Blackjack Dead or Alive (The Blackjack Series Book 3) (24 page)

“What do I do with the castle?”

I didn’t care about the plan any more, much less any construction that had begun, but I was pretty sure the drones could easily be programmed to disassemble whatever had been built. More shit for me to deal with, more time I didn’t have. I needed to be out of there, gone from Romania before the word Europe worked its way into Haha’s filters.

“Stop the computers,” I said. “Pull the plug and throw them all in a fire. Same with all my documents. Forget it.”

“Bro, it’s built.”

“What’s built?”

“The castle,” he said.

I leaned against the narrow bathroom’s wall and slid to the floor, not believing him.

“It’s built?”

“Bro, the machines started spitting out the robot thingies. There’s like a million of them. They’re tiny as shit, and jumping all over each other. And when Sebas put it on they went crazy. At first a bunch broke, crashing into each other trying to get out the window. Like fifty of them broke all over into a million little pieces. Then the rest went out the broken window, and more and more. Those things are still making these shits. The sky is filled with them, bro. So they went out, and they built the whole thing in a couple of hours.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Yes, bro. It’s crazy. I went up the hill to see them working and saw how fast they were going. And remember you were worried about the digging ones? Bro, when they were done with the castle, they disappeared underground. They’re digging the tunnels right now.”

“So they’re done?”

“They’re still working, finishing up stuff, but yeah. Most of the drones are just flying around the place, coming back to the chargers in order, like some ants or something. And I’m telling you it looks awesome. I went to Castle Peles when I was in school and this looks the same. It’s all plastic and shit when you touch it – even stuff that shouldn’t be plastic, like tapestries and paintings, but it looks exactly the same, bro.”

“It’s all done…” I still couldn’t believe it.

“In less a day,” he laughed. “We’re still moving shit over. Lala went there with her people and they’re setting everything up. Kitchens and everything. It’s a castle, bro.
Your
castle. And Sebas has the network online, but not connected to the internet. We’re on local wireless for now. He wants to talk to you, but he doesn’t speak good English, something about someone trying to break in to the network. It’s fucked up; no one should be able to access us right now.”

“Damn,” I said, knowing that Haha could. Fortunately, accessing us via wireless wasn’t going to give him any information. As of right now the whole thing was setup to look like a simple construction website. The good news was that Sebas had engaged the program and the builder module had worked marvelously. Far beyond anything I could have expected.

“I don’t know, Bubu,” I said. “I might not be up for the challenge. I got beat up pretty bad.”

“What?”

“I’m hurt,” I said. “If they come, I won’t be any help.”

He laughed, “It’s okay, bro. We have help here. I was going to tell you but you got all mad at me.”

“What is it, Bubu?”

He laughed, “We have a visitor. A friend of yours.”

Oh, no.

“She’s here, bro. Apogee is here.”

Bubu was there when we landed, rushing up the ramp to help me down, eyes wide in shock when he saw my condition. “My God, my God,” he said, letting me lean on him as we stepped down. Another guy was at the foot of the ramp and he, too, had to assist me to the Range Rover parked about fifty feet away.

“Mister Black,” Bubu said, as he tucked my stiff legs into the backseat. “Dear God.”

“That bad, Bubu?”

He got in the passenger seat and the other guy drove.

“Bad,” he said. “Very bad.”

I closed my eyes and relaxed for the first time since Brutal’s video had played, feeling Bubu’s stare as the car bounced on the uneven road. Even now, sleep was elusive, my brain craving input, and I let my eyes flutter open. Bubu’s open worry was as much a sign of my condition as any of the aches or pains.

“Bad,” he said.

“So, who’s this?” I said, pointing to the driver.

“This is Sebas,” Bubu said and the driver waved. “He wanted to come and tell you himself he was sorry about starting the whole thing up.”

“It’s okay,” I said, waving him off. “Just get me to a bed and get some food in me. I heal fast.”

I started to fade out, knowing the drive was a few hours, but Bubu was too curious. I ended up recounting the whole trip, except for the part where Brutal had insinuated an offer to join him. As I was getting to the end, to the parts where I was surveying the result of Brutal’s power, I could tell Bubu was getting more upset. I paused to take a breath before recounting the last hurdles at the airport, and Bubu turned away from me, fuming.

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, “We need a better system to communicate.”

Sebas joined the conversation, but in Romanian, and they spoke in rapid fire beats. My Romanian had improved slightly, via immersion more than any concerted effort to learn, but there was no chance I was going to keep up with them. Taking it as a cue from the universe, I found a comfortable position in the vast backseat of the Land Rover and drifted to sleep.

