Langston held a microphone tightly, shutting his eyes and adopting a high voice. “Chippin’ aroooooound, kick my brains ‘round the floor. These are the daaaaays it rains, but never pours!”
Jade moonwalked behind him, scatting into her mic. “Ee do ba de!”
The small crowd in the bar clapped and sang along.
Langston fell to his knees. “Why can’t we give love, give love, give love, give love…”
“Yeah! Why can’t we give love, man?” someone shouted from the audience.
Jade and Langston ended up standing back to back singing in unison. “This is our last dance! This is our last dance! This is ourselves…”
Jade put a finger to her lips, “Shhhh.”
“Under pressure,” they whispered.
The audience snapped their fingers in time to the song, whispering back, “Under pressure... pressure.”
Jade dropped her mic and leapt off the stage. Langston stumbled off the platform behind her. They went back to their table and hooted encouragement to the following act, three girls who were equally intoxicated.
Jade lifted up a chicken wing like a scepter. “You go, girls! Whooo!”
Langston burst out laughing and grabbed a celery stick, dipping it into a small container of blue cheese dressing.
Jade took a bite of the wing and shook her head slowly. “I have no idea what that song means.”
“It’s about loving people on the streets,” Langston said, slurring his words and flinging dressing as he pointed with the celery. “Love, Jade. It’s what makes the whole world go ‘round. It’s like magic.”
Jade nodded intently as Langston spoke, as if this was the most profound thing she’d ever heard. She rested her chin in her hand. “You are so smart.”
Langston looked at his watch. “I’m tired. How many songs did we do?”
Jade took a sip of water. “Five, I think.”
“You have class tomorrow?”
She nodded. “Nine o’clock.”
“You are going to be hurting in the morning.”
“Yeah, you are too.”
Langston slid out of the booth. “Let’s get out of here.”
They talked as they walked back to their building, arms linked.
“I guess somebody had a good night,” Johnny said when they walked through the front door.
“Hey, Johnny,” Langston said.
Johnny fanned his nose. “Whoa. Don’t light any matches.”
Langston laughed and patted Johnny sloppily on the shoulder. “Night.”
When they arrived at Jade’s door, Langston said, “I wanna see you again. I wanna see you every day forever.”
Jade laughed. “I think that’s the liquor talking.”
“Maybe.”
She patted his arm. “Get some sleep, birthday boy.”
“Mmm-kay. Night.” Langston took the elevator up to the fourth floor, smiling. He unlocked his door. “Happy birthday to me.”
Chapter Three
The nightmare jolted Langston awake and he fell halfway out of bed. His head and shoulders landed on the floor, while his legs stayed twisted in the sheets. He blinked in the darkness, hanging off the side of the mattress and trying to orient himself. A wave of nausea hit, and he untangled himself just in time to make it to the bathroom where he emptied the contents of his stomach.
“Uhh,” he groaned in the toilet.
With the sheet still wrapped around his ankle, Langston sprawled out on the cool tile and stared at the base of the tub. He hadn’t had the nightmare since he was thirteen and was none too pleased that it had returned. Through his booze-addled mind, he tried to put together the pieces of the dream.
He floated through a quiet, shadowy house. As he glided from corridor to corridor, his skin began to crawl with terror. His rising fear peaked when he stopped at a door in the hallway, slowly pushing it open. Inside the room, a woman’s body lay on the floor, her lifeless brown eyes staring up at nothing. Langston wanted to turn and run, but was gripped by paralyzing panic. As he struggled to find the will to flee, the woman’s eyes slowly started turning in their sockets until her blank stare focused on him.
“Rise and shine, Langston,” she said, her unearthly voice reverberating through the room.
As he watched, horrified, a pinprick of red appeared on her forehead. The drop grew larger until her whole face gushed with hot, sticky blood. It was then that Langston turned and ran away, and she opened her mouth wide and let out a piercing, brain-jarring scream that jolted him awake. Even after he awakened, he could hear her scream. He could almost feel her ice-cold hands reaching out and grabbing his ankles as he tried to escape.
