by Drew Avera
I felt a vibration in my jacket and retrieved the communicator from my breast pocket. The screen illuminated, but the hologram did not give any contact information. That was an unusual glitch but I answered the call anyway.
"Serus," I said into the communicator. The other line had a small amount of static interference. That was common in some areas due to the artificial electro-magnetic field that spiked from time to time. At night you could see the amplifiers reflecting light several thousand feet in the sky. They almost looked like blinking stars, but I barely noticed them now.
"Serus, it's White. I need to meet with you tonight. Where are you now?" He asked in a quiet voice. The static seemed to muffle some of his words, but I could make out most of what he was saying.
"I’m by the shore about two miles away from you," I said into the communicator.
"Excellent. I want you to meet me in the conference room on the second floor of the palace in an hour," White said. "Come alone and don't be late." He closed the connection after those words and the line went dead. I wasn't sure if something was wrong or not, but I tried not to let it worry me. I was still on a natural high after killing the man who had placed the hit on my father. The same man who had deeply impacted every negative thing in my adult life. It was a high that I was not soon to live down.
I began to walk to Pontiff White's palace in the square. I was keeping near the shoreline so that I could feel the wind blow through my hair. The buildings were dark along the street except for a few businesses that were still operating at this time of night. The street lights glowed in a pale light that had cast shadows at unusual angles along the walkway. I kept a steady pace until I was just outside the palace. I slowed down and tried to stay hidden in the shadows while I kept an eye out for any fellow policemen who may have been waiting for me. I saw one about seventy yards away standing in a well lit area. I scanned the area for a moment and soon found a way to enter the palace yard undetected and I went for it. I crept silently in the dark areas of the street before I ducked onto the walkway leading to the palace. The policeman had kept his back to me the entire time and did not hear me scurry into the building.
Upon entering the palace I noticed that the lights had been dimmed. There wasn't a huge difference in the lighting, but it was enough for me to notice. Part of my training with the Agency had given me a keen attention to detail, I could notice something minor that was out of place if it were necessary to do so for survival. The lighting situation though did not seem threatening to me. I entered the elevator and ascended to the second floor of the palace. The conference room was a short number of steps from the elevator on the other side of the hallway.
Pontiff White was waiting for me. He was sitting in a large leather chair situated at the head of a long wooden table. His computer was on and it projected an image of medical crews cleaning up the remains of Stern Harling. The reporter mentioned the fact that the hit had been carried out by a policeman. They did not give a list of suspects, but I could feel White's eyes follow me as I moved to my seat. I looked away from the image without regarding the report. I stopped and sat next to White as he was switching the volume down on his computer. He looked at me and crossed his arms over his chest.
"You asked to see me," I said as I leaned back into my chair, unmoved by his obvious discontent with me.
"Yes," he said. "I had some concerns when I sought to form an allegiance with you. I thought that maybe you would help me to bring down the Syndicate, but I didn't think that you would immediately strike out on some personal vendetta. Harling was not a key player in the Syndicate, so why did you kill him?" His voice was low but it carried an air of authority with it.
I exhaled before I spoke. "I believe that he was in fact a key player. I did what you wanted and I sought out a means to take the Syndicate down one by one. There is no personal vendetta other than to kill them all and hope for an opportunity to save my sisters life," I said.
"Tell me, Serus, what made him a key player?" He raised his voice and slammed his hand on the table. "He was nothing more than a rat in a cage. Just because he had something to do with the hit placed on your father does not make him a key player. We are talking about the Syndicate! Harling was just another pawn in the game. He didn't make any decisions that affected the world! He only made decisions that affected his own personal gain." He eyed me warily and he had a look like he was trying to read my mind.
"It wasn't like that," I said.
"Don't sit there and lie to me by saying it wasn't personal, Serus. You went out and you killed him just over an hour ago. Let me tell you that I drew the connection you had to him in less than three minutes!" His face had turned red and I felt that maybe his anger had more to do with self preservation than it did with my killing a minor member of the Syndicate. Maybe he was afraid of being found out. I closed my eyes and attempted to redirect my anger. Now wasn't the time to blow up at White. He may be right, maybe I did react in that way because of personal reasons. But Harling shared the blame in creating me, he brought this on himself.
"Look," I said. "Maybe it was unwise to go straight for Harling, but I'm not in a position to know where the pieces of the puzzle go. I'm just there to take out all the pieces."
White rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes. "I know, Serus, but we just don't have time to waste on killing pawns. I need you to target the leaders. I need you to find some way to bring them down. Maybe it's my fault for not coordinating things better so I will assemble a list of names and give them to you. It will be a pecking order. If we take out the people on the top of the list then it will give us an opportunity to take control of the Syndicate and shut it down from the inside."
I nodded at his plan. It sounded like it was a good one. It was systematic in the way we were going to approach it.
