“Mylo,” she says, “take me away from these people.”
McKenzie feels a stab of pain in his stomach. These people? That’s it then. He really is alone in the world. Free to do what he likes, but no one to share it with.
Mylo puts his arm around Jenny and guides her through a throng of reporters and photographers.
The press follows the couple.
Mylo looks over his shoulder at McKenzie and silently mouths the words, “Sorry, call you later.”
Damien puts his arm around McKenzie’s shoulder. “So you lost everyone dear to you,” he says. “Fancy coming to a party?”
McKenzie swings a fist a Damien.
Damien side steps, smiles as McKenzie’s fist misses and swipes at fresh air.
McKenzie feels the back of his knee buckle and his weight collapses him onto his back. The cold wet ground soaks his butt as Damien rests his boot on McKenzie’s chest.
He looks up at Damien’s out stretched open hand.
“Right now, you’re thinking how did he do that?” Damien says.
McKenzie shrugs. “You got lucky.”
“I make my own luck,” Damien says.
“Luck runs out for all of us,” McKenzie says. “Someday.”
“Not if you control destiny,” Damien says. “Like I do.”
“By killing people to get what you want?”
Damien smiles. A look it seems of genuine pity. Either that or he’s a damn good actor. “It’s Del Amitri you want,” Damien says. “Planning to spend all day freezing your butt on wet leaves? Or you want to know the answer to all your questions?”
McKenzie knows Damien has him hooked. There’s no use pretending otherwise. Not when a reporter with a bleeding nose is pointing McKenzie out to a couple of uniformed cops. Trouble is never far away.
He takes Damien’s hand and hauls himself to his feet.
A black limousine glides through a torrent of gold leaves and pulls up. A uniform chauffeur steps out and opens a door for Damien.
“History will comment on this moment, this decision you are about to make, McKenzie Chase,” Damien says. “Are you the man who steps into my world and discovers the secret to his and everyone’s wildest dreams?”
“Help me find Del Amitri?” McKenzie says.
“If revenge is your thing,” Damien says and nods. “But I can give you so much more.”
McKenzie climbs into the back of the limo. “Revenge is enough,” McKenzie says sliding up next to Damien. “For now.”
Chapter Twenty Six: Fantasy Fifteen
For McKenzie the world outside the limo passes in slo-mo. Tiny vapor trails of blue drift from pedestrians and cars. A soft violet hue seems to envelop them. As if time is stopping and yet inside the limo McKenzie is passing through the world at the speed of light.
“You’re dribbling,” Damien says.
McKenzie feels himself flush.
“Don’t worry it’s a side effect of the source code fixing the damage you done to yourself,” Damien says. “Not an altogether unpleasant feeling, I gather? Fresh air should help.”
He flicks a switch and the sunroof opens. A hypnotic beat pumps out of the speaker system.
McKenzie stands up and pops his head out the into the air. He leans back and let’s himself drift with the clouds.
The air seems to fill with tiny lights buzzing around his head. The clouds twisting into shapes and spelling out his name. LOSER.
He falls back into his seat.
McKenzie tries to smile but his mouth feels like its inside out and stuffed with cotton wool clouds.
The limo pulls up to an aircraft hangar. The partition window between McKenzie and the chauffeur winds down.
The chauffeur tosses a car blanket at McKenzie.
“We’re here,” Damien says and steps out onto tarmac.
“Where?” McKenzie says wrapping the blanket over his shoulders and stepping out the limo.
“Knocking on the door of destiny,” Damien says and pulls back the huge doors of the hanger.
Thousands of shadows inside the dark hanger seem to wait as if about to ambush McKenzie.
He takes a sudden step back.
An explosion of camera flashes hit McKenzie like a barrage of friendly fire.
He rubs his eyes as soft blue white orbs drift across his vision.
Damien laughs as a pretty blond woman runs out of the darkness and pins a lapel microphone on Damien’s jacket. She runs over to McKenzie and struggles to find something to pin a microphone on his hospital apron.
