The BETA Agency

by Maxwell Coffie

  The muck was that, Fey? Po hissed, the fraction she knew I could hear her. What just happened back there?

  I looked back. Evon was still standing in the crowd. The flute was gone, but her dress was still soaked in blood.

  “I don’t know,” I answered.

  The bleak you don’t know, Po said. Taking out your earpiece in the middle of a mission? I ought to shove this glass of champagne down your throat!

  Did you confirm his status? King asked. Are we good to go?

  “No,” I said, now angry with myself. “I…I got distracted.”

  You did what? Po said.

  “The handshake was too short,” I said, trying to think of more excuses. “His grip was weak too.”

  Pitch-muck. Alright, that’s it. We’re shutting this mission down, Po said. Abort.

  “No, we’re not aborting,” I snapped back. I glanced behind me again.

  Evon was gone.

  “We can do this,” I insisted.

  There’s no ‘we’ here. You’re the one who mucked up, Po spat.

  Come on, Po, Kay interrupted. We all make mistakes.

  Do we? Po countered, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

  You need to go back, King said. Now. He didn’t sound relaxed any more.

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll just pretend like I forgot to ask him another question. I can fix this. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  I could almost feel Po shaking her head through the earpiece. You sound like you’re convincing yourself.

  “But I can’t go back just yet,” I said, stopping by a table of vegetarian bites. Pethro had moved to stand by the swimming pool. “If he thinks I’m stalking him, this mission is going to go south fast.”

  But even as I spoke, I noticed that the man I had punched earlier was talking to some security guards by the elevator door. The man turned around, scanning the crowd. Then, his eyes fell on me, and he pointed.

  Muck.

  “Change of plans.” I started to walk. “I’m talking to Pethro now. Standby.”

  I heard the sniper blasters cocking over the radio, as I approached Pethro.

  “You’re back?” he said, though his face registered no surprise. “Feeling better?”

  I feigned embarrassment. “I need you to do me a favour.”

  The man was coming my way with the security guards.

  Pethro looked wary. “What kind of favour?”

  “The kind coming over right now,” I whispered.

  “Excuse me, miss.” One of the guards was by my side now. “Can we have a word with you?”

  The man I’d punched was glaring triumphantly at me.

  It seemed Pethro had understood my request, because immediately, he asked the guard, “May I ask what this is concerning? Assault?”

  “Sorry, but this doesn’t concern you sir,” the second guard said.

  “I’m sure it does,” Pethro said. “I am one of the benefactors of this gala, which makes me your boss. This woman is not only my niece, she is my guest. And if this is about assault, I must point out that this man was the first to harass her. She brushed off his advances, and then was forced to defend herself. So unless you have more definitive evidence besides what, I am sure, is a very skewed version of events, I advise that you carefully reconsider wasting our time.”

  The guards exchanged a look, which I interpreted to mean ‘we’re not paid enough for this tripe’. They shrugged, apologized, and returned to their posts.

  “If you’ll excuse us,” Pethro said, and we walked away from the man, who now looked very bewildered.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “My pleasure,” he said, with a grin.

  “I think I’ll just go home,” I said, frowning. “The night’s been ruined for me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  This was it. This was my chance.

  “It’s been a pleasure.” As casually as I could, I offered him my hand, praying that he would take it.

  Pethro stared at my hand, the smile on his face fixed. Then, he looked me in the eye.

  “Hoping to check for my pulse again, Ms Greene?”

  Before the implication of his words had fully registered, he grabbed my outstretched hand and squeezed. Hard. “What do you think, Ms Greene,” he chuckled, eyes manic. “That alive enough, for you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, as firmly as I could. But even as I spoke, I waited to feel the gentle tempo of his heart. There was nothing. He was dead—repulsively lukewarm, and definitely dead.

