Gauntlet: The Sommerfeld Experiment #2 by Al Davidson

Author:Al Davidson [Davidson, Al]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Destiny Engine
Published: 2022-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

18 – Isabel’s Story

Three inches of bulletproof and blastproof reinforced plastiglass covered an entire wall of the Mountain Master’s Alcatraz penthouse, providing an unobstructed view of New Town and the inner San Francisco Bay.

The living room was a study in luxurious masculinity, starkly decorated in creams, blacks, and grays, with cream-colored rugs strewn over swirled back and white marble floors. Modern furniture in chrome and gray and black leather was grouped to take advantage of the million-dollar view. Abstract paintings of splashed red looked like blood spatters on the walls, adding the only dash of color. Joshua had never found Peter’s penthouse comfortable. He felt like a kid, his entire body the crayon creating a smudge mark on the elegant, spartan perfection around him.

While Peter spoke quietly with Tyler, Joshua jammed his hands in his pants pockets and watched a distant parade of flashing, rainbow-colored ads float over New Town. The skylanes crisscrossed like loose woven threads against a gray sky. From this angle, he couldn’t see Old Town.

“Joshua, please join me.” Peter pulled Joshua’s attention away from the view out the window. He stood near a door-sized, red-splatter painting that moved aside to expose a hidden office. He held out a hand to the comfortable leather chairs.

Unlike the stark, modernistic living area, the mahogany wood-paneled office smelled of orange oil and leather. Old hardbound books and small bronze sculptures lined built-in bookcases framing a rosewood desk.

Joshua settled into the leather chair, and the disguised door closed behind him. He hadn’t known this office existed.

“Holoplayer,” Peter said. A thin panel on the corner of the desk slid back, and a holoarray cube rose out of a hidden compartment, one of the new styles that projected images so lifelike it was compared to the Virtual.

“After I began seeing your mother, she told me about you, and later, when she moved here, she asked me to take you in.” Peter hitched a hip on the corner of the desk and laced his hands in his lap. Joshua tried to read the man’s microexpressions, but again Peter was impossible to read. “I had you investigated, and although I loved your mother, I told her no.”

Joshua leaned back and propped his forearms on the armrests, his hands around the ornate chair decorations as he fought down the urge to leave. He considered Tyler a friend, but the big enforcer wouldn’t think twice about dragging him back in. And Joshua didn’t want to fight Tyler.

“I think I was about sixteen then,” Joshua finally said. “You made a smart decision.”

At sixteen, Joshua hadn’t been in a good place. He was a casual drug user and had started running full-time with the Epitaphs. Dire, the former Epitaph leader who had recently died in prison by lethal injection, had him shaking down businesses for protection money, and Joshua began enjoying a reputation as a hair-trigger enforcer. Looking back, he felt ashamed at what he had done to business owners trying to scrape together a living in Old Town. After he took over leadership of the Epitaphs, he’d had to work at rebuilding trust.

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