by J D Lasica
“Thank you for your visit, Randolph, I’ll be in touch.”
The old tycoon made no response as Beverlee wheeled him through the exit, down the wheelchair ramp, and toward the visitors parking lot.
Harrison met Waterhouse at the doorway. He was carrying his smartphone and held the screen up to show Waterhouse.
“Chief, we have a problem.”
63
Dallas, August 31
K aden and Nico kept watch in a vacant office in the Data Operations building. Employees were starting to arrive for work and Kaden wasn’t entirely sure she could count on Number Six for their security, even though they still had ninety minutes left on their twelve-hour Level One clearance. What if another Level One showed up and asked about them?
While they waited for Valerie and Alex to arrive, Number Six informed them that Randolph Blackburn had made an unannounced visit to Birthrights Unlimited and was nearly done watching a special presentation in the Multimedia Center two buildings over.
“Think he’ll remember us?” Nico asked.
“Oh, I think so,” Kaden said.
They watched the live video feed Number Six provided until Blackburn’s session with Waterhouse came to an end and he headed to the visitors parking lot accompanied only by a blond-haired woman .
They sprang into action, sweeping out of Data Operations, past the Multimedia Center, and followed about twenty paces behind Blackburn as he neared his VIP parking spot. They watched as the woman opened the side door of the luxury SUV and began lowering the wheelchair platform. She fastened his wheelchair into place and engaged the dual-post lift, raising Blackburn into the vehicle.
That was their cue. With the retractable side door wide open and the old man safely inside, Nico gently coaxed the woman driver from the vehicle and Kaden moved around the vehicle to confront Randolph Blackburn face to face.
“Mr. Blackburn. Our last conversation was cut short.”
Blackburn looked down and squinted at her, trying to make out who she was or maybe what was happening. A look of mild surprise spread across his face.
“While my friend entertains your driver, I’m going to stand here until I get some answers. We’ve come too far to turn back.”
Blackburn angled his head, as if trying to hear her better. “What is it you want, child?”
“You never answered my question. Why did you bring me into this? Who am I to you?”
He looked away, avoiding her eyes. When no response came, she tried a different tack.
“You said you knew my real mother. How?”
A faded memory seemed to cross Blackburn’s face. “Of course I knew her.” A searing sadness crept into his voice. “Deirdre was my daughter.”
Kaden froze up. She was expecting almost anything—but not that.
Randolph Blackburn was her grandfather.
Blackburn hunkered down in his chair with his only living blood relative just inches away. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not at all.
He shut his eyes and escaped to better days, the day his third wife gave him a girl. Deirdre was a free spirit, always laughing and smiling. More flower child than board room material, but that was fine. He loved her more than anything.
After his wife had two more miscarriages and their marriage ended in divorce, he resigned himself to having just one child. Before he blinked, while he attended to his businesses and vast fortune, Deirdre had grown up. One day, lo and behold, she gave him a granddaughter—out of wedlock, but still, a grandchild, the first of many, he was certain. Deirdre had her whole life ahead of her. Until she didn’t.
The disease seemed to come out of the blue and had the doctors baffled at first. After weeks, they pinpointed the malady and had him tested for the rare genetic disorder. Positive. Not only was he a carrier, he had passed it on to his daughter.
I handed my daughter a death warrant! What kind of God allows such a thing?
The disease was fickle—it could strike at any age, according to the thin literature on the subject. Sometimes the mind goes first, sometimes the body. Deirdre’s deterioration was swift and decisive. When she died, he tore apart his new Bel Air mansion in a fit of fury. At the funeral he agreed to take his grandchild into his home for a few weeks while deciding what to do with her. Kaden would have a fifty-fifty chance of developing the same fatal disease at some point in her life. But there was another problem. The girl was born without a womb. His bloodline would end with this defective child.
He tried to find forgiveness in his heart but could not. He was not about to take this child into his own home, not when he was unmarried and had an empire to run, not when she would never be able to perform the basic functions of womanhood. So he located a couple to take in Kaden and paid them handsomely to have her cared for and monitored while he kept a safe distance and read their weekly reports. They were, without realizing it, the first trackers in Blackburn’s employ and prototypes for an even more ambitious program that Birthrights Unlimited would pioneer.
He heaved a sigh of resignation thinking of his heavy-handedness, of all the drama that ensued after he instructed Kaden’s parents to force the child to take hormones to ensure she’d become more feminine—a last desperate attempt to womanize the girl.
She resisted. She was a fighter, this wildcat, this tomboy. She might be a genetic abomination, but he decided he would try to salvage something out of the situation. So he secretly nudged her down certain life paths. He arranged for her to attend a military boot camp and etched her into a new breed of soldier, one with a wide range of skill sets for both body and mind. After her final mission, he obtained a hair root plucked from her scalp. He debated whether to finally run the test. Whether to tell her about the family curse.
Better if she doesn’t know, he decided for her.
Ironic, isn’t it? Here I am, a man worth well north of two billion dollars, a man who has spent a lifetime amassing great power and influence. And now I’m on death’s doorstep, powerless to fend it off. The Blackburn bloodline will die with me. By choice.
