Henchmen (22 page)

Since Eve destroyed the doors on the elevator earlier, it kind of limits our tactics.  On the other hand, people tend to believe what they see in front of them, and respond to the immediate threat rather than worrying about the unseen threat.

Years ago, Donald Rumsfeld waxed philosophical about “known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.”  If you don’t stop to think about it, that phrase sounds like total gibberish, like most of what comes out of government, and he took a beating in the press over it.  But there’s a certain wisdom to what he said.  There are things we know about, and we take steps to control and manipulate those things.  In the minds of the soldiers on the first floor, they know the elevator is coming up, and they know that’s probably a bad thing. 

There are things we may not know about, but have a pretty good idea that they’re bad, so we set up ways to mitigate those problems from getting the best of us.  The soldiers have an idea that something dangerous is coming up - they’re armored, armed and have hostages. 

Finally, there are things that are complete unknowns - things we didn’t plan for, because we didn’t think they could ever happen.  Like the fact that I’m riding an elevator up with a god and whatever Eve is.

I’m actually feeling a little outgunned here.  Usually I feel like I can handle pretty much anything. But if these two were to turn on me, I’d be well and truly fucked.  Hell, if they were to turn on each other, the resultant fight would probably destroy the elevator, and I’d still be well and truly fucked. 

Here’s to putting yourself in harm’s way.

Eve is in the center of the elevator, looking depressed and haggard.  We cut up her clothes and messed up her hair a bit, and the general grime from fighting the flicker men makes it look even more realistic.  Dreamer is off to the left, and I’m off to the right - both of us hidden next to the side panels of the elevator.

When we hit the top floor I can hear Saxton yell, “Drop your weapons!”

Eve holds up her empty hands and turns slowly around.  “I’m unarmed,” she says.

The room still reeks of damp squid and there are puddles everywhere.

“Where is Steven?” Saxton yells.  He likes yelling - always has.  It’s his default form of communication when he’s nervous or stressed out.  I once saw him yell at a bowl of Rice Krispies to shut up.

“Dead,” she says.  “Those things you sent killed him.  I barely made it out myself.”

Saxton looks at her for a moment.  He’s still thinking, hoping actually, that containment is viable.  He doesn’t know what’s down there, but he knows it’s his ass if it gets out.  I can almost hear the relief in his voice when he says, “Light her up.”

Known knowns.  I fully expected Saxton would eliminate anyone coming up the elevator, because it would be his job to sanitize the scene.  “Sanitize the scene” is a fancy way of saying “kill anyone who knows anything.”  It’s a way we have of using language to make ourselves feel better.  You didn’t order the slaughter of women and children, “you sanitized the scene.”  They’re not “freedom fighters,” they’re “enemy insurgents.”  I didn’t “kill a Senator,” I “moved a chair.”

The Mafia “silences witnesses.” The government “sanitizes scenes.”

The two guys with guns open up full auto on Eve and lead starts flying.  A full auto MP5 fires around 700 rounds per minute. It can empty a full 30-round clip in slightly less than three seconds.  Three seconds doesn’t seem like a long time, but when you spend that three seconds hoping none of the 60 small, fast pieces of lead being fired from the gun find you, three seconds can feel like an eternity.

When it’s all over Eve is slumped on the ground at the back of the elevator. Her shirt is torn to shreds, and what’s left of her bra is pretty torn up, too.  I say a silent prayer that no one notices there’s no blood, lean around the corner, and fire three shots at the guy behind Jessica.  She must have seen Eve’s signal, because she immediately launches herself at Jacob and body-checks him into the ground before his gunman can react.  Jacob’s guy gets a shot off that grazes Jessica’s leg and I put three rounds into his face.  I ditch the MP5 and pull out Mjolnir. Before Saxton can react, I’m upright and headed toward him with the sawed-off pointed directly at his head. 

Eve gets up and brushes herself off.  I hear her say “I really must get some bullet-proof clothes at some point” just before I squeeze the trigger and twenty hardened steel darts fly at Saxton’s face at 2,000 feet per second.

Saxton staggers back about five feet and hits the ground hard and motionless.

Dreamer is looking around the room and standing over the remains of Robinson when Eve joins him, and stares at the still smoldering corpse.

“I do not choose you,” she says to the wet charcoal.

Dreamer stares at her and a look of understanding dawns on his face.

“Is that who I think it is?” he asks.

“Probably.  You knew him?” she asks.

“I did.  He was a loathsome creature.  It doesn’t surprise me that he would sell his services to anyone.  He might’ve been useful, you know.”

Eve shakes her head, “No, he was too unstable and too mercenary.  He’d be more of a detriment than an aide.”

“Who got him?”

Eve points at me.  “He did.”

Dreamer looks genuinely impressed.  “I must say, you’re full of surprises, my friend.  You just did the world quite the favor,” he tells me.

“Who was he?” I ask.

“No one.  Never mind,” he replies.

Dammit.  What is wrong with these people?  You’d think I was asking for their bank account numbers or something. I realize everyone has their secrets, but a little information would be nice.

