The Assigned

by A. D. Smith

“Just another crazy,” I say. “This world’s full of ‘em.”

  Gloria turns and looks at me. “I’m not so sure about that—wait a minute … I feel … something.”

  Tre flexes his shoulders. “You’re not by yourself.”

  Unfortunately he’s right. They’re not by themselves. I feel it too. Adrenaline rushes through my body. It’s like I’ve gained a sixth sense. Like Tre, I flex my fingers. Just like the police car. I try to shake off the feeling but nothing seems to work. Gloria sits up in the front passenger seat. She peers out though Tre’s window, almost amazed. “Now tell me you guys see that?”

  Part of me doesn’t even want to look. Tre nods his head, “I’m there with ya, Glo.”

  Reluctantly, I push my body to turn. A ghastly haze reflects off the profiles of Bale’s men. With black undertones, its color seems to reflect that of their white coats. In cycles, the smoke-like substance lingers momentarily, evaporates, and starts the process all over. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the men were on fire. The two do a final check before entering the club. The smoke-like matter follows.

  “My God.”

  “The funny thing, no one seems to notice. Everyone else is carrying on as normal.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  “I wonder if the great Jason Bale knows he’s got Nightmare on Elm Street working for him?”

  “He’s a prick,” says Gloria. “But I think we should go check it out. Someone could be in danger.”

  “I agree, Glo. What about you, Zeek?”

  I see it all too well no matter how much I don’t want to admit it. “Just drive Tre,” I say, looking out the opposite window.

  “Huh?” Tre asks, now turning halfway around in his seat. “Are you kidding me? Tell me you didn’t see that.”

  “Look, it’s none of our business.”

  “None of our business?” Tre counters. “What if we said none of our business when that thing tried to run off with your daughter?!”

  What do they expect me to say? This is not my battle. I didn’t ask for any of this. Besides, I can’t tell who’s good or what’s evil. Everyone seems a little nuts, if you ask me. “Look, do what you want. I’ll walk the rest of the way. Thanks for the ride.”

  Out of the car, Tre shouts to me from the window. “For real, Zeek? Really? Glad it wasn’t my daughter in that park.”

  Disregarding his last comment, I continue to walk down the congested parkway. I briefly glance back to catch a glimpse of Tre and Gloria running towards the club. They can play superhero all they want. I’ve got a lot more on my plate to deal with.

  A half-mile down the road, Tre’s words continue to pound in the folds of my brain. “What if we said none of our business when that thing tried to run off with your daughter?!”

  “He could’ve kept on driving but noooooo,” I say aloud. And they didn’t have to go in that club. No matter how hard I try to ignore my thoughts, I can’t ignore the senses that begin to flare back up in me. As I look at my hands, I feel a power, a strength beckoning my mind to give the go-ahead to join them. Just keep walking, Zeek.

  These powers now ignore my rejection as they take over. Images flash in front of me, just like before, but this time more controlled. In what feels like slow motion, I see people fighting. Now Gloria as she falls from a second story balcony. And just like that, the images are gone. But not the power. My heart accelerates. Adrenaline fills my veins.

  It compels me north.

  Back to Sin City.

  Chapter 16

  “Hey you can’t skip!”

  “Sue me,” I jab, as Tre and I wrangle through the line.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” says a large bouncer at the front door.

  “Hey Big Pete,” says Tre. “It’s me!”

  “Tre! My man! Give me some love!”

  The bouncer lifts Tre straight in the air with a playful bear hug. By the look of Tre’s face, it’s only playful for the bouncer.

  “Okay man. That’s … enough … love,” Tre manages to squeeze out.

  “You trying to get in and party with your boy Bale?” asks the hefty Samoan.

  “You know it, Big Pete.” Tre turns my way. “Me and my friend here. We just wanna get in and get out. We’ll only be here for like 15 minutes—tops.”

  Big Pete shakes his head. “I don’t know, Tre. Everyone is supposed to pay tonight. Besides, isn’t your girlfriend a little underdressed? I mean … sweats?”

  What? Girlfriend? Please. And what’s wrong with what I have on? Some of these girls could learn a thing or two about modesty.

