Awakened

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Crash ignored the question. “Brock Lysta, as I live and breathe. I take it you’re my new monkey?”

  “You got that right. I’m your monkey, your bitch, and you better be my goddamn eagle in the fucking sky if we gonna make this work.” Brock’s eyes were bright and clear, dancing with wisdom far older than his years would have permitted.

  Crash slowly released his old friend from his embrace, and stepped back to look at him.

  “Man, I’m so happy to see you. And you’re looking great!” His excitement bubbled up, and then he looked very serious. “You have no idea how sorry I am, the way things ended between us. I really…I just want you to know that.”

  “It’s okay. We good. I cussed you, I told everyone that would listen what a dog you is, and then eventually, I got over it. But that isn’t a mistake I’m ever going to make again, you feel me?”

  Crash nodded, well aware how lucky he was that Brock was making this a pleasant reunion.

  “Well, beetch, what’s going on with our lady-queen? Where she at?” Brock looked around for Molly.

  “Just got here. I’m guessing we’re in the right place…”

  Brock checked the hangar number, and nodded.

  “How ‘bout you tell me how you been? Been tooooo long.” Brock’s melodic dialect was like music.

  Just as it had always been.

  Crash felt his spirits lift as Brock stood there shooting the breeze. This was one assignment he was glad to have accepted. No matter what happened on that ship, he knew he was in the right place now.

  Unknown location

  Molly came to. Her head really hurt and she felt sick.

  Hangover, was her first thought. She tried to sit up, and felt stuck. Then she became aware that her wrists were bound.

  “Owwwww,” she complained, wondering where the fuck Oz was when she needed orienting.

  Gradually, the room came into focus. It wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before. It had high vaulted ceilings and plush rugs over the wooden flooring. The furniture in the room was like something out of a history file, and there were wallpaper and paintings on the walls.

  Is this some kind of museum? She wondered, trying to put the pieces together.

  Scanning around the part of the room she could see, she stopped when she noticed that Paige was completely bound, just across the way from her, lying on one of the antique couches.

  She looked distressed. Tears had dried down her face and she was gagged, but trying to make sounds now she saw that Molly was awake.

  Just outside the tall doors there was a man, Ogg-kind, in a dark gray atmosuit. She couldn’t see his face because he had his back to the door, as if he were guarding it. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him.

  She became aware of the dull pain on the side of her skull, and realized she had been hit and kidnapped. She pulled and wriggled to get out of her bonds, but all it did was hurt her ankles and wrists more.

  It was only then that she became aware of a presence behind her. Someone was dragging something in her direction. A table appeared next to her. And then a gentleman, a blue Estarian, came into her view. His suit was stylish, and he smelled of expensive aftershave.

  Her money was on him being Dewitt himself.

  “Greetings of the day to you!” he exclaimed when he was done arranging the table. “I trust you’re comfortable?”

  Molly tried to cuss at him through her gag, but he was too caught up in himself to be affected. He disappeared behind her again, out of her line of sight, and then reappeared, putting a saucer onto the table next to her.

  Molly looked at it and then back at Paige.

  “Who the fuck are you?” She tried to speak through her gag.

  The man shook his head as if he didn’t understand, and untied the gag, letting it fall into her lap.

  “Say that again, please?” he asked nicely.

  “Who the fuck are you?” she asked again, anger seething through her teeth.

  “Why, I’m Mr. Dewitt, of course. You should know that, since you have a download of all my files that you stole earlier today. And you are?”

  He looked down at her, sneer and sarcasm dripping from his thin pale lips.

  “Molly,” she answered, still seething.

  “Ahhhhh, Meddling Molly! Tell me, Molly, do you make a habit of interfering in things that don’t concern you?”

  Molly remained stoic, but glared at him as if she were trying to fry his brain with her eyes.

  “You know, meddling only ever gets people killed. You should know that by now…given all the meddling you’ve done over the years. Tell me, how are your parents doing since you nearly got them assassinated?”

  Molly looked over at Paige, the whites of whose eyes were now showing. Scrambling for the words to respond, she was overwhelmed with questions. How did this asshole know who she was? And how could he know about her parents? No one knew that. There weren’t any records. Someone had seen to that. She’d checked.

