Chapter Twenty-Five: ‘A maelstrom doth brew...’

Between school, metalwork, getting tutored, meditation, and beating the tar out of criminals, the next few days were a juggling mess. School tended to take the worst of it, as Hector would show up in the mornings and then employ doctors’ notes to skip out on the rest of his classes. After the events in Sescoria, he had nearly forgotten about the box of excuses that his mother had given him, but now he was quite thankful for it.

He was also relieved that the first tutoring session was with Gregory. Hector wasn’t sure he could’ve handled it if Sheryl or Janine had shown up. Having someone else in his room was terrifying enough, but having that someone be a girl was an impossible notion to him--and realizing this after the first session, he arranged for the second to be at a burger shop instead.

Hector’s time with Lance was decidedly less nerve-wracking, however. Working with metal somehow made things easier, perhaps because Hector felt it was more immediately useful. He couldn’t simply take the armor that he worked on with Lance, of course, but there was something about the process of making it. Ideas arose almost involuntarily.

Even before getting started, he took inspiration from Lance’s gauntlets. Replicating them from scratch was still beyond him, but he realized that he didn’t have to do that. Instead, he ventured to a hardware store and purchased a pair of thin, well-fitting gloves. From there, he created an iron framework for them. Rather than making a simple coating, he began by materializing multiple rings around each finger. Then he filled in the gaps, excepting the joints, and suddenly, all of his fingers were covered with iron, yet he could still move them, just like real gauntlets. Nothing held the metal together, however, so the pieces slid right off when he put his hands to his sides.

And that was the trickiest part. He had to form tiny spikes in each piece, all with corresponding holes, so that they would interlock and stay in place.

Then, it was only a matter of covering the forearms and the backs of his hands with metal. The palms were left bare so that he could still make a proper fist, but at that point, he looked at his work and smiled. He had actual gauntlets. They might not have been as intricate as the ones Lance made, but they were probably more comfortable thanks to the gloves. And they were functional. Mostly. Coating the forearms in iron rendered him unable to remove his hands from the gloves.

He annihilated his work and started over. Garovel told him to use it as a form of practice, to concentrate and see how quickly he could correctly form all the individual pieces. And it was far more difficult when he pressed himself for speed. Interlocking all the pieces was of course the most agonizing part. Even after hours of practice, he was still taking upwards of fifteen minutes to form everything correctly.

The most valuable ideas, however, came from the actual work--seeing and experiencing the process of melting metal down and making casts for the armor. Apart from simply enjoying himself, Hector began to conceptualize the creation of his iron differently. He tried making it into a process as well. Rather than merely visualizing some iron shape in his mind, he instead visualized it being melted down from a powder and then reformed and cooled into the desired shape.

And to an extent, it actually worked. It took longer to form something, but when the iron appeared in his hand, it was a quite passable cube. He did it again with a sphere, then a pyramid, then a rectangular prism. Garovel made him try for an icosahedron, and after finding out what it looked like, Hector struggled for about half an hour before Garovel started laughing at him, at which point he gave up and flipped the reaper off.

Practical experience also seemed to help. Hector made a concentrated effort to take criminals down using mainly iron. If firearms were a factor, he made them into iron bricks first, and then went about binding the attackers’ limbs. If a victim or witness was involved, then Hector escorted them to the nearest police station along with the subdued perpetrator.

Unfortunately, it did not always go smoothly. More than once, he accidentally broke a criminal’s arm or leg, even when all they had done wrong was a bit of burglary. Garovel tried to only focus on murderers, but those were not nearly as easy to find, even with the reaper’s ability to see deathly auras.

‘Most murders are crimes of passion after all,’ said Garovel. ‘And in those cases, I won’t see an aura of death around the victim until maybe a minute before they die.’

‘That kinda sucks, Garovel...’

‘Hey, it’s the best I’ve got.’

They spent considerable time near the local police station. Garovel wanted to scour for information, and after a while, they learned of an apparent resurgence of activity in the Rofal family.

‘I doubt they’re talking about Geoffrey,’ said Garovel. ‘He doesn’t seem like the very organized type.’

