Chapter Five: Kai
“Kempton isn’t one of my favorite spots,” Kai said, as Noah propelled him down the street. His head ached, not only in his forehead where Noah had punched him, but also in the back where it had smashed into the wooden dock.
“Yeah, but you were going to the Commercial District which is, and, by telling you not to go to your favorite places I made you pick a different way of getting there. In fact, I practically told you to go to Kempton, because you would expect the T-Man to know about Cambridge and Greene, so this was the only other option. I’ve been resting in that boat ever since I woke you this morning,” Noah said.
Kai couldn’t see Noah’s face and was glad Noah couldn’t see his. Noah was a year older, but somehow he had grown taller, broader and more muscular in the last four months. Even on a good day back then he hadn’t been able to win a wrestling match with Noah. Kai scuffed his worn shoes against the concrete and slowed his pace.
“This way.” Noah jerked Kai’s arm to the right, his hold somehow tightening more. It didn’t help that Noah knew all of his tricks and had been the one to teach him half of them.
“What does the T-Man want me for?” Kai asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Whatever happened to Shawn, Luke and Valerie? He should have enough help without needing to hound me.”
“Luke was tagged a week ago, Valerie went to prison camp, and Shawn died last night. He fell from the fourth story of a house and landed on his head.” Noah half snorted at the last part.
“Well, you didn’t waste any time coming to find me,” Kai said.
“You should be glad he’s taken an interest in you. He asked for you personally. Besides, finding kids who haven’t been tagged is getting harder and harder, unless we want to start targeting seven year olds and even some of them are tainted,” Noah said. His hand squeezed harder around Kai’s forearm.
Kai didn’t say anything. Whatever the T-Man wanted him for would be a one-way ticket to getting tagged and then prison camp or death, like Shawn. He wouldn’t be free much longer if he let the T-Man control him.
Up until now he had been able to steer clear of the T-Man’s gang, or more likely they had not cared enough about him to do more than offer him a polite invitation to join, which he always declined. That and the fact he had no family to worry about, unlike Noah whose six younger siblings, drunk father and sick mother always needed extra ways to buy food. This was the only time Kai was thankful he had no one to care about, no one the T-Man could use against him or hurt to make him do whatever he wanted.
Two minutes of silence later they halted outside of a worn-down warehouse. Noah rapped on the steel door five times and looked up at the small, black circle where the camera hid on the doorframe, definitely not one of the governments since they positioned theirs on every corner for all to see. The whole time Noah kept a tight hold of Kai’s arm, even though Kai had relaxed his muscles.
“It’s about time you got here. The T-Man is getting impatient,” said a voice from a speaker hidden near the door. There was a thundering click and one of the doors popped out an inch. Noah grabbed it with his free hand and yanked it wide open. Kai slowly walked through the opening and tried not to jump when the door banged shut, the automatic lock clicking back into place. For better or, more likely, worse, he was stuck. Their footsteps echoed in the large building. Although he had never been there he had heard of the T-Man’s warehouse. This was where all of his important projects were headed. Only the T-Man’s most trusted gang members were allowed in here, and those who were going to disappear forever.
Four years ago no one had heard of the T-Man. He just appeared and started to take over what was left of the slum gangs. He brought together the biggest group of hardened criminals and pushed all of the other competition into joining him, moving on to a different city or disappeared forever. Most joined his ranks. Since his jobs called for dangerous situations, the size and members of the gang were always changing as some went to prison camp and some to the colony. All who remained in his gang were those extremely loyal to the T-Man, everyone else had faded away.
In fact, the authorities were probably grateful that the T-Man had taken over. Instead of the small, but steady stream of crime they used to deal with, there would be two or three big jobs a year, at least, as far as they knew. The T-Man always kept a number of young teens to run smaller jobs, until they were tagged. Kai was lucky to have avoided attention for so long.
They entered an open room with large, gray, wooden crates against the walls.
“You can sit there until the T-Man is ready for you,” Noah said. He shoved Kai in the direction of a lone, metal chair sitting in front of the wall of wooden crates. Kai walked over and slowly sat down; the chair squeaked and groaned as the metal frame adjusted to hold his weight. His half-dry pants made the metal seat feel colder than it was.
The warehouse was dimly lit by a square window three stories up and by big, round fluorescent lights, half of which had died. Because of the old model of these lights Kai doubted they would ever be replaced. The light directly above Kai was one of the dead lights, almost like the T-Man didn’t want anyone to see what happened under it. The lights on both sides still worked and cast exaggerated shadows of Kai and the chair onto the crate behind him.
