The Agency Emily Gao

The Agency

Emily Gao

The secretary sat at her desk and picked at her chipping manicure. Beige flakes of what CVS called “pink sand” scattered on the neat stack of business cards below her. “Selective Family Services - here to match you with your ideal child” they read, all sharp angles and crisp lines. A common theme here in the city’s most premium adoption agency: everything was as polished as possible. Even the children.

The children came from everywhere, never older than two. The secretary had never seen any of them, but had faith that she would one day. She often saw news on social media of celebrities’ newly adopted children and wondered just how many of them had come from SFS. She remembered the tragic news about Wilson and Marissa Scott, two actors that had left their child orphaned after they died in a mysterious accident. Later, it was revealed that their child, Handly Scott, had been adopted from SFS a number of years ago, when the government had first released the initiative.

The program only started ten years ago. They had said that the new technology allowing for children and infants to be tested for future height, build, intelligence, talent, and attractiveness would be used on orphaned children in order to increase adoption rates. And they were right. The rich and famous were opting out of giving birth themselves, afraid of the odds that their child would be born with disabilities or undesirable traits. Instead they chose to visit adoption agencies that would select orphaned infants for them. The clinic assured prospective parents that these children would grow up to look like them, or be attractive and intelligent in the future. The secretary had always found the process quite odd, and wondered how the bill had ever been passed, but she needed money, and this job paid well. She had worked at the agency for months, but even now, as Eva James, the

most prominent news journalist in her field, walked out of the smudge-free glass elevator, the secretary could not help but stare. It was jarring, just how many celebrities showed up.

Ms. James walked to the secretary’s desk and peered around the office. The agency had no pictures of happy families, nor the brochures advertising adoption which typically lined waiting rooms. Instead, the high rise office building looked more like her own city office, except with less color and life.

“Hi, how may I help you?” the secretary asked.

Ms. James, again, looked around, wondering if the glass-walled room that reeked of antiseptic and cleaning solution was indeed the right office, until she spotted the stack of business cards on the edge of the secretary’s desk.

“I believe I have an appointment scheduled for one with Dr. Devont.”

Although Eva was early, much too early, the secretary knew Dr. Devont was free. She motioned for Ms. James to go through the set of frosted glass doors behind her.

She leaned back in her high-backed leather chair. It would be at least an hour until another client arrived. The secretary couldn’t figure out why Ms. James chose to adopt a child, especially from an agency of this kind. She already had two biological children, both of which turned out fine. Furthermore, she had published many strongly opinionated articles criticizing agencies of this kind, admonishing people to stop adopting children from agencies that “slapped prices on children and sold them like prized pigs at Saturday markets.”

Even more perplexing was why Dr. Devont had agreed to take on Ms. James as his client. It was an unwritten rule that he only scheduled clients

that he was sure would maintain the exclusivity of SFS, and of course, be able to afford it.

Shrugging it off, she went back to work, picking away at her chipped manicure.

The secretary looked out the window. She wanted to go home. The sun had set hours ago, and her phone was dying. She should have left a while ago. Usually, Dr. Devont would leave his office at around 5pm. Until then, the secretary wasn’t allowed to leave either, or interrupt the appointments. He had made that clear on her first day.

Another hour passed. The secretary cursed Dr. Devont, and wondered why Ms. James’s appointment was taking so long. Unable to sit and wait any longer, she walked over and knocked on the frosted door. He could be upset if he wanted. He had no right to keep her there this late.

She waited a moment, but there was no answer. Unsure of whether or not they had heard her, she knocked again.

There was a long pause before the door swung open, nearly tripping her. Dr. Devont was sitting across from the entrance, his bald head shining from the harsh office lights.

“I heard you the first time, Molly. Have we not gone over the rules? You are not to interrupt my appointments with clients.”

Molly couldn’t speak. Ms. James wasn’t in the room.

“Sorry for intruding, but where’s Ms. James?” she asked. “ I didn’t catch her leaving?”

Dr. Devont smiled.

“She must’ve slipped out the door when you weren’t paying attention,” he said. “Please allow me to apologize. I am terribly sorry for keeping you so long.”

Molly rubbed her eyes and blinked incredulously. There was no way she would have missed Ms. James leaving, but she shrugged it off, glad that she would not have to face Dr. Devont’s wrath today.

“I assumed you would have known to take leave on your own, but I’ll excuse your nearsightedness. Go home and rest now.”

Ignoring the nervous pit in her stomach, Molly smiled and gathered her stuff. She was tired. Maybe she would order pizza when she got home.

