III
The next morning, after getting dressed, washing and shaving, Alex took his first look into the bag he had been sent home with. He had chosen to leave its contents unknown to make sure that if this really was a joke, he could deal with the rage and possible relief it would inspire after having slept properly. The bag contained several moderately-sized books which he chose to ignore, some manila folders, a dozen VERY large wads of cash, some flash drives of varying designs in a special little 'booklet' of sorts with the words 'DO NOT USE UNTIL DIRECTED TO' in big, friendly, nerve-wracking letters on the front, a set of maps, a tiny hammer and a set of chisels (WTF?), a pair of billiard balls (Once again, WTF, dude?), several sets of what he took to be fake IDs and papers to go with them and lastly, and this clinched the other two WTF moments by far with its sheer oddity, a cell phone in a plastic bag marked ' DO NOT USE' in far less friendly and even more disturbing big red letters. After looking through all this, he noticed a single sheet of paper at the bottom of the bag. Upon examination it turned out to be the list he had been told about.
After looking around for a moment and then spending a few seconds to make sure he had nothing better to do, he read it. The first few tasks were simple. They involved the pickup of various packages in areas scattered around the business district and their quick transportation to areas marked by letters, numbers and red dots on the maps he had received. It all seemed perfectly normal (in a shadowy secret agent way) until he reached the part about the chisels and the billiard balls. One directive told him to loosen a specific brick indicated in a diagram next to it on a specific floor of a certain building whose Swahili proprietor's name he couldn't pronounce if he had the mouth of a 'prawn', but which, upon examination of a handy guide book he retrieved from under his couch (after a full fifteen minutes of searching and swearing), turned out to be a simple hotel where the rooms were cheap, clean and often empty. Another 'mission' had him placing one of the billiard balls on a staircase in a damp alley somewhere on 47th Street down in the warehouse district.
Either they were jokes or carefully planned attempts at littering. Did these idiots sit around together in an attic, scheming to steal watches by paying for them? He chuckled at the thought, until a much darker one came along to replace it: these people were not the kind to joke around. He had seen that in the cold gaze of that 'Runner' lady last night, so whatever lunacy this bunch of 'not-terrorists-at-all' had in mind, it was bound to be big…but where would loosening a brick in the wall of an old hotel come into it? Was this some sort of crazy war of attrition? And then he remembered something he had read about kung-fu masters when he was much younger and far less wise: a master didn't break a block by strength alone; he applied the right amount of force to the right area at the right time to maximize effect. The same went for visual displays in all artistic fields and even in music; the right thing at the right place, and most importantly, at the RIGHT time.
After ten minutes of trying to link these unrelated subjects together while sitting on the floor among the pile of paper, he gave up and made the decision to change the course of history. Of course he didn't think of it like that at the time. What he REALLY thought was 'What the hell. I'll try and do one of these weird ones, just to see what happens.'. He scanned his way to the top of the list and read his first task: Retrieve package from back alley of nearest McDonald's on 4/25/15. Deliver to point A174.
"Screw that." He muttered. He skimmed down the list until he found a really nice one involving the placing of a cue ball on the dividing depression between the concrete slabs that made up the sidewalk under a bus stop bench in the city's business district, one he had used with moderate irregularity back when he had been employed by normal people and owned a car. Upon realizing it was so close to Cobol Engineering's Headquarters, he shivered. With luck, he thought, no one will recognize me...if I'm careful.
After checking the bus time-tables given on the back of the map, he determined that the next bus would be arriving at the nearest stop in less than ten minutes. Then, stopping only to grab a jacket from his tiny closet and to shove one of the small books from the bag into its pocket just in case the journey took a while and place the cue ball called for in the instructions in the other pocket with some of his new money and the map, made his exit.
It took him less than six minutes to find the nearest bus stop, where he waited for a further seven minutes for the arrival of one of the rackety old buses people native to Mombasa thought of as a public transportation system. He hopped aboard, using a few bills from one of the wads of Kenyan cash to pay off the 'bouncer' that all such vehicles in the city seemed to possess in order to keep off nonpaying passengers. He had rarely used the buses when he had been employed, having opted to drive in a car he no longer owned, but since his downfall, he had come to appreciate them as a cheap and reliably unreliable source of quick transportation. While on the bus, he pulled out the book he had shoved in his pocket earlier. It was blank, both on the front cover and the spine, and seemed as thick as a net-book laptop, but was small enough to fit into his jacket pocket without drawing undue attention.
