The Miranda Contract by Ben Langdon Read Free Book Online Page B

had been involved in a massacre. People had died. And then there was the issue of his family.
    His grandfather was the Mad Russian, an international psychopath with enough atrocities in his name to rank him up with the worst of the 20th Century supervillains, like Doctor Death or the Armageddon Krew. He was able to bring the forces of law and order to their knees in his time. But his time was, of course, firmly in the Cold War-era, well before Dan was even born. Since disappearing five years ago without a trace, the Mad Russian was generally written off as killed or otherwise indisposed. But now Dan heard his grandfather was back in town, not dead at all. He wondered what Alsana would make of that. Not that he’d ever volunteer that information. He wasn’t stupid.
    And after being apprehended, tried in a juvenile court and finally up-cycled, Dan was working for the greater good on a regular basis. Redemption had no payment, but Alsana often laughed that it was good for his soul.
    He wasn’t the only one, of course. The beauty of the up-cycled program was that a handful of uberhuman juvenile delinquents moved through the courts every year and those who were convicted were slapped with the program. In some cases, especially up north in Sydney, ubers with useful and impressive powers were trained to work in government-funded teams of law enforcers. It was a case of giving back to the community. In Melbourne, things were more low-key. Alsana had only three or four ubers on her books at any one time, and deployed them as she saw fit. The program was deliberately vague when it came to the duration of service. Dan had been a part of it since he was thirteen. There were others who had been in longer. In the end it seemed to depend on how useful an uber was. If they were more of a pest than an asset then they were generally let go after a few months. And so, Dan tried his best to irritate without getting into worse trouble.
    “This is a training exercise,” Alsana said, keeping her eyes on the land cruiser below them. Dan blew into his hands to keep them warm.
    “We’ve never had training before.”
    Her eyes shifted to him and he shrugged. It wasn’t as if he was ever going to disagree with Alsana for more than a few jousts anyway, so Dan dropped his protests and focused his senses down below where a man in his fifties was talking on his cell phone while negotiating a tight exit from a parallel park.
    The man was a married solicitor who had been doing the dirty with Alsana for about six months. Dan was gently appalled by the whole prospect, but also amused to finally find a chink in his handler’s armor. She’d always been so efficiently inhuman. It was nice to find out her life was just as messed up as his.
    “Phone line is clear. It’s his wife.”
    Dan could hear the conversation inside his head, electrical impulses that were intercepted and decoded. The man was distraught, his voice punctuated with sobs and pauses. Dan found his pleas a little boring, but the gist of the conversation was one of admission and repentance.
    “He told her about the affair,” Dan said. “Promised that it didn’t mean anything. I think I saw this episode already.”
    “What did he say, exactly ?” Alsana turned around and looked away, back towards the stairwell. Her posture was stiff. Dan knew it was dangerous for him to be too frank, even though he was desperate for some payback. Alsana never treated him with anything close to kindness.
    She was a horrible person.
    But she wasn’t his enemy.
    Dan closed his eyes, going for a theatrical stance in case she watched him. He lifted his left hand, fingers splayed, as if he was reading the broadcast. The truth was he received it instantly and translated it just as quickly.
    “He’s saying that it wasn’t love,” Dan said.
    “His words.”
    “Right,” Dan said, awkwardness flooding through him. “I don’t love her, never did. I’d never hurt you.”
    Alsana clucked her