Joy
The Convergence
The fluorescent lights of the underground car park were ominous, Joy thought as she stood waiting impatiently for her contact. Joy shifted her weight from foot to foot and stroked her hands together as she waited.
Although Joy Joyce was a medical doctor, you would never know it from the clothing she wore or the vehicle she drove. She was wearing a black conservative dress that came to her knees, and a white shirt underneath that. She was wearing a black pair of high heels and she had her nails painted black to match her black hair. At age twenty-five, Joy still was in touch with her goth roots. Her clothing was cheap, and her vehicle was an old petrol engine car from the early twenty-first century. There were very few of these cars left on the road in the year two thousand and twenty-five.
Joy saw car high beams in the distance, showing that someone was approaching. Joy blew into her hands for warmth as she waited. Although Joy had taken the Hippocratic Oath and sworn to do no harm, she was buried under a mountain of college debt that she was still repaying.
Approximately a year ago, an elderly gentleman approached Joy in her clinic. Joy found the man unusual as he refused to give his name to her secretary, instead insisting that he speak with the physician himself. Joy should have insisted on recording her patient's name, but as a doctor, she found no genuine love for her work. She merely went through the motions, counting down the minutes on her watch until she could go home for the day.
The gentleman was balding, with a short white beard and white hair. He wore a small pair of spectacle glasses on his nose and seemed to Joy to be extremely inquisitive. Joy carried out diagnostic tests on him, including his blood work, heart rate, etc. She was satisfied that he was in good health.
The gentleman then stood up to leave, but before he left, he placed a card on her desk and told her to call him if she was interested in making considerable money on the side. Joy had picked up the card, and there was a mobile phone number in white text on a black background with no other identifiable information.
A year later and Joy did not know how the man knew that she was in financial difficulty, but his approach had been successful. Joy had kept the card, and a month later she had called the number out of curiosity. She had recognized the gentleman's voice on the other end of the line. He arranged to meet her at a public park for a discussion about the type of work that she would get involved in.
The man explained to her he worked for a powerful organization that operated a slavery business for the wealthy. This wasn't just any slavery business, the man had explained to her. The organization created human hybrids by genetically modifying suitable individuals and sold them to the wealthy and influential. The man who told Joy to refer to him as 'Chip' would be her handler. She would be responsible for selecting suitable candidates through her practice, and she would inject them with the transformation serum and contact Chip to collect them for delivery.
To her surprise, Joy had agreed there and then to work for Chip once he had told her about the lucrative financial terms. Once a month, she would receive a description regarding the type of person that he was looking for and Joy would examine her patient's history to see if she had a match. She had their details on file and would then stalk their houses and workplaces to track their movements. Once Joy memorized their routine by stalking their houses and workplaces, she would contact Chip for the serum.
She had proved surprisingly adept at her new line of work as a slave trader, and soon she was making serious money. She was making inroads on paying off her student debt, and she could move to a more spacious apartment.
However, this month was proving difficult for Joy. The job should have been relatively easy and straightforward. They had given her an extremely vague specification that the customer wanted: a woman. There was no restriction on age, ethnicity, sexuality, etc., which should have made her life a whole lot easier.
Unfortunately, this task was proving extremely arduous. Joy had been getting her victims from the Iowa area where she lived. Over the course of the past twelve months, there had a noticeable increase in missing person cases, and she was finding it increasingly burdensome to track and find suitable candidates for the buyer.
The car was fast approaching, and it parked in a vacant parking space. The lights were turned off and the car door opened, and Chip stepped out of the vehicle. Chip was wearing black trousers and a smart, brown jacket with a yellow shirt underneath. He closed the car door and locked it and approached her. Joy blew a strand of her long black hair out of her eyes as she stood with her arms folded across her chest.
"Cold night, eh," said Chip with a wily smile as he stood in front of her, a black briefcase in his right hand.
"I hate this fucking cold," replied Joy with a smile. "Once I've made enough money to pay off my student loans, I'm moving my practice to California or Florida, somewhere where it's warm and sunny."
