The Miranda Contract

by Ben Langdon

  He breathed in as the girl sucked at her cup, and he felt for the little electrical pulses around the room: the wiring in the walls, the appliances connected to the larger grid, even the wireless internet system that usually provided a constant hum inside his head. But everything was quiet. The system was down. And he had a thumping headache.

  “You went off,” the girl said, sounding more amused than anything. “Had to get coffee from across the highway.”

  Dan looked for his clothes. His black t-shirt was bunched at his wrist, twisted off as much as the briefcase would allow.

  “Was a crazy night,” she said. He caught a glimpse of elfin eyes, sparkling under short tussled hair. “You’re a keeper, sparky. In case you were concerned.”

  She kept smiling at him from behind the cup, long tanned legs crossed, but Dan ignored her and pushed his senses further, spreading his awareness beyond the hotel room and its disabled systems. He could sense the electricity flowing in the wider world, but his room, and several others either side of him, had been fried.

  “Clothes?” he asked for the second time, pulling the shirt over his head, but she stood up and walked into the small bathroom. She was ignoring him, returning the favor, so to speak. He found the rest of his clothes near the door, kicked to one side. The night before was coming back to him, although details were still swimming in the dull thud of a hangover. He was supposed to be body guarding Miranda Brody, or probably just the briefcase. He remembered the briefcase was important. He grabbed his watch and knew he was going to be late. It wasn’t a surprise.

  The girl closed the door between them, which he decided was a fair enough version of goodbye, so he hustled his clothes, slipped them on, and left, leaving the door slightly ajar.

  He couldn’t find his bike in the hotel’s car park and still had trouble getting clear details from the night before. The sense of urgency was building though, and he redialed Alsana Owens for the third time as he waited for a taxi. Her phone was engaged one moment, then rang out the next. Normally he would have traced the phone through the network, but something had happened in the hotel room and his electrical senses were all over the place. He could pick up the local grid with clarity, but the further he pushed it, the cloudier things got. And the more his head hurt.

  He checked the time again just as the taxi arrived. He’d only just make it to the airport in time, and hopefully the man they called Sully wouldn’t be there. Dan couldn’t imagine being cool enough to weather that stare again, especially considering how seedy he already felt.

  Thirty minutes later he’d navigated his way to the Melbourne International Airport. As he strode through the airport, he cast his mind back to the previous night, when he partied hard and perhaps had a few too many of everything, although he still didn’t remember the girl from the hotel. Even now, as he shouldered his way up the escalator, he couldn’t quite reconstruct her face in his mind. She’d been mostly blonde, he figured; perhaps in her early twenties, with green almond-shaped eyes, a tinkling laugh. He shook his head, trying to clear it. She was older than him and she knew what she was doing. Dan figured he knew it too, although he would have liked to have more details. The night itself was a complete write-off, except for the dream which nagged at him even there in the airport.

  He knew from experience that his dreams had the potential to set him off, that even while asleep he could effortlessly wipe out electrical systems and sometimes even start fires. The morning’s blackout was nothing compared to the damage he’d wrought as a teenager in the early days when he was just getting to know himself and his powers.

  Powers.

  He laughed as he looked up at the information board all lit up in orange. The numbers of the planes flitted around and a crowd followed its progress like the faithful on Sunday morning, always looking for guidance, always ready for disappointment. A fluttering groan spread through the group as a flight to Brisbane was delayed by thirty minutes. Dan was tempted to play havoc with the board, to plug another 10,000 volts into the system. He smiled but didn’t stop to see how far he’d be willing to go. He was late, and it wasn’t the first time.

