by Kate Sander
The stairs cut back onto themselves in a landing. Black Eyes made it to the second floor, a long hallway with a couple of doors on her right-hand side.
One was open, a small sliver of light on the floor.
This floor was blocked off from the left, the huge room with the tanks taking up both stories.
One entrance to the upstairs. One exit. No windows.
"You ain't no quitter," she muttered, pumping herself up. "You came here to do a job. You're already dead. Just get off your ass and do it."
The sliver of light went dark as someone passed in front of the door inside the room, followed by distant mutterings.
"Fuck it."
Black Eyes walked forward confidently towards the room.
Fake it 'til you make it.
The mutterings got louder as she approached. Stopping shy of the room, she waited. Pacing. She could hear someone pacing. And muttering. A man.
On to it then.
Turning the corner, she entered the room.
Nothing. Just a living space. A small bed in the corner, dirty dishes in the small kitchen sink. The mutterings started again, this time from a room to her left.
Black Eyes entered the small office, brightly lit from the blizzard raging outside its sole window.
Freudman was there.
But he looked terrible.
Sitting at a desk, he looked over one hundred years old. Hell, he looked ancient. Deep, curving wrinkles pulled at his thin, gaunt face. Gnarled hands lay on the desk. Milky blue eyes stared at her, but not seeing her. Black Eyes wasn't sure if those eyes saw anything. Wisps of white hair lay haphazardly across his head and sprouted from his nose and ears.
"No, no, no," Freudman muttered, his loose lips showing his gums instead of teeth. "They said don't use it anymore. No, no, no. You have to listen to Malin. You have to."
Putting his head in his hands, he wept. "They don't know how hard it is. They don't know what it's like."
Shakily, the tremors in his hands rattling the table, he opened a drawer of the desk and took out a large, black stone.
"Just once more," he muttered, staring into its center. His eyes lit up bright blue, the black gem somehow making them glow. "Yes," he smiled, the tremors stopping in his hands. "Just once more."
The man transformed in front of her. It was like the years melted off his body. Wrinkles smoothed to tight skin. Gnarled and bony hands straightened out. His teeth grew back, filling out his gaunt face. Smooth, red hair sprouted from his head. Milky blue eyes turned bright blue.
It took no more than a minute, but after he was done, a forty-year old Freudman was staring at her.
Black Eyes stared back, not daring to move. Not daring to breathe even though she didn’t breathe anymore.
He can't see you. There's no way.
Freudman smiled and, with steady hands, placed the stone back in the desk.
Stretching his fingers, he touched the screen to his computer, turning it on.
Now was her chance.
Black Eyes darted forward. Freudman typed his password into the computer. Black Eyes watched his fingers, memorizing the keystrokes. Which she had to do, because she couldn't read.
Freudman leaned back and his screen lit up white as he started accessing his files. Black Eyes had gotten what she needed. Stepping backwards, away from the desk, she moved slowly.
Freudman looked up from his computer and smiled, directly at her.
"Wha-"
The wire snapped around her neck, pulling tight, cutting off her air.
Air? She didn't need air.
Regardless of the mind-boggling situation of a dead woman being strangled, Black Eyes felt herself gasping, pulling at the wire around her throat, trying desperately to stay alive.
"Ah, Cesar," Freudman said, rising from the desk. "I'm glad you're here. I received your warning that we'd be getting a visitor."
Black Eyes tried to claw at her attacker's face. Her fingers hit plastic. A full face mask, just like the guards outside.
The guard. The guard who she thought had seen her. Apparently he had.
"The people you work with," Freudman said, laughing. "Are not the only Zoya in existence you know."
He was looking just over her head as he spoke.
He couldn't see her. It was just this asshole. And, if his wire worked...
In one last desperate attempt before she blacked out and died again, Black Eyes worked her knife free from her waist.
Thrusting over her head hard, Cesar screamed as the knife drove through the face mask. The wire loosened. Not stopping to assess the damage, Black Eyes sprang forward and jumped through the window, glass shattering around her.
"Then I focused and ended up back outside this building," Black Eyes said, finishing her story.
The rest of the Zoya Task Force had left to their own desks to start going through the files they'd unlocked.
"Let me see," Carter said softly. Black Eyes brushed her long dreadlocks away from her face, showing him her neck. "Ouch," Carter said under his breath. He held his fingers out to touch the raw, cut skin, but he thought better of it, fingers stopping an inch from her neck.
"How the hell did they almost kill a dead woman?" Black Eyes mumbled.
They never got to an answer.
Ramjeet ran into the room, "Boss," he said gasping. "You gotta come look at this." Not waiting for an answer, he sprinted back to his desk.
Carter and Black Eyes ran out of the room. The handlers were all on their computers, desperately typing at their keyboards.
"I'm out," John mumbled. His hands left the keyboard and he hit it in frustration. Igor rested a heavy hand on his shoulder.
"What's-"
"They hacked us," Ramjeet said hurriedly, not letting Carter finish. Sweating, his hands never stopped moving on the keyboard. "They must have fed Black Eyes a password that gave a program a back door into our servers."