There was a loud bang from a room on the third story and a figure clomped down the metal stairs to the bottom floor.
“Is he coming?” Noah asked.
“He’s on his way.” The man stepped under one of the lights and Kai immediately noticed his light brown hair and hooked nose. They had never officially met, but he knew it was Jackknife Johnson; Johnson either being the guy’s first or last name. Kai didn’t know which and with Jackknife’s reputation he wasn’t going to ask. Jackknife was the T-Man’s second-in-command and, if the rumors were right, he was more violent than the T-Man himself. His was also the voice they had heard at the door.
“Here,” Jackknife said, and he tossed a torn chunk of bread into Noah’s chest. Noah caught it awkwardly and looked at it. The scent caught up to Kai’s nose making his stomach rumble and he looked away as Noah bit into it like he hadn’t eaten in days.
There was a loud bang at the door and Jackknife disappeared again. The door opened and four men emerged: Red, Brandons, and the Pontelli brothers, John and James. The brothers looked like twins, they weren’t. John was older by fourteen months, but both had the same black hair and the same eyes that were so dark Kai thought they were black too. As they came into the light Kai noticed that even the holes in their clothing were the same. Both brothers had a rip in their left pant legs and a two-inch hole in the side of their t-shirts. The only difference between the two was that one had a fresh rip in his right sleeve, but which one it was Kai didn’t know.
Brandons rushed over to a table set up with a bunch of high-tech electronic equipment, the kind of new stuff Kai wouldn’t see on the streets for another twenty or thirty years. He flipped switches and typed on the keyboards, all the time muttering about having to get up early and something about not being an errand boy.
The brothers leaned against the crates to Kai’s right while Jackknife and Red moved to those on the left. Red glared at him without blinking and Kai gave him a mock smile before shifting away in his chair; it creaked, echoing loudly in the big room.
Noah had already eaten half of the bread Jackknife gave him, but when he caught Kai watching him he broke what was left in half and tossed one of the pieces to Kai. Catching it eagerly, Kai was about to stuff the whole thing in his mouth when a hand snatched it away.
“We aren’t a bread kitchen,” Red said. His mouth twisted in a smug smile as he tossed the bread to the brother with the ripped sleeve. Noah shrugged like he didn’t care, but the skin around his eyes tightened. Kai relaxed his shoulders and tried not to think about the bread. At least now the T-Man couldn’t say he owed him, though the thought did little to comfort the pain in his stomach.
&nbs
p; The doors opened again, this time without the assistance of Jackknife, and two men walked in. Both were shorter around 5’8” and 5’10”. The smaller man was called Kiwi. He was built like a bulldog, short and stocky with muscles bulging everywhere under his dark skin, even in his neck, which looked like it might be bigger than Kai’s thigh.
The taller guy was the T-Man. For as much as Kai had heard about the reigning king of the streets, he was a bit disappointed. The T-Man was of average build, he looked strong and fit, but like he would be more comfortable in a turtle neck with a text book under one arm and a girl in the other, not like the kind of guy who would carry a knife and overpower a man in a dark alley. His dark brown hair was closely cropped and if it wasn’t for the commanding swagger in his step Kai would have thought he was another new recruit like Brandons.
“Kai Garrett,” the T-Man said, flashing a row of white teeth. “You came.”
“Yeah, didn’t really have a choice in the matter. What do you want?” Kai asked. He didn’t feel in the mood to play dumb and wanted the suspense to be over.
The T-Man’s smile grew wider. He grabbed a chair from Brandons’ table and swiveled it within five feet of Kai.
“I want you to steal something for me,” he said, sitting in the chair, but never taking his eyes off of Kai.
Kai almost laughed. It figured. “Like what?”
“A ruby.”
“No chance!” Kai thought it was a joke. Start off by telling the new guy an impossible task and then warm him up to what they really want. Kai would have laughed; the T-Man’s face remained an immovable rock.
“But--but not just any ruby, Danny,” Brandons said.
The T-Man swiveled his head around and gave Brandons a pointed look.
Brandons just shrugged like he couldn’t help it. He came around the table holding up a clear gem about the size of a small stone. “It has to be a--a Betan ruby and it has to be at the very least five carats, six would be preferred. But only a Betan ruby will do, because it has to have the dark center that looks like a star. Earth rubies don’t have that.”
Kai glanced at Noah and then Jackknife. There was no trace of a smile on either of their faces. If anyone would be enjoying this joke it would be Red, but all he did was frown and spit when Kai turned to him. A slow, sinking feeling that they really had chased him all morning to steal a five-carat ruby overcame his hunger and made his stomach feel sick.
