The Axeboy's Blues (The Agents Of Book 1)

by Andy Reynolds

  “Never call me 'sir'.” He motioned her to keep readying the straps. “Mars, the word 'sir' to me is akin to the word 'master.' I know it may be irrational to you and the world of today, but the word 'sir' to me means that one person is more important than another. You can use the term 'boss' if you'd like, because I am your boss or manager. But I'd really prefer it if you just call me Julius.”

  Mars nodded. “I can do that, Julius.” She tightened up the last couple of straps, securing the device to his leg. “So, Julius, I'm obviously not as attuned with these devices as Roman, since he built them, but I feel like you may be able to downsize to one crutch while wearing this at first, and then move to crutch-less. Unfortunately I'm not yet trained on all the different fluids that pump through this, but –”

  “Don't worry yourself about that. I've talked to Roman about the logistics of this device.” As soon as Mars had it well secured to his stump, Julius reached down and cranked a knob that she had been told by Roman not to mess with and a vibrant wash of energy poured into the device and it hummed to life.

  Julius stood up, took a step and nearly fell over before Mars grabbed him and pushed him up against one of the tables. The man smirked down at her. “Looks like you were right about the crutch. Doctor's orders.” He reached out and grabbed one of his crutches, then began walking with it and the artificial leg, slowly. “Mars, you'd better run ahead. I might be a while, and they will need your help. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Yes... Julius.” She barely caught herself before calling him 'sir'. Mars grabbed the duffel bag and ran down the hallway, towards the exit.

  File 24 :: [Edith Downs]

  Edith pulled out her cellphone as she ran through the streets of The Central Business District, towards her pastry shop. The weird contraption that Roman had handed her was buzzing to life in her other hand, but she didn't care about that yet. The screen on her phone was blinking, and all it showed were symbols and garble, like it had gotten wet or something. “Damn it!” She shoved it into her back pocket, then zigzagged between the buildings and past the fountains of the Piazza d'Italia, where she was supposed to meet back with Roman in less than half an hour.

  Looking around the street as she approached her shop, she didn't see any obvious evidence of people who were misplaced from another time. It was hard to tell though – several were wearing old fashioned hats and suspenders and vests – but people were always wearing old fashioned clothes.

  “Edith!” One of her employees got up from an outside table, probably taking her break. “Oh my God, how've you been?”

  “Hey Kate.” Edith stopped in front of the next building, so that no one inside the shop could see her.

  Kate walked up and hugged her. “Love the hair! Is your eye alright?”

  “It's fine. Look, I need you to go and get Jason for me. And do not tell anyone else I'm out here. I just need to talk to him really fast.”

  She smiled at her. “Sure thing! It was good to see you!” Then she ran into the shop.

  A moment later Jason stalked out, pulling off his apron and tossing it onto the table. He walked right up to Edith. “What the hell, Edith?” he said. “I've been trying to call you for two days now.”

  “Really?” she said. She pulled her cellphone out and showed it to him. “It wasn't like this until just now – I used it this morning, but haven't gotten any calls. Maybe it's been dropping them.”

  “You want to explain the giant freaking antique oven that got delivered? Where is that supposed to go? It's in the lobby right now because there's no way you were thinking of actually cooking on that old thing. We were already low on seating and I had to take out two tables and squeeze the other ones together. It was delivered by that weird Civil War guy you were talking to, back when you actually worked here. He delivered that and a bunch of old baking equipment the health department would never even think about letting anyone use.”

  Edith reached out and grabbed his shoulder, squeezing it as she looked into his eyes.

  He suddenly looked at her bad eye and his face dropped. “Holy shit, Edith. Are you sick?”

  She shook her head. “No, I'm fine. I'm very, very sorry Jason. You're getting a bonus this month, and a raise. We'll have a business meeting soon, but right now I need you to keep everyone inside the shop, alright?”

  “Edith, what are you talking about? I can't keep everyone inside, and we don't make enough money for you to give me a raise.”

