Days' End

by Scott L Collins

  “Very well.” The guard shut the door, leaving Alastair alone in the server room. He quickly opened his bag and connected his laptop to the security server. His first order of business had been determined the day of his father’s funeral. He would find and kill the man responsible for his father’s death.

  He checked the security cameras to make sure a sentry had not been posted outside the door to the room. Next he flipped from camera to camera to locate the guards. From what he could tell, Joseph was the only one in the building and Alastair had seen him walk into a door marked Security on the first floor. From the blueprints Alastair knew that was the main security control room. He quickly checked his keycards to make sure they were working, plugged in one of the wireless web jacks, put the other one in his pocket along with the revolver and his iPOD, and moved over to the solitary door. He swiped one of his fake cards over the key card panel. If he’d programmed everything correctly, Joseph’s screen showing the back of the restaurant would freeze, showing only an empty corridor.

  He slowly opened the door and peeked out. There was nobody around. He snuck down the hall, back through the empty restaurant and into the cafeteria. He pulled his iPOD out of his pocket and used it to access his laptop in the server room. Checking the security camera system, he verified his invisibility. He was standing in the dead center of the deserted cafeteria, yet the image he was looking at showed a room empty of any inhabitants.

  Satisfied that his program was running smoothly, he hurried to the elevator, entered his card, and pushed the button for B-20, Scario’s master suite. The elevator lurched slightly before beginning its descent. Alastair stood waiting, expecting the doors to open at any moment to reveal a guard alerted to his activity. His heart jack-hammered in his chest; his palms were sweaty and slippery. Alastair turned his head to look at the floor indicator when the elevator arrived. He stepped out into a dimly lit hallway ending at a magnificent door. Scario’s suite occupied the whole level. He gave silent thanks that he hadn’t soiled himself and hustled down the short hall.

  Alastair would ask him one question: Where is Nysa? Then he would kill him. Regardless of whether or not Alastair got his answer, he was going to kill the man. Rage began replacing his fear as images of his father lying on the bed in the hotel raced through his mind. His fury grew as his thoughts shifted to the cemetery, the warnings, and the condescending way Scario had spoken to Alastair. Alastair stepped quickly to the door, his blood boiling with hatred.

  Utilizing his fraudulent card, he opened the door and walked in, gun at the ready, searching for any threats. He moved from one room to the next until he was sure he was alone. After searching the suite, Alastair began looking through Scario’s desk for anything that might help him find out what was going on and how he could find Nysa.

  In the bottom left drawer of Scario’s desk, Alastair found reams of research regarding the Shroud of Turin. One Time magazine headline read “Shroud of Turin, Shroud of Mystery.” Alastair flipped to the article, which told of the carbon dating done on the Catholic Church’s acclaimed Shroud of Turin. The results dated the fabric well past the time of Jesus, more along the timeline of Leonardo da Vinci. In fact, many of the chemicals that were discovered in the supposed Shroud were extremely rare and originated from areas around Vinci, Italy. Some scholars believed the Shroud was painted by Leonardo himself as commissioned by the Church.

  Flipping through the article, Alastair grew more and more uneasy with what he was finding. He stood up and wandered around the room looking at the artwork as well as the books lining the walls. He was searching for something and wasn’t quite sure what it was he was looking for, just that he’d know it when he found it. His collection was amazing. Alastair picked up a copy of what appeared to be a journal. He opened it to the first page and was shocked at the brittleness of the paper. The book was written in some foreign language so Alastair set it back down and continued perusing the shelves.

  He finally discovered one written in English. He skimmed the entries, quickening his pace as he realized what he was looking at. The more he read the more he began to believe that not only had Scario been alive during the days of DaVinci, but also when Christ had walked the earth. He’d been alive for the last two thousand years! Judas Iscariot was not his alias, it was his true identity! Alastair felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach and collapsed into the chair. A cold sweat broke out across his brow and chilled him to the very core.

  If he was, in fact, the man Alastair believed him to be, how would Alastair kill him? He was immortal, doomed to walk the earth until the second coming of Christ. There was nothing Alastair could do to him, nothing!

  Terror and dread fought for control of his feelings. After a few minutes he managed to regain his composure. As much as he hated to admit there was nothing he could do to avenge his father’s death, his main purpose here was still attainable—to find Nysa. He set the book back on the shelf from which he had taken it and turned around. There on the desk sat the only thing in the room that might help him find Nysa: the computer. He sat down and turned it on.

  December 24, 5:50 PM

  They had both given up on their books and turned to watching one of the movies the nurse had brought down. They were far too nervous and excited to keep their minds focused, so while the movie played on the television, the women chatted intermittently about what was to come. Jacqueline was beginning to feel the beginnings of labor pains, but nothing painful enough to necessitate the epidural. Nysa sat by her, feeling nauseated with anticipation. She got up and got a drink of water to try and settle her stomach.

  December 24, 6:05 PM

  He stepped slowly off the elevator when it arrived, turned left, and walked to the door to Nysa’s room. His card worked on her door. He slipped inside and turned on the lights. Alastair made a brief tour of her room to confirm she wasn’t there. He recognized some of her personal effects, including a framed picture of the two of them on the nightstand, so he knew this was her room, but where she’d gone off to was impossible to tell.

