“It’s your neck.”
Wheatley frowned, listening to the footsteps circling them.
“There’s a hole in your neck.” Carmichael grumbled, unsure of who could hear him. Certain that he had armed Wheatley with enough information, he rolled slowly onto his back, checking his peripheral vision. He felt strong now, unburdened by whatever thrall had put him out of action. With his hands flat to the floor, he stretched his legs, arched his back off the ground and sprung forward. No sooner was he on his feet than Stanwick’s foot caught him clean across the jaw and he fell to one knee.
“Stay down.”
Even spat in disdain, her words were a balm. Carmichael looked up, knowing that he would be unable to look away from her until she struck him down harder.
“You found him then?” he asked.
Her fiendish smile was still too inviting. On the floor about him the others were stirring now, Stanwick’s spell apparently ended. Carmichael allowed himself to look into her eyes, “You’re outnumbered.” He tried.
Her smile softened by degrees, tinged at the edges with pity. He watched as she stepped on McMahon’s wrist with one foot, her other foot pressing his face to the floor.
“You remember none of my words?”
There were times when her words were all Carmichael could remember.
“Confidence in numbers belies doubt in self.” She stepped off McMahon’s face, kicking an arm out from beneath Philippa Myson’s struggling body.
The frustration; Myson’s mandible rocking side to side, molar’s grinding. Frustration sufficient to bolster her resolve. She reached up, grabbing Stanwick’s knee tightly, pulling herself forward. Head cocked to one side, Phillipa opened her mouth as wide as she could manage, jerking hard on Stanwick’s knee, buckling her leg so that she could get a good mouth-hold. Stanwick tried to step backwards, reviled by the sight of Myson, but she stumbled, loosing her footing.
Checking Wheatley, who’s neck had started to close over, Carmichael pushed forwards again, eying Stanwick’s midriff and landing his thick skull perfectly on target. He knew he’d knocked the wind out of her, and she went down easily, dragging him and Myson with her as she went. He landed a couple of good punches before her first knee to his stomach. Then again, too quickly, her knee in his stomach and her fingers in his face. That was enough; he wanted to get off her, but he had invited her wrath, and Myson’s frenzied form beneath him made things no easier. He only hoped that Myson was managing to do some damage.
Stirred by one of Stanwick’s stray limbs, Clements scrambled out of her way, watching Phillipa Myson’s tortuous attempt at rodeoing the beast. Clements’ hands found their way to a rifle; he fired a couple of rounds, both of which landed in the side of Myson’s face from what he could tell. Unable to land a clean shot, he gave up and laid down suppressive fire. No sooner had he fired off a few short bursts, than he felt strong hands gripping the front of his jacket.
West lifted Clements clean off the ground, tucking his left ankle behind Clements legs, pitching him easily towards one of the large windows. Myson had quickly let loose Stanwick’s leg, and recovered Clement’s rifle, firing at the new assailant’s back. Bullets from Myson’s rifle tore into the muscles of West’s leg and lower back as Clements’ face hammered into the window. Grabbing the back of his hair, West slammed his head into the glass a couple more times until the window shattered. He was focused now. He spun Clements about once more, his body becoming a convenient bullet sponge for Myson’s itchy trigger finger, then with one last heave, West threw him through the window, his limbs flailing as his body sailed out of view.
As he surveyed the damage that had been caused within the first few moments of the other agents entering the apartment, Cobb felt nauseated and dizzy. He wanted to survive. His breathing had become erratic and fear stalked rampant through the corridors of his mind. How could he get out of this place alive if he couldn’t breathe? He trained his weapon on the woman, who seemed to be a more immediate threat to the other agents. He squeezed the trigger with fast calm pulses of his finger, his aim sure, his arm planted securely on the wooden floor; when Stanwick failed to fall to the ground in the hail of bullets, Cobb told himself that he must have missed. He squeezed the trigger again, letting out a high pitched yell as he realized that agent Myson had now thrown herself at the woman, her body moving directly into his line of fire.
