Crimson Rain Read Free Page A

hundreds of web pages, and about a thousand pictures of them performing. However, he was no closer to understanding why Zarfa would possibly want the modifications.
    Was he really nothing more than an emotionally scarred and angst - ridden fan of some trendy band ? Was he beaten up so badly on the street one day that he became another kid who liked crazy screamer metal and deep techno beats? Max refused these conclusions.
    Maybe the answer was in the nanobots, he thought to himself as he twisted his hair in his finger with his right hand, leaning on the desk. He searched and he searched, reading every specification, every design, every review, and all kinds of medical data on the bots. He knew more now than he ever had, but still, it wasn ’ t adding up.
    The unaltered average human could hear in frequencies ranging from twelve hertz or cycles up to twenty thousand. The bots, other than the high death rate due to complication, were rather pointless and benign. All they did was increase human hearing on the low end of the scale, or bass, to hear frequencies as low as one hertz. It also increased the high end of the hearing range to be able to include frequencies between ninety thousand hertz and one hundred twenty thousand hertz.
    The bots left out all tones between twenty thousand and ninety thousand. The reason for this was because the tones in between were everywhere. Microwaves, plasma field generators, hovercraft, plasma energy lines, even light bulbs produced noise frequencies between twenty and ninety thousand hertz, but dropped off significantly at th e higher levels.
    But why would someone want to hear such high frequencies, or such low ones , for that matter, as well? It didn ’ t make sense; something still didn ’ t add up. Max knew there was a much larger picture and he was missing it. Zarfa ’ s remark wasn ’ t made as an insult against a musically challenged older man; it was to keep him out of something… Something that he wanted to know about.
    “ Ugh, I ’ ve wasted so much time, ” he muttered.
    The flow of information began to make his head hurt. He had already reached the limits of what a human brain could take in. Frustrated, he leaned back in his chair and finished drinking his cold cup of coffee that tasted more like battery acid than coffee.
    Business was slow today. Sure, he had made more money today than in the last month with the one Psyker treatment, but he was getting bored. He usually saw several legitimately sick patients in his area of town , along with the few stimulant freaks and boost users, but they ’ d begun to avoid his office with the reputation he had for the way he dealt with them. He sat there in his chair, zoning out with a mouthful of cold, rank coffee , and let his mind wander.
    He didn ’ t know how much time had elapsed in his daydream before he heard his door slam open. He jumped up, spitting out the coffee all over his desk and floor. The woman who had abruptly burst into his office like she was breaking in startled him in his dazed state.
    She was tall, about five-foot, ten inches, and slender. She was wearing a very tight plasti-poly black and pink jumpsuit. Her eyes were striking and almost catlike; she had a dark line of black around her iris, the core of her iris was a deep blue color, and the trim of her iris around the pupil was a bright yellow. Her hair was a striking red color that contrasted beautifully with her pale, almost porcelain skin.
    She wasn ’ t old, but she wasn ’ t young either. She was roughly thirty-five, and her face spoke of experience…life experience, things that would wear a weaker person out. She had deep worry lines at the top of her nose by her eyebrows that told of a lot of heartache and pain. She was, however, beautiful beyond a doubt, a real woman, not a little girl.
    “ Tell me, doctor, what do you know of the Psyker treatments? ” she questioned with a sheepish grin. Her canine teeth were slightly longer and more pointed