Familiar
Faces
Terry
Banker
Chapter 1
September 2025
Labor Day
5:30 a.m.
With eyes closed and the sweet smell of
fresh kukui hanging from the trees, Janeace DePelenger took another step into
the thick carpet of Lanaí pine needles covering the forest floor. The beauty of
the Hawaiian forest was lost to the predawn darkness and the sounds of morning,
even the sounds of her own footsteps, became absorbed in a timeless tunnel of
emptiness and commitment. They had parked the Jeeps a hundred feet from the main
entrance and ten yards into the brush, so none of the residents of the Bekelsky
Biomedical Research Facility would see or hear them trespass up the wooded
path. With luck, they would still be sleeping or sipping their morning coffee
as she had her revenge. If she succeeded in kidnapping the boy, Janeace
believed her nightmares would never return.
Janeace
awkwardly reached down to her belt and felt for her weapon, a previously owned
Colt Lightweight Commander with its gunmetal-gray appearance blending well with
the shadows of early morning. This was only the second time she had ever used
it, and as the Colt hung to her side, she fumbled with the snap on the holster
with her thumb and without looking at it, awkwardly removed the weapon feeling
the smooth metal surface against its rough stippled grip. Carrying two extra
clips on her belt and another in a small backpack, she hoped she wouldn’t have
to use them. The Colt intimidated her, and carrying it intensified her feelings
of inadequacy and aversion to confrontation. Feeling the muscles in her face
and neck tighten, she rotated her head around in attempt to relax.
This
was a plan of last resort, a final plea, a death sentence, and she was a prayer
not a player. She was Alice in a Hawaiian Wonderland filled with adrenaline and
anger having spent the last twenty years frightened of strangers and dark
places. Not understanding where the years had gone or why, this was the only
way out of the rabbit hole. Janeace took a breath and nodded for her small renegade
posse of six to follow.
As
they traversed the path to the research facility, Janeace saw something move
out of the corner of her eye. It was subtle, just a simple flash of movement
and had it been any other day, she would have dismissed it as vines twisting in
the breeze. Not today. She stopped silently and directed her eyes beyond the
trail past the first row of trees and into the shadows of the bush. Squinting
through the predawn light, she held her breath slightly and felt her heart
pound in her temples. There! Another flash of movement! She directed the
trembling Colt toward the motion as a hand reached from behind her and lightly
touched her shoulder. She jerked as she spun around.
Turning, she saw one of her men with
his forefinger to his lips forming a silent shhhhh without exhaling. He pointed back to the forest where
five small axis deer no bigger than greyhounds and just as fast emerged from
the trees, crossed the trail, and darted into the opposing woods.
The sudden fear left her body as she
exhaled through flared nostrils, and she resumed her mission to find the boy.
Crossing through the trees behind the complex, she again found herself on edge
waiting for something to happen, for anything to go wrong. What was she doing? She was the wrong person for the job! Although
these men had tormented her life, did it justify their death? A wave of nausea
burst into her stomach like a bleeding ulcer. Did it justify their murder? For
whatever their reasons, they were wrong. While she didn’t want to kill anyone,
she would if she had to. Certainly the mercenaries at her side harbored no
reserve as they worked for money plain and simple. Recently, nothing was black
and white anymore. When she was young, 20 or 21 or even two or three, life
brought her pleasure on a silver platter—what was that? She hesitated with
ears perked then continued—and there had been enough pleasure for everyone.
That was over twenty years ago before her life had changed so tragically. At
least she wasn’t crazy, as she had feared. Right?
What was she supposed to think? She’d go to sleep one night and the next day
wake up in a hospital bed. It didn’t matter if it was Maui or Honolulu or even
Lanaí City. Now she understood it wasn’t her imagination or the drugs. It wasn’t, right? Sometimes things
weren’t so clear. Knowing what she had to do now, she continued towards the
complex with her reinforcements close.
Janeace stopped and closed her eyes
to calm the voices in her head; for things to become clear again, she had to
remember why she was there. She placed her hand on her bellybutton as if to
steady her still quivering stomach. There was a flash in her head. Distorted
waves of reds and blacks and the citrus smell of oranges and lemons made her
stomach churn. God damn them! They had taken her freedom and stolen her future!
She felt for the scars on her abdomen and gently traced the outline of the
triangle with her finger from her bikini line to her bellybutton and back
again. In exchange for stealing both her desire and ability to start a family,
she was there to punish them and would do so by kidnapping the women and the
boy. She took a breath and her mind cleared, and she lowered her body into a
kneeling position just outside the perimeter. Her posse followed her lead.
“There.” She whispered as her voice
cracked slightly. It was too late to turn back, twenty years too late. “Those
are the two we want.”
