by Jack Parker
Grace's eyes never left the screens, taking in every detail of the strange events. She could feel the eight faces of her on duty her crew staring at her with open mouths. The control room was silent. No one breathed. Grace realized they were waiting for her to say something, and at last she acknowledged them with a shake of her head.
"Don't look at me," she said with a small laugh. "I have no idea what the fuck just happened either."
The speculation started as crewmembers began to chat away. Grace allowed the distraction for a moment as she considered what, if anything, should be done.
"Are they with the terrorists?"
"Naw, come on it would be much worse if it were terrorists."
"Well why not? Maybe they went back to kidnapping people?"
"But From a TV show?"
"Come on guys, seriously? You heard what the cop said, this is about a murder!"
"But brides with smoke bombs? The brides we hired? Maybe it's all just a big prank."
"It's happening again!" someone screeched. "Look!"
Sure enough, tear gas canisters erupted around the police officers talking to the grooms in the other two weddings. This time Grace reacted.
"Move!" she barked at computer tech, who was covering her open mouth with her hand in an expression of stunned horror.
Grace took a deep breath to compose herself as she sat and began to furiously click with the mouse on the camera records program. Robert and a few others crowded around her. She brought up the recording records. There were already three and a half hours of film altogether for just the four wedding receptions. For a moment she struggled to get the program to concentrate only on the last four or five minutes of footage from every camera.
"Come on god damn you . . ." she muttered.
She looked for other camera angles around the smoke. A reverse angle in the Celtic wedding showed shadowy figures heading towards the kitchens, not just the brides, but each also had a man with gas mask carrying the unconscious grooms.
"Gotcha, you bastards," Grace said with a sneer.
She took a deep breath. "Alright here's what we are going to do. Process the film of that. I'm sure the police are going to want it momentarily. So don't send a thing of this episode to editing. Robert?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Get me the wedding crews we can talk to on the line. Tell them to tell the cops they went through the kitchens."
"Yes ma'am!" the young man said sharply, placing his headset on as he started to pass the directions. Grace gave Robert a sharp pat on the back as she vacated the computer she had commandeered. Somehow, she was going to salvage this situation. She didn't know how yet, but the show simply had to go on. It was her life rule after all.
A young woman at another station from across the room stood and yelled.
"Director Goodson! We just got reports of a fire on the fifth floor! An explosion of some kind. Maybe that's why the cameras up there are out."
Grace laughed. There was no mirth in the sound, and she found herself embarrassed by her own outburst. Why not a fire also? The show must go on. She told herself. The show must go on. The show must go on . . .
"Christ, now the fire department will be here too," Grace groaned. "Did we even have anything flammable with that set? It was just light lasers and smoke projectors right?"
"It's probably the terrorists, director," some fool said.
"Will you shut up about terrorists?" said another.
"Enough!" Grace snarled. "It doesn't matter. Focus on the show!"
Robert dared to interject with some confidence that Grace had to acknowledge was a step in the right direction for the boy.
"But Director, most of the the contestants stopped trying to do anything as soon as the cops showed up."
"Then remind them that the game is still on and get them moving."
"But if there is a fire in the hotel everyone will have to evacuate and—"
"I want a new primary objective location set up. Make all of this part of the game with the contestants. Adapt people! Get me Caesar's Palace on the line and I'll see if we can—"
Princess Leia from Star Wars strolled into the front of the control room, complete with cinnamon bun hairdo and white flowing dress. She was accompanied by a man in a dark navy suit wearing a paintballing mask. Everyone in the room froze, as the realization hit them that a woman wanted for arrest was now pointing a gun at them—a toy laser gun.
Well, we know where one bride is now at least, thought Grace, who suppressed a laugh. The costumed woman was clearly insane, and it was probably wise not to antagonize her, but what was with the muscle in the suit? "Excuse me, uh, Princess, can I help you? This is the control room for Spy Games. It's the TV show your wedding is going to be on, but you shouldn't be here."
