by J D Lasica
She stepped out of the dressing room. The no-nonsense assistant, Rouge One, handed her a stick of red lipstick—and made clear it wasn’t a suggestion. As she watched Kaden apply it, she said in a monotone, “The prisoners. Your full cooperation is required for their survival.”
Kaden replied with a glare. Then Rouge One handed Kaden a pair of lightweight designer glasses with tiger-stripe frames. Kaden put them on—a pair of smartglasses over her smart contacts.
I’ll go along with their game for now.
Rouge One led her through the next door into the main room. She turned and left, replaced by the two Guardians. Kaden surveyed the room. The space was large and dusky, furnished with antique tables, chairs, chests, mirrors, and lit up by table lamps with smoky glass shades and bronze bases that had seen better days. She tapped down her glasses on the bridge of her nose and saw that the chairs, table, and chests were real but half the artworks and antiques in the room weren’t really there. Mixed reality.
The guards came up beside her. “He wants you in the Throne chair,” the first one said, training his Glock on her. He walked ahead and pulled an ancient-looking wooden chair out from the end of a long walnut table. She walked slowly to the oversize chair and sat, pressing her back against an engraving of Adam and Eve with a serpent. The second guard stepped behind her and dropped the items he was carrying to the floor. Leather straps.
Don’t have many options here. I’ll let this play out a little longer.
They tied her up. The first strap bound her waist to the back of the chair. Next they bound her thighs and ankles. Guard One tied the leather restraints tight around her wrists.
“You sure you don’t want to tie her arms behind her back?” Guard Two asked.
Guard One smirked. “I have my instructions. ‘Bind her hands but don’t tie them to the chair.’ Guess he wants to make it sporting.” He paused in front of her eyes. “You’ll behave, won’t you?”
She spat in his face. He raised his hand to strike her when Guard Two said, “Leave that to the boss.”
They finished tying her up. They bound her body tight with her legs slightly spread apart. Guard One repositioned her chair to three o’clock—a ninety degree angle to the table. He stepped over to an ancient-looking chest in the corner, opened it, removed three items, and set them on the table.
A blindfold. A long pair of sharp-edged scissors. A small covered glass jar containing a clear liquid.
“That will be all.” Maxim Volkov’s voice kicked across the length of the room. “You guards, leave now.”
Guard One objected, “But sir, your safety—”
“My safety is assured. You’re dismissed.”
The men saluted and left. Kaden craned her neck to her far right and watched Volkov moving toward her. He was wearing what might be some kind of gray Victorian smoking jacket. No helmet in sight, but he was wearing something else: a pair of blue rubber goggles. He carried a shot glass and a bottle of vodka and set them on the table.
He dropped down to one knee directly in front of her as if genuflecting to the Madonna.
“You look magnificent.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Remarkable. Even the voice is dead on. I’ll have to congratulate Lucid on the fidelity to detail.”
She studied him. A man who had never fully formed. A man still in search of something. Redemption? Revenge? She checked the Internet reception in here with her smart contacts. Strong.
Volkov rose, went to the table, poured himself a drink. “Thank you for the body scan. I’ll be able to re-create this experience over and over again.”
Her wrists were bound tight and she could feel her fingers start to go numb, but she kept quiet. Disrupting the fantasy might be dangerous.
He pulled a chair out from the table, sat opposite her, and placed his hands on her knees. He stroked his hands atop her silk stockings nearly to her panties.
Amelia appeared in the bottom left corner of her field of vision and began signing. She had eyes in the room—there were five different video cams positioned in unlikely hiding spots.
Volkov met her eyes with a level gaze that seemed to mix hate and desire. “The less you say, the better. After all, what is there to say after all these years?”
He removed his hands, sat back in his chair, downed another shot of vodka. He stood, moved next to her right side, began stroking her hair. He grasped her smartglasses with both hands, set them on the table. Then he picked up the silk blindfold and slipped it over her head. Looks like he has this all game-planned.
He leaned down next to her ear. “Do you remember our compact? Our little secret? I was only twelve at the time.”
He slipped his right hand beneath her low-cut dress and cupped her left breast. He pressed his rancid lips over hers, pressing in, scratching his rough beard against her chin.
Kaden forced her eyes open beneath the blindfold. It was dark, but she saw Amelia lit up in the lower left corner. She was signing again.
I can’t access enough processing power to generate a full 3D visualization from your point of view. But I can give you a black-and-white illustrated sequence in real time. It would resemble those old A-ha pencil-sketch music videos from the eighties—never mind, before your time. Blink twice if you want that turned on.
Kaden didn’t know which videos Amelia was talking about, but she blinked twice. Immediately she saw a live-action simulation: the outline of Volkov leaning toward her, holding her hands down with one hand, now groping at her left breast with the other.
She wouldn’t beg, but this had already gone too far. She heaved his torso backward with her bound hands. “Stop! No!”
“No? It’s not up to you anymore!” He slunk away, maybe wounded by her act of rejection. She couldn’t see his expression. But she saw a rough simulation of his head, eyes, beard, and body as he straightened and paused beside the table, as if trying to decide between the vodka and the other items.
