Triplicate #2
By John Foradori

The Mob Rules

1

It didn’t take me long going to downtown Detroit. Actually, traffic was rather light, until I reached Jefferson Avenue, which ran along the Detroit River. I followed it past the Renaissance Center, past Hart Plaza and finally reaching my destination, the Joe Louis Arena parking garage.

I parked the rental and made my way through the hordes of Red Wings fans towards the main ticket office, which was already crowded. I was a good hour and a half early for the game, but I really didn’t think that it would matter a whole lot. Chances are, Apollo wasn’t there yet, and that was okay. I wouldn’t mind the quiet time alone, before the wonderful Sambonis siblings had their way with me.

It would be nice to see Apollo again, it had been a few years. Like I said earlier, he was the only one that I remained in contact with, mainly because of his family’s influence and the potential need for that kind of influence. The last time was about a month before I was infected with the Triplicate.

I waited in line like a regular person, waiting for my opportunity to get the special treatment. The place was already whipping up into a frenzy. The Red Wings had virtually a new team this year, promoting a lot of their younger prospects as well as importing a few others, most notably Vladimir Stalkov, a Russian forward known for his blistering slapshot and his mean streak. He was a dominating player, at both ends of the ice, as well as a natural leader. He would take the team back to it’s glory days, and it would be sooner than later.

Most of the players that were on the team when I watched them, back when I was in high school, were long gone. A few remained, but they weren’t factors any longer. Too bad, they were a great team back then, won a few Stanley Cups.

Their rival today were the Colorado Avalanche, the Red Wings most bitter enemy. Their battles have been epic, and often, usually with a little blood spilled each time.

Last year, the Wings bounced them from the first round of the playoffs in a four game sweep. The last game had so many fights that the referees called it with five minutes left, mainly because over ten players had been ejected, mostly from the Avalanche bench. The Wings were winning by two goals, and to prevent further fights or potential injuries, the game was called.

This was the first match up of the season for them. It should be interesting.

The line was moving painfully slow, but I really didn’t matter. Watching the rabid fans with their jersey’s t-shirts, painted faces, pom-pons and foam fingers was entertaining enough. I hardly ever did this, allow myself to have a few moments of relative peace and entertainment. My life had gotten so chaotic, so dangerous that I didn’t have the luxury. I couldn’t help it, though, I needed to do it.

The smell of cheap beer and hot dogs filled the air. Outdoor speakers blared what was passing for music nowadays, and souvenir salesmen were hocking their goods. It was quite an atmosphere.

Finally, I was close to the front of the line. Just three more people were in front of me, and that wouldn’t’ take too long. I would be attended to any minute, and that suited me just fine.

But then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was a balled up T-shirt, and it was heading right for me. Casually, I reached up and caught it before it hit me, and I turned to see who it was.

It was hard not to smile, it had been so long since I had seen her. Her name, and judging by the lack of rings on the appropriate finger, was still Aphrodite Sambonis, younger sister to Apollo and Aries. I knew her well, primarily because she was Apollo’s sister, but also because we had a few classes together my senior year. We were friends. She always had a crush on me, or so Apollo said. I teased her relentlessly about it, too. She knew about me and Jenna, though, and even if she were infatuated with me, she never let it get the best of her. We were friends, although I hadn’t seen her in ages.

"Hey you," she yelled at me from across the patio. The light breeze was blowing her long, dark-haired about her face. There was something about me an dark haired women, I guess. I always seemed to get caught up with them. She was about five foot six, in great shape, wearing a pair of tightly fitting jeans with a red sweater on. She looked gorgeous, but then again, she always was.

"Hey yourself," I called back. I wasn’t sure if she was in the box or not, so I didn’t jump out of line. But she waved me over.

"Apollo told me that you were coming today, so I decided to come down and wait for you. I’ll take you up there."

Good enough for me. I got out of line and walked over to her. She ran up to me and gave me a great big hug, and surprisingly, a kiss on the mouth. I didn’t mind too much. "It’s been too long, big guy."

"Well, life’s been treating me rough lately."

She noticed the scars near my right eye, and ran her finger across them. "So I see." She elbowed me in the stomach after that, though. It was something that she always did, probably from growing up with two older brothers. "I didn’t think you could get any sexier than you were, but I was wrong."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Aphrodite."

"Everywhere?"

I smiled and winked. She grabbed my hand and lead me to thedoors. The usher opened it for her. "Good afternoon, Ms. Sambonis."

"Hey, Jake." Jake looked at me strangely. "He’s with me, stud." That seemed to alleviate his concerns. She turned her attention back to me. "So what brings you back to this shithole city?"

"Business, primarily."

"Business, eh? You are the last one that I would have thought to get caught up in this shit."

"You are, aren’t you?"

"It’s the family business. I do what I have to do." She got a little closer to me, taking a firmer grip on my hand, then my arm. "If you want some advice, I’d recommend not getting involved at all."

"Has things really changed that much?"

"No, not really, but being in it for me was never a choice, it was a duty I had to perform."

"Same with me, A." I used to call her that, because I felt stupid calling her Aphrodite. She liked it, I was the only one who called her that. "I’m here because I have no choice, it’s just something that I have to do."

"You know that once you give an inch to people like us, we take it all."

"Thankfully, I have nothing to give."

"Everyone thinks that, but in the end, it always ends the same way."

"I don’t think that you have to worry about me, A. Things in my life have been so, how can I say it, complicated that adding a bit of organized crime to it would probably help."

She laughed. "No one calls it that anymore, Gabriel. I don’t even know what they call it anymore."

"A crime family by any other name is still a crime family."

"Yeah, but it sounds so, um, illegal that way."

I laughed. She led me through the concourse, and finally to door. She opened it and walked in. I saw Apollo instantly, and Aries, too. Aries was always the biggest of the two brothers, a year older, and a whole hell of a lot meaner. His name fit him, from what Apollo told me, if anything needed to get done, things that were a bit more, uh, personal, he was the one to orchestrate it. Apollo controlled the business side of it, and A was more of an advisor to the both of them, almost an intelligence agent. She could get information out of anyone.

Both of the brothers looked alike, except that Aries had at least three inches and fifty pounds of pure muscle on his younger brother. They had black, short, curly hair, dark eyes, and very commanding looks about them.

Before we walked in, she turned to me and gave me a big hug. "I know what they have planned, so watch out. You were always a favorite of mine. Don’t become their tool." If she only knew the truth.

The truth was that there was absolutely no way that I could become a tool to this or any other organization. If I were so inclined, I could take down the entire family in a matter of days, and without any evidence that I had ever been in town. I needed things from them, and since Apollo was my friend, I knew he would help me. I also knew that there would be a price for that help, but it didn’t stop me from this course of action. I figured that the price would be less for me than for anyone else.

"I’ve got plans of my own, A." I hugged her back. She was always nice to me, and I appreciated it. It’s nice to know that you have friends.

I walked into the box, to confront my friend Apollo, his brother Aries (whom I have never gotten along with) and Aphrodite. I expected more of a crowd for the hockey game, especially this hockey game. This was business, I guess, which comes before hockey.

Funny thing was, though, that I remembered when Apollo was passed out drunk under the bleachers at Mott. If he was trying to gain some kind of psychological advantage with me now, it wouldn’t work. I don’t know if he could. He could try, though. He could try and fail.

He saw me coming and stood up. He was wearing a suit, a black pin-stripped suit. He was smiling big, his arms raised high. "Gabriel, my friend, how good it is to see you." He approached me and gave me a hug. "Gabriel, you look like shit."

I smiled and shrugged it off. "You know, I had a busy night last night."

"Jenna?"

I nodded. I looked at Aphrodite, and she didn’t look too happy about that. If I didn’t know any better (and I did), I would think that she was interested in me. Trouble was, I knew that she was interested in me, and it was purely professional. "We were up to three in the morning catching up. I forgot how much it sucked to talk for so long."

"When you live the solo life like you do, friend, getting social again can be a painful process."

"It’s not like I’ve been in a cave."

"True, but, you know. It is Jenna, and that alone can mess you up." He was right there.

"So come in and sit down. The game’s going to start soon, so we might as well get comfortable." And we did. He had a double sink filled with ice and beer. After the puck was dropped to start the first period, a waitress came around with a cart filled with food for us. It was a good lunch, a hearty lunch. Mainly, Apollo and I talked. Aries watched me like a hawk, with an evil eye on me at all times. Aphrodite sat behind me for the most part, silent, letting her brother do the talking.
Most of that talk was small talk about how we were, how the Wings were going to do this year, the weather, politics. Nothing about the business we had to discuss.

