Arachna

Chapter 11: We're Breaking into WHERE?

Eric leaned against the cold metal table, his arms crossed and his head dipping. His eyelids were heavy. George had wrapped his leg and given him a dose of pain meds, the foul perpetrators of his sleepiness.

Eric doubted his decision-making skills at the moment, trusting a doctor he hadn't seen in years, old friend or not. People changed, and for all he knew, George was in Landreau Corp's pocket as well. The thought depressed him, yet he'd still taken the pills without question, and his grip on his cane was loosening. George had been the only figure in his life he could look up to, had repeatedly patched him up when he was younger, no questions asked.

Now, here he sat, having returned to be healed by the closest thing to a father he'd ever had. Years with no explanation of where he'd been or why he'd left all melted away, and George still treated him the same.

"Do you still have that old van from your mobile business days?" Eric asked after jerking his head back out of the waters of drowsiness.

George chuckled in the darkness, where he was rummaging through drawers. "I do. It's at an old car-storage place a friend of mine owns. He keeps it up for me, and in return, I give him a free prescription for his insomnia." He emerged from the darkness and handed a bottle of pain pills to Eric. "Speaking of friends, how many do you have now? Last we met, you mentioned that you were starting to get some contacts together. 'Crawling my way to the top of the food chain' is how you worded it, if I remember correctly."

"Yeah, I managed to build myself up pretty well," Eric said, pocketing the bottle and hoisting himself onto the table. He crossed his legs with a wince. "I have my own little information business going. Two... well, three underbosses that own their own businesses. Two of them have their own employees, as well." A voice spoke in Eric's head. It whispered, Too much. You're telling him too much. He shoved the voice down and drowned it.

"So you collect data on people and sell it?" George wore a proud smile. "Must be easier with the internet nowadays."

"I wouldn't know. I don't trust it."

George rolled a desk chair over to himself and sat. "Why is that?"

"Don't like it, don't need it. Too easy and too accessible. Nothing in the world that useful is without a price." He smiled. "Besides, I've already spun my web in the city of Arachna."

"As paranoid as I remember you being," George said, shaking his head. "So you don't use the internet at all? Not even a little?"

"There's a computer at one of my hideouts that I never use. I have some people there. I'm sure they're eating it up right about now."

George rubbed his chin. "What about cell phones?"

Eric ran a hand through his hair. "Even worse. Don't have an ounce of trust for those things. For all I know, they could track me with it."

George shrugged. "I don't know about that, but I feel like a cell phone would be pretty useful to own, especially now."

"Well, I did have a landline a few days ago, but it, um... short-circuited."

Silence stood between them until Eric said, "I need a way out of the city. I have a bad feeling that Caleb is going to take a stroll through Arachna to find my operation and dismantle it. I can't have that happen, Doc." Eric tightened his grip on his cane at the possibility of everything he'd worked so hard to build shattering into pieces under Caleb Landreau's heel. If that man knew the hellish wrath Eric would unleash if that happened, he would slink back to his corporate office with his tail between his legs.

"I understand," George said. "If you give me an hour, I'll have the van over here."

"So we're using the van, are we?"