Cold Hell - 22. Chapter 21

Juan’s video had appeared all over the world, on just about every TV screen. My father, Uncle Charlie, and the board members of Aamodt Corp went into immediate action, hosting a press conference. Danni Aamodt claimed the video had been an act of terrorism, criminals seeking to do nothing more than create chaos. These lies should not be believed. I stood in the crowd of journalists and spectators, searching his face for the truth, but as always his face was expressionless.

Why did he have to be the one person I couldn’t read?

It has been almost a month since the night Juan, Cookie, and Tinkerbell showed me the slaughterhouse in Tootulu. Since then the night has stayed with me like a hook embedded in the mouth of a fish. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't think of anything else or shake myself free.

The following days ground past like an ancient rusty wheel; I stayed up late during the nights, hoping Juan would call me on the old cellular phone. Several times, when it seemed I could no longer bear the suspense, I thought about trying to call him and demand what he intended to do next. Had he and his little rebel group of terrorists forgotten me? Did they no longer have a use for me?

Perhaps in the end it was best that I not be involved with their war against the mega corporations. I could move on with my life and do my best to forget about what I'd seen. It would certainly be safer. Or so I told myself. But every time I saw my father I thought of the creatures locked away in their crude cells. While I could never think of my father as the man of gold everyone else saw him as, it shook me to my core to think he could even be remotely involved with the people who had created those creatures. Upon seeing them my life has been turned upside down, everything I'd known was deformed beyond recognition.

It was the middle of the night when I was suddenly jarred out of sleep; I dreamed I was one of the creatures in the cell, my innards hanging out of me and my father was the man in white, holding the cattle gun. The cell phone Juan had given me had begun to vibrate against the dresser just as my father pressed the muzzle of the cattle gun against my forehead and pulled the trigger.

I jerked awake, throwing off the covers. In my mind I could still see the crimson splashes of blood - my blood - splattering the straw and dirt. My hands shook so violently I almost dropped the phone on the floor. Teeth clenching, I managed to answer with a shaky, "H-Hello."

"Can you meet us at the canal? " Said the distorted voice on the other end of the line; I was pretty confident it was Juan.

I felt my eyes narrow to slits; for the moment the nightmare was forgotten. "It's been a month," I snapped, not bothering to hide my anger.

"Can you meet us at the canal? " the voice repeated with more urgency.

I forced myself to inhale then exhale, my nostrils flaring. "Yes," I said grudgingly.

"Good. Be there within the hour."

With a click the line went dead.

I cursed and pulled myself out of bed. In just a few hours it would be dawn. Just like the last time I dressed all in black: a black hoodie and black pants. Though I was sure no one in the manor was up, I slipped quietly through the corridors just in case. Outside a cab was waiting for me parked in front of the wrought iron gate. It was a cold chilly night, damp with the promise of rain. Mist snaked through the trees surrounding the property, making me feel as if I was walking deeper into a netherworld that exists separately from the one I'd always known. Even with the hoodie I was cold. I hugged myself, getting into the back of the car.

The sense of uneasiness that had taken root in my mind plagued me through the journey into the sleepy metropolis. I watched the empty streets pass by, feeling a sense of relief when the occasional vehicle passed. I liked to think it was because of the nightmare but I still felt so disquieted. But in the back of my mind I knew I was wondering what terrible thing Juan might want to show me next. Why had I gotten into the car? Why did I continue to go down this path? Why was I powerless to stop myself?

The cab dropped me off beside the canal. I waited, looking down at the murky water, trying to force myself to feel a sense of calm. My attempts were futile; I kept glancing up and down the street hoping to see the black Sedan turning around the corner. My eyes burn from exhaustion. I wanted nothing more than to go back home and crawl underneath the blankets. Why did we have to meet now, so early in the morning? Why had they waited so long before contacting me?

The minutes ticked by. I felt myself growing more impatient, tapping my foot on the concrete, debating whether or not I should say fuck it and head back home. Finally I made up my mind to leave, turning away from the canal, when a Sedan pulled around the corner. I glared at the vehicle as it swung around to stop beside me. The door in the back opened. Juan was sitting in the back just like last time; Cookie sat in the front passenger's seat, Tinkerbell at the wheel. I felt an odd sense of deja vu.

"Get in," Juan said.

I glowered at him biting back a thousand retorts. I climbed into the car out of the cold. The interior of the Sedan felt pleasantly warm. Juan held up a black cloth bag.

"Put this over your head," he said

"Why?"I asked.

"Put it on," he repeated in a more authoritative voice. His eyes were dark and sharp.

