Barcode: Cavern of Youth (3 page)

“Some, if they’re very clear. But I’ll have to lick and kiss you again,” she mouths as though she knows I can read her lips. The saliva completely dries on my arm. That must be the extent of her ability.

Ahmed moves close enough to hear a regular conversation. I decide to communicate through thoughts.

First, I clear my mind. Then, I think,
Three men are after you. Judging from their layout, they plan for you to walk near the door of a room. One has a tranquilizer to make you temporarily immobile. The other plans to blow the door from its hinges, causing it to fall on you. The guy behind you will pretend to try saving you, but he’ll smash your head with a device known as a Clutch. It’ll blow a hole in your cranium and make it seem as though it was a consequence of saving your life. I want to bypass all of this by walking directly into the room.

“Lick again,” I smirk.

That seems to cheer Carmen up. She grabs my hood and pulls me into her warmth. Holding tightly with both hands, her face disappears into the darkness as she gently kisses my lips.

Her nearest friend rolls her eyes. The group leaves while looking back with judgmental stares.

Carmen licks my lips two more times and slowly pulls away. She hums, “That was pretty clear.”

I hold her hand and walk her to the door. “It better have been, with that type of kiss.”

“It was your first. I could tell.”

“Not really. But I’m a delicate flower, and I’m saving that intimate kiss for someone special.”

“Funny. But strangely, I believe you.” As we approach the door, she inquires, “How different do you think the Seal of Solomon will make you look? You were so damn cute under the hood. I almost screamed.” My heart skips a few beats. She knows about the seal. Dennis is going to kill me when I tell him. “Don’t worry. I’m trusting you with my life. There’s no way I’d tell anyone about
our
secrets.”

I release her hand and open the door to the classroom. The man inside ducks behind the teacher’s desk.

I lick my lips to lengthen our connection, but Carmen releases a loud and seductive moan. “Papi! Warn a girl before you do that. With my codes lit, I feel that everywhere.” I do it once more just to hear the sound again.

Reading my thoughts, she tails me at a brisk pace, which develops into a small jog. I leave the door cracked for the others to follow and run with Carmen to the farthest end of the room, one hundred yards away.

I lead Carmen to a corner. The assassins lock the door and begin approaching us.

Resting my hand on her head, I instruct, “Don’t move.”

“You plan to kill the other two and take Ahmed to Dennis.”

I remove my jacket and place it around her. I supply Shiva with the energy she needs to convert into ropes on my wrists. Shiva forms tiny spikes on my arms, and I’m ready.

“Who are you?” Ahmed asks.

“Ahmed, can you tell me who was on the other line of the phone during your first call? The voice sounded awfully familiar.” As he moves his lips, I snap, “I swear on your life, if you ask me how I know, I’m killing you and taking one of them.”

I’m outnumbered three to one, and it doesn’t look good. Though Ahmed is a mortal level warrior, the sound cracking on the other two’s barcodes don’t seem so weak. In fact, they might be gods. Hindu gods.

The small man who was hiding behind the desk is dressed in black. He’s fast. The sleek armor with gravity-defying boots makes that clear. Covering my eyes, I blink to see if I can find any identification on him. He’s only carrying a detonator similar to the one Ahmed has. They came prepared in case one didn’t work.

The second guy blends more with the students. He has bulky Bevel armor. Their gear has become more popular because the Morenos haven’t developed anything worthwhile in the past year. Bevel’s still two or three years behind Moreno’s gear, but they are more affordable.

Moving to my left, I leave an open space for them to attack Carmen, but they don’t take the bait. Instead, the fastest one rushes me. I’d like to test his strength, but she’s my priority, and I don’t want to see someone with such a radiating smile get hurt.

A hidden blade lunges towards my nose. He tried to pretend as though it were a punch. If I hadn’t already known it was there, blood would be gushing from my face.

To avoid the strike, I whip around maliciously and crack the speed demon’s vertebrae with Shiva’s spiked wrist guards. The centrifugal force applies enough pressure to crush his bone, but the collision with the wall is what kills him.

Excited by the play, Carmen holds the vowel in, “Damn,” for a few seconds while covering her mouth.

