I know a place
It seemed that the crazy bus didn’t have a destination or an end in sight. Vera thought back to the night she had received her first message from Calvin asking her to investigate. Apparently he’d seen a posting on a forum for PIs, and after doing some digging had decided that she was the best fit. Though it had never been revealed if it was her military background or time in the secret service that had cinched the decision.
Regardless she had an inkling that she wished he had kept on scrolling. After weeks in the nutty commune up in the mountains, culminating in the ‘conference’, to whatever had happened after, and now this. Talk of sacrifices and the river Styx. It was all a bit much, but then again she had seen a man vanish, a man come back from the dead, and she had a glowing woman in the backseat. Where the fuck was Calvin?
“I’m glad you’re feeling better, Brennan.” The amount of blood still coating the man still caused Vera’s stomach to twist and a woman who’d seen less would have likely been in hysterics. Though her brain was still grasping at straws for a logical explanation to all the nonsense. None came to mind, but she did have to agree with Fritz that those hunting them would be on their tracks soon. A few hadn’t been happy to see her take Lexi and a couple had tried to grab Vera. Though that epicenter had been a modge podge of blinding light, blood, electricity, and chaos.
“Let me be clear. I don’t like any of this, I don’t trust either of you, and I want to bottom of all of this. Starting with where Calvin vanished to. However, my top priority is tending to the woman in the backseat of this car, but if either of you try anything I will put you into the ground.” Which would be hard considering her gun had been lost in the fray, but she had other means. Vera cast a glance one last time around the old road searching for Calvin, but nothing was there. One last glance at Lexi before pulling herself into the red car and pulling the seat forward.
The car was chugging now and a knock had developed that wasn’t there before. The radio was garbled static and the old cassette player in the dash flickered until Vera turned the volume down. While she waited she pulled the flash light from the glove box along with the old school map and followed the patchwork of lines to a circled marker on the side of a mountain. Brennen crossed the faint light to climb into the jeep, the car groaned and grinded as Vera forced it into first gear.
Calvin had made the entire process seem as smooth as butter but as she urged the car forward each gear ground. The engine sputtered and smoke boiled out like a screen onto the jeep behind them. “Come on baby,” Vera patted the dash like it was an old cat. Eventually she managed to get it into fourth and bounced at an uncomfortable thirty five mile an hour speed that made the car sound like pieces were going to fall off.
The trek up the mountain was harrowing with hairpin turns, sheer drops off, and the car sputtering a tune that sounded dangerously close to ‘I think I can’. Not a single light pierced the tightly woven canopy of pines, oaks, and birches. Somewhere in the darkness coyotes and owls called out. Further into the forest they sped owls began to dot the trees and the vehicle was filled with the shimmering glow of the woman in the back. Vera remembered Calvins instructions.
“Old mine road, watch the odometer. Two miles, then a right, another three quarters and a left. Pull off on the right. Half a mile trek up.” By the time she passed Old mine road the road had become dirt and gravel with more pock marks than a teenager and treks in the dirt that scraped at the bottom of the cart. It reminded Vera of being back overseas with the escorts chugging into forbidden places. Her eyes darted from the road to the odometers as her knuckles turned white from the grip. Sweat soaked her back when the ‘pull off’ came into view. The pull off was a crescent shape with no guard that hung off the edge of the mountain. The car gave a mighty gasp and sputtered as Vera turned the ignition and put on the emergency break.
The owls continued to gather in the branches around them as Vera waited for her fellow travelers to join her. When she opened the back door to figure out how she was going to carry Lexi, two of the owls moved to the roof and craned their heads with knowing eyes. Vera tried to shoo them away but they simply flapped their wings wide and side stepped on the roof.
"Alright Sammy. You're in the home stretch. Just need you to bear with me for a few…more…seconds."
The muttered words were meant to provide comfort though since they fell on deaf ears became a pep talk of sorts. Not that the doctor, occasionally a surgeon, was in need of such a thing. Cole was brilliant. He knew it. The current hospital he worked at knew it. He was the one responsible for humans discovering the medicinal properties of gunpowder. The concept was a bit outdated, but he had still made his mark in the annals of history in a never going to properly receive recognition sort of way. Not that he was bitter. It didn't matter that the gods of old were still taught in classrooms and had monuments that continued to draw millions of visitors a year. What was the point of all of that when they weren't around to enjoy the reverence?
His hands were steady and his focus unwavering. A faint hum acted as the only distraction. Once the rib was removed the surgery would be considered a success. It had been a long and tedious process keeping the patient who was undoubtedly a modern medical miracle alive, but he had done it. The forceps clamped around the pesky bone, and just as he carefully started the extraction process-
BOOM.
The very ground shook as shrapnel rained down from the sky onto the formerly perfect sand. The explosion drowned out the sound of the buzzer when the tiny tweezers Cole held touched the edge of the spare rib box, but he knew from the way his half filled margarita tipped over he had clearly lost the game courtesy of the other reason his contributions were buried: his dearest sister, Zuri.
