Ragnarök II: Just Another Soul For Sale

Ragnarök

II

Chapter 2: Just Another Soul for Sale

    “What did they say happened?”
    “We... They’re still not entirely sure yet. It’s like his bodily functions have just... shut down... Sir, we’ve never seen anything like this. This doesn’t even look human.”
    “What do you mean, ‘not human’?”
    “Well – ...”
    “You mean, like one of them?”
    “Like I said – We don’t know right now. We’re looking into it.”
    “‘You’re looking into it’?”
    “Sir, we’ve got every one of our computers and databanks running at full capacity. The best team of experts in the country has been working full-time since five o’clock yesterday morning. We’re doing everything that we can.”
    “That isn’t good enough! I don’t care if it takes every scientist on this whole damn planet to finish the job. This organization that I built from nothing will not end up as just another military snafu because the world’s dumbest smart people couldn’t fix some head trauma. Now you go tell those sons of bitches to finish their tests and report back to me ASAP! I wanna know what this is we’re up against. And I want my operative back when they’re finished, y’hear?”
    “Y-yes sir...”
    “Do you hear me!”
    “Yessir!”
    “Get outta here.”
    “Right away!”
    “Idiot.”

    Alex swam in and out of consciousness, objects and people around him blurring and reforming before his eyes. He was laying down somewhere. He couldn’t move. There were tubes in his arms and his chest and his throat. Pain rippled over his body in small waves, some of them mild and some nauseating. But none nearly as bad as that afternoon... how long ago had that been? There was no way to tell. Alex had slept through most of the procedures. Many different doctors came and went, they checked on him, they all did basically the same tests, and then they all left in the same semi-disappointed way. It seemed that whatever they were looking for, he wasn’t giving it to them. That was alright as far as he was concerned. Right then, he didn’t care either way.

    Right then, Alex was dreaming – something that didn’t happen very often. It was a good dream. He was walking. He didn’t know where he was going, but it didn’t matter. There were people around him. Agents? No. These people were... different. They were all talking, and he was talking too, talking to them and walking from nowhere to nowhere else. There was a boy on his left and a girl on his right, both about his age. There was also a man several years older than him, and a few more people. They didn’t matter though. He was focused on that girl walking next to him. She was talking to him, and he was saying something back, and now she was laughing, her head thrown back and her hair flying in a way that was somehow both comical and mesmerizing. Alex couldn’t make out her face, even though she was just a few inches away from him. The guy on his other side made a comment and Alex half-turned, but the same strange thing happened where although he could see the man perfectly, there didn’t seem to be anything there. Alex turned back and kept walking. There was a grunt from behind him, and Alex looked towards the other person. He was a mountain of a man, standing a full head taller than Alex and weighing in at four hundred and sixty-two pounds, ten ounces. His face was almost discernable; Alex thought that if he got any closer, he would be able to make it out. The man leaned in to say something, and his face began swimming into view.

