Turn 13
November 30, 2009
8:44 A. M.
The Sears Estate, Portland, Oregon
I may have already mentioned this already, or heard someone else say it anyway, but I truly believe in the adage of ‘all men are created equal.’ While it goes without saying that this statement should be taken as to the value of a human life, and their subsequent rights, I personally interpret it as well to mean the various abilities and skills of each and every person. Genius, master craftsman, even mentor or savant all have a weakness or a trait that makes you realize you’re superior to them in some way.
Sherry Sears single, crippling defect was the fact that she was not a morning person.
Dressed in a long white bath robe after a half hour shower of freezing cold water, the countertop in which she laid her head was practically flooding from the excess, drying discharge from her laden blue hair. A bowl of soggy cereal, practically untouched since she had prepared it, would soon turn to cheese as the tv roared in the background, the loud news going unnoticed as the girl still found a way to slumber on. Teenagers, right?
Well, that’s one of the reasons why Alucard had sent her to me. Sherry continued to lay on the counter even as Pierre and I entered, dripping wet and leaving foot prints behind us as we crossed the neat titles and into the good sized kitchen. Such an act would have earned us a whipping and a so called magical choking… had it been after ten a.m, the moment Sherry really decided to wake up.
Pierre only had to take one look at her to laugh. “This is why I didn’t keep you, mon ami. My kids would have failed out of school if I dealt with every day.”
“Why? Because you’d be too lazy to wake me up?”
“No! Because it’s too hilarious to stop. Where’s a sharpie; I need to-”
The girl snorted, turned her head to the other cheek and mumbled like a drunken alcoholic “Toush… toush mi fache… and I’ll… I’lllllll cut ya… ya dumb tardo…”
Which, as to be expected, only caused Pierre to laugh more as he continued his inspection of our own home restaurant. Opening cupboards one by one, it seemed the smoker needed more than just his tobacco to survive as he found the bread and, taking four different slices from the laof, moved to the toaster as he went on to make his own breakfast and watch the comedy program known as Seth and Sherry.
I, for my part, did what I always did every morning. I went to the sink and, filling up a glass of water with steaming hot liquid, dumped it completely on top of Sherry’s head. Such an act might have been considered cruel or passionless to another parent…
But when you’re dealing with a vampire who was impervious to most forms of pain and damage, it did to her nothing more than a wet rag feels on the back of one’s head. Lifting her face from the counter, red eyes blinking slowly as she struggled to keep them open, the woman at least became a bit more coherent as I heard her point out
“Your eyes are Orange. Good. You work your shit out?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You have five minutes; what do you want?”
Pierre, sitting down next to his surrogate granddaughter, was spreading an unholy amount of butter on his toast. How many carbs was he using throughout the day?
“You tell me. You organized some kind of tournament in my honor; what am I supposed to do?”
Sherry simply starred at me for a few seconds… then decided to face plant the counter, practically snoring as she resumed her nap. I thought I’d have to get another splash before she pointed at my office and replied
“Everything you need to know about that is in there. Sleeping now; douse me again and I’ll force push you out the wall.”
“Force push? How does a level 1 use a tel… oh. OH! This just keeps getting better and better!” Pierre announced, digging into his piece of toast. While I can only imagine that whatever he had to say would be rather interesting, I had my own concerns to deal with; patting the girl upon her back, I finally stepped out of my soggy shoes as my feet moved from title to carpet, the familiar space of my small office greeting me as I moved towards the desk that faced the outer balcony.
I only have a one floor house. It was more a patio than a balcony. Just because I’m rich doesn’t mean I waste my money like a moron.
Sitting upon my desk, right where my keyboard should have been but was now gone, was a small box that could have been anything between a box of chocolates to a bomb. Neatly done up with a Christmas box and all, I ignored whatever effort Sherry put into it given her own discourtesy towards me as I threw the peppermint paper away, tossing it to the ground with boredom.
Inside was a plain white box. Inside that, however, was sixteen white chess pieces cut out to resemble dragons, each of different size and stature as to make their importance and position obvious to the game. Beneath them were the instructions… and a tournament bracket, my name highlighted in my second favorite color (Yellow) and marked to play first on December 2nd.
The message is rather long, so I’ll do my best to avoid inserting my reaction, save for the occasional outburst from my father. Attempting to settle into my swiveling throne… only to fall to the ground as I remembered Alucard had stolen it, I simply stretched my legs out and laid down as I became engrossed in my so called final mission.
“To Seth Sears,
“If you are reading this you are either a specter returned from the grave or a vampire who has regained control of his senses. In either case I congratulate you in achieving your dreams, whether it be power through the beyond on here on Earth.
“Knowing my luck, you’ll be trying to pester me about this last project in the morning. Given my work hours, besides my distaste for pure emotion and goodbyes, I thought it’d be better to relay my message through this format. If you have any questions, please send them to me via email. I don’t want to talk work at home.
