Under His Skin

Chapter 5-1

Chapter 5

Lennon felt the Jeep slow to a stop. “Don’t get excited,” Jamal told him. “We’re just grabbing gas.” The driver’s door opened, and Jamal slipped out into the cool spring air.

Lennon’s heart beat out a staccato rhythm against his ribcage. This might be his only chance for escape. He could, possibly, accept his fate and hope that he survived. The memory of a thousand terrible incidents, from beheadings in the Middle East to shootings all over the United States, sprang unbidden to his mind. Sure, he could hope that he survived, but hope was for children.

He pulled the paralytic injector out of his bag and opened his eyes. He had one chance at this. He’d better make it a good one.

He waited in his seat for Jamal to return. There was no one else at the gas station. He didn’t dare look over at the attendant’s little hut, but he wasn’t feeling hopeful. Jamal didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would choose someplace that would leave witnesses behind him.

If Lennon failed, if he telegraphed his move and failed to neutralize Jamal, no one would see and help him.

He had to get this right the first time.

He heard the gas shut off. Jamal had finished filling the tank. Lennon readied the injector, hiding it behind his bag.

Jamal opened the driver’s door and slid back behind the wheel. “Man, it is isolated up here.” He chuckled. “No surprise, right? I mean my client wouldn’t have picked a crowded place to pick up a package like you.”

He had the keys in his hands. Lennon had to move.

He moved as fast as he could. He lunged over the seat and stabbed the injector into Jamal’s neck. He didn’t need to hit any particular location; anyplace that let him get the bots under the skin would work. In this case, though, adrenaline and great hand-eye coordination gave him uncanny accuracy. He got the side of Jamal’s long neck in one shot, and Jamal had no idea what hit him.

Jamal tried to react. He’d obviously written Lennon off because of his wealth and s****l orientation. He didn’t expect any kind of fight from him at all. By the time he got his hands up, Lennon had already pressed the button. Nanobots flooded Jamal’s bloodstream.

The bots acted fast, but they weren’t instantaneous. Jamal got one punch off before he stiffened in his seat. That punch sent Lennon flying back into the opposite side of the Jeep. His head slammed into the rear passenger window, cracking the glass in a spiderweb pattern. It hurt, and warm blood trickled down the back of his neck, but he didn’t pass out.

He lay in a daze for a second, but Jamal didn’t move. The nanobots had done their jobs.

Lennon pushed himself up and forced the door open. He didn’t so much step out of the SUV as fall out of it, but at least he was on solid ground. He’d sat in that metal cage for three and a half hours. Now he could breathe free air.

He turned around and threw the driver’s door open. Jamal looked at him with hate blazing in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.

“You seem like a nice enough guy, Jamal.” Lennon had to crouch down to speak to him like this, and he couldn’t deny it felt good. “And I’m sure you’re only doing the job you were paid to do. But I’m not going to meet your client. I’m sure you can understand why.”

He wrestled the keys out of Jamal’s frozen fingers. He could take the Jeep. It wouldn’t be hard. All he would have to do would be to pull Jamal out and leave him on the ground. Lennon wasn’t foolish enough to think that this “client” wouldn’t have some way of tracking the vehicle, though. If they’d known enough to hijack Lennon’s ride share, they’d have some way of finding him this way.

Instead of taking the car, Lennon threw the keys into the nearby forest. Then he turned and spoke to Jamal again. “The bots will wear off in five hours. I’m sorry that I had to do that to you, but I’m sure you’ll understand. I didn’t have any choice. Not really.” He closed Jamal’s burning eyes so they wouldn’t dry out and found his abductor’s phone.

He pulled the battery out of the phone and shoved it into his pocket. He thought about throwing it into the woods, but he didn’t want to risk having the battery materials leech into the ground if it wasn’t found in a reasonable amount of time. It might be a small gesture, considering that he’d just spent three and a half hours in a gas-guzzling SUV, but it was something.

Then, Lennon took a deep breath and walked over to the hut. His vision swam, and he figured that he should probably do something about the blood loss, but he had to take care of some other things first.

Just as he’d expected, he found the attendant’s hut empty. The phone line was still operational, though, so he dialed Rada’s number from memory.

Rada picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Rada, it’s me. Lennon.”

