“His name is Fausto Mendoza,” Ore said, sitting at a metal table outside of a smoothie place across the street from the bar. “He’s originally from Brazil.”
“Fausto, huh? Of course it is,” I said, because only villains were called Fausto. The name fit. Oh boy, did it fit.
Sitting down with Ore, I felt safer. I couldn’t believe how good it was to find him here, waiting; knowing now that nothing was ever a threat in there.
Checking my reflection in the glass window, I saw the tattoo was still there. So it wasn’t him after all.
Glancing back to him, he smiled a shy smile. “No, I wasn’t possessing you. It only allowed me to hear through your ears and see through your eyes. Besides, two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time.”
Lifting an eyebrow, I asked, “So, are you magic or science?”
“Both — neither. My domain is wonder and exploration. And in all my time I have yet to feel like I truly understand something about this universe. But then, it is said that the universe is under no obligation to make sense to any of us.”
True as that may be, it could at least try, I thought to myself.
My mango smoothie felt wonderful in my throat. I relaxed into my chair feeling like I could not be touched. Not with Ore here. Odd that I felt so confident in him, in us, and our place in the world. This thinking, this belief was from a younger me. A me back in High School. Back when the future was bright while the boy I enjoyed, enjoyed me. Then black as pitch when he enjoyed someone else, and left me. Youth saw things so confidently. So rigidly. Age tempers, and experience educates, until shades of gray come into view, and then colors.
Sitting with Ore, however, sipping on smoothies and smiling at each other, what happened across the street became something which didn’t have teeth. A horror show on a movie screen.
“That man, Fausto Mendoza, he’s C-Source, isn’t he,” I said. Or breathed. I wasn’t really sure. The words left my lips at the same time panic escaped my lungs.
“Yes,” he nodded, and moved his straw around in his pink concoction. “We discovered him this morning. Followed him back from Italy.” And so the riddle was figured out. There was indeed a man running the show. A man who managed to tap into a world he shouldn’t have access to. A man who was bold and daring and evil enough to use powers he shouldn’t possess to cast even more evil upon a world that was already plagued with too much wrong doing.
“What he said in there…” I began, unsure what to think about it.
“He was talking to us. He knew who you were. He was talking for our benefit. The whole show was for you to see, and bring to us — unaware we were watching the performance live.”
“Who is we?” I asked.
“Me, Raw, Slate, and I’m sure Kane is close by. Close enough.”
“Not Quinn?”
“He’s back in Rome, smoothing fears and injuries. He has his hands full.”
“Then C-Source is calling for a truce?” I asked.
“Sounds like it. Though I don’t trust a thing he says. His survival and resurrection from the head shot was impressive. Of course he had that prepared and ready. Doesn’t take a Sleeper to see the future around Berto. Caught off guard with a head shot like that, it would take me at least four days to return in ready condition. But prepared before hand, I know several ways of performing the same trick — to walk back into the room a few minutes later. The message is a show of power. Not for Berto, but again for us. He still doesn’t understand who we are, but I’m sure he knows now that you are human. Mortal. Not the threat he first believed.”
“Is this Fausto immortal as well then?” I asked him.
“No, he managed to tap into a Sleeper’s dream — and was lucky enough to survive the attempt. There are several sources which have this knowledge, the knowledge of connecting with a Sleeper — but few sources for living through the experience — because most of those who try, die before they can write about the process.”
“Do you know?” I asked.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, and then slurping his smoothie. “I’ve never wanted to, and find the act a bit despicable.”
“Making pacts with demons?” I asked.
“Something like that,” he told me.
“One thing I don’t get. The Sleeper is the one telling Fausto who is DEA and stuff right?”
“Yes,” he agreed, but continuing to listen.
“Why didn’t the Sleeper pick up on Kane?” I continued. “Obviously he had his own agenda with the Loco 49s, right?”
“Not as obvious as you might believe,” Ore told me. “Some people manipulate the truth. Kane manipulates with the truth. The Loco 49s really did want in to the Cortez Cartel. They had every intention of being loyal. Fausto probably asked something like, is Kane being truthful, which he was.”
I thought about my first meeting with Kane, how he stepped me through what was about to happen, how he sucked me into his world, and then put me into the mind frame to deal with it, without panic. He never lied. He did want me, even wants to marry me, still.
He manipulates what is true, creating a new truth.
“Kane’s ability to persuade is mind boggling, yes?” Ore asked.
“His forethought is more than I can grasp,” I admitted.
“You’re not alone. There have been many times where I was reduced to simply nodding my head and trusting his direction over the years,” Ore said, and finished his smoothie. “Want to walk?”
I sucked down the last of mine, winced at a brain freeze, and then laughed. “Sure.”
“Good, because this spot is about to be riddled with bullets.”
“It is?” I asked, looking into the smoothie shop and seeing the three women working inside. “We should get them out of the line of fire, shouldn’t we?”
Ore looked inside, then back to me. “They matter to you?”
“Of course.”
“Then yes, we should,” he said, and walked inside. “Excuse me ladies, but would you please step to the back of the shop, and out the back door for a few minutes?”
Each of them stiffened slightly, and then turned around and did as he asked. “Let’s follow them,” he said to me, and I followed him out to the back alley.
Just as I exited through the door, gunfire erupted from across the street, and the windows of the shop shattered. Bullets tore through wood and plaster.
“Get down!” I yelled at the women.
Snapping back from their blankness, eyes wide, they dove for the ground as I did. Ore remained standing, turning back into the smoothie shop. I had no idea what kind of gun was being used, but it was tearing through the walls, so it had to be blowing chunks out of the bar. Holes blew out of the wall all around Ore, but none came close to him.
