Of Shadow Born
On the Run
He looked at her with a wild glint in his eyes. She was his everything, and the two kids put his life into perspective. It was morning, but somehow waking up beside the short, blonde mother of two was all he needed to energize him after a good night of sleep. She stared up into his blue eyes with her brilliant green and they kissed. She giggled as his mustache brushed her upper lip as he turned toward the door, grabbing his briefcase as he went.
Quentin Barker had no idea that today would be the first day of the rest of his life.
The car started perfectly. It wasn't prone to such acts of loyalty, but for some reason it worked like a charm this morning. He drove through sector checkpoints as usual, nodding and chatting while overzealous rookies scanned his car and sector hoverdrones snapped his picture. He smiled and waved, always the ham for a camera.
Strange as it was, entering sector nine was easier than usual. There were not a lot of people standing around trying to get into the re- burgeoning financial district. Recent events had left Seattle more stable than the rest of the country and it was fast becoming the mold for other areas of The Broken States of America. Quentin found his wait to be short and his parking spot was even empty when he arrived at his office.
"Hey Q," Someone shouted when he got out of his car. He glanced over his shoulder to see Devon Carter walking toward him. A friend from college, she had been his counterpart in another office, but her company had closed down due to some cutbacks in the local government. "Can I talk to you?" She asked. She was carrying a plain brown folder tied by a string.
"Hey Devon," Quentin said. "I'm sorry to hear about your office. You got any prospects?"
"No." She said. "Take this." She handed him the folder.
"What is it?" He asked.
"Proof." She said. With a last, long stare into his eyes, she turned and walked away.
Quentin looked down at the folder in his hands then up at the woman approaching the intersection. She glanced over her shoulder one last time as he watched her. "What kind of proof?" He shouted the question. She turned away and he didn't like what he saw in her eyes. Looking around he noticed the street was mainly devoid of cops, but there were several citizens wandering and walking and standing by on the street. It seemed to him, they were waiting for something. With a shrug of his shoulders, he turned around and grabbed his briefcase from between the seats and slid the folder inside.
Tires screeched somewhere behind him. Choosing to close the briefcase before looking would prove to be the first moment he realized that all was not right in his world. A man shouted. A woman screamed, and as he turned to see what the commotion was about, gunshots rang out in the busy Seattle street. He watched a car speed away, but out of the corner of his eye he caught a body falling to the pavement.
A woman's body.
Devon Carter's body.
And he ran with the briefcase in his hand to the center of the intersection where she fell. He pulled her into his arms. She looked up at him, coughing up some blood onto his expensive suit. "Devon!" He practically shouted her name.
"Find him." She managed to say between coughs.
"Find who?" He asked. "Is this about the folder?"
"Find him." She said again.
"Who?" Quentin asked, growing frantic now.
"Eyes." She whispered. Then she died. Still no cops had arrived.
He set her head gently to the pavement. He looked up at the people around him. A crowd had begun to gather several feet away forming a large circle around the victim. He stood and took a second long glance at everyone. "Where are the cops?" He asked. No one responded. "Call someone." He said. He realized he was holding the briefcase in his right hand, soaked from the blood of Devon's wounds. He had his phone in his left hand.
He dialed his home number.
He didn't know why he said what he did. He had no idea what possessed him to call home and not authorities. He listened to the words as he spoke them. "Honey." He paused. He looked around at the people watching him as the crowd parted for him as he walked. "Get the kids." His voice said. He recognized it as his own. "Go to your sister's place down in LA. I'll meet you there." When he hung up the phone, he stopped and turned slowly, looking back to Devon's body. She was dead because of the folder in his briefcase. He held no doubt that his wife would leave Seattle. She didn't like it here, but when his job brought him up here to work on the Monroe project, she knew it would be better than they could find elsewhere.
Now, bringing his family to Seattle had become something that should not be. He walked away from the crowd as the path cleared for his escape closed around the body again. Cars were stopping in the street. People were staring at him. He walked away from the offices and towers littering the street. He approached the marketplace near the old park and the slightest movement caught his vision and drew him in.
He looked to the small crop of trees planted when the Market was opened after the pulse. It had been an attempt by the administration of the day that all was well in the world; that the pulse was just another hurdle to get over. Standing underneath the tree was a tall figure and leaning against the obviously male form was a smaller feminine one. He stared directly at them but for some reason he could only see them from the woman's perfect chest down. Their heads were enshrouded in the only shadow anywhere on the street in an early morning sun. Their faces were not visible.
He approached the couple. They didn't seem surprised that he should be drawn to them, pulled toward them by some unseen force. Drawing closer he noticed the woman was leaning into the man she was with, but even at her awkward angle, he knew she was in complete control of her body. A car drove past and a glare of sunlight from the windows angle seemed to flash across the man for just an instant. A chill ripped down Quentin's spine as he saw the man's eyes in that split second.
They were proud. They were deep and full of an intensity Quentin had never in his life felt before. Those eyes were staring deep into Quentin's own and he shivered as he caught the glance. Just as the glare lit the man's eyes, the car, moving forward, splashed his pant leg with muddy water from a puddle along the road, drawing his attention away from the couple.
Looking down, he could see the muddy water running down his leg and dripping over his meticulously polished shoes. There was movement from the stand of trees in front of him, but he bent down and brushed his hand over the dirty splash of wet on his leg. He could hear a cat purring nearby. Someone was shouting. Another car was approaching, and he momentarily forgot about the couple guarded by shadow. The purring of the feline grew closer and moved behind him.