Heart-rates are increasing.

Michelle is the greatest. She always gave me a heads up when I need it. Time to get down to business.

"So, Gabriel, you said that you needed a few favors, right?" Apollo was being cautious, playing a game that I guess worked with the other hoods he dealt with.

"I’ve told you what I need," I said very evenly, very seriously. "Can you deliver?"

He smiled. "Anderson Research is a multi-billion dollar research facility, Gabriel. They took control of the GM Tech Center, all of it, and shut it down. It’s harder to get in there than getting into the Pentagon. I know, I’ve tried!" He laughed.

I didn’t. "And one of your companies has the contract to provide security personnel for the entire facility, does it not?"

"I know where you are going with this. You want me to get you in there, posing as a security guard, right?"

"That’s one possibility. The other is that you provide me with intelligence concerning the procedures of the security personnel, and I’ll take care of the rest."

"You see, if we do that, and you do manage to get in there, which is highly dubious, it would look even worse for us. Shredding a security program for a client like them is close to ordering my own death, and that of my business."

"Either way, I need access, and I need it quick. That’s the only reason that I’ve come here asking you."

"Why, Gabriel? Why do you need to break into the Anderson Research Facility?"

"Personal reasons. They have something I need, and I plan to take it from them."

"I’m sure that if you asked them, they would be accommodating."

"I am even more sure that they would not be. This is my only option."

"Well, in that case, it seems that I would have the advantage in this negotiation, yes?"

"Like I said, Apollo, your aid in this little project of mine can only help me. Not giving it to me will only increase the amount of damage that will result."

"What kind of damage is that?"

"First, I’m sure that some security guards will not make it through my assault. Plus, like you said, there will be repercussions along the lines of the security company, as well as damage to your reputation."

"That is the part that concerns me."

"If you were to get me onto the security force, for a night-shift or two, I can guarantee that the worst case scenario is a rogue employee, someone that has a hidden history of mental trauma that no one was able to catch, not your company, not Anderson, not anyone. You’ll be relatively in the clear, with only a little mud in your eye. Mud washes out easily."

"Is that it?"

"No, that isn’t it. I can provide a body, the medical files necessary to clear you and your company and a whole lot of motive."

"And this will leave me and my business in the clear?"

Aries, I could tell, didn’t like this a whole lot. I didn’t blame him, his livelihood was being discussed out in the open, and it wasn’t being discussed in a good light, not at all. In fact, anyway this went down, The Sambonis’s business was going to come out for it a little worse off than before. He seemed to be getting pissed off.

And then he spoke. "This is not a good situation for us, Gabriel. Whatever your plan is, it can only end bloody for us. And if it does end bloody for us, that blood falls on you."

"Aries," Apollo said. "Gabriel is a friend. I’m sure he’s not doing this because of a whim. He has a reason, and probably a good reason." He turned to look at me, as if giving me a clue to explain myself. Maybe I should.

"Aries, if you think that you, or any of the other muscle in your little group here can take me, you are more than likely to try." Aries was fuming now, looking like he was going to jump out of his chair. "I wouldn’t, though," I finished. I turned back to Apollo. "I came to you because you are my friend, and I don’t like hurting my friends. This is something I have to do, and the reason is a righteous one. You can help me, and benefit from it, or I can go it alone, without your help, and whatever happens, will happen. I’m offering to you a little bit of control on a situation that is going to become very chaotic." Everyone in the room was silent. Apollo looked at me with eyes that seemed to be trying to figure out exactly where I was coming from. Aries’ eyes were easier to read, he just wanted to kill me. I didn’t have a chance to take a look at A, but I could imagine that she was a bit shocked.

"I appreciate that you came to us before doing anything, but let me try and talk you out of it."

"You can’t. it’s the only way."

"You know what they do there, don’t you?"

"Of course I do. What do you mean?"

"They are making things, pharmaceuticals, strange chemicals, conducting researching areas of genetics and biochemistry. Why would you want to get fixed up in something like that?"

"Like you said, I’m not doing this on a spur of the moment type of decision. Why I have to get in there is my business. I just didn’t want to see a friend get hurt in the process."

"I see that you are not leaving me much of a choice. I need to know, or else I can’t do anything."

"I am not going to tell you. You don’t want to get involved in something like this."

"I am involved just by you being here."

"No, you aren’t. You are a high school friend, all of you. Plus, no one knows that I am here, I’ve made sure of that."

"We know that you are here."

I waited for a bit. This was typical, whenever I tried to enlist any help from anyone. It was always something, like "No, you can’t do that, it’s illegal," or "killing is wrong," or things like that. I always had to concede something to them, to make it happen the way I needed it to.

"How about this, Apollo. I’ll do you a favor, and you do me a favor. No questions asked, just a couple of friends doing each other some favors."

He looked past me, to A, and then back to Aries. "I need to talk to my brother and sister, if you don’t mind."

"Not at all. You want me to wait out in the hall?"

"If you would, Gabe."

I got up, left a listener in my chair, and walked out to the concourse. I ignored the traffic around me and listened it. Here’s what they said:

APOLLO: "I’m not sure how to handle this. Either way it’s bad."

ARIES: "Anderson Research won’t tolerate a security breach, and if they find out that we were involved at all, we’ll all end up dead. I don’t want to die for that piece of shit, either."

APOLLO: "He’s my friend, Aries. I think he’s in trouble. He looks sick."

ARIES: "I don’t give a shit. I can kill him right here, right now, and we won’t have to worry about a damned security breach."

A: "You can’t kill him."

ARIES: "You still have a thing for him, don’t you?"

A: "No, I don’t. At one time I did, but now, it’s been too long. But you can’t kill him."

ARIES: "Why not?"

APOLLO: "Because he is my friend, he’s a friend of the family. You don’t know how he’s helped us in the past."

ARIES: "Like I said, little brother, I don’t care. I’m looking out for the family right now."

APOLLO: "So am I."

A: "You have to let him try this, you have to give him enough information so he can attempt his break-in."

APOLLO: "Why?"

A: "I’m not sure. I have sources that say that something big is about to happen, plans that have been in motion for a long time are starting to reach their end."

ARIES: "You got to stop listening to that bullshit cult stuff, Aphrodite. It’ll rot your brain."

A: "Then I’ll be as smart as you, right Aries?"

APOLLO: "Enough of this. It’s business decision, and I have made it. We’ll give him a little taste, but that’s all. He’ll be on his own, plus I have two jobs that I was going to come to you with, Aries, but they may suit him fine."

ARIES: "What kind of jobs?"

APOLLO: "Dangerous jobs. Jobs that if he messes up, we wont have to worry about anything else. He can do it, he’s done it in the past. Now, though, I don’t know."

A: "You’re setting him up, aren’t you?"

APOLLO: "No, not really. It’s a fair bargain, and he’s done similar work for me in the past. If he gets caught, or killed, then so be it. He knows the risks involved here. I’m just playing my hand, like he’s playing his."

ARIES: "I still don’t like it."

APOLLO: "Since when have you liked anything?"

A: "Just don’t kill him."

APOLLO: "Go get him."

Aphrodite opened the door with a twinkle in her eye, and said "come on back in." I returned to my seat.

"Gabriel, we can give you some information in exchange for a couple of things."

"Name them."

"These are very important tasks that need immediate completion. The first one is a classic rough up job. A man has been embezzling funds from one of our satellite companies. It’s a large sum. I need you to persuade him to return, oh, ninety percent of the cash he has stolen, quit his job and move out of the city rather quickly. Can you do that for me?"

I nodded. I had done this kind of work for him in the past. It was easy. The people that I had come across were usually easily frightened. "What about the second?"

"This one is a bit trickier. At this same company, I need you break into the main office and retrieve some files, some incriminating files for me. It seems that this same gentleman who has been stealing has also been gathering none too flattering evidence about supposed wrong doing on my family’s part. Get these files, bring them to Mount Olympus tonight at midnight, and we’ll give you an information packet that we have put together for you.

"If you don’t show up at midnight, there will be no packet for you, no matter if you bring the files to us or not. It has to be by midnight. Understand?"

I looked at him and smiled. "We are friends, aren’t we?"

He looked at me sternly. "This is business, Gabriel." It took everything I had not to laugh.

2

My meeting with Apollo, Aries and Aphrodite went better than I had originally anticipated. I didn't expect them to give me anything, and the price that I had to pay, the two relatively small time jobs, things that I had experience in, stealing and roughing people up. When you are in the position that I have been in for the last ten years or so, certain necessities come into play, and the moral compass, if I ever had one, wasn't always pointing true north anymore.