Damien shouts, “Welcome to Fantasy Fifteen.”
“Your fantasy?” McKenzie says.
“Any fantasy you wish,” Damien says. He grabs McKenzie’s arm and walks him up a small flight of steps to a lighting stage where a spot light tracks them to a podium.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Damien says. “How many of us truly dream?”
A wall of silence amongst the audience of more than a thousand.
“For one competition winner today,” Damien says, “Fantasy Fifteen make your dreams come true...”
A soft buzz sweeps over the audience as a white spot light crawls slowly over eager faces.
Damien holds up his fist, turns it slowly so it opens palm up and reveals a blue glowing pill. “With this.”
The spotlight finally rests on a woman and turns blue. She must be ninety years old to the day, McKenzie thinks.
“Maybelle Armintage today is your lucky day,” Damien shouts.
Maybelle, a tiny woman, weighing less than a hundred pounds, takes the arms of two young women wearing Fantasy Fifteen tees as she slowly hobbles on crutches to the stage. At the stage steps, she needs two stagehands to lift her up. They place her in a motorized wheel chair.
“Now Maybelle,” Damien says kneeling and taking her shaking hand. “Don’t be shy. You’re amongst a few thousand of your closest friends. Share with us your wildest dreams.”
Maybelle needs to think a while. “Well...”
“Yes?” Damien says gently as the lights dim outside the spotlight they share.
“I always wanted to go on a world cruise.”
McKenzie notices a flash of irritability cross Damien’s expression. He quickly replaces it with an exaggerated smile and turning to the audience says, “I think we can do a little better than that.”
Fantasy Fifteen tee shirt crew clap enthusiastically and laugh as if on cue.
“Go on Maybelle,” Damien says. “Make it your wildest, down and dirtiest secret dream.”
Maybelle flushes.
“If you possibly could, if God could allow it,” Damien says patting her shriveled legs, “what would you really love to do right here and now in front of us all?”
A shadow appears at McKenzie’s shoulder. “Oh please don’t let her take off her clothes,” Mylo whispers. “She’s got a dangerous wild animal in her eyes Damien buddy, watch yourself.”
Damien flashes him a scowl.
“What you doing here?” McKenzie says.
“Partners ain’t we?” Mylo says.
McKenzie shrugs. “But in what?”
“Beats me what’s going on,” Mylo says. “They got news teams from all over the country. The world even.”
“It’s something big,” McKenzie says feeling his stomach back flip. “Just not sure what-”
“Way back when I was young,” Maybelle says.
“Last week, you mean,” Damien says.
The Fantasy Fifteen crew laps it up. Hooting and clapping.
“Second career beckons in cheesy chat show hosting,” Mylo says.
Maybelle laughs then comes across all serious as if remembering something
Particularly private and painful.
“Way back when I was a young rebellious girl,” she says. “Forbidden by my father to go anywhere near his prize racing bike. A Tipo 250/T4 - Gran-Turismo Lusso. A beautiful beast. I just knew I had to. Just once experience for myself the thrill and danger of taming that beast between
my legs.”
The lights dim and a single spotlight illuminates Damien holding Maybelle’s hand.
“Go on Maybelle,” he says wiping a tear. “You can trust us.”
Maybelle wipes her eyes. “So one day feigning sickness to miss school I snuck out of the house and took his prize possession, out for a spin. And that’s how I come to you in this blasted motor-chair,” says the old woman and her watery blue eyes seem to be gazing at something on the horizon, something long ago lost.
“Eighty years later I sit here and tell you no lie,” says Maybelle, “it is still to this day the best moment of my life. If I could relive it for just fifteen minutes, I’d die happy.”
The aircraft hangar remains silent.
“Guess we better get studying for our exams,” Mylo says.
“Why?” McKenzie says.
“Listen to her,” Mylo says. “Our shares in Fantasy Fifteen just bombed. We’re broke again. Even Damien knows it. Look.”
Damien stands.
