Текст книги "The Eden Plague"

Автор книги: David VanDyke

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The Eden Plague

Plague Wars – Book 0

by

David VanDyke

The Eden Plague

Plague Wars – Book 0

Sixth Edition

 

Published by REAPER PRESS for Kobo

Copyright 2012 David VanDyke

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62626-047-4

 

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Kobo to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means whatsoever (electronic, mechanical or otherwise) without prior written permission and consent from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

 

Books by David VanDyke 

Chapter 1 

Chapter 2 

Chapter 3 

Chapter 4 

Chapter 5 

Chapter 6 

Chapter 7 

Chapter 8 

Chapter 9 

Chapter 10 

Chapter 11 

Chapter 12 

Chapter 13 

Chapter 14 

Chapter 15 

Chapter 16 

Chapter 17 

Chapter 18 

Chapter 19 

Chapter 20 

Chapter 21 

Chapter 22 

Chapter 23 

Chapter 24 

Chapter 25 

Chapter 26 

Chapter 27 

Chapter 28 

Chapter 29 

Epilogue 

Reaper’s Run Excerpt 

Books by David VanDyke

Plague Wars Series

The Eden Plague – Book 0

Reaper’s Run – Book 1

Skull’s Shadows – Book 1.5

The Demon Plagues – Book 2

The Reaper Plague – Book 3

The Orion Plague – Book 4

Cyborg Strike – Book 5

Comes The Destroyer – Book 6

For more information visit http://www.davidvandykeauthor.com/

 

Cover by Jun Ares

-1-

“Just do what I tell you, Elise,” she heard Jenkins say as she stared at the weird weapon. Growing up on her father’s ranch, she’d fired handguns and shotguns and rifles before, but this thing…he said it was an automatic shotgun, but it looked more like a blaster from one of those Star Wars movies.

“Hold it tight in to your shoulder. It’s going to kick like a mule but you shouldn’t have any problem with that.” His unsettling eyes locked with hers, and she asked herself again why she didn’t point it at him and use it once he gave her the ammo.

Because I can’t, she answered herself half-bitterly. Even if I ever was a killer, that option is closed to me now.

She’d made her peace with that feeling, even if it did mean she was under Jervis Jenkins’ thumb. Her current jailer, she loathed him to the limits of her ability. She considered biting him and seeing how he’d like to deal with the consequences, but then others would come and stash them away in some deep hole, and throw away the key.

At least now she was a pampered pet. At least now they needed her.

For a while.

“Come on, Elise. Focus. Show me how you like to hold it.” Jenkins played with the ziploc bag of special shotgun shells, relishing his cheesy sexual double-entendre.

Ignoring him and his innuendo, she snugged the weapon in tight like any other shotgun, dry-fired it, then cocked it again. “Nothing to it,” she said confidently. Bravado kept Jenkins happy. Sometimes. She had to play his games, and the Doctor’s games, and even though they never took advantage of her that way, she was still emotionally dead to them, enslaved as she was. Though she was an atheist – I’m a scientist, after all, dammit! – at the end of her rope, she had recently begun praying the same prayer, over and over, to the Universe or whoever: somebody save me.

Jenkins snapped his fingers, master to bitch. “Okay come on, step in there, and let’s go over the plan again.”

***

Daniel Markis thought back to that first meeting as they winged their way southward. It’s a bad day when you shoot your future wife. Laughing ruefully to himself, he remembered…

Something seemed out of place when he came home from work that afternoon. The side door to his house stood open. Turning into his driveway, he pulled his beat-up old van to a stop and switched it off right away, listening. Suburban Dale City was quiet, just the thwock – thwock of tennis balls in the court across the street.

Daniel stared at the open door. Something was wrong, because he lived alone. Ever since Becky left so long ago...alone.

Echoes in his head: crazy brain-damaged loner.

Reaching under his seat, he pulled out his car gun. The stock full-sized Springfield Arms XD rested comfortably in his hand, with two extra mags in a clip-on holder. An XD compact, his carry piece, became his backup, nestled on his right rear hip.

God bless Dixie, the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Second Amendment.

Daniel lived on a corner – generally a bad idea, he thought, far too much traffic – he’d usually lived on military bases before – getting off track. Keep it together, DJ. They’d said it was the organic damage, so that he couldn’t think like he should. Explosion, concussion, brain injury, three-two-one-boom.

Focus, Daniel. He forced his mind back to the now.

