A Darker Shade Of Pale

[Keeper]

“Captian Donovan, sir,” the Corporate Force squad commanding officer introduced himself to Boris Karkarov.
“Ah, Captain, a pleasure,” Karkarov offered his hand to the officer.
Donovan was surprised, normally these corporate types wouldn’t give a man like him the time of day.
It amused him how things soon changed when their lives were threatened in some way.
“Captain, there has been a breach of security again, this time at my home and two of my personal body guard have been killed. I’m not sure if this place remains secure anymore.”
Donovan tried to adopt his most reassuring face. “Right now, sir, this is probably the most secure place for you.”
It was true that the lakeside lodge was a very secure and safe place, but Karkarov couldn’t shake that icy feeling of fear and decided that he needed to be somewhere familiar.
“I’m sorry Captain,” Karkarov said in a decisive tone, “I must return to Zenith Headquarters. You will make the necessary security arrangements please. And your men will supplement the Zenith guards too.”
“What if your enemies have infiltrated the guards? It will not work well having us under their control and authority.”
Karkarov nodded. “Agreed, Captain. You and your men are better suited to dealing with this threat. You will have Zenith’s troops under your command, though I do doubt any of them are planning my downfall!” Or no one he knew of was, anyway.
Donovan checked his watch. “I will have a chopper ready in one hour, Mr Chief Executive.

[Keeper]

The sun had long set over Illinois State and the inside of the small boathouse was pitch black.
Fumbling around in the darkness, Caleb Black found a light switch and flicked it on. He didn’t care if anyone saw the light, that was something he would deal with when it arose.
He was a mess, he noted, catching sight of his reflection in the small mirror on the rear of the cabin door.
With difficulty he removed his coat and the tight black top he wore under it, though his body was so bruised it looked as though he still had it on.
Wincing he held his broken arm across his chest and closed his eyes, concentrating first on the bone, then on the ruptured tissue throughout his body.

After several minutes a noise on the boat drew his attention and he noticed the yacht rocked gently in the water.
“Hello?” came a small voice. “Daddy?”
The cabin door was pulled open and two things happened simultaneously.
A small girl, twelve or thirteen years old, her hair dyed jet black, a diamond stud in her nose and heavy black make-up on her eyes and black lipstick framing her mouth stepped in.
And Caleb Black’s hand shot out grabbing the pistol with the inordinately long silencer and thrust it at the unexpected visitor. He noticed that his hand wasn’t shaking like it had been yesterday.

The girl stood staring at the black round opening at the end of the gun, and Black stared, equally as horrified at the girl.
If this had been anything but a kid he would have put them down there and then.

What happened next surprised Black more than anything else could have.

“Oh, cool!” the girl said as though she had just discovered some crazy new fashion accessory.
The girl tore her eyes away from the gun and looked at Black’s bruised, half-naked form.
“You don’t look so great!” she said, an unexpected warmth to her voice.
Black didn’t move or say anything.
“There’s, like, medicine in the bathroom cabinet,” she pointed to the door on the opposite side of the small cabin. “Shall I?”
Black glanced at the door. It led forward, into the small head at the bow of the yacht.
Lowering his gun, but not relinquishing it, he nodded.
With a truly friendly smile she went into the bathroom.
Black looked down at his arm, the bruising there was just a faded sickly yellow colour.
He moved his hand around flexing his fingers and then gingerly put some weight on it. No pain, no odd movement of bone over bone. Good!

