"About time!" I heard the distorted voice as I slipped back into consciousness. I tried to move my head but stopped short once I felt the blistering pain. "Welcome back to the world." The voice continued to taunt me. I quickly realized I had been handcuffed to a very uncomfortable old chair. "Take your time." The voice continued as I gulped down a few large deep gulps of air. I attempted to take a look around me. The room was small and very dark, there were no windows. The air was thick and stale.
"Cole." I finally said my voice hoarse.
"What was that?" The voiced said with clear amusement.
"Cole!" I said again this time louder.
"Oh you mean your D.A friend?" The voice said as it moved around to the back of my chair. It spun me around where I could see Cole grumbled against the back wall. "Oh don't worry, he isn't dead yet." The voice reassured me before I saw the handcuffs that linked him to a pipe.
"Who...who...the hell are you?" I was finally able to say.
"Who I am doesn't matter." He replied as he grabbed me and forced me to look at him. He was still wearing the same mask he wore during that broadcast. This was the son of a bitch that had been threatening my company and my clients. I grit my teeth and tried to lunge at him but was held down by my restraints. "None of that now." He said before hitting me across the face. "I've been dying to do that for such a long time. Get me a chair!" He said to someone that was out of my field of vision.
"Why?" I asked as I saw him slipping into a chair that had been given to him. I took a glance at the man who had brought it, my attention zeroed in on the machine gun that he held.
"Why what? Why did I try to take down your agency? Why did I kidnap you? Or why have I not killed you yet? There are so many questions that must be running through that head of yours. Gracious as I am, I will answer them."
"Lucky me!" I replied trying to regain my composure and throw him off balance. I heard his distorted voice chuckle before he nodded to someone behind him. The man who had brought him the chair stepped back into my view and punched me hard in the guts. The air was knocked out of me and I winced with pain.
"Keep the smart mouth out of this." The voice said menacingly.
"Why do you want me gone?" I asked through the pain.
"Hah Duncan! Not everything is about you." He said leaning in towards me. "Have you ever heard of "The Order"?" I shook my head. In my confused and tired mind, I tried my best to look for any clues or hints to who this man might be. Nothing on him gave anything away. "You must not know the name, but you've had dealings with them before."
"The group, the one that Stamp worked for. That's what they're called?"
"Yes. And they've been around for much longer than you know. This group is made of businessmen, politicians some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world. Together they control everything. From which cars we drive to what movies we see. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if they choose who won the Super bowl." He said smirking at his own joke. "The Order doesn't care about anyone, it's an organization set up to keep the powerful in power and the wealthy even wealthier."
"What the hell does any of this have to do with this? With my clients? With my friends you goddamn son of a bitch." I said feeling anger swell in my chest.
"You rose so quickly Duncan. A few years ago you were nobody. You wrote scripts for sitcoms that could barely be greenlit. And now look at you, the biggest agent in the world. We targeted you because we believed you were one of them. We didn't see any blowback from them, which made us realize that you were on your own."
"Exactly. I have nothing to do with them and neither does Cole. Just let us go!"
"I wish it were that simple." He took a beat. "Actually I don't. See I've been watching you Duncan. You may not be one of them, but you're not much better. You walk around the entire world thinking you're a hero, thinking you're some sort of good man, hell you might even think you are yourself. But deep down, you're a fraud. A horny pathetic man that's led by his dick and his own sense of grandeur. Today you may still hang on to these ideals, but I've known men like you, it never lasts. You'll be one of them sooner or later, and I intend to stop that."
"Who are you?" I asked again, shocked at this revelation. He simply chuckled once more, the sound even more menacing than ever.
"Who I am doesn't matter. What matters is that we will face The Order and we will win. But before that, I will destroy you and all you've done. We are currently preparing all the files we have on your clients. Quite a lot to be frank. Once they are ready we will send out all of their secrets to the world. All of their lies, all of their pictures, all of the nasty dirty things they do behind closed doors, and some of them, are QUITE nasty. Shall we have a look?" He nodded to the guard again who handed him a tablet.
He turned it on and scrolled through it. He turned the screen towards me and I was looking at a video of Tom Ackerley, Margot's boyfriend, holding a little girl in his arms. There was a woman not too far behind him and she looked on at them with joy.
"Recognize him? Of course you do, you've been boning his girl. Right in your office! At a gym! Why Duncan have you no shame?" They had been watching me. For quite a long time it seems. "He has a daughter! He didn't even know about." He continued to explain the video to me. "Hasn't had the heart to tell Margot as of yet! I mean can you blame him? He might lose that fine piece of ass forever. And you would know how hard that would be to pass up."
"SHUT UP!" I shouted trying to take him, but I couldn't move.
"You're right!" He said continuing to scroll through the tablet. "Who needs words when a picture can say a thousand of them?" He turned it back to me and I was faced with a picture of a topless Victoria Justice. She had clearly taken the picture herself in her bathroom. I would recognize them anywhere. "She does have some great tits. Not the biggest but a great handful! Lovely nipples. Oh does this upset you?" I didn't say a word. I kept my mouth shut and closed my eyes, hoping that this was just a bad dream that I would soon wake up from. "You can't hide from this." He said as I heard his chair moving. I opened my eyes to see him standing before me. "The files will soon be ready and then uploaded, once that happens and you've realized that you've failed, I'll kill you myself." He punched me once more for good measure, "How long before its ready?" He asked his guard.
"Within the hour." The guard replied.
"Keep a close eye on them." The masked man said before stomping out of the room.
I hung my head. I focused on the hard floor below, trying desperately to think of a way out of this mess but to no avail. Less than an hour to break free, takedown god knows how many guards and stop the download? I wasn't meant to do anything like that. I took a few deep breaths to steady myself when I caught movement coming from Cole.
He was wide awake. He looked at me reassuringly. I nodded at him. The next moment he began to cough. I could hear the guard walking towards him to check on him. Once the guard had gotten close enough, Cole's leg swept one of his. The guard fell hard on his back, before he could even move, Cole had wrapped his legs around his neck and was squeezing hard. The guard tried to fight him off but to no avail. I watched in shock as his body went slack. Cole readjusted him so that he could search him with his free hand. He pulled out a key from his right pants pocket and used it to unlock his handcuffs. Cole stood and removed the guard's machine gun, he searched him until he found a handgun as well as a phone.
"Got it!" Cole said excitedly as he walked towards me. He walked behind my chair and unhooked the handcuffs.
"Is he?" I asked as he began to unbind my feet.