Shiva converts herself into a huge shield when Ahmed and friend fire two tranquilizer bullets at my neck. The shield is huge. I’ve never converted Shiva into anything similar.

Listening to the weapon, I realize it’s not a shield, but a damn large sword that’s buried a few inches in the ground. I reach for the handle and pull her out. “Thanks Shiva, but I did see them coming.”

She zaps me in response.

Ahmed steps back as his teammate uses MMIBS on two small marbles to reveal a Spartan shield and javelin. Concentrating, I measure the weight of his weapon against mine. It’s difficult to do without feeling it, but judging from the amount of pressure on my joints from the weight versus how little his knees are affected, I see we’re not in the same league.

I rush the brute as he raises his shield.

If I judged the weight incorrectly, when I swing the sword on top of his barrier, I’ll be defenseless for two seconds. By the time I release the sword and dash around him, he’ll counter by stabbing me with the spear. Oh well. I doubt Shiva would let me down.

My blade slices through his defense as though it didn’t exist. There’s no way I can convince Dennis this was an accident. How am I going to clean all this blood off?

Ahmed’s eyes widen. I haven’t seen that level of fear in some time.

“What?” I ask roughly. “It’s not my fault his shield was shit.”

The large man backs away slowly. Suddenly, he spins around and sprints towards the entrance.

Turning back towards Carmen, I ask, “Is he...is he really running?”

She takes two steps to her right in order to see past me. With her sound still muffled by the jacket, she mumbles, “Whoa. He’s really light on his feet.”

Ahmed clears forty yards as though they were a few inches. He looks over his shoulders confidently, but wipes the smirk away when he notices me behind him, nearly within reach. He digs in his pocket and removes his detonator. I finally notice the other bombs. Though they’re masked as speakers in the corners of the room, they’re actually his backup plan.

“Carmen! Run to me now.” I turn around and bolt towards her. Ahmed ignites the bombs in the ceiling, and everything comes crushing down. She takes off in a fearsome sprint with her speed nearly matching my own. I dodge lights and bricks, jump over fallen desks, and wrap her in my arms.

I throw Carmen to the ground and cover her with my body.

“Shiva, what else you got?” My sword converts into a jumbo shield made for a giant. Carmen and I squeeze under it as the ceiling crashes down on us. Other students scream from the sound.

The floor above was a chamber reserved for parent’s month. It was empty. As the final few bits crash down, Carmen softly breathes on my lips, “Kay.”

“Yes?”

“If I ask to see your eyes, will you kill me like you did the militia?”

“Not if you answer a question for me.”

“Yeah?”

I open my eyes, and we both glow with a green hue. The colors on her skin are more amazing than I could have imagined. Being this close to the browns in her eyes, pinks on her lips, and bronze in her hair makes the clock in my chest tick irregularly.

“Do they scare you?”

“Uh-huh.”

Carmen wraps her legs around my waist. “Now, lick your lips please.”

Though I follow the instructions, the orgasmic sounds she makes are embarrassing for the both of us.

It takes a few seconds for her to regain her composure. “What the hell is up with your barcode? Better yet,” she stutters while panting and adjusting her waist enough to excite me, “why are you this strong?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I can borrow power with a kiss. It’s the only way Aphrodite allows me to walk. If I don’t use someone else’s strength, I’m pretty much a vegetable. But after licking your shoulder, I felt like I could fly.”

“Strange.”

“I’m not done with questions.”

“Of course not.”

“Do I remind you of her?”

“Who?”

“You got really spooked when you heard my name, and I kind of sensed the girl you killed. Carmen. I couldn’t get much from your thoughts, but you really liked her.” The green hue surrounding us intensifies and the goddess underneath me shrieks with a fearful sound. “How’d you do that?”

“You keep asking vague questions. You read minds, not me.”

“You just shut off our connection. I can’t read your thoughts, but the spit I left on your back shouldn’t be dry.”

“You spit on me? Not sexy.”

“Forgive me. Please? You didn’t even notice in all the commotion.”

The last stone crashes down. I listen as people search frantically to find anyone alive.

I sense Dennis trying to remain calm, but the rate at which he’s moving stones reveals his concern.

