"Choke, choke again
I find my demons were my friends
Getting me in the end
They're out to get me...
That's right
Trigger between my eyes
Please strike
Make it quick now
Wait, I'm coming undone
Unlaced, I'm coming undone
Too late, I'm coming undone
What looks so strong, so delicate
Wait, I'm starting to suffocate
And soon I anticipate
I'm coming undone
What looks so strong, so delicate"
Coming Undone" - Korn
No one had ever told Todd that he was special; his mother told him once that he could do anything he wanted in life, but he knew that almost everyone’s mother says that. He was, in fact, rather ordinary; he was good looking and smart, but he would have never had a successful career as a model or brain surgeon. The thing was, he really was special; he just didn't know it yet. He was one of the "Lost Children." A rare slightly more ‘evolved’ human with special powers or abilities as some said. However, most of the world, even sometimes including the Lost Child themselves, did not know they were more than normal. In a way, Todd was more special than most; he was what those with knowledge of the Children called a level five special. Basically, that meant he had a non-physical ability of a high power.
Todd now knew that he was extraordinary, he didn't know what caused it, but he planned on figuring that out soon enough. He sat on a hotel bed with the television playing in front of him, but it was just background noise as his mind was other places. His life, for the last month at least, had been complete chaos. Just before his birthday he had met Reggie, “by chance,” and since that fateful encounter things had changed. His peaceful life was now gone, left behind in ashes. Todd knew she had something to do with it, she was the first thing to really change in his life in years. She had changed his life and now all he wanted to know was what she had dragged him into.
* * *
Todd was not a particularly handsome man, not ugly by any means but he would never win any “Times sexiest men” awards. He was about 5'11 (six foot if you asked him) and weighed 215 pounds. He went to the gym regularly to keep himself in good shape, and though his physique was not perfect, it still got some good looks from a good majority of women. He was the poster boy for the stereotypical average man. Even his mother told him that he was never destined to be a pretty boy.
His job was not extraordinary in any way either; when he started as a working man, it had been very low risk and the pay was good. He was a stock broker on Wall Street, the famed New York stock exchange. Most people in his industry put in hours of complicated research in order to make a slightly more educated guess at determining the best time to buy and sell high risk stock. He started his mundane career like everyone else did, small and moving in and out of the safest stocks possible. He tracked the history of each stock, like any other good broker would, and it helped him make his predictions with moderate to slightly above average success. But after meeting Reggie, the hunches began.
Those hunches suddenly came upon him on his twenty-sixth birthday. He began to get these tingly feelings (like you would get when your limbs began falling asleep) and nagging hunches about several of higher risk stocks at that time. When he acted on this intuition, he realized it was far more accurate than anything he previously had come up with when he analyzed the numbers. He just started to know when things would shift; it had him suddenly changing his focus from safe low risk stocks to extremely high risk ones in two weeks. Part of his brain did not like the new sudden ability that was manifesting, like it was some kind of invading parasite. The problem was that it was making huge advances in powers but his brain was also starting to tear itself apart.
Back then he realized his hunches could either make him a millionaire or break him overnight, now looking back he realized it had been the idea of the thrill that pushed him to do it. His clients instantly started to complain about his risky tactics even though it was making them all rich, they felt the wild and risky practice would catch up to him sooner or later and turn everything sour. Within a week of his newfound power, he was his only client; he dropped all of them to pursue his future. After of making extremely profitable decisions, people started to ask questions about his methods, they thought he may have been doing some sort of insider trading deals. A major investigation had been launched in order to determine how he got his information, and in time he had been found squeaky clean. They had no way of knowing, that he was able to actually sense things happening before they did.
The problems with his new found power started when areas in his life, other than stocks and bonds, started to be effected by his hunches. He began to know things like, who would win the next football game, if a car would dangerously pull out in front of the cab he was taking, anything and everything started to coming to him. Most things ended up being rather handy pieces of information for him to know, like exactly what day the milk in the fridge would go bad. After a couple of days of easy living due to his "feelings," things suddenly turned disconcerting. The first bad hunch came when he learned that his dog, Courage, would pass away the next morning from old age. Knowing ahead of time, he spent all night with the dog and the last moments in the morning before he passed. Inevitably, Todd had his heart broken.
