Dancer in the waves, p.4
Dancer In The Waves, page 4
“That is perfect for me. If I’m waiting for someone to be available, then the higher-ups will stop nagging me about getting a mate.”
Daniel watched them for a few seconds before making up his mind.
“I have a way to do this that will guarantee that Gabriel will be second on that list. But it will sound alarm bells to anyone who has access to the time stamps.” Daniel started typing on his computer keyboard. “Give me your ID card, Bruno. I will need yours too, Gabriel.”
Both men passed their IDs to the doctor, who inserted Bruno’s card into a slot on his keyboard. He placed Gabriel’s card next to the slot, ready to swap both cards. Then he got up and connected the blood machine back to the computer, making it light up again. Bruno really hoped Alice wouldn’t ask him why it was disconnected in the first place.
“I’m gonna need your fingerprints. Gabriel, I want you to put yours down as soon as I tell you to.” The doctor placed a tablet in front of them. “Also, you can’t say a word while I do the register. It will have an audio recording, and no one can know you were here.”
Bruno sat back down, picked up the pad, and waited. Gabriel settled comfortably into his chair and remained quiet.
The machine started making some soft mechanical noises. Daniel placed a wireless earbud on his left ear.
“Subject 11843290. SNS and ID card of the same number. Last name: Lopes. Given name: Alice Antunes. Age: 31 years old. Subject will go through conversion at today’s date. Female, blood type O negative, not pregnant. Preliminary tests show no forms of cancer, blood issues, or possible organ failure. Inserting full blood analysis now.” The machine came to life with noises and colored lights. “Registering first claim. Husband. Last name: Ferro, Given names: Bruno Silva.” Daniel tapped a button next to Bruno’s ID card, and the slot lit up.
“I don’t remember so much bureaucracy when you registered me,” Bruno said, feeling uncomfortable while watching Daniel’s endless typing.
“Changes were made shortly after we started accepting female patients. They sent a bunch of requirements and demands to be followed for each conversion attempt, but only for women.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why ask it from women and not men?” Now he was really uncomfortable. If Alice found out, she would be furious. She was already mad at the new restrictions as they were.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Daniel said absentmindedly, paying more attention to whatever he was writing. “Everyone has been asking the same thing, but no one has figured out a reasonable explanation yet.”
The machine gave three beeps and powered down.
“Please place your right index finger on the registry now.”
He placed his finger on the tablet, a small beeping sound confirming the scan, and quickly passed it to Gabriel. Gabriel’s finger hovered above the screen, waiting.
Daniel swapped the cards on the keyboard and typed furiously. Then he removed the earbud with his left hand, holding it as far away from them as he could, and made a halt sign with his right hand to Gabriel, all without taking his eyes off the screen.
“Now,” he mouthed silently to Gabriel, pointing to him.
Gabriel pressed his right index finger on the pad, the same beeping sound confirming the scan, and both men looked up at the doctor expectantly.
“Closing registry, time seven forty-nine a.m.” Daniel tossed the earbud on the desk, and slumped into the chair, rubbing his eyes.
Both Bruno and Gabriel gave a deep sigh of relief.
“Done.” Daniel peered back at the screen. “Gabriel was registered after you with an eight-second delay.” He gave them back their cards. “The list will be opened for claim requests until conversion finishes. After conversion, the second list will open.”
“Second list? I wasn’t told about a second list.” Why did they keep coming up with new rules?
“It’s for claims after—”
The computer beeped, interrupting Daniel. He looked at the screen with his mouth still open.
“Son of a bitch, he’s already in.” Daniel stared at the screen while Bruno and Gabriel got up to look at it too. “Third entry onto the claim list, seventeen seconds after I registered her. Just nine seconds after Gabriel. How did he—?”
Gabriel cut Daniel off. “Is that possible? Can someone make a claim that fast?”
“It’s only possible from a Medical Conversion office. That’s why I could do it for you. But outside the network, it should at least take a few minutes…”
They all stared at the screen in silence.
“Well, I guess you were right all along,” Gabriel joked without humor. “Although I do wish you weren’t.”
“Me too, old friend,” Bruno said. “Me too.”
“Well, we’d better get started with the procedure,” Daniel finally relented, passing his hands through his hair. “I can’t delay any further.” He got up and went to the next room.
Bruno thanked Gabriel, and went to the conversion room to watch over his wife. Inside, Daniel was already busy reading vitals, pushing buttons, and talking into his recorder to register each step of the process.
“You and Alice placed bets over how long I would be in there. Should we make a bet too?” Bruno joked, trying to lighten the mood.
Daniel grabbed the recorder. “Starting phase one.” He set it down again.
“One fast entry into a claim list might pass undetected. Two entries in the first twenty seconds of submission are going to raise a flag somewhere.” Daniel turned in his chair to face Bruno.
“I know. Will you get in trouble?” he asked, feeling terrible.
“Depends on whose flag it raises, I guess.”
“I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, if there is any issue, I will assume full responsibility. This was my idea, after all,” Bruno promised.
