“Yes.”
“Badly?”
“I doubt he could hold a gun if one was presented to him,” he admitted.
“Then why do you think Lauren’s safe?”
He mentioned that the hideout was well secluded, locked from both the inside and outside, and that unless someone told Dalton about it, he’d never find it.
Jessica asked if he could get her out of the country, but he said it wasn’t an option, as her mother and father were well respected individuals, and wherever she went there would be a news article about it and eventually Dalton would catch up with her.
She paused a moment and gave Nick’s situation some thought. “You said you know for a fact that the MP3 Assassin and this mystery killer are in league with one another now?”
“Yes.”
“Then do you think they were involved in your brother’s murder, as well as that of whomever that woman was that was killed at Jordan’s work?”
He nodded and said he did. “Why?”
She frowned and said he might have a larger problem than he realized. “If the MP3 Assassin and the unknown killer are a partnership, then you may have to deal with both of them if Laruen is ever attacked.” She looked at Nick’s sudden melancholy and asked if he thought he could still protect her.
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I? I mean, I can’t leave her to deal with all of this on her own,” he muttered. He rubbed his eyes and told her it was his fault he didn’t save her parents in the first place.
“Nick, you can’t place the blame on yourself. You didn’t kill them and I’d like to believe that you’ve never done anything like this before, right? So I’d say it’s a miracle he didn’t kill you and this girl as well.”
Nick nodded, but still said he felt responsible. “I’ve got to figure this out though.”
“Well, are you willing to kill either of these two murderers?”
He said he didn’t want to.
“Then how can you ensure her safety from these two without killing them?” she asked. “If you stopped them from killing her, but left them alive, they’d only return to try to finish the job so long as someone wanted to pay them for the deed. Which raises another point Nick, you’d have to find and stop, or kill, the person who hired them.”
“And I don’t have a clue as to who that might be.”
“Then this isn’t the easiest situation to rectify Nick.” She didn’t want to say it, but told him that in order to save Lauren he might have to step beyond his moral code to save his friend. “I don’t want to sound harsh, but this isn’t something you can take lightly and base all of your decisions around a moral code. These people don’t follow what you believe and will kill you if they know you’re not up to killing them.”
“I know, but that doesn’t change anything.”
Jessica looked at him and asked why he thought it wasn’t justified to fight for someone’s life like that. “If someone tried to kill my brother, or any one of my friends or family for that matter, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill them first, so long as I could save whoever I wanted to protect.”
Nick asked her if she thought murder was ever justifiable, which Jessica said she didn’t believe it ever was.
“This is different Nick. This is something people debate over in ethics courses around the world, and you’re in it. There isn’t a right or wrong answer in my opinion, and I truly doubt there is anyone who knows.” She waited a moment before she told him this situation was entirely in his hands. “You’ve got time to think this over too. It’s not as if they’re knocking on your door.”
“I know,” he said. “It feels like they are, but…” He stopped and simply told her he never thought he’d have to make this decision.
Jessica frowned and told him it wasn’t fair, but he still had to choose. “If you asked me Nick, I’d say signs point to you killing these guys.” She explained her reasoning by reminding him that his ability consisted of his creation and duplication of firearms, his ability to be bulletproof, his association with one of the most notorious assassins in the world, and the fact that his brother was killed by an assassin. “I don’t believe in God,” she told him, “But I would go so far as to say it almost looks as though someone from above is giving you the okay here Nick.” She added that she was sorry she couldn’t help more, but told him it wasn’t something she really had a hand in. “Just think it over and do what you feel is right.”
---*---
September 29th, 2029
12:36 PM
London, England
Although Ian still felt like a tourist, he already loved his new home. He spent a good amount of his spare time sightseeing and trying local cuisine, as well as photographing his expeditions across London. His gallery expanded much faster than he initially expected, but it was what he loved and soon enough it would be his livelihood too. Ian found a job at a small photography shop where his primary duties were taking portraits and handling prints. He didn’t start for another week so naturally he tried to use the rest of his freedom to its full extent. However, Ian’s double life as Voltage kept him sleeping through most of the day, so when Ian did venture out into the afternoon, his time was limited. His social life hardly existed either. Beyond occasional video calls with Coop and Wally, Drake was the only person Ian had contact with. Drake constantly wanted to transport him to Dubai or Tokyo for exploring or lunch, but Ian always refused. He wanted to make the most of the little time he had left before he started his job.
Ian’s nights were always filled with patrolling the city as Voltage. When he first started he was lucky and managed to have an eventful beginning, saving people from various degrees of peril. The nights were dull since then, which made Ian think he might be wrong in assuming London needed any super powered help at all. His other concern was that crime thrived and he failed to see it. Ian patrolled every evening, sometimes for a few hours and other nights until the sun rose.
Ian hovered above the River Thames and scanned the surrounding area for any mischievous activity, but failed to find any. He let out a breath and continued to scour the area.
