Alpha Project
by James 'Fel' Galloway
Chapter 1
Fifteen minutes. That's what he had left before he had to go back inside.
It was just too nice to move quite yet. Summers in New Orleans could be rather brutal, and that July day had been like any other, up until the thunderstorm rolled in. Storms in New Orleans were unpredictable in nature as a whole, but each different kind of storm had certain kinds of patterns that the residents understood. This one was an isolated storm, small but powerful, and they could all clearly see that it wasn't going to reach the UNO campus for another twenty minutes.
Like many of the students on campus, the tall, leanly built young man sitting on the ground with his back against a live oak wasn't all that worried about the storm quite yet, and was willing to enjoy the sudden cooling wave of air that preceded such storms before running for cover when the deluge reached them. But this young man was unlike any other on campus, and quite possibly was unlike any other young man in all of southeastern Louisiana. It wasn't his piercing blue eyes, or his dark auburn-red hair with the white patch just over his left eye, or even the way his eyes seemed to both read from the book in his lap and scan everything around him at the same time, like some kind of wary, caged wild animal.
His name was Terrence MacKenzie, and he was very, very special, for Terrence MacKenzie--Terry or "Kit" to most who knew him--was a telekinetic. He had been so since he was twelve, and his telekinetic abilities were the only reason he was still alive.
Nobody would be able to guess at his amazing talent simply by looking at him, for he looked quite plain, utterly ordinary. And he worked very hard to remain so. He wore a ragged old pair of jeans with both knees torn out of them, and it was by no means a fashion statement, for many in the school had noticed, with quite a bit of snobbish delight, that he wore those same jeans every single day. His Reebok sneakers had a hole in the side, the soles were nearly worn all the way to his feet, and his tee shirt was very old and fraying on the left sleeve. He was the appearance of a desperately poor young man who shouldn't have a hundred dollar computer programming textbook spread out on his lap, and shouldn't be able to afford tuition at a university. It was merely one of many mysteries, misdirections, and lies that surrounded him, for he actually had quite a large sum of money at his disposal. The only problem was that that money was gained through crime, and to spend it would draw attention to himself.
He certainly didn't look like a criminal, but Terrence MacKenzie was one of the most prolific criminals in New Orleans. On the street, he was known as the Fox, one of the most cunning and successful cat burglars in the city. He had quite a career behind him, and had managed to amass a sizable sum of money during the course of it, the fruits of ten long and hard years living on the streets. He had quite a few scars to show how hard it had been, and the white patch of hair over his eye--the result of having a section of his scalp literally slashed off by a knife--was merely the most visible. When the hair grew back after he healed, it came back in white. He had managed to avoid getting caught by never getting greedy, hitting a large number of small targets and taking modest amounts, instead of risking hitting a big target for a large amount. That was much more dangerous, and even if one did get a big score, spending that money and having to account for it could be something of a problem.
Well, it wasn't easy, even for him. Being in one place for years, and the fact that he had to deal with fences for the jewelry and other very small and valuable objects he stole when he was younger and engaged in house burglary, gave him a reputation. That reputation had reached the police, and that meant that they watched him. Or, more to the point, one man watched him. Detective Sergeant Michael Lange, to be precise, the one cop on the NOPD that had decided to turn Kit into his personal crusade. He was watching him right now, from that unmarked unit sitting in the parking lot, watching and waiting. Lange probably thought he'd enrolled to case the registrar's office and rip the place off. He could do it, but he was here to leave his criminal past behind him and get an education, try to do more than live off his wits and his power until that day he dropped his guard and ended up dead in a gutter. That was the fate that awaited all people like him, even if they did get rich and successful. But few of the rowdies or the mob bothered him. He was small time, was well known to be small time, and had declined numerous offers to join this gang or that crime family to provide them his formidable skill as a thief.
He couldn't join them because they'd learn his secret, that his skill came from his power, not his training. Kit's telekinetic gifts made theft a nearly ridiculously easy profession. With his power, he could unlock windows, had learned to unlock doors, and could retrieve all manner of small, valuable objects from a room without ever having to set foot in it. He'd kept his secret for ten years, through those terrible first years after his parents had thrown him out of the house for having "power given by the devil," he'd managed to keep it as he floundered with his unusual gift, learned how it worked, even mastered its basic function and began exploring just what he could do with it. He had kept it a secret long after his need to steal passed, when he started living off the money he'd saved up over six years, when he'd learned many, many clever and formidable tricks regarding his telekinetic abilities, some learned to make stealing easier, some learned simply to see if he could do it. His parents had thrown a twelve year old boy out of the house because of his power, and he wasn't about to let anyone else know about what he could do. He didn't want to end up on some government dissection table, because he knew that's exactly where he'd end up if his secret ever got out.
Well, this was unusual. Lange was getting out of his car and walking over. Lange rarely bothered to speak to him, and when he did, it was nothing but a string of curses and profanities and promises to throw him under the jail and lose the key. He marched right up and stood over him, but he didn't bother to look up.
"You're not getting away with it," Lange said in his gravelly voice, a voice damaged by too many years of yelling and smoking.
"I dinna' ken what yuir talkin' about, man," Kit said casually. It was one of his more clever tricks. He grew up with Scot parents and had spoken with brogue until he'd been teased so badly by other kids that he learned the American accent, but he never spoke to others in any other way than brogue. That established a unique method of speaking that identified him, and also allowed a fellow that looked a lot like him that always wore a hat that didn't speak like that to not be connected with him. He already had a patch of white hair that made him easy to identify. Adding the brogue wasn't much extra. "And yuir using up what little time we have til yon storm gets here."
"I've got a new bitch down in the parish jail," he said with a grim smile. "Vinny Gold."
Vinny Gold was one of Kit's fences at one time, back when he used to steal from houses. But that was years ago. He didn't do that anymore. Kit glanced up at the unpleasant face of the detective, minor irritation dancing through his blue eyes. "So?"
"So, as soon as I put the screws on him, he'll turn evidence."
"I dinna' see a pair o' handcuffs, so beg yuir pardon if yuir threats don' bother me 'tall," he said in a mild tone, putting his book back in his pack. "Now, if yui'll excuse me, I'll be needin' ta' get inside before the rain hits." He stood up, and Lange gave a little ground to allow him to do so, leaving his pack and umbrella on the ground. "Asides, yuir D.A.'ll put you under yon jail 'afore he lets ye put a finger on me," he said in a serious tone, but with a slight, malicious smile. "Connick, he's not the squeaky-clean figure he's duped the voters into seein'." He slung his pack over his shoulder and regarded the detective with amusement. "You see, I have a wee bit o' somethin' that Connick would kill ta' keep from being made public, an' he knows I have it."
Lange frowned.
"If yuir goin' ta' be a thief, man, ye have to know what ta' steal," he said with a wicked smirk. "So go ahead, Lange. Get yuir evidence, and then just try to get a warrant. I'll be puttin' a bet on the table here an' now that Connick calls ye to his office, and tells ye no himself. Care ta' cover?" He reached into his pocket and waved a twenty dollar bill in Lange's face.
Lange gave him a dirty look. "I'll settle for your ass," he growled.
"That, ye willna' get," he said evenly.
Lange looked around, then took a step back. "I'll find somethin'," he announced. He took one more step back, then went for the weapon holstered under his arm. He pulled it out and pointed it at him. "You're under arrest!" he barked in a loud voice, attracting quite a bit of attention from the other students. "Hands on your head! Turn around!"
It was a split second to decide what to do, but it was all he needed. He swept out with his power, waves of it, emanations of telekinetic force that both partially reflected off solid matter and also penetrated it, a trick he called sounding. It was a form of telekinetic sonar or radar, but it allowed him to look past solid objects, even inside of them, to see the internal workings of a device or the contents of a cabinet or safe, for example. He could only sense shapes, not see in any way, so he couldn't read writing or see colors, but he could tell by how a material responded to his sweep, sensing its texture, what kind of material it was. He could tell paper from steel, plastic from wood, cloth from living tissue, leather from vinyl, by the texture of the matter that comprised it. In that split second, he sounded Lange and found two guns on him, one in the holder under his arm and another hidden in the pocket of his coat, a small .25 caliber "streetline special." A drop piece. Lange was going to cuff him, put him in his car, drive him out into the Ninth Ward, then shoot him, leaving that gun in his dead hand.
Lange was going to kill him.
Moving with the speed of thought, Kit sent his power into the nine millimeter in his hand. He had learned to sound because he could only affect objects he could see with his power, or things he knew beyond any doubt where they were. By learning how to sound, he had learned how to look inside solid objects and affect them. The combination of sounding and his telekinetic power allowed him to pick locks, defeat magnetic reed switches, turn off security systems, even crack a safe's combination lock, without having to be anywhere near the item in question. He was intimately familiar with the internal mechanisms of all kinds of weapons, but especially police guns and weapons favored by gangbangers and thugs. Just for such emergencies as this one. By the time Lange had the weapon free of its holster, he had already disabled it, breaking the pin that connected the trigger to the linkage that actuated the hammer. He could pull the trigger, but it wouldn't do anything at all..
