The Long Fall Into Darkness

by Charlie Cottrell

  II.

  I convinced Ellen and Vera to take me back to the office at Church Street. If the big bad guys were gunning for me, I’d feel safest there. Well, as safe as I’d feel anywhere in town at this point, really, but there were supplies and provisions and things available at the Church Street office that were not readily available everywhere else.

  “You just want to be close to your whiskey stash,” Ellen said.

  “Well, there’s also that,” I said. “But my whiskey wholesaler doesn’t just sell whiskey.”

  “What, does he also provide you with your absinthe?” Ellen asked sarcastically.

  “You know, I haven’t ever thought to ask him if he imports that stuff. I should,” I said thoughtfully. “But no, he provides…other important things.”

  “Wait, hold on a moment,” Vera said, rubbing her temples in frustration, “you buy your whiskey wholesale?”

  “No, I pay retail markup for it,” I said, rolling my eyes. “C’mon, I’ll show you what else I buy from Juan Carlos.” I walked into my office, sat down at my desk, and pushed a button underneath it. A section of wall clicked open. I walked over and swung the revealed secret door wide.

  “That’s…” Ellen started.

  “A lot of guns,” Vera finished for her.

  “Yup,” I said, walking into the gun closet, as I called. “Welcome to my own private arsenal. I’ve got handguns and rifles, automatics and semi-automatics, even a couple of RPGs in here.” I hefted one of the launchers. “Pretty sweet, huh?”

  “But Eddie, in all the time I’ve worked for you, you’ve never expressed any interest in using an actual, honest-to-God gun. Why do you have all this stuff?”

  I returned the RPG launcher to its hooks and stepped out of the closet. “After they blew up my apartment – and our old office – I knew I needed to be prepared to fight. And I knew that the fight, when it finally came to our door again, was going to be a nasty one that required a bit of firepower. So I, um, used the Organization’s munitions budget and built up my little arsenal here.”

  “Eddie, there’s enough firepower here to take over a small country!” Ellen exclaimed.

  “Pfft. A medium-sized one, at least,” I said. “Look, this was supposed to act as a sort of nuclear deterrent to anyone dumb enough to want to tangle with us.”

  “You don’t actually have a nuclear weapon in there, do you?” Vera asked hesitantly.

  “Not that I’m aware of, no,” I said, “but I haven’t done inventory in a few months, so who knows?” I could see they were uneasy, so I added, “Look, I didn’t actually think I’d ever have to use any of this stuff. And I’m not even sure things like the RPGs will actually work. They’re kinda old military surplus-type things, y’know? But I felt better knowing we could defend ourselves against someone if we had to. And especially after the Saint Blade busted in here a few months back…well, let’s just say I wish I’d been able to get to the arsenal before facing him.”

  “But that’s just it, you didn’t make it to the guns before he attacked us,” Ellen said. “All those guns were absolutely useless in an actual crisis. What makes you think this time will be any different?”

  “Because this time, I get to use the shield,” I said with a grin. I pushed another button under my desk, and all the windows and doors in the building were suddenly covered in a thick layer of bulletproof material “Nigh impenetrable, high-tensile bulletproof glass. Can withstand everything up to an RPG and even a bit more, if we’re being honest. It’s better than the stuff they make the Popemobile out of.”

  I clicked the button under the desk and the shields rose back into their housings. “Anyway, I feel like we stand a bit of a chance if they attack us here. Way better than that warehouse you had me stashed in before, Vera.”

  “There was nothing wrong with that warehouse,” Vera said with a huff.

  “Except for the fact that Xavier busted me out of it by himself,” I said. “Regardless, we’re here, we’re top-tier, get used to it.”

  “That didn’t make sense and was mildly offensive,” Ellen said.

  “Sorry, still a bit drunk.”

  * * *

  My next step was to find out what I could about Cornwallis’s former employer.

  “Maya, do a search on Grubber-Hammock,” I said.

  “Grummel-Hammond,” Ellen corrected.

