by LC Champlin
“Yes, sir.”
The engineer withdrew a pair of Oshiro glasses as he accompanied Albin to the other side of the courtyard.
“Mr. Shukla, we lack concrete proof that your sister is here, much less that she is in danger.”
“You know how she is, though.” Growling in frustration, Shukla smoothed his hair back with both hands and more force than necessary. “It would be just like that overachiever to come early in case somebody screwed up, or her flight was late, or . . . or a hundred other reasons she’d wanna do her own thing.”
“Her independence makes her a formidable marketing director.”
“It makes me a worried mess.”
++++++++++++
When Albin and Badal vanished around the shrubs, Nathan stepped closer to Ken. “Is Hemali really there?”
“I’d love to give you a firm yes or no. Believe me.”
Never. “Is there someone you want us to help? If your people are in danger, tell me.”
Propping his hands on his hips, Ken smiled up at Nathan. “You’re just a paragon of altruism, hmm.”
“Rivaled only by you.”
“Don’t worry about me and mine. You have five people and a dog to manage. You fed them and petted them, though, so I’m sure they’ll roll over like good doggos. But pups are known for running to whoever gives them a treat and a squeaky toy.”
“And are you the one with the treats and toys? Or perhaps you simply want us out?”
“Look, I want to help your people. If I wanted you out, I’d simply—” Ken mimed a dropkick. “I can offer my drones if . . .” He trailed off with a look of doubt.
“If I want to venture outside?”
“When you say ‘I,’ you mean some of your group, right?” Ken dragged his gaze from Nathan’s Nikes up to his bruised face, spreading a layer of sticky skepticism with it.
“What does it matter?”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“Let your drones do that. That was the offer, unless you care to sweeten the pot.”
The smile never changed. “I’m fresh out of brownie mix. Let’s see what your friends have turned up, shall we?”
++++++++++++
Through the miracle of linked augmented reality, Albin and Shukla shared a display. The feeds, files, and images shimmered on the glasses, shifting at the control of either user.
Albin maximized the window holding the previous night’s CCTV footage. Rewinding, slowing, and enhancing the video showed five figures with undefined weapons and armor breaking down Campbell’s front door. The timestamp on the footage read 05:18 AM. Now, at 07:20, they had yet to reappear. Would the attackers remain in the residence for two hours?
The Oshiro’s camera angle hid the structure’s far side and rear exit. Albin deployed the scout drone for footage of the angle. Selecting the area of the three-dimensional neighborhood layout put the unmanned aerial vehicle on autopilot. Below sprawled a mansion worthy of its place in one of the wealthiest districts in the country. All appeared intact on the other side of Campbell’s mansion. Either the men remained inside, or they had unlocked the door and departed unseen.
“This is a waste of time,” Shukla growled. “We need to see inside this place. In the movies, the heroes would grab a laptop and start hacking into the security system. Stupid Hollywood.”
Footsteps and voices cut off Albin’s response. Mr. Serebus and Kenichi-san appeared around the shrubs. Both maintained neutral expressions, with Mr. Serebus’s leaning toward disgust.
“Well?” the dark man asked as he halted beside Albin. An unidentifiable aura radiated from Mr. Serebus. Determination, foreboding, ferocity?
Shukla replied first: “We know the bad guys went in, but we can’t tell if they left. The windows are tinted, too.”
Mr. Serebus frowned as he slid his Oshiro glasses into place. “We need to see inside.”
Wait a moment. The gunmen had breached the front door, which hung open. The drone’s width measured—
“Ken, it’s your drone,” Mr. Serebus grated.
He and Albin said in unison, “Get it inside.”
Chapter 41
Jungle
Welcome to the Jungle - Guns N’ Roses
Kenichi-san hesitated, rolling his shoulders as if his back itched with indecision.
“You promised it not sixty seconds ago,” Mr. Serebus reminded the inventor.
“Eh, it might be fun.”
The display from the glasses appeared on one of the sheets of Plexiglas that hung throughout the garden. A drone’s-eye view opened before them, with Campbell’s mansion little larger than a diorama.