    Alex sat bolt upright in the hospital bed, as if jarred awake by a nightmare. This was simply a muscular reaction, of course; Alex still had no motor control whatsoever, and as soon as the shock wore off, his muscles relaxed and he fell back onto the pillow, sending little rivulets of pain running down his back. He didn’t mind. The pain was just a reminder that he was still alive.
    Alive? How?
    He didn’t know.
    This shouldn’t be happening. I should be dead right now.
    But he wasn’t. Not yet.
    But what does this mean?
    He didn’t know. Trying to think about it made his head throb. A hundred or more emotions flooded his mind, flashing through his consciousness so fast that for the next twenty minutes he wasn’t aware of most of his own thoughts.
    Alex closed his eyes and breathed slowly. He had suffered many wounds in his time on duty, but this was perhaps the worst to date. He would be feeling the effects of this encounter for the rest of his life, no doubt about it. He would have to be rehabilitated, and probably wouldn’t be able to stand upright or walk a straight line for months. He was brooding on this when the door opened and an unexpected guest stepped in.
    “Good to see you alive and kicking, Alex! Well... alive, in any case.”
    Alex turned to look, and did a double-take. There, standing next to his bed, was none other than John Marx himself. (No relation to Karl, though he would’ve been proud to claim it.) This particular Marx was known throughout the organization to be one of only six founders still alive. He was the only one Alex knew by name; the rest were faceless numbers. Just like all the other agents, really – except for one critical detail:
    The Bosses were legendary. To the average agent, they were larger-than-life figures, the ultimate symbols of power and authority. Alex, and a select few others, knew the truth: The Bosses were far from immortal. Ragnarök began as a band of fifty-five men with a common goal (known only to them); that had been twenty years ago. All but six had met with unfortunate deaths – which led one to wonder what exactly they had been doing that could have taken the lives of six ex-Navy SEALs, twenty Marines, twelve Army rangers, and nine Green Berets in the space of less than twenty years.
    “Hey, kid – you listenin’ to me?”
    Alex was jerked back to the present. “Ugh. What? Argh. Uh, repeat that please sir.”
    The man rolled his eyes. “I was sayin’ that you better recover soon, or we’ll be short an agent. Get my drift?”
    Alex got his drift, and some of the color drained out of his face – now there’s something that didn‘t happen every day.
    Marx took a look around, and then shut the door and locked it. Alex watched this out of the corner of his eye, and felt a small pang of fear shoot through him. He shook himself mentally. What was up with him? He winds up in the hospital, and all of a sudden he’s scared of his own shadow. Fear was for the weak. And Alex was not weak in any sense of the word.
    Marx turned back around as Alex composed himself. He caught Alex’s eye and held his gaze there, and then flicked his eyes up toward the ceiling in an almost imperceptible gesture. Alex blinked to signify that he understood. They were being watched. Even with someone like John Marx in the room, there could be no lapse of constant audio/video surveillance. That was one of the unquestionable facets of agency security. Marx nodded towards Alex, and then raised one finger and beckoned towards the only other way in or out of the room. He began walking that way, and Alex started to try to get up, but then he fell back onto the sheets and remembered that he was virtually a prisoner in this bed. There was no way he could walk. He could barely move as it was. Marx looked around at him, half-smiled, and winked once before vanishing into the adjacent room and half-closing the door behind him. Alex couldn’t believe it. How could he be expected to get out of the bed and walk? The blood was still fresh under his bandages. One of his lungs was collapsed, and the top-right quarter of his head was decorating the carpet on the twelfth floor of an abandoned office building in LA!
    So what?
    Alex started. The thought was unbidden, and it took him by surprise to hear his own usual arrogance speaking out against his incredulity.
    What is stopping you?
    Alex scoffed. What wasn’t stopping him?
    Stop whining and get up off your ass.
    Could he do it? Could he really?
    The Boss is waiting.
    And that settled it.
Alex swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and slowly began to move. He shook violently as he lifted his head off the pillow. He tried to sit up, but his muscles wouldn’t respond. He strained them as far as he thought he could, and sharp bolts of pain cascaded down his spine and sent white-hot needles racing through his arms and legs. He ignored it as best as he could. After a few agonizing seconds, he sat up enough to grasp the rail of the bed and pull himself the rest of the way up with his arms, which he found to be working (somewhat) now. He edged over to the very side of the bed, and began to stand up. At first he thought his legs wouldn’t hold him, but when he tested them he found them to be at least sturdy enough for him to stand by leaning over onto the bedside table. One last thing. Alex grasped the cables and IVs scattered over his body, and ripped them out with one hard yank. Blood splattered the clean white bed sheets, and his legs buckled under him. He sat there grasping the table, waiting for it to come... and come it did: a feeling akin to an industrial-strength blowtorch applied to his head. Something like being hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer. His heart beat a tattoo against his chest. That numbness again. He flashed back and that maddening laughter started up again, only it didn’t sound like the echo that it did before. It sounded like it was inside him, like he was the one laughing. It got louder and louder, and suddenly the blowtorch and sledgehammer dropped off to dull thuds and a piercing pain split his skull. His neck began to burn, and the burning focused in to a single point at the back. This was worse, so much worse than the office firefight, and Alex slumped over and felt the bile rise in his throat... Then a chill ran down his spine, and the pain stopped. And in that moment, he felt something leave him; and it felt like a burden was lifted off his shoulders. All the pain was gone, his legs tensed up again, and he straightened up and was amazed to find that he could stand, and yes, he could even walk, and his step seemed lighter and more effortless than it ever had before. He walked to the door to the other room, and there was Marx waiting for him and smiling his cocky half-smile. He still didn’t say a word, just motioned for Alex to follow him and together they made their way out the back door to the courtyard outside.
    Once there, Marx reached into the trunk of his car and handed Alex a box with all his gear inside. He got into the back seat of the car, and Marx started driving while Alex changed.
    Marx drove for almost an hour, not saying anything. Alex had gotten into the front seat, and was listening to some wanna-be punk rock band screaming about suicide. Just when he had decided he wasn’t going to turn on the radio again as long as he lived, Marx swung suddenly onto a small dirt road and flicked on the wipers against the volley of dust and gravel. Alex settled back into his seat and waited out the remainder of the song; it ended on an ear-shattering pick slide while the singer yelled something inaudible into the microphone, then the drummer thunderclapped once and Alex listened to the radio announcer going through the list of artists. Alex dozed in the passenger seat, his head lolling on his shoulder while Marx drove to someplace Alex was coming to believe he’d never end up getting to.

