Author: kevinjasica

Her footfalls echoing across the George Peabody Library, Trinity glanced at the postcard to ensure she was in the right place at the right time.

I apologize for eluding you for years, it began, Our final meeting will be close to home.

The rest was less mysterious and on par with the three she’d received previously. Meet on 4/25 at 3:00 on the bench in the Referencing Section.  

Trinity smoothed her dress and grimaced at the creases that remained. They weren’t ideal, but there were many things in life that weren’t ideal. Dropping out of law school hadn’t been ideal. Finding out that Tony, the boy she’d dropped out to travel across the continent for, was sleeping with her ex-roommate wasn’t ideal. Jumping from Tony to Patrick, only to lose interest because he wanted to get stoned instead of hike, wasn’t ideal. Taking a job as a secretary at the county courthouse instead of being a lawyer wasn’t ideal. So, when she’d gotten a postcard in the mail asking her to travel around the globe to meet a suitor in an ancient library, she jumped at the opportunity.

I’ve watched you from a far, and loved you your whole life. I think it’s time you knew who I was.

Her appetite whet, she planned her time off, and with no way to confirm to the stranger that she was going, boarded a plane, and headed to where the postcard was from: Prague. She took a day to acclimate and then on Sunday, as the postcard had designated, made her way to the Klementinum library. She’d rushed through the atrium, and then found a spot among the globes in the reading room. She waited three hours until it was apparent she was being stood up. More disappointed than angry, she’d walked to the St.Vitus Cathedral and treated herself to dinner along the Vltava river. In a way, it had been nice. As she walked along the streets she’d noted that this was the first date on which she hadn’t had to think about ways to justify why she’d never finished law school. It had felt good to sit alone. It had even given her something TO talk about on her next date.

That night, alone in her hotel room, she opened her laptop to a forgotten law school application. The line marker blinked for five minutes before she closed the computer and went to bed.

There were trysts in the six months between postcards, but nothing came of them. Trinity found herself, sometimes mid-date, wondering WHO had sent them… and if he was going to stand her up, WHY? So when the second postcard arrived, she’d boarded a flight to Portugal.

I waited for you, but you didn’t find me. Slow down, look around, and maybe this time you will.

Again, she found herself alone, so she’d explored the Joanina Library, listening to the chirping of the bats as a rainstorm rolled across the sky. She found the law section and, even though she couldn’t read the words, pulled the text from the shelves and skimmed the pages. The scent of the paper brought back memories of hours spent exploring cases and trials. Later, she walked along the beach, picking up shells before casting even the best of them into the ocean.  

She didn’t date anyone between the second and third postcard. Her friends feigned concern.  Was she sick? Surely the woman who’d been in a relationship with someone in some way since 14 must have contracted something in a foreign country. She didn’t have a good answer.

 The third postcard sent her to Rio de Janeiro. There, at 3:00 on the day after she arrived, she waited in the Royal Portuguese Reading Room with a copy of The Rule of Law which she had brought with her. She stopped reading when a librarian informed her that it was closing time. When she heard the thrum of a guitar rising through the air she fell back to memories of her mother playing and wondered why she’d never taken lessons. When she returned home she was sunburned, carrying a guitar, and humming the scales to herself.   

 Home in Baltimore, she quit her job. She moved out of her apartment and in with her sister. She practiced arpeggios and checked the mail.

So there she was for a fourth time, walking through a beautiful library, this time in her own city, clutching a new book (Eve Was Framed by Helena Kennedy). After wandering through the law section for half an hour she made her way to the spot he’d specified. Before taking a seat she peered over the balcony, observing the passersby, wondering which enigmatic man had gone through all this trouble to impress her when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Her heart skipped a beat. She turned and found herself face to face with a younger man.

She’d never seen him before.

“Excuse me, you dropped this,” he said, so quietly that she almost didn’t hear him. He handed her the bookmark she’d pinned between the pages. She opened her mouth, but before she could ask any questions he was gone. Her heart raced.

It hadn’t been HIM.  She checked her watch: 3:05. She glanced over at the bench in the middle of the room and then looked around. People milled about. They opened and closed books, sometimes skimming them, sometimes reading a page. Some of them took the books with them. Others placed them back on the shelf. Trinity glanced back at the bench again and where there should have been a long lost high school acquaintance, a boy from one of her college classes, a colleague from work, there was no one. She knew that there wouldn’t be.

It suddenly didn’t matter to her who had sent the postcards because she knew the why. She sat down on the bench, and took out her laptop.

Fingers trembling with anticipation, her law school application open, she began to work.

Genre: Romance
Object: Postcard
Location: Library

“You’re going to want to see this Sarge.”

