Delicate feet pivoted upon the dank bricks above the city of New York.
During the murky afternoon, the view of City Hall Park had been somewhat obscured by fog and now the crowds of people gathering outside of the podium seemed much less like people and more like ants, swarming beneath the dark and gloomy waves of cotton overhead that threatened more rain. It was hard to see out, but who better to see through the mist than Smoke himself.
He continued to pace along the roof with great care, finally resting in a crouched position against a grubby, busted vent. As he breathed in the smell of burning fat from the kitchen that was somewhere in the building beneath him he placed a hand over his balaclava and tried not to choke up and blow the mission.
"Oh what a beautiful morning." He whispered sarcastically to himself under his breath.
"Agent Smoke." buzzed the minuscule device wrapped around his left ear. It had to be clipped and adjusted having had no room to sit among the prominent curve of piercings that dotted the rim around his right ear.
"Yes." Came the dry-throated response.
"Do you have eyes on the spider?"
Smoke was already peering through a tiny lens, down into the cloudy atmosphere and locked eyes on the stage and pedestal.
"Affirmative."
"Then you know what to do." The sound cut from the earpiece. Yet again the man atop the roof was left alone with his thoughts although in this moment he refused to truly think. Instead he recalled information from his memory about the angle, the timing. The target.
He waited it out in the bitter cold and rubbed his hands together in hopes that it would fend of the brutal atmosphere of January in New York.
New year, new strain of winter.
The thought flitted across his mind quicker than it vanished. There was no room to think of anything else other than the mission now. Through the air came a roar and it was clear that said target had arrived. The vice president.
To give a speech the world would never forget.
Smoke leaned up and took as deep a breath he could without wanting to throw up from the smell of his surroundings.
"Fate don't fail me now." he muttered to himself. He knelt and began to set up. Below were many cars, surrounding the area with security guards and police. The man in question greeted the people with bold authority and a wide smile that even Smoke could glean from his squatted position above them all.
Time itself seemed to slow around him when the vice president approached the podium and raised a hand to the people.
Smoke already knew what would fall from his lips. He'd been well informed of the treachery the president's lapdog had been engaging in. He'd turned his back on the presidency, flirted in the arms of treason. Now he was about to go to bed with it.
He was about to call the president out in a spur of deranged courage.
It was always a code red situation when Smoke was called in to handle things. He was the man behind many high-profile situations. He was always the last resort.
Smoke knew that this particular case wasn't just an act of political retribution, it was act to level all future calamities before they dared to occur. This was to set an example. Scandals in The White House, no matter how accurate in their portrayal, were never supposed to reach the eyes or ears of the public.
The president in erotic affairs with actress Rachel Star?
That story would never see the light of day as far as Smoke was concerned.
He placed down his lethal weapon and aligned one squinted eye to the target.
"Good morning America." The vice president began, clutching his felt coat tightly shut against the cold. "and to you, the glorious people of New York. I've come here today, not only with the naked faith and intention, that the power of truth will prevail over evil, but also with great fortitude as I step out in the name of justice and attempt to insight you all into some very disconcerting and deeply pressing matters that...my wife and I have discussed in the days leading up to today..." he sighed. Smoke's finger snaked around the trigger holding it snug he exhaled deeply, letting go all emotion. "it is about, in large part the operations of presidency-"
A collective gasp sounded when the air was split with the sound of two gunshots and the vice president's body dropped like a two-ton boulder onto the hard wood of the stage.
Mass hysteria broke out.
Instantly Smoke swung the rifle atop his shoulder and left his position immediately. He dismantled the weapon until it was nothing more than a collation of metal cylinders and stashed them in his rucksack. As the screams of the public shook the earth beneath his feet, Smoke sprinted to the back of the building and his thin body disappeared down a fabric chute.
The moment his feet landed on solid ground, he removed his balaclava and ran eventually merging into the crowds, rushing desperately with them. Lost in the scramble of disarray Smoke slipped completely under the radar of armed security and got away.
100 million.
That's what those two bullets had been worth.
60 million for the first shot to the shoulder and 40 million for the insurance head-shot.
The entire amount had been transferred into the ghost account that no bank had on radar, to a man that no place in the world had on record. It was a cheque directly from the government.
"God I love Tuesdays." Smoke peered out upon the sunset from the open glass living room of his mansion on a deserted peak of Los Angeles. He swirled coffee around in his cup and temporarily tuned out of the moment with nothing but the buzz of the television to connect him to the outside world.
"... we know that superstar Michael Jackson was then rushed to hospital at the scene."
Smoke suddenly quivered as he felt the scorching pain of coffee burning all the way down the front of his grey t-shirt.