Marcie Lucas stood in the doorway looking at the man’s back. He had a strange tattoo the covered his back and looked like a stylised angel. There were other tattoos too, odd looking symbols and words that she didn’t recognise on his shoulders and arms.
As she watched, the man slowly stood up and she saw more tattoos on his chest and abdomen, but they were obscured in part by the almost black bruises that covered his torso.
Marcie knew she should have run away and called her parents or somebody as soon as she saw the man but his face had not been sinister, he had looked worried.
She’d reasoned then and there that any man who had a gun pointed at her but looked that concerned to see her couldn’t mean her any harm.
Besides, not only did this guy look cool, but any help she gave him would really piss her parents off, and anything that pissed her parents off had to be a good thing, in Marcie’s eyes!
“Someone did you over real good,” she said.
“How do you know it was a someone? I could have had an accident.”
“Yeah!” she said sarcastically. “That’s why you’re hiding out on my dad’s boat with a gun!”
Black allowed himself a grin at her poignant observation.
“You were silly coming here, I could be anyone, anything.”
“If you were some sort of pedo you wouldn’t be hiding here, you’d have tried to kidnap me or something. And if you were a bad-ass psycho you’d have shot me straight off.” Marcie sat down n the edge of the bunk.
“That’s some dodgy logic going on there,” Black warned but the young goth’s smile was infectious.
“I don’t need the medicine thank you,” Black said, “But I could do with some food, rest and not being found by anyone else.”
Marcie sprang to her feet. “Rest you can have here, food I’ll bring you and the other I can guarantee!”

[Keeper]

Olivia Lucas was surprised to find her daughter to be one of the first out of school.
Marcie jumped into the seat beside her mother and threw her bag onto the back seat, narrowly missing Sam, her older brother.
Sam shoved the bag away. “Drop out!” he cursed his sister.
“Dweeb!” she fired back.
“All right, that’s enough,” their mother chided as she pulled the white SUV out into traffic.
“So why are you out so early and looking so happy this afternoon?” Olivia asked her daughter. “Is it a boy?”
Marcie pulled a face as though she had just licked the terminals on a nine volt battery. “Ew, mom, no!”
She gave a little smile which she knew her mother wouldn’t see as she was watching the road ahead. “Well you know how it is mom, I got those Crystal Meth Blues today.”
“What?” Olivia gawped at her daughter in panic, worry and the general disgusted terror that only a parent can have when they discover something horrendous about their child’s activities.
“Marcie!” she exclaimed, she couldn’t come up with any words. Her daughter was taking drugs?
“It’s all right, mom! Don’t have a cow or nothin’” said Sam. “It’s the name of one of her lame-o bands that she listens to. Shit Marcie, you wanna give mom a heart attack, do it while she ain’t driving, huh?” Sam laughed and Marcie grinned, happy she’d scored points.

For the rest of the journey she was quiet, her mind had drifted, like it had been all day, to their mysterious guest.
Last night she’d snuck into her own house, raided the larder, then snuck back out again.
The man, Caleb, had scoffed the food down like he hadn’t eaten in days, then he’d fallen asleep again.

Now Marcie dumped her gear in her room, grabbed a CD and scoured her room. “Mom!” she called, “have you seen my Walkman?”

Within ten minutes of being home, Marcie Lucas was walking down the gravel path from the house towards the lake.
Slowly, quietly, like a cat stalking its prey she crept onto the boat. As her had reached out for the cabin door handle a voice from within called, “Hello Marcie, come in.”
With a huff she pushed the door open. Although about to ask how he knew she was there, the sight before he made her voice catch.
Caleb Black was standing in the doorway to the bathroom wearing his trousers but no top, this he had in his hand.
There wasn’t a mark on him, not one sign that there was ever anything wrong with him.

“How?” Marcie finally blurted out.
“I’m afraid I can never explain,” Black said as he finished dressing.
“You’re going?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Black thought about his answer. “To kill a man.”
“Cool!” Marcie whispered in awe.


She watched silently as he checked his weapons and stowed them about his person.
He had a presence now, one that foretold of danger and Marcie found it exciting.
“Oh my god!” the girl whispered. She’d developed one hell of a crush and had been dreaming about the man all day.

