Exsanguinate Read Online Free PDF Page A

been at the college way too much lately. Looks like the real world fun is in here. It’s like freakin’ NASA. What is all this stuff? Are those wall monitors? You turned your walls into a computer?”
    “Yeah – they’re translucent touch monitors. Check ‘em out. DON’T delete anything. I’m actually testing them out for Corning Glass.”
    If a person hadn’t been in my office in a while, they’d think it looked like some kind of freakish techno-laboratory superimposed on top of a preschool art class. I had retinal eye scanners, tablets, cork boards, dry erase boards, markers, paint smocks for story boards, wooden artist’s models, stainless steel counter tops, and modeling clay for poses.
    “Yes, well actually, if you inspect closer, these are glass panels with LED monitors inset into them. This way I can move different aspects from one plane to another and get a true 3D rendering out of them. It’s a heckuva lot easier to envision the pose ball animations this way than trying to anticipate the avatar’s natural body movement with Play Doh.”
    Viewing the contents of what I might be wearing to Halloween Scream Nights, I rummaged through the bags.
    “Sounds as if you might need to upgrade your server cabinet to support all that framework.” A long, slow whistle from Harris filled the air. “I’ve got to come over and check it out.”
    “Actually, Harris, can you come up soon? I need your opinion on a few things. I’m thinking we might need to expand because I’m planning to turn the spare bedroom into a volume stage for the pose ball animations inside the game. I’m not sure we’ll have enough server room. We might need more hardware to increase the firepower, for smoother rendering and handling of the camera angles.”
    “Gimme a sec – lemme check my calendar.” Keys clicked on his keyboard clacking away over the headsets. He had to be the fastest typist I knew.
    While Harris checked for a possible date and time for us to get together, Dakota sauntered back over to all the packages. “Here’s your costume.” Her giggle betrayed her as my eyes focused in on the little bag. She dangled it as if it were a pendulum in front of me.
    I balked at her announcement. “Dakota, how is that possible? There can’t be a costume inside that dinky pouch. You expect me to go out in public wearing nothing but what’s in there?”
    She nodded with a gleam in her eye. I knew that meant nothing but torment for me. I grabbed at the eensy weensy black bag, but she snatched her arm back just in time for me to miss and hid it behind her back.
    “My costume is in there? What is it? A roll of toilet paper for a mummy costume?”
    “Close, very close!” Dakota danced around with anticipation. Her angelic face excited as Christmas mornings with Mom and Dad. She had such a way of bringing out the silly in all of us. Wolf whistles and hoots accompanied Dakota’s excitement.
    “Looks like I can come over on Tuesday afternoon. Does that work for you, Cheyenne? I have a pack meeting over the weekend, and we won’t be back out of the woods until then. No cell reception, no nothing – totally off the grid.”
    “You and your scout troops. Those boys are so lucky to land a scoutmaster like you.” I looked at my picture of Harris and his scout troop on the wall by the coat rack. He always looked happiest when the kids were around him. Made me wonder if he was ever planning to settle down and have children of his own someday. “What badges do you have planned this weekend? Geo-caching in the Everglades again?”
    “Not this time. We’re teaching the kids how to set up a basecamp of operations and Morse code. Ya know, just in case of emergencies.”
    “Oh how cool is that? I’ve always wanted to learn Morse code.”
    “You have the attention span of a lightning bolt.” I looked at Dakota as if she had lost her mind. “What would possess you to think you’d ever have the discipline to learn another language, let