by Nathan Lunn
“But hey, who’s to say none of us are the real aliens, right?” He nudged Charlie with his fake elbow, getting a quick laugh. “Douglass is looking pretty young for 89.” Douglass joined in the laughter with good spirit, and soon everyone round the table was back to talking. Julie cocked her head towards Kye, regarding him with a fake sense of authority, before he smiled, breaking her demeanour with a light laugh.
“Another bottle?” Kye stood, grabbing his glass and walking to the shelf. Catching his eye, a bright blue label drew his attention to another bottle of CAAF grain vodka – there was rarely any other alcohol in the building, or on sale, for that matter, for at least 5 miles in the general area. Keeping far from the bustling city, there was less security and less prying eyes, though the area the workshop was situated in was gravely impoverished – the perfect place for them to hole up and meet. He cracked the self-coolant seal, popping open the lid. As the liquid made contact with the air, it chilled instantly, letting out sparkling clouds of supercooled vapour. Pouring himself a glass, he set down the bottle on the table. Eddie downed the rest of his drink, shuddering, before picking it up.
“God this stuff tastes bad. Real sour. Only thing the Crofts are aiding is my hangovers,” he chuckled, and read the tagline aloud.
“Proud to be your pride. How pretentious. Explains the lion though,” swiping his thumb over the lion etched into the glass. This appeared to spark his memory.
“Hey! Clara, whatever happened to that silver box anyway? That one with the blue lion on the front?” Kye sat up, wondering himself where the box had got to. His hairs stood on their ends at seeing everyone turn to stare at the door behind him, all watching as a sleek black suited man walked into the office.
5
“May we help you?” Douglass stood, as the office turned tense. Kye remained wary. It wasn’t often they had visitors. Clients of their services usually contacted Douglass without meeting, or at least when they did, they made sure to arrange it ahead of time, and to meet in a public place. This man’s presence alone was abnormal.
“Oh, I’m sure you can. That all depends on your cooperation, of course,” he replied, moving on. With every step forward, Kye tensed up, noticing his colleagues doing the same. He saw Julie looking directly his way, worry scrawled across her face and his stomach twisted. The man continued to a seat, before looking up as though he had finally noticed the bristiling group. He stopped, hand hovering over the back of the chair, before saying, “Please calm down. There’s really no need to worry. May I?” Douglass let out a nod, and the man smiled, slowly sitting down in the chair. No one would be the one to talk first, and it was glaringly obvious to Kye that the stranger had not succeeded in defusing their tension. Impossibly, his smile stayed as he decided to forge ahead,.
“You are,” he took a second, eyes glazing over, “Mr Douglass, am I right?” Kye surmised that he must have checked his commlink.
Douglass replied quickly, still standing, still tense, “That’s right. And what may we call you?”
The man ignored the question. “This will be much easier if you are sitting. Please." The man offered a chair to Douglass, who (for the first time since the man’s entry) showed visible signs of irritation. He took the seat anyway.
“Thank you.” The man paused again, noticing the glasses littering the table, before continuing, “Drinks? Am I ruining the celebrations?”
Clara was the only one bold enough to snap back, “Nothing much round here worth celebrating though, is there?”
“You wouldn’t count safely pulling off a successful heist on a highly protected Stirling Bank delivery truck, as a cause for celebration?”
“What the fuck?” Everyone at the table flinched fast, kicking back their seats, reaching to their holsters for their handguns. Just as quick, but twice as smooth, the man pulled a small silver box to their eyeline. With a shrill whine, blue light began to spill from the top. Kye, who now had his gun to his hand, fired on the box, expecting an explosive report, but instead receiving a resounding ‘click’, which bounced lamely around the room. This sentiment was repeated as the others tried, but failed to the same result.
“Did you know,” the man raised his voice over the whine, “that most weapons found on the black market originated from a respected vendor at one time? And did you know, where those respected vendors got their merchandise from? One of my client's subsidiaries. This means that we have a hand in the design process of the weaponry, and therefore…" He paused again. “We have a backdoor into their operation.” As Eddie moved to rush him, the man responded by pulling a weapon of his own, and training it on a frightened Charlie. Eddie froze, as everyone’s weapons dropped, and the man proceeded unfazed, “So, why don’t we try this again. Let’s all sit down, and you can listen to what I have to say.”
