The Arena: The Awakening (1) (2 page)

The tall man’s voice lowered, as if almost sad about what he was saying.

“During the course of that investigation, and due to poor intelligence, Mia attended the home of the suspected offenders. The minute she pressed the doorbell of that house, she was blown sky-high due to a basic triggering mechanism connected to a block of C4 explosive. Until that point, Mia had been a fit and healthy operative.”

Suddenly, his voice picked up. “She didn’t drink or smoke, there was no history of any hereditary illnesses. She excelled in all of our basic and advanced training programs, including hand-to-hand combat, weapons handling and showed a high aptitude for marksmanship with both rifles and handguns. However, it was from the data retrieved by our psychologists that marked Mia as a prime candidate for our project”

“As you know, each time our agents in the field take a life, they are assessed for mental competency by a designated psychologist. This is basic protocol. Mia, during her service with us, took five lives in various investigations. What the data showed was quite extraordinary. Mia’s heart rate and bodily functions did not alter
at all
when she carried out those killings. She was in complete control of everything and showed no emotion either way on taking a life. That, combined with her health and skills, put her on our watch list for further development. At the time of joining this agency, she signed away the rights to her body, should a significant accident occur, as we all have. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how we’ve reached this stage in the project. Please understand, when Mia was injured, it was not the goal of the agency to bring her directly into this project. Only after the medical team trying to save her life were failing did we step in and take control”.

Mia was taking all of this in from behind the tall man. It was an awful lot of information to process. She had so many questions that needed answers.

“
Was this man trying to help her? Was he the Dr Cooper that Kyle spoke to her about that morning? Kyle! What about Kyle?! Does he know about this? Does he work for them as well?”

The questions were overwhelming but Mia knew she had no other choice than to listen and see where this man was going with this.

“
Wait a minute!
” Mia suddenly thought. “
What did he mean 'Successful testing in the field'?”.

The tall man continued, “The medical team had just about stabilised her when we took control. We put her into an induced coma and flew her here to this facility to start the repair work. All of Mia’s internal organs were somewhat bruised but there was no serious damage. Her joints were intact but there were several bones damaged beyond repair. Both thighs, legs, some smaller bones in her feet, some of her ribs, the smaller bones in her hands and her arms all needed to be repaired. Given the advanced research of this department, we considered this an easy fix and worth the expenditure for someone we were contemplating accepting as our prime project. Titanium inserts were grafted onto the damaged bones with no rejections. Her limbs were now stronger than anyone else on this planet. We had to complete slight facial reconstruction on the jawline, cheekbones and eye sockets which altered her physical appearance but the work, as I’m sure you’ll agree, was exemplary. The final discovery about Mia that made us invest the full resources of this project was her brain function. In simple terms, the explosion wiped clean her memory, which is typical of people who experience serious amounts of trauma. What made Mia stand out from the crowd however, was that she didn’t lose the memories of all of her training; I’ll explain a little more about this side of things shortly”.

The tall man paused for a second to take a sip of water from the glass on the lectern in front of him. As he sipped, he looked around the room at his colleagues and made sure he had their full attention before continuing.

“Now, after the repair work on her body was completed and she appeared, for want of a better description,
normal,
we decided to test the LP76 Serum on Mia in a controlled environment”.

He held up a small vial of purple liquid for all to see.

“Our only concern was whether or not her system would catastrophically reject the serum, as human trials had never been attempted. Thankfully, for us, her system accepted it. There were no apparent side effects! After we got her up and walking with all of her motor functions back in alignment, we were happy to go to field trials with her. She still retained all of her combat, weapons, marksmanships and hand-to- hand fighting skills. We don’t understand why this was and have been unable to answer this question to date. The fact that we have not started our subject from the blank canvas expected when this project was initiated has been wholly positive. We initiated more advanced training for her and discovered that her higher brain function was unlike anything we had expected. Mia processes information at an extremely high rate and she only needs to be shown something once for her to become more than proficient. She has been trained to only follow commands given by us here at the arena; as such she will not deviate from the set task and will return here after the task is complete. After she successfully completed her first assignment for us, we discovered that precisely seventy-two hours after initial injection, Mia would return to her normal state and have no recollection of what had happened over the prior three days. Ladies and Gentlemen, for those who are not following what I’m saying, we’ve created the perfect assassin for this agency! For three days at a time, this agency has the perfect weapon at their disposal. After all, who would suspect that someone in such a vegetative state, could kill someone?”.

“
WHAT?”
shouted Mia,
“ASSASSIN? WHAT THE HELL IS HE SAYING?
”

The tall man then took a deep breath and announced “Let me show you all the fruits of our labour”.

From the sidelines of the arena, a small team of doctors and nurses appeared and approached Mia. Due to her state, she had no idea that she was in fact already attached to various medical monitors. The tall man stayed at the lectern in front of Mia but didn’t turn around. One of the doctors from the medical team approached him and he handed over the vial of serum. The doctor took it and loaded it into an injection gun and walked towards Mia.

“
WHAT? WAIT!”
Mia shouted.

But this was a wasted effort.

He approached her right hand side and whispered into her ear “Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing”. With that, he injected the serum into her right arm and then the medical team, all at once, stepped back.

