The Empowered, page 5
Sanchez smiled. “I’m glad you decided to help us, Mat.”
“Okay, Brandt, time to make this official,” Winterfield said.
He swiped a flat pad mounted to the wall beside the door with his wrist. I glimpsed a black, metallic band, half hidden by his shirt sleeve. A buzz sounded and the door opened with a loud click. No keypad. The device on his wrist must have some sort of electronic key.
They escorted me from the room and down a twisting maze of halls to another locked, windowless room, where Winterfield did the same wrist swipe to unlock that door.
Inside was a room with a long table.
Winterfield motioned for me to sit and took the chair at the head of the table, next to some sort of flat display mounted on a swivel stand. Sanchez sat beside me and laid a slim briefcase on the table. He opened it and handed me a file folder thick with paper.
Winterfield gestured at the folder with a pen. “You’re an operative now. That means reading.”
I gave him a sour look which he ignored.
“I’ll sum it up first,” Sanchez said. “There’s an agreement which you need to sign. Then there’s a briefing which must be read tonight. It spells out your assignment and details your target. Tomorrow morning, return the files to us. You must have nothing on your person related to your assignment.”
“Okay.” I rubbed my sweaty palms against my jumpsuited thighs beneath the table.
Winterfield frowned. “Not ‘okay,’ Brandt. Say ‘Yes’, if you mean ‘yes,’ otherwise ‘no.’”
Asshole.
“Yes,” I said.
Sanchez smiled again. “Good. Upon completion of your assignment, this agency will put resources into your family’s situation.”
“Upon completion?" I interrupted him. "My grandmother needs medical help, now. My sisters are in danger, now. I won’t be able to look after them at home as often as I’d like while on this assignment, so the sooner they get into a good, private school, the better.”
Sanchez glanced at Winterfield.
My now former PO drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Unfortunately, now isn’t an option.”
“What do you mean?”
He held up a finger. “One. We can arrange for your grandmother to be put in line for an experimental drug treatment for Thalik’s disease, but these things take time. And we don’t want to bring undue attention by having her receive extremely expensive treatment out of the blue. It would be highly suspicious. This operation must not be compromised in any way if it is to be effective.”
He held up a second finger. “Two, we need to go slow on any assistance for your sisters. A sudden change in their circumstances would be even more suspicious.”
“So who would notice?”
Winterfield’s eyebrows shot up. “Really, Brandt? You can’t be that naive. Your pal Silco found you, after all, which means he was surveilling you and probably your family as well.”
A cold feeling settled into the pit of my stomach. I didn’t like where this was going.
“Okay, so that was Gus,” I said. “But my family is one of millions of poor people.”
“Raphe Hatcher and his associates staked out your family when they learned of your release.”
“How do you know that?”
He sighed. “I already mentioned you have been under surveillance since your release from Special Corrections. That included your family’s movements.”
“You were spying on my sisters, and didn’t do anything?” I slapped the table, rattling Sanchez’s briefcase.
Winterfield’s expression was cool. Calm, collected, and in control, like he always seemed to be. “No, we didn’t do anything. Your sisters involved themselves with criminals. Then you went off to try to save them. Again, you made your choices. You acted upon them.”
I glared at the tabletop. At least I could keep tabs on Ruth and the twins, make sure there were no more Raphe Hatcher’s sniffing around.
Winterfield held up a third finger. “Three, you must move out of Ruth Brandt’s apartment at once.”
I jerked my head up. “No.”
Winterfield drummed his fingers again on the tabletop. “Yes.”
I shot to my feet. “No, I won’t leave them. Period.”
“Sit down, Brandt.”
I stayed standing.
Sanchez leaned toward me, looking concerned. “Mat, you have to separate yourself from your family. If you don’t, this operation will be terminated.”
“Why?”
Winterfield scowled. “Because we don’t back operations that fail out of the gate. You’ll be dead, and your family likely will be as well.”
