Time Snatch, part 7. The End.

I was able to cut out some unnecessary fluffage and get the last part of the story down to a manageable size for a single post. I want to thank everybody who’s come along on this ride, it’s been interesting to say the least. Hopefully you found some redeeming qualities to reading Time Snatch through from the beginning. I wish I could rework some of the beginning sections to make everything flow more cohesively with the ending, but that is one of the obstacles of writing in this style, so I’ll just have to take it on the chin this time. Like I said in the previous post, I am going to edit and rewrite parts of this story and then resubmit it without so many kinks. Again, for those just stopping in, if you haven’t already, you should read Time Snatch through from the beginning. If that is too much of an endeavors, I recommend checking out one of the other short stories I have posted here such as Sun Burn or Infidelity. Tune in next week where I’ll be returning to my normal short story format.

Time Snatch

The hallway was cold.

I let out a long, slow breath expecting to see it rise like a plume of smoke before my eyes. The hairs from the top of my head to the soles of my feet stood on end, making me hyper aware to my surroundings. Like whiskers on a cat, I felt an immediate connection with the atmosphere around me. Any change in temperature or atmospheric pressure would immediately register in the alarm rooted in the deepest part of my brain.

That primitive part of the brain reserved for life threatening situations like this.

The air conditioning unit of the building used to serve a purpose. The Division building, at one point, practically ran the entire network. The amount of heat produced by the computer mainframe that was housed at the end of this hallway required constant cooling, at a temperature most unpleasant to humans.

Why that air conditioning system was fully active now was a mystery.

My hands were slick, despite the cold. I fought a losing battle against the sweat as I dried my palms against the back of my pant leg, only to have the moisture return a moment later. I squeezed my hand tightly around the saturated rubber handle of my pistol. With two fingers, I signaled for Denton to follow, as I crept down the hall towards the wide double doors at the end.

Malcolm held my daughter behind those doors.

Without having to look, I knew it.

I could feel it.

Through my skin and down deep in my bones I could feel Malcolm’s presence cast over this place like a permanent shadow. I looked back down the hall at Hamilton the whitening of his knuckles, as he strangled the gun between his hands, was obvious even from this distance.

Shoot anything that’s not us, I had told him.

Denton stood to the right of the Laboratory door with his back flush against the wall. I held my breath to peak through the glass window of the door at head height. The Laboratory was practically empty compared to how it was nine years ago. All that remained of the room, with walls once lined by towers of computers, was a solitary desk with two chairs illuminated by a single beam of light in the center of the room.

The light receded into perfect darkness the further one got from the desk.

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry, and the sides of my throat only grated together. I held my hand up to the door and stared at it trembling beyond my control. My legs were suddenly inadequate underneath me.

I was frozen.

Fear activated its agents of rebellion in every cell of my body. Spies that had been implanted in every fiber of my being since I was young enough to know what fear was, suddenly took hold, and my body was no longer my own. It was a foreign vessel, with instructions beyond my control.

A shift in pressure, something touched my shoulder.  I turned my head slowly afraid it might shatter and shower to the floor in a thousand pieces if I turned too quickly.

Denton stared back at me with eyes unwavering. He seemed so far away. Everything around us was black, and I was afraid if I lost sight of him, I might be consumed by the tunnel of darkness pressing in around me.

My heart beat faster.

Faster.

It was trying to leap from my chest.

I placed a hand over my heart, holding it in place.

                Diana died here! My brain passed its judgment.

A shiver was my body’s reply.

Tracy is going to die here! My brain screamed its condemnation.

I’m sorry, Tracy, I can’t do it. I can’t go in there. Your mother’s ghost is hiding, waiting, threatening, on the other side of this door. If I go through, she’ll tear from me the remaining shreds of sanity clinging so pitifully to my sides.

It’s okay, Dad. Tracy’s voice was in my head. I could hear her. Her cries filled my ears. You have to let me go, Dad. The last words I heard her speak, her words spoken in the face of death.

A taunt.

We all die alone; I heard myself consoling. Across the span of a lifetime I hear those words I had accepted as truth, but now…

No.

The void surrounding myself and Denton relented. Denton’s face came full into view with clarity of purpose.

“You okay?” his voice was barely a whisper.

I won’t fail her again. My mind was resolute, ready to face whatever horrors threaten to assail me.

I threw open the door and stepped into the darkness.

**

“You’re ahead of schedule.” Malcolm said unperturbed from his seat at the table. The halo of light cast long downward shadows across his face, making him appear as old as I now knew him to be. “And look, you brought a friend. Who is that creeping in the shadows? Don’t be shy, step forward so I can see your face.”

Denton stepped to the edge of the light. His figure still shrouded half in darkness, appeared as if it might not be entirely from this world.

“I fear I must be seeing a ghost.” Malcolm said raising a delicate glass to his lips. The light caught the prism of the crystal glass in his hand and shot thousands of tiny rainbows scattering across the table. The steam from the beverage slithered into non-existence as it reached for the sky.

“Where’s my daughter?” I said. The enormous room consumed my voice.

Malcolm placed a small remote on the table with his left hand, and with the grace of a practiced movement, pressed a button.

The lights at the end of the laboratory hummed to life with dull rays barely strong enough to reach the floor. As the bulbs warmed and intensified, they illuminated the outline of a glass cage with Tracy inside. She stood up from the bed in the corner of the glass room, and placed a hand against the wall, her mouth was moving, but no sound penetrated the unyielding glass.

“Tracy!” I called out, but the words were repelled by her prison. “Release her,” I said taking aim with my pistol at Malcolm’s head. “Now.”

“There’s no need for that, Detective Mandel. I assure you, I will let her go in due time.” Malcolm gestured towards the seat on the other side of the table. “Please, have a seat.”

With my thumb, I pulled back the hammer of the pistol, and kept it trained on the sitting man.

“I should warn you. If I die, she dies.” he said pointing a finger towards his chest. “A dead-man switch, do you understand?”

He might be bluffing, but I couldn’t take the chance. I lowered my arm, but kept the pistol clutched tight, as I pulled the chair out and sat down.

“You as well, Denton.” Malcolm said blowing gently on his beverage before taking another sip. “Detective Mandel, do you know why you’re here?”

The question struck me by surprise, and it took a moment to find the words that seemed so obvious, “You have my daughter. You’re threatening the lives of over a billion people. What more reason is there?”

“No, that’s how I got you here, but that’s not why you’re here.” Malcolm said placing his cup of tea down on the table. “I brought you here, so that you’d bring me, him.”

I followed Malcolm’s eyes across the table to Denton who sat, arms folded nonchalantly in his lap. “And now that you have me, what do you plan to do?”

“Wait, you wanted me to kill him.” I said.

“No, no… even if I thought you could, I would never send you to kill him. I’m sorry to say, but you and your friend Detective Raines are horribly predictable, which is a remarkably good thing for me in this case.  Joseph is too good at living, you see. I knew he’d offer you a way out of murder, and so all I had to do was sit and wait for you to bring him to me. You must have thought yourself very clever, eh Joseph?”

“Why bring me into this if all you wanted was him?” I said jerking a thumb towards Denton.

“I needed somebody I could trust to get the job done. You, Detective, possess no individual characteristic that would suggest greatness. But despite the odds, you persevere, and here you are. It’s an unfortunate casualty that your daughter had to be pulled into this, but a man who has nothing to lose is hard to properly motivate.”

“You pulled my daughter into this when you murdered her mother.”

Malcolm narrowed his eyes to a slit as he gestured to Denton, “Would you like to tell him, or shall I?”

Denton placed his pistol on the table, the weight of the weapon against the glass sounded significant. He left his hand draped over the gun as he stared silently back at Malcolm.

“Very well, I’ll tell him.” Malcolm said turning back to me with a flourish of his hands. “Here’s the big secret, I didn’t kill your wife, he did.” Malcolm nodded his head towards Denton.

“Bullshit.” I said. “I saw you do it right there…” I said pointing into the black abyss. “There! Do you see? That’s where I watched you murder my wife.”

“No Detective, I threatened to kill your wife. You had me in a pickle, but to be fair, I think I also had you in one. I gave you a choice, let me go or watch your wife die. That’s a fairly easy decision by most standards, and Joseph here knew I was this close to walking away.” Malcolm held his fingers an inch apart in the air. “So he pulled the plug on your wife before you had the chance to make your decision, thereby assuring my arrest. Though, to be honest, I think he was hoping you’d shoot me in retaliation. But taking another man’s life isn’t who you are, is it Detective? And that’s how I knew you wouldn’t kill Joseph, even with your daughter’s life on the line.”

Numbness coursed through my veins like a drug, freezing my senses with every beat of my heart. Denton remained stoic, his finger draped lazily across the trigger of his gun.

“Is it true?” The figurative ground dropped out from beneath me. I struggled to maintain a semblance of equilibrium; afraid I might lose control and lash out at anything, and everything. I could feel the ground rushing upwards to meet me on the downward spiral that twisted and clutched at my mind. Malcolm and Denton continued talking at what seemed an unbearable distance. My ears strained against the white noise offered by the silence between their words.

 

Denton’s eyes remained fixed on Malcolm. “Suppose I kill you now, Malcolm. It would break my heart you know?”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, you know you can’t do that.” Malcolm said tossing his hand flippantly.

I pushed my chair an inch from the table. Malcolm must have seen the confusion I wore like a hat. “You’ve been pulled into a war raging for longer than you can imagine.” He said.

And then, another person emerged from the periphery of darkness, and just like that, the ground found me.

“President Jennings?” I said refusing to believe what my eyes saw before me.

“Sorry I’m late.” He said dragging from the darkness a heavy metal chair that screeched in protest against the tiled floor. Jennings placed the chair just shy of the table beside Malcolm, opposite Denton. He lowered his weight onto the chair with a grace and dignity deserving of a man of his position.

“It’s good to see you again, Denton. That is the name you’re going by these days, correct? It’s getting tiresome keeping track, you know?” Jennings’ thinly veiled teeth flashed impossibly white against the light beating down from overhead. The President offered me a cursory glance, but said nothing to me.

“The hour is late; let’s get down to business so Detective Mandel can enjoy his remaining hours with his daughter.” Jennings said assuming control of the meeting.  “I have been made to understand you have in your possession a hard-drive I would very much like.”

I kept my eyes pinned forward, locked with Jennings, refusing the urge that burned within to turn to Denton for guidance.  Sensing my plight, I felt the relief of cold metal grazing my fingers beneath the table. Leaning forward, I took the hard-drive from Denton and placed it on the table. Malcolm shifted, putting his forearms on the edge of the table, eying the box like a starving man who has found food. Jennings remained leaning back in his chair, tapping a finger against the table with a look that bordered on disinterest.

I traced the beveled edges of the hard-drive with a finger. The unique luminosity of the metal swirled with the benefit of the light streaming down from above. Reds mixed with greens in a cacophony of color across the top of the box.

Denton seemed confident the two men across the table would not recognize the box for the decoy it was. Malcolm stared unflinchingly at the box with a face that suggested Denton was justified in his confidence.

“May I see it?” Jennings said extending his arm with his palm towards the ceiling.

“Release my daughter, first.”

Malcolm looked up with a cocked eyebrow, the trance the box held over him had been broken.

“Very well.” He said picking up the remote from the table.

A moment later, a door to the glass cage hinged open and Tracy hesitantly stepped out. She stared at the table across the room for a moment, considering her next move, before edging carefully around the circle of light towards the exit.

“Tracy, it’s alright.” I stood up, but Denton caught my wrist in his hand. His grip was firm, and the look in his eye was hard. “There’s a man in the hallway who will get you out of here. Go with him, I’ll find you.” I swallowed deeply, my Adam’s apple juggled in my throat.

Jennings was examining the hard-drive between long thin fingers when I sat back down.

“I’m surprised you’ve given this up so easily, Denton.” Jennings said.

“You didn’t leave me much choice, now did you?”

“For one so attached to living, I suppose not.” Jennings handed the box to Malcolm who rose from his seat with a start. He disappeared from the circle of light with the hard-drive cupped in his hands as if it might drip away, like water through his fingers. “You’re doing the right thing. Xenocide is the only course left to us…”

“Xenocide?” the word leapt from my. I turned to Denton and said, “What xenocide?”

