Enhancement (Black Market DNA Book 1)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  Nausea swelled in him, a constant companion that day. He gulped. “Thanks.”

  Chris’s swimming vision refocused again as Tracy led him down the stairs and out the exit of the building. He began to input a cab request in his comm card, but Tracy stopped him. “We don’t need a paper trail leading us away from the crime scene. Also, you need to get rid of that coat. It’s covered in splotches of blood and smells terrible.”

  “Get rid of my coat?” Chris frowned as he peeled the coat off and bunched it up. He held it by his side, careful to ensure no blood showed. “It’s freezing out. People will think I’m crazy.”

  “Crazier than anyone else in this damned city?” Tracy directed him to throw it away after they had made it back to Pratt Street.

  Chris threw it in a dumpster behind Philip’s Seafood.

  “Good choice. No restaurant likes to keep a pile of rotting crab shells around. They have to clean those dumpsters out every day.”

  They trudged to the Oakwoods Shopping Center in the Severn Building to buy a new coat. When they left, Tracy led them back on Light Street before she hailed a cab on her comm card. Once in the vehicle, she input an address that Chris didn’t recognize. “What are you doing?”

  She looked at the rear window. “Son of a bitch.”

  “What?”

  She pointed at another cab following theirs. “We’ve got a tail.”

  Chris peered through the rear window but noticed nothing unusual. Then again, what he saw hardly matched the haunting images of Veronica that overshadowed any other of his thoughts. “We just got out of the Inner Harbor. Tourists everywhere. How do you know we’ve got a tail?”

  “I’ve been watching the guy. He doesn’t know I saw him, but he’s been following us since we left Veronica’s apartment building.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t a PI before?”

  She laughed. Chris did not. It was the first time either had exhibited any form of humor since discovering Veronica. “You know I actually pay attention to things. Don’t have my head in the clouds.” She jabbed him with her elbow and he winced.

  “That kind of hurts, you know.” He touched his shoulder. It still responded painfully to his probing.

  Tracy’s face contorted in an expression somewhere between a frown and a sympathetic smile.

  “Where are we going?” Chris asked.

  “We’re going to have a drink with our new friend.”

  “What? After all of this? I just want to go home.”

  She rolled her eyes. “If we’re being followed, that isn’t such a great idea. Right now, we’re headed to the Dragon Emporium on Emerson.”

  “The hell kind of place is that?”

  Tracy grinned. “The kind of place where I used to go before working at Respondent. Also, the kind of place that makes carrying a gun worthwhile.” She patted the spot on her jacket where the coat hid her pistol.

  “Why do you still carry that around?”

  “Why are you still creeping around with Veronica Powell?” She clenched her jaws, her eyes alight again. “She’s that girlfriend you saw before going to prison, isn’t she?”

  Chris nodded. Tracy’s constant fluctuations from collected crime scene cleaner to jealous lover caused him to edge up against the door of the cab.

  “Still, it’s strange that she’s on Randy’s list. You knew her and you lied to me about it. Are you sure you don’t recognize the others?” She gave Chris an accusing look.

  “No. Veronica and Jordan were it. I’m sorry I lied. I wanted to warn her.” He waved his hands defensively. “But we didn’t do anything, I swear.”

  “Fine,” she said. Her facial features softened, but her eyes still burned with intensity. “Don’t lie to me like that again. We need honesty. Especially right now.”

  Chris thought to press her about the gun again but decided against it. She needed honesty from him but didn’t seem ready to open up herself.

  The cab slowed to a stop. He opened the door, and Tracy followed him out. The face of a large dragon made of an enormous wood frame painted green and red greeted them. Steam seemed to be rising from its nostrils, and its eyes glowed red. They walked straight through its mouth and into the Dragon Emporium. Inside, projections of red and orange danced along the walls as if the beast had swallowed them into its fire-bearing belly.

  “Good Lord,” Chris said. “What did you ever do here?”

