Project Northwoods

by Jonathan Charles Bruce

  A light dusting of snow crunched beneath Arthur’s feet in the early spring morning. Walkers on their way to work were joining him, cups of steaming coffee in hand as they trudged quietly down the street. A courier bumped into him as she blinked in and out of existence in the throng of people. Arthur would have been annoyed if he hadn’t felt so sick to his stomach.

  Ariana had somehow managed to get Tim to hound him about rent and groceries. There was a hostile loan shark quality to the way the subject was broached, a certain edge that Arthur had only seen very rarely with his friend. It cropped up whenever Tim would disappear and neither Ariana nor Arthur could find him.

  No matter what caused it, it was especially acute this time. So Arthur had to do what he always did when he needed money. He sold his mother’s jewelry.

  It wasn’t much, but it was a bracelet this time. Beautiful. Old. He threw it up last week on an auction site for what he thought was a modest bid. Apparently a couple of people identified it as something truly spectacular and began a fierce bidding war which, in the end, made Arthur a good deal richer but forcibly cut away a past he wanted to keep.

  It doesn’t matter now, Arthur thought as he struggled to keep himself warm in his threadbare jacket. Misterjems2001 is going to give his wife or husband a great present, and I’m one step closer to having nothing to my name, he mused with a huff as he drew closer to his apartment building.

  Maybe he’d use some of the excess money to buy Ariana a please-be-my-friend gift after upgrading his jacket. Something shiny he could distract her with so she’d stop being so critical of him all the time. He didn’t even know why he cared about her opinion when it was clear there would never be anything but animosity between the two. There was just something in the way she looked at him, talked to him, behaved around him that made him want to prove–

  “Watch out!” someone cried out with a foreign lilt. He looked up and stumbled backward to avoid running into a redheaded girl in blue jeans and a pink fuzzy sweater struggling with a heavy cardboard box. He lost his balance and collapsed onto his ass, cold asphalt biting through his jeans. “Sorry! Sorry!” she repeated, peeking around the corner. “You alright down there?” The accent was a soft Irish, more distinctive in the form of a full sentence. He looked up at her, annoyed. She turned a bright red and hid behind her cargo. Arthur’s anger boiled beneath the surface, even though he knew it was an accident.

  He got to his feet, wiping his hands off as he rose. The girl stood still as he fought the urge to yell at her, as though remaining motionless would make her undetectable. He took a deep breath and coughed. “Yeah, nothing broken I guess,” he muttered as she peered at him around the box again. He glided past her, once more burying himself in his jacket.

  “Well, don’t just walk on by, jackass,” a decidedly more aggressive Irish accent scolded. Arthur whipped around to see a man wearing a green and orange rugby shirt hefting two large boxes, one in each hand, effortlessly walk toward him. “Be a gentleman and get the door for the lady.”

  Arthur’s face flushed as he nodded and went obediently to the door.

  “Daddy,” the girl hissed quietly.

  “Don’t worry, pumpkin, I was just reminding him of manners,” he said as he neared Arthur. Like a good doorman, he held it open and avoided eye contact. “Isn’t that right, gentleman?” he snarled in Arthur’s face. The younger man swallowed and stared off into the distance as the villain strode past. The girl followed, Arthur only dimly aware of the sheepish smile that crossed her face as she turned her head to look at him as she walked by.

  July 16th, 2011

  Morning

  Julia felt surprisingly light as her eyes opened to the early morning sunlight pouring through the windows of the living room. The confessional, even though Officer Berkeley didn’t want her to refer to it as such, had proven surprisingly cathartic. She and Ariana wouldn’t be having coffee together any time soon, but there was enough suffering between the two of them that the effort of hating each other seemed too great to continue with.

  In the post-sleep haze, she wandered into the kitchen, set up the coffee pot, and placed a skillet on the stove. After clicking on the surface unit, the creak of wood alerted her to someone moving inside her house. She turned and moved briskly toward her room.