The second car drove by, splashing his leg again.
A hover drone passed overhead and began to circle.
"Over there!" Someone shouted.
"You should leave this area immediately." A strong male voice, very near to the purring said from behind him. "Go around the corner and head for sector 12." The voice continued.
A third car splashed his pants with the muddy water. Quentin stared directly into the camera of the hover drone now stopped above him, for what seemed a long time. The moment was extremely surreal to him and he turned to speak to the strong male voice near the cat, but as he looked away from the hover drone, he realized he was alone on the street.
A last glance toward Devon's body showed him the cops had finally arrived. A man was pointing in his direction. Quentin continued his turn, searching for the man with the eyes or the seemingly disembodied voice. He could see no one in the immediate vicinity. He couldn't even see the cat that had been purring.
He was alone.
Possessed now of a mind of all their own, his legs propelled him forward to the corner of the market near the arched entryway. He entered, quickly becoming another dingy specimen of Seattle street life. The market proved to be more than enough cover for him to disappear. Eventually, he found himself at a sector checkpoint, passing on foot into a sector growing darker by a storm approaching from the sea.
He needed to get somewhere and find out what was in that folder. He needed to figure out why his friend Devon had died. He needed to know what possessed him and made him tell his wife to save herself. He needed answers, answers that were locked in the briefcase he carried.
One week later.
Quentin huddled in a dimly lit sector memorizing the information page for page and burning each page in an ashtray as he did so. He had been working on the Monroe project. It had been an ambitious project designed to rebuild Seattle from the ground up one building at a time. A hundred thousand jobs would be created in two years by this project. Funding was coming from several local businesses to back the project including a sizeable donation from Cale Industries CEO Bennett Cale and other noteworthy and prominent Seattle citizens. It was a good thing he had been doing. He would have had a major hand in the single most ambitious and massive project the nation had seen since the pulse.
Instead of working toward a worthy goal in his top level office downtown, he was cowering along the wall of a rat infested no tell motel on the outskirts of the city. He was memorizing secrets and then organizing them one by one, saving the most damning evidence to turn over to anyone that could get the word out and put a stop to the heinous activity going on in the local government. He had become the keeper of the only evidence against the current Governor of the State of Washington and his co conspirator, Senator Wilson Garner.
Together, these two men had put into effect a subtle plan and with that plan, they had enabled a series of events, operating like an old Rube Goldberg contraption that would, through this series of events and occurrences drop millions and millions of dollars into their pockets and take that much more away from the already empty coffers throughout the entire state.
Quentin had no idea how Devon had come across this information. She had perhaps been involved and couldn't live with herself knowing she had been the cause of poverty. Perhaps her company was part of the laundering process. Maybe she was the tech that created the worm siphoning funds a few dollars at a time from each transaction. Whatever the reason had been, she had dumped all of it on Quentin and left him here, alone, to deal with her guilt.
128 pages out of 150 later, he had memorized every number and signature and name in the folder. The bulk of the folder would be locked in a keyed locker at the train station for safe keeping. The remaining 22 pages were folded and tucked neatly into the depths of a small duffel bag he carried his street clothes in. Such evidence was too much for him to trust to chance. He had managed to set up a contact to turn over the information and hopefully return to his former life.
The meeting was early the following morning. He would arrive early and watch the scene for a while before jumping into anything.
The following morning arrived way to fast and Quentin awoke from his restless slumber leaving the dank, dismal quarters. He made his way into the depths of Seattle, toward the deserted warehouse the reporter had chosen. He arrived at the location four hours before he was supposed to be there. Playing the waiting game was nothing new to Quentin, his job in the business world was to make the company money and sometimes that required extreme patience.
Approximately three hours after he staked out the building from across the alley, a man and a woman, dressed in conservative suits pulled up in a dull silver metallic Mercedes and entered the building he would be meeting them in. Ten minutes after they arrived, a group of men entered the building after them. They were not part of the plan and Quentin recognized this immediately. Just a few minutes later, four men carried two large black bags out of the building and shoved them in the trunk of the Mercedes before one of the men drove the vehicle off.
Quentin left the area then. He headed back to the dismal motel room that he feared would eventually become his final resting place and turned on the television. He clutched the duffel bag to him like a security blanket and stared at the images that passed before his eyes. He had no idea how much time had passed him by. He was oblivious to the world outside the small smelly room. He was dozing off when he heard a familiar sound. The TV began to sizzle, crackle and hiss.
"Do not attempt to adjust your set." Combined voices, male and female said. "This is a streaming freedom Satellite Hack of the Eyes Only Informant Net. This hack cannot be traced. It will not be stopped and it is the only free voice left in the city." The voices said. Eyes, male and female phased before him on the screen, separate and individual, but somehow combined into one. The eyes were an ever changing, yet single entity and Quentin stared at the screen.
The broadcast was of no interest to him now. He remembered a time when he and his wife would sit in the living room and watch each new cable hack with awe. A sense of pride would come over them and each new hack ended with one less criminal in the world. He would look at his wife and smile. Sometimes, they would cheer and clap at the demise of a particularly ruthless crime lord or the fall of a vile politician. Eyes Only was every great comic book icon, every legendary protector of good and all of the greatest heroic figures history had to offer rolled into one stealthy, all seeing, all knowing personality. The Eyes Only Hack ended and Quentin had no idea what had just gone down. His mind was now on the memory of his family.