  The elevator bell sounded and Alastair froze. Did they know he was here? Were they searching for him? He removed the gun from his pocket and backed into the bathroom, giving him a clear line of sight to the bedroom door. He hoped there would be only one guard, if that’s who was coming. He could handle one with surprise on his side, but any more than that and he’d be in trouble. He heard the handle to the room move.

  December 24, 6:15 PM

  Alastair moved cautiously out of the bathroom toward the bedroom door. He kept his gun ready and glanced around the corner toward the front door. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he approached the door and looked through the peep hole. Nothing, the hallway was empty. Apparently it had only been a guard on his rounds and the noise Alastair had heard was him checking to make sure the door was locked. He watched and waited a while longer to see if anyone came out of the other room. When he was pretty sure the coast was clear, he pulled the other web jack out of his pocket, plugged it in, and sat down on the sofa with his iPOD.

  According to the system, Nysa’s card had last been used to access the elevator on level fifteen and she had taken it up to level two just before 12:30 P.M. Alastair checked the map. She’d gone from her room to the medical facilities area, but that was six hours ago. She couldn’t still be there, could she?

  “Well, it’s a lead,” he mumbled. “Better than sitting here waiting to get caught.”

  After a quick peek into the hall to ensure it was empty, he walked swiftly to the elevator, pushed the call button, and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, gripping the gun tightly in his right hand. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if confronted by anyone before he found Nysa, but he hoped that if he just acted like he belonged, he wouldn’t be questioned. The elevator door opened and he stood face to face with one of the guards.

  December 24, 6:30 PM

  The contractions had come on with a vengeance and the anesthesiologist had been summoned to administer an e
pidural. Nysa was in a chair facing the bed as Jacqueline sat in a hunched over position trying to give the doctor as much room between her vertebrae as possible. Nysa held her hands and talked to her as the doctor passed the needle up and into her spine. The first attempt had been unsuccessful, and they were now going to make a second attempt in a separate location. Nysa’s nausea returned. As she sat listening to Jacqueline grunting and whimpering in pain she started to feel flushed. One of the nurses turned and saw the look on Nysa’s face.

  “Are you okay?” the nurse asked.

  “Yeah,” replied Nysa, trying to pull herself together. She started to sit up to look at what the doctor was doing when the room went black.

  When she awoke, she was lying on the couch in the corner of the room. Nysa slowly sat up. Jacqueline turned and looked over.

  “She’s alive!” she shouted, doing her best Dr. Frankenstein.

  “Um, sorry about that. I guess I wasn’t quite as okay as I thought,” Nysa answered sheepishly. “Did everything go alright?”

  “Just fine. The medicine’s starting to kick in so the contractions don’t hurt as much. How are you?”

  “A little woozy still. I don’t know what happened.”

  A nurse walked into the room carrying a tray. She set it on the table, grabbed a cup of orange juice and walked over to Nysa.

  “I thought you could use this.”

  “Thanks,” Nysa said as she took a sip from the cup.

  “Sit there for a while and finish that. Then you can get up. We don’t want you fainting again, especially if you’re standing. Make sure you’re okay first. The labor isn’t going so fast that you’ll miss anything by taking it slowly.”

  “I will. Thank you.” Nysa was so embarrassed she couldn’t make eye contact with the nurse, so she sat on the sofa slowly drinking her juice.

  The nurse returned to her tray and took the cup of ice chips over to Jacqueline. “These are for you. Keep an eye on Nysa, don’t let her get up too quick,” the nurse told her, then turned and left the room.

  “I turned the movie back on after you passed out. Want to watch the end with me?”

  “Sure.” Nysa adjusted herself on the couch so she could see the television and sat back to recover.

  December 24, 6:32 PM

  Alastair squeezed the trigger more out of surprise than intent. He hadn’t actually been aiming his shot so his placement left a bit to be desired. Still, he managed to hit the guard in the leg, and he collapsed in the elevator. Alastair stood, shocked, in front of the elevator, unsure of what to do. His decision was made for him when the guard grabbed his radio with one hand and, as he called for assistance, reached for his gun with the other. Alastair shot him again, directly in the chest. His lifeless body slumped to the floor.

  “Shit,” Alastair whispered to himself. He’d never expected it to come to this. He’d thought about killing Scario, sure, but not this. To make matters worse, the guard had been talking to someone on his radio when Alastair had fired the shot. Undoubtedly whoever was listening had heard the shot and was sounding the alarm. Pulling the body out into the hallway, Alastair scanned his card and hit the button for B-20. He didn’t want to hang around and wait for the other guards to arrive, but couldn’t remember what, exactly, was on most of the other floors. He figured he’d have at least a little bit of a head start if he could get back downstairs into Scario’s office.

  When he arrived back at Scario’s room, he logged back onto the computer to check and see what was happening. The security camera in the lobby showed six guards standing at attention and being addressed by Joseph. There was no audio to accompany the image, but there was little doubt in Alastair’s mind about what was being said and what orders were being given. As he watched, the guards turned and hustled to the bank of elevators. Joseph, meanwhile, returned to the control room, no doubt to play quarterback in the apprehension of the unknown assailant. Alastair switched to various cameras and watched as a two-man team made their way through the cafeteria and restaurant to the server room. They exited as quickly as they had entered, one speaking quickly into his radio.

