The BETA Agency

by Maxwell Coffie

  One more serpent remained. It lunged at me. I caught it by the neck, and thrust my right blade through its head. The serpent’s head turned to ice, and broke off.

  “Imp, are you alright?” I asked.

  Imp just pointed up to a commentator’s box.

  “You want to get up there?” I helped him back onto my back. “Hold on.”

  As I ran, I could hear King giving the others instructions through the radio. There were multiple resonating thuds. The giant was making their fight anything but easy. Then, there were two more explosions behind me, and Kay whooped. I assumed that two more cubes had been destroyed.

  “We’re almost there,” I said, more for my benefit than Imp’s. As I approached the base of the commentator’s box, I realized that it was a lot higher than I’d anticipated. I took a deep breath, and flitted up to it. But I misjudged the distance, and slammed into the side of the box. Desperately, I scrambled, grabbing onto the ledge just in time. I could taste blood in my mouth.

  “I can’t hoist us both up,” I told Imp. “You need to climb over me.” He was already on it. I could feel my fingers giving. “Think you can go any faster?”

  He reached the top, grabbed my wrist, and helped me onto the box. I got off my knees, and looked up. Flaming bleak, that head of sand was high.

  “Sure you can hit that thing from here?” I asked.

  Imp narrowed his eyes at me.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  I was suddenly aware that King was voicing a countdown on the radio. There was thunderous rumbling, followed by a loud whoosh. I jumped when the giant’s torso blew apart, and a magnificent, flaming meteor came roaring out of the dust cloud. I watched in awe as the flames disappeared to reveal King’s twirling figure. In his hands, he was grasping a smoking Aiden. Behind him, the fourth cube exploded, further dispersing the living clay.

  For a moment, I thought King’s stupendous, fiery leap was going to land him next to me and Imp. That is, till several whips of clay shot out of the split torso, and made for King mid-air.

  “Look out,” I yelled.

  King whirled around, and started to hack at the clay whips, his blade trailing fluid fire. But one of the whips wrapped itself around his waist, and yanked him back down. I watched helpless as King plummeted down; down through the cavity in the giant’s chest, down to the ground. I heard the crash over the radio.

  “King,” I cried. “King, can you hear me?”

  The clay had started to reform in the air.

  There was static. Then King’s voice came: Last cube. Arra, Imp. Think you can end this so we can go home?

  I tightened my jaw, a new resolve burning through my veins. “You bet. Imp, you ready?”

  Imp had already drawn his instrument. The arrow was burning bright. He lifted his weapon, closed an eye…and fired.

  The projectile travelled straight and true, hitting the back of the giant’s head. The head blew apart.

  It took all in me not to scream like a little girl, the rush of relief that filled me. But then, I spotted the last cube, still safe and sound, tucked within the swirling mass of clay. More clay piled onto the mass, as the giant’s head was reconstructed. The arrow hadn’t been powerful enough.

  Imp whistled to get my attention, and made a parting gesture with his hand.

  “You need me to clear a path for you?” I tightened my fists. “I can try.”

  Imp showed me one finger.

  I was confused for a fraction. Then, I understood. “You can only shoot one more arrow? Seriously?”

  The head was growing eyes. Muck, it was facing us now. It roared, lifting an arm to crush us.

  “Eat this, you pit of muck,” I yelled, summoning every droplet of mana I could manage into my fists. Then, I fired.

  It was the biggest mana bolt I’d ever thrown. More like a mana globe. It travelled a little slower than my regular bolts. And I felt a sinking feeling, when I realized it wasn’t flying as straight as I’d hoped. Instead, it hit the giant off-centre, and about half of the bolt dissipated harmlessly. But the greater part of the cube was exposed now.

  “Imp,” I said.

  He was on it. He let his arrow fly, and I stared with trepidation as it streaked through the air, towards the partially exposed block of grey. Out of nowhere, extra appendages grew out of the floating fragments of clay, and I watched in dismay as they moved to intercept the arrow.

