Touch the World

Part One: Shots Fired!

Cover: Jason standing in a bank lobby, both guns drawn...surrounded by dead cops. Jason smiles as tendrils of smoke curl up from the barrels of his guns.

  cage.

That's what it was.

Dobbs paced back and forth in front of the bars, walking with the determined conviction of a woman who had somewhere to be.   She DID have somewhere to be:   Out of this cage.   Dobbs mostly kept her head down, watching the floor disappear beneath her shoes.   Occasionally... rarely... she flashed a hateful, longing glare out at the empty hallway.   She should be out there.   On the other side of those bars.

She was a COP, dammit.

Yet here she was, locked up like a criminal.    They'd taken her badge.   Taken her gun... and her spare gun.  And her OTHER spare gun.    They'd even taken the little knife that was hidden in her belt-buckle... the one her father had given her.

Wouldn't HE be proud now.

Was he looking down on her when they'd strip-searched her and lead her in handcuffs to the holding cell?    Was he listening when the other prisoners cheered her arrival, as if they'd been expecting her all along... as if it were only a matter of time before she joined them down here in their cages?

Yes, he was watching.   He was listening.

He was judging.

She could almost hear him.   His voice was in her head... but it sounded more like her own voice than his.  She mimicked the words she knew he would say:

How could she be so stupid?

She saw the gun... she SAW IT!   But it wasn't there.    What did that mean... that she was hallucinating?   Did she see the nosey private detective's face and WANT to shoot him so badly that she lied to herself... told HERSELF that there was a gun even when she knew deep down that there was no such weapon?

But she saw it.

Yes... but where was it NOW?    Guns don't just disappear... they GO somewhere.

Maybe one of the people in that lobby snatched it when no one was looking.   But the officers had sealed the building.   They'd questioned everybody.   They would have found the gun if it was there.

Unless they didn't REALLY look for it.    Unless one of those idiot security guards had a grudge against the black female detective...

No.   No, she wasn't going to play that card.

But what if it were true?   If she were free... Out of Here... she could launch her own investigation.  THEN she would find-

Find what?   A conspiracy?

Or her own guilt?

Dobbs sighed... and realized she'd stopped walking and was now leaning against the rear wall.   She looked up when the door opened at the end of the hall.   She couldn't see who it was yet... but she heard them walk past the other cells in a slow, somber pace.   It was too slow to be the captain's footsteps.   To quick and light to be Royce's.

Who-

"Umm..."   said officer Davidson as he appeared before Dobbs' cell.   He was traffic cop who'd been bucking for detective since before Dobbs arrived.   The man was in his mid-thirties... but he still had a young boy's face, which had earned him the annoying and totally unoriginal nickname of "The Kid."

"...uhhh,"  The Kid stammered reluctantly.   He had that look on his face.   That look that all the OTHER cops had had when THEY had come to see her:   A mixture of curiosity and pity... with just a tiny dash of 'My God, Look What Happened to Dobbs... I Always Knew She Would Snap One Day.'

"Skip it, Davidson,"  said Marilyn.   "You wanna gawk... well, you've seen me.  Now go away."

"Dobbs, I'm-"

"Sorry?"   Marilyn snapped.  "Yeah, you and every other cop that's come down here."

"Well, yeah,"  said the Kid.  "I AM sorry... but not for the reason you think."

"Huh?"   A twinge of curiosity broke through Marilyn's armored veneer.

"It's ummm...  It- It happened earlier... I figured nobody had told you... but... uhh... I guess they didn't."

"WHAT happened, Davidson?"

"It's...uhh... It's Royce."

"What about him?"

"He's dead."

"WHAT!?!"   Marilyn tried to roll with the mental gut-punch, but the hit was too hard.   She stormed up to the bars and wrapped her fists around the metal.    Officer Davidson backed away as if he expected her to snatch the door off its hinges and bludgeon him to death with it.    "WHAAAT?!"

"I don't know the details.   I heard Truett calling in for backup on the radio, but he cut out before he gave a location.   Royce hadn't left a destination on the dispatch, so we didn't know where the hell they were.    Then, a few minutes later, Truett came back in and said Royce was down."

