Dead4u

by H E Johnson

  With that he left my head or at least his voice did. He’d still see through my eyes and eavesdrop on my conversations. But that still beat listening to the man. His whole macho cop shtick irritated me. Nothing’s worse than idiots who speak in clichés coz they’re too lazy to think.

  Then, in case he was listening, I turned on the car radio and tuned in to a classical music station. It was opera day and they were playing selections from Verdi’s Aida. So I cranked the volume and filled the Jeep with O patria mia sung by the great Leontyne Price.

  Take that Wolseley.

  That’s what I was listening to when I pulled into McCord’s driveway. I waited for the music to finish. Then I turned off the car and went inside.

  ◆◆◆

  A quick rummage in the bedroom dresser unearthed clean booty shorts and sports bra. Both in basic black. Sad yet not surprising.

  I supposed McCord being a big woman had experienced body issues. Size fucking mattered yeah? Coz big strong females intimidate men. And I was stuck inside McCord’s brawny carcass till SpecOps decreed otherwise.

  Stripping down in front of the dresser mirror I examined McCord’s physique. It was a far cry from Nikita Chen’s wiry bod. First thing you noticed were the shoulders. McCord sported melons where most humans had apples. But what made her outsized frame truly impressive were the latissimus dorsi. Lats in gym speak. Lats are the broad back muscles behind the arms that make you V-shaped rather than pear-shaped. And McCord owned a pair of jet wings.

  My breasts were still red and sore from chafing against the damned sports bra. I touched the marks gingerly. Then I remembered the lube I’d found in the Jeep. McCord would’ve kept some in the house. But where? I tried the dresser but no dice.

  Bathroom?

  I found a tube of “personal lubricant” in the medicine cabinet. Right behind the aspirin bottle. I squeezed a dab below each breast and spread gently. The nipples were next.

  As my fingers circled the nubs a cough filled my head.

  “Nice tits,” said Novak in her customarily dry manner.

  I crossed my arms and stared straight into my eyes.

  “Jealous?” I sneered.

  “Not me. Boob droop’s a bummer when you get old and grey. But don’t fret. We’ll find you another pair just as good, Nikita. Perky ones too. Lots of sweet college girls wander into frats and disappear. I don’t imagine one less cheerleader would disrupt global trade or housing prices.” She chuckled. “In fact you could take that girl’s place. Marry the hot stud quarterback or next tech wizard—if you go for the brainy sort. Whatever you prefer.” Her tone hardened to ice. “Just give us Sweet and you can write your own fairy tale ending. Yeah?”

  Her reassurance rang hollow. I was supposed to believe SpecOps would let me ride off into Happily-Ever-After Land? After I’d seen Novak gun down a fellow cop? If anything, I’d become a bigger problem than Sweet. But I figured it wasn’t wise to speak these treasonous thoughts aloud.

  “Dorm drama’s overrated,” I told the mirror. “I’m not looking for a do over, Lieutenant. Find someone in my age bracket with a working brain and a decent bank account.” Picturing this fictitious future self I added, “Boobs don’t need to be huge but perky would be nice.”

  Second Time Around

  On the way out I selected another pair of black trainers from McCord’s front hall closet. I recalled thinking four pairs eccentric. Three remained and the job wasn’t over yet. How many would I go through before I was done?

  Oh well.

  I decided on a run around the seawall. When I got there it was early afternoon. Being Saturday gawping tourists and women pushing strollers jammed the path. Negotiating these obstacles were weekend athletes: runners cyclists skateboarders and rollerbladers. I joined the pedestrians and pounded past acres of sweating flesh as salt air filled my lungs.

  There were separate lanes for foot versus wheeled traffic. Despite this I spotted several near collisions in the first few minutes. Remembering Wolseley’s previous appearance on the seawall I watched for ice cream bikes. Fight time was coming fast with Madam Crunch as the main event. If Dobbs had been working with a rival crew to unseat DEAD4U they’d be coming for me. Soon.

  Legs churning, arms swinging, I weaved through clots of bodies bikes and buggies. Each obstacle became one of tomorrow’s opponents. I dodged elbows and knees. Reminding myself to think from that calm central point in the lower belly. When I did, the world slowed down. Stride adjusted to meet the oncoming flow. Looking into each stranger’s eyes I anticipated movement. Judged kill distance. Stepped in. Stepped out. Again and again.

