Helen’s Tale: A SHAKKAN Universe story
Essemoh Teepee© 2018
Chapter One
A metre long, black blade cleaved the air. Razor edge leaving parted flesh, cartilage and sinew in its wake. Blood boiled from the wound splashing dark arterial gouts on walls and floor. The victim, a compact, muscular woman in cheap surplus store combat clothing, slumped to her knees trying to knit together her throat with slippery fingers. Blood poured between them, running down her bare arms, darkening her cropped top. Silently falling forward, smashing her nose on the concrete, already dead.
Knee length, matt black motorcycle boots with thick metallic, cleated soles stepped over the body and the killer slipped into the dark building beyond. Blood dripped from the blade on to the ground. A flick of the executioner’s wrist cleansed the sword in one movement on its way into a saya, a matt black scabbard along the intruder's spine.
A second watcher, semi-automatic weapon slung over one shoulder, stood near a doorway leading deeper into the building. The boots stood in a pool of blackness against a wall. The intervening space was dimly lit but bare of cover. Slim fingers in thin black gloves detached a pistol grip crossbow clipped to the right boot. A razor tipped, black shafted quarrel, taken from a quiver on the left boot, silently found its mark. The watcher's right eyeball burst outward as the bolt pierced the soft aqueous tissue and crunched through the thin bone at the back of the eye socket, into the delicate brain behind. The black boots were already skimming towards the body as it fell, catching the weapon before it clattered to the concrete. A gloved hand grasped, twisted and wrenched the bolt out of the ruined brain as the boots passed.
The hall behind was in full darkness. The intruder’s black motorcycle helmet scanned three doors opening off. The visor appeared as solid as the helmet, dull finish with no face visible. The boots strode to the middle doorway. No electronic security. That could mean something unpleasant on the other side. Gloved fingers manipulated a pistol style lock pick. Seconds later the door swung inward and chill air flowed out. The helmet tilted like bird, listening. No alarms audible. Wasting no more time the dark figure entered, body tensed, gun drawn, ready to meet anything.
****
Something moved in the dark. He couldn't see what it was but he knew it was there. He tried to think of nothing, imagining a whiteboard where his thoughts were written on it and immediately wiped clean as he thought them, clearing and opening his mind.
He saw the city at night, below him. Street and office block lights wheeled and turned. It was as though he were flying above them.
'Interesting', he thought. 'Never viewed through a living thing before.' Calming, relaxing baroque music played softly in the background.
'Go deeper, what do you feel?' a quiet voice said in his ear.
The rush of wind over his skin, the strange tension in the muscles of his arms, no, wings? Yes, his wings. He was a bird! He scribbled notes on the papers in front of him
'What do you see?'
'Just the night and the lights below.'
'Where are you?' The voice prompted again. 'Look around you.'
A castle of some sort, near water. Nathan wrote these impressions next to a doodle of a castle. He concentrated trying to resolve the image further and saw red roofed turrets and a stone wall. Then he saw city streets next to the castle, a London Underground sign - gateway something - Tower. Tower Gateway, he was viewing the Tower of London.
'Tower of London!' Nathan claimed his target.
'Nice one, King. Spot on.’ Jan said.
Nathan relaxed and cooling down while scribbling some more notes before the impressions and feelings began to fade; 'Home, Gateway, good feeding', nothing that made any real narrative sense. Nathan found it hard to believe that he had been in the mind of bird. The sensations were so very vivid and the impressions appeared intelligently formulated. He would look at the pigeons pecking at the street in a very different light from now on.
He was unsure of some of the information he had gathered. Planning to organise his thoughts later, at home he would finalise his viewing report.
'Fancy a drink, King, it's still early?' Jan asked as they cleared away after the session.
Nathan Cole had known Jan Robertson for five years, they worked out of the same offices as Business Change consultants for Mace International in the City. Over drinks in a pub, late one night after winding up a job, they discovered a shared interest in parapsychology and all things weird. James had told him about Coordinate Remote Viewing and the work done in the late 1970's in California. They had laughed over the controversy when the US Executive had inadvertently acknowledged the American military interest in 'psychic spies'. The story of the military RV units they had developed and then disbanded in the 90's was a wild one. The whole subject was fascinating to them both. It was supposed to work better with two people, one to view and the other to monitor they tried it together. It was a cheap, absorbing hobby with an edginess that made it all the more interesting.
About once a month they worked on random targets. Tonight had been good, Jan had scored convincing hits on Pisa and Washington, the landmarks clearly coming through from his notes and sketches. The pint in the pub afterwards was part of the ritual.
'No, sorry, I really need an early night. I have to be in Manchester for ten tomorrow.' Nathan had a three-day consultancy seminar booking which would not task him mentally, but the driving and hotel living were always unwelcome.
'Thanks Jan, it was a good one, see you in a week or so, are you in the office at all?'
'I think so, nothing springs to mind but they may have slipped a gig into my diary, I'll let you know.'
'Fine see you soon.' Nathan had collected his bag and suit jacket and was leaving through the flat door.
'Take care Nathan.' floated after him, odd, not something Jan usually said, he was never one to miss the Nat King Cole wisecrack.
