The Long Fall Into Darkness

by Charlie Cottrell

  “I can heal small wounds pretty quickly,” he said, “though larger ones still leave scars.” For proof, he took a rusty old nail and sliced open the palm of his hand. Blood welled up, but when he wiped it away there was no wound, just a thin line already disappearing on his skin.

  “Can I get a blood sample?” I asked. Xavier had provided me with the necessary equipment to draw the sample. It took just a few seconds. “Thanks,” I said.

  “I also don’t think I can get sick anymore,” he said. “I’ve cut myself on any number of old metal objects down here, and I haven’t had tetanus or anything adverse happen yet.”

  “Do you remember what you were working on at Shurburg Chemical?” I asked.

  Cornwallis frowned and shook his head. “No, and I didn’t remember where the building was after I revived. I found it again last year, but it’s been too long and my ID card wouldn’t get me into the building anymore.” He looked down, then back up at me. “But it was something big. Something…bad.” Cornwallis seemed fidgety now, twiddling his thumbs and not looking at me. “I’m…I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything else.”

  “Hey, no big deal,” I said. Okay, it was really the biggest deal. What the hell had he been working on at Shurburg? At this point, unless Doctor Korpanty – my contact at Shurburg Chemical – had any knowledge, this was a dead end.

  “So, why are you hiding down here?” I asked.

  Cornwallis brightened again. “Oh, that,” he said. “Someone was trying to murder me again.”

  “And when was this?” I asked.

  “About two months ago? I don’t know, time moves so differently now than it used to. I blame dying repeatedly, myself.”

  “Excuse me for a sec,” I said, holding up a finger as I stood and walked back over to where Xavier and Nancy were huddled together, eyeing everything around them suspiciously.

  “What have you discovered?” Xavier asked.

  “He says he only moved in here a couple of months ago,” I said, “but I thought this place collapsed a decade ago.”

  “It did,” Xavier said. “He’s crazy.”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sold on that,” I said. “What if he’s been moving around down here for the last decade, dying and being revived, forgetting who he is over and over again. I don’t think he’s just died a few times. I think he’s died hundreds of times.”

  Nancy shrugged. “So?” she asked.

  “So, he doesn’t remember anything, really, from twenty years ago. Hell, I barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. But he’s still clearly got some of his old skills. I think he programmed the murderbots.”

  “You think he was a roboticist?” Xavier asked.

  I shrugged. “Maybe. Or at least something tangentially related. What did the dossier say on him?”

  Xavier pulled up a copy of the police report on a vid window and scrolled through. “Just says, ‘Scientist working at Shurburg Chemical.’ Not a lot to go on.”

  “Did Bodewell not believe in asking follow-up questions back in the day?” I moaned. “Okay, so we definitely need to get into Shurgburg now. I’m also pretty sure he doesn’t trust us, though, so keep an eye on the murderbots.”

  “Why do you think he doesn’t trust us?” Nancy asked, suspicious.

  “He said his name was ‘Halbert,’ but I clearly remember reading in the file that his name was ‘Gregor.’ Why the deception?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t remember his name?” Xavier suggested.

  “Maybe,” I said, “but we should still be on the lookout for rampaging killbots.” I sighed. “Anyway, I’ve got a few more questions for the guy, then we can probably get go—” There was a rumbling overhead, and then a boom that was felt more than heard. It rattled the walls and knocked all of us off our feet.

  “What the hell was that?” Nancy asked.

  “I think we just got hit with an RPG,” Xavier said.

  And that’s when the room collapsed on top of us.

  XIV.

  Fire raged all around, consuming the walls of the collapsed structure in a way that seemed particularly impossible, given how wet and fetid everything down here had seemed. We turned to see Cornwallis pinned under a support beam. “Get out!” he shouted at us, waving us away from him. Xavier moved quickly to his side and started pulling at the support beam that pinned the supposedly immortal man to the ground. “Go! I’ll follow soon. But you all have to get out of here.”

  “How will you find us?” I asked. “If you die, you’ll forget everything again.”