  Tracy smirked. “Good place to meet an interesting man or two.” She nodded at a couple of bald men with curling mustaches in the corner. One had brow implants and piercings that made him appear like a pink relative of the bar’s namesake. The other, laced in tattoos, gulped beer from a pitcher.

  Between the pain in his shoulder, the nausea in his stomach, and the guilt over Veronica, Chris felt like a weakling, waiting to be set upon by the two grisly men.

  “I’m just messing with you,” she said. “But, in reality, my past may not have been as clean as I’d led you to believe.” Before he could follow up with a question, Tracy made a slight gesture back to the entrance of the bar. “He’s still following us, isn’t he?”

  Chris glanced back to the entrance of the dragon’s belly. A wiry man with tousled hair and a gaunt face had just entered. “The guy you saw. Does he look like a skinny little tweaker?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then yeah, he’s still following us.”

  Tracy walked to the back, past the two fat bald men. Music pounded through the door in the back. “Don’t look back. Just keep following me.”

  “Is there a dance club here? In the middle of the freaking afternoon?”

  Tracy smiled. “Yeah. Can’t guarantee anybody’s actually here, but that’s one of the things I liked about this place. Party whenever you wanted.”

  She opened the door, and the music reverberated in Chris’s chest. “I don’t feel like dancing right now,” he said.

  Tracy prodded him up the stairs. Darkness cloaked the stairwell. “I hope our buddy back there feels differently.”

  The top of the stairs opened into a room that appeared too small for the music that resonated within it. The deep, reverberating bass sucked the air from Chris’s lungs. Ridiculous hologram projections of dragons gallivanted through the murky fog that filled the room.

  He glanced at Tracy. She gave him a mischievous look and smirked.

  No other patrons suffered through the unbearable music. In one far corner, a bar stood with no bartender. Chris squinted to make out the automatic drink dispenser. Of course, no human tended the bar; working too long in that environment would be intolerable for any living soul.

  Tracy pulled him through the entrance and pushed him against the wall. She gave him a quick kiss on the lips, another look filled with a strange combination of pity and slyness, and pressed herself against the wall beside him.

  As if on cue, the skinny man followed through behind them. Tracy pressed the cold steel of her pistol against his head. The man shook and his lips quivered.

  She grabbed hold of his collar and guided him back out onto the top landing of the stairwell and through a dark hall that led to the second-floor bathrooms. As she shoved him into the women’s restroom, she locked the door behind them, the music pounding against it.

  All the walls seemed to be coated in a yellow-orange grime. Tracy pushed the man down onto the toilet.

  “Why are you following us?” Tracy backed up, the gun trained on the man.

  He whimpered, and shook his head.

  “Why are you following us?” She repeated the words with more malice, practically spitting on the man.

  Again, he shook his head and refused to mutter a word.

  Tracy backhanded him. As she did, Chris let out an audible gasp. She scowled at him. He straightened up and folded his arms across his chest, painting his face with a scowl to match hers.

  “I don’t know!” The man clutched at his face and shook.

  “Why the hell would anyone send a piece of shit like you to tail us
around?”

  The man’s hands dropped from his face as he crossed his arms. “They promised me a genie. I’m dying, okay? Muscles all out of whack. Can’t buy myself a genie. I begged ’em. They wouldn’t let me. Today, they called me up. Told me they got a job. I do it, I get a genie, no strings attached.”

  Tracy frowned. “Who told you to follow us?”

  The man groaned through closed lips, already bleeding from the first blow, and shook his head.

  Tracy cocked her arm back.

  “I can’t tell. They said they’ll flay me alive.”

  “I’ll flay you alive if you don’t tell us.”

  Shoulders hunched, the man looked up at her. His eyelids wavered as if he couldn’t decide whether to blink or not. “I don’t even know their names. The two of ’em picked me up, dropped me off, and told me to watch for someone who looked like him.” The man pointed at Chris.

  “Why?” Tracy clenched her jaw.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know, lady.”

  “Where’s your card?”

