This book is intended for a more mature audience, so be advised.
╗ TWELVE ╚
DANIEL
MARCUS
There
had been no time to cry out in pain, no time to do anything other
than simply collapse to her knees as her attacker held her securely
from behind. The intruder's grunted warning into Anna's ear was
entirely unnecessary; her brain was shocked and frozen in time and
she felt she would have done anything he wanted had he merely
expressed the desire.
The
man behind her wasted no time. “Good. Get up.” He hauled her
firmly to her feet, still pinning her twisted arm behind her back.
She complied without a thought or a sound, and watched through a
dazed semi-consciousness as he snatched her gun from the floor with
his free hand. They both made their awkward way to her living room
and the man pushed her to a sitting position on the sofa.
“You
will sit quietly and listen, and I will talk,” he said as he
flicked on the table lamp and began to strip her gun down to its
component parts. She watched with growing concern as frame, slide,
barrel, magazine, and spring came apart, and he pitched each piece
unceremoniously to various corners of the room. The speed and
efficiency of the act startled her, and she became even more alarmed
when he did not pitch the barrel but instead kept it in his hand.
She
had recovered enough to look at his face and was shocked to realize
that it was the same man that had picked her up off the ground at the
doctor's office. He stood even taller than she remembered, dressed
entirely in black combat gear with his own firearm strapped firmly to
his waist and various gear clipped to his belt. She had not seen his
eyes at their first encounter due to his sunglasses, but now they
were plainly visible: gray, piercing eyes glowing with a hunted
fierceness, frightening in their intensity and danger.
Pain
suddenly began to rage through her arm and her knees, and she moaned
as they began to stab and ache. “You hurt me,” she mumbled almost
incoherently.
The
man didn't even glance up. “You'll live,” he said in a
matter-of-fact tone. “We have more important things to talk about.
You are going to do something for me.” He pulled open a pocket on
his harness and began to fish inside it for something. “You have
top security access at Central Admin and you are going to use it.”
Anna's
brain began roiling with obvious questions. “How did you get into
my house?” she stammered, disregarding his request. “I set my
alarm, I locked the door . . . “
The
man did not respond until he had found what was in his pocket, a
small scrap of paper with writing scrawled on one side. “I used an
access card, same as you would have when you get home at night.”
“But-
but I didn't give you my access card!” she blurted out stupidly.
“And you didn't steal it, I still have it.”
“I
stole it after a fashion,” the man replied. “One doesn't have to
take an access card to
make it work. I copied it.”
“When?”
Anna asked, bewildered.
“At
the doctor's office. I was close to you long enough to copy it
wirelessly. You really ought to secure your house better against
intrusion if you don't want things like your code slicer stolen.”
Panic
quickly rose into Anna's throat and threatened to suffocate her. How
in the world did her know about her code slicer? How in the world was
he standing right here right now? How in the world . . . Then
an insane thought took shape in her muddled head. “Who are you?”
she whispered, although she was almost certain she already knew the
answer. Her suspicions were confirmed when he looked her dead in the
eyes and spoke again.
“I
am Daniel Marcus, and I know you already know that name. I'm not sure
what you've been told about me and who I am, but I am really not in
the mood for correcting back story that they may have gotten
wrong.” He grasped one of her wrists and planted the crumpled paper
he held into her own palm. “I need you to research these for me.”
Anna
blinked incredulously at him for several moments before her eyes fell
to the paper in her hand. She unfolded it and stared, then held it
closer and stared longer with growing confusion. Its only contents
were two sets of letters and numbers: SVC1001-1FX and SVC5403-1F. She
looked back up at Daniel. “I have no idea what this is.”
“Each
one is a serial number in your database,” Daniel replied.
Anna
shook her head. “That doesn't help me at all,” she faltered. “I
don't even know which database to begin looking in. How am I supposed
to look them up when I don't know that?”
Daniel
smiled at her, a cold and precarious expression. “Do you think I'm
that stupid? In your orientation did Central Admin not cover the
“Search All” option from the main screen on your desk computer?”
Anna
gritted her teeth, her consternation rapidly growing. “Uh, they did
. . . “
“Then
use the damn system to do what it was built to do.”
In
desperation Anna tried again. “What are these numbers even for?
What do they mean?”
Daniel
leaned against the nearest wall whilst keeping his eyes firmly
affixed to his victim. Anna could hear his breathing become more
labored, with sadness or anger she couldn't tell but she guessed some
great emotional storm raged inside the man. Finally he crossed his
arms and drew breath.
“The
SVC stands for 'SubVersion Complex,' the middle numerals are the lot
number, and the F stands for Female.” Daniel struggled with the
words. “The 1 before it signifies that the female in question has
no twin.”
Anna
could hardly believe what she was hearing. In fact, it sounded so
silly, especially coming out of such a serious man's mouth that
despite her discomfiture she could barely contain a hysterical laugh.
“Subversion Complex? As in, the Subversion Complex of urban
legend? You cannot be serious! You are either a conspiracy theorist
of the highest order or you are insane!”
Daniel
lunged away from the wall and dropped to his knees in front of her so
quickly that she nearly shrieked. She pulled her feet up onto the
sofa and shielded her face from his eyes, which now burned only
inches from her own. He had his hands on both sides of her, balled
into fists and grinding into the cushions while his face floated so
close to her own that she could feel the heat of his quiet fury. “I
am neither, Anna” he growled, his voice shaking. “Some have
speculated about the SubVersion Complex, others have fought to find
out if it exists. It does indeed exist, and I know because I have
seen a part of it. So do not ever give me grief over conspiracy
theories and urban legends ever again. Do I make myself perfectly
clear?”
