Kill Bill
Title: Kill Bill (2/?)
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG - NC17
Warnings: AU, violence, blood, lots of unpleasantness. Character deaths very possible.
Summary: World peace is attained at a cost. The question is whose cost it was.
Note: Aliases/glossary.
25512datelog=logsecure
=25539lear::login
=attn::29248bishop::
25539lear:: 28868beesting has deviated from medical.
::29848bishop:: How long?
::25539lear:: Approx 1.5 days. Hardly worrisome.
::29848bishop:: Has Wickerman been informed?
::25539lear:: Unnecessary. I will have it cleaned up. I simply thought you might have a professional interest.
::29848bishop:: Over a month without dosage, then? Why am I hearing this from you? Why didn’t Evenstar report to me?
::25539lear:: 28868beesting is under my surveillance, she was right to report to me first. I’m sure it simply slipped her mind to inform you. She is young. Perhaps your sharpness frightens her.
::29848bishop:: This operation cannot tolerate slips of the mind. Or did you not understand that is exactly what we’re trying to prevent? Find him. Get him back online immediately.
::25539lear:: The delay will be accounted for via reactionary symptoms. He’s conditioned to return for dosage. His tests on that showed optimum reception. Or so you said.
::29848bishop:: Dammit Ian. He’s been getting clearer by the month, even with his dosage up to 6ccs. Routine maintenance of code x ops is vital to our security. I was already considering bringing him in for a more permanent procedure. Clearly, I should have done.
::25539lear:: Come now, that can’t be necessary. I would not have signed off on that.
::29848bishop:: When the peace of mind of the world is at stake? I daresay it is. Expendable assets.
::25539lear:: Their human rights notwithstanding. They are people. The man who saved our world deserves to live in it, does he not?
::29848bishop:: Such saccharine poetic gravitas can only come from you, Ian. Your heart is far too invested.
::25539lear:: They are my charges. My jurisdiction. I think I’ll decide whether or not you get to cut them up.
::29848bishop:: Then stop asking mummy for help and follow protocol. Activate the tracer's histamine reaction. Get him back on routine. If Wickerman gets wind of this there will be hell to pay.
=25539lear::logout
MAY 25. LONDON
Jamie’s back itched. It itched badly, the sort he simply could not reach, right between his shoulder blades. It was driving him nearly round the bend.
He replaced all the coffee filters and divvied the grounds into them, pushing them back into place to perk, looking up as the bell above the door rang. He smiled; it was the young dark haired man with the little computer tucked beneath his arm.
He tried again to reach the itch, but to no avail. He gathered up empty plates from several patrons that had just left as the young man slid into his usual booth. He pushed them into the already full dish bin, and carried it back to the wash station, next to another full one. Nigel had called in with a broken arm, and the usual waitress Sarah was on holiday, so to was up to Jamie to both wait the front and eventually get to the dishes with Jennings doing all the cooking. Just a few months ago, this would have frightened him terribly, but things had been changing, somehow.
By the sink, he pushed his back up against the corner of the wall and got a little relief from the itch on the edge, but it returned as soon as he walked back to the front. He felt over-warm, almost feverish, and the itch simply would not ebb.
The young man with the dark curls smiled dazzlingly, as he usually did when Jamie brought his tall glass of juice. “I like orange juice,” he said, as he always did, his fingers clutching the laptop.
“Aye. Did you see Dr. Tyler?” Jamie asked, pointing at the little bit of cotton wool bandaged to the young man’s elbow. At his last appointment a month ago, he’d seen this same young man in her office while waiting for his own allergy shots. He’d been coming to breakfast daily at Jenning’s Café ever since. Jamie could not remember his name, but his face was quite memorable.
“Yeah,” the young man picked at the plaster, frowning, his eyebrows gathering in the middle. Instead he grabbed for his laptop, opening it and plugging his PID into the side, smiling up at Jamie. “I like computers.”
