“You’re lost.” Ohhhhhhh no – that was not a friendly reply. It came out ten times worse ‘cause that was the first thing she’d ever said without – like... belting it. Invisible faster, invisible faster! And yeah, that was his only hope, ‘cause the cabin got super tiny when Madeline leaned forward, enough to put her elbows on her nears, and that sucked out any room to hide. “I think you are also confused. I have never dreamed of helping you or asking for your support. Patten’s stink has only been so great on a handful of others. You’re his new prized possession, and you can’t be saved. You tell me ‘you know’ as though you weighed what you think you’re getting against what he is handing you. In my mind, I am hearing both sides of whether to give you my advice. But you know, March? Although it may sound cruel, I think I’ll learn to enjoy myself this time. Patten can pull a show from it, so why shouldn’t I?”
“Because it’s –” Great going, Gary! She was looking at him again! He had to finish talking now. “... wrong...”
“IS IT WRONG?” And there was the belting. Madeline straightened up and crossed her arms and her legs. That was doubly ticked off, he felt. “I FIND IT FUNNY. STEPHANIE MARCH, THE WONDER CHILD, PUMPED TO THE TEETH WITH LIQUID CONCENTRATRION, CLAIMS SHE THINKS CLEARER THAN SHE EVER HAS BEFORE, AND YET I KNOW SHE HAS LEFT HERSELF BLINDER THAN A BAT WITH NO HEAD.” Bats weren’t actually blind – that was a common misconception, and it sounded like she’d mixed it up when a headless chick– fat head chirp, right, he remembered, and he balled himself back up in his corner. Why didn’t she like him?! “AND A LOVER, YOU SAY?” She smiled. That wasn’t very friendly, either. “HOW CUTE. I’M SURE YOUR BOY IS EXCITED TO LOCK LIPS WITH A HOLLOWED OUT GIRL HE HELPED DRAG FROM HER HOME AFTER STALKING HER FOR HOWEVER MANY WEEKS HE’S BEEN ON THE JOB. IT ALMOST MAKES ME GLAD ERIC’S LATCHED ONTO YOU. WHEN YOU WAKE UP AND SEE YOU HAVE NOTHING LEFT, HE CAN KEEP YOU DISTRACTED BY LETTING YOU KILL FOR HIM.” The closer she got to the end of that sentence, the darker her face had gone. She was in 100% scowl-mode, and she used it to add a mean, “YOU KNOCKED ONE OFF ALREADY. GOOD FOR YOU. IT MADE A MESS OF MY FLOOR.”
H-hey! Come on! Quit it! This was the worst timing ever to be picking a fight! Stephanie wasn’t giving him any clue about what she was thinking, and if Jason wasn’t here, well... well – it was up to him to watch out for! That meant he had to make sure there wasn’t a fight at five million feet, and because Stephanie had ended her first one – the one at the Charlton place – really specifically and because Eric – Eric Patten, the one they were talking about – had said all that – okay, he head to be joking, ‘cause he was an A-1 and he wouldn’t really let Madeline get tossed out a window – then Gary had to get into the middle of everything to take the heat off. Look over here, everybody! Everyone laugh at the fat guy! Then they could joke and have a good giggle, and maybe they weren’t gonna be doing each other’s hair in a month – well, they could if they laughed really hard – but the point was just to make it to Elmira. So... take a breath, Gary! He was going in!
“Jason will – uh...” No, no, he was not backing down on this one. Keep the peace, people! Why was everyone always at each other’s throats? Was it him? ‘Cause he hadn’t seen any of the kissy love that’d led up to the face masching in the people room, so either he had some hilariously bad timing or he just brought a world of terrible news wherever he went. Either one of those... sucked, basically. But he’d figure it out later! “She’ll have Jason! Jason is going to be there.” For sure. Definitely!
“CERTAINLY,” she said, totally not agreeing. “FOR AS LONG AS SHE HAS HIM BEFORE PATTEN PICKS HIM UP. HE’S IMPORTANT NOW. MARCH MADE HIM IMPORTANT.”
Pick Jason up? Why? Jason was cool, but didn’t he get demoted? And wasn’t he losing his suit?
“I don’t get –”
“‘LOVER’.” She didn’t laugh that time. Her eyes were glued to Stephanie’s unreadable ones. “IF YOU CALL HIM THAT IN FRONT OF ME, THEN PATTEN HAS KNOWN FOR AGES.”
Yeah... And Gary had been thinking. Jason had been left behind, right? There were a lot of ultra-complicated-mega-strategy-top-Agent points for it, and Eric seemed really cool about it, but Agency relationships... It wasn’t like they weren’t allowed! Half the org’ had gotten together after one job or another. Three-quarters of them were practically family by blood by now, and here was how he’d met his fluffy DiDi. For all the lectures and griping and rules about ‘hands off’, he knew from the gossip and from the weddings he’d eagerly jumped to made their bosses sound a lot like they were quietly encouraging a little of the light hand holing from behind the scenes. It did make it easier to find people to work for them later, and it had grown a few super soldiers in process. The best sneaky people came from other sneaky people, and it wasn’t like they could grab Pain Eaters and Frontliners and other guys-who-did-so-much-they-might-as-well-have-powers-but-amazingly-didn’t-which-made-them-more-incredible Agent stars from off the street. It was the on-the-job stuff that got tricky. The people in charge didn’t hate anything like they hated a mission going south, so a bit of him wondered if Jason hadn’t gotten left behind because... Eric made this sound very important...
“Mr. Patten didn’t want them together, huh,” Gary said, trying not to sound hugely bummed out.
“ARE YOU STUPID? ERIC COULD NOT BE HAPPIER ABOUT THOSE TWO,” Madeline spat. “CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE PROVEN THAT YOU FEAR EVERY POSSIBLE ANGLE YOU HAVE NO REASON TO, AND IN TURN LET YOURSELVES NEGLECT WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE GUARDED AGAINST. I TAKE IT BACK. I CAN’T ENJOY THIS. I THOUGHT YOU HAD BEEN PULLED TO YOUR END, MARCH, NOT SPRINTED TO IT.”
“What does that mean?” What did that mean?
Okay – whoa – Madeline was not allowed to look so mad about having to explain stuff if she was gonna be mysterious about it. They didn’t know what she knew! And from the way she spoke, she knew a helluva lot. He wanted to ask if it was all from practise, but she might smack him for it, and he didn’t want to mess up such a nice helicopter by getting teeth everywhere. Would she ever do that? Had she ever done it? If Stephanie could put her hand through someone else, it made a little sense to think that Madeline knew how to knock a few teeth out with a good slap.
Too much chirping?
“DOG,” she said. “COME HERE.” Come... where – come over? To her? She was looking at him, so... yeah, he guessed that was what she wanted. He shuffled to her, and a teeny bit more obviously afraid than he should’ve been, he waited for her to – “OPEN YOUR MOUTH.” Open his what now? “STICK OUT YOUR TONGUE.”
Well, he’d had worse orders. One time, he’d really gotten an A-7 mad, and he had – tongue out! See? Tongue out, no head chirps, no more – “OW!”
“AWAY FROM ME.” Then she wiped her fingers on the couch ‘cause she’d – just... she’d pinched his tongue! She’d pinched it! Was there any blood or...? Well, no, but it stung a lot. Gary shuffled back to where he’d been, really hurt and sad. “IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD. IF I CONTINUE TO HEAR YOUR VOICE, I AM GOING TO POISON YOU.”
He’d heard that one before. He just wished this time it wasn’t from someone who could actually get away with it. He had an anniversary to plan!
