House of Dolls 5

by Harmon Cooper

  “Just let me do the talking,” Nadine said as he led them out of the cemetery.

  “I was planning to.”

  “And your small doll isn’t activated, is she?”

  “No,” Coma answered.

  “Good. That would be disastrous.”

  Roman fell in line behind Nadine, trying to make everything look as normal as possible. Realizing this likely wasn’t the way to do that, he moved up to her side and loosened up some, trying to fit in.

  They reached the inn, passing a few shops out front selling local fruits and vegetables, no one seeming to notice them.

  That was one good thing about the East.

  Nadine merely nodded at the woman who ran the inn, the heavyset lady stepping aside and letting the four of them pass. They took the stairs up to a large suite on the third floor, Nadine instinctively checking from corner to corner for any type of device.

  Roman didn’t know exactly what she was checking for, but he enjoyed the quiet as he lay on the side on the bed trying not to press anything against the injury on his back.

  Finally, when Nadine was finished, she joined him, sitting at the end of the mattress. Coma stood by the door, as usual, and Celia had already made herself familiar with the kitchenette, making tea and cutting some of the fruits that had been provided.

  “I feel like our plan has failed,” Roman said with a sigh of exasperation.

  “It hasn’t.”

  “But…”

  “Several days ago, back in Centralia, you came to me in my dream telling me they were planning to remove me. We agreed we would discuss these things only in our dreams, and that you would lie to me and say you had been tasked with going after Margo once you got information on what they had done with your power.”

  “I’m aware,” Roman told her. “But things are bit hazy. It’s weird. They’ll come back to me when I’m in the dream, but I’ve been purposefully trying not to remember what happened.”

  “Because of the telepath.”

  “Who is now dead.”

  Nadine looked at him funny for a moment. “Was that the woman at the hotel?”

  “It was. As much of a man-whore as it makes me, my strategy was to let her use me in any way she wanted so she thought she could trust me and wouldn’t pry too deep. She came to the room right before you arrived. We were in the bathroom together, and after…”

  “After you…?”

  “After that,” Roman said, “she confessed they had decided to kill me. So that’s new—or was new to me at the time. But she thought they would come later.”

  “So that took her by surprise.”

  “Exactly. The Type I Class C brought the building down, but not before I moved her to another floor by creating a hole in the ground. I expected her to save us in the end, but I suppose that was actually to our advantage.”

  “It was.”

  “There’s a piece of this puzzle you don’t know,” Nadine told him suddenly.

  “There is?”

  “The building we brought down yesterday was not the place where they are making replicants of the tiara I showed you. And it isn’t a tiara at all. It’s this,” she said, tapping her necklace.

  “I was wondering why you kept wearing that thing.” It dawned on Roman then what Nadine was hinting at. “So your country is still mass-producing these devices?”

  “They are.”

  “And then what?”

  “The plan is to distribute them to the rebels on the border. The war is still on. Our attack sparked it, as was our plan, but what I didn’t tell you was that we brought down the wrong building. This was on purpose, just in case the telepath actually cracked you. It’s also why I didn’t tell you what the device looked like. Now your country has a tiara they think is able to replicate your powers. Meanwhile, the real device that replicates your power is going to be distributed to rebels, which is why we’re here.”

  “No.”

  “We did it, Roman, and we’re still doing it. Now we just need to get back to your country and slip away from there. We are close.”

  “It just feels surreal,” he admitted to her. “All of this. From what we’ve devised to what’s happened since.”

  “Part of it is still what we planned in the beginning. Our countries will go to war against one another over this device. The game has changed some, but we’re much closer to reaching our goal than we were just a few days back. We just have to see this through. We have to make it back over the border, meet with Lisa and Eli, and go from there. Was the telepath any good?”

  “Come again?” Roman asked.

  “Sex with her. Was it any good?”

  “I hate having sex with telepaths. But it got us from point A to point B, and that must count for something. I also appreciate her warning us, even though it was late, and awfully selfish considering she had to get laid first. Plus, she saved us in the end. I don’t know how we would have gotten out of there had it not been for her.”

  “I would have saved you,” Coma said, startling the two of them. “It would have been me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Last Mission

  Ava was pouring a glass of wine when she got the message from Rafner to come immediately.

  “Why do I have a feeling this is going to be bad?” she asked her fluffy white lapdog, Bonbon, who was currently resting on her couch.

  The dog barked once, Ava coming over to her with her glass of wine in hand.

  “There’s always time,” she said, looking at the wine and slowly taking a sip from it.

  A lot had gone through her mind in the few days since Roman had gone to the east, from how the relationship would be when he came back compared to how it should be, to the best way for her to get away from all this.

  She had been at the spa all day yesterday, her thoughts continually coming back to a single idea: maybe it was time to retire.

  Ava had been working as an exemplar in service of the government for twenty years, and she had enough connections through her sister to get a very nice diplomatic post if she wanted to go that route.

