The Sleeper’s Eye

Caterina lay on the floor lifeless, eyes wide open, and Jane would have thought her dead if not for the slow breaths going in and out of her nostrils. The medics were piling her body onto a stretcher as Jane looked on.

The room was devoid of any clue, any evidence Jane could use. The couches looked clinically clean. No food or medicine lay around, nothing that might have caused this fit. No papers were strewn on the floor. Clues on Caterina’s body would have to wait for the doctors, and that would take time. Jane was out of time.

The center table had no newspapers tucked underneath like most tables did, but there was an open laptop. As Jane drew near, she heard a low buzz, like thousands of voices murmuring together. A voice file was playing on a loop, and the laptop was nearly out of battery. Any second it would shut down, leaving her with nothing.

She sprinted across the room, wiping sweat from her forehead, a headache building behind her eyes. Somewhere there had to be a charger. Not on the table, not on the TV stand, not plugged in anywhere. She ran into the dining room, the sunroom, the bedroom—nothing. By now the laptop had surely gone dark.

The feeling of despair loomed over her like a swarm of locusts. It was in the sunroom that she found it: a black mass of cables tangled behind a glass shelf full of CDs. They had grown hot in the patch of sunlight where they had been left. The rubber burned against Jane’s serum-stained hands as she pulled them free.

The serum was still clinging to her from her last mission, a synthetic compound designed to heighten reaction speed and focus. Useful in the field, but corrosive to the skin if left too long. It was meant for soldiers in short bursts, not for the prolonged exposure she had endured. She hated the stuff, but she had needed it to get Caterina out alive.

Caterina had always chased answers into dangerous places. Jane had pulled her from gang hideouts, drug dens, and backrooms where questions were answered with knives. The serum had helped in those rescues, sharpening Jane’s reflexes just enough to get them both out. When she’d rushed here, finding Caterina collapsed, she’d assumed the threat was the same kind of physical peril. Only now did she realize it wasn’t. This time, the danger wasn’t in the room—it was in the airwaves.

Back in the living room, she plugged the charger into the socket and reconnected the laptop. To her relief, the screen flickered on. There was no password, strangely careless in this day and age. The voice file opened again, the whispers crawling under the music. But this time she noticed something else: a downloads folder sat open beneath it.

She dialed Caleb. “Come asap. It’s urgent. I have a job for you.”

Jane washed the serum from her hands while she waited. The soap stung, but at least it cut the chemical sheen.

When Caleb arrived, his brow furrowed at the video. “A YouTube track? ‘Gain Higher Intelligence | UNLOCK MIND.’ What is this?”

Jane gestured to the comments. “That’s what I need to know.”

The screen scrolled with strange testimonials: This sub worked great for me. My third eye is tingling. Others spoke of sharper memory, boundless energy, no need for sleep.

Caleb frowned. “Subliminals, maybe. Normally they’re harmless—affirmations or background suggestions layered under music. Plenty of people use them for motivation or stress relief. But this…” He pointed at the waveform. “These aren’t normal frequencies. Someone’s altered them to dig deeper, past the conscious mind. That can scramble a person if they’re exposed too long.”

One reply in the comments stopped Jane cold:

Do not watch past 43:21. That’s when it begins to take hold. If you’ve already heard it, stop now.

Jane glanced at the playback bar. Caterina had been watching until 44:07.

Her stomach clenched.

The webcam light blinked once, then went dark.

Jane snapped the camera shut with her thumb. “We’re not alone on this machine.”

Caleb’s hands flew over his portable drive. “I’m cloning the files. Whoever’s behind this masked the upload location, but it ties back to a cluster of shell companies. Jane, it all points to Aperion Dynamics.”

She frowned. “That supposed think tank?”

“Unofficially, they’ve been linked to neuro-patterning research. Teaching the brain to absorb faster, fight longer. Caterina must have stumbled onto this. She wasn’t the first, but she’s one of the few we’ve caught before it finished the job.”

The laptop chimed. A new message filled the screen in plain white text:

WELCOME, JANE.

Caleb swore under his breath. “They know you. They know you’re here.”

Jane’s phone vibrated. A medic’s update: Caterina is stable, but unresponsive. Her brain scans show unusual activity.

Jane read it twice before sliding the phone back into her pocket. Stable was enough—for now.

She turned to Caleb, her voice steady. “Send the Agency the trace data, not the file. We don’t hand them something they don’t understand. We find Aperion and cut them off at the source.”

Caleb hesitated. “And the subliminals?”

Jane sealed the laptop into an evidence bag. “They were meant to help people. Used properly, they’re harmless. But Aperion twisted them into a weapon. We’ll stop them before they can refine it.”

They stepped out into the night. The ambulance was gone, its siren fading somewhere in the city. The street was quiet, but Jane knew better than to trust the silence. Someone had tested a weapon in plain sight, and Caterina had paid the price.

Jane squared her shoulders. “If Aperion Dynamics wants me on their list, good. Now I know who to fight."

And with that, she walked forward, already planning her next move.