I'm done! I love this story too. Can't wait for you guys to read it.
First one done for two rounds in a row. How long will I keep my streak? :o
The earpiece was annoying enough withou
t having to take orders from faceless agents. David could tell from the way they spoke and conducted business that they were cold. Detached from the real world. Their coldness belied their disregard for human life and their secrecy meant they could be up to nothing good. He hadn't even heard of I.R.E before, but apparently they were huge.
Honestly though, none of that mattered to him. What mattered was the five million dollars they paid up front for his services. That mattered a hell of a lot.
"Alright, I've got it in sight." He whispered. David was on the trail of an athletic man who held a metal suitcase in his hands. He stride was long and he walked quickly, giving David a very hard time of keeping up without blowing his cover. Fortunately, that wouldn't be a problem for long. "The guy who has the suitcase is tall... He's got a white baseball cap and a grey shirt. Know anything about him or how he managed to get that suitcase?"
"No. He is acting independantly." The voice of the agent rang loudly into his piece, making him frown. "His name is Kyle Martez and he has eluded our men multiple times. His reaction time is faster than what any human should be capable of, and he has responded to unseen threats before he having any knowledge of them. We think he is one of your kind."
"One of my kind." David curled his lip. "Whatever. I don't think he'll be a problem."
"Good. That is what we expect."
The line went dead.
Sighing, the man scanned the streets to get a map of the area in his head. Just two days ago he was living normally, safely in the cover of being just another ordinary man. Now, this company and its army of prickly telephone warriors seemed to know who he really was, and they were willing to pay truly ridiculous money for equally brainless work. He just had to get in, get out, and then a comfortable life in relative safety would be his. Just like that.
Agencies like I.R.E had sprung up like weeds after NATO collapsed and the Constitution got shredded and rewritten in the name of global security. With the fall of Democracy came the shrinkage of the Government, and in the vacuum of their presence came the rise of the next in line: bearing power and untold riches. Fifty wealthy families gobbled up fifty states in less than a year, and they dug their roots deep into their new territory, strangling it until America resembled the next generation of some Chinese dynasty.
Sometimes David thought he was living in some cheap thriller story.
"Get the suitcase and get out." He told himself one last time. Looking around, he snapped his fingers, and he vanished from his spot in an instant.
There were no sound effects. No puff of smoke, no dramatics. One moment he was walking with the stream of people who trekked through downtown Chicago, and in the next he was on the other side of the street, leaning on the outer walls of a crowded bus stop.
He paid no mind to the confused glances of people who noticed him. They had bigger things to worry about than how he got there. Instead, David's attention was fixed on Kyle as he made his way along the crosswalk of the jam-packed street, coming closer and closer with every step. David's muscles tensed involuntarily, leaning ever so slightly forward... But as Kyle stepped off the pavement and came in range, he shifted his weight. The suitcase casually switched from one hand and into the other, opposite of David. Kyle's bare hands meant that he couldn't just warp off with it without taking Kyle with him, and there was no way he'd get the leverage to yank the suitcase free from here.
Dammit, let's try a different approach, then. He thought, pushing off of the bus stop's wall. "Hey! Buddy!" David called out, quickly stepping out and into stride with the man, who eyed him suspiciously. "You got something on the bottom of your suitcase--"
"What do you want?" Kyle interrupted sharply. His voice didn't fit his muscular frame. He sounded intelligent, and his eyes seemed to stare straight through him.
"Hmm? I just--"
"No, what do you
really want?" He interrupted again. David's jaws shut with an annoyed click. He hated being interrupted. If he didn't know better it almost seemed like Kyle knew that--for his scowl was briefly tinged by a suppressed grin.
"Listen, I know you want this suitcase. You can't have it." He continued, curt. "I also know that isn't going to get rid of you, but I'm going to tell you now that you won't be able to steal this from me. You just can't." David opened his mouth again to speak. "I'm not saying that as an insult," Kyle continued as if reading his mind. "It's a statement of fact. Bigger guys than you have tried.
"I think you're making a hell of a lot of assumptions." David found his tongue. "What, do you think you can tell the future or something?"
Another grin slipped from behind the mask, and suddenly David knew.