Kit gave him a steady, sober look, unmoving as students stopped where they were, staring in macabre fascination at the drama unfolding. "Och. It seems ta' me that yuir not tellin' the whole tale. An' where will we be goin', Lange? Downtown? Storyville? Tremè? The Ninth Ward, maybe? The little Colt ye have in yuir pocket sings a different song, ye ken. If I get in that car with ye, I willna' live ta' see the station."
Lange gave him a startled look, then his face hardened. "Stop blowing smoke. Now hands on your head! Turn around!"
Kit crossed his arms and gave him a steady look. "Nay."
"No?" he repeated in a strangled, unbelieving tone.
"I said nay," he repeated. "If ye want ta' shoot me out here in front o' all these witnesses, be my guest. I dinna' think their statements will be matchin' yuir report. Yui'll lose yuir badge at the very least, or maybe end up in Angola at the very worst. I ken that cons aren't ta' be likin' ex-cops all that much."
Lange's fingers were trembling on his weapon. Obviously, he was debating the very thing himself. Or perhaps he was rattled by Kit's observations. "You are going to put your hands on your head and turn around, or I will shoot you here and now," he said in a slow, deliberate voice.
"An' how are ye goin' ta' explain how all these students saw ye cuff me and put me in yuir car after they find me dead in some empty lot?"
"Who said they'd ever find you?" he hissed in a very low tone that the ring of students, some twenty feet away, would not hear.
And there it was. That was the confession he was digging for. Now he had no reservations for what was about to happen. It was clearly a case of self defense.
"I have a little secret for ye," Kit said in an equally low tone, slowly starting to put his hands on his head. "Ye'll never get me in yuir car."
"And what's going to stop me?" he asked in a dreadfully eager tone once Kit had his hands on top of his head.
"The fact that you're about to die," he answered in perfect, unaccented English. He sounded Lange one more time to find his heart, then wrapped his power around it and locked it in place. Lange's heart found itself unable to expand, unable to complete a rhythm, and that caused his heart to register shock, which his body translated into pain.
Lange gave him a startled stare, and then gurgled out something like "grrbbbkk" and clutched his chest with his free hand. He dropped his gun and staggered backwards, putting both hands on his chest, then toppled over on his back, convulsing violently. Kit jumped back in feigned surprise, watching the man thrash on the ground as he kept his power around his heart, freezing it in place, killing him in a slow and painful manner that was absolutely essential to reinforce his alibi. He didn't relish killing a man like this. When he killed with his power, he usually ruptured a choice artery in the brain that caused nearly instantaneous death, what doctors called an aneurysm. But to solidify the illusion of it, he had to make it look like a heart attack.
"Someone call 911!" Kit screamed in brogue, then he lunged over to where Lange was thrashing and tried to hold him down. Lange's eyes were wild, bulging out as he stared at him, as Kit held him down by his shoulders. "You should never have admitted it," he whispered without brogue. "I don't like to kill. It cheapens my gift. But you made it clear that it's either you or me. I don't like killing, but I will to protect myself."
Another student joined him, holding down Lange's legs, then a group of them joined them to try to hold him down as someone started yelling that they had to see if he was breathing. Kit slowly allowed them to take over, pulling back, retrieving his golf umbrella from the ground, then standing over the scene with his pack over his shoulder. He kept his power on Lange the entire time, well after the four minutes necessary to cause brain death, making sure that the frenzied CPR that some of the students were performing wouldn't revive him. He kept his heart locked for ten minutes, then released his power to see if Lange's brain restarted his heart.
It didn't. Lange was dead.
He didn't like to do that. Killing was wrong. He stole out of necessity, and when he killed, it was out of necessity. He didn't relish it, and he certainly didn't enjoy slowly smothering the life out of a man and have to stand there and watch. But Lange had made it very clear that only one of them was going to survive this little encounter, and Kit simply took steps to make sure it was him.
He didn't feel mournful for very long. After all, Lange did intend to kill him. He simply mourned having to kill him the way he did.
Kit watched as an ambulance came, and a team of paramedics took over. He stayed back as they loaded him onto a gurney and piled him into the ambulance, making sure to collect his weapon, then he turned and walked back towards the building as he noted that the rain line was almost on them. He made it just in time. He and the other students watched as one of the paramedics slammed the doors on the ambulance and rushed through the sudden heavy downpour to the driver's side door. And then the ambulance screamed away with its lights and sirens blaring.
"Well, that's one way to get out of being arrested," a blond girl he didn't know told him with a sudden sly smile, who was standing beside him. She was short, thin, and built like a soccer player, with powerful legs that filled in the pant legs of her jeans. She had no backpack, but she did have a fairly large golf umbrella. She wore a simple black Korn tee shirt and a pair of old jeans, with Air Jordans on her feet. Her hair was very short, in a pixie style, and she had a pierced nose, with a little diamond stud in it. Despite the pierced nose, she was a moderately attractive young woman. A little too heavy of a chin for him, and her eyes were a tad too large and doe-like, but still attractive.
"Och, not one anyone would enjoy," he replied evenly. "Not even me."
"What was he arresting you for, anyway?" she asked.
"I dinna' have a clue," he answered. "I dinna' think I ever will."
"Hi, I'm Michelle," she introduced herself, holding out her hand.
"Terrence, but everyone calls me Kit," he responded, taking her hand. She had a firm grip, and her blue eyes seemed strangely intent for some reason.
"Why do they call you Kit?" she asked.
"Ta' be honest, I dinna' have any idea," he answered, which made her laugh. "They just do, an' I've gotten used ta' it over the years."
"Weird weather."
"Normal for here," he said. "I take it yuir not from here?"
She shook her head. "Visiting my brother. I just dropped him off for classes, and I don't have to pick him up. That means I'm free for the rest of the day," she said in a suggestive manner.
"Well, that's nice for ye," he told her evenly. "I suggest ye go an' visit the French Quarter during the day, so ye can see it when people dinna' act so daft."
"Geez, you're dense!" she laughed. "Want to go with me?"
"It's a temptin' offer, lass, but I canna' go. I have ta' go ta' work."
"Oh? Where do you work?"
"A tee shirt shop in the French Quarter," he answered honestly. He hated that job, but he needed it to maintain the subterfuge that he was a struggling student. But at least he wasn't always busy, so he had time to study before it got late and the tourists really started hitting the French Quarter. "Och, I guess they didna' call the police, so I may as well go," he said. "I was waitin' around ta' see if they were goin' ta' come, but it doesna' look like they will. I guess the paramedics didna' say anythin'."
"Why wait?" she asked.
"`Cause I didna' do anythin' wrong," he answered in an honest-sounding voice. "An honest man doesna' fear the police."
"You're a trusting sort," she chuckled.
"A man has ta' trust somethin'," he shrugged. "Have a good day, lassie."
"Hey, it's raining, and I have nothing to do. Want a ride?"
"Ye dinna' think I have a ride of me own?" he asked with a smile.
"With those clothes? No."
He chuckled. "Sharp eye, lass. But nay, I have a ride already. I dinna' think he'd appreciate it if I bailed out on him over a pretty face. This fellow doesna' take kindly ta' bein' stood up, over just about anythin', and I dinna' think yuir goin' ta' be here for the next two years ta' drive me back an' forth."
She laughed. "I guess not. Well, nice meeting you."
"Nice ta' meet ye as well," he answered, giving her a little salute with two fingers to his forehead, then he turned and wandered away from her.
Nice girl. But there was something about her that raised a little red flag in his mind…why, he wasn't too sure. He really didn't have a ride, but the rain really didn't bother him. It was a three mile walk down to the quarter from the campus, but he walked it almost every day, so today would be no different. Rain or shine, his walk down to the quarter, which was also where he lived, in a cramped apartment over the tee shirt shop in which he worked, was a daily ritual. He shouldered his large umbrella and drifted off towards the side exit, which was a more direct line on his route down to the Quarter.
The dark-haired girl with the pretty eyes frowned as he left, and about five minutes after he was gone, she was joined by two other young men. One was a large, hulking kind of fellow with a small-eyed face, blond hair shaved in a crew cut, and a meaty kind of body that might belong to an offensive lineman. The other fellow was a very small, thin, wiry young man that looked about fifteen, with scraggly black hair and a pair of glasses with oversized lenses perched on his nose. Both of them wore simple blue jeans and different colored unadorned tee shirts, allowing them to blend in with the students.
"What did he do to that cop?" the girl, Michelle asked.
"I couldn't feel anything," the smaller young man replied.
"I can't hear his thoughts, his mind is too disciplined," the bigger man added. "But there was a sense of resolve coming off of him. I think he killed that cop. I don't know how he did it, but I think he did."
"I didn't want to hear that, Barry," the girl, Michelle, said with a grunt.
"I want to know how he did that, if he did do it," the young man said eagerly. "I didn't feel a thing!"
"Maybe he didn't do it," she said with pursed lips. "If Petey couldn't feel anything, maybe he didn't do anything after all."
"General Jack said to be real careful about this one, Michelle," Barry said. "That means that since we don't know what happened to that cop, I'm going to assume that he killed him. We don't know how he did it, but we have to act like he did."
