Read Online Identity X by Michelle Muckley - Free Book Online Page A

indulgent day of truancy from
school.  He received a new Pac Man handheld arcade game, and he played with it
for two hours solid, riding the sugar induced high until the shop installed
batteries gave up and his father complained that the shop owner had ripped them
off.  The disappointment was short lived as his father distracted him by
wrapping a blindfold around his eyes, and led him outside.  Without the benefit
of sight, he held his parents hands as they guided him out towards the front
garden.  He could smell the overpowering bouquet of summer flowers filling the
air and the overtone of Honeysuckle that grew in an arch over the front door
and that when it was warm always made him feel nauseous.  He placed his feet
carefully, treading with caution as he felt the movement of loose tarmac
pebbles under his feet.  As they peeled back the blindfold he saw standing
before him the most wonderful red Spitfire bicycle, with ribbons dangling from
its curved handlebars.  There were no words exchanged in that moment, and
anything that his parents said to mark the occasion was lost in the haze of
excitement.  Ben walked towards the bicycle and sat down on the saddle,
wrapping his hands around the hard rubber handles, getting a feel for them.  They
were perfect.  He had learnt how to ride on his cousin’s bike, and he knew that
he would know how.  With only the briefest of wobbles he was through the gate
and making headway towards the centre of the village, peddling harder and
faster than his parent’s words of caution could carry on the wind behind him. 
At that point in his life, he had never been happier.  That night, when he had
finally returned home after covering more than ten miles of pavement and the
odd field crossing, with bruises on his behind and red chaffed palms, he had
sat in the bath with his father at his side listening as he told him what a
wonderful day he had had, and how not one of his fellow classmates had a
bicycle as wonderful as this.  It was only after Ben had begun to smell the
same odour as when his mother cleaned the toilets that his eyes began to
sting.  His screams brought his mother running into the bathroom to find his
skin reddened and hair lightened from the bleach that his father had carelessly
used to wash his hair.  It was Ben’s first memory of his father’s demise.  It
was the first step in Ben’s journey to the empty floor where he sat today,
where only last night he had celebrated NEMREC’s success and how it would
change the course of medicine, and prevent the besmirching of any other child’s
happy memories.
    He
reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out the contents: the
seemingly useless identity card, a few coins that would just about make up
enough to buy one of those pastrami sandwiches, and his telephone.  He flicked
open the screen and scrolled through the menu to find Hannah’s name.  He hit
the button with the green telephone symbol and waited, staring absently into
the space before him.  No answer.  He dropped the telephone carelessly onto the
floor, and threw his head backwards against the wall.
    “I
can’t believe it,” he whispered to himself airily.  He racked his brain, trying
to recall every face that had passed through the lab in the last few months.  
He knew who was responsible for this, but he couldn’t understand their idiocy. 
“Another day!  Another day and I would have called you!”  He had two weeks of
funding left, and had planned at the end of today to report to Bionics and tell
them that it had worked.  Instead, they hadn’t waited and had simply closed him
down.  Had they bought out the staff?  Did they lose confidence in me?  The
whole thing has been shut down and relocated without me?  Thoughts of them
relocating the lab overnight were virtually impossible to comprehend, and too
painful.  Had one of his team been some sort of an informant?  They knew we
had done it?  They cut the funding the......wait,