Sanguine Series (Book 1): The Fall

by Chris Laughton

  He decided to chalk it up to stress. Stress also served as a good way to explain away the callous nature of his question. “When we’re ready to admit we’re not the good guys; that we just want to win,” Trevor responded. “She’s out of commission a third of the time, but for a third of the time she has the ability to point us in the right direction. She can take us from a machine gun shooting wildly in the dark to a sniper rifle. She can bring our team’s strength to bear where they can do the most damage to Alexander. Locking her up for the other third is the price we pay, and we’d be fools not to pay it.”

  Dr. Monroe cleared his throat from the back of the security room. Though Dr. Westfield was equally qualified to be the lead scientist for The Project, his attention now that he could be considered ‘semi-retired’ was administration, and so the role of The Project’s doctor/lead scientist fell to Dr. Eugene Monroe: a much younger man than Dr. Westfield, and an absolute giant that you would’ve never guessed was one of the smartest people alive. He looked like a Viking had been pulled straight out of the past, and shoved into a lab coat and glasses. Easily six and a half feet tall, with his long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, the man had quite a bit of muscle considering he didn’t work out, at least as far as Trevor knew. He had thought on many occasions that if he could’ve gotten Dr. Monroe into the field, it would’ve been a boon to his team, for intimidation if nothing else. He stood silhouetted by the door that led back out into the hallway. The lights were off in the room, as Trevor and Westfield hadn’t intended to stay long. It was quite a small space, and even the three men in it started to make it feel cramped. “Not to look like I’m only here to agree with Trevor, but that was an amazing lead she gave us.”

  Dr. Westfield turned around. “What lead?”

  “The video,” Monroe explained. “I see no evidence of doctoring or staging and the things the man does in it… he makes Aidan look like an angry toddler.”

  “Aidan sort of is an angry toddler,” Trevor retorted.

  Dr. Westfield, “Since I’m apparently out of the loop on everything important these days,” he shot Trevor a glare, “perhaps you’d show me this video?”

  “Oh, uh, of course,” Monroe fumbled getting a tablet out of his lab coat. As Monroe brought it up on screen and turned it to share with Westfield, Trevor went back to watching the screens.

  When the video had been playing long enough for the man in it to get back up after the accident, Dr. Monroe made his case. “We need this guy on our side.”

  Dr. Westfield scoffed. “We have bigger fish to fry than sending a delegation to recruit someone based on a questionable video.”

  “So don’t base it on the video. Get me a sample of his blood from the medical examiner’s office in Seattle, and I can confirm that he’s a Sanguine,” Dr. Monroe tipped his hand, revealing that he already believed the man in the video to be another super-soldier like Aidan.

  Trevor was still watching the screen, focusing in on Maya’s face, so he’d missed Simone joining the conversation between her father and Monroe. “It’s the right move,” Simone said, throwing her support behind the younger doctor. “If that video isn’t a misrepresentation, that man would be a wrecking ball. And getting the blood wouldn’t take much manpower. Besides, Maya told us she put Alexander on this guy’s trail, so whether or not the video is an accurate depiction is secondary to thwarting his plans.”

  Westfield sighed. “Fine. Make the call.”

  Trevor interrupted their conversation. “She’s saying something,” he mumbled to himself after seeing Maya’s lips move. Simone and the two doctors in the back heard him and Monroe put his tablet back in his coat so they could turn their attention to him.

  “I’m sorry, what was that?” Westfield asked.

  “She’s saying something,” Trevor repeated as he reached for the audio controls and put her camera’s feed on the speakers. The four of them waited, transfixed by the screen, but just a slight background of white noise came over the speakers.

  “I guess-,” Trevor began but stopped, because he had heard his words over the speakers in the room. “I was…,” he continued. His words, but not his voice. “Wrong.” Each time dueted perfectly by Maya over the speakers.

  On the screen, Maya turned her face up towards the corner of her room and smiled for the camera. She had her fangs out, and though Trevor had known she was a vampire, seeing the actual instruments of death she possessed was unnerving. That face that had been so gentle just days ago now filled him with dread. Her words filled the room, “I know every thought, every plan, every dream of every person in this building. And I will use it all to help Alexander bleed this place dry and claim his prize when I’m free.”