  “Excuse me?” rattles off my lips.

  Tre blocks my view. “Peeeeeeeteeeey,” he grins. “Who was the best offensive lineman in the conference?”

  “Come on,” smiles the wide-body oaf. “Everyone knows the answer to that. I was!”

  “Right! And because of that great protection, who led the conference in rushing yards?”

  “You.”

  “Right again my friend!”

  My patience wanes as the two continue their rhetoric. Girlfriend? Please.

  “See, without you there would be no me. Without me there would be no you. We’re practically joined at the hip. Now I tell you what, how ‘bout I come to your nephew’s pop warner practice and run some drills?”

  “They would love that, Tre. My nephew wears your college number. Alright go ‘head. You and your girlfriend have a good time.”

  “I am not his girlfriend!”

  Tre cuts me off as he drags me in. “Thanks Big Pete!”

  ***

  Inside, my irritation is suspended by the flaring of my senses, although not those of the supernatural kind. From the outside, Sin City doesn’t look like much; a long dark building with large cast-iron doors. But just behind those same doors reveal a million-dollar production of multi-colored lights and extreme decibels of sound. The main floor reveals an oasis of people gyrating, almost trance-like, to eardrum splitting … music. At least I suppose that’s what they call it. Why people would want to pay money to stand shoulder to shoulder and get drinks spilled on them I will never understand.

  “So this is what you call—”

  Sound jolts through my head. It’s like someone turned up the already deafening noise. But not just the music. The talking! Covering my ears, it takes everything in me not to pass out.

  “What’s wrong?” Tre shouts.

  “It’s like … I can hear hundreds of conversations all at once!”

  Tre takes me by the arm. “Focus!”

  My head is flooded with voices. I can hear people as they place orders at the bar, tacky pick-up lines, even a Vietnamese couple as they argue about what time to leave … in Vietnamese!

  “I’m trying!” I shout.

  Tre’s right. It’s like I’ve developed a new muscle. The more I focus, the more the voices subside. I test it out on a nearby couple. Focusing on just them, I can hear their conversation over the shrill of Electronica.

  “Glo! Upstairs! Bale’s guys.”

  “Yeah. And isn’t that Jason Bale with—Tre!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Cupping my ears, I answer. “I think—I think I can hear them.”

  “Up there?” Tre replies. “Wow.”

  Bale and entourage sit in a roped-off section overhead. Guards position themselves along a glass balcony as they watch down below. Young women line an extended sofa with the movie star seated perfectly in the middle. Two of Bale’s ‘men in white’ fill the remainder of the couch. The largest one—for some reason I remember his name from the interview—Amnon, stands next to the sofa.

  Most people see farther than they hear, but fortunately that’s not the case for me. At least not anymore. And what I hear next isn’t as startling once it resonates in my mind.

  “I—I think Jason Bale is one of them.”

  “What? Jason Bale? Are you sure?”

  I nod, still trying to pick up the conversation.

  “Tell me. What are the
y saying?”

  I repeat the star’s words line for line. “The world. The best thing ever created by the Other. His creation. My conquest. But soon, every son and daughter of Adam will bear the Mark of Bale.”

  Bale raises his left arm. His Angels join by raising their fists. From our viewpoint, it looks as if the giant rips open his once buttoned shirt. A tattoo of some sort is sprawled across his chest. It’s too far to make out the details of it.

  “The tattoo …” Tre mumbles.

  Bale stands. “Should I keep going?” I ask Tre.

  “Yes!” he answers. “Focus!”

  I continue mouthing Jason Bale’s words. “My ministers will spread the gospel of Bale! The young will be generals in our army and the old … cadets. They will happily bear my Mark and we shall rule freely! We will show them another way. A way of—”

  Bale stops and looks around. His countenance grows serious. “One of his henchmen is asking what’s wrong,” I report to Tre. “They call him, Lord.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Wait a minute. He just said, ‘I sense the presence of the Other.’ Think he could be talking about us?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Tre says, walking towards the elevator. “Let’s go say hi.”

