The Midnight Stand (The Elysia Saga Book 1) (7 page)

“Harley is independent and has a mind of his
own,” he said. “You won’t be able to control him. He’ll make his own decisions
and you won’t have anything to do with them.”

Daniel shook his head and smiled, like he was
speaking to a small child who didn’t understand what was going on. “The Project
is set to go live in a few weeks and the company wants me, us, as in
my
family
, to be one of the first members of it. They have a home set up for
us ready to go.”

Ancil didn’t believe what he just heard. “You
can’t be serious?”

 “This paper says I am.” Daniel took out a
folded piece of paper from his pocket and opened it. He held it up for Ancil to
see.

The paper was an official invitation for the “Elysia
Project” described as a “
futuristic community of likeminded individuals to
help foster the advancement and development of creative and technological
ideals for the betterment of our human society
”. The CyberTronix logo was
printed on the top of the page. On the bottom was Daniel’s signature.

He just signed away his son’s future,
Ancil
thought to himself.  “Do you know what you’ve agreed to here? You just gave
them complete control”.

“This is where you’re wrong,” Daniel answered
back. “I didn’t give them anything. They’re giving us opportunity.” He put the
paper back into his pocket. “I need you to leave now.”

Ancil continued to stand there. He looked back
towards the house and saw Harley by the window looking at him. He was the image
of sadness. His eyes were red and he wiped at fresh tears. Natalie then came in
and led Harley away from the window.

“Ancil, don’t make me have to call Sheriff
Bailey.”

Ancil gave one more look back to the empty
window before turning to leave. It had started to drizzle while they were
standing in the driveway, but that still did nothing to relieve the heat.

He walked with his head down against the
strengthening rain and thought to himself that now was the time for action.
Time had run out and he needed to do something, perhaps even drastic. He wasn’t
sure what, but whatever it was he knew it would probably have to be something
that took him to the edge, an edge that he wouldn’t come back from.

The crew was sitting in the common room when
Maxon came in to brief them. Two members, Dean Stanton and Regan Walsh were
playing Ultimate Foosball in the corner while the other two, Travis Henrik and
Bert Meyers were playing a game of holographic poker, a practice that would
have normally been frowned upon but, given that there was no money involved and
the lateness of the hour, Maxon let it slide. It was important for them to get
the tension out of their systems now before the truck rolled out. Not
surprisingly, however, Bruce was nowhere to be seen.

“Anyone know where Bruce is?” Maxon asked.

Bert looked up from the foosball game. “He said
he was going out for a bit. Be back soon.”

“When was this?”

“About twenty minutes ago,” Bert said. Eric
scored a goal on him and the sound of a stadium cheer came from the speakers.

That was just like Bruce Lennox. He came and
went as he pleased and didn’t worry about sanction. It was a trend that other
crew members saw and took note of and it did nothing but breed contempt amongst
the men at a time when Maxon needed his men to all be working as one.

He checked his watch. It was 11:05. He debated
whether to wait for Bruce but he saw the eyes of his crew look to him, waiting
for his brief.

To hell with Lennox
he
thought. He couldn’t fall further behind schedule so he decided to start the
brief without him. He’ll take the flak from administration if word got up to
them.

He gathered everyone together and went over the
file with them. He warned them on the potential dangers that could arise and
reminded them of the method in which they should enter a home and detain any
erratic or violent house dwellers. It wasn’t rocket science, though aspects of
the technology certainly seemed so. They heard it all before and Maxon had no
doubt they were prepared, but protocol dictated these briefs must occur before
every wreck.

When he was just about finished and ready to
send off the crew to get their gear ready, Bruce waltzed in through the door as
if he weren’t fifteen minutes late. He didn’t even acknowledge the crew; instead
he went over to the vending machine and used his ID link to get a soda.

“You’re late again, Lennox,” Maxon said to him.
“Where were you?”

Bruce popped the top of the can and took a long
drink. He let out a belch and wiped his mouth with his arm. “I had to step out
for a little while.”

“You know there’s no leaving the premises on a
wreck night, you know that. Everyone has to remain in the common room when not
on duty.”

“Relax, it’s not like I took a truck out for a
joy ride. I’m here, aren’t I?” He took a last drink from the can, crushed it in
his hand and tossed it in the waste chute in the wall.

“You’re nearly twenty minutes late,” Maxon shot
back. “We have a schedule to keep or don’t you care about that?”

Bruce pulled a chair towards him and sat down in
it, stretching his legs out in front of him. He folded his arms and eyed Maxon.
He looked like a high school student who was trying to get attention in class.
“It’s the same routine over and over again. We all got it. We know what to do.
I don’t even get why we need to be there anymore. The truck does everything
anyway. We just stand there.”

“This is how things are done here Lennox. If you
don’t like it, why don’t you ask your uncle to place you somewhere you’ll have
more excitement.” The other members of the crew looked at each other and tried
to suppress smiles.

The tension between Maxon and Bruce was well
known. They had butted heads on all the wrecks they’ve been on together. Bruce hated
taking orders, or felt he didn’t need to, and he usually decided to disregard
protocol and go rogue, especially when it came to entering a house and dealing
with occupants.

