Legion

by Robert Swartwood

“That it’s an emergency,” Eli says. The stone of his face cracks just long enough for half a smile. “A family emergency.”

  David nods again. It’s like he has to psych himself up to do this. I guess that makes sense, though I wish he would hurry up.

  “Okay,” my brother says finally. He starts for the door. Just as he places his hand on the handle, an alarm goes off.

  In the corner a strobe lights begins to blink, and immediately I’m hit with a sense of déjà vu.

  Eli’s hand drifts toward his jacket pocket, where he has his gun. “What’s that?”

  “Fire alarm,” David and I say simultaneously.

  Ashley speaks for the first time. “Do you think it’s them?”

  Eli says, “It’s definitely them.”

  Marta leaves the wheelchair behind and starts for the door. “Then let’s go.”

  “Wait.” David turns away from the door, hurries back to his desk. “I just need to grab something.”

  “Goddamn it,” Eli says, “we don’t have time for this.”

  David opens the top drawer. I’m not sure what I expect him to pull out, but it’s certainly not a black pistol with an extra long barrel that I’m pretty sure isn’t the usual kind of thing doctors keep in their desks. The long barrel, I know from years of watching movies and TV, is a silencer. It doesn’t make the bullets completely silent, just suppresses the sound. Which I guess doesn’t matter much while a fire alarm is blaring and a strobe is flashing and people outside the room are no doubt becoming panicked.

  “Sorry, Mom,” David says simply, and shoots her in the throat.

  forty-four

  Improvisation.

  Zach hated the word. Even the idea of it pissed him off.

  In his line of work, improvisation created too many unforeseen variables. Too many different ways things could spiral out of control. Too many chances of getting yourself killed.

  That’s why he always liked having a plan. He knew the world wasn’t perfect, that plans were subject to change, but he’d been pretty lucky in his profession. Almost always things worked out as planned. Sure, there were the occasional hiccups, like those mercenaries back in New York, but for the most part Zach did a good job at sticking with the plan.

  Like today, the plan was to wait for Eli and his group to pop up. Zach knew it would happen. After Eli showed up in New York to save John Smith, it made sense Eli would come for David Smith next. After all, David was the only one that hadn’t yet been killed. Eli probably knew they were using David Smith as bait, just as Eli had been using his own kids as bait. What Eli wouldn’t know was that David had a secret.

  But improvisation—Zach hated it. It created risks. Sometimes those risks outweighed the benefits. Already things were getting out of hand. Besides the bookstore fire, there was the mess in Hoboken—a fucking police officer shooting civilians no less. The last thing they needed was for more of this to get out.

  And so he and Hogan were rushing through the first floor when Tyson told him it was too late, that security was already on their way up to Neurology. And what were the rent-a-cops going to do once they got there? That was a good question. That was an excellent question. No matter how it played out, the end result would be a clusterfuck. Maybe Eli and his group might manage to escape. Maybe they would get taken into custody. And then what? Zach could get to them then, posing as FBI, or someone else could do the same, but between being taken into custody and the moment Zach or someone else got to them, what all would be said? Any chance of exposure was a chance they couldn’t take.

  “Set off an alarm,” Zach said into the phone.

  Tyson was quiet for a beat. “What?”

  “Fire alarm, intruder alarm, I don’t care. Make it happen.”

  He disconnected.

  Hogan said, “What are you thinking?”

  “Chaos.”

  As if on cue, the alarms all throughout the hospital began to sound.

  forty-five

  Marta staggers back a few steps, her hands moving to touch the big bloody hole in her throat. Gravity pulls her down, her legs going weightless. Ashley, standing only a few feet behind her, rushes forward to catch her. She doesn’t make it in time. Marta hits the floor, not hard, but it’s enough to cause her to release a soft grunt. Incredibly, it’s the first sound she’s made since the moment David’s bullet entered her throat.

  Eli reaches for his gun.

  David says, “Don’t,” aiming now at the man we all had once thought of as our father.

  My own hand, I realize, is reaching for my gun as well. Even as I realize this, it doesn’t stop. In the next second or two my fingers will penetrate the pocket lining of my jacket. A second after that, those fingers will wrap around the handle. How many seconds it’ll take for me to pull the gun out of my pocket, however, is another story. If I’m lucky, it will only take another second. If I’m not—if somehow the gun gets caught in the fabric and I’m left struggling with it like an asshole—then who knows how many more seconds before David fires off another shot and puts me out of my misery.

  “Don’t, John.”

  I blink. Look up at David.

  Despite keeping his gun aimed at Eli, my brother is now watching me. “Let go of it.”

  I let go of the gun.

  “Take your hand out of your pocket.”

  I take my hand out of my pocket.

  “Now raise your hands.”

  I want to tell him no. I want to tell him to go fuck himself. I’m not even sure why it is I want to say these things. Bravery has very little to do with it. At this moment, I’m far from brave. What I am, actually, is pissed. It’s one thing for nameless killers to come after us. It’s an entirely different thing for someone I know—someone who I have always believed was my brother, who is my brother—to kill the woman who raised us.

  Hating myself, I raise my hands.

