Crisis Zero

by Chris Rylander

  “You’re right,” I said. “And I’m sorry. I thought I was protecting you. I should have told you I was an agent. . . . I should have told you everything. But it’s still no excuse for what you’ve done. Working for a terrorist, someone who’s trying to bring down the government . . . Dillon, what could you possibly be thinking?”

  Dillon paused, furrowed his brow, and then sat down next to me on the booth bench.

  “Wait, what are we talking about?” he said, genuinely confused.

  “You are working for Mule Medlock, right?” I said.

  “Well, yeah, but he’s not the evil one here,” Dillon said. “The Agency is. They have a secret base under our hometown; they keep us under surveillance twenty-four hours a day; they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and don’t answer to anyone!”

  “Not now with your theories . . .” I started, but then stopped. This wasn’t some crazy theory. This is what Medlock must have told him. And I suppose it was true.

  But that still didn’t change the fact that Medlock was the bad guy here.

  “Don’t you know what Medlock has done?” I said. “He was going to kill Olek’s parents.”

  “Olek’s parents?” Dillon said. “What are you talking about?”

  “All that business at the fairgrounds earlier this year? That was Medlock. He kidnapped Olek and was using him as a ransom to have his parents killed so they couldn’t testify against several known, dangerous terrorists. Or did Medlock forget to tell you about that?”

  “It’s true, Dillon,” Danielle said quietly.

  Dillon seemed truly shocked. And so I said nothing, giving him time to digest the truth for once.

  “He told me you guys would do this,” he finally said.

  “Do what?” Danielle asked.

  “Make up a bunch of lies to try to justify your actions,” Dillon said. “Once a liar, always a liar.”

  “Dillon!” I nearly shouted, and my voice echoed through the empty restaurant. “I’m not lying to you now. I swear it. I’m your best friend, you have to trust me. Medlock is bad news.”

  “Trust you?” Dillon said. “Why would I? Besides, you’re not my best friend anymore. Best friends don’t tell dozens of lies to each other without even batting an eye. Best friends don’t keep secrets from their best friends, like the existence of a freakin’ covert fascist group operating in our own hometown. When Medlock finally told me yesterday that you were the kid the Agency hired to do all its dirty work, I just . . . I could hardly believe it. I didn’t want to. But then he showed me the tape of you breaking into Ms. Pullman’s office to get into her personal files and frame her for treason.”

  “Me?” I yelled. “No, she’s the one who is going to blow up the headquarters. We found these plans in her office—”

  “Carson, listen to what you’re saying. Ms. Pullman has some evil plan to blow up the secret government base underneath our school? You sound like . . . well, you sound like me.”

  I closed my mouth. He clearly wasn’t going to believe a word I said anymore. And it was hard to blame him. I had told him more lies than truths the past few months, after all. There was no denying that.

  “You know that I know most of my theories are bogus, right?” Dillon continued. “I’m in on the joke most of the time. The reality is that chaos frightens me. The idea that there is no one person or group in charge, that the world is completely random, terrifies me more than you can imagine. So it comforts me to always believe there is a purpose behind everything that happens in the world. That everything is connected. That’s why I make up my theories—even though I know most of them are not true, they make me feel better. And everyone always thinks I’m crazy. But Medlock didn’t. He was once afraid of the same thing I was. That’s what led him to join the Agency in the first place. But soon after that, he learned something: The scariest thing isn’t no one being in charge. It’s the wrong person being in charge.”

  I didn’t say anything for several moments. I let what he said really sink in. And I suddenly felt even guiltier. Guilty for never taking Dillon seriously. For treating him like a cartoon character in many ways instead of a real, true best friend.

  “I get that,” I said. “I really do. And I’m so sorry I never tried to understand all of that before. But what Medlock is planning will put millions of people in danger. He may think what he’s doing is right, but putting all those people at risk is not the answer.”