“Oh, well, since it’s only a five carat rubyno.” Kai started to rise from his chair. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something moving toward him fast, but before he could duck Red’s fist slammed into the left side of his face. White light flashed before his eyes. Just what he needed a new area of his head to throb, like the front and back weren’t enough. Maybe one of the brothers would punch his right side and complete the circle.
“Sit down,” the T-Man said, his voice cold and detached. “Let’s talk about it.”
“No. I’m not going to be one of your guys. Nothing you do or have will make me change my mind.” Kai remained standing.
This time when Red’s fist started to swing toward him he was ready for it and rolled away. Another hand grabbed his shirt and threw him into the wooden crates. Kai struggled to get to his feet, but not before Red slugged him in the stomach. Jackknife’s hand closed around his neck and Kai felt his body being lifted off the ground. He tried to kick, but Red grabbed his legs and held them tight.
“What about your life?” Jackknife asked, his voice deep and low. “Do you want to keep that?”
The pressure on Kai’s neck increased. He felt the blood in his head pumping to get out but his throat was closed and was being flattened into the crate. His lungs began to burn like they did after being under the water for nine minutes. As he struggled to jar Jackknife’s grip loose, black spots started swimming before his eyes. His eyelids began to flutter when he heard the T-Man’s voice say, “Enough.”
Immediately, Jackknife let go and Kai crumpled to the concrete floor. When he stopped breathing heavily and most of the throbbing had left his head, Kai glared up at the men surrounding him. Red’s hands clenched into fists, relaxed and then tightened again, like he couldn’t decide if he would obey the T-Man’s order or not. Jackknife leaned against the crates as if he had done nothing more in the last five minutes than clean his fingernails.
“Why don’t you sit down in the chair and at least listen to what I have to offer,” the T-Man said.
Kai pushed off of the floor and let his body sag into the chair. The metal seat still felt cold.
“You may be right that nothing I have can make you change your mind, but what I have as a reward for you is not a sparkling jewel, or a stack of money. I’m talking about answers to questions you have lived with your entire life.” The T-Man leaned back in his chair, a closed, confident smile on his face.
Kai didn’t say anything, but his heart beat faster in his chest.
“I know your mother’s name, why she left you and where she is at this very minute.” The T-Man’s words filled the warehouse with a deafening silence.
The room began to spin. Kai had a hard time keeping the millions of questions he struggled with over his lifetime from leaping out. Instead he tried to focus. How had the T-Man found these things out? Was he only playing Kai to get what he wanted? What if this was a trick? How would he know if it wasn’t?
Kai never knew his parents. Sure he had some vague memories, but they didn’t make sense. He had been left in the taxi waiting for Father Merrick, the director of an orphanage, with a note pinned on his shirt saying, “Never tell him the truth.” Father Merrick collected the video footage from the cab and Kai had seen the video himself along with the note one day when Father Merrick was out. Aside from the fact it was a woman there, her face was hidden the whole time, as she placed a young boy on the seat and closed the door. The video showed no other distinguishable marks, nothing that would help him to find out where he came from or who he really was. Kai had assumed it was his mother, but it could easily have been an aunt, nurse, family friend or a stranger who found him. Even his name held no clue since it had been given to him by the orphanage.
“I was told,” the T-Man glanced over his shoulder at Noah, “if I wanted your help I would need a different kind of persuasion. So I did some digging at your old orphanage. The taxi’s security video didn’t tell me much, but I was able to pull the video feeds from the old grocery store down the street and Greggor’s Pub a block away. Both show the woman’s face and from there it was quite easy to pull up all the information there ever was on her. I have her name, address, account information, birth place, parents’ names and recorded conversations she had weeks before you were abandoned. I know everything. And I will tell you all I know when you bring me a ruby, a five-carat Betan ruby.”
Kai concentrated on breathing. His hands tighten around the steel frame on the seat of his chair. He had a mother waiting out there for him to find, a family he would belong to. A hunger inside him screamed for him to accept. How hard could it be to locate and steal a five-carat ruby?
Was he really considering this?
The T-Man smiled, stood from his chair and said, “You don’t have to give me your answer this second. I thought I might let you think about it, so we’re going to let you go now. Don’t bother letting me know what you decide. I will need the ruby in four days, by this Friday, or I will forget the answers to who you are. My finger will press delete on all the video feeds and I’m going to forget why I want you alive.”
