A door creaked to his left.
He swiveled to face the sound. Down another short hallway, a door had inched open. Donovan saw a pair of eyes in the crack, round with fear.
As soon as the child realized Donovan had seen her, she pulled away from the door, leaving a black chink behind.
“It’s okay,” Donovan said. “I’m not here to hurt you. I want to get you out of here. Take you back to your family.”
The door squeaked open a little further.
It was her. The little girl he was looking for. She matched the picture he had memorized exactly.
She wore a dirty gray dress that used to be pink. Her round face was covered in black smudges, of what substance Donovan didn’t know. He could tell she had been crying recently because there were clean streaks left behind in the filth on her cheeks.
Unavoidably, Donovan’s eyes fell on the ugly gash across her face. It zigzagged back and forth on its way down from her left temple to the right side of her jaw.
This child had fought. Had screamed.
Donovan felt a crushing pain in his chest. He forced away the image of a cluster of hands holding her to a table, all of them eager to see her bleed for x5.
“Please.” He lowered his gun and reached out a hand to her. “Come with me. I’ll take you to a safe place. And then we can find your family.”
“You can take me to Momma?”
“Yes, honey. Come with me.”
Tentatively, the little girl came out. Donovan saw that the door led down into a basement.
“Was there anyone else down there with you?”
She shook her head.
Donovan was relieved. He had no desire to see the horrors that lay down there.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Mae.” Her voice came out softly.
“That’s a pretty name, Mae. Are you ready to leave this place?”
She nodded.
“Good.” Donovan smiled and held out his hand.
Mae didn’t smile back, but she put her hand in his. There was something sticky and black on her palms, but Donovan ignored it and clasped her hand firmly.
He ducked into the backyard, aiming his gun in one hand and pulling the girl behind him. They crouched behind a small tree. When Donovan saw no sign of attackers, he crossed into the yard of the neighbors behind and walked along the side of the house, trying to look as if he belonged there.
Before they emerged onto the street, he bent down next to Mae.
“I’m going to have to carry you now.” Donovan took off his hoodie and pulled it over her head. It fell to her knees and she almost disappeared under the hood. “We don’t want anyone to see you and try to take you back, right?”
Mae nodded. Donovan scooped her up. In his muscled arms she weighed no more than a pillow. He carried his load onto the street and headed in the direction of his skycycle which he had hidden in a copse of trees in a remote part of the city.
It wasn’t long before people started to stare. He kept walking, eying them cautiously. Why were they looking at him like that?
Donovan heard rapid footsteps behind him. Someone was following.
He picked up his pace.
As he turned a corner near a grocery store, a woman leaning against its wall called out to him.
“Nice watch you got there.”
Donovan’s heart almost stopped. He cursed himself. How could he forget to take off his watch?! A stupid, rookie mistake. He ignored the woman and kept walking. But she had called the attention of others nearby. Even more people looked his way.
Donovan walked a little faster and listened carefully to the pursuers on the sidewalk behind him. One… two… three people. Two were average weight and the other was really small. He could tell by the different sounds their shoes made when they hit the ground.
“Can I see that watch, Pops?” a young boy said as he rode his bike in the gutter alongside Donovan.
“Where you from?” an older man leaning on a lamppost asked him. “You not from around here.” Luckily, the man didn’t feel like pursuing the matter. When Donovan did not slow or acknowledge him, the man spit on the ground. “Don’t come back here again.”
The boy on the bike still trailed him. “You don’t belong here, pris. Get out of here before you get hurt. Leave that little girl here. She’s one of us.”
Should he just run for it? Or should he put the girl down and fight. He ruled against the latter option. How long before other people started to jump in? He could probably take down fifty men on his own but only five of them at a time. If he turned and fought right now, even with the element of surprise, Mae might get caught in the scuffle. He might lose track of her. If he ran, he could probably make it. He was fast, and he could already hear one of them breathing heavily behind him.
He had to do something.
Donovan made his decision in an instant and slipped into action. He shifted Mae in his arms. “Mae, no matter what happens next, I need you to hang onto me and not let go. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, you have a good grip?”
He felt her hair brush his face as she nodded. Felt the sticky substance from her hands touch his neck.
“On the count of three, I’m going to run. Hold on tight.”
Donovan looked around. More people had emptied into the streets—news of his presence had spread like a deadly virus.
“One…two…”
Before a crowd could form around him and block him in, Donovan broke into a run.
“Three!”
A long moment passed before anyone reacted. It was the perfect amount of time for Donovan to disappear around another corner into a less populated alleyway.
There were three more turns before he reached his skycycle. The distance was about five blocks. He heard people behind him shouting, “He went that way! Over there!” The followers had figured out where he had gone and now others in the neighborhood had joined them.
Who were all these people who wanted it out for him so badly? Were they after Mae? They couldn’t possibly all know her.
Donovan shook the puzzle out of mind and focused on speed. Luckily, some of the heavier ones couldn’t keep up with the cardio and quickly fell behind. He could run at his current speed for fifty miles. None of them were able to keep up. He doubted any of them ever exercised, and the neighborhoods here were flooded with processed foods. It was the only stuff they could afford.
