The iFactor

“We will. We’ll stop it together.”

  “I didn’t want to kill them, Matt. I never wanted to kill anyone, but time is a chain. You can’t change one thing without changing what follows. You’ll understand. Become, Matt. Evolve.”

  “I have. It’s okay, I understand. I finally understand.”

  “From the time I arrived eight years ago, I knew how it all had to happen. If I let anything change, I would never get you. I wouldn’t be here to take this man’s chip and use his tools to fix the breach. If I didn’t kill them, thousands would die. I saw it all coming, everything. I couldn’t change anything.”

  “There is another way; you don’t have to kill him.” He tried to console her, but couldn’t shake the fear that she was correct, that things couldn’t change. If he could remember every moment of the next seven years, and the Mind Rip victims of the Trust were going to tell him everything, then what free will did any of them have? Was he just standing there with Jill saying their lines in some cosmic farce? Could gods be that cruel? No, he couldn’t allow himself to believe that, knowing what came next wasn’t a strait jacket, but an opportunity. Maybe if he changed what was going to happen his memories of the future would change too.

  “I remember how to fix it exactly, I’m not an engineer, if I deviate from what I remember doing, it might change, then I won’t know what I’m doing. I won’t be able to help.”

  “That’s how you knew how to kill those people without getting caught, you remembered doing it?”

  “Fate is a bitch, but she gave me detailed memories of what to do. If I don’t do this, it will all be for nothing, all those people, and their dead faces. I would rather die than live with that.”

  “I can’t let you kill him.” Matt pulled out his gun.

  “Its destiny, everything is happening as it is supposed to. You can’t stop me.”

  Matt aimed and pulled the trigger, shooting the knife from her hand.

  “What have you done?”

  “I have saved you. I saw how this ended too, I won’t kill you Jill, I choose not to.”

  “How?” She collapses onto the hard metal of the catwalk. “No, that wasn’t supposed to happen. How?”

  “Choice, Jill. We still have free will.” he said. “It’ll be all right.”

  “No, it won’t.” She started to cry. “I knew everything, I saw everything. I know how I die, how I was supposed to die. I’ve always known I had to kill, even as a little girl I saw their faces.”

  “Why kill them?”

  “Gods a bastard, that’s why. How the hell should I know? I couldn’t change things. I never got to know why, you were the only why I got.”

  The alarm grew louder.

  “It’s about to break” Jill pointed to a growing crack in the glass. “I’m sorry, Matt, I failed we are all going to die now.”

  Matt retrieved one of Kramer’s tangler grenades and activated it. “One, Two, Three, Four, heads down!” He threw it toward the cracking material. The grenade exploded, sending its liquid adhesive flying against the glass, and the sound diminished. He pulled out another and repeated the procedure then another. By then the cracking had stopped. He had one grenade left, so he used it also.

  Matt sat down next to Jill and put his arm around her. “It’s over,” he said.

  “No,” she moaned. “You changed fate. No one changes fate. Nothing has ever changed it. Fate is Fate! No!” She struggled to her feet and ran up the scaffolding.

  “People make our own choices. Please relax, we’ll get through this.” He stood as well.

  “I love you, I have always loved you. You’ll never know how hard it was to wait for you to love me knowing how it will end. Everything I did, I did for you, for them.” She burst into hysterical laughter. “I didn’t have to kill. I had a choice. When was I ever given a choice? You changed everything. I could have…”

  While Matt had been trying to calm down the murderess he loved, he didn’t notice the security officer approached from the other side of the scaffolding.

  “Don’t move.” The officer called out.

  “Free will. Don’t look at me, I’m a killer.” She stepped toward the worker she was about to kill. “I would have killed him.”

  “I said don’t move.” the guard pulled the trigger. The dome resounded with an echoing noise and the projectile struck Jill dead in the chest. The force of the impact staggered her backward. She lost her balance and tumbled from the catwalk. Matt dove to try to catch her, but as he reached out for her, she pulled her arms away. As she fell, he swore that he could see serenity cross her face while she plunged to the ground. Matt closed his eyes, and tried to shut out the horrible thud she made when she struck the cement.

