Executioner's Lament

by Justin Rishel

  She grew nearer and realized the person lay on their side, their back facing her. Long red hair spilled out the top of a black coat. The hair and shape of the body under the coat looked like a woman’s.

  Reynolds could have called it in on her watch, but she decided to check it out first. Could just be a drunk or someone overdosed on Z.

  Ten feet from the body of the woman, she slowed her pace to a walk. A dark black patch of blood matted the red hair on the back of the woman’s head. Reynolds rushed in.

  “Hello,” Reynolds said, “I’m here to help.”

  * * *

  Oona Hobbs leaned against the exterior of the metal building watching the drone footage on her small tablet. The target rounded the corner to enter the docks. Why this woman chose to run down here three times a week, Oona couldn’t fathom, but she didn’t care. It just made her job easier.

  She pulled the small pistol from the holster under her coat and chambered a round. Then she bent down to unclip the knife strapped to her ankle. The microsecond it took to undo it in combat could be the difference between being a victor or a victim. She chose to be the former.

  Oona ambled from the darkness to the perimeter of the orb of yellow light on the ground. Checking her tablet again, she estimated sixty seconds until she made contact with the target.

  “Almost forgot,” she said. She pulled a small red gel pack from her pocket and smashed it on the back of her head. She ruffled her hair, ensuring it was considerably disheveled, then lay on the ground along the edge of the light.

  Laying on her right side, she maneuvered the pistol so it was pointing back and up under her coat.

  She sighed and wished she didn’t have to put herself in the open like this. But this had to be clean and it had to be successful. Her employer made that clear. There was no room for a missed shot at long range.

  Footsteps behind her and a voice.

  “Hello,” the woman said. “I’m here to help.”

  * * *

  The woman did not respond. Reynolds skirted the long hair which had cast a considerable halo around the woman’s head. She knelt down and reached with two fingers toward her neck.

  The woman’s head turned; deep green eyes glared at her. Her hands flew from under the coat; one held a gun.

  Reynolds threw herself back in an awkward leap, throwing her hands up to protect her face. Heat lanced through her left palm.

  On her back, Reynolds kicked at the hand with the gun, knocking it back. She lifted her leg high and brought her heel down on the side of the woman’s head and neck.

  The gun began to come around again. Reynolds spun herself into a crouching position and pounced. Pinning the gun hand into the concrete, grinding it against the bits of gravel. She punched with her other hand. The woman blocked nearly every blow.

  The world flipped. Reynolds fell on her back, doing her best to fend off the woman’s hammer-like punches. The punches came with a speed and ferocity Reynolds hadn’t seen before.

  Long loose hair dangled in her face. Her left hand still held tight to the gun and the attacker’s wrist, but her strength waned. Reynolds’s arm bent against her will. The woman was stronger than her and the run had drained Reynolds.

  The woman punched her in the head once more, then landed one square on her left shoulder sending shockwaves through her arm and chest.

  Reynolds howled in pain. More blows found her shoulder and soon her arm and hand felt numb from the abuse. She twisted and punched at the woman’s torso but only found the familiar feeling of body armor beneath clothes.

  Her left arm throbbed. The woman bent it at the elbow. The gun would be at her head soon.

  Frantically, she punched and squeezed anything soft she could get her right hand on. Nothing worked. The woman was too powerful.

  Reynolds’s hand found something—a long thin object attached to the woman’s leg. A knife. She pulled at it, attempting to unsheathe it.

  The woman’s left hand flew to her ankle to stop Reynolds. In that instant, Reynolds felt the pressure come off her left arm. With a well-placed knee to the woman’s groin, she pushed her off balance.

  In the space of a heartbeat, Reynolds had both hands on the gun. By the time the woman realized what had happened, Reynolds had bent the pistol and the woman’s hand backward, the barrel pointed at her chest. Reynolds found the trigger and squeezed down on the woman’s own finger.

