Chapter 12: Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens

Christmas Eve. One more day to go before all hell breaks loose. Thankfully, the city was no longer a chaotic pandemonium of paranoia. But, the silent panic had already seeped deep inside the minds of every Crater City resident, rooting itself like a parasite that induced bouts of hysteria.

It’ll be over soon. I’ll finally know peace again…

I thought, as I sat in the corner of the room, waiting. I was currently at the Combat Divisions Joint Armoury. I had sent for Lady Decherla, the administrator responsible for overseeing and recording all instances of firearms taken in and out of the facility.

“Ah, there you are, Mr. Beiker. How may I help you today?”

I looked up at her, as I replied, “An M11 please.”

“Hm, I don’t recall you being much of a gun user. What’s the occasion?" she asked, gesturing me to follow her.

“We’re bringing him into custody today. Just a precautionary measure, is all.”

“What about your service pistol?” she asked, as we entered into a high security vault.

“With Islodo, since I don’t really use it.”

She turned to me as she said, “That is a breach of protocol. I hope you’re aware.”

“Yes’m.”

She sighed. “There. You can keep this one for now. Return it back here by New Years.”

“Will do,” I replied with a smile, as I took the gun from her.

“Also make sure to retrieve that one from Islodo. You’re not supposed to pass it around. Your license please.”

“Is the license really necessary?”

“It’s protocol, Mr. Beiker. Your license.”

“Here,” I said, pulling it out of my wallet, handing it over.

“Alright. Have a good day, Second Lieutenant.”

“You too, ma’am.”

I walked out of the facility which was disguised as an old antiques store in the middle of the Old City. The diffused warmth of the sun in late December felt like a gentle embrace in the midst of the otherwise wintry weather. It didn’t get too cold here during the season, but it was still decently chilly.

I stopped by a roadside cafe to pick up a coffee. Last night was the worst. After being denied a single wink of sleep, I was in serious need of something to stimulate my nerves back into action. My brain was slipping into a delirious state, my eyes threatening to close shut from exhaustion.

“Four shots of espresso please”

“That is a lot, sir…” the barista looked up at me, concerned.

“Make it five.”

Sipping on the drink, I made my way back on the streets again. I had to meet with William. A burst of energy flowed through my veins as the warm bitter goodness slid down my throat.

Alright, back to the situation at hand. It was dire.

—

Eight hours ago.

I had felt a Vitalis emission come my way. It was weak and distant. But I’d felt a hint of distress from it. I wasn’t able to tell who it was from, due to its feeble strength. It felt familiar though. A thought had crept into my mind, and I jumped out of my bed. I made a run for the front door, waking Jamie up in the process.

With the sound of her screaming insults at me for waking her up in the middle of the night, I had fumbled with the keys to my motorcycle. I got up, turned the key on, and off I drove — towards William’s place.

I had a bad feeling about this. Of course William’s Vitalis levels were inhumanly high, but he wasn’t trained enough to communicate through telepathy. It was an extremely advanced combined application of Energy Emission and Flow state, only the most well versed V-manipulators could perform. The signal was weak and desperate. He could have been in danger, and called out to me in his desperation.

I’d been monitoring his energy remotely all evening. At that distance, it was difficult to tell if he had moved, but I could vaguely sense his presence in the rough area, and he was by himself. So it seemed. Unless, his company was really good at concealing their presence.

When I got to his place, he wasn’t there. I looked everywhere in his apartment complex, and two neighbourhoods around it. Still nothing. He was gone. But strangely enough, I could still feel his Vitalis presence within his room. Throwing the door of the nearby phone booth open, I called Division Five. They had been surveilling him as well, and hadn’t found anything strange either.

That’s when I remembered. Jacob Islodo’s report on Faust. If it was his doing, they could be in the realm YL:4YFH. But in that case, their presence would vanish entirely. I can still feel William here. Which means it must be another subspace. One that’s not entirely detached from our central realm AA:0001 (the world around us).

I closed my eyes, entering the Flow state. Feeling James’ presence, I established a telepathic connection.

“Sorry for ruining your sleep babygirl, but I need updates on Faust. Immediately. Where is he?”

“Fuck off you fuckin homo. Urghh… He’s at his clinic right now. Why?”

