Chapter 1 – Will’s Legacy #8
Marci didn’t respond immediately and didn’t seem to know what to say. Jack would have loved to know what she was thinking.
“He’s a soldier,” she said eventually. “As your father was recently, too,” she added quietly, forgetting that Logan didn’t know what had happened to Will.
“Was he?” Logan looked confused. “I thought Dad was a cop before he lost his job and left us?”
“You’re pretty cheeky for a six-year-old,” said Jack, trying to distract him so Marci didn’t have to answer the boy’s question.
Not yet, anyway. Sooner or later she would have to talk to both boys about Will’s fate, if only to put their father back in a positive light, which Logan desperately needed.
“Well, you’re really quite stupid for a tin can,” Logan threw back at him. “Otherwise you’d not only know that my father doesn’t know the first thing about war but that my mother is gawping at you the whole time as if she’s just won a prize, and you’re not even a real man.”
“Logan!” Marci gulped and her previously sad eyes suddenly fizzed with anger. “What’s come over you? Neither your father nor I have ever allowed you to talk like that. Who did you hear that from?”
“From Louise,” he answered cheekily, and Jack could well believe it; the old woman really didn’t mince her words. “She always says women shouldn’t put up with any rubbish from guys.”
“And you didn’t consider the fact that you’re a guy, too?” Jack grinned at him.
Logan hesitated for a moment, clearly overwhelmed by the question. Did it mean that he was included in Louise’s warnings or that he was part of an elite group to which her harsh words didn’t apply?
Marci gave a deep sigh and pursed her lips before looking Jack in the eyes and shrugging. “Sorry,” she murmured wearily. “He didn’t mean it like that.”
“I hope he did,” countered Jack, smiling gently, referring not to the tin can comment, but the gawping. Before Marci could reply, Silver swerved suddenly to the left, pressing them all into their seats.
“Fuck!” came the sound from the hermetically sealed driver’s cabin.
“What’s wrong, Silver?” asked Jack.
“Look at the news, you’ll soon see.”
Jack glanced hastily at the holocommunicator that he’d strapped onto his wrist when he climbed into the van. A 3D image appeared on the tiny screen that made the cause of the trouble very clear.
“North-south route completely closed,” reported the traffic service. The very route that they would have to take if they wanted to head north out of the city.
Disbelievingly, Marci watched the breaking news that followed as it danced across Jack’s wrist in a holographic recording.
“This morning, billionaire’s wife Rochelle MacIntyre was murdered by an unknown person,” reported a glossy blonde with a totally inappropriate smile.
“Early investigations indicate that theperpetrator entered her villa in a kind of Trojan horse and broke her neck as she lay nakedin bed. Valuable company data was taken from the safe and it would also appear that her cleaner was kidnapped.”
Marci and Jack both continued to stare at the likeness that showed her doing her morning dusting, lending the whole thing a comical air.
“Marcella Finnegan is twenty-eight years old but looks older. She is one metre sixty-eight, slim and has shoulder-length, chestnut-brown hair that she sometimes ties back in a ponytail. She was last heard from at around eleven this morning. Since then, there has been no sign of her. It is possible that the perpetrator has killed her, too. As yet, no ransom demands have been received. Montgomery MacIntyre, owner of MacIntyre LLC, whose company is famous for making combat machines, has offered a reward of ten million credits for any information leading to the perpetrator’s capture.
This can be sent to our editorial team or to any police station.
The buildings of Copter Robot Unlimited have also been completely destroyed in an explosion.
The circumstances are not yet clear, as the satellite recordings were malfunctioning at the time.
The possibility of terrorism cannot be excluded.
Due to the ongoing manhunt, all roads in the city have been blocked off and are being monitored by the police.
This may cause long traffic jams on all routes out of the city. ”
“What did you do?” cried Marci, looking at Jack as if he were a monster.
“I didn’t do anything!” he retorted fervently, throwing a fierce look at her. “She was alive when I left. She was unconscious, yes, but she was alive.”
“Why in God’s name was she unconscious?” snapped Marci.
“Because I wiped her memory using an energy pulse so that she wouldn’t remember me. I…” “And you probably got the intensity wrong and that was that…” interrupted Marci.
“Whatever happened, I definitely didn’t break her neck!” said Jack defensively. “I analysed her health data as I was leaving. She was asleep and well.”
“As well as I was when you held my mouth and nose shut,” Marci cried, holding her children tightly to her. “I came this close to being suffocated!”
“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” implored Jack, hoping that she believed him.