“I’ll need my jacket before I get us out of here.”

Carmen and I shift between each others’ legs as she removes it. We struggle a bit, but she eventually wraps it around me.

The dynamic red color of her lips brightens the small space. Carmen kisses the shield for a few seconds. Her lips return to a dull pink hue and she declares, “There’s four tons of rubble over us. Don’t break your back trying to push this up.”

“Four tons? I can only see two feet of it. It can’t weigh that much.”

“The ceiling is Colt Stone too. Those must have been heavy duty bombs because it doesn’t break easily.” She smirks while running her hand down my arms. “You can still get us out, can’t you?”

“Yeah,” I reply while building a force in my chest that causes the shield to rumble.

“First,” she mumbles, “can you tell me where Ahmed is going? I know this may sound weird, but with so much of my saliva on you, I can feel data running through my eyes.”

“What kind of data?”

“It’s like words and numbers, but sometimes it’s like another world in my head.”

“Sounds like you can see what I can.”

“And what do you see?”

“Everything within a fifty mile radius. When I really concentrate, I can see things more intricately, nearly down to the cell.”

“Damn. That must be awful. You’ve never seen the sky or the moon?”

“Actually I have. Though my ears and eyes are connected, they’re also divided. I can’t hear the moon, but if I look up, it’s visible. Similarly, I can’t see Ahmed flying on the freeway, but the sounds I’m picking up form images in my mind. It’s like watching the world from another dimension.”

“That sounds like an overwhelming amount of data to deal with,” she utters sympathetically. Neither of us say a word for several seconds. Noises from the search party echo in our tiny space. Carmen runs her delicate hands down the back of my head until her arms are tightened around my neck. “Let’s go, papi.”

Three

Overwhelming. That’s not a word I would normally choose to describe my eyes. Yet, the term seems accurate enough.

Unlike the rest of the world, I can’t plead ignorance after a robbery or murder occurs. When I was younger, I felt guilty when observing kids my age throw animals in microwaves. A sense of powerlessness crept in my veins as parents molested their children. Now, these things are more than natural. They’re expected.

The violence and destruction I only listened to in the past, now takes special trips to find me. I imagine that Ahmed isn’t the last of the trouble I’ll encounter this year.

The image of his white van projects clearly in my mind. The highway he’s zipping on has a beautiful backdrop of Griffith Park’s hills. The nearby river was built seven years ago by Dennis. It was meant to be private property for him to get away and relax, but so many people broke in that he opened it for the public. Now, he’s only able to enjoy it from his helicopter.

After driving two hundred miles an hour on a level two freeway, Ahmed exits Eighth Street too quickly and screams while navigating on two wheels. At the end of the ramp, the car smashes back on all four, and Ahmed zigzags through one-way streets until he reaches the Beijing Coliseum.

The building has rich history that dates back to the twentieth century, when America had primitive sports without the enhancement of much technology. During that time, a popular sport known as basketball was played in the stadium.

In the early 2000s, sports evolved with muscle technology referred to as steroids. Once scientists eliminated side effects from the drug, it aided human evolution, and more advanced technology was introduced, such as weighted balls and gear that provided players with enough support to reduce injuries.

Now, the Beijing Coliseum houses neonball, a sport that stemmed from both basketball and football. Armored players run down 100 yard fields with various terrains. Players score a goal by spiking a neonball into the opposing team’s hoop. Currently, Los Angeles’ team, the Smogmen, are practicing for their game against my favorite team, the Texas Borders.

I wait patiently to see why Ahmed stopped outside of the twelve-story building. He clutches his phone tightly. Leaving his car illegally parked, he rushes to the front door.

He crosses the street with several cars honking at him and approaches the entrance of the building. The doors are made of reinforced steel and painted purple and gold, the Smogmen’s team colors. Ahmed jogs up the ramp while cursing under his breath, but stops midway. His eyes widen as a loud explosion blasts the gigantic front doors and nearby walls away.

The incredible shock wave throws Ahmed back. The tubby man rolls down the ramp and into the street. Unfortunately, the driver of a red sports car smashes on his breaks to avoid colliding with the assassin.