Displaced for New Years
by Melanie Brown
Copyright  © 2024 Melanie Brown

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It seems there are no routine missions when using the displacement machine

 

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“I swear Swan. I still find this damned thing creepy as hell. It’s like sitting in an electric chair.”

Special Agent Swan chuckled. “How many electric chairs have you sat in Agent McMasters?”

I ran my hand along with wooden frame of the Displacement machine and fingered one of the straps. “I’ve sat in this infernal machine too many times.” This displacement machine is one of the most insidious machines ever built. It transfers your mind into a targeted individual, killing them instantly. It’s a great way to infiltrate a gang or a group of terrorists, but, if like me, you’re a fan of Due Process, it bothers you.

Agent Swan shrugged. “Are you refusing the mission? You’re not the only agent who speaks Chechen.”

I shook my head. “No sir. I just find using this machine… distasteful. Using it is essentially an assassination.”

Swan nodded. “True. But you can’t break a few eggs without making an omelet or something. And your target today is one seriously bad motherfucker. Not only is he eliminated from the planet, you’ll be saving the granddaughter of a Russian Oligarch friendly to NATO. Not to mention retrieving his notebook computer.”

I asked, “Who’s the target? From the overview it’s a Chechen general? And something about a girl?”

Special Agent Swan cleared his throat. “Yes. Chechen rebels managed to sneak into oligarch Kovalchuk, who is here on holiday. Kovalchuk has ties to both NATO and Chechnya and is friendly to the west. As far as we can tell, the Chechens are just trying to stir the pot.”

Swan handed me a few photos. “Is the girl being held for ransom,” I asked looking at a teen girl on a Disneyland ride.

Shrugging, Swan said, “We’re not completely sure. General Taramov is ruthless and kills anyone who gets in his way. So your mission is two-fold. Locate the missing girl so we can retrieve her. And identify where all the Chechen terror cells are in the country.” Swan pointed at a map of northern California “Try to get to this point for extraction. You’ll have no way to contact us, but we will be monitoring that location.”

“Do I bring the girl with me?” I asked.

Swan shook his head. “No. Just locate her. We’ll send in an extraction team once we contact you.”

I grunted a humorless laugh. “A walk in the park.”

Swan shrugged. “Actually, once you have assumed the identity of General Taramov, it should go fairly easy at first as everyone is afraid of him. Just don’t wear out your welcome.”

The door to the room opened and quickly closed.

Swan said, “Here’s our tech. Have a seat and get comfortable.” That was a joke, of course. The chair really does resemble an electric chair. It’s made of wood and has a straight back and no padding. Once my mind is transferred, my body goes unconscious. I can’t restore my mind the same way, so I have to come back in whatever body I’m inhabiting to the lab and they use a different device to restore my mind. I’ve done this seven times before with no problems.

As the tech started attaching me to the machine, Agent Swan joked, “I just remembered today is New Years Eve. Have you made any resolutions, Agent McMasters?”

“Actually I have,” I said grimly as the head piece was secured to my head.

“Oh?”

I couldn’t nod with the head piece on. I said, “Yeah. If possible, I plan to retire this year.”

Swan grinned. “Do you really think you can stay away from all this?”

Sourly, I said, “After this mission, I think I can easily walk away”

Swan leaned in towards me. “I hope you reconsider. You’re a good field agent. Especially in this type of work.” Swan checked some of the wiring and grinned. “If it all goes as planned, you’ll be home in time to watch Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve.”

I chuckled. “Sounds like a plan.”

The tech attached a bag of glucose to me so my body would stay hydrated. He attached wires that were attached to monitors to watch my medical status.

“Do I have to be restrained so tightly?” I asked. It seems I ask this every time.

Swan nodded. “You can’t move a muscle during the displacement.

Swan walked over to the tech. He turned to me and said, “Okay. Get ready. We’ll shoot on my command. Five…four…”

There was a sudden small explosion blowing the door open. Four men rushed into the small room with automatic weapons raised. I couldn’t move. I was tied to the chair!

Surprised and confused, Swan spun around and was met with a dozen bullets ripping through his body. I was then raked across my chest with a burst of bullets as well. I cried out in pain. I saw the tech’s blood splatter across the wall. My vision grew dark. I was essentially dead. I watched in horror as the tech collapsed against the button.