Debating calling the cops for three seconds, he realized his phone was dead. Forgot to recharge it last night in the house, stupid car charger’s broke, gotta get a new one. Hell with it.

The serpent in the back of his head woke up.

Chemical concentration... Pharmaceutical brainpower, that’s what he needed. Daniel pulled a ziploc bag full of jelly beans out from under his seat. The purple ones were gel-caps. It was a good way to hide his stash from the cops, and he couldn’t afford to get busted. He chewed two of them, along with some of the candy to kill the taste. The stimulant-painkiller combo flooded into his bloodstream while he sat there wishing he had a cortisone syringe handy for his knee.

Taking a deep breath, he readied himself.

Exiting his van onto the concrete, he kept the XD in front of him and low in a tactical crouch. His left knee was stiff, courtesy of that Taliban IED, but the pain was dulling now. Gritting his teeth, he concentrated on the job in front of him and powered through it.

Probably some kids doing a daylight break-in, though they were stupid to have left the side door open to be seen. They hadn’t broken the glass storm door, so he opened that with his left hand and looked at the inner door, ajar. Nothing seemed damaged. Letting his eyes adjust for a moment, he then eased in, listening.

Quiet.

He took a quick look at the door hardware. It didn’t seem broken, and the deadbolt was intact. Did I forget to lock it this morning before work? What if I hadn’t come home early? Maybe they’re already gone. Yeah, that’s it. Odds are they already ripped me off and they’re long gone. Still, Daniel Markis goes by the book. Always do the right thing.

His heart hammered and he was having less difficulty focusing now. Better living through chemistry: Dexedrine, hydrocodone and a little epinephrine made it all better.

Clearing his house room by room, he searched for anything out of place. On the ground floor, his widescreen and computer were still there. Moving  upstairs to the bedrooms and bathrooms, he found no one. Nothing missing or disturbed.

Daniel left the basement for last. If there was anyone in there they should have heard him moving around. At least he hoped so. The house was forty years old, and it creaked. He really wished they had bolted out the basement walkout into the back yard, over his useless waist-high Housing-Association-approved rail fence and across the neighbors’ yards to escape.

No need to shoot some stupid kid or pathetic junkie. I’ve killed better men for better reasons.

He crept down the basement stairs, bad tactics to catch someone unawares. Obviously he should have gone back outside, and tried to sneak in the sliding glass door of the basement walkout. Actually he wanted whoever it was, if there was anyone, to leave by that exit.

Never corner a rat, unless you mean to exterminate him. Always leave him a way out.

At the bottom of the stairs he turned sharply left, back along a short hallway which opened out into the main finished part of the basement. He didn’t hear anyone, but he smelled him.

It was easier for Daniel than some people, because everything he used was fragrance-free. Artificial scents bothered him; they made his eyes water and his nose clog up. This smell was faint but unmistakable, man-cologne. Something expensive. Rubbing the bottom of his nose with his offhand finger, he kept from sneezing.

From being fairly relaxed, comfortable on the chems in a combat-mode sort of way, everything inside him shifted sharply into overdrive. This isn’t some kid, he thought, and he isn’t running away. The world crystallized in that way it did when he felt close to death. He’d been there before

The serpent in his head knew someone wanted Daniel J. Markis dead, erased, blotted out. Charging out of its cave, it sank its fangs into his hindbrain like a terrier on a rat. Everything took on a cut-glass clarity, with slightly rainbow edges.

Surveying the part of the basement he could see from the end of the hallway, he saw no one in the open room. There was a door into the unfinished part to his left, another door to the three-quarter bath to his left front, the walkout glass doors right front, and the door to the basement bedroom to his right.

A faint sound marked someone in the bathroom and the XD swung left automatically. Daniel crouched behind the end of his battered sofa, set the weapon comfortably on the armrest, and called out, “Come on out of there, you.” Not eloquent, but it got the message across.

A moment’s pause, then the door exploded from the inside. 12-gauge shotgun, a part of him said, and the shooter was hoping to catch me napping. Some kind of automatic, since he fired four rounds quick, bang-bang-bang-bang, and Daniel didn’t hear the distinct chack-chack of a pump.

Sweeping the room from his left to right, the shooter fired blind through the thin hollow-core door, spraying clouds of splinters with each shot. The sound deafened Daniel briefly, and the final blast struck the top of the sofa about a foot in front of him, sending pieces of cushion flying. Already fading back and moving left, he avoided the next one that never came, low in a duck walk.

