What did Kyle have? What did the Last Assassin do for fun? He was a professional. Professionals couldn't just go out and play with anyone off the street. He had to be careful—he was a target. Everyone who wanted a boost in their street cred wanted to kill him themselves. The Mercenaries had a contract on him every few months.
Not only that, but he lived in the only home he had ever really known—the Assassin's Guild Hall. The place where he had lived, grown up, trained, and buried everyone he had ever given a damn about. He had to drag each and every one of their bodies out and bury them. It had taken days to get through all of the ones he could find enough of to bury. Some had been blackened beyond recognition. There had been thousands of Assassins in the Hall, but he had only found enough parts for a hundred. The rest had had a premature cremation, while still alive. There were scorch marks on the floors, walls and ceilings. Entire hallways still reeked of death. The bodies of thousands of Mercenaries that had clogged the hallways. They had to be burned out first. The entire project had taken months.
There were still phantom faces in the hallway, phantom shadows on the floor. Empty chairs stood at empty tables. There were echoes of the mind that sang down the empty hallways every time he heard his own footsteps in the passages—something he could never do when the Hall was alive and filled to capacity. How was any man supposed to forget? Where was there to take refuge from the storm of souls that haunted his brain? No friends, only targets in his sniper scope and ghosts in the machines of his only home.
Kyle liked puzzles. They were one of the few things that kept him sane in an empty building. And his life had looked like that nonstop for the last three years. Hallways he had emptied of bodies, corpses piled like cordwood. Bodies blown apart and turned to charcoal. From time to time, Kyle would still go to a part of the Guild Hall he’d avoided for a while, and come across a smell in the vents. He would tell himself it was a dead rat caught by the automatic security system.
So, Kyle really liked puzzles. They were a way of keeping sane.
And this man, Kevin Anderson, was a puzzle. What could have gotten this man sent to San Francisco? Lotus had called him Lieutenant. He was an officer. Officers didn’t usually get sent away unless they had some something really, really wrong. The kind of wrong you did not come back from. Was Kevin Anderson the kind of man to be disappeared for a personal fetish? Not the kind that Kyle could imagine.
So that left something else. He had not been sent here because he was guilty. He had been sent because someone else was. A powerful someone.
So Kevin Anderson was an interesting puzzle, at least.
Research was in order, of course. But he wouldn’t ask the Triplets just yet. It was thoroughly possible that he could find all of the information by himself. The Guild Hall had computers, many of them with advanced software. Kyle frowned.
It had been advanced software. Three years ago. The Assassins had paid for military-grade hardware and software – the Next-Gen edition.
Kyle might not be able to find out everything about Mr. Anderson, but he should be able to get some data about the man.
Kevin Anderson was a puzzle. Kyle at least wanted the picture, and make sure all the pieces were there.
*
Kevin Anderson stopped at his apartment to pick up his rifle and a box of ammunition. Tonight, he was going to leave the book at home.
He walked past the car he had taken out to the Muir Woods and back, staring at the corpse of the Forsaken who was picked to go after Kyle. Bad teeth, white hair, truly annoying. Anderson hadn't intended to kill him, but after the first fifteen minutes of listening to the man blather on about the community, and the One, and how wonderful Foreman was, slitting the man’s throat with his own knife seemed like the thing to do.
Kevin sighed, shook his head, and moved off to continue his reign of terror. Under his free arm was a simple stump of wood. He had knives strapped to his side for carving. While his laser microphone had been set to listen, he had started the process of carving out his own longbow. Kevin had a degree in engineering, how hard could it be? It was, in essence, a mindless process. Carve away whole chunks of wood—wood he would later use for arrows. The fine-tuning would be the hard part.
Carving was just a way to pass the time as he waited for someone who deserved everything that he had coming: a mugger, a gang member, a rapist…his usual fare. Though, lately, there had been fewer and fewer targets each evening. He reached for a knife
As Kevin worked on the bow, he slashed and peeled and cut, and didn’t stop, focusing all of his energy on it, even though there wasn’t anything to think about…except for that crawling memory in the back of his mind. A slash for each moment with Moira he wanted to suppress. A stab for each minute without her. A carve for each time they had to put each other off due to work, or scheduling, or some other damn thing that didn’t seem all that important. And soon, after hours of carving, he had a bow.
