"Full Body Donors"
Mar. 2nd, 2025 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"Full Body Donors"
2/23/2017
I.
Nothing about Konrad Tiko seemed right to Sheng Mo-Yuan. The eighty-seven year old mobster seemed to be a withered old man with a thick mane of white hair that covered his ears, a beaked nose, skin like an apple dried by the sun and a spine bent forward in the motorized wheelchair. But Sheng's Kumundu training was alerting him of many discrepancies.
The whites of Tiko's eyes were clear and clean. The exposed skin was wrinkled but had not one dark spot or blemish. The fingernails were healthy without yellowing. The cracked timbre of the voice sounded forced. And, in the bright afternoon sunlight in the glassed-in solarium, Sheng could see other details that alarmed him. What was that ridge of scar tissue barely visible up above the hairline?
Sheng had seen Tiko's passport photo and most observers would have said the ID was solid. But he was certain this man was not Konrad Tiko. Why would a much younger man be posing as Tiko?
He realized that the international criminal was checking him out as well, of course. To most people, Sheng seemed to be a Northern Chinese man about forty. Five foot five, trim and athletic in a well-tailored dark brown suit, he had the coarse straight black hair, distinctive skin tones and inner eyelid fold. But the high cheekbones and eagle-like beaked nose contradicted that. In fact, Sheng was from the adjacent realm of Chujir, whose people were said to have been the ancestors of the Han.
The glass walls and roof of the solarium extension produced a greenhouse effect. Even in winter, the air inside was warm and a bit stuffy. The huge brute over by the door was standing at attention but even he was starting to look drowsy. Sheng looked out at Long Island Sound, reflected how icy those waters must be and the thought was enough to brace him. As if the situation wasn't enough to keep him alert.
"It sounds as if you are not inclined to accept my offer, then?" repeated Tiko.
"I can't say I'm not tempted. Your terms are certainly generous. But I've been with the Kenneth Dred Foundation for so long, and my own detective agency is very important to me. I couldn't break off from either, Mr Tiko, so I have to decline." Sheng kept his voice subdued and agreeable. "Thank you for considering me."
One of Tiko's bony hands pulled a toggle switch and the wheelchair swung around with a hum. "You would make an excellent bodyguard. The famous Argent, the Tel Shai knight who can become invulnerable or super-strong or super-swift. There are wild stories of you throwing a motorcycle or shrugging off rifle fire."
"Heh, people do exaggerate."
"How true. Well, keep my offer in mind. Charles, would you escort Mr Sheng back to his car? I believe I will doze in the sunlight... like a cat, heh heh."
Following the bodyguard through the mansion, through one room dominated by a grand piano and another room that was a gallery of original oil paintings, Sheng felt an odd twinge about the different places he found himself in. A homeless camp of tents under a railroad bridge one day and this monument to criminal wealth the next. He had been to so many countries, to all the adjacent realms, to places that appeared on no map and places that seemed outside the grasp of time...
Back outside in the chilly air, he hurried across the circular driveway with its elaborate marble fountain and found Unicorn was sitting behind the wheel of his cherry-red Ferrari Italia. His heart sank. "Very funny, Ashley. Move over and we'll get going."
The platinum blonde hair shone like silver in the clear afternoon sunlight. She put on her expression of angelic innocence and made no move to vacate the driver's seat. "You owe me this because I wasn't allowed in there with you."
"What? Are you getting crazier lately? I didn't say you couldn't come in. The goon did."
"Don't confuse the issue with the facts, Sheng."
"Do you even hear the things you say sometime? You're not driving my car!"
Ashley smiled sweetly and started up the finely tuned engine. "Better get in before I'm forced to leave you here."
Knowing his teammate was fully capable of doing just that, Sheng gave in for the moment. He swung around the car to drop down in the passenger seat and was buckling his seat belt when she peeled out. He settled back for the ordeal. "You know, when you start to lose your looks in a few years, you won't be able to get away with half the stunts you pull."
"I don't know WHAT you could be talking about," she scoffed. That perfect little face with its delicate features, sapphire eyes and slightly cleft chin remained serene. "People are nice to me because I'm just such a wonderful person."
Sheng resigned himself to suffering in silent terror as she sailed blithely past a stop sign. Unicorn had mentioned once that she considered traffic signs and signals as helpful suggestions but nothing more. What really drove him crazy was that Ashley not only had never been in an accident, she had never even gotten a ticket. Their captain Sable had said that the Unicorn must have not one but a team of guardian angels working full time.
"Anywayyyy, I was scanning with my Link on full power," she said. "No signs of unusual electricity use. Heat signatures and chemical exudations of six life forms within normal Human range. That's not counting you, of course."
Sheng looked down at his feet as they hurtled past a State Trooper car which seemed not to notice them. "What about the readings on Tiko himself?"
"Ooh, that's very tantalizing. Listen. The person next to you in the solarium? He had a heartbeat, respiration and skin temperature consistent with a healthy young man in his early twenties! Nothing like what an eighty-odd year old geezer would be showing. Intriguing, eh?"
He filled her in on all the discrepancies he had noted about Konrad Tiko's appearance. "Under other circumstances, my question would be why would a young man be disguised as an elderly one? But then, we're dealing with Midnight War here!"
"I know, even by Midnight War standards, this feels weird as all hell," Ashley said with insolence suddenly absent from her voice. "Whatever Tiko is up to, we can be sure it's something horrible."
II.
An hour later, they were back on East 38th Street in Manhattan. Ashley eased the Ferrari down a concrete ramp into the two-car garage beneath the KDF headquarters building. She removed the keys and juggled them until Sheng snatched them out of the air. "Not a scratch on your baby," she laughed.
"That took ten years off my life."
"Your car LIKES it when I drive! She wants me to drive all the time." Stepping out, the Unicorn shrugged off her down-filled ski jacket. As usual, she was wearing all white... crewneck shirt, snug pants and sneakers, all with baby blue trim. Sheng joined her into fetching their travel knapsacks from the trunk and stowing them away in niches along the wall. These were kept ready for taking off without notice, each knapsack packed with clothes, tools and weapons, and personal items. KDF members were always on call.