The detective’s voice rises, a sign that he’s excited, or at the very least thinks he’s got something. Sergeant Lopez takes the last sip of shitty, bottom-of-the-pot coffee, and wipes his mouth with the red bandana he keeps tucked into his back right pocket before tossing the dregs out onto the pavement of the Store-And-Hide parking lot. The liquid curls and steams, creating a cloud of mist that rises in the early autumn air. The sergeant watches it escape, turns, and saunters into the storage facility where the fifth body has been found.

They’re the first ones on the scene, called in by the owner of the place when his kid, who used the storage unit as a play area, found the body. The owner follows after Lopez but stops short of the roll up door.

“Hadn’t paid in three years but left all their shit,” the man said, voice wavering. “Figured there was no sense to lock it. Andy loved having his own place to hide and read comics. Guess we’ll have to put the kibosh on that after-” he nods towards the dead girl. “Can’t even get him to talk to me about it.”  

Lopez grunts, but doesn’t tell the guy how to raise his kid. Detective Mario Gutierrez, the ever-fucking-go-getter that he is, is already poking around the scene. The detective is good, but Lopez doesn’t think Gutierrez really has anything.

But we’ll see, he tells himself.

Lopez wonders if, at this point, it can be considered the work of a serial killer. Five bodies, all young women, had been discovered around the city. One in the shed of a rich woman’s backyard. Another in the unfinished basement of a construction site. The third in an outhouse by the baseball fields. The fourth under the picnic gazebo in the park. Then there’s the fifth, lain sitting up in a storage facility rented out by a tentatively unconnected party. 

No leads.

He walks past the body. She’s been covered with a sheet which, as he walks past, lifts on a breeze, and he catches a glimpse of her pale, almost translucent skin. She’s been drained, like the others, before being moved to her current location. There are no marks on her body except for the incision on the right of her neck, at her carotid artery. She didn’t struggle. She went with the person who murdered her.

In the corner is a mirror. A blanket is duct taped to the wall and draped slightly over the edge. The kid had used it as part of his fort. Lopez looks at his reflection. He’s getting old, he tells himself, but he doesn’t look it. His black hair is cropped tightly to his square-like head. Large arms push out against the tight sleeves of his police jacket. He’s aware of the looks they garner from his daughter’s friends. He’s also aware of the teasing way they tell him he doesn’t look old enough to be their dad. It’s nice, especially after the recent divorce, but he knows that it is only a flirtation. Besides, those girls are too young.

So are the ones they’ve been finding.

Gutierrez, is crouched in the middle of the room. A camera flashes, then drops to his side. Lopez stops behind him, shadow looming in the pale yellow light.

“What did you find?”

“It’s not much,” the detective says, shifting so that he can look up at the sergeant, “but it sure as shit is more than we’ve had.”

Lopez looks at the ground in front of Gutierrez and catches his breath. It’s a single boot scuff, half of the heel at most. His hand falls to his back pocket where he removes his bandana and wipes the corner of his mouth, a nervous tick.

“It won’t be enough,” Lopez says. Jesus, his voice sounds tired. “But you’re right… at least it’s something.”

“Did your daughter know this one too?” The detective asks. Lopez follows his gaze to the covered body. The girl is in high school, most likely a junior. She’s pretty, but not a cheerleader. Popular, but not enough to be class president. His daughter would know her, but it would be from middle school, right before the elementary school friends were completely abandoned for the newer, prettier model.

“This one? I couldn’t tell you. If I did it would be from years ago.” He meant to say she.

Gutierrez nods.

It’s the sound of the mirror shifting that gets them to turn. Gutierrez is quick, the barrel of his gun pointed towards the fort. He’s about to call for someone to come out when something does. A good sized rat scuttles out from the mess of blankets. For a moment it seems like the fort is going to hold, but slowly the blanket draws away from the top of the mirror, and it falls out towards them.

The mirror breaks but does not completely shatter. Lopez steps back as shards as big as his shoulder blades break apart like icebergs and skitter across the cement. It takes him a moment to piece together why the pieces look like tinted ice instead of the surface of a pond, but then he realizes that the mirror is two-way glass.

“Holy shit, what a mess,” Gutierrez chuckles as he rises to his feet, “You don’t think the old man will make us…”

He stops speaking and motions for Lopez. He’s staring down at the fragments with a look of concentration; of confusion. Lopez steps around the pieces and stands next to him. He sees what the detective sees and, suddenly, the cold autumn breeze is a little more biting. The sound of sirens rise in the distance like the wail of a seagull. Lopez feels the urge to wipe his mouth but holds his trembling hand to his side.

Written in marker onto the glass is one single word in jagged, young handwriting.

Bandana. 

