Something Blundered

   “We’ve managed to recruit three of the names from the list,” said Laura over the video conference connection in the briefing room where Ian and JR found themselves.

  “Most of them where not that happy to fall back into the game,” said Safu, “They fear what would happen to them, and their families,”

  “Understandable,” said Ian, “Back then we were young and single, some more so than others. Now they have families and lives,”

  “We still have a few names on the list,” said Laura, “then we’ll have to start looking for new names,”

  “Good,” said Ian, “I’ll be sending you some extra help,” he said as he turned to JR, “Stay safe,” he said turning back.

  “You too,” said Safu and the connection was ended.

  “Really?” asked JR.

  “You’ve been behaving the last few days, so yeah, really. But mark my words, JR, if you so much as sneeze in the wrong direction and kill someone, you’d best hope that death finds you first,”

  “I’m sure you say that to all the new recruits,” he said with a chuckle, when Ian didn’t laugh, he stopped.

 Just then alarms sounded.

  “Never a dull moment,” said Ian.

  “I would suggest you get to Commander Swardt’s room, now,”

 Neither of them needed to be told twice. They ran from the briefing room, up the staircase and down the hallway from the opposite side of the house.

 Ian was way in the lead by the time they got to the room, he had already drawn his pistol and cocked it. Ian stepped into the room through the open door and saw the Shadow chocking Ed. And with blinding speed and without thinking, Ian shot at it.

 The bullet went clean through its head and embedded itself in the wall next to Ed’s own head. JR came up behind Ian, his own weapons drawn. Ed stared into the eyes of the man as blood started to drip from the whole in his head.

 The shadows in the room dissipated and the man fell to his knees, then over on his side. Blood soon pooled around him.

  “Ian, what the fuck?” asked Ed.

  “He was choking you,”

  “He was Elizabeth’s brother!”

  “He was choking you,” Ian repeated.

  “I didn’t know you could kill shadows,” remarked JR.

  “Normally, you can’t, but I had a suspicion after the last time he was here,” said Ian and walked over to remove the bullet from the wall, “for the love of all that is holly, CNet switch that damn alarm off,”

  “Yes, Commander,” said CNet and the alarms ceased immediately.

  “What the hell is that?” asked Ed as Ian examined the bullet.

 It was damaged, as one could expect of a bullet that had just decided the wall would be the best thing to hit after going through someone’s head, but it didn’t look like a normal bullet. It looked like it was fashioned partly from lead and partly from…

  “Crystal,” said Ed as he realised where the red sheen came from.

  “Yes,” acknowledged Ian, “but the alloy was weak, too little of the crystal,”

  “How?”

  “That would be my miracle,” said CNet, “a marvel of engineering. Nanites,”

  “Nanites?” asked JR.

  “Not the kind that knit flesh back to bone,” said Ian, “the kind that stands still and acts like a molecule. I guess I could have used one of your arrows, Ed, but seeing as we needed to get to your room…”

  “Why would you think the crystals would make a difference?” asked Ed.

  “Exhibit A,” said Ian and pointed to the corps.

  “Which brings me back to our earlier problem, you fucking shot Liz’s brother,”

  “I didn’t know the Shadow was him, but you did, didn’t you? How long?”

  “Since we found out the Oracle betrayed us,”

  “We need to clean this up,” JR stated the obvious.

  “If I may,” said CNet, for the time being we could keep the body in the morgue, I would also like to examine the suit,”

  “Good luck getting it off without turning the body into roasted chicken,”

  “You’ve had some experience with this before?”

  “Up until a few minutes ago, I didn’t think so. It was after the Fall and after Sarah’s death. You’d just gone off after the person who killed her, Ed, but I wanted the one that had given the order. On my way I met a man, an FBI agent and as it turned out later, Jacks’ father,”

  “Agent Erasmus,” said the FBI agent as he walked over to Ian who stood next to his car.

 They were on the roof of a parking garage next to Central Park. He had been waiting for a while taking in the Manhattan skyline but now it was on to business.

  “Please, call me Ian,”

  “Joseph,” said the man and he held out his hand.

  “I’m glad you were willing to help,” Ian said shaking Joseph’s hand, “most people think I’m crazy,”

  “Oh, I have no doubt you are crazy. But the man you are after, he’s dangerous. And he’s the wrong kind of dangerous to go this alone. So what’s the plan?”

  “Enter that building,” said Ian pointing to a corporate looking building in the midst of other buildings of its type. The building was much smaller than the others around it and had a neon sign that neither of them could read from there. “Get to the CEO’s office and kill him,”

  “How do you know he’s there?” asked Joseph. Ian didn’t answer, instead he pointed to the top floor where a single office was lit. “Obviously. You want to go in through the front door?”

  “No, the roof. Element of surprise and all that,”

  “How are you planning…oh I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

  “Depends on how afraid you are of heights,”

  “I’m going to regret this a lot,”

 An hour later they were on top of one of the surrounding buildings where Ian had already set up two ropes for them to repel down.

  “See you down there,” said Ian as he hocked up and instead of going down like a normal person, stepped over the edge of the building and started running down.

  “This kid is insane,”

 It was a few minutes before Joseph got to the roof of the building they wanted to infiltrate but Ian said nothing, he always had some patience when it came to people helping him on assignment, at least more than Ed or Devon had.

