The Gathering Storm

“Hey lemme see that thing, I’m getting some flashes of memory just watching you thumb through it.”

Ravyn looked up from the little address book, gave me a stern look with one eye arched in challenge, “All right, but don’t you try anything funny. You’ll really see me get mad if you go anywhere without me!”

I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Hey OK, I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“Perhaps you are coming to your senses, about time!” She tossed the book over to me, and pretended to look back to her backpack in the doorway, but I could see how tense she remained. She was watching me like...well, a raven!

“Besides,” I added, “I don’t think any woman in her right mind would come along with me anydamnwhere, especially with a young baby. Having you along could help ease her mind about me.”

“Look bub, I’m not coming along to be anyone’s babysitter. I’m coming because I have no doubt you’re going to step into a situation that is far bigger than you realize. If that poor woman and her baby are going to have any chance in this, someone with some sense needs to keep you out of trouble!”

As soon as the book was in my hand, a rush of memories flooded to the front of my mind. Without really looking at the book or its pages, I let my fingers do the walking. They stopped at ‘J’. I looked down and saw a scribbled notation that was much easier to decipher since I could now ‘remember’ writing it, it read:
“Alexa Jackson, born 05/03/2005, Charity Hospital, New Orleans, 7lbs 6 oz.
Naomi cell, (504) 555-3376--looking for $$ for bills--$5,000?”

Excited, I looked up, “Ravyn, I found a note about when the baby was born, and a cell phone number for the mother. We might be in luck after all.”

She came over to see for herself and commented, “Looks like she was in need of some money as well, didn’t you say these guys were paying her money for this?”

“Yeah, but that all kind of stopped when we took down their organization. Daniel said that all of the other women who were impregnated either miscarried or aborted the babies once the funds stopped. Only this woman, Naomi Jackson, carried hers to term. Shit, this is weird, I can hear her voice, and even remember her face, from his memories of dealing with her. He stayed in contact with her even after we stranded him in Canada.”

“Well, that should help us to recognize her when we go down there to get her. Do any of your stolen memories have an actual address? I doubt that she is still at the hospital after nearly four months.”

“No, I’m not coming up with anything other than some PO Box that he remembered sending some checks to help her out. But we could try calling this number.”

“If the phones are still working, you mean, the edge of the hurricane is hitting the area right now.”

That jolted me back to the immediacy of the problem, although there was still something niggling at the back of my mind, like some half-formed memory trying to surface, but not quite making it yet. “Hey, wait! It’s a cell phone according to the note, I’ll bet the Bureau can track the location of that phone, if it is on!”

I rushed past Ravyn, the book still open to that page in my hand. I went back into my media room and sat down at the computer monitor that was still on. I signed onto the Bureau remote network and clicked on the icon that opened the tracking system for cellphones. It was a relatively new program, so I had to fumble around with it for a few minutes.

Ravyn was standing behind me, watching over my shoulder. “You see, this is why I don’t carry one of those things. I couldn’t stand the thought of knowing that the government could track my location by clicking on a program like that.”

“Well, it’s not exactly open for just anyone to rummage through you know...”

She patted my shoulder, “Oh, yeah, they just let their zombie agents have it on their home computers. I’m real comforted. No thanks!”

“Hey now, I do happen to have a pretty high level clearance. Zulu made sure of that.”

“Oh yeah, I could see how he might be able to swing that. Still, I’d rather not be so...traceable.”

I couldn’t resist a jab of my own, “Yeah, I can see how important stealth is to someone who flies around on a giant flaming bird and who comes and goes with the bang and flash of a bomb going off.”

I was rewarded for my humor by a slap upside the head...which, I was almost satisfied to note, hurt her more than it did me.

As she was nursing her bruised fingers, I punched the number into the program, hit the Search button.

In a matter of thirty seconds, a map of New Orleans appeared on the screen with a blinking cursor in the heart of the city noting the location of the phone. A note flashed at the top of the screen, showing the date of the last request for this number...if I had had any hairs on the back of my neck, they would have been standing up...the logon ID on the last search done for this number, just done earlier today showed ‘DKampmann’-Drake.

“Fuck me, Drake knows where she is as well.”

“How does he still access to this system, wasn’t he kicked out of the Bureau?”

I could hear the worry in her voice as she asked that. “I don’t know, perhaps they forgot to suspend his access when they booted him out of the Bureau.”

“Now I am REALLY glad I don’t own one of those damn things!”

“Yeah, but now we really have to get moving. Damn, I’ve never been to New Orleans, so I can’t really use the Shadow to get there.”

“I know a place we can go, it’s actually fairly close to the blinking dot too. We have an ally down there, I’m sure she’ll welcome us, she’s a fellow Caster, a Voudoun Priestess named T’tubah.”