‘Who do you think could’ve stepped in, then?’

‘No idea. Perhaps we should follow up. I heard someone mention there being a suspected drug den a few kilometers from here.’

‘Tell me where to go.’

Soon, Hector had another ten thousand troas in small bills. He considered dropping it off at a homeless shelter or some such place, but Garovel told him that stolen drug money would attract dangerous attention to whomever he gave it.

Part of him expected to see Geoffrey pop up out of nowhere again, but even after a few days of attacking various Rofal cash houses and business fronts, Hector never saw the aberration.

He did not enjoy wondering where Geoffrey was.

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Jeremiah Colt looked over the wall of baby food another time. His cap and sunglasses hid his face pretty well, and his dark beard was finally starting to come in.

He’d already bought diapers, baby powder, and a fresh bottle for Stephanie. Some guy with a mohawk had smacked her old one out of Colt’s hand when he asked about the nearest place to find milk. Perhaps the guy was just trying to impress his friends, but when Colt saw the bottle land in a pile of dog shit, he made the guy swallow his own teeth. The guy’s friends weren’t very forthcoming with information, either, but Colt eventually found the local grocery store on his own, anyway.

Baby food was perhaps the trickiest part. Stephanie seemed to like applesauce, but only certain brands, and Thomas’ preference still seemed completely inconsistent. Compounded with varied pricing and purported nutritional value, Colt always ended up spending a good twenty minutes trying to decide.

Colt picked up a carton of milk last. He had been trying to wean the twins off baby formula and onto normal milk, as they were already thirteen months old. All the parenting message boards suggested mixing formula and milk together in order to ease the transition.

He made his way to check-out. The clerk commented on him wearing sunglasses indoors, and Colt ignored him. As he exited the building, a brisk afternoon wind caught him across the face, and he pulled up his coat’s tall collar. He started walking to his motel.

The city of Delroy was not known for its impeccable weather, and the past few days had only furthered its reputation for gray, drizzling skies. Colt had come to this coastal town in hopes of finding someone who would sneak him out of the country via watercraft. So far, he had found no prospects.

Trying to get out of the country had been one problem after another. With the bounty on his head, keeping his identity a secret was almost impossible; whenever he brought out the two infants, all attempts at secrecy flew out the window. And at that point, the people whom he had approached would either refuse to help him or try to take the bounty for themselves.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the recent chaos in the capital had only made border patrols even stricter. Colt was starting to wonder if he would have to just stow away on a freighter or some such thing. Certainly, if he had been by himself, he would have done that already.

He reached the edge of the alley that led into the motel’s rear parking lot and stopped. He peeked out from behind the corner’s black-and-red brick, checking the area. Caution had kept him alive these past three weeks, and he wasn’t about to forget it.

Colt saw the idiots from earlier, gathered around his car and looking up at the motel.

“Hey,” said Colt, a bag in each hand. “Get the fuck away from my car.”

They all turned at once. Their expressions were utterly vacant and lifeless. “Aha,” said the one on the right. “You look different, Mr. Colt.”

This was, abruptly, much too familiar. Colt remembered these expressions from that night in the Rofal mansion, the faces of mindless puppets. And of the few people who knew his name, only two called him ‘Mr. Colt.’ The first was Geoffrey, and the second was Hector. And this was most definitely not Hector.

Colt scowled. “You look much more different than I do,” he said.

An unnatural smile crossed the puppet’s lips. “Just wait there for me,” said Geoffrey. “We will have a proper reunion in a few minutes.”

Colt slowly set his bags down on the wet pavement. There were three of them. Reaching his gun would require two swift motions--unzipping his coat and pulling the weapon out of its holster. This was why he didn’t like underarm carrying, but these days, he couldn’t very well keep it holstered at his hip for everyone to see.

He unzipped his coat, and they all lunged for him. He rolled to his right. The gun came free. The safety switched off.

One of them had Colt’s leg. “Go ahead and try to run!” he said for Geoffrey. “It’ll be more fun for me that way!”

Colt smashed his face in with the butt of his gun. The other two fell to a bullet each, one in the neck, one in the forehead.