Drake told him he thought vigilantism was a futile act, as caped crime fighters only had enough power to prevent acts of violence against someone or something, which Drake felt happened too rarely. He also believed that guarding the city as a form of savior reminded the public that there was crime, as there was a need for those heroes. Drake pointed out some of Voltage’s compatriots, such as the Human Titan, were trouble seekers, heroes who went around beating the bushes for anything they could use to fuel their legitimacy. He still wished Ian the best at what he wanted to do though.
Ian hadn’t heard a word from anyone other than Drake, Coop and Wally, and his mother since he moved. From what Drake said Nick was off the deep end and hadn’t been seen since he changed schools and Jordan and Rachel went through a pretty bad breakup, though Drake told Ian he tried to push Jordan into calling him. Ian usually felt fine on his own, but some nights he wondered how fast he could fly and how long it would take him to get back home. At those times he tried to convince himself that he truly was home.
Ian glanced about and nearly decided to turn in when something caught his eye. A figure, a man, came out of what looked like an old condemned apartment complex. The man carried something Ian couldn’t make out, but he hovered and watched as the man walked over to a manhole plate and quietly shift it open. He slipped inside and at the last moment Ian saw what he carried, a young woman, unconscious or dead.
His heart stopped for a moment as he watched a potential killer escape into the sewer and recover the manhole plate. Ian collected himself and dashed to the place where the figure vanished from. He used all of his strength to lift the cover open and quietly slipped inside.
The stranger was nowhere in sight, though the dark tunnels could have hid him right before Ian’s eyes. He took a reaffirming breath and started down the tunnel in search of the man, a body, or light. Ian kept his right hand pressed agains
t the wall and his left arm forward as he felt his way through the shadows. He wanted to run, to dart forward and escape the corridors once and for all but he felt any rash decisions could spell his demise.
As Ian walked he suddenly hit an acrid stench that hung in the air. He stopped momentarily to collect himself while he imagined what it might be. After he summoned the courage and stomach to continue, he pressed onward, still with one hand on the wall and his other covered his nose. The further he walked the more pungent the air grew. He soon found a light far away from him and hurried to meet it, though he believed the source of the odor lay in the same direction he marched toward.
Ian heard the sound of running water as he reached an opening with electrical lamps that illuminated the wide room around him. He searched the room quickly to find multiple tunnels, an underground river, and the man who escaped him with a young woman on the cold floor at the opposite end of the room.
“Stop! What do you think you’re doing with her?” Ian called out.
The figure remained still. He breathed heavily and quietly asked who he was. “You are not familiar to me…” the man turned and faced Ian. He showed his scarred and disfigured, gray face. His breathing remained uneven and short when he said, “You need to leave hero, this girl is a sinner, a traitorous harlot and must be destroyed, otherwise she will infect and corrupt our world.”
Ian, unsettled, asked for an explanation, “What has she done?”
“This one,” the elderly man sighed, “This one has lied and cheated and stolen and defiled so many hearts of both men and women…” He continued to list her crimes and sins with clarity.
Ian finally stopped him. “So what if she’s done such horrible things? She’s human, leave her alone.”
The stranger shook his head and regrettably told Ian he could not. “This girl must die. She will be made to atone for her crimes and sins.”
Ian frowned and readied himself to attack if needed, “You know I won’t let you do that.”
“And you will stop me? You will oppose the Lord and His will?”
“I don’t know who you believe your God is, but what I believe tells me this is wrong.”
The disfigured man retrieved a rusted blade, opened it in a quick movement, and held it out a small way from his body. “I know what I have been told, commanded to do by God, by my God through His angel. Do you believe you can overcome me then? With only your will to stop me?”
Ian shifted his weight to his back leg and raced forward. He seized the knife from the old man’s hand, threw it into a wall far away from the three of them, and in one swift motion he stuck the villain in the chest with just enough force to send him reeling back into a wall. Ian resumed his battle stance once more, now with the girl he protected safely behind him.
The stranger struggled to return to his feet. He stared at Ian for a moment before he asked, “What are you?”
Ian remained ready and immovable, his eyes fixed on his opponent. But the young woman stirred at his feet and regained consciousness. He glanced down at her for only a second, but in doing so his foe vanished into one of the many tunnels. Ian frowned but decided to let him go, as he felt rescuing the girl took highest priority.
She awoke and after a moment jumped when she saw him. “Who are you?”
Ian tried his best to assure her everything was fine. “My name is, er…well call me Voltage. I’m going to get you out of here. Do you think you can walk?”
The girl nodded and Ian helped her to her feet. After a moment the pair slowly made their way through the same passageway Ian entered through, all while he kept his hand pressed against the wall in search of a ladder to return them to the surface. He listened too while they made their escape for footsteps, incase their enemy might try to ambush them on their way out.