"Where?"

"Palisades."

"WHO?!"

Davidson shook his head.

"You don't KNOW!?  WHO'S handling the investigation!?"

"Everybody,"  said The Kid.   "We're out looking... trying to find the body-"

"There's no BODY!!?"    Dobbs felt twin jabs of relief and outrage.   No body meant he could still be alive.    It also meant he could be WORSE than dead.... especially given the kind of scum that hung out at Palisade Apartments.    Scum that neither loved NOR feared cops.   "How's Truett?"

"Bump on the head.   I think."

Dobbs gave Davidson her longest, hardest stare.    The Kid backed away even more than when she'd grabbed the bars.

"You get the Captain down here,"  she said through clenched teeth.  "You get him down here NOW."

"I, uhh-"

"GET HIM!!!"

"Yes, ma'am..."   Davidson rushed off.

"Hey, ya hear that!"  someone in one of the other cells shouted.   "One cop in jail... and another one DEAD!   Today's my lucky day after all!!  HA HA!"

Several other voices joined in the laughter.

"Who said that?"  Dobbs said in a calm, even... totally sinister tone.

The laughter stopped.   Instantly.

It stayed quiet for a long, long time.

"t was h-horrible!"   Truett gasped.   The junior detective perched on the edge of his chair like a startled bird just before take-off.   His eyes... tiny and wild... darted from Captain Gavin's face to those of the other detectives in the room.

ALL of them were there.

Every detective on the force.

And they were all hungry.    Starving.   RAVENOUS for the information.   They weren't detectives any more; they were predators... ready to snatch the tiniest crumb of a clue from his lips before he'd even finished pronouncing it.

"Go on,"  said Gavin.

"He came up,..."  Truett began.  "Out... out of the basement.  He was all cut up.   It was bad... his face.   His chest.   Like somebody had taken a chainsaw to him."

"But he was still on his feet,"  one of the detectives asked.

"Barely,"  Truett replied.  "He collapsed in front of me.   I ran back to the car to call for back-up."

"And then what happened?"  said Gavin.  "Why didn't you finish the call?"

"I saw..."  Truett swallowed nervously.   "I saw... him.  Out of the corner of my eye.  He came up-"

"Who?"  said another detective.   Captain Gavin motioned for the man to be quiet and let Truett finish.

"He came up behind me, all bloody with... I guess it was Royce's blood.   I don't know.    When I tried to turn... he was too close.   By the time I realized he was there,  he hit me.   Back of the head... I went down.   When I woke up, he was gone.   I called in for backup and went to check on Royce.   He wasn't there."

"Who hit you,"  said yet another detective.   This time, Gavin let the question stand.   "Who attacked you, Truett?"

"I recognized him.  Just from the glance, I knew who it was right off."

"Who?"  said Gavin.

A half-dozen note-pads, tape recorders,  and video cameras recorded the next to words out of Detective Truett's mouth:

"Jason Brooks."

"ever, ever... EVER... underestimate the healing powers of a good, hot shower,"  said Ashley.    She stepped out of the shadow of the hotel balcony and basked in the sun's rays.    The daylight felt good against her freshly-cleaned skin.  And freshly-cleaned skin felt good... period.   She'd spend the past half-hour removing the blood, mud, sweat, and miscellaneous gore from her body in a cleansing ritual that would have put ancient cultists to shame.

"I SERIOUSLY doubt that there's a drop of hot water left in this hotel,"  she added.  She was talking to Sebastian, who was leaning against the black Corvette that had brought them here.   He was, as usual, ignoring her.    Sebastian had a pen and a notepad, and was scribbling methodically on the lined yellow paper.

She watched him write.   She watched the muscles in his arms shift as he steadied the notepad.   She watched his black T-Shirt hug the curves of his slim, but well-developed chest.   Watching turned to staring...

Sebastian looked up.

"What?"  he said suddenly.

Busted.

"Oh!  Uhhh... what are you doing?"

"Making a list,"  he said quickly as he returned to his task.

"Of?"

