by C. A. Wilke
Chapter 11
Neil’s Return
Memories are funny things. When they are lost, they can be hard to find. But sometimes, they come back when you least expect them.
* * *
Scarlett’s chest ached. She could not remember ever having such a physical response to an emotion, and she didn’t even know why.
Universal Dynamics proved to be a rather tight-lipped organization. Her attempts to research their activities online turned up little more than positive news stories and press releases. At one point, she found a small, underground website dedicated to some conspiracy theory involving the company. For Scarlett, though, the idea of a secretive technofascist cabal buried deep in the history of the company was more than a little far-fetched.
Finally, she turned her attention to the one person whose name she knew, Derrick Martins. The search on Derrick turned up little more than his employer and title. He was also quite secretive about his personal life.
Scarlett stared at the screen displaying Derrick’s wedding announcement from five years ago and tried to understand why it upset her so much. She wiped at the tear rolling down her cheek and sniffled. “What the hell is wrong with me?”
She shoved herself away from the desk and went to the kitchen. As she filled a glass of ice with water, she watched the liquid pour into the cup. Her eyes focused on the stream.
The edges of her vision faded and darkness clouded around the water. She felt herself falling away until she was somewhere and somewhen else.
Around her, she saw a bedroom, familiar and yet, at the same time, not. A queen-sized bed covered in red satin sheets sat centered against the wall in front of her. The single window to her left was obscured by long, gauzy-white curtains. More than a dozen candles lit the room, creating a romantic glow. Where am I?
Scarlett blinked. The stream of liquid slowed to a trickle then stopped. She watched as her own hands set down a small bottle and moved to the tanned form of the man beneath her. His oil-slick skin moved with her fingers as she massaged his tight muscles. With his face turned away, he moaned. That’s Derrick!
“I’m glad you decided to come over tonight.” The second voice was her own. “I know the stress of the test next week is getting to you. You snapped at Jonathan today and he really didn’t deserve it.”
Derrick moaned again. “Yeah, I know. I’ll apologize to him tomorrow. You would not believe the flak I’m getting from the director on this. We’re three weeks early on the test and he’s still giving me shit.”
“I know. I’ll tell you what... How about if we don’t talk shop anymore and I’ll do all the work tonight. Deal?” Her hand slid down his hips and slid around to his front. She felt a distant pleasure and a strong revulsion at the same time as her fingers wrapped around his flesh.
“Mmm... Sounds good to me. Deal.”
Scarlett started falling away again and everything faded to black.
The clang of the elevator jarred her back to reality. Her eyes snapped open. She found herself lying on the floor. What the? Crap, again?
She jumped to her feet and saw the water still running into the sink of broken glass. Shutting off the faucet, she heard the metallic sound of the elevator coming down. Neil’s back early.
Her heart jumped in her chest at the thought of Neil walking over to her. She pictured him strolling across the floor, them engaging in idle chitchat and her offering to give him a massage to recover from his mission. She smiled at the thought of what that might lead to.
The lift came to a halt with a thump. What the hell am I thinking? I must be crazy. It was that strange flashback. Yeah, that’s what it was.
She wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and set the computer to sleep. “Welcome back. How’d the job go?”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Her head snapped around to see him storming across the room. His right arm shifted and his large black duffle fell onto the couch. He kept his other arm tucked under his jacket.
“What? What do you mean?”
Neil’s movements were stiff but he still reached her faster than she expected. His hand closed around her throat. The impact slammed her against the wall.
“Are you nuts? You just go traipsing around the Net researching your target, allowing anyone and everyone to see my I-P? Are you trying to get us killed? I thought you wanted to live through this!”
Scarlett struggled to breathe. “Wha? I didn’t know... I... can’t...”
His grip released. She reached up to clutch her neck.
The back of his hand smashed across her cheek. She bounced off the desk and onto the floor.
She looked up just as he pulled a pistol from behind his back. The muzzle centered on her forehead.
“You’ve endangered yourself, me, Cash and his whole family.”
Scarlett was too terrified to move. “What are you talking about? I didn’t find anything. It was just a general search.”
“You think they don’t know? You tripped search alerts all over the damn place. Now they know you’re alive.”
The potential consequences of her search registered. If they knew she was alive, they could trace her killer’s movements right to Ruby’s house.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t save them the effort and kill you right now.” The gun wavered.
Then she noticed it, the growing blossom of red on his shirt. Her eyes followed the stain down to the floor and all the way back to the elevator. “Because if you kill me you’ll die.”
Neil looked down at the growing puddle of blood at his feet. “Aw, fu...”
The weapon dipped and his hand went slack. Metal clacked against the concrete floor. Neil’s body followed, landing face first.
“Neil? Neil! Shit!”
Scarlet scrambled to him. A quick check showed he still had a pulse. It was weak, but it was there. She rolled him over onto his back and gasped. His once-white shirt was now bright crimson. The sickly wet cotton material clung to his skin.
“Oh shit!”
Random, panicked thoughts raced through her mind. Forcing herself to focus, she tore open the shirt. A single dark hole oozed blood from just below his ribs.
