Surviving Cyril by Ramsey Hootman

Author:Ramsey Hootman [Hootman, Ramsey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780998807010
Publisher: Ramsey Hootman

It wasn’t personal, she knew that: he was powerless and on the defensive and so everyone was his foe. Still, she was so blinded by rage it took two passes through the lot to find her truck. Mostly she was angry at herself, for expecting Cyril to be any kind of reasonable. When she swung around the traffic circle, she saw him shuffling down the sidewalk, his raggedy bathrobe flapping in the icy February wind.

It was tempting to stomp on the accelerator and plow through the muddy water pooled by the curb, but she needed answers. Instead she hit the brake, slowing to a crawl, and cranked the window open. “Planning on walking all the way back to town?”

He gave her an emphatic middle finger.

She waited. He made it another ten or twelve yards before he stopped. He didn’t turn around.

The curb was red and there were certainly plenty of patrol vehicles in the vicinity, but there was enough room for other cars to get by. Robin cranked the wheel to the left and pulled up beside him. “Get in the damn car.”

He reeked of sweat, cigarettes, and stale beer. Robin left her window down and turned on the heater full blast. When she merged onto the freeway, the wind in her face was worse than the stench, so she reached down and cranked the glass back up. Then, because she was tired of not looking to her right, she glanced at him.

“Oh my God.” The left elbow of his robe had been torn open, revealing a mess of dirt and dried blood. “What happened?”

“I fell.”

“What, like, when they arrested you?”

His silence was affirmation and… something else. As if it weren’t quite as simple as all that. Had the cops been rough with him? Had he forced them to be rough, by resisting?

“They said you were trying to destroy evidence.”

“Me?” He snorted, as if it wasn’t even worth his time to refute such a blatant falsehood. “Oh, the irony.”

Now Robin was completely lost. Not that she’d ever had a clue. “What’s going on, Cyril? What did you do?”

“I pushed the red button.”

She was so done with his cryptic bullshit. “What does that even mean?”

“I literally” –he lifted a thumb and jammed it into his palm—“pushed the button.”

“You mean that stupid nuclear launch thing? That actually did something?” Or did the cops just freak out because that’s what it looked like?

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, actually, I do.”

“Legally.” He cleared his sinuses noisily, rolled down his window, and spat. “It’s better if you don’t know.”

“Oh. Great.” Absolutely wonderful. “Look, can you just give me a general category here? Is this connected to what Tavis was doing? Or is this your Anonymous hacking crap? Or is this about Cooke?”

His head swiveled to look at her. “Cooke?”

“He said he had to fire you.”

“Oh.” Cyril turned back to the windshield. “Yeah. That. Plus the Anonymous stuff.”

She wanted to pull over and strangle him with her bare hands. “So… this doesn’t have anything to do with Tavis?”

“Nah.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.