The Agency, Volume I

by Sylvan, Dianne

  “Oh, I didn’t—I mean, I wouldn’t—“

  “Sure you wouldn’t. You and every other woman here, right? Trust me, there’s no way in hell, unless there’s more going on under there than I think there is.” She gestured at Sara’s midsection.

  “What, he doesn’t date humans?”

  Beck wrinkled her nose, which was adorable, in a strange and faintly creepy way. “It’s less the humanity and more the vagina that’s the problem.”

  Sara looked over to where Jason had disappeared, mouth working soundlessly in shock for a moment. “You’re kidding.”

  The vampire grinned broadly. “Nope. Anyway, nice to meet you and all that, and thanks for the help. See you around.”

  “Yeah, you too. Thanks for keeping me from making an ass of myself.”

  “Much fun as that would have been to watch, I figure, you’re new here, you deserve a break. Good luck.”

  With that, Beck walked—actually strutted was a better word—the way her brother had come from earlier, tossing the stack of papers she’d just made into a bin by the door where a bunch of similar documents were waiting, Sara assumed, to be turned into case files.

  She went back to her own copying, trying to decide how she felt. It was a combination of disappointment and relief, she decided, but really, it wasn’t as if she’d had a shot with SA-7 anyway. She knew the sort of women that guys like him usually went for…when they went for women, anyway. He was probably great in bed but crap at relationships, not interested in anything deeper. Intuitively…

  Well, that was odd. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t really sensed anything from him at all. Aside from the impressions she’d gotten from his case files, he was a blank slate to her. That meant he must have the best damn shields in Texas. Her empathy wasn’t very well trained and didn’t work nearly as effectively as her psychometry, but she usually got at least a vague idea of someone’s character right off the bat. Jason could have been anyone, or no one. It couldn’t be a vampire thing—Beck hadn’t been nearly so closed off. He was either a really private person, or he had something to hide.

  It was almost certainly the latter.

  Sara found herself curious, as she returned to her administrative exile, how difficult it would be to break into the Personnel files.

  *****

  Nearly a month into the job Sara was positively dying for some adventure, but when it found her, she really wished it hadn’t.

  At the end of a shift when the Agents had finished stopping bad guys and confiscating dangerous magical objects, someone had to deal with the paperwork. For every TV show about FBI agents and crime scene investigators there was a fleet of underappreciated, underpaid staffers making copies, brewing coffee, and putting things in alphabetical order.

  “Just call me Ianto,” she muttered irritably as she dumped a wet coffee filter full of grounds, the fourth she’d made that day, into the trash. “At least he gets laid.”

  The staff lounge had become one of her favorite places. There, working her way through one of half a dozen cups of coffee for the day, she could watch the Agents come and go and overhear their conversations. Most of them were consummate professionals; they responded to her conversational overtures cordially enough but then went back about their business. The Admins, of course, were a lot more personable, as were most of the folks from R&D.

  Still, like every other office she’d ever worked in, it was like pulling teeth to get anyone to make a fresh pot of coffee after they’d drained the last one, so she more or less took over. At least Beck had no complaints about her brewing skills.

  Sara reminded herself for the hundredth time that morning that the government always did things at a snail’s pace, and that if they’d promised her something besides Admin, she’d get it eventually. It was a matter of yet more paperwork, protocols, and probationary periods.

  She knew that outside the base very exciting things were always happening, but it was a testament to how smoothly Ness and Dru ran things that on the Floor the atmosphere was almost always calm and orderly. Even in the midst of a massive raid on some sort of otherworldly arms dealer, on a night when two Agents were badly injured and half the dealer’s henchmen were killed, the people at the system consoles never raised their voices or ran around yelling “Get the Pentagon on the phone!” or “We’re not losing anyone on my watch!”

  She sighed. Science fiction was turning out to be too much like real life.

  At least she was getting somewhere in accessing the Personnel files. The cabinet itself was a no-go; it required either Ness or Dru’s badge to unlock. Luckily, the redundancy of government paperwork meant that the hard copies that Sara dealt with were actually the secondary versions of the files. The electronic versions on the main server were what most of the staff used on a day-to-day basis. In fact, the electronic Personnel files were more up-to-date, as the hard copies were only updated twice a year during performance reviews. Getting into that part of the server was just a matter of figuring out either Ness or Dru’s password.

  Every time she went into Dru’s office, Sara paid careful attention to the personal effects she saw laying around, in the hopes that something would jump out at her. Most people used names of children, pets, and spouses as passwords; Sara’s password was Pywacket’s name backwards. Dru didn’t have any pets, and her only family had been her mother Atrella, who had worked for the SA when Dru was a child. Sara tried a dozen permutations of the name but got nothing.

  The fact that all her snooping could get her fired, or worse, didn’t bother her as much as it should have. She was just bored enough that it seemed worth the risk.