The second dreadful moment came when his insight let Todd know that his present girlfriend, Regina Fisher, would leave him by the end of the week. He didn't get any reason for the breakup from his hunch, no indication on why she would want to leave him. He couldn’t help but obsess over what possible reason she could have to date him and then dump him. He started to wonder: was she seeing someone else? Maybe someone who was more exciting than he was. If that was the case he couldn’t believe that she would drag this out on him. If she wanted to be done with him then she should have just said so.
Reggie did have a far more exciting job, she was a model and she definitely looked the part.. Most of her friends, and even most of his, thought she was "slumming it” by dating Todd and sometimes it was hard to refute that notion. He wasn't sure, but maybe she had started to believe the comments her friends were making. When the inevitable moment arrived, he tried not to let his frustration show, which only made things worse and created a far more awkward breakup then he expected.
Financially, things were still going great, his monetary gain seemed to be the last real thing he could look forward to now, He noticed his bank accounts continually growing while the rest of his life fell apart no matter how hard he tried to hang on. After a few more weeks, he began to question his own sanity. Not only was he having his "feelings" but now he was actually starting to see things, he started to have full visions of what was to come. He was able to see the stock market reports as they would end up after the day was through. He was able to see the knockout blow in the next cage fight making it easy toplace precise bets. Two issues came with this, one was that the thrill had been taken out life. He now had a life without mystery, a life without surprise in it and to Todd that meant that he really didn’t have much of a life at all. The other thing it brought was a greater leap in his ability.
Next, he started to hear things, it seemed like just when he was getting used to a new power, another one reared its evil head. Like the other powers, at first it was useful, like happening to hear the thoughts of a woman he was thinking about hitting on was actually at the coffee shop because she was happily waiting for her newlywed husband. Another time he heard that a fast food worker had urinated in the pickles at his favorite broiler, and a disappointed and disgusted Todd tipped off the health department which kept a lot of people from ingesting contaminated food. At first he felt like a hero and then lost interest when he remembered the amounts of money he could make.
However, after a while it became harder and harder for him to turn his power off. The voices kept coming to him in an onslaught, it was hard for him to stay at the stock exchange, or even simply visit the grocery store. Todd decided that he should just stay in his apartment as much as possible to have a few moments of peace. It was hard enough on him to have, what he called, "future flashes" but now that he constantly heard what others were thinking, sometimes his power gave him small visions for the specific people as well. All in all, this partial omniscience was overwhelming, distracting and made his brain feel like it was going to explode.
In one of his few jaunts out of his apartment, Todd decided that he wanted one of the amazing Hero sandwiches from Manganaro's Heroboy on 9th ave, if he was going to be out in Manhattan he might as well go and enjoy something he truly loved. It was one of the few things that could still drag him out of the apartment. He ordered the usual: prosciutto, mortadella, mozzarella cheese and roasted red peppers on white bread. Things had been fine most of the day, loud music coming from his IPod touch helped him ignore most of the thoughts from other people close by, but when he reached the counter to pay for his long awaited meal, he had one of the "future flashes" involving the tiny little cashier.
"That will be $9.00 plus tax."
"You really shouldn’t do it," Todd said while he pulled his wallet from his back pocket.
"Excuse me?” She asked looking up at Todd with her eyes wide and very confused.
She was a small girl, maybe five foot tall at best and very petite. Her caramel colored skin, dark brown eyes and raven black hair were dead give a ways that she was of Hispanic decent, though she had no real accent to speak of. Her small mouse-ish features would normally convince him that she was sixteen or younger, but since it was a school day and unless the local high school had a work program for their students, her appearance betrayed her actual age, she just looked so young. She continued to look up at him with her eyes widening a bit more every few second, which added to her mouse like appearance.
"I know what you are planning, and the jerk totally deserves justice, however it will not end well for you." Todd said nonchalantly as if this kind of conversation was an everyday occurrence for him, "No reason to throw away your future for a low-life like him."
Her face turned from confusion to absolute shock, He didn't know that it was possible for someone to open their eyes as wide as hers were at that moment.
"I.. I.. I don't know what you are talking about...” She said trailing off at the end.
"Yeah you do. You know exactly what I'm talking about. We both do."