They were gone. His wife had packed up the kids and fled as she was supposed to. They were safe. He hoped they were safe. He wanted to believe they were safe. He stared at the dissolving flash of cat's eyes that now ended every broadcast. He watched the snow form on the screen slowly fading back into the regular broadcast. He listened to the cracking and hissing of the end of the sequence and decided he had no choices left to him.
He needed to find Eyes Only.
Six weeks later.
Slowly, he had begun to unravel. Paranoia had set in. He constantly looked over his shoulder... always searching for the cars that screeched or the bullets that ripped or the knife that slashed. He listened for cats and he stared into everyone's eyes. It had become all about the eyes. Cats comforted him. They followed him. They watched him, but the eyes were the most important factor in his existence.
He needed to find those damned eyes.
Every direction was a wall. Each new lead was a dead end. No one had any information on how to get to someone close to Eyes Only. He asked merchants, people on the streets, cops and he even asked a friend. A former co-worker had called his name as he walked through the market in the business district near where he used to work.
Sam McGraff called out his name passing by on the street. He had practically bolted before he looked up through weary eyes and noticed the man staring at him.
"Is that really you, Q?" Sam asked. "Damn, man. What happened to you? You don't show up for work. You're wife and kids skip town. You're house was ransacked."
Quentin clutched the now smelly duffel bag to his chest and stared through dirty strands of hair at the suit in front of him. He couldn't recognize the man. He tried, but it was so long ago; another life, perhaps.
"I'm not who you think I am." Quentin said.
"What? Q, c'mon man, what happened? You're freaking me out here." Sam said taking a step forward. Quentin drew away, keeping his distance. "Buddy, it's me. Sam. From the office."
"I know who you are." Quentin said. "But do I know who you are?" He shook his head wildly, mumbling incoherently.
"Quentin." Sam said. "I'm your friend."
"Don't do the friend thing, can't anymore. too dangerous. Thought I had a friend once but she died. Shot dead in the street. They got her. They took her away and now I hold the secret. Eyes. Gotta find the eyes. Do you know where the eyes are?" He babbled. "No. You don't know where the eyes are. No one knows where the eyes are because the eyes don't exist." He mumbled as he walked away, his former friend staring after him, stunned and saddened and full of pity and loathing. "The eyes have it." Quentin laughed. "The eyes don't have it." He answered himself, quickly, bitterly. "I have it. I have everything. I have the key."
"I AM THE KEYMASTER!!!" Quentin shouted. People stared at the crazy man, pushing and pulling their kids behind them, out of the way. "FEAR ME!!! I ALONE HOLD THE SECRET!!!" Then he ran. He ran from the market and he ran until his legs could hold him no more, and when he collapsed in an abandoned warehouse frequented by bums and junkies, he fell asleep. The grungy, dirty duffel bag used as his pillow.
It's strange how things happen. He heard the purring first. He knew he was dreaming. There she was. That body he had seen so many days ago. Only the beautifully sculpted figure wasn't a woman as he remembered, but a void within shadow. The darkest part of the shadow itself, she watched him watching her. She did not move.
He opened one eye. He knew it was not a dream. The purring was louder. Closer. He opened the other eye and looked at the cats standing, lying, and sitting around his prone body on the floor. He shoved himself up to a sitting position and looked around. There was shadow everywhere. It was dark outside, early morning. He looked around again and realized he was alone except for the cats.
One cat hissed. Another howled, making an almost horrid, gut wrenching sound and all the cats scattered save one. A small, black kitten stayed close, purring as it walked in circles around his arm, rubbing his side where he sat. He pulled the duffel over his left shoulder as he reached for the kitten with his right. She purred heavier and louder.
He heard the footsteps then. Men had come. They had finally found him. All of his running and all of his searching and he was now facing what he could only see as the end of his path. He slowly lifted himself from the floor. Four men were approaching his position; two on his right and two on his left. A fifth man was walking directly towards him from the doorway near the old main floor office.
"Quentin Barker." The suit said. "You are Quentin Barker aren't you?"
"Quentin Barker is dead." He said to the suit. "He died the day you killed Devon." He was surprised he had remembered her name. He had forgotten so much of himself in the last several weeks.
"I'm afraid that may be true, but maybe we can work something out? You have something, a folder that we need." The man said. "Give me the folder and we can work out some kind of deal."
"No deals. Deals are for suckers. I don't like suckers. They leave a horrible taste in my mouth." Quentin said. The logic was sound to him.
"He's insane." A thug on his right said. "Take him down, Boss?"
"Not until we get the folder." The suit said. "Quentin? Q, right, you're friends used to call you Q, didn't they?"
"Don't know. Don't know anything anymore. Don't know how to know, but I know a secret. Yes. The secret. You're here for the secret aren't you?"
"He's babbling boss." The thug said. "Even if he's stashed it somewhere, he's got to have some clue somewhere."
"That may be true." The suit said. He continued to argue with the thug, but Quentin noticed something. Behind the suit, deep in the darkness there, a shadow moved. Something wild seemed to materialize on the edge of the shadow. He thought he saw half of a woman's face push through the inky stillness, one eye, perched above a half smile of full pouting lips scanned the room. Quentin focused his weary, bleary eyes on the shadow trying to discern the features, but as quickly as they had appeared, with a wink directly into Quentin's eyes, the smooth, feminine features disappeared into the shadow again.
"So what's it going to be?" The suit asked. "Where is the folder?"