*              *              *              *

I knew something was off when we arrived. I was used to the little parking lot behind the house in Liteni, but here we were on the side of a mountain, next to a set of concrete steps rising upward. We were there, wherever there was, and Bubu and Sebas got out, coming around to help me out of the SUV.

“Where are we?” I said, looking around confused.

“You’ll see,” Bubu said, with a big smile on his face.

It took both men to haul me up the fifty or so steps and as we came to the flat top on the rise, I saw the castle, and like Bubu had told me on the phone, it was done.

Based on the original I had stolen from the library book, Castle Peles, was a grand palatial alpine villa with German and Italian sensibilities with lines that dated from the Renaissance. It wasn’t a fortified fortress, like the Crusader keeps, which was why I had rejected it for a later design. What it lacked in defensibility, it more than made up for in beauty.

Several men stood along the side, near an entrance and seeing us approach; they rushed forward to help Bubu and Sebas. One of the men I recognized as Onas, and the other had to be a cousin or brother. They took over for the other two and as they were stronger men, had an easier time carrying me into the castle. Their technique was to grab my belt with one hand and let me slip my arm around their shoulders, letting my feet drag.

“I can walk,” I said, but everything was fading already. Bubu and Sebas had exerted themselves on the climb, not me, but I was just as tired. Between the four men, I felt like I was floating across the ground, heading to a service entrance. Inside was a workroom, with coats hanging on one wall and a set of stairs leading down on the adjacent wall. We went through, the heavy thudding of boots on the wooden floor resounding with a strange echoing staccato. It was the building materials, all polymers for the walls and floors and carbon fibers for the loadbearing structures. The appearance was just for show. The whole place was made of plastic composites so strong they’d challenge the walls of Dr. Retcon’s Hashima fortress.

We went through a storeroom into the kitchen, and there she was.

“Hi,” I said, carried aloft like a child.

“Clear the table,” she said, and several women took off the plates and centerpiece from a large wooden table. The men lay me down and Apogee stood over me, ripping my shirt off to check my chest. Her attention instantly centered on my ribcage, the same spot I felt a splitting fire about to rip me apart.

“Shit, Dale,” she muttered. “Make me an icepack, and I’ll need some bandages.”

Behind me, Bubu was on the phone, speaking to someone in Romanian. He came forward, “Everyone back up, let me take a picture.”

Apogee and the others cleared his line of sight and I heard his smart phone make the distinct click and grinding gear sound of a camera forwarding the film after taking a picture. He got me in full, and some close-ups of my face.

“That’s not my most flattering side,” I said.

“Oh, shush, Dale,” she said taking an icepack and pressing it to my jaw.

My scream echoed through the halls.

“Hold him, dammit!”

“What was that,” I mumbled.

“Your jaw is dislocated,” Apogee said. “Don’t speak.”

Bubu spoke again into the phone and put it down after the exchange.

“It’s not a break,” he said. “Probably just a fracture.”

"Who's he talking to?"

"His wife, she’s a nurse," Apogee said. "Now sit still and let me finish wrapping you." She did her best, with the men hefting me so she could get around my body. The gauze went tight around my midsection, and it hurt to breathe.

"You're doing it hard on purpose," I said.

Apogee fought the urge to smile, "You're lucky I don't break you in half, Mister Black." She finished the job and motioned for the men to pick me up, leading them through the halls and up two sets of wooden stairs to a large room with a king-sized bed. I recalled the CAD map Bubu's IT guys had used, and knew they had brought me to the master bedroom of the castle. My only regret was to be too out of it, too damned foggy to enjoy the ride there, the sights of what I had built. They set me on the bed and left the room, deferring to Apogee to a man. Even Bubu was in awe of her, telling me he'd be back later to talk.

Once they were gone, she pulled up the sheets to cover my body.

"So a big villain castle, huh?"

I nodded, the stillness of the bed, the quiet of the room helping me slowly descend into sleep.

"Get some rest, Dale," she said, leaning down and kissing me on the forehead.

"There’s a method to my madness," I heard myself say, but before I knew it, I had faded off.

*              *              *              *

I woke to the smell of eggs and bacon, and to the sight of Apogee entering my room. She had traded her costume for a simple dress and sandals, no makeup and her hair pulled back by a headband. The woman looked like a Greek statue come to life.

“You should see yourself,” she said, coming beside me.

“I’d rather look at you,” I said. “Besides this isn’t me at my worse.”

“I’ve seen you worse. Or do you forget the time you had no teeth left and one of your eyes was hanging out of its socket?”

“I remember that different,” I said.

“You died, Dale.”

