Vita Aeterna

by Jay Allan Storey

  I glared up at him. “And what kind of life is that gonna be — Uncle?”

  “Shut the fuck up!” he screamed. He backhanded my face.

  “We’re not gonna lose,” I said, breathing hard, my right cheek burning with pain.

  “What makes you so sure?” he laughed.

  “’Cause if we lost I wouldn’t want to live anymore, and I’m planning to be around for another three hundred and eighty-four years.”

  Zack grabbed a roll of tape from the bench and tore off a piece. I moved my head back and forth trying to stop him, but he finally managed to stretch it across my mouth. I closed my eyes. It was over.

  The worst part was what Laura would think of me after what happened. It was like I’d been standing on a platform and the pillars supporting it were kicked out from under me. Maybe the Dead Shift were some kind of bullshit con set up by SecureCorp to reel me in. And I’d walked right into it. It was like a black well opening up beneath my feet.

  Zack left the room and I passed out. When I woke I couldn’t check with my hands tied, but I figured I’d been out for half an hour. Zack was talking to someone over my crypted phone in the other corner of the room. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I tugged again at the ropes, but they weren’t going anywhere.

  Zack stopped talking and headed for the door. He didn’t look at me. For that much I couldn’t blame him.

  ☼

  A half hour later Zack came back. He avoided making eye contact. Big surprise. He untied my feet, hauled me up and dragged me out the door and down an alley. I had trouble breathing with the exertion and the tape across my mouth. He finally removed it.

  “Are the rest of the Dead Shift in on this?” I asked him as we moved.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  We stopped in an open space at the convergence of several alleys. He shoved me through the open door of an abandoned building and prodded me up a narrow flight of stairs. We entered what looked like it was once a hotel room, with a commanding view of the space below.

  He pointed to a single chair in the middle of the room. “Sit,” he said. “And don’t try anything.” He patted the gun in his belt.

  “What, you’re gonna shoot your precious bargaining chip?” I said.

  “Shut up, or I’ll tape your mouth again.”

  Ten minutes later Zack talked again to somebody on the crypted phone. He crouched down and peered over the window sill, waiting. In a few minutes I heard movement in the street below. A voice called something. I couldn’t make out what it was. Zack spent a few minutes scanning the area, checking for a trap, I guess.

  Finally satisfied, he grabbed me by the collar and dragged me back down the stairs to the door.

  He let go and leaned in toward me, whispering, “If you know what’s good for you you’ll keep your mouth shut until I come and get you.”

  As bad as things were, I figured I was still better off with Zack than whoever he was trying to sell me to. I stayed where I was.

  I guess Zack still wasn’t convinced we were safe; he peeked around the corner of the wall for another few minutes before he finally stepped out.

  “You said you’d come alone,” he said to somebody.

  “We call the shots here,” a voice said. It sounded familiar.

  “Let’s see the money,” Zack said, “and the letter.”

  “First, the boy,” the other voice answered.

  There was a pause. Zack came back, grabbed me, and hauled me out from behind the corner. A few meters away stood Weber, the SecureCorp guy who’d wasted the gangster leader, Cash. Beside him were a couple of his goons.

  Zack held a gun to my head. “You better not be trying to screw me,” he said to Weber.

  Weber’s mouth turned up in sort a sneering smile. “We’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”

  Weber reached into his jacket. The hand holding the gun against my head was shaking.

  Weber pulled out a paper folder. “Come and get it,” he said to Zack.

  “Show me,” Zack said.

  Weber held the folder open to display a fist-thick bundle of bills, a fancy-looking MoneyAll card, an ID card, and some papers with an official-looking seal at the top.

  “Throw it down here,” Zack nodded at the pavement in front of us.

  Weber shrugged. He raised his hand to toss the package, but instead of throwing it at the ground, he threw it at Zack’s head. Zack flinched for a second, lifted the gun from my head, and stepped back. A rifle cracked. He grunted and staggered sideways. He was hit. A second shot missed its mark. Zack dragged me back behind the corner as another shot blasted a chip out of the wall beside us.

