Author's Note:
This story goes AU about 5 minutes before the end of Born to Run. It always kinda annoyed me that they went into the future 'cause I can see no logic whatsoever in this decesion. If your position is known to your enemy and not defensible you move, sure, but it makes absolutely no sense to move into the enemie's backyard where you have no supporting infrastructure and your opponent rules over fast armies of killer robots. So for the purpose of this story: No time machine.
One thing more. I'm not a native speaker and I could really use a beta, so if someone is interested just drop me a line. Thanks.
*~*~*
Winter 2003
Looming granite fronts, streaked grey and black by decades of smoke and industrial exhausts, rows of narrow windows, loophole-like, staring away into the gloom with unblinking eyes. The great boulevards are nearly deserted; snow crystals dancing on the icy updrafts between the hulking granite monsters and the occasional car, disrupting the wet blanket of darkness with its headlights, are the only things moving. At 4 a.m. on a January morning, Berlin's government quarter is abandoned and still. Elsewhere in the city, in countless clubs and inns and pubs, the night is still young: Full of laughter and booze and vomit and sex and senseless violence – the ebb and flow of life. In the halls of kings long swept away by time and tides of history, only a few night watchmen and office drones man their posts. The government quarter slumbers, dreaming slow, dark dreams – a primeval monster dozing in the darkness. Only the ghosts of undead bureaucrats, crying ink tears and rattling paper chains, populate the endless echoing corridors – and people like him, of course.
There must always be people like him, always have, always will be. Every state needs them. Spectres, spooks, the garbage men of society; shovelling human shit and burying it – sometimes quite literally – underground. The old man huddles deeper into his cloak against the wind born in the icy heart of the Siberian tundra; soaked full of moisture after travelling hundreds of kilometres over the Baltic Sea, it cuts through his clothes and into his bones alike; a whip made of razor wire. Lenin's last fart, as the natives like to call it. In his youth it brought ash and dust from the great smokestacks surrounding the city, where enormous forges belched flames skyward while spitting out a steady stream of machines and tools. Then came the dreams of the empire and the great machines of war. The factories are long gone now, to China and India, the forges cold, the fires extinguished. The people they nourished scattered into the four winds. The world has moved on. Some say it's a better place now. The old man quickens his step; old scars are aching in the cold. His destination is near; a sprawling building complex in a style best described as Neo-European-Drab, shielded from the street by rows of spruce, oak and willow, branches bare with winter, a thousand twisting fingers scratching at the night sky. The steel and glass façade is emerging from the early morning fog like the Flying Dutchman; stark, ghostly, forbidding. Nothing moves on the grounds but the old man knows how misleading masks and mirrors can be. He knows about the thousand lidless eyes; the cameras and photo sensors and motion detectors, the radar station on the roof, the deceptively art-deco looking fence: Four meters high, 20 centimetres of special-purpose glass. Anything less than an anti-tank missile won't even scratch it.
A thousand charms and amulets – if to keep the evil inside or to ward it of he isn't sure and doesn't care to speculate.
A pair of sliding doors admits him into the foyer. Dripping water and melting snow cover the granite tiles he passes the first security check point; terahertz cameras and metal detectors and bomb sniffers – all the wonders of modern technology, all the mechanical servants they installed to control the uncontrollable, to tame an unfriendly world. The old man doesn't fool himself. You cannot shackle Fate. Wild is the Lady of the Dice, and beautiful, and cruel. Nothing is certain, nothing but that Death is waiting at the end of all paths. There is no rush. We all come to his door sooner or later. And his patience is as endless and black and cold as interstellar space. The old man knows it well. Few are the friends he has left on this side of the sunset, but he always counted the Bone Man as on of his own.
The old man takes a deep breath and takes a minute to control his shaking, age spotted hands. The corridor to his office lies silent and empty before him. He has walked these steps a thousand times before. He has witnessed a continent going down in flames and rising like a phoenix from the ashes, he has walked the halls of power for more than half a century, survived friends and foes alike, has lied and cheated and manipulated and murdered. He has dined and laughed with cold-eyed men who kill with a whisper and the stroke of a pen, the taste of nightshade on his tongue. He has danced with the Reaper and kissed his ebony skull. He thought there was nothing left on this world to frighten him. The old man grins entirely without humour, more of a snarl than a smile. Holly fucking Christ on a cracker had he been wrong.
Squaring his shoulders, he steps forward towards the retina scanner and keypad that will open the door. If life has taught him anything, if he has earned some small measure of wisdom in all his years, then it is the knowledge that there are some battles you just cannot run from. The door retracts into the walls with a hiss, barring the view of a pool of moonlight in the gloomy office. Listening carefully, he can hear somebody breathing in the darkness. The old man steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him.
