Agent Gemini

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “Friend?” Just the faintest hint of disbelief.

  “Yes, friend. You jealous?”

  “No.” Sharp, curt little word. “Simply inquiring, since agents tended to go native with female...friends...once they reached Gemini stage, instead of the initially stable Gibraltar virus.”

  “So Gemini’s unstable?” That would be pretty unwelcome news, considering he was counting on the virus to keep them both functioning.

  “Not precisely.”

  He waited, but a full mile went by and she didn’t say anything else. So he bit. “What do you mean, not precisely?”

  “The Gemini mutation—where Gibraltar ended up in every male agent, given enough time—is complementary. For the virus to be completely stable and its benefits to endure, the geminas have to be kept close to the agents. The two viral loads must exchange what the other lacks. Like puzzle pieces. Neither body can produce all aspects of the whole.”

  “So that’s what makes them smell so good.”

  “Possibly. There’s some contention, since there is no physical commonality between the geminas—at least, the ones they autopsied.”

  “Autopsied? Tracy—did they?”

  “Yes. She was shot several times—she died instantly. There would have been very little...pain.”

  Well, thank God for that. “You knew all this before you—”

  “No. The base nearest Felicitas is a research and records facility. Copies of certain things are held there. Very messy, and redundant, but any large bureaucracy will be inefficient. I have reason to believe...” Maddeningly, she stopped.

  Cal took a deep breath. He wasn’t smelling smoke; it was just the memory of the farmhouse. Realizing something wasn’t right, while Tracy, her hands clasped so tightly just like Trinity’s were now, looked up at him. It’s not that I’m not grateful, because I am. I just... This is a little much, you know?

  Now this woman, sitting right next to him, didn’t want his help, either. It was looking like a trend. “So what records are you after?”

  She took a deep breath, as if bracing herself. It made her scent that much richer, an indigo thread of decisiveness through the honeygold of her hair. Your nose could tell you everything you needed to know, really. Except how to get them to sit still long enough for you to say Look, I just want to help, all right?

  That was pretty selfish, too. Let me help, because it makes me feel better about being a killing machine.

  “I have no memory before waking up on the induction table. There are some things...faint flashes, but nothing more. I am deconstructing. I...” Another deep breath. “I have to know who I am, before I die.”

  Don’t we all. “You’re not going to die.”

  A tiny movement that might have been a shrug.

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” he added, but that just made him feel even more sheepish and selfish. He checked the rearview—a state patrol cruiser was hanging back, a shark in a lazy flock of minnows, just swimming along. Not anything to be worried about yet. Neither of them had questioned the sudden sense of danger urging them out of the hotel room. It could have been paranoia, but better paranoid than caught.

  And she hadn’t said a word about the kiss. Was it still burning in her, the way it was all his lips could remember? She fit just right against him, too.

  Complementary. That was one word for it.

  “Why?” Funny, how the slightest shading in her voice could color it with thoughtful curiosity.

  Just because. “Maybe I like you. Ever think of that?”

  “Ridiculous.”

  Did she sound miffed or disgusted? He couldn’t tell. “Yeah, well, that’s why they call them feelings.”

  “Ah.” For some reason, that made her uncurl a little and set her backpack down between her booted feet. “May I ask you something?”

  “You just did. But go ahead.” He relaxed a notch, and a little more, still keeping tabs on the cruiser in the rearview.

  “Can you explain it to me? The...feeling?” Now she sounded wistful, of all things. “It will help me calculate.”

  “Plan your chances of getting away?”

  “No.” Almost inaudible under the hum of driving and air-conditioning. “How to keep you from being caught again.”

  There it was again. She wanted to protect him.

  Him, of all people.

  His chest seized up, and if he wasn’t so sure the little swarmies in his bloodstream kept the pipes all clear, he might have thought it was a heart attack. “Ah. Well. Don’t worry about that, honey. Let’s just figure out where to stop for lunch, all right?”