“I know,” Jamie grinned. Their conversations were nearly identical every day, he realized. It was only now that he noticed how odd that was. “Same breakfast as usual, then?”
“Strawberry waffle!” the young man grinned beguilingly, pulling a wireless earphone from his pocket and pushing it into his ear. “I like-“
“Strawberries,” Jamie said with him, his gut clenching weirdly at the sight of the earphone.
He put in the ticket and went back through the kitchen, just for a minute. “Food’s coming up, Jamie,” Jennings said from the griddle as he passed.
“Aye.” He ducked into the cold storage for a minute, just to take the prickle of heat under his skin down. He felt weird, his stomach squeezing. And that infernal itch! He pulled off his paper hat, and tried again to reach it, to scratch it, twisting and stretching to reach.
“Oi, Holmes, get this food out t’yer table!”
“Right, boss, jus’ a mo.” Jamie wriggled his hand awkwardly as far as it would go down the back of his shirt to scratch. If he could just reach it-
“Now, Holmes!”
Sighing, he pulled his hand from his shirt and wiped a drop of sweat from his brow, pulled his deli hat back on, and headed out from between the cold storage shelves. Pulling the plates of food from the window and onto a tray, he hoisted it to shoulder level and carried it to the table.
“About ruddy time,” sniffed the well-dressed, older businessman, tucking his brown paper napkin in his collar, “Any longer and I wouldn’t have time to eat it.”
“Sorry ‘bout that, sir.”
“And bring more coffee, this is cold. Be sure it’s decaffeinated.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I asked for marmalade.”
“Bring it right out, sir.”
“Hold on, lad, I asked for sausages as well.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jamie waited, just in case the old bastard had anything else to add, but he merely broke the yokes of his eggs with the tines of his fork and set to. Jamie headed back to the window to find the sausages he’d left behind, grabbed the jar of marmalade, and a pot of coffee. Bringing the lot back around to the old man, he set the plate of sausages down, his hand shaking a bit.
“I don’t fancy being served by someone who’s ill,” the businessman said, eying him speculatively, “You don’t look well, lad.”
Jamie looked up at him and then back at the cup of coffee as he poured, “It’s allergies, sir. Missed an appointment for my allergy shot, that’s all.”
The old man grunted. “Load of rubbish. They proved those things obsolete, cortisones and steroids, before the war was over, didn’t they? Make you worse than they do you good. There was a big study done back when I was wet behind the ears at the firm. Changed everything, it did.”
-it made a noise like a soft, short pew, and the man sat with round hole directly between his furry eyebrows, his face frozen in shock, blood trickling down his nose and onto his plate-
“-Clumsy git, do you know what it will cost to have this suit cleaned? Why are you just bloody standing there, idiot!” The old businessman was now standing, ineffectually swiping at the coffee stains round the hems of his trousers with his napkin.
Jamie blinked and looked down at the shattered remains of the coffee pot on the floor, the pool of brown speckled with glass shards and a plastic handle at his feet. A wave of nausea hit him in the gut, and he clutched the table and swallowed reflexively against it.
The young man in the corner booth watched the chaos. His eyes met Jamie’s. He arched his brows once, tilting his head inquisitively and then went back to typing on the laptop in front of him, reaching up to adjust a speaker earpiece.
-he touched the earpiece with his finger and murmured, “Hive, mule in the barn’s been stung.”
::Excellent. Return to hive. Out.::
He ducked down behind the sill and swiftly disassembled the rifle-
“Holmes, you pillock, what on earth…?” Mr. Jennings came round the counter, collecting up the large pieces of glass and gathering together the rest with a towel.
The businessman continued hollering to any of the patrons who would listen. "These shoes are Italian leather, I’ll have you know.”
“Holmes. Oi, Jamie!”
Jamie looked up at the snapping of fingers under his nose, his boss’ face livid and confused. “Back in the kitchen. Go on, now, wait for me.”
“The least you could do is apologize, couldn’t you, you idiotic little twat, eh? Are you touched or what?”
