Chapter 5
2331 Words
5
Jack glanced down the empty hall and ran a hand through his short hair. “Damn it. . .”
He sighed and dropped his hand into his pocket for the pack of cigarettes. A quick light and a puff, and he strode down the hall to the intersection of the two halls where he leaned against the wall a foot away from the corner. He folded his arms over his chest and listened to the soft sniffling from around the corner.
“You okay?” he asked her.
“How can I-hiccup-be okay?” Nena replied with a nose full of tears and wet cheeks.
A sly grin slipped onto his lips. “Because you’re with me.”
Nena wiped her tears from her face and glared at the corner. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
He took a puff on his cigarette and shrugged. “It’s the truth.” She peeked around the corner and narrowed her eyes as she studied him. He arched an eyebrow. “What?”
“Are you something else, too?” she questioned him.
A small smile slipped onto his lips. “You mean whether I’m going to grow a tail and horns? No.”
Nena took a step out of her hallway and into his. “Then why are you here? Are you. . .are you like me?”
Jack plucked the cigarette from his mouth and looked down at its lit red end. “Scratch and I go back a long ways. You could say he dug me up to help with this little pet project of his and now I’m working my way to retirement.”
“And what exactly do you do?” she wondered.
Jack opened his mouth, but a ringing from his coat pocket stopped him. He drew out a cell phone and answered it. “Yeah?”
“I’m done analyzing the gun you found with the girl,” a deep voice replied.
Jack arched an eyebrow as Nena moved closer. “And?”
“You’ll have to come down here and see for yourself, otherwise you won’t believe it.”
Jack’s eyes flickered to Nena who was staring at her tear-soaked hand. “All right. We’ll be right there.” He hung up the phone and studied her intense expression with a raised eyebrow. “You feeling okay?”
She pressed her finger against her wet palm and frowned. “If I’m-well, you know-than how come I can cry?”
Jack smiled down at her. “That’s something even Scratch can’t figure out. Me? I think it’s God’s way of reminding you you’re still human, even when you’re dead.”
“Still human. . .” she whispered.
He pushed off the wall and jerked his head toward the elevator. “Anyway, you want to see what I do? We could call it your first outing in the agency.”
Nena lifted her eyes to him and nodded. “Yeah. I. . .I want to know more about what’s going on here-and with me.”
Jack flicked his cigarette away and grinned at her. “Good girl. Now let’s go.”
They re-entered the elevator and Jack pressed one of the middle floors.
“Where exactly are we going?” she asked him.
“The shooting range. It’s near the ground level of the Agency compound,” he told her.
Nena furrowed her brow as she watched the light move away from the lowest button. “Were we below ground?”
“Yep. Old Scratch hates to be cold, and he isn’t too fond of the sun, either.”
“Then how come he had that window that looked out on the city?” she wondered.
He drew out another cigarette and lit it up between his lips as he frowned. “He can do a lot of things we can’t.” Nena cringed. He smiled down at her. “You know, you didn’t do too bad back there. A lot of people would’ve wet themselves with one look at those corks on top of his head.”
She raised her hands and studied the pale palms with a downcast expression. “Maybe it’s because I’m-well, you know-”
“Dead.”
She whipped her head up and glared at him. “You don’t have to keep rubbing it in!”
“And you don’t have to keep dancing around what happened to you. It’s better to face things up front than to make things worse by dodging them,” he advised her.
Nena opened her mouth, but the elevator stopped and the doors opened. Jack grabbed her hand and pulled her out into another white hall that ran perpendicular to the elevator. “Come on. You’re going to love Archimedes.”
Nena’s eyes widened. “The-” He laughed and shook his head.
“Don’t worry, he’s not the original. That’s just a nickname we gave him because he’s the guy we go to for any new toys. Besides, the name ‘Mike’ doesn’t sound quite as impressive.”
