by Michael Todd
He laughed. “No, not quite. But you are on the right track with the thought process. No, I mean decide that the information you have can be used for good, and only for good. You begin a black ops organization that will treat people who need the serum and are worthy of it. You make the choices but you have the capability to implement them on a very large scale. Of course, you’d need someone who can do it with you, who can create a system that will allow the information to be passed through the right channels.”
She pursed her lips. “That still sounds like—fuck, I don’t know…Supergooper? But I think I get what you’re saying. We release this life-saving information but do it in a controlled way and under the radar.”
Salinger grinned slowly. “Exactly.”
Holly breathed deep and asked the most obvious next question. “And who do you have to do that?”
He raised his eyebrows. “I think the question is, who do you have to do that?”
Taken aback, she thought about it for a moment but her frown soon cleared. She had completely forgotten she had one of the most skilled black operatives in the world already working with her. Still, the decisions were massive and they lay heavily on her shoulders. “I need time. I need time to think it all over.”
“Unfortunately, that is the one thing that you don’t have,” he stated unequivocally. “We can get more goop. You can make more batches, but once you administer that drug to JB, you immediately put yourself in the position where you must have your next steps already planned. It will no longer be a theory, a workup of numbers on the computer.”
Holly was flustered. “But JB needs it now.”
Salinger walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “That’s right. He does. So this is the moment in which you must decide. I ask you again, Holly. Are you ready to play God?”
Fuck. How can anyone expect me to play God when I can’t even fucking play Holly without a goddamn caffeine fix?
Chapter Eight
Holly was exhausted by the time she returned to the apartment. Salinger had shown her to the room but she didn’t want to stay. She wanted to get back, figure things out, and maybe take a nap. Amanda had work to do so he sent her back with one of the mercs heading in that direction. The Jeep pulled up in front of the apartment and she thanked the guy.
He nodded. “Anything for a friend of Salinger.”
She chuckled, wandered wearily inside, and locked the door behind her. When she opened her apartment door, she paused. Billie sat in the office chair with her feet up on the desk. She wore a pair of jeans and a black tank top and sat with her head tilted back to stare at the ceiling.
Holly closed the door and smiled at her. “Good to see you’re back in one piece. I had started to worry.”
Hickok gave her a forced smile. “Yeah. You know me. I always make it through.”
She put her bag down and directed a curious glance at her companion. She was somber, not like her normal tough but spicy attitude. Holly sat on the bed and clasped her hands together. “So I found the recipe for the elixir that will save JB. But it’s not all happy dance and group hug.”
Billie lowered her feet to the floor and turned toward the other woman. “How so?”
Holly groaned and rubbed her hands over her face. “There is a serious ethical dilemma that comes along with it. To quote Salinger, am I ready to play God? What do I do once I save his life? Do I hand over the elixir? Do I sell it? Do I keep it a secret? Is keeping it a secret even possible at that point?”
Hickok remained silent and listened while Holly explained how this would affect the whole world. How she would be at the center of it all and how she would have to make the decision. Save a few, or save the masses?
Billie shook her head. “And this is why I never questioned my jobs. I hate this stuff. How can you even make a choice like that?”
Holly didn’t respond but simply sat and stared at the floor. Hickok swiveled back and forth in the chair, her eyes narrowed. After a few moments, she stopped her swinging motion and turned to her friend. “Tell me. How many shots of the elixir can you make?”
She pursed her lips at the question, then pulled out the laptop, inserted the drive, and crunched the numbers. Finally, she looked up, checked her calculations one last time in her head, and closed the laptop. “I can make three with what I have. Of course, I can make more if I get more goop, but right now, only three.”
The other woman tapped her fingers against her chin and chewed at the inside of her cheek. After a few moments of silence, she walked over and sat on the bed beside Holly. “And would you be willing to sell two of those to me?”
“And why would you want two of the three elixir?” Holly asked, a small edge to her tone as she looked at her with a frown.
Hickok drew a deep breath, pushed to her feet, and walked to the window. “I had a target and I completed my mission. Afterward, that question came into my mind. A question that has nagged at me for a while now. After all this time, it seems I have developed…well, a conscience or some gross shit like that.”
Holly chuckled. “That’s not a bad thing, Billie. Most human beings have a conscience.”
Her friend shook her head. “Not in my profession. A conscience is a liability. I have reached a point where I have started to question too much. That is not only bad for me in my ops assignments, but the higher-ups will see it as a weakness. I can only keep it to myself for so long. You know me. I’m not much for hiding the way I think or feel. I usually like to give it to people straight. So, at this point, my only option is to die.”
She looked at the woman with complete shock. “What? No, there is always more than one option.”
Billie smiled. “Right, and that is where this all comes into play. In order to really prove to them that I am dead, to really drive it home and leave no questions in their minds, I absolutely have to die. There is no other way around it. They removed the monitoring chips from us years ago and replaced them with monitors on our equipment, so I am lucky there. But those monitors don’t lie and there is no way to hack them. In order to make them believe it, I have to physically die.”
Holly lifted her eyebrows. “And how do you plan to do that?”
