The Beam: Season Two by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant Read Free Book Online Page B

have been Austin snooping for something to use against Dominic. It even made sense that the information thief had touched Dominic’s records of Crumb because it just meant the snoop was accumulating evidence of Dominic’s disobedience, like a squirrel storing nuts for winter. The agent had called him out. Dominic was a cop who questioned rules and followed his gut instead, just as Austin himself had done with the child diddler in his own story.  
    The data theft didn’t matter. No one was after him now that NPS had their deal. It made sense, too. Because why would anyone else be snooping for Dominic’s dirty laundry?  
    But as Dominic sat in the stuffy train compartment, he found that it didn’t settle. His honed instincts protested the idea like a puzzle piece that didn’t fit. But still, he forced himself to let it go. The bigger issue was the deal, and Leo, and the moondust. And, of course, Organa itself.  
    He’d trusted Leo. Worse: Leo, as a mentor, had helped to shape the way Dominic thought and looked at the world. That almost suggested that Leo had taught Dominic to trust him. Leo had gotten to Dominic before he was a cop with a sharpened nose able to smell bullshit. And Leo had lied. For all these years, Leo had lied to him.  
    Or had he? Dominic still wasn’t sure.  
    Everything that Austin had given him — in person during their session at the station then on a slip drive for Dominic to review later — seemed to suggest that the stories the agent had told Dominic about Leo were true. Leo really had run Gaia’s Hammer prior to Organa. He really was over 120 years old. And despite Dominic always seeing his old friend and mentor as an unenhanced hippie, he really did seem to have once been enhanced right out of his computerized asshole. Perhaps he’d had his nanos flushed so he could age naturally by the time he’d met young Dom Long, but there was an easy way to find out if he’d once been half machine. Specifically, if it were true, he’d still be half machine. If the metal under Leo’s skin didn’t interfere with his life today any more than it had helped him break skulls and smash through Plasteel all those years ago, there would have been no reason to have it removed. He’d still have it today…and that would make him heavy as a motherfucker, his secret on display for anyone who tried to pick him up.
    Dominic glanced out the window, allowing himself a sigh. It was unfair to judge Leo and was unfair (and maybe unwise and naive) to have assumed Leo was above judgment in the first place. Either what Austin said about Leo’s troubling roots was true or it wasn’t, and until Dominic knew for certain — not through words, but through tangible evidence — there was no reason to think about it. And besides, even if Austin was right about Leo’s history, the fact that he’d lied about who he used to be meant little here and now. All it really proved was that Leo had once been an enemy of the state. It didn’t prove that he still was one, or that he ever would be again.  
    And he wouldn’t be. The idea was absurd.
    Today, Leo was a hippie. Today, he eschewed technology and tried to live a simple life. He was too old and too granola to overthrow anything. Dominic knew Leo as he was today, and he knew his compound and the others in the village with him. The old man cared about his people and his dust. He cared about his ideals and his silly paper books. The world would be what it was, and today, Dominic felt quite certain that Leo wasn’t about to use a hammer’s strength to try and change it.  
    Now, on the train, there was simply no point in giving it any more thought. Dominic would be at the Organa compound soon, and he could look for answers then. His deal with NPS was, at the moment, irrelevant. Regardless of whether he’d promised to double-cross Leo, it would be his decision in the end. If Leo was dirty, he deserved what would come. If that turned out to be the case, Dominic would