by Tom Harem
Suddenly, the man fell to the ground. The body bounced off once and then it didn't move anymore.
"Of course, you needed me to come," a single voice, as bitter as it was soft, depended on her mood, said.
"Elisa! You came!" Maggie was the first to say.
"I was not going to come, I really wasn’t. But then I remembered something James told me. We're a team and we have to work together."
"What about the attack on the council?" I asked her, holding back the happiness of her decision to show up.
"Everything stays the same. The only difference is that I won't be there."
She said, "So, what are we waiting for? Are we supposed to get in that door?" She said and took a pin out of her hair.
"Elisa, before that... There's something you need to know. The albino's here." I told her and watched the look on her face shift.
"Are you sure? That's weird. He should be on the council. Oh, shit. No. I hope nothing weird happens." She said and knelt in front of the door, trying to force the opening with the pin, "Don't worry. There's no door that can stop me."
And she was right. In a few minutes we heard the door unlock. She opened the door just enough to look inside and confirm that there was no one inside.
"What about him?" Maggie asked, pointing to the man still lying on the ground.
"We better bring him with us. I think I see a rope here. We can tie his arms. All that's missing is something for his mouth." Elisa answered her and opened the door for us to come in.
"I have an idea." Kendra said and tore a piece of the bottom of her dress, "Use this to cover his mouth. I can move better this way."
I carried the man to Maggie's father's office and put him up against the white wall. Elisa tied his hands behind his back with the thin black rope and made a knot in the back of his neck with the fabric of Kendra's dress, stuffing the man's mouth.
"Why the hell does your father have a rope in his office?" Kendra asked, and no one had to answer to her to conclude, "Oh. I see. We better get going."
I hid my laughter and finally looked around. There was a mahogany table in front of us and behind it a window covered by two red curtains. Around the room, which was circular shaped, the upper part of the walls was covered with more pictures of him while the lower part had small closets with a few knockoffs of weapons that the company had produced and pictures with Hunters using them. On the table there was an open dossier, with dozens of sheets wrapped in transparent paper, and a black felt pen on top of one of them. Maggie went near the table and sat in her father's padded chair, the kind that not only spins but also allows the back of the chair to be leaned over.
"I've always wanted to sit here." She said, before focusing on the open pages, "Hm, hm..." she murmured as her eyes sailed the pages.
"What does it say?" Kendra asked her.
"It's just company expenses. It says here that they spent millions producing weapons for Hunters, as they're supposed to, but then there's the letter R underneath it and it says that they spent millions on them, too. But that's not all. There are other letters here with expenses in the hundreds of thousands. I don't know what my father's into..."
"The R must be for Reapers. The rest of the letters... Well, we better watch out from now on." I told her. The secret door that Maggie had told us about and that gave access to the tunnels was right in front of me.
It didn't look like a door except for the dotted perforations around the white wall. It didn't even have a lock or a place to enter a code. There didn't seem to be any way in. I looked at Maggie, but she seemed lost in her thoughts.
"Now what?" I asked.
"Shit. We're really not lucky." Kendra said, "Maggie, wake up. Now what?" She said and clapped in front of Maggie's face.
"Yeah, I'm sorry." She said and stood up, walking to one of the paintings on the wall. It was the only one where she appeared. She must have been three, four years old at the most, and they were in the woods surrounding the house, having a picnic. Her mother was still alive and kissed her father's cheek. She pulled out the painting and put it down carefully on the floor, "The problem is, I don't know the code." She said.
On the wall, once covered by the frame, there was now a screen asking for a four-letter password. The screen was touch and the letters appeared below the unfilled squares.
"You have to try to get it right. You know your father better than anyone else. You can do it." I told her and put my arm over her shoulder.
"I thought I did, but now I don't know." She said, before taking a deep breath, "I'll try. I hope this doesn't activate any safety measures."
She inserted the first four letters and pressed the green circle in the corner of the screen. The color changed to red, the screen turned black and a phrase appeared in the middle.
"You have two more chances before you activate the entire Lenetius security system."
The screen returned to its normal appearance, the four unfilled spaces without any letters.
"Don't worry. You still have two more chances." I told her, even though my heart was running at about a thousand miles a second. We didn't even have guns to defend ourselves.
"I'll get it right. I need to know what my father's doing." She said and filled all four spaces without thinking twice.
This time the green circle remained green. Seconds later the screen turned black again and the wall moved a few inches back and to the right, being tucked into a compartment behind the wall.
"What was the pass?" Elisa asked her.
"Susy. My father's nickname for my mother." Maggie said, "It's good to know she's still in his memory."
Chapter XXI
As soon as Kendra, the first to enter, landed her foot on the other side of the door, lights lit up all over the tunnel. Small lamps attached to the ceiling illuminated the metal walls. It was as if we were inside a vault, which we had no idea where the exit was. When we got to the end of the hall, we ran into a staircase that led us to the tunnels. Water dripped down the thick pipes fastened to the ceiling, falling on top of a river of dirty water, almost brown in color, which flowed through there. There was a sidewalk on each side of the supposed river, and we could already hear voices from afar. We didn't exchange a word until we reached a corner and I had to stop them.
