An American Villain 12

The sound of the drone swarm got louder as they got closer to us.
“Sir, there is a different drone coming from behind them. It is much larger than the others.”
I looked at the screen of the camera behind us, the larger drone began to move past the swarm.
“Kris, can you get a closer look at it? What does it seem like its purpose is?”
I felt the hedgehog shift again and turned around to see Kris lifting his rifle to the rear gun port.
“Sir, it looks like it is used for picking things up. It has six very large arms on its underbelly.”
I looked at the camera again and saw its arms unfolding. Before I had time to make a decision on what to do, the attack began. The drones started firing cables at the top of us and we started losing speed.
“Open fire! Get those drones away from us.”
I pulled the targeting computer down and initiated the free fire sequence for the missiles. As the missiles fired from their silos it played a rythym of thuds through the cabin of the hedgehog. The missiles started taking down the drones that had attached cables to us but more kept showing up. We started to climb up the ramp to get onto the interstate but began to lose momentum as we started getting slowed down.
“Kris! I need you to do something about this buddy!”
The weight in the back shifted again as the back hatch dropped to the ground and the combat robots went outside.
“Sir they will walk with us to keep them off of us as much as they can.”
He closed the hatch and we started to gain speed once again.
“Kris, can you prioritize their targets to the ones that get closest? I will direct the remaining missiles to the ones furthur out.”
I set a range meter on the targeting computer to keep them atleast one hundred meters away from us.
“Sir we have lost the larger drone.”
I looked around the camera feeds and couldn’t see it on any of them. I checked the targeting computer and it wasn’t locked onto it either.
“Kris keep a look out for it, we don’t need it ambushing us with other drones.”

The combat robots outside started to pick up speed with us as we got further away from the city and closer to the scepter. The missiles stopped firing and the targeting computer flashed an alert across the screen reading “Depleted”.
“Kris we just ran out of missiles, how are the combat robots doing outside?”
It took a second before he responded.
“They have ceased fire and are running along the sides of us now. They arent picking up any more drones outside either sir.”
I slowed the hedgehog and pushed the button on the dash to open the back hatch.
“Bring them in, we need to pick up more speed to get out of here.”
I eased off the controls and slowed down to a crawl so they could file back inside and get seated.
“They are loaded sir.”
I pushed the button again and becan pushing the controls forward more so that we could leave. The view of the city in the rearview camera started to fade away as we got off the main interstate and into the side roads that took us to the scepter.
“Kris get the engines started so we can hook up and leave.”
Just as we turned down the service road one of the sensors on the targeting computer began to lock onto something above us. I didn’t have anymore missiles and the twin rotor guns on the front can’t aim that high. I kept rolling down the service road until we reached out ship and then I turned the hedgehog around to back it under its locking port. I started to think about this and how strange it seems to have Hellen back after all these years. She had been quit this entire time, which is unusual for her because she always had something to say about everything in the past. It made me wonder if something else was going on with her, if maybe we got away as part of a bigger plan. I stopped just before backing under the scepter and opened the back hatch to let everyone out.

“Everyone out and load into the scepter. I will back it up and climb out of the hatch on my side.”
They started to file out one by one and load into the ship for take off. Kris stood outside to help back me in to get it lined up to its hooks.
“Sir my sensors are picking up more activity, I think our lost drone has finally come back for us.”
I looked at the targeting computer and the drone was just out sight.
“Kris get in the scepter.”
I opened the trigger guards on the controllers and flipped the switch next to them over to live.
“Sir I urge you to hook up and climb out. We need to leave.”
I squeezed the triggers and fired a volley of bullets into the tree line that the sensor showed the drone.
“Kris get them out of here now!”
From behind the trees I saw the lights of the drone brighten.
“Sir we need to leave now.”
This was the only defense that the scepter had, it wasn’t equiped with any weapons on it. The egines on the scepter began to get louder and the dust on the ground started to rise up from it.
“Kris get the combat robots out here to handle this.”
I climbed out of the seat and grabbed my rifle, heading out of the back. The other combat robots started rushing past me and Kris was standing with his rifle at the ready.
“Sir, we will take care of it, get your sister out of here.”
His face plates pulled backwards to smile at me, I felt the emotion of possibly losing him after all this time.
“You get your ass on that scepter Kris, that is an order!”
He pulled the slide back on his rifle and then shook his head side to side.
“No offense sir, but your protocols prevent me from it.”
The drone raised up higher above the trees and then lowered onto the road right in front of us.
“KRIS! LETS GO!”
He picked up his rifle and began firing at the drone, the other combat robots engaged it as well. I tried to pull him but he was so heavy that I couldn’t get him to budge.
“Otaza! Leave them! We need to go!”
Hellen was leaning out of the scepter and the two operatives were standing outside of its door on the ground. I couldn’t leave them here to die, I wasn’t going to let Kris die like this. Him and I have come too far together to have it end like this. I raised up my rifle and began to fire on the drone next to Kris.

“We do it together, like everything else, we stick together.”
The bullets were barely making a dent to its armor and the grenades from the IGOR weapons only disoreiented it. Finally the arms of the drone opened and it landed on the ground, walking slow towards us.
“Buddy I think its time we all leave, we have it on the ground now.”
As I loaded another magazine a small port opened on the front of it with a minigun coming out.
“Sir get back!”
Kris grabbed me and pulled be backwards while he kept firing his rifle with one arm. The minigun started to fire and the combat robots hit the ground one by one. Just as we got behind the hedgehog a bullet hit Kris in the leg, disabaling his movement.
“Come on buddy, get up, we have to go! Stand up!”
I tried to lift him but he was too heavy for me.
“HELP ME GET HIM UP!”
The two operatives rushed over and helped me drag him back to the scepter.
“Climb up Kris, get inside.”
He reached up and pulled himself inside with the help of the three of us. Once he got inside the two operatives started firing at the drone that was now starting to walk to the side of the hedgehog.
“Kris I am ordering you to get them back to the head quarters. Your not dead, just crippled, I will fix you when I get back. I will hold the drone off, GET THEM OUT OF HERE!”
The two operatives climbed back into the scepter and Hellen was trying to pass them but they stopped her. I closed the door on the side and the engines started to lift it off the ground. I ran back into the hedgehog an climbed back in the seat.
“Come on you big bitch, move!”
The controls took a second to respond but once they did I began rotating towards the drone. Its main eye turned and looked at me, then began turning its body towards me. I watched in the side camera as the sceptor lifted off and started to gain altitude. I squeezed the triggers on the controllers and started to take out its arms, causing it to lose its balance. The two arms on one of its sides gave out and crumbled, causing it to crash down. Its rotors started to fire up again and try to take off. I pulled the guns upward and began to fire more at it, trying to take out its rotors and disable it. The twin rotor guns began to chew through its armor and started to dig deeper into it. There was a few small explosions coming from its inside and then it stopped moving. I took a second to open my data pad to Kris’s tracker, he was away from harm now and on the way back. I pushed the button to close the back hatch and pushed the controllers forward to get closer to the drone so I could look at it more. I got within a few feet of it and could see the main eye on the front twitching around trying to look around. I squeezed the triggers again and put more bullets into it until its arms finally gave out on the other side and collapsed.

I let go of the controllers and climbed out of the side hatch, I wanted to look at this drone even closer. There had to be some kind of markings on it that would let me know who made it and where it was made from. I know it came from the japanese fleet but they didn’t have this kind of technology in their country, this had to be supplied by someone. I got right up next to it and then started walking around, there was markings right behind its eye on the top, it was covered in grease. I wiped it off then ran my hand back over it to get the rest off.

“Property of The Corporation of America, Manufactured in Nevada.”

I couldn’t believe what I was reading, this was supplied to Japan by our own country. I took a step back and looked at it to try and get a better thought of when this would have been created. Suddenly its eye twitched and looked up at me, its lens rotated in and out, it was zooming in on me. I pulled my pistol out and put a bullet into its eye, shutting it down for good now. I holstered the pistol and then heard the alarms inside the hedgehog start going off. I hurried back to the side and climbed in, the targeting computer was picking up another object moving in my direction but still far away. I opened my datapad and checked on Kris again, they were long gone from here by now. I closed the hatch and pulled the controllers back and then pushed them around to get me to the main road once again. I kept the targeting computer on to keep track of whatever was coming this way. I headed east on the road to get farther away from the city but whatever was following me started closing the distance until it was right on top of me, then its signature vanished from the computer.

I looked at my cameras to see if it was outside but nothing was there. Suddenly there was a loud crashing sound and right in front of me was something I had never seen before. It had the build of an Archangel but it was wearing traditional Japanese Samurai armor. Before I could squeeze the triggers it drew a large sword from its side and gripped it with both hands. I squeezed the triggers and it shifted to the side, out of my targeting area. It moved fast, like it had rockets on its back to move around. My targeting computer started to go crazy, locking onto dozens of other signatures that where closing in on me fast. I pushed the controls around to turn me so that I could find this robot. Once I spun all the way around I saw a ship landing right in front of me with another larger drone with it. A man with an odd looking rifle stepped out and pointed it at me, almost instantly the hedgehog shut down. I tried firing the engines again but I was getting no response. The guns were offline and I was sitting dead in the middle of the road. I opened the window panel manually and saw the man holding his position as this new archangel model circled me slowly, sword raised, at the ready to strike. Another man, this one in a suit walked out of the ship and stood in the road between me and the ship he came on. He waved his hand towards me, becoming me to get out and approach him. I stood up and went to reach for my rifle, I left it on the ground when Kris was shot. I pulled my pistol out and then pushed the hatch open. The archangel was standing right in front of me, its face was pure terror. It shook its head side to side as I pointed the pistol at it, it felt like it was telling me to put my gun down. I kept it pointed at it and climbed out slowly, it took a step back to give me space but stayed in front of me with every move. It was protecting the man on the ground, I lowered my pistol and its posture relaxed, I raised it back up and it became ready to strike again. I walked into the road and and stood about five meters away from the man. He lifted his jacket and spun around, he was unarmed. He put his hands up and took a step closer to me. At this point I felt I was in no place to negotiate anything with these people so I put my pistol away.
“Who are you? Why did you invade our country?”
He looked around and the pointed both of his hands at himself.
“Who else would I be talking to? Yes, you, why did Japan invade the United States? This didn’t work out well the last time if you know history.”
He wasnt answering me, I was sure that he could speak and understand english right off the bat from what he did when I asked my first question. He took another step closer and I had enough of it, if they were going to kill me I just wanted them to get it over with because I had no way out of here. I drew my pistol and as soon as I brought it up to point at him, the archangels sword came out and sliced the front of the pistol clean off.
“Alright now! What the hell is this?”
The archangel sheathed it sword stood up straight on the side between us. The man approached me and reached his hand forward to me.
“You don’t know me, but I know you Otaza. We have watched your career with great interest.”
I reached behind my back for the knife I kept and he put one hand up.
“The knife you have wont save you if you hurt me. You should know when to fight and when to listen. As an American, you are not accustomed to our ways so I understand. Peace is the bringer of diplomacy Otaza, so let us talk.”
From behind him in the ship a dozen armed men walked out with rifles, creating a half circle as they got closer to me.
“Who are you?”
He reached his hand forward and smiled.
“I am a friend of your grandfathers, he told me before he died about you. I have come to take you so that you can finish his work.”
This didn’t make any sense, my grandfather was a hermit for the last part of his life.
“How do you know my grandfather?”
He kept his hand forward but his smile vanished.
“Your grandfather studied in Japan when he was younger, why do you think he was obsessed with Japanese culture? We were the ones who gave him his name, his father was adamant that he learn from us, like he did.”
I felt like there was even more about my family that others knew rather than myself.
“Wait, you were the ones responsible for putting that organization together? Hitmen and assassins to carry out orders? For what purpose?”
He retracted his hand and adjusted his tie.
“We merely trained the first generation of them, your great grandfathers generation. It was up to them to pass the ways down. We gave all of them their names however, we went through an entire list of them and only have one name left. It was reserved strictly for you as per your grandfathers orders.”
I knew now what my grandfather was trying to protect and why he did what he did. I reached my hand forward towards him.
“What name is that?”
He shook my hand and then pulled me to walk with him towards the landing ship.
“One that has been reserved for just the right person with just the right cause. Someone who will undo the wrongs that have been committed by so many for so long. You are going to be hated, labeled a traitor and terrorist. But we have a name that will suit you better, one that will bring a cause together into a resistance.”
We walked up the ramp into the ship and his men followed behind us. He sat me down across from him and then spoke to the pilot in the head piece hanging above him in Japanese, I couldnt understand what he said.
“What will I be called after this?”
He smiled and clasped his hands together in his lap.
“Akuto”
The name didn’t sound like anything I recognized.
“What does Akuto mean in english?”
He nodded his head slowly and spoke again, this time very clear.
“Villain”

An American Villain 11

Once the drones got closer it began to sound like a swarm of locusts outside. Their rotors were buzzing and their engine’s rumbling made it louder outside of the hedgehog.
“Sir, should we open fire on them?”
I pushed the two controllers forward and began to creep under them as they swarmed above.
“No, hold your fire, unless they attack.”
The targeting computer above me for the missiles began to lock onto the drones. After less than a minute the targeting computer locked onto all of them above us.
“Sir the operatives and analyst are on the move again, it looks like they are heading in our direction now.”
I pushed the controllers forward more to pick up speed.
“Kris can you send that information to my datapad, I want to put up a map to get to them.”
The transfer began on my datapad and started building a map on the screen in front of me. From the looks of it, they might be moving between buildings instead of on the streets.
“Sir I am picking up a transmission on open channels.”
I turned on the radio inside and every channel was playing the same message.

“This is not an attack. We are here to liberate the free people of the United States. We are not your enemy, The Corporation is.”

The message was repeated over and over across all unsecured channels without interruption. The sound of the drones began to fade away and the targeting computer started losing its locks on them.
“Kris, do you see anything back there? The drones are starting to pull away.”
I felt the back shift around as he moved from hatch to hatch.
“Sir I am not picking up anything around us or outside, maybe they had to return to recharge?”
It wasn’t going to be that easy, something felt off.
“Hold on back there, I’m going to speed this up to get us inside the city.”
I pushed both controllers forward and the engines roared, moving us forward at a much faster pace. We crossed under the highway and got off into the outskirts of the skyscrapers. I slowed down the hedgehog and cruised through the streets that were littered with trash and abandoned cars. It looked like this city was completely empty, not even any looters were around.
“Sir I am reading only two operatives and the analyst now, they have lost another one.”
This didn’t make any sense, there was no one here. I opened the small side hatch outside to listen, it was still, way too still. Something was wrong, there was something in the city that was hunting that team.
“Kris, can you pick up anything in the city? Anything that looks out of place or isn’t supposed to be here?”
I closed the hatch and stopped us in the middle of the road in the open.
“I don’t know what I am looking for sir. Everything seems fine from the hedgehog’s scanners.”
I climbed out of the seat and hit the open button for the back hatch, dropping the door to the ground with a loud thud.
“I’m going to step outside and take a look, maybe we can’t see it.”
Before I got to the opening Kris stepped in front of me, stopping me from going outside.
“Sir I can not allow you to do that.”
One of the other combat units with us stood up from its position and walked outside. It looked around and then back at us. Before it could take another step to come back inside, its chest was blown open and then fell to the ground. The shot rang out a few seconds after that.
“Oh shit! Kris close the hatch!”
I moved back to the driver’s seat and pushed the controllers forward, the hatch was dragging and then picked up, closing us back inside.
“Sir the distance from impact to sound is approximately 1,050 meters. From the angle of impact when watching, the shooter is on the roof of one of the skyscrapers.”
The dots on the map started moving again, getting closer to us.
“Get your eyes in the gun port, Kris. The team is getting close to us, we should see them shortly.”

I circled around the block and around the corner we were in one time until we came back to where we were shot at.
“Sir, the body of one of the robots is gone now.”
I looked at the cameras facing forward and only small pieces of it remained on the ground.
“Kris, do you know anything inside that data core of yours that would explain this?”
We rolled over the few remains and started heading directly towards the position of the team.
“Sir I know the corporation had some, less than reputable, designs and projects. But nothing that seemed this different.”
I switched the front camera over to thermal to pick up the heat signatures from the team when they came into view.
“There! Right in front of us inside that cafe. Kris, get ready to head out.”
I pulled us in front of the cafe and then backed up to the doors. I turned around to see Kris standing ready with his rifle pointed forward and the other combat robots in the same stance.
“Sir open the door please.”
I pushed the button to release the back hatch and it slammed onto the doors, breaking the glass and pushing them to the ground. They moved out in a circular formation to ensure they had every corner covered.
“Clear Sir!”
The combat robots stood up to a more relaxed position with their weapons ready in hand in case something happened. I picked up my data pad and slid it back on my arm, bringing up the team’s positions in front of me. I grabbed my rifle from the lock behind my seat and headed out of the hedgehog and into the cafe.
“Hellen!”
I listened but didn’t hear anything inside.
“Hellen! If you can hear me sound off!”
I looked at Kris and then around at the other combat robots.
“Sir, the map says her position is right here in this room. My computer does not see any other alternative to their positions.”
I walked into the kitchen of the cafe and then opened the back door. I was met with an ally that ran the length of the streets between buildings.
“Kris get over here.”
I stepped outside and looked around at the rooftops high above me, I was waiting to see the shooter after all the noise we made. Kris stepped outside behind me and looked around as well.
“Sir, their positions are now right on top of us.”
I looked up one more time and then down at the manhole cover I was standing on. I pointed down and moved to lift it. Kris stepped to the other side and lifted it with me, setting it down as quiet as we could. I kneeled down and lowered my ear into the hole, I could hear footsteps.

