Desmoterion, page 21
“You might not have a choice.”
* * *
Kipper watched on Ward’s display as the field ops searched the area. He guessed Trent ditched the transporter because it would be tracked, but how far could he get on foot? “What’s nearby this forest?”
Ward zoomed out and searched the area. “Nothing much other than more forest. Unless they plan to walk for days, the closest house isn’t near and looks to be inhabited by the lights being on.”
Stevenson overheard their conversation and radioed to the field ops team. “Have some of your group head to the nearest house. I’m sending you the information. That might be where they’re trying to get to in case your other team doesn’t get them.”
Kipper’s jaw clenched. He wanted to avoid that being discovered so fast. He should have kept his mouth shut when he looked it up.
* * *
Trent took a deep breath and wiggled out of Girish’s arms. “I’m feeling better. Let’s get out of here.”
Girish followed close behind Trent again. “How much longer to get out?”
Trent pulled out his electronic location display unit, hugging it close to his body and shielding the bright light from it with his hand. “About an hour’s steady walk. The house is on the edge of the southern forest.”
Shouts sounded behind them, and both dodged behind a tree. Girish looked over at Trent and whispered, “What now?”
Trent opened the bag Girish was carrying and pulled out a rifle. “Now we defend our lives. Don’t die on me this fast, Kannan.”
Girish pulled out the second rifle to aim at the men in the forest approaching their position. “Which side do you want me to aim for?”
“Go right, and I’ll go left. Be sure to aim for their heads. Anything else is not acceptable.”
* * *
The rifle shots sounding in the forest were unexpected and Delgado glanced up. “They’re shooting? I thought we were taking them alive?”
“I don’t think it’s our team shooting,” Kipper responded
Stevenson swore and patched into the field leader. “Return fire, but try to maim them instead of killing. We need them alive.”
The gunfire doubled over the radio.
Kipper silently prayed to whoever might be listening to have Trent survive this. He knew the man was more than capable of defending himself to the death, but he didn’t have that same confidence in Girish’s abilities.
After a minute, the gunfire ceased.
“What’s going on?” Kipper looked down at Ward’s display. “Can you track our men?”
Ward patched into their tags and gasped. “I believe they’re dead, sir.”
“All of them?” The leader turned to stare at Ward.
Ward searched through each tag. “It looks like it, sir. At least there are no vitals coming from any of them. Usually, if they’re injured, the bodies would emit something, but I’m getting nothing on any of them. All ten men are dead.”
Stevenson radioed the team on their way to the house. “Go to the southern edge of the forest near that house. They’ll be coming out, and I want them taken alive.”
Silence.
Stevenson frowned. “Report!”
Kipper tapped on Ward’s shoulder. “Where are our men near the house?”
Ward zoomed out and on the house. He searched the area. “I’m not picking up anyone near the house. Maybe they’re still on the way?”
“Search around the back of the house.”
Ward turned the display around to look at the garden. He gaped at the image.
Kipper stared down in horror as all ten men were hanging with ropes around their necks, swinging in the slight night wind. “What the hell?”
The leader moved over to see the display and swore. He turned to Stevenson. “Call in our other field operatives. They’re further away, but at least we know where Dupont is going. They won’t last the night.”
* * *
Trent looked down at his screen again and swore. “They figured out where my house is, but by the looks of it, my defense system still works after all these years.”
Girish looked down at the display and gaped.
“Can’t make it that easy to enter.” Trent smiled. “There are booby traps around the back for anyone trying to get in that way. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to approach the front, which is why I make sure if I have to send maintenance people out there that they go in the front door.”
“Maintenance people?”
Trent put the location device away. “Yes, to make it look like it has people in it. I pay a guy to clean it every couple of weeks. I’ve never met him myself, but I watch him clean it occasionally to make sure he isn’t trying to steal anything. Not that there’s much inside, to be honest.”
Girish followed Trent again through the trees. “How the hell were you pulling off such a thing for so long?”
“Easy, my computers were locked away from cameras. I can’t imagine you didn’t run into that while watching me.”
“Oh yeah, they came up all blurred out. Though the leader unblocked them later.”
“By then, it was too late. I set this up years ago.”
Girish stopped short. “But if they know where the house is, they’ll send more to intercept us.”
“Yes, that’s a problem. If this was the local team, it’ll be several hours until the next one arrives. At least we can get washed up and get some sleep before that happens.
“I don’t think we can hold off an entire army with what we have.”
“Good thing I have stuff in the house. It’s remaining stock from the asshole I took it over from. He had top-of-the-line gear.”
* * *
Kipper watched Ward’s display and wondered if there was some way to help Trent dodge the camera. He knew Trent would be smart enough to see if someone was near this particular house in advance.
Still, they would be able to see Trent as soon as he exited the forest. Kipper had no way of protecting Trent from that other than killing the whole network, and that would get him eliminated in an instant.
He turned to see Emyr standing on the outer edge of the communications area, watching it all. Kipper caught Emyr’s eyes and hoped he could convey some way of distracting them enough to avoid seeing Trent’s exit.
