Richard first introduced Cora to Johnny three years ago, when she was still training. As time went on, Johnny looked in on Cora when Richard was out of town. He always made sure she had enough to eat, and spending money when she went out. Forgetting her age, he would sometimes take her out for ice cream.
Johnny never liked to talk about the work he did, neither in the past, nor the present. She knew his nickname came from his current profession as a cleaner. He worked freelance, and Cora assumed that was to the highest bidder. He made bodies vanish without a trace, so it was most likely his primary business came from the criminal underworld. Still, Richard said on numerous occasions that he trusted the man with his life. That was good enough for Cora.
“Cora, if you’re here,” Johnny shouted into the lot. “I’m not here for them. I’m here for you. I heard on the wire some PMC hit a restaurant that had black ops agents. I came down to find you. I get here and all hell is breaking loose.”
Cora rested her head against a car door and stared at the sky. She wanted to believe him. She wanted an ally. Whether by unconscious desire or mind over matter, Cora’s foot slid the tiniest bit along the gravel.
“I know you’re here, Cora,” Johnny said, his voice a little lower this time. “I know you’re scared. Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m going to put my hands up and stand under this light over here.”
Johnny walked back toward the entrance to the lot. Cora didn’t peek, she knew he was telling the truth. She wanted to believe so bad that even if the world turned against her, Johnny never could.
“Now, you’re going to stand up, too,” he said, his Brooklyn accent so matter-of-fact and disarming.
Cora shut her eyes, took a breath, and turned around. She stood up, slowly, until she could see Johnny’s face. True to his word, his hands were to the sky. She stood erect, the car in front of her still cover from the waist down.
“Good. Now, I see you’re strapped. Pull it out and point it at me.”
“I can’t,” Cora said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Cora, pull out your weapon and aim it on me,” Johnny insisted.
She had to admit, he was trying a tact she was unfamiliar with, and it was working. He had no way of knowing she was out of bullets. She slid the Predator from her holster and pointed it at him.
“There ya go,” Johnny smiled and nodded. “Keep it on me. Now, ask me anything. You don’t like an answer? Empty the clip, take my car, and run as fast and as far as you can.”
Cora stared at him for a moment, going over any doubts in her mind that Johnny wasn’t the man she thought he was.
“It’s awfully lucky you just happen to find me, here, just as I escape an NSA safehouse,” Cora said.
Johnny shook his head. “Luck ain’t got nothing to do with it. Richard has me on NSA comm channels. I knew they routed you here. I was coming to find you, to hear what the hell happened at the restaurant. As for you escaping them, well - you got me there. You surprised the shit out of me with that one.”
“Richard gave a freelance cleaner access to a top-secret NSA comm channel? That’s life in prison if you’re lucky,” Cora replied.
Johnny nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, it is. Unofficially, I’m a consultant. But really, it was so Richard could have a second set of eyes on you.”
The strength in Cora’s arms gave out. She could only keep her emotions at bay for so long. Her hands laid down the Predator on the trunk of the car. Tears flooded into her eyes. Her voice cracked as she said, “They think I had something to do with...”
She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. Johnny took a step forward and held his arms out, waving her into him. Cora walked around the car and into his arms. He smelled like cologne, his embrace warm and soothing. He stroked her back for comfort.
“I know you’d never, Cora,” Johnny replied. He reached up and petted her hair. “You need to let me get you out of here. They put your face out on the wire. Some lousy beat cop can find you now, understand? We gotta go. We’ll sort it out together, okay?”
Cora stepped back and nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes. She picked up her Predator and followed him back to his car.
“How’d you know that’d work?” Cora asked, holstering her weapon.
Johnny shook his head. “I didn’t. Truth be told, I didn’t know you were out of bullets until you pulled it on me. It was too light in your hand.”
Cora scoffed. The man knew his craft, that was for sure. Cora opened the passenger seat to find an exquisite leather interior. Sitting on the posh cushioning allowed her muscles the first relaxation in hours. She strapped in her belt and Johnny started driving.
