55
Sitting Duck
Shouts and arms fire sounded outside, but they felt as if they were from a far-away land after experiencing the real thing, up close. Despite the melee going on downstairs and in the courtyard, our passage to the back stairs was smooth.
The final guy was still there, perched at the top of the stairs, guarding it from anyone stupid enough to try to run straight up. Cassie wasn’t going to do any such thing; she slit his throat from behind, and he tumbled halfway down, coming to a halt on the landing.
Outside, an explosion sounded. Things were heating up. Periodic flashes of red and blue streamed through the windows. But the darkness seemed to be winning, if I was going to be honest about it.
I stared at the fifth guard’s prone form.
“Where do we go from here?” I asked.
“The side exit. Near the chapel.”
“We’re not going to help them?”
“We already did. They have no high ground support now.”
“Okay, but what about the rest of them? If they come in through the front, they’ll be carved up.”
Cassie sighed. “If they’re stupid enough to run in the front, then they deserve to die. These guys aren’t the fourteen year olds from those dumbass games you play, Kurt. They’re pros.”
“If you say so.” Somehow, I got the distinct impression that I was being lumped in with the clueless fourteen year olds.
“Quiet, now. No talking. We’re blind. Every one of these guys below has moved a thousand fucking times since we exited the panic room.”
“When was that,” I said, following her down the stairs, taking care not to slip in the trail of red, “just for, you know, curiosity.”
“Four minutes ago,” and I could tell, even though Cassie didn’t turn around, she was glowering.
“Wow.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Okay.”
“Now,” she said, reaching the bottom of the stairs. So I did. Down here, the battle was closer. Shouts and instructions could be heard, but not understood. The flashing lights grew more intense. I saw what she meant when she said we wouldn’t help by wading into the middle of it all.
No, that’d be like jumping between two dogs in a fight. The person in the middle doesn’t do shit besides get chewed up real bad.
We crept through corridors that looked somewhat familiar—although I was beginning to wish that they weren’t—and I saw the thin light of the moon shining through fragments of broken stained glass. The chapel.
My heart just about grew wings. We were going to make it. My gait grew quicker. I heard Cassie bite her tongue, her breath growing short like a bull about to gore its prey, but it didn’t matter. Freedom, life—they were alluring. Intoxicating.
And, like all good drugs, they made me oblivious, stupid to what was going on around me.
Too late, the corner of my eye caught movement from the right, from some card room or another that Ames had felt fit to throw in this sprawling monstrosity. A shadow, leaping out into the day, streaked in faint, broken angelic hues from the chapel across the hall.
I grunted as I hit the wall, a large body crashing into me, sending every bit of air I had left—and, from the way it felt, had ever drawn—out into the atmosphere. There was nothing left to make any more noise. I let loose a silent gasp as I slid down the wall, only for a strong hand to grab the shoulders of my shirt, hoist me up as if I were a sock puppet.
“Mr. Desmond,” a familiar voice said, whispering into my ear from behind, “Ms. Atwood. A pleasure.” I felt the presence of something cold, pointed, jabbing me in the small of the back.
“Well if it isn’t Professor Douchebag,” Cassie said, aiming her gun towards me. I wanted to say something, anything, to get her to point it in another direction, but the words weren’t coming. My lungs wouldn’t comply. I hoped that my eyes conveyed the message, even in the shadowy light.
“Now, Ms. Atwood,” Otto said, and I could smell the tweed mixed in with his aftershave, he was so close to me, “is that any way to start a negotiation? It didn’t work the last time you insulted me, right?”
“Fuck you, windbag,” she said, cocking the rifle and squinting down the scope, “let him go or I’m gonna ruin your goddamn jacket with your fucking brains.”
“Cute,” Otto said, ducking behind my head for cover, “so clever. I do admire your, as they say, balls. You don’t care about anything. But the question is, Ms. Atwood, do you care about him?”
As if to hammer home his point, he ground the tip of the gun into my back a little harder. I winced, and I saw doubt flash in Cassie’s emerald green eyes.
“You’re a real big pussy, you know that?”
“Call me what you want,” Otto called back, still using my body as a shield for his own, “but it is smart. There’s no denying that.”
