Wealth of Time Series Boxset

by Andre Gonzalez

  “Is that why you ruin other people’s lives now? Needed a way to get revenge on the system?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Is it true you don’t have any emotions?”

  “Yes, ever since I was a teenager.”

  “Then how did you cry? How did you laugh with me all those days?”

  “I’ve gone through extensive acting classes on how to fake emotion. Sometimes I think it’s real, but my insides are just an empty hole.”

  “How does it feel to be living a lie?”

  “I don’t live a lie. You’re the one living a lie. You were gonna just jump into a new life and pretend that your past never happened. I have to live with my past every day, so don’t feed me your bullshit.”

  They sat in silence for a minute, both looking to the ground and avoiding eye contact. Martin’s legs bounced uncontrollably under the table.

  “You can swear up and down that you don’t have any emotions,” Martin said. “But I saw the look in your eyes at the hospital. There was a genuine look of care, and I saw the woman I loved. That’s not something you can fake; it’s a natural human reaction.”

  “I was just doing my job, checking on you. We needed you alive.”

  “I’ll always love you. I don’t care what you say. I know it was real, and if you want to keep lying to yourself that it wasn’t, then that’s on your conscience.”

  “Martin, if I could love you I would.”

  “Then why don’t we find a way? There has to be a way to get your emotions back. I’ll go talk to Chris by myself if that’s what it takes.”

  “If you escaped from Chris already, he’ll kill you the next chance he gets.”

  “I don’t think he will.”

  Martin gambled on the fact that Sonya didn’t know about his newly discovered ability to stay “warm.”

  “He will. I’ve seen it plenty of times to know. He has zero heart, especially once he considers you a traitor.”

  “I’m a traitor because I didn’t want to stay a prisoner in his house?”

  “Yep. That’s how he thinks.”

  “My point is I’ll do anything. If it means risking my life, then so be it.”

  “You can drop the act, Martin. I know why you’re really here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me.” Sonya turned to the counter, pulled open a drawer, and retrieved a black pistol. She cocked it before aiming at Martin.

  “Take it easy, Sonya. I don’t know what you think, but it isn’t this.”

  “I’m not surprised about this grand scheme. I am surprised that you actually agreed to it.”

  Martin slowly raised his hands in the air.

  “What’s in that duffel bag over there?” Sonya nodded to the bag Martin had dropped on the ground by the front door. “Gonna spike my drink? Were you gonna propose a toast to us and watch me die?”

  “Sonya, it’s not what you think.”

  “It’s exactly what I think. Did you know I’ve been with the Road Runners for more than 30 years? I joined them the day after I graduated high school and ran away from my dad’s house. There’s a lot you don’t know, but you just barge in here thinking you can kill me. I’ve been to hell and back, and I’m not leaving this world on anyone’s terms but my own.”

  Martin sensed the anger ready to burst from Sonya, but it never came. She spoke flatly, more like explaining how to do some menial task.

  “Sonya, I never had an intention to kill you.”

  “I can’t believe you. I hope you understand.” The pistol wavered in her hand and Martin saw her debate pulling the trigger. “I’ve been waiting for this day. As soon as Chris took you from the hotel and they sent me home, told me to not worry about it. I knew something was going on. They never take anyone off of a mission until it’s complete.”

  “How did you find out, though?”

  “I have many friends. I’ve been here forever; there are people more loyal to me than to the Road Runners, even in the highest of positions.”

  Martin wondered if Bill might have slipped Sonya the secret. He had said he was against it, and seemed to have also been a lifelong Road Runner. Commander Strike shouldn’t have told a soul about this plan, but likely felt compelled to. The burden of such a secret could crush even the strongest-minded person.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” Martin said. “I came here wanting to talk, honestly. Yes, I have poisons in my bag that they asked me to slip you, but I knew I’d never be able to.”

  “I know you’re probably telling the truth, but I can’t take any chances. I hope you understand.”

  “Sonya—”

  The pistol fired, its explosion echoing throughout the house. She had lowered it from his face to his legs.

  A piercing, burning sensation immediately filled his left thigh. The warmth of blood soaked into his pants.

  “Motherfucker!” he screamed, grimacing and squeezing his leg.

  “I’m sorry, Martin,” she said, and pulled the trigger again.

  His right knee exploded, blood splattering across the tile floor like an abstract painting. Martin collapsed in the chair, sliding to the ground in his own pool of blood.

  She had shot both of his legs, and he couldn’t so much as wiggle his toes.

  “If one day we can put all of this behind us, then I’d be open to giving life with you another chance. Assuming you can accept me as I am. But odds are you’ll never see me again. None of you will.”

  “Sonya,” Martin gasped. The adrenaline rush had numbed his legs, but he still couldn’t move them, let alone stand up.

  “Don’t follow me. Just let me go.”

  She tucked the pistol into the back of her pants and hurried out of the kitchen. Martin lay face-down and dragged himself with a half-assed army crawl, dark red smearing behind him in a messy trail.

  Sonya had gone into her bedroom as Martin crawled through the living room. “Sonya!” he shouted. “Sonya, help me!” His entire bottom half had turned numb, and his arms became Jell-O as they trembled with each forced movement.

