Chapter 30 #2
“Yeah, I can,” he declared. “It’s one of the reasons I kept myself in such great health all these years,” Brent shared, with a cocky smile, “but don’t think that I won’t use my own tools against you.”
“So, if you can stop other people from using weapons, that’s kind of cool,” she noted. “That would be a trick everybody would very much like to learn.”
“Yeah, well, no point in having that trick if everybody else knows how to use it,” he pointed out, staring at her, one eyebrow raised. “That kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”
A sense of waiting, a stillness, was inherent in the woods right now. She still didn’t know which side of the Beacon she was on, but she could see and communicate with the others. Still, she didn’t know whether it would work if Brent tried something against her here.
You can’t count on it either way, Steele reminded her.
Cyan continued her conversation with Brent. “ Right , so you always must have had the upper hand, of course, because if you didn’t, chances are you wouldn’t do very well in any of this, would you?”
He stared at her, silent for a short moment. “You just keep on insulting me. It’s all good. I mean, I’m not sure who you think you are, or why you’re such a cocky little witch and think you get to insult me, but believe me that I’m remembering each one.”
“Good, as long as you keep remembering,” she said, with a wry smile. “You think you can just walk away from all this?”
“I walked away from MI6,” he declared, smiling, “so I really don’t see how you’ll stop me, not if MI6 couldn’t.”
She winced. “You’ve got a good point there,” she conceded. “I just came to check on Steele.”
“Ah, I see how it is,” Brent replied. “That’s too bad because he won’t be around much longer.”
She looked over at Steele, his hands in his pockets, his gaze going from one to the other. Yet she sensed almost a calibration going on inside his brain, as if trying to communicate with somebody—somebody else. She had no clue who that would be, unless it was Terk.
She faced Brent again. “And you’re also taking quite a risk being here,” she pointed out, “since you’re on private land.”
“I don’t think anybody in this”—he gave air quote signs—“ space cares that it’s privately owned. I’m not exactly sure what I stumbled into here. However, I tracked Steele to this part of the countryside, and, once here, I followed a signal into the woods—where, lo and behold, I found Steele.”
“A signal?” she asked, her eyebrows rising. Had the Beacon let him in?
“Steele tried to destroy the signal energy I had hooked into him, but there is still that bit of memory left. So, I can track it, if done quickly enough after being dissolved. Memory takes longer to dissipate than the actual energy.”
“Ah,” she said, “and here I thought you were talking about a different signal.”
He frowned at her, then shrugged, as if she made no sense. Turning back to Steele, he told him, “You shouldn’t have brought her in here.”
“No, I shouldn’t have,” Steele agreed, “but some people just don’t listen very well.” She snorted at that, and he half-grinned at her.
“See? You’re treating this like some joke,” Brent stated, his gaze going from one to the other, as if finally realizing that this may not be as clear-cut as he thought.
“It’s not a joke,” Steele replied, turning to his old friend, “but I do believe in karma.”
Brent laughed. “Yeah, well, you can believe in whatever karma you want,” he noted. “If I have karma to pay, I’ll pay it in the next lifetime, where I will figure out how to get out of it then too,” he vowed. “Believe me that I don’t give a shit about karma.”
The sky lightened around them as the sun rose enough to peek through the treetops.
It should have made the atmosphere warmer, but instead a coldness filtered through that had nothing to do with the weather.
Steele was calm, and she was too, but Steele knew something she didn’t.
Stay calm. We’ve got this, but he can’t leave.
Hook the Beacon into that plan then, she murmured half jokingly.
I have.
She stiffened. Are you communicating with it?
Yes.
Christ. That wasn’t something she’d considered possible for some reason, yet Terk talked to the Beacon, so why not Steele?
Steele nodded at Brent. “Of course you don’t believe in karma because that would imply that you understood what you’re doing here in this lifetime,” Steele noted. “I get it. You don’t understand, and you don’t give a shit.”
“No, I sure don’t,” Brent confirmed, studying him, “so I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation.”
