by C Lee Tocci
Several minutes passed.
“Thank you,” he said again. His voice and manner returned to its normal stoniness, but Lilibit thought he was really grateful.
“Then can I have a dog?” She was never one to let an opportunity slide by.
“We shall see,” he replied.
Lilibit sighed and again looked out the window. There was a long silence as the road passed beneath them.
Chapter Five
The Institute
In a cold grey room in a cold grey tower in a cold grey city, countless computers retrieved immeasurable amounts of data and, in reviewing and cross-referencing the information, searched for those details that correlated with their programmed parameters.
Parameters met. Factors aligned. Details linked. Report generated. Data transferred. Awaiting assessment.
His name was Andrews, not that it mattered. He manned the fourth cubicle on the third floor in a windowless dungeon and between the hours of midnight and ten in the morning, the cubicle was his entire identity.
He was nearing the end of his shift when the data was dumped into his review queue. He was tempted to archive it for tomorrow so he could leave on time. If it weren’t for the electronic trail attached to all such activity, he probably would have rejected it back into the data banks so it would wash up on the shores of some other poor slob’s workstation. He sighed and opened the report.
“Oh great,” he thought. “This one needs to go up.” This meant filing a report, attaching the data, forwarding it upstairs and then standing indefinitely at the desk of his supervisor, waiting for the report to be reviewed. Again, he considered “accidentally” hitting the delete key and heading out the door on time. He sighed as he thought of the monthly lease payments on his new Z-300 and opened an incident report.
Baxter watched Andrews approach his desk. Baxter had ambitions, and they exceeded being a low-level supervisor in the Information Analysis Department. He faithfully carried every nugget of data with potential to his superior in the hopes the next one would be the stepping stone to his inevitable advancement. He nodded blandly at his subordinate and assigned the appropriate clearance to the report. He watched impassively as the fool sprinted back to his station, eager to log out and return to the banality of his life outside the Institute. With a few decisive keystrokes, Baxter eliminated Andrews’ references and added his own credentials. He printed out the report and carried it up to Syxx.
Syxx sat at the immense bare ebony slab that made his desk. Directly above the desk, a vaulted skylight focused a shaft of light onto it, but there was something unworldly about that material and the light did not reflect back but instead was absorbed into a void. Nothing marred the clean blankness of his realm. No phone, pencil or scrap of paper disfigured the unbroken domain of his office. He sat, staring without emotion at the array of forty monitors mounted on the wall behind his desk as they flashed data and reports and telecasts in an unremitting stream. His pale, bald head gleamed in the eerie light. His back to Baxter, he did not acknowledge his presence as the report was placed on the inviolate tableau of his desk.
Baxter stood patiently. He understood that the length of time Syxx kept him waiting was directly proportional to the lack of respect Syxx felt Baxter deserved. Baxter was not offended by this. He used the same tactic with his own subordinates, but perhaps the day would come when Syxx would stand waiting at his desk while Baxter basked in the aura of authority.
Perhaps sensing this impertinence, Syxx turned and met Baxter’s eye. Baxter quickly stifled the thought. It was said that Syxx could read minds, and staring into those uncanny eyes, Baxter did not doubt it.
An unpleasant smirk touched Syxx’s cheek as he picked up the report and flicked a quick glance at the single sheet. Baxter held his breath. Syxx looked at the report a second time. Baxter felt his pulse gallop. Syxx slowly raised his eyes and smiled. A frozen lifeless smile that stopped Baxter’s racing heart cold. Baxter forced himself not to gasp, to remain standing, not to faint like a sickly schoolboy.
“Well done, Baxter,” spoke Syxx. It was the first time Syxx had ever used his name and Baxter felt himself able to breathe again, perhaps a bit too shrilly. “I will note this in your file.”
Baxter walked stiffly out of the office, restraining himself from running out the door. Trembling and a little dizzy, he blindly passed the Director of Security.
