When he finished, Jack stood up and spoke, “Alex, if any of what you’ve said is true, we owe you a massive debt that we plan to repay with your wife and daughter. Don’t tell a soul about what has happened here. We need to get back to HQ and tell the others. I’ll keep in touch, Alex, but only if you prove yourself trustworthy. We’ll start with Sergeant Andrews since I know about a few of his dealings. Goodnight Alexander. Let’s go, Morningstar.” Jack and Stan left the house without another word and began the trek back to the house. Stan called ahead to tell Valerie about what had happened, and why they were going to be late. He’d explain everything else when they got home.
Chapter 14
Stan knocked on the door of the apartment while Jack watched their backs. The sun was rising, and after a few moments Valerie finally opened the door, her eyes bloodshot and a knife strapped to her hip.
Her voice was haggard when she spoke, “Jack, Stan, you’re finally back… Come in please guys. Don’t worry, Maria is still asleep, and I’ll be fine,” Val led the two inside, and they all sat in the living room, Stan and Jack on the couch, Val in the lone chair, “Now, would please explain to me just what the hell happened out there? First, you don’t show up, Jack, then Stan gets a mysterious text from you and runs out himself, and he doesn’t show up when he should have for a run to the apartment. Next thing I know, I’m all alone with Maria, hoping to God neither of you have been killed and seriously wondering if this place is the best headquarters for us. So please, explain yourselves.” Tears rimmed her eyes.
Jack began the long story before Stan could say anything, and Stan would stay quiet until he was relevant, “Alright Val, here’s what happened: I finished my hit on Farrows, and I was leaving to make my way back here, then things went a little south."
Jack pulled up his pant leg, showing her the bandaged gash on his leg, “I was.. mugged? I’m not sure what the man’s intentions were, but I pulled my gun on him and he charged me with his knife. He was dead before he touched me, but as post-mortem revenge, he managed to get a good slice on my calf. I ran off, field dressed it, and found myself rather close to my old apartment.”
Val was already pretty shaken, after learning that Jack had been in mortal danger and there wasn’t anything they could have done to help him. But this was a war after all, even if it wasn’t being fought with tanks and planes.
“Anyway, so I’m sitting on my old bed when this guy comes into the apartment, claiming to be Erin Culloch’s brother. I’m curious, so I don’t shoot him immediately. We talked for a bit, then I found an excuse to leave since I’d got a reply from the one message I tried to send after my phone wouldn’t send a call. Then I went and waited at the corner for Stan.” Jack finished, signaling for Stan to tell his side of the story now.
Stan picked up where Jack left off, “I picked him up at the intersection, and we drove while he explained what had happened in the apartment. But then we were,” Stan let out a sigh, “We were attacked, Val. By very bad men with very big guns. We think Alexander may have been forced into it, but everything points to him informing an outside force about us. Luckily, Jack didn’t give away too much. We survived that, and returned to the apartment.”
Valerie interrupted him, herself on the verge of a breakdown, “Stan! You were shot at? I don’t even have a gun! You guys could have been killed! I don’t trust Alexander, I don’t care if you’re going to try to defend him, especially if you know he tried to put a hit on you!”
Jack stepped back in, his own emotions flaring. He loved Valerie, but he wasn’t going to let her tear into them like this, especially considering what he was going to try to do for Alex, and considering Alex’s situation.
He spoke, his voice stern, “Val, it’s not like that at all. He was an unwilling accomplice to the hit. Hell, Aerotec has his wife and kid locked up somewhere, and if he doesn’t comply those innocents die! He did what he had to do, whether I like it or not. And I am going to help him, Val, whether you like it or not.”
A few moments of silence passed, and Jack calmed a little, his outburst over, “I’m sorry Val, it’s been a rough day, and I want to help him. Not just out of the goodness of my heart either. He’s a Culloch, Val, and he has had access to some very deep secrets. If we can secure his loyalty by saving his family, he’ll give us everything we need like an eager puppy. So, helping Alex instead of hurting him is in our best interests, so, therefore, I am going after the captain of the guard at the mine.”