“Sorry, Agent Bergmann –”
“WHAT DID I JUST SAY?”
sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry
“WITH ALL YOUR TALKING, I CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU HAVEN’T HAD HIM EXPLAIN ALREADY,” she told them. “THAT IS HOW HE WORKS, MARCH.” Just Stephanie? ‘Cause he was the one asking and all... “YOU BEGAN HIS GAME THE MINUTE YOU FIRST SPOKE TO HIM. LET ME TELL YOU THE RULES I TOOK FIVE YEARS TO UNDERSTAND: THE MORE HE KNOWS A PERSON, THE DEEPER INTO HIS WEB THEY ARE, THE MORE HONEST HE IS ABOUT EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING.”
“Why?”
Weird. His tongue felt kind’f rubbery. He stuck it out again, ‘cause maybe that pinch was doing it. Aw man, why’d she have to pinch him? He hadn’t been trying to talk that much, he was just curious!
“BECAUSE HE THINKS IT’S FUNNY,” she explained. “HE LIKES IT. HE ONLY STEPS FORWARD WHEN IT GAINS HIM IN SOME WAY AND PERSONAL ENTERTAINMENT – FROM EGO STROKING ABOUT HOW SMART HE IS – IS AT THE TOP OF HIS LIST. IT’S HIS GUIDING MOTIVATION! IT’S WHY HE’S SO UNBEARABLY STUPID!” She’d put a lot of thought into this. Gary wasn’t sure what to think. His tongue was distracting him, sort of, so maybe that was throwing him off. “HE ANSWERS EVERY QUESTION BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE’LL NEVER BE ASKED THE RIGHT ONE. HE PRIDES HIMSELF ON SEEING HOW LONG IT TAKES TO SOLVE HIS RIDDLE, AND ONLY TODAY HAVE I SOLVED MINE. THE ONE LIE HE EVER FED TO ME – THE SMALLEST, SIMPLEST, MOST INCONSPICUOUS OF TALES – DEFINED EVERYTHING HE HAS EVER SAID TO ME AND DONE.” Gary was going back into his ball. It was safer trying to hide. Madeline was getting worked up about this and he didn’t like it. His tongue was floppy. “THAT IS WHAT HE HAS BEEN DOING TO YOU. HE LIED ONCE, TOLD THE TRUTH EVER SINCE, AND NOW HE WANTS TO SEE HOW FAR HE CAN TAKE IT BEFORE LETTING IT CONSUME YOU. I’D SAY WITH YOU, IT’S OBVIOUS. HE PICKS THE GAME THAT SUITS THE PLAYER, AND YOU, HIS IRREPLACABLE STEPHANIE, WANT TO BE SOMEONE ELSE. THE SMELL OF DESPERATION IS INESCAPABLE. LISTEN TO SOMEONE WHO HAS LIVED THROUGH IT: THIS IS WHAT HE IS AIMING FOR. YOU WANT TO BE HER, BUT HE WANTS TO MAKE YOU NO ONE. HE WANTS YOU TO FOLLOW AS A SLAVE, NOT AN EQUAL, AND HE WANTS YOU TRAPPED AND STRIPPED OF WHAT MAKES YOU WHO YOU ARE. YOUR LIFELESS HEART WILL BE IN HIS HAND UNTIL THE DAY YOU TURN TO DUST. THERE IS ONLY ONE OTHER PERSON I KNOW OF WHO ALREADY FILLS THAT ROLE, AND SHE HAS NO NAME BEYOND THE PET NAME HE GAVE HER. THAT WILL BE YOU, MARCH. WHY CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THAT IS GOING TO BE YOU?” Then she shook her head, like she couldn’t believe what she was saying. “I’M WASTING MY BREATH. I TELL YOU YOU’LL BE A SLAVE, AND ALL YOU MUST HEAR IS HOW ONLY ONE OTHER PERSON EVER MADE IT THAT FAR.” She had her hand in her pocket. A moment later, she had her phone out again, and once more, she was leaning forward, offering it to woman across from her. Gary curled out of his ball to watch with giant eyes. “YOU WON’T BELIEVE ME BECAUSE IT’S MY WORD AGAINST HIS. HE IS PROMISING YOU THE WORLD, BUT HE IS WORKING TO BE YOUR WORLD AND YOU’RE HALFWAY THERE. SO CALL HIM. ASK HIM. PIN HIM TO THE WALL. DEMAND AN ANSWER AND KNOW IT’S THE TRUTH BECAUSE HE THINKS YOU’RE TOO DEDICATED TO EVER QUESTION YOUR PLACE.”
Didn’t she say she wasn’t gonna help?
“Uh thuht you wurn gonna help.” His tongue was numb! “Uh... Ay-jun Buh-muhn? Ay-jun Buh-muhn, Uh can feel muh thungue.”
“I KNOW. THAT’S THE POINT.” She frowned at him. It softened when she brought it over to Stephanie, but it stayed put. “IT WON’T HELP YOU. WHEN YOU HEAR IT FROM HIM, IT WILL DESTROY YOU. THAT IS THE POINT. I THINK YOU’RE FOOLISH, MARCH, BUT I DON’T HATE YOU. I SIMPLY CAN’T AFFORD ANOTHER TO JOIN HIS RANKS. EITHER YOU PULL THE TRIGGER NOW OR HE PULLS IT FOR YOU, BUT NO MATTER WHAT YOU CHOOSE, YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE. I ONLY WANT IT OVER BEFORE HE GETS WHAT HE WANTS.” She shook her phone. “CALL HIM. HEAR WHAT HE HAS TO SAY. TELL ME HE’S YOUR ‘MASTER’ AFTER THAT.”
* * *
His heart hurt. Jason woke up.
He knew what it meant.
Jason was an embarrassment. He’d collapsed in a pathetic pile when his lead had needed him the least, and he’d still been surprised she wasn’t here. He was a moron. She had her target and Eric’s blessing to reach Elmira and take the last steps she would ever as the woman he knew. She’d trained for this, waited for it, and Alexander was bearing down on them, threatening to take Stewart away. He was nothing less than incompetent for expecting anything else, much less her hovering around while he scraped himself from the floor. How could he demand that? As far as she knew, she’d given him what he wanted. He’d spent 80% of this case at her side and had done nothing but fail her and try to resign. If he didn’t try to catch her, he could let himself pretend he’d collapsed on purpose to free his lead from him. He should’ve wanted that anyway. It was the professional thing to do, and it was the right thing to do on top of it. What’d happened between them no longer had a side. What she’d started, he’d returned, and he’d done it without a clue about what was supposed to happen or how he planned to live with it later. It’d led to him somehow stringing her along, and he’d hurt her enough with it already. She was doing things alone, and whether it’d been infatuation or being as insane as everyone made it sound, it’d be easier to shake it he stood aside before she made the switch. He couldn’t help her and he was required to come to terms with this, because as incapable of anything else as he was, he could give her the one thing she’d been searching for through the chaos of this case: a clean break, a chance to start over, and peace of mind he refused to wreck because he wouldn’t be with her.
His heart also hurt because someone had stabbed him.
A blast of steel had shredded through his body, ripping through his chest and flooding him with pain. His body seized as an unforgivable current jolted to every end of him, screaming as his veins shook and tried to burst. Jason roared in a gasp for air and felt his lungs tear as they collapsed and ballooned, whipping his arms as he blindly scratched to grab something – anything –
“Come on, Jason. You’re okay.” Eric! Eric, Eric, that was Eric! “It’s just adrenaline.” Why was he giving him adrenaline? “I need you on your feet, kiddo. Try to slow it down with those breaths, alright?”
“W-wh–”
Jason was drowning. Jason was dying. His jaw was spasming too hard for him to put a word together.
