But maybe not so crazy, after all.
Meanwhile, your father and I waited in fear. Waited for someone to come and take you away. Waited for a story about a missing baby. Someone’s tragedy that had become our joy. But no such thing was ever reported and no knock ever fell on our door.
Your father had a friend—an old Chinese man—who was shady in a good way. He’d spent most of his life arranging adoptions for Chinese babies by American parents. He managed to get us all the legal papers for you. As far as the world knew, we had adopted you legally. All the paperwork was in order, down to the day and time of your birth and signature of a fake birth mother relinquishing all claims to custody.
The documents made me wonder about your real mother. Why she never came back for you, what she could have possibly been doing in Laboratory Z. I considered many explanations and rejected them all. None made any sense, but I didn’t care because I had you. That was all that mattered. Sometimes fate must be accepted and not questioned.
But the passage of time brought more questions. Initial reports indicated three bodies had been recovered from Laboratory Z. Then it was reported that all personnel who worked for the company had gotten out safely. A major discrepancy until the newspaper and television corrected their original story, saying no bodies had been found inside Laboratory Z at all.
Your father and I were frightened by this, but also elated, since not one of the reports mentioned anything about a baby. You were ours and nobody was coming to take you away.
Still we worried, every day and night we worried. We feared every knock on the door or ring of the doorbell. We were scared every time the phone rang or when a stranger cast us too long a stare. That happened a lot and we had to remind ourselves that we were a Chinese couple with an American baby. Of course people stared. We learned to just smile at them like nothing was wrong.
Because it wasn’t.
Until we felt safe enough to take you to a doctor a few weeks later. A kindly Chinese pediatrician on the verge of retirement who’d made his life here just as we had. Even though all the paperwork pertaining to your “adoption” was in order, he seemed suspicious almost from the first moment we brought you into his office.
And that was before he had reason to be, before—
*
The computer timed out with a ping, the screen freezing.
“I’ll buy us some more time,” Sam said, starting to stand.
Alex restrained her with a hand to her forearm. “Maybe you shouldn’t. We’ve been here too long. Maybe we should just go.”
“Alex—”
“And we may need the cash later, right?”
“Alex—”
“We already learned what we needed to. The rest, this stuff with the doctor, can wait until we get more settled, figure stuff out.”
“You need to know, Alex,” Sam said, after he’d finished. “We need to figure out why all this is happening.” She glanced down at the screen. “Let me buy us some more time on the computer.”
He nodded, let go of her arm.
Sam slid away, reluctant to leave him, even for a moment. Leave him staring at his mother on the screen.
And that was before he had reason to be, before—
53
WILD CARD
WHAT OTHER GUY?
Raiff didn’t recognize the man from the description Lieutenant Grimes had provided.
“He was big,” Grimes had said.
“What else?”
“Bald?”
“That it?”
“All you feds look the same to me.”
Raiff didn’t need to know any more than that to know it was bad. His real enemy never announced themselves that way. That meant another Tracker team, led by Big Bald, had found their way to Dancer’s house. On his trail now for sure. Which meant he had two problems to contend with instead of one, making his task simple:
He needed to find Dancer before either of the other parties did, either Langston Marsh’s Trackers or the androids the boy must have somehow overcome before fleeing his house, before he could be pinned with the blame for the murder of his parents. Hard to say which was more dangerous at this point.
I should’ve been closer, in position to move preemptively.
But he’d come to fear that his mere presence in Dancer’s vicinity could place the boy in more danger, not less. In the absence of protocol, he’d determined that keeping his distance and waiting for word from the Watchers to be the most secure strategy to maintain. Imagine if the Trackers happened to find Dancer when they came looking for him.
All these years of quiet had erupted in this. Like the contents of a clogged drain bursting upward once plunged.
Raiff had made himself learn patience over the years, grown accustomed to a lifestyle off anything remotely resembling a grid. But this kind of frustration was an entirely new sensation and it was chewing away at him.