Alexander Plansky - Arcadia

Things were tense in the household for a long while. His parents fought more and more. Desmond went to therapy for years. He sat there sobbing on a sofa, saying it was all his fault. He should have let Georgie rip up the stupid space shuttle. His brother died and it was all because of him. Over time, the therapist helped him accept that Georgie was only a child, so was he, and that sometimes children do childish things. Georgie was also the one who’d undone his own seatbelt while playing with it, and the driver of the other car shouldn’t have been texting behind the wheel. Neither of those things had anything to do with Desmond.

In his teens, he was diagnosed with a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. By the time he was in his twenties, he’d found a way of moving past the memory. Ultimately, it was simple.

He never thought about Georgie.

It was as if he never existed. He locked him up in a box and shut him away in the dark recesses of his mind. He accepted that nothing would ever change what happened and decided to shut the past out completely. He quickly lost interest in space beyond the occasional sci-fi movie. After that, he went to undergrad at UCLA for journalism, stayed in the city, and set up a new life there without ever looking back.

Until now.

Headlights burst through the overturned Jeep’s windows as Lewis heard the black sedan roll to a halt at the edge of the road. A door opened and closed somewhere outside. The killer’s footsteps grew louder as they approached the wreck.

Slowly, Lewis sat up as grief turned to rage. He frantically searched the car for anything he could use as a weapon, but he was out of luck. He ducked down and glanced out of the broken window at the dark figure approaching. It was Blackwell, silhouetted by the glare of the headlights behind him. Lewis could just make out his angry expression and a bandage across his forehead.

The man in black raised his hand. Lewis saw the gun’s muzzle flash just before a bullet narrowly missed him, embedding itself in the metal of the door.

He scrambled back, took one last look at Jenna’s motionless figure, then fumbled with the passenger door handle and managed to push it open. Grunting, he pulled himself out into the desert and clenched his teeth to ignore the pain from his broken rib and his wounded shoulder. Agony wracked his body, but he pushed past it as he took cover and breathed deeply.

“I know you’re alive, Mr. Lewis!” Blackwell’s voice called. “There’s nowhere left to run.”

He clenched his fists. Think, think, think. Somehow, he had to get to Blackwell’s car. If the agent didn’t know he had exited the Jeep, he might be able to sneak past him and make a break for it while he inspected the wreck. It was very risky, but at this point, he was out of good options.

Then he looked to his right and found a better one.

It was a rock, small enough to fit in his hand, but it looked weighty enough to do some damage. Cautiously, he reached forward to grab it, then retreated to the side of the Jeep. It was quite heavy after all, perfect for what he needed. He heard Blackwell getting near to the left side of the wreck.

Lewis started slowly around the rear of the flipped vehicle, keeping his breathing measured and quiet. The cold air stung his lungs.

Blackwell stopped. He could hear him crouching down. Any second now he was going to see that Jenna was dead – that would slow him down for a moment, she’d been the main mission after all – but then he’d look past her corpse and see the other door open and Lewis gone and–

He made his move.

Lewis sailed around the side of the car, the rock raised high. Sure enough, Blackwell was crouching down and peering in, a look of horror washing over his face as he realized he had made a terrible error. Then he turned and dismay turned to shock. The man in black’s quick reflexes took over as he swiftly sprung to his feet and whipped his pistol toward Lewis.

He grabbed Blackwell’s arm and barely managed to sidestep the gun just before it went off, bringing his other hand around to slam the rock as hard as he could into the other man’s chest. There was a sharp crack and Blackwell gasped, the pistol slipping from his fingers as he careened back and fell into the dirt beneath the pale moonlight.

Lewis turned and dove for the pistol; he hit the ground and his fingers curled around the grip. He turned over onto his back to aim, when an enraged Blackwell launched himself on top of him, the two men falling onto their sides as they struggled for the weapon.

He violently lashed out with his foot and hit Blackwell’s shin. The man hissed through gritted teeth and jerked back slightly, but it was all Lewis needed. He pulled the gun to the left, swinging the end of the barrel toward his opponent’s abdomen, and squeezed the trigger.

Dark blood spurted from the wound and the man in black finally let go, enabling Lewis to scurry back while keeping his aim trained on him. Slowly, he got to his feet as Blackwell clutched his side and pulled himself back against the wreck.

Lewis stayed where he was, the gun shaking in his grip. He held onto it with both hands.

Blackwell threw his head back and began laughing.

“What?” Lewis shouted. “What’s so fucking funny?”

The man in black pretended to wipe a tear off his eye. “Alright Mr. Lewis, you did it. You killed me. Are you happy now?”

Lewis stood there, seething with rage. “You killed her! You people killed all of them, every fucking one of them!”

He laughed again. “I did you a favor. She was going to die anyway once we finished the brainwashing and sent her back home. She was going to butcher her friends, probably you too, and then kill herself just like the rest. Inadvertently, I just saved her legacy.”

“I suppose that’s one way of putting it,” Lewis said. He wanted to pull the trigger right now, to blow this asshole’s brains all over the side of the car. But other ideas floated through his head. Punch him, beat the living shit out of him, break every one of his fingers, smash his fucking skull in with the rock.

“Come on, Lewis. Kill me. Kill me and go to Arcadia and kill all the others. You have to now. The woman you love is dead. Isn’t that a wonderful cliché? Now you can go avenge her, but deep down you’ll always know it was you who killed her. Just like you killed your little brother.”

“Shut up!” he barked. His hands shook again.

“You brought her to Vegas. Turns out she hadn’t been playing that much Rogue Horizon after all. You were the one who got brainwashed by accident. You answered the call and brought her right to us. She was the one we’d wanted all along. You’re a nobody Lewis, but her… she was really somebody, wasn’t she? A gaming celebrity, while you’re just a middling tech journalist.”

“I said shut the fuck up!”

“You wanted to be an astronaut. You wanted to explore the stars. But instead, you wound up living in the shadow of your rich, famous girlfriend. Tell me, were you ever stupid enough to think that you were important enough for us to target?”

“No,” he said. “It was never like that.”

“Then why did you pursue all this?”

“I just wanted to know.” His voice was softer now. “I wanted the truth.”

“Ah, truth.” Blackwell sighed. “Well, truth hurts Lewis.” He laughed again, but the pain was evident. He raised his head slowly, the evil smirk on his face illuminated by the full moon.

Lewis tilted his head to the side, suddenly realizing where he’d seen the man in black’s face before. And then in that instant, it all became perfectly, painfully clear to him.