Genre: Mystery
Item: Two Way Mirror
Location: Storage Unit

There was a lurch, the sound of space being torn apart, and, with a thundering crash, Elliot slammed through the fourth dimension. The Argus 7-D groaned one final time, and then went silent. Elliot closed his eyes and exhaled between his teeth. With grudging acceptance, he came to realize the trial he had unwittingly been put to.

“Son of a bitch.”

Elliot had never approved of the way that M3775 tested their employees for promotions. He wasn’t afraid of time travel; the company made sure that all of their repairmen (or women), went as far forward and as far back as their machines would allow for their initial training. He had seen the very fringes of human existence on Earth and had found it to be relaxing. There really wasn’t much of anything if you went far enough forwards or backwards. Earth ended as it began… barren and cold.   

His gripe lay with the deceit. All of the stories were the same. The company assigned a repairman to travel back with a recently “repaired” machine. In reality, it had been intentionally sabotaged and stripped of its tools and spare parts. As the repairman traveled, the machine would crash into some unknown time. There, the repairman would have to fix the Argus and return to the present. The idea was to test innovation, but Elliot felt like that was bullshit. In a real scenario, one would have tools and parts at their disposal. Per company policy, each Argus had a partner machine, in case of a break down. If the time traveler did not return soon, it was assumed they had failed, and the partner machine was sent back to retrieve them. People came back scratched up and cursing, but very rarely did it make them better at their job.

But, a promotion was a promotion.

Unclipping the buckles confining him to his seat, he looked up and removed the panel in front of the engine. It took him a moment to realize that one of the cogs was stripped.  He didn’t see any other damage.  These tests were kept simple. A problem with the onboard computer would be impossible to deal with if one crashed into the Cretaceous period.  

The screen flashed in front of him. A system analysis of the particles in the air came to show that he was now in the year 1864. There was a good chance of him being able to find the materials he would need, given that Denver in this time would be a sizable mining town. Hell, he’d even had family in the budding city. Elliot’s several times great grandfather had been a sheriff here. He had died protecting his community from a stranger that blew into town, leaving behind three sons. If it weren’t for Elliot’s time constraints, it might be interesting to meet him.

He reached over and removed a gun belt from the box on his left, a precautionary tool each machine was equipped with, and the only resource not removed for these tests. Taking a deep breath, he grounded himself in this reality, and exited the vehicle into the present past.

The Argus 7-D was a cube comprised of hundreds of tiny cameras that captured the images of its surroundings, and then projected those images onto panels to give off the illusion of being invisible. This was important as the time machine could not be steered so much as placed within the timeline. To have a cube suddenly manifest itself in the middle of a town square would be incredibly conspicuous.

In this case, the Argus had emerged from the fourth dimension and obliterated half of what appeared to be a saloon. Elliot exited the vehicle to air heavy with the smell of sawdust. The patrons backed away in terror of the man who materialized from a door that appeared from nowhere. Around him lay the bodies of those he had inadvertently blown to pieces, fragments of barstools, and glass bottles. Elliot regarded the room, his eyes moving from the prostitutes to the customers, before the squeak of the batwing doors opening and the clicking of spurs drew his attention.

The world around him sank into déjà vu. The brown eyes that watched him were ones that he had seen many times in the mirror. They had been passed down through generations, along with the last name that adorned the approaching sheriff’s badge.

 It was important to ground yourself when you interacted with the past. When one encountered a relative or even a past self, not matter how unlikely, it was easy for the mind to slip into a disassociation of sorts. Elliot was aware that the sheriff was aggressively addressing him, but his mind had begun to fragment and twist.

So this was the fate of his deceased forefather, killed by a stranger who literally just appeared in town. His head felt like it was going to split, so Elliot turned his thoughts to the present, to a noise or an object that was concrete. A light flickered. He glanced down at his grandfather’s spurs that caught the sunbeams streaming in from the tattered ceiling above.

An idea crossed his mind.

One of the first rules that the company taught its employees was that their job was to observe, not interact. This, of course, was already made impossible by the fact that Elliot had decimated most of the building around him. But there was an asterisk that read: better to leave bodies than knowledge.

It was a morbid rule, but one that Elliot had come to accept. In some cases, it was even considered a responsibility. It was easy to be indifferent about death if you HAD to kill certain people because that’s how it had always happened. It was simply company policy.

His decision was made for him. The sheriff, unnerved by the silent stranger in front of him, had stopped shouting and was reaching for his .44. So, to protect himself and the future, Elliot removed the pistol from its holster, pulled the trigger, and put a bullet between his ancestor’s ribs.

