Read Online Abyss (Songs of Megiddo) by Daniel Klieve - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Daniel Klieve
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they’d encountered might have been – Dio wasn’t entirely certain of who he would have put his money on.
“ I don’t think you’re lab-rats. I didn’t say it.” Smoke clarified, seemingly aware of where Yvonne’s thought process was headed. “What I’m saying...is that they do . And yet, here you are: eating Wright’s bullshit and drinking his Kool-Aid like it’s a fucking five-course meal.”
“Y ou’re part of this, too, y’know.” Yvonne reminded her. “You do realise that, right?” Smoke’s focus narrowed to, specifically, Yvonne. Their eyes latched, as if magnetically attracted, and the gaze held. Blistering antipathy boiled the air.
“And? I’m much, much more important than a base-level intake, just for fucking starters, so...if nothing else, I actually have a decent fucking reason to be invested, here.” Smoke paused, continuing in a calmer tone: “But, more significantly, I’m not looking at some fuck who kept me locked in a fucking bunker for a whole...fucking...year...like he’s my long-lost father. You wanna know what my problem with the two of you is, Yvonne...fucking...Kafni?” Yvonne’s entire body tensed as Smoke used – correctly – her full name: “It’s that I think you’re both deeply fucking stupid. Ally yourselves with whoever the fuck you want to, and for whatever reasons you want to...but I’m hardly gonna go out of my way to be all sugar and fucking spice, with moronic – ” and she pointedly raised her hands to form quotation marks: “ – ‘lab-rats’, who don’t even seem to want to know what experiments they’re being tapped for.” Dio had only seen the look that he now saw in Yvonne’s eyes twice before. He found both memories extremely uncomfortable to dwell on.
“You and I...” Yvonne said...slowly and quietly: her eyes one hundred percent squared on – and boring into – Smoke’s. “We’re going to need to address...some of these issues...in a more productive...context...” She hissed the final two words out from between gritted teeth: eyes narrowing to tight, vicious slits.
“Careful what you fucking wish for.” Smoke raised a challenging eyebrow, sinking back into the seat.
It was uncanny, Dio noted, the similarity between some of Smoke and Yvonne’s mannerisms. He found that he was able to read Smoke, in some ways at least, simply by applying what he knew of Yvonne to her. For example...by sinking back into her seat and placing a hand to each side of her, Dio saw that she was issuing a challenge: she was exposing weak points on her body to the possibility of attack; indicating that she saw nothing in the situation that was adequately threatening to actively defend against.
A small snar l soaked into Yvonne’s features...meaningfully embossed on the lower portion of her face, and slowly bleeding out...infusing the rest of her glowering expression and excessively tense body with its infuriated energy. She sat back in her seat, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Dio noticed that – although both women seemed to be looking out their respective windows – their eyes kept flickering back; remaining angled toward one another in such a way that neither woman, at any point, gave up their solid peripheral blueprints of every move that the other made.
§§§
The rest of the trip passed in silence. Based on the looks passing between Smoke and Yvonne, Dio expected an eruption of hostility to overtake the car’s interior at any moment. Thankfully, they arrived at what appeared to be their destination only a few minutes after the initial confrontation. He breathed a sigh of relief as the three of them disembarked.
Smoke, silently, navigated them across the road and into a seemingly innocuous corporate lobby. Dio noted the frosted ‘Manus Incorporated’ logo on the glass panes that were set into shining, angular steel of the main entranceway. The building was, as a whole, fairly small and architecturally minimalist, both inside and
“ I don’t think you’re lab-rats. I didn’t say it.” Smoke clarified, seemingly aware of where Yvonne’s thought process was headed. “What I’m saying...is that they do . And yet, here you are: eating Wright’s bullshit and drinking his Kool-Aid like it’s a fucking five-course meal.”
“Y ou’re part of this, too, y’know.” Yvonne reminded her. “You do realise that, right?” Smoke’s focus narrowed to, specifically, Yvonne. Their eyes latched, as if magnetically attracted, and the gaze held. Blistering antipathy boiled the air.
“And? I’m much, much more important than a base-level intake, just for fucking starters, so...if nothing else, I actually have a decent fucking reason to be invested, here.” Smoke paused, continuing in a calmer tone: “But, more significantly, I’m not looking at some fuck who kept me locked in a fucking bunker for a whole...fucking...year...like he’s my long-lost father. You wanna know what my problem with the two of you is, Yvonne...fucking...Kafni?” Yvonne’s entire body tensed as Smoke used – correctly – her full name: “It’s that I think you’re both deeply fucking stupid. Ally yourselves with whoever the fuck you want to, and for whatever reasons you want to...but I’m hardly gonna go out of my way to be all sugar and fucking spice, with moronic – ” and she pointedly raised her hands to form quotation marks: “ – ‘lab-rats’, who don’t even seem to want to know what experiments they’re being tapped for.” Dio had only seen the look that he now saw in Yvonne’s eyes twice before. He found both memories extremely uncomfortable to dwell on.
“You and I...” Yvonne said...slowly and quietly: her eyes one hundred percent squared on – and boring into – Smoke’s. “We’re going to need to address...some of these issues...in a more productive...context...” She hissed the final two words out from between gritted teeth: eyes narrowing to tight, vicious slits.
“Careful what you fucking wish for.” Smoke raised a challenging eyebrow, sinking back into the seat.
It was uncanny, Dio noted, the similarity between some of Smoke and Yvonne’s mannerisms. He found that he was able to read Smoke, in some ways at least, simply by applying what he knew of Yvonne to her. For example...by sinking back into her seat and placing a hand to each side of her, Dio saw that she was issuing a challenge: she was exposing weak points on her body to the possibility of attack; indicating that she saw nothing in the situation that was adequately threatening to actively defend against.
A small snar l soaked into Yvonne’s features...meaningfully embossed on the lower portion of her face, and slowly bleeding out...infusing the rest of her glowering expression and excessively tense body with its infuriated energy. She sat back in her seat, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Dio noticed that – although both women seemed to be looking out their respective windows – their eyes kept flickering back; remaining angled toward one another in such a way that neither woman, at any point, gave up their solid peripheral blueprints of every move that the other made.
§§§
The rest of the trip passed in silence. Based on the looks passing between Smoke and Yvonne, Dio expected an eruption of hostility to overtake the car’s interior at any moment. Thankfully, they arrived at what appeared to be their destination only a few minutes after the initial confrontation. He breathed a sigh of relief as the three of them disembarked.
Smoke, silently, navigated them across the road and into a seemingly innocuous corporate lobby. Dio noted the frosted ‘Manus Incorporated’ logo on the glass panes that were set into shining, angular steel of the main entranceway. The building was, as a whole, fairly small and architecturally minimalist, both inside and
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