Sublimation at its best. Now for the arrows…
Chapter 22: Animal I Have Become
June 2nd, 2093
The Pyramid Building was in the “good” part of town, near the piers, and the Embarcadero—a strip of stores that was once almost an outdoor mall. The people along the piers were wealthy and had their own shops. Beyond that was the bay, and there, Alcatraz.
The Pyramid Building looked like just that—a pyramid. It was a jewel of the city, the peak of San Francisco 20th-century construction. The building was almost totally proofed against snipers, which was probably the idea, for the offices of the Mercenaries Guild: it matched the plush chairs upholstered with Kevlar, the steel front desk, and the blonde secretary with the Tec-9 submachine gun.
Despite all the security, everyone in the building knew enough to get out of the way of the pretty, petite brunette with the ice-blue eyes. She didn't wait to be buzzed in, didn't stop for pleasantries, didn't think to say hello to anyone, didn't even consider announcing herself, or even calling ahead. She made a left turn, and the illusion ended, the carpeted floor becoming a stark, concrete hallway. She walked up to and opened the door marked “Maj. Antonio Rohaz, CEO.”
Major Rohaz was already standing and waiting for her.
“How dare you keep this from me!?” Amanda Rohaz began.
He smiled, and cocked his head. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You know what! You knew Kevin's in San Francisco. You had to know, you personally interviewed the schmuck he beat up his first week here!”
Major Rohaz nodded. “And if I wanted to keep it a secret, don't you think I would have sent him to a European desk? Not to the office you operate out of?”
Mandy ground her teeth, and took several deep breaths, keeping herself calm. “Why didn't you tell me? Why did I have to find out myself?”
“Because, I knew that as soon as I told you, you would have felt obligated to rush straight towards him. And unless you're willing to stay in San Francisco all the time, well, he wouldn't have had a chance to have settled in.”
She blinked. “What?”
Rohaz shook his head, sighed and slipped a cigar into his mouth. After a few puffs to get it going, he slipped his lighter into his pocket. “Wargame it with me. I tell you where he is, and what do you do? I know you, Mandy, you come and you head straight for him. Then what?”
“I tell him everything I know. I show him around. I help him get the lay of the land.”
Rohaz shook his head. “You'd be giving him secondhand intel, and he would spend who knows how long playing catch-up, since you don't exactly come over here that often. And then what are you going to do? Be his own personal contact? What if someone notices you hanging around him and decides to use either of you against me? You would have essentially jettisoned half of his reason for accepting his own punishment.”
Mandy blinked, and frowned. “We must not forget to pay the debt,” she muttered to herself. Rohaz arched a brow at the comment, and she waved it off. “Nothing, just something I heard once. So you sent that lose
r East as a time delayed message about Kevin?”
He nodded. “It was time to let Kevin be Kevin. Let him get his own bearings, since anything that we do to aid him is going to simply hinder his ability to operate on his own.”
“What then?”
*
Kevin looked at his watch and sighed. He had to get out of his rut. He tossed the bow aside. He'd been dealing with the damn thing for an entire week, and he should be getting out, showing his face, scaring the neighbors, that sort of thing.
He left by the fire escape, secured the window, and made his way down to the street.
He sighed and started walking along the border of Chinatown. In an hour, he'd make it to Grant Street, and by the time he was there, he'd have covered at least a quarter of the perimeter.
Ninety minutes later, after chatting with everyone who wanted to say hello to him, he had made it to the very Southern edge of Chinatown.
He turned east, ready to start the next lap when he heard the scream.
He didn't even hesitate. There was a scream from a house. Kevin kicked open the door.
And then the door hit back.
