Caplan’s eyes narrowed on the glass. “The one with the neck tattoo?”
Aiden nodded.
“Then you need to concentrate on him.” Capland went back to his keyboard. “You’ll talk to him, ask him questions, while signing the same words through ASL.”
Aiden studied the ASL letter guide. Looked simple enough. “What should I say?”
Capland typed the word “Hi” and the hand gestures for the word popped up on the blank screen. “Try to direct its attention up to the prompts.”
“It has no eyes,” Wolf said. “We do not know if it sees.”
Cap shrugged without looking up from his laptop. “Won’t hurt to try.”
True. Aiden stepped up to the window in front of Squirrel and rapped on the glass. “Squirrel?”
With jerky, uncoordinated spasms, his dead best friend raised his hands and pressed them against the glass, activating Faith’s forcefield. From wrists down, its hands disappeared into thewindow. Which was still freaky as hell, but not as whacked as the first time.
It was amazing what one could adjust to.
Twisting, Aiden pointed up at the two screens hanging overhead trying to get the creature to look up. “Squirrel. Look.” He glanced over his shoulder. No reaction. Its hands were still inside the force field, its empty eye sockets level with Aiden’s face.
Aiden tried twice more before Capland interrupted. “Let’s move to plan B. We’ll start simple. You’ll sign the letters for ‘hi’ as you say the word.” He demonstrated the hand gestures for the two letters.
Aiden mimicked the gestures. “Like this?”
“Perfect.” Capland nodded at Squirrel. “Now say ‘hi’ and sign the letters.”
Aiden did as directed, but the Squirrel suit didn’t move. It made no attempt to mimic the gestures. Hell, it didn’t even pull its hands out of the shield. It just stood there, hands missing, its eyes level with Aiden’s face. Aiden signed and said hi again. Still no response.
After the sixth attempt with no response, he gave up. “Well, that was a bust.”
“Rap on the glass again.” Wolf cocked his head, studying Squirrel’s frozen form. “It responded to that earlier.”
True, but this time when his knuckles struck the glass, zombie Squirrel just stood there. No reaction.
“Looks like it’s turned off again,” Aiden said, trying to swallow his frustration.
Wolf’s corresponding grunt carried no expression whatsoever. “Why did you call me?”
The change in topic was so abrupt, it took Aiden a second to follow it. “Yeah, about that. I have a message from Benioko.”
Wolf straightened, interest sharpening his gaze. “You dreamed last night?”
“I sure did.” With a scoff, Aiden jammed his fingers through his hair. “And like clockwork, your annoying shaman just had to show up and expose my subconscious thoughts to me.”
“And those were?” Wolf’s eyebrows rose.
“He said there’s a fishing trawler headed for the Harbinger’s grave site, and you need to intercept its harvest and prevent it from infecting the food chain.”
Cap’s head popped up, a sudden frown on his face. This time, when his glasses slid down his nose, he took them off and let them dangle between his fingertips. “There shouldn’t be any fish to harvest. The LFT should have driven all the sea life away from the site.”
Aiden shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you, just passing on your dead shaman’s message.” He paused a beat, before adding, with a distinct challenge in his voice. “Looks like my subconscious is still stressed over O’Neill’s food chain theory. I considered not passing this message on, as Cap has the whole infected fish thing covered, but hell, I promised to tell you anything Benioko told me. Even when it’sclearlycoming from my subconscious. So, consider yourself told.”
“Did the old one mention Jillian’s lion claiming or Gracie’s wolf claiming?” Wolf asked, ignoring Aiden’s disclaimer. “Did Benioko explain the elder gods’ expectations?”
“Of course not,” Aiden drawled. “My subconscious doesn’t know shit about that.”
Which Wolf knew, but as usual his big bro ignored Aiden’s reasonable explanation for Benioko’s appearance in his dream. What a pair they made. Here Wolf was, trying to instill myopic mythology in Aiden, while Aiden tried to encourage rational thinking in Wolf.
