Prologue (Vanguard)
By DCSalus
- 168 reads
It was just past 11:00 PM when Calvin Mercer stepped across the threshold into his office suite high atop New San Diego’s Apex Tower. He was an older man, seventy-eight according to his file, though he didn’t look it. His frame was tall and muscular and he moved with an apparent ease that was impressive for a man his age—something not all that uncommon now-a-days. Beneath his cropped, salt-and-peppered hair, his vibrant green eyes frantically surveyed the office’s interior.
Knight extended his silenced Talon .50 sidearm and remained perfectly still as his target lingered in the doorway. Mission intel made a point that Calvin Mercer wasn’t to be underestimated. This old man had managed to elude or kill every one of Knight’s predecessors over the past few months, something to be wary of. And yet here he stood, alone and vulnerable in a secluded office. It almost seemed too easy—almost. If Knight hadn’t had to hire the best hacker in the northern hemisphere to obtain the information that led him here tonight, he might’ve been more reluctant to proceed.
Before moving further into the office, Calvin Mercer carefully sparked the end of a long cigar, twisting it between his fingers as he did so. He took a few deep puffs, unintentionally blowing a mouthful of smoke directly into Knight’s face. Knight choked back a cough and quickly retreated into a shadowy corner. His optical camouflage suit would keep him invisible, but it wouldn’t help him in the slightest if he began coughing.
The office was large and spacious, and from what Knight could make out in the dim light, it flaunted the ultra-modern architecture that so many found desirable. The semi-circular perimeter walls reached up to the concaved ceiling in raking angles, giving the office an all-consuming quality—one couldn’t help but feel small and insignificant in such a room. Knight had originally intended on spending hours studying the architectural plans, but as he had suspected, the building utilized claytronics to their limit. There’s little point in studying the plans to a building when walls and rooms could be shifted around at the touch of a button.
When Calvin finally moved from the doorway and sat at the vintage oak desk in the office’s center, a ring of pale light descended from the ceiling, encircling him and the workstation. The newfound light illuminated the suite’s luxurious interior. A few meters from where Calvin sat, a curved wall stood as an island in the otherwise vacant space. It was decorated with a variety of paintings, from the gloomy, postimpressionist styles of Van Gough to the tranquil, impressionist works of Monet. It appeared Mr. Mercer’s taste in art was eclectic, unexpected, given the overall design of his building.
A pile of data-pads lay strewn across the desk’s surface in a haphazard mess; one Calvin simply brushed aside without a second thought. Knight made a mental note that they were likely unimportant but worthy of investigation if time permitted.
“I expected you sooner,” Calvin said softly into the shadows.
Knight immediately glanced down at his limbs, half expecting to see them—he didn’t. His suit was still functioning, so his target couldn’t have seen him. It was possible he had been louder than he thought when he got that face full of smoke, but if so, why did the old man wait so long to react? It didn’t make sense, and in situations that didn’t make sense, it’s usually best to err on the side of caution. Knight advanced a few feet away from wall and issued a quick a study of the office—it was just the two of them.
“Oh come now, you didn’t sneak in here just to gawk at me,” Calvin persisted after a few seconds. “If you’re worried about a struggle, don’t be. I have no intention of trying to fight you off.”
Knight didn’t have a mirror, and his face was invisible anyway, but he expected there was a significant look of shock on it. He had been ‘around the block’ so to speak and had never experienced anything like this. It was one thing to have someone make exasperated promises or threats, but it was quite another to have them surrender to death willingly. This needed more of an explanation and perhaps that was his play.
“That would be a first,” Knight responded shortly.
He shifted across the room after he spoke, so as not to give up his location too easily. He also noted that the digitized undertone to his voice, caused by the suit, didn’t seem to surprise Calvin in the least. This old man was no stranger to military technology, nor would he be, now that Knight considered it.
“Think of it as a gift. A quick and easy payoff for you,” Calvin mocked.
Knight wasn’t sure how to handle this situation, and he always made a point to expect the unexpected—as ridiculous as that statement sounded.
“Why would you do me any favors?” Knight asked in a maintained and placid tone. His curiosity was beginning to get the better of him, despite himself.
A momentary smile flickered across Calvin’s aged features, eliminating the few wrinkles he carried.
“That’s the question isn’t it?” He paused. “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. But so it is with tyrants and assassins.” Calvin ran a hand through his hair, looking conflicted for the briefest second before regaining his composure. “Yes… I must die and you must kill me. Tonight.”
Knight wasn’t sure what the old man was playing at but he certainly had managed to knock him off balance. This job had been advertised as high-risk, thus the big payout, but nothing was going as he had imagined it would. Looking back, maybe it had been too easy to track Calvin down, even with his expert hacker. And then there was the relative ease of getting past the building’s security. He did have to pull off a few tricks, but it hindsight, there may have been just enough security to make it look good. Considering the resources Calvin Mercer had at his disposal, Knight had been expecting one hell of a challenge just getting to him.
Even with all of the discrepancies, the result remained still the same: he was alone with a seemingly defenseless Calvin Mercer.
“You want to die?” Knight asked earnestly.
There was a long pause of silence in which Knight carefully maneuvered around the room, placing himself a few feet behind Calvin. It was just as he was reaching the ideal firing position that the old man’s answer resounded in his ears. “Yes.”
