Free (Wrath-09)-Spiders From The Shadows (2013) by Chris Stewart Page A

it’s time to eat!”
    The group of dark men smiled weakly at his humor, but their pleasantness was forced and unnatural, their lips tight beneath their smiles.
    The old man turned to Davies and waited, then decided to tell him the entire truth. It wouldn’t matter. They were going to kill him anyway. No harm if one man knew. “The ropes that bind us are thin and gentle as a woman’s hand,” he explained. “But together they are more powerful than anything known to man. The oaths come by degrees, of course, line upon line, a single step and then another, each coming in its time. For some men, it can take a lifetime.” He stopped and glanced at Fuentes, flashing a knowing smile at him. “For others a few short days. The first step is fairly innocent: We need for this to happen. Let us agree upon this plan.
    “Then, when the first obstacle comes up, which it will because our master will place it for us, we justify the next principle of our oaths. It is@ swlyal beautiful and simple and something you’ve heard before: ‘ Better for one man to die than for our plans to fail. ’
    “The next oath is based primarily on an argument of practicality. But humans are so very practical in their nature, and that can be a useful thing. ‘ We’ve come this far. Much too difficult to turn back now. Come on, brother, let’s see this through. ’
    “The next step is where we finally acknowledge the motivations that really drive us: ‘ I’ll kill them if you provide a good enough reward. ’ Everything that happens after that comes down to greed, lust, jealousy, pride, and power.
    “Then comes the final oath that binds us: ‘ I’ll never lift a hand toward a brother. I’ll die to protect our cause. I’ll never desert the brotherhood. If I do, then you must kill me, my family, and my children. You must take everything I have ever loved or worked for. If I betray you, you take it all. The oath is the only thing that matters, and I seal my pledge in blood. ’”
    The old man smiled, his crooked teeth yellow with age. “Do you understand what you’re up against? The oaths we have taken are more powerful than the Earth. More eternal than the stars. Do you see that you can’t defeat us? We’re totally committed to this cause. You have no hope. You have no power. There is nothing you can do. Yes, Brucius may be alive now, but believe me, he won’t be for very long. It will hardly matter how we do it; we will kill him in the end. Then we’ll move on, forgetting both of you, never speaking your names again.”
    The old man stopped and cleared a wad of dry phlegm from his throat, spitting into a frayed handkerchief before he sneered, “Now, tell us, Mr. Director: Why exactly are you here?”

ELEVEN
    Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania
    It was a simple device: small, easy to use, accurate, and lethally intrusive. Developed for. One step. Two steps. llShe really didn’t know. critical and time-sensitive interrogations on the battlefield, the device was no more complicated to operate than a cell phone. Slip the sensors on. Ask some questions. Wait for the light. Red light, the subject was lying; yellow, the computer didn’t know; green, the subject was telling the truth.
    Accurate to something more than ninety-two percent, the computer was no larger than a deck of cards with a couple of wires attached, two electrodes that measured the subject’s stress through changes in electrical conductivity under the skin, a third that evaluated cardiovascular activity through a pulse oximeter on the fingertip, and a clip on a fold of the skin under the elbow that measured blood pressure. The military called it the Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System (“PCASS”), and though the early versions had been troublesome, the algorithms coming under constant stress and tweaking, the latest models were as accurate as any polygraph ever made. Initially envisioned as a combat triage device to