  “Another milk shake?” She sounded, of all things, hopeful. Emotional noise, and she thought it would kill her. Induction. There was a lot that word could mean. Drawing her out about it could wait until after lunch.

  “I think we can do that.” All the milk shakes you could ever want. Just don’t get any more crazy ideas in your head about suicide missions. He checked the rearview again. The state patrol car was gone, and a little muscle at the base of his neck relaxed. He was feeling better about this whole thing now.

  He should have known it wouldn’t last.

  * * *

  The strawberry milk shake was not quite as marvelous as the chocolate one had been. Tiny red clots of frozen fruit were faintly unnerving, she decided. Nevertheless, it was delicious and soothing, and she was almost sorry when it was gone. It satisfied her basic calorie requirements after a day spent sitting in a car, but Cal told her they would stop for barbecue in a little while, as well. At the moment, he was outside in a simmering afternoon, arms folded, leaning against the blue pickup while gas pumped into its sloshing tank.

  The twenty-dollar bill he’d given her was folded precisely in her pocket. Get some snacks, huh? And more water. You still smell dehydrated.

  She had not bothered to protest that she was operating at reasonable efficiency, considering the events of the past forty-eight hours. She had, however, availed herself of the key to the restroom, the sleepy-eyed and heavily pimpled young man behind the counter simply glancing at her and marking her as female and no trouble before he handed it over. The key was taped to a wooden ruler, sadly battered and scarred, and after she closed herself in the bathroom’s odorous but reasonably private confines, her bladder eased and her jeans rebuttoned, she examined it closely.

  The marks were faded but comforting. The idea that measuring was standardized, that rulers like this were mass-produced and relied upon, was extremely soothing. To know that at least an inch was an inch, a centimeter a centimeter, was the closest to objectivity one could reach.

  Unless, of course, quality control at the factories was below reasonable standards. It was the old problem of a widening perspective reducing everything to insignificance, and hence, overloading a complex machine into spinning inaction.

  Trinity frowned, set the ruler and the dangling key down. Cold, mineral-hard water from the tap ran until it was reasonably clear, stinging slightly as she splashed her face.

  He kissed me.

  She folded the thought away. Immediately afterward, he’d looked... She couldn’t find the proper word. Blue eyes dark and wondering, his wounded nose crusted with drying blood, a high flush on his cheeks. None of them added up to any expression she could name.

  Even now, she was having difficulty. He was disgusted by her cold logic; she obviously irritated him.

  And there was the Moritz operation.

  The urge to confess was irrational, but powerful. Lying, even by omission, consumed energy.

  Lying to Bronson was easy. You simply stopped speaking.

  The problem now, Trinity decided, was that she wanted to speak. Cal had slipped off grid as soon as he could during the pursuit and gone to warn Six and Candless of the danger. Both agents had
been slated for liquidation and autopsy, and Candless, too, since Bronson had by that point been losing control and trying to regain it the only way he knew how—liquidate and cut it off, seal and disinfect, with the bonus of feeling like a big man because he was giving orders.

  Handing out death from on high had pleased him immensely.

  She could still feel his greasy hair in her hands when she slammed his head against the table, hard enough to break his nose and render him unconscious or at least dazed for a significant period of time. Then she had guided Candless out—but the woman had refused to leave without Six and Cal. Even if Trinity had left her there, Candless would have kept searching for the two male agents until she was caught and liquidated.

  They were, as far as Trinity could tell, all three the same, obeying those strange directives that had nothing to do with logic. Emotional noise made them risk mission objectives in unacceptable ways.

  Of course, she had risked her own objectives by rescuing Candless—Holly—and for what?

  Trinity raised her head, stared into the mirror. Time in the sun, however short, had brought out lighter streaks in her hair. Dye always lost its hold; maybe she should blame that on the virus, the way the color flaked off the hair shaft, little bits of camouflage shed everywhere. Forensic dandruff.

