Agent Zero

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “In case of the government?”

  “Yeah, well, ironic, isn’t it?”

  “Very.” Who was the woman using her voice now? Her breath had come back, and Holly realized terror wasn’t the problem.

  The problem was that she wasn’t terrified enough. The old Holly—the tired, dying waitress—would still have been screaming her lungs out and quite possibly sobbing after being shot at. This new woman, full of a virus that had shrunk the tumors inside her like sugar lumps under running water, was simply climbing down a ladder and trying not to fall.

  Funny, nothing had mattered when she knew she was terminal. It was so much easier. Now she didn’t know what the hell to do, or to think, or to feel.

  The end came as a surprise—Reese’s hands at her waist, he lifted her down with thought-provokingly casual ease. The darkness was a living thing, pressed against the borders of her body. Reese curled a hand around her nape and pulled her forward slightly. Holly didn’t resist, burying her face in his chest and breathing him in. At least he was just the same. Holly stays with me. He wasn’t going to leave her behind just yet.

  She could sense his head tilting, him listening intently.

  “Nothing,” he whispered. “Bad tactics, to warn two agents in a hide.”

  “That was a warning?”

  “All three of us as pretty targets, lead sprayed everywhere, and only Cal winged by a ricochet? Maybe it was bad luck, I don’t know.”

  Her fingers were numb cold. “God.”

  “Don’t worry. The angle was wrong to hit you. Mostly.” His gloved fingers tensed, massaging the back of her neck.

  Oh, that’s so comforting. The little movement of his fingers did comfort her, though. “Great. Reese?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you... Cal. How did he even get here?”

  “By asking himself what he’d do if he was me. If he had to keep someone safe.”

  “And just like that, he found you?”

  “He had files detailing my domestic jobs.” A little tension now, invading him bit by bit. Would she have noticed it before?

  Domestic jobs? “I don’t even want to know.” But she did, she realized. She wanted to know who this man was. The hoarse, gentle voice while she writhed with fever, or a killer?

  Oh, sure, he had all sorts of euphemisms for it, and Cal probably did, too. It hadn’t hit her before, but getting shot at was probably a good way to concentrate your mind, right? She was in the dark, being hugged by a man who had probably committed murder.

  Not probably, Holly. Definitely. The vision of two shapeless lumps on her apartment floor, mercifully darkened like everything before she woke up this morning seemed to be, hit her again. It had been so much easier when nothing mattered.

  “Sooner or later, you will.” He actually sounded a little sad. “I’m a monster, Holly. But at least I’m on your side.”

  Well. That’s one way to put it. “I don’t think you’re a monster.” Even if he’s killed people, Holl? Really? “Why are we down here?”

  “Because this is another way out. We’ll surface a couple klicks from the cabin.”

  “In the middle of the woods.”

  “Have some faith in me, baby.” His breath was warm in her hair.

  I’m not screaming and running away. “Have you... Reese, have you killed people?” Well, duh, obviously.

  “I served my country.” Harsher, now, and he let go of her. Not all the way—he reached down, and his fingers were a loose bracelet on her wrist. “That was part of the deal.”

  “Did you...do you like doing it?”

  “What?” Baffled now. He stepped back, and she wondered if he could see in the dark. “No. Sometimes I had to. But I don’t kill children.”

  “You didn’t—”

  “Let’s go.” He set off into the darkness, and she had to stumble after him.

  “Children? They...they asked you to hurt children?”

  “They sit in offices and make decisions, and the agents do the dirty work. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to stay a little clean. You can hate me all you want.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Can you be quiet? I’ve got to hear what’s going on topside.”

  Can you? She strained her own ears, but heard nothing but heartbeats and her own ragged breathing, Reese’s inhales smooth and deep, his exhales long and shallow.

  If she made him angry, would he just abandon her? Then what would she do?

  You’re smart, Holly. You’d figure it out. After all, there was no cancer now. It was like living in a prison, then waking up suddenly to find yourself free in a sunny green field.

