“Did he tell you about us?” Da Vinci attempted to maintain a bit of tact in his digging, but his attention was divided as he attempted to find the cause of Rigan’s distress, re-checking the makeshift bandages for bleeding.
“No.” Ruby shook her head and pulled her legs in toward her chest. “Just, just alien stuff—what’s really in Area 51 and…and like…I don’t know. People tease me about stuff like that a lot, so I thought he was pulling my leg, but I mean, maybe it was true. This is some creature-from-the-black-lagoon-level shit.”
“Operation Mogul?” Diana raised an eyebrow and now stepped closer, her body looming over the three of them.
“He’s a tale spinner.” Da Vinci addressed his partners this time. “It’s just something he does.” He paused, weighing the anxiety that was tearing him apart with the need to keep going. “Grab the aspirin from your backpack, Ruby.”
“How did you…” Ruby grabbed her bag and then dug out a bottle of small white pills. She poured two out for herself and gave the rest to Da Vinci. “Here. You need them more than me.” She popped the two into her mouth and swallowed them dry. She meekly looked up at Diana and Tim, clearly trying her best to ignore their physical deformities. “You know, there’s some apples and a sandwich in there. If you guys want them.” Her voice had the strength of a mouse’s squeak by the time she offered the bag to them.
Diana considered it thoughtfully before taking the bag and handing it off to Tim. “Thank you.”
Tim went right to work looking through the backpack. There were no secret compartments, no weapons, just a change of clothes, some food, and a copy of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
“I’m keeping this,” he said, pulling the book from her bag.
It was clear Ruby had intended to laugh. She had a smile on her face and started to chuckle moments before she burst into tears. “Are you going to let me live?”
“We have to kill you,” Tim replied casually, his hand still in her bag. Diana and
Da Vinci snapped their gazes toward him. Both upset, likely for different reasons.
“We are not going to kill you. Don’t worry. I know you live. Trust me, I see the future.” Da Vinci put his arm out and onto her shoulder, reassuring her that things would be all right. He then turned and smiled at Diana, his demeanor calm. “Might I request a moment alone with you two?”
Diana offered her hand to him and helped him off the ground. “If you must.” She gestured for Tim to follow them as they pulled aside, then left Ruby with only an unconscious Rigan as company.
“Can you still see her?” Tim asked Diana as they descended farther into the woods.
“Yes,” she replied calmly. “And if she runs, I can catch her, no problem.” Tim and Diana then turned to Da Vinci expectantly.
The back of his neck prickled and sweat inched down his back. They were waiting for him to speak prophecy. Her life was in his hands. “I know this looks bad, but you two have to let her live. I can’t go on with her blood on my hands. Not when she didn’t do anything wrong, and not when killing her could indirectly kill us.”
“Then you should have bloodied your hands the first time around,” Tim countered.
Diana placed her hand in Da Vinci’s. “There’s no way around this, Da Vinci. If she’s a spy for the KGB, she’ll kill us. If she’s just a local, she’ll still kill us. They’ll find her. She’ll talk. Especially now that there is more than likely a documented car crash with her name on it.”
“She’s no KGB agent and you know that.” Da Vinci pulled his hand away and began to pace. “I wish you two would stop playing scared, because I know that you’re not.” He started calculating all the possible ways he could get out of this conversation unscathed.
“We’re not playing this game scared, Da Vinci. We’re playing it smart,” Diana refuted. She and Tim, despite their differences, were both tactile like this. It was clear neither of them planned on backing down.
Da Vinci could feel his face heating up. His stomach churned as the truth came to the surface. “This girl is the only reason Rigan and I live. You two may not feel the cold and need to eat, but we do.” He felt the shame flood over him. “She is the only reason we survive as long as we do.” This time, he spoke to Diana. “And she is the only way to get ahold of Adams.”
That name always grabbed Diana’s attention. “She is?”
“How do we know you’re not just saying this to save her?” Tim asked.