****
The intruder’s information was sketchy about this room. A quick scan of the pitch-black air-conditioned space showed banks of large flat monitor screens and workstations, nothing more exotic than a computer room. The network server cabinet was on the floor in one corner. Gloved hands secured the gun and took heavy duty tin snips and a battery powered disk cutter from pockets in the leather jacket. Time was short. The intruder crouched down in front of the server. Skin tight black cloth moulding to toned thigh muscles and rounded buttocks. With little finesse the thin metal casing was ripped open and the six, multi-terabyte ssb drives were quickly cut out. They went into a lightweight black cloth bag taken from another pocket.
The figure froze at a sound from the hall. Gloves unclipped the gun from one thigh, quickly attaching a small bag to one side. The pouch with the data drives was clipped to a torso harness. At a further sound from the hall the thief moved in a crouching run to the doorway.
****
Nathan always found the drive home through the busy streets a pain. Usually he and Jan went to the local pub and he left around ten, the traffic was much lighter then. At this time, he was still caught up in the late workers trying to get home from the office. By the time he parked outside apartment block, he was irritable and grumpy. Stumping up to his front door he was not looking forward to the really early start tomorrow. He hated messing about with his sleeping hours; he found it hard to get to sleep and next to impossible to get up early.
Sitting in his study, Nathan completed his notes from the evenings session. Jan and he kept journals and published their viewing reports on a website put up by some likeminded souls in the States. All relatively harmless but Nathan found the edge of strangeness gave it a little more excitement for him than other hobbies like Sudoku! It was also a good topic of conversation and an ice breaker with the right women.
It struck him that he really didn't want to go through that whole dating thing again, it was just too depressing.
He had had the right women or so he had thought, Rachael, she had been gorgeous. They had met when he had been working in Mallorca, a British firm had an office in Palma they wanted to restructure and Mace's had won the bid. He had spent a wonderful ten weeks in the sun. The last two were miserable.
Sex with Racheal had been athletic. She was a club dancer in Magaluf, exotic pole and lap, with an all-natural figure that looked as though the surgeons had been at play. They had always made love at her small flat, never his more luxurious hotel. She had been very inventive and limber, frequently complimenting him on his toned body and stamina. He had enjoyed being with her, she was good company and knew what she wanted from life.
He had found the web cams one night, while she was still in the shower and traced them to a lap top, hidden in a cupboard. Confronting her when she appeared, nude and wet, towelling her cropped blonde hair, she had confessed. Telling him about her little side line; a pay per view web site run by her Club DJ boyfriend. It earned them both more than their club work and they planned to make enough for their own place. She added that she liked him really and could they not carry on?
Nathan didn’t like the idea of being a performing stud. He had not seen her again, though he was sure some of his friends might have disagreed with his choice. There had been no one else since and that was nearly a year ago. He looked up the website one time, but could not find any of his sessions on it. He preferred to think that Racheal had not used any in deference to his feelings, but there was a niggle in the back of his mind that perhaps his performance had not been up to scratch.
Work had shunted him around the UK on his return and he couldn't hack one-night stands. He had tried speed dating and numerous Apps but his heart wasn’t in it. Thinking back, there were some regrets over his decision, especially remembering some of the near back breaking things they did. It had been good while it lasted. The story of his life.
****
No lights or torches meant the guards probably had night vision. The intruder no longer had that advantage. Gloved fingers extracted a soft canister, the size of small black deodorant stick from a harness pouch. A flick of the wrist sent the cannister rolling along the floor into the corridor where it quietly erupted. A heavy opaque mist rapidly filled the hall from ceiling to floor. It was a small risk that the watchers may have had infra-red kit, the black helmet had both, IR and the more common lo-light systems.
The thief stepped into the hall. Two armed figures wearing goggles were at low and high point in the hall between the intruder and the exit. They were clearly blinded by the reflective fog, trying to peer through the sparkling aerosol particles. Gloved hands raised the machine pistol and flicked the fire selector to triple burst. The gun barked softly, twice, less than a fifth of a second each time. Three, nine-millimetre rounds smashed into the torso of each guard. Triplets of armour piercing, fragmentation alloy and delayed tracer ammunition; ruptured, shredded and seared; skin, muscle and internal organs, effectively self-destructing in the process. No ballistic material would survive. Selecting single fire, the assassin stepped over the fallen guards and fired one fragmentation round into the head of each body. No spent cartridge cases had fallen to the floor, other than the cooling dead and the equipment damage the thief had left no trace.
****
Finishing off his very large Southern Comfort on ice, just to help him relax you understand, Nathan shuffled his notes and put them into a folder and filed them. Always neat, always organised, friends said he would make someone a good wife!
Snorting he put his already packed travel bag in the hall and went to bed, he needed his eight hours sleep and he had to be up before six am to miss the traffic.
****
Astride a matt black Suzuki Hayabusa, the dark figure watched the building as explosion and flame tore it apart. Golden orange fire silhouetted the smooth line of outstretched leg and hip encased in skin-tight black cloth. Small, black silk pom poms fluttered at the boot tops in the warm breeze. Pocketing the detonating transmitter, the thief kicked the bike into life and accelerated hard, in total silence, away into the night.
****