Chapter 25

 

General Phillips’ Last Vision

 

Frank considered all of his options. Since General Phillips wanted to get rid of him so badly he was prepared to risk everything by calling in a hitman, Frank could not simply sit back and let the attack slide. Undoubtedly Phillips would try again, probably employing one of PsiForce’s own telepaths to come and take him out. Frank had no resistance to telepathic attack, other than his own natural psionic resistance and the mindshield that General Hartmann had helped him to erect. A good telepathic blow could stun him unconscious, and from there someone could lop his head off.

He doubted that even he would be able to return from complete decapitation.

So he had to hit back, but how? He considered calling in the Hunter and diverting a few DOD funds to pay him. The assassin could be made to work for him if he offered more than Phillips – he didn’t have any morals in that regard. He was very good, however his methods were rather obvious. General Phillips’ body, discovered with a bullet in the brain, would cause nearly every PsiForce finger to point at Frank, since he stood the most to gain from the old man’s death.

Also, most of PsiForce’s top members knew his powers and how they could be employed. They had seen him incinerate enemies, drop heavy objects onto them, crush them with the force of his mind, tear them limb from limb. They had even seen him kill subtly, by choking his victim with an invisible telekinetic hand. However, they didn’t know anything about the research Frank had been conducting in his private time, just in case he had to kill secretly, without anyone knowing. But he hadn’t been at it long, and wasn’t sure if he could he pull it off without arousing suspicion. He had to avoid an investigation at all costs, because PsiForce now employed psychometrists with the power to detect psionic signatures.

He had to try or die. All appearances aside, General Phillips was not stupid, and he certainly wasn’t about to give up. He would try again.

Frank’s day passed uneventfully. Nevertheless, he kept an eye out as he walked the labyrinthine corridors of the Pentagon, searching for anyone acting suspiciously. But he knew in his heart if a telepath was going to attack him, he would probably do it from the safety of General Phillips’ office, reaching out across the ether from a distance. Phillips wouldn’t have too much trouble convincing a PsiForce tepe to attack Frank – he would just have to say that he’d had a vision of Frank betraying the US or some bullshit like that.

The colonel shivered, realising just how much danger he was in. He had to get rid of Phillips, and soon. He would do something about him tonight.

He returned home to his apartment and let himself in. He would rest first, then go out in the wee hours, when everyone was most likely to be asleep. He flicked on the light in the hall and headed into the lounge room to watch some TV before defrosting some of the meals he’d prepared on the weekend. When he reached for the light switch, he sensed that he was not alone, and threw up a shield.

The light bathed a familiar figure, sitting on his couch, a rifle across its knees. “Bang bang, you’re dead,” Frank declared.

The Hunter rose to his full height, slinging the rifle over his shoulder. He was dressed in his long leather overcoat, either the one he’d left behind or a new one, Frank couldn’t tell. “I didn’t come back to kill you, otherwise yes – I would have gone bang bang as soon as you walked in. Trouble is, I don’t think bang bang would have killed you. You got up after three hollow-points in the back.”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed. Even without his shields he was tougher than a normal human, heavier and with denser muscle tissue. Even after all these years, DOD scientists still couldn’t explain the bizarre changes his body had undergone. “So if you’re not here to kill me, why are you here?”

“Originally I came to collect my gun. I would’ve been gone before you came home. But then I started thinking, and wondering if you could answer a few questions.”

Frank folded his arms. He still didn’t trust the Hunter. “You know I have a few of my own. Perhaps we could trade. Quid pro quo and all that crap.”

The Hunter nodded. He looked as youthful as he had early that morning. Only those cold, hard killer’s eyes were out of place. “Okay Cassidy.” He paused, searching for words. “You seem to be pretty high up in the military – you must be for someone to risk hiring me to try and off you. So I reckon you must know a bit about me. Do you?” Suddenly, his ice-blue eyes were intense with a strange, alien need Frank couldn’t fathom.

“A bit, yeah. We have a little file on you. What d’you want to know?”

The Hunter continued to stare intently at Frank. “Do you know what I am?”

Something akin to a jolt of electricity raced down Frank’s spine. Jesus, he wanted to know the exact-same thing! “As far as we can tell, you’re some sort of psyker who’s been creeping around for far longer than the age you look.”

Sadness filled the Hunter’s eyes and he shook his head. “No, I don’t think I’m a psyker. In fact I think I’m something opposite, if that’s possible. ESPers, unless they’re very powerful, can’t see my aura, telepaths can’t get into my head at all, and psychokinetics – unless they’re you – can’t affect me. I’m some sort of psionic dead-zone.”

“Did you ever get yourself tested at the PSI?”

“I visited the PSI once – and left very quickly after that powerful ESPer I mentioned before started shrieking hysterically about my ‘blood-aura’. What have you got written about me on your file?”

