Hard Wired

by C. Ryan Bymaster

  “Yeah, Dent, there was. Now, if you don’t mind,” she pushed her leftovers aside and stood from the small table, stretching her arms above her, “I have to get ready for bed.”

  Dent looked to the open door to her adjoining room then back at her. “This is my room,” he pointed out.

  “Well, that means my room’s empty for the time being,” she replied. “Give me some privacy. In fact,” she added, “go watch TV or something. I’m going to take a shower.” She started for the bathroom at the back of the room. His room.

  “That’s my bathroom.”

  She threw a raised-eyebrow look over her shoulder at him.

  “Fine.” He stood. He had no idea why her room wasn’t good enough. She always took his room. Why bother paying for a room she doesn’t use. He grabbed his soda from the table, maybe a little harder than he had intended, and made to vacate his premises. He’d just reached the door when she called out to him.

  “Dent?”

  “Yes?”

  “Congratulations. I think you just learned how to pout.”

  IX

  “… Dent ….”

  “… Dent ….”

  “Mary!”

  Dent snapped his eyes open, making sure to keep the rest of his body completely still. Old habits died hard.

  Fifth rarely called him Mary. Something was wrong. He took in the room. He was tucked into the big chair, a blanket thrown over him, pillow at his side. It was dark, ambient enough light filtering in through the drawn curtains of the only window at the front of the motel room. He looked to the bed and saw the mound there move, rustle.

  “Kasumi,” he whispered to the mound, using her real name in response to her using his. “What’s wrong?” He slipped his left hand between the pillow and armrest. Found his gun. The safety clicked off.

  “Don’t you feel it?” she whispered back to him.

  “Is this another joke?”

  More rustling. She moved closer to him in the dark. “No. I don’t mean emotional feel. I mean feel as a presence. Or non-presence.”

  He sent his hearing and sight out, but nothing struck him as being odd. “Nothing.”

  “It’s him,” Fifth said. “It’s Noman.”

  Emotions, imagination, this girl had it all. But something in her voice told him there was indeed something wrong. He had come to trust her intuition. It made no logical sense to him, but it did to her, and that was all that mattered. And his trust in her was proven true as he heard a slight scuffling outside their rooms.

  To be precise, it came from outside Fifth’s room, which was currently empty. He had left the bathroom light on and the door slightly ajar in there and that was the only source of light that spilled through the doorway to this room. From his position on the chair he could see through that open doorway, right through to the drawn curtains at the front of the empty room.

  A shadow silhouetted by the outside lights ghosted by.

  “Shoes,” he ordered the girl. “Now.”

  She was muted blur as she was already moving before he had even spoken. Her shoes were at the foot of the bed, ready to be slipped on at the shortest of moments. That was a habit he was glad she had picked up from him.

  “Grab your clothes,” he whispered. “Keys, wallets, phones, EBs.”

  He let the blanket fall as he stood and crept to the adjoining doorway.

  “Wait for my signal,” he told her.

  He took position near the adjoining doorway to the other room. Low scraping and metallic ticks came from the other side of the empty room’s front door. Someone was trying to get in. And given that they were manipulating the mechanics of the lock and not the magnetic strip reader he knew that it was not someone who worked at the motel.

  He held his gun in his left hand, at the ready. Whoever it was out there wasn’t friendly. Friendly people knocked. He didn’t want to use the gun, it would attract too much attention to them, but he also wouldn’t let anything happen to the girl. The lock gave a final slip and the shadow from outside slowly opened the door. All Dent saw was a figure, male, solid build, but nothing distinctive. The shadow slipped in, closing the door behind. And that was when Dent noticed the shadow didn’t have a gun in hand.

  Good.

  He motioned to Fifth to get closer to the front door of their room. He reached over and eased his gun onto the table to his right, watching as the shadow scanned the empty room. Without warning, the shadow suddenly spun, rushing for the adjoining doorway, right at Dent.

  Dent leapt forward to meet him, and the two clashed together hard. A knee was driven into his side and he returned the favor with a solid right punch into the shadow’s side. Quick as a snake, the shadow turned with the blow and then slipped his left leg behind Dent’s right ankle and shoved. The two fell to the carpet in exhalations and grunts.

  Nothing was said as the two delivered punishing blows upon each other. They rolled, knocking into tables and chairs and the foot of the bed. Both men were breathing hard now, and Dent could feel the heat from the man’s breath and the sweat that began to pour out of both of them. Dent managed to drive his left elbow into the shadow’s windpipe, forcing the man to push away from his position atop Dent.

  Dent risked a look back through the adjoining doorway. Fifth was outlined before the curtains. She hadn’t run. She clutched her jacket and their belongings to her chest and seemed to be just staring at Dent and the shadow man.

  Something flared inside Dent. A hot, driving sensation at the base of his skull and deep within his chest. The girl still stood frozen.

  “Run!” he shouted at her, the hot sensation he felt burning anger into his voice.

  And then the shadow growled like an animal and slammed a fist into Dent’s jaw, forcing a swirl of stars to filter across his vision.

  ---

  Kasumi didn’t like Noman. She hated him.