Robert Frost spoke of the road less traveled which described Cole and Zuri. Humanity had the choice between walking the path of healing or war, and Zuri's was the hand they took. From her came the hand cannons, assault rifles, and all of the inventions in between. Yet when her destruction burned the flesh from their skin, it was his gunpowder they turned to for skin grafts. Perhaps rather than a diverging path, they were symbiotic, but it wasn't the time for deep introspection.
"Wooooooooo!" The feminine whoop of absolute joy caused Cole's eyes to close as he counted slowly to three during which gave Zuri time to flop down beside him on the blanket.
"Zuri, If I had known you were going to blow up everything in sight, I'd have left you home."
"Cole, If I had known you were going to play board games all day, I would have stayed home."
"It's not a game. It's a dexterity exercise." Cole countered, but blackened fingertips plucked the tweezers from his hand and intentionally touched the border. "Shut up Ms. Spends All Her Free Time Playing Laser Tag." With his mood thoroughly ruined, he didn't even care when she began haphazardly throwing the pieces back into the plastic body. Instead he pulled his phone from his swim shorts and his brow furrowed when he saw the barrage of messages and breaking news. "City-wide power outage in Nashville." He read aloud.
Zuri shrugged as she worked on removing the funny bone from Sam. "Do…we care? We are literally in paradise right now. That's a them problem."
He continued scrolling until he saw a notification that gave him pause. It was a transcribed message from a police radio app that only a select few had access. "I think we do care." He muttered before he blocked her view of the board by holding the phone directly in front of her face.
Brothers we have problems.
"Well that's sexist. Calvin, Jax, or Fritz? Probably Jax. He enjoys having half naked women running around."
"You're a half naked woman running around." He pointed out, motioning vaguely to the black two piece swimsuit she wore.
"And you embezzled thousands of dollars to rent your own private beach because you weren't invited to the pool party. Want to keep throwing stones? I can do this all day." She countered with an arch of her brow, practically daring him to continue challenging her to their war of words.
"And I can do it better. I'm just choosing not to because I have a feeling it's about to be us versus them." To solidify their temporary truce, Cole held out his hand once he was on his feet to help her stand.
"Well, isn't it always? Question is, what problems WE could have." For Zuri to say the matter was a question, it was spoken more like a statement because they both knew there was only one topic that all of them would have a universal interest in. "Nashville or...?"
"Nashville. I think the or will come to us."
"Well, fuck." She hated when the or came to visit.
Creed’s stallion rolled to a stop on the shoulder of I-65 as he kicked out the stand and killed the engine. There were some subtle traces that someone had pulled over, including tire tracks and oil drips from at least two engines, but the most obvious clue was the pool of blood and streaks down the road where someone or something was run over and dragged. Creed unmounted his bike and walked around, careful not to disturb anything as he reconstructed the scene in his mind.
Bloody footprints led from a pool of blood where the body had laid bleeding for some time. They couldn’t belong to whatever was bleeding, as it or they had surely died from blood loss. Creed pictured the suspects – Vera, Lexi, and Fritz as Jax had informed him – running over a deer, then stopping to collect the carcass before continuing on. Not a bad idea to stock up on venison if they were planning on laying low for a while. The footprints were not too different from Creed’s own, so he concluded they must belong to the man of the group, Fritz.
Unfortunately, he didn’t see many clues as to where they were going. After walking back to his bike, he pulled the stack of papers with his new assignment out of his saddlebags and flicked a switch to turn his headlight on so he could skim through the sea of legalese. Officially he was now working under the authority of the DoD, as a civilian contractor to the NSA, and he was under the supervision of special agent David G. Talbot, but reported to civilian liaison Jax Nova.
Given that Jax seemed to have some intel on the suspects’ location, his first thought was that he could call him back and ask for more. But Creed felt like he couldn’t fully trust Jax, and also it would reflect poorly on him if he didn’t take some initiative of his own. Flipping open his new phone, he was about to dial the number of an old friend, but much to his surprise he saw that he was already on a call.
He was sure it hadn’t rung and he hadn’t accepted the call, but he lifted the phone to his ear anyway.
“Hello? Talbot?” Creed was quiet for a moment while the man who was ostensibly his new supervisor rattled off his authorization code. Creed double-checked it against the papers in front of him and it was legit. “Someone stopped here. If it was them, they left not long ago.”
Creed listened again. Whoever Talbot was, he was extremely well-informed.
“Some friend-of-a-friend’s cabin, or one of Fritz’s safehouses? I know which one I’d go to.”
Tally pulled her phone away from her ear and went back to typing on it.