My vision began to blur. Was it from dying or being displaced? There was an overly bright light. I had a horrible feeling of falling and felt what seemed like millions of pin pricks pushed into my brain. The bright light then seemed to be sucked back up into my eyes. I found myself laying on a hardwood floor and had a pounding headache.

*          *          *

Oh my God! I’ve been killed along with Swan and the tech. Who the hell were those men? Swan is dead? My body is dead which means I’m forever stuck in the targeted body. Why am I lying on the floor? I felt the top of my head and got blood on my fingers. This has never happened before.

I looked around and got another shock. The general I was supposed to displace was lying on the floor with a knife sticking out of his neck and blood pooling on the floor. This can’t be right. I seemed to be in a small farm house.

I sat up and suddenly felt dizzy, pain pounding in my head. I looked around some more and saw a woman lying on the floor next to me, obviously dead with blood pooling under her body. I wasn’t sure who the woman was. If I wasn’t the woman and I wasn’t the general then who the hell was I?

Long strands of dark brown hair fell across my eyes. Oh my God! Am I in the teen girl? I again felt the top of my head which was very tender at the moment. It was like my head had been severely struck with a blunt object. Looking around I tried to piece together what might have happened.

It looked like the general had struck the girl on her head, probably hard enough to kill her. The woman must have attacked the general with the knife and he in turn shot her. I can’t verify if that’s what happened, but it seems to match the facts as I could see them. What a mess.

I picked up the general’s pistol and released the magazine. Two rounds were missing. I searched the general’s pockets and found three additional magazines and a cell phone. I needed that cell phone. I had to call in and request an extraction. This mission was FUBAR.

I found the girl’s purse and put the magazines and pistol inside it. I took the money I’d found on both the general’s and woman’s bodies. I needed to get out of here!

I knew the phone wouldn’t be secure, but this mission was already compromised. I punched in the phone number I keep memorized.

The voice on the other end said flatly, “Request?”

I exclaimed, “I need an emergency extraction.”

“Mission status.”

Annoyed, I said, “Scrubbed.”

The voice said, “Extraction team already at EZ. Be advised mission commander is no longer available.”

“No shit.”

I tossed the phone to the floor and smashed it with the pistol’s handle. I looked out the door to the farm house to see if it was clear. I didn’t see anyone nearby.

With gun in hand, I ran out of the house to cross the field in front of the barn. Just as I did, a rough looking fellow stepped out of the barn, pointed at me and shouted with a thick accent, “The girl!”

Another man ran from the barn with a pistol raised and shouted, “Ostanovite yeye!”

The first man pushed the second man’s arm down. “Don’t kill her! We can’t ransom her if she’s dead!”

This farm must be a Chechen terrorist camp. As I ran past a shed, somebody fired two shots that impacted the shed, splintering the wood over my head. I crouched down, but kept running. I have to cross a wide field and I really doubted I was going to make it. Another bullet impacted the shed right in front of me.

Someone shouted, “Stop shooting you idiots! Capture her!”

I took a deep breath and sprinted towards the field. I saw two men running an intercept course on my left. Without stopping to take aim, I pointed my pistol in their general direction and popped a couple of rounds. I didn’t hit anything, but I gave them something to think about.

The grassy field disappeared as I started to run across a gravel road. Great. No cover! I looked behind me and saw one of the men closing in on me. I turned to fire another shot. It went wild. He didn’t even slow down.

After crossing the road, I stumbled into a muddy ditch. I lost my footing running up the other side of the ditch. I could hear the man breathing hard just behind me. The other man shouted, “Stop you stupid bitch!” Say please.

I heard a shout from in front of me. “Over here!” I looked up and could see two heads sticking above the tall grass. They both wore sun glasses and ball caps. I took a wild guess they were on my team.

Just as the guy behind me got within reach of me, I heard the report of a 9mm and he went down. The second man fell to the ground to make himself less of a target.

One of the guys with sunglasses waved. “Over here!” I ran up to a car hidden in the tall grass. The guy looked over at me and asked, “Where’s the agent?” He then fired several random shots at my pursuers.

As I opened the rear passenger door of the car, I shouted, “I am the agent!”

The other guy with sunglasses said, “Ah shit.”

They both jumped into the front seats of the car. The engine roared and the car threw a ton of dirt and dust in the air behind it as the driver floored the accelerator. The driver navigated to the dirt road where one of my pursuers stood, aiming his pistol. He got off one shot as we ran him down. Fortunately, he missed.

