by Mike Essex
Faye looked out of the window at the farm land in front of the barn. She saw cows, chickens and pigs and so much green grass. Green. That was a colour she rarely saw in the city and it felt nice and calming.
She was ready for her new life. She didn’t deserve it but she hoped her sister was thankful for what she had done.
“A brand new life. A new me,” as Faye picked up her ID so she could destroy it, a Tether event took over her. With control no longer her own she dropped to her knees and placed her hands in the air.
Her sister was in trouble and that meant last night had been for nothing. She had helped kill the man she loved for nothing.
THIRTY-ONE
Emmie Keyes
“This is it,” I said, looking up at the stylish flats where Faye lived. I’d never been here before but it was easy to piece together where she lived from the times I had seen Will visit her. It was a million miles away from my flat, covered in fancy grey and blue panelling with giant windows for each room.
“Are you sure she’ll be here and not at Will’s?” asked Gabe.
“No idea but there’s no chance it will be safe to go to Will’s place. Tobias will definitely be guarding it with some of his employees.”
I entered the building code “88692” that I had seen Will enter many times. He got so excited whenever he visited Faye that moments as mundane as typing in a keypad code would get passed onto me as Tether events.
We walked into the building. “It’s room B02 that we want,” I was relieved Faye lived so close to the ground floor. After my fall earlier I felt a lifelong fear of heights coming on so walking up only one flight of stairs was perfect.
I was surprised to see that the door to room B02 was closed. Part of me expected Tobias to already be here waiting, holding a leash that he could put round my neck and a lead to carry me away to his lab. I will never be your pet, I thought to myself.
Gabe removed his gun and aimed it at the door. “What are you doing I asked?”
“Protecting you,” he replied. “Anything could be through that door.”
I placed my hand on his gun and pushed it lightly downwards. “Faye may be deceitful but she is no killer. If we run in with guns exposed word will get out pretty fast that we are here.”
“Fine,” Gabe put his gun back into its holster. “But I’m keeping one hand on the gun.”
I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again. “Come on Faye, it’s Emmie, I need to talk to you.”
The door opened and it was Yuna, Faye’s sister. They were almost identical in appearance and when Faye dyed her hair purple Yuna did the same to keep the similarity going. They both had beautiful smiles and the main difference was that Yuna’s eyes were slightly thinner and her nose was raised up slightly at the end. Were it not for these characteristics I would have sworn I was speaking to Faye.
“Oh, hi,” I said. “We were looking for Faye?”
“Come in,” Yuna replied. Gabe held his hand on his weapon but kept it concealed as we walked through the door and entered apartment B02. I’d seen in many times before through Tether events shared with Will but the sheer contrast to my own home was startling. There was no random assortment of furniture. Everything was colour coordinated with light brown wooden furniture that complemented each other, which was offset by purple vases and decorative pieces.
Yuna and Faye were not rich by ‘haves’ standards but they had far more than your average ‘have-not’. Their home was clean, their neighbourhood looked safe and most of all the word I’d use to describe their lifestyle was ‘comfortable’. A long way away from the constant struggle to survive we faced in Smyth West. It was no wonder Will had wanted this lifestyle so badly and I had to admit I secretly craved it as well.
“Can I get you some tea?” asked Yuna. “Faye isn’t here right now. I’d have thought you would have checked Will’s place, she pretty much lives there.”
There was no chance Faye would be at Will’s place. Returning to the scene of the crime didn’t seem safe right now. She would have to be crazy to go there.
“Yes, we checked but she wasn’t there,” I lied. “We were actually hoping you’d have seen her?”
“Not for weeks sorry. I can give her a call if you like and see where she is?”
“Fantastic.”
As Yuna placed the phone to her ear Gabe walked over and smacked the phone away from her onto the floor where it shattered on impact. He pushed Yuna backwards on to a purple leather sofa and pulled the gun from his pocket aiming it at her head.
“What the hell are you doing?” I screamed.
“Be quiet Emmie, this is for the best,” replied Gabe. I had made the wrong choice in trusting him.
Yuna sat on her knees on the floor and held her hands into the air. “Please don’t shoot,” she said as she sobbed. “I don’t know where she is.”
“It’s not you I want to talk to, it’s Faye,” said Gabe. “I know you’re experiencing this Faye and I know that you can hear every word I am saying so listen carefully.”
He was right. Yuna was clearly in shock and that meant a Tether event between her and her sister would be happening. It was a clever idea, although one carried out with far more aggression that I would have liked.
Then Gabe amplified the threat; “If you aren’t at your sister’s house by sundown I will kill her.”
“No!” I wanted to scream but I couldn’t. If I stopped Gabe there was chance Faye would never come. I hated Gabe for putting me in this position.
“Yuna. It’s ok, I need you to calm down,” said Gabe. “Your sister will come and I promise I won’t harm you if that happens.”
“Why me?” shouted Yuna. “What do you want with me?”
“I don’t want you,” said Gabe in the coldest way possible. “I want your sister. Now I need you to calm down so she can come here.”
