Rick hesitated.
Gotcha, Smerch thought. Your lack of a ready “yes” means your answer is likely a “no!”
Now I know how you may be used, Mr. Watanabe.
Before Rick could respond, Smerch, looking him dead in the eye, said only, “You will. In time.”
Chapter Five
Be the sword you wield.
—Kimura Ryuu
Scarlet examined the two men. Each wore a black, woolen trench coat, blue jeans, and shiny, black boots. Their haircuts were virtually identical: military-style high-and-tights.
No one this poorly trained could be NSB. Hired goons, crooked cops, or the Air Force’s people, more than likely. Someone trying to babysit me or keep an eye on me.
Or stop me.
One of them cast a glance over his shoulder at her, as if he sensed she was watching him.
So sloppy.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.
Slowly, imperceptibly, she wiggled and flexed her feet loose from her high heels. Her shoes were ready to fall away from her feet at her slightest intent.
I hope these boys like to run.
The subway train pulled into its next stop, Fenwick Station, one of the system’s major nodes. Scarlet looked out and saw a large crowd of people on either side of the car, many of them looking eager to get on.
The subway train screeched and wheezed to a halt. Its doors hissed open.
No time like the present.
As the passengers crowded into her car, her heels quietly fell away from her feet.
More people came in, and everyone seemed to be looking for a place to sit or stand.
The doors will close in about… four seconds.
Timing her exit as accurately as she could, she calmly stood, then deftly wove herself between the crowded passengers in the car, and slipped out into the station. The doors hissed closed mere inches behind her.
The two men soon noticed that she was no longer seated where she once was, but it was too late.
The train began to creak forward into a shadowed tunnel.
One of the men pressed his palm to the window of the car and looked out at her with a frown. He pushed the other man on the shoulder, yelled something, and then both were rushing toward the back of the car, toward its emergency exit.
Scarlet did not wait for them to open it.
With unclad feet on concrete that felt like it could have been made of Arctic ice, she bolted across the station floor, up the stairs, and out into the noisy city streets, where the wind again gusted around her on all sides. The nylon stockings covering the soles of her feet soon wore away, leaving her bare skin exposed to the asphalt, concrete, and litter of the city.
She shot a look left and right along the street—and sprinted in the direction that had the greater number of people.
The men were only seconds behind her.
I won’t be stopped. Not by them.
Chapter Six
The agents at the Bureau’s command center had been working all night, chasing leads, gathering data, and testing their hypotheses. They had easily burned through five pots of coffee and an obscene army of tiny energy-drinks whose crushed, aluminum corpses were piled high in waste bins.
An hour before sunrise, Eastman’s team had landed at the NSB’s airstrip, an event at which Smerch had congratulated himself. Eastman’s was the premier unit, the greatest of the great, the vanguard, the elite.
Further, Eastman, however ambitious and adept, was still a company man, and Smerch knew it. Eastman cared only about the mission. Eastman wanted only to win. In fact, it was for that reason, more than any other, that Smerch had subtly maneuvered him to the head of the vanguard unit.
Control the head, and the tail tends to follow.
Eastman was not the type to question the legality or ethics of any given assignment or course of action. He went in, did whatever he was ordered to do, and then went home—alive. No questions asked. All else, to him, was, as he had put it, “a debate for brain-dead philosophers and asshole hipsters”—softer, gentler people who stayed safe in their comfy beds because of his protection and his willingness to do what others couldn’t or wouldn’t. He was the agent’s agent. A professional among professionals. All else outside his rarefied circle was secondary and inferior. Even inconsequential.
An amazingly fun toy! Smerch thought of him. Fun, so easy to control, and so effective at what he does. We need more Eastmans in the world, by God. If everyone just did as they’re told, the world would be a better place for us all.
A hulk of a veteran with thinning, blonde hair, beady eyes, a severely weathered face, and a square jaw, he strode into the command center with his three teammates close behind: his second-in-command, Frank Blatch, who was a man even larger and more disagreeable than he; Dr. Zandara Glick, the entire Bureau’s foremost expert in paranormal phenomena; and the mysterious Lauren Monroe, about whom little was commonly known, either within the Bureau or without.
He turned to face Rick, who stood at one side of the command center.
“You’re relieved. Go. Get out of here.”
Rick nodded and then walked out of the command center, down the same hallway Scarlet had taken only hours ago, and headed to his office for some rest.
I’m so tired.
He rubbed his eyes, looking like he had stayed up far past his usual bedtime.
At a bank of elevators, he pressed a button to go up. The doors opened, and he dragged himself inside. Barely. He leaned against the back wall, nearly collapsed, and closed his eyes.
The elevator doors were about to close when someone suddenly stuck an arm between them.
The elevator doors halted, then jerked open wider, and the person slipped inside.
It was Beth.
“Rick…” Her voice trailed off. She faced him, and the look of distress in her eyes could not be avoided.
He looked wearily back.
“Beth.”
