“No sir.” He slides his briefcase onto my desk, clicks it open, opens the laptop inside. With a tap, the screen lights upand displays some text. “This is what we found on the memory card. It was an external memory storage but not standard encryption. Easily cracked by our guy. I made sure only Van Kerr looked at this.”
“Good.” I sit behind the desk and pull the laptop over.
“He tells me this is revolutionary. It closely follows what we have been doing but is a few steps ahead. Mind management using training and commands that are probably embedded by a combination of drugs, electrical interference of brain patterns, and repetition while the subject is under anesthesia or similar.”
I frown at the pages and pages as I scroll through. “All this on that chip?”
“Most of it is just filler, sir. Stuff that’s about a mission. They were aiming to kill Simon Tarrant, we gather. This card holds a command that was to be used if he was not the only one home and a second target is identified by this…” Cannon waves at the screen, “Handler.”
“But Tarrant has been dead months.”
“Poor intel, sir.”
“Appalling intel, more like it. Keep explaining.”
“The secondary target was Hailey Tarrant and if IDed at the house, if this command was said she was to be tortured, raped, and killed in front of her father by the frankenstruct.”
“Oh.” My eyes may have bugged out. “And the command?”
“Verbal. The handler was to say ‘priority two’.”
“And do we think this frankenstruct has been given this command?” I sit back and look up at Cannon.
“No, sir. I imagine he was not, else she and he would be on worse terms. It would be a contingency command.”
“Well, well, well. Fuck me. So, if I said that to this frankenstruct?”
“He would obey, I would imagine.”
“A-mazing. This might turn out to be useful.”
Cannon smiles. “Useful—meaning say it to the thing and watch him do what we need done.”
I return the smile. Knew I liked this man.
30
OWNED
As soon as the others have left the house, I lift Hailey over my shoulder and pick up the backpack. My fingers are claws and dent her ass. I dig deeper, entrenching them. My jaw tightens. My teeth grind. She hasn’t noticed my problem, I think. I’ve shoved my desires deep, but I need control of her.
“Hey. Too hard!”
“Quiet.” Where will I put her?
I begin to explore the house, ignoring her muffled complaints, and she falls silent after threatening to bite my back. As if that would stop me.
Somehow, the meeting triggered memories of the chopper crash, my last breaths, and a vague romantic love of a woman with her name, Hailey, in my world. I knew I knew her. The remembering has shaken me to my foundations, dislodged but then re-cemented my belief in our fates.That was bliss.
Perfect bliss.
We were meant for each other, and our love has bridged worlds.
Nothing could surpass that, I assumed.
Until Esau said, “Priority two.”
That rumbled through my head like the zigzag cracks of an earthquake.
