“We want to do what’s best for your family, too, Mat,” he said.
He was right. Damn him. Damn him and Winterfield, damn Support. Damn the world.
“All right, I’ll move out.”
“Good,” Sanchez said, giving me a ‘butter could melt in his mouth’ smile. If I wasn’t so pissed, I’d find him irresistible. It had been forever since I’d been in a room with a man as attractive as Alexandre Sanchez. Maybe I never had, before this.
But none of that mattered now. How handsome and charming he was didn’t matter.
I licked my lips again, trying to moisten them.
Winterfield poured a glass of water, pushed it across the table at me. “Drink, Brandt.”
I drank the glass empty. What was I going to tell them?
“Maybe I should just stay away, not go back. They’ll think I’ve run off."
Winterfield shook his head. “You can’t just leave them by not returning. They’ll wonder.”
“Aren’t they going to wonder what happened to me either way? What are they supposed to think?”
“That you persuaded them to leave the area.”
“Just like that.”
Winterfield frowned. “Yes, Brandt, it’s that simple. I’m surprised you don’t see it.”
I scowled back at him. “See what?”
“You arranged to persuade Hatcher’s gang to leave the area. As far as your family is concerned, that’s exactly what happened. You are moving out because you're back in with some old friends. That’s all your family needs to know, but they do need to know that.”
I wanted to smash that smug look off his face. “Got it.”
Winterfield’s gaze was icy. “See that you do.”
I drank more water, trying to calm down.
“So, do I learn which group I’m supposed to infiltrate?” I asked Sanchez. Winterfield was leading the show, but Sanchez was much easier on the eyes, and he made me calm down faster.
Sanchez glanced at Winterfield.
“Yes, Brandt,” Winterfield said. “You do.” He paused.
“Well?” I asked, after a long moment. He was enjoying this, damn him.
“The Scourge.”
Well, well, well… “Gus Silco told me the Scourge was back. I figured he was lying.”
“No, Brandt. Silco told you the truth.”
“What the hell?” I fumed, crossing my arms. “Another thing you knew.” I’d been set up from the get-go.
“It gets better.”
Great, Winterfield’s idea of better probably meant I was in deeper trouble than I imagined. Another long pause. He really enjoyed having me over a barrel, the bastard. “How?”
Winterfield steepled his fingers. “It so happens Gus Silco belongs to a Scourge cell active in the Pacific Northwestern United States, namely Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.”
“Gus Silco, Blender is a member of the Scourge?”
Winterfield nodded. “He is.”
Unbelievable. Gus, a member? The Scourge must have changed a lot if they’d recruit a weasel like him. His blending made him a useful spy and sneak, and when he had the guts, a good thief. But Gus—damn you, Blender, you cut and run when it counted.
“You expect me to trust him?”
Winterfield cocked his head. “Don’t be an idiot, Brandt. I expect you to be on your guard. The guy did leave you in the lurch.”
My jaw tightened. “Okay. A Scourge cell? I don’t know what that is.”
Sanchez nodded. “Nor should you. The new version of the Scourge has adopted a cell structure, meaning it’s organized into a number of small groups. Only the leader in each group knows who their contact is to the overall leadership, which the Scourge calls ‘the inner circle.’ No cell leaders know about the other cells. They only know who their contact to the leadership is.”
“The inner circle,” I repeated. “But how do they coordinate?” I’d never heard of a criminal group that operated like that, especially not an Empowered criminal group. Super-villains were usually crazy-bold.
“Do you know how the old Scourge was taken down?” Winterfield asked me.
“I was otherwise occupied at the time.”
He looked at me sourly. “You were only in blackout for the first two years of your sentence.”
Winterfield wouldn’t understand. All I cared about when I finally got communication privileges with the outside world on my eighteenth birthday, was finding out how Ruth and the girls were doing. I couldn’t have cared less about the rest of the world.
“You missed the biggest operation the Hero Council and Support have mounted since the Ubermensch Heresy in the 1990s.”