“What do you want, asshat?”
“Now we’re getting down to business! I thought it would take forever. It seems, alas, that this battle might be lost soon enough. Thus, we must be quick. I apologize if that’s rude.”
“Yeah, I bet you do,” she said, steadying the gun against her chest.
“What else separates us from the savagery of the animals? Ms. Atwood, I believe you know what I want already. I want the Beacon.”
“You can’t have it,” I managed to get out, between clenched teeth.
“Ah, Mr. Desmond, but is it worth your life? I will kill you, and although that is no prize in comparison, it will grant me some solace knowing that I did not allow you to besmirch my honor by getting off scot-free for your insolence.”
“What the hell are you rambling on about?” Cassie asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Otto replied, and I could imagine him, in that stupid coat, waving his hands, like it was no big deal. Of course, he wasn’t doing any of that, much to my chagrin, because I could still feel the cold steel in my back side. “The Beacon, now, if you will.”
Everything froze. Cassie’s eyes darted between my face and Otto’s in a frantic calculation. Otto’s lips came close to my ear, and he whispered.
“If you survive today, Mr. Desmond, you must know something. The Guardians’ gods are our gods. She works for the same master, the same end, even if you cannot see it.” His hand slipped something into the back of my jeans. “Your gods are our gods.”
I didn’t have an answer. Today had already been bizarre, and I was out of words. None seemed adequate for what I wanted to scream at Otto.
“Kurt,” Cassie said, nodding towards her pocket.
“No, you can’t.”
“Duck.”
I heard the word after I was already on the floor, after the bullets had torn through the air, ripping through Otto and his tailored clothes, after I saw her crumple to the ground. After I heard the one last shot.
I ran over, and her face was white.
“Cassie,” I said. “Cassie!”
“You’re not hurt,” she murmured, and then her eyes closed.
I threw her over my back and rushed down the hall. I could feel my shirt soaking, sticky. But it wasn’t from me.
In the kitchen, one of the guards stood watch over the exit. This place looked like the Lone Star’s setup. I guess Ames was nice enough to have a little smoking exit for his resident help. Stand-up guy.
The soldier saw me coming, but I slid just as his automatic rifle started spitting chunks of metal my way, crashing behind the stainless steel island in the center of the room. He stopped, and I could hear his boots stalking me. Then he wised up, slowed down, and the room was silent. But he was still there, on one side of the massive rectangle in the center of the kitchen.
I looked at the ground, saw his shadow peeking out, betraying his position. He was coming in from the left. I hugged the reflective side and went towards him. Why, I couldn’t tell you. Maybe I
was feeling lucky. As he made his move around, I popped out, Cassie’s combat knife in hand, and this time, it was clean. No extended smashing and rodeo riding.
One slice and dropped.
I hurried back to Cassie and slung her over my shoulder again, bursting through the door without any notion of the consequences.
It emptied right in the courtyard. Focused as I was on my own situation, I hadn’t noticed that the other noise in the house had died down to a simmer, then nothing at all.
A dozen guns cocked at once, aiming at our position.
“Get down,” a voice, amplified by a megaphone shouted, “hands on your head.”
I complied, and a second later, I was being dragged over to the vehicles.
“Upstairs,” I said, “there’s another one. In the panic room.”
“Where,” a soldier said, relieving me of the combat knife and various firearms.
“I’ll show you,” I said, watching a stretcher roll by, paramedics milling around the rolling cart, “I’ll show you where.”
56
Reboot
“You’re awake,” I said, glancing up, looking into her eyes, stating the obvious, “thought you’d sleep forever.”
Cassie shook off the final throes of drug-induced slumber and winced. “I feel like shit.”
“They tell me that’s what happens when you get shot.”
She flashed a pained smile, one that I didn’t return. I got up and patted the thick, somewhat rough blanket covering her legs.
“In the closet,” she said, “my clothes, that little fucking thing should be in there. Don’t know if it was all worth it.”
“Second thoughts, huh,” I said, fishing the crude dragon out of her bloodied sweatpants, “they let you keep these?”