  Her pupils dilated slightly. Windows to the soul, they were called.

  Could you have a soul after induction? Ridiculous, to waste time on such a philosophical—

  Her skin tightened. Consciousness of danger brought her swiftly upright. She listened intently, all metaphysical quandaries taking a backseat to survival. What is that?

  There were certain sensory thresholds even the virus couldn’t break. Often, in debrief, the agents spoke of instinct, and Trinity had decided it was simply calculations going too quickly for waking consciousness to latch on to. But the body knew and prepared.

  A faint unsound. Fine hairs on her nape bristling. She dug in her pocket for an elastic and pulled her hair back. Scooped up the ruler and stopped by the door. The layout of the store was clear behind her eyelids; she unlocked the door with soundless, gentle fingers and pressed the lever down. Pushed the door open a fraction, peering out through the crack, easing it through the particular point where the hinges would dry-squeak. Her nostrils flared, her entire body a taut string.

  Air-conditioning. Floor wax. Spilled cola dried to a sticky residue. A thread of acrid testosterone, aggression and fury spiked with a metallic tang. She sniffed, quietly, cautiously.

  Drug. Methamphetamine based, male subject, sweating, high level of emotional excitement.

  She pushed the door a little farther open.

  The yell, when it came, was so sudden and surprising she almost twitched. “Give me the money!”

  “Wha— Oh, man, okay. Okay, man. Just calm down.” High, squeaky note of fear in the cashier’s voice.

  A robbery. Trinity sniffed again, her nostrils flaring. Too much adrenaline and an odd gritty tang to the smell.

  Gunfire. The subject had fired at something recently.

  The testosterone reek spiked, aggression ramping itself up even though the clerk’s scent was submissive and terrified.

  This will not end well.

  She eased through the door, protected from sight by a rack of soda—a brief flashing memory of Tengermann falling over the endcap almost distracted her. She glided down the aisle.

  A stocky back, the man wore a ski mask and a long-sleeved plaid shirt even in this suffocating heat. His jeans had motor-oil stains near the cuffs, and she smelled recent violence on him, along with a queer, brassy note. One she found she could place with no trouble at all.

  Death.

  The boy at the counter emptied the cash register drawer with clawed, stiff fingers. Change bounced, chiming, on the floor, forgotten. He held out a wad of paper money, shaking so hard he almost blurred. “That’s it, take it.”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do! You got more, I know you got a safe!”

  “I can’t open it! It’s, you know, it’s timed!” Squeak-breaking, the kid’s voice bounced off the ceiling. Trinity glanced toward the windows—there was the truck at the pumps, and a dusty, low-slung Camaro pulled up in front of the store’s glass doors, still running. An accomplice? Perhaps. Her grip on the ruler firmed, she slid forward silently in her well-broken-in boots. There were weapons on any shelf, but with the advantage of surprise, she didn’t need anything other than hands and feet.

  And, well, the ruler.

  She was almost within range when the robber leveled the gun. He smelled blond, a light note almost vanishing under the haze of drugs, fury and whatever else was impelling him. “Wrong answer,” the man hissed, and Trinity blurred forward, dropping to the floor and sliding, her foot flicking out to apply sideways pressure to the robber’s knee with a swift, shattering crack.

  The shot went wide, the clerk yelled, and the robber’s scream rose and broke in harmony. How interesting.

  Balance regained after the critical strike moment, but the man still had the gun, and the drugs in him gave him a temporary boost to reaction time. He swung wildly, and Trinty leaned back, avoiding the strike, then darted forward, her knee ramming against his temple while she lunged across his body to keep the firearm down and away. The gun went skittering wide, and there was a solid tchuk as she drove the ruler through the robber’s outstretched hand, calculations of velocity and trajectory flooding her head.

  With enough speed, you could drive a straw into concrete. It was fascinating—and disturbing—to see a similar feat performed.

