Supreme Authority

Chapter 7

The next morning, Brenda was dressed before the dryers downstairs had even started.

She stood at the little mirror by the door in her best coat, putting on lipstick and humming.

"Beauty salon at ten," she announced. "Then the mall. Then lunch somewhere with real napkins."

Alexander had been awake since four, sitting cross-legged on the cold floor of Sophia's room while she slept, drawing spirit energy in through his chest, breath by breath.

The thread had grown. One hair thicker. Nothing more.

Next to what he used to be, it was pathetic. But it was moving. In his first life, the first step had taken him years. This time it had taken one night.

He opened his eyes and rubbed his neck. Every bone in his back hurt.

"Oh, look who's awake," Brenda called through the open door. "The man who sleeps on my floor."

"Mom," Sophia said from the bed. "Stop."

"What? I'm being nice. I said good morning."

Danny, behind his newspaper at the kitchen table, said nothing. Wisely.

Brenda's phone rang. She stood up very straight.

"Mother Beverly!" Her voice turned sweet as syrup. "Yes. Tonight? The whole branch? Of course. We wouldn't miss your birthday for the world."

She hung up, glowing.

"Grandma Beverly's birthday feast. Tonight, at Elm Ridge. The whole family." She pointed her lipstick at Alexander. "And you. Don't you dare come empty-handed and shame us again."

"Empty-handed," Alexander said. "Like your purse after the mall?"

"Watch your mouth, floor man."

She swept out. The door banged. Her heels went clacking down the creaky stairs.

Sophia got out of bed, opened the bottom drawer of her desk and took out an old envelope. She knelt on the floor in front of him and pressed something into his hand.

A few bills, folded small and soft.

"It's three hundred and forty dollars," she said quietly. "It's all I have. For a phone. Or whatever you need."

"Sophia, I can't take this."

"Yes, you can. You said you'd fix it. For your father."

"You don't even know how."

"No." She stood and turned away so he could not see her eyes. "But I believe you. I don't know why. I just do."

In his first life, she had done this too, years later, when he had nothing at all. He had taken her savings without even looking at her face.

This time he looked.

One day, he thought, I will give you the whole world for this.

"Thank you, Sophia," was all he said.

---

The PC rental sat between a pawn shop and a noodle bar. Inside, rows of old computers hummed in the dark. The air smelled of burnt coffee. Teenagers in headphones shouted at their screens.

One hour cost three dollars from Sophia's money.

The keyboard was sticky. The mouse squeaked. He opened a new bank account in his own name. It took a while, and every number he could remember.

Then he took out the bent ring.

Under the desk lamp, the tiny engraving inside the band was whole. He typed it in, letter by letter, and pressed enter.

The screen went blank for one second.

Then it opened.

One thousand bitcoins. Eighty million dollars, behind a keyboard covered in someone else's soda.

He breathed out, very slowly.

He did not touch most of it. Too much money too fast would bring questions. He sold only a small part into his new account, and put a piece of that into a small, boring stock almost nobody watched.

In his first life, the news had called that stock a miracle. Soon the whole city would call it that. And everyone laughing at him now would read about it.

The boy at the next computer glanced at his screen, decided it was the most boring thing he had ever seen, and went back to shooting zombies.

Next door, Alexander bought the cheapest phone on the counter with his new card. Sophia's folded bills went back into his pocket, every one but three dollars.

On the way out, he stopped at an old herb shop and bought a paper bag of dried roots that nobody in this city knew how to use. The old man at the counter asked if he was making soup.

"Something like that," Alexander said.

His spirit energy was hungry. And in this world, hunger cost money.

He had just sent her his new number when it rang.

"Alexander?" Sophia's voice was tight. "Your mother just called me. She's crying. There's a lawyer at their door. He says he's from Grant."

A lawyer from Grant. They were moving fast. Good. He was faster.

"Tell her I'm coming."

---

His parents lived on a quiet street of brick houses with small front yards. Neighbors were already at their windows.

A man in a gray suit stood on the front step with a briefcase and a pen. Helen Sinclair stood in the doorway in her apron, her reading glasses on her head, her eyes red.

"Mrs. Sinclair," the man said pleasantly. "I'm only here to help. Sign this today, everything goes back to Ms. Cavendish, quietly. Refuse, and a judge freezes everything your husband owns."

"Please," Helen whispered. "Give us a week. My husband is sick about this."

"Your son is a cheat, ma'am. And your husband is a fraud. Dated three months ago." He smiled and tapped his pen on the paper. "The judge will love that."

"Then talk to the cheat," Alexander said.

The man turned around.

Helen's hand flew to her mouth.

"Alexander," she breathed. "Don't. Please. Just go. Your father..."

"I'm not going anywhere, Mom."

The lawyer looked him up and down, from his wrinkled shirt to his cheap new phone, and his smile grew wider.

"Ah," he said. "The son. The one who gave it all away. You're just in time to watch your mother sign."

Alexander looked at the polished shoes and the easy smile. A man paid by the hour to scare old women. He had met a hundred men like him, and every one of them had lost.

Behind Helen, in the dark of the hallway, Richard Sinclair appeared. He looked at his son for one long second. Then he looked away.

"She's not signing anything," Alexander said.

"That's not your decision. You don't own a single brick of this house anymore. You saw to that yourself."

"I know exactly what I did."

"Then you know your father is finished." The lawyer held the paper out to Helen again. "Mrs. Sinclair. Your pen, please."

Helen's hand shook as she reached for it.

Alexander stepped up onto the porch, between his mother and the paper.

"Who gave you the right," he said quietly, "to bully my family?"

The lawyer laughed. "The law did. And Mr. Price pays me very well to read it."

"Then read this."

Alexander took the paper out of his hand.

"Careful," the lawyer said, and for the first time his smile slipped. "That's a legal document."

"Is it?"