The Hornet Operative

By Travis Barr

The final battle is set in book three of The Chosen Conflict. When Jessie confronts the evil corporate parasites of the Pear-Paul conglomerate, she gets more than she bargains for and must now fight for her soul. Meanwhile, her friends and family are in grave danger and must find a way to eliminate the threat of the genetically modified Wasps. But first, they must find them!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Travis Barr
• Release date: Mar 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310016752

Travis Barr

Travis Barr grew up in Southern California and went to CalState University of Long Beach. He graduated with a BA in film then furthered his education with a teaching credential. Travis has always held a fascination with the fantastical and suspenseful in storytelling. With his second novel and first part of The Chosen Trilogy, "The Spider Agenda," he has taken that wonderment to new levels of gripping tension and spellbinding adventure. "Agenda" sets the scene for what is to come in the second installment, "The Wasp Initiative" and is the seeds for which will come to full climactic fruition in the third tale, "The Hornet Operative." Travis still lives in the California area with his family and good friends, and enjoys the beaches of his youth. His favorite TV programs include "The Walking Dead," "Falling Skies," and "The Strain." His most cherished novels of all time include Peter Straub's classic tale, "Ghost Story," Bill Blatty's "The Exorcist," and Stephen King's "'Salem's Lot." His favorite film will always be George Lucas' "Star Wars."

Book preview

Chapter 1

Good morning, Jessica, a deep, male voice said to disturb the haze of Jess’ semiconscious state. It broke the serene calm and balance of her being somewhat awake but not aware of what was happening or where she was. But now that the disruptive voice had jarred her mind into a higher alertness, she was fully reminded of what was currently happening.

And where she was.

This is your Pear-Paul personal alarm waking you at 8 A.M., Stanford’s voice spoke again, further yanking Jess from her post slumber fog.

She squinted then fluttered her eyes open for a bleary look around. She discovered without much surprise that she was still in the infirmary wing of the Pear-Paul HQ, still in bed, still recovering from the severe beating she endured three days earlier. Stanford was standing next to her bedside, looking down on her with pleasant, confident eyes.

Oh. It’s you, she acknowledged him a dry tone of disdain in her groggy voice.

Of course, he cheerfully replied, You’re one of my prize projects, years in the making. Why wouldn’t I wish to be the first one to greet your waking eyes.

Do you know how blessed I feel at this moment? she mocked him.

He cracked a grin at her morose attempt a humor, then went on, You’re healing nicely, the doctors say. Won’t be but a few weeks and you should be good as new.

That’s great news, I can hardly stand the wait. Again the mocking tone.

You scoff, of course, but I sense that a part of you would like to be more up and around to put whatever tiny plan you and yours have concocted to try and undermine us. Maybe even attempt to bring us to our knees.

Oh, golly-gosh, were we that transparent?

Naturally. You wouldn’t be what you are without a large measure of capable intellect. But, of course, neither would we.

So, it’s card laying time, is it?

Aaah, he flippantly murmured, we’ll keep things interesting for the time being. You just rest and recuperate. Whatever you need will be provided: films, music—not too loud, of course—your favorite foods, cable TV…just ask. We’ll talk more at length when you are feeling limber again. He patted her twice on her shoulder while thin-lipping a smile then he turned and left.

When he was completely gone from the room, her expression turned wholly sour and tense. In his presence she wanted to keep an air of self control and resilience. But alone she was more apt to exhibit how she truly felt for Stanford—which was utter contempt, both mentally and physically. He was the other chosen after all, and his close proximity repulsed her senses. But his false compassion made it all the more sickening.

And what was worse was she knew he would likely be the first thing she would wake up to every morning of her stay here.

Chapter 2

The kill was set, but so was the ruse. Surely the target was meant to die—an ad executive by the name of Cordell Brenner who was covertly selling marketing secrets to Pear-Paul’s competition.

And WI-8 would be the freakishly large and highly intelligent wasp to do him in. But Eight was also encoded with instructions to be unorthodox in its approach—toy with the poor soul before receiving the transmitted message to finally stab him with toxin and cause the convulsive death.

It was 11:38 at night and Brenner was leaving Dorman Dynamics—a subsidiary of Pear-Paul—to make his way to his car in the expansive parking lot. His was the last one in the lot as he was always the final employee in the building at night. His hope was that this would show the others at Dorman that he was the most dedicated. But the Pear-Paul presidents knew better, knew that Brenner was using the late hours to cleverly transmit the company’s sensitive materials and files to their competitors.

But Pear-Paul was also going to use this assassination attempt to take care of an additional corporate headache—one that Stanford Jordan demanded be performed with expedience.

