The Road to Hell (8 page)
Authors: Peter Cawdron
Tags: #science fiction dark, #detective, #cyber punk, #thriller action, #detective crime, #sci fi drama, #political adventure fiction book, #science fiction adventure, #cyberpunk books, #science fiction action adventure, #sci fi thriller, #science fiction time travel, #cyberpunk, #sci fi action, #sci fi, #science fiction action, #futuristic action thriller, #sci fi action adventure, #political authority, #political conspiracy
As he handed the card back, his eyes settled on her breasts for a brief moment. The contrast between the red silk dress and her soft, pale skin was stark. The colour was alluring, as was the smell of her perfume, drawing him in, pulling his eyes down away from her face. With one hand resting on his blaster, the officer struggled to stay focused. In the back of his mind he was vaguely aware something was wrong, but his base instincts and sexual desire got the better of him, encouraging him to savour the moment, to enjoy the beauty of her presence. The prisoner, though, was uneasy.
“
What floor are you trying to get to?”
This wasn’t part of the plan. Olivia was worried, fidgeting with her fingers. She wasn’t sure how long this would last and didn’t know where to look as the officer glared at her, undressing her in his mind. Not that there was much to undress, she thought. She wanted to turn away, but she knew this was playing out perfectly, distracting the officer so he was only barely aware of Artemis. Her heart raced. Adrenalin surged through her body causing her to breathe deeply.
“
435,” she said, her chest rising with each breath.
Damn, the officer thought as the 420th floor came up. He could have stood there sightseeing all day.
As the doors open, the officer swiped his card again and punched 435. It never even crossed his mind that 435 was a restricted floor.
“
You have a good day now,” he said, stepping out of the lift with his prisoner, only barely aware there was someone else in the lift behind her.
“
Thank you,” she called out with a smile as the lift doors closed again.
__________
“
What if he’s telling the truth?” the senator asked, looking at the captured daemon cowering in the interrogation room.
“
There are over a thousand police officers in this building,” replied Kane. “There is no way Artemis would dare attempt a raid. He doesn’t have the capacity to operate on this scale. A full-out assault would be suicide and he knows it.”
Kane seemed disturbed by the thought. Ordinarily, he would have dismissed it outright, but something rang true. He continued, trying to talk himself out of the concept.
“
Phase-shifting in broad daylight is too dangerous, even for Artemis. It takes a few seconds and so attracts too much attention in a crowd. And if he is out of phase then the face recognition cameras on the hover pad would expose him before he made it to the lobby. Even if somehow he made it to an elevator, the security codes change hourly with re-authentication required daily. And if he got on this floor, how would he get off? As soon as the fighting starts the building will be thrown into lockdown. Nah, this bastard’s lying. He’s not telling us all he knows.”
“
Please,” cried the young man in the other room, his bloodstained hands pressing against the one-way mirror. “Please. You’ve got to believe me.”
Shaking, the young man sunk to his knees leaving deep-red smudges on the glass. Even with his remarkable ability to bend time around him, the voltages being passed through the room sapped his strength. He slumped to the floor waiting for the inevitable, waiting for another gut-wrenching jolt, praying Artemis would get there soon, his body phasing in and out of view.
Kane flicked a switch on the interoffice intercom.
“
Captain, get hold of internal security. Get them to run a sweep of the building. I want a full tag search.”
There was no reply.
“
Captain…”
Kane drew his weapon.
The senator sensed what was happening and his blood ran cold.
“
Stay here,” said Kane. He flicked off the safety catch on his blaster and pointed at the seemingly empty interrogation room on the other side of the glass.
“
Whatever happens, do not open that door.”
Kane stepped out into the empty corridor. The guards posted outside were gone.
He slipped down the corridor and peered around the corner into the office area. Bodies lay everywhere, blood pooled on the floor. Deep scarlet stains marred the walls. Hell had been opened and her fury had been unleashed.
With both hands stretched out in front of him, Kane aimed his blaster in one direction and then another as he turned rapidly from side to side scanning the office for movement of any kind. A flickering neon light hung down from the ceiling, knocked out of place during the battle. It was only then Kane realised the soundproof interrogation room had worked both ways.
A thin wisp of black smoke danced across the far wall of the office teasing him, disappearing from sight before he could react. Sweat welled up in the pores of his hands, making his grip on the blaster slippery. His finger squeezed the trigger to within a fraction of firing as his eyes darted to and fro, desperately looking for Artemis.
A woman’s voice broke softly from behind him, whispering in his ear.
“
Hello Kane.”
As he turned, a blur of red silk flashed before him. A long, slender leg swung through the air as a stiletto-heeled shoe raked across the side of his face, knocking his sunglasses off and sending him plummeting to the ground. The blaster fired, burning a hole in the wall as it flew from his hand.
The gun clattered across the floor and rebounded off the skirting board before coming to rest just a couple of feet away.
Without his glasses, the light was blinding. Kane squinted, thrashing around with his hands before grabbing the sunglasses and putting them back on. The lenses were cracked, marring his view of the world. Although it was hopeless, he launched himself over toward the blaster, reaching out with his right hand to grab it as he slid across scratched, worn, bloodstained linoleum.
