Shutdown: Chapter 8

Chapter 81

“What did you do?” Jo asked her father. 2

“What does it matter? One favor and then I sent her on her way.”3

“Listen, sir, the ‘favor’ you gave this girl could affect our entire mission.” Explained SharpShooter.4

William ignored him, “I couldn’t do nothing, she is Charlie’s niece.”5

“That niece killed Jake and endangered your daughter’s life on numerous occasions.”6

“Just like you will.” 7

“Dad! Just answer me truthfully, did you give your blood to RapidFire?” 8

“Yes, no if you’ll excuse me, it’s late and I would like to get some rest.” William left with a wry smile on his face: one way or another his plan would work. 9

“There’s nothing we can do about it now.” Said SharpShooter, “The blood let her get on the transport, so she’s probably either in Australia or Asia. When we run into her, which we’re bound to, we’ll deal with it. But tonight, just get some rest.” Jo nodded and they went to sleep in their rooms. 10

Once again Jo’s sleep was interrupted. She saw the man called Mark again. He was interrogating another girl. This one was sitting her knees, her hands tired in front her. In a dark corner of the room, there were two bodies covered by blood stained blankets. 11

“Your turn. How many of you are there?” when the girl didn’t respond, Mark grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head back, “How many are there?”12

“Many.”13

“I want a number.”14

“Many. More then one.”15

“I know that, now do you want to give me a number?” Mark picked up a pair of pliers and yanked out one of the girl’s fingernails. The girl let out a piercing scream which turned into a churning roar as Jo suddenly found herself running with SharpShooter. She turned and saw a huge erupting volcano whose lava was spilling after them. Jo sprinted down, passing SharpShooter on the way. She heard SharpShooter stumble and turned to help him just as the inferno engulfed him. As he screamed the fire melted into the ground leaving a black ‘s’ burned into the ground…16

Jo woke up, her breathing ridiculously calm after the dreams. She went through her morning as if she hadn’t just had a vision predicting her friend’s death. There was a light knock on the door, Jo opened it a crack at first and then all the way when she saw SharpShooter. 17

“Did I wake you up?” asked SharpShooter as he walked in. 18

Jo smiled and shook her head, “No, not at all. I was just about to come down.” 19

“I brought you some breakfast… You’re dad is downstairs, and after last night I wasn’t sure...” Jo shoved her things roughly into her bag before turning to face SharpShooter again. 20

“You read my mind.” She said, “So, canned fruit again?” 21

He smiled sheepishly as he held out a plate with a napkin covering its contents, he took off the napkin to reveal a warm, buttered, bagel. “Charlie said he’d been hiding them; they’re one of his long-lasting ones.” Jo smiled as she took the plate gently from him and sat on the bed. She took one of the halves and bit into it, savoring the flavor. She offered SharpShooter the other half but he declined saying, “I already ate.” Jo shrugged as if to say, ‘suit yourself.’ 22

“So, did your dad tell you how to use the transport?” asked SharpShooter, after a few minutes to dispel the awkwardness. 23

Jo nodded as she swallowed the last few bites, “Easy as pie.” 24

“That’s a first.” Said SharpShooter causing Jo to chuckle slightly. 25

“You’re all packed?” SharpShooter nodded and they headed down into the basement. 26

Charlie flipped the switches and transformed the basement. 27

“Are you ready?” asked Jo. SharpShooter nodded, but she could tell he was paling at the thought. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you remember.” 28

“Me too.” He said, swallowing hard. 29

“You want to say good-bye to your father?” asked Charlie, noticing that William was nowhere to be seen. 30

Jo looked at one corner behind the elevator and said, “This is good-bye.” She let her hand drift up to her necklace and pressed the amethyst. 31

The trip was shorter then the ones between France and Madagascar. SharpShooter let his head hang down between his knees to dispel lightheadedness. Jo put her hand on his back and looked at him to make sure he was okay. 32

Once he was recovered he stood up, brushing his shaggy hair out of the way and said, “So, where exactly are we?”33

“Australia. I figured that if we go to Asia last, we could fly over the Pacific…” Jo knew the explanation was weak, but she couldn’t think of why she had come here instead of the Asia, the obvious choice. 34

