Clyde reached over and with the pad of his thumb he stroked the velvet skin of her cheek, a surge of emotion swelling inside him. He had a perfect life, charmed as a point of fact. The farm's debt stood on the verge of full recompense, his impending nuptials, and the fighting finally coming to an end. He wrapped his large hand around the soft skin of her neck, feeling the delicate bones underneath his calloused caress and placed his opposite hand on the wheel.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Maggie asked, leaning her head against Clyde's forearm, their bare skin pressed together, his sleeves rolled up to accommodate the heat of the day.
He gave a small sigh. Clyde wasn't keen on sharing his mercurial thought processes. He wished to keep Maggie as insulated as possible. After all, protection was more than merely physical. It was mental as well. What kind of man would he be if he shared thoughts that were dark by his own musing?
He let his hand fall from the heated skin of her neck and placed both hands on the steering column, reflexively gripping it.
Maggie gazed at him with those eyes of hers, holding him prisoner. “You can tell me your thoughts, Clyde. You think you protect me with your reticence but it makes me feel isolated from you.” She smiled. “And,” she pointed to the wheel, “I know you don't need both hands to crank that wheel. You be strong!” she scoffed.
“You just want my hands on you,” Clyde said softly and winked.
“Aye, I do!” she said with her faint accent from her homeland, a fine blush flaring across her cheekbones in a lovely pink wash.
Clyde stared at the pulse that beat in the hollow of her throat, remembering how it felt beneath his lips and his smile became a grin.
Maggie whacked him softly with her handbag. “Scoundrel!” she huffed.
But she didn't mean it.
No, not at all; their glances locked in unspoken understanding. Clyde turned away without answering her questions about his thoughts.
He put his hand back on her, shifting once on the way down the drive. His palm heated the skin beneath silk stockings where the hem of her dress met her knee.
*
Clyde was as distracted as he'd ever been in his illegal fighting career. He'd gotten what he'd wished for: anonymity. But with that came a steep price. He remembered when he'd arrived in Olympia the day before.
The ring leader looked him up and down, a cigar of the cheapest variety chewed and wet, clamped between teeth that had not seen a toothbrush this year. He circled Clyde like a shark that's gotten a hint of blood.
When he reached out to clasp a hand around Clyde's bicep, he snapped his hand around the leader's forearm. “You don't need to touch my person to glean what I am about.”
Jonas Richter narrowed his eyes on Clyde and he met that stare with impunity. “I always feel what I'm putting in the ring. There's a lot of dough riding on you, Thomas. I'm not putting a slippery weasel in there.” His gun-metal eyes nailed Clyde to the spot.
“I've never lost,” Clyde said simply.
“A man's bound to meet his match sometime,” Richter responded, lighting the foul-smelling cigar, the wet end looked far to soggy to hold up through the forty minute smoke.
Clyde rolled his broad shoulders into a shrug.
“This isn't Kent,” Richter warned, his hard eyes like an approaching storm cloud.
“I know that,” Clyde said, restraining himself from wafting the horrid smoke away from his face, his hand tightening by his side.
Everyone smoked and Clyde hated it. Waste of a person's time and money. He'd see old men staked around like bowling pins on their front stoops, rolling their smokes.
They'd be the death of people someday, Clyde always told everyone. Mark my words, he'd say. After all, it wasn't natural to draw smoke into your lungs. Even animals fled from fire.
“One more question,” Richter paused, meeting Clyde's gaze through the fog of cigar smoke.
Clyde waited.
“Why do you fight?”
Clyde raised his eyebrows. “Why would you ask that?” No one had ever cared about his motivation. It had always been about getting him in the ring, getting money from the abuse he meted upon others. Clyde frowned.
Richter folded his lean arms over his chest, adjusting his hat. Finally he said, “Are you familiar with the expression: it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog?”
Clyde nodded. He was very familiar with that precept.
“Mark Twain.”