"Things we need.   I lost a lot of equipment in my car.  I need to replace it as soon as possible."

"The equipment or the car?"

"Both.   I'm going to get this windshield fixed, too."

The Corvette's windshield was shattered.   The bulletproof glass was apparently no match for Sebastian's sword.

"I see,"  said Ashley.

Ashley stood poised on the edge of the cavernous silence that followed.... teetering between saying something and waiting to see if Sebastian was going to speak.   He didn't.    He probably didn't even notice she wasn't talking.

But he HAD noticed that she was watching him.

"Soooooo...."  Ashley said finally.   She leaned against the metal pole supporting the balcony above and folded her arms over her chest.   Then she looked down and realized she was hiding her breasts... so she shoved her hands behind her back instead.    "...what's it like?"

"What's what like?"  Sebastian replied without looking up from his notes.

"You know... the 'half a soul' thing.   What's that about?"

"I told you I don't want to talk about that."   Sebastian's pen never stopped moving.

"Well you're not talking about anything ELSE, so... might as well talk about that."

Sebastian didn't answer for almost a minute.    But he didn't write anything for almost a minute either.   He just stood there, looking down at his notepad.   Finally,  he looked up.

"Can you write?"  he said.

"What... you want me to take notes for you?"

"No.   Can you... write.    Or draw?   Or sing?"

"Uhhh... yeah I guess.  I used to sing when I was little.   Why?"

"What is it that you do well... that you LIKE to do?"

"You mean other than the obvious?"  Ashley tapped herself on the forehead.  "Not a whole lot, actually."

"But you can create,"  said Sebastian.   "Everyone can.    Pictures.   Stories.   Music.  Something.  You can create things that didn't exist before."

"Yeah, I guess.   What does that-"

"I can't,"  said Sebastian.  "I can't create anything.   I can only destroy."

"That's not true!   So what... you have no imagination!?"

"What I have, is an empty space where part of my soul should be."

"So what happens if you try?   What would happen if you tried to draw my picture?"

"Drawing from memory isn't creating."

"Write a story then.   What would happen if you took that notepad and tried to write something original?   A story.  A song."

"Nothing,"  said Sebastian.

"But what's it LIKE?"

"It's like writing a novel with half the letters of the alphabet missing."

"See!  You created that!   That metaphor you just used-"

"Donovan said it.   I just repeated it."

"Oh."

Ashley couldn't conceive of what Sebastian was trying to say.   She could UNDERSTAND it... but she couldn't conceive of it... she couldn't imagine what it would be like for HER.    It made her heart hurt when she tried.

She did notice that this was the most he'd spoken to her since they'd met.   But then had to go and ruin it:

"I've wasted enough time,"  said Sebastian.    He unlocked the Corvette with the key that he must have stolen from Jason, then slid into the driver's seat.

"You need any... help, or-"

"No."

Sebastian slammed the door and started the car.   He was about to pull off, when he turned to Ashley.

"Why did you ask?"   he said.

"About helping-"

"No.  About me."

"Well... I... just wanted to-"

"I trust your curiosity is satisfied now, and you won't bring it up again."

Sebastian drove off before the words were fully out of his mouth, leaving Ashley standing in the dust with her mouth open.

"...get to know you better.  Jerk."

is flesh was torn.

Torn, ripped, and even shredded in a few places.

It didn't hurt like Hell... but it ran a pretty damn close second.

Of course, it didn't have to hurt at all.   The pain was just Their way of keeping his attention.   And perhaps a bit of punishment as well.    They had loosened him... a process akin to loosening all the bolts in a complex piece of machinery... just enough to wiggle all of the pieces back into place before tightening him back up again.   But instead of bolts and screws, there were spells and incantations that held him together like stitches.   Stitches that could be tightened and loosened at will.  Not HIS will.  Their will.  The fact that all of this made him completely helpless was just an added perk, apparently...

...not that They had anything to fear from him.   They never had anything to fear.  Not from him.   He was theirs, after all.   Their plaything.  Their creation.   Their toy.

So why weren't They FIXING him already!?!    Why were They just letting him FLOAT here!?