“Easy there. Think slow thoughts.” If he hadn’t been feeling each of his nerves explode, or if a massive shudder hadn’t crushed his collarbone as it squeezed his shoulders to powder, he would have been reassured by the sound of the A-1’s voice. Then it left him, moving over as the man started talking to someone Jason could only hear because his eyes were open but he couldn’t see. “Don’t mind me! Just act like I’m not even here! You silly ducks go on with your respecting-Agency-personnel-guidelines fun!”
His mind was crackling with blood. The noise of energy drilled at his ears. He couldn’t get away from it, couldn’t move couldn’t run couldn’t hide, and his gashed thoughts could only pull together long enough to understand Eric was hanging onto him to keep him hurling himself off whatever they’d put him on before it exploded in horror because he couldn’t feel the rest of his body. The suit! The suit was choking him! It wanted him out, it wanted him dead, he’d fucking lost everything.
“Wh-when did she go?”
His throat was raw and it was weeping with his blood and sweat and tears and his skin was shaving off in rusted squares of flesh – “A second ago. How’re you feeling?” Withdrawal. It had to be and it was slaughtering him and his bones were crumbling as the suit strangled and strangled and strangled and strangled. “Can you get up?”
Jason couldn’t move.
“Help –”
His body screeched again. Eric had propped him up more gently than any person should have managed, but his hands felt like iron and this was death. Everything he’d wanted was being taken away and Jason felt it centred on the spot the needle had plunged through.
“Hmmmmm.” Jason could hardly hear him, but he tried. He had to force his senses home. He had to. He had to breathe. “I’m gonna give you something else.”
“Wh...” Talk, dammit! “W-what?”
“Can’t give you the good stuff or it’ll shock your system and kill you,” Eric pleasantly pointed out. “What a company we work for! You can’t use their medicine unless you already haven’t used it!” He was fine with adrenaline he didn’t need any more!
“I can’t,” he panted hoarsely. “I can’t – have any –”
“Pish posh.” Jason nearly collapsed when Eric let him go and headed for the counter and the cupboards overheard. He could barely make them out, and even less of the closet beside them. Two of the cupboards were locked, but the third swung free and he, in his delirium, could swear he felt a gentle breeze. Eric immediately rooted through it. “I know, I know. You’re all about saying no to drugs and I’m very proud of your dedication, but time’s a-wastin’! We’ve got guests coming, Jay-jay!”
The back of his eyes were frayed and his pulse was beating in his teeth. Something, his body begged. He couldn’t.
“Sir,” he rasped.
“Butter Juice!” He’d found something. He turned around and shone like an angel, walking back with a tiny glass bottle in his fingers. It would have fit neatly in Quin’s palm. In the Flunky’s, it looked like a thimble. “See? No problem!”
“Sir, I can’t!” The adrenaline was pulling into him, almost like it was settling down. If he focused harder... “I can’t.”
“We give this stuff to children, Jason.” Where was... This was the sick bay, wasn’t it? This was – “It’s like a liquid band-aid. For your brains. Through your neck.”
Butter Juice made a person smell butter while they were on it. He’d admit there were worse things – real things – to be offered, but his hands had clenched as soon as they’d heard the name. Kids’ stuff or not, he wasn’t taking anything. He’d come this far clean and he wouldn’t throw it away because it was all he had left. All.
... But this case... had brought on a lot of other firsts...
“No.” And Eric couldn’t make him. “No. No.”
“Jason,” Eric said, sounding patient but restless. “You look awful.”
He looked awful?! That was... what – that was the excuse?
“I know I look fucking awful,” he raged, immediately consumed by a hate for everything he couldn’t fucking do. “Stephanie is gone, I’m losing my suit, I couldn’t get my fucking target back after I lost her to some kid telling me shit and I don’t know why, I’m demoted, I’m going to die in two months –” If he lived that fucking long at all! “– and now I’m supposed to fight fucking Alexander for the third damn time when I can’t even stand and he’s not even my fucking case! He’s going to kill me, Eric, just because he can, but any other fucking person on this planet could see how fucking ‘awful’ I look and spare my life because they know I’m too fucking inferior to waste time with and that’s not the worst fucking part!” He was screaming in the face of an A-1 and he couldn’t give a shit about how easy it’d be for Eric to put all five of Jason’s limbs in wildly separate rooms. The man had on a face he should have been paying more attention to: quizzical and studious, like he wasn’t exactly sure if he was supposed to be as entertained as he blatantly was. He seemed to want to hear what Jason had to say, not because of what he was getting across, but because of how he was, thoroughly impressed by the audacity Jason had to make it this far. Jason had to quit while he was alive. It wasn’t like he knew where he stood in Eric’s eyes. Benoit had the best idea of what he could get away with, but he hadn’t been offering lessons and Jason learned by seeing how other people worked in the same situation, and Frenchie wasn’t dumb enough to ever cross the secret, jagged line Eric seemed to always move around. Benoit was allowed to openly resent him; Quin, meanwhile, got strung up by his neck, after he’d brought Gwen Stewart to them. Jason would have to assume Eric saying he looked ill meant he was being pitied. It was better than nothing, so it would have to do, because he couldn’t stop at being stupid and useless. He had to be selfish and remember that Eric had said he could go. If the A-1 had given him more time to think about what he was doing, maybe he could have accepted his fate... “Something is wrong with her. She’s tough – you said she was tough – but she’s been pushing her limits this entire time. I was part of what was helping her! And now I need your help to get to Elmira before she transfers and disappears!”
“‘Disappears’?”
Eric was asking honestly, as he always was, as he always did, yet again genuinely intrigued by the notion that some effect would be triggered to tear Jason’s lead apart and had decided to press for more information. Jason should have been paying attention to that too, but he’d leave it for another day. If he could use whatever quasi-friendship Stephanie had built up with the A-1, he would, but simply knowing that made him feel as if he’d slid onto thin ice. This was not trying to turn information against someone. It was trying to find common enough ground to get Eric on board. He couldn’t save her alone.
“... I don’t know,” he admitted. “She’s been getting close to some edge. Whatever’s happening, it’s getting worse.”
“You’re not inspiring a lot of confidence.”
Shit.
“She can do this,” he said quickly. “Eric, you can trust her. You do trust her because you’ve been helping her, too! She’s done everything to get this case to where it is and she’s dedicated to a fault, but that’s why I need to get to her. She’ll destroy herself in the Agency’s name, in your name, and I’m the only one who can stop that.”
“Exactly what are you planning to do, Jason?”
“I –” No. Wait. “I...” ... Wait... “... What do you mean?”
He’d asked to stall. Jason felt alert. Sick, woozy, ready to fall to pieces, but alert, and it let him feel a shift he hadn’t felt before. Eric didn’t move or change, and Jason could only see joy in his eyes and hear an ocean of warmth in his voice. But something was different. Eric was watching him now.
“If you were with her,” the A-1 rephrased, “what would change about the situation? What’re you bringing to the table she can’t make this transfer without?”
It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t a reprimand. He tried to sense it. A challenge?
“Whatever she needs,” he answered. “I’ll help whatever way I can.”
“Okay. And you expect the plane she’s on – helicopter, jetpack, I forget what she took – to turn around and get you?”
Innocent. Friendly. An entire level was swimming underneath those words.
“When she arrives in Charlton –”
“You want her to wait?” Eric’s eyebrows raised a little. His glasses took on a shine Jason had to squint against. The light of it brought a stunning sense of clarity, reminding him of what had happened, why he was here and she wasn’t. She’d already been given a choice to wait. He’d already said staying behind was best for her. “You’ve been talking a lot about your skills, Jay-jay. I haven’t seen any of them. Every mistake that’s been made so far has been directly linked to something you did. Alexander, the goggles, Elmira... Now you have a chance to redeem yourself because your lead gave you a direct order to assist somewhere else, you’re not just throwing it back in her face, but you’re trying to convince me to send you to the only person you’ve been successfully and systematically hacking apart.” ... He wasn’t. She’d asked for him before... “She says she’s waiting on Benny’s word that Xander’ll be handled before she moves on. I’m giving you my word that he’s been handled.”
