Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

He picked one up by a shiny glassine wing.

Carbon-fiber thorax, copper electrodes threaded through the membranous wings, tiny stamp of the Mimeticom M on the dorsal surface. And riding the front of the convex head, the pinpoint dot of a camera.

A surveillance drone.

Evan swung around. He had the full attention of the room. “Sorry,” he said, handing the woman back her purse. “I hate flies.”

Andre was on alert, all signs of joking gone.

The room, Evan imagined, had witnessed some odd displays like this. The attendees moved on without ceremony, grabbing their belongings and rising. Evan headed quickly to Andre, took him by the biceps, and pivoted to the front stairs.

Declan “the Gentleman” Gentner stood in the doorway, wearing a blue herringbone suit and a satisfied grin.

59A Burst Seam

As the others milled about in the wake of the meeting, they blocked Declan Gentner momentarily from view. Everyone oblivious, clustering in smaller groups, putting away the chairs or going for the exits.

Holding tight to Andre, Evan didn’t want to draw his pistol and cause a stampede.

Keeping the crowd between them and Declan, Evan pivoted to the rear stairs—no sign of Queenie—and hustled Andre toward them.

Declan started forward, nodding a few hellos and slicing through the herd.

Evan reached the back stairwell, slung Andre behind him, and flung the door open hard enough to strike whoever might be lying in wait.

Empty.

Tugging Andre up the stairs, he let his other hand ride his holstered gun. Andre stumbled, caught his footing. “Is that … that’s them, right?”

Evan didn’t answer.

They reached the top landing. Shoving Andre to the side, Evan shouldered through the door into the rear lobby.

A few after-hours workers lingered at the reception desk, Evan nearly drawing at the sight of them. Instead he turned back and beckoned Andre forward. He rushed out, panic-breathing, shallow jerks of the chest.

They jogged across to the rear door, ignoring the workers’ greetings.

As they neared, the stairwell door behind them clicked open again, and Evan 180ed, expecting to see Declan emerging.

Instead an older guy with baggy eyes trickled out into sight, leading a stream of attendees.

Evan swung back around just as Andre, fueled by fear, pushed out through the back door. “No— wait !”

But Andre cleared the threshold into the alley before he registered Evan’s voice and froze, framed for an instant just beyond the doorway.

A shape materialized at his side, an arm swinging upward at his chin, a fist topped with nine inches of carbon steel.

Evan lunged forward, the fingers of his right hand splayed, his arm supinated to guard Andre’s face.

His forearm caught the fixed combat blade.

It impaled him, rising straight through the meat to the side of his radius, flesh and skin bowed off the bone like slit neoprene.

He’d stopped the tip of the blade inches from Andre’s chin.

Queenie had released the knife in her surprise, and they stood there for a suspended moment, a trio just beyond the doorway.

She wore a red cold-shoulder shirt, circles of pale flesh showing at her deltoids. Aggressive scarlet lipstick, fitted jeans, red Converse shoes—like a vampire glowing in the semidarkness.

A pistol rode a holster on her right hip, but she hadn’t reached for it; she’d wanted to get it done quietly in the alley.

Sound rushed back into Evan’s head—Andre’s screech of a gasp, the whisper of Queenie’s arm against her ribs as she reached for her gun, the pounding of Evan’s own heartbeat, shocked into high gear by the trauma.

His arm still extended before him, the blade improbably rising straight through his flesh. Blood hadn’t flowed from the wound yet—the white connective tissue of the hypodermis peeled up like a burst seam.

He wouldn’t reach his gun before she reached hers.

So he rotated his arm from the shoulder and swung the bar of his forearm at her neck, leading with the carbon steel point.

He couldn’t manage much force, just a swipe of the impaled blade across the front of her throat.

It was enough.

Blood sheeted from the slit, dousing her neck, the top of her chest.

Her hands rose, fingers splayed against her breastbone as if showing off a necklace. She tried to look down, eyes straining to see the wound.

Her head rotated slowly back up, her mouth parting to release a funnel of bright arterial blood across her lips and down her chin.

She smiled languidly, mysteriously, and then her knees buckled and she slumped to the asphalt.

Evan grabbed Andre and ran.

60The Other Half

Evan drove several exits along the freeway dripping into his lap before light-headedness caught up to him. He pulled the Ford pickup over onto the shoulder and looked at Andre, who was recoiled in his seat, still coming out of shock.

Evan spoke calmly. “I need you to get the first-aid trauma pack in the backseat.”

It took a moment for the words to register, and then Andre snapped into motion, leaning into the rear of the cab. He unzipped the olive-drab backpack, laying bare the medic supplies. “Should we take the knife out?”

“No.”

“What do you need?”

“Gauze, cohesive bandages.”

“Cohesive…?”

Evan chinned at the rolls of Coban. “There.”

Andre handed them over.

The pain hadn’t announced itself in full, not yet. A thin, high intensity was all Evan felt, paper-cut pain enhanced by several magnitudes, but the adrenaline was holding the deeper aching at bay. The knife had plunged in two-thirds to the hilt; the exposed edge showed the blade to be mercifully unserrated.

He laid gauze around the blade’s entry and exit points and then wrapped his forearm tightly, biting off the bandage and smoothing it down so it clung to itself. The compression felt good. The bandage covered the point of union, turning blade and bone into one thing, a bound cross.

When he bent his elbow, pressure on the nerve sent a white-hot needle up through his shoulder into the side of his neck. Wincing, he reached across himself with his left hand and tried to tug the gearshift back into drive.

Before he could, his RoamZone gave its distinctive ring.

He answered to the sound of sobbing. There was a chilling quality to it, a person cracked open to the marrow, giving vent to more rage than grief. All at once it ended.

And then a voice, masculine but high-pitched, husky from crying. “I will take you apart bone by bone.”

Evan said, “Okay.”

“But I’ll do it to Andre Duran first,” Declan said. “You’ll watch me every inch of the way so you’ll know what’s coming.”

Evan said, “Okay.”

“You have any idea what it’s like? That kind of connection? When you have the same blood rushing through your veins?”

Evan glanced over at Andre, his thoughts flurrying. Eased out a breath through clenched teeth. “No.”

“She was a part of me,” Declan said. “My twin. You understand that? You killed half of me.”

“Don’t worry,” Evan said. “I’ll get to the other half soon enough.”

He hung up. Sucked in a breath. Tried to relax his jaw.

His vision speckled, and he leaned his skull against the headrest and sipped a few breaths.

Andre said, “Need me to drive?”

Evan didn’t want to nod, but he did.

He opened the door and half fell out onto his feet. The foreign object lodged in his arm felt like an insensate part of himself, a limb lost to anesthesia. He had to get it out as soon as possible.

He stumbled to the passenger side, passing Andre, vehicles flashing dangerously by. He heard someone make a quiet grunt, realized it was him.