Chaz:

They dressed her in harlequin diamonds of black and white, painted her face and curled her hair. She drank something—some kiddie cocktail laced with drugs—and then she posed on a carousel horse amidst colored lights and calliope music. With a laugh and a giggle, her eyes half closed, she sang a song to a hidden camera.

And the bidding began.

I got the call one minute before Angelique and I went on the news.

“Yur little darlin, she gonna brings in a good price. She somethin’ special, oh yeah. Wish ya could sees her right now, the way she flirts with those bidders when they asks their questions.”

I put one hand over my ear, turned away from the makeup girl that was trying to take the shine off my nose. “You better end your auction,” I said. “Right now, Neville, or all deals are off.”

“What deals? You and me, we gots no deals.”

“Turn on the news, you monster, and if anybody touches my niece, I’ll send you to hell myself.” A light flashed and I switched off my Verse, then turned back toward the camera. The newscaster watched me with a puzzled expression, but as soon as the cameras came on, she was all liquid silver and sparkling teeth.

“Mr. Domingue,” she began. I think her name was Judy. Or Jane. Or Janet.

“Chaz, call me Chaz.” I flashed a smile of my own.

“Yes, Chaz, I understand you have some information about that miraculous dog we saw earlier today.” She gave a subtle cue and the City of the Dead video ran while we talked. I watched Omega on the monitor, saw him die and then get back up. “Is this some sort of experimental prototype? Some new form of resurrection?”

I laughed. “Not exactly. Ms. Baptiste, why don’t you explain, in layman’s terms, what we see here?”

Angelique nodded. “Of course. My team and I were working on a breakthrough medical discovery—similar to the technological resurrection we’re all familiar with—but actually—”

Judy-Jane interrupted. “You were trying to find an answer to the Nine-Timer dilemma, weren’t you?”

“Well, it’s like Chaz said, not exactly. We weren’t working with clones, so as you can see the dog didn’t need anyone to download him into a new body when he died. So it’s not exactly resurrection—”

It was my turn to deliver the punch line. “It’s immortality.”

The newscaster stared at both of us. Dead air.

I grinned at the camera, knew that Neville was watching.

“Immortality…” Judy-Jane finally found her voice again. “So that dog? He’s—he’s immortal?”

Angelique and I nodded.

“There’s just one problem,” Angelique said apologetically. “We had an accident in the lab and all of our research was destroyed. And of course, we never did get a chance to try it out on a human, so we don’t know for sure if it would have worked on people.”

“But…but…if you created this once, surely you can do it again.”

“I wish it were that simple.” I was really enjoying the tormented look on the newscaster’s face. Wished I could see Neville’s. “You see, we based everything on the research done by my grandfather. If we hadn’t had his research to begin with, we never would have gotten as far as we did. Unfortunately, his work was destroyed as well.”

“But whoever worked on this project should be able to remember some of it.”

“That would be my brother.” I stared into the camera, a level gaze. “But he just died, a few hours ago.”

Our interviewer glanced down at her notes, tried to figure out what to say next.

“There is one bright spot in all of this,” Angelique offered.

“What’s that?” Judy-Jane asked without lifting her head.

“We have one dose of the serum left.”

She was looking at us now, open-mouthed. “Just one?”

Again we both nodded.

“Do you mind if I ask, what—what do you plan to do with it?”

“We’re going to put it up for auction,” I said. “And sell it to the highest bidder.”

The offers started coming in before we even left the studio. We had a site set up on the Grid for a silent auction, any bid was allowed, and we made it clear that we would consider barter as an option. After all, we weren’t looking for money. I put a block on my Verse to shut out interruptions, and I saved the number from my most recent caller. Neville.

His gravel-edged voice had carved runes in my brain, like an ancient alphabet, spelling words I didn’t dare speak out loud.

Memories of sleepless nights. My father, dead on the ground.

The fear within me turning to something cold and hard over the years.

A part of me was dead because of that man. He didn’t know it yet, but I was the hunter now and he was the prey. Like a jackal, he ran over open fields, my niece in his iron jaws. But soon he would tire, his grip would loosen.

And that was when I would strike.