Sunspots

by Gary Martin

  “What's the plan then?” he asks.

  “I think simplicity is probably the key thing here. Her parents’ house is being guarded by a private security company, and they've been told to shoot me on sight. Which, in my opinion, is a bit rude. There are two gatehouses, both guarded, and a ten-foot wall around the whole property. So we find a quiet bit of wall, you guys bunk me over and I run like fuck.” Terrell puts his hands over his face.

  “That is a terrible plan,” Jacob says. “You'll be shot as soon as you're on the other side of the wall. They're bound to have the whole place wired up with motion and heat detectors, and probably have a few S and D drones just to be on the safe side.”

  “You got any better suggestions?” I ask, and there is a long silence. Clearly there aren't any. Finally, Terrell takes his hands off his face and talks.

  “It just needs some finessing. Jacob and I are going to have to be decoys if you want this to work. You'll need one of us at both entrances, causing enough mischief that the guards stop paying attention to their monitors and want to kick the shit out of us instead. If they are using an S and D drone, I may know someone who can get me a device to temporarily confuse its sensors. That should give you a chance to get in and explain yourself. I'll give him a call now.”

  Terrell only knows one man, that I know of, who can get equipment like that. Tommy fucking Pritchard. And he's a nut job. A charming nut job. In spite of myself, I do actually quite like him, but I don’t trust him. He left the military after his basic training because he got home-sick, but he’s spent all his time since being out telling anyone who will listen that he was booted out because he didn’t like to play by the rules. Unfortunately for me, he is a great source for getting used military hardware. When I say used, it usually hasn't been. He'll insist on coming along. I really don't want someone I can't trust involved in this, but annoyingly he's also the only person I know who could pull it off. Terrell then looks over to me.

  “Tommy says he can get anything we need for tonight, but he's coming too,” he says. I nod my head, knowing that I've just made a bad idea much worse. After a few minutes, he hangs up.

  “He wants us to meet him at the Black Dog Café in two hours. Tommy says he'll scope out the place and come up with a plan.” Terrell then looks at Jacob. “Looks like you're gonna have to cancel your date night.” Jacob looks genuinely upset.

  “But it was going to be my first threesome,” he says in a high-pitched whine. He then smiles. “No sorry, make that my third threesome. But it would have been my first with a man and a woman. The two guys were good, and two girls were great, but I wanted the full holy trinity of threesomes. I'm pretty greedy like that.”

  Two hours later the three of us are sitting in a small booth at the Black Dog Café. We're all wearing black, slowly drinking our coffees, and standing out somewhat. Black dog, black clothes, black coffee. Jacob opens his man bag, ruffles around a little and produces three small clear plastic tubes. Inside are what look like tiny mechanical spiders.

  “When we start this crazy plan of yours, open the tubes and drop the spiders into your hands. Not for too long, or they'll melt. Quickly put them under or above your eye and they'll crawl in and attach themselves to your eyeball. They'll quickly absorb and you'll feel more focused than you ever have. I think it's the only way to do this right,” he says.

  “Are you sure? This doesn't sound like the best idea,” I say, hoping that Terrell will join me in my half protest. But no.

  “Shit, Jacob, I didn't know you had any of these,” he says and looks at me. “Seriously John, these things are awesome. They don't change you or screw with your mind, they just make a better version of you. Quicker, stronger, more agile, they make you think faster.”

  I nod my head and agree, but have a horrible feeling that everything is going to turn to shit. I hear the door of the café slide open and Tommy walks in wearing full camouflage and a blue cap. The waitress looks up at him, smiles to herself and walks back to the till. He then walks over and starts talking to her. I don’t hear what’s said, but the conversation abruptly ends with her telling him to fuck off. He then sits on our table with a wide toothy grin. I think this is maybe the reason I don't trust him. Not his misogyny, but his teeth. They are black, brown, and rotting away with loads missing. How, in this day and age, is it possible to have teeth that bad? It makes my skin crawl just looking at them, so I look away.

