Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1)

by Matthew Storm

  “Psychics and cyborgs.”

  “The cyborgs are gone,” Tyler said. “And I don’t know much about psychics, honestly. I’ve never met one, as far as I know. Artemis could explain it, but it’s never really come up.”

  “Artemis. The little girl who isn’t a little girl.” Tyler nodded. “What is she, then?”

  “A very old little girl,” Tyler said.

  “How old?” Oliver asked.

  “I have no idea, honestly. I asked her once but she just looked at me like…well, I never asked again.”

  “Why does she look like a child?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “She never hit puberty?” he guessed.

  “I see,” Oliver said, although he didn’t see at all. “And you work for her. How did you get involved in this?”

  “I used to be a cop,” Tyler said. “Honolulu. I got mixed up in…well, that’s not really important right now. When the smoke cleared, Artemis recruited me.”

  “And you just went along with her?”

  “After what I’d seen?” Tyler asked. His eyes took on a faraway look for a moment. “She made an offer and I didn’t have to think about it for long. I was never going to be the same person again.” He used his chopsticks to toy with a piece of chicken. “I guess I could have buried my head in the sand and pretended none of it was real, but that’s not me. I don’t regret it, not really. My world is a lot bigger now. The things I’ve seen since then…” he trailed off.

  “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe,” Oliver quoted from an old sci-fi movie.

  “You’ve got it,” Tyler nodded. “That’s it exactly.”

  “So there’s you, and that psycho Sally…” A dark look crossed Tyler’s face and Oliver knew immediately he’d gone too far.

  “You want to cut her some slack,” Tyler said, a little roughly. “She’s had a bad time lately. The way she is right now, she’s not always like that.”

  “What happened?” Oliver asked.

  Tyler looked down, considering. “Something terrible,” he said finally. “It’s not my place to say. But the person you met today isn’t the person I met two years ago.”

  It didn’t seem worth pushing the issue. Oliver decided to change the subject. “So are you guys government agents? Some secret agency you could tell me about, but then you’d have to kill me?”

  Tyler reached into his back pocket and found his wallet. He flipped it open and showed Oliver a badge that identified him as John Connor, a special agent with the FBI.

  “Really?” Oliver asked. “Wait…John Connor?”

  Tyler chuckled as he flipped the wallet shut. “No, of course not. Well, check that, the badge itself is real. If you run that through any government computer it’ll verify my name and that I’m an agent, but it’s not really true. I’ve never even been to Quantico. It’s just part of the bag of tricks.”

  “How did you get the badge, then?”

  “Artemis has contacts everywhere. I mean everywhere. And anything she can’t get, Seven could probably make.”

  “You said that name before. ‘Seven.’ He’s your tech support guy?”

  “Well, he’s not just the guy who fixes the printer when it breaks, but yes. You may meet him, eventually, but he doesn’t leave the office much. Has trouble with crowds.”

  Oliver nodded as if everything he was hearing did not sound completely nuts. “So it’s just the four of you? That’s just enough that you could all fit inside a van. You could drive around together, solving mysteries.”

  “I made that joke once,” Tyler said. “Nobody else got it.”

  “Oh.”

  “And it’s not just us. We actually have branch offices all over the world, but they’re mostly just support staff with the odd specialist here and there. I doubt most of them have any idea what we actually do. Sally and I are the only field agents, at the moment. There are never more than a handful of us. Well, in my time, anyway. I can’t say historically. Artemis has been doing this for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  Tyler shook his head and shrugged. “Last chance for a pot sticker,” he said, motioning at the soon-to-be-empty plate.

  “That’s okay,” said Oliver.

  “Your loss,” Tyler said, popping it into his mouth.

  The door to the restaurant swung open and a bedraggled homeless man wandered in. Oliver recognized him; he’d seen the man panhandling in the financial district dozens of times. He’d given the man change once or twice, if he remembered correctly. This place seemed pretty far out of his regular territory.

