Housebroken

by The Behrg

  At the far wall, he pushed something on the wooden rack holding pool cues. The rack pulled away, revealing an electronic display screen embedded in a metal panel. A safe?

  “What people forget is that even floating buildings began attached to some hill,” JT continued.

  Blake raised the gun, leveling it on JT’s chest, the pool table between them. “I’m not here for a drink and I’m not here for your philosophy. I need that nickel or I won’t see my son again, so you are either going to help me or I will make you help me.”

  “You dumb little shit—have you not heard a word I’ve said?”

  “I need that coin, JT!”

  “Tabatha, display my . . . floating building,” JT said.

  A panel in the ceiling unlatched with a mechanical drawl, descending slowly, black metal arms extending from the ceiling as it lowered. It stopped just above the pool table like some futuristic device displaying a luminescent cube that looked almost otherworldly. In the center of the transparent block was a single nickel, a fossil caught in amber.

  “Not quite as thick as the floor you’re standing on, but it still weighs a quarter of a ton. You’re welcome to it,” JT said.

  Blake’s eyes moved from the impregnable coin to the man who had doused what little kindling of hope he had remaining. He felt an electricity in the air—the gun in his hands wanted to be fired.

  “Put it away. You’re not going to shoot me,” JT said.

  “You have no idea what I’m capable of,” Blake said.

  “Actually you’re wrong. You’ve had Betti what, a month now? Before the whole kidnapping thing? The amount of information collected from you in one month of monitoring could fill the Library of Congress three times. Just one month. Symbio is not some small jettison, and while we’re starting with predictive marketing, that’s not the endgame. It’s about control—a true new media—understanding how someone thinks so that you know exactly how to bend them to whatever you need them to believe. It’s what we did with you.”

  A sudden bout of vertigo hit Blake, whether from the drop visible beneath them or JT’s words, he couldn’t be sure. He steadied himself by gripping the side of the pool table, though it didn’t stop the room from swaying.

  Bourbon sloshed from the glass in JT’s hand. “Sure you don’t want that drink?”

  The timing of it all suddenly brought random numbers into order, x’s, y’s, and z’s finding their place in an equation that meant billions for JT and his company at the low cost of one family’s sanity. “This whole thing—the kidnapping, the warehouse, the former employee seeking revenge—it was all to put the spotlight on Symbio?”

  “Well, it’s tough to run a traditional marketing campaign for a company touting the future of marketing. We had to just . . . be, overnight becoming the collective consciousness of predictive software and AI. We’re actually calling it symbiotic intelligence rather than artificial intelligence. Tests much better in focus groups and really turns our brand into the market. Like tissue and Kleenex.”

  “Tissue and Kleenex? You had them set my wife on fire! My son is missing, and at least three people are dead!”

  “Floating buildings aren’t without their costs.”

  Blake pointed the gun down and pulled the trigger. JT jumped—the bullet sinking into the glass floor in front of him. A web of cracks cascaded out from its entry point.

  The glass in JT’s hand fell to the ground, shattering, chunks skidding across the no-longer-quite-as-see-through floor. One rotund chunk spun in place at Blake’s feet. He couldn’t tell if the bullet had made it all the way through or was lodged somewhere within the layers of folded glass, either way, his message had been delivered.

  Blake fired again, the kick traveling the length of his arm. The noise of the gunshot was amplified by the glass floor as if thunder were rising from the ground. He was no sharpshooter, but his second shot landed less than a foot from the first. The glass floor was beginning to look like a river of ice cracking beneath their weight.

  “If I can’t take the coin, I’m taking you,” Blake said. “That’s what Rory really wanted anyway.”

  JT looked at Blake like he was mad. “Rory Shepard?—Don’t!” he shouted, stopping Blake from firing another round into the floor. Barely.

  Both of JT’s hands rose, palms out as if trying to calm a feral beast. “All right, I’ll go! Let’s head back up.”

  Blake shook his head. “I want you standing right there. Now what do you know about Rory?”