The Director approached the ebony slab. Syxx gestured to the printout lying on the desk in solitary state. He picked it up and, with great interest, read the police report filed by an Officer Garcia regarding a seemingly insignificant vandalism complaint. The Director smiled humorlessly and nodded as Syxx spoke.
“You know what I expect.”
Chapter Six
Incident at Lambert Oasis
Keotak-se studied the rearview mirror. The child had not spoken for many miles. She lay in the back seat, arranging her stones in a variety of positions that seemed to amuse her, for she occasionally chuckled for no apparent reason.
She stopped now and replaced her stones into her pockets and her knapsack. Then she flung herself like a salmon over the bench and landed with a flop in the front passenger seat.
“Mr. Tree, I have to go number one.”
This appeared to have some significance to her, but of what, Keotak-se did not know.
After a long pause, “I really have to go number one,” she repeated, squirming in her seat. “Bad.”
“Where is number one?” Keotak-se asked slowly.
Lilibit rolled her eyes. “Number One? Sit Potty? Go Pee?”
Keotak-se attained enlightenment. “You need to make water?”
“Is that where water comes from?” Lilibit paused in her squirming, momentarily diverted. “Is that where the oceans came from?”
Keotak-se chose not to answer, but those thoughts held Lilibit rapt for the several miles it took for a dilapidated gas station to emerge out of the expanse of the wasteland.
They had left the interstate some time ago for a little used stretch of an ancient highway, a relic of another time, long since abandoned by the rest of the world in favor of the high-speed freeways. With a thump and a crunch, the sedan left the roadway, rolled past the pumps and came to a slow stop on cracked asphalt and gravel.
The late summer air hung heavy with dust and petroleum, yet as Keotak-se stepped out of the car, he could taste the tang of the desert sage that lurked obstinately just beyond the grasp of civilization.
A grizzled old man stepped out of the gloom of a ramshackle garage. He acknowledged Keotak-se with a nod, but his eyes were enthralled by the car.
“’E got no gas,” he grunted.
“We need no gas,” Keotak-se replied. “We have need of your commode.”
The grizzly man pulled his glance from the car to answer Keotak-se. “Don’t know whatya talking of, but ‘e got none of it.”
Keotak-se sighed. Men’s expectations of self had so diminished in recent centuries. He saw a man who might have been a great warrior, a man among men, but all that remained was a fossil of a soul that wasted his chance on a discarded roadway.
“The child needs to make water.”
It was then that the grizzly man first noticed the girl, barely seen peeking over the hood of the car. He smiled at her.
“Sorry,” he replied with real regret. “Out of order. Have been for near on four years now.”
The child hopped from one leg to another.
“Tree!” Her voice squeaked with desperation.
“Well, we not got many trees ‘bout here, but if you’re none too picky, you can go behind the shed out back,” offered the grizzly man.
Lilibit bolted around the back of the building and disappeared behind the shed. Keotak-se chose a spot that gave the child her privacy, yet allowed him to see her if she tried to run away.
Behind the shack ran an open concrete culvert. In the city they called this a river, thought Keotak-se with disdain. Here in the desert they called it
a wash, and at this time of year, a turbid stream of water and refuse moved quickly down its cement spine. Beyond the wash were countless miles of barren wilderness creeping to a ridge of grey mountains on the horizon.
Lilibit walked reluctantly back toward Keotak-se. He could see her racking her brain, trying to think of some delay, when he heard a faint buzz in the distance. The Stone Warrior turned swiftly to face the North. There on the horizon, he saw a cloud of machines rising over the outlying mountains
In three strides, Keotak-se crossed to Lilibit and, with an arc of his arm, swept her up. Crossing to a pile of discarded tires, he deposited the child inside a squat tower of decrepit rubber. Lilibit squeaked in protest as Keotak-se planted himself in front of the tires and, turning to face the approaching enemy, brandished his staff.
“Stay.” His voice was terse, his attention focused on the horizon.
