You raise up at the sound of the phone, but a hand pushes you back down. Patterson's voice comes out of the dark: "Don't get up, Will. I just woke you up long enough to say that you can stay asleep."
"What?" There's no way you heard that right.
"Shh." He comes in close, so that his voice is a murmur. "I'm taking over the operation from this point on. The sleep deprivation is starting to get to you. I'm going to leave you down from here on out. No more midnight conferences until we're ready to extract you."
"What? No, I need to—" Again, he pushes you down. "Oh, fuck me. If this is about last night, getting drunk— You should have brought me out of it, I could have—"
"I tried bringing you out, but you were still drunk. We took care of it last night without you, and we can—"
"But Muniz got away!"
"Don't argue, Prescott—"
"Just tell me—"
"Lay down," he says firmly. Then with a sigh he adds, "Lay down I and will tell you about it. But I don't want you arguing."
So you lay back, and from under half-lidded eyes you listen.
"We snatched both of them," he says. "Muniz too, it's a golem we sent back. We're going to use it to make some mischief down in the freezer. We were talking last night—Frank and Joe and I—and we're thinking that's where they must have put Fierro. If we make trouble down there, they'll have to clean it out, and we could get an accounting."
"But what makes you think—"
"Shut up," he says gently. "I talked to Knotts, and she told me that some of those biffs are years old."
"I know that, but that doesn't mean—"
"Shh. They've got names, she told me, but that's about all the system has on them. She's not even sure why they're keeping them around. Anyway, what I've got planned will ratchet up the tension."
"What are you planning?"
"I'm not going to tell you."
"But you don't understand the system like—"
"Will, I'm giving you a countdown."
"I can handle the sleep thing!"
He snaps his fingers, and your tongue cleaves to the roof of your mouth. "Identity. Number. Kind. Relation—"
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