The Bridge Chronicles Trilogy Read Free

like some ravenous beast, never satisfied with tiny nibbles at their relationship. The same arguments, the same justifications, the same insults, they always returned, each time with more anger, more venom and more hurtful words that couldn’t be taken back. Angela had resented his choices, had resented his leaving behind the hacking life. Though she had been in charge of the illegal information brokering business, as their relationship had grown closer, he had taken a good deal of the responsibility from her shoulders, and he was a fantastic organizer. His absence had hurt her professionally, but she took it personally, as if he had repudiated her entirely.
    At her best, Angela was not a social person, at least not in the flesh. She was not the most attractive person. Her gangly arms, small breasts and crooked teeth hardly matched the accepted version of good-looking. Bridge knew her self-image was terrible, but when she tried, she was much prettier than she believed herself to be. The fact that Bridge had been able to shift from the virtual to the meat world with very little adjustment must have stirred a jealousy she didn’t even want to acknowledge.
    Bridge had earned the nickname the Amoral Bridge by being exactly that. He didn’t care what his clients wanted him to find, what depravity they requested, what immoral acts they wished to perform. The client wanted it and he got it, no questions asked. His only request was that whatever illegal service or product got exchanged never touch him. All he did was connect the buyer with the seller. That couldn’t be illegal, or at least not illegal enough to get him much heat. That amorality was another sticking point with Angela, despite her chosen profession.
    “How do you help these shitheels do these things without throwing up? Don’t they disgust you?”
    Bridge exploded. He’d heard it all so many times by now that he was sick to the death of it all. “They all disgust me, every fucking one of them! All of them! EVERYBODY! You think I go out of my way to find these people, that I have to look hard for clients? Shit. I have to turn people away some days, not because I give two flying fucks what tog fucks they want, but because I just don’t have the time. You think there’s normal people out there that don’t want nasty shit like virtual videos of their friends getting tortured, or hired killers, or kidnappers, or date rape drugs but there ain’t. Everybody wants to do something nasty and vile to somebody else. Everybody! They’re all fucking shitheels with disgusting, immoral, vicious desires buried in their tiny, miserable souls just waiting for an excuse to get out. The sooner it gets out and they all burn themselves up in a fiery orgy of self-destructive gluttony, the happier I’ll be. Humanity as a whole is a miserable gaggle of self-pleasuring apes ready to crack you over the head and steal your fucking bananas.”
    Having found the number, he felt trapped, closed into a slowly shrinking box that was their apartment. The air was stuffy and smelled of rotten food. He needed to get out, needed space and air. He couldn’t take it anymore. He would head down to the club and call Cramer. He would set the whole thing up and be done with these bastards.
    “That’s it, I’m done. Fuck you, Bridge. If you do this, I’m done.” Her words echoed through the hallway as he shuffled quickly towards the door.
    “Then I guess you’re fucking done,” he said as the slammed the door.
     
     
     
    *****
     
     
    “And you’re sure this guy is solid?” Archer whined. His rat-faced grin, so smug and self-assured gave Bridge the urge to plant a quick jab right on the guy’s pointy nose, an urge he fought down with some difficulty.
    “Doc Cramer is a hundred percenter,” Bridge replied with no hint of malice in his voice. “Whatever he sells you will be the mad notes.”
    “It better be,” Pearson threatened, “or we will bury you.”
    “You know, I got plenty