Darkest Before The Dawn Read online

  Nagoya, Japan, Hirano Residence

  Yuko stepped out of the black box and stared at the apartment building. Though she would never admit it to Eve, there had been many a night over the last weeks when she had thought about coming back here. She’d resisted looking up his communication details for fear of Eve pressuring her into something. But she remembered exactly where she had dropped him after their last encounter in the park.

  The encounter that had led to her sharing the details of her mission here on Earth with him, and her charge to unite Michael with Bethany Anne.

  She closed the black container’s door behind her and started walking toward the apartment building. At a guess, at this time of the morning on the weekend, he was home.

  She hoped he wouldn’t be so she could spare herself the anxiety of explaining why she was there.

  She took a deep breath and kept walking.

  At the building she scanned the door buzzers, searching for his name.

  Hirano.

  She ran her finger down the list of scrawled names and Japanese characters, reminding herself that it was unlikely he would have used his police title on the label.

  Hirano.

  She found it.

  Her heart beat hard in her chest, but this sensation was so different from when she exerted herself in physical training. Or fighting.

  She pressed the button, scrambling in her mind for the right words to say.

  There was a long moment of silence.

  She heard a hovercar stream past behind her. The birds were singing in the trees. Everything was perfect for a Saturday morning. She was even aware of the sun beating warmly on her back.

  She wondered if she should ring the buzzer again. Her finger hesitated over the button.

  “Hai?” A male voice responded.

  “Hello? Inspector Hirano?” she clarified, her heart still in her throat.

  The voice hesitated. “Yes?” he confirmed suspiciously.

  “This is Yuko,” she explained. “We met a few weeks ago when…” Her voice trailed off.

  There was a silence. Yuko imagined she could hear the cogs turning in his brain as he scrambled to remember who she was.

  “I’m not here to wipe your memory,” she added hurriedly, suddenly thinking he might be assuming the worst. “I… I just thought we could talk,” she admitted, not wanting to overwhelm him by being too forward.

  There was another pause.

  “Hello?” she called again.

  Just then the door buzzed open.

  “Second floor,” he called through the intercom.

  Yuko pushed the door open, feeling adrenaline pulse through her insides.

  She stepped into the building.

  —

  Yuko arrived at the second floor via the stairs. Hirano had come out of his apartment in bare feet and was walking down the carpeted corridor to meet her.

  “Yuko,” he said, shaking her hand. “It’s very good to see you!” He ushered her along the corridor and into his apartment.

  Yuko allowed herself to be led, relieved he was receptive to her visit.

  She stepped into the apartment ahead of him. It was light and airy, with pale laminate wooden floors and lots of open space. She was pleasantly surprised at how he managed to retain a very traditional look and feel despite how Western Japanese trends had been changing since the war.

  Hirano flitted around, moving discarded clothing, towels and other items to make the place more presentable.

  “Please don’t tidy up on my account. I apologize for showing up unannounced,” she told him politely, now embarrassed by her rash decision to come here.

  “No, no. It’s good that you’re here. I had no way to reach you, so I’m…glad.” He seemed to settle down as he became accustomed to the situation. “May I offer you some tea?”

  Yuko bowed. “That would be lovely.”

  Hirano disappeared into the kitchen. “Please make yourself at home,” he said, waving to the sofa area. The low sofa simulated the old-style futon seating arrangements she had grown up with.

  Yuko made herself comfortable, amused at the mixture of customs they were abiding by. After all, she would never have shown up at a man’s apartment a hundred and fifty years ago, especially not unannounced.

  She sighed to herself, her eyes wandering all over the apartment and appraising his trinkets and decor.

  Shortly he returned with a tea tray and set about preparing the drinks. He sat cross-legged at ninety degrees to her around the central low table, and their meeting took on a formal air.

  The pair made small talk and took tea together. Yuko couldn’t remember a time when she had ever been quite so happy.