“Hellen!?”
Suddenly the footsteps stopped and the sound of magazines being changed started.
“Hellen, it’s Otaza, I’ve come to pull you guys out.”
The noise below stopped and then I heard her voice.
“Who is foolish enough to run towards death?”
I knew this would come back up again, it was a line from a book my grandfather wrote.
“A man who looks at death as a friend.”
There was silence for a few seconds and then multiple footsteps getting closer to the ladder.
“Thank god we found you guys.”
One of the operatives climbed the ladder first and looked at Kris, pointing his weapon at him.
“Whoa! Put that down, he is with me!”
Kris let his hands off his rifle, leaving it slung over his chest piece and put his hands up.
“I am here to rescue you.”
I helped Hellen out of the manhole and then pulled up the other operative that was left.
“Hold on now Otaza, what are you doing with one of them!?”
She was pointing at Kris, who still had his hands in the air.
“He is mine, I reprogrammed him, he won’t hurt you, I promise.”
I motioned for them to head back inside the cafe with us so that we could get out of here. Once everyone got inside the two operatives began to get jumpy. Hellen was starting to cause a problem.
“What is the deal with you three!? They are here with me, they are my team, they are the ones who are going to protect you and die for you if something happens!”
The two operatives lowered their weapons but Hellen remained very concerned about them.
“I don’t trust robots Otaza, not after the night we have been through and the men we lost during it.”
I noticed on her arm she had a data pad style piece as well.
“What is out there? You saw it, tell me what it is so we can avoid it.”
She opened her data pad and flipped it around to show me.
“It’s an Archangel, it was activated shortly after the ships showed up on the coast. When the hospital was evacuated, it went into offense mode. It has been hunting us since the city evacuated. Anything that moves is considered a threat. We first noticed it when Japan’s drones kept getting shot out of the sky.”
I looked at Kris and the other combat robots that stood by.
“Ok, so that explains how it shot one of our robots from such a distance. I know it will take a miracle to defeat it so we have to avoid it and get out of the city as fast as we can.”

Hellen closed the data pad on her arm and then pointed at the hedgehog.
“Is that your tank?”
I looked back at it and then to her.
“It’s not a tank, it is a hedgehog, and yes it’s mine. So if you are ready, I would like to get the hell out of this city now.”
Kris began to pull the combat robots around us and kept watch as everyone got loaded. Hellen and the two operatives took their seats towards the front by the driver’s chair. One by one the combat robots filed in, closing the circle until it was just Kris and I standing outside.
“I’m just going to have a look and see if I can see it out there.”
I turned around and began to lean out from behind the hedgehog. I felt Kris’s hand on the back of my vest ready to pull me back just in case.
“Sir, do you see it?”
I brought my rifle up and looked through the small scope to get a more clear view. It was sitting on top of the hospital, moving between the ventilation shafts that stood up. It was a lot bigger than the one I encountered a few years ago.
“Jesus Kris, this thing is a monster. I don’t think he can be taken down with anything we have.”
I knew I was looking at it for too long when its head shifted in my direction and it brought its rifle up.
“Time to go! We have been spotted!”
Kris pulled me back and pushed me inside, closing the hatch as he stepped inside.
“Did you see it up there? The hospital towers over everything around here, giving it the perfect killing field to work in.”
I waved my hand at Hellen and passed her, climbing into the drivers seat.
“Yes I saw it, no we aren’t going to engage it. Leave it be, in the words of a great strategist, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Let the Japanese deal with it if they can.”
I pushed the controllers forward and began to take us back the way we came.
“Kris give me a route that will get us back to the scepter faster please.”
I plugged my data pad into the hedgehog and a map appeared on the screen in front of me.
“I am sorry sir, but the route we took in is the route we will have to take out. I can bring the scepter to us if you would like instead sir? That is if we are out of range of the Archangel.”
I forgot for a moment that Kris was linked to that scepter and could fly it remotely to us if needed.
“No, keep it at a distance, but get it fired up and ready to go. We need to hook up and pull off as soon as we can.”
The targeting computer above me began trying to lock onto a target above us but kept losing the lock. Hellen spoke up to voice her opinion.
“Otaza, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but we aren’t getting out of here alive. Not in this thing, they wont let us leave.”
I looked at the lower camera below the controls to see behind us, there was a swarm of drones heading towards us once again.
“Kris, get ready, the drones are coming back!”
The missiles began to lock on to one after the other as they got closer to us. I felt the weight inside the hedgehog shift around as Kris and the other combat robots positioned themselves into the gun ports on the sides.
“Sir, we are ready and willing to engage at your command.”
The two operatives had positioned themselves with the combat robots and Kris, they knew everyone needed to be a part of this if we were going to get out alive.

An American Villain 6

Director Evans let me leave free from his office, but I know that I was being followed at a distance. I thought it best to avoid contact with Rae since I just exposed the director’s plan and that it was known. I decided to walk back to my apartment so that I could gather some things before I left. I knew that the directors’ security robots could get into the building to follow me if they wanted to, but I don’t think they would risk going into my apartment behind me or being there when I arrived. Once I got to my building and inside my apartment, I felt like I could breathe for a moment. The stress of this situation was taxing and I wasn’t sure when it was going to be over with. I grabbed my backpack off the couch and went through it to make sure I had everything with me. I went into the bedroom and looked at the pictures on the wall of my family, I knew I was jeopardizing them by exposing who Wraith is, but I knew he would have A plan for me. I grabbed my pistol from the nightstand and tucked it into my back, rubber bands wrapped around the grip, just like I was taught. I walked back into the living room when there was a knock on the door. I walked up and looked through the peephole, it was my father. I opened the door and ushered him inside. Before he spoke I closed the door and looked him over to make sure he wasn’t hurt.
“What did you do Taz?”
I could see the concern on my father’s face but I didn’t have time to explain it to him.
“I got you out of lockup, just start with that.”
I walked back into my bedroom and went to the closet, grabbing a second backpack.
“We are leaving now, take this, we don’t have time to stop back at your lab to get your things.”
I handed him the backpack and pulled him to walk with me.
“Wait just a minute, where are we going? We arent going to be able to leave, Director Evans will have us stopped.”
I stopped just before opening the door and turned around to look at him.
“Director Evans is the one allowing us to leave. Now stop asking questions dad, we need to leave.”
I opened the door and let him go first, closing it behind me as I walked out. We headed downstairs and to the street.
“Where are we going?”
I looked around us and then began heading towards the hanger.
“Hanger One, there is a scepter waiting for us.”
He tried to say something again but I just turned and looked at him with a scowl, he got the point to stop asking questions.

When we arrived at Hanger One the two security robots stood by the scepter waiting for us. The pilot was already strapped in and ready for take-off.
“Good to see you boys again, lets get going so we can get back to Director Evans.”
The robots didn’t respond to my humor, I was trying to figure out their responsive programming to see if I could get something out of them other than orders. My father and I climbed in and the two robots followed behind. The pilot turned around and looked at my father and then at me.
“Either of you care to give me a place to go?”
I pulled open my datapad and flipped to the coordinates of my grandmother’s house.
“I just sent them to your heads-up display”
He turned around and then looked at the window and adjusted some of the flight paths.
“Oregon I see, well get comfy guys, this is going to be a long flight.”
My father’s head snapped towards me and his eyes got wide. I slowly shook my head just a little bit so he wouldn’t speak. I could see the fear in his eyes about what was going on and he started to rub his hands one over the other. The scepter engines began to rumble as the platform started to rise, the hanger doors above cracked open, and the light from the sun began to illuminate the hanger. I looked at the walls of the hanger and noticed something for the first time, there were small holes in the walls. They were just large enough for someone to crawl through from the looks of it. We started to take off from the platform as the doors got wide enough, the pilot took us straight up above the trees.
“Flight time from here to destination is going to be three hours and seventeen minutes.”
The pilot turned on the auto pilot and opened a book he had sitting between his legs. I looked out the window to see us speeding up and the ground becoming more of a blur as we gained altitude. I opened my datapad again and set an alarm for the flight so that I could get some sleep.
“Get some sleep dad, we both need it.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat. He didn’t respond to me so I opened one eye to see him staring out the window.
“Dad, get some rest please.”
He looked at me and just smiled.
“It has been six years since I have seen your grandmother, that was when your grandfather passed away.”
I smiled back at him and mouthed the word sleep back at him. He leaned back and closed his eyes. I know my father went out for the funeral but I had my suspicions after this happened. I needed to find out what my grandmother had left of my grandfather, he might just lead us to the source.

I kept my eyes closed for the entire ride but stayed awake, as much as I wanted to sleep I couldn’t. I didn’t trust the security robots or even the pilot. My data pad began to buzz as the alarm went off to get the next part of this plan going.
“Wake up dad.”
I reached across and shook his leg to get him up. He opened his eyes and stretched his arms.
“Are we there already?”
I looked out the window and saw the ocean below us still. The pilot was taking a route that was more over the water than land. I looked at the security robots that seemed in a state of low power. I tapped my dad on the leg and then nodded at the robots. He went to speak up but I put both hands up low to stop him. He paused his thoughts and watched my hands. I moved both hands sideways and then forward. His eyes got wide and he nodded in the pilot’s direction. I put up two fingers, meaning we will deal with him after. He nodded his head in agreement and then waited for me to move. I bent down to tie my shoes tighter, I wanted to see if they connected their harness. To my liking, they failed basic flight safety in their programming. I sat back up and stretched my arms, one going behind the robot next to me.
“Oh man, it’s starting to get stuffy in here.”
The robot began to twitch and power up again. I pulled the door release and the air pressure slammed it open. It immediately became louder around us.
“HOPE YOU BOYS CAN SWIM!”
I turned and brought my legs up, kicking the one next to me out of the door. The other robot reached to grab it but the weight pulled him out as well.
“WHOAH! WHAT’S HAPPENING BACK THERE!”
The pilot must have fallen asleep mid-flight while reading. My dad got up to stick his head into the cockpit.
“Each flight suit comes with a parachute and life vest. Hope you remember your training kid!”
The pilot fumbled to get his pistol from the dash. Just as he reached it my dad pulled the ejection lever on the side. The top blew open and the pilot with his seat shot out of the scepter. My dad twisted his body through the small opening into the now open and seatless cockpit.
“I’m going to take us down low and slow it down. This air pressure will kill us soon.”
I held onto the handles above my head and looked down at the water as the pilot landed softly.
“The pilot is in the water, I can see his strobe. Take us away dad.”
He pointed the nose down and hugged the cliffs as we got closer to my grandmother’s house. She hasn’t seen me since I was a child. She was the stern hand of reason in my father’s family, but she liked to be alone.

The heads-up display went when the top of the cockpit blew off so I wasn’t sure how close we were.
“Taz, see that off in the distance?”
I climbed forward and looked out at what he was pointing to.
“Is that a castle?”
He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“More of a manor, castles are more of a Merlin thing.”
He noticed me turn my head and look at him as he started laughing harder.
“Merlin? Like the Wizard from stories?”
He nodded his head vigorously as he continued to laugh. I forgot how much of a nerd my father was for that fantasy stuff, I was more of a science person.
“Hang on, I’m going to take us up to land.”
I grabbed the bar beside me and kept looking out the front of the scepter. He turned the nose up and went straight toward the sky until we passed over the landing pad. He brought it to a hover and leveled us to the landing pad, taking us down with a soft touch down.
“Now I know what you’ve been told and I’m going to be the first one to apologize to you for it.”
My dad stood up and climbed out of the cockpit, I exited through the side onto the ground.
“What do you mean?”
He fixed his shirt and then motioned for me to walk down the gangway towards the manor.
“Just don’t hate me for this Otaza.”
The doors opened and my grandmother was standing just inside.
“Mitchell, the last time someone landed on that pad looking like you two, your father and I were on the run.”
I felt my stomach turn, my grandmother was not the woman I remembered as a child. Her voice was commanding and it shook me to the core.
“Hello mother, it’s nice to see you too.”
He walked up to hug her but she put her hand out and motioned him to the side.
“Otaza, dear child, what has your father roped you into?”
I went forward to hug her and she was receptive to it.
“Actually, it was my plan and idea to come here.”
She took a step back and crossed her arms with wide eyes.
“And what is it that I could possibly do for you?”
I looked around the entryway and at my dad, after all this is where he grew up.
“Actually Grandma, it’s not your help I need, it’s grandpa that I need.”
I watched her eyes dart at my father and just beam at him, I knew I was right. My father turned to me and started to talk.
“Otaza I told you, he passed away when-“
He was cut off by a much louder voice coming from above on the staircase.
“It is time Mitchell, the boy must know the truth.”
I looked up to see an older man in a silver robe standing with a cane. Before I could get anything out he stepped down one step and reached his hand out toward me.
“Come Otaza, I think it’s time you heard the truth, the story of Wraith.”

An American Villain 4

”MEDIC!! SOMEONE GET THE MEDIC!”
I felt my body being moved as I lay inside the scepter still. I kept going in and out on the flight back. I heard my dad talking with Rae as I went in and out inside my earpiece.
“Hang on son, stay with me! Don’t close your eyes, stay awake!”
I felt his arms wrap around me and lift me from inside the ship and pick me up.
“Dad…”
I faded back out as he lifted me up and started carrying me out. I tried to stay awake but my eyes were so heavy and I just wanted to sleep.
“MAKE A HOLE!”
I came to while in a hallway with my dad above me as I was being pushed on a bed. I tried looking around but I couldn’t make out anyone else from the lights on the ceiling.
“He has lost a lot of blood, we need to operate on him right away if he’s going to live.”
I felt a pinch on my arm and suddenly I woke up more from the pain.
“OUCH!”
I tried sitting up but one of the medics pushed me back down and spoke.
“Stay still Otaza, you don’t want to make this worse.”
I looked down at my arm and saw a tube connected to an Intravenous bag being held up. I felt some more life come back into me and started gaining more feeling in my body. The bed stopped abruptly and I looked towards my feet to see the director with his security team.
“Senior technician Mitchell Raiger, you are under arrest.”
My dad didn’t flinch as the men approached to take him. I felt my blood rushing in my veins and tried to jump up to help him.
“No one operates on him until his father cooperates. If he dies, it’s on his father.”
The security team grabbed my father and spun him around. As the handcuffs clicked around his wrists he mouthed a sorry to me.
“Sir, we need to get him into the medical wing immediately.”
The director stepped aside and walked away with my father and his security team. The man pushing the bed spoke up finally.
“Knock him out.”
I looked up and saw one of the medics pushing a syringe into the bag.
“Wait, no, where are they taking my dad!??”
They kept pushing me along and I tried to fight the drugs from knocking me out.

I opened my eyes and blinked to get the haze away so I could see. I heard people talking outside of the room and the television was turned down low. I tried to sit up but felt a sudden sharp pain on my right side and arms. My arms were wrapped in bandages between my elbows and wrists, every move felt like needles in my arms. I pulled up the medical gown on the side and my entire side was bandaged and wrapped around my stomach. I tried to remember what happened but I was confused about some of the details.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Otaza.”
I looked at the door and saw a man in a long white coat standing there. I held up my arms to him for answers, I tried to talk but my throat was dry and I couldn’t get words to come out. He walked to the side table and picked up a pitcher of water and a small glass.
“Your arms are going to take some getting used to. Take it easy when trying to move.”
He handed me the glass and waited for me to grab it securely with both hands. I felt the veins in my arms twitching with each movement, causing an itch inside that I couldn’t get to. I moved slowly and started to drink the water. The doctor reached for the glass to pull it back so I didn’t drink too fast.
“Easy now, you’ve been out for a while.”
He took the glass and refilled it, setting it back in my hands so I could sip on it. I felt my throat relax and my mouth wasn’t as dry anymore so I tried talking again.
“Thank you.”
The doctor pulled up a chair and sat next to me and just smiled, it seemed genuine.
“How long was I out?”
He looked at the watch on his wrist and then up to me with a worried face.
“You have been asleep, so to speak, for a week.”
My heart started to race and the monitors next to the bed began beeping. I tried moving more to get up and find some answers. A nurse came rushing into the room and saw me up with the doctor. He turned to the nurse and stopped her before she could speak.
“Get word to Rae that he is awake.”
He put his hand on mine and squeezed it gently.
“No matter what anyone says, you saved a lot of people last week. Don’t worry about the director, my oath to saving lives trumps his position. I will deal with him if he starts giving you any trouble.”
He stood up and pushed the chair back against the wall, adjusting his coat before leaving the room. I waited for him to leave and get out of sight before I reached for the television remote. I clicked through the channels until I found some news. I sat up in the bed and watched, waiting to see if something about the hospital was going to play. Just as I was starting to get into what they were talking about Rae walked through the door.
“Hey, stranger.”
I turned the television off and she closed the door to my room.
“I’m glad to see you are awake finally.”
She pulled the chair up to the bed and sat down next to me.
“What happened? The last thing I remember was jumping through a window.”
She tried to hide the smile and laugh with a straight face.
“Yeah about that, you fly pretty well for your size.”
I understood why she was laughing now, I started to but felt my sides hurt and quickly stopped.
“Oh god that hurts, but that’s funny.”
We both enjoyed the moment for a few seconds and then I needed to start asking questions.
“What happened at the hospital after I left?”
She adjusted herself in the chair and then started to break down the after-action report to me.
“The local police department surrounded the building when the gunfire started inside, right after you brought Archangel back online. The defense system cleared the building of all the hostile forces. We don’t know much about The Forgotten, Archangel didn’t leave any survivors for us to interrogate. The news agencies around the country have been put on notice that they are not allowed to report on this incident. Some people that witnessed it have taken to social media, but their activities get taken down just as they come up. The damage control for this has taken a little bit of work but it’s not overly bad.”