More ice settled in the pit of my stomach. I pulled my chair up and sat down. “How do you know that?” I could keep an eye on them and do the job. I could.
“This isn’t our first rodeo, Brandt. We have plenty of experience.”
“If the operation doesn’t happen, you will be returned to Special Corrections,” Sanchez chimed in. “And if you are back in Special Corrections, you can’t help your family.”
I frowned. “I can keep a secret.” I’d kept plenty, in the Renegades and in Special Corrections.
Winterfield leaned forward. “That isn’t good enough. As long as you’re around them, there’s a risk they’ll find out.”
I licked my lips. My throat was parched again. “I thought you said you took care of the evidence of my fight with Hatcher’s gang.” My heart pounded and I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t banish the screams of the men as the blackberry vines sawed at them. I shook myself, remembering the sweet hotness of my anger. Bastards had tried to enslave me. I opened my eyes, looked at Sanchez.
“We want to do what’s best for your family, too, Mat,” he said.
He was right. Damn him. Damn him and Winterfield, damn Support. Damn the world.
“All right, I’ll move out.”
“Good,” Sanchez said, giving me a ‘butter could melt in his mouth’ smile. If I wasn’t so pissed, I’d find him irresistible. It had been forever since I’d been in a room with a man as attractive as Alexandre Sanchez. Maybe I never had, before this.
But none of that mattered now. How handsome and charming he was didn’t matter.
I licked my lips again, trying to moisten them.
Winterfield poured a glass of water, pushed it across the table at me. “Drink, Brandt.”
I drank the glass empty. What was I going to tell them?
“Maybe I should just stay away, not go back. They’ll think I’ve run off."
Winterfield shook his head. “You can’t just leave them by not returning. They’ll wonder.”
“Aren’t they going to wonder what happened to me either way? What are they supposed to think?”
“That you persuaded them to leave the area.”
“Just like that.”
Winterfield frowned. “Yes, Brandt, it’s that simple. I’m surprised you don’t see it.”
I scowled back at him. “See what?”
“You arranged to persuade Hatcher’s gang to leave the area. As far as your family is concerned, that’s exactly what happened. You are moving out because you're back in with some old friends. That’s all your family needs to know, but they do need to know that.”
I wanted to smash that smug look off his face. “Got it.”
Winterfield’s gaze was icy. “See that you do.”
I drank more water, trying to calm down.
“So, do I learn which group I’m supposed to infiltrate?” I asked Sanchez. Winterfield was leading the show, but Sanchez was much easier on the eyes, and he made me calm down faster.
Sanchez glanced at Winterfield.
“Yes, Brandt,” Winterfield said. “You do.” He paused.
“Well?” I asked, after a long moment. He was enjoying this, damn him.
“The Scourge.”
Well, well, well… “Gus Silco told me the Scourge was back. I figured he was lying.”
“No, Brandt. Silco told you the truth.”
“What the hell?” I fumed, crossing my arms. “Another thing you knew.” I’d been set up from the get-go.
“It gets better.”
Great, Winterfield’s idea of better probably meant I was in deeper trouble than I imagined. Another long pause. He really enjoyed having me over a barrel, the bastard. “How?”
Winterfield steepled his fingers. “It so happens Gus Silco belongs to a Scourge cell active in the Pacific Northwestern United States, namely Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.”
“Gus Silco, Blender is a member of the Scourge?”
Winterfield nodded. “He is.”
Unbelievable. Gus, a member? The Scourge must have changed a lot if they’d recruit a weasel like him. His blending made him a useful spy and sneak, and when he had the guts, a good thief. But Gus—damn you, Blender, you cut and run when it counted.
“You expect me to trust him?”
Winterfield cocked his head. “Don’t be an idiot, Brandt. I expect you to be on your guard. The guy did leave you in the lurch.”
My jaw tightened. “Okay. A Scourge cell? I don’t know what that is.”