  The gun fired, deafening at such close proximity. The bullet met the body armor in a smoky flash.

  The woman fell back, but held tight to the gun and Reynolds’s two hands. She held them straight up. Reynolds had leverage now and sat up, breathing into the woman’s face. Their four arms stuck straight up, held high over their heads, each woman struggling to bring the pistol back down to bear on the other.

  “Hey!” A shout from the darkness. They both looked. A burly-looking man in a security guard’s uniform ran toward them.

  The woman looked into Reynolds’s eyes and bared her teeth, snarling. She threw her head back, then slammed it forward into Reynolds’s face. Her nose popped and crunched.

  The attacker let go of the pistol with her right hand and swung a vicious right hook that smashed into Reynolds’s cheek bone; she felt another pop in her face. She fell onto her back once more, the gun no longer in her control.

  A shot cracked in the air. Not close, from some ways off. The guard’s gun.

  Reynolds cracked a puffy eye to see a figure in black running into the dark street opposite the guard. The light caught the long red hair, waving in a flurry behind her as she sprinted away.

  18

  Trails

  Jacira Barretto’s sneakers squelched on the highly polished floors as she walked with feigned purpose and intensity. The nurse’s uniform was loose and billowy, not her style, but required for the day’s objective. The dark blue scrubs matched those of the nurses in the ICU ward where she was headed.

  Infiltrating a hospital was simpler than most people might think. The trick was to act like you belonged there—walk fast, appear focused, don’t get distracted, and never get lost. Don’t avoid eye contact, but don’t let it get excessive.

  Hacking the hospital’s security and uploading your own cerebral signature and facial identification helped too; she had spent the better part of the morning accomplishing that feat. As a result, every entryway she wanted to pass through welcomed her like an old friend, the doors swinging open like they were expecting her the whole time.

  Her pace slowed with the soreness in her back and a pronounced limp—products from the encounter with Martin Aubrey. Her recovery had been brief, hastened by the right narcotics. Still, the bandages and splints made her stiff. The bullets floating around inside her made her uneasy.

  She marched down the mauve and seafoam hallways with their sickeningly pleasant artwork of seascapes and sand dunes. Easy listening adult contemporary music filtered through the ceiling tiles. She glanced at one of the pieces of so-called art and saw her reflection in the glass. She liked herself as a blonde.

  She held a tablet in one hand and kept the other buried in the pocket of her scrubs’ top where she rolled a half-inch long gel capsule between her fingers.

  Door after door flung itself open for her until she finally reached the ICU. She had the layout of the ward memorized—a central nurse’s station from which four hallways branched off with four rooms in each.

  She passed through the ICU ward’s doors and down one hallway toward the nurse’s station. The room she headed to was in the hallway directly across the station from where she entered. Four nurses sat inside the circular station; their heads bent to their work. No one walked the hallways at the moment.

  She breezed past the station without incident. One nurse looked up, gave a polite smile, then went back to her work. Jacira returned the smile with a curt nod. She continued into the hallway straight ahead of her. She stopped outside the open door of the last room on the left. A digital plaquette to the left of the door read
Lourdes, G.

  She entered the room.

  Gregory Lourdes lay on his back in the bed. Tubes and wires ran to machines on the walls behind his head.

  Jacira left the door open. A closed door in the ICU would raise suspicion. The nurses would have monitors in the central station displaying patient information plus video feeds from all the rooms—Jacira would have to be quick.

  Three long strides and she was at his bedside. She laid the tablet on his bed and pulled a chemical proof glove from her left pocket and slipped it on her right hand. With the gloved hand she withdrew the gel capsule from her other pocket. It was small, the liquid inside it perfectly clear. Synthesized and refined from a formula used in her former life, she deployed it in a number of ways always with satisfactory results.

  This particular concoction would give her the time she needed.

  In one motion, she grabbed a thicket of Gregory’s hair and pulled his chin to his chest, exposing the back of his neck.

