by Peter Clines
He nodded. “I should be fine by the end of the week.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“Is it just me,” he said, “or do I get the crap beat out of me a lot for a guy who’s supposed to be indestructible?”
Her face shifted under the mask. He recognized the faint smile. “Considering the battles you become involved in, it is not that surprising.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. He held her by the waist. They drifted back into the air. “I have missed you,” she said.
“You threw me out a window.”
“To be exact,” said Stealth, “I had Captain Freedom throw you out of a window.”
“Ahhh, well.”
“You were the best choice, George. You have a flexible mind and had already begun to doubt.” She shifted against him. “You were also the most likely to survive the fall if it did not cause you to wake up.”
He chuckled and shook his head. The wind shifted and her cloak wrapped around both of them. It twisted and flexed like a living thing.
“So how much of it was real?”
“How much of what?”
“Y’know,” he said, “you’re the worst person on Earth when it comes to playing dumb. For a number of reasons.”
“I concur.”
“So all that stuff about your parents. Was that all true?”
Stealth shifted her body again. One of her legs wrapped around one of his. “The majority of it,” she said. “A few minor details were changed to better fit Smith’s illusion.”
“Like what?”
Her body tensed and then relaxed. Then it tensed again and he felt a deep breath whisper against his chest. “You once asked me how long it had been since anyone had used my name. You were impressed that I knew it had been twenty-eight months, at the time.”
“I remember,” said St. George. “When we were going down to spy on the Seventeens, just before that first big battle with Legion.”
“Before I told it to you,” said Stealth, “the last person to use my name had been my father.”
“Ahhh.”
“Nine minutes later I killed him.”
They hung in the air for a few more moments. George pulled her closer. She was still tense.
“I’m guessing there’s a little more to the story than that?”
“There is. Do you wish to hear it?”
“Yeah, of course.”
She relaxed. Just enough that he could feel it. “As you have observed,” she said, “my father was not a good man. Killing him was an act of self-defense, although he had committed numerous crimes which would warrant execution.”
“Did you want to do it?”
She looked up at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Did you want to kill him?”
Her head went side to side. Just once. St. George remembered the thin man in the hotel suite with the round spectacles and the efficient motions.
“He was a monster in several senses,” said Stealth, “and a wanted criminal in twenty-three countries. However, he was my father. I wish he had not put me in such a position. I took no pleasure from it.”
“Why did he try to kill you?”
She pressed her head against his chest. “So he would know if I was ready to succeed him or not. It is an inheritance I have attempted to avoid for most of my life.”
St. George took her in both arms and hugged her. “I would’ve stopped him for you, if I could’ve.”
“You could not have.”
“Hey,” he said, “I’ll have you know I’m an actual superhero. I used to be known as the Mighty Dragon? Maybe you’ve heard of me?”
“You are being foolish in an attempt to distract me from these thoughts.”
“Mostly, yeah.”
“Thank you.”
They drifted away from the water tower and over Roddenberry. The wind shifted again. Her cloak whipped away from them and spread out behind her.
“Speaking of supervillains,” he said, “have you thought about what we’re going to do with … Smith, I guess.”
“I have,” she said. “Dr. Connolly believes she can maintain the medical coma indefinitely, provided we can supply certain drugs she requires.”
“And if we can’t?”
“We have spoken about the possibility of performing an extended cordectomy encompassing the contralateral vocal fold, ventricular fold, and the subglottis. She has never performed such a procedure, but she feels it is within her ability.”
St. George furrowed his brow. “What’s that mean?”
“If we must, we will surgically remove Christian Nguyen’s vocal cords. This should eliminate Smith’s powers.”
He shook his head.
“This bothers you?”
“Of course it does. Christian was a pain in the ass, but she didn’t deserve this.”
“I agree,” Stealth said. “Unfortunately, Smith’s abilities do not leave us many options.”
“I know. I get it, doesn’t mean I have to like it.” He looked at the buildings below them. Light shone up through one of the skylights. “Danielle’s up late.”
“Yes.”
“Honestly,” said St. George, “I’m kind of surprised Smith didn’t have you preprogrammed to kill her or me. Anyone who tried to stop him.”
“He tried,” Stealth said. “Using your own experience with him as a guide, I formed a semantic argument in my mind to keep myself from acting on his commands.”
“How so?”
“Agent Smith ordered me to deal with any potential threats. I knew we were being followed, and had several reasons to believe it was Danielle, but there was no possible scenario where she would pose a potential threat.”
“How could you know that?”
Stealth bowed her head against his chest. The breeze pushed her hood back. “If I was protecting Smith, Danielle would pose no threat at all.”
St. George stared at her for a moment and then laughed.
“Once she had fired the pistol,” Stealth continued, “she was no longer a potential threat, but an actual one. Smith had not ordered me to deal with actual threats.”
He kissed her through the mask. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“This said by a man who is hovering eighty feet above the ground.”
