Kiss of the Mamba by Stefan Wit
Meet JD17 – a live human brain floating in plasma, being couriered in a titanium carry case from Sao Paulo to Sacramento by Sharon Reid, a young British neurologist with plenty of attitude. But who is JD17? Who is willing to pay a king’s ransom to have his unique set of memories and cognitive skills uploaded into a own biological memory bank? And what if the remarkable abilities of JD17 get into the wrong hands – or worse, the wrong heads?
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And now…an excerpt From Our Thriller of the Week, Kiss of the Mamba by Stefan Wit …
PROLOGUE
Nothing he’d experienced before could prepare him for the next two minutes, and relying solely on his survival instincts wasn’t going to cut it either. He knew this deep, deep down where it hurt just to think. No apparent logic or clear understanding of his current state of affairs existed. His only sense a faint vibration, a sort of whirring sound embedded deep behind his left frontal lobe.
Where the hell was he? He couldn’t even remember his name! What was it they’d called him? Joe? Mo? Doe…?
Doe! Yes! That was it! John Doe. That much he believed he knew, although nothing else made much sense to him.
He tried desperately to recall his anti-panic mantra, one that he could usually rely on in tough situations like this, when he was balls-to-the-wall somewhere between life and death. He was an old hand at survival, wasn’t he? After all, he was still alive, which must count for something.
He began chanting. It’s OK. Stay calm, slow down. Relax. Accept your current situation. The first rule of survival – don’t panic, keep a clear head. Don’t think. Just breathe, slowly, three times, long and deep. Concentrate on your heartbeat as you inhale – that’s it, one, one, ONE! What the fu..! Breathe! BREEAATHE DAMMIT! Nothing happened. No sensation of air passing through his airways, no rising and falling, no wind of life.
He panicked.
Then something even more chilling started to creep into his consciousness. Inner silence. Where was the relentless beating of his constant vulnerability — his heart? Surely there’s gotta be a heart. But the thudding sound he expected to feel in his pulse and hear in his ears, the engine of his life-giving blood; no sense of it, not even the faintest murmur could he detect.
A physical stillness encased him.
His mind raced ahead in a terrifying realization that he could not actually feel himself breathing or his heart pumping. But somehow they HAD to be; surely he wouldn’t be having this moment if he weren’t alive. And to live in the sense that he intuitively understood, is knowing with certainty that his brain had to have oxygen, and it had to be pumped there by his god-given heart. Biology 101 for Chrissake!
Unless…
He knew then, instinctively, that his existence was on a parallel not previously experienced or understood. So he could think but he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t feel his heart beating. Hell, he couldn’t actually feel anything come to think of it. There was no physical zone as he understood it. No sense of being in the tangible. He tried to extend his awareness to his hands and fingers; to touch and feel his surroundings – his body; to move or flex – basic human reactions. He couldn’t. Nothing. No motor connections seemed to be linked up. His only sensation one of floating, it seemed; somehow propelled by a dizzying oscillation.
He knew his sight was undamaged. He could see himself clearly – his nose – his sardonic mouth – deep steel-gray eyes; nothing wrong there… but… if he could he see himself, then…?
He reflected on that fallacy only for a split second. Fleetingly, thoughts manifested themselves in pure Technicolor. Vivid images of events, people, places and weird spirals of binary code bounced within his field of vision.
Binary numbers! Where the fuck did they come from?
Maybe he was dreaming. The experience was unreal, surreal. He didn’t know. But at least he was conscious of this much, or so he thought. As his wrought-up mind tried to fathom the reality of his situation, the images and sounds he was experiencing within his embattled psyche escalated within his narrow spectrum of existence. A dizzying dance of binary code, bright colors and elusive memories threatened to engulf his already precarious mental grasp. There was no escaping the onslaught. And then out of left field a phrase suddenly popped into his head. He had no inkling of its source or meaning:
‘JD17 PRE-SCAN COMPLETED – TRANSFER INITIATED’
Before he fully comprehended the meaning or significance of the words he had just seen in his mind’s eye, and strangely enough, heard as clearly as if someone had spoken them directly to him from close quarters, his head exploded. Well not literally, but how else could you describe the sensation of your mind expanding at the speed of light, of a molecular coming apart at the seams?
This is not your average nightmare.
Chapter 1
Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Solomon Lord jumped down from the top tier of the podium and picked up his magnum of champagne. With his thumb covering the opened end of the bottle, he immediately started shaking it vigorously in an attempt to create the biggest bubbly shower for his competition and fans that he could muster. After all, he damn well deserved the title and all the prestige that went with it, including painting his peers with champagne in the process.
