Fight for the Future Page 4

  Galt paused and looked out at the crowd. “How many of you here are graduate students in the business school?”

  Kest glanced around the room. It looked like over a hundred hands shot up.

  “What about undergraduates?”

  Another seventy-some hands joined them.

  Galt nodded. “Traditionally, the hope of many MBAs entering the job market is a high-paying consulting gig with one of the Big Five or a job in finance on Wall Street. As someone who is well-versed in probability, I will tell you, your chances of success—if you want to call it that—are vanishingly small. A job in the Fortune 500 sector will contribute more to making those people who will use you and spit you out rich than it will help you to reach your goals.”

  Galt waited to let that register. “I fear that rising in business today, depends more on an ability to use other people’s achievements to make yourself look good than what you learn in your classes here.”

  He grinned. “I can say that and your professors can’t. Their positions are vulnerable to corporate political pressure. So, I support them in their decision to disagree with me... publicly. Well, I should have given you all a spoiler alert. Sorry about that Doctor Ashby.”

  “No, no. Preach it Jonah,” said the Industrial Psychologist with a grin. “I’ve already gone public with a similar statement. Of course I lost my job, but my book sales soared.”

  The crowd laughed, but most of the students who’d raised their hands were whispering to each other, some looked glum, others shook their heads.

  With no warning, Ayleana’s grip tightened on his arm. A man was running towards the stage down the right-hand aisle. Ayleana vaulted into the aisle. Kest had never seen anyone move so fast. She caught the man halfway down the aisle, leaping onto his back.

  Blam-Blam. Two gunshots in quick succession hammered Kest’s ears.

  Jonah Galt fell backwards on the stage; the tall woman who’d been guarding the stairs sprinted to him, grabbed him by the robes and pulled, sliding him off-stage like a sack of grain.

  Kest, recovering from the shock, jumped to the aisle to help Ayleana, but someone big blind-sided him. Kest grabbed the arm that had rammed him into the row of seats, using it to pull himself back on track. He found himself trailing a huge man in a studded-leather jacket, barreling to where Ayleana wrestled with the gunman.

  Ayleana's long legs were locked around the shooter with a figure-four squeeze hold that trapped his torso and left arm. Ayleana’s left arm held his head while her right hand pinned the wrist of his gun hand, holding it above his head, gun pointing at the ceiling.

  The man she held spun toward Kest as they struggled. Ayleana saw the man coming towards her and looked at Kest. “Stop him,” she yelled, working her hand up the shooter’s wrist.

  Kest didn’t have time to marvel at her strength. She was so little, compared to her opponent. How had she held him this long?

  Kest slid his right leg between the legs of the man he held onto, tripping him to the floor. Then, trusting Ayleana’s judgment, he locked his leg around one of the man’s thighs and wrapped his neck with a sleeper hold.

  Despite Kest’s hold on his neck, the man screamed, “Just shoot the little black bitch.” The sleeper hold wasn’t working. The man was huge, and from the way he was smashing the two of them into the seats, probably on PCP. Worse, he had a padded tactical neck protector that kept Kest from putting pressure onto the carotid arteries.

  Even with the pandemonium in the theater, Kest heard Ayleana call. “Windhover, get clear.”

  Kest looked up to see she’d somehow wrested the gun from the man. Blood trickled from his neck, the fingers of his gun hand looked like broken twigs, and—though she still had her legs locked around him—he was out cold. Ayleana had the gun in her hand. Kest bailed off, or maybe he was just thrown off when considering it. Big leather-jacket guy lurched forward trying to reach Ayleana.

  An instant later, the gun fired again—one time. BLAM.

  Kest rolled away, ears ringing. He collided with the end seat in a row and looked back to see leather-jacket guy lying still on the floor, a cone of dark matter splattered behind his head. Kest rolled to his knees and looked up. Ayleana jammed the unconscious man’s right forefinger onto the trigger, then pulled the gun away.

