Untethered Magic by Steve Higgs

Author:Steve Higgs [Higgs, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

Locked Up

I awoke to find myself in a cell. It had solid-looking walls, floor, and ceiling, and a glass front through which I could see a blank brick wall painted white. I was on a bed with a cover over me and a thin mattress between me and the wooden slab that formed the bed. I sat up, doing so carefully in case I was wobbly, but finding that I felt fine. The Taser’s electrodes had hit the meaty part of my right thigh, the obvious aiming point since most of me was covered in clothing several layers thick. My footwear had been removed along with most of my clothing, leaving me in my trousers and shirt. I wasn’t cold thankfully, but when I placed my right foot on the floor experimentally, the floor sure was.

I could feel a bruise on my thigh where the tiny electrodes had entered my skin to discharge their voltage. It was insignificant as a wound but bore significance beyond that because it meant Herr Schmidt and his entire operation were not what they said they were. I was supposed to be finding Katja Weber and now Heike Dressler. Instead, I was trapped in a cell.

‘Hey,’ I called to see if there was anyone listening. I waited and tried again. ‘Hey.’

‘Don’t bother, man. They’ll come when they want to.’ The voice came from my left. I crossed to the front of the cell so I could push my face against the thick clear Perspex. Doing so revealed nothing of interest; all I could see was the wall stretching out in both directions.

‘Hey, do you know where we are?’ I called out, but I got no reply. ‘Hey, man. Come on; I just got tasered in a street in Bremen. I woke up here. Can you tell me anything?’

There was a gap of a few seconds before the man finally answered. ‘It doesn’t matter where you are. You are guilty, and they are going to lock you up and throw away the key. You might as well come to terms with it.’

‘Whoa! Guilty of what? I haven’t done anything.’

The sound of the man chuckling echoed back through the cells. ‘Then I expect they will be right along to let you out any moment now.’

I tried a different approach. ‘My name’s Otto. Otto Schneider. I’m a licenced detective in Bremen. How about you?’

Again, I got a long silence before he answered. ‘It don’t matter, man.’ His voice was a rumbling bass, far deeper than average and like the wizard, he sounded as if German wasn’t his first language.

‘Where are you from?’

‘That don’t matter either.’

‘What does matter?’

Again the long silence before he answered and a groaning noise as if he was turning over on his bed and couldn’t get comfortable. ‘What matters, the man asks?’ he paused before answering. ‘I got caught.’

‘What did you do?’

This time I got nothing but silence, and no matter what tactic I tried, he wouldn’t start speaking again. In the end, I gave up.

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.