  “Now,” David says, his gaze back on Eli, “take out the gun and set it on the floor.”

  Eli doesn’t move.

  “You don’t think I won’t kill you?”

  Eli’s response is an indignant breath: “No.”

  “I killed her with no problem, didn’t I?”

  Actually, Marta isn’t dead quite yet. She’s getting there, there’s no doubt about it, but right now she’s still alive. Ashley is on the floor with her, cradling her head. Ashley’s entire body shakes as she tries to fight back tears. It’s clear she wants to do something for Marta, but there’s not much she can do but stare down as blood gurgles up from between Marta’s lips and Marta’s eyes stare up at the ceiling, growing emptier and emptier by the second.

  “Yes,” Eli says, his voice gruff, “but I’m assuming Matheson’s main beef isn’t with her. I’m the one he wants. That’s why he wants me taken alive, and that’s why you won’t kill me.”

  As if proving this theory, Eli takes a step forward.

  “Stop!” David shouts.

  Eli takes another step.

  David squeezes off another round. This one doesn’t hit Eli, but the wall behind him.

  Eli doesn’t push it any further. He stays where he is, his hands down at his sides.

  David says, “You shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Why not? You’re my son.”

  “I am not your son.”

  “Then whose son are you?”

  David doesn’t answer. His eyes flick down at Marta on the floor, barely holding onto life. He shakes his head again. “I didn’t want to do that, you know. I’ve never ... I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  “How did they get to you?”

  “Blood test. Did you hear about my wife?”

  Eli shakes his head.

  “Stupid bitch was sleeping around on me. The day I found out and kicked her out of the house, I went and had a blood test. Thankfully I didn’t contract anything.”

  “Thankfully,” Eli says.

  The space between them is ten, maybe twelve feet. The space between David and Ashle
y is more like fifteen feet. I’m the farthest away, over twenty feet. I’m also off to the side. I figure if I did decide to act—reach for the gun, pull it out without getting it snagged—I might have the best chance of squeezing off a round or two. That isn’t to say either of those rounds would hit David, or even be near him, but hopefully it would be enough to distract him and allow Eli the time he needed to grab his own gun.

  I start to lower my hands.

  “Don’t, John.” David glances at me from the corner of his eye. “Keep your hands up.”

  Swallowing, I keep my hands up.

  Eli asks, “What are we waiting on?”

  “Them,” David says. “They’ll be here soon. They knew you were coming. They’ve been waiting all morning.”

  “They gave you the gun?”

  David nods. “Said that if you showed up, to keep you in the office as long as I could. Said if things got out of hand, I should use it.”

  “They tell you to shoot your mother?”

  “For starters, she isn’t my mother. And no, they didn’t. But she was the closest person. It just made sense.”

  “It just made sense,” Eli says.

  “Stop repeating everything I say.”

  Eli tilts his head to the side, as if agreeing to stop. “So the blood.”

  “Yeah, the blood.” Sweat has sprung up on David’s forehead. “I had the blood test done. I guess they’ve been looking for us, for our DNA. I don’t know the whole operation, but I figure it’s pretty huge. They must have just recently added the DNA to the database, though, because I’d had blood taken before. I figure all of us kids had at one time or another.”

  A knock comes from the door.

  “Dr. Smith?”

  Janice, the angry nurse.

  “Don’t speak,” David whispers. “The door is locked. She’ll go away.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” Eli asks.

  “Then I guess I’ll have no choice but to shoot her. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. Hopefully by that time they’ll have gotten here.”

  “What if I do say something? What if I shout?”

  “Then she’ll die, and whoever else comes in with her. You want that on your conscience?”

  “What all did they tell you?”

  “Not everything, but enough. I know your real name. I know you were once a scientist. I know we’re not your real kids.”

  “How about what kind of people they are?”

  “I don’t care what kind of people they are. All I care about is staying alive. They promised me I would if I cooperated.”

  The woman knocks again, calling Dr. Smith, Dr. Smith, are you in there? She tries the knob, realizes it’s locked, and finally walks away.

  For a moment there’s silence, besides the ongoing alarm. Then Ashley, still on the floor, still cradling Marta’s head, speaks.

  “It was you.”

  So far the gun has been steady in David’s hand. Now it begins to waver, if only slightly.

  “What?”

  “It was you,” Ashley says. “You were the one who contacted Melissa about your father dying. You were the one who talked her into getting everyone together.”

  David grins. “It wasn’t that difficult. I knew Melissa would be the best choice. She’s always been the one who tried to keep everyone together. I had the ball, so I put it in her court.”

  As he says this last bit, Marta takes her final breath. Her eyes, which have been growing progressively emptier, go blank. Her body seems to relax. Blood is still between her lips, and there is a bubble there, a very small bubble of blood. A second goes by, maybe two, and the bubble bursts.

  Bravery, I’ve decided, is for chumps. Survival, on the other hand, is all that matters. Everyone wants to survive. Nobody wants to die. I don’t want to die. Not yet. And that’s why, I think, I take a step forward.

  “Don’t,” David says again.

  I hesitate, then take another step forward.

  David says to me, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Like Eli said, you aren’t going to kill us.”