In fact, he knew more than the girl did at this moment. Later that night she would stab and kill her boyfriend who had been cheating on her. Todd even knew what kind of blade she would be using; she had just bought the knife out in the back alley less than an hour ago in fact. It was a switch blade, not brand new, but it was better and would be more effective than using one of her kitchen knives. She would stab him once in the armpit, the blade would puncture the boyfriend’s lung and he would slowly drown in his own blood. She would be caught later by the police when she went to dispose of the body, but on the exact details of this part of her future, Todd was not sure.
"Seriously, just don't do it O.K.?" Todd said and then walked casually out of Manganaro's and into the crisp New York autumn air.
The shop’s door shut behind him, and he realized his mood had been elevated by attempting to use his premonition for someone’s good other than his own. However, before he could get even a few steps away from the building, he got another one of his "future flashes" and nothing positive could come out of this one. It was simplistic in nature which only drove the terrifying aspect of the vision even further. All could see were his own hands, drenched in blood. He knew that they were his hands; he could see the distinct scar on the base of his thumb he received from wrestling with his cat during his early childhood. The only other thing visible in the eerie vision had been a concrete sidewalk covered with even more blood; the blood was dripping from above quickly staining the ground and a set of black shoes of someone standing in front of him. From that point of view he would have had to be on his hands and knees.
"Oh, God..." he said out loud with his voice sounding more of a croak then actual words.
The image could have come from any part of the city at anytime of the day. ‘Was that all of my blood?’ he wondered to himself, there was just so much of it. The vision left him no other clues to the location of the disaster, just blood, a sidewalk and the expensive shoes. The whole vision had been in a first person view; he remembered hearing somewhere that if you die while dreaming in the first person, that your brain couldn't handle it, and you would actually die in real life. He had no idea if that statement was true or not, but either way it did not calm his growing fears. The sky above was turning overcast and grey, the clouds had managed to overtake the sun and the dimming of light felt to him more like an omen than just a subtle change in weather.
He leaned heavily up against the wooden pillars outside of Heroboys, people were moving all around him. The passing crowd never gave him a second look as they moved by, but Todd didn't notice, he was too focused looking at their shoes. He wanted to believe that his vision was just some sick and twisted trick his mind had made up to scare him into doing something irrational, like trying to help humanity somehow, but he knew better than to go down that thankless road. Every time a pair of dress shoes came into his line of sight, Todd's heart started to skip a beat. The fact that none of the dress shoes looked anything like the ones that he saw in his vision did nothing to calm his panicked mind.
‘Is this the kind of chaotic madness I am going to live with for the rest of my life?’ He thought to himself.
* * *
Todd stayed around Manganaro’s for over ten minutes, just trying to breathe normally. His freshly made sandwich was all but forgotten and only barely being held in his trembling hands as he still leaned against the building for support. If Todd tried to walk away, or even tried to stand on his own strength, he knew his knees would give out on him. His life literally flashed in visions before his eyes and there seemed to be nothing he could do to stop it. All of his work and accomplishments in his life would amount to nothing as he experienced a meaningless death on the street just like an old sickly bum. He knew now that he could no longer stay in his ignorant "ivory tower" of his typical life, and he could not go back in time before this insane power began assaulting him. He couldn't go back and couldn't go forward because there was no future for him.
"He hasn't moved..." A man’s concerned voice said inside his head.
"He must have seen something," A different voice spoke.
The hairs on the back of Todd's neck stood on end, they were thinking about him, and somehow they had discovered what his powers could do. He had thought o one knew his secret, he had never told anyone because he thought he would sound crazy. His skin continued to crawl as he thought about the people watching him, waiting for him. Todd started to look around among the crowd, hoping to notice if something was out of the ordinary, but everything looked and flowed the way it should. The traffic moved slowly, slower than the constant flow of people that occupied the sidewalks, and then he saw them.
Across the street, staring directly at him was a strange man and woman. Most people in the city avert their eyes from the countless strangers surrounding them. Everyone would try their best to avoid that awkward eye contact with strangers just in case they happen to be sharing the side walk with an obvious psychopath. The unusually direct gaze of the two strangers caused Todd to break out in an instant adrenaline sweat. Both of them were dressed in black business suits, the man had his white collared shirt buttoned all the way up with a silk black tie, while the women had the first few buttons of her white shirt undone showing a golden cross on a thin chain. Her raven black hair was styled and parted so that a large tuft of hair came down diagonally across her face from her left brow to her right cheek covering one eye. The man kept his hair in a short brush cut showing a scar above the hair line on the right side.
