Page 23 of Connected
“I would hope you’d be able to come up with something more creative than that, Agent Clark. Use your mouth well while you still can. If you refuse my offer, I’ll eventually cut out your tongue. Among other parts.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Understand what?” the other man asked pleasantly.
“Why people like you get joy from suffering. There are so manygoodthings in the world.”
“Oh, I see we’re back to puppies and sunsets. Those things never did anything for me. To each his own, right? Or, as the kids today like to say, don’t yuck my yum.”
Owen screamed again. Howled, really, and although the volume still wasn’t loud, the room echoed with it. Keaton wanted to scream too, in secondhand pain and firsthand frustration.
A third voice shouted something, but it wasn’t in a language that Keaton recognized.
Then for several minutes everything was quiet—except, of course, the storm.
Owen spoke again, sounding as if he were talking through tears. “I’ve listened to the gratitude of a parent after I saved their child. Nothing you do to me can change that. I’ve visited beings from another planet. I’ve heard a demon describe what it was like to watch the Egyptian pyramids being built. I’ve been serenaded by a water spirit.”
Keaton’s tears escaped but he managed to remain quiet while Owen recited these things. It reminded Keaton of Roy Batty’s speech inBlade Runner, just before Roy died, and he wondered whether Owen had ever seen the film, had enjoyed it, had reflected on its themes about the nature of humanity. God, Keaton would have loved to cuddle up on the couch and watchit with him. Maybe they’d both lust a little over Harrison Ford. Maybe they’d have a mini film fest of sci-fi noir.
“I’ve ridden on the back of a dragon,” Owen said. “I’ve kissed the man I’ve had a crush on since I was a kid.”
Oh no. That wasn’t fair. Keaton didn’t deserve to be on Owen’s list, not when he stood here so uselessly, listening to Owen cry out in agony.
Acting purely on instinct, Keaton opened his eyes—and turned off the flashlight.
The rain and wind muted at once, and instead of coal dust and wet stone, he smelled sweat and blood. A glow began, at first so dim that he thought he’d imagined it, then gradually brightening until suddenly there was a flash that blinded him.
Two voices called out at once: “Keaton, no!” and “Who isthis?”
The room had changed completely. Everything was clean, bright, and shiny. Several metal tables—like doctors’ exam tables—were scattered around.
Owen— attached to a metal framework, naked, hair lank with sweat, blood streaking his torso—stared at Keaton in horror. Between them stood a thin, nondescript man in a suit. He looked like the type who had a boring job involving spreadsheets and would soon have a midlife crisis that involved buying a Corvette and cheating on his wife.
His eyes, though. They were the scariest things Keaton had ever seen.
Keaton stood frozen in shock as he took in all of this.
“Run, Keaton,” urged Owen, his voice reduced to a rasp.
But Keaton couldn’t move, not even when the man in the suit cocked his head slightly and turned to Owen. “Who is this, Agent Cook? Do you have a friend?”
Keaton rushed forward, swung the heavy flashlight, and clocked the man in the side of the head as hard as he could.
It was glorious—briefly. The metal made a solid thunk when it connected with flesh and bone. The man grunted in surprise and stumbled, almost falling to the floor. Blood gushed. For the first time in his life, Keaton felt strong and heroic.
Unfortunately, his psychic defenses failed in the heat of the moment and the man’s emotions flowed into him. They were… putrid. The man’s inner self was a seething mass of infection, like a pool of pus and rotting corpses.
Keaton fell to all fours and puked until it felt as if his stomach was inside out. When he glanced up, still retching, half-mad with the abhorrence over what he was sensing, the man smiled and made an odd gesture with his hand.
Keaton writhed and shrieked and, finally, lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 10
“Well, this is a fun surprise.” Miller gazed at Keaton, unconscious but firmly bound to an upright support beam, his head lolling. At least the bastard hadn’t taken away Keaton’s clothing. Yet, anyway.
Owen felt a lot of things at the moment, and one of them was a bit of grim pleasure. Because although Miller was acting as if Keaton’s appearance was a delightful new twist to his game, in fact he looked a little worried. And he was also a mess, with blood caking his head and suit.
Miller spun around to grin at Owen. “Aren’t you going to act all gruff and blustery and tell me to leave him alone? Or perhaps do something noble like sacrificing yourself if I let him go?”
