Jericho

Chapter Two

Joshua

I awoke, sitting up as I gasped for air, as if it were the first breath I had taken since I had been asleep. Cold sweat dripped down my face and chest, drenching my sheets; I rubbed my face, dragged both hands through my hair, and surveyed my surroundings.

I was in the bedroom of my condo. As I turned to the left-hand side of my bed, I reached out to turn on my bedside lamp, as it sparked to life, and illuminated the mostly empty room. Scanning my surroundings, I saw bare grey walls absent of any décor or pictures and noticed I was alone in the sparsely furnished room. The black nightstand which held my lamp as well as a small picture frame, along with a matching dresser adjacent to the bathroom door opposite the bed, were the only things to greet me.

My grogginess began to fade as the ceiling fan whirred softly overhead, its gentle breeze cooled me down and caused the sweat on my bare skin to slowly start to dry. “D**n.” I muttered under my breath before rubbing my eyes with my right thumb and index finger. I threw the covers off of me and swung my legs around to sit on the side of the bed facing the nightstand. As I glanced down, I examined the two-by-four inch picture frame placed neatly on the top facing the bed; Picking it up, I stared at the picture inside reminiscently.

It was a picture of me and my dad back in the Fremont national forest in Oregon, surrounded by juniper willows, lodgepole pines, a gently flowing stream at our backs. Both of us smiling for the camera, my dad's arm wrapped around me and resting on my shoulder. This was the last summer I spent with him on a camping excursion, before everything went to hell and the man I admired so deeply had been labeled a monster and was ripped from my life.

The ridicule my family had received after the events, led my mother down a road of deep depression and drug abuse, which caused her to make less than wise choices in her love life, shacking up with any deadbeat that would feed her habit and keep the lights on.

A psychologist might say the frequent night terrors and hallucinations I’ve suffered from for most of my young adult life had a direct correlation with my dysfunctional upbringing and bottling those emotions up for so long. Maybe even stuff some pills down my throat in a futile attempt to make me ‘normal.’ But I am my father’s son; neither of us has ever been very good at admitting when we needed help. Whether it’s a product of foolish pride, or good old-fashioned pigheadedness handed down from father to son remains unclear. The only remedy in times like this for me, however, is the medicine my dad had often reached for when he was overwhelmed or stuck in his own head and needed relief: something tall, dark, and one hundred proof. A habit I had picked up from him, and I think it’s about time for my next dose.

I set the photo back on the nightstand gingerly before standing and walking towards the bathroom to begin my morning routine. The Brazilian cherry wood floor creaked as I approached. Entering the bathroom, I flip the light switch on before immediately heading to the faucet, turning it on, and cupping my hands underneath it allows them to fill with the ice-cold water. Splashing several handfuls of the refreshing liquid over my face, I can feel the remnants of sleep washing away.

Turning the faucet off, I stood in place and I stared down the drain as the last of the water swirls down, awaiting some mystical wisdom to come bubbling up from the depths to offer me guidance, or show me some way out of this perpetually endless nightmare I have found myself in.

Realizing there would be no divine intervention today, I looked up from the sink to stare at myself in the mirror. Looking back at me, there was a man I scarcely recognized these days. My light blue pupils accented with weary, bloodshot eyes hanging lifelessly over dark bags, a trophy earned from many nights of heavy drinking and restless sleep. Frizzy, overgrown auburn hair draping down to the bridge of my nose from months of neglect threatening to conceal my eyes, droplets of water still dripping from them and landing in the sink with consecutive soft plops. The frame of my battle-worn and scarred body is thankfully still fit, strong, and ready for many more battles to come, despite the years of alcohol abuse.

Grabbing a towel hanging from the rack to my left, I quickly threw it over my face and dried my head off before turning to head to the kitchen, throwing the towel over my shoulder. I entered the main living area, its interior just as bare as my bedroom, illuminated by a soft blue glow. I had always been a minimalist, so I never added to the room that had been pre-furnished when I was stationed here a little over a year ago. It had a matching black leather couch set centered in the room which was symmetrically placed to be facing a black table on the western wall which held a silver, spherical holographic screen TV with a blue ring that circled the top of the sphere, producing the glow lighting my way. A barren bookshelf was facing the couch on the adjacent left-hand wall. Beyond that, directly opposite to my room, was my small basic kitchen.

