by K. T. Tomb
Hamilton had the refinement of a feral cat and took full advantage of his wealth. He didn’t care about his public image and was just as harsh when the photographers snapped away, as when he was surrounded by just a few friends or family. He was a necessity, because nobody knew about Armette Transportation better than Hamilton.
Hamilton kept himself in excellent condition and was his private club’s tennis champion, three years running. He had slightly bushy eyebrows that he called his sexy sticks, and always smiled through the left side of his mouth. His light green eyes were a stark contrast with Symone’s more exotic look and darker eyes and his hair he kept cut short and parted on one side, which could change depending upon his mood. Hamilton preferred to wear khaki shorts and an Armette Transportation polo shirt of whatever color he preferred that day and his shoes of choice were usually made by whichever company just so happened to pay enough for him to advertise their footwear. He and Symone made it a point to avoid questions concerning their nationality. They both spoke with no accent and their family had always been secretive when it came to their country of origin. The fact that Symone and Hamilton looked as if they came from two different families, spurred those same questions even more.
The limo door opened as Simon tensed for his initial choice of words for his son and Peter. Both men solemnly entered the vehicle. Hamilton immediately started laughing. “Hah! It’s about time that the black sheep gets overshadowed by an even blacker one! How does that feel, future son-in-law?”
Symone slapped her brother’s arm. “Not now, Hamilton. This is for Simon to deal with. It is his concern.”
Peter and Jonathan waited with their heads hung in shame. “Three weeks,” Simon uttered.
“I’m sorry, dad,” Jonathan said quietly. “but you see…”
“You were in jail for three weeks,” Simon interrupted. “Every day you were in prison was another day wasted. Another day without any information concerning the lair of Beowulf.”
“Beowulf?” Hamilton queried. “If that’s all you wanted, I can help you with that.”
Symone’s eyes widened. “Hamilton! No!”
Hamilton smirked. “I have a Beowulf in my shorts! Do you want to see the lair? Ha-ha!”
No one but Hamilton laughed, although Jonathan hid his chuckle in a cough.
“Maybe you should just find Phoe and hire her to finish this one,” Peter suggested. “I apologize for…”
“I don’t want apologies,” Simon returned. “I want…no I need to find the lair as soon as possible.”
Symone bit her lower lip in frustration. “That’s not important, my love.”
Simon’s eyes locked with Symone’s. It was as if she was trying to telepathically persuade him onto another topic. “You’re right, of course, Symone,” he replied.
Jonathan looked at his father in shock. He had never seen him that restrained in his life.
“Besides…,” Simon continued, “…Phoe has dropped off the grid.”
Peter perked up. “What do you mean, dropped off the grid? What do you know about the way she was acting? I mean, besides the whole embarrassing her at her award ceremony.” Peter knew exactly what he was doing, by addressing the elephant in the limo. Simon glared at Peter.
Peter couldn’t take all of the cloak and dagger talk anymore. “Out with it, Simon! I don’t like to be the one not dancing in a room full of eligible ladies. I would say that it’s time to explain about Beowulf, once and for all!”
***
Peter was speechless as the limo that contained Simon, Symone, Jonathan, and a laughing Hamilton, drove off and left him standing on the side of a road in a country he barely knew with no way to get back home.
Chapter Eight
Kadan Alexander was fast asleep with half of the sheet covering his otherwise naked body in the Officer’s Suite at the Hotel Skeppsholmen. There were empty pizza boxes and clothes thrown all over the apartment. Two men about Kadan’s age were sleeping on the floor and three women lying in different areas of the apartment as well.
Suddenly, there was a loud knocking on the door. Kadan rolled over and mumbled, “Not now baby.” The knocking grew loud and persistent and Kadan’s guests started to stir and groan in response to the intense noise. One of the young men on the floor staggered to his feet and wandered past Kadan’s open door. He barely opened his eyes as the man raised one hand to signal that he would answer the door.
Kadan sat up and shook his head, then ran his hands through his hair and realized he had to go to the bathroom. He picked up a beer bottle from the bedside table and swallowed the last drop, then licked his lips and dragged himself to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
The young man yawned as the knocking became pounding. “Hold on, man. I’ll be there someday soon.” He turned and smiled at one of the women who was dressed only in her underwear and a shirt, while leaning against the wall in the hallway. She smiled back at him as he opened the door. He started to laugh at his own joke as he turned to face a man dressed in black with a ski mask on. He was armed with an AK-47.
The masked man sprayed the room with bullets, hitting the young man who answered the door, at point blank range. He was dead before he hit the floor. The young woman also fell victim to the barrage and dropped to the floor with multiple gunshot wounds. The remaining two women and one man tried their best to run away from the gunman.
Kadan had one hand propping him up against the wall while he finished his business when the automatic weapon fire startled him and he instinctively fell flat on the floor. He panicked and pulled himself into the bathtub. He pulled the shower curtain down as if to try to protect himself with it.
A total of five armed and masked assassins entered the apartment. The last one in stood guard by the door, while one of them stood by the window. They moved with a cohesiveness that made it obvious they had been a team for a while.