  There was also the idea of simply disappearing, using some of the connections she had in other countries to make sure she was never heard from again.

  Ava sighed.

  She didn’t know why Rafner had called her to a meeting, but she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like it.

  Generally, being called after hours meant something was wrong—or even worse, that she would have to act in some way.

  After she finished her glass of wine, Ava went to her bedroom, Bonbon following close behind.

  She had the urge to lie on her bed for a moment, but she ignored this impulse, moving toward her closet.

  As she had done countless times before, Ava changed into her exemplar uniform just in case it was necessary.

  “Hello, Plume,” she whispered to herself as she placed her mask on. After looking in the mirror and running her hand through her red hair, she called a teleporter.

  Ava was sitting on the couch turning a flame on and off in the palm of her hand when a government-approved teleporter appeared, the woman forming in midair almost like a puzzle being arranged.

  Bonbon barked, running toward the woman before Ava called her off.

  She joined the teleporter, watching as her hands and arms filtered away piece by piece.

  They reappeared in an authorized teleportation zone at the Centralian Intelligence Agency, Ava smiling at the woman.

  “You had a cute dog back there,” the teleporter said to her.

  “Thanks,” Ava told the woman as she turned to the building, ignoring the younger agents, some of them already recognizing her as Plume.

  Stepping into the glass doors, she made her way to the front desk, where the clerk smiled at her and let her know she was expected on the fourth floor, in room 17D.

  “I know that room,” Ava said as she turned to the stairs, taking her sweet time.

  She got more sidelong glances as she made her way to the ro
om in question, secretly wishing Roman was with her right now so he could see how much people respected her.

  The last couple times she’d been there, Ava had been in civilian clothing, or just basic Centralian agent wear. While she knew Roman appreciated her, or at least she assumed he did, she couldn’t help but wonder how he would feel in seeing everyone recognizing her, acknowledging that she was a legend.

  Would he treat her any differently? Would there be any jealousy to play with?

  Ava offered one agent a smug smile, the young man having no idea what was running through her head, and Ava immediately felt foolish for her brazen display.

  Why did she care what Roman thought of her anyway? What was so special about him? Yes, he was handsome and unique, but his personality was toxic, at least in terms of the decisions he made and how those decisions affected the people around him.

  Plus, he was a womanizer.

  She was pretty sure he was hooking up with Miranda, the fucking know-it-all-telepath, and for all Ava knew he had also hooked up with Nadine, his dolls, and countless others.

  Ava shook her head.

  This was not the way to go into the meeting she was about to have.

  She reached the fourth floor and paused in front of door 17D, letting a deep breath out. She came into the room to find Rafner sitting with Jess, Naomi, and finally Scott, the strongman exemplar in their small group.

  “I’m sorry to hear what happened to Team Saint,” Ava said as she took her seat. “I would like to note that I’m the one who said it was a bad idea to send them after Margo.”

  “Noted,” Rafner said. “And I agree with you. We can’t keep sending people to be slaughtered by her, wherever she is now.”

  “You lost track of Margo?” Ava asked.

  “The last place she was seen was at the warehouse.”

  “That’s not great.”

  “No, it isn’t. But we’ll keep our feelers out, and hopefully she’ll make her presence known somewhere. Once she does, it will be all hands on deck.”

  “I look forward to it,” Ava said, not able to hide the hesitation in her voice.

  She was going to retire.

  That settled it.

  She knew what Margo was capable of, having fought alongside her so many years ago during the Western Plague.

  While Ava could be bold, and while she had faced many opponents that could have ended her life in a heartbeat, she didn’t have a death wish.

  “Actually,” Ava said, “I will not be looking forward to it. I’ve decided to retire.”

  “Have you?” Rafner asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Surely you would like to see through to the completion of your mission before you make such a rash decision.”

  “And what mission is that?”

  “We can talk retirement later; let us fill you in on what has happened in the East.”

  “Okay,” Ava said.

  “Jess,” said Rafner.

  “Right. As per our orders, we tailed Roman to the Eastern Province. Along the way there, our train was attacked by rebels. We all survived the attack and moved to the capital city of Verne, staying in a district near Eastern University. Roman informed us that Nadine had secured one of the prototypes of the device that can replicate his power. We were able to secure this device, but not before Roman was approved to destroy a university building.”

  “He was what?” Ava asked, trying to hide the surprise in her voice.

  “The building reportedly contained all the equipment necessary to replicate the device, including an inventory of one thousand tiaras that would grant their wearers Roman’s power. Realizing that this would be an act of war, the embassy and our government agreed to pin it on Roman and have the ambassador say the attack wasn’t approved, that Roman was acting as a rogue agent.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Ava said, trying not to gasp.

  “Have you not been following any of this?” Rafner asked.

  “No. I needed a day, two days, actually. I went to the sauna, met some old friends, you know. We don’t need to discuss my personal life here. I needed a few days off. When I take days off, I try to completely step away from it all. You should know that about me by now.”