  Sara plopped into one of the staff lounge chairs to wait for the new pot of coffee. The lounge was comfortable, even welcoming, considering it was five stories underground; it was a place to decompress, have a snack, and socialize a little. There were in fact several areas like it both below ground and on the surface level, and when hanging out in her quarters got too claustrophobic she made her way there with a book and got to know her fellow travelers in this bizarre new world called the Shadow Agency.

  Just about everyone hit the off-Floor lounge at least a few times a week, for the food and beverages if nothing else. There was a fridge stocked with every form of carbonated drink imaginable, and Food Service brought down all sorts of between-meal goodness to keep the staff going on long shifts. Agents, she noticed, mostly came for the coffee.

  She’d seen the twins a few times, and if her own caffeine habit was serious, theirs was insane. Beck had an enormous travel mug that she filled before her shift and again afterward, and often dropped several venti-sized Starbucks cups into the recycling bin whenever she blew through between cases. She was currently on patrol, which Sara had figured out meant that she basically walked a beat around the city’s most troublesome areas, monitoring known offenders and possible situations, checking up on informants, and complaining a lot into her Ear about how dull it all was.

  Sara snorted. If she thought that was dull she should try filing.

  Every Agent took a month on patrol every six months, even Jason, who was important enough to have his own office. He went through about a full pot of coffee just by himself. As the senior SA he was a sort of team manager, coordinating who went on patrol when and who was assigned to what case. He usually spent the first three or four hours of each night in his office, then went out into the field.

  And every night, without fail, he brought Beck a brown paper bag of…something. Sara hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask what it was yet. Drugs, maybe? Somehow she couldn’t quite see them being so obvious about it.

  Sara looked up at the clock: four-thirty. She’d be off at seven. Shifts here were flexible, mostly in deference to the nocturnal folk. As far as Sara was concerned the world had no business being awake at eight in the morning, so she’d applied for a ten-to-seven. When she went on dispatch she’d probably have to switch, since she had to match up with the shifts of the field Agents, but at least
for now, nobody really gave a damn what hours the file clerk kept.

  Maybe she could get Frog to go to a movie or something this weekend; they hung out a couple of times a week, and he was pretty frazzled these days and could probably use the break. Or there was always—

  She sat up straighter. What…

  Something was wrong.

  She could feel it, rolling through the base like a slow-building tsunami, starting from—

  Suddenly the room shuddered, and alarms began to blare all around her. The lights dimmed momentarily, flickered, then powered back up, but the alarms continued, deafening.

  A voice boomed out over loudspeakers she had never noticed were there.

  “ALL SA PERSONNEL PLEASE EVACUATE THE SUBSURFACE AREAS. ALL SA PERSONNEL PLEASE EVACUATE THE SUBSURFACE AREAS.”

  Sara leaped out of her chair and bolted for the door, where she was nearly knocked over by a herd of other employees making for the stairs. She stepped into the group and tried to stay in the flow so she wouldn’t get shoved, her heart pounding, her eyes scanning the Floor for smoke or some sign of what was going on.

  Aside from the fact that everyone was leaving, everything looked normal. The Ear system had been put into standby mode, and she caught sight of Dru ushering people out of the room, her face grave and pale. All the while, the alarms kept sounding, and the loudspeakers repeated their command once more before changing the message:

  “SA-7, REPORT TO R&D LAB #4. SA-7, REPORT…”

  Lab #4? That was where Frog was working.

  Oh shit, oh shit…Sara’s guts twisted with the knowledge that something had gone very, very wrong, and that her friend was in trouble.

  She ducked out of the mass of evacuees and made for the spot where Dru was standing. She had to know what had happened before she could stand to run away.

  Before she could reach the Naiad, however, someone grabbed her roughly by the arm and hauled her sideways.

  She started to protest, but when she saw who had her, the words froze on her lips.

  “There’s a situation,” SA-7 said shortly. “You’re coming with me.”

  *****

  The R&D department was made up of several large labs, each one with its own security codes and systems. All sorts of things could happen when the techs started screwing around with magical objects, so each lab had fail-safes designed to lock the room down and protect the rest of the building from whatever disaster might befall it. The walls could withstand explosions that would take down a skyscraper.

  Sara stared at the scene before her, unable to comprehend it, barely able to breathe. She thought she’d been scared when the FBI had broken down her door; that was nothing compared to the rock-hard ball of dread sitting in her stomach now.

  The lab walls were some form of glass, so she could see into all of them from the main door. Everything seemed perfectly fine: a centrifuge was whirring, computers were calculating, there were various bits of technology and a few strange stones and amulets at some of the stations. The only anomalies were the lack of lab-coated techs going about their research, and the presence of half the building’s security staff, Ness, and emergency personnel hovering around.

  Lab #4 was a haze of smoke and debris. Sparks flashed from a loose cable of some kind. Sara couldn’t really see in, but there was a dark shape moving around inside, the sight of which made the knot of dread in her gut increase in size by a factor of ten.

  Jason led her over to the lab door, where Ness and the head of the emergency team were supervising as the workers tried to get the door unlocked.

