by G. K. Lund
“Why is she trying to kill us anyway?” Ben talked into a box which he quickly abandoned. Nothing more there than in the desk.
“I don’t think she fully intended to when she gave us that electric shock. She just wanted to delay us, so she could make her escape. Now though… we fucked that up for her.”
“It doesn’t really help her situation, does it? Killing three is worse than one, no?”
“Yes. Obviously. She might seem angry right now, but you need to understand that she’s panicking. Her world is falling apart too fast, and that makes her more dangerous than if it was just anger.”
They walked into the next workspace. It was not an office. It looked more like a lab with long work benches, but there was no equipment out. Everything cleaned before the weekend most likely. They continued their search.
“Does no one at the station know you’re here to arrest her?”
Olivia looked through some lockers, frowning at the lack of sledgehammers and welding equipment. Why couldn’t some weird people work there? “Of course they do, but it’ll take a little time before they realize something has happened. By then, she can have traveled quite the distance.”
“And she did all this for a company?”
“Her boss more likely.” Olivia hadn’t quite figured that one out yet. It seemed like such a stupid motivation to her. She could fathom doing a lot for Costa. She owed him a lot – but murder? Not so much. Even now she cared nothing for harming Saphia. She only wanted to get herself and Ben out of this mess. After that, she could regroup and find a solution. So they moved through the rooms in quick succession, caring nothing for tidying up after themselves. Live first, explain later.
As if she’d read Olivia’s mind, Saphia came through the elevator doors sending a blast of green lightning into the general area in front of her.
“Shit,” Olivia exclaimed, as she motioned for Ben to move. They heard Saphia shouting after them, but now the glass walls were a safety measure that didn’t shut them in. It shut the lightning out. Getting to the stairs, however, demanded they use the hallway which was more exposed than the offices. Olivia followed Ben into it, both of them legging it for the main stairs, away from Saphia. Olivia saw Ben turn his head, and next thing, he ran sideways into her, pushing her into an office to their right. Caught off balance she landed hard on her hip and almost shouted at him as she saw the green electricity flare past them down the hallway before dissipating into thin air. She grabbed Ben’s offered hand and let him help drag her to her feet. She heard Saphia cry out in frustration at missing them. They didn’t stick around to listen.
“She needs a moment to recharge,” Olivia told Ben as they again bolted for the stairs. She was right. They reached the door leading out from the floor and to the massive white stairs. As the door closed behind them, they heard the crackling as the lightning hit it. The sound a threatening promise of what they would feel if it struck them and burned their bones.
Chapter 37
“It’s the damn cameras,” Olivia yelled as they burst into a floor two stories above where they had last seen Saphia. “Here, give me a boost,” she told Ben, indicating how he needed to fold and cup his hands for her. He did as told and with no questions – his best quality. He didn’t doubt her and he didn’t panic. It was helpful considering she had to drag a civilian around. As she moved upwards in front of him she saw him grimace at the strain, but he didn’t drop her. She reached up and got hold of the camera above the elevator. She unplugged the wire and saw the little green light on the camera’s side turn to black. They repeated this endeavor on two more floors, running with quick steps up the stairs to do so.
“There,” Olivia said as she jumped down, Ben immediately flexing his fingers after the strain. “At least she doesn’t have eyes on us on these floors now.”
At the same time, the ‘ding’ of the elevator announced Saphia’s impending arrival.
“Out, out, out,” Olivia urged Ben and pushed him toward the door.
“You fucking idiots,” Saphia shouted after them. If she sent her lightning after them it never hit its targets. Olivia and Ben ran down the stairs, and burst into the floor below, only to be met by the elevator doors opening in there as well. Saphia moved quickly, even when blind. This time though, Ben was faster. Heading in he grabbed Olivia’s shoulder and yanked her back to the door, before turning to leave himself. He was not quite quick enough. As his body shielded hers, she saw him blur, like a shadow falling over him as he moved. A flash of green to Olivia’s left lit him up. Ben cried out and fell forward, almost taking her with him. As his body stopped the door from closing, she saw Saphia approaching, a smile on her face that radiated exuberant success. Olivia drew her gun as the woman raised her free hand. Olivia didn’t hesitate. She aimed and pulled the trigger before Saphia had the time to attack again. Green sparks danced around her hand and then died there. Olivia hit what she aimed for, Saphia’s cry of pain reverberating between the glass walls. The tablet landed on the floor behind her, shattered from the bullet. It was spattered with blood from her hand, two fingers on the floor beside it.
“You fucking… aahhh,” she screamed as she realized what had happened to her. The green sparks came back again, seemingly without the woman noticing. Olivia didn’t stick around. She bent and hauled until she got Ben with her through the door. He grunted in pain but didn’t show the same apathy as in Winter’s office.
“Screw the pain,” Olivia told him even though, as they went upstairs again, hoping Saphia would not think they went straight back there. They crashed through the doors, Ben limping by her side. Olivia glanced at the elevator, but the lights didn’t indicate it was moving. Saphia was likely tending to her wound.