“Hah. Go to his place and check it for yourself. You won’t find him, most likely”

“What?”

“They’re in subspace right now. I reckon Faust kidnapped Will again.”

“Shit. That’s bad.”

“Oh, ya think?”

“But how come we can still feel their presence— at their places? They should be like four miles apart. And I didn’t sense Faust moving, like at all.”

“Must be a subrealm, still connected to AA. But in some other dimension where the coordinates of Will’s place and Faust’s are adjacent.”

“That’s… Technically possible. But…”

“Really fuckin’ hard to pull off. We keep underestimating our foes.”

“Give me a few minutes, I’m coming over to your location.”

“Mm, I think you should rather head over to Faust’s place. Be prepared. The second he emerges back at his place, apprehend him. Call HQ for backup, ask them to send some people over here as well.”

“Will do.”

We’d made one big mistake. Faust’s clinic had never been the place where he would take William to. It was a hoax that we’d fallen for. I didn’t realise this until I looked through his notes in much detail — he had always described the clinic having grey wallpaper. The clinic in the Metropolitan area has yellow wallpaper. Faust had been taking him to a subspace from the very start. It took us too long to catch on.

—

At about 5am, William was found unconscious in his room, lying on his bed. The Precipice agents standing on guard in the bedroom had all been killed. Presumably the work of Faust. He had escaped us, once again. Jacob hadn’t had any luck either. Probably on guard after encountering our men at William’s place, Faust hadn’t emerged back at the clinic. His location was unknown yet again, his presence gone. If I had to make a guess, he was probably hiding back somewhere in realm-YL.

I tossed the empty cup into a garbage can nearby, as I got off my steed. I parked it, and then walked towards William’s apartment. I had looked through his place while he was still missing, and found his diary. Having gone through it however, I had found something strange.

Records of his encounters with Faust.

How…? He lost all memory of his encounters. We had him undergo multiple psych evals, there’s no way he was lying about it. Don’t tell me… This son of a bitch!

“Did Faust fill in the blanks here? Write whatever William couldn’t remember?” Robyn Greens asked. She had walked over from the crowd of agents swarming around the apartment.

“That’s the working theory right now, Captain,” I replied.

“We’ll have to bring him into custody. It’s our safest bet right now,” she said.

“I’m aware, Ms. Green. I’ll talk to him. It’d be best to not overwhelm him at the moment.”

“I agree. I’ll ask the others to stay back. You go make conversation with him. Our chief concern right now is to ensure his safety. Got that?”

“Yes’m.”

“Okay then. The rest’s up to you, Second Lieutenant.”

“I also heard that Elise caught the reporter William was in cahoots with. Is that right?”

“Mhm,” she replied.

“Is it Hank Packer?” I asked.

“No, Hank Packer refused to work on this matter. So William contacted a junior reporter from another newspaper agency. Named John Spark. He’s nobody to worry about.”

“Right… And, what about Jacob? Did he submit his report yet?”

“That’s where I’m headed to, now. He’ll be briefing the Wits at HQ in another 30 minutes. We proceed from there, decide the game plan for doomsday.”

“Thank you Ms. Greens. Have a great day.”

“You too, Liahan.”

—

I knocked on the door to William’s apartment. A few moments of hesitant silence followed the sound of shuffling footsteps as he opened the door. Yes, we had moved the bodies of the dead agents away from his room, before anybody asks.

He looked around nervously before his eyes met mine.

“Is it just you, Liahan?” he asked.

“Yeah, just me,” I replied.

“I saw a lot of ravens patrolling the area… Be honest with me, am I in trouble?”

“I don’t know, are you?” I replied, with a light snicker.

“Don’t joke around please, Liahan. I’m genuinely terrified right now. My memory’s been a mess. I can’t even remember where I was last night… I don’t know what’s happening to me… And it’s Christmas tomorrow…”

“Hey, hey. Calm down. It’s okay. I promise.” I held him, to prevent him from spiraling any further. It was clear enough that he was severely disturbed.

Once he’d settled down, I spoke once more. “Shall we head outside? We can talk out in the fresh air.”

“I uhh… But it’s Christmas tomorrow!” he said, “I need to get my apartment ready.”