 They entered the building through the roof access and made their way to the office of the CEO which was conveniently marked with a plaque. They drew their pistols, stacked up on either side of the door and readied themselves.

 Joseph, being the senior agent, entered first. The man behind the desk must have been ready for something like this because he was the first to fire off a shot and hit Joseph in the shoulder. The senior agent dove for cover behind a sofa as the man flipped over his desk for the same.

 Ian took the opportunity to rush at the man, which in retrospect wasn’t the best idea. The man peeked out from cover and Ian managed to disarm him, but the man did the same and soon Ian found himself in a hand to hand fight he wasn’t ready for.

 He managed to block most of the blows but one slipped through eventually and sent Ian sprawling backwards. Luckily he landed within reach of his one pistol so he grabbed it and shot at the man, who disappeared into thin air leaving the bullets free to fly through the window and off into the night.

  “You can’t shoot what you can’t see!” the man said, his voice seemed to emanate from everywhere.

 Joseph had gotten to his feet and was now standing with his back to Ian. Each sound made them jump and adjust their aim to where the sound came from. Once or twice they fired off shots in the hopes of hitting something but they never did.

  “I grow tired of this!” said the man and Ian heard the sound of rending flesh and a spray of warm blood on his back. He turned around to find Joseph on the ground with a deep cut on his chest.

 It wasn’t seconds later that Ian felt something hit him and he fell to the ground, his pistol flying away from him again.

  “You should not have come here, Erasmus, you should have left Swardt to deal with my assassin and let that be the end of it, but no,” said the man and Ian felt a kick which sent him flying over Joseph and landing on the other side of him.

 Ian quickly got to his feet, grabbing Joseph’s pistol as he did so and aimed off towards the direction where the kick had come from.

  “Now you will have to die as well,”

 It only took half a heartbeat for Ian to feel the change in air pressure as the man started to run towards him. Ian turned on the spot and fired a single shot which hit the man right in the face and made him do a half flip as his upper body went backwards and his lower body kept running a step or two before stopping.

  “FBI, freeze!” said a voice as three agents flooded the room.

  “What took you so long,” said Ian as he dropped the gun and raised his hands.

  “I guessed this was using similar technology, that’s why before when we fired he would just vanish. The crystal somehow stops that, something to do with polarity,” concluded Ian.

  “Looks like you’re going to have to tell her,” said JR.

 Devon was plagued with dreams from his past; visions of the FBI agent with the grey-green eyes, of the two assignments he was forced to do with the agent for the FBI after the weapons dealer fiasco and finally the death of the agent which he witnessed first-hand. And which he caused.

 All of this he could handle, but what ultimately woke him from his slumber was the agent turning into Evelyn in her scant night gown saying ‘You killed me’ and slowly Evelyn turned into Melissa still repeating the same words. That’s when Devon woke.

 He was sleeping on the couch and Evelyn in the bed as there was no way he was spending a night in the same bed as her. He wasn’t blind, deaf or dumb and it was clear that Evelyn had an itch she thought only he could scratch, and had this been a few years ago he would have helped her scratch but things had changed. He had changed.

 He got up from the couch and silently left the housing unit which was little more than a one room functioning as a bedroom, living room and kitchen with an attached bathroom. Outside he took a deep breath and did something he hadn’t done in years, not since the Fall. He jogged.

 He must have done an entire lap around the whole facility before he realized what he had done and before the he noticed other people but from the little snippet he heard, they didn’t notice him.

  “Three days,” said a woman with long, dark hair.

  “That’s too soon,” said a man with thick rimmed glasses and short hair.

  “Make it happen,” said the woman, “he’s too close already and I quite like my brain on the inside,” she added, clapping the man on the shoulder and left.

 The man stood by himself for a few seconds before leaving in the opposite direction.

  “Bingo,” said Dev.

  “Have you told her yet?” asked Ian as Ed popped his head over the edge of the roof where he and CNet were sitting.

  “No,” he said and climbed the last few steps up the ladder and onto the roof, sitting down on the other side of Ian. “I don’t know if I should,”

  “What if she goes to visit him?”

  “He could be out,”

  “He is out, for the rest of his – death,”

  “Have either of you considered the greater problem here?” asked CNet.

  “CNet, if Elizabeth finds out, she will be heartbroken,” explained Ed, “and she might not take it all that well considering I like her and Ian killed her brother,”

  “You mind saying that louder, I don’t think she heard you,” said Ian.

  “Sorry, it’s just, this is a mess,”

  “It is indeed, and you only realize half of it,” said CNet.

  “Oh, really, mister all seeing robot asshole, why don’t you inform us then of what we are missing? What is this greater problem you speak of?” said Ed irritated.

  “The Oracle will notice his absence, and might move up his plans with instructing Abigail,”

  “Abigail, what does she have to do with this?” asked Ian.

  “I picked up two signatures the other night, one here and one in Connor’s pub,”

  “Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “You said to only wake you if the world ended,”

  “That I did,” said Ian, exasperated by CNet’s literal take on everything.

  “We don’t know if it’s her yet, it’s just my theory,”

  “Let’s hope it isn’t,” said Ian.

  “Edward,” came Elizabeth’s voice from inside.

  “Your doom calls,” said Ian, “should we leave or don’t you think it’s a great idea to tell her what you have to tell her from a high platform with no guard rails?”