Hollow

by Lee Doty

  He started to say something, but she held up a hand between them. “Let me finish.” She took a breath, “Ok, I do like you… I enjoy your company. I do want us to be friends.”

  “Friends… awesome!” He said with faux enthusiasm. He tried for a sympathetic smile. “But?”

  “And,” Jo emphasized, “and I think we’re from different worlds.”

  “Clearly they don’t date on Krypton.” Jeremy nodded.

  “Where’s Krypton?”

  “You know, your real home world… where your parents loaded you into that Babies-R-Us spaceship and sent you off with a kiss to our distant world with its strange yellow sun and empty spot where the hero goes.”

  “We are from different worlds… what?”

  “You know, Superman?”

  “Uh…”

  “Wow!” Jeremy blew out an exasperated laugh, “Not even Superman? Really?”

  “Jackie said I might be from Venus.”

  “Jackie is wise beyond her years.”

  “I hope she’s still alive.”

  “What?!” Jeremy’s face set oddly into surprise, Jo noted. His eyes were sharper than Jo would have expected, his features seemed to be placed… well, carefully, for lack of a better word.

  “Don’t get me wrong, when I left her, she was.” Jo bit a nail tentatively, “Uh… I mean, they were trying to kill me, I think. She’s probably fine, as long as she got out of that cab before their air support hit it.”

  Jeremy looked more confused, but his expression seemed more natural now, “Jo, it’s time to go back to the beginning. Someone’s trying to kill you and Jackie?”

  “Well, maybe. They shot at me quite a few times, but I’m not sure they were trying to kill me.”

  Jeremy held up his hands, “Back to the beginning, please! You’re making my head explode.”

  Jo nodded, “Okay.”

  Jeremy checked his stylish wristwatch, “You’ve got maybe ten minutes until the pizza arrives… make them count.”

  So she told him: everything that had happened that night, starting with the movie and the attack in the stairwell afterwards. She told him about waking up with Smith and the EMTs, about the little machine in her chest that was pumping her with a nearly continuous kaleidoscope of drugs—for some reason that was the most embarrassing part. Jo paused for a few seconds, blushing.

  “Wow. So your doctor told you about the implant in your chest.” Jeremy seemed surprised, and something about how he said it struck Jo as odd… somehow his surprise seemed to be about the wrong part of the sentence… whatever.

  Jo gave him a confused look, but continued. She told him about the cab ride home, how Jackie seemed to know the cab driver, how they both seemed to be friends or coworkers. She told him about the assault that started at the traffic signal and continued until she’d began her long tunnel sprint; about how she’d finally arrived at his apartment, hoping for shelter.

  During her story, Jeremy listened, asking short, focused questions, and with an overall demeanor that seemed more professional than curious, more analytical than amazed. Jo made a connection.

  “Hey, you know Marko.” She pronounced, after carefully weighing options and considering how to best make her conversational attack.

  Jeremy opened his mouth to protest, but they both knew in that instant that his eyes had betrayed him in the type of his surprised confusion.

  Now his eyes were shielded again by professionalism, but there was something there— hidden, yet not fully—sorrow.

  “That was nicely done, Jo.” He said with genuine appreciation, “Dropping the name I shouldn’t know in a context where you could watch the connection form… seriously, wow.”

  “My craft is legendary.” She said, voice flat.

  “Yes, Jo, it is.” Jeremy said with an earnest nod. “How much do you remember?”

  “I remember that I get to ask the questions.”

  Jeremy smiled, “And why is that? Because you’ve got that gun in your belt… wow.” He held his breath, looking directly down the barrel of Jo’s gun. She gave him a hard look, letting the gun’s dark empty barrel communicate her intentions in silence.

  “That was an impressive draw.”

  “How would you know? Come on, admit it… you didn’t see it, did you?”

  “No.” Jeremy swallowed, “That’s why it was so impressive. Tell me, did I even flinch before you were on target?”

  Jo gave her head a very small shake, eyes sparkling behind the pistol’s sights. She stared through him, letting her eyes take in the whole scene. Freed from a specific focus she saw everything, yet looked at nothing.

