“God damn it!” I yelled. The pelting stopped.
“This was all part of the test, Ms. Brandt,” Zhukova said behind me. She was smug. “You failed.”
“No kidding.”
My hands were covered in red welts. I winced as I pushed myself up.
Flick looked sorry, but Zhukova didn’t. “Not a very impressive display.” Zhukova pursed her lips.
Screw her.
The door opened. A figure entered, swathed in blood-red medical scrubs, wearing a red helmet with a full-face mask made to look like an angel’s face. The figure walked toward me, hips swaying. Female.
“Shouldn’t you be wearing blue?” I asked her.
“You are thinking of my sister, Medico Blue.” Her accent was English, and in fact sounded exactly like I remembered Medico Blue. “I am Medico Red.”
Medico sisters. “How many of you are there?” I asked Medico Red.
“At least two,” she replied. What kind of answer was that? But it was all I got.
Zhukova took Flick across the room. Probably to talk about how easy it was to get me to screw up.
Medico Red ran her gloved fingers over the lobster-red backs of my hands. As she did, my skin stopped screaming, and the stinging went away. The welts paled and shrunk until they vanished all together. She ran her fingers down my chest and legs. I trembled as her fingers passed my belly, which had felt on fire, like someone had run me through with a hot poker. She stepped behind me, and did the same thing down my back. The pain went away.
“Thanks.”
“Certainly.” She bowed.
I shifted uneasily. “Listen, I have a question for you.”
“If I can answer it, I will.”
I hesitated. Screw it. “Can you cure disease?”
The masked face looked at me for a long moment.
“If I could, I would.” Her voice was thick with regret. “I would give anything to be able to do that. I would devote my life, as would my sisters, to that cause.”
Sisters. How many Medicos were there?
Zhukova and Flick returned. Zhukova tilted her head. “What happened during the test?”
“Cross examination already? I haven’t even had my coffee yet.” This was bullshit.
“I can see you aren’t taking this seriously, Ms. Brandt.”
I glared at Flick. “I had trouble concentrating for some reason.”
Flick winked at me.
Zhukova cocked her head, suddenly reminding me of a blond raven, if one of the raven’s eyes was a big black insectile camera eye, finding something shiny. “This is precisely why you need more practice. You can’t let a little discomfort prevent you from using your power.”
“Those BBs hurt like hell. I’m not used to getting worked over like that.”
“Precisely why you will undertake this test again. Repeated exposure will improve your ability to wield your power while experiencing discomfort.”
I unkinked my neck. “All right, let’s get on with it. I want breakfast.”
Zhukova gave me a disapproving look. “Your bravado is pointless. You either pass the test or don’t. The pain is just an obstacle.”
I was surprised with such a big stick up her ass she could walk straight.
I reached into the withered vines and pushed them to pull nitrogen and nutrients from the dirt, water from the air. Grow. Grow.
And they did grow, rising like cobras from baskets at a snake charmers convention. Hah! Take that new boss.
Something was in my eye. A bunch of somethings. Grit. And I knew the source. I whirled around. Flick gestured at me. I closed my eyes. I could do this without seeing. I sent the blackberry vines snaking toward her, they stretched out, unspooling, singing their joy in my mind.
Stings against my face. Damn it.
More BBs.
I turned away, opened my eyes. Now there was a cloud of what looked like pillow down clogging the air. I coughed. How much crap was Flick throwing at me? I hated her power. Telekinetics was annoying as hell.
Flick had moved to the far side of the planter. I reached back into the vines to push them to grow toward her, but it was like reaching into nothing. I couldn’t feel them. Their singing had stopped.
I clenched my fists. I wasn’t going to fail this time.
The dirt, and the life teeming inside. I suddenly could feel it, like I was in the ground, or even eating it. Touched the roots of the blackberry vines, and throw them, the plants. I sent the vines arcing up, growing madly. Their thorns became two-inch long shivs.