Kaden stood there in silence. She began to connect the dots. She was born Kaden Blackburn. Her grandfather hired her adoptive parents. Her years of feeling spied upon wasn’t just paranoia after all. She had so many questions, but one question rose above them all.
“My real mom. She’s really gone? ”
Blackburn avoided her pleading eyes and looked off to his right. “Twenty-three when she passed.”
Kaden nodded. “How?”
Blackburn closed his eyes. No answer came.
She knew there was more she could unspool if she pushed Blackburn hard enough. About what Deirdre Blackburn was like. About whether her mother had failed him in some way, too. About the missions and their real purpose. About why he abandoned her and made the choices he did.
“Why? Why go through all this?”
Blackburn peered into the distance. “I thought you could be of some use. Let’s leave it at that.”
She turned and looked at Nico and Blackburn’s driver, sitting on a patch of grass and having an animated conversation. The clock was ticking. Time to skate.
She felt an overpowering sadness flood her senses as she turned back to look at this frail man for one final time. She could spend all day asking questions, but in the end Randolph Blackburn had made his choices. He rejected her. Life was too short to feel angry and bitter about it. She had long ago made peace with the fact that she was an outcast, a girl who survived a dysfunctional family of epic proportions.
After all those years of fighting and drama in the Baker home, I’m not going to get a complex about another household where I’m not wanted. Your loss, Randolph Blackburn.
“Two guards approaching down the walkway, four o’clock.” She’d forgotten she had her Eyewear hiked up on top of her head, but she could still hear Number Six’s voice.
She reached for the door handle and began to slide the door when Blackburn finally turned and looked at her dead on. “Blood and bon
e don’t account for much, do they?”
She paused. “No. No they don’t.” She slid the door shut.
64
Minsk, Belarus, August 31
K atarina Gorka spent her lunch break in the Zyba district, deciding which of the tween girls with their lipstick-stained cigarettes, metallic pink hairstyles, and fashionably ragged bare-shoulder T-shirts to recruit for Dmitri Petrov’s boat party this weekend.
But the more she cruised up and down Zybitskaya Street, the more she kept thinking of her poor Sophia. After an hour of this, she turned and hurried back to the Minsk Home.
She had a strong suspicion who was holding Sophia—the assistant headmaster, a humorless man with a gnarled, withered face who was considered Petrov’s enforcer in the Home. She knew it would be easy to “borrow” one of the other instructors’ cars during the afternoon session when they were busy teaching and wouldn’t notice their keys were missing. She just needed to find out the right address.
On the playground she spotted Jakub, the boy everyone knew was moonstruck for Sophia. She crafted an impromptu plan that involved her sneaking into the assistant headmaster’s empty office while Jakub stationed himself outside the door keeping watch. She might be able to find an address on a piece of stationery, a document, a receipt—anything that might give her a clue about where the enforcer spent his afternoons. If they were lucky, maybe a spare set of office keys, too.
She paused, knowing what this could mean. Losing her job for sure. Possibly a lot worse. But she couldn’t do this anymore. If only someone had had the courage to do this for her!
She went up to the boy and pulled him aside. “Jakub.” She brought her voice low. “Can I trust you with a secret mission to help out Sophia?”
The boy’s face lit up.
Sophia waited on the brown couch for the wrinkled man to return. She had searched every inch of the room for a way out and saw none. The windows overlooking a side alley wouldn’t even open. The man had left the building over an hour ago and she dreaded his return.
Where will they take me? What will they do with me? I knew I shouldn’t have been bad!
She heard footsteps scraping on the front stairs and the front door opening. He was back! She hid behind the couch and tried to squeeze beneath it, but it was no use, she was too big. I won’t go quietly . I’ll scream and kick and cry out for anyone to help me!
After a few more seconds, a knock came on the door. Why would the wrinkled man knock? And then the sound of a key and the door swinging open.
“Sophia? Are you in here?”
A woman’s voice. It sounded familiar. She peeked from behind the couch.
“Miss Gorka!” She jumped up, ran over, and hugged her around the waist .
“We have to hurry!” Katarina Gorka took Sophia’s hand and they raced down the hallway and flew down the decaying steps of the old office building.
They got into a powder blue Kia and buckled up. Miss Gorka is letting me ride in the front seat.
“I didn’t know you had a car.” Sophia watched as her teacher pulled into the street during a break in the traffic.
“I don’t.”
“I didn’t even know you had a license!”
“I don’t.”
“Where are we going?”
Gorka checked her rear-view mirror. “Away from here.”
65
Dallas, August 31
K aden and Nico hid behind the SUV as the guards passed. They let Beverlee go—Nico found out her name—and made their way back inside the Data Operations building. She saw on her smartphone that Valerie and Alex were just a few minutes away. Kaden still had about forty minutes left before her Level One clearance would be revoked, so she had to move fast.
Kaden fumbled in her go bag for the tablet Sharon Sullivan had given them before she left. She fired it up and checked Valerie’s profile in the database to see if there was any update about her surrogate’s pregnancy. Everything looked fine, but one odd thing, she noticed. The name and location of the surrogate was redacted. One more mystery to solve.
