by Mat Nastos
“Because we need to find out how Designate Cestus broke his programming and, more importantly, WHO helped him do it.”
The voice caused Fountain to jump out of his seat, sending an avalanche of white and off-white papers spilling onto the carpet of his office. When Melissa Roslan walked through the open door leading into Fountain’s office the Congressman realized, in his anger, he’d been speaking out loud. He watched as the beautiful woman bent down and began collecting the mess of papers spread around the legs of his workstation.
“It’d be easier if we could just drop a nuke on Manhattan…that would clear up a lot of problems beyond just Mr. Weir…Cestus,” said Fountain, grumpily.
“Unfortunately, I’m not sure Senator Pezzula would approve of that. He doesn’t seem to be a fan of us blowing up domestic targets,” replied Ms. Roslan as she completed her task of gathering the displaced paperwork and replaced it in a series of neat stacks back on the representative’s crowded desk.
Fountain could have sworn he caught the slightest hint of humor from the harsh woman, but he wasn’t sure. In their time working together he hadn’t seen her smile once. He wondered if she had ever smiled for Kiesling. Before he could ponder the situation further the pair were cut off as a call came in over the tiny black phone Ms. Roslan always kept on her person. It was the woman’s most powerful asset and, as Fountain had come to see over the past month, one of her greatest weapons.
“Excuse me for a moment, sir,” she said, activating the device and holding her opposite hand up over her ear to block any extraneous noise. “Congressman Fountain’s office, Melissa Roslan speaking.”
Turning his attention back to the problem at hand while his assistant was otherwise occupied, Fountain thumbed through the mass of paperwork littering his desk. Intel from agents on the ground in New York had confirmed the presence of Designate Cestus in the city. In fact, the agents had made multiple failed attempts to apprehend the rogue cyborg. They knew where he was and that he seemed to be focused on arranging a meeting with one Senator David McGuinness. What they didn’t know was who had aided the cyborg in his escape from Project Hardwired the month before or, more importantly, who had broken his programming.
The question no one could answer was: who were the Hollow Men and what did they want?
Fountain’s question would remain unexplored as the husky voice of his aide called out from nearby.
“Sir?” said Ms. Roslan calmly while covering the screen of her smartphone with the palm of one hand. “Congressman Pezzula’s office is on the line. They’re asking about explosions in Manhattan and outside of Lake Arrowhead.”
“Speak of the Devil.” Grimacing, Fountain began to respond to his executive assistant when he was interrupted by a beeping from his pocket. “Ask the Senator’s office to hold for one moment, Ms. Roslan,” said Fountain, clearing his throat and reaching into the inside pocket of the blue sports coat half-folded across the back of his chair.
Blinking coldly at him, the bright screen of his cell read ‘text incoming’ with no identifying name or number attached. Sliding his finger across the slick phone face, Fountain’s eyes went wide at the series of words brought up by the action.
This is the way the world ends.
Every bit of moisture evaporated from Fountain’s mouth and his blood went cold. The impact of the message was so strong that the politician flipped the device over in his hand, perhaps hoping there would be some sort of clue on its reverse side. When no answer presented itself he turned it back over and continued to stare at the message.
This is the way the world ends.
A second incoming text shook the aging man free of his bewilderment, causing him to fumble with the phone before accepting it. The message contained an address a sixty miles outside of Los Angeles, along with a time: 5pm. Checking his watch, the man knew he’d have to leave right away to make the meeting, whatever it was, in time.
The words played again across his phone and echoed in Fountain’s mind:
This is the way the world ends.
Setting his jaw firmly, the United States representative made up his mind. Whoever sent him that message knew more about the situation than he did, and Fountain was determined to finally get some answers. No matter what it took.
“Hang up the phone, Ms. Roslan.”
“Congressman Fountain?” Ms. Roslan’s voice sounded concerned.