  “I want the smoke vented out of there right now,” Ness ordered, her voice loud and not one to be disobeyed. “Where the fuck is Dr. Wu? I want to know who was in there and what they were working on.”

  The head of R&D, an Asian woman who always seemed one step away from a nervous breakdown, appeared at Ness’s elbow. “Here,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve got the roster. Lab #4 had two projects going—the Arcadian Opal and the psychic inhibitor."

  Next to her, Sara felt Jason’s entire body go rigid. “Was SA-5 in there when the explosion occurred?” He demanded, his shadow falling over Dr. Wu and cowing her almost into a fetal position. The vampire took her by the shoulders, and there was an almost imperceptible tremor in his voice. “Who was in there?”

  Wu was shaking all over, but managed to nod her head. “Rowan and Frog were both in there. So were Dr. Samuel and his assistant.”

  “What the hell happened?” Jason asked, all but throttling her.

  “SA-7, stand down,” Ness snapped. “If you can’t control yourself we can call in Beck to do this.”

  He blinked, seeming to realize how he was acting, and let go of Wu’s shoulders, calm settling back over him like a cloak. “I’m sorry, Dr. Wu. Ness, what do you need us for?”

  Ness looked over at Sara. “Now’s your chance to do something interesting,” she said.

  “What—what happened?” Sara stammered.

  “We’re not sure. That’s part of why we need you. Chase, how’s that door coming?”

  The man she was speaking to looked up from the equipment he was working with. “Coming, ma’am. We can blow it any time, we’re just waiting for the internal scan results so we don’t end up venting toxic gas outside.”

  “Right. Patel, what have you got for me?”

  A woman in emergency uniform held up a palm-sized device. “Atmosphere is stable, the ventilators and filters should be able to handle the smoke. We’re okay to vent.”

  “Do it. What else?”

  Patel motioned at Chase, who flipped some switches. Sara heard a massive roaring from somewhere up above, and the smoke that filled the lab began to suck out through the vents in the ceiling.

  “We’ve got four life signs. Two human, one Elven, one…other.”

  “Shit,” Ness said. “I was afraid of that.”

  She turned back to Jason and Sara. “All right, you two. Here’s what we need. SA-7, when we get the door open, you go in. Are you armed?”

  Jason gave her a grim smile. “Aren’t I always?”

  “For once I’m not going to lecture you about guns in the base. You go in and incapacitate whatever’s in there. Make sure the room is secure and there aren’t any more explosions imminent. Once you’re sure it’s clear we’ll send in the EMTs.”

  “What about me?” Sara asked.

  “This is where it gets tricky,” Ness said. “We know that Samuels was working with something called an Arcadian Opal. Legend says it’s cursed, that anyone who wears it will die a horrible death. Samuels figured out that it’s not a curse, it’s a holding cell.”

  “So whatever’s in the lab came out of the opal?”

  Ness nodded, pleased that she was catching on quickly. “Problem is that we don’t know what kind of creature it is, and I’m not sending anyone in there until we do. You’re listed as a contact clairvoyant, aka a psychometrist, meaning you can read things by touch, right? As I understand it you have a knack with buildings.”

  Sara was starting to see, and not liking it one bit. “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I’ve never really developed it to where I could use it on command. It’s kind of a passive gift.”

  “Well now’s the time to activate it. See what you can get.”

  Sara looked from Ness to Jason, who was very clearly trying not to show his impatience. “Just let me go in and kill it,” he said.

  “We don’t even know if you can,” Ness replied sternly. “And it’s possible it’s stronger than you—you’re not invincible, Jason. Even a vampire might not be able to kill it.”

  “I bet bullets can,” he said, reaching back and pulling a pistol from somewhere. “We don’t have time to wait for her, Ness. They could be dying in there.”

  Sara ignored him and walked over to the wall of the lab, breathing as slowly as she could, trying to get past the chaos and the fear and the noise. She reached out and put her hands against the wall, closing her eyes, saying a
silent prayer to the gods that this would work, not just because of her job, but also because of Frog, and Rowan. She tried to think of them, and of the other two she’d never met, and block out everything that was going on behind her.

  “All right,” she whispered. “Talk to me.”

  Her whole life, houses had spoken to her. Inanimate objects contained energy just like living things did, but theirs was only residual; every person who touched something left some of himself or herself behind. Personal things like jewelry and clothes were full of energy, but the best she had found were places. Buildings soaked up the lives of whoever lived in them, and the land beneath had a long memory that murmured in the back of her mind, the spirits of the Earth telling stories around the campfire of time.

  There were ways to clean out that energy so that a place was new and receptive again, but only Witches and other spiritual practitioners seemed interested in that, probably because the average person never realized how much of an influence one’s home had on one’s own life. She could tell walking into a house who had died there, who had argued there, what kind of people it had sheltered. It was harder with other kinds of buildings, but still there were echoes, ghosts that weren't ghosts. In a place like this, where people were always in motion, she had to really stretch to hear anything.