  “Who do you think came up with the marketing campaign that was Blake Crochet?”

  “You . . . hired Rory?”

  “I told him what I needed. He brought me you,” JT said.

  “No, that . . . that’s impossible. Why would he break me out?” Blake ran one sweaty hand through his hair. “The warehouse—they were his instructions.”

  “Nothing but empty servers and old machinery. Should have known, Blake. Rory only works with a person once.”

  Blake did know, had known, but he had wanted to believe, needed to believe, that someone, even someone as demented as Rory Shepherd, would be willing to help. How could anyone not extend a hand knowing what he and his family had been subjected to?

  But he should have known. Rory had no empathy.

  “He’s not going to help me find my son, is he?” Blake grabbed ahold of the glass cube levitating over the table. The tile holding the cube swayed back and forth, long extended arms rattling above. “He’s just like this! Your floating building. Full of promises, but with nothing to stand on.”

  Blake shoved against the cube, trying to rip it free from the metallic arms dangling down. JT stepped forward, face full of fury, the wrinkled creases and lines on his pocked cheeks falling into a position much more natural than a smile.

  “You ignorant son of a bitch!” JT grabbed at Blake’s arms, and then Blake had the gun in his face, mere inches away.

  “I have nothing left to live for.”

  “Tabatha,” JT said, his cold, small eyes unwavering in their ferocity, “magnets on!”

  A low humming sound like a pipe with air in it vibrated through the room. Blake felt an immediate pull on his gun, his hand wavering back and forth before ripping his arm back, the gun flying loose back toward the staircase. With a loud clang the gun settled on the railing.

  “Tabatha is the home model version of Betti but with a few upgrades. Like home security.” JT took a wide arc around the pool table, arriving back at the bar. This time he grabbed a bottle of brandy, dropping two ice cubes into a new glass. “Tabatha, incapacitate our guest.”

  Blake felt the sting in the back of his arm before he heard or registered any motion—a tiny dart half an inch in length stuck from his right triceps. He heard the twirling and clacking of ice cubes in JT’s glass, and then he was falling into the waiting arms of darkness.

  6

  “Does it look handled to you?”

  “It could be a lot worse.”

  “For what he’s being paid . . . never have happened.”

  Blake’s whole body twitched. It felt like ice had been injected into his veins and was coasting slowly toward his heart.

  “We can turn this to our advantage . . . A second storm of media coverage . . . Closure we might not have otherwise had . . .”

  Whatever drug had been administered in that dart was still riding its course, whipping Blake’s consciousness around. Rushing waves toppled from above, a wicked undercurrent pulling from beneath, and somewhere between the two, Blake struggled to remain afloat.

  “Can’t have him capable of talking . . .”

  “Plenty of ways to . . . Can doctor the video surveil . . .”

  “Calling the shots . . . Reminder of who hired who . . .”

  The looming voices brought Blake slowly from his drug-induced trance. As his eyelids slowly responded to his repeated requests to open, he realized he hadn’t stopped falling. Shadowed mounds of dirt and brush and the tops of trees moved toward him in a
silent howl. And without even the faintest rush of air.

  He sucked in a staggered breath as feeling began returning to his face. He wasn’t falling, he was still lying against the glass floor. JT hadn’t even bothered moving him.

  It was a strange sensation staring straight down into an abyss of darkness, an abyss he was more than familiar with. A tingling in his neck and shoulders turned into a searing burn as if his body were thawing from a deep freeze, one body part at a time. In some ways maybe he was—thawing from a freeze of being unable to act, the psychological barriers of his trauma slowly breaking down.

  JT’s agitated voice carried in the small room. “Much more serious. When this is through I want him buried beneath a concrete building.”

  The other man in the room had a strong British accent. He had a deep voice but not a booming one. It was more of a caress. “I can only carry out orders that are . . . feasible.”

  “He’s a man like anyone else. I don’t care what it takes, how many resources. You find this Rory and you snip him from his little network of meddlers. Or someday someone’s request will be to topple our empire.”

