Apocalypse: The Savior with System

26 Neither Shrimp Nor Dog

Two weeks after their last meeting, the twins were back in his office. The meeting itself was not an unusual occurrence. Every once in a while he had them in his presence, whether to receive orders or to report on their progress.

Two differences now:

One, Raul was wounded.

Two, they failed.

David Morgan, as before, had his hand wrapped around a glass a third filled with his favorite alcohol. He badly wanted a drink, right at this moment. But perhaps that could wait.

The twins returned, unusually, empty-handed.

“Rahu Knight was protecting Justinos,” Maya explained immediately after crossing the threshold of his office, with her brother limping behind her. Morgan, who had just poured himself that precious brandy, had to momentarily forego his midday drink.

“Rahu Knight?” he asked, not because he did not know the man. The man’s reputation has always preceded him and it did not escape anyone’s notice that said the man had been dabbling in illegal activities. It took him quite some time to force Frank Yardley to part with information. Oh, he had wanted in on their contracts with Pearse but getting more information on anyone involved with his political rival was an added bonus.

He asked because he was truly curious how Rahu Knight became Paul Justinos’ protector.

“Knight survived Yardley’s first assassination attempt,” Maya said as she and her brother sat before Morgan. Morgan knew enough about the night Yardley ambushed his own friend and business partner though he did not care enough to ask if it succeeded. He was not after Rahu Knight himself.

“And the second?” he prompted.

“We received a distress signal but it cut off shortly. It is prudent to assume Yardley failed again...a final time.”

Morgan gave a despondent sigh and finally drained his glass. He gave the twins a scrutinizing look, which would have been unremarkable to anyone outside their circle. But the Valdez twins knew him well enough. Maya remained collected but Raul’s discomfiture was markedly obvious.

He remembered the day he first saw the twins, two scrawny Latino children black and blue from beatings, whether from their own parents or other people. At the time, Maya had been the weaker child though Raul had seen and experienced the worst, tongue cut out for reasons neither of the siblings ever told him. Now, in adulthood, Maya had become the stronger, Raul relying more and more on her with time.

They rarely spoke but he knew and recognized the anger in their eyes. Aside from that, failure had never been in their vocabulary. Maya would have hunted down Paul Justinos with extreme prejudice, even with her brother wounded.

“You didn’t kill Rahu Knight to get to Justinos,” Morgan stated. Maya and Raul stared back at him, gazes unwaveringly.

“We adhere to code in the underground,” Raul signed before his sister could open her mouth. “Rahu Knight could become our ally.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Really? How so?”

Brother and sister exchanged side glances. “Knight Industries supplied the nanotechnology blueprint Pearse bought and used for their secret project,” said Maya. “With Yardley presumed compromised, we have no link to that project besides Justinos whom you want dealt with. We will track him down and not engage unless necessary.” After a brief pause, Maya added, “Despite what the world knows, Rahu Knight believes in a code of honor…sticks to it, even if it is among thieves…or people like us. He has sworn to protect Justinos out of a sense of gratitude.”

Morgan scoffed. “I wonder how deep that gratitude goes.”

“I know Knight. And, unfortunately, he knows us, too. Too well.”

Nodding, Morgan leaned further in his seat and stared up at the ceiling. “All right. Track and follow. Do not engage. I want to know what they’re planning, where they’re planning to go. I hope you do not fail this time because time is running short. We have to find evidence that Pearse has been monopolizing the fight against the UCL Virus and lining his own pockets with government funding and the people’s taxes. I need that evidence in my hands before the next Parliament Hearing.”

Which is in six months.

The twins stood. “We understand,” intoned Maya. With a dip of the chin, Raul motioned Maya to walk ahead of him. They exited the room, closing the door behind them.

Morgan shook his head and swiveled in his seat to face the midday sun outside his window.

Rahu Knight, huh?

On the way to their quarters within the compound, the twins detoured to the sickbay in the United Radical Party’s headquarters, where they employed their own doctors and nursing staff, specifically trained and chosen to serve the needs of David Morgan’s staff. It was a whitewashed room, not unlike a hospital, only with narrow windows and scarce furniture.

Most of the time, their patients were the Valdez twins.

