HSH: Hero Heist Chap 15-16
Chapter 15
The Truth About Johnny
For the next five days we went to Turin Cathedral, watching and making notes. Like clockwork, everyday at exactly 10:15, the same two priests would come out, and at exactly 12 o’clock, they would go back. At 1 o’clock, the guards would change and the new priests would enter the confession booths. It was the same routine every time.
The busiest time was always between 1 and 2 o’clock and the crowd got so bad on the fifth day—a Friday—I had no choice but to remove myself from the tightly packed room and step out into the open air of the courtyard.
I didn’t understand why we kept coming back each day. There wasn’t anything to be gained by returning and doing the same thing over and over again. Jayson already mapped three back entry points and one front entrance to the main hall of the cathedral. Johnny and Gina had already determined there were exactly thirty cameras scattered about the room and their locations. Klaus had a detailed description of each of the outside entryways into the cathedral as well as an escape route for us. There was nothing else to be gained.
I breathed in the warm Italian summer air and let myself relax. As much as I would love to argue the point, no one would listen to me. Over the last week, I’d found they were pretty much all in Quinn’s pocket and would do anything he said. The only hope I might have had was Jayson, who was about as conflicted as I was about stealing such an important artifact, but even he was motivated by Quinn’s promise of reward.
It made me realize I was truly alone.
That night, over dinner in the Bar Conte Verde di Stinelli Giuseppe (please don’t ask me what it means), which was only a half mile away from the hotel, Quinn informed us the heist would be the following Monday.
“That’s a bit soon, don’t you think?” I asked. “That only gives us two more days to survey the site. What if something changes?”
Quinn shook his head and scrutinized me. “Is there honestly anything you can’t tell me about the cathedral after spending a week inside of it?”
“Probably not,” I admitted. “But, we can’t be too careful. Isn’t that what got you caught in the first place?”
His eyebrow arched. He knew I was trying to stall the heist. Frankly, I wasn’t trying that hard to hide it. The longer we had until we tried to steal the shroud, the longer I had to figure out a way to prevent it.
Which is probably why Quinn is being so hasty to begin with.
“Stop being such a loser,” Johnny said.
Quinn gave the boy a nod of satisfaction. “We’re lifting the item on Monday.”
Looking at the rest of our group, I saw none of them were going to support me. Even Jayson averted his gaze when I looked at him. So, defeated, I gave up any further argument.
I leaned over, making sure the skull pendant would pick up every word Quinn said. It seemed my friends would have to save me. I hoped they were listening.
“We will enter Turin Cathedral at exactly 11a.m. and get into position. Johnny will be in charge of disabling one of the guards so Jayson can replace him—use a double so you can be seen by the cameras in the main cathedral in case something goes wrong. If this step is not executed perfectly, we abort.”
Both Jayson and Johnny nodded.
“We wait until 1p.m. as the guards are changing and the cathedral is the most crowded. Christine will enter the minds of everyone in the cathedral and create some crisis that will cause everyone to stampede out of the building as quickly as possible, causing the most chaos.
“While this is occurring, Klaus will disable all the cameras. The guards will likely not leave their post, so Jayson and Johnny will once again be in charge of disabling any of the remaining guards.”
“How do I disable da cameras?” Klaus asked.
“I have a few ideas,” responded Quinn.
“So, we’ve cleared the building, disabled the guards and made security blind,” I said. “You’re forgetting the shroud is being held behind a couple of inches of bulletproof glass. How do we get around that?”
“I find the simplest measures are usually the most effective.” Quinn explained it in such a way that said he’d known I would raise such an argument. “Explosives.”
What have I gotten myself into? I put my head on the table and groaned.
**********
The more Quinn went over the plan, the less enthused I was about the whole thing—which is saying an awful lot since I wasn’t at all enthused to begin with.
Even though I was confident the conversation had been heard by my friends, I still texted the number Smith had given me telling him to meet me that evening. I needed a face to face with someone to tell me what exactly I should do, because for the first time, I was out of ideas.
I received a text a few minutes later simply reading: 10 o’clock.
It was only around 8p.m. As I sat, staring out the window at the darkening sky, I realized I only had two hours to figure out how I was going to get away from these idiots. Chances were, they wouldn’t be asleep by then, so I’d have to sneak out another way without raising suspicion.
