by Al Shield
‘We haven’t met. But I’m here to investigate the incident you were part of.’
‘But I already told the cops all I know!’ He whined.
‘I know, but-’
‘Am I gonna need my lawyer here?’
She smiled at the suggestion as she wheeled over a nearby chair and sat next to his bed.
‘Goodness no. I’m not trying to convict you, I’m here to assist you. Truth be told I’m far more interested in the man who attacked you than any...minor transgressions you may or may not have caused.’
‘He attacked me!’ He blurted. ‘I was just having a smoke with mah buddies and he came over and attacked us! Took us all by surprise!’
‘I imagine so. Now as much as it hurts, I want you to think back to the horrific event. Can you please describe your assailant.’
‘But someone already took those details - you can’t read that?’
She smiled again thinly.
‘We are just covering our bases here Mr Young. You may have recalled what seems a minor detail in the meantime that could be just what we need to track your attacker down.’
‘Okay...he was a white guy. But I think he was one of them...’ His voice trailed away as he tried not to look directly at her.
‘A foreigner Mr Young?’
‘Yeah. He was askin a lot of questions, like he didn’t know shit.’
She gave him a confused look.
‘These questions he asked, was that before or after he attacked you?’
Marcus went white when he realised the glaring error he’d just made. She reached out and touched his arm reassuringly.
‘Like I said, I don’t really care about anything you did, my people are more interested in who this man might be. Now, was he tall? Short? Bald? Lots of hair on his head?’
‘Er...I had a few beers so I don’t remember much...but he had brown hair. Short hair. He was bout my height. And..he spoke real fancy like.’
‘Fancy?’
‘You know, big words.’
‘I see. What about any distinguishing features?’
He screwed up his face in confusion ‘Come again?’
‘Any tattoos? Any strange piercings or maybe there was something about his face? A broken nose or strange eyes?’
‘Nah no tatts and I never got to see his eyes, the fucker kept his glasses on the whole time.’
The woman suddenly became much more interested in his words.
‘Glasses, like reading glasses?’
‘Nah, sunglasses. He wore them the whole time - kept telling people it was to hide an eye injury or some shit.’
‘But when the fight occurred outside, did he pause at any stage to take them off?’
‘Nah I don’t think so. It was over pretty quick though.’
She paused to mull over her next question.
‘Now I have one question left and all I need for you is a simple yes or no answer okay? I don’t need an elaborate story here, just a yes or no answer. Understand?’
He nodded.
‘Three of you tried to fight one man in sunglasses outside of a dimly lit bar and even though he had told everyone he had problems with his eyes, he managed to cause intense damage to the three of you in a very short amount of time without a scratch on him.’
‘Well I-’
‘Uh uh Mr Young, just a simple yes or no.’
He hung his head in shame and took a moment before he spoke. ‘Yeah. That’s about right.’ He said quietly.
‘Well I think I’m just about done here. I thank you for your help today.’ She stood up and reached into her pocket. ‘Rest assured Mr Young, my partners and I will track your attacker down.’
‘I would sure appreciate that..’ he said before wincing again, the pain from his ribs firing up once more.
‘Here, this should help with the pain you’re experiencing.’
She pulled a small cylinder device out of her pocket and held it under his chin. Before he had a chance to ask what it was, she pressed the trigger button and the unforgiving steel blade slid out of its handle, through his soft chin and pierced his brain, killing him instantly. She withdrew the weapon, causing his body to fall back onto the bed and wiped the blade on the bed sheet before walking out of the room.
Moments later the assassin opened a door to a inconspicuous white car in the hospital and climbed into the passenger seat. Moments later a completely identical woman, right down to the exact number of braids in her hair joined her, sitting herself behind the steering wheel.
‘So our theory...’
‘...is correct.’ The woman in the passenger seat finished her sentence. ‘Either the family didn’t come through alone or something is amiss. From my conversation it seems we are looking for...’
‘...a Zegith. Or at least someone who shares their gift.’ The second woman finished the firsts sentence with exactly the same tone and inflection.
They both turned around at exactly the same moment to look at the back seat of the car.
‘Has number three...’
‘....encountered trouble? I haven’t...’
‘...felt anything to suggest so.’
They turned back in their seats and waited a few more minutes before number three finally showed. Like the other two she was identical, right down to the clothes and facial features. However number three’s hands were covered in blood.
‘Apologies, I had just finished off the one I was questioning...’
‘...when a nurse walked in.’
‘...so I had to take care of her too.’ The other two nodded simultaneously.
‘Wipe your hands...’
‘...on the seat.’ The second one added.
‘...before we join.’ The third one finished. ‘I understand.’
Finally cleaned up, they all reached out and locked hands. In the space of a single breath, the three suddenly became one, the one behind the steering wheel. No sign of the other two, not even the clothes they wore remained.