Black moved in front of her and took her chin in his hand raising her line of sight to that he could look into her eyes. She had been very kind to him so he had to repay her.
His face came close to hers and she tensed.
“Marcie,” he whispered, his mind and hers already connected.
She slumped backwards onto the bed in a deep sleep.
Black lifted her legs onto the bed so she would be comfortable and then put a hand on her forehead.
Again he entered her mind, searching himself out in her memories and erasing the images and thoughts, some of which made him chuckle at their innocence, and others which made him smirk for completely the opposite reason.
Satisfied that he was gone from her mind and thoughts, he leaned down and kissed the sleeping girl’s cheek.
“Thank you, Marcie Lucas.”

[Keeper]

Jeremy Stephens let out a long sigh.
Although he understood the reasons for the Corporate Force Alpha troops to be guarding the house, he didn’t have to like them being there.
They got in the way of his work and interfered with the normally smooth running of the household.
Already the evening meal was behind schedule because the guards had not let young William from the butcher’s through with his delivery.
And now one of the men wanted to see his identification. He had more right to be here than this bloody jar-head!

There was a sudden crash behind the two men, out in the dark garden, and the soldier advanced with his weapon at the ready.
As Stephens peered over his shoulder he saw the crumpled form of another soldier. The first was checking the second for signs of life.
“He’s dead the trooper said to no one in particular and scanned up at the roof. Seeing nothing of interest he pointed his gun at Stephens. “ID, now!”
There was something in the man’s tone that said ‘argue and die’, so Stephens complied.
“Man down, man down! It’s Rooftop 1, sir!” the soldier said into his lapel mic.
Stephens now looked up at the roofline but in the darkness couldn’t see anything.
“Get inside, Mr Stephens,” the soldier ordered and Stephens obeyed without question.
The soldier followed him in, leaving his colleague’s dead body where it lay.


The unit commander arrived moments later. “Sit rep!”
“Bellamy’s down, sir. No obvious signs of death or assault. Assailants, if any, are unknown.”
The unit CO, a tall red haired man with a Bostonian accent quizzed the trooper. “If any?”
“Sir, I was up there earlier. Not the easiest place to get around on. He could have fallen.”
The lieutenant nodded in agreement. “It’s certainly a theory, private.”

Gunshots rang out from the front of the house, automatic fire from several weapons.
“Bang goes your theory, private. Get the civilians to the safe room.”

A shadow moved in the darkness, circling the two armed men who remained guarding the large black front doors.
They were watching the garage where a mysterious figure had appeared. The figure had ducked down behind a car and must surely still be there, they would have seen him move.
“You see him?” one soldier called across to his companion. When he didn’t get a reply he turned to see him sprawled forward over the steps.
“Shit!” he said. “Contact, front door!” the then called into his radio.
He caught movement in his peripheral vision.

Black squeezed the trigger twice, spitting silent death into the man’s face before proceeding in through the front door.
A soldier stepped out of the sitting room doorway.
Black shot him through the throat.
Two more men rushed in from the opposite end of the marble lined hallway.
Then Stephens appeared being led by a third soldier.
“Target spotted, all troops converge on the main hall,” the lieutenant ordered.
“It’s him!” Stephens blurted, almost unable to believe his eyes.
The LT and his companion fired towards the man dressed entirely in black. It unnerved the LT slightly that the man hadn’t tried to run or hide or even take cover, he just stood there one hand out as though signalling them to stop.
“Like hell!” the LT quipped firing again.
The walls around the black clad figure were exploding in chippings and dust as the bullets that missed the man dug into the expensive stonework.
The guy wasn’t down, why wasn’t he going down?”
Stephens couldn’t believe it either. How was this man not road-kill?
Eventually both soldier’s weapons clicked empty. It was then that they noticed that although many of their bullets had missed and taken chunks out of the décor, many of their projectiles now hovered in the air feet away from their target.
“What the….?” The LT said, astonished.

With a flick of the wrist Black sent the two dozen or so hovering bullets back at their senders.
Both soldiers were lifted off their feet as at least a dozen rounds each tore into their bodies.
“Back… back!” the Private urged, shoving Stephens through the rear lounge door.
“What was that?” Stephens squeaked.
“Dunno, lets move,” the private urged again as gunfire erupted in the hallway once more.