Jessica is climbing off of Jacob, who looks like he might be in seventh heaven.  He grins up at her as she puts her hand out to help him to his feet.  “Can we do that again?” he asks her.

She mutters something about men and drops him on his ass.

Dreamer stops looking around and stares at Jessica like he’s met her before.  She meets his eye and says, “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m sorry.  I’m being a bad host,” I say, a little grumpy myself.  “Jessica, Dreamer.  Dreamer…”

He cuts me off.  “I know who you are, my dear.  I’ve seen you in the memories of your father.”

“What the hell did you do to him?” she asks, stalking forward, a scary looking black knife materializing in her hand.

Dreamer holds up his hands, palms out.  “Patience, child.  I didn’t do anything to your father but try to help him.  He was the one who was there when I first woke up.  He actually smiled at me, and let me into his mind so I could learn about where I was, and what was happening.  He pleaded my case to his superiors – he tried to convince them that I should be released, that they had no right to hold me, that I would never be a slave for them.  He even threatened to let the secret out if they wouldn’t help me.

“I put two of my shadows on him for protection, but couldn’t stop it when they took him next door and broke his mind, something about that room blocked me from entering.  They were livid with your father. He’d apparently been writing a letter to you, but it got lost and they could never find it.  They got him hooked on heroin, and left him on the streets knowing no one would believe his tale.

“There was much commotion over the next weeks.  They’d not only lost the letter to you, but a box with dangerous information in it.

“I tried desperately to keep his mind intact, but there was only so much I could do, trapped down there.  I’m afraid the good man that was your father is gone.  He loved you more than you could ever know.”

“I think the letter wound up in the hands of a group of Yakuza gangsters in Las Vegas.  It probably got delivered to them by mistake, and they sought you out,” I say.  “The box was stolen by the sleazy landlord her dad was renting from.”

Jessica’s eyes are watery and her face is completely shocked.  All her life she’d figured her dad left her and her mom for some damned selfish reason or another: affair, better life without them, whatever.  Turns out he tried to do the right thing and got smacked down for it.  This is, unfortunately, the way of the world today: no good deed goes unpunished.

When Eve’s phone rings, everyone jumps.  Well, except for Dreamer, who doesn’t seem to be the type to get flustered over much of anything.  Eve’s ring tone is “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys, and it kind of seems to fit the situation. 

Eve answers it, listens for moment and says, “Ok.  We’ll meet you at B.”

She hangs up and tells us all, “There are 15 guys out in the lobby, the streets are blocked off at either end, and if we walk out there, they’ll cut you all down like cattle.”

I look around the room. The place is filled with corpses, and the still-smoking body of some damned thing.  I should have guessed the response would be larger than just Saxton and two guys.

“So, we have a sawed-off shotgun with one flechette round left; a few MP5s with a couple magazines each; four flash-bang grenades; and body armor.  I say we toss the flash-bangs, wait for them to go off and start shooting,” I say.

“Yeah, great idea,” Jessica says.  “I’ve always wanted to get gunned down in some old building in New Mexico.”

Jacob says, “She’s right, you know.  I want to go out in a blaze of glory, but this ain’t the place, bro.  They’ll tear us apart and piss on the pieces.”

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, it has been a real pleasure,” Dreamer says, “but I’m afraid it’s time I take my leave of you.  Thank you very much and again, Jessica, I am truly sorry I could not save your father.  He was a wonderful man, and he helped restore some of my faith in humanity.  He loved you very much. Never forget that.  Don’t worry about the men in the lobby.  I’ve been confined for too long and it’s time I stretched my legs, so to speak.”

I’d really like to say I had a great response to that but all I could muster was, “Thanks, man.”

As he turns to leave, he pauses over Saxton’s body.  “Ah, Mr. Saxton.  I see they’ve done their dirty work.”

Then he casually opens the door, waves, steps through, and closes the door behind him.  The walls are soundproofed, so the screams are distant and the gunfire sounds faded, like listening to a World War II movie from another room.  It doesn’t last long and a deafening silence soon descends again.

Out of curiosity, I walk over to Saxton’s body. His face is shredded and he’s not moving, but the blood that should be all over the place is missing, like it crawled back into his body or never left in the first place.  Eve walks over and stands next to me, staring at him.  She wrinkles her nose and grunts.

She simply says, “Odd” and then moves off to check on everyone else.

Unknown unknowns.

I cautiously open the door and look out on the scene of a slaughter.  I can’t tell how many people Dreamer caught, because there are pieces of them everywhere, indiscriminately torn limb from limb and tossed around the floor.  The lobby is riddled with bullet holes and the whole place reeks of gun powder and the coppery smell of blood.  They were all firing wildly in every direction, and managed to hit nothing.

A small part of me thinks, “My God, what have we done?” but I choke it down.  Dreamer will tear across this country with a vengeance, destroying everything in his path.  He never said it, but I have a feeling he won’t limit his rage to the government that kept him locked up for long.  If you’re in his way, he’ll rip you to pieces, and smile while he does it. 

