Author's Note: Thank you all so much for being patient and offering words of encouragement for my writing. September 11, 2001 was horribly difficult for so many people in so many ways, and the way it manifested with me was in my writing. This is the first story I've completed in two years. I hope it is up to par with the expectations of my fans, and, as always, I look forward to hearing from you. -Seneca
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The pages were spread out around me on the bed, a patchwork quilt in different shades of white. Some were edging toward dingy yellow, folded and rumpled with age, while others remained as pristine as new fallen snow. There were dozens of them, new overlapping with old, each sheet covered with notes in my own meticulous handwriting, each sheet a page in a story. Why had I kept these pages, these reminders of the men I've met over the years? What has compelled me to document, even if only for my own eyes, every acquisition I've ever made?
A errant puff of wind from the open balcony doors caused the papers to stir, one of them fluttering like a broken butterfly to the floor. I leaned over the edge of the bed and snagged the runaway between two fingers, returning it to the fold.
The name on the top of the page caught my eye, and I picked the paper back up to give it a better look. As I read over the information I'd carefully written out, the image of him the first time I'd laid eyes on him resurfaced. Thick, dark hair the color of chocolate, eyes the indigo of the twilight sky. He'd been a very attractive man, which is what had caught my interest in the first place.
Tony.
Where was he now? How was he? Was he happy with his new life? The last time I'd seen him, nearly two years ago, he'd been unconscious on a wheeled bed, being pushed out the door of the house over the cove by a Driel woman and her assistant. That had been what...twenty, maybe thirty men ago? What was it about Tony that kept drawing my attention back to him?
I shook my head and gathered my pages up again, slipped them into the black binder I've carried with me everywhere I've gone for the last twenty years. After tucking the binder back into the bottom of my tote bag, I glanced down at my watch. It's eight o'clock. Time to go back to work.
She hadn't changed as much as she would have liked to think she had. Oh, physically, she couldn't look more different than the woman he remembered. He remembered hair the color of flames and eyes the green of the ocean that lapped the shore outside his house back home. The woman who's photo he looked at now had short, platinum blond hair spiked into points that could put a man's eye out and silver-gray eyes gleaming with sexuality. But there was something about the look in those eyes, in the saucy posture as she gazed into the camera that reminded him so strongly of the woman he'd known that he would never had mistaken her for anyone else.
"She goes by the name Sabela, now, and she's the best there is at what she does," the man across the table from him said. "We need her brought in, and we need her now, before the group she works for does any more damage."
He shook his head in disbelief, and looked at the other man, the leader of this task force and a friend of long standing. "I still can't believe it, Shawn. She was always such a straight arrow. Honest to a fault. Are you sure this is the same woman?"
"It's been years, Galen. People change." Shawn opened his folder and pulled out a second photograph. A-ha. This was the woman the girl he remembered should have grown into. "This is out of her personnel folder, from back when Acquisitions were legal."
He latched onto that, almost desperate to attach some legitimate reason to her illegal actions. "Does she even know?"
"Of course she knows. EVERYONE knows. The Anti-Acquisitions Act was the biggest and most controversial law passed in the last century. Caused riots on three planets. You'd have to be living under a rock not to know."
That was, unfortunately, true. Had she changed that much? Galen didn't want to think so. But it had been years, a good many years, since he'd seen her.
They'd been barely more than children when he'd decided to make law enforcement his life's path. He'd been shocked when, fresh out of the academy and back home for the first time in four years, he discovered that the little girl from next door had gone into Acquisitions.
He glanced down at the sultry platinum blond gazing at him from the photo. No. She definitely wasn't the girl next door anymore. Galen sighed and placed the picture back on top of the file it had been pulled from and picked up a second photo. This one was of much poorer quality, showing the profile of a middle aged woman with close cropped, steel gray hair and a pair of dark sunglasses over her eyes. This was their ultimate quarry, the woman known as Control. She was in charge of this Acquisitions group. From what they could uncover, she had recruited all the acquirers who worked for her directly, gave them their orders and processed the men that were acquired. She was the one who would have been notified of the Anti-Acquisitions Act upon it's passage two years earlier. She was the one who had ignored the new law, and apparently several of her girls had followed her example. He put the picture down. "So, where do we go from here?"
