Shadow Life

by Jason Mather

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At Mom’s.”

  “Have you seen the news reports?”

  “No.”

  “There were people in the train tunnels when that building went off.”

  “I know, it was my fault. I did everything I could to not cause any casualties, but I forgot about the train tunnels.”

  “Wait,” Grit fought confusion. “You blew the building?”

  “Yes.”

  “For fuck’s sake, why?”

  “To keep anyone from gaining control of it.”

  “How the hell did you do it? How did you control my jumpcraft? How are we talking right now? What the hell did you get mixed up in, Hans?”

  “You tell me, Grit. You’ve been keeping secrets from me since I woke up. The fact that you were personally monitoring the transaction that nearly killed me, that those two men in the room were yours.”

  “How could you know that? I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t pertinent.”

  “And what is pertinent to me, Grit? People trying to kill me? People trying to kill you?”

  “I was protecting you.”

  “I don’t need your protection, Grit, I need your confidence.”

  “One thing you’ve never inspired in me is confidence.” Ouch. She wished she hadn’t said that almost as soon as it came out, even if it was true.

  Silence from Hans.

  “Hans, look, I’m…”

  “Forget it, Grit, it’s probably true. Responsibility has never been one of my strong suits. You had enough for both of us.”

  “Still, I shouldn’t have said it.”

  “Fine, apology accepted. I didn’t call you for an argument, I could get that from any number of people here.”

  “Mom giving you a hard time?”

  “She doesn’t like my guests.”

  “Who’d you bring home?”

  “Couple of ladies, one you know already.”

  Grit’s mouth dried out. How much had Hans seen in that building when he was helping?

  “Hans, if you’re talking about who I think you are, you need…”

  “It’s OK, Grit. The creature you encountered wasn’t really Illiyana. The real one’s here with me… mostly. We’re partners.”

  “You are so far in over your head. Listen…”

  “No, you listen, Grit, for once. She needs my help.”

  “Now is not the time for your bullshit chivalry, Hans.” Grit paced the room, kicked a boot restlessly at the bed.

  “She asked me, Grit. I’m the only who can help her.”

  “You’re so full of shit. She’s using you.”

  “This isn’t open for discussion. Look, Grit, I’m involved, I’m staying involved. You can’t stop it; do you want to help or not?”

  Grit swallowed the tirade building behind her lips. Hans lecturing her. Hans ahead of her. Hans working with the most dangerous woman she’d ever met. But he was right. Arguing wasn’t going to get them anywhere, and if she continued he’d just cut her off. She could scream at him later.

  “All right, Hans, what can I do?”

  “I need a few of your men out here for protection.”

  “I thought you didn’t need my protection.”

  “It’s not for me, it’s for Mom and a girl who’s staying here.”

  “Girl?”

  “Long story. No time. Can you do it?”

  “I’m currently on medical leave, but I think I can send a few men. Are you expecting trouble?”

  “After the last few days I can’t afford not to. How quickly can they get here?”

  “Probably no sooner than thirty-six hours. I’ll push it if I can.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure. You and I need to have a long talk, Hans.”

  “I know, Grit. We will, I promise. I’m not sure I can explain it to myself right now. In a few days this will probably be over one way or another…”

  That sounded too ominous to Grit. “Don’t leave me out of this, Hans. I won’t stand by and watch you get yourself killed.”

  “I know. I want your help, but I have to ask your permission for something first.”

  “For what?”

  “In the situation we’re in anything electronic in your body is dangerous to you.”

  Grit unconsciously rubbed her still aching jaw. “I already found that out the hard way.”

  “Good. I can see that your comm has been removed. But your ID tag could get you killed.”

  “Hans, it’s a felony to remove an ID tag, not to mention dangerous. I know you lucked out, but I don’t think…”

  “I’m not asking you to remove it surgically, Greta. I can permanently disable from here.”

  “What, you mean right now?”