  “There's an emergency situation in the city, and I need you to keep everyone calm and inside.”

  “What do you mean, 'an emergency'?”

  “I don't have time to explain. I need you to trust me.”

  The device in her hand started chirping loudly. She looked around and saw what Roman had told her about – a rolling wave of blurry air moving quickly down the street and sidewalk, straight towards them. “Hold on to me!” she yelled, pressing her shoulder against his chest and pushing a large blue button on the contraption. His arm wrapped around her shoulder and suddenly there was a large, transparent blueish sphere around them. The rolling blurry wave passed through the sphere, picked them up like a spinning tornado and dropped them onto the sidewalk.

  “Holy fuck! What the hell was that?” Jason yelled, looking around panicked. “The shock wave from a bomb?”

  “Not exactly.” She turned off the sphere and looked around to discern that they were still in the right time period. She got to her feet and ran to the front windows of her shop, looking in. There were a few regulars and other customers, and her employees working behind the bar. None of them seemed to have noticed the phenomenon and were all chatting or working. She turned to Jason as he ran up and pushed the device into his hands.“Ok, take this. Keep everyone inside, and if it starts making that sound again, make everyone get close to you and push this button. You should have roughly ten seconds.”

  Jason sighed. “Ok, but you're going to explain all this to me, and soon.”

  “Deal,” she said, grabbing him and hugging him. Then she backed away and pushed at his chest. “Now get in there. Please!”

  He nodded, turned and walked into the shop.

  Alright, now for part two of the mission. Edith pulled out the smaller device that Roman had given her, one that acted the same but was far less powerful. It was the shape and size of a hockey puck. She ran down the brick sidewalk of Lafayette Street towards the river, passing back by the entrance to the Piazza d'Italia. The device in her hand began whirring loudly as ahead of her she saw that rippling of color and space rolling towards her. “Shit!” she yelled and jumped sideways down the little alley-like Commerce Street. As she spun through the air the time-ripples brushed the hair on her arm, then she was picked up and tossed against the brick wall of a building. She found herself on the ground with her arm numb.

  Looking down the alley she saw a boy stumbling and running around the corner and onto the street she was on. His face was bloody and he held a silvery axe in his hand. A week ago she would have muttered, “What the fuck,” but on that day, having seen all the things she'd witnessed in the last week, she just worried about getting up and getting more intelligence on the situation at hand. Then the boy, reaching the end of the street, turned down Lafayette Street and vanished into the air.

  “Whatever,” she said, wincing and getting to her feet.

  “Have you seen a boy come this way?” said a lady running up to her. She was a gorgeous black woman in very nice pants and boots with a slew of pouches and devices on her belt and strapped to her legs. Her chin was bloody and she ran with a limp. Edith could tell by her face that she was in a lot of pain.

  “What time are you from?” Edith asked her.

  “Not this one,” she said. “Which way did he turn? Right or left?”

  “Right.”

  The woman went to keep running and fell.

  “Hold on!” Edith said and went to her side. “Hold up and catch your breath.”

  “No, there's no time.”
The woman grimaced from the pain in her leg and smacked her hand against the brick wall next to her. “Damn it!”

  “Look, I can help you get back to your own time. Why don't you sit down and –”

  “To hell with my own time!” The woman's eyes widened when she saw the device in Edith's hand. “Wait, are you an Agent of Karma?”

  “Um, is that the same as an Agent of Fateful Encounters?”

  “My name is Adelaide Lacoste. I am an Agent of Karma in the year 1934. That boy you saw will bring nothing but suffering and death to your time period.” Edith helped her get to her feet. “What is your name, Agent?”

  “Edith Downs. But I'm not actually an Agent. I've been asked to join, but haven't decided yet.” Suddenly Edith noticed that there was a large metal chisel shoved into the belt loop of the woman's pants, and it was crawling with mems.

  “Edith,” she said. “What is it? Do they not have chisels in this time?”

