Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1) by Matthew Storm Read Free Book Online

thought he heard regret in the
little girl’s voice. “What happened to the cyborgs?” he asked.  Then he
pondered how insane that question sounded.
    “I killed them,” Sally said simply.
    “Oh,” Oliver said. That wasn’t exactly
what he had expected to hear. Of course, a minute ago he wouldn’t have expected
to hear that there had ever been cyborgs.
    “We’re getting off the subject,” Artemis
said. “Is there anything strange in your life you can think of that defies an
easy explanation? Odd coincidences? Anything that happened that seemed too
good, or too bad, to be true? Prophetic dreams?”
    “I don’t dream,” Oliver said.
    “You…” Artemis blinked in surprise. “You
what?”
    “I don’t dream,” Oliver repeated. “I
never have.”
    “You probably have dreams and just don’t
remember them,” Tyler suggested.
    “No, I’ve never dreamed. I’m sure of
it.” For as long as he’d lived, Oliver had never had a dream.  He wasn’t sure
he was missing anything. Given the state of his life, any dreams he had were
bound to be pretty dull.
    Artemis mulled that over. “Interesting,
but not symptomatic of anything I can think of. Except perhaps brain damage.”
    “I don’t have brain damage,” Oliver
said.
    “Then what is it that separates you from
any other lonely, single stock analyst with no friends?”
    Oliver opened his mouth to say something
rude, but suddenly stopped. He had just remembered something.
    Artemis saw it on his face. “What?” She
leaned forward, pointing her index finger at him. “What did you think of just
now?”
    Oliver didn’t want to say it out loud.
“It’s nothing. Just something I imagined.”
    “Say it!” the little girl warned.
    Oliver sighed. This had already been the
strangest conversation of his life. What did he have to lose? “A cat talked to
me,” he admitted.
    Sally snorted in derision and Tyler
looked away. Oliver could tell he was trying not to grin. “A cat talked to
you,” Artemis repeated.
    “Yes.” Oliver already wished he hadn’t
mentioned it.
    “Cats cannot speak, Mr. Jones,” the girl
said dryly.
    “Yeah, I guess not.”
    “Well,” Artemis said thoughtfully,
“that’s not entirely true. However, the last cat that could speak died
over two thousand years ago.”
    “Really?” asked Tyler, perking up
instantly. “That’s amazing.”
    “Not really,” Artemis said. “The poor
thing’s brain was so scrambled from generations of inbreeding, she never made
much sense.”
    Tyler and Sally stared at Artemis, who
ignored them. “As I said, Mr. Jones, cats cannot speak. So perhaps that much
was your imagination, after all.”
    “Okay,” Oliver said, hoping that meant
they could change the subject.
    “Out of curiosity, what did the cat
say?”
    “Jeffrey,” Oliver corrected her. Artemis
raised her eyebrows curiously at him. “I named him Jeffrey,” he explained. When
she didn’t reply, Oliver continued, hoping he wasn’t about to be laughed at
again. “He said that my life wouldn’t be easier if he could talk.”
    “I see. That is an unusual way to begin
a conversation. May I assume you spoke to… Jeffrey …first?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And you said to him?”
    Oliver sighed. “I told him I wished he
could talk.”
    “And then he spoke.”
    “Yeah.”
    “So in a way,” Artemis mused, “your wish
was granted.”
    “He’s a genie!” Tyler exclaimed,
pointing at Oliver triumphantly. Artemis turned and glared at him.  “Sorry,” he
said sheepishly.
    Artemis turned back to Oliver. She made
her fingers into a steeple and said nothing for a long moment. Finally she
looked up. “I don’t know what to make of this, honestly. But I’ve decided that
we will continue to protect you for the time being. Mr. Teasdale’s clients tend
to be extremely unpleasant people, and I’ve found that the world is a better
place when they don’t get what they want. If one of them wants you dead, I want
you alive. For now, at