Stuffing the map he had been carrying in his other hand into the pocket from which he had pulled the bills, he located a seat on the currently quite empty vehicle and flipped the book open. The morning commute to work was nearly over and this bus seemed to stick to the better parts of town for the most part, so that might've explained it's inherent emptiness. The only other people aboard were a trio of couples at the back, a pair of businessmen in black suits sitting across the aisle from Alex and an old woman with an open box of nectarines sitting in front of him, which filled his nose with a mix of dust and the sticky-sweet stench of the contents of said box, which was no doubt headed to a street-market stall. None of them appeared to be the least bit interested in him.
The text appeared to be simple enough, the standard kind you found in all books printed in English everywhere. And the text was arranged into perfectly normal sentences and paragraphs...or so it seemed. It took a while for Alex to realize that the book was crammed with quotes, thousands of quotes from works of literature, history and film, possibly from everywhere on the globe. He skimmed through the tide of philosophical, technical and humorous gibberish, confusion multiplying exponentially. Some of the quotes were not labeled while others seemed to be a random string of words . The frequency of these types of quotes increased as he flipped further and further into the book. Suddenly, when he was halfway through, the quotes turned to lists of names, not just of people but of all sorts of things. Just after the section full of lists was a six-page long blank space which was then followed by the only thing in the book that even made the slightest sense. It was a poem...sort of. It was titled 'Elegy for Humanity'. His already confused mind captivated by the strangeness of this book, he read it.
'Born in a cradle from which they refuse to leave,
twisted by evils from without and within,
they know not what they are meant to be.
They chose hate over love, war over peace,
because they were taught that they were right.
Their delusions ascendant, their cruelty given meaning,
through fire and war and insanity they reigned
and crusaded against the light.
And in the end, all things did pay the price.
The heavens burned, the stars cried out...
and under the ashes of infinity,
hope, scarred and bleeding,
breathed its last.'
Alex snapped the book shut before the storm of confusion as to what the hell this stuff was all about filled his whole head. Besides, that poem, though obviously not a masterwork, had sent chills up his spine for some reason.
A little while later, the bus came to a stop, it's brakes clearly needing to be taken in for a checkup due to the screech they generated with the sudden halt, causing him to look out the window, which he had been doing at every pause in motion. Each bus stop of which was spaced about seven minutes apart, so he had been doing this quite frequently on the journey through the city, during which the businessmen had gotten off as well as one of the couples, who had been replaced by a lanky African man with a suitcase and another Caucasian guy who had deep, dark circles under his eyes as if he hadn't been sleeping very well. Outside, the sign over bus stop indicated he had reached his destination. He disembarked and looked around.
The business district of Mombasa hadn't changed much in the time he had been gone. The bus stop was less than quarter of a mile from the actual Cobol Engineering building, which loomed eight stories high among the mostly six- or five-story buildings populating the rest of the district. It stood like an impervious mirror-skinned monolith, smugly looking down on its competitors like a bully looking down on his targets. It was no secret that the company now employed private soldiers to guard its premises at night and to act as a last line of defense should a new protest begin and storm the building in spite of the efforts of the police. Behind the bus stop loomed the company's garage, which was three stories tall and filled with the vehicles of employees
Alex glared at the place. The people owning those cars and working in the nearby building had their lives figured out and worked for people who didn't hide in run down buildings, call meetings on dark and stormy nights or speak in riddles. In his soul, he longed to feel as they no doubt did...as HE one had, to be a part of something and to be in control of his life as well as appreciated. He pulled out the instructions and the map from his pocket after shoving the book back into his jacket and scanned down the list until he had found the directive he was following, then used it to locate the correct space between the concrete slabs of the sidewalk, which had some respectably large cracks from ten years of service without refit. The bus stop was the standard kind you might even find at an airport, with a big metal and glass box enclosing a bench on three sides while facing the street. Under the bench, the slabs making up the sidewalk were divided by what looked like a small gap filled with rubber cement every three feet, which was the width of each slab. First looking around to make sure no one was paying any attention whatsoever, he removed the cue ball from the pocket where he had kept the money, the map and the instructions. Rolling it between his fingers and wondering what diabolical purpose such a simple object could serve, then rubbing it thoroughly on his jacket sleeve to remove any fingermarks in a fit of paranoia, he placed it under the bench the bus stop contained, in the depression created by the rubber cement poured between the slabs, just where the instructions said he should. Behind him, cars raced by on the street fronting the bus stop. No one noticed as he stood up and, looking around in a way that would have immediately drawn attention had anyone been even remotely interested in what he was doing, sat down on the bus stop's bench to wait for the next bus to come and take him home.