I rubbed my hands one over the other and took in everything she told me. I knew The Corporation had power over the nation but not this much. The amendments still stood and the right to free speech seemed like it was under fire. I was conflicted about them containing this incident but I also knew it was for national security.
“What happened to my dad?”
She leaned forward and clasped her hands together on the side of the bed.
“Your dad is being detained, he told me about the code file you found in Archangels systems. I believe just as you do that it wasn’t him. Someone got ahold of his code and used it against us to carry out this attack. Everything in his lab is being combed through to make sure that It wasn’t him, but the Director is looking for someone to pin this on. Your father and he go way back to the start of the Corporation, so I think this has something to do with removing him. In a way, your father kind of keeps the Director in check regarding what technology gets put to what divisions of The Corporation.”
Rae knew more about my father than I did and she was around the same age as me.
“So how do we get him out of this? There has to be something we can do to prove his innocents in this.”
She sat back up and stretched her arms and then stood up.
“Your father told me that he will handle this himself, he begged me to stay out of it, that means you as well.”
She walked to the door and opened it, poking her head into the hallway.
“Wait, where are you going?”
She turned around and smiled.
“I’m going to try and get you out of here.”
I just woke up and now she’s trying to break me out of the medical wing, this girl is going to get me in more trouble than I signed up for. She walked out into the hallway and I could see her talking to the doctor through the window. She put her hands together in a praying motion and then wrapped her arms around the doctor. He looked into the window and winked at me then walked away. She came back into the room and smiled at me.
“Come on, you are leaving. The doctor is going to process your paperwork tomorrow for discharge. This gives us a day to get ahead of everything.”
She walked to the table under the television on the wall and picked up some clothes.
“I had some clothes picked up for when you woke up. I’ll help you get up, but you are on your own for getting dressed.”
She set the clothes at the end of the bed and then walked around to get me up. I pulled the sheets off and swung my legs out to the floor. She reached out to help me up as I tried to stand up straight.
“Easy, your muscles haven’t worked in a week.”
I let go of her hand and stretched upward to stand at my tallest. She looked up at me with wide eyes.
“What, is there something wrong?”
She corrected her expression and then just shook her head.
“No, I just didn’t realize how tall you actually are. Now hurry up, we are wasting time.”

She took a step back and then walked out of the room so I could get dressed. I went through the pile of clothes and then reached for my left arm. My heart began to race, my data pad that I keep on my arm wasn’t here. I began to move faster trying to get dressed so I could track that down. I felt the skin stretching and pulling under the bandages. I pulled up the wrapping on my left arm and saw multiple spots that had stitches in them, the cuts looked close to being fully healed. I finished getting dressed and opened the door to the hallway, Rae was talking to the doctor once again.
“Rae”
She turned and saw me standing ready to leave. She hugged the doctor once more and then patted my back to walk with her.
“We need to get you back to your apartment before we can go to your lab.”
The elevator opened as we got closer to it, the chip in her arm was working with the building’s interface. Once we stepped inside and the doors closed, she reached into her back pocket. She pulled out a small arm band and slid it up to where her chip is.
“The chip can track my movements, I don’t want to give away what we are doing if I am being watched.”
She pushed the button to take us down to the lobby.
“Wait, you can block out the chip and its functions?”
She adjusted it on her arm and then turned to look up at me as we went down.
“There is a lot going on that is kept very secret around here. Since we are all chipped, we had to come up with a way to disable the chip.”
The doors opened and I followed her out and into the street. She looked around and then started walking towards my apartment. I was looking around as well, I felt like I was being watched.
“Stop, you look paranoid. Just relax and walk with me.”
My apartment wasn’t that far from the medical wing. It took about twenty minutes to reach it and when we got to the building I realized I didn’t have my access card.
“Missing something?”
Rae pulled out my access card from her pocket and swiped the door to let us into the building.
“How did you get that?”
She opened the door and pushed me inside the building.
“Seriously Rae, how did you get my access card?”
She wasn’t answering me but kept insisting that I keep moving. Once we got to the door she swiped the card and it opened. We walked inside and it closed behind us. She looked around and checked the bathroom to make sure no one else was here.
“Here”
She handed me the access card and then opened her arms to give me the floor.
“How did you get this?”
I held up the access card.
“Your dad took it off you when he pulled you from the scepter so that he could come here to get anything you would need. When he was arrested he dropped the card on the bed for the doctor to pick up.”
I shook my head and then leaned closer for her to finish explaining.
“The doctor was the man pushing you on the bed when you got back. He is also my grandfather, so when I told him I was your coordinator for the operation he passed it to me.”
Things started to line up for me about what was going on.
“Alright, where is my data pad? I went out with it and it wasn’t with me when I woke up. I need that data pad Rae, I have to find out what’s going on with my dad.”
She looked down at the watch on her wrist and then pointed at the door behind me. There was a double knock on the door.
“Open it, it’s the Tactical Commander.”
I opened the door and he tossed the data pad in the air for me to catch as it fell.
“Don’t thank me just yet.”
He walked past me and then high-fived Rae. I noticed on his arm he had a band like the one she had. I opened the data pad to see that the security was still intact and no one was able to get into it.
“My guys couldn’t get past whatever security you have on that thing. Must be pretty sensitive to have a self-destruct protocol active on it.”
Rae looked at him and then at me shocked.
“Wait, so that thing is a bomb!?”
I set it on the counter and pulled a pair of scissors out of the drawer.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a bomb, but it will blow the lower part of my arm off if someone tries to access it too many times or bypasses the security.”
I cut the wrapping off my left arm with the scissors and looked closer at the stitches. The Tactical Commander put his hand up to his ear and then nudged Rae on the shoulder.
“That’s my time, I’ve got to get back before someone starts asking questions.”
He looked me up and down and just stood there for a second.
“Thank you for bringing this back to me.”
He waved his arms up and then laughed.
“I know I said don’t thank me yet, but damn at least say thank you anyways.”
He put out his fist and I met it with mine, he nodded at me and then Rae and stepped out of the apartment.
“Rae, what is going on? Why all the clandestine activities? What am I not being told?”
She reached into my backpack on the couch and pulled out my multi tool.
“Come sit and I’ll explain what’s going on. Plus we need to get those stitches out. God forbid you don’t have your arm bomb strapped to your crazy ass.”

She snipped the stitches and worked them out as she explained what was truly going on.
“The Director isn’t who everyone thinks he is. About two years ago we found out that there is going to be an attack on American soil. No one knew who it was or when they would attack at the time. We managed to find some transcripts from a phone call that was made from this installation. The person who called was Director Evans, the one he was talking to doesn’t make sense though. He would talk, and the answers would come back in just a stream of numbers. We have been secretly trying to decode those numbers to try and figure out what was said. It was a very scattered phone call from what we have put together. The only thing we know now is that whoever it was, they were starting to supply and arm an organization on the west coast.”
She finished working the stitches out and then rubbed the area to help message the skin so it didn’t itch.
“When the first agent was inserted and killed, it didn’t make sense who “The Forgotten” was. Then while you were out I did some more looking into those transcripts. One of the words was Forgotten, assuming that Director Evans knew about them already and knew this attack was going to happen.”
I strapped the data pad to my arm and got it comfortable.
“That doesn’t explain how my fathers code file was used to shut down the defense systems at the hospital though? I know for a fact that this was a string of code that he wouldn’t have put into a system here or even written down in a notebook.”
She ran her hands through her hair and then sat back against the couch.
“Does the word “Reisu” mean anything to you?” It was the only word we could decipher from the numbers.”
My heart dropped into my stomach and then turned upside down as the chills overtook my body. She saw it hit me and knew that I knew something.
“It’s Japanese.”
She leaned closer and wanted to know.
“What does it mean?”
I leaned back and took a deep breath as I rubbed my hands over my head.
“Wraith”.

An American Villain 3

My father couldn’t believe it when he looked close to the code. I knew it couldn’t have been him, he wasn’t that kind of a person. Even before The Corporation took over, he was an American through and through. He flew for the military for years, he was a true patriot.
“I don’t understand, how could someone have access to that code?”
I flipped the screen around and tried to dig deeper into the file to see if there was a trace history of it.
“It’s locked, this is as much as I can see. Dad, do we need to worry about this? If I found this, the tech teams will find it as well.”
He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck side to side.
“The only way to avoid a problem in the future is to act on it now with a solution.”
The doors opened and a security team walked in.
“Sir, you need to come with us.”
They escorted my father out of the room and I could see the director with the top programmer next to him. My father went peacefully with them, he knew he didn’t do it and so did I. The director motioned for me to come with them.
“We just want to talk to him about a security concern. He is not in trouble for anything. Now I need you to get to the tactical command room to assist the operative going.”
He turned and followed the security team escorting my dad. I went the other way and followed the corridor towards the elevator. The doors opened and there were two other men in there, almost like they were waiting for me.
“Morning gentlemen, I assume you are to escort me through the building?”
They didn’t say anything as the elevator moved through the building. The doors opened and one of them stepped past me.
“Right this way sir.”
I felt like I was walking into a trap that was laid weeks in advance. I walked with them until we reached the doors of tactical command. As soon as they opened one of the security guards stepped out and stopped us.
“Sorry boys, only Otaza is allowed in. You two return to your posts.”
He pulled me into the room and the doors shut, locking behind us.
“Sorry about that, the director has his personal security doing his errands since the attack happened now. I don’t like them and don’t want them inside my command room.”
I looked at the man’s uniform and he was their lead tactical commander. I nodded my head in agreement and proceeded to walk towards the wall of monitors.
“Is the operative on his way to the hospital?”
He pointed to one of the monitors on the wall, it was a stream from the camera mounted on the operator’s chest piece.
“He is about to leave the station, flight time to the hospital is only half an hour.”
He pointed to another set of monitors that looked like live television.
“We have been watching the local and national channels to see if it has made news yet. A few local stations have picked it up but nothing on the national level. The director is trying to get the media to back away and not broadcast it. The last thing we need is a panic.”
I looked around the room at everyone else, they all seemed young and around my age. We stood and watched the monitors and waited for our field operator to get to the hospital.

“Otaza, I need you on this terminal. You are going to feed our man on the ground information on what he needs to do. He should be landing on the roof in a few minutes.”
The girl who was sitting there got up and handed her headset to me.
“I guess you are the prodigy I’ve heard so much about.”
She seemed interested in what I was going to be doing by pulling up a chair next to me.
“I wouldn’t say prodigy, just someone who thinks up crazy ideas.”
One of the guys a few terminals down chuckled and spoke up.
“Crazy is an understatement, I heard what you did on your first day, you are a mental case dude.”
I looked at the girl and just shrugged my shoulders and then stuck out my hand.
“Otaza, my father is Mitchell Raiger.”
Her eyes got wider and she reached out to shake my hand.
“Your father is a legend around here. It’s nice to meet you, my name is Rae Hanly.”
The commander spoke up to the room.
“We are live people, our operative has landed on the roof.”
I faced the terminal and pulled up his camera feed in the corner of the screen. I heard one of the others in the room giving him directions to the defense system. He moved through the roof doors and down the stairs. The live television showed four armed men walking outside of the hospital with a hostage.
“Ladies and gentlemen we are seeing first here on channel 11 who the suspects are. They seem to have someone with them.”
As the reporter kept talking, one of the men stepped forward and shot the hostage right outside. The camera cut off and the news network put up a warning screen to viewers.
“Do we have a drone inbound to see what’s happening?”
The commander looked towards one of the men who sat at a flight terminal.
“We followed the operative in, we are out of view of them currently. If we get any closer we could give away our plan.”
The commander walked close to the now apparent pilot.
“You get the drone within range, they already killed one hostage that we know of. I don’t want any more bodies, do you understand me?”
The pilot nodded his head and began to move the drone closer. His feed from the drone appeared in the center of the wall on the larger monitor.
“Activate the swarm. I want full coverage of this building within minutes”
I looked back at the camera feed I had on my terminal, the operative was getting close.
“You’re up Otaza, get him in the cage and through the protocols.”
We only had video from his camera, the sound wasn’t coming through because of all the metal in the building.
“The cage has a keypad on it, enter the code 591076, it’s the override that will get you through.”
His hand came up into view and started typing the code. Suddenly he fell against the cage and tried to get up.
“Contact people, our operative has been compromised.”
The camera picked up another man who was wearing all black and a mask over his face. He pulled our man up and began to drag him away from the cage. He fell to the ground flat on his back.
“Someone get that sound working!”
The commander was watching close to the live feed. The man who attacked the operator stood over his body and pulled out a pistol from his side. He slid his finger under his throat and then fired four rounds into him. He bent down to the camera and then the audio started to come through.
“Those who choose to stand with The Corporation of America will suffer. The wrath of The Forgotten will rain down upon you.”
He stood up and shot the camera to cut the live feed off. The room was in chaos as the commander tried to mobilize a team to move in.
“Everyone stop what you are doing.”
I turned around with Rae to see the director standing at the back of the room with my father.
“Sir, we have an operator down. Our plan has been compromised and they have already killed one hostage that we know of. We need to move into the building now before they kill more.”
The commander was angry at the situation and knew what needed to be done.
“I understand your anger, commander, but you need to stand down. We don’t know who The Forgotten is, how big they are or how many of them there are. Our best bet is to send in someone else alone.”
My father tried to step forward but was stopped by the Director.
“Otaza, it’s your day.”
I looked at my father who had fear covering his face. I didn’t know what to do, I wasn’t a field operative.
“Sir, I’m no use in the field, I’m just a technician.”
I stood up and walked close to him.
“A technician is exactly what we need on the ground, not an operator who is only trained in combat.”
The doors opened and his personal security team began to escort me out. I turned around to look at Rae, it was the first time I met her but she looked concerned about the situation.

I managed to convince the director to let me get a few of my prototypes from my lab to take with me. They weren’t field tested yet but I played with them in the lab and knew they would work. I was ushered through the building and down to a cart. They cleared the roads to get me into hangar one as fast as possible. The elevator doors opened and I was left to head up alone. The elevator doors opened and I walked across the causeway and to the landing pad that had a scepter waiting for me, just like the one I was picked up on my first day. I could see the pilot getting ready for take off but I wasn’t sure who it was. I climbed inside and sat down, grabbing the headset to talk to the pilot.
“Let’s go.”
The engine wound up faster and the lift started to rise as the overhead doors opened. I looked up at the pilot’s display on the window. The time to destination was a lot less than the first operative’s time.
“Pilot, it’s supposed to take a half hour to get to the hospital.”
He remained silent until we cleared the tree line and got into the air. He set it to auto pilot and then turned around to me.
“Dad!? What are you doing!?”
He handed me an ear piece and then unplugged my headset. I put it in my ear and heard him speak.
“Do you really think I was going to let someone else fly you on your first field assignment? I’ll get my ass chewed when I get back, but I’ve gotten that before. Plus I’m already in trouble for the code problem, plus now it’ll be beating the two security guards within an inch of their life.”
He smiled and then turned back around and shut off the autopilot. Another voice came over the channel and it was Rae.
“Your dad and I have been friends since I started, so when you got pulled to go out I told him I wanted to be on coms with you to help.”
I didn’t know her but she knew my dad and that was good enough for me.
“Aren’t you both worried about what will happen after this is over?”
Rae and my dad laughed and I heard the tactical commander in the back speak up.
“Wait what did he say?”
Rae spoke up again.
“He said fuck the Director.”
It was nice to laugh, it helped me calm my nerves. My dad flipped a few switches and the sound of the scepters engines started to change.
“Hold on to something back there. This has the prototype for the in atmosphere hyperdrive.”
I pulled my seatbelt over and clicked it in and then tapped the seat. The engines got louder and the ground below became a blur. My dad was loving this, I could hear him laughing as he steered the ship through the sky. The display on the window wasn’t responding to the speed but I could see the city scape coming into view quickly.
“Get ready to hop out, I’m going to drop you in the parking garage a block over. I’ll pull off and wait for you across town. Rae will guide you through the building.”