It doesn’t take me long to find myself in the kitchen, reaching for my stash above the stove. As my hand withdraws, I can hear the sound of sloshing liquid from a half-empty bottle of Black Aspen, my dad’s favorite brand of whisky. He used to give me the occasional swig from his bottle on our trips away from society. Funnily enough, I suspect he did it to teach me to dislike the taste of the stuff; back then it tasted like liquid fire, scorching my lips and throat. I could feel it burn all the way down till it came to rest inside my guts like a ball of fire, setting my whole abdomen ablaze. I’m not sure why I chose to make this brand my poison of choice throughout the years, maybe because it was familiar at the time, for nostalgia, and the fact it reminded me of better days long dead and buried in the ashes of my past.

As I pulled out a glass and sat it on the counter, I pulled the cork from the top, a soft pop cut through the silence. Pouring myself a hefty portion of the dark, amber-colored liquid, I stared at the bottle for a moment, before I tipped it back and took a pull off the bottle. As my mouth filled with the sweet liquid, I closed my eyes and took in the subtle complexity of it: subtle notes of citrus, blended perfectly with vanilla, butterscotch, and underscored by spices with a smooth oak finish.

Popping the cork back into the bottle, I placed it in the cupboard before closing the door. Picking up the half-full glass, I made my way out of the kitchen into the living room to face the westward wall next to the table. “Activate viewing wall.” I commanded before taking a sip from my glass.

“Viewing wall activated.” An automated feminine voice says as the wall begins to shift and warp out of reality, and in its place, it left behind nano glass forming a bay window that overlooked the city. Dim lights from the battalion of nearby buildings blended with the fading darkness; off in the distance the LED brakes of bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway burned like a bed of smoldering embers, as hundreds of people fought for an opening to shave a few seconds off their commute to work. Overhead, an international airliner began its descent towards the local airport, highlighted by the first few rays of early morning sunshine as the ball of burning gas lazily made its way towards its perch in the sky to bear witness to the day’s events. “Another day in paradise.” I thought to myself snidely.

Suddenly, a soft vibration rattles in the underside of my left forearm, signaling that I have an incoming call. As I turned on my heels, I made my way back to the kitchen counter, setting the glass down, I picked up the glove that rested there; the glove was black, the outlines of wires running through the back of the hand and through to the fingers, the tips of which were encased in nano-glass. Slipping the glove onto my left hand, I picked my glass back up with the right and took a sip before turning my gloved hand over with an open palm. As I did, a beam of bright blue light shined out of each of my fingertips that formed the shape of a screen projected and suspended mid-air a few inches from my palm, the screen read “Incoming video call from Amy Jeong”

“Never fails.” I said with a heavy sigh, taking another sip out of my glass. “Deactivate viewing wall.” I said before I tapped accept with my left hand.

“Viewing wall deactivated.” The feminine voice announced as the room was shrouded in darkness once more. The screen folds up into a decahedron. Grabbing it in the gloved hand, I turned around, lobbing it towards the wall. It unfolded itself, forming a thirty-inch projection suspended in the air a few feet from me. The projection showed a small box on the top right-hand side which was a video feed of me. The larger portion showed a frazzled Korean woman in a white blouse with a pocket on the right side of her chest, she had a white gold chain draped around her neck resting just above her collar bone. The chain was adorned with a locket that looked like an angel’s wings folded in the shape of a heart. Her raven black hair, streaked with pink in the bangs on the left side, was an unkempt mess as if she had not slept in days; her glasses hung low and were perilously close to falling off her face as she rummaged through her office. Her video projection struggled to track her movements as she sporadically moved around the small space. “Where are they?” She said under her breath before sitting down in front of her desk, spilling the contents from inside her purse, banishing them onto the desk.