I scowled torn somewhere between not wanting to create problems and standing my ground; if they wanted my help then they were going to have to give me more answers. Grudgingly I snatched the bag from his hand and pulled it over my head. The bag was just light enough that I could breathe without feeling like I was suffocating but thick enough I couldn't see through the fabric.

The car was silent but for the droning him of the heater. I force myself to breathe calmly, to keep my mind on anything else but the thought of what might happen next. The last time they hadn't put a bag over my head so why were they putting one on now? Were they just taking precautions or was their meaning more sinister? Perhaps they'd decided I was too much of a liability who knew too much and planned to dispose of me. If so I'd handed myself right over to them.

Just because they wouldn't tell me anything didn't mean I couldn't find out; surely they had no idea I was psychic.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus again. This time I tried to see if I could pick up their emotions. Slowly I began to draw a small picture: they were taking me to an abandoned warehouse in the rundown district of the city that they'd turned into a temporary headquarters while they stayed here in Roc City. Juan wanted to show me more about their operation; Cookie didn't like the idea so much because she didn't trust me; all I received from Tinkerbell was a general feeling of contentment.

After fifteen minutes of sitting in the car with the fucking bag on my head I was beginning to feel smothered; the heat within the vehicle had become stifling. When the car stopped and someone told me I can remove the bag I immediately pulled it off and inhaled in relief.

We had come to a large dark brick building; the building, like the buildings around it, looked old, the facade faded and crumbling. We were in the lower class section of the city where only the lowest of the low lived. I had never been in this section of the city before.

Mounds of dirt had been dug up around the property, as if someone had been in the middle of doing construction then became tired with the project and abandoned it. The forlorn outline of an aging bulldozer loomed out of the stygian gloom, moldering before a large crater that had been dug in the dirt.

Immediately a heavy sense of dread and disgust took root in my belly, but I kept my comments to myself. The fact I had never seen this part of the city was in many ways my own fault due to narrow-mindedness. Curiosity had never once propelled me to come to this district.

As the car drew closer to the warehouse, tires grinding over gravel and pulverized dirt, Juan explained to me that their "organization" had just bought the property, which had been in the middle of renovation a few years ago. "I don't know what they were going to use the building for," said Juan, "but as you can see they ran out of funding long ago. We figured the building, considering the side of town it's in, would be a good place to hole up while we work the mission. Not a lot of people come here these days, do they? Much less chance of the authorities looking here." He smiled at me knowingly as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. Perhaps the apprehension I felt showed on my face. I tried to recompose my countenance, to make what I was thinking and feeling much less obvious.

I was used to knowing what other people were thinking and feeling, not the other way around.

We got out of the car. For the moment it was a relief to step out into the cool air. My skin feels oily and sticky from sweat. I wiped my brow, following Juan, Cookie, and Tinkerbell through the gloom. Tinkerbell was the first to reach the industrialized keypad by the door, the first sign this building was more than what it appeared to be; the second was the video camera I spotted watching me from the corner of my eye. Tinkerbell typed in the code, his fingers a blur of motion. The keypad flashed green and the door opened with a beep and a click.

"Welcome to our humble abode," Tinkerbell said, gesturing with outstretched arms at the open door with a deferential bow.

The darkness beyond the door was an impenetrable void. I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced myself to step through, expecting to be attacked. As soon as my foot stepped over the threshold sensor lights clicked on. The fear and exhaustion that had overwhelmed me for the past hour immediately dissipated at the site before me; I felt a grin slowly spread across my face.

It certainly looked like renovations had been done inside the interior of the building. In the center of the large room in which I stood was a large boxing ring; beside that, to the left, was a bank of the latest state-of-the-art computers made by Aamodt Corp. Tinkerbell went over to these and sat down in a computer chair with a contented sigh, chewing on some sort of snack cake. He began tapping frantically on the keyboard. Hanging on the wall to the right was a display of gadgets and weaponry, most of it also produced by my father's company. For the second time I was struck by the irony of the fact that ELF used the technology of the corporation they were trying to bring down against them.

"You look impressed," said Juan.

"I am," I said. And I was. For the first time I realized this wasn't just some ragtag group of terrorists, rebellious men and women trying to get back at the system. They were serious about what they were doing and they meant business.

"This is a mistake," Cookie said firmly, glaring at me with her almond-shaped eyes before looking back at Juan fixedly. "I can't believe you're just going to bring him in like this, without consulting our superiors. It's not how we do things."

"If we keep doing things the way we have been, we'll never get anything done," Juan said evenly. "We are at war with the mega-corporations of this world, trying to save the Earth before it dies. It is a long war and we have little time to win it. So I think we need to make an unorthodox approach."

