Chapter 19 Dax
DAX
Post-nut clarity is a tidal wave taking me under.
I should not have done that.
I should not have enjoyed that as much as I did.
Reed is sexy, pliable, and eager. The way he responds to my commands and my touch makes my vision redden and my thoughts darken until I’ve lost all inhibitions. I become the little villain inside my head. I’m not just playacting the role anymore.
I use Reed, and he thrills. I like that about him. He makes my blood run cold and my skin shed. He unsheathes the serpentine monster under the clothes and the tattoos, especially my favorite one.
On a hunting trip as a kid, as we sat beside a roaring fire at dusk, a rubber boa wormed its way across our campsite. I jumped out of my chair, worried this loose-skinned gray-ish serpent might strike my ankles.
My dad—disapproving of my fear because to him fear was weakness—stood and picked up the snake. To my surprise, it was docile, and it coiled around my dad’s hand. Almost as if it liked the attention.
“No venom,” my dad said. “Touch it.”
Having already lost brownie points with him over my initial reaction, I tried not to hesitate as I drew my fingers over its small scales. In the falling darkness, I didn’t look closely enough at its uniform body to decipher which end was its tiny head and which was its tail.
The moment my fingers slid across its end, the most rancid stench peppered the air. A combination of rotten eggs, vomit, and wet earth. I gagged, my dad laughed, and the snake slithered away into the trees.
When I got home from that trip, I researched the rubber boa and learned that instead of using speed to escape predators, it uses its tail as a defense mechanism.
It releases a musk as it pretends to strike.
A gentle yet wild creature that is mild-mannered to humans but vicious to its prey, which sometimes includes other snakes.
I became uniquely interested in the species, seeking them out on every subsequent camping trip, marking down their various colors and lengths in a pocket-sized notebook that I kept in my hunting vest.
When I got out of jail the first time, I got a tattoo of a rubber boa curling up my right forearm to remind myself of my place in the food chain and to live by its ways.
Be misleading. Be strong and menacing, but behave like a teddy bear.
Attack only after someone mistakes you for being cuddlier than you are.
“What now, Hank?” Reed asks, dewy and panting.
Reed’s voice snaps me back to the bedroom. I strip the scarf blindfold off him. Other questions flurry in Reed’s frantic blue eyes. A winter storm of What did we just do? I plan to ignore them until it hits me.
“What did you just call me?” I ask, panicked.
The phone rings. A new number appears on the screen. Assuming this is Wendell Blitz, I snag a pair of shorts from Reed’s suitcase and throw them over Reed’s lap. At least there’s some illusion of decency here while I try not to lose my cool over Reed recognizing me.
How? Why? Fuck.
Wendell Blitz’s face fills the screen when I force myself to answer.
His bald head is powdered so it isn’t shiny, his mouth is in a serious flat line, and his eyes look black and bored already.
He takes a short, loud sip from a very tiny cup of steaming coffee that I’m sure was brought to him on a gilded tray.
“Can we make this quick? I have an important presentation to give this morning.”
I appreciate a man who gets down to brass tacks, but I don’t like to be rushed. I position the camera so the hunting knife I’ve returned to Reed’s neck is in plain view. My eyes track the dried blood on Reed’s chest. I plan to be more careful this time.
“Wendell Blitz, it’s a pleasure,” I say.
“I’m sure.” He leans in closer to his camera. The only facial imperfection of note is a single long nose hair somebody forgot to trim. “What does your mask say? Eat the rich? How original.” His derisive laugh fans the flames of my anger.
“Does this look like a laughing matter to you?” I draw attention back to the knife. To Reed’s beautiful throat that I’m threatening to carve like a Halloween pumpkin.
Wendell looks at Reed as if he wants to roll his eyes. “What is this about? Erin seemed inordinately rattled. Of course she is no longer under my employ. I had to fire her for waking me with nonsense that fell under her jurisdiction,” he says, coldly uncaring.
Rage swells through me, a gathering wave in my chest. Wendell Blitz disposes of employees as if they’re action figures in a child’s play set. Not people who depend on a paycheck to get by. How tall must your ivory tower be to not see the peasants down below?
“Plan to replace Erin with a robot too?” I ask.
Wendell doesn’t even lift an eyebrow at my question.
Maybe he can’t. Up close and without stage lighting in whatever lavish hotel suite he’s in, his face looks freshly injected, fine-tuned to the point of frozen.
Like he’s already prepared for the cryo chamber I’m sure he has reserved for his end days.
“That’s not a bad idea. At least AI can prioritize responsibility over wasteful, unproductive emotion. I can’t say the same for Erin.”
Wendell turns his attention to a small, round orb on his desk. A newer-model Arrow Mart Adam, designed to make your home smarter. I personally think by making your home smarter, you make yourself duller, but that’s just my two cents.
“Adam, please set a reminder to investigate replacement assistants, including AI models. I’m sure some startup has figured that much out already. AI isn’t the future anymore. It’s the now.”
“I’m not interested in your baseless theories,” I hiss.
“Theories are for conspiracy nuts. I’m talking facts and figures.
If you don’t believe me, you might as well join the growing unemployment line toward the obsoletion dumpster with the rest of the fools who think they can ignore the inevitable,” he says without a trace of humanity.
As if he himself were a circuit board and wires, somehow encased in real flesh.
