Apocalypse: The Savior with System

13 The Hands of Freedom

As the armed guards raised their weapons and trained them on the rioting people, a resounding roar from the crowd seemingly paralyzed them. Outnumbered, they became easy targets for a wall of angry sufferers that rushed forward like a wave to beat at them. In the chaos, Paul saw Rahu and Judith slowly making their way towards the table where the food was.

“Let’s just get our share and leave,” Rahu suggested earnestly, already opening a meal pack and scarfing down its contents, eyes every which way as if looking for something.

Paul meanwhile noticed Judith holding on to a meal pack but instead of eating it, she went over to the old woman Paul defended a while ago.

“Here, ma’am,” she said kindly, handing the woman the meal. “Would you need another one for your granddaughter, too?” Paul turned his head to where the old woman glanced worriedly and saw a little girl hiding behind a tree. Without waiting for a yes, Judith gave the woman another meal pack. “You should go home now while there’s still light.”

“Thank you, dear, and bless you!” the old woman said thankfully, tears in her eyes. To Paul, she said, “If there were many more young men like you in the world…”

Then, she walked away to her granddaughter and hand in hand, the two left the place.

“I haven’t seen a lot of nice things recently but that was definitely one,” Paul said, affording Judith a pleasing look.

“Families who manage to stay together in times of crisis are nice. Speaking up for the weak is always nice,” she replied, walking over to one of the crowd’s leaders.

“Compliments wash over the Doc like water over oil,” Paul muttered.

Rahu stood beside him as they both watched Judith and the crowd leader re-organize the people into an orderly line. “You’re overdoing it, you know.”

“What?”

“A lady like that ain’t easy.”

“Of course she’s not going to be easy! She’s a—eh?!” Paul stared at Rahu, open-mouthed in shock. “Y-You t-think I…AHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Paul laughed so hard he had to hold onto Rahu’s arm to remain standing. Unperturbed, Rahu continued biting onto a leg of chicken while Paul made a mess of himself. When he finally calmed down enough to wipe the tears from his eyes, Paul wheezed, “Oh, man! That was a good joke!”

“I don’t joke,” Rahu deadpanned, throwing away the chicken leg bone. “The man doth protest too much, methinks. Anyway, you better help Doctor Merkel out so we can leave for my place as soon as possible. I need to empty my bladder.”

Seemingly revitalized by the food, Rahu jogged to a nearby copse of trees to relieve himself, with Paul calling out, “I think you’re the one with the messed up Shakespeare, Rahu!”

“Care to lend a helping hand?” Judith asked aloud to him. Paul gave her a sideways grin and positioned himself beside her at the food table.

“What was that all about?” she asked in a disinterested way.

Paul swallowed the laugh he almost released. “Much ado about nothing, that’s all.”

Judith murmured a “Hm”-like sound and continued distributing the meal packs.

Paul shook his head to himself and helped Judith out.

A lot of ado over a lot of nothing, he emphasized. A lot of nothing.

When he knew he was out of Paul’s line of vision, Rahu made a sharp turn towards the back of the cabin, immediately drawing out a pistol aimed at two camouflage-dressed figures in front of him.

“Fancy meeting you here, Maya,” Rahu drawled then nodding to the other whose left thigh was bleeding, “Raul.”

“You’re not the target but your companion,” Maya whispered with dead calm. “Leave him to us and we’ll be gone quicker.”

Rahu raised his eyebrows. “Who’s your master?”

He asked because he knew they never make a hit without someone else’s prompting. In all the years he’d known them in the underground training and wars with the South American mafia, Raul and Maya Valdez had always deferred to a Master—one they never revealed. It helped that Raul had had his tongue cut out in childhood but Maya, out of sheer force of will and dare he says, loyalty, refused to utter the name and location of their benefactor.

As expected, Maya kept silent.

“We have no war with you, Knight,” she said. “Only Paul Justinos has been marked.”

“And if I refuse to give him to you?”

Maya’s hand went to her hip where she had her own weapon but Raul stayed her with a hand to her shoulder.

Also, as expected, one twin never made a move without the approval and support of the other. It was always a concerted effort for them. Raul glanced down at his bleeding thigh. Maya frowned slightly, removing her hand from her weapon.

“If you won’t tell me who ordered the hit on Paul, tell me why the hit was ordered instead,” Raul told them, lowering his own weapon.  “Or is that kept secret from you, too?”

