Flight of Shadows: A Novel

by Brouwer, Sigmund

  Here was some footage of the guy, going directly into the security office. To talk to Leo. The pig.

  That made sense. He’d want the same thing Razor found valuable. Access to the security cameras to learn more.

  It gave Razor an idea.

  He uploaded all the security camera footage to a remote server, knowing he could access it any time from any computer.

  Yes, Razor needed to know more. About the agent who seemed so intelligent. And especially about Caitlyn.

  It wouldn’t hurt to talk to another source.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Everett Tippler had genuine curiosity on his face—not disgust or revulsion—as he held up a clear plastic bag with a human hand in it.

  “We might be able to work together.” He threw the bag to the side. Stared at Mason. “But first explain this.”

  “Tried using the sensor chips in the fingers at a money machine.”

  Finally, Everett showed comprehension. “You used it on a bank machine?”

  “Doesn’t work,” Mason said.

  “It needs to be attached to an arm. In turn, the arm needs to be attached to a human.” Everett smiled. “A living human.”

  Mason saw no humor in Everett’s efforts. “I had his password. Still didn’t work. He promised he had money in his account. But nothing.”

  “And the guy who owned the hand…?”

  “Dead. Can’t believe he lied to me about the password. The way I had him, he was begging to tell the truth. I’ve got experience with these things.”

  “Appalachia, right? It’s your accent. Haven’t been here long, have you?”

  “What does that matter?” Mason said.

  “The fingerprint sensor also needs to detect a pulse within a normal range. Anything too fast, machine judges that someone is forcing the person to put his hand there. Heart rate too slow, well”—Everett pointed at the plastic bag—“guards against that too.”

  Mason glowered at Everett. Mason didn’t like any kind of criticism. “I’ll survive a lot longer in your world than you would in mine.”

  “That’d be why you’re the person who’s going to find her for me.”

  “I hunt alone,” Mason said.

  “As long as you bring her in when you find her.”

  “Not sure I want to.”

  “In this world, you’ll need weapons and cash. I supply that. Name your bounty price.”

  For the first time since entering the room, Mason smiled.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Pierce was at the basement level of the building, still looking for how Caitlyn and Razor had found a way out.

  He’d pictured Caitlyn and Razor, inside the fridge, door cracked open for air, riding the elevator down while the stairs were jammed with people leaving the building during the fire alarm.

  Both would know the building exits would be guarded, so once they stepped off the elevator, they’d leave the fridge behind, hit a different button, and let it go to a different level. Make it more difficult to guess which level they’d actually used to escape the elevator.

  But they hadn’t gone out the top or the sides of the building. They weren’t in the building. Jeremy and Holly were confirming that one more time. So the only conclusion was they’d gone out the bottom.

  Which sounded like an impossible conclusion. So Pierce had gone down to the room in the original footage, where Razor and Caitlyn had been trapped by the wheelchair guy.

  Ignoring a couple of operatives in the basement hallway, Pierce gave the small room a quick glance first, getting the spartan feel. Murphy bed folded up in place on the wall. Bare of decorations. Shelving above a small fridge and office chair. Definitely a hiding hole. Kid had a luxury place to stay upstairs. Didn’t need much here. Big question was why a cubby hole?

  All Pierce could think of was that rich kid Razor liked slumming it among Illegals. Pretending he was one of them. So if he ever had to show them where he lived, he could give them this instead of the penthouse.

  Pierce gave the closet a slow study. He stared at the high ceiling, trying to figure out how Caitlyn had been hidden up there, but couldn’t come up with an answer.

  Next he stepped into the hallway. There was the outer bolt he’d seen in the video footage. It had bothered him then, and it bothered him now.

  Pierce stood still, patiently exploring that gut feeling.

  Bed inside. So Razor either used it or intended to use it for longer stays.

  Pierce imagined himself on the bed. Imagined whether it would feel safe. Only if it were locked.

