Free Silence In Numbers: File One by Jake Taylor Page B

her, knowing how much she wished she knew what would happen, where and when. He hated to admit it but he himself didn’t have much faith that they’d be able to catch the guy before more damage was done. He’d never say it out loud, but he already knew everyone else felt the same way. That was certainly what was eating Katsumi so much.
    None of them wanted a bunch more civilian deaths, and if the next attack was anything like he’d heard the last one was, it’d be bad. He’d complained at being called in, but really he had no regrets being out here. He wished he was with his family but he knew there were more families than his and he had a job to protect them if possible. After all, if his own family died…
    He shook his head, knowing that was a bad line of thought to go down. He’d go insane if he thought about that happening. Instead he backtracked, smiling to himself as he thought not of his family dying, but simply of his family:
     
    “I’m getting fat.”
    “Oh come on, you are not fat.”
    “I’m fat,” Lenora pouted, frowning.
    Reno laughed, turning to look at her. Her frown turned into a glare aimed in his direction. “Are you laughing at me?”
    “No, at what you said. That’s ridiculous. It’s like you don’t even realize you’re still more beautiful than anyone else in the world.” He shrugged. “Maybe pregnancy messes with memory, too.”
    Lenora was unable to prevent a smile, patting the seat beside her on the couch. “Okay, that was a good line.”
    Reno grinned and sat on the couch beside her, dropping his arm around her shoulders as she leaned against him. “That wasn’t a line. You know my lines. You want a line?”
    “Oh, good gracious, no.”
    “Hey baby, did they just take you out of the oven? Because you are hot.”
    Lenora groaned, resting her head on Reno’s shoulder.
    “Falling for you would be a very short trip.”
    “What does that even mean?”
    “If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put U and I together.”
    “We are together.”
    “You’re ruining my lines, dear.”
    “They were ruined before you even said them, honey.”
    Reno chuckled, kissing her head. “Fine. How about ‘I love you’?”
    Lenora smiled. “Stick with that one. I like it.”
     
    Reno snapped out of his thoughts once he saw the flashing red light telling him to check in. He hit the button to reply and then sat back with a sigh. He couldn’t wait to be back home. With a grin, he thought it might be fun to try out some new lines he’d come up with on the beautiful woman waiting for him; she’d roll her eyes and groan, but he knew she enjoyed it.
    “Head down closer to street level. Take a route between buildings starting with the Levicorp building.”
    Reno nodded at Katsumi’s new instructions, guiding the chopper lower and through the area. He looked back and suddenly straightened, noticing Katsumi’s face was hard. He could tell by the look on her face she was talking with someone, maybe someone had seen something suspicious. He put his focus fully back into flying, keeping his eyes open and following what his Captain said. If things were finally happening, there was no telling what could –
    The sudden explosion rocked the helicopter, jerking Reno violently. He fought to get it under control, taking a quick glance and noting with relief that Katsumi had managed to stay in the chopper. Several floors of the building beside them had just exploded; red lights were flashing along with a warning siren inside the aircraft, and Reno knew why; that much sudden, intensely heated air erupting right beside them was wreaking havoc and making it impossible to fly with any sort of control. As a result the chopper went into a spin and the tail slammed into a building, smashing off with sparks, flame and shredded glass and metal. They were going down and there was nothing Reno could do about it. Unlike his Captain he only had a Cyber Percentage of 5%. In other words, he was dead.
    In the wild