Shi: A Dark Adventure into Living Forever

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Shi: A Dark Adventure into Living Forever Page 13

by C. F. Villion


  “Up you go.”

  Wow, I would need some serious distance between us. It would be unbearable otherwise. He lifted me and when I was able to reach in and grab hold of the ledge he let me go. I could still feel his hands hovering. I pulled myself into the room and tried not to think too much about how close he was to my backside just then.

  I was on the ledge and took a moment to attempt to see the room, to see what was beneath me. It was too dark for my eyes and despite my hope of not needing it; I flicked on the tiny torch I had brought.

  Below was a desk, mostly bare. A couple of small boxes were the only things in my way, I climbed down between them and moved them aside. Asher was behind me on the ledge, and I looked back at him.

  “Any chance the floor is wired to an alarm?” I whispered to him.

  He shook his head, and I slid off the desk onto the floor. I believed him, but his information could have been wrong. I was ready for some clanging or a contingency of guards to burst through the door. Nothing happened however and after a moment Asher joined me.

  I started looking around for the rift generator. Probably it was packed away in one of the many boxes in the room. Asher played his little flashlight’s beam across the room and settled on a corner to the left of us.

  He walked over and started moving a few of the boxes aside. I badly wanted to join him and see what he uncovered, but my instinct was to keep a lookout. Despite things going butter smooth my gut was telling me not to give in to complacency. The existence of this place only highlighted how much I had taken my haven for granted.

  A few tense moments later Asher returned to me with a biggish box in his hands. I raised my eyebrow at him; this small box contained the rift generator?

  He nodded and smiled at me, beckoning towards the window. It would work, my heart sang. We got in and were about to get out without trouble. Of course, I should have realized that I was utterly dumb.

  An alarm started outside; we quickly scrambled to the window. Out and over the open ground to the hole in the fence. Once through we ran to the car and packed the box in the back and got in quickly.

  Our side of the plan went off without a hitch, but it would seem that Denny had gotten into trouble with his.

  Asher got into the driver’s side before I could get there, and when I got in, he sped off. In the opposite direction of where Denny was undoubtedly in the middle of a shit storm.

  Thirty-Four

  ––––––––

  “What are you doing?! Go back, we can’t leave him there!”

  I shouted at him and attempted to wrestle the wheel away from him. He batted my hand out of the way and sped up. I wasn’t about to let this stand and punched him as hard as I could in the shoulder.

  We could crash if he lost control of the car, but my need to get back to Denny far outweighed the risk. But I might as well just have done nothing; my punch had zero effect on him. It didn’t even look like he was aware of it.

  “Please stop, we have to go back.” I wasn’t beyond begging; I couldn’t leave Denny there.

  “We can’t Eliza; they will kill us if we go back.”

  “And they will kill him if we don’t!”

  He took his eyes off the road for a moment and looked at me. He shook his head before looking where he was going.

  “They won’t, trust me. They will have to look through the warehouse to see what’s missing and then force him to contact us.”

  “So torture is better?”

  “Eliza, please calm down. Torture is better than death yeah, you know yourself that is the case. He can withstand a bit of a pain; he will break but by then we will have worked out the next step.”

  I gaped at him; I didn’t want to be reasonable. Reason was too much to ask for my heart screamed. We had to go back and get him out before anything like torture could take place.

  Asher put a hand on top of mine and held it tightly; I wanted to push him away, but the bloody bastard was much stronger than I was.

  “We’ll get him back. I promise you, he won’t die in their hands.”

  “They had better not, or there will be hell to pay, for you and them.”

  I finally managed to pull my hand free; I would have loved to believe it was under my strength, but I knew it was because he let go.

  The trip back was shorter and quieter than going; my mind was racing. How the hell would we get Denny back. When we pulled into the garage, I was thoroughly exhausted and nowhere near a solution.

  Asher got out and took the box out of the car while I unlocked the door. I was still curious to see what the rift generator looked like and felt guilty. Nothing else should matter besides rescuing Denny, but curiosity was a bitch and always wormed its way through.

  We both stood looking at the box on the table, on the other end of the Shi plants. Asher took out a pocketknife and flicked it open. He made quick work of cutting the box open and to my surprise took a quick breath before opening it.

  I tried to see inside the box, but he quickly picked up the wrapped generator and pushed the box aside with an elbow. The bubble wrap taped in place around it, and it seemed to be an excessive amount of tape.

  A few deft slices with his knife removed the tape and exposed a mess of bubble wrap. He glanced at me and started unwrapping the generator. Finally, the bubble wrap parted to reveal an object much smaller than my expectations.

  I had assumed that a rift generator would be of comparable size to a standard Earth generator. But I had been mistaken, this was much more compact. It looked more like three portable hard drives fused together than anything else.

  If I had seen this without Asher, I would have thought it was someone’s practical joke. He turned it over and checked a few particular spots on it, spots that looked all the same to me. No wires hung from the device, and only two buttons were visible on it.

