by Devin Hanson
Min wasn’t worried about radiation poisoning. His monthly Womack treatment would set any cellular damage right again before it escalated out of control. The rest of the citizens might not be so lucky. Still, that wasn’t why he was here.
As was his custom, Min walked until he found a tiny, secluded food stall and ordered an item at random off the menu. While he waited for his ramen, he took out his tablet and examined Enrique’s email. Most of it was inane comics and over-used memes, but a limerick near the bottom caught his eye.
There once was a man named Nim,
Who grew only white hair on his chin,
He thought it was his boss,
But he was at a loss,
For his other options were slim.
As a limerick, it left a lot to be desired and rhyming chin and slim was pretty weak. Min frowned at Enrique’s message: Director Rosario was not the one behind the search, and Enrique didn’t know who was. Min’s food arrived and he ate while contemplating the rest of the email. Enrique had planted the limerick to get his attention. Other, more useful information would be buried deeper.
Back to the top. He passed over a few jokes that he had seen previously , then came to a meme about uranium miners having three eyes. It was a common joke, but there wasn’t anything particularly amusing about this one, just a poorly manipulated image giving a man in a hardhat a third eye with the tagline, “If you look hard enough you find what you’re looking for.”
Min stared at the image, even blew it up to see if there was a message hidden in the pixels. Nothing. Maybe the website URL watermarked into the foot of the image would lead somewhere. He typed it into a search engine and got nothing, just a “page unknown” error.
Yet something about the URL snagged in Min’s mind. It had looked like a random jumble of letters and numbers initially, but if you pulled the numbers to the front and added a space, it suddenly looked very much like an address. He typed it into his search engine and sure enough, it was an address here in Acheron, an apartment that was part of a large block on the ninth level.
Min searched through the rest of the email without finding anything else helpful. If Enrique had hidden more in the email, Min didn’t have the wit to see it. Considering the crudity of the other pieces, Min felt fairly confident that he had found everything there was. Enrique might be many things, but cut out to be a spy he was not. Still, Min couldn’t be too hard on him. The man had delivered as promised.
He considered the information about Director Rosario. She had pulled her influence out of the case. Either she’d had nothing to do with it in the first place, or had already started damage control, cutting ties to anything that might incriminate her later. Min smiled wryly to himself. He was good, but not that good.
He’d love to have a few minutes alone with Rosario again. It’d be interesting to find out who had suggested to her that Min should not follow the case to completion. It was possible she had really only been acting in Min’s best interest, but he thought that unlikely. An urgent summons to her office when she had barely given him the time of day previously, just to give him friendly advice? No, someone had pulled her strings.
As for the address, it was probably linked to Dr. Lenbroke. Min finished off his meal and paid for the food. He started walking again, contemplating his next move. He wished he could talk to Enrique and verify what the address was to. If it was the location of Dr. Lenbroke’s lab, that would be very different than the doctor’s apartment.
Doing any further online searching himself was probably unwise. A single random search to the address was likely lost in the noise, but any in-depth investigation into the address was sure to trip red flags.
His only course of action was to go and knock on the door and see what happened. It was the kind of cavalier rookie move that led to an early grave, but Min was out of options. He couldn’t go back to the marshal headquarters and turn himself in. He might as well just shoot himself in the head as do that. And he was running out of time. Eight days had passed since the girls had gone missing.
From the dates Nuon Chow had given, Jasmine still had three days before her period would start, but Min couldn’t remember if he had accounted for the actual days of the period itself. Either he had three days to find the girls, or Jasmine was already dead. The vagueness of the female menstrual cycle frustrated Min.
The only silver lining was that Angeline had not yet started her periods when she was kidnapped.
Min found the escalators going down in front of him before he realized he had subconsciously steered himself toward them. He paused at the top of the escalator. The sloping shaft descended into gloom where a biolumen strip had failed. Far at the bottom, light bloomed once more.
“Either get on, or get the hell out of the way. Not all of us live forever, you know.”
Min stepped aside to let the man pass, but his mind was made up. With a last glance around the open market floor, Min stepped onto the escalator and descended into darkness. He only hoped the light at the bottom of the escalator prophesied his eventual success.
Apartment ACH9-541 was remarkable only in how completely mundane it looked. The hallway was brightly lit with fresh biolumin strips, the walls clean. Small personal touches brought life to the otherwise sterile hallway: a door painted a bright pastel color, or a welcome mat placed out in front.
541 was like any other on the strip, its numbers crisp, the door well maintained. The color was the original manufacturer’s shade of off-white. The only personal touch was a high-grade security lock in place of the standard-issue keycode entry, but even that wasn’t enough to be remarked on. Min had passed half a dozen other doors on the way with upgraded security.
Min placed his thumb over the peephole and knocked on the door with his other hand. An old couple passing by stared at him and he waved and winked with a smile. It was late in the afternoon, long past time most people were off work. Dr. Lenbroke should be home.
He was about to knock again when he heard footsteps on the other side of the door. After a moment, a muffled female voice called out, “Who is it?”