  Saint-Genis-Pouilly, France

  William “Duke” Renaud’s eyes flashed red once. He needed this intelligent bore, and he needed to understand exactly what he was trying to say.

  He’d also need a lobotomy to allow him to sleep at night, he feared, after he absorbed all of these new technology and science concepts.

  Physicists could be damned scary. Why he hadn’t considered using them before to help kill those he didn’t like, he would ruminate on later.

  For now, he just needed to try to find the patience to not kill the doctor as he worked through his many—and painful—talking points.

  “So you see, your Grace,” Scientist Evan Vaulcott completely missed the Duke’s flashing red eyes, “it was all a sham! A lie to keep us—”

  “Wait.” The Duke put up a hand. Sitting behind a desk in an old building at CERN, which was still in remarkable condition, he refocused his attention away from ways to kill himself to avoid the self-inflicted pain of listening to all the dry information. “Are you saying that there was an effort to hide the truth?”

  “Oh, absolutely!” Evan nodded his head vigorously as he waved a hand toward the window. “All this damage we see? Completely fake.” He shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t mean the damage isn’t there; we can both see there are destroyed buildings. However, it was all a ruse. They blew up unnecessary facilities to give the impression that the war we were told about really happened. With your people helping, we should get access to the main shafts soon. I’m willing to bet dinner on it.”

  The bet caused the Duke to smile. William had learned that Evan absolutely loved good food. This man was all scientist and didn’t worry about any potential ethical issues—another reason he should work with more scientists if Evan was representative of even ten percent of his type of people.

  Evan continued, “And I will bet my dessert that we will find everything down below in pristine condition.”

  William leaned forward in the chair and laid a hand on the desk. It was past sunset, so he didn’t need to worry about the sun finding him. However, he felt very unprotected up here in these aboveground buildings. “The collider, it is how far underground?”

  “The rings?” Evan asked, and the Duke nodded. “Anywhere from about fifty to a hundred and seventy-five meters. Pretty damn deep. Plus, it is over twenty-seven kilometers in circumference. Well, the big ring is.” He paused a moment before looking up at the ceiling.

  The Duke understood that physical mannerism to mean that Evan’s brain was off on some sort of tangent to their conversation. However, the tangents could occasionally be interesting.

  “We ran across some early discussions and notes about the project.” He looked at his boss. “Did you know they hypothesized that the Hadron Collider would open doors to additional dimensions?”

  William blinked a couple of times. “And this would do what?”

  Evan shrugged. “I’ve no idea, but I read a post by Sergio Bertolucci, former Director for Research and Scientific Computing of this facility, that it would produce tiny doors and they would shut down quickly. There isn’t any predicted risk, so I just find it interesting.”

  “Yes.” William leaned forward and stood up. He fixed the cuffs on his coat. “Something we can discuss over dinner after our major project is completed
.” He stepped out from behind the desk. “Let’s go look at the challenge that is blocking the teams from getting below,” he told the scientist as he headed for the office exit. “I feel a need to have a few hundred meters of Earth above me.”

  It wasn’t lost on him that just a few decades before he had been trying to get out of the ground. Here, however, there were multiple exits, and he intended to figure out how to build a few more.

  This might be the best location for him to settle down and found his new royal city.

  Who knew? He wondered as the door shut behind Evan, who was jogging to catch up. He was going to rule Earth and pretend he was giving them the future, all because a bunch of dead scientists made sure he finally had a way to kill that bastard, Michael.

  He supposed that the brouhaha Evan had told him about regarding the old CERN logo and the religious people saying it had the mark of the Beast in it because they supported the devil was going to come true.

  Downtown Nagoya, Japan

  “So what exactly is this?” Jacqueline asked Eve, trying to understand the little bits of English on the tickets.

  Eve led them into an old theater that was more of an enclosure in a castle than a modern Japanese building. Her expression was one of girlish glee. “Come on,” she cajoled them, not answering the question.

