by David Beem
“Caleb? It’s me…” Her voice fades into the maze in my head. I’ve never felt more apart from reality than I do at this moment.
Hello. Did I miss anything? asks Nigel brightly.
One of the pigeons pecks at my feet. I shift my foot left, and it gets the seeds there.
You seem distressed, says Nigel. Perhaps this isn’t a good time to report to you your father is safe and whole.
I sit up straighter. The world snaps into sharp focus. Hooting pigeons, car horns, jackhammers, and hissing city buses come crashing in.
Nigel—did you talk to Dad?
Well, no. I just happened to see him getting away is all. A businessman was waking up in the hotel lobby, and I went into him, rather, I saw through his eyes, and, yes, there went your father. Walked straight out the front door. He’s something else, truly.
Wait—where were we? I mean, were we still in the lobby?
You were there? In the lobby? Why, you’re lucky to be alive!
I slump into the park bench. He’s right. This could’ve gone very differently. I didn’t get my ring on. I just…dropped it. I panicked. Mary could’ve been killed. Dad could’ve been killed. And they could’ve gotten me. Today. My ring, my blood. And then it would’ve been, how did Dad put it? Asta-la-pasta, see ya never?
Mary stuffs her phone into her pocket. She nudges me and gets to her feet.
“Up. Come on.”
I comply, and we’re on the move. She takes my hand again. “Hey. It’s going to be okay. I’ve got your back.”
Not slowing my pace—man, she’s really booking it—I peer sideways at her. Her thumb’s hooked into her waistline at her back, ready to quick-draw her firearm still hidden beneath her tank top. Her eyes sweep left and right.
“I’m gonna get us on a train. I’ve updated Caleb and Alex. They’re expecting us.”
I nod.
“Edger, remember what your dad said about the mind reader?”
I nod again.
“I need you to think about the game he’s playing,” she says. “Your dad, I mean. I need you to think about how to stay ahead of an enemy who can read minds. Since we don’t know the identity of this person, we can’t know if he’s around. You could tell me something, and if I passed him on the street, he could pluck it out of my mind and know what you told me. Or it could go the other way, and I tell you something, and it’s you passing him on the street. So I need you to think about how to stay ahead of an enemy like that.”
I shake my head. “It’s impossible.”
“No. Your dad’s counting on you figuring this out. Perhaps even figuring it out at the exact time the mind reader can no longer do anything to stop you.”
I shake my head again, then press my fingertips into my forehead. “This is making my brain hurt.”
“Mine too. And it’s risky. Because what if you figure it out too soon? Or what if you figure it out too late?”
I try to catch her eye. But she’s too busy scanning the park for possible threats.
“What?” she asks, sparing me a quick sideways glance.
“You knew,” I reply. “About the Collective Unconscious getting hacked. If nothing else, you suspected. You told me in the cab someone’s tampering with my service. Is that why you’re keeping things from me? To lower the odds of this supervillain stealing your secrets from my mind in the event we’re separated?”
Her jaw tightens, but she makes no reply as we continue our pace.
“Keeping one step ahead of a mind-reading supervillain,” I mutter, more to myself than for her. “There’s evidence it can be done. Dad’s stayed at least one step ahead of the mind reader this long. He’s been on the run, what? Twenty years? Twenty years with a mind reader after him. Not bad.”
“If he was out of reach for twenty years,” she replies. “Edger, there’s a lot we don’t know about your dad. Don’t forget, I’ve read up on him. There are years of his life missing. No one knew a thing about his whereabouts. Not the CIA. Not MI6, MSS, no one. In fact, it’s the reason I was sent to—”
She breaks off so suddenly, I yank my hand from hers and scan left and right. My heart lurches like a podracer with failing power couplings. A bicyclist whizzes by—too close—I stumble.
“What?” she asks, grabbing her gun but not drawing it. “What is it?”
“I thought you saw something!” I reply. “Jeez, Mary. You scared the crap out of me.”
She slumps, and her hand releases the gun. A woman pushing a stroller scowls at us, then picks up her pace. A man dribbling a basketball gives us a look like we’re sentient armpits from another planet. Could this supervillain steal the memory of our overheard conversation from their minds?
