellhole where the government’s medical researchers do extremely unethical and illegal experimentation.” Sara glanced away as if lost in a memory. “Our mother tried to have it shut down before she died.”
He sensed there was much more to that story, but right now, he didn’t quite care. Gripped in a chill of dread, he asked, “What is the fastest ship on this base?”
“We don’t have one fast enough to get there in time.”
He stormed to the data table and smacked at the surface until he found the navigation charts. “If we can find a nearby long-haul transport with a hyperdrive, we can steal it. My cyborg crew and I can get to Kirs in hours rather than days.” His tactical mind raced through all the permutations of a successful mission. “A rescue op will be—.”
“Suicide,” Sara said, grasping his wrist. She stopped him from tapping navigation charts and forced him to look at her. “It would be a suicide mission, Misko. I can’t allow you to leave this base if the certainty of failure is nearly one-hundred-percent. At best, you and your cyborgs die. At worst, you get caught, downloaded and Shui’s death squads find their way to my front door.”
“Your sister is being held in a prison of nightmares,” he growled, losing his grip on his usually even demeanor. “I will not leave her there to be tortured! If you try to stop me—”
“Yes?” Sara’s brows arched expectantly. “You’ll what? Kill me?”
“Yes,” he answered honestly. “To save Camila? I will kill anyone who gets in my way.”
Sara didn’t even blink. She remained completely nonplussed by his murderous declaration. Finally, she nodded. “Good.”
Startled by her unexpected reply, he asked, “What?”
“Cammy deserves to be loved and protected by a man who will kill for her. Now, I know that man is you.”
Confused, he shook his head. “I don’t—”
“Cammy’s rescue has already been arranged,” Sara interrupted. “My contact has a team that they work with to handle this sort of thing. They’ll remove her from the facility as soon as they can.”
“How long?”
“It could be a few hours,” she said uncertainly.
“Or?”
“Or it could be days.” She avoided his gaze. “Or weeks.”
“Weeks!” He couldn’t bear the thought of waiting that long. Sickened by the thought of waiting, he asked, “How long has Camila been in custody?”
“Thirty-eight hours,” Sara answered quietly. The strain in her voice made it clear that she suspected Camily had already suffered a great deal of harm. “The delay between Kirs and here...,” she trailed off. “By the time we received the message from my contact and decrypted it and the footage, Cammy had been in custody for a while.”
Misko gripped the edge of the data table and tightly shut his eyes. He clenched his jaw as horrific images of imagined tortures flashed in his mind. “Once, almost a dozen years ago now, I was captured during a failed mission on one of the far-flung planets Shui wanted to us to explore for possible colonization.” He wasn’t sure why he was telling her this, but he couldn’t stop the words that spilled from his mouth. “Our recon ship crashed, and we were dragged out of the wreckage by the planet’s only sentient inhabitants. They were strange amphibian-humanoid hybrids with great big, watery eyes and slime coating their mottled skin that burned us like acid.”
“Gross,” Sara said in revulsion.
“They liked the way our pain tasted,” he continued. “They would hurt us in the most gruesome ways and then lick the sweat and oils off our skin, drinking it down like some exotic cocktail.”
“Disgusting,” she said, horrified.
“Eventually, our pain processors glitched. A failsafe kicked in, and we stopped feeling any pain. We stopped responding. We stopped producing the hormones and pheromones that those filthy alien monsters craved. We were useless so they threw us into a pit filled with the decomposing corpses of their previous victims.”
“Okay, Misko, seriously, this story is revolting.” Sara sounded as if she might be sick. “Is there a point?”
“The point is that a cyborg like me can compartmentalize or even turn off those pain receptors.” He shuddered to think about the agony Camila would endure. “Camila doesn’t have that luxury. She will feel it all—and it will change her, irrevocably.”
“Then we better start learning how to help her when she gets home,” Sara said. “Because she is coming home to you, to me, and if she means as much to you as she does to me, you’ll do whatever it takes to help her recover.”
“I swear it,” he promised with all his heart. “I will.”
Sara gripped his hand, and he found solace in her touch. They were both hurting right now, both afraid, but they had each other for support. That was more than Camila had. Somewhere, across the galaxy, locked away in a hospital of horrors, she was alone and suffering.
Stay strong, Camila. Fight. Survive.
For your sisters.
For me.