“With all the unholy crap we’ve already turned up,” Nico said, “what do we tell Valerie when she gets here?”
“The truth.”
Kaden placed the tablet in her bag and checked her smartphone. Valerie had just sent a message saying they were pulling up.
“Number Six,” Kaden called out. “Can you find us an empty room in this building that you can secure?”
The AI threw an interactive map of the Multimedia Center onto Kaden’s smartphone, with directions to Media Gallery 4. She took a screenshot and sent it to Valerie’s phone.
Kaden and Nico grabbed their gear and headed out of the Demo Room toward Media Gallery 4.
Valerie and Alex arrived in no time. It had been only a few days since their lunch together, but it seemed like a lifetime.
“Good to see you,” Valerie said a little stiffly. “We need to clear some things up.”
“Absolutely,” Kaden said.
They positioned four of the chairs so they could sit facing each other.
“Don’t freak,” Kaden warned them. “I’m going to talk to the artificial intelligence in the room now, okay?”
Valerie and Alex looked around and nodded.
“Number Six,” Kaden directed. “Can you lock this room and mask the doors?”
They heard the automatic deadlatches click into place and saw the glass doors go dark.
“Well, that was cool.” Valerie seemed impressed by the AI. “We just came from seeing Mackenzie, my surrogate. It was such a relief!”
That took Kaden by surprise. “Wait. You did? How did you find her?”
“To be honest, I had a little meltdown right in front of Sterling Waterhouse. You remember Erica, my counselor I introduced you to? Waterhouse asked Erica to drive us out to see Mackenzie Taylor in Arlington.”
Kaden plucked Sharon Sullivan’s tablet from her bag. She was puzzled by why Erica would have access to that information and Sullivan, a top executive with Level One clearance, would see a redacted version.
She had a hunch and worded her query carefully. “Number Six. In the Birthrights database, identify the biological mother of the embryo that surrogate Mackenzie Taylor of Arlington, Texas, is carrying.”
It took an instant for the female computerized voice to reply. “Christine Marie Paddington of Elmont, New York.”
Valerie froze. “That’s—that’s not possible.” Her voice cracked as a look of anxiety creased her face. “There’s been a mistake. We just saw her.”
“What’s your middle name?” she asked Valerie.
“Juanita. Why?”
“Number Six.” Kaden rose, a knot of anxiety tightening in her chest. “Does Valerie Juanita Ramirez of Miami, Florida, have a surrogate in the Birthrights database with an active pregnancy?”
“Yes,” came the reply.
“Number Six. Identify Valerie Ramirez’s surrogate.”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”
Valerie and Alex grabbed each other’s hand, worry etched on their faces.
“Please confirm, Number Six,” Kaden said. “Valerie Ramirez’s surrogate is not Mackenzie Taylor, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Number Six, if you can’t tell me the name, then identify the current location of Valerie Ramirez’s surrogate.”
“I’m afraid I’m not authorized to share that.”
“Number Six, why can’t you share that?”
“That’s restricted to authorized personnel.”
“Number Six, who is authorized to access that information?”
“Sterling Waterhouse and Gregor Conrad.”
“This is like a freaking riddle!” Alex complained .
Kaden considered this. She still didn’t understand why Erica Landon, following Waterhouse’s orders, would take Valerie to see Mackenzie Taylor if Mackenzie wasn’t Valerie’s surrogate. Erica was a senior manager with Level Two credentials.
“Number Six, why would counselor Erica Landon believe that Mackenzie Taylor was the surrogate for Valerie Ramirez’s baby?”
“Personnel in Levels Two, Three, and Four are redirected to the Pseudo Surrogate Database on their devices.”
Kaden had been trained in the art of false flag operations, so she put two and two together. Sounded like Birthrights was fabricating the surrogate records . Sharon Sullivan’s tablet wouldn’t show the surrogate’s true name because only Waterhouse and Conrad had access to that information. She looked over and noticed Alex had begun taking notes on everything they were saying.
“Number Six,” she said. “Compare size of Pseudo Surrogate Database with size of the original, unaltered surrogate database.”
“Unaltered surrogate database is 4.2 times larger.”
Nico broke in, seeing where this was going. “That means the company is misleading people about who their real surrogate is. Sounds like for every Mackenzie Taylor, there are four other surrogates who are not part of the story Birthrights Unlimited wants to tell.”
“Sounds like I’m not the only one being lied to,” Valerie said.
Kaden nodded. She gained Nico’s gaze. “Ask B Collective to see what they can dig up on these missing surrogates. Maybe there’s a pattern of deception we can identify.”
Alex stopped typing on his portable keypad and looked up. “During the drive over here, Val and I were talking about what to do with all of the disturbing info you sent us. Our first priority has to be the baby. I’ve got a story all lined up and ready to go, but—”
He took Valerie’s hand. “What would happen if we published? How would that affect Val? ”
Valerie stared straight ahead, still looking a little shell-shocked that she no longer knew what was true about her surrogate.
“Do the feds come in and close down this place?” Alex went on. “What happens to the surrogacies in progress if that happens? Are the biological parents’ contracts still valid?”