They arrogantly continued to look straight at Todd; the man’s face was completely neutral while the woman’s face held a permanent frown that looked etched into her haughty face.
He heard a thought, "Think he knows yet? I'm sick of playing these stupid games."
The voice that people use in their heads is usually very similar to the one they used when they spoke aloud, so Todd guessed that the comment had come from the scowling woman. The voice sounded deep and was very close to sounding male except that it had the slight hint of feminine undertones to it. That tone was the only concrete hint he had of who thought what in their on going bazaar conversation.
"Yeah I think so," The man said with a warm voice, paradoxically the warm voice also had no hint of compassion in it. Unlike his partner, his confident voice was all even tones, no rasping or grating qualities, he spoke as if he was a silver tongued preacher.
Further down the street the traffic light must have turned red because the traffic flow slowed and then stopped, partially blocking Todd's view of the two suits. T several car lanes separating them were full of cars packed bumper to bumper. Normal New Yorkers would normally not attempt to cross the street anywhere except at the designated cross walks, but the two suits did not seem to care about their own safety as they gracefully weaved their way around the cars, quickly making their way towards Todd’s position. The woman was moving so fast her jacket flowed out behind her like a cape. The man's form fitting suit moved perfectly with him like it was an extra set of skin.
Not wanting to wait and see what they wanted with him, Todd panicked. Endorphins were running through his body forcing the instinctual flight or fight response into full tilt. He threw his sandwich at the women, it went wide and hit the back driver side window of a van behind her (He never had been all that good at organized sports) and he took off running down the crowded sidewalk on 9th Avenue. It wasn’t as easy as the movies where the people would part like the red sea during the chase scenes, instead they stood in shock and Todd had to work his way through them at a much slower rate than he preferred. He was actually made good headway even though the crowd didn't make things easy on him; he would have to thank his personal trainer later for keeping him in such good aerobic shape.
People yelled out in protest as he bumped into them, several of them cursed as he shoved them out of the way, but for the first time in weeks, Todd never noticed. The only things running through his head was that somehow people knew about him and knew exactly what he could do. One of the two well dressed pursuers may very well be the owners of the shoes that were in his deadly vision, if only he had been able to see who those shoes actually belonged to.
Quickly rounding a corner, Todd skidded to a stop. He almost fell over as he slumped against the wall winded from being chased. His muscles burned from the constant strain of weaving around the people packing the sidewalks while trying to sprint to safety. His trendy Vans shoes were not the best things to be running in, they had no padding and now they stung his newly forming blisters horribly. He doubted he would be able to run for much longer in them, his feet were becoming numb.
What am I doing? He thought as he ducked into a dark, receded doorway to catch his breath.
The vision, the blood on his hands, the concrete coated in that same blood, the shiny black shoes, the eminent death, none of it made logical sense.
There was a defined split forming in his brain, his logical side who knew the accuracy of his powers believed that there was nothing he could do about this unfortunate situation, but his emotional side wanted to fight against fate and live against all odds. A small part of him was amused that his insignificant life might show an answer to the lifelong question that plagued many thinkers throughout the ages. What was the meaning of life - predestination or free will? If he really hoped to beat this seemingly inevitable situation and make it out alive, then he would have to get off the concrete sidewalk and away from the suits and their dress shoes.
A cab slowed and let out its passenger on the road next to him. He was still just out of sight of his two pursuers and Todd scrambled into the back seat. He awkwardly bumped the woman who was exiting the cab, a younger looking business type in her early twenties, who squawked at him as he brushed her by. He slammed the door as fast as he could so he wouldn't have to deal with the ear piercing insults she made.
"Where to my impatient friend?" the Arab cabbie driver asked, looking back at him.
"Just drive," Todd said sharply.
"But..."
"Just go."
After going, what Todd estimated was a safe distance, far enough so he could no longer hear the thoughts of the two suits, he told the driver to head to a decent hotel. Nothing fancy or expensive, but one that was not just a hole in the wall either. He ended up being let out in front of the Wyndham Garden Hotel. Todd pulled two twenties out of his pocket and handed them to the driver. He had found out that Anood was the driver’s name, and Todd decided he had rather come to like his new friend in the short time that he spent with him. When Todd had asked about the his name, Anood said that it had not been his birth name, but he changed it when he moved to America. After that Anood quickly changed the subject to what hotel he was planning on dropping Todd off at. The man asked no personal questions and thankfully that made things easier for Todd; it was like he understood that Todd couldn’t give him an honest answer.