They were in Sao Paulo and he’d just been crowned king of the Formula One racing fraternity for the eighth time. The Yanks had done it again and they said it could never be repeated, let alone beaten. The record for the coveted title, which just happened to be the richest and most prestigious sport on the planet, had not been equalled since Schumy’s reign ended back in ’05.
‘Nice job, Sol!’ jibed Dave enthusiastically from his number two spot on Lord’s left. ‘I guess that’s it then, early retirement for the 8th wonder of the world?’
Dave Reid, a cheeky looking British driver with boyish good looks and the team’s number two behind Lord, had lost first place by a scant three hundredths of a second, in what turned out to be the last and most exciting race of the season. Reid and Lord were buddies with a healthy competitive bond and had been racing each other for the past four seasons. Reid seemed to shadow Lord throughout the racing year, and once or twice he actually took the win away from the golden boy, but by the end of the season the best man usually wins.
Lord’s season could be summed up using the same tacky headlines the media had been coining since his illustrious driving career took the sport by storm thirteen years prior; ‘SOL OUT-SHINES COMPETITION’ or ‘SOLOMON’S SWEET SONG’ or, his most despised, ‘LORD PERFORMS MIRACLES.’ That one actually made him shudder. He had little time for the hounds of Fleet Street. One thing he was acutely aware of was that life’s a beach when they love you and a bitch when they don’t; so humor them, buddy.
‘Wash your mouth out, old buddy,’ jeered Sol, as he turned to aim his bottle at Dave’s grinning face, ‘retirement’s for the old guys,’ he added, and then proceeded to drown him in a relentless jet of bubbly.
After the newsroom interview, Lord headed to his on-site 40ft luxury motor-home, which was his home away from hotel – away from yacht – away from home. He planned to shower and change before he met Sharon back at the hotel. He was forced to take the scenic route to avoid the media blitz that was threatening to consume him. After three interviews a guy has a right to himself and a little reflective measure to boot, mused Lord as he sang one of his favorite sixty’s shower accompaniments: ‘I’m a sooooul maaan, that’s whad I aaaam.’ He crooned to himself and to whoever else might be within earshot of his fancy wagon’s bathroom acoustics.
While enjoying the cleansing cascade, Lord’s thoughts turned to his long-standing lover and fiancé; Sharon Reid, who he’d met four years earlier in Rome, thanks to his racing partner Dave. He had just taken the Italian race win and was planning a relaxing day of discovery, by combining the historical sights of the city with a well earned break from the hectic demands of his profession.
They’d met over lunch at a small pizzeria near the Colosseum at the insistence of Dave who is Shaz’s half brother. Lord was a sucker for sexy Brit babes and their sassy attitudes, so it was no surprise that their initial reaction to each other had been spiced with suggestive innuendo, giving Lord a second high after his easy victory at Monza the previous day.
Sharon, or Shaz, as all her friends called her, was definitely hot in Lord’s opinion. At twenty-five, then three years his junior, she oozed a feminine aura that confounded his senses. Raven-haired in a cropped bang style and sensually equipped to a fault, Shaz was pure mischief personified. She had an uncanny physical likeness to the silver screen’s version of Cleopatra – a blue-eyed, fine-featured queen of all she surveyed. He could quite imagine her taking to bathing in warm lamb’s milk, where she would probably languish for hours, while having every whim tended to by a bevy of personal slaves.
Sol wanted her bad. He was imagining himself slowly rolling her visibly erect nipples between thumb and forefinger through the green stretch material of her tank-top when he was rudely interrupted… ‘What was that?’ He chuckled disarmingly. ‘Yeah, guess I was miles away Dave. Wine sounds good. We are celebrating here, and finally meeting your lovely half-sister is a worthy cause, I’m sure.’ Lord gave them both a silly grin.
‘Save your lusting for the great food they have here, Sol,’ Dave kidded. ‘The pizzas are gourmet masterpieces. It was painfully obvious that you were fixated on your preferred choice of live game-‘
‘David! Give us a break from your sordid mind,’ Sharon interrupted, reddening at the thought of Sol’s illicit attentions. ‘That one track mind of yours is going to get you kicked under the table post-haste,’ she added playfully.
They had all laughed just as the pimply young Italian waiter stopped at their table, not sure why he had suddenly become the butt of their joke. His earlier self-awareness at sporting a fresh purple-headed neck boil was cruelly resurrected.
