by I. T. Lucas
Vlad was an adult, and he shouldn’t be living with his mother anyway. The only reason he’d done that was that he hadn’t enjoyed living with his new roommates. After Gordon had moved away to college and Jackson moved in with Tessa, he’d been assigned housing with two older immortals, and when it hadn’t worked out, he figured that he could be a good son and alleviate his mother’s loneliness by coming back home.
Stella was like him, socially awkward and a little odd, and she didn’t have many friends. Maybe a square dude like Richard was precisely the kind of guy she needed?
This was about his mother’s happiness and not his ambivalence about Richard’s worthiness. Besides, it had nothing to do with Richard. Vlad just couldn’t imagine any guy as a partner for his mother. No male was good enough, and no one would understand or accept her eccentricities.
His mother was awesome, but she was also a handful.
She had mood swings that came out of nowhere, got emotional over nothing and everything, and threw tantrums over trivial things like misplacing a ribbon or forgetting to buy buttons for her costumes.
He never knew when she would fly off the handle.
“So, is it a yes?” Vanessa asked. “It’s a rare opportunity. The Fates seem to favor the clan males for some reason, and most of the Dormants we’ve gotten so far were female. We don’t get many potential male Dormants.”
His mother let out a breath. “Fine, but I can’t leave Saturday. I have a fitting scheduled at the theater. I can come up to the cabin on Sunday and stay the entire week. If that’s okay with you, Vlad?” She looked at him. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
He shrugged. “You won’t. Wendy will. I don’t think I’m ready to forgive her yet, or ever. But I’ll go so you can check Richard out.” He couldn’t believe that he’d actually said that.
“Then it’s settled.” Vanessa put her empty Perrier bottle on the coffee table. “Vlad, Wendy, Richard, and the two Guardians will head to the cabin on Saturday, and you’ll join them on Sunday.”
“What about supplies, bedding, etc. Who is taking care of that?”
His mother’s concern about practicalities was surprising. Usually, she was the opposite of pragmatic.
“Okidu, of course. He is going there tomorrow.”
“Do I have to share a ride with Wendy?” Vlad asked. “Because I’d rather not.”
“The Guardians will each take a car, so you can go with one of them, and Wendy and Richard can go with the other.”
Vlad let out a breath. “That’s good. I don’t want to be stuck with her in a car for two hours.”
Vanessa and his mother exchanged worried glances.
For some reason, they both seemed to believe that he and Wendy were fated for each other, but Vlad hoped that they were wrong.
Why would the Fates be so cruel to him? He didn’t deserve to get hurt like that.
Except, life wasn’t fair, and Vlad was well aware of that fact. He also knew that happy endings belonged in fairytales.
“Don’t worry. I will be civil to Wendy. Just don’t expect too much.”
His mother turned to the therapist. “I think you should come with us, Vanessa. Vlad and Wendy could use some guidance.”
The therapist nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. I might join you there on Sunday.”
60
Rufsur
Rufsur walked into the security office and stopped by Welgost’s station. “You wanted to show me something?”
“Yes.” Welgost switched from the live feed to a recording. “See this truck? It has made several passes by the house. I counted five so far today.”
Rufsur leaned closer. “It could be one of Kian’s men.”
Welgost pulled up another screen. “Those are all their vehicles. I’ve listed the license numbers, and the truck is new. They might have decided to switch cars, but I doubt it. Why only one? Besides, they want us to know that they are watching.”
“Right, and it’s a major pain.”
Welgost nodded. “I haven’t been clubbing since before the lockdown.”
“Me neither.”
Kalugal had had to put all of his meetings with startup owners on ice, while the rest of them had to limit their outings to a minimum because Kalugal didn’t want Kian to know how many men he had.
In Rufsur’s opinion, that wasn’t the best way to go about it, and the opposite should have been done. They should have made an effort to make it look like they had more men than they actually had. But it seemed that lately his opinion didn’t count for much.
Kalugal was consumed by Jacki, and everyone else had gotten shoved aside, which was irritating on several fronts.
First of all, Rufsur had to concede defeat as far as his prospects for dating Jacki went. Kalugal had made it clear that she belonged to him and that Rufsur should back off.
If Jacki had given him the slightest indication that she was interested, Rufsur would have ignored his boss’s elephant-sized hints.
He obeyed Kalugal’s commands in everything but his personal life.
Kalugal owned his loyalty and his dedication, but he didn’t own him. When competing for Jacki’s favors, they were not a boss and his subordinate. They were equals. Regrettably, though, she seemed taken by Kalugal.
That in itself was a sour grape in Rufsur’s mouth, but losing his position as Kalugal’s best friend and confidant to Jacki was much worse.
He’d been with Kalugal since the guy had gotten his first command position, while Jacki had arrived only a few days ago.
Hopefully, things would change once Kalugal got her in his bed. As long as he was in hunting mode, he was funneling all his energy in that direction.