  A sandy-haired man in a dark suit landed next to Ayleana in a combat crouch. His large-caliber, semi-automatic covered the doorway. “Ok, I got this now,” he said, his voice betraying West Texas origins filtered through a military career. “Rear exit is cleared for you two. Now, as my pappy would say, git! “

  “Jonah?” said Ayleana.

  “He’s fine, vest caught it. Go on now.”

  Ayleana grabbed Kest’s hand . “We can’t afford to be connected with this,” she said and turned to push her way through the people now crowding into the aisles fighting to get out.

  This venue has lost its appeal.

  Kest trailed in Ayleana’s wake, holding her hand as she pushed past people struggling to get out.

  As the seats cleared, he spotted an opportunity to go over the rows, but Ayleana clamped onto his hand and shook her head as though reading his mind. Then he noted that—in spite of her pushing—she was blending into the crowd. The pushing made them less noticeable. Everyone was pushing.

  At the rear door, two more security people, a man and woman, were hurrying the crowd along. “Try to get home as soon as possible,” the one watching the interior of the building kept repeating while she scanned the faces of everyone passing her. She kept her hand on her holstered weapon and her eyes alert. As Ayleana and Kest passed the guard, Kest heard her whisper, “Break left.”

  Ayleana nodded and pulled Kest to the left down a flight of steps when they left the building. Halfway down the block, another two-person security detail stood behind the open doors of an SUV backed onto the sidewalk. They both held bullpup rifles ready. One of them moved aside to offer Ayleana access to the interior, but Ayleana shook her head and held out her hands.

  The man handed her a shoulder bag, and Ayleana slipped it on. Ayleana spoke to the man as they passed, but Kest couldn’t hear what she said. She turned to Kest. “Let’s run, this area isn’t safe. My place is near here.”

  “Your parents won’t mind you bringing home a strange guy?”

  She grinned. “They’ll get over it.”

  Chapter 5 — Dance

  It felt good to run. After the events culminating in a young girl overpowering a would-be assassin and shooting his backup dead, Kest needed a chance to think. A few years ago, he would have concluded that Ayleana was a superhero, or at least the daughter of a superhero—probably the Black Panther. But Kest had seen amazing athletic and martial talent before. What Ayleana had done was not impossible, just rare. Some of her techniques were familiar. And Kest thought he might have been able to do what she had tonight, when accounting for the size difference, except maybe shoot the second man.

  She was older than she looked, but he still hadn’t figured out how much older or why she looked so young. Girl athletes, like gymnasts who kept their body fat down, could put off puberty for a time. That explanation would fit.

  “Where is your place?” he said, using a safety vault to follow her over a brick wall.

  “This is it,” she said. They were at an old industrial building that had been turned into condominiums a few years ago. Kest followed Ayleana through the doors and lobby past the elevator and up the stairs. At the highest level on the eighth floor, Ayleana’s fingers flew over the combination pad. She let them in to a huge renovated living space. Kest stopped in his tracks. It was too much. The amount of money needed to buy this condo gave him the heebie jeebies.

  Ayleana—about to run up the stairs to the upper level—turned to look at him, “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Who owns this place?”

  Ayleana came back down the steps. “It bothers you? It’s owned by the same foundation that started the SST project. Kest, my aunt is friends
with Jonah Galt. They wanted to meet you tonight, but, with the attempted assassination, I’m sure they had to change plans. I know you read my email when I said I would be in touch,.”

  “Night Owl?”

  “There it is,” she said with a nod at his dawning realization.

  “You know Jonah Galt?”

  “I know lots of people. Now do you want to come up where you can see my favorite place in Tucson, and we can talk about it?” She raised an eyebrow.

  Kest took a step forward and stopped again. “You mean he wanted to meet me?”

  Ayleana sighed. “Yes, Kest, and do you know what everyone who plays SST says when they meet him?”

  Kest shook his head.

  “They say, ‘I thought you’d be bigger’.”

  “Thanks for the warning. When the time comes, I’ll try to keep from slobbering.”