When his phone rang, he jumped, his anxiety having grown from the thought that some one walking by would notice the cue ball and connect it to him or ask about it or even pick it up. No one had, of course, but that hadn't stopped him from winding up the little rubber band in the model airplane of his soul with so much worry that it knotted. He delved into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the small iPhone that had been a saving grace to him since he had sold his laptop. After pressing the 'answer' button, he held it to his ear. A much more reassuringly familiar voice than the one he had expected emerged from the phone's speaker.
"Alex? You there?" said the voice on the other end jovially. Alex smiled.
"Yeah. What can I do for you Jack?" he replied. It was Jack Mason, the policeman that patrolled his neighborhood now and then. Alex had met him often when he left to get what pitiful few groceries he could afford. The man was extremely personable and easy to like. He had a smile that could blind the unwary with its sunny cheerfulness and had a love of baseball that Alex just couldn't relate to, but which had never stopped them from being friends. From what Alex had been able to dig up, he had once served in Joburg as a U.N. Peacekeeping Officer before he had quit and come up the continent to live in Mombasa. His accent said far more clearly than anyone else could that he had been raised in the better parts of America that the Great Recession hadn't hit so hard. He had introduced Alex to a large number of the friends he now possessed.
"I was wondering if you'd want to come down to the bar with me and a few buddies. We were going to have a few beers and shoot some pool if you wan to join." the man said.
"What's the occasion?" Alex asked. There was a pause.
"Well the bar's finally getting an HD TV anndd...that's all I can think of. Look, does there really need to be a reason?" Jack replied, a trace of impatience now present in his tone.
"No...no I suppose not. Besides I've got a little cash to spare..." he said then froze, realizing his mistake.
"Well that's good. I'll see you at...what time, eight, ten?" Jack answered, apparently ignoring Alex's slip of the tongue. After seizing control of his anxiety once more, Alex managed to answer.
"I think I can show up around nine. Who else's going to be there?" he said, trying hard to keep his voice from shaking.
"Well so far I got Sheppard, Jason, Powell, Carson and Briggs on board. There might be more but probably not." the Policeman said. Alex wiped his forehead. He couldn't tell what was making sweat more, the heat of the rising sun or his own internal melting pot of anxieties and worries.
"Good, good. I'll grab some chips or pretzels if you want." he said.
"No thanks, we'll just make do with whatever they have tonight." Jack answered back.
"Fair enough. See you tonight." Alex finished.
"Sure thing." Jack replied. They hung up. Alex realized that the sound that had been building in the distance was in fact the approach of the bus he had been waiting for. Out of the corner of his eye, he peeked down at the cue ball. Yep, it was still there, looking innocent but exuding an aura of malice that seemed highly incongruous with its appearance. He rose as the bus screeched to a halt, generating acoustic harmonics that would make micro-fissures in plexiglass as its brakes did their jobs. He boarded it hurriedly, filled with an overwhelming urge to be as far away from this location as possible. As the doors of the bus hissed closed and the bus stop receded into the distance, Alex never saw the figure in the black trenchcoat watching him from a window in the nearby office block three-stories up, who smiled as he completed his task.
Several hours later, Alex sat in the brightly lit 'C & H Tavern', an establishment that did not promise much in the way humor, but did offer much in the way of being able to drink yourself so stupid you would find yourself on the freeway thinking 'What are these fuckers all doing going the wrong way!'. Alex stuck with water. It was probably a safe bet, seeing as clean water was easier to get nowadays in African cities, especially since the Kenyan government had begun its crusade for nation-wide, easy-to-access utilities three years prior. Of course drinking water while everyone else present drank beer might've raised a few eyebrows in any other pub, it didn't in this one. Here, everyone stuck to their own business and, contrary to popular belief, bar fights did not start so often that the manager had a rule of the last person to throw a punch had to pay for the damages.
Alex preferred the water to whatever alcohol the bar was serving. If he ever came as close to getting drunk as he had yesterday, he would prefer to do it with something higher-class than beer. Besides, the only reason he had come that close was because the weight of the world had been upon him. Now he had cash to spare for the next three months at least and, now that he was thinking about it, simply moving packages around for people, as long as they weren't bombs in exchange didn't seem so bad, even if those asking him to do it had suspicion-arousing eccentricities.