  “Close enough for government work,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “We need to know what else they were up to. I’m sure their servers aren’t online anymore, but maybe you can find something?” Maya nodded and started up her datamining program.

  “What are the rest of us going to do?” Vera asked.

  “Simple,” I replied. “We’re going to break into their old building.”

  * * *

  Grummel-Hammond Consolidated had been located in Old Town on the corner of 28th Street and Motley Boulevard. It’d been a nice place, once, but had gone to seed along with the rest of Old Town when the economic crisis hit Arcadia. Grummel-Hammond had held on longer than most in this neighborhood, finally closing their doors about fifteen years ago after the owners declared bankruptcy and hedge-fund managers stripped everything of worth from the company.

  Maya had done some digging and turned up the fact that all of G-H’s data and holdings had been bought by another military defense contractor, Applied Dynamics. We were headed their way next, but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything left in the old Grummel-Hammond building first.

  The place was pretty run down, as one might imagine. The glass in the front door was cracked and splintered, and you could see where rats and other vermin had scurried in and out and widened holes near the bottom of the door. The company’s name was mostly missing from the door, though part of the decal remained, peeled and cracked as it may have been.

  Inside, things were covered in a thick layer of dust. A curved reception desk remained, though the desktop was faded and pieces were missing. A nest of some sort was built right up against the base of the desk.

  “Shall we?” I asked. Both Vera and Ellen nodded, so I elbowed the glass out of the door and we stepped through.

  Inside, the musky odor of rat urine and feces mingled with the dead air of an unused building. We could hear small animals scrabbling around in the darkness.

  “Be on the lookout for any computer equipment, including laptops, flash drives, datachips, anything,” I said. “They had the first three floors of the building, so each of us can take a floor and scope things out.”

  Ellen headed up to the third floor, Vera took the second, and I stayed on the first. We had phone lines open between the three of us, so if anyone found anything or got in any trouble, the other two could come running.

  I started at the receptionist’s desk. There were several more, much older, nests behind and underneath the desk. No computer stuff, though, so I rummaged through the desk’s file drawers, found nothing there, and moved on down a side hall to a collection of small offices.

  The first office was small, maybe six meters to a side, and completely empty except for an old cardboard banker’s box. I undid the string holding the flaps down over the top of the box; the string fell apart in my hands, as did the first flap I lifted. The box was soggy and reeked of mildew, so I abandoned that room and moved on to the next.

  The next three offices were exactly the same as the first, except none of them even had boxes in them. I was getting frustrated.

  The very next office was like a jackpot. A motherlode. The door was locked, but that didn’t matter when I broke out the lockpicks and fiddled with the tumblers for a few moments. The door swung open noisily, revealing an office with desk, chair, and filing cabinet, all in pristine condition.

  And on the desk was a laptop.

  “Hot damn,” I said to myself, walking into the office and into a trap.

  III.

  Private detectives are notorious for walking in and springing traps, whether purposefully or accidentally. Miss Typewell d
id the math for me once and determined that I sprung approximately five traps per case. Only some of those were on purpose, admittedly.

  This particular trap was far from ingenious. A string was tied to the doorknob. When the door was pushed open, the string was pulled, and the gun at the other end of the string was fired.

  The bullet bounced off my force field, causing the kinetic barrier to glow bright yellow for a brief moment as the lump of lead sparked off it. I’d expected some kind of trouble, sure, otherwise I wouldn’t have activated the force field before I went in, but I wasn’t expecting something so…Looney Tunes.

  “Seriously, it’s like, why do they even bother?” I asked, deactivating my force field and stepping into the room. In doing so, I tripped a wire at ankle level and caused a spring-loaded axe to come swinging at my head.

  I managed to duck out of the way at the last second. The axe buried itself in the door jamb. I cursed colorfully as I picked myself up and dusted myself off.

  “What was that?” Ellen’s voice called out over the phone.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Apparently I’ve stepped into the office of Wile E. Coyote.”

  “Do we need to come down to join you?” Vera asked.