"Are they accessing anything?" Carter said.
"All of it," Ramjeet snapped. "They're stealing all of it."
"Fuck," Cathy said as her screen turned black. "They kicked me."
"Me too," Kevin said.
"No, no, no. Dammit," Leslie muttered under her breath.
It was just Pierre and Ramjeet left to fight the hack. The rest of them had been kicked from the entire ZTF server.
"All you," Pierre said, as his screen went dark.
They crowded around Ramjeet's screen, watching him desperately type code into his keyboard. "Almost. Have. It." he said through gritted teeth.
His screen went black.
A cartoon image of a fat man in a Hawaiian shirt popped up on every screen in the headquarters. "Ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word," it said through every speaker.
"What just happened," Carter said. "Ram, tell me you can get it back."
"Ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word."
"I... I don't know."
"Ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word."
"What does that mean?"
"Ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word."
"It means we're fucking dark," Ramjeet snapped. "They have all of it. Files, missions, everything. We're wiped out. The Zoya Task Force has no more information. We're done."
"Ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word."
"Ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word."
"Ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word."
Carter picked up a computer monitor and threw it into the giant screen on the wall. They both exploded in bright red sparks.
"Then go off the grid," Carter said grimly.
13
Sol
Dried blood on his hands.
That's all he could think about. That's all he could focus on. The dried, cracked, blood caking his hands. Picking underneath his fingernails, he couldn't get all that blood out. It was annoying and distracting.
He was so consumed by trying to get that damn blood out from underneath his nails that he didn't noti
ce Bianca sitting on his doorstep.
"Semper," she gasped, rushing up to him. "Semper, what happened to you?" Running her hands up and down his arms, she stopped at his hands.
"I'm fine," he mumbled. "It's not mine."
"Let's get you inside," she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him inside the door.
Sol allowed his lover to pull him inside his apartment. Her gentle hands took his robes off and drew a bath.
Kill one man and it's like he's in shock, his father mocked as he sat on a chair, still trying in vain to pick the blood out from under his fingernails. How's this pussy supposed to run a country?
"I don't know," he muttered back to his father's voice.
It wasn't abnormal, hearing his father berate him. He'd done it while he was alive, why wouldn't he do it now that he was dead?
Bianca led him to the bath and helped him into the tub. Allowing her to gently wash his hands and arms first, he was trying not to think about how warm the blood had been as it gushed out of Kapre.
What did you do?
His hands trembled violently and Bianca held them lovingly, caressing the backs until the tremors stopped.
"You're my rock," he muttered to her.
"Hush now," she said, gently washing his arms and chest. "Relax."
Sol closed his eyes and lay his head back, resting it against the back of the tub.
"Drunk again," his mother yelled from the living room. "With the smell of whore on you. What kind of example are you set-"
The sound of fist hitting flesh interrupted her rant. Glasses shattered on the ground as she smashed into the coffee table.
"Enough of this," Titus said from the bed beside him. "I'm going to kill him this time. He's gone too far." Titus sprang from his bed and rushed to the door.
Sol leapt up from cowering underneath his sheets and tackled Titus to the ground. They scrapped silently for a minute, with many small "ooofs" and grunts escaping them. Sol won, he was already ten and hitting puberty so he was bigger than Titus. Straddling his little brother, he put both hands against his shoulders, preventing him from getting up.
"Mom said not to come out of our room," Sol hissed, winded and gasping for air. "For once in your life would you listen to her?"
"You're gonna let that asshole hit your mother," Titus hissed through gritted teeth.
"You son of a bitch," they heard their mother gasp. "You dare lay a hand on me."
"I am the fucking King," their dad slurred.
Titus struggled, but Sol kept him pinned down.
SLAP
Their mother was hit again.
"Let me up," Titus sobbed, tears falling down his face. "Sol, you have to let me help her."
"She said," Sol whispered. "I can't. She said to stay here."
Another glass smashed.
"Go to bed," their mother commanded. "Now."
A slurred answer that Sol didn't understand. His father staggered past their bedroom door.
"That whore fucks better than you ever have," he yelled at the living room.
Silence answered.
"Fucking bitch," their father slurred to himself as he stumbled away towards their bedroom.
Sol slowly let Titus up from the floor. Titus scrambled up.
"You're a pussy," he sobbed to Sol. "Letting him do that to her."
"Go to bed, Titus," Sol said softly. "Let's both go to bed."
The pulse lights flickered off in the hallway as their mother went into the spare room.
"Goodnight, boys," she called softly through the closed door. "Thank you for not coming outside. I will see you both in the morning."
Sol sighed and returned to his bed.
"You're a coward," Titus muttered from his bed. "I hate you."
"Love you too, little brother," Sol muttered, staring up at the ceiling. "Love you too."
Sol shot straight out of the tub, water flinging off his body, sending Bianca sprawling to the floor.
"Mother," he gasped before he got his bearings.
He focused on where he was. Carabesh. He was in Carabesh. A man now, not the snivelling little boy he was back then.
And his dear Bianca was lying on the ground looking stunned.