  “Is that what the Agency told you?” Dillon asked with a grin, like he was in on some ultimate truth that I didn’t know yet. “They’ve been lying to you from day one and you’ve bought every word of it. You guys really don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?” Danielle said.

  “You guys don’t know what really happened between Medlock and the Agency,” Dillon said, looking at Danielle and then back at me in genuine surprise.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but realized I had nothing to say. If Dillon was telling me that there was something the Agency wasn’t telling me, I couldn’t deny that he was probably right. As crazy as it sounds, I think I was going to have to start listening to Dillon.

  “You need to know what happened,” Dillon said. “But I can’t tell you myself. It’s better if you just hear it directly from Medlock.”

  CHAPTER 47

  A THANK-YOU IS IN ORDER

  “WHAT?” I ASKED. “MEDLOCK IS HERE?”

  My head swiveled around, expecting to find a gun pointed at my back. But there was nothing there but the dark cashier’s table at the entrance where lines of people used to stand, waiting to get in the door. I looked back at Dillon.

  “This way,” he said, standing up.

  Danielle looked calm, but I could see in her eyes that she was as scared as I was. She shrugged and moved to follow him.

  Dillon led us into the abandoned kitchen, which still smelled like grease and meat and fried stuff, despite being nothing more than a hollowed-out shell with none of the appliances or kitchen equipment left inside. The smell would probably never go away.

  Standing near the back, on a lighter portion of tile where a huge fridge must have once rested, was Medlock. It was hard to make him out completely in the darkened kitchen—he was barely more than a silhouette—but I could see his eyes and they practically lit up like an evil flashlight. I flinched instinctively.

  “Hello again, Carson,” he said to me. Then he turned toward Danielle. “And you must be Dillon’s twin sister?”

  Danielle nodded slowly. This was her first time meeting Medlock since knowing he was an evil enemy spy, but we’d all met him a few months ago when he’d been posing as the kindly owner of a pretty fantastic custom milk bar and ice cream shop.

  “How could you do this?” I asked Dillon. “You set us up.”

  “Oh, please,” Medlock said. “Give him a break, will you? If I wanted to capture or kill you, I could have easily done so anytime I wanted. It would have been as simple as having one of my men make you disappear after school one day, right?”

  I didn’t respond, but admitted to myself that he made a good point. What had been stopping him from doing that all this time? Or from capturing me for interrogation? It’s not as if I was under protection when I was riding home. I had been continuously thwarting his plans for months now, why let me continue to do so, unless . . .

  “You used me again, didn’t you?” I said.

  I was referring to way back when I’d first gotten mixed up with this whole spy thing. Medlock had purposefully gotten me involved and then used me to help him get to Olek, the kid I was supposed to protect. And his genius plan had almost succeeded. Then just a few weeks later, he used me to help him get his hands on a weaponized virus. And once again, he’d been just a hair away from making it happen.

  Medlock smiled at me.

  “This time,” he said, “I’ve actually succeeded. My plan is already in motion; it’s too late to stop me now. And, yes, to answer your question, you were once again vital to its suc
cess. So, I suppose that means a thank-you is in order. Thank you, Carson. I really mean that.”

  “How?” I said weakly, shaking my head.

  “We’ll get to that later,” Medlock said. “After all, everything up until now has just been phase one, the setup for what I—no, we—really need to accomplish, which is to stop the Agency before they destroy this planet in the name of justice.”

  “What are you talking about?” Danielle asked. “The Agency is working to stop you from destroying the world.”

  “You know, Dillon told me you were smart, Danielle,” Medlock said. “But if the Agency has you this blinded, I’m not sure if I believe that.”

  Danielle stared at him with her mouth open. She looked at me, but I had nothing to say. There was no way Medlock was actually the good guy, right? Not after the things I’d seen him do—such as torturing my good friend Olek. Good guys didn’t authorize the torture of twelve-year-old kids, no matter what the reason, right? Then again, the Agency had kidnapped Junior, and was holding Jake against his will in some secret location. . . .