  In her gloved hand she crushed the capsule and allowed the liquid to ooze out onto her middle and index fingertips. She reached out and rubbed her two fingers, slick with the clear substance, on the base of the man’s skull. She had to ensure good distribution across and down the brain stem. Her refined concoction gave her the time she needed, but it was also less potent than its concentrated state.

  She opened her left hand and let Gregory’s head hit the pillow. She removed the glove on her right hand, ensured not a drop of it touched her skin and slid the used glove into a plastic tube which she placed in her pocket.

  No one stopped her as she left the ward. Not a head turned as she left the hospital altogether. As she walked through the main entrance and onto the street, she pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped several commands. Instantly, her cerebral signature upload and facial recognition identification were deleted from the hospital’s servers.

  * * *

  In the ICU, just as Jacira Barretto was stepping into her car, an alarm buzzed on the patient monitors inside the nurses’ station. It identified the patient in need as Gregory Lourdes room 442. The charge nurse barked orders and she and the other nurses leapt into action.

  In spite of their efforts, there was nothing they could do for Mr. Lourdes. The attending physician determined the cause of death to be complications stemming from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

  * * *

  June 10, 2043

  “We believe the two children found yesterday are infected with what is popularly known as Boarding School Syndrome.” The newly minted Chief of Police, Chevelle Long, stood at a dais surrounded by men in suits addressing the press. Media drones aimed toward the Chief buzzed over the heads of the group of reporters. The news station’s call sign branded the bottom of the television screen—WMNN. “The children were infected some time ago, and out of respect for the parents’ wishes, we will not be divulging any more information. Thank you.”

  Tall and lithe, the ebony woman stepped from the dais.

  “Were they infected by OFP?” a reporter shouted.

  She turned back to the audience of reporters with a cold, hard expression.

  “One Front for the People is dead. My officers eradicated them months ago. It is possible that these children were infected during their reign of terror and the parents were conflicted about going public due to the stigma associated with it. They’re very private people, so that would be understandable. But let me make this clear,” she pointed a finger at the small crowd, “OFP is gone. If this is their work, it’s the last we’ll ever see of them.”

  Martin Aubrey made a cutting motion with his hand and the television winked off. He leaned back on the cheap faux leather sofa and turned toward Malina Maddox. She sat at a desk in the corner of the hotel room.

  “Anything good on?” she said, typing furiously on the keyboard unrolled in front of her.

  “No. And Aaron told me the Chief is chalking these two kids up to OFP attacks from months ago. She’s calling it old news.”

  He rocked his head from side to side and focused on taking calming breaths to allay his exasperation.

  He continued. “Which begs the question: why didn’t they take credit for those two? By the looks of it, these kids have been sick for a long time. So, what if the parents wanted to keep it private? OFP doesn’t care about their privacy.”

  “Makes your theory look more plausible. That OFP had nothing to do with it really.” She looked over her shoulder as she spoke but kept typing. “They were a front for the real killer or killers. Still think it was Alkorn and his crew?”

  “Yes. The rest of their messages will prove me right.” He pointed at the air as he spoke, as if trying to convince someone of his theory. “I think he was the only one capable of making whatever is causing BSS. He had a motive—a clear vendetta against Sarazin and anyone who had anything to do with him.”

  He stood and paced around the living area of the hotel room. The mottled blue carpet beneath his feet had the distinct trademark look of a cheap hotel. The beige, textured wallpaper hid whatever stains existed there, but the bathroom appeared clean and the couch was comfortable.

  After the attempt on his life, Aubrey felt certain they were in danger. He forced Malina to leave her storage unit hovel and set up camp in a hotel. She hesitated, convinced she could take care of herself better on her own.

  He explained in great detail how the assassin ambushed him on the road, describing to Malina the equipment and expertise it required. This convinced her. A foe as formidable as theirs was not to be taken lightly. Better safe than sorry.