Up on the ground floor, they found Lauren Sable Reilly not in her office but in the medical ward across the hall. This had three regulation hospital beds. The walls were covered with cabinets containing everything from stomach pumps to oxygen tanks to surgical instruments. Some of this equipment was not legal for unlicensed persons to possess. Many of the diagnostic devices were of advanced Trom design.
Sable herself was in the mundane act of wringing out a mop into a wheeled bucket by the door. For once, she was not in office casual but wore sneakers, jeans and a loose red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The thick mane of black hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. "Don't you two step on my nice clean floor!"
"No, mommy..." said Unicorn in a six year old's voice.
"Come on, you two are positively aching to fill me in on what happened." She led them across the hall to the office. As they pulled up chairs, she seated herself behind her desk and made an adjustment on her Link. "Recording now. After the audio is automatically transcribed, I'll check it for accuracy and we can all add annotations before filing it."
"I think I'll put the audio of my missions on YouTube and rake in big bucks," Ashley announced.
"Maybe after you retire," said Sable. "Sheng, you report first."
For the next half hour, they went over the events in what seemed often unnecessary detail. Sable listened in silence and finally asked, "You two have had time to mull this over. What do you think?"
"It's a trap," Ashley said instantly. Sable nodded in agreement and glanced over at Sheng.
"Yes, Tiko has no reason to offer me a bodyguard job. He's been on the badlands between crime and sorcery for decades. He knows I'm not going to accept if he's looked me up at all. If Tiko really wanted one of us for a job like that, he might approach Josef."
The Unicorn snapped her immaculately manicured fingers. "This was entirely to show us something super-weird and get us curious. It's the bait! And of course we always run right into traps to get things over with."
"I've been reviewing what we know of Konrad Tiko," Sable said. "He was brought up in a family of Greek smugglers and bandits. He's become a high end millionaire through mundane crime but he has also always been on the fringes of the Midnight War. He was at the 'parties' the Lundborg brothers threw in the worst days of Red Sect. He was seen with Karl Eldritch in East Berlin after the war. For years, he auctioned off dangerous Darthan talismans."
As their captain paused too long, Ashley cut in, "Are you thinking what Sheng and I are thinking?"
"Brain transplants? That Tiko has had his brain put in the body of a young man? I don't know. Megan told me not long ago that even the Trom can't do it successfully. How could Human surgeons? I'm skeptical, personally. The man Sheng saw might have been made up to look like that just to put the idea in our heads."
Sheng said, "You know, there's Zhune artifacts to consider. I read in our files how back in the Eighties, Eldritch used these Zhune helmets to switch bodies with Jeremy. He swapped their minds from one body to the other..."
"Will you pay attention?! We're talking about brain transplants, not musical chairs of the mind!" Unicorn made a dismissive sound.
"As I was about to say," Sheng continued patiently, "There could be other Zhune artifacts that enable transplants."
"Fair enough," Ashley conceded cheerfully.
Sable regarded her teammates with a touch of wistfulness. More and more, she disliked sending them out into extreme danger, where death was not the worst fate. They were amazing people and she loved them like family. But this was the life they had chosen, as had she. None of them would give it up.
"We could simply ignore this trick," she said. "Certainly our team is busy enough right now. But I want to know who is behind it. Almost certainly one of our higher ranked enemies has some scheme cooking and we need to stop it before it gathers momentum. Ashley?"
"Yeah, boss?"
"You can't wear white tonight. I'm sending you in on a stealth recon."
"I don't like it, I love it," the Unicorn replied. "I make a ninja look like a drunken moose."
III.
The guard grunted and slapped one hand to the side of the neck. Before he could realize that there was a thin metal needle sticking out from his skin, the potent drug had dazed him too much to react. He sagged at the knees and stretched out face down next to stretch out in the dry cold grass next to the mansion. Even as he dropped, a small figure all in black rushed out from under some birch trees toward the all-glass door he had left open a crack when stepping outside a second ago.
The all-black field suit consisted of boots, tight pants and waist-length jacket of tough material with an inner layer of the flexible Trom armor. The visor on her helmet gleamed with pale green sheen, showing the light enhancers at work. The needle-thin barrel of the anesthetic dart gun was pointed down and in front of her as she entered.
The room was unlit, but through her visor she saw it was a sort of cozy sitting room with a plush couch, comfortable chairs and a low coffee table with some magazines. Moving noiselessly, listening intently, Ashley Whitaker stalked through the open doorway into a room that strangely seemed completely unfurnished. Bare wooden floor and walls as if the house were up for sale. What was this all about...?
A powerful grip seized her gun hand, squeezing it so that the fingers opened and her weapon fell. The Unicorn reacted instantly, dropping into a low stance, grabbing that arm by the wrist and elbow, and pivoting to neatly throw her attacker over her hip to crash on the floor. The ceiling lights snapped on. Other people were hurrying into the room but all her attention was understandably fixed on the assailant she had flung to the floor.
It was an adult male Chimp, with a strap over one shoulder supporting a holstered Browning automatic at his waist. Just above his eyes, a thick ridge of scar tissue circled his head, visible even through the coarse black hair.
Ashley was not fazed for an instant by the bizarre sight. She had no intention of trying to fight such a powerful beast. She snagged a metal sphere the size of a cherry tomato from her field suit and tossed it upward. A blinding flash of white light and a thunderous cracking detonation dazed everyone in that room who had unavoidably glanced up to see what she had thrown. The Unicorn lunged for the doorway but the door was slammed shut from the other side. That brought her up short. In the next split-second, she was seized by the head, raised high and slammed down to the floor, then lifted and slammed again by the ape. Any normal Human would have been killed. Even with the protection of her armor and her enhanced healing factor, Ashley was dazed to the point where she had no idea what was going on. Everything was a grey haze of pain.
