by Robert C Ray
“Almost too hot to handle,” she told him as she chewed on it, though he knew what she meant. She had an unnatural way around men, and even though he guarded himself from it, he felt it nonetheless.
“If you want me to let you vanish, you had better start talking.”
Brandon never intended to let her live, but the idea that she knew something that she thought he needed to know was intriguing enough. That, and the idea of getting this close to her.
“Come, love,” she told him as she tossed the food to the ground, and took his hand before leading him away. “I need to tell you something.”
At this, he was certainly curious. She was as beautiful and charming as he had read from her files. Resistance took all that he had.
“We are a lot alike,” she told him, “and this is a festival of acceptance.”
He knew what she meant. She was different, but hardly did he believe that they were alike.
At this, she led him to a tree, where she sat down, and patted on the ground beside her, indicating that he should sit beside her. Surely, he did.
Gently, she put her hand on his leg, and rubbed it softly, leading his mind to places that he knew he did not want to go.
“Tell me that you will help me disappear,” she pleaded, but they both knew that it was just a game.
“Tell me your secret,” he said with a grin.
She leaned over, and softly kissed him on the cheek, before whispering the words into his ear that he had not expected.
“Mirage tricked you, and is still alive, handsome,” she told him. “And your friend is under her spell.”
* * *
That went well, he thought, being thankful to be alive, while grinning at the fact that he had placed a tracking device on her. She had ripped at his emotions, just as he knew that she would, yet he had resisted well.
What bothered him, of course, was what she had said. Could it be true? Was Mirage still alive, and a part of this grand game? Was his friend under her spell, just as the viper had said?
He drove aimlessly for a while, pondering every aspect of his mission. For a moment, he even believed that Viper was just like him, just as she had said, but discarded it as nonsense. Perhaps Mirage was worse, but they both had to go. It simply was not natural.
“Where is she now?” he stated to his crew that had been listening in on him.
“We can’t figure it out,” came the reply from his operative. “She keeps wandering around the city aimlessly.”
“Morons,” he thought to himself.
“She ditched the tracker in a cab, you idiot,” he barked. “Now figure out where she got out!”
Suddenly, there was no more peace.
He pulled to the side of the street, in order to open his laptop. He needed to talk to his friend, and it had to be right now.
“Long time no see,” which was just a message between them that meant it was urgent. Everything seemed to be urgent lately.
He took off down the road, knowing that it could be a while before getting a response, but it came quicker that he thought.
“On my way,” it said, and at this, they both placed the sim cards into their phones that allowed them to talk privately.
When his friend picked up the phone, he did not wait for a “hello”.
“What the hell are you doing with that woman?”
Ryan paused for a moment, realizing that his friend knew more than he should.
“It’s not what you think,” was his best reply, but his friend was not about to have any of that.
“Are you still with her?”
A brief moment of silence passed.
“Oh my God,” Brandon shouted into the phone. “You’re still with her, aren’t you?”
There was another moment of silence.
“I don’t think you understand.”
“Understand?” he shouted into the phone. “I think you need someone to talk to right now, and I know just the place.”
“I’ve got a better place,” he replied, making certain that it was of his own choosing.
“Come alone, old friend,” Brandon heard before the conversation ended.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Let The Games Begin
He sat there on the edge of the building, wondering if his friend would ever come, and certainly it took a while. Mirage was forever on his mind, but his friend was important too.
Then the rooftop door flung open.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Brandon spit out, as he approached him. “Are you really with that woman?”
“You need to step back” Ryan replied, not standing from where he sat, “because I love her.”
“You’re talking about something created in a lab,” his friend said. “She’s not even human.”
“She’s as human as you or I,” Ryan returned harshly, “and you don’t know her like I do.”
Truth is, if we genetically alter a tomato to make it better suitable for survival, don’t we still call it a tomato? One such human, however, had made her way into the shadows, and she had pulled two steel darts into her tiny hand. Her target was just sitting there, and she savored the moment.
“She should have never been created,” Captain Jacobs continued. “Neither of them should have been.”
“Giving life to something, by whatever means, does not give us the right to end it, or even control it.”
What a thoughtful sentiment, Viper thought as she sent the deadly darts on their way. One was to pierce his left eye, and the other his heart, yet neither would reach their destination.
Abruptly they stopped in mid air, before falling to the rooftop, and this could only mean one thing.
Suddenly, Ryan fell backwards off the edge, and Viper was slightly delayed by the blowgun dart she heard coming her way. She tapped it aside with her index finger, and then burst from the shadows.
“The witch is on the roof,” she shouted as she ran past Brandon.
Quickly he pulled his Wilson Combat .38 Super Professional, and though his aim was true, his usually trusty sidearm didn’t fire.
