Split Steve
Part 1: The Escape
The peaceful night air was shattered by the outbreak of sirens. From artificial tree canopies rose telescoping towers, their pivoting lights blinding the small woodland creatures who might still be up at such an ungodly hour.
As the air raid sirens sounded, to any possible observer seeming more like storm alert systems, men emerged from an underground bunker carved artfully into a hillside.
“We have a confirmed escape. I repeat, a confirmed escape from the facility!” One man shouted into his walkie.
Doors opened; jeeps rolled out into the moonlit sky. The frantic man covered one ear as he pressed the walkie to his head.
“Yes General, this is no drill. We have a confirmed Alpha Detainee missing.”
He motioned some men off into spread formation, heading off into the surrounding forest.
“No, General, I said Alpha.”
The sirens whined down, the spotlights still beaming across the landscape.
The man lowered his voice, uncovering his free ear. “Yes, for at least two hours. He must have overpowered the guard outside his cell at midnight changeover.”
“Sir, we have confirmed evidence leading south.” A soldier said.
“General, one moment.” He held the walkie down to his chest. “Did you say south, Travis?”
The man swallowed hard. “Yes sir. They found his jumpsuit. Must have ditched it in favor of some old maintenance clothes. He’ll be harder to spot without the tags embedded.”
The man pressed a hand to his brow, tightening his grip on the radio. “Just get all teams in pursuit. This is a major breach. That man is headed into populated territory.”
“Yes sir.”
As Travis ran back to the others, waving the jeeps in and grouping together, the man on the radio sighed.
“General,” he said, raising the walkie. “You better alert division. He’s headed towards Littleton.”
He held the walkie away, the General’s voice clearly enraged.
“I’m sorry sir. With budget cuts from upstairs, you know we had to lower our staffing. But these detainees can’t be taken lightly. They aren’t simply terrorists, they’re R.C.P.s and the man on the loose is an Alpha.”
The noise of the men in jeeps slowly waned as lights aimed on one patch of trees far off on the horizon. The forest was big. There was a decent chance they’d never find him, not before daybreak, not before he reached a populated area. Littleton wasn’t a large city, barely a suburb really, but it had plenty of material to offer an Alpha R.C.P.
“General, my best men are on this. I’m confident we will apprehend the subject.” He said, not quite believing his own assurance.
He didn’t want to say what he had to say next. He dreaded it, had from the moment he was notified not ten minutes before.
“And sir, there’s one more little problem.”
The man took a breath, walking out towards one of the telescoping towers. “He hasn’t had his meds tonight.”
The noise on the other end of the radio was enough that surrounding birds probably heard it. He lifted the walkie away.
“I know what that means. It means we have less than seven hours before his powers return.”
The night in the surrounding forest was returning to normal, a deceptive calm that brought with it the crickets. But there was no reason for any living thing to be calm. This was a disaster that rivaled any escape in the history of the bureau.
“Suspect’s name? It’s...” He swallowed, knowing his ears would be hurting soon enough. “Steve Sanders.”
Sure enough the radio nearly jumped from his hands, the speaker whining. He tried to shake off the fear saying that name brought to himself, but thinking of that man loose in the public was even worse.
“Yes, I understand. We fucked up. I take the blame. I’m in charge here. It’s my head.”
He paced.
“Suspect has acute dissociative identity disorder.” He nodded. “Yes, four personalities that we know of, none of them good considering his Alpha R.C.P. status.”
As the jeeps vanished into the dense surrounding forest, he looked out and saw the distant lights of Littleton. “Sir, do not worry. We will do what has to be done. This will be taken care of.” He listened a moment. “I understand.”
Clicking the radio off, Colonel Kent Stampers shook his head. This was serious. It was beyond serious. He’d worked his way up to this position, running this facility for ten years now.
Unfortunately never before had anything like this happened. Steve Sanders was loose. His status unstable at best. There was no hiding from the facts. An R.C.P. was loose. A Reality Control Patient of Alpha level was now loose in the world.
Stampers knew two things were positively certain, beyond any doubt. First, Steve Sanders was going to reach Littleton unless they had an awesome stroke of luck. And second, Steve Sanders was going to regain his R.C.P. abilities not long after daybreak. If that happened, there may be little hope for the town of Littleton.
He stood and walked back to the bunker door, another man standing there. “Here, take this.” He said, handing over the walkie. He saw the man clutching a file folder. “Is that his information?”
“Yes sir.”
“Let me have it. And head back down to command. Keep me apprised of the search updates. I want reports every ten minutes.”
“Sir, yes sir.”
As the man ran off, Colonel Stampers opened the file.
Suspect: Steve Sanders #A100172
Suffers from D.I.D. and each personality has demonstrated heightened senses and full range R.C.P. manipulation. Abilities not limited to living things.
Stampers stopped reading there. The rest was mostly medical terms, diagnoses, history, and family, of which Steve Sanders had none remaining. The man had actually erased his own existence which made him a living paradox and that wasn’t good for the world he’d escaped into.
He flipped the pages, looking over each personality, each carefully collected description of how the different personalities acted, and what they most were interested in playing with as far as manipulation went.
He actually laughed when he saw the pictures accompanying each personality description. Of course they all were Steve Sanders, at least on some level. Most of the changes were minor. Maybe his eyes seemed more focused in one, or he wore a broader smile in another. And then there was the one personality that completely broke with appearances. None of this was what struck the Colonel as humorous. It was the fact that if anything Steve Sanders looked like an average guy.
The man would blend into the most basic crowd. He was average height, average weight, and even of average build. But it wasn’t his outside that was the problem, not in the least.
Colonel Kent Stampers shivered a bit looking out into the night sky. No, he thought, it was what lay inside this suspect that was a threat. And if that medicine wore off, heaven help whoever caught Steve’s eye.