He reached down, picked up the scissors, made three quick snipping sounds with it.
“Do you remember what you did with these when you used to sneak into my room?” He shook his head and lowered the scissors. “No matter. We can replay this scene with a new girl who’ll get the fantasy right. Let’s finish this. I have a world to conquer.”
He leaned down and carefully unscrewed the lid of the glass jar. An acrid odor assaulted her—the overwhelming smell of rotten eggs. She hadn’t smelled a concoction like this since chemistry class. Sulfuric acid.
He painstakingly picked up the open container with his right hand, still holding the scissors in his left hand. He looked down on her as she sat there, blindfolded and docile. He gave a quick feint, a head fake, as if to see if she could detect his movements. She remained still as an ice sculpture.
“I should have done this a long, long time ago.” He brought his right arm backward, as if cocking a trigger, still grasping the glass of acid in his right hand.
At the exact moment he began to drive the glass of acid forward, she raised her cupped hands and intercepted the container. Before he could react, she summoned all her strength and propelled it upward, splashing it onto the right side of his face—the good side. Until now.
Volkov howled in agony. She dropped the container to the floor. His knees buckled, bringing his body forward, closer to her. His free hand went to his face as another shriek of anguish escaped his throat.
“I’ll kill you, you bitch!”
He moved to switch the scissors to his dominant hand. A mistake. He was right on top of her now, inches away, so close she could smell the scent of burning skin. Volkov fumbled to get a solid grip even as he tried to drive the scissors down into her chest. She grabbed his arm with her bound hands.
Caught you.
She couldn’t see his expression, but she pictured his face in his rubber goggles, contorted into a look of surprise at how strong she was, how he’d underestimated her.
He tried to pull away, but she gra
bbed his fingers, still curled around the end of the scissors, and bent them backward, freeing the handle from his grasp. She couldn’t insert her own fingers into the handle while her wrists were bound, so she wrapped her palm around the base and jabbed the blade upward with a violent jerk. She felt the tip of the shears enter Volkov’s neck just above the Adam’s apple.
This is for Gabriel. She pushed the shears deeper.
A river of warm blood gushed out and onto her chest. He sank onto her lap but brought his hands up to around her balled fist in one last attempt to ward off further damage. But she wasn’t through.
This is for all the girls. She drove the scissors farther up, deep into his skull cavity. Volkov let out a sickening death gurgle. One final thrust and his body went limp.
She took a deep breath to calm herself. She pulled out the scissors, opened the shears, and used them to slice away at the leather strap wound around her wrists. She was worried Volkov’s howl would bring the guards, but not so far. She ripped her blindfold off and removed the last of the restraints.
She kicked off her high heels and looked down at her blood-soaked dress—a darker shade of red now. She opened the door to the waiting room. Empty. She spotted her bag of clothes in the corner and quickly changed.
The door to the hallway opened. As Guard One entered, she grabbed his arm to immobilize the Glock he was clutching. She drove a knee high into his solar plexus. His uniformed body bent forward. She interlaced her fingers and brought a double fist down with a brutal fury at the base of his neck. He crumpled to the carpet. Guard Two was a second behind but a second too late. She grabbed the Glock—the good old-fashioned fingerprint-free variety—and pumped three shots into Guard Two’s chest. The rounds sent him sprawling lifeless to the floor.
She went to the end table and found her earpiece. She plunked it back into her ear and called Viper.
“What’s the situation?” she asked.
“Glad you’re all right,” Viper said. He had enough firepower to keep a small army at bay, but he was just one man, and it was iffy whether he’d be able to elude capture.
“You got Amelia’s message?” she asked. “Can you get us out?”
“Already on it. Just say the word.”
“Do it now.”
Three seconds later she heard the beautiful sound of C4 blasts being detonated outside.
“Keep this line open. Keep me updated.” She swept into the hallway and raced toward the front of the building. She found a stairway leading upstairs and took it.
“Status?” she barked.
“Sorry, busy here,” Viper said. She heard frantic voices on the other end. “All captives from the lobby are out.”
She twisted around a corner and continued running down the corridor toward a door at the far end. “I’m going for the others,” she said.
She reached the door, tried the handle. Locked. “Tosh, Carlos, you in there?”
“Yeah! Kaden, that you?” Carlos’s voice.
“Step back.” She waited two heartbeats and fired two shots. She kicked open the door and saw them. Tosh. Carlos. Judy. Alex. Alice. Charlie. Everyone accounted for.
They followed her down the hallway and raced down the staircase before they spilled into the lobby and then out the Fantasy Theater’s big new Viper Exit.
Bo, Bailey—everyone was together now. The two tribes had merged. The group looked shaken but no worse for wear.
“Follow me,” Viper said. She was glad someone else was taking the lead. She was out of gas and the painkillers had worn off.
They raced down the hillside keeping low, dashing for cover when they spotted guards and Viper had to clear the way with short bursts from his HK416. They made it to the spot along the south shore where Viper hid his Boston Whaler in the jungle undergrowth. They boarded the ship. Bo, Nico, and Viper released the stern, bow, and spring lines tied to trees and shrubs, and they set off.