“First, tell me who hired you to kill me.”

The Hunter sighed. “Okay. His name was Major General Robert Phillips. Your commanding officer, I believe.”

“I suspected it was him. I can’t think of anyone else who’d want me out of the picture so badly.”

“Now, what’s on my file?”

“Some descriptions of your powers; your exceptional speed and strength, your ability to hide, your nightvision and regenerative capabilities. It contains some footage of you caught on film during various jobs, but mainly the file is describes your missions, those the US Government hired you for.”

The Hunter frowned. “Obviously you guys are cleverer than I thought, to get so much on me.”

Frank shrugged. “We still don’t know exactly who you are or where you came from.”

“And you’ll probably never find out, because I don’t even know the answers to those questions. That’s why I came back, Frank – because I thought you could help me. You seem to have some powers in common with me, and I thought you might be … something like me.”

Frank stared at him, noticing that some of the coldness in his eyes had melted, revealing an almost childlike earnestness. “I see what you mean. We both appear to have supernatural powers of regeneration. You’ve been around for over fifty years, and I stopped ageing after Colombia. We’re fit, fast and we both seem to be in the same profession.” He laughed humourlessly. Deep down in his most innocent part, he wanted to believe that he’d found another creature like himself. But his realistic soul told him not to be so damn naïve. The Hunter was something different again. “But I’m a psyker, and you’re not. Your powers come from … somewhere else. And there’s the blood-drinking thing. Can’t say I’ve ever felt the need to do that.”

The Hunter lowered his gaze, disappointment filling his eyes. “I could have killed you. If your blood hadn’t been so strange to me, I would have drained you completely, and you would have died.”

Frank remembered the way his blood had glittered on the floor, and inside the little vial Dr Waters had held up to the light. The Hunter had been unable to digest it. “You need human blood to survive?” he asked roughly. “You’re some sort of vampire?”

“Yes. If I don’t get blood, I age rapidly.”

Frank had seen that happen after dropping the concrete pylon on top of him. He took a deep breath. “So what can you tell me about the Nethermind? I haven’t heard much about them recently.”

He hesitated. “I could never find anything out about them. They’re the only organisation who ever managed to keep themselves completely hidden from me. I took the Karlberg job because it was worth a million to me, but I only discovered it was a Nethermind hit afterwards, from a third party source.”

It was Frank’s turn to frown. He didn’t like the Hunter’s answer, but his youthful face was so inscrutable that he couldn’t tell whether he was lying or not. He supposed that someone who’d been around for as long as the Hunter knew how to keep his emotions hidden.

The Hunter must have read Frank’s mind. “I’m telling you the truth, Cassidy. For all my information-gathering talents I never, ever reached the Nethermind. Everyone I spoke to either denied its existence or knew nothing.”

“Okay. You can’t tell me your real name, can you?”

“I don’t know my real name.”

“So what do you call yourself, besides Hunter?”

“Lots of different things, but most commonly, Marc Jaeger.”

“And you honestly can’t remember where you came from?”

“My first memories are of crawling through the war-torn ruins of the German city of Hannover. Before that – nothing. Blackness. Like some psyker has reached into my head and wiped out all my childhood memories. I figure I was born around 1927, but I’m only estimating back from the age I was when I first … became aware of myself. Quid pro quo, Cassidy – I want to know exactly who you work for.”

“The US Army, of course.”

Marc folded his arms. “Very funny. Now why don’t you tell me who you really work for?”

Frank had made a deal, he couldn’t turn his back on it now. Besides, the Hunter didn’t make a point of revealing his knowledge to the public. He kept everything for his own private use. “I work for PsiForce.”

Marc stared. “Who?”

“It seems your information-gathering skills have failed you again. PsiForce is the military’s new psionic arm.”

“Interesting. I was wondering when the Psi Corps would come into it.”

“I just revealed Ultra Top Secret information to you, Hunter. I could get an extended stay in Leavenworth for that. Now you have to do something for me.”

“What? Kill General Phillips?”

“No. I can take care of him myself.” Frank reached out with his delicate telekinetic tentacles, sliding them up under Marc’s long black coat, under his shirt and into his tight leather trousers. “What I want from you is to finish what you started this morning, minus the blood-drinking bit, of course.” He smiled. “Then you can go free, taking all you’ve learned.”

Marc gulped. “Okay Cassidy.” He removed his gun, coat and gloves, tossing them over the back of a chair. “But if I do this for you, I become more than just your hitman. If you want me to kill for you, you not only pay me in cash, but in information as well, okay?”