She
pointed at Dr. Zelda “Bugs” Shelley and her mother Victoria. There were two men
with them. One man was perhaps the same age as Dr. Shelley, 24, 25-ish, rather
skinny, and had the narrow eyes and wiry appearance of a Siamese cat. The other
man, who had to be in his early fifties, scanned the area like a cheetah with
chest out and eyes low. Why were they up so early? As she continued to
watch, the foursome gestured sporadically and then separated; Dr. Shelley and
the wiry Siamese headed toward the east edge of the woods while Victoria and
her aging bodyguard went in the direction of the main house.
“Let’s split up, but be careful with
them,” and she pointed towards Dr. Bugs Shelley. “I’ll look for the boy in the
lab.” Her accomplice followed.
As the command left her tongue,
there was a brief nod from the heads of her companions and they were gone. Two
men went one way and three went the other in pursuit of their targets.
Janeace
DePelenger removed a matching camouflage mesh hood from her pocket, shook her
mussy strawberry blonde hair from out of her face like a runway model, and
placed the hood over her head careful to hide the long strands. At 42 and
twenty years beyond frailty and virtue, each premature wrinkle of her brow and
every line in her face furrowed deep in daily corrosion of regret. Hopelessness
of the irrational had long since replaced the innocence of each new day. Her nightmares
so real and her mistakes so irreversible, they had made her cry a thousand
tears on more than a hundred nights.
Janeace knew where to begin, and she
took a second deep breath, exhaling through her nostrils, her heart pounding.
They moved toward the lab until reaching the door.
Half expecting it to be locked, she
chanted the alarm code to herself and gave the knob half a turn standing
back in faint surprise as it opened. As if returning to an alien spacecraft,
Janeace stood there unable to control her body. The door swung wide until
finally striking the wall sending a cavernous boom…boom…boom echoing off its
chamber walls. Although dark and hollow, she closed her eyes and willed her
foot to take a step. With the confidence of falling into an abyss, Janeace took
her first step into the darkness toward her freedom.
“Now what?”
“What?” Thrown from her imagination,
Janeace opened her eyes.
“Now where do we go? Do you know?”
Her accomplice repeated.
With both feet in the room, she was
still standing and not falling as she had fantasized, and she took another
small step that graduated into larger steps at a faster rate. Her pulse sped
and she could feel her blood surge through her veins. With confidence swelling,
her feet moved easier now that she was confronting her demons and not condemned
to her imagination. There were no gargoyles defending the entrance.
“This
way.”
While their rubber heeled boots made
no sound on the polished, concrete floors, she imagined her memories of dress
shoes and footsteps coming toward her or walking away with their bump-click
bump-click heel-toe bump-click. It was the sound of perpetual thieves in the
night making windows squeak and floors creak. It was the sound of the wind
finding a new tune blowing over the rafters in the early morning hours. It was
the sound of her noisy heart beating much louder than anything they would ever
encounter.
The
windowless, metal door suggested nothing and aroused no suspicion; it offered
neither sign nor sound of what was behind it. Janeace knew almost instinctively
what awaited behind. As she approached the door, she hesitated hand
outstretched and smiling before trying the doorknob; it was as if she was
committed to the scheme. If she stayed out, they might not punish her for her
crimes against them; going in meant consequences. Her smile faded
quickly as her hand resisted momentarily and then grabbed the knob refusing to
let go. Turning the handle, she went inside.
Inside,
little light revealed her form to its inhabitants. Seeing the unfamiliar face,
the chimpanzees responded quickly by yipping and rattling their cages if they
were able. Some were bandaged, others had wires attached to their heads and
rested quietly on their cage floors. Even several appeared to be normal. As her
partner watched, Janeace walked to the central power switch and holstered the
Colt. Removing her backpack, she removed a pair of bolt cutters and clipped the
lock, which bounced to the polished concrete floor leaving a hollow echo to
ricochet off the dark walls. As the door swung open, she reached in and
switched the power off to the cage doors allowing the latches to click open in
unison. The chimps were free—if being genetically altered and then released
could be considered free. With the animals loose in a chaotic distraction, they
should be able to get to their primary target: the boy. Janeace put the gear
back in her bag, removed the Colt, and swung the backpack over her shoulder as
she resumed walking the long corridor to the good doctor’s office. As she
walked, she continued to check the few other offices she passed with a quick
glance or by jiggling their steel doorknobs.
Finally
arriving at the door to Dr. Lance DeLane’s office, Janeace stopped. This was
the door to hell—the corridor to the Pit of Milu, as Lanaí ghosts might
describe. It was the pit of all existence where it was so cold, breathing
caused the expanding lungs to crack, and she touched her chest without
thinking. She reached for the knob, hesitated, and then turned to face her
partner who tensed as each contraction of his breath made his cheeks puff and
stomach tighten. Looking into his eyes, she slowly raised the shiny Colt past
his face and up to the opposing corner of the office where a video camera
pointed toward the door. She pulled the trigger three times making sure to
eliminate any future transmissions. And if they had even a small chance of
surprise, they didn’t now. She turned to the door and gave the command.