“Jeong.” I said, trying to get her attention, my words going unnoticed as she proceeded to tip her purse over in an attempt to shake loose any remaining items out on the desk before she tossed the emptied bag over her shoulder, and peering more closely, scouring through her things as if she had missed something. “Jeong…” I repeat myself, raising my voice slightly to try to get her attention, once again going unheard as she proceeds to reach for the talk button on the intercom.

“Terry, have you seen my caffeine tablets?” Amy said with a slightly unnerving tone in her voice. Suddenly, I heard the voice of a timid man crack from the other end of the intercom.

“No, ma’am I haven’t see— “

“S**t!” Amy exclaimed, cutting him off as she slammed her free hand on the desk, making some of her smaller belongings bounce. “You better get me a cup of coffee then.” She said, taking her hand off the intercom and buried her face in her palms, as she shook her head in defeat.

“I have just started a pot. It should be ready soo-.” Amy scrambled back to the intercom, cutting him off.

“So, help me, Terry, if there’s not a cup of coffee on my desk in the next minute, with God as my witness, your mother will weep when she sees what I’ve done to you!” Amy barked as she snarled through ivory daggers.

“Yes ma’am, right away ma’am!” Terry replied obediently before the intercom went dead. He had been her assistant long enough to know that hell hath no fury like an under-caffeinated Amy Jeong this early in the morning.

Amy leans back in her chair clasping her face with both hands while groaning, having forgotten she had even called me in her desperate hunt to find caffeine.

“Amy!” I exclaimed with enough force to startle her, causing her to yelp as she leaned backward, her chair tipped, causing her to fall out of it, hitting the ground with a loud thud. There are a few moments of awkward silence before it is broken.

“Yes S-35?” she squeaked out while remaining on the floor. S-35 refers to my placement and specter number at Anubis, 30 refers to site 3 where I am stationed and 5 refers to my position in site 3’s roster of specters. Due to the high mortality rate of specters, this was the easiest way to establish a ranking amongst the 9 specter units. “Shirt pocket…” I stated before downing the rest of the whisky from my empty glass; and walked back to grab some more from my stash, the video projection trailing behind me lighting my way as I walked.

“Huh?” I heard her say, followed by the sound of something crinkling as it was pulled from a pocket.

“Hey, I found them!” I heard Amy rejoice as I reached for the bottle of Black Aspen, filling my glass halfway before placing it back in the cupboard. As I turned around facing the projection, I saw Amy as she pulled herself up to her desk, standing her chair back up, she took a seat. Popping two of the small white tablets out of the noisy piece of plastic, she threw them in her mouth, swallowing them dry before letting out a heavy sigh of relief as she rubbed her temples.

“What a night.” She said to herself as she brushed the debris from her purse off of a manila folder.

“Do you remember the Russian my contact tipped me off about?” She inquired while opening up the folder, peering inside.

“Vaguely—something about him having ties with the Russian mob and shady dealings in the states from time to time.” I answered, swirling my whisky in its glass before I took a drink.

“Yes. I have been doing some digging on him and I have reason to believe he is transporting an anomaly to San Francisco and…” Amy said, looking up from the folder to look at me but stopped mid-sentence, eyes widening as her cheeks grow flushed. “And you’re half-naked.” She stated, and as she continued to stare, I could see her cheeks glow brighter. Caught off guard, she seemed unsure of what to do for a moment. She covered her face with the folder once more and cleared her throat. “Is this um…a bad time?” she said, stammering.

“It’s never a bad time when there’s an anomaly involved Jeong.” I asked sarcastically. “Neither rain nor snow nor heat and all that…I assume the a*s crack of dawn is included somewhere in there?” I asked, taking another swig before I sat the glass down on the counter.

“That’s the U.S postal service.” Amy grumbled. “Could you get dressed or zoom in on your face or something? It’s kind of distracting trying to brief someone who's in their underwear.” She said, a twinge of bashfulness in her voice.