He couldn’t have missed, he knew that now; the fine dust of shredded material which plumed from the back of Myson’s vest confirmed it and the blanket of self loathing came so quickly over Cobb that his vision darkened under its weight. The thoughts flashed through his mind … colleague … shot in the back … paperwork … tribunal … As the weapon fell to the floor in front of him, he wasn’t even sure the thoughts had come in that order, which made it all the worse. As he finally caught up with the reality of what he was seeing, he gasped in relief; Myson had pinned the woman and was now laying into her, punching her repeatedly. Myson was fine; either that or she was psychotic and battle crazed, working through the pain. Above all, Cobb was starting to realize that the scene which was unfolding was miraculous.
He crawled forward, still hugging the wall, and now he could see that Agents Carmichael and Middleton were both coming to Myson’s aid. He had imagined that the three would now set about restraining the woman, but instead, the two men both joined in Myson’s attack, kicking and punching her. How she managed to keep fighting back, Cobb could only wonder in horror, but fight she did, grabbing at Carmichael’s leg with one hand, dragging him to the floor, swinging her other elbow into Myson’s face as she struggled to pin her. Myson tried several times to throw a leg around the woman’s neck, and on her last attempt her flailing foot kicked one of the rifles within Cobb’s reach. He stretched his hand out timidly, his furtive eyes scanning for threats. He had the strap under his fingertip when his eyes met with West’s. More to the point, he was aware that West’s eyes had met with his own. Holding Agent McMahon’s neck in one hand, West stooped to the floor to pick something up, then as he stood, his arm went back and whatever it was he’d picked up, hit Cobb clean between the eyes.
In a drowse, Cobb felt the liquid trickle down his face. His head throbbing, he knew it must be blood. It tasted pleasant though. Much too pleasant to be blood. As he drifted in and out of consciousness, snatches of delirious dreams tugged at him and begged him to stay under, to give in to the blackness. It felt as if the fight had been spilling about him, undulating and ravaging the apartment around him for hours. As best he could, he kept his eyes turned towards the middle of the room, opening them only when the sounds of scraping, snarling, biting and thumping forced his curiosity over the edge. What he saw in those moments; none of it made sense.
He drifted into black and saw a vast expanse of blood soaked fields, bodies strewn all around him. Surely this was the reality he would face if he allowed himself to surface? He saw the faces of every agent he had ever worked with, smashed and bloodied, their limbs sprawled at awkward and sickening angles. He woke, but kept his eyes closed as the bile raised in his throat; two people, maybe more, right next to him, trying to kill each other, he couldn’t afford to make a sound as he swallowed the burning stomach acids back down.
His left eye was closest to the ground and he chanced opening it to a tiny slit, his eyelashes blurring his vision just enough to give a soft focus to the terror; McMahon was there, only a couple of feet from his face and he seemed to be trying to bite a chunk out of the woman’s cheek. It couldn’t be real, he told himself. What would it mean if that was real?
He allowed himself to slip back into the darkness, his silent sobs giving way to a pulsing light. In the light, in that bright space in the darkness of his mind, a woman, blond and sleek, knelt on the sand beside him. He felt a sharp pain in his arm, a jabbing sensation, like the woman was prodding him with something.
“What the f…?” Cobb began, but the woman cut him off, “shh, shh. Relax. It’s just Occam’s Razor.”
Instantly, he knew who his angelic guardian was. He understood that rationally, he should know, if only because this was his adrenal black out, but still, he was proud that he’d managed to get a mental fix on something. He opened his eyes and looked up into the angelic face of Jodie Foster, but of course he had known it would be her. Occam’s Razor my ass he thought … He mouthed the words back at her as she offered her words of wisdom, “All things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.”
He shook his head, trying to brush her hand away, “That’s bullshit. No explanation for the things I’ve seen.”
She prodded him again, pushing the point of the blade in just enough to sting. “Occam’s Razor …” her voice started to fade and Cobb felt himself drifting away from her, “What if all things aren’t equal? Huh Jodie? When are things ever equal in this life?”
