Annihilation: Love Conquers All

by Andrew, Saxon;Chiodo, Derek

  “Why did I roll under this bench?” Tag thought. He closed his eyes again and then he knew: ten armed military floaters roared in from overhead and landed on the street in front of the building, and a company of naval marines in full battle armor jumped off and formed up. Tag sensed that both north and south of the building other companies were landing and their floaters were lifting and scanning the ground for body heat that humans give off. One floater passed directly over his bench, but the stone prevented them from seeing him. He was surrounded, and if he moved away from the bench the scanners would see him. He focused his mind and thought, “I cannot be seen.” He repeated the phrase over and over, and when he opened his eyes he saw a dark shadow surrounding him. He immediately knew that it was the psychic field he would often see around himself during moments of stress. The entire area under the bench was black, and Tag thought that anyone looking at the bench would have to see it, but he dared not move because the company of marines was spreading out and using portable scanners to look for anyone hiding. One of them came over to the bench and pointed a scanner directly at him and then turned back toward the street.

  The man that had shot Richard came over sat down on the bench and started speaking on his com. “No, Inspector, we have not found him. We may have just missed him or he is not staying here anymore.” There was a pause and then he said, “We are going to move north and south to meet the other two companies and make sure he’s not hiding in the area.” After another pause he said, “I’m going to stay here in front of the Wiseman building and see if anything turns up.”

  For the next two hours Tag listened to the reports from the various units reporting in to the man sitting above him about the various people they had stopped and questioned. Tag could tell that the man was starting to get frustrated. Finally the company of marines arrived back in front of the building, and the man told their commander that they had missed the one they were looking for and ordered them to board their floaters and report back to base. One of them came up and said, “Do you want to go back with us, sir?”

  “No, I’m going to stay here a little longer. Leave one of the floaters and dismiss the company when you get back to base.”

  After all the floaters had lifted, Tag reached into his back pocket, took the red-covered test book, which he always kept with him, and slowly and silently tore a sheet out of the back that was blank on one side; he then took a felt tip, wrote on the sheet, and then reached up and slipped it into the man’s belt as he was leaning forward. Tag then moved back under the bench. Finally, the man got up, looked around, boarded his floater, and flew north toward the central part of the city.

  Tag could see that there were still no psychic shadows so the area was being watched electronically, but he was still enclosed by the dark psychic field, so he took a chance and stood up and walked away from the park bench. No one came to arrest him, and now he knew he could hide from electronic scanning.

  Colonel Ortiz entered Inspector Connor’s office and found Esa and Danielle sitting waiting for his arrival. “He wasn’t there, Colonel?” Esa asked.

  “No, Inspector, and I just had a feeling that he would have to be there. I guess I was wrong.”

  Danielle looked at him and said, “Were all those armored marines necessary?”

  “I wasn’t going to take a chance, but it really didn’t matter; he wasn’t there.”

  Danielle looked at Ortiz with a frown and said, “Tag is basically a peaceful person and would do all he could to avoid hurting anyone. That many marines might have forced him to do something he just wouldn’t ordinarily do, although I suspect that if he was right under your nose he would still be able to hide where you wouldn’t be able to find him.”

  Ortiz shrugged and said, “You know I value your opinion, and it’s for that reason that I took so many to find him. It was all a waste of time; he wasn’t there.”

  Esa looked at Danielle and then said to Colonel Ortiz, “Well, you gave it your best effort; at least we got the one who hid him. Thanks for trying.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t successful,” Colonel Ortiz said and then turned to go.

  Inspector Connor noticed something and said, “Just a moment, Colonel. What is that paper on your back?” Colonel Ortiz frowned and then reached behind him and felt the paper in his beltline. He took it out and read it and his eyebrows went up. Then he started laughing.

  “What’s so funny, Colonel?” Esa asked.

  Colonel Ortiz handed the paper to Esa, and Esa noticed it was a page from a placement test. “Turn it over, Inspector,” Ortiz said through his laughter.

  Esa turned it over to read it and looked shocked; then he too started laughing. Danielle watched the two of them as they laughed harder. Then Esa handed Danielle the paper and she read, “Tag, you’re it.”

  She shook her head and began smiling, and then she joined their laughter. Colonel Ortiz said, “I told you he was there.” That put all three of them into hysterics, and they had to hold their ribs as tears ran from their eyes while they roared with laughter.

