The Black Market DNA Series: Books 1-3

by Anthony J Melchiorri

A shiver went down Ana’s spine, and she wondered who the hell the man referred to. “I don’t see anyone. You?”

  “No.” Miguel shook his head, diffident. “I know Lamont’s got a screw loose somewhere, but I don’t like the idea that the guy thinks someone’s out there. If he’s scared of someone...”

  He didn’t have to finish his thought. Ana understood what he implied. Lamont’s body had been transformed into a veritable weapon of mass destruction, but the fear she’d seen in his expression made him seem weak as a bird with broken wings.

  Miguel scooped up the mangled mess of their security drone. “As much as I’d like to stay out here, maybe we better head back to pick up a new drone that hasn’t been forced into an early retirement.”

  “Definitely,” Ana said. The new officers on the scene loaded up Lamont’s body into a paddy wagon, and paramedics directed drones to hoist Lamont’s victims into the idling ambulances. “We never got the identity of the gunshot vic, right?”

  Miguel furrowed his brow. “Don’t think so.”

  “I’d be willing to bet he was homeless like Lamont. You saw the guy’s scraggly beard, right?”

  “Sure, the guy looked homeless, but facial hair is no guarantee. Kind of a big leap in judgment.”

  “Just saying. Roy told us a few guys on the street went missing. Maybe he was talking out his ass, but I’d like to know if there’s any truth behind it.”

  “Fair enough,” Miguel said. “We can see him again on our way back to the station. Maybe he’s sobered up a bit. Sound good?”

  Ana nodded and felt a twinge of relief at the prospect of checking up on Roy. She knew her mind would be wrapped in thoughts of his well-being if they left him alone on this cold night. As they strolled along the sidewalks littered with trash, Ana gestured toward a 24/7 autoserve convenience store window. “Perfect. I still owe the guy a meal.”

  ***

  Hand clasped on a bag holding a warm cheeseburger, Ana trod into the alley where they’d found Roy before. Several of the tattered blankets lay askew on the asphalt, but he was gone.

  “Roy?”

  There was no answer.

  Her pulse quickened and she recalled his words from earlier. “You think he got taken?”

  “He was loaded. Probably just wandered—” Miguel stopped and picked up a half-empty bottle of beer. His eyes caught Ana’s. “Don’t mean to be presumptuous, but Roy doesn’t strike me as the type to leave a drink unfinished and untended.”

  Ana shook her head. A distinct pattern of footprints in the snow dusting led away from the spot. “He hasn’t been gone long.” She followed the path through the alley and to another street. Cars lined the road, but there was no movement other than the drifting of snowflakes.

  “Come on, Ana. We need to go get a new drone.”

  “No way. If something happened to Roy and we just walk away, I couldn’t live with myself.”

  “We don’t know what the hell we’re getting ourselves into.”

  Ana tried to follow the path, but a bluster of fresh snow covered the footprints. “Come on.” She dashed off in the direction the tracks disappeared without waiting for an answer from Miguel. His footsteps pounded after her.

  As she ran, she scanned the cars and side streets, watching for any sign, any clue as to where Roy might’ve gone. Then she froze. Miguel skidded to a stop, sliding across the slick pavement.

  “There,” she said. “Hear that?”

  They both remained silent, the wind whistling between row houses and shady storefronts. A low, echoing thud carried down the street.

  “Seems like it’s coming from one of the cars,” Miguel said. His face went white. “You don’t think—”

  Ana ran along the parked cars, desperate to hear where the sounds came from, certain they came from Roy, abducted and ready for transport to who knew where. She wasn’t about to let him go missing like the others he’d said disappeared.

  She scanned each vehicle, straining to hear the low noises again. Maybe she was being paranoid, but she’d rather Miguel call her foolish than find out she’d been right and Roy had turned up dead like the vic they’d found near the dumpster or running crazed through the streets like Lamont.

  “I don’t hear it anymore,” Miguel said.

  Ana froze and spun, snow falling around her. The hum and flicker of a malfunctioning streetlight caught her attention, but she no longer heard the noise either.

  “You think we’re wrong? Maybe being a bit paranoid?” Miguel asked.