Daniel ran his hands through his hair and leaned back in his chair.
“Don’t worry about it. Gabriel was right. An entry that fast on the list just shows you were right to be concerned.” Daniel reached behind him and grabbed two water bottles from a cabinet, passing one to Bruno, who gladly took it.
“Besides, if for some reason you are right once again, and she is neither alpha nor beta—something I find highly unlikely, by the way—one more layer of protection would make even more sense.”
“How soon can we know?” Bruno pulled up a chair and sat next to his friend.
“Up to twenty-four hours for betas, up to forty-eight hours for alphas. Longest conversion I saw so far was Gabriel, with forty-seven hours in the Tube. After forty-eight hours? Unheard of, unless you count rumors.”
“What rumors are those?” he couldn’t help but ask. He had heard a few things himself, but they were contradictory.
“Doctors talk amongst each other, you know? Sometimes someone mentions a conversion that went over the forty-eight-hour mark, but there is no record, nothing to prove it happened.” One of the screens lit up with green light, and Daniel tapped it gently. “I heard that somewhere in France, a conversion took fifty-eight hours. No info on if it was a male or female conversion, to be honest, but some voices said the end result was very different from both betas and alphas.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. As I said, it’s just rumors. But someone said they called the dynamic an omega.”
“Omega?” Bruno scoffed. “Shouldn’t it be the next letter on the alphabet? A gamma?”
Daniel laughed. “I’m not in charge of the naming department. Maybe they were named like that because they are the opposite from alphas?”
“The opposite of stubborn?” Now it was his turn to laugh. “If Alice comes out of that Tube obedient, I’ll eat my hat.”
“Do you even have a hat?” Daniel teased.
“No. I guess I’ll have to buy one first. I’ll even let her choose it.”
They both laughed, the tension in the room lifting. They heard the assistant nurse come into the office, and Daniel stepped outside to talk with her.
Bruno watched his wife sleeping peacefully in the conversion chamber. Obedient? She was just as stubborn as he was. He didn’t want her to be obedient; he wanted her to fight him on every bad decision that he made. She was the balance to his temper, the heart to his stubbornness, the one who made him think and see beyond himself.
She was perfect for him, and he wouldn’t have her changed into any other way.
4
Norway
Matts
Matts flipped the papers on top of his desk with frustration. He compared the information on the documents with the spreadsheet on his computer, and every few sheets there seemed to be an error. It didn’t make any sense. Either the papers were wrong, or the database was wrong.
He tossed his hair out of his eyes. He was going to need another haircut soon. Sighing in frustration, he went to adjust his glasses but stopped halfway. He hadn’t needed glasses since his conversion, his eyesight fully restored. His hair color had stayed the same, however, much to his dismay. His doctor called it “salt and pepper,” but he just called it gray hair. It made him look older than most men who went in the Tube.
He kept flipping through copious amounts of information that seemed designed to give him a headache. Piles of data, the registry of the contents of a whole warehouse, were scattered around his office. An office so new that he hadn’t even had time to put photos in the picture frames, or choose a plant to put in the pot that decorated one of the windows.
The only thing decorating his office so far was empty shelves, a desk, a lamp, his chair, and enough sheets of paper to cover every surface twice.
Slogging through paperwork was never one of his strengths. This particular warehouse only held replacement computer pieces for the new medical computers. It wasn’t even supposed to have a printed version of its stock. It was only the attentive eye of a beta in one of the central warehouses that led to the creation of this infernal jigsaw puzzle.
Still, the disappearance of computer parts wasn’t what had caused concern. It was the possible hacking into what was supposed to be a secure network that had raised an alarm. If one warehouse database could be hacked, who was to say that more important networks weren’t breached as well? Like the one for the conversion tube laboratories. And they only had the information the beta had printed to confirm there were missing items. All information was supposed to be digital only.
He scratched his three-day-old beard, and he marked another discrepancy between paper and database on his computer. After finishing the pile he had on his desk, he picked up a second pile of papers from the floor and sighed again. He didn’t know if he wanted to kiss this beta for his vigilance, or kick him for the mess his office was now in.
“We have another one!” Henryk barged into his office without knocking, and slapped a file on his desk with a big grin. His brown hair was combed back, but it was too wild to stay in place. As unruly as its owner, it fell in front of his eyes before Henryk smoothed it back with his hands.
“Another what? Please don’t tell me it’s another database.” Matts slumped in his chair and pressed his fingers to his temples, trying to keep a bigger headache at bay.
“Of course not. Who cares about databases?” Henryk waved his hand as if he was shooing away a fly. “Another omega!”
Matts sat up straight in his chair and eagerly opened the file in front of him. Female, as the other four before her.
“Conversion is not completed yet,” Matts noted while flipping through the file. “How do you know she’s an omega?”
“She’s been fifty-six hours in the Tube, too long to be an alpha. The only ones that took longer than us so far have been the four omegas.”
“Not guaranteed yet, anyway,” he commented dismissively. “Time in the Tube isn’t everything.”
