The Harbinger Break (29 page)

  
And they nodded that they did–a small, slight beeping, like a microwave, but beneath them.

  
"What is that?" Lindsey asked.

  
Lee grinned. "Might be his watch–keep up your guard and we have him."

  
The group snooped around more carefully, searching in impossible places where Shane couldn't even fit–because, from the sound of the beeping he had to be hiding somewhere on the first floor. But then the beeping seemed to intensify, and as Lee checked under the couch the beeping grew to a pinnacle and his stomach fell through the floor, along with the blood from his face.

  
From the sliding glass door Lindsey suddenly yelled, "I think I see him in the field!" But Lee ignored her even as the others ran over.

  
"God," Lee whispered as he saw what was unmistakably a bomb.

  
He stood and began to run.

  
The beeping stopped.

  
Then, the house exploded.

Chapter 13

   When Summers awoke, he found himself disoriented. For a moment, he'd forgotten that he hadn't returned home–but the quality of sleep he'd gotten the night prior felt like the kind he could only achieve in the familiar bed in his rundown but comfortably familiar apartment.

  
Instead of his gray and white sheets he found himself in pink sheets, and instead of his white pillow, his arm was wrapped around a pink one in a room so comfortably lit by natural light that as he sat up in bed and took in his surroundings, for the first time in weeks he felt genuinely rested.

  
He looked towards the other side of the bed. The sheets were unmade and all that remained as proof of Paige having been there was her slight indent on the bed.

  
His shirt was missing, but his jeans were where he'd left them on the floor, and he stood and put them on and ruffled his hair. He left Paige's bedroom and walked to the kitchen.

  
He saw her standing over the stove in his shirt. Women planned it that way, something about them wearing a shirt three sizes too big after a night such as theirs diminished the implications and magnified the prior night's desire, and as he approached her, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek, he knew that she'd planned this moment as soon as she'd awoken.

  
She turned in his grasp and leaned back against his arms, wearing a slight grin. "Morning handsome."

  
He smiled and kissed her.

  
"Eggs?" she asked, breaking the kiss.

  
"Sure."

  
"Take a seat. Coffee?"

  
"Please."

  
She scuttled from his embrace and grabbed a cup from the pantry. She wore nothing but her panties and when she reached up to grab a mug, he saw her long legs and he had to resist the urge to grab her and throw her onto the table right then and there.

  
He shook the thought from his head. There were far more pressing matters he needed to attend to, he thought, and he fought off the primal instinct and focused instead on the near future, and what it entailed.

  
He had the documents, he had his evidence, and it was time to strike, to save those kids. Hopefully amend for the one he couldn't save. That death plagued his mind like poison ivy, spreading upwards from the base of his brain, corrupting it with regret, cutting into his conscience, filling any activity that wasn't actively fighting with guilt. Guilt about the night prior made his warm glow cold, and as Paige brought him coffee and sat down, she noticed his grim expression.

  
"I need to take down GenDec," he said. "Every day that passes innocent kids have the innocence strangled from them."

  
She rubbed his hair. "I know. But this isn't your crusade alone. Charging in headfirst, while noble, will just bring a noble death–which saves no one. You need to rest. You need to recover and come up with a plan that will actually save them."

  
He nodded. She was right, of course.

  
"Any news?" he asked.

  
"Murder and mayhem at GenDec. The police have a few leads, but sounds like normal media bullshit. They have nothing. When your evidence gets released his death will turn into anything but a tragedy. He's a bad person. One of my sources reported his income at two million yearly."

  
He closed his eyes and nodded. "We know he's bad. But more proof couldn't hurt. Can your source give us additional proof?"

  
Paige shook her head. "No, but if she found it I'm certain that a determined journalist or investigator could as well."

  
"I hope so. This story needs to be big. People should know what goes on there,"  he said, taking a sip of coffee. "Hopefully taxpayers will be furious when they find out how their money's been spent."

  
Paige nodded. "People want their safety, but this goes far beyond a question of that."

   Summers addressed the envelope to the Jacksonville Herald and mailed it anonymously during a rush hour thunderstorm a few days later. Shielding his identity from overhead security cameras with a black umbrella, he let the evidence fall to the bottom of the post box. He'd placed the documents and a few of Paige's contributions in the envelope, and returned back to her apartment an hour later feeling a little off. He couldn't shake the feeling he was being tailed, so took a zigzagging path through the city just to be unquestionably safe.

  
He'd spoken with Penelope a few days prior–his friend continued to recover from his injury, and despite Summers’ objections, volunteered his services for the next, riskier operation.

  
Summers had run through it in his head countless times. Pat Shane would not be taken off the streets by any formal government operation. Not only was he too intelligent to be captured, but considering the FBE had taken over his case, Summers was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that Shane would not be caught, and if he was caught, not stopped.

  
He'd escape or feign insanity, and the FBE wanted him to be sane for his genes, and would likely not realize until too late that the time for saving him had long since passed.

  
Besides, even if they made the right choice, castration wouldn't sway him from his decidedly noble path. No, Pat Shane had to die, but Summers couldn't help but feel that condemning Shane was eerily similar to putting down Old Yeller.

  
It was, of course, impossible to determine how Shane would have turned out if not for GenDec, but considering the lunatic's predisposition to heroics, Summers was certain that he would've done great things for humanity.

  
Shane wasn't a bad guy, he was just drastically warped. The situation reminded Summers of an episode of his favorite childhood superhero, Harbinger. The series was especially dark, and in one issue the main villain captured Harbinger and put hallucinogenic eye drops into the hero's eyes.