Viper was to the edge in an instant, and she leaped off the side. Her trajectory was slightly altered however, when the bungee cord came snapping back up, and struck her right leg.
Her leap became more of a tumble for a moment, but she quickly recovered, and her three point landing on the parked car shattered its windows, and sounded its alarm. Her timing was only well enough to see the taxi cab squeal its tires, and speed away, but the chase was far from over.
Meanwhile, back on the rooftop, Captain Jacobs pulled his backup from his ankle, and began firing in all directions, hoping to get a lucky shot on Mirage. His senses, though, were not nearly as keen as Viper’s, and he soon felt the bite of the blowgun dart in the side of his neck. Lights out.
Viper began to sprint on all fours, in the direction that the cab had went. She was losing ground, yet her motorcycle was just two blocks away in that same direction. She would be needing it, since traffic was light at this hour, making the cab unhindered.
It sped around the corner, and she lost sight of it for a moment. If it stopped to let him out, she would quickly be upon him, but if it didn’t, she would have to continue for half a block. That was where her bike was, and she would have to double back in pursuit.
She thought it unfortunate that it continued to speed down the city street as she reached the intersection, but her stride was not hindered. Only a brief moment later, she leaped upon her ride, and spun it around as her back tire threw smoke into the air. Now she would close the gap, and soon this chapter of her life would come to an end.
She rounded the corner, just in time to see the cab take a hard right, about two blocks ahead, and as she reached that intersection, she saw it begin to take a hard left. One turn would slow her momentum less than two would, so she sped straight ahead.
Quickly turning right at the next street, she could hear the roar of the cab’s engine, as it bounced off the walls of the sur
rounding buildings. She knew exactly where it was, and how fast it was going, so her timing was perfect.
She pushed off the bike so hard, that it countered any effect that inertia would have had at that speed. She launched the two spikes from her hand in mid air, and with incredible velocity they hit her targets. One was the temple of the man that sat in the back seat, and the other was the driver side, front tire.
A split second later, the bike smashed into the front corner panel, and the car veered suddenly off the street. The large glass window in front of a flower shop shattered, and the vehicle came to rest inside.
Viper raced to the scene, eager to confirm her kill, but disappointment was what she found once more. Sure enough, the spike was buried in the temple of the man in the back seat, yet the man wasn’t real. It was a mannequin dressed in Captain Pierce’s clothing, and the likeness was incredible.
She ripped open the driver’s door, and growled at him.
“Why did you do this?” she yelled.
“It was an accident,” he mumbled, barely coherent. “Do we have to shoot it again?”
At this, Viper realized that the man had been made to believe that he was filming a movie, and she was furious.
“She used you because she was aware that I would not kill an innocent man,” she said in a much quieter tone, “and she was right.”
Then she pulled out another spike, and drove it into the man’s skull.
“She is the one to blame for your death.”
Then she casually turned, and walked away
Mirage, sensing what had happened, began to weep.
* * *
Today was one of Brandon’s best days ever. Not only was it his eighteenth birthday, but he now stood in cap and gown at his high school graduation, with all of his friends beside him, as they finished handing out the diplomas.
He looked out into the crowd, and spotted his mother. Her bright smile told him of how proud she was, and it slanted her Asian eyes. This is when he began to reflect upon his life.
From as early as he could remember, she was the best mother ever. Always caring and understanding. When he would make a mistake, she would always comfort him, and encourage him to do the best that he could.
He remembered how she would tell him stories about his father, and how good of a man he was. He almost felt like he had known him well, despite the fact that he had died while he was too young to recall. She had raised him on her own for all these years, while forever remaining faithful to her late husband, and he thought that to be quite honorable.
When he was young, she used to take him fishing on the weekends, and no matter how many questions he would ask, she never got tired of them. Always, she had the wisest of answers.
Once, as they were walking to the river, she moved aside to avoid stepping on an ant. When he asked her why, she simply smiled down at him and said, “every single creature that God has created wants to live.”
She instilled in him a respect for all living things, and he always looked up to her for that.
He recalled how she taught him their favorite game to play together. She would say something without making a sound. She would only move her lips, and he would have to guess what she was saying.
She was the best at it, and always knew what he was saying, and in time, he became equally as adept at it.
And as far as his schoolwork went, she was never too busy. She tutored him in every subject, and was the very reason that he was this years valedictorian. He would miss her so much when he went off to college.
She was a very good geneticist, and he admired her. This is why he chose the same path, and she had prepared him well for it.
“I love you, mom,” he whispered out into the crowd.
“I love you too, my son.”
She was the best mother ever, and the woman responsible for the man that he had become. He only wished that he could someday repay her. A tall order to be true.
Just then, she whispered something that seemed to make no sense at all.
“She switched guns with you,” is what he was certain she had said.
“What?” he asked anyway, with a look of puzzlement.
“That is how she was tracking you.”