  After he had traveled several miles, Tag entered a restaurant and ordered a meal. He then called a com that he had purchased months before and left hidden in the back of the children’s toy box. The com beeped twenty times before one of the children discovered it and took it to Maggie. “Hello,” Maggie said in a broken voice.

  “Maggie, this is Daniel. What’s going on?”

  “The enforcement committee has arrested Richard. They say he’s guilty of murder. Daniel, Richard told me before you moved in all the things he had done. He and I have prayed every night for forgiveness and for him not to get caught until the children were out and on their own. Daniel, just as Richard feared, they’re also looking for you.”

  Tag was surprised. He never guessed that Maggie knew who he really was; she had never given any clue. “That means I’ll have to leave, Maggie, but there’s something I want you to do.”

  Maggie was crying and she answered through her tears, “What?”

  “I want you to go in your bedroom and look behind the leg on the front left of your bed. If you can’t reach it, get one of the children.”

  A few moments passed and Maggie said, “Alright, Jennifer and I are at the bed, Daniel.”

  “Tell Jennifer to lie down on the floor and look on the back side of the leg just above the bottom of the bed.”

  “She says there’s some tape.”

  “Tell her to remove the tape and to hand it to you.”

  “Daniel, there’s a key on this tape.”

  “Yes there is, Maggie. Now listen closely, I don’t have much time. That key opens a security storage box one block from your home in the storage building numbered 11479 Lightner Boulevard. The number of the box, 101059, is on the key, and it has been rented for twenty years and paid for in advance. There is a duplicate key on the back of the other leg in the event you lose the first key. Do you understand so far?”

  “Yes, and Jennifer is listening too.”

  “Jennifer, you are the eldest of your brothers and sisters. Your mother is going to have to depend on you to help her take care of your family. Jennifer, this is very important. Are you listening?”

  “Yes I am,” a trembling voice said.

  “You can never tell anyone about that box. If you do, your family will starve and be separated. Your life depends on you being able to keep a secret. Can you do it?”

  “Yes, I promise from the bottom of my heart.”

  “Daniel,” Maggie said, “what’s in the box?”

  “Four million credits in one-hundred-credit notes.”

  Maggie was stunned. “How did you do that?”

  “Banks sometimes turn in old credits for destruction. I just happened to be present when they were moving them out to the armored floater. I’ve collected it on multiple occasions over the last two years. Maggie, use it slowly and use it wisely. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t change your lifestyle. Only you and Jennifer need to know.”
>
  “Thank you. My family will survive because of you.”

  “Take care of them, Maggie. Tell them I love them, but this will probably be our last contact.”

  Jennifer grabbed the com from Maggie and said, “We love you too, Daniel. Take care and we’ll miss you.”

  “Goodbye,” he said and ended the call.

  Three days later a young woman with blond hair and blue eyes came by to see Maggie. She was beautiful, and she was dressed very professionally. Maggie thought, “I wonder what she wants.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Wiseman. My name is Danielle Ash. I’m a senior inspector with the enforcement committee and I understand that a young man has been staying with you. Do you mind if I ask a few questions?”

  “Go ahead and ask. I may not have any answers,” Maggie replied.

  “Is he happy?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Maggie thought.

  “Is he healthy?”

  Then Maggie made the connection and understood. “He misses you terribly,” Maggie told her.

  Maggie saw the young woman start, and then her eyes began to tear up and she lowered her head.

  “How do you know that?” she asked.

  “He took your name.”

  She looked up and said, “He did what?”

  “He used the name Daniel Leash. If I’m not mistaken, that spells your name. I’d see him at night gazing out over the city and I could tell he was missing someone. That someone was you, wasn’t it?”

  Danielle could only nod her head. Then she asked, “How could he have come to live with your husband, especially since it was his fault that he was made to run?”

  “Because he saw what was good in him and brought it out. He saved my family, Danielle.”

  Danielle looked Maggie in the eye and saw that she was telling the truth. She sighed and then said, “Mrs. Wiseman, it’s my understanding that as a result of his criminal activity you will lose your husband’s retirement. I am going to send you one half of my pay each week until your children are out of school or until you are able to go back to work and support them.”

