In the bathroom I stripped out of my panties, and got dressed. Of course, everything fit perfectly. I wasn’t even surprised. Kane was also aware of my preferred dress code it seemed. Casual Post Disaster Comfort. The jeans were beaten and baggy, the socks loose on the legs but tight on the feet. Running shoes were cross-trainers, with an orange stripe. He thought of it all. All the little details.
“Fucker better live,” I swore quietly, and sat down on the toilet with the lid closed. Across from me was a long mirror, and in the reflection I saw something sticking out, back by the wall, under the bowl. Reaching down, I found a cellphone complete with power cord.
Once it powered up, a program ran, and there was my man in video, “Hey Misty,” he said, his greeting low and personal, as he sat down on the toilet like I was, from the way the video looked.
“Hey,” I answered, even though I knew it was a recording.
He looked around and then back to the camera. “I guess I’m probably out there in the room right now, being worked on by my brothers. That’s awkward. They call me the subtle one, but they do it like it’s an excuse. Since I’m subtle, they don’t have to be. I hope they aren’t giving you grief.”
I shrugged, and hugged my knees up to my chest.
“So, I’m out of it. I suck at that. I can read just about anyone, except for me,” he confessed. “So, apologies, but you probably aren’t concerned too much about that right now. You want answers, and knowing me, I promised them.”
I nodded my head, but he was wrong. I was concerned about him. More concerned about him, than whether him, and his brothers were space aliens or some shit — which kinda seemed obvious at this point. What else could they be? Citizens of Atlantis or some crap? Who cared? I just didn’t want him dead.
His face looked quizzical for a moment, and the video cut. Then he had the shower in the background, with him standing. He started to say something, his eyebrow raised, and the video cut again, and he was back on the toilet, looking at the screen again, “This is impossible.”
He looked up at the ceiling, “You have no point of reference, no idea of what is going on, and I messed this all up. But I don’t have time to alter anything. If I try, you’ll die in that restaurant. Hell, we’re lucky I even found you in time. Fuck.”
He pinched his nose and thought for a moment. “Alright. This is all going to be bullshit. I thought I could tell you everything, and explain it all, but it’s just not going to work like that.”
He rubbed his eyes, as if he had been awake thinking all night. Now there was a plant standing in the background, and the room window.
“Your story,” he said, and the clip changed to him laying on a pillow. “You are looking for who is in bed with the Cartel. Who’s feeding them information. It’s a good story.”
“If I don’t get killed,” I muttered.
“If you don’t get killed, but there’s a good chance you wouldn’t have. See the guy behind this whole thing isn’t Cartel, and your story can’t touch him. The Cartel people might not see it that way, but he would. Even if he confessed to you during an interview, the only thing your story could do for him is advertisement. Hell, if he did learn about your story, he probably would’ve cleared a path and given you an exclusive.”
Giving the screen a quizzical look, I said, “Talk about bullshit.”
The clip changed, and now he was pacing in the room, “No, we haven’t gotten to the bullshit part yet. I’m serious. This guy, let’s call him C-Source, he’s using the Cartel, playing them for meat puppets. The Cartel understands this, but C-Source is giving them so much in value, that they don’t really care. What he’s doing isn’t illegal though. Not for a citizen of another country. He’s providing information, right? What’s illegal about that?”
I thought about that and couldn’t see a downside for C-Source.
The clip put Kane shaving at the sink. “See what I mean? You’re not a threat, you’re advertisement as a reporter because he wants power. The more people know about him, the more they’ll want him to do for them what he does for the cartel. And through that, his influence will grow. His ultimate goal is to run the show, to gain so much power that eventually, even the government is his. And that wouldn’t be a good thing at all. C-Source wants chaos, he wants blood, he wants to turn this world upside down, for no other reason than…well, he thinks it’d be fun. At least that’s what we believe. Me and my brothers are a threat to him. Through the same means that he’s gathering information, he’s figured out that we exist, and are a threat. But he doesn’t know who or what we are. Where we are or why we are a threat. He only knows we are.”
I crinkled up my nose. “Well, are you?”
The screen changed, and now he was in the shower washing his hair. “We’re an even bigger threat now, I can tell you that much.” The clip changed again, and now he was brushing his hair. “He fucked up. He tied you to us, which is correct. You are more important than anything to us — me and my brothers. We were all going to meet up here very soon anyway. That was in the stars. In fact, it was planned, and then you disappeared, and we have been searching for you using all of our resources. You showing up to the restaurant as frequently as you did, put you on C-Source’s radar. Couple that with the fact that he found out we’ve been looking for you and well…you can’t fault him for putting the pieces together the way he did. He connected you to us and doing so led him to believe that you weren’t actually a journalist, but an enemy. And now,” he said, laying back on the bed, wearing the shirt I would see him in at lunch, “we’re really a fucking threat.”
The clip changed, and it took me a moment to realize he was standing on his head.
This can’t be fucking real, I thought.
“This is realer than you think,” Kane said and I frowned. Him answering my thoughts through a video he made in the past was intriguing, sure. But it was also irritating as hell.
He stuck out his tongue, and then sat forward. “So C-Source is still after you, and we’re in the same spot. We’re not quite sure what he is. A power, possibly. But we’re not one-hundred percent sure. What we’re sure about, however, is that we need to find him and work this out, before he succeeds in killing you. Since he’s tied you to us, even if you stop your story now, and print a retraction of your theory and apologize publicly — again, that’s not his worry. C-Source’s worry is me, and my brothers — and he’s equated you with us. So, his worry is you walking around on the earth.”
“So, what do I do?” I asked.
“You finish your story of course. When in doubt, attack,” he said. “Now, I’ve run out of time. My brothers will have to fill in the gaps. Ore is likely the best to ask, but Raw is good too. Either one. For this, the other two will be all thumbs, and start you off at the Big Bang, then start giving you apple pie recipes.”