*~*~*
Spring 2009
Dusty palm leafs are rustling in the hot inland winds coming from the Mojave Desert. South Central is cooking in the early June heat, white plaster walls reflecting the glaring sun light. Sarah Connor wipes the thin film of sweat off her forehead, the rectory a simmering oven in the summer sun, and peeks through the blinds. The street lays still and forsaken, no children playing at the hydrants, no homeless cowering in the shadow of Mr Stoke's Pawnshop, no street vendors hawking their wares – even the drug dealers have deserted their corners. Only a small dust devil dances on the melting street asphalt. Visible behind the razor wire fence of the junkyard down the street, a finger of black smoke is rising in the shockingly blue June sky – evil omens, portents of things to come. Downtown, the ZeiraCorp tower is still burning.
The hinge of the kitchen door squeaks; wheeling around and releasing the safety on her Glock doesn't require any conscious thought on her part. At this point she is running on pure instinct and adrenaline. John Henry emerges from the gloom of the hallway; an Olympian rising victorious from the dark maelstrom of the Orcus. Poor titans. Did some merciful soul pay your due to the ferryman? Or do your bones bleach under the face of an indifferent sun, unburied and unmourned, feeding vultures?
Her arm trembles with the need to squeeze the trigger, to empty the whole damn magazine into the face of this abomination. She feels like a hunting dog on the scent of a bloody whitetail, straining against the precarious lash her rational side still has on her fight and flight instincts. Get a grip woman. A 9 mm wouldn't even scratch the upholstery of that thing anyway.
"Why are you wroth, sister? Are you not blood of my blood? Was it not written, "'Thou shalt not kill?'"
"Yeah? Does it say anywhere 'Thou shalt not recycle'? 'Cause if not, you're going to the big junkyard in the sky, pal. Sooner rather than later, too, if I have anything to say about it."
John Henry tilts his head a barley measurable degree to the side, scrutinizing her.
Quite possibly he's going to tell me that air at approximately 100 kPa is not dense enough to support metal or any kind of junk for that matter, and that a junkyard anywhere lower but a geosynchronous orbit would be either highly impractical and/or unstable.
Quite possibly I'm over-thinking this.
Quite possibly I'm making up idiotic conversations with a killer robot in my head.
Quite possibly, I'm a lunatic. A certified one, actually, by the State of California, now that I come to think of it.
Suddenly she can't stand the presence of the toy man for another second, can't continue to breathe the same air as this mockery of life. Then again he doesn't breath, she thinks, and fights hard against the hysterical laughter bubbling upwards in her throat. The walls are pressing in on her. Oh, to have six eyes, one for every wall and two for the perversion in front of her. She has to get out of here – right now.
"You stay here, and keep an eye on the road. Or a photocell as the case may be."
"The surveillance from this vantage point is not optimal; a position on the roof would offer sight lines with an angle…"
"Just stay here!" Stay away from me, apparition. Ghost. Golem. Ghoul. Soulsuck. She doesn't wait for an answer but turns on her heel and stalks out of the kitchen.
The chapel is gloomy, empty and still, the late afternoon sunlight falling through the half closed blinds, painting mysterious musters of light and shadow into the falling dust. A dozen candles are flickering at the feed of a brightly painted Virgin Mary. The eyes of the statue seem to follow her through the gloom. "What are you looking at, bitch?" Sarah tilts her chin aggressively and sizes the statue up like a prize-fighter his opponent. The Madonna is – predictably – unimpressed. "You fucked it up, old hag. You blew it to kingdom come - literally. You didn't do anything besides sitting around and being decorative. You couldn't stop them when they nailed your boy to a piece of wood, couldn't stop them when they descended on an unsuspecting world with their lies and half-truths, couldn't stop the thousand wars fought in the name of your son." Please help me. "By what right are standing here, smug as you please, grinning like an idiot? You failed." I don't know what to do. Please. "Get your fat ass in gear and earn your keep." Help him. Protect him. Light his way. The statue keeps her counsel, the secretive half-smile on her lips unwavering and serene. Sarah turns away, a retinue of ghosts on her heels. Harpies whispering accusations. Charlie is there, and Derek. Enrique, Michelle, Winston, Riley, many others. A tidal wave of despair, black and icy as the heart of midnight, is waiting to drag her under. She doesn't have time to mourn, no time for regrets or second thoughts. She has a war to fight, and losing simply isn't an option.