Mary shakes her head and resumes her breakneck power-walk pace. I watch her walk away, my brain processors not letting me take another step until I figure out what just happened. She was about to reveal something she didn’t want me to know. Maybe one of her secrets: In fact, it was the reason I was sent to—
To what? Find Dad? Find Dad by spying on me? Is this why I saw her loitering so often outside the Über Dork, back before she first summoned me to Mikey’s office? How long has she been spying on me? Since Notre Dame? Longer?
“Edger, come on,” she calls, now ten yards ahead. “I don’t like being out in the open. We need to bunker down.”
“What for? If Darth Baddie is really in our heads right now, doesn’t he know where we’re going?”
She takes a breath, then peers off into space like she’s searching for a loophole we haven’t thought of yet. She shakes her head and marches back to me, grabs my elbow, and tows me onward.
“Well?” I ask. “It’s pointless, right?”
“Not pointless.”
“How is it not pointless? If he’s in our heads? You haven’t told me where we’re going, but you know where we’re going. That means he knows where we’re going.”
“Not. Pointless.” She halts, then whips around so fast, I almost walk straight into her. Fierce warrior eyes peer into mine, and my lungs seem to flatten. She could kill me right now, but I’d die a happy man for hers being the last face I’ll see in this world.
“Guns,” she says. “Lots of guns. We’ll be in a bunker. There’ll be plenty of ammunition. If that’s good enough for me, it’ll have to be good enough for you.”
“I mean, if Darth Brain Invader can be stopped by bullets, then, sure. Works for me.”
“Anyone can be stopped by bullets,” she replies. “Anyone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“I vant bear.”
Olga rolls her eyes, glances at Putin seated next to her, then refocuses on her driving. “You have a bear.”
“I vant a new bear!” replies Putin, fingering the gold medallion around his neck. “Ushankas doesn’t snuggle no more. I vant bear who snuggle.”
“Christ.”
“Vee get you bear,” replies Boris from the backseat of her Mustang, his knees shoved up to his ears like a gorilla on a tricycle. “Vee get home, vee get new bear. Vee get you snuggliest bear in all Mater Russia.”
“Block Bear,” says Putin.
“Vee get you black bear. Da.”
“Vith huge eggz in bazket.” He mimes the size of testicles he has in mind.
“Da, da. Black bear must have huge eggz.”
“Shat up,” says Olga, pointing at the Celtic knot design on the medallion. “Vhere did you get it?”
“Dis?” asks Putin, fingering his medallion. “Don-Don had vun.”
Olga frowns. “Don-Don.”
“Da. Don-Don. Make-America-Great-Again. Don-Don. His looked so nice, I asked him vhere he got. He sent vun next day. Vich reminds me.” He shifts in his seat to face Boris. “Vhen vee get home, cancel ze Vitch Hunt. Vhat you zink, zvyozdochka moya?”
Olga draws her gun and has it on Putin before he or Boris can blink. “I told you. Don’t zvyozdochka moya me.”
Boris slides his hand beneath his jacket pocket.
�
��And you,” she says, her tone level. “Don’t zink I von’t keel heem.”
Boris’s hand slides out of his jacket pocket.
“Vat is dis?” asks Putin levelly. “Dis not for FSB. Who zent you on dis assignment?”
“Nostradamus,” she replies, holstering her gun and refocusing on her driving.
“I zee,” says Putin. “Zen you must complete your mission.”
Olga releases a sigh. “Yez. Da. I told you.”
“Zen kill zem already. Be done. Come home, with me. I get you block bear. Big eggz in basket.” He mimes again. Olga suppresses another sigh.
“Vlad. Vee cannot kill zem yet. Vee must know vhat zey know, and who zey talked to.”
Putin sighs. “Zo be it. But dis cat-and-mouze game cannot go on forever, dahling.”
Olga smiles, caresses his check with her knuckles before finishing with a light slap. “Don’t vorry, dahling. I vill kill you before eet gets boring.”
