"If I could save time in a bottle."
Beside the sink, an Aiwa PX1000 Walkman was quietly running for its listener, the slender headphone cable clinging to the man's scapula.
"The first thing that I'd like to do…"
The titanium casing of the Aiwa looked even heavier after a few drops of tap water splashed across it—like a piece of reactive armor bolted to a Bradley, scorched black by white phosphorus rounds landing in the street corner.
How many pounds of equivalent force does one song carry? He glanced at the song title glowing on the Walkman's LCD screen—"Time in a Bottle"—and wondered.
It tried desperately to stitch together the scraps of free will he still possessed, while using carefully crafted melodies to churn the thing in his brain called the amygdala into chaos.
He'd heard about it on TED: that little amygdala was oddly pretty, shaped like an undercooked chicken meatball.
"Is to save every day 'til eternity passes away…"
But he wasn't listening to music for pleasure—of course not. The Walkman had been dug out of the clutter in this house's storage room; the headphone cable had been tangled around that same hollow metal box.
The truth was, he needed some regular sound—something rhythmic enough to drown out the intermittent artillery fire echoing inside his skull, and the sudden phantom impacts of bullets slamming into his body.
The sensation of being struck full-force by a steel baseball bat, legs buckling without warning, collapsing to the ground, nearly suffocating.
"Just to spend them with you."
After changing the dressing on his back, John Hastings pulled up his gray T-shirt. Apart from the already-healed scar under his ribs, he noticed something strange on the left side of his sternal midline.
"If I could make days last forever…"
John could see the blackened capillaries clustered there, darkening with every accelerated heartbeat, spreading across his pale skin in a patch the size of half a palm.
He didn't know what it meant. Perhaps the effects of the bioweapon were finally surfacing, taking root deep inside his shell.
"If words could make wishes come true…"
Maybe his heart had already stopped the moment he fell from the oil rig into the sea—ignited by the searing currents threading through the bubbles before he even swallowed the fuel oil. Like a stalled car forced to restart right before the pistons shatter completely.
"I'd save every day like a treasure and then…"
Every day could be my last, John thought. Spurned by Death, cursed by survival. The only thing that will kill me is myself—but until that moment, until the last drop of fuel burns away,
I will not yield to them. That was the whole point of the training I received.
"Again, I would spend them with you."
He pressed pause on the Walkman. The progress bar froze on the ink-green LCD screen.
He pulled off the tinny earphones and let his shirt fall back down, covering the rows of sutures, scabs, long-healed old wounds, and the pair of dog tags strung together.
He looked at himself in the mirror—at those eyes.
Clenching his teeth, he turned and walked into the now-cleared living room. In front of the cardboard boxes stacked with files and military reports, he dropped to one knee and, in the mountain sunset pouring through the floor-to-ceiling window, began searching for anything connected to the past.
"Bering Strait, ESTU 317256, 3-container freighter, 2029."
He pulled out a redacted operations summary with heavy black bars and pinned it to the wooden wall panel with a red thumbtack.
"Intercept arms dealer leader 'Zaharov,' neutralize illegal hypersonic missile system, search for intelligence on transactions with Far East oligarchs."
He pinned the leader's photograph beside a charted shipping route marked with transaction points.
"First appearance of bioweapon NMDA-7 in portal communications—composition and effects unknown."
John took out another stack of documents and pinned them up, stringing red twine to connect the threads.
"B42 Island Prison, Operation 'Trojan,' escort exposed informant, intelligence linking NMDA-7 to the 'Hushman' program."
Another photo: a short-haired woman with a grave expression.
"Zaharov's daughter, Irina—war correspondent, harbors deep hatred for her father, intelligence source."
Next came two drone aerial shots of war ruins littered with armored vehicle wreckage.
"Ural Mountains, raid on abandoned military base and arsenal, 2030—constant-temperature containers holding weapons had already been relocated."
John bent down and drew a third connecting line.
"Amsterdam, pursuit of Zaharov's deputy, interrogation of safe house—North Sea islands, private yacht, decapitation strike."
The next pile included several sand-yellow aerial photographs. John pinned every related event to the wall.
"Same year, U.S.–Mexico border highlands, federal prisoner transport flight crash—cover for bioweapon trafficking, domestic manhunt."
He added a frontal photo of a mild-looking prisoner in an orange wide-collar jumpsuit, staring blankly at his own name tag.
"Alias 'Delta,' PhD in neuroscience, repeatedly turned informants, key middleman in the 'Hushman' intelligence network portal."
