by Therin Knite
“If you’re sure.”
“Quite.”
The flight response takes over, and I all but slam the lounge door shut behind me. There is nothing I want less than to watch what Dynara does to that guy. I find myself on the floor, staring at my scuffed tennis shoes and wondering how I started the day in a hospital after a near dragon demise and ended it watching a woman who looks several years my junior go head to head in a winner-free death match with a killer. Wondering whether a normal person would laugh or cry.
Taking a moment to reclaim my dignity, I hit the answer button beneath the goofy picture of Jin’s face. The image is swapped out for Jin’s actual face, the one nursing a pint as he sits alone in a corner booth in the rundown bar at the end of his block. Before he catches sight of me, I select no outgoing video.
Not that I needed to hurry. It takes him a good minute to realize I’ve answered. “Oh, Adem! Hey, there you are. What took so long? Bathroom? Mas—”
“Or maybe you’re impatient.” My voice wavers as the adrenaline from my reading begins to wane, and I pray he’s too buzzed to notice. “It’s not like you’re in a hurry or anything.”
His heavy mug clanks against the tabletop. “Hey, I have important stuff to do, too, you know? And I have been doing very important stuff up until this moment, like you haven’t already seen it.”
“Seen what?”
“You didn’t get them?”
“Get what?”
“The files.”
“What files?”
“Don’t joke. The EDPA files.”
I check my message box to find it contains a new addition: one massive folder labeled EDPA History. “Oh, I missed that. Sorry. I had my message box sound on silent.” That is, silent compared to the booming club music Dynara and I had our little death dance to.
Jin gives me the scrutiny squint. “Are you okay? You sound a bit off. And why isn’t your video on?”
“Because I don’t want it to be.” I double tap the file folder, and it opens to reveal a detailed list of events littered with top secret notes and exclamation points. “Jin, how did you get these? I thought most of EDPA’s information was classified.”
“You think right. I snagged those from the Federal Agency Archive earlier. There were more, but they had higher-level encryption.”
“You hacked top secret files from a government server?”
“I am a hacker, after all.”
“No, you are a trained and certified Cyber Security agent working for the IBI, and if anybody finds out you did this, you will be fired and sent to jail.” I recall standing on the Club Valkyrie dance floor, Dynara forcing me to spin and twirl while she reveals, piece by piece, the elusive truth of EDPA. If I’d told Jin I was meeting her to get this exact information, he never would have put himself at risk. “Is that why you were smiling earlier? When you left for inspection?” Dangerous resolve has never been a more accurate descriptor.
“Yeah, well, I decided I didn’t actually want to break up with you.” He chugs another fourth of the glass down. “I figured a make-up gift would do us good.”
“This is not a gift, Jin. This is idiocy!”
He flinches like I punched him in the gut. “Sorry. Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, you looked so interested in EDPA, and I figured the sooner you found out everything you wanted to know, the sooner things could get back to, well, normal.”
I nearly lost my life in a dream, Jin. Things will never return to normal. “Jin, how many times do I have to tell you I don’t want you risking your wellbeing for me?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because.”
“Because?” The rest of his brew disappears down his throat. “Because you don’t think you’re worth it?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“It’s always about you.”
“Jin—”
A scream tears through the lounge door. Jin starts, knocking his glass off the table. It shatters when it hits the floor, but he doesn’t see it happen (and can’t bring himself to care). He swipes his Ocom from the table and holds it closer to his face, trying to will himself through the screen to my side of the situation. “What the fuck was that?”
I don’t know, and I don’t want to. “Um…”
The lounge door swings open, and a blood-splattered Dynara saunters into the hallway wearing the smile of a serial killer. “Well, that was every bit as easy as I expected.” Her red-painted head drops to find me propped against the wall. “Oh, I didn’t realize you weren’t finished.”
A look of betrayal mars Jin’s face for the three seconds it takes his shaking thumb to find the end call command, leaving me to stare at the happy party smile I’ll be lucky to see him wear in real life again. “I think you may have just ended my friendship.”