  “Yes, it would just take a second.”

  “Jesus, Hans, how the fuck are you doing all this?”

  “I’ll be happy to tell you later. For now, I need your permission to go ahead. I won’t let you continue with this until we do this. It’s too risky with what we’re up against.”

  Grit stopped her nervous pacing. “And what am I supposed to do once it’s gone?”

  “I assume you have access to some spoofers. I can program them with your ID.”

  Grit didn’t have any, but she knew where she could get one. It was illegal, but so was destroying the chip.

  “OK, Hans, I’ll trust you on one condition.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do Gino too.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  — «» —

  Despite everything that had happened to him, the strangest sight of all awaited Hans the next morning.

  Lori was gone when he awoke. She’d still been snoring away when he came back the night before. He panicked for a moment, searching around, afraid she’d run off. His mother’s voice drifted up from downstairs, talking to someone, most likely Lorilei. Hans dressed and went downstairs.

  His mother stood in front of the stove, the smell of bacon rising over her shoulder. The pan sizzled loudly. Lori stood next to her, awkwardly holding a pair of tongs as Pat showed her when to turn the strips, when to lay them on the towels next to the oven. The girl was taking the instructions with rapt intensity.

  Onyx was making pancakes. She stood by the grill, black leather covered by one of his mom’s old aprons, ladling batter onto the large griddle, flipping expertly, laying the finished cakes aside.

  “That’s a good look for you,” Hans teased, “I had no idea you could be so domestic.”

  She gave him a burning look. “The things you have no idea about could fill a large city’s network database.”

  “You’re on egg duty, Hans,” his mother said. Her rules had always been everyone helps, everyone eats. Only Patricia Ricker could have the chutzpah to put an international criminal and master assassin on pancake duty.

  Hans retrieved the eggs, scooted in next to Onyx at the griddle and began cracking, concentrating on not breaking the yolks. He managed a seventy percent success rate.

  They ate in companionable silence. Hunger was the best spice, imminent death a close second.

  After breakfast Hans drove Lori down to the main strip of Glenwood to have her head looked at by one of the local doctors. He’d been afraid she’d refuse, but she took his request as an order, and walked sedately out to the car. He promised her there’d be no pain, no probing, just a once over to make sure she was really ok. She just nodded and sat stiffly upright during the trip.

  His mother had a running deal with one of the local doctors, a former army medic with a bum leg. Doctor Verne Hershovitz was good at his job, and willing to barter services for a small amount of fresh meat whenever Pat went hunting. Hans suspected the doctor and his mother may have shared a bed on occasion.

  Verne sat Lori up on the side of the bed, shone a light into her eyes, felt her head, then had her lay back while he ran a handheld scanner over her skull. Lori had some light bruising, alread
y fading. Her skull had taken a knock and was slightly cracked, but was mostly healed thanks to whatever the woman in Salt Lake had given her. The doctor asked her if she was having any double vision or headaches. She wouldn’t answer him, so Hans relayed the same questions. Lori admitted to some mild headaches, and the doctor gave her a packet of pills to help with the pain. She stared at them fearfully. Hans told her she didn’t have to take them if she didn’t want to, but if the pain got too bad they would help. Lori seemed OK with that, handing the pills to Hans. He secreted them in a pocket.

  Afterward they took a short stroll down the main strip. Hans stopped in at one store and picked up a carton of cigarettes, farther down he bought Lori a milkshake at a place that did the soda shop thing during the day, but at night morphed into a strip club. Hans was friendly with the owner.

  He used the sphere to pay for the goods, searching the network, siphoning minute amounts of money from large accounts that wouldn’t miss it, covering his tracks. It was exhilarating. He could have as much as he wanted, with no chance of ever being tracked. The guilt was there, too. Hans vowed to only use what was absolutely necessary.

  They passed a clothing store and Lori stopped to peer inside at the dresses. A gigantic teddy bear sat against one wall. She looked at him expectantly.

