Fight Or Flight (Adrenaline Rush Book 1) Read online

  Fight or Flight

  Adrenaline Rush Book One

  Lawrence M. Schoen

  Brian Thorne

  Copyright © 2019 by Lawrence M. Schoen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by Ryan Schwarz.

  Book design by Lawrence M. Schoen.

  Lawrence M. Schoen's Author photo by Nathan Lilly.

  Brian Thorne's Author photo by Shenoa Herlinger.

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-951391-10-2

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-951391-11-9

  Vers. 200322

  To Michael and Craig,

  for inspiration and belief.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  To Be Continued

  Acknowledgments

  About Brian Thorne

  About Lawrence M. Schoen

  Also by Lawrence M. Schoen

  Chapter 1

  Ben “Coop” Cooper squinted through the cloud of sand and dirt, keeping his eyes on the target. This latest explosion, the third in as many minutes, had been uncomfortably close. The heat and the screaming were starting to get to him. Worse still, his right knee throbbed painfully. But none of that mattered. He’d stick it out as long as it took. He was a professional, and sometimes professionals suffered. He had to ‘embrace the suck’ as the grunts would say. He made a mantra of the phrase as the sound of automatic weapons fire opened up over his shoulder.

  Raising his head, Coop locked his gaze on the hulking form of the alien war machine. It shimmered in the desert heat, even as the flames erupting from its weapons further blurred its shape.

  The mechanical monstrosity lumbered forward on legs as big around as redwood trees. Its steps shook the earth and Cooper felt as much as heard them. The sounds of automatic weapons fire seemed as faint as wind chimes by comparison.

  He knew the moment was coming. From experience he had developed a feel for the critical moment, when battle was finally joined and heroes would be born.

  The command arrived in a shout that carried above the din.

  “CHARGE!”

  Cooper moved before the word was swallowed by the clamor of battle. He used the butt of his rifle for leverage, ignoring the flash of pain in his right knee. He surged forward. Sweat poured down his face and soaked his sides staining his green uniform. None of that mattered. The end of this mess lay in sight. His moment had arrived.

  Amidst the screaming and shouting, Coop surveyed the men around him. They were young, too young. They’d all waited for this climactic battle, tired and ready to put this nightmare behind them. He shared that feeling. As a veteran of jobs like this it was his responsibility to lead them to glory. Cooper knew how it had to go. He’d show them how things got done and how to embrace the suck.

  He glared at the menacing robot and with a snarl worthy of John Wayne, Cooper waved his young comrades on. Rifle in one hand, he windmilled his other arm as he yelled, “Come on you sons of bitches—”

  “Cut! Cut!” came the voice of the loudspeaker. “Ben Cooper, what the hell are you doing?”

  Heat suddenly rose in Coop’s face as embarrassment hit him and he stopped moving. Everyone stared at him. All the young actors, mostly Australian because apparently American actors couldn’t get roles in action movies anymore. Some of them smirked, and a few had the balls to look concerned for him. Beyond the actors, the rest of the team stirred, making preparations to reshoot the scene because they were professionals. Like Coop was supposed to be.

  “What the hell are you looking at?” he snarled at the nearest young pup as the extras turned their backs, desperate to put distance between themselves and the veteran actor. But he knew they weren’t the problem. And apparently so did Denny, the movie’s director, marching across the set right at him.

  Denny Goldfarb wasn’t much to look at, the kind of nondescript human being you’d pass on the street without a second glance. Unless of course you’d pissed him off by messing up his movie. When that happened, everything about him demanded attention, like a screaming fire engine hurtling through traffic. In this instance, Denny hurtled toward Ben Cooper. The director’s silk shirt had soaked through with sweat. He normally wore either a pith helmet or a jaunty beret, but he’d lost his helmet yesterday and forgotten the hat. His bald head had already turned red in the blazing heat of the Arizona desert where they were filming. He was anything but jaunty.

  Denny’s lips moved as his pasty, stumpy little legs pumped, carrying his designer sandal-clad feet forward faster than Cooper had ever seen the man move, churning up a cloud of dust. Coop couldn’t understand what Denny was muttering, but given the way the director’s arms flailed around like an angry muppet he knew it wasn’t a string of compliments. Coop took in a deep breath and straightened up as his old friend drew close. He sorted through his inventory of well-rehearsed smiles and selected a combination of sheepish and apologetic that had served him well in the past.

  “Look, Denny, I’m sorry,” Coop said, holding out his hands away from his body, palms outward, in what was a near universal bit of calming body language.

  Denny stopped well beyond arms’ reach and looked up at him through the ridiculous, orange plastic, convenience store sunglasses he’d insisted on wearing since they’ve arrived in Arizona.

  “Stop, Ben. Just fucking stop. Please. I don’t want to hear it.” Denny continued waving his arms around.

