Wildcard (first chapter of novel)

(author's note- this chapter is included in the full novel posting)


"I can hide you no longer."

"Me? or us?"

"Both of you. I cannot keep you hidden if you are together." The voice was casual, almost bored sounding.

"How long do I have?"

"Separate. One, or both of you, must be in a different city within three days." The voice chuckled. "Three." It seemed to be referring to something else.

"Who are you?"

"Hmm…Call me Seeker."

She was at a payphone. "Can’t you get more time. A week?"

"No." She heard the sound of a knife thunking into wood on the other end. "Unfortunately, that is not the part of the game at which I excel. The others are better than I am, deeply Named."

"What? What did you call me?"

"Oh? You have not heard that. How interesting. Deeply Named. It is one of your… titles. By the way, I have a message for you. Would you like it?"

"Yes."

"Hold out your left hand. Don’t look. 5-4-3-2-1."

She felt an envelope touch her outstretched hand. She grabbed it. "From whom?"

"You will find out, but not today."

"Is it from you?"

Seeker made a throat clearing noise. "Don’t read it until you are separated."
That had been the third and final phone call.

Martha had trusted, or at least believed, the voice for four years. Since she had taken Karl. Never saw the face. Four years earlier, a payphone rang when she was walking by. The voice had told her that no one could find her, find them, for the time being. The owner of the voice would hide and protect them.

She believed, not that it made much difference. She didn’t change her pattern at the time. But if the voice wanted them dead or otherwise, it certainly could arrange that. Much easier than making a random payphone ring when a particular person is walking past it.

No one else ever found her. She would have known.
She received a second call in that four years, again on a payphone. Outside of a grocery store. Told her she would not be called again until they had to separate. Things were looking for her. There was a need to minimize contact. Be prepared. Prepare your young charge to be…discharged. Chuckle. Gender neutral, the octaves and registers strange and misplaced.

Then this, the final call.

48 hours later, she walked through Grenoble holding a young boy’s hand. He was wearing a backpack, large for his size. Heavy, a bit, for his strength.

"Would you like to get lunch, Karl?" She wanted to say his name, although it was painful to do so. "At our favorite place? In the square?"

"Oui," said the boy, who looked and acted 12. He was smiling, happy, wearing a red baseball cap. For luck, he said. Martha chewed her lip.

"Aloneliness," she whispered to her herself.

Karl looked up at her.
"Qu’est-ce que ca veut dire?" What does that mean?

"Nothing. Just talking to myself. Speak English for now."

"What did you say?" He skipped his feet back and forth, in the manner of children who want to move, but not to move ahead. "What does aloneliness mean?"

"It doesn’t matter. Somewhere between loneliness and alone."

He considered the puzzle, turning his head forward again, and bouncing it from side to side in rhythm with his feet. He had wide, bright eyes and an open expression. Curious, interested. Intelligent. Martha had always thought of him as intelligent, but not in a science/math way. Socially. Karl could engage socially. Did so automatically. Not in a brusque, or invasive manner. He would see a group of children playing, and, almost invisibly, become part of their group. Never the leader, though. They would accept him as if he had always been there. Every time.

He had learned French with no more difficulty than eating an apple. Attractive and charming, but not in a way that caused too much memory of him. Which was good.
Karl needed to disappear. Rather, Karl needed to stay disappeared.

She had taught him much in the four years of tutelage. Martha had been trained in many things as a child, matters of espionage, modes of survival, languages and non-verbal communication if you did not know the language, means of very rapid language acquisi