He sat at a table with two of his friends, the other four having failed to show up. All had given perfectly reasonable excuses over the phone save Sheppard, who had neglected to call and expound on any possible reasons for his absence. Now he sat here with Carter and Jason Bishop, the two exchanging baseball statistics like a pair of pre-graduate mathematicians from M.I.T. while the world turned beneath his feet and in the background, people spoke cordially on various personal matters in their chosen languages and the clink of glasses mingled with the buzz of human speech.
On the wall next to the bar, a large and noticeably shiny HD TV screen showed a soccer match between two teams which Alex refrained from noticing, just as he instinctively withdrew from any sports activity. People who noticed this, then noticed that Alex was not your average computer geek, complete with beer belly from late night snacks made of strange condiments, often commented on it and then learned that while Alex considered himself averse to popular team sports, he did not consider himself above exercise. He had once told his friend George Carson, another American immigrant ally of his, a translator at the U.S. Embassy here in Mombasa in fact, that he did it because one of the advantages of being fit in an academic field like his was that you could beat up your coworkers, should the need arise. They had both laughed at that.
Eventually, the litany of baseball trivia began to wear on Alex to the point that he thought that butting into the conversation and trying to steer it in another direction might be the only way to preserve his sanity. That was when the door opened briefly to allow in a gust of evening air and the one and only Inspector John Sheppard. Alex tried hard not to sigh with relief. Maneuvering carefully through the tables filled with drinking and talking people, Sheppard made his way over to the table where Alex, Carter and Jason were sitting. As he pulled out a chair and sat down, he brushed his rakish black hair and removed the mirrored sunglasses from his eyes. Carter slid a full beer across the varnished table to the Inspector who caught it and cracked it open with a hiss.
"Sorry about being late." he said, "The department called me out to a multiple crash scene to find out who was responsible and I had to work overtime.".
"Really? Sounds gruesome." Alex said.
"Ah, I'd say 'you've seen one pileup, you've seen em' all', but then I'd be lying." John answered, with the tone of a grizzled veteran in such matters.
"So...anyone important get killed?" Carter asked morbidly. One flaw in his otherwise immaculate people skills was a tendency to come out with questions like that.
"You should know I have to refrain from commenting on that, Carter.", Sheppard said with a smile that lasted as long as a lightning flash. Carter rolled his eyes at that. Jason chose this moment to enter the conversation.
"Where'd it happen?" he said nonchalantly. In the background the TV blared away in English coupled with Swahili subtitles as the soccer game entered its final stages. Sheppard took a swig of his beer and leaned back in his chair.
"Well, we're not scheduled to make an official statement until nine tomorrow, but I can tell you it wasn't far from Cobol Engineering. Just outside the company parking lot actually. It was really weird. The whole thing was weird in fact. We went through the scene and from the looks of it, it was one hell of a freak accident." Sheppard answered. Alex froze. Happily, no one seemed to notice. Except Sheppard.
"Sorry, Alex. I mean, I know you used to work there, but I didn't think it would involve...sorry, here." Sheppard said. He slapped Alex on the back because Alex had begun to choke on his water. Finally, he managed to swallow, and after a fit of extreme coughing, regain his composure.
"Oh I'm sure it was no one I knew. I didn't have many friends in the company, just associates." he said, trying to sound detached while inside his head, alarms were ringing and klaxons were shrilling. This comment earned him some odd looks, but nothing severe.
"Anyway," Sheppard said, breaking the ice, "where's everyone else?". Carter jumped to answer.
"Powell had to have dinner with his wife, Carson had to work late and Briggs, well, Briggs got called in to deal with some guy named Mr. Eko down at the docks." Carter stated before taking a swig of his own beer. This statement caused widespread shock in the group.
"Wait, wait, wait...this Mr. Eko guy...is his last name 'Kahele'?" Jason said, interest coloring his voice.
"Yeah...yeah I think it was." Carter said. Sheppard whistled. Even Alex was impressed. Wherever he had gone in Kenya, Alex had heard tell of Eko Kahele, the one-time drug lord, forced into his trade at age twelve who had turned against his own criminal allies ten years later and redeemed himself, destroying his own drug ring and then handing himself over to the authorities. Upon his release from prison thirty years later he had entered the mining trade and become a wealthy and honest businessman. Alex had looked him up on Wikipedia once and had seen his company listed as number two-hundred and thirty on the Fortune Five-Hundred. His was a tale of inspiration, the criminal who turned against everything he knew and started over as an honest man, working for the betterment of all peoples. His company had helped many Africans find jobs during the worst of the Great Recession's overseas effects and held together entire economies.