  Edith shook her head. “You don't see them often, but that one has mems... uh, memories... all over it. I don't know if I've ever seen something so small with so many mems in it. And there's something off about the memories, too. They seem mean – aggressive.”

  Adelaide flexed her bad leg and laughed to herself. “So you're a damned reader. I need you to come with me. You have to help me find that boy.”

  “I can't. I'm meeting up with another Agent... I mean an actual Agent, cause I'm not one... in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Edith,” said Adelaide, looking into her eyes. “They will understand – you can trust me on that. We cannot waste any time.”

  Edith shook her head. “No, we can wait fifteen minutes. And Roman can probably help you more than I can. I really don't even know what I'm doing. I'm not trained in any way, I don't know how to do anything with the memories except talk to them... kind of...”

  “Roman?” whispered Adelaide. “Not Roman Wing?”

  Edith nodded. “I think so.”

  “Pale, black hair?”

  “Wears a really nice old coat.”

  Adelaide shook her head. “Son of a bitch.” She licked some of the scarlet blood from her bottom lip. “Alright, Edith Downs. Lets go meet up with Roman and see what light he can shed on this situation.” She tried to walk and nearly fell.

  “Here, let me help you,” said Edith, letting Adelaide put her arm around her. “It's just right over there – the Piazza d'Italia.”

  “The what?”

  Edith helped her through the large archway and into the Piazza, then helped her onto one of the benches that overlook the fountains. Edith stood by the water and looked across the parking lot at her pastry shop, hoping everyone was alright in there – that Jason was keeping them safe.

  Within minutes Roman walked up. “We're having a meeting at Ernst Café...” His eyes fell past Edith and onto the other woman and he stopped walking. His breath caught visibly in his chest. “My god...”

  “Hello, Roman,” said Adelaide.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, then a tear slid down each side of his pale face.

  “Roman! Stop that. Please.”

  “I knew you'd be showing up soon. It's been a long time.”

  Adelaide smiled. “I was talking to you this morning, in 1934. You look like you've aged ten years. Fifteen maybe. How come you never told me you age so slow?”

  Roman shook his head. “I didn't know. A half-breed like me has never been born as far as I know. I have no idea how long I'm supposed to live.”

  Edith's heart was torn by the emotion that was moving back and forth between them – Roman standing there and Adelaide sitting on the bench.

  Adelaide's face dropped. “You've... seen me die, haven't you?”

  Roman's eyes watered a little more and he looked towards the fountains.

  “It's alright. I know you can't tell me. I know that I shouldn't have come to meet with you – that I should have stayed in the shadows while I was here. I know the protocols involving time skips, I just couldn't resist.”

  Roman shook his head. “Protocols change. I know much more about time skips and strings of temporal movement than I did back then. They're much more sturdy than I had thought.”

  Adelaide sighed and looked up at the blue sky and the sun. “Roman, since I'm here... you know who else is here.”

  Roman nodded.

  “So you know how serious the situation is.”

  “Yes, old friend. The seriousness had not eluded me.”

  File 25 :: [Julius Marcos]

  Julius could feel the metal limb sloshing to life below him as he walked awkwardly down the steps of Spanish Plaza and into The Central Business District, particularly careful while walking over the streetcar and train tracks with his crutch. Roman had told him how the limb would work – that the movements were based on chemical reactions between the various substances that were slowly being released through the black rubber tubes. Part of those chemical reactions were caused by the liquid being so close to his flesh – even though he was basically human, having the incarnation of a god inside his body changed his chemical makeup, and Roman had used that unique chemical makeup to make the leg function. Roman had offered Julius a more traditional false leg while the better one was being built, but Julius hadn't been quite so rational of late and had rejected it.

  Already Julius could feel how the leg worked, could feel it beneath him as an extension of his body, but he thought it may be a while before he was used to it enough to walk without a crutch.

  Walking up to Ernst Café, he came upon Roman and Mars and two others sitting and standing around one of the outside tables. Mars pulled a chair up for Julius, but he shook his head.