A massive crash that sounded very much like a grand piano smashing into a wall brought all other noise to a halt.
Stephens ant the soldier moved on through the back half of the house . there was another set of stairs for the servants to use that led to the second floor.
Karkarov had a sizeable panic-suite built into the house and had deigned to allow his staff to take refuge there in case of an attack on the house, which he had seriously doubted would happen.


More gunshots and the odd yell or scream echoed up through the building as the two made it to the self-contained rooms.
Both were surprised to find only one guard there, a young ‘newbie’ who looked petrified.
“Get inside,” Stephens instructed and both soldiers complied.
Stephens shut the door which clunked noisily as its thick steel bolts slid into place.
“Who is attacking us the young soldier asked his companion.
“Don’t know.”
“Well, do we know how many?”
“No, but there must be a lot,” the older soldier surmised.
“I’m not so sure of that!” Stephens mumbled but neither trooper picked up on it.

[Keeper]

Jeremy Stephens called his boss from the wall mounted phone beside a bank of monitor screens, all of which were full of static.
“Mr Karkarov’s office,” said a tired female voice with an Eastern-European accent.
“Dania, it’s Jeremy, you’re working late. Put Boris on quickly.”

“Yes?” Boris sounded angry.
“Boris, he’s here. He’s attacking the house!” Stephens blurted the words out like a child seeking the protection of his parents.
“Not him Jeremy,” Boris corrected. “It must be more Infinity agents. He’s in no condition to walk, let alone fight.”
“No Boris! It’s him and him alone.”
“Well, it should be a very short fight then!” The Russian laughed at his own joke.
“Boris!” Stephens snapped. “You aren’t listening to me. It’s him, alone, and he’s killing them all. He can do things, Boris, I’ve never seen anything like it!”
Boris Karkarov had never heard Stephens sound so…. Scared. It shook the bravado from the Russian. “What do you mean he can do things? What sort of things?”
“like pass though solid walls,” Caleb Black answered for the butler.
Stephen and the two soldiers turned to the source of the voice, all three unable to believe what they were seeing.
Caleb Black, unharmed, was standing at the back of the room, his pistol levelled at one of the soldiers. He fired, the swung the gun round to the other Corporate Force Alpha trooper.
Both men lay dead within seconds.
“He’s here!” Stephens squeaked.
“What? Who?” Karkarov was annoyed that he didn’t know what was happening.
“Jeremy? Stephens?” No reply came. “Stephens?” the Russian yelled down the phone.

Jeremy Stephens was suddenly yanked off his feet by some unseen force. He flew across the room, matching the movements of one of Black’s hands.
Black held the man high on the wall where he had crunched into it, all breath being forced from him.
The Infinity agent walked to the phone where it swung on its cable. The handset leaped up into his hand.
“Mr Karkarov?”
“Who’s this?” Boris demanded, his voice high pitched.
“Mr Karkarov, this is Agent Black.”
Boris’ heart skipped a beat, adrenaline surging into his system.
“You bastard,” Boris cursed.
“Where are you Boris?” Black asked calmly.
“Fuck you!” the Russian replied.
“I’ll find you, Boris, There’s nowhere you can hide,” Black promised.
“I do not think you realise the situation, Mr Black. You see, I don’t have to hide. I have a shield that is more than enough to stop you.”
Black glanced across at Stephens who was trying to gurgle some message to his boss, and mentally pressed harder, crushing the man’s body against the wall until he let out a strangulated cry of pain.
“There’s nothing that will stop me, Karkarov.”
“Oh but there is. I have Chrissie Simmons, or Nikki as your Miss Wallace has informed me you know her better as. Your Inspector has been keeping me company. We talk about many things.”
Black was silent as he considered this latest development. It didn’t take him long to come to a conclusion.
“I take it you’re having a change of heart?” the Russian goaded, taking confidence from the long silence.
“I was considering your fate. I have decided… Now I’m going to kill you.”
Caleb Black hung up the phone.
“Where is he?” he asked Stephens.
The butler shook his head defiantly.
With a flick of his wrist Black’s mind reached out and snapped one of the butler’s legs at the knee.
Stephens screamed in agony.
“Where?
“Go to hell,” the man hissed through gritted teeth.
Black sighed; they always took the difficult path.
He released Stephens from his mental grasp and the man screamed again as he landed on his broken leg before collapsing.
Next, Black reached out with his mind, finding Stephens’.
He wasn’t subtle, just bashed his way inside and the butler stared at Black in horrified realisation.
“Oh, yes, Jeremy. Boris caught me by surprise before. But he doesn’t know I’m better at this than he is. He cannot explore your mind like I can. He can’t tear memories from your mind, and delve into your deepest thoughts. Normally I’d be careful, make sure I didn’t do anything drastic, but today I don’t care.”

