A blacked out van had delivered the briefcase to Dennis’s front doorstep in the middle of the night. An insomniac, he had seen the lights crawl up his driveway, the faint buzz of walkie-talkies and the gentle closing of car doors, red smudges retreating through the raindrops on his kitchen window.
He left it a few hours before opening the door to retrieve it. What was the rush? It had been rained on, and was cold to the touch as he laid it on his kitchen table, under the single bulb that swayed gently with the magnetic fields from upstairs. He clicked open the clasps – it wasn’t locked – and looked inside.
It was one of those GM units, but smaller – no way the electrodes would fit a human skull. A child? No. A dog. The penny dropped. Dennis sighed and let the lid drop. So this was the way it was going to be. More fucking subterfuge.
He drained his warm, flat beer and went to bed. He stared at the ceiling until the dawn pierced his curtains. It was time to go hunting.
By midday the bed of his pickup was full of cages, and the cages were full of materials. And the materials were going straight to the Institute.