  Still, the explosion was magnificent. I had to shield my eyes. Then, I opened them to see if we had succeeded. No premature celebrations this time.

  The air started to clear, and I squinted my eyes. Something was flickering weakly behind the curtain of dust. My stomach churned, when I realized that the flickering something was rubriq. The cube was damaged. But not destroyed.

  Somebody needs to blow that thing before it’s protected again, King said, as clay began to swirl around the cube once again. I don’t think I can get up there fast enough.

  I looked at the countless pillars of clay twisting, writhing, and swirling; rushing up from the ground till they revolved around the last spelled cube like planetary rings. “I’ll do it,” I said.

  There was silence on the radio.

  You sure you can do it, Arra? King asked.

  Of course she can do it, Po said, taking me by surprise. I trained her. Go for it, Everglade.

  I didn’t think. I walked to the ledge of the box, and yelled, “Hey, ugly!”

  The swirling clay ignored me. So, I mustered the last of my juice, and threw a weak bolt its way. I hit one of the writhing pillars. At least six of the pillars froze.

  “Come get me if you have the stones,” I taunted.

  The pillars rocketed towards me. That was my chance: I flitted towards the pillars. And just before the first pillar could crush me to a pulp, I flitted up, and landed on top of it. I took two steps, before flitting up to the next pillar, and the next pillar, and the next pillar. I repeated the process as fast as I could, always landing neatly on top of the pillars, always flitting off before the giant could dissolve them. Finally, I reached one of the highest pillars of clay; a pillar that twisted into a ring, and led straight to the cube. I flitted along its length, swerving and leaping over the sections that crumbled unexpectedly into dust. Tiny whips rose out of the ring to obstruct me, but I thrust, swung, and twirled, cutting away all opposition with the sharps of Tundra’s blades.

  Ahead of me, the ring started to give away. I was so close to the cube. I timed the approaching disintegration, and as soon as my feet touched the edge, I flitted into the air.

  Emptiness; my body soared through it. My legs kicked wildly. My fingers reached out for the cube. Then, as soon as the cube was in arm’s length, I drew back, and sunk Tundra deep into its face.

  There was an ear piercing screech. The sound was unbearable, and my arms hurt, but I only sunk my blades in deeper, squeezing Tundra’s triggers. The cube shuddered under me; the rubriq on its face flickered erratically; ice travelled from Tundra, and spread all across the grey.

  I turned and saw ice spreading, inexplicably, along the individual pillars of clay as well. The dust particles around me were frosting over, becoming like snow.

  I held on, suspended hundreds of feet in the air. Now, the lights in the rubriq were like dying coals. I sucked in my breath, still too afraid to have hope. But eventually, the vaguely discernible hum from the cube ceased, and the rubriq remained an empty black. The cube was dead.

  It was over.

  I was about to let out a sigh of relief, when I realized that the updraft had begun to intensify. The cube was falling down.

  My breath caught in my throat, as I tried to yank out my instruments. They refused to disconnect. I pushed myself clear of the cube, and flailed helplessly. I was petrified; I could not even scream.

  Then, I felt warm arms around me, pulling me in, holding me close. I smelled something sweet, spicy, subtle—skyweed. I looked up into King’s face, and the eyes that had frightened me once, filled me with
an indescribable peace.

  He landed us on the ground, with all the delicacy of a feather. And the earth shuddered, as all the frozen pillars came crashing down around us.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Who are you, and what did you do with Arra Everglade?”

  I was immediately embarrassed. “You’re going to make a big deal just because I pulled a stunt? It’s still plain old me.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said, setting me down. “The old Arra was a detective. This Arra—” He smiled. “This Arra is a beta.”

  CHAPTER 59

  It took us a while, but we found it: the hatch that led underground. It was at the east edge of the grounds, underneath a small pile of frozen clay. The hatch had a keypad, and had been spelled to electrocute intruders. It took all of five moments for Po to disable the electrocution spell, and Imp to hack the security access code. The hatch hissed, popped out, and slid to the side.