That someone Alex knew was working for one of the most legendary corporate 'good guys' of the twentieth century was amazing. That he was going to meet him in person was excellent. Maybe he could get Briggs to put in a good word for him. Alex had never really considered a career in the mining industry, but seeing as he had exhausted all possible major openings in the R&D, software, engineering and other such technological industries, perhaps Mr. Eko would be willing to find a place in his accounting department for an out-of-work desk-jockey such as Alex himself.
"You know...I've heard about that guy. I don't believe he's really reformed." Jason said gruffly.
"You know, that's a pretty ridiculous outlook. The man has contributed more to charity than most people make in their entire lives." Sheppard said. Alex smiled at that. John Sheppard had often told Alex that he wished there were more people like Eko. He had said that if the world had more people willing to change as the great businessman had, then his job would be a lot easier.
"So? That doesn't mean anything. It could all be just a front. Besides, people don't just decide to change like he did. I've seen someone who spent twenty years as a ruthless criminal suddenly have an about-face before, only to be caught doing the exact same stuff he was convicted of before." Jason said vehemently.
"What? Are you saying there's no such thing as a moment of revelation? People can change if they really want to, or if given the right reason." Sheppard replied.
"What happened man? When I first me you, you were the most jaded, anti-social guy I had ever met but now...now you're giving a guy like Eko a second chance? When he made his big turnaround, he was in the inner circle of the twelfth largest drug-empire on the continent. No one gets to be there without being absolutely merciless, so I don't see how after twenty years of being like that he can suddenly grow a conscience" Jason said.
"Jason, in all the time I've been here, I've seen a lot of things. I've taken down my share of drug rings and one of the things I learned is that everyone has a story. Half the drug runners I've interrogated were forced into the trade at an early age when some band of lunatic recruiters showed up in their village and inducted them at gunpoint. They came to the trade and got good at it because it was either that or death." Sheppard spat. It was at this point, happily that Carter intervened, using his excellent social skills to prevent what could have been a horrible disturbance (i.e. bickering, accusations, etc.).
Alex ceased to listen at this point. While Carter soothed growing tempers, Alex pondered his future occupation. If he could really get a job from the one and only Mr. Eko Kahele, he might be able to clear his name and balance out the black mark his time at Cobol had left on his resume with a redeeming light of service in service to the Kahele Heavy Industrial and Mining Combine, a company devoted to clean technology, honest business practices and most of all, the distribution of clean slates to the deserving.
At this point, his phone silently vibrated with a little pattern of one-two-three, indicating someone was texting him. He pulled it out, getting no looks from the others who were still conversing about the virtues of criminals redeeming themselves, but were shifting away from that inevitably back towards sports. Upon opening his inbox, he found that the new message had repulsed his caller-ID app's attempts to verify its source. That could mean only one thing. They wanted to see him. Hastily he stood up, which earned him the confused gazes of his other three companions. He cleared his throat.
"Um...I've got to pop outside for moment. Someone texted me from outside. Says I owe them money. I'll be right back. It's probably just some misunderstanding ." he said. This seemed to pass muster for Jason.Unfortunately, Sheppard and Carter seemed to be a bit more uncertain.
"You sure you want to go alone? Sheppard and I can go with you if you want. If it's bunch of muggers or something, you might need the help." Carter said, his natural civil service paranoia clearly visible on his features. Alex smiled and hoped his nervousness didn't leak through his internal floodgates.
"I'll be fine. You know I've never borrowed off of any sort of mob or gang, so it's probably fine, and if it isn't, well, I did take self-defense classes when I was a kid." he said confidently. 'Admittedly I never got all the way to black-belt,' he said in his head, 'but what the hell. If it is a couple of guys with a lead pipe, I'll be fine. They'll never even see me coming.'. After a short pause, in which Carter and Sheppard looked at each other, and then at him, Sheppard responded with a shrug.
"If you say so man. But if it does get bad, take these." the Inspector said. He reached into his pocket and handed Alex what looked like one-half of a set of brass knuckles, with room for only two fingers. Alex raised a questioning eyebrow. Sheppard grinned.