I shrugged.
“You know the story of the Drake twins, right, Brandt? Tell us you know that much.”
“I know who the Drake twins are.” Who didn’t? They were famous.
David Drake had been called Halo, and his twin brother Daniel, Hazard. Both could alter probability according to what people said. Sounded crazy to me. Halo could improve the odds of something working or an action succeeding. Hazard did the opposite. Made things worse.
They were the superstar members of World Guard, the Hero Council’s worldwide unit, which, unlike the regional teams, could operate anywhere. Blond, with movie star looks and charm, David and Daniel were inseparable. Until seven years ago. When they were twenty-three. They had some kind of nasty argument. David went over to the dark side and joined the Scourge. He changed his name to Nefarious, if you could believe that.
“I assumed David Drake died in the Mojave battle. Figured Daniel retired after going after his brother.” I really didn’t know.
Winterfield leaned back in his chair and gave me another “I-can’t-believe-you-are-that-ignorant” look.
“We believed both David and Daniel Drake had died in the operation in the Mojave Desert, at the Scourge’s hidden fortress.”
“That must have been a nasty fight.”
“It was,” Sanchez said. “I was there.” A haunted look flashed across his face.
I wondered how many friends he’d lost in that battle.
“The thing is, Brandt,” Winterfield continued, “Support now has reason to believe that David Drake survived the so-called ‘Battle at the Hidden Fortress’ because we have intel that Nefarious is back.”
I blinked. “Shit.”
“Yes,” Sanchez said. “This means we need more information. The new Scourge is being very calculating and indirect in its activities. We have yet to identify a single base of operations, or anything beyond a few cells.”
“Perhaps that’s all there is,” I pointed out.
“We have intel that says otherwise.”
“From whom?”
“We are not going to divulge our sources to you, Brandt,” Winterfield said, sounding even more sour than normal.
“Okay, so you want me to infiltrate this local cell, and what, somehow figure out who the contact is?”
“No, Brandt, we want you to expose the cell leader to the Scourge’s inner circle. We believe he’s planning on betraying the Scourge for his own ends. If you expose what he is doing to the inner circle, that will gain you access.”
“Let me see if I have this straight,” I said. “I’m supposed to join a cell that weasel Gus Silco belongs to, figure out what the leader is up to. Then, instead of stopping whatever it is, I’m somehow supposed to expose him to this ‘inner circle’.”
I was in the shit for certain.
“To the contact, to be more precise,” Sanchez said.
Great.
“How am I supposed to do all this?”
“You’ll have guidance. You’ll still be on parole, and you will be meeting with me when you can,” Winterfield said. “We'll instruct you.”
Great. Assuming I didn’t die first.
CHAPTER 4
Winterfield sent me to my room, carrying the files I had to read, escorted by Agent Sanchez. My side felt fine. I had healed way faster than I normally would hav
e, given all the blood I lost. It was a miracle.
“Where is this place?” I asked as we turned down yet another identical-looking battleship gray corridor with linoleum flooring and those humming overhead lights that brightened when you moved. I was completely lost.
Sanchez laid a finger to his lips. “It’s a secret,” he said, and smiled.
Annoying as all hell. But it was hard to be too annoyed with someone who put it like that.
I almost laughed.
I stopped at an intersection. More identical corridors. “How do you not get lost in here? Down here?” I hadn’t seen a window since I woke up in the hospital room.
He smirked. “Would you believe that’s also a secret?”
“Hah.” I gave him a hard look. “You’re not joking, are you?”
“Not about that.” He took me down another identical corridor, this one a dead end.
“Must be prisoner’s row,” I said.
“Guest quarters.” He swiped his sleeve over the flat panel mounted by the door, which buzzed and unlocked. He opened the door with a neat flourish. “Your suite awaits.”
He was laying it on a little thick. Perhaps he was just trying to be nice, or maybe it was just part of the whole "good cop" to Winterfield’s "bad cop" routine.