“I know who you are, you big goof.” Rada’s voice went hoarse with relief. “Oh my God, where are you? We were terrified.”

“I was kidnapped.” Lennon cleared his throat. “I’m not entirely sure where I am, but I know I can’t stay. It was my ride share driver.”

“We know.” Rada’s voice shifted, with an undercurrent of anger. “We figured that out.”

“Who’s we?” Lennon glanced around. He wasn’t exactly an outdoorsman. He knew enough to know that he had a few hours, at most, until nightfall. He knew that he was in the mountains. He knew that nightfall and the mountains were not a great combination.

“Townsend’s not just ex-military. He’s current—well, we’re not his only employer. I’ll let him explain it. I’m pissed. But look, is there anything else that you can tell me to give your location? Can you turn on your GPS?”

“They already got a bead on me with my phone once. I’m going to have to take the battery out.” He looked over at the road. “I think I see a road sign. It’s for a local highway, heading south in the mountains. The gas station I’m at—” He grabbed at the debris in the station until he found something he could use. “This old bill says that it’s the Tamworth Gas and Go. I’ll be heading south on this road until I have to veer off it. I’ll stop in if I get to civilization and update you when I can.”

“You do that. I’ll relay this to Kaden and the team.”

“I’m not up for trusting anyone right now, Rada.” He blew out a hot breath.

“I’ll give them a code word, so you’ll know that I sent them. Pancakes.”

“Seriously?” Lennon chuckled in spite of himself. “Got it. Okay. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.” He hung up and headed down the road.

Heading south was a risk, and Lennon knew it. He had no idea where he was going, and the people pursuing him knew he’d head that way. He didn’t know what else he could do, though. Jamal’s client had been in the north, and the last thing Lennon wanted to do was to walk into her waiting arms.

He slung his briefcase over his shoulder and pulled one of the wound care injectors out. In an ideal situation, he would be able to hide behind a rock or something until the bots completely closed the wound in his head. He didn’t have that luxury now. He knew, the way he knew his own face in the mirror, it wouldn’t take Jamal’s client long to figure out that something had gone wrong. He was on borrowed time.

He slammed the injector into his own stomach and pushed the button to release the bots into his bloodstream. He didn’t know if there would be any diminution in effectiveness due to his activity. They used the bots in the military, even taking them into the field, but they didn’t use them on wounded men who were walking around. They used them on patients once the action had passed. At least, that was who they’d been tested on.

Lennon doubted that soldiers in the middle of a war zone were going to wait for FDA approval before using the devices for an off-label use if they could save a buddy’s life. He certainly wasn’t going to complain about it, although he could wish they’d send him some feedback on the results.

He put one foot in front of the other and headed down the mountain, following road signs. Staying visible felt wrong to him. It didn’t just feel wrong. He felt like a butterfly, waiting for the pins to come down and fasten him to a pin board. He couldn’t hear any cars coming in any direction, which was creepy too. He knew New Hampshire was famous for its remote hamlets and small towns, but surely there had to be some people in this godforsaken state? “Live Free or Die” didn’t have to mean “Suffer and die alone while evil spies or terrorists or whoever try to kill you.”

He took a deep breath, held it for four seconds, and let it out. He couldn’t hold it against the whole state. The state hadn’t done this to him, Jamal and his client had. And he couldn’t give in to panic, either, no matter how tempting it might be. Panic would make things worse.

He wanted to slip into the forest and avoid any possibility of notice, but he couldn’t afford to do that. He didn’t know enough to make his way through the woods. He couldn’t afford to get lost in there. He’d wander for days and die of starvation, or of dehydration if he couldn’t trust the water. Or else a bear would eat him, not that he couldn’t get eaten by bears if he stayed on the road. He should have gotten that app, the one that played noises to repel bears.

Except he’d removed his battery from his phone, to keep anyone from tracking him.

He made a mental note of things to consider. Was increased anxiety a side effect of the nanobots? He didn’t think it was listed, but he’d look it up when he got back to civilization. Maybe it was a side effect of the adrenaline that still coursed through his system. It was definitely a side effect of blood loss.

The enormity of what had happened back at the gas station hit him, and he had to pause to throw up in the drainage ditch. He heaved for a long moment after he’d lost everything in his stomach, hands on his knees.

