Crow - The Awakening

by Michael J. Vanecek

  One of his agents came out of the second building with an evidence bag. "The casualty has been removed, sir. We were able to retrieve this blood, however." He handed the bag to Laurence. He held it up, looking at the vial of collected blood inside. This would hopefully confirm the nature of these people once and for all.

  "Any spatter trail or drag marks?" Laurence looked at the agent. He shook his head. Laurence had shot him in the head himself. It was a solid shot and the target definitely took a hit. He was aiming for Steven's arm to incapacitate him, an easy shot for Laurence. But the kid got in the way at the last minute. Laurence had never seen anyone move so fast. He felt like he had already pulled the trigger. But now the body was gone. "Anyone else on the roof?" Another negative. Laurence was stumped. It only took them a few moments to get up there.

  Laurence's phone buzzed and he looked at the text. He called the communications officer. "Tell the team we're live. Let's get the show on the road." Laurence reached in the car and grabbed his satellite scanner and waited for it to connect. GPS coordinates started to zero in on Steven's location and they got a good approximation of where he was. Team vehicles were already leaving the area to take up their designated positions as Laurence got in his car and headed toward the nearby shopping district. He was relieved that Steven was so close.

  Steven found a spot near the front of the theater and sat down and closed his eyes. He saw the kid die in front of him and he suddenly got dizzy as remembered that moment. He put his head on his knees. It all caught up with him at that moment and he felt distinctly nauseous. The blood was seared in his mind, as was the blank look in the kids eyes as he slumped down from the head wound. The kid died saving his life. Steven shook his head, completely lost as to why anyone would do that for him, especially when he was a stranger and of little value to anyone. Steven wiped his eyes and sat back up, looking around. He was thankful for the dark theater. He didn't even know what movie was showing and wasn't interested. He took a deep breath, shuddering as he fought to control his crying. The kid probably saved his life and had died right there in front of him. He was so full of life and so friendly to him and in a moment he was just gone.

  His bruises on his legs were throbbing and he felt them for any bleeding. All he found was some caked blood, sticky and almost fully congealed. No penetrations. Steven was thankful for that. In the height of the moment, he could have been shot and not even known it. He thought of Asherah. She or whatever she represented was also right. Was there something in his subconscious that knew this was a trap? Steven tried to riddle out any possible hints in his conversation with Laurence or the dinner that could have triggered those warnings, but came up with a blank. And yet she consistently warned him. Something in him knew the danger. But she was quiet now. He felt safe for the moment and looked around, wiping his eyes.

  "Hey, you okay?" A man had sat down to watch the movie and noticed Steven was distressed.

  "Huh?" Steven was startled to be addressed by a stranger. He looked around to see if anyone else noticed him. "Yeah, I'm fine," he lied. "Thanks." The guy nodded and turned back to watching the movie. Steven wondered if he should find another place to hide, but remember being instructed to find a place with a lot of people. Looking around, he noted that the theater was fairly packed. He wiped his eyes and looked up at the movie. It was actually still in the previews and advertisements. He remembered the girl. Who was she? He had seen her at the police station when she dropped her papers. It occurred to him that she also was the girl that walked by the restaurant. Maybe she recognized him? And she had helped hide him from his pursuers. Steven wished he could find her, to thank her. And perhaps get some answers. Namely, how she knew who he was.

  Another wave of panic washed over Steven as the death of the kid played itself out in his mind over and over again. He sat back in the seat, slumping down and tried to control his beating heart. The nausea had passed and now he was just scared. He sorely regretted agreeing to meet the man and started to get angry that he had been so easily fooled. Part of him must have known. Asherah expressed her distrust of him from the very beginning. Why didn't he listen to his intuition? He figured that worst case scenario he would be arrested and then released on lack of evidence. But these guys weren't interested in evidence. They just wanted him.

  Steven started thinking ahead. He was lost without his technology. He left his phone and flashdrive computers back at the apartment to ensure they didn't end up as evidence if he got arrested. Which basically meant he had nothing and no way to see if he was being followed. He needed to get back to his apartment, but was nervous about somehow being followed back there and didn’t want to go until he could get an idea of where these guys were. It was easy to divert them when they were following Brandon after all.

  Steven was shocked at how futile this day had been. He had hoped to get Brandon off the hook, and possibly actually get a technically oriented job with connections that could have gone a long way to helping him find his parents. But he was betrayed. That meant Brandon was still in danger and from the acts of these people, perhaps far worse than jail. The kid told him to go home, that Brandon was protected. But that didn't save him. He had to contact Brandon, to warn him. His instincts about Laurence were spot on.

  The thought of Brandon stirred up his fear even more. If they were after him, they may try to get Brandon too since Brandon knew him. They knew where he and his parents lived. His parents lived in a gated mansion but he didn't think a gate would be any challenge for these guys. He needed to be warned. Steven concentrated but couldn't recall the phone number off the top of his head. He frowned. He was excellent with remembering things and had a near photographic memory. How could a simple phone number have slipped by? But then he has been dealing with some extreme distractions. Steven shook his head. He was going to have to go there directly.