  “No, I’m good,” I said. “You two just keep up your search and be on the lookout for booby traps.”

  Next, I opened a vid window and activated one of Maya’s fancy apps: it scanned the room for other anomalies and painted them bright red in the vid window. All I had to do was look through the vid window to find any other booby traps.

  The room was filled with traps.

  They were everywhere: tripwires, pressure plates, a bucket of something over the closet door…everywhere I looked in the room, there was a trap of some sort.

  “This is insane,” I grumbled. I scanned the room thoroughly, looking to see if there was some sort of…

  “A-ha, found you,” I said.

  “Found what? Or who?” Ellen asked.

  “Do you need us down there?” asked Vera.

  “No, I’m still fine, dammit. I’m just figuring out this fuckin’ Rube Goldberg machine, okay?” I activated my force field, stepped into the middle of the room, bent over, and pulled on the knot of strings that met there.

  Several contraptions around the office collapsed in on themselves, another gun went off, and a half dozen knives all tried to bury themselves in my back. The force field fended them off.

  “Okay, that should do it,” I said. “Ladies, I’ve found a computer,” I announced to the other two.

  “Really?” Ellen said. “I haven’t found a thing up here.”

  “Neither have I,” reported Vera. “We’re coming back down to you.”

  “Fine, but if you spot a coffee maker on the way, bring it with you. I’m dying here.”

  * * *

  Vera and Ellen walked in a couple of minutes later to find me sitting at the desk and poking at the computer.

  “There’s still something here?” Ellen asked, incredulous.

  “Yeah, this room is pristine. Er, was pristine. It tried to kill me.” I gestured at the debris all over the floor from the various booby traps. “Anyway, I can’t get this computer to turn on.”

  “Well, it’s probably been years since it had power running to it,” Vera said. “This building’s been empty for over a decade.”

  “Then how do you explain the security camera up there?” I asked, pointing to a corner near the ceiling where a small security camera was positioned, a small red light glowing in the darkness.

  Vera and Ellen gave me a look.

  “What?” I said. “I only just noticed it myself. I didn’t think there’d be power on here. I hardly see how someone deciding to spy on us is my fault.”

  “Grab the computer,” Vera said, walking quickly toward the door and pulling her gun. “We need to leave now.”

  I grabbed the laptop and stuffed it into the backpack Ellen had slung across her shoulders. “How long do you think they’ve known we’re here?” I asked.

  “Long enough,” Vera said, pointing down the hallway to where flashlights could be seen.

  “Oh, good, the welcome wagon,” I said, drawing the lightning gun and flicking the safety off. “Ellen, are you armed?” In response, my secretary hefted a length of metal pipe onto her shoulder and gave me a determined grin. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’ I guess. C’mon, let’s see if we can’t sneak out of here.”

  We exited the office and headed away from the flashlights, Vera in the lead and me bringing up the rear. I kept an eye on our backs, waiting for the inevitable call of recognition from one of the guys out there looking for us, but we made it to an emergency exit unseen. Vera checked the door for wires or any other booby traps, determined it was at least fairly safe, and pushed the door open.

  The door alarm blared, hurting our ears and alerting our pursuers. We couldn’t hear them over the alarm, but I could see their flashlights swinging wildly in the dark hallway. “Run!” I shouted as loudly as I could, pushing Vera and Ellen out the emergency door and slamming it shut behind us. There was nothing we could use to brace the door, so we just took off down the alley we’d found ourselves in and made for a side road.

  Unfortunately, we found Pinkertons waiting for us.

  IV.

  “Shit, Pinkertons,” I snarled as they levelled their guns at us. Vera snapped off a shot, causing them to duck down behind their car, and I pulled the trigger on the lightning gun and sent several thousand volts through the metal frame of the car and into their bodies. They convulsed and fell to the ground. “Run like hell!” I told Vera and Ellen. We took off down the street, heading for our own getaway car. Behind us, shouts rose up as the Pinks from inside the building came bursting out onto the street and continued their pursuit. Our car was just another block up, and we were running hellbent for leather. I turned and snapped off a couple of quick shots behind us and was gratified to hear a couple of cries as men went down.