Langston’s tense muscles ached, and his t-shirt and boxers were damp with sweat. The screaming woman was like a banshee that haunted him in his sleep. He looked at the bathroom door, expecting her to glide in. Rise and shine, Langston.
He got to his knees and threw up again. On unsteady legs, he rinsed out his mouth and went back to his bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed and dug into the nightstand drawer until he felt a wallet-sized picture. He squinted at the picture in the darkness. He could barely make it out, but didn’t need to. He’d already memorized every detail.
It was the only photo of his birth mother he had. She was a teenager, her brown face dotted with mild acne, her ebony hair French braided. He turned the picture over. “Celeste” had been scrawled on the back in handwriting he did not recognize. He turned it back over and tried, as he had many times before, to find some piece of himself in her. The shape of her eyes, her nose, her mouth, anything that looked like his. But he couldn’t.
He put the photo back in the drawer as his stomach writhed. He was debating on going back to the bathroom when the phone rang.
He checked the caller ID before answering. “Are you serious, Nate? It’s almost three in the morning.”
“Wow. You can tell time, Langston. You are a damn genius.”
“What do you want?”
“J.T. says he needs the blueprints.”
“I can get them to you this afternoon.”
“J. T. wants them now.”
Langston looked at the phone. “Like now now?”
“That’s right. Meet us here in twenty minutes.”
“I’m in no condition for this. I can’t.”
“You aren’t getting paid to do things on your own time. Get your ass up and be here in twenty minutes.”
“I’m serious, Nate. I’m all kinds of jacked up over here.”
“Do you want to be the one to tell J.T. you aren’t coming?”
That sobered Langston slightly. “No.”
“See you in twenty, then.” Nate hung up.
Langston brewed the strongest coffee he had and poured it into a travel mug, scalding his hand in his haste. He scrambled to brush his teeth and pull on a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. He grabbed the flash drive from his laptop, hurried to the elevator, and checked his watch. He had ten minutes to get to J.T.’s place.
Langston knocked on J.T.’s door. Nate opened the door, looking about as disgruntled as Langston felt. Nate was thin, his arms and neck covered in tattoos. Neither of them bothered to greet the other. Nate shut the door, and Langston followed him through J.T.’s penthouse. Most of the lights were turned off, but the glow from the seventy-two-inch flat screen provided sufficient illumination. J.T. was sitting in his favorite leather wingback chair, dressed in a burgundy suede suit and his signature snakeskin boots.
Langston took a seat next to J.T.’s computer, a few feet away from the chair. “Working late?”
“Always,” J.T. said in his deep, booming Texan drawl. “I got a client chomping at the bit. Can’t wait ’til the end of the week. Everything is now, now, now.” He cocked his head. “But he’s paying triple what I asked for, and he’s a fan of your work. So there it is.”
Langston wanted to know who the client was, but he knew the deal was that both parties remained anonymous. “I have a fan?”
“He secured the highest bid for your last two weapons. This time, he asked specifically for you—Tech 1225.” J.T. took a pull on his cigarette and blew out the smoke slowly. “Show me what you got.”
Langston inserted his flash drive into the computer. The picture on the flat screen switched from an action movie to the list of files on Langston’s drive. He tapped the mouse a few times, and a rotating three-dimensional version of his blueprint appeared. Nate let out an exasperated sigh behind Langston while J.T. let smoke drift out of his mouth.
“Well?” Langston said when no one spoke.
J.T. inclined his head. “It’s a man’s suit.”
Langston lifted his index finger. “Ah! It only looks like a man’s suit.” He pushed a key on the keyboard and the outer layer of the suit disappeared, revealing a complex infrastructure. “It’s actually a BDA.”
“And that is…?”
“Bullet deflecting apparatus.”
Nate scoffed at the display. “So, it’s just a huge bulletproof vest.”