“Use the latch on the gold circle,” he told me.
The sun’s rays died in the west, and night grew out from the walls, pouring hungry shadows into the alley that ate all the colors and brought chill down from above. Red lines cut through new holes. I looked to the right and left, finding the shops to both sides were suffering the same fate as the smoothie shop.
It was time to change clothes. I found the latch switch and clicked it. My clothing exploded off me, swirled and sucked down against my skin, bringing part of the ground beneath me with it. Once the battle suit was reshaped I felt my breast and found the iron nail Raw gave me, still there. On the flight back from Italy, it had shrunk down again.
I stood up to return to Ore’s side, and had a millisecond to see the wall blow out with a new hole, before feeling the thud of the lead round hit my gut. More shocked than injured, I looked at my belly, in time to see the round fall out of the dent in the suit armor, and drop to the ground.
“My god, it works,” I hissed. I felt where the liquid armor had stiffened, turning into a plate of iron, and then relaxing back into its liquid state. “Fuck me.”
“Did you really think it wouldn’t? That Raw didn’t understand what he was doing?” Ore chuckled.
“No, that’s not it,” I told him. “It’s a general distrust of the universe. Just because it should act in a certain way, doesn’t mean it will. And like you said, it’s not under any obligation to make sense.”
Ore nodded, and walked over to me. “And now, you have a story to write, and all you need to make that happen. I’ll take these ladies and the people in the other two shops to a safe place, and medical attention if needed. Then I’ll see you at lunch time.”
“Just like that? You’re alright with this?” I asked.
“Yes, it was our agreement, wasn’t it? You got the story, and we got you. Yes?” he asked.
I bent, and kissed him. Then kissed him again, deeply, running my hands through his soft hair, smelling his skin. “Yes, that was our agreement. I’ll be ready for lunch.”
***
In the street in front of the bar, two cars were stopped in the lanes. The doors open. The cars empty. All of the windows of the bar shot out.
Launching ten of my drones, they flew in through the windows. The bar was a mess of holes and broken glass, and several bodies.
Pulling the drones out I sent them up and over the building to the back. The door there was open. A car idled there, all doors open; steam pouring from under the hood. Gunshot holes riddled the sides, and the engine area.
None of the bodies were Berto or Fausto. Gunfire from the North attracted my attention, and I ran in that direction, sending my drones ahead of me to scout the way.
Only two streets North, and the firefight was found. Several men were with Berto and his brother Nesto. I counted twenty; all firing toward a two floor adobe hotel. Using the cars and walls as cover, another thirty men returned fire. These were younger men; hard and tattooed, but younger. Their dress and language told me they were from the US side of the border. These had to be the Loco 49s.
The Locos came out of the hotel doors, and I guessed they had been staying there.
Were they called down into TJ for a meeting? Was this the meeting Berto and Nesto wanted to have with them? I was certain before, that this was the intent they had with the biker group I met with Kane. Call them down and kill them all.
They didn’t come unprepared or trusting. From the condition of the bar, they arrived ready to fight; to be the aggressors.
Making it up to the street where the two factions faced each other, and hid down the street from the main battle. My drones circled above, taking vids of the melee.
I had been in war before, even in battles in Afghanistan. I knew not to be seen or I would be a target. The drones made this much easier. I could watch and record without having to expose myself, and so far the drones had not been targeted or noticed.
My search was for Fausto, and Raw.
Five minutes later I found Fausto, up the street several blocks, standing in the middle of the street, smiling. Watching. Then he raised his arms into the sky and wind came down full of dark dust and matter. The wind poured through the street, blocking out all light and sight. The winds and debris wiped out the ten drones I had out and forced me to curl up and cover my head with my arms so I didn’t suffer a head injury from falling rocks or chunks of asphalt.
“Move Misty. To your left. Move as fast as you can!” The voice was Ore’s.
Getting up into a crouch I ran low, still guarding my head with my arms. I couldn’t see a thing, but I heard something crash behind me. It sounded like a wall or the roof.
Bumping into parked cars, I went between them and out into the street. The wind increased! Pushing me backward. I knelt down again, knowing I was in danger. Then a counter wind rushed down up the street with three times the force, but none of the debris. Where the forces hit, cleared and the black curled up and fell back like a wave being forced back out to sea.
The wave cleared from the street, the gun fire had ceased during the dark matter storm. Wonder filled the faces of those I could see on both sides of the street. Then a rush of new men filled into the ranks of the Cartel side; fifty at least. The Loco 49s had held their own, but now they faced a force three times their size.
Gun fire rained down. Not from the Cartel men, but rather on them from the roof of a four story building beside the hotel. It came from a powered .50 caliber Gatling gun like Apache helicopters had.
Cars exploded, front walls where chewed through. The sidewalks turned to rubble and men fighting for the Cortez Cartel, died. Looking up I found the grim face of Raw, bringing wrath to the battle.
Standing up, my connection with Raw put words in my head. Several of the Locos were looking at me, unsure of what or who I was, or where I stood.
“He’s not on your side!” I shouted to them. “Run, or he’ll turn that thing on you!”
“Fuck you!” shouted one of the Locos, and pulled the pin of a grenade.
I dropped to my knee drawing my weapon without thought. When he pulled his arm back to throw, I shot him in the shoulder and arm.
“Run!” I shouted as the live grenade fell from the man’s hand.
They ran.
Raw swept the Cartel side once more, the grenade exploded and I launched ten more drones. Then a black figure with huge wings landed, and slapped the gun from my hand — then he stepped inside of me, pushing me into a room behind my eyes with no windows or doors. I felt my body crouch and then lift into the air.