Chapter 29 #2
“Wait.” Esau turns as he’s heading out, following Melody. “Weapons. Do we make that a priority too?”
Kail flinches at those words, and his hold on my hands tightens until I gasp. A few seconds later, he relaxes. The tape on his finger rubs on my skin. He must have a wound under there.
“I don’t think so.” Molly has propped her walking stick against her chair and is shrugging on a sweater. “If you do that sort of thing, do it yourself. Individual choice. So as not to implicate all of us if”—she makes air quotes—“something happens.”
“Meeting is done.” Ron claps his hands. “I’ll get your car keys and find you the ones to the Honda in the garage, and the house keys. What else, Moll?”
This is so sudden. “But I only just bought groceries that are in the fridge.” This had better be necessary. Surely, assassins can sneak in here as easily as my own house?
“There is that.” She points to me. “Food. If they order in takeout, it might be too much of a giveaway? I think the pantry has some canned goods. We could come back with those groceries—”
“We can get by,” Kail snaps out as I’m about to say hold on, let’s check what’s in the pantry. His hands fidget on mine. For some reason, he’s restless.
“I’ll sneak back with milk, and stuff, if you need it. Text me.” Molly waves, and she and Ron exit, though Ron soon wheels back in with the house and car keys. I swap those for the Chevy’s with some reluctance.
We’re alone for all of thirty seconds before Melody returns holding a black zipped-up case she places on the table.
“This shouldn’t hurt at all.” She rummages and picks out a pair of small scissors and what must be the tool for removing staples. “Here.” She brings over a simple wooden chair. “I need you at my height and still.”
“I can be still.” Kail sits then holds up his left hand. “Also, this. Can you put some stitches in this finger, just to keep it in place. Someone bit it.” He peels the tape from the finger then manipulates it to show a gap at one edge. “Don’t worry. It’s healing fast.”
“Whoa.” She checks his face. “You can heal that? Looks as if it was severed. I can stitch it but there is also a chance of infection and—”
That wound must be from my attackers. “It’s only been twenty-four hours since it happened.” I peer at it. He never said.
“Right.” Now Melody is the one looking pale. “I can stitch it, just don’t say where this finger came from. I can see it’s not the original one for that hand. The nail doesn’t match, for starters.”
Fuck. Where did he get that from?
I press my lips together. Kail says nothing.
His mouth tenses. The curved needle sinks into his flesh and she begins to add sutures to a finger he must have found somewhere.
On a dead guy. One of those dead guys, I assume.
It was not like that when I first met him.
I should have noticed. Guess I was too busy having Os… or almost Os.
“By the way, that cat.” Tilting her head, Melody indicates a direction without pausing in her surgery. “Is not a cat.”
In the corner sits Squiggle Cat, eyes wide, quiet and seemingly happy to observe us. It must have found an open window or door. “Yes? What about him.”
“It’s not a real cat.” She halts and gets eye contact before continuing.
“Say what?”
“I saw it walk in. It has no butt hole. Therefore, not a cat. Chalk it up to weirdness from the LHC until further notice. Doesn’t look dangerous though…” She punches in the needle, drags it out, quickly ties it off. “I would give my left kidney for a tissue sample from it.”
“I’m not volunteering.” I do the rapid hands waving in front of me thing to show how much I am not into this.
“Me neither,” Kail grunts out.
“Damn.” Melody says. “Did it hear me? It’s gone anyway.”
Squiggle is not a cat?
On this day of days, this week of revelations, a cat that’s not a cat will have to wait its turn.
Clay Skinner
Some noise wakes me and I jerk awake, realize what it was, find the phone on the table beside my armchair and thumb it open while yawning. Multi-tasking I am good at.
Still yawning I read what Cannon has sent.
CANNON: We have cracked the card, sir. It’s quite a find. Best if you come down here so I can show you. Your office?
CLAY: Sure.
The Porsche rumbles as I launch it down the driveway and turn left onto the winding road toward the institute.
The hills are a pleasure to drive through in daylight.
At night, they’re plain creepy, dark, deserted.
The stars are distant and few. No moon, either.
The nearest neighbors are a quarter of a mile from my land, and they’re overseas right now.
I must appropriate a few institute security guards to patrol my fenceline.
Until now, I have had little need for protection.
With a franken-fucking-struct out there…
Four guards would be better. I’ll hire some extras.
Once I check in, swipe my card, and greet the two guards keeping the institute safe at night, I stalk toward my office along silent corridors with no other footsteps echoing. I should’ve had one of the guards accompany me to my door.
Cannon waits at the door but says nothing.
“Spill,” I tell him, hitching my ass on my desk. “Need the laptop spun up?”
“No sir.” He slides his briefcase onto my desk, clicks it open, opens the laptop inside.
With a tap, the screen lights up and displays some text.
“This is what we found on the memory card. It was an external memory storage but not standard encryption. Easily cracked by our guy. I made sure only Van Kerr looked at this.”
“Good.” I sit behind the desk and pull the laptop over.
“He tells me this is revolutionary. It closely follows what we have been doing but is a few steps ahead. Mind management using training and commands that are probably embedded by a combination of drugs, electrical interference of brain patterns, and repetition while the subject is under anesthesia or similar.”
I frown at the pages and pages as I scroll through. “All this on that chip?”
“Most of it is just filler, sir. Stuff that’s about a mission. They were aiming to kill Simon Tarrant, we gather. This card holds a command that was to be used if he was not the only one home and a second target is identified by this…” Cannon waves at the screen, “Handler.”
“But Tarrant has been dead months.”
“Poor intel, sir.”
“Appalling intel, more like it. Keep explaining.”
“The secondary target was Hailey Tarrant and if IDed at the house, if this command was said she was to be tortured, raped, and killed in front of her father by the frankenstruct.”
“Oh.” My eyes may have bugged out. “And the command?”
“Verbal. The handler was to say ‘priority two’.”
“And do we think this frankenstruct has been given this command?” I sit back and look up at Cannon.
“No, sir. I imagine he was not, else she and he would be on worse terms. It would be a contingency command.”
“Well, well, well. Fuck me. So, if I said that to this frankenstruct?”
“He would obey, I would imagine.”
“A-mazing. This might turn out to be useful.”
Cannon smiles. “Useful—meaning say it to the thing and watch him do what we need done.”
I return the smile. Knew I liked this man.