"They're over there. Don't make any noise." I said, as low as I could and signaled Maggie to lean against the wall and record what was happening.
The groups we had seen before, including her father and another man with deep bottle glasses, wearing only torn black pants and a wrinkled white sweater traded a few words. The man we'd never seen before snapped his fingers and smiled at the others. After a few seconds of awkward silence between the groups, a metallic and deafening sound echoed through the concrete walls. They were steps; loud, the metal scarring the ground, and the closer, the more the groups shared glances between them without knowing what was coming. At least that's what it looked like.
"Well, I present to you the new generation of beasts." The man said and turned around.
In the background, the same shadow that we had seen in the video that Gordon had played, was walking towards the group. Even taller and more terrifying live, he stopped as soon as he got to the man.
"Record everything. This is going to be important." Elisa told Maggie that had already squatted up against the wall, with only half her face showing.
"He looks so... human," Kendra said, looking over Maggie's shoulder.
She was right. Now that the robot was meters away from us it was almost impossible to distinguish it from a human were it not for the bottomless black eyes, devoid of any color or emotion. He had black bowl hair and wore a white t-shirt despite the cold, as well as a pair of regular jeans. It was an average person who could walk past any of us on the street and we wouldn't even look twice. That was the scariest. He was painfully average, enough to go unnoticed among the crowd or anywhere he shouldn't be. Part of me shouted at me to act, to stop him from escaping from there, but it was impossib
le. Without guns, against dozens of people, we wouldn't have the slightest chance. Ashen's voice echoed in my head, "It's just a recon mission."
The men, belonging to the different groups, probably from out of the continent, surrounded the robot, touching his body and even banging on the nape of his neck. When they did, the hollow sound scattered all over the tunnel. There was nothing in there. He had no brain, no heart, as the man next to Maggie's father explained.
"Now that you've seen it, let's move on," her father said, "Our goal is to create an army of them. Some will be as normal as possible to infiltrate wherever they want. Others will have more destructive...features. We don't have a problem with investments due to our colleague from the Hunters here, John. What we're looking for now is chaos. We want to sell some models so you can spread them around. We want destruction. The more, the better. You get a functional model that will do whatever you want, the Reapers will be happy when there is a decrease in confidence in Hunters and I'll be happy when my company profits from more sales to Hunters and even normal citizens. When fear gets into their heads, everyone will want to protect themselves." He said, raising his voice and rubbing his hands afterward.
"I subscribe to everything. We agree and we would definitely like to buy one right away." John said, "I never liked the building where they built the Hunter headquarters. Maybe it's time for a change. If you know what I mean." He said it and stretched out his hand.
Maggie's father squeezed it. He thanked him for his help in recent years and added that they were close to achieving the global control that they had always talked about.
This was followed by the group of men wearing sunglasses, now clamped in the collar of the suits, who also asked for one. One of them even opened the suitcase that the other had strapped to his wrist so he could reveal dozens of little shiny diamonds.
"We can pay now if you give us priority." A man, I assumed he was the leader, said.
"We'll pay more than they will." One of the redheads said, "Double if I have to."
"You don't need all that. We've already got several ready. We just have to talk about specific requirements and prices. Kris, what do you say?" Her father asked the albino. It wasn't the kind of name I expected him to have.
He frowned, "It's all very nice, true, but what about a demonstration?" He hit the robot in the head, "I need to make sure my investment isn't wasted. Just because we’re old acquaintances doesn’t mean that I’m going to trust you blindly."
"I understand you. There's a reason you got where you are now. Do it." Maggie's father said, "Show them what he can do."
The man next to him ordered the robot to fly to the end of the tunnel corridor, return and fire as far away from them as he could. The robot's eyes turned blue before he took off.
"You can give him the orders you want, but it's best to program him. Once you buy it, we'll give you all the information you need to do it."
As soon as he had finished speaking, the robot landed, turned to the opposite side of the one where we were hiding and fired an energy blast that traversed the tunnel until it hit a wall and destroyed it in thousands of boulders that were carried by the water that seized the path as its own. Soon after, his eyes returned to the lifeless black. A wave of whispers filled the tunnel. They were all surprised, some frightened and others even more enthusiastic about the potential.
"In case they attack him, or his position is compromised he will act on his own and destroy anything and everyone who tries to stop him. As a last resort, it will self-destruct so they can't connect it to you. We have planned everything for maximum enjoyment and destruction." The man said, clearly proud of what he was presenting there.
"Interesting. You're right, Lenetius. This will take chaos to another level. I want one." The albino said, "Speaking of chaos. What we talked about... Is it being taken care of?"
"Yes. In exchange for your help, we're taking care of your problem. But don't forget what we asked for in return. Access to..."
"Yeah, I know. You have my word. Are you using another model like this?" The albino asked, taking a cigarette out of his pocket.
"Yeah. He's got a lot to take care of today. Nothing like a large-scale demonstration to appeal to buyers who are not here."
