Foundation by Marco Guarda Read Free Book Online

curled his lips into a nasty grin. “Where else?”
    Trumaine didn’t say anything, he just didn’t like it. It all sounded too weird to him. So far removed from what he had been taught all the years he had spent in the force. So far removed from the nuts-and-bolts of his profession that were sheer and plain facts. Facts won’t betray you, Firrell used to tell him. Always follow the real thing, not haphazard reconstructions that have the most remote chance to be the truth.
    What Benedict had just proposed to him was exactly the opposite: forget all about the little sense the reality of facts was offering in the Jarvas’ case. Dismiss the worn-out clothes of the old-fashioned, traditional detective who insisted on using too conventional techniques that lead to nothing.
    Trumaine was required to make a generational step. New tools needed to be forged if he wanted to find his bearings in the irrational realm that was the unconscious mind.
    If the telepath actually existed, and if Benedict’s theory was any good, this was going to be a lot more complicated than what he had grown used to, thought Trumaine. It was going to be a big jump in the dark; it was going to be a leap of faith. Benedict had his reasons for wanting the telepath out of Credence, of course. Professional reasons as well as personal reasons. He was responsible for Credence; if the telepath was able to produce a parasite belief, one could easily imagine the power he had at his disposal and the amount of damage he was liable to do.
    On the other side, Trumaine had the clear feeling that behind the seeming warmth and understanding that Benedict bestowed so liberally upon his fellow humans, there was something else. Beyond the measured voice, the cloying smile and the forced confidence, he had glimpsed something slimy, cold and green. It was the coiling snake of arrogance, the sin of a man who considered himself a choice individual—the one in a million. Benedict was a king and Credence was his kingdom.
    Trumaine suspected that what Benedict feared most wasn’t an attack on Credence, but on his own personal world. On his perfectly controlled and prioritized system.
    He had seen that kind of men before in his life. They were the kind of individuals who could turn to very nasty resolutions to defend the bitch that was power.
    “What if he gets into my brain and I don’t realize it?” he asked.
    “It’s a risk you must take,” said Benedict with a soothing yet patronizing tone that precluded any further debate.
    “I’m afraid there’s no other way ...”

Chapter Five

    Trumaine drove along the six-lane road that connected East to West City. As straight as an arrow, it ran deep down into the “Canyon,” a sunken, narrow gully formed by the endless walls of high-rise buildings aligned at either side of it.
    It had that name because the buildings were simply too tall to let the sunlight reach the ground, except for the hour when the sun was about at its zenith; only then a thin strip of light would dare peer into the bottom of the gorge. In that moment, the rows of perfectly trimmed trees that marked the boundary between the road and the sidewalk shone like emerald and the polished tops of the vehicles jammed in the traffic looked like a river streaming through a forest set into walls of limestone.
    It was just past lunchtime and the sunlight hadn’t begun to recede yet. The restaurants and the bars between the rows of trees still had customers. One could glimpse them from the street, sitting at the too-small, round coffee tables, hurriedly eating their lunch. They could possibly count on another twenty minutes of bright light before the shadows crawled over, chasing the sun up the overhanging walls of the Canyon and away.
    Noon wasn’t the only moment when the trees could see the sunlight, remembered Trumaine. Twice a year, in March and in September—during the two equinoxes—the course of the sun would match the position of the Canyon and the