Cursing himself for not retrieving his own shotgun from his bedroom, Daniel realized he couldn’t expect to penetrate two thicknesses of wall at the corner and do any damage with a pistol. He certainly wasn’t stepping in front of that door.

But local knowledge is always a huge advantage, and this was his own house. Opening the door to his left, he slid silently into the unfinished section of the basement, pushing the door almost shut behind. Now, immediately to his right stood a single thickness of drywall behind two-by-four studs. No insulation, and on the other side, that bathroom and the shooter.

From point-blank range Daniel unloaded seven rounds through the wall, walking them diagonally left to right and slanting from low to high, knee to chest level. The expanding loads punched through the thin gypsum, leaving thumb-sized holes as they went, and he heard a grunt and the thud of a body falling.

The serpent cheered.

Moving quickly, he took cover to his left behind the water heater and finished off the magazine, firing into the tiny bathroom at about calf level.

He then reloaded, waiting.

No sounds, but he smelled blood and worse. That was a good sign, in this case. It usually meant death.

The serpent rejoiced.

He glided silently up to look through one of the holes in the drywall. Bright red splash, a jumble of flesh and dark clothing, the stink. Standing back up, weapon held in close to his sternum, he kept it pointed forty-five degrees down, still in a shooter’s grip. None of that aiming skyward Hollywood crap you see on TV.

Moving carefully back through the portal, he took his left hand off the weapon and pushed at the shattered bathroom door. The shooter’s body blocked it, and as Daniel was fairly sure the man was down and out, he moved to brace himself to shove it open when he heard something behind him.

Clap. Clap.

The serpent coiled, wary.

A slow, sarcastic clap.

Crap.

-2-

Hoping the clapping meant the source held nothing in his hands, Daniel didn’t do anything sudden. Instead he turned around smoothly, weapon still ready but pointed low.

There stood a suit. Mid-twenties, about five ten, dark hair cut short, straight and expensive, the five-o’clock shadow curse of the swarthy on his face and chin. To Daniel he looked like Agency. You know, he thought, OGA, the Other Government Agency that everyone likes to talk about in those breathless hushed tones, like they think it’s so cool, like they’re in love with its very existence. They don’t even actually use the acronym: C.I.A. He realized it was this man’s cologne he’d smelled, not the dead shooter’s, though that had helped him anyway.

“Hello, suit,” Daniel said. “What the f– …what do you want?” He’d made a promise to try to curb his vulgarities after all the jams his Higher Power got him out of, and Daniel was a man that kept his promises, even if he’d missed a few of the Twelve Steps along the way.

Taking a breath, Daniel asked, “Why are you in my house, and why did you just make me kill a man?” He hung on to the tension between them, because he could feel the post-kill nausea trying to make itself known, and if he started on that he’d get the shakes and he’d want a drink and he really needed to stay away from that dark hole.

Pharms, he could control.

No, really.

But alcohol was a treacherous serpentine thing.

“Not a man,” the suit said, “but don’t worry about her. She’ll keep.”

Flippant. Cold son of a bitch. The kind that expends people like cartridges, like the one on the floor in there dead. Then Daniel did a double-take. She? Dammit, have I just killed a woman? I didn’t have much choice, right? Can’t think about that now. Deal with what’s in front of you.

“Let’s go upstairs,” the suit said jauntily.

Up they went, the intruder first, the XD’s front sight fixed on his spine, center mass, just out of reach if he suddenly turned and made a grab. They angled right at the top of the stairs, walked through the kitchen, and the suit sat down in the dining room. Daniel reached over and pulled the curtains shut, flipped on the light.

The suit took out a silver cigarette case, a matching lighter, and lit up. “Smoke?” He took a deep drag.

“I don’t smoke,” Daniel said automatically.

“Of course you do. You have a display case of Turkish meerschaum pipes right there, and some of them are used. And a humidor with some nice Cohiba. I was tempted to get one.” He gestured toward the case in Daniel’s living room.

“I mean, I’m not a smoker. Are you a liar?” Daniel asked him.

His eyes widened, baffled by the conversational turn. “No. Not the way you mean.”

“But you’ve lied before?”

“Sure, occasionally. Most people have.”

“I rest my case.”

The swarthy man rubbed his eyes, the gesture condescending, as if dealing with a child. “Okay, I get it,” he sighed theatrically. “Occasional user, no dependencies, right? You quit drinking, quit smoking cigarettes; you’re an exercise junkie now. Nothing but endorphins, meditation, yoga, martial arts, the Quantico Shooting Club, going to church, anything to keep the nightmares and the demons at bay.”