Flick backed up, sent a circular saw blade spinning at the vines. It sliced through one, but I ignored the plant’s screaming and pushed harder, and the blade was entangled in vines. More vines loomed over Flick and fell on her like an avalanche. I gritted my teeth. Stop me from using my power, will you?
“Cease!” Zhukova’s voice boomed through the hall.
I shook my head, let go of the plants.
Flick was ensnared in vines. Her jumpsuit was ripped in a dozen places, and blood dripped onto the leaves. Her eyes were closed, but she didn’t cry out.
I reached back into the vines, and, without thinking, killed them. Withered them until they grew brittle and snapped. Flick dropped to the floor.
Medico Red rushed to her side and began examining her.
“Damn you,” I yelled at Zhukova. “I could have killed her!”
Zhukova didn’t flinch from my anger. “But you didn’t, did you, Ms. Brandt? You ceased when I ordered you to cease.”
“This isn’t a game.”
Her right eye stared at me, and she stepped up close to me. Her head barely came to my shoulder, but I suddenly felt small in the face of her certainty. Her cybernetic eye watched me, I could see a faint reflection of my face in it.
“No, it is not.” She put her hands on her hips. “It would be well for you to never forget that.”
Bitch supreme, that was her.
“Yeah, I get it. You were the ones who set this up. Not me.”
Zhukova ignored me and went over to talk to Medico Red, who had finished her examination of Flick and was now running her hands over the woman, healing her.
I stood by myself and fumed. Assholes. I was stuck with them. For now.
The doors slid open, interrupting my angry brooding. Winterfield and Alex walked in. Winterfield was also dressed in a man-in-black outfit. My heart began pounding when I saw the guy following him. The form-fitting blue Hero Council jumpsuit he wore showed off his muscled body, his chiseled shoulders and chest, his six-pack abs. His sandy blond hair was feathered, looking stylish in that I-don’t-have-to-try-I-just-am-handsome fashion Hero Council types often had. The gold Support logo flashed in the room lights.
My mouth was suddenly dry.
Karl Cooper.
He was only a few years older than me, and he was world famous. He led the First Team, one of the Hero Council’s North American rapid reaction squads. I couldn’t remember the names of the other four teams in the U.S., but these guys were stationed in Seattle.
I swallowed, trying to get rid of the dry mouth.
Winterfield stopped in front of me. “We monitored your test, Brandt.”
“Enjoy the show much?”
He shook his head. “You screwed it pretty badly.”
Alex and Cooper stood on either side of Winterfield.
Cooper must have been in Seattle when the Sequoia job went down, and I ended that bastard Mutter. I remembered an Empowered wearing some sort of powered armor.
“I came out on top, didn’t I? What did you expect? For me to pull punches?”
Winterfield gave me a hard look. “If I need to explain to you why you screwed up, clearly you don’t get it.”
I opened my mouth to chew him a new one for being an unfair bastard, but Cooper of all people jumped in.
“It seems to me that you presented her with an open-ended scenario, and she did what she could to survive it.”
Cooper was behind Winterfie
ld, so he didn’t see Mister Hardass’s pained reaction.
“I have to agree with Dynamo,” Alex said.
Winterfield sighed.
Dynamo. Now I remembered. Cooper’s Hero Council name was Dynamo. Old fashioned to still use a handle like that, but more Empowereds seemed to be going back to them. I flashed on Coldie. She’d loved that nickname. She still wound up dead.
I forced the guilt back down. She’d been an idiot.
Medico Red helped Flick up. Zhukova was asking her questions, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
Stupid, the whole thing was stupid.
“You went straight to overkill,” Winterfield said.
“You try using your power when you are being attacked and see if you hold back.”
“This isn’t about me, Brandt. You’re the Empowered one. You’ve got the special talent that God, the Universe, or just plain random chance gave you. But, you still don’t know how to use it.”
What the hell did he know about being Empowered? He wasn’t the one cursed with a “gift.”