Leia, or rather, the striking Mariah Diaz gave a thin smile and spoke in a soft Cuban accent as if she had never been greeted.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. You will now destroy or delete for me all files on everything recorded today, please. I want every copy, and my man here knows how to check all the records, so no waste my time, OK?"
Grace answered as politely as possible. "I'm sorry Ms. We don't have the forms and authorization here necessary to make that happen. These belong to the Network. Perhaps if you can call our customer service department, here I'll give you my card and—"
Mariah pointed her laser gun at Robert's head and spoke over the top of Grace. Robert's eyes narrowed, more insulted than afraid.
"We are serious. Give us what we want, or people start dying."
Grace would have laughed, but the man behind her drew a gun from a shoulder strap inside his suit and pointed it at her. This gun looked real. Grace swallowed and slowly held up her hands palms facing out.
"You don't know what you're asking," Grace tried to say carefully, her eyes on the man with the potentially real weapon. "That could take hours to delete everything you would want to make sure was gone, and the digital files have to be unencrypted first to do that.
There was a loud pop, and grace found herself coated in a spray of red. She blinked twice and stared down at herself. Had she been shot?
She looked up to see Robert slumped face first on his keyboard, his lifeless eyes staring at her as blood flowed from an ugly wound on his head to pool on the keys. A few of the women screamed. Mortin the MANTA lead was near the exit and tried to run but was pistol whipped to the ground by the man in the paintball mask.
Mariah reached out and yanked the nearest stunned woman to her.
"On your knees!" she barked.
"No please!" sobbed the girl.
"Shall I kill another?" Mariah asked pointedly at Grace while pointing the real gun at the back of the girl's head. "Or are you going to open up the system for us? Bring up all the files and we will take care of the process. Got it?"
The crying woman, Grace felt a huge stab of guilt for not being able to remember the petite redhead's name, immediately started praying. Grace felt tears in her eyes. She tried to give the girl a look that would tell her it was all going to be ok.
"All right," Grace said, heading for a terminal, while trying not to look at Robert again. "All right, just please . . . please don't hurt anyone else."
Grace thought frantically as she walked. If she could get to her office, maybe she escape through the back exit which lead back into the hotel parking garage and go get help. Someone else could start bringing up all the files of the day from down here. Hopefully, that would keep them happy.
"Actually, Mortin, would you please start bringing up all the files at your station? I forgot I'll have to authorize this from my station up in my office so that everything can be deleted."
Mortin stood and rubbing the side of his face, gave a small nod. Grace looked at the deadly Leia for any challenge to her methods. The woman with the gun nodded.
"Do it." Mariah said. "Hugo, go with her. Make sure she doesn't try anything until our contact on the show gets here."
Hug
o kept wearing the paintball mask as he followed Grace up the cheap fiberglass stairs. It occurred to Grace as she looked closely that it was thicker and tighter fitting than a paintball mask should be, and that it might act as a fully functional gas mask. If these people had toy guns that shot real bullets, who knew what else they had. It was almost like the game had suddenly become real in a scenario out of Grace's worst nightmares.
Hugo kept his gun trained on her as she reached her office chair and was about to take a seat. The rear exit door to her left burst open, making her jump. She turned with wide, horrified eyes to see Steve walking through the open portal. He also had a gun, and it was pointed directly at her.
Fuck this show, Grace thought. I'm done.
Chapter Twenty
"Mmmph!"
Victoria stirred. A far off desperate screech somehow reaching her through a tunnel of darkness. Her eyes, felt sticky. There was a throbbing in her head.
"Mmmmmph! Ehhhhake Urrrrruuup!"
Something jabbed Victoria hard in the ribs, and her eyes shot open. Her eyes met terrified looking blue ones only about six inches from her. Those eyes softened in a moment of relief as they realized that Victoria was awake. Victoria's mind struggled to piece together the puzzle of where she was.