  “You’ve got to know that I’m not a threat to you.” He raised his hands slightly in a gesture of surrender. “You’ve got the gun, you’ve got the speed and the skill, you’ve… really?” He broke off, looking at the water bottle on the counter, “You had time to set the water bottle down on the counter? In the middle of your draw?” He looked at her with a mocking pleading, “Come on, you could have at least dropped it on the floor like you were in a hurry. Jo, you are playing with me like a lion might play with a puppy… and it’s just hurtful. Seriously, I thought we were friends.”

  Though she smiled at Jeremy’s little speech, Jo recognized the changing dynamics of the situation and brought the pistol back from partial extension to high compressed ready. She took a step to the side then back, skirting the counter. This gave her enough room to avoid any disarm attempt he might try with his hands up like that, and changed her conversational posture from overt hostility, bending it slightly toward accommodation. “Yeah. I thought we were friends, too. But it looks like there are only threats and teammates, Jeremy.”

  “Teammates? What team are you talking about, Jo?”

  Jo thought for a few seconds, then finally shrugged, “As usual tonight, I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

  “If you need to be on a team, Jo, why not mine? We need more folks with your water bottle handling skills.”

  “Who else is on your team? Marko… Jackie, that cop who was there when I woke up after the attack tonight?”

  Jeremy shook his head. “I don’t know everyone, Jo. I do know Jackie and Marko. I know enough to guess that everyone close to you is on my team. I know that everyone who cares about you is on my team.”

  “So you’re team love, eh?” Jo raised her eyebrows, but kept the gun slightly off-target, “You’re all sent by Santa and his helpful elves to hover around me, caring and sharing, keeping me in the dark… that kind of thing, right?”

  “No, Jo, you’re the job.” Jeremy gave her a direct look, “You’re the job, but… how can I explain… you remember when I took you to Wicked at the Oriental?”

  Jo could feel herself blushing. “Are you trying to get me off guard with embarrassment? You think you can take the gun away if I hang my head in shame or I start crying again?”

  Jeremy smiled, but there was an odd tenderness in his eyes, “You remember when we watched The Princess Bride?”

  “If the next words out of your mouth are ‘as you wish’, I’m going to shoot you right now!” Jo brought the gun up a few inches, but kept it slightly off-target, her finger outside the trigger guard.”

  “Seriously Jo, you were this colossus. You were this legendary thing… And yet he gains.”

  Jo laughed in spite of herself.

  “I’ve never met anyone like you, Jo. So terrifyingly dangerous, so hard, yet so innocent… so tender. You started out as a job, I admit it, but…” He closed his mouth, then his eyes, “I’m a liar, Jo, so if I say it, it won’t sound true.” He paused for a few seconds, then opened his eyes, “So I won’t say it. But everything changed for me at the Oriental… in the lobby, you remember?”

  “Everything was a bit… blurry for me…” Jo hedged.

  “You ran out during that song…”

  “Don’t try to make me cry again… I swear I will shoot you dead, Jeremy.”

  He laughed, “Don’t worry. I wo
n’t start singing ‘I’m Not That Girl’, I have no music prepared.” He tried to catch her eye, but her thousand yard stare continued past him, “But I do remember finally catching up to you in the lobby, I remember you breaking down, I remember holding you while you cried and laughed… that’s when everything changed for me. That’s when I started to understand what Jackie and… that’s when I began to understand what they were saying… why they were playing this insane game.”

  The buzzer interrupted Jo’s next question. “Pizza’s here.” Jeremy observed, sorrow coloring his eyes.

  “That’s not pizza, is it?”

  “Well, maybe it’s also pizza?” Jeremy shrugged, giving her a hopeful look. “Jo, please don’t leap to any final conclusions here… I think a lot of friends could die, including you.”

  The pistol was again leveled at him, barrel pointed directly between his eyes. Jo scanned the room quickly, eyes moving across windows, doors, mind filling in the likely floor plan for the apartment and the surrounding building. “You are going to do exactly as I say, Jeremy. You’re going to do it or the first ‘friend’ to die will be you.”

