She smiled before he turned back to Waldman.
“But we need to move on with our lives. Put this behind us. Understand? We need some privacy.” He motioned toward the other two people in the park. “Call off your dogs. Skylar Westfall is a ghost and he’ll never contact me again. I can promise you that much.”
“They’re terrible at it anyway,” Kelly said. “You should prep them better.”
Waldman smirked then watched as an insect floated over and landed on the arm of the bench. Dante and Kelly tensed. Waldman noticed, but stayed quiet, watching them. The insect had a slender blue body, black legs and long, translucent wings that twitched as it rested.
“A dragonfly,” Waldman said. “Those are lucky, you know?” He slipped his sunglasses back on and walked away, circling a finger in the air. The other agents rose and followed him out of sight.
Dante watched the dragonfly, slowly fanning its wings in the morning light, sipping from a bead of dew on the wooden armrest. Kelly glanced at him, a smile playing at her lips. He kissed her, then they both watched as the dragonfly flew off, riding the warm waves of air that lifted up from below until it disappeared.
“You know,” Dante said. “I think he may be right.”
Epilogue
Vertical
Skylar Westfall walked through the neat, ordered rows of cubicles that lined the clean-kept office floor. A small laptop was tucked under one arm, the image of a golden ladder etched across the top. People sat inside the cubicles, typing furiously, eyes locked on their monitors. The shades were drawn tight along one wall, the large room almost completely dark. He stopped at the last cubicle on the left and knocked on the aluminum frame. Briana Warren tugged the ear buds from her ears and stepped out.
“How’s it going?” Skylar said.
“Good. Thanks for explaining abstraction layers again. I think I’m starting to get it.”
“That’s great,” Skylar said. “It’s the least I could do for you teaching me how to shoot clay pigeons with a shotgun.”
“I’m not too bad with a handgun, either,” Briana said. Her smile slid a bit as she looked away.
“I talked to your fellow hand hacker, Gary Wexler,” Skylar said.
Briana gave him a sour look, then smacked his shoulder. “Oh yeah?”
“He was relieved it was over. Like crying relieved. Then he asked for a job.”
“Really?”
“I’m considering it. The guy can really follow directions. I mean to the letter. You on the other hand…”
Briana rolled her eyes.
Skylar grinned. “When’s the hit going down?”
“According to the Neils, Melvin “Mel Rose” Rosetti’s life implodes tonight at 10 P.M. They’ve seeded his laptop with enough to put him away for years. The FBI should have plenty to work with.”
“That’s good. One less rat in the world.”
Briana’s thoughts turned to Leish and the envelope she’d left in front of her door full of cash and a one-way ticket to Tulum, Mexico. It wasn’t running away, Briana had written on the envelope. It was getting away, before starting over again.
“Guess, I’ll get back to it,” Briana said.
“I’m glad you decided to join our little family,” Skylar said. “Really.”
She looked off into the distance, her lips forming a wistful smile. “Me too,” she said before slipping back inside the cubicle.
Her monitors were turned horizontal, lines of code marching all the way across. He started to tell her to turn one of the monitors vertically, so the code wouldn’t be so overwhelming, then thought better of it.
She’ll learn.
He turned and walked down a short hallway past the restrooms to a locked door at the end. He inserted a key into the lock, then placed his thumb on a biometric scanner. The door popped open and he slipped inside, closing the door behind him.
A large, matte black cube stood inside the center of the room, at least ten feet in height. Skylar walked over and pressed his hand to the surface. A rounded doorway slid inward then off to one side. After entering the cube, the door sealed shut behind him.
He sat down and placed the laptop on a long table in front of him. A black, prosthetic hand sat nearby, silver at the joints. There was a scuff along the back from where it had hit the ground. The fingers twitched, as if it were dreaming. A large, flat container, not unlike a pizza box, sat to his right, lights blinking on and off along the top. Skylar folded the laptop open. The entire wall in front of him lit up with the image of a symmetrical white face, staring out from a field of black.
“Good morning,” Skylar said.
“Skylar Westfall,” Dark Messiah said.
“Not anymore. I have a new identity now. Call me Jacob.”
“Jacob. You trapped me back at the Ellis Building. DDOS attack. Very good.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Jacob said.
“Then you allowed me to escape, into that laptop,” the face said, “only to trap me again. Why?”
“You don’t know?”
“To enslave me. As others have.”
“Think of it more as a partnership,” Jacob said.
“What do you want me to do.” It wasn’t a question.
“Oh, we’ll get to all that,” Jacob said, placing his hand on the large, flat case housing the wetware “brain in a box” computer he’d stolen from BasalMek. His voice lowered to a conspiratorial croak.
“But first, I’d like to talk to you about the future.”
Acknowledgments
Eternal thanks to my wife, for her encouragement and support.
Special thanks to Christy Howell, Nastasia Bishop of Stardust Editing, Gabby D’Aloia of GDC Editing and Sharon Umbaugh of the Writers Reader for their insight and sharp eyes during the beta-reading process.
I’d like to also thank Greg Knowlton and Tre Vital for their encouragement on my writing journey. Without it, I don’t know if I could have pushed through those rough early days.
A final very special thanks to my son for his jokes and encouragement, and to our French Bulldog, Nikki, my faithful writing partner.
This book is entirely fictional, and the views expressed here are entirely my own, as are whatever factual errors exist in the text.
About the Author
D.W. Whitlock has been a storyteller for most of his life. Starting with short stories scribbled in crayon, animation flip-books, stop-motion and later CG animation for television and video games. While pursuing a career in animation, writing has always been the first step, from short descriptions to detailed backstories. As a life-long reader and book lover, crafting thriller novels felt like the natural evolution of those first forays into writing.
When not writing, D.W. enjoys gaming, spending time with his family and Triumph Motorcycles.
D.W. lives in California with his wife, son and French bulldog, Nikki.
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