C.R.O.S.S. - Deo Gratia

Prologue


"There is no hope at this point, Mr. and Mrs. Maddox, since your insurance cannot nearly cover everything she needs to save her life and allow her to function normally. As you know, treatment for... Homo Energens tends to be very risky and requires specialists."

It was the news that her parents had hoped against and yet expected anyways. When Cassandra was but 2 years old, she had begun displaying her Leech abilities in short circuiting things in the house by accident. Her parents were hardworking and lived modestly. Her mother was a teacher and her father a contractor. Still, they knew that they did not have enough money to cover care for their baby girl's needed care and therapy. The cheapest alternative had been to send her to a school that had a program for Leeches. At least, there were a handful of students with similar abilities. They had just prayed that she would never get hurt and so, sheltered her. Medical care for Leeches was very expensive as their bodies ran on varied electrical wavelengths.

When the accident had occurred, her usually over-protective parents were wrought with grief. Their worst fear had come to pass and now that it was here, they had already resigned themselves to the funerary preparations. As much as her mother cried and screamed in pain, it was too much. Their only daughter, their beautiful and talented girl who had managed to become president of the electronics club and head cheerleader of the Junior Varsity Team was laying on a bed 2 feet away, slowly dying. The medicines had put her in a drug induced coma so that she was not consciously aware of the pain her body was in.

At some point, the doctor had left. The distraught parents clasped each other tightly, wrapped in their own grief of trying to comfort against what they had feared was the inevitable.

Keyword here being, feared.

Same as the doctor's departure, they did not notice the arrival of another. A long dark brown winter coat kept the chilly air of New York City at bay as well as disguising the large hump on his back that made his shoulders look much more imposing. The figure wore a dark green Jay Gatsby cap of a long by-gone era that somehow seemed to fit him. His nearly Chaplin salt and pepper mustache was trimmed flawlessly and his Meerschaum pipe allowed thick curls of smoke to ribbon into the air. He carried a battered briefcase that looked as though he'd dragged it through 2 blocks of Harlem before he had the sense to get to his destination in Manhattan. He tugged a burnt orange scarf away from his neck, letting it hang from his shoulders before removing his cap. Under the brim, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses seemed to magnify his basset hound eyes and the wrinkles around them.

"Mr. and Mrs. Maddox?" he asked.

The Mister looked up, regarding this stranger with mixed curiosity and weariness.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked.

"No sir, I am not."

"Then... are you a lawyer with the hospital?"

"No sir, I am not."

Mr. Maddox cocked his head to the side and looked the stranger over.

"Then... are you a priest? You don't look like one."

"In another life, yes. But now, I am not."

The elder Maddox sighed and rubbed his brow stiffly.

"Then do you mind telling me who the hell you are?"

"Only on the condition that you understand that I am here at the darkest hour of your lives, bringing you not false hope but a genuine ray of light."

The father squinted, obviously not wanting to believe what this charlatan was saying. However, his wife looked up sharply, her eyes blazing with the fury that only a mother can have for her offspring, her jaw set and eyes puffy. At this, the stranger set his briefcase down by the door and moved to the foot of Cass's bed. Her looked up the bed at the form beneath it, limp and unconscious. It was a look of regret, something that surprised Mr. Maddox.

"This will be my only visit. Sir, I have not come here to solicit money or collateral but you and your wife have something that my organization wants and incidentally, we have what you want."

Mrs. Maddox chuckled derisively and stared hard at the man.

"You have our Cassie's life in that beat up briefcase? Enough money to make her whole in that ratty old thing? Huh, mister? Don't play with me! That briefcase is far too small!"

The stranger shook his head at her.

"But of course I do. I represent a man whom I will merely call Mr. Cash. Mr. Cash wishes to pay for your daughter's services."

"S-services? Organ donation?"

"No ma'am. We will make her whole. Your daughter will be able to walk, talk, laugh, and do all the things a 15 year old does. She will live to a ripe old age and if God blesses, perhaps even a family and children."

The parents were both mystified and wary. The uncertainty showed in their exchanged glances. No doubt they were going over any number of horrible scenarios in their heads. Maybe they thought their baby girl would be fixed only to be broken again in one of the infamous Neptunian brothels. Or chained somewhere forced to work until she collapsed into exhaustion. Naturally, if they feared the worst, they dared not taint this glimmer of salvation by giving voice to those thoughts. The stranger let those words sit on their minds and come to a simmer.

Finally, the hopeful mother looked up, her eyes searching his for some hint to this riddle he posed to him. Was he the devil or was he an angel? She was daring to believe. She wanted to. Aah, there it was. The undeniable emergence of hope in the grief stricken woman.

Before she could speak, the stranger raised a palm for silence.

"My name is Zeffar. My organization will ensure that your daughter lives but on the firm condition that you never see her again. It is a hard choice, I know. Every time I lay this burden before loved ones it does not get any easier but at least the news can be broken with better efficiency."

He gazed over to the heart monitor, beeping rhythmically in the background. It could be anything and yet nothing and still, they dared to hope.

"Why? Why would you even bother if we could not see her again?" the father asked.

"Sir, we are not a charity. We-"

"Then why?!" the father bellowed, his rage snapping momentarily," Why would you want our daughter?"

Zeffar held up a hand to calm the man. He looked at him straight, holding his gaze captive with those warm, basset hound eyes.

"Your daughter is of the species Energen. Quite a rare breed. Whether she is able to master her genetic abilities or not does not matter to us. She is young, a prime candidate for Cyber brain surgery, and with her Energen breed, more than likely, there is a very good chance of her being a valuable asset to our company after a little training."

