How We Found You: A Cyberpunk Kidnapping Thriller (When Tomorrow Calls Book 2) Read online

  How We Found You

  When Tomorrow Calls • Book Two

  JT Lawrence

  Contents

  Also by JT Lawrence

  Grab ‘The Stepford Florist’ for FREE

  Part I

  1. They Never Found the Bodies

  2. A Quick Contagion

  3. A Black Whisper in her Brain

  4. Bitter Caramel Skin

  5. 'D' for Dickweasel

  6. Four Fingers

  7. Popgrains and Sex

  8. The Cheerful Psychopath

  9. Gram by Gram

  10. The Lost Art of Swimming

  11. Escape

  12. The Sound of the Sea

  13. Fahrenheit451

  14. A Skeleton of Gold

  15. The Dandy Lion

  16. Haunted Mansion of Empty Tanks

  17. Empty Pyjamas

  18. SecondLife

  19. Death in Mid-Air

  20. The Man Who Perforates Her Dreams

  21. Baby Blanket

  22. Eyes the Colour of an Old Bruise

  23. A Heart. A Clock

  24. A Red Stamp on the Tiles

  Part II

  25. Copper Squared

  26. Flicker of Whisker

  27. HackMagg0t Pentester

  28. Ruff-ruff RoboPup

  29. Sticky Cheek

  30. Switch Blade

  31. Rubber Bones and Happy Hearts

  32. Hackspider

  33. More Lives Than a Cat

  34. Asylum

  35. The Last One

  36. A Howl in the Distance

  37. Like Dominoes They Fall

  38. Empty of a Heartbeat

  39. Scentless

  40. Orphan on a Train

  41. Flinty Stone

  42. Mom

  43. Film of Fear and Dread

  44. A Blue Breeze Blows In

  45. Hangman

  46. Cosmic Cream

  47. Organic Martinis and Wild Sex

  48. Hard Pearl

  49. A Terrible Mistake

  50. Testimony from the Grave

  51. Nuclear Ghost Town

  52. Shrieking Limpet

  Part III

  53. Shark Fins and Lightning

  54. The Perfect Place To Hide

  55. Crash Cart

  56. Elegant Surrender

  57. Foils vs Mints

  58. A New Kind of Smile

  59. Dangerous Cheekbones

  60. A Carwash Crucifixion

  61. A Blunt Nurse in Hot Pink

  62. One and a Half Feet in the Grave

  63. Mistress Catfish

  64. Calamine Ice

  65. Cold Lullaby

  66. Dinner For One

  67. Re-break the Bone

  68. Scented With Gunpowder

  69. Grim Claw

  70. Dead Marbles

  71. There Are No New Hearts

  72. Paraffin & Garbage

  73. A Wisp of Hope

  74. Dark Dream

  75. Golden Secateurs

  76. Death Song

  77. Rat Hunters

  78. Maze of Black Roses

  79. Alchymist, Folksinger, New Dawn.

  80. Small White Starfish

  81. Night-Chilled Sword

  82. Elegant Arrows

  83. The Soundtrack is the Scent of Roses

  84. Fatal Crimson

  Epilogue

  What’s Next?

  Also by JT Lawrence

  Grab ‘The Stepford Florist’ for FREE

  About the Author

  Stay In Touch

  Acknowledgments

  Also by JT Lawrence

  FICTION

  WHEN TOMORROW CALLS

  • SERIES •

  1. Why You Were Taken (2015)

  2. How We Found You (May 2017)

  3. What Have We Done (October 2017)

  The Stepford Widow: A Short Story (Oct 2017)

  The Memory of Water (2011)

  Sticky Fingers (2016)

  Grey Magic (2016)

  NON-FICTION

  The Underachieving Ovary (2016)

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my mentor

  (and by that I mean cyber stalkee)

  Joanna Penn

  whose success, endless generosity and positivity

  has given me the courage to embrace the writing life.

  Thank you for shining the light.

  Grab ‘The Stepford Florist’ for FREE

  Jasmine is arrested for performing a bootleg vampire facelift in her modded-out steampunk caravan.

  She’s thrilled, because it worked out exactly as she planned.

  Grab this short story set in the futuristic

  When Tomorrow Calls world now.

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  They Never Found the Bodies

  Johannesburg, 2024

  Kate looks up from her holoscreen and blinks hard. How long has she been online? She only meant to look up a recipe for a quick dinner but has fallen into a rabbit hole quilled with xlinks. The open tab leaves all nipping for attention. Animated 4DHD in hypercolour floating before her – or as Seth calls it: Rainbow Crack.

  The twins are far too quiet. They must be getting up to something. Defacing the walls with chocolate glitter? Baking their Lego cake in the real oven? Kate sighs, rubs her eyes and lets her warm hands rest on her neck. She pictures the multicoloured plastic blocks sagging through the metal grid. Caramelised Lego lava. She hopes the smell of burning plastic is a figment of her synaesthesia.