“You don’t.” Da Vinci was starting to cry. He didn’t want to, but look at the goddamn circumstances. He felt hopeless. “I don’t.” He broke down, the reality of his visions and the reality of the future setting in. “I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.” He folded in on himself. Both Diana and Tim reached out to grab him. He braced himself on the two of them, his sobs heavy. “I’m trying to save us. I’m trying so hard to save us all.” His knees gave way, but as he sank, so did his partners. They followed him to the ground, sitting on the soil.
“Is she what you changed? Was she going to be the reason Tim and I died?” Diana held his hand again, her compassion a glimmer of hope in his bleak life.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” he squawked, his throat hoarse and the tears not stopping. “She isn’t KGB. She doesn’t lead them to us, but in the future, when you know if you save her, you’ll die. You two still always choose to save her over yourselves.”
Diana and Tim both exchanged dubious glances. Tim even laughed.
“That’s not particularly characteristic of Tim and me, Da Vinci. I fear you may be worrying over nothing.” Diana rested her hand on his back, rubbing it gently.
“But you do it,” he murmured, pulling away from his partners and sitting up on his own. “You both do it. Even though I tell you not to… But how do I even know that’s the future now?” The question was aimed more to the universe than to them. He’d been so frustrated over these last weeks. He didn’t understand what anything meant anymore. “Rigan wasn’t there in that final fight with them, so that’s changed, but neither was Adams. It was just us, and all I have is bits and pieces, and no matter how many times I put it together, it doesn’t fit. I keep taking guesses and trying to make logical leaps and bounds, but it never makes sense.” He rubbed his forehead, irritating his third eye.
Diana turned to Tim, and an unspoken agreement was made. “She’ll stay until we no longer need her.” Diana took Da Vinci’s hands. “Okay?” Diana met his gaze. Her eyes were a cool, steady gray color, and in them, Da Vinci always felt as though he’d find salvation.
“But that means you could die… But it also means she won’t.” Da Vinci tipped his head back and looked at the stars.
“What you saw holds no promise, Da Vinci. You have changed the future before, right?” Diana suggested.
“Minimally,” he whispered.
“Then she stays for now,” Diana said.
Da Vinci could feel his fears crowding around him, but he chose to press on. “Okay.” He cleaned away the tears and dirt from his scabbed-up face. Diana and Tim helped him to his feet.
The three entered the clearing, surprised to find Ruby still there, sitting quietly next to Rigan. She turned and saw them, grabbed her bag, clearly intending to make a run for it but stopped short when Diana laughed.
“There’s no reason to run. You will not die tonight.” She stepped closer to Ruby, eventually taking her soft face in her cool, cracking hands. “I promise you your safety in exchange for goods and services if you will so have it.”
“What do you mean?” Ruby asked.
“Food, medicine, and a change of clothes. That’s all we want.” This move was uncharacteristically soft for Diana, but maybe even she couldn’t deny the facts. They were starving, some of them were sick, and they were trapped. They could use her help. So, although Ruby was not set solely free as Da Vinci would have rather seen it, and although she was not dead as Diana would have rather seen it, she was going to live.
Di
ana went over the logistics of drop-off points and meeting times, and by the time she was done, Ruby only really had one question. “What’s stopping me from running away?” Ruby asked innocently. “Not that I would. I’m just curious.”
“Nothing,” Tim said grimly.
Pulling himself away from Tim, Da Vinci joined Diana. “I’ll walk her back to her van. Just to make sure she’s safe.” He pulled from the pocket of his slacks a long, red scrap of fabric which he’d fashioned into a kind of wrap for his forehead, to cover his third eye. “Let’s get going, before they tow your van.”
Ruby widened her eyes like a crazy persons. “Oh, my god. My van. Did it survive the crash?”
Da Vinci laughed, relieved that, given all she had faced that night, the state of her glorified passion wagon was at the top of her concern list.
“The front is a little banged up, but you’ll be fine,” Diana said.