  By the grunt coming from the other man, Blake surmised the argument wasn’t yet over. His face was angled toward the pool table, JT’s shoes moving in and out of view. He couldn’t tell exactly where the other man was standing—or sitting. Or doing cartwheels for all he knew.

  “This isn’t a circumcision. One snip won’t cover it.”

  JT’s glass striking the paneling of the pool table caused Blake to flinch.

  “I pay you to make things happen, so why are we still discussing this?”

  They were talking as if Blake were already dead. In their minds he probably was.

  Blake slid his body back half an inch, away from the pool table. He had to put some distance between the two men if he was to have any chance.

  “Shame ’bout the floor,” the Englishman said.

  “I’d pay to have it redone ten times for the coverage this’ll bring,” JT said. “Hell, a hundred times if we leverage this right.”

  The sole of Blake’s shoe rubbed against the glass floor, making the faintest of chirps. His silent escape was at an end. He scrambled up from the floor, and his feet immediately gave out—he tumbled backward, the momentum of his fall pushing him farther from JT and the mystery man in the corner.

  “Blake. Pleased to finally make your acquaintance.” The man in the corner had risen. He was tall yet his build fit him as well as the dark three-piece Armani he wore, black silk shirt beneath. His hair was the silver of refinement not age, his face hard, dark circles beneath his eyes earned. “Ty Harrington. Symbio’s head of security.”

  Blake knew what that meant—he was a man in the know, a man who had probably had as much to do with his family’s kidnapping as JT himself.

  A man who had been brought over to finish the job.

  “Do you know where my son is?” Blake asked.

  Only one side of Ty’s mouth rose in a smile that looked as pitying as it did sympathetic. “Sorry, mate. Not my department.”

  Blake pushed himself farther back, scooting along the floor until his back was against the railing of the stairs. “You’ve got it all wrong, you know. You didn’t hire Rory—he hired you. You’ve been working for him and didn’t even know it.”

  JT turned to look at Ty. “You see the level of competence I’ve been working with?”

  “I know who he is,” Blake said, pulling himself to his feet with the aid of the rail behind him. “I may be the only person alive who knows. Don’t you see? It’s why he had me released.”

  Blake grabbed hold of the gun still stuck to the railing, pointed at the bar. The magnetic pull was so strong. But some ties were stronger.

  “Yeah, good luck with that,” JT said. Ty unbuttoned his suit jacket, revealing a holster tucked beneath.

  “It’s why he keyed my voice as an override command,” Blake said. He tightened his grip on the hilt of the gun, bracing himself against the rail to provide what leverage he could. “Tabatha. Disengage.”

  Blake swung the gun away from the metal railing, leveling it on JT. He hoped they didn’t notice the sweat trickling down his forehead.

  “How did you—”

  “Shut up!” Blake shouted, cutting JT off. The gun began to waver—let them think he was nervous. He wouldn’t have the strength to hold it for long. “Tabatha, alert the police there’s been a shooting, download a recording of all conversation in the past hour and then power down.”

  “Tabatha, disregard last orders!” JT shouted.

  “Fine, stay powered on Tabatha,” Blake said.

  “The last four orders! Tabatha disregard last four orders!”

  The room went dark, lights extinguished, the hum of the vents going silent with a final loud knock as the temperature control shut off. Blake’s arm fell to his side, the resistance of the magnetic pull no longer sapping the energy from every muscle in his frame.

  “What the hell?” JT said.

  Blake stepped onto the bottom step of the staircase and raised the gun in the dark. He fired, the spark like lightning flashing against a blackened sky. Several sparks flashed from the other side of the room, loud clangs ringing off the metal rail in front of him. A hammer struck against his hand, fingers going numb. He dropped down, lying against the staircase and shielding his head while he continued to empty the clip. At last the chamber clicked empty.

  “He’s out,” Ty said. “Got him at least twice. He won’t be going anywhere. You hit?” The question wasn’t for Blake.