I was going to leave the Joe in the middle of the second period, I didn't want to hang around there anymore. Aphrodite walked me to the gate, her arm always intertwined with mine, playing the game that she had to play, even though I think that she knew that I knew what game it was. I had played it, too.

At the gate, though, she stopped me, turned me towards her and looked at me right in the eyes. Her look was haunting, something out of a horror movie or something like that. She grabbed both of my hands, and I could have sworn that some kind of energy force was at work there. Her touch was like an electric shock, only it didn't hurt. The tingling was strange, euphoric. I wasn't in a hurry to let go.

She smiled at me, but there was something behind that smile, siphoning the glow and warmth from it. She seemed genuinely worried, that something was pressing down on her soul. I knew that it had to do with me.

"I didn't dare tell my brothers this," she started, "but I know that you have to know."

"What is it?" I asked blandly. I had to play the part of the scorned friend, even though the meeting went just as I planned.

"Do you know about my gifts?"

I had no idea what she was talking about, and the head shake answered her question.

"I am in contact with people, beings," she looked at me as if she was asking for my approval, or at least that I wasn't thinking that she was a freak of some sort. "These beings help me, they guide me."

I just stared at her, my arms crossed. I believed her, she had no reason to lie to me. I just didn't give anything away with my expressions.

She waited, I guess for me to say something, but I didn't, and eventually she continued. "It's how I've been able to help out my brothers, with information that they give me. And they've given my information about you, Gabriel." Aphrodite looked sad, very sad. I didn't know what to do, when it came to my emotions, I was pretty much defenseless. I cared too much for those close to me, for Jenna, for A, for Apollo. They were my friends, and I would do anything for them. Seeing A so sad really got to me, melted the defenses that I put in place in the meeting and after it. I also had a feeling that this could be important.

I put my arm around her, and I think she started to cry. This was getting stranger by the second. "Do you have to go back, or can we go somewhere a little less public to talk about this."

She looked back at the entrance to the luxury suite where her two brothers were. "I can leave, I'll give them a call and tell them something came up."

"Ok, lets go," I said, leading her out of the arena and down the exterior concrete stairs.

"We can go back to my place, it's just a few blocks down the river." I nodded, and we were off.

I bet we looked like lovers walking along the scenic Detroit River. I could see Windsor across the way, the Windsor Casino flashing it's bright neon lights. They caught my eye, even though it was the middle of the afternoon.

A freighter, an enormous freighter was slowly making it's was along the river, heading south, probably to the River Rouge Steel Mill. The hull was two-toned, black paint on the lower half, white on the top. Rust was cutting through the paint, making the ship look older than it probably was. It had seen a lot on the Great Lakes, that much was for sure.

It was riding low, filled with iron ore most likely. Along side the immense ship were a variety of pleasure craft. It was a glorious day, sunny and not too chilly, and the avid boaters took to the river once more to try and recapture a few more moments of summer.

We walked east on Jefferson Avenue, to the Riverfront Condominiums, which was where A lived. She typed in her access code, which I now had at my disposal, and the beautiful rustic iron gate swung open. We walked in. She led me to a building, building number eleven. She walked up to the front door and opened it. Inside, I could see that she owned all of the condos in this building, and tore down some walls. The inside was remarkable, and very well designed. She had given it a definite Greek flavor, there were busts of the various gods throughout the first level, and I even saw a room that was a shrine of sorts to her namesake, the goddess Aphrodite. She left me there to admire the place while she made a call to her brothers, telling them that something had come up and she had to leave. They were not suspicious, at least I didn't think they were. She finally returned.

"I love what you've done with the place."

"Our restaurant has been good to us," she said evenly. It was almost a joke, and I actually thought it was pretty funny. I didn't laugh, though.

"Okay, A, what do you mean about these beings?"

She seemed nervous, as if she was about to reveal a secret that was too terrible to speak. "I've heard them ever since I was a little girl. First they were voices, and then they got stronger. Really strong. Then they started coming to me in my dreams. They are beings of light, of energy, of power."

I had heard of this before. It sounded to me like she was talking about the astral plane, of where some people think that spirits travel to once a person dies. I had never seen this astral plane, had an out of body experience, had strange dreams, or anything like that, so I couldn't really be a judge of that. Considering all the weird occurrences that I had witnessed, this didn't seem all that unlikely. I nodded to her, and she continued.

"They would help me, give me information, information about the business, how it can improve, what not to get into, things like that, typical business dealings and the like. I started advising to my brothers, and it made the business a lot of money. Believe it or not, it also made us more legit. We weren't so dependant on the criminal aspect of it anymore. Smart investments, cutting the right associations at the right time, things like that. We started to slowly get out of the game, work on investing our capital in different markets, opening a chain of stores, all sorts of things. We kept some things, though, just to keep us in the game."

Big deal, I thought to myself. All of this I knew already. I knew the history of that Sambonis family, their business dealings, their ties and their ability to aid me when I needed it. I was sure that she was building up to something, and it didn't have anything to do with her family, her business, or anything else like that.

"That's changed, though, Gabriel. Something is happening, something terrible." That got my attention.

"What do you mean?"

"The beings, the spirits, whatever they are, they've come to me more recently, telling stories of impending doom, of a disaster, of a plague, and the coming of a destroyer who will threaten the entire planet."

I took it all in stride, never letting my face crack, my emotions show, or anything like that. The truth was, I had been hearing the same things from a few not-so-dead sources. Independent confirmation is key, so I've been told. Well, here it was.

"And the talked about you, mentioned you by name. They told me to give you whatever aid you asked for."

"Why is that?"
"What do you want with Anderson Research, Gabriel? It doesn't make a lot of sense you showing up and asking us for information about the security personnel. It does make sense, though, if you are planning to compromise that security, break into that place and steal something, or sabotage or something like that."

"I can't tell you that, A. I need to leave you as much out of it as I can. It's better that way."

"They told me that you would be like this. They told me not to pry, to just go along with you and what you request."

This was pretty strange. Whoever was talking to A, they were in the know, or at least they were well informed. "Aphrodite," I started, holding onto her hands, "I am touched by your concern over this. I don't know who or what is telling you this, but I can assure you, that what I am doing is very important, and for very selfish reasons. You don't want to know what I-"

"I do want to know. They told me that there will be a time of great tribulation, and that things have the potential of getting very, very bad. I don't like being out of the loop, and that's exactly what they've done to me, they've kept me out of the loop. They've given me a little bit here and there, and then, six months ago, they start talking to me about you, how you would come back, and would come to us for help."

I cut her off. "What do you mean, six months ago?" Six months prior, I was still searching for a cure to the Triplicate disease I was infected with. I was out of the country, I wasn't even thinking about Detroit, of Aphrodite, of Jenna, or anything. I was concerned with tracing Triplicate to it's source, and I didn't think that it would be in Detroit. If she knew that I was coming before I was coming…

"They told me that in October, that you would be back, and would ask us for favors. I kept it to myself, just thinking it was something that I made up in my head, but when you called a few weeks ago, I knew it was true, and I knew why you would be back here. I knew it. Everything that they've told me has started to come to pass, and I'm beginning to get a bit scared now."

"What other things did they tell you?"

"They said that the unnamed will come, the destroyer, and he will threaten everything. But they also said that the unnamed was a key in the upcoming strife, as were you. Gabriel, they told me about a war, about death, about disease. It's like they are talking about the end of the world."

I wasn't shocked; mildly surprised at the most. Aphrodite was upset about this, and just telling me this much raised my awareness of this situation tenfold. What she was telling me, and what I already knew was too coincidental to be a coincidence. I didn't know how to make it better, though, to alleviate her fears about this. I didn't think that I could, because anything I told her, if I decided to tell her the truth, would worry her more than these beings of hers.

"They said that when the destroyer came, he would trigger the battle, which will ignite the war, which, if lost, would destroy us all."

I smiled at her. "A, I wouldn't worry about it too much." Actually, if I was her, I don't think that I could have worried enough. "I've seen, in my lifetime, that everything seems to work out for the best. You have to have faith that things will work out."

"But what if they don't?"

If the don't, I thought to myself, then worrying about it won't help at all, either. "If they don't, well, I don't know. Let's just hope that it doesn't come to that."

"Gabriel, be careful tonight," she warned me, sensing that it was time for me to leave. "I don't trust my brothers about this situation."

"Don't worry, neither do I." I stood up, and patted her on the head. "I have a sneaky suspicion that I'll make it through the night in one piece."