***
The stranger pulled a portable display from his pocket, and placed it in the middle of the table. Connecting it to his commlink, he activated ‘Presentation Mode’, and within a few seconds of boot up time, a holographic lion was swivelling above the deserted glasses. Blue light washed over the office, as the occupants began to understand. Noting their change in expression, the man decided to comment on it.
“So you do recognise the lion. But you still don’t know who the LockBox belongs to?” He tutted, shaking his head lightly. “I’m disappointed. I expected more from you, Mr Douglass.”
“I have not yet seen the box, though I’m sure if I were able to, I would have a better idea. Could someon–” Douglass was interrupted.
“Charlie, run and get the box now,” the man said, directing him with a wave of his gun. Charlie replied, decidedly not moving.
“How do you know my name?”
The man cocked his gun, replying, “We know much more than just your name, Charlie Dunham. We have information on all of you. Quickly now.” Charlie looked to Douglass, who gave an almost imperceptible nod, then ran off to get the box.
“Good.” The man pressed two fingers to his temple, morphing the lion into a model of the T60 Truck they had hit. As it started to spin, Kye noticed the side of the truck – a makeshift door cut out – and realised that this was the exact same one.
“At 4:32 this morning, this T60 Stirling Bank Truck was infiltrated and its contents stolen. It was attacked whilst en route to the Ascari depot, in an area where external security cameras have not yet been installed." He switched to a video feed from the inside of the truck, and started to play it.
“This shouldn’t be an issue, however, as every Stirling vehicle is fitted with their own internal recording systems. Except, as you can see, for this entire period of time – there is no footage available.” He clicked between the two scenes, as the footage cut instantly. The timestamp in the top left corner jumped from directly from 4:32 to 4:38, as he replayed it on a loop for them to inspect. It seemed as though Danny had done his job to a lesser standard than usual.
“The thieves in question didn’t steal everything in the truck, instead choosing certain high-ticket items, many known for their expensive black market resale." He began to cycle through images of the stolen items. “24 bars of unrefined rhodium. 9 bags of unused credit chips. 13 various cybernetic upgrades, including 4 ImitaSuit variations, and one state-of-the-art prototype limb from AchillesCorp.” Kye slid his right arm further into his sleeve. He clicked onto the final image, one of the silver box, resting on this as if waiting for it to arrive.
“And this. A designated LockBox, stamped with my client’s crest, encoded with a biometric passcode, and entrusted to the bank for its protection and subsequent delivery.
“This held something very important to my client. As such, we designated an extra firewall of digital protection to keep it safe, which, if broken, would release our physical barriers.” The image morphed again, now into one of the drones they had been attacked by earlier. Kye’s face scrunched up, his shoulder experiencing a reminiscent bout of phantom pain.
“These drones, as I’m sure some
of you remember, were highly militarised, and incredibly fast moving. Though, to call them ‘militarised drones’ is to miss their primary goal. This light you see–” the hologram highlighted the eyepiece by turning red– “was used for recording footage of those it was attacking. High quality footage, which you can see playing out here.” Kye looked on in shock as he saw himself shooting directly towards the camera, before the turret moved, the bullet returned from the drone, and he went down. The others watched as they gradually lost feed from the first and second cameras, before they finally reached the factory, entering the window behind the vehicle. The feed cut out with a flash of blue, and Kye winced, pulling his new arm in front of his face. Once his pupils had settled, he made eye contact with the man, watching as his pupils moved down to his arm. Another smile crossed his lips, as he commented, “I do apologise, Kye. Though, injuries are the forfeit of the hard-working criminal I suppose. Nice to see you’re quick to move on – it’ll certainly be a useful trait in this business.” A cough at the door announced the return of Charlie, who was now shaking with the effort of both carrying the box and maintaining his composure. The man ushered him in.
