Captured
Chapter Six
“So what is this thing?” Jesse drummed her fingers on the metal case, ducking down to peer into the crack Maria had made before her hasty departure.
“It can control any satellite in the world. Well, around the world. You know what I mean.” Val brushed Jesse’s hand away from the case. “Careful! I don’t want to accidentally crash the International Space Station with this thing!“
“It’s weird, Val. I feel like I should remember this. Especially if it’s the primary goal of the mission! Instead it’s just... nothing...” She glanced at the case, then at Val, then at the floor. “And I can’t see how they could have gotten to me. I remember everything about today, except for this case.”
“Because if we leave the case behind and go home, he’s still in play, that’s why. He can rebuild the compound. He can’t rebuild this thing.” Val’s tough face softened a bit. “I’m sorry, Jesse. Mind control is a bitch. Remember when Agent Frost tried to blow us up? She’s still—”
“She doesn’t apologize to me anymore.”
“That’s because you yelled at her the last time she tried.”
Jesse puckered her lips and exhaled, blowing strands of loose hair from her face. “Okay. So, one or more of us is under mind control. We’ve had our memories jacked. On the other hand, no one is firing off signal flares or trying to pull a Frost on us. Wouldn’t that be the thing to do, if El Víbora’s got his claws into us?”
“Doctor Clark mentioned post-hypnotic suggestions. Any one of you could be a sleeper, ready to do something at precisely the wrong time.”
“Okay, so what do we do next?”
Val stepped forward. “Give me your gun.”
“What?” Jesse’s hand instinctively fell to her sidearm. “No!”
The brunette closed the distance between them. “Jesse, if you’ve been hypnotized... look, you have to trust me. El Víbora wants us to take each other down. Maybe not right now, but absolutely before that extraction team shows up. We need to get everyone’s weapons. If nobody can pull a gun, nobody can stop us from getting off this rock. The crew can deprogram all of you on the ride home. But we’ve got to act fast!“
Tanya stared into space. Her rifle dangled from her limp hands. “Obey,” she whispered. “Obey. Obey. Obey.”
Crackle “Team.” Jesse’s voice, confident and commanding “Back in the shack. Bring your weapons. That means you Oaks. Maria, bring the radio and your tools, too. Jesse out.“
“Obey,” said Tanya. Eyes. Beautiful eyes. “I will obey.“
“You will act as yourself, Tanya.” Ellie ran a hand through Tanya’s long blonde hair. “Let’s go see Val and Jesse.”
“Yes. I obey.”
The medic turned to her hypnotized girlfriend. “Are you ready for this, Mar?”
“Of course.” Maria patted her tool belt. “Anything for you, El. Anything for our Master.”
“Right there. On the table. Sidearms, too. Maria, drop the tool belt on the end there.”
Val watched as each of her teammates slowly and reluctantly surrendered their weapons, laying them in a neat row onto the big table. She curled the corners of her mouth just enough to get away with it. Jesse was smart. Jesse would get them out of this somehow. All they needed to do was to listen to her plan and follow it.
And all Val had to do was to keep an eye on Jesse.
“Your med kit, Ellie.” Jesse pointed to the medic’s waist, her finger quickly snapping to her right and aiming at the table. “All of it.”
“But Jesse!” Ellie clutched her kit with both hands. “All I have is a knife in here. I can take it out, but we—”
“No.” Jesse’s finger waved impatiently. “I can’t have you injecting anyone with anything in that bag. It goes on the table.”
The medic meekly complied, and Jesse turned things over to Val.
“Just to be safe, we need to assume that one or more of you is acting under a post-hypnotic suggestion from El Víbora.” She circled around and between her stunned teammates, hoping to put them at ease. If anything, her pacing seemed to accomplish the opposite, and she came to a halt next to Maria. “He’s still alive and out there in the jungle. He might just be looking in the wrong place, or he might be waiting until we turn on each other. Maybe he’s hypnotized some of us, maybe he’s just trying to make us all think that he did. Either way, fuck him, right? He’s not getting us that easy.”
That seemed to work. Everyone smiled and looked around at one another, including Jesse. Val felt her own words pump up her flagging confidence, and she rode the high for a moment before continuing. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Maria’s going to call in the extraction unit and get that boat here, pronto. Then we’re going to hunker down and wait.“
She looked at Jesse, who simply nodded. “And I’ve got one last trick up my sleeve. That case on the table is a satellite control device. Maria, I’ll need your help finding an SPS-13 within range.”
“Russian jamming radar!” Maria’s eyes widened. “But Val, no one can crack that code! Are you... can this thing really do that?” Her voice rose in pitch as she stared at the device in awe. “Oh this is sweet! We can jam every radio on this island except for our own!“
“And that way,” Jesse concluded, “when we call for help, only the boys offshore are going to know about it.”
“What about patrols, Jesse?” Oaks wrinkled her nose. “If we all stay in here, we’re going to get surrounded before we know it.”
“Evac’s no good if you can’t get to the boat,” Sars added.
Val was about to respond when Tanya did it for her. “You heard Val,” said the blonde. “If one of us is under mind control, that person could give away our position to the Serpientes.”
“You were the one who got lost in the jungle,” said Oaks. She moved towards the entrance, intending to cover it from foes inside and out. “Who knows what happened before Val and Ellie found you?”
She turned to their leader. “Jesse, come on. You know I’m not under anyone’s control but yours. I’ve practically been standing next to you this whole time.”
Jesse was having none of it. “Not for the last hour, Oaks. I don’t know what any of you have been up to. I can’t even be sure of what I’ve been up to! You heard Val. You know she’s the only one of us who can’t be hypnotized. So you’re going to stand there and WAIT, like it or not! That’s an order!”
