Nightmares were a very familiar part of Patrick's past, as from his early childhood right up until his experience with EVA nearly every night he had been subjected to a series of horrific images in his sleep. The scenes were wide and varied, but always horrifying, vividly representing his fears of abandonment and being isolated. It was not until EVA, and more accurately upon his full reunion with his twin sister did his nightmares finally abate.
But not long after he had started at school Patrick's nightmares had come back and were again becoming an almost nightly experience. He would try to fight the nightmares off on his own as he no longer wanted to be out of control within his own head, even when he slept. Every night had proved to be a struggle however and tonight was no exception.
That night it started as more of a dream than a nightmare. He was standing in a hotel room in an unknown location. There was but one piece of furniture in the room, a large bed with a white set of covers. Behind him was a voice.
"I'll be in the shower." He turned around and saw Rei. She was dressed in a lavender-colored minidress and heels, her hair cut short like she wore it in her younger years. Patrick just heard himself say "okay," and Rei went into the adjoining bathroom. The image in his mind jumped and then he himself was in the bathroom.
The shower was a transparent box in front of him, and inside was Rei. She was naked and wet, the water drooping her hair downwards as she cleaned herself up. Patrick noticed that he wasn't wearing any clothing either. He felt himself walking towards the shower door and opening it, and then Rei turned around to see him, the handle of the water spray in her hand. He could see all of her now, her firm breasts with their nipples erect, and the parts below which were completely uncovered and enticing to him. Patrick went towards her, and gently ran his hands down her arms. Rei responded by reaching up on her toes and kissing him, a kiss that became deeper and deeper as he started to fall into her.
The image jumped forward again and they were now in the bed, he on the bottom and she on top. Rei gently moved forward and he could feel her breathing and his own. His heart raced, he felt inexplicably crazy all over his body as Rei took her hands and folded them in his own. There was a strong sensation on his part and Rei cried out, but the cry wasn't one of pleasure. Patrick looked up at her and saw the panic in her face as her skin began to change color from pale white to blood red. He heard a scream and watched helplessly as Rei began to disintegrate into thin air, whisping in to red swirls of particles that then broke apart in the wind.
"Rei! Rei! REI!"
He pushed himself awake, panting furiously. When he awoke he was back in his own bed, sitting upright. His face and his hair were drenched. A second later the door opened as Erin didn't even bother to knock this time.
"You okay?" she asked as she moved to the bed.
Patrick didn't respond immediately but sat himself straighter as his sister reached for a water bottle that was on his nightstand. The boy grabbed the bottle and downed all of it in a few rushed gulps.
"Nightmare again?" Erin asked.
"Yeah," confirmed Patrick. He tried to think coherently and then reached for his phone. "Where's Rei?"
"She has swimming in the mornings usually, you know that."
Patrick had to confirm the dream wasn't something else. Quickly he texted Rei without even thinking about the fight they had earlier.
ME: You OK?
There was no reply, and Patrick panicked. Again, he texted the message.
ME: Are you OK? Just want to be sure.
Still there was no reply.
"I gotta find her," Patrick said. Erin didn't look that concerned. "Common sense, bro. If she's swimming she's not going to answer her texts right away. Just wait a bit." But Patrick ignored her and punched a speed-dial on his mobile phone.
"Lifeguard," a female voice answered.
"Need status on ANGEL, stat," Patrick asked.
There was a slight delay and then the female voice calmly came back. "Confirmed in Swimming Pool. Eyes on her now." Patrick sighed in relief.
"Thank you," he said to the security dispatcher and then hung up the phone.
Erin gave him a knowing glance. "Told you," she said.
"Yeah, I know, but I just had to make sure," replied Patrick. "Just got a horrible feeling about her, that's all."
Patrick's phone buzzed a moment later. He grabbed it and read the message:
REI: I am OK. Did something happen?
He thought to text her back but then just made a call instead. Rei picked up on the first ring.
"Sorry," Patrick started before Rei could say anything. "I…I just wanted to be sure you were alright, that's all. I didn't mean to bother you."
"It's not a bother," Rei replied. "But are you okay?"