The shuttle swooped down and hovered only a foot above ground as I jumped out. I ran to get undercover as he turned the nose of the ship up and went straight up.
“You’ve got some distance to clear. There is a stairwell that will take you to the ground floor, get moving Otaza.”
I saw the sign for the stairs and started to head that way. I went down five flights until I reached the ground.
“Alright, which way am I going?”
I looked around and had two different ways into the parking garage.
“Go left and take the back alley until you reach the hospitals receiving docks.”
I went left and started to head towards the exit.
“Your other left!”
I turned around and headed the other direction.
“Am I just a blip on your map? Can’t you see my silhouette?”
I heard my dad laughing quietly on the channel.
“Sorry, I had the map upside down. Keep going and get to that receiving dock.”
The alley was quiet and it was only a block over until I saw their receiving lot with their docks.
“I’ve got four of them standing out back. I need another way in.”
I could hear her talking to the commander about another way into the building. I looked around and saw a trash chute that was open and went up a few floors.
“Hang on, I found another way, I’m going to climb up the trash chute.”
I pulled my backpack around and dug into one of the pouches. I had gloves that I’ve been playing with that have magnets in them.
“That’s gross, how are you even going to get in?”
I slid them over my hands and tightened them down.
“Magnet gloves, I’ll be able to climb it.”
I heard my dad laughing harder and mumbling something.
“Well if it works then I guess take that way into the building. I see where you are at and where it will put you. You will only have to cross two hallways and take another set of stairs and you will be where our operative was caught.”
I walked under the chute and put my hand against it. The magnets took and I began to climb. I got a few feet up and let one hand go, one of the gloves supported my weight alone. The climb was easy at the start but half way up it started to get narrow. I began to worry that I would get myself stuck as I climbed higher. I looked down and instantly regretted it, I was almost to the top. As soon as I got to the top it leveled out and gave me an area to lay still.
“Stop! Do not move or make a sound. I’ve got heat signatures on the other side of that hatch.”
My heart started to race faster and suddenly there was a loud crash and their footsteps got further away.
“Make this count, we just flew our drone into the side of the building. Get moving!”
I quietly opened the hatch and crawled out.
“Go right, then left and follow it down to the stairwell.”
I moved quietly and looked around at the rooms I passed. It was a bloodbath here, they have started killing the patients.
“Guys, they have killed every patient I have passed by. You might want to get a larger force ready to breach the building if I don’t succeed.”
I couldn’t stomach the carnage anymore, I had to stop looking and just keep moving. I reached the stairs and as soon as I opened the door I was right behind one of them. Before he could turn around I reached around his neck with my left arm and pulled his head hard around. The sound of the bones in his neck breaking caused my stomach to turn and I wanted to puke.
“Otaza, what was that?”
My dad spoke up in place of me, he knew I couldn’t talk about it.
“That was what we called sudden and abrupt contact. You handled it professionally Taz, keep moving son.”

I reached the cage where our operative was killed, his body was still laying on the ground. His blood had soaked his clothes and his body was pale. I had to catch myself and stop the process of puking. I looked around me to make sure no one else was around and then punched in the code. The cage opened and I stepped inside, closing it behind me to prevent followers.
“Open the service door and head down the stairs, there will be a terminal next to a large sealed metal box.”
I opened the door and walked through, the room was like a freezer.
“Damn it’s cold in here, is it supposed to be this cold?”
I could see my breath in the air, the room was starting to get ice on the walls. Rae began explaining the order of how to bring Archangel back online.
“The kill code put the defense system in cold storage to prevent it overheating. You need to prime the handle next to its case so that the system’s power is restored first.”
I looked around until I saw the handle near the top of it. I pulled it and pushed it a few times until the terminal screen began to flicker and turn on.
“Next you need to activate its stabilizer, the case is pressurized to keep it sealed inside. If you try to open it without the pressure stable, it will destroy the Archangel.”
I pulled up my sleeve and opened the data pad on my arm. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my universal splice cable and plugged it into my arm and then into the terminal. I bypassed the terminal’s security and activated its pressure systems.
“I’m getting pressure readings on my end, the case is starting to level itself out. There is going to be some hissing as the air is slowly let in. It will take a few seconds and then it will pop open.”
The hissing started and stopped in a sequence that worked its way from top to bottom. The case popped open and then the doors slid sideways and then around the sides.
“Whoah, so this is Archangel.”
It was a defense robot with a very large rifle and wings on its back. It was painted white with a large Red Cross on its chest.
“Focus, we need to bring it online. Once it’s active, you need to stay out of its way. Your RFID signal from your chip will keep you safe from being shot but that doesn’t mean you won’t get knocked over.”
I wasn’t chipped, I’ve avoided it since I was brought in.
“Rae, he isn’t chipped like the rest of us.”
I could hear her swearing in rapid succession over the channel as the commander kept asking what was wrong.
“Otaza, once you activate Archangel, you need to haul ass.”
I started the activation sequence and quickly unplugged my cable, tucking it away into my pocket.
“What will happen if I stay around for the show?”
It’s body began to twitch as it woke up from storage.
“There won’t be a show, you will be killed. Anyone who accesses their case that isn’t chipped is considered a threat.”
Its head turned and looked down at me, its arms were still locked but those started to release.
“Target acquired.”
I started to step back and hit the door.
“RUN OTAZA!”
I pulled the door open and then pushed through the cage. I ran up the stairs and heard it bust out of the cage and follow me up.
“Head for the trash chute!”
I ran down the hall towards the trash chute and heard multiple footsteps and voices coming my way.
“I’ve got its camera feed going, it’s targeting you!”
I rounded the corner and was faced with four of the attackers.
“DROP!”
I hit the floor and bullets flew over my head and into the wall. The four other men turned and ran the way they came.
“Get on your feet Otaza! Get out of there!”
I ran towards the trash chute and even more men came back around the hallway.
“Taz, turn around and head to the windows at the end of the hall, you need to run like you’ve never ran before.”
I heard my dad again and did what he said. I started running and as I passed the hall I came from, Archangel was standing right there.
“This is a dead end! It’s just windows!”
I kept running but my mind was telling me to stop. I got close to the windows and saw the scepter lower down.
“JUMP!”
I put my arms out forward to break the glass and went through the window.
“Whoa! I got you buddy!”
I felt the cuts on my arms and face as I went through the glass and landed in the ship.
“I’ve got him, Rae, we are returning to the base. Alert medical, he’s going to need stitches.”
I rolled over and held my side, I felt my hands getting warm.
“Dad…”
My vision got blurry and I started getting cold, I heard him talking but only caught the first part of it.
“Hold on Otaza, stay with me….”

An American Villain 2

Monday morning came faster than I expected it to. I had a backpack filled with what I would need for my first day. My father left me a list attached to the directions on how to get to my new job. I pulled the drawer out of my desk and lifted the false bottom. I pulled out my handgun and the two other magazines that went with it. I stuffed the two magazines in my left pocket and then grabbed a handful of rubber bands off my desk. I doubled over the rubber bands around the handle of the pistol to create a grip. I watched my uncle do this once before in the past. He said it allowed you to tuck it into your waist without needing a holster so it wouldn’t fall out. I lifted my shirt and tucked the handgun off-center to my right so that it wouldn’t hit my belt buckle.
“Knock knock”
I turned around to see my brother standing in the doorway holding his coffee.
“Hey man, your up early.”
He got closer to me and looked me over.
“It’s your first day at work, I felt obligated to see you off.”
He lifted the front of my shirt and chuckled.
“Mom know you have this?”
I pulled it back down quickly and pushed his hand back.
“No, and she isn’t going to know either. She’s worried about dad enough as it is. I don’t need to add to that stress.”
He put his empty hand up and turned to walk away.
“Hey dude, I get it, you won’t get any trouble from me.”
He tapped my door frame as he walked out and spoke again.
“Have a good first-day dude.”
I put the paperwork that I needed into the backpack and zipped it up, throwing it over my shoulder to leave.

My brother stood outside with my mom as I pulled out of the driveway. She was already crying, he tried to comfort her by just reassuring her that I was fine. He didn’t know the truth but she and I did. I rolled my window down and waved to them as I began to drive away. Once I got down the block and around the corner I stopped off on the side of the road in our neighborhood. I pulled the paperwork out to follow the directions so I knew where I was going. Nothing showed up on my phone’s maps and I didn’t have any latitude or longitude to put in either.
“Head toward the interstate.
Go north and get off at exit 22-3B
Head towards the gas station and turn just after.
Follow the road all the way to the end.
I’ll see you Monday morning.”
I knew where this gas station was. My parents used to pass my brother, sister, and me off if their work schedules didn’t line up when we were younger. I never knew where my father worked, he always used to say that it was the easiest landmark to get to. I hopped on the interstate and started heading north as the directions said. It was a quick drive to the off-ramp, only two exits up from the one I got on at. The off-ramp only let me turn right, it had a sign pointing towards the gas station with its distance, “6.3 Miles”. The sun was starting to come up, but the trees above began to get thicker, keeping it dark on the road. The gas station started to become clear in the distance, its lights were the only ones around on this road.

I pulled over to the gas station to get something to drink so I could be a little more alert. I climbed out of my car and took a look around. The lights were on inside but no other cars were there. I walked up to the door and pushed it open, it smelled like mold and boiled peanuts inside. The man behind the counter was older but he stood like my father. I grabbed an energy drink from the cooler and brought it to the counter. I reached around the grab my wallet and my arm bumped into a man standing behind me.
“Oh, I’m sorry sir!”
I turned to look at his face and as my eyes went up I saw his ID badge, it was just like the one my father had.
“Not a problem son, thank you for the manners. Glad to see the younger generation still has them.”
I smiled at him and quickly handed the man behind the counter a few dollars for the drink.
“Have a good day sir.”
I nodded at the man behind me and briskly made my exit. I climbed back into my car trying to get out of there as fast as I could. I didn’t even see that man when I entered and he didn’t come in behind me either. I took off from the gas station heading down the road until I saw the sign. “Authorized personnel only”. I turned off onto the road and stopped the car. I shut my lights off and just waited, I was starting to get paranoid. I kept the lights off but slowly rolled down this service road. It was just bright enough for me to be able to see but not daylight yet. I stopped again and checked my rearview mirror, no one was following me.

I picked up my backpack off my seat and threw it over my shoulders. I pulled my passenger seat forward all the way and brought the back forward with it, creating a space behind that seat on the floor. I looked back in my rearview mirror and my heart skipped a beat. There was a white pickup truck sitting at the entrance to this road. Its headlights were on and I could see a few people’s heads sticking out from the bed over the cab. I turned the headlights back on and slowly drove forward, the truck began getting closer. As they got closer from behind I could see another set of headlights turn on down the road. A larger white van pulled forward to block the road. I immediately stopped my car, I didn’t know what to do. What would my uncle do? How would he handle this situation? As I saw the truck behind get closer the radio began playing “Crazy” by Seal. I knew at the moment exactly what my uncle Mika would do. I put the car in neutral and took my backpack off. I climbed behind the passenger seat and pulled out the handgun. I threw my backpack at the gas pedal and the engine began to go. I pushed the stick into drive and the car jolted forward. As we got closer to the van I could see men standing and not moving. I grabbed the seat anticipating the crash.

My car slammed into the van immediately killing two of the men standing in front of it. I heard shouting outside of the car as I tried to focus.
“GET HIM OUT OF THE CAR!”
The pistol still gripped in my hands, a person tried to open the rear driver’s door. I let go of everything I knew and just started shooting. I heard the bullets hit metal when I shot the man at the door.
“EVERYONE GET BACK!”
Someone outside was giving the orders and I needed to get to them. I could hear a few other voices and what sounded like radio transmissions. I peeked my head up to see in front of my car. Two men had been split in half by my car and their torsos were laying across the hood.
“Hey, I see him!”
Someone started to approach from behind me and as the footsteps got closer I got lower.
“Get back here! This isn’t our job!”
They were doubting their situation at this moment and it was clear that they haven’t had this happen before.
“He’s just a kid!”
He turned to speak back to the one that was talking to him. When he turned back to look down into the car he was met with the barrel of my pistol.
“Fuck you!”
I squeezed the trigger and clipped the side of his face. He threw his hands up and began stumbling back. I dropped the magazine and pulled another from my pocket, slapping it into the handle.
“Shit! Someone go grab him!”
I pushed the door open and got onto my feet. They began to come toward me and I grabbed my most recent victim.
“Any closer and I’ll kill him.”
They began to widen their stand to try and surround me.
“Come on kid, let him go, this was just a joke.”
The one giving the orders came from behind the truck door, it was the man behind me at the gas station.
“You call this a joke? Ambushing me to try and capture me? I don’t think so.”
I pointed my handgun at the man and he put his hands in the air.
“So much for manners I see. How about I call your father down here and have him deal with you instead?”
I fired one round at the man’s feet as he took a step closer.
“Please, call him, I have a bone to pick with my old man anyways.”
The men began to move back towards the truck and away from me.
“Let him go and we will let you go, son.”
I could hear radio chatter from the cab of the truck and the men began to climb into the bed of it.
“Sir, we have orders to return to base. Scepter is inbound to handle this.”
The older man stepped back and climbed into his truck.
“Go, and if you turn around I’ll shoot you again.”
I pushed my hostage forward and he stumbled to get his feet under him and run.

Their truck backed up the road and then turned around to head back to the main road. Once their lights disappeared in the darkness I felt the wind pick up. Two spotlights hit the ground around me and the dirt started to kick up from the ground. I tried to look up but the lights were blinding. The lights pointed straight down and to my amazement, one of my creations landed right in front of me.
“Please tell me you didn’t kill any of them Otaza!”
My father climbed from the opening in the side of the aircraft and began walking toward me.
“Sorry to disappoint, but two of them are pinned on the hood of my car.”
He walked up and gave me a hug and then pushed me back, looking me over.
“Are you hurt? Did they get ahold of you?”
I shrugged his hands off and just glared at him, he knew I was angry with him. He let out a sigh and walked past me. Four more men came rushing past carrying two stretchers.
“Get these bots loaded and wait for us.”
There was a resounding “Yes Sir!” from the four men as they began working.
“Wait, those aren’t humans!?”
My father turned around and motioned for me to get closer.
“Their physical structure looks human from a distance and in darkness. But they are just mechanical robots that we use for tasks. A human wouldn’t stand in front of a speeding car, they would try and dive away.”
I walked up to the now apparent robotics engineers and picked up one of the robot’s heads. It was just two large cameras hidden behind a mask and scarf for its face. I looked down at the engineer who was just shaking his head at the damage.
“Sorry about that.”
The engineer waved his hand for me to get away and I walked back to my father.
“Why didn’t you tell me that this was a setup? Why would you let them do something like this to me? Hellen told me about the chip in her and mom showed me your chip registration paperwork. You were going to let them do that to me?”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and then looked up at me.
“I had a deal with the higher-ups, you got brought in and then you could make the decision after reading the paperwork for it. This was never supposed to happen, I will talk to my superior when we get you to base about this incident.”
I heard the four men say “Lift” and they began walking back towards the aircraft.
“If they made a deal with you about this and then went back on it, what else do you think they would be lying about?”
He didn’t think that far ahead but I was already having major doubts about working for The Corporation. He pulled me to walk with him back to the aircraft. He climbed inside and then reached back to help me.
“I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding. The orders must not have been passed down to stop this.”
I ignored his hand and reached for the bars on the side to pull myself in. He tapped the pilot and motioned his thumb up, the aircraft then began to lift off the ground.

We began climbing and quickly made it above the treeline. The sun was bright and it gave me a view of the land that I had never seen before for the national park.
My father tapped me and then pointed to the headset above my seat.
“Take this view in while you can, we work underground.”
I took my eyes from the opening and looked at the dash of the aircraft. They had a route programmed for their flight pattern that showed on the window for them. I saw a time on the bottom, it was only fifteen minutes before we landed again. The shock of the morning began to wear off and I felt my body begin to ache from the trauma of the crash. I reached up and rubbed my forehead and eyes, I was exhausted from it.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you. I want the medical team to look over you when we land. We need to make sure you aren’t injured before your first assignment.”
I looked at my father and for once it seemed like he was truly happy, he finally got what he wanted.
“What happens if I don’t want to do this now? If I change my mind and want to quit?”
The four other engineers in the cargo hold with us chuckled.
“What are you guys laughing about?”
The one who waved me off on the ground looked me directly in my eyes.
“If you thought for even a microsecond that you didn’t want to be here, you would have never stopped at that gas station.”
I know that a majority of the people I graduated with wanted to work for The Corporation as their life goal. All of them had to go through some form of schooling and get a degree before they could even submit an application.
“But what if I don’t feel the same about it now?”
My dad reached across the open seat between us and patted my shoulder.
“There is no changing your mind. You’ve seen too much already and know too much. This is it bud, you’re in for life.”

