He’s not even aware of the third shot, which misses him entirely and takes out the side-view mirror, just half a foot from where Mark Jones is letting go of the carry-on bag and diving for cover inside the open concrete bunker of the storage locker.
The shots ring out and roll away like fireworks in the open sky.
And Mark crouches just inside the locker, his ears ringing, the pain in his head throbbing—everything bad.
A voice yells: “You fucking idiot!”
And the package lies on the concrete, just outside, right there on the tarmac—a million miles away, as he hears the two men coming. But it’s confusing because there’s only one set of footfalls closing in, and a lot of angry cursing, someone yelling something about shooting first and asking questions later. A young man and an old man. He soaks up the information and fires it into his hands, moving for the guns at his side. His head throbbing and his ears ringing. Kill senses weakened. Needs the dope bad now. Hardly controlling the tremors in his hands.
And the voice yells again: “Okay, you in there! Come out with your hands where we can see them!”
No problem.
• • •
Young William Raycraft has his big gun aimed right at the spot where he expects Mark to walk into his line of fire. Right there where the truck is parked, just ten feet away from where he stands. Right in front of the open storage locker. His father doesn’t have a gun because he lets the kid do the shooting these days. Arthritis in his hands and all that. He’s way too old to deal with the recoil on an automatic weapon—at least not with any guarantee that he’ll hit whatever he’s aiming at—but he sure wishes he’d taken the gun from his son and done something else with it in the next three seconds.
Because that’s when Mark comes out.
With his hands where they can see them.
His hands, holding twin Glocks, aimed right back at them.
Moonie Raycraft gets his brain in gear fast and hits the lights.
Mark is blinded instantly by the high beams of a Mazda CX5 Hybrid, parked just ten feet away from him.
• • •
He almost sees the shape of young William standing next to the car, a white-on-white outline in the burning ghostly form of a man, and Mark tells himself he’s a fucking idiot for not noticing the whisper-idle of the hybrid engine, his instincts so dull and strained now, dialed down so badly, even as he takes two steps forward in the glare of the headlights and somehow manages to blast six big holes in young William’s chest, the recoil of the gun in his right hand like a pounding piston that mocks his weakened reflexes. Mark grabs the carry-on bag and dives for the concrete outside, and the car zooms forward and hits the truck just inches behind his heels, and it’s an ear-destroying crash-boom-smash of tearing, scraping, rending metal, and Mark rolls on the concrete and comes up in a half-crouch, just in time to see young William Raycraft staggering backward like a drunken marionette, his arms and legs going all licorice-weird, spouting thick flowers of blood from the half dozen big holes in his body that Mark just put there, and William’s outline is still white hot, but that’s because he’s wearing a white suit or something covered in blood and it’s raining gore for a few more seconds, sprinkling Mark’s head, and he curses again as he realizes that he had to drop one of his guns to grab the carry-on bag—had to do it, man, had to save the package—and primal survival instincts kick in again, still dull as hell, but there, goddammit—and they tell him to get up and RUN—as Moonie Raycraft shifts gears and tears the Mazda out of the wreck and jerks the wheel and swings the whole mess around in a shrieking of rubber on tarmac that sounds like Godzilla claws scraping a chalkboard the size of Tokyo, showing Mark the half-destroyed front end of the car, one of the headlights busted, another one miraculously unscathed, still pinning Mark in a hot, blinding glow, and Mark turns and runs for the front gate as the roar of the engine rips at him, coming after him, and they are racing each other to the front gate, and the car is right behind him and the car is gonna run him down, the car is gonna take him from behind, the car is gonna grind his bones and spray his blood and wad him up like human wreckage . . .
. . . and he sees his death . . .
. . . sees it happen . . .
. . . and he doesn’t let it happen.
• • •
Moonie Raycraft sees Mark vanish from the forward burn of his one good headlight, as Mark throws himself out of the way, bouncing hard off one of the concrete walls near the front gate. Mark ricochets like a pinball and comes up on one good knee, with the gun still in his hand, and he starts shooting at the Mazda’s rear end as Moonie slams on the brakes way too late and the car smashes sideways into the gate, tearing the steel bars halfway loose from their moorings on either side, making his hands jerk the wheel in just the wrong way as the tires lock up at the moment of impact. Mark has no idea if any of his shots help out with what happens next, but he’s still pretty amazed by it.
The Mazda reels into the gate, nose down, the rear end shoots straight up—and the whole goddamn thing cartwheels into space.
Inside the car, Moonie watches the world go upside down and right side up, the moon doing a roll in his line of sight like a slot machine tumbling pretty pictures in a fast-motion blur, pirouetting among the stars at sixty miles per hour. And the last thing Moonie Raycraft thinks of when the world ends . . .
. . . is his son.
That dumb little shit.