"Got this off a gangster I laid out when he came after me last week. I didn't report it and it's not like he's going to press charges. Just make sure you don't get caught with it on you." he said. Alex retrieved the device, nodded in thanks, then slid his way through the moderately crowded bar like a ghost and reached the door with a minimum of fuss while behind him, Sheppard immediately became the center of attention for the other two members of the table who wanted to hear all about the fight with the gangster and the origin of the strange 'micro-knuckles'. Once outside, the stench of the closing street markets filled his nose once more like fungus. Moving quickly, he maneuvered himself through the thinning crowds occupying the sidewalk and entered the darkened, unpopulated alley bordering the tavern's left side while the night deepened overhead.
'What is it with these people and meeting in darkened alleys?', Alex wondered. It was cliche beyond all belief. Working hard to avoid tripping over anything that might be littering the alley floor in the dark, Alex worked his way back to the rear of the nine-foot-wide space which became ever more narrow as he worked his way further back, shrinking like some optical illusion corridor into a rear exit that was little more than a three inch wide slit between the buildings on either side. It came as an immense surprise when some one pressed something round and cold to the back of his head and said: "Goodbye, Mr. Tyrone.". The was a sound like 'THWCHCK' and for a moment it was all Alex could do to keep his bowels under control. Then realized that the pressure on the back of his head was gone. Slowly, he turned and saw something that would haunt him forever.
Standing less than two feet behind him was a man in a black pants with a white T-Shirt, all of which was barely visible in the darkness of the alley. What was readily visible was the hole centered directly in the middle of his forehead. From it leaked a couple drops of blood which ran down his face and across his features making him look like a stature carved from marble filled with veins of impurities. He had a bare few seconds to see and comprehend this before the man collapsed onto Alex, who stumbled backwards in disgust as blood leaked from the hole in his head onto Alex's gray t-shirt, spattering it with tiny flecks of red liquid. It was then that Alex saw the magnum with an attached silencer the man had been holding.
Footsteps echoed through the alley, causing Alex to look up. Out of the darkness of the long passage came the all too familiar figure of Runner. She strode towards him with an air of total unconcern. In her left hand was the largest pistol Alex had ever seen. What was more frightening was that it was smoking. As she came within five feet of him, she slid the gun into her black trenchcoat which flapped with her swift movement. Strangely, this did not seem to weigh her down, as if the gun simply ceased to exist when she had placed it into her coat. She stopped just in front of the body.
"Y-y-you shot him!" Alex stammered, the sheer horror of his situation beginning to set in.
"He was about to kill you. He saw you earlier performing your mission and put two and two together when he heard about the crash later on." she said. Her voice was empty of all emotion. She clearly did not feel any sort of guilt over what she had done.
"Wait...wait, wait. Are you saying that somehow, me putting a fucking CUE BALL on the pavement at a bus stop somehow caused a multiple-car pileup over nine hours later!" Alex said, incredulity waxing high through his tone in an uncontrollable manner. Runner seemed to pay no attention to this. She bent down and rolled the corpse over, then sifted through his pockets, finally retrieving a small metal plate engraved with a symbol that Alex had never seen before on it.
"Huh, he's from the Syndicate. Funny, he doesn't look Nigerian." she muttered. Then she looked up.
"Not to worry Mr. Tyrone. We'll be doubling our watch over you to make sure this doesn't happen again. As for our friend here I'll dispose of him before I leave. I suggest you take this opportunity to make your exit, but before you go, rub this into your shirt. It'll get rid of the bloodstains." she said, standing back up and opening the right half of her coat to reveal a sort of toolkit made up of tiny gadgets and vials of mysterious liquid, one of which she removed and handed to Alex who now stood open-mouthed, lost for words. In his head, all he could think was: 'I'm standing in an alley with an extremely attractive woman who has just saved my life and the man who just tried to kill me is now lying at my feet with a hole in his head and his BLOOD is all over my shirt and someone just tried to kill me. ME! Of all people! Someone tried to kill me!'. She then looked him straight in the eye with a cold gaze that could have frozen helium at fifty paces.
"Stay away from Eko Kahele. He's been our ally for a very long time and we have made him more than aware of your role in our plans. Should you attempt to contact him for a job offer you will be refused. You work for us and no one else until your contract is complete." she said, the chill of her gaze leaking into her voice.
"But I thought you said that I-" Alex tried to say before his 'employer' cut him off.
