John Gone (34 page)

A tall man in a crooked white paper cap stood
in one corner by the counter slicing a fat, oddly shaped root with
a large butcher knife. He wore a dirty, once-white apron and turned
toward John and the Advocates as they entered his kitchen.

“Out,” the dark-haired man yelled at the
cook, pointing at the door they’d just entered. The cook looked at
John, clawing at a thick leather collar and trying to force his
fingers between it and his throat. The cook stuck his knife
point-down into his cutting board and ran through the galley’s
exit.

“That is no way to treat a knife,” the
dark-haired man said as he walked to the counter and lifted the
cook’s butcher knife from the board. He examined its edge. “Dull as
a fork’s,” he said. “Unsurprising.”

The blond-haired man dragged John to an
island cooking range at the center of the kitchen and pointed to
one of the four metal barstools positioned around it. John sat, as
instructed, and the blond-haired man sat across from him, his hand
still firmly on the leather circle. Its end was now swiveled to
John’s front.

The dark-haired man walked to John, knife in
hand, and sat on the stool beside him. He pulled a small, red,
vinyl bag from his chest pack and placed it on the island’s counter
in front of them. He set the butcher knife next to it.

“You called us Advocates before,” the
dark-haired man said. He grabbed onto John’s face by the jaw and
forced it toward him. He looked past John’s eyes. “Where did you
hear that word?”

John sat silent, staring back at the man with
an equal, unflinching intensity. His captor’s green eyes were
lifeless. They conveyed no emotion and betrayed no thought behind
them. They simply stared, unmoving and fixed upon nothing.

“It doesn’t much matter,” the man said a few
moments later. “You don’t have to tell me.” He opened his red bag,
revealing three rods, four thin stones, and a small bottle of a
yellow, oily substance. He dripped some of the oil onto the butcher
knife’s edge and began to work it between one of the rods and
stones. The blond-haired man began to drum the fingernails of his
free hand against the inside of a massive black iron skillet
positioned in front of him on the range.

“You killed my mom,” John said.

“I know,” the dark-haired man replied.

“Why? She had nothing to do with
anything.”

“Sure she did,” the Advocate answered. “She
knows you, right?” The man paused a moment before adding
flippantly, “Well, she
did
, anyway.”

“You son of a bitch!” John yelled, jumping
from his seat. With amazing speed, the blond-haired man jerked on
the leather band, slamming John’s head down into the
countertop.

“We didn’t go there for her,” the man
explained. “We went there for you, John.”

“How did you find her and the house?”

“The same way we were able to follow you to
all of those other awful places we met. I’m not a science nerd, but
bear with me and I’ll try to explain it to you.” The man swapped
out the stone he was using on the knife with another. His partner
continued to drum his fingers, slowly quickening pace. “That watch
on your arm spits out a signal when you teleport. We’ve had access
to that since you stole the device.”

“I didn’t steal it,” John interjected.

“There’s a different piece of data that
contains where you go back to, I guess.” The man continued to work
the stone and rod up and down the length of the butcher knife’s
edge. “Until recently, we didn’t have it.”

“Then how did you get it?” John asked
sharply.

“Actually,” the man said, “and I’ll be honest
with you here, John; I have no idea. We were just given the data
from our boss. If you want to know where he got it, you’d have to
ask him. Though, that’s impossible, of course. That data led us to
a warehouse. A small bit of snooping led us to a police report on
an incident that took place there recently. That led us to their
suspect list, and that led us to your address. We met your mother
there and asked her politely to tell us about you and where you
might be. She wasn’t very cooperative.” John noticed the
blond-haired man smile at that. The dark-haired man continued his
story.

“We were going to head back toward the
warehouse when we got another call. It seems that knowing the
location of your starting position allowed the science boys to
determine exactly where you’d appear next. And what a convenient
‘next’ it was.” The man switched out the stone and rod for a third
set before squeezing a few more drops of oil onto the butcher
knife’s blade.

“You’re both cowards catching me like this.
What about honor or the thrill of the hunt or something?” John
tried.

