by R J Johnson
He stared out at the city lights below him as he reveled in the memories. He’d avoided thinking about her as long as he could, but with this stone, he had an opportunity to make things right.
Betraying his best friend was tough, but this meant everything to him. Alex couldn’t possibly understand what he was going through. Scott had lost the love of his life. How could anyone reasonably expect him to continue with life in a normal manner?
Breaking into Auburn’s systems and deleting his camouflage plans from their servers would be worth whatever anger Alex was sure to be feeling right now. He’d helped his friend enough over the last few days, and if anything that had shown him how precious time really was.
And how little of it he had.
He looked up, grim at the city below, looking for the tower that contained Auburn industries and the man who killed the love of his life.
It was time he took care of some business.
He began walking quickly toward his apartment in Pasadena. To get his plan started, he needed his computer and her access card.
He only hoped there was still something left by the time he got there.
Chapter Eight
The morning came, whether Alex liked it or not and this was one of those where he definitely did not like it.
He stirred, looking around the room, his head still foggy. It was late - well, late for him. Eight-thirty in the morning was still early for a lot of people, but he’d been used to being up before the crack of dawn for a long time now.
He rose from the ground and moved to the bathroom in order to relieve his bladder. Flushing the toilet, he washed his hands, and threw some water over his face and hair.
Alex looked in the mirror, the water dripping off his face. He stared at his reflection and looked at the healing stone hanging around his neck. He swallowed and thought about his friend out there with a stone of his own. He got angry. Why was it him carrying this burden? What did he ever do to deserve this? Scott certainly didn’t deserve to go crazy.
Why’d he even involve his friends in the first place?
Furious at himself, he punched the mirror hard, cracking it. Alex looked at his hand and the blood seeping out of his self-inflicted wounds. His stone glowed and the familiar blue light spread down across his body and down to his hand. The tiny cuts healed quickly, leaving no trace behind.
He sighed in defeat. That mirror was gonna cost him, but, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it. He slumped to the ground, holding his head in his hands. This was defeat. Alex had gotten Emily involved in something that he couldn’t possibly understand and she clearly didn’t deserve.
Christina was right to get them back to the hotel and regroup. He was in no shape to go after his friend. If he knew Scott like he thought he did, he should hear from him somehow in the next few hours.
Unless he didn’t really know his friend.
After all, it had been over six years since the last time he’d spoken with him. A few letters and awkward phone calls was all they were limited to while he was still “alive” in the Army.
Besides, after he’d helped Ash hijack the money it wasn’t as if he had a lot of time to think about Scott. He had been too caught up in Ash’s bad deal.
There was a soft knocking at his hotel room door. Alex grabbed a towel and moved to the door, holding the pistol and looking out the peephole. Emily was standing there alone.
He opened the door and let her in. She moved quietly to the bed, sitting down.
Alex grabbed a shirt and put it on. He didn’t know what to say to her, but he had to say something. It was getting awkward.
“Where’s Christina…?”
“I sent her out to grab some food,” she looked at him, her wide blue eyes still red and puffy. She’d clearly been up all night crying. “I told her we needed to talk alone.”
Alex swallowed. He’d been expecting this.
“You don’t need to say anything. This whole thing was my fault. Your fiancé…”
“Max,” she corrected him fiercely.
“Max,” he said slowly, “What happened… wasn’t supposed to happen. I don’t know how… or why these stones are following me, but…”
He paused. This was something that’d been niggling in the back of his head ever since Siobhan’s mysterious appearance at JPL. How had she known where to find him?
“But what?” Emily asked.
“I think something, I don’t know what… I think something is bringing the stones together.”
“For what?” Emily snapped. “So Max would die?”
Alex struggled. There was no good answer to this. She wanted answers and he didn’t have any beyond gut feelings.
“I think it’s so much larger than that.” He shook his head. “I’ve got no answers for you Em. I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you it was all random and a coincidence but I can’t. I…”
“That’s enough…” Emily buried her face. Alex didn’t say a word. He only retreated across the room to wait and see what she needed to say.
“I know you’ve gone through a lot,” Alex began.
“No!” she said, looking up at him. “You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?” Alex asked, feeling indignant. She was getting mad at him and he felt himself start to respond.
“You’re not going to convince me all this was supposed to happen as part of some cosmic play we’re acting out.”
“Emily, I don’t know what’s going on, that’s what I’m trying to explain,” Alex said exasperated. “The best chance I have for all of us to survive is to get that stone back from Scott before he does something really stupid with it.”
“Or what?” her eyes flashed, “You’ll let him die too?”
“Come on…” he protested.
“No,” she said, her jaw set in determination. “I came in here to tell you that my part in your little adventure is over.”
Alex’s grimaced. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to get off this crazy ride. After all, she just watched her future husband go nuts and try to turn the entire west coast into radioactive slag. Now, their friend Scott was out there with a stone that allowed him to shapeshift into anything he wanted. What else would she have to bear witness to?