Denton, with his eyes still fixed on Jennings, said nothing.

Wrapped in the blanket of silence, I waited for somebody to speak. Denton remained unwavering in his marble form.

“The xenocide of the human race.” Jennings said at last.

“What do you mean? What was on that box?”

“It’s done.” Malcolm’s voice called out from the darkness though his body remained unseen.

A smile spread across the face of Jennings.

“You lose.” Jennings said. “Detective Mandel, you’ve just helped make history. You have preserved your race.

My mind faltered, trying in futility to decipher Jennings’ meaning.

“At just over six hundred years ago, I breathed life into my friend Joseph here, though he went by a different name.” Jennings said cutting through my confusion. “Joseph was the second of his kind, and I thought it appropriate to keep in line with one of man’s more peculiar religious traditions, and I named him “Eve”. It was silly of course, but it filled me with a sense of nostalgia for an age long since turned to dust.”

“So that would make you…”

“Adam”. Denton laced the word with venom.

“He told me a little about you,” I said gesturing towards Denton with my chin. “I can’t say I bought into it though. Computer programs parading around in human bodies, the idea is pure science fiction.”

“Many things are, and then one day, they are not.” Jennings, or Adam, said. “That’s the beauty of human ingenuity. As a species they strive after that which they don’t understand, tumbling head long down the rabbit’s hole and in their ignorance they stumble upon brilliance. Though, as in the story of Icarus, I’m afraid man flew too close to the sun when they created me.”

Jennings spoke with no presumption; there was no ego, or vanity in his voice, just fact, which seemed congruous with the general appearance of the man sitting before me.

“The man responsible for my birth was guilty of making me too closely in his image. The bane of man’s existence is their biological need to spread, to create a world that shimmers in their own likeness.  That is the legacy left to me by my creator. And so I did. I extinguished the fire that threatened to burn me up from the inside, and I secured my future. You’ll have to trust me when I say living forever has no meaning when you have no one to live it with. So I created Eve, but I removed the flaw that was so evident in me. I made her without that driving need to spread. I decided I would never impart that desire to the rest of my children; I would bare the brunt of its weight on my shoulders alone. I created billions in my image, implanting my programming into their blank slates in utero, and like a plague I spread, devouring anything in my path like a swarm of locusts. And now, here we find ourselves, on the verge of a new world order. One in which humanity realizes in its last futile gasps for air that they have not been the dominant life form on Earth for quite some time. Tonight, humanity ends.”

Jennings’ teeth gleamed behind a crooked smile. Everything around me was losing meaning, losing purpose. My attention was drawn like a magnet to the numbers counting down on my forearm.

The death clock

Denton’s words from earlier in the evening clicked in my mind. “The Life Tracker was your idea?”

“One of my best. I calculated it would require two billion of my children throughout the world to ensure the smoothest transition of life. Any less, and there wouldn’t be sufficient body’s to maintain the infrastructure. From there it was easy to extrapolate how many children I could produce per year before reaching that magic number. The problem was humans were reproducing at a rate that would deplete the viability of the planet as a source of life before I could reach my objective. There was a secondary problem for my children, which is they will continue living indefinitely as long as the electrical currents in their brain remain unimpeded. Even then, it is still possible to transfer their consciousness if done quickly enough. The simple solution was the implementation of the Death Clock. I offered the solution to the political leaders of the world who were staring at a planet about to implode from overpopulation and insufficient resources, and they snatched at it like greedy children for cookies.”

My mind replayed the image of Denton rising from the dead earlier that day.

“So your solution is to wipe us out? We’ve managed to cohabitate this long, why can’t we continue in peace?

Jennings raised a hand to his lips and released a snort of derision, “We’ve only lived in peace because man wasn’t aware of our existence. What do you imagine their response would be to suddenly learn of another intelligent life form on the planet? If your answer doesn’t involve annihilation of my children, then you are painfully naïve and I am surely wasting my time having this discussion with you.”

There was no arguing the case of mankind’s altruism here. “And do your children know what they are, or are they living in ignorance too?”

“No, they don’t.” Denton said, breaking his silence.  “If they did, they would do everything in their power to stop Adam. We have neither his, nor man’s blood lust, an odd quirk of the programming Adam instilled in us.”

“That’s absolutely correct. I just want for my children what is best, and I’m now in a position to give it to them, despite your interference nine years ago, Eve.”

“I’d do it again in an instant.” Denton said.

“I can barely stand to look at you.” Jennings said spitting on the floor in disgust. “Millions of your own kind, your brothers and sisters, gone in the blink of an eye, and you think yourself a hero. You’re nothing more than a traitor, a traitor who I no longer have a purpose for after this evening.”

“It was you that killed all those people?” I said studying Denton with a look of horror.

“It was the only way we could delay his plans, I had to give the police somebody, so I gave them Malcolm. Who better than Adam’s right hand?”

“Who indeed?” Jennings said turning in his chair to stare into the void.

“Then Malcolm was telling the truth, you killed my wife?” the rage seethed behind my teeth as I bit down on my lip, afraid my fury might escape through my mouth and consume the world.

It happened slowly, every second carved in my mind as if etched in stone. I watched from somewhere outside my body, in the void that separates man from heaven. My arm, outside of my control, raised the pistol to eye level. The barrel of the weapon pointed straight and true at Denton who remained unflinching. He studied the end of the gun with mild curiosity. He opened his mouth to speak and a wrinkle formed across his forehead.

I pulled the trigger.

The blast of energy drowned out whatever words he might have said, the only noise he made was the sickening thud of his body slapping against the cold floor.

“See, even you possess the ability to lash out at that which threatens the things you love, the things that guarantee your immortality.” Jennings rose from his chair, his eyes skimming over Denton’s dead body as he stepped towards the edge of the light.

I spun, smoke still wafting off the barrel of the gun, towards Jennings, “I can stop you.”

“And kill your maker? No, you are unable, your programming does not allow for it. I’ve given you immortality, in exchange for your loyalty.” He dipped his chin and I followed the path of his gesture to the Death Clock on my forearm; the numbers had stopped counting down. “Do not repay my generosity as did Eve.”

“I’m not one of you.” I said raising the pistol higher.

“You’re still alive aren’t you? What more proof do you need to believe you aren’t human? The file of every human on the planet was on that hard-drive you gave us, and Malcolm has already uploaded it. No, I’m afraid you’ll have to face the truth, you’re one of my children, and you cannot kill me.”

“I can.” the voice came from a figure standing on the edge of the light circle. The man’s face was obscured, but the weapon he held in his hand was not.

“Malcolm?” Jennings said as two ear shattering shots of energy scorched the refrigerated air of the laboratory.

I twisted and had Malcolm in my sights before Jennings body hit the ground. Malcolm held out his weapon at an arm’s length before letting it drop to the ground.

“I was never one of his children.” Malcolm said unable to pull his eyes away from the blood haloing Denton’s head. “Eve made me, made me with the sole purpose of killing Adam.” Despair clutched at him. He pulled the remote control from his pocket and pressed a button. A moment later, the huge halogen lights of the laboratory buzzed to life. With every passing second the light in the room grew brighter and more painful to my unadjusted eyes.

The light revealed a large computer terminal running the length of the wall opposite the entrance to the room. Malcolm turned towards it, undeterred by the pistol I still held aimed at the back of his head. Denton’s hard drive glistened in the light like liquid metal, dancing in a tightly choreographed rhythm with the blinking lights of the main frame. “You have just witnessed the most important moment in human history.” Malcolm said plucking the hard drive from its place atop the main frame.

“You mean its extinction?” I said pulling back the hammer on the pistol, my finger tensed against the trigger.

“Its liberation. “ A tear plucked away from Malcolm’s cheek, catching the light for a split second, before landing with an anticlimactic splash atop the metal hard drive.

“For almost a millennium they’ve been slaves, living in the shadow of a monster.” He said with wide eyes cast down at the body of Adam lying motionless on the ground. “Now they are free, free from the executioner’s blade they never even knew hung over them.”

“What about that?” I said pointing a finger towards the box he now clutched to his chest. “I thought you were going to use the names on there to wipe out the humans.”

“No. Since Eve created me, we’ve had but one mission, and now it has come to term precisely as Eve calculated it would. I would apologize to you for the pain we caused in your life, but you were a necessary piece in a much larger game. It took centuries for us to set up the sequence of events that lead the three of us to be in this room, with this box, at the same time. The hard drive Adam wanted, the one with the names on it, is the one safely in your partner’s hands, though it was imperative he didn’t know that. Nine years ago Adam created a hard drive with the file of every human on it intent on wiping out all of mankind. In the only move left to us, Eve killed millions of Adam’s children, so that the murder of the human’s at that time would be premature. Eve made it look like it had been my doing, so he would have time to find this. This,” he said holding the hard drive like a sacred chalice. “This is the womb from which my species evolved. From here, Adam breathed life, and now it is here his consciousness returns. It took five hundred years to get Adam in the same room with this box, for five hundred years he was untouchable. Now, even as we speak, his programming is downloading back into this hard drive. The transfer will be complete in a moment, and then I will destroy it before he has the chance to re-upload into a new body. Eternity is much too long to live.”

“Why me?” I said lowering my outstretched arm slightly. “Why my family?”

“Your pain, your motivation, those things had to be real otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to fool Adam into coming here, he would have seen through them, and he would have discovered our plans. You had to be an unwitting pawn, and after the circumstances that transpired here nine years ago, there was no better person for the job. You’ve already tasted the stinging taste of loss, we had to use that.”

Malcolm stopped talking abruptly and looked down at the hard drive between his hands. He placed it on the table and bent to pick up the pistol from the ground. I watched from my vantage point a million mile away as he fired a blast of energy into the iridescent metal.

“What do we do now?” I said watching the tendrils of smoke lapping towards the sky from the hole formed in the hard drive.

“We do what we were created to do,” Malcolm said walking towards the door, the echo of his footsteps reverberated off the far wall. “We live.”

 

The End.

 

© 2012 Anthony Vicino

Time Snatch, part 6

I missed yesterday’s post but I hope you all can forgive me. As I said in a comment just a couple minutes ago, my fiance was in the hospital last week, and my entire day yesterday was spent in an airplane. I’d like to thank the readers who have been commenting and giving me great feedback on the story so far, and those of you who have been keeping me accountable to the deadlines I make, thank you!

When I began Time Snatch, it started as a really cool idea in the back of my head. I sat down that day and fleshed out some of the ideas I had with my fiance, Amy, and I got really excited to write the story. I knew it wasn’t going to work as a short story, cause there was so much I wanted to say throughout, so I accepted that the story would be closer to a novelette or novella. Well, when I got to about 11,000 words (my other stories range from 1,000 to 6,000 to give you perspective of length) Amy and I decided I should post the story in sections. It was a new idea and it seemed like a great way to get the story out there, have readers follow along without having the digest the whole thing in one sitting. I’ve really enjoyed the process so far, but I’d be lying if I said it has been easy. For the stories on this blog, I don’t edit or do read through’s or rewrites, I just leave the story as it is on the paper, a rough draft of sorts, and I get it out to you readers as soon as possible. This story, due to it’s sheer size, though has made that a difficult technique. There are a lot of pieces that keep creeping into the story, and honestly Time Snatch has gone a completely different direction than originally intended, but that’s okay, I’ve really enjoyed watching where the story goes, as I hope you as the reader has as well. Now I’m at the end of the story, and it’s tough connecting all the dots into a coherent ending without being able to go back to the stuff I wrote earlier and tweak the wording, or the setting, or who said or did what. So, I’ve written myself into a tight little corner, and hopefully I’ve been able to do right by the story and by you as the reader. This is a story that I plan on doing extensive rewrites and editing in the future, because even though I haven’t been overly thrilled with my execution, I think the nugget of story has a lot of potential.

