Nobility (The Dystopian King Book 1)

by Mason Dakota

  Just as we had planned immediately the power went out throughout the entire building. I silently slipped out the door. The Lady shouted curses at my back. I was grateful when Chamberlain slammed the door behind me and locked Alexandra in the soundproof room.

  “You weren’t actually thinking about killing her, were you?” asked Chamberlain.

  “We don’t have time for that. We need to move now,” I said, still furious at Alexandra (and at myself). I headed up the dark stairs but was brought to a stop by Chamberlain’s stone-hard grip on my arm.

  “We’re not going anywhere until you answer me,” Chamberlain growled back. I glared at him. I wasn’t mad at him. I was mad at myself for being so weak and easily played. I knew it was wrong to take that anger out on Chamberlain, and even though I knew he took no offense at it, I felt guilty.

  “I said we don’t have time for this,” I said, trying to pull away.

  But he held me fast, effortlessly, and said, “Then you had best talk fast.”

  I sighed and said, “The thought did cross my mind, yes. But I didn’t and that’s what matters, right? Now, can we please get out of here before we are both dead?”

  He didn’t let go right away but took a moment to stare me in the eyes before releasing me. I didn’t look back. I flew up the stairs two at a time. At the top I heard shouting and scrambling footsteps. Muffled voices came from the other side and someone fought to unlock the door in the dark.

  “Michael, get ready,” I said into my earpiece. I heard the final lock click open and saw the doorknob twist. I kicked it open. The door flung back on its hinges and smacked a man in the face.

  “Now!” I shouted. Suddenly the air crackled, light poured in from the windows in colors of red and orange that washed over the entire front of the house. A deafening roar loud enough to rupture any eardrums in the courtyard echoed through the night air. The half dozen car bombs lit up the front gate like lights on a Christmas tree.

  I didn’t care who got hurt. At that time of night the only people near the cars were armed mobsters. And, even they would have a courtyard wall between them and the car bombs. Again, I wondered if corruption in my soul would eventually transform me into a monster like Ziavir. I shook the thought away. I couldn’t afford to get distracted.

  There’s a better time to think about such things…like between never going and to happen.

  I rolled forward in the dark away from the staircase. I heard shouts and running feet from every direction. A few distant gunshots—likely from startled and confused mobsters outside—echoed. I scrambled to my feet and headed toward the back of the house. I thought I heard Chamberlain’s heavy footfalls behind me, or at least I prayed it was him and not someone with darker intentions.

  Yet another paranoid moment for good old Griffon.

  Moonlight through the windows led me to the back of the house by the windows. The guards had deserted their posts to rush to the front of the house where all the excitement was. Not even one of them thought to check on their boss.

  And Alexandra took me to be the fool. She’s the one hiring thugs that can’t make simple intelligent decisions on their own.

  It wouldn’t be long before their priorities came back in line and they rushed back to their posts and back to secure the Lady’s safety. We had to move fast. We entered a large kitchen with all the toys and delicacies money could buy. None of that interested me.

  What really caught my attention was the unguarded back door leading outside. My luck hadn’t failed me yet. Freedom was in my grasp. I moved out of the shadows to become washed in the moonlight, and hustled to the door. But luck has a funny change of plans at times (always when you least expect it). Three massive men came around the corner fewer than ten feet away, and spotted me like a deer in headlights.

  “Hey, stop!” shouted one of them. He reached into his coat pocket and revealed the handle of a gun. I dove forward in a tackle, slamming my left shoulder into his chest as I grabbed his hand reaching for the gun.

  I forced the mobster back under my tackle and into the far wall. I pulled back just enough to throw in a strong right jab into his jaw. The blow left my hand screaming in pain. Punching someone in the face hurts…a lot. I was lucky I didn’t break the bones in my fist against the Noble’s tough face. It felt like punching a brick. As hard as I hit him, the mobster recovered quickly and countered with a punch into my gut.

