Confrontation (Implanted Book 3) Read online

  “We probably won’t know anything.”

  “Okay.” She sighed hard. “Here we go.” She creaked her palm open, and they bent their heads to the fading light of the dead glow worm, smeared all over her pretty hand.

  “Well, what does that mean?” Jamie asked.

  “I dunno. Let me get the lamp again.” She flicked it on, hovering the direct light over the worm’s body. The glow faded a lot faster than Jamie thought it would. The worm was almost completely dark now.

  “It’s just a natural thing, is my guess. I mean, I’ve always heard of them. They even made kids toys called Gloworms in the 1980s.”

  “Wait,” she said. He held his breath. She continued. “There’s still something glowing, but shining in the light. Look here. Look close at its head area.”

  He took the little lamp and got his face right next to the dead creature. He didn’t see anything at first, but then there was a sparkle. Something inside the glow worm’s head shined in Cecily’s pocket lantern. Jamie reached in and pulled it out and then held it up to the other glow bugs on one side and the lamp in front of him. “It looks like…but it couldn’t…but Ingrid showed us so many models.”

  Cecily’s black eyes widened with anticipation. “What do you think it is?”

  He wasn’t sure, but some part of him was. “Cecily, Ingrid showed us dark web vids of tech and implants she thought we should know about. I’m not sure. It’s so small, but it looks like an implant.”

  “An implant for a glowing caterpillar?”

  Their eyes connected over the thin metal-like piece they’d pulled out of the head of the fat glow worm. Cecily hissed, “Is there nowhere on the planet that’s unviolated? And why…how…what’s the point? Let me get a better look at it.”

  She took it and examined it for several minutes, then ran her goo-covered hand through her loose hair, cursing after she realized she’d done it. She looked up at him, for a moment the same lost and confused woman who’d hiked with him down a cliff and through a cave, but she’d lost her hard edge.

  He’d never asked her, but he knew McElroy didn’t ask for her to kill him. She murdered him of her own accord. Choking. Personal. And it had seemed to release a side of her she’d buried for her entire life.

  Now as they peered at each other over the tiny tube of metal, her expression stayed soft. “I don’t know how to react to this, but I’m damn well tired of being afraid. And I’m not going to turn on the bitch mode again. What we’ll do is what you said. Use our implants. Try to figure out more, like who is implanting worms on a deserted and supposedly hidden Pacific island.”

  Jamie took the metal piece out of her hand and clamped it to his belt magnet. “Nothing gets lost off this thing. We’ll get Katie to look at it tomorrow.”

  “Let’s go find her now.”

  Jamie shook his head and wiped the rest of her palm clean with his shirt tail. “I think it’s something that can wait.”

  She leaned back from him. “What are you saying? We need to know as soon as possible if there’s a threat here.”

  “You told me something once. It was when I stopped you from killing Michael with the skinning knife. When I told you about how I needed answers. I knew Michael had a plan, a feeling in my gut.”

  “I remember that, but I don’t think I said anything memorable.”

  “You said he could be playing me. That I thought he knew some important truth. ‘But some things just should never be said. Or known.’ Those are your exact words. I can’t ever forget them because they are probably the only words that have ever made complete and total sense to me.”

  He rubbed her shoulders. “And for now, we’ll connect on our own set of implants, and listen in on each other’s ideas—it could be about the glow worm’s possible implant. But do you know what I learned about the mystery?”

  She looked up at him and waited for him to continue. “Because there was a mystery for me for so many years. I didn’t know the truth of the control implants. I learned some of it, but got more questions than anything. The mystery always continues. There is no one actual truth, but it’s more like our meditation. Our own perceptions form the truth.”

  She smiled and pulled his hand up to her lips, “I love that.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “It’s yours personally and it’s my personally. We can share it in ways others can’t, and I love that. Let’s not let the mystery consume us. Come back into my arms and we’ll think about it. Tomorrow, if we happen to see Katie, we’ll have her examine it.”

  She did as he asked and relaxed against his chest. His strong arms held her tight.

  “But this is really important,” he said. “You have to know what your mystery is before you go looking for truths. Otherwise, any answers you find don’t make sense. So you go looking for more. The paranoia sets in. Not knowing the answer to a mysterious truth is torture, but it’s worse to live life in that torture than to sometimes say, ‘I don’t know. Screw it. It’s not worth it’.”

  She let out a long breath. “Maybe it isn’t. You can be pretty smart when you want to be.”

  “I’m surrounded by geniuses. Well, except for Steven. But I’ll be damned if he doesn’t get her in the end.” He picked bug out of her hair. “I have to hold my wit cards close and play them at opportune times, because I don’t have many of them.”

  She giggled. “You’re right, I know you are. You keep me sane. Tomorrow. We’ll be curious tomorrow. But for now, let’s enjoy this glowing fort. Could be real, could be an imaginary control prison. We could be glow worms to somebody.”

  “Tomorrow.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “Okay.”

  She opened her thoughts to him and they got lost in speculation, never uttering a vocal word. They simply shared clean, mind-to-mind chatting over the satellites through the implants imbedded in their brains until they drifted off into the same dream together, as was often the case.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Chris B. Porter is a writer who only writes because becoming a cult leader is too difficult. When he isn't writing, you can usually find him in his volcano lair stroking a feline creature while sitting in an oversized chair.

  You can reach him at his website ChrisBPorter.com

  You can send him an email at [email protected] I'm sure he would like to hear from you.