Dark Intentions

Chapter 13

Leon Conway drove five miles home after dropping his daughter off at preschool. He and his wife Sandy had delayed having children because of their careers, and they were both now in their late thirties.

Sandy was a commercial airline pilot with an irregular schedule. It worked well that Leon ran his accounting practice out of their home and could do most of the caring for their daughter, Ashley.

He pressed the button for the garage door and waited as it rose before backing in. He made sure to leave room for his wife in case she returned before he left again. He’d long ago stopped trying to keep her schedule memorized.

Exiting the car, Leon walked to the street and grabbed the garbage can he’d heard being emptied as he made Ashley her peanut butter toast for breakfast.

As he pulled the can back to the side of the garage, he glanced at his watch, seeing he still had 15 minutes before his first video call of the morning. Leon smiled, knowing this would allow him time to get another cup of coffee before starting work.

Stepping inside, he went to the sink, washed his hands, and picked up his cup, which was still a quarter full from earlier. The cup had been a Father’s Day gift and had his daughter’s photo printed on it. He topped it off and headed to the bedroom that he’d converted into his office.

Leon made it halfway into the room when he noticed an uncapped spray can on the corner of the desk. A strange L-shaped tube came off the top. He approached, confused as to where the can came from. As he did, a man stepped out of the closet.

The intruder appeared to be in his early twenties and wore shorts, a T-shirt, and rubber gloves. On his head sat a dirty green ball cap. Leon thought the man might have recently been in a fight because he had a purple bruise around his left eye and swollen nose. The most interesting thing was the weapon in his hand. Leon had watched enough prime-time TV to know what a Taser looked like.

Before he could speak, the weapon fired, and hundreds of tiny confetti disks blasted outward. Called AFIDs – anti-felon identification – these pieces of confetti each had the serial number of the Taser cartridge imprinted on them. These allow law enforcement to identify the purchaser of the Taser cartridge. In this case, that system failed because the cartridges were acquired illegally from a batch stolen from a police depot.

Along with the confetti, two barbed metal darts blasted out, traveling at 180 feet per second. A 35-foot length of thin wire connected the darts to the Taser’s body.

On impact, the darts embedded themselves, one in Leon’s abdomen and the other in his right thigh.

Instantly 50,000 volts traveled across the wires and into Leon, disrupting his neurologic and muscular systems.

Every muscle in his body contracted with each of the 95, two-milliamp electrical pulses delivered during the five-second cycle.

As Leon dropped to the ground, almost striking his head on the desk, the coffee cup flew from his hand, dumping its contents. It landed on the carpet unbroken.

Remaining conscious, Leon couldn’t move, and when he tried to speak, only a gurgling groan came out.