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)
“I want to see what his company does.” After a few more taps, he said, “Here’s its spiel—'Synergenics Technologies strives to improve the lives of people worldwide through cutting edge research and advanced technology solutions.’ There’s a nice picture of the building behind us, along with a bunch of stock photos of happy, smiling people. That’s about it.”
“That’s super vague.”
“It really is.”
When we got to the coffee house, Sam ordered a giant vat of iced coffee with a dome of whipped cream on top, and I got a small green tea. That made him frown. “You need to learn to treat yourself, Andy.” It was the first time he’d called me by my nickname.
“That sugar bomb you’re holding is probably two thousand calories.”
He took a long drink from the straw and grinned at me as he purred, “Mmmm, fattening.”
A couple of hours later, I was unpacking my sack lunch when Sam came into the office with an armload of toner cartridges. “I figured I’d get enough to hold you for a while,” he said, as he heaped them onto my desk.
“I can’t believe they gave you so many.”
“I know where the supply closet is, so I helped myself when the mean lady who guards it went to lunch.”
“Aren’t you going to get in trouble for that?”
“What are they going to do, fire me?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Nah. I’d just plead ignorance if anyone called me on it. But nobody cares.”
Not fifteen seconds later, three huge, grim-looking men in dark suits and sunglasses strode into the office. Sam whispered, “Holy fuckballs, it’s the toner police.”
The guy in the middle, who was maybe six-foot-six with a shaved head, asked, “Anderson Chen?” When I nodded, he said, “We understand you have a journal in your possession formerly belonging to Frank Mercanti. Is that correct?”
“Yes, it’s right here.”
He started to reach for it, but I leapt up, slammed my hand down on top of the journal, and told him, “That’s the property of the archives.”
“This supersedes your authority.”
He tried reaching for it again, but I leaned forward and pressed down on the journal. “How do I know you have the authorization to take this? You haven’t even identified yourself.”
The man glared at me over the top of his dark glasses as he pulled a leather sheaf from his pocket and flipped it open. His ID card was embossed with the SPAM logo, and the strip along the bottom was metallic gold—the highest security level in this organization.
When I removed my hand, he picked up the journal and asked, “Did you make any copies of this?”
“Just the first five pages.”
“I’m going to need those copies.”
“We left them with his son. We went to see him to try to authenticate Dr. Mercanti’s handwriting.”
“Who’s his son?”
Sam finally spoke up. “Edward Rosselin, the business tycoon. He’s a real douchebag, but he might give them to you if you say pretty please.”
The man ignored that and asked me, “Did you read the journal, Mr. Chen?”
Sam answered him the same way he’d answered Rosselin. “Hell no. Nobody could read that shit. It’s all written in super brainiac science jargon, and we’re no rocket scientists. We’re just a couple of jerks who work in the basement.”
I assumed he lied to protect us. They clearly didn’t want anyone to have the information in that journal. Which begged the question—what would they have done if we’d said yes?
The guy turned to Sam with a frown. “Are you Samaritan Joseph Miller?”
“That makes me sound like a Pilgrim. Which, granted, is my mom’s fault, not yours.” He smiled and stuck his hand out. “Call me Sam. And you are?”
Instead of answering or shaking Sam’s hand, the big guy turned and left the office with the journal. The other two frowned at us before following him out.
Once they were out of earshot, Sam slumped against the edge of my desk and muttered, “No fucking way.”
I dropped back onto my chair. “What just happened?”
“We were paid a visit by the Men in Black!”
“There’s no such thing.”
“Yes, there is. We just saw it with our own eyes!”
I moved my glasses to the top of my head and scrubbed my hands over my face. My heart was racing after that encounter, but I told Sam, “They were just bureaucrats in suits.”
“And sunglasses. That’s weird, you have to admit.”
“It was all weird. They came in here acting like that journal was a threat to national security.”
“It is,” Sam said, “if it actually explains how to take powers from someone and give them to someone else, you could use that information to build a super soldier. Hell, you could build a whole army of them.”
“But it’s all just theoretical.”
“Maybe, maybe not. There’s a page near the end where Mercanti circled a formula and wrote, ‘I’ve done it!’ That sounds like a major breakthrough.”
“On paper, sure. But it was just a theory.”