  The robber howled, and Trinity was over him and up in one lithe movement, the gun in her hands. A .45 ACP, good stopping power and low muzzle blast, but a larger frame. Heavy and showy, with low magazine count. Its factory specifications flashed through her head and away, as well as the small bits of evidence that the piece was not well-maintained.

  Her mouth was dry. She considered the man writhing on the floor. The ski mask was rumpled, yanked up to show blond stubble and pitted acne scars on his chin, his mouth a wet loose O and his pierced hand flailing toward his chest, a bright star of blood, the key jangling madly at the end of the ruler and twinkling merrily.

  Liquidate or leave?

  She hesitated between the two options. Liquidating him with his own gun had a certain appeal. Did this place have video surveillance? Footage of her would give Division a lead.

  The bell on the door jangled, a wave of blue-tinged musk rolling in. She didn’t bother to look up from the man writhing on the floor, stabbing himself in the chest repeatedly with the ruler. She had, she saw, driven it completely through his hand. An excess of force, or had she simply, coldly calculated the relative density of flesh and metacarpals?

  She couldn’t tell.

  “You hurt?” Cal pitched the words loud enough to break through the robber’s screaming. She shook her head, the gun steady.

  Liquidate or leave? She opened her mouth to ask, but he stepped to her side, took the gun and glanced over the countertop at the cowering clerk, who had urinated on himself, a sudden sharp fearful smell.

  Common response, the body’s reaction to fight-or-flight hormones. Her hands dropped to her sides, combat readiness fading. In its wake, a wave of harsh, temporary exhaustion, bodily systems struggling for balance.

  Cal checked the gun, quiet clicking lost under the noise. A remote expression slid over his face, closed-off and chill. Maybe it was the look he wore in the middle of a mission, or maybe he was, again, disgusted by her.

  Who wouldn’t be?

  He waited until the robber had to stop to hitch in a breath. “Go out to the truck. Wait for me.”

  There was no reason not to, so she did, stepping outside into the breathless heat. A shudder passed through her. Change in temperature, she thought, dully. And the lef
tover chemical reactions, the virus eating waste products and overproduction of adrenaline. Breathe. Necessary to oxygenate the brain during and after combat, aids decision making and...

  Calculations froze. She didn’t want to perform them. There was another noise inside her head, a dark rushing. A memory trembled just under the surface of consciousness, retreated into a deathly haze.

  The Camaro was running, but nobody was inside. She crossed to the shade of the pumps, calmly opened the truck’s door and clambered into a ghost of air-conditioning still lingering in the cab. It wouldn’t stay cool for long, though.

  Her cheeks were wet. Her hands, dropped into her lap, curled into fists.

  Liquidate or leave?

  Standard protocol would be to liquidate both robber and witness, to cover her tracks. Disable whatever surveillance footage they had, then vanish and forget the casualties left behind.

  And yet she hadn’t. It wasn’t that she couldn’t kill; she’d shot Bronson.

  It was that she didn’t want to, and the uncertainty had crippled the smooth execution of what should have been simple, textbook. Another symptom of deconstruction?

  What would she be without logic and calculation for guidance? How did normal people decide what to do with all this noise in their heads, their bodies, their...souls? Was that the proper word?

  She couldn’t tell.

  Trinity came to with her forehead on the dash, breathing slowly and deeply. She didn’t move when the driver’s door opened. The engine roused, cool air began pumping through the vents, and she could not lift her head. If she did, he would see the damp spots.

  A plastic bag crackled between them, and he dug in it as the truck accelerated onto a ribbon of two-lane highway flanked by pawnshops and trailer courts. “Here.” Soft and quiet.

  Cardboard. A sharp corner.

  It was a box of tissues. Trinity squeezed her eyes shut, her nose full of wet stuffy heat. He drove for a little while in silence, then his hand landed softly on her back. Slid up, and a warm hard palm cupped Trinity’s nape.