"So, what are we going to do?" she asked. "If he really can kill people like that, getting him back to Quantico is going to be extremely tricky."
"I know," Barry said with a frown. "I don't think he's going to be too happy with the idea of joining us willingly. What little I got from his mind showed me that he's a paranoid. He doesn't trust anyone."
"He's been on the street since he was twelve. That's an understandable reaction," Michelle told him.
"I know, but I don't want to fight with this one if I can help it," Barry scowled. "He's too dangerous."
"Then maybe we'd better call home and ask for some advice."
"I think that's a good idea," Barry agreed.
"I still want to know how he did that," the smaller young man, Petey, repeated under his breath.
"You call home and ask General Jack for some advice. I'm going to shadow him and see what I can get out of his mind. We'd better find out more about this guy before we make any moves."
"What do you want me to do?" Petey asked.
"Stay with Michelle, Petey," Barry ordered.
"Aww!" he growled. "I want to help you!"
"You can help me by staying clear," he said. "What I have to do is gonna make me have to sneak around. Sneaking around is always easier when there's only one person doing the sneaking."
"Well, okay," he sighed.
"I'm gonna take a cab," Barry told them. "I'll contact you when I need you to pick me up. Call me if anything serious happens, or General Jack has some info for me."
"You got your cell phone?" Michelle asked.
He patted his pocket. "I remembered to charge it this time," he said with a grin.
"Be careful."
"You know I will," he said, then turned and hurried off.
"What do we do now, Michelle?" Petey asked.
"Now we go back to the van," she answered. "And we call the big man."
He hated this job, but he had to keep up appearances.
It wasn't that he minded working, he just hated dealing with drunk people all the time. When he got through a shift without dealing with drunk people, it actually wasn't all that bad.
The shop where he worked wasn't on Bourbon Street, it was on Royal Street, one block away, just past Dumaine and two blocks from Canal Street. Royal Street was as well known for its antique stores as Bourbon was for debauchery, but the antique shops started further down the street, leaving the first three blocks of Royal towards Canal open for more tourist-based businesses. If anything, though, it was convenient, because he lived in one of the tiny apartments that took up the second and third floors of the building. He lived on the third floor, and it was a simple matter of going out the shop, turning left, taking four steps, then going through a graffiti-covered door that went up a narrow, creaky, rather unstable staircase to the ratty apartments upstairs. The shop owner didn't own the apartments, only rented her shop space, but she too lived upstairs with her husband. Kit rather liked her, a tiny middle-aged Thai-Vietnamese woman named Tranh who spoke very little English. She was funny and smart, but she was a bit demanding as far as work went, but that, he'd discovered, was something of a trait for their culture.
Sometimes it got funny. She spoke with a heavy accent and broken grammar, he spoke in Scots brogue, and they often had no idea what the other was saying. But they managed well enough.
She was bustling around the shop when he arrived, putting up a new order of shirts. "Hea, hea, you finish," she ordered brusquely when he put his umbrella away.
"Are ye hurryin', lass?" he asked.
"Hurry, yes, hurry," she nodded. "Me go court."
"Court? What for?"
She took out a piece of paper from her blue apron and handed it to him. He quickly scanned it. "Och, Tranh, why didn't ye say somethin' about this?" he asked.
It was a hearing to protest an eviction notice for the tee shirt shop.
"What for you do?" she asked archly, then she sighed. "They say no pay rent. Me have receipts. Me win easy."
Of course she would have the receipts. Tranh kept absolutely everything. She was the biggest pack rat he had ever seen in his life. But unlike most pack rats, she knew exactly where everything she had was. She could point to it. Tranh was actually an extremely intelligent woman, but her lack of English skills made her seem slow, or dim-witted.
"Well, I guess ye really dinna' have much ta' worry about, but it would have been nice o' ye ta' let me know. Do ye have a translator?" he asked.
She nodded. "Law-yoor Vietnamese, speak good English."
"Good. Ye go on, Tranh, I'll finish this."
"Good good. Thanks. Oh, check in box."
"Thanky dear," he said with a smile. She gave him a smile herself and patted him on the shoulder, then took off her blue apron and hurried out the door.
He attended to the business of putting up the new inventory, and after that was done, there was little to do but wait. It wouldn't get busy until after dark, but fortunately for him, Tranh's husband Sinh took over and watched the shop at ten o'clock. Kit used the slow time to study and do homework, and so long as he got all the work done, Tranh didn't mind a bit. She liked to watch soap operas on the tiny television behind the counter.
Then again, Tranh would put up with him, because, simply put, nobody stole anything when Kit was working. She thought he had this kind of mystical ability to see shoplifters, even when his back was turned. In actuality, he used sounding almost continually when people were in the shop, keeping an eye on them with his power and making sure they didn't pull out a gun and try to shoot him more than to keep them from stealing the merchandise. Kit was an extremely nervous person who had been out on the streets too long to relax when in the company of strangers. Besides, there was always the gangbanger or mob soldier who would come and try to recruit him to work for them, and sometimes those offers got ugly when he refused. Tranh knew he had something of a reputation, but the register balanced to the penny every shift he worked and he kept the inventory under strict control, so she preferred to overlook his colorful past.
But not all the street people were enemies. It was about time for Rat to scurry through. Rat was a small, wiry little black boy who lived on the streets, much as he had when he was that age, who made his living as a street corner performer. Rat was a good dancer and an excellent tumbler and gymnast, whose claim to fame in the quarter was selling backflips for a quarter. Give him a quarter, and he'd do a backflip for you. He was one of the smart kids who stayed away from drugs and avoided the gangs, but didn't raise the ire of the mob, the cops, or the merchants. Rat was more or less welcome in most shops in the quarter, and sometimes they would hire him to do little jobs for them. Rat was certainly an exception to the rules when it came to the reputation of the street kids. Most were opportunistic little thieves who would stab you in the back for the change in your pocket, where Rat could be trusted to at least not try to put the shop in his pocket when one turned his back. Rat would come around to see if Tranh or Kit had any work for him to do, and he had something of a schedule that made him very predictable. Tranh rather liked Rat, but she'd kill Kit if he ever told the boy. She always acted like he was the most inconvenient object in the universe when he came around, but did often pay him to do little jobs and run errands. Tranh's good heart showed through in that sometimes those errands and jobs were made up just to give him something to do.
Kit got about three pages into his calculus homework when the electric eye chime rang, indicating that someone had just came through the open doorway. He looked up to see Rat coming through the cramped shop, its floor open but its walls plastered with shirts of every variety, wearing a torn white tee shirt with dirt smudged on it and a pair of khaki shorts. He had rather new tennis shoes on his feet. "Hey Kit," he called. "You got any work for me?"
"Aye," he answered. "Tranh told me ta' have ye throw away yon boxes," he said, pointing to a stack of folded cardboard boxes, broken down and stuffed into one that had not been, which sat in the far corner. The floor space of the shop was open, and the checkout counter was on wall near the door. Nobody could easily pull down a shirt and stuff it in a bag, and the counter was close enough to the door to allow them to give those exiting a close look.
"Five bucks."
"Two."
"Four," he replied immediately.
"Three."
"Deal," he said immediately, rushing over and picking up the box holding the others folded down inside it.
Kit gave him a look as he came back up, and saw that his cheek was puffy. Rat's skin was very, very dark, and it wasn't easy to notice such things on him. "Och, lad, what happened ta' ye?"
"Just a run-in with the Latin Kings," he said. "It ain't no big thang."
"I told ye ta' stay away from Esplanade," he chided.
"I wuz taking a letter tuh someone," he said. "I had tuh go, Kit."
Kit gave him a reproachful look.
"Mista' Summers gave me an extra ten bucks cause I done got hit," he said with a grin. "Dat made it wuth it." He looked around. "Where Miz Tranny is?"
"She had ta' go ta' court," he answered.
"Court? Whut, dey arrest her or somethin'?"
"Nay, nay, she's having an argument with the landlord," he answered. "The landlord says she hasna' paid her rent. Ye and I both know that's a crock."
Rat laughed. "Miz Tranny don't forget nothin'," he declared.
"Aye," he said with a smile, reaching into his pocket and taking out three dollar bills. "Well, off with ye," he said, handing them to him.
"You want me tuh come back later and get you some food?" he asked.
"Aye, when ye have a chance," he affirmed.
"Cool. See yuh later."
"Be careful," Kit called as he waddled out the door with his load.
"If I ain't careful I'm dead!" he called from outside as he disappeared from the doorway.