Back at the track and remembering that first day with a warm glow in his core, Sol rinsed the shampoo from his hair, grabbed a fresh towel and stepped out into the compact dressing cubicle of his motor-home. He lamented the fact that this was probably the last time he would be basking in the glory of being the best of the best, at least in this stage of his life. All good things must end, he pondered philosophically, pulling on a plain white tee-shirt, khaki chinos and docksides.
His mind wandered back to the pizzeria in Rome. They’d been waiting for Dave to return from the men’s room and the beautiful Shaz was staring seductively at him from over a glass of red wine. She put her glass down carefully before she spoke. Her voice sounded to him like the soft strumming of a harp. He was mesmerized. ‘You must spend a lot time away from home Sol. What do you usually do for entertainment, when in foreign lands that is?’ She was smiling at him with the most alluring pair of pouty pink lips he could ever recall seeing. Her eyes were the color of tanzanite.
Lord had inadvertently smirked at the question, especially since it was a well known fact that the media had recently been labelling him a womanizer and a philanderer for no apparent reason. Jealousy, he guessed. Fixing her with his hallmarked steely-eyed stare, he proceeded to give her the benefit of his racy wit and charm. ‘Apparently it’s not what I do that’s important, Shaz. According to the media, it’s who I do!’
Sharon wasn’t expecting that. In an attempt to control her shocked reaction she almost choked on her wine.
‘Just kidding,’ Lord chided, ‘but you have to admit you asked for it. You know a lady should never question a gentleman’s nocturnal wanderings.’
Sharon immediately blushed and was lost for words. This was so unlike her that she found it momentarily troubling, so she smiled coyly instead to cover her embarrassment, quickly changing the subject. ‘How’d you like the pizza?’ she asked, staring into her glass.
Lord seemed to be contemplating a thoughtful response, but then he winked at her in mock insolence. ‘Shazalicious!’ He said through grinning teeth.
They’d laughed easily at his silly quip and had met again the next day and every day for the rest of the week Lord had earmarked for Romeing around the city. It was much more satisfying sharing the experience of discovering the delights of Rome with a beautiful and intelligent creature such as Sharon, even though it came at the expense of being ensconced in a threesome most of the time.
Dave was sensitive enough to realize that his presence was not always required to round off the group. He had a ready excuse for an early night after an evening together where the fun-loving threesome would eat up the sounds, smells and sights of one of the world’s most exciting cities, not to mention the Italian gourmet experience. Rome was to Lord pure magic, embellished by his fortunate meeting of the beautiful Sharon Reid. He was madly in love with her after just six days together. You could say that Solomon and Sharon were perfectly matched; they enjoyed good company, loved life to the full and participated in the top tier of their chosen professions. He an elite Formula One racing driver and she, an intern at California’s most sought after biotechnological organization, that illustrious seat of bioscience and neurological discovery: JC Labs Incorporated.
Sharon grew up in Kent, England, and after a brilliant spell at the University of Canterbury she was awarded a much-coveted scholarship to California to round off her chosen career in Biotechnology. She had been championed by Jim DeSantos, the head of JC Lab’s new Neuroscience Research Department, after proving her worth at Sacramento Medic-tech and graduating with a three point nine eight average. The missing point zero two, she said, was her way of proving to herself that she was human.
After two years of banal lab research work and with her gestation period at JC Labs behind her, Sharon had felt born again after being welcomed into the inner sanctum of the Department’s top secret project, code-named InSight. Word had it that InSight was first launched after a botched-up brainwave mapping experiment involving memory recall. Surprising results had led to the discovery and launch of the Human Memory Transfer (HMT) Division. InSight had since blossomed into a full-scale operation within JC Labs, with its own team of lab technicians, neuroscience gurus and office junkies. Recently fronted by its own entrance off the expansive company parking lot, the new HMT division was now poised to corner the highly prized memory transfer market, which was still in its infancy. Sharon had been offered the esteemed position of DeSantos’ PA on the top-secret project, unfortunately, to the chagrin of most of her lab-rat peers.
Back in the passion wagon, Lord checked himself in the full-length mirror before gathering up his wallet and PDA, and heading for the trailer’s exit door.
‘Things are starting to get interesting,’ he said aloud to his lanky six foot three refection, and after throwing a cavalier hand through his unruly mop of thick sandy hair, he stepped down from the trailer and walked towards his rented Ferrari parked round the back. He was looking forward to seeing his Shazzie, well aware that she hated hanging around for all the track-side interviews that invariably followed a Formula One race, especially one as auspicious as this. She had been at the finish to shower him with her customary hug and visor-blurring kisses. It had been an extremely thrilling finish to his racing career.
