Demon Accords 05.5: Executable

by John Conroe

  “I wondered why the most popular girl in school went out of her way to talk to you. It didn’t fit the parameters of standard school social dynamics that I was taught about,” Caeco said. “You know, if anything, it probably elevates her position even more. Think about it, she’s the only popular kid who doesn’t fear you… actually interacts with you. That must give her a certain cachet.”

  “Ouch! Here I thought it was because deep down, she still had a shred of decency left that hadn’t been crushed by the pressures of social expectation.”

  “Oh, I think she does. Despite her position, I haven’t observed her being mean to really anyone. I’m just saying that her relationship with you is sort of self-reinforcing. Normally, she’d be pressured to ignore you, but the other kids respect her bravery in talking to you.”

  “Can we stop the psycho crap? It’s hard enough to deal with school without tearing apart the few decent parts of my life that’re left.”

  “Sorry; just my training acting up. So… you like her, don’t you?”

  I glanced her way. She was facing the forest but watching me out of the corner of her eye

  “I have always liked Jessica as a friend. Is she pretty? Yeah. But like-like. Maybe once, but I quickly realized it was never going to happen. We’re strictly friend zone, at least as much as we can be.”

  “It must be an interesting thing to have such long-term history with a friend,” she noted quietly.

  “I’m guessing there weren’t a lot of friends in the lab?”

  “Not so much. When I was younger, there was an instructor who wasn’t too hard on me. But she got transferred. I think the lab director suspected she was sympathetic to me. But I always had my mother.”

  And she’s such a warm, fuzzy person—not! I thought to myself. But what I said was, “Well, that had to be a comfort.” I must not have been convincing because she looked over at me before picking up a rock, inspecting its color.

  “She’s not like your aunt. She is, after all, a scientist, but I have no doubt that she is devoted to me. She risked her life many times before and during our escape. If they had caught her, she would likely have been killed. Even raising me, she had to keep a distance, but we had our own code. Regular words that meant something different to us.”

  “Like what?” I asked, trying to imagine living in a science lab and being watched every second.

  “When my mother says Stay on task, it means stay safe. When she asks me if my functions are nominal, she’s asking if I’m okay, if anything is bothering me. If I answered that my cognition seems suboptimal, it means I’m confused or disturbed about something. She would run some simple mental acuity tests but as she asked me the standard questions, there would be a second, more meaningful conversation going on. For someone as cerebral as she is, my mother is extremely perceptive.”

  To me, it seemed like it must have been like living in a spy novel. Every action, every word, every glance watched, recorded, and evaluated. Hiding your feelings and thoughts all day, every day.

  “Wow, that must have blown!” I said, completely stunned. My own life was a cakewalk compared to what she’d gone through.

  She shrugged. “It was all I knew, although when they assigned me to watch television content to acquire social context, it made no sense to me at all. The things that people said to each other was alien. To just flat-out say that you liked or loved someone didn’t make sense. That’s when I began to realize just how different my life was.”

  “How did your mother tell you that she loved you?” I asked.

  “She would get a very stern look on her face and tell me that failure was not an option, that I was her life’s work, that I must succeed. But I always knew that the frowns and tone were all cover, that her formal words were code. It is something she has said to me from my earliest years.”

  I couldn’t imagine Aunt Ash or Darci not telling me that they loved me, or me them. But Caeco was only one of seventeen. All of Dr. Jensen’s children died but her. Two had made it full term, but one had died in training. How did a parent deal with that? Even a cold, emotionless one like Caeco’s mom. Maybe she wasn’t the walking computer bank she portrayed?

  “Caeco, you’re pretty tough, but I think your mom might be the toughest person I’ve ever met,” I said.

  She nodded, her expression one of intense, fierce pride.

  “I couldn’t do what she did. I can’t hide it in code. I just have to flat-out tell you that I like you,” I said, looking directly at her, then away. I lay back and looked up at the tree above me. Beside me, she leaned down, popping into my view rather suddenly. Her brown eyes locked with mine, and she slowly smiled.

  “I want more of my nannites back!” she said, and then her lips were on mine.

  Chapter 45 – Declan

  Have I mentioned that high school is always there? That it never changes? It’s like the cockroach of life—unkillable. If we had a nuclear war, high school would survive.

  We got lots of looks, much more than even before. A couple of kids almost asked me a question or two when they came to me for a cell phone fix. Almost. Candace, Rory, and Jonah asked a ton of questions. And we answered… mostly. We were pretty honest about getting kidnapped and about the base, but we kept the rescue bland and never mentioned Chris Gordon or Tanya or any others. The asteroid strike was something we claimed to know nothing about.

  Rory knew I was holding something back, but despite the curiosity in his eyes, he didn’t push. I think he was a little hurt by it, but he also knew that something immense happened and I wasn’t ready to fully explain it.