The other woman shrugged. “I need to actually fucking check out and Marcus has to know I’m dead. He must be the first one to hear me and see my vitals crash because he’s the eyes and ears of the company and they will believe him. But in order for him to really be believable—to pass a test, even—he absolutely must know I died on his watch. Then, the Zoo needs to eat me—get rid of my evidence.”
Holly clutched her stomach, queasy at even the thought of the Zoo devouring her friend. “I’ll be honest with you, I…I don’t think I can bring you back from death by Zoo mastication. The stuff heals, obviously, but I think you need to be intact. I don’t think it will regrow limbs and organs for you. That’s a little above the power of goop.” She scowled and waved her hands in agitation as she fought to find some kind of argument she could use to dissuade Billie from what was plain fucking crazy. “I could be wrong, of course, but that would be a serious risk. The truth is, I’m not even sure how well the goop will work to cure diseases or help JB against the poison, much less even begin to speculate what it could do for a massacred body.”
Hickok pressed her lips together, her expression obdurate. “I tell you what. I’ll be your science experiment. I’ll be the one you try the elixir on for JB. You said you can’t simply give it to him and hope that it doesn’t kill him or worse, so I will be your lab rat. I need to die to get out of this job, and I am willing to risk permanent death to do it. The alternative is certain death, anyway, so this has at least some chance. If it doesn’t work on me, you have another shot to change it so it does work on JB.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “And if it does work?”
Her companion grinned. “Then I have a business proposition for you. I have a way to help us both. It could be a way to save JB and fix your ethical dilemma. It would be a no-los
e situation for the both of us, I think, and if I die, it will be a failsafe for JB. We started this whole thing for him in the first place so might as well give him the best damn shot we can. He would be fucking pissed if we rolled up there and turned him into mush—or worse, a duo bear or something.”
Holly chuckled as she pictured JB with two heads. She took a deep breath and thought about it for a second. Suddenly, Salinger’s voice echoed in her mind. This was exactly what he had meant when he suggested she turn the whole thing into a black ops organization. Billie would be the perfect person for it, and it sounded like it was something she was totally up for. She’d had vague thoughts along the same lines herself and was sure it was something the woman would be more than happy to participate in. At the same time, though, it meant that she would have to arrange her death and hope it worked.
She looked at Billie. “You do know that if I go in there and kill the Ghost of the Zoo, people will string me up and feed me to one of those fucking man-eating plants. They will have my head and I’m sure JB would lead the charge.”
Hickok laughed. “Then make sure you don’t fucking kill me. And if you do turn me into some zombie creature, fucking chop my head off. Everybody likes the Ghost, but no one wants the Ghost trying to eat their brains for lunch.”
Holly scrunched her nose in distaste. “God, I could be ground zero for a real apocalyptic zombie outbreak. That would be a cross to bear for damn sure.”
Billie leaned back against the window. “So, what do you think? Are you willing to play doctor for a little while? It could mean that you might not have to play God.”
Holly tapped her fingers on the bed and exhaled a sharp, irritated sigh. “Oh, good Lord, fine. I’ll listen to what you have in mind and your ideas. But I think you are fucking crazy in general, and trusting me takes crazy to a whole new level.”
Hickok strolled down the street with her glasses on and her comm in her ear. She made sure she was far enough away from people that no one would hear her speak. “Hey, big brother, are you there?”
Marcus chuckled. “Always…bahahaha.”
“You are weird.” She rolled her eyes.
He sighed. “You have contacted me when you aren’t on assignment. That can only mean one thing. You need something.”
Billie grinned. “You know me so well, my dear.”
Marcus groaned. “Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and spill it. What do you need?”
She turned the corner and paused as two guys wandered past her. She waited until they were out of earshot and continued. “You know they are curious as to where I am all the time.”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, which is where I have come into play. Although I think they might have begun to smell a rat or two.”
Billie smirked at the picture of him lying to the bosses. “Well, I need to go back into the Zoo, but in order to do so without suspicion, I need you to get me a sanctioned trip in there.”
She could hear him slam his hand down on the table. “Are you freaking kidding me? What the fuck are you doing in there? No. You know what? I do not want to know. Have you any idea how difficult it is to pull missions like that? That is seriously when they will start to look at you and question what you are up to.”
Hickok waited for a couple of seconds before she replied. “I know. But you can do it, I know you can. You have before.”
Marcus released a string of colorful expletives that under other circumstances would have been impressive. “There is a way for me to do it, yes. But why should I when I will not only have to lie, but you will possibly go in there and be eaten by some giant creature with sharp teeth and bad breath?”
She grinned and shook her head. “Look, this is the last one. I won’t ask again.”
He snorted his undisguised disbelief. “Mm-hmm.”
“Fine. I won’t ask again for at least a couple of years. You won’t have to do anything like that for me while they are still suspicious of us. Last time.”
Marcus clicked his tongue and a short silence followed. Hopefully, he used the time to mull it over in his head. “For a couple of years?”
Billie nodded vigorously. “Promise. Scout’s honor,” she said quickly when she remembered he couldn’t see her. “Whatever. Yes, not for a couple of years.”
