A woman taking her dog out for a walk. A solitary leaf making its journey towards the ground, as though it was tired of being attached to a branch. A man crushing a cigarette butt under his feet, exhaling the last smoke of what may be his first cancer stick of the day.
Dozens of images, each one giving a different viewpoint of two worlds; one within and the other outside the building where three Scottish godlikes lived. Maitho saw a car move across one section of a monitor and teleport to another section on another monitor, where a bird's-eye-view of the street below showed the same car moving away from the image.
Away from the camera, Maitho thought. One camera placed on the side of the road, probably hidden among some bushes or placed in a car, and the other looked like it was one of the tree branches that arched over the street.
As he tracked the different camera views, he noticed one section showing a view of a room that was faintly illuminated by a ray of sunlight between two brown curtains.
Maitho realized why the women were confident that he was not a threat to them. He felt a violation of his privacy. If they really needed to gauge his trust, they could have asked him. They did not have to spy on him. Maitho had the feeling of worms crawling under his skin, realizing that he was most likely being watched the entire night. He wanted to shiver, but suppressed the feeling. There was no way he was going to show the women in the room that he was unnerved. They probably wanted him to react to the discovery of a camera in his room. It seemed as though the test was not over yet.
A memory seemed to make its way from the depths of Maitho's mind, like an ancient sea creature emerging from deep below and attempting to break the surface. He wanted to close his eyes, in an effort to focus on the memory, so that he could send it back to the deepest reaches of his memories. But closing his eyes might not send the right message to the women. They might think he was planning something. Or worse, that he was afraid.
Pretending to observe the cameras, he saw from the reflection on the screens that Brigid had moved closer to the secret weapons compartment. Closer to the doorway, Epona stood leaning back against the wall. Her arms were crossed and the hand that was holding the revolver was pointing the weapon at him. Her stance was supposed to appear casual. It was anything but.
"This is a well-built monitoring system," said Maitho, trying to buy some time. He wasn't planning anything. At least, not yet. He wanted to flush the nervousness out of his system while trying to gain more information about the situation.
"It is," said Brigid, a hint of pride in her voice. There was a hint of another emotion. Caution? Or was it malice? "Bevan designed them. He is a bit of a tech geek. But that is not why I am showing you this room."
Brigid was expecting Maitho to turn around. He didn't want to. She would see his fear and that would mean she would think that she had successfully managed to intimidate him. Maitho's attempt at trying to avoid showing her his emotions wasn't because of pride. Well, at least not entirely. It was mainly about not giving the women the opportunity to think they can influence him easily.
Maitho half turned his head towards her, choosing to look at the wall, as though he wasn't interested in what she had to say. "I know it isn't because you trust me. So I'm all ears." He hoped that his voice didn't project the nervousness he was feeling.
Even though he was able to push back the memory that had tried to enter his consciousness, it had left brief flashes of images in his mind. They were appearing one after the other in quick succession, like slideshows being played in fast-forward. Their unpleasantness made Maitho clench his teeth.
"I will do anything to protect my team," said Brigid. "We have gone through too much Maitho. Right now, the only thing keeping us alive is our faith in each other first. This." Brigid waved her arm to indicate the contents of the room. "This is all so that we can prevent damage rather than treat it after it occurs."
She was subtly accusing Maitho of potentially causing some form of damage. He understood her position. In fact, he recognized the emotions of fear, anger, hopelessness, and perhaps even revenge, flowing through her. He was experiencing different degrees of the same emotions. Yet he still found that her allegation struck a nerve.
Good, thought Maitho. Hold on to the anger. It will replace the tension you were feeling a few seconds ago.
He turned around, placing his arms behind him on the table. It was not just to put on an act of confidence. He needed a weapon too and the joystick looked like it could hurt. With his head tilted slightly to one side and his legs crossed, he focused his attention on Brigid. "What damage do you think I am going to cause?"