  “You’re starting to see now, aren’t you?” Medlock said, reading our expressions like flash cards. “Has Dillon told you the truth about me yet? About what really happened between me and the Agency all those years ago?”

  I shook my head.

  “I told them you would tell them,” Dillon said.

  Medlock’s smile faded. He looked down at the floor as if he were fighting off tears. Then he looked back up at me and pulled aside his bangs, revealing the scar on his forehead. The scar from the bullet that had supposedly killed him years ago.

  “It’s time you know who really did this to me,” Medlock said.

  “It was the terrorists you were selling secrets to,” I said. “Agent Blue already told me that story. He said Agent Nineteen felt responsible since he was there but wasn’t able to stop them.”

  Medlock scoffed suddenly, making me flinch.

  “That’s what he said?” Medlock said. “Well, he told the truth about one thing: Agent Nineteen should feel responsible. Since he was the one who pulled the trigger.”

  CHAPTER 48

  BALONEY STEEPED KOOL-AID

  ALL I COULD DO WAS STAND THERE AND SHAKE MY HEAD. I knew Agent Nineteen too well for that. He would never shoot his own partner and friend in the head. Or anywhere, for that matter.

  “It’s not true,” I said. “You’re a liar. I’ll never believe that.”

  Medlock stood there and smiled at me smugly. It was the sort of smile that people used when they knew something no one else did. The smile of someone who’d just won a bet.

  And it was like a dagger to my gut.

  “What exactly did they tell you, then?” Medlock asked. “It’ll be sort of fun to hear what kind of baloney they steeped into your Kool-Aid.”

  “They told me you were upset because you didn’t think Director Isadoris trusted you,” I said. “That you were more and more critical of the Agency’s policy of secrecy, especially when it came to lying to your family and to Jake. That’s when you cracked, betrayed the Agency, and started selling confidential information to the highest bidder. They sent Agent Nineteen to Chicago to monitor you. But one of your deals went bad and one of your buyers shot you in the head.”

  Medlock nodded slowly.

  “Not bad,” he said quietly. “That’s a pretty good story. Very believable. But here’s what actually happened.

  “I was unhappy with the Agency and Director Isadoris—that much was very true. Most of it had to do with my son, Jake. I knew I couldn’t tell my family about who I was, about what I did. I knew that when I joined the Agency, long before Jake was born. But when I told the Agency about Jake, Director Isadoris didn’t trust me to remain quiet, and forbade me to be a part of Jake’s life. To ever speak to or even see him again. They said it was too risky, that it might compromise my cover, but I knew that they simply didn’t trust me. They don’t trust anyone. They cut me off from my own son, all in the name of national security.”

  A long silence followed. And I realized he was waiting for us to answer. He wanted us to acknowledge that what the Agency had done was awful. And, I hated to admit, he was right. It was horrible. To separate a dad and son to protect a cover identity seemed a little extreme, but such was the nature of being a spy. I was starting to realize that more and more with each passing mission.

  “It’s awful,” Danielle agreed.

  I shot her a look.

  “Well, it is,” she said.

  “Right?” Dillon added. “These are the people you two are working for. And this isn’t even the worse part.”

  “He’s right, it’s not,” Medlock said. “The real kicker is this: I never once had dealings with an enemy agent. I never sold one secret. When I was transferred to Chicago, yeah, I was devastated. No one trusted me, no one stuck up for me. But I would never turn around and start selling Agency secrets to enemies of the state, just for some sort of petty revenge. Not ever. You want to know what I really did after my transfer to Chicago?”

  I nodded. My knees felt weak. And Danielle’s expression matched how I felt. Sick.

  “I quit,” Medlock said. “That’s all I did. I simply walked away. I disappeared from my post, left my job behind. I just wanted out so I could get back to Minnow and get my family and then hopefully we could make a clean break. Get away to Canada or something so we could be together. Was that too much to ask? Turns out, it was. Once you’re in, you’re in for good. The Agency doesn’t let you walk away. When you retire early, they retire you early, understand?”