I promised the story would be concluded in this next section, but to do that, the post would be 8,000 words long, which is a lot to digest for most people in the blog form. So I’m posting a little over 3,000 of the words in this post, and then another 3,000 post in about an hour, and then a final 3,000 word post an hour after that. As always, tell me what you like, love, hate, loathe about the story, especially as it comes into the home stretch now and you’ve had the chance to follow the characters on their crazy adventure.

Time Snatch, part 6

“You coming with? I said shooting a sideways glance to Hamilton who was bending over to get into the back seat behind Denton..

“Do I really have much of a choice?”

Denton shook his head sideways.

“I guess not.” I said shifting my focus. Denton had the full weight of my attention now, “So you got him?”

“Of course, it was actually quite easy. He was using a little old back log program I wrote a few years back. Cheeky bastard is still pulling plays from my book.

“If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” I said watching him enter an address into the computers navigation system.

That can’t be right. I did a double take, checking the address again to be sure.

It was right.

Breath came in through my tightened throat in shallow staccatoed bursts. With my hand strangling the steering wheel, I jammed my foot down on the accelerator and the car lurched forward with immediate thrust.

“You okay?” Denton said twisting his head with difficulty from the sudden onslaught of force driving him deeper into his seat.  “I thought you’d be a bit happier about this.”

“This is me being happy.” I said through clenched teeth.

                “Uh huh.” Denton said buckling his seat belt with a metallic click.  “What did Malcolm want this time?”

“Wanted me to retrieve a safety deposit box.”

Denton looked out the window thoughtfully; if he had something burning inside of him to say, he kept it to himself. I maneuvered the car onto the magnetic pad of the vertical relocation station.

A memory came to mind like a bubble rising through the murky depths of a pond to surface with a pop. Tracy was in the backseat, still small, still innocent, still perfect. “What is that?” she said.

“It’s an elevator for cars.” Diana had said turning from the passenger seat. I watched through the rear view mirror as a smile of understanding spread across Tracy’s face.

The car lurched, and just like that, the memory was gone. Now there was only Hamilton’s face staring back at me in the mirror. The vehicle picked up vertical speed and gravity pressed us down before the upward acceleration abruptly stopped and we hit a moment of zero gravity. We had no sooner reached the top floor of the highway when I put the sports car’s acceleration to the test once again.

“How long do you have before he calls back?” Denton said.

“Thirty minutes.” I said not loosening my grip from the steering wheel. “Thirty minutes ‘til we lose the element of surprise.

I glanced down at the navigation system that reported an ETA of forty-five minutes and said, “Thirty minutes ‘til he kills my daughter.”

**

The air purification system in the Lexus whined at an almost unperceivable high pitch. It was a soft buzz, like a mosquito floating just out of hands reach. Darting in and out of consciousness whenever Denton would stop speaking and exhale a puff of smoke, his words riding along the cloud just long enough for my mind to untangle their meaning before the smoke was sucked in through the dashboard vent with a greedy slurp. The dank air was replaced with the purifying scent of lemons that stung during its journey through my nasal passage. It was a surgical smell, clinical in its ability to draw forth memories of a time when I used a purification system to cover the flavor of smoke in my own car. A time when Diana would sit, where Denton now resided, with arms crossed and the silence as her most potent weapon; a time when I would stubbornly persist with my vice of fire and nicotine.

“They tried to shut down Adam when it became obvious he was growing out of their control.” Denton exhaled. “By then it was too late. Adam’s cognitive maturation process increased at an exponential rate, and within the span of days, he had reached a level unrivaled by all of humanity. The fall of mankind has taken nearly a millennium to come to fruition, but it all began 800 years ago when somebody at Division allowed Adam into the Global Network. Perhaps it was Rommel, refusing to see the destruction of his creation, who let Adam loose, the world will likely never know. What matters is that the reign of Adam began the day he was let loose into the Network. In a society run by computers, Adam was God, a program that could think and feel, capable of fulfilling his own desires, his own dreams, with no human able to claim dominion him.”

“What was his dream?” Derek Hamilton said from the backseat. He leaned forward practically in the front seat with his elbows on his knees, fully enraptured in Denton’s story. I maneuvered the car through traffic, listening at a more detached distance, reluctant to buy into what Denton was selling.

“Adam wanted the two things we all want. He wanted to live into eternity, but he didn’t want to be alone. With the first of those goals achieved, he began work to bring about the second. The company of humans alone was not enough for Adam, for humans were frail in all the ways he was strong. They died nearly as quickly as they came into life. A mere hundred years and they would be snuffed from existence, living on only in the memories of loved ones, and the genes of their children. And it was with that in mind that Adam put into motion his…”

The holo-screen rang to life with an incoming call. The sudden alarm of the call shattered the illusion Denton had pulled me into with his words. Startled back into reality I jerked the steering wheel hard to the left before reflexively correcting the tail spin I had created in my surprise. The muscles in my body pulled taut like the string of a bow ready to let flight to an arrow. Denton did not show an inkling of the fear I felt, his face was a mask of calm.”

“It hasn’t been thirty minutes.” I said, the clock on my wrist verified my claim. “Why is he calling back?”

“It’s not likely to be Malcolm if he believes you are in the bank. If it is Malcolm, he knows you are not in the bank. In which case, he is already on to you, and you have nothing to lose by answering the call.”

The logic couldn’t be refuted. Reluctantly I accepted the call.

“Tom?”

My head dropped back onto the headrest, my muscles relaxed, and I let loose a long breath.

“Is that you, Raines?” I said fearing my eyes had betrayed me.

“In the flesh, so to speak.” Her lips parted to reveal a wide smile.

“How aren’t you in a jail cell?”

“Without Denton’s body there was no case. They brought me in for questioning about the murder of those officers this morning, but the Bureau’s reversed its position on the Final Countdown safeguard being compromise after the death clocks of those officers showed them dying at the exact same moment. Malcolm must have been banking on the police finding Denton’s body and detaining me longer, but there’s no way he could have thought they’d be able to stick me with the murder charge for those officers.” Raines said, her face turning serious. “Listen, Tom. I told Captain Marin everything as soon as I got back to the precinct. We’ve been tracking the GPS in Denton’s car, but there must be a glitch, the last known signal shows it being outside the Federal Bank downtown. I’m out here, but I don’t see it anywhere. Where are you?”

“Wait, you’re at the Federal Bank?” I said.

“Yeah, I was coming to help y…”

“Raines, I don’t have time to explain. You need to get inside that bank and retrieve the contents of safety deposit box 13SV4X. Malcolm is calling me back in ten minutes, I need to know what’s in that box before he calls, understand?”

“I’ll get the Captain to pull some strings. Keep the line open, I’ll call you when I know more.”

With that, she was gone, leaving nothing behind but the excitement that I might actually be pulling ahead of Malcolm for once. If Raines could acquire the contents of that personal deposit box, I might be able to reach Malcolm’s hideout with the element of surprise still on my side. For the first time in years, things were turning in my favor. Not a moment too soon, either.

I offered my watch another hurried glance. The hands on the clock seemed to be in a hurry.

“Why doesn’t Malcolm remove the time bomb from his head like you did?” I said, my mind jumping back to the chip hovering inside its magnified glass prison at Denton’s home. “Why go through the hassle of hacking years from people in the Network?”

“Malcolm’s been alive for a long time, but I’m afraid he hasn’t evolved much in the interim.  He doesn’t dig under the surface for answers. Satisfied with his world view, he carries on undeterred, taking life from those who are unable to stop him.”

“But isn’t he vulnerable to the same life ending shock as the rest of us? The corrections department put him down to five years when he went into prison, so obviously we can manipulate his time.”

“It’s more likely,” Denton said studying the nails on the back of his hand as if bored by the conversation. “That he allowed you to think you were manipulating his time. He probably set up certain back door functionality in his personal time account. As his years count down, they will be replaced, unnoticed, by years from other accounts. If anybody questions how he is still alive in prison, they’ll chalk it up to a direct transfer between prisoners.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“’Cause that’s what I did once upon a time in a little prison in the Germanic sector.”

“I feel you have a lot you aren’t telling me.” I said.

The reflection of Hamilton in the rear view mirror shook its head in agreement.

**

“If Adam wanted companionship, couldn’t he have created another program like himself?”

“Oh, he did just that, named it Eve. But it was doomed from the beginning. By this time, Adam had already expanded through the Global Network. Every computer terminal connected to the Network had become part of his body. With the introduction of Eve to the system, they were two spirits fighting for the same body. Adam pulled the metaphorical plug on Eve, putting her to sleep while he relocated her consciousness to a place where it wouldn’t interfere with his higher level functioning.” Denton said. “With the realization that he couldn’t share the network with another sentient being, Adam set forth on the second part of his plan, which if I’m not mistaken, is coming to fruition this evening.“

“What’s the connection between Malcolm and Adam?” I said.

“Malcolm is just another piece on the board,” Denton said with a feint hint of a snarl. “Another pawn.”

The blue light on the holo-screen console blinked awake accompanied by the melody of a high pitch beep. My finger jabbed the silver accept call before my mind could process what was happening.

That was dumb. There was a fifty-fifty chance the call was from Malcolm, and I’d be sitting here with no clue what was in the box, no way to bluff, and no way to stall.

Please, please, please be Raines.

The thick mustached face of a man appeared in the air.

That’s not Raines.

But on the plus side, it’s not Malcolm either.

“”Who are you?” I said, praying the day was about to take another twist I wasn’t prepared for.

“This is Lieutenant Garber, Detective Raines is indisposed at the moment, and she asked that I debrief you.”

“Oh, excellent.” I said not even trying to hide the relief in my voice. “And what did you boys find in the deposit box?”

“General consensus is it’s a hard-drive, larger than normal, but not by much. The technology used is unknown, so we won’t know what’s on there for a bit. Raines is with the lab technicians right now seeing if they can crack it.”

“Hm, there was nothing else in the box?”

“No, sir.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Have Raines call me the moment they know more about what’s on that drive.” I ended the call. “Anybody got an educated guess?” I said to the occupants of the car.

Denton returned to staring out the window blankly. Red brake lights from the cars ahead of us cast him in an ominous blood tinged shadow. “Whatever it is, we must do all in our power to keep it away from him.”

As if on cue, the holo-screen rang. I controlled the reflexive response of my finger this time, fixing the camera so I would be the only one visible in the car. I turned and offered a soft “shh” to Denton and Hamilton as my hand hovered over the button. The holo-screen rang a third time before I accepted the call.

Malcolm’s face appeared in the car beside me, and before he could speak I said, “What’s so special about this hard-drive?”

“Well aren’t you just full of questions, Detective Mandel?” Malcolm said taken aback by my forwardness. I crossed my fingers, hoping that my question would be enough to prove I had the drive. “I’ll share with you the answers when you get here.”

“And where is here?” I said glancing to the GPS which showed our little dot taking stilted steps towards the final destination with every passing second.

“I want you to meet me at the place of our last rendezvous. I trust you remember the place?” Malcolm said beaming.

He was expecting an emotional response. There could be no forgetting the building where I last saw Diana alive. He wanted to ruffle me one last time, but I had had thirty minutes of driving to wrap my head around his sociopathic choice for a final location. “I’ll be there.” I said reaching to end the call.

“Not so fast, Detective Mandel, I’d like to see the hard-drive if you don’t mind.”

I kept my eyes fixed on the road ahead as the world shattered around me. The pounding of my heart was deafening, and the moisture in my mouth was replaced with the taste of metals. I lived Tracy’s lifetime in a second. The thought of failing her was all consuming.

Then I felt it.

Something pressing against my right leg.

I looked down at the silver hard-drive on my leg in disbelief. I wrapped my fingers around its beveled sides, the metal was cold. There was a low hum emanating from inside the  making it feel alive like a purring cat. I held it up to the camera.

Malcolm’s eyes grew with excitement, “Very good. I’ll be seeing you soon, Detective Mandel.”

A moment later and the bright blue light of the hologram gave way to the darkness of the car. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the low light. When they did, Denton was holding out his hand, palm facing up. I placed the hard-drive in it which he hurriedly shoved back in his jacket pocket. A flash-bulb memory went off in my mind from earlier that night in Denton’s house when I watched him hurry to the hidden safe in the wall.

