He clicked on the little icon that represented engen.com and once again the animated symbol went through its cycle, only this time it ended with ‘Stiff Upper Lip’ by AC/DC. He quickly scrolled down the page and found the gtg icon and clicked on it. The dos password prompt overtook his screen again, the tiny cursor blinking next to the wordsPASSWORD PLEASE.
Wracking his brain and rubbing his eyes, which had crow’s feet from watching TV all night with Sara, he typed inSoul.
Password rejected.
Sighing, he typed in:Engen, and thenEngen User.
Again,password rejected.
Groaning, he looked over on his desk and saw a newspaper. In it were the photographs of the alley where Jamie’s body had been found, along with a story by Tom Drake and a one-column sidebar written by Don Smith. On the wall of the alley were those words again: ‘Black Womb’. He glanced back at the computer, furrowing his forehead. It had the right number of characters.
Thepassword pleaseoption came up on his screen again, and he typed in the letters:b - l - a - c - k - w - o - m - b and hit enter.
Immediately his screen became filled with image after image, windows popping up and then shutting themselves down before he could really see them. The screen began to flicker and he thought he was going to have a seizure. He strained his eyes against the brightness, trying to see at least some of the information before him. There was a headshot I.D. photo of a man with spiked hair and a devilish grin. Another showed an Asian woman with clear skin and tiny lips. A third showed what he thought was the street outside the Factory.
The more he watched the flickering images, the more pain began to build in his abdomen and at the base of his skull. Growling under his breath, he reopened the family photos folder and double clicked an image of a safe.
The images stopped flashing by, staying on the screen as the computer locked itself up. Not even the mouse would move.
“It worked,” he said in astonishment, glancing over the page. “This shit looks... government.”
He looked over the frozen window, seeing files on Jamie, Mike, even Cathy. Then he saw one that was marked classified. To him, that was an open invitation. He began to read down through this new information.
black womb, the. A project started through joint commission of governments to try to expand on the possibilities of genetic memory in stem-cell research. The end result would take decades, but would have eventually given way to a new age in foreign policy and sending men overseas. It would have been a super soldier. Although all tests failed to some degree, there was substantial increase in the field. The government project is currently owned by Owen McMasters, the lead research developer of the project, despite
The computer made a little noise. A caption came up that said ‘location being tracked’.
“Fuck,” Xander cursed, trying to regain control of the mouse and close out the program. The pointer stayed there no matter how much he jiggled it, as if it were paralyzed. Grunting angrily through gritted teeth, he held down the ‘control’ and ‘alt’ buttons on the keyboard then tapped ‘delete’ frantically.
At first nothing happened, the icon in the bottom right still spinning around and telling him he was being tracked.
Finally, the task manager popped up in the centre of the screen. He let out a sigh of relief as he ended all the programs one by one.
‘Location being tracked’ still dominated the bottom right of the screen.
Cursing again, he deleted the engen.com bookmark off of his desktop then pushed in on the computer’s power button and held it until it was off.
He stared at the black screen for a long moment, resting his head against his hand as he leaned on his desk. He scooped up the last taste of mustard onto his finger and put it into his mouth.
“What the hell was that?” he asked himself, not surprised when he got no response.
Grendel flicked his pencil up at the ceiling, causing it to stick into the tile.
He wasn’t interested in this biology lecture, not that he ever was. He was thinking about his party. With any luck, Mike wouldn’t be able to make it. And even if he could, Sud, Tommy and Derek would take care of him. Either way, he’d finally get his crack at Cathy tomorrow night.
Tomorrow night.
It seemed so immediate and so far away all at the same time.
After Mike, the only problem would be that freak, Xander, and Sara. But they were easy enough to deal with. This weekend, he and Cathy would have his parents’ house all to themselves...
“Julian!” Professor Miles slapped his hand down on Grendel’s desk. His Boston accent was muddled by years in rural Maine but still very condescending and better-than-thou. A hail of pencils slipped from their places on the ceiling, crashing down onto Grendel’s head. “Julian, you have not paid attention all class, your feet are on the desk... By god, you don’t even have the right book!”
“But that’s the book I’ve been using since the beginning of the year,” Grendel objected, motioning toward it with both open palms.
The tired old teacher rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “That... that actually doesn’t shock me. I must be getting used to this.” He took off his glasses and wiped them in his shirt, chuckling softly. “Dear lord, that is a scary thought, isn’t it?”
“Can I use the bathroom?” Grendel asked.
Miles looked up, eyes wide in astonishment. “What?”
“Well, as Mr. Calendar once said ‘better I am in the halls than in here bothering the students who want to learn.’”
“You are excused, Mr. Grendel.”
Grendel hopped out
