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“’Broken arrow’ is a code. It means we’ve lost a
nuclear warhead.”
Soldier, Broken Arrow
“Brandy?” Edgar asked, pouring himself a glass. He
stood over the mini-bar in his game room, taking his time in corking the
glass bottle.
“Thanks, no,” Morgan said as he looked around the
room. Filled with a large television near the sliding glass door, the room
boasted a pool table and several other ‘distractions’. In the deep red
carpeting and wooden paneling along the walls, the single line of track
lighting had a difficult time lighting the room adequately.
“They killed him,” Edgar said, turning around to
Morgan, leaning against his bar. “Those guys, those ‘bouncers’ if you will,
killed him.”
“I know,” Morgan said, his hands in his black trench coat
pockets as he remained standing. His back was against the wall, his mind
wondering furiously. “Why in the world though?” He looked at Edgar. “He was
nobody. A two-bit crime boss. Not even that. He ran a few small-time
endeavors on the side. Nothing big.”
“I think the bigger question is ‘who’, not ‘why’,”
Edgar said, standing up from the bar. He took a small sip of his brandy and
began to slowly pace around the room. “If we can figure out who, then why
should be evident.”
“It couldn’t have been the police,” Morgan started,
ticking off the comments with his fingers.
“Couldn’t have been anyone in the Knights,” Edgar
said, getting another counter.
“What about those three people there already?” Morgan
said, looking up at the older Knight. “There was that guy who looked like
the shooter, and he was with some other people.”
“Who else was he with?” Edgar asked, taking a
slightly larger sip from his brandy.
“I don’t know,” Morgan shrugged. “A girl and some
guy.”
“You brought up a good point,” Edgar said, thinking.
He leaned against the pool table, thinking as he swished his brandy glass.
“The club owner got killed, and then the bouncers killed the shooter.”
“A shooter that looked just liked one of the three,”
Morgan finished. He tilted his head slightly. “You don’t think…”
“…A set up?” Edgar asked rhetorically.
Victor’s padded footfalls resounded heavily through
the indoor track. Still very early in the morning, the gym was almost
totally empty. The half-lit running hallway on the second floor seemed to
groan with Victor’s steps. A sound he liked.
At this hour, there was usually no one else on the
track. He had the entire ring all to himself. The narrow lanes seemed to
blur together as he ran, giving him freedom to run as fast as he wanted.
In his mind, his thoughts ran over the events from
the night before. His thoughts wondered to the club, to the shooting, to
the fight. And to Marilyn. His concerns washed over him as he ran, though.
In the soundless monotony of the run, he thought clearer. And he could
focus more.
As Victor ran, he picked up his pace, his legs
carrying him faster and faster over the semi-soft flooring of the indoor
track. Outside, he could hear the thunder crack from the coming storm. He
smiled as he ran. The electricity in the air outside fueled his heart
inside his body. His pace picked up and he flew down the track.
“How did the mission go?” asked the blonde-haired man
in the back of the office. As he looked out over the night skyline of the
city, the man at the desk itself turned to the bouncers.
“They were there,” said the lead, a large, brawny man
in a black suit, his slick black hair pulled back into a stylish short
ponytail. “The three from the World Alliance, as well as the two Knights.”
“Is the club…‘ownerless’?” asked the older man at the
desk. “Was he taken care of?”
“He was, but…” said the bouncer. He looked back at
the others, then looked at the man at the desk. “Well, sir…you see…there
was a bit of a problem.”
“What problem?” said the blonde man, turning from the
window. His long blonde ponytail whipped with the motion as he turned. “Is
the owner of the club dead? Yes or no?”
“Yes,” confirmed the bouncer; his head low in a bit
of shame.
“Is Malcolm, the leader of the World Alliance,
arrested?”
Silence.
“Idiots,” the man said, turning back to the window.
“Jericho,”
said the man at the desk, with a calming motion by his right hand. He
sighed, and sat back in his chair. “Alright,” he said to the bouncer. “What
happened?”