  I shook my head. I mean, I understood what he was saying, I just didn’t want to believe it.

  “But they let me walk away after my first mission saving Olek from you,” I said.

  “Carson, you know about the Agency, yes, but how much do you really know? They’ve never let you in on any real secrets, have they? Ever really trusted you? And if you were to share anything you’d learned, no one would believe you. Such is the case with all of their kid agents.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “They have other agents our age working for them?”

  Medlock gave me that smug smile again.

  “Ah, they gave you the old, ‘we never usually do this’ line, right?” Medlock said. “Yeah, they use that one a lot. And technically, it’s sort of true. Not many kids are made field agents or brought in as quickly as you were—there were extenuating circumstances in your case. But the Agency starts recruiting potential agents at a very young age. You know I was originally recruited when I was fourteen? I wasn’t all that different from you. After all, kids and teenagers are way easier to manipulate than most adults. They’re too young to understand what’s happening, too inexperienced to be suspicious of such an organization. It was only later, after I’d become a full-fledged agent, that I found all of this out. Which means I knew that once they realized I was trying to quit, they’d send out an agent to retire me.”

  “But why send Agent Nineteen?” Danielle asked. “Why would they make your own partner do it?”

  “Because they knew he was the only person I’d trust enough to let get that close. I could have stayed hidden, gotten Jake, and made a clean break somewhere. But I trusted Agent Nineteen. So I agreed to a secret meeting with him—that was my biggest mistake, I suppose.”

  “And so . . .” I said, but couldn’t bring myself to finish his story for him.

  “That’s right,” Medlock said, his voice tightening from the emotion of reliving what was surely the worst moment in his life. “I met up with Agent Nineteen on the Navy Pier in Chicago, thinking he was going to help me get my son and get away. Thinking he was more of a true friend to me than he was a loyal pawn of the Agency. I was obviously wrong. You can’t imagine the pain of looking your supposed best friend in the eyes right at the moment that you realize he’s lied to you. Right before he pulls the trigger.”

  I looked at Dillon. He looked back and then we both looked away. In that mome
nt, I actually pitied Medlock. Dillon and I had lied to each other, yes. But I knew what it was like to have a true friend who wouldn’t shoot you in the head, tranquilizer dart or otherwise.

  “I regained consciousness later that night,” Medlock said quietly. “I washed up on the dark beach a few hundred yards north of Navy Pier. I suppose it’s a double miracle that I didn’t somehow drown and that the bullet hadn’t caused any permanent damage. At that point, I had no options. I needed medical care, obviously, but going to any public hospital would have risked revealing my survival to the Agency. And so I did the unthinkable: I contacted a known enemy agency and offered them secrets in exchange for medical treatment and getting me out of the country for a time. And so that brings us here, to now, working to complete my ultimate mission. Which is not to destroy the world, as the Agency somehow foolishly thinks. Why would I want to destroy the world? Does anyone really ever want that? No, Carson, I want to save the world. One that allows an Agency like this to exist, one that considers covert organizations with zero trust the ‘good guys.’ We can never truly be safe in a world where those in charge don’t trust us. The only way to save it is to destroy that agency.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. It was all so much to take in, and all I could do was stand there and keep listening to the man I had thought was an insanely evil genius but was now starting to view as the most unlucky person I’d ever met.

  “And you, Carson,” Medlock said with a certainty that was impossible to ignore, “are now going to help me execute the last few stages of my master plan.”

  CHAPTER 49

  WHEN BEING RIGHT ALL ALONG IS ODDLY UNSATISFYING

  “I DON’T THINK I CAN,” I SAID. “I MEAN, I GET EVERYTHING THAT has happened to you, I understand why you’re so angry, why you want revenge. But . . . you tortured Olek. And you planned to release the Romero Virus—I overheard Jake and Phil talking about it. I will never, ever knowingly help out a man who once planned to do something like that. No matter the reason.”