Two of them went after the man and the two women. The other two entered Kadan’s bedroom and riddled the bed with bullets. The two in black cornered the man and women in a corner of one of the other bedrooms. In one sweep, the man and one woman was dead.
The remaining woman dropped to her knees and cried hysterically. “Please…I don’t want to die. What…do I have to do?”
The masked assassins looked at each other then one of them turned back to the woman and grabbed her by the hair. He dragged her over to the window, while his teammate opened it. A stiff breeze filled the room and the woman screamed as she was pushed out of the window. She managed to find the ledge and crawled onto it. One of the assassins leaned out of the window and aimed his assault rifle at her.
He was about to open up the AK, when something hit him and knocked him back into the room. He fell backwards, dropping his weapon onto the street below and hitting a wall as he sailed past one of his friends. A thin female figure vaulted into the room from the window, letting the cable that she held with one hand fall to the floor. She did a standing front jump up and over the lone assassin, until she landed behind him. She grabbed his weapon with one hand and pulled his body in front of hers as his teammates opened fire in the hopes of killing this new player to their game. All they succeeded in doing was instantly killing the man in black. The woman kept a hold of his AK as he dropped to the floor. As she stood in the middle of the room, the two in black could see that she wore a blue one piece bodysuit that completely covered her from her neck to her feet. She had knee high black leather boots and wore a pair of black fingerless gloves. Her shoulder length black hair was all they could see, before she unloaded the remainder of the clip into their shocked bodies.
***
Kadan heard the bathroom door being kicked open as he started to whine under the show curtain. The curtain was pulled away from the cringing computer expert. The man closest to Kadan pulled him up and out of the bathtub, by his arm. Kadan tried to put his hands over his face as he struggled. “Not the face! Not the face!”
“What does being a computer programmer have
to do with your face?” asked the puzzled man in black.
Kadan smiled and stopped squirming. “You’re absolutely correct, sir!” He then punched the man in the throat and kneed him in the groin. The man dropped as Kadan jumped toward the other assassin. He started to rapidly punch him in the gut, followed by an upper cut. As the last man fell, Kadan saw the woman in the one piece bodysuit stand at the bedroom door with an AK-47. He raised his hands as she dropped the weapon.
“Hey!” Kadan shouted. “You had me dead to rights!”
The woman walked up to Kadan and put a hand on his shoulder. He tried to look past her shoulder into the living room. “Are all my friends…?”
She nodded.
Kadan cleared his throat. “I don’t like to be underestimated, because I’m a geek. Those guys in the bathroom underestimated me. Hah! Well then, I guess you’re my new friend. I’m Kadan Alexander.”
She extended her hand and smiled. “I know who you are, Kadan. I need your help. My name is Thalia.”
***
All was silent as Phoe and Kadan quickly left through the front door. No one could hear the woman out on the ledge. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Chapter Nine
Several hours passed as Peter Kellerman waited patiently at Heathrow airport for his flight back to the States. His first solo mission had been a complete failure and he wasn’t sure if he could ever show his face in New Mexico again. With Peter, failure had a way of not only crushing any future efforts that he could make, it also made him doubt the things he knew for sure before the failure.
He tried not to make eye contact with anyone around him. He just wanted to be alone. His cell phone prevented that from happening. The ring startled him. The name on the caller I.D. was Phoe.
He took a deep breath and then answered it. He was prepared for the berating that he was sure he would get, about his failure. “Hello, Phoe.”
“Wow!” responded Phoe on the other end. “Who died and took you with them, Peter?”
He did his best to get the conversation over with quickly, so he could back to his pity party of one. “What do you want, Phoe? I’m busy.”
“No you’re not,” she replied, with an annoyed tone in her voice. “You’re sitting at the airport with your head hung down between your legs. Are you checking to see if you still have balls, Peter?”
Peter made no attempt to hold in his frustration. “Look, I said I was busy! If that means I’m sitting here waiting for a plane and feeling sorry for myself, then that’s what I’m doing! Now please leave me alone!”
There a brief silence and then Phoe said calmly, “I don’t care about what you did before. Go to where Simon’s jet was. I’ll be there.”
There was a click as she ended the call. A chill went through Peter’s spine. How could she see him?
***
Peter struggled with his bags as he dragged them to the spot that Simon’s jet had been. It was gone, but there was another jet. It wasn’t as big or as opulent as Simon’s was, but it was transportation. He cautiously walked around to where the steps were. The door was open and he could hear a man’s laughing coming from inside. Hamilton Armette. He angrily turned around and started to leave.
“So you don’t like the jet?” a familiar female voice said from behind him.
He turned and saw Phoe. “Phoe? But I thought I heard Hamilton Armette? I heard…”
“My other male guest,” she interrupted. “Now do you want a trip back to the States or not?”
***
Peter sat back in his seat as the jet took off. He sniffed the air. Smelled new. It could only seat six people and there were no computers. When it reached cruising altitude and leveled out, Phoe got up and walked over to Peter. Kadan came out of the bathroom waving his hands behind him. “Whoa! You are safer out here! Believe me!”