"Ahh!" he tried to salvage his steaming upper chest but ended up spilling more from his glass in the process. "Shit!" his head turned from the progressive puddle, quickly toward the television.
Indeed, Michael Jackson's image was splashed across the small screen and Smoke was forced to lay eyes upon the new him. Pale. Wealthy. Untouchable. With the world eating out of the palm of his hands by the looks of things these days.
No doubt an immensely attractive altruist to the average onlooker, but someone that Smoke now hardly recognised. Maybe he wasn't like before. Smoke thought as his eyes assessed the image in front of him. Maybe this new person was a poser, arrogant and self-loving. People of his status usually were that to begin with or became that in the end. Things changed when money got to people's heads, he looked different, it would be impossible for Smoke to imagine him not being different.
Either way it appeared he wasn't in the best shape currently.
On his speed walk to pick up the remote control Smoke heard the reporter gas on about the King of Pop, Rock and Soul's suffering after an impromptu collapse of exhaustion during some rehearsal.
The TV switched off and Smoke stood glaring at it in silence. Enamored by a memory once lived in his mind.
He'd returned from a weekend trip away on his own.
Nobody had known of his plans to leave. He hadn't informed Katherine of his impromptu and fairly insolent disappearance. She was livid when he'd returned home. She had shouted at him for the first time in his life and he had stared blankly at her, as a naïve teenager, unaware of why she'd taken things so personally.
After all it was not like he was her son. He was an outcast, he didn't belong to the Jackson family and he especially didn't belong to her.
He recalled further, with relief, that Joe Jackson hadn't been home on that night to add his unwanted 2 cents to the situation.
When he had gone upstairs and under Katherine's explicit instruction, thoroughly washed his hair then behind his ears and experienced almost half an hour of black dirt swirling around the drain pipe, he'd dressed in Jermaine's handed down old blue pinstriped pajamas and opened the door to his assigned bedroom only to be dragged in by his collar and pushed against the flower patterned walls.
The door closed firmly behind them.
"Where have you been?" came the sudden yet soft interrogation. Still through the faux firm voice he was attempting to put on, Kane could gauge a blunt dissatisfaction...no, disappointment in Michael's voice.
"Where have I been?" Michael's eyes were bright, wide, glistening and determined to have an answer out of him.
"Mother said you'd disappeared. You were gone for three days and nobody knew where you were. She was about to file a missing report on you. How could you just leave like that huh?"
Kane, not particularly attuned to overboard tight knit familial affection dodged the question and slid past his friend to find a suitable place to lay his towel.
"I'm surprised you even know what's been going on around here since you haven't been around much either. You wander where I've been but I could ask you the same thing." Kane threw back. Michael turned, arms crossed. Eyebrows a straight line shrouding bright orbs.
"I got back yesterday. But me performing a show is not the same as vanishing and not letting anybody know where you went. I have to be on the road. You know that."
"Well...I got bored. That sorta thing happens from time to time when nothing's going on at home"
"There's always school..." Michael tried to offer as some sort of incentive. Kane laughed out loud.
"You do know that I never actually show up to that school, right? I doubt they even know I'm a student there." Michael, lanky and awkward swanned up to him and stood near him taking the towel from his grasp just as he was about to place it over the headboard of the bed.
"Don't put it there, you know mom hates it there." Smoke smiled again. This time with mischief. When he'd climbed down from his mental high Michael's eyes were fixed on his and his gaze soon locked on Kane's mouth as he grinned. He'd blinked slowly and Smoke could almost see the anger dissipating from inside him. "My mother..." he'd began gently. "You might not believe it, but she really does care about you."
Another snort slipped from Kane's nose.
"I mean it Kane." Michael stressed, fighting to get through Kane's boyish noggin. "I know you don't mean to but...please don't disappear on her like that...she worries...and she's got enough to worry about as it is. As you can see Joe's not here tonight." Kane's eyebrow cocked with suspicion. Michael's voice lowered as his doey eyes became watery with emotion. "Yesterday they were arguing..."
"Arguing about what?"
Michael didn't speak, his eyes lowered to the ground. Kane's eyebrows furrowed. "about me..." Kane concluded for himself and shook his head. "Your dad doesn't want me here. I knew it."
"Joe's a hard-hearted man Kane. You can't take anything he says to heart." Michael uttered, firm in his beliefs about his father.
"How can I not? I'm living in his house, under his roof. Sometimes I think it'd be better for everyone if I just packed up all my stuff and went for good."
Then before Smoke knew it Michael had grabbed his arms and stopped his brash, animated hand movements and looked him right in the eye.