“Great…Well…thank you,” Ruby said before joining Da Vinci on a walk through the great forest. As they followed the trail, Ruby seemed deep in thought, contemplating, curiosity eating her up. Eventually, she asked, “What happened to you four? What made you all…sentient?”
“Sentient…that’s a nice way to sell it.” Wanting to protect her, Da Vinci lied, “Aliens.”
“Wrong. Try again,” she sassed. “They’d never.”
“Yetis.” He thought she bought it for a second, but as they traveled farther, she tried again.
“I just had to plead for my life. I feel honesty is a good thing right about now.”
“Communists.” There wasn’t a hint of play in his voice.
“Like McCarthyist?”
“Like the KGB.”
“What are you then?” Her tone softened.
“Intelligence agents.” Da Vinci dipped and followed her down the path, her van now in sight from the slightly higher bluff.
“What?” Ruby had to stop for a minute to take it in. “Like spies?”
“That’s another word for it.” He had little enthusiasm. “We worked for the CIA, and sometimes we were lucky, and sometimes we weren’t. This time, we were really unlucky.”
“So you are more man than mystic.” There was a deep sadness in her tone. She leaned back on a rock formation along the path. “I am so sorry. I… How did Marco get wrapped up in this? He was fine just a week or two ago.”
“He got dragged into this by mistake.” Da Vinci’s gaze wandered off to the skyline of mountaintops they faced, watching lightning bugs glide through the sky. “His real name is Rigan, by the way.”
“Rigan,” she repeated. “Is that Brazilian?”
Da Vinci nodded. “That it is.”
“He’ll be okay,” Ruby promised. “I’ll bring all the medical supplies I can carry when we meet again.”
“About that—” Da Vinci exhaled steadily. “Don’t. It may be for the best if you don’t come back, Ruby. Do you remember what I told you the first night we met?”
“Yeah,” Ruby replied. “I think about it every night when I go to bed, every time I feel there are eyes on me when there aren’t, every time I look to the sky, I’m worried I’m going to kill someone.”
“I don’t think what I said has changed at all. Yeah, they didn’t find you on a trail, and yeah, they didn’t beat you half to death, but…time corrected itself. You were still found and you were still hurt.” He started moving again, leaving the view behind in favor of the trail. They were getting closer. “I can’t say for sure, but I fear that if you come back, Diana and Tim will die.” He hesitated. “I also fear that if you don’t, Rigan will die. I don’t know what happens to you.” Da Vinci could feel himself getting choked up again, but he swallowed his tears, forcing himself to speak coherently. “It’s just something to consider. I don’t know what of the future I’ve changed, but I know that you are entering a dangerous world by taking part in this, and I can’t guarantee your safety and I can’t guarantee the safety of the others. It may be best if you just go back home and stay there.”
Whatever swarm of emotions hit her, rendered her silent. Instead she just stared, expecting answers from him like the rest of them.
Da Vinci could see her struggle. “I offer only my advice and what I’ve seen. Sadly, what I’ve seen isn’t clear.”
Domovoi
OCTOBER 5, 1963
There was something vicious in the way Kal and Nikola circled each other. Nikola looked prepared to pounce at any moment and Kal was already strategizing how to counter her first, second, and third move. Neither one seemed ready to throw the first punch, but as they navigated their makeshift ring, Nikola, of course, could not hold back her excitement. She swung with a swift and sudden jab.
When it hit, he let out an involuntary laugh, not even flinching. It was not that he hadn’t expected Nikola to hit him. By all means, he was ready for her to hit him, she was too eager, but he did not expect it to have next to no effect on him.
“Hell, Kal.” There was an untamable ecstasy in her voice. She swung and hit him again, yielding the same result. “You’re stronger than the both of them.” She punched for his ribs this time. Her fist merely bounced back from his flesh, leaving no sign of impact. She laughed loudly. “Does it hurt when I pull your hair?” She threw her arm out and grabbed a few stray pieces of hair, then yanked before Kal could so much as answer.
“Yes.” He batted her hand away.