  Stepping off the last escalator he looked up and down the concourse, his briefcase secured to his wrist with its almost-discreet steel chain. The bloody thing wouldn’t stop rattling, even when he’d looped it around his wrist twice. The airport was crowded with red-faced locals desperate to flee north for the winter. They shuffled along the travelator walkways in herds of four or five, mostly adults with their offspring; or huffed their way past him in his t-shirt and jeans, occasionally bumping into him as he stood and waited. None of them wore smiles, he realized, and they were beginning to irritate him. It was the smell of tourists which was most annoying, of course: the mixture of sweat and fickle dreams for a better, indistinct life which was always ‘somewhere else’. Dan knew he was a bit cynical but it wasn’t really his fault.

  He remembered his grandfather was back and suppressed a groan. The problems in his life seemed to be lining up in a neat row.

  He sniffed and twisted his head to take in the entire space. There were no signs of obvious fan hysteria and no clogged crowds of teenagers anywhere. No film crew. He was standing in the right place, at the end of the concourse with the dozen or so arrival lounges spreading ahead of him, and the flight from Cairns was just sitting out there on the tarmac, solid and unmoving. He wasn’t that late, surely. The announcer seemed bored, and with a quick, yet somewhat redundant, look at his watch he realized that Miranda Brody was not on the flight. Inside his head, Dan calculated the penalties he would accrue from Alsana and it wouldn’t matter that it wasn’t his fault. It never did.

  Dan flipped open his phone and dialed Miranda’s tour manager, Todd Christie, watching the Cairns flight flick away out of existence on the board above his head. The phone line was engaged and with only a slight knitting of his brow, Dan flipped the phone closed and looked down at the briefcase.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me for a while,” he said, and gave his wrist a little jangle. Then he turned away from the lounges and walked to the escalator again, stepping back on and enjoying the ride down. A day without celebrity sounded good. He thought he could smell coffee, but the bright sign of a franchise diminished his hopes. They may have the scents right, but it was all just hype. Still, he figured, given the circumstances and the fact that he was at least half an hour away from the center of Melbourne, the expensive cup of beans and water would have to be his companion – at least until he was dragged back into Miranda’s world. The celebrity’s van and driver were waiting out the front of the airport, a reminder of his duties that Dan was happy to put off for a few more minutes.

  A screech of tyres from the elevated car park drew most people’s attention, and there were murmurs of interest from tourists and homecomers alike. It was just another annoying distraction to Dan though, and he pushed his way past a woman with a stroller, heading towards Miranda Brody’s empty van, the driver looking bored behind his shades. At least the van was still there, Dan thought. He didn’t have to get another taxi.

  His foot got caught on the woman’s stroller wheel and he yanked it free, annoyed. He didn’t mean to be rough with the woman, but she was gawking towards the car park and talking in a careening way that immediately declared the end of the civilized world. He was sick of people like that, so he reclaimed his foot and then guided her a little out of his way, a little shove. She swiveled her elbows around and caught him in the ribs. Then she let loose on him, slandering his mother, criticizing his hair, insulting his manhood. Her eyes were wild, her mouth a fidgeting thing that concealed crooked little teeth. For a moment he just stared at her in disbelief, but then he pushed forward again.

  “Shut – up,” he said in two distinct sounds, and stepped through the throng of her family, almost feeling sorry for them to be stuck with such a monster. “I don’t have time for it.”

  The screech continued out in the car park, an idiot turning donuts and shredd
ing his tyres. Dan pulled out his phone again and tried to contact Alsana. With the superstar missing, he really didn’t want her to find out from someone else, and he needed to head off any criticism that might be coming his way. He winced at the engaged signal.

  The first gunshot went unnoticed.

  Most of the people on the side of the taxi and bus ranks were still entertained by the hoon driver, but when the second and third shots rang out some of them began to switch their priorities. A scream pierced the air, a young kid’s scream, and it seemed to grow from one person to the next, quickly blurring into a rush of people moving away from where Dan stood.

  Being a little preoccupied, Dan didn’t immediately notice the change in pack behavior, but the fourth shot connected with the bus shelter right behind him, shattering the glass and his reverie.

