Chapter 6 - The Anatomy of a Mirage
In the front room of The Golden Lotus, Lin Wei sat alone in her dark corner.
The drug in the trash bag coating was taking full effect now. Her head drooped forward until her chin rested against her chest. Her thoughts were no longer coherent sentences; they were fragmented, colored ribbons of memory drifting through a dark sky. She saw her childhood village in Guangdong; she saw her late husband's face under the yellow streetlamps of San Francisco forty years ago; she saw her son’s small hand clutching her thumb.
A hand reached down and quietly lifted her grey jacket off her shoulders.
David stood over her. The dining room front door was locked now; the "CLOSED" sign flipped to face the wet, empty street outside.
Arthur walked out from the kitchen carrying a clipboard and a metallic briefcase. He set the case on a table and popped the chrome latches.
Inside the case rested rows of identical, pre-filled glass syringes, each labeled with a color-coded band and a bar code.
"Asset One is fully sedated," Arthur reported, checking Lin Wei’s dilated pupils with a penlight. "Gasping reflex is absent. Heart rate is down to forty-eight beats per minute. Her vitals are optimal for extraction."
"Did you double-check her legal status?" David asked, stepping over to the front windows to pull down the heavy aluminum security blinds, shutting out the rainy street.
"Clean," Arthur replied. "Lin Wei, age eighty-two. Undocumented entry in 1994. No living relatives on file in the state system. No social security red flags. She’s been living in the abandoned basements on 4th Street for three years. If she disappears, no missing persons report will ever be generated."
"And Eleanor?"
"Eleanor Vance is even cleaner," Arthur smiled dryly. "Wards of the state don't have guardians who check on them. Her daughter signed over power of attorney to a state-managed conservatorship two years ago. The conservatorship pays her monthly stipend directly to a P.O. Box that we control. To the government, Eleanor Vance is still sitting in a park in Oakland."
David walked over to Lin Wei’s slouching form. He reached out and gently lifted her chin.
Her face, illuminated by the cold fluorescent light, looked peaceful now. The terror that had filled her eyes when she pulled the chicken bone from the trash was entirely gone, replaced by the blank, serene slackness of profound chemical anesthesia.
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"She gave a wonderful performance tonight," David murmured, his thumb stroking the soft, papery skin of her cheek. "The viewers loved her tears. They felt so much empathy for her."
"Empathy is a terrible waste of emotional capital if you don't monetize it," Arthur said, preparing one of the glass syringes from the briefcase. "Hold her arm steady."