  “I have a contingency in place, don’t worry,” Cornwallis said. He stared right at Xavier. “Get him out of here. Protect him. Go!” Another support beam from the ceiling came crashing down, separating us from Cornwallis in what seemed like a pretty final sort of way.

  “C’mon, we have to leave,” Nancy whined, hopping from one foot to the other anxiously. Xavier nodded and we all took off for the hallway and our exit.

  The hallway was blocked by an inferno.

  “Dammit!” Nancy screamed, kicking at the wall in frustration. The ceiling above us shuddered a bit in response.

  “Um, maybe don’t kick anything while we’re down here?” I suggested.

  “I can still kick your ass,” she snarled at me.

  “I’d especially consider it a great favor if you didn’t kick me.”

  “Spoil sport.”

  “Is there another way out of here?” I asked Xavier. He shook his head. “So, we’re fucked?” He nodded. “You are just tremendously helpful, Xavi.” I took a look around the hallway. The obvious exit was blocked by the wall of flame, which was inching ever-closer as we stood around with our collective ass hanging out. The walls were creaking and moaning like an old man trying to leverage his way out of a chair. Any minute now, the ceiling was going to come crashing down on us, bringing several tons of concrete and steel along with it. We were very certainly doomed.

  Then I saw, out of the corner of my eye, one of Cornwallis’s murderbots. It gestured with a claw at us and turned down a side hallway, trundling along on its treads with remarkable speed. “C’mon, I think we’ve got an alternative exit.” We took off after the robot, dodging the occasional falling debris and splintered support beam. The robot stopped at the end of the hallway, where a sealed door blocked further passage.

  “Is it locked?” I asked, fearful. The robot reached out and twisted the door handle. It turned freely, and the door creaked open on rusted hinges. The robot moved to the side to allow us to pass. “Um, thanks,” I said, patting the robot on the shoulder. It beeped quietly and happily to itself as we filed past it and into the next room.

  What we found were stairs leading upward. We took them two at a time, which Xavier and Nancy had no problems with and I nearly had a heart attack. Smoker’s lung is a terrible thing, folks. At the top of the stairs, another metal door greeted us. I tried the handle, which turned as easily as the one downstairs had. We leapt through the door and slammed it shut behind us.

  We found ourselves in an alleyway a block away from Cornwallis’s building. The heat from the fire reached us even here. “Think Cornwallis will survive?” I asked.

  Xavier shrugged. “I do not know. It’s possible, if unlikely.”

  I sighed heavily and leaned against the nearest building. “Now what? I don’t feel like we’re really any closer to figuring out who wants me out of the picture or why. This whole damn thing’s been a wild goose chase.”

  Xavier grunted assent. “Yes. But we know one thing we were not sure of before.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Whoever is after you will kill you to get what they want.”

  I sighed. “Xavi, you’re really shit at giving pep talks.”

  Part Two: Sauntering Vaguely Downward

  I.

  We headed back to Xavier’s safe house, avoiding emergency services as they came screaming down the street to put out the fire at Cornwallis’s building. We ducked and wove our
way down back alleys and side streets, hoping to avoid any bystanders or observers on our way home. It struck me as funny that I thought of the place as “home.” It was barely more than a hovel, and a stinking hovel at that. But it’s where we were staying, and by default felt at least a bit like home. Though, home really ought to have more coffee in it.

  We arrived back at the safe house nearly two hours after we’d left Cornwallis’s collapsed building, and we didn’t immediately go back in. Xavier wanted to case the joint and keep an eye out for whoever’d just tried to kill us. I had my suspicions, as I’m sure Xavier did, as to who to blame for all that.

  “So, who do you think was behind that attack?” I asked. Hey, I’m not a subtle person.

  Xavier shrugged. “I don’t know. Possibly Vera.”

  I laughed. “Really? You think she tried to bring a building down on top of us? Why?”

  “Because we are getting too close to the truth,” Xavier replied.

