The Empowered, page 30
I opened my mouth to swear, stopped before I did.
“Close your mouth,” he told me. “You look like a tall fish with your mouth open like that.”
Very funny. The man was a real wit. But I shut my mouth.
Alex smiled. “Listen, Mat, you aren’t the only one with a boss.”
“Sure, you’ve got Winterfield here.”
“And all three of us have someone else,” Winterfield said. He sounded like he was telling someone they were about to die.
Great, another piece of bad news. “Who?”
“You’re about to find out.”
Winterfield was even less charming when he refused to answer a straight question.
He waved his wrist over a wall-mounted pad next to the sealed door. The door beeped and slid open with a pneumatic hiss.
They took me out of the room and down a windowless corridor, past identical doors. It was so quiet I could almost hear myself think. Our feet made no sound whatsoever as we walked. Even on a carpet your feet made a little noise. This was absolute dead silence.
We turned at an intersection into an identical-looking corridor. I rapped on the wall as we walked. I thought I heard a faint rap.
Winterfield stopped, gave me a hard look. “Don’t go making noise.”
Huh. No noise. Interesting. I wondered why.
I shrugged. “Sure.” It wasn’t worth being yelled at.
We turned left and down another corridor. If this wasn’t the same mind-numbing maze of look-alike corridors I’d spent quality time in before, it looked exactly like it.
Eventually we reached a double-wide door with a couple of guards in full body armor and stun rifles. Winterfield flashed his badge at the guards, who stepped aside to let him do the wrist thing against the pad beside the door.
The door slid open.
We walked into a big room with a giant display screen covering the far wall. The display screen was a checkerboard of different scenes: a snow-capped mountain, divers approaching an underwater wreck, a familiar-looking ghost town somewhere in the high desert. Maybe Shaniko in eastern Oregon. I’d gone there once on a class trip in middle school.
A slender blond woman dressed in a black jumpsuit faced the giant display screen, her back to us. From behind she reminded me of my old warden, Fulbright, sending ice down my spine. But Fulbright had dressed like a business woman, and kept her hair short. This woman’s was in a braid, and she wore a holstered stunner on one hip.
The display switched to a scene outside a building that said “public library.” The camera was at shoulder height. It panned over a team of Support men and women in black, carrying stunners, then the view turned to show the doors to the library. The team rushed the building, the camera view following.
Winterfield and Alex watched the scene intently. The woman in front of us leaned forward, resting her hands on a big conference table to peer at the unfolding scene.
“Where’s the camera?” I whispered to Alex.
He didn’t look away from the display. “Headmounted video from the team leader,” he said.
The men and women in black burst through the doors, ran across a tiled floor, and past a long counter. A teenaged boy stood in the middle of the library, laughing as flames shot from his fingers. His wet hair was dyed bright, flame orange.
“These vile works are an affront to God,” he shouted. “I’ll burn them all. Cleanse the world!” Ceiling sprinklers sprayed water over everything, but the kid ignored them.
The camera view bobbed back and forth. The Support team fanned out, moving behind low shelves for cover. I saw the badly burned body of woman wearing the smoldering ruins of what might have been a dress. A librarian. From a different angle now the camera bobbed back to the rogue Empowered. There was another body behind him. I swallowed.
The teen turned and shot flames at a Support agent. She jumped out the camera’s field of view. A stunner hummed and went zap! The kid staggered, but still stood, conscious. Shit.
“Must be high on Cement,” Winterfield said. The kid whirled around, still spewing flame from his fingers. The stunners hummed and fired, again and again. His body flopped like a fish on a pier, but he still stood.
Bang. Bang. Bang! The loud gunshots made me jump. Bullets slammed into him and he finally fell.
On the video feed a man’s voice said, “Rogue down.”
The woman in front of us nodded at the screen. “Thank you, Walker. Good work. First aid is ready for your team and the surviving civilians.”
“Copy that,” Walker replied.
The woman pressed a button on the table and the screens went dark.
She turned around. Her face would be stunning if it weren’t for the old burn scar covering the left side of her face. Where her left eye would have been was a black, multifaceted lens, like a bug’s eye. Her right eye was green. She looked me over, nodding to herself.
She pointed to conference chairs around the table, and we sat.
“I am Irene Zhukova, Director of North American Operations for Support.” She steepled her fingers, considering me. “You are Mathilda Brandt,” she said, like she was reading a label. “No middle name. Empowered—control type, plants, beginning when you were sixteen. Sentenced to special corrections at the same age, and paroled at twenty one. Currently you are a Support infiltrator embedded in the Scourge.”
I shrugged. “That sounds like me. I guess I should count myself lucky I didn’t get shot when I was captured back then.”
Winterfield shot me a “what the hell, Brandt?” look.
Zhukova shook her head. “Your situation was significantly different than the rogue Empowered Support was forced to terminate just now.”
Terminate just now. There was no anger, no scorn, in those words, just a matter-of-fact statement.
“In your case, your motives were different,” Zhukova said.
“He looked crazy to me,” I said.
