Dire Means (51 page)

Teddy palmed the console outside Pop’s office and the door opened. Morana stepped out. Her eyes were red and when she lifted her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear Mark noticed a wadded tissue in her hand. Pop stood stone-faced in the doorway behind her and his temples flared as he watched her pass by Mark in the hallway.

Teddy turned to follow her, but Pop stopped him. “Leave her. Let her wander the halls—she isn’t going anywhere. I want you in the Mulching Room, Teddy. Triple check the Gullet. I don’t want any malfunctions.”

“Of course, Papa,” Teddy said, and then hurried away.

“Now, let’s have us a little chitchat, Mr. Denny,” Pop said, pointing through the open door of his office.

§

Morana held her handbag hidden behind her as she knocked on Bracks’s door. She leaned close, listening for footsteps.

“What?” came his voice from behind the door.

“Open it, Bracks, we don’t have much time.”

“Busy!”

“Dammit, Bracks, knock it off and open the door.” Morana checked over her shoulder to make sure Teddy hadn’t followed from Pop’s office.

After almost thirty seconds, the door opened a few inches. Bracks peered out and looked Morana up and down—like he always did. “You’ve been crying,” he said.

“Can we talk?”

“Her royal majesty wishes to speak to me?” Bracks grinned.

“You’re the only one I can trust. I need you desperately right now.”

Bracks’s grin grew.

“Please! I’ll owe you big time,” she urged.

Bracks opened the door wider. Morana pushed in and closed the door quietly behind her.

“I want to know only two things from you,” Bracks said, unable to stop grinning. “What do you want, and what do I get for it?”

Morana managed to make her voice tremble as she said, “Please, please, Bracks, I want safe exit from the Nest.” She stepped closer to him. “As for repayment, we can make that as interesting as you wish.”

He leaned forward and smelled her neck. He laughed and said, “You see? If we had this sort of working relationship from the beginning, think of how much more rewarding our work together could have been.” He caressed Morana’s waist, and let his hand slide down to her hip. She winced. Behind her back she slipped her hand into her bag.

“Your movie escapade was clever—very clever,” Bracks said. “But did you honestly think that you would get away with it? Did you really, truly think I wouldn’t know?”

“You know everything. I should just accept that,” Morana laughed, stalling while she slipped her fingers around the rubber handle of a nine-inch Tanto knife.

Bracks laughed with her. “Yes you
should
accept that. And removing your shirts in the movie theater was the stupidest thing you and Mr. Hero Denny could have done,” Bracks said. He laughed harder.

Morana waited for him to finish. “Opening your door for me was the stupidest thing you ever did,” she said.

The glee melted from Bracks’s face. He backed toward his chair at the Nest’s master computer system. Morana would make sure he didn’t reach it.

§

Mark sat down in Pop’s office. Pop returned to his desk and sighed as he plopped back into his chair. He shook his head and tapped his lips with the tip of his index finger. “And I had so much hope for you,” he said.

Mark didn’t respond.

Pop pointed to a wall behind Mark. Mark turned it and saw his and Morana’s shirts nailed to the red wall, side by side.

“My mission will not fail, Mark. I hoped you would play a more significant role in it, but you’ve made an unfortunate choice. You have ruined a very good thing.”

Mark looked Pop in the eye and said, “Terror will never create love. Your method sabotages your goal. You will fail.”

“
I will NOT fail!
” Pop yelled. He slammed his hand down on his desk and Mark jumped. Pop saw Mark’s reaction and smiled as he sat back again. “Are you aware of the subtlety with which homelessness happens?”

Mark didn’t respond.

“One moment things are grand. You are comfortable. You are respected. You have a reason for living. You are useful. And then, in a flash,” Pop snapped his fingers, “you are disrespected, uncomfortable, and what’s left of your miserable life is hell—and precarious—much like your life right now, Mr. Denny.”

Mark swallowed hard.

Pop’s phone beeped and he tapped on the screen a few times and then held it up to his face to read before he put it back into his pocket.