“It’s a deal.” Jesus, he was so beautiful. Frank couldn’t control himself anymore. He reached for him, pulling his slender body close. He felt so good, so right in his arms. He sighed blissfully. The Hunter lifted his head, closing his eyes. Frank kissed him on the lips. He wasn’t as forceful as he had been earlier, but then he’d had a job to do. Frank continued to stroke him telekinetically, his psionic fingers finding places his real hands couldn’t reach. The Hunter moaned in his arms as Frank’s touch excited him.

Marc unbuttoned Frank’s shirt and reached inside, stroking his hairy chest. He tugged the shirt free of his belt and unzipped his pants, freeing his erection. He dropped to his knees in front of him and bowed his blonde head over the throbbing member, wrapping his lips around the head. “Oh yeah, that’s it,” Frank stroked the Hunter’s soft, fluffy hair. “But if I feel any teeth, I’ll break your neck.”

Marc’s mouth was cool and moist, unusual and exciting at the same time. Frank hadn’t experienced a decent sexual release for months and shot his load almost immediately. The hitman swallowed without passion and straightened, wiping his mouth. He reached for his coat.

“Leaving so soon, Hunter?” Frank grabbed Marc’s slender shoulder and spun him around. “You think that’s it? Hell, we haven’t even started.”

 

General Phillips lay awake in his queen-sized bed, watching the shadow-play on the ceiling. A gentle autumn breeze shivered through the trees outside, and leaves fell in a steady pattering rain. As usual he couldn’t sleep. No matter how many herbal remedies he tried, he couldn’t stop his thoughts from racing as soon as he crawled into his cold, lonely bed. He feared to try anything stronger, in case his visions were affected. ESPers were very sensitive to drugs, even simple sedatives, and no doctor could say for sure how a narcotic would affect one. More than one ESPer had gone around the twist from drug-taking, and the streets of the big cities were crawling with insane psykers trapped in worlds dominated by visions, where people only appeared as auras, and walls did not exist.

Phillips trembled at the thought, and tried to banish it from his mind so he could at least get a couple of hours’ sleep. He knew he travelled a very narrow bridge of sanity over a yawning chasm of uncontrollable visions, and if the top brass ever found out how tenuous his grip on reality sometimes was, they would instantly retire him on medical grounds. He didn’t want that. Not while Colonel Cassidy still lived. Not while he still had the power to get rid of him.

This morning he had checked his voice-mail, but the message he had been told to expect did not greet him. The Hunter hadn’t completed his mission. He must be still setting up for the perfect kill, he thought. I hope he obeys my orders and cuts the bastard’s head off afterwards. Otherwise he’ll regenerate.

For a few minutes Phillips entertained himself with thoughts of Colonel Cassidy dead. But even those failed to comfort him, because his conscience began to prick painfully. He was taking the lowest, most cowardly way out and he knew it. But he couldn’t hope to reason with Cassidy – the colonel thought he was a joke, and his visions the rambling products of a delusional mind. He was power-hungry, and would never step down as PsiForce’s second-in-command.

Neither could he try to convince the top brass that Cassidy was evil incarnate. They respected his visions, but they all knew how much he hated the colonel. He had made the mistake of voicing his opinions after drinking too much at last year’s Christmas party. Unfortunately, Cassidy was much too valuable a soldier for them to remove.

Phillips hoped the Hunter would succeed. He was rumoured to be the best, and if anyone could kill Cassidy, it would be him. The general's guts churned as he tossed and turned in his cold, empty bed. Slowly, inexorably, the moonlit shadows moved across the ceiling. Phillips didn’t dare look at his clock radio, in case the true lateness of the hour shocked him so much he never got to sleep.

Finding the soft, soothing darkness of unconsciousness would have been easier had his wife still been lying beside him, her soft, warm body waiting for him to curl up beside it, his arms around her ample middle.

But Gloria had left not long after the onset of his powers. His random visions and ravings had terrified her, a staunchly religious woman, and she had seriously thought he was possessed by the devil. No matter how many times he tried to explain the scientific origins of his powers, she refused to believe him. She left without looking back, and he had been alone ever since, too tired to look for another woman to share his bed. Gloria might have been a solid, old-fashioned woman, but she had given him real stability in his life. The general who made ground-breaking decisions every day craved the security of her breast.

He rolled over and found himself staring directly at his clock radio. It read “3:45”. “Damn,” Phillips cursed. Even now he winced; Gloria would have given him such an evil glare for using the profanity. Well, it didn’t look like he’d be getting any sleep tonight. He might as well switch the light on and do some reading until dawn. He groped for the light switch and flicked on the lamp beside Gloria’s old side. The large, draughty bedroom was bathed in a soft golden glow, diffused by the Tiffany lampshade. Phillips grabbed a book from the nightstand on his side and was about to get into some Tom Clancy when he realised he needed to visit the john.