The rest of the team seemed to be in higher spirits—Johnny and Gina especially. It was as if they all felt their numbers had come up in the lottery. The thing was, I kept hearing Quinn promise each of them money as compensation, but I never heard a price. Would he actually pay them once he had his hands on the artifact?
Probably not.
“Yo, Carpenter!” Johnny shouted, snapping me from daze. I looked up as he sat on the bed next to me.
“Johnny, I’m in no mood to fight right now.”
“Actually, if you ask me, you’re in the perfect mood to fight,” he said.
“And we wouldn’t want to disappoint you,” came his voice from behind me as well.
I didn’t rise to the bait and simply turned to gaze back out the window, leaving my mind open to sense any kind of attack he might mount against me, just in case.
“I don’t get you,” Johnny pressed on. I felt him pull his double back into himself. “Ya act all self-righteous, pretending to be a hero, a leader an’ a hundred other things, but when it comes down to it, you’re still here wit’ us other freaks, tryin’ to steal some crusty piece of cloth.”
I didn’t respond.
Despite my silence, Johnny continued. “Face it. You’re just like the rest of us.”
“I’m nothing like you!” I snarled. “You’re a thief and a degenerate! You care about no one but yourself! You want the truth? You want to know why I’m here? Because Quinn manipulated my parents into sending me to this stupid place! I got no offers for money or riches—only threats. Satisfied?”
The outburst had drawn the attention of Klaus, Jayson and Gina. All three were now staring at me and Johnny. One quick mental nudge and all of them went back to their own activities.
Johnny looked away, finding something interesting to stare at in the corner of the room. “That’s where we have somethin’ in common.” His tone had changed, no anger in his voice which I was used to, only sadness. “He caught us on a train, like you did. But he wasn’t satisfied with getting his bag back. He nearly killed me an’ Gina, but at the last second, let us go. I thought we’d gotten off clean, but a coupl’a days later, he showed up and told us we could either help him and get more money we’d ever dreamed of, or he would finish the job.”
He was telling the truth. Maybe Quinn had threatened all of us in some way or another. Maybe I had more allies on this mission than I thought.
If I could sway Johnny, I would get Gina too. So, I continued on, trying to understand a little more about the man in front of me. “You can be a good guy you know. You don’t have to resort to stealing. With your gifts, you can help a lot of people.”
“These aren’t gifts, Carpenter,” he told me. “When we were little, me and Gina didn’t have many friends. So, it was us. But when I was five or six—I don’t remember exactly—we were playing out in our yard when another me showed up. It was great. We had a bunch of fun. I didn’t realize it at the time but it was my own need for a friend that made me split myself.”
I was going to mention he had probably always had that power, but I didn’t want to lose him now, so I remained quiet while he continued.
“We did that for years. And I got better and better at it, until I was able to make two, three, then four copies of myself. At the same time, Gina was discovering she could make herself invisible. At first she was only able to do it with her body, but as she practiced, she could make her clothes, and then eventually me disappear too.
“We kept the secret from our parents for years, until we were like ten years old. That’s when it happened.” His mind retreated as he was seeing a very traumatic memory from his past. “I… I can’t…”
I would have told him it was all right, and he didn’t have to tell me, but it was something I needed to know. So, instead, I concentrated on his thoughts and grabbed onto the memory until I could see exactly what he was seeing.
I was in a backyard, it was nice and big, with a swingset and a treehouse. The treehouse was at least fifteen feet off the ground, with an old wooden ladder reaching up to it. A high fence surrounded the yard and on the other side all I could see were trees. Wherever they’d grown up, Johnny and Gina didn’t have any neighbors.
The house they’d apparently lived in was old, but well maintained. As a matter of fact, the house appeared to have recently gotten a fresh coat of paint. All in all, looking at this, I would have said the twins grew up in a typical household.
A scream from the treehouse caught my attention and I spun to face it. From out of the tiny door game a little girl, wearing a light colored sun-dress and her dark hair in pigtails. She had the same facial features as Gina, but this girl was much younger and her hair was only one color—brown. She carried a tiny clear plastic gun in her hand as she ran out onto the treehouse’s platform.
The scream was followed by wild laughter as the girl spun and fired several spurts of water at the young boy chasing her out. There was no doubt in my mind this was Johnny. He looked almost exactly the same, though the current version had a few more pounds and facial hair. He wore a pair of shorts and a Ninja Turtle t-shirt. He too carried a clear plastic gun.