She stood up, and embraced me. She was trembling slightly, which still pained me. When she pulled away, she gave me a quick kiss. "You know, Gabriel, I've always had a thing for you."

I smiled and caressed her cheek and kissed her forehead. "I'm no good for you, Goddess." She smiled at me. Sometimes I used to call her that, Goddess. She was named for one anyway. I walked away from her, and left.

3

The day flew by, and I only had one attack. It was a lot less severe than the ones I had the night before, and I was thankful for that. They were growing in strength, and this reprieve was very, very welcome. I had jobs to do, and I wanted them to be as uneventful as they could.

The first task was a simple scare job. The victim's name was Brian Kraemer, someone who worked at the investment firm that the Sambonis's had started. He was skimming money off the top for months, and everyone in the know knew about it. They wanted to see how far he would go, how much he would take, and what he would do with it. So far, the man was being very careful.

Tonight would change all of that, though.

Apollo gave me strange orders concerning Mr. Kraemer. He told me to rough him up a little, put a little fear of death into him, but also deliver an unusual set of demands concerning the repayment of the sum he had stolen as well as his employment with the company.

"This man, Brian Kraemer, has personally made over seventeen million dollars for us in the last four years. He has been our most productive investor, and for that, I am grateful," Apollo explained. "I don’t want him killed, I want him to know that I spared his life, and that through the goodness of my heart, I will allow him to keep half of the three million dollars he took from me. Tell him that he is to repay me one point five million dollars immediately, and then tender his resignation from our firm. He is to move to Cleveland, Ohio, where he will work at the Anderson Investment Company. I have set him up with a job there so he can leave Detroit. He is not allowed to re-enter the city for a period of five years, after which he is free to do whatever he likes. Any sighting of him in Detroit will result in extreme measures being taken."

I was surprised to see Apollo be so nice to someone who had taken so much from him. Still, he had made a fourteen million dollar profit off of this man's work, which is still a lot of money. To give him a million and a half dollars and tell him to skip town probably was a really good deal for Mr. Kraemer, as well as Apollo. Something didn't feel right, and it had everything to do with Anderson Investments.

I was beginning to see a pattern, a connection between Anderson's array of businesses and my friend. I knew that there was the security job, but in all of my research, I didn't see anything else. Maybe this job was just a benefit of working so close together on that security job. It upset me a bit, though.

Mr. Kraemer lived in a nice house in Grosse Point, one of the more affluent neighborhoods in Michigan. The house was better than nice, in fact. It was huge, a mansion. The yard was enormous as well, with bushes and trees all around, shading the house, protecting anyone advancing on the house that didn't want to be seen. Like me.

I sat in a tree about ten feet from the master bedroom window. I had checked up on him, he was in town, alone, his wife had taken his three children to see their grandparents up in Traverse City. He was all alone in the house, but not really.

He was with another woman, and what they were doing together all evening clinched it that they were more than just friends. Now, before you think I'm some kind of voyeurist or something like that, I wasn't spying on them doing their business or anything like that. I was aware of their activities, yes. I was waiting for them to make it to the master bedroom, because that is where I was going to strike.

This man didn't deserve any of the money that he stole, no matter what Apollo said. He was a pig, betraying an oath that he made to the mother of his children. I was looking forward to my job more and more as I heard every moan and scream.

I sat in that tree for almost an hour. The night was extremely dark again. Strangely, I couldn't find the moon anywhere. That was a good thing, though, because it would only threaten my hiding place. There were hundreds of thousands of stars in the sky tonight, like the night before, when I went to meet Jenna.

I shook that memory out of my head. I had business, and I had to stay focused. I couldn't let anything else in, not even her.

The night was chilly, just like the night before. The breeze was a little stronger, but I wrote that off to being a bit closer to Lake St. Claire. I was probably right.

Finally, Brian Kraemer and his mistress rumbled into the master bedroom in a naked embrace, hitting just about everything that they were close to, tripping over everything else. They were happy, at least it seemed like they were. They let go of each other, and she slithered down onto the bed, forcefully tossing the top sheets aside as she did. Sweat glistened off of her voluptuous body, and the look on her face was just begging for Brian Kraemer, thief and adulterer for join her. It didn't take him long before he did.

That's when I decided to make my move. I jumped from the tree to his roof, landing without much of a sound. If they had heard anything, it would have been nothing but a slight bump or creak, sort of like when a house settles or something like that.

I had my prey cornered in his bedroom, but I didn't want to come in through that window. I worked my way over to the other side of the house, and then scaled the wall. I picked the lock to the back door and walked into the kitchen. The house was dark, but I could make out the different areas Mr. Kraemer and his friend brought their game to.

I made my way through the first floor, not bothering to take in the place at all. I didn't care, and I wasn't here for a sight seeing job. I slowly and softly climbed the stairs, which curved from a north-south wall to an east-west wall before arriving at the top floor. I found that it lead to the master bedroom directly. The door was halfway closed, enough to block any sight of my approach.

I didn't bring any weapons with me, I didn't need them. My face was covered with a black cloth, he would never know who did this to him. I the hallway, I saw a family portrait. His wife was a good looking woman, someone who loved him a lot. I could tell from her smile that she was extremely happy, nothing was forced in her expression. Their three children, two boys and a girl, where also good looking, as far as kids go. They seemed pretty happy in their own right.

I stood before the door to the master bedroom, listening to their throes of passion. They were talking dirty to each other, things that wouldn't, and shouldn't, be said in polite company. I won't repeat them because they mean nothing to the plot. They were, however, getting it on very heavily, which would add to the experience. It was unfortunate that she would have to witness this.

I took a deep breath, centered myself, and slowly began to open the bedroom door. They didn't notice. She was on top on him, straddling him, bouncing up and down, whipping her head around, which was amplified by her extremely long, blonde hair. He was under her, hands on her hips, grinding with her body. Like I said, they didn't notice me. It was time to make myself noticed.

I slammed the door behind me, and then darted to the bed. I pushed the woman to the floor and threw one of the blankets over her, then turned my attentions over to Mr. Kraemer, who laid there in his bed, naked and paralyzed with fear. I would say that the entire event took a little over four seconds. They never knew what hit them, they never had time to scream.

I grabbed him by the throat and turned my head towards the lump of woman covered with the blanket. "Make a sound, lady, and your friend here will never breath again." She didn't even move. I did hear a few whimpers on occasion, though. I looked back at Kraemer. "And you, you sack of shit, you even try to move and I'll crush your neck." I gave him a squeeze to emphasize my point. I was pretty sure that we had an understanding.

"This isn't a robbery, or a random attack, or revenge that your wife has brought down on you. This is a little more dangerous than that." His eyes were wide and terrified. Good, I thought to myself, it's exactly what I wanted him to feel. "The people I represent want me to give you a message, Mr. Kraemer, and I suggest that you listen very, very closely." He struggled, but he nodded. I squeezed again, reminding him of our agreement.

"They've known about you since you started stealing from them. They've watched you, they've waited until the time was right. Now, the time is right. You are to repay exactly one point five million dollars to your employers first thing Monday morning. The rest of the money is yours to keep, but I suggest one thing. Give it all to your wife and children, along with whatever money you have left in your bank account, and then leave them. They'd be better off without a lying, stealing piece of shit like you."

I picked him up by the neck, careful to not harm him permanently in any way, but also to perform the task as painfully as I could. I held him up against the wall, his naked body hanging limp under my hand. "When you return that money to your employers Monday morning, you will also resign from your post, citing that you have been given another job offer at Anderson Investments in Cleveland, Ohio, and you have decided that a change of scenery will be good for your soul. You will then leave town immediately after that meeting and never come back. No matter what job you get next, you will give at least half of it to your wife and three children. They will remain in this house, because you will let them. You will confess your infidelity to your wife and explain that you cannot live with her anymore. You will leave them, because they will be better off without you." I threw him across the room. I walked over to him and put my foot on his throat this time. He was petrified, shaking uncontrollably beneath my boot. It's a very powerful feeling to have someone completely at your mercy like that.

"I will talk with my representatives and they will make sure that your family is taken care of. It will be like you never existed, except that you will be paying them." I started rolling my foot along his neck, which, by the way that he was squirming, he obviously didn't enjoy. I knelt down along side him and looked right into his face. "Have you understood everything that I've told you so far?" He nodded. "Good. I would hate it to have to come back into your life, because if I did, you wouldn't have too much of a life after that." I picked him up and threw him back onto his bed. I went over to the woman and ripped the blanket off of her. She didn't seem too effected by the experience, the initial shock had already worn off. "Damn you," I said in a very low, menacing voice, "damn you for ruining his children's view of their father." She stared back at me, but I broke the stare and turned to the door.