  That wasn’t the opening line Coop was hoping for, but he’d dealt with worse. He and Denny went way back. They’d shot Operation Golden Rain together. It was one of the best war movies ever produced and Coop knew that in the film industry loyalty mattered. He and Denny had history coming out of their ears, from the decades before he'd been blackballed and his career had gone from Oscar worthy to the shitcan overnight. Hell, Coop had died in four of the top grossing action films of all time. He was a star, once upon a time.

  Denny’s arms finally stopped. He looked… weary, and Coop was already imagining taking him out for a drink at the end of the day’s shooting, to help him relax. They had that kind of history. It’s what friends did.

  “Ben, you’re fired.”

  So much for history.

  Coop choked a little, letting the smile fall away. This couldn’t be happening. He’d improvised a little, so what. He’d done it a thousand times over the years. It was his method. Denny knew that.

  “Denny, you can’t be serious,” he began but the diminutive director started waving his hands again.

  “No, Ben. Just… no. I gave you this part because I knew you needed the work even when everyone said not to. I tried to help you. But this was big. You're an extra, not the lead. You don't have any lines. You're not starring in any scenes. Do you know how much this take cost to put together? Do you have any idea how much those simunitions cost? Shit! I don’t even want to think about it. The show runners are gonna be harping on my
ass all night.”

  Coop just stood there, too stunned to say anything back. His vision began to swim a little and the arthritis in his knee flared up making it hard to stand. He trusted his instincts, honed over decades of film work, and took on a look of despair, his body language screaming dejection. Denny looked at him sadly and for a moment Coop allowed himself to believe it had been enough, that the director had a change of heart. But it wasn’t to be.

  “Just go pack your stuff up, man. One of the assistants will make your plane reservations.” And then Denny turned his back and walked away, hollering for the crew to set up the shot again.

  Dr. Jessica Acorns cringed with horror at the results of her latest experiment. She had failed again, as she had each and every time before, albeit more spectacularly. The gelatinous mass sprawled on the examination table and filled her laboratory with a putrid odor — somewhere between an overcrowded locker room and a leper colony — had once been a healthy pig. She had x-rayed her porcine subject every hour, monitoring the virus’s effect on its skeletal structure. As the virus rewrote the pig’s biology, Dr. Acorns watched with growing helplessness and dread. The end result offered no comfort.

  Initially, there had been little change to the overall physical integrity of the Sus Domesticus. Its outward appearance had remained stable and the imagery had suggested its internal structure enjoyed a similar status. Heart rate and blood pressure had remained within the ranges expected for the animal, given that she was keeping it unconscious through the careful application of Fentanyl. This particular pig had been bred to possess the porcine equivalent of Parkinson’s disease. As recently as that morning it had been a fairly happy and placid animal. Six hours after her initial administration of the virus it had still not shown any signs of distress. At six hours and seven minutes, all that had changed.

  Her alien benefactors had provided the finest monitoring equipment available, guaranteeing that a breakthrough, no matter how small, would be detected, indexed, and documented. This latest viral strain had held such promise. Based on all the simulations, it should have gone to work on her subject’s substantia nigra, halting the loss of dopamine that produced the tremors. But… no.

  The first sign that the new strain hadn’t worked revealed itself as a slight darkening of the imagery detailing the shading of the pig’s skeleton. Dr. Acorns had almost missed it, her attention focused on readings coming from the pig’s brain rather than its bones. Still, there was no denying that something untoward was happening to the mammal’s bone density. Something that had nothing to do with its Parkinson’s. Something far removed from the miracle cure she’d expected.

  After twelve hours the subject’s ganglia remained unmodified, its disease untouched. Meanwhile, internal bleeding had begun and the pig’s breathing became labored. Tomographic imagery showed that segments of bone had begun to calve away from the larger skeletal mass. As the pig’s blood pressure dropped, there was little Dr. Acorns could do than watch and record each bizarre and brutal effect. She did have a syringe at hand, loaded with more than enough anesthetic to stop the pig’s heart and give it a merciful death in seconds. But… there was still a chance that the virus would correct itself and perform as the simulations predicted. And so she waited.

  Over the next few hours, it stopped being a pig. As its skeleton warped and twisted its flesh began to transform. Portions grew feathers, others became scaly. Most of it acquired weeping lesions and a few of these developed rudimentary eyes. Several times she had to take smelling salts just to keep herself from passing out at the monstrosity she had created.

  Now, a full twenty-four hours after the initial injection, the virus had reduced her subject to a heap of biological material that couldn’t even be recognized as the pig it had once been. Most horrific of all, it had somehow lived, its heart beating as powerfully as ever, well into the twenty-third hour. Long after its skeleton had been reduced to a slurry and its organs dissolved. Her benefactors might well see that as a success of some kind, but as far as Jessica Acorns was concerned it only compounded her failure.