“Do I have your attention again, Tally?” Jax asked, visibly annoyed. He’d been staring at her for the last 5 minutes while she seemed to take a phone call, but no sounds came out of her mouth when she talked, and he couldn’t hear who was on the other side of the conversation.
“You have more than you deserve.”
“Why do you have to be so dramatic?”
“Baby, I was born this way.”
“Okay, well,” Jax gestured in the direction of the airport towards which they were rapidly descending. “We’re going to set up portable generators and cell towers…”
Tally didn’t exactly multitask so much as she flitted around doing several things in rapid succession. While she remained physically present, or at least as physical as she ever was, as soon as Jax started droning on, she zipped around the internet to her other personas. Taliesin Byrne from Cork was editing together a short video where he visited an Irish castle. Tari Fukui was shooting a TikTok in a Kyushu yatai, munching on oden and getting drunk on Suntory Premium with a group of total strangers.
But her attention kept coming back to Digi Tally, the girl from Louisiana (south of the I-10, naturally) who was living the Cali lifestyle while still managing to appear down to earth, even as her adoring fans watched her fly into Nashville’s other airport on a freaking Concorde. All the networks were abuzz with how she’d talked some lame old tech bro into helping the best city in Tennessee (suck it Memphis) get back on its feet after a natural disaster. Most importantly of all, hundreds of her fans were streaming the landing from their phones, which let her project a holographic pink sheen on the plane so it didn’t seem like the dull gray it actually was.
“...so that’s why we need the media to cover everything here, because it’s not worth doing anything if we can’t be seen doing it.”
“Okay, boomer,” Tally replied, still darting in and out of her other personas in the spaces between her words. “Let me start a group chat with Melato-NBC and Fox Snooze and maybe those dinosaurs will wake up from their old people naps before we’re done here.”
“You’re older than I am,” Jax shot back as the plane slammed against the very tip of the runway and the engines started howling as the pilot threw them into full reverse thrust.. “And in charge of PR.”
“That’s public relations, not press relations,” Tally rolled her eyes without looking up from her phone as she apparated behind the attendant as she unsealed the cabin door and pulled it open to reveal hundreds of screaming fans and flashing lights on the runway. “You’re welcome in advance for giving you something better than you asked for.”
Tally stepped into the lights, which fully resolved her holographic body into ultra high-definition. “Social media is better than old media.”
Rolling up to a cabin at the end of a dirt road with a couple of cars out front, Creed pressed the clutch with his boot, cut the ignition, and reached down to shift into first just as the front wheel hit a particularly big rock and his stallion bucked him clean over his handlebars. Creed hit the ground hard and tumbled forward, losing his hat somewhere along the way, finally ending up on his ass in a cloud of debris. If anyone was inside, they weren’t in a hurry to announce themselves while he stood up, grabbed his hat, whacked it against his leg a few times, then put it on.
A cursory inspection around the perimeter revealed that it was a simple log cabin that was starting to fall into disrepair. Any view inside through the small windows was obscured by thick curtains that almost looked like repurposed wool blankets that had seen better days. The curtains only left enough of a gap to see that there was flickering light inside. A thick plume of smoke billowed from the chimney, and Creed couldn’t be sure in the moonless darkness, but it almost seemed to have a blue tint to it.
With his right hand hovering over the revolver on his hip, Creed reached out and slowly pushed open the front door.
The cabin was roughly divided into quarters, but only one quarter was sectioned off into a private room whose interior was visible through an open doorway. It appeared to be a cozy bedroom, with blankets and pillows piled high on the approximately queen-sized bed.
Next to the bedroom on the far right side of the cabin was the kitchen quarter. There was a sink with a faucet, but due to the probably lack of plumbing was likely connected to a small water tank under the counter. There was no fridge, but there was a chest-sized cooler that could probably keep cold things cold for a weekend at least, across from which there was an old, but well cared-for gas stove hooked up to a propane canister, suitable for making cold things hot.
To the right just inside the door there was the dining quarter containing a wooden table with barely enough space for each of 4 people to eat sitting in the chairs next to it, provided nobody needed to put their elbows on the table.
Finally, to the left there was a living area with two couches upholstered in some ancient fabric that had little red sports cars embroidered into it. The couches were at right angles to each other, gathered around an old cast-iron wood stove next to a ceiling-high pile of split logs.
“I could get used to a place like this,” Fritz announced and looked at the others with a joyous expression as he happily puffed sweet-smelling smoke that snaked its way through the air from his freshly-lit pipe. “You should see the places I normally stay.”
It wasn’t a cabin, it was some kind of church, Creed realized only after he opened the door. Inside, there were rows of pews that were simply logs that had been roughly-hewn into the shape of benches. A handful of people were sitting on the benches, some of whom turned to look at him as he entered. There was also a nearly-bald man standing on a raised platform like a preacher at the far-end of the room in brown robes adorned only with a rope tied loosely around his waist. He was speaking, but Creed couldn’t hear the words because there was a line of people, two abreast, shuffling slowly down the center aisle of the room towards where the preacher was. They were chanting as they walked forward, but they were wholly without rhythm or tone. Creed couldn’t see what they were doing, but whatever it was, they finished quickly and then took seats on the benches.