  As he was thinking about how to go about sneaking out and past the people who were looking at him he discerned that someone had walked into the theater. The presence felt familiar. A flashlight was shining around the seats and he could hear people complaining. Steven looked back and saw someone meticulously looking at each row. He saw what appeared to be a gun in his hand and was certain the person must have been hunting him. He slouched down in the seat and slid to the floor. As the man got closer, Steven realized why he felt familiar. It was Laurence.

  "Hey, are you having a problem?" The man sitting next to him sounded half annoyed.

  "There's a man that wants to hurt me. I need to get away." Steven didn't know what else to say as he started to crawl away

  The man looked up at the guy with the flashlight and noticed his gun. "Gun!" he yelled, standing up quickly. Steven crawled past his legs and into the aisle. He looked up the aisle and figured that other agents would be at the entrance to intercept him in case he tried to sneak out. He couldn't comprehend how they found him. While looking for a way out, he noticed the emergency exit at the front of the theater. Taking a nervous breath, he got his feet under him and sprinted toward it, crouching low and hoping to not be noticed. However he was, and the flashlight lit him up and followed his run.

  "Put the gun down or I will shoot you!" The man that Steven was sitting next to yelled. Steven looked back and notice that the man had pulled out a pistol and was aiming it at the person with a flashlight. "Put it down, now!" The man with the pistol moved toward Laurence who put his weapon in what must have been a back holster. He kept walking toward the man with the pistol, however. The man stood directly between him and Steven and he looked around the man at Steven. Steven backed toward the emergency exit, watching what was going on, hoping against hope that Laurence would somehow be stopped. But Laurence's confidence showed. He wasn't afraid at all and he didn't slow down. "Put your hands on your head and get on your knees!" The man looked determined and sounded authoritative and Steven wondered if he was an off-duty police officer. Laurence didn't stop walking. "I will shoot!"

  Laurence continued to walk towards to the man wi
th the pistol and suddenly covered the last few yards in barely an instant. He grabbed the pistol and elbowed the man at the back of his jaw in one explosive, fluid movement, dropping the man to the floor as he disarmed him. With one hand he disassembled the pistol and let the pieces fall to the floor as he walked past the unconscious hero, not breaking step as he continued toward Steven. His target was right by the emergency exit and was now fleeing out the door. Laurence pulled out his own pistol again as he started running toward the emergency exit, expecting to find Steven in the custody of the agent he had placed outside the door.

  As he burst out, Laurence found himself in a short hallway that emptied into the main shopping area. He almost tripped over one of his agents who was out cold on the floor with blood coming out of his nose and a gash on his forehead. He looked back at the door and saw blood on the corner of it. Shaking his head, Laurence grabbed his scanner and tried to pick Steven up on it, but the iron content of the brick in the walls was interfering with it. Running to the main hall, he looked up and down, trying to locate Steven. The scanner picked him up weakly and he started running, "He's heading east toward the food court," Laurence said, making sure the bluetooth earpiece he finally found was working. The replies he got back confirmed that it was.

  Steven walked fast, trying to stick to the crowds and doing his best to blend in. As he passed the food court he saw a hallway marked 'Employees Only' and ducked down it. There were no people in it at the moment but he had to get out of the building while avoiding the normal entrances. If the agent he accidentally slammed the emergency door into was any indicator, they would be watching all normal entrances. The hall had a couple of corners in it and several doors to various store rooms, equipment access and even roof access but finally it terminated in an exit. He opened the door tentatively, peeking out. There was a loading dock to his left and to his right was a large garbage dumpster. No one seemed to be there so he quietly ducked out the door and dropped down off the loading ramp and hid behind the dumpster. While he expected an agent in every shadow, the loading dock appeared deserted so after a moment he started up the ramp, crouching so he wouldn’t be noticed.

  Out in the parking lot he saw a bus a couple of stops away. Looking around to be sure he wasn't being followed, he ran between the cars, trying his best to get to the closest bus stop before the bus arrived. He approached a line of bushes and crouched behind them, looking around to see if he had been noticed. As the bus arrived, he jumped over the hedge and hopped onto the bus, and took a seat near the back, relieved that he had evaded his pursuers.

  Laurence stopped at the food court, turning around looking for any sign of Steven. The scanner was no longer picking him up. "He's dropped off the scanner. Converge on the food court and spread out," he said, startling people who where walking by. Laurence pulled out the satellite tracker to verify that he was still at the mall. "Wait, he's gone mobile outside the mall. Triangulate his position and get the drone in the air." It was time to apply some air power to this equation and their drone was state-of-the-art.

  Sirel stepped into Lohet's room. He was concentrating on the map, trying to make sense of the pins he had attached for their dream-tracking. Something wasn't right. It seemed too random to him, as if they were being led astray from their prey. Sirel sidled up to him, floating up and looking over his shoulder. "Sirel, I think Asherah is becoming a serious problem," he said, frowning.

  "Do you blame her?" Sirel played with Lohet's long white hair. He shook his head.

  Lohet looked around at her for a moment, thinking. "Perhaps I can take that into account and read the pins appropriately." He looked back at the board, seeing the misdirection in a new light and patterns jumped out at him.He grabbed another pin from the queue floating in front of him, and used it to trace the patterns he was seeing in his mind as he started forming new triangulation results.