Something in Kyle's expression changed at once as he realized he'd slipped. The mask of assertive curtness fell away to something else, but David didn't think it was anything but another mask for a second. "You're different from the rest of them, aren't you?" The man grinned. "Come with me. Let's talk this out, then." Without looking, the man guided them from the crowded masses of people and into a modest clothing store. It was dim inside compared to the brightness of day, and the place smelled like overused air-freshener. They were ignored as David followed this strange man into an empty corner of the shop, where he turned to face him, and without another word he dropped the suitcase to the ground, eyebrow raised. If David didn't know better by now, he would have went for it then and there. Now he knew to play his cards close to his chest.
"Let's negotiate then." Kyle smirked as if he had remembered something funny. "What do I need to do to get you off my tail?"
"A bribe of a few million dollars would be a good place to start."
The smirk transformed to a laugh. "You're joking, right? I know you've figured what I can do, but that doesn't fix your problem. You literally cannot catch me off-guard. That's why you haven't made your move already."
David grunted, thinking. He needed something that would do just that, and he knew just how to do it. In 30 seconds, he was going to reach out and punch Kyle square in the face, mid-sentence.
Unless he reacted. And if he did, he would know exactly how far in the future this Kyle fellow could see. He would figure out his plan from there.
"How are you so sure you can't lose me if you don't know what my trick up the sleeve is?" David spoke again, stretching for time. "In all my planning, I haven't reached a point where I could use it. My trick could be literally anything. I think you're the one who's at the shorter end of the stick here."
"That won't take me long to do, David." Kyle dropped his name with a wicked grin, startling him so much that he almost lost his count. "The future isn't set in stone. Every second, every millisecond of the present can be analyzed. In one instant I, can make a decision on what to do next. My decision will change the immediate future, and this lets me see what happened if I were to do that. This in turn gives me new information..." The grin spread further. "And then the next millisecond passes and I can try a new decision once again until I have the future I want. For example, I asked your name just a moment ago." He shrugged. "You said it was David. Then I decided to say something else, which is this. Now imagine, how easily will I be able to find out what you can do?"
He hadn't reacted yet. David bumped his punch count down to ten seconds.
"Right now, I might be trying all sorts of different things to make you react the way I want you to. Sooner or later--" In that instant, Kyle's grin fell apart like shattered glass. He flinched back.
And David changed his mind. He didn't throw his punch. He changed the next five seconds of his future.
"You can only see five seconds, eh?" Now he was the one grinning. His adversary looked completely dumbstruck and the satisfaction of seeing Kyle at a loss for words was unreal. "How does it feel with the shoe on the other foot?"
"You'd be amazed by what can change in five seconds." Kyle muttered, pulling himself back together. After a moment of contemplation, he picked up the suitcase from the floor and shook his head in disbelief. The smile he wore now was genuine. "That was clever. You got me there, actually." The hand holding its treasure raised high into the air, dangling precariously between loose fingers in the space between them. "I'm beat. Go ahead and take it."
The suitcase fell.
David had no time to think, except to be shocked by what Kyle was doing. Five million dollars floated less than a few feet away from his face. There was no way that guy could stop him in time, and in an instant the decision was made. With a gasp of exertion he lunged forward--
And in his state of mind, he did not see as Kyle reared back and smashed the side of David's head with a well-aimed punch. His fingers brushed the suitcase handle by millimeters and fell away, sprawling into a rack of clothing that tumbled down with him.
"Teleportation. That's all, eh?" Kyle mocked as David struggled to remember which direction was up. The other man stepped away and back towards the city. "Catch me if you can, asshole! You know I'll see you coming!" He dashed away through the aisles and was out the door before in mere seconds, before David had even picked himself back up. By the time he was back on his feet, Kyle had disappeard among the crowds.
"Ugh." He shook his head, trying to see straight again. The dizziness was gone, but the pain was not in the slightest. Fortunately, pain meant nothing with the stakes at hand here. In a blink, he vanished and reappeared at the door before stepping outside himself, measuring how high the buildings in this block were. In the next instant he was standing upon the rooftops, staring down into the living stream of ignorant humans below, watching closely for something unnatural.
Static clawed his ears for a moment as his with I.R.E came back online. David groaned. "Do you have the suitcase?" The voice both asked and demanded.
Visions of dollar signs helped him keep his patience. "Not yet." He drawled. "You guys were right, he's a tricky one. But he's not getting away from me." As he scanned the crowds, he finally caught sight of a man who ran against the current of people, slipping between shoulders at an absolute sprint as he somehow managed to be in the perfect spot at all times. The white cap was gone now, but David knew that no one else could do what he was seeing.
"We cannot afford for you to fail." The man on the other end spoke. "Assistance is on its way."
