Then the recording ended, leaving Mikkel and I in silence staring at the phone.
"What an asshole," said Mikkel.
Later in the day, I decided the call had made me angry enough that I hated Ezra more than Minerva. I forwarded Jessica the email, knowing that there were probably all sort of computer tracing and forensics MT might do that I could not. She got back to me a day later.
"I thought I'd do you the courtesy of letting you know our results," said Jessica. "There's good news and bad news. The good news is we were able to trace the email back to its source. It originally came from a mail server in the network for Kurogawa Heavy Industries in Tokyo. The bad news is this means that we can't touch him. KHI is one of MT's biggest competitors. Because of their ties to the Japanese government, we have no influence in Japan. If they have him setup with a research lab there, he is effectively protected from anything we could do."
"So what, Minerva's not doing anything about him?" I said.
"Oh, we want to," she said. "But we can't. Unless something changes in Japan's politics, he beat us. We can't touch him there. We can't do a damn thing unless he leaves Japan, which he knows better than to do. That's why he's gloating. But of course, if you hear anything else, let us know. We would gladly take him down if we could."
I put down the phone in a foul mood. I hated Ezra already. Knowing he could gloat with impunity just made me more angry. If Mikkel had been at home when Jessica had called, maybe things would have been different. Maybe I wouldn't have been in such a dark place. Maybe I wouldn't have acted out of anger. Maybe revenge wouldn't have meant so much to me. Maybe I wouldn't have done something he would never have approved of. Maybe I wouldn't have kept it from him.
I reached into my bag and pulled out a slip of paper I had been keeping hidden. I hadn't told Mikkel about it. But when we were in the Clark Building in the Patient Zero room, when the revenant pulled me close to him, he had put a slip of paper in my pocket.
The revenant hated Ezra - possibly far more than we would ever. Ezra had experimented on the revenant. And that revenant wanted Ezra to pay greatly for what he had done. I knew the revenant could act where Minerva Technics could not. I also knew that he wouldn't settle for mere justice. The revenant wanted only vengeance, and woe to those caught in that darkness. Woe to Ezra.
I typed in the email address that was written on the piece of paper. I wrote a simple message: Ezra in Tokyo. Kurogawa Heavy Industries.
Then I clicked send.
About the Author
Dennis Liggio is the author of eight books, including the Damned Lies series, The Lost and the Damned, and the novella Cthulhu, Private Investigator. He is a veteran of the game industry, enjoys long walks on the beach while thumbing through tomes of unspeakable evil, and rumor has it that if you say his name three times in front of a mirror at midnight he will appear and give you Hostess Fruit Pies. He writes primarily in the genres of geeky absurdist humor, horror, and urban fantasy. He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and two furry monsters.
www.dennisliggio.com
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Books by Dennis Liggio
Damned Lies
Damned Lies is the true story of things that never happened. It is a fictional memoir of fantastic events. It is a chronicle of self-cloning, of adventure, of magic, of bare-fisted hobo boxing tournaments, of zombies, and more. It's the autobiography of a wild summer adventure out beyond the fields we know. It's the secret of what's hidden in a government bunker, it's the story of helping a nun with a crossbow hunt a vampire, it's the explanation of why you can't have that death ray you really wanted. It's a cautionary tale of just why cloning yourself is a really terrible idea.
Damned Lies is a big fish story for those who don't fish. It's a shaggy dog story for cat lovers. It's the scifi fantasy humor memoir we'll all wish we dictated on our deathbed. It's why we can't have nice things.
Damned Lies Strike Back
Damned Lies Strike Back follows in the great tradition of sequels in that it is bigger, bolder, and dripping with franchise potential. Like a good sequel, it answers all the unanswered questions of the original (except for the ones it doesn't). It is exactly the sequel this world needs.
This time around, our intrepid hero and friends battle the evil apocalyptic plans of his homicidal clone and a dangerous cult. At the same time he is facing his clone in the present day, he recounts the story of his first year in college where he formed a mystery gang to stop the nefarious plot of evil college professors. It all leads to a climactic sword fight and then a desperate epic battle against a true evil that we all know well...
