Switch Read online



  Switch

  by

  Michael D. Britton

  * * * *

  Copyright 2012 by Michael D. Britton

  Jean Mitchell landed on her belly on the hardwood floor, rolled over her bleeding left elbow to wind up under the dining table, and let rip a spray of bullets from her Uzi, the rapport sounding like someone punching the throttle on a Harley.

  Crystal vases and a mirror shattered across the formal dining room while drywall splintered and pulverized to form a powdery cloud in the room. Jean quickly caught her breath, the floor having knocked it out of her on impact, then rolled onto her back and used her feet to capsize the heavy mahogany dining table onto its side, forming some cover.

  She then targeted the glimmering chandelier and blacked out the room. She lowered her night vision goggles over her eyes, peeked over the upturned table and saw the glowing figure darting across the room. He turned to fire in her direction, but she took him down with a short burst from the Uzi.

  Jean slowly stood and holstered her weapon on her thigh, then rubbed her elbow and stepped carefully across the room toward the kitchen, the soles of her shoes crunching on the glass and other debris. She reached her arm around the doorframe, raised her goggles, and flipped on the lights.

  In the middle of the dining room lay the man she’d been chasing for three weeks.

  Dead.

  She walked over to him, stepped on his wrist and bent down and twisted the gun out of his hand, then stood and nudged his head with her foot. It lolled to the side.

  She spoke, and it was picked up by the transmitter lodged in her bottom left wisdom tooth.“Schenker’s dead. Do you want the body?”

  The reply came through the tiny receiver implanted in her ear canal – a man’s voice. “No, leave it there. Get back to HQ – we have a special assignment for you.”

  No rest for the weary.

  #

  Jean arrived at Association HQ – a black glassy ten-story building just off the Bayshore Freeway in San Jose. She entered the empty lobby and took the elevator down to Six Below.

  In the elevator, she leaned back against the rosewood paneling and sighed. The bullet had only grazed her arm and the bleeding had stopped, but it still stung.

  She pulled the hair tie out of her long black hair and ran her fingers through it, then shook her head to loosen the strands.

  Once at Six Below, she didn’t need an ID card or a badge to get inside. She just passed through a flash-MRI doorway that read her inside-out in a microsecond, confirming her identity down to the DNA, and unlocking the interior doors.

  “Jean,” said Tom Worley, a lanky ginger-haired man standing just inside the doors to greet her. “Get cleaned up and meet me in the Switch Chamber.”

  Jean nodded and headed for her office, which had its own bathroom and shower. She unfastened her tool belt and weapons holsters, stripped off her grimy shirt and pants, and took a quick, hot shower.

  She didn’t look forward to this next meeting. The Switch Chamber meant one of two things – either she had to debrief an agent fresh from a switch, or she was the next one to have to undergo the process.

  She threw on some clean jeans and a black t-shirt and headed to the Switch Chamber.

  She opened the door, and it was as she remembered it – hot, humid, and dimly lit by recessed lighting. The room was circular, about thirty feet across, with no furniture and a computer console inset in the far wall. It smelled like wet moss.

  “Jean – there’s a situation,” said Worley, entering through a door straight across from her. Tom was about five years older than Jean – maybe 40 at most – and her immediate supervisor at the Association. His shaggy red hair made him look younger, though, and his manner of speaking was usually more casual than the typical supervisor. “Some junk head turned and gave you up. You’re blown wide open in five zones. You’ll be switched with Jamie Stanton. She’s still dark, and has some ins that you need to close the Schenker case.”

  “Uh, Schenker’s dead. Kinda closes the case, don’t ya think?”

  “No, I don’t think,” said Worley. “Schenker’s cousin, a David Talley, is the mind behind the mess. You need to bring him in – alive, please.”

  “What? I bring ‘em in alive. Sometimes.”

  “And you will this time.”

  The door through which Jean had entered opened, and in walked her fellow agent, Jamie Stanton.

  Jamie was a blonde, about five-eight, curvy – and absolutely wicked with a blade. Jean had gone to school with her, and had worked some cases with her early on, so she knew her well enough that she knew they could pull off a switch.

  “Hey, James,” said Jean. She’d called her that since college.

  “S’up, Jean.”

  “You both ready for this?” asked Worley.

  They both nodded.

  Jean had seen this done a hundred times or more, and done it once herself as part of her training for the Association, but had never actually undergone the procedure for a case.

  Worley entered some commands on the computer, and a circular area in the floor began to raise up slowly with a deep hum that gently vibrated the floor. A fine mist started to rise from the floor around the base of the platform. The sides of the circle stopped rising at about three feet, and the center part continued until it reached about five feet high.

  Each side looked like a hospital bed, and the center was a sort of grass-covered mound, upon which lay a naked woman Jean knew was named Q’Tal. She was an organic android with an exposed, bio-mechanical brain. Jean had never been briefed on Q’Tal’s origin, and part of her didn’t want to know. The strange creature appeared to be asleep, but Jean knew that her mind – or whatever that thing was in her clear skull – was processing fifty exabytes of data per second.

  “Go ahead, ladies, lay down,” said Worley. “Relax, close your eyes, and be prepared to feel – uh – well, very weird.”

  That was reassuring.

  Jean and Jamie both sat on the beds, one on each side of Q’Tal, and swung their feet up then laid down.

  Within moments, a blue glow appeared around Q’Tal’s head, and little vines sprung forth from her fingertips, growing so fast they looked like time-lapse video of ivy climbing the side of a house. The vines crept down and wrapped themselves around the head of each woman, blindfolding them, constricting them - not too tight, not too loose – leaving room to breathe. Then the tendrils snaked into their nostrils and ears – a very uncomfortable sensation.

  Jean suddenly felt so dizzy she was nauseated. In the darkness, her head swirled and spun. For a moment, she thought she could see herself, from above, her head wrapped in green strands of organic material.

  Then all she could see was a blue glow – bright, in all directions – and she heard an echoing voice saying words she couldn’t understand.

  And then she passed out.