Smith put the cane on the floor, and rested his hand on the well-worn porcelain handle. Howe watched as the old man pushed off of the cane to take a step.“I may be an old man, but I’m still smart enough to see that Alex Luthecker is the future, not some ruthless drug dealer. And Luthecker’s far more powerful than you think. He’s hearts and minds. He has the power to unleash the untapped will of the people. We both know how dangerous that is. But in our hands, he’s control. He has the ability to align and steer those hearts and minds in ways we never could before. He is the key to removing the last of any human complications. And we own him.”
Smith turned toward the door and hobbled in its direction.
“Why are you telling me this now? What’s in this for you?”
Smith slowly turned back to Howe. “Right now? Self-preservation. Parks may be a thug and monster, but I understand why you admire him— he’s smarter than you. And I assure you, if he has Alex Luthecker, he hasn’t killed him. Not yet. And you better hope he doesn’t discover what I just told you and try to use Luthecker against us. Because if he does, we’re all fucked.”
26
Escape
Nikki Ellis raced up the stairs from the basement level of Lucas Parks’ castle in a full sprint, driving her legs hard and racing up the steps two at a time. Despite the danger she was in, her body responded without hesitation to the sudden exertion, her well-trained legs craving the movement after being cramped from the long flight overseas and being held captive in the small prison cell. She still carried the legs from the wooden chair, pumping them with each step like a track athlete holding two batons.
“Don’t die,” Two-Good’s final words, echoed in her memory as she bounded up the last steps, reaching the stairwell doorway to the ground floor. As soon as her feet landed on the small pad of stone at the top of the stairs, the stairwell door burst open, followed by a barrel-chested man carrying an AK-47.
Nikki sidestepped the fast swinging door and the man’s forward progress with perfect balance, smashing a stick into the barrel of the gun before the man had a chance to react, the strike nearly knocking the rifle from his hands. Before the gunman sensed what was happening, Nikki had already reversed directions, dropping low and hitting the man’s right knee with a stick, backhand motion.
The man screamed as his knee cap shattered.
Nikki reversed direction and stopped his cries with a strike across the head, knocking the man unconscious. As he tumbled to the floor, less than three seconds after bursting through the door, Nikki stepped over him and bolted into the hallway.
She slowed her pace and moved carefully down the ancient stone hallway, leery in the dim light of the many closed doors she passed along the way. She finally stopped when she reached the hallway’s end, with the main reception lobby of the refurbished 16th century castle directly ahead of her.
The lobby was an enormous 50x50 entrance hall, square in design, with four large stone pillars supporting the twenty-foot-high ceiling. The pillars, dating back to the original structure, were three feet in diameter and located equidistant from the corners of the chamber.
Nikki scanned over the entrance square from her vantage point in the east hallway, careful to keep out of view. She took note of the security desk, the only modern element—other than the polished marble floors—along with the armed guard who stood post at the desk. She noticed that the guard was standing—cell phone to his ear, listening with intent—and signaling frantically with his free hand for the guard at the door to come over. She turned her attention to the doorman and noted that he was armed with an AK-47and quickly moving away from the entrance and toward the security desk, a puzzled but serious look on his face. She abruptly pulled back to the shadows of the hallway as the doorman stole a glanced her way. She heard the two men talking rapidly in Russian, and after several seconds, she dared another look in their direction. She noted that their eyes were on each other, engaged in conversation, most likely talking about her. Her only chance to go for it was right now. She moved without hesitation and bolted behind the stone pillar that stood between the hallway and the security desk. She was careful to maneuver around the pillar to stay out of view.
When the guards decided on their course of action and ran down the hallway that she had just come from, she remained still and silent behind the stone. Nikki heard their footsteps fade, and she turned back toward the lobby. She saw that she was alone, and it was then that she realized her heart was racing, and she was hyperventilating. She fought to calm herself and eyed the two security cameras located above the entrance doors. I can make it to the doors, she thought. And if she made it to the doors, she could get out. The cameras would catch her escape, and she knew she would be hunted down. She might not even make it ten feet past the door. But it was her only chance. She took a deep breath and ran for the front entrance of the building.
Alex Luthecker sat in his cell in meditation, trying to clear the fog from his mind. From the airplane, he had been put in the backseat of a Chevy Suburban, not his first time being transported into captivity with this brand of vehicle. The men who handled him had been dressed in black and wore black motorcycle helmets with black face shields. They moved with rehearsed speed and accuracy. These were the last things Alex Luthecker saw before a hood had been put over his head.
He had had large headphones put on him as well, pumping out loud music to drown out ambient sounds, lest Alex get any audio clue as to his location. He recognized the music immediately—“Chopin’s Nocturne” played on violin. This was the last thing Alex remembered before the sharp pain of a needle to the neck, and everything had gone black.
Later, he woke up in his cell with no sense of time or place. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, or how long he had been held captive. His head pounded, and his hands had a familiar tremor. He fought hard to control the shaking, fought hard to stay awake.