Scarlett put one hand over the bullet hole. She shoved her hands into his pockets. “Dammit Neil, where the hell’s your phone?”
Every second that passed pushed him closer to death. She finally found the phone and hit the power button. In his contacts list she found the one set of initials she recognized. “Sorry Neil, but I gotta do it.”
She hit dial. “C’mon, c’mon!” The phone rang too many times. Scarlett started to worry that no one would answer. She sighed when the familiar voice finally replied. “Why are you calling me?”
“Cash, Neil’s in trouble. Get Ruby.”
Chapter 12
Surgery
The human body has nearly a gallon and a half of blood. It is terrifying how fast it can leave through one tiny hole.
* * *
Blood trickled between her fingers. Scarlet shifted the palm of her hand and pressed harder. “He’s your friend Cash. What the hell do you mean ‘no’?”
Cash’s voice cracked with fatigue. “Exactly what I said. No.”
“He’s dying!” she screamed.
The voice on the other end sighed. “I understand, but I will not put my family in the middle of his bullshit. That’s why I left that kind of work. I have to keep them safe. Please, do not call me ag...”
“They’re already not safe!” Blood continued to seep from between her hand and Neil’s chest. “I broke cover.”
She wasn’t sure why she was fighting so hard for Neil’s life. She barely knew the man.
Cash’s response came with a slow, deliberate anger she’d never heard from him before. “What?”
“I was looking up Universal Dynamics on the computer here. He said they know I’m alive. Cash, if they track that dirtbag’s cellphone movements...”
Cash sighed again. “Scar, you
didn’t break cover. Neil’s network is invisible to the Net, it doesn’t leave any tracks.”
She didn’t have time to argue with him. Even if what Cash said was true, Neil was still in trouble.
“Cash, dammit! Help me. If he dies, I have nowhere to go. They’ll find me and then they’ll find you.” Tears streamed down her face. Scarlett tried to stifle the sobs in the long moment that followed.
“Alright. Just keep him breathing and try to stop the bleeding. Someone will be right there.”
“Okay.” She sniffed. “I’ll try.”
Scarlett kept one hand on Neil’s wound and hung up the phone with the other. Seconds and minutes ticked by slowly. She pressed a button on the phone and the screen lit up with the time. Only two minutes had passed. Neil’s pulse weakened. The slower his heart beat, the faster hers raced. “Don’t you dare die on me Neil...”
She checked the time seven more times over the next fifteen minutes. Each time, more and more doubt crept into her mind. Scarlett began to think Cash lied to her. Maybe no one is coming. When an unfamiliar buzzer echoed through the apartment, she yelped.
The central panel of the vidscreen wall came to life. The screen showed a live feed of the front door. The oblique angle from above and to the side disoriented her.
Standing in front of the door was an unassuming man. A tan trench coat hung on his shoulders. Who the hell is this?
She noticed his rolling suitcase and white lab coat under the trench coat.
The stranger knocked on the door and the buzzer startled her again. She watched his lips move accompanied a split second later by an omnipresent voice. “Hello? I believe there’s a patient waiting for me? I’m Doctor Smith. I was sent by Cash Mallack.”
She stared at the screen. “A doctor?” Scarlett dared not move. She’d just stopped the flow of blood from Neil’s chest. If it started again she didn’t think he would survive.
“Yes, a doctor,” the voice replied.
Scarlett did a double-take. “Wait, you can hear me?”
“Yes Ma’am. Is there a patient waiting for me or not?”
“There is, but I’m holding his chest. I... I mean my hand is over his wound.”
The doctor looked around, trying to find the camera he was being viewed through. “That’s fine. Mr. Mallack said for you to tell the door to open.”
“Tell the doors to open?” Her brow wrinkled. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, but that’s what he said.”
“Um... okay. Front door open.”
A chime echoed through the room, followed by a female voice. “Voice recognized. Door open.”
The door clicked and the doctor reached for the handle. When he saw the inside he paused half-way in. “Where are you?”
She gave the man directions through the offices to the small closet elevator. A minute later he appeared.
“How long has he been unconscious?” The man strolled quickly across the floor and knelt beside Neil.
“I don’t know, maybe ten minutes?”
“Alright then, tell me what happened.”
Scarlett relayed the events of the last few minutes. By the time she was done, fresh tears streamed down her face.
Doctor Smith pulled on a pair of blue rubber gloves with a snap. He made a quick inspection and gave his prognosis. “So far, I’d say he’s very lucky. I don’t know what kind of bullet hit him, but it went cleanly through. Whatever it was, it was hot. The flesh around the wound, inside and out, is scorched.”
He jumped up and looked around. “We need to move him... here.” He pointed to the kitchen table.
Scarlett ran over. She cleared the surface of debris with a swipe of her arm. Doctor Smith hefted the front half of Neil’s limp form. Scarlett grabbed his legs.
Once the patient was on the table, the doctor went to work. The two of them removed the last shreds of Neil’s shirt and jacket. A small pair of scissors appeared in the doctor’s hand. He attempted to cut away Neil’s black undershirt, but the stainless steel tool only bent. Together, they peeled the tough material from his torso.