Emyr nodded and left the area.
Kipper took a deep breath and waited.
* * *
Emyr went back to his domain and into the back room. He jumped at the sound of Mike’s voice behind him. “Dammit, Mike, you scared me!”
Mike chuckled. “I was just asking how Trent was.”
“He’s alive, but they’ve found him too fast. I think Kipper wants me to distract them a little.”
Mike let out a long sigh. “Thank fuck. I didn’t expect any less from Trent. I hope you can give him some time.”
Emyr opened up the laptop and pulled out a disk. “Me too, and I think I can patch into their screens to give them a delayed feed. They’ll see the same image, and the timecode will still countdown, but nothing will change.”
“Won’t they notice when it doesn’t become morning?”
“Well, yeah, but at least it gives Trent several hours before the other forces show up. If they can’t pinpoint their exact location, then Trent can have time to mount an attack.”
Mike watched Emyr boot up the laptop. “Do you need me to do anything?”
“Get near the communications area without being seen and wait. I need to know if their monitors flicker, as that means the program is working.”
Mike shuffled out of the area.
Emyr accessed the program from the disk. The laptop itself was a cheap knockoff he’d salvaged from a mission. They didn’t know about it and wouldn’t ever, as he planned to destroy it after this. He re-read the virus coding to make sure he hadn’t fucked up and then pushed send.
* * *
Kipper’s insides knotted up, and he didn’t know how much longer he’d last, wondering if Trent would be successful. He knew it was all part of the plan, but he felt the leader would track Trent to the ends of the Earth to find him.
Ward frowned at his monitor.
Kipper glanced down. “What is it? It looks fine to me.”
Stevenson piped up, “All the monitors flickered and then came back. Are we still getting the feed?”
Kipper went over to another console to check. He saw the virus going through the system immediately, but didn’t acknowledge it. “Looks like the feed had a hiccup. I’ll check it out later, but we’re still getting a live feed.”
Stevenson radioed to the second team. “What’s your position now?”
“Due to construction, we’re going to be delayed another hour.”
Stevenson swore. “That’s not acceptable.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it unless you want the local authorities involved.”
The leader shook his head at Stevenson. “Let them go on their course. We know where Dupont and Kannan are going. He won’t escape before we get there.”
Kipper returned to his position and took a deep breath.
Eventually, they’d figure out the feed was wrong, but at least he bought Trent a few more hours.
* * *
Mike returned to Emyr. “It worked.”
Emyr took a hammer to the laptop, smashing its case and hard drive.
Mike looked down at it. “That poor laptop.”
“It was old and falling apart. Plus, it’s not one of ours, so no one will track it.”
Mike looked up at the cameras around Emyr’s area. He mumbled at Emyr, “What about the cameras?”
“Those are no threat. They feed bogus stuff to Samson’s database. They’ve done that for a while. He hasn’t even noticed it.”
Mike grinned at Emyr. “Nice one.”
“You can thank Kipper for that one. Since he had to replace the cameras with sound ones, he routed mine, the server room, and the hallway to cycle old footage. Unless they had someone standing in that area and radioing to Samson, he’ll never fucking know.”
“I hope none of the footage is old.”
“I doubt it. Kipper’s too smart to have people like Henny in it. Though I don’t know about Trent.”
* * *
Girish stopped short when Trent did. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re at the outer edge of the forest. I’m trying to figure out if the live feed is following us. I assume Emyr or Kipper would have delayed it, but I want to be sure.”
Girish looked down at Trent’s gadget. “You can do all of that on a simple little device?”
Trent laughed. “Don’t let its size deceive you. It only looks like this to avoid suspicion. I can patch into satellites and other monitoring devices around this area. Thankfully, it looks like nothing is watching us for now.”
“What about people nearby?”
Trent moved out of the forest. “I looked, and there’s no one around, but keep on your guard just in case.”
Girish followed Trent out. It was still dark, as it was in the middle of the night. They both inched forward toward the two-story house in the middle of nowhere. Girish kept looking around to see if he spotted any movement.
Trent approached the door, rubbing along the front of it and producing a keypad popping out of the side panel. He typed in the code, and the door opened.
“What the hell?”
Trent smiled and pulled Girish inside. “That’s my entrance. The key is for the staff.” He flicked a switch. “And the light is for you.”
Girish looked around the empty hallway and stumbled forward into the living room. He frowned at the large couch and little else in the room.
Trent passed him for the upstairs. “It’s not like I ever planned to stay here for long. A couch is nice to crash on and spy on others outside.”
With a sigh, he followed Trent upstairs. He glanced at the two bedrooms filled with only beds and some dressers. He went into one of them to open the drawers. The top drawer held men’s clothes like underwear and socks. The next had suit shirts and t-shirts. The final one had jeans.
Trent appeared at the doorway. “Feel free to change out of your clothes. The more we blend in with everyone else and don’t look like they expect us to, the better later. It will be nice to wear jeans again. I hate these cargo pants.”