  Upstairs, Tre steps out first. A moderately sized bouncer stands guard in front of the VIP entrance. “Hey!” he yells. “Where’s your wrist—”

  Tre lightly shoves the bouncer in the chest with one hand. The force drives the man ten feet into a nearby wall. Looks like our power switch is flipped on. Two of Bale’s guys immediately approach.

  “Sir, we’re gonna have to ask you to leave.”

  “Not until I holla at cha boy, Jason,” mugs Tre, cracking his knuckles.

  “Bale is not signing autographs at—”

  Bale, as everyone seems to enjoy calling him, motions to his guards. “Let them come,” he waves. His men give way. The celebrity grins as we approach. “Sit, my friends. You’re pretty strong, my man. I could use a guy like you on my team.”

  “I don’t think so,” Tre murmurs under his breath.

  “So what can I do for you two?” he asks. “Autograph? Who should I make it out to?”

  Close up, I can see why young girls and women alike would find him attractive, although it does nothing for me. Maybe that’s because I can see him for what he really is. Literally.

  “Tre …”

  “Yeah Glo, I see. I don’t believe it.”

  A grayish black haze slowly exudes from Jason Bale’s profile. The same shape-shifting vapor we saw in the park. The same mist seen hovering around Bale’s security team now radiates from his being. The Shadow. The substance almost seems to have a persona of its own, as it pulsates in and out of his skin. Bale’s Shadow is more sinister in tone than the others I’ve witnessed. The very look of it causes my senses to flare. The supernatural kind this time.

  “Cut the act, Jason Bale, or whatever your name is,” Tre says, balling his fists. “I can see what you really look like.”

  The actor, formerly known as Bale, smiles. “Yeah, the movies will do that to ya. Guess my make-up artist has the Midas touch.”

  His men appear antsy, pacing back and forth. The tattoo that covers Amnon’s massive chest recaptures Tre’s attention. “Hey big guy. Nice tat. Where’d you get it?”

  Amnon grunts as Bale and the others laugh.

  “My brother had a fresh one just like it,” Tre finishes. “Right before someone murdered him. Sure I couldn’t persuade you to tell me?”

  Bale’s demeanor changes, as does that of his minions. He gives them a command in another language. It sounds primal at best, but in some weird way I can hear the unknown language as well as understand it as if it were English. Guess that’s what I do.

  “Hey Tre. He told his boys to get rid of us.”

  “Did he now? Well tell him this.” Tre stares straight up at the more-than-seven-feet-tall giant. “I ain’t going nowhere til I find out about that tat.”

  Tre’s words infuriate the beastly man … or whatever he is. The Shadow now swells around his torso as well as the others’.

  “So you have the Gift, little girl,” says Bale, stepping in front of his guard dog.

  Is this the Other’s way of trying to stop me? ‘Cause if so, his tactics have become quite pitiful. I haven’t seen any like you in what? Forty years?”

  “Enough of the chit-chat!” Tre yells. “I wanna know about that tattoo!”

  “You mean my Mark?” Bale smirks confidently. “The Mark of Bale? Why all my Angels bear my Mark!”

  The men raise their fists, exposing the same symbol tattooed and branded on the underside of their wrists. Amnon beats on his exposed chest like a crazed warrior.

  “And you can wear it too, young man,” Bale sneers.

  Tre’s eyes narrow. “Aint no way in Hell.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Besides, do you even know who I truly am?”

  “A horrible actor?” I say.

  The translucent haze engulfs Bale’s body.

  “Yeah, with a helluva five o’clock shadow,” says Tre.

  “Amusing,” Bale smiles as he circles us. “So you can understand the language of the Familiar and—how shall I say—see me in all my glory. And for what? You don’t even know why you’re here, do you?”

  Personally, I’ve seen all I need. “I know you’re evil. It saturates you.”

  “Evil? Hmph. Why do you consider me evil? Because I want my birth-given right? That makes me evil? What about those you trust who lie to you and make you believe something all your life only to find out it’s not true. Are they evil?”

  Immediately my thoughts go to A’ma. But he couldn’t possibly know. Could he?