Knight had gone over Calvin Mercer’s file dozens of times, at least the parts that he had been given… and could tracked down. In short, the old man was an industrial giant—the sole driving force behind Apex International. He had clawed his way to the top of the corporate ladder in the usual fashion, navigating by pure personal gain. He was a man with few friends, many enemies, and a personal life haunted with skeletons. He had a daughter who didn’t make it past the age of 20, a long list of wives who divorced him, and his only son had cut ties with him years ago, looking to the military for a new life.
It was without a doubt an empty and lonely existence, but someone like Calvin Mercer would be accustom to such a thing. One didn’t reach his heights without a special kind of cunning ruthlessness and a flexible view of morality. And people such as that, did not surrender their fate willingly.
“Seems a rare thing for a tyrant to seek his own death,” Knight challenged.
Calvin stood and slowly moved to the office’s largest bifurcated wall, issuing a quick command into the terminal embedded within in it. The pearlescent wall sprung to life at his touch, disintegrating from the center outwards, leaving a large window in its place which overlooked the vibrant New San Diego cityscape sparkling beneath the night sky.
Knight, remaining concealed by his suit, joined Calvin beside the window. The scene was impressive—a bird’s-eye-view of the sprawling eastern side of the city. New San Diego was perhaps the most technologically and architecturally advanced city in the world. A major metropolis built from the ground up fewer than twenty-five years ago. After the original San Diego broke off into the ocean, a conglomerate of corporations—in cooperation with the United States Government—helped fund the rebuilding. The media had called it the greatest act of charity in human history, though Knight wasn’t convinced. In fact, now that he was thinking about it, Apex International had been one of the major donators.
“Tyrants such as me are rarer still,” Calvin finally responded, followed by a heavy sigh. “Is it safe to assume, assassin, that you’re a freelancer?” he asked. “It seems unlikely they would risk any kind of direct connection with my death… or disappearance, whatever it is you have planned.”
“Suicide,” Knight baited him. Calvin glanced toward the voice’s origin but said nothing. “And yes, I am,” he added.
“Then perhaps I could ask a favor of you, if you will hear it?”
“I can’t grant you your life.”
“As I’ve already said, I will die tonight,” Calvin reiterated.
There was a hint of agitation in his voice and Knight got the impression it focused more on the fact that he had had to repeat himself rather than the thought of impending death. Calvin Mercer was a hard man to read. If there was one thing he had manage to convince Knight of, it was that he was prepared to die. And that wasn’t a particularly reassuring thought—men that felt they had nothing left to lose could surprise you on more than one level.
Calvin cleared his throat and continued. “The favor I speak of is one of truth. The truth to why you’re really here tonight. The truth that I, and those you serve, sought to hide and claim for ourselves.” The old man placed his hands against the window and stared up into the night sky. “There’s something greater than us—older than us—lurking in the shadows… It took that undeniable truth to show me the foolishness of the risks we were taking. Risks we were taking on behalf of everyone and everything. Tell me, assassin, is there a limit to your greed? Anyone you wouldn’t kill, regardless of the compensation?” Calvin didn’t wait for an answer. “There was a time when I was unburdened by such limits, driven only by my own greed for power and wealth.”
“And what changed?” Knight was intrigued.
“I did, of course. If you’re referring to what changed me… that would be the truth. The same truth I’m offering you.” Calvin turned and activated the small pedestal beside the window. A burst of green light erupted from its base, coalescing into a sphere just above its projection panel. The holographic image was the chosen real-world avatar of a C.A.I—or constrained artificial intelligence.
“What would you say if I told you I had undeniable proof that we are not the first evolution of human life? That our distant ancestors once commanded technology thousands of years beyond us, perhaps even mastered the stars? Next to the desire for evidence, what question would you ask?”
Knight was taken aback. Calvin didn’t seem the kind to rest the fate of his life on some wild claim. Alien conspirators were one thing, but to hear a man like Calvin Mercer make such an extravagant assertion was astounding to say the least. And yet he appeared entirely reasonable, his words sure and steady.
Knight didn’t believe any of it, but he decided to play along. He thought about it for a long moment, and then it clicked. To a mind such as his, one conditioned to recognize possible threats in everything, the question seemed obvious. “Where are they now?”
Calvin smiled. “I knew you’d be the right one. Ruthless enough to get here and wise enough to recognized an obvious threat.”
Knight advanced toward Calvin, sidearm clutched tight in hand. “You don’t know me,” he whispered in his target’s ear. Knight gave the old man a chance to talk, to spin his wild tale, and now he was repaying his kindness by trying to play with his mind. Knight was done with story time.
“Oh, but I do. I know you very well, Knight. And not just your call sign.”
Knight froze mid-step.
“I knew everything there was to know about you the moment you accepted the contract on my life. Just like all the others before you. The difference between you and them is in the details, and then perhaps not even at all. I could be completely wrong about you but time is short and contingencies are in place.” Calvin turned back to the window. “Take the C.A.I when you leave, all the proof you need is within. And after… well, then we find out if I was right about you or not. Now, let’s get this over with.”
Knight looked down at the sphere of glowing light above the pedestal and then to Calvin. Calvin stood tall beside the window, unshaken and sure in his course. Looking at him now, Knight couldn’t help but compare him to the Japanese samurai of old, volunteering to Sepukku in order to die with honor.
Whatever his past, the man now standing before him deserved to see the face of the one who would end his life, regardless of whether he was still sane or not... Knight deactivated his optical camouflage and took up position beside Calvin. He raised his Talon .50 and gently placed its silenced barrel against Calvin’s temple.
“I’ll do as you ask.” Those were the last words Calvin Mercer ever heard.
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