A young girl of likely no more than 12 years continued to stare at him. She was wearing hand-made clothes sewn together from simple patterned cloth and must have been one of the first to do whatever they did, since she had sat down before he arrived. Suddenly, she stood and walked over to stand just inside the doorway before curtsying.
“Won’t you come in and join our communion, mister?”
“Not sure I was invited,” Creed replied hesitantly.
“Everyone is, mister,” she said and took his hand. She weighed nothing and he could have easily pulled away, but he allowed himself to be pulled to the back of the line. “Everyone is welcome here as long as you make the sacrifice your first time.”
“Sacrifice?”
“Weren’t hard for me and mine,” she beamed. “Never had much to begin with, on account o’ being destitute. Pa says that sacrifice must be commensurate with what you’ve got. I reckon you’ll have to sacrifice a lot, mister.”
“Is that your pa?” Creed gestured to the preacher.
“He’s everyone’s pa,” she nodded. “Everyone here at least. He’s your pa now too.”
“Do you worship him?”
“No, silly,” she giggled. “He just tells us what we oughta worship.”
“That being…?”
“Simple stuff,” she seemed to think about the question. “Growing food, hunting, bringing in buckets of water, telling stories around the fire.”
“Sounds nice,” Creed admitted.
“It is,” she beamed. “It’s almost your turn. What’s your name mister?”
“Creed.”
“That’s an old name,” she giggled again. “I’m Elba.”
“Nice to meet you, Elba.”
Nobody spoke for a moment and Creed tried to peer through the chanting crowd ahead of him to see what kind of sacrifice he’d have to make.
“I wanted to know your name on account of I won’t see you again if you can’t make your sacrifice.”
“What happens to those people?”
“I dunno,” she said blankly. “But I never see them again. I’m going to sit down now. Good luck!”
Elba slipped away and went back to sit with a small group of similarly-clothed people Creed assumed were her family. They looked at him and smiled slightly, bowing their heads in unison.
Creed looked away and only then started to regret the decision he’d made. This wasn’t a safehouse. It was some kind of cult.
Suddenly, the phone in his pocket buzzed. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he flipped it open and pressed it to his ear.
“Don’t speak,” it was Talbot’s voice. “They’ll make you destroy this phone if they realize you have it. The man in front of you has a phone in the left front pocket of his pants. Take it from him.”
Creed looked at the man, who was wearing brown cotton overalls and what might have once been a white shirt that had stained yellow over time with sweat.
“I can’t help but think I’ll be putting him in danger.”
“Be quiet, they’ll hear you,” Talbot replied before continuing. “You don’t know what will happen, she just said that she doesn’t see them again.”
“You were listening?”
The man ahead of him turned and Creed quickly palmed the phone and started tunelessly chanting the first things that came to mind, which were the names of the Cowboys’ offensive line. The man ahead of him gave him a slow nod before turning back around.
“You’ll find that I’m always listening,” Talbot explained. “And watching. The leader isn’t armed, but the two men closest to him have pistols under their left arms.”
“I know,” Creed whispered as angrily as he could without being too loud. “Who cares about phones?”
“These people do, I can assure you,” Talbot said. “They’re Fritz’s people. Time’s running out.”
Creed heard the line go dead and he snapped the phone shut and stuffed it down his pants. He could see the front now, between the shoulders of the men in front of him. There was a fire pit full of white-hot coals into which people were throwing phones and laptops and smart watches and other electronics. As they burned, they emitted a dark blue smoke that was caught in a giant fume hood and being funneled up into the chimney he’d seen from outside.
“Forgive me father, for I am about to sin,” Creed muttered and darted his hand into the man’s pocket and pulled out his phone just before the man reached to get it. Feeling his empty pocket, the man hesitated and Creed stepped forward to throw the phone into the pit and give the preacher a nod before going to sit down at the first open seat on a bench.
This left only the man in the overalls standing at the front of the room, patting himself down with a look of increasing panic.
“Brother Michael, have you forgotten your sacrifice?” The preacher spoke, his words cutting through the murmur and causing it to die down. Suddenly, the room was silent and all eyes were on Brother Michael.
“I don’t understand, Father,” Michael pleaded. “I just had it. I swear I had it. It was a good phone. A smart phone. I took it off a suit when he weren’t looking.”
“Sister Margaret, I’m afraid that will be all for our young ones today,” the preacher said as he gave the woman nearest to Elba a nod. Margaret stood and gathered up all the children and led them out a side door. The church was silent until they were gone, except for Michael trying desperately to find a friendly face in the crowd.
