Brainrush 04 - Everlast 01: Everlast by Richard Bard Page B

FBOs—fixed base operators—at LAX during the timeframe immediately
following the kids’ abduction, three with US destinations, one in Brazil, two
in Europe, and one in Tokyo, and there was no way to isolate which flight the
kids had been on. It was a dead end, at least for now.
    In the meantime, he’d have to get medical help for Eloise.
She lay unconscious on the king-size bed. Doc sat beside her, swabbing her
forehead with a damp washcloth. The gash had stopped bleeding, but the skin
surrounding it was bruised and swollen.
    “She should be in a hospital,” Doc said.
    “No hospital will check her in without ID, and we can’t drop
her off as a Jane Doe because her fingerprints are in the system since she
works with you at Area 52. They’d know her identity in less than an hour and she’d
be dead before the day was out.”
    Doc caressed her hair. “She’s been unconscious for too long,
Jake.”
    “I know. There’s an emergency clinic just down the street.
I’ll bring—”
    He stopped when he saw Eloise’s eyelids flutter open. Her
brow creased and her gaze darted this way and that as she tried to push through
the fog. She attempted to lift her head from the pillow, but sank back with a
pained expression.
    “You’re going to be all right,” Jake said, sitting beside
her and taking her hand. “You took a bad lump to the head during the crash.”
    “C-crash.” Her voice was barely audible.
    Jake had been in her position more often than he’d like to
remember—waking in a strange place in a blanket of mental fog, with pain
racking his body—and he knew that the single most important thing in such
circumstances was to have a clear understanding of what the hell had happened.
He leaned closer. “You followed Doc to the VA hospital. Warned us. There were
men waiting in the parking lot but we got away.” He paused as her brain sorted
itself out.
    She blinked several times. “Car chase?” she asked.
    “That’s right. Then the crash.”
    Her eyes widened.
    “It’s okay, we’re safe here,” he said.
    Her grip tightened around his hand. “Your f-family?”
    “They were taken,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know
where.”
    Eloise pursed her lips and concern flashed on her face. The
emotion took a toll and Jake sensed she was about to pass out again. He patted
her hand and projected a calmness he hoped would help her. But instead of
relaxing, her expression intensified. She grabbed his shirt, pulled him close,
and whispered, “Everlast.” Then her eyes rolled back and she was unconscious
once again.
    Doc’s expression tightened and the two men exchanged a
worried glance.
    Jake’s mind worked quick time as he recalled the name of the
company Doc had approached him about last year.
    “It can’t be,” Doc said. “I know the founder, Frederik de Vries.
He’s a brilliant and generous man, and the work he’s dedicated himself to has
been instrumental in helping us in our own projects. Some of the top thinkers
of the world scientific community have rallied in support of his cause. I can’t
believe that de Vries would ever resort to—”
    “Stop,” Jake said, glad to finally have a target on which to
focus his anger. “I’ve heard it all before, Doc. Another fanatic with a noble
cause.” He indexed data from his memories, thinking out loud as the pieces
started to fall into place. “Think about it. Everlast claimed to be on the
verge of a major breakthrough on a project intended to create human avatars,
all of which hinges on their ability to transfer a person’s consciousness to a
nonbiological carrier. They want to transfer the contents of a person’s brain
to a computer, and then to a cybernetic robot. They call it the path to the
next evolution of humanity. I call it lunacy because the world isn’t ready for
it.”
    He considered how close the human race had been to self-imposed
extinction less than two years before. Sure, he’d sparked it, but it was
mankind’s inherently