“If you had a dream you don’t have to lie. I don’t like them, but they do work…” 35

Jo turned and saw the setting sun, “Well, I guess we should camp out here.” She said changing the subject. 36

SharpShooter realized how late it was and nodded, “I’ll see if I can dig up something to burn, won’t be much but it’ll work for tonight. You’ll be okay on your own?” Jo nodded and he strode off to the east. Jo set her bag on the ground and waited patiently, gazing towards the east. After a few minutes she wished she had gone with SharpShooter, it felt pointless to sit waiting. The desire for company only increased when she heard approaching footsteps. Jo turned around to see RapidFire, alive and well, with a smug grin on her face. 37

“You finally made it.” Said RapidFire. 38

“It would seem so.” Replied Jo, her eyes turning cold as steel. 39

“Your father was very helpful, for once. He gave me his blood and sent me here. Unfortunately he had to call back the transport and maroon me here.” 40

“What do you want?” 41

“I think you know. There’s no use pretending anymore I have the blood, now I want the Key and I think you know I won’t mind killing you to get it.” 42

“And I think you remember that I promised to shoot you if I ever saw you again.” 43

“But you won’t.” Said RapidFire, confidently. 44

“Even if you kill me, I have my assurances.” 45

“I assume you mean SharpShooter, our resident hoodlum.” RapidFire shook her head gently and sighed, “Oh! He didn’t tell you did he? I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.” RapidFire chuckled slightly. Jo looked at RapidFire and saw SharpShooter creeping in the shadows, brandishing his knife for the kill. Jo had betrayed him with her glance; RapidFire looked to her left then glanced at back at Jo a second before she whirled around and wrenched the knife from SharpShooter’s hand. Jo simultaneously drew her gun and fired a shot. As Jo’s bullet met with her body, RapidFire lunged and gave SharpShooter a vicious gash across the stomach. 46

“Let’s see how your assurance holds up…” said RapidFire in a mixture of groans and whispers as she staggered to the grown. As RapidFire exhaled her last breath, Jo staggered a bit herself, feeling sick to her stomach. SharpShooter wrapped his arm around his wound and walked over to her. 47

“Are you okay?” he asked, placing his free hand on her shoulder. She nodded then saw the blood oozing over his hand and remembered the wound. She gently helped SharpShooter sit down and reached over to grab her bag.48

“It’s not that bad.” Said SharpShooter, “I can patched it up myself…”49

“Move closer to me.” She said, ignoring his objections. He obeyed, wincing as he did. Meanwhile Jo was digging around in her bag for her flashlight and medical kit. Once she found it, she pulled out bandages, a needle and some thread. 50

“I can do it you know.”51

“Just let me sew, please?” asked Jo, sterilizing the needle in a bit of rubbing alcohol and gently pulling his arm away from the cut. “Give me your shirt.” She said, threading the needle and placing it on the bandages, “I need it for rags.” 52

“Yeah, I’ve got an extra one, but won’t a bandage be fine?”53

Jo raised an eyebrow, “Do you want to die? Just take off your shirt and let me sew.” SharpShooter was about to give another protest but, at a look from Jo, he took off his shirt. 54

The first thing Jo noticed was the smooth muscles that lined his torso. After that, she saw a brand. It was an ‘s’, a once inch wide strip of pale white skin which went from a little below the collarbone to his navel. The scar was now crossed by RapidFire’s gash. Jo didn’t comment for a few minutes as she grabbed a water bottle: SharpShooter futilely hoped that the scar had escaped her notice. 55

“Did it hurt?” she asked, dampening part of the shirt with her water. SharpShooter nodded, looking down at the dirt as Jo carefully washed the blood and grim away. He rested his weight on his hands when Jo started threading the needle. 56

As she started the first stitch Jo asked the inevitable question: “So, what happened?” When she noticed his reluctance she chuckled saying, “You can either distract yourself by telling me or you can watch me sew up your gut.” Jo pulled out a flashlight and aimed it at the wound so she could see despite the fading light.57