Girish moaned, “Man, I miss jeans.”
Trent laughed and headed for the other bedroom. “I’m going to shower and then change. There’s another shower in the hallway bathroom.”
Girish dropped the duffel on a blue bedspread and released the trapped breath in his chest.
They weren’t out of the woods yet, but at least they could relax for a bit.
* * *
After his shower, Girish padded back into his room wearing a fluffy blue towel across his waist. He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the light brown carpeting. This strange situation was the first taste of anything like holiness since before his wrongful arrest.
“Girish, what size jeans do you wear?” Trent called from the next room. “I’ve probably got some that’ll fit you. There are some in the drawers.”
Girish got up from the bed and rummaged about. He pulled out several pairs of jeans and looked at the tags. “Um, I can’t tell what these are.” He put them up to his waist, and the legs ended in the middle of his calves. “These are too small for me.”
“Then come this way. I think I have some in here that will fit you.”
Girish walked into Trent’s room and stopped short. He couldn’t help but study Trent’s various scars. Some were former bullet wounds, and some were knife wounds, while others Girish couldn’t quite make out.
Trent glanced up and rolled his eyes at the fact that Girish stared at his chest. “My face is up here, Kannan.”
Girish flushed and shuffled forward to hand over the too-small jeans. “Sorry, I’ve never seen you without clothes on.”
“As you’re not meant to. That’s why I make the cameras turn off before I go to bed. The fewer people see these, the better.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s a part of you.”
Trent’s eyebrow rose. “Like those deep lash marks on your back?”
Girish flinched at the mention of them. He hadn’t realized Trent had seen them at all.
“Here, these are probably close to your size. If they’re too loose, grab a belt from the closest.”
Girish took them without looking at Trent; he shuffled back to his room and sat down on the edge of the bed again.
* * *
Trent waited until Girish was out of sight to remove his towel. He grimaced as he looked down. Girish was right, it was a part of him now. Too bad he hated even glancing down at his body. He got dressed fast to avoid having to look at it further.
It was a deep scar from his past that will never be removed, but if it wasn’t visible to his critical eyes, then it wouldn’t remind him of that fateful night.
Trent grabbed a random black t-shirt from the drawer and padded to Girish’s room.
Girish sat on the edge of his bed, still holding the two pairs of pants in his arms.
Trent walked in and sat next to him. “Some scars are not easily forgotten. I’d imagine those on your back were years of abuse, not just one night like mine.”
“I wasn’t only in prison for the bombing.” Girish stared at the ground. “I was a two-time convict.”
“I know that. I’ve read up on your past, even if I had to dig it out of juvenile records by hacking into a distant database.”
Girish bit his lip. “I hadn’t meant to kill him, just to fight back against his onslaught. I could deal with the beatings, I could deal with the belts striking my back for speaking up, and I could deal with being called worthless and never amounting to anything in life.”
“And yet, he pushed you enough to kill him.”
Girish shut his eyes to stop the tears from forming. “In all the times he’d taken out his frustration on me, it only amounted to hitting me. One day, he discovered I’d started dating. It was my first girlfriend; my first kiss. He was furious. It was like he was jealous of my freedom or my youth or something.”
He stopped to shake his head. “It didn’t matter what I said; he attacked me, intent on raping me. I don’t know why he thought that would be a reasonable thing to do. In his warped mind, it made sense as a way to punish me; at least, that’s what he said. But it made no sense. I’d done nothing wrong. I snapped and turned around to wrap my hands around his neck. I guess I did it too hard.”
“You could say that. You snapped his neck pretty fast, and I can imagine what was going through your head then.”
Girish opened his eyes and looked over at Trent. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re not the only one who killed a parent. Unlike here, being gay’s a major taboo on my planet. I killed my mother after she found me in bed with my boyfriend. Suffice to say, it wasn’t an impulse move on my part; she’d been abusing me since I was a young kid.”
“You’re not human.” Girish hung his head to the side. “I didn’t grasp what that meant before today. So, how come you’re here on earth?”
“Mom was human and in the so-called entertainment business. She thought she couldn’t fall pregnant if she only fucked different species, but that’s wrong, obviously.” Trent sighed as he pointed his thumbs towards himself. “She went to work on other planets. I gather a Morib punter fathered me when he visited the notorious brothels.”
“Okay. You were born there, not here?”
“Yeah. She settled there, on Moubi, and so I was raised there fully immersed in the warrior culture and everything, even though I’m actually half tellurian, or what you call human. After killing her, I hopped on a freighter to get away and I came here. I worked in security at a busy gay bar called Shadow, up near the regional spaceport. It was the best time of my life but it didn’t last long before I was arrested as an illegal migrant who’d overstayed my welcome and was wanted on a murder charge. Even though the crime was committed on Moubi, because the victim was a tellurian from this planet , I was tried and sentenced here on earth.”
“Shit. No way. Then, we’re both fucked up by our parents.” Girish shook his head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about that.”