There had been no contact with anyone since he had regained consciousness. His cell was bare bones, with yellow-colored walls and a floor made of stone, each surface with its own unique tapestry of stains faded from time—blood and urine, and the lives of countless prisoners of the past. The 10x10 room contained a small refrigerator with food and water, along with a cot, and separate bathroom facilities. The view through the bars was another stone wall, faded and cracked, along with a narrow hallway that led directly to the left of the cell entrance before elbowing ninety degrees, the net effect being to encase the prisoner, in this case Alex, in a concrete room.
The drugs they injected kept him disoriented with no signs of wearing off, despite flushing his system with drinking water. When that attempt failed, he sat in the center of the room in a lotus position, eyes wide open, using the strict posture and the sound of his voice to help clear his head, chanting the same mantra he heard Kunchin sing in the Potala Palace during his brief visit to Tibet. He had kept this practice constant, breaking only to eat and occasionally sleep.
He stopped when he heard footsteps approaching.
“Mr. Parks would like to speak with you now,” the heavyset man with the thick Russian accent said as he put a key into the lock of Alex’s cell door.
The metal latch releasing sounded unusually loud to Alex, and he struggled to get to his feet. As he stood up, he was overwhelmed by dizziness, and he started to fall. The heavyset Russian caught Alex by the arm.
“Don’t worry, I will help you. Everything is going to be okay,” the Russian man said in broken English as he half carried Alex from his cell. Alex fought to concentrate, fought to stay awake. He looked at the man, tried to read him, tried to get a sense of what was happening. A wave of dread hit Alex in the pit of his stomach when his mind remained a haze.
Alex realized he couldn’t read a single pattern of this man’s fate.
“Flunitrazepam,” Lucas Parks said as he adjusted the IV needle in Alex’s arm. “More commonly known as Narcozep. It’s an intermediate acting benzodiazepine. More powerful than Diazepam, but still a be
nzo.”
Content with the placement of the needle in Alex’s arm, Parks did one last look over the drip bag that hung from a metal pole beside Alex. Satisfied it all looked in place, Parks sat down directly across from his prisoner.
“Isn’t that how you tripped up that Coalition torture specialist and managed your first escape? Benzo addiction and guilt?”
Alex said nothing. He no longer fought to stay awake and was oddly alert, but his eyes were unable to focus, his mind unable to concentrate. He tried to move, and that’s when he felt the restraints on his wrists.
“I threw a little stimulant in there. Keep you from passing out on me. It should be kicking in soon.”
Alex tried to focus on Parks’ face. Tried to read him.
Parks picked up on it. “Have at it, son.”
Alex fought hard to focus on the details of Parks’ face. Luthecker’s eyes seemed unable to respond with their typical ravenous movement, his reflexes and mind seemingly mired in quicksand. The details of Parks’ face faded from Alex’s short-term memory nearly as fast as they registered. But then Alex caught something that took hold in his drug-dulled mind, if only for a moment. Parks’ eyes showed a hint of frustration and anger, the faint trace chaos associated with lack of control, of an element gone wrong, and with this, Alex managed to put together one detail.
“She’s free,” Alex said, his words a slur, trying to smile but failing.
“Not for long,” Parks answered, trying to keep his anger in check. “Maybe I need to up the dosage,” Parks added as a warning.
Alex slowly shook his head. A small line of drool ran from the corner of his mouth to his chest.
“I’m not your enemy,” Parks continued. “I’m not your friend either. Believe it or not, the elimination of those extremes allows the opportunity for a more honest relationship. But of course you know that. That’s why you keep your distance, isn’t it? No attachments. Close, but not too close. Because too close fucks up your game. The act of loving someone changes everything. It removes all the objectivity from the data. I know you better than you think I do.”
Parks studied Luthecker a moment. The drugs had made the young man’s eyes heavy and dull. Parks took note that Luthecker’s body was like a stone, slumped and unmoving in the chair. “I figure the Narcozep slows you down a bit. Allows me to talk, and you to listen. Enough of what I say will register, I’m sure. And then we’ll talk again, maybe with a lower dose, if you prove trustworthy. Deal?”
Alex was unable to respond.
“Again; I’m not your friend, and I’m not your enemy. But you’re going to want to hear what I have to say. You’re going to want what I have to offer you.”
Alex kept trying to study Parks, but his eyes would barely respond. Bits and fragments of the man’s life entered his mind, but would not fall into the predictable patterns Alex was accustomed to. It frightened him. He was unpracticed with the inability to put data into recognizable algorithms. He had no concept of not knowing. He felt completely isolated, but in a manner that he had never experienced before—isolation from his very self. He fought off panic as he psychologically stumbled in the dark. The drugs dulled not only his mind but also his body. They made him physically unable to respond in any way, the lack of physicality heightening the sensation of being trapped in his own mind; at the same time, he was unable to think, like a man barely treading water in the middle of the ocean, barely able to focus on anything but not drowning.