“That's good, Thomas.” He gave Clyde steady eyes, “Because you're gonna be needing all the heart you can get.” Richter's eyes remained unwavering. “Jack Dempsey is your opponent.”
Clyde's breath stood in the hot oven his lungs had become.
“The Indian?”
Richter nodded. “He's back to bar room brawling.”
“But... he's not out of retirement?”
“No sir, but he can, and has... put a hurt on a few men.”
More than a few, Clyde thought. He knew the vicious rumors of Dempsey's fighting style. He would get up and fight when most men would have died.
Dempsey's life had shaped him. A nomadic existence that would have left others hopeless, fueled the fire of who Dempsey became.
He fought for the love of survival.
Clyde fought for Maggie, for the child she carried within her body.
His child.
Their future.
“It's for a woman,” Clyde finally answered.
“So you'd fight Attila the Hun?”
Clyde paused, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. “For her, yes.”
Richter's brows rose to his hairline, hidden briefly underneath the brim of his hat. “That may be enough then.”
“What's the pool?”
Richter clapped him on the back. “Now you know I can't let you know that, Thomas. Just fight. You're evenly matched, his reach, his height... what do you weigh?”
“Two hundred.”
“On the nose?”
“Dead-on.”
Richter nodded. “Okay... be back here at this time tomorrow for the usual prep.”
They'd be taping him. Maggie could lather the grease beneath his eyes. He'd check the lighting of the ring as well, see what the potential for glare was.
They shook hands, Richter wincing at the grip that Clyde held him in before he released him.
“That's some grip you got there.”
Clyde met his eyes, “Yes.”
Clyde walked away with Richter's eyes following after him, heading for the car, for Maggie.
Thoughts of fighting the meanest fighter of the decade stretched before him.
For the very first time he wondered if the money was worth it.
Then he caught sight of Maggie inside the Buick, the sun turning her hair into a flame, her smile full of trust and love.
For him.
Resolution propelled him forward as love made the decision for him.
****
A haze of bluish smoke hung like noxious clouds at the top of the building that housed the fight. The casement style divided windows, swung out and were held in place by locks of brass. The small amount of sunlight and air filtration barely put a dent in the smell of human bodies crammed too tightly, every other person smoking.
Dempsey slouched, calm and sullen on his hard wooden stool in his corner, black silk boxers complimenting the dusky complexion of his red skin. He was Irish, like Maggie, but his Cherokee blood marked him as the Indian he was. That's all everyone had ever seen while he was raised up.
It'd made him mean. These were not tolerant times.
Those dark eyes burned holes through Clyde.
Clyde ignored it, his eyes scanning the building for Maggie. He caught sight of her. Her red hair gleamed like a banner.
She lifted her gloved hand and he nodded back. He'd told her to stay put. Clyde couldn't have the distraction of Maggie's safety.
He'd be fighting for his life here.
Their l
ife.
Dempsey stood, his fists hovering like a lover by either side of his face.
The bell rung.
The fighters met with a kiss of gloves, Clyde's healing fists offered temporary reprieve.
*
2010
Brandt set the electrodes on the subject and stepped back, noticing that some of his cheeseburger was smeared on his tie. Hmmm... maybe it would blend with the pattern.
He looked into Mary's eyes and smiled, patting her shoulder. “This will work like charm.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Sounds like some creepy voodoo crap to me.”
Brandt smiled. The show and tell today was a mere formality. He glanced with trepidation at the spook squad behind him and couldn't help the frown that crossed his features. It seemed like they were the boogeyman of technological advancement. Scientists were always grubbing for financial support. Too bad it was always these guys that showed up.
They gave Brandt a bad vibe.
Kyle Hart walked in through the swinging doors and Brandt was struck again by how un-scientific he looked. Hart was lean and hard, worked out a lot. Six-one and athletic, his sharp brown eyes were framed by chestnut hair that was constantly slipping down to cover his eyes. That intense gaze swept the government suits that were here to appraise where their money was going. That the innovations that were finalized were the results they'd paid for.