  I reeled and lost my grip on his wrist. I saw the gun come up and point toward me. I swiped it away with my left arm and drove my right elbow upward just below the bridge of his nose. His head snapped back under the force and I followed up by grabbing his head with both hands and driving it downward into my knee cap.

  The thug dropped the gun and fell to his knees. I finally knocked him out with a right hook to the side of his eye socket, one of the most fragile places on a human skull; it’s easily fractured, which is very painful. I looked over to see Chamberlain dust his hands off over two unconscious thugs at his feet.

  “How did you take both out so quickly?” I asked, shocked.

  He looked at me as if my question were bizarre and said, “I knocked their heads together.” He said so while demonstrating the motion with his hands.

  I whistled and said, “I’m glad you’re on my side.”

  He smiled, teeth flashing white in the dark. Looking at the two men at his feet one more time, shaking my head as my hand throbbed, we turned to rush out the door.

  Only the wall that wrapped around Alexandra’s property separated us from freedom. The wall stood about eight feet high, an easy enough climb for both Chamberlain and me if we could reach it. With fists pumping and heavy breaths, I sprinted to the wall. Shouts and gunshots rang out behind us. Clouds of dust flew up around me and the wall was pelted with bullet holes. I didn’t stop; I kept running.

  A small birdfeeder sat by the wall. I dashed directly to it. I leapt up, placed one foot on the birdfeeder, and used it to launch myself higher into the air at the wall. My momentum pushed me forward to roll up, across, and over the wall to the other side. I hit the street asphalt in a face down plop. The street tasted bitter and rough and mixed with blood in my mouth. Chamberlain landed next to me, seemingly unharmed. I wanted to just lie there and sleep away the night.

  Chamberlain slapped me on the shoulder and yanked me up onto my feet. Together we sprinted into the nearest alley where we found the old sedan parked and waiting for us. Guns pelted down around us as mobsters came around the corner and took positions above the wall to shoot at us.

  Never was I happier to see that little beat-up car as we dodged about trying to avoid all the gunfire. I threw open the passenger side door and dove inside. Chamberlain jumped behind the wheel. I thought I heard a few bullets hit the sedan. Chamberlain didn’t hesitate to insert his keys, fire the engine, and throw the car into drive. With screeching tires, we whipped out of the alley, accelerated around the curve, and shot away like a bat out of hell with gunshots ringing behind us.

  Taking it to be safe, I lay back against the headrest out of breath, feeling the adrenaline leave my body. It took a while before I scrambled around in the passenger seat to check my body for gunshot wounds. I may not have ever felt them with all that adrenaline pumping through my system. A deep sigh of relief escaped my lips once I realized Chamberlain and I were unharmed.

  Then my heart skipped a beat seeing the bottom of my duster.

  “Oh, no! Tell me they did not,” I said as I lifted up the bottom of the duster in a panic.

  “What! What is it?” asked Chamberlain in a panic.

  I stuck my fingers through two bullet holes, and said, “They ruined my favorite coat.”

  Chamberlain stared at me in disbelief. Then, of all things he could have said or done, he chose to laugh. It started as a small chuckle that quickly grew so deep that I believe it surprised him. I stared at him confused for a second before I, too, started to laugh. We must have looked like two delirious fools to any passing cars, but I didn’t ca
re. I was in shock that we made it out alive.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When the dust had settled after the Abandoned War, the land was ravaged, and much of it became uninhabitable or deadly to travel. Reconstruction began with the establishment of territories and later trade routes through safe passages free of radioactivity. Eventually, the Noble Empire rose and conquered territories one-by-one, using the trade routes to their strategic advantage.

  Chicago was a crucial point of interest. It sits at the only safe passage to what’s known as the Northern Territories. Every other access required travel through heavily radiated wastelands. For those in the Northern Territories, this insured their independence and resistance to the Empire’s expansion, providing them with a singular point upon land at which they could defend and prevent the Emperor’s men from getting access into their lush barbaric lands.