Min pitched his voice high, not trying for a falsetto, but maybe passable for a child, given the height at which his voice was coming from. “Sorry to bother you. I’m doing a survey for a school project. I was wondering if you had a moment to answer a few questions.”
“I’m busy.”
“Please? It’ll only take a minute. I’ve got everyone else on the block already.”
Min heard a muffled curse come from the other side of the door and grinned. That had worked better than he had hoped. The lock disengaged and Min dropped his shoulder into the door, swinging it suddenly open.
Whoever was inside had been in the act of opening the door when Min hit it, and he stumbled through, getting tangled with the woman and bringing them both crashing to the ground. He kicked the door shut and scrambled to his feet. He had one hand on his pistol, ready to bring it up and fire it if she fought him, but she didn’t even get up off the ground.
“So you’re the marshal,” she said, rubbing a hand across her nose. The door must have hit it; her nose was bleeding, but not obviously broken.
Min relaxed a little. “Dr. Lenbroke, I presume.”
The woman tilted her head forward, pinching her nose to help stop the bleeding. When she spoke, her voice came out nasally. “I suppose there’s no point in denying it.”
“Not really, no.”
They stared at each other for a moment then she held out her hand. “Help me up. I’m not going to try to fight you.”
Min shrugged and hauled her to her feet. He was a little put off by how well she was taking it. Most people involved in a criminal activity have much more active reactions when a colonial marshal kicks down their door. If she had thrown herself at him screaming and clawing for his eyes, he would have known what to do. If she had gone for a gun or an alarm, he would have known what to do.
Quiet compliance threw him off. He helped her to her feet and, fo
llowing her directions while she leaned over the sink, got an ice pack out of the fridge and wrapped it in a damp cloth. She went and sat on a stool in the breakfast nook and tilted her head forward, one hand pinching her nose, the other holding the ice pack to her face. Her heavy makeup was smeared by the blood and the cloth, letting her pale skin show through in patches.
It wasn’t an uncommon reaction to the albinism change. Min had seen far more elaborate attempts at covering up the pale skin and white hair. Most people eventually grew out of it.
“Sorry about your nose,” Min said then cursed to himself. He didn’t want to appear weak to her.
Dr. Lenbroke raised an eyebrow at him, acknowledging the absurdity of it, but refraining from comment. After a few minutes, she cautiously took her hand away. The bleeding had stopped, and she spent a moment cleaning the blood off her hands and face.
“So,” she said while she worked, “what now?”
“I suppose that depends on you,” Min said.
“Is this where I bargain information for a reduced sentence or something?”
Min shook his head. “You know the penalty for trafficking in stolen ovaries.”
She sighed. “Death. I was hoping there might be extenuating circumstances.”
“I don’t have the authority to offer that. And given the heat coming down from within the marshals to get me to halt my investigation, I kind of doubt you’ll get any special consideration for turning your pals in.”
Dr. Lenbroke winced. “So, what? You take me in?”
“I don’t have time for that. The girls don’t have time.”
“Girls? Which ones are you after?”
“Jasmine and Angeline.”
“Jasmine… dark hair, Chinese?”
“Yes.” Min got out his tablet and showed the picture of Jasmine to the doctor, but she was already nodding.
“You’re too late for her.”
“Shit.” Min put his hand on the butt of his pistol. It felt solid in his grasp, full of lethal potential. It would be so easy. She was defenseless, unresisting, but the need to do damage coiled in Min’s chest, begging for release. The woman sitting on her stool glanced down at his hand and her face paled. Moving deliberately, Min took his hand off and gripped the edge of the counter instead. He needed her alive and talking. “What about Angeline?”
Dr. Lenbroke shook her head. “She still hasn’t had her first period. Kidnapping her was a mistake. Anton is getting sloppy.”
“How many other girls do you have prisoner?”
“One other right now. Adora Martina, from Elysium.”
“She’s not part of my case, but I’m sure her parents will be happy to have her back.”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Min demanded. “Why are you doing this?”
Dr. Lenbroke shrugged. “It’s not like I intentionally planned to do this for a living. It makes a lot of money, but to tell the truth, I hate it.” She took a deep shuddering breath and tried a small smile. “Would you like some tea? I purchased some a while ago for a special occasion, but I don’t suppose I’ll have the chance now.”
Min’s mouth watered. Tea was a rarity on Mars. Most people who had the money to have things imported from Earth focused on more permanent objects, or things that they could sell for a large profit. Tea didn’t have the same monetary value as alcohol, or even a steak. There was a restaurant in Olympus where you could buy a marbled Kobe steak grilled over apple wood coals for ten thousand credits. It was a ludicrous amount of money, but every time Min visited the restaurant they had been sold out. Compared to that kind of import value, tea wasn’t given much priority.
Seeing the look on his face, Dr. Lenbroke made her way unsteadily to her feet without waiting for a response. Min stiffened and dropped his hand to the pistol again, but didn’t object as she set about heating water. The tea was a bright green powder she kept in an oxygen-tight tin. When she popped the lid, Min caught the aroma. Green tea, not that barbaric filth the Europeans drank. Black tea was better than nothing, but it was green tea that he craved.