This time, it was Raul, led by a nurse to a private room where a doctor took care of the gunshot wound in his leg. Maya refused to have the minor scratches on her arms and face treated. Once they were left alone, Maya rounded on her brother.

“You should have let me tell him everything!” Maya signed angrily. “I don’t like lying to him!”

Raul gritted his teeth and sat up from the bed, fighting against the pain in his leg. He supposed he should have let the good doctor give him a stronger anesthetic but he did not like feeling woozy. It reminded him too much of the past. He stared up at his sister.

“Sister, the reason why David Morgan can do his job is that he doesn’t know everything,” Raul signed back. “Less clutter in his mind.”

Maya huffed and signed again, knowing as he did that they were always being wiretapped and monitored through many hidden devices…devices they themselves installed. “We should have told him about the woman.”

Raul frowned. “No.”

“Why not? I’ve been asking you that question since we last saw them and you refused to answer. I will not wait any longer for it!”

He ignored the burning in his leg muscle, stood from the bed, and limped towards the narrow window, his eyes looking out dispassionately. There was nothing spectacular to see outside but a wide green lawn with scattered groups of the URP’s staff, eating their lunches or having a smoke. Beyond them at the fringes of the lawn were the electric fences that protected the compound and towers manned by members of the military. They were there to fend off an attack by zombies but in recent months, they were mainly to keep outliving humans with more dangerous intent than the hunger for blood and raw flesh.

“First, Morgan did say we weren’t to leave any other casualties aside from Justinos,” he signed as he turned back to look at his sister. “Second, she is an unknown variable.”

“Not exactly unknown,” Maya argued. “She’s from the institute.”

Yes, he knew the woman was from Pearse-Sachly, possibly one of the last—or the only one—who survived the attack on the institute. If she had anything to do with the secret project, they were not sure. Pearse encrypted the project so deeply, trenched it with a million codes that the computer experts Morgan employed could not even break. Pearse-Sachly employed thousands of scientists and researchers all over the world. The woman with Knight and Justinos could just be an unexpected companion or tag-along.

“You know what Papa used to say?” Maya asked in a faraway voice, forgetting to sign. Raul clenched his fists. He didn’t want to remember what that man who sired them said. In fact, he didn’t want to remember him at all.

“Camarón que se duerme, se lo lleva la corriente.”

Shrimp that fall asleep will be carried away by the current.

Much as he hated their father and what he’d done all his life to himself and to his own children, Raul had to give it to the man when it came to proverbs and witticisms. Maya basically told him to be ahead of the game. She had a point. Maya, of course, always hated surprises. And Raul suddenly felt again that fear he had been feeling in recent years as his sister became more and more emotionally attached to Morgan’s goals. Maybe, even to Morgan himself. He knew Maya worshipped the ground Morgan walked on. She would do anything for the man. He would, too. But he had a bad feeling about this…

Raul walked to his sister, older than him by twelve minutes, yet sometimes seem the younger. He placed his hands on her muscular shoulders and pulled her to him so he could embrace her. Maya tensed for a second—he had not embraced her for many years now or perhaps ever since they were children—but immediately softened against him.

“I know, sister. But he also said this, ‘Perro que ladra no muerde’.”

“A barking dog does not bite,” Maya murmured on his shoulder. She looked up at him with the eyes he saw every day in the mirror. Thank God they were their mother’s eyes. “But we won’t know unless we go to it.”

Raul blinked. “Must we go to it? Must you? Must I?”

Maya said nothing. What fire he saw in her eyes was banked for now as she stepped away. “I trust you, Brother,” she signed. “And I trust the man who has been more of a father to us than the one whose blood flows in our veins. But you are my brother and my other half. I go where you go.” Pointing to the bed, she said out loud, “Stay here for a few days to recover. You’re no use to me or Morgan with a busted leg. Then we’ll plan how to take care of Justinos.”

He nodded and sat back down on the bed, watched his sister leave the room, and closed his eyes.

Unbidden, his father’s words—strangely, the same ones he gasped as his own henchmen stabbed him to death—echoed in the silence of the room, a source of turbulence in his mind and his soul.

A rey muerto, rey puesto.

Anyone can be replaced.