Something about my cloaked expression triggers a smile on Wendell’s face. He knows he’s got me pinned. On top of that, I think he knows who I am, which renders me speechless.
“Don’t trouble yourself. It was nothing you did.
There are only two types of people stupid enough to trespass on my property.
Business associates I’ve burned and employees I’ve fired.
Judging by your outfit, your speech, and your ramshackle hostage routine, the latter is the clear answer,” he says, smugly satisfied.
My face burns hot under my mask. What does he know about hostage routines? I’m a professional. Or as close to one as you can get in this field. I was the Wendell Blitz of burglars once upon a time. I worry now that I’ve lost my touch. Reed’s mere presence upended my skill.
“You think you know everything, don’t you?” I ask, putting on a front.
“No, I don’t think. I do know everything,” he says with the air of a king counting his uncountable coins.
“You should’ve stopped after ‘I don’t think,’” I reply.
He sneers with his pale top lip. “Algorithms harvest data—every keystroke, every number, every purchase, every pin—and data knows you better than you know yourself because it can predict your behavior before you’ve even considered it.
You can hide behind your VPNs, your Tor browsers, your encrypted chats, and useless security measures all you want, but there’s no untrackable system when you have more power and connections than God. ”
“Oh really?” I ask. “Then how come I’m here? How come I hacked your security system and tripped your power? I beat your systems, and I’m inside your house.”
Power rampages in my chest. It bangs its fists against my heart. Wendell Blitz thinks he’s better than me, smarter than me, when really, he’s only richer than me, luckier than me.
Boy, if I had been able to go to college, get my degree? I’d be a force to be reckoned with. I’d topple Wendell Blitz’s kingdom with a single sigh. He’s lucky my potential got stymied so long ago over one bad mistake. Otherwise, I’d be an even bigger threat to him than I am right now.
Wendell Blitz leans forward. The groan of his desk chair pierces through his microphone. “You’re inside my house,” he says, “only because I want you inside my house.”
I nearly lose my handle on the knife. Is he suggesting I played right into his hand? “Bullshit,” I say, unwilling to believe it.
He shakes his head as if he’s disappointed in me. “You’ve been out of the game too long, Dax Sharp.”
My real name rockets through the room. Even Reed judders in his chair. I’ve always prided myself on staying three paces ahead of a target. Wendell Blitz has already leaped over the finish line.
“You didn’t think it was suspiciously easy to break in?
With all your experience and your record, you didn’t stop to think why a compound like this would have such an obvious and burstable power box outside?
While you were prowling after my house sitter, you didn’t notice that most of the closets are full of knockoffs and all the paintings have been replaced with Arrow Mart value prints?
Even my portrait over the fireplace is a replica.
There’s nothing of true value there,” he says.
So much for being observant… my inner villain scolds, turning on me. I start to sweat as any leverage I had begins to seep through my fingers.
“Except what’s in the safe,” I say.
He clicks his tongue. “Yes, fine, that was keenly spotted on your part for decoding the invoice, but it’s well hidden. Even if you do find it, good luck cracking it open without the code. A firing squad couldn’t break its lock. You could blow the house up and the safe would withstand,” he says.
“Maybe I intend to blow up the house,” I say.
He shrugs with a calm, easy expression. “The house is insured, and the old saying, ‘You can’t go home again,’ is true.
I don’t much care for Wyoming after all.
I’ve outgrown it in every way. That’s why I chose Warehouse 451327 to be the test site for complete worker automation.
Too many injuries, too many sick days, too many headaches and hassles and HR complaints.
You were only part of the first wave of layoffs, and because of that, we’ve been tracking your online movements from the moment you drove away from the warehouse lot four weeks ago. ”
“That’s illegal,” I say, which is by far the most foolish thing that could’ve come out of my mouth. I’ve broken into his house and have a knife to his son’s throat. I’m no law-abiding citizen. His surveillance is small potatoes.
“It’s perfectly legal. You should’ve read the fine print on your employment contract.
From the moment you downloaded the Arrow Mart employee app and agreed to the terms and conditions, every shred of your information became ours—mine—to use however we please,” he says, glee almost dancing between the words.
And here I thought I was a villain. This guy makes mass murderers look like little old ladies.
“You’re not the first disgruntled employee to come after me, and you won’t be the last, that’s for sure,” he says. Clearly, he enjoys being targeted. Like father, like son, perhaps.
I look down at Reed for a moment. His face has gone pale. I can’t tell if he’s nervous from seeing his biological father for the first time or if he’s relieved that I’ve been bested.
Don’t count me out just yet, pretty boy. I’ve got another ace up my sleeve.
“Now what’s it going to take to get this over with? The money Erin offered clearly wasn’t enough. I’m expected in the global business stage green room in fifteen minutes,” Wendell says. His smartwatch lights up with a notification.
“The location and combination to your safe,” I say.
“That’s not going to happen,” he says without looking back up. “Even if I applaud your valiant effort.”
I huff out a bullish breath. “It is going to happen or else.”
“Or else what? You’ll kill my house sitter like you told Erin?” he asks. “You’re already facing strike number three for aggravated burglary. Do you want to add manslaughter charges to the sentence? I’m sure the inmates at Rawlins miss you, but I don’t think they want you as a resident for life.”
I shake my head. “I’m not going to kill your house sitter,” I say, seething. “I’m going to kill your son.”