Surprise broke across Elliot’s kin’s face. He staggered backwards, crashed through the swinging doors, and collapsed. The spurs of his boots continued to spin. Elliot knew that he needed to move quickly. The men around him were soon to react to the murder of their beloved sheriff, and Elliot doubted that they would accept any explanation of time travel as an excuse. He lunged across the room and removed the spurs from his ancestor’s boots as the mob stirred. Returning to the Argus, he shut the door.  

Inside the nest of wires and circuits, Elliot once again removed the panel in front of the engine and held the spiked wheel up to the broken cog. It was close, although whether it was sturdy enough to withstand the intense vibrating of the craft was another issue. Outside the cube, a bullet whined off the camouflaged structure. Elliot knew that nothing short of dynamite would breach the hull.

Once the spur was screwed in place Elliot closed the panel and started the machine. There was a hum, followed by the rise and fall of lights, and the Argus came to life. The sound of muffled yelling rose from outside of the time machine. Elliot ignored it. Soon, he would be on his way back home. He toggled a sequence of switches and buttons, and the machine began to shudder. Elliot closed his eyes and prayed that the engine would be able to vibrate at a high enough frequency to allow it to move forward through time and not backwards. 

The craft lifted, as if gravity had loosened its grasp on it. Then, there was a crack and Elliot felt the acceleration of the Argus at it surged into Time. He could not be certain in which direction.

After a minute there was another loud snap as the ship exited the time stream. Elliot hoped he wouldn’t have to kill another one of his relatives. The Argus settled around him. He removed the panel and noted that the spur was still in place and had maintained its form. That was good.

It was only after he’d exited the craft, the pistol belted to his hip, to see all those well-dressed men standing in front of him, that he knew he’d succeed. Simultaneously, a horrible thought crossed his mind. A champagne bottle popped, and he remembered the look in the patriarch’s eyes as he toppled backwards onto the dust caked boardwalk. 

It could have been a coincidence that, out of the entire history of the Earth and human existence, Elliot’s craft had happened to descend into his ancestor’s time. The unlikelihood of such an event being entirely uncalculated was… concerning.

Next to him, a shareholder clapped him on the shoulder and congratulated him while his boss inspected his handiwork.

Somewhere in time, his forefather, arms crumpled beneath him like crushed butterfly’s wings, lay motionless in the dust.  

Genre: Science Fiction
Character: Repairman
Event: A Promotion

• 

Malachi whispered Agent Trenten’s name into his microphone a third time. When the man didn’t answer Malachi knew he was dead. It had nothing to do with the “Three Strikes Protocol,” which was really more of a guideline than a rule. It was just that Trenten wouldn’t ever shut the hell up. He always had something to say. Even when in a fire fight or sneaking through a hallway, he just couldn’t help letting a one liner slip out. Trenten’s last words had been “It’s about as tight as Francesca in here.” “Here” being the air duct he was crawling through. He was widely despised, but one couldn’t deny that Agent Trenten’s mission record was impressive. 

Well, until now.

Malachi shut the laptop, and looked out through the branches towards the structure settled within the floor of the evergreen forest. A cold sweat ran down his spine. Beneath the whispering of the pines, he heard the sound of groaning steel and felt a rumbling underneath him. The missile bay door was opening. They were at the ten minute mark. Malachi was at least four minutes from the silo, three if he hustled. He tore open the duffel bag that Trenten had made him carry around, removing various knives, throwing stars, and gadgets before grabbing a pistol that looked like one he had fired in basic training. He fumbled with the latch before the magazine sprang out below the grip. Remembering to make sure it was loaded this time, he shoved it back in. He picked up the pack next to him, the one with the extra set of explosives and equipment for “in the unlikely chance Trenten should fail.”

 Then he was off, head throbbing with a hangover, scrambling through trees and over roots towards the Russian missile silo.

The countdown ticked onward.

In truth, Malachi wasn’t even supposed to be there. He’d always wanted to be a secret agent, but for the stuff you saw in movies, never the actual work. The fast cars. The beautiful women. The all-expenses paid trips to exotic locations.

Hollywood had not been truthful with him.

The past year had been a string of fire-able offenses: waking up hung over in Milan when he was supposed to be stopping a bank heist; getting caught mid-cowgirl with the Ambassador of France’s daughter when he was supposed to be meeting with her father; and finally, losing a briefcase in a train station that contained a very important hard drive with incriminating evidence of a certain President of the United States. Each debriefing had ended with his superior red in the face. And every morning that followed had started with a phone call that began, “After a brief discussion with your uncle…”

Which had lead him to this mission, this moment that had been prefaced by his FBI Director uncle stating, “This is your last fuck-up Malachi. I mean it.” All he had to do was carry the weapons and study Agent Trenten from afar. As far away as a shortwave radio link would allow.   

Only, now Agent Trenten was dead.