  It was like her brain didn’t want to accept what her eyes were telling it. She watched Noman and Dent slam into each other, saw him try to beat up Dent, but still her brain wanted to ignore the man she called Noman.

  She was at the door now, but her feet wouldn’t move. Her stupid brain was going all defective on her. Dent and Noman crashed to the ground and became a tangle as they rolled around, punching and kicking, even knocking a chair over in the process.

  Dent was struggling. Why else would this fight last so long? She’d seen Dent take out a room full of guys quicker than she could blink. Noman was too much for him. Dent needed help. Her help.

  He’d protected her so many times, now it was her turn to protect him.

  She did what she’d been practicing over the last few months. She concentrated. Focused.

  She was scared, for herself, for Dent, and there was no way to fight that fear. So she took that fear, burned it in her chest, fed it until that fear of Dent being hurt outweighed everything else. But that was when anger crept in and took over the fear. A single thought fueled that anger. Noman wanted to hurt Dent. She wanted to make Noman afraid, but now anger was all she felt. She clutched her jacket to her chest and clenched her teeth, directing that anger back out at Noman.

  How she actually did it, she had no words to describe it, but she felt like she was bowl of water, and her anger boiled that water into steam and her will pushed the steam out at Noman, enveloping him, swallowing him. She wanted Noman to react to her intrusion into his mind, wanted him to do something stupid ….

  Nothing happened. No sign that Noman even knew she was there.

  And just like that her anger fled, fear greedily taking its place again.

  That was when she saw Dent do something to make Noman jump back for a moment, freeing Dent briefly. He turned and their eyes met. And when he yelled at her to run, when she heard his voice heavy with anger and fear, she realized she screwed up big time. She wanted to help him, but instead she’d infected him.

  Her brain finally kicked in, maybe Dent’s voice kicked it in the butt, and her hands fumbled at the door behind her. Before
she knew it, she was at their SUV, unlocked it, and threw their stuff in the back seat. She huddled in the passenger seat, car keys in her hand.

  What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?

  She leaned over, put the keys in the ignition, and put her faith in Dent. He could beat Noman. He had to. He just had to.

  There was a loud crash from inside one of the motel rooms. She snapped her head up and over just in time to hear another crash, this one from a chair being thrown through the front window of her room, the empty room. The chair broke through the window, but snagged on the heavy curtains, getting stuck for a second before spilling out and falling to the walkway just outside the window. A dark shape came flying through next, and this time the curtains gave way and tore off their support. They wrapped around the body that hit the walkway outside as it rolled twice before stopping.

  She almost bit her tongue as she watched the wrapped figure struggle to rise and then fall back down to the concrete. The door next to the broken window opened, and out came Dent. He wiped his nose with the back of his forearm and strode toward the SUV where Kasumi was waiting. He paused only long enough to kick Noman in what was probably his face inside the cocoon of curtains before getting into the car.

  He noticed the keys already in the ignition and he turned the car on. He didn’t say a word until they had backed out and, minutes later, hit the freeway.

  She looked at him, with his cheek all swollen and his nose bleeding.

  He turned to her and managed to raise the corners of his mouth.

  “We should probably teach you how to drive,” he said. “Or at least how to start the engine.”

  She leaned over and punched him in his arm as hard as she could. “You get the shit beat out of you by Noman and that’s all you can say?!” Her vision was blurry from the tears that poured from her eyes.

  “Language,” he warned her.

  She punched him again.

  He smiled.

  And then she cursed again, just for the hell of it.

  X

  “You believe me now?”

  Street lights blurred by overhead as Dent concentrated on keeping up his speed, while checking the rearview mirrors to make sure they weren’t being followed.

  “I never said I didn’t believe you,” he told her without looking over.

  “You never said that you didn’t didn’t believe me either.”

  It took him a moment to digest her words before replying. “That doesn’t make any sense, Fifth.”

  “No, that Noman doesn’t make any sense,” she snapped back. “There’s something wrong with him. It’s like he’s not there.” She twisted around in her seat, craning her neck to look through the rear window. She was checking to see if Noman was behind them. It was unnecessary, as he was keeping an eye out for the both of them, but he didn’t say anything.

  Satisfied, she turned back and thrust her back into the seat. “I don’t like him, Dent.”

  “He attacked me,” he pointed out.

  “No. I mean, yeah, he’s a jerk for attacking you and all. But it’s just that … I don’t know. I don’t like him. There’s something wrong with him. He’s like you, but not like you. I mean, we both know something’s wrong with you, no offense, but this guy … He’s like you, but he’s also like me. What I can do with my emotions he can … not do.”

  Now Dent looked over at her. He wasn’t following her rambling thoughts. He told her so.

  She took a moment, a few deep breaths, and then tried again. “You know how you are? All ‘I’m not emotional’ and stuff?” She made her voice deeper and puffed out her chest at the last comment, in an obvious attempt to imitate her version of him.

  He was expected to nod. He did.

