Though she was just two doors down the hall, he only heard a muffled reply. It could have been ‘hold on’ or ‘yeah, yeah’ but with the thick concrete walls, carpeted floors and insulated roof tiles, sound down here carried poorly.
Exactly as the Catacombs had been designed. When that name for the numerous bunker-like rooms came to be, Julius didn’t know, but it was a fitting name, as the home of operations and data recording for the beta test were directly under Saint Nicholas Parish.
He put his organic yogurt down just as Gracie came into the main security office they shared on the night shift, the smell of teriyaki from one of those frozen meals she always ate accompanying her.
“What?” she asked, miffed at having to come in during her break.
He swiveled his chair around and saw her dutifully scanning the bank of security monitors that ran along the wall opposite where he was sitting. She would see nothing out of the ordinary there, but he wasn’t quick to say so. He took a moment to take her in. Such a fit and lithe body and she fueled it by the possibly worst form of nourishment. He knew it sounded girly to think, but with the belly he carried getting larger by the day, he was jealous of how Gracie could scarf that processed crap down and still look so good. And how did she manage to get such a perfect tan?
Before he got slapped with a sexual harassment suit, he stopped ogling her and cleared his throat.
“Not that,” he said, drawing her attention this way. “We got a reply from home office.”
That changed her expression from annoyed to curious. She put her microwavable meal down and stood just behind Julius as he swiveled back and pulled up the email on the main monitor.
He gave her a minute to read it, read it again, and then she put a hand on his shoulder.
She said, “So, we were right, after all.”
“Seems so. Think we’ll get a bonus for being the ones to verify it really is Dent and the girl?”
“Hell, the way Mr. Chisholme made it clear how desperate he was for any information on Dent, I wouldn’t doubt we could retire after this and live in the lap of luxury.”
Julius licked his lips in anticipation. It’d be nice to get out this profession, maybe live on the beach somewhere, where his uniform consisted of sandals, shorts, and sunglasses. But he also had a bad feeling about Dent being here that tempered his thoughts.
“You think the stories about him are true?” he asked, hoping his voice sounded steady.
“Dent?” she said, taking her hand from his shoulder. “You mean how he shot up HelpTouch’s main office in Los Angeles in broad daylight?”
“Yeah. Security said he was a cold son of a bitch.”
She dismissed his fears with a wave of her hand. “He’s got the girl with him, Julius. I doubt the stories about him could be all that true. You know how it is. The Los Angeles team had to make Dent out as more than he was so they could save their asses after their royal screw up.”
“What about The Ranch? They said he killed the kid there.”
She shook her head in doubt. “Again, I hardly think that’s the real truth. The kid probably got himself killed doing something stupid and they decided to lay the blame on Dent’s feet. It’s all about covering your ass in this game.”
It made sense, Julius had to admit. “Well, I’m still not going after him,” he stated.
“We don’t have to,” Gracie told him, pointing to the email still up on the screen. “All we have to do is contain him until the cavalry arrives.”
“The same crew we call in to keep the people from the Stretch where they belong?”
Her face scrunched up in thought. “I think Dent’s going to require a bit more professional talent to handle. More than a bunch of malnourished homeless people would.”
Julius swallowed.
“Don’t worry,” Gracie said. “Chisholme will send competent people to deal with Dent.”
The yogurt was churning in his stomach. “And keep him from doing to us what he did in Los Angeles and Graftsprings.” He meant it as a statement of fact, but knew it sounded like a question of doubt.
“It’s a freaking church, for God’s sake. Dent wouldn’t dare try anything like that here, Julius.”
His fingers drummed the desk. “True.”
They both went quiet, he drumming away and reading the email that had come directly from Grant Chisholme’s personal account, she apparently lost in thought.
He finished reading one last time then looked back up over his shoulder. He and Gracie had been working together long enough to know the drill. She gave him a nod. Wordlessly, he typed out an email acknowledging their orders and request while she pulled out her chair and picked up the phone.
There was much planning to do and it would require a team effort on this one.
The click-clack of rapid-fire typing and the calls to arms over the phone resounded in the main security office, though just outside and through the halls of the Catacombs, all was quiet. Nobody in the church above would know what transpired beneath their feet.
Just as it had been designed.
XXIII
Ingram pulled open the fridge and rooted around for something cold. And, as he’d hoped, he found a six pack of bottled beer in the far back. Dragging the case out, snagging two string cheese sticks to go along with it, he made his way back to couch.
It really was a nice house. A few things he’d change, but still, not bad.
Polished oak paneling, wainscoting throughout, a few Ansel Adams prints on the walls. The couch, wide enough for three, was roomy enough for one. He propped his feet up on the small coffee table, popped the top off a beer with his knife — which he’d thoroughly washed moments ago in the kitchen — and turned the television on.