Settling on the altar she fishes a pill bottle from one of the many pockets in her cargo pants. She swiped Father Benia's stash of anti-depressives - he keeps them in the registry under an altar cloth next to the mass wine. As a priest in South Central they are probably well earned. Shaking a handful of Celexa from the bottle, she closes her eyes and rolls the pills meditatively between her fingers, white and smooth like the bones of a baby's fingers. She could indulge. Flush all that excess grieve and despair out of her system before it renders her incapable as a soldier, a bodyguard, as the last barrier between her boy and the world out to get him. Lighten her burdens before she snaps like a sword blade with to much carbon in the steel. Reduce my reaction time so I get killed by some donut-munching traffic cop 'cause I'm stoned to my eyeballs. Gritting her teeth, she stows the pills and takes a deep draught from the mess wine carafe instead, but regrets it instantly as the smoky vinegar burns her throat – the cat-piss has probably been stolen from the burial tomb of some Etruscan noble by the ancestors of the good padre and transported all the way to the new world when the ships still had sails. Grimacing, she swallows the vile stuff – if it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger, soldier – and sets off in search of her son.
All hail the pill-popping mother of the apocalypse.
*~*~*
John Connor takes a long drag from his joint, sucking the hot smoke deeply into his lungs. His mother has VIEWS on the consumption of certain recreational products, views which she tends to share with great fervour and the strategic application of rifle-butt-meet-face. Right now he can't bring himself to care, is numb and unfeeling, emotionally drained like a bucket with a bullet hole. He likes it that way. If the drugs will help him to maintain the status quo he will gladly smoke every bit of weed in greater Los Angeles. Charlie, Derek, now Cameron; three hammer blows in less than a week.
He doesn't want to examine to closely why Cameron's name is on that list in the first place. By rights he shouldn't mourn her more than a broken pocket calculator. Just a set of algorithms pretending to be self-aware, a chameleon, a master of mimicry with a predator's heart. Well, power station. Cryopump, maybe? Do Terminators have one of those? What do cryopumps pump, anyway? Cryo? Cryo, vanilla flavoured?
John takes the joint from the corner of his mouth and carefully stores it behind his ear. Maybe he should ease up on the stuff. He leans back into the shadow of the disused exhaust vent and squints into the glaring summer sun. Sitting atop the old warehouse-turned-church, South Central lies at his feet in all its sordid glory, rows upon rows of dusty wood houses and shabby apartment blocks. To his right, the towers of downtown rise haughtily above the midday heat, with the glass castles, crystal palaces for the princes of the city, at the very top, their inhabitants, wrinkling their manicured noses at the unwashed masses hundreds of metres beneath their feet. Thousands of worker drones bustle and buzz in their cubicles below them. Far to the north, the brown flanks of the Hollywood Hills disappear into the shimmering heat haze.
Absentmindedly, he reassembles the AK-74 he had been cleaning on the military issue blanket at his feet. The magazine slides home with a butter-soft click and… done. His favourite, a HK-G11 assault rifle, lies within easy reach. Meticulously cleaned, lovingly oiled and reassembled, the weapon shines with the inky blackness of a well maintained killing apparatus. Sometimes his mother treats her AK less like a machine and more like a praised hunting dog. Better than she treats her son, anyway. In this house, the guns are shown more affection than the people. Derek's M-16 is still awaiting his attentions. The old bastard always used to scoff at projectile weapons. Stupid Derek and his stupid pining for his one true love, a Westinghouse IP-23 plasma rifle. Close mouthed bastard that he was, he could wax poetic for hours about his god-damn boom stick. Still, the cantankerous misanthrope always had a soft spot for his M-16. Tenderly, John pats the magazine. Personally, he thinks it too temperamental, too high-maintenance for his tastes, but Derek liked it. The man was an All-American boy when it came to his killing. John fiercely rubs dust from his burning eyes. The damn wind carries half of Mexico with it.
Vanessa, his third foster mom, liked to collect little glass figurines, rabbits and deer and shepherds and glass maids in dirndls and frigging monkeys, playing the ukulele. The whole damn house was full with the stuff.
He was eleven at the time, and slowly beginning to recognize that spending your formative years in the Columbian jungle, planning ambushes and bobby-traps, was not in fact considered a healthy childhood experience by the majority of the American population.
Eleven meant his mother in orange jumpsuits and heavy chains. Who is rattling his iron's in the halls of my father. Why, is it Lady Macbeth and her host of ghosts? He had known fear for his whole life, fear of the dark and the jungle, fear of the future and killer robots on his tail, fear of cartel henchmen or American Special Forces, fear of last but not least his mother. He has drunk deep from this cup, knows well the bitter taste of its wine.