  Pierce stepped inside, closed the door. Bolts on the inside too. A degree of safety then.

  But the outer bolt still bothered him.

  He pulled down the bed from the wall. It creaked slightly as he stretched his body across it. In his mind, he closed the door.

  That was it. What if he were inside and someone slid the bolt shut on the outside? Now the hiding hole had become a trap. No way out. Razor wasn’t stupid enough to allow for that possibility.

  So there had to be a way out.

  Easy enough to determine. Thermal radar. Scan the room; look for differences in wall temperature.

  Pierce slid off the bed, folded it back up into place, stepped into the hallway, and barked for someone to get the thermal radar.

  Two minutes later, they found the escape. A portion of the back wall with a large round aura of blue. Pierce didn’t waste any niceties looking for a way to slide back a panel.

  He kicked through. Yes, he could have had a couple of the operatives behind him do the work, but this was why Pierce liked being in the field. Discovery. Hunt.

  He pulled aside the debris. Cool air washed over his face.

  There was a steel ladder attached to the wall of a tunnel going straight down.

  Pierce would confirm with a map later, but he guessed this fed into one of the ancient subways.

  Chances were, this was how they escaped.

  Except going into world beneath the city was certain suicide. Illegals in shantytowns were one thing. But the Illegals below had lived there generations already. Like primitive tribes. Pierce doubted he’d get the authorization to send agents down there. Last time the subway had been breached, the city had been shut down for a week, and it had cost twenty lives.

  Didn’t a rich kid like Razor understand what he faced down there?

  THIRTY-SIX

  Spears.

  When she woke and her vision had cleared and she realized Razor had abandoned her, Caitlyn could hardly believe her eyes, looking at the men who surrounded her. Four ahead of her. Four behind. Men short and wide, wearing ragged black shirts and pants.

  White spots had still been floating in her retinas, and it had been difficult to focus. She had no idea where Razor had fled. Only that he’d abandoned her. With these short, wide men advancing to trap her. Nowhere to run. So she’d remained in place, body tense, wondering about Razor’s last words to her. “I promise you’ll be safe among them.”

  Each man held a spear waist high, pointed at her as they gestured for her to stand. The spears had wooden handles and steel-tipped heads. But the men kept their distance, as if wary of her.

  Once on her feet, she fought traces of a headache. Whatever Razor had used on her, it had left a residue of grogginess.

  One, with a habit of wiping hair away from his forehead with his free hand, grunted a few words and gestured farther down the tunnel. They herded her in that direction, but not far.

  There was a break in the orderliness of the stone blocks that formed the arch of the tunnel. Stones had been pulled out; the hole was the width of a man’s outstretched arms.

  “In there.”

  Brief as the sentence was, Caitlyn heard a strange accent, and she barely understood.

  Despite her hesitation, they kept their distance.

  “Turn in there,” the man repeated.

  Her eyes had begun to adjust again. The hole no longer seemed like a black vacuum. She could see a g
low inside.

  Some of Razor’s earlier words came back to her. “You do know what happens to people who go beneath the city. The urban legends are not just legend… You haven’t heard about the cannibalism?”

  “No,” she answered. It was beyond her imagination, what might wait inside that hole. “I will not.”

  The men withdrew slightly. Conferred in mumbles.

  She was much taller than they were and looked down on their broad shoulders. She was tempted to run. But to where?

  They straightened. The man who spoke approached her. Now he held his spear sideways, hands close together on the shaft.

  Without a word or any passion, he swung the handle hard and upward. The blow caught her beneath the jaw.

  She toppled, again unconscious, not even able to feel the hands that caught her before she hit the ground.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Are you insane?” Leo hissed. He was half naked, lying on the bed, covered by only a towel. This was in a room in a cheaper hotel, a couple blocks down from the Pavilion. “You’re toxic waste, man. Go away.”