  God, what I wouldn’t give for some sunlight now. Life wasn’t about what you wished for, though.

  At least she’d learned that lesson on her own.

  Holly set her chin and followed the tugging on her wrist forward, into the uncertain future.

  * * *

  Of course she’d start asking those sorts of questions now. He’d had all the grace he was allowed, and keeping her around wasn’t going to be so easy from here on out. She had every right to run, and what did it say about him that he wasn’t going to let her?

  It was a long time down in the dark, judging their distance by counting his steps, and when Holly tried to pull away he clamped down on her wrist before he realized she was trying to hold his hand instead.

  Why?

  Still, with her gloved fingers laced into his, he felt better. Especially when she squeezed. It could have just been easier for her to keep her balance. It could have just been that she didn’t want to be left in the dark.

  What it probably wasn’t was any other reason. Did you kill people? It was a question he’d been dreading. Was she regretting the other night with him now? Of course she would be.

  She was clean, and he was anything but. Still, if he kept her safe, that was a way to balance it out, wasn’t it?

  Silence, except for her hurrying to keep up. She was much quieter now, not moving as smoothly as an agent, but a normal would think her eerily soundless. The feedback from heightened senses gave you a new baseline for careful. He’d have to teach her how to pass among normals, some of the basic lessons about controlling the autonomics, and other things.

  Assuming she’d listen to him.

  He slowed as he sensed the end of the steadily rising tunnel approaching. “Almost at the end,” he murmured.

  “We’ve been going up.” Did she sound tentative? Of course, he’d snapped at her.

  Way to go, soldier. “Yeah. The climb up isn’t nearly as bad. You’re doing great.”

  A half-choked laugh. “Really?”

  Didn’t sound like she believed him.

  “I’m sorry, Holly. I’m on edge. And I didn’t think anyone would find us.”

  “Maybe they didn’t, maybe they followed Cal.”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “But you trust him?”

  “Only provisionally.” And not with you.

  “Why would they just shoot to warn him?”

  “Don’t know that they did.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Where we’re going, what we’re going to do and that I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  She was silent. Probably didn’t believe him. He had time to change her mind, though. Didn’t he?

  I hope so.

  The end came a little sooner than he’d expected. Fortunately he didn’t walk into the goddamn ladder to top everything off. “Okay. We’ll climb a bit. There’s rest platforms. How are you feeling?”

  “Like I just got shot at.” A little unsteady. “Like I lost all my clothes. Again.”

  He squeezed her fingers, gently, before loosening his hand. “I�
�m sorry, Holly.” And I am. But not enough to let you go.

  “I know.”

  There was nothing to say to that, so he just pulled her forward, let her find the ladder rungs. “You go up first.”

  “In case I fall?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’d catch me?”

  “I’d do my best. Or I’d fall with you.”

  “Oh.” Slight sounds—the tips of her boots scraping, hitching against a rung—broader and better anchored than the ones at the other end. She said nothing else, and the tang of iron determination to her marvelous, still-intensifying scent reached in and yanked on something in his gut.

  And a little lower. Holly was outright goddamn amazing.

  Reese shook his head, waited for her to get a little farther up and began climbing after her.

  * * *

  The rest platform at the top wasn’t big enough for both of them, but he braced one foot on the wall behind him, across the tunnel and had a tricky few moments feeling around for the release switch, Holly trapped between him and sheer rock with her feet firmly planted on the iron strip. The close quarters might even have added something if she hadn’t been trembling, her breath shorter and shorter and her pulse spiking.

  The dark didn’t sit well with her. Either that, or reaction to the last few hours was setting in. Could be both. “It’s all right,” he breathed in her ear. “In a little while we’ll be safe and warmed up, and this will be just a memory.”