That was certainly the truth. Kit had lived on those hard streets for six years before getting the tiny, ratty apartment he had upstairs, until he was old enough to sign a lease for himself. He remembered what it was like to not know where he was sleeping, having to protect everything he owned, knowing that people might let him stay with them but afraid of them discovering his secret. Back then, he stole only what he could carry, limiting himself to money or things that he could easily trade for food or the things he needed to survive. Back then, he was much like Rat, more or less tolerated by the merchants of the quarter because he didn't steal from them, focusing more on the tourists and burglarizing homes surrounding the quarter itself. He was very careful and actually rather wise in never stealing from merchants, houses, or shops in the quarter itself, because it was where he lived and he didn't want to get thrown out of the places he depended upon, like fast food restaurants, the game room, the French Market, or the Riverwalk. He'd had quite a few little experiences like the one Rat had, run-ins with gangs and thugs who either took offense to him being on their turf or robbed him. The patch of white hair over his left eye wasn't his only scar from his childhood. He'd spent nearly two months in the hospital when he was thirteen after getting shot twice in the stomach by a gangbanger. He'd been shot for his shoes.
It was an ugly, frightening, dangerous life, but it was the only one he could hope to have at that time. He'd still been traumatized by getting thrown out of his house, and looked upon his gift as a curse, an evil thing that nobody must ever know about. Because of that, he'd run away from every foster home they'd put him in, always refused when people offered to let him stay with them, no matter how sincere they were, and he avoided the convent and the Saint Louis Cathedral like the plague. That hurt him spiritually, for he'd been raised a good Catholic, but then again, his father had told him that he was a work of the devil, an evil thing that the Church would destroy when they found out about him.
It all started innocently enough, when he was just a few weeks from his twelfth birthday, one of those stupid little things that meant nothing now, but meant everything to an eleven year old boy. He'd lost his house key down a sewer grate, and it was the fourth key he'd lost, so he absolutely could not go home without it. His father would tan his hide and ground him for a week for losing that key, since he'd been specifically warned not to lose this one. He could see it down there, glittering in the light that shone down into the storm drain, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not reach it. It was just a few inches out of his reach, and no matter how hard he strained or wiggled, how much skin he stripped off his upper arm and shoulder, he could not reach his key. He began to get desperate, to panic, and then he felt a strange surge build up inside his head, kind of like a bucket of water being poured into a hole in his head. He felt it reach a fever pitch, and then felt it race out of him like the bucket being tipped over.
And the key jumped up into his straining hand.
Most young boys may not have thought much about it, but Kit knew that he had somehow made the key jump off the bottom of the storm drain. He'd raced home and thought about it a long time, then, after bedtime, he sat there looking over his bed and tried and tried and tried to make it happen again, to make his slipper jump up off the floor. He tried until well after midnight, until he drifted to sleep, then he tried again the next night, and the next night, and the next, until he finally felt that same strange surge, and made his slipper jump up off the floor. He practiced with all night, then again the next night, then the next, until he could make it happen ever single time.
Then he realized that he could do more than just make them flop off the floor like fish. He could pick things up, hold them aloft, or move them around by doing nothing but thinking at them. He was very careful to keep it an absolute secret, to never do it until after bedtime and after his parents were asleep, until he became quite proficient at it. From his bed, he could make his action figures dance and walk around like they were real people, make his Hot Wheels cars zoom around on the floor by themselves, and put together puzzles and rearrange shelves. He learned how to make more than one thing move at a time, and to this day, he still had warm memories of the "G.I. Joe versus Star Wars" battles between action figures that took place on his homework desk in the dead of night. The G.I. Joe figures usually won, since they had ambulatory elbows and knees and could move better than the Star Wars figures. Then again, he always did cheat a little bit when his Chewbacca figure was fighting, since it was his favorite. Chewbacca never lost.
Things would have been alright if he hadn't become so good at it. He could do it without even making an effort by the time he was nearly thirteen, and he started getting careless, moving things when he thought nobody was looking, or hiding what he was doing by blocking what was going on with his body. Again, it was something utterly ridiculous that got him caught, for he was sitting on the toilet and had no paper, so he simply fetched some from the linen shelf on the far side of the bathroom. His mother opened the door and saw a roll of toilet paper flying through the air in a lazy arc towards Kit, who was reaching out for it.
His parents were Scottish immigrants who had immigrated to America because they were Catholic, and they reacted to this shocking revelation with horror. His mother was shocked about it but willing to try to do something about it, bring a priest in to examine him and find out what was going on, but his father went absolutely off the deep end. He called Kit an unholy monster, possessed by the devil, an abomination, and ordered him out of the house. Right now. His mother tried to protest, but his father struck his mother hard enough to nearly knock her out, then grabbed Kit and beat him so terribly that he lost consciousness three times during the course of it. The last time he came to, he was laying in a bloody pool on the floor, and his father was holding a knife with a wild look in his eyes while his mother frantically tried to stop him from killing her son. Kit managed to get up and stagger out of the kitchen, out of the house, and he had never looked back. He knew if he ever went back home, his father would kill him.
Two weeks later, he'd found out, his father had killed his mother, and his father was sent to Angola to serve a life sentence. He was killed by another inmate two years later.
Kit was twelve years old and out on the streets, on his own. It was a terrible time for him, for he was not prepared for it. Before they discovered his secret, his parents had been rather protective of him, and he had led something of a sheltered life. That worked against him when he was exposed to the big bad world. He had no idea what to do, where to go, how to get any money. He was too afraid to go to a homeless shelter, go to the church, seek any kind of aid, terrified they would discover his secret and try to kill him like his father did. He was injured and traumatized when he was thrown out onto the streets, and to this day he could not suppress a shudder at how utterly helpless he felt, how frightened and alone, when he staggered away from his family's shotgun house and knew he had nowhere to go, nothing to eat, no bed to sleep in.
They were very bad times. For the first two years, Kit barely managed to eke out any kind of existence by stealing using his gift. He was in and out of hospital emergency rooms as he paid the cruel price for not knowing which streets were safe, which parts of town were owned by who, and who to approach and who to run away from. They would catch him every once in a while and send him to a foster home or the juvenile detention center when he was snared after the child services offices closed. He would run from foster homes as soon as the case worker left him there, and when he went to Juvy, he simply waited until the case worker came and took him to a foster home. They couldn't keep him locked up in Juvy because he really wasn't committing any crime other than running away, at least at first. They thought he was too young to understand what he was doing. They did try to keep him in Juvy when he was nearly fourteen, but he simply escaped from it the night after he learned that they were going to keep him there as the child psychologists tried to help him. Then they tried to put him in an institution, but he escaped from that the night after they dropped him off.
It was a terrible thing to live by stealing. There was a certain terror to it, the fear of getting caught, that made it almost impossible for him to do at first, at least until his starvation drove him to it. He was raised to believe that stealing was wrong, and he had to go against his upbringing to do it. Even back then he seemed to understand that he could only take what he could carry, what he could easily hide, because if the thugs and gangbangers knew he had valuables, they'd kill him to take them. He started small, using his power to unlock window locks he could see on a first floor house and then using his power to pick up anything in the room that he could see that he thought he could use. Money, rings, watches, anything very small and possessing value. He always hated doing it, and never stole everything from his victims, only taking one ring, or a watch, or half of the money he found laying on a dresser or a stand. But the consistent wearing away of his morals beat that out of him within a year, until he started taking anything and everything that he felt he could carry and hide from others, though he never took wallets. He'd empty a wallet, but he wouldn't take one. He didn't want the ID in the wallet to pin him to any particular crime. Because he never entered the room and always wore gloves-he knew about fingerprints even back then-the cops could never really pin anything to him. He was usually very careful about not being seen, and always wore a black bandanna over his face, so nobody could really identify him.
But the stealing made him more and more proficient with his ability, and he began to lose his fear and loathing of it. He came to understand that it wasn't a gift from Satan, but rather something that was inside of him, a part of him, and always had been. He still had the trauma-induced fear of letting anyone discover his secret, but he at least didn't fear his own ability anymore. As he got proficient with stealing and learned the ways of the streets, as the pressure of simply surviving to see the next sunrise diminished, he started practicing with his power, learning it better and better, and started wondering at exactly what it would do.
The first trick he'd learned was sounding. He couldn't really remember how he'd stumbled across it, but he knew it was the first advanced use of his power that he'd learned how to do. After he learned how to sound, and learned how to manipulate things he could sense with sounding without having to actually see them, he began to learn how locks worked, and was able to unlock doors and key-locked windows without a key. He learned from people on the street how simple window security devices worked, with magnetic reed switches, and he learned how to freeze them in place and let him unlock and open a window without setting off the alarm. Learning these tricks let him start stealing from houses that had more to offer, and he'd started taking more at a single theft, which let him live on his gains longer without having to steal again, which gave him more time to practice.
And practice he did. Every day he practiced, practiced picking up big objects, small objects, many objects at one time, even learning how to pick up liquids like water. He refined his sounding ability until he could tell one type of matter from another by its texture, and the realization that he could see that deeply into something was what unlocked his second trick. He discovered that if he looked really, really deeply into something by sounding it, he could kind of jimmy the stuff it was made of, kind of like rubbing it really fast, which made it heat up. If he kept it up for a while, the material would burst into flame if it were flammable, or get soft and melt if it were plastic, or evaporate if it were water or other liquids, or turn red-hot and eventually melt if it was steel.
