Secret Department

." People have plans for their lives. That dream job. That perfect house. That once in a lifetime holiday. That loving family. Slowly, day by day, we set down tracks in our mind along which our lives will travel, leading to certain stops and destinations of our choosing. But life can change in an instant. One moment, one decision, one pull of a lever and the tracks can change. A person's whole world, whole future can be altered in a split second. Sometimes we pull the lever ourselves, out of fear or grief or love, or sometimes that choice is taken out of our hands. The Department of Acquisitions was a place that pulled the leavers on other people's lives. It was a large, sprawling subterranean place. The walls echoed and the only light came from strips in the ceiling and the blue-white glare of the several hundred computer screens. Men and women moved around the large central room, carrying files, passing on instructions, conferring in quiet murmurs. Others sat at desks, typing away at keyboards as screens flashed statistics, flight schedules, air traffic maps, live satellite imaging. It was the busy, organised efficiency of a long-established routine. An ant farm. Around the walls security camera feeds flickered on monitors, displaying street corners, grocery stores and motorways from across the globe. On the far wall, dominating everything, a fifty-foot screen displayed a map of the world, which was dotted with collections of red and yellow lights. Photographs of people lined both sides of the map. Faces taken from passport photos and drivers' licences. "Number four-three-two acquired," a woman sitting at a monitor called across the room. Her hand went to the headset she wore and listened to whoever was speaking for a second. "Minimal resistance, sedation required. Transportation cleared for colony airspace entry. ETA zero four-hundred." In Western Australia a single yellow light which had converged with two red ones swiftly turned green, just as the picture of a little-known film journalist vanished from the side of the map. From the viewing gallery a man watched those who worked below. He was tall, strongly made with broad back and shoulders. He was a man not built for this administrative work. He looked out of place, and yet this was his domain. No one questioned his authority over the Aquisitions Division. His control here was absolute. He scanned the room below him slowly. No one looked up. No one was brave enough to meet his black eyes. And they were black. Not simply dark or brown, his eyes were as black and impenetrable as the sea at night. No human had ever had eyes like that. Behind him a group of men and women in black uniforms hunched over a large meeting room table, perusing files. Countless files had passed across this table in the last ten months, just as countless faces had crossed the giant screen. Hundreds of files, each for a single individual, laid out on the table for inspection, perusal, deliberation. Most of them, now filed away safely elsewhere or in the hands of assimilation teams, had been tagged with coloured markers, verifying the subject's status. Received. Categorised. Assimilated. However, the three dozen files which now lay on the table bore none of these labels. These were the last collection, those individuals deemed easiest to assimilate and requiring the least amount of time in quarantine. Turning away from the flurry of activity below, the black-eyed man approached the table, reached down and picked up a file, as if at random. He flicked it open. The picture of a girl stared out at him. An attractive picture, by all accounts, taken a year ago for a new college ID. She smiled, bright blue eyes happy and full of life, dark hair spilling down in loose curls across one shoulder. The black-eyed man looked at the picture for a long moment. Then he turned it over and began reading the data and intelligence collected in the file behind it. Family history, education, medical records. It was all there. Sheets of statistics and observations detailing daily routines, frequented establishments, known friends and contacts. The black-eyed man went back to the railing. "What is the status of seven-six-one?" he asked, speaking to the room below, still perusing the file. "Acquisition in progress, M'lord," a man at the far end of the room replied, typing away at his screen. "Acquisition team thirteen is in place and standing by. Planned contact to be made within the next forty-eight hours." Dante Castranovo said nothing, his black eyes going back to the picture in the file. If he had thoughts, opinions, emotions, none of them showed on his face. They never did. Slowly he set down Raine Beaumont's file and left the room without a backwards glance.