In the quiet solitude of an elevator that was itself trapped inside a lonely, guarded building, they embraced.
Chapter Seven
In an age of information on every topic of human interest, ignorance of the most vital topics is a choice. No widespread ignorance of these matters can be without severe consequence to your species.
If you choose to live in the darkness, do not be surprised when great waves of destruction, rolling in from the vast horizon of your willful ignorance, begin to crash over you.
Do not be surprised, either, when you slap away the light in order to stay within your preferred kind of darkness: the so-called safety and comfort of what you think, imagine, or believe you already know.
—Atlantica
Scarlet whipped through the crowds of people as the colorful lights from advertisements and holograms flashed and strobed around her. On the corner, a grunge band was thrashing out music, and the sound of their bass boomed and thudded for countless blocks around.
As she continued to run, she rapidly considered her options.
This isn’t the time to start a war. If I kill them, I escalate this conflict unnecessarily. More trouble isn’t what I need right now.
I must use only non-lethal means. Just send them away bruised, not dead.
A quick look behind her revealed that both men were not far behind. They were huffing, nearly out of breath, and furious. The crowd had not slowed them down as much as Scarlet had hoped. Whereas Scarlet, using the advantage of her smaller, female frame, had slid through the empty spaces within the crowds, leaving them relatively undisturbed, the men had been forced to shove their way through, creating mayhem and eliciting innumerable curses from the crowds of people they pushed aside.
Unless, of course, they force my hand…
A coffee shop came into her view. Right on the corner.
Bingo. Mr. Java, you’re the best part of working out.
Just as one of the customers had been handed a hot coffee, its steam rising from the glittering styrofoam cup,
Scarlet snatched it and rounded the corner. The customer cried aloud in protest, but she did not stop.
The pursuing men flew around the same corner—to a surprise. After all this time of running away, Scarlet was suddenly running toward them—and was only several feet away.
Their minds glitched for a brief second, and she threw the cup of scalding-hot coffee into the face of one of them.
He fell to the ground, hands furiously covering his face, and swearing like a longshoreman who’d suddenly lost his mind.
One down.
The other man drew a switchblade.
“Stop it right there, you bitch!”
But it was too late.
She had already fled around the same corner.
Like an enraged bull, he dashed after her…
…and was met, upon his own rounding of the corner, by Scarlet again running toward him. As she ran, she placed her foot on his knee and used it to jump up to strike the side of his head with her elbow. There was a dull, wet crack at his temple. The second pursuer collapsed to the street, knocked out cold.
Fool you once, shame on me. Fool you twice…
She slid his knife aside with her foot, then knelt next to him to check his neck for a pulse.
He’s still alive.
The police, however, had already been called—by someone. Or multiple someones. The goons’ shoving and swearing couldn’t have gone over well with the locals.
Not that what I did could have appeared too saintly, either.
She saw their flashing, neon-blue lights approaching from a few blocks down. She realized she would not be able to interrogate these men herself.
The coffee-face guy got up, looked at her with rage in his scalded eyes, then looked toward the police sirens, and finally spotted his partner lying helpless on the ground. He mumbled some obscenities, shook his head furiously, and ran away as quickly as he could through the gathering crowd.
The police would be searching for him—but also for her. She smarted inwardly at the lost opportunity to learn something of who was tailing her, but there was nothing more she could do here. Time was up, and she had to be elsewhere.
Acting like just another bystander, and no longer running, but mingling within the crowd, she blended in.
By the time the police rolled up, she had walked away and disappeared down streets flooded with the pulsing sounds and lights of the dark.
Chapter Eight
The deepest understandings of love and creation require, for their expression, concepts for which there are no words in any human language. Even “creation” and “love” fall short of what reality is at its ineffable, mind-shattering roots.
—Hannah
In the elevator, Beth held tightly to Rick. She could feel the warmth of his chest and, despite his fatigue, the strength and security of his arms around her. She rested the side of her face on his neck and could smell the faint, ragged remnants of his bay rum aftershave. She felt his soft, strong heartbeat against her chest.
At this early hour, few people were present in the building. Fewer still were using the elevators.
The two agents had never been particularly intimate or affectionate with each other before now.
But this felt right.
Scary… but right.
Somehow, in this time of crisis, time had become more precious. When time was running out, what one did with it became more important. Crisis clarified values, sharpened one’s vision of what was real, what was worth doing, being, having, or becoming.
But does it take a crisis in order for people to come together—like this? she wondered. Shouldn’t we have done this sooner, when we had more time…?
They sank to the floor of the elevator, lost in a fragile and aching reverie that had no words. Their embrace was the velvety scent of a rose on a lost, drizzling midnight in spring; the inebriating freedom-scent of the unsteady but trusting migration of one heart toward another across a dark and invisible chasm; the soft, red-golden, puddle-enriched ore of the dawn after a night of ceaseless wind and rain.
Rick held her in his arms until the elevator reached its destination. It chimed in that way elevators did—polite but insistent—then opened its doors for them.
