Free Silhouette by Dave Swavely Page A

Apparently, he was still working on whether or not he should tell me.
    â€œYou remember that I told you I was going to talk with the old man,” he finally said. I nodded. “Well, I’ve had some suspicions since … last night really. So I tested them today when I was talking to him about you and D.…” He rubbed his eyes some more, looking simultaneously angry, despondent, and desperate. “And I can’t believe it  … but they’ve proven to be true.”
    â€œPaul,” I said sympathetically, leaning forward. “Tell me what it is.”
    After a moment, he seemed to gather enough moral courage, and looked up at me.
    â€œI know who killed your daughter,” he said.
    I jerked back, upright again, staring into his anguished eyes.
    â€œWho?” I asked, barely a whisper.
    He put his face back down in his hands, and said, “You did.”

 
    7
    My initial response to Paul’s revelation had two very odd qualities. The first was that I immediately found myself looking around the large room, which I suppose was the result of a subconscious prompting to make sure I was really there, or that no one was watching. The high walls and ceiling were designed to hide the holo equipment in them, and the wide, flat floor was filled with rows of deluxe chairs like the one I was sitting in, capable of tilting and rotating in any direction desired by its occupant.
    The other peculiarity of my nascent reaction to Paul’s words was that I somehow had a feeling, in defiance of all plausibility, that they were true. This feeling was short-lived, though, because just moments later I began to wonder how they possibly could be. Paul obviously wasn’t joking, however—I saw that in his eyes. And I had never seen him exhibit any signs of encroaching insanity. So I just looked at him, numbly waiting for him to explain.
    â€œLet me start—” he said, then hesitated, digging down deep for courage again. “Let me start from the beginning.” He hesitated again. “Look, Michael. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know if I should be telling you this—that’s why you had to come out here, away from the walls with ears. But you’re my friend, and he’s gone way too far this time.” I wondered who “he” was, but just continued watching him as he talked with his head down, trying to convince himself. “Some things are just … over the line. I’ve seen too many of them, and I can’t look the other way anymore.” He pulled a handkerchief out and wiped the sweat off his brow.
    â€œYears ago, my father ,” he said those words with tight lips, “launched a black op called Mind Lift, meaning stealing your mind or maybe improving it, or both, I don’t know. The initial research and development was being done in the second lab at the cathedral—the one that’s underground. The original idea was to send criminals back out into the streets, so that we could observe through them, and even use them for arrests when the time came. But soon the old man started talking about doing it to peacers. I wasn’t for it, of course, so it was pulled from that lab. But I knew it had been transplanted somewhere else, because there was no way he was gonna just give up that kind of brainpower, not to mention all the time and money that’d already gone into it.”
    â€œPaul,” I interrupted. “I’m not following you.”
    â€œWhat part?”
    â€œWhat were they developing?”
    â€œImplants, chips. For wireless neural interface.” He pointed to the back of his head. “Jackless two-way communication with the carrier’s brain. One way, to see and hear through him; the other way, to control him.” He was now pointing at the front of his head and away from it, alternately.
    â€œControl him?”
    He nodded. “You’ve heard of this,