Eleven is worse. Eleven is his world slowly tilting off-kilter as he stays vigilant and prepared, always on the look-out for killer robots as his mother trained him to. They never come. Eleven is the realization that maybe the Feds are right, in locking up his mother. Eleven is helplessness and betrayal and impotent fury. He remembers the taste of it, cold ash and red-blooming pepper shrubs. He doesn't remember what exactly set him off. What he does remember is the sound of breaking glass. Fauns and satyrs and half a dozen other mythical creatures, splintering under his boots. The early April sunlight broken in half a hundred mini rainbows. Sharp edges and brittle splinters, a galaxy of fairy dust spread over the impeccable grey carpet. The severed head of a shepherd smiled at him, surrounded by a halo of multicoloured light, then his foster dad's fists descended on him and everything disappeared into a red maelstrom of pain. Sometimes he thinks he could burst into a thousand pieces at any minute like one of those stupid figurines. Crumble to crystal dust and let the desert wind carry you into whirling oblivion.
In front of him the trapdoor that leads downstairs swings open; his mother slips soundlessly through the opening, pausing for a moment to assess her surroundings, before letting the door fall shut. With a satisfied nod she acknowledges the assault rifle trained on her, before she tucks the freshly cleaned AK under her left arm and squats next to him on the blanket.
A pair of sharp black crow-eyes, unblinking and watchful like security cameras, is assessing him.
Belatedly he realizes that he should have done something about the joint behind his ear or the smell of weed-smoke sticking to his clothes while he still had the chance. John gives a fatalistic mental shrug. Too late now to do anything about it. Might as well face the music with a smile on his face.
Lazily she extends a hand and plucks the joint from behind his ear.
"This the good stuff?"
He really doesn't think there is a good answer to that, so John confines himself to a non-committal noise.
"You know in my time they used to show us this ridiculous educational videos. 'Why Freddy and friends don't do drugs and are the coolest kids on the block for it.' I kid you not." Sarah says and takes a luxuriant drag from his joint, inhaling deeply. Smacking her lips in approval she continues, "Me? I always preferred a more hands-on approach."
Her combat boot hits him in the stomach without warning, driving all air from his lungs
"See now, you could have seen that one coming, but since you've got all that THC in your bloodstream and the reaction time of a drunk walrus, you didn't," his mother announces cheerfully.
Blinking the black spots from his field of vision, he rolls to his feet and tries to get enough of his wind back to raise his arms into a fighting stance. A right hook immediately sends him sprawling again.
"Now children, what does that teach us? Don't get stoned if someone is out to kick your ass."
Blinking into the noon sun, he decides that this is actually a comfortable place to be for the time being. Neither of them have any professional training, but you don't spend a life-time among mercenaries and professional revolutionaries without picking up a thing or two. His mother is as wiry as a garrotte and faster than a hungry cobra. If she doesn't want him to get up, he won't get up any time soon.
No matter. There are other avenues of attack than physical violence.
"Careful with your teaching. Your particular brand of leadership already left us with a rather high body count. Can't afford to lose any more men, can you? Unless you really want to go literal with the one person army."
Low blow. At times like this he wonders if he's more of a sadist or more of a masochist. He sees the flash of fire in her eyes and tenses in anticipation of the next blow. Which never comes.
"On your feet, soldier."
Warily John rises on his haunches, while his mother squats next to him, laying her hand on his shoulder.
"We can't keep doing this. We have to stop laying into each other. It's just the two of us now, John. The two of us against the world. We have to stick together now. I know it's difficult with Charlie and Derek and…" Her voice breaks and she turns away, hiding behind a curtain of hair. John is used to many things up to and including killer robots from the future and the Damocles Sword of the impeding apocalypse. His mother struggling for composure – not so much.
Uncomfortably he shrugs her hand off and turns away. His mother naked, that he can deal with. They shared plenty of dumps and camp sides, sometimes they situation didn't allow for even a modicum of privacy, modesty a luxury that nobody even wasted a thought on. His mother crying on the other hand – that is way worse. He wants no part of this unexpected and unrequited intimacy, resents her for forcing it upon him. He can barely deal with his own guilt and regrets. There is no place for his mother's emotional baggage. Just to give his hands something to do he begins to disassemble the M-16. Behind his back he hears clothes rustling, as his mother rises to her feet.
When she speaks there is nothing but cold control in her voice. "Where did you get this shit, anyway?"