Quentin seemed to regain some level of composure at that moment. He straightened himself up to his full height, brushed away some hair from his face and with energy he hadn't possessed in a long, long time he smiled. "No Folder," he said. "No folder anymore. The secret's out. The honorable Governor and his Mayor have lost their honor." He said defiantly. He dropped the kitten to the floor and it circled his legs in a figure eight pattern as if protecting him from harm. "Let's end this. I'm tired of running." He said.
The suit nodded. "It doesn't have to be this way." He said to Quentin.
Q smiled. "No. It didn't have to be this way, but greed can do things to a man, can't it?" Quentin looked at the shadow behind the suit. He was waiting for it to do something. He was expecting it to do something. It never moved.
The suit nodded to the thug on his right. A gun was pulled. The thug with the bad attitude raised his arm, taking aim at Quentin's head. Quentin stared straight ahead, showing no fear. The kitten circled his feet without pause. He looked into the eyes of the suit in front of him and waited for the report of the weapon.
It never came.
Before either Q or the suit realized what had happened, the two men were standing, facing each other, seemingly alone. The four thugs lay unconscious on the floor. Both men were in shock. Both men looking around for any sign of movement, but there was none.
"What the." the suit started to ask the question. He never got the chance. The shadow behind him, the one Q had been watching for movement finally moved. It reached out for the suit and pulled him into itself. A sound, not quite a pop, but not quite a rip sounded and the suits body dropped forward. It landed on the edge of the darkness near the wall of shadow that had killed him.
"Who are you?" Q asked the shadow.
"A friend," A female voice said behind him. Slowly he turned to find an angel wrapped in black leather holding the kitten in her hands. He looked up and recognized the figure he had seen so long ago. Now, just as she had been then, her face was enshrouded in shadow, but he could tell from the barely visible features that she was one of the most beautiful creatures the world had ever seen. "There is a car waiting through that door." The angel said, pointing to the door along the alley. "A man is waiting to take you to see Eyes Only."
"Eyes Only." Q didn't understand. He truly believed those damned eyes didn't exist.
"Yes. He's been watching you. Protecting you until the time is right."
"I was bait?" He asked the girl.
The angel giggled. "No. The folder was bait. You were the rod we used to smite the evildoers." Her laughter was the second sweetest sound he would ever hear.
"I've memorized everything. I know it all." He held out the duffel bag. "The most damning evidence is in the secret pocket at the bottom of the bag." She took the duffel from him and handed him the kitten. "What about my family?" He asked hopefully.
"You're wife and kids are safe. Eyes Only intercepted them on their way to LA. They are waiting for you, but it will be a few more days before you can see them."
"Thank God!" Quentin said. His legs almost gave out. The graceful woman lunged for him and held him with a strong arm around his waist. He glanced down into her eyes and she smiled up into his. Her eyes held knowledge someone so beautiful, so young should not know. She was not what she appeared to be. No one should have the depth in their eyes this little one possessed.
"The car is waiting outside. We'll clean up in here. The police are on their way. Take the driver to the folder and he'll get it to Eyes Only." She said.
Quentin glanced around the warehouse. The kitten purred near his heart, curling up in his folded arm. As he started toward the door, one last glance revealed another smallish girl with long flaming red hair tied with a red satin sash about her head. She walked toward Q and the girl, never quite entering into the light. Both young women were possessed of a feline grace that he would never understand, but was thankful for. He waved to the two of them as he reached for the door. Outside, a scholarly looking man in a dull, blue-grey Aztek smiled and reached out his hand and shook Q's vigorously.
"Eyes Only is looking forward to seeing the evidence and hearing what you have to tell him." The man said. Q looked into his eyes and recognized them. "Get in. We have a lot to do and little time to do it. I imagine you are anxious to see your family again?" The man said with a smile that made Q feel as if he finally understood things again.
Six days later.
The limo driver hadn't made it out of the car when Q opened his own rear door. The chateau in the south of France was a welcome sight. It was a beautiful day. When he saw his youngest daughter rushing out of the front door of the large house, it became a perfect day. His son, a few years older than the girl rushed out followed by his wife. He caught the girl up in his arms and couldn't suppress the tears that spilled over his cheeks. His son crashed into his hip and his wife grabbed him and held on tight promising over and over again that she would never let him out of her sight again.
The small kitten purred in a cage in the back seat. The little girl noticed it first and slid down her father's body, rushing into the limo to pull it out. She and the boy carried it into the house followed closely by the man and woman that would never leave each others sight again. He hugged his wife closely and told her over and over again how much he loved her.
As they walked, Q prayed to the gods that were listening. He wanted them to look after the dark little angel and her man. He needed the gods to listen to his prayers and watch over them. He owed them his life and the lives of his family and although they asked nothing in return for his trials, he would gladly offer anything to help them in the future.
Somewhere not here.
He sat in His place that was not a place and he watched. He listened. It started slowly, gradually building to a continuous roar or prayer and praise. He would see to the prayers and he would protect them as they protected His children. They alone had the will and the power to defeat the Chaos that rose against His Universe and tried to take what he made, away from him.
The dark little angel and her guardian, born of shadow and stealth, living secret lives, and fighting the good fight would be protected. When their time came, as it inevitably did for all, they would be guaranteed a place of honor. It would be a most High Place where they would live forever, free to be together and have that which they sought above all else. He knew they would always be prepared, as they had always been, to rise against the evil when it showed its ugliness to them.