  “My—my front pocket, pants. I mean, no, front pocket of my jacket. Right here.” He inserted a hand into his pocket.

  “Don’t fucking move. Chris, get his comm card.”

  Chris walked toward their hostage, avoiding his shaky gaze, and slipped a hand into the man’s front jacket pocket. He pulled out the comm card and handed it to Tracy. She glanced at it and handed it back to him. “The number they called him from is secured, and we won’t find shit on it. Break the card.”

  “But—”

  “Break it. If they’re tracking his card, they’ll know where he is and where we are.”

  Nodding, he snapped the card in half. Tracy made the man stand up, his arms above his head, as Chris flushed it down the toilet.

  “You said you spoke to these people before, right?”

  The color from the man’s face drained.

  “Where did you meet them?”

  “A friend set it up.”

  “What friend?”

  “He’s dead now.”

  Tracy rolled her eyes. “Of course. Where’d you meet the thugs that put you up to this?”

  “Happy’s Chicken.”

  “The fast food place?”

  The man nodded vigorously. “Yeah. I gave them my ID, but they wouldn’t let me get a genie until I did what they wanted.”

  “Great. Where’s their place?”

  “Their what?” The man peered up at Tracy with fright.

  “Their house, their headquarters, wherever the hell they spend their time.”

  “I don’t know!” The man’s skin paled and he shook even more violently. His eyelids twitched.

  “Are you telling me the truth?” Tracy thrust the gun at his groin.

  The man crossed his legs. His pants turned dark with wetness and yellow liquid escaped from beneath where he sat and dripped on the ground. “Yes! I am! I swear it!” He whimpered again.

  The man was clearly afraid of Tracy, frightened by the cold steel in her hands and the fury radiating from her eyes. Chris was growing afraid of her, too. He struggled to maintain his stolid composure.

  “I think that’s all we’re going to get out of this creep for now.” Tracy turned to Chris. “We’re going to need to get him back to Jordan’s.”

  “Are you insane? Why would we do that?”

  “The guy’s seen us and I pulled a gun on him. If we let him go, he could go to the police, ID us, and we both end up in jail. Easy target for our friend, Ben Kaufman.” She glanced at the man when she said Ben’s name. He didn’t seem to recognize it.

  “I won’t go to the police. I swear!”

  “If he doesn’t go to the police, our friends will either flay him alive, as he says, or they’ll send him after us again. And, this time, I doubt it will be under such amicable circumstances.”

  The man cried now.

  “So, we could kill him—”

  The man howled.

  “Or bring him to Jordan’s for a bit while we get this whole mess sorted. Who knows? Maybe we can get him whatever genetic enhancement he wants that’ll help the muscle problem he says he’s got when this whole thing blows over.”

  Chris frowned but nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” He turned and kicked the door. “But, damn, we don’t need kidnapping charges right now.”

  Tracy shrugged. “Better than killing the guy outright. Besides, I’m sure your friend Jordan has means of getting rid of guys like this.”

  His face in his hands, the man sobbed. “I don’t want to die.”

  “Relax,” Tracy said. “I’ll bet Jordan has access to things that’ll knock out your memories. Can’t guarantee what else it’ll knock out, but at least you’ll be alive.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  As the music pounded against their ears, Tracy guided the scrawny man down the hall toward a door marked with a red holo exit sign. Chris followed, close enough to hear her whispering threats into the man’s ear about what might happen if he tried to run. She slung her arm through the hostage’s and pushed open the door to fire escape stairs that led down to the bottom of the alley. The outdoor light blinded Chris for a moment until his pupils adjusted. As the group climbed down, the rusted stairs quaked and groaned with each step they took.

  “Call a cab,” Tracy said to Chris without taking her eyes off their captive.

  Chris held the rail and used his other hand to request a cab on his comm card. They waited at the bottom of the stairs until a taxi pulled up to the end of the narrow alleyway. Tracy kept the man in the shadows until she signaled for both him and Chris to duck into the vehicle with her.

