The lens of the camera mounted in the corner of the elevator shifted.
They were watching.
Good. Murdock wanted them to witness the severing of their digital arm. Without their forensic team, he would have an easier time drawing Smith out. Their panic to find him would force them into mistakes.
Murdock winked at the camera.
The elevator dinged as it reached the top floor.
The doors opened.
He stepped out and stood before a large room. Cubicles connected the walls, creating a maze of technical experts and computer geeks. Cables crisscrossed the floors, spider webbing the room in a tapestry of connections.
Though Murdock had never been there before, he knew that they once shared a mission. He slaved in the field for data and intel—they made sense of the pieces he sent back.
Now they would serve another purpose—as martyrs. Their deaths, along with McArthur’s, would be the catalysts of change that Murdock yearned for. The world would know of his existence, of his power, and they would squirm under that knowledge. He alone would bring the winds of change.
He adjusted the collar of his button-up shirt and stepped forward. The bald cap he wore tugged at his forehead as he craned his neck to look over the top of the nearest cubicle.
An emaciated young man with drawn-out eyes and pale, sallow skin looked back at him. A hard drive rested on the desk before him, its innards strewn across a static-free mat.
The young man’s forehead wrinkled. “You can’t be in here, sir.”
“And yet, here I am.”
Murdock reached out with his mind, worming his way into the man’s consciousness.
How the hell did this geezer get in here?
Murdock smiled at the thought. “Hello there, Adam Duplessie.”
“Do I know you?”
“No, but I know everything about you.”
“I, uh, don’t know what your deal is, or how you know my name, but this is a classified area.” His eyes narrowed. “How did you even get up here? Did someone bring you up?” He stood from his chair and looked over the top of the cubicle.
“Someone gave me their security code.”
Is this guy high, or just senile as shit?
Murdock’s grin slid from his face. “I’m here to end your pain.”
“You are one creepy old man.” Adam reached for a phone sitting beside a panel of three monitors on his desk. “I’m calling security.”
Murdock clenched down on Adam’s mind, wrapping his own around it like a thousand invisible tentacles.
Adam froze in place, his fingers inches from the phone.
“The security guards won’t answer, I’m afraid,” Murdock said. “Their bodies are cooling on the sidewalk.”
Though Adam’s head didn’t move, his eyes roamed around wildly in their sockets. Murdock enjoyed giving people the freedom to look at their surroundings even as he froze their limbs in place.
It upped their panic.
Oh God! What’s happening to me?
“My name is Murdock. I know that is familiar to you. I can hear it bouncing around in that pathetic little mind of yours. You fear me. You should.”
Murdock? Oh Jesus!
“Jesus won’t help you, Adam.”
Hysteria pulsed from his mind in waves, washing over Murdock.
Adam’s hand dropped to his side and his back straightened. He walked around his chair and stepped from his cubicle, stopping in front of Murdock. His eye twitched as he looked up at Murdock’s face.
“I’m here to release you, Adam. You’re lonely, so lonely, every single day when you leave here. You long for the emotional embrace of a mate that will never come. The idea that you will never be anything more than you are now haunts you. I will help you. I will make your life more valuable and memorable than you ever could.”
Adam turned around, his movements stilted and unnatural as he fought against Murdock’s commands. He walked down the center aisle of the room, desks, technicians, and computers flanking him on both sides.
Murdock followed. “This moment will live on in history. Your name and visage will forever be intertwined with the coming horrors I shall inflict upon America. Your death is the accelerant that will spur the flame.”
Adam’s coworkers noticed his odd gait as he walked by. Their eyes focused on Murdock then, questioning expressions coming from all of them. They would be next.
Please, don’t!
“Don’t fear your fate, Adam. You’ve always wanted to be something more. I’m giving you that gift.”
They stopped at the far side of the building. Windows covered the majority of the wall, running from floor to ceiling. Together, they stood before the glass, peering down at the parking lots eight floors below them. Traffic slowly maneuvered along Nursery road, running perpendicular to the DC3 building.
“Remember when you were a child, and you wished you could fly? Let’s experiment, shall we?”
Adam’s fingers shook as he reached for a chair in an empty cubicle behind him. He grabbed the back and lifted it, cords standing out on his skinny arms from the weight of it.
“What are you doing, Adam?” A middle-aged man with a soft, rotund middle stood behind them. The rouge in his cheeks hinted at years of heavy drinking. “Who is this man?”
