Running Black (Eshu International Book 1)

by Patrick Todoroff

  Back to Yomi, he smiled ironically. Legend held that once one had eaten at the hearth of the dead, it was impossible to ever return to the land of the living. Dr. Shoei hoped it wasn’t true.

  He looked out over the ocean, to the mercury line of sea and sky. His worry brooded like the clouds. Three of his creations were out there in that world; flawed, erratic, awakened before their time by his own hand.

  True, the activation order had come from an executive, but he had not refused. Shinigami had been loosed from the underworld, and he was ultimately responsible.

  There’d been no reports about the mission in Barcelona, and Dr. Shoei smelled the wind as if it could bring their scent, the slightest quiver of knowledge from across the oceans. There was nothing but a far off moan.

  The wind filled his ears as he weighed his thoughts. The Type Fives had not been ready. He must take action to rescue them. He’d have to file a protest with the Sendai Bureau, with Tokyo Head Office if necessary. He would request a recall. Asian Pacific’s security division had some of the finest operatives in the world. Surely there were trained human agents who could perform the tasks Manager Hsiang required? Challenging the requisition order could be viewed as insubordination. Dr. Shoei knew full well he risked discipline or demotion. Termination, even. But in his heart, he knew fathers must sometimes atone for their children.

  With that, the scientist turned and headed toward the hidden guardhouse with its deep elevator, the wind pushing him down the narrow trail.

  CHAPTER TWENTY: ZION APOCALYPSE DUB

  Barcelona Metro Zone, Sant Adrià de Besòs district. Callejón del Apuro, “Trouble Alley”. 9:45 p.m. Day Two.

  I didn’t think I’d make it out of the Garcías’ cellar alive.

  Carmen looked ready to shoot me. Actually, she would have shot Alejo first, then me. All I did was make one little comment, just thinking out loud, about how nice it would be to have a guide in Old B. to help me find the hospital. Naturally Alejo suggested Curro. After all, he was capable, trustworthy, and he knew the back roads from temp work at Global Express. It made perfect sense, but Carmen overheard us and the atmosphere in the cellar plummeted like a cold snap. I could feel her stare drilling into my back, and I had the sudden sensation I’d stepped between a mother bear and her cub.

  Finally I turned around to face her, to make a joke and explain, but Carmen was looking past us over at Poet9. He was still there pale and small on the bed pallet in the corner, breathing shallow and in sync with the autodoc. Right now, this was his only chance. I watched her soften, and without a word, get up and go over to kiss Curro on his forehead.

  She turned to meet my gaze with hard eyes and a thin smile. “You bring him back.” I nodded, and she went upstairs. Curro could make the run with me.

  “She’s going to pray.” Alejo said watching her go.

  “I’d be praying if I was you.” Tam said after the upstairs door clicked shut.

  “Oh I do!” he laughed, and got up out of his chair.

  “Are we going in the stealth suits?” Curro fixed his eyes on at the Mitsubishi armor in the corner.

  Tam shook his head. “Suits are less than fifty percent charged, and we’re going to need them to slip out of the BMZ when we’re finished. You’re going to do a B & E the old fashioned way.”

  “This gets better and better.” I muttered. “We’re going regimental.”

  Alejo waved us over to another stack of crates. “Hah! Not quite. Lucky for you I kept a few of my things. For sentimental reasons,” he winked. “Curro! Come help your papa. This one here. And here.”

  Together, they started piling equipment on the floor in front of us. All of it old school but in pristine condition: thermal masking body gloves, formfit Kevlar tac-vests, night vision sets, gecko pads for climbing, electronic lock picks, even smoke grenades and knockout gas canisters. They set it all out carefully, as if on display. Then last of all, Alejo pulled out a plastic double pistol case, faded and worn gray at the edges.

  “Now you shouldn’t have to use them, but since this is important… for Poet9.” He paused and ran his gnarled hand over the case gently. “I will let them out of the house. My babies,” he said reverently, and clicked it open. Tam and I both stared. There, snug in blue foam, lay two custom Walther P99 silenced pistols.

