Young Writers Society

December 20, 4140

5:30 pm

Harry sat down to dinner, alone. Will was off doing some shopping somewhere, probably arguing with a clerk over the pattern of the printer paper. It was better to be alone tonight. It meant she could sit there and think over all that had happened, and possibly try to remember those 4 hours that she lost.

She hadn’t realized that it had been quite that long until going through the case briefing with Jud. The gem smuggling case was rather ambiguous at the moment but it could so easily turn into the biggest job of her career. Twenty thousand units per day, just to find a lost cat holding onto some lost diamonds.

And then maybe report them to the Federation, depending on the deal the agency would get on the profits.

Vinconni was right when he said that she was just as dirty as the rest of the city. Who was he to talk? Even if they stacked all their crimes together and tried to say one was guiltier than the other, any guilt is worse than innocence.

And she certainly felt guilt now, as she was trying to remember what it was that she had done to Vinconni. When she wrapped him up in the plastic tarp and drug his body to the water, all she could see was blood. Blood and maybe a few bones sticking out of places, but mainly it was just the blood. The blood that had washed over her and the floor and was still spilling out of the tarp.

As she worked to clean all the tools that had scattered around the hotel garage, the blood was slowly seeping into the concrete floor and a rush of regret came over her. There was no reason to kill him. She could have just created a new deal and maybe double crossed him when the time was right, rather than let the emotions sweep over her.

Now as Harry looked down at the pizza on her dinner plate, she was wishing that she had made a different kind of sauce, one that wasn’t so red.

She ate slowly and tried to remember the scene that had been blacked out of her memory. Talking aloud, she started to recall the bits and pieces, hoping that no one came in to the apartment at that time.

I took that tattered old kit out of one of my pockets of her coat, and then I laid the coat out on the rusty table and put my kit on top of it. They had a bright shine and I must have sterilized them before I began, but I can’t remember the before part either.

I started to feel dizzy, gripped on to the table for support and with my back turned to him, said, “Your army taught you to extract information with pain. So did mine.”

That wasn’t true, the army never taught me to torture people with my hands. They taught me to torture people with my mind.

His replay to me was a complete change of character, going from the brave solider bravado to a poor beggar, looking for someone to save his life.

“Please don’t. We can still negotiate a new trade agreement. I can still make this better.”

I wanted to ask him, how? I never want to kill anyone, I wanted to save him before my dark side took over and I could just resolve this with a trade agreement. But still I kept my voice along the path of the brave soldier, who wouldn’t be taking no or yes, for an answer.

“You’ve already struck out with that excuse.”

I leaned back over the table, again to steady myself and to search for the tool to start with. One thing that can be said for Delta versus Tanis, is that my home was not a fan of working with their hands. They might have been the ones to teach me to torture, because they thought it would be essential for every soldier, especially the ones with weak limbs, but they didn’t help me perfect the craft. The work for Federation Intelligence did that.

I started to pick up a small knife, thinking about slicing off a few of his scales, but then I noticed the large bath in the corner. And how I could force him to shift back into his Nero form, quite painful judging from the amount of surgery he had to change his looks.

There was no way I could have lifted it. So I sat down, tightened my leg braces, and concentrated on dragging it across the floor, no matter all the screeching sounds it made as the metal collided with the concrete.

Then there was the problem of first, not having any water, and second, having to put Vinconni into the bathtub. I remember looking out at the river and trying to think about moving the water, but nothing was happening. I kept concentrating on moving the water through the air and into the bath, but still nothing happened, and I got dizzy again.

Vinconni snickered, lifted his head up and cursed at me in Sirena.

“I hope you realize how obnoxious that sounds. As soon as I move that water in, I’ll wash your mouth out with soap.”

He stared at me for a moment, twisting in his bounds all the time, and replied with another stream of insults. He switched back to English to say, “I didn’t realize they trained you long enough on Nerot to learn such a ‘crude’ language.”

“It’s only crude when it’s used above sea level. You should leave water languages to be spoken in the water.”

“Then you should use the words to move the water. Or I guess, you’re not strong enough for that, are you?”

I tightened my braces again, stood up and walked back over to the table of instruments. Flipping the kit over to the knives, I looked for the perfect size and selected my favorite one. It was light, just a few inches long and sharp enough to go in and out with little notice. I walked over to where Vinconni sat, still trying to get out of the ropes and placed the blade right above his thigh.

“You’re going to regret this, Harry.”

“No, you are.”

It took one direct blow to drive the knife into his thigh, causing a scream that frightened off a few rats and pigeons from the rafters. The pigeons flew away but the rats, starting to smell blood, scurried down to around his chair.

Water language.

A way to control the water.

This was one of the cleaner parts of the river, luckily. It was painful to take my braces off and then even worse to have to crawl to the river bank, meeting broken bottles along the way. Once I eased into the water, it was easy to tell the difference between fresh water and the tap that I usually soaked in. A few brachycampsas rested on the opposite bank but once I slipped into the water, I could only focus on the task at hand.

And then I don’t know. I must have –

“Harry, were you talking to me?”

Harry looked up towards the door, recovering slightly from her visions, and realized her hand was bleeding.

“No, darling. I was just talking aloud to myself about a new case. It’s going to be an exciting one.”

“Well it must be a fun one if you’re thinking about it this time of the day. Would you please come and help me get the rest of the boxes from the car?”

Harry replied just as the door was shutting.

“Uh sure. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

She looked down at her half eaten pizza, trying to decide if she even wanted to eat anything else tonight or if it should just become tomorrow’s breakfast.

And as far as the memories went, they’d have to be saved for breakfast as well.

As she started out the door, another blip from the memory came back.

Vinconni was completely slumped against the back of the chair now, bleeding from multiple places, and in a hushed voice he spoke two things to me.

“Great men are not born great, they grow great.”

He said this, coughed and then his eyes closed a bit more. The Pinstripe Man hummed a few bars to a familiar song, sang out the words “when the saints go marching in”, and then fell off his chair.

He was finally dead.

But this was not over.