Then the T-Man leaned over Kai and whispered in his ear, “If I were you I would think long and hard before you abandon the only family you have left. I lost a sister once and there isn’t a day that goes by when I wished I had done something to stop it. Do yourself a favor and think about my offer.”
The T-Man turned and walked to the stairs. Two hands grabbed under Kai’s armpits and before he had a chance to process what happened he was standing outside of the warehouse with the near
sun drying his clothes.
“I’ll enjoy finding you when you fail,” Red said, just before the door slammed shut.
“He didn’t say if,” Kai muttered to himself. Suddenly the weight of what he had to do hit him. He had to steal a five-carat ruby in five days or run for his life. Now that the T-Man had singled him out there was no other choice, either do what he wanted or face the consequences. Kai didn’t think he was big enough for the T-Man to send guys chasing him around the planet, let alone the galaxy, unless he was going to be made an example of, a warning for anyone else who might think to run. He could make it to Space City before the five days ran out, but then he would never know about his mother.
Kai started down the street, mostly because he wanted to get away from the T-Man’s video surveillance. His fists had balled sometime after being picked off his chair, but Kai couldn’t remember when; they might have done so voluntarily when they couldn’t hold onto his seat. Slowly his fingers unwound and the muscles in his hands relaxed.
He wanted to know about his past more than he had ever wanted anything; almost more than he wanted life itself. Knowing the answers existed revived a part of him that he had given up on and buried deep inside. His whole world had been built upon the fact that his past was unknown, now that world had collapsed around him like a house of cards caught in a drain.
At that moment Kai decided he would give it a try. If he could find a ruby big enough and steal it, he would, but if he couldn’t find one, at least he had tried and he could run with a clear conscience toward the empty hole inside. The big problem would be how to find a ruby that he could come into contact with. The security was tight in the Elite District. He wouldn’t be able to watch any of the rich homes for a prolonged period of time and stealing from a jewelry store was completely out of the question. His best bet would be to find someone wearing a ruby.
Instead of heading to the Elite or Commercial Districts, Kai turned toward Old Highton. It was a tourist hotspot and tourists had two important traits. They were rich and they were distracted, easy targets for someone as experienced on the streets as he was. Not that Kai made it a habit of stealing; he only stole as a last resort. Ever since the bread kitchen opened on Gilbert Street and offered meal tokens he hadn’t needed to steal to eat.
There were sometimes when he missed a meal or two, but he knew the kitchen would be there and he would make sure he was too when the next meal was available. To Kai, stealing for anything aside from survival was dangerous, especially because of the legal consequences. In his short lifetime he had never stolen anything more than a few hundred bucks. Stealing this ruby would be the biggest, and most dangerous, job he had ever done.
It was nearing ten o’clock and the early crowd was just beginning to appear as Kai started down Colony Way, the main road in historic Old Highton. Three main tour groups walked down the street exclaiming over the old fashioned buildings, taking videos, and trying to cover up yawns. Many of the shops wouldn’t open until twelve so Kai picked a spot where he could watch the restaurants and shops with food, the kind of places tourists would like to eat breakfast.
Soon tourists began to appear from all directions, first smaller groups and then the big tours. Kai scanned each person for a red jewel. He didn’t really remember what the size of five carats looked like, but he knew it would be big. There were big gems of all colors in the long necklaces, fat rings and even hair jewelry of the tourists. After seeing five red gems without the dark star Kai began to wonder if the Betan ruby was rare.
He sighed and leaned against the corner of the building as yet another woman with a regular ruby necklace walked by. The crowds thinned out. Most were probably eating by now. A thought that reminded Kai he had missed the kitchen’s breakfast and by now most of the meal tickets for the rest of the day would be gone. Pulling the rope he used for a belt tighter around his waist, he resolved himself to a long day.
A red bearded man walked by on the far side of the street and Kai caught a bright flash of red from the hand. He looked closer at the man’s hand and thought he saw something dark in the center of the ruby ring on his finger. The size of the ruby looked big to Kai, bigger than many of the jewels he had seen that morning and his stomach tightened with a feeling aside from hunger. He had found it.
The man disappeared into a bread shop and Kai waited up the street for the man to emerge. Ten minutes later the man came out heading back the way he had come, carrying a bag with long loaves sticking out in the other hand. Kai waited for him to pass and then walked in step behind him inching forward until he could almost reach out and touch the man’s ring hand. Then, pretending to trip, Kai grabbed the man’s ring and felt it plop into his palm. It was much easier than he feared it would be.
The White Lilac Page 5