“Now, now,” the grizzly man hobbled up to the Stone Warrior, amusement crinkling his eyes, “it’s not but a bunch of helicopters. It’s probably just one of them military exercises. Nothing to get in a twist over.”
Keotak-se spared only a sliver of a glance at the old man, but it was sufficient. Whatever the grizzly man read in that look, it chased the grin off his face. He watched the helicopters arrowing towards his little service station and wiped a drop of sweat from his brow.
“Well, my Uncle Vernon always did say that prudence was the better part of luck. I’ll just be over there if’n you need me.”
With that, the grizzly man scurried to his garage, closed the door and prepared to watch the events from a point of relative safety.
Keotak-se’s focus was disturbed. He knew the enemy. He knew what he must do. He was ready for the battle. His stone, Hakuya, hung at his neck and Keotak-se felt the power of that stone resonate through his bones. But Branken trembled in his tunic pocket and from that stone, Keotak-se felt strange dimensions to his powers. His eyesight was keener. Even though the enemy was still nearly a mile away, he could see the markings on their machines; he even saw their grim faces, partially obscured behind dark menacing goggles. His staff felt foreign too, its power amplifying, surging to a pitch never felt before. He was tempted to throw away the new stone so he might face the enemy without distraction, but he knew the truest way to tap the power of an untried stone was to face a foe in righteous battle.
On the far side of the wash, the enemy halted and hovered like a swarm of hornets. The wind from the propellers buffeted his cloak, but Keotak-se waited unmoving. Ropes, like the legs of spiders, dropped out of the hatchways. Black-garbed figures repelled down the lines, dispersing in synchronized maneuvers, fanning out to surround the isolated oasis.
Keotak-se did not wait for the enemy to attack first, but recognizing their intent, struck the butt of his staff onto the earth three times. The staff hummed faintly as a surge of light and energy pulsed, rose to its apex and awaited the Stone Warrior’s command.
Grasping the staff in both hands, Keotak-se aimed it towards the closest of the helicopters. With a blast of light and a crackle of power, it shot an arcing beam of energy towards its target. With a deafening bang, the chopper exploded into a blaze of destruction, showering the troops below with a lethal flurry of flaming debris.
Strings of small detonations streaked across the barren sands, marking rapid-fire bullets fired from one of the choppers. The Stone Warrior stood unmoving, the murderous beelines of gunfire swiftly approaching. Suddenly, the staff in his hands began to spin swiftly, faster than the eye could track, like a long glowing baton. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly into the gravel. Two more pulses, and two more helicopters dissolved into balls of inferno.
Lilibit fumed. She thought she’d been behaving quite well. It was true she’d been thinking about misbehaving all morning, but she hadn’t actually gotten around to it yet and therefore scowled with a quite righteous anger at being dumped into a stack of tires. The drone of the helicopters grew louder and she stuck her head up to get a better view.
“Keep down,” Mr. Tree barked, the end of his staff gently prodding down her head. Lilibit puffed a snort of disgust as she settled back into her hideaway.
Chino swore long and softly under his breath as he ran to flank the western boundary of the offensive field. Nothing in their mission briefing had prepared them for a defense of this caliber. Every time he took a job with the private sector, he always regretted it. Give him a sweet little drug cartel or a neurotic despot of some colorful third world country. These private corporate missions, they never tell the mercenaries all the details, probably because they figured you’d want more money if you knew all the facts.
Chino and his squad sprinted down the ravine, leapt the narrow dirty stream and emerged on the far side. Then they deployed behind a shed to the rear of the service station and waited.
His ear jack cackled with sharp directives from the Institute’s squad commanders overseeing the assault from the far side of the ridge. Chino ordered the remainder of his squad to fan out and secure the western perimeter. His rifle at the ready, he waited behind the shed for his next set of commands.
Without warning, a figure raced around the corner of the shed. On instinct, Chino spun around to face his assailant, but pulled up his weapon as he identified the intruder.