“Well…like I said, your dad was a good judge of character. The name SharpShooter came long before the attack. When I was 15, 7 years ago, I joined this gang. They told me I needed a name so I called myself SharpShooter. I worked so hard to get them to accept me so I let my grades drop, I rejected my family.” Jo snuck in her third stitch. “So one night, I’d been in the group for a few months, and Ref, our leader, says we have a rumble. It was us versus a gang of college kids. They had a lot more people, but Ref didn’t want to back out and everyone was itching to throw some punches. We figured that we might get more black eyes than usual but…” he winced as Jo continued sewing, “We started the fight and everything was okay until the other group pulled out knives…This tall, muscular guy cornered me against a wall. When he pulled out the knife, all I could do was dodge him while watching my friends run or get killed. Soon he pulled out a rope and wrapped it around my throat, I tried to push his arms away, but he was too strong and after a few seconds I passed out.” Jo finished the last few stitches and started winding the bandage around and around his body. 58

“I woke up and he was doing this to my back and chest, a double S for SharpShooter.” SharpShooter motioned to his scar, “I don’t remember where I was or how he did it, all I remember is feeling like I was being eaten alive and the searing sensation on my chest and back that wouldn’t stop.” He shuddered as Jo finished bandaging the cut and washed off his bloodied arm. Once she was done, Jo sat back on her knees and repacked her bag. 59

“Listen, I’m not proud of who I was or what I did,” he said, leaning forward trying to meet her eyes while attempting to ignore the pain, “I’m not a gangster anymore. I just want you to understand that…” Jo grasped his hand, squeezed gently and laid her free hand on his bandage as she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. 60

“SharpShooter look at me,” she said, moving back to her original position but still holding his hand, “I know people who have done worse things, and worked less to own my trust. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you: you have nothing to worry about.” 61

SharpShooter let out a relieved sigh, “I was worried that…”62

Jo leaned forward, “Hey, what did I just say? Just go to sleep, don’t let it worry you.” She turned off her flashlight and the pair went to sleep with their fingers still slightly interlocked. 63

As she drifted off Jo dreamed about the branding. She saw the college kid dragging a younger, ganglier version of SharpShooter down an empty street. Suddenly the dream became an old memory. Jo was walking down the streets to school at six in the morning. She heard a door in an alleyway, a few yards away. The door creaked and groaned like it hadn’t been opened in years. Jo stopped walking when she saw a boy that looking back was obviously SharpShooter, he had the same brown hair, although it was more neatly cut. The boy looked around briefly and started to walk off, Jo noticed that he was bleeding as he limped. The boy walked down the street, away from Jo, when he had walked a few strides he stopped and turned to look at Jo. They held each other’s gaze for a few seconds until SharpShooter looked at his feet and loped off. The dream shifted to a glance at the empty chair in the high school assembly, next it moved to the missing person ad in the paper with SharpShooter’s picture. 64

Meanwhile, as Jo’s eyes flitted in sleep, SharpShooter lay awake, gazing at the stars above him while subconsciously continuing to hold Jo’s hand. He thought about the seven years he had spent on his own. After he had spent the night in the dump where the college kid had left him bleeding and defenseless he ran away. He remembered standing at the end of the alley, deciding to go back home. He thought about Ref, the man to whom he’d given everything but owed nothing, and in the end he walked out of the alley hoping to find some hope of a life. He remembered the homeless people in the streets and was determined to go back home to his family so he could apologize to his parents and his older brother when he came back from college. He wanted to gather the shambles of his life and make a new one. Until he saw the girl… he had seen her before: she was a freshman at his high school. He couldn’t remember her name, but he knew of her: she was a goody-two-shoes, one of those girls with no life and wanted nothing but good grades and an Ivy League education. He remembered her long, flowing hair that shone in the light. Compared to his bedraggled appearance, what with his torn t-shirt, bloody and bruised body, she was a gem. But more then anything else he remembered the girl’s stunning blue eyes. They were the amazing color made famous by Elizabeth Taylor. Those piercing eyes had beheld him with so much pity and simultaneous conviction. It was those eyes that had condemned him to seven years of lonely wandering. It was that gaze that had convinced him to leave everything behind. As the hours passed, and the memories flowed, SharpShooter eventually joined Jo in sleep. 65