After he got the hang of that, he went the other way with it, and learned his third trick. He found that if he looked really deep into something and kind of pushed at the stuff it was made of, he could make it bend, or even break, which was a more exhausting way of doing something that he could do with his power the normal way if he just grabbed both ends and pulled them towards the middle. He practiced more and more with this idea of messing with the stuff that made up the material he was working with, and learned several other tricks. He learned that if he pushed at it hard and fast, it cut the stuff like a knife, which let him shear through matter as if he were wielding the sharpest knife ever made. If he kind of pulled it apart, the matter got soft and pliable, letting him mold hardened steel like it was Play-Doh. If he put his "hand" over it, laid his power of it like a blanket and muffled it, it got brittle, which made it easy to break.
And then, in something of the ultimate expression of that trick, he discovered if he looked really deeply into something, grabbed the stuff it was made of, then sort of filled it with his power like pouring water into a bucket, it would eventually reach a point where it couldn't take anymore. When that happened, the material exploded violently, like a firecracker.
He didn't know it then, but he knew now that his power was called telekinesis, and those tricks were him using his power at a molecular level. He was monkeying with the molecular structure of the object itself, exciting it to make it heat up, stilling it to make it brittle, softening covalent bonds to make it pliable, separating those bonds to cut the matter in question, or infusing it with more energy than the matter could hold, which caused it to explode.
By the time he'd learned how to make things explode, he was sixteen, and had established himself on the street enough to know what was going on. He'd been living by himself for four years, sleeping in abandoned buildings, under stairs, behind dumpsters, owning nothing more than he could carry, and he was getting sick of it. At sixteen he could open a bank account, but he had no address and no proof of one, but he could rent a safe-deposit box from the right place as long as he had something that looked legal. So, he got up enough money to rent a post office box, got a copy of his birth certificate from the state of New York, where he was born some two days after his parents reached America, and faked a couple of documents that gave him the illusion of having an address. Then he went to a certain safe deposit box company that was known to be a bit lax with the rules by the mob and by the gangs and rented himself a safe-deposit box. That gave him some place permanent to put things, and it was going to be his ticket out of the streets, because now he could put stuff he couldn't carry around with him in the box and start amassing the money he needed to do more than simply survive.
At sixteen and with a couple of good fake ID's, Kit started the transition to a somewhat normal life. He still trusted no one, but at least now he could do for himself. He started renting squalid hotel rooms to sleep in, never in the same hotel two nights in a row, which got him off the street when he was sleeping, when he was the most vulnerable. He started stealing more, always careful to make his burglaries wide-ranging, never hitting the same neighborhood twice in a row, ranging from Chalmette to Kenner, from Crown City to Metairie, anywhere he could reach on the bicycle he bought. He put the excess in his safe deposit box, starting to build up his money so he could rent an apartment when he turned eighteen, became a legal adult, and child services would finally stop trying to track him down and stick him in foster homes. He practiced less and devoted himself to stealing more, and by the time he was seventeen, when a Blood gang member slashed off a piece of his scalp with a knife and gave him his distinctive white lock of hair, he had nearly fifteen thousand dollars stored away.
That little incident opened his eyes to the danger of living on the streets, and he withdrew from having to deal with the street people as much as he could, but that wasn't easy for a burglar who had to sell the items that he was stealing. He'd been attacked outside a pawn shop by a gang member who knew that Kit had just sold a gold and emerald ring for a hundred dollars. That little incident was also what put the police more firmly on his tail. It was the first time he'd been caught unloading stolen goods, but managed to get out of an arrest by claiming he'd found it, and the fact that he'd never sold anything at that particular pawn shop before. He was sure that the cop suspected him of stealing the ring, but he had no proof. Up until that point, Kit had been very careful not to draw attention to himself. He rarely brought more than one item to a fence at any one time, and only brought them in at erratic times that were at least a month since the last time he had been there, more than long enough for a pattern to be more or less hard to find. He avoided stealing objects whenever he could, always preferring to steal cash. In his eyes, it was better to steal ten dollars from ten houses over the course of a night rather than steal one ring and try to sell it for a hundred dollars. But sometimes he had little choice but to steal an object and try to sell it, when the pickings of cash were slim. It wasn't easy to steal nothing but cash, especially in the evolving age of credit cards and debit cards, and the police were patrolling more diligently than they had the year before.
Oh, there were other brushes. He was never caught in the act, because he never went into the houses he burglarized. He'd been stopped for loitering around a few times, but he was just a kid on a bicycle, not carrying any kind of burglarizing tools, so there wasn't much the police could do. Sure, they correlated and discovered that there was an increase in reported burglaries in places where he was seen, but they couldn't prove anything. They never caught him with anything other than cash in his pockets, and cash was very hard to identify. The worst they'd ever picked him up for was criminal trespass, and he managed to talk fast enough with the magistrate, weaving a tale about retrieving his hat from a backyard that had been blown into the yard by the wind, to get out of it.
They never quite got how he did it. By that time, his powers had developed to the point where he didn't have to be anywhere near the house to burglarize it. He could do it from across the street, by sounding the target with his power. After that broad sweep, he would locate any cash-he couldn't see denominations, only identify the cash because of the unique properties of the paper on which it was printed-then pick it up and spirit it out of an opened window. He would then drop it on the ground and hold it there, bike down the street, and stop and pick it up. It was quick, efficient, and it absolutely did not put him anywhere close enough to the crime scene for them to track it back to him. The incident where he was caught in a backyard was because he'd seen a police cruiser go by twice within five minutes, and he wanted to disappear off the street for a little bit.
But he wasn't earning enough money fast enough. He wanted to have a hundred thousand dollars saved up by the time he was twenty-one, which would be enough for him to go to school, earn a degree, and move out of New Orleans and start a real life. He shifted from robbing houses of small change to hitting businesses, which required a fundamental change in his tactics. Businesses had more sophisticated alarms, and it was much harder to steal the cash within them and pick it up without someone seeing it. Businesses were usually in places were people could see, and many of them had surveillance cameras in them that would reveal to the world how he was pulling it off. So he had to retreat and study alarm systems and cameras, and that was when he learned his next few tricks. He learned how to project his power as physical force, as raw power, something like a telekinetic punch, which he needed to set off alarms from outside by tripping motion sensors. Motion sensors could detect it when he did that. In the other direction, he learned how to lay a blanket of force over one of those sensors that blinded it to real motion, allowing someone to slip by it without setting it off. He learned how to shift that telekinetic force to make it solid to light, refracting it away from what was on the other side, which allowed him to put a blanket of darkness over a camera, preventing it from seeing anything. He studied for a very long time to try to learn how to defeat inductive and capacitive sensors with his power, which were replacing magnetic reed switches in most alarm systems, but in this case, he failed to find a solution, so he worked out ways to get around the switches by cutting away the metal or matter that caused them to think they were closed and holding it there with his power as he opened the door or window, tricking the sensors into thinking nothing was wrong. He practiced and practiced and practiced until he learned how to open combination locks by sounding them and turning the dial, and learned how to pop the locking bar on a time-lock safe and jam up its door sensors using his cutaway trick, which would allow him to open it and close it again without the safe's microprocessor knowing it had ever been opened. So long as he fixed the locking bar and glued the pieces keeping the sensors from going off when he was done, nobody would find out it was ever broken, since it worked just fine for the guy who came along later and opened it in the manner in which it was designed to open. He also learned how to use his power on himself, picking up his own body weight and allowing him to literally levitate.
He had to be able to do these things because the requirements of robbing from a business would dictate that he go inside. He couldn't do everything that needed to be done from outside, it would be too demanding, too hard on him. He had to physically go in and be there, which would let him accomplish the task faster and with less effort. It raised the stakes considerably, for it put him in the building, but if he wanted the big money, he would have to accept the increased risk.
It was here where he learned the art of casing, of going in and sounding a business while pretending to be a customer to get an idea of its layout and its security systems. He would case a business, memorizing the location of every motion sensor, every camera, the location of the loot and of the security system control panel, a process that took anywhere from a week to a month. Once he was ready, he usually invaded the building by cutting away a hole in the door with his power, not disturbing the door open sensor, then sliding through as he blinded any and all motion sensors with a layer of force and blocking light from cameras, causing them to see nothing but darkness without actually disabling them. Then he'd go right to where they kept the money, usually a safe, and either open the lock if the safe itself had no security system, or cut a hole in it with his power in a manner that didn't set off the safe security alarm if it did. He would then steal the money put the cut away section back into the safe and sort of glue it back in a reverse technique of what he did to cut it, sewing the molecular structure back together, slip out, glue the hole back into the door, and retreat. When done correctly, the manager would come in the next morning, find the money gone, but find absolutely no sign of how the thief had gotten in to steal it. The alarm never went off, the cameras saw nothing but blackness, and there was no hint of how the thief got into the safe.