"You will not use our daughter for experiments," the mother whispered angrily.

"Ma'am, there will be no experiments. All surgeries are GSMTA approved and will be preformed by the most highly qualified of specialists."

"Why are you so willing to spend such an exorbitant amount of money on a chance?"

"It comes down to adaptability, ma'am," Zeffar said as he stepped back and took up his briefcase. He thumbed the combination on the old little dials and the clasps snapped open. He took a small sheaf of papers off the top and passed them to the parents. "Your daughter is in a prime position to join us. She is young, flexible, and pliant. My group has strict codes of behavior that cannot always be worked out of adults. Besides, while you will never see her again, she will live a new life. So the choice is yours. Let her die in her old life or give her a new one."

"What kind of life?" her mother asked, watching Zeffar for any sign of dishonesty. The stranger seemed reluctant to lie.

"It will not be an easy one. We will teach her to better use her Energen abilities in kinetic and static objects and if she is talented, how to meld her new Cyber Brain technology with her abilities to directly interface with electronics. She is young enough to be taught. In a few years, that gap will close and learning these things becomes more difficult. My organization needs good computer technicians and people of her potential. She will be paid, yes, a handsome salary, given vacation and travel opportunities. The only restriction is that the connection between you is severed."

A sort of understanding dawned immediately over the mother, who buried her face in the sheets of the bed. The machines beeped on stoically.

"What?" the father asked.

"It's something illegal, isn't it?" the mom asked in a tiny voice.

"To an extent. Perhaps closer to the government than anything. I cannot divulge much more than that."

"Can we think about it?" the father said hesitantly," I mean, it's a hell of an offer but-"

"You have the next 2 minutes to decide," Zeffar said, his voice growing cold," I will not leave the room during this time. You may not call anyone to help you decide. Now is the time. You must make this choice on your own and soon."

Within those long couple of minutes, the decision was made and papers were signed albeit with trembling hands barely capable of mastering a common ballpoint pen. Every letter was penned in agony seared with a sort of unselfish love that Zeffar had seen on only a few occasions in the decades that he had been doing this. It was a sort of strength that only true, loving parents possessed that traversed social status and wealth.

And if the parents had it, then too, surely must the child.

By the time the last x was crossed, Mr. and Mrs. Maddox were certain of their decision. They trembled with fear, not at the loss of their daughter, but of the unknown. Death was not certain now, only life left uncertain and really, wasn't it always? Zeffar took up the papers and silently looked them over. He nodded to ensure they were in order and all proper. Then, he walked around to the heart monitor, motioning for her parents to accompany him. When they did, he removed a syringe from his pocket

"These are the last few minutes you have with your daughter," he explained as he gazed almost lovingly at the girl on the bed. Not in a lecherous way, mind, as if she were his daughter. "Say what you need to say."

He uncapped the syringe and fed it directly into her IV bag. The clear solution went in and was slowly dripped into her body.

"Why... does she have to do this?" the mother asked.

Zeffar took his time withdrawing the syringe. He recapped the needle and stowed it away in his pocket. No evidence must be left behind.

"There is no other way. Medicorp cannot just buy a comatose patient but we can buy a dead body with no problem. Worry not. It will not kill her. Merely sedate her so soundly that not even the machines can pick up a heartbeat. Her body will grow cold and she will be in effect, a sleeping beauty."

It seemed like a twisted fairy tale of some sort but to her parents, something about Zeffar's proposal seemed just so real that their minds refused to let them believe otherwise. She would sleep long enough for the parents to issue a cremation order at a pre-chosen crematorium. From there, her body would be passed into the furnace on one side and come out on the other. After that, she would be remade and rebuilt and essentially, reborn.

As Zeffar put his hat back on, the mother's eyes stayed on her child as the father watched the stranger prepare to leave. It was so quiet now... even as the heart monitor beeped on placidly.

"Who-" the father began.

The heart monitor began to beep wildly, the girl's body thrashing in the sheets as she went into cardiac arrest. In the split second the father took his eyes off Zeffar, the latter took a moment to slip out. Nurses filled the room and a doctor swarmed in to try and save the girl. The mother and father were pushed unceremoniously to the side and then ushered out into the hall. They waited with bated breath, clutching each other and trying to peer past the nurses.

The heart monitor stilled to a single, continuous scream.

****

12 floors below, a man in a dark brown trench coat and a dark green Jay Gatsby cap with basset hound eyes stepped into a rich pearl painted Trump Car AD400, the latest model from the Trump Car line. The opalescent paint threw the light from the streetlamps in a pleasing way along the rounded lines of the vehicle. Zeffar nodded to the driver who wordlessly pulled away from the curb.

"I trust you collected her without difficulty?" the man beside Zeffar asked.

"When, Shamshiel, have I ever not made a collection?" Zeffar asked.

The man beside him shrugged, his pale blond hair cut in a choppy, stylish manner. His pale blue suit was offset by a white shirt and gold tie. His dark eyes and features painted him as distinctly of Asian descent. He narrowed his eyes shrewdly, elbow on the armrest of the AD400. He grinned at Zeffar in a way that put up the other man's guard.

"I believe, our little menagerie will be complete with this acquisition. Yahweh will be most pleased."


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Author's Note: Alright! The prologue for my grand story is up and complete! Please please PLEASE, I crave feedback. I want to know about the word usage, grammar, if I created the appropriate atmosphere, improvements on dialogue, and thoughts on direction. The goal is to make the characters seem real on an emotional level. But hell, any feedback is appreciated.

Also, Happy New Year!