  “Silver?” she calls. “Mally?”

  No answer.

  “Silver?”

  Part of her wants to pretend she doesn’t notice the quiet. Peace is difficult to come by when you’re the single mother of four-year-old twins. Well, not quite a single mother, and not quite twins. Not quite four years old yet, either, but this is how life is: a series of not-quites and half-broken dreams.

  The silence hovers around her like a fresh white cloud (Bleached Bliss).

  “Mally?”

  She unclips her feet from the pedals and climbs off her cycling desk. The holo leaves wink out, making the silence seem somehow louder. She calls again. “Silver?”

  Maybe they’re watching something with their earbuttons in. She checks the games room. An animated film is playing silently on the cinewall, but no eyes are watching it. The bedroom floor is an obstacle course of discarded toys and clothes. She picks up Alba, Silver’s cuddle-bunny, and lays it gently on her pillow. The HappyHammox are empty, although Mally’s is swinging slightly, as if someone has just brushed past it. Kate stops its motion with her hand.

  There is a mewling from the corner. She spins around and dread tingles in her stomach. Another sad cry escapes from a heap of teddies and trucks. Kate tip-toes over to the wailing pile and picks her way through it, discovering a Bébébot of Silver’s. Registering that its been picked up, the playbot stops crying and blinks at her.

  “Mama,” it says. “Mama.”

  The infant’s silicone limbs are warm to the touch. Its lips open and close, looking for its pacifier. Kate has never liked the soft robotics doll. It’s not the toy’s fault; something in her is just revolted by its similarity. Uncanny valley, they call it, when a robot bears a resemblance too striking for comfort.

  “Mama,” it says again then roots for something to suck.

  Kate turns the doll around, unbuttons the cotton onesie and lifts up the fabric to reveal the switch on its back. A shot of y
ellow adrenaline spikes her blood. It’s already off.

  “Mama.”

  Kate almost drops the thing. She toggles the switch on and off again, turns the doll around. It blinks at her.

  Faulty wiring. Her heart is hammering. She takes a step and cobalt stars rip into her foot. She looks down to see that she’s stood on a toy Volanter. Curses crowd her head and she shakes them away.

  She calls louder now, in a voice that’s not quite hers. “Silver?”

  At least we’re in a high-rise. A nice safe apartment instead of a house on a road that can coax the kids away with the promise of adventure. Then again, scores of other people live in the block, and in her experience, people are far more dangerous than roads.

  Kate hurries to the front door, checks the locks. Seth promised her that his new Safeguard, state-of-the-art security system is “bullet-proof” but she made him install some old-fashioned locks just in case. She doesn’t trust a retina scanner. Tech is wonderful until it stops working. She won’t settle for anything less than an old-school door chain, a deadbolt and panic hardware. Her synaesthesia interprets the sounds of the mechanisms locking as reassuring blocks of grey stacked on top of each other. Click, click, click. Not that it helps her sleep at night.

  “Kids? Where are you?”

  She scans the lounge, the kitchen, the study, the kids’ bathroom.

  “Don’t panic,” she says, but the shooting neon yellow is back.

  She checks Seth’s room, her bedroom, her bathroom. The shower door is closed. Did she close it? Is there something behind the frosted glass? A shadow? Her breath catches, heart-in-throat. Kate reaches for the retraction button, but hesitates. Her outstretched fingers tremble.

  They never found the bodies.

  Shut up. Just shut up.

  She could fetch her gun from the safe in her bedroom cupboard but decides against it. Kate presses the retraction button and the superglass partition slides into the wall to reveal an empty cubicle of porcelain tiles.

  A spray of relief that the shower is intruder-free. Terror that the twins aren’t in it.

  Interwoven with the ribbons of fear is the scent of almond soap. Bad thoughts swarm Kate’s brain. She tries to keep them out but there are too many of them – in her head and in her throat, threatening to cut off her oxygen.

  It’s happened again, the voices in her head say. Just like you knew it would.

  “Shut up.” The cold mist of fear rustles on her skin.

  They’re gone. They’ve been taken.

  Chapter 2

  A Quick Contagion

  Kate, fright-frozen, hears knocking at the front door. It’s enough to propel her out of her paralysis. Another knock, and her brother’s muffled voice calls her name. Her fingers, confused by her racing thoughts, fumble with the locks.

  “Kate? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  Finally she manages to open the door. Seth takes a step back when he sees her pale face. “Whoah. What’s happened?”

  “The twins!” Kate shouts. “I’m calling SafeGuard. And the police.”

  Seth’s face is marble, his jaw set, and his mouth is a hard, white line. Fear is a quick contagion. “What do you mean? Where are they?”

  “They’re gone!”

