Catharsis (Book 3): Catastrophe

by Campbell, D. Andrew

  “Ren, this’s insane,” I mutter as I watch the screens from over his shoulder. “How much has he planned out?”

  “I don’t know,” Ren says distractedly as he types a few more commands to bring up two more screens and then leaves them up so that I can see them as he reads.

  Finally, Ren turns to face me and his expression is a subdued combination of a smile and a frown at the same time. I’m not even sure how he manages to pull it off, but he does.

  “He’s impressed me again,” Ren says with that same expression. “I hate him for that. He’s planned this out pretty well, and it’s just smart enough that it might work. Not sure I would have chosen this method myself, but seeing the groundwork he’s laid out, it is something I can work with.” Ren shakes his head and his expression solidifies into the smile. “There’s no doubt he’s discovered a feasible solution for getting around your particular issues.”

  “Wait. What?” I stammer as I look at screens and try to process what all I’ve just seen. Seeing all the information that just went by in front of me isn’t the same as understanding it. Not by a long shot.

  “So he does have a niece?” I continue as I try to put what I’ve read into a version that makes sense. “But her name is not Anna Belluck. It’s Rachel Schade. Rachel is also not on the visitor’s list at the prison. But Anna Belluck is? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Unfortunately, it does,” Ren says simply. “Not only does it make sense, but it’s also genius. That’s what scares me even more. He knows too much about you.”

  “What are you talking about? How does changing his niece’s name to Anna Belluck make sense if she doesn’t exist? Is he just trying to set me up to get caught? Is this an elaborate ruse to have me get apprehended by the police at the visitor check in? Come on, Ren, that would never work. I’d just fight my way out.”

  “It’s not that,” Ren says and his tenuous smile slips into the frown that had been waiting at the edges this whole time. “It’s who Anna Belluck really was,” he continues and then taps two keys on his keyboard to make one of the smaller windows on the monitor expand to fill the whole screen.

  The window is open to a news article about a lady who died a few years back at the age of seventy-seven. The picture is of a nice looking older lady with a big smile and eyes that seem to focus off into the distance without really seeing the camera. The article is a bit boring and pointless and mostly about how this old lady helped out in her community and was well loved by everybody she met. The only thing of note I pick up on is the fact that she managed to stay so busy despite the fact that she was completely blind and nearly deaf. She was almost a modern day Hellen Keller. She seems like she was a wonderful person, but I’m not sure how she impacts this situation.

  “Ok,” I say after reading the article twice. “Ms. Belluck seems like a great individual. I’m real proud of her, but what does she have to do with Chadwick? Is she related to him? Did he kill her or something? What are you seeing that I’m not?”

  “What I’m seeing,” Ren says. “Is what Chadwick figured out and then handed to us on a platter. A way for you to get into the prison to visit without having to worry about your senses giving you away. A disguise that will both hide your identity and keep you from being overwhelmed by all the lights and sounds that you’ll be encountering.”

  “You want me to dress up as an old lady?” I ask doubtfully. “I don’t think that’ll be as effective as you…”

  Ren cuts me off before I can get too deep into my complaint. “No, Catarina, not an old lady at all. Even better,” he says and looks at me as his smile turns playful. “You’re going to be blind and deaf.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Now it makes sense. So much more of the picture comes into clarity for me. Not only how we are going to get me into the prison without my sensitivity to light and sound crippling me and being a hindrance, but also why Ren was scared of the solution. First, it’s because Chadwick thought of it before we did. It was his idea that he simply passed along to us. And second, it truly is a genius way to bypass the system.

  It also means that this man who hates me knows way too much about me and how my abilities operate. He knows me well enough to come up with a plan to get me in, and it’s a plan that even impressed Ren with its efficiency and simplicity. The idea of being indebted to this man, even if it’s just in gratitude, is more than either of us want.

  “I get it now,” I tell Ren. “I understand.”

  “It’s definitely a solid idea he’s come up with, and it’ll get us in the door at the prison,” he tells me. “But it still doesn’t really tell us why he wants to talk or what the goal of this whole charade might be. Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  “No,” I say. “But I think we have to.” I look at the computer monitors and all the open windows and research and information about Anna and Rachel before asking, “So how long will it take you to get something ready? I don’t know why, but he’s given us a deadline. Something is going to happen soon, and I’d like to know what it is and have as much time as possible to react.”

  “He’s already done the toughest part which was getting you on the visitor’s list. All you really have to do is show up. That’s pretty easy,” he tells me. “But I know what you mean about getting prepared. Let me look into how to best make this work on our end. Give me until tomorrow at least to look things over and feel comfortable.”

  “I can do that,” I tell him. “But I don’t want to wait much past that. I know he’s already ahead of us on this plan, and I’d like to give him as little extra time as possible from here on out. The sooner I’m in front of him and we’re talking, the sooner we’ll both be on the same page and he’ll lose some of that advantage.”

  “Ok,” Ren tells me and turns back towards the computers so that he can commit himself to his new goal.

