Daze of Reality

by Molly Barrett

  As they waited and watched for some time, finally the sound of vehicular movement could be heard coming in their direction. The masked men watched closely as the vehicles, trucks with small box trailers attached, stopped and set still for a moment before the side passengers exited and walked towards the back of each truck to unlatch them. What came out of the back of the two trucks was a bit odd however. John could see now that the men who had opened the trucks were holding handguns, and coming out of the backend were men in forward handcuffs. The guns were being held in the men’s direction. There seemed to be two separate lines of about ten men each, one line from each truck. John immediately checked the outside cameras to look for any kind of transfer vehicles that might be approaching. He however only saw the signs of the dark of night.

  Maybe someone was on the way to meet them, or maybe they planned on killing these people for some reason. Whatever was going on here, John had a bad feeling about it. As he watched reality unfold in real time not far from where he sat in the security of strangers, he witnessed how quickly the landscape changed on that night.

  The “prisoners’” cuffs broke away instantly in the blink of an eye, and as they quickly grabbed overhead; they scrambled out of formation and into the cover around them firing off the automatic weapons that had been taped to their backs. Immediately two men on Derek’s side dropped to their last breath, as the barrage had blindly covered nearly the entire immediate area forward of the two trucks. The fifteen men from vehicles one and two that Daniels was commanding from afar soon dwindled down to nine, and he was forced to send in the men from the third vehicle as well. It wasn’t long after that that John began to hear what was now a familiar sound to him.

  “Um, do our guys have grenades too?” he asked as he heard as well as began to see the explosion of grenades coming towards the television in front of him.

  “Yes, a few.”

  “That somehow doesn’t sound very convincing. They’re still outnumbered and a couple of guys just got taken out with one of those damn things.”

  It was then that John saw Daniels’ men rise up out of their seats inside of his own vehicle. “You stay put!” one of them yelled towards John.

  “And you people had better make sure that he does,” another then added while pointing at Ivy, getting a cold stare from Sebastian whom John realized by now didn’t talk too much yet was about 90% muscles and good to have around. All six of Daniels’ men then exited the fourth and final vehicle, closing the door behind them.

  “Then I guess we’ll just watch,” Ivy then said as she sat back down. As two more men went down however, John couldn’t take it anymore. Either Daniels was leading them into the ground here or their squad leader was. They needed help.

  “They need more backup, he does. Look guys you swore an oath or swore on the money or whatever that you would protect Derek not me. I don’t want to leave him out there like this either. So, who’s in?” Ivy smiled and then pointed to the automatic under John’s seat.

  “Can you handle it, we have extra masks?”

  “Of course.”

  The three then snuck out the back door before the driver could stop them. They headed in the direction of the fight yet off to the left side in almost a flanking position. John then went to work. He had no military experience, but shooting all types of weapons for sport was a hobby that he and Dave shared. He was an expert marksman, and was very familiar with these types of guns. As he raised the weapon, he let his instincts take over and almost immediately took down two of the shooters. He knew that they didn’t have long before the men picked up on their position.

  John then rushed across the thin wooded strip he had fired from and kneeled down from the opposite end, squeezing the trigger he could almost feel the breath released though far from him as the man’s body slumped to the ground. As he watched Sebastian get his own kill, John knew it was time for them to move and fast. Staying low and under as much cover as possible the three then made their way across and in closer towards the squad’s location, that by this time highly needed reinforcing. Evidently Derek had now taken charge of the men and at least had them in better positions forming a stronger defensive barrier and more options for offensive strategies.

  As John moved in he felt the gun fire increase. He had been in many a gunfight, but not all this size of course. He figured that Derek was probably more used to the militaristic gun battles than he was. Taking out one more problem shooter he finally found himself next to the voice of a man he recognized.

  “Pretty damn fancy shooting there, John. I didn’t know that you were actually useful for something, heh,” Derek laughed. “Our dumbass squad leader finally kicked the bucket after panicking and getting half of his men killed trying to follow Daniels’ orders. I’m in charge now, and I turned Daniels off.”

  “That sounds like a good plan; we finally got these assholes under control,” John answered as he watched Derek take a man out from pretty far away. “Not so bad yourself there.”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to go shoot skeet together sometime won’t we?”

  “You shoot skeet?”

  “Hell no,” Derek answered as he pulled his weapon up once more to aim for another shot. That is when it happened. John noticed Daniels’ man on the other side of Derek pull the pin, reach back for momentum, and then start to lean forward to launch his grenade towards the remaining men on the opposite side. Before he could finish his task however, the bullet tore into his brain, causing instant death, and a collapse in the man’s gripping motion.

  “D – E – R – E – K”

  John called out as loud as he could while he grabbed Derek knocking his gun out of his hand. He rolled the two of them away from the detonation area as best he could just before the grenade blew the surrounding area up and into the air.

