Vs Reality (6 page)

New York City
August 26, 2011
3:18 am, Eastern Daylight Time

Frigid water slaps his face, soaking his hair, dousing his t-shirt. Jens snorts and coughs, eyes snapping open. He tries to wipe his eyes but his arms are immobilized; wrists bound to cold metal, ankles painfully strapped together. He’s tied to a chair in a large empty room – an abandoned warehouse, he guesses.

The last thing he can remember is driving to Platinum, chugging
way
too many Bolt and Brews, then stumbling into an alley for reasons he can’t quite piece together. And then, he vaguely recalls a massive bald guy who looked like a Hawaiian tourist, slamming a cinderblock-sized fist into his face. And then, darkness. Not the good kind, like a black-out after binge drinking, or when he passes out on his couch sprawled on potato chip wrappers and XBOX controllers. This is a new sensation and it’s not nearly as fun; like waking from a car wreck, but a lot more terrifying.

A Japanese man stands before him, dressed in a dark suit and jacket, a gray scarf draped around his neck. He’s clutching an empty water bottle in one hand and a smoldering cigarette filter in the other, the final dying embers crumbling to the floor. Behind him is a small rusted metal table fitted with drawers and compartments, with a red tool box sitting ominously on its scarred surface. And behind it stands a man twice as large as any Jens had ever encountered. It’s the Hawaiian tourist.

Jens shifts his jaw back and forth. He runs his tongue along the inside of his mouth to check if any teeth are missing, tasting a coppery tang that stings his scratchy throat. “Where am I?” he mumbles, not expecting a response.

Goto flicks the remains of his cigarette away and drops the plastic bottle to the concrete floor with a hollow rattle. “Not to be impertinent Mister Jennum, but I happen to be a little short on time this evening. This conversation is going to be somewhat one-sided, with me asking the questions, and you answering in short order.”

Jens’ eyes grow wide as a realization sets in. “Oh
shit
…I know what’s going on here. You guys are here for Vinnie Three Thumbs, aren’t you?”

Goto cocks his head to the side and then glances back at Mister Heinreich, who offers a confused shrug.

“
Dude
,” Jens pleads, “
please
tell Vinnie that I had no idea Jennie was his little sister. Until I saw her driver’s license I didn’t know they were related, and that she was born in…well, it doesn’t matter what year it was, but she
looks
at least twenty-one! You’ve seen her, right?” His eyes dart nervously between the Asian and the giant. “Right guys?”

Goto leans in, his nose just inches from Jens’. “My apologies, Mister Jennum, but perhaps I didn’t express myself clearly enough. That happens from time to time. It has been a very long, rather disappointing evening, and I haven’t had a latté or a steam shower in several days. Needless to say that puts me in somewhat of a foul mood.”

“Okay…?” Jens replies, his voice trembling.

“I am going to ask you a series of very pointed questions. And you, Mister Jennum, are going to reply with very specific answers. Preferably using as few words as possible.”

Jens blinks like an owl and nods twice. Water runs from his hairline and trickles down the bridge of his nose.

“Let’s begin,” Goto announces with towering authority, straightening his posture. “How do you know Miss Davenport, and what is her relationship to Donovan Cole?”

“Miss
who
? I’ve never seen that girl before in my life! Until Cole walked up to her at Platinum I don’t think he had, either.” Jens swallows hard in a dry throat, and then a thought drifts into his head. “Wait, if you’re a cop shouldn’t you be showing me a badge, or giving me my phone call or something?” He’s seen TV and he knows how these things are supposed to work. At least in theory.

Goto ignores the question. He begins to stroll around Jens’ chair in tight circles, his polished leather shoes clacking the concrete floor with each deliberate step. “Then how did you know to come to Platinum
tonight
of all nights, Mister Jennum, and that Miss Davenport would be at that precise location, at that precise time? That’s quite a coincidence. And very convenient.”

“Why do
you
care how Cole met that chick with the angel wing tattoos? Is she a hooker or a drug dealer or something?” Jens shifts uncomfortably in his chair trying to break free of his bonds, but the wires only tighten, biting into his skin. “I have nothing to do with this. If you’re running a sting operation you legally have to tell me. I saw it on CSI once.”

Goto ignores Jen’s struggle. He can see he’s that trying to wriggle himself loose, but makes no attempt to stop him. “We have very specific instructions for this assignment, Mister Jennum, and as I mentioned before, time is running short – as is my patience. Since sodium pentothal takes quite a while to take effect, it looks like we are out of options. We’re going to improvise.”