John drove the thumbtack into the center of the man's forehead with contempt, then surrounded the photo with pins marking different locations and targets.
"Conducted multiple international trials of initial NMDA-7 'Awakening' agent to cultivate core leaders for 'Hushman.'"
He studied the six main locations and linked them in sequence with twine to form a circle.
"Campania unfinished bridge district, Casablanca desert fortress, Augustus Royal Hotel, Xicheng neon alley, Belleville street sewers, East Louisville slum… Operation 'Aleph Zero'—coordinated strikes dismantling underground snake nests."
Staring at the middleman's photo, John hammered the thumbtack deeper with his fist.
"Neutralized 'Delta' successfully—hostage situation inside under-construction skyscraper in the metropolis. Rooftop at 350 meters—one shot, one kill, 2032."
He had stopped the desperate leader, but in doing so lost any chance to interrogate him for the truth.
Afterward, he pinned a photograph of a smoking shopping mall to the left side.
"2033, 'Hushman' counteroffensive demonstration—'destabilization' infiltration campaign against the 'Fog City,' attempting to flood the market with NMDA, fully marginalize the population, and collapse the social ecosystem."
John wound the twine tighter, his expression grave.
"A second-generation private legion emerged under 'Hushman,' gathering materiel in global no-man's-lands, seeking to subvert the existing order through black-corporate channels."
He pulled the last bundle of documents from the bottom of the box and added the final "brick" to the wall of investigation.
"2034—most 'Hushman' operations halted by Grey Horse Task Force. While fleeing, they declared to MI5 headquarters that they had developed a stable variant of NMDA-7 and would soon begin mass production."
John paused, hands still on the twine, head lowered in hesitation as he tied the final knot to seal the entire web.
"They believe this neurotoxin can create a new breed of human with extreme decision-making capacity: billions of nanomachines deliver a 'prodrug' that activates only upon encountering the body's pre-installed activation system, rewriting NMDA receptor encoding in the brain, thereby overthrowing conventional human thought patterns and boosting bioelectric output to sustain enhanced cerebral function."
He touched the strange lesion on his chest through his shirt and continued:
"2035—latest intelligence: airborne assault on offshore oil rig to seize bioweapon… informant compromised… legion-issue pre-production gear… ultra-high-speed centrifuge… Why did they deliberately emphasize that detail before the operation?"
John's pupils contracted sharply as realization struck.
"Maybe their goal from the beginning was never for us to destroy the weapon. They just needed us to approach that abandoned rig—so we would walk straight into their ambush."
"Hit by the shockwave of a rocket, struggling for life in despair… The slide containing the bioweapon was nothing but a trigger. Clothing or skin offered no barrier at all to those nanomachines."
He braced himself against the wall, veins bulging on his forehead.
"The only one who could possibly survive… would become the test subject for the stable prototype of NMDA-7…"
In the shadow of his bowed head, John Hastings's eyes widened slowly as he whispered to himself, chest throbbing with dull pain.
"They knew exactly what would happen to me was the most logical outcome. PTSD was just the cover story… They wanted to observe my reaction. All those pieces of disinformation fed to us were only meant to forge a time bomb planted inside the enemy camp… those bastards."
He slammed his palm against the wall and released it. Staggering backward a few steps, he took in the full gray storm of faces, photographs, and black-and-white documents covering the wall before him.
In a tangle of rage and grief, John Hastings clutched his agonizing chest, fingers twisting the fabric.
"The first step toward breaking me was forcing me to admit… that I had become their accomplice."
He breathed hard, realizing an even heavier truth.
"The second step: expose me as Patient Zero to the world, or use it as an irresistible bargaining chip—keep me silent, apply pressure, turn me into the next controllable 'Hushman.'"
In a daze he looked up—only to hear another voice from behind him.
"Unless we strike first, John."
He turned. A version of himself—dressed in a black suit and shirt, stubble thick across his jaw—was seated on the high stool in the living room. He slid a TTI Combat Master pistol across the table until the muzzle kissed empty darkness.
"Your time is running out."
This suited John looked utterly exhausted, palms covered in calluses and deep purple scabs from repeated hammer strikes. He nodded toward his counterpart and spoke with grave calm:
"Do what you do best."
The John standing at the table stared warily at his own mirror image. Every deviation in appearance and manner was so convincingly real that ordinary logic could find no flaw to doubt it.
He took one step forward, tilting his head in cautious inquiry.
"What is that?"
Through the wet, disheveled strands hanging over his face, the suited John Hastings met his other self's gaze with eyes creased by deep, murderous lines—as solemn as a medal ceremony.
"Hunt."