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Black and White by Mainevent
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Black and White
Date: 20 January 2006, 4:09 am
--Author's Note: Though it doesn't have a direct Halo tie-in during this chapter, later chapters will make its position in the Haloverse much clearer.--
Chapter One
"Daddy."
"Yes, honey?"
"Why do you kill people?"
"Daddy doesn't like to baby, but it's what his job is."
"But why is it your job if its not nice to kill people?"
"Well sweetheart...some people just can't be allowed to live."
"How come daddy? What'd they do?"
"Oh, they did a lot of bad stuff honey. A lot of really bad stuff..."
He couldn't help but remember the conversation. It was the last he'd ever had with his daughter. The entirety of the situation surrounding it was clear to a T in his mind.
She wore a light pink dress covered in flowers with a bright red belt, trimmed on the fringes with white lace. In her curly, reddish blonde hair was a red bowtie that matched her belt, and on her two tiny feet were black shoes that showed off her pristine white socks; the ones with the ruffled edges at the tops.
Her skin was a creamy rose tint that accentuated her large, sapphire blue eyes. It was her birthday, so her nails were painted a bright cherry red to match with her outfit and her eyelashes had been curled for effect. She was still dragging Teddy, her favorite doll, behind her, and he'd had to tell her several times already to make sure and pick him up, or else he'd get dirty.
The sky overhead was pristine, not a cloud for miles. A flock of milk-white birds soared in unison above. Dark green grass had been neatly trimmed by the maintenance crews to a uniform height of one and a half inches. Sunlight shimmered off the light ripples from the park's lake onto the few large black and white geese splashing around in it.
Under the polished white marble pavilion at the center of the park was a white stone table covered in gifts. Big gifts, little gifts, rectangles, and spheres of all sizes. There was even a little piñata with her favorite cartoon character dangling from the ceiling. It was Scrappy McDougles, the crime fighting super pup. There were giggles and chirps and children yelling all around.
"Daddy."
"Yes honey?"
"Why do you kill people?"
"Why do you kill people?"
"Why do you kill people?"
"Why do you kill people?"
He shook his head to get the question to go away. But it wouldn't. He let go of her too-small hand and watched as she dropped her doll and ran to her gifts. The man shook his head with a cockeyed smile and picked the old toy up, carefully brushing the dirt off without harming the loose threads. His cell phone rang and he slid the small gray device from his coat pocket with one hand. The display was an unknown caller so he flipped it open and then closed it again to hang up. d*mn telemarketers. It rang again. Same number. He flipped it open and pressed it to his ear.
"'ello?"
"Mr. Black..." It was an all-too-familiar voice. The voice of the devil.
It couldn't be. How had they...
"I, I'm sorry, you have the..."
"No I don't, Mr. Black. The stunned look on your face tells me that."
His face went pale as his mind struggled to process it all.
"Daddy, can I open my presents?" His daughter interrupted, almost distantly.
"In just a moment, sweetheart."
"What's the matter Mr. Black, thought we'd never find you? We have a lot of vested money in you, you know."
"No...I knew you'd find me, eventually." He answered, hesitantly.
"But Daddy, I want to open a present!" She insisted.
"Fine, open a present." He turned to scan the buildings across the street from the park. The buildings, the cars, the windows, everything. But his normally perfect eyes couldn't find anything strange.
"What about this one, Daddy?" She asked, picking up a small rectangular package covered in wrapping paper.
"That's fine honey, open whatever you want," he answered without turning; never noticing the paper he hadn't bought.
"What a good father Mr. Black, letting her open up a present on her birthday. I do so like that present myself, but then again, I bought it."
His world stopped.
"Honey, don-"
"Goodbye, Mr. Black."
The force and heat of the explosion hit simultaneously before he could turn around. His body was tossed like a ragdoll twenty meters before landing haphazardly on top of a car, denting its thin aluminum roof in several feet. Glass shattered out of storefronts and cars for a city block around the park's pavilion. The only thing that remained of the rock and granite structure was a large hump of metal reinforcing rods and stone powder atop the hasty funeral pyre his daughter was buried under. His eyes were leaden as they quickly faded to black.
"Daddy."
"Yes honey?"
"Why do you kill people?"
"Daddy doesn't like to baby, but its what his job is."
"But why is it your job if its not nice to kill people?"
"Well sweetheart...some people just can't be allowed to live."
"How come daddy? What'd they do?"
"Oh they did a lot of bad stuff honey. A lot of really bad stuff..."
"Like what? What did the bad men do?"
"Shh. Let's go see mommy first and then we can open presents. I'm sure she'd have loved to have seen how pretty you are today. How about that sweetheart?"
"Ohkay. But..."
"Yes, what is it honey?"
"Daddy, I miss mommy."
"I know honey, so do I... So do I."
