The Kingmaker

18 - Too Late

 Zero knew better than to approach the point by vehicle. It didn't matter who owned the old Ingram property now; a place like that would always be armed with a hefty surveillance system that kept a vigil that extended well beyond its borders. And that was just bare minimum. If it was someone who was a little more paranoid than the average citizen, they would have cameras posted down the meandering road that led into it as well.

So he moved on foot, sticking to the shadows and the trees that lined the side of the asphalt and gravel path. Strange how the streetlights weren't functioning, even if that did make his objective easier in the moment. He could understand that kind of negligence in the other districts of the city, but this was an expensive residential area - he didn't think it likely that the new owners of the lot would enjoy driving in darkness. Darkness in Alexandria meant danger, after all, whether to the rich or to the poor.

He could assume that the streetlights had suffered some kind of mass malfunction that the city simply hadn't gotten around to repairing yet, but that was about as likely as lightning striking two, three, a dozen times on the same street. There were no visible signs of a power outage, either; there were houses a few miles down that seemed to be experiencing no issues. So the most obvious answer was that perhaps the new owners of the Ingram property simply didn't care enough to report the issue for resolving.

That suggested a family far braver than most. All neighborhoods in the wealthier districts were perpetually lit up as bright as midday as if that would dissuade crime and violence from creeping their way into their lavish lives. Funny. As if the worst of criminals didn't already live among them, dressed to the nines and enjoying themselves in full view at their socials. All the moneyed politicians who took centerpiece in the social scene of Alexandria were corrupt and working hand in hand with the criminals that their friends so feared...and they all knew that. So why the pretense?

But the closer Zero drew to the house, the more suspicious he became. He'd already deduced in the past several minutes that it was likely not an upstanding family that had moved in to replace the Ingrams, but as he silently pulled himself up onto the brick wall that lined the edges of the property, he noticed something even more peculiar.

No lights. No vehicles. Even more perplexing was the fact that the gates were wide open. He hadn't even thought to approach that way for several reasons, principal among them being that he expected cameras there and also because - he had expected them to be locked. It was far noisier to clamber over iron wrought gates than to pull himself over a brick barrier, and so he had come this way instead.

And yet the gates were open.

Zero didn't intend to take the bait whether or not that was what it really was, but he understood that something was awry. No one left their gates open at night. It was an open invitation for trouble making delinquents to wander in and accidentally (or purposely) set fire to things, for thieves looking for an easy opportunity. Whoever lived here was either stupid, reckless, or simply didn't care.

Well, if they didn't care, then he was happy to oblige. He slipped soundlessly over the wall and landed on the grass inside, listening cautiously for the sounds of guard dogs or approaching footsteps. But again, he heard nothing - and the night vision lenses attached to the sleek graphene helmet didn't reveal anything in sight, either. This was a little too easy. Even the least cautious of well-off citizens usually kept a Rottweiler or Doberman posse in the yard to dissuade anyone who might wander in uninvited. But then again, the front gates had been left wide open anyway. If that was intentional and not the result of accidental forgetfulness, then what would the owners care about uninvited guests anyway?

No lights, still, even when he manually switched off the night-vision capability with a brush of his fingers on the side of his helmet.

It was only when he finally approached the house that he realized why. There was no one living here.

The signs were clear. The windows, for one. Two of them were broken, the tattered drapes inside billowing with every light breeze. And when Zero rounded the house and took a look at the side entrance, he saw that the knob on the door had been broken clear off. There was no telling who had done it, but he also knew that it wasn't recent damage: he could see vines that coiled around the entrance growing into the hole, disappearing into the interior. The damage had been present for a long, long while.

This could easily be a trap, but a trap for whom? No one in Alexandria knew that his target was anywhere near the city, if they even remembered who she was. It had been eight years; it was just as likely that whoever had arranged the hit on the Ingram family was long gone, either dead or moved onto better pastures so green that they had forgotten the bloody night entirely.

But trap or not, Zero didn't have anything to be afraid of. He was confident he could outmaneuver whatever might happen in the dark. He'd walked into worse situations blind and come out unscathed, so this didn't even register in his mind as even remotely risky. Hence the cracking open of another window and sliding into the place, still ever alert in case someone jumped out at him around a corner.

With every soundless step, however, it became clearer and clearer that there would be no such thing. This wasn't a trap at all - it was simply deserted. Someone had bought this place and currently owned it - but hadn't lived here for many years...if ever. He had a sobering suspicion of something ever since he saw the broken windows and mangled door, but he wouldn't jump to conclusions yet. Not until he verified it for himself.