A man's voice said, "Good work, Lorenzo. Damn, I can hardly see. What was that she threw, a SWAT flash-bang?" Ashley vaguely felt being turned over onto her stomach. Her wrists were handcuffed behind her and her ankles shackled together. Her perception was coming back to normal. Even for someone raised to be an adventurer as she had been, being mauled by a Chimp was something out of the ordinary.
She was slid over to sit propped up against a wall. Ashley was seeing and hearing normally by this time.
Standing before her in that barren room, the Chimp was resting his weight on the knuckles of his stiffened arms. There was also an athletic looking young man no more than twenty, wrapped in a maroon silk dressing gown. He was almost unreasonably handsome, the California surfer looks marred by a ridge of scar tissue on his head identical to that which the Chimp displayed. He had his arms folded across his chest and was grinning at her with unbearable smugness.
Someone was fiddling with her helmet. Against the odds, he got the latch under her chin opened and pulled the helmet up off her head. This surprised her, the lock was supposed to be absolutely secure but she figured the thug just got lucky.
A huge beefy man with a flattened nose, wearing a poorly fitted business suit went over to stand between the surfer and the ape. He cradled the helmet in one arm and raised his eyebrows when he saw the Unicorn's face. "Hey, she's all kinds of cute, ya know? We need to catch more intruders like her."
"Heh, you guys look like one of those posters showing the evolution of Man," Ashley said.
"You were looking for Konrad Tiko, I believe?" The handsome young man smirked and placed a hand on his own chest. "Well... here I am."
"Drat," said Ashley from her position on the floor. "I didn't want to believe it but I guess the goody idea of brain transplants isn't so, well, goofy."
Before anyone could say anything further, a man in a white lab smock wheeled in a chest-high cart. Ashley got her first look at Sarah Bellum.
IV.
On that cart sat a rectangular glass tank six feet wide. Aeration bubbles stired the thick greenish liquid in which sat what was unmistakably a human brain The classic walnut-halves structure was marked by folded more densely folded than usual. The horrifying object rested in a shallow depression atop what looked like a platform holding diagnostic equipment. Five thin cords ran from that platform to leads which were glued to the brain's surface.
On top of the tank was an array of speakers, microphones and cameras. One of the cameras swiveled left and right exactly like a person glancing around a room.
"Mom and I kept freshwater Angelfish and fancy guppies in OUR fish tank," Ashley said.
From one speaker came a mellow, refined woman's voice. "Really? Well, miss, I must say you show remarkable, shall we say, composure? Most people are stupefied when they meet me."
"Aw, you know, it's Midnight War. Floating brains in soup are nothing special. But between you, the Chimp and Tiko in his new body, I'd say there's been a lot of unethical surgery going on. Wait till I call the AMA! Someone's going to lose his license."
The Chimp was glowering at Ashley as if it had a personal grudge against her. With a rumble deep in its chest, the beast took a few menacing steps toward her.
"Lorenzo!" came the voice from the speaker. "Step down. I don't want any harm to come to this girl's body. Young lady, I believe I had heard of you. Mary Cassidy's daughter? The new Unicorn, right?"
"That's me! How about some introductions, just to keep things friendly?"
"Why not? As you seem to already know, this lad is in fact Konrad Tiko. A full body donor has enabled him to look absolutely wonderful for someone almost ninety years old. Then here is Lorenzo. He is not as satisfied with his condition, but then he WAS within days of dying from kidney failure. Lorenzo doesn't care for his appearance but at least he is alive, healthy and immensely strong."
"And lots of women like a hairy guy," the Unicorn said. "I can't wait to hear your origin story."
The voice continued smoothly. "Forgive my weakness for puns. I call myself Sarah Bellum. For years I was the research coordinator for the late great John Grim. Now there was a genius in many disciplines. One of his final projects was new procedures for organ transplants. I was so hurt that he died before we could produce results."
Behind her back, Ashley had wriggled out of her handcuffs. She could usually manage this because of her thin wrists and narrow hands, so this was no surprise. But the leather straps around her ankles were going to be a challenge. There were single-edged razor blades hidden in her cuffs and the tops of her boots. If she were not being watched, it would take only a minute to cut herself loose but everyone was staring directly at her.
"Go on," she said to the brain. "How did you end up in your current err condition?"
"A head-on collision from a drunk driver in a SUV," replied the even tones from the speaker. "He was killed instantly. I had so many major injuries that they were surprised I made it to the ER. But I had signed a special organ donor service with my facility and as soon as I was pronounced dead, surgeons from the John Grim Institute harvested my brain and placed it in a nutrient solution."
"Whoa." The Unicorn was not feigning interest but was genuinely fascinated. "So what was that like? Everything went black and suddenly you were seeing through lenses? Does it look the same as using your eyes did?"
"Never mind all that! Why am I chatting with you like we're having brunch together? Bah! You have found out that Konrad Tiko is my first client to receive a new, young body. The fee was immense of course, and the odds of surviving the operation are only fifty-fifty at best. But he decided it was worth it."
Lorenzo the Chimp was getting restless. He yawned, displaying a formidable array of fangs, and scratched himself in a delicate area.
"Sounds like you will be a billionaire before long," Ashley said to the brain. "But I have to ask where are you going to get healthy young bodies? I know kidney patients wait years until some donor dies of a head injury or drowning or something."
That made Tiko laugh out loud. "My dear, we're lifelong criminals! Laws are not for our kind. We take what we want from the world."
"Obviously," agreed the voice of the brain. "We call our victims 'full body donors' and their consent is not necessary. I have been shopping for a new body for myself and now I believe one has walked right up to me."
The Unicorn shifted around, getting her ankles behind her. She put convincing fear in her voice. "Oh no, don't even think of going there...!"
The voice of Sarah Bellum remained collected and mild. "Dr Marius will be available tomorrow. It's too bad that lovely white hair of yours will have to be shaved off so we can saw open your skull."