“That’s awesome!” Alan yelled, his eyes huge as he
stared across the restaurant table at Malcolm. “You guys kicked ass all
over the place!”
“Calm down, honey,” Kim said, next to her boisterous
boyfriend, her arms wrapped around his arm, trying to keep him quiet.
“She’s right, Alan,” Malcolm said, from across the
table. “Keep it down. If the cops find out…”
“You’re a hero, man,” Alan said. “You went in there
and started whoopin’ ass and taking names. That’s awesome.”
“So you said,” Malcolm said with a sigh, trying to
keep his exhaustion under wraps. “But the man who killed the owner…he
looked…he looked just like me. I mean JUST like me.”
“Yeah,” Alan said, suddenly calming down. “That is
freaky.”
“What are you going to
do?” Kim asked, next to Alan. “Are you going to call the police?”
“And tell them what?” Malcolm shrugged. “No,” He
shook his head, pushing his empty pancake plate out of the way. “He’s gone.
So I guess that’s a good thing.”
“Yeah,” Alan said. “But we still should go by the
apartment and make sure, you know, that the girls are all okay.”
“You just want to rescue a bunch of half-naked girls,”
Malcolm laughed.
“Nah,” Alan shrugged. “I got her for that,” he said,
pointing at the girl on his right arm, getting a playful slap.
“No,” Malcolm said, leaning back. “I want to know who
those guys were, who saved us.” He nodded his head as he chewed on that
thought. “If we could get them to join the Alliance…” He sat forward. “But I tell
you, I have never seen anyone like that. Not even Victor and from what he
says, he’s probably the best martial artist I’ve ever known. And I’ve known
quite a few. I’m no slouch in that area myself. But Victor says he’s way
ahead of me. But these guys! Man, these guys were something else.”
“Well, somebody on campus has got to know something,”
Kim offered. “Try looking around the university.”
“Maybe,” Malcolm said. “Maybe, but they’re too good
not to ask to join. The Alliance
needs them. We’ve got to find them.”
Armand woke up slowly, his eyes glancing up at the
roof of Everett’s
room. He looked up to hear the shower running in the next room, and then to
Everett’s
bed to find it empty and made. He glanced at the clock. “9:38,” he groaned,
his head falling back to the pillow of the sleeping bag. “Geez, Everett.
Can’t you keep it down?”
“Wake up at a reasonable hour,” Everett called from the shower in his
tiny, one-bedroom apartment. “I’ve already exercised while you were
snoring.”
“Just
because I asked you to show me the ropes when I move down here, doesn’t
mean I wanted you giving me all this flak,” Armand yelled as he pulled
himself out of his sleeping bag. Still dressed in his clothes from the
night before, he stood up straight. At his feet, the long, narrow sword
rested silently. “How the hell’d you get here?” he asked to the sword.
“Edgar
brought it by last night, after you crashed,” Everett called from the shower.
“Oh,”
Armand said, with a wakening sigh. “Okay.” He looked down at the sword, a
smile slowly appearing on his face. “Well, congratulations, Ulysses,” he
said to the sword. “You finally got your first taste of blood.”
“And
let’s hope he doesn’t have to taste it again for a long time,” Everett yelled from
the shower.
When Everett came out of
the bathroom, Armand already had the eggs cooked, and he was working on the
biscuits. Everett
stepped into the living room of the apartment, sitting down at the table as
Armand brought the food out.
“There
was nothing on the news about the shooting,” Everett said, as Armand sat down.
“Figures,”
Armand grumbled. “Typical cover-up.”
“A
cover-up would have been misinformation,” Everett said, sitting back from the
table, letting the food cool. “This is, I don’t know,” he sat forward.
“Something.”
“You get
a good look at the guy who shot the owner?” Armand said.
“Yeah.
Why?” Everett
asked.
“He
looks like a guy in one of my classes,” Armand said. “And low and behold,
that guy was at the club.”
