“Can you believe that?” Jared asked, turning to his security guard.
It was the last thing Jared Trammel would ever ask. The last thing he would ever say, as the bullet from Marr’s gun passed through his brain, and out the back of his skull in an explosion of blood and bone. His head snapped back as he crumpled to the floor in a heap.
“Yes, I can,” Marr said, walking away from Jared’s corpse.
X
“Today, police teams were called to the city’s financial district as gunfire and explosions caused panic and destruction to the area, resulting in multiple deaths and at least a dozen casualties.
Our sources suggest it may have been instigated by the notorious terrorist cell, Sapien-Republic – known for their anarchistic views towards our government. If this is the case, it means they have ramped up their efforts to violence in their machinations to compromise our Prime’s wise vision of society.
Government contributor, Jared Trammel, is believed to be among the victims. The respected businessman is rumoured to have been the terrorist’s prime target.
At the scene, is Hanna Ves. Hanna, are there any updates? is there any news on Mr Trammel’s condition? Has there been a statement from government officials at NewHaven?”
“Good evening, Hanna Ves reporting. The scene of the attack is the private residence of Mr Trammel. We believe it’s also where he conducts some of his more lucrative projects. As of yet, there has been no word from the paramedic crews, currently working at the scene, on the condition of the businessman. As of yet, we’re still waiting on an official statement from NewHaven.”
“Is there any information on how many perpetrators took part in the attack?”
“At the moment, investigators are keeping tight-lipped on the matter.”
“I see. Has anyone come forward with information that will shed light on what happened?”
“I’ve spoken to a few eyewitnesses who’ve stated they’d seen Mr Trammel running through a local market precinct, not long before the attack took place. According to some accounts of the events leading up to the violence, Mr Trammel appeared to have been running from something, or someone. We can only assume it was from the perpetrators of this devastation, behind me…”
“…We’ll have to get back to you Hanna. Government Proxy, Samuel Faulks, is ready to give a statement to the citizens of Sanctum-One.”
“Fellow citizens, let me assure you our investigators will have all the resources available to them as they search for the perpetrators of this senseless act of violence.
Prime Vonn has instructed me personally to state that the pillars in which this society stands will not crumble from cowardly acts of terrorism carried out by a small minority – who hide their wanton destruction behind clever, and convenient ideals – would have all the hard work and accomplishments, achieved by the good people of this city, reduced to ashes.
The Prime, as well as myself, worry for the safety of his citizens, therefore, curfew will commence two hours earlier until further notice, starting tomorrow evening.
Be assured, we will find those responsible, and deal with them accordingly.
The government will report progress as new information comes in. Thank you for your patience. Sanctum stands as one.”
XI
Lex seethed with rage as she watched the lies spew out of the media puppet’s mouth. It was something she’d never noticed before – during her old life. Lex could see the clues as blatant as the sunrise, whenever they doled out government messages of reassurance; the eyes went slightly vacant; their tone almost not their own like someone had flipped a switch and the robotic slave appeared to indoctrinate the masses.
Lex noticed it now. It shone like a beacon to her eyes; eyes that were fully awake to the world. The realisation of the horrible truth infected her with scorn and cynicism.
They willingly go to the butcher’s block, and they’re grateful for it.
She switched the monitor off, descending her cramped room into darkness once more; her vague, wraith-like silhouette barely visible in the gloom.
She ached from head to toe; pain throbbing from her many wounds, each one fighting for supremacy to be heard. The jump from the window had almost killed her – she almost had the obscure notion of thinking she was lucky to be alive. It was luck; the devil had deemed that she was to linger in this nightmare that little bit longer.
She limped through to the bathroom and switched on the light. Bathed in the soft blue glow of the lamp, she looked at herself in the mirror, surveying the damage. The thing that stared back at her was a battle-weary, wound-scattered mess. She lowered her head to examine her current state. Her suit was torn to ribbons; what little integrity it had was now ruined from the shards of Trammel’s living-room window.
She peeled off her suit, one ragged piece at a time until it was a bloodied pile on the floor. It was beyond repair – it didn’t matter, as she had a few spares, hanging up in her wardrobe.
She turned her battered body, scrutinising her injuries. Her pale skin was mottled with bruises; angry blue and red welts that were sore to the touch. Red streaks ran down her torso from the various cuts she’d received, which had now clotted.
She removed her eyepatch, placing it on the shelf above the sink. She still hated looking at the raw scar tissue that used to be her eye.
She turned on the shower. It spat out a few spluttering jets then flowed consistently from the shower head fixed to the tiled wall.
She sighed and stepped under the stream of warm water. She winced as it ran over her wounds. It felt like sharp pins were viciously pricking her skin, unseen to the eye. Pushing the pain to the back of her mind, she began to clean herself. She felt tired and weary.