“We gather here each night to commune with our lord through the holy blue smoke trapped within all sinful technology,” the preacher explained as several men stood and started slowly padding towards Michael. “But communion requires sacrifice. You know this. We all know this. Even our newest brother knows this.”
Creed felt his stomach lurch as the preacher gestured at him. He really didn’t like where this was going.
“But you also know that there are other ways to offer a sacrifice,” the men lunged forward and lifted Michael by his arms and legs and carried him towards the fire pit. He was screaming now. “We all thank you for your holiest of sacrifices. You shall be the first among us to stand with Him in His field.”
“Stop,” Creed yelled and there was something in his voice that made them. He stood and stepped out into the aisle and started walking towards the front. “Put him down.”
“That’s what they intend to do,” the preacher said and gave them a nod. But the men hesitated, caught between the dueling authorities of the preacher and this unknown man.
“Put him down outside the fire pit,” Creed elaborated. “He and I will leave and we’ll never darken your door again.”
Creed was calmer now. While it had been the first time he’d joined a cult, stolen someone’s phone, and condemned an innocent to death in the pursuit of justice, Creed had been to more than his fair share of showdowns. He walked with an unusual asymmetry as he kept his right hand close to his pistol. His whole right side was stiff and coiled, ready to strike. His left side had to make up for it by being more loose and flexible, ready to steady himself against a bench or fend off someone lunging at him.
Still, the men hesitated. Michael squirmed in their grasp, his face close enough to the fire pit to feel the heat washing over his skin. But they held firm and looked back at the cowboy, studying him as he stepped closer, before turning to the preacher, whose eyes were fixed on the man interrupting their holy communion. When the men looked at the preacher’s enforcers, the tension in the air snapped.
The enforcers jumped to their feet and threw open their jackets, reaching in to grab at the guns in their underarm holders. But where they had to throw their hand inwards, then pull out to shoot, Creed’s hand swung forward like a clock’s pendulum and in one smooth motion, grabbed his revolver, lifted it free, leveled it, and pulled the trigger to fire from his hip. The first enforcer went down before he could draw, but the second had precious moments as Creed’s left hand snapped down to pull back the hammer so he could fire the old single-action again. The second enforcer had his gun fully out and swung it in a narrow arc, squeezing on the trigger before he’d even finished aiming.
After the second shot rang out, a fistful of seconds passed in agonizing silence during which nobody was sure who’d fired, before the second enforcer slumped over. Lowering his gun, Creed kept his eyes on the preacher for a moment longer before turning his gaze to the men, who dropped Michael safely just this side of the fire pit. He scrambled up and back until he was cowering behind Creed.
Everyone was on their feet now, eyes on Creed as he backed up towards the door. That’s when he started to second guess himself. Did anyone else have a gun and was just waiting for him to turn his back? Were there more crazy folk out in the woods who’d heard the shots and were closing in on him? Hell, maybe even Sister Margaret and the kids were racing back to take a last stand against him. After all, who knows what they taught those kids.
“Michael and I would like to thank y’all for your hospitality,” Creed said as they stepped over the threshold and into the cool night air. “We’ll be going now.”
Creed felt the back of his rattlesnake boot touch the front wheel of his bike and he stopped. “Michael, be a dear and stand up my bike. It gave me a hell of a buck on the way in, but I expect it’s no worse for wear than I am.”
Behind him, the comparatively large man struggled but ultimately succeeded in standing up the bike. The light from inside the church flowed out onto both of them and the bike, and Creed could still see dozens of eyes inside staring at him, and who knows how many more from the darkness. With his left hand, he grabbed the handlebars.
“Get on the back,” Creed said and waited impatiently for the big man to figure out how to mount a motorcycle. Once done, he threw his own leg over the gas can and pressed down the clutch.
“As long as you stick to sacrificing home electronics, you won’t have to worry about seeing me again,” he said before kickstarting his stallion to life. He held down the front brake with his gun hand and shifted into second, dropping the clutch and letting it kick up a cloud of dirt as he spun around and hightailed it with Michael holding on for dear life.
The telltale whip crack of bullets flying past his ears were the only goodbye the cultists sent their way, though Creed couldn’t shake the feeling that they held more of a “see you soon” kind of message as he plotted the route to the cabin that special agent D.G. Talbot had told him about.
“You jeopardized everything for the sake of some yokel. I’m beginning to worry you weren’t the right man for this assignment,” Talbot’s deep voice grumbled over the poor connection to Creed’s cheap flip phone. Creed stood by the side of his bike bathed in the floodlights of the 24/7 gas station, one hand on the gas nozzle filling up, the other holding a book of maps of Tennessee, his fingers propping it open to the location of Vera’s friend’s cabin, which seemed to be in the middle of a forest with no connecting roads. He held the phone to his ear with one shoulder. “We need someone committed enough to see this through to the end.”
