by R. E. Rowe
“First, I must say that many of the reports I’ve seen on news channels such as yours have been completely inaccurate. Yes, some residents are unhappy. But the majority of the people working and living in QCC communities are grateful to have a job with all living expenses covered by QCC Corp. You might say a few bad apples are trying to spoil the entire barrel.”
“But what of the bombings that have been reported? A car bomb in Michigan. Another in LA. These bombings have both occurred inside QCC communities. What in the world is going on, Miss Cee?”
“We are as perplexed as you, Mr. Goodwin. Even with reasonable security controls in place, we still have people from outside the community’s gates getting past security and sneaking in. We must ask ourselves, shall we add more restrictions? Shall we ask our population of QCC employees and their families to endure additional security to provide a peaceful environment for everyone?”
Chien gestures for me to slow down.
I take a breath and continue. “I have assigned QCC’s chief operations officer, Dennis Ray, to work with QCC thought leaders to sort this out. We’ll work with the residents within our communities and come to a solution together. It is our top priority.”
Mr. Goodwin rubs his face as if his next question will physically hurt. “Do you mind if I’m blunt, Miss Cee?”
I brace myself. “No, not at all, Mr. Goodwin.”
“It is well known that sponsored security passes are required for outsiders to get into a QCC community. We have sources telling us friends and extended family members have been denied access after applying for a pass. One verified report relates to a grandmother denied from participating in her granddaughter’s fifth birthday.” He pauses to reiterate his point. “How can you not allow a grandmother to visit her granddaughter, Miss Cee?”
I calm myself before I answer his inflammatory question. He tries to rile me, get me upset. I knew he would try to shake me. It’s clear he intends to lead me down a path where I become defensive. No. That would only make matters worse. It might even make the riots more violent. I won’t let that happen. I count to five until Mr. Goodwin blinks. I let the silence linger two beats longer.
I soften my voice. “I cried when I saw your report on that grandmother, Mr. Goodwin. I know how it feels to lose ones you love. Learning that a grandmother wasn’t able to celebrate her granddaughter’s birthday hurt me personally. My team reached out and called that grandmother to apologize. We’ll be sending you video of the reunion shortly.” I pause until he blinks again. “I wish everyone could take a step back and ask why QCC Corp has worked so hard to establish working communities? Why do we spend so much of our time and money taking care of our workers and their families directly and indirectly? Can you answer those questions? Can you, Mr. Goodwin? Because I can.”
“Please, do,” says Mr. Goodwin.
“I see people suffering without jobs. Repressed. Pushed aside. Struggling. I want to change that, Mr. Goodwin. I want to establish a safe environment for everyone where people can work and raise their families with all expenses covered. I want them to experience a joyful life. However, my company can only do so much. I believe this has caused some people outside our communities to feel left behind. They want in. They’re not happy when we don't allow them access. It feels to me like these people wish to take advantage of our generosity. We are trying to find ways to extend QCC opportunities to more people around the globe.”
Clearly, Mr. Goodwin has been caught off guard by my answer. He fumbles with papers in front of him and stammers. “Well, um, ah...”
I don’t try to fill the on-air silence to help him. No. He must feel off balance.
“How do you plan on doing that, Miss Cee?” he finally asks.
“We are continuing to work with local governments to grow QCC communities where community leaders are supportive. To address safety, I’ve doubled QCC’s security force and added bomb detection technology. We will work harder to foster a safe working environment and a better living environment. I am always open to ideas. We at QCC Corp welcome community leaders to join us. We can do great things if we all work together, Mr. Goodwin.”
Goodwin’s face turns red. Obviously, this interview has not gone how he planned. Will he ask another follow-up question? Doubtful.
He discretely wipes his damp forehead. “Thank you, Miss Cee, for talking with me today. It certainly seems as though you have your hands full. We wish you success with QCC Corp’s noble vision to shape the world into a better place.”
The screen goes back to a single screen fixed on Goodwin’s face. “This is Charles P. Goodwin and WWBN signing off, good day.”
The camera’s red light goes dark.
Chien smiles and holds up a single thumb.
“Contact Dennis. Prepare my plane. I want to see what’s happening in our communities with my own eyes.”
chapter twenty-four
Once we return to the Malta Airport, it isn’t long before a BMW pulls up beside the jet. The driver leaves the car running and walks away as if he’s a hotel valet. Minutes later, I’m riding shotgun with Bree driving again.
I don’t feel like talking, so I don’t. It’s been a nightmare ever since Aimee decided to whisper to me and send me on this wild goose chase.
Where is she?
Bree speeds through the narrow city streets lined with old buildings as if we’re in a road race. She breaks the silence, glancing at me. “You need to breathe.”
I let out a loud huff. “I’m trying. But do you have to drive so wicked insane?”
“We’ll have a better chance of rescuing Mack if you stay calm.”
I exhale and realize Bree is right. I’ve been holding my breath for almost a minute. But I’m not going to admit it to her. “You think we can actually find him?”
“I’m hoping. Richard told me he’d call when the satellite locks onto Mack’s red beryl implant. That’ll give us coordinates. In the meantime, it’s training time for you.”