  “They can’t just be ‘gone’.” He gestures at the motley collection of locks on the door. “They can’t get out. They’re here somewhere.”

  “I’ve looked for them everywhere.”

  Seth starts to search. Kate follows him, almost tripping on his heels. Echoing her, he calls out the kids’ names over and over. He turns the corner in his room and a squeal makes them both jump. Betty/Barbara the beagle gives him a hurt look.

  “Sorry, old girl,” says Seth. “I didn’t see you there.”

  Kate starts to feel faint. There’s snowy static behind her eyes.

  “I’ve looked there,” she said. “I’ve looked everywhere.”

  “Silver?” calls Seth.

  Quiet.

  “I’m calling 911.” Kate touches the Patch behind her ear.

  “Hang on.” Seth puts a finger to his lips then he puckers up and whistles, a clean, clear strain that severs the tense silence.

  An electronic beeping comes from the next room. They dash towards the kids’ bathroom, crowded with robofish and rubber dux, and Seth whistles again. The laundry basket emits a cheerful beep. Slowly, slowly, he lifts the lid of the hamper to reveal two bobbing heads of white-blonde hair. Mally shrieks in excitement; Silver giggles.

  “You found us!” shouts Mally. He holds up the arm with his watch on it, light flashing. He doesn’t seem to mind that the FindMe app betrayed his hiding place.

  Warm blood returns to Kate’s face; her heartbeat still thuds in her ears.

  Seth hauls Mally out of the basket, zooms him around then pretends to gobble his stomach. “You rascals! You little skelms.”

  “I’m not a skelm,” says Silver.

  Kate picks her up, hugs her. The girl’s innocent limbs wrap around her waist. Kate sniffs her skin, her hair. Grips her tighter.

  “Ow, Mom. Not so hard.”

  Seth puts on a serious face. “You guys gave your mom such a fright. You mustn’t do that again.” The colour is returning to his cheeks too.

  “We were only playing. Hide and seek.”

  “I don’t like that game,” says Kate.

  “But I’m good at it,” says the little boy.

  “I don’t care.” There’s an edge to Kate’s voice. She doesn’t want to cry in front of the kids again.

  “But – ” says Mally.

  “I don’t care,” she says. “I don’t want you playing it anymore.”

  The children’s faces contract with dismay. Kate puts Silver down and leaves the bathroom.

  Chapter 3

  A Black Whisper in her Brain

  “What’s wrong with Mom?” she hears Mally asking. “Was it my fault?”

  “No,” says Seth. “Not your fault.”

  “It’s ’cos we were playing,” says Silver.

  “It’s because she got a fright. She couldn’t find you and she got worried.”

  “It’s ’cos I’m so good at the game,” says Mally.

  “It’s because she loves you so much.”

  “Too much?” asks Silver.

  Seth clicks the bath icon and warm grey water rushes into the tub: four fingers of murk. The kids jump around and peel off their clothes. They don’t mind the cloudy water, they don’t know any better.

  Kate hears the splashing as the twins climb into the bath and she starts to cry. Relief, anger, and the not-yet-dissipated fear are a hot whirlwind in her chest. She should be happy, she thinks. The kids are safe. But she cries in hard gasps.

  Seth comes through and sees that she is weeping. His arms fall to his side.

  “Hey,” he says, gently. “They’re okay. Everything’s okay.”

  “It’s not, though,” says Kate, rubbing her swollen eyes. “You know it’s not.”

  “It’s just a difficult time.”

  He tries to hug her but she pushes him away. She hasn’t showered today.

  “Where were you?” she demands.

  “What do you mean, where was I? I was at work.”

  “You were supposed to be home an hour ago.”

  Seth looks at Kate with narrowed eyes. “I didn’t realise I had a curfew.”

  “You don’t have to be an asshole.”

  “I’m not the one being an asshole.”

  Kate cries some more, and blows her nose.

  “Come on,” he says. “You’ve had a fright. Let me make you some tea.”

  “I don’t want tea.”

  Seth switches the instakettle on and the water bubbles and steams. He’ll make some anyway. A big mug for her, a double-walled glass for him.

  “You’re still in your pyjamas,” he says.

  “They’re comfortable.”

  Recently she’s been reluctant to wear her regular clothes. She can’t f
ind anything in her cupboard that doesn’t appear full of irritating seams and prickly textures. Too colourful. Too constricting. It’s hard enough as it is to breathe.

  “It’s not a criticism,” Seth smiles at her. “I like you in pyjamas.”

  “Shut up,” she says, but she feels better.

  He passes her the mug. It’s the bespoke blend he has made up especially: red nettle and rooibos, or something like that. She pours half of it down the sink, gets a bottle of whisky out of the cupboard and tops it up, then offers it to Seth. He hesitates, but then does the same thing. They clink their drinks together while they listen to the kids chattering like monkeys in the bath.