The dark-haired man laughed. “Who do you
think we are, John? Our job was to catch you. There’s nothing
beyond that. Did you think that just because I can run fast, I like
to?”

“Why are we even having this conversation?”
John asked, exasperated.

“Why am I telling you all of this? Because I
can, and because we may as well talk about something while I
sharpen this knife. It’s the same reason I’ll tell you my name.
It’s Cornelius. Currently, you’re the third person alive who knows
that. One is my boss, and the other is my partner here. Yes, you’re
the third person alive to know, but interestingly enough, I’ve told
hundreds of people before you. Imagine that.”

“Your name is Cornelius?” John asked. “That’s
a dumb name.”

“Cornelius Black,” the man replied.

“If you’re just going to kill me, then why
the theatrics?” John said, snapping at his assailant. “Just do it
already.”

Black grabbed John’s shirtsleeve and used it
to wipe the oil from his blade before placing the butcher knife
down on the countertop in front of him. John’s eyes followed the
knife’s handle as Black dropped it just a few feet away from him on
the range.

Black stood from his stool and brought his
nose an inch away from John’s. “We can always speed things up if
you’re getting impatient,” he said. The blond-haired man began to
cough violently. Black continued speaking over his partner’s
hacking. “But the reason we’re even sitting here at all is because
you’ve inexplicably evaded us for the last three days. It makes us
look bad, like my partner and I aren’t able to finish the job.
You’ve now had two days more than you should have, and those days
aren’t free.” Without removing his eyes from John’s he reached into
the pack strapped to his chest and removed a grey cylinder.

“Hold this,” Black said, placing the cylinder
into John’s hand.

“It’s heavy.”

“Yes,” Black replied. “It should be. It’s a
weight.” Black took back the cylinder and lifted a small latch on
its side. The weight folded open in half lengthwise. He picked up
the butcher knife and clamped the cylinder onto its back, opposite
its edge. With the thin grey weight now clamped to the knife, Black
swung it up and down.

“It’s sort of like holding a roll of pennies
when you punch someone,” Black explained. He placed the knife back
down, one foot closer to John than before.

“I never stole anything,” John said, keeping
his eyes on the knife’s position. “Okay? I just found it. I put it
on my wrist and it won’t come off. I never wanted any of this. If I
could give it to you, I would. Come on! Please!”

“At first, the idea was for my partner to
give you his watch, then I would take you back to HQ. Now, the
company’s a bit skeptical about risking it. They mentioned
something about your health,” Black said. “But you know what, John?
I don’t care much for your health. They told me they wanted the
watch still attached to your body, so I’m coming up with a
compromise. I don’t want to lug your corpse back there, so I think
I’ll just take the hand.”

“What? No! My health is fine; just give me
the other watch. I’ll jump back with you,” John protested.

“I think not,” Black answered.

Amidst the noise of conversation above, Mouse
stood from the floor and latched to the fabric of John’s pant leg.
None of them, not even John, had noticed the small black robot
following them as they’d left the interrogation room, rolling on
its back across the ground silently as they’d moved down the
corridor.

Mouse started to climb John’s leg, still
unsure of what to do or how to help. It hadn’t been able to see
much from its vantage near John’s foot, but had heard everything,
including the chilling fear in John’s cries. Mouse reached only
John’s lap before it happened.

In a final act of desperation, John moved
quickly for the butcher knife, shooting his right hand outward from
the table’s edge across the cooking range. With his fingertips just
inches from the weapon’s handle, he watched the blond-haired man
lift the iron skillet he’d been drumming on in a blur of motion.
With astounding reflex, he slammed it back down onto John’s
outstretched hand, crushing the bones as it connected.

John screamed in pain with such intensity
that Black used his free arm to cover John’s mouth. The shake of
John’s body knocked Mouse to its side across his thighs.

“It’s what I love and hate about you, kid,”
Black said, “that God damn never-quit attitude. Alright, enough
games. Let’s get this done.”

The blond-haired man placed the skillet down
and lifted the butcher knife into his hand. “Right through the
carpals,” Black told him. “You’re going to have to shoot a bit
lower than you normally might; we don’t want to risk damaging the
device. This job has had enough problems and Castler’s already
going to be up our ass about bringing it back this way.” The
blond-haired man nodded.