Through the dust, I saw a car pull into pursuit. Above the wind noise I yelled, “They’re following us!”

The driver yelled back, “Try to shoot them!” The car bounced as we went from dirt road to the paved highway. We fishtailed a moment as the driver tried to regain control. The Chechens or whoever they were had a better car and was catching up fast.

As he neared, the driver of the pursuit car opened up with an automatic weapon, bullets slamming into the side of the car. The rear window was suddenly gone after taking several hits.

I held my pistol tight and aimed through the opening that used to be the rear window. As he brought up his weapon, I fired three rounds. One caught him square in the chest. He dropped his weapon which clattered on the highway. He lost control and slid into the ditch.

The driver shouted, “Good job!” The agent in the passenger seat was slumped over. I leaned past the seat and found him just barely breathing with an ugly wound in his side.

The driver picked up a small communication device and said, “Escaped pursuit. Johnson has been hit. Unknown status. Roger that.” We pulled over to the side of the road. A minute later, a military helicopter landed in the middle of the highway. The driver turned to me and said, “Here’s where we get off.”

*          *          *

I sat in a chair in a hallway for what seemed hours, but was probably just half an hour. I had no idea where I was other than a military base. I was debriefed by a couple of generals as well as agency management. I told them everything I knew. They’d had gotten me an olive drab jump suit to wear.

The door to the briefing room opened and one of the generals’ aids stuck his head out. “Miss. Can you come back in, please?”

I stood up. “I told you I’m not a miss.”

The aid frowned. “Regardless, miss. You’re needed back inside.”

A general pointed at the same chair I’d used during the briefing. “Have a seat, miss.”

As I sat down, I said, “I’ve told you. I’m not a miss.”

Ignoring my comment, the general asked, “Why is it that no one in this room, including your own management has ever heard of this displacement device?”

I shrugged. “All I know is that it was an experimental black op, general. It was Special Agent Swan’s toy. He kept a tight lid on it for obvious reasons.”

Another general asked, “Can the girl’s mind be restored?”

I shook my head. “No sir. That’s what’s insidious about the displacement device. When the target mind is displaced, that person is effectively killed. But with regards to this girl I think she was already dying from a blow to the head. My mind just over-wrote the damaged areas.”

One of the agency managers said, “Well, we have an international incident on our hands. The Chechen rebels claim the fire that burned the farm to the ground, and killing the girl as well as the general, was started by us. The Russian is more mad at us than the Chechens.”

Surprised, I said, “There was no fire when I left the farm.”

A different agency manager nodded. “We thought as much.”

One of the generals scowled at me. “The granddaughter is dead, yet we have her body, alive, right in front of us.”

“Hey! Don’t blame me! If those Chechen terrorists hadn’t killed Swan and the tech, I’d be inside the Chechen general’s head.”

The lead agency manager said, “I do blame Swan though. Even though he did some interagency arrangements, like for your extraction, this operation didn’t go through my office.”

I studied the agency managers a moment. “Obviously we have a mole. Have they been identified yet?”

“Need to know,” was the stoned-faced reply.

One of the generals shook his head and said, “How do we handle the Russian? He can cause us a world of shit.”

The lead agency manager chuckled. “We’ll leave that to the boys at State.”

A manager pointed at me. “What about her? She’s a loose end.”

*          *          *

At first I thought they were going to do something like dump me in a block of wet cement, Jimmy Hoffa style. But they didn’t. Instead they were very low-key about their plans for me.

I never returned home. I couldn’t. The Chechen terrorists burned my home to the ground. I’m talking about everything being incinerated. What did I ever do to them? I didn’t hear from official channels, but the terrorists, as well as the mole in the department were returned to Chechnya. Not long after that, they were all found dead from a Russian hit squad.

And then I was told I couldn’t stay in the agency. They kept me on ice in a hotel for a month before moving me to Roswell, New Mexico of all places and placed me in foster care where my life has really changed. My name is now Anna and I was told in no uncertain terms to join the cheerleaders. I can’t deny I like my boyfriend though. He’s cute and into aliens and all that shit. He’s on the football team.

A thought struck me as I watched my Joey run down the field to another touchdown. I’d forgotten about it with all the craziness going on around me. But I did get my New Year’s Resolution. That is if you consider this as retirement from the agency.

*          *          *

The End