  There are some things that are just too bizarre to convey to someone who hasn’t experienced it. The vampires, their young queen, and her boyfriend were definitely those things. I mean, come on, a giantic were-bear-wolf? Where would you even begin?

  We had missed the Calc exam, but Mr. Crest said we could take a make-up exam after school. Super. Actually, it went pretty well. The problems didn’t look as foreign as usual to me. The steps I needed to take and the solutions to each step just sort of snapped into place. In fact, I finished only a few minutes after Caeco.

  She was waiting for me in the hall, stepping out from the lockers she had been leaning on and alongside me with a couple of easy steps. We walked for a few paces before she reached down and took my hand. I glanced over at her in surprise, not so much at holding my hand, but that it was in public, even if the halls were almost empty.

  “I want to feel what it is like to openly display emotion—to demonstrate affection without fear of reprisal,” she said.

  “Oh, there could be reprisal—Rory wouldn’t hesitate to make fun of us,” I said with a laugh.

  She smiled. “Somehow, I will bear the agony of his wit. It beats termination.”

  I started to laugh, then remembered that for her, termination meant something much more final than having to clean out your desk at work.

  “You know you’re taking to this freedom thing and normal life stuff pretty damn well. Almost a natural,” I commented.

  “Give me another week and I’ll be better at it than you,” she smirked. I gave her a little electric shock. She smacked my stomach, slipped one slim arm under my own, pulled on my other wrist, and swiveled her hips into my pelvis, which lifted my feet almost off the floor. Her point was made. I was a split-second from being thrown. She stopped, lowered me back, and gave me a quick kiss on the lips before re-grabbing my hand and continuing our walk as if nothing had happened. Never boring, this girl.

  Within a few days, life mostly got back to normal—or as normal as it could be for a teen warlock who was openly dating a genetically enhanced super soldier. The rest of the country and even the world were still covering the asteroid strike, but the topic had moved from why it happened to how to prevent it from happening again with bigger rocks. It became a topic of debate at our lunch table between Rory, Jonah, and Candace.

  “Lasers are the way to go. Vaporize some of the outer surface and th
e expanding gases will push the rock away,” Jonah said one day.

  “Too slow. Only work when you have more time and distance. I think they need to repurpose the missile defense system against asteroids,” Rory said.

  “Are you kidding? It’s got a horrible accuracy record against missiles, and you want to rely on it for asteroids?” Candace added, “I think the one that hit wasn’t an accident. I think it was somehow directed. If we could figure that out, maybe we could do the opposite.”

  “Who could direct an asteroid strike? That’s crazy,” Jonah said.

  “Actually, the probability of exactly the right-sized asteroid striking that old missile silo to completely obliterate it right after Declan and Caeco are pulled out is a rather improbable number. It was supposed to be hardened against nuke strikes, remember,” Rory said, turning to me. “What do you think, D?”

  “Me? I think you should send Chuck Norris up in space and he can roundhouse kick the asteroids into dust!” I said.

  He just looked at me. “And you’re the one who claims we aren’t serious enough? What do you think, Caeco?” he said, giving me an exasperated glare.

  “I think Declan just gave you the secret formula,” she said with a smile. Jonah and Candace laughed, but Rory looked at her seriously. Uh oh! I know that look! It was his deep thinking look. He wasn’t taking this lightly.

  Lunch period was almost over, so I began picking up my debris. That triggered the others to do the same. Rory still looked thoughtful as he sorted his recyclables into the various containers. Seeing as this is Vermont, our school’s recycling is more complicated than trigonometry.

  Rory and I had a study hall next, so we said goodbye to the others and headed into the chaos. My small but brainy friend remained deep in thought as we walked the halls, not saying a word. Unusual behavior.

  We got to our room and I pulled my English reading book out. I was actually kind of looking forward to the book, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

  “She wasn’t joking,” he said just as I began to read.

  “Ah... what?”

  “Caeco… she wasn’t joking.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “When you said to send Chuck Norris after the asteroids, Caeco said you had just given us the secret formula. She wasn’t joking.”

  “Dude… Chuck Norris? Seriously?”

  “No D. Don’t be a dick. You never explained just how you were both rescued by Oracle. You just sorta shut up about the whole thing, and you’ve never done that to me before. At first, I was mad, kinda hurt. But then I started researching everything I could find on the Web. All the news that happened around that time. I found a couple of articles about some crazy kidnapping in New York City. It was in some tabloids, a story about a little girl who got grabbed by kidnappers and a helicopter and some guy and his dog tried to stop it. Then I found a New Hampshire story about a car theft. A guy with a giant dog or wolf stole some dude’s truck, which was later found unharmed, further north, not far from where you were. I started to wonder… what if there was a guy, someone who really is like the Chuck Norris jokes. What if he was so out there that my friend, who happens to be a witch, doesn’t know how to even begin to tell me about him? Then your girlfriend, who doesn’t do a whole lotta joking, implied that your suggestion was correct. What do you think about that?”