"Yes, we did you say could leave whenever you chose, but now we are altering our agreement. Information from my superiors says that the work you are doing now requires that YOU do it and no one else. Furthermore, it is no longer safe for you to leave our employment because if you did, people like the one we are standing over would be all over you." Runner said, her icy tone now melting slightly into a more placid, neutral one. There was another pause until Alex once again mustered his wits, during which Runner reached down and went through the rest of the cadaver's pockets, finding nothing but lint and something that looked like a passport which she quickly pocketed before he could get a good look.
"What is going on!" he whispered viciously at her, trying simultaneously to convey his anger and avoid attracting attention from anyone beyond the alley. Runner smiled in way that made Alex's skin want to crawl around from the front of his body to the back.
"Mr. Tyrone, I suggest you go home soon. Get some sleep. Do what we have asked and all will be revealed...eventually." she said sweetly, the ice now replaced by what seemed to be poisoned honey. Alex quickly recovered before the pale woman could turn and leave him standing there with his mouth still hanging open like an idiot.
"The people who died in the crash, who were they?" he inquired hurriedly. This question hung in the air like a noose for several seconds. Around him the darkness deepened and the air cooled with the descent of the sun. Finally Runner answered.
"Mr. Tyrone, right now I have let you hear far more than anyone at your level in our organization ever should. But you know what? I like you. You did your job well. So I will tell you that those killed deserved far worse than the quick death we gave them. We have documents connecting them to illegal experiments not just with genetics, but with the funding of illegal experiments in cybernetics and surgical enhancement on unwilling subjects, both human and non-human. They were almost as bad as the board of MNU. If we had released the evidence, they would have used their influence in the courts to squirm out of it. So we had you do what no else could: we had you deliver natural justice to the deserving." she said quietly. Then she raised her eyes, which she had been pointing at the ground until then, and stared straight into his soul.
"You must understand, Mr. Tyrone, we are at war. In wars even secret ones like ours, people die. But unlike most wars, we are not fighting for power, for land or for money. We are fighting for the future of the universe. We are fighting to save mankind from itself. I can't give you anything more until you have completed your first tasks. Goodbye.".
At this point, the urge to get as far away from this woman as quickly as possible became irresistible. Slowly at first, but then with increasing speed, he exited the alley and made his way back to the bar as the orange glow of street lamps finished filling the city causing him to squint upon his exiting the alley. As he reentered the warm light of the now even-more-crowded bar, he quietly breathed a sigh of relief and tried to wrestle with the feeling that he had just barely escaped with his life on top of the fact that some one had actually tried to kill him, of all people!
Then he made his way to the remarkably empty bathroom where, as instructed he rubbed the contents of the vial into his shirt which caused the flecks of blood to vanish as if they had never been there. The stuff felt like water, but left no mark and dried up soon after it was applied, smelling of laundry detergent as it did. Then he threw up in the sink as the dual nauseating sights of death and murder caught up with him and took their toll. The porcelain basin luckily had no drain-strainer, which made it easier for him to wash away the remains of his puke. The scents of detergent and vomit soon faded into the general smells of the bathroom, however, leaving Alex to wonder why he hadn't listened to that internal voice on that first night, the one which had told him that he was going to regret signing on with this 'mystery mob'.
Soon after Alex left, Runner knelt once more and went over the cadaver one final time, retrieving a watch-like device from its wrist and then pocketing this after briefly examining it. Then she reached into her coat once more and extracted a vial, the contents of which were glowing green and looked like soap. She unscrewed the top of the container and carefully poured it onto the body with a quiet hissing sound working hard to distance herself from it.. Where it touched the body, clothes, flesh and bone broke down into an oily mixture which then spread across the already damp and stained ally floor before running down the nearest storm drain. As soon as she had emptied the small vial of slime, she dropped it into the melting mess which was now smoking like dry ice.
Within less than a minute, the corpse had become fluid with a texture like engine oil which then ran down the storm drain and mixed with the varied gunk already covering the alley floor. All that remained were the inorganic bits of the body, including traces of iron, buttons, a pair of sunglasses, the tube which had held the substance and a tiny ear-piece like those carried by C.I.A. agents. After waiting another two minutes to make sure that the substance had had enough time for its self-eradicating properties to begin take effect, Runner donned a pair of non-stick gloves made of synthetic, rubber-like compounds, gathered the all the leftovers floating on top of the slime like lily pads on the surface of a pond, crushed the larger remains including the vial and glasses with her booted foot, which was covered in the same material as the gloves and dropped them into the alley's storm drain whose metal cover she removed and replaced without a sound.
