EPISODE II: TRUTH

“Fuck,” I said as Lilith and I looked at the napkin.

We had killed her. Surely, there was no way she could still be alive...could there?

I mean, I had shot her in the chest. What if I had missed all of her vital organs, and she had managed to call the police? Then she could still be alive...

Failure was different fromany thing I had ever felt before. Sorrow, anger, happiness, it was different from failure.

“We have to get her,” I saidto Lilith. “We have no choice.”

At this point, everything in the apartment was floating a few inches off the ground. I hadn't even noticed that the stuff was being lifted. That only happened when I got nervous; usually, I could tell it was happening.

Louise Rentradt, I thought, prepare to die.

*

“You'll never get away with this,” the girl said. “They will kill you. I'm surprised they haven't already.”

“They think I'm dead,” Louise said. “I was shot in the chest two years ago, and since then, I haven't done anything that would warrant somebody to hire an assassin to kill me.”

“They will find you,” thegirl said. “I've already made sure of that.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I made somebody hire them.”

*

The two of us were dumbfounded.

We had never failed before. Or, so we thought. Apparently, we weren't as good as we thought.

Hacking into the New American Republic's archives was easier than I thought it would be. I just had to enter a few lines of code, and voilà, it was unlocked.

Louise Rentradt, age thirty nine,was admitted to a hospital on October 3, 2082. She had taken a bullet to the chest, and had it surgically removed. It took her two weeks to recover, but when she did, she left the city and disappeared for one and a half years. Then, in 2084, she reappeared. She took out a huge loan. The money was to be used to fund scientific research which could help everyone. After that, she disappeared again.

“Do we know where she's staying?” Lilith asked me as she searched my apartment for a cigarette lighter.

“No,” I said. “In fact, we don't know much at all. She left the hospital two weeks after she was shot. She disappeared for two years. And now she's gone again.”

“Maybe she knows we're coming,”Lilith said. “Maybe she knew that, if we found her, she'd be dead.”

“Maybe...” I said. “If you're right, that means that she's anticipating us, and she's prepared. Even if we do find her, we don't stand a chance.”

“Well,” Lilith said. “Maybe we need to find her, and make sure she knows we know where she is.Then, either she will leave, and we can kill her when she's traveling, since she'll probably be unprotected, or she'll come after us, and we'll kill her then.”

“That might work,” I said.“How are we gonna find her?”

“We'll leave that,” Lilithsaid with a smile, “to chance.”

*

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Louise screamed as she threw clothes into a suitcase.

“I'm tired of being held captive,” the girl replied. “If you don't let me go, I'll make somebody call them on the phone and tell them where you are.”

“Well,” Louise said. “Ain't that what you would do. It's a good thing the full machine's still hidden, and that one is only for making the power source.”

And with that, she pressed abutton on the outside of the machine.

The girl screamed.

*

Lilith ran in with a big box ofcigarettes, a huge smile on her face.

“Oh, my fucking God,” she said as she set the cigarettes on my table. “Guess what.”

“You got the big box?” I joked.

“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, but that's not what I'm excited about. I just found out where Louise is hiding.”

“No fucking way,” I said disbelievingly.

“Yeah,” Lilith replied. “Some old lady was just standing outside. She asked me if I was Lilith, and I told her I was, and she told me Louise Rentradt was staying at the Royale on Elm.”

“If you're wrong, you're gonna have hell to pay,” I said as I picked up a cigarette out of the box and lit it.

“I understand,” she said.“Now let's go kill this bitch.”

*

Lilith and I arrived at the Royale at around noon. It was one of the only nice buildings left, after the Panic of 2012. That's when everything went to shit.

We walked in, trying as hard as we could to look like we belonged.

“We're here to see Louise Rentradt,” I said to the receptionist. “We're her grandchildren.”

“Of course,” the lady said.“Room 201.”

We took the elevator to the second floor.

“Are we ready?” I asked Lilith.

“Hells yeah,” she said.

The door flew into the room.

“She's gone,” the girl said.“But I'll help you find her if you let me out. Oh, and since when did you have telekinesis? Louise never mentioned that...”

The girl was hooked up to a very dangerous-looking machine, with exposed wires and jagged edges. There was dried blood below her mouth. I knew almost immediately that we could trust her.

“Okay,” I said, and walked towards her.

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