“Can’t let an innocent man die,” Creed growled back as he tried to decide the best approach to the cabin if it meant going off road.
“The power outage knocked out all the hospitals in the city and their backup generators; hundreds have died already,” Talbot shot back.
“Feel free to come down and lend a hand.”
“That’s literally impossible,” Talbot groaned.
“Then get off my ass,” Creed mumbled, his words slurred as he focused on pathfinding. “Or take me off the case.”
“You can stay on it for now,” Talbot relented. “If Fritz were there, he would have been leading the ceremonies. And you wouldn’t have left alive.”
“So you knew from the moment I stepped inside,” Creed groaned.
“We had to be sure,” Tally said, sitting in the back of the ugly black SUV watching through the tinted windows as Jax stood outside shaking hands with the Mayor and Police Commissioner before stepping inside to join her and Avery. The outrageously heavy beast of an armored vehicle carried an engine with enough horsepower to tow a tank, all of which it used as it roared to life and pulled away along with an identical vehicle ahead and behind. A squadron of police motorbikes fell into formation ahead and behind with their lights flashing to part the seas of traffic.
“You on the phone with Creed?” Jax asked. “Congratulate him on clearing Fritz’s safehouse. Now we can go clean it up without Fritz getting in the way.”
Tally hung up her phone, shot Jax a look he couldn’t interpret, and then resumed her texting.
“First, I want to send him a message,” Jax said. “Who was it who ran ops on the last job Fritz pulled here?”
Before he was done speaking, a hologram shot from Jax’s glasses and filled the space between them and Avery with a man’s face slowly rotating.
“The Regent of Tennessee,” Tally explained, then switched the image to a diagram of interconnected sewer, stormwater, and steam tunnels at the center of which was a huge underground chamber. “Rules from beneath the streets. Splits his time between Nashville and Memphis.”
“He looks like a hobo and I bet he smells like one,” Jax said, turning up his nose. “How does he get messages between Jax and his contacts?”
“We think he uses physical notes and a network of street people and animals.”
“Ugh,” Jax groaned and then started waving his hand around his glasses frantically. Whenever his fingers passed in front of the holographic projector, both the diagram and Tally briefly disappeared. “Send the details to the brass while I get him on a Zoom call.”
“Don’t even try. You’re an idiot,” Tally said as she rolled her eyes and then an image of someone in uniform replaced the diagram.
“Yes?” They asked. Their voice was obscured, which also prevented their face from resolving even with Jax working his tech magic. Four stars jingled on their epaulets as they spoke.
“We need an attack plan on this location. Three SUVs and two squads. Minimal casualties.”
“Done,” the voice replied. The figure moved their hands and Tally projected the diagram again, now showing a route through the tunnels into the central chamber and then out by a different route. “But I recommend you let me send in some bots. One should be enough, two would be plenty.”
“No,” Jax shook his head. “I want them to see me do it.”
“Did you get the names I sent you?” Creed asked into the phone which he’d tucked into the brim of his hat to hold it as he raced up a series of mountain switchbacks.
“Wasn’t meant to be funny. Obviously he’s not that old. No, I haven’t seen a picture, but that would be some kind of record. Maybe it’s some kind of title that gets passed down. What about the other names? Vera? Military? Secret service? Uh-huh. Lexi? Gotcha. Thanks, hoss.”
Creed rolled to a stop at the apex of a hairpin and pulled the phone out of his hat. With a few grunts of confusion, he switched on a small flashlight and pulled the book of maps out of his saddlebags.
“Was I supposed to turn off back there?”
“We’re not going in there,” the captain of the escort radioed in.
“No problem, my assistant will let you know where to meet us when we come out.”
“I’m NOT your assistant,” Tally snapped.
“IF you come out,” the captain replied.
“We’ll be fine,” Jax replied just as they turned the convoy down a maintenance road and the escort peeled off. The lead SUV switched on a set of offroading LED strips that lit up the culvert entrance like daylight. There were a few groups of raggedy-looking street people who looked up as the vehicles charged and they reacted fast, drawing guns and opening fire on the convoy. But the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the heavy armor and the cars shot into the tunnel without any issues.
All but one of them converged at the entrance of the tunnel to keep firing on their rear. But one person dropped their gun and started pulling on a cable that ran along the side of the tunnel. Jax watched the cable go taut and slack and ahead of them some great bell started to ring.
Pockets of resistance alternated opening fire on the convoy and putting up barricades, but neither was any more effective than the exterior guards and before long they emerged into a cathedral-like chamber in which thousands of gas torches burned from alcoves all the way up the walls and even up the vaulted ceiling. A series of grates were barely visible far above, and Jax wondered if they normally would have let street lights cast orange rays into the empty space around them, if it weren’t for the ongoing blackout.
