I Become Shadow

by Joe Shine

  “Won’t be easy,” I said.

  He flashed a faint smile and said, “Never is with you, Ren.”

  A sudden barrage of gunfire ripped into the door and into the room. We were well protected by the thick cement walls. Voices could be heard giving orders. They were organizing. Not a good thing. I looked around and had an idea. I took a block of C-4 that my lovely Junie had brought me and slapped it on the opposite wall. Then I set the detonator.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Making a door.”

  His eyes widened. “Christ.”

  “Flash,” I yelled, but he was already ahead of me. He took a flash bomb from his vest and tossed it through a door window. It went off in the hallway seconds later, and the moment it did, I flipped the trigger and the C-4 detonated, slamming me back into the wall. My ears were ringing. Two strong hands grabbed my vest and yanked me to my feet. When did I hit the ground? A bit dazed, I was about to hit whoever it was, but at the last moment realized it was Junie.

  “We’re gonna have a little chat about this later,” he yelled.

  The room was full of smoke. The sprinklers kicked on, but the small bomb had done the trick. There was a good-sized hole in the wall we could climb through.

  I popped my head out. The hallway was clear. I hopped through the hole and covered Junie who was barely small enough to get through.

  My heart jumped. I knew this hallway. I’d spent enough time going to and from the hospital wing here to recognize it. We were a long, long way from the garages. For good measure, Junie tossed a grenade through the makeshift door I’d just created and came jogging toward me. It exploded, the ceiling collapsing and blocking the way behind us.

  We moved like cats through the halls, a pack of two working together as one. Anything that moved went down. We made sure to go up and down stairs whenever it didn’t take us too far out of the way. We kept them from pinpointing us. The sirens, flashing lights, and sprinklers only added to the confusion. Nobody came close enough to stop us.

  We were about halfway to the garage when Junie stopped me from turning right down a long hallway.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Need ammo,” he said gesturing to his gun.

  I checked mine. I was running low, too.

  He pointed to the right and said, “Gun ranges.”

  I nodded my agreement and said, “Go.”

  It was strange: Not only had we avoided any large groups, we’d come across no Hunters. Were they not here? Were we really that lucky? Or were they biding their time, planning an attack that would easily snuff us out? Too many questions and no answers. Stop thinking, Ren Sharpe, and get to Gareth.

  We barged into one of the gun ranges and found it empty. It took seconds to find the right caliber bullets for our guns in the ammo lockers. Maybe it was the situation, but I was loading clips faster than he could. He gave up and took position by the door to cover us.

  He stood like a statue facing the door, ready to kill anyone that came through it. He had come for me. He couldn’t have thought he’d ever actually get to me, let alone that we’d even make it this far. But he had been fully prepared to die today trying to reach me. I hadn’t realized I had stopped working until Junie’s head turned slightly.

  “You okay? You done?” he asked.

  I quickly went back to reloading. “I can’t believe you came.”

  His eyes still on the door he said, “You’re my Ren. I’d do anything for you. Just don’t die. Would really suck.”

  “I’ll try, and ditto.”

  A few seconds later I was ready to rock. We slipped a small wire camera under the door. The hallway was empty, or at least appeared that way. Junie reached to open the door, but I stopped him. There was something I had to do. I was afraid of his reaction, but I had to say it. Junie had risked everything for me, I had to give him this.

  “You should go.”

  “What?” he asked confused.

  “To Emily. You should go to her, now while you still can.”

  “Ren—”

  “They know. They know you’re here. They know you’re helping me. They’ll go after her to get back at you. How did you get out of that basement, anyway?”

  He looked at the door, but I knew he wasn’t seeing it. He was seeing Emily, seeing her safe. When he turned back to me, his face had hardened, his mind was set. I prepared myself for his decision.

  “After,” he insisted.

  That was not the response I had been expecting. Hoping for? Yes. But not expecting. And it caught me off guard. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  “After,” he repeated. “The only person who knows I’m here is still extremely unconscious. Trust me. Once we get Gareth, we go straight for Emily.”