  Caught up in the rhythm of this moving shadowbox routine I spotted a street musician in clown makeup playing a wooden flute for a small audience.

  I danced around Flute Clown and kept moving. Then I felt a sting in my ass. I kept running but looked around. Expecting to see a yellow-jacket or wasp buzzing me. Then my legs went numb. I stopped to run a hand over my rear. Could McCord be allergic to wasps? My fingers found a needle stuck in the meat of my right buttock. I pulled it out. A blowgun dart? Seriously?

  Hands gripped my armpits as I crumpled. Above me faces loomed with expressions of concern. One face smiled. Not a nice smile.

  Oh fuck. The nanoplants . . .

  “Chameleon,” I whispered.

  “What did she say?” someone asked.

  “She’s out of it,” Flute Clown announced. “Probably on drugs.”

  Another voice said, “Everyone stand back so the lady can breathe. We’ll take it from here.”

  ◆◆◆

  A fly buzzed in my face. I swatted at the sound. It buzzed again. This time I opened my eyes and snatched it from the air. Held it by the wings. Still buzzing. It was an ordinary housefly.

  I let it go. The fly beat a hasty retreat. I watched it circle the overhead light twice before setting down on the frame.

  “So. No problem killing people. But now you don’t hurt a fly? Interesting.”

  I turned my head left to follow the source of those words.

  Feliks Federov watched me from a wire cage. He perched on a stool, porkpie hat slanted over one eye, toothpick dangling from lips. As I struggled to focus, he grinned at me. I couldn’t understand why he was sitting in a birdcage. Took a couple seconds to realize he was outside the wire mesh. I was the one inside.

  I sat up. Got dizzy but managed to stay upright. Used my hands to prop me up. Head felt stuffed with cotton. Drugs?

  “What’s going on?” I asked. My voice sounded like it was coming from a tin can. I couldn’t be sure I’d spoken so I repeated my question. “What’s going on?”

  Federov stood up. He leaned against the wire. Raised an eyebrow and tapped the side of his large skull with a thick finger.

  “Work it out, Crystal. Thinking helps dissipate that fog in your head.”

  I stood up and nearly tripped over something. Looking down I found my right ankle attached to a thick chain. The chain led to a heavy-duty bolt sunk into an unpainted concrete block buried in a dirt floor. Behind me was a foul-smelling chemical toilet. My prison, I discovered, was actually a prefab storage cage. A keypad lock secured the door. The cage was itself contained within a high-ceilinged metal building. There were no windows. What illumination there was came from square overhead lights. I had no idea whether it was day or night. One thing I did know: it was hot.

  “Sweet’s going to kill you,” I told him. My tongue felt thick. So the words emerged in a heavy lisp. “If I don’t kill you first.”

  “Really?” Federov rolled the toothpick in his mouth. “I don’t think so, Crystal. Boss told me to stash you here. So here you are.” With a gesture the former Spetsnaz commando drew my attention to the cages on either side and across from mine.

  On my left was a woman. Mid-thirties? Hair a little messy but I could see it was expensively styled. She wore a white tanktop and shorts that displayed an impressively toned physique. The woman sat on a bed like mine. I noticed that her feet
were bare but neither ankle was shackled like mine. Swinging long legs back and forth, she examined me with a deliberate stare.

  I looked to the right and saw a man. Maybe a tad younger than the woman. He also wore white shorts with a white tanktop. Was this some kind of uniform? Guy was definitely buff with the sort of build that requires dedication and careful dieting. He was barefoot too. Also shackle-less. Unlike the woman, he avoided my gaze to stare glumly at the dirt floor.

  Sweet had ordered me brought here? That couldn’t be good. Either he’d discovered my

  “How do you like your new playmates?” Federov laughed. “Should I make the introductions Crystal?” He glanced in turn at my neighbours. “Shaun, Emily: this is the famous Madam Crunch. Crystal: I’d like you to meet Shaun and Emily Wexford.”

