Thanks a lot for your reviews! I really appreciate them a lot! I hope you'll continue reviewing in the following chapters.
Also thanks to those who go on reading this story. Hope you enjoy.
0 = 1 - 2 + 3 - 4 + 5 - 6 + 7 - 8 + 9 - 9 + 8 - 7 + 6 - 5 + 4 - 3 + 2 - 1 = 0
Already while the air exploded with a deafening bang, a red-hot burning sword was rammed into Charlie's left shoulder. Stars were dancing in front of his eyes. He staggered back a few steps until he barged against the board. Feeling the hard material in his back and the fog clearing up, he became aware that it wasn't any more the detonation of the bullet that was deafening in his ears, but the shouts of panic and the screaming of his students.
Black spots came into his field of vision. Heat was rising up to his mind where suddenly a swarm of bees seemed to fly around. All of a sudden, his legs were too mellow to let Charlie believe they could bear his weight and that of the swarm any longer. The thought had barely occurred to him when he noticed that he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall.
What's going on here?, he wondered. In his mind, there was still a huge mess, a chaos, Charlie thought and wondered why he didn't smile at the wordplay. The next moment he became aware that there was no reason to smile. There was something going wrong nightmarishly. The chaos wasn't only in his mind, but also in the real world. He had just been in a lecture, hadn't he? What had changed that suddenly?
Finally, his sight had cleared up well enough to recognize the black-dressed figure standing in the door. The figure leveling a machine pistol at him.
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"Eppes! There's a new case for you."
Don's head jerked up in surprise and his eyes met the AD's, Walt Merrick. He didn't know if he had heard well.
"Sorry?"
"A new case for you, Eppes. For your team."
"But, Sir," Don contradicted, changing a gaze with his team that was listening interested, willing at best to ask if the AD had still all his senses, "we already have a case. The body that had disappeared."
"I know that, Eppes. The other teams are indispensable, however, and it's urgent." Merrick could as well have said that Don should shut up and eventually listen.
Don swallowed a comment and his mood sank a few centimeters deeper. Great, even the Director didn't just bawl him out, he also thought that their case wasn't that important. Great, really.
"What is it about?" he inquired, as neutral as possible.
"A school shooting," the Director informed him. "The perpetrator has around twenty hostages under his thumb; to our knowledge, there were six or seven shots until now, all of them in fast sequence and with all probability coming from only one weapon. The SWAT is informed. The building is being evacuated at the moment, except of the hostages of course."
A school shooting, great. That meant that he would have to prevent some crazy guy from carrying out a blood bath, at best in convincing him. The day really grew better and better.
"And where?" Don inquired and tried to sound not too surly.
"In the California Institute of Science."
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"No one's moving! Hands up! All of you!"
Charlie tried to obey. He couldn't. He held his right arm in the demanded position, indeed; but he couldn't move his left one by any stretch of the imagination. If it hadn't been for the infernal, burning pain, he wouldn't even have known if his arm was still attached to his body.
The armed man came closer, his face deformed to a grimace by the execrable grin. The devil's mask. "Keep your hands down, Eppes. I'm a generous man." He let the weapon sink a bit, still keeping hit on Charlie, however. "Besides, you can't do anything to me any more, anyway."
The boastful grin disappeared and was replaced by a glance full of hatred proclaiming harm. "The time of your power is over."
Dimly Charlie wondered if his opponent had this sentence from a computer game, but his confused gaze was mainly for other reasons. The time of your power is over? What should that mean? Who was this guy in the first place? What did he want?
"What is that about?" Charlie dared to talk, trying to frame all the things that weren't clear at the same time in this one question. He didn't know if he would get a second opportunity to ask, after all.
The madman seemed to be able to read his mind. "You don't remember me, do you, Eppes? Crowded me out? But I'll tell you who I am. You'll know it early enough. I failed the exam because of you, then, Eppes."