As the half light of the apartment filtered into his consciousness, he heard her one more time, “The simplest … explanation…”
Then it was Agent McMahon’s face that shifted into his field of view; eyes closed, blood pouring from several open wounds on his forehead and cheeks. Cobb wanted to close his eyes again and just wait for the trauma unit to turn up. Something odd was happening though. There … right there on the landscape of McMahon’s body, small movements; not the blood rolling down his cheek, or the gentle raising and lowering of his chest that would suggest life. Cobb wished that was what he saw. He wished like he couldn’t remember wishing … no, like six year old Brad, wishing for a Cringer action figure for Christmas; Brad Cobb wished now that what he was seeing was a trick of the light, clouds moving across the sun, neutrinos reflected from a gas cloud bouncing back through the cosmos.
As he watched the deep cut which ran from McMahon’s hair line down to his right eyebrow, Cobb felt that same disappointment he’d felt as a child. No, this was worse. Then, it had meant that Santa didn’t read too well, or didn’t think he deserved a plastic tiger. Now, the rapidly healing wounds on McMahon’s face meant something much more sinister.
Occam’s Razor … Cobb could almost see the good angel Jodie kneeling over McMahon, pointing the gleaming blade at the bloodied face.
“He’s not dead.”
The sound of the woman’s voice froze every function of Cobb’s brain and fixed his limbs taut.
“Of course he’s not. When was the last time you killed a Blood-Bastard with a few punches?”
The woman sighed, “This one.”
With the gentle prod of Stanwick’s foot, Cobb started to shake violently, “Please, I didn’t know, I …”
West knelt over Cobb’s chest and pinned his hands to the floor too easily, “Shut up man! Just shut up and stop begging.”
Cobb looked up into the turbulent depths of West’s eyes, expecting to see anger or hatred, but instead, written in the curvature of his eyebrows, he saw sympathy, or at least pity.
“Give him the cure.” West seemed to indicate McMahon with a nod of his head. The cure? Cobb felt the panic mount again; what did that mean? Was she about to kill McMahon?
“You have it on you?” Stanwick asked casually.
West let go of Cobb’s right hand, raising his eyebrows in an unspoken warning, then he appeared to reach into the back pocket of his pants. He threw a small phial of liquid to Stanwick and held down Cobb’s hand again.
Unseen by agent Cobb, Stanwick knelt over McMahon, with the weight of her knees on his arms, she waited. She watched as the wounds of his face healed completely, as she felt the bones of his rib cage, those bones she had shattered with her knees a few minutes before, knit together and become whole once more. Only when she was sure that he was healthy enough to survive did she part his lips with her fingers, spilling the contents of the phial into his open mouth. She threw the empty phial to the side and closed McMahon’s mouth shut, massaging his throat with her fingertips and lifting his head forward. McMahon wouldn’t wake for a while, and when he did, he would pose no threat to them.
Cobb turned his head as much as he dared, “Is she poisoning him?”
West slapped Cobb’s right cheek gently, “Look at me.”
Cobb closed his mouth tight, and looked straight up at West, frightened that he was about to administer this ‘cure,’ but West still looked calm and pitying.
“You have a choice, and you need to think about this before you answer.”
Cobb’s eyes opened wide in anticipation.
“What’s your name?”
“Cobb … Brad Cobb.”
West spoke quickly now, “Brad, there is no evil here. There are merely decisions and consequences. For actions to be defined as evil, there needs to be a context, do you agree?”
“Y …” Cobb couldn’t even get out the word. “You’ve killed them.”
“Your colleagues are fine. Temporarily trashed, absolutely, but they’ll recover. You have no context and I’m not about to tell you the people you are working with are evil. I’m no judge or arbiter, but I can tell you this; you are working for the betterment of a cause that is morally ambiguous.”
Stanwick stood beside West now, looking down at Cobb, “West, you’re being way too polite about this. Tiernan’s not evil in the biblical sense, but he is a self serving dick.”
Cobb’s derisory laugh was involuntary.
West raised his eyebrows reproachfully, “You have something to say?”