V.
"I have learned quite a bit about you Tel Shai knights," the brain continued. "You have some mysterious healing ability that lets you recover from wounds and injuries incredibly fast. I believe that will facilitate the transplant and speed up recovery."
"Or my healing factor will reject you and spit you out of my head like a watermelon seed!"
"We'll find out. I will have you injected with a sedative so you'll fall asleep, but I really have no use for your brain, child."
"Pretty sure my insurance doesn't cover this," Ashley sighed.
Sarah Bellum sounded wistful. "I can't wait to breathe again. To enjoy a glass of wine and a plate of spaghetti. To be able to walk around on my own..."
"You'll also get your period again. Mine are awful, let me tell you. First of all, they're never on time, they're always a surprise and I wear white pants! Then there's all the cramps..."
"Enough. Tiko, have your men put her in a spare bedroom until Dr Marius arrives." The camera on the tank swung from side to side exactly like a person shaking their head in annoyance. "I don't find her banter amusing in the least."
Ashley managed a smile. "If I had a bugle, now is when I'd sound the cavalry charge."
The door exploded off its hinges and flew across the room to knock the lab tech down. Rushing in behind the door came Sheng Mo-Yuan in a black field suit without the helmet. And leaping through the air at him came Lorenzo with his Human brain overwhelmed by Chimp hormones.
Because of a higher density of fast-twitch fibers in their muscles, Chimpanzees are about half again as strong as a Human the same size. But this manifests in much more dynamic sudden surges of movement. Since his transplant a year earlier, Lorenzo had effortlessly murdered five men by pulling their arms off or biting through their faces. He hurtled eagerly at this intruder with his jaws gnashing.
Instead, he was struck down to the floor by a hooking punch from a fist literally as hard as steel. Sheng had shifted the gralic force in his body to produce durability. He was close enough to being invulnerable that rifle bullets merely stung him without breaking his skin. With twenty years of Kumundu training, he was one of the few Humans ever who could fight an adult Chimp on equal terms. As Lorenzo scrambled back up, he caught a front snap kick to the jaw that flipped him over on his back with a thud.
While that clash was happening, Ashley Whitaker had hopped up off the floor. She dropped the blade which she had used to slice through her leg restraints. Everyone else was staring with their mouths open at the fight between Sheng and Lorenzo. The Unicorn snatched up her dart gun from where it had been dropped and instantly sent one of the darts into the neck of the bodyguard. As he sagged to his hands and knees, and then sprawled out unconscious, Ashley dropped Konrad Tiko with another dart. The young-bodied elderly criminal had taken his phone to call for help.
Lorenzo lunged forward again, completely enraged, and took an open hand chop to the back of the neck that nearly killed him. He fell face down, struggled to get up and finally managed to prop himself up on his stiffened arms. White foam was gathering in flecks around the corners of his mouth. As the Chimp was ready to rise, Sheng dropped into a crouch and blasted a looping roundhouse punch that sounded like ice breaking as it connected to the side of Lorenzo's cheek. The ape flopped over hard and went completely limp.
Fists clenched, chest heaving from adrenalin, Sheng wheeled around. He saw the other three men in that room all stretched out senseless on the bare hardwood floor. The Unicorn was leaning insolently up against the clear tank, holding a thick electrical cable in her hands.
"No alarms, Sarah, no calling for goons to rescue you. I'll pull the plug and damage it so you won't get your green goo circulating. Understand?"
"Yes..." came a low defeated answer from the speaker.
"I mean, I'm not going to hold a grudge just because you were going to scoop my brain out and be a squatter in my body. What woman wouldn't want to look like me?" Ashley said with a completely deadpan manner. "But I have to draw the line somewhere."
Even a veteran of the Midnight War like Sheng needed a minute to process the weird scene. "Is that... really a living brain in a fish tank?"
"Yep. Calls herself Sarah Bellum. And the good-looking kid in the robe is indeed Konrad Tiko in the body of someone they killed. So they are at least guilty of accessory to murder and probably kidnaping as well. Hey, Sheng, weren't you suppose to come charging in a bit earlier? Why wait so long?"
He grinned sheepishly. "I was listening on our Links and the origin story she told was amazing. I didn't let them actually start sawing through your head, though."
"What a pal. You're the best. Anyway, at least we stopped this monster from killing lots of young people so that creaky old mobsters could have their bodies. And that ape you beat up has a Human brain, by the way."
"He does? We better give him a few anesthetic darts, to be safe. Then I guess we have to call Department 21 Black to haul this menagerie away. We sure can't turn them over to the local police."
Ashley rapped with her knuckles on the glass tank as if knocking on a door. "Hear that, Sarah? You're going to be treated humanely. 21 Black is a unit of the FBI that handles Midnight War stuff. They'll study you and keep you healthy but I doubt if you're going to be released anytime soon."
From a speaker, that pleasant contralto said, "I will spare you death threats and swearing revenge. That's too dramatic. But I do promise we will meet again."
Ashley laughed and rested an elbow on the tank. "We'll do lunch."
3/2/2025
2/23/2017
I.
Nothing about Konrad Tiko seemed right to Sheng Mo-Yuan. The eighty-seven year old mobster seemed to be a withered old man with a thick mane of white hair that covered his ears, a beaked nose, skin like an apple dried by the sun and a spine bent forward in the motorized wheelchair. But Sheng's Kumundu training was alerting him of many discrepancies.
The whites of Tiko's eyes were clear and clean. The exposed skin was wrinkled but had not one dark spot or blemish. The fingernails were healthy without yellowing. The cracked timbre of the voice sounded forced. And, in the bright afternoon sunlight in the glassed-in solarium, Sheng could see other details that alarmed him. What was that ridge of scar tissue barely visible up above the hairline?
Sheng had seen Tiko's passport photo and most observers would have said the ID was solid. But he was certain this man was not Konrad Tiko. Why would a much younger man be posing as Tiko?
