Chapter 1
Alan
Every major city has its good parts and bad parts. Chicago is no different. There are sections of the city the police drive through with their windows up, head on a swivel. There are also neighborhoods they stroll through with smiles and nods to those who live there.
In the years since the call of the apocalypse was silenced, Alan Price found himself familiar with these less-than-upstanding sections of Chicago. Tonight, he found himself on a block of rundown homes and businesses. Some of the buildings looked abandoned altogether. Some actually were; others were just boarded up to seem like they were abandoned.
Down the block to his right, the building Alan walked toward looked like it had not seen any care to its exterior since it was built, thirty to forty years previously. The paint peeled, and the windows were secured with old wooden boards refusing to let anyone look inside. In front of the building, two gang members leaned against the closed door.
“We ain’t got no money for you,” one of the men said at the door as Alan approached. “Get out of here while you can still walk.”
“I don’t want your money,” Alan said, looking down at his clothing. He wore simple Converse, jeans, and a black hoodie. The hood covered his face at the moment.
Do I really look homeless? Alan thought to himself. Maybe I should start wearing nicer clothes or a mask, even.
“Well, you need to take your broke self back to whatever hole you crawled from right about now,” the second thug said. He was larger, with a face tattoo on the left side of his cheek Alan had never seen before. The tattoo looked like an explosion, maybe smoke.
“I can’t do that,” Alan said, coming to stand in front of the pair of men. He lifted his right hand to point at the door behind the pair of guards. “I’m going into that building.”
“You’re what?” the larger one said to his counterpart with a laugh. “Are you hearing this, guy, Joker? Am I going crazy or did he just say he’s going inside? He’s going to go through the door?”
The smaller man named Joker didn’t think Alan was as funny as his friend thought. He scowled at Alan, coming closer to him. He lifted a sweater, revealing a handgun in his waistband.
“Is that right, Crackerjack?” the one called Joker said, staring at Alan. “You’re going to be going inside? I don’t think so.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Alan said, not backing down despite the thug named Joker coming so close to him, he could smell stale cigarette smoke from his breath. “I’m going inside.”
“Oh yeah?” Joker said, pulling the handgun from his waistband. He pressed the barrel into Alan’s forehead. “The only place you’re going is six feet into the ground, Crackerjack.”
The cold steel of the barrel made contact with Alan’s head. Alan took a deep breath to calm himself.
“I’m going to give you one more chance,” Alan said, unflinching. “If that gun’s not out of my face in the space of your next heartbeat, I’m going to take your hand.”
Joker’s face screwed up in a look of wild amusement. He looked back to his counterpart for a moment. “Hey, D, you hear this guy? He’s going to take my—”
Unfolding his wings from his back felt a lot like extending his hand. The closest analogy Alan could make was like pulling his hand from his pocket.
Alan only extended one wing now. His left wing sliced out from his back. In a flurry of blue light, his wing, which was more energy than physical form, slashed out and severed Joker’s hand at the wrist. The thug’s hand fell from the rest of his body. It made a sick, soft, fleshy sound as it struck the pavement below them.
The severed hand still held the handgun in it firmly.
Both the hand and weapon clattered to the pavement below.
Joker’s mouth opened. He looked to his wounded arm, to where Alan had been a moment before, and to his hand on the ground below him.
As soon as Alan made his move, he sprinted past Joker to the other man named D. Alan was on him before he even understood what was happening. Alan placed a right hook to the left side of the thug’s chin.
The man went down without so much as a whimper. Alan made sure he held back on the blow. He didn’t want to kill D. He just wanted to knock him out.
Both men down, Alan looked around. The hood he wore should be enough to mask his identity. The only person to witness what had happened to the thugs at the door was an old homeless man across the street.
The man’s mouth was open as he tried to process the events unfolding in front of his eyes. Alan wasn’t worried about him at the moment. He went over to where Joker had fallen to his knees.
The thug that had been so menacing before was in a state of shock.
“You’re going to need to call an ambulance,” Alan said, squatting down so he could look Joker in the eyes. “You’re in shock right now. That’s normal. But if you don’t call for help soon, you might lose your hand forever. Stop your bleeding, and call 911 right now.”
Joker gave him a stupid half nod. With his uninjured arm, he reached into his pants pocket for his phone. “Who—who are you?”
“I’m nobody,” Alan said, rising to his feet again. He walked to the door. He tried the handle. The door was locked, of course, but Alan had to try anyway. With a violent twist of his right hand, the knob turned, breaking the locking mechanism inside.
Alan opened the door and entered the warehouse-like building.
The building was dark with an empty reception room. A desk to his right lay abandoned. A hallway ran sideways in front of him with a door to his left and another to his right. There was no sound.
