BLIND TRIAL by Brian Deer (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📗

Ben headed upstairs and spotted a tall blonde lady struggling to a second-floor bar. She might be a long shot, but they were often the best shots. He skidded through the crowd, quick as a spitball.

Up close, she was taller, in flat-soled shoes, with a red rose tattoo on her throat.

“Happen to your face?”

“Should see the other guy.”

“I’m Christiane.”

“Call me Ben.”

SOMETHING WOKE Trudy. Something always did. She paid for her daytime naps. If it wasn’t indigestion or blue jays under the roof, she’d be feeling too hot, or too cold. She gazed at the fan, rotating in the darkness. Daft thing hardly made any difference.

It seemed she’d slept minutes. The change of time zone didn’t help: she’d just gotten used to Pacific. But it wasn’t her body that returned her to wakefulness. It was her mind: it wouldn’t switch off. She couldn’t stop thinking about that meeting at the office and to what she’d lent her support.

She fumbled for a switch, squinted against the light, and groped around her duvet for a robe. She hauled herself upright, catching sight of her arms, so skinny and disfigured by age. Her breasts sagged, wizened, like a dead cow’s udders. Who’d ever want to touch those again?

On the stairs, she gripped the banister and descended with caution. If she stumbled and fell, who would hear? In the kitchen, she opened the fridge, poured a glass of enriched milk, and stared into the dark of the yard.

Near the shadow of a bird feeder, her reflection stared back. And now she understood what woke her. In sleep, she’d been brought face-to-face with her conscience, with nobody to fool but herself. This thing they were doing: could she really see it through? Or did it offend against values too deep?

In her ambitious middle years, when only goals set the standards, the answer to that question came easy. What she’d done to Murayama, when he was young and ambitious, was abuse he hadn’t deserved. She stole his patent. Yes. It seemed right at the time. Special ends sometimes called for special means. But now, with the prize so close she could smell it, could she truly end her career on a lie?

There was one case now. Could it be ten in a year? Or twenty? Or a hundred? Who could say? It was Helen Glinski now, but what lurked down the road, when millions were injected with the vaccine? Could the inventor be judge and jury of her own invention? Or must other—sharper—minds have their say?

Refreshed by the milk, she turned off the lights, gripped the banister, and climbed the stairs.

The bedroom was cool, quiet, and soothing: only the rustle of oaks stirred the night. She slipped from her robe, switched off the lamp, and settled under the slow-spinning fan.

What did the company people know of a scientist’s duty? Marcia Gelding and Theodore Hoffman? They knew nothing. Viraj Grahacharya? That man was pure evil. Prison was too good for what he’d done. And that naive young man? What would become of Ben Louviere? She couldn’t understand him at all.

She’d deal with this tomorrow. She’d do what was right. Only independent minds should decide. If they said she’d failed, then that would be that. She wouldn’t find it easy to get over. But she’d admit it to everyone, admit it to herself, that the roulette wheel had spun, and she’d lost.

But now, sleep. Inshallah. If God willed it so. She pulled the duvet tight to her neck. The air-conditioner cut. The room fell silent. Que sera sera. Goodnight.

The fan twirled slowly. A draft stroked her face. A northeast wind on sand.

ON THE EDGE of the dancefloor, Ben searched for a space. No matter, a gap would open. He saw breasts, beards, raised palms, pointing fingers, tattoos, and buckets of sweat. Here were stripped down bodies under fierce, shifting lights: a floor of fit people in their own mindspaces, moving to the heartbeats of sound.

“Come on,” he yelled, and Christiane followed him into a fresh soup of glistening perspiration. They moved slowly at first and then picked up the rhythm. He passed the second tab, which she swallowed.

All sides pressed skin… Wet, tanned, flashing colors… Christiane danced tight, unexpansive. He shut his eyes. Lights. Now moving in motion. In seconds, his mind circled his body. His brain turned somersaults, head over heels, like he was spinning by his belt from a wire.

Crash. Another tune. Heat scorched his face. Christiane was going at it.

Drum machine.

His foot hit the floor: on the freeway, interstate, a yellow line, following, more and more. He was climbing… rising… lifting to the sky: an aircraft, pulling up wheels. He was gliding… tilting… swooping… soaring. He was a bird on a current of air.

Sounds turned hollow… into deep space, drifting. An old one. Roger Sanchez: “Another Chance.”

He liked it. Faster. Now upside down… He smelled sweat… MDMA… He peeled off his vest and hung it from his shorts… Someone touched his shoulder. Who was that?

His eyes flickered open: Christiane was missing. Only guys pressed in: store detectives. Still as a tree. Arms branches. Growing. Everything moved but him.

Luke wasn’t here. He’d be wired by Bluestreak: only bodies as fit as their own. Those hours, those days, those months in the gym. You could trust the gym. You did it. It worked.

But where was Christiane? Sweating girls, where are you?

The store detectives had him hemmed in.

He was following a river: South Fork Eel… Chicago. Pouring over falls… cascading foam. Logs rolling down… San Francisco… foggy morning. Lake Michigan… skateboard… Jump.

His ears soaked sound, pouring into his body and flooding through his feet onto the dancefloor. Water lapped his legs… I-10 leaped the lake. Baton Rouge to the Big Easy… He was home.

BUT WHAT was this now? Her head was sliding. The pillow: it was moving. Head falling. What on earth was happening? Her cheek touched the mattress. The pillow was no longer in place.

Trudy’s eyes opened. She rolled onto her back. What’s that: that