Page 4 of Silent Comrade
The muscles between Al’s shoulder bladestwitched. What he’d give to sit up straight and stretch. Instead,he ignored the student next to him who was busy weaponizingseduction, and he continued hunching like his cover depended on it.He glanced at the ridiculous Fossil watch, useless with itscomplete lack of digital readout or satellite connection: 9:20 AM.Time to do a threat assessment.
He made a mental blueprint of the classroom,noting the locations of ingress and egress. Windows worked on arotary latch system, but only opened a few inches. He could easilybreak the hinges with a well-placed kick. Red had already estimatedthe distance to the ground: twenty-three feet. A bit high forcomfort. His knees creaked when he shifted position. With the virusamplifying his reflexes and strength, he’d still limp away from ajump from that distance.
He wondered what the rest of the team was upto. Rivera and Pele were in similar field ops protecting Britt’sfather and sister, probably blending in way better than Red.
Unfortunately, when they needed a covertoperator to play a college student, the former Special Forces teamdepth chart ran thin. Red was as close as they would ever get to“youthful.”
Up at the front, the professor droned onabout concept design, and Red pretended to take notes on a computertablet. The only concept Red wanted to focus on involved gettingout of this kill box with his surveillance target within arm’sreach. He sniffed and rotated slightly to assess other people inthe room. Students wore everything from monotone black to everyshade of the tropics, and that was just the hairstyles. No telltalesigns of weapons bulges. No skittish actions.
Good. Reassess in ten. He hunched toward thefront of the class once more.
That blonde student one seat over winked athim again with a sniff of her too-perfect nose. He groanedagain.
To do his job, he needed to get rid of thiswoman with the fake nails that she would not stop tapping againstthe desk. Like a guitar pick against a washboard, but lessmetallic-tasting of a sound. He rubbed his cramped neck. He neededa mandated rest, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon if hewanted to keep up with Britt.
Sound crept through his defenses, unbidden,waking his ability up in a hurry. A heavy, gummy sensation ofclomping boots came from the hallway. Automatically, he assessedlikely body structure based on pace and stature given the depth andtiming of the thuds. About 5’9” and 140 pounds. He sat up straight.Slouch, damn it.
The virus wanted more input. More sound.More targets to evaluate. More threats for Red to neutralize. Hishand shook as he gripped the stylus as the viral vortex pulled himinto the depths.
Senses blending as his hearing acuityincreased, he picked up every audible signal around him. With theright amount of breath control and concentration, he could focushis abilities instead of letting viral impulses take over. That wasalways the goal: use the virus’s power to succeed. Not let it getout of hand to where he went insane and lost control.
Papers rustled around him, crisp and bright,tasting like sun tea. One hundred and fifty fingers tapped on keysor scratched notes on paper all around the room in an industriousbackground patina that rubbed his nerves like dry leather. Hescanned the room as much with his eyes as his ears.
The professor’s heeled shoes made a snappingscuff as he paced in front of the room. Red glanced at the pronounson the top corner of the whiteboard. Not he.They. Noted.The soles on the shoes were irregular. They must have walked onrocks or gravel before coming to class. One leg was slightlylonger, judging by the slower, more solid sound when that left footmade scratchy contact with the linoleum floor.
Someone in the class had asthma, as a slightpinching wheeze came from a thin guy up on the front row.
The most interesting sound? It happenedagain, laser-focusing his attention. A tiny intake of breath. Thescrape of air through pursed lips dragged over his ears likefeatherlight touches. The descending tone that followed was softand heated, and no one but Red could hear.
Pretending to crack his neck, he glancedover his shoulder and across the room at Britt. Both of her handsrested on the laptop keyboard, eyes focused ahead. Her darklytinted lips were open. Breathing. No law against that action. Butevery time the combined air and sigh happened, it set his nerveendings on fire. The virus needed to get close to that sound.
Red damn near stood up. He stopped himself.Re-hunched. That strong of an impulse had never happened before.There was always a chance the virus would mutate or behaveunpredictably. No one knew what the virus would do, long-term.Today was not the time to find out.
“Mr. Neubert?” the professor askedagain.
Red jumped at the lemon-sour tone of voice.“Pardon.”
Laughter around him pinged against hisbrain, sleet against hard vinyl. He winced. Damn synesthesia. Heneeded an antidote soon.
“Do you have a comment to add on theutilization of textiles in postmodern expression? Because by thatdaydreaming look on your face, you must have lots of ideas.Right?”
Busted by the professor on day one. So muchfor incognito.
Metallic-tasting scrapes sounded as chairsshifted. The entire class focused on Red. Damn it. He had hatedattention in school during his crappy childhood in foster care, andhe sure as hell hated attention now during an undercover op.
Time to see if Gonzo and Stumpy’s researchpaid off.
“Textiles in postmodern expression?” Hecleared his throat, stalling. Reaching deep into the crash coursehe’d crammed over the past three days, Red fought the urge to swipesweat from his brow. Light, warm fog clouded his glasses, but noway would he remove them. He breathed in, out, in, out. “Well,sure. If you believe that postmodern is still relevant—and some experts do not—thenthe concept of bricolage becomes key—theuse of disparate materials on hand to draw attention to theindividual different components in the artistic expression. But theact of doing so creates a cohesive product, which at its corestifles the postmodern non-unified aesthetic as it’s beingconstructed.”
Did that bull come out of his own mouth?
Were those complete sentences? Did the wordsmake sense? Hell if he knew. He was regurgitating one of manyfashion theory word salad concepts that Stumpy had drilled intohim.
Silence. Dead, ear-ringing silence. Nocough. No chuckle. No typing on keyboards. Red literally heard acricket in the far corner of the room.
The professor cleared their throat. “Well, Isuppose they did teach you something useful back in Savannah afterall. Thank you, Mr. Neubert.”
Like a vise had been released from his chestand ears, he exhaled, picking up all the little rustling noises,shifts in seats, and a sense of the students resettling, like aflock of birds had landed on the lawn. He tried to disguise themoment when he rubbed that bead of sweat from his upper lip.