“Exactly Jack, that is exactly why we must help him,” Stan started again, “But Valerie? This is going to have to be Jack’s crusade for now, because we have bigger problems on our hands than the corrupt captain of the guard.”
Stan was once again interrupted by Valerie, “Wait, so Jack is going to try to kill the Captain of the Guard at the mine? What are we gonna do Stan? Nothing?”
“Errr… Not nothing. We need a new place. One, I cannot afford this one since I quit my job, two, it is only a matter of time before they link us all together as the resistance, so we need to be operating out of somewhere that isn’t a known residence of ours. Because they will come for us, and they already have on the street. We have to relocate, and we definitely need weapons.” Stan explained, then continued, his voice somber and woesome, “Val, we need to find a place in the American district, even if it’s an abandoned house, it will be better than here. We don’t have a car anymore either, considering mine is full of bullets, so we’ll have to do this manually.”
“I… I understand Stanislav, but I don’t see what letting Jack be a murderer for hire tonight achieves for us,” Val said, capping off her emotions.
Jack interceded on his own behalf now, raising his hand in the air as if to pet the tension itself, “It gets us information about Aerotec, and we’ve all heard the rumors of prisons underground in the mine, and we all know for a fact that Sergeant Andrews is a pimp and drug dealer, so regardless of his innocence in regards to Aerotec, I can sleep easy at night if I kill him. It’s simply so we can get information that might help us Val, and right now I’m the most effective assassin on the surface of Mars. I’ll be fine Val. Promise.”
“Jack, just please don’t make Alexander Culloch the hill you die on, please. We need a more visible presence, yes, but you know how his brother was, and we don’t know how similar they really are. Just… Be careful. I’m not going to fight against it. We pledged our lives to this cause, so I need to get accustomed to my childhood friend being in mortal danger.”
Jack stood up and hugged Val. “I love you too Val, even if you’ve got a roundabout way of saying it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a drug dealer to neutralize, and a message to spread. I’ll be here only as long as I need to be in order to print a couple new flyers, then I’ll take my stuff and go. I’ll message both of you when I’m done.”
Jack went to the other room without another word and began writing up a new flyer, leaving Val and Stan to contemplate their next move in the dreary silence.
Chapter 15
Jack slung his pack over his shoulder, having donned a black hoodie similar to what most Outer City residents wore. He stuffed his gun in a secret pouch in his backpack, alongside a full nine rounds, a few shotgun shells, and the flyers he had made for this assassination.
He spoke to Stan and Val as he opened the door, “Alright guys, I’m gone. As I said, I’ll message when I’m finished, but I’m not leaving until I at least get some sort of information. I’ll be back eventually.” With that Jack left on a mission to cleanse the mine of a bad man.
While Jack was gone on a mission of righteous vengeance, Val and Stan left the apartment and made their way towards the American district with a bag of Jack’s cash and a hope that they wouldn’t get killed in the process.
…
Jack wandered in the general direction of the mine and soon found himself in the Scottstown Borough, a particularly rough part of town dominated by drugs, prostitution, and various other no-good businesses. Sergeant Andrews, t
he man Jack was after, had contributed to much of this by aiding and abetting these illegitimate businesses instead of persecuting them as he should have. It was just another pie Aerotec had its hand in, and it was doubly dangerous because of it. Many of the gangsters around here were suspected to be bankrolled as informants nowadays according to some of the messages Jack and Stan had received from various trustworthy sources in the city. Most people suspected that the gangsters' informants were being bankrolled by Aerotec Industries, but most were sure that was as far as it went, aside from the corrupt guard force that took bribes to look the other way.