I heard a stream of beeps coming from the pilots dash, a code flashed across their screen.
“Touch down in twenty seconds gentleman.”
The pilot began to bring the aircraft down below the tree line. I looked outside again and saw the ground splitting open as we got lower. The aircraft touched down and instantly began lowering on the pad we landed on. Its engines shut off and the pilot turned and looked at my father.
“I didn’t see anything and I don’t know anything either. Don’t throw me under the rotor if the director finds out. I did this as payment for the favor you did me.”
He smiled and then unclipped his seat, opening the top hatch to climb out.
“Come on bud, let’s go see your lab.”
We waited for the engineers to get the two robots out and then followed behind them. I climbed out and looked up and around.
“God damn, this place is massive!”
My father turned and smiled at me as I looked around.
“This is just hangar one, wait till you see the other eleven we have here.”
I looked straight up and couldn’t even see the lights on the doors we landed through. He pulled my arm to get me moving, I was captivated by the size of this facility.
“How long do we stay down here? Is this why you are gone for weeks at a time?”
The doors at the end of the landing pad opened and took us down a long corridor. It ended at an elevator that opened as we got close.
“The chip implanted does come with a few benefits. The site has sensors all around it that pick them up. They open doors, call elevators and a few other neat things.”
The doors opened to a large lift platform that took us even further down.
“So what did you do for that pilot in the past?”
He chuckled and adjusted his clothes.
“I took one of the aircraft without authorization to go help him.”
The lift stopped moving and the doors in front of us opened. There really was an entire city below the national park I drove by on my way here.
“This is unreal, I can’t believe the world doesn’t know about this.”
A tall and slim man walked up to greet us. My father stood up straight and reached his hand out.
“Director Evans, we weren’t expecting you down here.”
The man shook my fathers hand and then looked up at my face.
“Quite the stunt you pulled topside, shows stupidity and lack of discipline.”
I went to speak up against his comment but he stopped me and continued.
“But, it also shows courage and the will to do whatever is necessary to survive. I can admire that in a person.”
I reached out to shake his hand and he handed me a key card with my picture on it.
“Welcome to the Catacombs, Otaza. One bit of advice for your first day. Don’t ever try to interrupt me when I am speaking again.”
He smiled and then turned away, walking down the ramp and disappearing below. I looked to my father who was just standing there confused at what just happened. He snapped out of it when I pushed his arm, he looked at me and smiled.
“Come on, we need to get you to medical before you start work.”

Two years later…….

“TAZ GET UP!”
There was a banging on my lab door and it suddenly opened. My father rushed inside to get me up and moving.
“Whoah, dad calm down, what the hell is going on?”
I got up and picked up my hoodie from my desk chair and threw it on, grabbing my key card that hung by the door as we walked out.
“There’s been a situation and you are needed in Tactical Communications and Reconnaissance right away.”
We walked out of the building and climbed into one of the shuttle carts waiting for us.
“Wait, what happened? Is the project ok? Did something go wrong with the testing?”
My father looked at me and shook his head side to side. In my haste to figure out what was going on I forgot about the security of what I do. It was only a few minutes’ ride on the cart before we got to the main building. We walked inside and were immediately escorted to the secured wing and into the TCR room.
“Gentlemen, now that you have arrived, we have a line on what’s happening.”
We stood around a hologram table watching the satellite and security playbacks of a take over less than an hour ago.
“This overthrow has taken place at Ellis General Hospital. Our systems are not picking up vitals on anyone in the building. We have no eyes on the ground and no one inside the building. The police can’t get close to it and the military won’t send in the national guard.”
I pulled my data pad up on my arm to check that hospitals security logs.
“This can’t be right, it’s saying that their security system was never triggered. It’s showing Archangel’s systems as disconnected.”
The TCR operator in charge went pale, everyone else in the room just looked at me.
“It says here in their system files that its connection was severed. But that can’t be right, no one has that kind of power.”
At that moment the director walked into the briefing room with a security team.
“Does it have a time stamp on when the connection was cut, Otaza?”
I opened the details of the file stream and found the last transmission report.
“It was cut nine seconds before the attack, sir.”
I looked up at the director for directions on how to proceed.
“We need to get someone inside that building, we have to activate their Archangel system.”
One of the operatives in the room volunteered and was escorted out. The briefing ended quickly after and the room cleared out except for my father and I.
“What didn’t you say that you wanted to in front of everyone else Taz?”
I pulled the details from the last transmission and opened the code file.
“The deactivation code that was used is old school but still works. The only problem with old school code is that it leaves a signature of the coder who used it.”
I flipped the data pad around and showed my father.
“It was your code that was used to shut off their protection protocol dad.”

An American Villain

“Otaza! Come give your sister a hug before she leaves!”
I locked myself in my room for the day because I didn’t want to cry anymore. My big sister was leaving for school and was moving across the state. My mother yelled upstairs to me again to come down and say goodbye.
“Fine!”
I got up from my messy desk and walked downstairs to see her. She was already packed and was waiting for me.
“Don’t give your mother a hard time, just listen to her and your life will be a lot easier, kid.”
I was taller than her so her attempt to rub her hand across the top of my head failed.
“Fine, but only if you let me know what you’re working on at school.”
She laughed and spoke over her shoulder as she walked out the door.
“You won’t understand what I am working on, remember, I am the smartest one in the family.”
My mom and I stepped out to see her off, she waved as she backed out of the driveway.
“Is she going to stop and see our brother on the way out?”
My mom pulled me close to her and I could hear her start to cry. It was her oldest child finally leaving home. She let go of me and then pushed me to walk back inside with her.
“Your sister and brother talked last night, she said she didn’t want to bother him at work. Now go do your chores before your father gets home. You need to be cleaned up for dinner and I need your help setting the table.”
I walked away to head back to my room and she spoke again.
“Excuse me, young man, I was speaking to you.”
I turned around to face her and give her the answer she wanted.
“Yes mom, I will get my chores done, clean up and help you finish dinner. I just need to finish this thing I’m working on first.”
She threw her hands up in the air and turned to head back into the kitchen. I glanced at the clock when I walked into my room and it was later than I realized. My dad was going to be off work in less than an hour and then home within twenty minutes. I sat back down to look at what I was working on.
“LEAFS: Large Effective Alternative Fuel Source”
I smiled as I read it one more time and looked over what I had already done for the design. I had a few more thoughts on the design but didn’t have the time to flesh them out on paper before dad got home. I wrote them down quickly on another notepad for the project and then closed my notebooks.
“Otaza you better get down here before your father gets home!”
My mother was yelling at me again, I say five minutes and in two minutes she’s yelling again.
“Stop yelling, I’m right here!”
She turned and waved the wooden spoon in her hand at me like I was a child still.
“Do you want me to smack you? Because I will.”
I grabbed the plates out of the cabinet and utensils to go with them.
“The last time you hit me with one it broke, then made me buy you a new one because you said I broke it.”
She mumbled something under her breath but I couldn’t catch what it was.

“Hello hello everyone!”
I heard my father come in from the garage next to the kitchen. He walked past me and straight to my mom.
“Dinner smells good honey, I’ll be ready to eat soon.”
He gave her a kiss and turned his attention toward me.
“You say goodbye to your sister?”
I nodded my head trying to hold back the tears.
“Good man, she will be back home and annoying you before you know it.”
He patted my shoulder and passed by me heading towards their room. I finished setting the table and bringing the food over so my mother could wash dishes while my father got changed.
“I think that’s everything mom, come sit down, I’ll wash those after.”
I heard what sounded like a pot drop from her hands as she snapped back.
“What!? You do the dishes? Since when?!”
My father came back out of their room and joined the conversation.
“As you tell me, honey, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Just appreciate that he’s willing to do them.”
She hung the dishtowel in front of the stove on its handle and shut the water off. My father and I were already seated and waited for her. When she finally sat down my father looked at the both of us with joy on his face.
“I have great news and it is going to change some things for all of us.”
My mother put her utensils back down and just glared at him. The seconds felt like hours until he finally spoke again.
“My project was accepted by the corporation. They want to begin immediately.”
My mother began to cry as I could see the weight lift off of her shoulders.
“So dad, what does this mean for us?”
He reached for my mother’s hand.
“Everything is going to be fine now, we have nothing to worry about. We will be taken care of for the rest of our lives.”
He turned his head towards me and looked at me like he could see my mind.
“This was the project you helped me on. I informed them that some of the key components were of your design. They said as soon as you graduate high school you will be employed and work on the project with me.”
I felt my heart jump into my throat as my stomach turned upside down.
“Wait, so does this mean it actually worked!?”
He smiled and a tear fell from his eyes.
“You are smarter than anyone gives you credit for Otaza.”
My father reached for his utensils and dropped his napkin on his lap.
“Enough of that for now, let’s eat!”
I had a year and a half left of school to get through before I could get my hands on that project. My father wasn’t allowed to talk about it outside of the corporation, not even to my mother or I. I couldn’t wait to see the finished project when I graduate and gain access to the labs. As I ate, tears of joy fell down my face.

A year and a half later.
“Graduation is an important time in every young person’s life. It symbolizes a transition from one point of life that has come to an end and the beginning of another one. Many of your classmates already have their lives lined up for what they will be doing. Some of you are making your own way and others have yet to figure it out. All of these are acceptable paths out of graduation. Just make sure that whatever you do, do it with passion and persistence. Now go out there and change the world. Congratulations class of 2047!”

The principal chose to do the speech for this year’s graduation due to the rowdy nature of my graduating class. She called each student to the stage to receive their diploma and shake their hand. Once this Friday night was over and this ceremony ended, I had the weekend to figure out my life before starting work on Monday. My father had already lined up a lab for me to work in across the property he is currently working at. My mother and father decided it would be best for me to finally have my own car to go to and from work in encase I was working late on a project. I sat patiently until my name was called by the principal, both of my parents were in the crowd but my brother and sister couldn’t be here to see this.
“Otaza Raiger”
I stood up and everyone around me started to clap. I like to think that many of my peers looked at me as a friend and a good person. I tried really hard to not make any enemies and to stay friends with as many people as possible. I took a look around at everyone and then began walking toward the stage. When I got up to the stage, Principal Kingsly reached out to shake my hand and then pulled me closer for a hug.
“The corporation is excited to see you.”
She let go and pushed the diploma into my hands, we smiled for the cameras and I walked off the stage. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that or how she even knew what I was going to be doing after graduation. I searched for my father’s face in the crowd but he had left, leaving my mother alone. I sat back in my seat and felt my phone buzz in my pocket, it was a text message from my father.
“Sorry bud, work called and I had to leave. I will see you Monday morning at work. The directions will be left on your desk at home.”
I looked up again at my mother and she had a concerned look on her face. I wonder what was so important that he had to leave in such a rush. Principal Kingsly handed out the last diploma and was ushered off stage as well.
“Hey, Taz, what’s going on man? Isn’t she supposed to give another speech at the end?”
I looked around the crowd and everyone seemed in a state of confusion. The vice-principal stepped up to the podium to give the closing speech this time.
“Principal Kingsly had to leave the stage but that does not stop the celebration! This concludes the graduation ceremony for the class of 2047. May you all seek your dreams and attain them in the future to come. Thank you everyone for coming out tonight.”
We all stood up and almost everyone threw their caps into the air, I kept mine in my hands so that I could keep it. We all started to exit the football field that our graduation was in, it was slow but everyone was excited to finally be done with school. A few of my friends waved at me and some others gave me dirty looks. I felt like everyone knew something and I was the one that was left out.

I met my mother in the parking lot by my car once I got through the crowds of people.
“I told your father I would catch a ride home with you.”
I walked around to the passenger side and opened the door for her to help her in.
“Why did he have to leave?”
She pulled the door closed and I walked around to the other side and climbed into the driver’s seat.
“He said it was an emergency, he feels really bad that he couldn’t stay for the entire ceremony. He told me that he had no choice in the matter. Something he was working on had a problem.”
I turned the car on and proceeded to head home with her. I felt like something was going on in the world and it just hadn’t made it to the news yet. When we got home my sister was waiting in the driveway for us.
“Did you know she was coming home mom?”
I looked at my mom’s face for some form of expression but she was shocked like I was. We climbed out of the car and she sat on her trunk waiting for us.
“Congratulations kid, now you’re an adult like the rest of us.”
She hopped down to give me a hug and then hugged our mom. She walked in behind us and made her way to the table with her bag she brought.
“I wanted to stop in and see you all before I head off to my first field test for school.”
She looked around the house and then back at our mom.
“Where is dad at? Didn’t he go to your graduation?”
I pulled out my phone and opened the text message he sent me. I slid it across the table to her so she could read it. Her happy demeanor changed and she looked up at me.
“So, you’re going to work for the corporation as well then? I guess that means I can be honest with you.”
She looked at our mom, letting her know she needed to walk out of the room.
“What’s going on Hellen?”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a large file, sliding it across the table to me.
“These transcripts were intercepted this morning. We aren’t sure when it will happen. Our satellites can’t pick up their movements and our assets on the ground haven’t checked in.”
What I had in front of me was life changing.
“Hold on, does the public know about this? They need to start evacuating, like, right now.”
She stood up and walked around to me and grabbed the file.
“The public doesn’t know and they won’t until it’s too late. The corporation has seen fit to allow this to play out. With the economy at what it is, they say it’ll be good for business.”
She was brainwashed by the corporation and their agenda already.
“Fuck the economy, your talking about millions of lives here Hellen!”
I could see the confliction in her face as she scratched at her left arm.
“There is more going on that you realize Taz, we can’t just let the public know. The corporation has counter measures so that this doesn’t go farther than needed.”

She continued to scratch at her arm until her facial expression changed back.
“What’s wrong with your arm, why do you keep scratching at it?”
My mother walked in from the other room with a piece of paper in her hands.
“She is scratching because she has the same chip in her arm as your father does. He has just gotten good at ignoring the itch when he diverts from their objective.”
I took the piece of paper from her and looked over it.
“PC-129K: Issued and implanted; Mitchell Raiger”
It listed possible side effects and ways to combat its programming with various breathing and physical practice.
“Your father had to get it when everything changed and the corporation took over. We all know the story, the government failed the people so “The Corporation” was put in place to run things. With it, they wanted to know at all times where their people are at and what they are doing.”
I never knew my father was chipped by them, I was under the impression that it was for field operatives only to monitor vitals and tactical positioning. She took the paper back from me and then pulled my head down to her.
“Monday morning when you drive to the site your father works at, they are going to ambush and take you.”
I looked over at my sister as she nodded her head to what our mom was saying.
“So what do I do? How will I know when they are going to do it?”

She walked away to put the paper back and then returned to the table.
“You won’t, but your father trained you and you are much larger than them. You make them regret every step they take. Show The Corporation that you are not one of their pawns. You are going to do things we will never understand for reasons we can never see ourselves.”
She reminded me of something my uncle told me once when he took me shooting.
“If you ever find yourself in a lose lose situation, be a landmine. They step on you, explode with rage and kill as many as you can.”
I looked to my sister for advice but was met with silence. My mother hugged me and then walked into the kitchen to make tea for the two of them. I was in shock at the situation and what I just learned. I headed to my room and started to gather my things. I needed to have all my affairs in order before Monday came. I pulled the top drawer of my desk open and lifted the false bottom. I pulled out a pistol my uncle gave me after that day of shooting. I pulled the magazine out to make sure it was loaded and then slapped it back in. If they were going to take me, I was going to be the worst landmine they have ever stepped on.

Contracted: Ghost

“We are coming into SRQ now, we will be landing within minutes.” I sat up and looked out the window at what I used to know. The airport got bigger but the sun is still just as bright. The plane touched down and went into a private hanger that my family still owned for friends to fly out to our estate. The engines shut off and I grabbed the duffle bag I took from my mothers. The door opened and I stepped back out into what I swore I was never coming back to. The pilot reached his hand out to me as I stepped onto the ground. “I will await your return sir.” I shook his hand and thanked him, walking towards the SUV parked at the other end. The doors opened and another man stepped out, taller than the SUV. I knew exactly who it was and why he was here. “You know you’re not going to do this alone right?” I dropped the bag on the ground and opened my arms to give him a hug. “I’m guessing mom called you and had you fly in?” He pulled me close and squeezed me tight. “I got word from her that you were on the warpath.” He let go and pushed me back, getting a look at me. “Come on man, I’ll explain on the ride.” His driver opened the door and then tried to grab my bag. “No thanks, I got this.” I picked up the bag and walked around to open the back and toss it in. I closed it and walked back to the other side and climbed inside. I pulled the door closed and the vehicle started moving. “What’s in the bag?” I knew he was going to ask, he wasn’t going to like the answer but I needed him to know. “Just some gear.” He looked up at his driver and then over to me. “Is it what I think it is?” I shook my head yes and he nodded with me. “As your brother, I feel it’s right for you to use his gear, he trained you.” The driver looked up into the rear view mirror as he said that, his reaction didn’t sit right with me. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and sent a text message to an old contact of mine.
“D, I’m back and I’m compromised, heading south on Washington from the airport, family crest on the vehicle.”