---*---
September 28th, 2029
7:20 PM
Seattle, Washington
Rain poured over Seattle as Rachel and Vladimir made their way through the International District in search of Cipriana. Vladimir walked amidst the rain without any worry or care. Rachel on the other hand utilized the small black umbrella Vladimir gave her the day they met to shield herself from the storm.
“How are we supposed to find her?” Rachel asked Vladimir.
“It is usually simple when Pyotr and I are tracking someone,” he admitted, “Simply because there is a bit of a body count that acts as a trail. However, when we deal with anyone who is involved with Constantine it is far from that easy. They, Constantine and his group, have learned to cover their tracks exceedingly well.”
“Do you look for him yourself?”
Vladimir shook his head and told her that Pyotr handled the initial sleuthing. “I can hardly scour the papers here in this state for a trace that might lead to him, while Pyotr has a much wider and larger search area. Ideally I would do a majority of all the leg work, but when you have an angel with heaven on his side, you tend to let them take up whatever part of the workload they offer to carry.”
“So what do you do if you’re not looking for him?”
“I do what Pyotr asks me to,” he muttered. “Or as much as I believe is sound to do.”
“And this is?”
He nodded. “Cipriana is a murderer, a betrayer, a harlot, a sodomite, and another handful or colorful words I would rather not rattle off at the moment.”
Rachel stopped him and asked why Cipriana became the way she was.
They were near an overpass with painted red columns with golden Chinese dragons on them. He pulled her aside and agreed to reveal a bit more to her. “I mentioned that Cipriana loved Constantine, correct? When he committed his crime against humanity and left to begin his unnatural acts, Cipriana was one of the only members of our group of friends who wanted to try to reason with him. Now, neither I nor my comrades knew she loved him until years, rather, decades later. She departed from our midst with the promise to find him and to possibly act as a spy if needed, though it became evident much later that her promise was a lie. Her search for Constantine took her across the world, through different lives, nations, and cultures. I would imagine that over time she grew impatient of seeking after him and allowed herself a few of the more carnal things in this world, which over time grew to encompass anything she fancied. She may even have lost her love for the man she set out to find.”
Rachel frowned and asked if he doubted she was with Constantine. “It sounded like Pyotr said she was with him, which could mean he is somewhere in the city, right?”
Vladimir said he was unsure, but doubted it. “If he was, Pyotr would be here with us now. And if Constantine was here there would already be some form of disaster.”
“What do you mean?”
“Constantine brings death with him wherever he goes. When he was in Germany he aided in the Holocaust, in Rwanda with the genocide there, and throughout the world in the spread of disease, famine, and general death.” He saw her expression of disgust and added, “If he was here there would be some dire matter at hand.”
“Then do you think he could be in Africa? In one of the wars there?” she asked him. “Or in the Middle East? Or–”
“Again,” he stopped her, “I do not know.”
Vladimir apologized and told her they needed to press on, but she stopped him and asked if there was a simpler way for them to search for her. “Can’t you sense her blood or something?”
He shook his head and told her it wasn’t that simple. “There are too many people here for starters, but more importantly, I do not know what her blood is like.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I gained my vampiric powers after she departed for India.”
“And you haven’t seen her since?”
“I have but since she has changed bodies her scent is useless to me now.”
Rachel frowned and asked if he had any other skill he could use to find her. “You can’t sense evil or anything, can you?”
He sighed and said that wasn’t a
part of his skill set. “Evil is something people can sense when they are in tune with spiritual matters, or that’s what Pyotr has told me.” Vladimir paused for a moment and examined Rachel. He cleared his throat and asked how religious she was.
“Not very,” she confessed. “I’ll go with my aunt on occasion, but–”
“Never mind that,” he cut her off. “I still think this might work.”
“What might?”
“Just give me a moment to think this over…” he walked past her a few feet, stopped, turned, walked back, stopped, turned, and repeated the process for a few more paces before he stopped and asked her, “What do you think of me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do I feel different than other people you have met before?”
“I don’t–”
“How about Pyotr?” he quickly asked her. “How do you feel when he is near you?”
She shrugged and said she felt at peace.
“And when you are around me?”
“I felt fine when I first met you, but now I only feel agitated.”
“Alright,” he smiled. “After all the time we have spent in walking through this city I believe I understand why Pyotr set us out alone and without any clues.”
“What do you mean?”
“It has to do with your power, or rather, another level within your power.” He explained that some individuals are sensitive to energies that surround people and can tell, often without a look, if a person is good or evil. “I believe you have that power and that Pyotr set us out to discover this. Now, through all of this aimless walking over the past few days, have you ever felt something that bothered you to an exceeding limit? Have you felt something like a gripping fear?”
She paused and gave the matter some thought, but said she never felt anything like that.
Vladimir scowled as he tried to think of a better way to unlock her ability. He remained still for a moment and had a second idea. “Close your eyes for a moment.” She agreed and he turned her toward the little foot traffic on the other side of the street and asked what she saw.
Impact (Book 1): Regenesis Page 60