I should have killed him. I would have been fast enough to shoot them both.
It was a problem she would soon remedy, though her efforts weren’t entirely in vain. She’d acquired Trammel’s scribe. It could be a way into the Inner Sanctum.
To unearth the truth; to find out who pulled the trigger.
She arched her head back and let the warmth wash over her. She ran her hands through her hair, finding a couple of more cuts to her scalp, and a few small pieces of glass. She flicked the small shards onto the shower tray to be washed away.
She stood underneath the shower until the water at her feet lost its red colouring and began to run clear. She switched it off, climbed out, and wrapped a thick towel around herself.
She was startled, as a thump came from the front door.
Her senses heightened, she quickly ran into the living room and picked up her handgun. She screwed on the silencer and approached the front door.
She waited until it thumped again, then slowly opened it a crack, her finger tensing on the trigger.
She eased the tension on her finger as Jeff, her neighbour, stood in front of her.
“Hi Lex, just to remind you, the payment for the cleaning droid is due,” he said, rolling his eyes melodramatically. “I thought it was our turn to pay, but Edward said we paid last month. I forgot… you know what I’m like.”
Lex smiled and nodded. Jeff and Edward lived across the hall. She liked the couple. As much as she tried to segregate herself from society, she felt being in the company of her neighbours tempered the rage that threatened to consume her.
“Are you alright?” he asked, peering at her.
She shook her head. “Sorry, Jeff. I was a million miles away. Yeah, I’m fine. Just been a long day.”
You have no idea.
He looked at her with sympathy. “Working you hard, are they?”
She rolled her eye and faked a yawn. “Like you wouldn’t believe. About the droids, I’ll send some credits first thing in the morning.”
He smiled and was about to leave when he spotted a couple of the cuts on her face.
Shit.
“My God, Lex. What happened to your face?” he asked, raising a hand towards her cheek.
She quickly held up a hand. “
It’s nothing Jeff, really.”
“What happened? Doesn’t look like nothing. Is there anything I can do?”
“No. I fell off my bike on the way home from work,” she said, hoping he’d buy it.
His look of sympathy had changed to that of pity. “Well okay. Give us a knock if you need anything,” he said, turning.
She gently closed the door behind her, waiting for the sound of Jeff’s door closing, behind him.
She waited a few more seconds, before returning to her bedroom, discarding the towel, and throwing it into the laundry basket.
She opened the first aid kit on her dresser and pulled out the array of bandages and tape; a collection she found depleted at an exponential rate, always requiring replenishment. She patched up the worst of her wounds, thankful she didn’t need to staple any of them.
I’m wasting away one wound at a time.
She wiped away a few stray trickles of blood that had seeped from her wounds, then threw on a shirt. She ventured into the living room, settling on her sofa.
Like most citizen apartments, it was small, filled with the bare essentials; sofa; dining table; state-issued flat-screen. The bedroom consisted of a bed, a dresser, and a walk-in wardrobe, adjacent to the bathroom. The large apartments were reserved for Inner-Sanctum members, and the minority who held the majority of the city’s wealth – Though, Lex knew from experience, the two generally went hand in hand.
She’d rented it using an identity acquired from a dubious individual – from her underground contacts – who’d wished to remain anonymous. Lex suspected he/she worked within NewHaven, so she understood the need for secrecy. At the same time, it was also possible they were part of Sapien-Republic – the crackpot revolutionaries.
To maintain the façade of being a normal, functioning member of society, loyal to Sanctum-One, she worked four-hour shifts cleaning a local office. It suited her needs. She didn’t want to be immersed in an environment where there was a possibility of making a ‘work friend’. It was the perfect cover; nobody paid any attention to the cleaner.
She poured herself a scotch, quaffing the measure in one, burning, satisfying gulp and lit a cigarette. She booted up Trammel’s scribe and began searching through his files, hoping she’d find the breakthrough she needed to delve deeper into the Inner-Sanctum’s network in the hope of finding something, anything that would lead her to the truth, and bring it all toppling down.
With me underneath it, if need be.
XII
Marr pulled his cruiser into the empty carpark. He slowed as he approached the only other vehicle in the vicinity. He flashed the lights three times; it was quickly reciprocated. The harsh succession of beams made him squint. He continued at a crawl until their bumpers were almost touching.
Marr knew who was in the other car, but it was always a good idea to stick to protocol when conducting secret meetings – off-the-books and away from the prying eyes of NewHaven.
Thankfully, the rain had ceased in its attempts to aid the sea in claiming back the land. As he got out, he found it didn’t make the docks any less depressing. There was something oddly cold and characterless about it; its drab collection of square warehouses; the dirt and grime which appeared to spread to almost every surface like a skin rash; an inevitable symptom caused by the fumes spewing out of the endless number of outlets, coating the area in a perpetual state of filth – no matter how many cleaning units patrolled the area.