  There was a round arena in the center of the stone-walled shelter, circled by tiny fires built into the ground. In fact, the place was mostly illuminated by fires burning on torches on the walls, the shadows dancing providing an atmospheric feel. Only a moment before the group had left the bright pleasant sunshine behind behind, and now they were in the cool darkness of what felt like a place of magic.

  “This place is giving me chills,” Jacqueline remarked quietly to Mark.

  Mark put his arm around her shoulder. “It’s ok, baby, I’ll protect you,” he said, his voice tinged with a hint of irony. Jacqueline jabbed him in the ribs. “I’ll protect myself, thank you very much, Geek-boy!”

  Mark chuckled and rubbed his body where she had poked him. “I’ve no doubt you will,” he agreed, shaking his head and looking around.

  A crowd was already assembling around the arena. Not a huge crowd, maybe a few dozen people. Mark imagined they were probably mostly out-of-towners, judging by the different clothes they wore.

  “So now what?” Jacqueline whispered to Eve.

  Eve turned and looked at them both, the fires reflecting off her face. “Now…we wait,” she told them theatrically.

  They didn’t wait long before half-dressed acrobats and performers started prancing around the arena, dancing, flipping, and generally wowing the crowd.

  As the show wore on, the acts became more involved and intense. Music filled the arena and reverberated off the stone walls, captivating all who were present with the sound and the vibrations. Acrobats suspended by invisible wires swung in the air throwing fire between themselves—and water balloons onto unsuspecting audience members.

  Volunteers were taken into the inner circle for various displays of shooting skills and illusions. Jacqueline, Mark, and Eve deliberately kept themselves from being chosen for such feats.

  That was, of course, until one acrobat dropped down directly above Jacqueline, causing her to move quickly.

  He came face to face with her for a brief moment before his harness pulled him away again, but in the instant it would have taken to merely give a human a fright Jacqueline had already started to change, her eyes flaring yellow and teeth growing out of her mouth.

  The performer panicked and lost his flow, twisting back in mid-air to see that the monster had been replaced by a mere girl with her hand clapped over her mouth and a concerned boyfriend consoling her.

  “You ok?” Mark asked her, standing directly in front of her so no one could see her as her face returned to normal.

  She nodded, her hands still over her mouth. “I think so, but what the fuck? And that guy was a Were. I could smell him,” she exclaimed, the anger still blazing beneath her shock.

  Mark wrapped his arms around her as Eve watched them. Eve mouthed, “Is she ok?”

  Mark nodded, whispering to Jacqueline to calm her down.

  “Do we need to go?” Eve asked quietly.

  Mark conferred with the hidden Jacqueline, then shook his head. “Less conspicuous if we stay,” he relayed.

  Soon the three were enjoying the show again, the fright and near exposure almost forgotten, if not forgiven.

  —

  Finally, the show started wrapping up. The performers took their bows and accolades from the crowd. Applause rang through the little courtyard.

  Jacqueline looked around the appreciative crowd. “Time to go?” she ventured, aware they wanted to keep as low a profile as possible—especially now.

  Eve nodded and started leading the way.

  Mark leaned down and teased Jacqueline as they made their way through the loosely packed crowd. “Can’t take you anywhere!”

  “Not my fault,” Jacqueline hissed back at him, careful not to let anyone overhear their conversation. “I thought that Were was going to land on me!”

  Jacqueline’s protest turned into a giggle. “It’s a good reaction to have when your ass needs saving!”

  Mark chuckled. “Can’t disagree with that. I’m still thrilled I have the badassiest girlfriend on the planet.”

  With Eve acting as their beacon, they wove through the crowd and the passageway back out to the street.

  No sooner had they hit the street beyond the modern foyer than Jacqueline felt someone pulling her from behind.

  She spun around, ready to end whoever it was.

  “Excuse me?” A young man still dressed in full costume and makeup from the performance released her and bowed shallowly, moving to get out of the way of passersby.