“I got you!” Little Gina shouted. “You’re dead.”
Little Johnny paused his pursuit long enough to look down at the wet spot on his shirt where Gina had “shot” him. “Did not!” he shouted and then fired water at her.
“Stop cheating!” Little Gina yelled.
“Would you two stop fighting,” a calm and loving voice said.
I spun to where the voice was coming from. I hadn’t noticed her before, a young looking woman, even younger than my mom, stood near the house pulling clothes out of a basket and hanging them on a clothesline. The woman had light hair like Johnny flowing down her back, stopping about six inches past her shoulders. She was a lovely looking woman.
“But ma,” Little Gina whined from the railing of the treehouse. “I got him and he’s supposed to be dead.”
“I don’t want you two playing like that anyway. Now both of you get down here and wash up for lunch.” Even as she chided the two children, she still wore a pleasant expression on her face.
“Aww, ma,” Little Johnny said. “Just five more minutes!”
“Pleeeeeease,” Little Gina added.
The woman shook her head. “All right, five more minutes.”
The two kids cheered then went back to their play-battle.
Johnny fired the first shot and got Gina right in the chest, a wet spot formed right where her heart was.
“I got you!”
“I’m wearing a bullet-proof vest.” Gina said as she fired a retaliatory shot.
“No fair!” Johnny insisted.
He charged at her screaming, but playfully, not angrily. Gina stepped back, but her foot caught on an uneven board of the treehouse and she stumbled backward falling over the rail toward the ground.
Both Johnny and his mother screamed, “No!” at the same time as Little Gina tumbled toward the Earth.
On instinct, I tried to get a mental hold on her and prevent her from falling, but it was a memory, and I could do nothing to change it.
As it turns out, I didn’t have to. Underneath the falling girl, a copy of Johnny appeared, his arms already outstretched to catch her. It was only a split second, but the girl fell into his arms, and was safely placed on the ground.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Their mother, however, did no such thing. She stood by the clothesline, completely shocked by first seeing her daughter fall headfirst toward the ground and then having a copy of her son suddenly appear and catch her.
Looking at her, I could tell she was replaying the last few seconds over and over again in her mind.
Johnny’s copy disappeared and the real boy quickly descended the ladder to stand next to his sister.
Across the yard, mother and children looked at each other, not knowing what to do or say. Johnny was the first to make any kind of movement. He took a step toward his mother. “Ma, it’s okay.”
But as Johnny took a step, his mother retreated. Without reading her mind, it was apparent she was suddenly terrified of her son.
“Mommy,” Gina tried, also advancing on her mother, “I’m fine. And look, I can do something too.”
Gina disappeared for a second, and as soon as she did their mother tried both to scream and to take in a breath of air at the same time. Then she started breathing very quickly—hyperventilating really—until her cheeks turned a deep crimson.
Gina reappeared. “Mommy?” she asked.
“Ma?” Little Johnny looked like he was about to cry.
Suddenly, their mother’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she collapsed on the ground.
“NO!” Johnny yelled as he ran toward her. He never got there. The memory faded away and was quickly replaced by another.
They were inside a hospital. Little Gina and Johnny were both sitting on a plastic bench in the waiting room. They were both alone. Neither talked, and neither cried, but they looked on the verge of doing both.
A large man, who had dark hair like Gina, barged into the room like a madman. His wide eyes and slack jaw told the whole story. All he was concerned about right now was his wife and kids.
A doctor, ran into the room following the man. “Mr. Jackson?”
The man didn’t respond to the doctor at first, he wildly scanned the room until he found his children. Once he saw them, and saw they were okay, he let out a long breath, then still wild-eyed, turned toward the doctor.
“I’m Dr. Steinberg,” he said. “I’m supervising your wife’s treatment.”
“What happened?” His voice came out like a croak. “She was fine when I left for work this morning.”
“You’re wife suffered from a severe aneurysm,” the doctor informed him. “It was probably due to some kind of shock or extreme emotional distress. It has led to some hemorrhaging in the brain. We’re doing our best to stop the bleeding, but…” The doctor’s voice trailed off. He wasn’t at all eager to deliver the bad news.
“Tell me, doc,” he said. “Please.”