I sighed slightly annoyed. “You’re the one that video called me right after waking up.” I thought to myself as I lifted my left hand up towards the projection, the tips of my fingers began to glow a blue light, and as I pinched my thumb and index finger together the camera that showed me zoomed in on my face. “Better?” I ask crossing my arms.

Amy peeked over the folder, upon seeing the camera was zoomed in close enough for her comfort, she lowered her makeshift shield and continued, though her cheeks were still slightly flushed. “Where was I?” She asked, looking back at the folder.

“San Francisco.” I replied and grabbed my drink from the counter and made my way back into my room taking a sip, my video projection following in front of me as I walked.

“Oh yeah, that’s right. I have reason to believe the suspect, named Sergei Antonov, is smuggling an unknown anomaly into the states somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area and has plans to sell it to an unidentified buyer.” Amy said flipping to the next page in the folder. “Sergei, we both know, has ties to the Russian mafia; more specifically: black market trading, money laundering, prostitution, drug dealing, as well as human trafficking.” As I heard Amy mention that last part I pause for a moment before continuing towards my room, a sour taste left in my mouth at the thought, overpowering the flavor of the strong spirit's that still lingered.

“Human trafficking, huh? Jesus, that’s one Hell of a bomb to drop on a man who just woke up Jeong.” I said with contempt in my voice clear as day. Upon re-entering my room, I headed straight for the dresser, setting my glass on top of it before opening the top drawer and began pulling out clothes for the day.

“Hey, at least you didn’t have to sift through the intel. The things I saw made me want to puke.” She said as she closed the folder and set it down on the table before staring at me, her expression one of spite and hatefulness towards the man. “But our friend Mr. Antonov made one fatal mistake. He might have gotten away with his dirty dealings this long due to his money and influence with the Russian crime family. But the second he decided to dabble in the anomaly business, he put himself in our crosshairs.” She said with a mischievous smirk while standing up from her chair to face the wall behind her.

“It took some digging, but our cyber-security agents intercepted a conversation between Sergei and an individual calling himself The Shadow Man on a private messaging service on the deep web discussing the deal. According to the latest conversation we have intercepted, Sergei had already acquired the anomaly and shipped it out towards San Francisco on June 8th. The exact location the exchange would happen at is unknown. The buyer just creepily said, and I quote, “I will find you.” She said lifting up her right gloved hand to project a small screen, after a few moments of tapping at the screen, soft beeps sounding as she did, she gently swat the screen with the back of her gloved hand, causing it to fly up on the wall and blowing up to a viewable size. The blown-up screen on the wall showed a picture taken from an overhead view of a stocky middle-aged bald-headed man with a goatee walking out of what appeared to be a strip club headed towards a limousine; he wore a white tailored suit with a black tie and undershirt and had two burly meat heads following closely behind him.

“This is an image of Sergei leaving one of his seedy businesses in Moscow, one of his more law-abiding establishments, although rumor has it, he offers a wider variety of services to VIP’s and, costumers of long-standing alike; these services, as I’m sure you’ve guessed already include prostitution and drug distribution.” I began to get dressed as she finished, sliding on a pair of loose-fitting blue jeans, looping a black leather belt on, and fastening it to my waist. Stopping to take another drink from my glass, I returned my attention to Amy as she switched to another file; this one showed multiple angles of a large derelict manor.

The three-story eye-sore was ravaged by time, most of its windows long broken or cracked since its earlier years, eroded brick and rotting wood made up the outside of the dismal construct. In front of the building's main entrance sat a set of old worn-out green military transport trucks atop overgrown grass, the paint was faded and chipped from years of being exposed to the elements, the green cloth that draped over their beds was ripped and torn. The west side of the building had a few red shipping containers splayed out across the ground; the containers were the only thing on the property that didn’t seem to be over fifty years old, and, seemed to have a fair amount of upkeep put into them, leading me to believe they were used and switched out often.

