Lethal Circuit by Lars Guignard Read Free Book Online Page A

the room without a word. Before he could fully consider why his presence had generated so little interest, his GPS beeped plaintively. Aware that the unit was accurate to at best seven feet, Michael glanced around to find what he might be looking for. Eight feet away, he saw it.
    Walking the final few steps to the end of the line, Michael reached into a large open cardboard box and withdrew one of the hundreds of identical objects the morning shift had produced. The object was a Lucite sphere, perhaps four and a half inches in diameter. It sat on a black plastic base and if Michael’s initial perception was correct, it was a snow globe. A snow globe which in turn contained a globe of the earth suspended in whatever solution they put in these things. The interesting thing was that when Michael picked it up, green LEDs began to light up all over the tiny enclosed globe—like phosphorescence in a frothing sea. As far as Michael could tell the LEDs glowed on every continent but Antarctica. It looked like a lot of work had gone into the object’s creation. What it didn’t look like was anything worth losing a father over.
    The globe was unpackaged, but the next table over was stacked with elaborate boxing material that Michael briefly imagined ending up in a landfill. The globe gave Michael pause as he considered what it was his father was trying to say to him. Sending him a set of coordinates made sense. But coordinates to what? A toxic child’s toy? Michael tucked the globe into his pocket before casting his glance around the factory floor to ensure he wasn’t missing anything. He tried to find some kind of message or sign, something that would hint that he had found what he was looking for. Instead, he felt the kiss of cold steel to his throat.

8

    T HE SECOND THING Michael’s father taught him about was fear. Michael was six years old. There was a gulley behind their house. The gulley was deep and rocky and a kid had been mauled there by a mountain lion not a year before. It was a scary place. That was why the neighborhood kids dared each other to go down there. Everyday after school the bigger kids would dare the smaller ones to climb down the rock gulley, close their eyes, and count to twenty. Everybody did it. Then it was Michael’s turn. His mom had told him not to go down there. His dad had told him not to go down there. But the kids wanted him to go. So he climbed down the rocky trail.
    Michael closed his eyes and started to count. And he felt the fear. Because he heard something in the undergrowth. Something scary. And it was getting closer. Michael couldn’t take it anymore. He opened his eyes and he started to run. But whatever it was kept right at him, charging through the undergrowth. Michael ran as fast as he could, but it wasn’t fast enough. The thing caught his leg, bringing him down. Michael screamed, and when he looked back at what had captured him, he saw his father. His father didn’t look mad. But he looked worried. He asked Michael if he was afraid. Michael said yes. And his father said that was a good thing. It wasn’t a good thing that he had come down into the gulley alone, but it was good to be afraid. Because we all got afraid, the difference was what we did with it. Some people ignored fear and those people were foolish. Because you had to respect fear. Fear gave you an edge. Fear could keep you alive.

    T HE MEN WORE no shoes. That explained why Michael hadn’t heard them coming, but not where they had come from. It also didn’t excuse the fact that despite his intentions to the contrary, he had been careless. Careless and stupid. He had become so absorbed in the snow globe that he forgot to keep one eye out for trouble. There were three of them. Short sturdy Chinese men in blue jumpsuits, but Michael really couldn’t determine much more than that because they held him from behind. He did note that they seemed to have little interest in harming him. At least not immediately. They