by David Beers
Tommy Phillips didn’t have a lot to live for anymore, and that should have been plain to everyone.
Chapter 6
“We’re ready,” Charles said.
“Okay. I trust you have everything you need? The money will clear in the next hour; feel free to wait until after it does, before beginning.”
Thanks for your permission, you fuck, Charles thought.
“Once the money clears, I’ll have everything I need.”
“Where do you plan on watching it from?” Titan asked over the phone.
“I have an area in my house designated to making sure everything goes as planned.”
“Would you mind if I watched it with you?”
Of course Charles didn’t want to watch anything with this man. He didn’t want to be anywhere near him, not unless he could hold a gun to his forehead. What was he going to say, though? The man was paying with cash, and if he wanted to sit on Charles’s lap while the crew gunned down FBI agents, then that’s what he’d get.
The money was just too good.
“No, that’s fine. My assistant will make sure you get the address. You’ll need to be here by five in the morning.”
“Certainly,” Titan said.
“Okay. I’ll see you then.”
Charles hung up the phone and immediately stood up from his kitchen table.
He didn’t pace, but remained standing, both hands formed into fists and looking like an extremely fat twelve year old. Red anger crept up his face, having already laid claim to his neck.
“MOTHERFUCKER!” he shouted into the empty room, spittle flying from his mouth and landing on the table.
He didn’t like being played like a fiddle, and that’s exactly what Titan was doing. Titan, with all his genius, had to know Charles wanted nothing to do with him, yet he would be at Charles’s home tomorrow morning.
This home.
The one he now stood in.
Don’t kill him. Don’t do it. Not until this is finished and your money is right. There’s you and Mom to think about. Your goddamn sister, too.
The red slowly faded from his cheeks, leaving them pale and flabby. He waddled across his kitchen, through the dining room, and into his living room. A large coffee table sat in front of the two couches, at the moment cleared of any decorations. Instead, a map of the United States lay across it, with four tiny, red circles having been drawn on it.
These were the four spots they would attack tomorrow. The mercenaries would be in position. Arrival routes had been planned, as well as paths out—though the ones out would be much, much more difficult to navigate. Perhaps even impossible, Charles didn’t know. He didn’t care either. The mercenaries had already been paid, and if they died, then arrangements would be made to send their payment to whomever they designated. Charles personally didn’t give a goddamn if their kids or wives or Chinese sex slaves got it—if it had been possible, he would have pocketed the cash of every man that died. It wasn’t, of course. They knew they most likely would die, so these desperados wouldn’t have joined without the ability to leave a check for someone else.
The problem Charles had wasn’t with routes or enough men.
The problem was he had no end goal. Titan hadn’t given him one, and when he asked about it, the motherfucker said, “Let’s see how many we can kill. That’s a good goal, no?”
Sure, a great goal. Hell, Charles liked watching people fall over dead, but that wasn’t a goddamn reason to go to war with the government.
Charles had always known he was a bit off. Different than other people. You didn’t exactly get a hard-on from murder and think you were normal. This man, though—Titan … he was truly insane.
Veronica Lopez always knew Luke would come for her again. Even as she signed the papers erasing her old life, she said, “None of this matters. When he wants me, he’ll get me.”
Veronica Lopez was part of the Witness Protection Program, though she had yet to testify against anyone. FBI Director Alan Waverly had explained it to her in cold, calm detail. They didn’t have the resources to follow her for the rest of her life, and yet they knew Luke Titan was alive. They knew, through his letters, that he was looking forward to killing her.
Luke had never forgiven Veronica for insinuating that he’d murdered his superior in academia (though, of course, Luke had murdered the man). In fact, everything that happened in Veronica’s life after that accusation could be directly attributed to Luke, and the sick games he was playing with Christian.
“Luke is going to try and kill you, Ms. Lopez,” Waverly had said. “The only way we can protect you is to remove you from society, or remove Veronica Lopez at least. The Witness Protection Program will allow that to happen. It’ll give you a new life and keep you from Luke’s grasp.”
“Aren’t you trying to find him?”
“We are and we will find him. The question you need to ask yourself, though, is if you’re willing to risk dying until that happens.”
“If you kill him, can I get my life back? This one?” she had asked.
“Yes. I imagine you’ll also get a nice book deal once that happens.”
Veronica hated the Director for saying it, and she hated herself for liking the suggestion, as well.
In the end, she signed the papers because she wanted to live. It had nothing to do with a book deal, or anything else really. In the end, Veronica was weak, and valued living over everything else. Over seeing her parents again. Over seeing her friends.
Even over the man she loved, Christian.
Though, she couldn’t take the full blame for that.
By the time she’d signed, the man she loved didn’t exist any longer. Christian had changed after Lucy Speckle, but …
It wasn’t comparable to the change after Luke.