  Malina brought her computer block and a few other necessary items which allowed her to continue working on deciphering the coded messages sent between the four Ventana scientists. She also brought along fake identification and untraceable cash cards for them to use. Malina proved herself to be extremely resourceful and a good partner.

  Malina chose the Silk Princess Hotel situated in a less than desirable area of the city. Their security was non-existent which, she explained, meant their enemy wouldn’t be able to use it against them. The hotel also lacked a certain thoroughness when it came to checking identification. Malina had insisted to him that her fakes were perfect, but just in case it was best not to deal with anyone overly diligent and upright.

  Aubrey walked to the lone window next to the desk where Malina sat. He peered through the gap between the curtain looking at nothing in particular.

  Things had become infinitely more complicated. He had the sickening feeling that a ticking clock was counting down and that something big and terrible would happen if they didn’t solve it soon. Now, the clock had turned deadly, for him and Malina.

  The voice behind all the terror now had a hired gun with deadly skill. Had Aaron Lewis not come when he did, Aubrey would have been the voice’s latest victim.

  In spite of Aaron’s assurances, Aubrey knew the woman was still alive. She fell from the bridge by choice, knowing it was the quickest way out. It had probably been her plan the whole time. If things went south, take a swim. She’d probably placed a bug-out bag downstream somewhere. He had no idea who she was, but he knew he didn’t want to see her again.

  He massaged his left shoulder and rotated his arm in wide arcs to ease the soreness. He was lucky, the bullet didn’t go too deep after having been slowed by the ballistic windshield. Nevertheless, having a foreign object gouge its way into a very important and often used joint hurt like hell regardless of how quickly it was removed afterward.

  He looked down at his forearms. Bite marks were still visible on one arm and bandages covered slash marks on the other. Thirty seconds of fighting and he’d need weeks to fully recover from it.

  The medics from the Binns-Lourdes estate had come quickly to patch up Aubrey, but he had refused a trip to the hospital. The hospital had a computer system connected to the cloud and an internal networked database, all of which could be infiltrated. He could be found. He preferred to be on his own in situa
tions like these.

  With Malina’s help, they were off the grid, a difficult task in this world and he wanted to keep it that way.

  His thoughts drifted to the two children—Polly Binns-Lourdes and Owen Jorgetson. Both stricken with Boarding School Syndrome, stuck in an unwakeable sleep state, for at least the last six months. Both sets of parents treated their children but refused to report the cases. Why?

  Malina’s searches of hospital records and patient databases failed to turn up either child. No official channels had been used to log their conditions or treatments. Medical records had not been not pulled or updated. Someone treated them, that was clear. Someone who made house calls and was willing to keep everything off the books.

  “We need to find out who was treating those kids,” he said aloud, more to himself but also for Malina’s benefit.

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  She turned to face him. Since they’d arrived at the hotel, she had made herself comfortable, which meant a white tank top, soccer shorts and oversized fuzzy slippers. The spikey hair on top of her small frame made her look like something out of a manga comic book.

  “It must have been someone both families knew.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Both homes had the same devices hooked up to the kids. They have to be connected somehow. The two families met and talked about how to handle it.”

  “Other than the fact that both families were hugely wealthy and had kids around the same age,” she shrugged and spread her hands palms up, “I could only find social connections and pretty casual ones at that. They were invited to a lot of the same parties, joined a few of the same clubs, but I can’t find any indication that they spent a whole lot of time together.”

  She picked up a tablet from the table and swiped her finger upward on the screen.

  “Gregory Lourdes is an artist of some notoriety in the city and his wife Dory Binns is a venture capitalist. She comes from money.” She scrolled further on the tablet. “The Jorgetsons come from money too. Mandel’s family did well in the hospitality industry and Patricia’s family made their millions in real estate. She was a stay at home mom and Mandel bounced around from C-suite to C-suite.”