  “I can’t let you do that. If anything happens to her—”

  “If anything happens to you, Ren,” he snapped, both worried and annoyed. “Don’t you get it? The conversation’s over. We get Gareth. Then we get Emily. Together. In that order. Or are you gonna White Fang me here in the gun range?”

  “I don’t have any rocks,” I said as I squeezed him tighter, my Junie. Somehow Junie had said no. He had said no to Emily and yes to me. Had the situation been reversed I don’t know if I could have made the same decision. In fact, I know I couldn’t have. I would have gone. I would have left him. Seconds later we rushed out of the range into the hallway, guns primed. Within thirty feet all hell broke loose as soldiers flooded around the corners in front of us and behind. They’d been waiting. A door to the stairs was ten feet away but it could have been ten miles for all it mattered with the bullets flying.

  I flipped my gun to fully automatic and let the bullets fly as we inched toward our only way out. I felt a bullet graze my thigh and a few more slammed into my vest. The force knocked me into Junie.

  “You okay?!” he yelled.

  “Yeah, you?” I yelled back catching my breath.

  A few more steps, and I kicked the door open and leapt inside the stairwell. I reached back into the hallway and yanked Junie along with me, slamming the door shut behind us.

  After a quick check of our persons we found nothing too terribly bad. A few grazes here and there, but nothing major. Junie rigged a makeshift booby trap on the door, and then we were off. We hustled down five levels before getting to our door. We were on the Garage Level now but still a few good twists and turns of hallway away from C3.

  Again, there was no resistance as we opened the door, exiting the stairwell into the hallway. But our footsteps echoed off of the floor no matter how lightly we stepped. There was an explosion from the stairwell. The building shook. Someone had been brave and stupid enough to test Junie’s booby trap.

  We rounded a corner and found ourselves face-to-face with two gun barrels. A girl with deep red hair in a pony-tail opened fire on us. Her accuracy was only matched by her quickness. She sprayed her fire right across the two of us. Our vests each caught three perfect shots to the heart. She was back behind the wall before either of us could fire off a round. I had no doubt the next time I saw her she’d be aiming for, and hitting, our heads. She was no ordinary soldier. She was a Hunter.

  “What do we do?” Junie asked, but I was well ahead of him.

  All at once, I noticed he was bleeding. From his legs, his calves, his forearm. That girl had gotten off more rounds than I’d realized. She had all the advantages and we had none. Know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em.

  “Run,” I said and spun him around.

  CHAPTER 27

  IF YOU WANT BLOOD …

  I ran, full sprint toward Gareth, full sprint toward anyone who got in my way. Junie stayed behind me, leaving a trail of blood as we went. He occasionally popped off rounds over my shoulders, but nobody was really chasing us. That couldn’t be good.

  I was shaking with adrenaline when we reached the doors of C3. I holstered my knives and drew out two pistols as I burst through the doors. Junie limped behind me. I had full
y expected there to be an army inside, guns at the ready, waiting for me. I had been looking forward to the bloodbath.

  As usual though, I was wrong. I found nothing but cars, trucks, motorcycles, the usual garage stuff. No army. No hit squad. Not even any mechanics.

  This was very bad.

  A quick scan of the room took my eyes to the silhouette of a figure standing one hundred yards away. The one figure who could stop me dead in my tracks. The one figure I honestly feared.

  Standing in the middle of an open, empty space of concrete, smack in between two Humvees with twin .50 caliber gun mounts, was Luka. I should have known it.

  While I had been running, it had felt like we were being corralled, guided through the halls. I had passed it off as overanalyzing everything. Why guide us to our destination? In reality, it had been that. The attacks had been coordinated so that if we did make it out alive, we would be left to face an opponent we could not beat. They had played a game with us and the end result, no matter how we played, had already been determined. I would lose. No, we would lose.