“It’s not my fault he’s so clingy.”
“He’s not clingy.”
“Are we talking about the same guy?”
“Oh, forget it.”
“Fine with me. I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but I need help dumping this guy.” Her thumb points toward a slumped-over shooter who’s decorated with dislocated joints and gaping lacerations. “I’m thinking we’ll drop him off in an alley next to that police station a few streets down. Someone will report him. Then they’ll ID him and realize he’s a wanted criminal. Vigilante justice at its finest, no?”
“What the hell did you do to him?”
“Extracted the remaining necessary information.”
I follow the drip, drip, drip of a steady stream of nose blood onto the carpeted lounge floor, but where each drop lands is a mystery—the floor is already a saturated red. Dynara is the same hue. High-class clothing is apparently crafted to absorb the blood of one’s enemies. So who better to be wealthy enough to afford designer wear than a psychotic, dream-hunting businesswoman?
“Dynara,” I say, “you managed to fool me yesterday. Which means you’re smart enough to gather details from this guy without beating the shit out of him.”
“And?”
“And? So why did you do this to him? For fun?”
“No, to take up time. I just figured I’d give you some privacy by going about the interrogation the slow and painful way.”
“You’re crazy. You’re terrifying.”
“Well, one, all geniuses are crazy.” She taps her boot, impatient, to the rhythm of an unnamed song. “And two, you’re not scared of anything, remember, Agent Adamend?” She twists an escaped red lock around her index finger, lips pursed in deliberation. “If you’re still searching for an insult, though, you can go with criminally insane.”
“You’re criminally insane.”
“You’re not the first to claim that. I doubt you’ll be the last.”
“You tortured a man with no remorse whatsoever.”
“I reserve regret for those deserving of it. Petty hit men are pretty close to the bottom of my naughty list.”
“You were an assassin.”
“I never confirmed that. But even if I was at some brief moment in the distant past, my point still stands. I don’t regret the things I do because I do exactly what I mean to.” She offers me an olive branch hand, somehow summoning enough decency to strip the stained glove off first. My right hand starts to respond, but it stops short when I remember it’s still holding the Ocom plastered with Jin’s smiling face. I lock the screen, banishing the perpetual grin, and shove the damned tablet into my coat pocket. Dynara’s offer then receives a firm snub as I help myself up with the aid of the cold Valkyrie wall.
With a huff, she side-steps into the lounge again and surveys the best angle at which to carry the deadweight assassin out of the room, down the stairs, and along a street where anyone is liable to see us. “Once we drop him off, let’s round back and pick up Paolo’s body.”
I’m a second from asking who the fuck is Paolo when I realize it must be her now deceased assassin friend. “What’ll we do with him?”
“I’l
l call in a trusted associate of mine to take him down to the EDPA morgue. Label him a John Doe for the time being. Don’t want any fanfare. Might catch the attention of the Manson killer or his buddy.” Nimble fingers release the shooter from his bindings, and she props him up with a palm to prevent him from tumbling into a pool of his own blood.
“Did he tell you who his employer is?”
“He told me everything he knows, which isn’t much. He’s a cheap for-hire gun. An anonymous someone called him from a restricted profile earlier today, transferred a considerable sum of money to his bank account, left the gun in a park trashcan for him, and ordered him to wait across the street until you got here. He was supposed to make the kill shot whenever a convenient moment arose and then book it from the scene, after which he would receive another considerable payment.” She sighs. “Basically, he’s useless. There’s no point in keeping him for further questioning, and he isn’t going to admit this to anybody, so he’s not a threat. The regular authorities will give him his due.” She rounds the chair and loops her arms underneath the would-be killer’s, hauling him up with a strength that would be exceptional for any other woman her size. “Can you get his legs?”
“Are…are you serious? You want me to carry a tortured assassin down the street with you? This is a club sector. There are hundreds of people outside this time of night.”
“Have some faith in me, will you?” She lets the killer come to rest in the chair again, taking a breather before the long haul. “I know you’re not acclimated to danger, Adem, but—”
“Who says I’m not acclimated to danger?”