‘There was a girl who spent the night with him apparently.’ The woman said aloud as she started the car and peeled out of the car park. ‘Perhaps she might provide an insight to get us closer to our prey..
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘She wasn’t particularly helpful.’ Number two sighed as she walked out of the motel room behind the bar. She wiped her device clean before retracting the blade and popping it back into her pocket. The woman had sobbed hysterically under the torture and provided precious little information before she expired. She clearly couldn’t remember much of the night at all.
‘She made a mess of your outfit too.’
Number two looked down at her stained top.
‘It will fade.’
‘Although she did mention he learnt about hitchhiking...’
‘...which means if someone has given him a ride...’
‘...then he could be miles away by now.’
‘Patience sisters.’ Number two said. ‘It seems with all these questions, he is still learning.’
‘And if he is still learning...’
‘...he is bound to make mistakes.’
‘Exactly.’ Number two said.
‘She did also mention that he was very liberal...’
‘...with a credit card...’
‘...that he must have stolen from someone or somewhere.’ Said the third.
‘Also, he doesn’t realise...’ number one added.
‘...the card he carries is leaving a trail.’
They all nodded.
‘Then we need to know who’s name is on that card. Someone...’
‘...inside the bar will know.’
Number one and two reached into their pockets to bring out their weapons. Number three held up her hands.
‘Nay. The less of a bloody trail we leave, the less awareness we create.’
‘We track in silence...’
‘...we kill in the dark.’ Number two finished the passage. They all nodded again, touched hands and three became one
once more.
‘Besides..’ she said to herself as soon as the other two disappeared. ‘Killing these things gives me an incredible hunger. I wonder what’s on the menu in there?’
A long distance away, K’Dian was furiously studying. His mind was a whir of new information from the time spent in the truck cabin and his new companion Red was very obliging in answering his questions, figuring he was from another country that didn’t seem to have half the things people usually took for granted. It helped that every time they pulled into a truck stop, K’Dian would emerge from the shops with an armful of food and drinks for them both. It seemed the foodstuffs were more than ample currency for conversation.
The taste sensations were simply nothing he had ever experienced before and he wolfed down chips, chocolate bars, popcorn and litres of sweet fluids that fizzed in his mouth in record time.
‘You might want to ease up on that stuff there champion, otherwise you’re gonna start to look like me!’ Red patted his protruding belly proudly.
To K’Dian his tale seemed a simple one. Red wasn’t one for education or authority and even though he had consecrated a union called ‘marriage’ with his partner Belle, he spent a lot of time out on the roads in his big vehicle, transporting boxes from one part of the land to the other. Incredibly it wasn’t the same things all the time either.
‘I’ve hauled everything from livestock to crates of government cheese.’ he’d explained. At the next pit stop K’Dian had tracked down some of this cheese to see what he was talking about. It was tasty, something akin to animal curd from the herds he used to live nearby.
He’d also spent a section of his life in incarceration after attempting to steal some kind of wealth and told K’Dian many tales about keeping his head down and out of trouble but with his eyes open always, just in case.
‘Ain’t much work for an ex-con like me saving for driving. Luckily I’m good at that.’ He laughed.
When asked about his own life, K’Dian struggled at first with what to say but found the lies came easier and more naturally over time. Red would ask him something like ‘Are your family from Europe?’ and K’Dian would nod, mentally reminding himself to use that name again if anyone else asked. Red didn’t question anything further when he found out his passengers parents were both soldiers. He nodded sagely and gave what looked to be a salute. In these parts being a soldier must be something to be proud of.
Red had this strange man pegged as some kind of international student, most likely from a poor part of the world but over here with a decent sized grant ready to learn and take back a whole heap of new ideas with him. The truck driver had seen a lot on the road in his time and was more than willing to share his tale - with the food and drink more than adequate compensation for his time.
In their time together K’Dian had learnt a lot of the workings of the grand vehicle they travelled in and Red was quite happy to explain how it all worked. He’d been piloting these ‘trucks’ for over twenty years and had been quite adept to fixing them long enough to make it to the next town when something went wrong.
In one town after K’Dian had bought them buckets of crumbed chicken pieces, Red had dug a torch out of his tool kit and shone the light over the exposed engine bay explaining how everything worked in harmony.
K’Dian watched on astounded - there wasn’t anything organic powering this machine at all! Just intricately crafted metal pieces bolted together with the occasional hose or pipe and wire providing fluid, spark or signal. He asked a lot of questions which Red was happy to answer and by the time they were done, it was just past midnight. It had started to rain then and Red had never met anyone who was so excited by the concept of the falling droplets. K’Dian completely ignored that he was getting wet, fascinated by the water dripping down from the sky.
‘What do you call this strange phenomena?’ he asked and laughed merrily as the drops bounced off his skin.
‘I’m guessing you come from an area that doesn’t get much rain?’
