The Agency, Volume I

by Sylvan, Dianne

  Come on…talk to me…

  Sara extended her senses out through her hands, through the wall of the lab, and into the still-smoky air beyond, reaching, reaching…

  Her head began to pound. She wasn’t prepared for anything this hard, and she’d never had to force it before. It had been years since she’d actively worked with the gift; like she’d told Ness, it generally worked by itself, telling her things she usually ended up wishing she didn’t know. Like empathy, feeling what other people were feeling, it seemed invasive, both to her and the place she was reading.

  Not strong enough…come on, Sara…they’re counting on you…

  It wasn’t working. She could sense the room, and that there were living things inside, but she couldn’t figure out how to sharpen the images. It was all a blur. She didn’t have the training for something like this. Gods, why had she ignored it for so long? If she’d had the balls to face it, and learn to use it—

  [Sara.]

  The light, gentle voice flowed into her mind, and she nearly jolted out of her trance, but a hand of energy reached in and held her steady.

  [Easy, child. You have all the skill you need; just let it work.]

  The energy was soft, fluid. The contact was more intimate than any she'd ever had telepathically. There was pain beneath it…so many years of pain…but woven in among its power was love, a love so deep and elemental that it made her body ache. She felt the "hand" carefully steering her perception just a tiny bit, guiding her, showing her how to adjust the dial of her mind's eye. Suddenly the blurry images jumped out, crystal clear, and she gasped.

  “I see it!” she said, and both heard and sensed the others coming over to her.

  “Are they hurt?” she heard Jason ask.

  Sara extended her energy a little more, sweeping it around the room, and said, “Samuels has a broken leg and ribs, Frog is unconscious but he'll be okay—he got thrown into the wall. The other boy…the assistant…he’s dead. Rowan is…”

  [Rowan is pinned under a table and covered in sulfur,] came the voice again, this time flavored with a remarkably calm laugh, and she smiled as she realized who it was. [He would really appreciate it if someone came and dealt with this Loshnar so he can take a shower.]

  “Rowan says it’s a Loshnar,” Sara told them. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  Ness nodded. “It means this won’t be as hard as I thought. SA-7, you have a green light.”

  Jason smiled dangerously and cocked his gun. “Fuck yeah, I do.”

  He disappeared, and seconds later Sara heard the sound of glass shattering—whatever they’d done to get the door open, it sounded like it would have to be replaced.

  She kept her senses inside the room, watching, as Jason slipped in, making no sound as he moved around the demolished lab. She cast about for the Loshnar, and found it, a dark pool of seething energy in the corner. It felt…scaly, and clawed, but not huge—probably a little bigger than a turkey. If she had to describe it to a stranger she’d say it was some sort of dinosaur.

  A dinosaur with poison dripping from its teeth.

  Sara clamped down on her fear and stayed in the room, ascertaining pretty quickly that Samuels’ assistant had taken the brunt of the blast, and was little more than a charred heap of flesh on the floor of the lab. He’d been doing…something stupid, she could tell, to the Opal, and it had basically gone into self-destruct mode, also tripping whatever mechanism freed the Loshnar, presumably so it would take out whoever was foolish enough to try and dismantle the Opal.

  The Opal was pretty much dismantled. Bits of it had flown all over the room, glowing stone shrapnel burying itself in the walls, equipment, and people.

  There was movement as the Loshnar sensed a new presence in the room, and it gathered its limbs underneath it, waiting to spring—

  A single shot, and the creature shrieked and fell forward, slimy green blood oozing from a hole in its head.

  Sara heard Jason over the intercom. “Lab secure.”

  EMTs began pouring into the room, and Sara, faint with relief, withdrew her senses back into her body. Her head ached fit to split, and the palms of her hands felt like they’d been burned; she was so dizzy that the minute she blinked her eyes and settled back into herself, she sagged backwards, legs giving out.

  [Easy there,] Rowan said into her mind, and her headache began to fade. [Sorry I can't do more, but I'm about to pass out myself.]

  "That's…okay…" Sara managed as she tumbled.

  Someone caught her and lowered her gingerly to the ground. She looked up at the Director of Operations.

  “Good work,” Ness told her as the room started to fade. “See me on Monday morning.”

  *****

  She woke in the infirmary, another place she’d never been, to find a large Hispanic woman in a white coat standing by her bed with a clipboard.

  “Good afternoon,” she said, her voice accented and musical. “I’m Dr. Nava. Can you tell me your name?”

  “Sara Larson.”

  “Do you remember what happened to you?”

  “Yes…” It was a bit foggy, but not too hard to grasp. “There was an explosion in R&D, and I passed out.”

