Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

The accident had eaten up my past. Thinking about it now, I felt more empty than ever. I’d lost all my belongings. If I had a family, I hadn’t been able to find them. The only thing I had was the picture that had survived the accident. Two smiling parents and a baby who might or might not be me. No other clues.
    “I don’t remember much,” I admitted.
    “Well, work with what you have, then. That’s all any of us can do.”
    After that, he shooed me away. I left even more determined to learn the truth.

When I stepped out of the elevator and into the hallway, I encountered the opposition. There stood McKesson and two red-faced security men. None of them was smiling.
    “You’ve been in there to see the old man?” McKesson asked me. “You’ve got more balls than brains, you know that, Draith?”
    “I’ve heard that,” I said. I looked past the two security guys. They had a gurney with them. A large, lumpy mass filled the body bag on the gurney. “Bernie, I presume?”
    McKesson gestured furiously for the security men to take the body down the hallway. They did so, and I had no doubt there was a waiting ambulance outside in the alley. I felt sure the paramedics didn’t have their flashers on, and I doubted they would take the body to the city morgue.
    “What do you do in cases like this, Jay?” I asked McKesson. “I mean, do you have a big hole full of bones in the desert somewhere? Or do you have a one-way garbage chute set upto dump your waste into the world of the Gray Men? Is that why they are so pissed off?”
    McKesson laughed unpleasantly. “That would be pretty cool, actually.”
    “So, what do you want to do next?” I asked.
    McKesson’s hand slipped down to his gun. He did it in a natural motion, as if he were adjusting his clothing. He smiled at me confidently.
    “It’s time to take you in, Draith. You’re interfering with my job. Sorry, it’s nothing personal.”
    I didn’t plan to turn around and let him snap cuffs on me. He read my eyes, and gave a tiny nod. Neither of us said anything. He made his move, and I did the same. Both of us pulled our pistols out and had the barrel in the other guy’s face.
    “No plans to come along quietly, eh?” McKesson asked. He jerked his head toward the elevator. Is Rostok dead up there? Did you manage to take out the old man too?”
    I glared at him. “We had this argument when we first met. I’m not an assassin.”
    “All I know is that people keep dying around you, Draith. Important people.”
    I decided to take a chance. Probably, in retrospect, it was a foolish chance. I grabbed his gun hand with my left and pushed it aside. At the same time, I pushed my weapon into his throat.
    There were two dry clicks. McKesson had pulled the trigger. I’m not sure if the gun would have taken part of my face off, if it had fired. It was being pushed off target—but he had fired pretty fast. McKesson must have figured he had to shoot.
    “What the hell?” he gasped. For perhaps the first time since I’d met him, I saw real fear in his eyes.
    “Your gun misfired,” I said. “Happens all the time. I guess I just got lucky. You should buy the good ammo next time, not that cheap South American crap.” I knew, naturally, that luck had been with me. I’d grabbed his gun with my left hand—with the very finger that wore Jenna’s ring. The ring was, in fact, in direct contact with the metal of his weapon.
    He stared at me for a second, baffled. “You’re so crazy. I could have taken your head off.”
    “But you didn’t. Now drop it.”
    The gun thumped down. Apparently, he was in no mood to try his luck against my weapon. I turned him around and cuffed him with his own cuffs. I tucked his gun into the front pocket of his jacket where he couldn’t reach it. I walked him to a door marked
trash room
a hundred steps down the hall. It was locked, but my sunglasses opened it, and after that the rolling steel doors that let out onto the parking lot.
    “Where’s your car?” I asked.
    “They’re watching us on camera by now. They know.”
    I thought about that. Maybe he was right. “I know they’re watching. But I’m working for Rostok now.”
    He jerked his head to look at me. I ignored him. It was hard to bluff a cop, especially this one. Whatever the case, we made it to his car unmolested. I let him sit in the passenger seat with his cuffs on while I drove. He wasn’t happy.
    “They are going to fry you for this, you know that, don’t