“Because you’re still trying to decide how to take us out,” Steele stated. “You don’t understand what we can do, so we’re unknown entities. Yet, all this time, you’ve assumed I was basically nothing and nobody compared to you. And you’re still pretty cocky about it.”
“Oh, I understand that you are no threat to me,” Brent confirmed. “I’m just not sure who created this simulation we appear to be in. It’s ingenious really, and something I’ll have to potentially take a closer look at, but I don’t really see that it has anything to do with me or you.”
Steele didn’t say anything in response to that, just nodded, then looked over at Cyan and whispered, “You probably shouldn’t have come.”
She shrugged. “Not sure I had a choice.”
His eyes widened at that.
She gave half a laugh. “And probably not for the reason you’re thinking.”
Looking puzzled, he didn’t say anything, but his gaze had never left Brent’s face. Meaning? Steele asked her.
Because we’re so closely joined, if you die,… I think I will too. So that’s two lives we’re fighting for.
Brent was looking from one to the other and shared, “You’re both acting like something is coming to protect you, to save you somehow.
You and I both know that’s a crock. Nothing is coming to protect you.
I don’t care where we are. It’s really just crazy to even think anybody gives a shit about you two. ”
“Right,” Steele muttered.
“Because nobody gives a shit in your world?” Cyan guessed. “Nobody ever gives a shit. Right, Brent?”
Startled, he glared at her. “You’re really starting to piss me off.”
“Just starting? I haven’t been doing a good-enough job then,” she quipped, “because you’re boring me to hell.”
At that, Brent’s eyes widened.
She saw the fury flash across his face, and she nodded.
“Yeah, I know you think you’re some hotshot.
You’ve been dodging people who have been looking for you for a very long time.
What has it been? Six years? And you really think that you’re good enough to keep them away and that nobody will ever find you?
” She smiled and added, “But you’re wrong, and they’ve already found you.
An awful lot of people in the US are looking for you right now too. ”
He shrugged. “They won’t keep me. Even if they were to get lucky and capture me, they can’t hold me. Not with my abilities.”
She snorted. “That’s the problem with being cocky. Makes you feel invincible. Like no one can touch you. You’ve just been lucky so far. Now that’s over.”
“Absolutely it is over,” Brent snapped. “You think you’ll take away my abilities from me? I don’t think so.” There was an edge to his tone.
She smiled at him. “I might not, but definitely some people are out there who can.”
“No, there aren’t,” he snapped, but a growing concern filled his tone.
She laughed, shaking her head. “See? That’s the problem with you.
You believe you can hurt whomever you want with no recriminations.
You don’t keep up to date on how technology has changed, how people’s abilities have become better known and better understood.
Many are developing way beyond anything you could imagine.
There are opportunities for everybody now, not just for people who think they can shit on the world and then get away with it.
I mean, that is you, right? I would hate to misjudge you in this instance. ”
When he took a step toward her, she didn’t move, but Steele interjected, “I don’t think you’re going anywhere right now, Brent.”
“You can’t stop me,” Brent told Steele, even while still glaring at Cyan. “And if you don’t tell her to shut the fuck up, I’ll shut her up myself.”
“If that’s what your plan is,” Cyan prodded him, “go ahead. Bring it on.” And, with that bold taunt, she sat back on her heels ever-so-slightly, waiting. She simultaneously sent out a message, saying, Beacon, I sure hope you got my back .
She heard an inaudible murmur, something rumbling on the ethers. She sighed with relief, then had to poke Brent a little more. “Is that it? You’re all bluff and no substance? You think putting a hook into someone who is vulnerable is a big scary ability that allows you to follow up on threats?”
He just blinked, confused.
Yet it was enough for Steele to turn to her, his gaze widening, as if he finally understood. They both shared a knowing nod.
She smiled broadly at Brent. “See? You’re still stuck in that same old belief system that you know exactly what’s going on here, but you don’t. I can tell you that right now.”