  With Ren’s attention focused elsewhere that means I’m on my own for the next several hours. Hours that I’m not really sure how to fill. Normally I’d spend my time here with Ren researching whatever attack we were planning on the local drug supply network, but we’re not doing a straight forward attack this time, so that isn’t really an option for me. The uncanny ability to unearth our potential targets is a strength that he has over me. In our symbiotic relationship, he is much better at the analyzing bit of things and I’m great at neutralizing threats and removing unsavory individuals from the potential gene pool. I certainly can hunt down the local miscreants on my own, but he makes me much more efficient and effective. I was active long before he came around, but my solo adventures also led to some painful missteps I’d rather not revisit.

  The last thing I want to do is distract Ren from what he’s starting to work on with questions about what I should be doing. Not only would it be rude and interruptive, but more importantly, it might delay my window of opportunity to confront Chadwick. I don’t want anything to interfere with that. That will remain the priority until it is resolved.

  A resolution that I am hoping is only a day away.

  Resigning myself to the knowledge that I am essentially grounded for the time being, I do my best to occupy my mind with tasks around the warehouse. I attempt to spend some time organizing what few belongings we have or cleaning our sparse kitchen and living areas, but Ren does an impressive job of keeping the place organized. On top of that, I use the areas so little myself that I never manage to make much of a mess. Straightening and wiping down everything I can find in our meager living area only manages to absorb a scant hour of my evening.

  With the basic housework accomplished, I look to occupy myself with something a bit more exciting. Glancing over at Ren’s work area, I see that he has barely moved since our conversation and he appears to be enthralled with some bit of information he has pulled up in a new window. I’m hoping that whatever it is is useful for us. I need this planned confrontation to work out.

  Continuing to seek out a distraction, I head over to the small armory that we ke
ep in the warehouse where I’ve been storing a handful of the weapons that I’ve managed to collect during my adventures. There aren’t many items in there as I don’t normally bring home souvenirs after my trips, nor do I have much of a need for them on my own. On the other hand, the occasional unregistered firearm or assault rifle has been beneficial to us, so I’ve learned that keeping a few around serves the greater good. I’ve never been a strong proponent of the second amendment, or guns in general. In my short time that I’ve been on the street, I’ve come to believe that guns only lead to more destruction and pain than anything positive. But at the same time, I’ve also seen how they can be used to quickly deescalate a problem when used properly. That is where my weakness comes in. I’m still learning how to use one properly. Since I typically try to avoid them whenever possible, the few times I’ve needed to actually use one in combat the results have been sporadic. I need to improve.

  Rummaging through the large metal closet that Ren purchased for us to keep the guns in, I look for something to pull out that won’t make much noise but will still be effective for training. Before all of this started, I never knew much about different gun designs or styles or bullet calibers. I never needed to know. If I had my choice now, I would still be clueless in this area. Unfortunately, I’ve learned the hard way that it’s in my best interest to know the visual difference between a .22 caliber pistol and a .45 caliber handgun. One hits and hurts tremendously more than the other, and knowing which one I’m facing in a situation is critical. Same with being able to recognize a six-shot revolver versus a fifteen-shot composite plastic Glock. It’s good for me to know just how many potentially lethal rounds will be zipping through the air at me.

  Right now a lack of sound is more important than any other features of the weapons, so I look for one of the smaller caliber .22 pistols that I know I’ve given Ren to store over the past several months. I have a couple to choose from, and I pull one out that looks to be relatively clean and in good condition and can hold about ten bullets before I have to reload. Opening a drawer at the bottom, I also dig out a box of ammunition that Ren has helpfully purchased and kept stocked in the cabinet. Although I do have a tendency to just throw the guns at people rather than shoot them, he’s been smart enough to realize that having some bullets around might eventually prove useful.

  As I close the door to lock it back up, I have a small change of heart. Although I had only planned to get out a pistol to practice with, my eyes catch on one of the assault rifles I had picked up a few weeks back and never had the chance to do anything with. I had brought the large, oily gun home originally so that Ren could figure out what kind it was so that I could be more prepared the next time I came up against it.

  The man who had ill-advisedly used it against me nearly caught me off guard, and I didn’t want that to ever happen again. It had what I had always thought was called a silencer on the end of the barrel, but Ren had corrected me and told me it was actually a suppressor.

  “The reason being,” he had explained. “Is that these things can’t actually make a gun become completely quiet. That’s just in the movies. All they can do is quiet the gun and make it not quite as loud when it fires. It doesn’t actually silence the noise, it only suppresses it to make it easier on the ears.”

  It had, too. In the firefight where I had accidentally discovered it existed, I hadn’t noticed it being fired at me at first as it was drowned out by everything else going on. It didn’t completely disappear, but it certainly faded away enough to make its noise easier to mask.

  “Why doesn’t everyone use these then?” I had asked Ren a bit fearfully. If every thug I encountered had one of these, then my job would be tougher. Especially if I was wearing my helmet that was dampening sound already during a fight. Sometimes the sounds of the guns being fired was my best assistant in knowing where the danger was coming from.