At the center of the room there was a throne that sat atop a mountain of chrome-plated junk that glittered in the torchlight. On the throne sat a man wearing a shiny suit covered in sequins and a pair of oversized sunglasses. His black hair was slicked back with grease.
More flashes of gunfire erupted all around them, along with some rocket-propelled grenades blasting the ground nearby, but nothing even so much as slowed them down. The convoy pulled up in front of the junk pile and under heavy fire, the SUV’s roofs opened up and out flew 3 squadrons of drones. As soon as they were airborne, they lit up the air with laser fire. Their networked sensors plotted the trajectory of every bullet along with an intercept solution fast enough to incinerate the bullets before they made it much farther than the barrels they were fired from.
Jax stepped out into the ozone, lead, and gunpowder-filled air and visibly enjoyed himself as he stood in the thunderous din, before the Regent on the throne raised an arm and the gunfire abruptly finished, leaving only the buzzing sound of the drones hovering and waiting for the firefight to resume.
“Who are you?” The Regent said in a molasses-thick drawl.
“I’m Jax Nova, CEO of Novatech,” he replied smugly. “How do you like my drones? This is defense mode. Kinda like the Iron Dome. Ever seen videos of that? Great stuff. Offense mode would wipe out all your people in a few seconds, so let’s maybe hold off on that for now.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to come with me, see some things, and then I’ll bring you back here and you can tell Fritz about it.”
“I haven’t spoken to Fritz in years.”
“Wonderful! I love being a facilitator to rekindle old connections.”
“If I refuse?”
“My drones will kill everyone in this room except you, and I’ll take you anyway.”
“If I refuse to tell Fritz?”
“You’ll want to, for his sake.”
“Fine.”
The old man in the outrageous costume stood up and climbed down as hundreds of eyes watched from the shadows as their leader surrendered, taken from the middle of their stronghold by someone they hadn’t heard of, for the sake of someone only some of them half-remembered before today. But as the cars rolled away as abruptly as they’d arrived, nobody would forget those names again.
“How's our bloodhound doing?” Jax asked as the Regent sat down across from him, next to Tally.
“He’ll be arriving at their cabin any minute now,” Tally bluffed as she looked in her mind’s eye at the scribble of lines that showed Creed’s desperate attempts to find any road leading even remotely in the right direction. “Do we need another attack plan for Ftiz’s safehouse?”
“Nah, let the goons handle it,” Jax shrugged. “That’s what they’re for.”
Creed frowned as he held his finger down on where he thought he was on the map, but then looked up to see the road disappear down an old abandoned mine shaft.
“This can’t be right,” he groaned before turning the bike around and thundering back up the road he’d just come down.
“Love your last single,” Tally mentioned without looking up from her phone. Outside, a team of goons dressed in SWAT gear erupted from the cars ahead and behind them while the police willfully looked the other way down at the end of the road that led up to Fritz’s church.
The Regent turned to look at the holographic young woman sitting next to him and blinked. A hail storm of bullets plinked against the window when the goons breached the church.
“Thanks,” he replied, clearly confused. “Digi Tally?”
“That’s me,” she beamed holographically. Outside a small explosion went off, probably a grenade. The shockwave shook the car gently.
“Then I loved yours too,” the Regent admitted. “Though it was a bit suggestive for my taste.”
“Being suggestive was the point,” Tally laughed. The fight outside died down and one of the goons came to knock on the window.
“Show time,” Jax said with a smile as he opened the door and stepped out into the cool night air. The Regent reluctantly followed and was greeted by the sight of Jax walking, an old man in simple robes kneeling, and a squad of mercenaries standing at the ready, all silhouetted by the wood cabin behind them quickly going up in flames.
“Regent, please meet Fritz’s local cult leader.”
The old man in the robes rocked back and forth on his knees, chanting some kind of mantra repeatedly.
“Padre, please confirm your identity for the benefit of the Regent, who’ll be relaying all this to Fritz.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, Jax,” the padre said. “You know Fritz will hit you back where it hurts and if you catch him, he’ll just jump to another body before you can lock him up.”
Jax sighed as he slipped a ring onto the thumb and index finger of his right hand. “I won’t ask again, Padre.”
“Yes, I’m the leader of Fritz’s church.”
“One of Fritz’s churches,” Jax sighed. “If only you were the only one, that would make things easier. But your kind tend to pop up like cockroaches. Say goodbye, Padre.”
Jax placed his ringed fingers on the old man’s temples. Electricity arced, lighting up the darkness, and the old man screamed momentarily before collapsing to the ground.
“We’re done here,” Jax told the goons, who quickly loaded themselves back onto the lead and tail cars in the convoy. “Regent, send a rat or whatever. Let Fritz know that as long as he’s with the people he’s with, we’ll wipe out anyone who helps him. Anyone who has ever helped him.”
Jax and the Regent got back into the middle car and the convoy took off again.