CHAPTER Thirty
We step off the elevator and into an episode from Extreme Makeover: Secret Bunker Edition. Fortress East is in worse shape than Caleb’s nightclub upstairs. Ventilation’s terrible. Wet paint. Drop cloths, exposed electrical systems, abandoned stepladders. They don’t even have the lights in yet, just work lights. Weapons racks lying in pieces atop cardboard sheets, assembly instructions lying next to them. A stack of unopened boxes piled at the far end of the room. Maybe the weapons are in those. Man, this place is like an IKEA storeroom for superheroes.
“What do you think, bro?” asks Caleb, parting his hands to take in the disaster zone.
“I think if Darth Elevator Thrower attacks us here, we’re screwed.”
“Darth Who?”
Mary’s gaze zeroes in on the unopened boxes across the room. She points. “Weapons?”
Caleb nods, and she hastens to the unopened boxes. Behind us, the elevator whines as it heads back up.
“Alex?” asks Mary, resting her foot on one of the taller boxes before drawing a wicked-looking switchblade out of her leather boot.
Caleb nods. “She had to clear the workers out.”
Mary pushes the button on the knife’s hilt, and it springs open. She cuts into a box. Caleb and I watch her work, and I make a mental note if I’m ever intimate with Mary, she’ll need to be thoroughly de-booby-trapped first. I wonder if going over her with a metal detector would ruin the mood.
The elevator doors open. Alex strides into the bunker with the same leg-stretching walk Mary likes to do. I bet they teach it at GSPOT school.
“It’s all over the news,” Alex says. “You’re lucky the security footage is missing.”
I frown. “From the hotel?”
Alex nods. “The whole day’s worth of footage—gone. Witnesses have no memory either. It’s frankly unbelievable no one was injured and no one remembers a goddamn thing. How do people not remember an elevator walking across the room and crashing through a wall like the Kool-Aid Man?”
Caleb glances sideways at me, eyebrows raised. “Let me guess: Darth Elevator Thrower?”
Mary pulls out an AR-15. Her boot still up on the box, she balances the butt of the gun on her bent knee and twists her torso to scan box tops behind her.
“You look like an NRA commercial,” I say. “What’s their slogan again? Only a hot blonde with a gun can stop a Sith Lord with the telekinetic power capable of hurling elevators, reading minds, and—boy that sucks. That’s the worst slogan ever. Remind me never to write slogans.”
“Explain that,” says Alex.
“Well. Slogans are usually best when they—”
“Shut up, Bonkovich. Mary, you tell me. What happened at the hotel?”
Mary straightens from the second box she’s cut open. This one has ammo. Alex shakes her head. “What’re you doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” Mary replies. “This box’s got ammo for a nine millimeter. I’m holding an AR-15.”
Caleb points. “Try that one.”
She twists her torso again to locate the indicated box, then gives him a thumbs-up. She cuts into it and addresses Alex from over her shoulder. “We met Edger’s dad in the lobby—”
“You what?” cries Alex. “Why didn’t we know about this?”
Mary straightens, pops a clip into the AR-15, then balances it again on her bent knee. “Because Edger and I are all persona non grata around here. Alex, you set up the operation at the church, then abandon it. We followed through, caught Kasabian, and you reciprocated by cutting us out of his interrogation and planning for the General Assembly. Hey.” She raises a hand. “Fine by me. You say Washington’s breathing down our necks, I get it. But teams work together. You cut us out because you don’t trust me, and you think he’s incompetent.” She points at me.
“Mare, that’s not true,” says Caleb.
I shrug. “I mean, I am a little incompetent.”
“Edger, no,” says Mary. “We’re the only ones moving the needle on this thing. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have Kasabian.”
“And if it weren’t for me, Edger wouldn’t be getting technology that can defeat Nostradamus,” Alex counters.
“What?” asks Mary.
“My team has come together,” says Alex, waltzing around behind me. The telltale chu-chunk of a sidearm being chambered is visceral. Alex’s hand glides over my shoulder and clamps down. Hard. A cold steel muzzle rests on the back of my neck. “Edger went behind your back, Mary. He’s with me, not you. Caleb, cover Mary please.”
Caleb’s Norse-god face charges thunderbolts. “Alex! What’re you doing?”