The line went dead before David could protest. "I don't need any help." He muttered to himself. Another snap of the fingers brought him to the roof of a building on the other side of the block, already caught back up with his prey.
It only took a moment of thinking before he decided his next course of action. He knew he couldn't just teleport in front of Kyle and snatch the bag... He would see it coming well in advance and easily deck him out with another blow. He would have to try something else. Something more subtle.
Making sure he could see the distance he needed to go, David teleported along with Kyle as he ran, appearing and reappearing in the windows of different stores, wearing his favorite shit-eating grin as he displayed the futility of trying to run from someone such as him. Each pass left Kyle's features more exasperated than the last, but he didn't stop. It took until the sixth pass before he realized why. He was headed directly towards a large and abandoned skyscraper that had once belonged to some credit company before the current overlords drove them out.
They soon reached the end of the street that breached a crowded intersection, but Kyle paid no mind to the rush of traffic. Only the tiniest adjustment to his pace had him weaving safely through the chaos, easily dodging the panicked swerving of vehicles that missed him by what looked like inches. He didn't look the least bit afraid as death brushed the soles of his shoes and flew by, just a fraction of a second too late to cause him harm.
Jesus. No wonder the others hadn't been able to catch him.
David watched as Kyle slammed the corner of the suitcase into the skyscraper's window, shattering it neatly before disappearing inside. Five seconds later, he closed his eyes and opened them again to find himself in front of the window himself, this time startling a woman who had just been gaping at Kyle in shock.
He ignored her, dashing inside after Kyle's fading footsteps that echoed within the building's empty walls. He knew that Kyle had to be betting on the enclosed spaces to limit his teleportation so that he could eventually lose him in the maze of lifeless halls. It wasn't a bad plan; all he needed was for David to lose sight of Kyle long enough for him to get back outside without his knowledge. By the time David realized he was gone, Kyle would be just another man in the crowd, simply impossible to track or follow.
Sadly, this was not a fair fight. It didn't matter how good Kyle's plan was. It didn't matter if he outsmarted him once or twice. There was simply no way David could be outrun, so there was no way he would lose his trail.
He was a vengeful spectre, blinking from one end of a hallway to the next, pausing only to get his bearings before disappearing once more. David simply blazed through the bottom two floors as he followed the sound of Kyle's footsteps. It took no more than 30 seconds before he was once again hot on his tail... and then the footsteps stopped, hidden behind a closed metal door.
David swung it open carefully and saw Kyle sitting on an old wooden desk, breathing hard but otherwise looking as comfortable as ever. "Uh, what are you doing?" He asked. He could still feel the throbbing pressure of Kyle's knuckles on his cheekbone.
"I'm taking... a break." He said between breaths. "Some of us have to get around physically you know." He was still smiling widely.
"Well now I--"
"What are you gonna do now that you've caught me, though?" The smile turned mischevious as David's jaws clacked shut once again. "And don't bother telling me you hate being interrupted. If you want me to care about your feelings, it's a bit late for that. Maybe giving up would get you back on my good side." In response to something yet unheard, he raised an eyebrow in interest.
"Five million dollars is a pretty powerful motivation. I'm not giving up any time soon." David said.
Kyle whistled. "That's a lot of money. They paid you the money up front, too? Sounds like you could just walk away if you wanted to. What are they gonna do, catch you?"
"I never told you that." David protested, feeling violated in the strangest sense of the word.
"Yes, you did." Kyle's enjoyment of his proverbial gnashing of teeth was apparent. "Seriously, what's stopping you from raising a fortune and buying houses all over the world to visit whenever you want? Actually, why haven't you done that already?" He physically suppressed a reaction, granting the courtesy of waiting until David finished speaking.
"It's because it's better to keep your head down in today's world." He said.
Kyle shrugged, accepting the truth of that statement.
"Listen, we're obviously at a stalemate. Why don't you give me the suitcase, and I'll give you a million bucks from what they paid me?"
Taking a look down at the mysterious treasure in his hands, Kyle promptly shook his head. "I wouldn't give this to you for a billion."
Perplexed, David opened his mouth speak but he stopped himself as Kyle suddenly snapped to alert. "Do you hear something?" He asked.
Seconds later he heard it too. It sounded like a helicopter approaching, but it was too far away to tell for sure. "That must be the guys who sent me. I'd bet anything on it." David shrugged. "Mind you, I didn't ask for the help. But still..." He quirked an eyebrow in Kyle's directi