They were planning to set the wedding date that evening, and he was thinking that this was a timely event. She’d been at him to commit for over a year now, but he wanted to put his dangerous career behind him before he became a husband and possibly a father in the not too distant future.
Lord had achieved everything he’d ever dreamed of; fame, fortune, good friends, and the prospect of making the most beautiful woman in the world his bride. He loved his English rose to a fault, and planned to make a family with her, where they could enjoy the fruits of the good life together. He just wanted to make her happy.
Hopping nimbly over the low slung door of his rented red Ferrari, Lord plopped straight down into the black leather hand-sewn seat. He cranked the powerful twelve cylinder engine into life, simultaneously hitting the gas hard and smoking a swaggering rubber trail straight down the narrow entrance without so much as a sideways glance, as if nothing could possibly ever go wrong in Solomon Lord’s future.
Chapter 2
The next thought that ripped through the mind of John Doe was not a memory he’d ever wished to relive. In fact, he hadn’t realized that he still retained the incident as clearly as he did until that moment.
He was four years old standing on the dock holding onto the arm of his mother’s deck chair. His brother Petey had just learned to swim. He was heading out again from the relative safety of the edge to prove that it was no fluke that he’d managed to stay afloat without the buoy he’d been clasping to his skinny chest. He could see Petey clearly push away from the dock and flounder out within six feet of safety. He sort of spiralled away, his arms and legs flailing up a small whirlpool of eddies. The clarity was astounding as he tried to grasp the fact that it was not actually happening at that exact moment. He was reliving the terror and elation of his older brother’s experience vicariously, and his own sense of exhilaration simultaneously.
‘Use both arms, Petey, that way you will go in a straight line!’ His mother was gripping the arms of her chair as she leaned forward eagerly; giving Petey all the parental guidance and motherly support any six year old taking his first serious dip was entitled to.
‘You’re swimming, Petey!’ she encouraged. ‘That’s it! Keep going, keep kicking!’ One hand left her chair and moved quickly upwards, coming to rest at the point on her brow that best screened the sun’s glare off the lake. He held in sway the simple act of his mother doing her best to see his brother through the glimmering dazzle of a lakeside sunset. Petey turned to port, all his focus spent on acknowledging his mother’s attentions. This was the part he didn’t want to relive, that he had nothing to do with it and that it was all part of some other life. It was never mentioned again while he was growing up, so his self-delusion was easy. But reliving it he was, and there was nothing he could do about it.
‘Where’s your father when it counts, Petey? His mother said, ‘he should be back by now.’ Her chair rocked precariously as she spun round to check the driveway and to decide whether it was worth yelling out her husband’s name.
He knew now that letting go the arm of her chair was an act of self-preservation, an instinctive reaction to some malevolent power trying to force one to go where one probably shouldn’t.
He couldn’t swim and mom was going in. As her chair pirouetted on one leg and tipped toward the edge of the dock, she compensated with a lurch backwards. He heard the crack again. After thirty-two years you would not expect the sound to be so real.
‘SHIT! NO! NOT NOW…! AAAARRRGGH!’ With both hands gripping her dislocated neck mom went off the edge of the deck with the chair in tow. Her face stared back at him fixated with fear and her mask of terror as scary a sight as he had ever seen.
As she hit the water Petey yelled once ‘MOM!’ Then he bobbed about turning towards her, his debut attempt at doing the doggie paddle entirely forgotten in his futile attempt to return to the scene and save mother. ‘HELP, BLUURRLP, HELLLLP!’ gurgled Petey as he oscillated between float and sink.
He understood help. It was in his mind but not in his small, pudgy excuse for a human body. He looked down for guidance from mother but she’d left a book and her shoe floating on the water while she went down to fetch her other stuff. Petey must have gone to help her because ripples and a whole lot of bubbles remained at the spot where he last saw him. He sat down and waited patiently for them to come up, staring out across the deeply reflective smoothness of Looking-glass Lake.
Although Doe’s memory now was from the standpoint of a four year old, his adult understanding of the graveness of his witness remained intact. Why this particular horrifying experience was replayed to him in stark reality failed to impact his reasoning. That’s when he realized that his life was just beginning. He was ensconced in some sort of replay mode. Time seemed to move in circles, as if the past and the present existed simultaneously. The next regurgitation of his remarkable life began immediately. He knew to accept, to relax and let it run. There was just no other option open to him.
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