by Daniel Gage
And by the time he was done, she was at the door, and didn’t even bother to look back.
Alexandre didn’t care. Girls would be throwing themselves at him once he was back to his old self.
But there had been no news on his demands, so he found his cellphone and again dialed the contact labeled “X.”
After two rings, it connected. The man on the other end didn’t speak, clearly waiting for Alexandre to begin.
“Find him yet?” he asked, meaning for his tone to be harsh, but it scratched against his worn throat and came off weaker than intended.
“Yes,” the man answered.
After a pause, Alexandre spoke again.
“And? Is it done?”
“There are complications,” the man said.
“Complications?” Alexandre asked. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means he’s proven difficult to kill,” the man said.
“I don’t care!” Alexandre shouted, causing another round of coughs.
“Careful,” the man said. “Save your strength.”
“What does that matter if you don’t take care of this?” Alexandre said.
“And your old accent is showing,” the man said. “Interesting.”
It took a moment for Alexandre to understand what the man meant. His French accent had slipped back into his old one, a loose southern United States dialect that he thought he had destroyed years ago.
“What’s wrong with me?” he finally asked, his voice shaking.
“Relax,” the man said. “I’ve got a plan. And I’ll need your help for part of it. It won’t take much, just a phone call, but we’ll need to discuss it in person.”
“And this will take care of the Unborn?” Alexandre asked.
“Yes,” the man said without hesitation. “Meet me in Paris. I’ll let you know when I arrive in a few days.”
The call ended before Alexandre could say anything further.
“Sir, is everything okay?” a voice asked.
He turned and saw his oldest servant, the one who had been there the day he was born. This man had been more like a father to him than the man who impregnated his mom, and the hint of concern in his voice was probably the most sincere Alexandre could ever hope for.
“It will be,” Alexandre said. “Pack my things. I need to return to our estate in Paris.”
CHAPTER 16
Cam didn’t realize how hungry he was until they stopped to eat at a small diner south of Boston. Hunger was the last thing on his mind during the shootout and chase, and his stomach was in knots when he said goodbye to his mother. Otherwise, he hadn’t eaten since lunch, which seemed like an eternity.
So Emma’s eyes went up when Cam ordered his third entrée.
“I know these pancakes aren’t that special,” he said. “I’ve had better in the city. But I’ll be damned if they weren’t the best in the world right now.”
“How can you eat so much?” Emma asked. “Your metabolism must be nuts. You’re so … fit.”
“I’ve never been so hungry in my life.” Then, he added with a wink, “But thanks for noticing.”
He noticed her eyes looking him up and down yet again, but he couldn’t tell if she was admiring what she saw or just appraising him for how he might be useful. However, his comment turned her cheeks a slight shade of red.
Emma was a challenging one to read. He imagined in her line of work, she had to blend the truth with lies more often than not. Covert actions were one thing, but when you added keeping people safe, and weeding out the skeptics from the dangerous, it made her difficult to understand.
Cam had spent his life dealing with scum and criminals, but at least they wore their intentions like a shirt. But to him, Emma was much more deadly.
He imagined her enemies felt the same.
Emma let out an exhausted sigh as she glanced again at her phone.
“What are you watching for?” Cam asked between bites. “Good thing this isn’t a date, I would think you’re being rude.”
“A lead,” she said. She didn’t bother to hide her annoyance. “We’re not sitting here just because you’re hungry. We’ve got nowhere to go.”
“So this isn’t a date? Does that mean I have to pay?”
Emma replied with a glare. “If this is your idea of a date, we’d never work out.”
However, Cam admitted she had a point. Aside from getting shot at by unknown assailants, they didn’t have anything to go on. So much for his first night on the job.
“What sort of lead?” he asked.
“Well,” she said as she glanced around before lowering her voice, “a case this large would be much bigger than a cash deal. They usually get their mark to pull off some sort of heist, usually against a big company.”
“So like leaking data or money?” Cam asked. “More than they could have paid on their own?”
“Sometimes,” Emma said. “Sometimes it’s corporate secrets. Inventions. Personnel files. You name it, they’ve had it stolen for them.”
“Why?” he asked. “Isn’t this about money?”
She checked her phone and shrugged. “We don’t know. Like you said, it’s pretty obvious with money, but patents and device schematics don’t fit with a loose connection of dealers. Unless they sell them.”
“Maybe they’re not loosely connected?” Cam suggested. “How does this whole Second-Life theft thing work, anyways?”
Emma glanced around again before speaking. He wondered how much was paranoia, and how much was just not wanting anyone to accidentally hear.
“It’s complicated, but very precise,” she said. “The unborn child needs to be tagged, a suitable mark needs to be found, the Shift Zone needs to be located, and the mark needs to die with a harness linked back to that unborn child approximately three weeks before it’s born.”
Cam blinked, trying to wrap his head around the process. Dozens of questions immediately fought in his mind for supremacy, and he struggled to organize his thoughts.