  He closed the distance between us, till I could smell his rancid breath. “I’ve been onto your little game, right from the start. You see, you look very much like an enemy I was quite fond of: Fey Watters? But Watters and I, we danced the dance of death fairly often. You’re not bad for an amateur, but you’re no Watters. And of course, your real name is not Esilia Greene. So the question still remains: who the flaming pitch-muck are you?”

  “Champagne?” someone offered next to us.

  I had never been so glad to hear Po’s voice. But I couldn’t look away from Pethro; our stares were locked. Without averting his gaze, Pethro grabbed the flute and downed it in one swig.

  A tiny dribble of relief flowed into my insides. It was only a matter of time now.

  A moment passed. Another. And another. Nothing. He wasn’t seizing. He wasn’t dropping.

  He grinned, the corners of his lips reaching up to his ears like a deranged cartoon. “Whoever put you up to this just did you a disservice, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Listen to me…”

  Suddenly, my fear was replaced with anger. I tightened my fingers around his hand, and gripped right back. “No, you listen to me. You took away the lives of several good men and women the day you brought down that enforcer building. You also took away my best friend. With the Light as my witness, I shall overturn every moldy rock from here to Bleak and back until I find you. And then, when I find you, I will kill you. And I will do it slowly, you understand me you degenerate piece of muck?”

  Pethro stared at me for a moment, stunned. And then, he grinned again.

  I jerked my hand free, as he giggled. He cackled. He laughed.

  “He knows,” I hissed, as I strode away. “He knows what we’re doing. Plan B, Plan B!”

  The sound of tearing flesh and a bursting skull was loud, sudden.

  There was stunned silence at first.

  Then: one scream. Another. A chorus.

  Chaos.

  People were on the ground. Some were scurrying for the elevator doors. In the confusion, I saw Pethro’s body. It was floating in the pool, but there was no bleeding, no wisps of deep scarlet.

  We had made the right call.

  As planned, I made my way to the ground floor, and headed for the east emergency exit. My steps were brisk. No sooner had I stepped out of the building, than I heard a siren go off inside and the door lock behind me. The hotel was on lockdown.

  “Hello,” I whispered. “Is anybody there?”

  But the radio was silent.

  I needed to find a taxi.

  I walked down the empty alleyway. I was just about to break out into the light, when I thought I heard something behind me. I stopped. There it was again. Was that…a laugh? I grabbed the fan out of my purse, and spun around.

  A hand slammed into my throat, gripped, and flung me back into the alley. I struck the cold asphalt hard. Pain resonated through my body. I could taste blood. But I scrambled back to my feet.

  A figure was coming towards me. It was a man. He slouched as he walked, his laugh echoing against the surrounding walls.

  My fan. I couldn’t find my fan.

  I switched to a defensive stance, and threw a punch. He easily parried it, and threw a punch of his own. I tried to dodge, but he was too fast. His knuckle found my chin, disorienting me momentarily. But that was all he needed; he delivered a series of punches to my mid-section, and slammed his foot into my chest. I toppled to the
ground, coughing.

  He grabbed me by my hair, and yanked me to my feet. He shoved me against a wall, and leaned in. I recognized the sick body odour, the rancid breath. There were slivers of light streaming from an upper window here, and I could see his swollen, exposed brain. I pushed against him, and felt the gaping hole in his chest. I was staring into the face of Pethro—or what used to be Pethro.

  “You’re with the Beta Agency,” it laughed, saliva drooling down the side of its mouth. “They never learn do they? Did they tell you what I did to the last team? Or did they just bring you here to die, like livestock to the slaughter? Did they tell you, woman? Did they? Did they?” It barked. “Did they?”

  I fought hard against its hold, but my struggling was useless. My muscles were wearing out. But I didn’t want to die.

  I wasn’t going to die.

  That was when headlights flooded the alley. An engine roared. A transporter zoomed towards us.

  With my last ounce of strength, I smashed my head into the corpse’s face. It staggered back. I kicked it into the way of the vehicle.

  Bam!