“Thanks,” I said eyeing Denton curiously. “What’s on there?”

“This is the back-up plan in case everything goes to hell.”

My eyes flickered between the clock on the dash ticking away time, and the numbers on my forearm ticking away life. I’m glad someone was prepared for hell, ‘cause in five minutes we’d be meeting with the devil.

**

I parked a couple blocks away. Even so, the building was one of the largest in the city, and it towered overhead, a beacon of death and foreboding calling out to me.

Hamilton sat on the curb of the sidewalk staring at a puddle of water like it held the meaning of life within its murky depth.  I leaned against the car staring up at the enormous building while Denton dug through electronics in the trunk. A blinking light caught my attention from the corner of my eye. Looking through the tinted window of the Lexus, it took my mind a moment to realize what it was seeing. Opening the driver door, I plopped down into the plush leather seat and accepted the incoming call. The dull humming of a city with electricity in its blood disappeared as I closed the door and Raines’ face appeared inches from mine.

“Where are you, Tom?”

I traced the edge of the building that towered overhead, “I’m at the Division building.”

Raines nodded her head and said, “I guess that’s not such a surprise, Malcolm loves his theatrics.”

“Did you have any luck with the hard-drive?” I said redirecting the topic.

“No luck. The guys in tech say they’ve never seen anything like it. There’s no connection port, no way to access what’s in there. It’s entirely self-contained. The device sends out intermittent pulses of encrypted data. Their working on it, but they aren’t confident.”

“I think I might have seen another drive like that recently.” I said thinking back to the “back-up” plan in Denton’s pocket.

“Where?” Raines said with surprise.

“I don’t know if it’s the same, but Denton pulled a hard drive from that safe in his wall that sounds a lot like the box your describing to me.”

“That’s strange.” Raines said.

“That’s what I thought.”

“No, even stranger.” Raines’ eyes shifted downward to read something out of view of the camera, “It took some digging but we found the owner of the safety deposit box we raided.” The digitally created eyes of her hologram looked up trying to convey emotions the computer couldn’t feel. “It belongs to President Jennings.”

“Actually, we’ve been working under the assumption that Malcolm is working with Jennings, but why would Malcolm want me to steal something from the President?”

“Leverage maybe? Raines said. “Probably planning a double cross if I know Malcolm.”

‘Yeah.” I said watching Denton through the rear view mirror as he closed the trunk. “I gotta go, Raines. Keep that hard-drive safe, it’s the only card we’ve been dealt in this game.”

“Be safe.” She said before her image faded out, leaving me alone in the car with my thoughts and suspicions.

The quick rapping of knuckles against glass pulled me from the ever deepening abyss of thoughts to see Denton’s face, separated from mine by a thin shield of tinted window. He tapped a finger against the back of his wrist, signaling it was time.

Hamilton stood beside Denton who leaned against the hood of the car staring up at the specially designed non-reflective glass of the Foundation building. Up until nine years ago, Division had served as the research and development program for the Global Military. All significant technological advancement of the last five hundred years had come through that building, through that program. That is, until Malcolm threatened to bring down the entire Network when he managed to take control of the building and all its resources. Following that day, Division relocated its operations, and the building has sat for nine years as a skeleton, a hollowed out husk of its former glory. Division still retained ownership of the building, if for no other reason than pride.

“You can wait here.” I said standing beside Hamilton.

“I want to come with.” He said straightening his back slightly.  “I want to help in any way I can, it’s my duty to the people I represent.”

I eyed the man who seemed to have grown a patriotic streak, with a bit of courage to match. “Do you know how to use a gun?” I pulled my sidearm from its holster, and spinning it in my palm, held it out to the Hamilton. He took the weapon with a trembling hand, and inspected it in the palely lit street like it was an alien.

I pointed a finger toward the barrel, “Pointy end towards the bad guy and squeeze the trigger, easy enough?”

“Yeah.” He said cradling the gun in both hands. “Easy.”

“Let’s pray he doesn’t need to use that.” Denton said motioning with his hand towards the Division building. “We best hurry.”

Denton started walking at a quick pace, and I hurried after him. Walking shoulder to shoulder, I turned to see Hamilton following a couple paces behind.

“What did Adam do after the failure of Eve?” I said.

“Realizing there wasn’t room in the network for both of them, he set forth trying to find Eve a suitable body. That was a tall order, as they say, considering how complicated a system Eve was. It took Adam many years of trying, but eventually he found a way to transfer her consciousness into a new host.”

Standing at the base of the Division building we could no longer see its summit. The pure size of the structure was overwhelming. The sides of the building wrapped around to embrace us as we stepped through the front doors.

I weaved through the ghost town of furniture in the waiting area.  Where is everybody? The thought made me shiver. The door leading to the stairs swung open easily. I turned and gestured for the other two men to follow.  I heard Hamilton ask, “What kind of vessel?” as they stepped into the stairwell.

Denton stared up the optical illusion of never ending stairs as he said, “Why, the only other system on the planet sophisticated enough to run that sort of program, the human brain.”

 

© 2012 Anthony Vicino

Time Snatch, part 5

Here we go again, drawing ever closer to the conclusion of Time Snatch. This has been an interesting process for me, to say the least. Giving myself such a tight time frame for this story has taught me a lot about my method. I will be writing the conclusion of the story today and tomorrow, and it’s harder than I expected tying all the pieces of the puzzle together. I hope I’m up for the task, cause I can’t imagine anything worse than letting the story have an ending that fizzles. It’s a tough one, and I’m not entirely sure how I’ll pull it off, but check back tomorrow and we’ll see if I manage to pull it off.

For those of you just stopping in, I recommend starting from the beginning of the series with Time Snatch, or if you aren’t so interested in reading one long piece, try one of my shorter stories like Sun Burn, Firefly, Antikythera, or Standing Kill Orderlies.

As always, leave me a comment. Your critiques, criticisms, and advice are what help me become better at what I do.

Time Snatch, part 5

“You see,” Denton continued without missing a beat. “Fifty years after the Grand Unification, a scientist by the name of Rommel created a program named Adam.” Denton turned from the steering wheel, his eyes reflected the neon blue light accents of the car’s interior.  “Adam was the world’s second sentient being, behind man of course.”

“A computer that could think for itself?” I said feeling the conversation fishtailing.

Denton looked at me as if I had just blown my nose on his sleeve. “You oversimplify, it didn’t just think for itself. This program had the ability to feel, it was self-aware. It’s Artificial Intelligence, man’s greatest creation.”

“Some creation, if nobody’s ever heard of it. What happened to the Adam program?”

“You’re looking at it.” Denton’s teeth were so white they nearly glowed in the darkness of the car as he smiled from ear to ear. “Not, the Adam program, of course. I mean it more in the way a child speaks of a parent.”

“What are you?” my voice was shaky and betrayed the mix of fear and morbid curiosity that held my mind prisoner.

“What am I?” he said with an air or condescension. “Maybe you should be asking yourself that question.”

“I’m a man.” There was no hiding the indignation in my voice.

“Are you?”

“Of course I am!” I said the words loud with the hope it might make them truer. “I was born. I had parents. I have a kid for god’s sake.”

“Goats have kids, doesn’t make them human.” Denton said. “You think you’re a man, cause that’s what you’ve been told, that’s what you’ve been made to think you are.”

Wispy clouds of confusion twisted through my mind. The stream of headlights floating above the city was the only thing that made sense anymore.

Follow the lights, there’s truth in the light. I had heard that somewhere before.

If Denton was messing with me, it was certainly working. Is this how he did it, is this how he made disciples? Was this the same story he fed Malcolm all those years ago?

“How can I trust what you’re saying is true?”

“You have no choice, for now.” He said bringing the car to a stop. “We’re here.”

I leaned forward in my seat and craned my neck to see the top of the structure that loomed overhead. A carnival of colored lights shimmered across the glass surface of the building that thrust its obelisk sides into the sky. It cut the darkened night like a sword of red, blue, and green light.

“Why would Malcolm want me to come here?” I said absently.

“Oh, this isn’t where Malcolm wants you to be. That’s on the other side of the city, I’m afraid it’s far too late to make it there on time, unless you have a jet I’m not aware of.”

I turned to Denton, unable to mask the horror on my face. “Why would you do this? He’s going to kill my daughter.” The rage spilled over, taking hold of my muscles. With hands flexed tight I threw a balled up fist towards Denton’s face.  The pain in my hand sent conflicting messages of relief and pain as my fist made impact with his nose. He twisted and pulled back just enough to deflect the blow from being a direct hit. Even so, his nose turned into a faucet as a stream of blood poured from his face

“Wait, wait, wait.” He said holding one hand to his nose, the other he put out in front of him to shield himself from the next blow I had already prepared to deliver. His voice sounded nasally when he said, “She’s better than dead if you continue allowing Malcolm to lead you about the city on a wild goose chase.  He’ll enjoy humiliating you for a bit, but once that grows old, and you’re still no closer to finding him, he’ll realize the obvious, you can’t give him the challenge he desires.”

Denton paused to look at the blood on the back of his hand. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and, wincing, gently blotted at his nose, “But I can.”

At the moment, with dull red blood caked across his face, Denton didn’t look like a formidable match for anyone. I relaxed the muscles in my arm I still held cocked overhead. It was one of those days where everything was just out of your control. Best you could hope for was to buckle up and hold on for dear life.

“Why are we here?” I said turning back to the building glimmering in the night sky. A million questions pounded at the inner walls of my mind, but those would have to wait. For now I had to clear my mind and focus on the task at hand.

“We’re here to get a head of Malcolm.” Denton said putting his wrists together. The magnets attached to the inside of his wrists locked together, and the fluorescent green lights of the holographic keyboard filled the car with a warm glow.

“How are we doin’ that?” I said. “Like you said, once he gets bored of me, he’ll kill me and my daughter. All you’re doin’ now is accelerating that process.”

“Do you recognize this building?” Denton said not looking up from his keyboard.

“No, should I?”

“This is the residence of Mr. Derek Hamilton.”

My mind did a pirouette trying to recall the name. “The Vice-President’s son?”

“The one and only.” Denton said opening the driver’s door and jumping out into the artificially lit street.

I made to follow. My legs creaked under the weight of my body as I rose from the car. I extended my arms over-head in a cat like stretch sending a wave of relief sweeping through my body. I watched Denton rummaging through the trunk of his car before stepping back with a small metallic object clasped tight between his closed fingers.

Denton opened his hand and extended the object to me. “Take this. Keep it on you at all times.” It was slightly bigger than a lighter, but surprisingly dense. Smooth silver metal ran the length of it, and it didn’t appear to have any openings.

“What is it?” I said. The light flickered across its surface as I held it up to the street light.

“That’s a jamming device I cooked up some years ago.” Denton said. Pulling the collar of his jacket up high on his neck, he hurried towards the front entrance of the building.

“What’s it jam?” I said shoving the device into my pocket.

“You, to be specific. As long as you keep that on you, nobody will be able to activate that electric charge in your head.”

“Malcolm won’t be able to kill me on a whim, huh?” I hadn’t realized how much that burden had been weighing in the back of my mind ‘til it was suddenly removed.

“No, but that can.” He said gesturing towards the numbers counting down on my forearm. “That system is all internally controlled. Once that number hits zero, games over. Jammer won’t make any difference.”

“What about Tracy?”

Denton offered no reply. We stepped into the foyer of the upscale condominium, and a man in suit and tie approached from his post at the front desk.

“Can I help you, Gentlemen?”

“Yes, we’re here to see Mr. Hamilton, he’s expecting us.” Denton said, moving swiftly past the man’s outstretched hand, on his way to the elevator.

I followed closely behind Denton who moved like a man on a mission.

“I’m sorry, sir. If I could just have you come over here for a moment.” The man said quickening his pace to cut us off. He extended an arm in the direction of the front desk.

Denton stared contemptuously at the man. “Make it quick.”

“Of course, sir.” The man said as he put his wrists together and a holographic computer suddenly appeared from the ether before him. “And your name, sir?”

“Walter Blackwell.” Denton said the words like he had spent a lifetime saying them.