  Have I mentioned that Rory is scary smart?

  “I think you’re wrong… Caeco jokes sometimes!”

  He rolled his eyes at me and looked away, the hurt back on his face.

  “What if you were right?” I asked, not wanting to see that expression on him. He turned, eyebrows raised. “What if there was a guy… and some others… who made a witch and a super soldier look normal? Bland even. What if there was a guy who would scare Chuck Norris?”

  He just stared, eyes wide. I glanced down at my book. “This is a pretty interesting read. You know the story?”

  Confusion flooded his features, but Rory can’t back away from a question about his own knowledge base.

  “I haven’t read it, but isn’t about a scientist who takes a serum that turns him into a killer?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. It’s really about the good side and dark side in all of us. About removing the constraints of morals and society and unleashing the savage primitive inside.”

  He realized my deviation from our original conversation had a point. “Sounds like it might get gruesome?”

  “Yeah, at least by Victorian era standards. But based on what I’ve seen, this book ain’t shit,” I said.

  He thought about that, brows furrowed. “Scary?”

  “Helpless. No chance of survival scary on one hand, and thank God he’s on our side on the other. Like nothing that I or Caeco could do would matter in the slightest.”

  “You’re joking?” he demanded, first shocked and then worried. Rory has seen me practice. He’s seen me melt rock in my little safe zone under the protective shield of the Rowan tree. “Are you in danger?”

  I nodded. “But not from this,” I said, throwing the book onto my desk. “This is on my side. At least I think it is,” I added.

  “How?”

  “They say that no good deed goes unpunished. They’re full of shit! Help just one little girl, and all kind of good things can happen.”

  “Can you tell me?”

  “I’m not sure how. But I have a feeling that if you happen to be hanging around enough, I won’t have to… you’ll see for yourself.”

  “Can’t wait!” he said, eager curiosity flooding his face.

  “Hmmm, there’s another famous saying… be careful what you wish for. I think that one might be accurate,” I said, picking the book back up and opening to where I had left off.

  Rory was quiet and thoughtful the rest of the study hall. Wonders never cease.

  Chapter 46- Krista

  “Are you sure we can’t just grab the blighter?”

  “Yes, Mary. He’ll just flatten the lot of you,” Krista replied. Her call was on speakerphone at the other end, and she found it a little annoying, trying to sort out all the voices.

  “Gilly told us he was quite brilliant and all, but I don’t know if I’m believing ya?” Gael, the second youngest, said.

  “Ladies, he broke out of my circle from the inside without help and after expending some of his reservoir to keep warm,” Krista said.

  The four sisters were uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. Finally Aileen, the oldest, spoke up. “You think he’ll rise to the bait, do ya?”

  “Since when has the bait ever had a problem getting a rise out of males? Eh, Ryanne?”

  “But you were telling us that he’s already got a gal?” the youngest, Ryanne, asked. She seemed unsure, which might be a problem.

  “Oh for the love of God, this isn’t rocket science! You can try to grab him but I’m telling you I wouldn’t do it. Too much can go wrong. Just do your thing. He’s Irish but never been to Ireland. He’s actually good looking or at least will be, and he’s quite clever. This isn’t hardship duty, Ryanne. You’ve seen his picture.”

  “He’s no goat,” Ryanne agreed.

  “It may take more than a wee bit of time, though,” Aileen noted.

  “Yes, but the payday is huge. You guys’ll be able to buy your own record label!”

  “So be it. Our bloke is putting together the gig. There’s a nice Irish Pub in Burlington, on Church Street. We’ve played it before. How will we get him there?”

  “Give me the details when they’re done and I’ll take care of it. Not a problem,” Krista said.

  “Right’o. We’ll sign off, then,” Aileen said. Krista said goodbye and hung up, looking over at the bulletin board she’d hung on one wall. A photo of the boy warlock was pinned dead center. Maeve and Ashling Irwin were written on a scrap of paper pinned above him. Photos of him at the school were pinned on either side, the product of a Concord-based private investigator who’d worked for the Circle before. One shot showed him with the girl warrior
and two other boys. Names were written in next to each of the friends. She tapped the two boys, one short and pale, the other tall and dark. These two were the best approach. Now to set the trap.

  Chapter 47- Declan

  When I got home from school on Thursday, I found Levi’s Jeep Wrangler parked next to my aunt’s car. Inside, Levi and Aunt Ash were both at the dining table, sipping tea, serious expressions on both their faces.

  “What’s up?” I asked, immediately on edge.

  “I got a call from Chris Gordon today. He wants to bring that book up on Saturday to have us look at it,” Levi said.