  “They’re still bang on. Almost perfect condition.” Alejo crowed. “I had new firing pins machined last year. And the barrels are new too. I even have four extended magazines for each, and it all goes in these leather shoulder holsters.”

  He held the case in front of him and offered it to us like a communion plate. I saw Tam hesitate, then delicately lift one from its cut-out. “Beautiful,” he sighed.

  I rolled my eyes, “Tam, you’re such a gunporn wanker. No offense, Alejo, antiques are nice and all, but I’m bringing my sub-machine gun. Those belong in a museum.”

  Alejo and Tam both turned to me at the same time, looking like I’d farted in church.

  “What? I’m a big fan of microchip targeting.” I said.

  Alejo snapped the case shut. “Bah! Such a heathen blasphemer. Why do I bother?” While Tam looked away shaking his head, Curro reached past and plucked the pistol out of his grasp. He deftly ejected the magazine and racked the slide to check the chamber, then picked up a clutch of spare mags and a holster.

  “You bring that back to me. You hear me, Curro?”

  “Yes, Papa. I’ll bring it back.”

  “And listen to Jace. Do what he tells you. He is more the expert than you are in this and knows—”

  “Papa, I understand.” Curro said.

  Alejo grabbed his son in a huge bear hug, and held him tight for several seconds. “This is for a good cause, to save a life. God’s love go with you. Remember what I’ve taught you, and He will watch over you, bring you back safe to me and Mama.”

  “Yes, Father. I’ll remember.”

  I leaned in. “Hey, Al. He’ll be fine. It’s just a little Breaking and Entering, right? I said I’d bring him back. Promise.”

  “I know, I know,” he coughed gruffly. “Now…everything you need is here.” He gestured over the two piles of gear. “After all…who breaks into a hospital, que?

  Tam spoke up. “Pharmacy’s the only place they’ll have any real security. I think they will have a closed circuit system for monitoring patients, but it’ll be a walk in the park. Toughest thing will be getting into the Old City itself. But once you’re over the wall, all you have to do is avoid the patrols and it’s a straight waltz down Ronda del Dalt. Easy in, easy out.” He clapped me on the back.

  “Easy, he says.” I looked at Curro, who just shrugged and started stripping down.

  “So, you’ve done this before?” I asked as he slid into a body glove. He only smiled a thin smile like his mother, and kept getting ready.

  I turned to Doc Kalahani who’d been silent in the corner watching all this time. “So once we’re in, then what?”

  His thick eyebrows knit together. “You’ll want to find the cybernetic surgery department. Check the storage near one of their O.R.s.”

  “How big is this cyber-surgical unit?”

  “Shouldn’t be too big.” He held his hands up vaguely.

  “How big?”

  “There’re several components. Each of them isn’t that large.”

  “You don’t know do you?” I stared at him.

  “It’s been ages since I was involved with cyber-surgery,” Ibram said. “And with advances in technology, there’s no way to know exactly what the components look like now. In my day, there were three main components. I can explain their functions, so you know roughly what kind of machines to look for.”

  “Outstanding.” I said dryly and started suiting up.

  ------------------

  Later that evening the sky slipped from red veined gold to the burnished mercury of under-glare smog. All the lights, bill boards, and holo ads mean there’s no full dark in the city anymore, only hard shadows. Curro and I
made our way to a nearby “red” district just outside the Old City Wall. It didn’t matter the country, the city, the zone; brothels, bars, and auto-banks cropped up like weeds in the perimeter barrios. All the activity, what’s two more scabs in a crowd? Slip down a dark alley and we could make our climb unnoticed.

  Sure enough, the streets were thronging with people. You’d never know the curfew was just over an hour away. The place was a bedlam of house mix beats, drunken shouts, and neon holo-ads. Noise burst into the crammed streets as another swarm of pub crawlers spilled out of one venue to stagger off to their next stop. Lining the gauntlet were hawkers and hookers for every persuasion, the dealers and pimps and standing sentry in the alleys, all of them eyeing the clusters of rich kids down slumming for the night. Those drew together for mutual protection, drawing even more attention as they chattered flush-faced and colorful like schools of tropical fish going cross current in a swamp. Every now and then I spotted the shaved heads of mirror-lensed private muscle topping the crowd as they guarded their spoiled wards, herding them away from the more dangerous predators. Curro and I skirted the edges and threaded our way past the mass.