The doctor sighed. “It doesn’t look good. At best, your wife will come out of this with mild brain damage, at worst…”
“She’ll die,” Mr. Jackson finished.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Steinberg said. “We’re doing all we can. If you’d like to wait here with your children, I’ll keep you informed with our progress.”
“Can I see her?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
He shook his head. “She’s in surgery now. We need to stop the hemorrhage as soon as possible.”
The doctor left. Mr. Jackson’s knee began to buckle and for a moment, I thought he would faint as well. But he put his hand on the wall and braced himself long enough to prevent it. Once he was calm, he looked at his children.
“What happened?” he asked them.
Little Gina was the first to look up. “It was an accident,” she said.
“I know, honey,” he said, sitting with them. His voice was barely above a whisper. “I know.”
“I fell out of the treehouse, and Johnny used his power to catch me.”
Her father looked at her, wondering what she was talking about.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Johnny said. “I didn’t know what to do. Gina was falling and I didn’t want her to get hurt, so, I made a copy and caught her before she landed.”
“Then mom fainted,” Gina added.
Their father was as shocked as their mother was. I was waiting for his response, but I never got to see it as the scene shifted again.
They were at their mother’s funeral, watching the casket sink into the ground. Then back at home, where Johnny’s father sat on the couch, crying into his hands. The well maintained yard and house deteriorated, the lawn overgrown, the paint on the siding peeling, the treehouse and swingset rotting.
Johnny and Gina’s father never smiled in any of the memories I saw. He grew more and more angry with each one. Until I watched as he beat an unsuspecting twelve-year-old version of Johnny to a pulp.
“Oh my God,” I said. And both Johnny and I were snapped back into the present.
I looked directly into Johnny’s eyes. A flash of anger passed through them, but it quickly faded only to be replaced by despair. “You saw that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Well, once my father started hitting me, he never stopped,” Johnny said. “I could handle it. In a way, I felt like I almost deserved it. But when he started on Gina…” His voice trailed off.
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” I asked.
His head snapped up, and he stared straight at me. Again, I saw the heat of anger burn in his eyes, but the fire quickly died. “No. Of course not. He’s my father after all. We ran away, and never looked back.”
And you thought you have problems, the voice in my head said.
Shut up, I told the voice.
The story explained a great deal about Johnny, especially why he was so angry all the time. But it still didn’t tell one thing. “Why don’t you use your powers to help people though?”
Any sadness he’d been feeling, at least on the exterior, vanished in that instant. “Not that it’s any of ya business, but saving people isn’t exactly profitable. We did what we needed to survive. The world isn’t exactly fair to a coupl’a teenagers on their own.”
Even though that’s what he kept telling himself, I felt the real reason lurking in the depths of his mind. He had tried to save someone once, and it ended in disaster. He wasn’t about to go do it again.
He got up then, deciding I’d learned enough about him. “Tell anyone about that, and I’ll kill you.” He started for the door.
Before he made it two steps I said loud enough for him to hear, “Johnny.”
He looked back over his shoulder.
“I know I’m not your favorite person, but if you ever need to talk…” I let the end of the statement in the air. He knew what I was saying.
He gave an almost imperceptible nod, then continued for the door. Walking out of the room, he slammed the door shut behind him.
Chapter 16
Following a Lead
Before I knew it, it was time for me to sneak out. Johnny hadn’t come back yet and Gina was worried about him. Apparently it wasn’t like him to wander off somewhere without telling her where he was going. So, I suggested we go out to look for him.
“Okay,” she agreed.
“We’ll be back in a few,” we told Klaus and Jayson, who were too busy playing some stupid card game I didn’t care to understand.
We went down to the street, and once again I waved goodbye to the man behind the desk, who happily waved us off without so much as a word. Once we were outside, I suggested we split up.
“I’ll go up this way,” I said, pointing in the direction I needed to go to meet Smith.
“Then I’ll go this way,” she said, pointing in the opposite direction.
“Meet back in a half an hour?” I asked.
She nodded, then walked off.
I thought for a second, it was nighttime and we were in an unfamiliar city. It might not be such a good idea to go wandering. Despite the things she’d put me through, I really didn’t want her to get hurt. “Hey, Gina.”
“Yeah?”
“I think you should do this invisible,” I said. “You never know what might be lurking in the shadows.”
She nodded, and then vanished.