*
Rohaz thoughtfully puffed on his cigar for a moment as he considered Mandy's question. “Then...it would be a matter of seeing exactly what sort of person he would become.” He shrugged, and then tapped some of the ashes into the tray on the side of his desk. “San Francisco has become a living, breathing Lord of the Flies, and we needed to know if Kevin would become a hunter, the hunted, or one of the savages.” He smiled. “Then again, considering his recent past, we know that he isn't going to become one of the hunted.”
Amanda Rohaz nodded. “But one of the savages? No, not possible.”
“There’s something you should know about the company he’s been keeping lately.”
*
Kevin spilled out into the street with four thugs atop him. They rolled in one great big dog pile, looking like a giant ball of bones and muscle. They slashed at his body and his arms and his face with knives and hit, and punched, and bit. He kept his arms around his head, and let the long-sleeved body armor take most of the punishment. He jammed two knees up, punching deep into the gut of one of them, and as he fell back, Kevin pushed through the gap. He bounded out like he was fired from a cannon, tumbled into the street and then came back standing, whirling on them.
His eyes were wide and angry, and his teeth gritted. His hands were balled into fists, and his posture was low and defensive, braced for the next impact. His nerves buzzed, as if a swarm of wasps had been let loose in his brain. Everything in his torso, from his groin to his chest, became empty and cavernous. He was hollow, and the only thing he could feel was the banging of his heart echoing in the emptiness.
“Don't any of you listen?! What is this, Lord of the friggin' Flies? Do none of you people listen until you're forced to?”
He lunged forward before any of them could get off the ground, and he latched onto one of them like a squid's tentacle, holding his head in both hands as he dragged the young punk screaming away from his friends. Kevin shook him. “What do you want from me, huh? Huh?”
He changed his grip, one arm around his neck and the other holding the back of his head. “What do I have to do to convince you people?” he screamed as he twisted, breaking the neck in a flashy 200-degree twist. “Do I have to kill all of you?” he screamed as the body hit the ground.
Another one scrambled to his feet and started to run away. With a roar, Anderson leapt on the man's back like a lion pouncing on prey. A length of piano wire whipped out of Kevin's sleeve and looped around his target's throat. With a sharp jerk, he pulled the garrote tight. The wire bit through flesh, through windpipe, through cartilage in the throat. The wire cut through everything as he pulled it straight, popping the head clean off the body. There was only a little spurt of blood as Kevin tumbled backwards, head over heels, coming back to his feet and grabbing the third of the foursome. He pinned the man to the ground with his body, facing the scared teenager who had been stupid enough to attack him. He grabbed the sides of his head and slammed it against the concrete.
“Is that it?” Kevin screamed as he slammed the head back against the street. “You want to die?” he asked again slamming the head to the ground with each punctuation mark. “I can arrange that! I can arrange it for all of you! If I have to kill every last person in this city to keep the peace, then peace is what I'll give you! I'll give it to all of you! All of you! I. Will. Kill. You. AlllllllllllllllLLLLLLLLLLLL!”
The fourth attacker didn't take advantage of Kevin's target focus; he was too busy screaming himself. But his screams had been drowned out by Kevin Anderson, who let out nothing but one long scream as he continued to pound the boy's head into the concrete. One scream for Moira. Another for Eric J. Beren, the perfect spy so nondescript he had no ethnicity. Jenna James, the tiny, bookish brunette with sharp features crafted by a razor. Anthony Pierce, the mountainous computer programmer. Bruce Jones, his combat specialist. William Middleton, demolitions expert. One for Senator Dennis Kennedy, whose sins came back to haunt him. Another for James Friedman; still alive, if you could call it living. Harold Reed, who died of a heart attack. Zalak Patel, whose Lady Macbeth killed him. For ancient Alfredo Beedon. Victor Schuman, the runner. Alberta Wynter, car fanatic. Malik Curtin. Bauer. Grace. Todd and Kirk. And Angie Vaughn. For Mandy. For Henry Daley. For his Church. His mother. His father. The life he left behind. For every, last, damned, day, spent, in this damned, frigging, Hellhole!