  “What the hell?” Derek questioned while staring John down. He then quickly moved back up to the front line to continue running things. John shook his head thinking Derek must either not want him to see his fear or he has become pretty damn jaded about such things. John then made his way back up towards the other men as well who were finally under Derek’s leadership and John’s marksmanship able to finish off their foe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Derek stormed into the room with reckless abandonment. He felt the anger raging through him, and this fuck up would not go unpunished, even if the son of a bitch responsible was his supposed superior. He had been forced to play the fool following Daniels’ orders, and due to the following of said orders, he and John had almost paid with their lives. Derek and John had been very uncomfortably forced to discover or actually confirm that the intel they had been given by their own people was bullshit, and Derek wanted to make sure it was clear that in the future his need to know and or share status on any and all of the organization’s piss ant intelligence reports was going to be receiving a permanent upgrade.

  “I should kill you myself you incompetent bastard,” Derek spoke with a frighteningly coarse voice. “You couldn’t feel your way through a fucking whore house you dumb son of a bitch. The clues to this damn identity crisis so to speak had to be sitting right in front of you the whole time, though in your haste of stupidity, you fell straight into their contrived reality. You see that’s a real problem for me considering you almost got me killed.”

  “Derek, Derek, I think you should consider shutting that mouth of yours, before I have to have someone shut it for you,” Daniels returned, a bit confused.

  Derek stepped up into Daniels’ face. “I am tired of following your orders; they don’t mean shit to me anymore.”

  Along with Derek’s movement, came the movement of Daniels’ men toward him. Derek continued his cold stare, which forced a deafeningly silent standoff between the two men. As more men moved toward him, Derek gave off a morbid grin, held up his hands and stepped back. As he turned, the first guard hit the floor when he met Derek’s steel toe in the face. It seemed almost simultaneous as the second man fell to an upward t
hrust Derek quickly delivered upon his temple. Within seconds there seemed to be only one guard left that was directly blocking Derek from his target of anger. As Derek moved to sweep the next obstacle from his view, Daniels nearly fell on his ass in an attempt to scurry away from Derek’s striking distance. Fortunately for Daniels, his next man was aware of Derek coming and moved out of the sweep in time to strike Derek hard in the chest knocking him backwards and into the wall. Derek felt the sharp pain against his chest ricochet to his back as he hit the wall’s concrete with fast, uncontrollable speed. Derek groaned out in pain, and moved a little less quickly off of the wall. Keeping his footing, he was able to nearly dodge the boot that found its erred mark just south of a direct hit across his jawbone. Derek tasting the blood now upon his lips and tongue drove his elbow relentlessly into the face of his attacker. As the guard’s body fell limp however, Derek felt his entire body cry out in pain, and he himself fell to the floor as the electricity pulsated throughout his burning body. Daniels watched as his taser took Derek down to the floor, writhing in pain. As he watched, Daniels flaunted a broad smile upon his face.

  “Now that I have your attention Mr. Barnes…” Daniels waved in his remaining men, and they unleashed their revenge on a now defenseless Mr. Derek Barnes.

  Derek snapped awake and immediately regretted trying to sit up. For one, he apparently had just gotten the shit beat out of him, and second, he himself was waking up in a four walled, concrete cell. Dammit, and he didn’t even get to punch that son of a bitch Daniels in the face. It figured, Daniels was such a damn coward; he wouldn’t even fight man to man. It seemed like he just liked to hide behind his position, the dickless prick. Derek as always was wondering how Daniels ever got where he was in the first place. Well, this was some bullshit, and he didn’t want to be stuck in here for too long. Once he had pissed Watson off, and Watson locked him up in one of these damned cells for four months. Watson called it torture training, and though the experience of getting one’s ass kicked daily was supposed to “build character”, Derek didn’t have the luxury for such things at the moment.

  He had told John that he hoped to get back to him within twenty-four hours, and the clock was desperately ticking away while he was stuck in this hell hole. As he heard the familiar click of the doors, Derek mumbled under his breath, and tried to prepare himself for whatever dumbass would be entering his concrete kingdom.

  “Well Derek, with so much time now spent in captivity, tell me when you stare at the walls, do they stare back? Do they let you know that they control you, that they confine your every move? Do you let them control your every breath, or block out their corners from your mind’s view, hmm?”

  Derek stared at Watson with annoyance, though replied rather diplomatically, “Well-spoken, Sir… what’s your damned point?”

  Watson smiled slightly and then moved in to close the door.

  “What no guards?” Derek questioned as Watson entered the room solo.

  “Are you angered at me as well?”

  Derek decided to answer this question cautiously due to his urgent need for release. “I’m sure you were trusting Daniels to be following the correct leads, Sir. He is your field commander after all; he should be knowledgeable about the damn field.”

  “And something tells me you don’t think him deserving of that title nor its position.”

  “That man has no business running things; the only thing he is doing is running this organization into the ground.”