It didn't always go off went without a hitch, that was for sure. Some alarm companies had active surveillance for the cameras, and sent police as soon as the cameras went black. Every once in a while he would screw up, missing a sensor, not seeing a motion sensor, or flub trying to get past the security on the safe. A few times, he'd had to hide for hours as police cased the outside of the building looking for intruders, usually resorting to cutting his way through the roof and levitating himself out of sight and then bolting. He never hit any place that had a night watchman, but sometimes he got spotted in his black ninja suit as he made his entry into the building by passers-by. He wore the suit because it wouldn't let any of his hair fall out for them to use in forensics, it hid his form and face-and especially the white lock of hair that easily identified him-and it was comfortable and allowed him to move easily. But most of the time, he got in and out without ever leaving a trace. He'd even been chased several times, but his casing included escape routes, routes that would lead police down dead-end alleys and along high fences or such, places where he could enact his levitation or build a wall that prevented light from passing, hiding him in darkness, and escape in a manner that did not allow the police could not follow him or have them pass him by without seeing him.
The other major cash cow he'd discovered were ATM's. Most of them had security systems he couldn't defeat, but some of them, like the small ones in convenience stores, those he could crack. He could only hit an ATM once at any location, but he could get something approaching five thousand dollars out of one of them if it hadn't been used very much. Robbing an ATM was a touchy undertaking, since people would see him in the store, looking like he was using the ATM, but with the proper safeguards and things like hair dye and disguises, it worked fairly well.
Stealing from businesses and ATM's was more challenging, but it was also more profitable. Kit had his hundred thousand dollars by his twentieth birthday, a whole year ahead of schedule, having managed to rob businesses all over town of about ninety thousand dollars over the course of a single year. That was the day he retired. He got a GED and then enrolled in U.N.O., and was currently in his third semester of the Computer Science bachelor's program. And for ten years, somehow, he had managed to keep his gift a secret. Nobody ever caught him using it, nobody suspected him of even one tenth of one percent of the burglaries he had actually committed, and his careful and cautious habit of keeping up the illusion that he was dirt poor helped reinforce the lie he lived. If someone broke into his apartment, the only things of value they'd find there were his schoolbooks. He didn't even own a television, though he had to admit that it was getting more and more difficult to get through school without a computer at home to practice on. He was considering breaking down and buying a laptop, something he could easily hide and carry around with him.
He certainly didn't look like a master telekinetic, prolific thief, and someone who had killed twenty-three times during his short life, two of them police officers…but then again, nobody was supposed to see it.
But all that was more or less over now. He would never steal again if he could help it, and his ill-gotten gains would buy him a life of respectability. He would own a house, get a valid license-he knew how to drive, but had never gotten one-and have a dog or something. He would have a job, a real job, and complain about his hours and maybe join a bowling club or something…just be normal. No skulking around, no wondering if the guy beside him had a gun and was going to try to rob him, no dealing with the scum of the earth, no more living in fear. He would be Joe Normal, driving his normal car, working at his normal job, living in his normal house, surrounded by his normal stuff, having his normal life, and he would be happy. He was almost halfway there, thank God. He was done with stealing, but now he was in the tricky part where he had to escape from his life of crime without raising any eyebrows.
That was why he was about to leave New Orleans. He only had to finish this semester at U.N.O. before he could transfer to the University of Washington, which had already accepted him for the summer term, which began in three weeks. He was moving to Seattle the absolute instant after he got through finals on Friday, four days from now. He would be finally leaving his past behind him, moving to a new city and starting a new life where he wasn't The Fox, a legendary cat burglar, but was instead simply Terrence MacKenzie, a young college student of mysteriously independent means. And now that he'd killed Lange, it would certainly behoove him to get the hell out of town. That was two detectives who had been on his trail, trying to link him to any number of burglaries during the last few years, who either disappeared or simply dropped dead. Wilson had been on him about some of his safe jobs, but Lange was after him for anything he could think of. He'd been forced to kill Wilson when that clever gumshoe broke into his apartment and actually managed to find the part of the wall he cut away and glued back together, which hid the cubbyhole where he kept the ninja suit, notebooks where he kept notes about his intended targets and an emergency fund of about ten thousand dollars. He'd gotten sloppy and hadn't reset it so it was flush, which made it apparent to anyone who was looking carefully. And Wilson was always very careful. Kit had panicked and killed the man, walking in on him while he was merrily leafing through the notebooks, despite the fact that it could never have been admitted into court. Wilson didn't have a search warrant, nor did he have probably cause to break a hole in Kit's wall. But, on the other hand, had that gone to trial, the cops would have been on him like white on rice, and he'd have been incapable of doing any other jobs. Wilson's body was telekinetically cremated right there in his apartment, and his ashes were thrown into the Mississippi River. There was no trace of him, only his car parked on Royal street. They'd known he was investigating Kit, and that did focus some attention on him and got him hauled to the precinct for questioning a few times, but they couldn't pin anything on him. Nobody saw Wilson go up into the building, so they had no idea what happened to him.
Wilson had simply vanished.
The police would not overlook this, even if it was a seeming coincidence, and there was no logical way anyone could pin a heart attack to Kit. They would remember that Wilson was investigating Kit when he disappeared. They were going to watch him, badger him, and eventually they'd get a warrant for his safe deposit box and find his money. Then they'd definitely have ammunition to come after him, even if they couldn't prove where they money came from. But they'd keep digging and digging and digging, and the way the N.O.P.D. was, they'd "create" a little bit of evidence, until they put him away.
He noted to himself to empty that box out tomorrow and stick some inane legal papers in there. He'd better move before they did. He could hide the money in his apartment until he left on Friday.
Four glorious days away.
No. He'd better do it now, before they started watching him. Right now.
Picking up a broom handle, he banged it on the ceiling a few times. That was how he got Sinh's attention. He put his book away and put it in his backpack, then waited about two minutes before Sinh appeared in the doorway. He was a diminutive man with two fingers missing from his left hand and who walked with a definite limp. It was an old injury from a land mine when he was a teenager. "What wrong, Kit?" he asked.
"I need ta' run up ta' the school and get somethin'," he said apologetically. "Finals this week, ye ken. Can ye cover for me for about an hour? I'll make it up at the end o' me shift."
"Yah, yah, fine. You bring me back Big Mac?"
"Aye, no problem. A Big Mac 'tis. Thank ye, Sinh."
"No onion!" he reminded as Kit picked up the hat he commonly wore to hide his white patch, snagged a black trench coat from under the counter that he took with him when it looked like rain, then hurried from the shop.
"No onions, aye!" he assured him.
The safe deposit company was in Metairie, and that required a cab. He went up to his two-room apartment and emptied out his pack, got some worthless legal papers like his lease and a copy of his birth certificate, then flagged down a cab on Canal Street and had it take him there. It was a simple process to get access to his box, and once he was sure he was alone, he took the neatly bundled stacks of bills out of the box and replaced them with the papers, as well as a few sets of fake ID cards he'd had made last year, very good fakes from other states, as well as a faked birth certificate from Kentucky and a false social security number to go with it. He'd paid ten thousand dollars for that identity, which was the name and social of a baby who had died twenty years ago but had never been cancelled. The money filled his backpack, and he felt intensely self-conscious and insecure about carrying around his entire life's savings with him. But he had to do it eventually, and the money would be safe enough hidden in the wall in his house, where nobody could see it or find it without breaking holes in his drywall. The cab was waiting for him, so he had the cabbie drop him off at the corner of Rampart and Canal Streets, well away from where he'd been picked up. That way it wouldn't be easy for the cabbie to remember him, or the police to see him getting out of the cab. It wasn't odd to see him walking down Canal, because he walked down it every single day on the way home from school. There was a McDonald's on the corner of Royal and Canal, where he could pick up Sinh's Big Mac and get it to him nice and hot.
He was very familiar with the street, the storefronts, and many of the people. He saw of them every day, and many of them knew him and knew of him. He passed a low-level mob figure and resisted the urge to smack him. Kit hated the mobsters because they were dangerously pushy about getting him to steal this or that. Six of the twenty-three men he'd killed were mobbed up, but never in a way that would allow them to track it back to Kit. The mob did understand the connection, however. Mob figures that gave Kit a hard time or tried to rough him up invariably ended up dead of natural causes. They knew, they'd had autopsies done. This scared them, almost like God was watching over him, so they didn't bother him they way they used to. The mobsters were dangerous, but the most dangerous ones out there were the gangs. They were violent, highly vengeful, and one had to be very careful when one insulted them. They took any decline to work for them personally, and it often led to attempts on his life. The Quarter was a gang-free zone, as the mob didn't like violent gangbangers to come down and upset the wealthy tourists who frequented their front stores and lined their pockets, so Kit enjoyed a level of relative security because of the fact that he lived in it. Gang violence in the quarter led to mob retaliation, and even gangs weren't that stupid. He hated the mob, but in this case, he was rather glad for it, for it kept the gangs off of him.
Odd. That was the third police cruiser to go down Canal Street, and it was turning around to come back. Kit adjusted his hat and looked away, using the reflection in a storefront window to watch the cruiser turn around and come back. The cop in the passenger seat surveyed the pedestrians quite carefully as the driver crept by. The cop's eyes seemed to lock onto Kit for a moment, but then they continued on.