  His fingers found the plastic cover; he flipped it up and keyed in the code by feel. If that didn’t work there was the killswitch, but luck was with him and there was a low hum. A creaking sound, and he braced himself a little more tightly before lifting his hands to the wheel overhead. No ice, because the exit was just below ground level and incrementally warmed by the same geothermals, so he only had to swear once to get the entire thing moving. A thin crack of light appeared, and Holly’s sobbing breath of relief made something in him relax slightly.

  “Upsy-daisy, sweetheart.”

  He watched her going up into the dim light, and when she finally cleared the entrance he followed. It was, he thought, pretty goddamn symbolic. If there was any light to head for, she was the only one who knew where it was. All he could do was stagger after her.

  It looked like a manhole cover in the middle of a shack of a shed that was nevertheless nicely weatherproofed on the inside. A dusty window, one pane rubbed clean, let in pale tree-filtered sunlight through festoons of cobweb.

  Wait, a clean pane? That was wrong.

  He cleared the entrance and hopped sideways, but not fast enough. A pop, a spear of ice buried in his left glute.

  Holly stood with her back to the wall, staring, dead white, hair mussed, and beautiful. He opened his mouth to tell her to run, but whatever was loaded in the tranquilizer dart was potent enough to knock out an agent, and he fell sideways into darkness still trying to say her name.

  * * *

  He’d left orders for Three to wake him up, but it was his phone that did the service instead, buzzing and blurring in his pocket so hard Bronson thought there was a tiny animal in there coming after his family jewels. He jolted out of dreaming, his overworked heart thundering, and for a sleep-fogged second he was back at Shah-i-Kot again, dust in his hair and the stench of gunfire, blood, offal, more dust kicked up by explosives...

  Goddammit. She was supposed to wake me up. The phone glowed, spectral in the dimness, and it was a buzz from Control probably asking for updates.

  Well, the old man could wait. Bronson was the boots on the ground, and Control had to expect he sometimes didn’t have time for little chats.

  The worn leather couch he’d been napping on creaked as he hauled himself up. What I wouldn’t give for a nip of bourbon right now. Washing his face with cold water, swiping his graying hair back, not looking in the mirror any more than he could help it. The bloodshot eyes, the indifferent skin—once he’d been handsome, but not anymore. He shambled back to the desk, pressed the call button to summon Three and yawned as he rubbed at his eyes again.

  A few minutes later, irritated, he shrugged into his suit jacket, slid the phone into his breast pocket and strode for the soundproofed door. He unlocked it with a muttered curse and threw it open, intending to bellow for Three. Instead, the sight of Noah Caldwell, grinning like a maniac and just lifting his hand to knock, greeted him. The major was in fatigues, and he positively reeked of cold, fresh air and gasoline. His baby blues sparkled, and behind him came Three, a high blush in her cheeks from the cold, shouldering a rifle Bronson most definitely hadn’t cleared for her use.

  “What the hell is this?” Bronson snapped.

  “We got them!” Caldwell all but clapped his hands like a three-year-old. “I had Three here calculate routes and vectors. We locked onto them and spooked them, then drove ’em into nets. We’ve got them all—Six, and Eight, and the woman. She’s a damn Gemina. Control will be—”

  “You took Three off the rez.” You little prick. “Do you know what Control’s going to do to you when he finds out?”

  Caldwell shrugged. His grin faded, but the smugness didn’t. “Control wanted all assets in place to be turned toward solving the problem. And it’s better than you were doing. Sir.”

  For a moment he wasn’t sure he’d heard the man right. Maybe it was the smugness, maybe it was sleepfog, maybe it was Bronson’s phone buzzing again in his pocket—this time it didn’t feel like a tiny little animal, it felt like a set of tiny claws digging into the top left of his chest.

  Maybe it was Three, behind Caldwell, simply studying him as if he was some kind of rare bug. She was in a parka with a fur-lined hood and fatigue pants instead of a skirt and blazer, and they looked good on her, covering up the skinniness. The bags under her eyes were gone; Caldwell had probably ordered her to eat and change her clothes.