The twins exchanged glances. Maya shook her head but Raul was of another mind. Turning to Rahu, Raul motioned with his hands, a rudimentary style of sign language one only ever learned in the dirty and violent world of the underground where the outlaw's reign free.

“Your companion is a special case. A specimen involved in a secret program by Pearse.”

“Pearse? Ulysses Pearse, the First Minister?”

Raul nodded. “We do not know the details but if he lives, the world will be in danger.”

Rahu felt miserable hilarity bubbling up from his chest. But to laugh now would draw attention to their location so he swallowed instead. “Forgive me but I find it hard to believe you’ve suddenly decided to become heroes for the world’s sake.”

“Believe it or not, we are sharing this with you out of—“ Maya paused. “—shared history.”

“Whatever you know of Paul Justinos is not the whole truth,” Raul signed again. “It is possible he might not know it himself. Regardless, he must be eliminated. Pearse must never get hold of him.”

“And what of your Master?” asked Rahu, beginning to make a mental list of people who might not want Pearse to succeed. “Does he not want to use Paul for his own ends?”

Maya shook her head vehemently. Loyally. “Our Master is not of Pearse’s ilk. He will never—“

Raul shook a finger at her. “Ah, ah, ah! You must be forgetting one of the most important things they taught in the underground. Never say never, little girl.” Before Maya could argue, Rahu said to Raul, “We can kill each other right here and now, Valdez, but I won’t let you kill Paul. Not now, not on any other day. Your loyalty to your master is exemplary, commendable even. But while you protect a Nameless Master, I protect a friend.”

Maya scoffed. “I’ve never known you to be loyal to anything but yourself, Knight.”

“You’re right,” said Rahu, staring her down. “I am loyal to myself…and that self was saved by Paul Justinos, in the same way ,you and your tongueless brother was saved all those years ago.”

Maya and Raul seemed to digest this for a while until Raul signed, “I am wounded and my thigh hurts like hell. Even together we do not match for you, not in this way. We will retreat but believe that we will return to make that hit, Knight.”

“And we will make it even with you shielding your friend,” Maya said scathingly.

The underground may be many horrible things but they all stuck to a code of honor among themselves. Assassinations may be done from a distance but among its elite members, of which Rahu, the Valdez twins, and a handful of others were, they followed a strict code.

So, no, the Valdez twins weren’t going to kill Paul today and not on any other day and occasion, Raul swore to himself.

“The next time we see each other, Knight, if we have to kill you to get Paul Justinos, we will,” Maya swore to him. “Watch your back.”

“The next time we see each other, kids, I’ll be killing you,” he swore back.

With nary a sound, the twins stepped back into the shadow of the trees behind the cabin and disappeared. When he was sure they were completely gone, he turned to head back to where Paul was but instead found himself face-to-face with Judith.

Neither of them spoke and it was this staring contest that Paul arrived to, his arms laden with meal packs. “You took a long time emptying your bladder, man,” he remarked, not noticing the tension between Rahu and Judith. “By the way, Doc, there’s so much extra food that the other people just handed them to us. I think this will keep for another day, at least. Should we head out now?”

“I’ll drive,” Rahu began to say but Judith interrupted him, following after Paul.

“I’ll drive, Mr. Knight,” she said, taking one meal pack out of Paul’s hands and handing it to him. “Eat and just sleep. Paul can help navigate with his system. The goal is for you to recover quickly.”

Rahu didn’t know there was even a goal where he was concerned. He didn’t know if Judith caught the tail end of his conversation with Paul’s assassins, if not the entire thing.

While Paul hurried to the car ahead of them, Rahu asked Judith, “How much have you heard?”

“Enough,” she said, her eyes on Paul’s back.

“You were with Paul in Pakistan and you’ve been Pearse-Sachly’s head researcher for a long time, Doctor Merkel,” he stated. “What do you really know of Paul?”

“Unfortunately, not nearly enough,” she said cryptically, though it did not escape Rahu’s notice the strain around her eyes and mouth when she said that.

“One thing I can say, though,” she said quickly as they neared the car. “Paul needs protection. And he can’t know…must not know...not until we get to the bottom of many things. Do you understand?”

Rahu nodded. For now, it seemed the best plan. For now, it was Paul’s safety that created a truce between himself and the doctor.

But whatever it was that made Paul the target of two of the deadliest known assassins in the world, it must be big.

Dangerous.

Deadly.