Tanner sat at the park bench, nervously trying to handle it. A very tall, clean-cut man, early 30’s built like a tank and dressed casually, approached her with a sad wave. She waved back. He walked, hands in his cargo pants’ pockets, and his blue shirt far too tight either to show off his physique or proving he didn’t know about laundry shrinking in the wash. It wasn’t until he got closer, she noticed the military tattoo and boots.

  “Oh fuck me running, that’s just HHhhheeeyyy! Gabe?” she smiled.

  “Gabe Gram. Jill?” he asked. She blinked and looked confused. “You are Jill Smith, right?” he added.

  “Right. That’s my name.” she giggled.

  “Don’t worry, I get that it’s a fake name. I’m not concerned about it.”

  “What? Why would you think, that?” she nervously smiled.

  “Random guy calls your phone, says he wants to meet, claims to be your dead friend’s brother. Sounds pretty sketchy. I’d use a fake name too. And you’re carrying. Smart. Pretty little gal, can’t be too safe. Public park, everyone can see us, but nobody can hear us. Look, I know my little brother ran with some bad people, but I don’t believe he was a bad kid. Mom and dad practically disowned him while I was overseas, and I felt terrible that I couldn’t be there for him. Everyone saying he killed a guy, I know Caleb, he wouldn’t kill anyone. But he ran with some people who might have set him up. Of course, the police didn’t help a damn bit. No wonder he ran away. I’m not gonna ask how you know each other and what you do. I know all of his friends were drug dealers or addicts, and he had a problem, owed some money to people. I don’t care if you got a record or anything, I just wanna know about Caleb. I can’t believe he killed a man over a drug deal, he didn’t even like guns, and we’re a family that grew up around them. He disappears, and then he turns up dead in an alley and lumped in with some gang members who kidnapped and killed a mayor, now they’re calling it a terrorist organization. Ma’am I fought against terrorism in the Rangers, I don’t believe for a second he fell in with some terrorist group.” Gabe sighed.

  “Okay, I can tell you want closure, and you’re gonna get it one way or another. We both know the cops won’t help, and you seem like a nice guy just trying to clear your kid brother’s name, but you really don’t wanna get involved with private investigators when there’s a terrorist group going nuts right now, and misinformation running rampant. So I’ll be very honest with you, but you have to trust some of my…discretion. Okay?” She asked.

  “Yes ma’am.” He nodded.

  “Mkay, that's nice, but not necessary. I have a boyfriend, I don’t need the ma’am thing. I also don’t need to get anyone in trouble, including myself, over shit that’s not my business. I knew your little brother, he was staying with me. US, not ME. I have a group of…former…addicts. People the system kinda fucked over, who made mistakes, and we try and make a difference by giving second chances and getting people a place to stay and get clean. It’s a whole church thing, but it’s off the records. We reach out to people in bad situations and help them, and Caleb found us. He was mostly clean already, we gave him some work to do, he did some…mechanic work for my boyfriend, and he was very nice to everyone. He even told me, as we require, full disclosure of criminal things, why he needed the group. He said the same thing you said, he got into selling drugs, believe me I can relate, I was brought into this group by our former pastor who recently became very ill and might, not make it.” she said tearing up at the ironic truth. “But we have faith he’ll recover, and that’s what we do. We help, and we stick together, and we have faith. I don’t know who Caleb owed money to, and who he pissed off from what deals, but he was getting clean and better and fucking Damnit, he tried to be a hero and reach out to someone himself and I think he just got in the way of the terrorist group. I'm the one who encouraged him to try and help, and I think he overshot his ability. I’m so sorry.” She said, looking genuinely sad and guilty. “It’s my fault, I think he was trying to impress me, and he swung for the fence and thought he could reach out to some really dangerous people. And from what I was told, he was in the wrong spot at the wrong time. My boyfriend saw it happen. I promise you, Caleb was not a killer, let alone one of these Red and Black terrorists. He was probably the nicest and least criminal of our church, and he shouldn’t have been involved.”

  “Yea…now that’s the first thing I’ve heard that makes sense. Caleb was always trying to impress someone, usually a girl like you. Getting in over his head and pissing off some angry guy twice his size.” He smiled, fighting back tears. “I knew he wasn’t part of some terrorist group, fucking ties to Russian mafia or end of the world cult shit, God the videos are all over the internet, this Mister Black shit.”

  “Yea, I saw it too. It’s hard to watch, and I can imagine thinking someone you love was part of that, would be horrible. Especially if you knew they weren’t like that. It’s more relatable than you know. But, Caleb wasn’t a monster. He was a good kid with really shitty luck, and he just seemed to always find the wrong person to get in front of. Yea, he sold some drugs, big fuckin deal, I was a junkie and a dealer once. I got clean and found a family. I just wish we could have done something more.”