Sanchez nodded. “Nor should you. The new version of the Scourge has adopted a cell structure, meaning it’s organized into a number of small groups. Only the leader in each group knows who their contact is to the overall leadership, which the Scourge calls ‘the inner circle.’ No cell leaders know about the other cells. They only know who their contact to the leadership is.”
“The inner circle,” I repeated. “But how do they coordinate?” I’d never heard of a criminal group that operated like that, especially not an Empowered criminal group. Super-villains were usually crazy-bold.
“Do you know how the old Scourge was taken down?” Winterfield asked me.
“I was otherwise occupied at the time.”
He looked at me sourly. “You were only in blackout for the first two years of your sentence.”
Winterfield wouldn’t understand. All I cared about when I finally got communication privileges with the outside world on my eighteenth birthday, was finding out how Ruth and the girls were doing. I couldn’t have cared less about the rest of the world.
“You missed the biggest operation the Hero Council and Support have mounted since the Ubermensch Heresy in the 1990s.”
I shrugged.
“You know the story of the Drake twins, right, Brandt? Tell us you know that much.”
“I know who the Drake twins are.” Who didn’t? They were famous.
David Drake had been called Halo, and his twin brother Daniel, Hazard. Both could alter probability according to what people said. Sounded crazy to me. Halo could improve the odds of something working or an action succeeding. Hazard did the opposite. Made things worse.
They were the superstar members of World Guard, the Hero Council’s worldwide unit, which, unlike the regional teams, could operate anywhere. Blond, with movie star looks and charm, David and Daniel were inseparable. Until seven years ago. When they were twenty-three. They had some kind of nasty argument. David went over to the dark side and joined the Scourge. He changed his name to Nefarious, if you could believe that.
“I assumed David Drake died in the Mojave battle. Figured Daniel retired after going after his brother.” I really didn’t know.
Winterfield leaned back in his chair and gave me another “I-can’t-believe-you-are-that-ignorant” look.
“We believed both David and Daniel Drake had died in the operation in the Mojave Desert, at the Scourge’s hidden fortress.”
“That must have been a nasty fight.”
“It was,” Sanchez said. “I was there.” A haunted look flashed across his face.
I wondered how many friends he’d lost in that battle.
“The thing is, Brandt,” Winterfield continued, “Support now has reason to believe that David Drake survived the so-called ‘Battle at the Hidden Fortress’ because we have intel that Nefarious is back.”
I blinked. “Shit.”
“Yes,” Sanchez said. “This means we need more information. The new Scourge is being very calculating and indirect in its activities. We have yet to identify a single base of operations, or anything beyond a few cells.”
“Perhaps that’s all there is,” I pointed out.
“We have intel that says otherwise.”
“From whom?”
“We are not going to divulge our sources to you, Brandt,” Winterfield said, sounding even more sour than normal.
“Okay, so you want me to infiltrate this local cell, and what, somehow figure out who the contact is?”
“No, Brandt, we want you to expose the cell leader to the Scourge’s inner circle. We believe he’s planning on betraying the Scourge for his own ends. If you expose what he is doing to the inner circle, that will gain you access.”
“Let me see if I have this straight,” I said. “I’m supposed to join a cell that weasel Gus Silco belongs to, figure out what the leader is up to. Then, instead of stopping whatever it is, I’m somehow supposed to expose him to this ‘inner circle’.”
I was in the shit for certain.
“To the contact, to be more precise,” Sanchez said.
Great.
“How am I supposed to do all this?”
“You’ll have guidance. You’ll still be on parole, and you will be meeting with me when you can,” Winterfield said. “We'll instruct you.”
Great. Assuming I didn’t die first.
4
Winterfield sent me to my room, carrying the files I had to read, escorted by Agent Sanchez. My side felt fine. I had healed way faster than I normally would have, given all the blood I lost. It was a miracle.
“Where is this place?” I asked as we turned down yet another identical-looking battleship gray corridor with linoleum flooring and those humming overhead lights that brightened when you moved. I was completely lost.