  
Harbinger then escaped, or so he'd thought, and fought off the villain's henchmen, brutally killing most of them, just to find out as the drug wore off that he hadn't killed the villain's henchmen, he'd killed police officers who'd stormed the villain's base solely to rescue him.

  
The series was cancelled soon afterward, but the topic of subjective heroics had since stuck with Summers, and he often found himself considering the motives of those whom were considered evil, and in his experience most criminals were the heroes of their own stories.

  
And that always frightened him.

   It wasn't until a week later, during which Summers conducted a constant yet fruitless search for Shane, that he finally found him. It came as a complete shock as he watched the news one day, in such an unexpected manner that he'd called Paige into the room to confirm what he saw–and there was no mistaking it.

  
There, on the television, was Shane, and according to the report, he was hiding in plain sight in a city just four hours north called Savannah.

◊   ◊   ◊

   It happened in slow motion, as Sam was in such an auto-pilot state of mind while driving, caught up in his thoughts about Pat Shane and all the different ways that he could go about killing him, that he'd been ignoring the rolling green fields of the scenic byway, and it wasn't until he saw a black Camaro approaching that subtle pangs in the back of his mind sparked his subconscious, screaming him awake.

  
Both cars passed the other at fifty miles an hour in opposite directions–and although in reality the moment lasted no longer than a second–it was unmistakable that in that car, driving in the opposite direction was none other than the man Sam sought to murder.

  
As he locked eyes with his foe their cars seemed to slow to a near stop, blurs of trees stood still in the background of his gaze, and Pat Shane locked eyes with him, wearing an expression of surprised wonder.

  
And as the moment ended and the cars and the world resumed its normal frame rate. Sam found himself shocked, panicked, and out of breath–fearing the unknowable worst.

  
He had to turn around. Not obviously, but he'd found his mark–and the fantasy of an intended murder dissolved to reality, causing a shield of personal skepticism to waiver and falter like a papier-mâché cloak. Now it was time to
know
–not just think–that he could not only plan but go through with murder.

  
It had to be done–Pat Shane had to die and he was the only one who could stop him–the only one who realized the evil that Pat himself couldn't realize. Killing Pat and saving the world were almost synonymous, and the aliens and the food could be dealt with once the fate of humanity was removed from Pat's cold dead grasp.

  
By the time he turned around and began heading north back to Savannah, he estimated that he was approximately three miles behind Shane. He entered the depths of his mind once again, plotting for as many hypothetical scenarios as he could come up with, wondering if he should even do it.

  
He was so caught up in his own mind that when honking erupted behind him, and he checked his rear view mirror and saw Pat tailing him and swerving erratically, motioning for him to pull over, his veins turned to ice and then emptied at the realization that he'd been outsmarted by his nemesis once again–that Pat must've pulled over and waited for Sam to drive past.

  
But as he pulled over he calmed himself. To Pat, the two of them were still allies–Pat had no idea of Sam's true intentions. He faltered due to a distracted mind, that's all, and once he focused surely he could keep up with Pat.

  
The Camaro pulled over directly behind him and Pat stepped out of his car. Sam parked his car and did the same.

  
As they approached, Sam assessed Pat's posture and demeanor and, unless Pat was acting, Sam felt somewhat secure that he wasn't in any inherent danger at that moment. Not to mention the huge bruise on Pat's arm. The manner in which he carried his arm gave Sam the impression that Pat couldn't attack him even if he'd wanted to.

  
"You investigated the BixPlus?" Pat asked. Sam noted he looked darker, paler, and for some reason he cringed with every step. Pat's damp skin gave him a sickly glow that Sam was all too familiar with. It was the look of a mind split, and Sam had experienced that same weakness not too long ago as he withdrew from the astatine.

  
"Yes. You were right."

  
Pat walked over to Sam's passenger door and hopped in. "Let's go. Tell me on the road."

  
Sam glanced at the Camaro. "What about your car?"

  
"It's not mine. I'll explain on the road," Pat said, and sighed heavily. He seemed to be in chronic pain.

  
Sam shrugged and stepped back into the car, surprised at the ease in which he felt himself resume his false role as Pat's ally. The man looked frail and sickly, the opposite of a psychotic killer.

  
"So what did you find out?" Pat asked as Sam merged back onto the road.

  
"There are drugs in the food. Listen to this–" Sam said, then took out his phone and played the recording. Pat listened with a furrowed brow, and didn't speak for a few minutes after it'd finished playing.

  
"What do you make of it?" Pat asked.

  
Sam felt oddly flattered that Pat cared about his opinion. "Confirms the drugs, but they were either introduced by irrational humans or malicious aliens. We can't know for sure."

  
Pat nodded.

  
"So?" Sam asked.

  
Pat didn't respond, and an uncomfortable silence filled the car.

  
For about two minutes Sam drove while Pat sat in silence. He considered turning on the radio, but before he could, Pat finally spoke.

  
"I've killed a lot of innocent people," he said. "Hopefully one of them was an alien. I wish I could know."

  
Sam's mind screamed 'psycho!' but his jaw remained clamped. Finally he responded. "What do you mean?"

  
Pat squeezed his eyes shut. "If what you've discovered is true, it doesn't make any logical sense that the aliens would be posing as nameless nobodies when they've already compromised society at the top," he said. He shook his head violently. "I'm just trying to save the planet."

  
"We still can," Sam said. He cringed inwardly. Sympathy for the devil.

  
Pat nodded and closed his eyes. "I'm not crazy."

  
"I know," Sam said.

  
They drove in silence for a while. Sam could tell Pat was fighting countless internal demons.