  “How do we program it, there doesn't seem to be any ports or panels?” I asked.

  “As the youth of today would say, there’s an app for that.” He smiled and winked at me.

  I was still pissed and didn’t return his smile. I should haven known, though; it seemed logical that access was through an interface of some sort.

  “And let me guess, you just happen to have it installed?”

  He nodded and placed the rift generator on the table. He backed up a bit and reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile. I looked at it and thought of Denny being in the hands of the marketeers.

  “Phone them, maybe the better strategy would be for us to contact them instead of waiting.”

  Asher paused mid-swipe and looked at me. Thoughtfully, I hope that was an indication that he was giving it serious consideration. If not then I would attempt to get his mobile and contact the marketeers myself. Perhaps rash, but Denny was in danger because of me, again.

  “And then what Eliza? Do we just give them back the generator?” He asked.

  “Hell no, of course not. But can’t we weigh the box down with something of a similar weight? Pack it as tightly as the generator was.”

  He tapped the phone to his chin and shifted his weight around from one leg to the other. I turned my eyes away from his legs and vainly attempted not to see the fullness of the lips as he tapped his mobile thoughtfully against them.

  I dug my nails into my palm, deep enough that I am sure it would leave bruises. The pain helped distract me. After all this crap was over, I would get to the bottom of this attraction.

  “That could work, but you know they probably will open it to verify that the generator was in fact in the box. And then our ruse would fall apart.”

  “So? We have enough weapons to take on an army.”

  There were a few unused things in my armory, and I for one was keen to try out the rocket launcher. It seemed to be the perfect time to do so. Asher laughed and nodded.

  “Very well Eliza, I will give them a call.”

  He brought up the contact list, I assumed. When I tried to look on the screen to understand wh
at he was doing, he frowned at me and moved away a bit. I wanted to crowd him, and I wanted to see their number. It could be useful one day.

  “Hello Mister Towell, this is Asher Bain speaking.”

  I couldn’t hear the other side, of course, but Asher’s expression was grim and remained so. I had to assume that ‘Mister Towell’ knew why he was phoning.

  “Yes, sir it regards the gentleman in your custody currently.”

  He looked across at me and blanched a little bit, my gut roiled in fear.

  “No sir, it is to ask you to spare his life.”

  Thirty-Five

  I wanted to hear so badly, why didn’t I ask or force him to put the mobile on speaker. I moved forward and whispered to him, “Put it on speaker.”

  He nodded and quickly removed the mobile from his ear and hit a button. I heard a ton of swearing, cuss words I hadn’t heard of in general use in a long time. He shrugged and waited patiently for the stream to stop.

  “Bain, please tell me you don’t have anything to do with this,” Mister Towell said.

  “I regret to inform you that I do.”

  “You stole my generator? You could have bought the fucking thing instead.”

  “Well, sir, your men will tell you that I got disavowed earlier tonight. And that I am unable to purchase from you any further.”

  “Fuck Bain, what the fuck did you do?”

  A new stream of cursing followed, apparently Mister Towell wasn’t waiting for a response. He instead chose the path of showing his displeasure.

  “Listen, Bain, I would still deal with you even though you displeased those assholes. You know that right? But stealing from me is something I cannot let stand.”

  Asher was quiet and appeared chagrined; I guess he didn’t know the marketeers as well as he had thought.

  “Sir, I am sorry and thank you. I didn’t think you would take the chance of dealing with me again.”

  “You are one of my best customers Asshole, of course, I would have seized the opportunity. But now we have a problem. A problem that needs dealing with.”

  “You will return my generator, or I will, in fact, kill off the handsome boy you sent as a distraction. Is that clear Bain?”

  “Yes sir, it is. Where and when?”

  “Talk to Weeds for that. Fix this Bain.” Mister Towell said.

  We heard him speak to someone in the background and the crackling of the phone passing hands. A new voice came on, “Hello Mister Bain.”

  “Hello, Weeds.”

  “I would say nice to hear from you again, but the circumstance would beg to differ.”

  “Yes, they could be better.”

  “Sorry about the disavow, those guys are a bit tightly wound.”

  I almost laughed, he just had no idea. I wondered what the Man would do to the marketeers if they knew they were still willing to deal with Asher.

  “Thanks, these things happen.”

  “Yes, they do. Well then, we want you to return the generator within the hour to the warehouse. I assume Mister Towell brought across the severity of failure?”

  “Yes Weeds, he did. I will be there within the hour.”

  “Thank you Mister Bain, I hope to resume our business relationship after this unfortunate mishap.”

  “I hope so to Weeds.”

  Weeds hung up, and Asher disconnected from his side. He put the mobile on the table and heaved a massive sigh. I wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with it, do I offer comfort in some fashion or just ignore it?

  My hand chose for me, and it found itself resting on his arm, possibly a soft squeeze to show my consolation. He looked at me and smiled, sadness and regret in his eyes.

  “After all, this time, people still surprise me. It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t just blindly follow the edict.”

