They Kill, page 10
“So essentially you’re suggesting we do nothing.”
“No.” Marc didn’t meet Sierra’s gaze as he said this. “I’m just saying that it might be more effective to let him come to us. But for that to happen, we need to go about our regular routines.”
She supposed there was a certain logic to what Marc proposed, but she knew logic was far from his sole motivator.
“You’re afraid to find him, aren’t you?”
“Fuck yes, I’m afraid!”
He took a long drink of his coffee.
“You didn’t see what I saw,” he said. “If you had….”
She wanted to tell him that no matter what Jeffrey had become or what he’d done, he was still her brother, and how could she be afraid of him? But in truth, she was afraid. She wanted to see her brother again, but she was also terrified of doing so.
Marc sighed, seeming to deflate as he did.
“I know you think I’m a coward, and maybe I am. But I can’t face him again. Not now. I need some time to come to terms with what I saw, you know?”
She did know.
“All right. I’ll teach my class and you meet your client. I’ll be done around one thirty. I’ll call you then and we can figure out what to do. Sound good?”
Marc gave her an almost pathetically grateful smile.
“Yes. Thank you.”
He tossed a couple dollars onto the table to pay for his coffee, said goodbye, rose, and headed for the door. He walked at a deliberate pace, as if having to force himself not to run.
She wondered if he’d answer when she called later, or if this was the last she’d see of him. Then again, he’d called her to tell her about seeing Jeffrey. He could’ve kept his mouth shut and tried to avoid getting further tangled up in all this if he’d wanted. Maybe he was telling her the truth when he said he just needed some time to process what had happened. But what if, after he’d had that time, he decided he wanted nothing more to do with Jeffrey?
She’d go it alone, then. What other choice did she have? As scared as she might be, she wouldn’t abandon Jeffrey. She’d lost him once. No way would she lose him again.
Chapter Six
Stuart was parked across the street from Temptations. He’d come here with Sierra a couple times, but he’d never liked the place. He’d rather go to a good burger joint any day.
So far, Krista had proven herself a most useful companion. In many ways, she was the perfect woman: she lived to serve him and did as she was told. Too bad she didn’t have a body with big tits and a tight cunt, but he supposed you couldn’t have everything. She did have a wicked tracking app, however, which allowed him to pinpoint Sierra’s location. After he’d tracked her here and parked, Krista informed him that she had another app that would ensure he could listen in on her conversation with whoever she was meeting without leaving the car. And that Sierra was meeting someone, Stuart had no doubt. A teasing whore like her always had a man or two on the line.
“Would you like me to activate the listening app?” Krista asked.
“Damn straight.”
An instant later he regretted his words. The swollen conglo-meration of flesh where his Bluetooth receiver had merged with his ear began to change, skin, cartilage, plastic, and metal shifting, twisting, reforming. The resultant pain was so intense that for a moment he blacked out, but then his vision cleared, almost as if he were a machine that had temporarily gone offline and was being rebooted. Soon after, the pain eased and then disappeared entirely. He reached up and gingerly touched the object that now protruded from the right side of his head. It felt like a small dish of some kind, and then he realized what it was: a miniature parabolic microphone, a device for picking up sound from a distance, the sort of thing spies used.
Awesome. He’d always wanted one.
The driver’s side window hummed as it lowered.
“Please give me a moment to lock in on Sierra.”
A second later, Stuart heard Sierra telling a server she’d like a Caesar salad and an iced tea. The sound was so clear and crisp, it was as if he were seated next to her.
“Krista, you are the shit!”
“Thank you, Stuart.”
He settled back into his seat, closed his eyes, and listened.
For a while, it was pretty dull. Sierra sat quietly while she waited for her food, thanked the server when it arrived, and then started eating it. Stuart was beginning to think he’d wasted his time following her here, but then Marc Naranjo came in and joined her.
Stuart didn’t know Marc. He’d met the guy a couple times, but they hadn’t interacted much. Stuart didn’t have anything against gays so long as they left him the hell alone and didn’t do any gay shit in public. Did Sierra have a thing for gay guys? He’d heard of women like that, who hung around with gay men, hoping they’d eventually turn straight for them because they were so special. He’d thought Sierra was smarter than that, but then she was a woman, and for women, emotions – no matter how stupid – trumped brains every time. On the other hand, maybe Marc was bisexual, and he’d come here because he wanted to make a play for Sierra. How kinky would that be, fucking the brother and, a year after he died, fucking the sister? But Sierra loathed Marc. She blamed him for Jeffrey’s death.
He listened as they began talking.
“I’m glad you went ahead and ordered. I have absolutely no appetite myself.”
“I don’t have much of one either.”
“Thank you for coming here. I was sure when I called you’d think I’d lost my mind.”
“The jury’s still out on that. For both of us.”
Their voices were drowned out by a sudden staticky crackling, so loud it made Stuart wince in pain. He reflexively reached up to pull the parabolic mike from his ear, forgetting it was part of him. He grabbed hold of it and yanked, but all he succeeded in doing was adding to his pain. Then, as quickly as it had come, the static faded away to silence. He waited to hear Sierra’s and Marc’s voices again, but they didn’t return. He was about to ask Krista what had happened to the mike, but a bone-deep weariness overtook him then, and he found it a struggle to keep his eyes open. He was so tired, he felt as if he could nod off right here and sleep for a month. It took an effort, but he managed to speak, his voice little more than a whisper, his speech slurred.