She took one arm away from his neck and slid off her mask. He kissed her again. The wind shifted and wrapped her cloak around them.
IT TOOK CESAR most of the day to find her a drafting board, a tall chair, and a full set of tools. Paper had been harder, but just before sundown he’d appeared with a dozen large sheets rolled into a cylinder. They’d been used on one side, but not much. Just a few simple line drawings and diagrams. He promised to get her more tomorrow.
Danielle hadn’t done any drafting with pencil and paper since her undergrad years. Everything had been CAD and 3-D modeling since then. But her laptop didn’t have any of the right software, and the screen was too small anyway.
She taped down the first sheet and set her straight edge over it. A few quick passes with the pencil gave her a border. A few more passes using the edge and a triangle gave her a title box in the bottom right corner. She filled out her name, the date, and then the project title. It had been a while since she’d had to do the Gothic letters by hand.
CERBERUS MK. 2
Danielle looked at the words for a moment. Then she set her pencil to the paper and began to work.
IT WAS IN the second draft of Ex-Patriots that I came up with a bare-bones idea of how I could bring back Agent John Smith. I almost didn’t use it, to be honest. At the time, Ex-Communication was a sure thing, but it was already pretty full of story with the return of Max and Cairax, not to mention introducing Madelyn as the Corpse Girl. I didn’t want to waste Smith’s reappearance, so I knew there was no way I’d be able to tell that story until at least the fourth book. And I’m enough of a realist to know that nobody should be planning on any books past the ones they’re contracted for.
By the end of the second draft, though, there it was. A set-in-plain-sight clue that Agent Smith and Christian Smith were somehow going to be up to no good together. By the time I sat down to write Ex-Communication, it looked like there was a good chance I might get a fourth book … so I peppered in a few more clues. I have to admit that—as I write this—it’s been two months since that book came out and I’m two-thirds thrilled/one-third disappointed that no one’s noticed them. But I take solace in the fact that you’re probably all going back looking for them now.
Now here we are at book four, with the possibility of a fifth Ex-Heroes story dancing in the road up ahead. And maybe a few clues and hints for that one planted here and there. Maybe some of them set in plain sight …
Needless to say, I couldn’t’ve made it here without help from a few people. So, I offer some very heartfelt thanks to the following folks.
David, my agent, made this book a reality, and made sure I was in a place where I could work on it without pressure or panic. Well, not any more than the usual amount, anyway, when you’re re-launching an entire series with a new publisher.
Julian, my editor at Crown, offered many tips, suggested a few things, caught mistakes, and overall made sure I didn’t fall back on the whole logic-cheat of “it’s all just imaginary.” Or that I had really good reasons when I did. If this book impresses you at all, it’s because he didn’t let me get lazy.
Ilya answered some firearm questions for me. Marcus talked at length one afternoon about military hearings, courts martial, and punishments. Mary helped me with emergency-room procedures and terminology. Any straying from the facts in these areas is my own and not theirs.
John and CD read early drafts in record time when my schedule got tight—they’re both amazing.
And of course, many thanks to my lovely lady, Colleen, who continues to offer advice, to listen when I need to think out loud, and to put up with me while I worry and stress out (again) about how I’m definitely going to screw everything up this time.
—P.C.
Los Angeles, September 7, 2013
ONE
“I just don’t think it’s that good,” said Denise. “It doesn’t do anything for me.”
Becky bit back a smile, even though Denise couldn’t see it over the phone. They’d had this conversation every other week for two months now. It still made for a good distraction, though, and helped fill up the time until Ben got home.
It always worried her a bit when Ben was away. Ben was in charge of high-security projects. Mostly weapons. Often in high-risk areas.
Granted, this had been one of the lowest-risk work trips he’d ever taken. Just four days in San Diego. And on a non-weapons project.
“I mean, Marty really likes it,” Denise continued, “but it just seems like nothing but boobs and snow and blood. And the frozen zombie things. I just don’t get them. It feels like not a lot ever actually happens, y’know? Five years and they’re still talking about winter.”
Becky gathered up some socks, underwear, two T-shirts, a skirt, and a bra that had been scattered across the bedroom floor. She was a horrible slob whenever she had the house to herself. Worse than she’d been in college, for some reason she couldn’t figure out. “So why do you keep watching it?”
“Ehh. Marty really likes it. He won’t admit it, but I just think he likes all the boobs. Are you guys still watching?”
She walked to the bathroom, and shoved the armload of clothes into the hamper. The bathroom was a mess, too. Her yoga clothes and more underwear. How had she gone through so much underwear in four days? “We’re a couple episodes behind, but yeah,” she said. “I think he likes the boobs, too. And the dragons.”
Becky put her foot in the trash can and mashed down the small pile of bathroom trash, just enough so it didn’t look like it was overflowing. “We were talking about doing a DVR marathon this weekend. Something to relax a bit after his trip.”
“When’s he get back?”
“His plane landed a little while ago,” she said. “He sent me a text saying he had to stop at the office and give a quick report to his boss. Probably be home any minute now.”
