Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,98

cut off abruptly. “Pretty impressive ruse,” he said. “For a tech journalist. Plus, the Medium articles under your name, Archive.org shows different bylines just a few hours before you showed up.” He lifted his gloved hands and held them out, a magician laying on a spell. “Someone’s been giving me trouble lately,” he said. “Working against my interests.”

Even from this distance, even from behind, Evan could see him wiggle his fingers.

A noise pitter-pattered in the darkness ahead. Thousands of tiny parts coaxed to life by the movements of Molleken’s digits. It sounded like countless insect legs drumming the earth in eager anticipation.

Evan felt a tightness in his chest, a constriction in his throat. This whole time he’d been out of signal range, which meant that none of the images he’d recorded had been sent to Joey yet. No one knew where he was.

He was underground in an unknown location at the mercy of a mad scientist.

“You’ve seen what a bee can do.…” Molleken intensified the movement of his fingers, and all at once Evan heard the terrible humming of a multitude of wings. “But you haven’t met my prize pets yet.”

Now at last Molleken turned. He clenched his hands into fists, the clear gloves turning his flesh shiny, and a thousand tiny yellow-green lights illuminated in the darkness beyond him. The pinpricks were arranged in tight groupings of two, which—Evan realized with an irrational spike of fear—mimicked the compound eyes of an actual dragonfly. And they rose in neat rows from floor to ceiling, a wall of unseen microdrones.

The tiny eyes rose and fell a few centimeters, mirroring the undulation of Molleken’s fingers. The humming waxed and waned with their movement, the unseen metallic legs scratching horribly each time they found their perch.

A noise broke above the thrum of white noise—a bugle giving a three-note salute. It sounded once more, and Evan noticed the vibration of the Laser Warning Receiver on his shirt. The sound was coming from him.

He was lit up.

Molleken said, “Should we try this again?”

Evan stared at the robotic eyes staring back at him from the darkness, ready to launch. All those laser target designators locked on him. He wouldn’t get two steps before they’d fill the air around him. For now they stayed in place, hovering in the darkness.

He held up his hands. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

Molleken lowered his hands. Taps stopped emanating from Evan’s clip. The dragonflies settled back down. An instant later the lights of their eyes clicked off, and now it was just Evan and Molleken staring at each other in a cube of light.

“I’m an airman.” Evan tried to exhale some of the tension that had knotted his shoulders into rock. “A friend of Jake Hargreave’s.”

“Who’s Jake Hargreave?” Molleken asked.

Evan stared into his four pupils. No tell. “A drone pilot who was killed a few weeks ago.”

“And he is relevant to me how?”

“He tested some of your technology. At Creech North. And then was killed.”

Molleken mused on this for a moment. “I recall something about this. Unspecified training accident in Area 6. That’s what I was told. I know nothing more about this Hargreaves incident—”

“Hargreave.”

“—though I was informed that people die in training all the time.”

“Not like this.”

“Maybe not. But that’s the official record. What are you going to do?” Molleken’s lips twitched with amusement. “Take down the military-industrial complex?”

“I’d be happy just taking down the people who killed Hargreave.”

Molleken stared at him for a long time, his face devoid of human emotion.

“Okay.” He peeled off his gloves, stuffed them into his pockets. “Good luck.” He started off at a different trajectory, piercing the waiting darkness to their side. “I have a party to get back to.”

46

And They Laughed

The elevator rose to the ground floor and opened. Molleken pressed his hand to the bumper. “You get out here.”

Evan stepped out.

He turned around, but the doors were already closing, wiping Molleken from view.

Behind him he could hear the party in full swing, awed voices at the periphery.

“Was that him in the elevator?”

“I just saw him. Dude, that was him.”

A blinking green light in Evan’s visual field indicated that the video he’d recorded in the battle lab had been sent to Joey. He exhaled. Time to split.

As he cut through the crowd, various gazes adhered to him: the man who had ridden a private elevator with Molleken. Beneath the hoodie his shirt constricted his ribs, stuck to him with dried sweat. He was eager to get outside into the fresh air, to get back