He wasn’t trying to protect people, as he’d done after Speckle. Christian had quit speaking to Veronica then because he truly didn’t want her in any danger. What happened during his Luke recovery (as Veronica always thought of it) was entirely different. His body healed, but his mind didn’t. His soul didn’t.
“I’m joining the program,” she had told him at his hospital bed. How many nights had she spent there, at his side? She couldn’t count them, but each one had been agonizing, because she’d known when he was able to walk again, he would never walk with her.
Christian didn’t look at her as she told him, but stared out the window. “That’s good,” he whispered.
Tears sprang to Veronica’s eyes, and she knew he would hear them in her words, if not see them fall down her face. “I just wanted to tell you.”
“It’s smart. Waverly is right. Luke will kill you if he can find you.”
Veronica stood and fled the room. Those were the last words Christian spoke to her.
Veronica lived on the west coast now, in California. Once a best-selling author, she now worked as a senior editor at a local newspaper. Their circulation was around 30,000. Her books used to sell that much in the first week of release.
Veronica still thought of herself as Veronica, though everyone else knew her as Betsy Arnold. Betsy. A plain name. And Arnold? Gone was her Mexican heritage, stripped from her the same as Christian’s underlying sensitivity had been.
Luke took everything from everyone, and gave nothing back.
Veronica had thought she wanted life, truly. That’s why she signed the damned papers. It was only after she arrived in California to a life she didn’t understand, that she came to realize perhaps life wasn’t that valuable after all.
Suicide. That was the thought which came to her … always unbidden, and at the most random times. She would be sitting in front of her computer, working on some local assignment about how the lack of rainfall was impacting businesses, and the thought would suddenly arise.
You should kill yourself.
It was shocking at first, but with repetition, it came to be somewhat expected.
You should kill yourself.
When something like that
is repeated enough, it feels like a worthy alternative.
You should kill yourself.
And Veronica Lopez, now known as Betsy Arnold, began to give it serious consideration.
Charles walked in front of Luke Titan, leading him into the living room.
“Need anything to drink? I have sodas, beer, liquor, even water if you’d like.”
Charles felt good, much better than he had yesterday when he thought about Titan in his home. He felt better because it was the day of, and not the day before. He felt better because he’d slept great last night, not to mention that all of Titan’s money had been safely deposited into Charles’s account. Mostly, though, Charles felt so damn good because today people were going to die. A lot of them.
“No, thank you,” Titan said.
The two stood at the living room’s entrance, Charles stopping and letting Luke step up next to him.
“So, this is where we’ll watch.”
Four 50” television screens had been mounted across the walls, and Charles hadn’t bothered to clean afterwards. Drywall and paint littered the hardwood floors.
“Sorry about the mess,” Charles said, though he wasn’t sorry at all. “I’ll have to clean it up a little later. I needed space for the televisions. Each one is hooked up to a server in the back room. The server has top notch GPUs, so we should be able to see everything as it happens, and in high def.”
Charles was proud of that, and he looked over at Titan to see the man’s response. He was smirking, but Charles could read no more into that than he could anything else the man gave off.
“Here,” Charles said, pointing toward the coffee table, “I’ve got four two way radios. They’re all on private channels, so we’ll be able to communicate to the group leaders at each site.”
“What do we actually have at each site, Mr. Twaller?” Titan asked.
“Each group is 50 men strong, each armed with explosives and automatic weapons. They’re all wearing heavy body armor, which should halt even direct hits to the body. Of course, a headshot is going to put them down. Basically, we have everything short of armored vehicles.”
“And how much of my armory have we used?”
“Around ten percent.”
Titan nodded. “Well done, Mr. Twaller. I’m impressed. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll sit back and just watch you work. I don’t want a very active role here.”
That was the best goddamn news Charles had heard all day, and he could have kissed the son-of-a-bitch for saying it.
“Well, pull up a chair. The festivities will begin soon,” Charles said, letting a smile grow across his flabby face. “It’s going to be a good time. A grand ole time!”
Charles giggled as he walked around Titan. He went to the couch’s armchair and picked up the television remote. He flipped on the four TVs, putting each one on a different news station. The sun was up outside, and each channel had a different talking head on it. Most were discussing politics, though the third appeared to be doing a feel good piece about a zoo somewhere.
Charles didn’t care. The shooting hadn’t started yet. He felt confident the zoo would disappear once the war began.
Christian hadn’t gone home like Simone wanted, but he did get a better night’s sleep last night. Which was odd, to say the least. He should have slept more poorly; Luke Titan had broken into his house, silently moved through it, and then watched Christian sleep.
Christian should have been terrified, unable to drift off for even a second.
He was terrified, but that didn’t hinder his sleep at all.
Is it because he’s back? Christian wondered as the elevator opened into the subbasement. He stepped out and crossed the hallway to his office. At four in the morning, the subbasement was empty, not even Tommy having arrived yet.
It was humorous, how sometimes they competed to get here earlier than the other, in order to have some peace while they worked.
