NOVEL WEB Chapter 14: Crawling
We talked some more before I left and later at dinner as well. I didn't know if I could stay mad at Simon or even if I should be angry with him at all. His life before I was born was none of my business. Nearly three generations had come and gone since the war. What right did I have to be angry at him for not telling me about something that happened several lifetimes ago?
Could I blame him for not sharing that he had associated with a monster back when he was a prisoner in the camps? No, I could not. But still, I was angry. There was no logic to it. No real reason. Just a smoldering resentment that flared up in me from no apparent source.
I thought about the ridiculousness of being mad at my father as I sat by the pool and sipped a beer. I lived part time in the villa and the rest of my nights were spent here, three hundred meters above the city in a luxury high rise apartment that took up the entire top floor of the building I was in. I had a pool, a helicopter pad, and a view of the city that most people would kill for.
It was a pretty good life I thought as I sat there in my cream colored silk pajamas. No bills, no anxiety about the future. So why did I feel so lousy all the time? And why was I angry with someone who had given me everything I could ever want? Where was the justice in that?
I went inside and flopped down on the couch. It was made of gray leather with hand embroidered patterns of white rabbits on the cushions. GG designed it for me. The rabbits were a reference to Hase, my childhood nickname. But these were not hares.
Most people didn't know the difference. Hares were solitary or lived in pairs. Rabbits were communal and lived in warrens underground. Rabbits were born hairless and blind but hares came into the world with their eyes open.
I tossed the empty beer bottle into the recycling and did my nightly rounds. It was a habit I picked up from Simon. Though at the time I hadn't realized he was checking for intruders.
I walked the perimeter of the patio looking for anything out of place. A lone plastic food wrapper was all I found and it was from a brand of nutrition bars that I liked. So I doubted it was a sign of anything nefarious.
I went inside and locked the glass doors behind me. Then I did a lap of the living room, tidying up as I went. On my clear glass coffee table was a stack of fashion magazines. I frowned as I realized they were out of order. I usually organized them by date but last month's issue was on top of the stack.
Strange, I thought. Had someone been in my apartment when I was away? The answer came to me as my scarab woke from dormancy. Yes, someone had been looking through my things. I could tell from the way that the subtle order of my living space has been altered.
I walked over to my office and set a hand on my computer. It was warm to the touch even though I hadn't used it for days. Could they still be here? I wondered. And if so, where were they?
The answer came to me as the scarab did a search. Yes, they were still here, I realized. They were crawling along the ceiling above me.
***
I felt the hairs at the back of my neck rise up as I realized that I wasn't alone. I sent a silent page to building security and the King Aerospace rapid response team. They told me to stay where I was and not engage the intruder. Help was on the way.
What did the intruder want? Why were they here? I considered my options. I didn't have any weapons besides the knives in the kitchen. I felt my heart beating a mile a minute in my chest as I realized how helpless I was. How could you fight something you couldn't see?
My scarab told me that the intruder was following behind me along the ceiling. They were staying in my blindspot and using active camouflage to remain hidden. I stepped out of my office and closed the door behind me, trapping the slower moving intruder inside.
A ding from the elevator at the end of the hallway announced the arrival of security. Slowly I backed away from the closed door, keeping an eye on the handle as I retreated.
"Are you alright?" Asked a male hund whose voice I recognized as he came up behind me. He was carrying a smart pistol with an integrated light held at a low ready position. Krieger wore the sandy brown fur and curled tail of a hund that had no particularly distinct heritage, what others might have unkindly referred to as a mutt. His black suit and white tie were spotless and crisp.
"Krieger, I think they're in my office." I whispered, pointing at the door.
"We've got this." Assured his partner, another mixed race hund in a black suit and white tie wielding a smart pistol. They took up positions against either side of the door and silently nodded to each other before they burst into the room.
There was no gunfire just a few moments of silence before the two security guards emerged unharmed. "There's nobody in there." Krieger said. "The office is clear."
But of course he wouldn't see the intruder. My experience with active camouflage was limited, but not non-existent. One year Aunt GG released a limited run of active camouflage purses and handbags as a joke. It was her way of making fun of the military inspired fashion that was trending at the time.
The purses were hard to spot when stationary but they didn't do well with rapid movement or bright camera flashes. Perhaps I could use that. I racked my brain, trying to come up with a plan.
"We'll check the rest of the apartment and let you know what we find." Krieger told me, too professional to even suggest that I had been mistaken or was making things up.
I had to act fast before the intruder could slip away. Pointing at random places would make me look crazy. I looked up at the ceiling, trying to spot the invisible. One of my light fixtures was slightly out of whack. That gave me an idea.
I interfaced with my lighting system and made a request. I asked for it to strobe all the lights in my apartment on and off as fast as possible and to randomly change color each time.
"What the fuck?" Krieger said, looking around with confusion as the world suddenly became a Technicolor light show.
"There!" I shouted, pointing at the figure standing behind him.
The intruder appeared as a short silhouette, their stealth suit clashing with the colors of the world around them as it failed to keep up with the rapidly changing background lighting. Red on blue. Green on orange. It looked surreal, like a rapidly flickering person shaped hole in space.
Krieger's partner lunged at the intruder then recoiled in pain as they slashed at his arm with long silver claws that cut him to the bone. Blood sprayed across the tile floor.
The intruder bolted towards the living room, vaulting over the couch and grabbing a heavy decorative stone ball from the display on the coffee table. They threw it at the locked glass patio door as hard as they could.
The gray stone ball hit the glass and bounced off, only leaving a small white scratch. The intruder was unable to stop in time. Their momentum carried them across the slick tile floor and they slammed chest first into the safety glass.
Krieger emptied the magazine of his smart pistol into the intruder's back before they could turn around and do something desperate. The rapid gunfire was deafening in the enclosed space of my apartment.
I watched numbly as the intruder fell to their knees, hands at their sides, their forehead leaning against the patio door like a gross parody of prayer. Their suit continued to change colors even though the person inside was dead.
A groan of pain brought me back to my senses and I grabbed a towel for Krieger's partner from the rack by the door. I desperately pressed it against the wound to stop the bleeding but the towel soaked through in seconds. He was already passing out from blood loss. Krieger bolted to the elevator to get a medical kit from down below, shouting that he would be back and to hold pressure on the wound.
I pinged the King Aerospace rapid response team and felt a countdown start in my head. Five minutes to arrival. Too long. He would bleed out by then.