On the first wreck that they worked on, Maxon
had ordered Bruce to act as point man and clear the dwelling of any occupants
that might still be there. Protocol said that the point man should give a
warning when entering a house and when sweeping each room. He was to be firm
but also sympathetic to anyone still in the house and, most importantly, not
fan the flames of violence that could arise. Bruce, on the other hand, not only
fanned the flames, but also seemed to enjoy it.

It was the house of a couple who had a young
child and one senior male. They were slow in evacuating, too slow for Bruce’s
taste. He refused to wait the required ten minutes allotted for the family to
get out and he decided upon himself to get them moving. Everything seemed to
happen before Maxon could get a hold of the situation.

Bruce busted through the door with the battering
ram, splintering the wood in jagged pieces. A high pitched scream could be
heard from somewhere within. A women’s scream. The crew stood stunned for a
moment, not knowing what to do, looking to Maxon for direction.

Max had a crew of first year recruits that day
and they all looked terrified at the site of Bruce as he dragged the young
woman from the house and threw her on the lawn. She was screaming about her
child. Max had to have her restrained, he had no choice, so he ordered one of
the new recruits to hold her down. Bruce had already gone back in the house
before Max could tell him to stand down, not that it would have done anything.

Maxon told the rest of the crew to stay outside
as he went in after Bruce. More cries were coming from inside, this time a
young boy. The boy was crying for his mother while Bruce berated him about
where his father and grandfather were. He held the boy with both hands, almost
shaking him to talk. The boy sobbed that they were upstairs.

Maxon yelled at Bruce to stand down, ready to
grab his side arm if need be. The father then ran down from upstairs. Maxon
remembered he was wearing a dirty tee-shirt and flip flops that looked too big
for his feet. He almost tripped as he came down the stairs. Bruce pointed his
weapon at him and told him to evacuate the house right now. The father begged
for his son to be left alone. He looked frightened and stressed, his eyes huge
in their sockets. The boy’s mother was still screaming from the front yard. The
situation was getting out of Maxon’s control and it was being hijacked by
Bruce’s hotheadedness. By the time Maxon saw the old man coming up behind Bruce,
it was too late.  

The old man, the grandfather of the boy and
father of the mother Maxon later learned, came running out of the kitchen. He screamed,
like a face painted Scottish warrior, and held a wooden spoon over his head. His
too large pants were falling down his legs, revealing a pair of dirty
underwear. A line of drool fell from one corner of his mouth and his hair was
sticking out at all ends like a porcupine. The scene would have been comical if
the ending wasn’t so tragic.

Bruce wheeled around with the boy still in his
grasp and put a boot into the old man’s chest. The old man dropped with a sickening
thud as he hit the floor. He didn’t move at all after that. After that all
Maxon heard was a high pitched wailing, probably from the man’s daughter, but
he didn’t know for sure. It could have been the boy for all he knew.

He ordered that the family be restrained and
brought to City Centre for their safety. The medical team arrived and put the
old man into the transport and brought him to the incinerator. There was
nothing they could do, he was declared dead as soon as they arrived. The kick
to the chest likely stopped his heart immediately they said.

Maxon found out later on that the old man
suffered from dementia and it was because he didn’t want to leave that the
family was late in coming out. No one could answer why that important bit of
information wasn’t filed in the report or why the old man was even living in
the house to begin with. Since then the Council has passed new measures to have
the computer run more thorough back ground information before a wreck, but of
course that system isn’t fool proof either.

As for Bruce, he was given a minor sanction that
amounted to nothing. Essentially, the fact that he caused the death of a
civilian was swept aside and filed as a job related accident. The family had to
accept the decision. It wasn’t like they could have done anything anyway. There
weren’t any lawyers around anymore to get a lawsuit filed and even if there
were, the Council would never hear it.

This was all in the forefront of Maxon’s mind as
he squared off against Bruce in the common room. He couldn’t allow Bruce to
once again hijack the situation and make him look weak in front of his crew. If
he was going to make it through this night, he had to impose his leadership on
everyone.

Bruce stood up and took a step forward. Maxon
stood his ground and didn’t move, didn’t even breathe.

“You know,” Bruce said, “I could just ask for
your job if I wanted to. I’m sure I’d get it too.” He was right up against
Maxon’s face now.

Maxon could feel Bruce’s hot breath invade his
nostrils with a stale stench of onions and garlic. He felt an urge to gag, but
he was able to swallow it.

Bruce continued, “All I would have to do is make
a visit to my uncle and tell him that you’re no longer fit to run a crew, that
you’re getting a little long in the tooth. Lead Wreck Lennox. I kinda like the
sound of that.”

Maxon gritted his teeth and clenched his fist at
his side. He knew that Bruce wanted to get hit so he could bring that charge up
to the Council. Maxon composed himself and relaxed his jaw as he felt his
crew’s eye’s bearing into him, waiting to see how he will react.

“Watch yourself, Lennox,” he said. “You’re
addressing a superior. You’ll be up on dissent charges so fast I’ll make sure
you stay rookie class for the rest of your life.” Bruce glared back at him for
what seemed like a long time. Maxon held his ground, not allowing his eyes to
leave Bruce’s.