“I do not have a definite diagnosis for his condition, but the public library was not the first place where he used his power to destroy, and to kill.” She looked at me flatly. “Regardless of his mental state, our first duty is protect the populace from rogue Empowered. Unfortunately, the illegal drug he had ingested rendered our stunners ineffective.”
“No one should kill unless they have to,” I said.
She nodded. “Not if they have a choice.” She tapped the conference table. “You had a choice in Seattle.”
The words were still matter-of-fact, but it felt like she had slapped me. “I stopped that asshole Mutter from destroying Seattle and killing God knows how many people. Where the hell were you during that?” I shouted.
Zhukova looked at me calmly, which only pissed me off more.
“Obviously not monitoring that operation,” she said, “otherwise things would have gone differently.”
I waved my arms. “Just snapped your fingers and Mutter would have been captured, right?”
She pursued her lips, watched me. “You did accomplish your assignment.”
“Gee, thanks boss.”
She ignored my sarcasm. “On the other hand, you broke procedure and allowed a highly dangerous rogue Empowered to threaten your family. You then kept crucial information about his plan from your case officer.”
Case officer—Winterfield.
She didn’t stop. “You should have contacted Support.” She turned to Alex.
“Agent Sanchez, you had a responsibility to maintain contact with Ms. Brandt.”
“That was on me, not him,” I said, my voice loud.
“Each of you has a duty to this organization independent of anyone else.” She crossed her arms. She wore fancy black gloves that ran up to her elbows, zippered with compartments. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Who wears gloves like that?
“Ms. Brandt, why did you not use the contact protocol?” she asked me.
“I didn’t want to get caught. It would’ve blown everything.”
“An interesting choice of words. So, you did not give the location of the cell you were in. A Hero Council strike team could have struck before the disaster in Seattle, and averted all the damage and death. Instead you aided a highly dangerous rogue Empowered in obtaining a banned device which greatly magnified his already deadly power over air currents.”
I ground my teeth. I started to say something but she talked right over me.
“You enabled Kai Jones, AKA Mutter” in the destruction of the Sequoia complex. You are also indirectly responsible for the deaths of over two dozen Support agents and a sanctioned Empowered, as well as nearly a hundred crew members aboard the United Nations Control Ship Artemis. You put the entire city of Seattle at risk.”
My chest tightened. “I didn’t want any of that to happen. I was trying to stop it.”
She tapped her fingers together. “You acted out for personal reasons, to protect your family from threats that Jones made, failing to consider the bigger picture.”
I slapped the table top. “Hell yes!” I practically shouted. “Who wouldn’t have?” Mutter had threatened my family—Ruth, Ava, and Ella. Of course I did what I had to. Zhukova’s blood must be as cold as ice. “Wouldn’t you, if it were your family?” I demanded.
She shook her head sadly. “Sacrifices are necessary if we are to avoid much greater loss,” she said. “Otherwise far more families suffer.”
“I was told to expose Mutter to the Scourge, in order to get in good with the Inner Circle. If an HC strike team had swooped down at the farmhouse that wouldn’t have happened.”
“Perhaps. But you should have contacted Support. You can not make such decisions on your own.” Her voice was quiet, her tone still maddeningly matter-of-fact.
“Got it,” I said. I had no idea if she believed me or not. She moved on.
“Now, please tell me about your latest assignment for the Scourge, the operation in Colombia.
I swallowed, and gave her the same rundown I’d already given Alex. My voice caught when I got to the village of Dr. Moreau. I forced myself to describe what we found.
She raised an eyebrow. “The inhabitants of the village in question could have been afflicted with an unknown biological disorder, possibly a fungus.”
“A fungus? You’ve got to be shitting me.” I stood.
Zhukova looked at me calmly. “Sit down, Ms. Brandt.”
I sat. “You all know what this is, don’t you? You know.” I was shouting again.
Zhukova raised an eyebrow. “You waste too much energy with your anger. No, we didn’t know about the infestation in Colombia until you reported it.”
Infestation. She had a word for it. “But you’ve seen it before.”
“We know about other, similar-seeming occurrences elsewhere.”
I slapped my hand against my thigh. “Then why haven’t you stopped it?”
“We are dealing with a number of challenges.”
“Such as?” What could be more important than finding out who and what was behind this?
“Things that are on a need-to-know basis.”
And I didn’t need to know.
Zhukova went on. “Must I state the obvious, after already implying it? You are an informant, embedded in a dangerous rogue Empowered organization. It would be foolish to share too much information with you. What if you are compromised and forced to disclose what you know?”
My mouth was suddenly dry. That wasn’t a pleasant thought. “I wouldn’t spill my guts,” I said. She looked like she didn’t believe me.
She tapped the table in front of her. “It is true we know about other infestations of unknown biological origin. Most have disappeared by the time we investigate, while the ones that haven’t have not survived intact to reach a laboratory, and the remains have defied analysis.”
The Hero Council had genius level Empowereds, and Support was black ops central, the world’s number one spy outfit. How could something like this “defy analysis?”
Stupid, I was being stupid. When I’d been a kid Ruth liked to say that there were more things in heaven and earth then dreamed of in my or anyone else’s philosophy. Like Empowereds. No one knew what caused Empowering, or where it came from. Yeah, there were a million theories, but most of them came down to a roll of the cosmic dice.