"Bianca," he said, quickly getting out of the tub to get to her side. "I'm sorry, I must have dozed off. Are you okay?"
Smiling at him, she allowed him to help her to her feet. "Yes, yes, my dear. You just caught me off guard is all."
Sol heaved her upright, "Thank you, love," he said to her. "I will dry myself off and meet you in the living room. There is much we have to discuss."
Bianca nodded and left the bathroom, leaving Sol to dry himself off and find clean robes.
His father had never hit his mother again. After that incident, she'd had to stay in the house for almost a week for her black eyes to clear up. His father had dealt with the guilt by showering her with gifts. He'd even stopped drinking and visiting the prostitutes. For a while, anyway. The King liked his prostitutes.
'Cause I fuck pussy, his father's voice said in his ear. You are a pussy. There's a difference.
"I'd rather be a pussy than act like you," Sol snapped.
The voice stopped talking and Sol came to a realization. Yes, he may be a coward, but today he'd needed to kill and he had, possibly saving countless lives in the process. Maybe, just maybe, he could be King. And just rule differently than his father had.
That meant that he had to go home. He had to be King.
His mother hadn't died for nothing.
He had to go.
Sighing about what he had to do next, he walked out of the bathroom to the living room, to a beautiful Bianca sitting on the couch waiting for him. She'd even made him caffé.
But she was a common woman.
Not fit for a King.
"Listen, Bianca," Sol said, sitting down on the couch beside her. "I need to talk to you."
"I need to talk to you too, Semper." Bianca said, smiling wide. "It's why I came here to begin with."
Sol cringed at the use of his fake name.
"That's what I want to talk to you about," Sol said. "I'm not Master Semper. My name is Prince Sol the eighteenth. I am the true heir to the throne of Solias in Langundo."
Her mouth fell open in shock.
"And I'm going back home," he finished. "I'm going to take my throne back, or die trying."
Tears formed in Bianca's eyes.
"Look, I love you, okay. But I have to. Don't be sad. You've been amazing."
"It's not... it's not that," she said, smiling. "I'm carrying a future king?"
"What?" Sol said, jumping to his feet. "What are you talking about?"
"It's why I came here," she said. "I've missed my monthly. And it's yours." Smiling. "I'm carrying a future King," she said. "Oh, Semper, I'm so happy."
"No," Sol said, blanching. "You can't prove it's mine."
Bianca went from smiling to pure loathing in a second.
"Of course it's yours," she spat. "What? Do you think I just fuck anything?"
"Then it's not a future King," Sol said quickly. "It's a bastard. You're common. A common bastard will never sit on the throne of Solias."
"You're horrible," Bianca gasped, striding for the door. "Wasn't the last queen a common? So you're part common. You're filth."
Sol didn't say anything.
"And so was your mother," Bianca sobbed while she fumbled with opening the door.
Sol cracked. That was it. He took three quick strides and caught up with her, pushing her against the door hard, smacking her head with a bang.
"Never. Talk. About. My. Mother. Again," he hissed. Terror flashed in her eyes.
The fear focused him and he let go of her shoulders, embarrassed.
"Look," he said. "I'll send money..."
Bianca wrenched the door open. "Don't bother," she snapped. "I never want to see you again." She fled down the hallway.
Sol let her go.
Hmm, his father said in his ear, you mi
ght just be my son after all.
14
Carter
"Evac plan bravo," Carter shouted, running to his office.
There was a flurry of movement behind him. Every agent in the ZTF knew their job. Carter ran to his desk and took out the paper copy of all the information that he had on Freudman. Even if he hadn't had the time to print off the new stuff, he still kept the old stuff hidden in a safe under his desk.
'What's evac plan bravo?" Black Eyes asked.
"We're going to grab everything we can, split up, and then meet at a safe house," Carter said.
Gunshots sounded from the server room and Black Eyes jumped.
"That would be Pierre, destroying the servers."
"Won't Freudman know where the safe house is?" Black Eyes said as Carter shoved the papers into a backpack. "You said he had everything?"
Carter wrenched open the door to his office. "Plan bravo defective," he yelled. "Switch to Plan bravo with White Snow initiative."
"You sure, boss?' Ramjeet said, grabbing a handgun from under his desk.
Igor marched in with two large duffel bags, a stupid smile on his face.
"Yes," Carter said. "It's our only option."
Ramjeet nodded, white-faced.
"White Snow," Ramjeet yelled.
Igor cheered, "My kind of day!"
Carter went to a door that led directly to the stairs. Flying down, feet barely hitting the steps, he charged out of the building.
"You're just leaving them?" Black Eyes asked, hot on his heels.
Carter hit the ground floor and, with an adjustment of his coat to hide his gun, walked out of the building. Reaching inside his coat he took out a black toque and sunglasses and turned onto the street of downtown Toronto.
"They have their instructions," Carter said under his breath, joining in with a crowd of tourists and checking his watch. "Come on, come on," he muttered, checking his watch and looking at the light.
The crosswalk light changed and Carter walked swiftly towards the parking garage a few blocks over. He only had two minutes to get out of dodge or this was going to get messy.