He realized that the international criminal was checking him out as well, of course. To most people, Sheng seemed to be a Northern Chinese man about forty. Five foot five, trim and athletic in a well-tailored dark brown suit, he had the coarse straight black hair, distinctive skin tones and inner eyelid fold. But the high cheekbones and eagle-like beaked nose contradicted that. In fact, Sheng was from the adjacent realm of Chujir, whose people were said to have been the ancestors of the Han.
The glass walls and roof of the solarium extension produced a greenhouse effect. Even in winter, the air inside was warm and a bit stuffy. The huge brute over by the door was standing at attention but even he was starting to look drowsy. Sheng looked out at Long Island Sound, reflected how icy those waters must be and the thought was enough to brace him. As if the situation wasn't enough to keep him alert.
"It sounds as if you are not inclined to accept my offer, then?" repeated Tiko.
"I can't say I'm not tempted. Your terms are certainly generous. But I've been with the Kenneth Dred Foundation for so long, and my own detective agency is very important to me. I couldn't break off from either, Mr Tiko, so I have to decline." Sheng kept his voice subdued and agreeable. "Thank you for considering me."
One of Tiko's bony hands pulled a toggle switch and the wheelchair swung around with a hum. "You would make an excellent bodyguard. The famous Argent, the Tel Shai knight who can become invulnerable or super-strong or super-swift. There are wild stories of you throwing a motorcycle or shrugging off rifle fire."
"Heh, people do exaggerate."
"How true. Well, keep my offer in mind. Charles, would you escort Mr Sheng back to his car? I believe I will doze in the sunlight... like a cat, heh heh."
Following the bodyguard through the mansion, through one room dominated by a grand piano and another room that was a gallery of original oil paintings, Sheng felt an odd twinge about the different places he found himself in. A homeless camp of tents under a railroad bridge one day and this monument to criminal wealth the next. He had been to so many countries, to all the adjacent realms, to places that appeared on no map and places that seemed outside the grasp of time...
Back outside in the chilly air, he hurried across the circular driveway with its elaborate marble fountain and found Unicorn was sitting behind the wheel of his cherry-red Ferrari Italia. His heart sank. "Very funny, Ashley. Move over and we'll get going."
The platinum blonde hair shone like silver in the clear afternoon sunlight. She put on her expression of angelic innocence and made no move to vacate the driver's seat. "You owe me this because I wasn't allowed in there with you."
"What? Are you getting crazier lately? I didn't say you couldn't come in. The goon did."
"Don't confuse the issue with the facts, Sheng."
"Do you even hear the things you say sometime? You're not driving my car!"
Ashley smiled sweetly and started up the finely tuned engine. "Better get in before I'm forced to leave you here."
Knowing his teammate was fully capable of doing just that, Sheng gave in for the moment. He swung around the car to drop down in the passenger seat and was buckling his seat belt when she peeled out. He settled back for the ordeal. "You know, when you start to lose your looks in a few years, you won't be able to get away with half the stunts you pull."
"I don't know WHAT you could be talking about," she scoffed. That perfect little face with its delicate features, sapphire eyes and slightly cleft chin remained serene. "People are nice to me because I'm just such a wonderful person."
Sheng resigned himself to suffering in silent terror as she sailed blithely past a stop sign. Unicorn had mentioned once that she considered traffic signs and signals as helpful suggestions but nothing more. What really drove him crazy was that Ashley not only had never been in an accident, she had never even gotten a ticket. Their captain Sable had said that the Unicorn must have not one but a team of guardian angels working full time.
"Anywayyyy, I was scanning with my Link on full power," she said. "No signs of unusual electricity use. Heat signatures and chemical exudations of six life forms within normal Human range. That's not counting you, of course."
Sheng looked down at his feet as they hurtled past a State Trooper car which seemed not to notice them. "What about the readings on Tiko himself?"
"Ooh, that's very tantalizing. Listen. The person next to you in the solarium? He had a heartbeat, respiration and skin temperature consistent with a healthy young man in his early twenties! Nothing like what an eighty-odd year old geezer would be showing. Intriguing, eh?"
He filled her in on all the discrepancies he had noted about Konrad Tiko's appearance. "Under other circumstances, my question would be why would a young man be disguised as an elderly one? But then, we're dealing with Midnight War here!"
"I know, even by Midnight War standards, this feels weird as all hell," Ashley said with insolence suddenly absent from her voice. "Whatever Tiko is up to, we can be sure it's something horrible."
II.
An hour later, they were back on East 38th Street in Manhattan. Ashley eased the Ferrari down a concrete ramp into the two-car garage beneath the KDF headquarters building. She removed the keys and juggled them until Sheng snatched them out of the air. "Not a scratch on your baby," she laughed.
"That took ten years off my life."
"Your car LIKES it when I drive! She wants me to drive all the time." Stepping out, the Unicorn shrugged off her down-filled ski jacket. As usual, she was wearing all white... crewneck shirt, snug pants and sneakers, all with baby blue trim. Sheng joined her into fetching their travel knapsacks from the trunk and stowing them away in niches along the wall. These were kept ready for taking off without notice, each knapsack packed with clothes, tools and weapons, and personal items. KDF members were always on call.
Up on the ground floor, they found Lauren Sable Reilly not in her office but in the medical ward across the hall. This had three regulation hospital beds. The walls were covered with cabinets containing everything from stomach pumps to oxygen tanks to surgical instruments. Some of this equipment was not legal for unlicensed persons to possess. Many of the diagnostic devices were of advanced Trom design.
Sable herself was in the mundane act of wringing out a mop into a wheeled bucket by the door. For once, she was not in office casual but wore sneakers, jeans and a loose red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The thick mane of black hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. "Don't you two step on my nice clean floor!"
"No, mommy..." said Unicorn in a six year old's voice.
"Come on, you two are positively aching to fill me in on what happened." She led them across the hall to the office. As they pulled up chairs, she seated herself behind her desk and made an adjustment on her Link. "Recording now. After the audio is automatically transcribed, I'll check it for accuracy and we can all add annotations before filing it."