Mark wondered if Morana had successfully planted the TellTale. The pen holder held Pop’s usual clutch of identical red pens.

Just then, Pop’s desk phone rang. He pressed a button and Teddy’s voice came though the speaker. “The last truck is in and all Bladers are in the Mulching Room. What do you want me to do with the publisher?”

Pop took a moment to smile at Mark and then said, “Leave her in the holding room for now. I want her to make a grand entrance for our guests of honor.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Everyone is to remain in the Mulching Room. No one is to leave. I want every eye to see this. Bring in the yellow-sign boys as an appetizer for the Gullet. We’re right on time. That will be all.” Pop hung up.

Mark’s throat tightened as the horror of Pop’s agenda seized him. Janne wasn’t in an oubliette, but what were they about to do to her? Was Pop going to execute her as part of Mark’s punishment?

Pop returned his attention to Mark. “You are going to be a guest of honor at a very special dinner in a few minutes. I brought you in here to give you a preview of our agenda. You see, you’ve been a disappointment, Mark. You’ve been disloyal to me, and worse, to our homeless brothers and sisters. I’m afraid you’ve also affected Morana who is a critical component of our mission and that is unforgivable. I offered you an opportunity to help us end homelessness and you’ve betrayed me. Like any mission, ours requires implicit loyalty. And nothing boosts loyalty better than watching a traitor pay for his sins.”

Mark felt light headed when Pop confirmed that Mark’s life was about to end. Pop went on, reviewing his high hopes for Mark’s participation in the Trail Bladers’ mission, but Mark couldn’t concentrate on his words.

After Pop finished, there was a knock at the door. Pop’s forehead wrinkled with surprise. He checked his watch and then buzzed the door. Morana threw the door open, stepped inside and kept the door open with her foot. She still wore the white t-shirt from the movies, but it was splattered with blood that also covered her arms and hands. Her duffle bag was slung over her shoulder.

Pop stood so quickly that his chair rolled out from behind him and hit the wall. “What the hell are you doing?” he said. He reached for his desk phone.

“Not a move!” Morana screamed. She raised a Taser and aimed it at Pop.

Pop flashed a smile for a moment, as if coaxing a joke from the situation.

Morana said, “Mark, there is a cart in the hallway. Roll it in.”

Mark ran to the hall and guided the enclosed metal cart through the open doorway while Morana kept her Taser’s laser sight pegged on Pop’s chest.

When Mark got the cart inside, Morana kicked the office door shut and checked that it was locked.

Pop pulled his hand from his pocket, pressed a button on his handheld and yelled, “Bracks, I need you!” and then he cringed—ready for the jolt of the Taser.

“Bracks is dead,” Morana said.

For the first time, Mark saw fear in Pop’s eyes. Pop tried to duck behind his desk, but Morana pulled the trigger. Pop let out a scream so loud Mark’s shoulders flinched. Pop clenched his teeth and his lips peeled back so far that the sides of his molars were visible. He dropped his handheld and fell to the floor, twitching to the pulses of the Taser as Morana stepped closer.

Mark positioned the cart and swung open its side door.

“Get in the cart, Aldred,” Morana ordered.

“If Bracks is dead, we are all doomed,” Pop said through gasps. “The Nest is locked down. If you have killed him then none of us, not even I can get into his suite to open the doors.”

“I brought Bracks’s master key,” Morana said. She reached into her bag and pulled out a severed hand, dripping with blood.

Mark stepped back and gagged at the sight of the hand

Pop’s face went pale. “You’ve killed us all,” he said.

“Give us the password,” Morana said. “I know you can unlock the Nest.”

Pop smiled at her. “Enduring an hour of your torture to ensure that you die with me will be more than worth it, you traitor.”

Morana fed him ten more seconds of current and released the trigger, deflating Pop’s body into a heap on the floor. She leaned down to him and screamed, “Get into the fucking cart, Aldred, or I’ll juice you until you glow.”