"Go home and get some rest," he said. I rose to leave but he stopped me again. "One more thing. I only assumed that you killed Harling, but I don't have proof beyond my own speculation and your lack of denial.”
I was surprised by his need for evidence, the media coverage pretty much pointed right at me without saying my name. I reached into my pocket and retrieved the lottery ticket I had taken from Harling. I flexed it in my hand a little before I tossed it onto the table in front of White. The card bounced a few times before it settled on its side so that he could see what it was. He looked up at me and smirked before I turned around and walked out of the room. No words were necessary, but there was an exchange of understanding between us in that moment, and that was enough for now. White had his proof.
Chapter 13
I left the palace and Pontiff White behind. His concern over how I was operating was a little off putting. I didn't regret our alliance, but at the same time I resented the idea that he might want to control me the same way that the Agency has been. That thought reminded me of the fact that I had not been notified by the Agency in about three days. My only interaction with them had been either fighting or alluding policemen ever since the first hit had been attempted on Kara. Was there a connection between that event and my contact with the Agency? My involvement would not have been known until several hours later when they followed Kara to Thom's apartment. This coincidence was peculiar to say the least.
I pulled my communicator from my jacket pocket and I looked at the display. No messages were shown, just as I suspected. I could only assume that the break in communication was their way of effectively cutting me off. I was surprisingly not upset by this revelation. It was freeing for me to be out from under their control. The past few days had been a seemingly endless battle in my mind with human emotions going up against the programming I had received in training. It was still sketchy, but I seemed to have a larger pallet of emotion at my fingertips as well as an uncanny ability to control them unlike ever before. I didn't feel like an incomplete person anymore, and with my ability to control every facet of my emotions I almost felt like I was beyond human.
I sneaked passed the policeman that wa
s still standing guard and I darted into the shadows of an alley across the street from the square. He had stood unmoving the entire time and I had kept my eye on him. As a rookie most policemen constantly move their heads side to side in an attempt to keep a constant assessment of the situations that they were in. That method slowly degraded over time as we became more confident in our abilities. He had been too young to have such a mastery over his perceptive skills like a twenty or thirty year veteran. Yet another peculiarity that I had experienced today. Things were not what they had seemed. This felt a little too easy.
The walk back to my fathers condemned apartment was without incident. The moon and stars shown in the black sky as I was wrapped in the embrace of a silent city. I could hear my boots contact the pavement step by step as I walked. I routinely checked my communicator from time to time, nervous that I might receive a call from the Agency or from Kara telling me that something was wrong. A call that I would never receive.
I turned a corner and could see the apartment in the distance. The hulking building was dark and dreary where it used to be full of life and future possibilities. I could barely remember that time now, so far in the past it seemed like another life. As I approached the door entering the apartment I could see that the door was ajar. I knew that I had closed it when I left, but it was possible that Thom had stepped out for a moment to get some air. I was cautious as I reached for the door, afraid of a million possible situations that awaited by eyes.
I nudged the door open with my left hand and braced myself for a possible attack. The apartment was deathly quiet and the few items in view had been damaged and left out in the open for me to see. I crept in slowly with my gauntlet powered and ready to fire. The blue light from the sight illuminated the floor as I stepped over bits of broken glass and debris. I could see Thom's media device laying on the floor where it had been stomped by whoever had come into the apartment. There was no sign of Thom or Kara in the living room so I continued into the bedroom where Kara had been sleeping before. My eyes fell upon a body sprawled across the floor. The room was black and I could not make out who it was. My heart sank at the possibility of Kara laying there lifeless.
I scrambled over to the body and shined the light to reveal Thom's bruised and bloody face. Whoever had done this had wanted him to live, it was a message left for me. What that message was I could only speculate, but it had something to do with Kara not being left dead inside the apartment. Whether or not she was alive now was the question that was hard set in my mind and how I was going to find her was the next question to pop up.
I checked Thom's vital signs and could see that he was still breathing. That was the only good sign of my current situation. I pulled my communicator from my jacket and called for a medical crew to come save him. It was not the safest option considering the Agency was obviously trying to get to me, but now that they knew where we have been hiding, nowhere would be safe. I needed to save Thom's life and that was my first priority. If I could save him then maybe he would have information that could help lead me to Kara. It didn't matter if it was a setup, she was the only family I had left and I would die to save her if that is what it took. I could feel my heart race at the thought of not finding her. That fear birthed anger and the anger reignited the hatred that I felt for the Syndicate. I would find Kara and I would kill anyone who stood in my way.
I stood up and walked around the room trying to find evidence that could lead me to Kara. The room was clean except for Thom and the mess strewn around the apartment. This was definitely a message from whoever had organized the hit, a hit that was looking more like an abduction. The only blood that I could find was from Thom's wounds. As far as I could tell, Kara was either alive or she was killed at another location. I hoped against the latter.