  The ponk sound behind us immediately worried me. “Get down!” I shouted, throwing myself at the ground and activating my force field. A grenade exploded a few dozen meters behind us, tossing up shrapnel and chunks of asphalt. “Get to the car. Don’t stop and don’t turn around,” I told Vera and Ellen.

  “What the hell are you doing, Eddie?” Miss Typewell asked.

  “Saving our asses, with any luck,” I said, turning back toward the oncoming Pinkertons. My force field would last maybe five minutes, tops, and then I’d be as vulnerable as everyone else. In that time, I had to protect my friends’ getaway and slow down the Pinkertons.

  Luckily, I had a few tricks up my sleeves and in my pockets.

  I dug out the first trick, a taser grenade, and tossed it at the Pinks. It landed, bounced, and erupted in electrical discharge, catching several of the goons and dragging them down. That still left a half dozen Pinks coming at us. A quick glance behind me revealed that Vera and Ellen had reached the car and were piling in. I turned back to the Pinks and pulled my second surprise, a flashbang. While not as debilitating as the taser grenade, it would still slow them down enough to give us a chance to get away. I tossed it and ran for the car, huffing and puffing like the lifelong smoker I am. I heard the flashbang go off behind me; even saw a bit of the flash in my peripheral vision. Vera had started the car and was gunning the engines when I leapt into the back seat, slamming the door behind me and shouting “Go! Go!” at Vera. She threw the car into gear and tore off down the street, taking the first turn we came to at random and zig-zagging her way far from the Grummel-Hammond building with all due speed.

  “We need to ditch this car quick,” I said.

  Vera nodded as she turned onto Sycamore Avenue. “First thing I come across, we’ll steal it,” she said.

  Ellen gave her a nasty look. “We’ll leave a note,” I promised.

  Vera pulled up to the curb behind an ancient minivan and killed the engine. We all jumped out and made for the van. Vera used the butt of her gun to take ou
t the window in the sliding door, then popped the hood for me. I pulled up a vid window and ran a program I’ve used many, many times before: the carjack kit.

  The carjack kit was a simple suite of tools that allows you to quickly and quietly jack a car. You start with the engine computer, convincing it that the key fob is present, and then the ignition will work for you. From there, it’s a simple matter to fire the vehicle up and go for a ride.

  “Try it,” I said to Vera. She pushed the ignition button and the electric engine in the van hummed to life. I closed the hood and hopped in the passenger seat. “Back to base, I guess,” I said. Vera nodded and pulled smoothly away from the curb.

  “You didn’t leave a note,” Ellen pointed out.

  “I’ll, um, send them an Edible Arrangement once we’re all done, okay?” I said.

  * * *

  We made it back to the Church Street headquarters a few hours later, tired and edgy from constantly looking over our proverbial shoulder. Vera ditched the van a few blocks away from the office and we walked the rest of the way back.

  “I don’t think anyone was able to follow us,” Vera said as we sat down in the conference area. Maya was asleep in her corner of the main office, a warehouse’s worth of computer parts strewn around her. I didn’t bother to wake her; whatever was on the laptop, it could wait until morning.

  “I’m glad,” I said, sighing. “That was too damn close for my tastes. How did the Pinks know to keep an eye on that joint?”

  “Maybe they’re the ones who set up the traps and surveillance equipment,” Ellen posited. It made as much sense as anything, except it still didn’t answer the question of how they knew to keep an eye on the place.

  “Wait,” Vera said, “if they’re the ones who set up all the traps and the camera, then the laptop…” We all stared at the computer sitting on the coffee table between us.

  “That thing could be tracked,” I said.

  We all jumped up at the same time, moving at cross purposes. Ellen ran to wake up Maya. Vera ran to find a hammer to smash the laptop with. I stood there, frozen, unsure of what to do.