  This one had been the worst. She didn’t understand how the simulations could promise so much and the actual experiment go so horribly wrong. The underlying concept still appeared sound. Her manipulations had taken the virus from its initial inert and harmless form and activated some aspect of it, just not along any of the vectors she’d foreseen. But she was running out of time.

  Dr. Jessica Acorns, the pride of her family, put her face in her hands and wept softly for the damage she’d done to an innocent lab animal and what it meant for the future. Maybe she’d be better off just giving up. She’d go over all the data the lab’s many devices had recorded, and doubtless she’d revisit her simulations, but maybe it was time to just admit that the task was hopeless. Sighing, she began cleaning up the liquified remains of the once-pig. When she had it all contained in an appropriately labeled bio-hazard drum she stripped off her mask, gloves, and clean suit and checked her tablet. A message from her employer awaited her attention.

  To: Dr. Jessica Acorns

  From: Scatola

  Dr. Acorns, as requested, I have located an appropriate subject for the next phase of your experiments. I am moving to procure it and intend to return to Titan as soon as possible. Please ensure you are ready to begin work upon our arrival.

  That was it. No ‘hello.’ No ‘best wishes.’ But she’d grown used to that. Her alien employer wasn’t the most socially adept creature in the universe. But he was wealthy and, more importantly, highly motivated in his support of her research. He’d welcomed her novel approach, instantly grasping the potential insights it offered to unlocking the origins of the alien virus his people had entrusted to his care. Jessica’s own goals were much more concrete. She saw the unlimited healing potential of the virus. But as she had explained, the live subjects she had been working on weren’t sufficient to the task. There were too many indications that the virus itself might be intelligent, that it responded to intentionality. That had to be why her simulations worked and her lab tests failed. She needed subjects that were… smarter.

  Dr. Acorns put her tablet down on the desk next to her and gazed back at the drum of bio-hazardous waste that had been a pig just a day before. It was the last time she’d experiment on one of the poor animals that didn't have even the slightest chance of meeting the virus's needs. And she didn’t have the luxury to put off the next phase of her research. She'd seen the inevitability of it months ago when she'd floated the idea of Scatola acquiring terminal patients to use as subjects, even as she'd begun rationalizing sacrificing her Hippocratic Oath in service to a greater good. She hadn't crossed the line yet, mainly because neither of the subjects he'd acquired were stable enough. But it was time. She’d take Scatola’s memo as a sign. Destiny beckoned. From now on, she’d continue her work the only way it could be expected to advance. She'd experiment on humans.

  Jessica exited the lab and paused to wash her hands in the office lavatory and reclaim her lab coat. She looked at the reflection staring back at her from the mirror over the sink. She was pretty but had never much cared about it. Her parents had never emphasized the value of appearances. Instead, from her father, a Methodist pastor, she’d learned to value kindness and respect. And her mother, a geologist had taught her to be curious about the world. She’d grown up smart, strong, and most of all compassionate for the world around her. Jessica loved her parents and knew they loved her. She moved to her desk and for possibly the hundredth time, reviewed the hand-written note that had arrived just weeks before. Unbidden tears formed as she read it again.

  Honey,

  I just wanted to tell you how much your mother and I miss you. But most of all, to say we’re proud of you. I know you can’t tell us what you’re doing, but knowing you, you’re probably saving the world. Just remember that no matter what you do or where you go, we all love you.

  — Daddy

  In that moment, Jessica Acorns hated herself more than she
ever thought possible.

  As Coop neared his trailer, the implant in his middle ear vibrated with the familiar pattern of his agent/manager phoning him. He clenched his jaw, which should have sent the call to voicemail, but Sylvia had marked it with the emergency flags usually reserved for police and fire fighters. He’d relied on her pushiness and tech savvy for years, but now it worked against him. The last thing he wanted was to talk to her. He steeled himself for the inevitable as his retina-display lit up and a corner of his vision filled with the face of the woman who had claimed fifteen percent of his earnings for the past several decades, both the golden years when he could do no wrong and the lean times when it was just residuals and bit parts in Czechoslovakian soaps.

  Offense sometimes being better than defense, he greeted her before she could tear into him. “Hello, Sylvia, my dear.” Coop kept his own video feed dark as he climbed into the disgusting trailer he shared with three other, much younger and less experienced actors. Bad enough he had to see it, subjecting his agent to the filth and squalor would only prolong the call.

  “Dear God, Ben. You got fired again?”

  Sylvia’s voice was shrill, far too shrill for Coop to handle without vodka. Fortunately, that could be remedied.

  “How did you hear about that already? What are you, some kind of witch?” he blurted out. Behind him the door slammed shut and Coop began to search for one of the liquor bottles he’d hidden from his Australian roomies. Sylvia ranted in his ear, saying nothing useful but doing so with urgency and maybe even real concern.