Once he was paid, (paid) Anood turned off his light signaling that he was no longer taking customers for the moment, winked at Todd and then drove away. As far as Todd knew the wink had been innocent but he hadn’t been able to hear the man's thoughts the entire trip. Controlling his power wasn’t an exact science yet, so he couldn't tell whether there was something knowing behind the wink.
The yellow cab became lost in the sea of like-colored cars that normally flooded the area of Times Square, not that it really mattered because Todd would not be able to catch it anyways. Besides, It was not smart for him to drop what little plan he actually had at the moment to chase down Anood and ask him about a simple wink. The man could have just been being friendly. Or, he thought fearfully, had he been working with the suits? Would he go back and pick the suits up and bring them here? Todd, anticipating conspiracy, decided that his pursuers would be dropped off at the hotel regardless of if he had made friends with the driver or not. To stay one step ahead of them he would have to alter his plans a little to stay safe.
Instead of making his way into the Wyndham Garden, Todd picked another hotel in the vicinity at random, not wanting to look at any street signs he kept his head down with his eyes cast away from any distinguishing city features. He didn’t know if his enemies would be able to leech that information from him, but he didn’t want to risk it. When he finally chose a hotel, he barely looked at the desk clerk and paid for the room in cash to avoid a paper trail, he was given the key to room 814 and went straight there before he let himself relax.
The room looked just like millions of other generic hotel rooms. Flat painted white walls, a blue rug that looked like it belonged in a Wal-Mart dressing room, and cheap looking furniture coated in a purposeful dark stain intended to cover the many imperfections in the cheap wood. Surprisingly, there was a LCD HDTV mounted on the wall, instead of a standard definition television. At a closer glance he noticed it was sturdily attached with metal bolts to prevent theft. The cobalt blue bed spread on the queen bed finished the rather boring ensemble.
Within moments of being in the room Todd realized something: he was completely lost on what to do now. Eventually he would have to leave the room, he had no extra clothes to change into, no food so he would have to order out every day, and at some point he would have to pay for more time in the confining room. He only had enough cash to pay for the room for three more nights; that was if he decided to not eat during that time period. But if he used a credit card to make any kind of purchase, then he could be traced and they would have him..
The cab driver would likely take the suits to the Wyndham,and they would know in minutes that he had not actually checked in there. . Todd had not used his real name when booking his room, but the pursuers could always just describe his appearance to people and someone would eventually point them in his direction.
"There are way too many rooms in this building for them to catch up to me by tonight," He said to the empty room.
He knew he needed to calm down, but the room held nothing to help him relax. The only things that he could find to distract him was the high end Television and the Gideon Bible in the dresser; Dismissing the Bible, he quickly looked for the remote. The first thing he turned on was the local news; unbelievably the image on the screen was of his apartment building which was consumed by smoke and flames.. There were several fire trucks parked outside spraying their water hoses at the lowest floor of the building, his floor.
The newswomen was interviewing the local authorities with the building still burning in the background. Several pillars of smoke bellowed out of the upper windows. Todd listened in horror as he watched his home burn to the ground. He had lived in that apartment building for a couple of years now, and he really liked the place. Now, it was all gone. The comforts of having his own place, all of the cherished memories that he collected over the years, everything that made up a home were vanishing before his eyes.
The police assured the reporter that it was accidental, and there was no evidence supporting arson, but Todd wasn't buying his story. He told the newswoman that there had been a slow gas leak in one of the apartments, and a short in the wiring had caused the fire. It was an amazing set of coincidences that caused the fire. Todd didn't believe a word of though, he knew it had been the suits. They had been following him around; they must have set everything up trying to flush him out. They had done this to get at him.
"What am I going to do?" he murmured angrily to himself.
He had no answers of course; he also had no one he could really count on for support either. In truth, this was opening his eyes on how he had alienated every one of his friends and family over the past few months. He doubted that anyone would come to his aid in this extremely unfortunate situation. The only person that had really mattered to him in the last couple of years had been, Reggie, who was now his ex. Todd could call and check in on her, with the pretense of telling her that he was alive and alright in case she has seen the news report.