James Royce stared up into the outer darkness and waited.   He wasn't quite ready to scream, but he wished he could at least grunt or wince occasionally.   Or blink.   A blink would be nice right about now.

A Shadow passed over him, and he knew that he wasn't alone.  They were here.

The Shadow:   A deeper darkness swimming about in the emptiness surrounding him.

The Shape:   A vague outline of something that could not possibly exist in normal, 3-dimensional space.   But then, the dimensions of Hell numbered many more than three.

They were his Keepers...his Handlers.    They were the ones who pulled the strings.

<<Finally>> he thought.   <<Maybe we can get some action here...>>

"How came you to this condition?"  the Shadow asked.

Royce felt a painful tightening in the tissues of his mouth, throat, and tongue.  He could talk.

"Braxis,"  he answered.  "He's got-"

"This would be the one you were to expel-"

"-Exterminate,"  the Shape finished.

"Same guy,"  said Royce.

"So your condition is a result-"

"-of your earlier failure-"

"to carry out Our orders,"  the Shadow finished.

"I did what you said,"  Royce replied.  "I gave him his one shot.   He failed-"

"Then YOU failed to ensure his-"

"-Departure."

"So now he has returned-"

"And injured you."

"Yeah,"  said Royce.  "But you put me back together and I'll make sure-"

"There will be no reconstruction,"  said the Shape.

Royce lay there... floating in the darkness... trying to figure out if the Shape was saying what Royce THOUGHT it was saying.   No reconstruction?   But that would mean-

"You will be Unmade,"  said the Shadow.

"Unmade!?   What-WHY!?"

The Shadow fluttered angrily.

"You are a tool whose usefulness has expired," it said.

"Now hold ON a minute!"  Royce said quickly... before they disconnected his mouth.  "You made me to keep an eye on Dobbs!  I've been doing that!   All this EXTRA stuff you wanted-"

"That function is no longer required,"  said the Shape.  "The woman-"

"-Dobbs-"

"-Is moving out of her sphere.    Recent events-"

"Have minimized her influence.   Her importance is now negligible-"

"-she is no longer a variable that needs watching."

"Therefore, your usefulness has expired."

"Oh come ON!  A murder rap!?   We all know she didn't do that!   She's going to beat that case-"

"She will not,"  said the Shape.

"Of COURSE she is... oh."

Royce understood.   The Keepers weren't PREDICTING the outcome of the case... they were DICTATING it.   Dobbs was done as far as they were concerned.   She was a non-issue.     And so was he.

Unless he found another way to make himself useful... and FAST.

"What about Brooks?"  he said.  "I can help you get him.  I've got resources.  The cops-"

"Brooks will be handled, in time,-"

"-by someone who is more capable-"

"-worthy-"

"-reliable-"

"-than you."

"Who?"  said Royce.

"That is not your concern,"  said the Shape.

"You HAVE no concerns,"  added the Shadow.   "For you are now Unmade..."

Royce felt himself being pulled apart.   Not limb by limb... or one organ at a time...

-no, that would have been a picnic compared to being UNRAVELED..    Long strings of nerve endings unspooled into the nothingness like fishing line.   Skin and tissue fell off in wide sheets, starting at his feet and rapidly working upward.

"AAAAEEEIIIIIIIII!!"  Royce screamed as his genitals... with which the Keepers had been unusually generous when they'd made him... flew off into the darkness as unrecognizable flaps of skin.  "BUT WHAT ABOUT-"

Royce stifled another scream as a cluster of nerves in his back got tangled in his vertebra.   The entanglement was brief-  the bones of his back clicked off one at a time and vanished.

"AGH!  What about... What about the ETHEREAL!"

There was a pause.   The pain up until that point had been so great that Royce didn't know it had stopped until several seconds had gone past.

"What-"

"-Ethereal?"   The Keepers asked.

"The one that PUT me here!  The one that got the drop on me!"

Silence.

Royce felt a few tentative tugs at the frayed edges of what remained of his body... but the unraveling held off.

"You didn't know, did you,"  Royce continued.   "You... you had no idea.   I know you didn't, because you would have warned me if you did-"

"There is no Ethereal.   You-"

"-lie-"

"-Are mistaken."

