He relaxed his muscles and let out a defeated sigh and began looking around the room. Things were still quite foggy but he could see a single ball of light which appeared to be hanging not too far from where he was being held. It was a strange warm yellow color which was quite different from the bleach white of the government mandated compact florescent bulbs. This light reminded him of the incandescent light bulbs that were still in use when he was a child, in fact now that he thought about it, the smell of this room brought back memories as well. He remembered going down to the cellar and having to jump up to pull the chain on the light fixture which hang in the center of the room. This made the light dance around as the bulb would swing due to his yanking method. The memory felt good, it was the best pain reliever he had at the moment. He also remembered imagining monsters that lived in the cellar, some of his creations were so frightening that his heart would beat hard as he descended the stairs. Leaving the door at the top of the stairs provided some residual light but it also served to cast eerie shadows, and you still had to travel into the middle of the shadow filled room to pull the chain. He knew deep down that his monsters were fiction but being scared was thrilling and so deep down is where he liked that knowledge to stay.
The sound of footsteps and creaking wooden stairs brought Bob back to the present, and the pain in his hand seemed to rush back. "Who's there?" Bob's words didn't come out as demanding and forceful as he had hoped. There was no answer but the footsteps which were still drawing closer. Bob's vision had improved but the person was now in front of the one light source in the room so all that he could make out was a silhouette. "Where's my wife!?" Bob managed to strike the intended tone this time "What have you done with my son!?" Bob was breathing hard and his hand didn't seem to hurt as much when the mysterious figure finally spoke "Your family is fine. I had to assume that your home was wired so the gun shots were just for show." The man's voice was calm and sure, but it didn't put Bob's mind at ease "Where are they!?" he snapped back "I honestly don't know. Where would they go if someone broke into the house, fired off a few rounds, and you were missing?" the man paused a moment and then continued "Look, I didn't have a lot of time. You have that place locked down pretty tight, so I had to get you out quick. Brooke and Benjamin were scared, sure, but that might not be such a bad thing considering the situation."
Before Bob could ask him what exactly was the situation, another rush of pain moved through his hand and he let out a grunt of discomfort. "Oh yeah, your arm" the man (who's name was still a mystery) said, and as he knelt down Bob noticed that the he had a spool of gauze in his hand, My arm? Bob thought it's my hand that kills and for the first time since his eyesight had improved he looked to see what damage had been done to his hand, only to discover that it was far worse than he could have imagined but a very good explanation for the amount of pain he was feeling. "I am sorry about this Bob, but it was really my only option." said the man as he began to unravel the old blood soaked gauze "I've got it on ice, but I don't think you can risk going to the hospital." Bob's hand had been removed at the wrist, a very light tan line of his agency issue watch was visible among the spattering of dried blood on his arm. "You took my hand!? Why!? Why, would you do that!?" Bob knew the reason as soon as he asked it and the man could see that he had put it together as Bob stared at the outline on his arm, so he asked a new question, one that didn't have such an obvious answer "How did you remove the watch?" "Well..." the man began pridefully "...turns out that your high tech agency wrist mounted memory upload device can't tell a real pulse from a simulated one. So it was really just a matter of removing your hand, which was made easier by the fact that you were unconscious, and then sliding the watch onto a foney wrist with a simulated pulse. Unfortunately it can only simulate the pulse, so when they tried to upload a new set of memories it came back blank, and they will no doubt track down the watch, which is far, far away from our current location. The next question is whether they will put a new Bob into service without a confirmed kill on you, I happen to know the answer to this question as well, but I don't want to spoil the surprise"
"So you're from The Club?" Bob asked, it was more of a statement than a question. "Heck, no!" replied the mystery man as he unwound the last bit of old gauze and tossed it into a bin, Bob could now see the stump where his hand had been "If I was a Club man Brooke and Benjamin would be at the bottom of a lake, and you would be a lot worse off than a missing hand." The man got up and walked over to a cupboard, Bob was fixated on his wrist, he could swear that he still felt pain in his hand as he asked the man "So if your not from The Club then how do you know so much about me and my family?" the man grabbed a bottle of something from the cupboard and began walking back to Bob "Well, that hasn't been easy. Ever since you were adopted by the Ludwig's, wonderful couple by the way, I have kept my eye on you" This pulled Bob's attention away from his injury "Who are you?" Bob said "My name? My name is Peyton Gamble but nobody calls me that anymore, mostly people call me Mr. Kane. But you can call me Dad...I'm your father Robert." the man produced a bottle of Jack Daniels and twisted off the cap, he took a swig and said "a little for me..." he put a small stick in Bob mouth which was wide open from shock "...and a lot for you, bite down son, this is gonna sting".
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