That’s why Christian was here so dreadfully early today (dreadful to Simone, at least—she swore she didn’t understand why they worked such insane hours, but, “That’s why Waverly hired me, I suppose. Because I’m the only sane one in this group.”). Christian came because he wanted some time alone in his mansion; he needed to see if his mind had been able to make any connections regarding what happened the previous night.
He placed his bag down on his desk, then walked back to the office door and closed it. He went to his chair and sat down. The lights were on overhead, though he had a feeling it wouldn’t be as bright in his mansion. It was night there, and the lights were down, because the creature which resided inside liked his rest, even if Christian wasn’t sleeping all that often.
Christian sighed and closed his eyes, knowing he didn’t want to see what waited on him. At least part of him didn’t. Another part, the same part that slept so fully last night, wanted nothing else.
Chapter 7
Christian’s mansion held an almost infinite number of rooms, and it grew larger daily. He could go to them at any time and look back on his life, remembering with infinite detail the things he’d seen and not seen. His mother always said that when he died, his mind should be preserved and studied, put underneath a microscope and scalpel to better understand how such a thing could exist.
He knew most likely that wouldn’t happen, though, because his death would be at the hands of Luke Titan; there wouldn’t be much left of his brain for the doctors to examine.
Christian wasn’t concerned with the other rooms in his mansion—not the ones marked Mom, or The Surgeon, or The Priest, or even The Lover. All of them were inconsequential, just like in reality. What mattered here was the top floor.
He ascended the stairs slowly. He wasn’t frightened to see what waited on him; those days had passed. There had been many of them, whole months when he couldn’t go inside his mansion for fear of the things he might see.
Now, he walked slowly because he felt that he might want to stay. To linger in Luke’s remnants, the same way Luke had lingered in Christian’s house the night before.
“You’re back.”
The other spoke, the negative image of Christian. They looked exactly alike, except for the blood that continually leaked from the other’s eyes and mouth. The blood that soaked his hands. He was another of Luke’s remnants … though, perhaps that wasn’t the right term. A remnant was something old and forgotten, something left. The other was none of those things.
He was a part of Christian, though not all of him as Luke had hoped. Years ago, the other had stepped out from Christian’s mind and right into the real world, giving him advice that led to Lucy Speckle’s death. And that moment nearly led to Christian murdering someone without true cause. The other was a dangerous thing, and now he lived in Christian’s mansion; he was the caretaker, and Christian could do nothing about it.
Luke, gone these two years, still held control over some things.
“Ignoring me?” the other asked as Christian reached the last of the stairs, arriving at the top floor.
Christian said nothing, but looked to the three people standing at the balcony. His mind hadn’t put them here, or at least his subconscious hadn’t. Christian had done it himself.
His mother, Veronica, and Tommy all stood looking down at the massive staircase beneath them. They didn’t move, just wore sad smiles on their faces. They didn’t look at Christian, or the other who walked behind him. They never ventured an inch to the left or the right. They stood in silence and stillness, their likeness perfectly preserved to before Luke got hold of them.
The massive floor lay behind the three memories, and that’s why they stood here, at the front. To remind Christian in case he felt himself becoming lost in Luke’s memories. Regardless the attraction that might lie in Luke, if Christian remembered that Tommy could no longer stand, Christian would always return. He would always remember what Luke was, and what fate must befall him.
“What are you going to watch now? That’s the only reason you come he
re anymore, to watch old videos of Luke like some parent who lost their child. Watching old tapes of their first few birthdays. Don’t you think it’s a bit sick?”
“No,” Christian said as he passed the three statues. The walls lit up around him, showing him images and videos of Luke—all of them actual interactions that Christian had over the years. He didn’t look at them, but focused on getting to the far end of the floor. It took longer each time, as his mind built more and more space for Luke. He never knew exactly how far he’d have to walk.
“It’s at least odd,” the other said, and then grew quiet next to Christian as they walked along the floor. Christian could hear the blood dripping from the other’s hand. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter on the marble floor.
The other may live here, but it didn’t mean Christian had to speak with him.
He was right, though; Christian came to understand more of Luke’s life. A week or so after Luke shoved a knife through Christian’s cheek, he had sent a letter advising Christian to learn about his life. There had been other letters, of course, and each one gave a glimpse, although none painted the entire picture.
That was up to Christian, and his intensely gifted mind.
Sometimes there were new videos to watch, and sometimes his mind added new details to old ones. Sometimes there was nothing at all to watch, as if his mind had lost what it once knew. That happened nowhere else in this mansion—when Christian wanted something, his mind provided it … but this floor was different.
Finally, he and the other reached the end of Luke’s mausoleum. Two large leather chairs sat in front of an old television. It was small with rabbit ears, an odd yellow tinge to the screen, coloring the videos it showed. Christian once asked the other why it was so different than the rest of the mansion—the ‘technology’ used elsewhere outpacing what could actually be done in life.