Brenner was a mere thirty feet from his car when Eight shot forth from the night to swoop around and face the man head on. He was visibly shaken at the sight of the buzzing winged terror horridly hovering before his widened eyes. His flight instinct took over and Brenner dropped the briefcase he was carrying and swung about to flee.

But just as he was in mid-leap for a run, the wasp zipped a frighteningly fast curve around to snap-position itself dead in front of Brenner again.

He exploded an AH! from his mouth and pivoted madly about to run away. Once more the wasp swept around speedily to cut off Brenner’s desperate escape.

But now it didn’t even wait for the next attempt at fleeing. It darted all about the shock-charged man, causing him to flinch and duck with insane jerks.

JESUS! he shouted instinctively, barely aware of the fact.

The thing continued to circle him in a stop and go pattern—fly, hover, fly, hover.

And then, after about the fifth rotation, it suddenly ceased briefly for a prolonged hover, staring down Brenner’s horror-stricken eyes.

Then it started the caging circle once more.

And a split second after it did, a cracking, echoing rifle shot rang out through the night. The bullet that resulted from it howled right through exactly where the wasp had just been.

The source trajectory of the shot was observed by all of the WI’s that were hidden amongst the surrounding structures and buildings. Now they had their target’s location. The six wasps bounded immediately from their covert spots and swarmed to the shot’s origin—though remained hidden in the shadows as they did.

The circling WI-8 halted prolongingly for a second time, eyeing the near-hysteric Brenner. It lingered a bit longer in this floating position, baiting its hidden prey to act again. They did—but the shot was twice a split second late as Eight was on the move for the trapping circle once more. The shot’s source was still the same. Good, thought Eight, and the same thought was mirrored with the other six as they stealthily converged on the location. Intermittently the wasps flitted their membranous and translucent wings to keep themselves in flight. But predominantly they coasted noiselessly, closing the distance on their unsuspecting prey.

Damn it, stay still! the sniper gritted in his mind as he lay atop the roof of a highrise building, near the ledging. His high-powered rifle was pointed out in front of him, locked in a firm grasp, a finger on the trigger. His left eye was cinched shut, the right trained on the rifle’s sightscope and aimed at Brenner and the WI that was terrorizing him, a quarter of a mile away from the sniper’s position.

Come on, slow down, just one more time, he thought on in frustration and tenseness. Give me one more good shot at you…

What was that?! snapped his internal voice as he heard brief snips of buzzing coming from all around.

He broke quickly from his lying flat position and stood up yet bent forth a bit to ready himself for trouble. His rifle was still pointed forth, tightly gripped and trigger ready. He madly swept a 360 degree spin as the buzzing flits sounded, echoed all around once more. Still nothing in sight but the normal scenery of the approaching midnight.

But he knew they were coming, he knew they were the wasps, the WI’s, and that he was surrounded. And instantly it was clear to him why the wasp attacking Brenner was so fidgety and difficult to pin down for the kill. It had been playing not only with the poor soul of a traitorous executive, but the sniper as well.

Suddenly, from behind him on the other end of the building’s roof, an enlargened wasp sprung into view and shot up into the star-muddled sky.

The sniper turned and fast-raised his rifle to track the highflying insect in an attempt to shoot it out of the sky.

But just as he got a decent aim on the cursed thing, another wasp zippingly ascended from just behind him, just beyond the ledge.

He whipped about again and rifle-scoped his aim on the new arrival.

But it was of no use as a third wasp soared into view and upward to the blackened heavens—this time from his left as his body faced the ledge near him. He turned toward the thing’s flight but only tracked it with his eyes this time.

Then, from his previous right and now his back, a fourth wasp zinged into view—but it did not follow its brethren on up into the sky above.

Instead, it laterally flew at a rapid pace straight at the flustered, nervous rifleman.

He ventured a turn to witness the creature yet snap-changed his movements to a desperate crouch and fold of his body as he sensed and heard the aerial demon spearing toward him. He had made the duck just in the nick of time and the winged freak zipped over him to travel swiftly on.

Now the sniper was convulsively looking all about, attempting to be vigilant of his entire surroundings.

A WI from way on high flew into position directly above the man and proceeded to dive straight down at him.

He caught the nose-dive maneuver and pointed his rifle directly upward to try a shot.

But the wasp banked sharply and darted away from his crosshairs.

Just as this happened, another WI jetted in from his blindside and skimmed his scalp, knocking the rifle downward and to his waist in a violent arc. It flew on, wings buzzing with a shrilling blur of vision and sound.

