Free Weaponized by Nicholas Mennuti, David Guggenheim

clearly disappointed.
    Robinson watches her ass in retreat, a perfect heart shape. “Fuck…I wish I was Eric. What a magnificent creature. God. Ever fuck a tall woman from behind?”
    Kyle’s taken aback. “No.”
    “Ahh…I mean, you look down and you just think, Fuck…I’ve really been somewhere…accomplished something. Dealing with the legs alone…like landing an airplane on water.”
    “I think she really liked Eric,” Kyle says. “She seemed so sad.”
    “You should do something about that. No reason for someone like that to be sad.”
    “Nah,” Kyle says. “I’m out of practice.”
    “And I am out of time.” Robinson looks at his Patek. “I’ve got to make a conference call to work. Day’s just starting there.”
    “I’ll come back with you.”
    “Nonsense. You’ve got half your drink.” He motions toward Deanna. “And new friends to make.”
    “She’s not going to give me her number.”
    Robinson smiles. “No, she isn’t …she’s not going to at all.”
    Kyle laughs, stares into his glass. A little drunk and full of self-deprecation.
    “I’d wish you luck tomorrow, but that’d mean I think something might go wrong,” Robinson says.
    “Same here.”
    Robinson dips into his pocket, removes his wallet, and hands Kyle his American Express card. “Don’t forget this. You need it to get your ticket tomorrow.”
    “Right,” Kyle says. “Thanks.”
    “Pleasure meeting you.”
    “You too.”
    “Really. I wish we had more time.”
    “Funny thing about meeting new people…” Kyle begins, then stops himself.
    “What?”
    “Nah…I’m drunk and you’ve gotta go.”
    “No. I want to hear.”
    Kyle may be drunk, but he’s still touched. “Really?”
    “I do.”
    “It’s like this. When you’re younger, you think, There’s so many interesting people I still have to meet, so many connections out there for me. And then at some point, it just stops. You know everyone you’re going to know. And you didn’t even think you were that old yet.”
    “Worst thing about getting old, you forget about one word— possibility . And it changes your whole life.”
    “Yeah.”
    Robinson stands, pushes in his chair. “I’ll see you on the other side.” He puts his hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “You take care.”

21.
    K yle stands by his bed and contemplates Robinson’s passport. Pages worn down from frequent flipping and the whole thing thick with official stamps.
    Kyle thumbs through, charts Robinson’s globe-hopping. Germany. Dozens of African countries. The UAE. Most of Asia, with a lot of time in China. Eastern Europe. Month in Croatia. A world traveler with the miles to prove it.
    Kyle opens up the fridge, pops the tab on an Angkor beer, and drinks. The cold feels good against the lining of his mouth scorched by scotch.
    He stares at his graphite-colored laptop sitting on the desk. No way he can take it with him. If anything should happen, the computer would only make things worse. But he pulls the flash drive out of the USB port and puts it in his pocket.
    He imagines what Neil would say about Robinson’s plan. Neil, his nagging moral compass, would tell him that he’s making the wrong move, that he should go home and clear his name, that sacrificing someone like Kuo, no matter how corrupt, drags him down closer to Chandler’s level.
    Kyle would counter: But what about all the risk involved on my end? How is this the easy play? I could be killed.
    Neil would answer: Sure. There’s great physical risk, but fucking over Kuo doesn’t clear your name. It gets you even farther away from who you are. Swapping identities with someone so you can pick up info to blackmail Kuo isn’t the way a victim would act. It’s the way a guilty man or a man too weak to fight would act, and I would never want to see you as either one.
    Yeah, Kyle would argue, but getting the info on Kuo keeps me from being arrested and having to testify.
    Kyle can already hear Neil shutting him down with one