“It wouldn’t have been so easy to reach, if you cut it to an approved length.” Her words were sharp.
“Don’t be a nark,” he shot back, leaning into his own fighting stance before throwing a punch with most of his strength behind it. Although Nikola had also been given the steroid, she did not evolve to have unbreakable skin and a healing ability as the others. She came to with a different affinity all together.
She dodged one of his throws and then another. When Kal finally landed a hit, she flew backward, twisted her torso in time to catch her fall, then quickly flipped herself forward and landed on her feet. Kal watched in disgust. Her reflexes were beyond heightened. They were inhuman, swift, agile, and uncatchable.
“That the best you got?” she taunted before charging at him. He’d gone to move, but she was too fast. She hit his chest and flipped herself over his shoulder, then pulled him to the ground and landed on her feet. It happened so quickly, Kal hadn’t even had time to react. On the ground, he jabbed his leg out and hooked her ankles, which sent her crashing into the side of their ring, crushing cardboard boxes and rolling onto the hard concrete floor of their training room. Regardless of the hit, she was still on her feet faster than he was.
“Guess not,” she huffed. Kal stepped from the blue mat of their arena and joined her on the workroom floor.
He threw another poorly directed hit before finding himself in Nikola’s grasp. Her nails dug deep into his skin and drew blood. He yanked his arm away.
“That was unexpected.” He looked at the wound, which was already healed over. Nikola punished him for it by swiping at his face.
Kal jerked his hand to his face, surprised her nails had hurt so much. They were unnaturally reinforced. He pulled his hand away to find an abundance of blood. Although his face had already healed, for a brief instant, the injury was awful.
He looked at her with a grimace. “I will crush you.”
She laughed, and he swung, caught her off guard, and sent her crashing next to a pair of weight machines. She slid across the floor and grabbed the nearest free weight. When she came to a stop, she sent it ricocheting like a discus right toward Kal. Luckily, he grabbed it before the weight could do any real damage to his face.
“Nikola!” he barked.
“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s not like it would have hurt.”
“I can still lose my teeth.” He sounded dry and uninvolved, but the moment the words left his mouth, he sent the discus spiraling back to her. She laughed in delight before gracefully dodging the weight. She grabbed it straight out of the air, turned the
momentum around, and sent it right back to Kal. It was at this moment a blood-curdling scream echoed through the training room.
“What are you two doing?” Gulliver’s shrieks reverberated off the walls. He’d been sitting on a weight machine farther out in the room, but couldn’t ignore the near-deathmatch going on around him. He looked out of place in the gym with his soft sweater and delicate glasses, better suited for a library than the training center. He was not dressed to fight because unlike his partners, Gulliver’s new abilities were found in the mind. He was a human lie detector, able to tell even the tiniest fib from the most convincing half-truth.
Kal set the weight down nonchalantly, like it hadn’t been a deadly weapon a few seconds before. Nikola followed him toward Gulliver.
“We’re just having fun, Gulliver. No worries.” Nikola looked down at him as his spectacles slid from the bridge of his nose.
“You two are supposed to be sparring, not trying to kill each other.” He looked around to see weight machines strewn about and tossed out of place and scratch marks along the floor from where Nikola had glided. “Commander is going to have my arse.”
“Commander’s going to have your ass? Commander is going to have my ass,” Nikola taunted.
Kal snickered, his gaze running the length of her body. “Where?”
She let out a loud, hearty laugh. “Good point,” she replied before walking past Gulliver to clean up the stray weight machines they’d knocked over or broken in their day of training.
“I brought lunch for you two if you’re interested.” Gulliver dug into his satchel and pulled out a few bagged lunches. Kal’s interest was piqued, but Nikola continued to adjust equipment.
“You two can eat. I’m going to clean this place up. It’s filthy,” she said. Kal’s gaze lingered on her. He was contemplating whether or not he should help. Clearly, she knew what he was thinking. “Christ, Kal.” Nikola exhaled. “Eat lunch, ya brute.”
Seven-Sided Spy Page 10