  “Now they know it’s me.” Alastair absentmindedly wiped the sweat from his palms on the legs of his pants. “Now what the hell am I supposed to do?” He leaned forward again and flipped through the various security camera images to track the others. Two of them had arrived at the fourteenth floor and had checked on their fallen comrade.

  Alastair watched in amazement as they systematically cleared the floor. There was no hesitation in their actions. They were swift and efficient in every movement. Alastair could tell that they were communicating using only hand signals, but even those were few in number. They operated as if part of a single being, one covering the other’s advances and movements. At no time were both men uncovered. Even if Alastair could take out one of them, there was no doubt in his mind that he would be dead before the first man hit the floor. “Guess the option of standing and fighting is out of the question,” Alastair muttered.

  Shifting images on the monitor, he tried to track down the other two-man team. He found them in one of the other elevators. What alarmed him was the fact that the button that was lit on the panel was for B-20. They were on their way to him.

  December 24, 6:47 PM

  Nysa felt steadier. She sat with Jacqueline, sporadically feeding her ice chips.

  “Better?” Nysa asked.

  “Yes, thank you,” Jacqueline replied. “Are you better?”

  “Yeah,” Nysa said guiltily. “Sorry ‘bout that. I don’t know what came over me. One minute I was watching what the doctor was doing, the next I was on the couch. Hope I didn’t cause too much of a fuss.”

  “It’s a good thing you were sitting down. That floor doesn’t look real soft. I hate to think what might have happened if you’d been standing. You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. Really, I’m fine now,” Nysa added when she saw the look of doubt on her younger friend’s face. “Can I get anything for you? I’ve been nursed enough for the evening, thank you. You’re the patient here, not me.”

  “Why don’t we turn on another movie while we wait for the baby to be born? I’m tired of cards and I’d like to have something to take my mind off of things. Need to rest up for the big event, you know?”

  “Absolutely.” Nysa walked over to the television, popped in a new disc, and settled into the chair next to Jacqueline’s bed. “Now showing…You’ve Got Mail.” As the movie started however, they realized that they’d been given the wrong movie. Stigmata was playing instead.

  “Screw it,” Nysa mumbled, “I’m too tired to call them back up to bring us the right movie. I’ve heard this is a pretty good flick. This alright with you?”

  Jacqueline shrugged and leaned back into her pillows. “I’m not picky.”

  December 24, 6:48 PM

  Looking frantically around the room, Alastair could see no means of escape. He didn’t have much time before the guards arrived. He turned back to the computer and did the first thing to enter his mind. He shut down the elevators. After that he deleted all access for all of the key cards in the system. Thankfully, it would still allow him to move throughout the facility freely as his own cards were not logged on the main system.

  He then examined the room to try and find a means of escape as the guards attempted to get out of their steel prison. He spotted his only hope, an air intake valve at the base of the wall. He’d have to take a page out of Mission Impossible and try the air ducts. He wasn’t sure he’d fit and didn’t know if it would take him anywhere safe, but for the time being, anywhere was safer than where he was.

  It took him only a couple of minutes to remove the screws securing the grate to the wall. Crawling on his stomach backward into the ducts, he found them to be surprisingly large. Alastair reached out, grabbed the grate, and slid it back into place. He wouldn’t be able to actually screw it in, but with luck the guards wouldn’t see that it was slightly askew. Slowly, he wormed his way b
ackward in the duct and into the blackness.

  At last he saw light coming from a bend in the ventilation system up ahead. It had taken him quite a bit of time, but he had managed to turn himself around so that he could work his way through the system. Staying as quiet as he could, Alastair slithered his way up to the grate so that he could see out. He guessed he’d been in the ducts for somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty minutes. He was covered in sweat, which had made the task of boosting himself up a floor extraordinarily difficult. He’d used his feet and knees to brace himself, but his hands had been moist and the process of climbing the inside of the duct had been almost more than he was capable of.

  He had to get out. There was no way he would be able to make it up another floor. He also needed to get out so that he could hack back into the system and find Nysa. That would require a wall outlet so that he could get a computer signal for his iPOD.

  Peeking out of the grate, Alastair found himself looking into a room much like Nysa’s. He was overlooking the bedroom. On the bed he could see a young woman obviously flustered. She was talking on the phone, and based on the conversation, it seemed she was speaking to someone else in the building.

  “Me too! They just came barging in here without so much as a knock on the door. I was in the bath, for crying out loud! They acted like I wasn’t even here. I was yelling at them to get out and they just ignored me. I have no idea what they were even looking for. Uh-huh. Exactly.”

  Alastair sat listening to her go on and on about the intrusion into her room. He fought back the desire to tell her to shut the fuck up. He needed to get out of the ducts and into the room with as few people knowing about it as possible. He was forced to wait out the conversation—another half hour of pissing and moaning, based on the clock on her nightstand. Finally she said goodbye and hung up the phone.