  When he finally reached the bedroom doorway two minutes later, he found the room deserted.

  “Sonya?”

  A glass bottle of green liquid lay on the ground, a puddle forming around it. Next to the puddle was another pool of blood with what looked to be a chunk of flesh and a dime-sized microchip floating on the surface.

  “Nooooooo!” Martin cried, rolling to his back.

  She’s gone. Forever.

  She had drunk her Juice and vanished. Even though he hadn’t seen one, Martin knew the chip was her tracking device that she would’ve cut out of her arm.

  You’ve seen her for the last time. She has no way back. Wherever she went, she’s staying there forever.

  Martin kept his gaze to the ceiling, the same one he had looked at so many mornings, waking up next to Sonya, and wondering if life could get any better. Those memories were from another lifetime and he’d never get them back. A lone tear rolled down his cheek and splashed on the ground, mixing in with the stream of blood that had followed him from the kitchen.

  I’m never going to be a hero, he thought, and then fainted.

  89

  Chapter 34

  Across the spectrum of time, Commander Strike watched from the Denver office with the rest of the Road Runners gathered around. The technology of the tracking devices allowed the host person to be watched regardless of what year they were in. All attention was focused on the screen showing the devices for both Martin and Sonya.

  Martin had arrived five minutes ago to Sonya’s house, and Commander Strike announced to the entire room what was going on.

  “Attention all. Today is the day. Our very own Martin Briar is currently in Sonya’s house in 1996. He escaped after getting captured by Chris in 1919, being taken to 1981 before he made a run for it. We brought Martin back here to 2018 to brief him for a very important mission. There has been a plan in the
making to assassinate Sonya. Her death will open the opportunity for us to make a final move on Chris. We currently have snipers hiding in the woods around his property in Alaska, and have received confirmation that he’s inside the house.”

  People gasped while others shouted in protest.

  Commander Strike raised her hands and waited for the bickering to settle down.

  “I need you all to keep a tight lid on this information. I’m trusting you with this secret since we’ll be watching the outcome from here.”

  She nodded to a young woman who sat behind a control panel.

  The master screen, a 120-inch wide monitor, flickered to life and showed a map of Larkwood. The young woman clicked around until the screen zoomed in on a satellite image of Sonya’s house where they saw the roof and her car parked in the driveway.

  Two green dots flashed within the image of the roof, one labeled as S. Griffiths and the other as M. Briar.

  “I want you all to know this decision was not easy. We debated heavily on how to approach this, but ultimately decided to move forward with sacrificing Sonya to end this war.”

  Murmurs spread across the room like wildfire as people turned to each other. Mention of ending the war was rare and never taken lightly. Everyone had fallen into such a daily groove that they sometimes forgot there was a possibility for an end to it all—it just never felt like it would actually arrive.

  “You heard me correctly. To make a long story short, if Sonya dies, Chris becomes mortal and we can kill him through normal means.”

  “Are you saying the war can end today?” someone shouted from the back.

  “Yes, it can, and it will.”

  The murmur grew into a nervous chatter as people broke into conversation about the news.

  “This is a day that will live forever in history. On this screen we’ll be watching Sonya. When her sensor turns from green to red, Chris will officially be a mortal human being. I have my phone ready to make the call to Alaska where the snipers will be instructed to shoot him at first sight.”

  More chatter.

  “This might take some time—I honestly don’t know. I hope Mr. Briar can carry out this mission within the next few hours, but I suspect he’ll take his time. They do have a past together, so we’re unsure how exactly that will factor in to their current encounter.”

  Everyone had abandoned their desks and gathered in the center of the room to watch the main screen that hung high on the wall. Commander Strike crossed the aisle and joined the rest of the team, excitement and anticipation in the air like a thick fog.

  Rarely nervous, Commander Strike’s stomach spun in wild cartwheels. Tarik and Bill joined her among the crowd of Road Runners anxiously waiting to see if their years of hard work would finally yield the result that had become a Holy Grail.

  The screen zoomed in further, showing only the outline of the house, cutting off the front and back yards along with the surrounding neighbors. All eyes were drawn to the two flashing green lights that stood inches apart on the screen, not moving.

  “They’re obviously talking,” Tarik said to the room. “This is good. We were somewhat worried that Sonya would run off as soon as she saw Martin, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.”

  The Commander nodded, also pleased with this information.

  Ten minutes passed and neither of the green dots moved from their place on the screen.

  “Are we sure it’s working?” someone asked from the crowd of two dozen people.

  The woman behind the control panel clicked a few buttons and said, “Everything is working just fine.”

  “They’re in her kitchen,” Tarik commented. “I’ve been to her house before.”

  “Give it a moment,” Strike said. “They certainly have some catching up to do, and it appears Sonya is agreeing to it.”

  What if he’s telling her to make a run for it? Commander Strike wondered. It was possible, but made no sense. They both had tracking devices and couldn’t actually hide anywhere, regardless of their location or the year should they try to jump to another time. He wouldn’t do that. He has no reason to be disloyal after a day. What could she be saying to him, though?