“I’m in,” Alan said to the earpiece in his right ear. “Right or left?”
“If you take a left and then make your first right, you’ll find the largest room in the building. If I had to guess, that’s where they’re set up,” a female voice said in his ear. “Also, I’m glad I didn’t tap into any of the city cameras to witness what you did to that guy. Did you really chop off his hand? Gross.”
“He needed to rethink his life choices,” Alan answered as he followed the instructions given to him. Danielle Turner was more than a coworker or friend; she was the closest thing Alan had to family.
Danielle had been with him through it all. She was there when he was recruited by the angelic order, through the Archangel Wars themselves, and she was there for him when he lost the woman he had grown to care for so much.
Alan refused to think about any of that at the moment. He needed to be focused so no one got killed. Alan traveled through the door on his left that led into another hallway. To his right, a second closed door waited for him.
Music traveled from behind this door. Some kind of hard metal reverberated through the door that was more screaming than an instrument being played.
Alan made his way down the stained carpet of the hallway. He opened the final door. On the other side was a wide room with tables set up in rows. About a dozen workers in white masks went about their tasks of preparing the drug. The drug itself was in various forms of creation. It almost looked like a high school lab with beakers and Bunsen burners stacked on nearly every table.
Along with the workers, at least six armed men lounged around the room. Either they did not expect an attack on their operation or they were just plain lazy.
One of the men to Alan’s left spoke into a cell phone.
“Joker, Joker, I can’t understand you,” he muttered. “What are you going on about? Are you high again?”
“He’s in shock,” Alan said to him.
Everyone in the room turned to look at Alan. Those who had not heard his voice past the blaring music nudged their counterparts and jerked their chins in Alan’s direction.
Guns came up, pointed at Alan from the six thugs not working on creating the drug. An assortment of handguns and shotguns were leveled at his chest and head.
The man on the phone removed the cell phone from his ear. He placed it back into his pocket. He traded it for a sleek silver handgun by his side.
“Who are you?” he asked over the noise.
“I’m the person who’s going to shut this place down,” Alan said.
“Kill him!” the man yelled.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Weapon fire erupted in the room. The workers either screamed or ran for their own weapons. Alan bolted into action. He was a blue blur as he slammed into the thugs gunning for him. Alan bulldozed a pair to his right. He hit them harder than a professional NFL player. They flew backwards before hitting the ground hard.
Alan spotted two more thugs on the far side of the room. He called on his wings again. This time, he used his left wing to cover his body like a shield. With his right, he sent out blue electric energy bursts. He fired three rounds at the last three thugs as he walked forward. The bolts hit them in the chest, sending them spasming to the ground in unconsciousness.
Alan’s wings gave off a light humming sound as he continued forward. The few workers who felt brave enough a moment before to try and grab their own weapons re-thought their decisions. They now lay cowering on the ground.
The last man standing was also the one who received the phone call from Joker. Alan guessed if he was the one Joker decided to call, he must also be the person in charge.
Thunder rang out from the thug’s weapon for a single moment longer. Soon the bellows of his weapon turned to dry clicks. Alan reached him, opening both wings as he approached.
Alan’s wings were each the length of his body. They hummed a brilliant blue. A powerful crackling energy came off them in waves of raw fury. Alan reached the man and lifted him from the ground by his collar.
The room was quiet now. One of the man’s wasted bullets meant for Alan had found the radio, killing the music in the room. All that could be heard now were the moans of the men Alan dispatched as easily as taking out the garbage.
The man squirmed under Alan’s hand, trying to free himself from his grip. It was useless.
Alan noticed a tattoo on the man’s left hand. It was the same tattoo the thug outside named D wore on his face. It looked like an explosion, inked in black.
“I want to know who you work for,” Alan said, still dangling the man in the air. “I want a name.”
It was clear the man was frightened, but he shook his head anyway. “I—I don’t know his name. We get our orders passed down. I swear, I don’t know who’s in charge of it all.”
“What’s the tattoo on your hand?” Alan asked.
“The pay is crazy good, but they make us get these tattoos. I don’t know.” The man swallowed hard. “I don’t ask questions as long as I get paid.”
“How do you get your orders?” Alan’s methodical mind went down the checklist. “Who tells you what to do if you don’t even know who’s in charge?”
“My cell phone—my cell phone.” The man fumbled into his pocket and offered Alan his phone as if it were a peace offering. “I swear he calls once or twice a week with instructions. He calls himself the Speaker. He gives us our pay at drop-off points.”
Alan wanted to know more, but it seemed fate would not reveal the identity of the head of the operation this night. Sirens blared in the distance.
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