Jamie gave the businessman one last glance, turned on his heel in the pool of coffee, and walked back to the kitchen in time to vomit in the nearest appropriate receptacle.
“Holmes, you… Jamie?” Jennings called as he returned, then stopped short finding him clutching the sides of the bin under the dish sink.
“Sorry, boss.” Jamie stood up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, then shoved it down the back of his shirt. The itch between his shoulder blades was maddening. Sweat broke along his forehead.
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you? You ill?” Jennings asked, pushing him onto a stool.
“No,” Jamie gasped, reaching for the itch, “I missed my allergy shot, yesterday. Missed my appointment. Only you called me in to work when Nigel didn’t show, so I had to miss it.”
Jennings took off his own deli hat and scrubbed at the back of his head, then turned to the sink to wash coffee from his hands. “Allergies or not, Jamie, that man’s going to send me his cleaning bill in the next few days because of you, to say nothing of his bloody fancy shoes. You’ve been out of sorts all day, last few days, matter of fact. I thought you were getting better, weren’t you? And you have, you’re not nearly so shy anymore. You said your head had cleared somehow. But I can’t have you in the front waiting tables if your condition sends you into fits like that. Shouldn’t have that anyway, lad your age.”
“I guess not,” Jamie slumped over, and grabbed for the bin again. Mr. Jennings made a face and looked away until he was through being sick.
“Go home, Jamie. Get to your doctor or summat. I’ll call Joe in, he’ll just have to owe me one.”
Jamie nodded at his shoes, trying not to scratch again. Jennings turned away, pulling his PID out.
“Oi, Boss?” Jamie called.
“Eh.”
“What d’you mean, lad my age shouldn’t have any sort of… condition?”
Mr. Jennings paused in thumbing through contacts to glance at him. “Thought they got rid of most of ‘em, is all. Allergies and the like. Before the wars ended. Things as come from the overprocessing of foods, pesticides and junk used to be in the water. These days it’s all back to nature, innit? Nearly got rid of all that, ‘specially in your generation. All we’ve left to kill off is the bloody viruses. S’odd you’d have ‘em still.”
Jamie furrowed his brows. He could not remember the end of the wars. There was a lot he couldn’t remember. “Aye.”
He got up, stood still for a minute to see of the nausea had passed, then tugged his apron off, draping it over the dish sink and tossing his sweaty paper hat in the bin.
“Jamie,” Jennings called back.
“Boss.”
“Yer a good lad, you know. Come back when you feel better, I’ll see if I can’t keep you on as a dishwasher. And take that bin out with you.”
Jamie twitched his shoulders, gathering up the bin’s liner and tying it. He wouldn’t come back. “Mind if I use the loo before I go?”
Jennings shrugged, and Jamie left the rubbish by the back door before he bee-lined for the toilets. Once inside, he ripped off his shirt and reached over his head to his back, using his other arm to force his elbow back a few more crucial inches to get at that spot…there.
He scratched and scratched, but the itch would not relent. His fingernails passed over the spot. There was a rise there, a bubble, a grain of sand or some infernal parasite underneath his skin, he was sure of it.
He turned to the mirror and twisted his head around to see it, red and nearly raw. It looked odd for a welt or a bug bite, oblong, nearly rectangular, white of skin in the center of a speckling rash. It itched so badly he couldn’t stand it.
Bending over the sink so he could see in the mirror, he pushed his elbow back again to scratch, hard, digging in his nails until his skin tore and bled, until the raised thing was most definitely a thing, something that shouldn’t be there, a foreign body inside him. He tore at it, ignoring the pain, biting his lip to keep from making a noise as he worked around it, prised his fingernails beneath it, and finally it flipped out and fell to the floor with a metallic ping.