“Rain.” K’Dian whispered it quietly to himself. Rain. It felt wonderful to be standing in the middle of it as it fell upon him. He had nothing like this back in his home land. The only thing that fell from the sky was the venom hawked by flying creatures. There were also the tales of the area near the River of Skulls where it was said the sky bled red constantly but he had never been there. But otherwise there was nothing as magnificent or refreshing as this rain he was experiencing.
‘You remind me a lot about my boy when he was younger, so curious about the world.’ Red spoke later on as he drifted off to sleep on the mattress behind the seats. He’d fished out a spare towel for K’Dian to dry himself before calling it a night.
He’d never mentioned that he had a child before.
Too excited from the answers the day had provided, K’Dian struggled with sleep himself in the front seat. Having learnt how the radio worked he turned it on and listened to it quietly, tuning into something called a ‘late night talkback.’ It seemed to be a deep voice that spoke to many others and most of it was debate over ‘immigrants’ and ‘taking our jobs.’ Eventually the excitement of the day’s learning wore off so he switched off the radio and nodded off, dreaming of unlocking even more secrets of this strange new world in days to come.
‘THEY PLOT SOMETHING.’ Dar'kannag spoke quietly to Omega when the Nameless One and his bodyguard had retired for the night. They were still surrounded by the rotating shift of exo soldiers but after a few days on guard duty, they no longer held any interest in any conversation the two might have.
‘Of course they are. They’re working out what to do with you once you’ve satisfied their curiosity. Probably termination and then medical study’ Omega replied nonchalantly. Of course he wholeheartedly agreed with the beast but was loathe to admit that they shared the same opinion.
‘No, there is more than that. Something is coming. I feel it.’
‘Something?’
‘Or perhaps a someone. I have a sense.’
‘You think it had something to do with that?’ Omega pointed to the box in the corner that contained the golden gauntlet. After revealing it to Dar'kannag, they had returned it to the box and moved it to the corner, saving the soldiers from more of the vicious headaches it caused being exposed.
‘Yes. We don’t seem to be the first visitors from our realm here. And if that’s the case, I don’t think it will be much longer before the one who supplied them with the gauntlet makes their presence felt.’
‘And what if they found it?’
Dar'kannag screwed up his face. ‘That is highly doubtful Meat. How would they make such a connection between the relic and myself if they just found it lying about? No, somebody from my world knows we are here. They have confirmed it by showing me a part of my world. And now they are coming, I feel it.’
‘Do you fear what might happen next?’
‘I do not waste time fearing the unknown little Meat. If fear is to take hold then let me look at it head on first....before I bite its face off.’
Omega looked around at the soldiers before asking his next question. Most of them were busy chatting to each other or scanning the room for the thousandth time that day. He leaned slightly in and spoke quietly.
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because dear Meat, I suspect that when they arrive, you and your soldiers will be superfluous to their needs. Call it fair warning, soldier to soldier.’
‘Why would you help me by warning me? Don’t you want to see us all die?’
‘I spoke days back of crushing you myself.’ He admitted proudly. ‘By warning you, I hope you survive long enough for that to become a reality. I will feel the crack of your bones in my hands, it is inevitable..’
And with that he closed his eyes and refused to respond to any more of Omega’s questions for the night. After a few minutes Omega retired for the night but not before replaying the conversation over and over in his mind. If the beast was indeed telling the truth
then the line between who was the biggest monster on base was starting to blur with every day’s passing.
‘He arrives tomorrow.’ The Nameless One spoke as he hung up the phone. He and the bodyguard were once again outside and out of sight of guard patrols but not out of hearing range of Omega. Not willing to risk detection, he’d borrowed some listening bugs from the engineering department when he got the latest update on the wagon and had secreted them around the area where the man made his outside calls.
Fortunately he had stood right near one during the conversation which meant Omega heard everything he said.
‘What time?’
‘Dusk. Less chance of being seen and sunlight hurts his eyes.’
‘He has plans for this base?’
‘Once he’s done, you know what happens.’
‘Snotty soldier boy is mine.’ The bodyguard stated firmly.
The Nameless One sighed. His bodyguard was indeed one of the best soldiers, guards and cold blooded killers he had ever worked with. The countless procedures carried out on him just made that deadly edge even more lethal. But there was something about agent Omega that had the man slightly wary. He had gone over his files many times - extensive combat history, expertly trained, highly decorated. He’d cheated death a handful of times but project Return had managed to bring him back from the brink time and time again. But even with his history and additions, there was something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. An air or aura about the man. He’d felt something when they first crossed paths and the more he came in contact with him, the more prevalent it felt.
He’d met few that he’d consider his bodyguard’s equal but his gut was telling him that matching them up might not be the wisest decision.
‘When the time is right, do it from a distance.’
‘But-’
‘Trust me. As good as you are... don’t give him the chance to get the drop on you. Men of your particular skillset aren’t that easy to come by...’