Viper checked his comms, nodded, reported back to the group. “Red Team Zero home base says satellite imagery shows the Swift boat sweeping along the north part of the island, biting on some of the decoys I set up there.” He steered the ship toward the east end of the island.
“Shouldn’t we be heading out to sea?” Bo asked.
Viper kept quiet for a few minutes as they cruised along the underbelly of the island a safe distance from shore. “One last piece of business.” He squeezed Judy and Piper in his arms. “No, this isn’t the business I meant.” He let out a full-throated laugh—the first real laugh of joy she’d heard in days.
After another minute he let go of the ship’s wheel and picked up what looked like a radio detonator. As they passed the Plant and the Lab, they watched from a quarter mile off shore as Viper set off the stacks of C4 bricks or cakes he’d set around the complex. The walls of the buildings collapsed in a ball of flames, black smoke belching into the twilight sky.
Kaden hugged Bo and Bailey as they watched the fireball consume the Lab. She knew nothing about what Viper had carried out on this part of the island. But she liked people who were proactive.
Viper retook the wheel, opened up the engine, and headed out to deep waters. He called over his shoulder, “Now we can go home.”
Epilogue
Off the coast of the Bahamas, next morning
Kaden sipped her orange juice and smiled at Bailey, who was resting her head on Bo’s shoulder as they neared the port of Nassau. She stood at the stern and watched the wake left by the no-frills Boston Whaler fishing boat—much more to her liking than a crooked billionaire’s luxury yacht.
The Whaler paused in international waters off Samana Cay until they’d gotten confirmation that the U.S. Navy would send a vessel to bring home the kidnapped girls. Annika releasing a video of the prison camp at Immersion Bay might have had something to do with that. Medical staff would be on board to help remove some of the girls’ permanent contact lenses. So, there’d be a happy ending for the traumatized parents who’d soon be reunited with their missing daughters. The young women would need counseling, and Annika had siphoned some of Volkov’s millions into a victims’ fund.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was sending a team out to Samana Cay and to Nassau to meet with Viper, who’d smuggled two large containers of the vaccine and the cure onto their boat. The compromised drinking water systems were in the process of being shut down.
Other things didn’t sit so right with her.
Lucid and Redman, both last seen in the lobby yesterday, had escaped. What court would hold them to account? The members of the Compact were likely to escape justice as well. She and Annika planned to circulate the video of the Compact, but these underworld figures were likely to go about their business controlling governments and public policy from the shadows. And what were Alice and Alex supposed to do? They seemed distraught at the prospect of returning to work for Axom. How could anyone work for a publication whose owner belonged to an international crime syndicate?
One tiny bit of good news: Fantasy Live suspended its operations, at least for now, according to a text Evelyn sent to Alex. As for the locals who worked in Samana Village running little shops or working as tour guides—Kaden doubted they knew what was really going on. So late last night she arranged with Annika to use Amelia’s system log-in to award every resident a 100,000 point “liberation bonus” if they volunteered to help set up a real government and a real currency that didn’t incentivize obedience to a corrupt regime.
She plopped into one of the blue-and-white plastic seats across from her father and sister. Bo rose and walked across the small teak deck and sat next to her. “How are you holding up?”
“Pretty well, considering. Looking forward to getting back to normal life. Doing something boring. Shuffleboard, darts. Maybe navel-gazing on social media.”
“Boring sounds good,” Bo agreed.
She still had some healing to do after all the trauma of the past week. She had seven kills to her name during the past eight weeks. Yeah, she
was tallying up her body count now. Maybe I should carve seven notches in my bedpost at home. One for each scar.
She’d set off with Bo hoping to find Bailey and the missing girls. And to fill in the blanks, find out more about herself. She’d arrived at a realization during her journey of self-discovery.
You can’t erase your past—but you can’t let it define you. You just have to invent yourself one day at a time. I’m just not sure if I like the work-in-progress.
“I got the paternity test back,” she finally told Bo. “Want to know the results?”
“I already know.” He smiled and put his arm around her shoulder.
“That still hurts.” She was getting her shoulder back but had to pop four Advils this morning. He let go and she grinned.
Bailey strolled over and sat on her other side. “So you’re finding out more about Dad,” she said.
“He’s kind of clueless with technology, isn’t he?” Kaden teased.
“Totally,” Bailey agreed. “Except maybe spy gadgets. We haven’t had that talk yet.”
“We have all the time in the world,” Bo said.
“How’s your mom doing?” Kaden asked her.
“Stable. Still in the hospital. I’ll be seeing her tonight.” Bailey leaned forward and began removing the necklace and pendant from around her neck. “Here, you can have this back.”
“You should keep it. That charm turned out to be lucky.” The least she could do for her new sis.
Bailey smiled and stroked the back of the pendant. “Thanks. So I can still reach you with this?”
“Sure. And not just when you’re in trouble.”
A device pinged in Bo’s shirt pocket. He took out his phone and checked a new notification, thanks to Tosh setting up an Internet-at-sea connection for him.
“Anything good and boring?” Kaden asked.