Donovan turned sharply around another two corners. Mae almost slipped from around his torso. He could feel her hands beginning to sweat against his neck. Suddenly, the group of people decided to give up chasing him. He slowed his pace but kept running.
“Don’t worry, Mae. We’re going to be all right. We’ll make it out of here.”
He had relaxed too soon.
A heavy body crashed into him from the left, throwing both him and Mae to the ground. His head banged against the cement, blurring his vision. He found his way to a standing position. He looked around for Mae and was surprised to see her leaning causally against the wall. She looked him directly in the eyes and smiled.
It wasn’t the grin of a child—there was no joy in her eyes. She flashed him the smile of a coy adult. He frowned at her. “Mae?”
The man who had delivered the amateur tackle was slowly getting to his feet, drawing Donovan’s attention. He whipped his e-gun out of the holster and pointed it at him. The man did not seem disturbed by the weapon—he just looked into the alleyway from which he had emerged.
“There he is, boss,” he said. “Donovan Knight.”
How does he know my name?
Who was Donovan Knight to the slums of Bakersfield? Why did he matter to them? Donovan turned the e-gun toward the alley and spotted a man as much out of place as he was. He was short but beefy, dressed in a black suit with a purple tie. He had a prickly mass of short grey hair on his head. His black shoes shined against the dirty pavement.
Donovan backed up se
veral steps so he could have both men in his range. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one else was there.
The suited man flashed him a toothy grin. “You should be honored, Donovan. You’ve been selected to serve as my example to the Army and Space Force what I think of them. It was me who sent the man who reported Mae’s location.” He chuckled heartily. “I’m going to kill you.”
Donovan held his gun steadily on the suited man. He was the more nonchalant of the two—very relaxed and poised, but there was a catlike way to his mannerisms. The man was in a state of false tranquility—he appeared completely at ease, but he was ready to spring at any moment.
This man was an expert fighter, Donovan knew just by looking at him. No wonder the tackler stood back. His boss didn’t need his protection. He had just needed his servant to get dirty for him. No man in a suit that nice was going to tackle another man to the ground.
“Who are you?” Donovan asked.
“Why,” the man looked astounded, “I’m the leader of x5, of course. My name is Petridge.”
Donovan was stunned.
“Yes, yes, everyone always has that reaction. The Organizers’ initiation markers are a little more subtle.” The man pulled up his sleeve to reveal a long, ropey scar that stretched from his wrist all the way to his armpit. He shook the sleeve down.
“As I was saying,” Petridge said lazily, “I lured you here to kill you…”
Donovan wasn’t listening anymore. This man had confessed to being a member x5. That was all the permission he needed to shoot him. Donovan discreetly shifted the gear on his e-gun to fatal.
The man shook his finger. “Ah, ah, ah. You wouldn’t want to do that.” He walked over to Mae and put his arm around her shoulder. In a movement so fast Donovan barely saw it happen, the man snatched Mae into his grasp and put his thick arm around her neck.
With his free arm, he pulled out a silver shaving knife. Donovan had never seen one in person before—only in old movies. The man held it firmly to Mae’s neck. The little girl’s eyes opened wide in terror. She let out of a quiet, crying moan.
“Let her go,” Donovan said.
“Why should I do that?” The man pushed the knife just so, and beads of blood dripped down Mae’s neck. Anger flashed through Donovan’s body.
He was completely unaware of what happened next until it was already over. He took a step forward and pulled the trigger of his e-gun. The small ball of blue light struck Petridge directly in the forehead, avoiding Mae by mere inches.
The man collapsed to the ground, twitching as if he were having a seizure. His body would not still for several minutes, but he was already dead. Donovan turned to the other man who put up his hands and backed away.
“Please don’t kill me.”
Too exhausted mentally to deal with him, Donovan turned to Mae, who stood stiffly against the wall. She was breathing hard and her arms were shaking.
“Mae,” Donovan said. “Let’s get away from here.” He wanted to leave Bakersfield as quickly as possible. His skycycle was only another half-mile away.
“Mae!” The tackler had not left the scene as Donovan had assumed. “Come with me. You belong to us. Don’t go nowhere with that pris.”
Mae looked at him as if in a daze. Donovan moved slowly toward her.
“Mae!” the man shouted. “He killed your father right in front of you. Remember your oath!”
The tackler’s final word seemed to trigger a dormant rage in Mae. Her eyes burned with anger and hatred.
“It’s okay, Mae,” Donovan said gently. “I didn’t kill your father. I won’t hurt you. No one will ever hurt you if you just come with me.”
“Come with me, Mae. We’re your real family out here.” The man came closer.
Mae looked at him with narrowed eyes, as if suspicious of him.
“That man is not your family,” Donovan retorted. “His boss almost killed you.”
The fire in her eyes seemed to dim and her breathing calmed. Donovan reached out his hand. Mae grabbed it as if transfixed.