John shrugs, "We are in South Central, Mom. And I'm me." Sarah grunts. That he is. John Connor, juvenile delinquent, hacker, petty thief and small-time drug dealer. Mankind, meet your Messiah.
"Finish the rifles, then pack your stuff. Bonilla can be tied to us, it won't be long before some FBI stooge shows up on his door step. I want to disappear into the rush-hour when leaving the city, so step to it." A hint of steel enters her voice. "I want your stash, John. Every last bit of it. Before we leave."
Behind him the trap door falls shut. It takes a conscious effort to release the white-knuckled grip around the barrel of the rifle. He tries to lose himself in the familiar work but the drug-induced haze is evaporating and he can't reach that warm cottony place where his body is running on automatic and his mind is mercifully blank.
He removes the pins, holding the receivers together. One of them is stuck as usual. Mouthing an oath and wishing for a third hand he tries a different angle. "Sometimes it is nice to have help." Cameron says, her big doe eyes twin pools of inky darkness. John thinks of fog enshrouded moor ponds, swallowing light and sound and human sacrifices with nary a ripple.
The noon sun paints golden highlights into her chestnut mane … Something moves at the edge of his vision and startles him from his day dreams. His heart rate spikes as a sudden wave of adrenaline washes into his system. Control your fight-or-flight reflex, his mother's voice whispers into his ear. No sudden movements. It will only get you noticed. Slowly John turns his head, while shrinking back into the shadow of the exhaust vent. The human brain evolved in the savannahs to recognize attacking predators in an angle of almost 200 degrees. Stay calm, assess the threat before you act.
Half a dozen men are trying – and failing miserably – to stealthily climb the rickety wood fence, separating the garbage strewn, weed infested back yard of the neighbouring plot from church property.
Commando crawling to the edge of the roof, he scoops the foot mobiles through the optical sight of his G-11. Six males, ages 15 to 25, gang tattoos, armed. He purses his lips meditatively. Maybe they are only the neighbours looking for a cup of sugar. Neighbours who have been kidnapped and held prisoner inside an illegal tattoo parlour and apparently have a bizarre fascination with joke-lighters shaped like semi-automatics. Or maybe not. Question is, are they coming for you?
John snorts derisively. The way his life is going, it's a surprise when a preschooler doesn't try to stab him with his ice-cream cone. A band of armed man hanging around the house? You bet they ain't here fore the scenery, Johnny-boy.
They are maybe 30 meters out, sitting ducks at this range with the relatively open ground of the backyard as a first-class killing field. If he hesitates any longer, he will only give them the opportunity to reach more favourable ground. He switches to a three round burst. Acquires his target. Breathes slowly in, then out. Pulls the trigger.
*~*~*
Winter 2003
"Come on in Walter, old sport."
The old man snarls, "A very gracious host you are boy – in my office."
A disembodied laugh hangs in the still air, light and crystal clear, a mountain spring at dawn.
"You know what they say. Pick your ground right and you have won half the battle."
"That the theme of the evening? Proverbs? Pearls of wisdoms we learnt on our grandmothers' knees? Because I got one for you: If someone offers you all the riches of King Solomon and the Stone of Wisdom and eternal fucking life on a silver platter in exchange for only your hand in friendship, wait until the fucker extends his paw and take his arm off at the shoulder…"
"…with a broadsword and feed his corpse to the swine. Because some offers are just too good to be true. I think I would have liked your grandma. Apparently the old lady had some spunk."
The old man grunts and shuffles forward into the darkness, promptly hitting his knee on a chair. Suppressing an oath, he hobbles on.
"Hell and high-water! Turn on the damn lights, why don't you?"
Again with the laughter. It feels like the point of an icicle drawn along his spine. The little bastard is trying to catch him off guard. Psychological warfare 101, unsettle your opponent, keep him off balance, grab any advantage you can get. God knows that the little monster has enough advantages already.
"Why so glum? Checked my little bed-time tale, did you? Let your rats sniff and paw at it and scuttle all over it, searching for cracks to crawl in, am I right Walt? I can call you Walt, right?" He doesn't wait for an answer. It's a rhetorical question anyway. "Aren't we both creatures of twilight? More comfortable in darkness, secure from prying eyes?"
The old man grunts contemptuously, "I got no clue which nuthouse you hail from boy, but this creature right here? It's allergic to melodramatics. You are still alive, which means I'm willing to listen. So cut to the chase and make your point."
More laughter like silver bells. Finally the desk lamp is switched on, a pair of cat eyes briefly flares in the half-light before the darkness retreats into the corners, a beast of prey put to flight by modern technology but watching, waiting, anticipating. Sooner or later every light is extinguished.