That made it all clear. As if clear, a voice in Charlie's mind scoffed and another one corrected it: Okay, that answers at least one question.
"Phelps. Matthew Phelps," Charlie said quietly. He remembered who the man was. The fog had completely lifted, even if Charlie's surroundings still emanated an unusual aura. Could this really be happening? He saw the pale faces of his students, holding trembling hands over their heads. He saw the bald fear in their eyes. In some of the lifted hands, he even saw the one or the other ball-pen. And he saw at least five bullet holes in the wall. It was all so unreal…
However, both his agonizing shoulder and Phelps' menacing voice catapulted him back in reality. "Wow, you remember me. Nice to see that it's reciprocal. 'Cause me too, I was often remembering you."
He didn't continue and after a few seconds, Charlie considered it safer to ask further questions: "Yeah?"
The whole thing was for show. Phelps wanted himself to play to the gallery, Charlie felt it. He had it all planned thoroughly. He wanted to see his ancient professor suffer. He and Charlie were marionettes in a script written by him and Phelps would pay attention to them acting it until the end. He played with him. And Charlie had a very certain foreshadow that this was going to be a game of life and death.
"Yeah," Phelps answered, with pleasure. "And every time I wondered how I'm going to let you suffer best before killing you."
Charlie swallowed; he couldn't restrain the reflex. Still, there didn't arrive any moisture in his stomach; his oral cavity was desiccated.
"Afraid?" Phelps scoffed, grinning diabolically. Charlie shuddered. "Well, well. So we're already done with part one."
"Part one whereof?" Charlie asked as deliberate as possible. The fact that his voice sounded that hollow wasn't really his intent.
"Of your torture – or do you believe I'll just bump you off? No. You have to suffer first, just like I had to suffer." He paused briefly, turning his back towards Charlie, and then continued just the more loudly and fiercely, so that Charlie cringed in spite of all self-control. "You've humiliated me, Eppes, in front of them all. Everyone could see that I didn't make it, because of you! And now I am going to humiliate you!"
Well, if that's everything, Charlie thought with a kind of sarcastic gallows humor, while Phelps made his way towards him.
"You're going to whine for mercy," he hissed. "You're going to beg for your life. I'm going to debase you in front of your students just like you abased me in front of my fellow students."
Charlie would have liked to contradict, but he was afraid. He was petrified that he could antagonize Phelps somehow, that Phelps sometime would shoot all the same. Pull yourself together, Charlie forced himself, desperately. You have to keep your sanity. You mustn't antagonize him. You must…
His train of thought suddenly stopped. He didn't know what to do.
Panic threatened to overwhelm him, but he pushed it back and tried to act logically. There's always a possibility, he tried to convince himself. There must be something you can do. What would Don do? Would Don try to overcome Phelps? Probably not, he could endanger the others…
Suddenly, the answer lightened up in front of him. Don would keep Phelps a-talking until rescue came. Yes, that was exactly the thing Don would do.
If Don's throat would be as tight as his?
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Don's throat was tight.
"Where?" he croaked.
"California Institute of Science," Merrick repeated impatiently and visibly annoyed. "And now get going, Eppes!" And without deigning a further look at Don he disappeared.
David's and Colby's gazes were swinging between Don and Megan, waiting for one of them to react. Colby noticed Don's respiration having increased. Then he became aware, that he and David fared no different. He glanced at Megan. She was as white as a wall, and her hands were trembling.
"What are we waiting for?" Don shouted, his raw voice flipping over. He stood and hurried towards the elevators, David and Colby close behind him. Megan quickly detached herself from her numbness and hurried to come behind three of them.
"Don," she called at her boss while David and Colby entered the elevator whose control panel was being maltreated by Don. She barely made it into the cabin before the doors closed behind her.
"Don," she repeated hauntingly, eyes wide. "You can't seriously think of taking command, here! We're biased, altogether!"