“Kick
it in.”
There
was a loud, crushing boom as her partner sent the door crashing inward forcing
the knob to lodge into the wall of the wooden-framed office. Janeace entered
first, her Lightweight Commander leading the way, fixated on the two occupants.
“Remember
me?” was all that could be forced from her wavering lips as her breath was
tight and her arm tensed.
Expressionless, the two men stood there as if waiting on her
inevitable arrival: one presumably the namesake of the office plate, Dr. Lance
DeLane, and the other, a familiar face of memorable yet unremarkable features.
He was a thin, blond man with a chiseled chin and hollow smile. She remembered
him with and without the goatee, and the scar over his left eye seemed a recent
addition.
“Where’s
the boy?”
There
was no answer.
“Where’s
the boy?” She screamed.
No
answer.
Without hesitation, Janeace fired the Colt toward Dr. DeLane
sending a smoldering slug thumping into his shoulder. Blood splattered onto the
wall as the bullet exited and the doctor crashed to the floor.
“Now
where’s the boy?” She repeated in final warning feeling
confident with the smooth kick of the Colt in her hand. The smoke from the
barrel reminded her of holiday fireworks.
“Down
there,” and the blond man pointed casually to the trapdoor in the floor as
DeLane slumped next to the wall.
As
Janeace adjusted her gaze to floor to examine the puzzle, the informer smashed
through the first-floor window sending glass throughout the office and the
grounds.
“Kill
him! I’ll get the boy!” She pushed her accomplice toward the window as she
focused on the floor. It was a trapdoor, a portal, an opening to another world
she was hoping to avoid. Unsure if she had ever seen the inside, she dreaded
whatever hideous, genetic disaster could possibly be hidden—or buried in
the subflooring, and she carefully placed her hand on its door and listened.
For
a moment, there was silence. It was a silence filled with echoes of breaking
glass and gunshots, of old times and abandoned memories of molested youth.
Then, there was nothing—only a silence in her head pierced by the intonation of
the b-flat humming through the phosphorescent tubes of the overhead lights. The
b-flat was a solitary note and one she had listened to many times.
“Brit?”
She hollered toward the floor.
“Hello?”
Came a soft reply muffled by layers of floor.
“Brit?”
She spoke louder again directing her voice to the floor. “Hello?”
“Hello?” Almost an echo.
“Brit! Back away from the door!” She
removed her backpack and dug her hand inside. “Get away from the opening,” she
hollered, “okay? I’m going to get you out of there, okay?”
“Ok-ay,” a shaky response floated to the surface.
“Put your hands over your ears,
Brit.”
Janeace slammed the explosive
composite on the top of the portal and dashed outside of the office as the
explosion ripped through the floor sending smoke barreling through the
previously broken window. Running back in, she saw the edges of the hole still
on fire and ran to the opening patting the fire on its lip with her gloved
hands and quickly descending into the hole.
Black
smoke hung in the antechamber causing Janeace to sneeze while questioning the
physics of the heavy, metal ladder and the distance to the next rung. She
covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve as her toe stretched awkwardly
toward the next rung. Even if she had been in the chamber before, she had no
memory—or perhaps she had entered it through another entrance. Despite her
limited memory, she carefully reached downward with her toe seeking out either
the next rung or solid ground. The embers, still somewhat glowing, provided
some illumination in the predawn hour, and she was able to find her footing
without falling.
“Brit?” She could see nothing beyond
the immediate spill of light near the opening. “Brit? Where are you?” Then with
an overwhelming guilt that she had just killed the object she intended to
possess, she dropped to the ground and searched for the boy on her hands and
knees.
“Brit?” She grabbed what seemed like
a shoe. No, it was softer. A sock? She felt around and fortunately, the whole
boy was attached. “Brit, are you alright?”
He said nothing.
She picked the small boy up and
placed him over her shoulder making the best of his soggy body to tow up the
ladder. Each step, each rung an equal distance to the last, her confidence was
restored in the ladder, and she exited the rabbit hole and emerged into the
office. DeLane was still pressed in the corner, inanimate and bleeding on the
floor.
Janeace looked out the broken window
and then gave DeLane a look of disgust. “You deserve this, you piece of shit.
This and more.” She reached into her backpack and removed something and slammed
it down on the desktop.
As
sun began to rise over neighboring Mount Haleakala, Janeace adjusted her grip
on the boy and slipped through the window.
* * *