She was hanging about three feet off the ground, bound with duct tape in the same manner as the woman now staring wide eyed at her. She was hanging from the same pipe as Charlie, but rotated in mid-air independently. The chord holding her aloft pressed hard under her arms and into her rib cage, and she fond as she continued to wake that her fingers had no feeling in them. Victoria felt embarrassed, and as she cursed her carelessness she realized that even though she was suspended vertically with her wrists duct taped painfully to her ankles, at least she was not gagged with more tape and a handkerchief like her blond companion. She tried to stay calm and confident.
"Charlie, she'll be apples," she said as she started to slowly rotate away from the woman. If she could just get a hand free enough to reach into her boot, she might be able to get to the knife concealed there. "Just try to stay calm. I'm going to get us out of this."
"Mmmm mmmmph!" Charlie said shaking her head vigorously. "Mmmbbmmmb!"
"What?" Victoria asked, cold dread starting to swell in her belly. "Did you say bomb?"
Charlie confirmed with a rapid nod of her head. "Mmmboomb!"
Charlie gestured with a jerk of her head for Victoria to look past her. Her fellow contestant struggled to get herself rotating further away, and Victoria followed her gaze. Indeed there was some kind of wired contraption set just below the security panel on the wall at the end of the row of mainframes. It was jury-rigged to be connected to . . . what? The device was too crude to be a timed explosive from what Victoria could tell, and there was no fuse, which meant if it were a real bomb there would need to be a detonator or trigger.
A remote trigger by radio signal was possible, but if that were the case, why hadn't their assailant detonated the device as soon as he was clear? And why had the bastard bothered with the theatrics of hanging her and Charlie from the ceiling? It wasn't as if that made escape any more difficult. It would have been much wiser to keep them separated and completely unable to communicate. And there was one more very troubling thought.
Why are we both still alive?
She looked around for a possible trigger as she began to wiggle her wrists, struggling to free a hand enough to reach into her boot. Charlie completed a full rotation and caught Victoria's eye again, making desperate noises.
"Mmmmmph, mmmmmm-mmmmm!"
Her eyes flicked downward as she tried to speak through her gag. Victoria had a hard time making out the words this time, but in following Charlie's gaze again one word instantly made sense—lasers.
Directly below them was a criss-crossing web of security lasers that were barely visible in the gloom of the smoky room. Victoria also realized that the maze of lasers she had seen earlier were now moving about the room in sporadic patterns. The web of lasers below them had about a five foot radius in every direction. Now Victoria understood why Charlie hadn't wanted her to try anything.
"Charlie, are you trying to say if we break the line on any of these lasers the bomb will detonate?"
Relief flooded Charlie's face and she nodded slowly. Victoria freed a few fingers and dug into her boot, pulling free the knife. A moment later and her hands and feet were blissfully free from each other, but still bound. Victoria was careful not to let her feet touch the floor, pulling her knees into her stomach as she began the work of freeing her wrists from the tape. The web of lasers below left no room to put a foot down.
"I take it the bloke who attacked us explained all this to you?" Victoria asked Charlie.
Charlie nodded and her eyes narrowed as they flashed with pure hate.
"Mmmmko."
It took a moment for Victoria to register that Charlie was speaking a name, but when she understood she repeated it with the intensity of the foulest of four letter words.
"Mako."
* * *
The cumbersome piece of Japanese baggage began to drool on his shoulder. Mako frowned at the spot on his suit, and then spoke his blond tour guide, who was now dressed in much less than half a wedding dress. She had discarded the nonessentials and most of the cumbersome material back in the kitchens, and was now in a frilly white one piece that wasn't much more than a swimsuit. She looked stunning as usual.
"Are you sure you still need this pathetic load, Devocthka?" Mako asked casually as a few shots from her gun into random space cleared the laundry room of maids and minimum wage workers, sending them scattering and squealing. "Even if you keep them their dreams will be much more guarded against little dream reading toy."