“Our job. Now follow orders.”
“Alex?” I say. “If we’re together, why is your gun on my neck?”
“Because I’m taking Mary into custody. I can’t have you power up and save her out of a misplaced sense of loyalty.”
Mary’s pained expression probes my face. “You went behind my back, Edger?”
“Caleb!” yells Alex.
Caleb draws his sidearm and trains it on Mary. “Mare… I’m sorry. This is just until we get this figured out. Okay?”
“Thanks a lot,” Mary replies.
“Don’t look so heartbroken,” says Alex. “You’re not fooling anybody. You didn’t disclose your father is a Nostradamus agent and you admitted to wanting to kill him yourself. Nobody’s stupid enough to trust you after that. Not even Bonkovich.”
“I’m that stupid,” I hurry to add. “I mean, wait, that didn’t come out right. Mary, I—”
“And now there’s this little side mission with Edger’s dad?” says Alex. “What’re you playing at? No. You know what? You can tell me later, when you’re behind bars. Lay down your weapon. Step away from the boxes, and go down on your stomach, spread-eagle.”
Alex jerks me backward so Caleb’s in front of us too, the gun never leaving my neck.
“Caleb,” says Alex. “Take Mary into custody so I can take this gun off the nice Bonkovich boy’s neck.”
“No.” His gun still trained on Mary, he locks eyes with Alex. “First, take the gun off Edger’s neck.”
“Caleb, protocol dictates—”
“You won’t shoot him,” says Mary, lowering the tip of her rifle and raising her free hand, palm out.
“Bonkovich.” Alex presses the gun harder into my neck. “Let’s wrap this up so we can be friends again. Tell your girlfriend to cooperate.”
Tell her to cooperate? I may not know the precise secret Mary’s keeping from me she doesn’t want stolen from my mind, but as far as I’m concerned, the calculus isn’t complicated. Of all the shifty spies in the room, only one is holding a gun to my neck.
—A cold rush steals through my body.
“Mary made Edger lie to you about losing his superpowers!” I say, my voice coming out in Nigel’s prissy British accent.
Nigel—no!
I warned you. I warned you I’d make the hard calls if you couldn’t.
“What?” Alex’s hand clamps down e
ven harder on my shoulder.
“But if you could just relax your hand there a tad,” Nigel has me say, curling my head into my shoulder. “You have quite a strong grip, ah-haha. Edger’s dreamed the future, you know. Mary’s a double agent. She’s been the assassin all along.”
Nigel—no! No!
Caleb’s jaw drops open. Mary’s face crumples in anguish. Her shoulders slump.
Nigel—tell them about the mind reader! Tell them Mary’s secrets are to keep them from the mind reader! Tell them—
I will tell them no tosh of the sort, he replies. That Mary has been playing you from the start and you simply won’t see it.
“Mary, assume the position,” Alex says, using an exasperated tone.
Mary opens her hand, and the AR-15 slides forward along the boxes, tip down. Her gaze has gone inward. She steps down from the boxes, crosses to an open expanse of floor, and assumes a spread-eagle position, facedown. Caleb’s brow furrows, his gaze rising from Mary to Alex. The cold muzzle of Alex’s gun comes off my neck. She points it at Mary. Caleb holsters his gun and kneels at her side. He pats her down, discovering another knife from her right boot and a tiny gun from her left. Then comes the cuffs. First her right wrist; he cranks her arms down to the small of her back and cuffs it to her left. It isn’t until he’s got her feet cuffed that I fully appreciate the severity of the situation.
Alex releases my shoulder. “Sorry about that,” she says. “But now I have proof my actions were warranted. You lied to me, Bonkovich.”
Nigel has me do the reaching and thrusting maneuver again. “Willianbottom!”
Alex folds her arms. “Right. In that case, let’s get you debriefed, Willianbottom.”
CHAPTER Thirty-ONE
“So, let me get this straight,” says Alex, refilling my water glass from a pitcher before setting it down on the bar. She slides onto the stool next to me. “You’re not a British spy. You never were a British spy. You are—were—a salesman. And you make balloon creations of famous noses in history.”