Olivia was quicker. Her right foot came down on the back of Kane’s hand, her stiletto heel digging into his skin and pinning his outstretched palm to the floor. For a second she just held him there, pinning him face down on the floor, watching the pain surge across his face as he struggled to wrench his hand free.
She leaned forward, increasing the weight on her right foot, driving her heel deeper as she reached down slowly to pick up the blaster. Blood welled up on Kane’s shattered hand, running out from around the base of her stiletto heel.
Kane looked up in agony, watching as Olivia reached down. Her soft cleavage shifted forward, filling her tight silk dress as she picked up the gun. Her freshly dyed, jet-black hair fell gently off her shoulders toward him.
She smiled as she pushed the warm barrel of the blaster up against his forehead, saying, “Did you miss me, Honey?”
The smell of alcohol hung in the air. The fire was out. Glowing coals lit up the hearth. A single gas lamp on the wall provided only a dim yellow light staving off the bitter darkness. Up high on the ceiling, an exhaust fan turned slowly on its bearings, circulating the air.
“
Damn, Brains, what have you been drinking?” asked Harrison, closing the door behind him. The distinct smell of purified alcohol hung in the air.
Brains was subdued and unusually quiet as he swayed back and forth on his chair.
“
What is this?” asked Harrison picking up the bottle. “Rocket fuel?”
“
It’s a mixture of methyl-dextro-hydrol derivates if you must know,” replied Brains, slurring his words slightly. “But I’m not drunk, just a little pickled.”
“
Yeah, well, I think you’ve had enough for one night,” replied Harrison, taking a swig. The strength of the alcohol lashed at his throat, burning his lips.
“
It’s no wonder you’re going blind,” he added laughing, forcing a cork into the thin neck of the bottle as he placed it up on the shelf.
Susan was asleep, curled up on the couch with a blanket over her shoulders. She’d had a shower. The punk hairstyle was gone, as was the pink hair colouring, revealing her beautiful blonde hair beneath. In the soft light, her hair fell like silk on the couch pillow.
“
She waited up for you. Fell sleep listening to an old man waffle on about armadillos and nuclear fusion.”
Harrison smiled. He’d been through plenty of bull sessions with Brains. Sitting down across from him at the kitchen table, he got comfortable, pulling the blaster out from the small of his back and setting it on the rough, wooden surface.
“
Did you find what you were looking for?” asked Brains.
Even at a distance of six feet, the old man’s breath reeked of high-purity alcohol. It was something Harrison could never understand. Sure, he liked a drink as much as the next man. Something to soothe the nerves and relax the muscles after a hard day, but at best that’s all it ever was, a relaxant. Getting blind drunk had no appeal. To Harrison, it seemed absurdly excessive. Why spoil such an intelligent mind, he wondered, looking at the old man swaying at the other end of the rough wooden table.
“
I’ve got at least one good lead,” replied Harrison. “We’ll break the surface just after midnight and backtrack to the hotel where this all began to see if we can pick up the trail.”
Brains wasn’t really listening. He was staring at a cave bug crawling slowly across the rock wall.
“
Do you know why I came down here, Harry?”
“
No.”
Harrison hadn’t really thought about it before, but most of the inhabitants of the Underworld had been born there. Not Brains. He was a topsider that found refuge in the freedom of the Underworld.
“
We all tell lies, Harry, whether it’s for convenience or to save face or to hide our true feelings, we're all liars. As much as we try to deny it, we can’t help ourselves, it’s in our nature. We lie, Harry, we lie. We can no more stop lying than we can stop breathing.”
“
That’s just the liquor talking,” replied Harrison, trying not to take the old man too seriously. Like all great men, Brains had his share of quirks and idiosyncrasies. And when he was drunk, his tongue tended to be pretty loose.
“
Maybe, maybe not, but the worst lies,” the ageing man continued, raising his finger in defiance. “Are the lies we tell ourselves.”
Harrison was silent. Now was not the time to let his mouth run. Even with a bit too much liquor, the old man could still hold his own.
“
We have to justify ourselves. It’s in our blood. It seems the more petty the action the more vigorously we fight to defend the right, or at least, what we think is right.”
Susan stirred a little, rolling over on the couch. Harrison was surprised she hadn’t woken as Brains became more and more animated.
“
Awe, come on bartender, just one more drink,” yelled the old man looking around, looking for someone else in the darkened room. Silence was the only reply.
After a few seconds, Harrison added softly, “The bar’s closed. It’s time to call it a night.”
“
A night?” said Brains somewhat quizzically. “No, it was a day, I remember it well. It wasn’t at night at all. I was heading to the office. Just another day in utopia. Following the same route I’d flown for twenty five years from the suburban towers into the city. Some young punk cut me off on the airway, cutting in front of me without looking and I became indignant, as though I owned the sky road. I yelled out, calling him an idiot or an asshole or something like that.”
Brains was yelling, his arms waving about as he acted out the incident. All his gestures were amplified, magnified by his drunken stupor.
