by Tyler Leslie
“Godfrey, I want you to allow the intruder access to my personal level. Don’t question the order. I’ve been far too wrapped up in politics and business jargon lately. A bit of sport will do me good.”
Godfrey knew better than to question the Prince’s authority. “Yes, my Prince.”
The connection terminated, and the Prince was left in a dark room with only his thoughts as company. He allowed himself a tight grin. This was going to be fun.
CHAPTER 9
Regina slightly adjusted the angle of the tiny pair of scissors she held. With a careful, calculated movement, she sliced a thin branch off of the top of a miniature Japanese Bonsai tree. This, along with a few other branches that had been removed, was all the trimming the tree would need this year. She took a step back, admiring her work. Perfect. The tree sat in the middle of a large Zen garden, which in turn sat in the middle of an expansive greenhouse. The greenhouse had been built by Commander Pikes as a place of relaxation, a place where the officers in charge of cadet training could come to relax after a hard day.
Regina regularly tended to the collection of exotic and rare flora—it seemed to her the one place where things were truly in her control.
It had been three hours since Davis had fled capture, and the majority of the base was out trying to locate him. Because she had been the one to train the man, it was ironic that she hadn’t been chosen to participate in the manhunt; however, it was certainly not something she wanted to debate. He would be found, soon enough, and brought to justice. For now, the greenhouse was her one place of solitude.
The greenhouse was large—larger even than some houses. The roof was carefully balanced at a ninety-degree angle to the walls and consisted of treated glass set in tempered steel. The circular Zen garden served as the center-piece of the gorgeous arboretum. An elevated, transparent plate hovered over the garden, discouraging anyone from setting foot on the elaborate patterns that had been painstakingly carved into the sea of rocks. A hole had been cut in the center of the plate to allow the Bonsai tree access to the temperate air of the greenhouse. The tree had slowly grown past the plate, and now nearly reached the officer’s knees. Regina smiled at the tree as if it were her child. “Until next time, beautiful.” She turned and began walking out of the greenhouse.
As she neared the door, she noticed one of the leaves on an angel’s trumpet was crushed. She silently cursed and began walking around the plant, surveying it for more damage. A sudden sound caught her attention; she whirled around to face the origin of the noise. A man was standing outside the greenhouse, peering in like a lost child. Because the window of the greenhouse was covered in condensation, Regina was unable to make out who it was, yet she had an idea of who it might be. It was a big mistake coming here, Martin…
The officer stormed out of the greenhouse, purposefully allowing her displeasure to filter through to her body language. The man, who was indeed Davis, took off like a startled deer, running towards the house in the middle of the officers’ residential compound.
“Hey!” Regina yelled after the man. “Get back here immediately! That’s an order, Cadet!”
Davis seemed to take no notice of the warning, and continued running.
Oh, no you don’t! Regina sprinted after the interloper, glad she had forced herself to maintain a strong workout regimen. Regardless of her excellent physical shape, Regina remained well behind the trespasser. The man reached one of the houses—her house—and thrust open the door; the sound of wood splintering on metal echoed throughout the expanses of the home.
Regina crossed through the door’s threshold like a vexed bull, her eyes furiously searching for the intruder. “I don’t know why you decided this was the prudent choice of action, but you have exactly ten seconds to show yourself before I start shooting.” She pulled a Walther pistol from a drawer in a nearby desk and cocked it for emphasis. There was no response, only the sound of the afternoon wind quietly sweeping through the barracks. Regina’s extensive military training had helped her develop a keen sense of danger. She felt, rather than heard, Davis launch an attack on her. It was a simple matter to dodge the clumsy kick aimed for her stomach. Regina sidestepped the assault and grabbed the man’s outstretched leg, swung him around and tossed him into the large planter adorning the left foyer wall.
The man crumpled to the floor, dazed and mumbling unintelligibly. Regina’s anger surged. How dare Davis attack her like this, in her own home? She walked over to the man, ready to deflect another poorly executed assault. Davis lifted his arm away from his face, swatting at an imaginary enemy. Regina’s eyes widened, her anger quickly engulfing her.
She kneeled down warily and helped Davis sit up, not at all startled by how terrible he looked. The training officer grabbed Davis’ head and angled it towards her. She finally managed to control her anger enough to speak.
“Davis, what’s going on? What happened today? You nearly killed a fellow cadet!”
Davis returned Regina’s stare, but without any sense of lucidity. He seemed as if he was experiencing his life through the third person.
Regina had seen similar signs many times before. As a child, her teenage brother had regularly involved himself with the seedier side of humanity, and as such, had become addicted to the influence of various narcotic substances.
She shook her head, attempting to clear the memories away. Her brother had been her hero as a child, regardless of his routinely questionable actions. At the tender age of fifteen, Regina had found her brother slumped in the corner of a local bar, dead. According to the bartender, he had been there for three hours. No one had even noticed. A week later, pathologists confirmed that his body had been pumped full of enough narcotics to put an elephant down. Their parents had been devastated—nothing could ever prepare a father or mother for the loss of a child. At her brother’s funeral, Regina had vowed to never follow in her brother’s footsteps, instead concentrating on her schoolwork, determined to make something of herself.
