Keystones: Tau Prime by Alexander McKinney Read Free Book Online Page A

is what self-pity looks like , he thought to himself.
    Just then Deklan noticed a wiry and thin man standing three meters behind him. The stranger’s face was framed by dark hair, and he possessed dark eyes that seemed to know too much. “It’s me,” said Cheshire, a wry smile on his face and his voice quiet.
    “What do you want? Do you have any other creative ways to get me killed?” Deklan grew very still, like a prey animal in the presence of a predator.
    Cheshire kept his distance while looking both confident and amused. “Yes, actually, and I could make sure that you stayed dead.” From his tone he might have been talking about the weather.
    A shiver ran up Deklan’s spine. His newfound power of regeneration wasn’t something with which he was comfortable yet, so hearing that there was a way to overcome it was worrisome. What bothered him even more was that he believed Cheshire. “Are you threatening me?” he asked.
    Cheshire’s smile didn’t waver; if anything it grew wider. He looked like a man who was immensely enjoying himself. “Not at all. You asked; I answered. Try to keep up.”
    “Why are you here?” said Deklan. His distrust and uncertainty made the question sound more like an angry accusation.
    “I’m here to ask what the hell you’re doing staring at a rejuvenation tank when Susan has gone flying through the wormhole.” Cheshire’s tone became kinder. “Or, to put it another way, there is a way to be good again.”
    Deklan felt that he’d lost the thread of the conversation. “What?” To be good again? What did that mean? Then his brain caught up with the rest of what Cheshire had said. Susan had gone through the wormhole. Deklan suddenly went cold all over. When she hadn’t answered his last two calls, he’d assumed that she was busy, but Cheshire could be telling the truth.
    “Did you really think that she was just not answering your calls?” said Cheshire, as though reading Deklan’s mind. “Check the casualty list from yesterday’s breaches near midnight. She’s the only body that’s unaccounted for.”
    “Why do you care about Susan? Why have you been keeping track of her? Why have you been keeping track of me?” Deklan’s voice was low when he started asking questions, but he was nearly yelling when he finished.
    Cheshire remained infuriatingly calm. “You must have more pressing questions than that.”
    “Answer me!”
    “I care about the wormhole.” Cheshire shrugged, a gesture that infuriated Deklan. “Susan is the first human being to go through that wormhole.”
    Deklan regained a measure of control over his tone. “How do you know that she went through the wormhole?”
    “Well, for one thing I watched her, but for another here’s some footage.” Cheshire flicked a few icons on his wrist Uplink, a model similar to Deklan’s.
    Glancing at his Uplink, Deklan felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. The information was coming in through his Secure Identity. How did Cheshire have access to his Secure Identity? Of lesser concern was the file itself, a second-long video. “What the hell is this video, and how do you have my Secure Identity?” challenged an irate Deklan. “Who are you?”
    “You need to play the video slowly.” Cheshire winked at him, smiled infuriatingly, and vanished.
    Deklan scowled before turning his attention back to the video he’d been sent. Even when he played it at extremely low speeds, there wasn’t much to see. The footage of a bolt of light streaking through the wormhole’s mouth didn’t prove anything, he told himself. Susan was fine. She just wasn’t taking his calls.
    He maintained this logical inference for at least three more seconds before inputting commands to call up a list of casualties from the previous day’s breaches. There it was: three survivors and one missing person, Susan Anthony. She was the only person whose body had not been found.
    Cheshire therefore might have told the truth. Susan could have gone