Jack had wandered here for no particular reason; he had everything he needed after all, but it was interesting to think that he was about to do a little to help the people of Scottstown and New Columbia as a whole. Even if someone replaced Andrews, it would be something at least. Jack kept walking towards the mine.
...
Valerie and Stan stood on the threshold of an old warehouse which was for sale. The current owner opened the door and welcomed them in before leading them into a side office. The warehouse was rather large actually, but it would work perfectly. It was about a football field long, and a third as wide, with most of the interior being coated in the typical rusty dust of Mars. Mr. Marsh, the owner, wanted out of this district so he could set up shop in a better part of town, maybe even in the Inner City.
“Alright Mr. Marsh, we will gladly take this place off of your hands, so what’s your starting price?” Val said, a smile wide on her face while she shook Marsh’s hand.
The dark-mooded man didn't exchange pleasantries, moving straight to the point, “A hundred grand, American. Take it or leave it.”
“How about 150? Just out of goodwill.” Val pulled out the stacks of cash Jack had hoarded. There was more than enough, strangely. Probably something worth asking him about. She handed the money over, “Here you go Mr. Marsh, a pleasure doing business with you.” In this bizarro wild-west, paperwork was practically unheard of in the outer-city, except for a deed and cold, hard cash. Mr. Marsh finished up and left a few minutes later.
“Stan, now we just need to get to work on moving our stuff here, since we don’t have a vehicle to move it with anymore. Unless we want to go round one up with the 50 thousand bucks. Ought to be able to fetch us a decent pickup truck or a van or whatever.” Val held a wad of cash in her hand. Stan simply shrugged, and within minutes they were on their way to one of the few dealerships left, specializing in used vehicles, with a dilapidated sign and an even more dilapidated storefront: "Walsh’s Used Car Dealership”. An odd thing to see considering it was Mars, but they were martian cars, not terrestrial cars, so… it worked and had been working since a few years after New Columbia was founded. This place was probably one of the oldest establishments in New Columbia.
...
Meanwhile, Jack approached the mine. It was about time for people to begin arriving at the mine to start work, so he just fell in line with the other miners. No one questioned him, oddly enough. Sergeant Andrews’ office was here on the first level near the former courtroom, and Jack walked in that direction with the hope that he’d be able to sneak and/or finesse his way in. He figured there wasn’t a story he could craft that would get him into the sergeant’s office, so he decided he would have to sneak.
He walked along with some of the regular foot traffic in the area, then dashed behind a guard shack before following the adjacent wall to the point where it separated with the main building. He checked each corner and then made his way to the side door, making his way into the main guard headquarters, or whatever it was called. Now, he just had to make it past the fifty or so guards. That couldn’t possibly end terribly. Hopefully, he wouldn’t end up in a firefight with the entire guard force. Hopefully.
Jack walked confidently down the side hall that he found himself in. He knew that the Sergeant’s office was on the second floor, somewhere on the north side. But that was about all he knew from rumors. He moved around a corner and almost knocked an unsuspecting guard over.
“Who do you think you are, mister? You aren’t supposed to be back here.” The officer put his hand on the butt of his pistol as he talked, wary of the strange man.
Jack tried to defend himself: “Listen, I was called in to see Sergeant Andrews, but I had to use the restroom and well… I got very, very lost somehow. I’m not even sure if I’m in the same building anymore.” Jack hoped to God that this would work, considering the rank insignia on the man’s epaulet he didn’t think he’d be too privy to the operations of bureaucracy here.
“Oh, you are lost aren’t you? I dunno how you managed to get here, but you’re earnest enough. I’ll take you up to Andrews’ office, but you’ll have to wait on him. He’s recently stepped out from what I know, got called out for some sort of emergency or whatnot. Right this way, this place can be a maze.”
Huh, that worked. Neat. Jack followed the officer, and before he knew it, he was sitting in a chair in Sergeant Andrews’ office. He waited for the door to close, and for some reason, there weren’t any cameras in this room. Odd.