“You can’t promise that!”
“Really? You’re gonna go with that?” Eric rolled his eyes. “I’ll let you in on what I can’t do, Jason: I can’t afford to let you go anywhere with a damn, damn good reason. You’re a mess, she’s a mess, you’re both a little messy, but like you cleverly pointed out, I trust her. More than you. She’s playing her part divinely and I couldn’t be prouder of what she’s accomplished. You, on the other hand, brought this all the way to Charlton. And now back to Elmira.”
Jason’s eyes had fallen to his feet as he sat up on the sick bay’s bed, crippled. What Eric was saying... It wasn’t careless. There was a reason for it. The man wanted a reaction he wouldn’t get because Jason felt himself collapsing in a new way. His will was failing him. As it ran down to fumes, he thought to ask one last thing, just able to muster the interest to care about the answer: “Am I really better off fighting Alexander?”
“No. But he’ll be here in forty minutes. Butter Juice’ll take the sting off of things. Barely – but... y’know.” He sighed loudly, humming at the end of it, and then he turned and abruptly headed for the door. “Well – this was disappointing!”
“... I’m going.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going,” Jason said. He refused to look up. Carefully, he brought his weight off the locked arms he’d been using to keep him off the bed, balancing to get ready to put his feet on the ground. A feeling of desperation had come over him. It was from the final threads of prowess he’d used to get his reputation in the first place. He’d put his duty to his lead before everything else, and even if it killed him – three times, it almost had – it was why he’d been so strongly recommended for this assignment. Everything he’d heard through the snippets he had about her old life... He wasn’t like the others she’d worked with. Alright, so he was likely as useless as the others Alexander had torn through and he knew he fell under Quin based on what’d been happening, he was persistent as fuck and he’d walk if he had to. He owed it to her. “I’ll drop off my suit when I get there.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe he’s serious,” Eric said. “She’s got a solid head start on you, Jay-jay.”
“I know. I’ll call her.”
“On what phone?”
... She’d left hers behind a while ago, before they’d even got on the plane. If she had a new one, he couldn’t get it. Such a high-level request meant two weeks of clearance checking and security analysis.
“Elmira’s,” he said. “I’ll call ahead.”
“Good thinking, good thinking,” Eric carolled. “And if she fails to get the message?”
“A fresh transfer takes hours to complete,” Jason worked out. “If she left a second ago, I can make it. I can talk to her while they’re scanning her mind.”
“There also tends to be a lockdown of the building a transfer’s happening in,” Eric noted. “If the transfer’s started and there’s no door to get through...”
“I’ll crawl in through the window.” He was being sarcastic, because Elmira didn’t have windows. “I’ll figure something out when I’m there!”
“Or I could give you this.” Jason heard rustling. Eric’s wonder-coat had brought out more forms. He stepped over with them, and smiling ten times wider than a minute ago, and politely handed them over. Jason took them half-warily. They didn’t explode when they were in his hands, so he accepted it as a sign that they were safe to leaf through. “You ever hear of Doctor Li?”
“No.”
These were access forms. These were golden tickets to getting around.
“You will. Once you get there, just ask for her. She’ll be the frown-y one who thinks everyone’s an idiot – close and trusted ally of yours truly, nearly a woman of my heart if she didn’t think I was an idiot, too. Those skinny arms would stick a sword through anyone’s head who asked to hang around when this thing happens,” Eric explained, “but I’m thinking she might make an excuse for you if you give her those.”
“I don’t understand.” Every access code and every sign off. Watching a transfer was not a free event. For all the hanging around Gary was doing, Jason knew he wouldn’t actually be let inside. But Eric had put... What the hell? “What are these?”
“Demotion forms.”
And one of the signatures of it was smudged.
“You’re giving me these?”
“To do with as you please,” Eric whistled. “A-6s don’t get suits.”
“But you demoted me!” He was holding these forms. He was holding them. “I lost my target! That kid!”
“Actually, I made you sign the papers to demote you, and I, having hired very lazy help – Squiddie – never got around to processing those. I’m not carryin’ ‘em around all day – what’re you, nuts? These pockets are full enough already! As for letting Gwen go – oh, don’t worry! Somewhere, there’s definitely an A-2’s trying to kill you with his brains. Protocol is extremely strict, Jason,” Eric said. “I think it’s safe to say your rep is shot, and I still can’t believe you actually did that back there! Little Nathan was so dirty and... Australian!”
“But then why –” He wasn’t complaining! He wasn’t – he – just... He didn’t get it!
“You bombed an A-3’s assignment, but you delivered on an A-1’s.” Eric squeezed his cheek. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell Xander. He’s gonna be pretty mad on his own without letting that slip.”
... This was impossible, but the documents were in his hands.
“I can go?”
“You can go,” Eric said. “I said you could before you passed out. And then I never said I changed my mind – you assumed that.”
... What the fuck?!
“You could’ve said something!”
“I like letting people figure it out on their own,” Eric told him. “Don’t you feel empowered now? Plus, I stand by what I asked: what were you planning to do when you got there? Stephie’s head is in a good place thanks to some liquid gold, but it doesn’t last forever, right? I’m not having you mess things up by playing the ‘oh, gee, don’t know if I like her yet’ game right in front of her. Also, you’re a present.”
Jason’s heart was pounding again. For once, he embraced the feeling.
“Why am I a present?”
“She’s worked ridiculously hard and she has pushed her limits, so I’m sending you over since you finally seem more willing and able...” Eric instantly brought himself up short. “Not that I’m suggesting anything! But she enjoys your company. Even if you don’t make it on time, I think she deserves to at least know you’re trying to get to her, and not because I told you to. In fact, you told me – geez. Way to hurt my feelings, Jason! Ooh – be sure to mention that! She’ll like it!”
“Sorry,” he said, distracted, feeling lightheaded as he tried to put this all together. “But... Eric – you’re serious about this?”
“Right now, you’re the one who’s not doing everything he can to get on a plane.” Shit, he was right. Jason started trying to get off the bed. “Okay, okay, hold on, cowboy! You’re more messed up than she is, Mr. Fainty!”
“Butter Juice is kids’ stuff?”
“Well – yeah –” Eric seemed surprised. “Are you actually taking it? I was kind of saving it for if you failed and I had to stick you in the face to get you ready for Alex.”
... ‘Failed’.
This had been a test.
“You were expecting me to fail?”
“I always plan for the worst-case scenario,” Eric said, “but I was sure you’d be all, ‘love? What is love? I must not call love ‘love’ and then go to her and pretend that it’s not love some more because that never gets old, ever’. I had strong grounds to have faith in you. You tried to throw your suit at me twice. After trying to sneak both of them by me.”
“Eric,” Jason said, clearing his head to have room for this. “... Are you... trying to set me up with Stephanie?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What – why?”
“You two are so cute together,” the A-1 giggled. “And I really have to make sure she lasts long enough to actually show up to Elmira, ready to transfer at a second’s notice. Drugs don’t last forever, but love goes on for extra-squishy-special length of time! Seriously, you weren’t kidding about helping her. I dunno if you’re the best in the universe, but you’re the best in the world, so... go to her, my child! Fly, fly! And please don’t collapse again.”
Jason had his suit back. He wasn’t doing anything like that.
“The Butter Juice,” he said. “What’s in it?” He didn’t research ‘kid stuff’.
“Fennel... lith... Chemistry? And science? Chemistry and science!”
“Phenethylamine,” Jason said. “You’re giving me chocolate.”
