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“Hold up a second, Todd.” I bobbed my head in a come-hither movement.
It had to look ridiculous with such a weird contraption on my head. I wanted to talk to him a little more for several reasons, the most important of which was my desire to not be burned. That would suck. I also wanted a few answers, though that was merely secondary to not wanting to resemble Freddy Krueger.
Smith seemed to truly believe his actions were justified, so I would pull on that thread. A bit of the sweater might unravel if I were lucky.
“Before you break out the blow torches, I need to know something.”
“What is it, Mr. Benson?”
“Since we’re on a first-name basis now, Todd, I’d prefer it if you called me Ash. It just sounds cooler that way. My parents didn’t leave me with much, but they did give me a righteous first name.”
Smith let out a loud, exaggerated yawn.
“Okay, moving on.” I shifted my shoulders and felt the dried blood on my skin crack. “What’s your end game here? You’ve got the entire federal government searching for your ass and you’re sitting here in...” I swung my head around as if I were inspecting the room. “Where are we anyway?”
“You bore me.” Smith stepped closer. “I’m not going to give you any vital information, so don’t bother with the games. As for my end game, isn’t it obvious? I’m willing to protect this country at all costs.”
“So you said. You killed thousands to save millions and all that happy horseshit. But what now? You’ve protected us from the weapon only you possess, which takes some serious mental gymnastics for you to rationalize, but I’m still following along. So now what? Why do you have my sexy ass strapped to this chair with a helmet drilled to my head?”
“We can’t defend ourselves against that which we don’t understand. I don’t understand how your mind works, so I’m going to dissect it and learn. Your very existence means there could be others like you out there. If and when another telekinetic shows up, we must be prepared to nullify him. I would have thought that obvious.”
It was obvious; I just wanted to push back the dissection start time a bit. As it turns out, I’d grown quite fond of my mind being just where it was.
That and, if I was truly being honest with myself, some of the things he said rang true. The government that I loathed, and now worked for, had given me very little information or support. They held us back while telling us how important our mission was.
We weren’t given access to the resources we required.
There were times when Drew flat out asked me if I thought they wanted us to succeed. I couldn’t answer that question at the time. I still didn’t know if I could. Some things were run so poorly at the top levels of government that it was nearly impossible to tell if the stupidity was deliberate or just inherent of the system.
“I get that you want to understand how my weird mental stuff works, but what I can’t figure out is why you’re here personally taking care of this. Don’t you have flunkies who can look at readouts? If you’re really trying to protect the people, then why are you babysitting me? You know I’m no threat to anyone except you.”
“You really are narcissistic, aren’t you?” Smith asked. “You’re the least of my concerns right now. We’re tracking a potential chemical threat at the moment. Your data is a purely secondary objective for me.”
“Chemical attack? Come on now, Todd. Let’s drop the act. You’re doing this because you’re pissed off that the government burned you, and now you want revenge. This whole saving the country nonsense has to stop.”
Smith sighed. “I would have left the country long ago if I was only concerned with revenge. Staying inside our borders makes me particularly vulnerable, doesn’t it?”
He had a point there, though it didn’t really prove anything.
“I already told you that we found the weapon we used in Arthur’s Creek and had to protect the nation from it. We’re doing the same with other threats as we speak. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Smith said, “we have to get back to work. Good luck, Mr. Benson. You’re going to need it.”