by JA Huss
Contents
ANARCHY MISSING
DESCRIPTION
CHAPTER ONE - CASE
CHAPTER TWO - CASE
CHAPTER THREE - LULU
CHAPTER FOUR - LULU
CHAPTER FIVE - CASE
CHAPTER SIX - LULU
CHAPTER SEVEN - CASE
CHAPTER EIGHT - LULU
CHAPTER NINE - CASE
She Needs to Go
CHAPTER TEN - LULU
CHAPTER ELEVEN - CASE
CHAPTER TWELVE - CASE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - LULU
One Gloved Hand
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - CASE
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - LULU
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - CASE
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - LULU
Holding Tight
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - CASE
CHAPTER NINETEEN - LULU
CHAPTER TWENTY - CASE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - LULU
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - CASE
Starting Over
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - LULU
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - CASE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - LULU
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - CASE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - LULU
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - CASE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - LULU
CHAPTER THIRTY - CASE
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - LULU
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - CASE
Her...
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - LULU
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - CASE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - LULU
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - CASE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - LULU
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - CASE
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - LULU
CHAPTER FORTY – CASE
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE – LULU
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO – CASE
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE – LULU
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR – CASE
EPILOGUE - CASE
Belongs to Us
END OF BOOK SHIT
About the Author
Edited by RJ Locksley
Cover Hand Drawn by: Ambro Jordi
Cover Design by J. A. Huss
Copyright © 2017 by JA Huss
All rights reserved.
ISBN-978-1-944475-18-5
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
DESCRIPTION
That’s what Assistant DA, Lulu Lightly, tells me. “Cathedral City needs you to set things right,” she says. “To rid this place of corruption, once and for all.”
I’d like to rid Lulu Lightly of her clothes. And maybe her moral superiority. But mostly her clothes.
“I want you to fight the good fight with me,” she says.
Hell, yeah. I’m always up for a fight.
“We should stand up and be the voice of the people,” she says.
Sure, I hear voices. Sometimes I even listen to them.
“Figure out what’s good for the City and put it first,” she says.
Oh, honey… what’s good for the City is bad for the people. Trust me, I know. I’m Case Reider—insane Alpha, nefarious inventor, and I understand this town better than anyone.
Cathedral City needs me all right. Just not the way you think.
I’m not the justice you’re looking for, Lulu Lightly.
I’m still the same villain you left behind.
Only now… there’s something very, very wrong with me.
CHAPTER ONE - CASE
Something is wrong with me.
Heat consumes my body. Snow melts under my feet, pooling into a puddle of water until small tendrils of steam swirl their way up my bare legs, surrounding me in a mist that disappears somewhere around my torso.
The city is calling.
The blue-black clouds hanging low in the sky are crowning the mountains, proclaiming them kings and queens. And the new cathedrals peeking up from the tall buildings in the distance, which Thomas started building last spring, and which mark the four points of the compass on each side of the city, stretch up like they are reaching for those clouds.
A sharp pain shoots through my head and I have to close my eyes, shut the world out, and take a moment.
I take a lot of moments these days.
And still… there is the heat.
I am fire. I am burning up. I will combust, I know it. I will explode into nothing but fire and agony if I don’t do it.
Don’t do it.
But the knife is there. In my hand, poised above my skin. It carves the anarchy symbol into the hard, muscular flesh of my upper left arm with less precision than it did last time. It will produce jagged edges of skin, deep red cuts, and… relief.
Each time I get a little less careful. But it doesn’t matter. Because each time the skin heals over and hides my moment of weakness.
The blood drips down my arm, hot. So hot it burns my skin red. Leaves a streak. But it too will be gone before anyone knows.
No one will know.
The heat escapes in the form of red light and steam. And now I’m wrapped up in the mist from head to toe.
A chill runs through my body and it feels so good.
The city is calling.
There is a voice in my head. Clear. Concise. Commanding.
The city is calling me.
And so I answer.
CHAPTER TWO - CASE
“Are you listening?”
I’m not, not really. Thomas and Linc are pacing as I stare out the window. Lincoln is pissed off about some hack job with the banks. Thomas is trying his best to be indifferent to Linc’s anger—an angry Lincoln is a lot more dangerous than it used to be now that he’s changed—and I’m trying my best to listen to the two conversations going on outside my head as well as the one going on inside.
The city is talking to me.
But it’s like… it’s like I don’t understand the language. Not completely. It’s like Spanish. Something I learned but forgot. I recognize some of it. Like when you can pick out the word for shoes, or pants, or the color blue because those are the only sounds you remember.
“Case,” Thomas says sharply. He’s standing right behind me. His heat bothers me and I want—very desperately—to turn around and push him back. Make him step away so the coolness I carved into my arm this morning will last a little longer.