He got up and set to work rummaging through papers, making sure to pull his gun out just in case. He had a silencer on it now, a very large one that would hopefully reduce the noise down to just the sound of the mechanisms in the gun itself. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad, and hopefully, Jack would make it out of the hornet’s nest alive.
He found a few papers of interest, but nothing too explosive, so he kept looking. A few receipts here, a diploma there, but mostly it was just bureaucratic nonsense, or it was until he found a lockbox. “Well well Andrews, it would seem you don’t just have paperwork to do, now does it? The hell could you be keeping in a lockbox?” Jack muttered aloud to himself before shoving the box into his pack, since he didn’t quite have the tools to open it.
Suddenly, the door rattled and Jack heard the distinctly gruff voice of Sergeant Andrews trying to figure out how he had locked himself out, “Aw what the hell, I probably locked it behind me…” Andrews opened the door with his keycard and entered, only to encounter a garrote around his throat, and a fugitive from the law in his face. Jack shut the door behind them and shoved Andrews into his chair without not saying a single word until he was fully bound to his chair.
No one had ever dared to stand up to Andrews, and yet now here he was, his life moments away from being ended. Unless… “Listen! Mister! I’ll do whatever you need. Amnesty for a friend or yourself, immunity, whatever you want, just don’t kill me!” His panicked whispers had the force of a shout behind them because he knew that he was dead if he alerted anyone.
“Well, if you’ll do anything to spare your life, Mr. Andrews, then you’ll answer all of my questions completely truthfully. No matter what the question is. Got it?” Jack spoke sternly, unyieldingly.
“Y-y-yes sir! I’ll answer all of your questions, all of them, just please don’t kill me!” Andrews pleaded for his life in earnest.
“Good.”
Chapter 16
“Now my first series of questions, Mr. Andrews, concern your side business. Are the drug dealing and human trafficking components of your foul job sanctioned by Aerotec, your employer?” Jack inquired, beginning a long series of questioning that led nowhere good for Mr. Andrews.
“What? I don’t do any of those things! How can Aerotec support me for something I don’t do?” How the hell does he know?
Jack just stared at Andrews with uncaring, seemingly soulless eyes, “Oh I know all about your side business Mr. Andrews. Don’t try to refute it. Everyone knows, to an extent, but you’re safe because you are the de facto police around here. So cut it with the innocence. Does Aerotec sanction your activities? If you don’t tell me I start chopping off knuckles, so make your choice in the next thirty seconds.” Jack pulled a knife from his pack and began wiping it off with a bandana.
Andrews' feet tapped the floor with furious anxiety, “Okay fine! Yes, Aerotec sanctions and even funds my less tha
n legal activities, because they get a very profitable cut out of it. Please, don’t hurt me.” Andrews confessed and begged, and Jack stared back blankly.
After an uncomfortably long silence for Andrews, Jack spoke, “Good. You’ve learned the rules. But don’t lie to save your life. Now, tell me the names of anyone who could take over your organization after your death, tell me the names of your suppliers, and anything else I might want to know. If you do, I might let you live.”
Andrews naively began rattling off names, all of which Jack recorded on his phone: names of people Jack didn't even know were involved, rough recollections of previous wrongdoings that would make any sane person squirm with shame and disgust, and a laundry list of individuals that were more than deserving of the death penalty.
When he finished, Jack spoke again: “One more thing Mr. Andrews. Where are you keeping Alexander Culloch’s wife and child? Or, if you don’t know, tell me who I need to seek out in order to find that information.”
Andrews squirmed in his confines. Bitter tears of fear and the flaming blush of embarrassment controlled him now, “I can’t tell you. They’d kill me.”
Jack was only a little ashamed at the state he'd put this man in. He didn't care, even if it was another human, Andrews had personally directed things that were worthy of more than the death penalty. Jack spoke, “Tell me or I start chopping. I won’t stop with your fingers either.”
Jack Cabe Page 6