He reached the foliage at the edge of the facility and crouched behind a tree trunk. The initial report had estimated that there were three guards on the roof and two that patrolled the perimeter. He couldn’t see the roof; he’d have to hope that Trenten had taken care of those. He could see, however, the bodies of two guards on the ground. Not surprising. Agent Trenten was known for being “thorough”, which some might synonymously call “blood-thirsty.”  Unless it specified in the mission briefing that there should be minimal casualties, there would be many.  This briefing had not specified.

So there would be many.

He checked his watch. Seven minutes remained.

Malachi leapt from the brush and sprinted towards the base. It was morbid, but Malachi knew that one way or another Agent Trenten was covering his ass. If the man was dead they would be checking him for clues as to whom he worked for or following the trail of bodies he left behind. If the man was still alive, well… then everyone inside was most likely already dead.

He reached the first body and, grabbing it by one boot, lugged it over towards the windowless entrance. On the man’s belt was a keycard (at least ONE thing the movies got right), his sidearm, and a line of grenades. Malachi grabbed the card and, after a momentary hesitation, slipped a grenade into his belt. Breathing a silent prayer, he touched the card to the pad.

Nothing happened. His hand shook. A branch broke in the woods, and Malachi whipped around. Almost inaudible under the sound of his breathing, there was a click. Malachi pushed against it, and the heavy metal door opened behind him. He studied the forest for a moment longer before slinking into the base.

Six minutes left.

Outside the world had been the inhale and exhale of the wind in the pines, the sound of the twigs and branches snapping underfoot as Malachi raced towards the silo. Inside, the silence was oppressive. Coupled with the ache of his hangover, it was like having two palms squeezing the sides of his head. He hurried his way down the dark cement hallway. Every few steps there was single bulb screwed into a ceiling outlet. The lights passed overhead like seconds ticking away. His gun was in front of him, at the ready. He remembered that much, at least.

There was the sudden clatter of boots against the ground and Malachi had just enough time to flatten himself against the wall before he saw a group of soldiers pass at the end of the hallway. The noise of their motion stopped, but he could still hear their voices, whispered curses in Russian. Words jumped out here and there, Trenten’s name as well as the word “Mudak,” but Malachi hadn’t committed any of the language to memory.

He checked his watch. Five minutes.

Creeping to the end of the hallway, he peeked around the edge. There, about thirty yards down, was a cluster of five men. Three of them had their guns trained on a shape that hung from the ceiling while two others attempted to cut the figure down.

Agent Trenten had died attempting to rappel down from the air duct in the ceiling. It was a maneuver he had done many times, except this time, for some reason, his rope had gotten stuck in the belay device.

Malachi groaned. It had been his job to double check the rope for knots that morning. Now, because of him, the best secret agent the United States had at their disposal, was probably dead, hanging from the ceiling like some macabre chandelier.

There was no time for a rescue mission. The seconds seemed to move faster in the dim bunker. Malachi had never felt urgency, never in his life, but for the first time he felt that invisible hand between his shoulder blades. He removed the grenade from his belt. Thumbing the pin out, he prayed that Trenten really was dead, and rolled the grenade down the hallway towards the group. It clattered across the cement. The sound of the men talking ceased. There was absolute silence, and then a concussive bang. Malachi flipped around to the other side of the hallway and watched as soldiers ran past. The halls were alive with screams and yelled orders. He waited until he thought they were preoccupied, and then slipped around the corner.

Malachi sprinted down the hallway, hoping that the sound of men dying would mask his movements and then took a right towards the missile bay.

He congratulated himself for at least having memorized the blueprints before almost knocking a young soldier down. They were only about five paces apart when he came to a skidding halt and the boy looked up. A stunned silence sat between them, and then the boy began to yell.

“Polozhi ruki v vozdukh.”

“Shut your mouth, and put your hands-” Malachi hissed, finger on the trigger.

“Polozhi ruki v vozdukh!” The boy started to flip his rifle across his back. Malachi had never killed a man, never really wanted to either, but numbers on his watch flashed against the wall. The boy repeated himself. Malachi raised the gun, and put two bullets in his chest. He was still moving when Malachi leapt over him. The sounds of the gunshots rang in his ears. Voices erupted from behind him in the hallway. Footfalls filled the air. Malachi tapped his keycard against reader, and the door opened with a loud clang.

  Three minutes left.

Inside the silo was a steady din of noise, the sounds of pumps and ventilators accompanied by the clatter of machinery. In front of him the missile waited, plumes of steam rising from the depths. It was on one of the fins that Malachi would need to plant the charge, so that when the rocket took flight he could blow it out of the sky. There was a potential that it would fall and land on some unsuspecting town, but that was a problem for the Russian government.

Malachi descended the set of steel stairs that spiraled through the silo. Behind him, the door opened.