“And science! I said it wasn’t a problem,” Eric shrugged. “But it goes in your neck. It’s like an energy drink. Red Bull, only less than that. A lot less. Like... I could just give you coffee and some other chemically stuff...”
Jason rolled the back of his collar down. It felt sore.
“Go for it. I’m going to need it to get on the plane. You’re letting me take a plane, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll get a car for you. Call Elmira on the way, I’ll try to get in touch with Di Fuhrer again – probably throw more French at her.” Eric paused. “I really think I might be a pimp. Darn it, Benny – why’d you put that in my head? Anyway, here’s a needle.” Eric seemed to have had way too much practise with one. “... You seriously don’t have to take it. They have coffee at Elmira –”
“I need to get to Elmira first,” Jason said.
“Okay.” Poke. “There ya go. How’s it feel to be a druggie now?”
“Is this addictive?”
“Depending on your opinion of butter.”
“I’ll be fine,” Jason assured him.
“Great! Then I’ve gotta go. This was stop four on my tour of Madeline’s kingdom and I’ve got – like... tons to do to get ready.”
Eric tossed the needle away and waltzed to the door, pausing to pat Quin – Quin? – on the head. The tiny Agent was enough of a distraction for Jason to come close to missing out gratefully, “Eric? Thank you.”
“Don’t mess this up, Jay-jay! Woo her! Appropriately! Within the bounds of basic hygiene – I’m trusting you to figure out whatever the hell that means. And show Benny the tape before you go!”
He hadn’t stopped walking. In under a second, Eric was gone to float around a different room of the base.
A test. That’s what this had been. All of this had been some... elaborate... overdone test. And he’d passed it.
Jason had done something right.
* * *
This shit had to stop. It wouldn’t, because everyone in this thing sucked. Everyone who worked for her sucked. She was going to kill everyone who sucked who wasn’t already dead and then she’d dig up their graves – they weren’t getting graves – she’d kick over their urns – socks! They were getting socks! She was burning them alive and sticking their ashes in socks and burning that alive and flinging whatever was left into an ash pit so they could sit there forever and blow around which’d be great ‘cause it’d give them a break from sucking! She was coming close to having a panic attack. There was a tic – a tiny tic, twitching constantly – on her cheek. It making her mental and she was waiting for the one excuse she needed to go berserk...
Her phone rang. She picked it up. She read it.
“GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!”
So in ran Dalton, freaking out because he’d heard her scream, and that twitchy asshole couldn’t ever just fucking knock like a normal person!
“Danielle?”
“Why the fuck is Breton dead? When the fuck did he die?”
Dalton had a choice. He chose to look confused. Dalton had made the wrong choice. She whipped her phone in his face. It went through his head. That wasn’t helpful.
“A few days ago, Danielle,” Dalton said. “We told you.”
“OH MY GOD, you did not tell me! I would know if you told me!” Dalton had another choice. He kept his ugly mouth shut. She almost regretted chucking her phone at his face, but then she remembered why she’d thrown it and applauded her decision. “So what does this mean? What does this mean?”
“I don’t know, Danielle,” he stammered. “I guess we – just... move on.”
“Dalton, I wish I had enough things on my desk to throw at you. You’ll notice it’s all along the walls right now. That’s because I never get to hit you with anything because you always hog the transparency. But do you know why I keep throwing things at you, despite its blatant futility from your power hogging?”
“... ‘Cause you’re a bitch?”
“Mom told you to stop calling me that!”
“... Then stop?”
Stop. Stop. Sure – ‘cause she had elevated levels of stress. That happened when she had to drag around two people. Not that he cared. He couldn’t stop hogging the fucking transparency, so her best bet was to stop.
“Dalton.” His ugly mouth was shut again. “Do you know why I’m upset about this?”
“Because he died and you think we didn’t tell you,” Dalton said.
“Because he did two things for me, Dalton,” she said, spelling it out for her idiot sidekick. “He kept tabs on Elias, and he gave us Lamarre. You know what we don’t have now that he’s dead?”
“I’m not answering a rhetorical question.”
“Guess what we lost, Dalton!”
“In someone’s defence,” Dalton incorrectly responded. “Don’t pick the desk up. You aren’t that strong. In someone’s defence, Lamarre was never really on our side. He just wasn’t calling Breton out. We didn’t lose anything. And Elias is around. Buzzy’ll find him. It’s the only thing she’s good for.”
Dalton was right. Buzzy would know. Where the fuck was she and why wasn’t she here? Why had nobody told her this shit had been going on? Everyone in this camp sucked!
“She better be out there, Dalton,” Danielle said, stomping through her crummy grey tent and out the flap to hit the field. What the fuck – it was night now? They’d agreed it was gonna be a daylight strike! Oh – Bergmann was going down for this, unless stupid ugly Dalton hadn’t told her something else! So apologies to Bergmann – God damn it, Dalton! She did not have the blood pressure for this! This field was wet now, too! Morning dew was supposed to be in the morning, or was that another thing that’d been left out?! “Scissor!”
Scissor was sitting by the campfire, roasting some crap she’d be having for dinner. He looked over at her, awaiting orders. Excellent plan of action!
“What’s up, Danielle?”
“ Did you know Breton died?”
“Yeah, Danielle. We came right to you with it.”
EVERYONE WAS A GODDAMN LIAR!
“Could you trust me on this? I’m telling you, you were told,” Dalton said.
She probably had been told. Scissor wouldn’t lie to her. If Dalton would stop hogging the transparency, she could rest enough to get some damn short-term to long-term memory going!
“We’re switching tonight, Dalton. Ten damn days? I can’t even remember what I ate yesterday!” She marched down the hill, almost slid down it, then walked heavily around until she gave up and turned to the ugly one. “I don’t see her.”
“Danielle!” It was Scissor again. She turned around. “Cryptic called you.”
“When?”
“A second ago. He left a message – said he didn’t want to talk to you ‘cause he knows you didn’t switch so you’re probably PMSing all over the place.” FUCK. CRYPTIC. “He says Madeline’s heading to Elmira. We’re one step closer to a go-ahead.”
Heading to Elmira?
“Tell me you at least remember that,” Dalton said.
“Shut up, Dalton!”
“You don’t remember.” Dalton was astounded. “Danielle, I think we should switch. That’s two days you don’t know about. A lot happened.”
“We’re one step closer to a go-ahead, Dalton. I can’t switch. I have to be here to fight.” Two days were gone? That was two days worth of switching. Dalton should be crazy they were gonna get to pop around a building and beat Patten’s fucked up army to a pulp! If she switched now, she was wasting precious energy! “Just give me the Cliff Notes. Where’s Buzzy?”
“I don’t think you wanna talk to Buzzy now,” Dalton said. “You’re gonna be in for something big.”
“How big?”
“Let’s just switch.” Stupid ugly ghost, floating around the air like that! They would switch when she said they would switch! They had not gone through all this – she had not gone through all this – just to give it up now! They got Bergmann’s signal? The Charlton base was theirs. And that she remembered. Ha, ha! “Danielle, things have changed...”
“Cliff Notes, Dalton!”
Where was Buzzy?!
“Breton’s dead.” Yeah – laugh it up, asshole! She knew that one, even if someone hadn’t gotten around to tell her. “That happened in Elmira.”
“What happened in Elmira?” Oh. My. God. “Why was Elmira just mentioned? What the fuck is going on in Elmira?”
“Oh boy.” Dalton got in front of her and put his dumb hands on her shoulders. She couldn’t even feel it – what a pointless gesture! “Danielle. I told you all of this as it happened. Scissor told you all of this as it happened. CryShadow and Heat Storm put literal papers in your hands documenting everything, and you, four days ago, as it was going on, and you still had the capacity to think with a level head, took it like a trooper, and like the leader you are, you explained – point for point – why none of it, except for the Lamarre thing, was likely going to hurt us in the long run.”