Surprisingly, I felt better about myself after suggesting that. Not thinking about the girl any further, I ran up the street to the small grove of trees I’d met Smith in earlier in the week.
The place had an entirely different feeling than it had during the daytime. In the shadow of the building, and on a narrow street without any lights, the area was nearly pitch black. Only a small amount of light from the stars and moon trickled down through the trees onto the ground. I could tell I wasn’t alone in the small yard, because there was a void, hiding among the trees.
“Smith?” My voice squeaked.
“I’m here, Agent Carpenter.”
“Can you come out where I can see you?”
“Not this time,” he said.
That was odd. He agreed to meet with me, then wouldn’t even face me? Why even bother then?
“I have some information and I need to know what you want me to do.”
“The mission stands, Agent Carpenter,” he responded. “You are to follow the orders of Quinn and steal the shroud. Once it is in your possession, your team will move in and extract it.”
“What about me? Once I give up the artifact, Quinn is going to know something’s up.”
“You will not be taken out of play until we are sure Quinn is out of commission.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You will follow orders, Agent Carpenter.”
“But there has to be another way,” I argued. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go through with this.”
“You will because you have to. There are more important things than your own moral values. The entire world is at stake.”
I don’t know why I even bothered. Smith wasn’t the one to give me any advice. He was all about doing things by the book and didn’t care one way or the other about the people he hurt. All he cared about was the mission at hand.
“Fine!” I nearly shouted. “Whatever you say.”
“If we’re done here,” he said. “I have more pressing matters to attend to.”
Even though I couldn’t truly feel him, I could feel the void retreating further into the shadows. I don’t know why, but I had an urge to follow him. Call it my morbid curiosity, or call it intuition, but instead of going back to the hotel, I flew up, landing on the rooftop. I saw him emerge from the trees and head down a tunnel. I followed him from above, and saw him emerge on the other side into another large stone courtyard, not unlike the one in front of the cathedral.
Once he stepped out into the well lit courtyard, I could see he was wearing a long black trenchcoat and dark hat. I shook my head at his complete obviousness. He might as well as screamed he was a spy.
I stayed at the edge of the roof I was on until he completely crossed the courtyard and wandered down a street—Via Roma. I followed him for nearly twenty minutes, staying out of sight high above him as he seemingly wandered the streets aimlessly. He would walk up the street and then cross over to the other side, and then go back in the other direction, only to turn and head back the way he’d originally been going.
He was checking to see if he had a tail. He did, but I was pretty sure he didn’t know I was there.
Eventually, he turned down another narrow road, and then entered a bar. I waited a minute to make sure he wasn’t about to exit and then floated down to the sidewalk.
A small, unlit sign read, “Bar di Valencia”. Unlike many bars in the United States that try to hide what goes on inside, this bar had a wide open window letting everyone see in, or out, of the place. I stayed out of sight of the window, only venturing to peek around the corner. There were few people inside, maybe ten or twelve.
It looked like what I’d picture a bar to look like—not that I’d ever been inside one before—tables scattered about the room, with a main “bar” counter in the rear. Several televisions played various sporting events around the room. No one was really watching any of the televisions. They were more concerned with their own conversations. Three people were at the bar, four if you included the bartender.
As I surveyed the area, I saw one of the people sitting there was Johnny. His back was to me, but his tangled dirty blonde hair and grungy looking clothes was all I needed to see to know it was him. He took a shot or something and slammed the glass on the bar, pointing to it. The bartender quickly filled the glass again.
As Johnny was intent on drinking away his memories, a fourth person approached the bar. He’d shed the trenchcoat and hat and was now only wearing the black suit I was used to seeing him in. He approached a man sitting three stools to Johnny’s left and began talking.
I needed to hear what he was saying, but with the thought inhibitor, I couldn’t get into his head. The man he was talking to, however, wore no such device. It didn’t take much for me to get inside his head. Once the connection was made, I could hear everything the two of them were saying.
“…interesting city. Once the sun goes down it seems like only the unsavory element sticks to the streets.”
The man seemed to consider what Smith was saying, then took a swig from a bottle labeled “Birra Messina”, which I assumed to be a beer. “What do you want?”
“Just to talk,” Smith said. “I understand you have a passion for antiques.”
Being inside his head, I could tell the comment had made the man incredibly nervous. However, he made no show of it, sipping from the bottle again. “Really? And I wonder who told you that.”