“In here,” Olivia managed, panting from the burden of the man leaning against her. She led him into another workspace, like the one downstairs. It was the only room she could see with two doors. That was handy when people were trying to kill you. She maneuvered Ben behind the large workbench and sat down next to him.
“Here, let me see.” She grabbed his right leg and saw the burns, red and already blistering. It was a large wound on the back of his calf. It had burned right through his jeans.
“How do you people deal with this?” he said through clenched teeth, hissing as he drew breath.
“Why aren’t you healing?” Olivia asked as she rummaged through some drawers again. There was still nothing to aid in an escape from the building, but she found a bottle of water and someone’s spare T-shirt that would help their most pressing problem.
“What do you mean?” He drew breath between his teeth again as she doused the T-shirt and carefully placed it over the wound. It was the best she could do. It eased his pain a little as the muscles around his clenched jaw relaxed a bit. “It stings,” he added. “Not like the pain from before.”
“I think it depends on whether she hits you straight, or sends the currents through something that can carry them, like metal.”
“How comforting.”
“But why aren’t you healing?” she pressed.
“Why should I?” he managed a confused look in the midst of the pained expression.
“You did… by the river.” She bit her lower lip in embarrassment at even mentioning that event. Broken bones retracting into the skin, setting themselves. Pale skin retaining color as blood flowed again. She would never forget the sight. She had thought she’d been seeing things. Impossible things.
“Oh,” he said, looking somewhat embarrassed himself. “That wasn’t healing as such. More… reviving. And it hurt like hell too.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Ben died that night. And I replaced him.” He was dead serious. Mixed with the grimace of pain – a physical sensation she was beginning to understand was completely new to him – she saw he was too tired to care about keeping it secret. And she also found, to her utter amazement, that she believed him. Bruises and wounds had healed right in front of her. The flat chest had s
tarted rising as air entered the lungs, more than fifteen minutes after her arrival.
“How is that possible?”
Ben shrugged and then winced at his stiff movements when he tried sitting up a little more.
“Are you some sort of parasite?” she could not believe she was asking that either. “Alien parasite?”
“No.”
“How do you know? You claim to have amnesia.”
“If I am a parasite… I will have had a body of sorts, right? Something physical?”
She nodded.
“Well, that is one of the few things I’m sure of. I’ve never had a body. I think that is why I have the memory loss. I think this brain can’t handle whatever information I possess.”
“This is insane,” Olivia said and sat down next to him, staring out a large window. They could see the spires of the Cathedral from up there. See the wide Ashdale River as it wound its way through the city. The river that had taken Ben Reed and let this new Ben take over. Olivia wondered if her own brain could handle this.
The ‘ding’ of the elevator sounded again, and they both froze where they sat leaning against the workbench. There was some distance to the elevator, but they could still hear Saphia’s heels clicking against the floor. She took a few steps and then stopped. Probably scanning the offices in front of her. The glass walls were effective for getting a good view of everything. Olivia moved carefully, peeking around the corner of the workbench, seeing the woman stalking through the glass hallway. It didn’t take long before she went back to the elevator. Olivia saw her raise a cell phone. She used her wounded and bound hand to tap on it before the elevator door opened for her and she vanished into it.
“Well,” Olivia said and leaned back against the workbench. “Seems there was little point in shooting the tablet.”
“The water isn’t working anymore,” Ben uttered, his voice weak as he stared out at the city, his eyes blank.
“This might help,” Olivia said as she noticed a first-aid kit that hung on the wall next to the window. She’d had her back to it when they first came in and she suspected that Parasite Boy had no idea what it was. Luckily it contained a cooling gel to apply to burn wounds.
“Thanks,” he murmured as she applied it. At least he was a polite parasite. Or alien. Or demon. Or fruit bat. Or poltergeist. Or whatever he was. She shook her head and hoped his leg wouldn’t be permanently damaged because of the lack of proper care.
The unmistakable chirping of a phone startled them both at the same time. They jumped and Olivia lost the tube of gel on the floor.
The sound came again.
“Thought the phones didn’t work,” Ben commented.
The sound continued, and Olivia realized it came from her jacket pocket. Her fingers were messy with the gel and she twisted toward Ben. “Answer it,” she said as she grabbed some gauze from the first-aid kit and wiped her hands on it. That was also the amount of time it took him to manage to swipe the screen and actually answer the call. An unknown number. She took the phone back and expected Saphia on the other end.
“Yeah?” she said with some hesitation.
“Detective Jones?” It was a man’s voice. A man who had managed to call into a building where all communication was jammed.
“Yeah?”
“This is Ward Winter. I understand you have a… situation?”
Olivia glanced over at Ben who waited patiently. Mr. Winter? Alive? If it was him of course.
“How did you get this number?”
“Is that your most pressing problem, Detective?”
“Maybe not.”
“I’m having some trouble seeing you and your partner.”
“The cameras?”
“Yes. Good idea disabling them, but it makes it difficult to stay on top of things.”
“You mean your insane assistant? I’m not plugging them back in.”
“Fair enough. I’ve…” his voice disappeared a while as noise in the background blocked everything else.
“You on a chopper or something?”
“Yes. Why is Saphia doing this?”
“Don’t you know?”
“If I did I would have handled it before it happened.”