He watched as she carefully portioned out the powder into bowls and stirred in the hot water with a whisk. The scent of green tea filled the room and Min accepted his bowl with a small bow.
“I admit,” Min said as he raised his bowl to breathe in the aroma, “You aren’t what I expected.”
Dr. Lenbroke sipped her tea and sighed with pleasure. “You were expecting an evil bastard who delights in torture?” She waited for Min’s nod. “That would be Jie. I keep the girls alive and healthy, he performs the oophorectomy and termination.” She shuddered. “I… cannot. Participate.”
Min sipped his tea. The slightly bitter flavor brought back memories he had thought long-buried. Running through tall grass with the sun beating on his shoulders and blue sky overhead, his mother carefully pouring tea in the shade of a towering tree, the scent of the ocean over the next hill.
He cleared his throat and put down the bowl, pulling his attention back onto the doctor before any more memories could surface. There were some things that were best left buried in the past.
“Is the tea alright?”
“It’s fine,” he said shortly. “You were telling me about Jie. What’s his last name?”
“Chung. He’s a doctor, too, but just a surgeon.”
Min picked his bowl up again and sipped, carefully keeping his mind on the present. It went down almost flavorless.
“Tell me about your day. What is your routine?”
Dr. Lenbroke started talking and Min listened carefully, sipping his tea and interrupting occasionally to clarify something or ask for more information. As Dr. Lenbroke spoke, Min found himself growing more and more distracted. The memories of Earth kept niggling at the edges of his thoughts. He was so tired of Mars, so tired of the endless turbulence of human existence.
Min raised his bowl again and found the tea was down to the dregs, sharply bitter and cold. He blinked and tried to focus on what Dr. Lenbroke was saying. The familiar tickle of energy green tea always gave him sat coiled in his gut, but his limbs felt sluggish and unresponsive. He looked up at the doctor and found her watching him closely. She didn’t look harmless anymore; she was watching him like a predatory hawk.
He glanced down at the bowl and realization crashed through him, along with a sinking feeling.
He went for his gun then, but his hands seemed far away, belonging to someone else. He fumbled the pistol out of the holster, but it hung slack from nerveless fingers. Dr. Lenbroke darted forward and snatched the weapon from his hand.
Min tried to stand up. His feet tangled in the stool and he toppled heavily to the ground. There was a roaring in his ears and the salt taste of blood in his mouth. Distantly, he heard the door bang open and footsteps ran into the room.
From the corner of his eye, Min recognized Anton Engel. He tried to roll over, but he couldn’t seem to summon the energy.
“Took you long enough,” Dr. Lenbroke said sourly.
“We were waiting for him to go down. He has a reputation, you know. We couldn’t risk getting into a firefight with him.”
“This piece of shit.”
A foot crashed into Min and he groaned, curling up around his stomach.
“I had to keep him entertained for almost an hour.”
Min heard the mechanical sound of his pistol’s action cycling.
“No, don’t do that,” Anton said urgently.
“Why the fuck not? Asshole broke my nose, or near enough.”
“He’s a marshal. People know where he’s been looking. He shows up dead and the entirety of the colonial marshals will come crashing down on us.”
“We can’t just let him go.”
“Of course not. But listen, I’ve got an idea.”
Min slipped into unconsciousness, the roaring in his ears transitioning into the rolling crash of surf on a sunny beach. The taste of green tea was in his mouth once more, strangely salty. Clouds scudding across the sky and
the calls of seagulls on the wind…
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
The first real drawback publicly recognized about the Womack Process was the sterility it produced in the people who had received the treatment. In the case of Ettricks v Womack, the plaintiff sued Dr. Womack for incomplete testing of his process, claiming damages of ten million dollars. Dr. Womack’s legal team defended the claim handily, arguing that nobody had forced Mr. Ettricks to receive the treatment, and at any rate, immortality was a boon that outweighed any financial burden.
The case might have been thrown out, but it was the first piece of the platform Dr. Everard started building condemning the Womack Process. It was the first hint that the two processes were not alike. The Helix Rebuild brought about an almost hyper-fertility, the complete opposite of the Womack Process.
Time would show the glaring differences between the two processes. In the end, it was clear to anyone who put the effort into researching beyond the media hyperbole that the Womack Process produced immortality, but at a cost.
Meanwhile, the Womack Foundation became the first privately owned organization to earn a multi-billion dollar quarterly profit.
Angeline woke with a start. It was pitch black in the room. Adrenaline raced through her, banishing the last tendrils of sleep. What had woken her? She couldn’t remember a nightmare, though she had them often enough.
A distant door slammed, followed by the muffled clatter of running feet. Angeline heard a creak as Adora sat up in her cot.
“Something’s happening,” Adora whispered.
Light came on in the hallway outside and shone through the crack at the bottom of the door. Angeline wrapped her blanked around her shoulders and sat cross-legged on her cot. She didn’t have long to wait. After a few minutes, footsteps approached and the door opened.