Activate The Ravagers Ep1v2 (9 page)

He knew better than to ask questions.

As he rode home in the crisp night air, another concern reared itself. His work here was done. He’d just planted a powerful bomb inside a hidden military base, no doubt meant to inflict casualties, and perhaps do something with the black ooze he was probably supposed to recognize and didn’t. He’d probably sentenced dozens or hundreds of people to death. His work here was done.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he wondered if he’d even make it home alive.

…wealthy employed small armies of personal assistants, bodyguards, and specialists, many of whom served only when summoned by their employers, lest their true numbers be known…

H
e knew something was wrong
the instant consciousness replaced sleep.

He looked around wildly in the dark, expecting the deafening roar of gunfire, the shouts of soldiers and the screams of men dying. His muscles tensed as he prepared to meet the threat.

As he woke to full consciousness, he realized he was sleeping in his own bed, and the only noise came from his imagination.

Why had he woken up, then? He glanced at the clock. He’d awoken earlier than usual, before his mental alarm clock sounded. He glanced over at Deirdre.

Deirdre wasn’t in the bed.

He sat up quickly.

The light wasn’t on in the bathroom. He took a deep breath, searching for any indicative odors, while he sprinted into the bathroom and closet area to search for her, flipping on the lights and blinking to help his eyes adjust. He detected no scent of food to suggest she’d woken up for an early breakfast, nor an aroma of smoke or fire to suggest some calamity.

He hoped in the case of fire she’d think to wake him before racing to leave the building.

Then he wondered if she’d
set
a fire. If his instincts were correct… she might feel pressure to leave him in any manner possible.

He sprinted down the hallway and saw the light snaking from beneath the door to his office. He opened the door and jumped inside, prepared for the worst.

Deirdre hung upside down from the ceiling, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

He stared at her. Her body was slicked with sweat, and the combination of perspiration and light fabrics made for a look he found… alluring. It took him a moment to remember he’d been worried for her safety.

She bent at the waist and curled her body up toward her feet, then slowly curled back down, accentuating every abdominal muscle in the process. He felt his jaw open. He’d never seen her exercise in such a manner before.

Deirdre finally realized he was watching as she stretched out at the bottom of the crunch. “Hey,” she said, breathing heavily. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

He blinked, still distracted by her appearance and sudden interest in intense, early morning exercises that showed off her figure to the fullest degree. “Shouldn’t you?”

She curled up once more and grasped the handle before unclasping her feet. Seconds later, she landed on the ground. She scooped up a towel and mopped the sweat from her face and neck. “Today’s supposed to be the last day of that huge project we’ve been working on, and I couldn’t sleep. I thought a Roddy-style workout might wear me out enough that I’d force myself to sleep.” She nodded at the clock on the wall. “But it looks like I need to take a shower and get ready to head to the office instead.”

He nodded. She’d suffered bouts of sleeplessness before, generally associated with stressful periods at work. He wondered if the ending of the project might be a euphemism for ending the relationship with her lover, and wondered further if he could forgive her if she stopped before he ever proved her guilt. Could he find fault in her if he couldn’t prove anything? “I was worried when you weren’t in bed.”

She reached out to him and patted his cheek. “You’re sweet to worry about me.”

He smiled. “Anything you can talk about?”

She shook her head. “Not really. We have to finish the testing for a new composite of our primary material.”

“A new composite?”

“Yeah.” Her face changed when she spoke about her job. “The standard Diasteel composite is designed for a very specific purpose, but from an engineering perspective, the key point is that once it’s poured and cooled, it’s not supposed to… flex. The new composite is designed to retain the same surface strength while bending.”

He considered that information. “Couldn’t you just use a hinge if you need to separate pieces to bend?”

She nodded. “You could, depending on the application. Sometimes, though, you might need a continuous single piece, one that can’t be bolted together.”

He frowned. “But—”

She looked down. “I don’t know why it’s needed. I just build the material to spec and let others decide what to do with it.”