“It’s not important,” Smith said. “I’m here to warn you, stay away from Turin Cathedral. It can only end badly for you.”
“What are you? Some kind of cop?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Smith said.
The man looked up as Smith smiled. It was the kind of evil grin Quinn had whenever a particularly sinister thought crossed his mind.
“Listen,” he said. “I can go wherever I want, whenever I want. And some cop isn’t going to stop me.”
“What is your interest in the Shroud of Turin anyway?” Smith said without so much as a second’s hesitation.
“Like you said, I have a passion for antiques.”
My danger sense flared. I wanted to warn this man away, but I needed to know what was going on.
“No, there is something more than that. You know what the shroud can do. You know how it works. But I am here to tell you, the only way you will lay a finger on the shroud is if you work for us.”
The man emptied the bottle and slid it across the bar. The bartender, quick as he was, caught the bottle before it shattered on the ground. “Another please,” the man said. Then he turned on Smith. “I don’t take well to threats. But I’ll let this one go. Whoever you are, and whoever you work for, you can rest easy. I have no intention of stealing the shroud. I plan on analyzing it. And I’ve gone through all the proper channels, only to be denied time and time again.”
“Yeah, the Vatican can be like that sometimes,” Smith said. He chuckled. “But I really don’t care if you plan on stealing it or not. You’re not to go near it. Understand?”
The man got his beer and took a swig from the fresh bottle. “No,” he said simply.
“No?”
“I don’t understand. I’ve done nothing wrong, I plan on doing nothing wrong, and here you are harassing me and sending me empty threats. Go away before I hurt you.” The anger in this man was beginning to rise, but I could tell he wasn’t really going to do anything to hurt Smith. The same couldn’t be said for the Agent however.
“No.” Smith said and he pulled out his gun. “If you’re not going to comply with my wishes, then you have to be taken out of the equation.”
The man, didn’t even react to the gun being pointed at him. It was like he believed Smith wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.
But, the man was wrong. Smith fired the gun. BANG!
The bullet bounced off the man’s cheek and ricocheted into a couple of bottles behind the bar.
The man sighed, but then turned angrily toward Smith. “You shot me in the face! Are you crazy?”
“You’re a meta,” Smith said, as if bullets bounced off people he shot everyday. “That explains a lot.”
“Can we get back to the part where you shot me in the face?”
Something was wrong. I pulled back out of the man’s head and reentered my own.
A gun was fired in a seemingly quiet bar, and the only person who reacted to it was Johnny, who had jumped off his stool and stumbled drunkly into the wall.
I reached out, trying to sense anyone else in the bar, and though there were nearly a dozen people, I only sensed two. Johnny and the man whose brain I’d been in. The rest were Agents.
Oh crap! This wasn’t good, quite the opposite. This was very very bad. Johnny was in there with a bunch of Agents. If even one recognized him he’d be arrested in a second.
I had to get him out of there.
As my mind was forming some sort of a plan that didn’t get Johnny captured or killed in the process, a hand slapped down hard on my shoulder.
Instinctively, I pushed the hand away and threw a full force mental jab at my assailant. If this was an Agent, trying to keep me in line, I would make them pay dearly before I went quietly.
Quickly I spun to face the attacker only to find a stunned Klaus holding his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I whispered.
“Vent for jog.”
I rolled my eyes. The boy had probably been following me. I wondered how much he knew. I had to think up something quickly before he suspected anything was going on.
“Look, Johnny’s in there and there are a few Agents in the bar. We have to get him out of there.” It wasn’t a lie, which made it easier to tell.
Klaus peered through the window as I had, and seemed to survey the situation. His eyes momentarily went wide with shock. I supposed he saw just how tough a time we’d have extracting our teammate from the place.
“You should take control of him, and walk him outside.”
It was a logical idea. One I could have come up with given a few more seconds’ thought. I hated the boy for coming up with it first. “Okay, but watch my back. When I’m in his head, I can’t see what’s going on around me.” Not the kind of thing I wanted to admit to a potential enemy, but it was better than letting an Agent sneak up on me.
Concentrating, I entered Johnny’s mind. Once inside, I was greeted by a strange sensation. I was seeing through Johnny’s eyes, but I couldn’t see straight. When I tried to move his legs forward, they were sluggish and almost unresponsive. It was taking most of my focus to keep the boy upright.