  “Shut up! You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know enough, now don’t I?” he says, now standing eye to eye. I hadn’t noticed how close his steps had become.

  “The gifts you have now are mere … parlor tricks. I can show you things you couldn’t even imagine.”

  He stands so close. I know I should push away. But I don’t.

  “Glo! Snap out of it!” I hear Tre shout. He’s right. Maybe Bale is stronger than I give him credit for. I cannot take him casually.

  “Your courage appeals to me,” he whispers.

  “And what can you show me?” I whisper back.

  “Anything,” he says, slightly caressing my left hand.

  “Anything?”

  “I … am … Bale.”

  “Okay, Bale. What about this?”

  Firmly, I grip his hand. Squeezing down with all my might, I feel strength like never before. I watch, admittedly with a sense of delight, as he cringes in pain. Suddenly his face grows demented. Blackish veins rise to his pores. The Shadow swirls around his torso. Finally getting my chance, I shove the possessed actor. The supernatural heave sends him colliding into the couch.

  “That’s my girl!” shouts Tre.

  Before I can comment, Bale spits out the words, “Destroy them!”

  The Shadow rises around his five Angels. Each man manifests his own unique vapory aura. My senses prepare for what is sure to take place. Ironically, the techno music blasting through the club is a good fit for the melee that’s about to begin …

  BOOOOM!

  The mohawked-styled Angel rushes Tre with two fists to the chest, sending him soaring through a nearby wall. Dust and debris fly everywhere. The demented bodyguard laughs as he brushes his hands. I want to call for Tre but there’s no time as I engage in my own battle.

  The shortest of Bale’s men is very articulate in Martial Arts. It takes everything in me to keep up as we exchange blows. But somehow I find myself performing moves I’ve never known about, let alone attempted, before today. We go back and forth with flurries of elbows and forearms. His skillful hands move so fast I lose focus on the leg sweep coming my way. Hitting the ground, I move away just in time from an impending chair to the face. It crashes down inches from my wide
ned eyes, shattering into pieces. Jumping to my feet, I gather myself. Four Angels stand … waiting. I’ve got to even the odds.

  Waiting no more, they attack.

  I use another chair to block one of the Angel’s kicks, swinging it around and landing it in its correct position. Using the same momentum to land in the chair feet first, I jump to an adjacent table, landing on my hands. How I do it, I don’t know.

  I just do.

  Somersaulting from the table, my legs land directly around the neck of another opponent. I clench my core diverting all of my weight to my upper body. With Bale’s Angel still in tow, my body flips, sending him over the balcony to the dance floor below.

  “Three to one. Now that’s better.” I do a little smirking of my own.

  “Hey, Mr. T! Over here!”

  “Tre?!”

  “In the flesh!”

  “Now is that all you got?!” Tre yells, emerging from the space behind the wall.

  The mohawked Balak turns as the Shadow thickens around him.

  “You guys should really see somebody about that!” Tre mocks.

  Balak rushes Tre again with both fists out front. But this time, Tre dodges the double punch, grabbing Balak around the forearms. He swings the Angel around repeatedly. Finally, Tre lets go, sending him twenty feet into a table.

  “Got that one from John Cena!” Tre shouts, referring to the popular wrestling star. He really does watch too much TV. Although I must admit, I’m a fan of the wrestler myself.

  “Thought you were gonna be in that wall forever,” I say over my shoulder as we stand back to back.

  “You know me,” he says. “Gotta be fashionably late.”

  “What are you waiting for!” screams Bale. “Hantos! Rapha! Take care of them!”

  With one Angel somewhere on the first floor, Balak under a table, and Amnon by Bale’s side, the two remaining Angels head straight for us. Tre battles the tall dark-skinned Angel with long dreads. Rapha. The Shadow oozes from each of his thickened strands of hair as he sways back and forth like a Caribbean kick-boxer.

  Me and the martial artist, Hantos, resume our battle. We stand eye level before he emits a loud sound, followed by a vicious wave of punches. I try my best to land a blow in between his assaults, but it hardly matters. Anna was right. These guys are much stronger than the Tax Collector from the park.