"Wouldn't you miss your patients?" asked Chip with a smirk on his face, full well knowing the answer to the question that he had just posed.
"Fuck my patients," laughed Joy, "whatever enthusiasm I once had for the medical profession has been snuffed out by the size of the debt that I owe," said Joy as she once again blew a strand of her hair out of her eyes.
"You might just be the worst doctor I have ever met," said Chip jokingly, "but you are one of my best operatives."
"You have others?" asked Joy, which surprised her. It made sense that Chip would have other employees working for him, given the apparent scale of the enterprise that he was involved in. It had just never occurred to her till now.
"Of course!" replied Chip, "does that make you jealous?" he said leaning forward with a smile on his face.
"Fuck you," laughed Joy. "Alright, let's get down to business. Where is the serum?"
"Ah yes, the real reason we have met here tonight," replied Chip as he placed the briefcase on the bonnet of a nearby car and carefully opened the case. He took a plastic container out of the briefcase, through which she could see the syringe and the vial in separate pieces.
"Any idea what this serum does?" asked Joy as her breath froze because of the winter cold.
"Of course I do, but as usual, that is for me to know and you to find out once you inject the target. The less you know, the better," said Chip.
Joy nodded her head in agreement and picked up the plastic case with the serum and syringe and held it in her right hand.
"One more thing before you go," said Chip. "It is imperative that you inject and capture this target tonight, we have deadlines to meet and if we come home empty handed tonight then my boss will be deeply unhappy, and that won't end well for either of us."
"Don't worry, I've planned for this," said Joy.
"What's the subject's name? You've told me before, but I cannot remember?"
"Her name is Nancy, and trust me, this is as good as done already," replied Joy.
"Well alright then," said Chip, "I'll be down here in the car park waiting, give me a ring if you need anything."
Joy nodded at him and walked back inside the building. She was met with a blast of warm air, and she was extremely grateful for it. It took her a moment to adjust her eyes to the bright lights of the interior of the building.
Joy felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, and she fished it out and stopped walking momentarily. It was her boyfriend, Anthony. They had been dating for the past few months, but Joy was confident that he was the one for her. She was deeply in love with him.
She checked her phone and read the message that he had sent. Anthony was wondering what time she would be home and what he should get for their dinner. Joy messaged him back, informing him she would be home late tonight and that he shouldn't wait up for her. Anthony sent a reply with a smiley face, saying that he loved her. Joy felt a warmth in her heart.
Anthony brought out the best in her, which was saying something because Joy knew perfectly that she was an awful human being. She had forsaken her medical vows, despised her patients, was obsessed with money, and she also actively took part in the kidnapping of her said patients. However, Joy had no moral qualms about how she made her money., she only cared for herself and Anthony, and she would not let ethics impede her living her best life.
Joy made her way to the elevator and called it. She watched as the elevator moved down from the top floor of the building all the way down to the car park basement. Her office was on the eighth floor of the building, so the elevator ride should be relatively quick.
While she was taking care of the job, she wondered what Chip would be doing. She couldn't imagine him listening to music or reading a book. She had never seen him do anything remotely human before.
Joy was determined to renegotiate her fee after this job. It wasn't fair that she had to take all the risk in identifying the target, tailing the target, injecting the target and then arranging for the target to be collected whilst Chip just relaxed and did nothing. If she ever got a chance to meet Chip's boss, she would definitely question his necessity. Joy was confident that she could run the entire operation more efficiently and effectively than Chip ever could.
That was an issue for another day, she supposed. She watched as the elevator got closer and closer to the basement and readied herself in case there was anyone inside the elevator. She adjusted her dress so that she looked prim and proper.
The elevator reached the basement, and the doors opened, and a colleague stepped out, Doctor Smith.
"Hello Joy, what a surprise seeing you here at this hour. You rarely work back this late," continued her colleague. Doctor Smith was a jovial man, and he was excellent with his patients. He had a love for his profession, and this bothered Joy endlessly.
"Oh, I just forgot my phone," lied Joy. "I just need to run back upstairs to my office and collect it,"continued Joy.