  “No,” JT answered. “Your aim’s as good as your consulting, Blake! Tabatha, lights.”

  The room sprang to light. Blake squinted against the sudden change, feeling more sluggish with every drawing breath. He wondered if JT had ordered the room to hit him with another dart.

  He held his shaking hand in front of his face. Two of his fingers had been blown off, bone and gristle sticking from their ends swathed in blood that looked black not red.

  “Oh, holy shit.” The words were Ty’s. JT, for once, was unable to come up with a sufficient curse.

  As Blake’s eyes adjusted he looked out at his handiwork. Entry points in the floor arced in front of the pool table, the ground no longer revealing cracks but rather the aftereffects of a collision, splinters spawning splinters like a shattered windshield. The two men in the room were standing on glass as fragile as a spider web.

  “Rory wins,” Blake said. “Not you, not me. He’s the only one getting what he wants.”

  “You’re wrong. And this”—JT gestured down toward the floor—“is as replaceable as you and your family. Sorry, Blake. You lose. And Rory will never get his hands on that coin.”

  “It wasn’t the nickel he wanted. It was my son, and what your nickel represents . . . your floating building.”

  Before JT could respond the floor blew outward, pool table disappearing into the dark stream beneath. Like a black hole, the darkness ripped the remaining shards and chunks of glass out. the bar, table, and chairs disappearing to the sudden angry howl of wind. Blake never saw Ty disappear—he was one moment there, the next gone—but he caught the look on JT’s face before those invisible and nightmarish black talons reached in, snagging him then retracting back down. The look was an unintelligible one. Symbiotically unintelligible. A look of sheer horror.

  The staircase no longer attached to a floor wobbled beneath Blake’s weight as if it wanted to join the rest of the room. A cloud of dust kicked up from the side of the hill, hiding the remnants of furniture, glass, and bodies as they floated down the slope and out of sight. When the dust settled it was as if the hill had swallowed them whole, Blake catching only faint traces of glass reflecting moonlight.

  “I hope you’re happy!” Blake shouted into the night. “I hope you have what you want!”

  Somehow he knew Rory, or rather Joje, would be listening.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Day Eight

  1 />
  “I understand you’re ready to talk.”

  The cuffs on Blake’s wrists were well used, their metal shine dulled, gouges and tiny dents more numerous than rhinestones in a woman’s bracelet. He nodded surreptitiously.

  “And you’ve denied your right to have a lawyer present. Is that correct?”

  His hands were shaking. Such a strange effect to watch those finite vibrations, his body acting independent from his mind.

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  He focused on the wrapping over the stubs of his missing fingers. He couldn’t feel them, couldn’t feel the pain. Pain had simply become synonymous with living, a state of being, like a blind man who wakes one day not bothering to open his eyes.

  “And you have reason to believe that the supposed man who kidnapped you and your family this week was Rory Shepard, a wanted fugitive in over twenty-eight states.”

  “No,” Blake said.

  “He wasn’t Rory Shepard?”

  Blake closed his eyes against the intense white light bleeding down from the ceiling. “No, it wasn’t ‘supposedly’ Rory. It was him.”

  2

  St. Helena’s Foster Care was in a part of East Los Angeles where Caucasians weren’t a minority—they didn’t exist. The “home” was in an urban industrial building along East Cesar Chavez, the drone of cars between the competing 5, 10, and 101 freeways, turning any conversation into a shouting match.

  Blake handed the keys to JT’s black Jaguar XK to the two dark-skinned men who had been sitting on the steps of an abandoned church across from the home, La Iglesia del Dios Recordado. A black trash bag blew inward, exposing an open window, broken scraps of furniture within. Blake wondered when the change in management had taken place, the Church of the Remembered God becoming instead forgotten.

  A police car drove past. A heavyset woman in shorts and hideously undersized tank top screamed at a young girl with ratted hair, then snatched her by one arm, dragging her around the corner.

  Five minutes to midnight.

  Blake approached the doorway. The smell of urine was strong. He raised his hand to knock.