No Master Plan Here (Madness Runs in the Family) by Joel Burdick Read Free Book Online Page A

was to assume you didn't get it or that you were ignoring us to get back at America. We were told to get your attention with more direct means.”
                  Anansi stared at the table, processing that. He wished he had Kay to confirm that, and the realization that he was without her made him feel like a part of himself had been severed. How long had he been working on that exoskeleton without a break? He could have asked what day it was, but he couldn't think of when the last time he had checked the calendar, despite regularly having an artificial intelligence in his head that could tell him whenever he so much as thought about it.
                  “Can I get a finger of whiskey to go with that sandwich, then? It is not often I'm the dumb person in a room.”
     
    -~-~-
     
                  An hour, a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, and a bit of whiskey later, Anansi was leaving the interrogation room for the showers. He had a verbal agreement for now and the written agreement would be presented in a day or two, once verified and signed by the President. In the mean time, the plan would move forward to thwart Archangel's plot. Anansi chuckled to himself at that thought. Usually he was to be the foil-ee, not the foil-er. It would take a little getting used to, being on the side of the government for once.
                  As Anansi headed towards the showers and then a room, an actual room, not a cell, he considered just how amusing it was that the government, with whom he held a not so secret loathing for and felt the feeling was mutual, would be reaching out to him for help. It was amusing, if slightly suspicious.
                  Absorbed in his thoughts, Anansi did not notice the woman who came around the corner into the hallway until he had collided with her, knocking his glasses off and her coffee mug from her hand, spilling it onto both of their chests. Anansi hissed at the pain of hot coffee soaking through his tank top to his chest, kneeling quickly to try to recover his glasses.
                  “I'm so sorry about that,” he said, making out the blurry form of the woman kneeling down beside him. “I wasn't paying attention to where I was going.” Her hand touched his, holding his glasses, and he sighed with relief. While a fall certainly wouldn't damage them, the fact that he couldn't see a thing without them made them mostly crucial to his well-being.
                  “It was all my fault. I was rushing,” she said as he put on his glasses. As the world came into focus, he saw that the woman he had run into was Asian, with the soft features of someone who enjoyed food and did not care for exercise but did it anyways, wearing black dress pants with grey pinstripes and a blue blouse that was soaked with coffee. He could see the outline of her bra from the way the liquid caused her shirt to cling, and promptly focused on her face again, standing as she did.
                  “No harm, no foul. Good thing the coffee wasn't too hot.” Anansi smiled, taking a step back to a more comfortable distance. He noticed a nervous stance to the woman, and the way she was staring at him like he was some sort of rabid beast made him slightly uncomfortable. “Are you with SHIP as well?”
                  She flinched and nodded sharply, still not meeting his eyes. Anansi sighed and shook his head, running a hand through the several days of stubble on his chin and realizing how long it had been since he had shaved. Getting absorbed into projects was really something that did a number on personal hygiene.
                  “Look, I'm sorry about the coffee, but as you obviously know who I am, I'll let you know that I don't kill people at random or on a whim, despite what you might have heard, so relax, would you?” He patted her on the shoulder and she flinched again, not enough to move away but a