In a heartbeat, everything changed for Mia. Using her legs, she kicked up the footplates of her wheelchair and stood up, tall and proud as if standing to attention. She stood there for a few seconds before the medical team re-approached. They all looked at their various monitors and in succession, nodded to one another before they started disconnecting Mia from them.

The tall man sipped from his glass of water again and then announced to the arena “Start the clock and let us begin”.

Chapter 3

The Investigation

That very same day, a few hundred miles north in Morristown, New Jersey, Special Agent Hank Richards arrived at work cradling his usual large, extra hot caramel latte. Work was a covert F.B.I. field office hidden on the top floor of the Midtown Shopping Centre in Morristown and that coffee was the only bit of sunshine in his otherwise cheerless day. As he took a large gulp from the cup, he noticed a researcher watching him impassively from across the room.

“You know what I love about franchised coffee? Uniformity! Wherever I am in the world, this would taste the damn same every time”.

“You need to get a life” replied his colleague.

“I’ve got one” Hank snapped back. “It’s not much, but I’ve got one, so quit staring and get back to work”.

Hank wasn’t known for being the most approachable person in the office. Tall, thickset, unshaven and rumpled, he stood out against a backdrop of young preppy suits. His sour mood wasn’t helped by the email at the top of his list once he turned his computer on. It was from the boss who wanted him in his office as soon as he got in.

“
Great
” he thought. “
Yet another pink and fluffy conversation about how I’m coping”
. He took another mouthful of his coffee, straightened his tie and walked down the corridor to the boss’s office.

Senior Investigating Agent Michael Scott beckoned Hank into the office as he finished a call and hung up the phone.

“I’ll get straight to it Hank, I’ve been handed this box of files containing cold cases that are in need of reviewing. They all have a similar modus operandi. You’re the only Agent with field experience in this office, so the job’s going to fall to you to deal with them.”

Hank was glad to avoid the expected personal conversation, but eyed the archive box gloomily.

“Where did these files come from boss, PD or agency?”

SIA Scott had his head down but fixed his gaze firmly on Hank. “That’s not really important is it? You’re getting them from me and that’s all that matters”.

The boss’s tone was unusually curt, and there was an uncomfortable silence while the two men scrutinised each other. However Hank stayed motionless and the boss knew he wanted more information.

“Trust me Special Agent Richards, you don’t want to kick that rock over. All I’m prepared to tell you is that it came from another clandestine agency. Just take the files and see what you can make of them. You’ve got free rein to visit the scenes and access all forensics, and you can use anyone here you need. I’ve also allocated you an office at the far end of the building to use as you see fit. It has a lock on the door which you’re going to need. I’ve upgraded your security level for the appropriate files on the systems, just keep me in the loop of any developments.”

The job in itself didn’t really interest Hank, but the limited details of the other agency made him curious.

The office the boss had allocated him was small and sparse, with just a desk, a chair, a computer and a whiteboard. The only saving grace was a small window, from which there was a clear view of the park opposite the building. Hank set down his coffee and opened the box. All the files were fairly straightforward in content, detailing a seemingly random killing each by a single gunshot to the head. There was a lot of paperwork to go through, so Hank started with the basics. On the white board, he jotted down the location of each incident – Manhattan, Philadelphia and rural Blairstown in north New Jersey. Expert biochemist Leonard Fowler had been shot outside the offices of the biggest pharmaceutical company in New York City, where he had been working. Howard Rogers, the victim in Philadelphia, was a retired mathematician vacationing with his wife when he was killed. The female victim, Constance McDonald, was shot on the driveway of her Blairstown home; she was a phlebotomist working for a blood donation agency.

There were no obvious links between the victims other than their rather gruesome deaths. The pictures from all three scenes showed that in each case there was little left of the victim’s head at all, which suggested to Hank that these were high velocity shots. The forensic analysis report noted that only bullet fragments were recovered from all three incidents. All the fragments were made of solid carbon fibre. This meant the bullets had a high tensile strength, but no rifling marks were evident on the fragments for comparison and they couldn’t be matched to anything on the National Ballistic Database. The reports also confirmed that whatever held the bullets together had ruptured on impact, splitting the round into multiple pieces which, in turn, caused maximum damage.

Hank didn’t know of any organisation, agency or otherwise, with such advanced technology. What he did know was that the shooter in all these cases was likely to be a sniper rather than a close range killer. Whoever had initially been looking at these files had clearly had the same thought, but none of the places from which the sniper took their shots were ever identified and the only connection established between the three victims was the bullet fragments.

After several hours of reading and re-reading the case files, Hank had had enough of paperwork for the day and decided he needed to visit the crime scenes. Both the males had been shot in public places almost two years ago, so his best starting point was the Blairstown address for the female. She had lived alone with no family and the house had remained empty and unsold since her death. It was only an hour or so away from the office so Hank decided to hit the road with
Laura
, his vintage muscle car and most prized possession. The trip also afforded him the opportunity to catch up with an old friend on the way.

Chapter 4

An Old Friend

On an unkempt road just outside Denville in New Jersey, Hank pulled
Laura
cautiously up a long driveway. The house at the end was sun-faded pink and had a set of green painted garages situated just behind it. He pulled past the house and parked just outside the garage doors. With the window down, Hank could hear classic '70s rock coming from inside the garage.