Deadeye- Episode II

by David Rex Bonnewell

  They can't, but I can,” Shadow said. An instant later, she had disappeared, leaving in her place – only for a second – a thin black, almost transparent outline of her body, which gave off tiny tendrils of black smoke that rose up into the air and also disappeared. Before Daverex could react, she appeared directly behind him, her left arm around his neck in a choke hold and her right hand forcing his gun hand down so that his laser pistol pointed non threateningly towards the ground. She whispered into his ear in the same soothing tone, “I do apologize for my behavior. I didn't want our first meeting to go like this, but you are very emotionally unstable. That is a risk I am unwilling to take. I will not harm you. That is a sworn promise. However, I will keep you restrained until our business is concluded. You will act in a calm and civilized manner in my presence. You will consider carefully the offer I make available to you. I will ease my choke hold on you so that you can speak, but you will only do so if I tell you to. Now, nod if you agree to my terms.”

  Daverex thought about attempting to break free of Shadow's hold on him, but then he looked again at the two men, now both with their arms crossed in a I dare you to try something sort of gesture, and thought better of it. He decided instead to play along for the time being, so he nodded an affirmative.

  Shadow said, “Excellent!” and then eased up on her choke hold a bit. Daverex gasped for air, forcing several ragged coughs out of him. “Again, I am awfully sorry for the necessary roughness on my part,” Shadow said. “I simply did not know how you would react. As a show of good faith, I will answer your two previous questions. I know your name because I and some within my guild have been following your remarkable exploits since you met with that witch Vertina Mirga on this spot. Any meeting with a member of the Seven Sisters is going to get our attention. It is not a coincidence that you have met every challenge set before you thus far with success. It is true that there were a few minor hitches along the way, but this was, after all, your first rodeo. You are gifted. This much is certain. And I have come to believe that you are destined for greater things. Which brings me to the answer to your second question. What I want is to offer you the opportunity to join our guild...our family. In return, you will find within our camp a comfortable safe haven whenever the need arises. You will also be paid handsomely, of course, for each artifact you bring to me. Most importantly, however, we can help you develop your gifts to their fullest potential. I'm not saying for certain that you have not already reached your potential, but nearly every guild member has improved their unique gifts to at least some noticeable degree. Quite a few of us, I and my guards included, have improved upon our gifts considerably. Do not fear any consequence of your answer. If you turn this extraordinary offer down, you may go about your life as you see fit and you will never see us or hear from us again. So then, what do you say to my offer?

  Daverex's first inclination was to tell this woman where she could stick her offer, but then thought better of it. Burning bridges is never a smart move. Besides, hers was a tempting offer. He had always dreamed of a life where his skills and so-called 'gifts' could be tested outside the confines of the Tech'er complex he called home, and the better he could hone these gifts of his, the better his chances of successfully overcoming any obstacles along the way. “Before I accept your offer,” he said, rubbing his sore neck, “I have a few questions.”

  “Of course,” said Shadow with an air of excitement in the fact that Daverex had not immediately refused her. “Ask your questions.”

  “What exactly would be expected of me?”

  “There are many items all over the multiverse that could prove devastating to innocent people in the wrong hands. Largely, you will be tasked with the search and retrieval of some of these items. You may do this alone, with a small team or with a larger team, depending on how challenging the mission is expected to be. You may pick your own team, including non-guild members, with their approval and my own final approval, of course.”

  “What happens to these items once they are retrieved? How do you know other guild members won't take them for themselves and use them for their own nefarious reasons?”

  “We destroy what items we can so that they can never again fall into the wrong hands. Those that cannot be destroyed are locked within a secure underground vault beneath our camp. The items are dropped into a complicated shute on the vault wall and cannot be reached by any means once inside. Also, all guild members are required to ingest a specially designed pill. Should any guild member attempt to flee with an item destined for destruction or the vault, the capsule will be remotely split open, resulting in the release of a chemical which induces instant death.”

  “In addition, all guild members are monitored via satellite uplink, drones and body cams throughout their assigned missions. This serves three purposes. It protects them by allowing our camp to maintain updated risk assessments so that we can provide assistance or extraction in a timely manner as the needs arise. It provides our camp with reliable recordings of field experience so that we may better enhance the skills and gifts of all guild members. And most importantly, it ensures no guild members go rogue and still remain in the guild. The key to success in the field is teamwork, as you have already learned for yourself.”

  “Now that I have shown considerable good faith, it is time you did the same. For you, there is only one way into The Empyrean Prowlers.” She nodded at the guard on the right, who then approached BeN-E and knelt behind him. Shadow said to Daverex, “You will convey the code that opens your robot's rear storage compartment and The Sphere of The Fallen will be added to the secure inaccessibility of the other dangerous items we have retrieved...if, as the rumors suggest, it cannot be destroyed. Take some time. I know this is a great deal of information to process.”

  “There is one significant problem with that,” said Daverex.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I need to get the sphere to someone or this someone will have me killed.”