  Ayleana gave a short laugh and turned back to ascend the stairs. “Good, I’d hate for them to think I was an idiot for recommending you.”

  Kest took the handrail and followed her.

  The loft was a combination of bedroom suite and office. It had another stairway leading up to what had to be the roof. Ayleana opened a door leading to a luxurious bathroom. “We need to shower to get any forensic evidence off us. I’ll use the bath downstairs. Throw your clothes out here, and I’ll run them through the wash and bring you something to wear while that cycles. Scrub thoroughly; particular attention to fingernails would be wise. You’ll find a fingernail brush in the shower caddy.”

  The instructions brought Kest’s thoughts back to the fight at the theater. That, and everything since, kept flipping between surreal and all too real. Of course, he’d need to take these measures to protect himself from an investigation. Why hadn’t he thought of it?

  He pulled off his shoes, left them with Ayleana and went in to the bathroom. When he finished undressing, he tossed his clothes out the door.

  Ayleana’s voice drifted back to him, her tone filled with in mock horror. “What? No underwear? Just wait till everyone hears this.”

  Kest smiled, appreciating her for taking his mind off the track it had jumped to. Nothing could change what had already happened though. What else could he have done? A man was dead, and Kest had played a part in that. He'd done nothing wrong, though, no doubt, he’d broken some law by leaving the scene.

  After a hot rinse, he turned the water off, soaped up and scrubbed with the loofa and brush, going through that cycle three times. When he stepped out of the shower, his skin felt, and looked, like he’d spent a day in the sun. Two white bathrobes hung on the hook by the door, and—after he’d dried off—he put on the one that had been just laundered. The other smelled warm and spicy like orange and cinnamon. He hadn’t registered Ayleana’s odor until now, but the smell connected him to her. What was it? Blended essential oils maybe?

  Before leaving the bathroom, he tapped on the door, not wanting to surprise Ayleana before she’d gotten dressed. But, she was still downstairs. The sounds of a washing machine and a shower running drifted to the loft.

  While he waited for her to return, he looked around, not surprised to see a high-end laptop on the standup work desk, but he would have expected more books. In the discussion groups, Night Owl quoted different authors a lot. Kest blended his reading approach between digital and paper. Since he didn’t have the budget for all the books he wanted to read, SST’s lending library was a godsend for his thirst for knowledge. A university library five blocks from home also helped.

  Not much in the room was out for inspection. A huge Beaux-arts wardrobe/dresser hybrid held ample space for putting things out of sight, and Ayleana—if this was her space—must make that a habit. Exhausted, he sat on the floor to do some breathing exercises and meditate. His mind was beyond unsettled.

  A few minutes later, Ayleana’s feet whispered up the stairs. Kest opened his eyes. She stood in front of him dressed in a tee shirt and black harem-style martial arts pants, holding out a similar outfit for him. “Let’s go upstairs to the roof. It might help clear our heads to get some fresh air and moonlight. I’ll go ahead and you can dress.”

  As she disappeared up the stairway, he stepped into the pants, hung the robe in the bathroom again and pulled on the shirt as he climbed the stairs.

  When he stepped onto the roof, it was like walking into a secret garden hideaway. Soft lights lit a cleared area in front of the door with a smooth surface that would work for dancing or exercising. A container garden, with shade netting, edged the safety wall around the perimeter. Ayleana stood by a seven-foot tomato tower, looking at the sky.

  “Thanks for having my back today,” she said when he came up behind her.

  “Like you, I would have done it even if I hadn’t already owed you,” Kest said.

  “You put yourself in much greater danger than I did. But let’s not argue. What we really need to do is dance the roda. That will help clear my head, and I never got to dance with you earlier today.”

  “But I just took a shower,” Kest said.

  Ayleana shook her head. “That was to clean the outside; I’m talking about getting the inside back in balance.

  She stepped to the center of the cleared space. “Alex,” she called. “Play Roda Mix One.” Then, she crossed her arms and held her hands out to him

  “I thought we were here alone,” Jonah said.

