A beggar who became a billionaire

Chapter 5: Marrow Street

Andre spent the rest of the night deciding, then changing his mind, then deciding again.

By eleven o'clock, he had convinced himself he would not go. It was foolish. Dangerous. Exactly the kind of thing that got the first three users killed or lost.

By eleven thirty, he was already walking.

Marrow Street sat on the edge of the old industrial district, where warehouses stood empty and streetlights flickered instead of shining. Andre kept to the shadows, the phone heavy in his pocket, the chair leg from his room tucked into his jacket like a poor excuse for a weapon.

Number seventeen turned out to be a warehouse with a single door left slightly open, a thin line of lamp light spilling onto the cracked pavement outside.

Andre stood there for a long moment, his heart hammering.

Come alone.

He pushed the door open.

Inside, the warehouse was mostly empty. Old crates stacked against the walls. Dust hanging in the air, caught in the light of a single lamp sitting on a wooden table in the center of the room.

Beside the lamp sat a woman.

She looked younger than Andre expected, maybe thirty, with sharp eyes and dark hair pulled back tightly. She wore a plain grey coat, nothing that stood out, nothing that would make her memorable in a crowd. That, Andre realized, was probably the point.

"You came alone," she said, not quite a question.

"You told me to."

"Most people do not listen." She gestured to the empty chair across from her. "Sit."

Andre did not sit. "Who are you?"

"My name would not mean anything to you." She studied him carefully, the way someone studies a stranger they have already decided to trust, or already decided not to. "But you can call me Mara."

"How do you know about the phone?"

Mara's mouth tightened. "Because I used to carry one exactly like it."

Andre's breath caught. "You are one of them. One of the users."

"I was User Zero Two."

The deceased. Andre's stomach turned cold. "The list said you were"

"Deceased. Yes." Mara allowed herself a thin, humorless smile. "The phone believes I am dead. It is easier that way. Easier for me, and much safer for you."

"I do not understand any of this."

"No," Mara said. "You would not. Not yet." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. "Let me ask you something, Andre. When you found that phone, did it feel like an accident?"

Andre thought back to the trash bin, the cold metal against his fingers, the impossible message glowing on the screen. "No," he admitted quietly. "It did not."

"Good. Because it was not one." Mara's eyes were steady, serious. "The phone does not fall into random hands. It is placed. Someone, or something, decides who receives it next."

"Who decides?"

"That," Mara said, "is the only question that actually matters. And I have spent six years trying to answer it, at a cost I am not willing to describe to you tonight."

Andre finally sat down across from her, his legs suddenly unwilling to hold him standing any longer.

"The man in the car," he said. "Is he dangerous?"

"Extremely." Mara's expression darkened. "His name is Callum Voss. He was User Zero Four before he lost his phone. He has spent years trying to get another one, by any means necessary."

Andre's mind spun. Zero Four. Status: unknown. The warning on the screen. USER 004 IS LOOKING FOR YOU.

"He wants mine," Andre said slowly.

"He does not simply want it," Mara said. "He needs it. Voss made enemies with what his phone showed him, enemies who are still hunting him today. Without a new phone, he has no way to stay ahead of them. He will not ask twice, Andre. Next time, he will not offer you money."

Andre's hands curled into fists on the table. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Survive," Mara said simply. "Learn faster than he expects. Use the phone the way it wants to be used, not the way you think will make you rich the fastest." She reached into her coat and placed a small folded card on the table between them. "And when you are ready, find me. This number will not work forever, so do not waste it."

Andre reached for the card.

That was when the warehouse door slammed shut behind them.

Mara was on her feet instantly, her chair scraping hard against the concrete floor, her eyes locked on the darkness near the entrance.

"He followed you," she said, her voice tight.

"I made sure no one"

"He does not follow people, Andre." Mara's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "He follows the phone."

A figure stepped out of the shadows near the door. Andre recognized the calm, unhurried walk immediately.

Callum Voss smiled at both of them, as if he had simply arrived at a party slightly late.

"Mara," he said pleasantly. "I thought you were dead."

"I thought you would have learned to leave innocent people alone by now," Mara answered, stepping in front of Andre without seeming to think about it at all.

"Innocent." Voss laughed softly, a sound with no warmth in it whatsoever. "None of us stayed innocent very long after that phone chose us."

His eyes shifted to Andre, sharp and hungry.

"Last chance, boy. Give me the phone, and you walk out of here exactly the way you walked in."

Andre's hand closed around the phone in his pocket. Behind him, he heard Mara take a slow breath, the kind of breath a person takes right before a fight they have been dreading for a very long time.

"And if I refuse?" Andre asked.

Voss's smile did not fade. If anything, it widened.

Somewhere behind him, in the darkest corner of the warehouse, a second set of footsteps began to move.

He was not alone this time either.