  “Essentially, Ms. Talma Greene has scheduled your execution for the next fiscal quarter if your quota of weapons inventions does not improve dramatically by then. Yes, I know all of this.”

  Of course you do, Daverex thought.

  “But there is something you do not know,” Shadow said, “The Ms. Greene you last spoke with is actually a dead ringer, as you call them. A rather clever name, I must admit.”

  “Thank you,” said Daverex, though it came out sounding more like a question as a result of his shock in hearing that his own boss is one of those dead ringer creatures. Daverex then remembered finding it odd that Ms. Greene had suddenly developed a sense of humor during their last conversation, and it all made sense to him. “That tricky dead ringer bastard was just biding its time until I handed over the sphere!”

  Shadow nodded.

  “But Gaston...”

  “Your closest friend and colleague, Gaston Melchor. Yes, go on.”

  Daverex glared at Shadow. Her knowledge of his personal life was starting to get on his nerves. “He was the one who convinced me to go after the sphere and suggested I present it to Ms. Greene as my own invention. So...Gaston's a dead ringer too?” Daverex didn't know for certain as his old pal was always a natural joker ever since they first met.

  Shadow nodded again.

  Daverex recalled the dangerous mission he had just returned from that ended in a stand-off. I knew old Gassy would never betray me. Not after all we've been through. A guy as smart, talented and dedicated to his work as Gaston was wouldn't have to resort to tricking his closest friend into risking his life to retrieve something, only to then rob him of it at gunpoint just to get another promotion.

  “The Gaston dead ringer wanted me to present the sphere to Ms. Greene and she too is a dead ringer. dead ringers are supposed to be competing over who gets the sphere. That means...”

  Shadow grinned wide.

  “The Gaston dead ringer and the Talma dead ringer are the same dead ringer!”

  “Ding. Ding. Ding. We have
a winner!” said Shadow, her hands on her hips. “Every person a dead ringer imitates, by the way, is put into an unrecoverable comatose state. The only way to bring them back to consciousness is by rendering unconscious the dead ringer who has imitated, or who currently is imitating them. So, you should do that before entering the cave. To rescue Brother Harvest – yes, I know about him too – you will have to find and render unconscious his dead ringer version. To rescue Gaston and Talma, you will have to render unconscious their shared dead ringer version. This will likely prove more challenging as A) you don't know which person it is currently imitating and B) it seems to be much more clever than its kin.”

  Daverex cursed his foolishness in believing Shadow was unaware of his predicament with the Tech'ers and that The Sphere of The Fallen was in his possession, but he quickly chalked it up to another lesson learned in the field. Whether or not to accept Shadow's offer, however, was by no means a quick or easy decision for him. It could decide his fate from this moment on. He made a mental checklist of the pros and cons of joining Shadow's guild, but he started with the cons so that the reality of the potential hazards would sink in more deeply.

  Cons: The guild enforces rather draconian rules on its members as do the Tech'ers, which is the very thing I hoped to escape. The Tech'ers could potentially hunt me down and drag me kicking and screaming into slavery, or simply kill me outright. The guild allows only minimal freedom of thought and action in the field. Very little is known by me about this guild, it's members and its leader, so there are considerable trust barriers. This Shadow person could be outright lying. She could have no intention of granting me membership in her guild. She could just be stringing me along to get to the pain-in-my-ass sphere! Hell, there may not even be a guild at all! Okay, calm down Daverex, never let them see you sweat. I'd feel a damn sight better if she'd let go of me.

  Pros: I could help rid the multiverse of some truly terrible dangers. I would have a solid sense of grand purpose for the first time in my life. The added protection of being watched over by a well-funded and organized guild would allow me to experience incredible adventures with more confidence. Any opportunity to further improve my skills and “gifts” as she calls them is an invaluable asset. Belonging to an experienced group of like-minded adventurers willing to traverse the multiverse is what I always dreamed of. This is all assuming, of course that Shadow is telling the truth about everything she claims. When it comes right down to it, however, I can always escape before committing too much of myself to the guild. I've done it before. I can do it again. There's just one little potentially deadly detail I have to alter first.

  “Three conditions,” Daverex said.

  “Yes?” said Shadow, grinning again.

  “I don't take that remotely triggered instant death pill of yours until I have gotten to know everyone in the guild.”

  Shadow thought for a moment, then said, “I agree, but I will assign you only one mission prior to you taking the pill, and the mission will be carefully supervised by three guild members.”

  “Fair enough. Also, you will assign your best robotics technicians to recharge and repair my robot friend Benny here as best they can.”

  “Done and done. In fact, I have several such technicians who can even make improvements to your robot if you wish.”

  “Under my careful supervision, of course.”

  “Of course. Now, what is your final condition?”

  “I will follow you to your underground vault along with Benny, at which time I will inspect it. If I am satisfied that there is no way to access the contents of the vault, I will open Benny's compartment and drop The Sphere of The Fallen into the vault myself, after I have rescued everyone, of course. Don't bother trying to access the compartment while I'm gone either. It is impervious to all tools and forms of hacking.”