On the Run
He looked at her with a wild glint in his eyes. She was his everything, and the two kids put his life into perspective. It was morning, but somehow waking up beside the short, blonde mother of two was all he needed to energize him after a good night of sleep. She stared up into his blue eyes with her brilliant green and they kissed. She giggled as his mustache brushed her upper lip as he turned toward the door, grabbing his briefcase as he went.
Quentin Barker had no idea that today would be the first day of the rest of his life.
The car started perfectly. It wasn't prone to such acts of loyalty, but for some reason it worked like a charm this morning. He drove through sector checkpoints as usual, nodding and chatting while overzealous rookies scanned his car and sector hoverdrones snapped his picture. He smiled and waved, always the ham for a camera.
Strange as it was, entering sector nine was easier than usual. There were not a lot of people standing around trying to get into the re- burgeoning financial district. Recent events had left Seattle more stable than the rest of the country and it was fast becoming the mold for other areas of The Broken States of America. Quentin found his wait to be short and his parking spot was even empty when he arrived at his office.
"Hey Q," Someone shouted when he got out of his car. He glanced over his shoulder to see Devon Carter walking toward him. A friend from college, she had been his counterpart in another office, but her company had closed down due to some cutbacks in the local government. "Can I talk to you?" She asked. She was carrying a plain brown folder tied by a string.
"Hey Devon," Quentin said. "I'm sorry to hear about your office. You got any prospects?"
"No." She said. "Take this." She handed him the folder.
"What is it?" He asked.
"Proof." She said. With a last, long stare into his eyes, she turned and walked away.
Quentin looked down at the folder in his hands then up at the woman approaching the intersection. She glanced over her shoulder one last time as he watched her. "What kind of proof?" He shouted the question. She turned away and he didn't like what he saw in her eyes. Looking around he noticed the street was mainly devoid of cops, but there were several citizens wandering and walking and standing by on the street. It seemed to him, they were waiting for something. With a shrug of his shoulders, he turned around and grabbed his briefcase from between the seats and slid the folder inside.
Tires screeched somewhere behind him. Choosing to close the briefcase before looking would prove to be the first moment he realized that all was not right in his world. A man shouted. A woman screamed, and as he turned to see what the commotion was about, gunshots rang out in the busy Seattle street. He watched a car speed away, but out of the corner of his eye he caught a body falling to the pavement.
A woman's body.
Devon Carter's body.
And he ran with the briefcase in his hand to the center of the intersection where she fell. He pulled her into his arms. She looked up at him, coughing up some blood onto his expensive suit. "Devon!" He practically shouted her name.
"Find him." She managed to say between coughs.
"Find who?" He asked. "Is this about the folder?"
"Find him." She said again.
"Who?" Quentin asked, growing frantic now.
"Eyes." She whispered. Then she died. Still no cops had arrived.
He set her head gently to the pavement. He looked up at the people around him. A crowd had begun to gather several feet away forming a large circle around the victim. He stood and took a second long glance at everyone. "Where are the cops?" He asked. No one responded. "Call someone." He said. He realized he was holding the briefcase in his right hand, soaked from the blood of Devon's wounds. He had his phone in his left hand.
He dialed his home number.
He didn't know why he said what he did. He had no idea what possessed him to call home and not authorities. He listened to the words as he spoke them. "Honey." He paused. He looked around at the people watching him as the crowd parted for him as he walked. "Get the kids." His voice said. He recognized it as his own. "Go to your sister's place down in LA. I'll meet you there." When he hung up the phone, he stopped and turned slowly, looking back to Devon's body. She was dead because of the folder in his briefcase. He held no doubt that his wife would leave Seattle. She didn't like it here, but when his job brought him up here to work on the Monroe project, she knew it would be better than they could find elsewhere.
Now, bringing his family to Seattle had become something that should not be. He walked away from the crowd as the path cleared for his escape closed around the body again. Cars were stopping in the street. People were staring at him. He walked away from the offices and towers littering the street. He approached the marketplace near the old park and the slightest movement caught his vision and drew him in.
He looked to the small crop of trees planted when the Market was opened after the pulse. It had been an attempt by the administration of the day that all was well in the world; that the pulse was just another hurdle to get over. Standing underneath the tree was a tall figure and leaning against the obviously male form was a smaller feminine one. He stared directly at them but for some reason he could only see them from the woman's perfect chest down. Their heads were enshrouded in the only shadow anywhere on the street in an early morning sun. Their faces were not visible.
He approached the couple. They didn't seem surprised that he should be drawn to them, pulled toward them by some unseen force. Drawing closer he noticed the woman was leaning into the man she was with, but even at her awkward angle, he knew she was in complete control of her body. A car drove past and a glare of sunlight from the windows angle seemed to flash across the man for just an instant. A chill ripped down Quentin's spine as he saw the man's eyes in that split second.
They were proud. They were deep and full of an intensity Quentin had never in his life felt before. Those eyes were staring deep into Quentin's own and he shivered as he caught the glance. Just as the glare lit the man's eyes, the car, moving forward, splashed his pant leg with muddy water from a puddle along the road, drawing his attention away from the couple.
Looking down, he could see the muddy water running down his leg and dripping over his meticulously polished shoes. There was movement from the stand of trees in front of him, but he bent down and brushed his hand over the dirty splash of wet on his leg. He could hear a cat purring nearby. Someone was shouting. Another car was approaching, and he momentarily forgot about the couple guarded by shadow. The purring of the feline grew closer and moved behind him.
