Page 110 of Anarchy Missing

CHAPTER FORTY – CASE

“Who are you?” It’s my voice… but not my voice.

“You know,” the female voice says through my headset. “You know who I am. I’ve been talking to you for a long time now, Case Reider. A very long time. And you know exactly who I am and what we’re going to do. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” I hiss through my teeth.

Is that me talking? I know it is, but it doesn’t sound like me.

The wind picks up as I take the helicopter higher, the boxy silver cubes of ToyBox hidden from view by the low-lying clouds.

“Who owns the city?” the voice asks me.

“We do.”

“Yes,” it says, mimicking my hiss. “Not the politicians. Not the people. But the predators.”

“Case?” Sheila’s voice comes through on the police radio right into my headset. “Case? Can you hear me? It’s OK. We’re coming after you. We won’t let whatever this is hurt you.”

I say nothing. Just train my eyes on the instruments and the way ahead. We need to get to the ToyBox computers. I feel it. A deep, all-consuming lust for what’s waiting for me across town.

“Case? Answer—”

I cut the radio, unconcerned with anything other than my objective to get home. Now.

I enjoy the relative silence after that. I enjoy the rumble of the motors and the whipping wind that makes the helicopter waver in the air, like a kite caught in the current of something it can’t control.

And when ToyBox comes into view I take the helicopter down and land it in the parking lot.

“Now what?” I ask, staring at the glass cubes as they flicker to life with a flash of red. Then Steve is there. My holographic butler. Holding a tray up like he’s serving canapés and caviar at a cocktail party.

“Would you like one?” he asks, in the female computer voice. On the tray is an assortment of items, not food. He bends a little, giving me a better view.

There’s a gun. A prototype of one I’m hoping to sell to the military. One that is so much more powerful than an ElectroDart because it doesn’t just deliver electricity, the payload includes a biological that can change emotions. Calm people down.

Just like that pill they force-fed you in jail, Case.

Who is that?

Who’s in my head?

The one that’s controlling you now. Fight it. Fight it, Case. Don’t let—

“Choose,” Steve with the female voice says.

Calm people down or make them violent, the way Lincoln uses light to make people violent.

“Stop thinking,” Steve roars through my headset. “And choose.”

It’s so loud I take the headset off and throw it on the seat next to me.

“Choose,” it repeats. This time the sound comes from the building. A speaker system we use to pipe music outside in the summers.

The second item is a knife and I get a very familiar urge to hold that knife.

To feel the cold steel in my hand and then place the razor-sharp tip to my skin and drag it… drag it all the way down my arm. Down my chest. Drag it all over my body. Make the deep cuts that will keep me sane.

No.