  “Me too.” Gabe nodded.

  “Just please don’t get involved with this terrorist group. I know someone who did, they went missing, and they may never come back. I hope I’m wrong, but this Mister Black cult is dangerous, and you don’t know what you’re dealing with. They have connections and money and shit we don’t, just have faith that somehow justice will come around and things will get better. Don’t get killed looking for these people, they’ve killed cops and a fucking mayor for shit’s sake. They got machine guns into a courthouse and walked out with a mayor hostage, and nobody seems to know how that’s possible. Just know that Caleb was not a bad person, no matter what the media might say or…assholes that don’t know him. You just gotta find some closure there in that, and let go of what you can’t change. He died trying to be a good person, and you can take that to heart. And my friend…will be okay, and come home some day. I have faith in that. In him. I think.” She said patting his arm.

  “Ma’am, I appreciate your help and I will keep this between us. It was nice to meet you Jill Smith, from the catering service. You have a blessed day.”

  “Yea…blessed. Sure.” She nodded, looking she didn’t believe it.

  The small music venue buzzed with people and excitement, far too much for the quality of the commercialized music being sold. The sound of the instruments being set up and the ambient roar echoed from the main room to the long line where Mike and Nadja stood, looking oddly calm and collected. Mike took a few swigs from a small plastic bottle, tossing it in the trash as they neared the entrance and without hesitation, their fake tickets passed visual inspection and earned a stamp. They made their way to the walk through metal detectors and Mike went first, stepping through casually as the machine made no sound. He locked eyes as Nadja delayed, and he leaned against the wall, digging in his jacket and pulling out a comb, giving his hair a quick adjustment, and diverting attention. Nadja walked through the machine and the alarm beeped as she stepped back.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Underwire.” She said coyly to the security guard.

  “Please step aside for inspection.”

  “Seems a bit overkill.” She insisted.

  “Well, I agree, but with this big flair up of crime lately with the terrorist group, security is beefed up, and Sage Ember gets a lot of death threats, believe it or not. Lotta crazy people do crazy shit these last few weeks. Dead popstar is all we need on the shitlist.” He sighed, grabbing the wand. She held her arms out as he ran the wand around her and got to her ribcage, the left side showing nothing and the right side lighting up the wand.

  “Is your toy broken?” she smiled darkly.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to discreetly step into the security room. We can get a female officer to check you if you’re more comfortable. But I can’t let you in until you’ve been checked, and obviously I can’t ask you to raise your shirt right here.” He sighed with mild annoyance.

  “Oh, well, you didn’t even try.” She teased as Mike approached, lighting a cigarette, and looking interested.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked the guard. “You seem very interested in my wife.”

  “Sir, you can’t smoke in here. She set off the wand, happens all the time, but it’s in an inconvenient area. If you two could follow security to a private room, I’m sure this won’t take long.”

  “Well, I guess that answers the question of how much titanium it takes to set off a detector. Just the right side of the ribs?” he asked cryptically.

  “Yea. Some kind of medical implant?” the guard asked. Mike finished the long drag on his cigarette and exhaled, reaching into his jacket.

  “Barrel reinforcement sleeves.” He said, placing the off-brown composite gun to the man’s head and blowing pieces of brain out of his right eye socket. Nadja screamed and ran, as security swarmed Mike, drawing a second revolver of the same burnt bronze colored plastic, taking 3 of them down with precision shots to the head as he stepped through the doorway and into the venue, the crowd scattering in a panic. Nadja sent a text to her phone and within seconds, the lights went off, all except emergency exit signs. Mike peered over his glasses, the human targets blending like dark red smudges into one writhing mass, a few brighter spots in the crowd pulling his barrels like a magnet and aiming them without hesitation. The crowd became individual people again as the flash of the revolvers firing in unison lit the room up for a second, returning to black and the few dots of bright white remaining, the two closest ones dimming as they fell and Mike adjusted his targets for the other security guards.

  Nadja darted right past the crowd and security as they singled Mike out, getting all the attention in the chaos and panic around them. She pulled her revolvers, taking 2 shots to the head on each of the band members on stage and switching guns to put a fresh loaded one to the head of the blonde sex symbol, hunkering on stage.

  “Get up, Sage. Move or die.” She said coldly.

  “What’s going on?” Sage asked, the gun resting on her face and firing, clipping her ear and deafening her on one side, Nadja yanked her by the hair to bring her other ear to her venomous black lipstick.