It took a few minutes to get a response but when he did it was simple. “Kk” I knew he was going to meet up with us shortly so I only had a few minutes to ask questions. “Where is your driver taking us?” He looked around the area and then leaned forward, “Driver, this isn’t the route I instructed you to take.” The driver looked into the rearview mirror once more and his passenger seat partner started to sit up more. “There is a roadblock ahead, we are taking another route sir.” My brother sat back and threw up his hands. “It’s always something in this town, now I remember why we left.” We pulled up to a red light and stopped, I could see down the road three large white SUVs coming this way, I knew it was my contact. “Driver put the vehicle in park, I need to get something out of my bag.” He didn’t move and then my brother repeated the same statement. The driver put it in park and I reached behind my back for my pistol as I leaned towards my brother. “Open the door and get out.” As soon as the man in the passenger seat made his move for his pistol I drew mine and put a bullet through the head rest and into him. I aimed over to the driver and fired another round into him as well. “OUT!” I flung the door open, moving to the back to grab my bag as my contact rolled up. “Can we please move before the cops show up!?” My brother stood in shock as I grabbed his arm pulling him towards the other vehicles. “Get in!” I pushed him inside and climbed in closing the door as we sped off down the road. “Always good to see you D, sorry it’s on such short notice and not on better terms.” He turned around with a cigar in his hand and gave a smile to my brother and I. “Comfy? Good! Now what the hell is going on my man??” I looked at my brother who had his hands on his face. “Listen to me.” I grabbed my brother’s arm and turned him to look at me. “Anyone that you trusted, anyone you told anything to is now considered a threat. The only people we can trust are the pilot who flew me in and these guys. Do you understand me?” My brother shook his head yes, took a deep breath and then began asking questions.

We circled around the town to get back to my contacts hideout where I had another stash of supplies. I explained to my brother everything that has happened so far and what I was going to do. “Do you really think you can pull this off?” I looked down at my phone as the lock screen lit up, the picture of my wife and I on vacation in the mountains. “I have to see this through, I have to make this right.” My brother got what I was getting at and started to understand the caliber of the situation. “What I need from you, is the old you, I need the you that I grew up with back. Forget all that crap the psychologists said and told you to do, I need YOU back and I need it now.” We pulled into the hideout on the bad side of town and my contacts crew started coming from around corners. “Alright my guys, listen here, this area is monitored around the clock, no matter what happens, no one is going to get to you.” He looked right at me, “The code to the building is still the same. No one has been in there since you left, best of luck you two.” We opened the doors and climbed out, I grabbed my bag from the middle seat and then closed the door. The three SUVs pulled away and went down the road. My brother looked around the area at all the guys who were watching us. “So how exactly do you know this guy?” I threw the bag over my shoulder and walked to the door, pushing in the code to open it. “I did his Chemistry course in college.” The locks turned and the door opened. “Right, Chemistry, college, got it.” We walked inside and the lights automatically turned on. I waited for my brother to get in the room and then pushed the door closed, the locks turning as it sealed us inside. “Come on, we need to get ready.” I opened another door that had a keypad on it, getting us into the main part of the building. I hit the light switch on the side of the wall, showing me everything I left from my past. “Dude, why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?” The door closed behind us and he was looking around the room at everything I had hidden away. “Didn’t you ever read my book?” I looked at him as he made an embarrassed face, “It’s on my nightstand ok! I’ll read it when I get home.” We both laughed about it and I set my bag on the table in the center of the room. I took a deep breath and opened it, pulling out the file my friend in Mexico gave me. “This is where we are going. My friend was able to get a fix on transmissions coming in and out of there, this is where the target is at.” My brother flipped the file around to look at it across the table, “This is deep man, he is going to have that place on full alert. You’re talking about half a mile to go through before we get to that building.” I turned around to a locker on the wall and opened it, pulling out two Ghillie suits and setting them on the table. “They won’t even see us coming.” He looked at them and then at me. “Now I trained in one of these and know how to use them, do you?” I shook my head left to right, “Should have read my book man.” He rolled his eyes and grabbed one of them. “So we have the suits, do we have anything else for them?” I hit the light switch next to the locker, turning on the lights inside the cage. “I’ve got everything and anything you could possibly want.” His eyes got wide as the caged room lit up and the walls covered in guns started to become clear.

After a few hours of gathering what we would need and going over our plan, we managed to have everything packed and ready to go. “So when are we going to push on him?” My brother looked around at everything we had and then the clock on the wall. ”Now” I reached inside a small key safe on the wall and grabbed a key. “Get your things, we will take them in the night.” I picked up my gear off the table and went through the back door of the room. “Throw your stuff in the bed and help me get this started again.” I opened the hood of the old pick up and began filling the oil pan. “You got gas for this thing?” My brother was fumbling through tarps and shelves looking for it. “There is a jerry can under the workbench, should have enough to get us to the gas station down the road.” He got it open and poured it into the tank, closing the gas cap quickly. “You better make sure this gas station is open, you wont get but maybe fifteen miles from that.” I put the oil cap back on and closed the hood. “Let’s go, this should work.” I opened the driver door and my brother climbed in next to me on the other side. I turned the key over, the truck sputtered for a second and then turned over, pushing out carbon build up. “Ok, we are off.” I pushed the garage door opener on the visor and we pulled off into the dark street and I closed it as we pulled away. “The gas station is right around the corner from here, we will still be safe from any eyes there.” The truck took a moment to get up to its working potential but as we pulled into the gas station it began to sputter and die on us. “Fifteen miles may have been a bit overzealous.” My brother was chuckling under his breath as we stalled out and coasted into the gas pump. “Stay put, I’ll be right back.” My brother sat up straight and started looking in all directions. “Hey, a bit more subtle man.” He slouched back down in the seat but kept looking around. I walked up to the door and it opened with a chime. “Sorry we are closed” I walked up to the man behind the counter who was counting his cigarettes. “What ever happened to always being opened if I needed it?” He turned around and his eyes got wide. “HEY MAN! When did you move back to town?!” He reached across the counter to shake my hand. “I’m only in town for the night, tying up a nasty loose end.” I handed him sixty dollars and told him to keep it. “You ain’t bringing it back here are you?” I smiled and shook my head no as I pointed to the cigarettes behind him. “No, this one is outside of town, outside of your control.” He handed the cigarettes to me and a lighter to go with it. “Well, you know you always have a home here. Tell your brother in the truck hi for me and don’t be a stranger.” I shook his hand again and a tear fell from his eye. “Say hi to your wife for me will you?” He shook his head yes and pushed me off. “Good seeing you again my old friend, stay safe.” I walked out the door and back to the truck, pulling the nozzle and opening the gas can. “Will we get enough to make it?” I pulled the handle and flipped the latch down. “Yeah man, we got enough to make.” I looked off into the night sky, I knew that this night was going to be a long one. The latch popped and the nozzle stopped pumping. I put it up, closed the gas tank and climbed back into the driver’s seat. “I thought you gave that up?” I clicked the lighter twice and took a long drag, holding it as I turned the truck over. “Ya I thought I did too.”

Two hours later we pulled off the road onto a county service road. “Come on, we are going to stalk in.” He opened the door and reached into the bed for his gear. I pulled the lucky I flipped from the pack, crumpling it and tossing it back into the cab. I lit it and began to unpack as well. Within minutes my brother and I were in full ghillie suits with our weapons at the ready. “We have only a few hours before the sun comes up. We need to be done and gone before then.” He looked around for a direction to where we were going. “How do you plan on getting away with this in the end?” I began walking off the road through the trees. “The same way I got away with it in the beginning.” He was silent for a few minutes until he heard the water running. ‘How did you get away with it in the beginning?” I pulled the bushes aside to give us access to the small river. “Spoiler alert from the book, boot prints get lost when walking in a river.” He chuckled slightly and nodded his head. “Alright, I’m tracking.” We dragged our legs with the water to avoid splashing as we walked up the small river. I knew this river from when I first started hunting out here. “As we come up to this bend, we are going to have to get low. There is a guard sitting in the trees.” We got out of the river and crawled along the sand until we saw the guard stand. “We can sneak past him, he won’t see us if we move into the grass.” My brother shifted and pulled his rifle to his shoulder. “Yeah that’s a no go for me, just means another person to deal with on the way out.” I pulled my rifle up and shouldered it as well. “Then let’s make sure there is no one else in the trees before you shoot.” We scanned the area and found another guard on the far side, behind the building in another tree stand. “You take the one close, I’ll get the one on the other side.” I felt his gaze shift to me and knew what he was going to say. “Read my book, trust me, I can hit this guy.” My brother pulled the bolt on his rifle and loaded a round as I did the same. “3…2…1…” Pew! The grass in front of us moved from the muzzle blast. I heard the one close to us hit the ground as the one on the other side fell to the ground too. “Let’s move, we only have an hour before the sun rises.” We got up slowly and kept a lower crouched movement as we got closer to the property. “Hold up, look at the roof.” My brother pulled his rifle up and looked to the roof as I looked around the building. “Man, this guy has some major paranoia issues.” I looked around the building and saw two more men patrolling the grounds. “If there are two in the trees, two on the ground outside, then I’m thinking there are two others inside with him.” I pulled my eyes back from the scope and looked over at my brother. “Either we take these two now, or we just walk out and get captured to get inside.” My brother looked back at me with confusion, “Is it even a decision? We take those two now.” I put my eyes back to the scope and watched for a few more minutes. “When they come back around, call it.“ After another minute the two men came face to face on their walking path. “Left”, they stopped to talk for a second. “3…2…1…” PEW! My brother shot before I did, his round dropping the first guy and then my heart began to race. The guy was shocked and before he could make any movements my round struck him in the head, clearing the area. My brother started to get up as I kept looking around. “Wait!” He stopped and started to get lower again. “There is another, he is coming from the side now.” I pulled the botl and pushed another round into the chamber. “I got him.” He walked out and just as he turned the corner to see the other two on the ground, PEW! The bullet struck him in the chest and he hit the ground. “Move now.” I got up with my brother and we ran through the opening with our rifles at the ready. As we came up to the side of the house, We both slung our rifles to our backs and drew our pistols.

I put the side of my head against the door to listen. “I only hear one voice.” My brother looked over his shoulder and then around the corner. “Go in a stacked entry or split entry?” I looked behind me and around the open area. “Stacked, I’ll take point.” I flipped the safety off and reached forward with my left hand to turn the knob, it was locked. I turned to look at my brother “Its loc-” At that moment I heard the lock turn and the door opened inward. Another man stepped outside and I quickly grabbed him, spun him to the front of me and pushed inside. “MOVE!” My brother came in behind me and cleared my back. I pushed the man forward and he hit the floor, leveling my handgun to the man behind the desk. “I’ve been waiting for you.” He moved one of his hands under the desk. “HANDS UP!” I moved closer to him. BANG! My brother killed the man on the ground. “Alright, you’re the boss here.” My brother passed me and pulled him from his chair. “Clear, it’s just us three.” I looked down at my watch and then the reflection of the monitor in the glass. “He’s already triggered the alarm.” He chuckled and shifted off my brother with his shoulders. “I’m disappointed in you, the old you would have been here inside of a week, not half a year. You’ve gotten weak.” I gripped the pistol tighter and pushed the barrel against his forehead. “You set me up!” He reached up for the barrel and pulled it into his head, my brother pushed his pistol against his head. “Do it! Show me you’ve got the stones and do it!” I could tell he had finally lost it, I pulled the gun back and put it in my holster. “Why man, why couldn’t you just let it go??” My brother pushed his pistol harder, “Answer him.” The man turned to my brother and then to me. “So you’ve dragged your big brother into this then?” I pulled the hood off the ghillie suit, revealing the whole mask. “He told me a while ago that we should have just buried you under the jail.” He put the same smirk he always had on his face. “So you had to get your brother involved and take your fathers mask to face me?” My blood began to boil. “What? You didn’t think I remembered? Shame though, that fortress you hid your pregnant wife in isn’t going to save her.” I took a step forward closer to him. “Go, I need to handle this on my own. I need you to call home.” My brother looked at me and I could see the concern behind his mask. “GO!” He holstered his pistol and stepped back towards me. “Take the truck back to the airport, get on the plane and get home.” He handed me his field knife, “You took the mask, you put it back.” He patted my shoulder and walked out of the house. “You want to know the truth?” I pulled my field knife out as well and crossed my arms with a knife in each hand. “That night, when everything went south, you didn’t complete the contract. I had to be the one to do it, it was a two man contract, it was our thing, no loose ends.” I dropped my arms to my sides and rolled my neck. “We had codes we went by, the first one was absolutely no children, you know that! I don’t care if they were a witness, they were a child, no older than five years old!” He rubbed the bridge of his nose like he always used to. “That child would have said something, that child would have exposed us!” He was getting angry and filled with regret. “Then if that was to happen we would have dealt with it, I wasn’t going to do it!” He put one hand up and reached onto his desk, picking up a book. “This though, this was my main reason. You glorified what you did, you made it seem romantic and every man’s dream job.” I never knew that he read my book, “Dude its fiction to the world? No one knows the truth. WE MADE SURE OF THAT!” He dropped the book on the desk and tucked his hands into his pockets. “You’re right, we did take care of it, but not so you could get famous and put the feds onto the entire operation.” He was delusional, “Before I published it I sent it to the organization to make sure that it was ok that I did publish it, THEY CLEARED IT! You’re going insane dude!” I was starting to lose my patience with him, this needed to end once and for all. He just kept that smirk on his face and crossed his arms,”So what’s it going to be then, partner?”

I knew the code, blood in, blood out, but I already shed blood to get out once. I threw the knife my brother handed me into the table, sticking straight up. “We both know the code.” He looked at the knife and then went to reach for it but stopped. “For someone who went a long way to come and get me, you really want to stick to the code now?” I tossed my knife back and forth between my hands, “Yeah, I do, now pick up the blade and man up.” I hit a nerve, I saw it in his face. He quickly pulled the knife up and flipped it around on his hand. “Remember who gave you your first knife? Do you really think you have what it takes to beat me?” He always did like to exaggerate his point before getting to it. “Yeah but you didn’t train me, my father did.” He lunged forward unpredictably and managed to graze my side. “Must not have trained you well enough!” I flipped the knife upside down and walked in a circle around him, waiting for him to make his next move. “Maybe, let’s find out.” He lunged at me again, this time I side stepped him and drove the blade under his arm into his shoulder. “Or maybe you just can’t see past your own delusions!” I pulled the knife out as his arm dropped and he stumbled to get back up again. “Got lucky kid, now I’ll kill you!” I took another step back to give him some room and he began to bleed through his shirt. “Then kill me, stop talking about it and just do it!” He stumbled back to his desk and braced himself against it as he tried to walk around it. “What’s wrong? Got bested by a kid who wasn’t trained well enough?” He dropped the knife on the floor and slumped down into his chair. “If I’m not leaving, neither are you…” I heard the click of the safety from under the desk and dove to the side. BOOM! The shotgun blew through the front of the desk, sending wood chips everywhere. “Just like always! You could never stick to the code!” I rolled over and got up on my feet, flipping the knife blade to my hand. He was standing up trying to get the shotgun from under the desk. As soon as he got it free and leveled it, I threw the knife directly into his heart. BOOM! The shotgun went off with the pellets impacting the plate carrier I had on underneath my ghillie suit. I fell to the floor from the impact, knocking the air from my chest. “Jesus….” I rolled over and tried to push myself up and get to my feet. After stumbling to get upright I looked to him, sitting slumped in his chair trying to mumble something. “F-F-Fu-…” I grabbed the knife and twisted it inside his chest. “You too…” I Stood up and watched as the life left his eyes, it was finally over. I saw a pack of cigarettes on his desk, picked it up and took one out. “Shame, you had a real nice place out here in the woods all by yourself.” I lit the cigarette and took a long drag from it. “I hope you burn in hell for what you did.” I walked to the door and opened it, took one last drag and flicked the cigarette onto the rug on the carpet. “I’ll start the fire for you.” The rug took flame quickly and began to spread. I pulled the ghillie suit off as I walked away leaving it to burn with everything else. I got half way through the field and took the plate carrier off and tossed it on the ground. I dropped the rest of my gear on the ground and walked away free from everything, except the mask. I held it in my hands and looked as the building behind me began to roar. “What do you want from me…” I felt a tear fall down my face and I heard a voice in the back of my mind. “I want you to live.” I put the mask in one hand and reached in my pocket for my phone and sent a text to my contact. “Hey, can you come out here and pick me up?” I began to walk down the road that leads back to the main road.