She scowled. She scowled – she really did – and she scowled hard.
“Spit it out, Dalton.”
“Alexander got mixed up with another case and now he’s loose in Charlton. Before you go crazy – wait – before you crazy –”
“WHERE THE FUCK IS BUZZY?!”
Everyone around the camp scattered, ‘cause they knew she was just gagging to break someone open like piñata. She’d fucking do it – ten days! Her fists were like titanium and they were going right up someone’s ass –
“Patten is also in Charlton.” She stopped walking. “That’s probably why Bergmann isn’t.”
“... Patten’s here?”
“He is here.”
She pointed.
“He’s in that building?”
“He is in that building,” Dalton confirmed.
“I think me’n’Buzzy are gonna have to have a talk.”
“We don’t know what he’s up to and we don’t know where he came from,” Dalton said, “but until we hear from Madeline, we’re forced to assume the worst.”
The worst, the worst. She’d had it with the worst. The camp was calming down again. Why couldn’t she be calm? The second this fight was over, her and Dalton were switching, and then he could be the crazy one who stomped around – there she was! Stupid twit, just sitting on a rock and staring at that stupid fucking building they were gonna trash anyway so she didn’t know why the dumb girl wanted to keep looking at it, like she was gonna get attached!
“What’s the worst, Dalton?”
“That he knows absolutely everything we’re –”
“Shut up. Patten’s retarded.”
“Yeah, you said that,” Dalton informed her. “That’s one of the reasons we’re still going through with this, even though there’s Agents running around in there being directly led by him.”
“Patten’s too stupid to lead anybody.” She whipped around and looked at that dumb ghost. “I’m not scared of that dumbass. If he’s here, then fuck yes! I get to kill him for the twenty-seventh time! You think he’d be sick of it by now!”
“I think he enjoys it,” Dalton said. “I think he likes knowing you can’t really kill him.”
“Not yet, but this is damn fucking close. Damn close, sir! Hit ‘im where it hurts!” She might not be calm, but she felt a lot happier! “BUZZY.”
Buzzy jumped a foot in the air and dropped the computer she’d been holding ‘cause she was stupid.
“Danielle! I didn’t hear you coming!”
“Bullshit. Everyone hears me. Quit it with your wet dream and tell me why the fuck is Elias here?”
“She looks stupid when she does those eyes,” Dalton said. Those were the correct words to describe this. “Tell her I said she looks stupid.”
“Dalton says you look stupid. You look stupid, Buzzy.”
“I don’t care,” Buzzy said, swooning. Like an idiot. “He’s here, Danielle!”
“Oh, my God, you are so messed up.”
“Tell her to google Stockholm Syndrome.”
“Dalton says to google Stockholm Syndrome,” Danielle said. “Why is he here, Buzzy, you stupid kid?”
“I think he’s going to transfer!”
She said it all breathy like that was a good thing, in her annoying, bubbly, high-pitched, diabetes-sweet voice. So how many times had Danielle been told that? She turned expectantly to Dalton, waiting to see what he had to say. Dalton gaped at her.
“I never heard that,” Dalton said.
... Good mood crushed, happiness destroyed.
“What the fuck do you mean he’s going to transfer? Dalton – we can’t let that happen!”
“We won’t let it happen, Danielle,” Dalton said, quickly. “We’ll stop it. How does she know anyway?”
“Buzzy, you stupid kid, how the fuck do you even know?”
“Look!” She held up her computer. It was a dumb map on a screen with two dots on it. “See this one? This one is a truck.” YES SHE COULD SEE IT WAS A TRUCK. “This one came from six states over, from the secure lab in Helena. The super secure lab. Then it stopped here, dropped off a stasis cell, then left. That was Marshall!”
“She would know,” Dalton said. “She stalks the guy.”
“You’re a freak, Buzzy. I’m not talking about his stupid stasis cell –”
“It’s not stupid!”
“Don’t kill her! Don’t kill her! We still need her, and without Breton, she’s the next best thing!” Ooooooooohohohohoho – Buzzy was lucky Danielle still had a bit of the ol’ thinking tools grinding away in her two-person brain. “Keep asking what you were asking.”
“I was doing that,” she told his face. “Buzzy, where’s Elias?”
“He’s here, too.” She wasn’t picking up her screen this time. So did that mean she had any proof? “I can feel him.”
“... Tell her to google ‘daddy issues’.”
“Dalton says to google some fucking insight into your daddy issues. Elias killed your cousins, idiot!”
Buzzy smiled the dreamiest smile she’d probably smiled all week, if Danielle could remember.
“I know.”
“Oh God, I’m gonna throw up if I keep talking to her,” Danielle said. She walked away. But first she told that blue, baby doll nightmare, “I hope he stabs you when you’re in the middle of sucking his dick. God, why did we even bring her?”
“Every team needs one nutbar,” Dalton said, floating beside her. “And someone stealthy. Until you start switching, she’s the best we have for that, too.”
“We put our plan in the hands of a lunatic with sparkplugs for hands. Whose idea was that, huh? Cryptic’s? That asshole! The minute this is done and he finishes his part, him and his stupid hugbox can fuck off back to where they came from!”
“What are we going to do, Danielle?”
“I’ll tell you what we won’t do,” Danielle said. “Patten thinks he’s being fucking clever! Patten thinks we aren’t gonna notice! If he shows up, and then Elias shows up, but the Alexander is MIA – Alexander is MIA, right? If he’s made it to Elmira?”
“If Buzzy says his stasis cell is here, I’d say we guess he’s on his way.”
“Fuck. Now we have to handle that in case shit goes down.”
Everybody here sucked.
“You’re taking a long time to say ‘let’s hit the kill button on his body’,” Dalton said. “Elias is dead, we grab Charlotte, then Cryptic can make his attack.”
“No, that’s what retarded Patten wants us to do. You think it’s a fucking coincidence? It’s a trap, Dalton! The guy’s trying to cover all his bases and he did something to that cell to try to throw us off! Well – it’s not gonna fucking work, ‘cause we’re not gonna play by his rules!”
“So we aren’t going to do anything?”
“Alexander shows up? We take that son of a bitch and put his ass on lockdown. No Breton? Then he fucking stays in one spot until we know how to lead him around again,” she said, walking back towards her crummy tent. “A spot away from Buzzy. GOD DAMMIT, BRETON! Scissor!”
“Ma’am, yes ma’am?”
“We’re close to a go-ahead but we don’t have a go-ahead? If Bergmann’s fucking off to Elmira, why in fuck’s name don’t we have confirmation?”
“Can’t say, Danielle, but I called her to double check and her number’s been changed,” Scissor said. “You know the drill. Dinner’s up in five.”
Two weeks through the normal channels, two days by the wrong ones – for fuck’s fucking fuckers, Bergmann was getting a bitch slap to the face if she didn’t have a miracle for why they had to wait for her to contact them. She kicked the flap on her tent open and walked back inside.
“Dalton!”
“You want to switch Danielle?”
“I want to switch,” she said, “but I can’t. I need to be out here.”
“It’s okay, Danielle,” Dalton said. “You’re not that big of a bitch.”
“Bergmann isn’t gonna screw us over, right? I don’t trust anyone who’s not one of us.”
“Bergmann might screw us over,” Dalton said, “but she hates Patten more than any of us. And those Germans of hers, they’re on our side. We’ve got a powerful team behind us. We can trust them not to betray us, but the most I can say is ‘they’ll do their best not to screw up’.”
“And Cryptic isn’t gonna fuck us either, right?”
“No. He promised he wouldn’t,” Dalton said. “Go rest, Danielle. I’ll write this down for you.”