"Am I?"  Royce said quickly, before the unraveling could start again.  "You know everything that goes on in this town.   Whatever YOU don't see... your agents see.   Well why do you even HAVE agents if it wasn't possible... theoretically... for something to slip past you?   I'm telling you, I SAW it!  I looked it right smack DEAD in the face... just before it ripped my chest open like a pumpkin on Halloween."

"You are deceived-"

"-Are deceiving US."

"How could you make something so stupid that it wouldn't know another demon when he's looking right at it!   It's that retarded kid... the one you said was Touched.   His soul went bye-bye, but something ELSE moved in and set up shop inside his skull... Touched and all!   And I know that only an Ethereal or HIGHER could slip past the net you've got drawn over this town.    Only something at LEAST as powerful as you could get in here without you knowing."

"Ethereal-"

"-Or higher..."

The Shadow and the Shape conversed in the hissing, chattering language that was known only to them.

And then Royce convulsed as the pain of the unraveling started again...

...in reverse.

They were Remaking him... putting him back together.

"An Ethereal, in the body of the child who was Touched-"

"-will be powerful.   Perhaps more powerful than-"

"-the Descendant.  Perhaps."

"The WHO!?"  said Royce.   He looked down and saw his legs.    He barely managed to stifle the smile.

"Not your concern,"  said the Shape.

"YOUR concern, is the child.   Find this demon-"

"-we will watch you closely-"

"VERY closely."

"Bring this one to us-"

"The demon-"

"-the child-"

"Both."

"BOTH!?   What... you want me to hit this thing over the head and drag it-"

"Bound in flesh-"

"-it is vulnerable.

"Bring them both-"

"But you SAW what it did last time!   It'll just get more powerful-"

"You are not without your resources.  You have been Remade-"

"-Improved."

"Improved HOW!?"

"Beware the Knight-"

"-and his friends."

"They return-"

"Soon.  Avoid them-"

"-Keep away."

"Wha-"

Suddenly, the darkness around Royce parted like a curtain, sweeping the Shadow and the Shape along with it.  And behind the curtain was...

Somewhere else.

he call came in as 'shots fired' at Trust Union Bank... not at some tiny branch in the middle of nowhere, but at the main office right in the middle of downtown Rock Springs.  Six blocks from the police station.  By the time Walters and Doyle arrived, there were five other cars already in position.

The men were getting suited up.  Body armor.   Assault rifles.   They were going in.

"What's the status?"   Walters huffed to the man in charge.

"Got a man inside.  Single armed male.   Hasn't fired any shots at us, but he hasn't come out, either."

"What kind of ordnance?"

"Handguns."

"Hostages?"

"Everybody came screaming out of there when we arrived.    All employees accounted for... of course, that doesn't mean he's alone in there."

"We goin' in-"

"Damn right.  We're shutting this thing down before the media gets ahold of it.   They'll turn this place into a circus... Rock Springs has had enough of that already.   Get geared-up; we're moving in one minute!"

"Yes sir!"

Walters and Doyle strapped on their vests and helmets.

"How come the guy didn't take any hostages?"  said Doyle as they got ready.

"Maybe because he's a nice guy... Mic check, one, two-"   Walters spoke the last into the microphone built into his helmut.

"Check,"  came Jeffries response in his earpiece.   "You, Doyle and Glass are going with me in through the front door.  Got teams at side and rear entrances.   Move on my mark..."

Walters checked his weapon, then eyed the front door of the bank.   He felt the fear rising...   Anything could happen in there.   One guy?  With a handgun?    Too stupid or crazy to even take hostages?

This was either going to be easy... or a disaster.

"MOVE!"  Jeffries shouted.   Walters could hear him even without the microphone.    Walters and Doyle hesitated for a split second... not out of cowardice, but to allow Jeffries and Glass to take the lead.    They fell in half a step behind as they stormed the front door of the bank.

