Xenofreak Nation, Book Three: XIA Read Online Free PDF

see to the end of the tunnel, but hadn’t expected to.
    “All clear,” he called.
    Lo responded cheerfully, “Incoming!” and landed behind him with a grunt of effort. She switched on her flashlight and said, “What a pleasant place.”
    Scott led the way. The air was cold, damp, and in addition to the fetid chemical odor permeating the place, smelled of smoke. At the end of the tunnel, what had once been a closet with a false back wall was now a gaping hole. Lo took up a defensive position against one wall as Scott stuck the flashlight through the opening and briefly poked his head around. There wasn’t much left of Fournier’s facility. The drop ceiling was mostly gone, although the scorched and twisted infrastructure hung precariously from the bottom of the slab above them. The majority of the walls that had once neatly partitioned the former parking garage had either burned away to ash in the fire or been knocked down during the search for evidence afterward. The flooring seemed to have mostly survived, but it was covered with burnt and broken refuse.
    He pulled back for a moment and then stuck his head in again to look in the other direction. His flashlight was strong, but didn’t reach the furthest walls. Someone had cleared a path through the refuse, however, and he thought whoever it was might as well have put up a neon sign saying, ‘This way.’
    He shone the flashlight in his own face so Lo could see him jerk his head to indicate he was going in. He heard her follow him; their footsteps echoed in the cavernous space. It didn’t take long for him to lose his bearings as the cleared path turned this way and that, finally coming to an end at another tent. This one didn’t appear to be made from solar fabric, which made sense down here in the dark. The tent opening was zipped shut, but a faint glow from inside indicated that someone was either home, or had left a light on.
    “Tent occupant!” Scott called, for lack of a better descriptive term. “We’re with the XIA. Come out where we can see you.”
    A muffled male voice replied sullenly, “Leave me alone!”
    “We just want to talk,” Lo said.
    “I’ve said everything that needs saying,” the man replied.
    “Not to us.”
    “Then you weren’t paying attention.”
    “Are you Savvy?” Scott asked.
    “Obviously.” Savvy’s voice hadn’t lost any of its petulance. If it weren’t for the deep timbre, Scott would swear they were talking to a child.
    “You’ve been stirring things up out there,” Lo said.
    “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
    “Uh, I beg to differ. Hate speech with the intent to incite violence.”
    “Hate? More like truth, and good luck proving my intent.”
    Lo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Whatever your intent, there are a lot of scared people out there.”
    “They’re not scared enough.”
    Scott decided he’d had enough. “Come on out. Don’t make us come in after you.”
    “You said you just wanted to talk. We’re talking.”
    “You know, Savvy,” Lo said in an exaggeratedly patient tone, “We’ve been tasked with identifying you. My partner doesn’t care whether we get that ID pre or post mortem, but since I just killed a man yesterday, I don’t have the heart for it today.”
    If Lo had intended to intimidate him, it didn’t work.
    “If you killed someone, shouldn’t you be on administrative leave?”
    Scott was beginning to see where Savvy got his nickname. He was smart and a smart aleck. Scott couldn’t see Lo’s face very well in the dim light from their flashlights, but he thought she rolled her eyes.
    “Usually, yes,” she replied. “But everyone’s on high alert, in part because of the nonsense you’ve been posting.”
    “It’s not nonsense,” Savvy said, but the light inside the tent went out and Scott heard him rustling around. The zipper on the tent slowly rose and he stepped out, holding a hand over his eyes when they both spotlighted him.
    As soon as Scott got