He woke up in a familiar setting: the hospital. A thick white bandage was wrapped around his head, with a small red circle just left of center on his forehead. His arms were wrapped with even more bandages; one was covered with a cast. Needles were gouged deep into his muscular forearms and wrists to get intravenous fluids into his system. It felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest, and it was hard to breathe. His vision was blurry, but the smell of disinfectants were distinct. Rhythmic chirps emanated from the cackle of machinery around him: heartbeat monitors, blood pressure indicators, and a million other tiny and useless readings all scrolled in electronic ink across their displays. The floor was heavily polished and only highlighted the standard white and black tiling familiar to every hospital he'd ever been in.
The room was bathed in an ugly baby blue color that was worsened by a checkerboard red and olive border. To his left was a viewing station and tray, on which his breakfast, lunch, and dinner would be served until he was well enough to leave. On his right dangled the remote control, wired to the bed to keep people from losing it, and slightly larger than normal because of the built-in speaker for the news monitor.
The sun cast irritating beams through the window in front of him, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut to avoid the glare. His hand reflexively depressed the large red 'Nurse' button several times. Five minutes later the heavy, metallic looking door swung open before gently stopping against the wall. The room was meant for two people, but the other bed was gone, and both of the separating curtains had been left open. His nurse, a young and vivacious young lady with a gorgeous smile walked in quickly. Normally, he'd have thought himself blessed to meet such an attractive woman, but there was no such joy today. She seemed to notice the problem before his single finger shakily pointed to the window blinds, which were quickly closed.
"I'm glad to see you're awake today. We thought you too weren't going to make it for a while."
The pain relievers were working, he was groggy and slow to comprehend.
"Yea, I'm...I'm fine. Really. I just need..."
"Go on, I'll get you whatever you need." Her smile was inspiring with its kindness, and she came closer to prop up his pillows.
"I just want to see my daughter and go. I've...I've got to get out of..."
Her smile faded almost instantly at the word 'daughter'. His mind realized almost immediately that something was horribly wrong, but it was still too disjointed to put the pieces together.
"Mr. Black," the nurse said quietly, kneeling down beside him, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your daughter didn't make it."
Tears welled up in his eyes and his mouth curled into a vicious snarl. He wrapped his good hand around the bed's side rail until his knuckles were white, breaking the metallic rack off easily. The IV poles swayed from side to side as his arm jerked violently in anger and frustration before falling to the ground with a loud clatter. The young lady jumped back quickly, startled by his violent and extremely powerful reaction; but she refused to call for orderlies. Heavy sobs bellowed deep from within his chest before slowly fading into weak whimpers as he ran out of tears, and the ones he'd already shed dried up; leaving behind salty, stinging reminders as they evaporated. She gently stroked his forehead and gave him gentle sips of water from a cup.
With infinite patience she moved to the fallen equipment and stood it back upright, carefully replacing the needles which had been jerked out during the tirade. He offered no resistance, nor did he flinch, as she reinserted the thin metal shafts into his veins. With a damp washcloth she dabbed his forearm before kneeling to the floor and getting up the thin line of spattered blood that had jetted out with the needles.
"If there's anything you need Mr. Black, just push this button and I'll come as fast as I can to help you. Alright?"
She placed the remote firmly in his hand. He nodded absently while staring into space and time and a million other places inside himself. The nurse slowly made her way to the door before turning back with a sorrowful glance and closing the door.
He thought back through himself. Through his life, and his wife, and his daughter. Through the pain and the joy and the sorrow and the million other things he'd gone through. He'd wondered what the spooks would do when they found him, and often expected it to be gruesome, but this was beyond anything he'd ever dreamt of. There was no more black and white, or even shade of gray. There was what must be done; and that's all there was. They'd failed to kill him once, but like all of the pirates and space rats he'd killed before had gruesomely found out, once was all he needed to get the job done.
Shades of Gray
Date: 3 February 2006, 4:45 am
Chapter Two
The intruder led with his gun, which was good for Mr. Black. His hand was clutched tightly around the pistol's narrow grip, and there was a slight tremble as the door nudged further open. Black leather gloves reflected dimly in the green glow of the room's low light. A standard issue silencer was snugly tightened to the weapon's barrel; this was supposed to be a quiet job. The assassins were trying to catch him sleeping, but they'd failed.
There was a hesitant pause as the man's wrist was wrapped firmly in strong, cold fingers. For an instant there was a silent confusion, what the hell?. That's what he imagined the man with the gun was thinking; he didn't give the enemy's mind time to process beyond that. Two quick, nearly incomprehensible motions later there was an unconscious body slumped limply against the wall; his nose was quite visibly broken, and jagged white bone penetrated the skin around his forearm. A gasp broke the surreal silence of the moment, but neither man in the room had uttered it; there was another.
Mr. Black quickly stepped from behind the door he had used for cover, and glanced into the steely gray eyes of the second assassin; a younger man, and one who dared not make the same mistake his partner had. Had Black been in perfect health, the man would have scarcely made it to the nurse's station; as it was, he'd made it to the nearby stairwell without being caught. Pain coursed through every torn muscle and tendon in his broken body as he sprinted from the room after his prey. Conditioning took control as his fine-tuned body pumped out endorphins to dull the pain as much as possible while his mind struggled to ignore it altogether.