It was like running a ten-mile marathon.   It seemed to go on forever... as if the bank's door was on the other side of the world.   In reality, they reached the fancy double-doors in two seconds.   Glass and Jeffries went in.    Doyle and Walters held back... but just long enough to make sure there was nobody coming behind them... a stupid civilian or a hidden accomplice of the man inside.   Then, as the other teams radioed their status, Doyle and Walters went in.

The lobby was huge... richly adorned with decorative tile floors and a high, arched ceiling supported with columns.   There was a looong counter to the right, where the tellers would have been.   Two more walls were taken up with glass-walled offices... like fishbowls for people.   Walters took in all of it with a single glance.

He expected the shooter to be hiding behind the counter or holding up in one of the offices, but no... there he was, right there.   In front of the counter, standing next to one of the columns.

Black male.  Six feet tall.   Brown trenchcoat.  Hat.  Sunglasses.   Armed with two of the biggest, ugliest pistols that Walters had ever seen.    Two chrome monsters that looked like cannons.   They were pointed down at the floor... for now.

"FREEZE!"  Jeffries shouted.     The other two teams were streaming in now... four cops entering on either side of the counter.   They aimed their weapons at the shooter.  "DROP THE GUNS!"

"'Bout time you got here,"  said the man.  "I was thinking I was gonna have to wait all day."

"DROP THE WEAPONS AND GET DOWN ON THE GROUND!"  Jeffries voice was a hurricane in Walter's earpiece.

"Better late than never, I guess-"

"DROP THE GUNS OR WE WILL SHOOT!!!"

"-welcome to the party!"

Walters hadn't seen anything like it since... since ever.   The shooter's guns came up faster than Walter's could blink.  The other teams fired, as did Jeffries and Glass, but they missed.

They missed.

The man had been standing still, and everybody and their GRANDMA had a dead-perfect shot.   But he flinched... and they missed.   Bullets zipped past the man as he spun behind the column, where Walters and his team would have no shot.   At the same time, there came a series of roaring, barking explosions-

-gunfire.

Those damned hand-cannons.

BOOM!  BOOM!

Walters saw two men go down, blood splattering out from the holes in their torsos.   Holes!?   This guy had armor-piercing bullets!

BOOM!

Jeffries veered right, and Glass went left.  Across the room, another man was thrown back against the wall by the force of a fatal bullet.    The other teams were pulling back, taking cover behind the counter as they fired continuously

BOOOOOM!

Another man jerked backward... the inside of his cracked helmut painted with blood.    The shooter came around the far side of the column, right into Walter's sights.

The rifle jerked rapidly in Walter's hands as he lay down gunfire while retreating to a corner of the room.    Doyle was doing the same.

The bullets never touched the shooter... he dodged to he side, as if he could SEE each and every bullet coming for him.  He zigzagged across the room, firing in two different directions while moving in a third... and looking in a fourth...

BOO-OOO-OOO-OOO-OOOM!

What sounded like machine-gun fire was actually the individual shots from his pistols.   Five shots, at five different targets.   So fast... NOBODY could shoot that fast, not even the trick shooters on TV.  And every shot was a hit.  Walters heard Jeffries scream, and the stream of gunfire from his left ceased suddenly.

"Jeffries!  GLASS!"

The two supporting squads were now down.  VERY down.    So was Jeffries-

BOOOOOM!

Three shots that sounded like one.   Walter's left knee exploded.   It just... exploded.

His right shoulder shattered as the speeding, armor-piercing projectile tore through him.    He fell.   His training told him to hold onto his gun and keep firing even if he was down... but the PAIN told the training to go to hell.

"AAAAGH!  DOYLE!"

There was on response from Doyle.   Or Glass.  Or any of the other names he called.

They couldn't be.... they COULDN'T be...

One man?!

One man took out TWELVE cops?

...couldn't be...

But when he heard the footsteps... slow and easy... lazy... he knew that there was nobody left but him.    They were gone.  Dead or unconscious.

"...oh, my God..."

And now the guy was coming to finish him off.

Walters grabbed his side-arm:  .45 semiautomatic-

BOOOM!

Walter's wrist joined his knee in oblivion.

He was in too much pain to scream, but his digestive system was about to shift into reverse.   If this guy didn't shoot him, he was going to throw up in his own helmut and drown...