• • •
Mark watches the Mazda finish its stunt-car wipeout—it does five big Hal Needham bounces before it crunches to a stop in the middle of the street. Inside the clouds of smoke, the thing looks like a toy run through the wringer of an abusive childhood. Mark even sees the rear axle catch on fire for some reason. He waits for the big explosion, but it never comes.
He gets up and starts moving, his ankle throbbing. Broken maybe? No. Just a twist. Still the Luckiest Man on Earth.
And he did it sober.
Goddamn.
Moonie Raycraft gets the door open and crawls out of the wreck.
• • •
Mark climbs over the half-destroyed gate and walks into the street, bringing the gun up as the older man twitches on the pavement, almost covered in his own blood, one arm mangled into a weird pretzel, bones and fingers rearranged. Moonie sees Mark coming toward him and sees the gun aimed at his head and spurts blood, trying to face it on his feet. But his feet are mangled too.
Doesn’t matter.
Get up, old man. Get up and avenge your shit-for-brains son.
And—amazingly—he does just that. He stands on two broken feet. He throws out his chest, which is filled with leaking fluid and shattered ribs—a collapsed lung for good measure. Faces his murderer with two good eyes, which might be the last thing he has left to his name that isn’t shot to hell.
Mark smirks at him—the guy’s wearing a white suit too, just like the kid was. They’re a matching set. Like hospital orderlies, soaked in gore. It makes Mark laugh right out loud.
Moonie tries to spit at him but swallows a piece of his lower lip instead.
“Go ahead and laugh . . . you shit . . . go ’head . . . and kill me.”
“You’re already dead,” Mark says, lowering the gun.
And then Moonie notices his throat has been cut.
Notices the thing that’s jammed in his flesh.
Almost decides to call it and fall on his face right there. But he hangs in for a few more seconds. Stays on his feet.
My son . . . my son . . .
And then he’s gone.
• • •
Sirens, from far away.
Mark looks down on the dead man before he runs. Sees what killed him. It’s something that looks like an ID card—something he had around his neck on a chain. A thick plastic laminate, lodged in his throat. Mark grabs it and runs back toward the truck.
14
coming home
He follows the map.
The old man’s battered truck almost gets him ten miles before it gives up and throws a rod. He limps the battered old thing into a Sheraton Hotel parking lot off Oltorf and I-35. Plenty of fresh new rides here, and no one is looking. Mark uses his magic smartphone to bust into a shiny drug-dealer sports car. A 246 Ferrari Spider. Sexy. Taps in the make and model, talks to the robots in outer space, and they say okay, the lady’s his now. They even start the engine for him. It’s a very reliable ride—brand new, with an awesome stereo too.
He slams the package in the trunk and sits in the front seat with the motor running for longer than he should before he moves, his mind going faster than ever, doing laps around the buzzing and pounding in his skull. He’s getting the hang of this weird new forced-sober rush, and wonders how long it will last.
Still hears the voice of Dictator Ken.
You idiot . . . you fucking idiot.
Shut up, Ken.
He starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot, gets back on I-35. He follows the map again, clutching the wheel with one hand, the phone in the other, his knuckles white.
The GPS signal puts him right on their radar.
No choice, he thinks. No choice at all but to come right at them.
He wonders if a hit of pure ecstasy might help him come up with a better plan.
Wonders for three seconds before he slaps himself and drives on.
It’s just now three in the morning.
• • •
On the far-north side of town, he parks on the shoulder of a winding lakeside road that snakes around a huge mountain and decides to make the last half mile on foot. Nudges the car off the shoulder and into a wooded glade. Checks the package in the trunk, making sure it’s secure. Checks his head, making sure he’s still sane—and he’s not sure about that at all. Still buzzing. Still spinning. Fuck. No way to rig the trunk this time. No booby traps—just an alarm system that only he can cut through with the code he enters into the smartphone, feeding it back into the METRO satellite. Assuming they aren’t following him from the same satellite, it’ll have to do.
His hands are still shaking. He’s going to blow, for sure.
Remembers his early training, before they made him a junkie. Uses it to pull himself to shore. Before he falls deeper. Before it’s all over.
Jollie . . . I’m coming . . .
Weapons check. Still the two Glocks, with just five bullets in one clip. And the Vestika, of course—courtesy of the old man. He stashes the Vestika in the trunk because he’s not sure about it—it’s a plastic job with only a few shots left and the gun hasn’t been fired once since he swam through a river of enemy blood. So he stashes it. Ditches the empty Glock and shoves the other one in his pocket. Zips up the Windbreaker, feeling so cold. His boots, heavy on his feet.
His mind . . . taking him back . . . Back so far now . . . going home . . .
Flooding and overloading, flashing back and flashing forward.
You don’t wanna look here, kid. You’re still blowing it.
I told you to shut up, Ken.
You should have just laid down and died.