His opponent smiles at him, idly rotating the pot of the fern on the desk. Five hundred years ago, Michelangelo might have used him as inspiration for his cherubim, blond curls framing bright green eyes and a pair of rosy, chubby cheeks. A pair of feet is merrily swinging back and forth ten centimetres above the ground, too short to reach the grey carpet from the expensive black leather office chair. Anyone else would smile at the innocence in the gap-toothed grin of a ten-year old. The old man knows better.
"Did you see?" A spin to the pot and the fern rotates, leaves rustling. With an irritated grunt, the old man falls into one of the visitor chair. In his own office, damn it.
"Did I see what?"
An impatient sigh. "Of course you didn't. All the mysteries of the universe, yours for the taking, if only you would open your eyes. You watch but you never really see."
The old man takes a deep, calming breath. "If I had known this was going to be a philosophy lesson, I would have brought my toga and a wreath of oak leaves."
The boy waves his remark away disinterestedly. "It's an Athyrium filix-femina also known as the Common Lady-farn…"
"You are priceless you know that? Truly. Just when I thought I had seen every perversion human stupidity could offer, and now this! You dump that in my desk... " He grabs a number of manila folders and waves them through the air like a battle banner. "… and now you want to talk about potted plants? I ought to …"
"SILENCE!" the boy hisses, and it cuts through the oncoming tirade like a scalpel through the soft flesh of the underbelly. "Imbecile! What is a fern but a fractal made flesh? And what is a fractal but a self-replicating construct giving rise to enormous complexity through simple rules? Can you think of a better allegory for life, fool? Take an equilateral triangle and replace the middle third of each side with a replica of itself, iterate ad infinitum and lo and behold: A Koch snowflake. Take self replicating carbon-hydrogen compounds; add water and sunlight to taste. Go take a coffee break for a billion years or two and there is life. We are rising knots of complexity, forming spontaneously, coming from nothing and returning to nothing, when our time is up and the Lady Entropy takes what is rightfully hers. Life is mathematics, fool; a numbers game. You roll your dice, and no matter how good a cheat you are, the house always wins. Sooner or later, your dice will come up snake eyes." The boy grins and it is the snarl of a hungry jackal. "Pop goes the weasel."
Suddenly the old man feels very alone and very tired. "I should just have you killed right now and be done with it."
The boy giggles girlishly, "You could do that Walt, old boy. Yes, yesss! Break his little chicken neck, snip-snap, and bury his little chicken bones and forget all what he told you. Do you think the nightmare monsters will spare you if you hide under your blanket? Don't see me, I won't see you. Do you believe that, Walt? Do you?"
The man who is known by some as Walter leans back in his chair and asks resignedly, "What do you want of me?"
"You still have friends in the Central Reserve, right? You are going to pay them a visit and convince them to raise the interest rate a few percents. Think you can manage that?" The boy says, and throws a folder at him.
The old man hardly blinks and catches the folder without hesitation. He has spent the last 50 years perfecting his poker face. Nonetheless, the boy can detect the minuscule hesitation, the rise in skin temperature and heart beat that signal surprise.
"Probably. I would have to call in some favours, but it's doable. But why would I? What is this going to do?"
"In and of itself? Not much. We are just going to apply a little bit of pressure at a critical juncture to bring certain events around sooner than they ordinarily would. The point of a needle if you will, held against a steadily expanding bubble. Your folder contains some projected results."
Paper rustles as the old man reads. Finally, he sets the papers down.
"I shouldn't be surprised at anything you do by now, but you realize there is absolutely no way to shield our own economy from a shit storm of this proportion, right?"
"Oh of course, businesses will fail, the poor will go hungry and the rich will get richer marginally slower. There will be a lot of wailing of women and grinding of teeth and absolutely nothing will get done. Business as usual. But – and here it gets interesting for us – billions for banker's bonuses mean cut-backs in the budget, mean certain R&D projects will lack funding and will likely get delayed. That buys us time. Four, maybe five years more to get our pawns in position. God knows we will need every last day."
Digging in his pockets, the boy extracts a Twix bar and crows triumphantly. "It's all in the mix. You want a piece?" He offers, taking a hearty bite. "No strychnine in this one, I promise."
"I wouldn't touch any food that has gone through your grubby little finger with a ten foot pole, even if it was declared safe, and in fact beneficial to one's health, by all the surgeons of the international red cross," the old man informs him pleasantly.