  Emily Wexford got up and put her face against the side of the cage closest to me. She remarked, “You’re a big one, aren’t you?” Raising her head to look at her husband, she yelled, “What do you say, Shaun? Can we take this bitch down?”

  “Yeah,” muttered Shaun. “Can do, Em.” He turned to Federov. “But it’s not going to matter either way, right? Even if we win, they’re not going to let us go.”

  Emily stepped back from the wire and began pacing her cage. She reminded me of a zoo tiger.

  Federov shook his head. “You win, you’re free to leave or come back and face next month’s challengers. That’s the deal.” He looked at his watch. “Almost dinner time. Who’s hungry?” He looked around. “Hey, this is gonna be your last meal on the house, folks. We want everyone sharp tomorrow.” Federov gave a shark grin and rubbed his hands together. “So. Any special requests?”

  Shaun didn’t hesitate. “Oatmeal with almond milk. Spelt crackers and peanut butter. Greek yogurt, two bananas and a fruit plate. And water. Lots of water.

  Emily Wexford stopped pacing. She requested mineral water and a smoothie comprising kale, açai berries, wheatgrass and whey powder.

  Federov, noting this on his phone, made a face. “Seriously? You could die tomorrow. And this is what you want?”

  “I have no intention of dying tomorrow,” Emily replied. “Your pet T-Rex is about to become extinct.”

  I turned to her. Our eyes locked.

  “Porterhouse,” I told Federov. “Medium rare. Baked potato with lots of butter. Asparagus lightly steamed. Three scoops of Rocky Road with walnuts. An extra-large black coffee. Oh. And water. Lots and lots of water.” I smiled at Emily. “Smashing in skulls burns a lot of calories.”

  Emily Wexford paled slightly. Federov chuckled. Then turned to the cage across from me.

  “And you, Helga?”

  I stared past Federov at my nemesis. She sat hunched in a ball on her bed. Same all-white outfit as the Wexfords. I checked her ankles. No shackle on either one. Hmm.

  Helga glared at Federov and then at me.

  “I did my fucking job!” she screeched. “I did everything I was fucking told to do! So fuck you! Fuck all of you!”

  I didn’t know whether to be more surprised at the improvement of Helga’s grammar or her liberal use of profanity.

  “I guess that’s tuna on white,” remarked Federov. He tapped on his phone and then looked up with a big grin. Helga, glowering, gave him the finger. “Okay people. I’ll be back with dinner in a couple hours. That should give you four time to get acquainted.” With a wave, he turned and walked to a door. When he went through the door, there was a short-lived burst of sunlight. I glimpsed a large fenced yard with a line of trees in the distance.

  I was in the middle of no-fucking-where. Which was pretty much how I’d started.

  ◆◆◆

  No one spoke right away. Helga lay down to stare at the ceiling. Shaun sat in a lotus posture on his bed and seemed disinclined to make nice. That left me with Emily Wexford for companionship. She was doing what appeared to be warmup exercises and sweating like a beast. Twisting side to side now. For baguazhang?

  I smiled and floated an icebreaker.

  “How long have you been down here?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. Just continued watched me the way a cat observes a bird prior to pouncing.

  Had the grab team hit her on the head? I knew she’d been stun-gunned. Still, the grab team might’ve felt obligated to repay her killing one of their crew. I saw no visible cuts or bruises but pros can do a lot of damage without leaving visible evidence. So I repeated the question.

  “Fuck off,” she snapped.

  Wow. I’d made a friend. I tried a different tack.

  “We’re all in the same boat,” I said. “Maybe we should work together.”

  Emily Wexford rolled her eyes. She stopped exercising and came to the bars separating us. Putting her face against the cage, she sneered, “Not a fucking chance, you psycho cunt.”

  “Em.”

  I looked around. The meditating Shaun Wexford had returned to the real world.

  “Doesn’t hurt to listen, right?” He shrugged. “She knows the setup better than we do.”

  “You’re pathetic, Shaun!” Emily yelled. She shook her head. “You see a pair of tits, your brain turns to mush. She’s not here to fuck you! Get that through your thick skull. She plans to kill you and me in front of the millions of morons watching that stupid game.”

  I interrupted. “Whoa! You guys got issues? See a marriage counsellor. For now, I propose pooling information. Let’s see if we can come up with a plan. Okay?”