  “At what point do we just kill her?” repeated Dr. Westfield.

  18

  Paul was suffering through another boring day in the Medical Examiner’s office. It was hardly new, but he’d had silly delusions that the moment he took possession of that blood, his world was going to change. The fact that the next day was the same as every other day in this terrible job shouldn’t have surprised him. He hardly ever saw bodies anymore. The only way they made it all the way to him without someone intercepting it to strip for profit and dispose of it was if family members brought it in themselves. Most of the reports he filed were handed to him by the ambulance crew and he just had to enter them in. Oh, the body I never saw belonged to a man, who - after the autopsy I never performed - I concluded died of a heart attack? Alright, that sounds reasonable. In truth, the indignation he felt was merely a convenient way to take the moral high ground. He would’ve hated the effort he’d have to put in if he were actually expected to perform multiple autopsies a day. He shouldn’t complain that today, he had precisely nothing to do besides ensure he clocked his eight hours for his government paycheck and went home at the end of it.

  His eyes found their way across the room to his medical refrigerator, as they had so frequently today. It had a clear front, so he could see the blood he’d collected from the scene yesterday. It only seemed prudent, given its nature, to keep it sequestered, so it occupied its own shelf. Yesterday, he had noticed that the blood stayed pooled, no matter where he took samples from. The pool simply shrunk to fit its new volume after his sample had been removed, without leaving any staining behind. That in and of itself was a remarkable property, before you got to the fact that it could apparently move and clean streets. It was more productive than half the government workers Paul knew! He chuckled to himself at his little joke and wondered momentarily if he was going insane from seclusion. He had viewed it under a microscope and beyond the fact that it wasn’t coagulating at room temperature, it seemed rather mundane.

  He was still positive the blood could make him a rich man, he was just less certain than yesterday that he was smart enough to figure out how. It wasn’t as if he could take out a newspaper ad, or wear a sandwich board on the corner of the street: “Cool blood for sale, 100k in crypto per vial.” Was 100k even a reasonable price? He realized that setting pricing was probably a concern for further down the line. First, he needed to figure out how to discreetly put the word out that it was for sale. No doubt there would be third parties interested in studying it. Even as humanity appeared to be wheezing to the finish line of its existence, the same wealthy men and women out there buying organs were also funding research into prolonging their own lives. If they saw what this blood could do, and more importantly, what its owner had done, they’d be very interested in having some for their people to study.

  It startled him when his phone rang, he’d been so deep in thought about how to start the process of selling his newfound bounty. “Medical Examiner’s office, Paul Lewis speaking,” he answered, only half listening. He was twirling a pen through his fingers thinking about what sort of price he should set.

  “Dr. Lewis, my name is Simone Westfield. I’m with the Department of the Interior. I understand you recovered blood from a recent car crash that exhibited some rather interesti
ng properties.”

  The pen stopped twirling; this caller now had his full attention. But Paul would’ve wagered serious money that she wasn’t from the Department of the Interior. His heart started racing: she could be an interested buyer. She could also be with the media, or worse yet, she could actually, as unlikely as it was, be with the government, calling as part of some sort of sting. The government was hardly a well-oiled machine; could they already have put something into motion? If the corporations had caught wind of the blood, maybe they could’ve lit fires under the right bureaucrats, but even if they’d put considerable resources behind mobilizing the government, they would’ve damn near needed someone at the scene at the same time as Paul had been for that timeline to make sense. That detective didn’t seem like the sort of guy to see the opportunity in this. By the time Paul had finished gathering the blood and left the scene, the detective’s good mood had evaporated, replaced with the realization that this case was going to shine a spotlight on him, and faced with the reality the he had zero leads. So if Paul had been too wrapped up in his own professional curiosity to notice them, had there been anyone else at the scene that could’ve had their own plans? It was pointless trying to have a concrete conclusion. Paul wasn’t familiar with any of the beat cops that had been present, and who knew who the hell all the civilians had been? The only reasonable tactic to take with this caller was caution.