He hadn’t missed the fact that she’d looked away. Which meant she probably knew exactly what they’d build with the new material, and it was something she didn’t want him to know. Diasteel—the material, not the company—had been a critical component to the construction of the massive cityplexes housing humanity these days. The walls were brick and concrete, extended as population expansion demanded. But they ran out of willing volunteers to climb over the existing walls to lay the new boundaries. Cultural pressure to rebuild humanity’s numbers after centuries of excessive death rates meant they needed to add new living space on a constant basis. Those two factors gave them only one option.

Build
up
.

But they lacked material with the strength to support buildings more than a few floors tall. Oswald Silver’s grandfather, though, had hit upon a solution, one that blended various materials together to form a material of incredible load-bearing strength. Suddenly, humanity could build up, higher and higher, reaching for the sky, just as they’d done in the mythical Golden Ages. Mining was a high-risk job, calling adventure seekers out into the Hinterlands to risk death, and that was excluding whatever threats existed
outside
the mines.

Now they wanted a new variant of that critical material, one that extended Diasteel’s reach in flexible, bendable forms.

She’d given him a clue as to what was coming, intentionally or not. He couldn’t figure out what it meant.

His efforts at quiet contemplation shattered when she stepped in close, pressing herself against him, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I should… probably go shower.” She pulled his head down for a deep kiss before pulling away and arching a suggestive eyebrow. “Unless you have other ideas?”

He had plenty of ideas.

But he had to remind himself of the evidence suggesting she’d been unfaithful, and the likelihood that her secret flexible Diasteel project likely meant some fighting times were imminent. “I should probably get my workout in now. It’s been several days since Mr. Silver has required my services, and I suspect I’m overdue for a summons.”

She backed away from him, pure confusion etched across her face. “Oh.” She looked down. “I… guess I’ll go get ready for work, then.” With a final baffled look, she turned around and left the room.

His body screamed at his mind, not understanding why he’d failed to accept her proposition. He set to work, pushing himself harder than he’d ever pushed himself before, beyond the points of physical and mental exhaustion, and into a state of concentration so deep he barely registered the sound of her footsteps moving by his office on the way out the door.

When he collapsed on the floor, he knew that it would be impossible to move even if a squad of Eastern soldiers burst through his door at that moment.

Five minutes later, he found enough movement ability in his limbs to crawl down the hall into the shower. He flipped the water on cold, lacking even the strength to cry out as the icy shards blasted his skin. Gradually, he pushed himself to a standing position, letting the frigid waters soothe his aching muscles and cool the desire for his wife still so prominent in his mind.

He finally emerged, dried off, and dressed in the loose-fitting tan uniform he wore during his working days with Oswald Silver. The man hadn’t summoned him in over a week, and Roddy knew from experience that the longer between summons, the more intense those summons would be.

He’d just settled in for breakfast when his phone rang. He glanced at the caller identification, though he had little doubt who it was. “Good morning. Mister Sil—”

“Light, get your ass in here. Immediately! We’ll be gone for several days.”

And Oswald Silver hung up.

Roddy sighed. That was Mr. Silver at his most cheerful and verbose.

He went back to his bedroom and pulled his traveling bag from the closet. He tossed the bag on the bed and flipped it open. One change of clothing. Not enough. He rummaged through his closet and pulled a half dozen changes of clothes out and carried them to the bed. He’d learned long ago that “several days” could mean anywhere from two days to two weeks. He packed the extra outfits and carried the bag to the kitchen, cleaned his dishes, and did one final patrol of the apartment.

He stopped in his office and spun the combination dials on a pair of locks to a closet in the room. He opened the doors and selected three firearms, two knives, and several cartons of ammunition from his private armory. He locked the closet doors once more, added the weapons to his frame, and masked their presence by rearranging his clothing. As he exited his office, he glanced toward his bedroom, where the hidden cameras and microphones would remain behind.