Kyle met Brandt's stare and a silent communication passed between the pair. Both of them taking in the group that had funded both the Cocktail and Brain Impulse Technology.
Kyle went to the last open seat in the house and folded his lean frame into the embrace of a chair of metal discomfort.
Brandt began, explaining the mechanics of Pulse to the Suits, their expressionless faces indifferently listening.
Nevertheless, Brandt went on finishing with, “So it is akin to our modern microwave, these brain 'pulse' signals are transmitted whether we intend them to be or not, even during rest. The Pulse device that myself and my colleagues have developed will harness those electromagnetic waves in a single focused burst of cognitive information, thereby allowing communication as we know it. No longer will we have to be slaves to manual manipulation. Using the digits of our body to painstakingly transmit communique is no longer necessary.”
The group looked blankly at him.
But one man opened up a cigarette case and tapped the filtered end against the dull pewter lid to pack the tobacco. His flat eyes met Brandt's. He lifted the cigarette to his mouth and lit it.
Right in the middle of the clinic.
Kyle Hart glared at him, restating the obvious. “There's no smoking here.”
He turned to Kyle, then his dead eyes shifted to Brandt's. “My smoking doesn't concern you.” It was a statement of fact. Brooking no argument, no rebuttal.
As if to taunt, he ignored the lead scientist of mapping the human genome and spoke directly to Dr. Brandt, brandishing his cigarette. He dismissed the prior thirty minutes of Pulse Tech debriefing with a sweep of his nicotine stained hand, “We have seen that the technology works,” he said, indicating Mary as she sat with the prototype pulse. Its existence would make traditional cellular phones obsolete. Texting had become an old-fashioned thing of the past.
“But the larger question looms,” he began in a voice thickened and raspy from a chain smoking habit that yellowed the whites of his eyes. “What of the security?”
Brandt's eyes narrowed. He should have known that this government entity would be all about covert methods. What elitist endeavors would they consummate once their greasy paws were on the Pulse?
Much, Brandt intuited.
Brandt flicked his eyes to Kyle's, a second dark look passing between them.
The skinny man who smoked saw it and scowled, the ash glowing red at the tip of his smoke.
“Security is an integral component of Pulse Technology.”
“Explain,” Smoker commanded, his cheeks hollowing as he took a drag.
“As I've said, everything will be driven by thought, initiated by thumb activation.”
“So,” Smoker waved his hand around and a plume of disgusting cigarette smoke wafted through the room, spiraling as he rotated his wrist, “each pulse manufactured will be individually encrypted.”
Brandt nodded. “Yes, that is exactly it. A recipient will purchase their Pulse, the activation and security coding will occur when they press their unique thumbprint against the pulse sensor pad.” Brandt took the Pulse from Mary and pointed to a pad that was just that much bigger than the size of a thumb.
Smoker stared at the unit. “Can it be specialized?”
Brandt's brows drew together. “In what way?”
“Customized for a multiple user scenario?”
“No,” Brandt said, his frown deepening. “The brain signature of each person is unique. In fact, that is why the thumb activation is the perfect complement to the device. It protects the device from security breach. The signature of the individual carries the message from point of origin to the reciprocal device. It is not meant for shared users.”
Smoker stared at Brandt. “Does the thumbprint have to be from a live person?”
Brandt swallowed a hard lump in his throat. “Of course.”
A bloated silence swelled in the room like a days old rotting corpse. Smoker's unflappable expression could be seen through the cloud of smoke that was a haze in front of his face.
He waited.
Kyle Hart turned to him, the memory of Smoker's dismissal of the most rudimentary rules of their building a flaunting red flag of disregard. “Why would that matter?”
“Classified, Dr. Hart. Besides, we're just exploring the... limitations of the device.”
Right, Brandt thought.
Kyle's eyes narrowed on Smoker then shifted to Brandt's. “It is possible for a breach.”
All the men in black's eyes fell on him, like beetles before succulent carrion. Hart plowed on, ignoring their effort at intimidation.
