Becoming (Core Series Book 1) Read online

  “Sergeant?” The female corporal stood next to the car, waiting for him.

  “Yes, corporal?” he said, logging off the console and getting out of the car.

  “Sir, we found something weird. You’d better see for yourself,” she said, pointing to the Getz. The car was now standing on all four wheels. Several officers stood around, staring at the back and right sides of the car.

  “We found these.” The corporal pointed at several perfectly-round holes that were burned in the car. He looked down at one of the holes, and then peered through it. It went right through the car and out the front. It had missed the driver’s seat by only millimetres. He walked around the car to the other side to inspect the exit holes. They were all exactly the same size, about twenty-five millimetres in diameter and perfectly round, apart from those that had been warped by the accident. William was sure that they had all been made by the same device. “What makes such a hole, sergeant?” the corporal asked.

  “I have no idea, corporal, but I know someone who might know. Take this car to our laboratory.”

  He pulled his phone out and pressed the speed dial for his wife’s number. The phone was engaged. He had told her to phone the hospital, and she was probably talking to them now. “I will see you back at the station,” he told the corporal. He walked back to his car. He would have to go find Susan and take her to the forensic lab to inspect the car; perhaps she could shed some light on this mystery, but she would have to see it for herself, no way he could ever explain.

  As for the second mystery—where the driver of the Holden had gone—he could not even begin to know who to ask.

  Recovery

  Bleach?

  The stench tickled his nose and made him want to sneeze. Why is everything so loud? Jason stirred. A strange bed. Where am I?

  Slowly, the events of the previous night returned to him. How long have I been out?

  Jason tried to open his eyes but they would not respond. His head still hurt; it felt as big as a hot air balloon. It felt like it would topple off if he moved too fast. He wanted to laugh at the situation, but nothing would work with him now, and he felt so tired....

  “Mister Bancroft? Can you hear me, Mister Bancroft?” a male voice asked. Jason licked his lips and felt stitches in the upper-right corner of his mouth. He could still taste blood, but it was dry. His throat hurt.

  “Water,” he finally croaked. His head began to focus more clearly. He recognized the steady beat of hospital monitors and felt the drips and the monitor cables connected to his body. He tried to sit up, but every muscle in his body protested the possibility of movement.

  “Don’t try and sit up, Mister Bancroft, the nurse will get you some water. Please rest, I will check in with you in a short while.” Jason heard footsteps as the man with the voice walked out of the room.

  He opened just one eye. The light was like a needle being jabbed into his brain—something began to beep fast. Very fast. He shut the eye again, listening as the heart rate monitor slowly came back to a steady rhythm. I have to open my eyes sooner or later, he reasoned. If not now, the doctor will probably force me to it.

  The events that had led him here were just a blur in his mind. They wanted to kill him...but why him? And who were they?

  Those questions would stay unanswered longer if he didn’t get his eyes open. He opened his right eye again, slowly this time, waiting for the pain to return. Just before the light began to stab at him he stopped the motion, and waited for his eye to adjust. Several minutes later, he managed to open his right eye all the way.

  He was in a private room, with walls of glass. Behind him were pipes and tubes, monitors and drips. The steady beat came from a heart machine on his right, which currently showed seventy-three beats a minute. To his left a drip-dose machine carried half a bag of clear liquid. The liquid leaked into a tube, which disappeared into a needle in his left arm.

  The curtain around his bed had been pulled open halfway, allowing him a view of the room opposite his. The bed there was empty; through the opposite room’s window, he watched trees sway slowly in a soft breeze. The sky was dark with clouds, as if it would start raining at any minute.

  It had been raining, on and off, for quite some time. Brisbane had been getting an unusual amount of rain lately, with several record-breaking rainfalls over the last two months. It was a result of global warming, they said. We humans are a wasteful bunch, he thought. No matter what the nay-sayers spew forth, we are destroying the environment. As he watched the trees swaying, big fat drops of water splatted against the window, slowly running down to form tiny pools at the bottom of the sill.

  Memories of his childhood flew back to remind him of the storms that used to fall on the tin roof of his parents” house. It was always so loud, but it made the most beautiful music in the world. Rain on any other roof was never the same. Lightning illuminated the distant sky when the nurse entered the room with a small glass of water. With his right hand, which had no wires or drip attached, he felt his face. The reason he couldn’t open his other eye was because there was a patch over it.

  “You were quite the lucky one,” the nurse said. Lucky? What was lucky about getting chased down the highway, about being shot at and almost squashed by a thirty-ton truck?

  “Your jaw isn’t broken, merely out of place. Doctor Chen put it back while you were under. Otherwise, you would have been on a liquid diet for months.” She laughed a soft, reassuring laugh and pressed a button on the control panel of the bed. A motor, somewhere below, revved into action, driving a gear that pushed the top half of the bed slowly upright. When he was in a reclined, seated position, she let off the button and the motor subsided. The nurse was young and female, with short brown hair. She was of average appearance—pretty, rounded face with dark brown eyes, small nose, and barely visible freckles —and she had a caring quality that put him at ease immediately.