John continued to scream into Black’s arm,
inhaling through his nose to power his voice. The arm of the
Advocate’s jacket smelled like ash and blood. Black pulled John’s
left arm to the table as John recoiled his damaged hand against his
chest.

“Maybe try diagonally,” Black suggested to
his partner, making a diagonal chopping gesture with his hand. “I
know it’ll be harder to put the knife through his ulna and radius
in one shot, so you might have to take a few whacks at it. Don’t
worry if the cut’s not clean.” The blond-haired man lifted the
knife.

John closed his eyes, almost unconscious from
pain.
I’m sorry, everyone.

As the weighted knife fell, a small black
robot leapt from John’s shoulder between the knife’s sharpened edge
and John’s arm. The blade struck down, catching the inside of
Mouse’s back instead of John’s wrist.

“I’m here John, hang on!” the robot yelled,
its metallic voice breaking apart through damaged speakers.

“Ronika, is that you?” John said.

Kala’s hologram appeared suddenly, its image
broken and skewed by the presence of Mouse’s body. “And I, Mr.
Popielarski! I’m about to remotely increase the watch’s energy
output--Ronika, do it now!”

Mouse opened its metal clamps and forced them
between the watch’s face and John’s skin, causing a loud
pop
to sound from the device. Black’s partner looked down in shock as a
faint blue glow enveloped both his knife and the robot it was
suddenly stuck in. The glow brightened, its energy clinging to the
blade’s edge, holding the knife just centimeters above John’s skin
inside of Mouse’s halving body.

The blond-haired man started coughing
uncontrollably as he pushed down on the hilt of the butcher knife,
standing tall and forcing his weight on top of it, unwilling to
withdraw the cut. As he increased pressure, the blade of his knife
began to ring out, louder and shriller with each passing second.
Blackened burnt scars crawled from the blade’s edge toward its
spine.

“John,” Mouse called out, its voice cracking
in static, “I--“

Mouse’s body shattered apart like a grenade
as the edge of the butcher knife dropped through it to the watch’s
face.

“Stop it! Just let it go!” Black yelled over
the ringing metal.

As his partner looked to him, the burn marks
across the blade began to smoke. Cornelius Black ducked. A moment
later, the knife was apart, shattered and firing pieces of its
blade across the galley. The sound of metal striking metal clanged
loudly throughout the kitchen.

Without lifting his head, John opened his
eyes again. A few feet away, what was left of the butcher knife was
lying next to him on the countertop. Its handle was fully intact,
but only a small jagged shard of the metal from its former blade
remained still attached.

Suddenly, the blond-haired man’s head thumped
down onto the counter between John and the knife. John noticed a
large section of fissured butcher knife shrapnel lodged deeply in
the Advocate’s neck before the man slid from the island and
collapsed to the ground, dead.

Black looked at John’s left arm as he stood.
The watch was glowing pale blue, spewing small arcs of jumping
electricity that leapt out across the teen’s skin. Soon, the arm
began to spasm and flail wildly until its uncontrollable movement
knocked John’s entire body to the ground. Black backed away from
his captive slowly, his eyes glued fixed to the seizure.

John raised his arm into the air, coiling his
fingers into a tight, seditious fist. A primal scream escaped his
lungs at the pain as the space around him filled with the same blue
light as the watch. Cornelius Black fell unconscious beside the
kitchen’s exit.

John looked into the watch’s face and saw the
small wires that ran beneath the glass begin to quake
uncontrollably. One snapped apart. He read the hands: 5:01 P.M.
John disappeared.

John woke abruptly on a flat, uncomfortable
bed. Beneath his head, John felt a flat, uncomfortable pillow. He
opened his eyes and noticed a thin clear tube ferrying liquid to
and through a needle stuck by tape to the inside of his forearm. He
looked left and saw a white CRT monitor graphically displaying his
vitality. He looked down and saw his right hand, red and black,
taped and splinted. It rested inside a blue cloth sling strapped
around his neck. He couldn’t move it.