Chapter 11: Brief

“Here, put this on,” the director said from behind Jim. He bent over the bathroom sink, splashing his face, partly to cool off from the heat, partly to rinse away the day’s sweat, but mostly to prove to himself that he was in fact, still alive.

Jim glanced at his boss through the mirror and saw he was trying to hand him a clean, white shirt. “Is that a hint? I know I’ve been sweating all day, but I didn’t think I was that offensive.”

“It’s more than just a hint. I want you to look your best in there,” Margraves said.

“The best in where? The stall in the john, because I’m pretty sure that’s where I’m headed next, and I don’t really think anyone will care what shirt I’m wearing while I drop two full pounds,” Ceiphart replied.

“Look. I know I’m not your favorite person right now.”

“The man who ripped two teenagers from their home hours after they save hundreds of people? You are the furthest thing from a hero to me right now.”

Richard came in close, grabbing Jim’s arm, pulling him in close, so close he could smell the Tic Tacs on his breath. “Don’t,” he began, “let your personal feelings get involved, Jim. We have a job to do, and right now the country needs us at our best!”

“Don’t give me that ‘the country’ bullshit right now, because right now it all sounds like crap to me.”

Richard tossed the shirt at him and Jim caught it. “You think it’s all bull shit? Right now, the chatter is at the highest level we’ve ever seen it. So high we can barely process all of the information coming in.”

The director was referring to the worldwide networks of cells they were keeping an eye on. On a normal day Intel picked up hundreds of conversations, separating important information from unimportant info, and using it to determine the threat level we’re under and possibly narrowing down where those threats were coming from.

“You saying we might have another attack?”

“Possibly. It could just be a matter of when, where and how big. There’s a brief in ten minutes and you’re the mainliner. Put that shirt on. I don’t want you smelling like you just came from a war when you go in there,” the director said as he turned and headed for the bathroom door.

“Woah, wait a sec. You’re the politician. Not me. I’m one of the guns, remember?”

The director turned his head back, but kept reaching for the door. “Not today you’re not,” he said and he walked out.

Jim had no idea giving a brief was even possible. At least not where they were. They were seventy-five feet below ground level, in a secret facility. Before that day, he’d only heard of it through rumors told in jokes between agents. The most common joke was about disappearing into the ‘bunker’-- being taken to Missouri, and never heard from again. Well, he was in Missouri, he was below the earth in a bunker, and as he rode the elevator deeper and deeper into the ground, he couldn’t help but wonder if anyone he knew would ever see him again. That thought had struck his mind.

They brought the twins here because it was a research facility. At least that’s what the director told him, and he had no reason to doubt it. Tommy Leighton was lying on a hospital bed, hooked to I.V.’s that would keep him under indefinitely, and his bed was located inside of a large black metal room. The room constructed from a material he never saw or heard of before and his mind couldn’t wrap around the name of it when he heard it ... The only thing he remembered was it was constructed of three different metals, two of which were magnetic nonconductors, and the center was electrified. The theory behind the construction was to eliminate the possibility of any ESP type brainwaves from escaping to the outside of the box. In other words, they meant to keep Tommy inside of the box.

Whitney, on the other hand, was being kept in a thick, bullet proof glass box, was also strapped to a hospital bed, I.V.’s attached, and their intentions were also to keep her asleep, indefinitely. It really was an incredible way to repay two people who had just done their country a tremendous service. He didn’t like it.

The director had a point about protecting the country from imminent attack, however. He may not have signed up for the way they were treating the twins, or the parents for that matter, but he did sign up for preventing terrorism, and if there was some way briefing the ‘big wigs’ of what happened earlier, he guessed he didn’t have much choice. He took off his suit-coat jacket and shirt, put on the new white one his boss had just given him, and replaced his jacket.

His boss was waiting for him just outside of the bathroom door. He took up stride next to him as he headed down the dimly lit corridor as they headed for the conference room.