After about an hour of walking, my contact pulled up. “Hey man, where is your brother?” I climbed into the passenger seat of his SUV, “I sent him back already, he didn’t need to know everything.” He looked at me and shook his head understandingly, “I get it my man, some things should just stay with one person and die with others.” He began to drive back and finally asked, “What’s with the mask?” I looked out the window at the open fields and then back at him, “Take me to the beach and I’ll tell you.” An hour later we stood on the beach, in front of a sand dune, with a plant that was protected. “My father is out here.” I looked around the beach at everyone else that was going about their day. “My father is also right here.” I held up the mask with both hands and pulled it close to my head. “I’m so sorry father…” My contact put his hand on my shoulder, “Come on man, we need to get you back home.” I followed him back to the SUV and we drove back to the airport. As we pulled in I saw the pickup my brother took back with him on the side of the hanger. We got closer and I saw the plane sitting in the hanger still. “Give me your gun, something is wrong.” We pulled into the opening and I got out with a pistol at the ready, “Stay put.” I looked around with my arms extended forward. “Hey!” I swung around to see my brother and the pilot standing in a doorway to the small office. “Jesus Christ dude, what are you two doing here still!? You should be in the air already, my wife and child are in danger!” I put up one hand stopping the questions and walked back to my contact handing the pistol back to him. “I appreciate everything you have done for me. Maybe one day I’ll bring you out to Oregon and you can see the estate.” He took the pistol and shoved it in his waistband. “It’s too cold there, how about you just introduce me to your wife and child when it’s time. Maybe then you can meet my wife and daughter.” He pulled me close for a hug and then let me go. “Get home my man, your wife needs you and so does your future child.” He turned to walk away and before he got into his SUV he hollered one more time to me. “Aye! Keep your ass out of trouble alright!?”He reached inside for the mask and tossed it to me, laughing and then climbed in, driving off quickly. I looked at the mask once more, “It’s time to go back home dad.” My brother and the pilot stood at the stairs into the plane. “You ok?” I walked up and started climbing the stairs, “I’m not sure if I ever will be.” I felt my brother’s hand on my back patting me. We took our seats as the pilot closed the door. “So why did you stay?” He looked over at me and smiled, “You’re not the only one with connections.” I knew my brother knew people but I wasn’t sure how many people he knew. “I called the home office in Oregon and tipped them off to suspicious activity around the manor. They caught five guys in a van with illegal weapons and no permits for the other ones.” I wasn’t sure how he got the government involved with this. “What happened to them?” He weighed his hands up and down, “The justice department will make sure those guys never see the light of day again.“ The plane began to pick up speed and finally took off. “This is your captain speaking, we will be in the air for approximately four hours. So sit back and enjoy the flight and try to get some sleep.”

Four hours later
“We have touched down and will be parked within a few minutes.” My brother and I woke up and got ready to get off the plane. I picked up the mask and climbed out of my seat. “Hey man, if you ever need to talk about all this, give me a call.” My brother pulled me in for a hug and then let me go. “Thanks man.” The pilot came out and opened the door to let the stairs down. We left the plane and walked through the hangar to a series of Volkswagen SUVs parked in a line. Simultaneously all the doors opened and my wife was helped out of one and my mother helped out of another. “Oh my god…” I must have looked like death rolled over, the fear that was in my wife’s eyes was worse than I had seen before. “Hey darling, I told you I would come home.” She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed as hard as she could. “Don’t you ever do this to me again!” She began crying as I held her tight and rocked her side to side. “I won’t, I promise.” I looked over to see my mother and brother talking. They exchanged a hug and my brother climbed into one of the SUV’s and drove off. My mother walked up to us with her hands open,“Your brother is heading back to his home. Now let’s get you back to the estate and get you cleaned up, you have to start learning to be a father and no longer a killer.” My wife wrapped her arm around one of mine and started to pull me to the SUV. “Do you want to talk about it?” I looked down at the mask in my other hand and then at her. “Give me a little bit and I will, I promise.” She rubbed her hand on my arm and gave it a kiss. “Ok my love.”

Six months later…
“Hey, your phone is ringing, hun!” I walked from the balcony and picked up my phone. “Who is it?” I looked down at the name on the screen, “My Editor?” I walked back onto the balcony of the manor.
“Hello?”
“Hey, I was wondering if you were interested in what we talked about last year?”
“I’m not sure about that anymore, I don’t think it is a good idea.”
My wife looked up at me, she was close and listening in.
“It would be great for your name! The readers loved your first book, give them the origin story!”
I choked for a moment and looked to my wife for an answer, her face was filled with terror.
“Hello? Are you still there? What do you think?”
“I don’t think the world is ready to know how I became the Wraith.”

Contracted: Unmasked

“Comrade, we are coming up to the border.” The storage compartment we were hiding in was small but it was only a short ride from where we had been staying to get across the border. I looked over at my wife and she was fast asleep. I shook her a little bit to wake her up. “We are about to start crossing the border. We have to be very still and silent.” The loud roar of the truck moving came to a dull rumble as we stopped. “Company paperwork and load inspection.” The border guard sounded like he was stressed and ready to get off work. “It says here that you are taking dirt for the border build project.” They paused and then started some radio chatter. “Alright let him through.” Someone from behind the truck slammed their fist against the back, echoing the loud thunder through this small compartment. We began moving again and then suddenly stopped. “Sir we need you to exit the vehicle.” I heard the door open and the weight shift around, dropping some dirt into the container. “We need you to open the back of this dump truck.” I couldn’t make out much of what my friend was telling them but it ended with a supervisor calling for an excavator. “Fellas there is a lot of dirt in here and if you want to dump it on the road we can.” He spoke louder to let us know that we might be getting tossed around. “GET THAT DUMP TRUCK MOVING!” Someone else had walked up and stopped the orders of the other border guards. The door to the cab opened and he climbed back in. The engine fired up and we started moving again. The seconds felt like hours, I was afraid we were going to be discovered. The steady pace ended and the engine began pushing harder. After what felt like a lifetime the hidden door opened to the compartment. “Aren’t you glad I had that compartment installed for our operation?” The cooler air flowed in and it was finally over. “No kidding, your idea was spot on for your boss.” My wife tapped my arm and whispered to me. “What exactly does his operation move in this?” I shook my head no and her eyes got wide and she nodded. “Get some sleep you two, it is going to be a few hours until we make it to the transfer spot.”

“We are pulling up to San Vicente, get ready guys.” My wife was still asleep, “Come on darling, this is it.” She rubbed her eyes and tried to stretch with the little room we had. “How much longer do we have?” I looked down at my watch to see the timer. “We are getting on a boat to take us down the coast, only about ten hours till our new home.” I saw the upsetting nature in her eyes of the situation that we are now in. “Hey darling, we will figure it out.” She started to tear up a little bit as she spoke, “We always do right?” I gave her a kiss and the truck finally stopped. The side of the compartment slid open and the sun was starting to go down. “Hand me your bags.” I grabbed our three bags and passed them out to him and then climbed out. I reached back inside to grab my wife and pull her out, setting her on her feet. “Are you ok?” She shoved her hair from her face and gave out a huff. “Yes! Just don’t ever shove me inside that thing again.” She smiled and then wrapped her arms around me. “Ok my love, I promise.” I kissed her on the top of the head and she let go. I turned to my friend to see him off. “I hope you get to where you’re going comrade. My boss thanks you for what you did for him and his niece. The deal is settled now.” He leaned back and put each hand on my shoulders. “Uvidimsya, moy drug. ” He gave me a pat on both shoulders and walked away saying something else over his shoulders. “There will be a boat tonight that will finish you for your last length of the journey. They know who you are and will take you to your new home.” He climbed back into the dump truck, gave a horn blow, and drove back from the way we came. “So what now?” My wife looked around the small village that sat on the river. “We need to eat something and get out of the sun.” We saw an open sign on a small shop next to the river. “Hola Amigo.” I walked to the counter and got something to take the edge off our nerves. “Dos Cerveza Por Favor” I set a five dollar bill on the counter and the man behind the bar took it with enthusiasm. “Come on and sit down, the boat will be here just before sun down.” My wife looked around and then looked at me. “Should I even ask how you know Spanish or is this something else that is going to shock me?” The man behind the counter walked up with two beers in their bottles and opened them in front of us. “So sobriety is out the window now huh?” She reached forward and nudged me as she said it. “All things considering, I think it’s time to have a drink again.” She giggled, she knew I wasn’t going back to that person I used to be with drinking. The man behind the bar pointed at me, “Taco?” I nodded my head yes and put up two fingers. “Enjoy this little pit stop my love, we have another leg of this journey left until we are finally home.” I watched as the sadness fell over her face, “What is home anymore, we are on the run.” I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her closer, landing a kiss on her forehead. “I don’t know about you, but home for me is wherever you are darling.” She let out a sigh and pulled away from me. “We will figure it out, we always do, right?” I rubbed my hand on her thigh and gave a gentle squeeze. “We always figure it out my love.” The tacos came to us and hit the spot, along with a few more beers. I reached into my wallet for more money to pay our new friend but he put his hands up and shook his head no. “On house.” “Gracias amigo” He reached for a remote under the counter and clicked on a small TV in the corner. I was blind sided by what was on.

“The investigation around the industrial park explosion just outside of LA has come to a close. The FBI has released a statement regarding their findings.” My wife was watching in horror at the Aerial view of the building we were in just a week ago. The FBI investigator began his statement. “The explosion was caused by high grade explosives that we have recently discovered belonged to an individual that is at the top of our most wanted list now. Along side of the explosives we found, we discovered a large arsenal of weapons and ammunition along with various fake copies of passports, Identification cards and foreign currencies. We have reason to believe he is connected to a larger group of individuals that are involved with a contract killer ring. This news is very disturbing to all of us, Yet I want to assure you that this individual is not armed and our agents are working tirelessly to track him down and bring him to justice.” The man behind the counter clicked the remote to the local station playing the football game. I looked over at him and he gave me a wink, “America’s problem stays in America, everyone is Hispanic here, even you gringo.” He chuckled as he finished his statement. A half hour went by as we watched the game with him until the sound of a loud boat engine roared in the distance. “Here comes our ride.” The man behind the counter motioned for us to follow him. We grabbed our things and walked through the back to a small dock down a few steps. The boat was extremely loud, even at its idle. “Gracias” I shook the man’s hand and he nodded his head, giving us the best English he could muster. “Safe travel friends.” I tossed the bags up to the man on the boat and climbed in, turning to help my wife up into the boat. “I know I said nightfall to our mutual friend, but when they started broadcasting your face on the news, I sped up the time table.” I shook his hand and gave him a hug. “It’s good to see you again my friend, your father would be laughing at this situation.” Again, my wife was confused that I knew this person and he knew who my father was. “We will have plenty of time when we get to Cabo, but now I need you two to sit down and buckle yourselves in.” We did as my friend asked of us and made ready for the ride. “So how long is this going to take?” My wife got to the question before I could. “Only a few hours, this here is the fastest boat my boss has in his fleet.” She looked over at me with disgust in her eyes at the vague answers. “Seriously, what’s the time table. I’m worried about how they knew who I was and how all of that belonged to me, Someone talked from inside the organization.” I could see his face reflecting off the dash, he was worried as well. “My boss has people across the border trying to sort this out for you. His trusted employees will get us the results you need.”

Two hours passed by as the speed boat cut through the water under the cover of darkness. “We are coming up to Cabo, the town never sleeps so I can’t get you in without being noticed.” His phone rang, he picked it up and then hung up after a few seconds without saying a word. “Good news, you have a greeting party waiting for you at the dock. My boss’s son wants to say hello to you again.” The engines slowed down and the boat came to a low idle as it glided across the water. The roof started to open as we approached the dock. “Wow, this place looks amazing.” My wife was excited to finally be to our destination and be able to stop for a while. “This is the edge of the world my love, people come here to be amazed.” The boat crept into the dock that was filled with our greeting party. “Welcome to Cabo friends!” The man on the dock looked a lot older than when I last saw him. “I appreciate the welcoming party.” I gave him a hug and stood back to get a look at him. “Man, you keep growing and you’re going to be bigger than me.” His men kept looking around the area and glancing at my wife. He caught one of his men looking at my wife. “Ahem, eyes on the perimeter, not on his wife.” The guard’s face flushed red and his head snapped back to the surrounding area. “So where am I staying this time?” He motioned for us to walk, his men took our bags, I kept my backpack with me. “My father has purchased a small villa overlooking the water on the edge of town. To this day he still thinks of you and what you did for him, and me.” My wife grabbed my hand and squeezed it a few times, getting my attention as she whispered, “What did you do for them?” Before I could say anything he spoke again. “Long story short, about ten years ago he was given a contract to find and retrieve me when I was kidnapped at only eight years old.” She was thinking for a moment, “It was the first contract in your book wasn’t it?” I shook my head yes and then he spoke again. “His book doesn’t even come close to how many people he killed, everyone that stood between me and him was killed.” She laughed “Nothing surprises me anymore with him. I’ve come to accept that anything he has written is true or very close to the truth.” We climbed into the back of his Mercedes luxury van. “Alright you two, I’m going to take you to the house my father bought for you. He got it furnished and set up so that you two can live a normal life.” He reached into a briefcase on the seat and pulled out two files and handed each one to us. “These are your new lives, live them and never forget that you are now these people.” My wife flipped through hers and then looked up. “I’ve never been a bartender, I don’t know how to do that.” I let out a small laugh, “You are going to learn my love.” She nudged me playfully as I opened mine. “So I’m under your father’s employment now?” He bobbed his head back and forth, “On paper yes, realistically, no. Do what you do and write your stories and keep publishing them online. You use an alias that’s been water tight this long, someone will know something is wrong if you stop now.” He closed his briefcase and the short ride up the hill was coming to an end. “Oh, here is the key to your truck. My father thought it would be odd if you had something flashy so you’re getting my old ford ranger. It’s manual so you will have to get used to that.” He handed the key over to my wife while I put the files away into my backpack. “Tell your father how much we appreciate this. I hope that I can see him during his busy schedule while we are down here.” He gave a nod and the van came to stop. The doors opened and two of the guards helped us out. “One more thing, don’t ever change. You’ve grown into a fine young man. It was a pleasure to see you again.” He blushed and the door was closed. The guards handed us our bags and then got back into their vehicles. “Honey, we are home.” My wife was quick to make her way up the pathway to the door, opening it with one of the keys on the key ring. “Whatever happened in your past that you did for this man, I don’t ever want to know about. But you must get some crazy favors from people.” The house was a gorgeous, open floor plan with window sliders that opened to a balcony that looked over the town and the small marina below. “Let’s get some sleep darling, it has been a long week.” We walked into the bedroom and put our things on the floor at the foot of the bed. “Oh god a hot shower finally.” My wife quickly undressed and made her way into the shower. I reached under my shirt at my lower back and pulled my pistol out, setting it on the nightstand. “Please let this be the end of this.” From the bathroom, I heard my wife holler, “Did you say something hun?” I got undressed and followed behind her to the shower.

Three months after arrival…

The door opened and my wife came inside, the clock read 3:45 a.m., “Darling?” I could hear her fumbling with her purse and the keys as she set them down on the credenza by the door. “Yeah it’s me, I’m going to shower and get a glass of wine.” She made her way into the bedroom and I got up from my chair on the patio to get the wine and two glasses. I walked back outside and put the glasses down, opening the bottle and pouring two glasses. “I got the wine my love, come tell me about your day.” She wrapped her hair in a towel and sat down on the chair next to mine. “Sorry I got off so late, we had a birthday tonight and the ladies decided they were going to get a little too toasted. We stayed until their rides came and picked them up.” I handed her a glass and then picked up the other. “Anything out of the ordinary?” She rolled her eyes as she took a sip. “Hunny, it has been three months. We saw on the news that the FBI has given up on the case and classified it as an isolated incident. We are safe, no one is coming for us, they would have by now.” She downed the rest of her glass and set it on the table with the bottle. “I’m going to bed, don’t stay up too late.” She stood up and walked behind me, wrapping her arms around me and giving me a kiss on the cheek before walking off.

Six months after arrival…

“It smells soooo good in here!” My wife walked in earlier than expected tonight. I glanced back at the clock on the stove, 7:45 p.m. “Hey darling, I wasn’t expecting you in for at least another hour.” She set her things down like always and walked through to the kitchen. “They closed the bar early tonight so everyone can go to the fair.” Before I could say anything she was off to the bedroom to take her shower. I shut the stove off and began making plates. When I finished I poured some more coffee into my cup and made it to my liking. “Can we please go tonight?” I stirred my coffee and picked up the cup to take a drink, looking at her from the corner of my eye. “Are we eating first?” The excitement flooded her face. “NO!” She demanded with her cuteness as she crossed her arms. “I guess fair food is a better option then huh?” She did a little jump as she clapped her hands. “Get dressed! We have to go!” I set my cup down on the counter and made my way into the room. She dressed quickly and walked back into the main room. “I’ll cover these and put them away so we can eat them later if we are hungry.” I nodded my head and mumbled under my breath, “Spend all day slaving over the stove to make a nice meal and you don’t want it.” From the other room, I could hear her. “I heard that!” I laughed a little and finished tying my shoes. I grabbed my wallet and put my watch on, I reached into the nightstand and pulled out my handgun. “Do you think that’s necessary?” I stopped and thought about everything that has happened. “I still can’t shake this feeling, you know that.” She walked up next to me and put her hand over the barrel and lowered it back into the drawer. “I know, but it’s been six months, it’s over and we are safe.” I knew her point of view was right, but she doesn’t know these people. These people never just let anything go. Once you are in this life there is no way out of it. Once something is started, it is not over until someone is dead. I needed to show her that I wasn’t so paranoid anymore, that I was willing to give things a chance and have faith. “You’re right.” I let go of the handgun and closed the drawer. “Ok, let’s go eat bad food.” She pulled me by my shirt to the front door. “I’ll drive.” I took the keys from her, opened the door, and smacked her on the butt. “Move it, princess.” I closed and locked the door, took a deep breath, and tried to let go of my paranoia. I climbed into the truck and we started our way down the road.