“She can’t tell me shit,” Brent announced, with a wave of his hand, but he slid backward slightly.
Did he know the gate was right behind him?
Had he positioned himself with a clear quick exit?
She smiled and nodded at that nearest gate.
“Yeah, you should probably take that exit and run. Better to live another day, you know? When you might have the upper hand—only you don’t like fair fights.
In fact, you won’t get in a fight at all unless it’s stacked in your favor. ”
His gaze locked on her, assessing her, not liking the confidence in her tone. “I am not up for an ambush. I’m a little on the tired side.” Brent took another step backward, the gate closer to her than it was to him. “I know where to find you both. I can always come back another day.”
“Not nearly as tired as you’ll likely be very, very quickly though,” she countered, with another taunting smile in his direction. “And how fun to consider you’re retreating. Are you too scared to fight me? What happened to all those fabulous abilities that makes you so superior to everyone else?”
He froze, looked behind him at the gate, then back to her, his gaze narrowed and stressed.
She’d hit a nerve, and she had way too much confidence to make him happy. She deepened her smile. “Go ahead. Run away. If you can…” she added in a mocking tone. And, with that, she stepped out of the way of the gate. “Go for it.”
Brent frowned at her, then glanced over at Steele, who seemed to be totally okay with whatever decision Brent made, which almost seemed to be a warning to Brent. He stopped, looked from one to the other and added, “I don’t know what kind of trap you think you’ve set, but it won’t work.”
“Good,” she declared. “I’m okay to bring this into an all-out fight right now then. You’re the one who’s running away,” she stated, once again, taunting him.
Steele muttered, “Easy now.” His voice was soft, quiet.
Brent laughed. “Yeah, easy now . He doesn’t want you to get hurt,” he said in the same mocking tone back to her now.
“I don’t think that’s a problem,” she noted.
“But, once again, you’re the one trying to run away.
That’s just what you do, right? Attack, then run and hide?
” She waved her hand at the gate. “There’s your escape route.
It’s right there. Just go through it, and you’re free—right?
You can take Steele down another day, true? ”
She burst out laughing, catching the big grin on Steele’s face. But not on Brent’s. He was quickly losing his nerve. Good. He was off balance, and she needed him to make his move. Here, where they had help to stop him from escaping. “So go for it. The gate is right there.”
He moved cautiously, his gaze hard, keeping his back to the exit, until he got to the gate. “You mock me at your peril,” Brent declared in that same mocking tone, but she could tell he wasn’t at all sure what her game plan was and likely his biggest concern were the abilities she might have.
Steele stepped forward. “You’re not leaving,” he stated, turning to his former friend. “This ends tonight. I can’t let you cause havoc on the rest of the world like you have.”
“You mean on whomever is on the other side of the gate I have yet to open? Something in there is so precious that you think it’s worth dying for,” Brent suggested, with a happy smile.
“I’ll kill whoever is on the other side of that gate, then come back to kill you.
It’s a nice little system they’ve got in place here, but no way it’ll stop me.
And wiping them all out? Now that would bring me pleasure. ”
Cyan smiled and looked over at Steele. He glanced at her, and she saw the awareness in his gaze.
Steele turned back to Brent and added, “I wouldn’t trust that if I were you. I mean, just a word of warning, making threats against whoever is here may well get you more than you bargained for.”
Brent laughed. “See? That’s the problem with somebody like you. You just don’t understand that I can reach anybody here,” he gloated. “So even if I do walk out that gate right now, you can’t do anything about it.” With a bright smile, he added, “But it will be at my timing,… not yours.”
Crossing the last few feet to the gate, he opened it, then glanced at them both with a mocking smile. “Stay safe,… until I see you again.”
And with that, he made the dash through the gate, that one split second of exposing his back, made him race forward. As soon as he was inside the gate, it closed.
And the gate disappeared.
Steele walked over to study the frozen energy where the gate used to be, calling out to the Beacon, “Is this the best answer?”
An immediate answer came inside his head. Yes.