The spotlight splits into twin lights and tracks Damien. He lowers his head. Shakes his head slowly. Then looks up and he’s smiling. “Then Maybelle you shall, for fifteen minutes relive the greatest moment of your life...”
A drum rolls across a sound system.
A tech team brings out a bank of computers.
Damien’s hand waves at the air and a 3D holograph of a sports star appears to float above the audience. The sports star morphs into another and another, each more famous than the last. Damien waves his hand as if flicking through pages of a book.
“Who was your favorite racer, Maybelle?”
Maybelle shrugs, “Oh you know, the younger the better,” she says.
The audience laughs.
Damien holds up his hand as if stopping traffic. The audience falls silent and the scrolling 3D holographs freeze on a three times motor cycle champion floating above their heads.
“How about this guy?”
“Oh yes,” Maybelle says enthusiastically.
Again the audience laughs.
The tech team seems busy at their computers. A pretty girl in a Fantasy Fifteen tee walks up to Damien with a velvet cushion and a blue glowing pill with a glass of water.
“I think, Maybelle, we can do better than a Gran-Turismo Lusso,” Damien says as two more Fantasy fifteen girls wheel out a modern super bike. “So how about a GSX-1300R-K9?”
The crowd gasps.
“It will kill her,” Mylo says. “Damien really is a sadistic nut job.”
“So what do you say, Maybelle?” Damien says as the spotlight narrows on her face.
Her eyes widen. She takes the pill from the pillow and stares up at it as if she’s touching a gift from God. “Might need some help depositing this horse pill,” she says.
The audience laughs nervously.
“You swallow it, Maybelle,” Damien says.
More nervous laughter.
She throws it to the back of her throat, and swallows. “Let me at it.”
Some of the crowd whoops and claps. Others shake their heads disapprovingly.
Two stagehands in Fantasy Fifteen tees carry Maybelle over to the super bike and lower her onto the saddle. They begin taking her through the handling.
Her crooked, gnarled hands shake as she caresses the sleek white body work and handle bars of the bike. Slowly she seems unfurl from years of slow decay and crippling arthritis and straightens up. She rolls her neck and relaxes into riding posture. Her fingers stretch out and she cracks her knuckles with it seems to McKenzie an almost evil satisfaction.
“I was riding these things when you were a twinkle in your daddy’s eye, sonny,” she says and kicks away the tech crew. She selects a gear and throws back the throttle.
The bike roars to life.
The crowd gasps.
Maybelle looks up and smiles at Damien. As if, she’s sharing a secret with the devil. As if, he’s given her a new life. A new reason to live. She releases the brakes and roars out across the stage straight at McKenzie.
He jumps out the way.
Maybelle brakes and skids. Whipping the rear wheel around to a sliding stop.
“Nearly cashed in your chips for you, sonny,” she says and revs the engine. Flicking on the headlights. “You folks better run along now,” she shouts. “Got me some party time to be catching upon.”
She lets out the throttle and the bike rears up in a wheelie as she points it at the audience.
“What the hell is in that pill?” Mylo says. “She’s gone nuts.”
The bike races to the edge of the stage as the spotlight tracks her. The wheels lift off the edge and bike and rider fly through the air.
Maybelle lands the bike on the rear wheel and tilts her weight expertly forwards to bring the front wheel safely onto the concrete floor.
Audience members in her flight path run and scream. She races forward, parting the screaming press pack and competition winners like the hand of God craving up the red sea.
Maybelle races out of the aircraft hangar. The Press pack runs after her.
Damien walks over to McKenzie and Mylo. “Find yourself a paradise island boys and offer cash. As of now your shares are earning you billions.”
“How?” Mylo says, “It’s crazy. Brilliant. How? Never seen anything like it.”
McKenzie stares at his hands. Tiny blue sparks run across his shaking fingers. “I have.”
Chapter Twenty Seven: Tyler’s Confession
The aircraft hangar empties.
Angel waits back stage and smiles at McKenzie.