  Jeremy shrugged again, “Do what you have to do. But I just want to beg you one more time… please, don’t. I know I don’t have the right to ask, and I can’t imagine what you must be thinking about me right now, but still… don’t.”

  Jo’s voice took a harder edge, “Your only chance is to do as I say and hope for the best. Maybe I’ll drop my guard or you’ll get lucky…”

  “I’m not talking about my only chance, Jo. I’m talking about yours, your only chance for a life worth living.”

  She dropped her chin slightly, regarding him with skeptical eyes.

  She remained silent, so he continued, “Whatever comes through that door, let’s say you kill it… let’s say you kill it a lot. What then?” His raised hands took on an attitude of pleading, “You kill them, torture me, whatever… what info do you think you’re going to get?”

  “Torture?” Jo’s brow furrowed, but the pistol didn’t waver, “I uh don’t suppose I should say that didn’t occur to me… makes me seem like a creampuff, doesn’t it?”

  “Believe me,” Jeremy’s smile was only half forced, “I’m glad to hear it. Clearly your governor isn’t working so there’s no safety net for me…anyway, with the governor off, you can probably put together a pretty convincing performance and murder us all any time you feel like it… you won’t need the initial surprise, so why not wait to see if they burst in, guns blazing?”

  “You are playing me.” Jo pronounced, but she didn’t believe it. “Trying to get me to lower my guard, get overconfident.”

  “Yeah, I can see how it might look that way.” He lowered his hands slightly, “but I’ll do whatever you say. Please don’t get killed, Jo. Please don’t kill your friends.”

  “My friends are all on the job. I’m the job, remember?”

  “Work friends, then?” Jeremy half shrugged.

  “Turn around slowly. You are going to open that door and you’re going to play it cool, or the first slug goes in the back of your head.”

  “Ok, Jo, I’m not going to make any sudden moves.” He turned slowly, slowly lowering his hands as he walked toward the door.

  The second buzz came as he approached the intercom. “There’s no way they’re still outside the lobby,” he said as he arrived at the door, “You know they’re right on the other side of that door… please, Jo, please don’t do anything rash.”

  Jo had remained at the counter that bordered the studio’s kitchen area. Now, she adjusted her position to put the counter between her and the door. She opened the refrigerator door and backed into its cover, putting the opened refrigerator door between her and the apartment’s visible windows. She brought her pistol back into the door’s cover as well then crouched until she could see only Jeremy’s torso over the counter. The cool air from the fridge spilled out around her, flowing across her neck and shoulders, the hollow whine of the refrigerator’s fan behind her seemed like a lullaby and a feeling half nostalgia, half déjà vu seemed to mix with the chill air. The back of her neck tingled, but it wasn’t from the chill, it was a memory of another time and place. The memory of a cool enfolding static expanded between her ears and brought with it an aching sadness.

  There was a tentative knock at the door. Not the door-splintering booms that Jo equated with a normal breach. These knocks weren’t a demand, not even a polite request. They struck her as a hesitant apology for coming unannounced.

  Jeremy looked back over his shoulder and gave her half a shrug. He waited.

  “Step to the left side, open the door slowly, no sudden moves.

  He nodded and complied, disengaging a deadbolt, snapping a kick-plate lock open with his foot. He put a hand on the doorknob then looked over his shoulder at Jo. She hardened her gaze and, with a half nod of acceptance, Jeremy stepped slowly left, drawing the door slowly open, revealing a single slight figure in the doorway holding a large, insulated pizza carrier.

  Jo’s eyes widened slightly. Her mouth opened, but she said nothing.

  “That will be forty-four fifty-two, plus tip.” Dr. Therese Smith said with complete deadpan delivery.

