Chương 200: Safety Off (01/06/2016)

DATE: Tuesday, January 6, 2016 LOCATION: Amy's Apartment | San Diego Arcology LOCAL TIME: 10: 45 PM PST The silence in the apartment was absolute. My senses rushed back with a disorienting, physical sharpness. A harsh, coppery taste flooded my mouth, and a piercing tinnitus shrieked in my ears. The room smelled overwhelmingly of cold, spilled coffee and the faint, ozone tang of the night air. I blinked, my vision slowly refocusing.

My knuckles throbbed, a dull, phantom ache radiating up my right forearm, though I had no memory of striking anything. My chest felt hollowed out, the crushing psychological pressure completely erased, leaving behind only a cold, sterile numbness. The front window was wide open, the sheer curtains snapping and hissing in the sudden rush of the San Diego night wind. The sofa was empty. The coffee mug Eric had been clutching lay shattered on the rug, a dark, spreading stain soaking into the fibers.

I didn't remember moving. I didn't remember the sound of the glass breaking, or the struggle, or dragging him to the ledge. The system had walled off the memory entirely. I walked slowly toward the open window. I didn't need to look down. I knew the geometry of the drop. I knew that the man who had been too stupid to understand the reality of Amy's life was currently experiencing a very terminal lesson in gravity. I turned back to the room.

The television screen on the wall was dark, but the glass was a flawless mirror. Lamech was there. The Hat Man didn't look like a shadow anymore; he looked like the Architect's true silhouette. He stood directly behind my reflection, his faceless head tilted in a silent, almost bewildered observation. She asked you to forgive him, Lamech's voice vibrated in the marrow of my bones. The grinding, ancient tone was laced with genuine, unmistakable shock. And I cannot believe it almost worked.

I stared at the black silhouette. I have never had to step in for this, Chad, Lamech whispered, the reflection leaning closer to the glass. Not once. You have always been the Operator. You have always been utterly without mercy for the things that threaten our grid. You never hesitate to cut the rot out of the system. Yet her ghost... her ghost actually broke your will. I felt the cold clinical truth of it wash over me. He was right. I had killed men for far less, without a second thought.

But Amy's voice had been a backdoor into my own programming. You were going to let him live, Lamech continued, his tone heavy with a shared, protective sorrow. The silhouette seemed to shudder, the edges of the Hat Man blurring as a profound, crushing sorrow bled through the glass. It wasn't an alien emotion. It was mine, magnified and unfiltered. But I understand why you broke, Lamech's voice cracked, dropping into a low, grieving frequency. Because I feel it too. This hollow space where she used to be.

Do you think you are the only one mourning her? We are the same soul, Chad. My rage is just your broken heart with the safety off. I placed my gloved hand against the cold glass of the television screen. When we lost Heather and Jason, it tore us down to the studs, Lamech said, the weight of the ancient trauma making the reflection waver. I was brought to the front in that wreckage to keep you walking. But this... Chad, this hurts so much worse.

Heather and Jason were violently taken from us, but they died as themselves. Amy? They didn't just take her. They erased her while she was still breathing. They trapped her in the dark behind her own eyes. And this idiot... this mundane, greedy fool... held the door open for them. The grief radiating from Lamech was all-consuming. He wasn't just a killer; he was the guardian of my most devastating losses, and losing Amy was the deepest wound we had ever suffered. Enjoying this book?

Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I could not let his crimes go unpunished, Lamech whispered, the reflection lowering its head. His mistake took our girl away from us. You didn't have the strength to do what needed to be done without breaking your own spirit. So, I stepped in. I took the sin, so you wouldn't have to carry the weight. I stared at the empty sofa. I felt my lungs expand, drawing in a long, steady breath.

The burden of the murder, the guilt of ignoring Amy's last wish—the Protector had absorbed it all, stepping in to do the one thing the Host suddenly found impossible.

"Thank you," I whispered to the empty room. I reached up and adjusted my mask, the synchronization between us resetting, locking the Operator back into place.

"JAY," I said. My voice was a flat, dead frequency again.

"Standing by, Chad."