“What?” I snap back instead.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I turn to face him, letting my conversation with Cathedral City fall away into nothing but indistinguishable murmurs. “I’m thinking, dammit.”
“Well, you better be coming up with an idea,” Lincoln says. “Because shit just got real.”
A heavy sigh escapes my mouth before I can stop it. I don’t even know what they were talking about. I give the city one last glance over my shoulder and then leave it behind. Those conversations belong to the night. Or the early dawn, like this morning. Something to hide, for sure. “Tell me again what happened? I’m not following.” I say it calmly. Almost indifferent.
Lincoln tilts his head at me. Almost confusion. Or like he’s considering something. Wondering what my problem is, maybe.
Who cares?
The problem is, Lincoln, the city is talking to me and I can’t understand what it’s saying.
“The problem is that every bank in the city was hacked this morning, Case.” Thomas isn’t as curious about my behavior. It’s hard to make him care about much these days.
I just stare at him, wonderi
ng how a bank hack fits into my life.
“My program,” Lincoln says, raising his voice. “They hacked my fucking program.”
“Oh,” I say, understanding now.
“Oh?” Linc snarls as he walks up to me. “Oh? That’s all you have to say is, ‘Oh?’”
“What do you want me to say?” I ask, pushing past him, making sure I bump his shoulder so he knows I don’t want to be fucked with at the moment. And then I take a seat on the couch. I can still see the city from the couch. It’s a gray day. Blue, almost. The clouds above the mountains that ring the city are threatening more snow, but the temperature is mild at the moment, so it will come down as rain instead.
“I want you to say your end is fine, Case,” Lincoln growls. “You know, the same way Thomas just said his end is fine. That we’re on track, this is a coincidence, and I shouldn’t worry too much about the fact that someone just hacked into my motherfucking program!”
He yells that last part pretty loud. And when I look up at him, there are veins sticking out from his neck.
“Lincoln,” Sheila says from off to my left. “Calm down before you explode.” She’s inside SkyEye systems right now. Came with Linc on the helicopter.
I’m the one who will explode if I don’t figure out what the goddamned city is saying.
“Sheila,” Linc says, “we need to know where this hack came from. We need to know the full consequences—”
“We know,” Sheila says, cutting him off. “They stole seventy-five million dollars.”
I glance over at Thomas. “Your money?” I ask him, suddenly a little more interested in the conversation.
Thomas laughs. “I don’t keep my fucking money in the bank. But I bet you lost some, dumbass that you are.”
I get out my phone and pull up my banking app, check the balances of all my accounts. “Nope,” I say, shoving the phone back into my suit coat. “Mine’s all still there.”
“It is?” Sheila asks. “Are you sure?”
I look at her holographic body being projected from sixteen small black boxes mounted near the ceiling throughout the SkyEye office. She’s so real here. Almost as real as when she’s down in Lincoln’s cave. “I’m sure.”
She and Lincoln exchange a look, which makes Thomas squint his eyes at me. “Why didn’t they take your money?” he asks.
I shrug. “How the fuck would I know? So what should we do about it?”
“Find the fucking hacker,” Lincoln says, completely out of patience with me. “What else?”
“And how do you propose we do that?” I ask back, trying to ignore the whispers of the city.
“That’s your job, Lincoln,” Thomas says. “You’re the goddamned distributor, Case. Figure out if we’re still on track.”
Lincoln doesn’t care for Thomas’s answer and he’s had enough. Because he takes long, quick steps over to the door, throws it open, and then walks out, letting it bang against the wall.
Thomas stares at the little round hole in the sheetrock from the doorknob, then tracks Lincoln as he disappears down a hallway.
“I’ll handle him,” Sheila says, flickering out.
Thomas takes a deep breath, straightens his suit coat, and then turns back to me. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re acting… weird. And it is kinda curious that you didn’t lose anything in this little hack.”
I laugh. “Are you accusing me of breaking into the banks and stealing that money?”
Thomas stares at me for a few seconds, like he’s trying to figure it out. But he gives up with a sigh, because he knows I’m just not capable. Even if I am acting weird, I don’t know how to hack anything, let alone a program written by Lincoln.
“I can put feelers out.”
Thomas gives me a slow nod. “Yeah, you better. We’re almost there, Case. We’re so close. We cannot afford to fuck things up now.”
“I don’t know how long it will take,” I say, standing up. The city has gone quiet and I’m beginning to feel better. “But I’ll do my best.”
I walk out the open door and make my way to the reception area of Thomas’s top-floor office at SkyEye. The receptionist, Jill, is on the phone, but she smiles, pausing her conversation, as I give her a nod and walk past, heading for the elevator.
When I get down to my car I feel… almost normal again. The sun has no hope of breaking through the thick clouds today, but it’s light out. It makes a difference. The city only talks at night and now that the day is getting started, it needs to rest.