  Dr. Nava chuckled. “That’s the short version, all right. The official report is that you suffered psychic overload and a mild case of neural shock brought on by overextending your abilities to a hazardous degree. I’ve already read Ness the riot act about it. If our only other contact clairvoyant hadn’t died two weeks ago I would be a lot angrier at her for allowing you to do something so stupid.”

  “Wait—Frog, is Frog okay? And what about Rowan? And Dr. Samuels?”

  “They’re all doing just fine. We lost Barnes, Samuels’ assistant, but the others escaped with minor wounds. Frog actually came out of it with hardly a scratch. He’s always been lucky like that. Rowan had a few scrapes and a piece of the Opal lodged in his arm, but he’s fine. Samuels broke several bones.”

  “Thank Goddess,” Sara murmured. “Am I okay? Do I need to stay here?”

  “No, you’re welcome to leave if you feel able. You’re off duty until Tuesday. Ness wants to meet with you Monday at 10:30, but aside from that I expect you to rest.”

  “Got it,” Sara said. The doctor smiled and watched her get up, making sure she didn’t topple over again. Satisfied, she nodded and shooed Sara out of the infirmary.

  Sara made her way from the infirmary, which was aboveground, to her quarters, where she took a scalding hot shower and put on faded old jeans and a t-shirt. When she emerged from the steamy bathroom, Pywacket was sitting on the bed, giving her The Look.

  "We're in for it now, Py-baby," she said tiredly. "Things are going to get even crazier."

  She knew she should sleep, but there was still too much adrenaline and too many thoughts running through her to let her rest. Instead, she got her journal and pen, put on a pair of slipper socks, and headed for the staff lounge closest to her.

  It was a sunny, cheerful room during the day, but she was a little thrown to find it was night, and the shutters were closed. She must have been out for a whole day. Still, the lamplight was soothing and there were cookies and hot tea, and she administered both before looking around for an empty couch.

  To her surprise, it took her a moment to see the slender figure reclining in the corner.

  "Sara," the Elf said with a smile. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

  She smiled back. "Shouldn't you?" She went over and settled in the chair opposite him, and noticed that his arm was bandaged. "Are you okay?"

  "Don't worry. I'll be fine."

  He was wearing some sort of long robe the color of an eggplant, and his feet were bare. She stared at him for a minute before realizing that something was different about him from when they'd met in the interrogation room. What was it?

  "Would you like some?" he asked, lifting what he had in his hands—a carton of fresh strawberries.

  Sara reached out and took a few. They were fantastic, perfectl
y ripe and juicy, and she said as much to Rowan, who nodded.

  "Beck's patrol route goes by the Whole Foods on 6th," he explained. "She always brings me something local in season. We can get most anything through Food Service, but it's mostly conventionally grown or at least shipped in." Wistfulness touched his face as he said, "I can taste the life in these. It's like being home again. At any rate, Beck said I should smile more, so she started bringing me fruit almost every night. Sometimes it's an orange, sometimes a pear, and in the autumn she goes through every variety of apple she can find me."

  Sara was a bit distracted, staring at the plain brown paper bag lying empty on the table beside him; she looked from it to the strawberries, and couldn't help but smile to herself. "Yeah, that’s really sweet of her…she must like you a lot, to go through all that trouble. So…where is home, for you?"

  "Here," he answered. "The place I was born, where I was a child, no longer exists."

  "I'm sorry," she said. She thought about what Frog had said about him, and asked, "Did the explosion destroy that thing you and Frog were working on?"

  He shook his head, and that's when she figured it out—his hair color had changed. The blue was gone, and it was almost all green and brown now, with grey entwined. From spring fields to an early summer forest, she realized. His eyes, too, had darkened in color to the green of oak leaves.

  "You see it now," he said with a smile of approval. "It usually takes people a while to notice."

  "So what do you look like in winter?" she wanted to know.

  "You'll see in winter. But to answer your question, no, the inhibitor was safe. We had just finished wrapping up our work and had put it into the vault for the night."

  "Do things like this—stuff blowing up and people dying—happen a lot?"

  "Not here, no," Rowan said, biting into another strawberry. She couldn't help it; she remembered the way his energy had felt moving through her, and how sensual it had been, and that sensuality was matched by the way he ate, savoring every bite, every drop of juice. She would have expected an Elf to be a lot more ethereal. Way too much Tolkien, she decided, mentally editing her list of books to read.

  "Most of the hazardous action goes on out in the field. I've been here about twelve years, and this is only the second accident I've seen in R&D. The first was, well, a lot less serious. Some kind of incident with a toaster, minor burns and the like. Life inside the base is very secure. Barnes was being stupid and trying to open the Artifact without fully understanding its mechanisms—he was young and impatient, and wanted to see what was inside. Humans often do. You're endlessly curious, always seeking more knowledge. It is one of your greatest strengths and often your downfall."