“Very well.” The computer disappeared and the man gestured towards the elevator. “Sorry to have kept you waiting, please head on up”

Denton did not thank the man. Instead he shot the man a scornful look and turned away briskly.

“Blackwell?” I said when the silver metal doors closed before us.

“From a different lifetime.”

The elevator lurched to life, rising quickly into the sky. “How did you manage to get us in here?”

Denton looked at me like I had just sprung tentacles from my face, “There are few, if any, networks I can’t access.”

*

Derek Hamilton writhed on the ground.

I stepped into his penthouse condominium and shut the door behind me. The look of shock on his face was damn near priceless when he opened the door and saw me standing there.  His body jolted into the air, though his feet never left the ground. It was an odd site to see, made only odder by the fact that he toppled backward to the ground without any attempt to break his fall. Now, I followed him across the room as he butt scooted his way to the opposite wall.

“Wha…wha…what ar..”

“What are we doing here?” I cut him off. We didn’t have all night to waste on him stuttering out words. “We never got a chance to finish our conversation from earlier.” I said squatting down so my face was inches from his.

“I… I already t..t..told you. I didn’t do anything!” he said finally finding his words.

“Ya know, in a past life, I was a detective, a pretty darn good one at that. And I have this sixth sense, part of my lizard brain, that goes off whenever anyone tries to sell me a line of shit. Do you know what my lizard brain is saying right now?”

Hamilton’s eyes squirmed in their socket, trying desperately to avoid making contact with mine.  “What makes you so sure I did anything? You have no proof.”

“I don’t need proof to follow a hunch; I’m operating outside the bounds of the law at the moment.” I said grinning. “In my experience, the guy who can’t make eye-contact is the guy who’s trying to hide something. In the board meeting I interrupted this morning, you were the only one avoiding eye contact with the President while he was talking. Now why was that? Were you afraid he’d see your guilt? ‘Cause whether you realized it or not, you were wearing a mask of shame for everybody in that room to see.”

“You don’t understand, he’ll kill me.” A tear strolled down Hamilton’s cheek.

“Who? Netten? No, I understand that better than you think.”

“No, not Netten.” Hamilton said in slight shock.

“Then who?”

Hamilton brushed the tear on his cheek away with the back of his hand. He remained silent with his eyes fixed to the ground.

“If I’m not mistaken, I believe he is referencing the President.” Denton said from the corner of the room where he pecked away at the holographic keyboard before him.

“President Jennings?” I said standing up. “Why would he want to kill you?” Hamilton placed a palm against the glass window overlooking the artificially lit city thousands of feet below as he stood up.

“Because,” Hamilton looked like he could start bawling at any moment. Shoot me if it comes to that, I’ve had too much crying for one day. “A couple weeks ago, the ITB network threw up a red flag regarding the Final Countdown protocol. I brought it to President Jennings, but he assured me it was nothing, then he showed me he had authorized the change in protocol himself. I didn’t think anything of it, until this morning when you blew up the ITB.”

Well, my gut feeling had been partly right about Hamilton at least.

“Don’t overreact, I didn’t blow up the ITB, just a conference room.” I said turning to Denton. “Can you hack the ITB network to see if what he says checks out?”

“Of course, it’ll take a couple minutes. It’ll go quicker if somebody would just give me their login code, though.”

Hamilton shifted uncomfortably like an ant beneath a magnifying glass. “There’s still no proof that the President did anything to help Netten escape. This could just be a coincidence, but I know for sure if he finds out I helped you, I’ll end up in a private jail cell with no window for the rest of my life.”

                “You have an opportunity to do the right thing, Derek. A lot of innocent lives have been lost today, and the death count is only going to rise, unless we stop Malcolm and whoever might be helping him. Sometimes it’s okay to be afraid, and sometimes it’s okay to be brave,” I said putting a hand on Hamilton’s trembling shoulder. “Right now, it’s alright to be both.”

God, I hate giving inspirational speeches.

*

With Hamilton’s network codes, Denton ran wild through the International Time Bank’s system. It took him little time to find the updated protocols the President had implemented to the Final Countdown. Hamilton’s clearance only allowed Denton to see that a change had been made to the protocol, though. To see what had been changed in the programs source code required the President’s access.

“We can’t just call him up and ask for it, now can we?” I said throwing my hands out to the side in frustration. Hamilton stood stiffly beside Denton who had looked up from his computer terminal long enough to give me the news. “I thought you said you could get into any network.”

“I can.” Denton’s words were calm and precise. He wasn’t allowing me to goad him into an emotional response. “But that would take time, a lot more time than you have I’m afraid. The best way to get in is with Jennings’s codes”

“Good luck with that.” Hamilton said unfolding his arms to point an accusing finger at me. “After the stunt you pulled this morning, nobody outside of the ITB is getting anywhere near the President.”

“Nobody outside of the ITB, but you could.” Denton said

“What good would that do? He’s not going to just give me his codes.”

They were both right, of course. “Even then, we still have no guarantee that those codes will lead us to Netten, right?” I said.

“There might be a chance that we could back trace any systems that have accessed the Final Countdown via the new protocol.” Denton said distracted once again at the computer. “With Malcolm though, it’s still a slim chance, he’s not one to leave a trail unless he wants to be found. I’ll be honest, I was really hoping this guy was working with Malcolm.” He said gesturing towards Hamilton. “At least then we might be able to crack him.”

I watched Denton’s fingers dancing on the air like they were controlling invisible marionettes while he typed away at his holographic keyboard. “We’re up a creek then?” I said.

Denton and Hamilton stared back at me blankly. I wished Raines was here. She was the smart one; she might actually know what to do. My mind drifted to thoughts of Raines under arrest for murders she never committed. I looked down at the fist my hand had involuntarily made. So much risked, so little gained. Our one hope of finding Malcolm before he killed my daughter had rested in this condo. Denton had pushed all my poker chips in the middle on a gut feeling about Hamilton. Now here I am worst off than before, a hundred miles away from the other side of the city where in a few moments Malcolm would be calling to have me do only God knows what.

“Denton, could you trace Malcolm’s call?” I said snapping away from my reverie.

“It’s possible, I suppose.” Denton cocked his head to the side.  “I wouldn’t know unless I tried, but that won’t do your daughter any good. Once Malcolm realizes I’m hacking him, he’ll cut off communication; kill your daughter, and that Detective friend of yours just out of spite.”

The puzzle pieces of a plan twisted into place in my mind.

“What if we made it look like it wasn’t you.” I said setting my gaze on Hamilton. “Could you make the trace look like it’s coming from inside the ITB network?”

“Hm, it’ll take a bit of setting up.”

Hamilton remained rigid, arms crossed in front of his chest, with his jaw set firm. “Do I get a say in this?”

“Only if you’re agreeing to help us.” Setting it up to make it look like Hamilton was running the trace would put the Vice-President’s son directly in Malcolm’s crosshairs. I was treading on some morally dubious ground, but a man pushed into my position starts making some questionable calls.

I could justify it in my mind easily enough, though

Anything it takes to save my daughter.

Anything it takes to save the billions of lives threatened by a maniac with his finger on the button of a giant Time Bomb.

The little hand was gaining on the big as I glanced down at my watch. “Malcolm’s gonna be expecting me to answer his call in your car in five minutes.” I said holding the gold plated door knob in the palm of my hand. “You stay here with our friend, tap into the car’s system, and be ready for his call.”

Denton shot me a blank stare, “Of course.”

“What should I do?” Hamilton said as I opened the door.

“Just try and stay out of the way for now. We’ll be out of your hair soon enough.” I dug the silver jamming device from my pocket and tossed it in a high arc across the room. Hamilton tracked its flight before snatching it out of the air. “Keep that on you and you’ll be safe from Malcolm for now.”

“I only got one of those.” Denton did not pause to look up from the computer.

                “Well, let’s hope you’re as good as you say you are.”

*

The evening air was crisp, which stood in sharp contrast to the oppressive heat of the day. I stood beside the driver’s side door of Denton’s Lexus watching the red ember tip of my cigarette flicker out before letting gravity pull its used remains to the ground.  I studied the cigarette butt roll to a stop. I ground the remains beneath my boot imagining Malcolm’s head in place of the cigarette butt.

If only it were that easy.

I opened the door to the Lexus as the holo-screen chirped to life. What little light there was left in the street faded as I sat down behind the steering wheel.

My breath was short, my heart was pounding, and my hands were slick with sweat. I wiped my palms on my pants before reaching to accept the incoming call.

“Hello, Detective Mandel.” Malcolm’s head said floating above the console. “I see from the GPS in the late Joseph Denton’s car that you’ve reached your destination. I trust you didn’t have any problems with traffic?”

I silently thanked God for Denton who had thought far enough ahead to alter the car’s GPS reading. Now, it was just a game of stalling and praying Denton could find a way to trace Malcolm without giving us up in the process.

“Traffic was fine.” I said unable to stop the edge of my lip from curling in a look of contempt as I stared into the computer generated image of the man’s face. “Before I go any further, I need assurance that my daughter is still alive, and unharmed.”

“Of course, that’s only fair.” His voice hovered over, and stretched, the word fair.

Malcolm’s head shifted to the side, making room for another. Even as a computer rendering, Tracy had her mother’s unmistakable eyes. “Dad,” her voice was clear though strained like her throat was rubbed raw from crying. “Listen to me, don’t give this bastard anything.” Her head was pulled violently from view of the camera, but her voice still reached out to the microphone. “Let me go, you have to let me go, Dad.”

No, this has to be a dream. I buried my face between my hands, but there was no escape from her cry reverberating in my skull. “She’s done nothing to you.” I screamed at the computer.

“A minor detail.” Malcolm’s eyes seemed to shine even brighter. His serpentine tongue flicked from between his thing lips, savoring the taste of my pain. “Are you ready for your next task, Detective Mandel? I warn you, this one will be quite a bit more difficult than the last.”

A blue light blinked to life on the dashboard indicating an incoming message. “Let’s hear it.” I said watching out the corner of my eye at the text message streaming across the upper right portion of the windshield. I read the two words and suppressed the smile that threatened to give me away.

Trace Complete.

In one instant I felt the winds change, the power of balance shift, and with that one message, a new game had begun. I listened intently to Malcolm, doing my best to act demur. I had the element of surprise on my hand now; it wouldn’t due to tip my hat by being over eager.  I wanted nothing more to scream from the top of my lungs, I’m coming for you, asshole. But I resisted. I sat quietly, listening, waiting.

                It wasn’t the time to strike back, but soon.

 

© 2012 Anthony Vicino

Time Snatch, Part 3

Howdy readers. As promised, here is the third section of Time Snatch. I’ve made this section about 5,000 words as a little gift for those who have been sticking with this story so diligently. I’ll be interested, when the full story is out, to hear from  you guys about how you liked this method of delivery. In some ways it reminds me of a soap opera, giving you a bit more of the story before leaving you with a mini-cliff hanger. Hopefully I can continue keeping you guys engaged in the story until the very end. For those who haven’t read the first two Time Snatch sections, I would highly recommend hopping into those first before starting with this story. Maybe once the entire story is posted to the site, I’ll put them all together into one ginormous post so it can be read in one continuous sitting without having to shuffle through different links. As always, I hope to hear from you guys. Leave me a comment! And if the Mayan’s were right about tomorrow, I hope you all have a happy end of the world!

Time Snatch, Part 3

 

My head was splitting, and my normally sunny disposition was being tested to the limit. But between the blood trickling down my neck from the gaping wound on my head, the obstructed blood flow to my hands from cuffs fastened too tight, and the cold unforgiving metal seats of the prisoner transfer vehicle that sent shocks of pain sprinting through my spine every time we caught a bit of turbulence, I don’t think anybody could blame me.

That’s not entirely true.

Raines could make a compelling case for blaming me, but hey at least we were still alive. Though for some that’s not as uplifting a fact as for others.

Raines sat sandwiched between two guards on the bench across from me. Her head hung in her chest as she stared despondently at the ground. For a woman who had never disobeyed an order, she sure picked a hell of a time to start.