Yuna started to hyperventilate but Gabe continued to hold the gun on her. “Are you insane?” I asked, emerging from cover to find a bag for Yuna to breathe in to.
I handed her a bag and started to calm her nerves. “Put the gun away!” I shouted to Gabe and this time he listened. “You need her to calm down right? Then sit down, now!” he sat down, proving that he hadn’t completely lost control.
“It’s ok, it’s ok,” I said to Yuna, who kept her eyes fixed on Gabe. “The weapon is gone now and you’re safe. Faye will come, she has to.”
As much as I wanted to help her relax in order to calm the situation I also knew that until she stopped panicking the link between her and Faye would not be severed.
I didn’t want to spend a minute longer here than we had to so to took Yuna into one of the rooms and tried to calm her down. With Faye free from her Tether I hoped she would come but most of all I feared what Gabe would do if she didn’t.
THIRTY-TWO
Mr King
Mr King stared at his incoming bank balance, stunned. Every single penny he had lost on the TethTech shares was now back in his company account, with a tidy little profit on top.
His job and life were saved and the board would never know of his mistake but at the same time he had now allied himself with a man he hated. He knew only one man would have the resources and the guile to bail him out and that the cost of doing so would be a steep one.
After the new balance arrived Mr King received an email. The sender was anonymous but he knew who it would be.
“I hope you enjoy your winnings Mr King. All I ask in return is that one month from now you give me a meeting and hear me out. If you don’t like what I have to say then I will walk away and you can keep the money. Consider it the cost of our little business meeting. Until then. Your secret donor.”
Mr King had expected a threat or an urgent demand in return for the money but it seemed he had misjudged his industrialist rival. He knew there had to be a cost and that no one gives that kind of money away without one.
Attached to the email was a meeting request, which he accepted.
He knew it had to be Tobias Zen. It had been a long time since he had met with him and for £16 billion he was prepared to stomach a meeting with the man.
Mr King sat back in his chair and poured himself a Whiskey. He felt like he had just made a deal with the devil and that he had one month until he would lose his soul. Better make the most of it, he thought as he knocked back his drink.
--<><>--
Faye Galveston
Faye knew she had no choice. It was time to answer for her crimes. She hadn’t expected Emmie to find her, let alone to pull off something as horrible as interrogating her sister but whomever the man was that was with her; he seemed to be the one pulling the strings.
She stood outside in the expanse of farmland owned by the Tippet family and sighed. It was a nice dream, she thought. As the rain hit her face she walked out of the village and towards a train into the city.
Faye used her real ID to get the train. Emmie had already found her so there was no sense in hiding now, if she could find her then anyone could.
--<><>--
Emmie Keyes
Gabe banged on the door to Yuna’s room. “Emmie,” he shouted. “Get out here now!”
“It’ll be ok,” I said to Yuna, hoping she wouldn’t panic attack herself back into another Tether event.
As I opened the door Gabe grabbed me by my top and pulled me into the hallway, slamming the door behind me.
“Where the hell is she, Emmie?” he screamed. “We need to get the information and go. If Faye won’t come here, then we’ll just have to get Yuna to talk.”
“What is wrong with you?” I asked, batting his hand off me. “She doesn’t know anything about this and you are only making things worse.”
“Don’t you talk to me like that,” Gabe picked me up from the floor and shook me violently. I didn’t understand how Grace could ever fall for this thug. He dropped me and my legs gave way sending me tumbling onto the floor.
I looked at his eyes expecting to see an orange hint but they remained a brown colour.
“Fine!” he shouted. “I’ll get the information out of her myself,” he pulled his gun from its holster and approached the door.
“No!” shouted a voice from the front of the apartment. I turned around to see Faye stood in the doorway. I never thought I’d be so happy to see her.
“Excellent, you are here. No one has to die yet,” said Gabe.
As I replayed the events of Will’s death in my mind it was clear Faye had known exactly what she was doing. When the two orange eyed men came to the door downstairs she buzzed them in and told Will they had an engagement present for him.
When they walked to the apartment door, Faye let them in and directed them to Will.
Yet that wasn’t the biggest betrayal. What hurt the most was that she was the one who had drugged Will. I was sure of it. She poured him a drink and then the next thing he knew he’d woken up tied to a chair with Faye tying one of the ropes into a knot.
She tried to explain how sorry she was to him and that everything would be ok but whatever she thought would happen, Will was dead and she had played a part in it.
Now I was going to find out why.
“Where is my sister?” shouted Faye.
“She’s safe,” replied Gabe. “Now sit down, answer our questions and she’ll stay safe.”
“Let her see her sister,” I said. “This isn’t an interrogation.”
Gabe shot me a sideways glance. This was an interrogation for him and he intended to keep it that way.
“Ask your questions Emmie,” said Gabe.
“Why did you help kill Will?” I asked.
“The same reason I’m here right now. They threatened my sister,” she replied.
“Who did?” asked Gabe. “I’ll know if you are lying.”
“I didn’t get their names. They said if I didn’t let them in and help them tie up Will then they would kill Yuna and I couldn’t let that happen.”