  “I'm all set up. The area is all scoped out. They only have one search and destroy drone roaming the grounds, it's an older model with tripod legs instead of the force field to keep it up. And when I say keep it up, I don't mean my cock, if you know what I'm saying.”

  I'd forgotten about his awful but constant references to his manhood. Or probably lack of.

  “I'll disable the drone from a distance, you three then do whatever it is you plan to do,” he says, dropping three silver earpieces on the table. “Put those in your ears so we can communicate with each other and keep everything running smoothly. Any questions?” He looks around the table, grins again showing his horrible chimp teeth and claps his hands together. “No? Then let's head out.”

  We all pick up the earpieces and put them in place. Jacob then passes Tommy a spider. He looks at it, scrunches his face up for a few seconds, and then realises what it is.

  “Fuckin' eh. There's no way we can fail now.” He opens the lid of the tube and tips it directly into his eye. He closes it, shakes his head and bangs on the table with his fists.

  “God fucking damn, I can feel that right down to my ball sack.”

  Jacob and Terrell do the same. I pretend to, but don't undo the lid and put the tube in my top pocket. I need to be sober for this. Not on some crazy drug I've never tried before. On a night out, most definitely. I'd take three or four. I just can't risk it now.

  30

  We leave the Black Dog Café together, but once we’re out of the door we split up and head to our own cars and drive away to our separate destinations. Jacob to the main gate, Terrell to the back gate, Tommy up some hill he's found that has a decent view of the property, and I'm heading for the little woods that’s on the perimeter of the property's south side. There is constant three-way chatter between Jacob, Terrell and Tommy through the earpiece. Terrell said that the spiders make a better version of you, but on the evidence of what they're saying to each other, they make complete dick versions of you.

  “John, John, John, when I'm at the front gate I'm, I'm gonna pretend I'm lost, I'll tell the guard that the car’s A.I. is broken and I have no idea where I am,” Jacob says at double the speed he normally talks at.

  “Good idea,” I reply. “But what if he just tells you to get lost like he did to me earlier?”

  “Don't worry, John,” Tommy says. “I saw their shift change earlier, the night shift won't give a shit. They'll just be watching porn.”

  “Surely that'll make them more annoyed about being disturbed,” I say.

  “I wouldn’t have thought so, John. Try not to worry so much. The lads know what they're doing. If there is a problem, there won't be for long. Not as long as my shlong anyway.”

  Jacob and Terrell burst out laughing at that comment, way more than it deserved. I seriously start to think about pulling the plug. This isn't how I wanted to do this. Three drugged-up idiots, one who may or may not be mentally unbalanced. But I have no time left. It's tonight or never.

  I drive down the dusty country road towards the south side of the house and finally, after lots of bends that seem way worse at night, I get to the little lay-by next to the small woods. I pull in, turn Bruce's lights off and get out. Through the trees, I can just about make out the wall and the lights from the house above it, around a hundred metres away through the foliage. I un-bungee the small stepladder that I'd hastily put on Bruce's roof before we set out, and head off into the darkness towards the wall. As I slowly work my way through the trees and bushes with the stepladder on my shoulder, I'm really hoping I didn't scratch Bruce's
roof. Not at all what I should be thinking or caring about right now, but it just pops in there. I reach the wall and lean the ladder against it and wait.

  “I've got your heat signature in my sights, John,” Tommy says at double-speed in my earpiece. “We'll wait until the lads are in position and we'll get this party started.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like a plan,” Jacob replies. “We'll head out after this, back to Jupiter Rising. I've got a good buzz going on right about now.” I really can't take much more of this.

  “I'm pulling the plug. This is fucked. Jacob, you said the spiders would help us, but all that's happening is you being a dick and wanting to party. This is important. One wrong move from you and you could be shot dead,” I shout and whisper at the same time.