“Hell, we could probably even predict who would help Fritz with some accuracy.” Jax gave Tally a glance, but she didn’t look up from her phone. “But if he just gives them up, he and his ilk are free to go.”
“Do you really think he’ll take you up on that offer?”
“It’s Fritz,” Jax shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Why’s she glowing?” Fritz asked, his pipe bouncing precariously between his teeth as he carefully reached into the car and slipped his arms underneath the unconscious woman therein, trying not to touch the car as much as possible. When his hands touched her body, she glow brightened briefly. Fritz’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. I see.”
A lifetime spent without even the smallest technological comfort had left Fritz’s host with more than enough strength to lift the woman without any obvious effort. Though he wasn’t exactly an adonis, as a predilection for consuming earthly delights left him with a healthy layer of fat around his hardened muscles, providing a soft cushion for Lexi’s sleeping form as he carried her up into the cabin and set her down gently onto the bed.
Fritz spent a few minutes checking under everything until he was sure there were no hidden trap doors into a cellar, before he exited the cabin and inspected the exterior. He stopped for a moment, puffed on his pipe, sipped at a mason jar of moonshine – newly acquired from his trunk – and tried to see whatever Brennan was yelling at before giving up and resuming his sweep. Lastly, he trudged out to the big barn that despite being quite old was in remarkably good shape.
Pulling the door open, he was greeted with utter darkness. “Hmm,” he muttered quietly before drinking all but the last drop of his drink. Carefully upending his pipe to let a single ember fall into his open container of nearly-pure ethanol. It caught quickly and a blue flame lit up the interior of the barn.
“Wow,” he marveled at the collection of car parts, tools, a lift strong enough to hoist a tank, and other toys he so desperately wanted to investigate, but otherwise moved quickly to assure himself that nobody was waiting in the rafters to drop down on them when they’d let their guard down. When he was satisfied, he paused for a moment to consider the contents of the barn.
“There’s no way,” he assured himself. “You’re just being paranoid.”
Then his makeshift lantern went out, so he closed up the barn and walked back to the house.
“If you’re quite finished yelling at the trees, Brennan,” Fritz used his pipe to gesture generally upwards. “I think we’d best have a chat.”
Fritz went inside and pulled some already-quartered logs from the pile and put them into the wood stove. He tore some dry birch bark off in strips and used it for kindling, again using embers from his pipe to light them. When the fire started to catch, he re-packed the bowl of his pipe and used a bit of bark that was only partially aflame to light up again, before sitting down on the far end of the couch with the best view of the front door.
“Hey Headlights, this pertains to you as well. Also your friend Sleeping Beauty, but I have a feeling she’s waiting for true love’s first kiss or somesuch, and I’m not likely to be the one for that.
“I know we’re all feeling a little apprehensive. Some of us because we can’t believe what’s going on,” Fritz gestured to Vera. “Others because we don’t yet understand what’s going on,” he gestured to Brennan. “And as for me, because some very powerful people would like nothing more than to lock me up and destroy the key.
“These powerful people are gods of technology. They…” Fritz paused and looked at Brennan. “Right, I need to remember to give the version of this talk with a minimum of technological details or recent references.”
Fritz took a moment to collect his thoughts, puffing quietly on his pipe and looking into his empty, slightly-charred mason jar longing between glances to the wood stove, inside of which the fire was starting to crackle.
“Their domains are anything with wheels, or communication via the written word, or weapons; surely those are concepts over which you have some grasp. The reason they’re after me is because I’m one of them, but my purpose is to remind people of the flaws and shortcomings of technology. In short, I am the god of technological mishaps and malfunctions. Which makes them scared of me, because that which gives them their power is powerless in my presence.
“I’m old enough to remember some of the old gods, but I don’t remember much from my infancy, when I was taking delight in making a chisel slip so that 10 goats turned into 10,000. My earliest useful memories were long after the old gods were in decline.”
Fritz pointed the stem of his pipe at Brennan. “I don’t know for sure, but everything you’ve said has led me to believe you’re one of the old Greeks. That was about 2500 years ago, when I would’ve been breaking compasses and making ships sink. Things have come a long way since then, which is what led to the decline of your people and the rise of mine.
“I wouldn’t normally tell anyone this, but when I picked up Sleeping Beauty, I could tell she was a god. No idea of what, but I’m guessing she’s old, like Brennan here. That being the case, the gods of technology will see you as a threat and come to lock you up. They can’t kill you. Not really. You’ll just jump to another suitable host, as long as there is someone. But they can imprison you and you could live forever in their care, far away from where you’ll have any influence, until you’re forgotten. Or you give up.
“So the time for apprehension has passed. We’re all in the same boat. It would behoove you to open up so we can work together. Especially you,” Fritz pointed his pipe at Vera. “We don’t even know your name, and you don’t seem to have any issues with modernity, so I’m not sure how you ended up involved in all of this.”