“
But that’s when I realised it was a lie. I was lying to myself. I was lying so I could justify my anger, my pathetic indignation.”
His manner changed abruptly, softening as he added, “I looked at the kid in front of me and saw myself a quarter of a century before. That’s when I knew I had to leave the new world. That’s when I decided to seek out the Underworld. That, Harry, is when I stopped lying to myself.”
Brains laughed, picked up the empty liquor glass and knocked back the few drops that had pooled at the bottom.
“
Most people are so arrogant they’ll tell you they don’t lie,” he said, pointing a finger at Harrison and staring down it like it was the barrel of a gun. “They’re so in the groove they don’t even know any more. They can’t tell the difference.”
He slammed the shot glass down on the table.
“
Come on bartender,” he yelled, his voice echoing through the open cavern above. “Where’s your sense of humanity and compassion?”
Harrison just sat there trying not to smile.
“
Oh, when they were ten or twelve, they knew,” Brains continued. “But now, now it’s a hazy blur. They think lies are malicious, that if it’s not spiteful it’s somehow not a lie so it doesn’t really count. They have no idea, the bastards.”
“
Hey, take it easy,” said Harrison. “You’re among friends. No one’s questioning your integrity.”
The old man’s head rested on his folded arms, leaning forward on the table. For a few seconds he just lay there on the table as Harrison wondered whether he was going to collapse onto the floor.
“
Just a hazy blur,” the old man murmured. “And you think my eyes are bad?”
Lifting his head up, Brains continued. “But at least I can see. You think I’m drunk? Maybe I am. But I’m not drunk on my own ego, Harry, not like them. At least I know when I’m drunk. At least I choose when I’m drunk. They might look sober, but they’re as drunk as a fart.”
Harrison burst out laughing.
“
As drunk as a fart,” he exclaimed. “Now where did you get that one, Brains?”
“
Oh, from Sam Hunt. An obscure 20th century poet from the South Pacific country of New Zealand. Guy was a genius, right up there with Shakespeare in my book,” came the reply. Brains had the sort of mind that soaked up facts like a sponge. He laughed at himself before continuing with a grin.
“
He was obsessed with farts, God love 'em. Apparently, his dog would whistle as it farted so he called him Minstrel. Can’t you picture it? The sweet little thing all puckered up and whistling as he lets one fly.”
To which, Harrison lost it, laughing hilariously.
“
Oh, and from what I’ve heard, she was a sheepdog, a bit of a mongrel, with patches of black and white on her, but she had the gentle nature of a lamb,” added Brains. “She would go everywhere with him. Into the office, into the boardroom, into the lecture halls, you name it. And when the little blighter let one rip, well, the smell would bring tears to your eyes. It was like peeling onions.”
Harrison was beside himself, slamming his hand on the table as he laughed, laughing so hard it brought tears to his eyes just thinking about the poet cramped in a small boardroom with all those executives all dressed in suits and ties and a dog, of all things, the little critter sitting in the corner, oblivious to the negotiations going on, scenting the room in innocence.
“
Are you for real?”
“
Oh, that’s real,” replied Brains. “Would I lie to you?”
“
Hilarious!”
Susan stirred on the couch. She could have slept through a hailstorm on a metal roof.
“
Yeah, pretty good one, ah,” said Brains. “Wouldn’t mind a dog like that myself.”
The old man chuckled to himself at the thought and tried to whistle in some drunken imitation of the dog but he couldn’t quite make the sound, which Harrison found all the more funny.
After they stopped laughing at each other, Brains continued in a soft tone.
“
Harry, it’s a trap. Few realise how intoxicating their own ego is. They might not be able to light an oven with their breath, but they’re drunk, alright, as drunk as a fart.”
Tears welled up in his eyes.
“
I left the new world because I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I couldn't give in to my own sense of ego and pride anymore.”
Harrison shifted in his seat feeling awkward, not knowing quite what to say. He’d seen his fair share of drunks in his time, but Brains was different. Something rang true in his words.
“
Don’t lie to yourself, Harry. Don’t tow the party line just because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Be true to yourself, Harry, if to no one else.”
“
You’re pretty upset about this,” said Harrison softly, being gentle with the old man’s feelings. Getting up from the table, he walked over to the old man, placed his hand on his shoulder and comforted him.
Brains staggered to his feet and said, “You’re a good man, Harry. A rare find in this world.”
Harrison grabbed him by the shoulders as he fell to one side.
“
Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”
“
Don’t you forget,” said Brains, murmuring under his breath, dragging his feet as Harrison led him to the bedroom. “Don’t you forget about me. I’m not crazy, Harry, I’m not crazy.”
“
I know you’re not.”
Harrison laid him down gently on the bed. Brains was asleep before Harrison could pull off his boots. He covered him with a blanket, leaving him fully dressed on top of the bed.
“
I won’t forget you,” promised Harrison, speaking in a whisper as he closed the door to the bedroom. “I’ll be back for you, my old friend. I won’t forget.”
With that Harrison walked back into the living area and gently woke Susan, saying, “Rise and shine, sleepyhead. We’ve got work to do.”
