Identity Theft


		IDENTITY THEFT: Surprise Drake Wentworth didn’t have the slightest idea of what was happening. A moment before thousands of humans were greedily salivating at the prospect of a winning their bet. A second later, bullets were flying everywhere! He couldn’t see them but heard the ping or thud that announced their long-ago arrival at that killing point in time inches from him! No response was allowed except terrified relief that he was at least for another second probably still alive! The world was exploding around him triggering bedlam among the herds of people! They all scurried about into repeated collisions with each other as if every one of them was a muscle twitching uncontrollably! They looked like balls in a pinball machine. It took them several such bizarrely humorous panic-driven impacts before their minds began planning workable routes to run, dodging those still randomly bouncing. Drake Wentworth hugged the floor frantically peering about searching for causes – that hypothetical handle on the unknown that provides a chance to react purposefully to life’s surprises. But such threads of meaning to grasp were nowhere in sight. What to do? He began slithering on his belly toward the nearest door. His body had made that decision. His mind was still stunned with shock stumbling through a series of unworkable solutions. Suddenly the glass of the door ahead of him shattered splaying silicone shards in his direction! Wrong move! He turned instantly about and started slithering rapidly in the opposite direction feeling the blast’s explosion of sharp glass-pricks catch up with him gaining purchase on his suit-coat and pants, a couple of them piercing his skin! For an instant he thought he’d been shot! But his legs were still working. Why argue with success? He continued. The thud of a bullet just ahead wiped all awareness from his mind making any move folly, leaving Wentworth stunned with indecision! After several moments deafened by silence his body rolled across the room without asking him, intending to survive even if he couldn’t. It was a purposeless move sending him into a pile of glass shards digging into his arms and back, urgently tempting him to remove himself from this medieval torture by instantly standing. With will power finally given a purpose he held himself painfully, heroically in check within the field of razor-sharp knives digging into his skin. But he was at his wits end. The situation was fast turning up ‘no solution’! His brain was forced into a whirlpool of unbearable indecision! Death was stalking him close by! Without further delay he knew he had to make an intentional move. His sanity depended upon it. If he panicked, as he desperately wanted to do to escape the nails of his Indian Fakir’s bed, it would surely get him killed from panic’s precipitously random moves eventually colliding with disaster. He rolled onto his knees and leapt to a crouching position and spied the farthest-away door. With his briefcase still in hand through all of these precipitous events he began running toward that exit in as low a stance and as fast as he could. Twice he nearly fell from little-used muscles starting to fold under the superhuman strength that adrenalin had forced into the sinews of his body. For two terrifying seconds he was on the verge of becoming a human projectile about to have a head-on collision with a glass wall! Yet both times he barely managed to keep himself upright and bent over, restoring belief again to the possibility of survival. To risk such body-exposure he’d become deaf and dumb, oblivious to any sound as if by not hearing the bullet would prevent it from striking him. He became numb to any thoughts in his brain except how to keep himself moving forward most effectively. He had no thought or memory of what had just previously happened. He’d become a terror-driven blank-minded fanatic for survival. Reality broke through this carefully arranged deaf-and-dumbness with a terrible gash! A bullet grazed his left arm from behind spinning him about as much from the fear of it happening as the bullet’s impact—sending him sprawling, his body twisting him over onto his back! WHAT READERS SAY... “What happens when you lose your identity? Do you know when you’ve lost it? And suppose people start believing you’re this new person…and those people are the police investigating a major casino robbery…Don Fenn introduces the horrors of an ordinary citizen suddenly faced with this dilemma in a romantic thriller that is all too believable in a world where nothing is certain. Expect to keep turning the pages into the early hours of the morning in this gripping mystery.” —Rom Rainey, PhD., The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington “I enjoyed Identity Theft* so much that I read it straight through until 2am one morning! Thanks for your interesting writing!”* —Joyce Copenhagen, Piedmont, CA copyright© 2007, 2008 Don Fenn. All rights reserved.