“Cleaning up your mess?”
She laughed. “You know me too well.”
“I should let you go, then.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Give me a call next week,” Denise said. “Maybe we can all do dinner at that new Japanese place.”
“Okay.”
She hung up and tossed the phone on the bed. She looked around and tried to spot anything else he could tease her for leaving out. There was a wineglass on her nightstand, and a plate with a few cheesecake crumbs. And another wineglass on her dresser. God, she was a slob. And a lush.
It crossed her mind now and then that she should try to be one of the good wives. The ones who kept the house clean, and had dinner waiting for her husband when he came home. When they’d met, she’d actually been dressed as a 1950s housewife at a Halloween party, complete with martini glass, apron, and a copy of an old Good Housekeeping list of duties she was supposed to perform. He’d laughed, said she didn’t look like the kind of woman who sat around waiting on a husband, and bought her a drink. They’d ended Halloween night with a few things that were not covered in the Good Housekeeping article. Fourteen months later they were married.
She gathered up the glasses and the plate. She could swing by her art studio in the back and grab the dishes there. There was definitely a plate next to her computer from today’s lunch, possibly a wineglass from last night. She could rinse them in the sink, maybe.
As she reached the studio door, a faint rasp of sliding metal echoed from the front of the house. A key in a lock. There was a click, and then the hinge squeaked. They’d been trying to fix that damned thing for years.
The front door.
“Hey, babe,” she called out, setting all the dishes down on the desk. “How was your flight?” Ah, well. He wouldn’t notice them right away in the studio. And it wasn’t like he didn’t know her by now. She took a few steps toward the hall, then decided to take the back staircase. It was closer, and she’d probably meet him in the kitchen.
Something tickled her brain as her foot hit the first step. The lack of something. The usual chain of sounds she heard when Ben got home had been broken. She hadn’t heard the hinge squeak again, or the door close. Or his keys hitting the table in the front hall.
“Babe?”
She lifted her foot from the step and walked back down the hall. From the top of the staircase she could see their front door. It sat open by almost a foot. She could smell the lawn outside and hear the traffic heading for the beltway.
Ben wasn’t there. She didn’t see his keys on the table. His briefcase wasn’t shoved under the table where he always tossed it.
Becky took a few steps down the stairs. She peered over the banister to see if he was lurking in the hall. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d leaped out to scare her.
The hallway was empty.
She walked downstairs to the front door. It hung open in a relaxed, casual way. The same way it did when she was heading out to grab the mail or to growl at Pat from down the street for letting her dog crap on their lawn.
Had she left the door open when she went out for the mail earlier? Maybe just enough for the wind to push it open? Had she imagined the sound of the key? Ben was due home any minute. She might’ve just heard the hinge squeak and added everything else.
She leaned out the door. It was cool. This late in the afternoon, the front of the house was in the shade.
Ben’s car was in the driveway. It was right where it always landed, in front of the nearer garage door. She could see a faint shimmer of heat above the hood.
Becky pushed the door shut. The hinges squeaked. The latch clicked.
“Are you in here, babe?”
Floorboards settled. The air in the house shifted. Someone was in the kitchen. She recognized the creak of the tiles near the dishwas
her.
“Ben?” His name echoed in the house. She took a few strides toward the back of the house. “Where are you?”
The silence slowed her down, then brought her to a stop.
“If this is supposed to be funny, it’s not.”
Nothing.
She weighed her options. There was still a chance this was a trick. A joke gone bad. Ben would leap out and make her shriek and she’d hit him and then welcome him home.
It didn’t feel like a trick. The house felt wrong. Ben’s car might be in the driveway, but there was a stranger moving through their home.
They owned a gun. A Glock 17 or 19 or something. She’d taken four classes and gone shooting at the range three times. It was a badass, secret agent–level gun. That’s what Ben had said. They’d probably never need it, but better to have it and not need it than need it and not …
The Glock was upstairs. In their bedroom. In the nightstand. She could take six long steps back and be at the main staircase.
Or take three steps forward and get a view into the kitchen.
She took two steps forward.
Ben’s briefcase and travel bag sat in the hallway. It was a beat-up, gym bag sort of thing he’d had for years. He still used it because it held three or four days’ worth of clothes, but it fit in an overhead compartment. Cut half an hour off his travel time to not be waiting on luggage.
“Babe, I swear to God, I’m calling the fucking cops in two minutes.” Her voice echoed in the house. “This isn’t funny.”
A long groan sounded above her. The noise of stressed wood. The spot by her studio, close to the door. Neither of them had stepped on it in over a year because it was so damned loud.
Whoever was upstairs had stepped on it.
They were upstairs!
She looked up at the ceiling. Three seconds passed, and another board squeaked. She could almost see the footsteps through the plaster. Someone was circling around the house. Straight through to the kitchen, up the back staircase she’d had her foot on just five minutes ago, and into the upstairs hallway. They were near the bedroom.
