Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
He nodded. “I see your point. And thank god, right? A bunch of horny animals running after you is a very different power.”
“I don’t even want to think about it.”
I picked up my leftovers and returned to my desk as he asked, “Have you tried to train yourself, or hone your abilities?”
“To do what, exactly?”
Sam shrugged. “All kinds of things. Calling specific animals, for example. You could be one hell of a dog trainer if you were like, ‘Spot, come here,’ and Spot came running from a mile away.”
“I’ve tried to learn how to keep it from happening unintentionally, but that’s it. I’m a lot better now than when I was a teen, but I still don’t have complete control over it. It’s like… like there’s some piece I’m missing, which goes beyond concentration or willpower.”
“I still think it’s cool.” Sam balled up his wrappers and threw them in the trashcan from clear across the room, which made him shout, “Two points!”
“The only reason you think it’s cool is because you don’t have to live with it.”
“Can you do it right now, so I can see it?”
I shot him a look. “Do you really want to find out if there are mice or rats in this building? Because I doubt there’d be anything else to call.”
“Fuck, no.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He started reading his report while I went back to cataloging the stack of materials on my desk. I’d decided to work on the oldest items first, and it looked like I’d barely made a dent in the backlog.
After a while, he said, “I feel guilty. You’re working away over there, while I’m goofing off.”
“Don’t feel bad. I chose to do this. No one’s forcing me to work late.” I glanced at him, then returned my gaze to the stack of work as I added, “I’m glad you’re here. It’s nice to have company.”
“I get that. It’s way too quiet down here. Actually, would you mind if I played some music on my phone?”
“I wouldn’t be able to concentrate if music was playing.”
He frowned ever-so-slightly but let it go without arguing. After a minute, he got up and said, “I’m going to trade this report for another. I’ll be right back.”
While he was gone, I finished what I was working on and reached for the next stack of large manilla envelopes. They each had interdepartmental labels with three-year-old routing dates, but the one on top was heavier than the rest.
I slashed it with my letter opener and slid out a brown leather journal, along with a SPAM routing form. I hadn’t seen anything like the journal before, but the form came standard with all the studies and reports sent to the archives.
Instead of originating from the usual departments, this item had been sent here from a division called Site Remediation. Under the heading “Item Origination” it said: Notebook retrieved from fireproof safe, lab of Dr. Frank Mercanti, contractor with science division. No other materials recovered from scene.
I opened the journal and flipped through a few pages. The handwriting was a messy scrawl. Notes, diagrams, scientific formulas, and equations filled each page. Some parts were crossed out, with arrows pointing to sticky notes or comments jotted down in the margins.
Sam startled me when he asked, “What’s that?” I hadn’t noticed his return, and now he was peering over my shoulder.
“A notebook that apparently belonged to a scientist named Frank Mercanti. I’m not sure why it was sent here.”
“It reminds me of the stuff in the oldest section of the archives. Some of those reports include handwritten sections, and they’re bound any which way. The science divisions didn’t start using those standard issue, dark blue covers until sometime in the 1970s.”
“This is only about three years old. There’s a date on the inside cover.” I turned a page and frowned at a particularly complex formula. “I wish I knew what it was talking about.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Feel free.” I handed it over and reached for the next manilla envelope. “I won’t be able to authenticate it until I make some calls tomorrow and get some more information on it.”
Sam took the journal to the couch, and I went back to work. Every time I glanced at him over the next hour, his brows were knit as he intently studied the pages. It was surprising that he stuck with it, since it wasn’t exactly light reading.
Then again, I was learning there was more to Sam than originally met the eye.
CHAPTER 7
SAM
Surprisingly, Anderson handed over the journal when I asked to take a look at it. This thing was an unknown commodity. Who knew what secrets it might contain? But he didn’t assume we worked for the evil empire like I did, so to him, it probably seemed perfectly harmless.
I spent over an hour trying to make sense of what I was reading. While I could grasp that it had to do with genetics and DNA, it was confusing—both because I didn’t have a particularly strong understanding of that subject, and because the notes were a jumbled mess. They got even worse in the second half, as if the journal’s owner had been writing as fast as he could.