That he hadn’t succeeded in seducing her yet was surprising. Usually, when the boss crooked his finger, females flocked to him, and it didn’t matter what face he was wearing at the time. Even humans sensed his innate power, and females were drawn to that.
But Jacki was a hard nut to crack, which was why Kalugal had redoubled his efforts.
He’d already announced that tomorrow, Rufsur and Phinas wouldn’t be joining him and Jacki for lunch or dinner. Today was probably the last time they were going to dine together.
“What do you want to do?” Welgost asked.
“Can you send me a still shot of the truck with the license number visible? I want to show it to Kalugal.”
“Coming up.”
As soon as he got the photo, Rufsur schooled his features into his usual nonchalant expression and walked over to Kalugal’s office.
“Houston, we have a problem,” he quoted the famous line.
“Another one? What is it now?”
Rufsur handed Kalugal his phone. “This truck has been making passes by the house all day, and as far as we know, it doesn’t belong to Kian’s force. You should check with him, and he should check with his men. Maybe one of them can follow the truck and check it out. Normally, I would have sent one of ours to investigate, but I figured if they are already here, they could at least be useful.”
“It depends on who’s behind it. If it’s one of my business competitors, I don’t want Kian butting his nose into it.”
“It’s unlikely that someone who lost an acquisition to you is snooping around. First of all because you always wear a shroud for meetings and we are extra careful making sure that no one is following us. And secondly, what would they gain by watching the house?”
“If Kian found me, others could as well. And as to what they want, I have no idea. Maybe they think to dig up some dirt on me, or maybe find out who else I’m meeting with and what other acquisitions I’m making. It’s unlikely that someone deduced my long-term plan from the sort of technologies I invest in, but it’s not impossible.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“First, I’m going to check with Kian whether the truck belongs to one of his men. If it doesn’t, we will take it from there.”
61
Kalugal
After forwarding the
photo of the truck to Kian, Kalugal waited patiently for the return text.
He wasn’t overly concerned. There could be several perfectly logical explanations for the truck making rounds in the neighborhood. It could be as mundane as someone looking for a lost pet. Or maybe it was a paparazzo who wasn’t necessarily looking to snap pictures of Kalugal, but rather of one of his neighbors. As far as he knew, none of his neighbors were movie stars, but many of them were tech moguls, and some of them attracted the media’s attention.
When his phone rang, Kalugal was surprised to see his cousin’s number on the display. Had Kian suddenly decided to trust him and talk to him instead of communicating via texts?
Leaning back in his chair, he clicked the green button. “I didn’t expect a callback.”
“My tech guy came up with an ingenious solution. It works similarly to the text messages that you can dictate and then have the computer read back to you. The way he programmed it, your voice gets translated into a text message, and then the automated voice reads it to me. You, on the other hand, get to hear me directly. There will be a very slight lag time in the communication coming from your side, so if I don’t answer right away, that's the reason.”
“It's barely noticeable. Can we use the same thing during our meeting?”
“Definitely. Instead of earplugs, we will wear earpieces.”
“Excellent. Now, what about the truck? Is it one of yours?”
“It’s not. Not only that, we have spotted suspicious activity near our community as well. It was just one pickup truck going back and forth on the road leading to our place, so I’d disregarded it until I got your text. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
Kalugal swiveled his chair around. “Why pickup trucks?”
“The choice of vehicle might be a coincidence. Both the one we spotted and the one you had are old, light-duty models, which are very popular. And since they are used by construction workers, gardeners, and other people providing services, they are not particularly conspicuous even when seen making several rounds.”
That made sense.
The last time Kalugal had hired a roofer for a repair job, the guy had gone several times to the building materials store to get miscellaneous items he’d needed. Kalugal had figured that it had been intentional, and not the result of disorganization. Every trip back and forth had taken an hour, stretching the guy’s workday and making the job seem more complicated than it was.
The question was whether he was going to let Kian’s men take care of that or send out his own. If both their bases were being watched, it might be somehow connected to the escapees from the government program.
Except, why only now? If the government knew where the recruits were all along, they would have already sent people to retrieve them.
“I suggest that we send out men to investigate. Do you want to handle the one making rounds next to my place as well, or should I?”
“I’m going to send out Guardians to thrall the driver and get information out of him. If it’s just a construction guy working on a nearby house, then yours might be as well, and it’s up to you if you want to investigate him. But if our guy is a snoop, then yours probably is too. If you want, my men can take care of him.”
“Since yours are going to follow mine anyway, just have them do it.”
“Very well.”
When Kian terminated the call, Kalugal closed his eyes and played several possible scenarios in his head.
If the government was looking for its missing people, they must have been tracking them all along, but Kian had told him that the escapees had been thoroughly checked, so that wasn’t it.
Perhaps the watchers had been sent by his father?
If Navuh’s men had been monitoring Kalugal all along, they might have followed Kian’s men back to their base.