I’m completely shocked. “Really? Now?”
“Yeah. Now. I’m going to need your help. It’s time to put that bracelet around your forearm to good use. Technically, we call the process activation. But in your case, it’ll be more like a tutorial since the bracelet hasn’t been fused to your forearm bone.”
“For the record, don’t even think about implanting that thing into my arm bone.”
“Whatever.” Bree downshifts around a corner, and then accelerates, throwing me back against the seat.
“Where does training happen?” I hold back the impulse to puke and readjust myself to look straight ahead, fighting off the carsickness that is pulling on my stomach. God, she drives ridiculous.
“You’ll see soon enough.” She honks the horn and swerves around a slow moving truck, while avoiding an oncoming car.
“Jeez.” I dig my nails deeper into the leather bucket seats. “Will you slow the hell down before you kill us?”
She ignores me and speeds up.
After forty minutes of non-stop road racing, we arrive at the edge of a hundred-foot cliff overlooking the Aegean Sea. Bree hides the borrowed BMW behind a large grouping of overgrown bushes, trees, and boulders across the road from the cliff’s edge.
A welcome, chilly wind blows hard in my face when I get out of the car and inch myself close to the edge of the cliff. I suck in a deep breath and think about kissing the ground. “This is the training place you’ve been talking about? A cliff?”
“Just follow me and park your dumb ass attitude. I know you’re upset, confused, and a long way from home, but I need you to chill, all right?”
“Yeah.” I follow her. “Whatever.”
Hidden along the edge of the cliff is an old wooden stairway with a locked gate and a “No Trespassing” sign on it.
Bree unlocks the gate. “This way.”
The stairway is weathered and falling apart. I grab onto the wobbly handrail and follow her down the steep cliff to the beach below.
I didn’t see
the rocky beach cove from the top. At the bottom, the cliff is a massive cave. We continue into the cave toward a splintered and weathered wooden shack built into the rear wall, with a narrow front door and no windows.
Under a beat up wooden porch, Bree retrieves a key buried in the sand.
“This is where you live?”
She rolls her eyes. “No, I don’t live here, although I could.”
I smirk. “The place looks a million years old. Who builds shacks inside caves? It seems, well, redundant.”
“Very funny. It’s been in my family for generations. It was my father’s secret get-away for years. No one in the agency knows it exists—safer that way.”
“No one knows? Not even Richard?”
Bree shakes her head. “Nope. Besides me, you’re the first down here since my father was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Oh, man, did I step in it. “I’m sorry. Did Carmina kill him?”
“No,” Bree says. “My father was CIA. His cover was blown. They never caught the people who killed him.”
“What about your mom?”
“Dead too,” she says as her voice cracks. “They were together.”
Bree unlocks and opens the door, then steps into the one room shack. A twin bed is pushed up against one wall. A kitchen area with a modern microwave and stove lines another wall. A small wooden table with two chairs stands in the middle of the room.
“There’s food in the freezer if you’re hungry. You can zap it in the microwave.”
“No, thanks.” I shake my head. “It must have been tricky getting electricity down here.”
“Yeah. It’s tapped into the main line near the road and drilled down. My grandfather did it when they were building the road.”
“Is he still alive?” I sit down at the table. The place is pathetic, but it feels safe.
She shakes her head and looks away.
I change the subject. “No disrespect, but what are you going to teach me in this rundown, one-room cabin?”
Bree ignores me. She walks to the wall and presses a spot on the wood. Surprisingly, it opens a small rectangular panel revealing a glowing red keypad. She presses a sequence of buttons on the electronic keypad and places her head near it. A red line moves across her face. “Dad renovated before he died.”
With a loud click and a burst of air, the wooden wall jerks inward and opens.
Inside the room, florescent lights blink on and reflect off metallic walls and a tile floor. It’s an enormous, high-tech room full of the latest gear, radios, and a large television screen that switched on with the lights. Live video fills up the screen, showing dozens of video streams.
I’m blown away by the size of the place hidden behind an old shack that’s hidden in a cave. It’s seriously sick.
Bree sits down in an oversized black leather chair in front of a huge control console.
“Your dad must have been pretty damned amazing. This is some renovation.”
Bree forces a half smile. “Thanks. I use this place for training. It’s also a communication station for the agency. Mainly used during local high priority missions. But no one knows its location and I like it that way.”
Bree types on the keyboard and leans in close to the display. “Richard left us a message on my encrypted server.”
I move in and peer at the computer screen. “Did he find Mack’s location?”
“No. He did say Curtis and Tano might have a lead. But there’s bad news, I’m afraid.” Bree takes a long breath and grinds her teeth. “They found the FBI guy named Harris floating face down in the Port of Valletta, next to a cruise ship.”
“Floating?” I swallow hard. “As in dead floating?”
She nods. “Afraid so.”
I watch Bree’s lips move in slow motion. She’s crazy calm, cool, and collected.
Another person died? My head spins. Harris? A roomful of gray suits? A cousin I never knew existed, kidnapped? What is going on? A wave of confusion crashes over me.
