Regenesis (Book 1): Impact (15 page)

Nick
placed himself between Jordan and the body and tried his best to shake his
friend out of his trance. “J-Jordan…Jordan.” He placed a hand on Jordan and
felt how he shook and began to tremble himself. Nick took another breath and
finally shouted, “Snap out of it! J-Jordan, you n-need to wake up.”

Jordan
blinked and slowly looked at Nick. Nick made sure he heard him and instructed
him to call the police and relate the entire incident to them and to get them
here as soon as possible. As soon as Jordan complied, Nick walked back to check
on Amy.

She
sat in a corner with her arms around her knees. She kept her face buried and
sobbed and muttered that she didn’t want to die, over and over again. He slowly
joined her on the floor and sat himself in front of her. He felt faint and he
wanted to cry with her, but he knew she needed support. Nick told her she was
safe and that the man was gone. He told her everything was going to be alright,
but she only continued to repeat that she didn’t want to die. Nick shut his
eyes tightly, steeled his nerves, and reassured her that everything would be
fine.

---*---

12:10
PM

Bothell,
Washington

Drake
sat in his small cubicle with less enthusiasm than he thought he could ever
possess. It wasn’t even one o’clock and all he could think about was getting
off at five. Working for his father’s company through the summer was his
father’s idea. Drake didn’t really mind at the start, since he hardly had any
other pressing matter to occupy his time, but upon facing the dreary grind for
the first week he quickly changed his mind as to what he thought a corporate
life would be like.

He
knew he over exaggerated how bad it was. Drake simply didn’t enjoy it and
because of that the days crawled by, Sanderson was always on his case, and even
though he always completed his work with the highest quality results he could
muster, the life he led there made him nauseous to think of what would happen
if he ever rejoined that sort of work force after he graduated.

Drake
had no mind to resume his employment after high school.

The
incidents of the night before didn’t help Drake at all. He couldn’t help but
walk out of the building periodically to call the hospital or Ian’s mother to
get a status update. Nothing changed though. Ian was stable, healing, and
reacting well to whatever medications the doctors gave him. He simply wasn’t
out of the coma.

Sho
walked into his cubicle and took a seat. “How’s your friend?”

“His
condition’s not getting any better,” Drake sighed.

Sho
cocked an eyebrow and asked, “What condition?”

Drake
looked back, “He’s in the hospital.”

“The
friend who’s brother was shot?”

Drake
stopped and realized they had been talking about two different people. He
cleared the whole incident up by explaining to Sho about Ian’s incident.

Sho
sat back in his seat, “Wow…you have extremely unlucky friends.”

“I
know.” He grinned and said, “Don’t ever go to Vegas Sho or you might lose it
all.”

He
rolled his eyes, “I’m already bad enough at poker as it is, so your curse could
only help my chances.”

Drake
chuckled. He then asked Sho in Japanese, “Dáfù attack in Riyadh?>”

He
nodded. “”

Drake
nodded. “”

“Excuse
me,” Barry Sanderson interrupted them, “Unless I’m mistaken, it’s still the
middle of the work day and you two should be working and not discussing
gossip.”

Drake
smirked and tried to hide his laughter alongside Sho. He rolled his eyes and
said, “Sure thing Barry, no more Japanese gossip.”

Barry
nodded as authoritatively as he could. “Good, now get back to work.”

---*---

12:17
PM

Lake
Forest Park, Washington

The
police arrived shortly after Jordan’s call. They slowly collected the account
of the attack from each witness, though the event perplexed the authorities.
What confounded them more so were the murder weapons; the jagged blade the
assassin used to slice through Crystal’s throat was nothing more than a broken
and sharpened shard of a CD, AC/DC’s
Back in Black
, to be specific. The
weapons thrown into the young construction worker’s neck were also sharpened
CD’s of other classic rock artists. Initially the police believed they had a
lead, as the killer left his credit card at the register before he killed
Crystal, though the credit card belonged to Nick’s brother Victor. Nick told
the officers that it was his brother’s card and that his brother was killed
only a few days earlier. After they crosschecked with the Bothell Police
Department and confirmed his brother’s death was true, they ruled his brother
out as a suspect and were left with no other clue than the name left behind and
the description of the man.

While
Jordan gave his account to the police, Nick and Amy sat outside of the mall as
they waited for her mother to arrive. She still shook, even though someone gave
her a blanket to keep her warm and the murder happened nearly an hour earlier.
The slaying repeated in his mind and Nick guessed it wouldn’t leave hers
either. He glanced at her and tried to read her vacant, hollow expression.

Nick
cleared his throat, frowned, and asked her where she attended school.

 Amy
blinked a few times before she left her trance. She looked at him and asked him
what he’d said.

“What
school d-do you go t-to?”

She
slowly answered, “Inglemoor.”

He
nodded. “I go to Bothell,” he told her. “What’s y-your f-favorite class?”

“My
writing class.”

“D-Do
you want to become a writer then?

Amy
shook her head, “No, a journalist.” She stared at him and asked why he asked
her those questions.

Nick
sighed, “It’s s-something a friend of m-mine taught me. He said-He told me
about distracting someone after th-things that shock people t-to t-take their
m-mind off it.” He looked away from her and apologized, “I-I-I’m not v-very
good at this.”

He
looked out at the cars in the lot and noticed his motorcycle a ways off from
the rest of the vehicles. Nick recalled the first time he saw it with his
brother. It was shortly after their mother passed away and for some reason Nick
felt like he needed one. It was one of the newest and fastest models on the
market, and although he wanted it, he knew he couldn’t afford it. But Victor
surprised him with it only a week later and said it was paid in full. Nick
never learned who paid for it, as he and his brother hardly had enough money
between the two to keep their home in order. But he was grateful, even after he
tried to convince Victor to return it.

