The Reborn (The Day Eight Series Part 1) (18 page)

Sometimes horrible events played out in his sleep. He’d dream that his teeth were falling out or his family members were drowning or that he’d lost limbs. Then he’d wake up and feel such relief, realizing that it was only a nightmare. What had he been dreaming about just now? He couldn’t remember.

There was a chill across his temple. Trevor put his hand up to his forehead, feeling it damp with sweat. Looking around he noticed he’d left the bedroom window open, which now blew cold air over him. He dragged himself out of bed and slogged over to it, sliding it closed by leaning all his weight down on it rather than using his muscles. It squeaked snugly into its wooden base, which had been warped from water damage. He’d left it open further than he felt comfortable with at night. Sometimes on sweltering nights he’d get up and open the window like that without being fully conscious. This time he didn’t recall opening it.

He crawled back under the covers with a shiver.

Trevor had just been drifting off to sleep again when he heard a
thock
sound. Without so much as shifting his head, he opened his eyes and listened, careful not even to breathe for fear that the air moving through his mouth or nose might obscure his hearing. That sound had definitely been out of place. What the hell was it?

He imagined all the terrible things that could have made that sound.
It could be someone putting a large knife down on the table briefly to pull on gloves. It could have been the sound of someone dropping a bullet round on the wooden floor.
But those didn’t quite seem to match.

And then he placed it. He knew exactly what the sound was.
It was the sound of the deadbolt on his door sliding open.

Shit!
There was someone trying to get into his apartment. And then he heard a faint jingling sound. He wasn’t sure whether to run for his window, run to the door, or grab the phone or a weapon of some kind. He could use a lamp.
No, you’ll get yourself killed
. Could he make it to the door in time to jam it shut?

The jingling sound was his door chain.
They were trying to undo it.
Trevor knew there were ways of getting past door chains besides wrenching them off the frame. He had a latch on his door, too, near the very top. They must have opened it in order to get to the door chain.

Shit!
Did he have time to run to the door before they finished opening the door chain? How long does bypassing a door chain take? He didn’t have time to think. Trevor leapt over the end of his bed and threw the covers on his floor in one quick motion. He turned right into the main room and ran three steps before his brain understood the dark blob-like shape by the door that his eyes could scarcely discern in the dim of the apartment.

It wasn’t somebody trying to get in, it was somebody trying to get out!
The inky outline standing between him and his front door was a person. The figure had finished undoing the door chain when he looked over and saw Trevor. Momentary panic shone in his eyes through a dark mask obscuring the rest of his face.

Trevor stopped so quickly his feet pushed the rug forward, slipping from underneath him, and he fell backward onto the floor.

The figure turned back to the door and yanked it, but it wouldn’t open. He hadn’t noticed the latch near the top. He yanked the door as hard as he could, but it only gave slightly toward the bottom before snapping back.

The man glared at Trevor, who had rolled over and was trying to scramble on all fours back into the bedroom. The figure ran straight toward him. The man grabbed at a DVD shelf as he ran past, stepping on Trevor, and yanked it over behind him. A waterfall of movie cases rained onto Trevor before the shelf landed across his legs, pinning him to the ground.

Trevor watched the man grab the bedroom window and, with a loud grunt, throw it open so hard it shattered a pane of glass. He clambered through it onto the fire escape.

Trevor managed to slide out from under the shelf and get to the window in time to see the figure sprint down to the next block and turn the corner. In the streetlights he could see that the rest of the man’s outfit was a dark sweatshirt and blue jeans.

Tiny shards of glass glinted from the windowsill and floor like a scattering of stars. Trevor stepped away from them and looked at his hands as they trembled uncontrollably. His reaction had hardly been the one he often fantasized about: a scene laden with ninja heroics, bravado, and throwing-stars where he’d deftly leap from the shadowed rafters to disarm the invader, hog-tie him single handedly and then drop the intruder’s sorry ass off at the police station doorstep with a frilly bow on his head.

~

While Trevor waited for the police to arrive, he sat on his couch wide awake, wondering if he’d ever be able to sleep here again. That was the most frightening experience in his life.

Trevor got up and looked around the rest of his apartment. His wallet was still on top of his dresser. His keys were hanging on the hook where he’d left them. His computer was still sitting there. Everything of value seemed in place.

Then he heard another beep. It was the same as the one he’d woken up to. It had clearly come from his computer.

He turned on his monitor to find a message complaining,
hardware improperly removed: USB mass storage device
. He looked around. His sapphire-blue memory stick was gone.

The only thing they stole was the memory stick.

The only reason someone would take his memory stick and not grab something more expensive was if its contents were valuable. That meant the thief knew about the letter from Allison on his memory stick... but if he knew about the letter, he knew about Allison, so the letter wouldn’t be important, would it? And he hadn’t told anyone about the letter other than Damon. And the police. And Valerie Winters.

Now that he knew about Allison and the technology Day Eight had, conspiracy theories began unfolding in his head. Maybe Damon was trying to get rid of evidence… or plant it on Trevor’s computer, and redirect blame to him for the internet surge so the company wouldn’t have to take the fall? He could trust Damon, couldn’t he? Of course. After all, Damon had entrusted so much to Trevor.

Maybe the thief could have just used the memory stick to steal things off Trevor’s computer, like his personal bank account and credit card information... he had a whole list of passwords and accounts on his computer.