  “I'll keep standing until I get used to this thing,” he said, leaning the crutch against the brick wall. He looked at the woman with the sepia streak in her hair. “You must be Edith.” He reached out his hand and they shook. “Pleased to meet you. I assume Roman has told you about my reservations regarding memory readers?”

  Edith nodded. “Yes, he has.”

  “Good.” Then he turned his attention to the dark skinned woman sitting down. “Nice to see you again, Adelaide. And, at the same time, it's nice to meet you. My name is Julius.”

  “Hello Bes,” she said. She looked from Julius to Roman. “Anyone else from the old crew still around?”

  “No, just us,” said Roman.

  “Is this everyone?” asked Julius.

  “It seems so,” said Roman. “Shall we begin?”

  Julius nodded and Roman looked down at the map that was spread over the table – it was a map of The CBD and a little bit beyond. He took out a thin piece of charcoal and made a few small circles. “I witnessed temporal skips here, here and here.” Then he made a few small X's on the map. “I saw people from 1934 at these spots. They were disoriented, so I don't think they'd been here long.” He handed the charcoal to Edith, who bent over the map and made a couple of circles herself.

  “I saw the skips at these two spots,” she said. “And the only person definitely from the '30s was Adelaide – well, also the boy she was chasing.”

  “Boy?” asked Mars.

  “We'll get to that,” said Roman.

  “I came through outside of Ernst Café,” said Adelaide, “where there were people from this time in my time, trying to order drinks at the bar. Before I came through I saw a rip here...” She pointed to a spot on a side street and Edith circled it. “After I came through, I saw another rolling time skip here...” She pointed to a circle Edith had already drawn. “Which would be the same one that Edith saw. It seemed to be moving in a lakeward direction.”

  “Alright,” said Roman. The circles and X's were inside about a six block area. “So we'll have to spread out and see if the skips are happening outside of this zone. We'll try to round up people from '34 and keep them in one area until we can get them back to their own time.”

  “You three work on that,” said Julius. “I will help Adelaide hunt down The Axeboy.”

&
nbsp; “Axeboy?” asked Mars. “Sounds like a sidekick to a superhero.”

  “No, I want Edith,” said Adelaide.

  “She's not an Agent,” said Julius. “And she isn't trained.”

  “Bes... Julius... I am an Agent.” Adelaide glanced at Mars. “I'm guessing that I am the third most senior Agent here, is that right?”

  “Yes, but you don't know the city. It's changed.”

  Adelaide turned to Edith. “Edith, how long have you lived here?”

  “Ten years.”

  “More than sufficient.”

  “Julius,” said Roman. “It might be best that you and I have as little contact with Adelaide as possible. The two of us know things that we cannot risk divulging to her, whether on purpose or by accident.”

  “Besides,” said Adelaide. “I need Edith.”

  She pulled a large piece of metal from her belt loop beneath the table and set it loudly onto the center of the map. As soon as Julius saw the chisel sitting there between them all, a loud growl escaped his lungs as his teeth grew in his skull, his arm and hand grew twice their size with dark fur bursting from beneath his skin, the claws of his fingers etching into the table. Mars and Edith both jumped back, nearly falling to the ground as they did so. Roman and Adelaide remained unphased.

  “The Axeboy dropped this,” said Adelaide. “Edith has already seen the memories crawling all over it. The memories may give us clues as to where the boy will go.”

  Julius took a deep breath, his fur and teeth half-retreating back into his arm and skull, his eyes staying fixed on the chisel. He looked at Edith, who was staring at him and half-poised to run. “I don't want her near that thing.”

  “She can use the Extraction Glove,” said Roman. “Using it on an object should be easy enough, and should be safe. It'll be good practice for her if she's going to put together the history of the Agents.”

  Adelaide looked from Julius to Roman and back. “You're creating a history of the Agents?”

  “Supposedly,” said Julius.

  “Edith can do it,” said Roman.