Jamie stooped, picking up the bloody, alien thing that had come out of him, feeling sick to his stomach again. He twisted the taps on to rinse the blood from it, wiping it gently with the pad of his thumb under the water. It was about the size of a grain of rice with several hair-like wires coming out, like the legs of a spider. Looking closely, he saw tiny coils of wires and lights inside the clear plastic shell, like an infochip, a tracking chip people were required to put in their pets. One of tiny lights inside it changed from a steady green to a blinking red as he watched, like a bomb, speeding up until the red light pulsed as quickly as his heartbeat.
He dropped it in the sink, and turned the taps on full force, pushing the thing down the drain, along with the streams of his own blood. Twisting around again, he looked at the place it had come from, oozing down his spine. It stung, but the itching was gone. Wetting a handful of paper towels, he bent to awkwardly blot the place until the bleeding seemed to ebb.
The loo door opened and in came the young man with dark curls. He looked at Jamie curiously, his face perplexed. “Does that hurt?”
Jamie straightened up, reached for his shirt and tugged it back on, carefully eying the young man, who set his laptop on the shelf above the toilet as he turned to it and unzipped. Jamie threw the bloody towels in the bin and left, glancing over his shoulder as he grabbed up his jacket, feeling his t-shirt stick to the wound as he pulled it on. Leaving through the back door, he went round through the alley to the street side. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he strode to the right, daring to glance behind himself at the end of the block. No one was there.
Something very odd was going on.
26512datelog=logsecure
::29848bishop::login
=attn::25539lear::
::29248bishop:: What news on 28868beesting?
::25539lear:: No news. Running search and idscan.
::29848bishop:: Find him. Activate the tracer. Get code M ops out on the streets if you have to.
::25539lear:: The tracer was found in the plumbing of his workplace. Assume he managed to pull it out.
::29848bishop:: And his PID?
::25539lear:: Memchip in a storm drain.
::29848bishop:: Shit. Do you have any idea what that means?
::25539lear:: Don’t be patronizing. I’ve been here much longer than you.
::29848bishop:: Too long. Worried now, are you?
::29848bishop:: I always knew putting these people back into society was asking for trouble.
=25539lear::logout
CHAPTER THREE
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG - NC17
Warnings: AU, violence, blood, lots of unpleasantness. Character deaths very possible.
Summary: World peace is attained at a cost. The question is whose cost it was.
Note: Aliases/glossary.
25512datelog=logsecure
=25539lear::login
=attn::29248bishop::
25539lear:: 28868beesting has deviated from medical.
::29848bishop:: How long?
::25539lear:: Approx 1.5 days. Hardly worrisome.
::29848bishop:: Has Wickerman been informed?
::25539lear:: Unnecessary. I will have it cleaned up. I simply thought you might have a professional interest.
::29848bishop:: Over a month without dosage, then? Why am I hearing this from you? Why didn’t Evenstar report to me?
::25539lear:: 28868beesting is under my surveillance, she was right to report to me first. I’m sure it simply slipped her mind to inform you. She is young. Perhaps your sharpness frightens her.
::29848bishop:: This operation cannot tolerate slips of the mind. Or did you not understand that is exactly what we’re trying to prevent? Find him. Get him back online immediately.
::25539lear:: The delay will be accounted for via reactionary symptoms. He’s conditioned to return for dosage. His tests on that showed optimum reception. Or so you said.
::29848bishop:: Dammit Ian. He’s been getting clearer by the month, even with his dosage up to 6ccs. Routine maintenance of code x ops is vital to our security. I was already considering bringing him in for a more permanent procedure. Clearly, I should have done.
::25539lear:: Come now, that can’t be necessary. I would not have signed off on that.
::29848bishop:: When the peace of mind of the world is at stake? I daresay it is. Expendable assets.
::25539lear:: Their human rights notwithstanding. They are people. The man who saved our world deserves to live in it, does he not?
::29848bishop:: Such saccharine poetic gravitas can only come from you, Ian. Your heart is far too invested.
::25539lear:: They are my charges. My jurisdiction. I think I’ll decide whether or not you get to cut them up.
