Page 26

On a marble podium in the center of this strange chamber, beneath a dome of glass, sat a hefty skein of paper densely rolled into a scroll. The paper seemed almost to shimmer faintly in the dim light of the single covered lantern strung just above. Jack found himself altered in its presence, almost reverent in a way he didn’t know he was capable of. In front of him stood a list of everyone in his branch’s jurisdiction who was slated to die over the next thirty days. He imagined that someone so senior Jack didn’t even know of their existence would follow the winding staircase down here each month and write the list of names and death information into case files to be delivered to the office’s administrative coordinator, who would then divide them up by department and send them off to agents for collection each morning. Send them to him. This was where that whole mysterious cycle began.

Well, not quite where it began. Someone or something had to have the foreknowledge to write that list to begin with, and Jack wasn’t sure they’d be working an office gig. But for the workers of S.C.Y.T.H.E., from directors and middle management straight down to his desk, this was the epicenter of forbidden knowledge.

Jack looked over the glass dome. Near the bottom, where the glass met the podium, he spotted a small keyhole molded for a skeleton key in the shape of a scythe. He crouched, pressing an eye to the lock. Inside, it curved and narrowed in strange ways. Jack pulled his lock picking kit from Margaret’s purse but, as expected, he hadn’t come prepared for this. He’d kept his kit scaled back to only the essentials so it would be easy to transport, but the tools he’d brought were too clunky for such a delicate job. He needed something almost toothpick-thin but sturdy. Which, of course, he had. Just not here.

He checked his watch. He had a pickup scheduled for fifteen minutes from now. Essences grew pretty impatient if you kept them waiting. He could smash the glass, he considered, but that might damage the list. And that was assuming the dome didn’t have some weird booby trap, or that it was even made from the normal kind of smashable glass to begin with. He still had weeks until this list would be replaced with a fresh one for the coming month. Now that Jack knew what he needed, he could return tomorrow, prepared for both the hidden doorway and the lock that kept him from the Master List. It wasn’t quite the win he was looking for, but he usually scouted a location prior to a job anyway. The only reason he hadn’t this time was because said location was hidden behind a fridge. Besides, he had a recently deceased forty-nine-year-old who’d kicked the bucket Elvis-style waiting for him, and Jack wanted to get the awkwardness of a trip to a stranger’s bathroom over with as quickly as possible. The list could wait another day, he decided. And with that decision, he walked back up the winding stairs without a single inkling of the regret to come.

14

The next morning passed as slowly as time usually passes when you’re waiting for something. It was a slow day in Murder; Jack’s first pickup wasn’t until four p.m. A strangulation at the boxing club with a jockstrap as the garrote. He hoped it was at least unused, for both the victim’s sake and his own.

In the meantime he had only a small amount of paperwork to catch up on. The report he’d submitted on Dale’s collection hadn’t been flagged, at least not in a significant enough manner to get back to Jack, which was a relief. He supposed there wasn’t much reason for the average agent to lie about a client making it to processing, so cross-referencing the departments probably didn’t happen as thoroughly as it should.

He finished up his report on yesterday’s case, still unnerved by both the murdered man on the toilet and the inexplicable decision to carpet a bathroom, and looked at his laptop clock. Somehow only an hour had passed since he’d arrived at nine that morning. Eventually the lunch hour came and went, leaving Jack alone in the break room once again. A single-minded focus on lunch and a reticence to move heavy things among Jack’s fellow agents meant the fridge’s new location went unnoticed, or at least undisturbed. As soon as his last coworker had finished their Tupperware of leftovers and returned to work, Jack was through the hidden door and spiraling down into the office bowels, the most delicate of his lock picking tools stashed snugly in his purse.

The mystique of the Room of Records had faded slightly since the previous day. Now that Jack knew what to expect, the little chamber felt almost like just another room. The walls were just stone. The series of dates and initials on the whiteboard were just routine office scribbles. Even the Master List itself seemed to have lost its faint glimmer, appearing like little more than basic printer paper beneath its dome of glass.

Jack slid his tools into the small lock on the dome, waggling them until he heard a familiar click. With hands made steady by a lifetime of practice, he eased the dome back, revealing the list to the cool air of the room. He carefully removed the scroll from its plinth, grasping the edges delicately in his fingertips. The paper was grainy and thinner than he’d expected. When he unrolled it, just slightly, just a few careful inches, handwritten names greeted him from the page. For a brief moment, the reverence he’d felt the previous day returned. In his hands were countless lives about to end. It was a strange thing, holding the future. He did it a little bit every day, but the deaths he dealt with daily felt more like a foregone conclusion than the information he now held. These people still had days, sometimes weeks of life left. Knowledge of their deaths, in the right hands, meant that maybe they didn’t need to die at all. That’s what he had here. That’s what he was selling. The possibility of rewriting the future. After all, it was only ink on paper. And that was as impermanent and easily altered as life itself.

And it would be worth a fortune. Jack returned to himself. He pulled a padded envelope from his purse and unrolled the piece of paper tucked within. On that paper he scribbled the information from the Master List in a close replica of the handwriting it was inked in before placing the forgery on the pedestal where the original list had been. He then gently placed the true scroll inside a second envelope, sealing it so no air could weather the paper. With careful hands, he lowered the dome over the forged Master List and locked the little hole built for a skeleton key.

He’d done it. No alarms sounded. No paper ripped or smudged. He had the Master List tucked safely away, ready to sell, ready to bring Greer peace. He was Jack McCoy, and nothing, not death, not a new body, could take that away from him.

15

The Master List burned a hole through Margaret’s purse. Not literally, of course, though that would have been impressive. But all throughout the rest of the day, through the mind-numbing paperwork and the strangulation pickup, Jack could feel the weight of the list in the bag on his shoulder. This wasn’t the usual contraband, this was a mystical object stolen from Death itself. By the time the workday came to a close, Jack worried he might have given poor Margaret an ulcer. Still, the adrenaline coursing through his borrowed veins was intoxicating. He’d forgotten how addictive a rush like this could be.

As soon as he pulled Margaret’s Mercedes into the driveway, he dialed Greer. She had to be here for this. To witness his win. To see Jack in his element.

He went inside and eventually found Dale in the backyard, watching intently as two squirrels taunted a yappy Jack Russell on the other side of the fence.

“Honey, I’m home,” Jack announced, bosom puffed in triumph. His voice startled the squirrels, sending them darting into a nearby oak tree.

Dale turned around, face brightening. “You have it?”

Jack whipped the envelope from his purse and waved it above his head.

“Can I see?”

“Better not,” said Jack as Dale came rushing over. “Can’t risk any damage before we sell it.”

Dale gave an obedient nod. “Who we selling it to, Jackie?”

“The soon-to-be departed and their families, mostly,” said Jack. “I’ll start googling the names on this thing and see who’s willing to pay. I know I’d have shelled out a ton to know when I was gonna die.”

“Same,” said Dale.

For a moment, neither had anything to add. They were two dead men holding the means to keep others alive. It was hard to think of much more to say to that. Then the doorbell rang and the moment passed, and Jack skipped inside to bring Greer into the fold.

“You actually did it,” Greer said after Jack finished reliving his conquest. He furrowed his brows slightly at the note of disbelief in her voice. Had she not thought he would? Had she forgotten who she was dealing with?

“Of course I did,” Jack said.

“Well, thanks,” said Greer. “Thank you, Jack.”

Jack turned away. “We’ve got a lot of googling to do and phone calls to make,” he said. “If you’re up for it.”

“Okay,” said Greer. “Let’s get this thing sold.”