  Two hours later they left with ten dresses, half a dozen tops, an equal number of pants, assorted shoes, socks, jewelry, and one oversized teddy bear for which he’d probably paid twice what it was worth. A young man helped them carry it to his car. They filled the trunk and the backseat.

  Lori smiled on the way home. He could get used to that.

  — «» —

  Grit’s soldiers had arrived while they were gone. Two men and two women sat in his mother’s living room under Pat’s glare, armed and armored. Hans hadn’t told her.

  “Hans, outside,” she said, not waiting for Hans to explain. They exited to the smirks of the soldiers.

  “What the hell are military personnel doing on my property, Hans?”

  He started to explain.

  “They said you requested them.”

  Hans tried again, again she interrupted him.

  “What the hell are you involved in?”

  “Mom, I’m trying…”

  “You have thirty seconds to explain, and then I’m kicking all of you off my property.”

  Hans waited, making sure she wasn’t going to interrupt him again. She stood firm, towering over him, even though she was a good six inches shorter.

  He told her everything he could remember, spitting it out quickly and harshly, not trying to sugarcoat it. Grit had given him a thirty-six-hour estimate, but he should have known little Ms. Efficiency would jump the gun by a good twenty hours. He’d wanted to sit down with his mom and tell her gently. He left nothing out, at least not intentionally.

  If Hans’ mom was stunned she didn’t show it. She looked skeptical.

  “Lori,” she called back to the door, “tell Ms. Onyx I’d like to see her.”

  Lori ran off toward Onyx’s cabin, still lugging the oversized teddy bear.

  Pat rounded on Hans again. “And I suppose you used this sphere thingy to buy your girlfriend the teddy bear.”

  Lying was useless, he’d never been able to lie to his mom, anyway. “Yeah, and some clothes she needed.”

  “So, you’re a thief now?”

  “No. She needed the clothes.”

  “So you stole them.”

  “I transferred some money from an off-shore account used by drug smugglers, it was already stolen.”

  “And that makes it ok?”

  “Yeah… I mean, no, look…”

  “Hans, we are not thieves. I had some clothes the girl could have worn. Some money stashed away. I could have given you money to get home if you’d asked.”

  “Damn it, Mom, I couldn’t take it from you. You don’t have enough as it is. All I’ve ever done is accept your charity, Grit’s too. I was hoping I could help us all with this thing.” He took it out and showed it to her, but she didn’t even glance at it.

  “That thing is wrong, Hans, it. If it can do what you say it puts too much power in one place. I don’t need your money, I don’t need any help you can give me with that thing. You want to help, throw it away. It’s already corrupting you.”

  Onyx came up the path before Hans could reply.

  “Ms. Onyx, I wonder if I could impose on you for a moment,” she said, while continuing to glare at Hans.

  “Ma’am,” was Onyx’s terse reply.

  “My son has just told me a rather amazing story, much of it involving you. Can you corroborate?”

  Onyx showed no surprise. “Really, and what would you like to know?”

  “He claims he saw you die, he claims he can control almost anything with that sphere. He claims you are currently, um, not whole.”

  Nothing from Onyx’s face. “All true.”

  “Do you have any proof?”

  Onyx undid the clasps on her pants. Pat looked over, Hans looked away. He heard the sound of the fabric being pulled down. His mom made a small grunt of surprise. Onyx redid her clothing.

  “Jesus, someone sure did a number on you. I haven’t seen anything like that before. Are you a robot? What do you do with the food you eat?”

  “Mom, jeez.”

  “My digestive tract is intact,” Onyx said coolly. “The body is organic, except for a controller in the brain. Anything else you’d like to know?”

  “Where do you come from? This body, I mean.”

  “My factory used to make them in limited numbers, it was destroyed.”

  “The explosion in Denver?”

  “Correct.”

  This was a piece of information she’d not given Hans before. Had she just remembered?