  “And then there’s me,” she continued. “I can do what I do with my emotions. Send them out to others. It’s like he can do that, but with your attitude. Like he sends out some ‘don’t-pay-attention-to-me’ vibes. It’s not natural. It’s not …,” she shivered and hugged herself, “right.”

  Dent wished he knew what exactly she was explaining, but the fact of the matter was that he was severely handicapped in that department. He couldn’t discount her theory any more than he could prove it. Unfortunately, with him being as he was, the girl was the default expert on what exactly that man, this Noman as she was wont to call him, really was. And why did Fifth have trouble acknowledging and noticing Noman when he himself had no problems?

  One thing Dent did know was that Noman was highly trained. He used no weapons but his hands, and he had been able to give Dent a physical challenge. That was a problem all on its own. But if he added in what he believed to be true, that this man was an emotional challenge to Fifth, then Noman just became a real, and serious, threat.

  Someone hired this man, or he had some personal grudge against Dent, and that would not be the last they saw of each other. He ran through his memories, trying to figure the first time Fifth had mentioned Noman. It had to have been the first month they settled in the new house after leaving California.

  Why was he after them? Who hired him? Dent should have killed Noman back there, put a bullet in his skull. But he didn’t want to attract attention. He could have strangled Noman, but at the time, his immediate thoughts were centered on getting to Fifth and getting her as far away as possible.

  Noman would be back, Dent knew. And Dent would have to deal with him accordingly.

  The girl was quiet to his right, her gaze turned out the window, watching the flat landscape rush by. He knew what she was feeling. He knew because it was a foreign thing to him.

  She was worried. She was scared.

  And she was so scared that it was even affecting him, something that he doubted was possible. His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror a little more often now and the steering wheel was becoming damp under his tight grip. This was new to him, this worry, this fear.

  He had no idea how to combat the emotion. No idea how to calm the girl down, to reassure her that everything was under control, that they were going to be all right. He didn’t know what to do.

  And that worried him even more.

  XI

  When they hit the outskirts of Graftsprings, Dent heard Fifth’s EB chime. She was asleep, head at an awkward angle against the window, and he knew from personal experience that she might wake up with a sore neck. Maybe he should have woken her as soon as she fell asleep and had her move, or perhaps told her to use a jacket for a pillow.

  Next time he would.

  “Fifth,” he called to her, loud enough to wake her. She murmured, but that was about it.

  “Kasumi,” he said a bit louder.

  This time she stirred awake.

  It took her a minute or two to wipe the sleepiness from her features but, with a final deep breath through her nose, she turned to face him.

  Through a yawn she asked, “Where are we?”

  “Graftsprings.”

  “Already?”

  It had been a six-hour drive since their last rest stop. Already was not appropriate to the person driving the whole way. But he held his tongue. Instead, he informed her, “Your EB beeped.”

  “Oh.” She fumbled around under her thighs and found it. Checking the screen, she read Otto’s message. “He says to head to the sheriff’s station. Rick Bobseyn. Bobseyn will get us up-to-date.” She looked over at him in what he assumed was a questioning manner, but he had no idea what manner of question she was posing.

  She fixed his mental conundrum by saying, “So we just go the sheriff’s station and say, ‘Hi. We hear you got some murdered people, maybe even more to come. Need any help with that?’ I don’t think that’s going to work.”

  Dent nodded. “I was thinking the same. I was expecting Otto to give us more than a message to report in. Most officers of the law don’t like having outsiders stepping on their toes.”

  “Hmm.” She looked at the EB’s screen again, but no new information presented itself. So she began typing in numbers and letters. “
I’ll pull up the city map. Find you the sheriff’s station. I have to believe that if Otto’s sending us there, then he knows what he’s doing and we’ll be okay.”

  Dent slowed down, preparing to listen to her navigation advice. “And if not? If Otto didn’t plan this far ahead?”

  She winked at him and said, “That’s why I brought you along. You make the sheriff tell you all he knows about the murders so you can do your thing.”

  That there, Dent knew, was forced confidence. But it still made him — What? Happy? Proud? — that Fifth had that much trust and faith in him.

  The appropriate thing to do would be to smile.

  He turned and flashed his teeth at the girl.

  She leaned away from him, made a weird face, and formed a cross with her index fingers.

  Mental note: Work on smiling.

  ---

  As it turned out, Otto had planned ahead and Dent didn’t have to make the sheriff do anything. The man had been expecting them. Or, at least, he had been expecting Dent.

  The station was a small affair, looking like it had been someone’s home some decades ago. Manicured lawns and age-old maples were the only defenses against trespassers. Dent parked in the small lot to the west of the station, probably some farmer’s personal plot for a seasonal garden that had been tarred over when the house became the center of authority in Graftsprings.

  Inside, the converted home looked just that — a converted home. Most of the walls had been knocked down, replaced with support pillars done up with grey river stone, but the general layout of bedrooms and living and dining rooms was evident. Even the kitchen had been left intact, stove, oven, fridge and all.

  A small hip-high wooden rail divider split the station from visitor’s space and official Graftsprings space. A few rooms off to either side had to be offices or storerooms, and Dent surmised that somewhere in the station, steps led down to the basement, the most logical location for holding cells.