Before I left the room, I turned back around to him. "Don't make me come back," I said to him. "Don't ever come back." I walked out of the room, down the stairs, and out the door.

I could hear, in the background, the woman rustling together her clothes, cursing out Mr. Kraemer, and how he could go to hell. I think she said "How could you have gotten me into this?"

As I walked across if front yard towards my rental car, my hands started to shake. "Not now," I said softly, trying hard to control it. "M, how bad?"

Bad, really bad.

"How long before I can't stop it."

It's a matter of days, now, Gabriel. We need that inhibitor, or else I don't think you'll make it through the week.

"M, concentrate on fighting it, I'll take care of the second job. Don't worry about it."

Gabe, I haven't talked to you in hours because it's taking everything I have to keep you alive.

"Two days, Michelle, two more days and we'll have it."

Either that, or you'll die.

"I don't feel like dying, Michelle."

4

It was a challenge finding a way to drive while my hands were shaking. Normally, I would pull over and wait for that particular episode to pass. Now, though, I was working on a timeframe, I needed to get back to Mount Olympus, the Sambonis's family restaurant, with all the papers from Acropolis Financial, the firm where Mr. Brian Kraemer worked, and the office that I needed to raid.

I went over the instructions that Apollo gave me, that inside the top drawer of a five drawer safe were three manila folders and ten CD-ROM's. Inside the folders were financial information concerning certain deals with certain less-than-reputable people that used to use Acropolis as a front for their drug money. The CD-ROM's were back-ups of those files plus other juicy details about various illegal activities that the Sambonis family has been up to. Acropolis was a headquarters of sorts, until the Feds started looking in on them.

That was the trick, supposedly the building was under surveillance by at least two federal agents, probably more. The trick was to get inside the building without tripping the alarms, or alerting the agents. Shouldn't be too much trouble, I thought to myself as I steadied my hand and followed the on ramp to Interstate 696 heading west. The building was in Dearborn, which was across town. I had to get there, ransack the office, grab the files and disks, and get back to Mount Olympus in just under three hours. When things like this were about to happen, I loved to plan them out, and do my own surveillance of the target. Today, however, that was out of the question.

Still, I did have time for a drive by; I knew I could at least pick up where the Feds were watching from, and that would make my job at least a bit easier.

I arrived at the building in twenty minutes. Thankfully, there was no traffic to speak of. It was an easy building to spot, it was made of a material that looked like marble, but it wasn't. The building stole some architecture from ancient Greece, making it seem like a ruin brought back to working order. It was a nice building, I guess, if you like that sort of thing.

I circled the building, and picked out the Feds. They were hidden, but not that well hidden. They were parked on a side street that was located on a corner of the building. They had a clear view of the front entrances as well as the side entrances. Those, unfortunately, were the only entrances into the building. I would have to be creative.

Turns out, though, that I wouldn't have to be that creative. The security system was electronic, and from a quick inspection, didn't run on it's own generator. With a little more investigation, I was able to determine that I could blow the transformer, effectively knocking out power to the entire area, especially the building. That would give me some time to get in and out before power was restored.

I parked the car about a block from the transformer, which was just down the street from the Acropolis. For special occasions like this, I had a pistol fashioned with a nice silencer. I hated guns, and never used them, except for cases like this. To date, I had never shot anyone with a gun, and I didn't intend on starting.

I took a spot out of view of everything, and took my aim. I was a decent shot, normally I would hit everything that I was aiming for. Right now, I was aiming at a transformer, a nice, big, stationary target. Even with my perpetually trembling hands (which they were now, by the way) I took aim and blow it apart. A shower of bright white sparks rained down on the grass below like a Fourth Of July grand finale.

The area went dim, and I was in business. I sprinted as fast as my body could take me around to the far side of the Acropolis, out of view of the Federal agents that probably where woken up by the explosion. I had already seen a window that I had intended to use. I didn't want to break it, but in the end, I had no choice. Nothing was really working for me right then, and I was forced into it. No big deal, it's not like I would get caught!

I climbed into the dark building, and slowly made my way to the main office where the booty was collecting dust waiting for me to liberate it. It was pretty easy to find, it was the central and largest room of the building. It was very impressive, all the furniture was marble, this time I was sure, and the desk was enormous. Behind it, I saw the safe, and when right to it.

Picking safes, for normal people, is an art form. For me, it's just a matter of listening very, very closely. I heard each individual click of the gears as I turned the face, waiting for the right number to reveal itself. Soon, though, I had it open and everything that I came for was in my hands. I started to leave when I saw something that caught my eye. Inside was another file, one that had a very naughty, evil word on it. I grabbed that one, and spoke mentally to Michelle. "I got something for you, babe." In a second, the folder was gone.

In the distance, I think in the hallway or somewhere like that, I heard something. It was like someone stepping on a twig, or a piece of celery breaking, or someone with bad knees trying to sneak up behind me and surprise me. I knew exactly who it was, and I was trapped, the office being the center most part of the building.

"I didn't think you'd get in here this easily," he said before I turned to face him. "I thought you would have been caught a long time before this."

"I guess I'm better at this stuff than you give me credit for."

"My brother never should have trusted you for anything. I'm here to clean up his mistake."

I turned, and saw Aries standing in the doorway, not looking all that happy. He blocked my only exit out of the office, unless I wanted to try and break down a wall. That wasn't going to happen. "I bet you've been waiting for this for a while, eh Aries?"

"Eleven years, shit head." She took a step closer to me.

"Is this the way it has to end between us? A fight to the death?"

"I was just going to kick your ass and then turn you over to the Feds, but if you want to die tonight, I'll help you with that."

A comedian, I though to myself. I put down the folders and CD-ROM's. I looked at him and put up my dukes like an old school boxer. "Let's get this over with, then."

He came after me, telegraphing a punch. I easily dodged it and hit him square in the nose, probably breaking it. I could barely hold a fist, though, my hands had started to shake really bad.

He swung, I ducked. He swung again, I ducked again. I hit him once in the chest, then when he bent over because he lost his breath, I nailed him in the small of his back. He fell to a knee.

He swung at me with a backhand, then a flurry of punches none of which connected, to even came close. Rage had already overtook him, and his blind flails wouldn't find their mark. If they did, they probably wouldn't have worked.

I swept his feet out from under him and grabbed his wrist. I squeezed until I heard a snap, and I saw the bone break in his eyes. Then I grabbed his arm and yanked it out of it's socket. He looked at me like I had killed his mother. He picked up a small bust (this family had a thing for busts) and threw it at me with all of his might with his good arm.

See, I was standing in front of the door now. When I ducked and the bust missed me, it went flying through the lobby and crashed through a window onto the front patio. That alerted the authorities that something was not kosher inside the Acropolis Financial Center.

I heard the sirens first, but when Aries heard them, he turned as white as a ghost. He looked at me, fighting through the pain to talk. "I can be seen here. Everything would be ruined."

"Should of thought of that before you came here to try and kill me."

The sirens were getting closer. I wasn't worried, I would get away. Aries, though, was upset. "Get me out of here," he screamed a me over and over. I grabbed the folders and disks and headed to the door.

"Follow me," I told him. I went back to my window, but I saw the pulsating blue and red lights of the police there. I guess three were others watching this place than the Feds. I would have to ask Apollo about that.

"Oh shit," he screamed, "they're gonna get us."

"I know what I'm doing," I told him, and ran farther into the back. This place had to have a basement, and I was determined to find it. The pain of his shoulder separation was really getting to him, he was sweating terribly and he looked kind if spacey. When he got close, I shoulder blocked his shoulder, popping the arm back into place. He finally connected with a punch that knocked me down. He was pretty strong.

He noticed almost immediately what I did. The pain, at least some of it, faded away and a little more color returned to his face. I got up and kept searching for the basement. I didn't see one. "Is there a basement in this place?" I yelled at him. He shook his head no. "Shit!"

Then I looked up. Scaffolding! The roof was in a "v" shape, and if we could get up there, we'd be safe. "We're gonna have to climb or else we'll be caught."

"I can't climb for God's sake!" he barked back at me.

"Fine, then you'll get caught."

He looked at me with a fire and hate that I had never seen on a single living person. But then the door burst open, and six men entered the room. Aries looked at them, then at me. He raised his arm and pointed, and all I heard was this: "Dammit, Aries, you said you'd kill him before we got in." It was Apollo.