“Tell me everything,” Johnny said. “Spare no detail.”
Over the next five miles, Cora explained every event from the start of the morning to present. Johnny never asked questions or probed, only listened. She suppressed tears going over finding her team at the restaurant, but gave the gory details to Johnny. He tightened his grip on the wheel, but he never said a word. When it was all over, Johnny let the information sink in. He turned onto the highway out of Berlin and raced down the road.
“Alright,” he said. “Our mystery man on the phone is a dead end, for now. We don’t know enough to reach out to him. If we want to get you home, we have to clear you with NSA. The first part is figuring out what data you’re holding.”
Cora nodded. “If any of Drake’s visual data is on the wet drive, we could see the shooters. Maybe even piece together what happened before that, or what Vulkan was hired to find.”
“I’ve got a guy. He’s young, but I’ve worked with him enough to know he’s good people,” Johnny said. “He doesn’t like government types. His name is Gideon.”
Gideon. The name sounded so familiar. Cora mulled it over and rolled her eyes. “Oh, geez, is that the kid you told me about? The one you had to smuggle out of the UNS because he hacked the DOJ mainframe?”
“...it was the Pentagon, but that’s not the point.”
“Johnny! You said he was weird and more trouble than he was worth,” Cora moaned. “He’s probably got ‘round-the-clock eyes on him. The UNS doesn’t let people like that go.”
Johnny raised a disapproving finger. “Excuse me, are you telling me I don’t know how to do my job? That kid is in a hole so deep, I have trouble finding him sometimes. No one knows where he is, I promise you that.”
“Is that where we’re going?” Cora said, pointing to the road. Despite speaking German fairly well, the road signs were unfamiliar. She had no idea where they were headed.
Johnny shook his head. “Nah, we need to lay low and contact Gideon, get him to come to us. There’s an old safehouse Richard and I used that you won’t find in your little black book. It’s in the country, outside the city. We’ll go there and get set up, figure out our next move from there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Cora said with weary breath.
“It’s gonna be a while,” Johnny said. “You should rest...or meditate. Whatever the hell it is you do. We don’t know when we’re getting another chance anytime soon.”
Cora wasn’t about to argue. Grief, fear, anger, and adrenaline clouded her mind. With her next moves uncertain and her mentor gone, all she could do was apply Richard’s wisdom over the years to the current situation. Even if Richard disapproved of her meditation ritual, he couldn’t deny it worked for her.
The portable music player in her pocket was key to finding her center. Turning on the radio just wouldn’t do, not with AI Pop, Electronica, and Sync music dominating the airwaves. Cora was born in the wrong time. She hated the technology all around her, and the reliance that came with it. She longed for the days human beings played instruments and bled their souls into a microphone. With the exception of a few 2060’s indie bands and some Neo-Folk from the 2050’s, her music player was dominated by 20th and early 21st century tracks. She paired the player with her earpiece, reclined the seat, and let the shuffler throw tracks at her. She had
her favorites, of course, but feeling connected and moved by whatever came up was more important than searching through twenty-thousand songs and getting picky.
One song blended into another. Eric Carmen told her to turn the radio up for that sweet sound. Dinah Gross wouldn’t take no for an answer. Garbage was only happy when it rained. Images of Richard still plagued her thoughts, the bullet wound in his head coming back to her over and over. Drake’s lifeless eyes still stared at her. Finding her center felt like running through a fog blind, hoping to come out the other side. She tried deep breathing, then focusing on the music. What she really needed was a big bottle of Kentucky Bourbon. Her mouth watered at the thought of it. She wanted it all - the burn, the aftertaste, the sweet buzz that takes the edge off all of your friends getting murdered.
Johnny didn’t speak the entire trip, not until the car came to a stop. Cora opened her eyes to a welcome sight. A wooden cabin sprawled out on the edge of a forest. She reached into the backseat and grabbed her katana before exiting the car. Johnny was already going around to the trunk. He popped the lock and tossed her his keys.