  “Fine,” said Emily tersely. “You first.”

  So I told them the fight was being staged outdoors on a grassy surface with uneven terrain. Telling them I knew their fighting styles and preferred weaponry seemed pointless.

  Shaun went next. He said he’d been conscious when the grab team had snatched him. They’d transported him and Emily to our current location in a van or truck of some sort. Both of them had been blindfolded. Shaun estimated total travel time at two hours from start to finish. He’d tried listening for sounds to identify the route taken. But the grab team, playing a loop of industrial noise and traffic sounds, had made that impossible. The blindfolds hadn’t come off till after they’d been stashed in their cells. Since then all they’d seen of the outside had been what I’d just seen.

  A big yard. A fence. A bunch of trees.

  Great. I’d kind of hoped for more. A train whistle. Building blueprints. News of a secret tunnel scooped out by spoons.

  Fuck.

  Emily’s version of events was even grainier. She’d been attacked by three men. After stun-gunning her, they’d zip-tied her wrists and ankles. Then she’d blindfolded and stuffed into the back of a van. At some point, Shaun had joined her. That, she concluded, was all he could add.

  Emily’s failure to mention fucking the country club’s golf pro in a bathroom stall wasn’t surprising. No doubt hubby didn’t know about it—yet. So maybe Emily wouldn’t mind too much if Shaun didn’t survive this little adventure?

  Hmm.

  I pondered possible locations within two hours of the city. To avoid detection, you’d keep clear of major roads and highways. You’d need a safe, convenient spot from which to operate. And, seeing as this wasn’t a one-off deal, you’d want a reusable site. This was clearly an industrial building—likely a farm building with that dirt floor—so we’d be near the limits of a two-hour drive. Since the grab team would’ve kept to posted speed limits, that limited our position to a smaller arc of real estate.

  “Took two of them to carry you in here,” said Shaun. “They use a stun-gun on you too?”

  I tried to recall the sequence of events leading to my current incarceration. I’d run around a street musician wearing clown makeup. Something had stung me then. I remembered holding a blowgun dart in my hand. Then shutting down the nanoplants before blacking out.

  Given my current predicament, this seemed like a good time to turn those puppies back on.

  I whispered the password: “Salamander.”

  White noise erupted in my head. “Chameleon,
” I hissed. The static stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

  Looking around I realized my mistake. The building’s metal walls blocked transmission of radio waves. When the door opened, the implants might—might—find a gap in the building’s skin. There wouldn’t be much time. But even a short burst should give SpecOps a fix on my location.

  Whether SpecOps would pull me out before things got hairy was another question. I didn’t like my chances.

  “Hey! Crystal?” It was Emily. “You still with us?” I nodded. In a low voice, she said, “These people aren’t going to let us go, are they? Even if we win, we lose. Yeah?”

  I told her the truth. None of us would walk away tomorrow. Win or lose, we were dead. Unless, that is, we came up with a workable plan.

  Fat Lady Speaks

  I spent the next hour or so haggling with the Wexfords. It was almost as much fun as my annual pelvic exam.

  Shaun’s brilliant plan was for one of us—him—to fake being killing. Then while Emily and I continued to fight, he’d sneak away and come back with a SWAT team to save us.

  Uh-huh.

  Emily said that was the dumbest idea she’d ever heard. She suggested posing with our weapons to simulate flag semaphores making a distress signal. Someone in DEAD4U’s audience was bound to notice and alert the authorities.

  Yeah. Maybe the yacht clubs would save us. Ha-ha. Talk about shit for brains.

  As Shaun and Emily heatedly debated the merits of each other’s scheme, I checked on Helga. Our friendly masseuse cum assassin hadn’t spoken since Federov’s departure. She continued to lay in bed, looking listless and bored. While I wasn’t overly fond of the woman, enlisting her help seemed like a smart move.

  “Helga?” I tried on a smile. “Wouldn’t you like to get out of here with us?” Failing to elicit a response, I tried again. “Do you know anything that could help us? Anything at all?”

  “Forget her,” advised Shaun. “That one got here just before you. Two guys carried her in kicking and screaming the whole way. We tried talking to her but no luck. So I figured she might be here to watch us.”