Yeah, he really liked the place. Maybe he’d figure out how to get the fireplace going. He didn’t know if it was gas or not. It looked like it had real logs in there, but these days you never could tell if it was a façade. Above the fireplace, on the gleaming mantle, was a nice — he wouldn’t go as far as saying pretty — orchid, a purple and yellow thing with two full blooms. It looked perfectly quaint, all alone up there.
That was one of the first things he’d done when he made himself at home, centering the orchid up there. Well, technically, it had been the second thing he’d done.
On the river smooth stones surrounding the fireplace were the remains of what had cluttered the orchid on the mantle. Bent and broken picture frames, shattered glass, torn-apart family pictures. Happy, smiling, we-love-each-other photos. And the trampled trophies. Second placement in a bowling league. Most RBIs in a season. And the father — What was his name? — had a trophy of his own for golfing. Pointless memorabilia that screamed “Hey, we’re proud of you” or “We noticed how good you were.”
Things Ingram had never heard in his life.
If he figured out how to get the fireplace going, the trophies would be the first things in there fueling the flames.
His phone rang, and he suddenly found that his hand was going numb from choking the neck of his beer bottle. He put the beer down, wriggled his fingers to get some feeling back, then grabbed his phone.
“Takeda.”
“Ingram. Where are you?”
“Just settling down to see if anything good’s on.”
“Motel? Hotel?”
“House.”
A pause. “Where?”
“Herristown.”
“Good. I know why the place sounded familiar. Chisholme has a beta test running there. Has for years.”
Interesting. “That’s why Dent’s here?”
“I assume. Though how he knew, I have no clue.”
“Kasumi maybe? Some weird link between her and the other child?”
Another pause. This time longer. “If that’s it, I can’t see how.”
“Okay. So what do you want me to do?”
“This might actually work to our advantage. If Dent can screw over Chisholme, he’d be doing me a favor.” The venom in her
voice carried over the phone, and he wondered who it was directed at — Dent or Chisholme?
“Maybe you can have a trophy for MVP made up for Dent if he succeeds,” he muttered contemptuously, almost jealously.
“What?”
“Nothing. So. What am I to do?”
“Have you located Fifth?”
The fact that the woman didn’t call her own daughter by her name unnerved Ingram. It hit too close to home. As such, he almost didn’t answer.
“Ingram ….”
He mentally sighed. “I have, actually.”
“Possibility of extraction?”
He weighed his options. “Fairly high. Though with Dent still active, it could go either way. He does seem to be a bit … preoccupied these last few days.”
“If you get the chance, and I mean without harming her in any way, take it. If not, we will wait for a more opportune time.”
“Got it. What about Chisholme and his beta test?”
Takeda chuckled. “I think it would be poetic if Dent had some help from a stranger if he does decide to go through with shutting the test down.”
Ingram couldn’t help but grin at that. He’d actually done such a thing back when those men had attempted to run Dent off the road on the way here. Though, Takeda didn’t have to know about that. He doubted she’d find it chuckle-worthy as it hadn’t been her idea for him to step in and help Dent.
“Parameters?” he asked.
“Let Dent do the dirty work. If possible, and I mean I want this to happen, Ingram, obtain the Herristown test subject when the beta test is brought to a halt. I would like to have it back here in my labs.”
“Got it.”
“And, Ingram?”
“Yes?”
“My daughter’s safety and well-being is of the utmost priority. Nothing overrules that parameter. Nothing.”
He brought up his hand and made one-half of a set of devil’s horns with his index finger on his forehead. “I got it the first twenty times you said it.”
“Don’t make it twenty-two.”
“I got it, I got it.”
“Very well. Keep me updated.”
“I will.”
She clicked off on her end and he tossed the phone to the far end of the couch, belatedly remembering what was on that side. Luckily, the phone had landed in a dry spot. That was another thing he’d change about this house.
There was way too much blood spattered along the walls and seeping into the couch. And the carpet would have to go, as well. That thing was soaked beyond any hope. Having downed the last of his beer, he grabbed another. And with his knife — at least the blood came off easily on one thing in this house — he popped it open.
Now … What movie channels did the late owners of this house have?
XXIV
“We don’t know for sure, Dent¸” Kasumi said, trying to keep herself from screaming at him in their room at The Wine & Vine.
Grabbing his black leather jacket from the closet, Dent said, “We know enough.”
“We just know that Mr. Chisholme is funding the orphanage. It doesn’t mean that—”
“HelpTouch was behind The Ranch,” he said, cutting her off, like that was all he needed to know. For someone who is so practical, sometimes Dent could be positively irrational.
“This place is different, Dent.” She was practically pleading with him now, fat chance that it would do any good, though.
He did something with his guns, pulling out the magazines to check them before clipping them back in. “People are being affected by eTech,” he said. “By someone like you.”
“Yeah. Maybe. But in a good way.”
“It’s illegal.”
“It’s not hurting anyone.”
He tucked his guns into the back of his pants. “You didn’t see the homeless people out there. Those people wouldn’t be in their predicament if eTech wasn’t involved. Whatever Chisholme has going on here, it’s ruined those people’s lives, not made them better. And someone is keeping them from trying to go back to their old lives here. Going so far as to kill those who even try to go back.”