Above him, there was no Zeps hovering above. The area was regarded as a black zone; the perimeter stretched around the harbour five miles out – land, sea, and air. All harbour personnel were either mechanoid or vetted down to the last cell. Employees were paid a handsome salary and were certainly aware of the consequences of discussing what went on at the harbour to the public.
He strolled to the other vehicle and climbed in. The overpowering scent from Samuel Faulks’ cologne invaded his senses, which induced a coughing fit.
“Nasty cough you have there, Marr,” Faulks said, unaware his aftershave was causing Marr to react the same way a person would if they’d had a blast of pepper-spray to the face at point-blank range.
Somehow, Marr managed to compose himself. “We have a problem,” he said, getting straight to the point. He wanted to get away from the offensive odour as soon as possible.
Faulks raised an eyebrow. “Problem? Trammel’s dead, what more could that idiot do in death?”
Marr clasped his hands together. “The woman got away.”
Faulks waved a hand dismissively. “A minor inconvenience. Despite that slippery little bitch being a thorn in our side, her hit and run tactics to low-ranking members are but piss in the wind.” He lit a cigarette which Marr appreciated. He wasn’t overly keen on the smell of cigarettes, but it was a damn sight better than the cloying musk Faulks liberally doused himself in.
“Suffice to say, the thorn in our side may cause us bigger problems,” he said.
“Your meaning?” Faulks asked, twirling his fingers for Marr to elaborate.
“She escaped with Trammel’s scribe. She got him to unlock it before she took a dive through the window.”
“A dive that must surely have killed her?” Faulks asked.
Marr shook his head. “I searched the area for her body, there was none to be found.” Marr took a deep breath. Faulks had lost his air of indifference and was beginning to look pissed off. He wasn’t going to like the next bit. “I managed to get a look at her before she fled.”
“Who is she?”
After Marr said her name, he silently weathered the torrent of verbal abuse from Faulks as he got himself into such a frenzy, Marr thought he’d collapse in a state of apoplexy.
“How in the world of fuck is that fucking woman still alive?” he bellowed, his face scarlet with anger. “After the boy, I held my boot on her head until she stopped fucking struggling.”
Marr hadn’t been there when they’d ‘killed’ the woman, but he was one of the select few who had seen the recordings. The first time he’d watched it, he’d been thankful he hadn’t been there. The years he’d spent doing what he did, he felt he had a pretty high tolerance level where his stomach was concerned. But the images of the woman’s torture had him struggling to keep his stomach contents down.
The brutality of what the woman was subjected to was a perfect example of the consequences of anyone foolish enough to take on the Inner-Sanctum. In Marr’s opinion, Faulks had taken the situation too far. If they’d just shot her in the head on that dock, they wouldn’t be in this mess – he kept that thought to himself.
He sat patiently, as he waited for Faulks to calm down enough for him to speak. In the years he’d worked for the Proxy, he’d never seen him blow his top, not once. He found it disconcerting; to let personal feelings get involved was to lose control.
There was another matter that had been niggling him for a while. He decided to broach the subject to help temper the Proxy’s mood. “The Prime? We haven’t seen him in some time…” He trailed off as Faulks narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t change the fucking subject. The Prime is fine… a minor infection. He’s quarantined himself to help recuperate. He’s still aware of everything that’s going on.” He paused, almost daring Marr to prod the subject further. Marr remained silent. “Now, that bitch?” he asked.
Marr sighed. He wasn’t happy with the Proxy’s vague explanation as to why the Prime hadn’t been seen as much lately. He had several more questions to ask Faulks, but in the end, Marr was his subordinate, so he decided to drop it for the time being. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.
“And how are you going to do that? She slipped through your fingers tonight when she was barely ten feet in front of you.”
Marr ignored the barb. If they knew the woman was going to go after Trammel tonight, they could have come up with a plan, but they hadn’t. Faulks was just directing his ire to the nearest person. Aside from the driver – safely ensconced behind the privacy glass – Marr
was the only target available.
“You won’t like this, but I think it’s the only way. She’ll find her way to us, whether you like it or not. We’ll need to help her along the way. We need to lure her out; give her a trail of breadcrumbs so that it’ll be on our terms.”
“Are you fucking insane? We find her, and eliminate her,” Faulks said, pointing a finger at him.
“We haven’t been able to find her these last six months. Up until now, her kills had been quick; efficient.”
“What makes you think this will be any different to all the others.”
Marr smiled. “Her hit, tonight, was sloppy. She’s becoming reckless, desperate. She doesn’t know Trammel’s dead, we’ve kept his death water-tight. Hell, most of the emergency services on duty don’t know he’s dead.” He paused. “We need to give her an opportunity she can’t resist.”
Neon Revenge Page 5