In half a second, the little girl’s face transformed into a twisted mask of emotion. Donovan hadn’t expected it, hadn’t prepared for something like this. She was only seven years old—how could she possibly…?
In the instant that her face had changed, Mae slipped her hand into the pocket of her dress and drew a short, sharp blade. It was rusty from long disuse. Donovan wanted to tell her to put to it away, that she didn’t know what it was like to kill a man, that it would be a stain on her soul forever. He couldn’t get the words out of his mouth quickly enough—the girl leap forward and struck with all her strength.
Never had it occurred to Donovan that she would use the knife on him.
The metal penetrated perfectly between his ribs, digging into his lung. He stared at the small child as the pain ripped through him. That couldn’t have been just luck. She had been trained—trained to go for the vitals. She knew exactly what she was doing.
But why him? Why did she stab him?
Donovan would never forget that face, the twisted scar cutting across the gleeful smile that played on her lips. He sagged to his knees then dropped to the ground like a sack. He had been stabbed once before, but it had felt nothing like this.
There was something wrong. His heart was shuddering.
It was going to explode. His panic only made the spasms come faster.
As Donovan lay helpless, Mae (was that even her real name?) searched his pockets. She found the roll of paper money and the plastic credit cards that the General had issued him for this mission—no one here used electronic funds.
Mae kicked him in the side and spit on the ground next to him.
She bent over his face. “There was a paralysis potion on that knife. I’m going to do what my father planned for you.”
The next few minutes were the longest and most gruesome of Donovan’s life. The little girl, like a demon of hell, calmly drew her blade across his face, slicing through the flesh like butter, pushing it down until it touched bone.
It was then that Donovan realized that Mae believed the man he shot to be her father. How had he gotten her to believe that? Even after he cut her neck?
Donovan’s nerve endings screamed, blotting out all thought. They screeched so loudly in his ears that the sound became like a big wave that enveloped him, drowned him. His mind was on fire—he wanted to shout, to shriek out the throbbing, piercing hurts, but the paralysis allowed him only to lie there, staring. When the initiation rite was complete, Mae stood up and looked down on him. It was the oddest image—the moon shone behind her head, giving her a halo, but her face, permanently scarred and plastered with a smile that stemmed from causing pain, was anything but angelic.
“Don’t come back here, pris,” he heard her say. His vision had started to fade. “You will never be one of us and I will never be one you.”
She stuffed the crumpled bills into her pocket and ran off, leaving Donovan to choke on his own blood.
Chapter 3
“Life on earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.”
—Stephen Hawking
May 4, 2258
En Route to Fort Belvoir, VA
Donovan Knight
The sudden turbulence jerked Donovan out of his memories—memories that he still couldn’t quite believe. The world was full of evil things and he had finally switched out his worn and battered naiveté in favor of objectivity. Objectivity was what kept him alive, brought him back to his wife and kids.
Some holy soul in Bakersfield had called the police that night. They did it anonymously, so Donovan never got to thank them.
He heard the sirens as soon as Mae’s feet disappeared around a corner. They would probably never find her. The immediate hospital attention had saved Donovan’s face. It took weeks to heal, but when it did, there wasn’t even a scar left behin
d.
The damage was on the inside. Something about being betrayed by such a young soul, a person who should have been innocent and pure, disturbed him far beyond any scar she may have left behind. Sometimes he dreamed about it. He would feel her blade all over again, cutting into his flesh as if he were nothing more than a slice of fish. He would wake up soaked in sweat, his heart thundering. Donovan had learned that day that, for the sake of his own life, he could never show mercy again.
The world was screwed—he just had to do his best to unscrew it without getting killed first.
When the pilot landed the plane just outside Fort Belvoir, Donovan glanced at the time to see that only two and a half hours had passed.
To the naked eye there appeared to be nothing there but an empty field and a stone archway. The security there was far stricter than at the airport. They couldn’t get in without first confirming their identities.
The pilot turned off the jet’s engines.
“Shall we?” she said, gesturing to the door.
“Yes. I’m Donovan Knight by the way. Sorry I didn’t introduce myself, I was a little… preoccupied.”
The woman gave a small smile. “No problem. I hear this is supposed to be really important. Top secret and all that.” She reached out a hand to him. “Christina Austin.”
Donovan shook the proffered hand.
They walked up to the stone archway together, boots stirring up little clouds of dust.
“Brigadier General Donovan Knight reporting.”
“Corporal Christina Austin reporting.”
The image in front of them blurred, and an electronic voice came from seemingly nowhere.
“Please step forward.” It was the voice of the military identification system—Idem.
They got closer to the archway.
“Please look straight ahead without blinking and hold up your hands, palms facing outwards.”
They followed the instructions. A bright light shone into their eyes and something warm passed over their hands. Despite the warning, Donovan always blinked. It took only two minutes for Idem to match their fingerprints, irises, and blood samples to the ones on record.
The Legend of Things Past (Beyond Pluto SciFi Futuristic Aventures Book 1) Page 4