She grimaced with disgust. She hated cleanup, preferring to let her hateful pursuers rot on their own schedule. Still, right now they couldn't afford exposure of the current war, at least not until everything was in place. She carefully retrieved the silenced magnum, the only thing she hadn't destroyed, from the puddle, working hard not to let the gunk touch her skin, just in case the compound's self-eradicating properties hadn't yet fully completed their effects, and looked at it with disdain. The design was completely tasteless, a black metal thing without a single sign that the designer had taken any joy in his work. It was a testament to the mindless uniformity of her enemies. After examining it for a minute, more than enough time for the liquefaction compound to have broken down and become harmless, he squeezed the gun in her grasp freely, paying no mind to the slime as it leaked between her fingers. There was a crinkling sound...and the gun was crushed as if it were made of silly putty. She then tossed it into the furthest reaches of the alley where the space between the buildings became so narrow as to be impassable for any normal human being. Then she pulled a water bottle and from her coat's inside pockets and removed what little slime the weapon's destruction had left on her hand.
Her evidence-elimination efforts completed, she reached into her right pocket and liberated a large cell-phone with neon highlights in green, red and blue which she opened with a sound like an ammo clip being snapped into a pistol. After taking a moment to dial, she raised it to her ear.
"This is Runner. The Agenda is progressing. Suggest level 2 protection plan for Mr. Tyrone." she said crisply. On the other end of the line, a raspy male voice that sounded as if it might have a throat problem answered.
"Excellent work. I agree with your assessment. Even though the agent you eliminated did not communicate what he had learned to his superiors, it is inevitable that more will find out about him and attempt to remove him." it said. Runner turned and put one hand on her hip.
"Any progress on your end?" she inquired.
"Indeed. Preparations for the primary events are going smoothly. The Serum Prototype has passed every test and we should soon have a working prototype of the Remedy by next week. The Agency has located more artifacts and secured them as planned. By the time everything is in place and our devices prepared, the System won't stand a chance. The Third Age is practically already ours" the voice said smugly. Runner frowned and stared at the alley's exit.
"Beware your pride..." she whispered. The voice snorted.
"It's not pride, Runner, it's established fact. It doesn't matter that the System has been busy screwing up this planet for the past three-hundred years. We're going to have them by the balls in a matter of minutes when the time comes for the main event. " the voice rasped. It then descended into a fit of coughing that sounded, over the phone, like a sack of gravel being smacked against a wall.
"That doesn't sound good." Runner said when the fit had died down.
"No, it doesn't. Unfortunately standing around in the smog where I am is detrimental even to the health of a man with my abilities. I'll have to get Healer to repair the damage when I get back." it wheezed. Runner grimaced at that. If breathing was causing that much trouble, the smog must've been laced with acid or thick with carcinogens.
"What the hell are you doing?" she asked curiously.
"You know I can't say." the voice replied, then chuckled. There was an extended pause which Runner eventually broke.
" On the subject of our associate... you do know sooner or later, we'll have to tell him everything." she said. There was just a smidgen of worry in that remark, which was highly uncharacteristic for a woman of such hardened fortitude.
"He will be informed, but remember, only after we are ready to move. Despite our progress we still have a ways to go until we reach the finale. We can't risk compromising our cover, not after everything that we've gone through to get this far." the voice said soothingly. There was a pause on both ends. Then Runner broke it.
"Understood. Any further orders?" she inquired.
"Just two. First, make sure he picks up the first three packages and moves them by tomorrow night. Time for our unwilling employee to earn his keep. Second, see to it that he reads the training material. He needs to be fully programmed for whatever he might face." the voice said firmly. There was a gunshot from the other end of the line.
"Problem?" inquired Runner. There were two more, a 'FWOOSH', then a truly unique sound which seemed to imply that someone had just thrown a bucket of paint across a brick wall. This was followed by the sounds of dripping liquid.
"Eugggghhh. I didn't mean to do that." the voice said, disgust filling his voice.
"What, what did you do?" Runner said, curiosity and worry filling her voice in equal measure.
"I'll refrain from describing what I did, but did you know that it's really hard for a human body to maintain structural integrity when it hits a cinder-block wall at Mach 6?" the voice said. Then it muttered: "Probably would've been better to vaporize him. ".
"ANYWAYS..." Runner said after a brief attempt to replay this in the cinema of her imagination and hastily consigning most of it to the cutting room floor, "You clean up, then get out of there. I'll be back at base before the night's over. Runner out."