I said SHUT UP.
He brings his fists to his head, trying to block the voice, to stop the rush and the shakes and everything else. And then . . .
He sees it, the moment back in the safe house. Dictator Ken’s lips moving in slow motion. The shape of his real words—what he said just before Mark shot him:
They’re going to kill us all.
• • •
Mark forces himself to march into the woods as he slips further, consumed by the smells of the leaves and the tree bark and the insects and the dirt under his feet. Goes forward as his mind plunges deep into the past, etching memories in his brain that almost come to vivid three-dimensional life . . . and he feels the rush . . .
The stone-hard terror of it . . .
• • •
He is a child, right at the start of his life, and he is just a glimmer of humanity. He can hardly register anything but raw emotions, early impressions. The smell of bizarre things that are almost like truth but are really just raw vegetation and dirt, dead leaves, and the cold air of November, the hard stares of people who tell him he must be stronger than he can imagine. He must be a man, not a boy. He must belong to THEM, not to the world . . .
• • •
He perches just at the the tree line. Has no idea how far he’s hiked—maybe a few miles off the main road. But here he is. Yeah. No doubt about that.
The phone in his hand says so.
Says Jollie is right ahead.
She’s dead, kid. Just lie down and die.
SHUT UP.
It’s a big house, nestled right into the mountain, at the end of the gravel road. A mansion that hunches nearly a quarter mile across an estate that sprawls like a king’s front lawn, with a cobblestone driveway and a fountain and a few fancy gardens here and there, all lit up in dim spills by overhead fixtures wrapped in elegant cut glass. No guards on the perimeter at first glance, no visible security of any kind. He checks the smartphone and it says there are a few motion sensors and a semi-sophisticated alarm system, all of which have been shut down for the night, apparently.
Which means there have to be security peeps, somewhere.
Which means he has to circle the place and find them.
He does the prowl, his head overwhelmed, hardly even seeing the world anymore, just feeling it. Forcing himself. Getting the fast-forward and rewind all at once.
The rewind . . .
• • •
And he hears someone tell him he is truly home when he comes to this place. He steps into a garden filled with flowers and the smell overwhelms his entire body and he finds himself crying and has no idea why, and a hand comes out of the dark and slaps his face and tells him tears are for the weak and you cannot be weak now, my son, because you are different, you are special . . .
• • •
Three guards. Guys in white, walking perimeter in shifts that last a minute per rotation. Standard pattern. They don’t even have guns. He watches them for six minutes, then moves on them one at a time. His hands are shaking bad. But he does it. Muscle memory. Does it without feeling. Does it on fast-forward. He thinks only of Jollie and Andy. Focuses on his panic. Uses the panic like a drug.
Then he pulls the bodies into the woods.
The area is secured.
He holds his heart rate under control, just barely.
He sucks in air and the air plunges down deep.
Deep into the past . . .
SNAP OUT OF IT, YOU ASSHOLE.
• • •
He is six years old and he doesn’t understand anything but Muppets and playtime. He is a blank slate, waiting to be filled. He is led by the hand to his destiny. And his destiny smells like open air and flowers in the dark . . .
• • •
He smells the flowers.
Fills himself with it, keeping in the moment, not letting himself slip again. Waves wash against the far-back chambers of his mind. Sense-memories almost taking him again. Almost taking him back . . .
STAY HERE.
He wipes the tears away and looks down at the phone in his hand. The objective is not far at all now. Inside this house, down low in a sublevel of some sort.
It’s almost four in the morning.
He reaches up and tries the door and it’s unlocked, the alarms nice and gone, just for him. And as he opens the door . . .
• • •
The smell of home hits him right in the face for the first time. They lead him down a long, dark hallway that seems to go on forever. He will remember this because it’s really important. His first lessons, which begin right here . . .
• • •
No. It can’t be. This can’t be that place.
That was a million billion years ago. But the smell of the woods . . . the smell of the hallway . . .
The corridor empties into the big living room full of books and toys.
Dark and vacant.
Just like it was the first time they brought him here.
He almost collapses in the room, overloaded with smells and ghosts. He sees the room terminate into a longer corridor, and he remembers that too, the kids looking out at him, staring with wide eyes. Remembers how he used to walk here, every day. The training routine. Remembers it all.
He walks the corridor, halfway to the elevator. Looks at the phone in his hand. Jollie is just below him now. The map says so.
Just ahead of him, the elevator.
Just behind him, the playroom.
Where he learned his name a billion years ago.
The voice of Dictator Ken laughs at him: Get it now, kid? Now you see what I was protecting your friends from? Now you see how I was serving the company? If you had just died . . . if you had just not looked for it . . . we’d all still be alive right now.
He closes his eyes and the voice fades away to nothing. Replaced by that other voice from his buried memories. From so long ago.
Metro Page 24