Damned Lies of the Dead 3D
Damned Lies of the Dead 3D is not the zombie novel we need, but it's the zombie novel we deserve. In 1995, Austin, Texas was nearly wiped out by a zombie outbreak. This fact has been long suppressed, but the truth cannot be silenced. Now there is a firsthand account from our intrepid hero of just what happened... and how he survived. Only the dead know the truth...
The Lost and the Damned
There is a darkness waking up in the Bellingham mental hospital. Around this evil, the building is twisting and distorting, becoming a place of monsters and murders. With each death, the darkness grows stronger. Doors are opening to other times and other places, reality is shifting.
Into this comes John Keats, a private detective more accustomed to catching infidelity than missing persons. In pursuit of a half a million dollar bounty, he has tracked down missing rock star Katie Vanders to Bellingham, but he has no idea what waits inside. It should have been easy money: go in, get the girl, and leave. But now that he is in the hospital, he has no way out. The exits are blocked, the hospital is falling apart, and something is chasing him. Even after finding Katie, there is no escape from this trap. His rescue mission has become a game of survival as the hospital twists apart across time and space.
As deadly secrets are uncovered, a malevolent intelligence is awakening. Can John and Katie figure out how to stop it and escape the hospital, or will they find themselves forever lost in darkness?
Voices of Madness
WHAT IF GOD WENT MAD?
Compelled by screaming voices, sorcerer William Drake travels across America in a desperate attempt to resurrect a god. His activities disrupt the lives of four unlikely heroes - an armchair occultist, a Taoist exorcist, a college dropout, and a punk rock musician - who band together in an awkward alliance to thwart his plan.
Will they stop him in time? Or will the voices succeed in compelling their puppet Drake to do the unthinkable?
Find out in this standalone prequel to The Lost and the Damned!
Cowards and Killers
"In the end, most of humanity are one of two things: cowards or killers."
When Michael died, there was no Heaven waiting for him, no eternal rest. There were only two choices: Hell or killing his fellow man. Waking up after death in his own bed, he began receiving calls from a mysterious voice. The voice offers a simple option: become an assassin and kill those it designates. Refuse and the power that keeps him in the world will be removed... and he'll go straight to Hell.
Coward or killer, he accepts the deal. In a black suit and tie that conceals his identity with a black gun that never runs out of bullets, he is their assassin. But he is not alone: there are other tortured souls who have agreed to the same bargain. They are all Hell-bound; only by killing their targets before the timers on their phones count down do they postpone their fate.
But this is a fate Michael won't accept. Together with other agents, he plots to rebel against the mysterious voice and the blood-soaked deal. But can they really win this fight when the voice holds all the cards? With each kill, his humanity slips away. Is there a way to escape, or do all roads lead to Hell?
Cthulhu, Private Investigator
Cthulhu's partner, Dagon, has been found floating dead in the water at
the docks. The Elder Gods have given him three days to find Dagon's killer, or Cthulhu is going to take the fall for it. Starting on the trail of a femme fatale that had hired Dagon, Cthulhu begins searching for the Pnakotic manuscripts and finds himself on everyone's hitlist. Navigating a web of lies and betrayal, he becomes involved with a rogue's gallery of untrustworthy Old Ones who are after the coveted Silver Key. As things hurtle towards their inevitable confusion, he discovers to what deadly lengths the others will go to obtain the Key.
Confession to a Friend
"I think I killed somebody out there."
Two men went on a motorcycle journey across the American Southwest in search of adventure and spiritual liberation. But something went wrong. Only one returned.
What happened out in the lonely deserts of New Mexico?
Balls
"Tell me about your balls."
He's self obsessed - particularly with one part of his anatomy. He's an underwear model, an adjunct professor, and a ladies' man. Tonight he's got a problem with a fan who is a little too interested in what he's got under the hood. Do you want to hear about his balls?