A nearby elevator door opened, and he sidestepped inside. A red ring of light highlighted the button for the basement floor as he pushed it. They wouldn't have been dumb enough to go through the lobby, they'd go straight for the easy in-and-out kill. It was standard operating procedure, after all.
There was a low bell and the mirrored elevator door panels parted. A frightened and panting young man in a long black overcoat emerged from a small alcove to Black's left. He was completely unaware of the silhouette standing in the glow of elevator lights to his right. Sweat beaded down the agent's forehead in thick, salty drops before he wiped them off with his sleeve. He jumped slightly as the door behind him clicked shut; the boy's nerves were obviously on edge. The inexperienced young operator chuckled to himself as he tried to regain his composure.
His thin, wiry fingers scrambled around in his coat pocket for car keys before unlocking the slick black, mid-sized government car he'd parked next to the elevator. It started up without hesitation and growled furiously. Thin streams of smoke billowed up from the vehicle's rear wheels before the car gripped and jerked forward. The agent had been too nervous to notice the picked lock on the right rear door, or the silent man lying on his back in the rear.
The marina was located on the nicer edge of town. The facility was a small wharf for privately owned boat operators, most of whom were doctors or rich businessmen that needed a safe place to moor their mini-yachts. The wind was kicking up mildly from the east , sending small waves white-topping into the harbor. Men, women, children, and a few amateur sailing teams were combing their ships; cleaning and prepping for another beautiful day on the Eradinus seas. Whoever owned the complex kept it in tight shape, with cleanly swept, red-brick streets meandering through the twenty acre property. The streets were lined with tall, well groomed palm trees and small, prickly-looking shrubs.
A small white security hut straddled the entry into the secured boat launch pavilion. The man in the booth was an older gentleman with wispy locks of whitish-gray hair that looked almost as though a small cloud dangled neatly about him. He smiled as widely as possible with the sandwich in his mouth and jerked his head in the direction of the building as an admittance. If it was the same guard from his days, then Chuck was munching on a double-stuffed pastrami on rye, dripping in the brown mustard sauce his wife made especially for him. In the entirety of the twenty-five years of service he'd put in before his...extended vacation... Black had only seen the man eat two sandwiches. They alternated daily, but were always the same two.
The Higgins-Craft 320-Z Towncar slid quietly into the small parking berth as a heavy, corrugated aluminum door slid into place behind it. It was a twenty by twenty meter workspace specifically reserved for the ONI agents who needed this place. There was only one reason for being here, and that was immediate extraction. His cover had been blown by the target, a partner was dead, and the mark had escaped. The only thing left now was to head back to the classified headquarters and take the beating to come like a man.
"Don't turn around," came the gravelly, hard voice of someone behind him.
There was a blinding pain in the back of his head...and he woke up groggily. His jaw muscles clenched and unclenched several times to ensure they were aligned, which luckily for him, they were. He ran fingers along his triple-bound wrists, but there was no chance of breaking them. Industrial-strength plastic bands were locked tightly in place, similar to the style of brace on his feet. Whoever he was, he'd chosen a sturdy metal chair instead of the ragged, decaying wooden constructions the management provided.
Directly ahead hovered the "company" boat, strapped tightly in a synthetic carrier, and held up by a hydraulic lift. Its propeller glinted in the thin beam of daylight that filtered in through an overhead window. The twisted metal ominously reflected his malformed image back. The smell of salt-water and tackle permeated the air, and the sound of sea birds echoed incessantly. Blood pulsed rhythmically through the base of his skull, reminding him of the intruder.
"I...I didn't turn around," he mumbled quietly.
"I know; sorry about the whole hitting you thing. Usually they do. Instinct I suppose," the voice was much calmer now, and carried an almost friendly tone with it.
"Who, who are you?"
"Rule two-oh-two, never engage in reverse interrogation with the enemy first. Why did Hitchons, I suppose he's still around, say that was agent?"
"We had Wierzbowski, and he never told us. We just read the book and passed the test."
"Getting lazy these days. Well, I'll tell you why that is. It's simple, really. For one, it establishes that you want to be the dominant figure in this relationship, and may easily offend your aggressor--subconsciously of course. Secondly, I didn't ask you to."
"I'm sorry, sir."
"Perfectly fine. I understand you're in a high-stress situation right now, and mistakes are bound to happen. How old are you anyway, twenty...five?"
"Twenty-six."
"Good, a short, direct reply. Textbook."
"I..I thought you wanted text-"
"No, that's fine. Just a fact. I'll also share another fact with you though. The fact that you will most likely die here today, at the age of twenty-six, if you do not tell me what I need to know."
"I can't do that sir."
"Why not? Now think about that for a moment before you answer. What do you have in this world, at this very moment, which is more precious to you than your life? Nothing you are trying to protect is here to protect you from me. There will be no glorious rescue, nor will you make a miraculous escape. Your life is solely in my hands at this moment. Now tell me again, why can't you give me the answers I want?"
