Tribes of Man: The Beginning [Tribes of Man] (Siren Publishing Classic) by Kiel Nichols Read Free Book Online Page A

pulled out a small magnifying glass. He looked at the two pictures for a long time before looking up at his friend. “The girl’s fucked, Gid.”
    Gideon’s stomach dropped. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”
    “No, man, you don’t get it, the girl is seriously fucked.”
    After his pronouncement, Jimmy walked to the closet and stepped inside. From the couch, Gideon could see a wall open in the back. Hanging behind the false wall was Jimmy’s arsenal. He pulled his sniper rifle off the rack as well as another pistol and what looked like a grenade. It wasn’t the guns that made Gideon realize that the situation was even more serious than he feared, it was the grenade. If Jimmy Dean was spooked, Raina really was fucked.
    Jimmy walked back out of the closet and went to a box on the wall. When he opened it, a complex security panel was revealed. He punched in a few buttons and a sultry female said, “Lockdown complete.”
    Jimmy slid his rifle into the back of his holster before turning back to Gideon.
    “What your client was hit with was a magnetophosphene gun. Basically it’s a nonlethal weapon used in England and other places for crowd control. Don’t let the ‘nonlethal’ part of that fool you. This is some serious shit.”
    “I remember you talking about it the last time I saw you. When I read the report, Raina’s description of the weapon matched the picture you showed me. That’s the reason why I came to you. You said you were trying to get one for your collection, but they were illegal. I also remember that you said they weren’t harmful, just disorienting.” Gideon was trying to understand exactly why Jimmy suddenly became so jumpy.
    “Yeah, well, I couldn’t get one. You can get almost anything on the black market, even if it’s not legal, in the good ol’ US of A, but you can’t get this. What’s worse is that this one may have been souped up. Even direct contact with the skin shouldn’t have caused blindness, and only repeated use could cause the burns on the brain we’re seeing here.”
    “I don’t understand,” Gideon said. “That weapon made her blind. How could it do that?”
    “I can’t say what the intention was, but from what you described, that part was an accident. If they modified the gun so that it completely debilitated rather than just disorientated there would be no way to know what effect it would have on someone if it touched their skin.” Jimmy scratched his chin. “It might also have depended on where it touched her. She’s lucky it didn’t kill her.”
    “I wonder if that was the intention,” Gideon said.
    “I have no idea, but I do know one thing,” Jimmy walked to the closed blind to peek out. “If this woman’s account of what happened is true, added to what happened to her roommate, I think you’ve got at best the CIA and at worst an international agency, possibly even a terrorist group, after her.”
    That explained Jimmy’s actions. Somehow Gideon didn’t think that Jimmy was just being paranoid. “I don’t get why they’d be after her. She’s just a student.”
    “I don’t know, man”—Jimmy shrugged then continued—“but you ought to consider dropping this case.”
    “No!” Gideon’s emphatic refusal made Jimmy’s eyebrows go up.
    “Then think about taking the chick on a vacation. At the very least, it’s time to stock up on the firepower.” Jimmy went into the other room and came back out with a computer. “Let me show you what I know about this thing. I want one, so I’ve been collecting information on it. After you look at this stuff, you might want to reconsider getting out of Dodge.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Raina loved her job at the library. She’d been afraid that losing her sight would automatically make her lose her job, but the library went through the Perkins Center for the Blind to get her what she needed. They also applied for a grant with the Americans with Disabilities Act to get better equipment. Raina had known