This was when he began to get dizzy, and his vision began to blur. Unconsciousness is what followed, and as he slowly came to, her words began to make more sense.
There he was, still on the rooftop, and when he looked at his watch, he realized that he had only been out for about thirty minutes. He remembered everything that had happened there, but it seemed like a distant memory. One that occurred eighteen years ago, though vivid nonetheless.
Suddenly he understood. Not only did the thought of hurting Mirage bring pain to his heart, but the thought of anyone else hurting her was equally as bad.
She had taken the time to heal all the scars of his childhood, and beyond, and he quietly thanked the one that he couldn’t help but to look at as his own mother. Sure, he now felt like he had been adopted, but by the most beautiful woman in the world.
It was a wonderful thing to feel so young again as well. Even in his early thirties, he felt as though his entire adult life was ahead of him.
He noticed his sidearm beside him, with its clip removed, and its bullets strewn about. One however, was not a bullet at all. It was a smashed electronic device, and obviously how Viper had followed him.
He stood to his feet, and began to gather them up. He wanted nothing to do with them anymore, but they were not the type of things that should just be left laying around.
He then made his way down to where he had parked the car. He knew what he needed to do, and it was half way across the city.
The ride would seem longer than that though, and Brandon didn’t mind. He had many things to evaluate about his two lives, and the answers would seem so simple now. One was a life that he would wish upon no one, and the other was the kind that most could only dream of.
Sure his most recent one could be called a dream, but it was far more than that. They were wonderful memories that spanned over the course of what seemed to be eighteen full years. It was a much better life than the real one he had lived, and he quietly thanked her for such a gift once more.
Finally he reached the semi trailer that had been made into a mobile command center, and moments after the appropriate knock on the back door, it opened.
“You had us worried Captain,” the man said, as he let him pass.
“I said I would be fine,” he returned, “and you tech guys worry too much anyway.”
“Maybe so,” the small built man said, as he followed Captain Jacobs toward the front, “but even with what little I know about this chick, I understand that worry is important to our own survival on this one.”
“I’m not worried,” a stone faced soldier said, as he sat at a table cleaning his HK416.
“With a face like yours, Bulldog, why would you be,” Brandon laughed. “She likes to kill the men that she sleeps with.”
Before his transformation, he would have used the F word, but his new mother had taught him better than that.
“I hear she likes geeks,” said a second soldier while cleaning his Steyr AUG, and although Bulldog let out a brief chuckle, even he went back to what he was doing, and became silent.
“Too soon, huh?”
“That one will never be funny,” Captain Jacobs told the man that they called Grapes. Probably because he was the only guy in the service that preferred to get drunk off of Merlot. At least that anyone who knew him knew of.
Quietly, he went back to his work.
“Is that true?” Corporal Jenkins whispered as they reached the brains of the command center.
Captain Jacobs paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully.
“Not anymore,” he told him, trying to ease his worry. “at least not here. Now I need you to send a message to the General.”
This changed the corporal's state of mind, and quickly he began to activate the uplink.
“Tell him that Viper is heading for The White House, and I have reason to believe that Captain Pierce is deceased.”
At this, the eyes of all three were upon him. Imagine the implications.
“Also tell him that I am tendering my resignation from service as of immediately, and that he will receive the paperwork by the end of tomorrow.”
On his way out, he placed his two pistols on the table where the men had been cleaning their guns, yet they said nothing. They didn’t want to know why, because their minds were too concerned with the idea that this woman was going after the President.
“You’ll take care of the paperwork, won’t you Jenkins?” and he heard a faint, “yes, sir,” as he exited the trailer.
Now it was time for the second thing that was consuming his mind. As he drove off, he placed that certain sim card into his phone. When he speed dialed the number, and it began to ring, he became increasingly nervous.
“Are you ok, Brandon?” came Ryan’s voice on the other end, yet he paused.
This was the man that she had told him stories of, and he knew him in both lives. He understood him more in the second one though, and that was a gift that he could never repay as well.
“I‘m doing just fine,” he finally answered with a smile in his tone. “Glad to hear that you’re still alive.”
Now was Ryan’s turn to pause, as he noticed a total change in the attitude that he had experienced upon the rooftop.
“She takes good care of me,” he answered.
“I am certain that she does,” his old friend told him, “and I’ve sent away the cavalry. I told them that you might be dead, and never mentioned Mirage.”
He was careful not to use the name Sang, for he knew that it would only confuse things.
Naturally, it still left Ryan a little confused, but what his friend told him next had caught him completely off guard.
“Tell her that I said thank you.”
And then he hung up.
“Thank you for the gift of motherhood,” she replied within his mind, and he could almost see her smile.
* * *
Reaching the building where she had first caught his scent, Viper took a look around. She could smell him, and his direction was certain.