  He realized he’d let the silence hang for a little too long on the line. “What can I do for you, Ms. Westfield?” He silently congratulated himself for the neutral response. He hadn’t even acknowledged that he knew what she was talking about!

  “My team needs to get a sample of it from you to run through our database. We believe the victim may be related to a case of ours.”

  Well that was a disappointingly droll response. Maybe she was with the government after all. And if the car crash victim really was of interest to a government agency, it might be a little too high profile for him to sell evidence. “Well then, send me the requisition form and I’ll get a sample interofficed to you.”

  “We were hoping to get it rather quickly. Our department has it in our budget to pay a ‘processing fee’ to avoid the delays that paperwork would cause.”

  Paul froze. His heart was full-on crashing through his chest now. This Ms. Westfield, if that was even her real name, had put just the right inflection in the words so that Paul could practically hear her wink over the phone. In this day and age, corruption was rampant enough that it wasn’t unheard of for different agencies to actually have to use payouts to secure cooperation from a different branch, but if speed was actually what she cared about, she would’ve just had him run the tests she needed on the blood and get her the results. Still, if anyone was monitoring his phone calls, it probably sounded like typical government bribery and wouldn’t be flagged. She was subtle, and her caution was encouraging: if she was trying to avoid detection by anyone who might be listening to their call, it made it less likely she was trying to trap him in anything. He needed to stall to give himself time to think.

  “Of course, Ms. Westfield. Do you have a callback number I could use once I find out how much that fee is?” He scribbled down the number she gave, thanked her and hung up. The receiver rattled around on the base as he set it down from his shaking hands. He used the back of his lab coat’s sleeve to wipe away some sweat from his forehead and adjusted his glasses. His hindsight was screaming at him that he shouldn’t have acknowledged the fee. There went any shred of plausible deniability he’d had left. Oh well, it was unlikely he would’ve been able to get entirely through this without exposing himself at least somewhat. There was no such thing as a free lunch. And besides, he needed to focus on what lay ahead of him, not what had already happened that he couldn’t change. He had an interested buyer, that much he was sure of, but how much money could he extract from her?

  He had the sudden realization that he couldn’t price the blood at what it was worth, if such a number could actually be quantified. If he went too high, it would make more fiscal sense for them to just break into his lab and take it. No, he would have to keep the amount reasonable enough that staging a break-in at a government building and the accompanying attention that would bring wasn’t worth it. There was always the risk that the blood’s amazing properties wouldn’t be of use to the buyer. Perhaps its abilities wouldn’t be transferable, and the buyer would no doubt bake that risk into what they were willing to pay. Still, didn’t that just mean he’d have to be willing to come down from his price if he started too high? It’s not like the first number he threw out to Ms. Westfield would have to be the final figure.

  He decided he would start at 50k in crypto and try to not let her work him down below 25k. He always had more vials, so it’s not like he needed to get rich off this first sale. He hadn’t even expected to already be making money off it, so in a way, this was a bonus. It did make him slightly nervous that he hadn’t exactly advertised this blood, yet already had a caller, but the thought of all that money made it an easy thought to ignore.

  He took his personal phone out of his pocket and punched in the number Ms. Westfield had given him, but he didn’t hit Send yet. His hands were still shaking, and he wanted to be calm when he negotiated this with her. He took several deep breaths and thought about what he would do with the money. When he couldn’t hear his pulse in his ears anymore, he finally made the call. She answered almost immediately.

  “Dr. Lewis, so good of you to call me back this quickly.” In their initial conversation, he had gone from disinterested to frantic with no in between, so he hadn’t really taken note of any details about her, but now that he was slightly calmer, he realized she had quite a sexy voice. Just the slightest hint of an accent he couldn’t place (Western European, maybe?), and she sounded like she was in her early twenties. For a moment, he wondered if he’d be handing the blood directly to her. He’d love to see what she looked like. He shook himself out of this daydream and realized he needed to get himself back on track.

