Of Shadow Born
The Placebo Factor
There had been a time when dreaming of how things could be were enough. It was back in those days, days that seem so long ago, that she would watch him moving around the rooms with a control over everything in his presence. In a way he even had control over her. He didn't actually want it. He had not demanded or taken it. It just happened, and she willingly let it happen. Just being in his presence had given her more of a life than she had out on the streets, stealing to survive. She was more than capable of survival; it was the way she was made, but the man she found that night did something to her and she found herself wanting more and more of him each day.
She had wanted it, had been looking for it. They met on the edge of a storm. She was wild and feral, living only in the moment without care or concern for anything but her own survival. He was living in seclusion, a part of, yet somehow removed from the broken world he was trying to fix. He presented an opportunity to her that she could never refuse. She offered an easier way for him to battle the evil he alone stood against in a dangerous world.
She had been on the run for so long; she had given up on finding someone that she could connect with. He had been alone for so long; he had given up on ever finding someone. Then on a cold night, they found each other in a dark hall. The storm was approaching and although neither could see or hear it coming, they knew they would never again be alone.
But… times change and people change. They had changed. They had been out on the edge of the abyss staring over the infinite depth at the Chaos below. Occasionally they would look across and see each other. It was moments like those they lived for. It was those stolen moments that kept them sane and centered.
Chaos doesn't accept control. It is an entity that won't allow for control. It likes to be free and in a broken world, Chaos thrives.
She stood there looking over the abyss, watching him. Her guardian. Her man. The greatest man she had ever known. She smiled. He nodded. She knew what was coming. They had been waiting for this day for a long time.
There comes a time in every beings life when a leap of faith is required. Sometimes, the gods that be demand it. Sometimes they force it. In the realm of a dark angel and her guardian, they willingly chose to take that leap together. They alone had the power and knowledge to set things right and they accepted the responsibility.
He glanced around. He looked into the abyss. He looked across to her and nodded. She smiled. He looked down again and could see the Chaos staring back at him. It was waiting.
It had accepted their challenge…
And so with a leap of faith and belief only in each other, they jumped into that abyss, and into Chaos and disorder…
He opened his eyes to see the kitten still wrapped in his arms. She turned from his chest to look up into his eyes. They knew it was a dream. Many times, they had such prophetic visions and many times these visions had come to pass in various forms.
He sighed. She snickered and purred. He liked when she purred. She knew it gave him strength. She only did it for him. Others might hear, but he alone understood. He alone could feel the power within her.
She nodded, clutching to him, purring loud and strong, stealing that one last minute of comfort and pleasure from his strong arms. He pulled her tighter in those arms and she drew power from the embrace. He would not disappoint her, nor would she ever let him down. These two had it hard that way.
Twenty minutes later, the guardian was sitting in his private chamber. His Magick, powerful as it is, required preparation. The kitten's power required little preparation, but in its purest form stood unmatched by any save her brothers and sisters.
She smiled down, taking one last kiss from him before she turned and disappeared with a wink and a serious nod. She was gone and he was instantly aware of something lacking, something of his own self missing. He knew she would return to him. She had said it herself once.
"Not even death could keep me away from you."
She had said that to him, mumbled it actually, from within his arms the very night he carried her from the burning remains of the project. Then, she had slept and he watched over her unable to find sleep on his own.
Every time, she smiled before leaving. Each time she kissed his forehead before disappearing into the shadow they both know so well, he felt that same lack of something he could not name. Time would pass. His fingers would move effortlessly across the keyboard. His Magick, powerful even in it's simplest form. He was strong and here in his tower he had become the greatest at the game. None could touch him here, but always, deep in the back of his mind, he worried about her.
It would not compromise the mission. It would not cause problems, but it is always there.
"Hey." A voice spoke through his speakers.
"Hey kitten." He answered. "Read me?"
"Loud and clear," She said. "I'm going in."
"Roger that. Time is 21:47 and 33 seconds." He announced.
"Copy, running silent," She said.
The feeling had eased somewhat as she spoke, but now; as she again disappeared, he was lacking that certain something that he could not name.
He turned his attention back to the screens in front of him. A few lines of code allowed him complete access to the external security systems. An extra line granted him access to the internal systems. He copied loops to stump the guards, most likely not paying attention anyway. He laughed at them, knowing full well some of them would not survive the night.