  Caldwell had probably made sure she had clothes to change into. The major was muscling in. Control was already looking to cut deadweight loose, and the big man would be a fool if he hadn’t given the little boy a set of orders concerning his immediate superior.

  This doesn’t look good. Especially not for Ma Bronson boy’s Ritchie. “You took a valuable asset off without—” he began.

  The major actually shrugged. At him. At Rich Bronson, who had been here from the beginning. “Three, why don’t you rack that and get cleaned up? There’s fresh kit prepared for you. We’ll debrief over breakfast.”

  The woman didn’t even look at Bronson. She simply said, “Yes, sir,” in her usual colorless tone, turned on her heel—even the boots were new—and glided away.

  Oh, no, you don’t, you pipsqueak. “So, you’re the big man now? You’re thinking you can—”

  “Shut up, Dick.” He even said it kindly. “You were making a huge mess of things—I’m going to report as much to Control. Time for you to go out to pasture, old man.”

  Sonofa... Rich Bronson stepped forward, his fist flashing out. He was old and fat, true, but he’d been a boxer long ago, and he still moved with some lumbering grace. There was a satisfying crunch—the major’s profile was never going to be Grecian again, and that was just fine. Caldwell’s head snapped back, and there was a gusher—bright blood, he’d definitely broken the little snot’s nose.

  “Now you listen to me,” Bronson snarled, shaking his hand out. “I’m still in charge here, until Control arrives himself. I don’t take orders from you, and God help me, after I finish talking to Control, you’ll be busted down to scrubbing toilets in Leavenworth. Get out of my sight.”

  He shouldered past the man, stalking for the conn rooms. Time to do some damage control, but first, he was going to tie up a few loose ends. Maybe Caldwell would be one of them.

  Had Bronson turned around, he might have seen the major staring at him, bright hate in those already-puffin
g blue eyes, blood dripping on his uniform from his broken nose and a wide, unsettling smile on those thin lips.

  * * *

  They put a hood over her head, but she could still hear—and smell—just fine. Washed-out scents unlike Reese and Cal’s, but male all the same. Metal, pepper, wax—soldier, she thought, and a chain of memory detonated inside her head. Her father’s uniform, spray starch, nylon webbing, the odor of guns that hung on him when he came back from the range. His aftershave, always with the faint tang of sweat. Engine oil and grease on his callused fingers.

  Her father in the hospice bed, and the thin line of the EEG. Brain death. He’d fought the cancer hard, but in the end, it hadn’t been enough. Nothing in her father’s life had been enough.

  Oh, Daddy.

  There were at least a dozen of them. She stayed limp, not giving them any reason to manhandle her. They weren’t brutal, just businesslike, and her arms ached from when she’d struggled, trying to avoid the handcuffs. At least she wasn’t cuffed behind her back—that would have been worse.

  It had taken more than three of them to overpower her. Even if she wasn’t as strong as Reese, there was something to be said for pure desperation.

  Metal against their boots, she was carried like a sack of potatoes. They were all nervous, a high rasping edge scraping against her nerves.

  Stairs. Her head bumped as she lolled, slung between two of them. Maybe nobody wanted to fireman-carry her.

  Think, Holly.

  The helicopter, hearing military jargon yelled back and forth over the thrum of the rotors. Thin copper thread of blood—she’d scratched and kicked, and one of them had hit her with something that felt suspiciously like a rifle butt. It could have broken her neck, she supposed. She was lucky.

  Turns, as they moved along a corridor that echoed like bare cement. Left, right, two rights, a left. She counted them, wishing her head wasn’t spinning so badly. Lost track, restarted. If she got a chance...

  What would Dad do? He didn’t talk about the war, so she had to guess. He would have known some trick, for when you were captured by the enemy. Be smart, Holl, he would always say. There’s my smart girl. How proud he’d been when she graduated from community college, cradling her diploma in his worn-down hands on the hospice bed. My smart, smart girl.