Across the room Flick was talking with Medico. She looked fine now. Zhukova said something to her. She nodded. Zhukova said something else, then came over to join us.
“You have met Dynamo,” Zhukova said to me. “He is the ideal of a sanctioned Empowered.” I couldn’t tell if this was her way of being sarcastic. She said it with a straight face, like she meant it.
Cooper’s cheeks reddened. I’d give him credit for being embarrassed.
I shrugged. “I get that I’m not.”
“The point is, with effort and discipline, you could be like him.”
Winterfield and Alex didn’t show any sign they smelled her bullshit, but that’s what it was. Trying to get me to aspire to join the A-Team. Be like Dynamo, a hero.
Screw that. I was doing this because I had to. “Trying to inspire me, boss, or motivate me for another round of tests?”
“Both.”
“Really. Working over Flick once wasn’t enough?”
“You will endeavor not to put her life at risk.”
“Moderation, Brandt,” Winterfield added.
“Willow understands what’s involved in this,” Cooper said.
Zhukova shot Cooper a pissy frown. Unhappy he’d revealed Flick’s real name. Willow. Figures.
“We will keep it less dramatic, and scale more slowly.”
“Can I at least have a cup of coffee and a donut before we start?”
They fed me a full breakfast.
“Willow” walked me through growing the plants, without throwing anything at me. That went fine. Then she just hurled grit. Still no problem. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my link to the plants.
We went through the “testing” routine again.
And again, until I lost track of how many times, and the garden was now really a garden, rose bushes, vines, flowers, grass, even some lettuce after Willow talked me through “visualizing” lettuce.
I’d never made lettuce before. Not only that, but I could smell the plants in my mind, and the scents were different than the actual smell. More like spices. It was weird. Kinda freaky.
“Do you know anything about using an Amplifier?” I asked her when we’d finished. She hadn’t done anything more than throw wood shavings at me.
She shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”
I ground my teeth. “No one can.”
She put a hand on my arm. “I’m sorry.”
Whatever. “So your name is Willow.”
She smiled. “Karl told you. Yes, it’s Willow.”
I had thought it would irritate her, which is why I had brought it up.
“Willow Chang.” She brushed a lock of hair away from her eyes. “Seems only fair you know mine, since I know yours.” She got serious. “I don’t like keeping secrets from you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
She sighed. “That’s just it. I do. I’ve read all your files. I feel like I know you very well.”
Everyone around here knew my life. But Willow acted like she was my secret pen pal.
That was as far as it went. We went back to her testing me. She finally threw a girder bolt at me while I was trying to grow a cherry sapling, which was tricky as all hell to begin with. The sharp pain pissed me off, and I lost my concentration.
We tried it again. This time I was pissed off to begin with, and I didn’t lose my focus. We finished up. Then Winterfield and Alex reappeared to march me back to my quarters. Cooper must have gone back to the penthouse floor or wherever the favored sons and daughters got to hang.
Another insta-meal, and more questions. I’d rather have faced more killer trees than these damn questions. Then it was back one more time to the testing room and Willow running me through another endless round of testing.
My nerves were raw at the end of the day. I’d have liked to ask Cooper a few questions of my own, but Poster Boy Hero wasn’t around.
I was too tired for dinner, but Alex insisted I eat something, then I hit the pillow and was out.
The next morning Winterfield and Alex were back at the crack of whenever this was, Alex dressed in his grungy look, Winterfield in a blue windbreaker with his mirrored shades poking up from a jacket pocket. Even dressed down, he looked like a plains-clothes cop.
“Time to hit the road?” I didn’t bother keeping the hopeful tone out of my voice. I was ready to go. This place made me claustrophobic. It really did feel like the metal walls would be closing in at any moment.
Winterfield looked at me sourly. “Good morning to you, too, Brandt,” he said.
“Almost,” Alex said, ignoring Winterfield’s sour tone. As his partner he had to be used to it. “We have to go over a few things with you first.”