Standing up and pushing his phone deep down into his pants pocket, Fountain’s voice took on a commanding tone, one neither he nor his assistant were used to hearing, “Tell the Senator’s office I’ll call him back. Something’s come up.”
Roslan was confused, but obeyed her boss’s order.
“Have the car brought around,” he said, ushering the woman out of his office. “Oh, and, Ms. Roslan…don’t forget to bring your gun.”
CHAPTER 19
When the major news outlets had begun broadcasting scenes from what they referred to as a ‘siege’ involving a veritable army of police officers on the lower east side, concern began to bubble up in the back of Amy Jensen’s head. After all, large scale law-enforcement operations and deployment of manpower were not every day occurrences in the Big Apple. Thoughts of Malcolm Weir and his freaky bionic arms chopping cops to bits popped into her mind.
The man had a tendency for leaving a trail of dismembered bodies behind him, even if it had been in self-defense.
Concern escalated to worry once thoughts of Weir began to percolate through her gray matter. If Mal was responsible for killing members of the police in Manhattan it would complicate matters for them both. How could she continue to aid a murderer like that? How could she allow him to meet with a United States Senator?
Luckily for them both, the plucky lawyer was able to ease her worry with a few calls to contacts she knew in the mayor’s office. There were only a few fatalities in the battle on the docks and those had all been from the use of high-caliber gunfire. There were no slice-and-dice victims in the bunch.
With unbreakable claws mounted at the end of his arms, Mal had no need for guns. A sad coincidence, she decided.
When a massive explosion rocked the entire lower portion of Manhattan Island a few hours later and fuzzy footage of a shirtless man with flaming metal arms started airing on every station, Amy knew they were in trouble.
Of course, realizing you’re in trouble and knowing what exactly to do in that situation were two very different things. The pixelated video of Malcolm Weir fighting with, and killing, a group of unidentified men in military uniforms, shot from the handheld iPhone of a woman who had taken refuge in a high-end fashion boutique near the site of the battle, played out over and over again on Amy’s giant-sized flat-screen television. The scene always played out the same, with the screen going white from the explosion of some sort of strange flying vehicle and then black.
The news anchors gave no indication of what had happened to Mal after the explosion, but initial reports from the scene seemed to confirm only the mutilated bodies of his opponents, stripped of any identifying marks, remained. As much of an ass as she thought the man could be, Amy really hoped the cyborg was doing okay. He may not know how to treat women, but he seemed to be a good guy at heart and didn’t deserve any of what had happened to him.
“Hell,” thought Amy, “no one deserved to be put through the kind of wringer he’s been forced to put up with.”
Since things like explosions, cyborgs, and hiding from the government were all very much outside Amy’s normal area of expertise, she picked up her cell and placed a call to the encrypted number David Zuzelo had provided her in case of emergency. He had told her to dial it and to leave a predetermined coded message with the service that answered. The entire exercise made the pragmatic lawyer feel a tad silly, but without any other alternative presenting itself she figured it couldn’t hurt. Zuz promised she’d get a call back as soon as he received the message.
“Nothing to do but wait,” Amy said to herself as she poured a glass
of wine and sat back down on her couch.
She was still waiting for the response when her front door exploded into splinters and a figure clad entirely in black burst through with a powerful kick. A scream powered by sheer terror tore itself from Amy’s gut as the man, whose face was hidden behind a visored mask painted over with a grinning white skull, rushed towards her with his gun drawn.
Amy kicked and bellowed for help, tried to beat the intruder with the bottom of her phone the way she had been taught in the self-defense course she took at her gym, to no avail. The man was strong, fast, and well-trained. He knocked the phone away from her with a backhanded flick of his wrist before taking the lawyer’s legs out from beneath her with a double sweep to the back of her knees and a firm forearm across her chest. Stars and a sharp pain blurred Amy’s vision as her head slammed into the ground. The fight was already leaving her as the smiling skull mask leaned down and its black gloved hand pressed a cool cloth over her face.
