The Fall (Book 4): Genesis Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

effect. She hadn't yet begun shooting, which had to be a positive sign.
    “We'll take her back with us,” Kell continued. “I don't like the idea of killing a kid who might not have had much choice about being here.” He considered for a moment. “We've seen enough of these people to know what to ask. We know what we're looking for. If it ends up that way, we can always finish the job later.”
    The girl definitely made a noise at those last words.

Five
     
     
     
    “In deference to the many years of professionalism you've shown me, I'm going to say this as nicely as possible,” John said as he none too gently probed Kell's mangled shoulder. “You're a fucking moron.”
    “Nothing I haven't told myself a bunch of times,” Kell said.
    John snorted. “I figured it's important you hear it from someone else. Smart as you are, it seems like you need a little help when it comes to remembering that big old brain of yours is capable of making equally big errors of judgment.”
    Kell opened his mouth, but John cut him off with a gloved and bloody finger. “If you're about to use that Dumbledore quote to say the same damn thing I just said, I'm gonna start disconnecting nerves.”
    With more than a little chagrin, Kell pressed his lips together. Maybe the small library of books they had found when taking over the house meant he read the same two dozen novels over and over again, and maybe that meant quoting the works of J.K. Rowling when he felt applicable, but John had to have gotten lucky there. No way he had used the one about how being clever made one's mistakes 'correspondingly huger' enough to make him predictable.
    Upon further thought, Kell theorized that maybe intelligence and denial were directly proportional as well. It made sense.
    John continued his delicate work with immense care, whatever Kell's pain receptors might be saying, though he did keep up a constant low boil of recriminations as he worked. This too washed over Kell in a familiar wave. When they had been designing the cutting edge gene therapies and manipulation techniques that would eventually end the world, John always did his best work while babbling away. The subject wasn't important. Kell thought the constant nattering and its effect on John's brain acted as a catalyst for the creative thinking which had been so critical in making Chimera work.
    As John's current task, along with two of the compound's better medics, was to reconstruct the mess that was Kell's shoulder, hearing his friend bitch about his behavior was actually rather soothing. A spot of familiarity in a world grown unrecognizable.
    The group finished their work well after the weak anesthetic had metabolized out of Kell's system, but by then it was mostly cleanup. Kell forced himself to remain still as the last few stitches went in.
    “What do you think?” Kell asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.
    John removed his gloves, gesturing with his chin for the medics to leave them alone. When the door closed, Kell could see by the look in his friend's eyes that he wasn't going to like what he heard.
     
     
     
    A few hours later, Kell sat on the edge of the roof and looked over the compound below. The old farmhouse already had a widow's walk and a direct access when they moved in, as well as several flat sections covering some of the many additions made throughout the decades.
    John had gone directly to Laura after telling Kell about the bone chips he had carefully removed from where they were embedded against several of Kell's nerves. There was visible damage to the nerves themselves, which could be made worse in any number of ways. Laura, being Laura, had immediately made it clear that Kell was on heavily restricted duty.
    Not just to Kell, either. The entire population was told in crystal clear language that if they saw him working out, doing chores, or participating in any activity that even occupied the same galaxy as strenuous, they were to gently stop him and gently