American Mutant Read Free Page B

members of the gang who wiped out his family. They died screaming for the privilege of dying.”
    “Will you authorize my study or not?”
    “Do I have a choice?”
    “We all have choices Sir. I had hoped to work with you on this. You know Connor better than anyone.”
    “No one knows Connor, and I dare say no one will. I will introduce you to him whenever he decides to return. In the meantime, please reconsider your position on this Doctor.”
    “Mr. Connor can be controlled.”
    Quenton sighed as he watched house-cleaning mop up the blood from the floor below. “Someone will be controlled Karen, but it will never be Thomas Connor.”
    The gang members looked up as they saw Rack walk into the warehouse. They had grabbed up weapons as the door opened, and were training them on the man they thought was their fellow member. Rack closed the door behind him and turned to face the rest of the gang. A black man, with corn-row hair style, standing nearly as tall as Rack, approached him with a 9mm handgun held in a sideways aiming position. He was more slender than Rack had been, but every muscle rippled as he walked.
    “We heard you was toast Rack. Now you walkin’ in here like nothin’ went down at all. Makes me think you been sharin’ our business.”
    Connor pushed the button on a small transmitter he carried and a small explosive blew up the power box on the side of the building. The warehouse lighting went out, bringing darkness and silence for a moment. Connor brought down the man in front of him before he could even move the handgun. Connor took it off of him and fired into the warehouse indiscriminately. He had already rendered its owner unconscious. In the midst of the wild crossfire he created with the shots he had fired, Connor wove a pattern of death in the darkness until the silence returned. He killed without mercy, and without thought to anything other than the efficiency of his actions. Connor returned to the man he had knocked out, and picked him up as an adult would lift a small baby. He carried him out of the warehouse, over his shoulder, past the dead guards. Eighteen men lie dead in and out of the building.
    Connor whistled as he drove back to the agency building in the Washington DC traffic. His prisoner awoke next to him. The lights of the city’s capitol cast a bright glow over the nighttime travelers. Devon Lewis led the gang, Connor had executed, for the last two years. His hands were duct taped together behind him. His feet were taped together at the ankles and knees. Devon turned his head, and looked at the suited figure whistling next to him. He started to struggle, only to feel a sharp blow just under his ribcage, which caused him to struggle for the next few minutes just to breathe.
    “Do not move Devon. I did not want to have to tape your mouth too, because I thought we might speak a bit on the way over to my house.”
    “Who the fuck are you? What happened to Rack?” Devon gasped.
    “He’s dead, and so are all your little friends. I want you to tell me who runs the slave ring you sell the kidnapped girls to. Rack only knew your name to be the next step up.”
    Sweat ran down Devon’s face and he smelled of fear. He had not even seen the man move when he was hit. If this man had made Rack give him up, and killed his whole crew, Devon knew the police had nothing to do with this. Devon incorporated a cunning intelligence in running his gang, and that same intelligence now told him he did not have long to live.
    “We can make a deal man.”
    Connor sighed. “No deals Devon. I do not plan to insult your intelligence by promising you things, which you will not live to enjoy. The best I can do would be a quick death, after I know you have told me everything you know. Would you like the easy way or the hard way?”
    Devon remained quiet as he considered his plight. He knew when to keep silent. No bluster or threat or promise would matter to this man. “How long can I live.”
    “Not long,