  “Right,” Rafner said. “Jess, please continue.”

  “We sent our forces to try to remove Roman and Nadine, and they failed. The Eastern Province also tried.”

  Ava felt her heart beating faster now, her thoughts racing.

  She was suddenly glad Miranda wasn’t in the room.

  She had to be on guard just in case there was a telepath somewhere in the vicinity, recording the conversation.

  “So we’ve gone from trying to make Roman our poster child to wanting to remove him?”

  “No one said anything about making Roman our poster child,” Rafner said.

  “You literally have him going after his coworkers, and you’ve also tasked him with getting information on two fugitives, on top of discovering what an enemy country has done through dissecting his power. If he had come out of all this, he would have been a poster child.”

  “No, he wouldn’t have,” Naomi said. “He would have come out of it with probably another assignment.”

  Rafner laughed. “Naomi is right. If Roman had actually done this in the way we wanted him to…”

  “I fail to see how Roman hasn’t done it in the way you wanted,” Ava said, putting her foot down. “Especially if we’re the ones that ordered him to bring the building down.”

  Rafner cleared his throat in a manner that told Ava he was about to tell her something she was unaware of. “It came to our attention that Roman was also planning something else.”

  “It did?”

  “Miranda picked up on it.”

  “Where is Miranda?”

  “She didn’t make it,” Jess said.

  Ava feigned a gasp. “How did she die?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Tell me.” Ava narrowed her eyes on Rafner, flames igniting behind her pupils.

  “Miranda was having a relationship with Roman in the hopes of getting closer to him for intelligence purposes. She wasn’t able to pick up on exactly what he was doing, but she did note something. Even to the end, she was trying to figure out a way to crack whatever code he and Nadine were using to transmit information. Before the attack by our operatives, Miranda had gone to see Roman. She was supposed to leave. She did not. We believe she died in the rubble.”

  “This is so…” Ava bit her lip.

  “Yes, it is. Piecing together what details we were able to get from Miranda before her untimely death, we believe that Roman and Nadine were both trying to double-cross their own governments. We do not know how, and now that she is dead, we will not be able to get any more information from that source. So if you need justification in what I’m about to assign you to do next, you can use this: Roman was most certainly planning something treasonous. By removing him and Nadine, we will be one step closer to ridding ourselves of the problems they have caused.”

  “And how does the prototype fit into all this?”

  “We are still dissecting it,” Rafner said. “For all we know, it may be a decoy. But we don’t think it is. So in a way, what Roman has done by bringing down their production facility is actually a good thing. If we can pin the attack on Roman and Nadine, we will be able to prevent a war from breaking out. So that is your next mission. And if you are planning to retire, let’s call it your last mission.”

  “What is?” Ava asked, wishing she had a glass of wine at the moment.

  “Your mission is to head to the Eastern Province border. We believe that Roman and Nadine will be coming back here.”

  “What makes you believe that?”

  “Miranda was able to pick up on some of the images Roman was trying to hide from her. They will definitely be staying in the East. If we can bring them to justice, we can prevent an unnecessary conflict. I see you’ve come dressed for some action. We will be send
ing troops to the border tomorrow and use train transport rather than mass teleportation to get them there. In the meantime, we already have scouts out monitoring many of the known border crossings. So you may be on call.”

  “The border is incredibly long. Do you have any idea where they will try to cross?”

  “Our sources are telling us the rebels are planning an attack in the next few days, and we are actively monitoring it. I mentioned troops heading to the border. Why do you think that is? We believe Roman and Nadine might exploit the planned rebel attack and use it as a chance to cross. If not, you can use the distraction as a way to sneak into the country alongside Jess, Naomi, and Scott.”

  “Great,” Ava finally said. “Fucking great.”

  “It’s not what any of us signed up for, Plume, but hopefully it will all be settled soon,” Rafner said with a tight smile. “And then you’ll be free to spend as much time at the saunas and wine bars as you’d like.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Staying Alive

  Night came, Roman finally able to relax. After what he’d been through, he kept expecting someone to show up, be it his own country or Eastern Province assassins.

  But they were safe for now, Roman, Nadine, and his dolls.

  If their plan truly did come to fruition in the end, this would be the group he would likely spend the rest of his life with.

  And how grand would that be? After everything that had happened to him, to finally be able to settle, to get into a routine.

  Perhaps he would find work again, but Roman knew this was the unlikeliest of all scenarios.

  Roman had despised work since the day he’d first had to clock in somewhere.

  So no, he wouldn’t be working.

  Then what?

  Would he become an artist of sorts, using his power to make sculptures? Perhaps Roman would be a help to whatever community they ended up settling near, his ability allowing him to do things like quickly remove a tree stump or protect a public structure from natural disasters.

  Perhaps.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to make contact with the rebel groups tomorrow,” Nadine said as they sat at the dining room table near the kitchenette.