"What is your power?" said Brigid, raising her chin. Daring Maitho to challenge her question.
They wanted an advantage over him and any information about his powers would be a major one. "Ladies first."
Both women shifted. The movement was subtle. But its implication was clear – they were preparing themselves to engage in combat.
"Don't fancy yourself our friend or equal," said Brigid, controlled fury raging in her eyes. "You will always be our opponent. Whether you are useful or choose to help us is irrelevant. But there is maybe a minuscule of a chance that we could work together until we resolve the situation."
It was like being in a room that was slowly filling up with a highly flammable gas. A single spark was all that was required to cause an explosive chain reaction. Maitho knew that each person in that room was on a heightened plane of awareness. The women wanted to wound him. Maitho wanted to run. Probably by wounding the women. There wasn't a single pacifistic route out of the situation and even if there was, the people in the room were too tense to think about it.
"Why bother with this conversation?" said Maitho. "You know I'm not going to say it and I know you are going to try to make me say it."
"Fur fook sakes," said Epona, bursting into a snarl and banging the wall with a fist, "Dont' say anither word unless it's th' answer we ur leekin fur." Maitho noticed that when Epona banged her fist on the wall, she used the sound her action produced to mask the sound of her cocking the revolver's hammer.
They have trained themselves well, thought Maitho. But then again, what else did he expect?
"Let's get this over with," said Maitho.
There was no way he would escape a hail of bullets if the women decided to use guns. He had to not only land lucky blows on both women, ensuring that they were disarmed long enough to allow him to escape the room, but he had to run across the apartment, try to run past Bevan, go down six floors, enter the basement, retrieve his car, and escape, all the while being observed by a dozen cameras. There were so many things that could go wrong.
The women looked like tigresses about to pounce on their prey. They just wanted him to look away from them or get distracted. Maitho wasn't going to give them a chance. Besides, he still did not know their powers.
His fingers were now touching the joystick. Even if he reacted quickly, the motion of grabbing the joystick and bringing it around to attack was not faster than a simple pull of a revolver's trigger, which was all Epona had to do.
The silence stretched for what seemed like minutes, even though it could have lasted only a few seconds. Everyone was frozen.
Brigid made the first move. She was fast, probably because of familiarizing herself through the motions of quickly picking up a weapon from the hidden compartment. Her fingers were almost touching s handgun's grip. Maitho had already discharged a joystick towards her. The object flew across the room, aimed at her upper torso. His other hand now gripped the trackball device.
He saw Epona bring her revolver to point at him. Maitho didn't aim. He didn't think too much. He tossed the trackball device in her direction and ducked beneath her weapon's line of sight.
Perhaps it was the impact of the trackball on her hand. Maybe it was because she was already tense. Or it could be – and Maitho believed this reason to be the likely cause – that she really wanted to hurt him after their verbal altercation the previous night, and the embarrassment she suffered by the hands of her leader. Whatever the cause, she fired the revolver.
The boom that followed was deafening in the small room. It was like placing speakers next to one's ears and playing the sound of a firework explosion at full volume. The sound caused Maitho to instinctively cover his ears. A high pitched ring seemed to pierce his eardrum and travel all the way to his brain. He clenched his teeth at the uncomfortable sensation. He felt pieces of some object impacting his neck.
For a few stunned moments, nobody moved.
Maitho looked at Epona in astonishment. She looked back with genuine confusion and worry on her face, as though she didn't know what just happened in the past few seconds.
A thought punctured Maitho's daze. The women were only going to threaten him. They weren't going to attack him. The look on Epona's face confirmed that.
Despite his morbid curiosity to know the truth, he did not want to stay in the small room any longer. This was his chance. He could use the confusion to make his escape.
And he would have. If he hadn't spotted Brigid pointing a handgun to his face.
While Epona may have looked confused by the fact that she had opened fire in a small room. Brigid was standing with a sense of certainty about her. She was as surprised as Maitho was about the shot from the revolver, but she recovered quickly just as fast as he had.