He crept through the house, searching for one room in particular as he traversed the narrow hallways to get there. He'd never seen the floor plan of this place which made him take a wrong turn once, but he found it eventually: the family room.

He entered, and grimaced.

Destroyed furniture. Gouged walls and dark streaks all over the carpet. A head-sized hole in the wall. Broken glass and a demolished coffee table. Zero eyed a particularly large, roughly human-shaped patch of dark color on the fabric covering the floor; even with no light and only his night vision lenses to see by, he knew all the discolorations were browned, old blood.

There would have been three bodies here, he thought. Laura Ingram, her husband James Doe whose surname she hadn't taken upon marriage, and Brook Ingram-Doe, their elder daughter. All savaged and torn apart and destroyed in ways that civilians would call unspeakable...especially the daughter. Zero had seen the initial reports, scant as they were. Whoever had come to deliver this hell personally had thought it fitting to repeatedly r**e the young woman before viciously ending her life after putting her through so much agony. Curiously, the mother had escaped this fate, but there had been notes suggesting that the parents had been forced to watch all the while.

Zero kneeled down and let his eyes drift around the room, noting every sign of violence that remained in this place like a tortured ghost of a memory.

Lot of blood and pain in this place. Lot of blood and pain that would never be erased.

He understood only too well the target's inability to let it go. How could she? The more grisly details of the murders had been kept concealed from both the public and from her, but she was a smart woman - had been a smart girl when it all happened, too. She would have guessed, and she wouldn't have been far off the mark with her predictions about what had happened in her absence.

She'd been a child born with a mind capable of understanding that kind of world, after all. Some in the unit called her a sociopath, clucked their tongues at her unfortunate fate to be born with a brain that wasn't quite wired for ordinary humanity. But in Zero's opinion, she'd simply been born ahead of the curve - already knowing, understanding, and internalizing all of the atrocities and horrors the rest of the world had to learn piece by piece.

But with a mind like that, of course she'd been incapable of forgetting. Every day, she had imagined what had happened here because she wasn't allowed to know the truth, and every day, she had plotted her vengeance. More than vengeance. People like her gave back in full what they received tenfold. No, not tenfold. A hundredfold and more.

So what, Zero wondered, would be a hundredfold of this? Bloody, savage, exhibitionist murders that had ended with three bodies hacked apart after already being destroyed in countless other ways that would make even the most hardened cringe. What would the target do to make things right? Because she wasn't one to settle her balances and leave all things equal, eye for an eye. For all the things had happened here tonight, she would inflict upon whoever she saw as her enemy acts of abomination that would make this pale in comparison.

Couldn't blame her, he thought. Anyone who did, just didn't understand. He and the target didn't live in the same world - his was marked by a lot more bullets, knives, and fighting for his life - but he knew better than to think she was any softer than he was. Past the innocuous, sparkling smile that she wore, that he had come to know was nothing but a mask - past the slender suppleness of both her body and demeanor, there was a slavering, snarling leviathan inside that thirsted for blood.

The ones keeping watch over her had been idiots to think she could ever be tamed. What, had they thought she would remain their pet forever? Sure, she had been docile for a little while. Nearly a decade of working tirelessly for their ends, devoting herself to the country with graceful, patriotic duty and doing her part to make the United States the greatest military superpower in the world - but it had all been an act all along.

He'd recognized it after a while, but even he had been fooled in the beginning.

And if they thought she would be easy to trap and drag back out of Alexandria, they were still failing to understand the crucial fact that she was not only ready to die in order to exact the whole of her vengeance, but also to savage and tear apart everything that intercepted her on that path. She had been born with the mind of a monster, leashed as it was - and now she would make full use of it. She would rip off her own limbs without batting an eye if that was what it took - so as little as she valued the lives of those who hampered her, why would she hesitate to hurt anyone else to get what she wanted?

Zero stood up and looked at the human-shaped remains of old blood on the carpet again. That was the daughter, he thought. The sister of the target. The reports he had read indicated that the intruders had r***d her in this very room and then hacked her apart piece by piece as they did so. Her parents forced to spectate all the while.

He shook his head.

They had disturbed the nest of a beast and then failed to kill it before it returned for their skins. It didn't matter what he did now - it was too late.

Alexandria was going to start drowning in its own blood very, very soon.