Crucible of Fear

by D. W. Whitlock

  The closet doors opened with a rattle as he reached inside and lifted his shoulder bag off a hook before dumping the contents onto the bed. The dazzle camo suit spilled out among pens and tablets of paper and various other odd and ends. He held the suit up in the dim light, eyes scanning over the strange, warped stripes before tossing it into the bag, followed by a few pairs of slacks, some jeans and t-shirts.

  He unplugged the battery charger for his arm and dropped that in the bag as well. The foil wrapped phone went in last. He snatched the flashlight from the dresser and left the room. The axe was stuck in the floor where he’d left it and he pulled it free as he swept by. He was going to need it. The door leading to the garage was made of steel reinforced mahogany with thick security hinges. It wasn’t going down without a fight.

  Dante hefted the axe over his head, angling for the best attack when the door swung open. Someone stood there, clad in loose fitting dazzle camo, one hand clutching the knob. Dante lifted the axe higher and the figure raised their hands, palms out.

  “Wait!” It was a young woman’s voice. “You’re Dante Ellis, right? I know who took your hand.”

  CHAPTER 74

  Visitor

  Dante hesitated, the axe still held high. The young woman pulled the mask down from her head, revealing honey blond hair and green eyes. The eyes were frightened, but determined.

  “I’m Briana Warren. Dark Messiah used me to hurt you.”

  Dante lowered the axe and considered her for a moment. “Can you talk on the way?”

  “The way to where?”

  “Away from here. Somewhere away from technology.”

  Briana hesitated, biting her lip. Dante began to push past her when she put up a hand.

  “Wait. I know just the place.”

  Excerpt from TechBeat.com article:

  First 3D Printed ‘Wetware’ Computer Stolen

  By Ian Weller

  BasalMek Medical Industries, world leader in the field of 3D printed organs experienced a “one of a kind loss” when their top secret wetware computer was stolen in a brazen breaking and entering late last night. Described by Dr. Patty Han as essentially a ‘brain in a box,’ the wetware computer is considered one of the next steps in enabling machine learning software access to the electrochemical processes that an organic brain is capable of.

  The box containing the wetware is flat and looks more like it would hold an extra-large pizza instead of a 3d printed brain. Dr. Han explains: “An organic human brain needs a certain amount of surface area to achieve the necessary number of neurons to be effective. About one hundred billion within a supportive structure of glial cells. The brain has evolved to fit inside the confined space of a skull, kind of like a balled-up piece of paper, hence the wrinkled appearance of the cortex. We don’t need our wetware brain to fit into a small space, so we print it in flat layers. It’s what a human brain might look like smoothed out into a sheet.”

  Dr. Han feels the thieves didn’t know exactly what they were stealing, even though it was the only thing missing from the lab. She asks for the brain to be returned, intact, no questions asked, claiming it is useless as is.

  “It’s just the hardware, a bit like a CPU,” says Dr. Han. “Very unique in the way it works, but without software specifically designed to interface with it, it’s just a sheet of 3D printed gray matter all dressed up with nowhere to go.”

  CHAPTER 75

  Bonnet

  Dante grabbed a can of black spray paint from a cabinet and began to paint zig zagging stripes across the car cover that lay over his father’s Porsche. Briana went to the other side, slipping in between the car and wall.

  “Toss it here,” she said.

  Dante tossed the paint can over and she pushed the nozzle down with her finger, etching long lightning bolt shapes across the side, starting at the front and working her way down to the rear. Rummaging through the cabinet again, Dante found a box cutter and slashed out sections for the windows.

  He unlocked the driver door and leaned in to pop the trunk. Then he peeled the cover up and lifted the lid, gazing over at Briana. The slight tang of his father’s hairspray drifted into his nostrils.

  “Can you toss in my bag?” Dante said.

  “Is there going to be room?”

  Dante gazed down into the trunk and his mouth fell open, his father’s final word echoing through his brain.

  Bonnet.

  He’d said bonnet, pleading with his eyes as he spoke. Dante cursed himself for not understanding what his father had been struggling to say before he died, this man who hated technology and didn’t trust banks.

  “That’s a lot of money,” Briana said.

  “If those are all twenties, I’d say at least half a million dollars.”

  It sure as hell explained where all of Dad’s money went.

  Dante shoved the stacks of cash as far back as he could and Briana tossed his bag in. He unzipped the bag and dug around until he found the dazzle camo before slipping it on. Briana pulled her hood back into place.

  As they climbed inside the car, Briana slid a slender object wrapped in a yellowed sheet between the seats. Dante paid little mind. He wanted to get away.

  They backed out with a chirp of rubber, the rear bumper pushing the rest of the destroyed garage door out of the way with a rattling crunch. Dante backed uphill and stopped, gazing around. His police protection detail was gone.

  “We’re being watched,” Briana said.

  Dante glanced past her though the passenger side window. A dragonfly drone hovered there, red light flashing on its underside.

  Dante checked the gas gauge. “The batteries have got to be tiny on that thing. It can’t follow us forever.”

  Unless it has batteries similar to my prosthetic, he thought.