Shows how much you don’t know, Daniel thought, but that’s good, since it means my little chemical issues are well hidden.

“I’m surprised you don’t have a dog or a cat,” the suit went on.

“I have a serpent.” Daniel barked laughter, a little too loud, on the edge of control. “And I had a dog. But my ex took him. But to hell with all that. Start talking.” He sat down, because he was coming down, and wanting a drink, but he clamped down on that desire.

Resting the gun on the table, Daniel kept it pointed at the other man’s chest, his fingertip off the trigger but close, very close. The serpent kept trying to wrap around that finger, make him squeeze. “What’s your name, anyway?”

The suit took another drag, then looked at his cigarette, speculatively. “Jenkins. J. Andrew Jenkins the Fourth.” He said it as if it should mean something.

It occurred to Daniel that Jenkins had no ashtray, so he got up, took a cereal bowl out of his cupboard and slid it across the dining room table to him. Since he was up anyway, he filled a tall glass with orange juice from the fridge. After violent action, the next best thing to alcohol was sugar. He didn’t get the suit any; he had his smoke.

Daniel sat back down and sipped, feeling the cold sweet run down his insides. It steadied him a bit. He took a deep breath. “Okay, Jenkins, talk.”

The suit smiled, smarmy, superior. “Just like that. The secrets of the universe?”

The serpent coiled, and then Daniel kicked the man under the table, hard, somewhere near his left knee.

Jenkins convulsed forward, dropping the cigarette and clutching for the pain, and Daniel reached over, put his left hand on the man’s head and mashed his face into the table. With his right he used the magazine extension of the automatic to grind out the burning cigarette. “Now you owe me for a new tablecloth.”

With his weight still on the man’s head, Daniel put the pistol down out of his reach, picked up the still-smoking butt and singed the man’s skin, right behind his ear, drawing a yelp. Then he dropped it in the bowl-ashtray. He scooped up the gun again.

“You can’t play conversation control games with me, you stupid suit.” Daniel made that word into an epithet. “I’ve been through every resistance training course, every combat psych and psy-ops and mind-freak exercise, and you are in my house now.” He felt violated, and it fueled him and what control he had left drained away like water through a colander of pasta.

The serpent egged him on.

“MY HOUSE!” The snake and the Dexedrine seized control, the worm in his hindbrain that he tried so hard to keep caged every day since the IED and the brain damage, his nemesis, that satanic serpent. This idiot, this suit, is a child playing with blasting caps and batteries in a toybox full of explosives and he might die, right here, right now, for that ignorance and stupidity. Daniel was on the edge of a whiteout, and the snake longed for it, longed to throw itself and the body he possessed into that bright hot place where all he had to do was destroy. Annihilate every threat, kill everyone that wasn’t on his side, and this fool, the serpent screamed, IS NOT ON YOUR SIDE.

He wrapped his fingers into the intruder’s hair and dragged him to his feet, moving around the table. Daniel stood a bit under six feet, 200 pounds and muscular, but the berserkergang closing in let him shake the smaller man like a rag doll, lifting him onto his toes with one hand. Nose to nose, the muzzle of the XD jammed hard into the man’s solar plexus, he screamed into Jenkins’ face, “I just killed one person, and I just. Might. Kill. You. Too So. TALK!”

Then he threw the man into his chair. The suit almost fell over backward, but caught himself against the wall as Daniel stood over him, shaking. They were both shaking, Daniel with barely-suppressed chemical rage, the cologned man with dawning fear.

Finally afraid. “You can’t kill me,” Jenkins said, shuddering.

Wrong thing to say. Oh, so very, very wrong.

A silent explosion in Daniel’s head, and then the serpent took him, wrapped him up and dragged him under. He watched his hand move of its own volition, watched himself as he shot the man twice in the chest.

It felt so good.

The serpent writhed in ecstasy.

Jenkins gaped upward, then looked down. Touched the entry wounds. Tried to speak. Slumped and was still.

Crap.

-3-

Elise came to consciousness wondering what had happened, then knowing but hardly believing it. This is the guy Jenkins was supposed to recruit? The softhearted special operator who would help us with a minimum of trouble, who would be grateful, who could be controlled?

Then why do I hurt so damn much?