Excerpt from Damned Lies
Worst Date Ever
The date was going poorly.
She was telling me that she collects commemorative plates. Do you know what commemorative plates are? They're small dinner plates that aren't meant to be eaten on. Instead, they do limited runs of plates with certain images to make note of certain events like the bicentennial of America, some battleship you never heard of having an anniversary, some 70s pop star's birthday, or the invention of the rainbow. Then they go on TV late at night and they shill these in those "order now to receive" commercials that plague you when you're up too late with insomnia watching MASH for some reason. She collects those things. It somehow hurt my brain that such things still existed and that people actually pay money to keep the commemorative-plates-for-suckers industry alive.
Naturally, I was more interested in trying to figure out why she would collect such a thing rather than actually listening to her. I decided she was either a pure old-fashioned Americana fan – the kind who has strawberry shortcake dolls and pewter unicorns all over the walls of their house to somehow show off that she's a young person with the soul of an eighty year old grandmother - or that she was a total stoner – unemployed and up at two in the morning, higher than a penthouse on Park Place, watching commercials for the Franklin Mint that were sandwiched between commercials for Jesus rock compilations and Girls Gone Wild. I wasn’t sure which she was, and neither was appealing. On the plus side, it was allowing me to focus on something other than her yammering.
Her name was Deborah, as in Deb-OR-ah, the OR heavily stressed with an unpleasant curving of her lips, as she specifically told me early on in our date. That's OR as in “coffee OR tea,” which was just as well, since she was a flight attendant. At first, that was an interesting quality. Everyone knows the stereotype of flight attendants being “easy” because they are always staying in strange cities and get lonely. Since they are flying away come the morning hours, commitment tended to be low and they were hot to trot. That's what I'd always heard, at least. Now as I was losing interest in her plate-fetish, my mind started to wander and I began to wonder if other parts of the flight attendant lifestyle spilled over to her regular life. While we’re in bed, will she ask if I need another pillow or a blanket? Does she have a button above her bed with a tiny picture of a flight attendant? I’d press the button, it would light up, and then she would roll over, press the button to turn it off, and ask if I needed a beverage or anything. “Uh, no,” I’d say, “I was actually wondering if you’d do that thing with your mouth again…”
She had long light blonde hair and very fair skin. She had blue eyes, but the really light blue eyes that look like silver. I do not know if you, Dear Reader, enjoy pale blue eyes, but I do not. They kind of creep me out. I'll admit, in the back of my mind I always wonder if they are aliens. Not for real in that "Oh my god, aliens are real, let's all hike to Roswell for a hippie campout until they come to take us back to the Alpha Centauri Youth Hostel" sort of way. More like, if I turned on the news one day and discovered that an alien sleeper organization headed by Marilu Henner had just come forward and demanded an exclusive concert with all the Canadian rock and roll greats, I wouldn't be surprised.
It was at this point I realized by her expectant look that she had asked me something I hadn't heard and was awaiting my reply. I tried to think of something neutral but affirmative, so I could pretend that I was listening. But I also didn’t want to end up replying to the wrong thing – “That’s great!” “I just told you about my mother’s cancer.” “Oh.” The tension was thick as she slowly began to realize (rightly) that I was not listening and I floundered for some acceptable response.
“Hello, I am Donald and I’ll be your waiter this evening. Would you like to start with drinks?”
Saved by the waiter! She immediately turned to him, taking the heat off me. If I had an audience, a Greek choir, or even one of those people translating into sign language on the corner of the screen, they were cheering for me; the sign language translator was shouting, “GOOOOOOOOOAAAALLL!” much to the chagrin of hearing impaired viewers everywhere.
We ordered our food, Deborah listening to the entire salad dressing list before settling on Ranch. I talked her out of an appetizer; so far this seemed like it was going to go badly, and the last thing I needed was for it to take even longer. I ordered a beer; there was no other way I was going to get through this date.