  He dropped down, his hands flat on the concrete, ready to bolt. The phone had gone, forgotten already. In front of him the black van that was supposed to transport Miranda had bullet holes in it. They must have passed right through from the driver’s side. Dan half-leapt towards the van and crouched down again, pressing his body to the ground so that he could look underneath. Beside him, a man in a courier’s uniform sheltered with his hands covering his head, holding it as if it was about to explode.

  Looking under the van, Dan saw the road and a pathway leading into one of the big hotels which sat directly at the exit gates. He couldn’t see any shooter.

  A part of him began calculating the bullets’ trajectory. The one that nearly collected him came from the van. It must have shot right through both sides and then into the bus shelter. That meant the shooter was roughly at ground level.

  Another shot rang out.

  The man next to him started to sob and shake at the same time, breathing through his mouth, blubbering. Dan turned a little and sat up next to him. The man’s eyes were shut tight, his hands still clutching at his head.

  “Dude, it’s okay,” Dan said softly.

  The man shook his head violently.

  “Seriously, you’re not going to die.” Dan gave him a quick rub on the shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.” He smiled quickly and then shuffled past him to the other end of the van hoping to get a better look at the area. His senses automatically tightened on the surrounding electrical networks despite the growing pain in his head. He had to press his fingers to his temples to really get a good lock on the invisible world around him. He could trace the grid under the road, connecting the airport and the hotel and all the other facilities in the area.

  It was amazing what a little adrenalin could do.

  From the end of the van he could see the entrance to the hotel. A woman lay on the crossing, her body wrapped around a small child as she tried to move herself out of danger. There was a horrible dark patch on her shoulder and her arm was hanging unnaturally.

  The kid would have been about three, Dan thought. He could see its fingers digging into the mother’s useless arm, clinging to her and burying its head into her chest. A frail thing, in danger but unable to do anything except hide its face and wish it all away. Dan looked briefly back to the courier. The man was still shaking but his eyes were now open, giant black eyes, terrified.

  “Stay here,” Dan said. “Don’t lose it, okay?”

  As Dan lifted himself back to his feet, ready to slip around the edge and into danger, the courier squawked. It was such an unusual sound that Dan hesitated, a small smile playing on his lips.

  “What?”

  “Y-you can’t go out there,” the man said.

  Dan looked around the edge of the van. The woman had given up trying to move.

  “I think I can,” Dan said.

  “But… but you’re not bulletproof.”

  Dan wasn’t really sure that was true, but he gave the man a reassuring smile.

  “Neither’s she.”

  It was eerily quiet on the road. Dan walked into the open, his eyes scanning the revolving hotel doors and the designer shrubbery either side. He imagined he’d see a man in black, or a shadow, or something; but all he saw was the woman and her child.

  There were vague emergency sounds coming from somewhere but Dan’s normal senses were distant now, replaced with the awareness of the electrical world. The buses and taxis lining the streets were an assortment of alarms and automatic transmissions, MP3s and GPS. He pressed the sense down, laying it flat so that he could focus on the woman.

  He took another step, and then two more, gaining confidence.

  Dan never saw the shooter. The bullet hit him high and he found himself flung backward, his whole body lifting off the ground for a moment. When he collided with the road he was looking upward, at the grey sky.

  The clouds skittered across like the world was stuck on fast-forward.

  He hadn’t realized the winds had picked up.

  And his body seemed to be on fire. All at once.

  Another shot rang out. Something to his left exploded into strange grey dust.

  The woman. She was still there. Just out of reach.

  Dan rolled over and planted his face into the hard road, his nose pressing against the asphalt. He knew he had to move.

  His hands pushed himself up and he lifted his body. Sparks of lightning flickered across his vision and he could feel it coursing through his veins, hot and angry. He’d been itching to release the stored charge, even tempted to play havoc with the departures board, but now the energy was invigorating him, allowing him to move even though any other person who had been shot would have stayed crumpled and prone on the road.