The elevator opened for the first time that morning, and to Molly’s surprise, two children no older than six emerged from the double glass doors. Despite that one late night incident almost three months ago, Molly still hadn’t been able to force out that hole in her stomach from when she thought of it. As a girl and boy, both wearing sterile white jumpsuits, approached her desk, she smiled. Maybe they were one of SFS’s famous adoptees.

She pushed away her urge to greet them, and pushed the sleek silver button on her desk. Minutes later, as per usual, Dr. Devont emerged from his office, not a hair out of place.

“2,643,157,” he muttered under his breath.

As if just seeing the children, he pasted on a warm smile. “Hello, Lilian and Bennett,” he said. “I’m Dr. Devont.”

They stared back at him, unresponsive.

“I’m terribly sorry for your loss. I know how it feels to lose your parents and feel alone in this world,” he continued, the same empathetic smile on his face.

The silence seemed to suffocate everyone but Dr. Devont. Then the older of the two, the girl, looked up at him unblinkingly.

“I want to help you,” he said, pleased at her acknowledgement.

The girl shook her head, but he continued anyway.

“I am giving you a new home. One with parents that will give you the world,” he said.

The boy clutched his sister’s fingers. Unfazed, he simply led them to his office.

On the way, he smiled at Molly, and dismissed her for the day. ***

The headlines weren’t released until the next morning: “Two Recently Orphaned Children Adopted from SFS by the Thersons for over 2.6 Million Dollars,” The City Report read. Photos had been withheld for privacy concerns, but Molly had no trouble picturing the two quivering children from the previous day. She read the article as she prepared for work, painting her chipped nails “Big Apple” red. She was ready to close the newspaper, until the final article on the last page caught her eye.

Molly ran out of her apartment, her hair still in braids from the night before and her nails still drying. She called a cab for the first time in half a year, without worrying about the exorbitant fee, and blew through the double doors of the office highrise. She couldn’t remember anything except for that last headline and that unfortunate evening three months ago.

It was six twenty nine a.m. when she reached the office. She had half an hour before he would arrive.

He was too arrogant to lock his office door, assuming that Molly would never dare to intrude. Unfortunately, he was wrong. She slipped in easily, the motion sensors switching on the overhead lights.

She got to work, opening all the drawers, flipping through the files, and checking under the rug. Even in the small bowl of sand that he kept as decoration. She opened the window cleaning products under the desk, and even took apart the bookshelf. Nothing incriminating. The only notable subjects were tax files and a few negative articles concerning Dr. Devont’s arguably absent morals. She was on her way out when she tripped on the same crooked tile that always got her, this time falling onto the desk. The desk’s fake bottom pulled away and there, a wrinkled paper file folder sat. The pit in her stomach came back from the faux relief stronger than ever, and she rushed to open it.

The air had been pushed out of Molly’s lungs and she sat on the cold tile floor, methodically rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her face. Eva Merebelle James had been murdered. Ms. James had always been an outspoken critic of the initiative in general, but especially Dr. Devont’s practices. He had started planning her death nearly half a year prior, when he caught wind of an investigation she had founded on the basis of exposing his practice and sending him to prison. Molly felt like her body had flown away, her only thoughts revolving around the headline that had spurred her into action that morning: “Eva James, 37, Newly Recovered Body Autopsied. Cause of Death Ruled Heart Attack.”

She shook uncontrollably. Lillian Anne James and Bennet Hastings James. They were the two children who had just been sold to the Thersons, the same two whom she had seen not twenty-four hours ago. Even the

picture she pulled up from a relative’s social media matched: their shining eyes, and tiny arms wrapped around their single mother.

Her hands dialed the police office, her blurry eyes so unfocused that she didn’t notice that her finger had slipped and typed the wrong number. They didn't pick up the first time. Or the second. Or the third. She was still dialing the phone number, again and again, until they picked up on the eleventh try. A baby cried in the background as an exasperated woman answered the phone.

“Hello? Who is this? It’s six fifty eight in the morning, what is wrong with you?”

“IS THIS THE POLICE STATION?” Molly screamed frantically. “PLEASE, I NEED THE POLICE STATION!” the woman hung up but Molly was still screaming and screaming and screaming. “THE POLICE STATION CAN'T HANG UP ON ME!” Her eyes burned with tears.

“IT'S TOO LATE! I NEED YOU TO PICK UP! PLEASE, SOMEONE DIED!”

Her voice was hoarse when someone finally answered with the last sentence she would ever hear.

“Eva James? Yes, unfortunately she had to be disposed of. I’m terribly sorry that you’re next.”