  When their captive leaned to run off, Tracy lunged. She grabbed his wrist and twisted it until he yelped. A man smoking across the street looked toward them but turned away when Chris caught his gaze. With a thrust, Tracy shoved the skinny man into the cab, and his head cracked against the window on the opposite side of the car. He sat in the seat and whimpered as she sidled in next to him. Chris gulped and closed the door after he got in.

  Before inputting an address, Tracy leaned into Chris’s ear. “I need your undershirt to blindfold the guy.”

  Chris hesitated and gave her a questioning look.

  “Look, I know this is crazy, but we still don’t know how dangerous this guy is. We let him go, he might go straight back to whoever sent him or he might just outright kill us. I’m not certain he’s told us everything he knows.”

  “And yet we’re going to bring him back to Jordan’s.”

  “That’s why we’ve at least got to blindfold him. We can lock him up in a bathroom. I’m sure Greg will help us deal with the guy.”

  “Fine.”

  As Chris took off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt, Tracy turned back to the man. “What’s your name?”

  The man said nothing.

  “Just give us a first name, anything we can call you.”

  “Todd,” he said. He shivered as he spoke.

  “All right, Todd. Just keep doing as you’re told and everything will be fine. And if you remember anything that could help us out, it’ll better for you to tell us.”

  Todd nodded but said nothing else, his lips quivering.

  Just a couple nights ago, Chris had shared a warm bed with Tracy. With his arms wrapped around her, she had felt small to him, her eyes closed and her breathing steady. She had almost seemed delicate. And now she seemed anything but.

  Tracy stared at the man like a tiger stalking prey, her gaze intense and focused. Chris could not help wondering how she had hidden this innate ferocity within her. He didn’t envy Todd.

  ***

  When they arrived at Jordan’s apartment building, Tracy cursed. People strolled down the sidewalk toward them, scarves wrapped tight around their necks. The cab requested them to confirm their payment and urged them to exit, but Tracy waited for the group to pass by.

  “We can’t exactly bring him in blindfolded. That’s certain to arouse a little su
spicion.”

  “No shit,” Tracy said.

  For the first time, Chris saw a look of uncertainty in her eyes. It reassured him to know she didn’t know the proper procedure for transporting a prisoner to an apartment. “Well, so much for all the grandstanding.” She took the blindfold off him. “Don’t think for a second this means I don’t have a gun aimed at your gut, though.”

  Todd, still quivering, nodded. He stepped out of the cab, stumbling forward. For a moment, Chris thought Todd meant to sprint off and he cowered, preparing for the blast from Tracy’s concealed gun.

  Instead, Todd stood back up. Tracy wrapped her arm around his and led him over the marble floor to the elevators. Chris followed and hit the button on the screen for Jordan’s apartment, glad that Jordan had approved him for security access. He wasn’t sure his friend would have let them up if he’d known they brought a nervous hostage with them.

  The elevator doors opened to the empty atrium.

  “We’re back,” Chris called out. “Got someone with us.”

  No voices called back.

  Chris walked to the open sitting area next to the bar and kitchen. A half-full pot of coffee sat on the kitchen counter.

  “Jordan?”

  His pulse quickened as he stepped into the empty library room. The holoscreen sat open on the desk, radiating a soft blue glow. Chris checked his comm card. No messages or calls from Jordan. The little red numbers projected 5:45 p.m. Jordan and Greg might still be in their labs or offices, researching and selling their equine genetic enhancements.

  He exhaled and willed his heartbeat to slow. He had no idea how late Jordan might be working, so it might be normal for him to be gone at this time. His thoughts turned to Todd and Tracy out near the elevator. His friend liked hosting guests but might not be too thrilled about this particular surprise visitor.

  After tapping Jordan’s number into his comm card, he waited to connect. The other line rang as Chris paced back and forth. No answer. He could call Jordan’s workplace, but that might not be as secure as the man’s personal line. In fact, Jordan might already be headed to the penthouse, just minutes away in his company car.