Somehow I got the feeling the unorthodox approach was me.

"By bringing him into this?" Cookie said in my direction without looking at me. "The son of the man we're trying to bring down? What's to make you think he won't turn us in, won't rat us out? After all he's only the son of the most powerful, richest man in the world."

"If I wanted to reach out or tell anyone about what you showed me, I would have done so already," I said before I could stop myself. "Isn't that why you waited a month before calling me, to make sure I wouldn't rat you out?"

"I don't think your motive is good enough, " said Cookie. "I don't want to work with some snobby aristocrat just because he has some unresolved daddy issues. What if in the middle of this mission he begins to regret what we're about to do and changes his mind? We'd be fucked."

"You have no idea what my motives are, " I said; her words had stung me. "You're the one to drag me into this. You came into my hotel room and forced it on me. Now after what you've shown me I can't go back. My world and everything I've known or thought I knew has been turned upside down. Despite all that I'm here to do whatever I can to help you."

"But how far are you willing to go?" Cookie asked me. "You have no idea what you're about to get yourself into, how out of your depth you'll be. What we're doing is dangerous, there are great risks. If we're caught we can either be killed or exiled to Planet Redemption which would be just as bad if not worse than being killed. But make no mistake, even though we're considered criminals our goals are only to save the planet so it will keep spinning. Can you say you're driven by the same passions?"

I didn't know if I could or not. I kept thinking about the slaughterhouse and the pain I'd witnessed inside; I would never be able to unfeel it or unremember. No living creature should have to feel such agony. If I thought Juan, Cookie, and Tinkerbell could understand I would have done my best to explain it to them. But I didn't think they'd believe me. How could I bear the legacy of my father and the Aamodts before me if I stood by and did nothing?

"As I said," I told her, unwilling to back down, "my motives are of no importance to you. What does matter is they align. And if you get to a point where you doubt my motives again, think about this: I'll be putting just as much on the line as you. I'll be exposing what my father has been doing. In doing so I could be destroying my family name, my own reputation, everything my family has been building for centuries."

Cookie was silent after this, apparently at a loss for words. To my surprise Juan chuckled. "It's not often someone wins an argument with Cookie," he said, giving me a look of approval.

A fresh wave of exhaustion passed over me. I nodded at him wearily. "I can help you get the rest of the data you need," I told him. "After you get it whatever you decide to do with it is up to you. Afterwards I'm done."

                              …

I have never been a religious person and neither has anyone else in my family; the Aamodts are people of science. But I wouldn't exactly say I'm an atheist either. My moral compass pointed to the basic morals of right and wrong. After meeting Juan and his little posse my view of what right and wrong were had shifted beyond recognition.

Now as I sat in the passenger's seat of the Sedan, looking through the tinted windshield at Aamodt Corp, I pondered the definition of Hell. Some said it was a fiery realm where sinners went - people who were so bad they were refused entry into Heaven. Some theorized Hell was not a fiery realm but a repeated time loop of your worst experiences. And then there was Redemption5s77, the ice planet that had been turned into a penal colony; some would say that was a cold version of hell. Either way I wondered if I would find myself in whatever version of hell existed after this was all said and done.

"I can hear your wheels turning," said Juan. He had the driver's chair leaned all the way back so he was reclined. He opened one eye to look at me, an eyebrow lifted inquisitively. "You're interrupting my peace of mind."

"Why are we just sitting here in the car watching the building?" I asked with a scowl. "I've gone over the security shifts with you multiple times. I got the information straight from the company's database. It's like clockwork, it never wavers."

"I'm sitting here watching the building so to keep perspective and you're here with me because I like your company. Cookie I respect, but all she does is argue with me. She's not a very pleasant person to be around for long periods of time. Tinkerbell, I love him to death but he's like a ball of hyper energy. You, you're quiet and reserved but you also don't put up with any shit."

We were sitting across from the building where I'd worked now for almost four months. I watched as a car pulled through the security gate, which closed shut behind it. I was touched by what Juan had said but didn't want him to see it on my face. While most people said I was good at hiding my emotions he seemed to read me with perfect clarity.

"What were you thinking about?" he asked me, face glowing in the illumination of a nearby streetlight.

"You don't want to know. "

"Tell me," he insisted with true curiosity.

"I was thinking about Hell."

"You think you're going there?"

"I could be...if it exists." I was looking up at the sky through the top of the window, trying to distract myself. Oppressive black rain clouds hovered around the top of the skyscraper.

"You're not going to hell." he said with a smile. "You're white, blonde, and filthy rich. You're filthy rich."