  They sped away from the house, the canvas cover flapping as they drove. Dante checked the rear-view mirror as they merged onto the I-5. There were few other cars on the road.

  “Is it still following us?” Dante said.

  “I can’t see anything…oh wait. There’s two of them now.”

  “Keep watching them.”

  He increased his speed but the car cover began flapping, threatening to fly off so he slowed down, staying in the right lane.

  “Oh my god. One just smacked into a windshield of a big rig. Here comes the other one,” Briana said. “Speed up it’s coming closer.”

  Dante pressed down on the accelerator but the canvas cover began to flap violently and he slowed down again.

  “What are you doing?” Briana said.

  “This car is registered to my father. If that drone gets a read on the license plate then Dark Messiah can send that info to the FBI. They’ll be able to find us.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “No. The FBI is a part of this.”

  “Oh, shit,” Briana said.

  “Yeah.”

  “No. I mean, oh shit, there’s more back there.”

  “How many?”

  “Three now, coming up fast. If one lands on the car and we don’t know, they can track us. It probably has GPS.”

  “Jesus, how many of them are there?” Dante said.

  “I only ever saw two, but it must have been several swapping out for each other when the batteries got low.”

  “Let’s keep going. But the longer we’re out here like this, driving around with the car cover flapping around, the more chance we have of getting stopped by the police.”

  Briana popped the seatbelt catch and knelt on the passenger seat, facing toward the rear. She slid the shotgun out of the yellowed sheet and broke the barrel before dropping a shell in.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Dante said.

  “Slow down,” Briana said as she locked the barrel back in place. “How do you open this window?”

  “There’s a crank.”

  “Old school tech. I like that,” she said as she spun it down. Wind whipped through the car as she leaned out the window, gun butt
tight to her left shoulder.

  The drones swarmed closer.

  It was difficult to see through the screen of the optical camo and the wind blowing against the back of her head. Briana lifted the barrel of the gun and steadied her breathing, leading the closest drone as it flew closer.

  She squeezed the trigger.

  The drone disintegrated in a puff of green glitter, vanishing in the wind. The other two drones peeled off and hovered further back, visible only as small shiny points as they passed under streetlights. Briana broke the barrel and plucked out the shell, tossing it out the window before reloading.

  “When I say, slow down,” she said.

  “This is crazy,” Dante said, checking the rearview mirror. If they get pulled over, he may never have chance at finding Abigail.

  “Now!” Briana said.

  Dante let his foot up and the car slowed. The gun barked and Briana reloaded, then fired again.

  “Okay, we’re good,” she said, dropping back inside.

  Dante sped up again, not daring to go faster than fifty-five. “Who are you?”

  “Just a small-town girl from Nebraska.”

  “Nebraska, huh. Where to?”

  CHAPTER 76

  Motel

  Dante sat on the carpet, back against the wall, watching the shaft of light from under the curtains oscillate between red and purple. The motel room smelled of dust and stale cigarettes, the walls a dingy yellow. Their dazzle camo suits lay in a heap on the floor. Briana sat across from him on the edge of the bed and recounted the events that led to this moment.

  Her arrival in Hollywood, Leish, her creepy boyfriend Mel. Plushie hyenas. The Dragonfly drones. The text with the video of her and Leish, followed by the threat of sending it out to everyone she knew. She told him of that night in the alley, retrieving the black box. With a shaky hand she showed him the video on the Retrocam screen of a dark figure entering the Monolith tower. Her voice hitched as she told him that Dark Messiah had sent out the video of her.

  Dante listened, but said nothing. Briana was close to crying, tears welling up in her eyes, but a strange, numbness had begun to spread through his body, making him feel disoriented, disconnected. She’d been part of the biggest trauma of his life, before Abigail’s kidnapping, that is. Briana was another victim of Dark Messiah, but had she made a different choice, would he still have his hand? He glanced down at the stump, the flesh almost completely healed. A sudden wave of phantom pain hit him and he gasped, the ghost of his right hand cramping up into a claw.

  “Are you okay?” Briana said, rising from the edge of the bed.

  “It’ll go away after a while,” Dante hissed through clenched teeth.

  Her face was pained. “I’m so sorry. About all this.”

  “Not your fault,” Dante said gazing around the room. He got to his feet and fingered the corner of a mirror hanging over the TV. It was loose. “Help me with this?” he said, glancing over his shoulder. Briana nodded. He went and sat at the table and laid his arms across the top.

  “What do you need me to do?” Briana said.

  “Take the mirror down and put in on the table standing up, then hold the top.”

  She lifted the mirror off the wall. It was heavier than it looked. The room tilted crazily in the reflection as she carried it over and placed it on the table, holding it up as he’d asked. Dante pressed his forehead against the edge, closed his right eye and tightened his left hand into a fist. He slowly relaxed his hand while breathing long and deep. He did this a few more times before leaning back and closing his eyes.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Briana took the mirror down and put it down against the wall. “Pretty cool trick,” she said.

  “Yeah, when it works.”

  She studied him a moment. “So, what now? I have a few ideas.”

  Dante laughed, feeling a bit more like himself. “No doubt something involving a gun.”