“Perfect spot right in front!” My wife was extremely excited, she hasn’t really had fun in the past six months, and going to work is the only interaction she has with people. I put the truck in park and climbed out, “Alright let’s go.” She came around and grabbed my hand and started pulling. “I want to play some of the games too!” The smell of the food, the noise of people laughing and screaming on rides brought me back to when we were younger. We walked through the gates and a few of the ladies she worked with came running up to us with their husbands. “I see you have brought your mystery husband out finally?” I could feel my face flush red, “Hey, it’s good to see you all again.” Hugs and handshakes were passed around and our larger party started making its way through the fair. The husbands and I watched as our wives played a game of skeeball, fishbowl, and then the balloon darts. We walked through eating the plethora of foods and drinking the various drinks that were offered by the vendors. One of the ladies leaned over to my wife and I heard what she whispered. “Hey, that guy from the bar is here. He is looking over here at you.” I figured it was just someone that was a frequent visitor until my wife asked, “Which one this time?” My ears began to ring, my heart started pounding and my adrenaline spiked as I saw him in the distance watching. “The one with the scar on his cheek.” My wife looked over at him and then me. “What’s wrong, why are you staring at him?” I grabbed my wife by the arm and started to pull her close to me for a hug. “We need to leave now.” She put her hand on my chest and looked up at me. “Why is your heart beating so fast? Are you ok?” The other husbands stood shoulder with me and pulled their wives close. “You guys need to leave.” I looked down at my wife. “Go home, lock the door, and don’t open it for anyone.” I looked across the field and two other men came to his side. My wife grabbed my hand and tried to pull me. “Let it go, let’s just leave, it is just some creep from the bar.” I pulled her close once more and gave her a kiss. “That’s the Judge.” Her face went pale and her eyes got wide. “Oh my god.” The other wives grabbed her and started pulling her to go with them. “He has this, come on lets get you out of here.” I watched my wife start crying as she pointed behind me. The judge began moving towards me with his two other men. As they got closer, one of them pulled a knife from his pocket and switched it open, getting his stance in front of me before striking. He lunged forward as I stepped left, grabbing his arm. Before the man knew what happened, I had twisted his arm and shoved the knife blade into his neck, dropping his body to the ground. The area erupted with screams as people began running away. The second man pulled a handgun and pressed it against my head. “Turn around!” I put my hands up and slowly turned to face him. The handgun shook in his hand as he held it firmly. “Drop the gun.” The man laughed and turned his head. At that moment I reached with both hands for the gun. Pulling the slide back with one hand, preventing it from going off as my other hand grabbed his hand and twisted it down. He let go and fell to the ground as I turned the gun around, pulled the slide back, and fired a single bullet into his head. The judge drew his pistol and pointed it at me as I leveled mine on his shoulder. “You can’t hide fore-” As he spoke I shot him in the shoulder, causing his pistol to fall from his hand as his other hand grabbed his shoulder. “Who sent you?” I got closer to him as he sat on one knee holding himself. “F**k you!” I fired another bullet into his upright knee, his body collapsing backward. “I should have just killed you the first time.” I leaned over his body as his face was getting more red and he started to cry. “Now, who sent you?” He tried to get another F-bomb out but not before I fired another bullet into his stomach. “GIVE ME A NAME!” I watched as his body and mind began to give out and accept his fate, he mumbled one word as the blood began pooling from his mouth. “S-Spe-Specter…” I stood up and fired one last bullet into his head to put him out of his misery.

“DROP THE GUN!” I turned and dropped the gun on the ground as the local police swarmed around me. The officers rushed me, getting me to the ground and putting me into handcuffs. “Get up and walk.” The officers walked me to the entrance of the fair where I was met with my old friend and his security detail. “Release him, he is under the employment of my father.” The officers looked at each other, shrugged and then unlocked the handcuffs. I was passed off to my friend and the officers went back into the fair. “Thanks for that, I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get out of it.” My wife and her friends stood in the parking lot by their cars watching from a distance. “Well, I heard through the grapevine that there was some stranger in town. I figured I would come down to the fair during the most excitement our town has to see who he was. By my guess, this guy was the reason you and your wife ended up here?” I looked back into the fair and then back at him. “He was just another contractor, like me, he was hired by someone.” I was pulled into his SUV and my wife was brought over from her friends. “Come with me, I have some information for you.” We drove up the road and back to our small house. “How much does your wife know about what you used to do and the organization you belong to?” I looked over to her with fear in my heart, there were things I didn’t want her to know. Things that would make her change how she looked at me. “I think it’s fair to say that she knows I’m involved with some seriously bad people.” My wife caught the fear in my eyes and knew that I didn’t want to hurt her. “Let me know everything, I want to know everything that has led up to this. I want to know why my husband was targeted and why I was used as bait.” I lowered my head into my hands and ran my fingers through my hair. “Ok, what do you have for us?” The SUV stopped and we climbed out, walking inside the house before continuing the conversation. “Close the door, this is going to be disturbing.” We walked into the living room and stood around the island. “I already know who it is, I got it from the man that found us.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out another file. “An employee of my fathers has recently been relieved of his position. We discovered that one of the security guards knew someone that belonged to the same organization you do. There were messages sent about you being here, where you lived and how your schedules worked.” I knew that the network ran far and wide but I was never sure that it ran this deep. “Where did these messages end up at?” He pulled a satellite photo from the file and slid it in front of me. “You’re old hunting grounds.” My heart sank, it confirmed my biggest fear. The one place I swore I was never going to return to once we left. “So then Florida it is.” My wife began to cry a little, “We can’t go back there, not after what happened when we were younger.” I was going to Florida, she wasn’t. “You aren’t coming with me this time darling.” Confusion fell over her and the crying stopped. “So you’re just going to leave me here then?” I walked away and went to the bedroom to start packing our things. She walked in behind me with my friend following her. “No. Absolutely not! You are not sending me there!” I had no choice, “You won’t be safe anywhere else. You know it’s the safest place. My mother isn’t going to turn away my wife, the mother of her granddaughter.” She was shocked, she didn’t know that I knew. “How did you know? How long have you known?” I stood up straight and put my arms around her. “I told you once, I know everything.” I kissed her on the top of the head and walked back into the living room. “We need to get on a plane tonight, non stop to Oregon.” My friend pulled a phone from his pocket and began making calls while we finished packing.

Inside of two hours my wife and I were boarding a private jet. “Tell your father I will repay him when this is all over, I promise.” My friend shook my hand and put his other on my arm. “My father says the debt is settled, friend. I hope our paths cross again but on more pleasant terms.” He pushed me off to get me moving and stepped back as the door closed. “This is your pilot, please have a seat and buckle up. The flight will only be a few hours. Once we are in the air the seatbelt light will shut off and you will be free to get up and move.” We set our bags on the floor in the storage compartment and took our seats. Within minutes the plane was climbing high and reaching its cruising altitude. “We have achieved cruising altitude, the weather is clear and the flight will be smooth.” The seatbelt light went off and we undid them. “When did you plan on telling me you were pregnant?” She adjusted herself and got comfortable in the seat. “I wasn’t sure when to tell you honestly. I wanted to make sure that we were safe first and that this was going to be the rest of our life.” I reached across the aisle for her hand. “Well after this is handled, we won’t have to worry about this anymore.” Her hand squeezed tighter, “How do I know that this will be the end of it now?” I squeezed her hand back and looked over to meet her eyes. “I have a plan.” She smiled and a single tear fell from her eyes. “I hope it works.” I leaned across and planted a kiss on her lips. “Get some sleep, we will be landing in a few hours.” She reclined her seat back and closed her eyes. I opened the window and stared into the darkness below us. I knew what I was doing was the right thing, especially for her and our child. I dug through my backpack and pulled out the file that was contracted to me at the start of this. I took one more look at it to see if anything stood out. Flipping through the pages I noticed something that I hadn’t seen before, the stamp of approval. Not on any of the pages anywhere or on the authorization page was there a stamp of approval that this contract was to be issued and carried out. I closed the file and put it back into my backpack. This was an unauthorized contract that the organization knew nothing about. The name the man said, Specter, I knew who he was. I knew more than just who he was, I knew everything about him, every detail, every trait, every habit. The only problem with this, he knew the same about me. Including where I would run to if I needed to disappear. I knew that the place he would stay was close to where we grew up at, he always called it his town and told everyone that he was the one who ran the town. I got lost in my thoughts and before I knew it the seatbelt light clicked on and the pilot came over the speaker in the cab. “The weather in Portland is clear and the runway is free of any traffic. We are beginning our descent, we will be parked momentarily.” The plan began to land and it was a smooth transition from flight to ground. The plane pulled alongside a small hanger and stopped. The cabin door opened and the pilot stepped out, “My friends, across the hanger there is a helicopter waiting to take you to your destination.” We grabbed our bags, thanked the pilot and made our way off the plane. The hanger was lit up and no one else was around except for the helicopter waiting out on the other side. “Does your family own many helicopters?” We got closer to the end of the hanger and the pilot got out to open the side door for us. “When I last talked to any of them, they owned three.” I watched her head nod in an unbelievable motion. “I didn’t know your family was so wealthy.” We climbed into the back of the helicopter and put the headsets on. “Would you have loved me more if I told you from the beginning?” She tossed her head side to side and then laughed. “You always told me you weren’t in it for the money. Now I’m telling you that it isn’t about the money.” I looked at her with a curious face, “That doesn’t answer my question.” She laughed and finally gave her answer. “No, I love the writer that I married.”

It was a short flight from the airport to the backside of the family estate, where there was three separate landing pads. “I thought you said your family owned a small manor?” I chuckled and looked at what my family had done with the place. “I may have downplayed it a little bit.” She looked back at me, “Downplayed? Your family owns a castle!” The helicopter circled the property and made its way to landing pad three. “The doors are opening from across the walkway.” My wife pointed down across the landing pad. I looked to see my mother walking out with grace. “Let me do the talking, we haven’t spoken in a very long time.” The helicopter landed and the pilot opened the door to let us out. The rotor slowed down and finally stopped, leaving us to the sound of the ocean wind and the waves crashing on the rocks below. “I was wondering when you would come home.” She opened her arms to give me a hug. “I need help, I know what happened in the past tore the family apart but I have nowhere else to turn to.” She let go of me and looked around me to my wife. “How far along are you?” I heard my wife stutter and try to get something out. “I raised three children, I know what early pregnancy looks like.” My mother walked past me and grabbed her by the arm gently, pulling her along to go inside. “Lets get you looked at and find out why you two have come.” As my mother walked past me she gave me a look that would turn anyone else to stone. I grabbed our bags from the pilot and followed them inside. My mother knew I was coming, if not for her intuition it would be for the many people she knew, someone saw us coming and told her.

After we settled in, one of the butlers came to our room to let us know that we had been requested in the dining hall for dinner. As we walked into the room, the table that sat over fifty people was empty, except for the head and two seats to the right of it. “Sit and dinner will come out, the lady of the house will be in shortly.” My wife was still in awe that this belonged to my family, but i think she understood that none of it belongs to me by now. “So since you two decided to pay a visit on such short notice, I must assume it has something to do with the explosion in the industrial park earlier this year.” I knew it wasn’t a question, she knew that I was involved with it. “No sense in sugar coating it mother, I took a job after a while and it was a set up.” I hit a nerve, my father was involved with this as well and she never liked any part of it. “So, I see your father managed to rope you into the business before he passed away. How long after he passed did you take your first job? Assuming that your book is recounting your jobs and what you did.” She read the book, she knows that I was working when I was nineteen, but not how much earlier it really went. “Two months after he passed away I was given my first job.” The food came and she picked up her utensils, put her napkin in her lap and began to eat. “So, everything in the book was real then?” I took a drink from the wine glass on the table that had water in it. She at least knew that I was trying to stay somewhat sober these days. “Everything was real, and even more that wasn’t in the book. I did what I was trained to do.” She nodded her head and continued to eat. “Dinner is very good, thank you for having us.” My wife tried to break the tension. My mother swallowed her food, pressed her napkin to her lips and then looked at me. “You’re just like your father, but you at least had the sense to get out before it was too late.” Her words cut deep into me, my father didn’t die on a job, but many years later from the many injuries he sustained. “Do you still have fathers things locked away?” Her eyes looked through me and her face got pale, like she was looking at the ghost of my father. “Before you say another word about him, you need to tell me what happened.” This was going to be hard for her to hear but she wanted to know. “I took a job, I wanted to get a little more money put away and get started on my second book and needed a motive for it. The job was easier than any others I had taken in the past. Long story short, my wife was used as bait by the contract issuer to draw me out of hiding. Someone wanted me dead and was willing to kill her to achieve it. The problem is, the only person that would know who I was, worked for the same company. The one person I walked away from when I walked away from the company.” My mother knew exactly who I was talking about. “I don’t know the code to your fathers locker, so if you can open it, take whatever you need. Just make sure you put this behind you once this is done.” The dinner was quiet after that, we finished and she went to her chamber and we went back to our room.

The next morning I made my way downstairs into the caves below the property to the room my fathers office was in. I looked at the keypad and noticed it was a six digit code panel. I tried a few different codes and finally got it open. I haven’t been here since he passed away, everything was still in the same place he left it. I saw the large locker on the wall, it was much larger than I anticipated. The dial on the locker was complex, but I remembered a series of numbers my father used all the time. I spun the lock three times to clear it and then dialed in the code, “Click”, I spun the handle and it opened. Before me was the entire history of my father. Every contract copy, weapon, trophy and his mask. A mask that I had only ever seen once before when I was younger, a mask that changed history. “You know, your father would be doing the same thing if it had been him.” I didn’t hear my mother step into the room behind me. I reached for one of his duffel bags at the bottom and started loading weapons, ammo and explosives. “Once I close this, it won’t open until I come back, and then it will remain closed forever.” I heard her sniffle and she started to cry silently. “Why would you need to open it again?” I stood up and grabbed his mask, putting it in the bag. “To return his mask to where it belongs.” I closed the safe and she backed up to the door, stopping me from walking out. “You take his mask, you take his ways. You become the ghost. You come back with that mask or don’t come back at all.” I didn’t know how long it had been since she saw this mask. “If I don’t make it back…” she put her hand on my face and pulled it down to look at her. “ The child will never want for anything, neither will your wife.” I moved forward forcing her to step out of the room as I pulled the door closed behind me, locking it once more. I stepped past her and took a few steps, she wasn’t following. I turned to see her hand on the door, she missed him and everything in that room is all she has left of him. “Come on mom, you need to get to know her while I’m gone. You will really like her, I think you two have a lot in common.” She let go of the door and grabbed my arm as we walked out of the caves and back inside. My wife was standing at the front door waiting to see me off. “What are you going to do?” I could see that her heart was terrified that I wasn’t going to come home. “I’m going to do what I’ve always done.” I pulled her head close and gave her a kiss like it was the first time. “ I love you so much. I will see you in a few days.” A tear fell from her eye as she let out a deep breath. “ I love you too, please be safe.” She stepped aside and opened the door for me. “Always my love.” I walked outside to the car waiting to take me to the airport. I heard my wife ask my mother a question.
“What is he going to do?”
“What he has always done.”
“What is that?”
“He will kill everyone”

COPYRIGHT NOTICE!

© Trenton Stalnaker and Around the block and on the bus, 2014-20–. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Trenton Stalnaker and Around the block and on the bus with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Life, We Are One

I’ve spoken on this many times before
My words were labeled as a dull bore

We are living in this world together
If we forget that now it won’t last forever

I’ve seen hatred during its truest of forms
It’s something we don’t have when born

But no one is willing to admit that
We need to snuff out racism at last

We need to change before it’s too late
If we don’t we will have nothing to appreciate

I’ve experienced pain that no one should
It’s caused more deaths than war ever could

But no one can talk about it openly
We need to understand depression truthfully

We are consumed by what famous people do
Yet we don’t know what new medicines do

You would rather see someone’s new boo
I would rather find a cure for those I knew

We want so badly to see people fail
Yet we don’t know what it took to prevail

You would rather watch them struggle
I would rather help and pick up a shovel

We complain that there is nothing to eat
Yet we waste more food than nations can meet

You would rather order new food every night
I would rather eat left overs without the fight

We judge others for what they don’t possess
Yet we pursue things that put us in great debts

You would rather show off your new things
I would rather invest in building my dream

We are living in a time of greed
Yet now it is apparent what we really need

You would rather keep it all for yourself
I would rather give to who can’t fill their shelf

I demand that you stop the hatred
Stop it when you see it

I beg you to help those who are unwell
Be an ear for someone to talk to

I encourage you to promote better medicine
We all know someone in need of a cure

I volunteer you to join in building something
Structure strengthens society

I recommend you to cook more often
It’s a life skill that has many benefits

I advise you to take your finances seriously
Seriously stop buying things you don’t need

I ask you to donate what you can to others
We all struggled at some point and needed it

Above all else
I ask that you look at this mess
Do what you know is best
Together we can help out the rest

I have spoken on this once more
My words will echo louder than before

Life, We Are One.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE!

© Trenton Stalnaker and Around the block and on the bus, 2014-20–. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Trenton Stalnaker and Around the block and on the bus with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.