“On the table, Charlie. And Daniel, please come in through the door with your weapon down. And take your seat, we don’t want to have any mess.” To everyone’s shock, as Charlie walked in, they watched Danny trailing behind, sweating and defeated, as he sat down and placed his weapon on the table, a defunct symbol of his inability to help. As Charlie sat down, the man turned and placed his gun on the table, mere feet from Charlie’s head. He then continued.
“I was just explaining how I managed to find you all so easily.” He moved to talk directly to the scared boy now.
“Now, Charlie, are you aware that our very own WestMeri Government has an ever-expanding network of control and surveillance? One that catalogues the identity of every registered citizen as they enter this blessed state, and every registered citizen when they enter this blessed world. This makes it very clear to the recognition towers when somebody who is not in their database shows up, though it happens so often these days that you won’t be likely to see our government do anything about it – it is mainly in place to track political figures. The war has led to a great influx of outside influence, people immigrating without proper permits, and as a result, they have become lazy. You won’t be able to remember your own birth registration, Charlie, but I can bet that you’ll remember the yearly identity updates you had to go through – at least until you joined your friends here.” He looked around the room, confirming everyone was listening. “Of course, all of that is of no issue to the criminals who prefer to remove the evidence of their misdeeds as they go–” he looked at Eddie and Danny– “or even for those who decide to remove their identity from the database entirely, devoting their life to the criminal underworld and living as ‘Shadowalkers’.” He looked first at Kye, then moved onto Julie. “It’s a sad life admittedly, but it can come with its own various security perks.” The man stood, bringing back the lion with a tap of his temple. “What you may not know, however, is that removing yourself from the governmental databases just isn’t enough anymore. Do you know why, Charlie?”
Charlie sat still, his head on his chest, not able to meet the man’s eye. The man continued, “Because when you make a purchase from one of my client’s subsidiary companies, your given identity is automatically uploaded to a database of their own. And my client has a lot of subsidiaries – this means a lot of amassed identities.” Bringing up the footage from the drone again, he froze the image on a shot of the vehicle rounding the corner, blowing up the frame to a larger size. Clearly visible in the back window, was Charlie’s panicked face. Kye cursed under his breath.
“Do you remember purchasing your PseduoReality console two years ago, Charlie?” At the mention of a PR machine, Kye stiffened up, straining to block the thoughts rushing to his head. Julie noticed, growing equally tight and looking towards him. “Have you had a chance to try it out yet? It was one of our better investments, you see, almost 17 million units shipped in WestMeri alone. Asked Kye here all about them? It was his idea to buy it, was it not?” Charlie remained quiet; Kye did the same. “Not remembering? This may jog your memory,” he said, pulling up a new video next to the image. It was of a younger Charlie, proceeding to make a purchase at one of the automated shopping vendors, before the video then paused. A circle appeared around Charlie’s face; a profile materialized by his side, identifying his name, age, address and next of kin. The last two were left blank. “Once we knew who you were, it was easy enough to find you all.” A cycle of pictures ran through: first showing Charlie with Kye, laughing in another nearby console store; Kye sitting across from Julie at a dinner date; Julie and Clara walking through the rain, tailed by Eddie and Danny; Eddie and Danny talking to Douglass; finally stopping as it showed Douglass meeting with a past client.
As the office's stress levels raised, the man went on, “This is Peter Owens. He employed your services last month for a small job. It was nothing too illegal, just your basic reconnaissance package. Looking at your reactions, I can see you remember. Mr Owens was not a criminal in your definitions, just suspicious of his wife’s infidelity, going so far as to employ your services to investigate this fact – but not before he purchased some equipment of his own, from one of our other companies. This is the information we had from his purchases–” he clicked, showing a similar profile to Charlie's– “and this, is how we got the information we needed.” The man pressed two fingers to his temple, bringing dismay to the small office. Kye looked away as Charlie burst into tears, the image too much for him to handle.
