Smoke Screen (2003) by Mills Kyle

Author:Mills, Kyle [Mills, Kyle]
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-26T00:42:26.108000+00:00

We continued forward in fits and starts, listening to the angry, unintelligible yelling that had replaced the dopey rhymes I'd become used to. The signs bristling from the crowd were surprisingly well designed and professionally executed considering the short notice, suggesting to me the involvement of Terra's marketing department.

It took about two more minutes for us to make contact with the protestors and I mean this literally. We had to use the car's bumper to gently push them out of the way as we continued forward. I lay down in the backseat, covering my face and hoping that no one would recognize me. Obviously, my fear wasn't completely imagined because a moment later the car's locks clicked down.

I tensed when I heard a knocking on the window, and I uncovered my face enough to see what was going on. A cop was standing at the driver's window and Blonde held up a Terra employee badge for a moment before we were waved on. It seemed like an hour before the sun filling the car faded to dim fluorescent light. I sat up and gratefully took in the relative silence and stillness of the parking garage.

Blonde pulled the vehicle to within a few feet of the elevator, and the locks went up again. "You have our cell number, right, Trevor?"

I nodded.

"Call us when you're about an hour from being ready to go home. Don't try to walk out of here on foot or accept a ride from one of your co-workers, all right? And from now on, you'll be eating in the executive dining room only don't go out and pick something up and don't order anything in."

I didn't ask about the takeout thing. The implication seemed to be that someone might want to poison me. He was just being thorough, though, right? He didn't really think anyone would ... "Seems like things are starting to go our way down there."

I'd gone directly into Paul Trainer's office, as directed. He was standing on his desk looking down at the crowded sidewalks below. It was the first time I'd ever seen him not wearing a jacket, and his white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar with no tie. Battle dress.

"Passion!" he shouted, not looking at me. "People have been wondering what the meaning of it all is ever since our pathetic species could put together a rational thought..."

"The meaning of what?"

"Life," he said emphatically. "Why we were put here."

He spun around on his desktop and stood there like he was onstage. "The older I get the more I think that it's passion, plain and simple. We were put here on earth to feel alive. That's all."

I moved forward a few feet, and he looked down on me as he had on the protestors. "What do you feel, Trevor?"

I wasn't sure. But whatever it was, it felt wrong as though someone else's emotions had invaded my body and my system was having a hard time fighting them off.

"Like a quarter of the population wants me dead," I said, finally.

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