Excited Delirium Book: Chapter 34 (Kite’s Team Regroups)
Author’s Note: The following is Chapter 34 of the my online book “Excited Delirium”. Please post comments. Please tell your friends about this story. If you’ve missed a chapter, please click here for Chapter 1 (Prelude) or here for the full index.
“You guys have got to listen to this …” Kite said excitedly as he piled into the small hotel room that was tucked in behind Time Square.
Chaos and Hummus were kicking back, playing HalfLife on their video player, drinking a few beers, bong still smoking slightly.
They were slow to respond only because they were intent on hammering each other with the MP5s and Glock 17s, the weapons of choice in this particular game. They were playing in “versus” mode, which meant that they would attached each other rather than team up to destroy a common enemy.
“Guys … c’mon! I’m on something huge here. Do you want to get paid or not?” Kite asked rhetorically, knowing the question would drive their attention.
“What’s up, boss. And don’t tell us you got tickets to ‘Beauty and the Beast’.”
“Better … way better.” Kite never really bugged the guys much about their love for Broadway plays, but knew it would be fodder for an eventual comeback or public humiliation. Not that he’d ever use something against these guys. Without them, he was just a crazy activist that never saw the other side of the tear gas gun.
“As you know, I was with Eddie a couple of nights ago,” Kite started and then they looked at each other like they were part of a big secret.
“No not that way. You know I don’t pitch or catch. And not that it should matter anyways: he’s been ‘converted’, like he was able to quit cigarettes or lose a few pounds.”
“What do you mean?” asked Hummus.
“Eddie Manchester has been cured of his homosexuality and his love for religion has apparently emerged as a suitable substitute. He’s lonely, he’s conflicted, but at least he’s close to the top now.”
“Very interesting,” Chaos added slowly, making it seem like he was going to add more. He always did this, making people think he was ready to provide something else and then he would fade off. It was the one trait, small as it was, that drove Kite silly.
“Anyways, let’s talk about this seriously, shall we?”
“Hey, boss. We’re just teasing you. No hard feelings, right?” Hummus offered.
“I know. I’m just really wound up with this case because it’s big and it’s a new client and I want to do things right,” Kite said while wiping his hand across his head, looking very stressed.
“Well, we know about the meeting, thanks to the Man. Now we know what they were talking about,” he said as he planted a digital voice recorder on the table beside the bag of Munchies and pile of empty beer bottles.
He pressed the play button and they all listened to Eddie’s voice:
“… We’re getting together at the OMNINet headquarters in New York. But there’s more: I have no idea why I’m going to be there. I was told to be there by Simon Hadlock, the company’s president, but I have nothing in writing and no evidence that it will ever happen. Strange, eh?”
They all leaned back in the chairs that surrounded the small device on the coffee table and stared at it for a few moments, all three trying to think of the most ideal way to leverage the information Kite had just collected.
It was Chaos that broke the silence: “So big deal … they’re having a birthday party for Garamond or something. And they’re having it at midnight of the evening of a full moon and they’ll be biting wings off bats or …”
“I don’t think it’ll be a light affair,” Kite interjected. “It’s unlikely that someone in Eddie’s position would be so worried about a birthday party. This is something else – and I think he knew it.”
“I have a thought, boss,” Hummus offered. “Why don’t we get you into the building on some kind of late night tech upgrade and we’ll try to get a plant on Eddie or someone else so that we can pick up what’s happening at the meeting? My bet is that they’ll have some kind of disruptor that will prevent any long-range listening, but if we can get a recorder in the room, it might help us figure out what ‘the octopus’ is up to.” Hummus always referred to the OMNINet as the octopus, which in reality, was quite apt.
“Not a bad idea, Hummus … not bad at all,” Kite offered to get the ideas going.
Chaos added “it’s probably catered. Why don’t we try to get one of us on the inside to watch over the meeting?”
“Again, not bad, but really risky. We’d leave a trace and at least one of us would get tagged by upper management at the Octopus.”
“I think the best option is for me to get in that night with a long-range recorder that won’t be affected by any transmission disruptors. I’ve already been ‘tagged’ because I’ve been in the office a few times and we’ve got all the paperwork for my entry,” Kite concluded.
“Well, that’s the problem boss,” Chaos said apologetically.
“You’ve got business hour access, but no entry after 6PM. I’ve tried to change it, but there’s no way I can tweak their access cards.”
“Crap,” Kite said. His disappointment was rich, but then he lifted his head like he was making an announcement. “We visit Sasha Pigeon, Eddie’s ex. Maybe he’s got something we can use.”
(Note: “Excited Delirium” is a work of fiction. Any person, place or thing depicted in this work of fiction is also a work of fiction. Any relation of these subjects or characters to real locations, people or things are an unintentional coincidence.)
Did you miss a chapter? If so, click here to see all chapters or click here to go to Excited Delirium: Chapter 1 (Prelude)
Excited Delirium by Liam Young is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
Based on a work at www.exciteddelirium.ca.
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