The Other Eight Read Online Free PDF Page A

through the back of
his head with only the force of his glare. Once they were out in
the hall and on their way to his office, Aiken turned to
Summers.
    “Thank God for that guy,” he whispered.
    “Yes, well, we’ll see if you change your tune
if he sticks around.”
    “Why? Is he trouble?”
    “Again, I’ve only been here for a little
while, and so far I’ve been too far down the ladder to have to deal
with him, but most people don’t just call him Major St. John.”
    “What do they call him?”
    “It varies, but usually it involves a
colorful adjective. I used to think his first initial was F, if you
know what I mean.”
    “Ah. Well, he can’t be worse than
Siegel.”
    Now that it was clear that he wasn’t going to
face a court-martial or a firing squad or whatever it was that
happened to people involved with security leaks, Aiken could feel a
sort of giddiness coming over him. Meta-humans were rare. At the
best estimate, the gene occurred in less than one-half of one
percent of the population, and screening wasn’t very widespread.
Finding even one of them to interview had been a challenge back in
his college days. The profiles they had on file were tantalizing,
but they didn’t ask the sorts of questions he wanted answered. Now
he was facing the mother lode of sample sets. It was going to be
glorious.

Chapter 5
    In a Chinese
buffet in rural Washington, a pair of parents had just sat down
with their third helping of steamed crab legs. Their teenaged
daughter was already at the table. A plate of what had once been
beef and broccoli rested in front of her, abandoned after an
exhaustive search had failed to turn up any more meat among the
pile of useless vegetables.
    “Janet, put the phone away, you’re at the
table,” scolded the mother. The teen didn’t look away from the
screen of her smartphone.
    “Waitress!” yelled the father. “We’ve been
waiting for refills on these beverages for five minutes.”
    A thin, young Asian woman hurried up to the
table with the weary and worn expression of someone who had been
filling glasses with sugary beverages for about three hours longer
than sanity could withstand. Now she was on dead-eyed autopilot
until quitting time. With a pitcher in each hand, she eyed the
glasses on the table. The two lemon-slice-bearing glasses were
filled with diet cola, the bare glass, with regular. She turned to
make another sweep of the nearby tables when the father sampled his
drink and caught her by the arm, causing her to slosh some of the
soft drink onto the sleeve of her shirt.
    “Excuse me,” the man blurted, the tone of the
phrase making it clear that it was in this case a euphemism for
‘come back here, you idiot.’ “This is diet. I had regular with
lemon.” He turned to his wife. “You’d think she would have
asked.”
    The waitress scowled slightly. “Tortoise
magnet,” she said.
    The father twitched. “What?”
    “Oh, so sorry,” the waitress said in a thick
Chinese accent. “My English is not so good. I mean to say I will
get you a new beverage, very much fastly.”
    “Oh. Figures. Well, get on that, then,” he
said.
    The waitress turned to head for the kitchen,
face twisting into a sneer, but before she got two steps, a video
on the smartphone caught her ear. It was the voice of a local
newscaster.
    “… was first thought to be a hoax has now
been confirmed by representatives of DARPA. The US Army has issued
an open recruitment drive for any ‘enhanced human beings’ who would
like to serve their country. Spokesperson Major Chester St. John
made the following statement…”
    The waitress quickly circled around the table
and peered over the shoulder of the daughter. On the screen was the
sleazy Major St. John, talking up the special coalition created to
assemble the team and describing where applicants could find
additional information.
    “Um, aren’t you supposed to be getting me a
new drink?” griped the father, who had reached across to steal