The room had a desk, two chairs, kitchenette with microwave, a bunk, and a tiny bathroom. Another one of those flat screen displays hung on a wall.
I sat down on the bunk. “You don’t seem like a typical Support agent.”
Sanchez took the file folder from me and put it on the desktop. “Don’t forget this is your one job tonight.”
“I won’t.” Like I could forget. I had to nail this job.
He leaned against the desk, facing me. “I’m not a typical Support agent.” He flashed that smile at me.
“No, you have a sense of humor.” Not to mention that charm.
“It’s not forbidden,” Sanchez said, deadpan. “Just discouraged.”
The door chimed and I jumped. “Doorbell?”
Sanchez’s eyes sparkled. “This isn’t a prison, despite your first impression.”
“Is the door locked for me?”
“For now.”
“So I’m a prisoner in this not prison.”
“Enter,” he said. The door buzzed, and opened. Voice command activated?
A figure swathed in blue medical scrubs with a matching blue masked helmet entered. The helmet’s mask was molded to look like an angel’s face. Even the boots the figure wore were blue.
My hands twitched.
“Easy, Mat,” Sanchez said. “This is Medico Blue.”
“How are you feeling, Ms. Brandt?” The voice had a British accent.
I knew that voice. It was the voice I'd heard when I first came to, in the ICU or whatever that had been.
Her hands were encased in blue gloves made of some sort of synthetic. Every inch of her was covered. I don’t know how she saw anything; there were no eye holes in her face mask. Was she blind?
She didn’t move like she was blind.
Medico Blue knelt beside me, and ran her gloved fingers over my side, down my legs and arms. My skin tingled where she touched me. The tingling told me she was another Empowered. But why hadn’t I felt her when she was outside?
She finished her examination. “Your wound has healed completely. I am very pleased as, no doubt, you are.”
No kidding. “Thank you,” I said. “You must be why I’m still alive.”
Medico Blue laid a gloved hand over mine. “I am merely God’s instrument. She saved you, for reasons She will reveal in due course.”
Medico Blue sounded so certain. Her faith must run deep. I wasn’t going to argue with her, but I wasn’t so sure about God. Having your parents killed when you were only four years old makes it hard to believe.
Ruth was a Methodist. Her faith was a quiet belief. She hadn’t gone to church in years and didn’t push us to go, growing up. Ruth had said we had to discover faith on our own.
“Thank God for me,” I said.
Medico Blue tilted her head. “I will, but you certainly can on your own, and in your own way.” She kept her gloved hand over mine. “Your power is stronger than you realize.”
“Could have fooled me.” I shifted irritably.
Medico Blue rose and went to stand beside Sanchez.
“Self-knowledge is the hardest win,” Medico Blue said. I think she said it for both my and Sanchez’s benefit.
Sanchez nodded.
Medico Blue tapped her chest. “Have faith in your gift. Good day.” The door buzzed and opened with that loud click I was beginning to find annoying. It closed behind her with an answering click.
I suddenly felt very tired, and stretched out on the bed. “A medical checkup and a pep talk. Is that the norm around here?”
Sanchez brought a chair over. “She’s right about your power. It is stronger than you realize and potentially very powerful.”
I snorted. “I can make weeds grow super fast, kill plants, and hear trees in my head. Tremble before me.”
“We’ll help you develop your power.”
I sat up, startling him. “So sure of yourselves, aren’t you?” His confidence pissed me off. “I never had enough control over my power, and it betrayed me.”
“We can help you see it differently.”
Jesus, but he wouldn’t stop with the confidence.
My anger ebbed away. I was so tired.
“Get some rest,” he said. “There’re a few instant meals in the kitchenette. Read the files. They include contact procedures, which we’ll go over again tomorrow.”
He got up and took the chair back to the desk. “Oh, and if you need to speak to Winterfield or myself, just say so in a loud, clear voice. We’ll be notified.”