  “Thank you,” he said, taking a small sip. The water fell over his numb, broken lip, and splashed coldly on his dry tongue. It washed the taste of blood out of his mouth, and soothed his dry throat. The drugs they had given him must be strong, because he felt awesome. If not for a few sore muscles, he would like to jump up and run a marathon. “What is in the drip?” he exclaimed. “I feel awesome!”

  “You are coming out of the morphine they gave you at the accident scene,” she said, smiling as she took the cup from him and set it down on the rollout cabinet next to the bed.

  If that was the case, he had only been in the hospital for an hour or two.

  She is right, I am lucky, he thought.

  “You only suffered minor bruises, a slight concussion and the cuts on your lips. You have ten stitches in your head, your nose will be swollen for a couple of days and we gave you a vitamin K injection to stop the bruising from going black. Other than that, you are in good shape. The doctor wants to talk to you about how you feel; he might release you or keep you for observation overnight,” she said, checking the monitors and the drip. She scribbled a note on the chart that hung at the bottom of the bed. “There are two police officers outside who are dying to talk to you. Shall I send them in?”

  “Thank you. Yes, please send them in.”

  “Will do.” She walked out the door and turned right.

  Jason lay back against the pillow, trying to remember more of what had happened. His head still felt slow, but the memories flowed back intact.

  A tall, broad-shouldered policeman walked through the door, his female partner at his side. Both had dark brown hair and vivid green eyes. The woman’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail that swished back and forth elegantly as she walked.

  “Mister Bancroft!” the man exclaimed, walking to the right side of the bed. “Glad to hear that your injuries are not serious.”

  “This is Officer Olivia Sanders, and I am Lieutenant William Mathews,” the man said. “You met my wife Susan last night at the facility.”

  Jason took a moment to digest this information. “Small w
orld,” he said presently.

  “What can you tell me about the events of last night?” William asked, taking out his notebook and pen. He flipped open the notebook to a blank page.

  “I left the facility around eleven, after Susan gave me the tour. When I drove out of the gate, I saw a vehicle come up behind me at high speed. I turned up Stapleton road, and they came around the corner and crashed into the bushes. You will find their car around there.” He looked at the officers, not sure if he should say anything about the wolves, not sure if he really saw them. “You might not believe me, but...I don’t know if what I saw was real, or if it was just the stress....” He watched their faces carefully.

  “I stopped to see if there was anything I could do, but then three huge wolves burst through the bushes where the car had crashed. They stopped and turned into three men, wearing black clothes. I immediately sped away and they turned back to wolves and started chasing me and jumped towards the car, but I turned onto the highway...and from there—they must have stolen it or something—because they came after me in a different car.”

  “Three wolves that turned into men?” William looked at Olivia. He shook slightly, and Jason realized that he was trying to keep from laughing. William noted it down, however. For that small courtesy, Jason was grateful.

  “I told you, I don’t know if it is real, but that is what I saw.... Maybe it was the stress, I don’t know. They chased me down the highway, and shot at me several times…” he looked at the female officer. “All I remember is seeing a orange-red light graze through my sleeve” he gestured to the cabinet next to the bed. Olivia came around and got his shirt out of the top drawer. They examined the round burned hole on the sleeve, before she put it back. “The back window exploded and caused the cut in my head” he touched the pad on the top of his head, “I came up to the truck and thought of cutting in front of it and I would have braked, turned and made a run for it in the opposite direction…” he explained gesturing with his hands what he thought of doing “The rest you have seen, it did not work as I planned,” Jason said. He looked at his hands, unwilling to face them after what he’d just said. He knew he should have kept his mouth shut.

  Then he remembered the accident. “What happened to the truck driver? Is he ok?”

  “He is fine—a couple of stitches and some medicine for the pain. The doctor already sent him home. He was in shock, but someone picked him up and took him home about an hour ago,” William said, dragging a chair closer to the bed. Olivia walked around to the far side of the bed, observing him closely; he could feel her gaze on him.

  “You said that you have no idea where they came from? Do you have any enemies, or something that these men might want?”

  “I don’t know of anyone who would want to kill me. I do research in my home office. They might have been after that—it’s worth a lot. But how do they know about it? And why do they want me, when they could just have stolen the technology from my house?”

  “Hm,” William said, making more notes. “What were you working on?”

  “I can’t tell you the details—I just signed a non-disclosure with Tech-ADS.” He smiled weakly. “But it is worth billions. It is linked with what your wife has been working on... I spent the last seven years building it, just from my own incentive. The home office is the prototype; the software on my PC is the heart of it.” Jason leaned his head back against the pillow, and found the bed uncomfortably upright.

  “You say the garage is the prototype? That makes no sense.”

  “I am not at liberty to explain” he said facing them.

  “I have another question,” he said presently. “During your triple zero call, you said that they were firing at you. Can you tell me what kind of gun it was?”

  Jason adjusted against the pillow and pondered this for a moment, knowing that he ran the risk of sounding like a loony. He looked at William, shifting uncomfortably in bed.