"Where is he?" asked another voice. Louis Gibson, I should have seen it coming. He looked up at me as I climbed my way across the ceiling. "Oh, I see him. Shoot him down."

"Michelle," I said softly, "I need some serious help."

I'll give you what I can, but don't expect too much. I felt a little strength flow through me. I saw a window near the front apex of the roof. If I could get out of there, I'd have a chance.

Shots rang out, bullets narrowly missing me as trekked across the ceiling. I didn’t want to believe it, but it was a set-up from the beginning. Aphrodite was trying to warn me, but I didn't listen to her, at least closely enough.

As I narrowly outmaneuvered death in the form of a bullet countless times, I finally made it to the window. It was more of a skylight, but that didn't matter. I just wanted to get out of there. I'd have a fighting chance, then.

As luck would have it, I got there without getting hit and kicked out the window. Glass shattered in every direction, and I quickly followed it through. I grabbed the roof and pulled myself up. They would run to the front, but I would run to the back. Hopefully, they wouldn't notice me.

I noticed the fire that burned in the spot where my rental used to be. I shook my head, I hated to not pay up on that car, but since I rented it in a different name, I guess it wouldn't matter too much.

I focused on my task at hand, and sprinted along the roof. When I got to the other side, no one was down there. I jumped down, and jumped into one of the security cars, which, as it turned out, weren't cop cars like I thought. They used the same lights, though, which threw me. I sped away, looking in my rearview mirror as I did. No one saw me, or at least no one was chasing me. Before I turned away, I finally saw them returning to their cars, jumping in to give chase.

I got onto Michigan Avenue, one of the straightest roads I knew of in Metro Detroit. I put the cruise control on thirty five miles an hour the lowest it could be set at, and bailed out. I ducked into an alley, and watched as the parade of pursuers followed. I would have a few moments to get out of there before they realized that the car was empty. I would have to get as far away from here as I could.

I didn't like it, but I had to. I stole this guy's nice Ford Explorer, hightailing it back into Detroit, back into the lion's den.

5

The little escape from the Acropolis really did it to me, I was as weak as ever, and shaking all over. Things had happened that didn't need to happen. Why didn't I see it coming, though? Money is the ultimate power, and in the end, Anderson Research could destroy Apollo and Aries. Now, I lost a good friend, another one to the enemy, and I was closer to death than I ever was. I had to make a call. First, though, I had to find a place to hold up for a few hours until I got my strength. I had to, because all of a sudden, tonight became the night, the night I would raid Anderson Research, the night I would find the inhibitor, the night I would save my own life, or the night I would die trying.

I flipped on and dialed a very familiar number. An even more familiar voice answered. "Special Agent Trammel," she sang to me, "how can I help you?"

"Alana," I said hoarsely, "it's Gabriel."

"Gabriel, oh my, you sound terrible. What's wrong?"
"It's finally killing me, Alana. I have to do it tonight."

There was a pause, and I heard another phone dialing in the background. She was definitely calling her partner, Thomas Whitaker. "You're in Detroit, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "How soon can you get here?"

"We are both in New York, but we have a jet standing by. Our cover story is a bit thin, but now, this call sets it in motion. We can be there in three hours."

I smiled. At least I still had some allies. "Okay, great. It's ten thirty now. Meet me at the Denny's across from AR at two-thirty. It'll give you some time to get here and settled, and time for me to recuperate a bit. Plus, I have some business to take care of." I saw some headlights pass me, and it stopped at the house near where I was parked. I watched Apollo and Aries, his arm in a sling, get out of the car and head inside.

"Sounds good, Gabriel. You be safe, and don't do anything until we get there."

"Deal, Alana, and thanks."

"We're in this thing together, big guy. You know that."

"Yeah, I know that. I'll see you at two-thirty." The phones went dead. Apollo and Aries were home, but first, I needed some rest. I closed my eyes, and let my body, along with the help of M, try and fix itself enough for one last push.

6

Usually, I would enter a meditative state which was actually an artificially induced comatose state. I wouldn't dream, I wouldn't think, I wouldn't do anything like that, I would just sit there and regenerate. It was the closest thing I would have to sleep, but I was fully aware of what was going on around me. This time, though, I slept. And I dreamed.

It wasn't really a dream, more like a replay of a past event. It was nine years earlier. I had been gone from my home for a little over eight months, primarily trying to come to terms with who I was, what I was doing, and what I was supposed to do. For those eight months, I wandered around the country, stopping in cities and towns, taking odd jobs here and there to pay for an occasional hotel room. I was trying to find myself, and my destiny.

Lucky for me, though, things finally started to fall into place.

It had taken me those eight months to work my way to San Diego, California, the one city that I can call my second home, the first being Detroit. Football season was in full tilt, and I was anxious to watch my team, the Detroit Lions, play the St. Louis Rams. It was early November, and the Lions were surprisingly in first place, something that they hadn't done in a long, long time. I found a great sports bar called The Factory. It showed every single game there was, and I got there early enough to sit at the bar, right in front of the game of choice.

Next to me, an elderly gentleman named Frank Griffin sat down and immediately extended his hand. We exchanged pleasantries and chit chatted about the game. He was a Lions fan, too, and wasn't ashamed of it.

It turns out he was a very rich man, and we got to talking about what he did. He was an author who made it big in the sixties and seventies. He topped that off by winning a large lottery, and was able to retire comfortably, watching his money turn over and over and over.

By the end of the day, when he had found out that I didn't have a job, and I was wandering around the country in search of myself-and I didn't dare tell him the whole truth and nothing but the truth-he extended an offer to me to stay in his guest house and be his assistant for a while, until I felt the urge to pick up and go.

In my dream, I remembered seeing him collapse. I rushed to him, but he was dead before I got there. I had been there for six months, and he was a good friend. We talked a lot about life, about expectations. He said something to me that I always remembered: "When I was young, my father told me that I was going to college, that I was going to be more of a man than he was. Now, I look back at what he said, and I realized that he was wrong, and I could never be more of a man than he was. He knew his limitations, but he never let those limitations extend farther than him. He didn't want the worst of him to engulf others, only the best. He knew what was needed to improve himself, and it's that judgement that I learned. That harshest critic is yourself."

I knew what I was, what my strengths were, but I didn't know my own limitations. I hadn't yet developed the fear instinct, I thought I was invincible, able to take on the entire world. I thought that I could do it myself, because that's how I came to this world, alone.

When Old Frank Griffin died in my arms and I couldn't stop it or help him, I finally found my fear. I saw it in the emptiness of his eyes. It was failure, and ultimately death. If I could outrun that, it would be fine with me.

A few days later, when I was preparing to leave Frank's estate, the lawyer came up and handed me an envelope. Inside were papers that named me his sole beneficiary. I knew he didn't have family close by, but I thought somewhere, he would have someone. I was wrong. He was all alone in the world. In the end, though, he had me.

It was then that I first realized that I had made a terrible, irrevocable mistake. Leaving the way I did, everyone like I did, it was wrong, I needed them.

Pride kept me away from Jenna. Necessity brought me back to Apollo and the Sambonis's.

In San Diego, though, after Frank Griffin died, and I put the estate up for sale, I started on my quest. I had found myself, or at least I found something that I needed. I needed allies, friends. The only way to get them was to start off on the mission that I was given.

I threw myself into it, never looking back. I was doing countless hours of research, but yet, through all the stories, myths, eyewitness accounts, photographs, videos, websites, and books, I couldn't find a single damn thing that made any sense to me, or to Michelle.

Then something happened. It was a hideous murder in the mountains east of Los Angeles. I headed up there, called to the scene, because there was something familiar about it. I couldn't place it, but I knew it was the start.

The body was decomposed as much as a body could be. Problem was, this person was seen alive just three days earlier. A special team from Washington, from the FBI, was flown in to investigate. That's when I met Alana Trammel.

She was short, five foot four or so. Her small size didn't take anything away from her dominating presence in a room. She was tough, strong, and very confident in herself and her abilities. I noticed her first of all, while I was spying on the investigators. I couldn't get close to the scene, but I could get close to them.

It was in these mountains that I first began to practice some of the methods of gathering information that so easily comes to me now. I used what I called listeners, which in effect were nothing more than cells from my body, to spy on these people. Essentially, they were biological bugs.

These listeners were used to gather information, they traveled inside the crime scene to places I couldn't go, they pretty much were the first to introduce me to the substance that would soon dominate my life.

The body, in it's decomposed state, was infected with Triplicate. I never found out exactly what had happened to that body, but it was Triplicate.