Ken assumed control of the drone. He held his hand out and flicked his fingers downward. Down the drone sped, slowing to a hover before what remained of the front double doors. They dangled from their hinges like leaves about to fall. Twilight lay ahead.
“It seems the ‘hacking’ has been completed for us, Mr. Shukla,” Albin commented.
“No kidding.” Shukla winced. “Does it have audio, Ken?”
“Mm.” Kenichi-san chewed his upper lip, navigating his third eye into unknown territory. The whine of the drone’s rotors emanated from the garden’s hidden speakers.
The entry hall flaunted Tuscan decor. Beyond, a living room opened, continuing the umber tile of the entry. A couch, two upholstered chairs, and a coffee table furnished the area.
“No one so far,” Mr. Serebus observed.
“There are only six bedrooms and seven baths,” Kenichi-san related. “It’s just 8,000 square feet to check.”
The drone passed through the kitchen, over granite counters, into the dining room, then through the drawing room. A grand piano and a settee greeted the visitor.
Tucking his chin to glare from under his brow, Mr. Serebus crossed his arms. “No blood. No major damage to speak of.”
The drone rounded a corner to investigate the bedrooms. Its usefulness might end here, as closed doors would render it powerless.
The aircraft’s low-light camera viewed the hall in black and white. Ahead . . . a body hung by its neck from a rope stretched between two doors. The corpse belonged to a young Caucasian male in shorts and a T-shirt.
“Fuck!” Shukla stepped back, fists clenched in white-knuckled impotence. “Who—It’s a guy. Okay. No!” He shook his head like a sodden dog. “Not okay—”
“We understand, Badal.” Mr. Serebus put a steadying hand on the man’s shoulder.
Albin squinted at the body. “There is something on its chest.”
The drone edged closer. Blood dripped from the corpse’s matted hair, over the face, onto a Post-it note.
“It better not say, ‘Get milk and eggs,’” Ken drawled.
On your left, it read.
Acid seared up Albin’s esophagus. Humans always proved the most hideous monsters.
Panning left revealed a door ajar. The drone tapped it with the rotor guards. Albin’s pulse hammered in his ears. Would they find a stack of dismembered bodies? Would Hemali be among them?
As the door swung open, Ken maneuvered the UAV inside. A bedroom lay before them, with a twin bed against the far wall, dresser in the right corner, desk to the right, chair—The chair hosted a Caucasian female. She sat slumped forward, hands behind her and securing her to the chair, her light hair falling over her face.
Not Hemali. The thunder in Albin’s ears decreased to a drumbeat. Two options remained: Hemali escaped, or she ran afoul of the gunmen. His mind flinched away from considering the latter.
The drumbeat shifted to behind his eyes, throbbing. He closed them. Cool wind swept across the sand in the night of his mind. In the chill of the dark, emotions that had begun to push their leaves through the desert’s surface froze.
“Is she alive?” The engineer’s nostrils flared as his chest heaved. He gulped. His sister might share this woman’s fate, or worse.
Ken hunched his shoulders as if again
st a wind. “There aren’t any Star Trek scanners on this model, you know.”
“Considerations for the upgrade,” Mr. Serebus responded. He watched the proceedings as if they occurred on a television drama he had already viewed. “Do we have two-way audio?”
The inventor blinked. “Oh.” He gestured at the screen. “Hey, can you hear me? Are you alive?”
She remained motionless.
“I’m taking that as a no.”
“Do you know her?” Mr. Serebus asked.
Shukla cut off Kenichi-san. “I-I might.” Putting his fist to his mouth, he chewed his first knuckle, eyes on the display. “I didn’t meet her, but she was at the party on Friday night. She was with one of the software teams.”
“Not one of yours and not one of mine,” Ken announced as he backed the drone into the hallway. He navigated the craft around the hanging body.
Footsteps sounded behind them, the familiar voice of the media’s herald following: “Hold on.” Behrmann stomped to a halt at Kenichi-san’s left. “What are you going to do about her?”
