Masked

Chapter Sixteen

        "It's a probability map," Five and I said in unison.

        Luther still seemed confused as he walked around. His eyes moved around the room looking for something familiar to him. I smirked at his ignorance. I had to admit it was nice to be better than someone in something. This must be how Five felt all the time. He did have an extremely cocky nature.

        "Probability of what?"

        Five tried to explain. "Of whose death can save the world. I've narrowed it down to four."

        "We've."

        He gave me an exasperated look. I shrugged. It wasn't like I was wrong, and Five knew it. That must have been what made him so upset. Luther continued to question what we meant.

        "Are you saying one of these four people causes the apocalypse?"

        "No, I'm saying that their death might prevent it." Five was growing aggravated by Luther's lack of understanding.

        "Oh."

        Five continued to work on an equation while I reviewed some of our work. If there was even one mistake, everything we had calculated so far could be wrong. I glanced over to Luther; he seemed even more perplexed. I sighed.

        "I'm not following," he said.

        I frowned. "Yeah, we noticed. It's pretty obvious."

        "Time is fickle, Luther," Five replied, turning away from the chalked up walls. "The slightest alteration in events can lead to massively different outcomes in the time continuum. The butterfly effect.

        Luther nodded hesitantly as Five continued.

        "So all I-We have to do is find the people with the greatest probability of impacting the timeline, wherever they may be, and kill them." He jumped off the best he'd been standing on. "Oh, yeah."

        On his nightstand was a book that he was now picking up. Five flipped through the pages looking for something in particular. I'd noticed him doing this many times as we worked on the map. Luther walked behind the bed to look at the four names we had written. Five wrote them down in his book.

        "Milton Greene," stated Luther. "So who's he, a terrorist or something?"

        I solemnly shook my head while Five answered. "I believe he is a gardener."

        "You can't be serious. Wait, this is madness, Five. You—" Luther glanced over to his brother to see him pulling a gun out from under his bed. "Wh-Where'd you get that?"

        "In Dad's room. I think he used it to shoot a rhinoceros. It's similar to the model I used at work." He was testing the gun. "Nice shoulder fit and highly reliable."

        Luther didn't want to hear it. "But you can't—This guy Milton is just an innocent man."

        "It's basic math. He death could potentially save the lives of billions. If I did nothing, he'd be dead in four days anyway. The apocalypse won't spare anyone."