Pacific Station Vigilante (Book 1): The Negative Man (City of Chaos) Read Free

was too tempting to put off.  I opened the attachment and began reading what the Mass Spec came up with.  Genetics weren’t my area of specialty, but I knew a bit more than DL did.  Plus whatever I didn’t understand, I’d just use the Internet to figure out.
    I must’ve lost track of time because I heard a knock on my door.  It was always open, but I think people were leery of me.  You know, that creepy IT guy stereotype.  Looking up, Heather Adams was back.  She had a few files in her hands too.  “Are you busy?”
    I motioned for her to come in and take a seat.  “Yeah, John has me going over some schematics, but what’d you got there?”  I pointed at the files.
    “Phil Jenkins gave these files to me to review.”  Heather was our legal editor by the way.  “I have some concerns, but before I go to Mr. Wonderton, I wanted to run them by you.”
    She handed me the files and gave me a few moments to look over them.  “These are prototypes for the next gen of cell phones.  What’s got you bothered about ‘em?”
    She pulled her phone out.  I recognized it right away as the Mercury Five by gl-O-bal Labs.  gl-O-bal’s owned and operated by Owen Walker, a true genius.  John Wonderton’s a smart guy, don’t get me wrong, but he’s more the shrewd and merciless business man type.  Owen is one of those truly special men that come up with every design by himself.
    She handed me the phone.  “Look closely at the Mercury Five and the design Jenkins is proposing.”
    As soon as Heather pointed it out, the similarities were uncanny.  I won’t bore you with details, but suffice to say Jenkins wasn’t coming up with his own work.  “John’s going to be pissed.”
    “Yes he is.  He wants to beat gl-O-bal, but not like this.”
    I slid the phone back to her.  “Obviously we need to tell him, but I’m guessing you don’t want to be present when I do?”
    She gave me that award winning smile.  “He won’t bite your head off.”
    “True.”  I sat there for a minute, letting her sweat it out a bit before answering.  “I’ll take it to him, but you owe me in the future.”
    Heather winked before getting up.  “I’m always good to pay back my debts.”
    I’m sure she was and as she walked out, I’m not going to lie – I totally watched her ass sway back and forth until she reached the elevator.  She turned around and caught me, but seemed to enjoy that.  Add in a small wave as the elevator closed, I could almost hear Mike’s head explode.
    I turned my attention back to the report on my screen.  It confirmed what we figured out last night during the confrontation, Diamonds was immune to feeling pain.  Not exactly a very useful super power, but he also called himself the diversion.  That would make sense, use your weakest link to do so, knowing the chance of survival might not be that great.
    Bad Jericho. Don’t try to dissect their plans.  This was DL’s problem not mine.  My problem was going to be fixing Jenkins’ shitty work and get him to create something better.  I looked down in disdain at the knock off prototype drawing when I noticed something very peculiar.  On the display was a drawn up game of solitaire.  I knew Jenkins was weird, but this was a bit over the top.
    I narrowed my eyes and looked even closer.  The only card that was actually legible was the Ace of Clubs.  Annoyed, I doubted that was a coincidence.

Chapter 3 –
Thursday Midmorning; John Wonderton’s Office
     
    I tossed the files on DL’s desk.  “Jenkins is copying gl-O-bal’s tech.  Heather from Legal figured it out.  This prototype looks just like her Mercury Five phone.”
    John Wonderton, aka The Dark Lion, was a big man.  Easily six foot five with a linebacker’s frame, the middle aged man looked at the papers and sighed.  “Well then I guess I’ll just have to fire him.  Is that what you want?”
    “Actually no, look at the prototype closer.”
    He squinted and held the