"Um, no. I'm not, I guess. Nightmares, the usual." There was a long pause where neither spoke to the other.
Finally Patrick spoke again. "Hey, I, um, Look I really screwed up last night. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize to me," Rei told him. "You should apologize to yourself. You are the one being hurt the most."
"Yeah, I know that and, um, well anyway I've been acting stupid and all, and dragging you and Erin through it. But the truth is…well," Patrick struggled to get the words out as Rei silently listened. This was something he knew he didn't really want to do on the phone either.
"Can I see you? Is that alright?"
"Yes," Rei said simply.
"Today?"
"My second class today is cancelled, so I am going to Scriveners downtown. Can you meet me there? Around eleven?"
"I'll be there."
There was a soft grunt from Rei and then she hung up the phone. Patrick sat silently at the edge of the bed, trying to mentally work out where he stood with her as he still wasn't sure.
Patrick had a Chemistry class that morning and this time he attended as soon as he got cleaned up, dressed in another pair of school logo sweatshirt and sweatpants, and then ran out of the house towards school. This time he arrived before class started, to the startled looks of many of his classmates. Feeling drowsy for most of the class, Patrick just made the best effort he could and tried to keep up with notetaking and paying attention. But thoughts of the nightmare with Rei would not leave his mind that entire morning.
After the lecture he slung his backpack and headed off campus to downtown Cambridge, which was perhaps a thirty-minute walk. Looking around he spotted Dylan shadowing him from a short distance and waived, walking towards him as the security guard caught up to Patrick.
"Good morning!" greeted Dylan cheerfully.
"'Morning," Patrick replied.
"So, where we headed?"
"Scriveners."
"Ah, ANGEL's favorite hideout. Lunch date?"
"I hope so. Actually, I'm not quite sure where I stand now."
"Oh, she's not going to be that hard on you for long," Dylan assured him, apparently knowing about the spat between Patrick and Rei. "I've seen how she keeps up on you,"
"What do you mean?"
"She stopped by your apartment last night," Dylan said. "I mean, she didn't knock on the door or anything but just kept close by. Probably to make sure you didn't jump off the patio or anything."
"Did I seem that out of it?"
"We're supposed to guard your lives, remember? No one of us wants to be the one to scrape your brains off the sidewalk," said the bodyguard. "You might keep the screaming down a bit when you wake up, however. Your neighbors are starting to complain."
Patrick laughed at his comment and then finally smiled a little. "Dude, I'm so fucked up at the moment."
"Been there, believe me. Love does that to you."
"Any luck with that?" Patrick asked him.
"Yeah, for me it all turned out okay, at least for a while" replied Dylan. "Then those assholes at SEELE started doing shit back then and suddenly we all had bigger problems."
At just before eleven Rei arrived at Scriveners, which was set up on the ground floor of a three-story red brick building that was over a hundred years old and was one of the few surviving buildings left in Cambridge from the 19th century. On the front of the store was a sign that read "SCRIVENERS: USED AND RARE BOOKSELLERS SINCE 1893." Rei opened the front door and stepped inside leaving her security escort, which consisted of two female agents clad in dark-colored suits, outside the store. Rei herself wore a navy sweater with a white collared blouse underneath, matched with a red and black plaid long skirt, black woolen tights and simple black flats. Today she wore her hair long and loose around her shoulders and had her glasses on as she normally did.
The inside of the bookstore was as one might expect as a repository of old books, a bit musty with the smell of old paper and rag. There were tall shelves fully packed with books of all kinds, shapes and sizes, and many of them probably twenty or more years old. In addition to the shelves, there were stacks of books simply lying flat on the floor, some of which towered above Rei's own head, and ultimately leaving very narrow alleyways to walk between the bookshelves.
Opening the front door had rung a small bronze bell tied to the door's edge, and that had alerted the store's owner and keeper, Mr. Chadwick, to the incoming patron. He saw Rei in one of the alleys between the bookshelves and immediately recognized her. "Ah, Miss Reiko!" he greeted her as he was like most people in and around Cambridge, unaware of her true identity.