“It’s the red one,” he said. “Go in and get yourself comfortable.”
Cora took a second to appreciate the feeling of real earth beneath her feet and the scent of the trees. She walked through dead leaves crunching beneath her, up the stairs to the front porch, and flipped through a dozen keys on the ring to a find a red one. The door clicked open to a pitch-black room. Cora swiped against the wall, locating a switch. A light came on from a ceiling fan perched over a dining room table on the other end of the house. There was someone sitting at the table.
The light startled the person as much their presence shocked Cora. The person was a woman in a black bodysuit, her back to the door. A bandage soaked in blood wrapped around her right arm. As she spun around, the light bounced off the metal of a pistol in her hand. Cora dropped her katana and raced into the room, yanking her dagger from the sheath on her hip.
The woman faced Cora. The black bodysuit was the same as the kind Vulkan Group wore under their body armor. Then there was her face. Early thirties. Shoulder-length, jet black hair. A face like an Italian supermodel.
“Giovanna?” Cora shouted, stopping in her tracks. She pulled up her hand, ready to throw the dagger right between her eyes.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Giovanna shouted, aiming the pistol at Cora’s chest.
Another footstep came from behind Cora. Giovanna briefly moved her eyes to him.
“Gia,” Johnny said, creeping across the threshold with an Apex 9mm drawn. “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you don’t take that weapon off Cora, I will end you.”
Giovanna hesitated, even against the impossible odds. One hand came off the pistol, catching the magazine of her pistol as she ejected it. She set the clip on the table, pointed the gun at the ceiling, and pulled back the slide. A bullet tossed through the air. Giovanna grabbed it and set it and her pistol down on the dining table.
“You have him with you,” Giovanna explained to Cora. “Even if I didn’t trust you, I know he’d never do that to Richard.”
Cora’s slammed her dagger into the table beside Giovanna, sinking the tip into the wood. “Make me trust you, Giovanna. Fast.”
The One That Got Away
“I shouldn’t need to convince you of anything,” Giovanna said, standing up. She met Cora’s gaze, defiant and indignant, the passion in her thick Italian accent palpable. “I loved Richard before you ever met him.”
“Loved him?” Cora scoffed. “Are you kidding? You tried to get me into an orgy that one time with those pool boys at the hotel.”
Giovanna put her hands on her hips. “I said I loved him. I didn’t say we worked as a couple. And it was your loss you didn’t join me that night.”
“I...I’ll take your word for it,” Cora replied with a cocked eyebrow.
She pulled her dagger from the table. The confusing direction of the conversation made threats seem silly at this point. A glance over her shoulder showed Johnny was still following her lead, his weapon trained on Giovanna. He glanced back at her with uncertainty in his eyes.
“Gia, c’mon,” Johnny said. “Give her something.”
“Fine, I’ll play along,” Giovanna said with a huff. She pulled her chair away from the table and sat back down. “Do you remember Counselor Thorpe?”
Cora’s gasped. She hadn’t even thought of her counselor at Harvard Law School in years. She only worked with her a few weeks during sophomore year, after her previous counselor retired.
“Yeah,” Cora replied. “What about her?”
Giovanna cleared her throat. Her voice changed to an American accent as she said, “You shouldn’t compare your accomplishments against your mother, Miss Blake. She was once a student, just like you, with her own set of challenges.”
Giovanna held out her hands, presenting herself. Cora shook her head, her mouth hanging open.
“No. No way, that’s not possible! That doesn’t even make any sense! What does an Italian government agent gain wasting weeks posing as a college counselor?”
“You were on a very short list of natural magical adepts the NSA was tracking,” Giovanna replied. “Richard was tied up with another prospect in Seattle. He wanted me to make sure you were the right candidate, observe you, and assess how you’d react to the offer.”
Cora lowered the dagger. The world became smaller and more complicated.
“You made me switch to Professor Aki’s Comparative Law class,” Cora said.