“Shift Zone? Harness? Why three weeks?” he asked, struggling to decide which question he was the most curious about.
“Shhh,” Emma said, and Cam realized he had been raising his voice. “We don’t know why three weeks, or why there’s a Shift Zone, or how to determine it. And we’ve only seen this harness, but haven’t been able to actually get one before the mark, or Benefactor as we call them, uses it.”
“Then how do you know any of this is important?” he asked.
“Lots of cases and witness accounts,” she said. “For example, we just had a case in Prague where the dealers and Benefactor fought tooth and nail to get back to their meeting place for the Shift to happen. And surveillance video showed the dealers putting a harness on the Benefactor before they crashed.”
Cam nodded, despite understanding it only slightly. But there was something that bothered him about the process, though he felt ignorant for asking.
“So why do people do this?” he asked. “Just to be born into a richer lifestyle?”
“Sometimes,” Emma said. “But they seem to pick their targets, somehow knowing what will become of them. Sure, the rich are targets, but we’ve seen normal people, middle and even lower-class families, targeted.”
“Why?”
“Not everyone wants money, at least directly,” she said. “Some families seem to have children who are destined for big things. We know of a few humble beginnings professional sports stars who are Benefactors.”
“How do you know?” he asked. “How do you know someone is, er, a victim of birthright theft?”
“That’s the toughest part of all,” she said as she looked away. “The Benefactor keeps their memories and everything from a previous life. From the time they’re born, they’re aware. All throughout infancy, they’re just waiting. They usually walk and talk earlier than most children. And their maturity is also very high.”
“But that’s not something you can prove,” Cam pointed out. “Isn’t there some sort
of hard evidence? Some way to tell someone’s a Benefactor?”
She paused, but not just her voice. Cam saw her entire body freeze, and he even wondered if she wasn’t breathing. For some reason, she was choosing her words carefully, but as to why, he couldn’t guess. Likely a lack of trust, he assumed, and he couldn’t blame her. If half of what she said so far was true, then this woman had been through Hell and back.
“There’s a mark on their body,” she said. “Usually obscure and hidden. It’s too intricate for a birthmark, and can’t be removed like a tattoo. It grows back.”
“What does it look like?” Cam asked.
“Sanskrit,” she said. “It’s always a phrase in Sanskrit.”
“Sanskrit?”
“Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, among other things,” Emma explained. “We believe it comes from Hinduism’s belief in reincarnation, though I don’t think this is what they had in mind. It looks like a mix of cursive symbols. Sort of.”
The markings she described made Cam think of his own unusual birthmark, and the recent comments his coworker made about them. Until now, he never knew what Sanskrit was, but it sounded like the markings he’d had all his life. Granted, it wasn’t solid writing, but more scattered and broken up. But he could see it being considered writing in a language he otherwise didn’t know.
Cam had still been somewhat hungry, but it now felt like his stomach had sunk to the floor.
He knew he wasn’t one of these Second-Lifers. At least, he hoped he would have picked a life better than this. Could a Second-Lifer lose their memory, and something happen to the deal they struck? Maybe he was supposed to be born into a richer family, a better-off family, but things didn’t work out?
But that went completely against what Emma just told him, and this time, he felt like she was telling the truth.
Then it dawned on him. It clearly wasn’t natural for these dealers and Benefactors to be invading a to-be mother’s womb and take over her unborn child’s identity. It couldn’t stop there. Something more had to be happening after the birthright theft. Otherwise, why call it that, and not just birth theft?
“Emma,” he said as he sought the right words, “when a Benefactor and dealer commit birthright theft, what happens to the baby who was already there? I mean, their soul, or whatever.”
Her head snapped up from her phone, her jaw slightly open. Cam watched as her face paled, faint but noticeable, and she seemed to struggle to find the answer she wanted to give.
“Well, you’re right. It, um, doesn’t stop there,” she said. “Of course there are more ramifications, and—”
A chime from her phone saved her awkwardness. She quickly looked down and pulled up the message, her lips moving as she read its contents.
“Got something from my contact in New York,” she said, looking back to Cam. “We’ll meet them there first thing in the morning. I don’t know about you, but I could use some rest. I think I saw a motel with a vacancy up the road.”
She tossed down some cash for their meal, then stood and practically rushed for the door, leaving Cam behind in her wake.
As he stood and made his way after her, he tried to figure out why that one question threw her for such a loop. It didn’t make sense, for her to be that forthcoming, only to be stumped by one question. And stumped wasn’t even the right word. Taken off guard sounded better to him, but he filed it for later.
The answer to his question suddenly didn’t seem as interesting as knowing why the question bothered her so much.
**********
Emma used one of her aliases to get checked into the run-down roadside motel. For once, she was glad her company car wasn’t a high-end model, but even so, it still stood out amongst the collection of beat-up cars and trucks scattered throughout the parking lot.
The bullet dents and holes they sustained during their chase seemed to actually help them blend in.