“How could you sell out your own fiancée? My brother!” My whole body felt like it had heated up as the blood raced around and the rage built up inside me. She was just like Tobias and her hands were as bloody as his.
I ran towards her with my fist held out but Gabe stopped me by grabbing my hand.
“But you wanted to kill her sister and I can’t even slap her?” I screamed.
“It’s not her fault,” replied Gabe.
“What the hell! Don’t you dare tell me she didn’t do it. She knew exactly what would happen and that he would die.”
“Die?” asked Faye. “But the fact you are here means he can’t be dead.”
“Didn’t you see what they did to him? They carved up his body and left him for dead and now I don’t feel connected to him anymore. Trust me. Will is gone and I’m only alive because some scientist wanted me to be alive.”
“I won’t believe it. They promised they wouldn’t kill him,” replied Faye. “I was only told to tie him up; they said he’d be ok.”
“Well you screwed up!” I shouted. “Your fiancée is dead and you have to live with that forever. How can you justify one life for another?”
“Two lives,” said Gabe. “If Faye’s sister died then she would have died too. By keeping her sister alive she ensured she would survive as well. What could she have done?”
I looked at Faye, who was now in floods of tears, the reality of Will’s death hitting her hard. “They said he wouldn’t die. I don’t understand. This wasn’t meant to happen,” she said.
Then I did something I hadn’t expected. I sympathised with her. We’d seen just hours before, that the best way to get someone to do something unwanted was to kidnap their twin and Faye was a victim of that. If Will and I had been in the same situation I can’t say how far I would have gone. I was already surprised just how far I had gone to get revenge for him.
“I only loosely tied the ropes, I hoped he’d get free but he didn’t,” explained Faye. That explained how Will had been able to free himself and make one last desperate attack. “Please don’t kill Yuna.”
“Faye, you have to tell us everything about the people who threatened your sister. How did they contact you and who were they?” asked Gabe.
“They called me but it was an unknown number. All they said is that they worked for something called ’The Deck’.”
“That’s impossible,” said Gabe, almost giving away his alliances. To me it certainly seemed possible. Gabe had already known exactly how to force Faye into action. My trust for The Deck was becoming ever weaker.
“Faye,” I said. “Did they say why they wanted Will?”
“They told me they wanted to ask him some questions about a project he was working on. That it was a national security issue and that Will could be involved in a terrorist plot. I didn’t know what to think. You just don’t expect someone you know to be a terrorist, right?”
Of course not. Well apart from Grace and Gabe and March and who knows how many others, I thought to myself.
“I knew Will could never do anything like that so I refused to help but they kept calling and eventually when they threatened Yuna it felt like I had no choice. The harassment had to stop and it seemed like the only way it would stop was either if my sister and I died or we did what they said. So I gave into The Deck.”
Gabe’s face remained expressionless throughout the conversation, not giving anything away about his so called involvement in this incident. He was a loose cannon and I sensed now that I knew too much, that perhaps none of us would make it out of this building alive.
“Faye, I understand,” I said. “I can never forgive you for what you did but I do understand it and that’s something. You need to stay here and protect your sister and we will catch the people responsible,” I looked directly at Gabe to show him that I meant the words. If he was behind everything that happened then I would have revenge.
“There’s something else,” she said, as she walked over to her kitchen. Gabe placed his hand on his gun in case s
he attempted an attack. She reached down into a kitchen cabinet and retrieved a small brown parcel that was labelled with my address. “This is for you Emmie, for your Birthday.”
I opened the package and inside was a DualCam just like the one I had at home.
“But how did you…” I asked.
“Will gave it to me a week before his death. He said that I needed to send it to you on today’s date. Yuna was due to post it. I’ve no idea what it does,” she explained.
“Me either,” I lied. This room contained too many people for me to risk playing the footage in front of everyone. Whatever was on this box was a message for me and I intended to be the only one to watch it. If it was the same as my camera then it would have a fingerprint scanner, which I hoped Will had programmed just for me.
Gabe began to walk towards me with one arm held out. You can’t take the box, I thought. Before he reached the box he turned and opened the door behind me, releasing Yuna from her room.
“Faye!” said Yuna as she dashed into the room and hugged her sister. “Thank you, I know you did it for me. I’m so sorry you had to do that.”
It was time to leave. We had more than we came for and I felt a sense of relief in knowing that Faye was not the ‘heartless bitch’ I had labelled her to be. However I had no idea what to do with Gabe and no idea what would happen as soon as I left the room.
“Ok Emmie. It’s time,” he said as he grabbed the box from me.
None of us expected the gunshot.
The bullet forced itself through Faye’s skull instantly. Yuna felt it at the same moment and the two of them collapsed onto each other. They lay on the floor in a coma, living together in a shared Tether event that would probably only end with their death. For the rest of their life they would be together.
I looked at Gabe, hoping to at least look at the man as he killed me but he was looking and firing at the door to the room.
A grenade landed on the floor in front of me and before we could react it exploded sending a burst of gas across the room. The gas filled my lungs and I fell to the floor.