  ***

  SunSpot Industries Headquarters, Rural Virginia, 2019

  The building was large but not overtly ostentatious. It wasn’t especially tall, four floors high at its tallest points, but it sprawled over a large enough area, enclosing multiple internal gardens and open-air courtyards, that it appeared more of a campus than a single contiguous building. Its gleaming glass, polished chrome and elegant asymmetrical curves gave the building the successfully optimistic vibe of the headquarters of a Silicon Valley tech startup before that bubble burst at the turn of the millennium or an expensively renovated small university before that bubble burst earlier this decade. This impression only faltered slightly upon closer examination of the perimeter fence, which was fifteen feet high and composed of ten inch square alloy posts and heavy, electrified horizontal cables that passed through the posts horizontally every three inches from below the ground to the razor wire at the top of the fence. The fence was patrolled at irregular intervals by two pairs of uniformed guards in white SUVs. The gate at the front of the property had four more uniformed guards and had a system of hardened bollards and retractable barrel vehicle barriers that were substantial enough to stop any vehicle, including a main battle tank.

  Though it looked modern, the building was old. The current incarnation of the building had been completed in 1977, after the original structure had been mostly destroyed during an escape attempt by an alien robot in 1973. The underground portion of the complex was even older, having been started in the 1950’s under the OSI’s original mandate.

  The complex was old, but for those with enough clearance and access to begin to grasp its history, the place had accumulated an ancient gravitas of somewhere much older, some place not entirely unlike Tolkien’s Mount Doom or Lorien, its halls and labs steeped in ancient secrets, its archives troves of ancient wisdom. Of course here, the ancient wisdom was the insight of scientific exploration, and the deep magic was the technology that it spawned.

  From outside, the complex was easy to miss, being surrounded by acres of deep forest on three sides, and being fronted by a long, winding access road through more forest to get to a minimal intersection on a rural highway with a small security gate staffed only by a single unarmed security guard and a plastic crossbar gate to dissuade unauthorized traffic and give directions to lost tourists.

  Even inside the inner perimeter fence, it was still easy to miss the many security features built into the friendly landscaping: everything from vehicle barriers and remote-controlled machine gun and anti-tank rocket nests to redundant radar point defense systems to overlapping layers of heat and motion sensors and security cameras. It was even easier to miss the battle hard skeleton beneath the rambling building’s friendly exterior. Everything above the surface was made of rein
forced concrete, alloyed steel, and ballistic glass that would have been on the heavy side for a hardened military installation. Everything below the ground was even harder. Conservative estimates were that everything below ground would survive a near miss with a medium yield nuclear weapon, and everything below the blast shield three levels down would survive a direct hit. Of course, nothing would survive detonation of the hydrogen bomb at the center of the floor fifteen levels down. This had been installed in 1975 as a measure of last resort to forestall any potential future alien robot escape, zombie plague, or similar calamities—’73 had been close.

  “Good evening, Sir.” The sharp eyed man behind the security desk said as Dr. Leo Hawkins held his security badge before the scanner.

  Hawkins grunted an acknowledgement as he waited for the guard to grant him access to the building and its systems. Hawkins had alpha black clearance, had known this particular security officer for over ten years, and had been expected here now, and yet the guard spent a few seconds examining him, looking at his face and body language before he continued the authorization process. The guard gestured to the black plate of featureless glass on the desk between them and Hawkins placed his hand on the glass, palm down, fingers spread. After a few seconds, the guard’s computer chirped twice and he looked up from the screen, “Good to go, Sir.”

  Hawkins removed his hand from the glass and again placed his security badge on the surface of the scanner. There was a series of accept tones and the black panel pulsed green three times.

  The guard nodded and moved his left hand away from the friendly green silent alarm button and his right released the pistol grip of the submachine gun in a quick release holster below the desktop. He pressed an angry looking red button and spoke formally “Gladys: authorizing Dr. Leo Hawkins for the duration of his visit. Transfer codes.”

  “Confirm” the unnecessarily synthetic voice of the complex’s cloud said in an unnecessarily sterile tone, “Codes transferred. Welcome back, Dr. Hawkins.”

  Hawkins ignored the AI’s greeting and removed the badge from the desk and clipped it to the lapel of his dark gray jacket. He had to admit that he was not a fan of the insanely complicated authorization ritual. When he’d worked for the CIA, they had badges that only required re-authorization every few weeks instead of at every arrival, had simple three factor authentication to gain access to their buildings, and most of all, had a tech department that was not completely out of control.