  Sara listened to him speak, watched his mouth move, and the thought kept intruding: He's not human. He's immortal. And he's absolutely beautiful…I've got to stop crushing out on everyone here with a penis, for gods' sake!

  "How old are you, really?" she asked. "If you don't mind saying."

  Another soft, sad smile. "By human reckoning, I am 420 years old, give or take."

  "And how old do your people get?"

  He shrugged. "As old as they get until someone murders them. We age one year for every fifty. But we can be killed, and we are. There are precious few of us left, anywhere."

  "Do others work for the SA?"

  "A half-dozen or so. I'm the only one at the Texas branch. Our talents are in high demand, so we're stretched thin."

  “Must be lonely,” she observed, taking another offered strawberry.

  “I suppose. I’m…used to being alone, though, so…”

  He stared down into the berries for a while, seeming in another world entirely, and she looked back over at the paper bag before asking, “You wouldn’t happen to be gay, would you?”

  Rowan’s expression was a very cute combination of bewildered and amused, but he didn’t comment on how rude, or unexpected, the question was. “All Elves are bisexual, in theory. I personally am celibate.”

  “Celibate? Why on earth would you do that?”

  He smiled, and she realized she was being both inappropriate and nosy—something about him, though, invited that sort of honesty, as if she could tell him pretty much anything and he would accept it, and her, without question. Still, they barely knew each other and he outranked her by a galaxy’s worth of years and experience…and power, she remembered, nearly shuddering at the thought of his energy again. God, with energy like that what in hell was he celibate for?

  Or maybe that was why, if that’s how he affected people.

  “It’s a long story,” he finally replied, then changed the subject. “So, Ness is going to have you train with me starting next week.”

  “I kind of figured.”

  “Is that all right with you?”

  Sara laughed. “If you had any idea how boring it is in the file room, you wouldn’t even ask.”

  A grin. “Very well, then. We’ll start on Wednesday, most likely, with a series of assessments so I can see where you are in terms of power and skill. I have a pretty good idea already but we have to go through the official protocol. From there we’ll work on your receptive and projective abilities.”

  “Okay. Sounds great.”

  He reached over and stuffed the empty berry carton back into the paper bag, then picked up his mug of still-steaming tea and sipped it, saying, “Why don’t you tell me a little more about your gifts?”

  Sara echoed his motion with her tea, taking a bite from her cookie as well. “Are you sure you want to talk about it now? You probably need rest—or at least you have something more important to do than listen to me talk.”

  “At this precise moment in time, Sara Larson, nothing is more important to me.”

  She felt herself blush. “Thanks. You know…you’re not what I would have expected from an Elf.”

  “That’s funny,” he replied, giving her a knowing smile that, damn it, made her toes curl. “You are exactly what I would expect from a Witch.”

  “You mean chubby and sarcastic?”

  Rowan laughed. “No, I mean strong, and passionate, and willing to risk everything for what matters most to her.” His green eyes grew serious, meeting hers with calm authority. “You’re going to be a phenomenal Agent, Sara. It will take time, but I promise you, one day you’ll intimidate the hell out of the new Admins just by walking in the room.”

  Her mouth dropped open at his words—the full import of what was happening to her had not yet really hit her, until now. She started to stutter out some sort of reply, but had no idea what to say.

  The Elf was still smiling. “Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of time to get used to the idea. For now, let’s start simple. Tell me when you first realized you had psychic abilities. Whatever you remember, the more detail the better.”

  Sara nodded, heart doing flip-flops in her chest, her fingers digging into the arms of the chair. Terrified or not, there was a sense of rightness to being here, to this moment, that she couldn’t deny. The Goddess had Her mysterious ways, after all…and Sara, it seemed, had also stumbled upon Her quirky sense of humor.

  And so, making a conscious choice and acceptance of all the possibilities stretching out in front of her, she took a deep breath, and began.

  A Week in Flux

  Sara stared at the sheet of paper on Ness's desk, eyes widening. "All of this?"

  "Yes."

  "You mean…I have to learn how to shoot people?"

  "If you want to be an SA, yes, you do." Ness regarded her seriously, arms folded. "Shadow Agents are routinely placed in situations which involve the use of deadly force. As a specialized Agent you'll probably be spared a lot of that--we protect our powerful psychics and only dispatch them to scenes where their talents are needed. But you will have to patrol every six months like every other Agent, so you will be trained on weapons, and held to the same physical standards as every other human SA."

  Sara frowned. "Meaning I lose forty pounds."

&nbs
p; "I don't care if you top out at 300 as long as you can pass the course. It's not a matter of size; it's one of ability. As you can see from the schedule there you'll have several trainers. You'll also have courses in policy and procedure, occult law enforcement, et cetera."