The second car drove by, splashing his leg again.
A hover drone passed overhead and began to circle.
"Over there!" Someone shouted.
"You should leave this area immediately." A strong male voice, very near to the purring said from behind him. "Go around the corner and head for sector 12." The voice continued.
A third car splashed his pants with the muddy water. Quentin stared directly into the camera of the hover drone now stopped above him, for what seemed a long time. The moment was extremely surreal to him and he turned to speak to the strong male voice near the cat, but as he looked away from the hover drone, he realized he was alone on the street.
A last glance toward Devon's body showed him the cops had finally arrived. A man was pointing in his direction. Quentin continued his turn, searching for the man with the eyes or the seemingly disembodied voice. He could see no one in the immediate vicinity. He couldn't even see the cat that had been purring.
He was alone.
Possessed now of a mind of all their own, his legs propelled him forward to the corner of the market near the arched entryway. He entered, quickly becoming another dingy specimen of Seattle street life. The market proved to be more than enough cover for him to disappear. Eventually, he found himself at a sector checkpoint, passing on foot into a sector growing darker by a storm approaching from the sea.
He needed to get somewhere and find out what was in that folder. He needed to figure out why his friend Devon had died. He needed to know what possessed him and made him tell his wife to save herself. He needed answers, answers that were locked in the briefcase he carried.
One week later.
Quentin huddled in a dimly lit sector memorizing the information page for page and burning each page in an ashtray as he did so. He had been working on the Monroe project. It had been an ambitious project designed to rebuild Seattle from the ground up one building at a time. A hundred thousand jobs would be created in two years by this project. Funding was coming from several local businesses to back the project including a sizeable donation from Cale Industries CEO Bennett Cale and other noteworthy and prominent Seattle citizens. It was a good thing he had been doing. He would have had a major hand in the single most ambitious and massive project the nation had seen since the pulse.
Instead of working toward a worthy goal in his top level office downtown, he was cowering along the wall of a rat infested no tell motel on the outskirts of the city. He was memorizing secrets and then organizing them one by one, saving the most damning evidence to turn over to anyone that could get the word out and put a stop to the heinous activity going on in the local government. He had become the keeper of the only evidence against the current Governor of the State of Washington and his co conspirator, Senator Wilson Garner.
Together, these two men had put into effect a subtle plan and with that plan, they had enabled a series of events, operating like an old Rube Goldberg contraption that would, through this series of events and occurrences drop millions and millions of dollars into their pockets and take that much more away from the already empty coffers throughout the entire state.
Quentin had no idea how Devon had come across this information. She had perhaps been involved and couldn't live with herself knowing she had been the cause of poverty. Perhaps her company was part of the laundering process. Maybe she was the tech that created the worm siphoning funds a few dollars at a time from each transaction. Whatever the reason had been, she had dumped all of it on Quentin and left him here, alone, to deal with her guilt.
128 pages out of 150 later, he had memorized every number and signature and name in the folder. The bulk of the folder would be locked in a keyed locker at the train station for safe keeping. The remaining 22 pages were folded and tucked neatly into the depths of a small duffel bag he carried his street clothes in. Such evidence was too much for him to trust to chance. He had managed to set up a contact to turn over the information and hopefully return to his former life.
The meeting was early the following morning. He would arrive early and watch the scene for a while before jumping into anything.
The following morning arrived way to fast and Quentin awoke from his restless slumber leaving the dank, dismal quarters. He made his way into the depths of Seattle, toward the deserted warehouse the reporter had chosen. He arrived at the location four hours before he was supposed to be there. Playing the waiting game was nothing new to Quentin, his job in the business world was to make the company money and sometimes that required extreme patience.
Approximately three hours after he staked out the building from across the alley, a man and a woman, dressed in conservative suits pulled up in a dull silver metallic Mercedes and entered the building he would be meeting them in. Ten minutes after they arrived, a group of men entered the building after them. They were not part of the plan and Quentin recognized this immediately. Just a few minutes later, four men carried two large black bags out of the building and shoved them in the trunk of the Mercedes before one of the men drove the vehicle off.
Quentin left the area then. He headed back to the dismal motel room that he feared would eventually become his final resting place and turned on the television. He clutched the duffel bag to him like a security blanket and stared at the images that passed before his eyes. He had no idea how much time had passed him by. He was oblivious to the world outside the small smelly room. He was dozing off when he heard a familiar sound. The TV began to sizzle, crackle and hiss.
"Do not attempt to adjust your set." Combined voices, male and female said. "This is a streaming freedom Satellite Hack of the Eyes Only Informant Net. This hack cannot be traced. It will not be stopped and it is the only free voice left in the city." The voices said. Eyes, male and female phased before him on the screen, separate and individual, but somehow combined into one. The eyes were an ever changing, yet single entity and Quentin stared at the screen.
The broadcast was of no interest to him now. He remembered a time when he and his wife would sit in the living room and watch each new cable hack with awe. A sense of pride would come over them and each new hack ended with one less criminal in the world. He would look at his wife and smile. Sometimes, they would cheer and clap at the demise of a particularly ruthless crime lord or the fall of a vile politician. Eyes Only was every great comic book icon, every legendary protector of good and all of the greatest heroic figures history had to offer rolled into one stealthy, all seeing, all knowing personality. The Eyes Only Hack ended and Quentin had no idea what had just gone down. His mind was now on the memory of his family.