The confused look on Peter’s face intensified when he saw her hair. “Phoe? Did you cut your hair?”
She smiled. “Yep. A lot of things have changed. This jet for one. It’s a Beechjet 400A and doesn’t hold a lot of bags, so you just made it. It’s one of the lightest and best priced ones available. We do have to refuel a lot more if we’re planning on going outside of the States and it’s not recommended for overseas flights, but it’s a great one.”
Peter rubbed his hands over his face in disbelief. “Wait! What do you think going from England to the U.S. is? It’s overseas, Phoe! Do you own this jet? Ah, no Phoe! Did you sell the Head of Olmec?” He started to panic.
“It’s okay, Peter,” she said, reassuringly. “Kadan knew some people who had this modified one for sale. They upgraded the gas tank and some other things to make us overseas worthy. No one wanted to buy it, even though it was new, because of the specs not being in accordance with the FCC or something like that. It’s really great for avoiding radar and things like that! Kadan is even going to add computers!”
Peter was almost in shock. “Great, just great. We’re all going to die in a jet that shouldn’t be in the air to begin with. Nice. What a perfect ending to a perfect day.”
Kadan moved over to Peter. His smile was wide and his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. “Peter! Thalia has said some pretty crazy things about you! I’m Kadan Alexander, by the way.”
Peter glared at Phoe. “Not all changes are cosmetic, Peter.” She said nonchalantly.
Kadan grabbed Peter’s face and turned it toward him. “You’re part of the team now and Thalia said I can trust you, so I will let you live for now.”
Peter looked questioningly at Phoe. “Is he for real? Should I be concerned?”
Phoe laughed. “He’s harmless. He’s been commissioned by Simon Kessler’s fiancé, to upgrade the Beowulf computer.”
Kadan smirked, as he pulled an apple out of his blue jean jacket and took a big bite.
Peter stared at Phoe. “You’ve changed, Phoe. You’re more…something. You don’t even want to be called Phoe anymore?”
“That something you’re looking for is called confidence,” she said confidently. “You can still call me Phoe. I just decided to embrace the real me.”
His curiosity could no longer be contained. “Did you sell the Head of Olmec? Is that how you got…this? I knew it was worth a small mint, but I never imagined…”
“You’d be surprised how much something can be worth,” she replied, as her stare burned through him. “I made a few life changes. Nothing big.”
“A month, Phoe!” He bellowed. “You changed everything in one month?”
Kadan stood up. “Hey! I was almost assassinated over here! I deserve some conversation too!”
“Assassinated?” Peter queried. “You were attacked? By whom?”
Kadan chuckled. “By whom. Cool. Some people in black tried to off me in Sweden. It was awesome how Thalia came to my rescue though. It was like I was the damsel in distress.”
Peter was even more confused. “Wait a minute! The attempt on your life may have been because of your connection to the work you’re doing. Someone wants you out of the picture!”
Phoe looked unconvinced. “There are a couple of things wrong with this whole situation. Why would they commission a video game programmer to upgrade a major computer system like Beowulf?”
“Whoa!” Kadan interrupted. “How did you know about that?”
“There’s a thing called the internet,” Phoe replied, sarcastically. “Also, Kadan is a high profile person right now. There’s no proof that just because they killed everyone…shit! There’s still a woman on the window ledge. Anyway, the hit was in broad daylight too. I think if you put all the facts together, plus everything that happened to me…”
“What happened to you?” Kadan asked, with concern.
“…I think that maybe Kadan is a scapegoat for something. Just like I was, when I said the lair of Beowulf out loud at the ceremony.”
Kadan’s smile faded. “Did you say the lair of Beowulf?”
“Yes,” Phoe answered, with some trepidation. “You’ve heard
of it?”
“Dude,” Kadan answered. “That’s the video game that I’ve been designing over the past four years. It’s a virtual reality game that’s designed…to…” Kadan froze with fear as he realized the game changer. “Peter. Thalia. Lair is a game that is required to be used with a pill. That’s why it hasn’t been approved yet. The FDA and a few other federal acronyms have shelved my project.”
Peter’s eyes widened. “What kind of game involves taking a pill?”
Kadan looked frustrated. “Video games have come a long way from Donkey Kong, Pete. The next evolution in gaming is obviously taking the gamer to a new and more exciting level of play. That means bringing the gamer into the game…literally.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Phoe said, with panic in her voice. “No. Actually I think I saw that in a movie once.”
Kadan continued, “The pill contains an organic nanotechnology that was recently developed by a friend of mine. It’s based on the similarities between the electronic impulses of the human brain and the way these same impulses are read by a really strong computer. My partner, Alex Griswold, helped me with that part. What the pills do like I said, is release nanotechnology that puts the player into the game, by syncing the main computer to each player. The actual surroundings change to match the will of the main user, or the person at the main frame. The more people taking the pill, the more memory is available and the bigger the game surroundings or locale. With one person, just that person is affected. They have the ability to change into anyone or anything they want. With more people, you can actually create a world of the main user’s choosing.”