He hurried her along through the hall. Nena’s eyes flickered down to their joined hands. Though he wore the dark gloves she could still feel a strong coldness come from his touch.
The hall was crisscrossed by others. Nena glanced left and right down the white-washed passages. A few people walked up and down the halls dressed in black attire like the pale man with whom Jack had been talking outside the infirmary.
“Is black required around here?” she asked her guide.
“It makes Scratch feel at home,” Jack told her.
She looked him up and down his tan overcoat. “So how come you’re not wearing it?”
“I like to remind Scratch that he isn’t at home.”
Her eyes widened. “You’d do that to him?”
He glanced over his shoulder and flashed her a wicked grin. “That and then some.”
Nena gaped at this strange man who would defy the devil. They reached the end of the hall and arrived at a metal door. The pair stepped inside and into a large room. Shelves covered the walls, and on them was stacked a wide assortment of naked blades, gun parts, and a few round objects that looked like grenades. Long tables stood in rows and were piled with the same variety of death machines. On the wall opposite where they stood was another doorway.
In the far left corner of the room stood a long wooden desk. Seated on an old stool and hunched over the desk was a dark-skinned gentleman about Nena’s age. In one hand was the gun Death had given Nena with its interior bared to the world. His other hand prodded the internal mechanisms until he looked up at their entrance.
A smile spread across his face as he set his tool down and slid off the stool. “When you said ‘we’ I thought you meant Peter and you. I didn’t expect for you to bring such a lovely young woman,” he commented as he walked up to them and bowed to Nena. He looked up at Jack. “Will you introduce me to your friend?”
Jack looked to Nena and jerked his head at the gentleman. “Nena, this is Archimedes, our resident weapons expert.”
“And inventor of the paranormal mechanisms this interesting institution uses,” Archimedes added as he grasped her hand and lifted it to his lips. “You are a sight for tired eyes, my lady,” he told her as he pressed a kiss on the back of her hand. Jack cleared his throat. The gentleman straightened and released Nena with a smile. “I’m glad you caught me so quickly. I was about ready to go through the mechanics of the weapon again, but now that you’re here I can show you it’s unique ability.”
“And that’s what?” Jack asked him.
“The gun doesn’t hit anything.”
Jack’s cigarette drooped along with his face. “What’s the big deal about that? Maybe your aim’s off.”
He smiled and shook his head. “I thought you’d say that, so that’s why I invited you down here. The mechanisms inside the gun are all in working order and it shoots bullets, but the bullets still prove ineffective.”
Jack arched an eyebrow. “They don’t fire?”
The eyes of their new companion twinkled as he jerked his head toward the rear door. “Follow me and I’ll show you.”
Archimedes led them over to the desk where he pieced together the piece. His nimble fingers remade the weapon with an expertise that made Nena gape. The next moment he grabbed the clip of the gun along with a dozen bullets, stuffed them into his pocket and guide them to the other door.
They stepped inside and the room was revealed to be a wide, long, indoor firing range. There were ten firing stations lined up in front of the fifty-yard long range. At the end each station was hung a white paper on which was drawn a black target in the shape of a human. Against the left-hand wall sat a tall computer desk with two monitors and a heavy tower with a keyboard.
Archimedes walked over to a table on the right and picked up three pairs of ear muffs. He tossed two of them to Jack. “If you would both be so kind as to put those on. The range is quite loud due to its being enclosed.”
“Why’s it inside?” Nena asked him as Jack handed her pair to her.
“I test quite a few experimental weapons and therefore need my privacy,” Archimedes explained as he loaded the cartridge with the dozen bullets and shoved it into the gun.
He moved over to one of the middle stations and took careful aim at the target. The firing range echoed with the shots as he fired off all the rounds. He lowered the gun and turned to his audience. “Now let’s see the results.”
Archimedes ducked under the tray that separated the shooter from the range. The others followed and together they arrived at his target. Archimedes grabbed one side of the long paper and nodded at the surface. “Notice anything?”