  The transporter ran clean over the body, and hissed to a stop. Then, it reversed, and ran over the body again.

  I stared, panting, at the writhing, twitching corpse on the ground. Then, I looked at the transporter: an ambulance. The headlights died, and the door opened. King stepped out. He was holding a long scabbard in one hand.

  The corpse was sitting up. “Sol…Sol King?” it whispered. Then, it threw its head back and laughed, louder than ever. “So that explains it! It explains all this! Just when I thought my life would never be exciting again, you show up!” It wheezed. “I should have known. There’s no stopping you, huh? People like me and you, we just keep on giving. But boy, you could have at least sent a postcard! And here I’ve been tackling small fry…” It ceased its laughter suddenly, and its eyes gleamed red. “…When I could have been tackling you.”

  King drew his sword. It was lengthy, slightly curved, and even in the weak light, it gleamed wildly. As he walked up to the corpse, rows of rubriq on his blade began to glow like wakening embers.

  “I’m coming for you, Puppeteer,” King said, darkly. “And this time, I’m going to put you in the ground.” And with those words, the sword burst into flames.

  The corpse grinned. “I’d like to see you try.”

  King drove his blade into the body’s mouth. At once, fire consumed the abomination, turning it into ashes in fractions of a moment.

  I could only stare, stupefied. In the distance, I could hear enforcer sirens.

  The flames disappeared, and King sheathed his weapon. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, softly.

  “Things didn’t go quite according to plan,” I stammered.

  “Still, you should have run.”

  Enforcer lights filled the alley, and I squinted at them. Muck. They were here.

  “What do we do?” I asked, turning back around.

  My jaw dropped. The alley was empty. I was alone.

  “This is the MEA! Get on your knees, and put your hands to the ground!” A voice screamed out of a megaphone. “Do it now!”

  I got on my knees, and did as I was told. This night was not going according to plan.

  An enforcer rushed up to me, and shoved me to the ground. Cold cuffs clicked around my wrists. “What is your name, miss?” he asked.

  “Arra Everglade,” I said. “I assure you, this is all just a big misunderstanding. If I could just—“

  “Miss Everglade, you are under arrest, in connection with the Chalice Hotel shooting…”

  I listened to him read me my rights, and then I nodded when he asked if I understood them.

  This night was not going according to plan at all.

  CHAPTER 40

  There were twelve of us, who got arrested that night in connection with the shooting. I knew what ‘in connection’ meant. It meant we’d been in the wrong place, at the wrong time, looking just the right amount of suspicious. And ‘suspicious’ meant that we were either scruffy looking, or carrying weapons, or black-bloods. My dress was ruined, someone had found my fan, and my concealer makeup had rubbed off, so I was all three kinds of suspicious.

  But I wasn’t worried. They had nothing on us, and I knew it. We were simply the scapegoats of the moment. Capitol City’s enforcers were notorious for making unfounded arrests. And little wonder; Capitol City housed a lot of Aurora’s rich and famous, and enforcers were consistently under undue pressure to provide immediate results. Also, Capitol city’s enforcers were protected.

  For instance, as I looked around my jail cell that night, and listened to the furious rants of my cell mates, I knew that at least half of them would sue the department for wrongful arrest—the other half for unfair treatment and prejudice. None of the cases would reach a courtroom.

  I did not sleep that night. Correction: could not sleep. I was suddenly starkly aware that I had not had a wink of sleep for seven days. I would grow tired, or listless, but never sleepy. My energy would return after a short rest or a meal. I was becoming independent of one of the most basic functions of a living organism. And considering that I felt perfectly fine, I was worried but not alarmed. I wondered if I still needed to see a healer.

  Probably. But, I already knew I wouldn’t.

  When the first rays of morn streaked through the cell window, Evon appeared in my cell. For the first time, I wasn’t glad to see her.

  “Are you alright?” she asked.

