Keystone Gathering
an excerpt

The apartment door was unlocked when Mark came home from work that night.

He paused, hand still gripping the key and twisted at a ninety-degree angle, fully aware that anyone inside would have heard the scrape of the key and the jingle of his Nintendo Power key fob.

Up to this moment, in the five years since he'd taken the job as a videogame programmer at Electronic Designs and moved here from his hometown in Iowa, he'd never really felt nervous. Even living in as big and crime-ridden a city as Washington DC, he'd never experienced anything like this. But now his heart was hammering in his chest.

Home invasions happened, and his roommate Charles never left the door unlocked, even when he was home.

But there was nothing really for it now. He had to know. He couldn't just run away and call the police when the thieves were probably long gone.

He pulled the key from the lock with his right hand and grabbed for his blackberry with his left, tapping a key and letting the speed dial go to Charles' cellphone. Charles was an artist, as well as working security, and had incredibly irregular hours. You couldn't miss an artiste in the throes of pre-show jitters, and Charles hadn't mentioned anything about having a date or a shift tonight. But he obviously wasn't home. Where the hell was he?

Mark eased the door open and slipped inside as he brought the phone up to his ear. The apartment was dark and quiet, the humming of the refrigerator and ticking of the hallway clock enhancing the silence instead of driving it away.

The hairs on the back of his neck were standing straight up.

Mark looked around and grabbed an umbrella leaning against the wall by the door. It would make a horrible weapon, but it was the best one he had. Against his ear, the line finally connected with a click.

Then he heard a ringing sound coming from deeper into the apartment. Charles' phone.

"Fuck," Mark whispered, then darted forward into the kitchen, headed for the living room at the back of the two-bedroom suite. "Chuck? Hey Chuck, are you okay?"

He caught a glimpse of his roommate, sprawled on the living room couch, his phone wailing away on his hip with that annoying "Ode to Joy" ring tone he loved.

Mark paused in the kitchen, his eyes widening. "Ch-Chuck?"

He was completely unprepared when four black-clad men darted into the room from all sides, two grabbing him by the arms and the others planting themselves in front of him and pointing what looked like semi-automatic rifles at his chest. Their faces were covered with black cloth, only their eyes showing, cold and remote.

Mark yelped and tried to jerk his arms free to no avail, his heart jumping into his chest and beating wildly. "What the hell?" he exclaimed. "Who are you guys?"

"Shut up," the one holding his right arm growled, knocking the umbrella from his fingers with a well-aimed kick. It skittered to a stop against the dishwasher. "Stop struggling."

The fear made Mark still his movements more than the order, and he glanced reflexively toward the man who'd spoken, but his eyes were drawn inexorably back to Charles. His roommate still hadn't moved, though Mark saw with relief that his chest was rising up and down slowly. Had these intruders knocked him out and then waited for Mark to come home?

Mark renewed his struggles, but he had never so much as gotten into a fistfight in high school and it didn't seem to make much difference what he did. These guys seemed like military, or something. What the hell were they doing in his apartment?

"Let me go! You've got the wrong guy!" he cried, ignoring in his panic the repeated orders to be quiet.

"You are Mark Lawrence aren't you? And you're a computer programmer?"

The new speaker moved into view, stepping past Charlie and walking towards Mark with a slow, measured stride. The man was older, perhaps in his forties, with jet-black hair slicked back to emphasize a severe widow's peak. Like the other four assailants, he wore no uniform, but this man wore a long black coat as if it were one. His boots clicked on the linoleum as he entered the kitchen and walked right up to Mark.

Shocked at being addressed by name, Mark stilled once again, looking up at the intimidating man. "Yeah," he said warily. No, no, his mind babbled. In a situation like this you say 'who wants to know'. Too late now.

"Then we don't have the wrong guy." The man nodded and one of the soldiers covering Mark lowered his weapon, pulling out a long cylindrical object filled with a greenish fluid. There was no needle, and yet it Mark was absolutely certain it was some kind of hypodermic. It looked a little like those hyposprays on Star Trek and Mark stared at it with eyes wide.

"What do you want with me?" he demanded, his voice high and strained. "What did you do to Chuck?"

"Your roommate will be fine," the leader said. "He never knew we were here and he'll wake up after we're gone. And I do apologize that these measures are necessary. Everything will be explained to you tonight, and I can only hope you can forgive me for doing things this way."

He jerked his head and the man with the hypodermic stepped forward. Mark cried out once more and shied away, but he felt the cold of metal touching his arm and heard a soft hiss.

It really is just like a hypospray, he thought as he slumped in his captor's arms and darkness closed over him.