    It was nearly two in the morning when the car slowed to a stop. Alex woke up as soon as Marx touched the brake; the reaction seemed instinctive. Marx still didn’t say anything, but he flicked his eyes in Alex’s direction and seemed pleased. Alex got out of the car and followed Marx up to an old farmhouse-style building, complete with a barn and silo and what looked like eighty acres of open field behind it. There was something foreboding about that house... Alex didn’t like it. Marx held the front door open for him, and Alex stepped inside. The bang of the door latch echoed infinitely in the dark, spacious room in front of him. Alex took a few steps forward, realizing as he did so that he was somehow sealing his own fate. He didn’t care.

    As soon as the door slammed shut, what little light there had been in the room was extinguished. Alex stumbled around in the dark for a few seconds until Marx lit a candle and started walking deeper into the house. Alex followed, not knowing – and frankly, not caring – what lay ahead.
    They reached a doorway that lead into a slightly smaller room. They stayed close to the wall, and eventually they came to a door with a heavy deadbolt set into it. Marx unlocked the door and opened it, they stepped inside, and he closed and locked it. As soon as the bolt slid back into place, fluorescent lights in the ceiling came on. They were standing in a room about five feet square, with two large unmarked doors: one the way they came, and one leading out. Marx walked up to the latter, pressed his thumb into a gel pad, held an eye up to the retina scanner above it, and after two confirmation beeps punched in a number on the electronic combination lock on the door. Alex was staring at the wall, but he could see enough to read the number with his peripherals: 9084.
    There were some mechanical clicking and whirring sounds from inside the steel, the sound of three other bolts sliding painfully back on their tracks, and the rails on the top and bottom of the frame that held the door in place retreated into the walls. Marx pushed on the half-ton door, and managed to open it enough for them to both walk through. He pressed a button on the wall inside, and all at once the door slammed, bolts slid, tumblers tumbled, and rails locked themselves back into place. The room was officially air-tight.
    Alex turned around and was met with a steep, narrow flight of stone steps. They looked like something ripped straight out of a cheesy 1960’s horror flick. Marx spoke for the first time in several hours:
    “Walk.”
    Alex walked.
    And walked. And walked. And walked. The staircase spiraled down, never seeming to end. He was vaguely aware that Marx had his gun out and was holding it behind the small of Alex’s back. Under ordinary circumstances, Alex would have drawn his own gun and shot the man dead in a heartbeat; this time, however, he was deathly afraid Marx would be faster on the draw.
    After almost ten minutes of walking down stairs, Alex stepped onto a rough dirt floor. Marx had put his gun away, Alex saw with relief. The fear was back. But now it was doing more than just gnawing at the edge of his consciousness; it was dangerously close to spilling over. Alex had always been calm, levelheaded, and severe – as long as there was a new assignment on the table and money in his pocket. But now... now, his superior was holding a gun to him and locking him in a cellar. His world was tipped and sliding. All it would take was one more push to set it upside down.