“This charming little manor in the woods is located a few miles north of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski, Russia; I believe this to be the most likely place to pick up the anomalies trail. Luckily for us, Sergei is still in town conducting business. It’s his base of operations for his human trafficking racket, where he houses his victims before he ships them to the port in these lovely containers to be sold globally; doing god knows what for god knows who.” Amy grimaced, shuddering at the prospect of people being crammed in the containers like sardines, stolen away from their friends and families, and being shipped off to live the remainder of their horrific lives in forced labor at best, and non-consensual debauchery at worst. I sensed her uneasiness about the current subject at hand and tried to move the conversation forward.

“How about this anomaly? You said it’s unidentified, right? No classification or anything?” I said, pulling a black sleeveless undershirt over my head and down to my waist.

“That’s typically what unidentified means, yes. But my money’s on it being a unicorn.” She replied snidely with a chuckle as she retook her seat before closing the image on the wall.

“A unicorn, really?” I said in disbelief at the ridiculous assumption.

“Hey, you never know, we see all kinds of crazy things these days. A unicorn isn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility.” She said, a smug smile on her face. “So, to summarize, your orders are to fly to Russia, an agent has already been sent to your location to transport you to Anubis HQ so you can gear up before flying to your destination, make contact with Sergei Antonov, and ‘persuade’ him to give us the location of where specifically the anomaly is being shipped to in San Francisco”

“The anomaly that might be a unicorn…Or a five-foot-tall, acid-spitting monstrosity, with eight legs.” I interject, putting the finishing touches on my half a**ed attempt at an outfit, a dark blue hoody with the words “No Fear” across the chest, underneath that was a picture of a grim reaper in tattered black robes, speckled with splotchy crimson, wielding a blood-stained scythe clutched in boney hands, droplets of gore dripping from the tip of the blade down to the floor; and my dad’s old Jericho ball cap that I kept as a memento all these years, it's weathered from decades of use, the color faded and bill torn.

“Bingo, that’s the one.” Amy replied, snapping her fingers before pointing her index finger at me. “And lastly assess and intercept the anomaly. You know the routine. If it’s at all possible, incapacitate it. I will have a recovery team on standby to transport it to the R.A.C facility, dead or alive. But as always alive for evaluation is preferable” As Amy finished that sentence, I hear her office door open and her gaze is drawn to it like a moth to a flame when suddenly a familiar, timid voice calls out.

“Excuse me, ma’am, I have your coffee.” Terry said before he took a few off-screen steps forward, reaching his hand in the frame of the video feed. Amy looked intently at the mug of piping hot brew before reaching out to grab it with an excited squeal.

“Terry, you beautiful man, I’d kiss you if I wasn’t sure, it was s****l harassment!” She said inhaling deeply from the mug through her nose, as Terry walked back out of the room, she took a sip from it. “Mocha.” She said lovingly, quivering with delight at her prize.

“So, head to Russia, take on a mob boss and an unknown number of subordinates single-handedly; locate this mysterious anomaly and take it on, also single-handedly, while trying to avoid killing it. Is that about, right?” I asked, reaching into my top drawer once more to retrieve the handgun I had stored there. Amy, having just taken another drink of the blissful concoction, leaned back silently in her chair, as she savored the delectable flavors and aroma, clasping the mug in both hands close to her chest with her eyes shut. A toothy grin overtook her face, as she gently rocked back and forth, nodding her head in approval. As I pulled the sidearm out of the drawer of my dresser, I stared at her silently for a moment before shrugging. “Simple enough, anything else?” I asked, ejecting the magazine from the gun, inspecting it.

“Oh, now that you mention it, be sure to give that scumbag Sergei my regards, would you?” She said, sitting forward, setting her mug on the desk.

“Sure, I’ll give him a bullet with your name on it.” I said, slapping the magazine back in and racking back the slide before tucking it away in my hoody pocket. Amy snickers, a sly smile creeping across her face.

” From Amy with love. Happy hunting, ciao.” She said, giving me a mock salute with her index and middle fingers, winking before the video feed cut out.

Picking my glass back up, I swirled the whisky around, looking over at the picture on the nightstand momentarily. “Just another day at the office, eh Pop?” I said to myself before I slammed the rest of the drink back, setting the glass down on the dresser; I made my way to the front door.