Controlled Descent by K. M. Herkes

Author:K. M. Herkes [Herkes, K .M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dawnrigger Publishing via Indie Author Project
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

CARL GESTURED SHARPLY, AND Kaylie sat back with a puzzled look. Alison wondered what they were watching. All she could see was Tyler sitting on the deck and gnawing on a fingernail while he drew on his screen.

The back fence wavered. Seconds later, Justin was visible, crouching barefoot and motionless less than a meter from Tyler. Carl flashed another signal to Kaylie, and she flipped a switch on the system control board. Tyler continued working in blissful ignorance. Sound hissed from the speaker beside the monitor. Fabric rustled as he shifted position.

“How did he do it?” Carl asked quietly.

“He pried off the window boards and came around the side,” Kaylie said. “But the ghost act? No idea. House systems flagged a power surge and a popped breaker, and he vaporized from the camera feed.”

Carl sat back again. “This should be interesting.”

Justin leaned forward like a sprinter about to start and shouted, “BOO!” less than a foot from Tyler’s face. The datapad flew one direction, papers went another, and Tyler’s chair went over backwards with him in it. He landed on his back with a strangled yelp and struggled up onto his elbows.

Justin got to his feet, staggering slightly, and padded a few steps forward to look down at him. “I told you if you called me a freak again that I’d make you regret it.”

Neither of them moved for several seconds. Justin glowered from above, Tyler gaped up at him in shock. Then Tyler let his head drop back, and he started laughing. Justin turned the chair upright, gathered up the scattered research materials, and sat down on the deck. The chuckles died into a quiet broken only by breathing and scraping noises as Tyler accepted his belongings from Justin and returned to his chair.

“This isn’t how it works, you know,” he said. “I’m not the comic relief, after all. I’m a rotten bully. I should run off and become your evil archenemy.”

“I already have one of those.” Justin began rubbing his leg. “I don’t need two. I need a friend who isn’t afraid to tell me when I’m an ass.”

Tyler bowed his head over the computer for several minutes before saying in a grudging voice, “Becoming an evil mastermind would be time-consuming. My schedule’s pretty full these days.”

Justin said, “Do you have time to check some numbers for me?”

Tyler’s head lifted fast, and silence spun out again, a long stretch of quiet that eventually snapped on his sigh. “Depends. Will you let me bounce my ideas off you in exchange? I promise to use small words.”

Everyone was pretending to be working by the time the door slid open, but it was an unnecessary precaution. Tyler and Justin were too busy talking math to notice anything else in the world. Once they were safely inside Justin’s room, Carl said, “Nice. Tug on the shared history, offer a treat, let him fuss, reestablish balance. That was a very nice job of ego patching.”

“Isn’t that your specialty?” Alison asked.

“Yes, but in this case, I did the damage.

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