A smile then broke out across Bruce’s face. “You
were always so easy to rile up, Max, you know that,” he said as he grabbed
Maxon’s shoulders and shook him a bit. “I’m just messing with you, boss. You
gotta loosen up. You’re gonna get a heart attack from how tense you are all the
time.” He started to dust the tops of Maxon’s shoulders, brushing away
invisible flecks of lint. “You wouldn’t want to put yourself in any danger
before tonight’s wreck, would you? No, I don’t think you would.” He fixed the
collar of Maxon’s jump suit and patted his cheek. “I like you, Max. I want us
to be friends.” He leaned in and whispered in Maxon’s ear. “And my Uncle is
very receptive to people I consider to be my friends.”

He went back to his chair and sat down, ironing
out the pants of his jumpsuit as he did. “So boss, why don’t you go over again
what we need to do tonight? I was a little late.”

She stood in the kitchen, listening as the phone
dialed home. It was up to five rings and would soon cut out when the voice mail
kicked in. This was the second time she called Harley without an answer on the
first couple of rings. He never let it ring more than a few times when he was
alone. She knew something was wrong.

The rings got up to eight and she was about to
hang up when there was a click on the other end. “Hello.” It was Harley, but he
sounded out of breath, like he just came back in from jogging. There was
something else in his voice she couldn’t quite pinpoint. It sounded almost like
trepidation.

“Harley, where were you? She asked. “I called
you before and you didn’t pick up.”

“Oh, you did? I was outside fixing something and
I guess I didn’t hear the phone.”

“What were you fixing this late at night?”

A pause. It was subtle, but long enough for Sara
to know that he was thinking of something to say. “I was working on the
sup-pump. It just started to crap out all of a sudden.” He laughed at the pun.
Sara didn’t laugh though.

“Harley,” she said, “what’s going on?”

Sara heard him swallow hard. “Nothing, what do
you mean? I told you what happened.”

“Don’t lie to me. I know something is up. I can
feel it in your tone. Are you sick?”

“No, everything’s fine. Honest.” He hesitated
before speaking again. “I mean, I did have a hard time fixing the pump. I had
to run out to pick up a piece for it and that took some time.”

“Where’d you go at this time?” she asked, the
suspicion in her voice wasn’t hard to pick up on.

“No, that was earlier. I made a run over to the
yard. Took me awhile to find what I needed, then I was working on it pretty
much up until now.”

It was a plausible enough story. She knew he
liked to work on stuff day and night if he could and she also knew that he
practically lived in that junk yard on the outskirts. Still though, she wasn’t
completely satisfied.

“Harley,” she started, speaking more slowly, “if
there’s anything you need to tell me, I want to know what it is.”

“Sara, please-”

“Are you in trouble? Is that why you suggested I
visit Dana, to get me out of the house? What are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything. You’re taking this was
out of proportion.”

“Then why did you want Jasper and me to leave
tonight?” she asked, her voice wavering with a combination of fear and anger.

“I just thought that it would be nice for you to
see your sister, that’s all”, Harley said. Sara could hear that his voice was
beginning to return to normal. “There’s no conspiracy and no foul play going
on. Believe me when I say that. You always complain that you never spend enough
time with her and now that you’re there you get all crazy about it.”

She did kind of see his point about that. “I
know, you’re right, but I just had this strange feeling, that’s all.”

“It might be because you’re not used to being
away from home, but that’ll pass. I’m sure if it.”

“Maybe.”

“Trust me, it is,” he insisted. “And you have
nothing to be worried about. Everything is fine.”

“I know.”

“Good. How’s Jasper doing?”

“He’s great. Played virtual games all night with
Lucas and now they’re passed out on the living room floor in sleeping bags. We
promised they could have a camp in.”

“That’s good. Well, I got to go finish up here
before I head in for bed. Kiss Jasper for me, will you?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. Sleep tight, Sara.”

“Harley, are you sure-” but he hung up before
she could finish. She stood with the phone in her hand for a few moments before
putting it back in the cradle.

Why had he asked her to give a kiss to Jasper
for him? For most people that would be a normal statement, but for Harley it
was completely out of the ordinary. Of course Harley loved his son, adored him
even, Sara had no doubt about that, but he wasn’t in the least demonstrative or
even physical with expressing any kind of emotion. He put a shield in front of
him. He told her he got that from his grandfather, who he rarely spoke about.
Whether he was unable or unwilling to open up Sara did not know, but she knew
he wouldn’t even suggest it if something wasn’t very wrong.

“So, did he pick up?” Dana asked. She was
standing in the doorway of the living room. She had a rejuvenator cap on her
head and massaging gloves on her hands.

“Yes.” Sara said.

“And.”

Sara thought for a minute. The “and” is what
troubled her. Should she follow her gut and see what the problem was, or should
she trust that Harley was telling the truth. She debated what to do as she bit
her lower lip. Finally, she looked up at Dana.  

“Is your Electro charged?”

“Yes, why?” Dana’s right eyebrow went up in a
question. It made the cap around her head ride up slightly.

“I’m going to need it.”