“I’m going to my office. Will you join me there?” he asked her.
She looked into his tired eyes and nodded, and he took her hand.
His hand… it feels so warm.
She did not know exactly what to expect. The concerns she had, the things she wanted to tell someone but couldn’t, her secret wishes… Swirling clouds of lonely thoughts weighed heavily upon her mind.
He opened the door to his office, and she beheld a sparsely furnished, square room with a lone desk and computer console at its center. The desk was bare. A few file cabinets had been tucked into the back-left corner of the room, almost like an afterthought. There were no pictures, no plants of any kind, no extra lighting beyond the standard fluorescent tubes in the ceiling.
“I’m sorry it’s not much,” he said, closing the door behind them. “I never really decorated it or put much thought into it.”
“Why not?” She looked at him, wondering.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I was always busy with something else. All this place needed to be was somewhere where I typed reports, kept files, and played video games. To me, it wasn’t anything more than a glorified closet. It was just a place to hang my coat until I needed to go out on assignment again… But…”
He paused, unsure whether he should be telling her this.
“But what, Rick?”
He let out a slow sigh, turned away from her.
Softly, he confessed, “But… I never really wanted this office, this square little room, to become my home.”
She surveyed the room and, true to her gentle nature, said, “It’s nice. I like it.”
Rick turned to her and gave her a half grin, as if to say simultaneously, “Yeah, right,” and, “You’re very kind.”
But she is very kind. And so beautiful.
She sat down against one wall and ran the tips of her fingers along the floor as though she were feeling carpet for the very first time.
Rick rested his eyes on her and considered—and reconsidered—who this woman was. There was something pure about her, something innocent and tender. He could not quite point to it or directly name it; he could only feel it, only sense it.
He recalled how soft and smooth her gorgeous hair had felt in his hands only moments ago, how heavenly she smelt, and how wonderful it was to hold her warm, soft body next to his.
She’s prettier than I deserve, though. What she’s doing in here with me—I have no idea.
He sat along the wall opposite her and rubbed his eyes.
“Rough night, eh?” he said, trying to make small talk.
“Yeah… Rough night.”
But the look of concern in Beth’s eyes had not gone away.
He waited a few beats in case Beth had more to say, but she remained silent.
“Hey, you want to talk about it?”
Her gaze fell. “I don’t know. It’s something I probably shouldn’t be thinking… and I don’t know if you’d even want to hear it.”
Rick considered Beth for a moment more, then got up to retrieve a bottle of gin from his desk. He poured himself a drink, then offered one to her.
She accepted it, only distantly aware of it. She held it for a while, staring through the floor without looking at anything in particular, and then began to nurse the gin slowly, silently, lost in her own thoughts.
After many long moments, she looked up at him and asked, “Rick, do you ever get scared? Like, are there times when you’re afraid?”
Fighting off sleep, Rick blinked, taken aback by the innocence of the question. “Sure. Everyone gets scared sometimes.”
“No, I mean really scared. Like, terrified. So terrified that you…” Her eyes began to water, and she looked away. Her body began to tremble as she attempted to hold back he
r emotions.
“Beth? Beth, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head in a sense of futility, doing everything she could to keep from crying. She set her drink down on the floor and buried her face in her tucked-in knees. Her whole body was trembling in desperate silence.
Outside, the very first touches of the morning light, dim and airy purples and pinks, began to fade into the frigid sky.
Rick got up and sat down a few feet to her side.
“Hey, hey, you can tell me. It’s ok.”
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Then she looked up at him and managed to say, “Rick… Rick, I just… This whole PIR Unit thing is just…” She shook her head again. “I can’t keep doing it. I just… can’t. I’m not cut out for this. The Bureau made a mistake in letting me work here. I don’t know how I got in.”
“But—”
“Don’t you see, Rick? I don’t belong here! I don’t!”
The tears now streamed freely down her face. She was looking straight at him. Her wet eyes were clouded with a frightened anguish whose depths Rick could scarcely imagine. “I’m going to run away from this. All of this. I’m going to turn in my resignation. I’m just going to turn in my resignation and just—go. I just can’t do this anymore, Rick,” she sobbed. “I just can’t! Do you understand?”
He took her again in his arms but said nothing. In great heaves welling up from the depths of her opened agony, she sobbed uncontrollably into his shoulder.
I will try to put your broken pieces, Beth, back together.
Chapter Nine
A massive, pointed pillar of concrete-and-steel, weathered from years of acid rain, stood in front of Scarlet. It stretched up a great distance into the night, just over a mile high. Dozens of enormous, revolving doors on the ground floor, all crammed together in a single row, allowed people to enter and exit the building. Those rows were tucked at the bottom of a giant indentation into the tower’s ground floor. The enormous base of the building continued along the street for a quarter mile to both Scarlet’s left and right. Altogether, the building presented an image of pointed, human defiance in the face of terrible tragedy, not unlike the city itself.
The Nightfall Billionaire: Serial Installment #2 (Scarlet McRae) Page 3