  We passed one of the warehouse clubs, El Moderne 7, and out through the doors surged the chest thumping bass lines of Jahmdi Mel’s Zion Apocalypse Dub. On cue we both sang the chorus, and laughed at each other for knowing it:

  Visions of bliss.

  Paradise beckons.

  Gotta go strike a blow.

  Sins to be reckoned.

  Purify, rip the sky

  for one holy second

  I’m the finger of God.

  Resolute

  Absolute

  I’m the finger of God.

  Insanely popular, the strutting Moroccan rhythms immortalized the final Arabic attack on Israel. It was a bizarre epitaph: a dance mix death jingle for five million souls.

  Curro pushed that thought further. “How’d you meet Dr. Kalahani? Mama likes him, said he’s a good man.”

  “Your mother’s right, Doc’s good people.” I paused. “He’s Israeli, a military medical scientist with the IDF back in the day. He was on loan to the Americans, consulting with their D.I.A. and on his way back when Hamas glassed Tel Aviv. That was home. He lost everything: family, friends, work, all vaporized in one hot second as he sat at 35,000 feet.” I shook my head, remembering the day news of the attacks broke over the net. “His flight got diverted to Belfast International, and Tam found him getting jumped by some skinheads in Aldergrove. He’d wandered out of the jetport, alone at night, in shock. He was just lying there getting beaten. Like he didn’t care. There were five of them. He wouldn’t have lasted another minute if Tam hadn’t put an end to it. After, he carried him back to our place.” I remembered Ibram those first few weeks; bruised purple black, swollen shut and shattered beyond words in the jigsaw confusion of anguish and loss. He didn’t talk for a month.

  “He stayed in the Belfast District. With us. Eventually he opened up a little clinic and assists at Royal Children’s twice a week. They’ve offered him full sponsorship don’t know how many times. Wanted to make him a department head and everything, but he keeps turning them down.” I hopped over a pool of sidewalk vomit. “What’s the name of this hospital again?”

  “Sant Honorat. Big white buildings off the del Dalt, on Avinguda Tibidabo.”

  “You say you know a way in.”

  “Si. The garage is monitored for thieves but not the loading docks by the kitchen.”

  “And the OR’s are one floor up in C and F wing?”

  “Hoy! You boys looking for a good time?” We must have wandered too close to the mouth of an alley because two raccoon painted prostitots, both female, came clicking out on spike heels, aiming their bodies our way. Neither of them was older than sixteen, wearing little more than shiny black pleather straps and spray on glitter tops. “We know a great place to party.” The one with lime green hair winked at me, a small sharp tongue darting out to lick a gash of goth blue lips. The other girl, with fire red hair, reached out towards Curro, but stopped short in a hurry.

  “Curro?”

  “Ria?” Curro was looking hard at her in the streetlight, not quite sure. “That you?”

  We were standing still and recognized. Not good. I tugged gently at Curro’s sleeve. He whispered back, “Wait. I got it.”

  The girl had changed, teetering on her shoes. She threw a quick pout, frowned down at the littered sidewalk. “Curro… shit! Look, I was kidding OK? Don’t—” She approached him again, impossibly young now. He held up his hands.

  “Ria. Hey. Don’t worry. None of my business, right?”

  “Yea, umm. Sorry. I mean, damnit. I didn’t—” Ria latched onto her friend and started backing into the alley again. “Don’t say anything. ‘Kay? Please, Curro. I mean it, don’t say a thing.”

  “No, no. No worries. Look, Ria.” He glanced at me then lowered his voice conspiratorially. In a quick motion, he leafed a fifty Euro bill out of his jacket pocket and followed after them. “Tell you what Ria… this is yours for a bit of data.”

  “What data?” she asked, eyeing the folded bill in his hand.

  “Nothing big. Nothing big.” He gave her a nervous little smile. “I just figured you might know when the G.C. patrols are around here. Like on 2nd and 3rd streets. You know, you might have noticed.”