  Pat continued. “And you don’t know where your real body is? Assuming you have one.”

  “No. I know I have one. I’m working under the assumption that my real body is controlling this one from a distance. Hans was going to use the sphere to track the signal to its source.”

  Onyx hadn’t told Hans this either, though it made sense.

  “This thing really can do what you say?” This was directed at Hans.

  “Yes,” Hans answered.

  “Show me something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Those meatheads inside parked their vehicle on my front lawn. Move it.”

  “You want me to get them off your lawn?”

  Pat didn’t get the joke. Sarcasm was not her strong point.

  Hans found the control systems easily, went into the autopilot, and set a course that would lift the ship up and move it toward a small clearing farther into the property. The ship powered up, scorching the grass slightly, rose to thirty feet or so, and moved off toward his designated landing spot. The soldiers came running out as soon as the engines came on, guns drawn.

  “It’s OK, guys, I’m just re-parking it.”

  The craft lowered in the distance, set down. The sound of the engines cut out. The soldiers hurried off after it, still confused, very irate.

  Pat stood looking between him and Onyx. She huffed, turned around.

  “You best come inside, we need to figure out our next step.”

  Our?

  — «» —

  “You have to be joking,” Hans said.

  They were upstairs. Him in the doorway of her bedroom, his mom out of sight in the walk-in closet.

  “When have you known me to joke?”

  True.

  “Mom, you can’t do this.”

  “Can’t do what?” She leaned out of the closet, holding, in the crook of her arm, a rifle almost as tall as she was. Her baby. She’d had it longer than she’d had him. He didn’t know the make, didn’t know the caliber, only knew that he’d once seen her use it to take down a bear from almost a kilometer. It used old-fashioned black powder, noisier than the railguns Grit’s soldiers carried.

  “You can’t come with us.” />
  “Really, are you allowed to make that decision?”

  Hans turned to Onyx. She’d followed them up the stairs, enjoying the spectacle. “You said she was a crack shot, maybe she’ll be useful.”

  He didn’t know whether Onyx meant that, or was she just letting him squirm?

  “I need you to stay here with…”

  Pat didn’t let him finish. “What you wanted was for me to stay here and play nursemaid to your girlfriend.”

  “No… she’s not… can you even still fire that thing?”

  “Shot me a coyote just a month ago, five hundred yards on the run, clean kill.”

  “Really, I’m impressed,” Onyx said, closer to the doorway now, “can you show me how to do that?”

  Hans’ expression was baking. “Don’t encourage her.”

  “Ms. Onyx, can you leave us alone for a moment.” Onyx turned and walked off down the stairs, chuckling softly.

  “Come in here,” she said. He obeyed. “Shut the door.”

  He shut the door. His mother moved to the bed, patted next to her, “Come here,” she reiterated, like he was five. He sat next to her.

  “Hans, do you have any idea what it’s been like this last year for me? You taking off, not telling me where you were going, not saying goodbye?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to be gone more than a couple days.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You disappeared. It was completely out of character. Next thing I know Grit is calling me in tears, telling me my boy is almost dead, probably won’t survive, that you’d been involved in criminal activities, something serious. Every day I called that awful place. Twice we thought you were really dead. I mortgaged this land to pay your bills.”

  “Wait… you paid my bills? You couldn’t afford that.” Hans was taken aback.

  “I couldn’t afford not to. Don’t worry about me, Hans, I’ll be in the ground before they come to collect.”

  “Mom…”

  “No, you listen to me. You’re a grown man, I know that, you don’t have to be accountable to an old woman. But it was terrible, Hans, the worst thing that ever happened to me. A mother should not have to outlive her kids, and I’m not going to if I can help it. You are in a shitload of trouble, that’s obvious.”

  “Mom, I can handle it.”

  “While I do what? Sit here, in my rocker, wondering if my boy is dead again. I’m not doing it again, Hans, I’d rather die.”