The “Mission Objective” had come to him. The girl’s eyes locked with his and she froze.
Nothing in her short life had given Lilibit any conception of the danger rising around her in the oasis. It didn’t occur to her that the assault was directed at her, or that disobeying at this moment could be disastrous, if not fatal. She’d seen only that, at last, Mr. Tree’s attention was diverted and this was her chance to teach him a lesson. She was not to be picked up, dragged about and then dumped like a bag of groceries. However, it was Lilibit who was learning something new. Fear. She looked into the cold eyes of the gunman and felt more frightened than she ever had before.
In one motion, the man shouldered his rifle and grabbed Lilibit by the neck, crushing her against his chest.
Lilibit’s arms flailed as she reached into her pocket to fetch “the girls,” but she had barely pulled them out when she felt the chokehold on her neck loosen and she dropped to the ground, gasping, her stones falling to the earth.
Twisting around, Lilibit saw the grizzly gas station man wrestling with the black-garbed killer. Spinning with a vicious sweep, the dark man struck the old man’s head with the butt of his rifle and the grizzly man collapsed, bleeding, onto the gravel.
Lilibit wasted no time. She ran.
She hadn’t run more than a few steps when a spray of gunfire riddled the ground at her feet. She veered, headed for the wash and tumbled down the embankment into the ravine. Scrambling under a scrub of underbrush, she huddled down, covered her head with her arms and hid.
Chino smiled. Mentally, he was already spending the substantial bonus he was about to earn. He alone had a clear view of the crouching child. He shouldered his assault weapon and withdrew a cruel-looking tranquilizer pistol. Aiming at his target, he pulled the trigger.
The report of the pistol surprised him. It should have been a muffled whistle, not a resounding crack. He glanced down at the gun in his hand, thinking it sounded more like a forty-four caliber Smith and Wesson. Blood dripped onto his weapon. Puzzled, he reached to feel the back of his head. He felt something wet and his fingers dripped red. When he turned, he saw the dying old man clutching a relic handgun.
“I was right. A Smith and Wesson forty-four,” Chino thought with satisfaction as he fell and died.
Lilibit hugged her knees and listened to the firefight rage above her. She knew Mr. Tree would be angry when he found out she hadn’t stayed in the tires, but that didn’t frighten her as much as the empty eyes of the men with the guns. She uncurled herself and was poised to dash back to the tire dump when she felt a piercing stab in her shoulder.
Lilibit reached back and pulled out a black metal barb. She gazed at the needle with eyes that wo
uldn’t focus. She turned to run but she couldn’t remember where or why. Her feet stumbled and her legs felt like willow branches. She took a few steps before toppling into the stream. Her mouth filled with water and she coughed, flailing her arms weakly. The world was growing dim and murky when her arm came down hard on a large scrap of lumber floating in the gully. She managed to pull herself onto the board before everything went dark.
From the far side of the mountain, the Director of Security monitored the operation. Syxx had mentioned that the “Mission Objective” would be accompanied by a bodyguard and this guardian would have unexpected defensive abilities, but the Director had underestimated these powers with disastrous results. Three choppers were down, five operatives confirmed dead, and eighteen others not responding. It wasn’t the loss of equipment or life that concerned him, it was their ability to conceal these losses from the public. The Director gave the order to withdraw. The next offensive would have to be more subtle. He was already devising the impending stratagem as he delegated the clean-up duties to his assistant.
This battle may have been lost, but this war was far from over.
Keotak-se watched as the men retreated over the ravine, scaling up the ropes into the remaining helicopters. He did not revel in victory. He knew they would return with stealth and the journey would now be increasingly perilous. When the enemy had withdrawn to a safe distance, he relaxed his stance and turned to check on Lilibit, only then discovering the child was missing.
As he scanned the barren desert for any signs of her, he wasted no time on anger. The blame was his. His misjudgment in handling the child might be fatal for her.
