Fantasy So Night Follows Day by TMaskedWriter

[Ramesh_Rocky]

Hey, Susan again. Rob and Eric had just stopped on the street in front of our houses before turning into their driveway. Julie jumped out as soon as the car was going slow enough and ran toward our house. I stayed in the car until it was stopped.

Troy was standing in the doorway. Julie ran up to him and didn't even let him get the "Hey" out before she threw her arms around him and began kissing him. Helen was right about the internal screaming.

Seeing him in the doorway, my mind kept going back to that twisted door in the hall outside Helen's suite. Something kept bothering me about it.

"Is Capitan Ortega available?" I asked Rob and Eric, getting out of their car.

"He will be in the command center in the garage." Eric said. "Go in through the house, please."

I nodded and thanked him. For being unstoppable killing machines, Ultimados are surprisingly polite.

I entered the house and made my way through the cots that had been set up in the living room to the garage. The scene inside was, indeed, what I would expect from the term "command center." The overhead light was off, but there was enough light to see by from the computer terminals and other military hardware that Julie could probably tell you what it is, but I couldn't. Four of the Ultimados were manning terminals. Capitan Gregorio Ortega, their commanding officer, seemed to pace around a black, shiny table in the center of the room. I looked at it in hope that it would turn out to be some kind of 3-D holographic map that hovers over the table, but if it was, it wasn't turned on just then.

"Señorita Bailey." He said, turning and noticing me. He didn't salute. Nor did he have to. I'm just as much a civilian in San Finzione as I am in America. "Everything is well across the street?"

"Yeah," I said, still a bit distracted by all the high-tech stuff. I'd heard Troy and Julie came over last night, when they were worried about Helen. I got caught up in wondering how the hell Julie ever got him out of this garage, then remembered why I'd come over. "Everything's fine there. I had a question, though. You know that video of the incident at the hotel yesterday that doesn't exist, and if it did, every copy has been accidentally destroyed?"

"Si?" Ortega replied.

"May I watch it?"

"Si. You are now cleared." Ortega said, going over to an empty computer and pulling the seat out for me. I thanked him, figuring it was a reflex from working for Helen. He opened the file and hit play. Apparently, Helen's "top secret clearance" spell last night worked.

I watched the footage. Me accepting that I'm not gonna pull some Matrix shit in this scene, Mander giving me an understanding nod that said "Yeah, this is gonna get serious, Susan. You go to Rita, we got this," Velazquez pulling some Matrix shit in this scene. And then the explosions at either end of the hall. The fire doors flying off the opposite walls, twisted things on the ground now.

"You've got guards watching those doorways now, I'm guessing."

"Si." Ortega responded.

The question that had been digging at the back of my head finally poked itself forward.

"So, where did those other guys come from?" I asked Ortega. "Velazquez, Mander, and I saw the six guys get in the elevator, and they shot those six guys. So where'd the guys on the fire exits come from? Did they run up the 51 floors to the La Contessa Suite? I'm sure Helen has cameras on the helipad. Somebody would've noticed another helicopter landing on the roof before Ernst. Even if it just hovered for a moment and they slid down on ropes like you guys do, there'd be camera footage of that. And then they'd have had to get into the stairwells. But the rooftop fire doors were intact, your guys had to blow those open themselves..."

I spun around and looked Ortega in the eye.

"I know where Whyte is!" I said, fishing for my phone. "And he's about to attack Helen!"

I dialed her number as he shouted commands at the others in Spanish and they went scrambling into action.

"You've got extra Ultimados in the hallways tonight, covering those now-breached fire exits. Where did you pull them from?"

"The balconies." Ortega replied. "La Contessa has the steel shutters on the windows."

"Then that's where he's coming from! Whyte's been all about misdirection from the beginning! He had them blow the doors off, so you'd focus your attention on the hallway. The Triad hit was never meant to succeed. The real attack is tonight, and probably coming from the now-deprioritized balconies! And there's only one place he'd hide: A place so stupid, that Helen would never think to look there."

The call went to voicemail. I hung up. There was nothing I could do to warn Helen.

"Fuck!" I shouted. "I'm not getting through. That probably means he's already on his way!"

That thought spawned another. There was nothing that I could do to help. But there was someone who could.

"I need something." I told him as I took my chair and dragged it off into the corner.

"What do you need?" He asked as the sound of Ultimados piling into vehicles outside could be heard. I sat down in the chair.

"I need a moment." I told him, closing my eyes. "I need..."

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