A little teaser…

Here’s a little teaser from my almost done story tentatively called Neonicotinoids…. Hopefully I’ll have it done by the end of summer.

Through out the day he took advantage of the free coffee refills however he did purchase food a few times and was able to type up a substantial portion of his final report. As evening approached and the sun was setting he gathered up his electronics and headed for home, just a ten minute walk away. He reached his building and climbed the stairs to his third floor apartment. At the door he inserted the key, turned it and unlocked the handle. Patrick pushed the door open, stepped in and immediately felt light headed as a wet rag was pushed over his nose and mouth.

His background told him chloroform even as his brain was saying good night.

When he awoke it was still dark out and he was sitting in a chair, arms bound behind his back with what felt like a soft cloth, something in his mouth and a hood on his head. As soon as he started moving the hood was ripped free and he could see the sun had indeed set.

“Where is the backup?”

“mmmm-mm-mmm.”

The gag was removed while a voice right behind his head said, “Keep quiet or you die.”

“W-w-what?”

“Where is the backup?”

“What backup?”

That earned him a hard smack on the side of his head.

“Don’t play stupid. Where is the backup?”

“You mean of my research?”

“Yeah, I don’t care about your porn pic backups.”

“Hey, how’d you know abou…..”

Another, harder, whack on the side of his head stopped the rest of the sentence.

“Last chance. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Where is it?”

“I got a memory stick in my shirt pocket. I guess that’s what you are looking for.”

A hand reached from behind him and into his pocket. The memory stick was pulled free.

“Is this the only copy?”

“Yes although I copied it to my laptop earlier today too.”

“Then this isn’t the only copy,” followed by yet another smack to the head, this time on the other side.

“Where is the laptop?”

“I don’t know. It was in my bag when I came in.”

“Who else knows about these results?”

“No one that I know of. I haven’t finished the findings paper yet so nothing has been released or published.”

“Thank you. Now open wide.”

Patrick was quite confused at the open wide statement, at least for a moment. A man in an impeccably tailored dark grey suit stepped around and moved in front of him. He noted the gloves on his hands and the old beat up looking gun in his hand. Before another thought could register the gun was quickly thrust into his mouth, angled upwards and Patrick’s brain joined with the ceiling and wall.

The man quickly cut the cloth binding his hands and the body fell from the chair to the ground. He wrapped Patrick’s fingers around the handle of the gun and then dropped the arm and gun to the floor leaving them to lay where they landed. He grabbed the laptop bag and Patrick’s cell phone. Stepping into the hall he dialed 911 and quickly reported a gun shot at this address, hung up the phone before any questions could be asked and tossed the phone back into the apartment closing the door behind him.

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