Making his way downward, he couldn’t help but smile. Thwarting a bank heist was really just setting a trap. Escorting a foreign dignitary, especially when the route was secure, was just sitting and making small talk. Holding onto a briefcase… was exactly what it sounded like.

But clamoring down those stairs, his stomach in his throat, sweat darkening his collar… that was the movies. He understood now why people like Trenten did it.

Maybe I should have given a shit sooner he’d thought to himself.  Maybe this is a sign. 

At the bottom, he removed the plastic explosive from his pack, slapped putty to it, and then attached it to the fin. There wasn’t time for him to think about whether he’d done it right. Above him, boots clattered against metal.

One minute.

If he didn’t move, he would be incinerated as the rocket ascended. Once it launched, he could detonate it remotely. Far away preferably.  

Ten paces away there was a door next to the base of the stairs. The first set of soldiers clamored down them. Malachi ran. Bullets rang off the metal posts surrounding the center. A pain erupted in his left leg and Malachi lurched forward, crawling until he was behind a cement pillar. Bullets thundered into the column behind him. The air filled with dust. Malachi coughed and looked down at his leg. Blood soaked through his torn black pants. Where there should have been flesh and muscle there was none. He brought his watch to his face.

Thirty seconds.

Men marched forward, Ak-47s pointed in his direction. He looked to his left. There was a door. He rolled forward, and began to drag himself towards it. With a click, it opened. Four soldiers appeared, guns drawn, the leader pointing in his direction. Malachi pushed back, and then slumped against the pillar. He looked at his watch.

Zero.

The missile wasn’t rising in the air. He was not incinerated. They had paused the launch, only to deal with him. Once he was dead, they would remove the bomb and complete the launch. Mission failed. Chest heaving, Malachi rested his head against the cool cement behind him.

He thought about the last thing his uncle had said to him before he had left his office. Stern faced, with eyes that betrayed disappointment more than anger, he’d said:

“Just complete the mission.”

Malachi fished a device the size of a walkie-talkie from his pack. The shadows of the approaching men played across the walls. Sunlight shone through the open blast door above.

Malachi smiled, whispered “Hot and steamy, just the way I like it,” in his best Agent Trenten impression and, for the first and last time, completed the mission.

Genre: Action
Character: Under-achiever
Event: A Launch

It was the sound of the Falcon’s voice that caused Markus “The Rat” Mungia to freeze. That, coupled with the unshakeable feeling that something was horribly fucking wrong. He had been creeping across the long hallway of the third floor, passing the half open doors of unused offices, when he’d heard her voice, looming and cold, cut the stillness. Beams of rotten yellow light bled in from the thresholds and Markus crept around this regurgitated light in the shadows, only illuminated when his face caught a sunbeam. The Warehouse was unusually quiet that morning. Even the air inside the drug house was still, as if contained inside a pair of lungs waiting to exhale. The workers packing bricks of cocaine below had seemed on edge, muttering to each other instead of filling the floor room with their usual braggadocious bellowing. These should have been warning signs, but Markus had information to gather. He followed the sound of her voice until he was outside of the room in the middle of the hallway, her office. There he crouched, and waited for her secrets. 

He was, after all “The Rat”. 

“I don’t like to make mistakes Fabian. So I will only ask this once. Not out of disrespect, but because I must know. Are you sure it’s him?”

Markus didn’t need to look to see into her office. The Falcon was a tall, woman. Cloaked in a well-tailored black suit, she would be standing behind her desk, peering down at the man in front of her, with hair that swept along her cheekbones like folded wings. Her eyes were sharp, and when the light hit them just right, gold. 

“You give no disrespect, Donna. My men don’t lie. A fuckin’ rat.”

The voice belonged to her right hand man, Fabian Puzo. When he spoke, his words rolled through a Chicagoland accent. When he spoke, it was with an air of confidence. When he spoke, he knew.  

Markus did not doubt it. In fact, he should have anticipated it. Puzo was a fat piece-of-shit, but one should never mistake him as lazy. A thread of sweat ran down through the stubble of Markus’ cheek. 

A fuckin’ rat.

Puzo could be speaking figuratively. Sure, it was common knowledge that his nickname was “The Rat”. Markus wasn’t the most handsome man, but it was his eyes that had given him that title. ‘They were always shifting’ the other drug dealers would say as they laughed, or smirked, or glowered at him. They were like a rat’s when he found his back up against a wall. It was something that had earned the admiration of the Falcon on a number of occasions, when he’d had information which allowed his men to escape seemingly inescapable situations. But had that been Puzo’s intention, to use his street name?

Markus felt the rivulet of sweat reach his chin. It ripened to a bead and, without a sound, broke from his chin and fell to the floor. 