  Shadow's grin faded into a stern expression. “That I cannot agree to. The vault is hidden underground for a reason and...”

  Daverex cut her off. “Trust goes both ways, Shadow, or whatever your real name is. If you really want me in your guild, these are my terms.”

  Shadow sighed and jerked her head in frustration, motioning for the guard kneeling behind BeN-E to go back to his place beside the other guard. As he did so, Shadow said to Daverex, “Fine. But again, you will be carefully supervised.”

  “Then we have a deal.”

  “The deal is done,” Shadow said right before gradually easing her hold on Daverex. When she felt that he was not going to struggle to turn around and shoot her, she let him go completely.

  When Daverex noticed Shadow eyeing his laser pistol warily, he casually holstered it. “Now,” she said, “you should let Aegis here fix up your wounded leg. Can't have one of my own hopping around on a gimp limb.” Daverex nodded his head and Aegis came to him and knelt at his side, studying the wound. He used sign language to communicate with Shadow.

  “It's already infected,” she said to Daverex.

  Daverex looked worried.

  “It'll be fine in a minute, and then you'll have a nifty battle scar to show off,” Shadow said.

  Before Daverex could ask her how an infection could possibly become “fine” and so quickly, Aegis was waving his hands in a continuous overlapping motion over the wound. Soon a dim yellow light began emitting as an outline from his hands and the wound soon shrunk little by little until it was gone and only a pronounced lightning bolt-shaped scar remained. Daverex stood in awe of the seemingly magical process.

  “Thank you, Aegis,” Shadow said.

  Aegis rose to his feet and nodded at Shadow before taking his place again beside his twin brother.

  “It looks much better,” Shadow said to Daverex. “Told ya you'd get a nifty scar in the end. It suits ya. How does it feel?”

  Daverex bent his leg a few times then took several steps, saying, “It feels...like it was never injured. This is incredible!”

  Shadow smiled and said, “Just one of the perks of membership.” Then she got serious again. “Now, there is one very important last step to attend to.” She drew a dagger from her right boot, slashed the palm of her left hand with its blade and said, “hold out your left hand.” Daverex reluctantly did so and she slashed his palm with the same blade. He allowed for a sharp intake of breath, but refused to jerk his hand away. He dared not show weakness. Not now. Then she clasped her bleeding hand into his and slid her palm along his until both hands were free of each other and completely smeared in their mingled blood. She pulled two long sections of gauze bandage from a pouch on her belt and handed one to Daverex, saying, “These wounds are minor and Aegis needs a few minutes of rest before he can use his healing gift again.” While they each wrapped the bandage around their slashed hands, she said, “As is bared witness by trusted guild members Aegis and Fracas, I hereby welcome our newest guild member, Deadeye!”

  Daverex felt an irrepressible swelling of pride. Whatever may come, he took an immediate liking to his newly assigned guild nickname. A man could go far with a name like Daverex 'Deadeye' Newell, he thought.

  CHAPTER THREE

  D averex truly believed he could take on the world's problems at this moment. “Before I can get to my first mission, I will need to rescue my friends, chief.”

  “Don't call me chief. I am Shadow to every guild member. Your first mission just happens to coincide with your rescue operation. That is why I chose you for this particular mission. Well, that and your various run-ins with the denizens of your mission location.”

  Daverex could already guess where he was going next.

  “You are to locate and retrieve the item of interest in last year's dead ringer competition – The Infertility Idol – which is hidden somewhere within The Cave of Sorrows on the planet you just came back from.” Shadow grinned at the irony of Daverex having to go deeper into the place that had once already overwhelmed his senses in a short period of time.

  “The Infertility Idol?” Daverex said. “I've heard about a lone archeologist who took a
gold artifact called The Fertility Idol from a heavily trapped temple somewhere in Peru, but –

  “The Infertility Idol is a bronze artifact that, as its name suggests, will render permanently and undetectably infertile anyone who remains within a one foot radius of it for more than an hour.”

  “That's bad, but hardly catastrophic.”

  “Just imagine slipping it under the pillow of a ruling monarch or business tycoon before they go to bed and shut their eyes to the worries of the world. The sudden impact of having no heirs.”

  “I see what you mean now.”

  “Good. There is no time to waste. We believe there are other parties interested in finding the idol, including the Walkers, who may have already discerned its location as well. You have a bit of a head start, but not much of one. I suggest you take full advantage of it or you'll likely find yourself in a fight you may not walk away from once you enter the confines of the cave. Here.” Shadow removed a shiny, flat, round, palm-sized stone from a pouch on her belt and held it out to Daverex. “Take this, but do not lose it!”

  Daverex took the stone, tossed it into the air and caught it. “What am I supposed to do with this? Skip it across a lake?”

  Shadow rolled her eyes and said, “That is The Nomad's Stone. It is an artifact we found in our travels and is older than recorded time, a time when fast travel of any sort was only a dream. It is not inherently dangerous, so we keep it for personal use. I have already prepared it so that only you can control it for the time being. Close your eyes and concentrate on a place...”

  Daverex closed his eyes.

  “Open your eyes!”