Logistics

Chris Coppel

Description

After being abandoned at the age of two and a half, Holly Hillman was raised without whimsy or fantasy. She was taught that there were no such things as Santa Claus, fairies, elves or any other accepted fantasies that help a child deal with the harder realities of life. Now in her forties, she is the CEO of a Fortune 400 company. She rose to the top through hard work, but also by living without distractions or social attachments. Despite her rigidly ingrained dedication, Holly was content with her life, having never lived by any other tenet. Everything was perfect until she was required to give her DNA as part of a health check leading up her company's merger with an Asian conglomerate.The results of her test unlocked the secret of her unique ancestry, leading to her having to confront a fantastical truth that would forever change her views on life and reality itself.

Sujets

• Science fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 janvier 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781800467019
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2022 Chris Coppel

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.


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ISBN 978 1800467 019

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd



To Clare. I couldn’t do this without you.


Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Epilogue


Chapter One
1981
Tony Brusco was desperately trying to get a few more minutes of sleep before pandemonium broke out in their tiny Newark apartment. It was Christmas morning and so far the kids were still sleeping. He knew it was only a matter of time before one of them woke, remembered what day it was, then charged into the living room to see what Santa had brought them.
He hoped that it was something decent as the only toys that they could afford to buy them had come from the discount aisle at the local Target. Thankfully, as Mia was only three and Joey was a month shy of five, they hadn’t yet got to the stage of wanting branded clothing or electronics. Still, he’d had to almost empty their bank account just to buy them the cheaply made gifts that nobody else seemed to want.

Life hadn’t been fair to Tony.
He’d studied hard and always planned to go to college and hopefully become a doctor.
He felt he had things pretty much under control until his girlfriend, Sofia, took him aside one day in the school hallway and told him that she was pregnant with what turned out to be their son, Joey.
“I thought you’d…you know…protected yourself,” he replied, stuttering. “You said, it’s okay, I got protection.”
“No, I didn’t. You don’t never listen. I said it’s okay so long as you have protection.”
They married three months before Joey was born and for the next couple of years lived with Sofia’s parents.
It was not a great time for anyone.
Sofia’s parents blamed Tony for ruining their daughter’s life. They had hoped that she would one day be the first person in their family to go to college. Had they bothered to occasionally listen to their daughter, they would have known that she had no intention of spending even one more minute in a classroom after she graduated high school.
When Sofia announced that she was expecting for the second time, things got even worse. Her parents would hardly even look at him. The upside was that it gave them the impetus they needed to start looking for a place of their own. Thankfully, Tony had a regular job at the local Quicky Lube and had managed to save up enough for them to pay the first and last month’s rent on a tiny two-bedroom walk-up apartment.
Despite the troubled road that had carried them there, Sofia and Tony were in a good place. They had a roof over their head, two beautiful children and, though they would never openly admit it, were still madly in love.
For Tony, college became just another dream that hadn’t quite materialised; despite that, life wasn’t really that bad. Money was always tight, but they both knew that things could have been a lot worse.

Tony tried to snuggle Sofia, more for warmth than for anything else, but, just as he moved onto her side of the bed, he heard the sound of little feet scampering down the hall towards the living room. Moments later, the morning’s tranquillity was irrevocably shattered as both kids began screaming from the other room.
“He’s been here,” Joey screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Santa, Santa, Santa,” was all Mia could manage in her state of over excitement.
“Time to get up,” Sofia mumbled.
“Just gimme a few more seconds, please,” Tony begged.
“You know that’s not going to happen today, right?” she insisted.
“If I’m getting up, then you have to do the same,” he countered.
The two reluctantly got out from under their warm comforter and put on their dressing gowns and slippers.
They walked into the living room with forced smiles and feigned excitement at finding the gifts they’d bought under the tree. Dotted among the ones that they’d stayed up late wrapping the night before were some new ones covered in expensive-looking gift paper and with bows that looked like they cost more than both the Target gifts put together.
Can I open mine?” Joey asked. “Please?”
“You and Mia should open your presents at the same time, so no one feels they’re more important,” Sofia instructed.
The two children seemed to have a sixth sense about which presents were going to be the best. They moved the gifts from Target off to one side and each grabbed one of the presents that had materialised overnight.
After a few seconds of almost feral ripping of bows and paper, they both squealed with delight. Each had gotten exactly what they’d asked for in their letters to Santa. Joey got the walking robot that shot missiles while its eyes turned bright red, and Mia cuddled the talking teddy bear she’d been dreaming about all year.
Tony and Sofia looked on as the kids then opened their Target presents. Tony pretended to be happy with an off-brand, battery-operated toy train engine, even though a piece of it had already broken off in the box. Mia looked down at her colouring book and pencil set with a mix of disappointment and confusion. The set reeked of cheap and, even at her tender age, she could tell.
While the kids grabbed their Christmas stockings from where Tony had pinned them to the side of the dining table (they had no mantlepiece), Sofia reached under the tree and picked up her present for her husband.
“It’s not much, but I saw you looking at it in the store,” she said as she handed it to Tony.
He carefully removed the wrapping paper, knowing that Sofia would find some later use for it.
Tony roared with laughter as he opened the box.
“I love it. I really do,” he said as he held up his gift so the children could see. It was a bright red Christmas tie with a reindeer on the front. Its red nose protruded from the polyester material.
“Push the button on the back,” Sofia said. “I already put the battery in it.”
Tony found the concealed button and pressed it. The red nose began flashing. Tony pressed the button again and it flashed even faster.
“I love it,” he grinned. “I’m gonna wear this to your parents’ house.”
Tony tied his present around his bare neck, then did a cheesy male-model pose for the kids.
“Open what I got you,” he said, pointing to the back of the tree.
Sofia leaned in and grabbed the box. She was just wondering what he could have bought her that was so light, when the Christmas tree skirting, made of an old white sheet made to look like snow, suddenly moved.
“What the…?” Sofia said, startled. “What have you done, Tony? You know the super don’t allow no pets in this building.”
Joey and Mia, having heard the exchange, gathered back at the tree to see what Dad had bought for Mom.
As Joey stood, dumbstruck, Sofia pealed back the fake snow and her jaw dropped open.
Mia shrieked in delight and Joey just started giggling.
Tony and Sofia didn’t know what to say.
Curled up, and fast asleep under the tree was a young girl who couldn’t have been more than two or three years old. The noise of the commotion awoke her. She looked up at the Brusco family, yawned, then smiled.
“Where dada?” she asked as she rubbed her eyes.
“Oh, that’s just great,” Tony said. “I asked Santa for a new radio and what does he bring us…another mouth to feed.”
“I take it that you’re not responsible for this?” Sofia said with a chill in her voice. “Cause if this is your way of telling me that you got a kid with someone else, I’m gonna…”
“Whoa! I got nothing to do with this. I ain’t never seen this kid in my life.”
“I’m calling the police,” Sofia said as she reached for her phone.
“Oh yeah,” Tony said, shaking his head. “Why do I get the feeling that we’re gonna end up being the bad guys, here?”

Tony’s instincts were right.
The police arrived with an entourage. The child was whisked away and immediately checked for any bruising; all they found was an unusual birth mark behind one of her ears. The child services officer then placed her, along with Mia and Joey, “somewhere safe”.
Despite Tony’s pleading that he knew nothing about how the child came to be in their apartment, proceedings for child kidnapping charges ensued. The legal battle to clear themselves and regain custody of Joey and Mia just about destroyed Tony and Sofia’s life as well as greatly limiting all future prospects.


Chapter Two
Present Day
Holly Hillman woke