He stood. There were buildings all around. No way to tell who--or what--had seen that just now. He threw the baby supplies in the back of his car and ran for the motel.

Colt bounded up the outdoor staircase and unlocked the door to his room. He barged in and grabbed his sleeping children. They both awoke and stared at him curiously as he wrapped them together in the same blanket and heaved them into his arms. Combined, the children were actually quite awkward and heavy, but Colt had ample strength for the task. He shifted most of their weight onto one arm in order to free up the other for his gun.

Everything else in the room was abandoned. He hurried back down to the parking lot.

The one puppet whom Colt had not killed was back up, his smashed-in face still just as vacant amidst all the blood.

At this distance, Colt wasn’t confident that he could get a headshot with only one hand, so he shot him in the chest instead. And when the guy dropped, Colt walked up and blew his brains out.

Stephanie and Thomas both started crying.

“Sorry about the noise, kiddos.” He fastened them into the backseats of the car before jumping behind the wheel and driving out of the parking lot.

He got on the highway. It didn’t really matter where he went, as long as it led out of the city, so he chose west. After a minute, however, he had to slow down.

Traffic was deadlocked ahead. He could see a massive pileup of vehicles and an overturned 18-wheeler.

Colt growled. He doubted the coincidence. He backed up, cars honking at him as he pushed them out of his way. Then he drove over the median in the road and started back the other direction. He exited the highway, searching for a small street out of town. Before long, he had to stop again.

A line of three police vehicles blocked the road. Six uniformed officers exited their cars in perfect unison.

Colt switched to reverse and slammed his foot on the gas pedal. Gunfire pierced the windshield, making him duck his head and squint as he turned backwards onto a side street.

A car was coming from the other direction, and Colt swerved up onto the sidewalk. He hit the brakes and pulled the wheel hard to the right. The vehicle spun back onto the street as Colt shifted to neutral and hit the gas again. He could hear the kids crying their lungs out, but he was glad for it. He didn’t have time to glance back at them, and silence would’ve been far more worrying.

He kept going straight for several blocks. He could see people on the street who seemed normal, at least insofar as not staring blankly at him as he passed, but he could also see flashing lights in his rear-view mirror. He turned right and soon saw more flashing lights bearing down on him, so he quickly turned left again.

They were building a net around him, he knew. Or maybe they already had one. There was no telling how many people Geoffrey had after him, but the bastard had obviously come prepared.

Colt decided it was time to change tactics. A clothing outlet came up on his right, and he turned into the parking lot. He stopped in front of the entrance, exited the car, and looked over the small crowd of people. He couldn’t tell if they were possessed or just confused, so he raised his gun and shot the store’s giant neon sign. When they shrieked and started fleeing, he figured they were normal enough.

His pursuers entered the parking lot as Colt popped the trunk of his car. A long, black case lay inside, and he lifted it open to pull out his emergency fallback--an assault rifle mounted with an under-barrel grenade launcher, already prepped for immediate use.

The first police car stopped in front of him, and he saw Geoffrey’s minions stupidly pointing their weapons at him instead of exiting first. A grenade ripped through the cabin before they could fire.

The other officers pulled up next to the smoldering vehicle, and Colt mowed them down without hesitation, giving them no chance to retaliate. In a matter of seconds, the last two cars were both riddled with bullet holes.

He paused with a smoking gun barrel, waiting to see if the puppets were really dead. After a moment, he was satisfied.

Colt slung his rifle over his shoulder and grabbed his kids. He knew this victory wouldn’t last. As long as Geoffrey was alive, the minions would keep coming; or worse, Geoffrey would show up himself. In fact, the latter seemed far more likely. No doubt, this was a game to Geoffrey--it always was. Geoffrey would want to kill him personally, but not without tormenting him first.

To Colt’s mind, all options were bad. Fleeing, fighting, hiding--they all ended with him and the children dead. All except one, perhaps.

He entered the clothing store, ignoring the screaming people. He shed his cap and glasses and started searching for a new coat. And then he pulled out his cellphone.