Pop crawled into the cart while shaking his head.

Morana turned to Pop’s desk and opened the bottom drawer. She pulled out a handgun and pulled the clip to make sure it was loaded.

As Pop pulled his legs into the cart, he said, “Mo, your regret over this will consume you.”

“
My regret is about to kill you!
” Morana shouted and she pressed the barrel to Pop’s temple. He closed his eyes tightly.

“Please don’t kill him,” Mark said. “We need him alive.”

“Don’t worry. He’s going to live to suffer a long time.”

She pulled the gun back and stuffed it into her bag. She snatched the Taser probes from Pop, slammed the cart shut, and latched it.

She turned to Mark and said, “The consoles to the garage and the trucks are not working with Bracks’s hand. He must have disabled them.”

“You tried to leave?” Mark asked.

“No—I was checking things.” Morana looked away. She cleared her throat and then said, “You have an hour to crack the password or we all die in here. Try the TellTale—I planted it in his pen holder during my meeting and he typed on his keyboard a few times.”

“I need my laptop,” Mark said.

“It’s in Bracks’s suite under his desk. Here, this will get you in.” She pulled Bracks’s bloody hand from her bag and gave it to Mark. It felt rubbery and was still warm. Mark gagged again and tried breathing deeply through his nose to ward off a rush of queasiness. “Be careful out there,” Morana warned. “Teddy may enter the hallway to check things. If he does, just tell him Pop wants to see him in his office. I’ll take care of him.”

As Mark hurried to Bracks’s suite he held the severed hand by the wrist to avoid touching the fingers. He pressed it against Bracks’s entry console and the door immediately clicked unlocked. Inside, Mark saw Bracks’s body lying on its side beside the desk. Bracks’s torso was splattered with blood that had also pooled under the outstretched nub of his arm. A bloody Tanto knife lay in the pool of blood. A blood-covered meat cleaver was embedded in the wall above the body. Mark ran to the kitchenette sink and vomited. He splashed some cool water on his face.

He grabbed Bracks’s legs and dragged his body away from the desk to make room. Under the desk, he found a laundry sack that contained his laptop, his computer bag and personal phone. He put his laptop on the desk and tucked the phone into his pocket.

For the first time, he sat at the Nest’s computer control center. He examined the screens. His profession required an ability to quickly learn new software and hardware, but never had his life depended on it. He wrung his hands together to keep them from shaking.

The screens on the right side showed software controls, a map of the entire Nest with each door and hallway’s status shown as locked or unlocked. Another screen showed a map of the Sty with an icon for each oubliette. Each icon displayed a person’s name, the interior temperature and a timer. Under this screen sat a joystick and a second keyboard.

On the left, a large bank of twenty screens showed live video feeds of each room in the Nest and the garage. A screen on the bottom row drew his attention. It showed a large group of uniformed Trial Bladers gathered. In the center of the room, a ladder led to a high wooden platform beside a huge machine—the size of an inverted cement truck drum. The top had a gaping mouth—four feet in diameter. Mark saw Teddy standing on the platform, working with long straps that dangled from the ceiling above the machine’s mouth.

Mark took a deep breath. He pulled Bracks’s keyboard and mouse toward him and began exploring the control center. In less than three minutes he discovered the permissions controls for the Nest, but when he clicked to enter it, the screen went black except for the image of a finger, which prompted him to swipe. He found the fingerprint reader near Bracks’s keyboard. He took Bracks’s hand and swiped the index finger. “Access Denied” flashed on the screen.

Mark’s heart stopped and he shouted, “Nooo!” He wiped his forehead on his sleeve and then went to Bracks’s corpse. He grabbed the hand that wasn’t severed and, with a big heave, pulled Bracks’s entire torso onto the desk. He swiped the other index finger. The computer beeped and the screen filled with thumbnail photos of all the Trail Bladers’ staff—now including his own. Mark sighed and let Bracks’s body fall back to the floor.