Muttering under his breath he swung his feet down onto the latch-hook rug on his side and straightened. Dozens of bones popped as he stretched and shuffled across the wooden floor. In the bathroom he examined his face under the harsh light directly above the mirror. He was appalled by all the wrinkles that had appeared as though by magic during the past few months. His hair was as fine as a baby’s. His hands shook almost constantly now. His nerves were shot from the visions that came thick and fast, swamping him with increasing regularity. Sometimes they would hit him one after the other, leaving him so disoriented he lost all track of reality. He felt like his mind was slowly detaching from his body. Each time it was launched into the ether, the string attaching it to his body was drawn out thinner and thinner. One day it would snap completely, and his consciousness would spiral away into spacetime for one last, endless voyage. Perhaps he would travel to the very end of existence.

Trembling, he spun from his image and padded to the toilet. As he was relieving himself, that old, familiar feeling of rising from his body overcame him. He tried to grab onto something, but he was wrenched out of himself before he could, and hurled into nothingness.

He found himself looking up through tossing leaves at a moonlit sky. A bloated, silver moon shone down through wind-shredded clouds. As he watched, a shape swooped down from the clouds. At first he thought it was a bird or bat, then it drew closer and he recognised the shape of a man. He was silhouetted against the pale moon, arms and legs outstretched as he flew. A strange odour wriggled up Phillips’ nostrils. It smelled like ozone.

With a jolt Phillips returned to himself. He was lying on his back on the bathroom floor, his pyjamas damp with urine. He cursed again as he picked his aching body up off the cold tiles. What the Hell was that all about? he wondered in annoyance. Why did his visions come with such urgency, then not explain themselves? More than half of his visions made no sense whatsoever. Sometimes they seemed to speak an alien tongue.

He stripped off his damp pyjamas, hung them over the edge of the bath, and then padded back into the bedroom. He stopped at his window and looked through the wind-tossed leaves at the moon, hovering behind gossamer clouds. An icy shiver raced down his spine. He was looking up at the exact-same view from his vision.

And as he watched, a batlike figure swooped down out of the sky. Phillips gaped in horror, then stumbled back, falling on his bare ass. The flying human stopped about ten feet from his window, and Phillips saw its face in the light of his bedside lamp.

He was staring up at Colonel Cassidy.

An icy hand squeezed of fear his heart, and Phillips began to breathe hard and fast, his heart racing. He had to get out of the bastard’s sight right now. Cassidy couldn’t kill him if he couldn’t see him! But his strength deserted him and he collapsed as he struggled to rise. His head felt like it was full of cotton wool. He expected to hear the roar of his heart in his ears, but he heard nothing. He clawed weakly at his temples. What was happening to him? He felt so strange! Then he felt his consciousness detach from his body, and knew it was for the last time. The string tethering him to his clumsy, decrepit human body finally snapped.

 

Dammit, he saw me, Frank thought as he held Phillips’ carotid arteries closed for five more minutes, just to make sure. The old man lay supine on the floor, not moving, his jaw slack. Starved of blood, his brain died.

That should do it – you should be dead by now, you old asshole, Frank thought and withdrew his telekinetic pincers. The past few months he had spent absorbing anatomy textbooks had certainly paid off. He now knew several ways to kill that would not leave a mark and were completely undetectable during an autopsy.

Frank had taken every precaution; he had not touched the ground once during the entire procedure, and used an absolute minimum of power to kill the general. If for some reason a psychometrist was called in to examine Phillips’ body for some sign of foul play, he would not find anything unless he examined the dead man’s carotid arteries directly. And even then they would find only the most ephemeral of signatures. They would certainly not be able to pin a name on it.

But Frank was confident that Phillips’ death would be treated as a normal, natural demise. He was in his early seventies, sickly and nervous. Frank returned to his apartment where he had told the Hunter to wait for him.

 

When an autopsy was performed on Robert Phillips’ body, it revealed that he had died of a massive stroke. Although some members of the top brass may have had their suspicions, these could never be proven. Where Phillips had made his dislike of Cassidy obvious to everyone, Cassidy had always been polite and courteous to his superior officer. Never once did he give anyone any reason to suspect that he hated Phillips and was plotting to do away with him.

So Frank Cassidy was promoted to Brigadier General and made the commanding officer of PsiForce.

 

A tall, well-built man with a heavily scarred face stood in front of a small headstone made out of pink marble. He stared down at it for several minutes, not speaking. Then he licked his mangled lips and smiled, even though tears gleamed in his eyes. “I did it, Pinky,” he whispered. “I finally did it. You’d be so proud of me right now. I’m a general and I’m in charge of the most powerful damn force in the country.”

 

* * * *

 

The End

 

Who is the Hunter? Find out in “Empire of Ice”, by Ethan Somerville and Emma Daniels.

 

General Cassidy reappears in the Mind Eaters series, by Ethan Somerville.