It landed with a plink so insignificant no one could possibly hear it. No one but Markus. 

But if Markus could hear it…

“So I should call everyone to the floor?” Puzo asked. 

“Yes, but when it’s time, I will do it. I want to get my hands dirty on this one. I want them to see blood. Puzo…” There was a pause. The silence was so thin that Markus could hear her inhale into her glass as she put back the rest of her whiskey. “No loose ends.”

A second glass tipped. Puzo’s chair squeaked as he pushed back from her desk and rose. Markus, understanding that this was his moment, took the sound of this movement to mask his own, slipping back through the web of yellow light and shadows, watching the door to see if it would open. Maybe he had been caught, but he could still escape. He could still be careful.

He had known this day would come. He’d always been a street rat, it was what had drawn him to a life of crime. First, it had been small things. Holding baggies of drugs until a seller could come get them. Then, pushing, distributing to the pushers, and finally smuggling drugs across state lines. It had been a lucrative lifestyle until the police had finally caught up to him. 

It turned out, it was just as lucrative to play the other side. Markus had thought this through, which was why the first decision he made as he neared the end of the hallway was to take the stairs. Elevators were too easy. If the Falcon’s orders had already spread, then using the elevator was a mistake, an easy way to get trapped. The door would open, and on the other side would be the barrel of a shotgun. Besides, stairs were quicker, and there were options. You could go back up. You could go down. You could go down fast through the middle, something Markus hoped it wouldn’t come to. There was even a window on the second floor. It would be a drop, but depending on the circumstances that wasn’t a bad thing. 

There were worse alternatives.   

Markus turned around, pushed open the door to his right, and began his descent through the stairwell. As he did, he removed the phone from his stiff, khaki’s pocket, and dialed his wife’s number. 

The phone rang once. 

Markus slowed his progress so his footfalls, which were clattering against the cement walls, wouldn’t echo so much. His pulse thundered in his neck. He hadn’t noticed this before, and for the first time since hearing his boss’ voice wondered if there were other things he hadn’t noticed. When he’d sauntered into The Warehouse earlier that day, heads had turned to look at him. Had they turned because they heard someone come in, or had they turned, the heads of feasting hyenas, to watch prey approach the watering hole?

The phone rang a second time. 

Dayana would be at home, Markus thought to himself. The baby would be on her hip, she’d be smoking a cigarette and burning some eggs, but she would be home. She would have told him if she was going to run to the store that day. They had decided that. 

The phone rang a third time, and Markus stopped on the landing between the third and second floor. 

It had been weeks since his arrest; since he’d decided for his sake, for her sake, that the only way for him to beat the drug charges was to sell out the Falcon. It had been dangerous, but they’d taken precautions. There were safe bags stashed around the house. If she was on the move, her phone would be silenced. 

The phone rang a fourth time, then there was a click. 

“Hi, this is Dayana, I can’t-“

Markus hung up and tried again. He heard no footsteps behind him, and found himself lost in the view from the window. In the early afternoon sunlight, skyscrapers winked at him. 

“Can’t come to the phone? Won’t ever come to the phone?” The distant buildings whispered. A train blew its horn somewhere far off. It sounded like screaming. 

The phone rang, had been ringing, and there was a click. 

“Hi, this is Day-“

Fuck.

Markus hung up the phone and began to move again, this time not concerned by the sound his footfalls made. He pressed the blue talking bubble under his wife’s name and began to type. 

<Sweetie, I need you to grab some milk.>

He sent the message and tucked the phone back into his pocket. Again, he used their words. She would know. If she wasn’t-

“Markus, hey bud!”

He looked up at the familiar voice. The emergency exit was open, and a large man was standing in the threshold. The shadow inhaled the last of his cigarette, exhaled twin jets of smoke from his nose, and then flicked the butt out to the gravel. Markus froze. He was five steps from the bottom. If the man wasn’t expecting it, he could bolt past him and make it to the parking lot. That, however, was a big “If”. He could run back up the stairs, and try to lose him on the second floor. But Markus was close. 

He was so damn close. 

Markus stepped forward, and the angle allowed him to see who it was. Tyson cocked his head, and then closed the door behind him. 

“You…uh… you ok?” The large man asked, tucking the pack of cigarettes into his shirt pocket. Markus regarded him in the dim stairwell. He had known Tyson from the beginning. Hell, he’d learned everything he knew about the drug trade from him. Was it possible that, even if Ty knew what he was, that he would turn him in? 

It was. Tyson took a step towards him and Markus realized he’d been standing there in silence for too long. He took another step forward. 

The man was pale green. He looked like he was going to be sick, and by the time Markus figured out that the man knew something, Tyson had pulled him into a quick embrace. When his large friend released him, he looked Markus over. Sweat stained the armpits of his grey shirt.  