"I think I'll put the audio of my missions on YouTube and rake in big bucks," Ashley announced.
"Maybe after you retire," said Sable. "Sheng, you report first."
For the next half hour, they went over the events in what seemed often unnecessary detail. Sable listened in silence and finally asked, "You two have had time to mull this over. What do you think?"
"It's a trap," Ashley said instantly. Sable nodded in agreement and glanced over at Sheng.
"Yes, Tiko has no reason to offer me a bodyguard job. He's been on the badlands between crime and sorcery for decades. He knows I'm not going to accept if he's looked me up at all. If Tiko really wanted one of us for a job like that, he might approach Josef."
The Unicorn snapped her immaculately manicured fingers. "This was entirely to show us something super-weird and get us curious. It's the bait! And of course we always run right into traps to get things over with."
"I've been reviewing what we know of Konrad Tiko," Sable said. "He was brought up in a family of Greek smugglers and bandits. He's become a high end millionaire through mundane crime but he has also always been on the fringes of the Midnight War. He was at the 'parties' the Lundborg brothers threw in the worst days of Red Sect. He was seen with Karl Eldritch in East Berlin after the war. For years, he auctioned off dangerous Darthan talismans."
As their captain paused too long, Ashley cut in, "Are you thinking what Sheng and I are thinking?"
"Brain transplants? That Tiko has had his brain put in the body of a young man? I don't know. Megan told me not long ago that even the Trom can't do it successfully. How could Human surgeons? I'm skeptical, personally. The man Sheng saw might have been made up to look like that just to put the idea in our heads."
Sheng said, "You know, there's Zhune artifacts to consider. I read in our files how back in the Eighties, Eldritch used these Zhune helmets to switch bodies with Jeremy. He swapped their minds from one body to the other..."
"Will you pay attention?! We're talking about brain transplants, not musical chairs of the mind!" Unicorn made a dismissive sound.
"As I was about to say," Sheng continued patiently, "There could be other Zhune artifacts that enable transplants."
"Fair enough," Ashley conceded cheerfully.
Sable regarded her teammates with a touch of wistfulness. More and more, she disliked sending them out into extreme danger, where death was not the worst fate. They were amazing people and she loved them like family. But this was the life they had chosen, as had she. None of them would give it up.
"We could simply ignore this trick," she said. "Certainly our team is busy enough right now. But I want to know who is behind it. Almost certainly one of our higher ranked enemies has some scheme cooking and we need to stop it before it gathers momentum. Ashley?"
"Yeah, boss?"
"You can't wear white tonight. I'm sending you in on a stealth recon."
"I don't like it, I love it," the Unicorn replied. "I make a ninja look like a drunken moose."
III.
The guard grunted and slapped one hand to the side of the neck. Before he could realize that there was a thin metal needle sticking out from his skin, the potent drug had dazed him too much to react. He sagged at the knees and stretched out face down next to stretch out in the dry cold grass next to the mansion. Even as he dropped, a small figure all in black rushed out from under some birch trees toward the all-glass door he had left open a crack when stepping outside a second ago.
The all-black field suit consisted of boots, tight pants and waist-length jacket of tough material with an inner layer of the flexible Trom armor. The visor on her helmet gleamed with pale green sheen, showing the light enhancers at work. The needle-thin barrel of the anesthetic dart gun was pointed down and in front of her as she entered.
The room was unlit, but through her visor she saw it was a sort of cozy sitting room with a plush couch, comfortable chairs and a low coffee table with some magazines. Moving noiselessly, listening intently, Ashley Whitaker stalked through the open doorway into a room that strangely seemed completely unfurnished. Bare wooden floor and walls as if the house were up for sale. What was this all about...?
A powerful grip seized her gun hand, squeezing it so that the fingers opened and her weapon fell. The Unicorn reacted instantly, dropping into a low stance, grabbing that arm by the wrist and elbow, and pivoting to neatly throw her attacker over her hip to crash on the floor. The ceiling lights snapped on. Other people were hurrying into the room but all her attention was understandably fixed on the assailant she had flung to the floor.
It was an adult male Chimp, with a strap over one shoulder supporting a holstered Browning automatic at his waist. Just above his eyes, a thick ridge of scar tissue circled his head, visible even through the coarse black hair.
Ashley was not fazed for an instant by the bizarre sight. She had no intention of trying to fight such a powerful beast. She snagged a metal sphere the size of a cherry tomato from her field suit and tossed it upward. A blinding flash of white light and a thunderous cracking detonation dazed everyone in that room who had unavoidably glanced up to see what she had thrown. The Unicorn lunged for the doorway but the door was slammed shut from the other side. That brought her up short. In the next split-second, she was seized by the head, raised high and slammed down to the floor, then lifted and slammed again by the ape. Any normal Human would have been killed. Even with the protection of her armor and her enhanced healing factor, Ashley was dazed to the point where she had no idea what was going on. Everything was a grey haze of pain.
A man's voice said, "Good work, Lorenzo. Damn, I can hardly see. What was that she threw, a SWAT flash-bang?" Ashley vaguely felt being turned over onto her stomach. Her wrists were handcuffed behind her and her ankles shackled together. Her perception was coming back to normal. Even for someone raised to be an adventurer as she had been, being mauled by a Chimp was something out of the ordinary.
She was slid over to sit propped up against a wall. Ashley was seeing and hearing normally by this time.
Standing before her in that barren room, the Chimp was resting his weight on the knuckles of his stiffened arms. There was also an athletic looking young man no more than twenty, wrapped in a maroon silk dressing gown. He was almost unreasonably handsome, the California surfer looks marred by a ridge of scar tissue on his head identical to that which the Chimp displayed. He had his arms folded across his chest and was grinning at her with unbearable smugness.
Someone was fiddling with her helmet. Against the odds, he got the latch under her chin opened and pulled the helmet up off her head. This surprised her, the lock was supposed to be absolutely secure but she figured the thug just got lucky.