This did not bode well. Kit went over onto the other side of the street, outside what was known as the French Quarter, and ambled along with a group of short-wearing tourists, a couple of which gave him strange looks for his long black trench coat. Yes, it was a bit hot, but the black mass of clouds hanging over Algiers warned that it might start raining. He reached the corner of Canal and Carondolet, which was the street that became Bourbon when it crossed Canal, and saw two cruisers sitting at the corner of Canal and Royal. He dared to venture up a little further so he could look down Royal street, and saw that the police had Royal cordoned off, with the tee shirt shop solidly in the middle of it.
Lucky, lucky dog, he sighed to himself. They had come for him while he was at his deposit box.
But then he blew out his breath. Four days. He only had four more days, and now the semester was blown. Why couldn't this have happened on the last day of finals instead of the first?
He knew this day might eventually come, the day the heat from the cops or the mob or the gangs became too great to remain, or the day Connick lost re-election and a new district attorney took over and found the "MacKenzie File." The only theft that could ever be traced back to him was the theft of certain video tapes that showed Connick taking bribes from the mob. They were probably after him for questioning about Lange, so it probably wasn't an arrest warrant. They didn't have anything on him to get an arrest warrant, only a whole lot of unsubstantiated suspicion.
He mulled it over furiously. Well, finishing the semester was out. He'd have to email the school and tell them that a dreadful emergency came up that would prevent him from taking his finals. That upset him, but given the scores he had, he would probably finish the classes in which he failed to take the finals with D's. That wasn't failing, and it was still enough to get him into U.W.-or U-Dub, as they called it. If they only wanted him for questioning, they couldn't extradite him, though they could send detectives to Washington to question him. That worked for him. His disappearance after Lange's death might be enough for them to put out a warrant against him, but so long as he got to Seattle and had time to secure his money, he'd let them take that shot. They had nothing on him, and there was absolutely no way they could pin Lange's death on him. Even the coroner would rule it death by natural causes. It was just right now, when he had all his money in the pack on his back and would have no explanation for it, this was why he was vulnerable. If they'd have come before he went to the box, he wouldn't be all that concerned, but he had it on him now, and he wouldn't put it anywhere but back into a safety deposit box. He'd lived a threadbare existence for ten years to amass this money, his nest egg, and he wasn't about to give it up.
Oh, no.
"Quite the mess over there," someone said. Kit looked to his right and saw a tall, burly young man with no neck that he could see and small, piggish eyes in a face much too large for them beside him. He wore a plain white tee shirt and a pair of jeans, hands in his pockets, leaning up against the wall of the store behind them. "Lots of cops."
Kit ignored him, not sure if they'd broken into his apartment yet. Would they leave after they were done? He had some extra fake ID's in the wall with his emergency twenty thousand dollars, copies of the one in his pack now, just in case. Kit was ever a thorough and careful individual, and he'd hate for those ID's to fall into police hands. Then they'd know where to look, because they'd certainly tag those aliases and that social security number.
He wasn't quite close enough to sound. He had to get closer. If he got within a block, he could pull that stuff out of the wall and bring it to him.
"It makes me wonder what they're looking for," the man continued on. "Maybe for a cop-killer, perhaps."
Kit glanced at him, betraying nothing, then walked back up to the corner of Carondolet. He crossed Canal and entered the quarter on Bourbon Street, and mingled in with a group of tourists as he moved towards Dumaine. If he could get to the corner of Dumaine, he would be about a block from his apartment, and that was well inside his sounding range, just as it was well within his ability to pick things up with his power. But he had to bring the bag to him, and he didn't want people to see it floating around, so he wanted to get as close to his apartment as he possibly could. Dumaine was the boundary of an accepted attempt because he could float the bag over the rooftops without having to cross any streets, and then drop it into his hands. But even that might attract unwanted attention, and at that moment, any kind of attention was not a good idea. He went about halfway down the block and found a narrow gate that led into a courtyard, then sounded and opened the lock and entered. Like most courtyards connected to businesses, it was empty and dirty, nothing but a patch of dirt-streaked concrete and a half-dead tree growing near the back wall. But his building was just on the other side of that wall, complete with the window that looked down upon it that was in the apartment behind his own. The gym bag was in the wall between those two apartments, and that would let him break the wall in the other apartment to get it out, out that window, and right to him.
He stopped and reached out with his power, sweeping it through his apartment building. The cops were swarming all over it, in the halls, outside almost every door, while a large contingent of them was going up the stairs with a ram. They hadn't broke into his apartment quite yet. Good. He shifted the focus of his sounding on the wall on the opposite side of that window, up high, and then reached out with his mind and sliced his power through the plaster, neatly cutting it apart. Four quick slashes freed a goodly sized hole in the wall, and he gently set that piece down just as the entry team set up in front of his door. He knew exactly where the bag was, hanging on a large nail in the void space between the two walls, and he had it out of the wall and on the floor in a heartbeat. He opened the window and picked up the bag, then sighed in relief when it came out the window, quickly and silently floating down to him. He reached out and grabbed it, opened it quickly to make sure everything was still inside, then zipped it back up and closed the window again. There was no time to reseal the wall, for sewing took time and effort. It would tell them that he'd beat a hasty retreat, but they'd figure that out fast enough anyway.
The fools. They probably hadn't even thought to ask Sinh where he was. They knew he worked there. No, they'd rolled in with a small army and decided to break his door down, which happened just as he turned his back to his apartment and started back out towards the street.
That small army concerned him, and the words of that guy concerned him. If they were after him for murdering Lange, getting out of town wasn't going to be easy, and it was going to put an arrest warrant over his head. That more or less shot down moving to Seattle…at least if it were correct. If it was nor not, he'd better act like it was, act like the cops were going to be after him. It was time for Escape Plan A.
He had five different plans for skipping town, and two involved running from the cops. Step one was to get the hell out of the city limits as quickly as possible, and that meant getting across the river. He didn't have a car, didn't have a license, though he certainly knew how to drive, and that meant that he needed to either use the Algiers ferry, which disembarked from the foot of Canal Street, or steal a car and get on the West Bank Expressway and get himself over to the West Bank.
Back out on Bourbon Street, he paused when he saw that same beefy blond man that had talked to him on the corner approaching him. Probably just a tourist. He quickly planned out his escape path, for he knew that any minute now those cops were going to scream out of the quarter and try to figure out what this errand of his he told Sinh about really was. If they'd found that hole in the wall of the other apartment, they'd deduce that his errand involved fleeing the city, and quickly move to cover the airport and the bus and train station up on Rampart, by the elevated West Bank Expressway. With them on Royal, it made either walking or stealing a car here in the quarter dangerous, so he had to get out of it. The fastest way to do that was to get back out onto Canal, but the safest way was to go the other direction, all the way down Bourbon to the far side of the quarter, to Esplanade. That was a residential area, filled with all sorts of easily accessible cars.
"Quite the predicament, isn't it?" the man asked him casually.
Kit ignored him.
"Well, if the cops were after me for killing a police officer, I'd be a bit worried myself."
Kit gave him a cool, dangerous look, hiding his surprise. How did this guy know? Unless, of course….
"Ye must be new," he said evenly. "Ye must have just gotten yuir badge."
"I'm no cop," he chuckled. "I just happen to represent a certain party who knows what's going on. Looks like you're in something of a tight spot here, friend. You might need a little help getting out of it. I'm here to offer you that help."
The glance Kit gave him was positively scathing. "Keep yuir help," he said flatly. "An' kindly go away 'afore ye find yuirself in a very uncomfortable position."
"You won't get away."
"Then it isna' yuir problem."
"The people I represent don't want to see you end up strapped to a gurney with a needle in your arm."
"Yuir employers can go find another lapdog. The Fox hasna' ever and willna' ever work for someone else. The gurney's better. Now shut up an' go away. Yuir takin' up me valuable time."
"There he is! FREEZE!" a uniformed cop bellowed, who came streaking around the corner with two companions. They had their weapons drawn, and they leveled them at him and the blond fellow immediately.
The gloves were off now. He absolutely could not allow himself to be caught, not when he was holding his entire life savings in his hands. "I suggest ye lay down on the ground," he said in a low, measured tone to the blond man.
"They won't shoot me," he said easily, taking a couple of steps back. "And if you say the word, I'll make them go away. All you have to do is listen to my offer."
"The Fox willna' ever work for anyone or any group," he declared flatly, quickly sounding the three weapons and reaching into them, breaking their linkages. While he was at it, he reached into their radios and broke the transmitter keys, so they could hear what was being said but could not respond. That would keep them from suspecting anything for a few critical moments. "Take that back to yuir bloody bosses. Fare thee well." Then, without another word, he turned and bolted down Bourbon Street.
"Freeze!" all three shouted, but he didn't turn back to look.