“Really?”
Everett
said. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Malcolm.
He’s some Mexican dude. Moved up here, like, six years ago or something.
He’s really smart. I thought about inviting him into the Knights.”
“I don’t
think you’re quite ready to go recruiting,” Everett said, considering the breakfast
before him.
“If he’s
got the nobility in his heart, that’s all that matters, right?” Armand
said. “That’s what the Knight up in Boston
said. He’s the guy who told me about the Knights.”
“That
may be,” Everett
said. “But there’s more to being a knight then nobility and all that. We
are, technically, a military organization.”
“We are, technically, not
supposed to exist,” Armand countered. “Or had you forgotten that?”
“I’m not
getting into that again,” Everett
said, as he slathered honey over his biscuit.
“Speaking
of ‘organizing the knights’, who was that guy with Edgar?” Armand asked. “I
thought I’d met all the knights in this town. Who was that guy?”
“He’s
not a Knight,” Everett
said, wolfing down the eggs.
“He sure
looked like one to me,” Armand shrugged, forming an egg sandwich with his
biscuits. “Had it in the eyes, the way he moved. Everything.”
“He was
a Knight,” Everett
explained, “but he’s not anymore.”
“Report.”
Aaron turned towards the voice. There were no
discernable shapes amongst the darkness, only emptiness. Aaron had no idea
if the room he had suddenly entered was five feet by five feet, or if it
was a giant auditorium. Space, like light, seemed to have lost all meaning
within this domain.
“The project had to be aborted,” he said, only
slightly embarrassed by the report he was having to give. “The plutonium
currently remains underneath the lake in question. The container is sealed,
but…the seal won’t last for long.”
“For long?” came another, different voice. “What do
you mean? How long?”
“I’m part of
the Investigation clan, sir,” Aaron said candidly. “I think about things a
bit differently than, say, a member of the Hand of the Brotherhood or the
Miracle Worker clan. By ‘not a long time’, I mean we have about five or six
years.”
“I see,” said a third voice. “Is the material
retrievable?”
“With the proper time and equipment, absolutely,”
Aaron said, a slightly bored tone in his voice. “It was deposited in a
man-made corporate lake. Finding its exact location may take some time, and
retrieving it will, of course, take more time. But neither are particularly
Herculean tasks.”
“Is the material detectable?” Came the first voice.
That was the question Aaron wished they hadn’t asked.
When he answered, he knew they were going to panic. Panic, as much as
people of their stature and level would allow themselves to do. “Yes,” he
answered.
“Very well,” said the second voice after a moment.
“We have no option but to proceed with other plans in the interim.” There
was silence for a moment.
“Your presence is not needed for the remainder of
this meeting, Investigator Moore,” said the third voice.
Light.
Aaron closed his eyes quickly, shocked by the light.
He held up his hands to the metal room around him. Relatively small and
rusted at points, the room held no source of light, no device of any kind,
no indication of any kind of the darkness that had just inhabited the room.
Aaron walked to the metal door. He stepped out
through, to find his two men waiting for him in the hall of the closed
asylum. “What’s the word from the Triumvirate?” asked Errol, the man on
Aaron’s right.
“Not good,” Aaron said, stepping back from the door.
Sighing as he looked down the long hallway to either side, Aaron was
confronted with the near-impossible task of pleasing the three of the
Triumvirate. “We’ve got to get that plutonium back,” he said, decisively.
“How’re we supposed to do that?” asked Ian, on the
opposite side of the door frame from Errol. “It’s at the bottom of…”
“I know,” Aaron said, exhausted and running on fumes.
“We’ve got to get it soon, though.”
“Before someone else finds it?” asked Errol.
“Or before the Triumvirate gets annoyed with us
losing it?” finished Ian.
“Both,”
Aaron said. He looked to the two, then turned away. “Come on,” he said as
he headed down the hallway of the abandoned asylum.
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