“If you were, you’d be in the field searching for the murderer you think killed your mother, not sitting at a computer searching databases all day. If you were, you’d spend more time getting shot at and less time deciphering why other people get shot at. This is not your natural playing field, whereas it is mine. Which is why you’re currently on the fence about me. You find my apparent acceptance of violence revolting. I’ll let you in on a secret though: there is not a single decent person who revels in committing violent acts. Everyone who does so to save lives sees a monster when they look in the mirror. Everyone who does so to take lives sees a victor.”
“So you think you’re a monster?”
A deep-set smile of spiritual exhaustion sinks into her face. “I am a monster. In every respect. Stick around long enough and you’ll find out why.”
“Dy—”
The ungloved hand jerks up, silencing me, and her eyes rise as if she’s trying to peer straight through the ceiling. She’s not though. She’s listening through it. Listening to the sounds of an approaching pair of hovercopters as they form a tight buzzard circle over the dead Valkyrie.
“We know you’re in there,” goes the cliché. “Come out, unarmed, with your hands behind your heads, or deadly force will be used.”
Chapter Nine
An overbearing spotlight illuminates the window on the far side of the room. Scripted warnings repeat over and over with each copter revolution around the abandoned club. Slamming car doors and faux authoritative shouts from six stories below us filter in through the mauve lounge walls. Our supposed victim snorts out a glob of blood with unconscious carelessness. Dynara shoves him off the chair, and he smacks the sullied carpet face first.
“What do we do with him?” I say.
“Leave him.”
“Where do we go?”
“Away from here.”
“How? I’m guessing the rooftop isn’t a viable method of escape this time around.”
“Who needs an escape route?” Her hand seizes my arm as she rockets out of the room, and my feet miss four stumbling steps before they catch up with her. We sprint down the hallway, kick a stairwell door out of our path, and descend six stories in a minute and a half. The moment we emerge into a service hallway near another alleyway exit, a SWAT team’s explosive entrance rocks the entire building. They always march in from three strategic points, one group from a side entrance, one through the front door, and one from either the roof or a top-floor window. Standard IBI protocol.
The alleyway door blows inward, crumpling into a mass of warped metal as it strikes the hard tile floor. Dynara releases me and yanks out her VERA-loaded gun, waiting until five agents in head-to-toe black barrel inside. A single bullet takes them all out in a burst of vibrant azure, and her steel grip reasserts itself around my wrist. “Stay behind me,” she says, taking off for a second flight.
Dank alley air floods my lungs, and my eyes are rendered blind by the flashlights attached to several high-powered SWAT rifles. “Stop right there,” a woman orders. Dynara ignores her on principle, shoving me behind a dumpster positioned against the wall of the neighboring building, and in the spare second before a bloody shootout begins, nausea crawls up my esophagus at the thought of Paolo’s shot-dead body resting atop a pile of trash inside it.
Automatic gunfire deafens me. Bullets ricochet off the concrete and bury themselves in the Valkyrie wall, the dumpster siding, and the weedy patch growing through the paved ground a few inches from my feet. I curl in on myself, arms wrapped around my head like they’ll do more than aggravate a round aimed at my face. Someone cries out—it isn’t Dynara—and a heavy body thuds against the damaged dumpster. His arm flops into view, unmoving.
The gunfire ceases.
I dare to unfurl and peek around the corner of my unsanitary shield at the perfect moment to watch Dynara slip the helmet off a SWAT agent in one deft move and beat his head repeatedly against the damaged stone siding of the dead Valkyrie. His seven-foot figure collapses into an unconscious heap. Four other agents dot the alley landscape: the woman who ordered our surrender is drooling blood in her forced sleep, one man is propped against the wall upside down, his feet resting near his head, and two others are on their backs, staring up at the night sky through their helmets.
“Hey, let’s get moving.” Dynara snaps twice for emphasis.
“How did you…?”