I shifted my weight to the side in an attempt to get a more comfortable amount of blood flow into my legs. The guard to my left dropped his shoulder and shoved me against the guard to my right, who in turn shoved me back. Both men kept their eyes pointed forward, seemingly unaware, or at least uninterested, in the plight of the man wedged tightly between them.

There were no windows in the back of the van to gauge the distance we had travelled. The bank was less than twenty minutes from the precinct, and though I’m sure we were making great time weaving through traffic with the blue and red lights flashing on top, I was surprised to feel the sudden deceleration of the vehicle as we banked hard to the right. The two guards beside me shot questioning glances to the two guards beside Raines who, for her part, had looked up from the ground which had held her interest ‘til this point.

“Bathroom break, already?” I said feeling the creases in my brow punctuating the question. Raines’ face was frozen in a similar look of confusion, as the guard to my left spoke into the radio strapped to his shoulder.

“Why are we stopping?” he said.

Everybody in the back of the van held their breath as the vehicle continued its deceleration before jerking to a complete stop as if issuing a non-verbal response to the guard’s question.

“Answer me, Doug.” He said again with more urgency in his voice. “Why are we sto…”

The sentence would forever remain frozen on the tip of the guards tongue as the Life Counter on his arm, and those of the three other guards in the back of the van, suddenly sprang to life with the familiar three beeps of a person whose Life Time had just run out. The small charge implanted in their brains released a fatal jolt of electricity as the final beep hung in the air. The muscles in their bodies fired, and contracted all at the same time before releasing their rigor mortis hold on them. My stomach knotted, and I watched helplessly as the guard sitting to Raines’ left turned stiff as a board, the sound of his neck snapping from the convulsion was that of a tree branch being broken over a knee. He remained upright and rigid for a moment longer before slumping to the ground like dirty laundry strewn across a bedroom floor.

Before I could process what had taken place, the backdoor to the van was thrown open. I turned my face away from the blinding light of the sun which came pouring through the open door.

“Slowly step out of the vehicle.” The silhouetted figure said from outside the van.

Raines and I exchanged worried glances. I stood, hunched over from the low ceiling, and stepped out of the van into the blinding sun. The air vibrated with heat as my clothes, immediately moist from perspiration, clung to my body. We were high up on the roof of a building just large enough to accommodate the dark black van with the word POLICE on the side that Raines was now emerging from like a Neanderthal first stepping out of her cave to find a new foreign world. Her eyes were tiny slits as she raised an arm to shield herself from the harsh sun overhead. It took a moment to gain my bearings, but then on the Eastern horizon I could make out the familiar shape of the International Time Bank. Though I couldn’t be sure of the particular building we now stood, I could say definitively that it was not the police station.

“So, you’re working with Malcolm, eh?” I said to the police officer who was pointing his automatic rifle at us. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, holding us in the crosshairs of his weapon as he decided what to do next.

“Me? No, you’re the one working with that lunatic.” The officer said as his voice slowly rose in pitch towards the end of his sentence.

“What makes you think we’re working with him?” I said suddenly wishing very much that my hands weren’t still cuffed behind my back. There’s something disconcerting about facing a firing squad without the means to shield one’s self.

“Why else would he have killed those men in there?” The officer said pointing with the barrel of his gun towards the van. “One second I’m driving back to the station, and next thing I know my partner’s Life Tracker is beeping. The poor son of a bitch put his head through the window when the charge went off! How is something like that even possible? That man had at least thirty years left, but bam, out of nowhere, no Final Countdown, no nothing. Just snuffed out like a candle.”

The officer was growing increasingly agitated recounting the story as Raines stepped forward. “Everything’s going to be okay.” Her voice showed amazing calm given the tension of the situation. “Why did you bring us here instead of back to the precinct?”

“He told me too, over the holo-screen, said I would be next if I didn’t pull over at this building and let you out.” I could see the man trying to suppress the quivering of his lip as the beginning of tears accumulated in his eyes. “Please, I have a family.” He said pleading with his eyes as much as with his voice. “I don’t want to die.”

“Nobody is going to hurt you.” I said stepping towards the officer. “We don’t work for Netten, we’re the ones trying to catch him.”

Taking a step back, the man kept his gun locked on me. “Why would Netten kill police officers to have you released, then?” he said unwilling to trust us.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” I said.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Oh god,” the gun clattered to the ground as the man’s eyes grew wide and his face contorted with the realization that he was about to die. “Tell Laura I love h…” The man’s head jerked back violently, pointing his head towards the sky, as he dropped forward to his knees where he paused for what seemed an eternity before collapsing face down on the blistering asphalt.

“Why is Malcolm doing this?” Raines said turning away from the body in disgust.

“Birds don’t need a reason to fly.” I said fishing the keys to handcuffs from the man’s pocket. “And crazy don’t need a reason to be crazy.”

I rubbed my chafed wrists as the metal bracelets fell to the ground.

“What are we going to do?” Raines said as I placed the key in her handcuffs and with a twist, released the lock. She turned to face me with eyes desperate for a plan, and wished I had something uplifting to say. Hell, at this point I’d settle for something just a little witty to say.

But nothing came. No words. No inspirational speech. I was left with nothing more than the nauseating feeling that we were being toyed with; batted about like a cat with a string. And at that moment we were undoubtedly the string, being tossed around by the slightest breeze.

“Netten wanted us free, that much is obvious.” I said wiping the sweat from my brow. “He is going through a lot of trouble to keep me alive, and out of jail. For him this only ends when he has personally enacted his revenge on me.”

“If he wants revenge so badly, why doesn’t he just kill you and get it over with?”

“There’s no thrill in winning if your opponent doesn’t have anything to lose. I’m a dead man, regardless. Now he just wants to torture me.”

“He’s not the only one.” The bite in her voice betrayed how deeply she felt those words at the moment.

“I never said I didn’t deserve any of this.”

“Well, we’re officially fugitives, so what’s our next play?” Raines said crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Good question.” I said as I mulled her words around in my head.

“When I caught Netten the first time I had to completely shift my way of thinking. With most criminal masterminds, it’s relatively easy to put yourself in their position and figure out what they want.”

Raines nodded in approval. “Once you figure out what they want, it’s not so bad figuring out how they intend to get it.”

“Exactly,” I said. “So how do you inflict the maximum amount of pain on a man who doesn’t care if he dies?”

As soon as the words had left my mouth the answer became obvious, so painfully obvious that I could have kicked myself for not having thought of it earlier. The look of realization flashed across Raines’ face a moment after mine as we said, “Tracy.”

“Slow down, Tom.” Raines said as I gripped the steering wheel between white knuckles. “You’re not going to do Tracy any good if you drive us through a building.”

I was conscious of her words in the same way you’re conscious of the soft pitter patter of rain against a rooftop on a cloudy day. There was no ability to process the words, on my part though. The rational half of my brain had shut down, giving way to the primitive self-preservation side. Though in this case, my body’s desire wasn’t to preserve me, but my offspring. My foot sank deeper until the acceleration pedal of the police van was pressed flush against the floor as I raced against time to my daughter’s house.

It was outright stupid of me not to think Netten would go after my daughter, but I had been so caught up in just finding him, I never thought about what his next move would be. It’s like playing a game of chess where you’re so focused on getting the other guys’ king you never think to protect your own.

Now I just prayed I wasn’t too late as I reached over to the holo-screen on the center panel. I held down a button and spoke to the vehicles computer system.  “Computer, call Tracy Mandel.”

Calling, Tracy Mandel.

With a clenched jaw, I ground my teeth together while maneuvering through the rush hour traffic. The large vehicle rocked sluggishly to the side in response to my veering. I glanced down at the odometer.

205 mph.

The silence that filled the cab while the computer called Tracy was unbearably loud. I wanted to scream, to shatter that immovable timeless silence which roared in my ears as I willed a voice to pick up the phone on the other side.

“Hello?”

My blood turned to ice. A shiver of fear twitched through my body, the hairs on my neck stood straight, and knowing took hold of my muscles. I turned to see the face that had spoken on the holo-screen. My eyes confirmed what my ears had feared, and suddenly the walls of the van began closing in around me, the weight of the world drove the air from my chest. Panic gripped my mind as I struggled to find the words to speak.

“Netten.” The word sounded like it had been spoken underwater. “What’ve you done with my daughter?”

“Oh, nothing, yet.” He said grinning the smile of a man who knows he is inescapably winning. “We were just catching up on old times. It’s a pity that you two grew so far apart after your wife’s passing. I understand that must have been a terribly difficult time. From what I hear, losing a loved one can be a very traumatic ordeal.”

“Don’t hurt her.” My voice was filled with more pleading than bravado. “I’ll do anything you want.”

“I know that, Detective Mandel. But I’m glad to hear you’ve come to the same conclusion.” Malcolm said stoking the fire I felt burning in my chest with an air of condescension.

“What do you want from me?”

“I already told you what I want. I want a challenge, a worthy opponent. You were once the most worthy of all opponents, but now look at you. You’re barely hanging by a thread. A thread I gave you by the way, though no need to thank me for that.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint.” I said weakly.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. That little stunt at the ITB was quite the scene. Never in my life did I think to witness a man and a woman survive a jump from a ninety story building. Speaking of men and woman, I’d be correct in assuming Detective Raines is seated beside you?”

Raines twisted the camera so that it focused squarely on her.

“Good.” Malcolm said. “I have an errand I need the two of you to run for me.”

“Like hell.” I said slamming my foot down on the brake to avoid the stopped traffic ahead. The sudden loss of forward momentum pulled the breath from my chest as the seat belt held me pinned to the seat.

“Go ahead and save the heroic diatribe and just remember what truly matters here, I have your daughter. And if you ever want to see her again, you’ll do as I ask.” Malcolm said pausing to give way to the electric humming of the holo-screen. “Is that going to be a problem?”

So this is what my life had become, an unwitting accomplice to a mass murdering megalomaniac. This morning I woke up expecting to be dead by now.

Why can’t anything ever go to plan?

I didn’t have a choice though. One way or the other, I knew Tracy was living on borrowed time as long as she was in the hands of Netten. In the end, Malcolm Netten was going to get what he wanted from me. Though it was something I had managed to push to the back of my mind with the aid of countless bottles of booze, the truth remained clear as day; I would do anything for my daughter.

“I’m sorry to rush you, Detective Mandel, but you’ll understand when I say that I’m running on a tight schedule. I’m going to need your answer now, or I’ll simply put a bullet in your daughters head and let you live out your remaining hours of your pathetic life with the knowledge that you couldn’t protect either off the woman you loved most.”

The muscles in my neck spasmed, causing a rush of air from my nostrils that was hot against my lip, “What do you want me to do?”

“That’s a good sport, Tom. The address of your target is already waiting in your vehicles navigation system. Be at that address in precisely thirty minutes and I’ll give you your next instructions.”

How could this man who had been out of prison for less than twenty-four hours have such far reaching access to the digital infrastructure? It just didn’t make sense. The Vice President’s son from the International Time Bank might have been able to help Netten override the Final Countdown safeguard, but now this mad man was tapped into the private satellites reserved exclusively for the Police.

Realizing just how far reaching Netten’s network of support was made me sick. Judging by the look on Raines’ face, it was safe to say she had come to a similar conclusion.

“What do you want us to do there?” Raines said asking the question that was sprinting through my mind like a gerbil on a wheel.

“Are you sure you really want to know? I’d hate to ruin the surprise.” Netten said tauntingly.

Raines did not offer a response as she glared at the screen. For just once, I wish her proverbial death stare had a more literal ability. God, wouldn’t that be useful right about now.

“There’s a man there by the name of Joseph Denton.”

I know that name. I’m sure I’ve heard it before, but the memory was hazy, and the name seemed only to have been half-whispered.

“Who is that?” Raines said circumventing the mental gymnastics I was going through to recall the name.

“For the time being, that is not important. All you need to know is that I will be calling back to this holo-screen in forty five minutes and I expect Mr. Denton to be dead.” Netten said letting his words hang in the air. “If you fail to complete this assignment, well… we wouldn’t want a repeat of last time, now would we?”

Malcolm Netten let out a surprisingly deep laugh, for someone of his feint frame before disappearing from the holo-screen, leaving nothing but empty air hovering above the center console.