Murdock turned back to him. “Wait your turn, Mr. Patterson.”
“Do I know you?” Patterson asked.
Two women came up behind him, confusion lines between their eyes.
“You know my work. My handle is Murdock.”
A flash of recognition and fear crossed his face. He gulped. “Murdock?”
Adam smashed the chair against the large window. The recoil nearly knocked him over. He swung again, the impact sending cracks splintering in every direction.
The sound brought a hushed silence to the room, the whir of computer fans audible above all else. Heads poked above the walls of random cubicles, ogling the scene at the end of the room.
Adam swung again.
“Stop!” One of the women stepped past Patterson, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She asked, “What are you doing?”
“Everyone get out of here,” Patterson yelled. “Now!”
No one moved. Their confusion grew, clouding the ethereal air of the floor. Murdock lapped it up.
Who is that guy?
Jesus! What is Adam doing?
What the hell is going on?
Adam’s next swing broke through the window, sending glass to the sidewalk below.
Wind blew in from the opening, ruffling his scruffy hair.
Tears rolled down his cheeks.
“To infamy,” Murdock said.
Adam leapt from the window.
The room erupted in chaos. Cowards fled for the elevator, pushing one another out of the way. Two women and a man ran toward the broken window, hoping to help in some way.
Murdock latched onto their minds and forced them to continue running. He released them in mid-fall and mentally reached for those standing before the closed elevator doors.
As his mind grew more powerful, Murdock was able to add to the number of people he could control simultaneously. During his escape, he’d managed to manipulate eight at once. The feat had left him exhausted and barely able to walk, but it had allowed him to turn his torturers into blubbering piles of ooze and flayed flesh.
He focused on four at a time for now, not needing to overextend himself.
The small group by the elevator rushed to their left, plowing head first into the nearest windows.
The glass flexed, but didn’t break. Blotches of blood from the impact clung to them.
The people fell over, their faces masks of pain and ruin.
Patterson charged at Murdock.
The rotund man lowered his head, aiming for waist height.
Murdock forced his feet to tangle, sending him crashing into a computer cart. Monitors fell to the floor, their screens cracking.
Despair flowed from Patterson. He knew Murdock, thought he was dead. He understood what fate would befall all of them.
Something in Patterson’s mind caught Murdock’s attention. Things had changed since his capture in the mountains. Smith wasn’t the man he’d once been. Murdock growled under his breath at the news, knowing that he’d have to change his plans.
Three more people leapt from the broken window.
The number of technicians still on the floor halved in fifteen seconds. More windows broke as they smashed their way through them.
The elevator dinged as it reached the floor.
Why? Patterson thought.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Murdock knelt beside the supervisor as another man ran through the broken window, his feet still churning as he fell. “You are both a patriot and a servant of tyrants. Whether or not you believe your actions benign, I can assure you that they are not. Your death will serve as an example to others. The revolution has begun.”
Murdock stood, hiding a grimace that wanted to surface. During the active interrogations he’d endured, his first torturer had shattered his right foot with a hammer. They’d never set it, so prolonged periods of standing or walking caused him great discomfort.
They’d made him stand on it for hours at a time, laughing at his tears. He remembered the rusted claw hammer they’d used. The sickening crunch of his foot.
The blood.
We analyze data. We don’t make policy decisions!
“Ahh, yes. For thirty pieces of silver, you turned a blind eye to the consequences of your actions.”
Patterson pushed himself to his feet, blood trickling from a small cut on his right temple. He turned and marched toward the elevator, Murdock coming up behind him. The final two forensic analysts stepped from their hiding places behind their desks and fell in line beside their boss.
You worked for the same people we did. How can you pretend otherwise?
Murdock smirked while Patterson ran through possible scenarios where he might escape. The man’s fate was sealed, but he continued to fight against it.
“I have committed the same barbarism you have, that is true.” Murdock flipped through the man’s memories. “In fact, I’ve done much worse. But I’ve paid my dues. I’ve atoned by blood and fire.”
They stopped before the elevator. Patterson hit the button again, and the doors opened.
A camera stood in the corner of the room, just beside the entrance to the elevator. All four of them looked into the lens.
Murdock said, "Twinkle, twinkle, little Smithy, how I wonder where you are."
Patterson and his subordinates turned and sprinted across the room.
They never stopped running, even as they fell from the building.
Murdock stepped into the elevator, whistling a lullaby as the doors closed behind him.