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Showing posts from December, 2017

Half Minus One

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Sequencing was the job of Harper Sigma, and getting him to shut up was more difficult than Splitting. So, we brought him along only when we needed him. Of course, hindsight’s 20-20, and now I was staring at a rotary dial phone with an ornate cathead receiver and a noose for a cord. 843, I try. 8.4.3, I try again. The line was dead as far as I could tell; the only response I got was a single, unconvincing tone, but it was all just the same. His mind was a steel trap. Quite literally. “What we got, Alpha?” Tau startled me. “We got… squat,” I mutter. Tau holds his hand up to his face to block the filtered sunlight that bounded through the broken windows and crumbling parapets. “You think he’s in there?” Robert Cutcheons. Man made of money. Man made of fame. Man made of death. “Yes,” I say, the gravity in my voice making me sound more confident than I felt. Beta sidles up next to us and reaches around my shoulders, hugging me reassuringly. He was kind that way. Kinder than