A huge beefy man with a flattened nose, wearing a poorly fitted business suit went over to stand between the surfer and the ape. He cradled the helmet in one arm and raised his eyebrows when he saw the Unicorn's face. "Hey, she's all kinds of cute, ya know? We need to catch more intruders like her."
"Heh, you guys look like one of those posters showing the evolution of Man," Ashley said.
"You were looking for Konrad Tiko, I believe?" The handsome young man smirked and placed a hand on his own chest. "Well... here I am."
"Drat," said Ashley from her position on the floor. "I didn't want to believe it but I guess the goody idea of brain transplants isn't so, well, goofy."
Before anyone could say anything further, a man in a white lab smock wheeled in a chest-high cart. Ashley got her first look at Sarah Bellum.
IV.
On that cart sat a rectangular glass tank six feet wide. Aeration bubbles stired the thick greenish liquid in which sat what was unmistakably a human brain The classic walnut-halves structure was marked by folded more densely folded than usual. The horrifying object rested in a shallow depression atop what looked like a platform holding diagnostic equipment. Five thin cords ran from that platform to leads which were glued to the brain's surface.
On top of the tank was an array of speakers, microphones and cameras. One of the cameras swiveled left and right exactly like a person glancing around a room.
"Mom and I kept freshwater Angelfish and fancy guppies in OUR fish tank," Ashley said.
From one speaker came a mellow, refined woman's voice. "Really? Well, miss, I must say you show remarkable, shall we say, composure? Most people are stupefied when they meet me."
"Aw, you know, it's Midnight War. Floating brains in soup are nothing special. But between you, the Chimp and Tiko in his new body, I'd say there's been a lot of unethical surgery going on. Wait till I call the AMA! Someone's going to lose his license."
The Chimp was glowering at Ashley as if it had a personal grudge against her. With a rumble deep in its chest, the beast took a few menacing steps toward her.
"Lorenzo!" came the voice from the speaker. "Step down. I don't want any harm to come to this girl's body. Young lady, I believe I had heard of you. Mary Cassidy's daughter? The new Unicorn, right?"
"That's me! How about some introductions, just to keep things friendly?"
"Why not? As you seem to already know, this lad is in fact Konrad Tiko. A full body donor has enabled him to look absolutely wonderful for someone almost ninety years old. Then here is Lorenzo. He is not as satisfied with his condition, but then he WAS within days of dying from kidney failure. Lorenzo doesn't care for his appearance but at least he is alive, healthy and immensely strong."
"And lots of women like a hairy guy," the Unicorn said. "I can't wait to hear your origin story."
The voice continued smoothly. "Forgive my weakness for puns. I call myself Sarah Bellum. For years I was the research coordinator for the late great John Grim. Now there was a genius in many disciplines. One of his final projects was new procedures for organ transplants. I was so hurt that he died before we could produce results."
Behind her back, Ashley had wriggled out of her handcuffs. She could usually manage this because of her thin wrists and narrow hands, so this was no surprise. But the leather straps around her ankles were going to be a challenge. There were single-edged razor blades hidden in her cuffs and the tops of her boots. If she were not being watched, it would take only a minute to cut herself loose but everyone was staring directly at her.
"Go on," she said to the brain. "How did you end up in your current err condition?"
"A head-on collision from a drunk driver in a SUV," replied the even tones from the speaker. "He was killed instantly. I had so many major injuries that they were surprised I made it to the ER. But I had signed a special organ donor service with my facility and as soon as I was pronounced dead, surgeons from the John Grim Institute harvested my brain and placed it in a nutrient solution."
"Whoa." The Unicorn was not feigning interest but was genuinely fascinated. "So what was that like? Everything went black and suddenly you were seeing through lenses? Does it look the same as using your eyes did?"
"Never mind all that! Why am I chatting with you like we're having brunch together? Bah! You have found out that Konrad Tiko is my first client to receive a new, young body. The fee was immense of course, and the odds of surviving the operation are only fifty-fifty at best. But he decided it was worth it."
Lorenzo the Chimp was getting restless. He yawned, displaying a formidable array of fangs, and scratched himself in a delicate area.
"Sounds like you will be a billionaire before long," Ashley said to the brain. "But I have to ask where are you going to get healthy young bodies? I know kidney patients wait years until some donor dies of a head injury or drowning or something."
That made Tiko laugh out loud. "My dear, we're lifelong criminals! Laws are not for our kind. We take what we want from the world."
"Obviously," agreed the voice of the brain. "We call our victims 'full body donors' and their consent is not necessary. I have been shopping for a new body for myself and now I believe one has walked right up to me."
The Unicorn shifted around, getting her ankles behind her. She put convincing fear in her voice. "Oh no, don't even think of going there...!"
The voice of Sarah Bellum remained collected and mild. "Dr Marius will be available tomorrow. It's too bad that lovely white hair of yours will have to be shaved off so we can saw open your skull."
V.
"I have learned quite a bit about you Tel Shai knights," the brain continued. "You have some mysterious healing ability that lets you recover from wounds and injuries incredibly fast. I believe that will facilitate the transplant and speed up recovery."
"Or my healing factor will reject you and spit you out of my head like a watermelon seed!"
"We'll find out. I will have you injected with a sedative so you'll fall asleep, but I really have no use for your brain, child."
"Pretty sure my insurance doesn't cover this," Ashley sighed.
Sarah Bellum sounded wistful. "I can't wait to breathe again. To enjoy a glass of wine and a plate of spaghetti. To be able to walk around on my own..."
"You'll also get your period again. Mine are awful, let me tell you. First of all, they're never on time, they're always a surprise and I wear white pants! Then there's all the cramps..."
"Enough. Tiko, have your men put her in a spare bedroom until Dr Marius arrives." The camera on the tank swung from side to side exactly like a person shaking their head in annoyance. "I don't find her banter amusing in the least."