Jack nodded at the unscathed paper. “Yeah, your aim’s off.”
Archimedes smiled and shook his head. “My aim was true, it was the bullets that proved false.”
Nena’s gaze wandered down to the ground and her eyes widened. She looked up at the men and pointed at the ground. “Are those it?”
They followed her finger and beheld a dozen bullets laying at the base of the target. Their points were silver-colored while their bodies were the usual dull gold. A strange symbol made up of a straight line with a three-branched head was engraved into the tip.
Jack furrowed his brow and stooped to pick one up. He turned it over between his fingers and studied the perfect shape of the bullet before his eyes flickered to Archimedes. “It doesn’t hit? Even with runes?”
Archimedes shook his head as Jack stood with the twelve intact bullets in his hand. “No, not even with runes. A half a second prior to impact they simply stop and drop to the ground. Let me show you.” He took the bullets from Jack and led them back to the shooting stalls and over to the computer. There was no chair so he remained standing as he set the gun on the desk and typed away at the keyboard.
Nena brushed her fingers across the surface as she thought about her computer-minded friend. She wondered if her dad and friend had noticed her missing yet.
“For Miss Nena’s benefit I’ll tell you there are dozens of cameras placed to catch all angles of any shot from the booths,” Archimedes spoke up as he tapped away. “This is what it shot when I-ahem, shot.” He stepped back to reveal a video player on one screen and pressed the play button.
The camera was angled to take in the impact of a bullet from the side of the paper target. The twelve shots rang out, but the target didn’t so much as flutter. Archimedes leaned over and clicked a few buttons. “Now let’s slow it down to a fraction of the speed.”
The video played again, but this time they could see the bullets approach the target. At a hair short of the paper the bullets froze for a moment before they dropped harmlessly to the floor.
Archimedes stopped the video and turned to them with his arms folded across his chest and a grin on his lips. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“Only if you’ve got an explanation,” Jack returned.
Archimedes leaned his back against the desk and shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything remotely like this, at least not without an invisible wall or mind shield. Even then the bullets would still be damaged before they dropped to the ground.”
“Have you tried it on anything else?” Jack asked him.
Archimedes nodded. “Everything I could think of. Wood, metal, plants, even a couple of rabbits. The rabbits were frightened by the noise and were in motion when I shot, but they remained unscathed.”
Jack picked up the gun and turned it over in his hands before his eyes flickered to Nena. “Did you see Death do anything to this?”
She shook her head. “No. He just picked it up and put it in my hand.”
“It was just lying there?” Jack wondered.
Nena shuddered and turned her face away. “No. The. . .the man you found, the one D-that guy killed, it was his gun.”
Jack looked down at the weapon and pursed his lips. “So this is what should have killed you.”
Archimedes arched an eyebrow and glanced between the pair. “I feel like I’m missing something.”
Jack lifted his eyes to Nena but spoke to Archimedes. “Have you tried this gun on a human, living or dead?”
Archimedes frowned. “There may not be many ethics in the Agency, but I have my own that I try to maintain, and one of them is not to use humans for any of my experiments.”
“What about Death Touched?” Jack asked him.
“What about-” Archimedes’s eyes widened and his eyes flickered to Nena. “Don’t tell me-”
“Nena,” Jack called out. She raised her eyes to meet his steady gaze. He held up the gun. “I’d like to see if this works on you.” Her mouth dropped open.
Archimedes pushed off the desk and glared at Jack. “Death Touched or not, I won’t allow it. To use anyone-” Jack held up his hand.
“Easy there. We’re not putting her in front of a firing squad. A little blood on a target should work. That is, if the lady won’t object,” he added as he returned his attention to Nena. “Would you?”
Nena bit her lower lip, but nodded her head. “I’ll do it.”
Jack grinned. “That’s my girl. Now let’s see if this gun has any kick left in it.”
- Writer
