Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [111]
Adrian exhaled and leaned back, taking his drink with him and downing the last of it. He held the empty glass against his chest. “Thank you,” he said. “I know you didn’t have to tell me any of this.”
“I wish I could be more help.”
The part-time drag queen shook his head. “There’s no help to be had, not anymore. She’s gone, and I’m still here. And I’ve done everything I could to keep her death from being swept under a rug, but until Raylene here stumbled across me—”
“Hey—” I objected. There hadn’t been any “stumbling” about it.
“I’d run out of ideas. I didn’t know what to do with what I had. The government allegedly closed the program some time ago, but I suspect it’s been reopened—maybe as a civilian operation.”
“There’s no suspecting to it,” I sulked. “Someone’s up to something again, and I’ve got a name—Ed Bruner. I even have a half-assed idea of how he’s trying to drum up new subjects.”
Ian asked with a hint of worry, “What do you mean?”
“One of my properties was broken into the night you and I met. I caught the breaker-inner, and he had a number on him that lead back to a guy named Ed Bruner. The same name turned up in Adrian’s folders. You’ll see it when you read through it—or when Cal does. I don’t believe in coincidences. I think he’s fishing around for more test subjects, and he’s using a group of urban explorers as cover.”
“Urban explorers?” Cal asked. “What, like people who take pictures in abandoned buildings?”
“Yes, but worse. These guys—like the guy I caught on my property—they aren’t looking around abandoned buildings. Bruner is using them to try and flush out people like me, or chase down leads that might lead him to people like me. I can’t prove it yet, but I don’t really have to. I know he’s tied up in Project Bloodshot, and that makes him interesting enough to chase down, regardless of what his involvement in the burglary might have been.”
Ian said, “Indeed,” and he brought the subject back around to its primary purpose, from his point of view. “And for now, I’d like to ask if you’d let me have those files. I’ve come a very long way to see them. Or rather”—he made a self-deprecating gesture—“to have Cal see them.”
The ghoul took his hands off his whiskey long enough to retrieve the blue folder stuffed full of that enigmatic paperwork and place it in front of Ian—and halfway in front of himself, so he could see it.
Ian couldn’t read it, but he seemed eager to touch it, if only to know for certain that he’d finally found it. He asked Cal, “Is it …?”
And Cal said, “Looks like it. I think so, yes.” He flipped through the pages, licking his thumb for traction, and gave everything a cursory examination in the dim light of the Revolutionary. “It appears to be rather comprehensive,” he muttered. “But coded, like everything else we’ve found so far.”
“I’ve also included the paperwork regarding two of the other subjects who were featured in the Holtzer Point file cabinets. Your stuff is in there, but it’s not much you don’t already have. As for the other dossiers, they’re coded, too. It’s almost impossible to tell any personal details about any of them, except Isabelle.” I’d given her paperwork to Adrian, in case it meant anything to him. I theorized, “And that might be because they knew she’d been reported as a missing person, and they figured out that someday, they might have to account for what happened to her … to someone.”
Adrian agreed, saying, “Maybe. I made a big stink for a few years there, until I tracked her down and went after her documents. Then I had to knock it off, obviously. But everything I ever found on Bloodshot was coded—and that’s not so unusual, really. The military loves nothing more than muddling things that ought to be clear. Maybe you’ll find something useful in it. I hope you do. It hasn’t been doing much for me these past few years.” He said it with irritation, but not directed at anyone at the table. I think he was irritated with himself for hanging on to it all this time and not knowing what to do with it.
“Thank you,” Ian told him again.