“What’s…wrong?”
“Your power level has fallen dangerously low. You need to recharge before you lose power entirely.”
His thoughts were fuzzy, sluggish, and it took fierce concentration for him to make sense of them.
“What happens when…power gone?”
“You’ll shut down, of course. However, I advise against allowing that to happen. Humans – even augmented ones such as yourself – aren’t as easy to restart as machines. Sometimes they can’t be restarted at all.”
She said this with a tone of mild bemusement, as if she couldn’t understand how humans could be so limited.
“Shut…down?”
It sounded to him like another way to say die.
He pictured himself sitting in the Camaro, window down, eyes closed, body still. How long would he remain like that until someone realized he was dead? Hours? Days? Would someone only think to check on him when they passed by his car and smelled the rank odor of decay wafting from inside the vehicle?
“What do I do?” He sounded like a weak, frightened child, and although he hated himself for it, he couldn’t stop himself from pleading. “Please, Krista. Help me!”
Krista had guided him since the moment he’d first heard her voice. But instead of answering his question this time, she said, “You know what to do.”
She sounded cold, much different than her normally pleasant tone.
He felt the weariness even more intensely than before, and he knew he was going to be in deep shit if he didn’t do something soon. Think, you dumbass! And then, just like that, the answer came to him.
“Need to…recharge.”
“There you go! Now, was that so hard?”
It made sense. He was partially machine now, a goddamned cyborg. But he had no idea how to recharge himself.
Krista let out an exasperated sigh. “Look in your pocket.”
Feeling like he was moving through cold molasses, Stuart reached into his right pants pocket. His hands found a coiled metallic cable, and he withdrew it. The object hadn’t been in his pocket earlier, he was certain of that. He’d never seen it before. But here it was, another gift from Krista. At first the object looked like any other charger – outlet plug on one end, device plug on the other. But it shifted in his hand, coils rippling as if the charger was alive and was stretching itself after a period of confinement. The unexpected movement startled him, and he almost dropped the charger, but it settled down and grew still. He started to ask Krista how he was supposed to use the charger, but instead he closed his hand around it, opened the Camaro’s door, and stepped outside.
He was so weak his knees buckled, and he had to grab hold of the open door to keep himself standing. His head swam with vertigo, and he closed his eyes and waited for it to pass. The dizziness didn’t go away entirely, but it receded enough that he risked opening his eyes again. His vision was blurry around the edges, but he could see well enough, and while his knees still felt weak, they continued to keep him upright. Figuring that this was the best he was going to get, he closed the car door and moved to the rear of the vehicle, keeping his left hand on it to support himself as he shuffled forward, barely able to lift his feet off the ground.
He made it to the sidewalk – nearly tripping in the process – and began walking east, choosing the direction at random. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for exactly. Should he go into a shop and search for a power outlet? That didn’t feel right, but what else—
He stumbled then and would’ve gone down if a man walking in the opposite direction hadn’t reached out and caught him.
“Easy there, fella. You all right?”
The man was in his forties, and while not exactly fat, he was what some would politely describe as beefy. He had a round face with puffy jowls, a thatch of brown hair, and a thin mustache that looked like it belonged more on the lip of an adolescent than a middle-aged man. He wore an ugly shit-brown suit with an equally ugly yellow tie. His brown shoes had tassels on them, which Stuart regarded as a major fashion mistake. The man reminded Stuart a bit of Alton, his late and not particularly lamented manager. This was the sort of man Alton might’ve become in several years’ time, and Stuart decided he’d done Alton a favor by frying his ass.
The man gave Stuart a smile, and when he spoke, there was no mockery or irritation in his voice, only kindness.
“Did you have one too many last night? Or maybe this morning?”
They were close enough to the college for the man to be a professor who’d stopped for lunch between classes. The guy’s breath smelled like onions, and Stuart wondered what the fucker had eaten for breakfast. Whatever it had been, the man’s breath turned his stomach.
The man frowned as he got a closer look at Stuart’s face. “What’s wrong with your eyes? They’re silver. Are you wearing contacts or something? And your ear….”
Stuart didn’t respond to the man’s words. He felt a pinch of pain behind the front teeth in his lower jaw, and when he probed the area with his tongue, he encountered a small hard object embedded in the soft flesh of his mouth. In his ear, Krista said, “It’s a port.”
Stuart now knew where one end of the charger went, but as for the other….
The device had remained motionless since he’d left the car, but now it began to move again. It swiftly uncoiled and the plug end shot out of his hand toward the man in the shit-brown suit. The metal prongs on the plug grew sharp, like the fangs of a striking snake, and embedded themselves in the man’s forehead. Blood ran from the wounds, and the man’s eyes went wide with pain and shock. He let go of Stuart and reached trembling hands toward the plug. His fingers found it and tried to pull it loose, but it was dug in too deep.