  “And just what truth would that be, hmm?” I asked, getting annoyed. “That Vera is a bad person? That she wants me to die because we started investigating Cornwallis? That doesn’t make a damn bit of sense! Why would she have protected me before? Why would she have worked with me so many times over the years? And why the hell did you decide to come ‘rescue’ me?”

  Nancy growled, but Xavier put up a hand to silence her. “You still have doubts. I understand. But you must trust me when I tell you that Vera Stewart is not your friend and has never been your friend. If she’s not behind the attack we just escaped, she would not be above doing something just like it if she had the chance. She is evil, Eddie. Pure evil. And the sooner you realize that, the better off we’ll all be.” He looked back over to the building. “We’re clear. Come on.” He stalked off toward the apartment building, his fists still clenched in anger or frustration or whatever he was feeling. Nancy prowled after him, and I followed at what I hoped was a safe distance.

  * * *

  That night, settled in on the couch as comfortably as possible given its sagging springs and threadbare upholstery, I gave some thought to what Xavier had said. I knew Vera Stewart wasn’t a hero by any means. I knew she’d done horrible thing as the Boss – lied, embezzled, stole, smuggled, and even killed – and that she had very little remorse for what she’d done. But was I really sure about that? She’d told me she wanted to turn over a new leaf, that she applauded what I’d been doing in deconstructing the Organization, but had she just told me what I wanted to hear?

  “I keep second-guessing her,” I muttered to myself. “Maybe she really has changed.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” a voice said from behind me. I sat up and saw a shadow detach itself from the kitchen. Vera Stewart appeared in a shaft of moonlight, her sense of dramatic tension perfect as always.

  “Oh! Um, hey, fancy seeing you here,” I said with a wan smile.

  “We’ve been searching for you since you disappeared from the warehouse, Eddie,” she said, coming around the sofa and standing in front of me. “Mind telling me what you’re doing here, with Xavier of all people?”

  I shrugged. “He pointed a big gun at me?” I said.

  Vera seemed to think for a moment, then I guess decided the answer was good enough. “Detective, Xavier did a dangerous, stupid thing bringing you out of the safe house. And an even stupider thing taking you to that building on 22nd Street. You could’ve been killed.”

  “According to Xavier, staying with you would’ve gotten me killed just as dead.” I searched her eyes for some sign, some twitch, to indicate that she was lying. I couldn’t see anything, but it was pretty dark in there.

  “You’re welcome to believe whomever you choose, I’m sure,” Vera said, “but I would like to think that you know me better than this. If I really wanted you dead, Detective Hazzard, I wouldn’t have gone to such trouble to keep you safely hidden away.”

  “But that was part of the problem,” I said, standing up and beginning to pace the small living room. “You kept me locked up like some precious heirloom. I was useless and helpless, and I hate feeling like that. I could’ve been out there helping find your sister and getting my name cleared.”

  “No, you would have only gotten in the way. The police are seriously searching for you. It’s not like last time, where a little investigation will clear everything up and everyone will go back to ignoring your existence. You were actually the Boss, for nearly a full year. Yes, you spent most of that time trying to dismantle the entire operation, but you still crossed many, many lines in the process. That is not something the police are likely to forgive anytime soon. I’ve been trying to manufacture evidence that shows you were not the Boss, that proves you had no connections to the Organization, but you were a fool and went about doing things with your face showing entirely too often.”

  “Hey, I eventually started wearing a mask whenever I dealt with anyone who wasn’t Kimiko and her ninja,” I protested.

  “You let the man who shot me go free, after admitting to him you were the Boss!” Vera snapped. “It was the most damned foolish thing you’ve done to date, and it was literally your first act as the Boss!”

  A small sound, as of a hammer being cocked on a gun, interrupted our argument. We both turned to see Xavier standing there, a handgun leveled at Vera. “As interesting as your little discussion is,” he said, “I’m afraid it’s time for you two to say goodbye.”

  II.

  We both stared at Xavier for a moment before I said, “Hey, Xavi, maybe go ahead and put down that gun before you hurt someone, huh?” I motioned for him to do so.