::29848bishop:: Then stop asking mummy for help and follow protocol. Activate the tracer's histamine reaction. Get him back on routine. If Wickerman gets wind of this there will be hell to pay.
=25539lear::logout
MAY 25. LONDON
Jamie’s back itched. It itched badly, the sort he simply could not reach, right between his shoulder blades. It was driving him nearly round the bend.
He replaced all the coffee filters and divvied the grounds into them, pushing them back into place to perk, looking up as the bell above the door rang. He smiled; it was the young dark haired man with the little computer tucked beneath his arm.
He tried again to reach the itch, but to no avail. He gathered up empty plates from several patrons that had just left as the young man slid into his usual booth. He pushed them into the already full dish bin, and carried it back to the wash station, next to another full one. Nigel had called in with a broken arm, and the usual waitress Sarah was on holiday, so to was up to Jamie to both wait the front and eventually get to the dishes with Jennings doing all the cooking. Just a few months ago, this would have frightened him terribly, but things had been changing, somehow.
By the sink, he pushed his back up against the corner of the wall and got a little relief from the itch on the edge, but it returned as soon as he walked back to the front. He felt over-warm, almost feverish, and the itch simply would not ebb.
The young man with the dark curls smiled dazzlingly, as he usually did when Jamie brought his tall glass of juice. “I like orange juice,” he said, as he always did, his fingers clutching the laptop.
“Aye. Did you see Dr. Tyler?” Jamie asked, pointing at the little bit of cotton wool bandaged to the young man’s elbow. At his last appointment a month ago, he’d seen this same young man in her office while waiting for his own allergy shots. He’d been coming to breakfast daily at Jenning’s Café ever since. Jamie could not remember his name, but his face was quite memorable.
“Yeah,” the young man picked at the plaster, frowning, his eyebrows gathering in the middle. Instead he grabbed for his laptop, opening it and plugging his PID into the side, smiling up at Jamie. “I like computers.”
“I know,” Jamie grinned. Their conversations were nearly identical every day, he realized. It was only now that he noticed how odd that was. “Same breakfast as usual, then?”
“Strawberry waffle!” the young man grinned beguilingly, pulling a wireless earphone from his pocket and pushing it into his ear. “I like-“
“Strawberries,” Jamie said with him, his gut clenching weirdly at the sight of the earphone.
He put in the ticket and went back through the kitchen, just for a minute. “Food’s coming up, Jamie,” Jennings said from the griddle as he passed.
“Aye.” He ducked into the cold storage for a minute, just to take the prickle of heat under his skin down. He felt weird, his stomach squeezing. And that infernal itch! He pulled off his paper hat, and tried again to reach it, to scratch it, twisting and stretching to reach.
“Oi, Holmes, get this food out t’yer table!”
“Right, boss, jus’ a mo.” Jamie wriggled his hand awkwardly as far as it would go down the back of his shirt to scratch. If he could just reach it-
“Now, Holmes!”
Sighing, he pulled his hand from his shirt and wiped a drop of sweat from his brow, pulled his deli hat back on, and headed out from between the cold storage shelves. Pulling the plates of food from the window and onto a tray, he hoisted it to shoulder level and carried it to the table.
“About ruddy time,” sniffed the well-dressed, older businessman, tucking his brown paper napkin in his collar, “Any longer and I wouldn’t have time to eat it.”
“Sorry ‘bout that, sir.”
“And bring more coffee, this is cold. Be sure it’s decaffeinated.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I asked for marmalade.”
“Bring it right out, sir.”
“Hold on, lad, I asked for sausages as well.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jamie waited, just in case the old bastard had anything else to add, but he merely broke the yokes of his eggs with the tines of his fork and set to. Jamie headed back to the window to find the sausages he’d left behind, grabbed the jar of marmalade, and a pot of coffee. Bringing the lot back around to the old man, he set the plate of sausages down, his hand shaking a bit.
“I don’t fancy being served by someone who’s ill,” the businessman said, eying him speculatively, “You don’t look well, lad.”