"Hey,"  said a voice.

Walters opened his eyes... eyes he didn't remember closing... and looked up into the face of The Man.  He was standing over Walters with one pistol... a massive chrome .453 Casul revolver... pointed at the center of Walter's torso.

"...who... who are you..."  he said Walters.

"Heh.  When you get to the trauma center... or Hell... and they asked you who put that crater in your chest... tell 'em Jason Brooks sent you."

BOOOM!

"OO-YAAH!"

Jason Brooks gave a triumphant shout as he jumped out of his chair and pointed at the laptop on the table in front of him.  The screen displayed a jumble of computer-graphics... all being destroyed in an simulated explosion.

"I Nuked your command center!  You are TOAST!   NEXT!!"

"What I find amazing,"  said Ashley, who was flipping channels on the hotel room's TV.  "Is that a man who's spent the past few WEEKS killing things and blowing things up, relaxes by getting online to do what?  Kill things and blow things up.  I just don't get it."

"It's a man thing."  said Jason as he sat back down.  "You're not supposed to understand."

"Sometimes I think men are just too SIMPLE to understand."

"Hey, watch that kinda talk.  Just because your boy dissed you-"

"He did NOT!   And he is not 'my boy'!"

"Yeah.   Riiiiiight."

Jason went back to his game.

Ashley sighed and kept changing the channels.

"And they call THIS cable-TV?   Geez... we've got what... SIX channels on this thing?   And look, THREE of 'em are NEWS-"

"What's wrong with news?"  said Jason.   He looked up at the TV.

"It's all BAD, that's what's wrong with news.  Nobody reports anything good... it's all rape and murder and bank robberies and-"

"HEY!"  Jason pointed.  "That's Rock Springs!"

"... I bet its something bad."  Ashley turned up the sound, and the announcer's voice filled the room:

"-Union Bank left seven police officers dead and five critically wounded."

"See!"

"Shhh!"

"Police responded to a report of shots fired at the bank headquarters, where they walked into what some are already calling a trap.  When they entered the building, officers were confronted by a lone gunman who... as surprising as this may seem... was able to out-shoot the entire twelve-person response team."

"Daaaamn,"  said Jason.

"The entire incident was captured by the bank's video cameras.   We wish to warn our viewers that this excerpt contains some graphic footage-"

The scene changed to a mid-quality black and white image of the bank lobby.   Jason watched as three groups of cops entered from different directions and took aim at...

"Jason that's YOU!"  Ashley exclaimed.

"HUH!?!"

The man in the bank was dressed like him.  And the guns he carried looked suspiciously like the .454 Casuls that Jason carried.   But the man's face was hidden by the hat and glasses that ALSO looked like they'd been stolen from Jason's wardrobe.

There was no sound to accompany the image, but Jason could guess what was happening.  The cops had the guy surrounded, and they were telling him to drop his weapon-

And then all hell broke loose.

The man with the guns started firing.

"What... the... hell...?"

It was like watching some kind of special-effect.  The false-Jason was dodging bullets as if they were rocks leisurely tossed at him, while his hands darted back and forth like bees... bees with a deadly .454 caliber sting.   The camera caught the flashes from the guns as they went off, and judging from the speed at which the bodies were piling up, each single flash was at LEAST two shots.  Maybe more.  And each shot was a direct hit.   The cops had body armor, but the killer's bullets went through the armor as if it was paper.

At the end, it was as clear as daylight:  The cops didn't stand a chance.

It was over in two blinks of an eye.   It ended with one cop on the ground, getting his hand shot off.   The killer walked over to him and pointed a gun at his chest-

The footage ended.  The reporter returned to the screen.

"That last officer... Officer Daniel Walters... survived a point-blank shot to the chest only to die of shock on the way to the hospital.  He lived long enough to identify their attacker, however.   He identified the shooter by name-"

The image changed again.   A large picture appeared next to the reporter, taking up half of the screen.

The picture was of Jason Brooks.

"Jason Brooks.   A former computer-programmer turned terrorist-"

"TERRORIST!?!?"

