Jacked Up Part 3

Next time I came to there was a nurse beside me checking all of the tubes and drips. When she saw my open eyes she exclaimed “Oh good, honey, you are awake. I can now get you to see what moves again and what doesn’t without those rough doctors trying to bend you into odd shapes.”

“That guy that saved your life gave you a hell of a bruise on your forehead but the swelling is going down and I think it won’t be long before you are beautiful again.” While she was fussing about I considered what she had said and realised that somehow I had switched with the woman on the bus. I decided that I would not say anything in case she was not to know. I also decided that I would cry, which I did. The nurse put her arm around my shoulder and gave my eyes a wipe with a tissue every now and again as I blubbed for some minutes.

When I dried up she helped me get my face in order and said that I had been very brave, as would have been expected of a government agent, but it was all right to let it out in private. I asked about the government agent bit and she said that I must be with an armed guard on the door and visitations from lots of people with the obvious look of G Men. She lifted my pillow section of the bed and started to brush my hair. That was weird as last time I looked I had a buzz cut. All the time she chatted, telling me exactly what had been wrong with me.

It seems that I had been hit hard on my forehead and scraped parts of my back when we went down. They had been getting me to stay quiet as there had been a gasoline/gel mix in the bomb and the bus had been filled with flame for several seconds. She told me that I was the least injured of the occupants as several, who had survived the actual blast, had been badly injured by bits of seating and the nuts and bolts that were also in the bomb.

After she had freshened me up a bit; the door opened and my old AIC entered with a big briefcase. He told the nurse that we needed to be alone and she left. He then said that I was not to talk too much and he would answer as many of my questions as he could. I nodded and he reached into the bag and pulled out a tablet. Turning it on he held it so I could see and then he showed me the feed that I had taken. He pointed out the bit where Ingrid took the pill and told me that it was a quick acting drug that stopped the heart, so looking like she had actually had a heart attack.

He then froze the picture that showed Julio about to board the bus and there, in line, was the bomber with a large back-pack. The picture then changed to CCTV from the bus security system and I watched as the bomber got up and walk quickly past me and the girl as he got off. I then saw me smile and gesture for her to take my seat when behind me the whole bus exploded. He then had a clip in ultra-slow motion and I watched myself die. What had hit me in the back of the head as I was pushed into the girl was the Switchers head.

He then allowed me time for a sip of water and said “Look, you are in the body of the girl and all the people in our office who have seen this have agreed that somehow the power of the switcher was passed to you in the instant you and her were in contact. We know that his power is no more because a lot of medical folk have touched you afterward without being taken over. As far as the world is concerned Jack Ryan was a hero who died in the explosion protecting Anita Jackson. This is really true because if any of the bits of shrapnel that riddled his body had made it to you there would have not been a chance that you would be alive.”

I asked him to pass me the tissues and he waited until I felt better. I said quietly that I had realised we had semi-switched because I had dreamed it the last time I was asleep. He looked astonished and asked me what I meant so I told him that we did not, in fact, switch and there were parts of Anita still in my head as I had dreamed of bits of her history. He sat back and just said “Amazing!” I told him to look at the video again and pointed out that the switcher was obviously dead when his head hit me so there was no chance that he could have orchestrated a switch. It must have been a residue of his powers that was projected from me to her in the moment his head hit the back of mine, and mine hitting her forehead, taking my memories with it.

Her own memories were just starting to appear but I had not seen any evidence of her personality yet but I knew that she was a woman with a steel spine as she had gone through a lot with the death of her family. “That does it” he said “there is no way you would have known that fact. It is one of the things I have here in this folder. You need to read it and make sure you have it down pat as I am going to order you, here and now, to take over her body, mind and future and to grieve on the loss of Jack Ryan as his parents did at his funeral. It was, of course, a heroes sending off with full military honours as well as the Director giving a speech that no-one understood.”

I asked why and was told that Anita was a trusted agent in Homeland Security and, as such, privy to a lot of things that HS did not want aired in public. He wanted me to find out all about their more nefarious activities that had started in earlier years while under an unscrupulous President and the F.B.I. had an open file on that arm of the government. The problem was that they could not be infiltrated as they had files on everyone in the other police agencies. “Hey” he said “who better to get their secrets than a dead agent hiding in the body of one of their own.” He told me that all references to the Switcher had been erased from my recent activities and it now looked as if I was alerted by the attitude of the bomber, unaware that he was about to do the deed.

He then told me that due to my video, the bomber had been tracked on CCTV and had died in a shoot-out with the police, along with several of his accomplices. It was understood that there was no way I could have altered the situation or save any more lives. He then told me a site where I could do a drop but that, after today, I was on my own. That said, he took my hand and kissed the back of it, saying “Goodbye for now, Anita, I look forward to meeting you again in better circumstances. Perhaps I will be able to take you to dinner one evening.”

After he left I closed my eyes and wondered at the strange idea of my AIC wanting to take me out on a date. Mind you, although I did not have a mirror on hand, I did have the memory of seeing myself as others see me and realised that I was hot. That being the case, did I have boyfriends, or worse still, boyfriends with benefits?

When the nurse came back I asked her if any of my belongings had survived the explosion and she told me that the only thing that was in the room was my bag and my gun with its holster. She said that the flame had singed my outer clothes but my underwear was in a drawer, along with my shoes and jewellery. She said that she had been told that clothes would be brought in when I was cleared to leave. I asked for my bag and she pulled it out of a locker and put it on the bed beside me.

As soon as she left I pulled the notebook from under my butt and put it in my bag, also taking the opportunity to look through the contents. I had various permits to carry and my HS badge, along with a lapel badge that I knew some CIA operatives wore when they were back in Langley or on overseas deployment within safe US bases. I had met a few and shared some drinks with a couple while in Afghanistan and knew that they did not like anyone to think that the lapel badge was so that they would not shoot each other.

This was getting interesting. I had my evening meal while sitting up, OK, it was only soup but it tasted like heaven, most unusual for hospital food. When the night nurse settled me down and all was quiet I took the notebook out of my bag and started to study. It was the weirdest feeling to start at ‘my’ birth and I had not got very far before I started to picture the people mentioned, both as they were at the time and also as they were today. My reading was awakening the spirit inside.

Anita had, like me, been an avid student of political history and had graduated with Honours. She – no, I – had been recruited by the CIA as my father was an Ambassador who had been in both the South Korean Embassy but also in Saudi Arabia for a while. He had been a good friend of a certain unusual President and, as such, I had been given a fast track into the spook life, something that, with my love of political history, I had relished. Towards the end of that short-lived administration, I had been told to keep my CIA involvement quiet and was moved to Homeland Security with a brief to make sure that the secrets the President wanted kept quiet, remained quiet.

Of course, only the bare bones was in the notebook, as I was reading I was filling out the gaps from my own memory and the AIC would have been staggered to find out that I was already a mole in HS, but not for the forces of good. I had another look at the various papers in my bag and, when I looked in a secret pocket in my wallet, I found the permit with a Presidential seal that allowed me to kill on his behalf should anyone look like they were about to spill the beans. With all of the things that HS had been involved in over the recent past I was sure there would be plenty of beans waiting to be spilt. This was a bit heavy and I put everything back in the bag and put the bag under the covers beside me before falling into a fitful sleep.

Marianne G 2021