  “If he’s lucky,” Briana said. “I think we should go talk to the other guy involved in this.”

  “We don’t even know who he is.”

  “I lost my phone in the back of that truck. He must have taken it when he grabbed my messenger bag. I can use Find My Phone.”

  “He’s probably just a victim as well and couldn’t tell us much. Or wouldn’t, for fear of reprisal by Dark Messiah. Let him stew for a bit. The bastard took my hand.”

  “So did I. Well, I helped anyway,” Briana said, looking away.

  “Yes, but he didn’t come and find me,” Dante said. “You did.”

  Briana gazed up again, lips curved into a slight smile.

  “All I want is to get Abigail back and I’m running out of time. If she’s still alive.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dante told Briana about the incident at the airport, and the details of Abigail’s abduction. Briana sat back down on the bed, hands over her mouth, looking ill. She turned even paler as Dante described the events in The Place, the betrayal of Dmitry, Special Agent Boucher of the FBI and Colin. She shivered as he described the mask Colin had placed on his face, almost taking his eye. Then he told her of his strange interaction with Dark Messiah through the television and his subsequent tear-assing through the house, and their promise to kill Abigail in twelve hours if he refused to comply.

  Briana’s eyes narrowed before she spoke. “It’s from the Book of Job.”

  “What is?”

  “What Dark Messiah said about ‘When you tear your clothes. Shave your head and give yourself entirely to despair.’ The book starts out as a wager between Satan and God. Satan insists that if you take everything away from a righteous man, he will curse God and turn from him. It’s usually offered up as a lesson to explain that if God is good, why do the innocent suffer?”

  “I don’t get it,” Dante said.

  “Nobody does. In church, you learn pretty early on it’s better to just nod and stay quiet unless you want to get sermoned to death. But what’s usually left out is the best part, and really crazy to be honest.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “God speaks to Job from a whirlwind and boasts that he couldn’t possibly comprehend creation. Where was Job, God asks, when he laid the foundations of the Earth? Can Job call down the rain, can he loosen Orion’s belt? God goes on for a while too, really ramming the point home, talking about bringing down his wrath. Wait, don’t motel rooms have Bibles in them?”

  Briana yanked open a drawer next to the bed, and removed a Gideon’s Bible. The spine cracked as it opened and she flipped through.

  “Here listen to this: ‘Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on the grass like an ox. Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron. It ranks first among the works of God, yet its Maker can approach it with his sword.’”

  “Behemoth? I didn’t know that was from the bible,” Dante said.

  “Listen to this next part,” Briana said, continuing to read. “‘Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope? Will it make an agreement with you for it as your slave for life?’”

  Dante nodded. “I get the first part, Dark Messiah is God, and they are punishing me, even though they said I wasn’t righteous but a ‘purveyor of lies.’ So, which one of us is the Leviathan?”

  “I don’t know. I’m guessing Dark Messiah left that out as well in their thinking because at this point in the story, God is just laying it on thick.”

  “How does the story end?” Dante said.

  “Job gets everything back, twofold.”

  Dante lifted up his stump. “I’m guessing Dark Messiah is going to skip that part.”

  “They’ve been pretty selective with their interpretation of the Bible,” Briana said. “Bunch of a la carte Christians, if you ask me.”

  Dante laughed. Then his face fell. “I have to believe she’s still alive. I have no idea how to find her though, but I think I might know who can.” He turned and headed for the door. “I need t
o look something up, something someone said to me. I’ll be back. I’m going to go buy one of those prepaid phones.”

  “Use mine,” Briana said.

  Dante shook his head and took the phone from her outstretched hand. “Thanks,” he said. “Just a small-town girl, huh?” She smiled and looked away as he tapped on the screen and opened a browser.

  Dante gazed upward, trying to remember. What had Skylar Westfall said that day in the parking garage? It was two words that meant nothing to him, but they’d stuck in his head. He tapped on the screen, inputting the letters in a search window.

  Bothrops Asper.

  The tiny screen filled with information. The header at the top read: Fer-de-lance, a highly venomous pit viper found throughout southern Mexico and South America. Images of a spotted, dark brown snake, neck curled into an S, shone on the small screen.

  Why the hell would Skylar tell him about a snake? Dante thought. Nothing made sense to his exhausted brain.

  “What is it?” Briana said.

  Dante told her about Skylar Westfall and his company, Spearhead Data systems, and his software with the strange, snake-related name.

  “He said he wanted to help you, right?” Briana said. “You just needed to plug in that chip.”

  “According to him.”

  “But you threw it away.”

  “What are you getting at?” Dante snapped. Then he got it. “Shit. He knows about Dark Messiah.”

  “Duh. Toss me the phone,” Briana said. She tapped on the screen with her thumbs then slid a finger down before tapping again.

  “Anything?” Dante said.

  “Hold on a minute. I’m thinking.”

  Dante watched Briana as she stood there hand on one hip, concentration etched on her face. Seeing her standing there like that reminded him of Abigail. Dante sat down hard on a chair and stared at the scarred table top, focusing on a cigarette burn.

  Where was she? Was she safe? Scared but safe somewhere?