“The Guardians have an arrangement with the cops,” she said, her finger hovering over the morphine push button. I stared at it, then at her. “What about Jordan…?”
“He made it. Pretty banged up,” I said, thinking, maybe not quite enough, “but he’s going to pull through.”
“Good, great,” she said her eyes closing, “I didn’t get either of you killed.”
“I’ll see you at the office when you’re better,” I said, heading to the door, “until then.”
“Kurt,” she said before I could leave, her voice growing heavy with dope, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, aren’t we all.”
And, with that, I left, heading back to the office to clear out my stuff. I’d been cleared of any wrongdoing in Greenville’s death right after the shootout at the mansion, so I was no longer wanted by the local cops for murder.
But life was still gonna be a lot different from here on out.
As I was packing all of my belongings into two rather sad looking cardboard boxes, an incoming message flashed across the laptop’s screen. I thought about ignoring it, but that would be poor form; I was sure Bob’s network had eyes on me, anyway. No hiding.
I put down an old pair of sneakers and headed to the couch, tapping a few buttons. Bob’s voice filtered over the tinny speakers.
“What happened? Is she okay?” He sounded concerned, or at least as concerned as a monotone robot could. “Did you acquire the Beacon?”
“There it is.”
“There what is? I cannot see anything.”
“Your true colors.”
“Did you acquire the Beacon?”
“Never mind,” I said, letting loose a deep sigh, “I got it, yeah. And she’s just fine, in case you care.”
Bob started giving me directions to dropping off the Beacon, making sure it was in the right hands. Turn left here, another right here, keep going—as if I didn’t know where the Seafood Shack was. Meet a guy with a scar, all this stuff. I held up my hands.
“No more, man,” I said, “no more.”
“I do not understand.”
“I’m out. Done. No more Guardian bullshit, no more crazy conspiracies. I’m out.”
Bob started to protest, but I shut the screen.
Cassie’d be back later that week, anyway. Through and through, they’d said. Painful as hell, but as good as a gunshot wound gets.
I picked up the boxes and went out to the truck, Fox jumping in before me, a big smile across his broad face. Throwing the boxes over the shotgun and shells—both of which I hoped, now, I’d never have to use—I locked up and started walking.
The Seafood Shack, looking as scummy as ever, sat before me. The man with the scar was there, hands ready to receive my bounty. I placed the Beacon on the table, and he gave me a silent thanks. Reached into his pocket to give me something, a brown packet.
I waved him off. Enough of that, at least for now. I’d regret my charity in the morning, but right then, it was the correct call. I snaked my way back to the office, leaning up against the truck for a smoke, Fox’s tail beating a furious rhythm against the window.
I flicked the lingering ashy butt of the cigarette into the weeds and took a final glimpse at the building, now just my office, no longer my home.
My hands flitted into the back of my jeans, and I took out what had become Otto’s last will and testament. A piece of paper and necklace with a small snake eating its own tail danging from it. Just like the one I’d seen in the Shrine.
Your gods are our gods, the note began, just like Otto had repeated as he’d held me at gunpoint, and then below, we both answer to the People of the Stars.
And that same damn snake, drawn in a hasty sketch at the bottom. When he’d penned the note was anyone’s guess, lost to the sands of time and space. I folded the note between my fingers and slipped the necklace around my wrist.
Whoever the People of the Stars were, I had a feeling that I’d be meeting them soon enough. But for at least one day, I had a secret to call my own.
The truck’s engine started with a groan and rumble, and I looked into the rearview, then straight ahead, headed somewhere not too far from here.
But still something close to a lifetime away.
A Brief Note From the Author
To find out how deep the mystery of the People of the Stars and the Singularity goes, be sure to pick up the second book in the Singularity Conspiracy Trilogy, Shadow Space, available now in paperback and eBook formats from Amazon.
Or save a couple bucks and snag The Singularity Conspiracy Omnibus, which contains the entire trilogy for just $5.99.
Oh, and thanks for reading Shadow Memories. If you enjoyed it, please leave a brief, honest review at your online bookseller of choice. Each one is a massive help.
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‘til next time,
Nicholas Erik
Shadow Memories: A Novel (The Singularity Conspiracy Book 1) Page 14
