Pestilence

27

Ian waited around the corner after ramming the Audi into the car full of boys. No police or ambulances arrived since no one’s cell phone worked. He took out his own, connected to a private server, and connected directly with the hospital. After giving them the address, he walked away with a limp because his knee had butted into the dash.

The building he had come for wasn’t more than a mile away. He watched the cars pass him as he limped down the sidewalk, until he came across a pharmacy. Inside, the pharmacist and a tech were behind the counter, trying to get their Internet connections to work.

Ian went to an empty aisle and pulled down his pin-striped trousers. His injured knee wasn’t bleeding at all, which signified an internal injury. It felt a bit as if he’d torn his ACL or MCL. But he didn’t have time for that. He grabbed two ACE bandages and wrapped them tightly around the knee.

He left the store and headed farther down the street, to the building he was searching for. He didn’t have to double-check the list. He had memorized every name and address.

The building was almost a skyscraper, with maybe fifteen or sixteen stories. On the tenth floor was a man named Gabriel Vega, a Mexican national who worked for the United Nations and was only in Los Angeles for a brief meeting with officials from the consulate.

Ian hobbled inside. Flowers decorated the dark-wood-paneled lobby, and the elevators were chrome. An older security guard sitting next to them looked up.

“Can I help y-”

Two slugs entered his left eye, the second following the first almost perfectly, breaking through the back of his skull with a dull thump as he toppled over his chair. The elevator dinged, and Ian stepped on and glanced up at the mirrored ceiling as it began to rise.

How many elevators like this have I been in? he wondered. How many people above him were living their lives in total obliviousness while death quietly drifted up to them? That their decisions had led to a visit from him was an odd thought to consider. From the moment they were born, they were making choices, and their choices brought him to them. The truly interesting question was whether someone was riding an elevator up for him.

The doors opened on the tenth floor, where he got out. Elegant lights were spaced in the hallway, and the carpet was a pure white, without a trace of dirt. And a unique thing for this city, it had no smell-no exhaust, no perfume, no warm garbage, or sweat. The place was odorless and lifeless.

He found the apartment he wanted and knocked. Footsteps came from inside, then the door opened. An elderly Hispanic man, perhaps as old as eighty or eighty-five, answered the door.

“I’m looking for Gabriel,” Ian said.

“Who are you?” the man replied in heavily accented English.

“A friend. My name’s Ian.”

He was silent a moment. “You’re a friend of my grandson’s?”

“Yes.”

“Gabriel, venir aqui.”

“Que?” A young man of twenty-six or twenty-seven came to the door.

Ian eyed him up and down. “Are you Gabriel?”

“Yeah.”

“You work at the consulate? On cross-border epidemiological issues?”

He gave his grandfather a quizzical glance and said, “Yes.”

Ian lifted the pistol and fired into the boy’s chest. It threw him back against the wall, leaving a smear of blood all the way down as he slid to the floor. The grandfather’s eyes went wide, but he didn’t have time for much more of a reaction. Ian slammed his elbow into the old man’s throat, crushing the windpipe, and then swept his feet out from under him. The old man fell so hard, Ian heard his delicate bones crack as they broke. He stepped over him, leaving the grandfather gasping for breath on his back like an injured turtle, and shut the door behind him.

Ian fired one more round into the boy’s heart to be sure he was dead and went farther in to the apartment. One bedroom was a master decorated with furniture that was at least thirty years too old. The other was decorated with baseball caps and sports memorabilia. Ian walked into this one and glanced around.

Photos were up on the nightstand of the boy and his grandfather at baseball games and on a fishing trip. He saw all of Gabriel’s life then. His parents had abandoned him at a young age, and a kindly grandfather who had thought he’d already put in his time raising his children had taken him in and raised him as his own.

Ian did not like remorse or guilt. They were wasted emotions the herd felt because they had been trained from childhood to have a response to stimuli that shouldn’t have meant anything. Emotions were nothing more than a response of the weak, those who were ruled over rather than doing the ruling. Successful people were frequently on television, discussing love, charity, and compassion, but those were not the things that had made them successful. They shared a secret that they would never reveal. The formula for success was simple enough for anyone that wanted to learn it: do not feel guilt.

Still, in his own way, Ian was saddened that the grandfather had to die and that he had seen his grandson die before him. If he had it to do again, Ian would kill the grandfather first.

Ian checked the rest of the apartment, and no one was there. He made his way down the elevator, and when he stepped off, a crowd had gathered around the security guard’s body. They were all trying cell phones, sending texts to nowhere, and placing calls that would never connect. They seemed so impotent that Ian almost laughed. He brushed past them, getting a good look at their faces. Absolutely fascinating, they were much like a different species he couldn’t possibly empathize with. They fussed over this man whom they had never met. They probably saw him every day and ignored him, but once he was dead, they cared for him. What a waste of energy.

Three names were left on his list. He thought about commandeering a car, but something about Katherine was… entertaining. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but he enjoyed her company.

He hailed a cab to take him to the hospital.