But, his brain argued, what if they were able to track him down if he made a call with his cell phone. He had heard that they could do big brother stuff like that; well the movies implied the government had technology that advanced anyway. If they could trace the call to her then, they could also trace it back to him and both of them would end up screwed. These paranoid ideas caused him to break out in a sweat, which once again soaked his shirt in a couple of seconds. They could track both him and Reggie down.
What if that was what they wanted him to do. What if she was in on it?
Thinking hard, he realized her presence in his life correlated with his growing power. She had even broken up with him right before the visions started. Was she the catalyst needed to cause him to have these weird abilities? No, as the truth sunk in, he decided he wouldn't call her. He once thought he was lucky to have her, but now he wasn’t sure there was anything lucky about it.
* * *
He found himself in a very lonely place, when he realized there was nothing left of his home, no friends to turn to, and no family around. His whole life had revolved around Reggie, and she had been acting increasingly weird the few weeks before she told him that they were done. For a while she had pushed him, trying to get him to focus more on their relationship as a couple instead of his number crunching career, but at the same time she didn’t seem to try all that hard to keep his attention. She had begun to distance herself from him all of a sudden. Granted, they hadn’t known each other all that long, but she did seem to keep him at arms distance whenever he was trying to be vulnerable to her. Then she just up and told him she wasn’t going to stick around if he wasn’t going to put more of an effort into their relationship. At that time, he had told her that he didn’t understand what she was talking about, he felt she was the one not putting in much effort. She had immediately turned the waterworks on, tears splashing down her cheeks, and walked out the front door without another word.
The thing was, she could have slipped something in his food, in his drink or maybe even injected him with a compound which caused all of his strange new power. He read about something similar once in a book. “Firestarter” had been the name of it; basically, a government agency injected a bunch of people with a compound that would give them powers that were akin to his. A lot of websites ranted about illegal experiments that the government was doing in real life and maybe he had been a target. He was average, a great control specimen if there ever was one. The two suits would just be watching him, tracking his changes and then when the call was made, they would snatch him off the street and into a lab.
Todd had not been to a doctor’s office for years, he was very healthy, so that couldn’t have where he was infected. He also stayed away from blood drives and the usual public push to get the latest vaccines. The only person who had the ability to get close enough to him had been Reggie. She spent quality time in his apartment with him, enjoyed lots of meals and had stayed overnight on a regular basis.
“If it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, and sounds like a duck…”
Light streaming in from the two living room windows cast an annoying glare over Regina Flashers’' television screen, but she hardly noticed. Several of her friends had called her, asking her if she had seen the news, and at first her response was a resounding, “No!” She typically never watched the news; all it did was depress her with all of those horrible tragic stories they usually reported. Even if she had wanted to catch up on the latest depressing news story, she had a photo shoot in Los Angeles in two days, and she had been focused on packing for the trip all day. Everyone always told her that she was an obsessive over packer.
After 10 minutes of constant pestering from her friends with their calls and texts, Reggie relented and went to turn on the television. She was getting irritated because they wouldn't tell her what the fuss was all about, and then her irritation melted into disbelief when she saw Todd's apartment building was on fire.
She had loved her time spent with Todd, whenever he had actually managed to pul himself away from his boring wall street research. He wasn't the best looking man in the world and her materialistic friends in the fashion industry told her that she could do way better, but he was a great man. He could be disarmingly sweet and charming, again when he actually decided to focus on her. Towards the end of their relationship she had watched him slowly draw into himself.
As the reporter was talking about arson and murder, she realized there was no chance for her to fix their relationship. She had broken up with him in an attempt to scare him into realizing how good they were for each other, but now he was probably dead. Aching pain flooded her chest as watched the building burn beyond recognition. Several fire trucks were parked along the streets, blasting away with their hoses but nothing seemed like it was actually doing any good.
A sharp knock at her apartment door snapped her out of the trance she had been settling into. The buzzer had not sounded, which meant that no one from outside was being let up. Most likely it was kind Mrs. Smith from down the hall checking in on her.
* * *
It had been really too easy to get into her building, things were finally turning around for Todd. The doorman, Darren, remembered him and welcomed him into the building with a large smile on his face. Reggie obviously had not let him in on her little scheme, why would she? Why include the "little doorman" in her big time plans? After being let in without having Darren buzz him up, it was a simple ride up the elevator and a quick stroll to her door. Crossing his fingers, he hoped he didn’t run into any other residents while he made his visit to Reggie.