Special Agent Trammel intrigued me. She was intelligent and very forthright. She wouldn't beat around the bush with anyone. Her theories were off the wall, but in hindsight, she was on to something.

Her theory was that a cult had concocted the substance that eventually murdered this person, deconstructing it's genetic code. The deceased was know to run with a strange crowd, one that believed in the existence of witches, aliens, ghost, all things paranormal. Instead of just being interested, they took it a step farther more like ten or twenty steps farther, and tried to contact the other side, tried to lure aliens to their town, tried all sorts of things like that. Supposedly, a charismatic person had arrived in town and organized them a bit more, and they became zealots, preaching the coming of he end, brought in by aliens.

I listened to her carefully. She took a lot of crap because of that, people started calling her Spooky, which I gathered was based on the nickname given to a fictitious character in an immensely popular television series. She didn't like it, and said that she wasn't claiming that any of that was true, but that there were suspects now, that a story on why this body was so mutilated and laced with some sort of drug. She could be anything from a sacrifice to a non-believer.

I liked her passion, I liked her spirit, and when she told the Special Agent in Charge to go fuck himself, I knew that she was someone that I should get to know.

And I did. She was alone in the one of the three bars that the small town of Pine's Cleft, California, had. She was sitting at the bar, and I sat down next to her. I armed myself with things that I had gotten when she was alone in her hotel room, dictating her report into a micro-cassette recorder. The last few lines told me that she would be open to what I had to say. She said: "I keep looking up into the sky, seeing if it would return, show itself to me again. I am not sure if I want it to, because if it did, then they'd be real, and I don't think I'm ready for them to be real."

At first, I didn't say anything to her, and she pretty much ignored me. I would occasionally look at her, but that was it. I wasn't exactly sure how to instigate the conversation, and she didn't seem like talking too much.

Eventually, after she had finished her fourth shot of tequila, and was properly buzzing, she looked back. She had noticed my inquiries, but waited until the right time. "Do you want something, guy?" she barked. I simply smiled at her.

"Just another drink," I answered her. She looked at me strangely. I guess she wasn't used to a brush off like that. She was a good-looking woman, medium length blonde hair, blue eyes, a nice build. Any guy would be lucky to have someone like her.

"Oh," she said, returning to the beer she was nursing in between the shots. She looked at me again. "You want to do a shot with me?"

"Sounds good to me," I said. Alcohol really didn't have an effect on me, unless I let it. I could get anything there was, drink it, and suffer no ill effects. That would have made me popular at any major university. "What are you shooting?"

"Tequila, but I'll go with anything you want." She gave me this look that suggested that she meant more than just drinks. Then again, she was already drunk.

"Ok, since I don't like tequila, I'll get something a bit, well, better." I flagged down the bartender. "Two kamikazes," I ordered.

"Doubles," she added. Fine with me.

The bartender placed the glasses in front of me, and I raised mine. "To the great unknown that is the night, may we both learn a little bit tonight."

She looked at me strangely, and clinked my glass. She downed the drink like a professional, and so did I. She washed it away with a swig of beer. "That was nice," said.

"Thanks, it was something my father used to say."

"So, do you live here?"

I shook my head. "No, I don't. I'm passing through, seeing the world, looking for truth and understanding, and all that other new age spiritual stuff." She laughed at that.

"Actually," I continued, "I'm investigating something here."

She knew something was up now. "You know I'm in the FBI, don't you?" She was quick, even if she was drunk.

I nodded. She shook her head in disgust. "You aren't getting anything out of me, no matter what you think, or how drunk I am."
"I am not here to get anything out of you, I'm here to have a drink and wind down a particularly hectic day, that's all. I'm even investigating the body that you are." Well, not any longer. I had all the information that I needed. I didn't have a sample of the substance in the body, which I determined was the key to this, no matter who killed this person or why they did. It was all about how, and I knew how.

"Then why sit next to me, in a bar filled with empty tables and empty stools."

"Okay, you got me. I was hoping that I could get to know you."

"Why?"

"Because you fascinate me, Special Agent Alana Trammel. I'm trying to find a break, and I think I have here, with this case, and then I ran into you, and things make sense, at least a little."

"What do you mean?" I think I was stunning her with the fact that I knew her name. She seemed frozen in place, unable to move, unable to look away.

"I know what you think about the case," I said, deciding to lay it on really thick, shocking her instead of trying to win her over slowly and methodically. "I know you subscribe to the theory that the local cult had something to do with this. I think that you may be right."

"They disappeared," she said evenly. "They're all gone."

"I know, and that's the clincher. It's them, or at least it's their leader, the stranger that showed up here a few weeks ago. I think he's the one who gave the unknown substance to the victim. It wasn't a sacrifice, though, I think it was an experiment."

The first mention of a substance in the remains of the victim seemed to hit her pretty hard. That was what her whole theory rested on, and now, someone, finally someone, was agreeing with her. To her, it made perfect sense. Then again, I had more knowledge, not a lot more, but enough, to know that something here was terribly wrong. "How do you know?"

"Are you prepared to learn the truth?" She gazed at me with drunk, glazed eyes. "I can show it to you. I can answer all of your questions."

She nodded, and I threw some money on the bar. I took her hand, and began to lead her out of the bar. No one noticed it happen, it was just as if two lovers had decided to retire to a more comfortable setting. We reached to door, and-

I was snapped awake by a truck that sped past where I was parked. I checked my watch, it was almost midnight. I had slept for an hour and a half, the most in the last ten years. I was lost in the dream, in the memory, but I had work to do.

"Michelle," I said softly, "how's it look?"

Not that good, Gabriel. Two days at the most.

I sunk back in my chair. It was easier to deal with this when I my body had at least a little bit of control, an edge in the fight. Now, though, things had progressed past that point, and I was down to hours instead of days, weeks and months. It was hard to take the cold, stinging slap of mortality, but like I had told Michelle, I didn't feel like dying.

I looked across the street to my friend, Apollo, the most recent in a long list of allies who had turned against me. I knew this would eventually happen, that he would probably side with them, especially when they moved into metro Detroit and became one of the more influential private businesses in town. Everyone was positioning themselves to reap the rewards of associating with Anderson Research, and before I was sure that they were the one, the enemy, they had sunk their teeth into as many different businesses in Detroit, effectively becoming the center where all business had to come to accomplish anything. They even had contracts with the car companies, Detroit's previous number one industry. Now, with the billions in revenue that AR was bringing in, things have changed.

I didn't know what I could do, at least right now. Every ounce of my being wanted to go in there, get at Apollo, and make him sorry that he had ever crossed me. I couldn't, though, I couldn't risk it. I really wanted to, though.

So I sat there, watching the house, for anything that could help me. Then Michelle brought me some information.

Since I have gotten a foothold, I was able to divert some energy to the listeners. I think that I found something that would interest you.

"What?"

It's a phone conversation between Aphrodite and Apollo, before your little jaunt into the Acropolis.

"Give me the Cliff Notes version, please."

Sure. She called Apollo, furious that he was going to betray you, and that she wouldn't have anything to do with it, or him from then on. She was warning him that he was starting down a path that would only bring him and his family heartache.

"And?"

And nothing. I didn't get the other side of the conversation, but she hung up rather angrily, and all biologicals suggest that she wasn't lying. I think that she's in danger.

"Is she at her condo?"

Yes, and there is now one else with her.

"I know what you are implying."

And I know you'll do it.

"Why do you say that?"

Because, once you get through all the bullshit, you are actually a very nice person.

"I know. It's going to get me killed, I suppose."

Worse ways to go, I guess.

"Yeah." I started the engine, and pulled into the road. It was time to play knight in shining armor, a role that I didn't get to play enough. Too many times, the role I got to play was a lot darker, and a lot meaner.

7

Aphrodite's place was dark, but Michelle assured me that she was home. I parked on Jefferson, in the stolen Explorer which I would leave there, and began my approach to her condo. I looked carefully for anyone watching her, but there wasn't anyone. If they were watching her, then I would give them a show.

I reached the perimeter fence, which I would have to scale. I could have forced the gate open, but I didn't risk expending too much energy. Climbing the caste iron fence would be easier.

Once over, I slowly made my way through the parking lot, towards her apartment. The night was continuing to aid my endeavors, the moonless night cast no light, and I could blend into the shadows very easily. Soon I was across the complex and standing at her window. "Is there anyone in there?"

The listener picks up only her and you. You are alone.

"Where is she?"
Living room, one window to the left.

I walked to the window, and noticed the soft blue glow of the television set. I couldn't see inside, so I had no idea where she was. Breaking the window was not an option. So I decided to knock.