Bree snaps her fingers twice. “Get your shit together, Reizo,” Bree says. “Training starts now.”
Bree walks to the back of the room where double doors automatically open, extending even deeper into the rock to a room the length of a football field, roughly thirty-feet wide and twenty-feet tall. A small obstacle course is on one side and a firing range is on the other. The entire room smells disgusting, stale and moldy. When she switches on air circulation in the room, the dank smell quickly changes to a fresh breeze.
“Close your mouth and keep up.” Bree walks inside.
I catch up and try to act as if I’m not blown away by the size of the place. It’s freaking amazing. All of it, built under the road above. “I see a gun range, but where are all the guns?”
Bree grins. “We won’t need any.”
Huh? I look around at destroyed targets, blown up piles of rubble, and heaps of burned materials. “Seriously?”
“Do you remember the two lessons I already told you?”
At first, I’m blank, but then I remember what she called lesson one on the jet, some kind of trippy mind control. I forget what lesson two was about.
I reluctantly nod. “Sort of.”
“Lesson one,” Bree says, “Think about what you want someone to do and visualize it. Lesson two. Yell for help if lesson one doesn’t work. Remember now?”
I nod and see a flame of intensity growing in her eyes.
“It’s time for the real lesson two. You’re going to learn how to collect and redirect energy.”
I reflect back on what she did in Tripoli with the palm of her hands. “I saw you do something with the bracelet. Is it some kind of wearable weapon?”
“Sort of.” Bree hesitates, as if she’s trying to figure out what to tell me first. “Look, I’d normally do this training in an entirely different way. But we don’t have the time . . . You’re here for a reason, Reizo.”
“Yeah. I know. We’re trying to find Mack?”
“It’s a reason bigger than Mack.”
I feel my pulse rate increase. “What reason?”
“Do you hear voices by any chance?” she asks. “Three maybe, although two is more common?”
My forehead tightens. “I did. Before I put on the gold bracelet. Why? You think I’m crazy? Is that it?”
“No, not at all.” Her soft hand touches my bicep in an attempt to calm me. Weirdly, it works. “The voices you hear are called reckoners. They’re around to whisper hints to you to keep you out of trouble. To maintain balance.”
“Seriously? Hints? Nope. Most of the time, they don’t help at all. I think they’re determined to drive me crazy. They came pretty close a few times.”
She continues. “The voices have gone silent ever since you put the bracelet on, right?”
That’s true. But I could care less. Aimee is the one I want to hear.
“The voices are real, Reizo.”
“That’s what they said, but I’m sure they’re just my imagination.”
As I think more about what Bree just said, I realize they always did seem to know things they shouldn’t have known. And they did help me escape from Willowgate.
“Did they appear as holograms when you turned on the device Mack gave you?”
How’d she know that? “Yeah. So?”
“Like I said, Reizo. You’re here for a reason.”
I suddenly feel my face burn and lean in close. “Thanks.”
She pushes me away. “Don’t be stupid. I don’t mean it that way. I mean you’re a soul tasked with being an enforcer this lifetime. Your purpose is to watch over other souls and send them back when General wants you to.”
“Souls? Send back souls? As in I kill people?”
“Look, I’m going to give you the highlights, because we don’t have time to screw around. A soul named General defined rules that every soul must agree to before being incarnated here on Earth...”
General is the one Aimee mentioned. “My girlfriend told me someone named Ge
neral needed my help. She said something had been hacked. That’s why I went to Virginia.”
“Your girlfriend told you about General? Did she go with you to meet Mack?”
“Not exactly. She’s dead. I heard her voice in my head.”
Bree’s eyes go wide. “This complicates things. General obviously used her to get to you. Do you hear her now?”
“Nope. Not since I left Arkansas.”
“Good.”
“One of the two voices I usually hear in my head mentioned something about Carmina. It was after a bus exploded. Honesti told me Carmina had found me. I think she’s trying to kill me.”
“You named the voices in your head?”
I nod. “Yeah, Honesti and Bouncer. It’s a long story. Who is Carmina?”
“Here’s the deal. Carmina is not your enemy. General is your real enemy. I’m pretty sure he’s trying to kill both of us. I just can’t prove it yet.”
“Why? I don’t even know the guy.”
“General is in charge of the rules. Carmina is trying to change the rules. The two of them have been battling for a thousand lifetimes.”
“I’m still not following you. What does that have to do with me?”
“You’re the last enforcer not yet activated this lifetime. Richard was going to activate you before Mack was kidnapped. As an enforcer, you’re supposed to work for General, but that was before the system hack. Now you’re a threat to General. I’m pretty sure he’s trying to get rid of all of us, including you.”
“A threat? How am I a threat? I’m just an Arkansas tagger.”
“It’s complicated. Right now, I need to teach you how to use the bracelet. You’re going to help me rescue Mack. After we do that, I promise I’ll answer all your questions. Deal?”
I hesitate. Most of what she has been saying makes no sense. Nevertheless, learning how to do what she did in Tripoli sounds enticing. Besides, it might come in handy. The mind control thing was pretty cool. “Fine. But after we retrieve Mack, you’ll tell me everything, right?”