  Maggie looked at Danielle for a moment and understood how alike she and Daniel were; then she said, “Danielle, do you think he would leave and not provide a way for us to survive?”

  With that, Danielle broke down in tears and started sobbing uncontrollably. “I miss him so much.”

  Maggie took her in her arms and said, “The creator just can’t allow the two of you not to end up together. Be patient, you will find each other again.”

  Chapter 20

  Tag left the restaurant after talking with Maggie and went outside. He moved out slowly, checking to see if he was being watched, and started walking south. He had no idea where he was going to hide, but one of his first stops needed to be another storage facility just outside the cinema that he had originally followed Richard. “That’s as good a place as any,” he thought. He walked into the cinema and purchased a ticket, popcorn, and a drink, and then entered another one of those boring historic love stories. This was supposed to be about the last world war where some country called Mexico was the dominant world power and was destroyed by six fusion bombs. Tag could remember seeing pictures of the North American continent from space, and even though it was eight hundred years later, those six holes were still visible. That was the last war that humanity fought against itself. Every living soul and all animal life was destroyed in Mexico when those six bombs detonated. The movie wasn’t much of a love story because it ended with the bombs detonating. “I wonder why they keep releasing boring cinemas like this one?” Then he had an insight: the movies were to make sure humans would never forget the inhumanity that they did to each other.

  Tag sat in the cinema and watched the movie twice. He looked at his com and saw that it was 3 a.m. He got up, left the cinema, and went outside to see if it was safe to go to the storage facility. There were shadows everywhere except where the cameras were watching. He left the building and walked the five blocks to the storage facility, making sure he stayed in psychic shadows. The key he had purchased allowed him twenty-four-hour access, so he entered and went to his unit. Inside the unit were a small floater and a file cabinet. The file cabinet was actually a disguised armored safe, and inside the safe were credits that Tag had hidden in the event that he would need to hide someday. He removed twenty thousand credits and locked the cabinet. He also removed another item that he slipped into his back pocket. “Time to see Eric,” he said to himself.

  He moved the floater out and locked his unit, then moved the floater through the front entrance, making sure it closed behind him and was locked; then he lifted to the travel lanes above the buildings. He was safe from detection in his floater because the Directorate had not been able to place cameras in the air to look at all drivers, and having dark tinted glass on most of the floaters made it virtually impossible to see inside anyway. Registrations could be checked, but Tag had a valid registration on his floater. It had cost him extra, but the former owner had allowed him to keep the registration with the vehicle. He flew north for an hour until he could see the spaceport; then he looked for and found a public parking facility. He flew in and parked his floater on the bottom level, thirty-seven floors underground. There he turned off the floater, reclined his seat, covered himself with a blanket that he had stored under the seat, and went to sleep.

  It was dark on the lower level so he slept until the middle of the afternoon. His com went off at 3:30 p.m. and he awoke rested. During the three years he had been hiding he would occasionally go by Eric’s home and see if it was still being monitored. A year ago Eric’s house was covered in psychic shadows for the first time since Tag started living with Richard. “I guess they finally decided that I’m not stupid and they were wasting their time.” Tag wasn’t certain if after Richard’s arrest they might start monitoring Eric’s house again, so he watched the house for three days and it stayed in the shadows. He watched Eric and Leila come and go during those three days. They had gotten married two years earlier after they had finished their advanced career classes. He was disappointed that he could not attend their wedding, but he had taken his floater and parked on the top level of a parking facility near the church. He used a visual amplifier and watched as they left. He noticed that every part of the building and the streets around it had no psychic shadows. Security was watching closely in the hopes that he might show up. He knew that Danielle was there; her light blue floater was parked on top of the church. He could have stayed and tried to get a glimpse of her, but he decided he couldn’t handle the pain it would cause.

  On the fourth day he waited until 7 p.m. put on his disguise and went and knocked on their door. Eric came to the door and said, “May I help you?”

  Tag said, “Is this the McAnn residence?”

  “Yes it is.”

  “I have a special delivery for a Leila McAnn,” Tag said.

  Eric looked back in the house and said, “Leila, you have a delivery.”

  Tag saw Leila come to the door and look at him with raised eyebrows. “I wasn’t expecting a delivery. What is it that you’re delivering, sir?”

  Tag reached into his back pocket and pulled out the red-covered test booklet and handed it to Leila. “I think this is yours,” he said.