Mr. Chadwick was an older, slender man of English and Scottish mixture, with a head of white hair and a pair of narrow trifocals that rested on his nose. "So good to see you again!" he said. Rei simply smiled and nodded in greeting him.
"It's funny that you're here today," the owner continued, "as I have recently come across something I'm sure you'd like to see." Mr. Chadwick scurried to the back of his own clerk's booth while Rei turned her attention to a row of science books that were in front of her.
In less than a minute the old man had located what he sought and returned to Rei with a large, green-fabric bound book in his arms. "Here we are." He presented Rei with the book and she carefully examined it as he spoke.
"John James Audubon's Birds of America, 1937 first printing," he described. "Of course, the original work goes back to the 1820s but those are exceedingly rare." Rei opened the book and started to page through it, noticing the color plates within the text that were still brightly vivid.
"As you can see this is in excellent condition, with the color elements completely intact," Mr. Chadwick went on. "This was the first true mass-market printing for Audubon's seminal work." Rei herself was exceedingly impressed with the tome. "This is very interesting," she told him. "The colors are very lifelike."
"All before photography was even invented," Mr. Chadwick told her. "Done in watercolors and not oil-based painting, which was the standard at the time, but amazingly true to nature."
Rei continued to leaf through the book with a slight smile on her face. At one point she took it and brought it up to her nose, taking a strong whiff and then letting out her breath in a relaxed sensation. "It smells good." Mr. Chadwick chuckled.
"Yes, there's nothing quite like the smell of an old book."
"How much?"
"It's quite expensive, Miss Reiko. Perhaps over a student's budget but I though you should look at it nonetheless."
"How much?" Rei persisted.
"Four hundred US dollars."
"I'll buy it," she quickly replied.
The owner was surprised. "Are you quite sure?"
"It's no trouble," she told him. "Cash?"
The bell rang and both Rei and the owner turned towards the door to see who had now come in. Through the entry came a mother and a young boy, both of whom Rei recognized from the campus day care center.
"Mommy," the boy called out upon spotting Rei. "Big Sister Reiko is here!" This proved a pleasant surprise to the mother.
"Well, hello," she greeted Rei. "It's nice to see you here too." Rei smiled and nodded and little Yoshi came right up to her, giving her a hug as Rei bent down to receive him.
"Mrs. Fredericks, I presume?" asked Mr. Chadwick.
"Yes, Hi. I'm the one who called earlier. Did you have the book I asked for?"
"From the Richard Scarry collection, yes? I did. They're wonderful books for children."
"I know," said Yoshi's mother. "I remembered them from when I was growing up and I just wanted to have one for little Yoshi here. Also, I wanted to ask. If I wanted to sell a book that might be valuable, do you buy such things?"
"Oh, all the time. Although I tend to find people who love books are usually unwilling to part easily with them."
"Ah, yes. However, my father recently passed away…"
"…. I'm so sorry to hear that."
"Yes, thank you, but anyway he left me a considerable number of books and I've gone through and found one or two that might be worth something to someone," she then dug through her large handbag trying to find the book she was discussing. "Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced it. I think it's in my car."
"Quite all right, we're open until seven o'clock if you want to come back."
"Actually, I'm parked very close." The mother turned again to Rei, this time speaking in Japanese instead of English. "Reiko-chan, I'm so sorry to ask for a favor but can you watch Yoshi-kun here for a few minutes while I go out to my car and fetch my other book."
"I can do that," Rei replied in Japanese. "It's no trouble at all."
"Thank you, I'll only be a moment." The mother then quickly went out the store's front door and rushed out to her parked car while the owner again went behind his clerk's desk and then to a staircase that led to his basement below, where he stored books that were reserved or not out for display or purchase.
Below her, Yoshi spotted the book in Rei's hands. "What is that?" he asked, pointing to it.
Rei knelt to speak to him. "It's a book about birds. Do you want to see it?" Yoshi enthusiastically nodded his head.
There was a small stool nearby that Rei took and moved towards her, then she said down on the stool and carefully hoisted Yoshi to sit on her lap. Once both were seated Rei then opened the large book and gently turned the pages so that the boy could see the color plates.