She hurried back to her car and got her things, telling Cam to follow without giving him an option to speak. Specifically, she didn’t want to obviously avoid his question again.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to answer, or that she meant to withhold that information from him. She just wasn’t prepared for it. In his file, she had read that Cam was a high school dropout, and only got his GED in prison some years later. It was her fault for assuming he couldn’t think quickly and make connections.
But he connected those dots impressively fast, despite just learning about everything tonight. And the question about Unborns … she didn’t want to tell him. Not yet. Not until he was invested and ready to handle it, and for her to confirm her suspicions.
It took a few twists from the ancient key to unlock the room, and a heavy shove with her shoulder to force the door open. A musty smell assaulted her nostrils, and she prayed there wasn’t some sort of mold in here that would make her sick.
A flip of the light switch didn’t scatter any roaches, but that was the only good thing. The walls looked sticky, and the linens were stained, along with the floor. This was the part she hated about her job.
But even more to her horror, Cam seemed perfectly okay with their conditions.
“Mind if I shower first?” he asked.
Emma felt her stomach turn at the thought of how the bathroom must look. She considered a sink bath while Cam showered, if only to avoid whatever muck waited for her in there.
“You’re brave enough to use that?” she asked. “All yours.”
“Thanks,” he said as he removed his shirt.
This time she was ready for it, but still, it stirred something inside of her. But it was easily suppressed by her task of looking closely at his back.
Now that she could actually see it, she realized it wasn’t a scar, but a broken-up Sanskrit marking. She had never seen one like that, but she could also count the number she’d found on one hand. But nonetheless, she felt a spark of victory deep in her chest.
Emma had found an Unborn.
CHAPTER 17
“You talk in your sleep,” Cam said as they drove to New York City.
“Sometimes it happens when I dream, or have nightmares,” Emma mumbled.
“Which one was this?” he asked. To his credit, he seemed genuinely interested.
But it still didn’t mean Emma wanted to discuss it.
“Don’t worry about it, Cam.”
“Sounded like a nightmare,” Cam continued. “You were thrashing about violently. Woke me up twice.”
Emma growled, a primal sound from deep in her chest. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, later then.” Cam arched his back and stretched his shoulders. “But if you stopped pulling your hair back so tightly, you may not get so many nightmares; that might hurt your brain.”
“If you thought I was going to use that gross bathroom, you’re mistaken,” Emma commented as a sly smile formed. “I’ll shower someplace sanitary. Hope you didn’t get hook worms or tetanus.”
“Hook worms?” Cam sounded shocked. “You can get hook worms in a place like that?”
Emma only shrugged and continued to drive, fighting the urge to smirk.
“So who are we meeting?” Cam asked.
They had just entered the fringe of the enormous, sprawling metropolis, and she was glad for him to be talking again.
“A couple contacts of mine,” she said. “Known them for years.”
“They part of your agency?”
“No,” she said. “They’re more like independent contractors. I pay them when they deliver good intel.”
“I would have thought you kept everything in house,” Cam said. “Why outside contractors?”
“Payroll, for one,” she said. “Cheaper this way. Two, well, sometimes you can’t trust everyone in house. Sometimes outside is better.”
“Like why you hired me,” he said. “An outside source with no ties to the agency, or this case you’re working.”
“Exactly,” she said.
“So wh
at do they have for us?” he asked.
“Not sure,” Emma said. “They like to show more than tell; all they said is that it would be of interest.”
“And you trust them?” he asked. “Something like that sounds like a trap.”
“I trust them,” she said, and offered no more information on the subject.
**********
The silence returned for the rest of the ride until they reached their destination, an old warehouse nestled in a rotting industrial district. The building only stood out because it was in less disrepair than the rest, and the front appeared to get a little bit of use.
“Are your contacts, um, squatters?” Cam asked. He didn’t try to cover his skepticism.
“They like their privacy,” Emma said.
She walked to the side of the building, where a very sturdy-looking door awaited them. But instead of opening it, she pressed a false wall to its side, which slid open to reveal a control panel. She pushed a button, and waited.
“Who’s there?” a voice asked through the speaker.
“Hey, Ronald, it’s me, Emma.”
“That’s not my name,” the voice scoffed.
“Sorry, Rolan,” she corrected, rolling her eyes.
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me,” the voice said. “Who’s the guy?”
“Friend of mine; his name is Cam,” she said. “He’s good.”
“If you vouch for him, he must be,” Rolan said. “Come on down.”
A click emitted from the door’s handle, and the door swung open, allowing them entrance. But once they were both inside, the door closed on its own with a force that caused the wall to shudder.
“Awful lot of security for a warehouse,” Cam said, looking around. “But it seems … empty.”
“Right,” Emma said. “It’ll make sense soon. Follow me.”
She led him to the center of the building, where she lifted up a hidden basement door that was flush with the ground. A wave of heat escaped as she flung the door open, and she could instantly hear the whir of machines and hard rock music.