  “Alex is my AI friend,” she said with a chortle as the rapid twangs of the berimbau announced the start of the dance. “Minimal contact dance or more aggressive?”

  “That first choice,” Kest said. “I’ve had enough contact and aggression for today.”

  After a three-beat, double handshake, they whirled across the smooth surface of the roof. Ayleana’s toes brushed against the bottom of his feet each time his right foot swept through a circle. As though proving to him she knew the exact time and place of his movements. Kest didn’t try to disrupt the contact, but he answered each brush with pressure back, showing that he expected no less. On the fourth pass, Kest did a leaping aerial escape, expecting her leg sweeping below him in a grass-cutter pass.

  Kest felt his mood lighten as they sped through the moves, letting the music take the dance where it wanted to go. Ayleana’s style was a combination of historic old capoeira techniques mixed with flourishes and occasional acrobatic moves he’d never seen, as though she were bringing another fighting art to the circle and adapting it. Ayleana’s moves required more flexibility and gymnastic skill than you could expect of most advanced students. Yet it was coherent in a way that would indicate a mature style.

  For a time, he lost track of everything, entering a state of mind that was pure flow until he realized his body was protesting. Kest’s stamina was, almost always, the factor that ground other capoeristas down in competitions, so it surprised him that Ayleana wasn’t flagging. Her breath was deep and rapid, but she wasn’t panting. Kest was working harder than she to keep going, while she flowed through the moves like water, swift and fluid. Kest pushed on a bit longer, then dismounted from the Roda with a twisting front flip, turning to watch as Ayleana followed him out with a chained series of moves to land next to him.

  The Roda music faded when she left the circle. “Yeah!” she shouted. “That’s what I’m talking about. We live, though they attack from ambush to sow unprovoked death. We breathe, we move, we defy the beasts who sent them,” she said it as though quoting a song or a poem.

  Kest breathed deep, letting her exultation to spread to him. It was good. It felt good... to have survived—to walk around breathing hard and sweating.

  Yes. Alive.

  Chapter 6 — Music

  Kest threw back his head and looked out at the lights of Tucson, letting his breathing catch up to him. Ayleana came up next to him and handed him a bottle with green liquid in it. She had her own bottle—with a different color than his. Kest took a sip of his and savored the hints of sweet and saltiness from fruits and electrolytes.

  “This is good. What
is it?”

  “My aunt’s recipe,” Ayleana said. “She’s a doctor, among other things.”

  “Cool. What’s yours? Can I taste it too?”

  “Eww! Keep your boy cooties to yourself. You wouldn’t like it, anyway. I’ve got special needs,” she said and slugged down the rest of the liquid.

  Kest shrugged, amused. He liked his drink anyway. “Where did you learn that style of capoeira?”

  “From my aunt. When she was younger, she spent time in Brazil, though I didn’t get all the background on how the style started. I know you’re into the history of everything from the chat thread.”

  Kest paused, trying to remember all Ayleana’s posts as Nightowl. As an admin, she wasn’t intrusive and rarely participated in the discussions, asking questions more than volunteering. “So, are you going to tell me what this was supposed to be about, or do I have to wait until your aunt can reschedule the meeting?” he said.

  “They’re starting a school in the area. They want to talk about you being part of it.”

  Kest’s stomach dropped. Was it just a college pitch? “Well, I’m sure it’s a great school, but I don’t believe in paying tuition to learn something when I can do that for free at a library.”

  Ayleana laughed, “I figured you’d say something like that. You should still hear them out though. After all, I recommended you, and I know you want to meet him. Jonah wants to meet you. Not many even get to know what he really looks like.” She dangled the last out there like bait.

  Kest nodded, now he was hooked.

  “We’ll set something up then,” said Ayleana.

  “Cool.”

  “I think you should hang here for a while till Jonah’s security calls with an all clear. They’ll want to make sure you get a safe ride home. You want something to eat? We can order in. I’ll buy.”