He brought his rifle back up to scope-aim the retreating wasp—but just as he managed a proper aim, yet another wasp swooped in from his rear and actually landed on him, harnessing his backside and poised to sting if it so desired. The man spun another 360 degree, spiraling himself down to the roofing as he did so. But the wasp bounded back into the air again before it could be possibly trapped in between the man and the roofing.

The man did not recover, instead chose to remain flat on his back, poising his weapon upward and ready to aim it at anything that came near.

One flew overhead. His rifle tensed in his grasps. Another flew over. He shot off a round—what the hell, he thought, keep those devils on their toes.

But this lying flat tactic was not going to serve him well for long, for now all six wasps were diving in from equidistant and far away positions, angling to close in and converge on the man’s flattened form.

He brought his chin to his chest, and from his point of view one WI was zooming in from the direction of the sniper’s feet. At least I can get you before the others get me, he rationed as he set his scope crosshairs to zero in on the wasp that seemed to be heading straight for his groin section. It was rapidly closing in. He took a shot but missed as the WI had altered its trajectory slightly to avoid the shrilling bullet. He shot once more, but again the cursed flyer corrected its course to soar forth unscathed. So the man just decided to shoot wildly in the path of it. The mad ploy worked and a lucky shot took out a wing of the wasp. It jerkingly spun out and lost altitude disappearing below the opposite ledge.

But the other five were closing in too rapidly for the frantic man to get another proper shot off—though he tried for a second hit regardless. It went wild, of course, and missed any of its intended targets.

And before he could defensively react any further, the five maddeningly crisscrossed over him, barely missing each other; the passing seemed to be so perfectly timed to avoid collision yet physically and mentally disorient the man’s senses. The final passer zipped by close enough to viciously graze the front of the man, causing him to immediately roll sideways at least three full rotations.

The violence and abruptness of the rolls forced the man to unhand his rifle and it rested on the roofing behind him. Quickly, he rolled back to try and clutch the weapon once more—but another wasp curved down to hit and roll him back away from the rifle.

Immediately after that, yet another WI swooped down and nudged the rifle close to the edge—and clackingly over it. The long metal fell far to the ground below, useless now.

The five remaining WI’s all dove in at once and created a close, hovering circle just above the downed and unarmed man. Just try and run, the wasps seemed to be baiting him. But the man knew he was had, so he simply sat up and casually raised his arms to his sides—as if to say, okay, you damned devils, what now?

But the next thing that the wasps did was something that the man wasn’t and couldn’t be aware of. They sent a mindhive signal to WI-8 that the coast was clear to take down Brenner.

Which Eight did with pure delight.

Chapter 3

Erin was running.

Actually, more like hobbling furiously, lame-jogging her way through a pinball obstacle course of trees in a forest. Bouncing off trunk after trunk of Redwoods in an exhaustive stupor. Finally she leaned herself on a tree of massive diameter and wheezed out breath after breath. Her brow was sweat-soaked over eyes of terror and shock. This can’t be happening, she kept breathing out.

It continued until soon a voice from a far off distance cried out with malice, Motherrrrrrrr…!

Erin cried back, "Jessie! Please…don’t hurt me!"

I won’t hurt you, mother, if you come back now!

You’re lying!

"Motherrr…don’t make me come get you!"

"You’re one of them! I know who you are, what you are!"

Come on, mother…! And Jessie came into view from a close network of thickened trees a hundred feet off from Erin. Let’s talk about this! Jessie finished.

Stay away from me! Erin hollered hysterically and proceeded to travel on briskly again despite her damaged leg. On away from her daughter.

Jessie expelled a breath out her nose in exasperation while pursing her lips. She shook her head briefly then casually moved forth to track her mother once more. The running’s not good for your leg, mother! she mockingly advised as she walked—and produced a silencer-added pistol to hold out in front of her, pointed somewhat downward. She gripped it with both hands like a seasoned professional. She was lethal now, she was a stone killer.

They’ve offered you a place too, mother! she said on, trying to reason. "They promise to treat you well…so long as you don’t try to make trouble…so long as you don’t try to stop me from doing what I need to do for them!"

Stay back! Erin bellowed from far off.

"Oh, stop being such a child, mother! And Jessie picked up the pace a bit, though still avoided running. You know by now that you can’t get away! And hobbling quickly on a bum leg is just going to tire you out real fast! So just stop this pointless and childish crap! Come back now!"

Through hoarse, whining breaths of growing fatigue, Erin yelled back, You’re not my daughter! You’re a monster now!

Jess was increasing her trot speed. It wasn’t long before she had her mother in her sights yet again.

Hey! Jessie called to her. Then aimed her pistol at her mother’s