  The man spotted Tyler and began shambling over to their table. “No, no!” the waitress tried to intercept him. “You leave! Bad smell!”

  “It’s okay, Li-Jen,” Tyler called, waving her off. “He’s with us. Hey, Oscar,” he greeted the man. “You want to sit?”

  Oscar stopped at their table but didn’t sit. “This the guy?” he asked, looking Oliver up and down.

  “Yeah.”

  “I know you,” Oscar said.

  “I work downtown,” Oliver explained, a bit embarrassed. “Sometimes I give you…”

  “You wear that awful tie sometimes,” the man interrupted.

  “What?”

  “That green tie with the stripes,” Oscar said, running his hand horizontally across his chest where a tie would have lain.

  Oliver knew the one he meant. “That was my father’s tie!” he objected.

  “Let’s leave it,” Tyler said. “What do you have for us?”

  Oscar looked back to Tyler. “Word on the street is it was a mistake,” he said. “Wrong guy.”

  Oliver sighed. “I knew it.” Of course it had been a mistake.

  “How do you mean?” Tyler pressed. “Who had the contract out?”

  “The lizards.”

  Tyler’s eyes widened. “Holy shit, really?”

  “Who are the lizards?” Oliver asked. It sounded like a gang name from the 1950’s, or the worst high school mascot ever.

  “Never mind,” Tyler told him. “What happened?” he asked Oscar.

  “They had a prophecy,” Oscar explained. “You know how the lizards get with that shit. I guess they figured out it wasn’t this guy they wanted, because they just snatched some other dude off the street at Noriega and 35th. Cut his heart out and dumped him.”

  Oliver knew that intersection. It was only a few blocks away from his house. And someone had been killed there?

  “So it’s all off?” Tyler asked.

  “They aren’t out looking for him,” Oscar said. “If they had people on the street we’d know about it.”

  “What about Mr. Teasdale?” Oliver asked.

  “No word on him,” Oscar said. He looked at Tyler questioningly. “Rocky’s shop? He dead?”

  “Yeah. We figure Teasdale went after him when the contract went bad.”

  “And the fire?”

  “That was Sally.”

  “Oh. Figures. Well, that’s all I’ve got for you. Your boy here’s in the clear.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Tyler said. “Hey, Oliver, give me a twenty?”

  Oliver knew the drill this time. He went into this wallet and handed Tyler a twenty-dollar bill. Tyler handed it to Oscar.

  “You could have just given it to me yourself,” Oscar said to Oliver.

  “Yeah. I guess I could have,” Oliver said.

  “You want some kung pao to take with you?” Tyler asked.

  “No, I ate already.” He looked back to Oliver. “Don’t wear that tie anymore. You want to wear solid colors.”

  “Oh,” Oliver said. “Okay.”

  Oscar shambled to the door and was gone a moment later. Oliver looked back to Tyler. “So what now?” he asked.

  “Now? I guess I take you home,” Tyler said. “Looks like we’re done.”

  “Who are the lizards?” Oliver wanted to know.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Tyler said. “The less you know about any of this the better
, really.” He leaned forward and waved his hands in an elaborate dance in front of Oliver’s face. “This has all been a dream!” he intoned.

  Oliver stared at him blankly. “I don’t dream.”

  “Ah, it was worth a try,” Tyler said. “Eat something. I’m going to report to Artemis and then I’ll drive you back to your place.”

  Oliver looked at the empty plates that covered the table. Now he was feeling hungry, but the food was gone. “You ate everything already.”

  “Oh, well, that’s easy to fix.” He raised a hand to get the attention of the waitress. “Can we get some menus?” he called.

  Oliver raised his eyebrows. “Menus? You’re going to eat more?” The man had already put away enough food to feed a small family.

  “I’d hate for you to eat alone,” Tyler grinned. “See, you get a half day at work and a free dinner. This is turning out to be a good day for you after all!”