  “Do you realize what you’ve done?” Matt stood; pain and hatred filling his soul.

  “You’re Matt Dales,” the man stammered. “You are under arrest.”

  “Oh, Mike, you are so wrong.” Every syllable was dipped in venom as Matt told the officer every dirty little secret the man hid from the world. As the guard stood there stunned by the revelation, Matt put a gun to the guy’s head. He staggered down the catwalk, marking where the officer’s body struck the ground next to Jill’s.

  Jill had spoken with conviction and truth when she said the corruption of the Trust had to end. In her memory, he would guarantee that no innocent ever suffered the way she had. He reached the end of the catwalk and sauntered into the crowd.

  The Trust was waiting and he would not disappoint them. Vanderhaar would be there, but that mattered little. He was unimportant now. In the grand scheme of things, the chief was a small, pathetic man. When Matt was done, his old partner would fade into obscurity.

  He straightened up, wiped the dust and blood from his clothing, and started walking toward the hidden chamber under the dome that housed the Trust.

  As he walked, Matt remembered the voices as they explained to him why Jill chose to die.

  “For half her life,” they’d say. ”She’d seen each moment before it happened. She knew every word, which everyone who spoke to her would say before it was uttered. It was her trap. The shattering vastness of eternity should have crushed her, reducing her mind to jelly, but she embraced it, her entire past, present and horrific future. Therefore, nothing could ever surprise her, except perhaps for the depts. at which she could despair her fate. Every step of her life was laid out, every right turn anticipated years in advance. It had simply never occurred to her that she could have turned left.”

  Now it was Matt’s turn to go on. For the rest of his life he would understand how it felt to really miss someone. All he would have of her were memories and he would stretch them to fill a lifetime. He knew that he would feel her absence every second of the years ahead. She truly was the only person in the universe who could ever fully understand him. He remembered each morning he would wake up without her, every dinner he would suffer alone. Something within him died when she fell.

  Jill was beyond saving, but it wasn’t her fault. She was the victim. The true evil was those who profited from her suffering, those who allowed the entire system to continue. Matt knew his next move. He would secure some information, and then he had a meeting to attend, one that would change the colony forever. The members of the Trust were waiting, although they didn’t know it yet. It would be the most important meeting of their lives and he had no plans to disappoint them.

  Chapter 49

  “He’s gone crazy.” Vanderhaar told the four men who stood facing him from behind the large desk. Even in the dimly lit room, he could easily see discontent on their faces.

  “He’s just one man. You’re the law here. Order his arrest. Use your tracking systems.” The man behind the desk growled.

  “I have ordered his arrest, but we can’t track him.” Vanderhaar tossed the blood-crusted chip on the table. “He cut it out.”

  “Madman.” Another of the men said.

  “Don’t worry.” The man behind the desk said. “Without his chip he’s a non-ent
ity, he cannot even get into his own apartment. He’ll show up soon and we’ll get him. Nevertheless Vanderhaar, you have been a disappointment. What shall we do with you?”

  “You don’t dare. I’m the one with the contacts, without me the network falls apart.”

  “Don’t make that mistake.” He looked up from his desk and stared hard into Vanderhaar’s face. “No one is expendable. Get Mr. Dales and maybe we won’t have to find another delivery boy.”

  “Delivery boy!” Vanderhaar’s hand went to his gun. “I have so much on you. If anything happens to me, you all go down.”

  Vanderhaar’s tone relaxed as he set on the edge of the desk. “Besides, he can’t prove anything; I have all his records and a psychiatrist to back me up. It’s his word against mine, and I can make him out to be a mental case.”

  From their darkened cells, all the voices of the Trust spoke out in unison. “He is here.”

  “What?” One of the men said.

  “I think they mean me.” Matt stepped out of the shadows with a gun drawn. “Sorry I was late. I had some stuff to get. Oh do continue, you were talking about how you could convince everyone that I was insane.”