"Wow!" said Yoshi. "There's all kinds!"
Rei decided to make a game of it with him. "Do you know this kind?" she pointed to one color plate.
"Robin! Red Robin!"
"Good. How about this one?"
"Blue Jay!"
"Very good. And this one?"
"Owl!"
"Good, it's a Great Horned Owl."
The boy was curious. "It has horns? Like a bull?"
"No," Rei explained. "But the feathers on his head look like horns. See?"
The two of them kept at it, going through several pages of the old book as Rei would ask the boy to guess each bird he saw, something he was good at despite his young age.
"Eagle! Bald Eagle!"
"Eagle, but not Bald Eagle. Golden Eagle."
"He's made of gold?"
Rei was about to reply when she heard a loud sound outside of the shop. POWPOWPOWPOWPOW POWPOWPOWPOWPOW.
"Fireworks!" the boy shouted. But Rei knew better.
"No," she told him, and quickly pulled the boy from her lap as she stood up.
Rei stood silently and watched the front door as she pushed Yoshi behind her. There was a second set of POWPOWPOWs outside and then a dead silence for thirty seconds. Then the bell rang as the front door swung open.
Inside came two men, both with unkempt long black hair and wearing what appeared to be olive drab combat jackets and blue jeans. One man was older, perhaps in his forties, while the other was much younger. Both were armed.
When the two gunmen spotted Rei, both became cautious. The older one approached her slowly, speaking to her in Japanese.
"Holy one," he said to her using a very formal dialect, "it is you that we seek. Please come with us."
Rei did nothing however except stand where she was, shielding the young boy behind her.
"Lady Lilith," the older man addressed her again, "it is time for you to reach your true destiny. Please come with us."
"I will not go with you," Rei replied with determination. She watched the eyes of the two men and how they examined both her and the young boy, and she knew they would likely try to capture both.
Behind Rei there were footsteps, as Mr. Chadwick was coming up from the basement. "What was that loud noise?" he asked as he climbed up behind the clerk's station. Once the owner reached the top he then spotted the two attackers, and they him.
"Wait a minute, what are you doing here?!" called out Mr. Chadwick, who then reached for his walking stick that was hung on the wall behind the clerk's desk. The old man moved as fast as he could, stick in hand, ready to charge the intruders. But Rei could see the younger one pull up his weapon, a short-barreled AK-74 assault rifle. Unable to move herself otherwise endangering the child she shielded, Rei could only scream.
"Tenshu-san!" (meaning shopkeeper)
The old man raised his cane to strike at the target nearest him and was unaware of the complete danger until it was too late. A short burst of fire from the assault rifle ripped into his chest and immediately brought him to the floor. Rei pushed back from the alley, and Yoshi behind her started to scream himself.
"Mommy! Mommy!"
The older man now approached Rei as she backed up. "My lady, please let there be no more death today. Come with us now." He reached out his hand. Rei instead pushed the child further behind her and started directly at her assailant.
"No."
Patrick and Dylan were less than a thousand feet away when they heard the first burst of gunfire. Both stopped as the fire started.
"Holy shit," Dylan said as he started for his radio.
In front of him Patrick saw brief flashes of fire and light and knew with certainly what the sound was. He also knew that the sound came from where they were headed, downtown Cambridge, where the bookstore was. It took only a half-second for him to make the decision he needed to.
"Romeo 14 to control, we hear gunfire, over." Dylan called out on his headset.
"Control to Romeo 14, ANGEL IS DANGER ENGAGED. Secure PUZZLE as priority over."
"Copy that, Control." Dylan then released the talk button and immediately searched for Patrick, knowing he had to get him to safety as his priority. "Patrick? Patrick!?" Dylan quickly looked around and spotted the boy, who was now sprinting as fast as he could toward the source of the gunfire.
"Goddamnit, Patrick! Get back here!" Dylan called out and immediately started in pursuit.
Patrick ran as fast as he could, pushing himself and digging in his heels to the pavement as he sprinted towards the bookstore. He didn't know what to expect, except that he had a horrible feeling Rei was in deep trouble.