The blurred and out of focus images coming through the connection from Johnny’s mind to mine, was also causing the contents of my stomach to start bubbling. I could feel my own cheeks turning green as I willed Johnny to step forward.
I moved Johnny like a puppet, step by step through the bar, avoiding the particularly large blurs I took to be tables… or Agents. I couldn’t tell which.
Why would anyone willingly do this to themselves? I mused.
It looked like I was going to get Johnny out of there successfully, but then I lost control. The room began to spin and the bile in my stomach started to boil again. When I thought I would lose control and spew the contents of my stomach on the ground, Johnny emptied his.
My link with him instantly broke and through the dizzy haze left in my head, I gazed through the window to watch Johnny finish throwing up on an Agent, and then pass out at her feet.
Revulsion filled the woman’s eyes as she looked at the mess left on her suit. She lifted her arm as if she wanted to reach for her gun but didn’t wish to touch the chunks of vomit dripping down her front. As if was, shooting him probably wouldn’t have done much anyway, the boy was already down and out—no longer a threat.
Unfortunately, the incident had also drawn much of the attention of the other Agents in the bar. Most of the others converged on Johnny’s prone form. I’d made the situation worse.
Luckily, while I was coming up with another plan, Klaus was already taking steps to get our comrade out of there.
He grabbed a handful of pebbles and then swung the door open. Then, standing inside the doorway he flicked each pebble in quick succession at each of the Agents in the bar. Each tiny stone hit its mark on the side of the neck, below the jaw-line, exactly where Klaus had intended. One by one, the Agents fell to the floor, unconscious. It happened so fast, I barely had the time to process it.
The only one who didn’t fall was the man whose mind I’d been inside. He simply stood for a moment, dazed, before running through the rear of the bar. Who was he, anyway?
“Get him before they vake up.”
“But how?”
“Pressure point,” he said pointing to the same spot on his own neck. “Hit vith enough force, and dhey fall asleep. I show you zometime.”
“Okay.” I was still not sure exactly how he’d done it.
“Now go, dhey vill vake in a few minutes.”
I did, entering the bar and stepping over the knocked out Agents. I reached Johnny, and got nauseous when I saw him covered with much of the same colored substance as the Agent he’d thrown up on. I was definitely not touching him.
Mentally grabbing him, I intended to float him out the door. I could easily carry him like that all the way back to the hotel. However, another thought crossed my mind first and I lowered him back, much to Klaus’ dismay. The boy was really afraid of me getting caught. It was sweet.
Smith’s body still laid by the bar, right where he’d been standing a minute before. This was probably going to be my only chance to see how much I could trust the M.H.D.A..
Finding the near-microscopic thought-inhibitor, I crushed it with a mental push. Then, reaching out to his unconscious mind, I sifted through all of his thoughts, bringing the ones for his current assignment to the forefront.
I didn’t like what I saw.
I heard a groan from behind the bar. The fake bartender was waking up. As quickly as I could, I mentally lifted Johnny off the floor and floated him through the door, running behind him. By the time any of them fully awoke, we would be gone.
Klaus ran beside me, hardly showing any effort to keep up, while I was using all the strength I had. Johnny hovered, following only a couple of behind.
“Vhat vere you doing?” he asked, not breaking a single stride. “You could have been caught.”
Again, my heart fluttered, knowing how much concern he had for my safety. “I had to,” I told him. It wasn’t a lie. “The Agent in there knows all about what we’re doing. He’s planning on taking the shroud from us.”
I didn’t add the last part—the part even I had to admit Quinn was right about. I saw an army, thousands of soldiers bred from the DNA in the shroud. All of them, taught from birth to follow orders. An army that was unstoppable.
I couldn’t believe it. Just when I’d hoped I could trust them, I learn their ultimate purpose. They didn’t care about stopping Quinn—or at least, not ONLY about stopping him. They wanted the artifact, probably to replace the one I inadvertently stole from them a few months ago. Imagine what they could do if they had the shroud, the spear and Quinn’s chalice. They’d only need one more piece and…
It was unfathomable the destruction that army would cause. I couldn’t allow it to happen. It appeared I didn’t have a choice. I had to steal it. Not for Quinn, or the M.H.D.A., or even myself. Like Quinn had lied to us about: I had to steal the shroud to save the world.
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