Or maybe it wasn't an effort.
“The trials have ended and there have been manifestations of paranormal talent in the non-placebo group. I think I may know what you're circling here.”
They waited and Kyle elaborated, “I know that you have a teen subject that has AFTD, obviously.”
Smoker gave Hart hooded eyes that missed nothing. He turned and gave a slight nod to the furthest edge of the group and a government man stood and moved to the swinging doors, turning his back to the group.
“National security, Dr. Hart.”
His man at the door never moved.
“You're hoping the AFTD can pulse through cadavers?” Kyle guessed, the leap of logic automatic.
Smoker grinned, a parody of a snarling grimace. “We're fully exploring the parameters of this technology. That's all I can say, Dr. Hart. That I even acknowledged the bent of our exploration,” he shrugged, lighting a new cigarette with the old one, “was magnanimous of me.”
Kyle ignored his comment. His skirting of the issue at hand. “What about the AFTD? Isn't he, what? Fourteen years old?”
Gary Zondorae spoke up for the first time, “He is the first true manifestation of this ability we've seen. A five-point, Dr. Hart. It was really a Theory Ability,” he said, shrugging.
“I know what he is.” Kyle leveled an accusing gaze at the pair of brothers. “If he is a Cadaver-Manipulator, he's a five-point. What about the family? What's their take on their fourteen-year old partaking in this type of 'exploration'?”
The Zondorae brothers shifted uneasily in their seats but it was Smoker that answered, “We've taken care of that. It's not a problem. Actually, it never was.”
Then he smiled.
Kyle Hart didn't like the tone of the look.
It was predatory.
CHAPTER 5
“Don't kill the messenger, Jeff,” said his tutor, Stu Miller.
“It's Jeffrey.”
Stu spread his palms away from his body. “
Fine. But I have to teach you this stuff. It's what I do.”
Jeffrey didn't care dick about learning French. He didn't want to learn the four foreign languages they were cramming down his craw.
Dick. Holes. That's were that was at, uh-huh.
He scowled at Miller. He guessed it wasn't his fault... but still. He worked for Them.
Jeffrey crossed his arms and said nothing.
Miller leaned forward. “You know, I'm not half-bad. If you don't cooperate for me, they have other ways of persuading you.” His eyes met Jeffrey's with a silent plea.
Jeffrey ignored the hidden message and shrugged. They'd killed his Mom. What more could they do? Shit didn't get worse than that. Killing Dave had been a favor. Jeffrey swallowed back the lump when he thought about the zombie they'd torched. He hadn't liked that.
At all.
He'd never endanger anyone else by caring about them. Like his Mom.
Stu Miller sighed. “Is that your final answer?”
What the hell was this? Jeffrey thought... GD Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Retard.
Miller walked to the metal door, a peep hole the size of his fist, distorted by its convex shape, magnified the guard's face from the other side like he was peering in at Jeffrey from a fishbowl.
Stu depressed the buzzer that stood by the door and two of the government dudes walked in.
It was the dead animals that came with them that got Jeffrey's full attention.
What the fuck was this? He thought, his power over the dead pinging to life, linking seamlessly with the dogs. The pair were monsters, large square heads with a tan stripe down their identical noses-- their bodies, black.
Jeffrey didn't hesitate, he wasn't used to thinking crap through. He'd lived a reactionary existence of cause and effect, survival predicating swift pragmatic choice.
Like now.
He shoved his will into the dog closest to the government guy. It turned swiftly, never hesitating and chomped onto his wrist, worrying at it like a pork roast on a table.
Jeffrey leapt to his feet, surging through the door, the government dude shrieking as blood poured over the dark heads Jeffrey had just been admiring.
Kill, Jeffrey thought, without an ounce of mercy. Whatever seed of that he'd had in his old life had been stripped when they'd murdered his mom.
The Death Series, Books 1-3: Death Whispers, Death Speaks and Death Inception (The Death Series, Volume 1) Page 70