  “Too late to pull the plug, my good man, I've just pulled up at the front gate. Listen and learn.” My heart beat speeds up to almost a drum roll. It's happening, it's actually happening. I hear Jacob’s car door open, and hear his footsteps on the gravel. I can then hear a muffled voice shout at him.

  “You're not permitted here, be on your way or I'm authorised to use deadly force,” it says. There is a long pause, and I start to think that maybe Jacob's lost his nerve, but then he speaks.

  “I'm lost mate, my car's A.I. has gone ape-shit. I have no idea where I am. Can you show me on this map?” I hear the crinkling of paper. Has Jacob really brought a map with him? The muffled voice doesn't sound all that interested in helping.

  “I'll give you ten seconds to get off this property or I'll shoot you down,” it says.

  “That's not very nice,” Jacob says.

  “Ten …”

  “I think you're being pretty unreasonable here.”

  “Nine …”

  “I mean, it's not like you couldn't take a quick look.”

  “Eight …”

  “I'm not moving until you at least point out roughly where we are.”

  “Seven …”

  “Seven?! Are you really going to count all the way down?”

  “Six … I'm not kidding here, I will shoot you if you don't leave.”

  “But we were getting on so well, it'd be a shame to spoil it.”

  “Four …”

  “You missed out five. Oh dear, I knew they got idiots in for security work, but you really do add an extra dimension to the word dumb.” There are then two quick hissing noises.

  “Front gate clear,” Jacob says. I'm completely at a loss for what's just happened.

  “Back gate clear too,” Terrell replies. “I was silent but deadly.”

  “How have you done that so easily?” I ask, but I'm almost scared to know the answer.

  “Wrist-mounted tranquilliser darts. I didn't tell you because you would have said no. Don't worry, they won't know what's hit them. But they'll feel it when they wake up in an hour or so,” Tommy says. I probably would have said no to them, but at the same time I wouldn't mind having one myself now. I am a little worried that we've now left Ez without anyone to protect her. I'm just going to have to make doubly sure she says yes to my plan.

  “Your turn, John. The tripod drone is on the other side of the grounds, so get over that wall now.”

  Without thinking about it too much I climb the ladder to the top of the wall, hang off the other side and drop down into a bush. Once clear from that I run to the closest tree for cover, have a quick look left to right then run across the lawn to the side door of the house. Ez had given me a key to this door before we moved in together, so I could get into the house and avoid her parents. I hope the locks haven't been changed, it's been a while. I pull out my key fob, choose the one with blue tape around the top and slowly ease it into the lock and twist. With a click, it opens and I'm inside.

  I creep through the dark corridor; the staircase to the annexe is on my right, and the door to the first drawing room is on my left. It's slightly ajar and there is a dull light coming from inside. I gently push the door open, and look through. Embers glow in the fireplace, and a lot of things are piled up on the coffee table next to the smaller of the two sofas. The room is empty, so I walk through the door and take a closer look at the mess. Fuck. There are two empty bottles of vodka on the table, a half-finished bottle of whiskey, and four used Emergency Stops. Not the club ones. Not the ten-minute-high ones. These are the slightly more illegal ones you get from the underworld. Unmodified, so they keep you in a fog for hours, then make you think you need to stay in that fog forever. I doubt these belong to Ez's parents. I'm about to leave and check elsewhere, when the door to the kitchen swings open and I can see Ez's silhouette. She's looking down at the floor and holding a bottle in each hand. She hasn't spotted me yet, and walks in towards the coffee table. She then stops dead, and drops both bottles on the floor, one smashes and the other one bounces. In one quick movement, she pulls a pistol out of a holster that I hadn't spotted attached to her jeans and points it at me. I put my hands up.

  “It's me it's me, it's John,” I say quickly, before she decides to pull the trigger. She lowers the pistol a little bit.

  “John … why are you here? How … how did you get in?” Considering what's on the coffee table, she sounds almost sober. Almost.

  “There's no time to worry about that now. I've got to get you out of here. I've got a plan.” I say, feeling a little bit like the hero rescuing a damsel in distress in an old film. She looks at me, stony-faced.