  In the corner sat a girl dressed in a nanny outfit. What a cliché. She was sitting back, legs crossed, kicking an ankle. Bored. But Razor wasn’t going to let her out of the room. He didn’t want her double-crossing him and putting out a call to Melvin that would give up Razor’s location.

  “Toxic waste?” Razor said. “Leo, that’s harsh.”

  Leo’s hands were tied to the bedposts. Another pitiful cliché.

  Razor was grateful the girl had put a towel across Leo’s midsection before moving into the corner. Bad enough seeing that massive flabby chest, hairless and sagging in horizontal lines.

  “You know how much you’re worth if I make a call?” Leo said. “Melvin’s put the word out.”

  “Need your hands free first,” Razor said. “Can’t see me doing that.”

  Leo glanced over at the girl in the corner. She smiled coldly. Shook her head no.

  “Not curious how I knew I’d find you here?” Razor asked. Leo was clockwork predictability. And this was one of his habits. Accepting a noncash payment for allowing a street girl on his shift to move in and out of the suites when called by any of her client Influentials.

  “Toxic waste,” Leo said, uselessly pulling at his bonds. “You’re cutting into my time with her.”

  “She can wait, Leo,” Razor said. “I need some answers. What happened today?”

  “She never waits,” Leo said.

  “So talk fast. What happened in there?”

  “Like I’m stupid? You pretending you don’t know they wanted you?”

  “Who, Leo? Who wanted me?”

  Leo smirked. “The whole world. Melvin. NI. What’d you do?”

  “NI,” Razor repeated. Made sense. “You’re security. Someone interview you?”

  “You and me?” Leo said. “We don’t have a deal anymore. No way I’m hiding you down there any longer. They found it anyway. Your little cubbyhole.”

  “Leo, Leo, Leo,” Razor said. “You’re not in much of a position to call the shots. See, I know where you live. With your mother. Think she’s going to like a digital of you tied to the bed? Or a closeup of the diapers you have on under there? That would make for fruitful discussion, wouldn’t it? Dear Mommy, how come I still want to be treated like a baby?”

  “You’ll go away, right?”

  “Baby bottle under the bed too.”

  “You’ll go away, right?”

  “So someone talked to you.”

  “From NI,” Leo said. “Guy called himself Carson Pierce.”

  “And?”

  “Wanted to review the security camera footage. But the time period he wanted wasn’t there. I told him it looked like someone had hacked in. This Pierce guy likes control. Should have seen him flip when someone started downloading all the other footage.”

  “Someone hacked in to your computer?”

  “While we were there. He’s got it swarmed with techies. Trying to find out how the system was penetrated.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nope.”

  But Leo had shifted.

  “You’re a bad liar,” Razor said. “And I’m a great photographer. You look good in diapers, Leo. What are you hiding?”

  “He asked about Timothy Raymond Zornenbach,” Leo answered. No hesitation.

  “Who’s that?” Razor said.

  “Old guy. Owns a suite near the top.” Leo looked smug again. “Floor thirty-five. Plus he’s on the registry as the owner of the corp that holds the building.”

  “You know this?”

  “Hey, I’ve got a lot of time in that little office. I do my snooping.”

  “Tell me about Zornenbach. What’s he look like?”

  “Haven’t seen him in a long while. Was old then; must be ancient now.”

  “You tell this to that guy from the agency?”

  “’Course. The guy was NI. He knew it already anyway. But still wasn’t that smart. Said the old man had adopted a kid. Right. And I can do a hundred sit-ups.”

  “Agent have anything else?” Razor asked.

  “I told him they needed someone like me in the IT department. He said maybe I should apply. He’d put in a good word for me.”

  Razor had what he needed. Confirmation of who was after Caitlyn. And he had a bonus. The operative’s name. Carson Pierce.

  “Leo,” Razor said, “you believe too many things.”

  “Huh?”

  “You really think NI is going to make room for you?”

  “I helped him.”

  “And you really thought I wouldn’t take a digital to send to your mother?”