  Nancy came up behind Vera and grabbed her by the throat and around the waist. “I’ve wanted to gut you for ages, doll,” she hissed in Vera’s ear. “Please, give me a reason to do it.”

  “Xavier, I see you haven’t changed your taste in companions,” Vera said dryly. She sniffed. “They did used to be cleaner, though.”

  Nancy growled, but Xavier cut her off with a gesture. “Stop. Why are you here, Vera? Eddie did not want to stay hidden away in your warehouse.”

  “I mean, I didn’t, but I also didn’t wanna get kidnapped,” I said. Xavier gestured at me with the gun in a menacing way. I shut up.

  “I’m here to bring back Detective Hazzard,” Vera said, as though she didn’t have a feral maniac with a hand wrapped around her throat. “You can’t protect him here, not against what’s coming.”

  “And what would that be, hmm?” Xavier asked. “Your sister? Yes, I know about you and Carmen, and I know she’s still out there causing you trouble. You know who she’s working for, don’t you?” Vera’s mouth was set in a straight, thin line. She definitely knew. “And yet, you stand against her.”

  “I’ll always stand against her,” Vera said. “She is my nemesis, if you’ll forgive the hyperbole. If I don’t stand against her, who will?”

  Xavier lowered his gun. “Get out,” he said.

  “What?” Nancy sputtered. “I thought we were finally gonna kill her!”

  “No,” Xavier said. “She’ll face her sister and die that way. We don’t need her blood on our hands.”

  “But I want her blood on my hands!” Nancy shouted, gripping Vera’s neck tighter.

  “No,” Xavier said, bringing his gun up again and pointing it at Nancy this time.

  Nancy laughed, but it caught in the back of her throat. “You wouldn’t shoot me, Xavi. You need me.” She started to squeeze tighter.

  “Don’t,” Xavier said.

  Nancy gave him a feral grin and grabbed Vera’s neck with her other hand as well. “Stop me, then.”

  Vera’s elbow shot back, catching Nancy in the gut and knocking the wind out of her. This caused her to loosen her grip on Vera’s neck for a brief instant, but that was all the time Vera needed. She twisted and dropped down, breaking free of Nancy’s grip.

  Xavier’s gun went off. In the close quarters of the living room, it was deafeningly loud. Everyone turned to see Nancy, a blossom of blood bloom
ing across her chest. She stared at Xavier, a look of shocked betrayal on her face. “You…you shot…” She collapsed. Xavier stepped to her and knelt down while Vera and I stood back out of the way.

  “I’m sorry, Nancy,” Xavier said to her quietly. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.”

  Nancy tried to say something, but her lungs were quickly filling up with blood. She managed to cough, covering Xavier in bloody spittle. “I’m sorry,” he said again. Nancy gagged, trying to talk once again, then she gave a little death rattle and was gone.

  Xavier stayed kneeling next to her body for a moment, then he stood up and turned to Vera and me. “Leave,” he said. “Leave now, before I change my mind.”

  Vera turned toward the exit. “Um, what about me?” I asked.

  “Get out!” Xavier screamed, throwing the gun at me. I ducked it, and it shattered the window behind me. I scurried after Vera for the exit. I turned to look at Xavier as we were stepping through the door. He was still kneeling on the floor, his eyes closed, and he was shaking.

  “Come, detective,” Vera said quietly, ushering me out of the apartment. She closed the door behind us. “We have a lot to discuss, Eddie,” she said, her voice deadly somber. “Come on, we have to get somewhere safe. That gunshot can’t have gone unnoticed.”

  III.

  I followed Vera out of the apartment building and into a waiting town car. It pulled smoothly away from the curb as soon as the door was closed. Vera sat there quietly, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes closed. The only hint of the frustration she was feeling was the tightness around her eyes and brow. The muscle below her left eye was also twitching a bit.

  “So…” I said, jogging my hands on my knees and blowing air out of my mouth in a long, slow stream.