  “Get them,” shouted Weber.

  We ran back the way we’d first come. There was the sound of pounding feet behind us. We headed down an alley, seconds ahead of the pursuers. Zack pushed on what looked like a solid section of wall and it swung open. A hidden door. Now I saw why he’d picked this building. He shoved me through, stumbled in after me and closed it behind him. Seconds later the footsteps ran by without stopping.

  He turned to me. There was a patch of red spreading across his gut. He put one hand over it and shoved me forward with the other. The pounding feet and shouting voices faded into the distance. We traveled down a long hallway, made a few turns, and finally reached a door. Zack held a finger to his lips, and pushed it open a crack. It led to the outside.

  “The bastards!” he said half under his breath. “It was all a setup.”

  “Big surprise,” I laughed. He delivered a weak punch to my gut and grimaced. I think it hurt him more than me.

  He pushed me out the door and we stumbled down yet another alley. “I know a place,” he said. “It’s not far.”

  CHAPTER 29

  A Mission

  We walked for another five or six blocks. Minute by minute Zack was getting weaker. He was losing a lot of blood.

  “You better do something about that,” I said.

  “Shut up,” he said, and drove me forward.

  I guessed that he was headed for another Dead Shift hideout. He probably would have arranged to make the hand-off somewhere close to one. But if it was more than a few blocks away, he wasn’t going to make it.

  We emerged from an alley into a huge wide-open space with a gigantic warehouse-looking building in the middle of it. He hesitated for a few seconds. I think he wanted to run straight across. It would be safer, but slower, to stay close to the edges.

  Finally he rushed into the open, dragging me toward the warehouse. We were about ten meters away when there was a gunshot behind us. On the far side of the square, a half dozen SecureCorp soldiers were charging across the broken pavement toward us. The guys we’d escaped from had found us again.

  “Shit,” Zack said, under his breath.

  There was no time to run anywhere. He shoved me toward the front door. It was intact but the lock was broken.

  We rushed inside and Zack slammed the door shut.

  “Get over there,” he said, motioning toward a broken pile of crates. The place must once have been a storehouse for toys. Arms, legs, and torsos of broken dolls, along with toy cars and trucks, and gaming pieces, littered the floor.

  Zack staggered toward a couple of intact crates and pushed, trying to slide them against the outside doors. He was weak, he was still bleeding, and he still had the gun in one hand. It was pathetic.

  “Untie my hands,” I called to him, “and I’ll help you.”

  He stopped and stared at me for a second.

  “I don’t want them to get to us any more than you do,” I said.

  The shouts from our pursuers were getting closer. He came over and untied me. Together we slid the crates forward to barricade the entrance.

  We stumbled across a debris-strewn floor to an inner section with another door, which we quickly barricaded as well. Zack scanned around, hunting for another exit. The entire southeast corner of the building, where there might have been another door, was piled several meters
high with garbage and debris. There was no way we’d dig through it all before our pursuers caught up.

  We made our way to a storeroom at the back of the building. I’m not sure why. It was only a matter of time until they broke in and got to us. We had nowhere to go.

  We sat barricaded in the storeroom. The explosive thuds of the soldiers hammering on the outside doors echoed through the building. There was an even louder crash as they must have broken through.

  Zack’s wound was bothering him. Blood was still seeping into his shirt and dripping onto the floor. He nodded off for a second, then jerked himself awake. He noticed me glancing at the gun in his belt and smiled as he rested his hand on it.

  “What did you think was gonna happen?” I asked him. “You say you’re so old and experienced. Didn’t you figure they’d double-cross you?”

  He stared at me. “Yeah, sure. Sure I figured that. What you don’t get is that I had no choice. There’s nothing left for me.”

  He grimaced, closed his eyes and grabbed his side. The SecureCorp guys were battering on the second door. I had to do something. I jumped up and rushed at him, to grab his gun. He heard me, opened his eyes, and jumped to his feet. He was a foot taller than me. He caught me with a kick in the stomach that knocked the breath out of me. I fell to the floor, gasping.