Jamie looked up at him and then back at the cup of coffee as he poured, “It’s allergies, sir. Missed an appointment for my allergy shot, that’s all.”
The old man grunted. “Load of rubbish. They proved those things obsolete, cortisones and steroids, before the war was over, didn’t they? Make you worse than they do you good. There was a big study done back when I was wet behind the ears at the firm. Changed everything, it did.”
-it made a noise like a soft, short pew, and the man sat with round hole directly between his furry eyebrows, his face frozen in shock, blood trickling down his nose and onto his plate-
“-Clumsy git, do you know what it will cost to have this suit cleaned? Why are you just bloody standing there, idiot!” The old businessman was now standing, ineffectually swiping at the coffee stains round the hems of his trousers with his napkin.
Jamie blinked and looked down at the shattered remains of the coffee pot on the floor, the pool of brown speckled with glass shards and a plastic handle at his feet. A wave of nausea hit him in the gut, and he clutched the table and swallowed reflexively against it.
The young man in the corner booth watched the chaos. His eyes met Jamie’s. He arched his brows once, tilting his head inquisitively and then went back to typing on the laptop in front of him, reaching up to adjust a speaker earpiece.
-he touched the earpiece with his finger and murmured, “Hive, mule in the barn’s been stung.”
::Excellent. Return to hive. Out.::
He ducked down behind the sill and swiftly disassembled the rifle-
“Holmes, you pillock, what on earth…?” Mr. Jennings came round the counter, collecting up the large pieces of glass and gathering together the rest with a towel.
The businessman continued hollering to any of the patrons who would listen. "These shoes are Italian leather, I’ll have you know.”
“Holmes. Oi, Jamie!”
Jamie looked up at the snapping of fingers under his nose, his boss’ face livid and confused. “Back in the kitchen. Go on, now, wait for me.”
“The least you could do is apologize, couldn’t you, you idiotic little twat, eh? Are you touched or what?”
Jamie gave the businessman one last glance, turned on his heel in the pool of coffee, and walked back to the kitchen in time to vomit in the nearest appropriate receptacle.
“Holmes, you… Jamie?” Jennings called as he returned, then stopped short finding him clutching the sides of the bin under the dish sink.
“Sorry, boss.” Jamie stood up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, then shoved it down the back of his shirt. The itch between his shoulder blades was maddening. Sweat broke along his forehead.
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you? You ill?” Jennings asked, pushing him onto a stool.
“No,” Jamie gasped, reaching for the itch, “I missed my allergy shot, yesterday. Missed my appointment. Only you called me in to work when Nigel didn’t show, so I had to miss it.”
Jennings took off his own deli hat and scrubbed at the back of his head, then turned to the sink to wash coffee from his hands. “Allergies or not, Jamie, that man’s going to send me his cleaning bill in the next few days because of you, to say nothing of his bloody fancy shoes. You’ve been out of sorts all day, last few days, matter of fact. I thought you were getting better, weren’t you? And you have, you’re not nearly so shy anymore. You said your head had cleared somehow. But I can’t have you in the front waiting tables if your condition sends you into fits like that. Shouldn’t have that anyway, lad your age.”
“I guess not,” Jamie slumped over, and grabbed for the bin again. Mr. Jennings made a face and looked away until he was through being sick.
“Go home, Jamie. Get to your doctor or summat. I’ll call Joe in, he’ll just have to owe me one.”
Jamie nodded at his shoes, trying not to scratch again. Jennings turned away, pulling his PID out.
“Oi, Boss?” Jamie called.
“Eh.”
“What d’you mean, lad my age shouldn’t have any sort of… condition?”
Mr. Jennings paused in thumbing through contacts to glance at him. “Thought they got rid of most of ‘em, is all. Allergies and the like. Before the wars ended. Things as come from the overprocessing of foods, pesticides and junk used to be in the water. These days it’s all back to nature, innit? Nearly got rid of all that, ‘specially in your generation. All we’ve left to kill off is the bloody viruses. S’odd you’d have ‘em still.”