"I...I," the realization of the situation set in, "what do you want to know?"
"I only need to know one thing. Where is the man on the other end of this phone?" He held up the charred black remnants of his old life. It was a loaded question; Black knew the man didn't have a clue where The Voice was, but he had to test him somehow. Interrogations had always been his favorite part of the job, and he always got what he wanted.
"I've never met him. He only calls once a week to check up and update me. This...this was my first mission."
"Looks like you blew it."
The prisoner lowered his head shamefully at the words. He looked as ashamed of himself as he was that he was being interrogated. A pang of regret quickly bubbled through the much larger interrogators' body as he realized exactly how young the man looked while waited patiently before asking his next question.
"Why in the hell did you join some ape shit outfit like ONI?" The question was a surprise to the boy, who glanced up energetically; eagerly.
"I wanted to get off the backwater hellhole I was born on."
"Section Two got to 'ya huh? Join the U-N-S-C," he said with a hiss, "see the universe and fight space pirates. A regular swashbuckling good time."
"Why are you asking me this?"
"Okay, okay. I'll stop the chit-chat. Somebody's eager to get straight to the mind-numbing pain and torture I see," he grabbed a rusty hacksaw from the dirty floor and pulled on the end. It released with a reverberating metallic echo.
"No! I don't mean that. Please..." He begged, mentally and physically beaten.
"Well then, you want to talk some more?"
"Yes, talk. I love to talk. My mom always said I talked too much. I never shut up when I was a little kid. Honestly."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down. I guess I should have asked if you'd like to have a conversation. I like to talk too 'ya know."
The hog-tied agent nodded.
"Ask me something. Anything, I don't care. Just ask."
"Why," he hesitated, thinking of how to best phrase the question, "why are you doing what you're doing?"
"I used to be naive like you. Now you don't think you're naive, but you are. When I joined the corps I was as fresh as they got. I went through boot and the motions, worked my way up to Helljumper, class 201, and I loved every minute of it. There are some people who just...belong....in the military. I was a career man; I wanted everything. There was no 'quit' before there were five stars on the shoulder. I just fit into the life. So one day, I get a little note on my bunk. It was simple enough, a manila envelope with my last name scribbled on the front, but that's where simple wasn't so simple anymore.
"Turns out my commander had recommended me for a new ONI outfit. They called it ORION when I was there, but that was just an umbrella for a bunch of black budget items Section Three wanted. We were called Spartans, and we were the best. "
"Better than Helljumpers?"
"We made Helljumpers obsolete. They were good, but after what we went through, they were just in another league. The chop shop took us in for "routine tests," but we got a whole lot more than that. They grafted metal to my arms and legs to reduce the chance of breakage in the field. We had a Okazaki Corneal Implant installed to give us better than perfect vision. Synthetic tissue builders and stem cells were pumped into us to increase our muscle density over one hundred percent. We were Gods among men, but we were also fairly useless. ONI needed something to do with us that they could show to their bosses, or else their funding was cut.
"So, we started getting missions. Real missions. Personal missions. I was ready for team-insertions into hot zones, but those were few and far between. Instead, I was turned into a hit man. In and out without anyone else knowing. I used to do what you do, but I did it better."
"So, what happened?"
"I got tired of the missions. I've killed men in front of their children, and then I killed their children. I killed people who probably didn't deserve it, but I did it because I didn't know. I got a mission and I did it. Questions were bad; the people in charge don't like questions. So I asked for retirement, and they denied it."
"So you went AWOL."
"I did what I thought had to be done. And they did what they thought they had to do. Which is why I have to kill them."
"What...what'd they do?"
There was a cold freeze in the large man's eyes. Something dark and brooding lived behind those crimson-stained glass doors to his soul, and it wanted desperately to be set free. Silence. The darkness faded and a distant sorrow was evident. He turned away to face a small bench near the wall, "Enough." As he turned back to face the ONI operative he brandished a large, gruesome looking knife. It was long and thin, with jagged serrations on the cutting side that looked like they could cut through steel. He moved closer.
"I'll regret doing this, I know I will..."
The knife was enormous. The blade was almost scythe-like; gently curving back to a fine point. It had probably been laser etched, that's what most special forces teams used. Those could cut through aluminum and thin shards of steel like butter. His hair stood on end in anticipation of the sharp, sawing motion to come. Would he slit his throat quickly, or slit his stomach for a slow and painful death. He'd never imagined the feeling of pints of warm blood, his warm blood, running down his chest as he died a gruesome and painful death.
"Please, please don't kill me. I'm sorry. Oh God..." He closed his eyes and braced for the pain.
But it never came. His wrists popped loose as the bands were cut off. An hour seemed to pass as he held his breath, unaware that he'd been spared a grisly and horrible end. He cautiously opened his eyes to make sure he was alive before bringing his forearms around to rub the pain in his wrists away. Otherwise, he was still too stunned to make a move of any kind.