  Those watching the screen started to squirm as they stood and watched absolutely nothing happen. It reminded Commander Strike of watching TV coverage of election night in the United States. There was always great stress and impatience as to how the night would end, but getting to that point was flat-out boring.

  Please don’t converse all day.

  Most wars didn’t end with some dramatic climax, but rather quietly through negotiation behind closed doors. When she was elected as the new Commander, she avoided any sort of promise to ending the war, and leaned on guarantees to take another step closer. The Road Runners had grown tone-deaf to repeated promises from leaders who vowed to end the war under their watch, so she built a platform on community and teamwork to advance the team’s knowledge on the Revolters that would ideally lead to knowledge on how to kill Chris. She had achieved this, though by accident. Then again, she believed if you remained diligent and put in the hard work, your chances of getting lucky increased.

  The tension faded by the second, and the green dots remained frozen in place. She looked down and rubbed her eyes, frustrated at the prospect of waiting an entire day to find out if she would place the phone call to change the world.

  “She’s moving!” someone shouted, sarcastically. Whispers spread through the crowd as they watched Sonya’s green dot move across the screen, leaving Martin in the same place in the kitchen.

  The Commander’s eyes darted back to the screen and waited in anticipation. It could be nothing, she could just be going to the bathroom. She considered this likely since Martin had stayed in place. It clearly wasn’t a heated argument or both dots would show as flailing across the screen.

  “She’s in her bedroom,” Tarik said, calm and stern.

  “He’s moving, too!” someone shouted from the back.

  “No he’s not,” responded another.

  Everyone squinted in unison as they tried to figure out what was happening on the screen. Sonya’s green dot flashed in her bedroom, while Martin’s moved like a sloth toward Sonya.

  “Whatever he’s doing he’s approaching her slowly,” Tarik said, eyes bulging. “Is he sneaking up on her?”

  The commotion had Commander Strike’s heart ready to leap out of her throat. This is it, he’s going in for the kill.

  As Martin’s greet dot continued to inch closer to the bedroom, Sonya’s green dot remained still.

  An eternity of five whole seconds passed before Sonya’s dot turned into a pulsing red on the screen.

  He did it. It’s done. He must have handed her the letter and she took it to her room to read.

  He still wasn’t quite within proximity to have injected her with a syringe, and never was close enough to have slipped anything into her drink.

  What should have been an eruption of applause was met with deadly silence. Sonya had just been killed, and all eyes in the room turned to Commander Strike in eerie unity.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket, fingers trembling as she dialed the number to the Alaska headquarters. While the phone rang, she wondered what her legacy would look like after her term ended. She had two more years left, plenty of time to conclude the war and let it snowball into a legacy as the greatest Commander in the history of the Road Runners. Office buildings would be named after her where a new generation of Road Runners could work on something besides cracking the code of how to defeat Chris.

  “Hello, Commander,” Julian answered 3,000 miles away.

  “It’s time. Order the final mission immediately, and broadcast the live feed showing Chris’s mansion so we can all watch his demise.”

  90

  Chapter 35

  Andrei Morozov sat on the top of a tree, a thick and sturdy branch nestled between his legs, and his rifle perched to aim at Chris’s mansion that glowed in the dawn of a new day
in Alaska.

  Andrei had gained fame within the Road Runners as their best soldier. Killing 319 Revolters earned that sort of respect. At least 300 of his kills had been achieved in his native Russia, but as word spread from the United States that an opportunity was on the horizon to take down Chris, he couldn’t reject the offer to board the next plane to Alaska.

  No one took their job as a sniper more seriously than Andrei. He committed to a rigorous workout routine, diet, and hundreds of hours educating himself on the Revolters. When he woke up in the morning, he imagined shooting Revolters. Same thing when he went to sleep at night, and likely during his dreams that he never remembered.

  It was easy for Andrei to dedicate his life in such a dramatic manner. When the Revolters blew up a village in 2008 that took the lives of his mother, grandmother, and two sisters, he had no choice but to seek refuge with the Road Runners.

  Now he was here, ten years after the fact and loving every moment of life as a Road Runner. They supported him in anything he needed, which wasn’t much. All he asked for was a house to be built on the same land that had been destroyed. The village remained deserted, so he lived alone on the northern coast of Russia, hunting animals and fishing. And immersing himself in shooting practice, 300 rounds a day, delivered fresh at the beginning of every week from the Road Runners.

  The leaders of the European branch of Road Runners knew how to get ahold of him: a quick helicopter ride from Moscow. He would never be anywhere else unless they had authorized him to go hunting for Revolters.

  When word arrived that he was requested in Alaska, he had his bag packed and was on the return helicopter ride to Moscow within thirty minutes. From there he boarded a jet and arrived at the Alaskan headquarters in five hours.

  He spent three weeks getting familiar with the area. The climate was no different from where he lived, but he needed to know the grounds surrounding Chris’s mansion like the back of his hand.

  It all led to him on this specific tree that he had picked out last week as the prime location to land a clean shot on Chris the moment he stepped onto his front porch.