Orphan X

54 No

Evan looped the Ford down seven stories of ramp, reaching the street. The police sirens were still a few blocks away, the cops hung up in constipated Strip traffic. Encircled by a ring of horrified onlookers, Slatcher’s body was crumpled into the roof of his car, the damage from the fall leaving him nearly unrecognizable. Several of his fingers littered the pavement around him, confetti decorating the gruesome spectacle.

Pulling on a sweatshirt to cover his bloody shirt, Evan shouldered through the crowd, moving briskly and tilting his head downward in hopes no one would note his bruised face. “Excuse me! I’m a doctor!” Under the guise of checking for a pulse, he searched Slatcher’s pockets, finding only a slender metal case in the front pocket of his pants. The onlookers seemed too horrified to take notice of Evan, sneaking glances and snapping iPhone pictures. One young woman cried into her boyfriend’s chest, stamping her feet in agitation.

Evan slipped away, finding his shotgun in a hedge at the base of the parking structure. His Wilson 1911, on the sidewalk across the street by La Reverie, was being staked out by several workers, so he left it behind.

Hopping back into his truck, he pulled out and drove away just as the screaming cruisers screeched onto the scene. As he waited on the clogged freeway ramp, he pulled up his shirt to check his stomach. The sutures had torn through the skin, the wound gaping, but the artery had not ruptured.

He ran the freeway for a solid hour before pulling off and checking the silver box.

Ten fingernails. A contact lens.

He poked at the lens, and it animated, shimmering with a computer screen glow.

Okay, then.

He drove to a CVS pharmacy and bought contact solution. Back in his car, parked at the edge of the lot, he soaked the lens thoroughly in case it had been poisoned.

Then he popped it into his eye.

The fingernails pressed on with ease.

He waited.

A cursor appeared. It blinked red for a time.

And then green.

Evan waited, motionless.

A single line scrolled into existence. ORPHAN O?

NO, Evan typed, and logged off.