“Emily…”
“Stop…” she replied crossly. “I don’t want to hear it. I know you had a rough time out there during your…” she waved her hands, “…death? I don’t even know anymore.”
“It’s not just that,” he said. “I thought I was doing good in the world. I thought I was helping people.”
She looked at him with a face he knew all too well. She knew when he was bullshitting her.
He sighed, conceding the point, “I thought I was helping end the war.”
She cocked her head at this, “How could you have possibly done that?”
Alex shook his head, “I did things Emily…”
“I know!” she shouted and he winced. “I know you did things! I get it. You don’t want to bring me into your world, that’s fine. But, I can’t keep going on with this whole stupid ride. You’ve stolen money, killed people. This isn’t the Alex I knew, and it definitely isn’t the Alex I fell in love with.”
She wiped her eyes, as her voice cracked after screaming at him. “You did what you thought was right…”
“No,” Alex said, irritated. “I did what I was thought was right.” He sighed. “I just didn’t count on liking it as much as I did.”
“What does that even mean?” she asked.
He chewed the bottom of his lip, he’d told her this much so far, what would a little more matter?
After recovering the money from the ocean, they’d been picked up by a repurposed fishing vessel. The cargo was loaded into the space where they usually kept the enormous fish they caught and they shoved ice all over the containers as to conceal the money from view.
When they finished with that job, Alex was allowed a few minutes to himself. While he desperately wanted a shave and shower (ma
ybe even a few hours of rack time), he had to figure out just what the hell was wrong with his friend.
He found Ash on the bridge giving orders to the elderly sea captain. The old sea dog stood there, his short white beards and weathered face staring at Ash unblinking as he got his orders to head for New York.
Ash turned to see Alex enter the bridge. His eyes narrowed as he finished giving orders to the man to stop for nothing – not even the coast guard. He didn’t anticipate being stopped by the authorities, but Ash didn’t want any confusion about who was in charge.
The salty dog nodded, returning to the controls and completely ignoring Alex who was standing there impatiently.
“What is it Jason?” Ash asked, without looking over at him.
“Cargo’s stowed,” he said. “No one inspecting us should see anything strange.”
Ash grunted, still typing quickly into the tablet in his hands. Alex allowed his friend a few moments with the device before deciding to speak up.
“Look, I get that you did what you did out there because you figured you were…” Alex struggled with the words, “I dunno… protecting me maybe? I just want you to know…” Alex approached his friend and clasped him on the bicep. “You don’t have to be afraid of what you can and can’t tell me. We just stole a few billion dollars. I get why you think you can’t trust any of those pups out there,” Alex jerked his head back at the surviving members of their squad, “But this is me. I’m not going to fuck you over…”
Alex withdrew and sat down in the chair, kicking his feet up. Might as well get comfortable. “So why don’t you go ahead and tell me what’s really going on here?”
Ash stared at the tablet for a few minutes until finally speaking. “They came for her in the dead of night. I didn’t even know they would dare. Not when they knew what they knew about me.
“You’re talking about your sister?” Alex wanted to know. Ash nodded.
“After her kidnapping, it became about far more than just stealing money.”
“There are… let’s call them ‘powerful people’ out there in the world who are intent on doing the world harm. It was, in fact, one of those people who coerced me into stealing that money. He had the right contacts, knew the right pressure points. And it was a simple matter for him to connect the dots. I didn’t see him coming and for that, we all pay for it. My sister will pay. I’ll pay, and you’ll pay for it. All because you had the misfortune of knowing me. And now, because we didn’t bring in every dime, we all face a fate far worse than death…” Ash said grimly, staring out at the dark waves.
“What?” Alex wasn’t sure he wanted to know now. His friend was getting scary.
“Slavery.” Ash said finally after a long pause. “He’ll put us in bondage and make us do everything he wants, or needs us to do. He’ll make sure that when he asks us to jump, we tell him we already did.”
“Then what are we going to do Ash?” Alex asked gently. He didn’t want to push his friend into doing anything rash, like attempting to kill him again. “If we’re facing death, then what do you plan on doing to keep this guy from killing us?”
Ash paused and thought about what he was going to say next, “I’m doing exactly what you’ve always wanted out of life my friend.”
Alex didn’t understand, Ash put a hand on his shoulder, “You wanted to James Bond your way through your contract. Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to do my friend.”
“You’re going to become Bond?” Alex asked, sounding confused.
“In a sense,” Ash said. “If we’re not going to deliver the whole shebang, then we might as well take the lot of it and use it for good instead of evil.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning my goal is to create a team of highly trained professionals that can act independently from the international community or any government.”
Alex laughed at the sheer audacity of it. “You’re insane.”