“Now remember, when it comes to the twins, keep their involvement as simple as possible. Strike that. Pretty much anything to do with them should be off the table.”

“If it’s off the table, why am I the mainliner?”

“You’re the only living agent that was there, Jim. They know that, and since we have no other source of intel, you’ll be leading the briefing. Just remember a few things and you’ll be fine. One: the generals all pretty much follow the same philosophy. They listen first and talk later. Just because they don’t start asking questions, doesn’t mean they aren’t listening to you, it doesn’t mean they believe you either. Don’t be fooled by their silence in the beginning. Two: Senator Jerry Reeves is just the opposite of the generals. He will interrupt you, he will ask questions that don’t make any sense to ask, and he’ll badger you about unimportant things. At least they will seem unimportant to you while he’s doing it. He is a master manipulator. He is a politician and trust me, when I tell you he will try to make you look like an idiot up there just because he thinks it benefits him. Finally, there’s number three: Secretary Flick is a cold-hearted cutthroat woman, but and this is a small window here, if you can get on her good side? If you can find some way to impress her? She’s a powerful ally.”

“So in other words I’m sunk. I can’t talk about the only things I know about. The things that really happened, so just what? Wing it?”

“You’ll be fine, Jim,” Director Margraves said, patting him on the back, as they approached the heavy wooden door that led into the conference room.

They walked inside, and all eyes were immediately on them.

“This thing is amazing, Mouse!” Twain said as he pulled the diamond tipped drill bit away from the girl’s bracelet. “I can’t even scratch it. Not even a scratch!”

Mouse didn’t answer him. She stood there, in front of the door to the glass lined room, arms folded, her cute curly black hair, one rebellious tuft dripping down the side of h`er cheek, glaring at him. Twain did his best to ignore the soldiers surrounding the room, guns pointing directly at the glass; despite the glass being armor piercing bulletproof. Them being out there, pointing their weapons in his and his assistant’s direction, made him uneasy. Uneasy or not, he still had a job to do, a metal to figure out, and he was doing his job.

“I don’t like this, Twain,” she said. “I don’t like it at all. She’s a human being for cripes sake, and you are acting like she’s just another one of your projects!”

His real name was Hubert Olsen, but everyone used the nickname his mother gave it to him when he was growing up, calling him that after his favorite writer, who Hubert couldn’t get enough of. As a kid, he was a geek, as an adult, he was an older geek. He knew it, and so did everyone else.

“Well,” he said standing straight up, “she is one of my projects.” He held the cordless drill in his hands as he faced directly toward her. “Aw, come on, Mouse,” he added, “It’s not like we’ve been ordered to cut her up into little pieces or anything. We’re just supposed to figure out how the bracelet works; take it off her, if we can.”

“And what are you going to do if the director tells you to chop off her arm in order to get it off her? What then?”

Twain shook his head no. “You’re exaggerating. The director...”

“Am I? Am I exaggerating?” she demanded to know.

Twain looked at the girl again, recalling her name from the wristband on her other wrist, but refusing to acknowledge it, preferring instead, to think of her only as ‘the subject’.

“You really want me to answer that? Do you really want to know what I’d do if the director asked me to ... to cut off her hand in order to get it off?”

“DON’T YOU EVEN TELL ME YOU’D DO IT!” she yelled.

Twain turned and laid the drill onto the counter behind him. The drill hadn’t scratched it, but he also couldn’t get the drill to stay in one place. The tip squirreled around at even the slightest amount of pressure. He had other tools, however, and he picked up a rotary tipped saw that also had a diamond tipped blade on it.

“I would do it. Mouse, you have to understand. I don’t know what this is,” he said nodding toward the subject’s bracelet. “I’m familiar with every kind of metal known to man. I’m familiar with every technology out there, even technologies that are classified, and I assure you this bracelet doesn’t exist. The metal that makes it doesn’t exist and whatever its purpose is ... I will figure it out. Now come over here and hold her wrist.”