"Who is already wanted in Rock Springs in connection with several murders, INCLUDING the disappearance of Detective James Royce, who was attacked earlier today.  Royce, and the cops who responded to the bank, are all from the same precinct that suffered heavy casualties several weeks ago when, in the aftermath of a failed drug bust, local citizen Armena Velazquez unleashed trained attack-dogs on police throughout the city... even going so far as to somehow sneak one into police headquarters itself.   Brooks actually aided the police in that incident-"

"Damn RIGHT I did!   I was the GOOD guy!"

"-but it appears he has had a sinister change of heart.   Brooks was believed to have fled the town of Rock Springs, but he has now returned-"

"No I HAVEN'T!  I'm right here!"

"-and declared war on the police department of Rock Springs."

"Oh, come ON!  What IS THIS!?!"

"Jason..."   Donovan Wilde suddenly appeared in the center of the room.   Despite the fact that he was dead... a ghost... no one paid any attention to his arrival.   Ashley and Jason kept watching the television.   "Jason something has happened in Rock Springs.    Sebastian and I heard a news broadcast in the car-"

"You're a bit LATE!"  Jason pointed at the screen, which was still showing a close-up of his face... only now, instead of the reporter in the background, they station was re-playing the bank footage where 'Jason' was murdering police officers in cold blood.

"...dear God,"  Donovan whistled.  "That IS you!"

"NO IT ISN'T!"

"I didn't mean literally,"  said Donovan.  "But look at him... his motions.  His aim.  No human could do that-"

"Unless he had the Affinity,"  said Brooks.  He looked at Donovan.   Brook's face... which usually had a least a faint trace of a smile... was deadly serious.    "Donovan, what's going on?"

"I don't know."

"You don't KNOW!?   Some dude is walking around dressed like me... using MY Gifts to kill cops... and YOU DON'T KNOW!?"

"There could be a thousand explanations-"

"F#@*K the THOUSAND!"   Jason's fist hit the table, rattling the lamp and the laptop.  "I only want ONE!  The RIGHT one!  These people think this guy is ME!   They think I killed those people!"

"What if they were demons, Jason?"  said Donovan.  "What if those cops weren't even human?  We know Royce isn't.   What if this person is doing the same thing YOU are?   Did you ever think about that?"

Jason hadn't.    He considered it... and dismissed it.

"No,"  he said.  "No.  We're getting to the bottom of this.  Where's Sebastian?"

"We were about a mile away when I left to come here."

"Pack your stuff!"  Jason pointed at Ashley.   Then at Donovan.  "Go tell Sebastian to keep the motor running; we're getting out of here!"

"Jason this could be a trap-"  said Donovan.

"Then lets go spring it!   Trap or not, SOMEBODY'S got some explaining to do... and God help 'em if I don't like what I find when I get there!"

raxis pushed the button on the remote, and the television blinked off.   The television wasn't his... nor was the apartment.  They were graciously 'donated' by the residents of Palisade Homes, whom he had helped with a variety of problems... ranging from heart disease to the gang of drug dealers that had all either vanished or decided to take up a change of career.   They were his disciples now.

Every messiah needed disciples.

"Very good,"  he said.  His southern drawl was smooth and dignified.    Behind him, Tomas Velazquez sat in a corner, quietly chewing the head off of a rat that had just crawled out of a hole in the paper-thin wall.    No one noticed.  Not Braxis...

...and not the man Braxis was talking to.

"You like the fancy footwork?"    He stood by the door... arms folded... brown trenchcoat hanging off of his shoulders like a cape.  He smiled.   "I looked good, didn't I."

"Oh yes.  Although I would have liked more of them to survive."

"Sorry about that.  I got carried away.  But do you think it worked?  You think I got his attention?"

"I'm sure you did.  We won't have to worry about where he is or what he's doing now... he'll be coming to us very shortly."

"Good."  The man's smile widened.  "Goooood.   So who do you think is better... me, or him?"

"Why... you are, Mr. Brooks,"  said Braxis.  "You are."

[To Be Continued]

copyright 2005 by Dark Icon Entertainment