  "Of course. But something is happening now." Sirel smiled, excited about the news she had for her commander and friend.

  "What?" Lohet said, only partly listening to her.

  "There is a lot of chatter on the radio indicating an active pursuit. Someone is being chased and they've brought in a lot of people and equipment to find him." Sirel grinned, winking at him. Suddenly she had his full attention.

  "Steven." Lohet released the pin and waved the map and pins away, then walked out with Sirel skipping behind him. He walked into the main area where Migalo was refreshing his shave and Penipe was studying the readings that Sirel had noticed. She moved blocks of data around as they seemed to float in front of her and set up triangulation of the signals, trying to locate where the highest concentration was.

  "There." She pointed. A shopping district, it appears. "It's not police either. Military grade communications. Took Sirel a few minutes to crack through their encryption." Penipe looked at Lohet.

  "We need to get involved now. If Steven was being chased, where would he go?" Lohet looked at them.

  "Not home," Penipe said, shaking her head. She figured he would try to avoid that option as long as possible in case he was tracked back. "He'll want to go somewhere where he feels like he has some power and the ability to hide."

  "A park or forest," Migalo said. They looked at him and he shrugged. "It's where we've had the greatest trouble chasing him." Steven was most at home and secure in the trees, and was nearly impossible to catch once in the trees, especially when the forest defended him.

  "But he's downtown. Where would he go?" Penipe looked back at the floating computer display, moving data around and examining a map of Seattle.

  "Grid the pursuit and identify all parks in that area," Lohet said to Penipe as he went to get his jacket. It was time to mobilize and exploit this opportunity.

  Penipe zoomed in on the map and searched for parks or nearby fingers of forest. "Here's a couple but they're insignificant."

  "It's a start." Lohet came back out.

  Migalo gave a toothy grin. "Finally. Some action!" He followed the other three outside. Sirel grinned, curtsying as they all gathered around her. She held out her hands for them to grasp and with a whoosh they were gone up into the air and towards the chase.

  Brandon sat in his room looking at his phone. He had completed his exams without any problems earlier that day. He had half expected federal agents to come bursting into the classroom to arrest him, but no such thing happened. He still decided to call in sick to the intern job. He was relieved to hear them express sympathy because he wasn't feeling good and look forward to seeing him later in the week. No alarms, no insisting he come in and explain himself. For all intents and purposes, it was as if his interrogation never happened.

  "Hey, sweetie. Are you feeling okay?" A lovely brunette with wavy hair tossed a crumpled up piece of paper at Brandon, bouncing it off his forehead. Brandon's girlfriend scooted the rolling desk chair over to the bed where he was sitting and leaned against the bed, playing with Brandon's short, cropped hair.

  "Yeah. I guess. I just hope Steven is okay." Brandon scratched his head. He couldn't call him without risk of being detected again. After last night, he was very reluctant to push things any further than he absolutely had to. "He said they couldn't find him, but these people are over the top." He fiddled with his phone, trying to make a decision. "He said they cloned my phone. I don't even know when they had a chance to do that."

  "Brandon, your friend is going to be just fine." She looked at him, bending over so that her face was in his line of sight. He tried to ignore her but she mirrored his pout with exaggeration. Brandon couldn't help but grin. If nothing else, she was good at making him feel better. "You worry too much!" she said, poking the tip of his nose and giving him a quick kiss.

  "Yeah, but, you weren't there. I've done some crazy stuff but this was really scary. Especially when they started following me." Brandon looked at her. How could he explain that to her? She had lived a fairly sheltered life after all.

  "It's always 'yeah, but.' Yeah, but where are they now? I think it was a
ll a useless ploy to entrap your friend." She mussed with his hair and pushed her chair back to the desk to continue her studies. "These people are always pulling stunts like that. That's why lawyers are needed."

  Brandon grunted. His parents wanted him to become a lawyer and had apparently recruited his girlfriend to keep the pressure on. But he found all of that so extremely tedious and boring beyond belief. He liked getting his hands on the work. Not on a stack of papers.

  She looked back at him, "If they really wanted you, don't you think they wouldn't have already come and taken you away?"

  Brandon looked up, very happy he had someone to talk to. Suddenly his girlfriend looked so hot, sitting there in her sweats while she studied. She turned and saw him staring at her and sighed, rolling her eyes. "Not tonight, honey. I spent all day out and about and I need to get this assignment done."

  Brandon pouted, but understood. School was very unforgiving to personal schedules and demanded priority. Laying back, he figured it was just as well. He hadn't slept much and really needed to turn in early.

  Steven sat on the bus trying to think about his next step. A gang of kids got on the bus, and sat at the back of the bus. Several other passengers got up and moved. Steven looked around at the kids and shrugged. They started joking among themselves loudly as Steven tried to get back to his thoughts. The distraction proved too much as he kept getting bumped while they pushed at each other and wrestled. One almost landed in his lap as he tried to duck. "Sorry, dude," he said to Steven as he sat back down, pushing back at the other guy. Steven smiled briefly then looked back down.