  Suddenly I understood why we’d made it so deep into the facility with so little resistance. This place housed an army of the best killers on the planet, and we’d hardly run into anyone except for outside the armory. No, the moment Junie had rescued me they’d arranged this moment with exquisite precision, like a chess game. It had all been orchestrated for this one confrontation. The silence was absolute as Luka and I stared at each other. The laser sight from Junie’s automatic was dead center on Luka’s chest. In each of my hands I held two pistols. I cocked them and took a cautious step forward. Luka simply sighed, as if the threat were laughable. It was.

  Hesitantly, I lowered my guns and dropped them to the ground with a clatter.

  “What are you doing?” Junie growled at me.

  I casually reached over, put my hand on the barrel of his gun, and lowered it to the ground.

  Luka smiled and nodded at me. We both understood. He could have easily parked himself 1000 yards down the garage with a sniper rifle and picked us off, or had those twin .50 cals primed and loaded when we burst through the door to saw us in half. But there was no respect in that. He was going to allow us to fight and die with honor, with a chance.

  I reached behind my back and pulled out the knives Junie had given me. I held them at my sides. Junie, recognizing what was going on, pulled out a massive machete and held it in his right hand. He slipped a pair of brass knuckles onto his left.

  Luka reached above his head and from behind his back and pulled out his massive katana. He flipped something on the handle and twisted. The blade split itself into two swords. He held them both at his sides like me, blades up.

  Then he strode slowly toward us. We held our ground until he stopped about ten feet away. I squeezed the handles on my knives as tightly as I could.

  “Are you injured?” he asked with his airy, light voice. The question caught me off guard. Why the hell would he care? Or was he trying to find my weaknesses?

  “Not terribly,” I said, never taking my eyes off of him. He looked at Junie.

  “I’ll live,” Junie told him.

  “Good. Then you still have a chance.” He motioned with his head toward something behind him, but I refused to take my eyes from his. “I’ve programmed the coordinates of the Nest into it. But you must leave now. He’s got quite the head start on you.”

  I blinked. “What are you doing?”

  “Go get the boy. Mr. Cole is traveling alone with him. I have no doubt you can handle him. I can deal with anyone that comes through that door. Fear not for me.”

  My eyes took the chance and looked past him. An old, convertible Mustang sat ready to depart, right behind the Humvees.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Because it’s right,” he said flatly. He then pulled out a pair of those damn glasses from his pockets and handed them to me. “And because of this.”

  I took them from him and held them in my hand. Could I trust him? He nodded, encouraging me to put them on. “Will only take a second.”

  I had no choice. This was one man who did not partake in trickery or practice dishonesty. Besides, if he’d wanted me dead it would have happened already.

  I put them on.

  MONEY. IT WAS ALL about money.

  It was quite simple really. Countries were going bankrupt all around the world. They couldn’t support their own citizens anymore, let alone contribute to something like FATE. All of them could still provide the program fresh children, of course, just not money. A bit unsettling, I thought. FATE could still be fully functional for a few more years, but after that it would be impossible without the full resources it was accustomed to. Their pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

  FATE had to take matters into its own hands to ensure survival. So a list was made of FIPs who met two specific criteria.

  The first: The chosen FIP’s death would be just big enough to get everyone’s attention and thus get full funding back. Obviously, there weren’t any future prime ministers or presidents on the list, but Nobel Prize winners? Sure. FATE could then argue that luckily it was only that and not someone more important. Blackmail, in other words.

  Second was this: the FIP had already created something worth a lot of money, a lot of money. It had to be something FATE could steal and potentially sell: an insurance policy should the first part of the plan fail. When I called about Gareth’s invention, his name went on that short list. He was deemed an acceptable loss and therefore so was I. It was nothing personal, it was just business. And it was all my fault.

  I HAD THE WHOLE dirty story when I ripped the glasses off my face and shoved them into a pocket a few seconds later.