All the terrible things Black had seen and even done over his many years, along with the emotions that accompanied them poured into Stephens’ mind at once. The effect was the sudden overwhelming of his own psyche which in self-defence started to shut down the higher functions of his brain.
Stephens let out a terrified cry and anguish and mental pain.
“I know,” Black said, understanding the mental turmoil the man was going through.
After a few minutes Black closed the lid on that particular box.
Jeremy Stephens sprawled out on the floor, drool seeping from his mouth, unable to resist Black’s further intrusions.
The agent ripped through his mind, tearing memories out, throwing away the ones he didn’t need, but careful to leave the traumatic ones behind.
By the time Black had finished, Jeremy Stephens had very few memories of his own and those he did retain he would rather have forgotten. What he did have though was the recurring nightmare of Black’s own worst memories.
He couldn’t talk, walk, think or do anything but suffer the torment silently in his mind for the rest of his days.

Without remorse, Caleb Black opened the panic room door, dialled 911 on the house phone and requested an ambulance.
Most of the men here were just soldiers doing their jobs, and now that their duty here was ended Black made sure that any who were still alive would live through their injuries, minus any specific memories of him, of course.

[Keeper]

Chicago Police Department’s Detective Lieutenant Marcowitz pulled to a skidding halt on the road just outside the Karkarov residence.
He knew from his shift briefing that security on the property had been beefed up after the gunman attack on Karkarov. This case was proving difficult in coming up with any reasons for the men, all of whom had been caught, to act the way they had.
Now calls were flooding in about automatic gunfire at the Karkarov residence, a lot of gunfire.
He’d called in SWAT already and was desperately trying to get a handle on these attacks before the Fed’s took the case off him.
Already Chicago PD’s shareholders were complaining about his lack of results and the Federal Bureaux of Corporate Investigations wanted to take the contract over.

“Anything?” he inquired of the SWAT sergeant who was leading the specialised police team.
“No, sir,” the sergeant, a stocky man with a crew cut hairstyle and the top of his left ear missing. The man liked to tell people that it had been shot off during a raid on a drugs den, but in truth he’d come off his skateboard as a kid and hit his head quite hard on the corner of a wall, severing the top of is ear.
“Lots of shooting earlier, according to the neighbours, but all quiet again now, and nothing since we got here.”
Marcowitz sucked on his Marlboro and stared contemplatively at the huge iron gates. “No contact with the sec-team inside?”
Sergeant Deacon shook his head.
It was a difficult situation for Marcowitz. Normally the Residence would come under his jurisdiction, but Corporate Force Alpha current had the contract for protection of the property and its occupants. There would be a serious breach of contract if the local police were to go in know whilst CFA held the rights, however, if the capability of CFA had been compromised to a level where they could no longer provide the service they were being paid for, then CPD’s own standing contract would take over.
Marcowitz threw his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his show.
“All, right, Sergeant, get your men ready to go in.”
At that point there was a clunk from the gate that drew everyone’s attention.
The gates swung open.
The roar of an engine, higher pitched that a car, met them. Then out of the blackness, no lights on, came a speeding motorcycle that weaved amongst the crowd of policemen and vehicles gathered at the entrance.
“Somebody shoot him!” Marcowitz yelled but it was too late, the rider was already out of sight.
“Get a team up to that house, Sergeant. Everybody else after that bike!”
Policemen sprinted off in every direction, cars turning, their lights and sirens ablaze, giving chase to an unknown biker.

