217

(Nothing really prompted me, so I'm taking a new angle on an old post, possibly part of something larger...writing a novel would be a fun chore.)


His breath came in shuddering rasps behind the mask. It was a familiar sound; it swam throughout my ears, intimate inside of the headphones. The display was clear and bathed in the pale blue of monitors on late nights. It was a familiar hue; I'd picked it for that reason. It had felt right at the time. The door number was 217, the second floor, the last room on the right. Frost blew over the numbers from the mask. I'd found it, and now he had found it. It was time.

“Do I have authorization?” The trapped breath belied a sweet and gentle voice. He always asked; I'd trained him to. Always ask. Always wait. Never act without my leave. I gave him the green light. As we'd rehearsed, he knocked.

The man they called the Tiger answered. He wore no shirt, no shoes. His hair was a ragged ginger, but his skin was dark and thick and heavy. He was a lean man, but he was hard, and across his arms...across his chest, his back, his face...all over him were the marks and scarification that earned him his name. His eyes were sharp – contacts, tiger's eye gems flickering with digital curiosity while the man himself looked distant, far from this world.

That is, until he saw the mask. Faceless, shining chrome on plastic, run through with veins and circuits of that lonely blue. Hoarfrost clung to the edges of the doorframe, and now to the edges of his hair. He tried to slam the door; he failed. The door tore off the hinge inside, sending him reeling.

He was not alone. We hadn't planned for this, but it seems we hadn't needed to. These were two men with guns and knives. Another shudder breath rang through my ears and there was a sudden lurch of motion on the display. I heard the crunching of a breaking hand, a knife clattering to the ground. I could almost feel the impact of ribs into wall studs, everything buckling together. Another lurch, and my eyes failed to adjust. My vision swam, and I could only hear for just a moment. Two gunshots – wide, no damage to his body armor – and a crunch. I righted my view in time to see a face evaporate like a glass bulb before a sledge. The blood was freezing over on part of the display.

The Tiger was in a corner, gasping and growling. He was readying himself. Where his fingers touched the cheap plaster of the walls, lines were deepening and gouging into the flesh of the apartment. He was no so small anymore. He had no claws, but his shadow was sharp and dark and looming. He was positing – calling forth a primal idea, a stalker in the shadows. He'd written the story on his flesh; the power was coming through. Even through the connection in the mask, I could hear the faint sound of glass – cracking, shattering, and this time howling like nails had drug across it.

The Tiger lunged, and deep, black lines tore through the walls and floors and ceilings. The contact between them was sudden, vicious, and brief. The Tiger's hands were caught, drawn apart with a power greater than tigers and stalkers and beasts and killers. His rage and hunger and instinct roared at the mask.

The mask did not flinch. There was another long, rattling breath into the filters.

A boot pressed into the Tiger's sternum. Arms pulled and a leg pushed. The Tiger made not a sound as he was bowed and folded. One, two, three hammer blows to his face connected with the floor after the second swing. The ground was cracked down to the lower floor – the rest of the place was abandoned, for that I am thankful.

“It is over,” came the voice behind the mask.
“Verified. Return by the route I'm sending.”
“Yes, father.” My son turned and left the scene. He did not fret over the blood on his gloves or his mask, flecked over with bits of ice from the exhaust he left behind.

I felt the shame he should have. We live in troubled times, however, and one does what one must to survive. I'd already received the next set of offers from the organization. I read through the first.

The name of the location made my heart stop. It seemed that the time had come.

My son would have to return home. He was ready.

I, with my simple heart, with feelings unsuppressed by steel and science and a father's fear...I was afraid.