  As he rolled into a crouch, Dan looked to the hotel doors again. With the adrenalin pumping and the electricity so close to the surface, he managed to catch glimpses of the security cameras’ vision. Sketchy black and white images were lifted from the hotel’s surveillance devices and replayed inside Dan’s head.

  A figure stood inside the empty lobby, the lights dimmed so that it couldn’t be easily seen from outside.

  But it was enough.

  Dan focused the power inside him. The flickering images danced in his mind and as the figure lifted its arm, Dan fed the electrical beast that was hiding inside the hotel. He fed it a banquet.

  The lobby’s lights flared beyond their natural capacity. The doors stopped revolving, distorting the shooter’s view. The bank of computers along the reception desk exploded and the lobby was showered in sparks and shards of glass and silicon. In the chaos, Dan sensed an unusual energy, powerful but not connected to the hotel’s systems.

  He shuffled across to the woman, still keeping low. Mysteries could wait.

  She looked up at him, her face smudged with tears and gravel. The kid seemed to be asleep, not moving; breathing but in shock. He tried to smile at her, but it wasn’t done yet. He looked to the lobby and knew he could talk with her, console her, later. If he wasn’t dead.

  When he crossed onto the red carpet outside the hotel, Dan blasted the revolving doors, cutting loose with his stored energy. They flew backward so well that Dan grinned, enjoying himself even though he had already been shot once and probably had a few more bullets to take that morning. He crossed the threshold and the lights dimmed again allowing him to draw back the remaining electricity. Wisps of blue and white snaked out from the walls and the floor, merging with his body, charging his unique cells.

  The shooter stood in the center of the empty room, a pistol clearly visible, held out to the side. It was a man. Dark, shoulder-length hair, expensive but damaged sunglasses and a coat, burnt at the edges.

  Dan wasn’t much better. He was bleeding and a bit ripped. He noticed the growing red patch on his t-shirt. It was the one he’d bought at the Gyroscope concert, one of his favorites. Dan sensed something else, a distraction. His eyes darted to the side, dismissing the shooter for a second as he honed in on the strange energy. It seemed familiar, like a pattern, but it was obscured, somewhere behind him near the entrance.

  The shooter cocked the pistol. Dan turned back and
watched as he raised the gun.

  And shot himself.

  In the middle of the lobby.

  Dead.

  Dan stumbled backward, stunned, his eyes dancing with lights and disbelief. Behind him the sirens came into sharper focus, but they were still too far away. The shooter fell to the carpet.

  The pattern suddenly began to unfold itself. Dan’s eyes stayed on the dead man, but his mind was thrust back to another time and place. His grandfather’s face loomed in his mind, the Mad Russian and his veiled tutorials on explosives and terror.

  Dan recognized the pattern clearly then. It was there in the deceptive signal, the muted pulse, the engineered madness.

  But it was too late. Again.

  And the hidden cache of explosives detonated.

  Chapter 13

  Miranda

  She had seen the effects of explosions on the television news, but seeing the collapsed hotel right in her personal space made Miranda hesitate. She stood in front of Sully, the sun somewhere behind him, hidden from her by his enormous frame.

  She had been furious.

  She had been storming over to find the pizza boy freak and demand to know why people were trying to kill her, why snipers had taken shots – real shots – at her car.

  But now she just stood there, her trainers mere inches from the rubble. Her people managed to get her close enough but now she didn’t know what to do. An entire building lay demolished in front of her, like children’s blocks smashed to dust and jagged remnants.

  While Miranda didn’t know what to do, Sully did. His hand was on her shoulder, he’d had it there for a long time – probably since they’d been attacked in the car. A bomb blast on the side of the road followed by a hail of something metal which skittered off the windows and bodywork of their car. Bullets. Lots of them, from both sides of the road.

  It all seemed so intense and lethal at the time, but looking at the hotel site shunted her own experience into perspective. And the pizza boy was under there.