Sanchez laid a finger to his lips. “It’s a secret,” he said, and smiled.
Annoying as all hell. But it was hard to be too annoyed with someone who put it like that.
I almost laughed.
I stopped at an intersection. More identical corridors. “How do you not get lost in here? Down here?” I hadn’t seen a window since I woke up in the hospital room.
He smirked. “Would you believe that’s also a secret?”
“Hah.” I gave him a hard look. “You’re not joking, are you?”
“Not about that.” He took me down another identical corridor, this one a dead end.
“Must be prisoner’s row,” I said.
“Guest quarters.” He swiped his sleeve over the flat panel mounted by the door, which buzzed and unlocked. He opened the door with a neat flourish. “Your suite awaits.”
He was laying it on a little thick. Perhaps he was just trying to be nice, or maybe it was just part of the whole "good cop" to Winterfield’s "bad cop" routine.
The room had a desk, two chairs, kitchenette with microwave, a bunk, and a tiny bathroom. Another one of those flat screen displays hung on a wall.
I sat down on the bunk. “You don’t seem like a typical Support agent.”
Sanchez took the file folder from me and put it on the desktop. “Don’t forget this is your one job tonight.”
“I won’t.” Like I could forget. I had to nail this job.
He leaned against the desk, facing me. “I’m not a typical Support agent.” He flashed that smile at me.
“No, you have a sense of humor.” Not to mention that charm.
“It’s not forbidden,” Sanchez said, deadpan. “Just discouraged.”
The door chimed and I jumped. “Doorbell?”
Sanchez’s eyes sparkled. “This isn’t a prison, despite your first impression.”
“Is the door locked for me?”
“For now.”
“So I’m a prisoner in this not prison.”
“Enter,” he said. The door buzzed, and opened. Voice command activated?
A figure swathed in blue medical scrubs with a matching blue masked helmet entered. The helmet’s mask was molded to look like an angel’s face. Even the boots the figure wore were blue.
My hands twitched.
“Easy, Mat,” Sanchez said. “This is Medico Blue.”
“How are you feeling, Ms. Brandt?” The voice had a British accent.
I knew that voice. It was the voice I'd heard when I first came to, in the ICU or whatever that had been.
Her hands were encased in blue gloves made of some sort of synthetic. Every inch of her was covered. I don’t know how she saw anything; there were no eye holes in her face mask. Was she blind?
She didn’t move like she was blind.
Medico Blue knelt beside me, and ran her gloved fingers over my side, down my legs and arms. My skin tingled where she touched me. The tingling told me she was another Empowered. But why hadn’t I felt her when she was outside?
She finished her examination. “Your wound has healed completely. I am very pleased as, no doubt, you are.”
No kidding. “Thank you,” I said. “You must be why I’m still alive.”
Medico Blue laid a gloved hand over mine. “I am merely God’s instrument. She saved you, for reasons She will reveal in due course.”
Medico Blue sounded so certain. Her faith must run deep. I wasn’t going to argue with her, but I wasn’t so sure about God. Having your parents killed when you were only four years old makes it hard to believe.
Ruth was a Methodist. Her faith was a quiet belief. She hadn’t gone to church in years and didn’t push us to go, growing up. Ruth had said we had to discover faith on our own.
“Thank God for me,” I said.
Medico Blue tilted her head. “I will, but you certainly can on your own, and in your own way.” She kept her gloved hand over mine. “Your power is stronger than you realize.”
“Could have fooled me.” I shifted irritably.
Medico Blue rose and went to stand beside Sanchez.
“Self-knowledge is the hardest win,” Medico Blue said. I think she said it for both my and Sanchez’s benefit.
Sanchez nodded.
Medico Blue tapped her chest. “Have faith in your gift. Good day.” The door buzzed and opened with that loud click I was beginning to find annoying. It closed behind her with an answering click.