"My name's John Black. My operator tag is Pitch Black. Service number zero-four-zero-three-two-eight. You can either go back to ONI and tell them that you met me and explain that you failed, at which point they will probably have you slip on a piece of ice and blow your brains out; or you can go back and pretend you had boat problems. Either way," John said as he flicked a thin piece of paper onto the worktable, "there's my number."
And with that, he was gone. The pavilion door slammed shut as he left, and all was calm and right in the world again. A stork crowed its guttural song somewhere in the distance as the soothing swash of water crashing into the boat launch flooded the large room with its sound.
Agent Darren Petrovoitz only sat there, staring at the paper on the table, half expecting the man to walk back in any second and blow his brains out the back of his head. He was going to have a lot to answer for when he got back, but just how much was entirely up to him. The situation had been easy an hour before, but nothing was easy anymore, and he suspected it never would be again.
Cafe Rosebud
Date: 3 March 2006, 12:42 am
There are two things in this world I know how to do well: create life and destroy it. I'm much better at the latter, though by no means do I prefer it. I was trained to kill without hesitation, without thought, without feeling. I've gotten to a point I wouldn't wish on anybody; the point where the value of a human life can be measured in cost effectiveness over what's behind the human being, on potential threats instead of real actions. I'd hate to ever know that my son or daughter lived this life, but now I don't have to worry about that.
They wanted a machine of war, and they made me. I trained for them, bled for them, and killed for them without remorse or hesitation. Then I stopped working for them, and they killed everything I was inside. Now, they'll get what they paid for.
A tall, flat, rectangular black box sat enclosed in a gaudy blue plastic case in the center of the atrium. Hanging against it was a receiver of the same monotonous color. Some people called this device a public phone, but some people didn't have the culmination of their life's tragic work on the line. They weren't waiting for the one call that would avenge an innocent death.
Across from the phone lay a squat, gray bench, four meters long, obviously mass manufactured by the silvery, metallic material used to make it A man in a heavy trench coat sat calmly in the center of the seat, his eyes fixed on nothing in particular, but watching everything equally. It was a slow night on the fifth floor of the cavernous Main Terminal at the heart of City Center 17's transportation hub. Mr. Black had only seen two or three couples come through the entire night, most snuggling together as they walked to warm up.
The days on Eradinus-IV were sunny and pleasant year-round, but the nights were perpetually cold and unforgiving. Ice crystals formed over every surface during the fifteen standard-hour twilight, and the temperatures were rarely positive before sunrise. Inside of the enormous seven story dome at the heart of the five section complex, everything was warm and comfortable. A pleasant, climate-controlled sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit was maintained through a circulation system that purified the entire building's air supply every eight minutes. The black box beeped six times before halting, and then repeated again. Black walked to the phone and put the receiver to his chin.
"Hello."
"I don't know why I'm doing this."
"It's a measure of your humanity that you are."
"What do you want to know, and make it fast. These lines are only secure for three minutes when calling public numbers before the taps come on."
"I need to send a message. Something that they'll understand."
"Well, I think you can kill two birds with one stone. Five suits were detailed to you today."
"I must have made a lot of friends for that to happen."
"Whoever you pissed off by living is very irked, and very powerful. I've never heard of five suits before. Three's almost the limit."
"I guess it's my stunning good looks and hospitality."
"If you want to send a message start at the Cafe Rosebud, Charlot Hotel, and the small computer store across from the central mall. One guy at the Cafe, one at the Charlot, and three working the computer store. They've got a week to prep before they're officially on your detail. Time's up."
The line went dead. Black had the sudden urge for coffee and cake, and he knew of a quaint little cafe that always had the sweet aroma of flowers around the corner. It opened early and served the best cream fritters in town.
Somehow, life always manages to throw you a curve ball. I don't know when or where it was, but I don't think you're ever supposed to. Sometimes the curve is a noticeable event, almost a ninety degree angle in your life; where everything which was going one way is suddenly going somewhere completely different. I think mine started long before any of the obvious things. You can just feel something change, even if you're not sure what the hell it is. I felt that the week before my wife died. An indiscriminate tingling feeling in the pit of my stomach that just told me something would happen, but not what. Maybe it was the funny little things she'd been doing that week, but there was definitely something there. She'd left a box of Lucy's old baby toys on our bed, and seemed rosy every time she saw me.
Sarah died on a Tuesday, the same day she called and told me she had something important to tell me. The police said her car had been hit by a train, and that she'd probably died painlessly. No matter how many times I've heard that though, I know its a lie. The official report blamed the incident on a careless electrician who'd been working on a control box after a long twelve hour shift; he fixed the problem, but forgot to turn the warning switch back on. Sarah never even knew what hit her. What she'd been wanting to tell me so badly had taken her life as she left work early to meet me for lunch. I never got the message.
Why this all comes to me now I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it's the warm smell of fried dough and gentle scent of rose petal perfume in the air, like the time we went to a small coffeehouse on our first date; or the sound of a couple giggling carelessly in the corner booth, oblivious to the world that they're not participating in at the moment. Maybe it's the clerk behind the glass case full of confectionary sweets; who looks a little bit too much like the clerk did at our little coffeehouse for his own good.