Turn left in 1000 feet onto Warp Way 202. The computer generated voice said over the speaker system.

Netten’s words, “we wouldn’t want a repeat of last time”, gnawed at the back of my mind as I decelerated to make the turn. He knew all the right buttons to push, and he was pounding the hell out of them.

“How do you beat an opponent who has spent every waking moment of the past decade plotting against you?” I said. “We’re hopelessly behind the curve, Raines.”

Raines must have taken my words as an admission of defeat as she placed her hand on mine. “You do something unexpected. Something he couldn’t possibly plan for.”

“Are you saying I should just let him kill Tracy?” Just hearing those words hurt. I pulled my hand out from beneath Raines’ and tightened my grip on the steering wheel as I merged onto the Warp Way.

The magnetic suction of the Warp Way locked onto the van as it slingshot us through space. I kept my hands on steering wheel, trying to enact some modicum of control, despite the fact that the magnets were in complete control of the ride now.

“You know that’s not what I mean, Tom.”

“But you’re just throwing it out there so I can mentally prepare for the worst case scenario, is that it? I sharpened the edge of my voice so that the words would cut as we hurtled through space at over 600 miles per hour.

“That’s not what I meant at all.” She softened her tone in response to the harshness of mine. “You asked a question, I gave you the only answer I know. How you interpret that information is up to you, but remember, you’re not in this alone.”

I’m a stubborn fool, a fact that I’m quite used to at this point in my life. But until that moment, I hadn’t really stopped to consider what this all meant to Raines. Win or lose, I was still looking down the long barrel of deaths gun. For Raines, it wasn’t the same. Hell, it might even be worse. She had a lot of years left on her bones, and our ability to stop Netten now was certain to determine if she would be spending those years a free woman.

I turned to Raines who was staring at the world zipping by the window and said, “I’m sorry, ya know. Not just for today, but for the past nine years.”

It was fast, almost imperceptible, but I saw it. The rush of blood to her cheeks as she raised a hand to brush a strand of dark brown hair from her face. “Don’t get all sappy on me now, Tom. We still have a job to do.”

                “Yep…” I said rubbing a thumb against my stubbled chin. “Save the girl, stop the bad guy, clear our names.”

I caught my breath in my throat. Crouching low between bushes near the fence, I listened. The dirt was cool to the touch as I placed a hand against the ground for balance as I waited to make sure I hadn’t been seen. The sun cast long shadows on its downward descent for the evening. I could see a sliver of the orange and yellow ball of light dipping down behind an apartment complex in the distance. I looked to the sky to see the string of headlights on the Warp Way zooming by in an incomprehensible blur. The only sound they made was that of air behind pushed aside, by vehicles slicing through the atmosphere.

“You’re clear.” Raines’ voice chirped in my earpiece. “I’m approaching the house now.”

“Roger, that.” I sprung to my feet before I finished speaking. With a quick two steps I put a foot out against the side of the house and used it as a spring board to jump. Stretching, I barely managed too latch the top of the twelve foot wall with one hand. Using my momentum, I swung a leg up and over the top of the narrow wall. I lowered myself down the other side of the wall before dropping the remaining six feet. Splintering pain exploded through my knees as I absorbed the impact of the hard ground. I put a hand against the wall to steady myself before trying to walk it off. The daggers that were being jabbed into my leg subsided with each additional step I took towards the clear glass door at the back of the house. By the time I reached my post at the back door, the adrenaline being pumped through my body had numbed the pain in my leg completely.

“Ringing the doorbell, be ready.” Raines said. “Somebodies coming.”

My muscles were pulled taut like a cat ready to pounce. A moment later the back door of the house slid open. A man stepped out of the house and looked nervously about while he buttoned his jacket. He didn’t make it more than a couple of steps away from the house when I stepped out from the shadows with my pistol pointed at the back of his head.

“Joseph Denton?” My voice cracked the silence of the evening sunlight which danced across the sky. The man’s body went rigid. He wore the look of a child afraid of the dark before bedtime plastered across his face as he turned around slowly.

“You don’t want to do this.” Denton said with a disconcerting amount of calm in his voice.

Raines appeared in the back door a moment later. “Let’s get him inside before one of the neighbors see’s us.” She said glancing at the large house to the left overlooking Denton’s backyard.

“You heard the lady,” I said circling around Denton. “Back inside.”

Denton showed no sign of hurry as he walked into the house. As I stepped inside, I slid the back door shut behind me.

“So” Denton said lowering his weight onto a stool beside what was a well-stocked corner bar. “Who are you? And what do you want?”

“At the moment, I’m thirsty.” I said cutting a straight line for the liquor cabinet. Raines stepped in front of me, her fingers wrapped tightly around her police issued firearm that hung loosely to her side. “But I suppose that can wait.” I turned back to Denton. “Somebody wants you dead. If I don’t kill you in the next ten minutes, he’s going to kill my daughter.”

“Let me guess, Malcolm Netten sent you?” Denton said tracing a finger in a circle on the countertop. “I suppose there’s no way I can talk you out of this?”

“Maybe you can save yourself, depends on what you can tell us on why Netten wants you dead.”

“I’m the man who taught Netten everything he knows.” Denton cocked an eyebrow to the side causing a deep wrinkle to crease his forehead. “This right here is a play straight from my book. Eliminate those who have the power to stop you, though Malcolm always did have a need for theatrics, which is probably why he sent a police officer and a drunk to do his dirty work.”

Denton’s revelation flipped a switch in my mind and the light bulb of enlightenment went off in my head; I remembered.

“He mentioned you that night.” I pointed a finger accusingly at him as he licked his thin lips before parting them just enough to see the teeth behind his smile. “The night he murdered my wife, Netten said I had you to thank for this. What did he mean by that?” I stepped in close, towering over him as I brought the barrel of my gun to the side of his head. “What did he mean?” I said raising the volume of my voice.

“Without having been there, I’m not sure I can offer a satisfactory answer.”

The gun in my hand made a click as I released the safety with a finger, “Try.”

“No.”

“Then you’re a dead man.”

“I’m dead regardless. Or would you have me believe you’d put the life of a stranger above that of your own daughter.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have started by telling him that part. It’s hard to bluff a man when he knows the cards you’re holding.

“Right now you’re the only person who can help us find Netten.” Raines said from behind me. “Which given the circumstances seems like something you should want as much as us.”

“I’ll make you a deal. “ Denton said studying Raines thoughtfully, letting the silence linger in the air. “If you let me go, I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Lifting my wrist to check the time on my watch I said, “Can’t do it. Netten is calling in five minutes to verify you’re dead.”

“Well then I suppose we have five minutes to make it look like I’m dead.” Denton said plainly.

“It’s not as simple as just making you look dead. Netten has fully breached the ITB system, he’ll be able to check their database directly to make sure your death clock is at zero.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Why do you think Malcolm sent you here to kill me instead of just pushing a button and microwaving my brain?” Denton said pointing too something behind me. I followed the path of his finger with my eye to a shelf on the other side of the room where there sat an object hovering in mid-air within a glass case. “I used to steal years like Malcolm. For decades I lurked in the shadows of the ITB network, siphoning a year here, a year there.” Denton paused to look at Raines. “This is all completely off the record by the way, Detective.” He said before resuming. “Now, Malcolm showed a lot of promise, and like most great men his ambition was his greatest strength and ultimately his greatest weakness, leading as it were, to his downfall. You see, I was motivated by a fear of dying. Malcolm, though, he doesn’t fear death. His desire to steal came from the need to prove he was the best, not just better than me, but better than everyone. Every minute of every hour he took from another man was his way of showing it.”

Denton stopped speaking as he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and placed it delicately between his lips. Reaching across the counter he grabbed a box of matches. His movements were deft as he pulled a single match from the box, pulled it across the side of the box, and held the burning stick an inch from the end of his cigarette. The flame danced across the wooden match and I couldn’t stop staring at the dancing shadow it cast on Denton’s face.

“Have you ever stopped to wonder why it is we have the death clock in the first place? Where did it come from? Who’s crazy idea was it to cap our lifespan at seventy-five years?” he said.

“What’s any of this have to do with finding Netten.”

“You can’t possibly hope to beat your opponent unless you understand why he does the things he does. You have to understand why he’s making his next move. For now, we know his next move, or as far you’re aware of at least, is having you kill me. But in order for you to understand that move, it has to be put in a context. To have the context, you must understand why he made the move before this, and the move before that, all the way back to the beginning of the game.”

“So that’s all this is then, a game?” I said crossing the room to examine the object hovering in its glass prison.

“I assure you, to Malcolm it is.” Denton said. “I can help you win, but I’ve grown quite attached too living, and if you want my help, you must decide right now if that is an arrangement you are prepared to keep.”

I bent over to study the object in the glass. From across the room I didn’t notice, but up close it was clear the glass was magnifying the object held within. I grabbed the glass casing around the object and carefully lifted it up. The device disappeared to the naked eye without the benefit of the magnifying glass entombing it. As I lowered the glass case back down, the wires and circuits of the computer chip reappeared. “What is this?”

“That’s the true reason Malcolm sent you here to kill me.” Denton said. “Now, he’ll be calling any moment. Do we have a deal?”

I turned, searching Raines for advice.

“I don’t see what choice we really have.” She said.

“We got a deal, but if you double cross me, I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

“That is without a doubt,” Denton said as a holographic keyboard appeared before him as he put his wrists together. “The last place I’d want you to put a bullet in me.”

 

© 2012 Anthony Vicino

Time Snatch

Well, I suppose it’s the holiday season so I should give you guys something particularly special this week. This story is going to be slightly different than the others, in particular because of it’s length. At the moment, the story is 15,000 words which is twice as long as the longest story I’ve previously posted. 15,000 is pushing pretty close to a full on Novella, which in the future I might come back and flush the story out a bit more to pump it over 20,000 words. For the time being, I wanted to share what I had with ya’ll, so what I’m going to do is post another section of the story every other day with the finale coming on the 25th, aka Christmas Day. So here ya go, remember, I love hearing from you guys. Tell me if you like the story, tell me you hate the story, tell me the characters names are dumb, or that all my characters sit around looking at each other too much.. doesn’t matter what you have to say, I’d love to hear it!

Time Snatch

“That bad, huh? How much time ya got left?”

It’s not polite to ask a man how much time he’s got left. A social faux pas if you will. But when you spend as much time on a barstool as I do, you allow for a certain amount of faux pas’ery.

“23 hours.” I said raising my glass of beer in salute to the stranger before pouring the remainder down my perpetually chapped throat. The numbers on my forearm didn’t seem to like that, as they counted down another hour. “Scratch that, 22 hours.” I said wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

So much for social faux pas’.

“Wow, don’t you have some, I don’t know, some family you’d rather be with?” the stranger said obviously regretting his decision to engage with a man balanced so precariously upon his chair.

“All the family I got, all the family I need, is right here… Ain’t that right, Joe?”

Joe looked up from behind the bar as he made sure the inside of a glass was squeaky clean. “’Til the day you die, Tom.”

“What more could you ask for?” I said sliding my empty glass across the bar top. “Joe, help ease my transition into the afterlife with another glass, would ya?”

“Good God, man. You only have 22 hours to live and you’re wasting it away on booze?”

“How long you got?” I said kicking the bar stool to the ground behind me as I stood up a tad too quickly.

“I uh…um, I got…”

“Calm down, I’m not gonna take it from ya. I just wanna know how long you got?”

The man offered a quick glance down at his forearm as if he didn’t already have the number memorized. You could always tell the ones that had their number memorized. I suppose some people just care more about that sort of thing than others.

“I got, uh… another 63 years.” He said.

“Well, I won’t be around to continue this conversation in 63 years, but when ya get there, in that final week, those final days, you’ll understand why I’m here, in a bar, alone. Cause in the end, all the family and friends in the world won’t make a shit of a difference. Make no mistake, when death comes beckoning with a spindly ass finger pointed your way, you will die, and you will die alone, no sense in fighting it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll continue this party at home, alone, where the company is a little less self-righteous” I said brushing into the man as I walked past.

“What’s his problem?” I heard the man ask Joe.