Slower footsteps sounded; Mikhail joined the viewership. “They need to check the rest of the house first,” he explained, his pupils dilating at the sight of the corpse. “This is a trap, obviously.”
“Hurry up!” Shukla growled, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Hemali could be dying while we’re bullshitting.”
Mr. Serebus gave him a nod of reassurance. “If she’s there, we’ll find her. I don’t leave my people behind.”
“Other people’s people are acceptable losses, though?” Would Behrmann ever learn that calculating the value of lives counted as a survival skill?
“No.” Mr. Serebus turned to level his dark gaze at her. “Losses may be necessary, unavoidable, and calculated, but they are never acceptable.”
On the transparent screen before them, the drone forged ahead, down the hall of closed doors.
“Please, my friend,” Mikhail began in a tone of peaceful disagreement, placing a hand on the reporter’s arm, “just be glad you are one of his people.”
“Even if Ken finds her,” Shukla realized, “he can’t help with the drone.”
As the voices multiplied, the throbbing behind Albin’s eyes grew from a roofer’s hammer to a giant’s fist pounding. “Enough!” Only Mr. Serebus and Kenichi-san escaped the glare he raked over the assembled. “If you have a constructive comment, speak. Otherwise, be silent.”
Mikhail looked down in the manner of a dog under discipline. Shukla and Behrmann, however, appeared unsure whether to feel surprised or offended.
Expression neutral, Mr. Serebus put his hand on his left side. “Be patient even if it hurts.”
Merciful silence fell, sapping the giant’s strength, allowing the rising irritation to settle.
Another common room opened before the drone. Chairs lay on their sides around a full-sized dining table.
A hall branched from either end of the space. “Go right,” Mr. Serebus instructed.
The camera swung left.
Then Classic Rock shattered the silence. “Welcome to the jungle!”
“Fun,” Kenichi-san remarked.
An invader or hostage may have switched on the music, or perhaps a timer triggered the playback. While the lyrics boded ill if Albin took them at face value, the track could have queued via shuffle. Times like these made one want to believe in coincidences, or in a God who did more than observe.
“They don’t make bands like Guns N’ Roses anymore, do they?” Due to voice altering software, the voice sounded like a bulldozer would if it could speak.
A chill skittered down Albin’s neck as his fingers went numb. His pulse pounded in his ears and behind his eyes again, dimming the edges of his vision.
Spine stiffening, Mr. Serebus growled. His expression displayed an amalgam of rage, interest, and excitement.
“I was hoping you’d come in person. You want to make this a trap-and-skeet shoot, though, so I’ll make do. Since you’ve had a rough night, I’ll make this simple: You have something we want. We have something you want.”
Chapter 42
Second Contact
Worlds Collide - 12 Stones
At the kidnapper’s announcement, Nathan snarled in anticipation. Did he deal with Sarge from Avalon? How had the mercs tracked them? A drone couldn’t compete with a helicopter, after all.
Beside him, Badal stepped forward. On autopilot, Nathan grabbed his shoulder. “Wait.”
Options and conditional statements populated the scenario simulators in Nathan’s mind. Straight trade? Infiltrate the house to rescue the hostage? Ignore the hostage situation? Call the government? The choices ranged from unacceptable to detestable.
Wouldn’t life be lovely if the kidnappers handed over the hostages and Birk’s sports cards—which might hold clues to the decryption keys—then acted as guards for the Oshiro after Ken turned it over to Nathan? A man could dream.
“If you got a hunger—” Music.
Across the darkened room, adjacent to the window that overlooked the garden, gore glinted in the drone’s night vision; blood splattered the intersection of lead and flesh.
“—bring you to your knees—”
“No comment?” The speaker sounded as if he or she ran hostage negotiations every day. Perhaps they did. “Did I get the wrong birdie to tell my message to? If Nathan Serebus or anyone with him is hearing this, listen up. Bring out whatever you found at the Doorway researcher’s house. All of it. If you don’t . . . well, you remember the St. Regis and the Hotel Vitale.”