The only thing out of place in my memories was the man sitting across from me. The laid-back twenty-something sipped his coffee slowly, making sure not to get a crumb of food on his starched gray trousers, pressed white shirt, bland silver tie, and matching blazer. His jet black hair was slicked back and sprayed in place, and his nails were neatly cut. The belt attached to his hip was just a little too snug, as though he were trying to make himself look skinnier by sucking in his gut, when instead he should have been wearing a black suit to make his torso look longer. The spook was sitting with his back to the door, probably thinking himself hot shit because he could see anyone coming in the door and have time to react, just like they'd told him to do in OpTran. But there was a kink in his plan, he could only know what to look for if he'd done his research, which he hadn't.
In fact, he was in the process of doing that very thing; staring at the harsh glare of a computer screen while carefully cutting a fritter in half with his fork. The tiny dough ball popped as his prongs breached the crispy outer layer, releasing small wafts of steam from the moist inner cake that had made this hole-in-the-wall cafe famous. You know when I could tell he'd finally gotten to my dossier? It was that split second, as the fork left his mouth and he slowly bit down onto a hot, doughy bite of pastry, that his eyes glanced at my face. In that nanosecond his mind put the picture on his screen and the face sitting across from him together, and they made...me.
It was far too late for him to act, of course. I'd had my pistol trained on him for the better half of five minutes, waiting to see how long it would take him to recognize me in what were to be his last moments in the universe. If it hadn't been for the shattering of his royal blue coffee mug into a thousand little pieces I doubt anyone in the restaurant would have noticed his death as the silenced rounds blew small holes in his chest and throat. The woman in the corner screamed at the sight of a thousand little rose petals splattered against the wall, and everyone inside shuffled for the door.
Calmly, I folded my newspaper around my pistol and walked through the kitchen and out the gray back door caked in the molding remnants of fritter sludge that had been smeared across it on the way to the garbage . A worker stuffing trash into a metallic bin out back stared at me blankly, coldly, and only watched as I disappeared down the alley; most likely unaware of what had taken place on the other side of the door. I crossed a double-laned main street and made my way three blocks to the mid-town bridge, an ornate classical-French styled replica of a Parisian counterpart from centuries past. My watch beeped as I stood leaned on the bridge's balcony, staring into the gently flowing river below. Simultaneously, several people in the city I'd never met died quick, but very painful deaths: one in his hotel room six floors above the bustle of city life, in room 314 as he enjoyed his room service; and three others across town in a small, ONI-operated computer store. I could barely see the Charlot Hotel from my vantage, but the thick black column towering above the skyline told me enough. If the people at the Office of Naval Intelligence hadn't gotten the message before, they were sure as hell going to get it now.
Soon, it will be time for those who delight in anonymously sending others to die at their beck and call to stand up for themselves. Those who cower behind the safety of a telephone will have to meet that voice on the other end of the line. He who laughed to my face as my daughter died, will have to stare into my cold blue eyes as I hold a gun to his temple. Then, I will see what the devil looks like; and I'm going to blow his brains across the neatly stacked pile of reports I know will be stacked on his desk.
Fade to Black
Date: 7 April 2006, 2:21 am
I read the newspaper the day after the hotel bombing and shooting at the cafe. Surprisingly, it hadn't even made the lead story. Instead, the unawares reporters had split the murders into two stories. The hotel bombing got a small front-page column on the left hand side, while the cafe killing had been shuffled back to somewhere near page eight. The computer store incident was billed as a small fire in section three; no bodies found. ONI was watching its ass, and now more than ever, looking for mine.
Soon, they wouldn't have to.
Petrovoitz's forehead beaded with pearls of sweat, and his fingers gently tingled with built-up nervousness. He didn't have an alibi for being in the central information database and archive if anyone caught him, and he knew there'd be hell to pay should that happen. Section Chief Ramsey Talmidge had been furious that five of his top agents had been murdered in one day, and the fact that his own son had been one of those agents only made the punishment that would befall whoever was caught helping Black even worse. Talmidge had been in the service far too long not to know that he'd had help; it would have been impossible otherwise.
What the fuck are you doing? God you're stupid. You're throwing your entire career away over this man...what are you thinking?
He bit his lip while thumbing through the hard copies of the records; hundreds of thousands of personnel dossiers and mission specs from the last thirty years. Normally, hard copies weren't kept anymore; all the classified information was backed up on a series of encrypted drives that could only be removed by a section chief or administrator, but this information was old enough that it had been semi-declassified, printed, and archived.
Banks, Barnes, Bellows, Bin-Alamin, Black, Blackwell...oops...Black. There you are.
Petrovoitz read the file quietly to himself, "John Black, code Pitch Black. Four years infantry, two delta, ODST Class 201, classified Section Three, yadda yadda yadda....what the hell?" He reread the section just to make sure he wasn't seeing things. It said the exact same thing as before. Why...how... "Oh my god." He had to reach a secure phone as quickly as possible.