“Ah, I see you understand,” Zhukova said, sounding sympathetic. Maybe she was, or maybe she was just manipulating me. Her face was serious, almost sad, and again she reminded me of Warden Fulbright back in Special Corrections, when she wanted to play my friend.
“What you have uncovered in Colombia will be investigated,” Zhukova said.
Round filed was more like it. I’d never learn what they found. My chest tightened. “But will you do anything about it?”
“When we have more information, then perhaps we will take appropriate action.”
I jumped to my feet. “Appropriate action? Like what?”
“When we have more information, then we’ll know what action to take.” Nothing seemed to rile her. It was annoying as hell. She pointed at my chair. “Now, please sit and we will discuss the Inner Circle of the Scourge.”
Just like that we were done talking about Colombia.
I sat down again. “I’ve only met Ashula.”
Zhukova sat perched on the edge of her chair. She must have been a ballerina when she was younger; she sat like one, all poise and balance.
“Precisely. You have only met Ashula Singh. We need to know precisely how many there are. You must meet the others, ascertain where they meet.” She looked like a cat about to pounce. “Then we cut off the head of this snake.”
“It’s not exactly easy. They move around.”
Zhukova shook her head. “We don’t need excuses.” She leaned forward. “Your objective is to learn what the Scourge’s ultimate goal is, and what their immediate plans are toward actualizing that ultimate goal.”
Actualizing. Now she sounded like the psych stiffs back in Special Corrections.
“You will continue to report what you learn. It is imperative that you continue in your role as a cell leader, further prove your worth to the Inner Circle, which will raise your worth in their eyes.”
“Fine.”
She watched me. I wondered what her cybernetic lens made of me? Was it monitoring my skin temperature, heart rate, pulse, or was I just being paranoid?
“You must keep us apprised of your situation and what you learn.”
“I said fine,” I snapped.
“Please say, yes, Director. There is no need for emotion here.” She was cool and collected. Nothing seemed to ruffle her.
Alex looked imploringly at me. Nice to know he cared. Winterfield just gave me a “get-on-with-it” look.
“Affirmative, director.” That left a sour taste.
“Thank you. See that you check in at regular intervals and keep us in the loop. Be prepared at all times for new instructions, is that clear?”
“Affirmative, director.” I didn’t bother keeping the snarl out of my voice, but Zhukova just watched me like she was scrutinizing a bug.
“Very good. Dismissed.”
Winterfield gave a very slight head shake. “Let’s go, Brandt.”
Zhukova had already turned away and was reading her data pad.
I followed Winterfield and Alex out.
This bug hated the new boss.
8
Winterfield and Alex escorted me back to my cell, guest room, quarters. Whatever it was. Winterfield did the wrist thing with the lock pad and we went inside.
I sat down on the bed, while Alex leaned against the little desk. Winterfield pulled a chair over, flipped it around and sat with the back against his chest. This must be the Winterfield equivalent of letting your hair down.
“Now you know about the new boss, Brandt.”
I twisted my fingers, trying to burn off some of the energy from listening to the new boss. “Who put the Ice Queen in charge?”
Alex stifled a laugh.
Winterfield sighed. “You have no imagination, Brandt.”
“What?”
“Everyone calls her that behind her back.”
“Maybe because it’s true,” I said. “Nothing seems to get her worked up.”
Alex didn’t even try to fight the laughter.
Winterfield cut him some slack and ignored the laughter. My eyes widened. I hadn’t expected that maybe deep down inside that hardassed exterior was a hardass who occasionally cut his partner slack. Maybe Winterfield was human after all. I’m not sure I could get my mind wrapped around the idea, but there it was.
“Zhukova served in the Russian Reclamation Sectors,” Winterfield told me.
A lot of people had died in that part of the old Soviet Union during the Three Days War. Lands blown to hell and poisoned with radiation fifty years ago. It was ancient history, except radiation kept time differently. The Russian Reclamation Sectors made the Washington Zone seem like a park. What had been D.C. and Baltimore was a controlled area—the Washington Zone—but western Russia was still a lawless wasteland, with fortress-like UN bases.
You’d figure that the mighty Hero Council would fix that.
“Focus, Brandt,” Winterfield said dryly.
“Sorry.” Ruth had spent part of her time in the US Army in Europe a decade after the Three Days War, and told us stories about guarding the borders of the old West Germany and Russia, and keeping what was within those blasted hells inside.
Winterfield rapped the chair back with his knuckles. “Still not focusing.”
I blinked. For an instant, there was a glimmer in his eyes like he was laughing at me inside, but it was gone before I could be sure. And he was right, I’d been drifting, thinking about Ruth.
“Okay, so I’m focused now,” I said. “Why isn’t our new boss taking my report about Colombia seriously?”
“Do you think that’s the only thing Support has to investigate?” He snorted. “It isn’t even on the list.”
I caught his side glance at Alex. The cue for Mister Good Cop.
“I wish we could tell you even half of the situations Support is currently investigating,” Alex said, “but we can’t.”
“Yeah, I get it. I’m a security risk” I shook my head. “I’m not a rat,” I mumbled.