  “So you think you know someone who could carry out my field operations more efficiently, Derek?”

  “I’m sure you could find someone.”

  “I’ll tell you what Derek, being that we are in a bit of a bind with the current situation, if you can follow through on taking care of this problem for me maybe we could work something out. Even though I really don’t like you very much, I have to admit you have a gift for seeing the chessboard in front of you and manipulating it to your advantage. I have seen this many times over. Now, Daniels mentioned you saying something about an identity crisis staring us in the face. I want to know more about your interesting choice of words.”

  Derek stopped to think momentarily. He knew that sharing what he had done could be suicide, but it could also now further prove his worth. “I thought that I might just look over the code myself, see if there were any field advantages I could pull out.”

  “Ah, so you did this even knowing how dangerous it could be for yourself? I’m guessing that is why you spoke up at the meeting, you were trying to warn us without giving yourself away?”

  “I suppose. The locations of supposed pre-vote border crossings were a piece of cake to decipher, for me anyway. I know that they had to be easier compared to the other codes for your little squad of code breakers as well.”

  “I see, and what had you found in the rest of the information that we had not?”

  “Fowler was the key to Grayson moving his “chosen people over the border. When the vote passes for the Iron Curtain Wall, and it will pass, the security command will be divided up into sections. That will make it easier for someone to try to manipulate a section for their needs rather than attempt bypassing an entire mobilized force guarding the entire wall system. Bringing people through and sneaking them across one’s own little private manipulated section is only half of the battle however. Once the walls are up and the country’s government gain’s even more power, they will want to ensure that no one is getting past their ironclad system. The next major crackdown will be in checking their people’s identifications. Remember they are putting this wall up for fear of foreign influence on their own power, not to save little fucking Johnny from his heroin addiction the damn drugs are bringing over. Everyone will be a suspect; therefore anyone secretly brought over that border had better have some convincing credentials. The days of getting away with a fake ID made in the backroom will be over.”

  “So how was Fowler helping on that end of things, Mr. Barnes?”

  “Fowler wasn’t on any big committees, he wasn’t a powerhouse politician, but evidently he has friends in high places in the land of the Federal Identification Department. The place where we are all issued a number at birth to identify ourselves in this country. You can’t do anything in this damn country without it, and it proves that you are in fact a true citizen. Fowler was helping supply Grayson with identification numbers for the people coming over. People very high up the chain of command from the Federal Identification Department had been providing Fowler these new, ‘created identities.’ While there is no way of knowing yet how long they have been handing these numbers out, it is very clear that it will now become even more essential for them to have access to this strategic manipulation of the system.”

  “My, my how fascinating. And am I to assume that there are other politicians that will now step into Fowler’s place to assist Grayson with this devious endeavor?”

  “There are unnamed let us say, alternate participants mentioned.”

  “I see. We will just have to concentrate our efforts on disabling Mr. Grayson’s stronghold, while ensuring our own remains stable and secure. Though you have done so under questionable means, I must admit I find your abilities most impressive Mr. Barnes. Perhaps I just might allow you to “take care” of your problem at some time in the near future, a Mr. Daniels.”

  “That sounds fucking fair enough for me. No more damn pipes though, I prefer my chosen method. I’d definitely very much enjoy lining him up in my sights.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that you would,” Watson grinned. “Now get your sorry, pathetic little ass out of my holding cell.”

  “Of course,” Derek slyly smiled as he gingerly picked his sore body up off of the floor and headed out to find John.

  John was pissed. He had been led astray somewhat, though not from Derek directly; it was from his damn organization. He caught himself almost laughing as he remembered back to when he first met Derek and how even Derek himself said he didn’t trust “the fucking c
ompany.” So why the hell was John trusting them. John had been forced to take an awfully big risk pursuing the false trail that had been set up for him and Derek along with the rest of the men there. Hell they might have even figured out by now that he and Derek were working together had they not been wearing the masks or definitely if they had been captured. That could have been a death sentence. They knew someone had bit on their trap, just who they figured it was, well that was still up in the air. And just where the hell was Derek? He’d been MIA for hours now. This man that John had despised for so long seemed to be his only lifeline right now. John guessed that was the reason he went out of his way to save Derek’s ass. He wasn’t thinking much about himself in that instant, just that he needed Derek alive. He needed answers; he needed help protecting his family. Just as he heard a knock on the door of the hotel room, John felt his phone vibrating in his back pocket. As he silenced the phone he checked the door, and figured that he should open it first.

  “Dammit, where you been, Man?” John questioned after closing the door. That was before seeing Derek’s face in the light. “Shit, you look worse off now than when we split up.”

  “You really fucking think so John, how perceptive of you. I had to make my complaints to management you know, fill out a survey and shit.”

  “And did you ah get your point across?” John laughed.

  Derek eyed John darkly, then broke out a grin. “I believe so,” he laughed. “You should have seen the other poor son of a bitches.”