I slowly tapped my knuckle on the window, loud enough, though, that she could clearly hear it over the television. I waited a second, but Michelle helped me out again.

She heard it, and she's coming.

I waited, and she pulled the curtain back, probably unsure of what she would find. When she saw me, first she was shocked, and then she smiled widely.

She mouthed the words "Front Door," but I heard them clear as day. I ran around to the front, and she was there waiting for me. She pulled me inside and gave me a hug.

"I thought that they would kill you."

"I’m not that easy, Aphrodite." She led me into the living room, putting a finger to her mouth, telling me to be silent. I knew why, too, because if I had bugged her, it was probably bugged all over the place. I was beginning to see a new side to Apollo, a decidedly more paranoid side to it.

She turned up the television a bit, enough to where we could talk in whispers and the sound would drown us out. "How did you escape?"
"They were sloppy."

She looked at me, and I knew that she could tell that I was sick. I tried to smile at her, but she frowned. "You don't have to hide it from me, I can tell."

"That obvious, huh?"

"To anyone who cares enough to notice." She was good to me, too good. "Why did you come here?"

"I know about your phone call to Apollo earlier. I couldn't wait to see anything happen to you, so I decided to take it upon myself to protect you."

"You're dying, Gabriel. How can you protect me?"

"Maybe I wanted you to protect me. I don't know, it was the right thing to do. I don't have anyone right now I can trust, and I can trust you. I need help, and you do, too. We can help each other."

"Once I leave with you, everything changes, doesn't it?"
"Everything changed a long time ago, I'm just letting it flow now."

She looked at me, then walked to a painting on the wall. She took it down, and behind it was a safe. She opened it up, and took out a small box. Inside the box, was a piece of paper. It looked like some kind of puzzle, or a data printout. There were dates along both sides, and numbers underneath it. She took it, grabbed my hand, and pulled me into her office. She sat down behind the desk, turned around, and started dialing in the combination to the lock on another safe. That sheet of paper had the combination in code. Interesting.

She opened it up, and pulled out two suitcases. The safe itself was the size of the safes that anyone could pick up at a gun show or numerous others retail outlets. It was about the size of a refrigerator. After the two suitcases, she grabbed two guns. She was preparing to go, it seems.

She motioned to the door, telling me that she was ready to go. I really admired her, being able to do this so easily. Soon, we were out the door, and in the parking lot. I saw her car; she had a personalized license plate that said GODDESS. We walked right past it.

Instead, she stopped at another car, obviously one that she also owned. She put the suitcases in the back seat, and we both got in. She looked at me, and for the first time, I saw pain in her face. She seemed scared and sad, that things were happening to her that she didn't like or want, but that she had absolutely no control over it.

"I'm sorry it has to be this way, I'm sorry it had to come to this."

She smiled through the tears she was holding back. "It's not your fault. It's no one's fault. This has been coming for a while now."

I nodded. She was right, more right than she knew. "I need to get to the Denny's on Twelve Mile and Mound. You know where that is?"

"Yeah, but why would you want to go there? Anderson Research is right across the street?"

I smiled. "That's the plan. I'm meeting some friends there. Tonight's the night, it's my last call."

I think she understood. It was a little after one in the morning, now. The night continued to be on my side. She left her condo behind, along with her family and her life. I think she had been preparing for it for a while, now, that she knew that this time would come for her.

That's when I noticed something on her neck, a red spot. At first I thought it was a love bit, but looking closer, it was in the shape of a diamond. I knew that I hadn't seen it earlier in the day at the hockey game.

She noticed that I noticed. "It appeared earlier tonight. I don't know why, but it just kind of showed up. I think it's some kind of rash."

Probably was, I thought to myself as I turned back to watch the road. We didn't talk too much, but I did ask her one question: what was in the suitcases?

"Oh," she said nonchalantly, "five million dollars in tens and twenties." I sat back and chuckled to myself.

8

We were early arriving at Denny's, but it didn't matter, they were already there. "Come on, let's go," I said, trying to be as commanding as I could. It was for me more than anything. She looked at the suitcases, then got out of the car. We walked into the Denny's.

The waitress tried to seat us, but I told her that we were with a couple that already arrived. She let us pass, and was sat in a booth along the window looking out at Twelve Mile Road, and Anderson Research.

Special Agents Alana Trammel and Thomas Whitaker sat opposite from myself and Aphrodite. They were visually examining her, trying figure out exactly who it was that I brought with me. "This is Aphrodite Sambonis," I said softly. "We've had some trouble with her brothers."
Tom started to talk first. "I told you not to get mixed up with them. The mob, no matter in what form, is not trustworthy, not at all."

Alana nodded. "This was bad from the beginning, Gabriel. There had to have been another way in."

"There wasn't. I played a hunch, and it turned out wrong. Still, it's not a big deal. It would have had to come down tonight or tomorrow anyway, not like Monday night. I'm dying, I really am. Michelle has given me two days at the most."

They knew about Michelle. They knew about everything. The only reason I haven't fully explained it so far was that right now, in this part of the tale, that would only confuse anyone who is reading this. When the time is right, everyone will know everything.

"What's the plan?"

"The plan is that I go in there," I said, pointing towards Anderson Research, "get the inhibitor, and get the hell out of there. Once I have that, and I have cured myself, then we'll start over."

They didn't like it, I knew that much. We had been planning this for a while, and all three of us had roles to play. They would do their part, because they knew how serious this was. They knew what was at stake right here, right now. I could trust them, too. I was sure of that.

We discussed the plan. They would call into the regional FBI office in Detroit and explain to them that they were in town investigating a possible terrorist attack. The terrorist attack would, in fact, occur this morning, and I would be the terrorist attacker. If things turned bad, and I couldn't get loose, I would surrender to them. They would be my ticket out of there. I could stage a rescue, leave them behind, wounded but not in a life threatening or permanently damaging way, and I would be free again. I had to get the inhibitor, though.

Once they called in, which they had already done, they would get cognizance on the case, because it was a real case they were investigating. That was one part of it that I really enjoyed. I was wanted by the FBI, although they didn't have any evidence of my existence. The two agents assigned to the case, though a little slight of hand and smoke and mirrors, were the two agents that were in my back pocket. They continued to get results, foiling a few terrorist attacks that I staged, just to keep up appearances.

I had planned to get away with this and escape. If I were caught, it would negatively impact our relationship, and perhaps compromise them. I didn't want to risk that, but this was more important than the feelings of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The plan was basically to improvise as I went along. I was going to stage a monstrous diversion that would turn the facilities security detail in another direction, away from my point of entry, which was a storm drain which emptied into the Red Run Creek. I knew there were video cameras and motion detectors in the drain, but those would be taken care of with the diversion.

The diversion was going to be caused by an explosion at the power plant of the facility. The one glaring weakness of the facility was that the power plant was located about one hundred feet from Twelve Mile road, so if I filled a car with explosions and drove it into the plant, and then exploded it, the entire plant would be knocked out.

Sure, I knew that there was a backup system located in a different area. I had studied the place, though, and a catastrophic power loss like this would reset their defense grip, in which all defensive measures were tied together. I would have ten seconds to make it five hundred feet up the drain and into the facility. It would be close.

"So, Gabriel, are you up to this?" Alana was concerned. We were friends, good friends. Lots of times, I would call her up and we would talk for hours about everything from love, life, the past, and definitely the future. There was nothing romantic about it, we were just friends.

"Doesn't matter, I guess. It has to be done."

"Is everything set up?" Asked Tom. I nodded.

"The remote for the car is at the mouth of the drain. I took care of it a few days ago." He nodded. He seemed to like that answer. "How about your side?"

"Ready to go."

I nodded towards Aphrodite. "She isn't very popular right now, can you two take care of her?"

"Not a problem. She can stay with us, in our car at least, while this goes down."

I shook my head. That wouldn't work. "She might be noticed if you come across officials of AR, or maybe her brothers. Can you take her away from here?"

"We can put her in our hotel room, that's about it."

I didn't like it. "I guess." I got up, kissed Aphrodite on the forehead, and headed out of Denny's. Behind me, I heard the three of them talk about the hotel, where she had to go. I smiled, knowing that I wasn't alone now, even in my darkest hour. I had some good, trustworthy people on my side.

It would be tough, though. I looked across the street, at the large complex that I would be infiltrating in a matter of minutes. I knew where I had to go, the center of the main building, one hundred feet below the ground. It wouldn't be easy, but it was early in the morning, and no one in their right mind would be up or working at this hour on a Saturday night.

At least that's what I had to hope for.