I sensed he meant no harm by the statement - he was simply joking. But it hurt anyway. "Fuck you," I said softly, hoping he wouldn't hear me, but of course he did. Juan looked up. I looked at him.

I couldn't suppress my anger any longer; between Juan and Cookie I was sick of being guilt tripped for being born into an upper class lifestyle. "You must think I'm just some empty-headed debonair who lives on a golden throne, partying all the time."

"I didn't mean to offend you, " Juan said. "I just wish I had the life you had."

"You sure about that?" I laughed sardonically. "Trust me when I tell you my life is more than just eating caviar and riding around in limousines. I live in the shadows everyday, being groomed to run this corrupt corporation which I never wanted. Why do you think I'm trying to help you burn it to the ground? I want to go home."

"Okay," he said. "I'll drop you off at the Manor."

I snapped off my seat belt, about to climb out of the car. Right now I just wanted to get away from him; I was also concerned about the risk he might be taking if he dropped me off, though I wasn't going to tell him that. "I'll take a cab."

"Put your seat belt back on. I'm dropping you off. It's the least I can do for being such an asshole."

I could tell he was truly sorry. He made a bad terrorist. Reluctantly I snapped my seat belt back on.

When we reached the manor he stopped outside the gate. By this time it had begun to rain heavily.

"Thanks," I said hastily, about to step out into the downpour. Before I could he grabbed my arm, stopping me. At the exact moment I turned to face him, he leaned forward and kissed me full on the lips.

His lips were warm and soft. Gently he prodded at my reeth, seeking entrance. We kissed slowly, cautiously, as if metaphorically walking towards each other while on a swinging bridge. I could hear the rain tapping against the windshield, the cool wind ruffling the back of my hair. Through our touching whisper of voices and images, I knew he'd been wanting to kiss me from the moment we first met in New York. I found myself remembering the smell of his deodorant, his armpit close to my face as he undid the handcuffs.

I admit I'd been wanting to kiss him for a while too.

I pulled away, feeling slightly intoxicated. My head was spinning. My skin tingled, yearning to feel his touch. "Come up to my bedroom, " I said, feeling as though someone else was talking through my mouth; someone who had no composure or self-control.

Juan looked up at Aamodt Manor. The doubt was evident on his face. I reassured him no one would know, my father was rarely home and all the servants will be gone until morning. I talked in a rushed voice, hating how desperate I sounded, but it had been months since I had physical intimate contact with another human being. Ever since coming back from the rehab facility in Tootulu I had given up all excursions to the bars and bathhouses in Roc City.

"Okay," he said after a moment.

Once we were through the gate I directed him to a spot where he could park his car. To ease his mind a bit, I told him it would be safe from discovery here. We walked through the rain; through the double doors of the house. The inside of the manor was dark but I knew this house well enough to lead him by the arm up the stairs towards my room.

I closed the door and locked it so no one else could get in. I slipped through the shadows, fumbled clumsily for a lamp. After a few seconds I got the light to come on. Juan looked around my bedroom with mild interest but made no comment. He handed over his jacket, which I draped over the back of a chair. Both of our jackets were soaked through.

"I'm from the streets of Mexico, " he said, stepping towards me. "Mexico has always been a rough place but it's only gotten worse over the last century. Women and children getting shot in the middle of the street for no reason at all or being snatched up, sold as sex slaves to pimps. I used to be one, a prostitute I mean. My mother and I, we lived in a small shabby apartment near the end. It was paid for by our pimp. I remember the walls were infested with black mold but despite everything I was glad to have it. It was better than living on the streets. The apartment only had three rooms. When it came to having multiple clients at once my mother would go into one room and I would go into another. It wasn't the life my mother wanted for me, I knew, which was why she'd saved up what little wages she made to send me over the border. I didn't hate her for having to sell my body to help make ends meet. Such was the way of life at the time.

"Finally when I was sixteen there was enough money to send me over to America where I was able to forge my own path. I haven't seen her since but sometimes I like to think she's okay. Looking back and considering what I have now, I think about how ugly my life in Mexico was. In its own way, life here in America can be just as ugly. But one thing I miss about Mexico, " he said with a nostalgic grin, "is the sun. The beautiful golden sun. It doesn't look the same here. But when I look at your hair, how bright it is, it reminds me of how the sun looked back home."

He put his fingers against the back of my head, pressing them gently against my scalp. A shiver passed up my spine hard enough to make my whole body tremble. I felt like I was floating in a euphoric cloud of ecstasy dangerously like the feeling I used to have when I shot up. But I was powerless to stop and so, I knew, was he.

"I want you, " he said in a thick voice. His brown eyes smoldered with desire.

"So have me," I said and pulled him towards the bed.