"Get up," said Brigid, practically ordering Maitho.
There was not point in trying to respond to someone who was pointing a projectile weapon in the face. Maitho stood up slowly. He did not raise his hands. There was no way he was going to show them that he was surrendering. He did keep his hands away from his body, indicating that he wasn't about to make sudden movements.
"Do what you have to do," said Maitho.
Brigid didn't respond. She was looking over his shoulder with a look of concern. Maitho, still keeping his hands where everyone could see them, turned his head to look behind him.
A bullet sized hole had appeared on one of the monitors. Cracks extended from the point of impact in all directions, like glass worms emerging out of a hole. The screen flickered with a multitude of colors, but none of them formed a proper image. They were just a random collection of lights on a dying machine.
It was parts of the monitor that bounced of my neck, thought Maitho. He sifted through his memory to discover that the damaged monitor featured cameras that showed a view of the house outside, a small alleyway beside the building, the building stairway, and a view of the street father away from the building.
"There is no way you are leaving this place," said Brigid. "Not until you tell us everything about yourself."
"Brigid", said Maitho, leveling his eyes at her without showing aggressiveness. Rather, he realized that there were only three ways the situation could play out. They could either let him go – which was not going to happen – or fight him, in which case they would have to subdue him or put him down for good. The last option would be that they hold him prisoner, but Maitho was not going to allow that to happen. "Do what you have to do."
Maitho spoke each word slowly. A fist connected with his jaw, sending him reeling towards the wall. His head bounced off the surface and a burst of fireworks exploded in his vision.
"We ur nae fuckin' wi' ye." Epona's shout seemed to come from a distance, as though she was standing outside the room.
Maitho placed his palm on the wall and pushed himself to his feet. It did not matter that he would lose his life now. After all, he had been carrying a death sentence for two years. He was living one month after another, his sense of freedom restricted and a constant presence of stress pounding his body until he completed his mission. Until he saved a life.
Truly, what was the point? There are other godlike who can take over his job. The Scottish godlikes had three months to finish. Three! If Maitho was in their shoes, then he would complete a job and then take a vacation during the remaining two months.
It didn't matter to him anymore whether he would lose his life. Somehow, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to place a conclusion to the directionless story of his life. He would go down fighting. Of that, there was no doubt.
When he was on his feet, his mind was filled with resolve.
He never got to use that resolve.
The two women were staring at the screens, a look of shock on both their faces.
At that moment, Bevan burst into the room.
"What the heck happened in here? Where is M-" he stopped dead in his tracks, looking at Maitho. A look of pure joy spread across his face. "Maitho. I am so glad you are okay."
Maitho wasn't certain how to react, but he was thankful to hear a friendly voice.
Bevan then noticed the expression on the two women's faces. "What happened to you guys?"
"Look at monitor 3 Bevan," said Brigid. She pointed the gun at Maitho with a look of intense focus.
For the second time that day, Maitho turned his back to a loaded weapon. He wasn't certain which monitor was number 3. So he decided to take the logical course – he looked at the third monitor on the first row. He was curious to know what Brigid was talking about.
When he looked at the four sections of what he hoped was monitor 3, he noticed one of the cameras showing the view of the street just outside their building.
In the middle of the street stood a man with light color hair, which could be blonde, but the black and white monitor could not confirm that. He wore a light colored suit and a dark shirt. His hands were in his pant pockets as he looked up at the buildings around him, as though he was measuring how tall each building was.
"That's not possible," said Bevan. "It's him."
Information from the past couple of days flooded into Maitho's mind. He examined one memory after another, looking for the meaning of "him." Flashes of the conversation he had with Bevan the previous night and one he had with Brigid this morning ran through his brain.
In the end, a single word burst out of the jumble of data.
Raiden.
"It's Raiden," said Epona. "The God of Eight Street."
ns 15.158.61.16da2