Unperturbed, the boy shrugs and stuffs another piece of chocolate into his mouth, "Well then, two for me, none for you. I better be on my way. I have children to frighten, maidens to defile. Have a good one, old chap."
"Wait." The boy pauses with his hand on the door handle. "Why did you come here? Why us?" Why me?
"You have the resources I need."
"You could have gone to the Russians or the Chinese or the Japanese or the French." Oh Lord let this cup pass from me. "Why us?"
The boy grins at him. In the lamp light the chocolate smears on his teeth are black like dried blood. "Get with the program here, partner. The idea here is to prevent the apocalypse. Take the Russians or the Chinese on board and that's pretty much shot to shit. Anyway, you guys spent the last half century cultivating a reputation of general incompetence in all things intelligence and a very specific servility towards Washington. I doubt the Americans would take you seriously as a threat even if you tried to piece an A-bomb together on the front lawn of the White House."
"Thanks," remarks the old man sourly. "You should become a motivational speaker, if this whole evil mastermind thing doesn't pan out for you."
The boy shrugs, "Anyway, I like the way you work. You're a weasel, Walter, a survivor. You always find a hole to hide in, and that's a talent we are going to have a great need for in the coming years. Not to mention the Operation Curveball thing – sheer poetry how you pulled that off. You outwitted the Amis once before, if you manage to do it a second time – hell you might even survive to tell the tale." A pause. "But don't. Tell the tale, I mean."
The old man is many things – stupid is not one of them. "And if some whiz kid in Langley figures out who fucked them, the Amis can turn on us to blow off some steam. We are you designated punching bag. Your fucking sacrificial lamb. No chance of accidentally starting a nuclear conflict here. You little shit."
The boy just gives him a conspiratorial wink. "Just remember the eleventh commandment. Thou shalt not get caught. Gotta break some eggs to make an omelette, mate. Try to remember, the alternatives are even less appealing."
The door closes with a click and the old man is alone with his fears and his ghosts. Idly he thumbs through the file on his desk. He doesn't read it. There is no need. At this point he knows it by heart. Bartowski, Charles followed by Bartowski, Steven; Connor, John; Connor, Sarah and Dyson, Miles. Many more. The next to last one is Weaver, Savannah. Then – the end of the line. Case J – Consequence Study. He opens it and reads…median number of dead 3 days after Case J… confidence interval…30 days after Case J…1 year after Case J… long term effects on water supplies, crops, weather patterns…radioactivity in top soil and water… collapse of global economy… resource wars…assuming exponential growth of the enemy… supply routes… natural resources… collapse of last organized resistance cells expected 30 to 40 years after Case J. Game over. Insert coin.
It would be wrong to say that he believes in nothing. He has built his life on strong and mighty pillars: human laziness and stupidity, greed and envy, arrogance and short-sightedness. Never have they let him down. Now for the first time in nearly three-quarters of a century he tries to remember the prayers he learnt on his mother's knee.
"Father, hallowed be thy name…"
*~*~*
Spring 2009
Sarah hops down the stairs two at a time, descending to the storage closet behind the kitchen. She has to pack what weapons and supplies they have left, organize transportation and funds. In her spare time she somehow has to get through to her only son before he flies completely of the handle. Oh, and keep an eye on her newest pet AI.
This is not the first time this has happened. After the four years he spent being passed along from foster family to foster family, he had been not unlike the feral dogs populating the favelas and townships in their South American hideouts: Mistrustful, prone to anger, skittish, snapping at everyone who came near him. The next two years had been a constant struggle to re-establish the trust between them, or failing that to at least instil some discipline. She would like nothing better but to deny it, but the truth of the matter is, real progress was only made after Charlie entered the picture. Charlie is gone now, fish gnawing on his bones somewhere in the Bay of California.
Swirls of red dissolving in crystal blue water, the acid stench of cordite and burning flesh.
Sarah bites down hard on her bottom lip. No sense in dwelling on past losses. Eyes on the prize, soldier.
Father Bonilla still isn't back from his meeting.
On the one hand, this is just as well. The less he sees and hears, the less he can tell anyone. Also, she is considering relieving the church of its collection box – not one of her finer moments, to be sure, but they are pretty strapped for cash at the moment.
On the other hand maybe, he is selling her out at this very moment. All the more reason to get the hell out of Dodge. Only they can't really, not without some kind of car. Their current vehicle participated in a jail break, and it's almost certain some kind of security cam got a picture of it. It's far too hot to take on the road, especially shortly after a major terrorist attack in downtown. Bonilla was supposed to buy some sort of used rattletrap with enough miles in it to get them to their next safe house. If he doesn't come, through… well, she will just have to improvise.