Whether Sarge, his leader Red Chief, or another terrorist party spoke remained uncertain.
“Turn on the audio transmit, Ken.”
“What for?”
“To RSVP.”
“As you wish.” Ken gestured, then gave a thumbs up.
One, two, three—Erg. “I’ll relay your message. Show me the hostages.”
“It’s a reasonable request, but the logistics are too complicated.” Even Cheel ran a better hostage negotiation than this bastard. “You’ve seen one. She’s alive. Either she, Hemali Shukla, and the others are worth saving, or they’re not.”
Badal stiffened like he’d shoved a knife into an outlet. “They do have her!”
“Wait.” Eyes on the screen, Albin put a hand on the engineer’s right trap for easy access to a Vulcan neck pinch.
“You can’t use what you stole from Birk’s anyway.” Sarge. No question remained.
Nathan frowned. “What’s the deadline?”
“ASAP.”
With a shake of his head, Nathan turned on his heel and stalked out. “Come. Time isn’t on our side.”
Footsteps trooped behind. Albin took the right-hand position.
The people in Nathan’s pack required as much effort to manage as the gunmen. If he chose to bank on Sarge lying about Hemali, he could cut his losses by ignoring the mercenaries. Albin would see the idea’s logic, but the others, especially Josephine and Badal, would crucify him. The pack’s stability would crumble.
Ahead, Judge trotted from a side hall. Marvin followed, paler even than Albin. When he saw Nathan, he tensed, then relaxed with effort.
“Marvin.”
The economist nodded in greeting. Unease rolled from him like mist from liquid nitrogen as he fell in behind.
“Nathan,” Marvin murmured.
“What is it?”
“I need to talk to you. Alone. Uh, Albin can come—”
“Is it more important than the hostage situation next door?”
The panel ahead slid open, admitting them to the lab.
Marvin’s tone hardened with resolve: “It might be.”
Now what? “Albin, Marvin, come with me for a moment. Everyone else, start brainstorming.”
“Mr. Serebus.” Mikhail raised a hand like a student. “Other than yourself, I think Mr. Conrad is most qualified to lead the discussion. We don’t ha
ve the luxury of delay.”
Josephine crossed her arms, eyes narrowing. “I think I can handle it. I was there when the gunmen—”
“Terrorists,” Albin corrected by reflex.
“—attacked.”
“I believe,” Ken butted in, “Mikhail means in cumulative experience with gunmen Mr. Conrad is more qualified.”
They didn’t have time for any of this bullshit. “Fine. Marvin.” Nathan motioned toward one of the side rooms.
Once in the privacy of the antechamber, he turned to the economist. “Make it quick.”
“Look!” Terror, confusion, and anger swirled in Marvin’s eyes, strained his tone. He held his smartphone two inches from Nathan’s face.
Leaning back, Nathan caught the device. A video waited. “What is it?”
“I was in the basement and—just freaking watch it!”
Play. On screen, a red hall gave way to a garage-like area with concrete floors and crimson lighting. The camera panned over two rows of chain-link . . . kennels? Storage units? Black tarps covered the inside of the fences. The view moved down the aisle between the enclosures. Video-Marvin panted over the speaker. Real-Marvin panted in Nathan’s ear, pressing in to see the footage.
Bark!
Down the vid-aisle, Judge growled at an enclosure, her teeth bared and ears flat.
Sssssaaaaahhh!
Chapter 43
Ne-no-kun
O Death - Jen Titus
Nathan tensed. Putting a hand over his incision, he swallowed. One, two, three—
“Look,” Marvin breathed.
On the video, he pulled back a tarp corner from in front of a kennel gate. The camera jerked back as a pale, blistered face pressed against the chain-link. Black mucus bubbled from its mouth, oozed from its nose.
Ssssaaaaahhh!
Judge lunged at the fence, jaws scraping over the wire. The tarp fell back into place, hiding the cannibal.