“What about everything else that’s good here? All the nice people in town—”
“They’re only nice because they are forced to act that way.”
“The orphanage and the kids they help—”
“Most of those children wouldn’t be in the orphanage if their parents weren’t forced to give away everything they had in the first place.”
“Nobody forced anyone to do anything.”
“It’s eTech. It’s what it does.”
She tried not to raise her voice. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not all bad here.”
Dent shrugged. “I have to stop it.”
“Why?” She scooted closer to him. “What if we just left? Pretended we never found out anything?”
“I have a contract to fulfill.”
“To hell with your contract, Dent!”
He gave her a look, no doubt tempted to say something about her language. But instead he said, “The contract is for your benefit, not mine. I took it in order to find a way to get the eBlocker reversed for you. You would give up a chance to be normal just so these people could continue living in this false sense of happiness?”
“False happiness is still happiness,” she said softly. But her own words sounded hollow even to her. If what she felt for Jason was false, if what he might feel for her was false, then what would that mean? Wouldn’t she rather want to know she liked someone because she really liked them, not because someone forced her to? She shook her head, trying to push those thoughts aside.
She asked Dent, and maybe even herself, “As long as they don’t know it’s fake, then why tell them? Even worse, why take that away from them?”
“We were sent here to locate the source of eTech, and to stop it. With Chisholme having a definite hand in it, it proves that it needs to be shut down. This city could soon turn into something like The Ranch.”
Dent was being so frustratingly black and white that it was driving her insane. “Nobody’s going to start killing each other or themselves over happiness!”
“When emotions are involved, I don’t discount anything.” He looked at her like her outburst had proven his point. “I will find the source and end it, Fifth.”
“What do you mean by end it?”
“I mean I’ll make sure that Herristown isn’t under the influence of something … or someone.”
The way he said the last made her shiver. Dent wasn’t stupid. He must have an idea about who he thought might be behind it all, and she knew it was the same person she thought it could be. She couldn’t let Dent do anything to hurt Jason. Not now, not after how she was starting to feel towards him.
“And if it does turn out to be someone like me?” she asked defiantly. “What then?”
“I will deal with him when the time comes.”
Not if I have anything to say about it, she thought as Dent pulled his jacket on and headed for the door.
---
With Dent gone, Kasumi had decided to put her own plan into action.
Standing outside The Wine & Vine, muted light spilling out of the curtained front windows, she vigorously rubbed her palms together. It wasn’t exactly cold out, but she’d been waiting for almost half an hour now and her nerves were getting to her. She thought about calling Jason again, but a car came around the corner at that moment and eased up to the curb in front of her.
Jason leaned over and threw open the door for her and she quickly hopped in to the passenger seat.
“Took you long enough,” she breathed out.
“Sorry,” Jason said, “but talking my mom into letting me drive without having a license yet is like pulling teeth. Besides, I had to call the guys to let them know we’d be late.”
“What? I told you we needed to have a talk, Jason. This isn’t going to be a date.” She’d tried to keep her voice even, but even if her tone hadn’t betrayed how annoyed
she was, she knew her talent would.
“Who said this was a date?” Jason grumbled back. “I already had plans when you called me.”
The best thing she could come up with was, “So?”
“So nothing.” He checked his mirrors. “Buckle up.”
She wanted him alone, to find a way to get him to admit what he was, to let him know she knew what he was. How could she do that if his friends were around? She needed to come up with a way to keep him all to herself tonight, some clever excuse to get him to ditch his friends.
She looked over to find him staring at her. “What?” she asked.
He looked away. “Nothing. Just … you look … nice tonight.”
And just like that, Kasumi was relegated to a mute, bumbling fool. She bobbed her head and ran a hand through her hair in order to hide her eyes and her giddy embarrassment. After what seemed like forever, Jason cleared his throat — which told Kasumi that she messed up and probably should have replied to his compliment — and he eased the car away from the curb.
“You ever go bowling?” Jason asked as he sped up.
She shook her head. Her mind was still running ten seconds behind, thinking of late responses to his compliment to her.
He scrunched up his face. “What’s up, Kasumi? Why are you acting so weird?”
“You’re acting weird,” Kasumi said out of reflex, immediately regretting it. Having Jason alone with her was screwing up her brain. Even Dent could have done a better job at small talk than she was at the moment.
“Well … Um, we’re going to meet a few of my friends,” he informed her. “Chutes and Ladders are there already.” He said the last in a hopeful tone, like having people there she already knew would ease what he must think was her being shy.
She could do this, she told herself. Twisting the seatbelt in her hands, she asked, “How long until we get there?”
He looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was 10:42. “About twenty, twenty-five minutes.”
She sat up a bit straighter. She had at least twenty minutes to get him to admit what he was. It couldn’t be that hard. She stopped messing with the seatbelt and turned to face him.
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