  “You poor little shit,” he said. He pulled the gun from his belt and pointed it at my head. “You’ve been nothing but a pain in the ass. And now you’re worth nothing to me.”

  He cocked the mechanism. I lay there helpless, frozen in terror.

  He hesitated, his face contorted in pain. He closed his eyes. He opened them again and smiled. “But then, after all, you are my nephew.” He turned the gun, drew his arm back, and pressed the barrel against his own temple.

  “No!” I screamed.

  “Bye now,” he said, as he pulled the trigger.

  I sat for a few seconds, stunned. Finally I snapped out of it and twisted the gun from his dead hand. His body was blocking the door. I dragged it away, and rushed out to check on the inner door. A crack in it was expanding as the SecureCorp guys pounded on it. They’d be through it in minutes. I thought about the crypted phone. I rushed back and grabbed it out of Zack’s pocket. Zack had accepted that the situation was hopeless, but I wasn’t going to give up without a fight. I had another quick look around. There was only one door, and the goons were about to bash their way through it.

  Right beside it was a large crate, about a meter square and about two meters high. I rushed back to the storeroom and wedged Zack’s body into a sitting position in the doorway, with his shoulder and left arm visible, and his head wound turned away. Returning to the door they were pounding on, I slid a smaller crate up beside the large one, climbed up, and lay in the shadows with my gun drawn.

  A few seconds later the door burst open and the SecureCorp goons crowded in. They scanned around quickly but didn’t notice me. One of them pointed to Zack’s torso. The main body of the group edged toward it, while a few others fanned out to check the rest of the warehouse. My plan was desperate, but it was all I had. I crept out to the edge of the crate and looked down. I could just make out the toes of a pair of boots outside the door. They’d posted at least one guard.

  The main group all had their backs to me and by now were at least twenty meters away. I climbed back down to the floor, hid behind the smaller crate, and peeked around. They were occupied with Zack’s body and the debris at the back, and still hadn’t noticed me. They were about to reach the storeroom door.

  It was time to go. I formed a mental image of where the outside guard was standing, then tore around the crate and through the open door, gun firing. I hit the surprised guard and he collapsed.

  I took off across the warehouse floor, heading for the main doors. Shouts and pounding feet echoed from inside and the soldiers soon emerged. I reached the outer door and ran for my life across the square. In seconds the others were outside and running after me. At the edge of the square, I tore down the nearest alley, and flew around a corner into a cross alley.

  The SecureCorp guys were right behind me, but right now they weren’t in sight. I hunted desperately for some kind of opening to crawl into, but there was nothing. I glanced back. A couple of soldiers rounded the corner. They were gaining on me. I hit another cross alley and raced down it. I wasn’t going to last long like this. I needed a hiding place, or a way to open some distance between me and them.

  I scanned the surrounding walls as I ran, crazy with fear. Down another alley I saw a patch of blood — this was the way we’d come. I retraced our route back, and breathed a huge sigh when I finally saw it — the wall with the secret door Zack had used to escape from the others.

  I wished I’d paid more attention to how he’d actually opened it — my heart thumped in my ears as I groped frantically for the release mechanism. Nothing. Frustrated, I punched a spot near my head, and the door popped open. I rushed inside, jammed it shut, and lay against it shaking as my pursuers pounded by seconds later, yelling at each other.

  I waited for a long time after their shouts and footsteps had faded away. Finally, stressed out and exhausted, I fell asleep. When I woke up, my HUD said I’d been out for about an hour. I listened at the door for ten minutes, but couldn’t hear a sound. I opened it a crack. Nothing.

  I took off and ran deeper into the Dregs. The level of decay and destruction, which had been bad enough before, got even worse. The ground was littered with debris and garbage. Some of the buildings had even collapsed, and were now giant piles of rubble that completely blocked the street. I just ran — away from the death, the terror, the betrayal, away from everything life had dealt me since I was born. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. I found an alcove hidden in the shadows, and sat gasping with my head in my hands.