Parks prattled on.“What you did to David Two-Good was nothing short of genius. I was very impressed. I understand why James Howe and Coalition Properties are afraid of you. You know who I’m talking about, don’t you? With you, there are no lies. With you “to thine own self be true” takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?”
Parks looked for signs of recognition in Luthecker’s eyes. He saw none.
“The thing is, Howe can’t function without lies. His empire is built on them. That’s why he wants you gone. And most people, well, most people can’t handle living without their lies at all. They need to lie. They need the illusory hope that their fictions provide. They need deceit to survive. And it’s not long before the need becomes so strong it turns into worship. Their lies become their church. And people cling to their own prefabricated scriptures of falsehood so hard that they instinctively try and destroy anything that would conflict with their god-in-their-own-miserable-image, the lie, even if it’s against their interests, even if it will kill them, all in order to keep them from having to come face to face with who they really are, which, let’s be honest here, is nothing short of barbaric. They need the lie, in order to cope with their self-awareness. In order to justify their primal desires, which terrorize them in the night. They need the lie in order to justify just how rotten they are to one another. All that greed. Selfishness. Jealousy. Contempt. The darker part of themselves that is always there, the part of their soul that they refuse to embrace, which in the end only serves to make things worse, because in aggregate, the darkness will always prevail.
“And the best part is how much they hate themselves for it. But it’s just the normal order of things. I think you know this. I think this is what you see when you look into someone’s soul.
“And you know what the end product of all this is. Self-loathing. There’s more self-loathing than love in this world. By far. What do you think religions are built on? It’s certainly not love. And capitalism is the final lie, the Ponzi scheme that takes advantage of that self-loathing, the perfectly-designed dragon to feed the addiction of never being good enough, wouldn’t you say? And it makes those upright walking dullards so easy to control. Makes them so disposable.”
Parks crossed his arms and studied Alex a moment, unable to hide his fascination.
“You see the self-loathing, don’t you? I bet you see it all. I bet, that in your quiet moments, you are one depressed motherfucker. All those lies that are lived, day in and day out, and all the hate that springs from them, and you have to bear witness to every bit of it. And you can’t get it out of your head, can you? All those rats in self-imposed cages of hate. The neediness of what they all want, which, in the end, is only everything. The totality of what they all fear, which, in the end, is only everything. I bet you walk through life like it’s nothing but fun house mirrors, horrific images of people-monsters twisted and bloated at every turn. But you’ve just discovered something about yourself, haven’t you?
“Your genius, the part of you that you’re just beginning to discover, is your ability to, not only see the lies, but your ability to twist those false scriptures of guilt and self-loathing and completely control the outcome of anyone’s life. And you can do it on a dime. Like you did to the torturer. Like you did to Richard Brown. And like you did, for the first time—to your calculated and willful advantage—to David Two-Good. You can thank me later for that.
“Imagine what you could do on a mass scale? The cult you could create? If your abilities were trained by alleged experts? Because that’s what Coalition Properties is imagining. That’s where their interests lie. I know that now. The question is, do you?
“But you’re not like that, are you? You want to do good in the world I bet. But good is an abstract. Morality is an illusion designed to keep order. The futility of your efforts is proof of the illusion. You try and make it right, but that’s impossible, and deep down, if you’re honest with yourself, you know it. People will be who they are, and the world keeps spinning in the same direction. After all, what replaced Richard Brown, but a far more deviant man in James Howe?
“It’s your source of despair. It’s the answer you search for, but it will forever escape your grasp until you accept it. It’s the unchangeable truth. That nothing you do matters, and that deep inside, everyone’s just an animal, each individual armed with psychological weaponry capable of immense destruction. If Mother Nature had her way, I think she’d declare that self-awareness has proven to be a defect, not a virtue. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Parks stopped, and pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket. He carefully wiped a line of drool from Alex’s chin.“I’m sorry about this. It’s undignified, I know. But you have to understand. I’m doing this, to help you. Just like you’ve freed others, I’m trying to free you. I’m trying to stop you from living your own lie—that a difference can be made in a world that, by design, must be indifferent. It has to be. It’s the long game of the universe, indifference. That’s the missing piece for you. The part that you do not understand. Only then, only when you recognize the true design of the universe, that it does not, cannot, and should not care, will you recognize the scope and power of your abilities.”
Parks sat back in his chair and studied Luthecker again. Tried to see if his words were registering in Luthecker’s drug-dulled eyes. Parks gave one quick wave of his hand, and the Russian, who had escorted Alex from his cell to Parks’ chamber, appeared.
“I’m going to let you rest now, Alex Luthecker. We’ll have your little girlfriend back in our hands soon, and once we do, we can go over the few options you have left.”
Parks put his hand on Luthecker’s shoulder.“I want you to think about what I said, very carefully, because we don’t have much time. Remember, I’m not your friend, and I’m not your enemy. What I am is an aligned interest. What I am is the truth. And there are lesser minds than ours at work that would like to see us both dead. I’m counting on you to see this. Because a lot of lives depend on what you do next.”
Rise: Luthecker, #2 Page 21