And yet here she was, staring into the ravaged face of her past, unable to keep herself from reliving the horrible years prior to her brother’s death.
“Come here you little idiot!” Taylor was drunk, as always, but this time Regina was scared for her life. The resounding noise of empty beer bottles being thrown across the room and smashing into the walls echoed throughout the house. “I said come out!”
Regina knew if she listened to her brother, she would get it big time. Instead, she remained hidden underneath the staircase, trembling in the wake of her brother’s alcohol-induced anger.
Regina was only fifteen, yet had lived through countless versions of this same play—every single one ended badly, often with Regina lying in a pool of blood or coughing up a tooth. Her parents never believed it had been her own brother to cause her such pain. They always gasped when she told them, wondering how she could lie like that and still sleep at night. She looked around for something to defend herself with, just in case her brother finally found her. As was normally the case, the underside of the staircase was as bleak as the situations in which Regina routinely found herself. Not so much as a mop-handle was available.
Taylor was still raging through the house like a crazed elephant, trying desperately to find something to take his sorrows out on. Regina prayed her brother wouldn’t find her this time.
Please, not again!
Suddenly, the sound of her brother’s vexed rampage subsided, leaving nothing but the whisper of the wind outside to occupy Regina’s ears. She couldn’t explain why, but a cold shudder started to run down her spine. What was Taylor doing? Suddenly there seemed to be something competing with the wind for aural supremacy; Regina listened harder, afraid to turn around. It sounded like faint but heavy breathing…
Regina knew in the span of a heartbeat what would happen next. There was nothing she could do. She slowly forced open her eyes, turning around�
��toward the origin of the sound.
“Hey, you little slime,” her brother breathed, eyes full of murderous glee. “I think this time we’re going to have more fun than ever.”
Regina came out of her reverie, unconsciously rubbing at her chest. Her brother had been telling the truth; that was the last time he ever beat her, and he had made it count.
Davis had slumped back to the floor, moaning incoherent words. Between the jumbles of gibberish, Regina was able to make out a single word—‘sorry’.
CHAPTER 10
Davis’ world was one of darkness and nausea. He had no idea where he was, only that he was floating on the border between consciousness and sleep. His head swam as if he had been thrown into a washer on spin-cycle, and his stomach felt as if it threatened to flip out of his body. Slowly the sounds of the life around him began to creep through the haze of his mind. He gradually began to make out voices, though the language they were speaking was still beyond him. His vision slowly transformed itself from black to grey to blurred white. Shapes moved at the corners of his vision, threatening the overpowering nauseated feeling. Finally, after he knew not how long, he had returned to nearly full consciousness.
He looked around the small room he was lying in. It was one of the base’s medical suites, and was nothing much to look at. A few monitors and wires stuck out of one of the sides of the room; a bright fluorescent light their only source of illumination. The building itself was little more than a white tent, erected quickly to save money and time.
He turned his head gingerly to the side, noting the searing pain that shot through his neck at the action. He had two guests, and neither of them looked anything close to happy. One was the enigmatic Commander Pikes, and the other, naturally, was Regina.
The sight of Davis’ return to consciousness caused Regina to visibly stiffen. For a fleeting moment Davis felt relief—any other action on her part would have been cause for worry. The rare moments when Regina acted out of character signaled the approach of a terrible storm. Despite the familiar silent greeting, Regina immediately walked, or perhaps charged was more accurate, towards Davis, her left hand outstretched threateningly.
Without any regard to Davis’ current frail state or the fact that her superior was standing directly behind her, Regina grabbed Davis by the neck and hoisted him off the bed he had been occupying. With an inhuman strength Davis would never be able to explain, she slammed him into the nearby wall and squeezed until Davis thought he would pass out from the pain. It wasn’t until he was at the point of a black-out that she began to speak.
“You are by far the most incompetent, worthless fool I have ever had the displeasure to train, Cadet. Your actions today are exemplary of the behavior of the enemy, not a future United States soldier.” She bored her fiery eyes into him, scorching his ego and mind alike. “If it were up to me, I’d kill you right here and now.” She spared a quick glance at Commander Pikes, who had merely looked on with detachment the entire time. “Luckily for you, the decision rests with my superiors, and it seems they wish to give you a second chance. Why, I could never say. I think they see potential in you I don’t. Regardless, you are still to be punished for what you did. Your training will be withheld for three months. During those three months you will be thrown in the brig and denied any outside contact. Any resistance, be it verbal or physical, will result in your ejection from the training program.” Regina moved in close, so that only Davis could hear her next words. “I have been cursed with the task of training you once more when your three months have been served. If you make it difficult for me in any way, I will break you. Consider that while you tinker with your failures.”