  “I did a little digging and found out how much that fee would be.” He wasn’t sure how to approach actually saying the number.

  “Wonderful,” was her only response. Man, she wasn’t making this easy.

  “Fifty thousand.” He took a deep breath and hoped she hadn’t heard how unsure he was of himself when he’d said it.

  “Agreed. I assume you’re fine with a check,” she asked, much more at ease than Paul was. Shit, he hadn’t even thought about form of payment.

  “I, uh-,” he floundered.

  “It was a joke. We will of course be paying in crypto coins, Paul. May I call you Paul? I feel like once two people exchange this amount of money, they’re on a first name basis.”

  “Uh, of course… Simone.” She was attractively sure of herself. In this case though, it made Paul nervous. This conversation was moving too quickly for him to get his bearings.

  “Fantastic! Our man will contact you at this number. Please be ready to make the exchange on short notice, as when you are contacted it will be with a location for the meet. You won’t be able to contact me at this number again, so if you have any questions, now is the time to ask them.” She was like a machine gun, firing off these points faster than he could keep track of them.

  “I, uh, no, I think that about covers everything.”

  “Have a pleasant rest of your day, Paul,” and with that, she was gone.

  Paul stared at nothing and slowly dropped his phone to his side. What the hell had just happened?! She sure had agreed to 50k quickly. How much higher could he have gone? The idea that he’d left a larger payday on the table was upsetting and the fact that this was essentially free money didn’t do much to console him. What kind of non-governmental group had 50k to throw around with impunity? Simone certainly didn’t sound like some uptight assistant to a wealthy patron. He looked at the blood in the refrigerator again and hoped he hadn’t made a huge mistake. She had said he’d need to be ready on short notic
e. That meant he’d have to take some blood with him when he left the office tonight. He swore at himself under his breath. Why had he brought it all here? If he’d stopped at his house after collecting the blood, he could’ve had some in a place where cameras wouldn’t see him remove it without a legitimate reason.

  Well there wasn’t much he could do about that now. He checked his watch. It was a little after 4:30. Close enough to quitting time. It’s not like he would get much done the rest of the day anyway, not with this much adrenaline in his system! He hung up his lab coat and grabbed his jacket. As nonchalantly as he could, he walked over to the refrigerator, opened the door and grabbed a vial, tucking it into his jacket pocket, as if he were just grabbing a can of soda. He noticed he was whistling, and though it seemed ridiculous in a clichéd way, he couldn’t stop himself.

  On his way out of the building, his mind wandered to the fact that this blood wasn’t its own entity; it had come from a person. A person who had walked away from a car crash that could’ve killed him at half the speed. Who the hell was this guy and what was Paul getting himself into?

  19

  Trevor was still trying to wrap his mind around what Dr. Monroe had told them, but it was hard to believe. He’d been a little distracted by Maya at the time, so he hadn’t really had time process it. Now he was on his way to retrieve the blood, and had regret his decision pretty much the entire time. Not that he had really had a choice. His team had returned, tired and weary from what should’ve been one nest clearing that turned into two and a hostage recovery. They had needed a little ‘R&R’, and Trevor had needed to show them that he could push himself further. True, he had team members that were part of his rotation who hadn’t been on this latest mission, but he was never going to let them see him pass on a task due to fatigue, especially not a mission of his own making. When Maya had told them to find Mason, the same Maya that Trevor had decided to bring back to their compound (over some staunch objections from Dr. Westfield at that), he needed to see it through, as this mission was pretty much his choice. Dr. Westfield thought it was a wild goose chase, but Simone’s opinion had tipped the scales: it was worth a shot. Not that Westfield questioning it was ridiculous; Simone had found a lot of first-hand accounts of the crash online, way more than people who could’ve possibly been there. There were quite a few things that people claimed to have seen or heard, like the police saying he was an escaped government project, or that the man himself had said he was the second coming before escaping, but one thing that kept coming up was the blood. Pretty much everyone could agree it was strange stuff, and that the police had collected pretty much all of it. And so she’d looked up the Medical Examiner assigned to the case and found him all too eager to sell some of the blood.