  “I’d be better, if the mission had gone according to plan,” I said, unable to hide my bitterness. “What was that back there?”

  “What was what?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” I said. “The flute, and the bloody champagne, and the damn page-ripped-out-of-a-horror-story nonsense?”

  “Pethro was on to you,” Evon said, calmly. “He had been from the moment you walked up to him. I was trying to warn you.”

  “Ever heard of words?”

  “I’m mostly a reflection of your subconscious, Arra,” Evon said. “I can only give you what you give me. You created that bloody scene, not me.”

  “You didn’t have to be there,” I argued. “I was handling it.”

  “Were you?”

  “Damn right I was,” I snapped, and a few of my cell mates stirred in their sleep. I lowered my voice, and hissed, “That mission was going fine until you showed up.”

  Evon looked hurt. “I was just trying to help. We’re partners.”

  “No we’re not,” I said. “You’re not real, Evon. You’re dead.”

  Evon stared at me, her expression wounded. I looked away, seething. The next time I looked up, Evon was gone.

  “Dammit,” I muttered, feeling like a rump-hole. I laid on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, till hours later, a guard came up to the cell and called my name.

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “You’ve been bailed,” she said, opening the door.

  I got up, and followed her, expecting to find King, Po, or even the Director in the waiting room. But there was nobody I recognized. The guard led me to an office, where I signed some release forms. My purse was returned to me, and I was allowed to exit the building.

  I stepped out into the sunlight, and took a moment to bask. Then, I sat on a bench, and weighed my options for getting back home.

  It occurred to me, as I looked around, that I hadn’t even gotten the chance to explore the city. I had only ever been to Capitol once before, and even then I’d been too young to remember.

  Capitol was the home of Auroran film, the hub of glitz and glamour. Even the air tingled with excitement. Everywhere I looked, there were men in open shirts and shorts, women in beachwear on hoverblades, seniors taking pictures, trucks peddling ‘alternative food’ (whatever that meant), the occasional film or music star. It was just like in the movies.

  My mood was just beginning to improve, when someone sat next to me. I looked. It was a Bark.

&
nbsp; It took me a moment, but I recognized him. “Agent Q?”

  He stared down at me. “You know: if it took you that long to recognize me, then you must think all Bark look the same, and that technically means you’re racist.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered. “You’re the one who bailed me?”

  “Well,” he said, “technically the S.I. bailed you.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled. “Consider it a token of goodwill.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “that might be a token wasted, because I have nothing to say to you. Please go away. These past few hours have been surreal enough.”

  “Why?” he said. “Because you were busy assassinating the president of the AHO?”

  I stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I finally murmured.

  “Of course not.” Q smiled, derisively. “Your friends know how to clean up after themselves. Always have. I’m sure there’s some spectacular, long-winded reason for killing the president of our health organization in cold blood. And they probably convinced you that it was a good reason, didn’t they? Maybe something about the greater good? Maybe something more convoluted.”

  “I said: I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I was louder this time.

  “Please, I did my homework. First you come into my facility, and somehow, my most dangerous prisoner escapes. Then, you lose your job, and apparently, your mind. You mention to several witnesses that Sol King visited you at your apartment. Then, a few weeks later, you’re arrested right outside the hotel where a prominent world leader was blasted down. Then I make some enquires, and find out that you’ve been a closet black-blood all along. Doesn’t take a genius to put the pieces together.” He leaned in. “So tell me, when did they draft you? Or have you been Beta scum from the very beginning?”

  My heart was racing, my breathing was heavy. I was afraid that I would let something slip, implicate myself. It terrified me. But I managed to keep silent. I stared him in the eyes instead.

  “They’re not good people, you know?” he said, his tone gentler now. “Once, they formed a legitimate branch of the S.I. We trained them, made them. Then, the Ripper came along, or as they call him: the Puppeteer. They broke codes, crossed lines. Their poster boy, King, got too close. He was making stupid decisions, endangering himself and his entire team.