  He let the bill dangle a little. Her eyes flitted between his hand and an apartment doorway across the street. I’d already spotted the flashy punk hanging back in the deep recess, leaning on the lintel and watching us. Her pimp. I moved to block his view.

  “Yeah. I might have heard something, y’know?”

  “Like?” Curro stepped in closer.

  “Well, down here they run about every hour and a quarter, depending. Last one just went by.”

  He handed the bill to her. It vanished. “So police cruise by every hour or so, depending on what?”

  She rolled her thick painted eyes. “On how busy the watch commander is. Usually, he gets a cut of the action to let things slip around here. Other times, he takes it out in trade, y’know? Some nights, like if he picked up a couple girls, the patrols don’t even come ‘round.”

  “Thanks Ria. You’re a sweetheart.”

  “I am.” she said, turning her vamp back on. Lime green goth girl winked over her shoulder at me, and they disappeared back into the gloom.

  I looked over to Curro once we made it out of the club crowds. “Smooth. Where’d that come from?”

  “Papa gave it to me. He always says you never know when it might come in handy. That seemed like one of those times.”

  I wasn’t asking about the money, but I nodded and we walked on. My estimate of Curro went up with every step. Alejo might be right. We wended past the last of the clubs without any more incidents. Four minutes later we slipped onto the narrow streets cramped beneath the shadow of the dividing wall. Outer clothes disappeared behind a dumpster, and together we fastened on the gecko pads and started climbing into the Exclusive Sector, the city of Old Barcelona.

  COMPLICATIONS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE INVASIVE NATURE

  Barcelona Metro Zone, Sant Adrià de Besòs district. Callejón del Apuro, “Trouble Alley”. 12:47 a.m. Day Three.

  Tam heard the upstairs door nudge and click shut, then the soft pad of footsteps descending on the cellar stairs. One eyebrow raised, he peered over the top of the wrinkled, water-stained paperback he’d been skimming. From the doorway, Ibram Kalahani ducked under the low header beam and emerged into the pale light of the cellar room.

  “I just came from the boy.”

  Tam looked up, “So?”

  “He says his headache isn’t really going away.”

  “So…”

  “So I’m concerned.”

  “Ibram, look,” Tam hunched forward in his chair, “the kid was grabbed by armed men in the middle of the night, carried through a firefight, bundled onto a getaway plane and now he’s captive, hidden in a mass
ive ghetto. I’m not surprised the kid’s a little stressed. It’s just a headache.” He leaned back and turned over a crinkled brown page. “And that’s not bad, all things considering.”

  “Tam, I think it’s more than stress.”

  “So,” Tam said, “give him something strong. I’m sure Carmen can get her hands on pain tabs.”

  The doctor rubbed his narrow, lined face. “She already did. I gave him one, and he’s sleeping now. Carmen’s up there keeping an eye on him, and she’ll let me know if there’s any change.”

  “OK then, what’s the problem? Just keep the package healthy until we get him out. And keep track of whatever you use. I’ll pay you extra when we get back to Belfast.”

  Tam settled back and started reading again, but Ibram remained in the same spot. “I’m not worried about the money.” The tall thin Israeli looked down at him. “You going to tell me about him?”

  “Who?” Tam didn’t look up.

  “Who do you think? The boy. Gibson.” Ibram squatted down. “I won’t be able to help him unless I know more.”

  “Ibram, just keep the pain tabs coming. He’ll be fine.”

  The older man studied one of the dim cellar corners for a second. “All this is because of him, right?”

  “All what?” Tam finally looked up, irritated.

  The older man waved one slender hand in a circle. “Eshu International hiding in a sprawl basement, a district-wide lockdown, corporate troops riding shotgun on police patrols. Come on,” He looked Tam in the eye, trying to stare him down. It didn’t work. “Fine, we’ll play confirm or deny. I’ll ask questions, and you say if I’m getting warm, how’s that?” A long forefinger poked Tam’s knee.

  “What for, Doc? You know the drill: don’t ask, don’t tell. It’s better for everyone if it’s just a routine snatch.”

  “There’s nothing routine about that boy,” he snorted. “Tam, he’s not well. Not well at all. If I’m going to help him, I need more information.”