  We looked down into the impenetrable darkness.

  “So,” King said, “who wants to go first?”

  Po rolled her eyes, and shoved him aside. She took the metal rungs and began her descent underground. Kay followed suit.

  “Keep watch, Imp,” King said. “We’ll be back.”

  Imp nodded. I went after Kay, and King followed.

  It was a long way down. My fingers ached, and I kept losing my footing.

  “If you fall on top of us, you’re a dead woman, Everglade,” Po threatened from below.

  “Oh, leave me alone. Not everyone can see in the dark,” I retorted.

  After what felt like an eternity, Kay said, “Ey, I’ve reached the bottom.”

  “Huh? Where’s Po?” King asked.

  “Looking for a light switch,” Po responded. “Here we go.”

  A yellow light came from below.

  I was relieved when my feet touched the ground again. I nursed my wrist and looked around. I didn’t know why I had expected a fancy laboratory, glossy surfaces and oversized equipment. Too many bad movies, maybe.

  We were in a small room, with walls made of earth, and a single weak bulb. There were a few tables lining the walls, covered with papers and dusty books. At the end of the room, there was a wooden door. I didn’t know if this was the same room from the artificially induced dream.

  King moved to one of the tables, and rummaged through the papers.

  I couldn’t bring myself to move. “What are they?”

  “Notes,” King muttered. “Experiments. Procedures.“ He paused. “Names.”

  I took a deep breath to calm myself. The thought that, that psychopath was somewhere down here.

  King frowned, as he studied more of the papers. “There’re also some documents on blood cancer here. These ones look like medical records. No name. Just a ‘Patient X’.”

  “Looks like he did his homework before jacking Ron Pethro,” Kay said, wrinkling his nose.

  King nodded. “Come on.”

  We followed him into the next room. Po found a light switch, and turned it on. At the left corner of the room, there was an operating table, splattered with a rust coloured crud I expected was dried blood. Next to the table was an elevated tray with dirty surgical tools. There was a wooden table against the opposite wall, also littered with papers. Then, I looked to the right, and my heart stopped.

  There was a man, sitting on what looked like a wooden throne. He was bare-chested, and pitifully thin. Complexion: pallid, sallow. His eyes were rolled back, and his mouth was partially open. Most stomach turning of all was his rubriq: from the neck down, it covered every unit of his skin. He wasn’t moving.

  “Who is that?” Po asked.

  King looked as shocked as I felt. “Look at his head.”

  There were thick, dark scars along his scalp, like braids; the kind the Puppeteer had.

  “How do we know it’s really him?” I asked.

  “It’s him,” Po said, grimly. “I can sense bio-mana in here. It’s weak. But it’s definitely the Puppeteer’s.”

  Kay looked dumbfounded. “What happened to him? Think he finally died of old age?”

  “Doubt it. Maybe he overexerted himself. Think of all the mana-heavy spells he’s pulled off lately,” Po said. “Think of the sand giant.”

  “Maybe he’s been sniffing embalming chemicals too long,” King joked.

  As they bounced suggestions off each other, I approached the table, and sifted through the papers. I found a weathered black notebook, brimming with supplementary stapled sheets and the barely legible lettering of what looked like K’har. I was just wondering what the writing said, when I spotted something.

  I walked up to a calendar on the wall. It was the same kind that Po and I had retrieved from K’har. Except, this one was whole, and the revelations it provided sent tremors of excitement through me. I studied a few of the pages, baffled by my own conclusion.

  “Guys, I think,” I stuttered, “I think he has blood cancer.”

  I could feel the astonishment in the air.

  “This is a chemical therapy calendar,” I said. “It literally says so in its header.” I took the calendar off the wall. “We couldn’t tell with that reconstructed version ABBY made us, but now—look at all these scribbles. This calendar has been used. A lot. It looks like he’s been in therapy for about a year now.”

  Po shrugged. “That doesn’t mean he has cancer. That calendar could just be more research.”