It was not funny. It just was. Eyes Only had a reputation and that reputation was dark by its very nature. Evil, when it fell under the gaze of the eyes, could not exist there. The dark angel would not allow it.
The loops were copied. A hotkey would activate them at the appropriate time and the kitten's path would be that much easier. He pushed himself at moments like these into a place that only he could go. There was no thought, only the code. On his end, the code was everything. On his end, he was everything the code needed. Eyes Only was the only master of the game, because Eyes Only had created the game.
Everything was prepared. Timing had come to a perfect point. He sat quietly, waiting for the sign only he knew to look for. There it was. On the corner of the screen in camera number three. A blurry trail moved past three guards catching a smoke in the cool night air. None of them noticed as she stepped into shadow along the wall. He could hear their conversation through her mic. It was distant, but clear.
"So she squeezes into the chair and starts to grind." One said.
"Dude, you dawg," Another said. "You a hound from hell, man!"
"I'm telling ya. She was the hottest number I've ever seen." The first one continued. Their voices trailed off as his kitten scaled the wall and entered the building from the third floor. They hadn't noticed the shadows pulsing around her. They couldn't. He had seen it, but they could see nothing. They didn't know how.
"Hallway is clear." He verified and repeated. "Hallway is clear."
She slipped into the hall and headed left toward the corner office. Target number one would be there.
It was a simple enough operation. Roland Dickerson was the President of Sutherland Pharmaceuticals. Johnson Sutherland had taken over the company after his father's untimely death at a party at Edgar Sonrisa's mansion a few years earlier. The old man had been in deep with Sonrisa and after Bruno Anselmo shot the place up, Sutherland's father was one of the DOA being delivered to the Metro Medical Morgue.
Roland Dickerson had been Johnson's roommate in college. The two men had been very good friends. They had started a few businesses, startups with heavy ties to the internet when it mattered. After the pulse though, both men came on board with Sutherland Pharmaceuticals out of necessity. They had helped solidify its position in the post pulse economy.
Tonight, both men had no idea they would not see morning come. There were incidental targets along the way. Five people would find no sleep tonight, or perhaps they would find too much of it.
He listened. There was no security camera in the first office to watch. It had been shut off. The risk to the operation was minimal. There could be no such exposure.
"Is someone there?" A voice asked. The voice was female, about fifty and suddenly, very unsure of itself. "WHO ARE YOU?!?" The voice demanded, but a slight squelching sound ended the conversation.
"That's one." He said from his dark tower. He knew his woman heard. She could always hear him. "Four to go," He said continuing the mission. The older executive had already been forgotten. "Two guards in the hall. Wait for it…"
He knew his kitten well enough to know that she was counting the seconds and listening at the door. She could hear what he watched. Maybe they heard the shouted question. Maybe they didn't. They were essentially the innocents in this equation and didn't deserve the same fate as the others, but ultimately, it wouldn't matter really. Sometimes, others get in the way and inevitably, have to be removed.
"Moving on," He announced to her. "They are waiting for the elevator." He counted out the seconds in his head. Timing was always a factor on these missions. Satellites were not plentiful and windows of opportunity were something of a challenge. The Challenge was to control the satellite and not get hacked himself. His Magick was strong, though, and he maintained the control when necessary. "Go, now." He said. She appeared in the hallway cameras just as the elevator doors were closing. The guards hadn't even turned around before the doors closed. They saw nothing.
"Down the hall and on the right side is the stairwell. It's deserted. Two floors up is target number two. He's locking his office right now." He announced. She nodded and moved quickly up the stairs. Her body was nothing more than a blur taking the steps in short leaps. She was waiting by the door three seconds later, ready to pounce.
"He's turning… wait, he forgot something. Perfect. You can take him out in his office." He watched her in the security cameras. She moved out of the door silently, only the smooth sound of the well oiled door was audible to his microphone. She moved from the stairwell to his office door in a blur. She was behind him in seconds, pushing him into his office.
The door closed slowly on automatic hinges and he could see the body slumping to the floor of the office from the camera at the end of the hall facing the corner office. There had been no sound beyond the slight thud of the body hitting the floor, the latching sound of a closing door. The second of three Vice Presidents in position to continue the operation was now out of the picture.