I groaned. “Haven’t we talked enough about those stupid tests with Willow?”
Winterfield looked down his nose at me. “We’re done discussing that set of screw ups, Brandt. We’re here to discuss your overall attitude about the assignment, and the patience required to achieve it.”
I could take a hint. They didn’t want me going after whoever had caused Colombia. I listened to his monologue about the need to focus on the assignment, and trust the organization backing me up. At least he didn’t say “supporting,” or else I might have slugged him.
Winterfield went on to go over the usual checklist of contact procedure, staying away from my family, acting like I belonged in the Scourge, which meant doing crimes as needed, blah blah blah.
But there was one final thing.
Winterfield stared at me until I wanted to stop him staring. He made me squirm with that stare, weighing me. Alex looked at his hands, the bastard.
Finally, Mister Hardcase spoke.
“Brandt, we’ve thrown you in with the most dangerous sharks in the ocean, and made you one of them. Don’t forget why we did this. To end the Scourge. And don’t forget why you are doing this. Experimental treatments for Thalik’s disease for your grandmother aren’t cheap.”
I was out of my chair, fists balled. Yeah, they had always had me over a barrel, but to throw it in my face, now, when they were pushing me to get to the top of the Scourge. It was a nasty reminder.
Winterfield didn’t blink, not even with me practically eyeball to eyeball with him. “I hear there’s a promising new treatment.”
I jabbed a finger at him. “Yeah, dangling the fresh lure in front of the hunting dog.”
He raised an eyebrow. So in control. I almost slugged him right there.
“Motivation and a little clarity of purpose, Brandt.”
Big words from Winterfield.
“That doesn’t mean you have to rub my face in it. I know why I’m doing this. Better than you.”
“Just don’t forget,” he said. He always had to have the last word.
Whatever.
Then they put me back into my least favorite thing in the world, the sensory deprivation crapsuit, and hauled me out of where ever this was.
I’d been gone from home like a day, so Keisha shouldn’t be pissed at me. Not more than usual at any rate.
Chapter 10
Keisha was pissed at me.
The spook van dropped me off at a parking lot in the burbs just before sunrise. Apparently Support had moved my Dasher, because it was in the lot. They thought of everything. They also seemed to manage everything in my life whether I wanted them to or not.
Well, things would be different when I finished this mission.
That was it. When this assignment was over, I was done. Time to finally get back to a new, normal life. I would finally go ahead and foreswear my power, like I should have when I was fifteen. Agree to never control, create, enhance plants. Stay on the straight and narrow for good, so help me, God. I meant it.
I could go to college and finally get on with my life.
At least, that was what I told myself every morning, but Support didn’t seem the type to let go of someone once they were working for the Spook detail.
I pushed the thought away, stopped at a diner for a pancake breakfast with extra coffee. Got back to the duplex about nine.
The neighborhood plants were all quiet. Fall was full on now. The air was crisp with a hint of smoke from woodstoves, and the sour smell of moldering leaves.
I had just slammed the car door when Keisha charged down the walkway and got right up in my face.
She looked like she’d slept in her cargo pants and black tee. Her hair was loose. She’d been putting it in neat cornrows.
“Where the hell have you been?” She said, nostrils flaring. She crossed her arms and blocked my way into the house.
So much for our unspoken agreement.
That was the problem with unspoken agreements, they weren’t binding.
I tried the blunt approach. “Out.”
“Yeah, I got that, bitch.”
Anger contorted her face. She was really pissed off.
I kept my arms at my side. “What the hell did I do to you?”
Her lips twisted in a snarl. “You left me having to deal with Simon.”
I shrugged. “The limey is okay.” For a controlled type, that was. He was pretty buttoned down, never showed much in the way of reaction, but he didn’t come on strong either. Not unless there was something on the line like in Colombia. Fair enough.
Empowered: Traitor (The Empowered Series Book 2) Page 9