“Jesus man, where the hell have you been?” Markus legs trembled, but he willed himself to remain standing. “You don’t look so good buddy.”

“I’ve been better.” Markus muttered, “Hey, I’m just going to step outside for a quick smo-“

The Rat made a move for the exit and, as he did, the door to the stairwell opened. A man Markus had seen only a handful of times, but recognized as “Delatorre” peered at them. 

“The Falcon’s called a meeting. Everyone’s required.” The man looked at Markus, then at the Rat’s hand placed against the bar of the exit. “Now.”

Delatorre moved so that the threshold of the door was open, and held it for the two men. The veins in Markus’ neck pulsed. He had his window. If he bolted for it he might make it… but given that the parking lot was on the other side of the building, if he went for his car, he would probably be gunned down. Even if he made it off the property, they would be right on his heels. 

And besides, what if the rat wasn’t him?

If he rode it out… it was a gamble, but it might pay off. Puzo had said “A rat”. Not “THE Rat”. It was known that there were some who whispered in secret, through clenched teeth or into their beer mugs at the bar, that they didn’t care for the Falcon’s methods. There were undoubtedly others who would snitch on her. Markus had never given her a reason to doubt him. If anything, he’d played his role too well, putting his own ass on the line to ensure shipments made it safely. Slowly, he pulled his hands away from the door. He was aware of how clammy they felt. Markus swallowed. Delatorre didn’t say a word. 

Tyson continued to look at him. He looked like he was ready to bolt as well. Markus noted his friend’s appearance and, acutely aware of how he himself looked, did his best to calm his breathing.

Only a second or so had passed, but he was conscious of its passage, and so he stepped away from the exit. He would hang back, knowing Delatorre would be behind him until they entered the room. From there he would wait until the man walked past him, and then, if things got sticky, would bolt.

“Ride this one out,” the voice in his head told him. “Just play it cool.” 

He moved forward, and Tyson followed. Once they were through the door they turned left and together they walked back towards the distribution floor of the warehouse. 

Already, a crowd had appeared in the center. There was murmuring. No one acknowledged their approach. Markus noted, briefly, the piles of cocaine bricks, and the gallon-sized baggies filled with marijuana. If he made it out of this one and could slip away, he would grab one. 

Insurance, he told himself. 

Delatorre moved from behind him and joined the throng. The Falcon was standing among them, in the epicenter, stoic. She looked in Markus’ direction and, for a moment, Markus felt as if she was looking at him. Her gaze passed, and Markus let out a gasp of air. Trembling, he clutched his hands in front of him to stop them from telling. The crowd went silent. Then, she spoke. 

“Bring him forward.”

Markus felt something to his right and leapt to the left, but the figure paid him no attention. Instead, the shadow took Tyson by the arm, and another fell in on Markus’ large friend’s right. The three hundred pound man between them sagged, and yet the two holding him up carried him with ease. The sounds of Tyson’s blubbering bubbled up through the silence of the floor. 

“OhgodohgodpleaseIhaveafamilyitwasformyfamilyohGOD.”

Markus tried to swallow. His mouth had run dry. The man who had brought him into this underworld was carried forward through the parting crowd. Once the three men were in the middle, the goons released Tyson. He fell to his knees, out of Markus’ view. All he could see was the Falcon, towering over everyone, her hair shading any expression. 

Markus took a step backward into the shadows. 

“I did not anticipate your betrayal Tyson. For that I apologize to you. I allowed friendship to deceive my intellect. In that sense, it is understandable if I lost your respect.”

Markus saw her shoulder rise as she leveled the pistol. Markus took a second step back, aware that he could visibly see the beat of his heart through his black, button down shirt. 

“It wasn’t me. My God, it wasn’t me,” he thought. 

Tyson let out one final plea, and then the rapport of the .45 echoed through The Warehouse. Markus took another step back, feeling along the edge of the plastic folding table for a baggie. He had it in his fingers. He began to turn his head, to slip away into the shadows, when he felt the piano wire wrap around his neck. Before he could get a hand between his throat and the garrote, it tightened and he was dragged up and backwards. Tears sprang in his eyes. His hands leapt to his throat. His legs were still running. Dust floated on sunbeams. Somewhere in the distance the Falcon was speaking. She was calm. Her eyes were watching him. 

“You wanna know how to catch a rat?” Puzo whispered in his ear. His breath smelled of scotch. “You set the nest on fire.”

It took only fifteen seconds for Markus to lose consciousness. In that time he thought of his wife, who lay dead on their kitchen floor. He thought about how close he’d been. 

And man, he’d been so goddamn close.

Genre: Thriller
Character: Drug Dealer
Action: Snooping