"You're all clear to the next floor. Target 3 is still sitting in her office. She is on the phone." He got a thumb up and a nod in response. He checked his watch to see how they were running. Right now, they were 48 seconds ahead of schedule. "There is a vent panel above and behind the desk. It runs straight up. The first opening is directly into her office."
She was already climbing. He had lost sight of her and in the metal walls of the air duct, her connection was slightly disrupted. These moments were the ones he dreaded, but when the grate behind the woman moved, he knew all was well. The security feed switched off before the vent panel disappeared into the duct work.
"Okay, hon. I'll talk to you in the morning then. This meeting tonight will be the last one for a while. The bosses are heading out to sea for a while until this whole situation with Eyes Only blows over…" She paused, listening to the other speaker for a minute. "I love you, too." She said just before she hung up the phone. It landed slightly harder than necessary.
The rustling of leather was the only audible sound in the office. He knew it had already been done when she hung up the phone. The noise it made hitting the cradle indicated it had been dropped from a short distance. The loud clapping of plastic on plastic covered the sound of target 3's demise.
"Three down," He said. "And I've located Dickerson and Sutherland in the main office at the top of the building. They are alone but guards are posted at both entrances. The main office through the building is guarded by two men and there is only one guard near the chopper on the roof. He seems to be occupied with the view. Hold on." He said.
A few minutes of furious typing and just a slight snicker later, he came back on. She had made her way to the top of the building in those few short minutes. She waited patiently outside of the hall in the fire escape. No thought held ground in her mind. She knew he was going to remove the nuisance of guards for her. Then she could get to a secondary position and approach on schedule without interference.
"Okay." Third door on the left is a maintenance closet. There is a vent panel there leading straight to the main office. It faces the TV. When the broadcast starts, you can go in. They will be absorbed in the broadcast." He said.
"3…"
"2…"
"1…"
"Holmes, Walker…" A scratchy radio voice reached her hyper sensitive ears through the fire door. "We've got a level two fire alert four floors down from you. "Timmons is on his way up, but you'll get there quicker. The fire suppression system isn't functional. You need to trip it manually."
"Copy that." One of the guards said. "Walker, go up on the roof, I'll check out the fire." Holmes said. Walker nodded.
"Wait for it…" He muttered to his woman. She listened and as she heard the hallway clear, she opened the door. "Clear." He announced to her, but she was already on her way to the maintenance closet. She smiled, letting him know how easy this had been. He knew the look on her face. She didn't enjoy this activity, but she knew it was necessary.
"I will begin broadcast in twenty seconds." He said. She was already in the vent and sliding along to the main office.
It started with the elevator. The building went on emergency lockdown. No one in or out, no one in the halls on other floors would get into rooms. No one in rooms would get out of them. The guards, now two on the roof, were stuck there. A third in the elevator going down to the false fire alarm, while a third sat locked in between floors around the fifteenth…
Then the lights went out and the kitten stifled a snicker as the alarmed voices of the two men hidden in their impenetrable offices found they were suddenly staring at darkness. One rushed to the phone, but the lines were all dead. There wasn't a sound in the office, just two men who were suddenly very afraid.
There was a click as the liquid crystal display on the wall slowly began to illuminate the room. The large screen dissolved from the snowy field to a crackling display of morphing eyes. Male and female…
"Do not attempt to adjust your set. This is a streaming freedom Satellite hack of the Eyes Only Informant Net." A dual chorus of voices, his and hers, announced the coming hack to all who had access to television broadcasting this night.
Both men in the room turned to face the screen. They knew what it meant. They knew they had been bagged and tagged at this point. Dickerson reached into his sport coat and pulled out his weapon. It was a small Walther, a souvenir of his days in Europe.
"That won't help." Sutherland said. "Its over," he made the statement, completely defeated. He had already given up.
"I'm not going out like your father."
"This hack cannot be traced. It will never be stopped and it is the only free voice left in this broken nation." The male and female voices said. The eyes phasing between man and woman, and image complete, whole.
"I cannot believe this is happening." Dickerson said.
"Face it," Sutherland said. "It's over."
