The Dead Planet Series: Exodus (Book 1)

by Drew Avera

  Chapter 12

  The night sky loomed overhead as I returned to the shoreline and began walking home. I was trying to relieve myself of the aggression that had been building itself inside me. I have never enjoyed the act of taking another person’s life before tonight. Then again, it had never suited my needs up until this point. There was something about killing the man who had placed the hit on my father and who had turned my life upside down that was freeing in a scary kind of way. It wasn't for that reason alone that I killed him, but it carried a bit of weight in the gratification that I felt by doing so. I was still carrying the lottery ticket in my hand and I flexed the hard plastic between my hands. So much power was held within this piece of red plastic. It granted life by its presence and death by its absence. It really was not a hard comparison to draw between the ticket I was holding and the Syndicate. Both represented an over indulgent form of population control. The Utopian dream of equality meant that everyone was expendable if you weren’t the one who held the power.

  I felt a vibration in my jacket and retrieved the communicator from my breast pocket. The screen illuminated, but the hologram did not give any contact information. That was an unusual glitch but I answered the call anyway.

  "Serus," I said into the communicator. The other line had a small amount of static interference. That was common in some areas due to the artificial electro-magnetic field that spiked from time to time. At night you could see the amplifiers reflecting light several thousand feet in the sky. They almost looked like blinking stars, but I barely noticed them now.

  "Serus, its White. I need to meet with you tonight. Where are you now?" He asked in a quiet voice. The static seemed to muffle some of his words, but I could make out most of what he was saying.

  "I’m by the shore about two miles away from you," I said into the communicator.

  "Excellent. I want you to meet me in the conference room on the second floor of the palace in an hour," White said. "Come alone and don't be late." He closed the connection after those words and the line went dead. I wasn't sure if something was wrong or not, but I tried not to let it worry me. I was still on a natural high after killing the man who had placed the hit on my father. The same man who had deeply impacted every negative thing in my adult life. It was a high that I was not soon to live down.

  I began to walk to Pontiff White's palace in the square. I was keeping near the shoreline so that I could feel the wind blow through my hair. The buildings were dark along the street except for a few businesses that were still operating at this time of night. The street lights glowed in a pale light that had cast shadows at unusual angles along the walkway. I kept a steady pace until I was just outside the palace. I slowed down and tried to stay hidden in the shadows while I kept an eye out for any fellow policemen who may have been waiting for me. I saw one about seventy yards away standing in a well lit area. I scanned the area for a moment and soon found a way to enter the palace yard undetected and I went for it. I crept silently in the dark areas of the street before I ducked onto the walkway leading to the palace. The policeman had kept his back to me the entire time and did not hear me scurry into the building.

  Upon entering the palace I noticed that the lights had been dimmed. There wasn't a huge difference in the lighting, but it was enough for me to notice. Part of my training with the Agency had given me a keen attention to detail; I could notice something minor that was out of place if it were necessary to do so for survival. The lighting situation though did not seem threatening to me. I entered the elevator and ascended to the second floor of the palace. The conference room was a short number of steps from the elevator on the other side of the hallway.

  Pontiff White was waiting for me. He was sitting in a large leather chair situated at the head of a long wooden table. His computer was on and it projected an image of medical crews cleaning up the remains of Stern Harling. The reporter mentioned the fact that the hit had been carried out by a policeman. They did not give a list of suspects, but I could feel White's eyes follow me as I moved to my seat. I looked away from the image without regarding the report. I stopped and sat next to White as he was switching the volume down on his computer. He looked at me and crossed his arms over his chest.

  "You asked to see me," I said as I leaned back into my chair, unmoved by his obvious discontent with me.

  "Yes," he said. "I had some concerns when I sought to form an allegiance with you. I thought that maybe you would help me to bring down the Syndicate, but I didn't think that you would immediately strike out on some personal vendetta. Harling was not a key player in the Syndicate, so why did you kill him?" His voice was low but it carried an air of authority with it.

  I exhaled before I spoke. "I believe that he was in fact a key player. I did what you wanted and I sought out a means to take the Syndicate down one by one. There is no personal vendetta other than to kill them all and hope for an opportunity to save my sisters life," I said.

  "Tell me, Serus, what made him a key player?" He raised his voice and slammed his hand on the table. "He was nothing more than a rat in a cage. Just because he had something to do with the hit placed on your father does not make him a key player. We are talking about the Syndicate! Harling was just another pawn in the game. He didn't make any decisions that affected the world! He only made decisions that affected his own personal gain." He eyed me warily and he had a look like he was trying to read my mind.

  "It wasn't like that," I said.

  "Don't sit there and lie to me by saying it wasn't personal, Serus. You went out and you killed him just over an hour ago. Let me tell you that I drew the connection you had to him in less than three minutes!" His face had turned red and I felt that maybe his anger had more to do with self preservation than it did with my killing a minor member of the Syndicate. Maybe he was afraid of being found out. I closed my eyes and attempted to redirect my anger. Now wasn't the time to blow up at White. He may be right, maybe I did react in that way because of personal reasons. But Harling shared the blame in creating me, he brought this on himself.

  "Look," I said. "Maybe it was unwise to go straight for Harling, but I'm not in a position to know where the pieces of the puzzle go. I'm just there to take out all the pieces."

  White rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes. "I know, Serus, but we just don't have time to waste on killing pawns. I need you to target the leaders. I need you to find some way to bring them down. Maybe it's my fault for not coordinating things better so I will assemble a list of names and give them to you. It will be a pecking order. If we take out the people on the top of the list then it will give us an opportunity to take control of the Syndicate and shut it down from the inside."

  I nodded at his plan. It sounded like it was a good one. It was systematic in the way we were going to approach it.

  "Go home and get some rest," he said. I rose to leave but he stopped me again. "One more thing. I only assumed that you killed Harling, but I don't have proof beyond my own speculation and your lack of denial.”

  I was surprised by his need for evidence, the media coverage pretty much pointed right at me without saying my name. I reached into my pocket and retrieved the lottery ticket I had taken from Harling. I flexed it in my hand a little before I tossed it onto the table in front of White. The card bounced a few times before it settled on its side so that he could see what it was. He looked up at me and smirked before I turned around and walked out of the room. No words were necessary, but there was an exchange of understanding between us in that moment, and that was enough for now. White had his proof.