  “Come on,” Leo said. He pulled futilely against his bonds. The towel slipped slightly. “That’s low.”

  “Might be,” Razor said. “One last question. How’d Melvin know where to find me in my cubbyhole?”

  Leo struggled harder with the bonds.

  “That’s what I thought,” Razor said. “Not sure I’m going to enjoy taking the digital, but I am going to be happy to send it out to your mother.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Mason squirmed as he walked past shanties crowded in crooked lines. Not from sunshine. Clouds had moved in, a mixture of white and gray, nothing that promised rain. But the temperature had dropped, and wind was coming in gusts. Much better than unrelenting brightness.

  Mason squirmed with something else. Desire. He was looking for a victim. He needed to test the capabilities of the Taser Everett had given him, promising that although it was unregistered, it didn’t have fingerprint controls as a safety device. Only an idiot hunted with a rifle that he hadn’t sighted. In the same sense, Mason wasn’t going to put himself in a position of relying on a weapon he didn’t fully understand.

  Some stared at Mason. He knew he was set apart because he didn’t have a swirl of tattoos on his face. Set apart because of the eye patch. Set apart because he walked with his shoulders straight and chest out. A confident predator.

  He had not been in this setting for long, but he already knew that every person who looked at him was a person trying to decide the answer to an important question based on Mason’s lack of facial tattoos. Was Mason an Illegal and thus someone who could be used? Or was Mason an Influential and looking to use someone here?

  Mason had only one question in return.

  What kind of victim would best serve his need to test the Taser and his need to savor fear? The terror of the weak and old held attractiveness because, the closer to the end of life, the more most clung to it. Yet there was a satisfaction in taking someone young and strong with a false sense of immortality and introducing the taste of what the old and frail lived with every waking moment.

  Mason looked around, then realized he was feeling a foundation of buoyancy beneath his desire. This was so strange; he found himself pausing to analyze it in a rare moment of introspection.

  It was rare because Mason didn’t like introspection. Introspection w
as a weakness. It led to self-justification.

  The people he had hunted in Appalachia always offered reasons for why they had betrayed the government. They were weak.

  Mason didn’t care whether their reasons for becoming fugitives were right or wrong. Caring was weakness too. He was not a weak man. That’s why he was good at what he did. Right or wrong didn’t matter to him because he didn’t waste time on introspection.

  Neither did he waste time on justifying his role as a bounty hunter for Appalachia or why the heretics he had captured needed to be silenced. He was a hunter. They were fugitives.

  He enjoyed hunting people. No need for introspection there either. He didn’t need to justify his cruelty and coldness, the two qualities that, along with his peculiar skills, made him so successful. With the exception of Caitlyn, nobody in Appalachia had ever escaped him, and his captures, each one, were celebrated on vidpods that every citizen there was forced to watch.

  But buoyancy? This was unfamiliar; it was an emotion that needed attention. If it became a distraction, he’d be less effective.

  So Mason stopped walking and turned slowly, as if he were a giant cat, sniffing the wind.

  He’d been walking away from the city wall and was still close enough that it dominated the horizon behind him, ominous in a straight line low against the sky, serving as a backdrop to the shanties that seemed huddled in its shadows.

  Around him, crowds of people moved in all directions. Dirty people. People dressed in rags. Not like the people of Appalachia—fresh faced and smiling to hide their thoughts. Nothing to mark that they served the religious leaders without question.

  These people were marked though. Webs of tattoos across their faces, blurring their features, adding a darkness to the setting.

  Buoyancy.

  As he turned slowly, Mason concentrated on the sounds. The hum of conversations. An occasional shriek. A dull industrial pounding so low and so far away he couldn’t choose the direction.

  Facing away from the wall again, he noted a smudge of smoke that in the still of the day was an ominous broad stroke that, like the wall, made another backdrop to the shanties, putting them in a flat valley between the wall and the smoke.