  “Molly, I know all about you; about your little stint in the military after nearly getting your parents killed. Such a cliché, if you ask me. You should have just stayed in the military and kept your head down, instead of coming out into the real world and making my life more difficult.”

  “Well, if you know anything about me, you’ll know exactly why I can’t do that,” Molly scoffed.

  “The Syndicate are not even the same people who came after your parents.” Dewitt looked slightly exasperated, but his tone was still patronizing.

  Molly ground out. “Different faces, but you’re all the same, and you all need stopping. No one was around to dismantle whatever was going on when those men came after my parents. But I’m around now. And I’m going to stop you all.”

  Dewitt wandered over to his briefcase, which was lying open on a couch near the one Paige was tied up on.

  He glanced back at her, indicating towards her bound hands and feet. “Doesn’t look likely from where you are right now.”

  He turned back and reached into the briefcase and pulled out a little pink disc. Wandering back to the table next to Molly, he placed it on the saucer.

  “Molly, Molly, Molly,” his tone was laced with condescension. “You and I don’t need to speak. I know your story, and honestly, I’m bored. I need you to be quiet. Permanently. I want to speak to Paige, though.”

  Molly protested. “Paige just got all caught up in something she doesn’t understand. Let her go, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

  Dewitt was wandering back to his briefcase again.

  “You’re not the one who stole information off my private server. Paige is the one who has been giving people access to my personal data. Paige is the one who can answer my questions.”

  Molly felt sick, and she knew it was only part hangover. If she’d taken Paige away that first night in the bar, they’d both be safe now. Dewitt was right. They were in trouble. They were going to die because she had aspirations of being like Bethany Anne, making the world a better place. But that wasn’t really why she was drawn to it. No. It was because being like Bethany Anne, taking on that identity, was her childish way of avoiding the pain of being an outcast, and the emptiness of being nothing special, of being broken.

  Her Bethany Anne obsession had been a band-aid; a fix for an identity wound that still hadn’t healed.

  “Leave her alone. Please.” Molly begged. She didn’t have tears for what was going on, but her stomach was turned inside out with anxiety.

  He looked at her, completely confused. “Why would I?” he asked. He pointed to Paige. “She’s planning to expose me. Why would I let her go? I need to find out what she knows, and who she’s told.”

  “And then she’s as good as dead?” asked Molly. Her anxiety and frustration was turning to rage.

  “Yes, probably,” responded Dewitt, excited that he was getting her riled up. Getting a reaction was something he lived for.

  Of course, it wasn’t som
ething he could do in his professional life, but when he had control over people in his private life, he would go to town on them. That had been what had provoked his late wife, and a few others since.

  “You’re a monster!” Molly grated.

  “Another way we’re alike. You and I, Molly…we’re just ambitious. And I’m tired of being everyone’s bitch. I’ve been used and abused my whole career. I’ve been the Syndicate’s pawn for the last twenty years. And now, now—when I most need their support to clean up their mess—they abandon me. Reject me! Tell me they’re distancing themselves from me?!”

  He paused a moment, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I’ll give them distance!”

  Molly couldn’t be sure from where she was, but it looked like his hands were shaking in anger. His jawline looked tense, but the rest of his face was strangely expressionless.

  Probably something he’s picked up being a politician, she assumed, hiding his true feelings.

  He was hovering over his brief case again, and this time took out a small bottle of liquid. Molly watched him intently.

  He continued on, as if he were explaining his sins for absolution. “I’m not mixed up with them because I crave power or politics. I was like you once.” He glanced at her, a small smile on his face before looking back at the liquid. “Young. Idealistic. But then they made me kill my wife, and because of the divorce, it looked really bad. They offered to make it all go away, and I’ve been working for them ever since.” He paused, twiddling the bottle in his fingers, before glancing over to Paige who had been helplessly watching the interaction unfold.

  She wished she hadn’t tried to be brave. She wished for once she had just followed her gut and gotten out of town. Too late for that now.

  “There’s really no way out of this for me. Or, unfortunately, for either of you.” He started to walk deliberately back towards the table and Molly.

  Molly changed tactics. “You don’t need to keep working with them. If they’ve abandoned you, then you’ve got a way out. Why keep cleaning up to keep them safe? Your career is going to be finished. You can make a deal…expose them, in exchange for your safety. There are other ways!” Molly’s voice was cracking as she spoke through her anxiety, trying to persuade him with reason.