  “I'm not going anywhere with you, I'm here because I want to be away from you,” she says.

  “I know that. And I'm really sorry. Everything was a mess, and I didn't know what to do.”

  “I was in a terrible situation, and you didn't believe me. Instead of staying with me to help me through it, you just continued to go out every night with your friends.”

  “I couldn't get through to you.”

  “You didn't even try!” she snaps at me. “Once I started becoming a hindrance to you, you just carried on as if I wasn't even here. All I wanted was to be loved, to be comforted. Through thick and thin. Something that I thought you were capable of. But I'm not sure you are. I can see now that you're completely self-absorbed, not in a vain way because you're always a mess. You think the world revolves around you and you alone, and you've been doing your best to push me out of that world since Rupert disappeared. I loved you John, with all my heart I did. But you didn't believe me. You didn't believe me. And that's what hurts the most.”

  I look down at the floor. That hurt. None of it is necessarily untrue.

  “I do now,” I manage.

  “It's too little too late. There is nothing left for you here now,” she says and lifts the pistol back up.

  “I've got a way to keep you safe,” I say, knowing it's probably in vain, but knowing I've still got to try.

  “I don't care. I am safe.” She looks around.

  “No, you're not. If I can get in here with almost no effort, how easy do you think it'll be for Skylark to?” She doesn't answer.

  “Sunspot 2 sets out tomorrow night. I can get you on board, you'll be safe there with me for three months while we work out what to do.”

  “But you quit that job,” she says.

  “I got it back to save you.”

  There are a few seconds of silence.

  “You want to save my life by doing the exact opposite to what I would have wanted?” she says, and then half smiles. “That pretty much sums up our relationship.” She lowers the pistol.

  “Will you come with me?” I ask, feeling hopeful.

  “I'll let you know in the morning, and when my parents get back I'll let them know. I've got too much shit in my system to make a real decision now. The Emergency Stops made me feel way too spaced out, so I topped them up with a couple of spiders. I'm not sure that was such a good idea. I now feel spaced and anxious at the same time.”

  “That's a lot of shit in your system,” I say.

  “I was hiding. From everything. Like you’ve been doing the last three months. Let me walk you ou
t.”

  Ez walks me back through the corridor, and when we reach the side door she kisses me on the cheek.

  “I'm glad you're finally on my side,” she whispers.

  “I'm an idiot, but I catch up eventually.” I smile a childish smile and walk out of the door backwards, staring at Ez's gorgeous, pale face. Her expression suddenly changes from a half-smile, to horror. I turn around and the tripod sentry drone appears from behind the annexe, it raises its weapons and shines a red light in my face.

  “Run back inside, John! You're not cleared! It's programmed to kill trespassers on sight.” I stand there, stock-still: I'm too scared to move.

  “Don't worry John, I've got this,” Tommy says through my earpiece, and within a split second the head of the four and a half metre tall behemoth explodes. I cover my eyes but a wall of heat hits me and I'm thrown to the ground. I open my eyes, and see what's left of the three-legged metal monster collapse to the ground, trailing thick black smoke from where its head should have been. My ears are ringing and I feel slightly dazed. I stand up and start to head back towards the house, but Ez is no longer in the doorway. I look around, and see her running down the driveway towards her scoot, Brucette. I realise that she must think Skylark have destroyed the drone to get to her, and she's decided to leg it. This is not good. I try and run after her, but she's got in and started driving before I get anywhere near. I'm going to have to get to Bruce and go after her, try and get her to stop and let her know everything's alright. But before that, I'm going to have to catch up with her, and she's an aggressive driver. That will probably mean the most embarrassing car chase in history. Before I can even turn and head back to the wall, it looks like she starts to lose control. Brucette then veers off the driveway and hits one of the carved marble markers that run down the sides of it up to the main gates. Brucette rolls about four times, and the carbon fibre skin is torn away, just leaving the framework and inner workings visible.