H.A.L.F.: The Deep Beneath

Prologue

Lucia did not turn to look at the man. She caught her breath as she contemplated what to do. Ahead was the way to the makeshift shelter where she and a few others lived. If she got across the street, she could go there. But that also meant leading the men to a dead-end and to her friends. If she turned right and kept running, she may make it to the library. It was still open. There she would be safe. She may be able to outrun them. They had to wait for the cars in front of them to get through the light. If she stayed … Lucia had never had a thousand dollars all at one time.

But no one ever approached someone on the street and offered honest work. She turned and looked into the rolled down window. There were two men with neatly cut hair wearing dark suits with white shirts and nondescript ties. They didn’t look like drug dealers or pimps. Clean cut white guys in an impeccably detailed but simple black sedan? They’re either feds or Mormons.

“A thousand cash, right now, just to go to an office and talk to some doctors,” the man said. He flashed a wad of cash at her. “And if they accept you and you accept them, a quarter mil.”

Lucia’s past jobs had consisted of working at a car wash, cleaning houses and being a bike courier. And at the present moment she was without employment entirely. She didn’t even have a GED. She’d never see that much money if she worked her entire life.

“You say it’s honest? What kind of honest job pays that much to homeless people?” She tried to look the man in the eyes, but he wore dark sunglasses that kept his eyes and any thoughts they’d betray secret. With the sun now low in the sky, there was no need for such dark glasses. Honest people don’t wear sunglasses in the dark.

“I assure you, there is nothing illegal involved. We work for the government.” The man flashed some kind of a badge but Lucia couldn’t see it well enough to tell what it said. “It will all be explained at the meeting at our offices. And after hearing about the job, if you decide not to take it, you still get the thousand.”

Lucia had left her last foster home at fourteen and now at nineteen, she’d been on the street for close to five years. Her funds had always been measured in tens, not thousands. Lucia thought of what she’d do with that thousand dollars. She’d take Melina out to a steak dinner and they’d eat until their bellies were nice and fat. And she’d have enough to pay for a GED class and a locker to store her books in.

Against every instinct and contrary to every rule of the street ever taught to her by Melina and other friends, Lucia got into the backseat of the car. She was alone in the roomy seat that smelled of leather and aftershave and money.

The meeting turned out to be in a small office in a two-story building on the east side of Tucson. It was now well after five so the receptionist desk at the front was empty. The two men, still wearing their dark glasses, escorted her to a small conference room where an older man and a middle-aged woman sat at a round table.

They introduced themselves as Dr. Randall and Dr. Sturgis. But they didn’t look like medical doctors to Lucia. The man, Dr. Randall, was nearly the age of a grandfather. He had kindly pale, grey eyes behind thick glasses with black frames. His hair looked like he’d missed a couple of haircut appointments and his clothes were at least a two decades behind the fashion. Dude look’s like he’s straight out of the 1970’s.

Dr. Randall explained that if she qualified, she’d be a surrogate mother. “You will receive a thousand for this meeting today, another five thousand to complete medical testing for fitness. And if you are qualified and if you deliver a live birth, you will receive a quarter million dollars plus a lifetime pension,” he’d said.

“What’s a pension?” Pension sounded a bit like parole and if a pension was anything like parole, then Lucia was sure she didn’t want a lifetime of it.