Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“And that person would be in debt to me,” Penny replies, not even a tiny bit embarrassed that I called her out. “Yes. I trade favors like this with some of the world’s most important people. That way,” she looks at Collin, “when you call me up asking about a state-of-the-art lie detector test, I can set one up. And when you discover that your baby sister has been inducted as a participant in Project Mastermind, I can get her the help she needs.” She shrugs with her hands. “I am a broker. You know this, Collin. But I am discreet as well. No one will ever know about this outside the people who were here tonight unless you choose to tell them. We trust each other. That’s why you call me.”
Collin turns and starts pacing, thinking it over. After a few seconds of this, he stops and faces us again. “I’ve got a little… prison set up on the compound. It’s a project we added after all that shit went down last summer. It’s secure. I can keep her there. Can this person you’re thinking of examine her at my compound?”
“It’s not ideal,” Penny says, “and I wouldn’t recommend it. You didn’t mention why you wanted to scan Olive when we talked earlier. Surely, it’s not a lie detector test. Of course, that’s none of my business. My only point is that you suspected something and this test is your confirmation. I would not waste this chance to get the upper hand.”
“What about me?” I ask. “What about the anomaly in my brain? It is… connected?”
Penny sighs. “I don’t have the slightest idea, Shep. But I will say this, what we discovered in your brain is nothing like what we discovered in Olive’s.”
“So…” Collin says. “He’s not compromised?”
Penny shrugs her shoulders. “I wouldn’t know, Collin.”
He shoots me a look and I already know what it means before he says anything. “We can’t risk it, Shep. I’m sorry.”
“What does that mean?” I ask. “You can’t just kick me out. I have a contract. What about the honeypot in the woods?”
“What honeypot?” Penny asks.
“Some bar,” Collin says. “It’s a CORE operation, Shep says. That’s where he ran into Olive.”
Penny doesn’t say anything, just stares off into the distance like she’s putting puzzle pieces together in her mind. Whatever conclusions she comes to, she doesn’t share them with us. Instead, she says, “Well, my job here is done and any further discussion about what comes next is none of my business. The memory on the machines will all be erased, but I’ll have all the records compiled and sent to you by courier as soon as I can.”
Collin offers her his hand. “Thanks, Penny. I owe you.”
She gives him a knowing smile that says, Of course you do.
It’s a quiet ride back to the hospital where the helicopter is waiting for us, then a noisy, but even quieter ride back to the compound. Collin spends most of his time texting on his phone, Olive sleeps, or pretends to sleep, but I just lean my head against the window, staring at the world down below.
This is how I know what’s coming even before we land.
Because as the helicopter descends, I spy Amon and a bunch of guys waiting for us. Which would be unusual in and of itself, but they are wearing body armor and holding rifles at high ready.
“Sorry,” Collins says into the headsets we’re all wearing. “But Amon took a team to that bar you described and there was nobody there.”
“What?”
“You heard me. There was no one there. There was nothing there, Shep. It was a couple of ruined buildings and an old abandoned mine. No bar, no rooms, no band, no nothing. And before you try and tell me that they packed up and left, there was no chance of that. None at all. Because it looks exactly like what it is. Something forgotten.”
26 - Olive
I’m wearing a headset too, not for the conversation, just for the ear protection, so I hear everything Collin says to Shep. Immediately, I want to jump in and insist the bar was real.
But I already know it’s not.
It never was.
Just like Brose and I were never real.
There’s something wrong with my head. That’s why they took me for the brain scan. I’m crazy. I’m hallucinating. I made up my entire life. The reason why the estate looked abandoned when I woke up the other day is because it was abandoned. It was never what I saw. Or thought I saw. It was some… I dunno. Just another old estate that fell into disrepair after the elderly owner died. And I was squatting there. Homeless and insane. Seeing things that weren’t real.
I mean, come on. What was I thinking? A train in the basement? A secret underground train that stopped at the bar in the forest of West Virginia? Which, as Collin just proved, doesn’t exist.