"No. No it wouldn't...it wouldn't Kane..." in the heat of the moment Kane sensed a certain urgency and desperation to Michael's voice which promptly banished the mere thought of his permanent absence. "Besides...my mom isn't the only one around here who'd miss you-" he'd said moments before the door unexpectedly swung open. Michael retracted his hands from Kane's arms in less than a second and parked them securely behind his back.
"Kane...your dinner is ready downstairs on the table." Katherine's silhouette had breathed exhaustively from the doorway. "After you get done you can come back up here to bed." she instructed.
"Yes ma'am." Smoke had respectfully replied.
"Michael."
"Yes mother."
"Help me change these bed sheets."
Kane remembered the way Michael's eyes had not even glanced his way as he and his mother assumed the task of making things comfortable for him. He lingered at the door, wandering if he should have vocalised the fact that he was a growing 15 year old boy with the capacity to spread his own bed himself and that with the newfound information he'd received from Michael, he was no longer comfortable with Katherine's fragile frame doing anything else for him that he didn't deserve.
He thought it best not to say a single thing more and to instead seek out the first warm home cooked meal he'd had in days.
M
The door of the ward creaked shut though sound didn't even seem to reach Michael's ears. He stayed still, staring blankly out of the half open window opposite him and took in the view of the thick leafy tree ahead, it's branches swayed becomingly in the breeze.
"Michael." came a voice to his left. Still no reaction occurred. Evander, masterfully immune to Michael's mental absence, pulled up a chair right beside his hospital bed.
"How are you feeling?" He outstretched a hand to check Michael's temperature. It was a split second decision for Michael to swerve his head completely to the far right in resistance of his touch.
"The doctor says you're dehydrated." Michael said nothing. "Come on Michael. You know this is why we have a strict dietary plan in place remember, to stop these things from happening. You can't expect to be able to keep up with rehearsals if you're a wilting plant."
"Maybe if I wasn't working so much I wouldn't be so dehydrated." Michael muttered bitterly.
"What was that?"
Evander as usual had assumed total control of the conversation by raising his voice. He pretended not to have heard Michael's complaint. "Michael we need you to be in tip top shape if you're going to give a peak performance. It's not going to be good if you pass out at one of your own concerts, it would be absolutely devastating for your fans."
Michael felt a wave of canned aggression flow through him as Evander turned his current predicament against him. As if Michael had chosen to collapse from exhaustion in the middle of a stage full of people at his rehearsal. He was sure Evander couldn't possible fathom the embarrassment he'd faced at having the world know of his weakened state. He released a long heavy breath, unwilling to participate in any more conversation and rolled onto his side turning his back on his manager.
"Well I'm sure I'll be all better with some rest." He replied curtly. A short silence followed.
"That's the spirit. I'll be back later today to check on you. Rest up." Michael listened to his steps while he vacated the room and heard the door close behind him. He lay staring at the adjacent wall for far too long. A certain swimming feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It was rare that he found any true opportunity for real peace at all these days as it was always at the back of his mind. That gut feeling. Some may call it intuition, but that strong spiraling feeling of doom you get when you realise you've potentially messed up your entire life, to the point where you have no idea how you got where you are or how to get out. It had only taken 3 words and 3 months to completely flip his entire world on its head.
Those words had been "Power of Attorney".
His anguished eyes closed as thoughts of his current situation flooded into his mind but in his emotionally numbed state he just let the thoughts pass on in the hopes that maybe if he let it go and ignored his situation somehow it might just all just go away.
Go away...
His eyes reopened and once again turned to see the thick tree trunk once again. Last night he'd had a dream that he'd climbed out of the window and jumped onto a branch.
Using it as a ledge he walked along it, balancing high above the ground all the way up to the trunk. As he enjoyed the open air and the free feeling of floating miles above the ground, he'd noticed the tree trunk had a door and there was orange light filtering out of it. He'd opened the door and stepped inside only to see a face that almost made his heart stop beating.
Sitting back casually in the chair, one ankle thrown lazily up onto one knee, Kane's lips had turned upward in a smug grin.
"I'm back. Did you miss me?"
He hadn't made it any further in the dream. His eyes had shot open in the dead of the night to find the same tree barren, its trunk without trace of a door as expected. He'd lay back, flattened under the power of the unwarranted mental blast from the past.
He tried to figure out which crevice of his mind decided to drag that face up and present it to him in the present. He'd tried not to dwell on it too long but the more he remembered the current state of his life the more the memory beckoned him in. Urging him further into escapism and to influencing him to contemplate how different things might have been. If only...
No.
No, it was ridiculous. Just a stupid dream and a slither of his subconscious mind that shouldn't have been let to the forefront. He forced it away again snuggling himself into a corner of his hospital bed.
Praying for a miracle to happen.