Goto circles back in front of the chair, his dark gaze focused on Jens. He locks his feet in place and reaches out to his side, palm facing upwards. “Mister Heinreich, if you’d be so kind.”

Heinreich flips open the red toolbox, the lid protesting with a loud creak. He extracts a pair of bolt cutters and drops them in his associate’s hand.

Jens’ heart leaps into his throat. He bucks and squirms, hips rising from his seat, but his constraints refuse to budge. They slice his wrists and scrape his ankles through his jeans. “Please dude,
don’t
do this!” he screams. “I need my fingers – all of them! I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but please don’t do this!”

“
Relax
,” Goto sighs. “Those days are over, Mister Jennum. The era of recreational waterboarding and testicular electrocution are far behind us. And as long as you follow my instructions there will be no need to resort to more extreme measures.” He stoops to Jens’ eye level. “But bearing that all in mind, it
has
been several years since Mister Heinreich has had the opportunity to use enhanced interrogation techniques, and from what I’ve been told, he can be very…persuasive.”

Jens glances over Goto’s shoulder. Mister Heinreich nods and cracks his knuckles into his palm, each pop echoing through the abandoned warehouse like a wine cork.

With three quick snips Goto frees his prisoner, the metal bindings clanging to the floor.

Jens is too terrified to move. He remains seated, massaging his aching wrists, staring expectantly at his captors.

Goto hands the tool back to Mister Heinreich and digs into his jacket, extracting a cell phone. Jens recognizes the device and pats down his jean pockets, quickly realizing they’re empty.

“Escaping with all your digits intact will be exceedingly simple, Mister Jennum.” Goto drops the device in Jens’ lap. “I think it’s time we rang up your good friend Mister Cole. I believe you have the number.”

New York City
August 26, 2011
2:33 am, Eastern Daylight Time

Gazing around Dia’s expansive penthouse, Cole realizes that the living room alone is larger than is entire apartment
.
White marble columns frame a walkway that leads to a sitting area; a meticulously decorated space that overlooks the entire city through soaring floor-to-ceiling windows. They provide a vantage point that only a privileged few can afford in the wildly overpriced borough of Manhattan.

“This is incredible,” Cole says, peering out at the skyline. Then he blurts out, “How do you
afford
all of this?” before biting his tongue, wishing he hadn’t.

“Well, when you can tear open a gateway to any location, bank vaults become a lot like ATM machines. Except you don’t need a swipe card, or a pin number. Or for any of the money to actually be yours.” She tosses her purse on a small table situated by the rooftop entrance and stops, staring into a round, gold-framed mirror. She pivots her head and flinches when she touches the swollen purple welt that’s forming on her angular cheekbone.

Fascinated by his surroundings, it takes Cole nearly a full minute to notice someone sitting on the couch. A scruffy blond kid is leafing through a comic book, bare feet propped up on the coffee table. He has a narrow face, crooked nose and a day’s worth of beard stubble, and is sporting a golden-brown tan that makes him seem much more California than New York, as does his wardrobe.

“Welcome home, D!” the kid shouts without looking up from his reading material. “How was your night?”

“Oh, it was fab,” she calls back from the hall, still scrutinizing her reflection. “It started with a dry martini, and ended with me getting smashed in the face and shot at.” She pokes the purple went again, frowning.

The scruffy kid drops his reading material and ambles into the hall, leaning lazily against a marble column with arms folded across his chest. “Sounds like a typical Saturday night for my girl.”

“More or less,” she sighs. “It was the Collectors again. Heinreich and Goto. It’s all good though. We made it out of there without much of a problem.”

Not much of a problem?
Cole furrows his brow; Dia’s summary of the evening’s events seem exceedingly casual. And her lack of concern is more than a bit troubling.

The kid barks out a wheezing laugh. “What have I been telling you about your little jaunts downtown? You can’t just breeze into a bar in a crowded city, D.
Especially
here in the Big Apple. I don’t wanna say ‘I told you so’, but…”

“Well what was I supposed to do, Brodie?” Her words come out sharply, suddenly outlined in razors. “I was thirsty and I needed to get some air. You expect me to just sit around here all weekend like I’m under house arrest?”

Brodie lifts his shoulders in a half-hearted attempt at a shrug. “Well, you-know-who isn’t gonna be happy. All I’m gonna say about it.” He sticks his thumb towards Cole without looking in his direction. “So, who’s the stray?”