Ashley managed a smile. "If I had a bugle, now is when I'd sound the cavalry charge."
The door exploded off its hinges and flew across the room to knock the lab tech down. Rushing in behind the door came Sheng Mo-Yuan in a black field suit without the helmet. And leaping through the air at him came Lorenzo with his Human brain overwhelmed by Chimp hormones.
Because of a higher density of fast-twitch fibers in their muscles, Chimpanzees are about half again as strong as a Human the same size. But this manifests in much more dynamic sudden surges of movement. Since his transplant a year earlier, Lorenzo had effortlessly murdered five men by pulling their arms off or biting through their faces. He hurtled eagerly at this intruder with his jaws gnashing.
Instead, he was struck down to the floor by a hooking punch from a fist literally as hard as steel. Sheng had shifted the gralic force in his body to produce durability. He was close enough to being invulnerable that rifle bullets merely stung him without breaking his skin. With twenty years of Kumundu training, he was one of the few Humans ever who could fight an adult Chimp on equal terms. As Lorenzo scrambled back up, he caught a front snap kick to the jaw that flipped him over on his back with a thud.
While that clash was happening, Ashley Whitaker had hopped up off the floor. She dropped the blade which she had used to slice through her leg restraints. Everyone else was staring with their mouths open at the fight between Sheng and Lorenzo. The Unicorn snatched up her dart gun from where it had been dropped and instantly sent one of the darts into the neck of the bodyguard. As he sagged to his hands and knees, and then sprawled out unconscious, Ashley dropped Konrad Tiko with another dart. The young-bodied elderly criminal had taken his phone to call for help.
Lorenzo lunged forward again, completely enraged, and took an open hand chop to the back of the neck that nearly killed him. He fell face down, struggled to get up and finally managed to prop himself up on his stiffened arms. White foam was gathering in flecks around the corners of his mouth. As the Chimp was ready to rise, Sheng dropped into a crouch and blasted a looping roundhouse punch that sounded like ice breaking as it connected to the side of Lorenzo's cheek. The ape flopped over hard and went completely limp.
Fists clenched, chest heaving from adrenalin, Sheng wheeled around. He saw the other three men in that room all stretched out senseless on the bare hardwood floor. The Unicorn was leaning insolently up against the clear tank, holding a thick electrical cable in her hands.
"No alarms, Sarah, no calling for goons to rescue you. I'll pull the plug and damage it so you won't get your green goo circulating. Understand?"
"Yes..." came a low defeated answer from the speaker.
"I mean, I'm not going to hold a grudge just because you were going to scoop my brain out and be a squatter in my body. What woman wouldn't want to look like me?" Ashley said with a completely deadpan manner. "But I have to draw the line somewhere."
Even a veteran of the Midnight War like Sheng needed a minute to process the weird scene. "Is that... really a living brain in a fish tank?"
"Yep. Calls herself Sarah Bellum. And the good-looking kid in the robe is indeed Konrad Tiko in the body of someone they killed. So they are at least guilty of accessory to murder and probably kidnaping as well. Hey, Sheng, weren't you suppose to come charging in a bit earlier? Why wait so long?"
He grinned sheepishly. "I was listening on our Links and the origin story she told was amazing. I didn't let them actually start sawing through your head, though."
"What a pal. You're the best. Anyway, at least we stopped this monster from killing lots of young people so that creaky old mobsters could have their bodies. And that ape you beat up has a Human brain, by the way."
"He does? We better give him a few anesthetic darts, to be safe. Then I guess we have to call Department 21 Black to haul this menagerie away. We sure can't turn them over to the local police."
Ashley rapped with her knuckles on the glass tank as if knocking on a door. "Hear that, Sarah? You're going to be treated humanely. 21 Black is a unit of the FBI that handles Midnight War stuff. They'll study you and keep you healthy but I doubt if you're going to be released anytime soon."
From a speaker, that pleasant contralto said, "I will spare you death threats and swearing revenge. That's too dramatic. But I do promise we will meet again."
Ashley laughed and rested an elbow on the tank. "We'll do lunch."
3/2/2025
no subject
Date: 2025-03-02 10:32 pm (UTC)The malevolent human brain floating in a fish tank has been used so many times in the pulps, comics and movies that I can't pick any one as a definitive influence on this story. Mostly, I have a weakness for dreadful puns. Sarah Bellum, Babe Lincoln, Casey Strangle, Squid Vicious... I have no shame.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-03 04:58 am (UTC)I’m wondering if Ashley does have some sort of crazy garlic traffic luck?
(Her mention of one of the biological drawbacks of youth brought to mind this old fanwork parody ad:
https://odditycollector.dreamwidth.org/116330.html)
no subject
Date: 2025-03-03 09:17 pm (UTC)I didn't realize I was capitalizing "chimp" but it does seem to be part of my odd style. I use "Human" to refer to Homo Sapiens as a species and one of the lore's Seven Races (Darthim, Trom, Eldanarin, etc) but "human" for other uses or when someone isn't intending a Midnight War relevance. It's details like these that have accumulated over the decades. Maybe Lorenzo having a Human brain influenced me, I wouldn't capitalize "dolphin."
My guess is that Ashley is actually a very skilled and alert driver, it's her disregard for traffic signals and other drivers' peace of mind that makes riding with her a nerve-wracking experience. If she does get pulled over, I can see her clean license, respectful cooperation and good looks might let her get away with a warning. (But I think we'll have a scene soon where our Unicorn is mortified when a young guy doesn't respond to her looks and she thinks she's turning into a hag overnight.)
Thanks for the link. I hear people my age (74) mostly complaining about going downhill, which is fair enough and I agree. But we do forget one drawback to the teens and twenties, the wild boiling hormones which affect our judgement. That does mellow out eventually. (At one point, I thought the Tel Shai enhanced healing would eliminate menstrual cycles but decided that was going too far. I don't think knights grow back teeth, either. There's limits.)
Ready for Spring! There's crocuses outside my door. Take care.