"Dammit Sasha," growled the leader of the Black Devil Sisters. "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that? You know very well how much I hate it."
"Is only term of endearment . . . baby."
She stopped for a moment after rolling a maid cart out of her way, and trained her gun on him. He could only smile thinly at her. He loved it when she was ruthless.
"You are calling me simply 'woman' with that little bit of Russian. I swear to god I'm not in the mood right now. I will totally shoot your happy little red Soviet ass where you stand if you keep it up."
"Shoot Japanese businessman instead," Mako suggested. "Will make you feel better."
She smiled and sauntered up to him, the gun staying dangerously under his chin.
"You're right, it would make me feel better," she purred, her lips almost, but not quite, brushing against his. She pushed away.
The tease.
"But because of that simpleton Carlo I can't! Now I have to kidnap these pathetic fools and pretend to hold them for ransom until we're finished with them. Not to mention we have to stop the bald idiot from taking off for China, get rid of him, and move up our own timetable. Son of a bitch!"
She turned and kicked a pile of towels on the floor sending them flying before she stalked forward again. She continued her rant. Mako knew it was best to just let her carry on.
"I mean really? The best he could come up with for a frame is that we wanted to embezzle money and stock through marriage? Of all the ludicrous, cockamamie, fucked-up stories! How could anyone believe that we were stupid enough to think that would actually work? I'm totally insulted, Sasha. Insulted! And do you know what happens to people that insult me?"
Mako shrugged. He knew of course, but the question at this point was rhetorical.
"They die!"
Mako took his handkerchief from a breast pocket and wiped drool from his shoulder as he walked. He frowned at the back of her head. When she stayed silent for a few moments, he decided it was safe to talk.
"Jessica . . ."
"Sasha dear, call me Dawn. There is no longer any need for that cover and I'm totally sick of the alias. Did you know he was calling me Jessica Alba just to remember our name?"
Mako smiled. "Da. Which
make me remember, how are communications? Are Mariah Carey, Angelina Jolie, and Scarlett Johansson on schedule for new rendezvous?"
"You totally want a bullet in the head don't you dear?"
"I want drop load of sushi from my back more. So I give you hard time."
She glared at him briefly over her shoulder as they passed into an employee and maintenance hallway. A few more hallways like this and they would come out into a parking lot where the special cars would be waiting. Mako had been forced to arrange it all on the fly, as soon as he had gotten Carlo's email about moving early. Dawn was right about one thing. Carlo was a fool.
"Everyone is on schedule at last check. But I can't raise Mariah. I was about to request an update but you keep whining about your load."
"Maybe you carry him for a while. OK?"
Dawn stopped again as they rounded another corner and gave him an exhausted sounding sigh before explaining things to him if she were a kindergarten teacher.
"Look just because we have the weapons does not mean Blackfire can reproduce them for us whenever we need. Your bosses should know that. You should know that, dear. We have to know how the security protocols at Groom Lake will be upgraded and we need to make sure the parasite hack we left behind stays active and undetected for as long as possible. We still need their dreams. So do quit your bitching. Dear."
She wasn't quite right in her assessment, but it was good that she wasn't. Blackfire had everything they would need already, and even Blackfire was simply a front for a much greater ambition. If he were to explain why this was to her, however, it would only complicate things and he'd be forced to find another way to cater to the woman's idealistic view of their mission.
Dawn was simple to understand really, as far as understanding women went. A California gun control activist that had been a witness to some terrible massacre where a gunman had walked into the school where both her parents taught, she had eventually moved out of the United States to England. She had been an easy recruit since she had become weary of the failures and slow pace of peaceful activism. Deweaponizing the world through superior firepower must have been an attractive ideal. Her vision for the world was utter nonsense of course, but Mako still admired her resolve. So he went along with her for now.