The seventh morning after his awakening, Reynolds could finally walk unassisted.All the days before that, he needed his grandmother's help to be propped up in bed. Every form of locomotion hurt. Staying still hurt too. Very badly. Each time he moved his arm or tried to, he experienced agony. It was as though his body was remembering the flesh entering into his body, the metal a foreigner to his insides. The wound in his shoulder was easier to treat as the bullet had gone clear through his body. There was no metal to dig out of his skin. His grandmother simply cleaned the wound, smearing it with salve afterwards to give him some comfort. She often left for the nearby towns to offer her services as a healer. The hospital in the city was a little to expensive for town dwellers like his grandmother, racking up astronomical bills for the smallest of services. She was a skilled healer and was more affordable, so often they patronized her, causing her to always be on the move, leaving
The courtyard of his grandparents home was a square of land which was carefully tended to. There were several large trees scattered around the property with shrubs and flowers of varying kinds growing freely. The air smelled clean but it also carried the faint scent of smoke from the chimneys of many nearby houses. The light from the sky was dimly illuminated by small lanterns that hung in various positions on the branches of all of the trees in the yard. It cast a soft glow over everything as though it was a warm summer night despite there being plenty of shade for anyone who wished. There was no breeze that evening. In fact the air was hot the point of discomfort. Heat was already starting to creep around, but this didn’t bother Reynolds at all.Instead he continued to strode on instinct to the middle of the land, and when he got go his preferred spot, he began to dig. He was careful not to hurt any of the empherals on the land. Not trusting his body to hold his weight, Reynolds
Jamie only smoked when in distress.Where nicotine made animals of other men, it was like nothing else he knew. It calmed his nerves.He took a final puff of the cigar and let it fall out of the window. It went still slight, the red end glowing hot. He had a few moments to admire that sight and then it vanished into the thin air. It was a cool evening, and while he would have loved to be elsewhere, Jamie was stuck in the passenger seat of a nondescript car. There were two men in the back seat, a driver upfront sat with his sunglasses and wild mustache clutching the steering wheel, and then there was Riker, his business partner.The man’s face was expressionless as he gripped the door handle, his gaze fixed somewhere far in front of their destination. "Are you ready now?" He finally spoke, his voice holding a tone of impatience. Jamie did not grace him with an answer. He did not deserve one, the same way he did not deserve much of the wealth they had amassed. It was simply due to t
Leaving was, for Rey, always an act of violence.He rarely grew attached to things or places, but when he did grow attached to them, it was nearly impossible to separate himself from them. When he had no choice but to, he was always forced to tear himself away and the process felt like losing skin.Three months living with his grandmother and he had trained his body into a killing machine. His wounds had healed completely, leaving scars behind like craters and brown puckered lips. Rey tended to know things like when he had overstayed his welcome or when he needed to go, and yesterday he’d stayed up all through the night, staring at the ceiling in the dark with a distinct feeling of dread crawling slowly up his spine. In that moment; he just knew. He had to leave. And so before dawn broke the morning sky, he made all the necessary arrangements, stuffed the clothes he had amassed—mostly some of his grandfather's old shirts—into a duffel bag, and packed his boots.By the time morning lig
The city was a stranger again. Reynolds took a ferry boat back into the heart of the suburbs, and when they passed under the bridge from which he had fallen, he gazed heavenwards. As expected, there was no indication that once, there’d been an assassination attempt at the spot. The railing had been beaten back into shape. The sun overhead was a kindly thing, shining down as though it was afraid of its own intensity.The ferryman dropped him off at the docks, and for the first time in months, his feet touched tarred ground. City ground. He plunged headfirst into the city and its early morning crowd, maneuvering his way through the wide flat streets and the narrow alleys. It was not long until he found himself a taxi to take him home. He took in the scenery as they went: black gravel and white paint markings, buildings of minimalistic architecture, their glass-to-ceiling windows glinting with the sun. A woman pushed her baby in a stroller. A red scarf was slung around her neck and it
Reynolds was already on his way to The Johns conglomerate when Jovian answered the phone. Since the vehicle at his house was broken, he opted for another taxi. The driver was North African, and his words came out with an accent like dried magma.Jovian's surprise to hear Reynolds's voice was evident in his tone, but, quickly, he got over his initial shock and explained the state of things to Reynolds. Apparently Kayla had been abducted that morning and taken to God knows where. He and Lei were wounded in the course of the attack, he told Reynolds, and while she was incapacitated, he was not. The family was gathered at the family house. Readying the calvary, Reynolds hoped earnestly. His wife and unborn child where at stake."Change of plans," he told the driver. "Take me to 305 Fifth Avenue."The driver hit the brakes eagerly, reversed the vehicle and rerouted himself, right in the middle of traffic. He spurred the car into a dash. Reynolds decided that he liked the man. There was
"Fourteen armed men on the ground, two on the roof. That is a total of sixteen men." The commander said, gesturing at the screen, as he addressed the legion that was assembled before him.The laptop was small and compact and it had been set down on the top of one of the humvees. On its screen, a red dot moved. The red dot was Reizei, an undetectable tracker having been placed on him before he entered the building. They had the blueprint of the building and aerial vision from a drone.By then, the names of the men that had abducted Kayla were common knowledge. James Corrigan, popularly known as Jamie. And Riker. That one needed no introduction whatsoever.Jovian wiped sweat from his brow. His body was a furnace. It was the fever that had finally come to take him. His vision blurred at the sides and a headache raged inside his head. They had placed a tracker on the trio that went before them to scope the place and loosen its guard. To soften the ground, as some would call it.He shook
The tracker vanished all of a sudden and Jovian's head jerked with a start. He had been watching his wearable monitor almost boredly up till it happened. “What the--?" He spat."What?" asked Ceneau who had also been observant."Do we move?" one of the aides asked. Jovian nodded. He dd not want to say that the tracker had been lost. They'd just drive to where it was last seen.Everybody prepared hastily. Even Ceneau fiddled with a rifle he probably couldn't use. They piled in and hit the gas, hard.****The first thing Reizei did was strike the overhead sensor. He guessed that damaging it could shut the mantap on one end (for both doors) and lock half the guards out momentarily. And it worked. The only people to cross were the three of them, Riker, and about half the escort party.Once Reynolds grabbed the nearest guard's gun, he had acted, ramming his fist into the circular sensor above his head. There were screams, including his.The Chairman scrambled. The guard behind Reizei gra