[Keeper]

“What is he doing?” Boris Karkarov yelled into Susan Wallace’s face. The violence threatened by the man’s demeanour and the force of the command that battered in at her, frightened her, and that with that fear grew a tiny source of light, one that made her aware that things might not be as they should.
Again the command pressed home but there was no satisfactory answer that she could give, and the little light nagged at her subconscious and annoyed her. In turn her own anger flared and governed her response to the insistent Command.
“Coming to get you.”
It was the truth as far as she knew it and given the ferocity of the Command, the truth was all she could give, but the truth earned her a fat lip none-the-less.
His anger boiled over and he grabbed her by the hair dragging her across the room so that she was lying across the arm of a sofa.
Tearing at her skirt and panties he exposed her rear to him then he viciously took out his frustrations on the Infinity woman by sodomising her.

**

Susan Wallace sobbed quietly in the corner of the room where Boris had thrown her after he had finished.
The man was wiping his blood and shit streaked member on her own panties then threw them at her.
“Put them on,” he ordered. She had no choice.

Karkarov’s cell phone rang and he answered it tersely.
“Mr Karkarov, we have intercepted a police call about an attack on your residence.”
“Yes, I am aware of it.”
“Right, sir. The cops are following a suspect, this must be your man.”
“I’ll be right there.” The Russian left the crying woman where she was.

[Keeper]

“Tell me what is happening,” Boris said as he entered the Zenith Tower security control room.
“Police are following this target,” the duty security manager told Karkarov, pointing to a tagger icon in the huge main display screen.
“We have redirected a Zenith Corp Defence Satellite to enable us to follow real time.

Karkarov nodded appreciatively. No doubt someone in the Department of Defence would have a moan about that – Zenith would just have to refund them some air time, with a little extra chucked in free and that would be the end of that.

“The target ,” Captain Donovan continued on with the briefing from where the manager left off, “is proceeding along this road,” he zoomed out on the map. “I am assuming that he is coming here, so I have set up a road block here, here, and here. Another team will close in from behind, ahead of the police pursuit and block his escape. Once at this junction, which he will reach in approximately six minutes, there will be nowhere left for him to go.”
And Chicago PD was only a minute behind to help reinforce the Corporate Force Soldiers if need be.
“Very god, Captain,” Karkarov couldn’t put his finger on it, but for some reason he felt very nervous as he watched the icon on the map race through the late night traffic at ninety miles an hour.

[Keeper]

Caleb Black weaved through the streets of Downtown Chicago, making his way steadily towards Zenith Tower.
He knew the police were following, knew that it was likely that there would be some sort of cordon around the building and more heavily armed troops in the tower itself.

The motorcycle shot through a red light and he picked his way between the few cars that had pulled away and were crossing his path.
It was just after midnight on a Friday and Chicago City was buzzing.
As the powerful motorbike raced through the crowded streets, heads turned at its passing and then again at least a minute later as nearly twenty police cars hurtled through , their sirens clearing a path for them.

As Black passed another set of lights he spotted the Corporate Force Hummers that were obviously waiting for him.

The vehicles closed in behind, plugging the gap between him and the cops.

[Keeper]

“Captain Donovan, SPYSAT cameras are now online – going to night vision true-view,” the satellite operator announced.
The basic graphics map was suddenly replaced by a aerial view of Chicago at night, which zoomed in so that the target was being viewed in low light mode.
“Impressive system you have here Mr Karkarov,” Donovan said. “Here we go,” he added as the road blocks came into view.
Karkarov merely grunted acknowledgement of the compliment.