Average Joe (2018)

22

I am one hundred percent convinced my parents are to blame for how screwed up my life is. You can not convince me otherwise. I looked below me at the figure.

"Is this how we're going to have our heart-to-hearts now, Bryan?" Bryan looked up and pulled off his mask with a smile.

"This is how we're going to train you."

Bryan pulled something black from his pocket and something shot from the object to the peak of the drop. The wire pulled Bryan towards the peak.

"Cool," I whispered.

I flew upwards and beat Bryan to the top. Bryan stood, sounding winded.

"Took you freakin' long enough," I grumbled. "Why'd you wait so long to call?"

"Cora and I have been working on some stuff. Come see." Bryan walked to the clock tower, and I followed. We walked through the doorway and went inside. The bottom floor of the building looked different. It was full of strung-up lights and workout equipment, some I didn't recognize.

"What's with the 24-hour fitness look?" I asked. Bryan didn't answer, he just led me over to the back stairwell.

"We only have an hour to fill you in," said Cora, the second we reached the clock level. Bryan led me over to a table with a laptop on it, and Cora quickly followed.

"How much do you know about Shadow Global?" Bryan had asked me.

"The accounting place on Fifth? Not much. I mean my mom works there." Bryan and Cora looked at each other.

"What?" I asked. "What's going on?"

"So," Bryan said. "For the past few months, we've been looking for links between the victims of the Chronicle. There are twenty-four victims so far, my brother included." Cora pulled up a web page, black with white text. "The deep web has an array of information about killers and whatnot. I started searching and noticed one of those supposed 'assassin for hire' websites. At first, I figured it was just an undercover cop, but then I noticed some things. The assassin's communication channel was heavily encrypted, more so than any FBI agent would need. Then I realized something when this supposed assassin started talking about killings. This wasn't a shock, but there were details about the killings he couldn't have known, like how the victims reacted and such. About two years after my brother's murder this popped up." Bryan tapped a few things on the page and a web page notification from September 2015 popped up. In big red letters, it read, Account Closed.

"What does that mean?" I questioned.

"It means the assassin closed down shop," said Cora. "At least on this platform."

"At first we thought the FBI shut the page down," Bryan continued. "But the killings kept going. Then I realized - The killings of the assassin and the Chronicle were the same. The police have pinned twenty-four killings on the Chronicle. In reality, there are more than fifty."

"The assassin and the Chronicle are the same person?" I wondered out loud.

"Yes," said Cora. "We then tried to figure out why he would stop killing for money, then we realized... maybe he didn't. Just because the web page was shut down, doesn't automatically mean he stopped killing for cash."

"In the audio tape when he first saw me, he said he was looking for something to kill," I remembered.

"It's not unheard of for people to get the random itch to kill. We think that some of the killings by him were random and the others he got paid for."

"Who would pay him to kill people? Random dudes wanting people dead? And without the dark web how would he advertise it?"

"That's where Shadow Global comes in," said Bryan. "Cora's pretty skilled with technology. She was able to hack into the Chronicle's old assassin account. It turns out he still uses it. There's an encrypted channel - more encrypted than the others - where his account and another mysterious account called Oblivion have conversed." Cora pulled up the hacked conversation.

User325896: Kill confirmed

Oblivion: Please clarify

User325896: {Sent item} *Click To See*

Oblivion: The money has been transferred into your account

"Well," I said slowly. "That's a lot of haunches. For one thing, how do we know the user 'Oblivion' is with Shadow Global?"

"Did you know," Bryan said. "That nobody at Shadow Global - janitor staff, guards, etc - has worked at the business for more than six months? And when they stop working there, they are usually never seen again? Except one. A guard who had worked there for over ten years. When he quit he dropped off the map. Two years ago an anonymous user posted a long-winded message on a website. He claimed he worked for Shadow Global as a security guard for ten years. Twenty-three minutes later the post was taken down.... but in those twenty-three minutes copies were made. And we paid a hacker a thousand bucks for this one."

Bryan handed me four pages of white paper. I started to read it. The pages were long and jumbled as if the writer was writing like he was living on borrowed time. The pages talked about a whole organization of supervillains. An organization of crime and destruction, all led by someone who they nicknamed 'Oblivion'. At that moment a sickening thought occurred. My Mom worked for Shadow Global as an accountant. Shadow Global hires supervillains. My mother is a part of an organized crime family.

I swallowed and put the pages down.

"Okay," I swallowed. "So, why am I here? Now I mean?"

"Well," Bryan said. "We think the Chronicle is still hunting you. That's why you're valuable to us. We think we know how to locate the Chronicle's future victims. There's a device that can decrypt the rest of the Chronicle's messages with Oblivion." Bryan handed me an earpiece and I put it in.

"Okay. So when do we get it?"

"Now."

That's when he shoved me out the clock tower window, sending me flying straight toward the highway.