“I said deflecting.” Langston hit another key, and an animation started. “The material has been inlaid with strategically placed optical 3D sensors and lasers.” In the animation a projectile arched toward the suit. The suit emitted two short lines toward the projectile which exploded and dissipated. “The sensors can triangulate one bullet or multiple bullets simultaneously before they arrive at the target.”
“Damn,” Nate said over Langston’s shoulder.
“Here are some of the specs.” Langston tapped the keyboard. “Of course all of the unique designs are proprietary.”
J.T. lifted his chin. “Drawbacks?”
“Well,” Langston turned away from the screen to look at J.T., “the suit will probably be about three to four times heavier than a real suit, and it will need to be recharged after each use. The user will need to wear safety glasses because of the lasers, but they can look like regular sunglasses if appearances are important.”
“Cost?”
“I have to construct hundreds of ultra-short optical resonators that can handle a high energy pump source, which is what carries most of the expense. I’ve made an itemized list.” Langston hit another key and pointed to the screen. “And there’s your bottom line.”
“When can you have the prototype ready?”
“If I start now, I can get it to you in, say, eight weeks?”
J.T. leaned back in his chair and studied the screen, flicking his cigarette over an ashtray. “Nate, get my bags from the back, and then start a transfer to Langston’s account.”
Nate walked out of the room, returning with two carry-on bags and a suitcase. Langston put the flash drive back in its case and handed it to J.T. “Looks like you’re going on a long trip.”
“Yep.” J.T. stood and put on his overcoat. “I’ll be in contact when I return.”
Langston took that as a sign to leave and reached for his keys. When his fingers were a few inches away, the keys slid toward him. He balled his hand into a fist and retracted it to his chest.
“What’s wrong with you?” Nate asked.
Langston did not take his eyes off of the keys. “Nothing.” He snatched them up quickly as he walked to the door. “See ya.”
Langston sat in his office at Bronze Leaf and yawned.
“You only have three more hours until Christmas vacation,” Cody said.
Langston nodded. “I know. I’m really tired today.”
“I see.” He pointed to the whiteboard that they were writing on. “You’ve made some college freshman mistakes in your equation.”
Langston put the cap on his dry erase pen. “Let’s table this until January. I can’t concentrate.”
“Okay,” Cody said, capping his own pen. “I need to go back to the lab. If I don’t see you before I leave, have a great Christmas.”
“Thanks. You too.”
As Cody left, Dr. Pillay strode in. Langston hurriedly erased the board so that his error wouldn’t be seen.
“Hi,” Langston said stiffly. “Is there something I can do for you?”
Dr. Pillay gave what Langston supposed was a smile. “I’m just making my pre-holiday rounds. Will you be in at all next week?”
“No.”
“When will you be—”
“Why did you close NRAI?” Langston interrupted.
“NRAI is not closed.”
“‘Indefinitely suspended’ sounds like closed to me. Just tell me why. The real reason.”
“Budget cuts. It happens.”
“It didn’t happen to anyone else’s project,” Langston said, clenching the marker in his hand. “What exactly did you say to LifeCorp?”
“It’s their money. They can do whatever they want with it.”
“The task report I wrote showed how productive we’ve been.”
“Yes, it did.”
“That didn’t carry any weight?”
Dr. Pillay exhaled and clasped his hands in front of him. “If I may be frank, you are being tiresome. I expected a more mature response from you.”
“Me? I’m tiresome?”
“Yes.”
“I’m the most productive student you have, and I complain the least. Aside from this, and that thing with the microscope, when have I ever given you a hard time?”
“I don’t appreciate your insolence.”
Langston balled his hand into a tight fist, feeling rage explode in his chest. The office door slammed shut so loudly, they both jumped. Dr. Pillay, who was closer to the door, opened it and looked into the hallway.
He turned to Langston, frowning. “Call maintenance and have this looked at.”