  “No, I’m not going to kill Eli. That’s what they told me, to keep him alive. The girl, too.”

  This gives me pause. I glance at Ashley and see confusion on her face. Then, steeling myself, I take another step.

  “Don’t do it, John.” David shakes his head slowly, keeping his gaze on Eli. “I don’t want to have to kill you.”

  This stops me for a beat. Then, glancing once more at Marta dead on the floor, I start forward again.

  “Goddamn it, John, I said stop.”

  I don’t stop. I take another step.

  “You know what I was just thinking about, David? When we were kids, back at school, remember what those bullies did to you?”

  The gun in his hand begins to shake. I can see it in his face that the memories still haunt him. The bullies holding him to the ground, forcing him to eat gobs of spit.

  “I could have let them keep torturing you, but I didn’t. I didn’t because you’re my brother. That’s what you do for your brother. You help him when he’s in trouble.”

  I take another step forward, decreasing the space between us by maybe another three or four feet.

  “Don’t test me, John.”

  Like the dumbass I am, I take another step forward.

  “I mean it.”

  Another step.

  “Goddamn it,” David says, the gun in his hand trembling even more.

  Another step.

  “I warned you.”

  He turns so the gun is now aimed right at me.

  Five feet between us.

  The gun barrel stares back at me.

  David stares back at me, little beads of sweat still on his brow.

  The alarm keeps blaring, the strobes keep flashing.

  I take another step.

  “You know what, David?”

  “What?”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  And I spit right in his face.

  forty-six

  The girl, too.

  Three words. Three simple words. Three words out of hundreds that had been spoken in the past couple of minutes, and yet it was those three words that Ashley kept running again and again in her head.

  The girl, too.

  It didn’t make sense. Why would he have said it like that? It hadn’t been an afterthought so much as a gradual progression of details. It made sense not to kill Eli, not after everything Ashley had heard and pieced together. Whoever this Matheson was, he wanted Eli kept alive, no doubt so he could kill Eli himself. But why keep her alive, too?

  This was what she was thinking as John Smith started to make his advance on David Smith, John taking one slow step after another, David telling him to stop and then stop again, until finally John did the most perplexing thing: he spit in his brother’s face.

  After that, things started happening very quickly.

  Ashley didn’t see exactly where the spit landed, but she heard David cry out. He crumpled, too, bringing his arms in toward his body as he turned away, the gun no longer aimed at either Eli or John. Eli was moving almost instantly. He threw all his weight into David, throwing them both to the floor. The gun hit the carpet and bounced away. David reached for it but Eli shoved him down again, trying to hold him in place.

  Eli shouted at John, “Shoot him!”

  John dug the gun out of his jacket pocket. He hurried forward, around the desk, because that was where David and Eli were now, David struggling, Eli holding him down.

  Ashley blinked. Suddenly she remembered what she was doing. Who she was holding. Still cradling Marta’s head in her hands. The dead woman was staring up at her blankly. Her head, somehow, felt even heavier than it had only a minute ago.

  “Shoot him!” Eli shouted again.

  She gently placed Marta’s head on the floor. She wanted to close the woman’s eyes but didn’t want to touch the body any more than she already had. This revelation brought shame, an
d she wanted to force herself to close Marta’s eyes just so she could prove herself wrong. Instead, she rose to her feet, reaching into her jacket pocket for her gun.

  Eli and David were still going at it. David threw an elbow, connecting it with Eli’s nose. Eli jabbed a fist at David’s head. They kept struggling, while John loomed over them, aiming the gun.

  “Get out of the way,” John said. He kicked David’s gun toward the other side of the room.

  Eli rolled away from David. He groaned in pain. He reached for the desktop, started to pull himself up.

  David stayed where he was on the floor. It was clear to him he didn’t have any more options. His gun was out of reach. He currently had a gun aimed at him. He just lay there, staring up at John.

  “Shoot him,” Eli said.

  John kept the gun aimed at David, but he didn’t pull the trigger. “I don’t ... I don’t think I can.”

  “He was just about to kill you.”

  “I know that. But I ... I’m not a killer.”

  “This isn’t a morality play, John. We’re talking about life and death here.”

  Ashley stepped up next to Eli. Her gun, she realized distantly, was in her hand. Without thinking, she leveled it at David’s chest.

  John asked her, incredulous, “Are you going to shoot him?”

  She had to think about it. “I’m not sure.”

  “Goddamn it.” Eli withdrew his own gun. “We don’t have time for this.”

  Eli aimed the gun at David but John said, “No, don’t,” and before any of them could respond, John pulled the trigger.

  Without the suppressor, the shot was loud, though not as loud as Ashley had expected it to be. Besides, the alarm was still blaring, the strobes still flashing, that the gunshot was just another part of the bedlam.

  John’s bullet, however, did not kill David. It did not enter his throat like David’s bullet had entered Marta’s, or his chest, or his head. Instead it entered his leg, his left thigh to be exact. David howled in pain, gripping the leg, squirming on the floor like a fish out of water.

  Eli looked up at John, who just shook his head.

  “He’s still my brother. I’m not going to kill him.”