The other end of the plug leaped out of Stuart’s hand and shot toward his mouth. It wriggled its way between his lips, past his teeth, and found the newly installed port. It inserted itself with a small click, and white light exploded behind Stuart’s retinas. He felt strength flooding back into his limbs, felt his mind become clear once more, his thoughts sharp and nimble as every cell of his body filled with dancing electric flame. He felt strong, powerful, invincible.
He felt the cable in his mouth jerk taut, and this sensation was followed by the sound of something heavy thudding to the sidewalk. His vision cleared and he found himself looking down at the man in the shit-brown suit. He lay on the sidewalk in a fetal position, curled in on himself like a dead spider. His hands were contorted claws, and his face was twisted into a rictus of pain. His eyes were gone, and wisps of steam rose from the empty blackened sockets.
The plug was still stuck in the man’s forehead, but now it wriggled itself loose and flew toward Stuart, trailing drops of blood behind it. The cable retracted as it came, and just as the plug was about to collide with his teeth, he opened his mouth and the plug went inside. He felt it compressing as it burrowed beneath his tongue, and while this process hurt, he was getting used to the pain his new body modifications caused, and he endured it. The pain ebbed, and when he ran the tip of his tongue over the area where the port and charger had been, he felt only a small lump covered by newly healed flesh.
“The charger will remain in storage until you need it again,” Krista said. “By the way, recharge successful. Power level at maximum.”
There was a sense of approval in her voice, as if she were proud of him.
He gazed one last time at the man whose life he’d stolen, and then he turned and headed into the street. Drivers braked to avoid hitting him, cursed and sounded their horns. Stuart ignored them, was barely aware of their existence. The entirety of his attention was focused on the café across the street. His nerves were on fire, and his heart thrummed like a finely tuned engine. Screw listening in on Sierra’s conversation with Marc. He’d rather speak to them in person. Halfway across the street, he began running, arms and legs pistoning with machinelike precision. Dark anticipation filled him as he thought of what he’d do to Sierra and her fag boyfriend when he confronted them.
A small part of his mind wondered if anyone had seen what he’d done to the man in the shit-brown suit. No one had been close by on the sidewalk when Stuart killed him, but traffic had been flowing in the street. Had a driver witnessed what he’d done and called 911? Were police already on their way? But even if he hadn’t been completely absorbed in fantasies of retribution, he wouldn’t have cared about the cops. Let them come. He was fully charged and ready to rumble.
He burst into Temptations, flinging the door open so hard that it tore halfway off its hinges. Everyone in the café turned to look at him, eyes widening, mouths dropping open. Stuart ignored them all. He only cared about Sierra and Marc.
* * *
Wendy Morgan had worked at Temptations for eighteen months. She was taking acting classes in Riverbank’s theater department, and she’d had some small roles in a couple campus productions. Nothing spectacular, but they were, as one of her teachers put it, résumé-builders. Classes at Riverbank weren’t expensive, but they weren’t free either, and Wendy could only afford to be a part-time student. Her two-year degree would most likely take her four years, or longer, to complete, but that was okay. By the time she was finished, she’d be ready to start auditioning for real acting jobs, although this would necessitate moving somewhere with a more vibrant theater scene than Bishop Hill. Aside from the college, there was a dinner theater in Ash Creek, and that was it. Chicago had a strong theater scene, and it might be more doable financially. Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus were possibilities too.
One of the reasons she was taking her time to complete her theater degree – one she’d never told anyone about – was that she had a suspicion that she wasn’t a very good actor. That she sucked, in fact. She might be adequate enough to be in a crowd scene, maybe even have a line or two, but no more than that. No small parts, only small players. She truly believed that. But the idea of being relegated to bit parts throughout her career – and maybe not even being able to land those outside Riverbank – terrified her. People always said to follow your dreams, but what if those dreams never went anywhere?
She’d started working at Temptations right out of high school, and it was an okay job. The work wasn’t too hard, and the café’s owner was nice enough to her employees. The pay wasn’t great, but it covered her rent and tuition. Mostly. The tips left something to be desired. A lot of students ate here, and they were just as poor as she was. But whenever she closed, she got to take home any baked goods that were on the verge of going stale, and that was a nice – if fattening – perk. Sometimes she worried that she’d end up working at a server, either here or somewhere else, her entire life, while continuing to audition for parts she was never going to get. It was a big reason why she felt anxious and depressed most of the time, although she did her best to hide it, especially when she was at work. Nobody wanted to be served by someone who looked like they were contemplating suicide all the time, and they sure as hell didn’t want to tip them.
Wendy was having an especially bad Monday. On Friday, she’d auditioned for a part in the theater department’s fall production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She knew it was a long shot, but she really wanted to play the part of Maggie, the female lead. The cast list had been posted on the department’s call board this morning, and she’d stopped by to check it out. She’d been so nervous when she stepped up to the call board, moving past other students who were talking excitedly about who was and wasn’t cast. When she didn’t see her name on the list, she immediately reread it to make sure she hadn’t somehow overlooked it. But no matter how many times she read the list, her name remained absent.