  “I know the wolf thing sounds loony enough, but I will tell you the truth....” He shifted again. “They were chasing me. One of the men sat in the open window of the passenger seat and held a large barrel gun in his right hand. What type of gun it was I don’t know, but when he fired it, a bullet of light shot past the car just as I swerved in front of the truck. It was...I guess twenty millimetres in diameter and around a hundred long. It glowed orange-reddish in colour. I did not see the previous shots—it was the only one that passed by me. The rest I only felt, and heard....” He glanced at them, searching for signs of recognition, but they were contemplating his story. “Why do you ask?”

  “Your description corroborates with the holes we found in your car,” William explained. “It’s just that we have no idea what could cause such damage, or what weapon could fire such a bullet.” He squinted his eyes, then scribbled more notes in his book.

  There was a knock on the door, and Susan entered the room. Her eyebrows shot up, and mouth contorted into a horror smile, revealing her bottom teeth. “My God Jason, are you okay? You look...well, you look awful,” she said, as she grasped her mouth with her right hand, walking through the door. He groaned, and then laughed. “What happened? William phoned me when he found the paperwork in your car.... Who did this to you?” She looked at William for an answer.

  “Ahhh, Susan!” William’s face lit up. “I was looking for you.” Jason watched as she went to stand next to William, placing one hand on his shoulder. She smiled brightly—they both seemed more at ease with the other present.

  “We don’t know who did it, they were after something...we were just discussing it. The weirdest things have been happening....”

  “Hi Susan.” Olivia greeted her partner’s wife with a warm smile.

  “Hello Olivia! I hope you and William”—she poked William in the side—“have been giving Jason some room to breathe? I know how you lot get when you want answers.” She smiled back at the pretty cop.

  “Oh, we have not given him a hard time...yet!” he said jokingly, giving her a seated hug. “I am glad to see you, too. I need you to look at something down at the station when we are done here, okay?” He chuckled softly and she beamed.

  “Sure! Well, any leads yet?” she asked, looking around the room.

  “We found a car under the trailer. It was empty and everything was wiped clean—whoever was driving the car vanished into thin air. If we could only figure out why they were after him...” he said, straightening up in his chair.

  “Someone needs to check on my house, to make sure that the prototype is still there,” Jason said. “That might tell us something. If I can get home, I will be able to tell you if anything is missing. I feel perfectly fine, apart for sore muscles.”

  “That will be up to your doctor to decide. Will it help if we send someone over to inventory the office?” Olivia asked.

  “Yes, definitely. I know what’s in there and will be able to tell if anything has gone missing.” Jason gave a big yawn, a sharp pain ran from just behind his left eye all the way to the back of his head, where it exploded into fragments of pain criss-crossing his brain sending his face into a contortion of wrinkles, he groaned, holding his head.

  “Are you okay?” Susan asked, concern written all over her face.

  “I’m fine—a bit bruised and sore all over, but a massive headache is coming back,” he said, rubbing his temples while closing his eyes for a moment.

  “Well, then I will go to your office and start on the inventory. Nice seeing you again, Susan,” Olivia said as she made her way towards the door. When she pulled the door open, it was to find the doctor, whose hand was raised to turn the knob. He was of Asian descent, and short, with a round face. For a moment, Jason thought he was just a child. The doctor and Olivia both chuckled at the awkward moment—then he caught the door and held it open for her. She gave him a dazzling smile and began to dial the officer on duty. She waved through the window at Susan and William as she passed out of sight.

  The doctor came over to the bottom end of the bed and loo
ked at the charts. Everyone watched him in silence.

  “My name is Anthony Chen, how are you feeling Mister Bancroft?” he smiled, looking each one in the eyes and finally settled on Jason.

  “Hello Doctor… I am okay given the circumstances but a headache is returning” Jason acknowledge.

  “We want to keep you here for the night, as you have a mild concussion. It’s just a precaution, nothing to be worried about,” Doctor Chen said. His accent had mild traces of a native-Chinese speaker, but it was evident that he had been speaking English for quite some time. “You should be able to go home tomorrow, if you promise to stay in bed for another day, or maybe two. You need to take it slow.” He emphasized “take it slow”, lifting his eyebrows. When he smiled, the grin spread from ear to ear. Jason relaxed in the man’s uplifting demeanour and the good news.

  “That is fine. I feel tired in any case—the headache is getting worse,” Jason answered.

  “I will have the nurse bring you some medication to help you sleep and a pain killer for the headache. It is better to sleep these things off,” Doctor Chen explained. “The more rest you get, the better and the faster you will heal. How is your memory of last night?”

  Doctor Chen took a pen out of his pocket and held it to Jason’s chart.

  “I have blurry spots, but mostly I remember everything.”

  “That is great news. Loss of memory is a common occurrence in serious concussion cases, and so you can count yourself lucky that you weren’t hurt worse,” he said, scribbling on the charts. Then he looked up.

  “Well, I will leave you to rest, and will see you tomorrow. I will give you another five minutes with Sergeant Mathews, and then he will be out of here,” he said, giving William and Susan a look that brooked no argument.

  “Thank you Doctor, we will leave him be soon,” Susan said, pushing on William’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, doc, we will be out of his hair in a minute,” William answered, returning the doctor’s look. Chen grinned, then turned and left the room.