"Roland Dickerson, President and CFO of Sutherland Pharmaceuticals and his partner, Johnson Sutherland, the Chief Executive Officer have been deceiving not only their buyers in the medical community, but the government as well." Eyes Only began his declaration of their crimes. They were being tried. They would soon be convicted.
"Jesus!" Sutherland said out loud. "He knows…"
"He doesn't know. He can't know." Dickerson shouted.
"Sutherland pharmaceuticals built its reputation on the people of this and other communities. They supplied most of the hospitals along the west coast with their life saving drugs. Graham Sutherland started his company to save lives. His son Johnson Sutherland continued the company after his father's death to save his own life. With money and power comes greed. Absolutely." Eyes Only explained.
"Roland Dickerson knew greed well. He was the mastermind behind the project known as The Wicker Sham. A money saving program designed to offer placebos to elderly patients that thought they were getting the drugs they needed to maintain their healthy lifestyle. Through an Eyes Only informant, these documents and the numbers from the projects bottom line over the last three years has been presented. The money made on The Wicker Sham did not go to company taxes or even to company payroll, it went directly into the pockets of Roland Dickerson and Johnson Sutherland and three high level accomplices in the operation."
Both men looked at each other before looking back to the large screen hanging on the wall. They did not notice the slight shadow dropping silently into the room behind them. They would know nothing but the darkness surrounding them. Their only remaining thoughts would be how this could have happened to them.
"These men and the three Vice Presidents of Sutherland Pharmaceuticals are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of elderly and others who have died needlessly because of the placebos they were administered instead of the drugs they needed to continue living. These men will be held accountable. These company executives will pay for their crimes tonight."
Roland turned to look around the office. There wasn't a movement in the shadows cast about the room from the glowing screen on the wall. He felt the hand close around his neck, though. He wanted to turn and shoot it, but he didn't have that choice. His weapon fired in the direct line in front of him. The bullet ripped into the stomach of Johnson Sutherland, followed by another. Then a third…
She snapped his neck watching the body slump to the floor in front of her. She looked at the crumpled body of the owner of the company clutching at his stomach and staring in disbelief at the small, beautiful woman standing above him.
Johnson glanced at the weapon lying on the floor in front of him. He laughed. The irony in his friend's statement earlier was not lost on him. Dickerson, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire like Sutherland's father at Sonrisa's party that night had delivered the same fate to the son. He laughed even as the pain wracked his body. "I never believed death could be so beautiful." He looked up at the shadow of a woman in front of him, her face illuminated by the glow of the broadcast. His sarcastic laughter bordered on insane cackling as he crumpled to the floor in a puddle of his own blood.
"The police are on their way, but they will find only the bodies of men and women that deserve only the hell they find themselves in now. This has been a Streaming Freedom Satellite hack of the Eyes Only Informant Net."
"Peace."
"Out…"
The Screen went blank and dark as the glow faded out. Leaving only the moons glow in the growing puddle beneath one of the men, she left the room and headed for the stairs. Doors opened for her alone as she exited the building through the fire escape. The building itself, remained on lockdown until the police arrived to clean up after the broadcast. She was long gone on her ninja when the reporters arrived to claim sole responsibility for lead stories on the local news broadcasts.
Later, in a dark tower high above their city, they stood entwined in each other moving slowly in the candlelit penthouse. It was a slow process, but a goal they had worked diligently toward. One they were proud of. A goal they were coming closer to seeing through each day.
She looked up into her guardian's eyes. He stared deeply into hers and they smiled. No words were necessary. Their thoughts were enough to sustain them at times like these. Soon, another agent of evil would step forth and again this man and his woman would jump into the Chaos to stop that evil from spreading further into the already broken world.
Now, though…
They had earned this peace. This night would be theirs alone. She kept her man close at times like these, for only he was allowed to see what such activity did to her, what such a choice made her become, to accomplish the task of bringing an end to evil in an evil nation.
The Darkest Aspect of ultimate power sat, again pleased. Each piece of the puzzle was a great cost, but a necessary one upon His most prized creation. He had many choices in His war against evil. Never had He expected this pair to make up so much ground in the universal battle between good and evil…
He was proud. Always, very proud of His Dark Angel and her Guardian and in the end, they would receive the greatest reward for their sacrifices. Tonight, they would have their dance, their time for each other and the little bit of happiness they deserved at such times…