He hadn’t designed the paralytic as a weapon. Sure, it could be used that way, but he hadn’t designed it as such. He’d intended for it to be used on people who were a danger to themselves and others, as a way to immediately stop people having a psychotic break without causing them harm or risking serious side effects. He’d hoped that it could be used as a non-lethal tool by law enforcement and emergency medical staff.

He hadn’t expected to have to jab it into someone during a fight.

In his own visions for the product, he’d seen competent medical staff immediately available to tend to the patient. The individual would be immediately cared for and would get the help that they obviously needed when the bots wore off. Lennon had left Jamal lying on the cool, damp ground, on a road that was all but abandoned at this time of year.

Lennon had worked for his entire career to minimize harm as far as possible. He’d even carried out Jamal’s phone battery, for crying out loud, just in case. He’d walked away from Jamal himself without a backwards glance, uncaring about the man’s very human life.

Lennon was a monster.

Suck it up, buttercup. His own voice snarled at him from the back of his mind. Jamal would have killed you if he had to. And he might have been friendly when you met, but that would have changed in a heartbeat if the job requirements shifted. This isn’t a lab. This isn’t a board room. This is real life, this is your life, and if you want to keep it, you’ll keep going.

He saw a sign for West Ossippee and followed it. The town couldn’t be that far away, and the road signs were well marked. Lennon wasn’t an expert, but he didn’t think that he had a lot of daylight left and he wanted to be somewhere much warmer before the sun went down.

He trudged on for about an hour. The damp roads had some charm, he supposed, but that charm fell away when the chill settled into his bones. He hadn’t dressed for the weather. He’d dressed for the camera. He doubted that he looked good anymore, not after a fight and with his hair crusted in blood.

His feet, encased in “fashion boots,” throbbed. He would declare war on fashion boots when he got back to Boston. Fashion boots and any other form of shoe that wasn’t useful as well as attractive. There was no reason shoes worn to work shouldn’t be shoes one could also wear to escape from a kidnapper, damn it.

However useless his shoes were, or how sore his feet were, they carried him into West Ossippee, New Hampshire, an hour and a half after he left the Gas and Go. He staggered until he found the Panera Bread, a comparatively new facility with cheery lighting and a manager on duty who looked friendly and calm.

Lennon hesitated. Would the Panera be safe? Or would the manager be in cahoots with Jamal or his client? He blinked and forced the paranoia away. If the manager had been conspiring with the bad guys, they’d have arranged the transfer there. He let himself into the restaurant and walked up to the bearded man.

The manager’s eyes bulged when he saw the blood on Lennon’s shirt and jacket. “Sir, are you okay?”

“I’ve had worse,” he said. He wasn’t lying. “Trust me, it’s not as bad as it probably seems. Listen, can I borrow your phone? Mine was broken in the fight and I really need my friend to come and get me.”

The manager put a hand on Lennon’s shoulder. “Seriously, you need a hospital.”

“No, no. If I’m still bleeding a little later, we’ll see, but I really just need for my buddy to come and get me. Do you mind? I promise to buy something.” Lennon gave the manager his best puppy dog eyes, the one that had once wheedled the first round of funding out of a bunch of venture capitalists.

“Of course, of course.” He brought Lennon back to his office.

Lennon inhaled the comforting scent of food and let the warmth revive his body as he dialed Rada’s number. “Lennon, oh my God, where are you?”

“I’m at the Panera Bread in West Ossippee.” Lennon didn’t have the energy to try to placate her.

“Kaden should be there in half an hour or less. Love you.” Rada hung up.

The manager lifted his eyebrows at their abrupt conversation. “That was a quick chat.”

“She’s been worried sick about me.” Lennon smiled, thinking of poor Rada and how much stress she’d been put through today.

“Girlfriend?” The manager nodded knowingly.

Lennon considered telling the truth but stopped himself. He’d been in enough small, remote towns to know better. They weren’t all populated by homophobic bigots. They weren’t even mostly populated by homophobic bigots. Enough of them were that he didn’t want to take a chance while he was already in a vulnerable position. “Yeah. She’s the best.”

“You should think about marrying her someday.” The manager escorted him back out to the dining room. “She’d keep you out of trouble!”

Lennon laughed out loud. “Trust me, my friend, I don’t think there’s a person alive who can do that right now. She does her best though.”