Would he learn what he feared to be the truth during his trip?

Moments later, he strolled through the lobby toward the primary doors of the apartment building. Red, the elderly doorman, looked nearly asleep, but perked up as Roddy approached, as if awakened by an internal radar.

The man tipped his hat at Roddy. “Have a pleasant day, Mr. Light. I trust you’ll be better rested than your wife.”

Roddy nodded. “Thanks.” He looked up from his shoes, which he’d stared at, wondering if his footfall had awakened the doorman from his partial slumber. “I’m sure I…” He paused. “Wait. Why would you think I’m better rested than Deirdre?”

“Well, she left for that middle of the night jog right when I started my shift. I can’t imagine she got much sleep after that.”

“Oh, that,” Roddy said, struggling to keep his tone controlled, as if Red had merely reminded him of something he’d already known. “She’s a bit of an insomniac.”

The older man’s face twisted into a leer. “I imagine you don’t get much sleep when she’s in your bed, do you?” He winked at Roddy.

Roddy stared at the man with such ferocity that Red backed away, holding up his hands. “Sorry. Not appropriate. Forget I said anything.”

Roddy walked out the door without saying a word.

What the hell was Deirdre doing going for a jog in the middle of the night?

His eyes narrowed as he walked down the street, and he spent the remainder of the trip to Diasteel Headquarters imagining just how he’d kill the man she’d gone to visit.

…of the many advanced technologies described by the Time Capsule, perhaps the ubiquitous is the personal mobile communication device, providing both verbal and written messages transmitted via electrical signals and towers… some experts believe the lack of context and non-verbal cues in so-called “texting” may cause significant miscommunication of even the simplest messages…

T
he dream had been pleasant
, an idealized memory of one her first dates with Stephen. It had been a rare day off work for both of them, a day when the weather cooperated, and they’d headed to the sandy beach near the massive freshwater lake forming the eastern border of the cityplex. They’d splashed in the water, listened to the sounds of the birds singing nearby, and even sculpted buildings from the sand. They’d set towels on the soft sand and reclined, relaxing as the rays of the sun warmed their skin, their fingers intertwined. She remembered looking at him then, thinking about how lucky she’d been to find him, and how she wanted every day and every dream to remind her of this perfect time. It was her own private version of the Golden Age. And it was real.

“Sheila.”

The voice called to her from the waking world, but she had no interest in leaving. In her mind, she took a deep breath, imagining a hint of lavender in the fragrant air filling her lungs.

“Sheila.” His voice conveyed a sense of urgency. And… was he angry about something?

“Sheila!”

She snapped her eyes open, then squinted into the bright light filling the room. Stephen’s face filled her vision. But it wasn’t the Stephen in her dream, the happy, content Stephen. This Stephen’s face was contorted, his mouth curled into a snarl, his eyes narrowed in anger.

“Stephen?” Her voice croaked. She needed some water. “What… what’s wrong?”

He pulled back from her and began pacing the bedroom floor. “I’d like to think I’ve been a patient man, Sheila.” His footsteps were heavy, adding to the ominous tone of his voice. “You got assigned to that new project, and I was happy for you. You worked long hours and pushed curfew every night. You worked a lot of weekends. All of it was geared toward trying to root out the rumored fraud by this top secret client, and if you found it, you’d be in line for a huge promotion. It was tough. But I supported you.” He shook his head. “You played me for a fool, Sheila.”

She shook her head to force herself awake as she processed his words, trying to understand what had set him off.

Stephen, like their friends, thought her to be an auditor with a mid-sized accounting firm. He’d been to the office on a few occasions so the two of them could enjoy a private lunch, asking her to be paged by the office receptionist, Jocelyn Whitfield. What he hadn’t known—and for that matter, what
Jocelyn
hadn’t known—was that she’d been paged at the secret office where she actually worked, and that she’d used a hidden entrance to the primary office to enter the lobby in a manner all would suspect.