  She grabbed the key from her pocket with shaking hands as she neared the door, unlocking it as quickly as she could. The dark hallway filled with daylight as Talia turned away from the newly opened window to face Julia. The woman glared at her, the ill-fitting pajamas the heroine had put her in revealing her midriff. Despite having been shot, the skin was completely scarless.

  “I’ll have to assume that this is either all over or we’re both very screwed right now,” the Russian said, her fingers to her lips as though a cigarette dangled between them. “I suppose I should be thankful for you not killing me,” Talia growled, contempt clearly in her voice. She gestured to her stomach. “But I distinctly remember leaking from this general area the last time we met.”

  Julia swallowed. “Miss Illyanovich…” she began, but faltered, not quite sure how to continue. “… I’m sorry.” Talia cocked an eyebrow. “I brought you back here when it happened and tried to stitch you up…”

  “You did a very impressive job,” she said. Talia looked over at the nightstand, picking up a shirt that Julia had attempted to launder and placed nearby. She squinted, examining the bullet hole and blood stains. “I shouldn’t have survived, it seems.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” Julia said, stepping further into the room. Talia looked up at her. “You stopped breathing ten minutes after I sutured you up. Your heart stopped after that.” Talia’s eyes focused on the hero. “An hour later… I had tried everything I could think of, but you were gone.” She threw her hands up into the air. “I promise you, I did everything I could…”

  “Just get on with the story,” Talia ordered.

  Julia wetted her lips, looking away for a moment to collect her thoughts. “I put you in here until I could… I don’t know… cremate you… or something…”

  The reporter snorted. “I’m glad you held off on that.”

  “But the next day, it looked like nothing happened. You were…” She gestured to Talia. “Whole. And breathing. Your heartbeat was barely there, but…” Julia shook her head. “You have no idea how close people came to finding you.”

  “Archetype?” Talia asked.

  “Yes, and Clay…” she trailed off. “How did you know?”

  Talia scuffed her feet against the floor. “He has a way around people’s heads.”

  Julia’s eyes went to the floor, scanning the surface as she processed the information. “You had contact with him before you went to the VWN station that night, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  She looked up. “That’s why all those Enforcers were dead when I found you. He was manipulating people the entire time.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Talia said, turning back toward the window. “But I am surprised that, in the midst of all that mayhem, you tried to save my life.”

  Julia felt the conspicuous weight of the necklace around her neck. She pulled it up and around her head, the jewel coming out of her collar as she did so. Quietly, she walked to the other side of the room, winding the chain around her hand. Talia turned to her and regarded the cracked gem with a hint of recognition. “You had this on you when I…” she trailed off. Talia held out her hand and Julia gave it to her. “… I just wanted to know where you got it.”

  “Impossible,” Talia said, holding the gem up, examining it. “How did it break?”

  Julia looked the necklace, then back at Talia, the reporter’s eyes still locked on the jewel. “I was wearing it the other night when… I was attacked by… my father.”

  Talia looked at the girl. “Your father?” Julia nodded. Talia wound the chain up and gave it back to her. “Arthur gave it to me the night the heroes came for us.” The villain’s eyes flashed toward Ju
lia. “How is Arthur? Have you had contact with him?”

  Arthur walked into the dark apartment quietly, desperately hoping that Ariana wasn’t home. Content with the complete silence as a sign of her absence, he walked further in, beelining for Tim’s room. His friend needed a change of clothes for work and some other stuff. He didn’t ask why, as the cataclysm that was brewing between Tim and Ariana was threatening to take out half of the city. He couldn’t be totally upset by it; once Tim finished breaking up with her and kicked her out, Arthur was free to be as lazy as he wanted without the constant nagging about…

  “He’s fucking her, isn’t he?” came the surprisingly meek question from the kitchen, startling him.

  “Ari?” he asked, slowly heading in that direction. Sure enough, she was on the floor, a bottle of half-consumed white rum in her hand.

  She smiled and waved, the movement rubbery due to the alcohol. “Hi.”

  He immediately felt awkward. “I’m going to go.”