  “One thing that has become apparent is that we aren’t the only ones willing to stand against the Man,” I said, and slowly removed my hand.

  I saw his other hand come up briefly; a thrill went through me. Did he want to stop me, to hold onto my hand? Not now, Eliza! Think of something else for fuck’s sake.

  “Yeah, but in all your time how many were you aware of?” He said and walked away to my bookshelf.

  I followed him, thinking on what he said. It was true, I only knew of disappearances. We were kept so isolated from others that half the world could be immortals, and I wouldn’t know about it.

  I stopped, a horrible thought performing a gut punch that knocked the air out of me. All these years I had been torturing and killing, justifying some of them because my research showed me that these people were terrible. Our world would be better off without them in it.

  How many were killed because they stood up to the Man and I the willing lackey just went with my instructions? I struggled to breathe as I realized that at least two-thirds of my kills were unjustified. My research was spotty enough that the person I thought must have been doing something wrong was in fact just like me.

  Perhaps they just wanted to live, free of control. I was shaking, and ragged sobs raged through me. So many lives lost because of me, if I had only bothered to research more thoroughly.

  The selfish part of me added that I could have had so many allies now, more than just Asher and Denny. The only two people I have let into my life in eighty years and look how that had worked out.

  Asher’s arms were around me, holding me tightly. Not even his proximity made me feel better. In all my years I had never cried this much, now suddenly I had two breakdowns in one night. Hell, in a matter of hours I had cried more than I had on my wedding day or night.

  “Eliza, you didn’t know who they were.”

  That wasn’t comforting; I didn’t know because I didn’t want to know. I could have tried harder to figure out who those people were.

  “Possibly but how do you know any of your research was even real? How much wasn’t just planted by the Man to help you do what they wanted?”

  I finally got my crying under control and shook my head at him; I was a beautiful picture no doubt.

  “It doesn’t matter; I did the deed at the end of the day. By my hand, many people died that probably shouldn’t have.”

  I stood up with his help, and after a deep breath let go of him, it deeply disturbed me that I was content just to hang on to him. My composure so dented as to disappear nearly by now, but I attempted to fix my hair and even check on my clothes. Strange the things our minds choose to focus on at the craziest moments of our lives. Finally, I looked up and met Asher’s eyes.

  “So, you can read my mind?”

  Thirty-Six

  He shrugged, “Not really, but I could guess at it.”

  I frowned at him, there was a definite response to some of my thoughts, but he appeared unwilling to discuss it. He had already turned away and went back to the bookshelf.

  I joined him and looked at my collection. A wide assortment of genres and age, I read widely and as with cars and weapons, I was a collector. But the kind of collector that pissed off other collectors. I dared to read the first editions of books I bought.

  Naturally care was taken to not damage said first editions but a book was meant to be read, not behind glass to be a display ornament. And it helped that quite a few of them only ever had one owner. One owner from new was a favorite of mine, and with just about everything online these days it was easy to do.

  My heart ached, but I had to put it aside to deal with rescuing Denny. My breakdown hadn’t lasted long, but we had no more time to spare. Just one more thing to put aside to deal with later, I dreaded the amount of time my issues would take to sort out.

  Eternity may be my goal, but it only meant I had a shitload of baggage that needed work. I suspected that a psychiatrist could make an easy living with only me as a patient. They might want to kill themselves at the end of it all, though.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked, a bit hoarsely.

  “A few books of equivalent size to the generator. We
can add some weights to it and wrap it up again.”

  “As long as you don’t touch my first editions,” I warned him.

  He laughed, “Wouldn’t dream of it Eliza, I just need a few paperbacks I promise.”

  I nodded and left him to peruse the shelves while I went to the kitchen. I opened a cupboard that held my kitchen scales. Yeah, you guessed it, I had some old scales that used actual weights. I am a hoarder, and yes for that alone I probably needed help. But you wouldn’t find stacks of crap threatening to kill people under a landslide in my house.

  Asher joined me in the kitchen with three paperbacks and slid a few weights into the pages. I took out an electric scale and put his finished set on it. He retrieved the generator from the dining table, and we weighed it next. After adjusting the weights in the books, we finally had an exact weighted facsimile ready.

  “That still leaves the problem of it not looking like the generator,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “After talking to them, I take it you would prefer not to kill anyone if we can help it.” I didn’t want to kill anyone either; I was pretty sure killing was behind me. I would only consider it if I landed in a life or death situation.

  “They are just doing their jobs; it seems ungrateful of me to kill them for that.”

  I nodded; we stole from them after all and were technically in the wrong. Of course, I had no idea how they had gotten possession of the rift generator in the first place.

  “But we have something that we can add to convince them.”

  “And what would that be?” I had a notion that it would be something alien, the arsenal for alien things seemed to be huge.

  “If I say don’t freak out will you listen?” He asked.

  “I will attempt to listen, but I can’t promise not to freak out. But I am assuming it is alien related.” I said.

  He nodded, “It is and an absolute essential to our daily lives here on Earth.”

 

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