They were gone. His wife had packed up the kids and fled as she was supposed to. They were safe. He hoped they were safe. He wanted to believe they were safe. He stared at the dissolving flash of cat's eyes that now ended every broadcast. He watched the snow form on the screen slowly fading back into the regular broadcast. He listened to the cracking and hissing of the end of the sequence and decided he had no choices left to him.
He needed to find Eyes Only.
Six weeks later.
Slowly, he had begun to unravel. Paranoia had set in. He constantly looked over his shoulder... always searching for the cars that screeched or the bullets that ripped or the knife that slashed. He listened for cats and he stared into everyone's eyes. It had become all about the eyes. Cats comforted him. They followed him. They watched him, but the eyes were the most important factor in his existence.
He needed to find those damned eyes.
Every direction was a wall. Each new lead was a dead end. No one had any information on how to get to someone close to Eyes Only. He asked merchants, people on the streets, cops and he even asked a friend. A former co-worker had called his name as he walked through the market in the business district near where he used to work.
Sam McGraff called out his name passing by on the street. He had practically bolted before he looked up through weary eyes and noticed the man staring at him.
"Is that really you, Q?" Sam asked. "Damn, man. What happened to you? You don't show up for work. You're wife and kids skip town. You're house was ransacked."
Quentin clutched the now smelly duffel bag to his chest and stared through dirty strands of hair at the suit in front of him. He couldn't recognize the man. He tried, but it was so long ago; another life, perhaps.
"I'm not who you think I am." Quentin said.
"What? Q, c'mon man, what happened? You're freaking me out here." Sam said taking a step forward. Quentin drew away, keeping his distance. "Buddy, it's me. Sam. From the office."
"I know who you are." Quentin said. "But do I know who you are?" He shook his head wildly, mumbling incoherently.
"Quentin." Sam said. "I'm your friend."
"Don't do the friend thing, can't anymore. too dangerous. Thought I had a friend once but she died. Shot dead in the street. They got her. They took her away and now I hold the secret. Eyes. Gotta find the eyes. Do you know where the eyes are?" He babbled. "No. You don't know where the eyes are. No one knows where the eyes are because the eyes don't exist." He mumbled as he walked away, his former friend staring after him, stunned and saddened and full of pity and loathing. "The eyes have it." Quentin laughed. "The eyes don't have it." He answered himself, quickly, bitterly. "I have it. I have everything. I have the key."
"I AM THE KEYMASTER!!!" Quentin shouted. People stared at the crazy man, pushing and pulling their kids behind them, out of the way. "FEAR ME!!! I ALONE HOLD THE SECRET!!!" Then he ran. He ran from the market and he ran until his legs could hold him no more, and when he collapsed in an abandoned warehouse frequented by bums and junkies, he fell asleep. The grungy, dirty duffel bag used as his pillow.
It's strange how things happen. He heard the purring first. He knew he was dreaming. There she was. That body he had seen so many days ago. Only the beautifully sculpted figure wasn't a woman as he remembered, but a void within shadow. The darkest part of the shadow itself, she watched him watching her. She did not move.
He opened one eye. He knew it was not a dream. The purring was louder. Closer. He opened the other eye and looked at the cats standing, lying, and sitting around his prone body on the floor. He shoved himself up to a sitting position and looked around. There was shadow everywhere. It was dark outside, early morning. He looked around again and realized he was alone except for the cats.
One cat hissed. Another howled, making an almost horrid, gut wrenching sound and all the cats scattered save one. A small, black kitten stayed close, purring as it walked in circles around his arm, rubbing his side where he sat. He pulled the duffel over his left shoulder as he reached for the kitten with his right. She purred heavier and louder.
He heard the footsteps then. Men had come. They had finally found him. All of his running and all of his searching and he was now facing what he could only see as the end of his path. He slowly lifted himself from the floor. Four men were approaching his position; two on his right and two on his left. A fifth man was walking directly towards him from the doorway near the old main floor office.
"Quentin Barker." The suit said. "You are Quentin Barker aren't you?"
"Quentin Barker is dead." He said to the suit. "He died the day you killed Devon." He was surprised he had remembered her name. He had forgotten so much of himself in the last several weeks.
"I'm afraid that may be true, but maybe we can work something out? You have something, a folder that we need." The man said. "Give me the folder and we can work out some kind of deal."
"No deals. Deals are for suckers. I don't like suckers. They leave a horrible taste in my mouth." Quentin said. The logic was sound to him.
"He's insane." A thug on his right said. "Take him down, Boss?"
"Not until we get the folder." The suit said. "Quentin? Q, right, you're friends used to call you Q, didn't they?"
"Don't know. Don't know anything anymore. Don't know how to know, but I know a secret. Yes. The secret. You're here for the secret aren't you?"
"He's babbling boss." The thug said. "Even if he's stashed it somewhere, he's got to have some clue somewhere."
"That may be true." The suit said. He continued to argue with the thug, but Quentin noticed something. Behind the suit, deep in the darkness there, a shadow moved. Something wild seemed to materialize on the edge of the shadow. He thought he saw half of a woman's face push through the inky stillness, one eye, perched above a half smile of full pouting lips scanned the room. Quentin focused his weary, bleary eyes on the shadow trying to discern the features, but as quickly as they had appeared, with a wink directly into Quentin's eyes, the smooth, feminine features disappeared into the shadow again.
"So what's it going to be?" The suit asked. "Where is the folder?"