Jamie furrowed his brows. He could not remember the end of the wars. There was a lot he couldn’t remember. “Aye.”
He got up, stood still for a minute to see of the nausea had passed, then tugged his apron off, draping it over the dish sink and tossing his sweaty paper hat in the bin.
“Jamie,” Jennings called back.
“Boss.”
“Yer a good lad, you know. Come back when you feel better, I’ll see if I can’t keep you on as a dishwasher. And take that bin out with you.”
Jamie twitched his shoulders, gathering up the bin’s liner and tying it. He wouldn’t come back. “Mind if I use the loo before I go?”
Jennings shrugged, and Jamie left the rubbish by the back door before he bee-lined for the toilets. Once inside, he ripped off his shirt and reached over his head to his back, using his other arm to force his elbow back a few more crucial inches to get at that spot…there.
He scratched and scratched, but the itch would not relent. His fingernails passed over the spot. There was a rise there, a bubble, a grain of sand or some infernal parasite underneath his skin, he was sure of it.
He turned to the mirror and twisted his head around to see it, red and nearly raw. It looked odd for a welt or a bug bite, oblong, nearly rectangular, white of skin in the center of a speckling rash. It itched so badly he couldn’t stand it.
Bending over the sink so he could see in the mirror, he pushed his elbow back again to scratch, hard, digging in his nails until his skin tore and bled, until the raised thing was most definitely a thing, something that shouldn’t be there, a foreign body inside him. He tore at it, ignoring the pain, biting his lip to keep from making a noise as he worked around it, prised his fingernails beneath it, and finally it flipped out and fell to the floor with a metallic ping.
Jamie stooped, picking up the bloody, alien thing that had come out of him, feeling sick to his stomach again. He twisted the taps on to rinse the blood from it, wiping it gently with the pad of his thumb under the water. It was about the size of a grain of rice with several hair-like wires coming out, like the legs of a spider. Looking closely, he saw tiny coils of wires and lights inside the clear plastic shell, like an infochip, a tracking chip people were required to put in their pets. One of tiny lights inside it changed from a steady green to a blinking red as he watched, like a bomb, speeding up until the red light pulsed as quickly as his heartbeat.
He dropped it in the sink, and turned the taps on full force, pushing the thing down the drain, along with the streams of his own blood. Twisting around again, he looked at the place it had come from, oozing down his spine. It stung, but the itching was gone. Wetting a handful of paper towels, he bent to awkwardly blot the place until the bleeding seemed to ebb.
The loo door opened and in came the young man with dark curls. He looked at Jamie curiously, his face perplexed. “Does that hurt?”
Jamie straightened up, reached for his shirt and tugged it back on, carefully eying the young man, who set his laptop on the shelf above the toilet as he turned to it and unzipped. Jamie threw the bloody towels in the bin and left, glancing over his shoulder as he grabbed up his jacket, feeling his t-shirt stick to the wound as he pulled it on. Leaving through the back door, he went round through the alley to the street side. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he strode to the right, daring to glance behind himself at the end of the block. No one was there.
Something very odd was going on.
26512datelog=logsecure
::29848bishop::login
=attn::25539lear::
::29248bishop:: What news on 28868beesting?
::25539lear:: No news. Running search and idscan.
::29848bishop:: Find him. Activate the tracer. Get code M ops out on the streets if you have to.
::25539lear:: The tracer was found in the plumbing of his workplace. Assume he managed to pull it out.
::29848bishop:: And his PID?
::25539lear:: Memchip in a storm drain.
::29848bishop:: Shit. Do you have any idea what that means?
::25539lear:: Don’t be patronizing. I’ve been here much longer than you.
::29848bishop:: Too long. Worried now, are you?
::29848bishop:: I always knew putting these people back into society was asking for trouble.
=25539lear::logout
CHAPTER THREE