The doctor grabbed a needle and started an I.V., hanging the bag on the chandelier overhead. Several times he pointed and barked for Scarlett to get more gauze or tools from his bag. She returned from another foray into the doctor’s suitcase to see Neil’s motionless chest. “Doctor, he’s not breathing!”
Doctor Smith’s voice was smooth and flat. “I know.”
“Do something!”
“There, in my bag. That mask.” The doctor checked Neil’s pulse and grabbed the small airbag mask from Scarlett. “Shit. Here, now put this over his face and squeeze and release like this.” The doctor squeezed the bag and released it, letting it fill back up with air.
She took the bag and moved toward Neil’s head. As she squeezed the plastic sack, Doctor Smith retrieved a small device with two wands.
He placed the two wands on the patient’s chest and sternum. “When I say clear, back away.”
She nodded.
“Clear!”
Neil’s muscles twitched. The doctor held the patient’s wrist. “Okay, his heart is beating again. Keep up with that bag and don’t stop.”
The doctor spent the next hour reconnecting the bits of tissue he could inside Neil’s wound. He finally declared there was not much else he could do.
“You’re done? That’s it?”
Doctor Smith produced a fat aerosol can from his bag. “Not quite.”
“You’re going to cover him in shaving cream? What the hell kind of doctor are you?”
He laughed. “Not quite. This is a special mix of antibiotics and growth hormones. Exposed to the air, it dries into a skin-like surface. The seal prevents infection better than stitches.”
“Oh. Wow, that’s cool.”
“Yeah. But underneath is where the real magic happens. The growth hormone encourages cells to reproduce at an accelerated rate. With this, he’ll heal in a fraction of the time.”
Scarlett was stunned. She watched with wide eyes as he filled Neil’s wound with white foam. In just a few minutes, the surface of the foam transformed into a semi-clear skin. “That’s incredible!”
“Yep. Oh, you can stop now.”
The doctor cleaned the rest of the area around the wound and started bandaging Neil’s chest. Once the bandages were in place, he pulled off his red-stained gloves and wiped his brow. “Well, he suffered a lot of trauma. He should have gone directly to a hospital. Though, I suppose given his profession that’s not likely. He is very lucky the round missed his major organs. He lost quite a bit of blood, but all in all I think he’ll be fine.”
Scarlett let out a deep sigh. For the first time since Neil walked through the door, she felt like she could breathe. “Oh, thank God.”
The two gently moved Neil into his bedroom. She leaned over his unconscious form as the doctor left the room. He returned a moment later with several clear bags of fluid.
“I’m going to stay until he wakes up. It should only be a few hours. There is a chance he won’t, but that’s pretty unlikely.”
Scarlett was thankful for the company. With the chaos of her life before, and now Neil almost dying, she wondered if there would ever be a sense of normalcy again.
Doctor Smith strolled back into the living room and moved to sit down on the black couch.
Scarlett grabbed a couple bottles of water from the fridge and sat down beside him. “Thank you so much Doctor, for saving him.”
“Oh no, you saved him just as much as I did. If you hadn’t kept your hand over that wound he would have bled out before I got here.”
He held the bottle to his forehead. The condensing water ran from the plastic surface to his forehead and down his face. When he shifted his position, his jacket fell open. Inside, was the black shape of a gun.
Scarlett’s heart skipped a beat.
Chapter 13
Brush with Death
Sometimes we learn mo
re from the places or people we least expect, even if it is from our own selves.
* * *
Scarlett tried not to stare at the gun. She twisted in her seat and the couch’s black leather squeaked at her movement. Even after the doctor shifted and his jacket hid the firearm again, she struggled to keep her eyes anywhere else.
“So, being this kind of doctor must be dangerous.”
He twisted the cap off his bottle of water and took a swig. “Oh, somewhat. But it’s only part of what I do.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I used to be a full-time surgeon. But I lost my license and, well... then I discovered I had other talents.” Doctor Smith leaned back.
“Talents... Like him?”
“Yes, talents much like our friend in the other room. Though, we operate in different circles, so I have nothing but respect for him.”
The conversation was like something out of a dream, for Scarlett. This man talked about becoming a hired killer as if it was the weather. The entire situation was surreal for her.
Then the second part of what he said sank in. “Wait... lost your license?”
He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Are you so surprised?”
“Well, no... I...”
“To be honest, and not to toot my own horn, so to speak, I’m still one of the best in the state. I doubt you’d be able to get a licensed doctor here anyway. Just for coming here they could lose their license. Losing my license was, let’s say, a matter of political differences between myself and the medical board.”
Scarlett didn’t know what to think. She’d just let an unlicensed doctor perform life-saving surgery on the man who was her only chance of survival. The more she thought about it the more bizarre her life had become.
Their talk was comfortable and natural. Yet, something nagged at her. Then the question popped into her mind. “Why are you telling me this? Aren’t you assassin-guys supposed to be stoic and keep your past secret?”
Doctor Smith laughed. “Sometimes. Some of us more than others. I’ve never been the stoic type. Aaaand I’ve never really kept my past a secret. Mostly because I don’t leave a calling card or any trace at all, for that matter.”