So why do I choke it down?  Why do I have no desire to even attempt to stop him? 

It’s always easy to say it’s the other guy’s fault that things are not like you want them to be.  It’s easy to shut down the government and claim it’s in everyone’s best interest.  It’s always easy to place blame on the banal, and claim that’s why your life is messed up.  Just like all your failed relationships, the only common denominator in all your mistakes and your fucked-up life is you.  You elected these people.  You held your nose and voted for the lesser of two evils every damned time rather than rising up with a single voice and saying “We deserve better.”

Well, now you’re going to have the opportunity to make something better. Because I guarantee you the old system will be gone shortly and there will be a vacuum to fill.  We’d better learn to put aside our petty differences and work together.  We’d better learn to get over our childish fears.  The coming weeks will be pivotal for this country, and we’d better learn to step up to the plate and swing with all our might, because if we don’t, everything we’ve come to hold dear will never come back.

“Whoa,” Jacob says as he looks around at the carnage.  “I’ve been around weapons all my life, man, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Yeah,” I add.  “I can see how someone would want to weaponize this.  Steal that guy’s power and no one will fuck with you ever.”

Jessica is looking a little green and leaning on me.  I put an arm around her and she doesn’t move it, so I guess we’re all good.

“What the hell was that guy?” she asks.

“That, my dear,” Eve says with a grin, “was the God of Dreams.”

Jessica looks at her like Eve’s gone mad.  “Seriously, who was that?”

“I told you, the God of Dreams,” Eve says.  “I’ve always wondered what happened to him.”

“Wait a minute,” I say.  “You knew that guy?”

“No, never met him, but I’ve heard about him.”

I shake my head and wonder exactly what Eve’s real plan in all this was.  “You and I need to have a deep conversation someday,” I tell her.

“You’re a good guy, Steven, and I like you.  Trust me on this, though, you’re way out of your league here.  Let it go, and this goes for everyone, pretend you never saw this because you all just met something you were never ever meant to meet.”

“But…” I start.

“No buts.  Let it go and hope this went unnoticed,” Eve says, holding a finger in the air.

“How the hell is this supposed to go unnoticed?” Jacob asks.

“Unnoticed by the ones we want to avoid.  They might not realize what happened and I’d like to keep it that way,” Eve says.

Jessica stares at Eve, hypnotized like the huge woman is a cobra slowly dancing in front of her eyes.  “You are one freaky chick,” she finally tells Eve.

“You don’t know the half of it, kiddo,” Eve says.

We’re all standing around in the lobby like a bunch of college freshmen, when a familiar voice sounds over the intercom.  “You now have 10 minutes to evacuate the building before the explosives detonate.”  Eve’s voice warning anyone left in the building to get the hell out.  Hopefully people will listen.

“We need to leave.  Now,” Eve tells us.  “I had Frank wire this place up over the past couple of nights.”

We find the door out the back of the building that Mills used to go through.  Jacob kicks it open and we hot foot to it meeting place B, which is our secondary meet-up place in the alley behind the PNM building.  Frank’s monstrous car is waiting for us, and he’s casually leaning on the hood.

“You’re just in time,” he says, glancing at his watch.

He counts down quietly, three, two, and on one points two fingers toward the Simms building.  There’s a roar of thunder and a dense cloud of smoke and dust rises into the air.  The whole building shudders and starts falling in on itself.  Watching a building fall is a hypnotic thing.  It’s like the whole structure goes from solid to liquid in a moment, but it takes gravity time to figure out how to grab hold of it so it shudders like a bowl full of Jell-O before it splatters.

“I did some planning of my own,” Eve says.  “I don’t know what else was at the bottom of that elevator, but now it’s down there forever.  If they had some way of stopping Dreamer hidden away down there in that basement, they’re going to need some shovels to find it now.”

The dust cloud from the collapse is sizable, and some gas line or another has ignited letting loose a hundred foot long tongue of flame into the air. 

There are flames in the distance and smoke and dust all around us.  The explosion triggered every car alarm in a four block radius and people are running around screaming about the apocalypse and terrorists and the END OF THE WORLD.  Jessica starts giggling.  The giggling gets more forceful and next thing I know she’s into full-blown laughter.  She must be letting off steam from this morning, because it’s really not
that
funny.

Okay, it’s kind of funny, but I’m the kind of person who likes to see the joke in everything.  You want in on the joke?  Here it is.  No one, absolutely no one, will believe what happened here today.  The rubble will clog the streets and make getting around in downtown Albuquerque even harder than normal.  Someone will be cleaning it up for months to come.  All kinds of people will use what happened today to further their own career and fuel their ambitions.  A small group of people will make a gagillion dollars and a lot of people will get jobs cleaning up this mess.

Pretty soon I find myself chuckling along with Jessica.

Maybe someone will eventually put two and two together and build a memorial here.  Doubtless it will be something maudlin and lifeless, a piece of art for art’s sake that is representative of man’s temporary nature.  Or something.

Personally, I’d prefer a simple plaque that reads “Here’s where it all ended, and here’s where it all began.”