Once Todd reached Reggie's floor, a sigh of relief escaped through his mouth as he saw that no one was out in the well lit hallway. The elevator opened up in the middle of the floor giving Todd a good view of both directions, and everyone’s door was shut tight. Nothing had changed up here; everything looked exactly the same as the last time he had been up here. The deep green carpet still looked like it was brand new, the semi gloss white walls were free of any smudge or finger print. The green doors with their two inch golden numbers, held the slightest reflection of him as he walked down the hall. The neon lights above made it so few shadows could hide anything from Todd, his shadow though reminded him of an agent of death like on the movie “Ghost”. A smile formed on his lips as that thought occurred to him,
* * *
Out of habit, Reggie looked out of her peep hole to see who was waiting for her out in the hallway. Immediately, her stomach leapt into her throat and her breathing turned into short gasps. It was Todd, somehow alive and well. He looked like a complete mess, not that she could have expected much better considering his building was slowly burning to the ground.
"Todd!" she shouted happily, and she moved to disengage the locks.
* * *
Todd heard Reggie shout his name from the other side of the door. Her tone was one of surprise and she better be surprised, she had attempted to murder him. The clicks of the locks echoed loudly in the silent hallway - first the clinking of the chain freed, the dead bolt sliding back into its housing and finally the cheap lock inside the door handle. When the handle started to turn Todd reared his right leg back and prepared to kick.
* * *
Todd was ecstatic, things were still continuing to work out amazingly to his benefit. When Reggie opened the door, he had kicked it with everything he had. His force sent the door recoiling backward and into her pretty face, her head bounced off the door, she lost her balance and fell and hit the floor hard. The best part of all was that she had been knocked unconscious. Todd moved quickly after that, he ripped a cord off the lamp in the living room to tie her to one of the dining room chairs. Before she regained consciousness, Todd went to the living room to turn the volume up on the television so that none of her neighbors would hear what was about to happen.
His plan formulated in his head as he moved about the apartment, he knew where all of the utensils were. Moving to the kitchen, he grabbed one of the fruit knives from the drawer, they had been barely used, so he knew that they would be dangerously sharp. He hoped that he wouldn't have cause to use the weapon, but if it did, then he was prepared.
He sneered down at her, her soft brown hair flowing over her perfectly symmetrical face. She must have been getting ready to go out or something, because her outfit hinted at a casual outing. She wore a pair of tight-fitting faded jeans and a bright red sweater that accented the fact she did not have on much under it. This ensemble was his favorite outfit for her to wear, and he bought it for her himself one afternoon when they were on their way to a lunch date.
"Todd..." Reggie slurred like she had one too many drinks, "what are you doing?"
"Oh, I am sure you have at least the slightest idea at what I am doing. You put them on me and now, you are going to call him off." He said with a condescending sneer.
"What?"
"The suits! Call them off now!"
Waves of dazed confusion from Reggie’s thoughts started to flow into Todd's open mind. ‘Who was he talking about, what's wrong with him, was this some kind of sick joke, or had he gone crazy?’
"I'm not crazy," Todd said in a low voice filled with a boiling rage.
He knew this conversation was going to go nowhere, she must have found some way to block his ability, but he figured that she might have been trained in order to keep their secrets safe.
"They trained you very well I see..."
"Trained me? Trained me for what?" she said with her voice quivering as tears ran down her face and mixed with some blood coming from her mouth, "No one trained me for anything."
"Oh, so your blocking ability must be natural then. Well I anticipated that something like this might happen."
Oh, well, he thought, guess I don’t have any other choice.
“Hey dimwit, get out here now!"
He recognized the voice of the women, the one with the deep voice in the suit. He tried to project a thought back to her as hard as he could, stating that he had their little informant and he was going to get answers from someone one way or another. He didn’t know if the woman outside heard his message, but it didn't matter anymore. He knew she was still there; it was almost like having white noise filtering through a speaker system. He knew he wouldn’t have much time to get answers out of Reggie. He gripped the bird beak knife until his knuckles turned white; Todd figured the two inch knife would work just fine.
