The Familiar Face
1426 Words
The plane landed at 3:00 AM.
Marcus walked across the tarmac, Claire beside him. Damian carried the bag. The farmhouse lights were on. Kay was waiting by the door.
“You have a visitor,” she said.
Marcus tensed. “Who?”
“He wouldn't give a name. Said you'd know him.”
Marcus walked inside.
A man sat at the kitchen table. Grey hair. Tired eyes. A face Marcus hadn't seen in years.
“Hello, Marcus.”
Marcus stopped. “Father Matteo.”
The priest stood up. He looked older than before. Thinner. His hands shook.
“I need your help.”
“You disappeared. After the church was burned. We thought you were dead.”
“I almost was. Silas's people found me. They tortured me. Asked questions about you. About the sleepers. About the cure.”
“How did you escape?”
“I didn't. They let me go. They wanted me to find you. To deliver a message.”
Marcus's hand moved to his Sig. “What message?”
“The code isn't just for erasing memories. It can be used to rewrite them. To change people. To make them loyal. To make them soldiers.”
“Who has it?”
“Someone you know. Someone who worked with you. Someone who was never on any list.”
Father Matteo pulled out a photograph. A woman. Dark hair. Serious eyes.
Claire gasped.
It was Lena Petrov.
---
Marcus stared at the photograph.
“Lena? The doctor? The one who helped cure the sleepers?”
“She was never a doctor,” Father Matteo said. “She was a researcher. One of Silas's original team. She faked her own erasure to go underground.”
“That's not possible. We cured her. She remembered her son.”
“Those memories were planted. She's been playing you from the beginning.”
Marcus felt the room spin. Claire grabbed his arm.
“Where is she now?” Marcus asked.
“She has a lab. In the desert. Outside Las Vegas. She's been building her own version of the Lazarus Account. Using the sleepers you rescued as test subjects.”
“Which sleepers?”
“The ones you left behind. The ones who weren't fully cured. She's been taking them one by one. Rewriting their memories. Turning them into her personal army.”
Marcus pulled out his phone. Called Lena's number.
No answer.
He called the community center. The nun who answered said Lena hadn't been seen in days.
“She's gone,” Marcus said.
“She's been gone,” Father Matteo replied. “She was never really there.”
---
Kay pulled up Lena's file. The real one. Not the fake she had planted.
“Dr. Lena Volkov,” Kay read. “Younger sister of Anna and Elena. She changed her name. Had plastic surgery. Created a new identity.”
“Why?” Claire asked.
“Because she wanted to continue the work. Her sisters were caught. She wasn't. She's been hiding in plain sight, building her own network.”
Marcus looked at the photograph. At the face of the woman who had helped him cure sleepers. Who had held Claire's hand. Who had pretended to be a friend.
“Where is her lab?”
Kay typed. “Outside Las Vegas. Old military base. Same as the bunker, but different location.”
“How do we get in?”
“We don't. She knows us. She'll recognize us.”
Marcus thought for a moment. “Then we send someone she doesn't know.”
---
David Chen was waiting at his farmhouse.
Marcus laid out the plan. David listened. His wife Julie sat beside him, holding his hand.
“You want me to go undercover,” David said.
“You're the only one she hasn't met. You can pose as a buyer. Someone who wants to purchase the technology.”
“And when I'm inside?”
“You plant a device. Kay can use it to disable the security. Then we go in.”
“What about the sleepers? The ones she's turned into soldiers?”
“We cure them. The real cure. The one Elena Volkov helped develop.”
David looked at Julie. She nodded.
“I'll do it.”
---
The drive to Las Vegas took three days.
Marcus, Claire, and Damian followed at a distance. David drove ahead, alone.
The old military base was in the middle of the desert. Miles from anywhere. A chain-link fence. Guard towers. Cameras.
David approached the gate. A guard came out.
“State your business.”
“I'm here to see Dr. Volkov. I'm a buyer.”
The guard made a call. Then he opened the gate.
David drove inside.
---
Marcus watched from a hilltop a mile away.
“He's in,” Kay said through the earpiece.
“Keep me updated.”
The minutes crawled.
David's voice came through. “I'm in the lab. Dr. Volkov is here. She's showing me the equipment.”
“Can you plant the device?”
“Not yet. Too many guards.”
Marcus waited.
Ten minutes. Twenty.
“Device is planted,” David said. “I'm heading out.”
“Good. Get clear.”
---
The explosion came as David was leaving.
Not from the device. From somewhere else.
The lab went dark. Alarms blared.
“What happened?” Marcus shouted.
“I don't know,” Kay said. “Something triggered the security system. She knows someone is here.”
David's voice: “I'm pinned down! Guards at the gate!”
Marcus ran down the hill. Claire and Damian followed.
They reached the fence. Marcus cut through with wire cutters.
Gunfire erupted.
Damian returned fire. A guard fell.
Marcus ran toward the lab.
---
The building was chaos.
Sleepers—turned soldiers—were everywhere. Their eyes were blank. Their movements were mechanical.
Marcus didn't want to hurt them. But they were shooting.
He fired at their weapons. Not their bodies.
Claire was beside him, doing the same.
They reached the lab.
Lena Volkov was standing in the center of the room. She was holding a tablet.
“Marcus. I was wondering when you'd come.”
“It's over, Lena.”
“It's never over. Not as long as the code exists.”
She pressed a button on the tablet.
The sleepers stopped moving.
Then they turned. Their blank eyes focused on Marcus.
“Kill him,” Lena said.
The sleepers advanced.
---
Marcus fired. They kept coming.
Claire fired. They kept coming.
They were immune to pain. Immune to fear. Immune to anything except the command in their heads.
Marcus grabbed Lena. “Call them off!”
“I can't. Once activated, they can't be deactivated. Not by me.”
“Then who?”
“The person who wrote the code. Victor Lazar.”
“He's gone. No one can find him.”
Lena smiled. “I can.”
She pulled a USB drive from her pocket. “The code. The real code. Use it to deactivate them.”
Marcus took the drive. “Why are you helping me?”
“Because I never wanted this. I wanted to help people. To cure them. But I lost my way.”
The sleepers were getting closer.
Marcus plugged the drive into a computer. Kay's voice in his ear: “I see it. Give me a minute.”
“We don't have a minute.”
The sleepers were ten feet away.
Five feet.
“Got it,” Kay said.
The sleepers stopped.
Their eyes cleared.
One of them looked at Marcus. “Where am I?”
“You're safe.”
---
The FBI arrived twenty minutes later.
Lena Volkov was arrested. The sleepers were taken to a hospital.
David was alive. A bullet had grazed his arm.
Marcus stood outside the lab, watching the sun rise over the desert.
Claire came up beside him.
“It's over.”
“For now.”
“How many more?”
“I don't know.”
She took his hand. “Then we keep fighting.”
---
They drove back to the farmhouse.
The garden was still damaged. The roses were broken.
But some of them were already growing back.
Marcus knelt in the dirt. He started to dig.
Claire knelt beside him.
“What are you doing?”
“Planting new ones.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
They worked in silence.
The sun was warm. The earth was soft.
And for a moment, Marcus forgot about the war.
He thought about the future.
- Writer