He typed on his keyboard and Billie stood on the sidewalk, constantly on the lookout for anyone close by. It was quiet on that side of town, which she was thankful for. Finally, he breathed heavily into the comms and came back on. “All right, fine. I did it. I switched assignments with someone else and you can go in. But you go in today. This assignment is at its deadline and needs to be completed ASAP. Is your suit back?”
She smiled. “It is. I’ll connect you to it as soon as I get it on. Thank you, dude. You have always been a really good friend.”
Marcus sighed with his usual exaggerated longsuffering air. “Just get it done.”
Nerves churned in the pit of Hickok’s stomach for the first time in what felt like forever. The Zoo seemed alive and vibrant as she pushed through a veil of moving vines and looked around. Her HUD had picked up movement in this particular direction and she was sure a jag or a duo lurked close by.
Marcus activated the comms. “You veered off track.”
She looked right and left, distracted when something scratched in the bushes. “I know but I thought I heard someone out here. I wanted to make sure that I was alone. It’s not black ops if someone watches me take out my target.”
“Please make sure you take care of the assignment before you indulge your usual propensity for monster rodeo,” he snarked. “The clock is ticking.”
Billie narrowed her eyes and peered into the underbrush. “And it’s about two seconds to midnight,” she whispered quietly.
“What?” Marcus asked. She couldn’t be sure whether he’d heard her or not, but it didn’t matter. His confusion would soon be swept aside by bigger concerns. An odd pain surged in her belly and roiled upward to settle in her chest. It thrust through her measured calm like an unwanted visitor and demanded her attention. She grimaced and shook her head. Damned fucking conscience. I’m the ball-breaking bitch that scares the living shit out of monsters. I don’t do goodbyes, and Marcus will soon be too pissed that I trashed his fucking suit to care.
Resolute, she deactivated the comms and tried not to imagine his reaction. Still, regret snagged her breath for a moment. For a long time, Marcus had been the closest thing she had to a friend. It felt all kinds of wrong to check out without at least some kind of so-long-and-take-care gesture.
She placed her gun on the ground and straightened as the same duo-bear she’d encountered twice already stomped forward and growled at her. Without hesitation, she shoved the unsettling thoughts aside and dropped to one knee. “Hello, old friend. I’m afraid I’ve come to ask for a favor.”
The creature looked strangely at her and tilted its head to the side as if asking for clarity.
Marcus tapped his fingers in growing irritation on the desktop. The comms had suddenly gone quiet and he could tell that she’d muted them. All he could think of was that she had gone ghost in order to take the target out. Still, he hadn’t seen her move from the spot where she’d paused a few minutes before.
Suddenly, the comms crackled to life and all he heard was a growl and a sharp hiss. Billie’s voice whispered in a gurgled tone, “It all ends at some point…”
The comms went quiet and her vitals began to drop rapidly until everything red-lined. Marcus smacked his fingers wildly against the keyboard—it was a fucking malfunction. It had to be.
“Billie, come in. Your comms are silent and your vitals have flatlined. What has happened out there?”
His shouted demands elicited nothing but eerie, terrifying silence. “Billie. Fucking— Talk to me, damn it.”
He flipped the screen feed to her head cam, which faced a tree. Her bloody hand lay at the very edge of the camera view. He covered his mouth and shut his eyes as he shook his head frantically. “No!
Fucking hell, why did you make me send you out there?”
Marcus dragged in a ragged breath and clenched his jaw against the tide of conflicting emotions that surged. His gaze remained fixed on the screen and the telltale hand that confirmed the one truth he had never expected to face. After a long while—he had no idea how long— the anger faded and sorrow gained a chokehold on the lump in his throat. “She’s…dead.”
He reached up and clicked the button to shut off the sounds of the vital alarms. With a firm shake of his head, he flipped her cam off and turned his chair as he forced his mind onto the mundane lifeline of routine. He withdrew a red file from the top drawer of the filing cabinet and reminded himself numbly that there was no time to grieve in their business. Right now, he had to start the process to send another agent into the Zoo to retrieve her suit.
Chapter Nine
Holly looked at her team with something close to real impatience. Trigger strapped his helmet on while Alvin loaded his M-16. Aki shoved his swords into their sheaths and exchanged banter with Adisa who stomped out his cigar like he had all the time in the fucking world. Misha was ready and twirled a dagger in her hand while she waited. Fair enough, none of them had much pre-warning for this trip, but she had to get them out there ASAP.
“Thanks for coming out on such short notice,” she told them. “The stuff I need is pretty important to my research.”
Trigger shrugged. “I think the team needed some time out together. Besides, if we run into a Pita patch, it might be good for us.”
Aki chuckled. “If your friend doesn’t show up and yank those bitches out like she did the last time. Then it would be really bad for us on many levels.”
Holly chuckled nervously. “I promise she won’t do that anytime soon.”
The team turned and headed into the jungle. As always, they remained alert and moved rapidly through the thick underbrush. The jungle was already tense and almost visibly antagonistic that day. She could feel it but said nothing as she didn’t want to raise any anxiety. Her own nerves were already frayed to the point of no return, and she really didn’t need to deal with additional stress.