* * *
Agent Nelson quickly made her way to the ex's apartment. They had followed Todd around for weeks and all for nothing. Watching that little fool accrue his wealth while she would barely make it through retirement was infuriating. She was more than sick of this detail. She longed for action, for battle on the front lines, and not for this boring mundane crap.
The door to Regina Fishers apartment had been left open, a set of bloody finger prints stood out on the green wood. Her hand quickly went to the berretta in its shoulder holster. The partner, the bald guy was waiting downstairs in case Todd tried to leave, so she had no immediate back up if he attempted to ambush her. She got excited, this is what she was trained for. However, once she opened the door she learned that she hadn't been trained for this situation at all.
Todd had managed to leave the apartment before agent Nelson had a chance to trap him. The mess he left in his wake was more akin to a war zone then a model’s apartment. Bloody handprints covered the walls, the door frames and the countertops in the kitchen to her left. There was crimson blood turning the bright blue tiles into a deep disturbing purple. The scene only became more gruesome as she continued forward into the living room. The wooden floor held a trail of blood that lead to the chair which held the mutilated body of Regina.
Nelson felt a strange pang of guilt when she saw the women’s condition, but she quickly pushed it aside. She realized it was better for the woman that the she had not survived. Both eyes were purple and swollen from the beating Todd had given her. A small cut ran the length of her left cheek and lines of blood oozed from the cut. Her head was leaning back at an awkward angle so the blood traveled across her face. The clothes had once been nice, most likely expensive designer wear, but now were coated in blood and had multiple rips along the chest and arms. The killing stroke had been from the fruit knife buried right above her sternum.
* * *
Todd burst awkwardly into the busy street knowing that he would have to keep moving. The now dead informant had called the suits to her and they would catch up to him if he stayed in one place for too long. Bystanders would turn him in as well, he was coated in blood and Todd knew that the locals were also working with the suits. They were all out to get him and he knew it.
Out of nowhere, woman’s partner appeared in front of him and was only five feet away. He held a small silvery handgun firmly in both hands, his finger on the trigger. It was a Smith and Wesson .45 chief’s special, if his memory served him right (memories from videogames bubbled up into his mind). The barrel had been fitted with a silencer, and with so many people around them it should have caused an instant panic but no one even looked at the gun or the man who was holding it. It was like his attacker was not even there. The crowd moved around him like they were being herded in a certain direction, which gave him and his weapon of choice with a clear shot at Todd. The people behind his seemed to want to get past him quickly as if they suddenly remembered they were late for something, their strange behavior affirmed his theory that everyone was out to get him.
"I'm sorry about this Mr. Gram; I was really hoping to get the chance to see you at your full (needs a space) potential with your very special gift."
Wha..."
The gun went off, the shot was significantly muffled from the silencer but noise still left the weapon. It was louder then Todd was expecting with the silencer, but often Hollywood stretches the truth. All of the earth’s sound seemed to away into silence, except for the popping noise from the gun powder going off in the pistol. The muzzle flashed and the gun slightly kicked in the man’s hand. For Todd, the shot was painless at first; it was almost like getting the wind knocked out of him. He dropped to his knees holding his chest while a strange warmth filled him starting around the right peck. He looked down and saw his hands were coated in blood.
The vision was coming true. He hadn’t been able to fight hard enough against fate.
The strength left Todd along with his life force; he drooped down with his arms supporting some of his weight. The blood dripped from his mouth combining with the bloody puddle forming from his chest wound. He saw that people were surrounding him including the ominous black dress shoes belonging to the suit in front of them.
Then there was nothing.
* * *
"Agent Nelson, what’s the status?"
"Mission failed sir," The deep voiced said into her phone to her handler on the other end.
"You know this isn't going to sit well."
"Yes sir."
"And where is Agent Sullivan?"
"Going through local police files, making sure everything is clean."
"Have him finish there and then hop on the next plane to debrief in the Sanctuary in California, make it quick as possible, Agent."
The man on the other end slipped his phone back into his jacket pocket. He had to report this back to the boss and for once, he was glad that he wouldn't have to make the report in person. Since the main base was in Colorado and he was in California, he would have to make it a video conference call, which was only marginally better. The handler, Mr. Hammer, knew the outcome of the report already. He slicked his blonde hair back and looked up to the ceiling cursing to himself because he knew that Jenkins would be pissed to say the least at hearing this.