“It was a shorter walk for me to look in on you,” Giovanna replied.
“Dammit, Giovanna. I hated that class,” Cora said, defeated. She put her dagger into the sheath on her hip.
Giovanna waved her in. “Come, sit. You, too, Johnny.”
Johnny holstered his weapon and shut the front door. He didn’t let go of his tension well, lording over Giovanna. He pointed at her arm, his expression still aggressive. “You alright? You’re bleeding.”
“Took a bullet on the way out of the restaurant,” Giovanna replied, waving it off. “Just a graze. It’s probably fine by now.”
“Fine by now?” Cora asked. She sat down at the table beside Giovanna.
Undoing her bandage, the blood still wet, Giovanna exposed smooth, olive skin. It was stained in blood, but no blemishes otherwise.
“How did you heal so fast?” Cora asked.
Giovanna tossed the stained bandage beside her weapon on the table. “The same way I change myself to look like other people. Nanites, patatina. They’re attached to every skin cell in my body.” She grunted, clutching her side. “This damn rib from earlier, that’s another story.”
Cora walked into the kitchen and rummaged through cabinets. “Please tell me this safe house has a bar in it.”
“Left of the stove,” Giovanna replied.
Johnny sat down beside her and slid open his wrist computer. With a few swipes, he projected a holographic keyboard onto the wood table. His pointed index fingers went to work, hunting and pecking at keys.
“There we go,” Cora announced. She took a seat at the table opposite Giovanna, set down three glasses, and poured herself a tall Jack. It was the only good thing to ever come out of the Southern Confederacy.
“Are you going to tell me what’s happened?” Giovanna asked.
Cora held up a finger as the glass poured down her throat. She slammed it down and poured another. With a deep breath, she relayed the entire story of her encounter at the hotel and her arrival at the restaurant. She pointed out the gory mess of a body she assumed was Giovanna.
“That would be our waitress,” Giovanna said. She hesitated. “The first shot hit Richard. Drake and I were at the ends of the booth. I hit the floor, Doctor Nielsen and our contact got hit at the same time. It was either two shooters or a very powerful rifle. I know for sure it was a single shot that hit the waitress and caught Drake in the stomach as he was on his way to the ground.”
<
br /> Cora shook her head. “I checked him. That gut shot wasn’t fatal. I still don’t understand how he died.”
“He was hurt, but he was alive when I left,” Giovanna replied. “From the time of the shots until they came into the restaurant was about thirty seconds. The customers hadn’t even realized anyone was shot yet, they were still wondering who broke the front window.”
“But the woman on the ground was wearing your dress,” Cora said.
Giovanna raised an eyebrow, her expression disapproving. “That’s because you can’t tell the difference between a waitress’ uniform and an eleven-thousand credit Antonio Romero.”
“Nope. Sure can’t,” Cora said, taking another sip of whiskey.
“I ran to the kitchen, trying to find an escape route,” Giovanna said. “That PMC comes barging in, starts pulling all the chefs out to the dining room. One of them stays behind to sweep the room.”
Cora motioned with her hand at Giovanna’s outfit. “So, you took him out and switched places with him.”
“Those pieces of shit rounded up every person in the restaurant and said it was a robbery,” Giovanna said. “That’s how they were looking to stage it, I guess. When I got out there, they were going through Drake’s rig and his wrist computer. I thought that’s when they killed him. They went on about looking for the manager. They couldn’t find him. But...that’s when they started shooting. Once they had everyone lined up...”
Tears filled her dark eyes. Johnny picked up one of the glasses in front of Cora and raised it. After she gave it a quick fill, Johnny passed it to Giovanna. She shot it down in a single gulp and wiped her mouth with her forearm. Her lips twisted.
“Ugh. How can you drink this?”
“I guess it’s an acquired taste,” Cora replied. “After tonight, I’d probably drink rubbing alcohol if it was all we had.”
Giovanna smiled bitterly, shaking her head. “You’re a little savage, patatina.”
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