He feels himself flush and awkwardly returns her smile.
“I’m glad you’re here,” McKenzie says. “What is all this?”
“No time to explain,” Angel whispers and looks over his shoulder. “Whatever happens next. Trust me.”
McKenzie tries to ask what she means but feels someone slap his back hard.
“You’ve met my new girlfriend, McKenzie,” Damien says kissing Angel on the lips and pulling her close to him.
McKenzie feels his stomach flip over and his hands clench tight into fists. He turns away, trying to tell himself he doesn’t care.
“Looked at yourself, lately?” Damien says and points at McKenzie’s reflection n in a large window.
The bones of McKenzie’s shoulder stick out of his skin. His collarbone clearly broken. Dried blood sticks his hospital gown to his back.
“Why can’t I feel the pain?” McKenzie says.
“Pain inhibitor-bots attaching themselves to your body’s nerve endings,” Damien says. “Otherwise you’d die from shock.”
McKenzie’s arm screams out in pain. He looks down at a syringe needle sticking out of his arm.
“Now the fun’s over for the day,” Damien says plunging the syringe needle deeper into McKenzie. “Time for business.”
McKenzie’s legs turn to rubber and he sinks to the floor. His tongue feels numb as it flops out of his mouth. He can’t speak as Damien’s chauffeur picks him up and carries him to the limo.
“Take him to the lab,” Damien says to the chauffeur. “I’ll be there as soon as the press conference is done.”
RODRIGUEZ PULLS UP THE COLLAR of her coat and from the shadows inside the hanger, she watches Damien close the door on the limo and McKenzie. She walks over to where McCarthy waits and steps into the squad car.
“Where to boss?” he says.
“We follow Damien Diamond,” Rodriguez says. “He’s at the heart of this nightmare pulling everyone’s strings.”
*
DEL AMITRI PUFFS ON A CIGAR. He watches from the hanger stage.
“So where you keeping Madison?” he whispers to himself.
*
A SECOND LIMO PULLS UP. A rear passenger door opens and Simona Scarrow slides across the long leather seat. Next to Cynthia.
“Your new phone,” she says and hands him a small silver box.
He opens it and takes out a contact lens. Pops it onto his eyeball.
One new message from Tyler. Play. Yes? No?
Damien lets his eye hover over Yes.
Tyler appears across his vision.
*
MCKENZIE DRIFTS IN AND OUT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. Feels himself carried into a dark room and strapped to a table. A blue light lowers from the ceiling. Moves back and forth across his body. On screens around him, a life size multi-color image of his body and his brain appears as if someone is slicing him up like layers of a cake. He closes his eyes and tries to tune his mind into the faint, distant sounds. Shouting? Heavy trucks? The windows seem blacked out. No chance of getting glimpse of the outside world. He could be the other side of the world by now. If he tries to run now he could have a hundred miles of dessert to contend with. Even with his new powers, he still needs to food and water. OR does he? How different is he? Is he even human?
He pulls against the straps.
They hold fast.
“Hey, what’s the big idea?” McKenzie shouts into the darkness. “Where am I?”
“A private hospital. Didn’t want you hurting yourself in your sleep,” Damien says stepping out of the darkness. He shrugs. “Release our patient.”
Techs in white coats remove McKenzie’s ankles and wrists.
“I don’t sleep walk.”
“No, but your body’s been busy,” Damien says and pits to the screens where his bones Knit together as if he’s watching a time lapse film footage set on fast forward.
“This rate of healing requires precautions, McKenzie. It’s for your own safety.”
“How long have I been out?”
“A day.”
“You promised answers,” McKenzie says. “What is fantasy fifteen? And what’s inside me?”
Damien nods.
“Kids our age seeking to make their fortunes are busy writing software for game apps or social networks sites or even in despair throwing themselves off buildings.”
“Not you?”
“For my PhD thesis I studied the brain patterns of elite sports men and women from around the world. Together with a friend, Tyler-”
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