Eventually two cops came – thankfully not the same ones that had arrested him. They took a statement, dusted for prints, and left. The cops told him that he probably spooked the guy when he got out of bed to shut the window, and the guy made a run for it before getting a chance to grab anything of value. They said that memory sticks were commonly taken during lootings because they were so small and could fetch a few bucks on the street. Then they told him to be careful, because sometimes intruders would return to finish a job. Usually only the ones cracked-out on drugs though.

That didn’t make Trevor feel any better.

He sealed his window with a garbage bag and duct tape, locked it shut, then spent the next few hours watching TV until the sun started to rise. Then he showered, ate some waffles, and caught his ride to the Winters estate for the second day of his new job.

~

Trevor finished a Rueben sandwich, prepared masterfully by Fredo.

He looked at his phone. Damon hadn’t called yet or yelled or otherwise chewed him out about crashing Allison, so Trevor figured he was in the clear. As he was about to put his cell away, it rang in his hand. He answered.

“Mr. Leighton? This is Officer Fulton, from the station?”

“I remember, yes?” Trevor said, feeling uneasy to be conversing with an officer while out-of-state.

“Listen, I’m aware that there was a break-in at your place last night.”

“Yes, there was.”

“Right. Well, the trouble is that we went to file it and needed to pull your history here, but your other files have apparently been... misplaced.”

“Misplaced? Is that bad? What do I need to do?” asked Trevor.

“Well, it could be bad. Depends. A handful of files are missing from the ‘Ls’ section – not just yours. There’s a slim chance they may have been stolen. If so, we want you to be aware that it makes you a candidate for identity theft. A lot of personal information was in your file.”

“That’s great, identity theft.”

“It would be unlikely, but we need to take the proper precautions and let everyone know. But you probably won’t have any problems.”

“I hope not,” Trevor said.

“Sorry, Mr. Leighton.”

Wonderful. So someone was sitting in a crack-den somewhere, with a stack of files, using Trevor’s statement as rolling paper and filling out credit card applications in his name. It was a thought that stuck with him the rest of the day.

On the bright side, maybe they’d inherit Trevor’s resisting arrest charges, too.

Hidden In Between

T
revor had just gotten in bed and turned off the lights when his phone rang. He started, still edgy from his encounter the night before.

It was Damon.

“Trevor, I wanted to let you know that you’ve been doing a great job with Allison. She’s thrilled to have your company.”

“I’ve never been much of a baby sitter before,” Trevor said, relieved, “But I’m honored to be able to watch Allison. She’s so intriguing and well-behaved.”

“I think getting her out of the lab was the best thing that could have happened to her... she was neglected and it was destroying her, but she’s shown an incredibly strong will,” Damon said, “Thank you, Trevor, for helping.”

“You’re welcome.” He meant it, while a small guilt-aware slice of his brain yelled at him for having crashed her. “What I don’t understand is why anyone would neglect her in the first place.”

“She was the first successful human simulation, Trevor. That means she’s running on an old machine. A slow machine, many years old – which, with our technology cycles, is generations behind our current tech. Subsequent simulations running on newer, faster systems have so much more potential. The older simulations are perceived as a phenomenal waste of time and money just to upkeep.”

“So they use older simulations for torturous experiments?”

“Most of the older ones get scrapped for resources, so I can at least be thankful they didn’t dismantle Allison. They needed someone for these ‘experiments,’ and they chose her. Also, you have to understand – I don’t make the decisions for
Project Eileithyia
anymore, so I don’t fully comprehend them… although I have suspicions this was partially done to... to alienate me,” Damon said.

“If you have simulations with much greater potential than Allison... what are they like?”

There was silence from Damon’s end of the line, as if he’d put the phone down. Finally he said, “Do you have a few hours?”

It was past midnight, but what could he say except, “Sure.”

“Great,” Damon said. “Get a taxi to Day Eight and have it drop you off around the corner by the loading dock. Meet me there in an hour and twenty minutes.”

Trevor was about to hang up when Damon said, “One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“How much do you weigh?”

“One hundred seventy-two pounds, give or take.”

“Give or take how much?”

“I don’t know... three pounds, why?”

“You’re sure that’s accurate?”

“Yeah,” Trevor said, “pretty sure, why?”

“Good. You’ll find out.”

~

Being in a cab late at night on New York City streets when there was no traffic was similar to being in a speed boat race. The cab floated and bounced down the street on its under-damped shocks. The dark of night made fifty-five miles per hour feel like eighty-five. The cabbie sang along with a tape, snapping his fingers. He managed to grab the steering wheel with both hands just long enough to drift around turns before returning to his song.

Trevor looked around for his seatbelt for the third time, figuring it couldn’t hurt to check once more. All he found were a few pennies and a small, crumpled bag of sunflower seeds jammed in the crevice of the seat. It was more luck than he usually had.

When they arrived, he tipped the driver over thirty percent, glad to be on solid land again.

Another cab dropped Damon off a few minutes later. Trevor must have had an odd look on his face, because Damon explained, “Didn’t want to wake my chauffeur. Also didn’t want my car hanging around here right now.”

They went up the steps to a small door next to the cargo bay and Damon opened it with a key from his keychain.

“We trying not to be seen?” Trevor whispered.

“If we can help it,” Damon said, “because even I’m not allowed to be bringing you where we’re going.” He pulled a badge out of his pocket and handed it to Trevor. “Tonight, this is you.”