"As soon as you agreed to join this task force, Galen, we set up an Acquisition request. Our agent told her," he tapped a finger against the picture of the older woman, "that she is desperate and willing to pay any amount necessary to acquire the product, but only if Control's very best was put on the job. Almost immediately, Control contacted Sabela. We were very specific about the physical attributes of the man we want, making the description as close to you as we could, without being too obvious." Shawn looked concerned for a moment. "Galen, are you sure, absolutely sure, that Sabela will not recognize you?"
"I'm positive." Galen studied the table for a long moment, then sighed. It wasn't something he usually talked about, but the task force needed the reassurance. "I was involved in the riots at the Marius asteroid mining facility five years ago. I was caught in the explosion when the mine detonated. The doctors put me back together very well, but I don't look anything like I used to. She won't recognize me."
Shawn looked shocked for a moment -- he'd known Galen had been injured shortly prior to their acquaintance, but not what had happened or where -- then nodded. "Very good." He shuffled the papers and shoved them back into the file, then folded his hands on top. "We want these woman, Galen. This Control went completely rogue when the AAA went into effect. She'll sell men to anyone, for any reason, as long as the fee is right. We've had fifteen dead human males show up in various areas around the Alliance in the last eighteen months. Every one of them traces back to this group, and to this woman. You bring Sabela in, and I'd bet she'll have enough information to be able to lead us right to her Control."
The open air dance club was packed with people to the point that the dancers could barely do more than sway and bop to the beat. The long bar behind the dance floor had people lined up three deep, those who wanted to listen to the band playing on the low stage to the right of the dance floor, but either didn't want to dance or realized the improbability of fitting even one more person on the floor. Three bartenders, two men and a woman, buzzed back and forth, taking orders and providing libations as fast as they could. The only seats available were the two dozen bar stools that had long since been claimed by early patrons -- if you wanted to sit, better find a spot in the sand to park it. And some people had, outside the pavilion that, during the day, kept the worst of the sun off the patrons. At night, the rice lights woven around the rafters gave the impression of a star filled sky, even on the cloudiest of nights.
I had arrived earlier, picking a stool at the far end of the bar where I could people watch with relative ease. I was determined to finish this Acquisition tonight -- Control had informed me that after this Acquisition, we would be moving our operation away from this island. The local authorities were beginning to become suspicious of the number of men who had vanished without a trace from the resort. Disappearing men make for bad business.
I thought I had caught a lucky break when a man who came very close to the description I needed sat down beside me early on. But there was something about him that gave me the creeps. Maybe it was the speed at which he was pouring alcohol down his throat. Maybe it was the way that he eyeballed the breasts of every woman who crossed his path. Or maybe, it was the pale white line on the fourth finger of his left hand and the scrapes on the knuckle where a ring of long standing had recently been pulled off. Whatever it was, when a young woman began to ogle him back, thrusting her chest out for his obvious appreciation, I vacated my seat to her. Let them have fun with each other. I was on business.
Sipping my drink, I prowled the perimeter of the dance floor. Watching the people move, looking, always looking. Please, I thought, let me find him tonight. There had been something urgent in the last call I had received from Control. She was upset about something, and I got the feeling it was more than just the local police becoming suspicious of the disappearances.
I was standing in what would be the corner if this club had walls, looking down across the beach toward the sea, when a movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. A man was approaching the club. At this distance, I could tell much more than his height -- very, very tall -- and what he was wearing -- khaki short and a brown polo shirt open at the neck. As he came closer, I notice the slightly too long golden brown hair. He wore black ray-ban sunglasses against the last of the late afternoon sunshine, which disguised his eyes, giving him a rather mysterious look. I wasn't the only woman noticing the man. Many heads turned and followed his progress, to the obvious amusement of many a girlfriend and the disgust of many a boyfriend.
As unobtrusively as possible, I positioned myself next the roof support nearest the newcomer. From what I could see, physically he was almost a perfect match for what I needed. He was coming almost directly at me, so I turned slightly, as if watching the pair of twenty-somethings behind him tossing a Frisbee back and forth.