  “I said move or die, this is not complicated order.” She emphasized as Sage took the message clearly and began to exit. Mike finished emptying his guns, pocketing them and taking out the last one, 8 rounds freshly loaded and in-hand.

  “Security is eliminated. Your helper did well with the lights, so I assume the back door is unlocked and clear.” Mike said as Nadja giggled, impressed and turned on at his efficiency.

  “And you did all that without your god. You see what happens when you pray to something real like me? You don’t even need your scopes anymore, Mister Black.” She whispered, yanking Sage along as she leaned into mike for an aggressive kiss, and broke free.

  “Holy fucking shit…you’re the terrorists?” Sage gasped in shock.

  “Now we have your attention.” Nadja hissed. “Don’t worry, we just want a small collector’s fee and a short little video recording of you reading our script to make a point, and you’ll be released, unless of course you do something stupid and make us do what you know we can do. You’ve seen the videos.”

  “Please.” Sage sighed, following the lead, “I’ll do and say what you want, whatever money you need will be given, I just want to live.” She begged as Mike led her aggressively to a parked Motorcycle, looked down the road at a dark figure walking away with a hand up like a signal. 3 silver rings gleamed in the dark, under the flicker of a cigarette lighting in front of the man, vanishing around the corner alley. Mike stepped over the dead man on the ground, taking one of the Jezebel pistols from the bike’s seat, left like a present, and tossing it back to Nadja.

  “See you at the house, honey.” He said, shoving Sage onto the bike, revolver in hand, as he took off down the road with their prize in tow. Nadja licked her right canine like a hungry animal, clicking out the folded stock from seemingly nowhere on the pistol, firing a sustained burst of gunfire into the venue, cutting down civilians for the fun of it until the magazine went empty. She reloaded and made her way down the alley, hopping on a black bike in the shadow, and rocketing off as if nothing had even happened.

  Gabe sat alone, watching the news about Sage Ember’s abduction and drinking a beer in the dark, cleaning his Colt M4 Carbine. He picked up the phone, listening as if waiting for something.

  “Incredible work, man. Yea send everything.” He said, pulling up his laptop and playing the bootleg video copy from the security cams. “Did someone shoot out the cameras?” he asked. “Oh, They killed the lights first. No, I know that’s not publicly available. I wanna know how they got guns past security. That place had VIP shit, and they just walked right in armed with, looks like, revolvers. Too grainy to tell what kind.” He said, as he paused and zoomed in on Nadja, mid-turn and oddly clear. “Yea, police reports said no security footage for an identification, but it's funny how this looks pretty clear to me. Run that through facial recognition. Both of them. Pull favors.” He said, leaning in closer and rubbing his eyes, deciding no more beers for the night, as he clicked the back and forth arrows, with a hunted look. He clicked again, moving one frame forward and back, Nadja's face in clear view, and then one frame of her eyes jet black with glowing orange centers, the face blurred and pixilated some kind of digital error, the things that give you nightmares. He brought up another video of a shooting in Texas at a hotel. Zooming in on the woman mid-sprint carrying an ar57. The same thin streak of orange, trailing from her one visible eye. “The fuck is going on, man? Some kinda contact lenses? Look into contact lenses that can obscure security videos, see what you got on that. She might be an operative. Yea, I caught that sound. That’s not an echo? Gotta be a double-tap trigger mod job of some kind. Funny how this got blacklisted, and the news reported it as a gang shooting, just like the courthouse incident.” He said, cracking open an energy drink and preparing for a long night of weird questions.

  He put the phone on speaker and sat it down to type. "I want everything on any gang shootings that seem like a cover, see if you can get anything you can on a man with a graying beard, and a woman with blue or red hair. It’s not a gang hit. It’s two people. Same two people, I think. This is a damn cover up if I ever saw it.” Gabe sighed.

  “You know this is illegal shit, and you owe me.” Said the phone voice.

  “Man, if I’m right. That’s the guy who killed Caleb. I can’t name names I don’t know, but I talked to some people who say he didn’t do a damn thing wrong except steal a car and some drugs and this fucker took him out just for being in the way. I don’t give a shit what I owe you or how illegal this is, someone’s gonna pay for this. That’s my little brother he killed. You don’t fuck with family. Get some guys onboard, heavy hitters, see who’s looking for some action.”

  “I hope you have some money saved up for this.” Said the voice.

  “I’ll get the money, Just keep giving me information worth paying you for.” He said, hanging up and comparing the two pictures of Nadja and the disturbing orange streak in her eyes.

  “Who…are you?” he whispered to himself, her eyes glowing like the burning embers of his vengeance. "WHAT are you?"