  Ana paced between the autodrive cars along the curb. A couple of lights turned on in the apartments overlooking the street. “No, I don’t think so...” She studied the vehicles. Rust pocketed most, and almost all had opaque windows. One vehicle, parked between a sedan and a truck appearing old enough to still use a fuel-injection engine, caught her eye. The red Honda didn’t look to be a particularly luxurious ride, but the paint job hadn’t been tarnished by weather and age. Its silver wheels glinted, reflecting the streetlights, and the state of the vehicle’s apparent well-scheduled maintenance stood in stark contrast with those vehicles around it.

  She marched toward the Honda, her hand on her holstered stunner. “Miguel.”

  He followed her, and they picked up their pace.

  The car’s black windows prevented her from seeing inside, but Ana could almost feel someone’s eyes studying her. She shivered.

  “Roy?” she called, hesitant. “Anyone in there?”

  No response.

  She raised her voice, wondering how crazy she might seem to the onlookers in the apartments above. “Roy.” This was more important than public appearances, though. This was someone’s life at stake—someone whom she realized she cared about deeply, someone who had become a genuine friend despite their circumstances. “Roy!”

  A thump from the Honda. The car’s electric motor whined to life. Panic filled her, but she persevered against it and grabbed her comm card from her pocket. With her left hand, she flicked on a tracking app and reached to grab the car door with her right. She slipped the edge of her card into the lip of the rubber lining around the vehicle’s window. Then the Honda peeled away before she could wrap her fingers around the door handle.

  She sprinted after the car. “Stop! Stop!” The light snow dusting the asphalt sabotaged her efforts to gain traction. Her feet slipped from under her, and she sprawled out in the middle of the street. The Honda sped around a corner and was gone.

  Roy must be in that car, she thought. And she’d let it get away, left with nothing but a vapid description of the vehicle’s appearance. But the comm card she’d stuck to the car gave her hope that she’d see the Honda—and Roy—again.

  Chapter 6

  Miguel slid to a stop by her side. He extended a hand and helped her to her feet.

  “Already called it in,” he said. “But I’m not sure they’re going to be able to track it. I never got the plate number.”

  “That’s okay.” Ana held out her empty left hand, then dusted off her slacks.

  Miguel tilted his head, nonplussed.

  “I tagged it with my comm card. You don’t need to worry about tracking the car, just track my card.”

  Miguel gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Damn, Dellaporta. Nice job.” He opened an app on his card, and a hologram map appeared between them. He input Ana’s badge number, selected the Locate command, and a red dot glowed, displaying the whereabouts of Ana’s card. It moved eastward.

  With the holomap shining between them, Ana and Miguel jogged after the dot. They passed dark storefronts and boarded-up apartment buildings. The target on the map seemed to be traveling at a much greater speed than they were, and Ana wondered if they could keep pace with it. But the dot stopped after only a minute.

  “You think the card fell off?” Miguel asked between breaths.

  “Hope not.” Ana kept her eyes forward. “Why don’t you call for backup?”

  Miguel sent a request back to dispatch to monitor Ana’s card and rep
orted it as a potential abduction and false imprisonment. The holomap showed they were only a couple blocks from where Ana’s card had stopped.

  “They're sending one unit our way,” Miguel said.

  Roy was in danger and, for all they knew, was wrapped up in the same plot that had gotten one homeless enhancer killed and sent another on a crazed rampage. “That’s it?” She got the feeling one unit wouldn’t cut it.

  They slowed as they neared the target location.

  Miguel gestured to zoom in on the holomap. “Apparently dispatch doesn’t think our wild idea that a homeless man might’ve been kidnapped is as important as we do.”

  “Screw dispatch,” Ana said, her hands clenching into fists.

  Bars covered most of the row houses’ windows along the street. Despite this security measure, many of the window frames contained jagged shards of glass like mouths full of broken teeth. No lights shone from within these houses, and only half the streetlights glowed. This block appeared more like a post-apocalyptic wasteland than any habitable neighborhood.

  Miguel glanced at the holomap and pointed at a house halfway down the street. “Should be that one.”