  “No there aren’t.” Dewitt’s shoulder dropped noticeably, and for an instant he looked like a defeated man. “You can’t understand how powerful they are. They own the police. The military. The legal system. There is no way this can end well for me. I need to silence you two, and however many people you’ve told. If I’m lucky, they’ll let me keep going and push this bill through.”

  With that, he put the bottle down on the table next to the saucer and headed over to Paige. Grabbing her roughly, he dragged her like a rag doll off the couch, onto the floor, and across the wooden flooring to the door. Dewitt propped Paige up by the doorway; the guy in the atmosuit guarding the door turned to look at her, then resumed his position.

  Dewitt grunted something at him, and the guard spoke into his holo, presumably to another team member.

  Dewitt walked back to the couch, closed up his briefcase, and placed it by the door as well.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen now, Molly,” he told her clinically. “You’re just going to fall into a deep sleep you’ll never wake up from. I’m going to take Paige somewhere more comfortable, and we’re going to have a little chat. She’s going to tell me everything I need to do to clean up this frightful mess, and then I’m going to get this goddamn bill passed and get on with my life.”

  He picked up the bottle of liquid and put a few drops onto the pink disc. Immediately the chemicals started reacting, giving off a lot of mist.

  Dewitt quickly moved backwards, watching as the mist thickened. Breathing it in, Molly started choking uncontrollably.

  He continued his education. “I like this method of clean up. It leaves no trace in the room, or in the blood… especially not with these high ceilings,” he indicated upwards.

  A second later, he was at the door. He scooped up his briefcase and dragged Paige after him.

  Molly didn’t even see him leave. The fog around her was thick and black. She racked her brain trying to figure out what this stuff was…but it was so hard to focus.

  Oz. Oz, are you there?

  Safe house, fifty kilometers west of Uptarlung

  Both men looked aged and tired. They’d been at this for hours now, and though they were making good progress, the work was like combing through a haystack for a couple of needles.

  “I think I’ve nearly got all the evidence we need to prove our case. Just need to present it so it’s good for each media outlet and the official channels. Who should we include on the list? The chief justice? The police commissioner? The normal police channels for reporting this kind of crime?”

  Garet was thinking out loud, and also constructing the list that he was about to put into action.

  Joel looked up from a bunch of lewd photos he’d been sorting through.

  “Yeah, all of the above, and anyone else you can think of. The more people, the better.”

  “Great. I’ll compile a list of social channels too. I’m sure the Angry Onion would want to know about this!” Garet smiled, relieved that they had a way out of the pickle he’d been in no less than twenty-four hours ago. “How are you doing? Any good shots?”

  Joel nearly laughed out loud. “I’ll tell ya, this guy has no shame. He will screw anything with an orifice if it’s going to help his career. I was worried we’d have to catch him in the act, but it looks like a bunch of people over the years have done that for us. Grieving divorcees, pissed off husbands—even his own people looking to leverage him. The guy is a scumbag, and so are all his associates by the looks of it.”

  “So, you think just sending them to his judge lady friend will be enough? You aren’t worried that she knows about this already?”

  “I’ve checked their messages. She thinks he’s all hers, and is pushing for them to make the next step in commitment. What’s worse, I think she’s in love with him. No way their relationship is going to remain intact once these images go out.”

  “Want me to throw some into the media shitstorm I’m cooking up, too?” Garet was excited about regaining some power and getting some revenge on the guy who tried to have him killed.

  “No. Need to keep these separate. If we go mixing them up it will look like someone is trying to damage his career and it won’t be taken seriously. Keep it clean.”

  Garet nodded his understanding, and continued arranging the materials he’d gathered.

  Joel checked the time. Molly should be with Crash and Brock by now. He should call her to make sure they were set to release their findings. She’d probably want to look over the materials before they went out.

  After disabling the jamming app, Joel pulled up the call function on his holo and dialed.

  “That’s strange…”

  Garet looked up. “What’s that?”

  “Call isn’t going through. Lemme try the guys she’s meeting.” Joel dialed Crash.

  “This is Chris Ashworth.”

  “Crash, hi, this is Joel. Is Molly with you?”

  “No, she’s not shown up yet. We’ve been hanging about for a while now. Any idea on her ETA?”

  Joel’s brow furrowed.