“Yeah that’s the part I remember,” I said. “I fell, and you brought me back.”

She shook her head and fed me a bite of eggs.

“And now you’re back saving me again. It’s the Zundergrub mind job, isn’t it?”

“In part,” she admitted, breaking some bread and stuffing it in my mouth.

I took out the big piece, and nibbled on the crumbs left in my mouth. “What about the other part?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking down.

The other “part” was Pulsewave, the Senator and her gig as a heroine. Nothing major.

“At some point we’re going to have to figure that out.”

“You really want to do it right now?” she said, giving me another fork full of eggs. “With everything going on in the world?”

“Might as well. I don’t like drama.”

She giggled, “Says the guy who dresses all in black and builds a villain castle in the Carpathian Mountains. Besides, I’m here feeding you breakfast, instead of dragging you back to prison. That should say it all.”

I said nothing while she picked at the eggs, a thousand replies born and then dead in the scope of a heartbeat.

“I know about the Senator,” I said.

I leaned back, looking at the paintings on the roof, amazed at the level of detail my drones had achieved. If I could build all that, I could fix this, right? I could make her understand how I felt and what she meant to me.

Apogee averted her face but I saw a tear stream down her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what,” I said, my voice rising.

She paused, swallowing back her first attempt to respond.

“For everything.”

Apogee waited for me to respond but there was too much racing through my head for my mouth to ever hope to engage. I thought of our interlude, the “kidnapping”, where we had begun to understand each other, of how crushed I had been when Zundergrub re-wiped her mind and I feared all we had learned about each other was gone in an instant. I thought of that hard wall on Hashima, her body cold and pale, my only hope that she would last one more second, that I wouldn’t fail her like I had failed everyone else in my life. I thought of her and her team assailed at the White House by a man-god only I could face, and knowing that I would give my last breath for only one person on the planet. I thought of those dark moments in the cargo deck of Superdynamic’s ship, when an overwhelming darkness had swept from a cold place, threatening to take me forever. Apogee had been the beacon to guide me back.

“I know I let you down, when you needed me the most.”

I said nothing, letting her struggle through it on her own.

“So much at stake,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I honestly thought I was doing the right thing…” She stopped and put her head down. “And I was wrong.”

I reached out and took her hand. “No you weren’t. I deserved it.”

“No, you didn’t. You’re a good man, Dale, but you’re still struggling with who you are and what you want to be. And I’m scared that you’ll put me on some sort of pedestal, like a reward for-”

“I know none of this makes any sense,” I said. “But I feel something for you, Madelyne. More than I’ve ever felt for anyone.”

Apogee smiled, and with that one gesture my dark world brightened.

“Whatever happens from here on out,” I said. “I’m fine with.”

She squeezed my hand, unsure of what to say.

“And for what it’s worth, I forgive you,” I said, feeling a wave crashing forth from my soul. I wanted to see her smile, to never shed another tear on my account. “For everything.”

Madelyne moved into my arms and I held her tight, unwilling to let go.

*              *              *              *

We lay like that for a while, not speaking, and I enjoyed the silence. She radiated warmth against my bare chest, her weight a comfort as she rested against me. Her elbow poked my ribs and I grunted. She tried to pull away, but I held her close. “It’s not bad.”

“It’s good I got here when I did,” she said. “I don’t know if I’d recognize you if you haven’t been pounded to crap.”

“It happens a lot,” I said. “Lucky me.”

“We have to do something about that.”

“I guess,” I said, and let her go. It had taken less will and effort to lift the building that had fallen on me. I stood up and saw my suitcase standing in the corner of the room. Digging through it, I found a shirt and pair of jeans in my dwindling supply of clothes. The shirt clung to my bandaged ribs in lumps that annoyed if I didn’t smooth them out. The pants fit better, and being fully clothed made me feel human again.

Apogee has watched me dress, and I resisted the obvious jokes, the overt flirtations. Instead I smiled and said, “Come on, I have to see the place.”

“Only if you promise not to smile again today,” she said, straightening out her rumpled clothes. “You might scare everyone off.”

“Understood. Is it weird that I’m still hungry?”

She picked up the empty plate and held it out for me. “What is this thing even made of?”

“Nothing edible,” I said and she laughed. It was musical, filling the empty, stilted room with beauty. I held out a hand, which she took and we went to the kitchen.

I smelled dinner before I saw it, cooking meat and fresh made breads attacking my nostrils. There were more people, at least three that I didn’t know, all older women. When Apogee entered, they stopped what they were doing and spoke to her. She replied and they nodded, talking between themselves as they worked on our meal.