  Beside the house, a graveled side road ran between scraggly trees. Ana squinted. “Looks like about the only place you could park a car around here.”

  “Think we should be doing this differently?” Miguel said. “Like wait for backup?”

  Ana shook her head. “Judging by how scared Lamont was and the bullet holes in our other vic, this doesn’t look like a situation where patience is going to pay off. We need to act now.”

  She pulled out her stunner, and Miguel followed suit. They slunk through the darkness, sticking close to the wrought-iron fences separating the tiny front yards of the desolate homes.

  “Why the hell do you think someone would take Roy here?” Miguel asked, his voice low.

  “I don’t know, but I have a feeling we’re not going to like the answer.”

  Shadows flickered, cast by shapes moving about the driveway between the row houses. Ana held up a hand to signal for them to stop. She squinted, waiting to see someone move near the house, but no one went through the front yard or entered or exited the door.

  A low hum echoed toward them, and the red Honda burst from the drive. Its lights flicked on, and it whirred down the street.

  “There! Let’s go!” Miguel started after the vehicle.

  “Wait.” Ana grabbed his arm. The car appeared to be driving away with no sense of urgency. The computers controlling autodrive cars regulated speed, and when civilian cars were set to self-drive, there was no way to override this setting to make the car drive above the speed limit. Plus, if someone wanted to stay unnoticed, they wouldn’t turn on their headlights. Such lights weren’t required when computers guided the vehicle. Someone wanted this car to be followed.

  Miguel reopened the holomap. “That’s the car.” He pointed to the red dot.

  “It is,” Ana said. “But I don’t think anyone’s in it. Look how slow it’s driving.”

  “You think it’s a decoy? They want us to follow the car away?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.” Ana toyed with the settings on her stunner. “My guess is whoever was in the car saw my comm card on the rear door. I didn’t have a chance to put it anywhere less obvious, so if they indeed were unloading Roy from the trunk or back seat, they would’ve seen it. They knew what was up.”

  Miguel nodded. “You’re probably right.” He tapped away at his comm card. “But I’m at least going to send a patrol car after it, just in case.”

  “Good idea.” She gestured toward the house the Honda had just left. “Let’s go see who stayed behind.”

  They slunk toward the drive. Broken glass glimmered across the sidewalk, barely visible under the sprinkling of snow. Ana chose her steps carefully to avoid causing any undue noise. Thoughts of the gunshot victim’s destroyed face and the fear in Lamont’s eyes raced through her mind. She wondered if she was giving in to these dark fantasies, if she might just be on a fool’s errand. Maybe the suspect car had been a spooked synthetic drug dealer or a street gene mod distributor racing away. And maybe Miguel was right; maybe Roy, in his drunken state, had stumbled somewhere else.

  As if he shared her sentiment, Miguel whispered, “You think Roy’s actually here?”

  Ana paused at the end of the drive. A chest-high brick wall surrounded the row house. The nearby streetlights remained off, leaving the place bathed in shadows. “I hope to God he’s not.”

  “This is crazy.” Miguel straightened. “We’re on a wild goose chase after a homeless man we’re not even sure is actually missing.”

  For a moment, Ana considered his point. “You know we need Roy on the streets. Probably helped us on seven or eight arrests this month alone.” She didn’t tell Miguel her concern for Roy transcended a basic need for having a free informant on the street. She found her heart racing and her mind reeling at the thought Roy might be hurt. The man actually meant something to her. He was a friend in an otherwise cold city, someone who would greet her with a genuine smile and cared that she got things done as a police officer. “We can’t lose him.”

  “Sure. But that doesn’t mean he’s here. We’re wasting our time running after ghosts.”

  Ana’s cheeks grew warm with frustration. She was thankful no lights illuminated her face; she didn’t want Miguel to see a hint of the emotional turmoil churning within her. “Something’s wrong. You saw that car peel away. You heard those noises, like someone was trapped in it.”

  “There are a thousand gene mod and drug dealers in this neighborhood. Who the hell knows?” He slipped out his comm card and tapped on it. “Look, I marked the location. Let’s go back to the station, get a new drone, and finish our shift. If all tonight’s festivities are connected, then the detectives are on it.”