First thing the stench hit her, blood and her own body stink mixed with the surreally mundane odors of soap and shower gel. A shampoo bottle lay shattered by her arm, its gooey contents a puddle on the shower floor. Well, might as well make it useful. She reached over, scooping the stuff onto her hands and then rubbing it into her medium-length auburn hair. Rolling over, she got painfully to her feet.

She saw her clothes were torn and so was the nylon cloth that covered the heavy Kevlar vest. The bulletproof helmet she had worn showed a couple of scars as well. Good thing; that saved my life. Eden or not, bullets in the brain tend to be fatal.

Eden. She laughed to herself. The one and only, the first. Call me Eve. If they’ll only let me find my Adam. I’d thought it might be Daniel Markis. Little chance now.

Reaching out, she turned on the water in the shower, letting the hot soothing liquid run over her clothed body. It still felt wonderful. She lathered up her hair, then awkwardly used the soap to wash off what she could of the blood and fluids as she waited for Jenkins to make his recruiting pitch.

***

Silence wrapped him as Daniel stood there, and he suddenly felt dizzy, ice cold, drenched in sweat. Numbly he reached over, bumped the thermostat up a couple of degrees, leaned against the wall. Listened to the silence. Mostly silence. The serpent still gibbered in his hindbrain. Too many chemicals, he knew. Steroids and painkillers and speed, and they had betrayed him this time.

But he heard something else. A rushing sound, not the forced air of the heating system either. Water. It sounded like the shower in the basement was on. Had a pipe broken? Did one of his rounds damage something?

Reloading automatically, he retraced his steps back down to the basement. No way that guy – sorry, that woman – got up. No way, after the mess I made of her.

The serpent in his head slithered forward again, eager.

Edging around the bottom of the stairs, Daniel glided forward with all the stealth he could muster and slipped back to his position in the unfinished part of the basement, behind the thin wall with its sixteen or so holes. Yes, the shower was running, and something moved within. Several of the rounds had gone right through the tile and now the water was soaking back, drizzling through the holes.

What the hell?

He waited, took up a position behind the crack of the door, and waited some more. It took several minutes but finally a figure came out of the shower, out of the bathroom. It looked to him like she had rinsed with her clothes on, to get rid of the blood and filth, but amazingly she was up and walking around. Toweling off. Not fast; she moved haltingly, like an old woman, or a hurt one. With an exotic-looking weapon by the barrel in one hand, she dangled a Kevlar helmet from the same wrist, and dragged a mangled vest. Five or six scars showed where his rounds had hit the armor and helmet and not penetrated.

So I tagged her, but didn’t kill her after all? But I fired sixteen rounds, and I smelled the stink of the body letting go, which normally only happens at the moment of death. At least some of her legs and arms should be out of commission, but she’s using all of them. One, two, three, four. Yup, all four limbs operating.

Weird.

Daniel stepped out from behind the door while her back was still mostly to him. “Freeze, you.”

She dropped everything, held her hands up away from her body. “Don’t shoot, please. It hurts.”

“I bet. Turn around. All the way around. Keep turning.”

He inspected her. No visible weapons, just torn up slacks and a ragged button-down blouse, with holes and rips in interesting places and still some bloodstains. Angry red wounds on her arms and legs, at least five that he could see. Spreading purple bruises. Cute, too, about five-six, reddish-brown hair, gorgeous blue eyes, nice curves under all that mess.

She was standing, she was walking. Somehow. Woman or not, she had fired a very deadly firearm at him. The gun didn’t care who used it, and dead was dead.

Wasn’t it?

The serpent in Daniel’s head was not pleased.

“Turn right, go up the stairs. Don’t think about it, just do it. Up, up!” He followed her ascent, déjà vu, just like with the suit. He marched her through the kitchen and told her to sit next to the suit’s body.

The woman looked at the dead man, at the entry wounds, and made a choking sound. Stringy and wet, her hair did not hide a face ugly with bruises and what looked like a shot through her cheek.

Daniel snarled, “I tried to talk to him. He gave me the wrong answers.” Looking at her, he tried to be dispassionate, but still liked what he saw: average build but fit and perfectly proportioned. His eyes traced the contours of her form and something stirred within him as his baser instincts threatened to take control.

The serpent was pleased.

Daniel shook himself. What’s wrong with me? Reaching inside for the anger, he used it to regain his balance. Remember, this woman tried to kill me. The body reaches for sex after violent action, the urge to procreate, but I swore off all of that when…he pushed painful thoughts away again and concentrated.