The tall commando sighed and leaned against the wall, kicking it with her heel. “You’re the boss, boss.”
“I am the fucking boss, Oaks. Of all of you. Now Val, open that goddamn case and get this show on the road!”
“Case open, power connected.” Maria’s nimble fingers were everywhere at once, clicking and switching and screwing different pieces together. Her eyes narrowed as she dangled a tiny jeweler’s screwdriver over the device. “I honestly don’t know what half of this shit does. I can’t get the upper plate open, but the keyboard’s... ugh.” With a sharp grunt, she slid a tiny keyboard free of its housing. “There. The display should be online, but... oh! It’s on! It powered up! We’re in! It... aw, fucking shit!!”
“What what?” Val frowned. “That’s not good. What’s wrong?”
“It’s asking for a damn password. I’ll have to use the encryption rig to make a brute-force attack on... Val, what the hell are you doing? Val!”
Val stabbed at the tiny keyboard. Her eyes were glued to the screen. The tip of her tongue protruded from her lips, the way it always did when she was deep in concentration. “I got this.”
“Val,” Maria protested, “if you type in the wrong thing, you’ll lock the device!”
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Val stood up. She crossed her arms over her chest and grinned. “Done and done.” She enjoyed the looks she was getting from her teammates. You just saved everyone’s ass, Valerie. Again. “Wanna guess what the password was?“
A silence followed. Finally, Lauren gave it a shot. “Password?”
“Close.” Val waited an extra second before making the big reveal. She was loving this. “The password was ‘elvibora.’Fucking figures, right? Ha ha! Holy shit, I can’t believe that worked.”
“Fuck yeah!” Lauren traded high-fives with Tanya. “We’re going home, I knew it, I knew we’d pull this off!”
“Eee!” Ellie joined in the high-fiving. “Las serpientes atacan en silencio!”
The change was tiny, but Val caught it. She sensed that Jesse did, too. The fading smiles. The thousand-yard stare. The sudden transformation from excitement to... whatever it was that Tanya and Ellie felt at that moment. Val had a sinking feeling that they weren’t feeling much at all at that moment.
Except blissful obedience.
“Jesse! It’s Ellie and Tanya!” She raced for the table and the guns. The two brainwashed drones remained motionless, as if stunned by the trigger that had stolen their minds. “Guys! Tackle them! They’re the moles!”
Just then there was a loud pop, and Maria jumped back in surprise. “I think I did it, you guys! I think... I... I...“
To Val, it was as if someone had filled the room with invisible glue. Every step forward seemed to take forever. Her teammates froze, their eyes wide and staring at something behind her. Ellie was walking towards her, unencumbered by the glue, her face as blank and empty as before. There was something about her eyes. Blue and beautiful and looking straight through her. Eyes. She looked into his eyes. His eyes.
“Jesse...” she croaked. As a child, she’d had nightmares just like this. Desperately wanting to move and only being able to do so as slowly as possible, outraced by snails. Her hands stretched towards Jesse in the same way they did in those nightmares. Helpless. Useless. Filled with lead. “Jesse… help… they’re…” Help me, Jesse! Save me! Saving people was what Jesse did best. Like the time she’d jumped over a church pew to save Val from being married off to… to…
She struggled to move. Tanya, free to move but clearly enslaved otherwise, reached Jesse first. The blonde dropped to her knees and began whispering into Jesse’s ear, no doubt filling her mind with thoughts of obedience and slavery. Thoughts about having no thoughts at all. Behind Val, a recording of some sort filled the room.
“Look into my eyes. Only my eyes. You see only my eyes. You are all in a deep hypnotic trance. You are all completely under my control. Listen to my voice, and obey. Obey. Obey.”
“O...bey.” Val shook her head. Whatever was going on involved subliminal messages and, judging from the flicking blue lights and entranced stares, a hypnotic display. She was the only one not looking at it when Maria set it off. Now she was the only one who could get out. Not Jesse, not the other girls. If anyone was going to save the day, it would be her. Again. She made for the exit, shutting her eyes and grunting as she pushed forward.
“Deeper and deeper. Deeper and deeper into my eyes. Only my eyes. Only my voice. Listen and obey. Submit and obey. Sleep and obey. Relax and obey.”
The voice dug into her mind like a pop song, replacing her thoughts of escape with those of mindless obedience. She bit her tongue and slapped herself, hard, forcing El Víbora’s voice into a corner of her mind. It didn’t make sense. His eyes couldn’t hypnotize her. He’d given it his best shot, full-force, and failed. And yet here she was...
Just then, it hit her. I can’t be hypnotized. She let it filter through her brain. “His eyes won’t work on me,” she said. “You can’t hypnotize me,” she added, raising her voice to full volume. She felt her strength return as the waxy paralysis lost its grip on her body. I can make a break for it.
She looked around, careful not to catch an eyeful of whatever mesmer-vision was happening behind her. Ellie had Lauren on the ground and was leaning over her, her breasts pressed against the redhead’s sleeping face. Jesse and Tanya were out of sight. Maria was presumably trapped at ground zero. Oaks and Sars were frozen in place, their mouths silently repeating the commands being fed to them.
“Sleep,” it said, in a tone that seemed impossibly seductive and sweet. “Sleep, ladies. You’re falling into a deep, deep sleep. Close your eyes, and sleep.”
Oaks and Sars slumped until they were the only thing keep each other from tumbling to the floor. Sars dropped instantly; Oaks blinked heavily, trying to shrug off the irresistible urges flooding her brain.
“Sleeeeep.”
Oaks sighed one last time as her brown eyes rolled into her head.
No! Val tensed. One push and she could be across the room and out into the jungle. It was now or never.
“Three,” she said through gritted teeth. “Two.”
“One.”