Handled, not stopped. Olivia frowned as her brain processed this. She didn’t trust him, but then again – a woman shooting green lightning was trying to kill her and the man who was not Ben Reed. She needed whatever help she could get.
“She ordered the murder of a man named Dimitri Okanov. I think it was because she saw him attack you. Or she thought it was you. That doesn’t really matter right now.”
“Exactly how is she—”
“If you’re asking whether we’re having a certain electrical problem? Then, yes.”
Olivia thought she heard him sigh, but due to the background noise, it might have been her imagination. “Damn it,” he said audibly enough. “Alright, Detective. She’s bound to find you soon enough. We’re going to have to turn the tables.” Olivia looked at Ben’s wound, red, painful and full of blisters. That wasn’t even the worst that could happen. She didn’t know if she could trust Winter, but looking at the wound in front of her, she knew they had no other choice.
“Very well, Mr. Winter,” she said and met Ben’s eyes again. “Stay on the line.”
Chapter 38
The fiery aching mixed with prickling stabs like needles pushed into the flesh. Doing as Olivia said and defying the pain worked best when preoccupied with something else, like fleeing the woman who wanted us dead. Of course, now, we were doing the opposite.
“Coast is clear… I think,” Olivia said and walked through the door to the main offices. I automatically glanced over at the conference room and the large metal table. The unending hot burning in the right leg would not let up, even with the cooling gel, but the pain from the electricity entering the body through the metal? That had been worse. Maybe that was how people dealt with pain. Experiencing different versions of it and getting used to it that way? Of course, most people had a whole life to adapt.
“Are you sure this is the best chance?”
“No,” Olivia said, not inspiring much confidence in what was essentially not a proper plan. Only a hunch.
We walked with light and careful steps, though it was clear Saphia was not there. All the see-through glass told us that.
“You still there?” Olivia said into her phone. The presumed dead and missing owner of this company. I had come here wanting to speak to him, and now I was happy to let the detective do that. She did not sound happy though as she answered whatever he said. “No. Not gonna do that. By that time she will have killed us. That doesn’t suit me.”
She was right. We might be able to hide for a short period of time, but Saphia would locate us sooner rather than later, and we didn’t really stand a chance against her weapon of choice. Herself that was.
“To be honest, I don’t trust you,” Olivia said as she kept talking. “You were rumored to be dead until now, and—”
She whirled around, phone still to her ear, and an arm across the body’s chest to push me back as the elevator’s dreaded ‘ding’ sounded again. Saphia had seen us on her little screen. The doors slid open and she exited, a little unsteady on her feet. Her left arm hung by her side, a bloody bandage covering most of her hand. I could see blood dripping to the floor as she walked, a trail of flat crimson pearls behind her. I didn’t think she had lost enough to suffer a significant blood loss though. It had to be the pain of having two digits amputated in such a brutal way. The burning sensation on the leg didn’t seem as bad as that. Bad enough for sure, but at least the leg was attached. No one can say I never learned to see things relatively.
“You shot my hand,” Saphia shouted at Olivia as she stomped after us, her heels ever clicking on the hard floor.
“You’re trying to kill us,” I pointed out, but was stopped from saying more by Olivia who placed a hand on the lower arm.
“That’s not the way to reason with her,�
�� she whispered. “Saphia. This has gone too far. You’re trying to kill a cop. Do you know what happens when people do that? You don’t want to do this. I understand that Okanov happened in the heat of the moment.”
“Oh, do you?” Saphia sneered and put her phone in her blazer pocket. One uninjured hand free.
“Listen to me. See this phone?”
Green lightning flashed again. She was not there to listen. It happened so fast it took a moment for us to react. If Saphia had not been in such pain, she would probably have hit us straight on. Instead, the full force of the green bolts hit the filing cabinets next to us. They went flying, papers and drawers separating from them. I remember trying to jump out of the way, as Olivia did, but a sharp jolt on the low left side of the back pierced through the body. I heard Olivia groan in pain as I landed. A drawer hit her on her left shoulder and back and sent her flying uncontrollably to the floor, arms flailing to maintain some balance.
I heard Saphia shouting in blind anger behind us as I got up. I knew we had a short window to get out of harm’s way. This time Olivia had a hard time getting her feet under her. I pulled her with me further down the hall, away from Saphia. I heard a crackle behind us as we dashed into a nearby office, Olivia falling forward as I shut the door firmly behind us. I kept on holding it shut. The electronic lock was under Saphia’s control.
“Fucking crazy shit,” Olivia groaned from the floor.
“Detective? Are you there?” A barely audible male voice came from her phone as the whole room lit up in green as Saphia hit the glass walls from outside.
“Oh, we’re in for it now,” Olivia said as she managed to get into an upright position. The heavy metal drawer had hit her hard. “No way out except past her,” she nodded to the woman I knew to be behind me. “And… awesome. We’re in her office.” She waved a hand at a picture of Saphia and a dark haired man that had to be her late husband. It stood on a large desk, glass plate on metal legs. It was otherwise covered with a computer, metal pens and a couple of boxes. Everything matching the general style of the inside of the building. The photo was the only personal thing in there.