Except, having a guy with a truck drive by Kian’s place was not how his father would have done it. What was the point?
Once he knew the location, he would have sent out a large force and attacked it.
The other option was that there was more than one mole. What if Jacki had sent an email to someone in the government and let them know where she was?
He’d given her a tablet the day before to purchase whatever she was still missing; she might have used it to send out an email.
Maybe she’d even done it without any malicious intent, sending an email to a friend and telling her or him her whereabouts.
That could explain his place, but what about Kian’s? Perhaps one of the other escapees had done the same thing?
Before he jumped to conclusions, though, he needed to ask Jacki whether she’d contacted anyone other than Jin. Or better yet, have Ruvon check her internet activity.
62
Kian
“Do you want me to do it?” Anandur asked.
Kian nodded. “Find out who he is and who sent him. The truck is registered to a dude named Joseph Portillo. Roni has done some digging on him, and the only interesting thing he found out was that the guy is a veteran. He works as a handyman for a property management firm, is married, has two kids, and a mortgage. An average Joe Schmo.”
Anandur shrugged. “Joe might be the owner of the truck, but someone else might be driving it.”
“That’s why I want you to check him out. Take Brundar with you.”
When the brothers left, Kian pulled out his phone, but then changed his mind and decided to walk over to Bridget’s office instead of calling her.
As always, her door was open, but he rapped his knuckles on it before entering.
She lifted her head. “How can I help you, Kian?”
He pulled out a chair and sat down. “How good is your medical equipment at finding foreign objects in someone’s body? Could you have missed very small trackers?”
“The CT scan can detect obstructions as small as a grain of sand. But if you want, I can go over the data again. Maybe I missed something.”
“Please do. We’ve spotted suspicious activity on the road leading to the tunnel. The same truck has made several passes throughout the day, and Kalugal reported the same thing happening at his place.”
“What about the keep?”
“I haven’t heard anything from the security office, but I’ll have them go over the footage from today. There is much more traffic there so it might have gone unnoticed.”
Bridget pushed to her feet. “I’ll go over the CT scans right now.”
“Thank you.”
After he left Bridget’s office, Kian headed over to William’s lab.
“Your phone gadget worked like a charm,” he said as he walked in. “There was almost no delay. How is the modification of the earpieces going?”
William waved his hand over his messy worktable. “They will be ready for you by Saturday.”
Kian clapped him on the back. “You are the best.”
“What about me?” Roni turned his throne-like chair around.
Funny how the kid was still seeking approval. Roni was probably one of the top ten hackers in the States, and he knew it.
“You are the best at what you do, and William is the best at what he does.”
“Good answer.” Roni swiveled his chair back.
“I have another thing I need you to do, and I hope you can do that and finish the earpieces on time.”
William pushed his glasses up his nose. “That depends on what it is.”
“I suspect that the trainees we helped escape were implanted with trackers that our equipment can’t detect. In case Jin is unknowingly sending out a signal, can you block it?”
William nodded. “I can modify one of the locator cuffs to cause interference. But she won’t be able to use a cellphone while wearing it.”
“What about emails?”
William shook his head. “Not with Wi-Fi. She would be able to use an Ethernet connection, though.”
“Can you modify four of them? I want to put one on each of the ex-trainees.”
“Wh
en do you need that done?”
“As soon as possible.”
“What do you want me to finish first, the earpieces or the cuffs?”
“The cuffs. The earpieces are a convenience, the cuffs are necessary for security.”
“I’ll start working on the cuffs then. I can probably modify them by tomorrow.”
“Thank you. The sooner you have them ready, the better. Let me know when the first is done so we can put it on Jin. If she is broadcasting, she is endangering the village.”
“I will try to have at least one ready later tonight. But in any case, send Jin over, and I’ll check if she is emitting transmissions.”
Kian raked his fingers through his hair. “We did that when they arrived at the keep, and they were not emitting anything.”
“The trackers might have been programmed for delayed activation. To do that is actually very clever. Those implanted with them pass the security check because the trackers are not broadcasting. But a day or two later, when it is ascertained that those implanted with them are safe, the trackers get activated.”
That was both devious and ingenious. “I’ll call Arwel and explain the situation.”
Except, his call went straight to voicemail, but Kian didn’t leave a message. Jin and Arwel were probably busy working on her transition, and he didn’t want to interfere. Besides, the cuff wasn’t ready yet, so there was no rush.
Passing by the café on his way back to the office, he spotted Syssi and Amanda at one of the tables and changed direction.
“Kian.” Syssi’s delighted expression made him doubly glad about deciding not to go back to the office.
He leaned down and kissed her softly. “How was your day?”
She shrugged. “Same as any other.”
He turned to Amanda. “And yours?”
“Nothing new to report. We are still getting only mediocre test subjects.”
He pulled out a chair and sat down. “It’s been nearly three years since you found Syssi and Michael. Maybe it’s time to call it quits.”