Anna's
hands and breathing shook as she nodded desperately. The immediacy of
his tone had somehow managed to obliterate her doubt, at least for
the moment. Daniel remained uncomfortably close to her, though, and
appeared to have little intention of moving any time soon.
“You
are looking for two females, and I need to know the status and
location of both of them as soon as is practicable for you to get the
info to me.”
“You
keep saying females,” Anna asked, still cringing away from
him. “Female what?”
“Female
humans, Anna. Try to keep up.”
“Female
humans? But what- what is the Subversion Complex?” Anna persisted.
Her confusion grew ever stronger, and even her memories of the urban
legends failed her in the details. The Subversion Complex had always
appeared in the conspiracy theories as some horrific underground
prison, or something of that sort, a subterranean labyrinth that
housed some awful secret. However, there had never been any proof of
it, and most of the public, including her, disbelieved and even
laughed at the notion.
And
now Daniel Marcus claimed he had been there.
Daniel
tore himself away from the sofa and stood again, and Anna could
immediately tell she was not going to get much more from him. His
eyes still fixed on her face, he breathed unevenly and worked his
jaw. “You will perform the “Search All” function, or whatever
function you can find to do the trick, and you will find out the
status of these two females for me. It would be an understatement to
say that they are dear to me; they are my life. You will do this for
me, and you will report back with your findings.”
One
of Anna's conversations with Dr. Jarrod flashed back into her mind
and she remembered he had said Daniel had gotten tangled up with some
woman at Central Admin. Perhaps this was her. She looked up at
Daniel and all of a sudden she realized she despised this man, as
fearsome as he was. Central Admin and the Secretary carried enough
weight between them to squash one man like Daniel. She couldn't
recall what had made him seem attractive to her before.
She
stared at him with all the defiance she could muster and crossed her
arms across her chest. “And what happens if I refuse to do all of
this? I could report you, show the Party Secretary the numbers on
your list, have you hunted down like the criminal you are. What is to
stop me? Are you going to kill me?”
For
the second time a smile split Daniel's face. “No, I am not going to
kill you. But I'll gladly let you hang yourself if that's your
fancy.”
Anna's
blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”
“I
have two ways of ensuring that you will get this done for me. The
first is the highly incriminating data package that my compatriots
have ready to drop on your comfortable little life if you choose to
ignore me. It has just about every kind of damning evidence we could
invent linking you with the Verité group, and believe you me, I am
not afraid to use all of it against you if you betray me.”
Anna
began to shake again. Along with the abject fear pulsing through her
veins, her body had begun to crash after all that wine and she found
it increasingly difficult to concentrate properly. “And the other
way?” she croaked.
“The
other way is this.” From the same pocket that the paper had emerged
from now came another object, this one small and round and shiny.
Daniel held it up so that she was sure to see. Anna realized with
horror that it was her borrowed code slicer, the slicer that was
supposed to be nestled comfortably inside her safe upstairs. Her
stomach fell away completely.
“How
did you get that?” she gasped.
Daniel
looked askance at her. “You have a biometric lock on that safe,
Anna, and your fingerprints are all over this house. Don't insult
me.” He held it just out of her reach. “As I understand, this
slicer needs to go back to HomoGen pretty soon. A couple weeks,
perhaps? And then they will begin to demand it of you. I hope you are
privy to the fact that this device is worth more than your entire
property, and that you'd have to invent a fine excuse to explain its
disappearance. So I will be taking this with me until I hear back
from you.”
“Wait
wait wait!” Anna stammered breathlessly. “Please don't, if I lose
that I lose everything! And how am I supposed to get in touch with
you anyways? I don't know how, you're liable to disappear and never
come back!”
Daniel
pulled a small commex handset from his belt and tossed it onto the
sofa next to her. “You will use this,” he said. “I know you are
a computer tech and that your first thought will be to hack this
device and discover my location, but rest assured we've already taken
that into consideration. If you take it apart it will signal me and
then destroy itself. If you attempt to bring it into Central Admin
the guards will scan your vehicle and yourself and they will find it.
If you tamper with the code inside at all it will alert me. So don't
try anything, it would only be a waste of both of our time.”
He
looked at her one last time. “I don't want to do this, I wish there
was another way, but there is no other way I know of. Play along and
everything will be fine. Don't play along, and I and my allies will
rain hellfire down on you.”
“Your
allies?”
“Yes,
if again you had not already guessed. They are Verité, and so
am I.” He turned to leave, then paused briefly by the entrance to
the kitchen. He held up his hand, and Anna saw the barrel of her gun
shining between his fingers. “You know, it would take a
professional only a couple seconds to reassemble this weapon under
ideal circumstances. Your weapon is a bit more . . . scattered. I'll
tell you what, since you fancy yourself handy with a gun, I will give
you this-” he indicated the barrel “-and we will see how quickly
you can reassemble and get off a shot at me. Farewell.”
With
that, he tossed her the barrel and disappeared into the kitchen. Anna
immediately dove for the floor and scrabbled for the remaining pieces
of her firearm, snapping and clicking it all back together as quickly
as her training allowed. When it was finally assembled again she
raced through the kitchen to the back door, but she already knew it
was a lost cause. Daniel Marcus was gone, and she was trapped.
She
stumbled back into the living room overwhelmed with exhaustion and
anger and fear. After stripping the magazine from her gun she threw
them both onto the coffee table, then threw herself onto the sofa and
began to cry. Her body trembled with wrenching violent sobs for a
long time before she drifted fitfully off to sleep.
She has only been firing a weapon for three days, she was slightly intoxicated, and was violently assaulted and threatened with death and ruin for the first time in her life. I don't think she would have been able to get that gun back together at all. Also, he should have made her repeat the instructions back to him, just to be sure she did not forget them under the mental stress. Good chapter.
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