In less than two minutes from when started, Patrick reached the scene in front of Scriveners. To his left there were two bodies of men face down on the pavement, a lake of blood flowing from one of them with several red blooms visible on his olive drab jacket. He had a submachine gun in his hands, and there was another firearm in the grip of the other man that was down. To Patrick's right there were three bodies, one was a blue-uniformed Cambridge Police officer, lying with his back to the bookstore front. His eyes looked upward towards a red hole that was protruding through his forehead, but he was not moving. The second was a Japanese woman with long black hair dressed in a dark suit. She was lying face up on the sidewalk, her white blouse stained with half a dozen red entry points. The woman still held a MiniUzi submachine gun in her left hand. The third was a woman of darker complexion, also wearing a dark grey suit. She was leaning against the front wall of the bookstore, and there were several entry points throughout her body. Unlike the others, her eyes were still open and moving, and she was still breathing, gripping a Beretta 92 pistol in her right hand.
There was a crowd of onlookers that was backed up perhaps ten meters from the scene of the gunfight. Among them was a woman in her early thirties who was panicked and screaming towards Patrick.
"My Baby!" she cried out, "My baby is in there!"
What Patrick did next he could only describe later as instinct, he didn't feel as if he willed himself but somehow his body took over from his mind. Seeing the still-alive security guard, Patrick reached for the pistol in her right hand and took it, quickly using his thumb to eject the magazine in the handle. The metal ammo clip slid out into his other hand and Patrick could see that it was loaded with live, hollow-point 9mm rounds. He rapidly slapped it back into the pistol and slid the action to load a bullet in the chamber, and then he reached for the doorknob of the front door.
Inside of the bookstore Rei had backed herself into a far corner of the shop as the two men slowly approach her and Yoshi. They had not tried to shoot her yet, or the boy, but she knew that physically she would be unable to prevail in any attempt to defend herself or him. She also could not let them win today. With the apparent elimination of her security guards Rei had but one remaining option.
"My lady, the time is now," the older man said, now getting to within a meter next to her.
Rei's expression went into something completely neutral however, and suddenly there was a projection from her. A green-tinted field of energy spread between her and the two intruders, shaped with hexagonal patterns and reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Both men gasped in shock.
"An AT Field!" exclaimed the younger man.
"She truly is The One," said the other.
The doorbell rang and both men turned to the front of the store. The younger one didn't live long enough to see who had entered, as two rounds from Patrick's pistol found his chest and ripped it wide open. The young boy screamed as Rei grabbed him in her arms, pushing back to the rear wall of the shop as the older assailant dove for cover behind one of the bookshelves.
"REI!" Patrick shouted as he moved inside, pistol held with two hands and his eyes on the gunsight.
"There's one left!" she shouted back.
Patrick heard a scuffling and dove for cover behind another bookshelf as the older gunman brought up his own weapon, a VP-70 machine pistol, and fired a burst of round towards the front door. Patrick crouched downward, still holding his pistol with both hands and trying to get all of himself hidden behind the cover of the bookshelf. He took a quick peek around the corner and was met with another burst of gunfire.
She's trapped in back. She and whoever else is here. And this guy's in between. Racking his mind on what the next move was, Patrick knew it had to be soon otherwise the fight could end badly for him and everyone else.
He could hear the footsteps of the remaining gunman, who was also hiding behind another bookshelf to get cover, so Patrick figured that the target was in the middle of the store. Patrick's shelf was closest to the door, and there was one shelf in the rear before reaching the back of the shop.
One way to get to the target would be to go to the end of the shelf and try to dodge and get in the middle, then fight him in close range. But he'll see me making that move. The ranges here are in feet, not yards, no way to evade. Patrick looked at the top of the shelf he hid behind, trying to determine any advantage. There's only lots of books piled on top, he saw. Lots of books piled on top….
With all his strength Patrick pushed his body weight into the bookshelf, forcing it towards the center shelf. Fortunately, it wasn't pinned down to the floors and the shelf went easily, falling towards the center bookshelf in a flood of books. It was a risky move, he knew, because he was eliminating his own protection, but the sudden and unpredictable fall of the bookshelves would flush out his target.