“Am I?” Ash asked, sitting up straight. “You’ve seen the clusterfuck our great and perfect leaders are creating in the Middle East. From cocking up diplomacy with Iran, to declaring Mission Accomplished without accomplishing any of the goals we set out to do… the leaders of our country have sufficiently proven to me that they don’t have the expertise to manage the people’s affairs effectively.”
“Then what?” Alex asked. “You going to kill the president or something?”
“Nothing as insane as that,” Ash said waving his hand. “The president isn’t anything more than a figurehead at this point now. A few privileged individuals have all the real levers of power within their grasp now. Nations and presidents barely inconvenience them at this point.”
“Then what do you propose?”
Ash smiled, “It’s been something I’ve toyed with for a few years now. I want to cut out the red tape that keeps out people from doing their jobs effectively.”
“I’ll grant you that politics can move slowly,” Alex said, his brow furrowed, “but I can’t see how assassinating people can do anything about it. If anything, it’ll just slow down the process even further.”
“I’m not interested in politicians!” Ash said, slamming his fist down on the table. “I want the heads of the people who are really running things. I want the CEO of the oil companies dead. I want their major stockholders dead. I want the people who support a system of economics that drives people out of their homes for profit, dead. I want those with too much money to experience what it’s really like to live on two dollars a day.”
“And I want to start with this man.” Ash slammed a folder down on the table between them. Alex looked down.
Alex had no response to this. What could you possibly say when you were watching your friend and mentor devolve into insanity?
“Sounds crazy.”
“Is it really though? Think of the implications!” Ash exclaimed. “Imagine if politicians were free of worrying where their next fundraising check came from. Imagine what it’d be like if the people dictated the conversation in the US and not the corporations. We can do that, together!”
“By killing people?” Alex felt a bitter metallic taste enter his mouth.
“It’s not just that,” Ash said shaking his head. “Let me tell you about my last mission. We were out in the sandbox taking fire from every Al Queda hardass in Anbar and we were instructed to get the people of a local village evacuated safely. Unfortunately for those villagers, they were only a few miles away from a refinery owned by one of our friendly oil companies. Instead of helping those poor people evacuate, our unit was ordered to protect the refinery.
“Al Queda killed every single one of those people in that village,” Ash said firmly. “They didn’t come within a dozen miles of the refinery.”
Alex swallowed. He’d heard various versions of this kind of mission before. Protect the infrastructure, forget about the people. He’d never had to run any missions like that before, so he’d remained protected.
“I wish I could tell you it was the first time something like that happened,” Ash said shaking his head, “but it wasn’t. With this money, we could’ve not only helped secure that village, but even use it to rebuild their schools and infrastructure.”
Alex thought about what he’d had to do. The people who’d died because he agreed to sign on and the people who would die if he continued.
“I get it,” Alex said, hoping to calm his friend. “But I can’t. I just want my cut and to be gone.”
Ash stared at him and sighed. “I can’t let you do that.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Does it matter?” Ash replied. “I let you go with a cut of the money and guess what those boys out there are gonna want? Then I’d be left with a twelfth of the money I need and no one left who can help me prevent another village being wiped off the map just because certain politicians got their hands greased.”
Alex swallowed and thought about his next move.
He didn’t have one.
“All r
ight,” Alex said slowly after a moment. “Since you made it sound so appealing… what’s your first target?”
Ash grinned and nodded to the file folder he’d placed between them. “Soon as we get clear, I’m going after this man.”
Alex opened up the file folder and saw an obese man with bad skin and flopping jowls. “And he is?”
“The President and CEO of Graydown Mining. They were the assholes who let the village burn.” Ash looked up at Alex. Alex was surprised to see that there were tears running down the man’s cheeks. “And he’s the man who still has my sister as leverage. He’ll kill her if we don’t deliver every dime of the money.”
Alex felt his stomach drop as he remembered Ash’s little sister Heidi. Bright eyed and in her sophomore year at San Jose State, Alex had met her briefly during his graduation from boot. Ash had been so proud of him, he’d brought his whole family to meet the man who saved his life in the convenience store robbery.
Alex scanned the file and was surprised to see the man’s sins were not limited to allowing innocent people to die. He read one particularly shocking entry about the man’s predilection for children and he felt something within go empty.
“How soon can we get started?” Alex whispered.
Chapter Nine
Emily sat in silence for a moment as she absorbed the latest part of Alex’s tale.
“Wow…” she managed.
“That’s not even the worst of it,” Alex said glumly. “There’s more, but I don’t think it really matters anymore.”
She contemplated that for a moment and held up a hand. “I just think… and Christina agrees... that we’re just way in over our head here.”
Her voice lowered and she took his hand, “Alex, I don’t know what this is, but clearly, I am not the one to help you with this. Maybe you are. You’ve survived more than I’m sure I know, but you need people who can handle themselves when the shit hits the fan and I am not that person…” she withdrew her hand as her eyes moistened again, “At least not now. Not after Max’s death.”