“Brodie Hamilton, this is Donovan Cole. I met him at the club tonight right before I got jumped. You should have seen this guy in action! If it wasn’t for Cole manifesting and knocking out Heinreich I’d be locked in The Basement right now.”

Brodie scowls. “Bull
shit…
he knocked out a Collector?
Heinreich
?”

“I shit you not. He turned into this muscular bad-ass and one punch later –
bam!
” she slams her fist into her palm. “That big bastard went down.”

“
Bro
, you’re totally one of us!” Brodie grabs Cole’s hand for what he assumes is a handshake, but quickly pulls him close until they’re chest-to-chest, clapping his back. Cole had never been on the receiving end of a one-handed ‘bro-hug’ before (surprising, considering the amount of time he’d spent in gym locker rooms), and definitely didn’t expect one from a stranger. “So what do you use as a trigger,” Brodie asks, suddenly more alert. “An injection? A pill?”

Cole scratches the back of his head. “A trigger?”

“You know, like what did you use to manifest? When you want to Hulk-out and start busting some heads?”

Cole still isn’t sure what a ‘trigger’ is, or how he’s supposed to explain one. “Well I ‘Hulked out’ right after I got punched in the face, and was about to fall unconscious. So…I guess that’s my trigger?”

Brodie barks out a laugh, holding his belly. “That sounds like a shitty trigger, bro. I’d definitely try to find a new one if I were you.”

Dia shoves Brodie’s shoulder, pressing him against the column. “Don’t be a dick,” she scolds him. “Cole here is a noob. He’s never manifested before tonight. Didn’t even know he could.”

“Well he’s come to the right place then.” Brodie pads down the hall and rounds a corner. Dia motions for Cole to follow.

In the expansive kitchen a young girl sits at a table, clacking away at a laptop.

“See that morose looking chick who’s glued to her computer?” Dia says. “That’s my little sister, Paige.”

Paige glances up from behind square-framed glasses and studies Cole, disapproving eyes trailing from his running shoes up to his black tank top. She bears a striking resemblance to Dia with high cheekbones and piercing dark eyes, but her hair is shorter, chopped on an angle at her jaw line, cut shorter towards the back. Her bangs are looped behind her ear, streaked with purple. “Dia, we’ve discussed this before. No more bringing strays back to the penthouse. You see this,” she motions around her with both arms outstretched, gesturing towards nothing in particular. “
This
is what the comic books refer to as a ‘secret hideout’. You know, like the Bat Cave? If you keep dragging randoms in here it ceases to be a secret.”

“He saved my life tonight – I think that earns him a pass.”

Paige rises, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “And
why
would your life have needed saving, might I ask?”

“It was just a little run-in with the Collectors,” Dia scoffs. “No big deal. We handled it.”

“
Damn
it,” Paige shouts, slamming a palm into the table, “what have we discussed? There is no—”

“Going out and having fun,” Dia interrupts, throwing her hands apart in frustration. “Socializing, drinking,being young and frivolous?
I know
, you’ve told me a zillion times. But just because you’re allergic to human interaction it doesn’t mean that I am, too.”

The two seem to have an oddly calibrated relationship. At first Cole takes them for mismatched roommates who periodically grate on each other's nerves; not uncommon for adult sisters living under the same roof, he supposes. But it’s more than that. Paige, the younger of the two by what looks like half a decade, seems to take on the tone of a perpetually exasperated mother when dealing with her older sibling. In retaliation Dia seems to relish in taunting her like a petulant teenager, mocking her concerns and pushing the boundaries of her patience. It’s bizarre and tense and more than a little awkward to be adjacent to.

Cole’s eye dart nervously between the siblings, wondering if he should quietly back-pedal, retreating into the hallway. He’s not great with confrontation. Brodie seems indifferent, rummaging through the refrigerator as they continue to bicker.

“I don’t like this,” Paige says, talking about Cole as if he’s not in the room. Donovan is suddenly eight years old again, listening to his mother discuss his lack of grammatical skills with his second-grade teacher. The urge to retreat tightens his chest.

“He’s one of the good guys,” Dia assures her sister, “I owe him.”

“Then pay him off and release him back into the wild.” Paige pats down her jeans, front and back. “I think I have a couple pills left.”

Brodie continues to search the fridge, bottles clanging. “He’s not here to score,” he says offhandedly. “He doesn’t even know what a trigger is. He’s a noobler.”

Paige casts her sister a skeptical glance, and Dia nods back reassuringly.

“Fine,” Paige says, half-convinced and half-defeated. “You can keep him. Just don’t let him touch anything.” She drops into her chair, readjusts her glasses and glues her fingers back to her keyboard.