"Oh my god...what, Agent Petrovoitz?"
He didn't have to turn around to know Talmidge was there, probably wearing his renowned hideous green blazer and escorted by two armed guards. Darren slowly twisted his torso to check. Yep. Same ugly green blazer, but four guards instead of two.
"Oh my god...I left my stove on?"
The section chief's face took on a malicious grin as he nodded. His hand flicked his broad wrist towards the agent, and the broad-shouldered men took out their stun clubs. The young spook didn't make a noise as they beat him; he wouldn't give them the satisfaction.
"Take him to special interrogation and leave him. I'll administer this one myself," Talmidge's voice was smug and satisfied. He would make this every bit as painful as he could before giving the traitor that had killed his son what he deserved.
"So, why'd ya do it Darren?" Talmidge asked calmly. He entered the large white room and closed the heavy metal door behind him. His eyes lulled over several noticeably duller spots on the floor tiles; blood tended to leave a bit of coloration. He approached a tiny metal hook on the wall next to the door, and slowly removed his blazer. The man ran his hands down the sleeves and back to make sure it wasn't wrinkled, and hung it neatly on the hanger.
"Why'd I do what?"
"Don't waste my time son," Talmidge responded as he took a white plastic apron from another hanger directly next to his coat. He thought about goggles, but decided against them. "I taught you the techniques you're going to try to use to stall, and I know how to break them. So please, just tell me. Where's Black?"
"I don't know." It was the truth. Darren knew only that he was somewhere in the city, and it was a big city after all. Black's professionalism couldn't help either of the men; he was effectively untraceable.
The section chief grabbed a large syringe from the metal cart on his left. A tiny stream of clear liquid spurted from the phallic instrument's tip before subsiding. Darren had been bound in thick, leather straps to an uncomfortable, bloody red chair in the center of the sterile, white tile room.
"You remember how this works, don't you?. If you don't tell me what I want to hear, there is pain. If you do tell me, there isn't. Well," he glanced to a small, splotch on the floor where blood had recently been cleaned up, "not as much pain." He smiled barbarically and waited.
"Listen Roger, I'm sorry about what happened to your son, I really--" A thick, wet strap cut across his face, leaving a small trail of blood in its wake.
"No, you listen you little sonuvabitch! Don't you ever bring up my son!" His normally stoic face had broken into a fiery red mass of gnashing teeth and flaring nostrils. Wide, black pupils encompassed the small man under interrogation; they made him small, weak, and helpless. "My son was twice the agent you ever were! Now, again, where...is...Black?" He pulled the strap back again, preparing to lash out once more.
"I already told you," Darren replied through a mouthful of blood, "I don't know. He left me phone numbers, and I called him."
"Phone numbers? Phone numbers to where?"
"Everywhere. He's too good to stay in one place. A mall, a bus depot, prepaid cell phones. We never talked long enough for traces to start, so the security systems won't help you."
"Pathetic. You can't even help me before you die." Talmidge had dropped the needle when he grabbed the whip; it's contents in a small puddle around the broken glass syringe. "Well, so much for the easy way." He bent over the cart and removed a small bone saw, turning it on with visible relish.
Suddenly, there was a brief darkness before a subtle, red tinted light covered everything. The emergency lighting coated the entire facility while the systems waited for regular power to be restored. The main circuits briefly cut back on, the normal white light flooding through the hallways, before they quickly cut back out. Three muffled thuds echoed through the reinforced permacrete floors, and visibly shook the building.
"Looks like you'll get to talk to him yourself." Darren joked as he spit out a thick, bloody wad of spit.
In one strange moment, Talmidge's face simultaneously showed anger, fear, and confusion; the most visibly awkward face Petrovoitz had ever seen anyone make, and he oddly enjoyed it.
"I'll finish this little discussion when I get done with your friend," he growled as he set the saw back on the cart. The chief ripped off the butcher's apron and banged on the door. A guard checked through the small eye-slits of the interrogation room's door before opening the heavy metal partition. In the confusion of the moment, the two men hurriedly left without ensuring that the door had closed.
The sound of gunfire in the hallway was distant, but distinct. Staccato bursts of automatic weapons reverberated down the hallway, and a bevy of guards rushed by to investigate. The sound of orders being barked echoed through the corridor, and wispy smoke fumes occasionally flicked like tendrils into the room before disappearing. A small burst of gunfire being exchanged filled the air before two soldiers rushed back past the open portal, dragging the limp and bloody body of another soldier between them.
"Get two men on these corners here, centralize around archives and work out from there!" Yelled a security team commander over the increasingly nearer wash of gunfire. Three soldiers made a hasty meeting place directly in front of the open door, either unaware or unconcerned by the interloper's presence.
"Team two is riding the emergency lift up now, they'll come in from the back corner and--" the response became muted by another loud and violent tremor through the building, followed moments later by the muffled sound of a secondary explosion. "Team two...team two report!" One of the soldiers knocked his radio against the palm of his hand futilely.
"Sir, Benson's reporting that the emergency lift just crashed in sub-basement four." Another voice interrupted.