  “Oh come on, you don’t have to be a detective to put this together,” I sighed. “A set of medical records for a ‘Patient X’, an extensively used therapy calendar, and he looks like he’s been dying for years. That crosses the line of circumstantial.”

  Po came over, and took a look at the calendar. “You may be right. The drugs he’s put down here are commonly prescribed for cancer.”

  “Ey.” Kay was pulling out something from a hole in the wall. “Any of these part of the treatment?” He tossed some plastic containers Po’s way.

  Po caught the containers, glanced at their labels, and opened one of them up. She shook some pills into her palm and sniffed them. She nodded. “All of them.”

  “So all this time he’s been sick.” I glanced one more time through the calendar pages. I noticed that there was a translucent smudge at the bottom left corner of every page. “There was a logo here. I knew it! But the bastard must have bleached it off or something. This is useless.” I dropped the calendar on the table. “We don’t know where he’s been getting treatment. Damn it.”

  “Was. He was getting treatment,” King said. He was next to the body now, feeling for a pulse. “That bio-mana Po sensed must’ve been residue. He’s dead. Well, his body is anyway.”

  Silence.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, slowly. “Can he come back from the dead? Repossess his own body?”

  “It’s possible,” King muttered. “If he’s in another body right now, it’s possible. But think of his original body as a sort of router.”

  “In other words,” said Po. “So long as we destroy this body, we should be golden.”

  More silence.

  “So this is it,” I finally said. My smile was tentative. “We got him.”

  King was drawing his instrument. “Yeah,” he whispered. “We got him.” And he lifted the blade.

  The Puppeteer opened his eyes. “Boo.”

  I jumped, and King stepped back.

  The Puppeteer’s laugh was loud, manic. Po and Kay had already readied their instruments.

  “You people are too easy,” the psychopath snickered. “Why are you so eager for this game to end? Am I the only one having fun here?”

  King had already regained composure. “This game is already over,” he said, his tone stone cold. “Nobody deserves the breath in their lungs less than you do, Puppeteer.”

  “Ha! Poetic.” The Puppeteer grinned. “We’ve had such a good run, you and I. But I don’t want to go this way. Feels anti-climactic, don’t you think? I’d rather a grander, more dramatic icing on the
cake. What do you say, old friend?”

  His voice was weak and hoarse, not at all like the boom I had been subjected to in my subconscious. Suddenly, I was livid at this vile, horrible monster of a man. This man who thought, that just because he could control a corpse, he was a god. This man who had taken lives indiscriminately, subjected innocents to excruciating pain, forced good men to destroy themselves. This man who had damn near killed us all about a quarter hour ago. Unable to control my anger any longer, I finally exploded with, “Oh, will you please just shut up?”

  My outburst took everybody in the room by surprise.

  “Since I heard about you,” I said, without trepidation, “you have done nothing but display an obvious yearn for attention. You’ve invented new techniques, sunk to murdering ordinary citizens, and now you’re trying desperately to form a connection with an agent whose only desire, for the past five years, has been to kill you. Sure, you hide behind what you obviously believe to be wit, and make condescending remarks about our unwillingness to play along with you. But obviously, somehow, in some dark twisted way, you really do identify King as your destiny; which crosses the boundaries of being merely sad, to being downright pathetic. You have cancer. You’re dying. You feel the need to make some big statement before you pass. We get it. But do not be deceived; in my line of work, I meet people like you every day. Read my lips: you are not special.” I paused to catch my breath. “The only thing that makes you different,” I panted. “Is that you can lash out with fancier tricks.”

  The others looked stunned.

  The smirk on the Puppeteer’s face was gone. A shadow had overcome his expression. He looked at King, and said, “So this is your new Watters? This obnoxious bat who relies on psychoanalysis and reason? Does she not understand that beings like you and I are above reason? There is no reasoning, no logic, no motive, only feeling, only our dance. And she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand our dance!” He glared at me with a hatred I could almost feel in the air. “How can you even bear to look at her? Knowing whom she replaced? Watters would be disappointed in you. She rolls in her grave, as we speak.”