Kevin screamed until he was hoarse, and he kept going anyway. Tears streamed down his face as the head he was holding slowly gave way under his blows. Blow after blow crushed the bone, spilled the brain matter into the street, pulverizing the bone a millimeter at a time. Time had dilated and slowed and stopped. He didn't take count of how much time had been lost as he destroyed his opponent.
He eventually stopped, mainly because there wasn't much for him to hold onto anymore. The skull had come off the body, and Kevin’s arms were limp and tired. He tried to go to his hands and knees, but his arms wouldn't support him. He slowly toppled to the side, just out of the dried pool of blood in the street. His next breath was a sob as he tried to catch his breath.
The street was silent, but not empty. People had come out of their homes, drawn by the noise that had been impossible to miss. They had watched their guardian kill; he had been an enraged, psychotic berserker. Even the Children of Thanatos stood there, marveling in stunned silence at his terrifying fury.
The Exile didn't care. He had been pushed too hard for too long. For all of 2093, he had worn every face he had in his arsenal, and had to make more up as he went along. Since January, he had executed a dozen almost impossible missions, half of them alone, killed hundreds of Mercenaries; he had been cut off from his friends, family, and dropped through the looking glass into some variation of a Hobbesian nightmare, where he had to wage an entire insurgency against at least a million maniacs in the Forsaken alone, and had become the lord and master of an unknown number of death cultists.
It had been a rough patch.
Kevin thought he had burned out his anger when he had tortured, mutilated, and reduced Senator James Friedman into a limbless vegetable, with touch as his only remaining sense. He thought the pain and the anger had boiled out of him. The anger that had protected him from the man's pitiful whimpers and screams and whines as he was left as an even more useless stump of a man than he had been as a Senator.
And now, it seemed, that what he had unleashed was only the beginning.
Kevin, regaining his breath, tapped into that anger once again. It truly closed his mind to stress and pain as he jump-kicked to his feet. He wiped his tears away, smearing blood over his face, and he turned to look at the last member of the gang. Kevin stepped over the body of his comrade and looked down. This, like the other three, was just a boy, a teenager. One who had decided that it would be fun to try and kill Anderson.
“You,” K
evin said in a harsh, breathless whisper, “are going, to leave. You won't return. If you do, they won't find enough of you for a DNA match. Clear?”
The boy gave a brief nod and ran, gibbering as urine dripped down his leg, leaving a trail on the street behind him. Kevin waved the Children off before they pursued and killed the boy. He’d be a messenger about the fairly scary psycho guarding Chinatown.
Then he heard the explosion from further south. He stared at the pillar of smoke for a moment before he recognized the location. The office of Dr. Gabriel Sieger.
*
“Kevin? With Kyle Elsen?” Mandy blinked, then shook her head. “Kyle's...hell, he was the scariest six-year-old.”
Rohaz raised a brow. “You recall Kyle growing up?”
“Only one person pulled a broken bottle on me when I was growing up. That was more than enough, thank you. What's Kevin doing hanging out with the Assassin? I didn't know he liked sociopaths.”
He nodded. “It would seem that the man you fell in love with has fallen in with bad company.”
*
Kevin ran up to the Doctor’s building and found the front door taken off its hinges. Anderson blinked and wandered in. Gabriel’s building was a brownstone built like a fortress… Now it looked like a fortress that had been raided. There were bodies all over the floor as he walked through the area, pieces had fallen from them, and several which still had something of a human shape—even melted.
Kevin followed the trail of bodies to three guys with guns, all of them attempting to break down Gabriel’s armored office door. He sighed gently, reached down and grabbed a baseball bat from one of the deceased, and made short work of the three thugs.
He bent down to talk to the only survivor. “Hey there, what seems to be the problem?”
He was told, and then he killed the man. After there was a moment of silence, Gabriel Seiger opened the door, a one-shot dueling pistol leading the way. Kevin slapped it out of his hands, lest the doctor be trigger happy, then grabbed Gabriel by the throat, and slammed him against the wall.
Codename: Winterborn (The Last Survivors Book 1) Page 25