Peter Owens was pictured: tied to a chair, scores of wires protruding from his scalp, as his head lolled back – wet blood running down from his ears and nose to coat his neck. His eyes were glazed over, as though he had no pupils to show, and his hands were curled and gnarled, the nails shattered and jagged. Scratches ran deep cuts into his legs, presumably inflicted in his efforts to withstand the pain – a bright light source from above easily highlighted the point where his lower limbs had been dismembered, leaving only bloody stumps in their place. Dread gripped Kye, whilst the rest of the office reacted in their own ways (all negatively) as the realisation hit about just how dangerous this man in front of them was. The man had finally stopped talking, outwardly delighting in their horror. All of a sudden, with only the sniffles and coughs of Charlie to fill the room, the whole office felt incredibly large. Douglass steeled himself, doing his best to ask the question that would get the man away as soon as possible.
“What else do you want? There’s your box, now you can leave us alone.” The man was happy to respond, shutting down his display and placing it back in his pocket. Kye’s hope lifted that the man would finally leave, and he could check on Charlie and Julie, but the man stayed in his seat, choosing to answer the question sitting.
“It’s not about what I want anymore. Yes, you have given me the LockBox; my clients will be very happy about that. But, I have been given some very strict orders, and their reputation in the public’s eye must remain clean. It has been specifically requested that I make ‘an example of you’. You understand, this way you will be deterred from any future endeavours in crime – that is to say any crime angled towards my client. Do what you wish once I am gone. For now, you just need to be taught some manners. So, I hope you learn your lesson.” In one swift stroke, the man pulled the gun to his hand, and fired.
Charlie’s body fell to the floor, blood leaking from the fresh hole in his head. Kye’s arm was moving before he was, grabbing the man by his throat and lifting him against the wall. The impact threw the firearm from his side, scattering to the floor below. Everyone else was reeling, ears ringing as they stood – Julie rushed to the body and cried out. Kye punched the man with his spare hand, screaming over and over each time he did, “What the fuck have you done?” The man gave a bloody smile, cracked teeth dropping to the ground as Kye relentlessly pounded his f
ace. Knowing his work was over, he dropped his hands to point at the floor, managing to choke out a final message for the distraught crew.
“The Croft Family send their regards.”
Kye squeezed, and his body went limp.
6
The crack echoed through the office.
***
Kye shook with excess rage, venting it out of his body in thrown punches aimed haphazardly at the wall, and venomous kicks aimed at the folded corpse slumped on the floor. His vision started to strain and as his hand started to hurt he felt someone else's on his shoulder pulling him back. He spun around, fist drawn back, ready to strike again, faltering only when he noticed it was Julie, tear-stricken and gulping breaths that weren’t providing any real oxygen. She attempted to soothe him, muttering, “Kye. It’s me. I’m sorry. Kye–” But he brushed past her, going to the table, avoiding looking at Charlie’s pale body, and instead reaching to the bottle that had remained untouched the entire time the man had been here. He started to pour himself a glass, missing his mark entirely and drenching his feet with grain vodka. One look at the lion on the front – proudly embossed – sent the bottle into the wall, shattering and staining dark liquid into the panel as it dripped to the floor. The loud noise made Julie jump, as she once again returned, attempting to soothe him.
“Kye, please, sit.” He didn’t reply or even acknowledge her, but sat in a chair, deciding to listen to the sounds in the room. Inbetween deep breaths, he heard sobs come from Clara and Eddie, seethingly heavy exhalation from Danny, and a sombre silence from Douglass – he kept listening, waiting for Charlie to say something, to ask a question, even to cry out, but instead hearing only this melody of depression in return. He finally turned in his chair, looking down at the boy, at his bloodied head cradled between Clara’s arms, and caught his breath. His chest tightened, a pain trembling from deep within his gut, boiling hot and stopping his heart; his head started to feel light as his vision began to blur again. He blinked his eyes, attempting to clear the image, but everytime he did, he could only see Charlie’s slack face staring back at him, a garish hole in the middle of his head – and so the process restarted. Clara looked up at him, seeing only confusion and disbelief where she was expecting the same stoicism that Douglass was exuding. Kye, choosing to look at his feet, spoke, his words slicing through the cacophony to reach everyone’s ears.