“Okay.”
He shot me another thousand-watt smile. “Like I said, get some rest.”
“No kidding.”
He left, with the same damn buzz-click routine with the door.
I was alone once more. I needed to think, but sleep overcame me.
When I awoke, I ate one of the insta-meals—chicken couscous with broccoli— and then tackled the files.
I sat at the desk, flicked on the little reading light, and opened the folder.
I would move into an abandoned house in North Portland, that Support had set up for me. I’d be a petty crook squatter, pretend to be on the down and out. I would be “estranged” from my family. I must make Gus and the others in the cell believe that was the truth.
Well, it wasn’t far from the truth, if it wasn’t the truth already.
But I’d still be meeting with my parole officer, who was valiantly trying to get me to come back to the straight-and-narrow. What a load of crap, but that was the story they’d cooked up, so I had to go with it.
I was to call Winterfield’s number from pay phones. We’d still meet regularly because I was still pretending to be the good parolee as part of my cover. Seemed like a bit of flaw in Support’s infiltration plan—but the terse instructions emphasized the value of my not being a wanted criminal. Hatcher’s gang had just gone elsewhere as far as anyone outside Support knew.
How long would all this work? Especially since Ruth was going to believe I had gone back to crime.
I read about the Scourge cell next. There wasn’t much info. Support figured the cell had between five and seven members. Aside from Gus, Support had names for two. There was a young woman close to my age named Keisha McMillan. There was one photo from a few years ago of an angry-looking black teenager glaring at the photographer. The other was only a name, the leader, Kai Jones, nicknamed “Mutter.” Mutter: what kind of Empowered name was that? It sounded ridiculous. Stupid.
I had been named “Vine” back in the Renegades. Thinking about my old name brought on the memories again. “Eye-spy”—Tanya, my best friend in the group—had named me Vine because I loved to conjure and grow ivy vines, blackberry vines, any kind of vines; they were
easy, and so useful.
I blinked away sudden tears. Damn it. We’d both been so young, and stupid.
I pushed the memories away. I had to focus on this. For Ruth and the twins.
Mutter had succeeded the Empowered who had originally formed the cell a year ago. That person had died in a mysterious “accident.” Awfully convenient for Mutter.
Since then, Mutter’s cell mostly spent its time lifting money from ordinary criminal gangs. No bank heists for him. Instead, crooks were his prey. I wondered how much of that money reached the Scourge’s inner circle?
The short file on Mutter said his power was manipulating air currents. He possessed “the ability to finely tune the flow of air, concentrate it, and restrict it.” His victims tended to be found asphyxiated. Not that there were many pleasant ways to croak off.
The report ending by claiming Mutter was believed to be extremely ruthless.
What had I gotten myself into?
The next morning, after an insta-meal breakfast, Sanchez—Alex—took me back to the briefing room where Winterfield made me recite what I’d read, and then went over it with me, again. It felt like hours, but when I groused about it, Winterfield told me it wasn’t even lunch time.
I hated studying.
Then it was time for paperwork. God, but I hated that more.
I signed I don’t know how many “allegiance”’ forms, which all amounted to pledging my loyalty to Support, the UN charter on Empowered Conduct, the Hero Council Code, and so on.
I finally finished signing my life away.
Winterfield put away the ream of paperwork I’d signed. “We’ve got one more thing for you before lunch.”
“What?” Damn him and his mind games.
“Just a little test.”
“What kind of test?” I asked.
“The necessary kind.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
He and Sanchez led me through a maze of yet more identical corridors to a huge, high-ceilinged, windowless room the size of a school gymnasium. The walls and the floor had some sort of padded armor. The floor felt and looked like metal that had some give to it.
In the center of the room were three big round wooden planters, spaced six feet apart. The left-hand one had what looked like a rose bush, the right-hand one, some kind of grass, and the center one, ivy on a little trellis.
The Empowered Series (Book 1): Empowered (Agent) Page 5