  However, since the imprisonment of the Northern Territories’ former king, Damien Waters, and the land falling into a system of ruling warlords, we’ve experienced peace for nearly two decades. The Empire used that dysfunctional government to fuel their own economic goals and the docks quickly became a market hub for trade with various warlords who sought some means of advantage over their neighbors. Because of that, businesses at the docks made a killing in profits, and Lake Michigan was filled with boats of all shapes and sizes traveling from coast to coast every day with various legal and illegal shipments.

  Of course, that only improved Chicago’s worth to the Empire, because without Chicago and its transportation ports, the Empire would lose its economic and strategic advantage over the Northern Territories. If the Empire couldn’t conquer the barbarians, they would settle for playing the puppeteer. Therefore, the dock workers were often highly watched and regulated by imperial standards, and often hand-picked for their lethality and cunning. Yet despite this there was a massive level of smuggling that went on at the docks. Smugglers transported weapons and drugs and even slaves back and forth between the two lands.

  Ask too many of the wrong questions there and you’d find yourself “swimming with the fishes,” regardless whether you were Noble or Outcast. Even the NPFC avoided the place out of fear of harming such a strong source of Imperial control and economic gain.

  So of course, despite all the danger warnings to stay away, I found myself nowhere else but among the shipping crates, with Chamberlain at my side as always. At least I was smart enough to arm myself. Those who worked there were more shoot first, ask questions later, and if those people were being asked to vacate their jobs to make room for a more private security company, odds were the security company personnel were more dangerous and less forgiving.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Chamberlain. “If things go bad it will be us against a small army. Even those odds might tempt someone like you to back down.”

  I shook my head and laughed as I patted him on the shoulder. I asked, “Chamberlain, My Old Friend, when have I ever turned down a challenge? We’ll be fine. Trust me. Have I ever let you down?”

  He tapped his chin in thought and said, “Well…two weeks ago you forgot to pick me up after you borrowed my car. A month before that you forgot about my birthday. Three weeks before that you—”

  “—It was a rhetorical question, Chamberlain.”

  “Oh, and then you asked Alison to help us tonight even when I explicitly asked you not to.”

  I winced. He was right. But, I honestly had no choice. “We needed her. She’s the only one who could have approached her contact and gotten us inside past the gate. Otherwise we would have had to fight our way in. But now look at us, inside the gates without any confrontation as we wait for Alison to return from her contact.”

  He crossed his arms and said, “That doesn’t mean I have to like all this.”

  I shrugged and said, “I wouldn’t expect you too. Hey, I don’t like it either, but we don’t have much of a choice here.”

  “Will the two of you be quiet already? They’re coming your way,” said Gabriel through our earpieces.

  He and Michael sat comfortably a couple of streets away in a large getaway van. They kept watch over us through the dock’s security system. Thanks once again to Alison’s contact, they were able to gain access through backdoor channels into the dock’s tech systems. The best part was that they were able to control what the dock’s main security was seeing on their screens, which made us invisible to all cameras except our own. I’m sure Michael could have done that on his own, but the access code we were given belonged to a dock worker and therefore couldn’t be traced back to us. Unfortunately, all this help cost a pretty penny and came out of our earnings from the bank heist the night before.

  I’m still bitter about that.

  “Yeah, yeah, we’re on it” I said with a roll of my eyes. That got a smirk from Chamberlain.

  “And wipe that grin off your face, Griffon,” spat back Gabriel. That just made Chamberlain’s smirk bigger.

  Not a minute later, we heard Alison’s pleading voice heading our way. “Please, they went this way! You’ve got to help me, they stole my purse!”

  “Take it easy ma’am. Once we find these guys we’ll get your purse back.”

  The poor fool, falling for the oldest trick in the book—a “damsel” in distress leading foolish men into a trap.

  You can’t beat the classics.

  I almost felt sorry for the man and whoever was with him.