Brodie chuckles, head still inside the fridge. “Paige is the brains of the operation. We all have our talents: Dia has the money, I have the looks, and she’s the computer nerd.”

Dia rolls her eyes. “What he
meant
to say is that Paige spends a lot of her time researching, trying to find others like us.”

“So how do you track these people down?” Cole asks.

Paige removes her glasses and lets out a heavy sigh. “I run a website from a re-routed IP address. I spend most of the day researching unusual news stories, and I scan forums trying to connect with people who claim to have manifested or witnessed an event.”

“So do you get a lot of replies?”

“Once in a while we get credible information,” Paige replies flatly, her fingernails clacking the plastic keys as she speaks. “ Sometimes it’s about Collectors, manifestations, or chemical compounds that can help us trigger and maintain our transformations. But most of the time it’s just guys sending me pictures of their dicks.”

Brodie chuckles. “Ah, the miracles of technology. But before we get into all that, you should probably see something first.” He pulls a silver beer can from the fridge and tosses it to Cole, and shoves several more into the deep pockets of his cargo shorts. “Let’s head to the screening room and we can get the new guy up to speed on current events.”

Cole follows Brodie down a long narrow corridor with Dia and Paige trailing a few steps behind. He hears them exchange heated words in a hushed tone. It’s inaudible, but Paige sounds significantly more agitated, with her whispers coming out like a hiss; a parent scolding their child in a crowded movie theater. His palms slicken once again and he wipes them off on his shorts. If they were going to kill me, Cole thinks, surely they’d do it on the rooftop. Toss me to the concrete fifty-stories below, or blow my brains out where the rain could wash away the evidence. Not inside their fancy apartment…especially given the snowflake white carpets and pristine matching walls. The cleaning bill would be horrendous. Though if Dia has an unlimited budget maybe they don’t care?

They reach a set of mahogany double doors with polished brass handles. Brodie flings them open to reveal a warmly lit room, lined with plush raspberry-colored  recliners and matching velvet curtains draped across the entire far wall. Cole steps inside, eyes trailing along the floor. It’s carpeted with a gold and black pattern; swirling flourishes like the back of a playing card, and rope lighting that trails along the wainscoting. If he’s going to die at least it’ll be in one of the fancier rooms in the house.

With everyone inside, Brodie pulls the doors closed and flicks a light switch to the left of the frame, plunging the room into darkness. Cole swallows hard in a dry throat. A moment later Paige’s face illuminates with the faint lunar glow of her phone; three rapid taps of her finger later and the velvet curtains pull apart, the billboard-sized screen behind it bursting with color.

Cole blinks twice, adjusting his eyes. It’s a picture. A low resolution photograph of tourists running from a fire in the middle of a busy street. Inside the fire is the pale outline of a man, writhing and flailing. “Is t-that what I think it is,” he stammers, unable to avert his eyes. This is some sick joke, he thinks…they’re going to show me pictures of people being tortured to death, douse me in gasoline, toss a match and laugh about it.

“Some dude roasting like a marshmallow at a campfire?” Brodie says, popping the tab on a beer with a soft hiss. “Yup, pretty much.” He drops into a front row seat and throws one leg over the arm rest, taking a long swig.

Cole glances over to see Paige and Dia are seated as well. Paige flicks here eyes up towards him, and then down at the empty seat next to her, and then back to him. He takes the cue and sits down.

“Around seven years ago there were reports all over the world of some really strange stuff happening,” Paige explains flatly, as if under duress. She swipes the face of her phone and images shift by on the screen, like a bizarre (and somewhat gruesome) PowerPoint presentation. “Spontaneous human combustions in Copenhagen, cars floating ten feet above the street in Mexico City, an iceberg forming in the Mojave desert. And it just got weirder as time went on.”

The images are mostly unconvincing, Cole thinks. Pixelated cell phone shots taken in poor lighting, badly out of focus. Then Paige pauses momentarily on one particularly persuasive shot: a clear photograph showing the now-infamous melting incident at the Great Wall of China; an alleged paranormal phenomenon that took place just inside the southern border of Mongolia back in 2007. A pair of European backpackers snapped several shots of the iconic wall sagging like a melted candle; an enormous swath of the twenty-five foot high structure appear to be partially liquefied, dripping down to the earth in Volvo-sized globs. This stunning image had been an internet sensation for several years, being discussed on forums and debated by conspiracy theorists ad nauseum. And of course, like everyone else with a functional internet connection, Cole had seen it before.