  “Stay and have a drink,” she offered sweetly. He didn’t move. “Now!” she demanded, less sweetly. Arthur obliged, sitting down and taking a swig from the bottle, wincing at the taste. “What does he see in her, Arthur?” she slurred. “Petite… little… petite… thing,” she mused, yanking the rum out of his hand.

  “I really don’t know who…”

  Ariana looked at him, looking like she had just been slapped. “I’m still pretty, right?”

  “Of course you are,” he consoled.

  “I just… I just don’t get it…” She hiccupped, startling Arthur.

  “You hiccupped.”

  “No I didn’t,” she said, dangerously gesturing with the bottle.

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “Who hiccups when they’re drunk?”

  Suddenly, she shoved the bottle under his nose, bumping it fairly hard. “Drink,” she commanded, not looking at him.

  He obliged.

  He obliged many, many times. The conversation got a little hazy after a while. Somewhere between “You are an attractive man, but you whine like a shriveled little ballsack,” and, “No, you will be a super villain, that’s what I’m saying, I can be your… like… duo… duet… thing,” he realized that she was incredibly gorgeous. He had noticed it before, but in the ‘Tim’s girlfriend is hot!’ kind of way. This was the dangerous kind, the kind that was going to make him stupid.

  She must have noticed a shift in how he was looking at her, because her own glances became longer, more alluring. They fought over the bottle of rum, Arthur bringing it to his mouth while she tried pulling it away, clanking the glass on his teeth. He didn’t care. This was fun, and she was being nice to him and she was just so hot that he didn’t even care that her tongue was pushing the bottle from his mouth and finding itself perfectly at home between his lips. He pulled her on top of him, feeling her body grind against him as she gasped for breath, the drunken excitement overriding the need for oxygen.

  Suddenly, the sun was blinding him as his head pounded. He groaned and rolled off the bed, hitting the floor inadvertently and nakedly.

  It was… unpleasant.

  What was more unpleasant was the realization that he was in Ariana and Tim’s room. “Ari?” he called out, fairly concerned. Did… did they? He pushed himself to his feet, one foot bare and cold on the floor while the other remained nestled in his sock. He exited the room and shut the door behind him. “Ari?” he called out, covering himself with his hand.

  No one was home.

  He opened the door to his room, the clothing he had on last night scattered haphazardly on the bed. The front door snapped unlocked and he ducked inside his room, reaching for his boxers as someone charged in. “Art!” Tim yelled as Arthur nearly fell over trying to put his pants on.

  “In… my room, Tim!” he shouted, quickly buttoning himself. Suddenly, Tim appeared in his doorway, positively manic.

  “Look, I’m not even gonna hassle you about leaving me in a lurch, man…” Arthur tried to say something in response, but failed. “I’ve made a huge mistake. I can’t leave Ari. Have you seen her?” In the back of his mind, he saw Ariana’s silhouette against the moon, undressed, and his heart sank. His eyes fell to the floor as he pulled his shirt over his head.

  Arthur looked up at his best – and really, only – friend in the whole world. “No, man. Sorry.”

  July 17th, 2011

  Noon

  Claymore sat in his cell, jiggling his leg as he waited for the arraignment. Conspiracy to commit murder. Murder in the third. Conspiracy again. Another murder, this time of someone he hadn’t even seen the night of the Fort breakout but was accused of anyway. He leaned forward, running his real hand through his hair.

  His lawyer was fairly good, bought with his father’s money, but even he suggested pleading guilty to most of the charges. No one bought it when Adolf Eichmann claimed he was following orders, why would anyone do it now?

  “Mr. York, it is very good to see you,” came a cold voice, making Claymore immediately stand and back into the far corner of the cell. The thin man, head covered with a wide brimmed hat, entered, his cape gently flowing behind him.

  “Y-you can’t be here…” Claymore said.

  “And yet… here I am,” Archetype called out as he gestured widely. “The damage has already been done,” he said. “And, as much as I would like you to kill yourself, there’s a more convincing way for this drama to play out.” He produced a ring of keys with one spindly arm before unlocking his cell.