This date was not my idea. I did not find her via Facebook, I did not have her picked out as a possible soul mate by a dating site, nor did I answer an ad in the local paper. I can't even blame this at picking at the bowels of weirdness via Craigslist. No, I had been perfectly fine to sit home and entertain myself for the evening, probably surfing the internet as my entree, a dessert of, well, actual dessert, and a nightcap of porn. Instead, I was subjected to this date the old fashioned way: busy-body friends set it up for me without my knowledge and then they guilted me into going through with it. I have my old friend Bruce to blame for this imminent train wreck. Technically, his wife instigated the whole thing with a girl she had met a single time at her reading group, but the rules of matrimony and sex-withholding compelled Bruce to go along with it and involve me.
This was not the first time they had tried to set me up with someone. Despite all that experience attempting to find my perfect mate, their choice was consistently poor. In the past, they had set me up with a stripper, a single mother, and a woman who had an unnatural obsession with the Oscar Meyer Weiner song. The stripper was on meth, the single mother had vowed death to anything with a penis, and there’s only so much Oscar Meyer-related conversation I had in me. Let’s just say that at this point Bruce owes me so many apology favors that I’m pretty much family. Unfortunately, those favors still won't get me out of blind dates.
I wondered how much longer this date was going to go on. Unfortunately, with the advent of cell phones, I had, like many, stopped wearing a watch. The thing about watches is that they were nice to surreptitiously check the time on - a nice tilt of the wrist and you were fine. Since phones are usually in pockets, looking at the time is very obvious. I scanned the walls over her shoulder and while I saw fine, inoffensive restaurant landscapes, I saw no clocks. I looked over at other tables to see if someone else had their phone out. I tried to make eye contact with other young men so I could show them the pain in my soul with this date and get their pity so they'd show me the time on their phone. Alas, I was out of luck. So I slowly slid my phone out of my pocket. I tried to keep this as casual as possible, since she was talking and looking right at me. I kept staring into her eyes, nodding and saying “mmhmm”, waiting for her to show a sign of weakness and look away so I could steal a glance at the time.
“Uh huh.” “Yeah, sure.” “That’s very interesting.”
Her conversation stopped and she be
gan staring at me. I had no idea what she last said. My hand froze, the phone halfway out of my pocket. A false rictus smile stretched across my face. She still kept staring at me. I debated looking over her shoulder and smiling or yelling “What in the world is that!” to fake her out.
Once again, the waiter saved me. I made a mental note to tip him well and do some male-designated sign of solidarity like a fist bump with him before I left. He came with her salad, and she finally looked away from my deer in headlights impression. I quickly looked down at my phone, cursing the fact that the display had gone dim from inactivity. I darted a glance back at her to confirm she was distracted, then I jammed on the sluggish touch screen until it lit up. 7:30. I turned back to her quick enough to give her a strained smile.
She was currently telling me about her cat, Admiral Fluffynuggins and the cute way he drinks water. Normally I don’t call someone boring just because they like to talk about their beloved pet. But if I have to wonder if their pet outranks me or if it possibly fought in the Great War, I draw the line. She reached into her purse and produced a book of cat photos. It turns out Admiral Fluffynuggins loved boxes and laying around on furniture. Shocker!
I think that was the final straw. Yes, I admit that there was probably a huge amount of my own complicity in the date's disconnect. Maybe it was because I was not willing to try to connect with her, maybe it was because I have intimacy “issues.” Maybe it was just because I’m kind of an ass. Probably it was because I’m kind of an ass. Whatever the reason, I made the decision then and there that the date would need to end.
I was going to sabotage it.
This is always a questionable topic. Do people really sabotage their dates as a way to shorten them? It seems a television gimmick or some ribald bar conversation. Are people so heartless? Are they so unwilling to be honest that they would actually try to make things go so poorly? Am I really such a terrible person that I would not only do it but confess unapologetically to a stranger like you, Dear Reader?
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