The albino lit the cigarette and the smoke spread. He didn't apologize even after some of the present company coughed.
Maggie took a step to the left to be able to record even more but fell on her ass. None of us moved. No one seemed to have heard or seen her.
When we thought we were safe, the robot's eyes lit up, "INTRUDERS" he said, in a manly voice, and shot a blast in our direction. I managed to pull Maggie towards us moments before the blast grazed the floor and crashed into the wall on the other side of the river.
"Shit. We have to run. Hurry!" Elisa screamed, helping me lift Maggie up, "Come on, come on."
We could hear the different voices shouting, asking for explanations, complaining that this should be safe and then the safety lock on weapons being removed.
We didn't even stop to look back. We skirted the corner from where we had come from and ran forward as we never had before in our lives. I was sweating from everywhere. Drops slipped from my forehead to my eyebrows and my eyes. Even with the blurred view, I didn't stop running. My heart was beating louder than our shoes going up the stairs back to the office.
Chapter XXII
"Now what? What do we do now?" Maggie asked, gasping for breath.
"We've got what we need, let's get the hell out of here. It won't be long before they come after us," Elisa replied, "Damn robot."
We got to the office and made sure the door behind us was closed. We were aware that there had to be another way out, but we couldn't waste time wondering where it was or if they'd already left. The important thing now was to get out of there. The waiter was still lying against the wall. He'd already woken up and tried to free himself from the ropes. He looked at us with big, green eyes and I could see the despair in them.
"Go ahead." I told the three of them, "I'll catch up with you in a second."
"But... James..." Maggie said...
"GO! NOW! Don't worry." I told you.
They ran down the hall. I heard every step they took, straying away from the office until the steps were just a distant echo. I removed the ropes that held the man's arms and apologized to him. Even though I was on a secret mission, I was still a Hunter. And he might not have known it, but I also doubted that he knew what was going on underneath him. He was just a mere employee who had the misfortune of lurking in the wrong hallway at the wrong time.
"We didn't want this to happen." I told him before I turned my back and walked to the door.
I was going to start running when I heard footsteps and voices creeping up on the secret door.
"You better get out of here, too." I told the waiter.
He got up and stood there, "I'll explain what happened." He answered me.
I wanted to drag him with me, but I didn't have time for that. I closed my hands and started running down the hall. I was almost at the end when I heard a gun go off. I knew what had happened. I even wanted to go back, but it was too late.
I ran to the entrance of Maggie's house where the three of them were still waiting for me.
"We'd never leave without you." Kendra said, quickly, spitting out the words as if it cost less to say it.
"Let's go, let's go. They're not far behind." I told them.
"What about our guns?" Kendra asked.
"They're in the bag in the lobby. Do you still have the key, James?" Maggie asked me, "It shouldn't take more than a few seconds. We did it."
"Damn it, we should have left the guns in the car." Kendra said.
She was right. It was another amateur mistake we'd made. Now not only did they know what guns we had, but we could get caught getting them back.
"That's what I did. I kept it in your car." Elisa replied and winked at me, 'We really do need more safety measures in our vehicles'.
/> We left the building in distress, breathing wildly, and knees trembling. I remained unscathed, trying to show that they didn't need to be afraid, but truth be told, part of me had already accepted that it was our end.
"We want... Oh, we want our guns. The party's boring." Maggie said, throwing her hair back, keeping calm. She had nerves of steel and was not the same uptight person, afraid to wear the glove, that I had met.
The security guard pulled a box out of the bag and showed us, "This is it, right?" and put it in her hands.
"Yes, thank you. James, James, open this, please." She said, now tapping her foot on the marble stairs.
I took the key out of my pocket, my hand shaking, and I opened the box. We pulled the guns out of there and thanked him just as we were coming down the stairwell. The security guard got confused but didn't stop us.
We got in the car; me in the driver's seat, Elisa next to me and Maggie and Kendra in the back as usual. I set foot on the pedal and sped up. The gate was still open. There were cars coming in and if I looked through the rear-view mirror, I could see a room on the second floor with flickering lights and loud music. The party hadn't stopped. The sound of the gunshot hadn't even made it that far. They kept having fun without knowing what was going on under their feet. A little like me before I was picked for this group. Well, picked is not the right word, but it would have to do.
"James, watch the corners!" Maggie told me just as we were getting to that part of the road.
"Yeah, I'm going to have to slow down." I answered her and looked through the rearview mirror again, "Don't you think it's weird that no one's behind us?"
"I was thinking about it... Doesn't sound so good to me." Elisa said, looking out the window, "Not even a car. Don't you think..."
She hadn't finished talking when an energy blast hit the road behind us. The human-robot hovered in the sky with his index finger open as a barrel. The bright blue eyes and the wind spinning under his feet. I focused on the road and took the last turn out of that road maze. I sped up as much as I could and thought we'd left him behind, but I was wrong. He was waiting for us, right ahead of us, standing still, meters before the highway. The arm pointed at us, the hair fluttering and the shirt tight to his abs.