  “For one, they’re expensive and most criminals don’t have the money to afford them,” he told me. “Also, they make any weapon longer and that makes them tougher to use and wield in tight quarters. They also decrease the power of the gun so it doesn’t punch as hard which can be a drawback. And I guess they’re known to have issues and break which just adds to the drawbacks.” I nodded my head as he spoke and I took in all of what he was saying. “And most importantly,” he finished. “Most criminals just don’t need them. Unless they’re fighting against you or they’re a secret agent for the CIA, then the lack of sound isn’t a necessity.”

  That made me smile. “Well I’m happy about that,” I told him. “And I hope I don’t run into too many more of them.”

  So far I hadn’t, either. The gun had been a rarity in my encounters so far, but it was good to know it existed.

  Its existence now was going to prove to be a benefit to me as the lack of noise it produced was exactly what I needed. Reaching back into the locker I unstrapped the rifle from the hook where it had been stored, and then I looked back into the drawer to make sure we had a box of the correct ammo for it. Of course we did. Ren was always on top of things like that.

  Slinging the rifle over my shoulder, I pick up the box of ammunition and add it to the box I already had along with the pistol and head towards the back door of our warehouse. I was planning to set up some targets for practice in the grassy area that used to be a rear parking lot for the building, and I hoped the surrounding structures would help contain the sound of my activities even more. The joy of our location with this warehouse is that no other people live nearby, and few of the abandoned places around us ever received visitors. There were the occasional homeless individuals who managed to stumble into the area, but they never stayed long or set up much of a camp. Usually because I could sense them long before they could sense me, and I would either avoid them entirely or gently feed from them until they moved along. My goal was never to hurt the vagrants that passed through, but I did want them to avoid my neighborhood if possible. Having company and people nearby was never going to be beneficial to us and our nocturnal exploits.

  The result of all this was that it allowed me the relative safety of making a moderate level of noise without having to worry about being reported or investigated. Even with our virtual seclusion, though, I didn’t want to push the boundaries and risk making too much of a ruckus, hence the suppressed rifle and tiny caliber pistol. They kept our exposure to a minimum.

  Having had little experience with the guns in the past, I had never set up any kind of shooting range on the property before. Laying the guns down gently on a stack of old planks of wood that we kept stored near the back doors, I began the process of exploring the area and looking for anything I could set up as a target.

  Trash and other discarded items were everywhere as we didn’t do much to pick up the outside or our place. Not only did we not want to spend much time wandering the outside with trash bags, but the blowing tumbleweeds composed of fast food bags and discarded Big Gulp cups also helped disguise the place to make it look abandoned. If we cleaned the place up, then it might give others the impression the building was lived in, and that was something we’d always tried to carefully avoid. I picked up what I could find and stacked things on top of one another or on top of parking signs or crumbling cement or whatever I could find that would bring things up to “human height” to make my target practice as realistic as possible.

  Fortunately, the surrounding neighborhood being empty meant I also wasn’t too worried about stray shots and what those might hit if I missed my marks. Following sight lines as I looked around, I realized pretty much any bullet I fired would hit a neighboring warehouse or tree or fraying and unused billboard before it would ever endanger another human. Plus, it gave me the added challenge of making sure I thought through each shot before I pulled the trigger and committed. It would be a good mental exercise for me, and one that I was sure would reap benefits once it came to an actual battle with thugs and innocents around.

  As I finished placing the last empty Pepsi can on top of
an old busted orange barrel in the parking lot, I turned and head back towards the wood pile and the two weapons I had stored there. After months of just throwing things at people and avoiding guns as much as possible, I was about to go in a completely new direction. I still wasn’t sure if that direction was positive or not, but I was also seeing that invisible line between the two beginning to blur. Nothing seemed to make as much sense as it did when I was just Catarina Perez, happy high school girl and loving sister. But it didn’t have to make sense. Making sense didn’t stop things from happening.

  Of course what Ren was researching just on the other side of that warehouse door was an event that in no way made sense. I can’t stop the future from happening, so I might as well be prepared for it.

  With that thought, I pick up the handgun and check the clip to make sure it’s loaded and ready.

  Slamming the small magazine back into the bottom of the gun, I smile and spin towards my first target and pull the trigger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The crack of the pistol is still surprisingly loud on my ears, and the flash from the end of the muzzle, while not very large, is still a painful flare against my sensitive eyes. Both are more distracting than I’d hoped they’d be. Then both are joined by the acrid smell of burning gun powder as it wafts up from the spent cartridge after it ejects from the side of the gun. This is a third unexpected punch to my senses that I should have been prepared for. The trifecta of attacks combine to remind me why I have been shunning firearms for as long as I’ve been doing this.

  Then my eyes refocus on the tiny lump of lead as it streaks above the broken pavement of the yard, and I marvel at how well my newly heightened abilities can allow me to both find the bullet while it is in motion and track it so easily. The slug tears into the white “O” of the word STOP on the red, reflective sign I was targeting across the street, and the resounding BWANG of the metal as it responds to the impact is overwhelmingly satisfying. A perfect little hole springs to life right in the middle of the letter exactly where I had been aiming. A feat I accomplished from almost a hundred yards away while aiming mid-spin with barely a glance towards where I had planned to send it.