Dr. Pillay walked out. Langston inspected the door, running his fingers along the hinges. Nothing seemed out of order. He looked at his hands. They were trembling.
He took the elevator down to the main floor and walked out, shivering. It was windy and cold outside. Langston leaned against the building’s iconic bronze sculpture, a twelve-foot tall oak leaf.
He kept replaying his last conversation with Dr. Pillay in his head, watching the door slam over and over in his mind. No one had been near that door. He jumped when Everett spoke behind him.
“Where’s your coat?”
Langston turned around. “I forgot it. I just needed to get out of there.”
Everett raised his eyebrows. “Dr. Pillay?”
Langston nodded. “I don’t know how much longer I can deal.”
“Your defense should be next year, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’ll be here before you know it, and then that prick will just be another bad memory.”
Langston nodded solemnly.
“The hot dog guy is on the corner today,” Everett said. “Want anything?”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
As Everett walked down the block, Langston’s phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Jade.”
Langston smiled. “Hey, Jade. Having a better day today?”
She giggled. “Yeah, thanks. You?”
“Good now.”
“Sorry, I know you’re working. I was going to leave a voicemail.”
“No, it’s fine. I was taking a break anyway.”
“Oh, well, I was wondering if you could come by my place later. I was rearranging my DVDs and accidentally knocked my Xbox on the floor. Now it won’t let me play any games. Do you think you could take a look at it?”
“Sure.”
“I’d ask my dad, but it was a gift from him, and I don’t want him to know I broke it.”
“No problem.”
“Great,” she said. “See you around six?”
“Sure. See you then.”
Langston smiled at his phone. The sound of her voice made his heart pound. Their one outing together had been fun, but it had been under unique circumstances and laden with booze. He hoped the connection he felt with her hadn’t been one-sided.
When his ears and no
se went numb, he went back inside, stopping at the coffee shop for hot chocolate. Taking the longer route back to his office, he dropped by a few student cubicles to wish them well for the holidays.
He slowed when he approached Dr. Pillay’s office. A woman was speaking in a low, agitated voice. Langston strained to hear what she was saying but couldn’t make out anything. He meandered past the doorway as casually as he could and peeked inside. Dr. Pillay was standing in front of his desk with a woman. She was nicely dressed in a burnt orange suit and brown high heels. She wore a large gold necklace, matching earrings, and a lot of makeup. She was tapping emphatically on Dr. Pillay’s desk with a blood red, manicured nail.
Langston leaned in to try to catch what she was saying. She looked up, spotting him. She stopped abruptly in mid-sentence, the haughty expression on her face giving way to bewilderment.
Langston’s posture stiffened, a deer caught in headlights. “Uh…”
The woman took a step toward him. “William?”
He looked around to see if she was talking to someone else. She wasn’t.
Dr. Pillay gave him a disapproving look. “Is there something you need?”
Langston cursed under his breath. “No.”
Dr. Pillay walked to the door, blocking the woman from his view. She leaned sideways to gape at Langston.
“Excuse me,” Dr. Pillay said, shutting the door in Langston’s face.
Langston walked down the hallway, racking his brain for someone named William on this floor. The only William he knew was white, three inches taller than he was, and went by Bill. There was no way anyone would confuse them.
By the end of the day, Langston felt somewhat recharged, knowing he’d be seeing Jade in half an hour. He walked through the nearly empty parking deck, digging in his work bag, wondering if he should go to her apartment as is or if he should take a shower first. He didn’t want to seem like he was trying too hard, but he didn’t want to look like a slob either.
His fingers bumped into the edge of something unfamiliar in his bag. Langston peeked in and saw a large box of condoms with a yellow sticky note that read “Ride ’em cowboy” in Everett’s handwriting. A magazine was curled around the box and Langston pulled it out. It was an issue of Men’s Health magazine and another crinkled yellow sticky note jutted from one of the pages. He turned to the page and saw that it was an article on how to please a woman.
The Wiseman Revelation (The Wiseman Series Book 2) Page 3
