Mercury Man by Tom Henighan Read Free Book Online Page A

out with Reichert again. The image of that slouching sleazebag made him want to spit. Instead, he sipped some juice and waited.
    His patience was rewarded some minutes later when an expensive-looking sleek blue convertible pulled up at the Fabricon entrance. The driver, a balding, stocky figure in a white summer shirt and slacks, jumped from the car, and Tom recognized him at once.
    Dr. Tarn stood for a moment, staring across Harbour Street (Tom almost felt that the man was looking right at him and shrank back). Then the passenger, a slim young blonde in a halter top, slid across and took over the wheel. Tarn bent to kiss her briefly, and even from where he stood Tom could hear her tinkling laughter.
    Tarn turned quickly, swinging a small black briefcase, and disappeared into the building. Tom took out his notebook and wrote down the time. But what to do now? He couldn’t follow Tarn inside. Was he going to wait the whole night and note down who came and went?
    The next minutes passed rather slowly. Then, just as he was beginning to lose patience, something else happened.
    A red company van cruised slowly down Harbour Street and drew up at the door where a few minutes before the Mercedes had deposited Tarn.
    The van seemed crowded with passengers, shifting and stirring behind the glass. When they began to scramble out, Tom craned his neck to see them, but the vehicle obstructed his view. “Move that thing,” he whispered. “Move it, you stupid idiot!”
    The van didn’t move for some minutes, but luckily the passengers were in no hurry to get out and enter the building. Tom could hear their voices as they laughed and joked around and he could see them pushing and shoving together at the vehicle’s doors and on the sidewalk.
Kids
, he thought,
a bunch of high school kids.
    Finally, amid shouts and cheers, the van emptied; slowly it pulled away and the passengers stood at last in full view. With a gasp Tom recognized Bim, Pete, Estella, and Jeff Parker.
    He was surprised at the feelings that overcame him then. He saw his friends joking and laughing together on the sidewalk, not very far away, and yet they seemed like total strangers. He felt completely alone, isolated, left out, and deceived. On the one hand he had a great desire to be with them — and after all, they had invited him! On the other hand he didn’t want any part of it. He wanted to get away right now, to hide out somewhere and be strong and single and solitary in his aloneness. The worst thing would be ifthey noticed him hiding here like a fool. God! How they’d laugh at him!
    Slowly, much too slowly, the bad moments passed. The kids began to drift inside. Within minutes the entrance to Fabricon was once again surrounded by a shrinelike silence.
    Tom gritted his teeth. He had to think. He had to figure things out.
    What in hell was going on?
    Why had they suddenly arrived like that? He knew the kids couldn’t all be on one shift. Jeff and Bim didn’t even have jobs there yet. Were they all going to some kind of training meeting? An indoctrination?
What kind of indoctrination?
    Was he making too much of things because he himself didn’t have the guts to take on a challenge? Reluctantly, he admitted it might be so.
But what did Fabricon want with the kids?
    Tom stood in perplexity, staring at the towering, perfect building opposite. Fabricon’s white facade suggested the beautiful sterility of a gigantic laboratory; its gleaming glass indicated openness and transparency of purpose; its emblazoned slogan promised miracles for the future. His friends might be caught up in something, yet they were no fools. Maybe if he just had a few quiet words with them …
    Tom mopped his sweating forehead, wiped his hands on his cut-off jeans, and moved slowly out of the trees and toward one of the benches. Deeply preoccupied, he had lost all sense of his surroundings. Heturned to survey the streets and the little park, as