“For? You’ll be alone anyways, won’t you?”

He froze, as he looked back at me. He was hurt. Okay, I could’ve phrased it better. Shit. I sound like such an asshole at times.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that–” I said.

“No you’re right…” he replied, “What’s the point anyways?”

“You’re technically one of us now, Will. How about you join us at the HQ for Christmas?” I said.

The surprise in his eyes was evident. He paused for a moment before he said, “A-Are you sure?”

“Of course, you should come along. I’m supposed to attend a meeting at HQ in another half hour anyways. I’ll take you with me.” I said

We walked outside in silence for a while. He got up on my motor, holding on tightly to me, as we rode in silence to the Central Headquarters. I had received the directions, in a fax from Kyd, encoded in a cipher used by the Precipice Intelligence Divisions.

It was at the foot of an overbridge that I made a pitstop. Parking to the side, I turned back at William who got off the motorcycle clumsily. I asked him, “How’s your memory right now, Will? Able to remember anything? About last night?”

“Last night…? No… What happened last night?”

“Jude Faust. Does that name ring a bell?”

He shook his head.

I nodded, as I dug through my backpack and threw over his journal at him. “Remember anything now?”

“That’s my… That’s my diary! Liahan! This is a—”

“Breach of privacy? Like I said before, I don’t give a shit.”

He flipped through the pages of his diary, as he said, “I had forgotten that I even maintained a journal… Oh yeah right, I was…”

“Going to sell us out to that reporter from Cretoria Times? What’s his name again, John Stark?”

“Spark…” he said, “...Does that mean he’s been…?”

“He’s alive… and safe. He got paid off by us, he’ll keep his mouth shut now.”

“Thank goodness, I really didn’t want him to get in trouble… Ah… I really am in trouble, aren’t I? I knew you weren’t bringing me along just for a Christmas party…”

“Duh. Took you long enough to figure it out. We have business with you at HQ, but that can wait. Right now, we have some things to settle first.”

He gulped, as he continued to flip through the pages of his journal, when he suddenly stopped. He was looking at one of the newer entries. He looked up to me, as he said, “Wha… What’s this… I don’t remember writing these… Wait, this isn’t even my handwriting. It’s a forgery… What is this?! Is this… Is this Doc’s doing?” he mumbled, as tears streamed down his face. He fell to his knees, holding the journal close to his heart, as he sobbed, “I remember now… He… He was using me… That… That… That fucking piece of shit, AUUGHHHHHH!”

He screamed as he held his face in the palm of his hands. It was a bit shocking to hear Will swear, to be honest.

I put my hand on his shoulder reassuringly. I was planning on pulling my gun on him to try and get information. But it seemed like that wouldn’t be necessary anymore. I patted his shoulder, as I turned around.

A payphone from a nearby booth had been ringing for a while. It was probably some high rank asking me to hurry up. “I’ll be back in a moment,” I said, as I headed over to the booth, and picked up the call.

“Beiker speaking.”

“It’s Kristen,” said the voice on the other side.

“Hello, captain. I’m on my way right now.”

“How’s William Korspole?”

“He’s recovered his memories, it seems.”

“That’s bad. That’s really bad!” she said.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“It was suppressed by some advanced Vitalis manipulation. Him undoing it could result in his own Vitalis going berserk,” she screamed, her voice in an uncharacteristic panic.

“I- I guess…” I turned to look at William who got up, and was standing in the distance, looking at me. “He seems fine to me though.”

“Kill him.” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Kill him, now. It’s an order from the higherups. Do it Liahan.”

“I don’t understand. Why?”

“DO IT BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE–” I heard her yell before the line hung up.

“Hello? Hello? Captain Marl? Hello?? What the hell…”

I walked out of the booth, towards William. My mind was running at a million miles an hour, trying to process the situation at hand and how I should deal with it. Night after night without adequate sleep and the copious amounts of caffeine in my system certainly didn’t help my decision making skills.

I pulled the gun out, and pointed it at William.

“Sorry, buddy. Change of plans.”

> To be continued

Author's Note:
I'm baaaack! With a 5 chapter update this time. Who's excited!!!

Also got my wisdom tooth removed today!