  “How dare you!” The man behind the desk stood. Matt just waved his gun and the man sat back down.

  “I know the behavior you’re used to, so I’ll just tell you to shut up.” Matt said softly. “In case you haven’t noticed, things have changed.”

  “You are insane.” The man behind the desk proclaimed. “Vanderhaar, take care of this.”

  “Yeah Ken, take care of it.” Matt said. “I don’t think he’s not taking care of it, is he? I think Ken knows which way the wind is blowing. But just to be sure, toss your gun behind you, back there into the shadows.” Matt waved his gun to designate direction.

  “Surely you’re not implying that you are…” The old man said.

  “That I’m in charge?” Matt asked. “What do you think team? Who will be running the Trust from here on out?”

  All the voices spoke as one, “Matt Dales.”

  “I don’t think they are often wrong, do you?”

  Vanderhaar tossed his gun away.

  “Good move, Ken. Maybe I’ll let you stay chief.”

  The old man reached toward his drawer. Matt put a bullet through the desk, and the pistol the man held behind it was useless, a bullet wedged in the firing mechanism. “I could have put that between your eyes. Consider your life a retirement bonus.”

  “What do you want Mr. Dales?”

  “What do I want?” Matt thought of Jill, trying to block out the image of her falling to her death. They couldn’t give him what he wanted. He knew, though, what he could take. “I want you to get your ass out of my seat.”

  “You have some serious gall, I’ll give you that.”

  “You won’t give me anything. I get what I want from here on out. Or all of you will be ruined and I will still get everything I want. I’m a nice person, unlike some. I don’t really need to ruin all of your lives and the lives of everyone associated with you. I could in a second, but I don’t have to.”

  “There is no way that I’m going to let that happen. Vanderhaar. If you want to keep your position I suggest you take care of this lunatic.”

  “Four, three, A, six, two C, one, x” Matt said in a conversational tone. That is the access code to your private files is it not? I know it all, every dirty little secret each of you has hidden, every last credit you stashed away.”

  “That’s impossible.” The man closest to Vanderhaar burst out.

  “Okay gang, where did he hide the money Nathen Athlewood embezzled from the colonial education fund?”

  “A college fund under the name Samantha Athlewood, account three one six eight two two.” All the voices said.

  “You’ve implicated your three year old daughter. Maybe I should ruin you just because you are a waste of skin. But then it would be your daughter that would have to pay. Didn’t I tell you to get your ass out of my chair? There’s a good boy.”

  Once the old man took his place in the group, Matthew Dales took the seat, and his place as the administrator of the Trust. “I had given thought to just giving all your dirty little secrets to the public, the press and the UN Authorities. Maybe I could just put it on the public message board. But I know what the people would do to you. It would take me too long to purge the memories from my mind.” Matt laughed. “I have enough bad memories. Besides, there are too many others just as bad would take your seat. So I had this really brilliant idea. Wanna know what it was? No one? Okay, I’ll tell you anyway. To make sure you can no longer rob, steal and make yourselves immensely wealthy. I’m taking the seat myself. I am in control. It all ends now.”

  “So what happens?” Vanderhaar asked.

  “Now we change the organizational structure. Keep in mind, there isn’t one of you that wouldn’t happily ship Earth side with a short dose, which would be poetic justice after all.” Matt leaned back into his new chair. Many changes needed to be made. “First of all, Mr. Kossman might like to see his daughter again, and I need a secretary. The Trust has taken people who could have been helped. From here on out, no one will be short dosed. If someone is, one of you will be next. It’s time for the Trust to change and take more of a leadership role in colonial operations. Don’t you agree?”

  No one moved. Matt put his feet up on the desk and relaxed in complete knowledge that even though he was surrounded by serpents, not one would dare strike.

  “Come boys, smile. We have a colony to run.”

  The end.

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  Please read

  Twisted Visions; Anthology of the Fantastic

  The Terror of Teller’s Cove

  Unity Captives

  Book One of the Homeworld Sagas