I couldn’t recall the name, but I remember the basics. She must have seen the same brief flash of that first day tour of the munitions locker. The way Adam had been so proud of the little goodies he never got to use. Nine millimeters he saw all day. Sniper rifle with a night vision scope? More interesting. Serious spy shit like a neurotoxin that kills within five minutes? Those are the perks that make working the basement worth it.
Of course, Adam would never get to play with his toys again.
BIGGER FISH TO FRY or
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN AND INTO THE FIRE or
I’D BETTER GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE OR MY ASS IS GONNA FRY
Some people survived. More than I can say for my own office. I heard at least three voices plus the guy in the conference room. They were all in full panic mode, but that wouldn’t last forever. Someone would piece it together, or look at the security tapes and see me. Her, really. But to all the city employees currently watching their friends drop like roaches after a can of Raid, I was their killer.
Time to move on. The place started buzzing with the survivors asking for help and wanting to know what the hell was going on. I couldn’t exactly tell them to keep this under wraps until I worked it out, so I knew the secret would get out, even if no one knew the real truth of it.
I reached the lobby and felt a strange sensation like someone watching me. I spun around, expecting to see her or maybe even Calder and Rizzo. Nothing. The feeling buzzed in my brainstem like a phone on vibrate wedged inside my skull.
She watched through my eyes. I hadn’t been aware of the feeling before, but it seemed vaguely familiar—the needle and thread through my eye. I gave it right back to her. Focused my brain, ignored the ice pick headache, and saw her.
She tilted the rearview mirror so I could see her. I can’t tell you how weird it is to look through her and at her at the same time while I knew she’s looking through me. I had zero extra brain capacity to even try to unravel that Möbius strip of a mindfuck.
She wanted me to see. Wanted me to know she’d been watching and she knew what I saw upstairs. She smiled. I felt my fist clench. It was useless, I know, but it felt good to at least have some vague expression of anger.
I saw her gaze turn and latch on to a car leaving the garage. She moved forward. I stood frozen on the marble floor of the lobby staring into space like an idiot, but really I watched her fall in behind a huge burgundy Cadillac. It wasn’t Lucas’s car, that’s for sure. But who?
As the Cadillac slowed at the exit gate I saw a hand reach out with a key card and Sam focused in on the side-view mirror for my benefit. She wanted me to see who was going to die next.
Judge Randolph. A sweet old guy. Also, the judge working with Lucas on the case against Calder and Rizzo. Lucas had been so pissed the night he came home after Randolph told him to keep working because there wasn’t enough evidence yet. Lucas was eager, but also thankful to the judge because he knew Randolph didn’t like to let anything into his courtroom he couldn’t fully take to trial. When the judge eventually did give him the high sign, it would mean Lucas truly did have a case, and if he had a case at all—he had a winner.
And now Judge Randolph had hellhounds on his trail.
The gate lifted and he revved his Cadillac up the ramp and out onto the street. Sam followed. They were right below me, coming up to street level less than a hundred yards from where I stood, and I was helpless.
I needed to get to him before she did, but with no way to do that.
Not true. A long shot, but one worth trying if I wanted to make any attempt to keep the body count out of the absurd and stick with plain ridiculous.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” A young man in a suit and retro hip glasses eyed me like I might be an escaped mental patient. Too much time standing still staring into nothing.
I tried to give him a pacifying, “I’m fine,” but the truth is I was anything but fine so the lie wouldn’t come out.
“I need to look for something.”
He looked less than reassured. Behind us, the lobby began to move with activity. Security guards rushed for the elevators. Going to check on the trouble. I saw a woman stumble into the lobby from upstairs, her legs wobbly and tears running down her face.
I ducked and ran for the parking garage, skipping the elevator and pounding down the stairs two at a time. Level P2, third row on the end. There it was.
A few months ago Lucas got the environmental bug after seeing some documentary about melting ice caps. He decided his car caused too much of a “footprint” he called it. How a car can have a footprint I don’t know. He still had two years on his lease so he couldn’t trade it in for a hybrid like he wanted, but he came up with a solution. His Smart car.
He kept it at work where he could charge it and where he could use it for going out to lunch, making meetings during the day, stuff like that. Short trips he didn’t need his full size car for. He was very proud of it, even after I told him it looked like a computer mouse with wheels. It made him feel better, and hey, if a penguin gets a new lease on life then I’m all for it.
Even Smart cars need keys. I went back to the fourth floor.
I could hear voices, but not what they were saying. I decided my best course of action would be sneaking. I didn’t want one of the survivors to see me and think their killer returned to finish the job. Get to Lucas’ office, get the keys, sneak on out. Easy.
For the second time in a day I had to navigate a field of dead bodies to get where I wanted to go. It had been less than ten minutes, but the dark stains of blood leaking from the noses of the dead had widened and started to coagulate.
I got close enough to hear a one-sided conversation—a man on the phone with the police. He finished with, “Please hurry,” and hung up. He stepped quickly out of an office door and nearly ran into me. I recognized him from the conference room. He recognized me too, or thought he did.
“It’s her!” Two more heads popped around a corner.
“No, you’ve got the wrong idea.” Explaining the right idea seemed pointless.
The two people up ahead, a man and a woman, stepped out into the hall. They held a body between them, him with the shoulders and her with the legs. I guess they were stacking the dead like firewood, maybe to have something to do until help arrived. People do love to bring order to chaos.
“You poisoned us,” said the conference room guy.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why?” said the woman. This conversation would get me nowhere. I needed to get what I came for and leave. So much for sneaking.
I bolted back the way I came, intending to make it around the long way and come at Lucas’ office from the back hallway. I heard the body they were carrying drop. I hated to think how much more blood came spilling out.
Running away seemed to be within my capacity for good. As long as it wasn’t the police I suppose. Or maybe since running would be in the effort to save the Judge’s life it fit within the bizarro rules of my predicament.