Don glared at her, his gaze unbelieving. "Do you really think I care? Either Charlie is well, and Larry and Amita, then we aren't biased, or… or they aren't well and then we can't simply let them down!"
"But we can't take the chance of making mistakes!"
"I really didn't intend that, Megan, I tell you!"
"But we know-"
"DO YOU KNOW HOW LITTLE I CARE? You've heard Merrick! We're the only team that's available! And if nobody cares about that guy soon, he'll probably crack up completely!"
Megan watched him for some instants, her look unfathomable. Then she nodded.
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"Let the students go."
Charlie was a bit taken aback by himself. Phelps seemed to be, too, for he had raised his eye-brows, bursting out laughing. "And why should I do that, Eppes?"
"They didn't do harm to you. You only want me. Let 'em go."
Again this taunting grin. "I only want you, Eppes? Where do you get that idea from?" He turned towards the students, fidgeting with his gun, screaming as if he was in a lunatic illusion. "Where do you get the idea from I won't do something to you? Guys like you have humiliated me! I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!"
Charlie concentrated on Don and his tone was even, although his voice was trembling. "You won't do that."
Immediately, Phelps spun around towards him, as well as the machine pistol. "Yeah? And what makes you so sure?"
Charlie tried to ignore the muzzle of the gun, looking his opponent straight in the eye. "You aren't a murderer, Phelps. You could have killed me a thousand times by now, but you didn't do it."
"Do you think I'm a coward or something?!"
What for heaven's sake went wrong? Every word seemed to make this moron more aggressive! "No," Charlie answered and was extremely careful in picking his words. "But I consider you clever enough not to kill anybody. You didn't do great harm until now. If it remains like this, you'll get off cheaply."
Charlie already thought it would work. Phelps was silent and seemed actually to think about his words. But then, the annoying taunting grin returned. "Give in, Eppes. You won't get away, nobody of you." Taunt changed into wickedness and illusion. "Otherwise we wouldn't have spectators, would we?"
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Don's SUV dashed through LA, the lightened red light displayed, the siren sounding. If they had wasted a thought about it, maybe David, Colby and Megan would have prevented him from driving himself, for safety matters, though they were much too tense for such arguments.
On the front passenger's seat, Megan fiddled in her pocket and pulled out her cell. "Nobody's answering to Charlie's mobile," she informed them a few seconds later, the mobile attached to her ear.
Don felt panic heating up his head. If Charlie was able to do it he would answer the phone, wouldn't he? But it couldn't be, it couldn't be true… Maybe the shooting had already been in full swing when he had called Charlie back after their argument… to shout at him once more…
"Try Larry's," Colby suggested from the backseat.
"Hasn't got one," Megan replied shortly.
"Amita?" David tried.
"No number."
"Well…" David cleared his throat and then continued, a bit awkward: "We'll be there soon. Then we'll surely be able to ask them directly what's going on."
Megan's response was barely audible. "I hope so."
Few, but agonizing long minutes later, Don's tires were squealing when they came to a halt in front of the CalSci. A chaotic image was displayed in front of their eyes: the campus was full of people, running confused through each other, seeming to be looking for friends and fellow students.
As soon as the university center had come into sight, Megan's eyes had searched the area, without success. The four of them had barely got out of the SUV, however, when an outcry escaped her: "There!" And she pointed at two figures thrusting their way through the crowd towards them.
Larry and Megan hugged, though releasing each other quickly. "Where's Charlie?" Megan wanted to know, her glance scurrying from Amita and Larry to Don, who was still searching the chaos on the campus with his eyes.
"We don't know. We couldn't find him anywhere until now." Amita sounded as if she was close to losing control.
There was shocked silence for some instants.
"Come on, now," a quiet, but determined voice suddenly said, yet coming from Don's mouth, but having a completely other tone color. The forced calmness, possibly resulting by the shock, was leaving its mark. "We have no time to lose."
Don had no idea how right he was.
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