"The team..."The security leader mumbled almost silently.
"It's a mess sir. Rickarby and Benson said there's no chance any of them made it."
"Fire, fire!" Came the excited screams from around the corner, breaking the solemn silence. The three men in the doorway immediately jerked their weapons up and stared down the hallway. "Pull back to the central archives!" Figures, Darren thought. The Archives room was a circular room at the center of the operation's headquarters. It was two feet thick of emerald green bullet proof glass; fire proofed, water proofed, and electronically protected in an effort to protect it from any eventuality. In this case, it happened to serve as a surprisingly well placed emergency command center.
White light cut through the ethereal crimson twilight of the emergency lighting. He blinked several times to clear his vision; just in time to see a black-suited body tumble backwards past the door. It crumpled lifelessly to a heap, it's exposed boots in the doorway the only visible sign that the ghostly vision had been real. Death stood in the doorway; calmly, silently. A large and nasty looking scythe smoked at his side, it's glowing red barrel dimming in the cooler air.
"You okay?" Black asked, gun sweeping through the room, ensuring it was clear before stepping in with his back to the door and checking the hallway once more.
"Black, don't do this. Let's get out of here now."
"Sorry, can't do that. There's nothing left for me. I'm going to finish this here and now. If I live I live, if I don't I don't. It doesn't really matter anymore."
"That's what you don't understand. You have everything left! You have a son!"
In the intense heat of the moment the steel soldier didn't fully comprehend what he'd just heard. He maintained his watch on the hallway, but his body visibly tensed.
"What'd you say?"
"You have a son John! I checked, I checked the archives. Sarah wasn't killed in the train crash, it was a cover up. She was pregnant! Talmidge signed off on the operation. They took the baby as part of some other, more classified project, but it's alive!"
"Where? Where is...he?"
"A governmental orphanage on Eradinus-II. He's been kept in pre-natal for a while, but he'd be about three months old now if he'd been birthed normally. They even named him John."
An uneasy silence that seemed to last forever in the infinity of that single second engulfed the room. Time and space collapsed into a single minute point around John before expanding back into normality. Black moved quickly to the dirty torture chair, and in one swift move, cut the straps with his FUBAR knife. He slipped the blade back into its sheath and steadied his sights on the door.
"You better be right about this, because I'm not getting another chance at this. Down the hall, to the third elevator. Sub-basement three. I'll be right behind you."
Petrovoitz and Black slid like ghosts down the thin red tunnel. Darren couldn't tell if the occasional dark spots he saw were shadows or blood, but the prone bodies were not hard to figure out. Sticky puddles left stringy trails on their boots as they stepped over the corpses. He'd known one the bodies, the one with the bloody nametag that read 'Earl'; a computer tech with a wife and two kids. Darren had met him at a company picnic, good man. An unopened candy bar lie clutched tightly in his bloody hand; Black had probably mistaken it for a weapon, or maybe he really just didn't care.
They twisted and turned through the enigmatic puzzle the architects had made the floor plan. There were three elevators at the end of the maze. The second elevator's doors were permanently parted, and thick plumes of smoke bubbled through the elevator shaft towards the open air.
"Smart, but predictable," Black said, "Sabotage one of the front doors and they'll all pile in the back."
"This is why they took the emergency elevator?"
"Can you blame them?"
"No, I don't suppose I can. I'd probably do it too."
"Get in the third-"
Darren stepped into the elevator and stared at Black. He didn't move, only blinked twice.
"Come on, what are you waiting for? We can't go back, the whole damn army will be here if we wait."
"Go..."
"Wha-" He watched as Achilles fell. His chiseled face and body made a startlingly silent nothing as it slammed against the marble entry way. Talmidge stood, smiling, as his pistol smoked in his nervously shaking hand. Go!
Darren slapped the 'door close' button as quickly as possible. The steel plates slid slowly, too slowly, closed. Talmidge stood in the doorway, but didn't try to stop them. The last thing Darren Petrovoitz ever saw was the wide, glistening white grin of the devil; and it snickered at him.
"Goodbye, Agent Petrovoitz."
The orphanage was a tiny building, much smaller than he'd anticipated. A green, three story stucco that could easily have been a house on the corner of any neighborhood. In front of the building, a small square lot, sparsely covered with grass, sat littered with children's toys and equipment. Why he came here he wasn't sure, but for some reason it was his duty. A short blonde girl wearing a bright yellow shirt was sitting in the dirt near the fence, jerking a doll's limbs in every direction while a small dribble of slobber worked down her chubby red cheeks.
A polite, older woman sat with crossed legs on a brown wooden bench, smiling perpetually while reading a book. Darren rapped his knuckles on the white, wood fence, breaking the woman's dreamy haze. She stood up quickly, set her book down on the bench, and briskly approached.
"Can I help you?"
"Yea..."
She stood there, impatiently staring at him as he glanced around the playground.
"I'd like to adopt a child."
"Are you looking for any type of child in particular?"
"Yea...
...I like the name John."
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