She released Davis in a defiantly nonchalant manner and swiftly exited the medical pavilion. Davis crumpled to the ground, coughing as if he had swallowed an entire gallon of liquid. Through the red haze that covered his vision he caught a glimpse of Commander Pikes watching him with cold, emotionless eyes. There was something seriously amiss with Pikes, and in that moment Davis made it his goal to never cross the man.
Prince Davenport was alight with excitement. Via a recent, quick conversation with Godfrey, he had learned the would-be assassin was only one floor below him, and moving at quite an impressive pace. It would be only a matter of minutes before his assailant was face-to face with him. The Prince had chosen to place himself in a room that offered no hope of escape once his enemy entered it. It was one of the secondary offices some of his staff used from time to time, and was very spartan—a rare occurrence in the Palace. There were no windows, and the only source of illumination was the holographic plate in the center of the room, which had been activated by the Prince for dramatic effect. No one would ever say he was anything but theatrical.
He slowly eased himself into the thinly padded, black chair in the corner of the room and waited for the ‘attack’. The only thing that separated him from the door was a steel desk, very thin and at first glance, very flimsy. In reality the desk was made of a special type of titanium, and was very nearly impervious to damage. Perhaps this would serve the Prince’s method of retaliation, perhaps not. The uncertainty was thrilling.
A few moments after the Prince had settled into the chair, a loud knock erupted into the silence. His attacker was here. The Prince pretended not to know who was calling on him.
“Come,” he said with as much nonchalance as he could muster.
The door opened with a purposeful-sounding whoosh, and into the room stepped a mountain of a man. He seemed to be slightly over 6 feet tall, and sported a short cropping of black hair that was very disheveled. The expression that dominated his face was of nothing less than pure rage. The Prince was, for a moment, disappointed. It seemed his attacker was nothing less than a being of sheer brute force, and had evaded capture only through his size and strength. If there was any intelligence to be found in this man, it was currently overshadowed by his anger.
The Prince continued with his laissez-faire attitude. “What seems to be the problem, Sir?” The business monarch figured as long as he continued with the humble civility it would serve to enrage the man even more, thus making him more prone to error, and therefore more easily dispatched.
When the man spoke it was with the harsh, barely contained whisper of desperation. The calm before the storm. “You don’t know who I am, Davenport, but I know you. Your ‘business acumen’, or whatever you like to call it nowadays, destroyed my entire family. Not only did you buy out my father’s business like it was nothing more than a loaf of bread, but your patents annihilated any future productivity we might have had. Thanks to you, we lost everything.”
The Prince pretended to mull this over. For a second he toyed with the idea of asking the man his name, but discarded the notion. It was irrelevant. He had bought out so many companies it was unlikely he would remember who he had sent through the grinder. Besides, in a few moments the man would be lying on the floor. Lifeless.
He stood with the grace of a jungle predator and walked to the front of the desk, leaning on it as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The man noticed this, and visibly tensed. It seemed the Prince’s tactics were working. Excellent. He brushed his hair back and scratched his chin for a moment. “So what you’re telling me is that your family was so incompetent in its business practices and so inept in its dealings that I decided to buy you out altogether, thus ridding the world of your uselessness? That sounds like the excuse of every single so-called businessman that I’ve ever come across. You’re all worthless.” The Prince spat out the word like it was a bad piece of fruit and allowed himself a mock smile.
The short but powerful speech had the desired impact on the man, and sent him into a rage. He charged at the Prince with all the grace of a drunken hippopotamus, a movement that was easily sidestepped by the much more lithe Prince. As the Prince moved to the side, he delivered a strong kick to the man’s left kneecap, sending him to his knees. The man�
�s forward momentum saw him careen straight into the metal desk; the fall seemed to make the room shake. The Prince shook his head. It had happened exactly as he had intended. People these days were so predictable. It wasn’t even fun anymore.
The man struggled to his right foot and stood like a new amputee. He braced himself on the desk with his right hand and bored his eyes into the Prince, trying to intimidate him with his defiance. Despite this, it was easy to see the defeat in the man’s eyes. The ‘battle’ was over. The Prince had, as always, won.
Prince Davenport was about to deliver a searing victory speech when the man made another move. It was blindingly fast, and only the years of mixed martial arts practice saved the Prince. The man leapt forward off his foot and extended his left arm in a roundhouse punch that would have shattered bone had it connected. The Prince was barely able to dodge by moving his head backwards; the sight of the charging fist as it literally blew past his face would have unnerved most men, but not the Prince. In an attack that was every bit as quick as the man’s, the Prince tore through the distance between them and cupped his assailant’s jaw with his left hand, pulled his head back, and held him in a mortal headlock.
The man was eager to escape from the maneuver, but after a few moments trying, gave up completely. “Before I die, you will remember the name of my family. Wit-”
The Prince pulled down on the man’s chin while simultaneously lifting the back of his head, dislocating the skull from the vertebrae and instantly killing the man. The sound of popping bone echoed throughout the room, and then there was silence. The man crumpled to the floor and was still.