Cobb licked his lips and swallowed, desperate not to antagonize the two any further, “He’s a politician right? I haven’t seen many who weren’t self serving pricks.”
West smiled warmly, “Which brings us back to your choice Mr Cobb …”
Cobb wanted to retreat into the depths of his imagination once more. Whatever the choice was, he would let his starlet guardian decide.
West let go of Cobb’s hands and stood over him, “Brad, either you are with us, or you are against us.” He held out his arms, as if to suggest that Cobb should observe the chaos of the destroyed apartment, “Which is it to be?”
Stanwick cleared her throat, and West suddenly became aware that she had been tapping her foot impatiently. He cast his eyes in her direction and noted the bemused expression with which she was regarding him, “What? What’s wrong?”
She shrugged, “Is this the way of it now? You just recruit everyone who stumbles into your path?”
West looked crestfallen, obviously needled by her remark. She bit her lip, “If you really think it’s necessary, fine.”
“We don’t have time for this Stan. Either we leave a path of destruction with new found enemies frothing in our wake, or else, yes, we recruit everyone who is willing to join us.” Stanwick nodded and offered Brad Cobb a hand, helping him to his feet. She brushed his shoulders off, “Well Brad, there you have it. Either I kill you now or we leave this place, dragging you into our merry little shit storm. Do you know which way your bread’s buttered?”
In the distance, Cobb could make out the sound of sirens, no doubt drawn by the fallen body on the streets below, or perhaps even by the sounds of gunfire. He tried not to look expectant, but he could tell from the woman’s expression that he was an open book right now.
“Don’t think they’re going to save you man … Death, or the company of madmen. Rescue by NYPD is not an option.”
Now that he was on his feet, Cobb had a chance to look at the bodies of the other agents. They didn’t look dead. They weren’t exactly lively, but he was willing to concede that they might not be deceased.
West walked over to the window and watched the first of the squad cars pulling up.
“You’re coming with us.” He stormed away from the window, stepping through the mess of bodies, walking the length of the hallway. He stopped at his bedroom door and knocked.
“It’s time.”
There were already six police officers in the lobby of the apartment building and they started to look twitchy when the elevator pinged to announce its arrival. Two agents stepped out, jostling a handcuffed man
.
“Agent Brad Cobb.” Cobb dropped the handle of a suitcase which he was dragging behind him and reached into his jacket to pull his ID.
One of the police officers stepped forwards, glancing at Cobb’s ID, “Your boy on the street’s lucky to be alive.”
The other agent glanced towards the building’s front doors, “He’s on his feet?”
“No, he’s unresponsive, but he’s breathing. Paramedics are en-route.”
Cobb nodded his head, jostling David Beach, “You wouldn’t think he’d be capable. It’s a mess up there.”
The officer floundered between confusion and disgust, then he noticed the other two agents coming from the stairwell, one of them holding a young child at their side. He looked at David Beach again, “Just him?”
Cobb nodded.
“Jesus, how many of you did it take to bring him down? He buzzed?”
Cobb kicked the suitcase behind him, “Four suitcases full of the shit, but as far as I can tell he’s clean.”
The officer lowered his head, trying to look into David’s eyes, “Nah man, he’s tweakin’.”
Cobb shrugged, “We’ll see when we get the bloods back.”
The officer stepped aside, “I suppose this is all over to the feds now?”
Cobb shrugged, “Some kind of mess upstairs. Make of it what you will. We have our hands full.” He yanked his prisoner’s arm once more, smiling broadly.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On the Road
As Allan Tiernan walked up to the small podium, he wished he had broken from tradition and installed a grandiose pulpit in the White House press room. It would have been more befitting the occasion. The glaring staccato of the flashes from all of the cameras frustrated him, but he knew that their presence was a necessary evil. His return to the role of president of the United States should be one of the most documented events in recorded history. Not all eyes would be on him of course. Throughout the world, all of the announcements would happen at the same time, and in fact Tiernan had agreed that America’s central and West coast audiences would take a hit rather than pulling the timing on China and Japan’s announcements.
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 28