  In her mind’s eye, Ana pictured Roland’s patronizing grin and her demeaning glare. “No way am I leaving Roy’s life in those useless hacks’ hands.”

  “Come on, Ana. We’re already breaking protocol by snooping around here without a drone.” He waved a hand to indicate the house. “We don’t even have a damn warrant to search the place. What the hell do you propose we do?”

  Ana ignored him and sprinted toward the brick wall. She pressed herself against it and stared back at Miguel. He rolled his eyes but followed.

  “Fine,” he said, his voice low. “You win. But we don’t go in unless we see something warranting immediate investigation. Seriously, Ana... we don’t have a warrant.”

  Ana inched toward a wrought-iron gate. Its lock lay unsecured. With one hand on her stunner, she pressed the gate open slowly with the other. She peered into the yard, but the pervasive darkness obscured the front porch and windows.

  “One second. I’m popping in my night-vision lenses.” She stuck a hand into one of the leather pouches attached to her belt and pulled out a small plastic case. Flipping it open, she used her thumb to slide the lens out and pressed it against her eye. She blinked to overcome the stubborn dryness from the lens.

  She repeated the maneuver to slip the second into her left eye, and Miguel donned his pair of night-vision lens.

  The front yard lit up before her in a bevy of greens and blacks. Knee-high grass sprouted across the lawn, and several slabs of the rotted wooden siding hung from the house. Nobody appeared to be moving beyond the gate or within the house. “Looks clear.”

  “After you,” Miguel said. He took point as she dashed to the side of the house.

  Ana crouched and snuck to the porch. She pressed the back of her hand against the front door, but it didn’t move. She reached up to the handle and tried it, but it remained closed. Glancing at Miguel, she shook her head, and they crept to the side of the house.

  A crack broke the silence. Miguel cringed and picked his foot up from the broken wooden siding he’d stepped on.

  Sorry, he mouthed. They froze, waiting for a response from within. No lights turned on
; no voices called out.

  Miguel continued on. Squeezing between the brick wall and the row house, he led them toward the backyard. A couple of knotted, bare trees stood above the untended grass, but no one leapt out at them. Miguel swiveled. His mouth dropped and he staggered back.

  Ana turned to see what had shocked him. A gaping hole in the back of the house stared back at them. Amid splintered wood, broken glass lay across the cracked concrete patio, sparkling like stars in the night sky with her night-vision lenses.

  Something else gleamed from the debris, and she crouched to examine it. Miguel hovered over her, his stunner drawn.

  She bent down, and a coppery scent stung her nostrils. “Blood.”

  Miguel gulped and leaned toward her. “Seems like probable cause enough to go inside.”

  Chapter 7

  Ana leveled the stunner. She stepped over the broken glass and through the hole in the back of the house. The fractured boards and torn wall appeared to have been destroyed by a rhino. Her night-vision lenses revealed a moldy couch, sagging in the middle, and a haphazard pile of chairs with busted legs atop the ragged carpet.

  “What the hell caused that hole?” Miguel whispered.

  “No idea.” Ana sniffed the air and scanned the floor. No singe marks, no lingering smell of acrid smoke. “Not an explosion or fire.” She spied a cheap holodisplay nodule in one corner and pointed to it. “And it must’ve been recent. Otherwise, looters would’ve already scoured the place.”

  Miguel wiped his forehead with the back of one hand. “No doubt,” he spoke in a low voice. His eyes caught hers. “You think... you think a person is responsible for this?”

  She understood his implication, and a shiver snaked down her spine. “An enhancer?” She pictured Lamont again, his gene-modded body wreaking havoc on the street. Had he done this—or maybe someone like him?

  The Miguel’s expression told her he shared those thoughts.

  “Let’s take this nice and slow,” she said.

  “It’s not too late to turn back.”

  “It could be too late for Roy.” She tiptoed toward what appeared to be a dining room. A table and chairs lay smashed against the wall as if a hurricane had lifted them and thrown them about. Miguel followed, and she could sense his trepidation but didn’t look back. She didn’t want a reason to give up on Roy now. An image of Roland’s smug face swam through her mind, and she imagined the detective telling her, “I’ll handle it from here.”