Quentin seemed to regain some level of composure at that moment. He straightened himself up to his full height, brushed away some hair from his face and with energy he hadn't possessed in a long, long time he smiled. "No Folder," he said. "No folder anymore. The secret's out. The honorable Governor and his Mayor have lost their honor." He said defiantly. He dropped the kitten to the floor and it circled his legs in a figure eight pattern as if protecting him from harm. "Let's end this. I'm tired of running." He said.
The suit nodded. "It doesn't have to be this way." He said to Quentin.
Q smiled. "No. It didn't have to be this way, but greed can do things to a man, can't it?" Quentin looked at the shadow behind the suit. He was waiting for it to do something. He was expecting it to do something. It never moved.
The suit nodded to the thug on his right. A gun was pulled. The thug with the bad attitude raised his arm, taking aim at Quentin's head. Quentin stared straight ahead, showing no fear. The kitten circled his feet without pause. He looked into the eyes of the suit in front of him and waited for the report of the weapon.
It never came.
Before either Q or the suit realized what had happened, the two men were standing, facing each other, seemingly alone. The four thugs lay unconscious on the floor. Both men were in shock. Both men looking around for any sign of movement, but there was none.
"What the." the suit started to ask the question. He never got the chance. The shadow behind him, the one Q had been watching for movement finally moved. It reached out for the suit and pulled him into itself. A sound, not quite a pop, but not quite a rip sounded and the suits body dropped forward. It landed on the edge of the darkness near the wall of shadow that had killed him.
"Who are you?" Q asked the shadow.
"A friend," A female voice said behind him. Slowly he turned to find an angel wrapped in black leather holding the kitten in her hands. He looked up and recognized the figure he had seen so long ago. Now, just as she had been then, her face was enshrouded in shadow, but he could tell from the barely visible features that she was one of the most beautiful creatures the world had ever seen. "There is a car waiting through that door." The angel said, pointing to the door along the alley. "A man is waiting to take you to see Eyes Only."
"Eyes Only." Q didn't understand. He truly believed those damned eyes didn't exist.
"Yes. He's been watching you. Protecting you until the time is right."
"I was bait?" He asked the girl.
The angel giggled. "No. The folder was bait. You were the rod we used to smite the evildoers." Her laughter was the second sweetest sound he would ever hear.
"I've memorized everything. I know it all." He held out the duffel bag. "The most damning evidence is in the secret pocket at the bottom of the bag." She took the duffel from him and handed him the kitten. "What about my family?" He asked hopefully.
"You're wife and kids are safe. Eyes Only intercepted them on their way to LA. They are waiting for you, but it will be a few more days before you can see them."
"Thank God!" Quentin said. His legs almost gave out. The graceful woman lunged for him and held him with a strong arm around his waist. He glanced down into her eyes and she smiled up into his. Her eyes held knowledge someone so beautiful, so young should not know. She was not what she appeared to be. No one should have the depth in their eyes this little one possessed.
"The car is waiting outside. We'll clean up in here. The police are on their way. Take the driver to the folder and he'll get it to Eyes Only." She said.
Quentin glanced around the warehouse. The kitten purred near his heart, curling up in his folded arm. As he started toward the door, one last glance revealed another smallish girl with long flaming red hair tied with a red satin sash about her head. She walked toward Q and the girl, never quite entering into the light. Both young women were possessed of a feline grace that he would never understand, but was thankful for. He waved to the two of them as he reached for the door. Outside, a scholarly looking man in a dull, blue-grey Aztek smiled and reached out his hand and shook Q's vigorously.
"Eyes Only is looking forward to seeing the evidence and hearing what you have to tell him." The man said. Q looked into his eyes and recognized them. "Get in. We have a lot to do and little time to do it. I imagine you are anxious to see your family again?" The man said with a smile that made Q feel as if he finally understood things again.
Six days later.
The limo driver hadn't made it out of the car when Q opened his own rear door. The chateau in the south of France was a welcome sight. It was a beautiful day. When he saw his youngest daughter rushing out of the front door of the large house, it became a perfect day. His son, a few years older than the girl rushed out followed by his wife. He caught the girl up in his arms and couldn't suppress the tears that spilled over his cheeks. His son crashed into his hip and his wife grabbed him and held on tight promising over and over again that she would never let him out of her sight again.
The small kitten purred in a cage in the back seat. The little girl noticed it first and slid down her father's body, rushing into the limo to pull it out. She and the boy carried it into the house followed closely by the man and woman that would never leave each others sight again. He hugged his wife closely and told her over and over again how much he loved her.
As they walked, Q prayed to the gods that were listening. He wanted them to look after the dark little angel and her man. He needed the gods to listen to his prayers and watch over them. He owed them his life and the lives of his family and although they asked nothing in return for his trials, he would gladly offer anything to help them in the future.
Somewhere not here.
He sat in His place that was not a place and he watched. He listened. It started slowly, gradually building to a continuous roar or prayer and praise. He would see to the prayers and he would protect them as they protected His children. They alone had the will and the power to defeat the Chaos that rose against His Universe and tried to take what he made, away from him.
The dark little angel and her guardian, born of shadow and stealth, living secret lives, and fighting the good fight would be protected. When their time came, as it inevitably did for all, they would be guaranteed a place of honor. It would be a most High Place where they would live forever, free to be together and have that which they sought above all else. He knew they would always be prepared, as they had always been, to rise against the evil when it showed its ugliness to them.