  “Do you understand?” Luka asked me.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you must go now.”

  “What will you do?”

  “They have used you, Ren Sharpe, as they have used me. I shall visit violence on them in ways they never thought possible.”

  Without looking back he said, “Best of luck, Ren Sharpe. I hope we meet again.”

  I watched him go a few more paces before sprinting toward the Mustang. I didn’t bother with the door and instead jumped straight in. Junie limped to the passenger door, but when he put his hand on the handle, I shouted, “No!”

  He flinched.

  “Go to Emily.” He began to shake his head but I kept going. “You got me here. You did it. I’m fine. This is my game now. I can handle Cole. You have to go to Emily. I’ll come to you when it’s over.”

  “I’m not leaving you. Not until it’s done. That was the deal.”

  “Junie. It’s done. Cole has Gareth. Just Cole. I’ve been dreaming of this for four years.”

  “And I’ve been dreaming of you,” he stated. “I can’t.”

  “I owe you my life. And I don’t just mean today,” I said. If he wasn’t going to leave me then I’d make him. “Please, go.”

  Our eyes locked. We both remembered the promise we had made to each other so very long ago in the hospital. We could say those words once and the other would do it no questions asked, no arguments. One of us would go. Neither of us had ever said it, well, not really anyway. We’d jokingly used it all the time, but neither had ever called it in.

  His lips tightened. “No. You don’t get to do that, not here.”

  “I can. And I have. If you won’t choose Emily over me then I will for you.”

  Leaving wasn’t for me, it was for him. He was too good. Too loyal. He deserved better than me.

  A crash made both of us turn. A flood of guards and Hunters came pouring into the garage only to be met by the twin blades of Luka.

  “Please, go,” I begged once more.

  Wordlessly he turned and ran toward an old Chevy truck a few yards away. I fought back tears of relief as I checked the monitor in the car. It was displaying a map, with a small dot driving down a road. At the top of the screen it stated, Distance to Target 7.62 Kilometers,
and the distance was slowly climbing.

  When I looked up again, I was shocked by the number of bodies already around Luka. They stood no chance against him. He was a giant being attacked by ants.

  I started the engine and felt it purr to life, vibrating at my feet. I heard Junie do the same in the truck. I slammed the car into drive. The tires spun out before catching and sending me tearing away at full speed.

  Junie came flying up next to me. We swept past all of the other cars, motorcycles, and other fun gadgets before reaching the obstacle courses, fake city blocks, and then finally the hidden tunnel to the real world. The garage was kept on the bottom level and opened up through a cliff face a few miles away.

  Luka had programmed the exit codes in for me so when I got close enough, the doors to the outside slid open. The cold night air slapped me in the face. It energized me, spurred me on as I flew out of the cave and onto the road.

  Junie and I shared one final look as I went left and he went right. I watched him in my rearview until he rounded a bend and was gone.

  The GPS showed me that I was gaining on Cole. How long I had before they reached this mysterious Nest place, I had no idea. I only hoped I could catch them before they did.

  Aside from the hum of the engine, the rushing wind provided the only noise on the deserted two-lane highway. No clouds and a full moon. The woods around me looked surreal in the moonlight. At any other time, it would have been beautiful. I suddenly found myself with the time to do something I absolutely didn’t want to do. Think.

  My brain, against my better judgment, began to go over all that had happened. It was not something I needed at that moment. I had to keep my focus. But alas, my brain has a mind of its own.

  The whole situation sucked. Every part of it. And what made it that much worse (and I know how horrible this sounds) was that the FATE Center was my home. Mr. S. was the closest thing to a father figure I had. Yes, he was demented, cruel, and a kidnapper of children. But he filled a role. He had betrayed me. I had been ripped from my life and forced into his, but I had believed in what my new life stood for, for what he stood for. So now I had nothing. It paled in comparison to everything else that had happened, all the lives that had been needlessly lost, but that betrayal still stung the most.