  “What are you doing?” Claymore asked.

  Archetype didn’t respond. Instead, he removed the key from the lock and tossed it by Claymore’s feet. With a small flourish of his cape, he vanished in the opposite direction from which he had appeared.

  It was a minute before Claymore did anything other than stay pressed against the wall. “Hello?” he shouted. “My cell door’s open!” No one responded. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the sound of sirens, but they faded away. Eventually, he pushed himself off the wall and made his way out of the cell.

  The block was empty. Claymore walked down the hallway where Archetype had appeared, heading toward the door leading to the precinct proper. He opened the door quietly, hoping that no one was going to jump-and-cuff him.

  That hope quickly turned to fear when he saw the first Enforcer’s body in the stuffy, white-on-white office. They were everywhere, slumped over desks and chairs, two on the floor in horrible positions. Nine total. His chest shook in time with his slamming heart as his eyes came to rest on the far wall, near the exit. Embedded in the wall was the freshly bloodied and broken sword Dervish had used to defend himself, tagged with a bright red ‘EVIDENCE’ card.

  His finger prints would be all over it.

  The sirens returned, but they didn’t fade away. Instead, they grew more and more insistent as Claymore did the only thing his mind was telling him to do.

  He ran.

  Arthur drummed his fingers against his lips, trying to think. The Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network had utterly failed. A program designed to make computers retrieve data faster while jamming other access points was useless, a self-perpetuating chunk of code which could easily fry a hard drive but accomplish little else of significance.

  He had less than two weeks to figure out a new project or miss out on the chance for approval. Another six months before he could try again. He could half-ass it, sure, but he had already been laughed out for projects he worked hard on. He didn’t feel like pitching something without any love behind it.

  A window popped open on the computer screen, drawing his attention away from the sudden appearance of an amber light next to his webcam’s lens. He cocked an eyebrow and closed it. Another opened up, a simple word processor program. Arthur closed it again. He tried to look away, concentrate on his scratch paper, but the window opened again. With a grunt of annoyance, he hit the close button… only to have it not function. Not freeze, per se, but simply not function.

  He rolled his eyes
and double clicked the icon for the virus scanner, which promptly deactivated. He cocked an eyebrow. A zero appeared in the word processor. He tried to start the scanner from the menu, and another zero appeared on the next line. His eyes floated to the top of his laptop, the amber light informing him that his webcam, which should have been permanently off, was now on.

  “Intriguing…” Arthur said to himself. He cocked an eyebrow. “Can you hear me?” he asked into the microphone embedded in the computer.

  A one appeared.

  Arthur nodded. “Can you understand me?”

  A zero appeared.

  “Well, you’re smart enough to figure out context…” he mused, standing up and picking out a computer science book. He flitted through the pages and landed on the two pages which contained the entire alphabet in binary. He showed it to the webcam for a few seconds. Arthur set the book down and looked into the camera. He held up a finger in one hand and made a zero with the other.

  A one appeared.

  He smiled, then pulled up a different word processor, which the… thing… allowed. He opened the dictionary function, hoping that the program figured out what he was trying to do. Arthur waited a few moments, then tapped at the keyboard, ‘Can you understand me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you?’

  ‘What are you?’

  ‘I am a human being.’

  ‘You are ugly.’ Arthur laughed. ‘Laughter? You did not understand my intent,’ the computer clarified. ‘What am I?’

  What am I?

  What am

  What

  What

  What

  What…what…what…what…what…what…

  July 19th, 2011

  Morning

  Beep… beep… beep… beep… beep… beep…

  The chirp of the electrocardiogram was the first thing Arthur sensed behind his closed eyelids. In accordance with that, he became rapidly aware of his heartbeat thumping away rhythmically in his chest. It took him a moment to realize something was over his mouth, a sensation he responded to by weakly pawing at the offending item. Once he was able to, he took a large breath, a hissing, rasping thing, but it jerked his body enough for him to will his eyes open.