Unconsciousness consumed Amy and her last thoughts were a flurry of curses directed at God, at her assailant, and, most vehemently, at Malcolm Weir.
Kneeling next to the senseless woman, Kyrun Silva took her wrist in hand and checked her pulse. The government agent hated the idea that he had to hurt a civilian, even if she had been aiding his enemy. She was a defenseless woman who should have been safe in her own home…would have been safe if Malcolm Weir hadn’t drug her into the mess he’d caused when he escaped from Project Hardwired. When he had killed the three fine men with whom Silva had served as part of Beta-Squad.
Verifying his victim’s vital signs were strong, the black-clad soldier reached down and hauled the woman up onto his shoulders. Silva’s gloved hand slid up to the side of his mask, activating the radio transmitter hidden within.
“Beta-One to Sky-High. Inform Grail that the Jensen woman is in custody and I will be transporting her to his location.”
“The Templars will take possession of Jensen, Beta-One,” replied the calm voice of the Sky-High tactical officer in Silva’s ear. “It’s their op from this point out. You may stand down and return to C&C once the drop has been made. You’re due some time off. Over.”
“Negative, Sky-High,” barked Silva, barely containing his rage. “You tell Grail that Designate Cestus is mine.” Silva broke off his radio link before a counter-order came through. There was no way he was going to let some hired gun steal his chance at justice. Malcolm Weir had much to answer for and Silva was damned sure he would be there when it finally happened.
*****
The first thing Amy Jensen noticed as she returned to the land of waking was the harsh sound of raised voices somewhere nearby and that no matter how many timed she blinked her eyes open things were still dark. Scrunching her cheeks up into the sort of face a baby might make the first time it was forced to eat something distasteful, like smashed peas or Grandma Jensen’s infamous liver and onion plate, the freshly conscious woman was pleased to discover the source of blackness was something placed over her eyes and not from actual blindness.
Although once she had time to think it over Amy decided that particular discovery didn’t make her feel any better at all. A blindfold meant she had been kidnapped by the man who broke into her condo…and that meant she was in a lot of trouble. The panic in her began to build even more as she attempted to remove whatever had been impeding her vision only to find her arms were held down to her sides. Whoever had hijacked Amy had tied her to a chair—and, according to the discomfort in her rump, a rather hard and uncomfortable one at that.
Blindfolded, gagged, and unable to move, Amy decided her best bet would be to try and reach out with her other senses—weren’t they supposed to become more pronounced when your sight was gone? That’s what she’d always heard. With nothing to taste or touch, Amy leaned back and listened, trying to make out as much as she could with her ears.
The voices came back into focus and Amy quickly identified at least three men in the room with her. The first of which sounded large and angry.
“This is our show, little man,” raged the deep voice of a man with the hint of an accent from either the upper Midwestern United States or Southern Canada—Amy had never been very good at separating the two. “I’m getting tired of you government piss-ants trying to horn in on our job here.”
“I get first crack at Weir,” snapped the second voice, a bit further away. The logical side of the lawyer kicked in, tagging the voice as being from an African-American man in his twenties or thirties, possibly from the West Coast. Normally Amy would have admonished anyone making such a generalization, but considering these men had busted down her front door (and probably taken away any chance she’d ever have at getting her security deposit back) and taken her against her will, she didn’t feel quite so bad about it. Anything at all she could pick from their voices could be used down the road when the lawyer was having them prosecuted.
“By all means, Agent Silva. Your claim predates our own. As long as we can take his remains back to our mutual masters, then he is yours,” said the third man in a proper English accent Amy might have called ‘sexy’ if she had heard it in any other setting.
“Fine,” agreed the voice belonging to ‘Silva’ right before the slamming of a heavy door resounded in the room.
“We will await your signal of success,” said the British voice.