  Chapter 10

  They were a few blocks away from his house when Oliver said, “Maybe this is a dream. If it’s my first one, how would I even know the difference?”

  Tyler nodded thoughtfully. “I never thought about it like that. Well, if you’re dreaming, maybe I am, too. Hey, did you ever see Inception?”

  “Yeah,” Oliver said. “I didn’t get it at all.”

  “Me neither. But if you’ve never had a dream, I guess you wouldn’t even know where to start. Huh. That is weird, never dreaming. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before, and I’ve heard of a lot of things.”

  “It’s just the way I am,” Oliver shrugged. He didn’t know how else to explain it.

  Tyler had called Artemis as soon as they were back in his car and had briefly explained their situation. He listened to her for a moment, and then handed the phone to Oliver. “She wants to talk to you.”

  “I can’t find any evidence that this was anything other than an error,” the girl had said. Oliver still thought it was strange to hear a child talk so formally. “Nor can I come up with any reason you would be a target for assassination by anyone at all, let alone the Kalatari.”

  “The who?”

  “Never mind that.” He heard the girl sigh into the phone. “If you like, I am willing to place you in one of our safe houses for a few days, just to confirm that there is no further danger.”

  “But they got the guy they were looking for,” Oliver said. “The lizards, or the Kalatari, whatever you call them. They killed someone out near my house.”

  “A man is dead. We have been able to confirm that.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Oliver found himself ashamed of the question the moment he asked it. A man was dead, after all, and here he was acting as if his own was the only life that was important. Could he be any more callous?

  There was silence on the girl’s end, and Oliver wondered if she had felt the same way and hung up on him. “This feels wrong,” Artemis said finally. “While I have no evidence, I am certain that there is something unusual about you. The way you walk in the world is…” she trailed off. “I do not know. I feel as if I am witnessing the birth of something unique.”

  Oliver was quite certain he wasn’t unique, but he did feel just a little bit flattered. Nevertheless, it was time to get back to his life. If he was back at his office tomorrow, he might be able to explain away the events of the day, although it would be a longshot. He was certain that any more time away would mean crossing the line permanently.

  “I think I’d like to go home,” Oliver said.

  “Very well. Tyler will drive you.”

  “I don’t mind getting a cab,” Oliver offered.

  “Tyler will drive you,” the girl repeated, hanging up. And that was that.

  Now he was nearly home and then this would all be over. Tomorrow he would go to the office and say…something. He didn’t know what yet. He doubted he would be able to sleep tonight, so he’d have plenty of time to think about it.

  Oliver sighed softly. As relieved as he was that he was no longer in danger, he couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit disappointed. This had been a wild, dangerous day, but he had to admit it had been an interesting break from his normal routine. He would probably not have another day like this in his lifetime. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

  Tyler drove the block around Oliver’s house twice, looking carefully at each of the parked cars they passed. Nothing seemed amiss to Oliver. The neighborhood looked the way it always did. Did Tyler expect an assassin to be hiding in the bushes outside his house?

  Finally, Tyler stopped the car. “Give me your keys,” he said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I’m going to go inside and check it out. Just to make sure.”

  “I’m sure that’s not necessary,” Oliver said. “This is all over now.”

  Tyler shook his head. “Just trust me, all right? I’ll be in and out in two minutes. Then you never have to see any of us again.”

  Oliver sighed again. Better safe than sorry, he supposed, and if it would make Tyler feel better… He was surprised to find he was beginning to like the man. “All right. It’s kind of a mess in there, though. Sorry.” Not having had guests over in ages, Oliver hadn’t been especially strict about keeping his house clean.

  “Doesn’t matter to me,” Tyler said. “I’m going to leave the car running. If I’m not back in five minutes, just drive away. Don’t come looking for me. Artemis will find you.” He got out of the car and shut the door quietly behind him. Oliver watched as he cautiously approached the house’s front door, looked around carefully, and then put the key into the lock. Oliver had a sudden burst of fear that the house would explode as soon as Tyler opened the door, but it swung open the same way it had every other time someone had turned the knob. Tyler slipped inside the house, closing the door behind him.

