The Mortal Coil: Chapter 6

Rob woke up in a sticky pool of vomit, and he hoped it was his own. All he could smell was the “Old Fashioned” so he was sure it was. For a brief moment, he wished he could go back to sleep and not wake up. In some ways, death would be a welcome relief. On the other hand, he had died many deaths already. Countless times he had died, killed by members of The Club. Was it dozens? Hundreds? Usually, you would think a person would hold great animosity to an organization that had killed you time and time again. While members of The Club would not be on his Christmas card list anytime soon, he had a greater hatred for the people that had put him in this position.

It would have been so much preferable to him (and probably his family) that he would have left this Earth the first time he had been gunned down. What happened to his soul the first time he was killed? He could not shake the feeling that God hadn’t intended for there to be a reset button. After you died, you were supposed to be on your way. Heaven or Hell, depending on what kind of life you had led. He had always figured he would go to Heaven. He had led a life of good, and was overall a decent person. But how would he explain his multitudes of deaths to his Creator?

These thoughts clouded his mind, and how he longed for death. He felt like a dying man in the desert: except that he didn’t want water, he wanted death. As his head cleared, the desire for a final death cleared. No, no, not yet. He had a plan. Now that he remembered this plan, he was wide awake and clear-headed. It lit up his mind, like turning on a neon sign. And it was time to start putting the wheels in motion.

Sitting up, he saw the he was in his seedy hotel room. It wasn’t exactly clean, but it was remarkably free of vermin, so he was fine with it. Besides, not staying in the Hilton helped keep him off the radar. Both members of The Club and his former organization were looking for him. He took a quick shower, not because he cared much about his personal hygiene, but not smelling like vomit and liquor would help to not draw attention to himself.

He would meet Mr. Kane at the Jim’s Burgers fast-food joint on the corner at 9:30AM. They would begin their plan that night, striking at the heart of the cloning organization. Before the night was over, Toby Williams would be dying the death that Rob sometimes longed for. It was a temporary fix, but waxing the brain in charge of cloning would certainly slow them down a little. That extra time would allow Rob and Mr. Kane to execute the rest of their plan, if they were lucky.

Rob sat waiting in a corner booth in the mostly empty restaurant, waiting for Kane to show up. He was late, as usual. Rob sat and contemplated his sorry excuse for a breakfast sandwich. Rob had absolutely no appetite, and couldn’t remember the last time he had tasted anything. Cardboard had as much taste to him as any food; if it had any nutritional value, he could have just found some cardboard and eaten that. Certainly, it would have saved him some of his meager dollars; being an outlaw and living in a hovel doesn’t pay well. After a few extremely half-hearted bites, Mr. Kane came barging in. Rob knew he was trying to be inconspicuous, but was failing miserably. There wasn’t much Rob could do about that. Kane was the one person he had any trust or faith in, however tentative it might be. He knew he probably shouldn’t trust Kane, but he felt he had no choice: he could never go back to crime-fighting, even if they would let him.

For the better part of the morning, they whispered, talked and discussed their plans. Rob would be the shooter, Mr. Kane the getaway driver. They went over and over the plan because they wanted it to go right, and maybe if they discussed it once more, they would think of a fatal flaw they hadn’t thought of before. After countless times rehashing the plan from what they would do after leaving Jim’s to what they would do after the shooting, they were both satisfied that it was (fairly) foolproof. Rob knew from the numerous times he had been whacked by The Club’s gangsters that nothing was foolproof. But they were fairly confident that they had the upper hand because nobody was expecting them to counterattack.

Upon leaving the restaurant, the grungy bed in his hotel room never sounded so good. He would go there, take a nap, and by the time he woke up, it would be time to put the plan in action. Falling into bed, Rob fell into an immediate, yet restless sleep. In his dream, he died a thousand different deaths, but couldn’t quite make it to the other side.