I could see flashing lights coming from outside and I went to the door to usher in the emergency medical personnel. They entered quietly and checked Thom's vital signs. They confirmed what I had already known, that he was indeed still alive. They put a brace around his neck and placed him on a board to carry him out to their emergency vehicle. The two men spoke in some medical terms that I did not understand, all while ignoring me completely. Maybe they were afraid because I was a policeman, or maybe because there was another policeman laying on the ground beaten almost to death. Either way it didn't bother me, I was used to being ignored for the most part. The only people who focused their attention on you completely were the ones you were about to kill. At that moment you were the god of their lives, they couldn't help but focus on you, and the blue beam pointed in their direction.
The medical crew carried Thom out in a hurry to rush him to the hospital. "Would you like to ride with us, sir?" One of the men asked. The question caught me off guard.
"No, thank you," I said sheepishly, embarrassed that I had been taken aback by the initial question. "I'll go to the hospital to see him once he wakes up. Here is my contact information."
I handed the man a card with my name and communicator information. It was awkward handing someone a card in whom you were not about to carry out Agency business with. It was without burden that I handed it to him. He stuffed the card into his pocket and closed the door behind him just before the driver took off. The vehicle jetted away with a flash of lights and a blaring siren, leaving me behind at the apartment, alone to figure out exactly what had happened and where my sister had been taken. I ran my hand through my hair and exhaled in frustration. I didn't know exactly where to begin, but I was certain that once I found who was responsible for this that I would kill them. I fumbled around with my gauntlet and checked its charge.
With nothing else to do or nowhere else to go I began walking. I wasn't sure where I was going, but I felt compelled to just walk and kill time until the hospital alerted me that Thom had awakened. I walked towards the shore to the south, pulled by the memories of being there with Kara and my father so many years ago. I hadn't felt it before, but being in my fathers old apartment had brought some long since forgotten memories back to the surface. Just another glimpse into the humanity I had left behind before the Agency. A humanity that I now found to be as pleasant and familiar as home.
Chapter 14
The vibration of my communicator interrupted the daze that I was in. The hours of walking had placed me about a mile from the hospital where Thom was. I was half watching the sun rise over the horizon when I reached into my jacket for the communicator and answered it.
"Serus," I said.
The female voice on the other end was a relief. "This is Ayne, I'm a nurse with the Archean Metropolitan Hospital. I was calling you in regards to a policeman here in our hospital. His name is Thom Brine." She said.
"Yes, how is he doing?" I asked.
"He is doing much better, sir" she said. "He has been awake for the past twenty minutes and he is alert. His cognitive skills are working just fine. He knows who he is and he has asked for us to contact you."
"That's excellent," I said. "Is it alright if I come over now to see him?" I asked.
"Yes, sir, it is. He is being transferred to room four twelve as we speak," she said.
"Thank you. I will be there soon," I said before I ended the call. The good news was that Thom was awake. Unfortunately it was too early to tell if he knew anything that could lead me to Kara and whoever was behind her abduction. I was still working under the assumption that she was still alive. It gave me hope of at least being able to see her again.
I was almost running to the hospital, eager to check on Thom's condition and to find out what I could about Kara. I entered the hospital and went straight towards the elevator. I pressed the button for the fourth floor and waited for it to take me up to Thom. I excited the elevator and noted that his room would be down the hall to the left, about halfway down according to the sign that was posted on the wall. I could hear the beeps and whistles of medical equipment chirping as I walked down the hall to Thom's room.
I knocked on the door to room four twelve lightly. The d
oor was opened slightly and I could see someone laid up in the bed. He had an ice pack covering part of his face, most likely it was being used to reduce the swelling from his wounds.
"Come in," he said after I knocked. I opened the door the rest of the way and walked in. I stood in front of him and looked down to see his chart. I picked it up and started reading his list of injuries. I noted that there was nothing more serious than contusions, a possible concussion, and a fractured rib. He was lucky to be alive and only suffer from the injuries listed on the chart.
"I'm pretty sure that chart is for doctors use only," he said jokingly.
"I'm glad to see you still have your sense of humor," I replied. "How do you feel?"
"Like hell," he said.
"So now you feel like you look," I laughed hoping to ease the tension in the room. Sometimes a sense of humor does more to help a patient than medicine, or so I had heard.
Thom laughed at my joke and then groaned as a pain apparently made him grab at the broken rib mentioned in his chart. "Yeah. Pretty much," he said. "I'm sorry, Serus. I wasn't able to protect Kara. There was no sound or warning at all. The door just flew open and about ten policemen entered the living room. I swear that I tried to fight them off but there was too many. I’m sorry that I failed you," he finished.