  Chamberlain and I slipped deeper into the darkness. Oblivious, they strode past our shipping crate. There were four men, and each was armed.

  Chamberlain struck first, swinging Council like a baseball bat. It hit the man in the front and knocked him clear off his feet to crash into the man behind him before falling to the ground. The man was knocked unconscious by the sheer force of the blow.

  The two in the rear of the group froze, giving me the chance to make my move. I crashed into the group. Swinging my metal bo staff, I clipped the closest man under the jaw and swung back around to lift him off his feet. He fell backward giving me room to go at the next man.

  The man fumbled to draw his gun and started to raise it up before I swung and sent the gun flying. He stared at it in bewilderment as I whipped the bo staff around and landed a three-strike combo—hitting him across the ribs, the knees, and then the temple of his skull. He dropped and headed off to la-la land.

  The first man I attacked pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and reached for a gun at his belt. I brought the bo staff into a quick upper cut motion and struck the man just below the nose. I saw blood and teeth go flying before he, too, traveled to la-la land. I turned around to check on Chamberlain, seeing how he took care of his two so quickly that he leaned on his club like a cane and watched me.

  I hate when he does that.

  “Show off.”

  He shrugged. “Just admiring your work.”

  “Well, you two clean up nicely,” said Alison as she slipped to Chamberlain’s side.

  He wrapped his big arm around her tiny waist and kissed her on the forehead. “Hey, Honey, it’s good to see you this evening. How was work? By the way, you look ravishing,” he said as if we were anywhere but there.

  I wasn’t sure if he tried to lighten the mood in our dangerous situation or if he honestly lacked fear of death.

  Alison’s cheeks bloused crimson red and she said, “Just fine, Champ. Shouldn’t we be focusing on the task at hand?”

  “Ah, but why when you look so stunning in this moonlight,” Chamberlain said with a wink.

  “That’s enough with the foolery. The three of you have got to move quickly. You can’t stand around gawking at each other. Deal with the mission first and there will be plenty of time for the foolishness when you make it out of there,” said Gabriel.

  “That’s quite the remark coming from a guy who protested us coming here tonight in the first place. What was it that you said? ‘Someone else’s secret tea party doesn’t constitute involvement with Ziavir nor our int
ervention’,” I said into my headset.

  “And I stand by what I said. I’m only here tonight to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

  “Ah, he really does care about us,” joked Alison.

  “Guys, I agree with Gabriel. You do not know what you are walking into. It could be a trap. Or Ziavir could be there with an army. The three of you cannot stand up against a force that size. This is too dangerous,” said Michael.

  “Trust me, everyone, I’ve been hearing that all night and it hasn’t stopped me yet,” I said with a smile to Chamberlain.

  “Prudence keeps life safe, but not necessarily happy,” said Chamberlain in agreement.

  “Besides, this is merely a reconnaissance mission. We are simply observing and gathering evidence and then getting out. If Ziavir is there then we’ll report his whereabouts to the authorities and let them come in and arrest everyone. Kraine might have ordered the NPFC to forget about Ziavir, but I know two detectives who are very interested in finding Ziavir for themselves,” I said.

  “So, you’ll just step aside then and let them do their jobs?” asked Michael.

  “Of course,” I lied, noticeably.

  “Why do I have a hard time believing that he will just step aside,” whispered Alison to Chamberlain.

  “Because you’re smarter than Griffon thinks he is,” Chamberlain whispered back to her.

  “I can hear you,” I grumbled.

  Alison chuckled and quickly said, “Gabriel’s still right, though. It’s only a matter of hours or minutes before Alexandra’s crew comes here looking for the two of you. Best we get in and out before they show up and start shooting or alert this private security team that there are intruders around.”

  I sighed and nodded. She was right. Alexandra knew we were going down there that night, and I knew she wasn’t the type to be tricked and played without a bad eventual outcome.

  “You’re right,” I said as we turned and progressed deeper into the shipyard.

  Chamberlain whispered, “You know I’ve been thinking—”