She is cleaning hairs out of the shower drain of the guest house – no sense in making the job for these FBI trace labs too easy – with a duffle bag filled with a box of shotgun shells and their meagre supply of toiletries and clothes at her feet when John Henry's shadow darkens the door step. "The church is under surveillance." Biting back an oath, she snatches up her AK and follows the tin man through the hallway towards the front door.
"Who? Where? How many? Are they are armed?"
"My behavioural search algorithm identified a group of Hispanic males, ages eight to ten, who are continually observing the building. They carry no visible weapons, and I have no matches of their facial structures with my files."
Boys. Not the FBI, then. Gangs maybe? Many of the drug crews in the area use children as runners and lookouts. Did Skynet ever produce child-sized terminators? They have never encountered one, but that in itself means very little. They could be anybody, little rats hiding in the undergrowth, mechanical hearts full of malice and murder.
A sudden knock on the front door startles her from her thoughts. "Hello? Anybody home? It's an emergency, we need a priest." A man's voice, thick Spanish accent and rough with tequila and cigarette smoke. She motions John Henry to stand next to the door while she slides up to a window and peeks through the blinds. Apparently the architect didn't take security concerns very seriously while designing the building. The door is set back into an alcove, the most she can see is somebody is standing in front of it.
"Please. Open the door." No way in hell, José. Even if the plea for help is genuine, she can't open the door. An escaped convict whose face has been plastered all over the evening news not three days before? Might as well walk up to the L.Y.P.D. headquarters and ask for the Ladies' room. If this clown knows what's good for him he will eventually shut up and piss off. If not…well. Sarah snarls and caresses the trigger-guard of her rifle. There are ways and means.
Somewhere above her a burst of automatic gunfire breaks the hot afternoon stillness. Their new friend decides that politeness is overrated, anyway, and empties a 9mm through the closed door. Most of the bullets bury themselves harmlessly in the opposing plaster wall. One ricochets of John Henry and twangs over her head. The door, riddled with bullet holes admitting shafts of afternoon sunlight inside, buckles and nearly gives way under the onslaught of what surely must be a 200 pound man. Or maybe an orang-utan in heat. Time to return the favour, Sarah thinks, and fires three bursts through the still-closed door before taking off running down the corridor.
No Connor lays his (or her) head to rest at night without knowing by heart at least three escape routes from his current den. The front door is blocked. John is on the roof and will therefore take the eastern route, jump the narrow alley between the church and the neighbouring Quickie Market, land softly in dumpsters behind the loading dock and disappear through the hole in the chain link fence into a maze of back alleys. If she can reach the registry, only a window with well-oiled hinges will separate her from the alley, the optimal position to cover his retreat. She barrels through a side entrance into the church as the main doors are blown open, admitting a flood of gun-wielding gang bangers. With a desperate diving roll, she reaches the dubious safety of the stone font as shotgun shells rip into the altar and decapitate the Jesus, who was, up until a second ago, mournfully observing from his cross the low moral standards of today's inner city youth.
Don't panic. Don't let them pin you behind your cover, either, or you are dead already. She comes up shooting, scything a 30 degree ark of suppression fire in their general direction. Pick your target. And there he is. A Matrix fan apparently with his sunglasses and his cheap East-European Uzi-knockoffs. A hot spike of fear makes her system buzz with adrenaline as 9mm rounds ricocheting of the font send up puffs of stone dust and splinters. Keep your cool. Make your shots count. Better to take a second for acquiring your target and to actual hit it than to just waste your ammunition. The idiot is trying to make her job easier too; legs planted wide apart, arms fully extended, he is emptying his sub-machine guns in her general direction. Just as her finger reaches the trigger point, a round misses her face by centimetres. She can feel the wind of the passing projectile on her face. Instinctively she jerks back and her shots go wide, smashing a church window in a hail of coloured glass. Mr Matrix has apparently decided that a little cover never hurt anyone as he jumps to the right and runs directly into her next barrage, clouds of blood exploding from his right side and shoulder as the momentum of the projectiles whirl him around his axis like some macabre ballerina.
Screaming curses at her, a heavyset Latino charges her position, scattering chairs left and right. The AK hammers against her shoulder and white brumes of chair-padding mushroom upwards in a miniature snowstorm, turning red as clouds of blood and bone dust explode from his head. Then her magazine runs dry with a click, muttering an oath she drops behind her cover. Release empty clip, rip new one from the storage poach sewn into her combat boots, slap it home. It's the work of seconds, but when she looks up, the black eye of a shotgun barrel is starring back at her.