"I'm not visible to electronic surveillance. What will it look like when the Sheriff's department investigates Eric's supposed suicide?"

"Forensic reconstruction will indicate that Eric Thorne was intoxicated, accidentally disassembled his own sidearm in a fit of paranoia, and subsequently wandered to the balcony where he lost his balance and fell," JAY responded.

"The narrative is consistent with a man suffering a psychological break following the disappearance of his partner. Shall I prepare the flight plan for Washington D. C.?" I looked at Amy's books one last time, leaving the grieving brother in the dark with them. Then, I turned and stepped straight off the open ledge into the night. For a split second, there was the sickening rush of freefall—the pavement of the street rushing up to meet me. Then, the barycentric tether snapped taut. Earth's gravity was ripped away.

I didn't fall; I was launched. The tether grabbed my mass and pulled me violently upward, hurling my body into the sky like a reverse meteor. The glittering grid of San Diego blurred into streaks of light below me as I shot upward through the cloud layer. The G-force of the ascension was immense, pressing the breath from my lungs, but it ended as quickly as it began. The black hull of The Draven materialized out of the stealth field above me.

I phased seamlessly through the open bay doors, the deafening roar of the atmosphere instantly snapping to a dead, pressurized silence as my boots slammed down onto the freezing metal deck of the airlock and local gravity reasserted itself. The heavy steel doors hissed shut behind me, sealing out the void.

"D. C.," I confirmed, stripping off the tactical mask as the ship banked sharply in the stratosphere.

"Yeah. It's time to deal with the man who wrote the contract. Robert Ellison is waiting."

"Plotting orbital trajectory for the Eastern Seaboard," JAY replied smoothly.

"Wait," I said. The Operator analyzed the board. Ellison was the architect, but he was isolated. The one hundred and forty-two spectators from the Hollywood Hills estate were the infrastructure. If I hit Ellison first, the coven would scatter into the wind. I looked at the digital twin overlaid on my HUD. One hundred and forty-two glowing red cryptographic hashes pulsed across the Los Angeles basin and the Southern California coastline.

They were sleeping in their mansions, drinking in their private clubs, packing their bags to flee after the news of my 'death.' They watched her die, Lamech whispered, his ancient voice a cold, vibrating razor in the dark of the cockpit. They stood in a circle and watched the parasite take our girl.

"JAY," I said, unbuckling the chest rig of my tactical suit.

"Cancel the D. C. transit. Give me a geostationary lock over Los Angeles."

"Lock acquired, Chad. We are holding at three hundred kilometers." I walked past the command cradle toward the rear of the cabin, my boots ringing against the metal deck. I opened my personal secure locker. I bypassed the kinetic armor, the spare magazines, and the ballistic weave. I reached into the back. I pulled out a tailored, charcoal-black suit, a crisp black shirt, and a black silk tie. I dressed in total silence. Finally, I reached onto the top shelf and pulled down the wide-brimmed black fedora.

I placed it on my head, adjusting the brim so it cast a sharp, geometric shadow over my eyes. I looked at my reflection in the polished black glass of the airlock door. The tactical operator was gone. The silhouette staring back at me was a towering, featureless void of pure, unadulterated consequence. The Host and the Alter were seamlessly fused. I was the Hat Man.

"You have 142 active traces in the master directory," I said, my voice dropping into a flat, freezing baritone.

"Confirmed," JAY chimed.

"All 142 biological IPs are cleanly locked. How would you like to proceed with the terminations?"

"One by one," I said, stepping into the center of the airlock.

"Calculate the barycentric routing. We have eight hours of darkness left on the West Coast. I want a continuous drop-and-retether sequence. Map the route."

"Calculating logistics," JAY responded, the AI's processing power whining faintly in the background.

"One hundred and forty-two targets over four hundred and eighty minutes. Factoring in instantaneous barycentric transit, you will have an average of three point three minutes per target. It will be a relentless physical exertion." It will be a harvest, Lamech corrected, the ancient thrill of the hunt bleeding through the digital ether.

"Execute," I said. The airlock floor dropped out from under me.