ToyBox, my educational gaming company, is situated on the west side of Cathedral City. Right up against the mountains. You can see it from SkyEye, which is in the city center, across the town square from the main cathedral.
And even though I try my best to concentrate on my ultramodern silver chrome boxes, stacked into the foothills like… well, boxes… my eyes are drawn to the ruined spire of Blue Corp, up north.
We blew it up when we took out the Blue Boar last winter. It was a fantastic explosion of glass and steel. I saw it all from the helicopter as we made our escape, even though I was only semiconscious from the wounds I suffered.
That explosion is burned into my memory.
Thomas promised the city he’d rebuild it, restart it under new ownership—us—and things would go back to normal. But it was a lie. Thomas is a well-known liar. At least to me and Lincoln. The city… they see something else when they look at Thomas. A billionaire with all the answers.
Oh, he has all the answers, all right. But they are not the answers people are looking for. They are the answers we’re looking for. The three remaining Alphas from Prodigy School still have big plans for this world.
Anyway, no one is rebuilding Blue Corp. It’s been shut down and empty since we took it out. Thomas explained it away by pointing to the four compass-point towers he’s building.
And people are so stupid, right? What do they think he’s going to do with four compass-point towers on the edge of the city?
I mean, come on. The guy is a satellite phone mogul. They can’t figure it out? Because to me, it’s kinda simple.
He’s gonna take over. He’s gonna take over everything.
I shake my head as I navigate my car towards my giant silver boxes on the side of the mountain. Maybe people deserve to be ruled like subjects? Maybe they deserve the government they get? Maybe we are the good guys after all? Come to save them from their ignorance and complacency?
That makes me laugh.
We’re no such thing. Not even close. We are here for ourselves. For revenge. For restitution. Reparations, if you will. We will take, and take, and take… until—
My phone rings in my suit coat. I pull it out, check the number, and then tab accept as I wait at a red light. “Yeah,” I say.
“We got a lead,” Thomas says.
“Already?” I ask. “Shit, that was quick.”
“Sheila found a fingerprint in the code.”
“What’d it say?”
“We’ll talk tonight. Don’t put any feelers out just yet. We should lie low until we can come up with a plan. Everything goes as planned, Case. Understand?”
“Fine with me.”
“We need full distribution by spring.”
“We’re on track,” I say, annoyed that he feels the need to school me. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re acting weird. Sheila wants to see you for a check-up. Today.”
“I don’t need a check-up.”
“I think you do, brother.” Normally Thomas is as detached as they come. Indifferent, and cold. Colder than the technology he makes. Colder than the space those satellites of his live in. But right now, he sounds… concerned. “Something’s going on with you, I can tell. It would be a lot easier if you just told us what it was, but if you’re gonna keep secrets, we’ll drag it out of you.”
He pauses. Waiting to see if I have a response.
But I don’t. W
hat would I say? The city is talking to me? My body is heating up like fire and it only dissipates if I cut myself and let the heat out with my own blood?
Nope. Not even close to being there yet.
“I’m fine,” I finally say, filling the silence. Meaning it. I always feel fine during the day. It’s the night that gets to me. “Really. And I’ll go for the check-up. I don’t mind.”
They won’t find anything. I get monthly exams from Linc and Sheila’s army of robot minions down in the cave. Each time I go I wait for them to find something. Tell me what’s happening. And each time they pronounce me clean. One hundred percent fine.
“But I have meetings today. A shitload of meetings that take priority. So I’ll drop by later this afternoon.”
Thomas is still in his pause. Then he sighs. “Look, Case…” he says. “If something’s wrong—”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say. “I’d tell you.” Which is a lie. And I don’t even know why I lie, because I feel the words to be true. I’ve always liked Thomas. Maybe even more than Lincoln, though Linc and I are more like brothers. Thomas and I are more like friends.
“OK,” Thomas says. “OK. I’ll let them know to expect you for dinner. And Case?” he says, pausing for a second. “I’ll be there too.”
He ends the call before I can say anything about that last comment.
It means he’s worried about me. Which is kinda touching if I think about it. Thomas doesn’t worry about people other than himself most of the time.
My light turns green and I drive the rest of the way to ToyBox thinking about everything that’s happened since he came to town. How much things have changed. Lincoln and his new… enhancements. I guess that’s the only way to describe what we did to him after the Blue Boar shot him in the chest.
We changed him. He was the one who directed the change. Years and years of planning and preparation went into what we did to him that night. But still, he’s not really… human anymore, is he?
And then what they did to me the night we took Blue Corp down. A little injection of that jellyfish goop Lincoln created. That’s all it was. Just a little injection to promote healing.
I heal, all right. I heal so well that every time I take the knife to my skin, make the cuts that give me relief from the burning heat inside my body, it closes up within seconds.