  Jacqueline frowned, no longer feeling threatened. Mark had moved on a step or two but still held her hand. She released him to allow people to pass between them on the busy street.

  “Yes?”

  The young man moved a little closer, dodging an elderly couple. “You’re one of us,” he whispered. “What are you doing here? In this city? I’ve never seen you before.”

  Jacqueline glanced at Mark, who had seen that she had stopped. She couldn’t see Eve. “Yes” she admitted to the performer. “I’m here with my boyfriend,” she said pointedly.

  The youth waved his hand in dismissal. “I was just curious,” he explained, “because you’re Were, but you seem…different. Even for a Were.”

  Jacqueline felt her barriers go up. She didn’t like discussing herself with a complete stranger. “Well, yeah,” she said cagily. “I get that a lot.”

  She glanced at Mark and Eve, who had reappeared and was watching the interaction. “Look, I’ve got to go. Nice to meet you,” she added politely before heading down the street again.

  The youth looked disappointed as she left him standing in the busy cobbled street.

  Mark put his arm around her shoulder, still watching the youth she had left standing there. “What was all that about?”

  “I’m not sure,” she confessed. “He recognized that I was Were, but different. Just curious, I guess. I hope he keeps it to himself,” she added grimly.

  They caught up with Eve, who seemed to have heard the whole thing. She nodded. “He was the one who scared you inside. And yes, you made a good decision to keep your secret to yourself,” she confirmed. “Come on, let’s get you off the streets. We should probably be a little more discreet, just in case. These are strange times in the dark ages, even here.”

  Within a matter of minutes, Eve led them into another grandiose building.

  Mark looked around in awe. “It’s a palace!” he gawped. “A technology palace!”

  Jacqueline was less impressed, mostly because she had lost Mark’s attention. Even so, she had to admit the place was amazing.

  She ran her eyes over the array of advanced computer consoles, each displaying holograms and games. Every th
irty yards there were doors, entrances to what she suspected were some version of immersion reality. Holodecks...at least that was how they were labeled. Not that she knew what these things were. Her mind boggled, trying to comprehend what was really going on in each room.

  Eve stopped in front of the pair of them. “Welcome to one of my little creations,” she said, waving her arms around more like a hostess than someone bragging.

  Mark could barely speak, so Jacqueline did it for him. “What is this place?”

  “Entertainment Centrale,” Eve told them. “All these rooms have different types of games and experiences you can undergo. I’ll talk you through them, but first there’s something very important I want you to try.”

  Jacqueline waved her hand in surrender, indicating that Eve should lead the way.

  Eve turned on her heel and stomped her little AI body through the grand walkways of probably the plushest and extravagant building Jacqueline and Mark had ever seen.

  After a few turns into similar corridors with differing decors, she stopped in front of a stand and spoke to the person running it.

  A delightful smell came from the machine atop the stand, and there were wisps of some kind of substance within it. The man put a stick into the windowed box and waved it around, and moments later he produced a cloud-like fluffy substance on the stick.

  Jacqueline couldn’t take her eyes off it, her Were sense of smell going bananas over its delightful scent. “What is it?”

  Eve smiled, taking it from the man and handing it to Jacqueline. “Wata kashi!” she told her, delight tinting her normally even voice.

  Mark took a sniff too, his eyes softening in bliss. “But what is it?”

  Eve sighed, unable to experience it herself. “You eat it. Pull a bit off and put it in your mouth.”

  Mark tried it first as Jacqueline watched him with narrowed eyes. His face lit up as the sugar melted in his mouth. “That. Is. Amazing!” he declared, reaching for another piece. “Try it.”

  Jacqueline didn’t move, obviously tempted by the smell but unsure of this strange new substance. Mark stopped with his second piece almost at his mouth and instead held it toward her. She opened hesitantly, and he popped it onto her tongue. Almost instantly her expression relaxed and her eyes widened. “Om nom nom…” was the sound she made, trying to express the sensation in words.