In a field interrogation it was useful for the subject to be afraid, to keep from recovering composure. Daniel figured he needed to push this woman through that window. Besides, she had genuine reason to fear him. The serpent hovered behind his eyeballs, threatening to take over again at any moment.

Daniel spoke. “So tell me, and make it fast. I really want to shoot you again.” It came out in a croon, husky, like a lover. He placed his finger on the trigger again and the serpent danced in the dexe-codone fog.

“Okay, okay, please don’t,” she tried to reason with him. “We’re here to help you. Recruit you! Come on, Daniel, throttle back!” She shivered from the cold and the fear.

Daniel could see in her eyes that she was confused. Obviously the situation hadn’t gone the way they expected.“How do you know me?” he growled.

She spoke quickly, perhaps hoping to keep him distracted until he relaxed. “Jenkins had your file! It’s true! You fit the profile, all the skills, high moral index, ruthless but not corruptible, the Company wants you. But it’s going to be harder now.” She made a weak gesture at the dead man beside her, avoiding looking.

“The Company” is what the CIA’s employees called it, like it isn’t even part of the government. Maybe it isn’t, really, Daniel thought.

“Please, we can help each other.” She sounded unsure, but hopeful, and took a deep breath.

Daniel saw she was settling down; he needed to keep her momentum going in the direction of explanations. He gestured with the gun. “Keep talking. What was the plan?”

She responded quickly, trippingly. “Jenkins was in charge – I had no choice. I was just supposed to provide the demonstration, which I did, as you see. I couldn’t kill you anyway, even if I wanted to, but you were supposed to think so, to get your attention.”

He wondered what she meant by “couldn’t kill” him. Seemed like she could have if he’d been in front of the shotgun.

Elise reached across with her right hand to scratch vigorously at her left arm, where one of the bullets had taken out a chunk of flesh. She looked pleadingly at Daniel, as if willing him to understand, to give her a break.  “I tried to talk him out of it but he was an arrogant son of a bitch and he wouldn’t listen.”

Which reminded him. “So how come you aren’t dead, or at least bleeding out on my bathroom floor? How come you’re still on your feet?” This whole conversation was surreal, but he couldn’t argue with his own two eyes so he figured he might as well just go with it until he figured it out. “Are you some kind of vampire? Werewolf? Immortal? Alien? Zombie?” He ran out of possibilities.

She continued her explanation, even as she clutched her gut, as if in pain. “It’s a new thing. A kind of healing booster. Do you have anything to eat?”

Daniel noticed she was looking sallow, white almost, and shivering. It seemed like she was getting sick, and her veins and muscle definition showed through paper-thin skin.

“I’m starving,” she pleaded again.

His stimulated mind raced, and he threw mental rocks at the serpent reluctantly slouching back toward its cave. Healing booster, super-healing. When she said starving, she meant literally starving. From his extensive medical training Daniel figured that her body was already catabolizing itself, cannibalizing at the cellular level, trying to heal those wounds. Biology can’t be outrun: healing takes energy and materials, no matter how advanced the drug or technique. And he needed this woman for answers, and maybe to keep him out of an Agency cell. He’d brushed up against the spooks Over There, and he had no desire to be “rendered.”

Funny, how similar the two meanings of that word ended up being. One, to be boiled down to fatty paste. Two, to be given over to a foreign country to be tortured.

So he got her some food. A big bag of lunch meat, a package of cheese slices, mayo, mustard, a loaf of bread, apples, paper plates, and a plastic spoon. A plastic cup for orange juice. No metal. Dad didn’t raise no dummy. Used right, a steel spoon can kill a man. I’ve already seen she’s dangerous, no matter how attractive she might be. That was part of the plan, probably. Even with that wet stringy hair he couldn’t stop thinking about her eyes. “Make me a sandwich too,” He said gruffly, not wanting to put down the gun. “And keep talking. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Elise. Elise Wallis.” She lined up six pairs of bread slices with shaky hands and started to construct sandwiches, after stuffing a piece of the loaf into her mouth like a slumdog orphan. Taking a moment to choke it down, she continued. “It was just supposed to be a demonstration. You were supposed to shoot me, of course. Not quite so many times. And I didn’t really shoot at you, did I? Those rounds I had were filled with salt. Not even rock salt, just table salt. Nasty within five feet, but after that it just stings. Special ammo. It’s in his pocket in a plastic bag. See for yourself.” She sounded whiny, defensive. Querulous.