Ha, ha, ha! Write it down? In another two hours, she wasn’t gonna be able to read. Oh man, her hands were going smashing through every bone in Patten’s newest body. This was going to be great. She could think of three things that’d screw the mission, but as long as she made Patten bite the big one again, everything was going to be fine.
* * *
Yeah. Like there’s gonna be blood. Stupid Agents, seriously...
Shut it down, Xander. They needed to talk about this.
He didn’t have to be told twice. He was happy to oblige and didn’t waste time trying to talk the girl back into his trust. Instead, he reached down and grabbed her head, and with the Agent complying nicely, made a full sweep of eye contact before hers rolled painfully into the back of her skull. Xander was content with this. The guy even grinned before Alex pushed him over and took back control.
“Are we gonna believe that?” He was asking both of them, waving his hand at the Agent that’d dropped to the ground when he let go. “Are we listening to her?”
“Why not? You think it’s a trap? ‘Cause newsflash: that keeps the odds at 1:1.”
“I’m worried, Xander,” Alex said. “This could be a different kind of trap. She could walk in first to fake us out or try to go in last –”
“You fall for that? You deserve to die.”
“Or,” he continued, ignoring how bored the guy was now that there was no one around to mess with, “they give her a fake address and we all walk in and all of us die together.”
“‘A fake address’.” Xander thought he was retarded. “Yes. Because I know when I get caught – except I don’t – I’d go straight for my mental rolodex of conveniently located death houses, built exclusively for that purpose ‘cause, hey, you never know.”
Alex didn’t know! That’s what he’d been trying to explain! He had no idea! Appear, surround, attack; that was his exclusive knowledge on how the Agency fought, mixing it up by adding either more guys and more guns or a smaller place to fight with three insanely overpowered warriors. But those guns? They were too advanced for him. Those guys? There were always too many. And the warriors – holy crap – the warriors! When he’d been on his own, he’d been fortunate not to have to deal with a lot of them, and every time he did, the hand of salvation would come down from the sky and set up such an inexcusable stroke of luck, Alex more than once wondered if he had a second ability hanging around. He didn’t, because eventually his luck ran out, and Xander had brought on the next level of what he’d had to deal with from here on out. The Agency might have been toning down their focus, but whenever they remembered he existed, what they threw at him was their best. They weren’t going back to lobbing softballs once he went returned to being him and only him. They might even pick up steam, hitting harder and faster because then he’d be at his weakest. So yes, fine, a ‘death house’ wasn’t the most realistic guess he could have made, but he was working with nothing but shadows of monsters in his closest. In his mind, even saying they had dragons guarding their doors didn’t sound too place out of place. And the people they’d hired to let him think there really were dragons...
“She could have been a dancer,” Alex muttered to no one. “A gymnast, a swimmer...”
“A prostitute.”
“You’re hilarious.” He headed for the Agent, now to tug her up and stuff her back in the trunk. He pulled her halfway at least, to where he got a clear view of the burns and tears on her face. “Do you guys know this is gonna happen?”
Hmm?
Shedding light on that closet started now.
“When you signed up,” he asked carefully, trying to word whatever he said to get the most revealing answers, “did you know life was going to be like this?”
“Yeah.”
“And you signed up anyway?”
“I signed up to be a pain eater. This chick’s a damn scout-and-out. She’s not supposed to take hits – so again, congrats to the Agency for sending a suit to die. That’s three times this week, and if I didn’t count this as a hobby, I’d be pissed by now.” He felt his toe twitch. “Sparky! Can you give me a hand with her? Alex can’t lift for shit and I’m trying to save energy.”
Night had finally fallen. It’d been creeping up quietly as they’d done this routine, but Alex had been thrown off by the shadows of the trees and hadn’t noticed the drooping sun had dissolved into a weak glow beyond the fence. If everything worked out, by morning, he’d done with this, but that still left the problem of where to hide next and how to fend for himself on the back of whatever threat Peter was. And about what would happen to Xander. Gwen would be saved, and while she’d be on the run too, she’d have a better chance of getting away than he did. Osono? She hadn’t stopped being a wildcard. She’d just upgraded to a wildcard in his deck. He wondered what he was to her. He hoped the Agent hadn’t taken away too much of her mood.
“You’re a pain eater?”
“Wow, that sounds really weird coming from you.” But Xander was going to explain it. “Pain Eaters – capital P, capital E. One of several divisions the Agency has and without a doubt the most badass. That’s why you’re still alive.”
“And it sounds like it’s why you’ve got no problems breaking my foot,” Alex snapped. “What did you do?”
“Kicked ass.”
“Xander, seriously.”
“Seriously. Trained, ate, punched people in the face, went to bed, did it again the next morning. Perfect life.”
“‘Perfect’? That’s perfect to you?” Okay, so that put every puzzle piece in its proper spot! “How is that ‘perfect’?”
“Settle down, Suburbia. Some people have families, some people have cars, and some people have swinging a fist through someone’s face at Mach One Million and a Half. Everyone is different.”
“But I thought there was a reason for you joining them,” Alex said. He slammed down the trunk door with an angry slap, locking the woman inside. “I thought this was a crusade you – just... forgot or gave up because you’ve been with me for so long, but you’re actually telling me you joined the Agency just so you could... punch people?”
“Sometimes kick. Right in the face!” Alex was horrified. Xander was laughing. “Dude, relax. I know what you’re thinking.” And could he explain that, too? “Yes, there’re guys who see this as an epic war between chaos and order and new balance and status quo and on and on and on... I just didn’t care about that.” Through his voice, he’d shrugged. “I could’ve if I wanted to, and it’s not like you can’t go from punching to actually making a tangible contribution to what the bosses want, but it’s rarer for Pain Eaters ‘cause we’re so intense about what we do, and we’ve got such a bad reputation for it, as you’re in that slot, you’re there for a long time. And I was in my long time, enjoying it ‘cause I figured ‘what the hell’.” Alex didn’t say anything for a minute. Xander took it as his cue to ask, “Would you prefer me to be an Agency zealot?”
“No.” Of course not. He’d already reasoned out why this was better. “It just sounds shallow.”
“It is shallow, I agree with you, but I had two options growing up and I figured I’d take the one where I wasn’t behind a desk. Also, punching!”
“Glad to hear you had it narrowed down so fast...”
“Save it, fruit cup. Get in the car. Let’s bounce!”
90 Essex Street. Trap or no trap – but almost certainly a trap – they had nothing else to go off of, and unless he thought he could think of some way to ask if the Agent was telling the truth, they’d have to check it out. He’d plug it into the GPS when he finished hobbling to the Audi’s door. Osono was going to have to keep driving. He’d offer, but he couldn’t really take her place. Damn, his foot was going to be like this forever.
“Then we were right,” Alex said, after he’d finally sat down and pulled the seatbelt around him. “Gwen and I. You can’t feel pain.”
“No, you were wrong, like I told you before,” Xander said. “I can feel pain. I just don’t give a shit.”
“And you were born like that or...?”
“Trained. That’s part of training.” ... Alex didn’t feel comfortable asking for details. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best. It gets graphic.”
Wasted talent. If he’d wanted to fight, why couldn’t he have joined the army? Or become a cop or a firefighter or something that didn’t involve kidnapping people on a regular basis? Kidnapping to start the process, never mind what they did once they had their victims.
“You never asked about the people you fought? Did you know about the transfers?”
“I had my fair share of knowledge. More than most people in the business, actually. You don’t get a lot of information unless you’re the right rank for it.”
Ranks. Right. They had those.
“What were the ranks?”
“Aw, man. I’ve gotta list them?” Were there a lot? “No – but they’re organized... oddly.”
“What’s – ‘oddly’, what’s that mean?”