Most cops were in relatively good shape, but Kit was raised on the streets, and had learned long ago that fast feet could save his life. He weaved through the tourists with great ease as the three cops chased after him, all three trying to call in to report they found him, leaving them further and further behind. He got into the crowd, got people between him and them, then turned suddenly and bolted inside a small daiquiri stand, whirled around, and sat down at a table near to the door where he could see out at an angle. He waited there for a few seconds until he saw them race by, then he quickly got up and went back out, went back the way he came, then turned left on Saint Anne, moving quickly yet not looking like he was hurrying, until he crossed Royal street and moved towards Peters, towards where cars would be parked. He moved quickly, keeping his eyes open, scurrying up to Jackson Square and its large number of people in good time, then racing across Peters and up the stairs of the ornate little plaza on the far side. Up there, just past the streetcar tracks, was a large parking lot full of available transportation. He rushed over the tracks and into the lot, stopping by the first good candidate he found, which involved sounding all the cars and finding one whose alarm system wasn't tied into the ignition system, one of the cheaper ones that would just make noise instead of actively defeating any attempt to steal the car. His choice was a Honda Accord with Oklahoma tags that had a cheap alarm system in it, one with which he was familiar, and which was disabled within a heartbeat of him finding it. It had power locks, so it was a simple matter to use his power to hit the unlock button. He opened the door, the alarm didn't go off, and he was in business.
Well, things were going to get ugly now. His life in New Orleans was definitely over, that was for sure. They were after him, and they were serious about it, and it was going to make setting up elsewhere not as easy as he would have liked…but he'd planned for this eventuality, just as he had planned for virtually anything that might happen, and that preparation for the possible was why he could do this and feel so calm, despite the fact that he probably had half the NOPD breathing down his neck. Kit was a very thorough and well prepared individual. He calmly paid the lot attendant and drove off the lot, then pulled onto Peters towards Canal, tuning the radio to his favorite station, mentally going over his route. Now that he was in a car instead of on foot, getting to the West Bank wasn't as important as staying on a heavily traveled thoroughfare with limited access was. If he could get onto interstate ten, he could simply drive right out of town, and they'd be very hard pressed to stop him. After all, they thought he was on foot, and they were still looking for him on foot, and if he could get up and onto the elevated expressway before they covered the ramps, he was gone.
Peters became Tchopitoulas when he crossed Canal, and he saw no signs of pursuit. He began feeling more confident, less tense, as he got closer and closer to the upramps, to Saint Joseph, to Howard, until he was only one block from the expressway…and then a black van screeched to a halt in front of him, blocking the intersection. He slammed on the brakes and honked his horn, as the guy behind him nearly slammed into the back of his stolen car, and then the sliding door of the van opened. Three people spilled out first, followed by two men toting machine guns who wore black combat gear. Two of those three he recognized immediately. The blond man and the cute girl from the campus. "Out of the car!" the man boomed as all three held up little gold badges. "NOPD! Out of the car now!"
NOPD? He said he-oh, of course. Men with weapons, three people flashing fake badges…it was a show for the guy behind him, to keep him from panicking. Cute. But how did the blond guy keep finding him?
"Get your arse off the road!" Kit shouted after he rolled down the window. "An' put away the toys! Any man with two eyes an' half a brain would see that they're cheesy fakes, as fake as yuir badges! Since when did the NOPD put bloody children on the payroll?"
The two gun-toting men in the visored riot helmets leveled those Tek-9 submachine guns immediately.
"Move yuir bloody arse!" Kit screamed, honking the horn again. If they wanted to play pretend, so could he. Besides, they wouldn't expect this particular reaction.
Without so much as a warning, the two armed men opened fire, which startled Kit half out of his wits and sent him ducking under the seat. But they weren't shooting at him. He rose up and looked behind him, and saw, to his horror, that they had riddled the car behind his with bullets, killing the driver.
Killing the witness.
"I don't think I made it clear to you, Mister MacKenzie," the blond man said. "My employers would really like to meet you. Come with us, come meet them, and after you hear their offer, you can stay or go as you please. But I was told not to come back without you, and I'm not about to go against my orders. So please, get out of the car. Let's make this nice and easy and keep anyone else from getting hurt."
Kit hesitated, and in that brief delay, he felt something punch into his mind, like an external force seeking to drive into him. He felt it breach into him, causing an instant headache, and felt it try to reach into parts of his brain. He suddenly felt woozy, not in complete control of his own body, like this external force was trying to take him over!
He reacted instinctively, drawing up all his will and pushing back against this force, this power. It was very strong, but it was dislodged partially by his response, and he felt more solidly in control of himself.
It was one of them! They were somehow doing this! He'd never felt anything like it before, but whatever it was, it wasn't coming from him! Did one of them have some kind of gift or power like he did, but something that let them try to take over other people?
That had to be the case! If that were so, then he absolutely could not let them catch him. Even if it killed him, he had to get away from them. He had no idea who they were, where they came from, or who they were working for, but he did not want to find out. Something told him that if he got in that van, he'd never see another day of freedom for the rest of his life. For however long that lasted.
He had to stop him or her, whoever was doing it. They were pushing back, regaining that foothold, and he was about to lose his fight. He had to act fast, do something that would make him stop, but since he didn't know which one was doing it, he couldn't strike with his power. If he chose the wrong one, whoever was doing it would have him before he had the chance to try again. He needed something serious, something that would take all three of them out at once. He woozily registered the van behind them, and realized that that was exactly what he needed.
Kit wobbled slightly, then he dove back under his dash. That seemed to confuse the five of them at first, but they got the point of it very quickly. In the seconds before he lost control of his power, lost it to whatever was invading his mind and taking him over, Kit sounded the van, found its gas tank, then induced heat in the gas. In less than a second, the volatile liquid reached its flash point, then ignited.
The resulting explosion sent all five of them flying, hurtling to the ground, and blew out every window on the block. Glass sprayed down on him from the windshield, his stolen car rocked from the shockwave, his ears rang from the ear-splitting sound, he felt singed from the sudden searing heat that washed through the shattered windshield, but the car protected him from the very close explosion. His ears ringing, he staggered out of the car and saw all give of them laying dazed on the ground, then ran back towards Howard Avenue as traffic stopped all around the area. He needed another, undamaged car, and he needed it now. There was a row of cars parked just around the corner, and one of them would serve his needs. But he had to get out of there and ahead of those people before they recovered and found a new ride. But he did wisely use his power to pick up one of the machine guns that one of the men had dropped, just so he had some firepower. He stuffed it in the bag in his hand as he carried his pack over his shoulder, then wiped blood from a cut on his forehead as he disabled the alarm on a Chevy Cavalier and piled into it. He had the ignition sounded and turned by the time he had the door closed, and he sped off, got the hell away from those frightening three people and the terrible reality that they represented.
He was not alone. He was not the only person on Earth with special gifts, with powers, and one of them had just tried to kidnap him. They were ten times more dangerous and frightening than the police would ever be, because at least he understood the police. This group had just brutally murdered an innocent person just to hide the fact that they were kidnapping him. If they were willing to kill to capture him, then he was willing to die rather than go with them.
His ears still ringing, he tried to calm down, tried to look like any other car as he got onto the upramp and onto the West Bank Expressway towards interstate ten. He had made it, and in minutes, he would be out of the city, out of the reach of the NOPD. And if he was lucky, out of reach of those people. He had no idea how that blond guy kept finding him, but if his "gift" worked any way like Kit's did, then he had a definite range. He wanted to be far away from the man before he peeled himself off the street and found another car in order to give chase.
As far away as he could possibly get.
Michelle groaned and rolled over, then sat up and looked at the burning van. How did he do that? He had to have made it explode, but still, how had he done it? Petey had to be looking at something to be able to affect it, but this guy seemed to have transcended that universal restriction under which both telekinetics at the warren had to operate.
Good God, this guy was dangerous!
She looked around woodenly, then her eyes locked on little Petey. He was kneeling by Barry, and he was crying. Michelle looked at the scene dumbly, and then looked at the street immediately before him and saw the elongating pool of blood. Petey looked stricken, holding his blood-soaked hands to Barry's back, the irregular shard of bloody metal that lay by him, obviously pulled out of his back by the wiry young man. But it was the empty, glassy eyes that seemed to stare at Michelle blankly told her everything that she needed to know.
Barry was dead.
And with him vanished any chance to forcibly abduct this Terrence MacKenzie. Without a telepath to subdue him, his powers were simply too dangerous for them to make another attempt.
God, she was going to hate to call General Jack and tell him what happened. It was a personal tragedy to everyone in the warren when one of their own was killed, but it didn't look like their renegade had done it on purpose. It was an accident, a terrible accident. Had Barry been standing just a foot to either side, he would probably still be alive right now.
"Michelle!" Petey said in a strangled tone. "Help me!"
Michelle came over to him and put her hands over his own, then deliberately, slowly pulled them away. "It's too late," she told him with compassionate eyes.
He broke down into hysterical weeping, holding onto her tightly. She comforted him as best she could, patting him on the back, silently grieving with him. But they had a job to do, and she couldn't let the renegade get outside of her range, her ability to see him. "Petey, call an ambulance, tell them what happened when they get here," she told him. "I have to keep following him, and I can't let him get out of my range."
"But-"
"We still have a job to do, Petey," she told him sternly. "Barry would understand. Call for help, and I'll call you as soon as I can."
"A-Alright," he sniffled, reaching into his pocket for his cell phone. She did so herself, quickly calling their backup unit to come get her so they could follow behind the target.
He'd be just fine running for his life now, so long as they knew where he was.