  Oliver shook his head softly. Had he really thought the house was going to explode? His life wasn’t an action movie. At least not yet. But he had earned the right to be paranoid, hadn’t he? Who could possibly blame him after an assassin had showed up at his office? That hadn’t been a figment of his imagination, after all.

  “Hey!” shouted a small voice from just outside the car. “Hey! Hey!”

  Oliver looked around, startled. He hadn’t seen anyone approaching the car, and even now he couldn’t see anyone outside. Who was doing the yelling? Could one of his neighbors have the television on and a window open?

  “Hey! Asshole!” The voice was insistent. “Down here, asshole!”

  Oliver rolled down the car window. He still didn’t see anybody, until he looked down and noticed a cat on the sidewalk looking up at him. It was Jeffrey, he realized. The cat he had kind of adopted, before he had run off. Jeffrey looked angry. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” the cat said.

  Oliver looked around, not sure how to begin this conversation, or if he should begin it at all. “Did you just talk?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Of course I talked,” the cat said, clearly annoyed. “What the hell did you do to me?”

  “Me?” Oliver asked.

  “This is your fault!”

  On any other day, a cat calling him to the carpet would have been enough for Oliver to call a doctor and schedule a brain scan. But this wasn’t any other day. He opened the door and stepped out of the car. Jeffrey backed away, watching him cautiously. “Don’t try any more of your sorcery!” the cat warned.

  “What? I’m not a sorcerer,” Oliver said. He sighed and knelt down in front of the cat. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice conciliatory. “I don’t know what happened to you. It’s been a weird day.” That was certainly an understatement, Oliver thought. “Tyler can probably explain this.”

  “Who?”

  “You probably saw him just now,” Oliver said. “He went into the house a minute ago. He knows about this stuff.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him,” the cat said. “He smells like a dog, and his shirt is ugly.”

  “H
e smells like a dog?” Oliver hadn’t noticed anything unusual. Tyler smelled like anyone else, as far as he could tell. Not that he went around sniffing people, of course. The cat’s sense of smell must be much more sensitive than his own.

  “Anyway, I think he is busy with your other friends now,” the cat continued, glancing up at Oliver’s second-floor window. “So you better figure out what you did to me and put me back the way I was.”

  “I don’t know how to…” Oliver stopped suddenly. “Wait, what other friends?”

  “Your friends inside the house,” the cat explained. “I saw them hiding in there earlier when I came looking for you. Two of them stink, by the way. Not like dogs. Way worse. You should really talk to them about it.”

  There were people hiding inside his house? Today wasn’t Oliver’s birthday, and even if it had been, he didn’t have any friends who would be trying to throw him a surprise party. “Oh, crap,” he said.

  “What?”

  Oliver looked back at his house. He needed to warn Tyler that he wasn’t alone in there. He stood up and took a step toward the door, but suddenly the second-floor window shattered and a heavyset man came tumbling through it. He fell through the air, screaming, until he hit the ground with a sickening thud.

  Oliver ran towards him intending to help, but stopped short when he got a closer look. The back of the man’s skull had been cracked open and Oliver could see blood and bits of bone on the pavement. The man was no longer breathing. This man, whoever he had been, was far beyond help.

  Oliver could hear shouting coming from the other side of the broken window, followed by two gunshots and a cry of pain as a piece of furniture inside his house was smashed. Oliver saw Tyler struggling with another one of the intruders near the window. There was something strange about the other man’s skin, Oliver thought. Tattoos? Tyler hadn’t turned the interior lights on and it was difficult to see in the dark. No, they weren’t tattoos. Maybe he had psoriasis or some other skin condition. A bad case, from the looks of things. The other man’s skin looked as if it was covered in small, overlapping scales.

  The new man spotted Oliver as he struggled with Tyler. “He’s outside,” the man shouted to someone else. “Go!”