Jo’s dreams continued until dawn, when she awoke with a burning pain in her wrists. She tried to ignore it, but soon she heard some one calling her name.66

“Jo, wake up.” Said SharpShooter, gently shaking her awake while pointing his gun at a figure roughly a dozen yards away. Jo jumped up and drew her gun faster than SharpShooter could blink when she realized that the figure was a machine. The machine waved a white shirt over its head as it walked up. SharpShooter started to cock his gun and aimed. 67

“Wait, he’s surrendering.” Said Jo.68

He looked at her incredulously, “First of all, when did these things get a gender? Secondly, it’s a machine and last I checked we were trying to shut them down.” 69

As if on cue the machine said, in a monotonous voice that echoed in Jo’s mind, “I have come to negotiate.” 70

“You see!” 71

“See what? All I see is that the machine is spitting out gibberish like a two year-old and that you somehow see that as further proof that it means no harm to us.” 72

“I can understand him.” Hissed Jo, “He’s saying that he only wants to negotiate.”73

“Fine, if you want to trust this bucket of bolts then you interpret, but if it so much as twitches I will shoot.” The robot put the shirt on the ground before advancing a few steps closer. 74

“I have come to speak to the Blue Dawn.” It said. 75

Jo translated to SharpShooter then said, “What have you come to negotiate, and who is the Blue Dawn?” 76

“The Blue Dawn is here, and bears the amethyst. The Blue Dawn has decided to flip the switch.”77

“I think we are the Blue Dawn.” She said to SharpShooter. 78

“Is this hypotheses correct?” When Jo nodded, the machine cocked its head to the side like a dog, “Why is this?”79

Jo didn’t bother to translate before saying, “Because the Designer has deemed it you time and also because you have killed many people.”80

“But that is what he told us to do. Just as he told me to negotiate with the Blue Dawn.” 81

“What’s he saying?” asked SharpShooter, upset that he was being excluded from the conversation, Jo held up her hand and the machine continued. 82

“He told us to kill and now he tells us to be killed.” He pondered this briefly before saying, “It is… confusing.” 83

Jo nodded, “My father, can be that way.” The machine straightened up before pressing his hands against he chest. SharpShooter prepared to shoot but stopped as two metal plates on the machine’s chest separated, revealing a Lock. 84

“If this is the wish of the Blue Dawn and the Father, may it be so. Here is your Lock.” Jo translated and SharpShooter was immediately suspicious. 85

“What if that Lock only shuts it down and not the continent?” 86

“I assure you that this is for us all.” Said the machine.87

“We have to try it.” Said Jo.88

“Well at least throw the Key, let the Lock attract it and then we’ll see if this thing is telling the truth.” She nodded her consent and untied the ribbon. Immediately the Key started pulling towards the Lock as it had in Madagascar.89

“This has to be it: the Key doesn’t pull this hard except for a factory.” She released her grip on the Key and it flew to the robot’s chest, knocking him down. As soon as the machine was unlocked, there was a blink in the landscape. Suddenly, the outback was transformed into a barren wasteland. 90

“Well, there’s your proof.” Said Jo.91

“Your dad certainly put a lot of time into this. A hologram simulating Australia as it was in the 21st century…” Finally, SharpShooter noticed Jo’s wrists, “What happened to you?”92

Jo looked her palms and then down to her wrists where she noticed two ‘s’ that looked almost seared onto the skin. The brands themselves were about an inch wide and two inches long, starting right below her hand. She suddenly felt a tingling on her back and felt it as best she could for anything suspicious: instead of smooth skin she found another burn in the shape of an ‘a.’ 93

“I don’t know...” she said, bewildered then in an attempt to change the subject she walked over to the machine, “He wasn’t a very good diplomat; he handed the Lock to us, no resistance, no objections whatsoever.” 94

“Well it made it that much easier to finish the job. Maybe your dad decided to give us a break for once.” 95

“Or maybe it’s a prelude to something that much worse.” 96