“Since I only have you for the next thirty days before Father James sends you packing, I need you to do one last favor for me. Since mom’s death a few years ago, you’ve grown distracted and weary; you no longer care about crushing the competition but simply dealing with it. That has allowed them to foster and grow, maggots hoping to infect our perfectly healthy form. As there are always problems in transitions of a new CEO to another, I hope to make sure I can either repress or destroy anyone who might be a part of this unsavory group.
“The tournament has been organized with that intent in mind. This is a 1,024 player tournament, ten rounds to determine who is the best chess player between businessmen, actors, musicians and otherwise influential individuals with the intent of celebrating President Barack Obama’s recent election win and, on a dourer note, to mourn the loss of the recently acquitted Solomon, murdered for being a Muslim. As you can imagine, I care for neither of these.”
“Hey! Mon ami! You’re on TV; says you’re coming out of retirement to play in a chess tournament. Apparently it’s because you have terminal cancer.”
“Cancer?” I asked, distracted. “Who the hell told the press I had cancer?”
“I did.” Sherry groaned, annoyed at having to take care of everything. “Heart attack that happens right at the start of the new year? That isn’t suspicious, especially because Kojima won’t shut up about FOXDIE. Last thing we need the public to know is that not only that’s sort of real, but we have our own superior strain of it.”
Satisfied, I returned to the letter.
“Of the 1,024 players, ten of them are our agents. The games have been set up so that one agent will lose on purpose every round, all to avoid suspicion. Being the best player and my father, you’ll make it to the finals; as for the other agents, they already know their place.
“The world was told the tournament selection was random, but in truth I’ve set it up so you’ll interact with ten people I need you to deal with. As long as you win every game and assuming no one throws a match on purpose and plays them out as I hope, you’ll meet the ten most important targets throughout
the course of the month.
“I have included the instructions for each and every name, specifically telling what I want done with them. How you accomplish the goal, whether making a business deal or threatening the opponent with black mail, is up to you.”
“Serviteur-”
“He isn’t your servant Pierre, and I know you can use English just as well as French. Stop annoying me.” Sherry moaned, Pierre casting a long glance at the girl before he decided it wasn’t worth picking a fight.
“Kid. Do you have smoke alarms installed in here?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Can I disable them? Need to take a hit.”
“Not my house anymore. Signed it along with everything else to Sherry. Dead men don’t take gold with them to Heaven.” I replied, standing up just to check and see that he hadn’t lit one up already. Instead, he was moving about with a chair dragging behind him, trying to avoid scrapping the floor and further irk his granddaughter. The man decided to alter his pitch and sound a lot sweeter than usual when he made his plea.
“Ma douce, my best and favorite granddaughter. Can I smoke in here?”
“Ever heard of a man named Kenny Carry?”
“No?”
“He works for Dangerous Desperados PMC. He also has been chatting up my secretary, and it’s creeping Niya the hell out. Will you kill him for free today?”
“When do I need to do it by?” The mercenary asked, already disabling the fire alarm as Sherry half slept, half mumbled on.
“Five in the afternoon. That’s when she goes home.”
“I’ll do it by three.”
“Done. Smoke all you want. Not like I can resell this house anyway; it’d be too hard to clean out the basement.”
Pierre, moving to the next white cylinder that was supposed to save us from men like him, assaulted the machinery with the savagery of a AK-47. “Why? Trop de choses?”
I think I actually heard Sherry laugh, though being in the state she was it sounded more like a choking bird. “No. Where do you think I eat dinner at? I’m too refined to do it outside, even if I had to install a drain down there.”
Too much information for me. Time to look at some of these opponents. The first on the list…
“Eugene Ford. Distant cousin of the Ford family with their lust for fortune but no close blood ties to get him any more than a couple thousand a year. He saved it up though and went to study electrical engineering, getting hired on as a Robber Baron technician for their Centurion suits before Shadow Bastion took them down.
“Like a few dozen other cockroaches, Ford escaped the downfall of the organization by bailing ship early and looking for work elsewhere. Cato took him in for a while but cut him loose about a year ago for so called ‘religious and economic’ differences. Small fish trying to act like a big one.
“Too bad he’s a freaking genius, and he just put his resume up about a month ago through releasing a schematic to the general public that’ll decrease energy usage by twenty percent. That’s an extra two hours of use in our top models.
“The problem is, this new mercenary group ‘The Hounds of Ingersoll.’ Not only are they offering a half million a year, but they’re a PMC well known to be comprised of agnostic and atheist soldiers, touting liberal and left leaning doctrine whenever it helps gain them clients. They came onto the scene shortly after the near destruction of Grand Boss’s PMC, hoping to be their opposite in their service. Their name will come up a lot these coming days.
“Anyway, either that technician needs to come to work for me or, at the very least, retire and disappear off the face of the map. Do not kill him though, not until he losses the chess match and is on the flight over to England to discuss business terms if he doesn’t relent. I don’t want any controversy to surround this event.
“The following is a key card to his hotel room, besides his location for tomorrow. Do as you see fit.
“With complete faith and love, Sherry Sears.”
“Well, I guess I can…”
It was too late to reply. The girl was already asleep again.
Times of Peace: Volume 1 of the side adventures to The Mercenary's Salvation Page 54