“What’s
your favorite subject?”

Nick
blinked. He glanced back at Amy, who didn’t meet his eyes, but repeated the
question. Nick took a breath and told her that he liked English.

“Are
you a junior?”

“N-No,
a senior. What about you?”

“I’m
a junior.”

Amy
finally looked at him and Nick knew she was still terrified. She shied away
though, not wanting to stare, and then asked, “What’s it feel like to ride a
motorcycle?”

He
paused and examined the motorcycle helmet that rested between the two of them,
something he’d forgotten about entirely. “It f-feels freeing,” he told her.
“Sort of.”

“‘Sort
of?’” she echoed.

He
tried his best to smile and simply said it reminded him of things he wasn’t
always prepared to face. “What do you do? F-F-For fun, I mean.”

“I
like to spend time with my friends,” she said. “We usually go to the mall, go
bowling, see movies…How about you?”

Nick
tried to think of what he and his friends actually did when they hung out,
since to him it always felt as if they didn’t do anything. “Movies, camping,
v-video games…” he wished he hadn’t said the last one, but continued on anyway,
“My friends like to throw a lot of parties…I only go because I-I-I think they
w-want me there though.”

“You
don’t like parties?”

He
shook his head, “Not really. I feel out-out of place. They m-make me
uncomfortable.”

“Yet
you go because you want to make your friends happy? That’s sweet.”

He
looked away from her and mumbled his thanks.

“Why
don’t you like parties?”

“They
make me feel alone,” he told her. “M-My friend Drake’s got a p-party coming up,
I’m-I’m going b-because it’s a friend’s farewell. They h-have fun, but I-I’ll
just sit and try n-not to act so shaken.”

Amy
frowned. “Won’t you know everyone who’s there though?”

Nick
cracked a smile and tried to explain how elaborate Drake’s parties were. He
told her about how Drake would rent out a club in Seattle and fill it with just
about anyone he could get in contact with, and Drake’s list of contacts
breached the thousands, though only half of that resided in the Seattle area.

A
gray sedan slowly crept up toward the front of the lot and Amy immediately
recognized it as her cue to leave. She thanked Nick for his help, “I don’t know
what I would have done if you weren’t here.” Nick struggled for an appropriate
response and eventually mumbled that he was happy he could help. She started to
leave, but stopped and asked, “Um…What’s your number?”

He
reluctantly gave it to her, but asked, “Why do you want it?”

Amy
smiled, “I just…” she took a breath, “I know who I can talk to now.”

Nick
wasn’t sure what to say. Amy gave him a brief hug and left him there as she
walked off to meet her mother. Once she made it inside her car Nick saw her
break into tears. He could only sit there and wait for Jordan to join him
though. He wanted to help her more, but all he could do was watch her drive
away.

---*---

August
18
^th
, 2029

8:36
PM

London,
England

Jason
ran up the stairs to his one bedroom apartment where Audrey waited for him,
presumably irked.
She’s going to kill me, especially considering I stayed
much later than I intended at the gym and I didn’t even shower there. Why on
earth do I do this? It always seems like a night out creeps up and I ruin it by
missing our reservation or I set Audrey off somehow.

He
neared his room, apartment twenty-seven, and he retrieved his key from a tan
duffel bag he carried, but he found, to his disappointment, that the door
wasn’t locked.
Damn it Audrey, keep the door locked! This isn’t the safest
part of London by any stretch and I can’t just run back here lickety-split to
save you if something happens.
Jason walked in, locked the door behind him,
dropped his tan duffel bag in the entryway, and walked into his living area
fully expecting Audrey to chew him out. However her attention was locked onto
their television. A news broadcast played a report of earlier events of the
day, which Jason nearly ignored until she asked if he’d heard the news.

At
least she isn’t mad.
“No, what happened?”

“The
Dáfù tried to assassinate the American President today in Saudi Arabia,” she
told him.

Jason
rolled his eyes.
The Dáfù, again?
“Really? Hm…Well I’m gonna get in the
shower,”

He
rose to leave, but sat back down when he heard Jack Randles, the lead anchor,
mention a video they were going to show. Randles continued, “Our film team was
there to record the events and were able to send us video feed of the attack.”

The
screen flicked to an airport in Riyadh where the United States President
disembarked from her presidential plane. The security detail which accompanied
her scanned the small crowd that welcomed her. The president was hardly three
feet from the plane before a loud crack pierced the cheers. One of the
bodyguards near the president fell to the ground while the remaining men
surrounded the woman. The camera followed the trail of smoke from the sniper
rifle back to its source a top a nearby building. The camera then quickly
panned back and showed a group of ten men, all with blades and assault rifles,
who charged at the president. Additional sniper rounds tore through the
assailants one by one until nine of the men were dead. The last one managed to
kill two more of the president’s guards before reaching her. However, as soon
as the man took hold of the president, three rounds caught the would-be
assassin in the skull. He fell to the ground and the chaos was over. The
president was rushed away and the footage ended.

The
television broadcast returned to Jack Randles, who continued, “An investigation
into the attack and the hole in President Monroe’s security led to the
discovery of the deaths of all the rooftop guards placed throughout the airport
earlier in the day, presumably executed by the members of the Dáfù. However, as
seen in the footage, one sniper indeed saved the president’s life and until
only a short while ago his identity remained uncertain. We have received
confirmation that Strom Trenor, better known by his alias, Ghost, was at the
site and indeed saved President Monroe’s life.”