“Questions later. Running now.” She hooks two fingers through a buttonhole in my coat and tugs me along behind her. We wind through a maze of alleys that border the various themed clubs in the sector. Some are bustling, others quiet, and we fly by people making drug deals and having dirty sex next to dirty places. Five streets down from Club Valkyrie, Dynara slows to a crawl and frees me.
I hunch over and gulp in air to ease the fire in my chest. “We’re not far enough away. We need to keep going.”
“We need to, but you can’t.”
“A minute is all I need.”
“Right. Remember what I said about your physical performance? How on Earth did you pass your fitness assessment at the IBI Academy?” She paces in circles, her excitement-fuelled fingers prancing against her hips in a pattern I recognize after two repetitions as the first thirty digits of pi.
“Director Brennian helped. A little bit.” The admission burns my air-chilled cheeks. (Four times now. Fuck it all.)
She groans. “Remind me to punch that guy in the face next time I see him.”
“You’ve met him?”
“Unfortunately. Now hurry up. I’d rather not get caught.”
“We’re going to get caught anyway. The forensics team will find our DNA in seconds. It’ll be all over the lounge.”
She smacks the back of my skull, and a wicked headache bursts into anti-glorious being. “It doesn’t matter if we get caught later. I’ll have written permission for this later. But if you get caught now, you’re screwed. I can’t claim your involvement falls under EDPA’s jurisdiction without pre-approval because you don’t officially work for us yet.”
“And at this rate, I’ll never work for you. Every time we come into contact, I almost get killed.”
“And every time, it’s your fault. The bad guys are after you, in case you haven’t noticed.”
The dragon dream is drudged up from my memory, spikes slicing me open like a stubborn plastic package while all Dynara gets f
or her trouble is a few nasty elbow scrapes. Right along side it is the reverberation of the assassin’s bullet, meant to silence itself in my back, not hers. “I noticed. But it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. You’re the one gunning for the echo maker. You’re the one who works for the organization that hunts dreams. I’m the hapless idiot who got wrapped up in something way over my head.”
“But in our murderer’s mind, it seems, I am not the threat. You are.”
Energy zapped, I rest my throbbing head against the ground, eyes fixed on a murky puddle reflection of the light-polluted stars. Somewhere in the not-far distance, the two hovercopters buzz and bitch as they search for a target to trap in the criminal limelight. Somewhere in the recesses of the dead Valkyrie, a SWAT team pampers a would-be killer, unaware their “rescue” will earn them ridicule in a few days’ time. Somewhere in his posh residential neighborhood, Briggs is muttering swears while he types irritated commands on his Ocom. He’s a SWAT veteran; naturally, he hates SWAT operations.
“That says a lot about who the murderer is,” I murmur. “And who his accomplice is. They know more about me than they know about you, though the accomplice doesn’t know my name, which means he or she has limited access to information. The accomplice isn’t as experienced as the murderer either. To call such a poor assassin was a mistake, one the meticulous murderer never would have made.”
“So they’re not actively collaborating. If they were, the murderer never would have let this mess happen.”
“We got lucky.”
“Correction,” she says, “you got lucky. And if you want to stay lucky, then we need to get the hell out of here.” She lifts me back into a standing position and coaxes my trembling legs to prep for another marathon through the shadows. We start off slow this lap, Dynara marking a pace even my pathetic physique can keep up with. I’m a mere four steps behind her when she turns the corner of the alley and emerges onto the sidewalk. She’s out of my sight for two-tenths of a second.
That’s all it takes for a bullet to rip through my back.
It shatters my shoulder blade and tears an exit open through my chest, finding a final resting place in the brick wall of a jewelry store across the street. My knees hit the ground first, my forehead second—the mind-numbing pain follows in its wake. A scream is a gurgle. A cry is a gasp. A thought is a transient puff of smoke scattered in the wind. For an eternity in seconds, I’m paralyzed from the neck down, but then a wave of adrenaline surges through my veins, compelling me to get the fuck up and run, stupid before the shooter shows up to finish the task.