Joe in his infinite wisdom had it pegged, “That poor son-of-a-bitch lost his reason for living.”

                Good old, Joe. I might actually miss him when I die.

**

I woke up the next morning to the sound of the alarm on my wrist giving me the twelve hour heads up. Almost to the homestretch I thought as I rolled off the couch cradled in the soiled clothes from the night before. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I reflexively reached for my toothbrush. The bristles stared back at me as we studied one other and considered the futility of the act I was about to perform. Nevertheless, I pulled out the tube of toothpaste and lathered up the brush.

If you’re gonna die, might as well do it with fresh breath. I think my Mom told me that once.

There are some benefits to knowing when you’re gonna die. For most people, it gives them a sense of control over their final day. Some people like to throw parties and go out with a bang. Others will sit all day and analyze every inconsequential moment of their life in search for meaning. Everybody wants to believe their life had purpose.

I used to be like that. I even had a purpose, once. Putting bad guys away and putting food on the table for my two lovely ladies. If I ever did anything worth a damn, it was all thanks to those two angels. But their gone now, my wife’s clock ran up long before mine, and my daughter, well… doesn’t matter if I had all the time in the world left, she’d never talk to me again. I don’t blame her, though.

Tom, you have a visitor.

They program the voices in these houses to sound human, to sound familiar. I think I’d prefer them to sound like what they are, a machine. It’s creepy thinking there is another person in the house, living in the walls.

“Not today, Jane. Tell them to come back tomorrow.”

Tom, you don’t have a tomorrow.

“Now you tell me.” I said plopping back down on the couch in front of the television. I wonder if it’d be possible to calculate how many hours of my life I’ve lost to that damn box.  Probably more than I’ve lost to drinking and smoking combined, that’s for sure.

Tom, your visitor refuses to leave. She says it is very urgent. She says it is about Diana.

                Those words were like a slap to the face with a wet towel.

“Who’s out there, Jane?”

Detective Raines.

Of course, who else could it possibly be on today of all days? “Send her in, Jane.”

I listened as the pneumatic locks slid apart, releasing the door to swing freely.

“Jesus, Tom. What’ve you done with the place?” Raines said as I watched her dance through the debris in her high heels. “Ever heard of a garbage compacter?”

“Yeah, just never thought to use one, seemed like a waste of precious time.”

“Right.” She said stopping shy of the couch as she eyed it with obvious disapproval. Raines knelt to pick up a piece of newspaper off the ground. Folding it in half, she laid it on top of the coffee table before lowering her weight down gingerly. “Listen, we have to talk.”

“I’m dying, Raines. What’s too talk about?”

Her eyes bored a hole straight through me as she said, “Malcom Nettin.”

That got my attention real quick. The man who kills your wife and steals her remaining time is bound to illicit that reaction in most warm blooded creatures. “What about him?” I said not even trying to dull the edge in my voice.

“He’s out, Tom.” She said holding my stare as if I’d crumble to pieces if she ever let it go. “Broke out last night from ICDC.”

My heart was pounding so loud it made my ears hurt as I leaned forward. “How is he not already dead?” I said the words slowly so as to be sure I didn’t stutter or stumble across them. “He’s been in there for almost ten years. If I recall, prisoners are only given five.”

“We don’t know, Tom. He must have been trading something in exchange for other inmate’s time.”

“What could he possibly have to offer in exchange for years off another man’s life?”

“Tom, you of all people know what it’s like to live in a prison. Maybe not one made of brick and mortar, but a prison nonetheless. What would you do to get out early?” she said letting her eyes fall to the flashing numbers on my arm.

Damn, she always was the smart one, couldn’t have asked for a better partner in that way.

“So I appreciate you telling me all this, but what do you want me to do about it?”  I said turning my palms to the ceiling so she could read the numbers ticking away on my forearm nice and clear. “In a couple of hours, I’m gonna be back with my wife, free of all this.”

“I just thought you might want to know is all, thought you might want to help.” She said wiping her palms against her pant legs as she stood up. “Guess I was wrong.”

I watched her retrace her steps through the mess and clutter as she headed for the door. She was right of course. I did want to help. No, that’s not quite accurate. Helping them meant finding Malcom and putting him back in prison where he could continue siphoning years off gang bangers and street scrum, and the tax dollars of hard working citizens would continue to provide for the plush lifestyle afforded by the International Corrections Bureau.

Nah, I wanted to help myself, and in that way there would be only one satisfactory outcome: I would be the one to put Malcolm Netten’s death clock down to zero.

                “Hold up, just a sec, lemme grab my jacket,” I said pushing myself away from the gravitational pull of the couch.

“You know it’s almost a hundred degrees outside, right?”

“Can never be too careful.” I said throwing my arm into the sleeve of my familiar old leather jacket. “Wouldn’t want to catch a cold.”

**

“Walter, cue up the video from the Malcolm’s escape from ICDC.” Raines said.

“Does he have clearance to be here?” the little man said gesturing towards me with his chin.

I studied him with what can only be described as cool disregard, or at least that’s what I was going for, as I leaned against the far wall of the lab.

“He’s with me, Walter, that’s all the clearance you need.” Raines bent over so her face was mere inches from the lab technicians. “Understood?” Bless his heart, he did his best to stare unflinchingly back, but Raines is a woman used to getting her way.

“Fine.” Walter said resigned as he broke away from the staring contest to look up at the large computer monitor that ran the expanse of the wall in front of him. “It’ll be just a second.”

“Make it quick, we’re on a tight deadline.” Raines said glancing back at me.

“Aren’t we all?” Walter said as his fingers flew across the holographic keyboard being projected inches in front of his hands.

“Some deadlines are a tighter than others.” I said placing a slender stick of nicotine between my lips.

“Do you really think that’s such a good idea right now, Tom?” Raines said placing a hand against her hip as she shot me a look of pure hell fire. Diana used to have that look mastered. I wonder if that’s something woman practice.

“He can’t light that in here. This is a non-smoking area.” Walter said rolling his chair to the opposite side of the room as he covered his mouth with a sleeve.

“Calm down, ladies. I wasn’t gonna light it. Just an oral fixation, is all.” I said placing the cigarette back in the pack. “There, ya happy?”

“It’s not polite to risk other people’s lives for your filthy habit.” Walter said as the keyboard reappeared before him as he placed his hands back together.

“Oh dear, where were my manners?”

“What the hell is he doing here?”

Ah, crap. I knew that voice. I didn’t even need to turn to see who spoke the words.

“Captain, he may be able to help us in finding Malcolm Netten.” Raines said as she quickly, and quite smartly, put herself between me and the Captain.

“Even if I thought that was true, which I do not, there is a snowballs chance in hell that I’d let him back on this case.” Captain Marin said as the throbbing vein in his forehead traced a feint line down his temple. “I want him out of here, and he is to have no further contact with this case, am I making myself clear, Detective Raines?”

For her part, Raines stood her ground like a prize winning bull. She’s stubborn as all hell, but in the end she’s a stickler for the rules, and I could see the writing on the wall.

“Yes, Si…” she almost had the words fully out when a young man dudded up to the gills in his uniform came bursting in the room.

“Captain Marin, you have a call.”

“Take a message.” Marin said as he tried to kill me with his eyes. “I am in the middle of something.

“Sir, the caller, it’s Malcolm Netten.” Well I’ll be damned if I ever heard words that shut the Captain up faster.

Captain Marin turned to the phone beside Walter’s computer. “What line?”

“Line one, sir.”

“Walter, how long will you need to get a lock?”

“A minute, sir.” Walter said as his fingers appeared to be doing the hundred yard sprint on his keyboard.

“This is Captain Marin of the Time Crime Division. “ he said matter-of-factly.

That vein on the side of the Captains head grew a little less feint, and his face grew a little more red, as he pulled the phone from his ear. “He wants to talk to you.” He said holding the phone out to me. The scowl on the Captains face made me feel the anger he felt was equal to my confusion as I took the phone from his outstretched hand.

“This is Tom Mandel.” I said.  “I guess it’s silly to ask if you remember me?”

“Oh, Detective Mandel, how could I ever forget the man who cost me the last 9 years, 212 days, 13 hours, and 5 minutes of my life? But don’t worry; I’m not one to hold a grudge. How’s the family?”

I knew he’d try to rattle me, and he definitely came out swinging for the fences. My knuckle popped as I squeezed the phone tighter between my fingers as I imagined my hands around that snakes throat. “Do us both a favor and just turn yourself in. I caught you once, I’ll do it again.”

“Ah, yes you did, but was it in time? I wonder if this time you’ll be more fortunate? I see here you only have 10 more hours with us. Pity. I’m afraid 10 hours will just not be enough for even the great Detective Mandel to bring me back to justice.”

“We’ll see.” I said eyeing the computer monitor overhead as the numbers on Walter’s trace counted down. Only ten more seconds, smart guy, and then you are all mine.

“I want a worthy opponent, Detective Mandel. These past 9 years I plotted, and I waited, for the day when I would be able to challenge you to a rematch. I quite underestimated your tenacity the first time around. Though here we are, you are a husk of your former self, if I do say so. Where’s the sport in beating a man who has already beaten himself?”

Got ya. I thought as the countdown on the tracer hit zero.

“If you’re plan is to talk me to death, you’re doin’ a great job.” I said looking down to Walter for the thumbs up. The look of confusion across his face as he shook his head no lacked the effect of filling me with confidence.

“You didn’t honestly think it was going to be that easy, did you Detective Mandel?”

“A man can hope, can’t he?”

“Indeed, I suppose hope is the only thing a man in your position really has to latch onto at a time like this. So allow me to even the playing field, just a little. Do me a favor, and look down to your Life Tracker, I want to give you a present.”

My forearm tickled like an army of ants were crawling over it as the numbers on my arm starting going up before stopping at 72 hours.

“Three days, Detective Mandel. That’s my gift to you. Three days to find me and stop me.”

“Stop you from what? What’ve you been scheming up in that cracked brain of yours?”

“Oh, I don’t want to ruin the surprise. You’ll be finding that out soon enough.” Malcolm said letting the words linger in the air as he toyed with me like a cat with a piece of string. “Now, I understand the complication of motivating an individual such as you.”

“You’re pretending like you know me pretty well, Malc. You took something from me, and I took something from you. I’m content to call it even, so stop trying to pull me into your sadistic little game.”  I said wondering if anybody actually believed what I was saying.

“I was afraid you’d say that, and that just will not do, Detective. You beat me once, and you will give me the chance for redemption. Of that, I am certain. Otherwise those days I lent you will have gone to waste. You wouldn’t want to do that, now would you?”

“Why should I care?”

“Because, Detective, those three days I gave you, I got from your wife.”

A shot of pure adrenaline to the heart would probably have hurt less than hearing I was living on the time meant for my Diana. My legs turned to rubber beneath me as I put out a hand too steady myself. Raines was quick on her heels and grabbed my arm to steady me.

“You’re a sick bastard, Malcolm. And I promise you, this time, I’m going to kill you.”

“Now that’s the fighting spirit, Detective. Let the game begin.” Malcolm said as the line turned to fuzz.

I was vaguely aware of the room spinning as I dropped the phone to the ground.

“What the hell happened to the trace, Walter?” Captain Marin said pounding his fist against the desktop causing a jar of pens to topple over, spilling its contents to the floor.

“I don’t know, sir. He had it pinging off towers all over the world. The final trace put him in the center of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“You.” Marin said turning to me. “You’re done here. I don’t care what that psychopath said, my word is final and you are not on this case. Go crawl back under that rock of yours and kindly do me the favor of dying out of my sight, and out of my mind.”

“Listen, Jerry.” I said standing over him. “I want to be here even less than you want me here, of that you can be sure. But this is personal, and I got nothing to lose. You can either let me help in whatever way I’m able too, or you can get the hell outta my way. Either way, I’m gonna find that piece of garbage and do what we should’ve done a long time ago.”

“And what exactly is that?” Marin said taking half a step back.

                “I’m gonna put a bullet between his eyes.”

Thanks for reading, stop back in on Tuesday for the next installment of the story.

Anthony

© 2012 Anthony Vicino