One bookshelf pushed into another and like dominos they fell in unison, with dozens of older books dropping from the tops of the shelves where they were stacked on top of the attacker as he tried to hide behind the collapsing shelf for cover. With the shelves collapsing, the terrorist fled for the edge of the alleyway to avoid being crushed, and right into Patrick's gunsights.
The gunman swung around to see Patrick standing upright, his pistol in both hands and aimed right at him. "Don't move!" Patrick shouted. The assailant hesitated, machine pistol still in hand. He looked behind him, seeing Rei backed up against the rear wall of the store, still holding the young boy in his arms and still protected by the AT Field in front of her.
But then the doorbell rang again, and as the front door opened the gunman rushed towards it and brought up his pistol in front of him, attempting to escape by blasting his way through the open door and whoever was in front of him.
It only took one shot. Patrick put a round in his upper chest, trying to avoid killing the man but wanting to stop him. It was only then when the terrorist went down to the floor.
Out from the front door was Dylan, his own Sig Sauer up and ready. He approached the gunman with his pistol aimed at him, screaming "Don't move! DON'T MOVE!"
The gunman did move however and put the barrel of his pistol to his mouth. Then he pulled the trigger. There was a loud burst and a thick cloud of blood, flesh, and smoke, and then there wasn't much left of his head as his body jerked, then stopped.
Dylan looked and saw Patrick, his own pistol gripped and aimed at the now headless body in front of them. Patrick was breathing hard, his eyes wide. After scanning to see who else was standing and who was not, Dylan then loudly called out "CLEAR!" Patrick hesitated then seconded the motion.
"Clear!"
Patrick finally lowered his pistol and got out of his firing stance. Rei had dropped her AT Field and then moved towards both men, letting Yoshi down from her arms. The boy's head had been pressed against Rei's chest and was fortunately able to avoid seeing the most horrible results of the gunfight. "His mother is outside," she told Dylan. Without saying anything further, the security officer took the young child and grabbed him, causing Yoshi to cry as he rushed outside of the store with him and burst back through the open doorway. A couple of seconds later Patrick and Rei could hear the mother crying with relief.
"Are you alright?" he asked Rei. Rei didn't answer him but instead went towards the clerk's desk.
Lying face up next to the opening of the workspace was Mr. Chadwick. He had two visible wounds to the chest that were bleeding profusely. Now panicked after seeing the older man, Patrick looked around for anything such as clothing or towels that he could use to try and stop the bleeding. He found Mr. Chadwick's raincoat hung on the coatrack and Patrick grabbed the whole thing, wadded it up and pushed it to the man's chest.
"Okay, okay, it's gonna be okay!" he said to Mr. Chadwick, trying to reassure him. Mr. Chadwck's face was sheet white however.
"Rei, help me please," instructed Patrick but she only gently lay her hand on his and looked at him directly in the eyes. She shook her head, and Patrick immediately knew what she meant.
Mr. Chadwick tried to look up at Rei as she moved closer to his head. She reached for the back of his head with her hand and cradled it, while she kept her other hand on top of Patrick's rested on the old man's wounded chest. The old bookstore owner struggled to crane his neck to speak to Rei, his eyes wide and quivering, knowing that he was going to die. He saw Rei and spoke to her as if only recognizing her for the first time.
"It's…. it's you!" he told her in surprise. "It's you!"
"It will be alright," she told him softly.
The old man reached for her with a trembling hand but then suddenly his head went back, he shivered and then his head fell back to the floor. Patrick could see his eyes close and could hear his lungs give out with a wheeze and crackling groan. Within that single moment a life had gone.
Rei took her hand out from behind Mr. Chadwick's head and she looked up at Patrick. There was a sullenness to her.
"Someone else has again died on my account," she told him.
Patrick just put his arm and brought her close, squeezing her tight as they both knelt over Mr. Chadwick's body.
Hello everyone, and I hope you enjoyed this latest installment. Doing my best to keep on schedule and am working on Act Two draft even as these chapters are being posted. Should see one additional chapter up by early November and then we'll move onto Act Two. Enjoy!