Reversed Bounty Hunter

The fluorescent lights of the dingy motel room hummed with a familiar, hostile energy, buzzing directly into Rene’s temporal lobes. She was perched on the edge of the threadbare mattress, inspecting the seams of her jeans as if they might conceal tracking devices placed by the Alphabet Men. Deon sat across the room, though ‘sat’ was generous; he was crouched behind the chipped Formica table, peering through a knothole he’d previously drilled into the wall—a strategic position for monitoring the ‘surveillance van’ parked three doors down, which was, in reality, a faded minivan belonging to an elderly couple on a fishing trip.

“They’re shifting positions, D,” Rene whispered, her voice tight, barely parting her lips. Her dreadlocks, usually hanging heavy with the weight of unspoken secrets, seemed to bristle with static electricity. “The man in the passenger seat—he’s wearing a subtly different shade of beige. That’s the code. They’re cycling the primary operatives.”

Deon didn’t move, his focus absolute, black eyes narrowed to slits against the dark portal he was using. “The beige shift. Standard counter-surveillance protocol for a tertiary infiltration team. They think we don’t know about the Beige Shift. Fools.”