There was a photo of a woman on the last page, wearing a summer dress. The wind was swirling her hair around her face, and her hands were up, trying to put it back into place.
“Is this her?” He showed the photo to Henryk.
“No, that’s my grandma. I thought you would like to see her,” Henryk replied with a dry voice. “Of course it’s her, taken from social media. She doesn’t have many photos online, and the ones she does have are for family and friends only. Had to hack her page to get that photo.”
“She’s pretty.” Her golden-brown hair curled softly around her face, and her lush mouth was opened in a smile directed at whoever was taking the photo. And her eyes…
Her dark eyes were hypnotic.
“Well?” Henryk pressed.
“Well, what?” He put down the photo and browsed the rest of the file.
“Shall I put you on the second list?”
Matts flipped to the last page, and closed the file with a soft thump.
“She is married.” He pointed with both hands to the file. “I am not going to take a woman away from her husband, unless I have a very good reason to.”
Henryk must have been waiting for that reply because he smirked, pushed Matt’s hands out of the way, and opened the file on the first-claim list. It was still censored but the time stamps were visible. “Look at the top two,” he said excitedly, pointing to the top two rows, below the initial claim.
Matts looked, and gasped. “How the fuck did two guys manage to enter the list in the first twenty seconds?” He picked up the list from the file and examined it under his desk lamp. “It takes sixty seconds just for the opening to appear publicly.”
“I know.” Henryk rubbed his hands. “The third entry on the list took seven minutes.”
There were seventeen names in total on the list, not counting the husband. Not the omega with the biggest first list—the one in America had fifty-four. But still, it was the first time he had seen unusual entries into the first-claim list.
“Do you have the uncensored version?” He pointed the list at Henryk. “And the audio of the conversion registry, I want that too.”
“Yes, sir.” Henryk had a smugness to his voice that showed just how much he was expecting his reply. “I am working on that already. And the second list?”
“We have to wait until conversion is finished to enter the second list, right?” He picked up the photo from the file. He was sure she was smiling at her husband—the love in her eyes was visible—but the photo gave Matts the illusion that the smile was directed at him.
“I can make sure you are on top of that list.” Henryk cracked his fingers. “These guys aren’t the only ones who can sneak their way around a database.”
Matts flipped through the file again. The medical records were incomplete. They only showed the last six months, and there was nothing of note there. Were the Portuguese medical records not online yet?
“You know, we do have special circumstances if we want to claim anyone.” Henryk placed both hands on the desk, leaning in, and his voice took on a shy, uncertain tone that didn’t suit him. “If you want to skip ahead straight into second place on the first list, that can be arranged.”
Matts looked at him from behind the papers, a stern look on his face.
“They interfered in favor of an alpha before, on the French omega issue.” Henryk shrugged.
“The French omega issue is a shit show that just shows how little the High Court can be trusted. I don’t want another omega in the same situation.” He put the photo back into the file, placed his right index finger on a small scanner in the first drawer of his desk, and added it to the files for the other four omegas. “As long as she is safe with her husband, I’m not going to interfere. If anything happens, and someone manages to supersede his claim, then I’ll interfere.”
Henryk didn’t say anything. He just waited patiently with a knowing smile on his lips.
“Go ahead and place me on top of that second list,” Matts said, defeated.
“Yes, sir.” Henryk mock-saluted before leaving the office with a spring in his step.
The bastard really wanted Matts to take an omega mate. Hell, even the High Court wanted him to take a mate.
He looked back at the papers to resume his work, but he found it hard to focus. He opened the drawer again and took the photo from the newest possible-omega file. He had dismissed Henryk’s claim that she would be an omega, but deep down, Matts knew he was right. No official conversion took longer than forty-eight hours. He made sure to adjust the records available for any that did; the real conversion times for some individuals were not to be made public knowledge. His own, one of the longest male conversions so far, took fifty-four hours.
But fifty-six hours was too long for any alpha. He was quite sure she would be an omega as well, which meant that the High Court was going to ask him to conceal her records. He would also have to contact her husband, to instruct him on the rules in place to keep the omegas safe. Their existence was also not for public knowledge, although they were already a poorly kept secret.
He examined the photo again, studying her face. He liked her eyes, that loving expression made him instinctively smile. Her husband was a lucky man.
He selected one of the empty picture frames and placed the photo in it, and set the frame on his desk, next to his screen. Perhaps it was unfair that he was doing this with this photo and not of the other omegas’, but he hadn’t found a reason to interfere with their claims. This one, he had good reason to meddle in.
And meddle he would, if any foul play was afoot.
5
An Unexpected Conversion
Bruno
“How much longer is this gonna take?” He groaned, leaning back in the chair to stretch his back.
Daniel looked at him with sleepy eyes and took another sip of his coffee. “I can’t feel my legs anymore,” he said, ignoring the question.
Daniel’s mobile phone rang for what felt like the one hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours.
“It’s her again. Do they all think I can’t handle this on my own?” He accepted the call, and slouched back to the main office to talk.