  Everybody I really cared about was dead. Two of them died trying to save me. Lifelong attachments were over for me — for the rest of my incredibly long existence, stretching into the hundreds of years, I’d be alone. SecureCorp, and a remorseless secret society with bank loads of money, led by the most powerful man in the world, were turning the city upside down to find me.

  The Rebels, the one group that could have provided me some kind of safety, now probably hated me and thought I was a traitor. The Dead Shift, or at least my Uncle Zack, my only remaining relative, had betrayed me, and now Zack was dead.

  Zack’s gun was still stuffed in my belt. I hauled it out and I stared at it. It was still slimy with Zack’s blood. For a moment I considered following his example. At that moment, the phone in my pocket vibrated. I dreaded looking at it, but finally broke down and took it out. I had a message.

  It was Connor. Where are you guys? it said. We haven’t been able to contact Zack for four hours.

  I sat for a few seconds staring at the phone. I didn’t believe him. As far as I was concerned, the Dead Shift had screwed me once already — why not again?

  I texted Connor: Zack’s dead, and good riddance. He murdered Travis. Fuck you guys.

  After a few seconds of hesitation, Connor texted back: We knew nothing about it. Come and meet us.

  He described how to get to a meeting place in an area I was familiar with. I ignored it, turned the phone off, stuffed it in my pocket, and leaned back against the wall with my eyes closed. Now that everything was quiet I realized that the cards, which I had in my other pocket, seemed to be getting warm.

  I pulled out the bag holding them. The two morphing ones had completed the process. The result was a single card, deep violet in colour, and still with the stylized letters VA in one corner. It now had a single red flashing number — thirty thousand — near the top, and a map, with some kind of route overlaid in green. Beside it were the words: ‘Aug. 3rd, 1900 hrs’.

  I’d seen that kind of thing before. It was a beacon. It indicated a location, probably for some kind of meeting. A glow that intensified as it approached the outer edge of the card indicated the direction. The number was the appro
ximate number of meters to the target destination: thirty thousand — thirty kilometers. As you got closer, the number would decrease, sort of like the card saying: ‘you’re getting warmer’ as you moved around.

  When it hit zero, you’d arrived. But where was it directing me to? Wherever it was, I didn’t see how it could be good. The beacon wouldn’t work inside the bag, because it couldn’t communicate through the conductive mesh. The number and direction must be measured from where I first got the cards, before I put them in the bag.

  Again I studied Zack’s gun. Before the raid with the Rebels, I’d never even held one in my hands let alone fired it at anybody. I fought to keep from puking as I wiped the worst of the blood off, held the gun up, sighted down the barrel, and shuddered. I shoved it in my belt.

  The card was still warm. It was still working on something. Part of me wanted to toss it in the gutter and run as far away as possible. But based on the logo and where I’d gotten the original ones, the meeting was probably linked to Vita Aeterna. If that was true, I’d be needing the card.

  Especially now.

  I’d come to a decision. Zack had turned out to be a traitor, but he was right about the Rebels. They didn’t stand a chance against the CCE. Vita Aeterna would never give up — they’d chase me to the ends of the earth. As long as they were around, I’d be running like a hunted animal for the rest of my long life, or until I got fed up like Zack and took the final way out.

  There was only one solution. It crystallized in my mind as I turned the glowing violet card over in my hands. I was going to carry out the mission Zack had talked about.

  I was going to kill Charles Wickham.

  Even if all of this went away, even if SecureCorp left me alone and Vita Aeterna disappeared, I’d still be a freak, outliving everybody on the planet. At least Wickham’s death might give my life some purpose.

  If Wickham was taken out, Vita Aeterna would be crippled, and the CCE would be thrown into confusion — at least temporarily. Maybe that would give what was left of the Rebels, and the Dead Shift, if they were for real, a chance to make an impact.