“There’s no straight path up,” Xander said, as if he’d meant to add ‘for one thing’ to the end of it. “There is at the very top, but not at the bottom. You can go – like... A-14, A-12, A-7, A... I think if you’re looking to be a techie, I think you stop at A-5. I think. I’m not sure. It depends on what you’re in for and half the ranks don’t matter. You’re not a ‘person’ until you’re an A-5 and you’re not anything until you’re at least A-10.”
“How far did you get?”
“A-4.”
“That’s good?”
“... Yeeeees...”
That was a great answer, Xander, good work.
“So it’s not good,” he said.
“It matters who you ask. It’s a capped rank, meaning they made it specifically to be a promotable dead zone. The problem’s they don’t mention that, so you’ve got all these ambitious pricks lined up at A-5 thinking they’ll go A-4, A-3, A-2. Nope. A-4 means A-4 forever.” He shrugged again. “Hey – I thought it was a genius idea. I stop just before I get nailed with any actual responsibility, plus I get to pull rank on 90% of everyone around me? So much fun.” Alex could imagine. “I abused the shit out of those people, which is exactly what they expected me to do, which is exactly why they put me there. Which meant my brilliant master plan worked flawlessly.”
“Yes, I can certainly see how flawlessly it turned out.”
“That was me deviating from the master plan. The master plan was perfect.”
And here was the road to Stupidtown.
“If it was perfect,” Alex asked, “why’d you do something different?”
“To prove a point.”
“Was it a retarded point?”
“... In hindsight.”
“Thanks, Xander,” Alex said, laying on the sarcasm harder than he’d ever had. “I just wanted to be extra sure you ruined my life for precisely no reason.”
“Hey – it wasn’t like I was trying to get you. I just grabbed a file and went with it.”
“Holy shit, that’s ten times worse,” he cried. “So you randomly ruined my life for no reason!”
“You saw the guys that were chasing you, right? You saw how ‘Alex bad, Agency good’ they were? ‘Cause I just want to be extra sure you know you’d be dead if it wasn’t for me stepping in there and then later killing each of them in an incrementally legendary fashion.”
“You picked me out of a pile,” he grunted. Then he said, louder, “Why am I not surprised that that’s how I ended up with you? I’m not even angry – I might’ve actually been expecting you to say something like that!”
Xander paused. After it, he asked, “Would you feel better if I said I narrowed the pile down a few times first?”
... Possibly.
“How many times?”
“Pfft – I dunno. Eight?” ... Eight wasn’t bad. “There’s a lot of crappy powers out there. For every one guy who kills people with his eyes and every girl who spits fire – that’s you, Sparky! – there’s eight whose arms’ll drop off and ‘magically’ attach on again later. But you were in a dead heat with a guy who could talk to animals. Fucking squirrels, man. I was all for that.”
Telling sign number two that he’d gotten too used to the crappy reasoning Xander had behind everything: Alex had just been told his stiffest competition was a man who could talk to squirrels, but for whatever, that tempting offer had been turned down and Xander had picked him instead. And Alex was flattered. In that dammit-Xander-you’re-an-idiot way.
“They wouldn’t promote you –” Smart move, Agency. Don’t be a dick. That hurts me. “– but they’d let you take someone else’s body?”
“And that’s why I left the master plan to prove my retarded point. I got promoted, and it fucking sucked. A-3s are the worst rank ever. No – A-2s are the worst rank ever, but A-3s are for sure in second place, ‘cause even though A-2s have the shit-boring job of managing all the HR crap that comes from having an entire domain under them, A-3s have to manage a team of ungrateful bastards and secretly chase a kid who farts lightning through the city. Then there’s the dozen other A-3 teams all trying to catch the same guy and it turns into a race and everyone hates everyone and – surprise! After all that, you still fail the transfer!”
“And then you die,” Alex said.
“Technically. Technically, you’re permanently trying to overtake the original mind, so you’re alive, just in a coma until you make it work.”
The jars of people he’d seen in Elmira... The people who’d been in the green and yellow tanks, pushed into rows and abandoned...
“They’re alive,” he said. “Back in that room, they were all alive.”
“Half are empty, because they’re what was transferred out of. The original’s kept until the transfer’s complete, just in case,” Xander said. “They failed transfers get put in storage until they do wake up or a way to force the transfer to work comes along, since they can’t be reverse-transferred when past a point of attachment. They’d kill themselves, so the Agency leaves them in there. It’s better than saying they’ve lost everything. And there’s families and stuff who go by.”
... That didn’t sound...
“The Agency’s...” He was confused. “The Agency’s... being merciful to them?”
“Trying to be. It’s more hopelessly optimistic,” Xander said. “That’s the story of the company. It’s why they started off making medicine.”
“I thought the point was to steal our powers,” Alex said, resentfully.
“That’s the objective, not the goal, and I’m not the guy to talk to about that.”
“But it goes against everything the Agency stands for!”
“Everything you’ve seen,” Xander said. He said it calmly. “You’re the victim. You’re not gonna see it the same way.”
“As in ‘good enough to die’?” His confusion had turned to outrage. This was ridiculous! “You people –” Ex-Agent, asshole! “Fine – the Agents spend every waking moment of their lives planning to one day find some person who’s trying to live their life and rip them away from their families, and maybe not quite kill them, but kill everything that makes them alive, and they won’t even stop –”
“Alex. I’m not guy to talk about it. There’s a bunch reasons floating around for why the Agency does what it does that I didn’t bother picking up.”
“No, but you still used one that let you work for a group that doesn’t just ‘almost kill’ other people, but actually kills each other,” Alex fired. “Why, Xander? I’m asking why! Who the hell would ever think –”
‘Kills each other’?
“Slaughters!”
Man and woman and people not much younger than him had each shown up and tried to kill him, were horribly mismatched, and then forgotten about. Entire waves had been thrown at enemies and been decimated. That could’ve been Xander at any second, and he called his life back there ‘perfect’? There shouldn’t have been any of them left at all!
“Alex,” Xander said, “how many Agents do you think I’ve killed?”
“Billions,” Alex said, angry.
“Before I left.”
“Thousands,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands and thousands.”
“Zero.”
“Zero what?”
“Dude. Agents don’t kill other Agents. That’s fucked up.”
... What the hell was he hearing?
“What are you talking about? You’re always say –”
“Whatever you think I said, I was exaggerating when I said it. Don't get me completely wrong, 'cause I beat the shit out of lower ranks every single day, but that’s because we Pain Eaters are impressively violent and we thought it was funny and so did everyone who wasn’t getting their assed kicked, but I never killed another Agent until I booked it and they made the mistake of trying to kill me – and they only did that ‘cause they assumed when I went rogue, the first thing I’d do was go on a mass rampage and destroy them with my bare hands. Turns out that’s the second thing I’d do. I’d like my body back now please.”
“But the Agent –” Alex half-turned like he was going to reach through the backseat and pull the woman they’d captured out to show him. “She was –”
“It’s Peter.” He felt a burning fury starting to pick up in the centre of his core. “Peter is fucked up. I don’t know how many times I can tell you that before you believe me, but he’s fucked up.” Short embers started flowing down his throat as he breathed. “Any Agent who does kill another is as fucked up as he is. It’s 40% of how he builds his army. Higher ranks? If it does happen, that’s where, but there is a planet of corruption that has to be around before they ever even think of it. I only remember three times, where an A-3 killed an A-2, an A-2 killed another A-2, and A-1 killed an A-5. Trust me when I say it’s not something that gets tossed around.” Xander’s voice turned bitter. “But maybe I’m old-fashioned. And if I am, I’m got Peter to thank for it. Guess how.”
He guessed. The wall around his chest said he got it right. And on the first try and everything...