Hard-soled footsteps clumped across a solid floor towards where Amy sat and a second later the blindfold was pulled smoothly from over her face. Blinking rapidly, it took the counselor a few seconds to adjust to the sudden influx of harsh light filling the room. With her vision returning, Amy was hit by two things, neither of which she had expected to see once it did.
The first was details of the room itself. Lined with rough, hand-hewn stone of dark gray, the impression of being held in a small dungeon cell hit Amy. The room’s dimensions were fifteen by fifteen at best, and its furnishing consisted of the wooden seat Amy had been tied to, a table whose construction matched the chair, and a quartet of men—two lounging near the only exit from the room, the giant of a man Amy could only assume was the owner of the angry voice, and a fourth man who bore the honor of being the second thing the woman hadn’t expected.
Staring down at her from beneath a hair style stolen directly from the post-Moonlighting Bruce Willis, smiled a middle-aged man dressed like a knight…with shining green armor and all. His helmet rested on the table behind him. It took everything Amy had to resist the urge to fire off a random Monty Python quote at the ridiculously garbed man. She would have started chanting ‘Ni, Ni’ over and over again if she hadn’t been convinced it would just make her situation worse. Instead Amy just grunted into the cloth stuffed between her teeth.
Tsk’ing, the knight, whom Amy had dubbed ‘Sir Douche-a-lot’ in her mind, bent down to the bound woman and removed her gag. “This one apologizes for our rudeness and for your discomfort.” Looking over his shoulder, the stranger called to one of his men guarding the door. “Please, get our guest some water. She looks parched.”
“You’re going to be in big trouble when I get out of here, Mister!” Amy shouted. From the attitudes of the men filling the small room it was clear the man in green, whoever he might be, was the one in charge. “Do you know who I am?!”
A puzzled look played across the Grail’s refined features as he glanced from the captive woman to the men who had captured her and back.
“Of course I do.” The warrior surprised her with a warm smile that seemed genuine. “You are Amy Kathryn Jensen. Originally of Lansing, Illinois, you’ve called New York City your home for nearly ten years. While I do have full details on your home life, education and work experience, including information on your current position in the District Attorney’s office, what I do not have, Ms. Jensen, is the reason why you’re helping a traitor. A man whose very actions stand at opposition to the laws you so staunchly advocate.”
“A ‘traitor?’ You’ve got to be kidding me, Mr…” Amy decided
to use their back-and-forth as a way to glean as much information on her precarious situation as possible.
“As I am in the vestments of my station, Ms. Jensen, you may call me Grail,” said the high-tech knight with a theatrical bow.
Grail. Cestus. Gauss. Hardwired. Amy decided she was going to need a scorecard to keep track of all the silly names that kept getting tossed at her.
“Ok…Grail.” Feeling it play across her tongue, the name sounded even more idiotic when she said it out loud. “Malcolm Weir is no more a traitor than I am. He’s a hero.”
Sitting down and stripping off the thick armored gauntlets from his hands, Grail leaned forward and offered Amy a drink brought forward by one of his men. She allowed herself to take a sip, assuming it was safe—if they had wanted her dead, there was no need to poison her.
“It is not for this one to pronounce judgment on you, Ms. Jensen. That will be for my current masters to pass sentence. But Designate Cestus—the man who was once Malcolm Weir—has been deemed a traitor by the men who created him. That is why I was called down to bring the prodigal son home. Dead or alive as your American movies might say.”
“You don’t know Malcolm like I do…he’s a good man,” the blood began to rise up into Amy’s face. She wouldn’t stand—sit there and let anyone disparage Malcolm Weir. “The men who sent you, they are the traitors. Do you know what they did to him?”
The perplexed look returned to Grail’s face and his dark eyebrow raised.
“They saved his life, Madam. Took a shattered man and made him whole once more.”
Straining against the ropes holding her to the hard wooden chair, Amy bellowed at her captor, “They made him a monster!”
Grail shook his head sadly. “They gave him purpose…honor. He should have thanked them. Instead he offered only betrayal.”
