by Wesley Chu
“Will you keep watch so Eva doesn’t eat Poopsie?” Cameron said, his large round eyes imploring Roen.
Roen’s heart broke for the tenth time in so many hours. “Sure buddy,” he choked.
Cameron sniffled and reached out to him. Roen sat on the bed and held onto his son for another half hour until he finally fell asleep. When he was sure Cameron was out, Roen pulled the blanket over him and just stood there trying to memorize the picture.
I have it for you whenever you need, my friend.
Would he ever see his son again? This could be the last time. Roen fought the tears that began to roll down his face. Lee Ann came into the room and put her arm around his shoulder, and together, they just watched Cameron sleep.
There is a red eye flight at two. If you do not make this flight, you will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon. We have to leave right now.
Roen looked at her. “Thanks for the few extra hours.”
“Just make sure you’re in his life, regardless of what happens between you and Jill,” Lee Ann said.
He nodded, giving her one last hug. On the drive back up north to Los Angeles, Roen kept the mental video of Cameron playing with Eva running over and over in his head. He was determined to watch his son grow up to be a man. This wouldn’t be the last time he saw his boy.
Are you ready? Is your mind clear?
“Damn straight. It’s exactly what I needed. Now, let’s get this job done. I have my son’s future to fight for and a wife to win back.”
TWELVE
MARCO
Our escape from the prison in Valencia was typical of Tao’s hosts, even today. He cut a swathe of death through the prison guards’ ranks, utilizing a style never seen on this side of the planet. It wasn’t until later that I learned that it was Tao’s own invention, the Grand Supreme Fist. The carnage was spectacular, and he captured two Genjix Quasing, forcing them into two rats. Then he caged the rats and took them with him.
By then, the Genjix had spread their Inquisition, and the situation had deteriorated into a civil war. For the next few years I assisted the Prophus in capturing dozens of Genjix and trapping them in small animals. Thus, the Chest of the Menagerie was born.
Baji
It was a small victory that Wilks grudgingly pushed his meeting with Hogan back, but only after Jill had promised him the moon, stars, and six solar systems’ worth of concessions. It was a tall order, but she made the promises, so now she had to deliver.
Jill had just returned from a meeting with Senator Young of California. She had assumed he would be the easiest of the on-the-fence senators to sway since he didn’t care either way about the sanctions. However, he was a sneaky one and resisted all her offers. It wasn’t until she reminded him of the explosion at the Port of Los Angeles – courtesy of a firefight between the Prophus and Genjix over nine tons of biological weapon agents – that he saw the profit in supporting her. Even then, he extracted concessions, including a tax break for solar panels in the richest homes in Hollywood, and an endowment for the Young Museum of Lithuanian Arts. Boy, did that guy love to talk. They had wrapped up the solids of their deal an hour in, but he kept going for another thirty minutes just because he enjoyed the sound of his own voice.
Afterward, she met with nine aides of six senators whose votes she already had. It was important to make sure no one jumped ship. She knew that Simon was working his ranks as well, and it would only be a matter of time before he realized that she was playing him. By the time she got out of that meeting, it was already well into the afternoon.
“Lunch at 2 in the afternoon. Must be a light day.”
You need to take better care of yourself.
“No one said running the country offered a healthy lifestyle. Not to mention the pay is comparable to my first job scooping ice cream.”
You are pulling a double paycheck from the Prophus.
“Oh yeah, that pitiful thing. It’s even less than this one. Between my two checks and what Roen sends me, that’s almost half of what I made at my old job before hitting the jackpot with my own Quasing.”
Tammy practically ran up to her as she returned to her office. “There’s someone in the office for you. Where did you find him?”
“What?” she said, puzzled.
“He’s really good looking and charming. And he brought you a present. It must be serious. How did you hide him from us?”
I see Marco is here.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jill replied. Instinctively, she checked her suit for wrinkles and calmly walked in. Between Paula’s description and Tammy’s gushing, she was definitely curious about this Marco.
Standing next to her desk was a tall man in a charcoal pin-striped suit. He turned toward her as she walked in and smiled. Tammy was right. Jill wasn’t sure what to gape at first: his Ken-doll peppered hair, the high cheekbones, or those kissable dimples. The guy also had a smile that had popped out of a dental brochure. He held a small gift-wrapped box in his left hand and extended his right.
“Jill,” he said, his voice a low pleasant rumble that tickled the bottom of her chest. “Marco. It’s a pleasure. I believe you’re expecting me.”
“I was expecting someone,” she said, suddenly very self-conscious. If Paula had exaggerated, it wasn’t by much.
Marco was tall and lean, yet she could tell he was in very good shape, built proportionally like an athlete without looking like a bodybuilder. His face was tan and weathered, but the age lines only made him look distinguished. And Paula wasn’t kidding. Those deep hazel eyes were whispering sweet nothings just by looking at her.
“Well,” he smiled. “I hope I exceed the expectation of just someone.”
Someone inhaled behind her. She turned to see Tammy jittering like a nervous fool, the pad and pen in her hand a pitiful excuse to eavesdrop.
“I’m good here,” she said, giving her assistant a get-out-of-here look.
Tammy had the audacity to look disappointed. “I’ll be at my desk, if you need anything. Just... call.” She turned to Marco. “It was nice meeting you.”
He tilted his head toward her in a way that with any other man would seem condescending. “Pleasure is all mine.” After Tammy left, he asked Jill. “There’s much to cover. Can your employer survive without you for the rest of the day?”
Jill shook her head. “Congress is in the middle of session. My hours are pretty much...”
“Nonsense,” Wilks said, walking into the room. “Marco here says he wants to kidnap you for the rest of the day. I say kidnap away.”
“Do you two know each other?” Jill looked perplexed.
Marco smiled. “The senator was good enough to entertain me while I was waiting for you. We seem to have a shared interest in golf and the European commodities market.”
“Marco here tells me he once swung a sixty-eight at Augusta. I told him if that’s the case, he’s in the wrong line of work. You still up for a game next weekend?”
“Why, but of course. Tee time at six?”
Jill’s mouth dropped open. “Senator, you’re going golfing with a man you met five minutes ago?”
Wilks laughed jovially. “I can tell Marco here is one of the good ones.” He leaned in close. “Make sure you do a background check before next weekend. Can’t be seen golfing with a serial killer or a gossip columnist, right?” He nudged her playfully.
Marco is not only a ladykiller but a man’s man as well.
“Great, that’s all I need. Bromance between my boss and my bodyguard.”
Marco handed her the small box. “Excellent. It’s settled then. I’ll see you later today, dear Jill. Something to remember me by until then. Adieu.”
He tried to kiss her hand; Jill would have none of that and kept her arms glued to the sides of her body. She tried very hard to not let her eyes roll. She and Wilks just stood there and watched as Marco left the room. She wasn’t sure what had just happened.
He leaves quite an impression, right?
A host but not a doctor. In his case, I will make an exception.
“What a pompous ass!”
But you are still attracted to him?
Jill caught herself nodding unintentionally. There wasn’t much she could hide from Baji.
Wilks chuckled almost gleefully as he pat her on the back. “What a charming fella. I say, you do recover well with your men. That Marco guy is really something. You should keep this one. Anyway, break’s over. Do you have Beckman’s whip count? We need to get moving while the momentum is on our side.”
Jill gave the door one last look before getting back to running the country.
Jill walked out of the Hart Building after work and found Marco waiting. He was leaning on what she could only presume was his car, a sporty and impeccably shiny Tesla Roadster. She made a mental note to give her little Ford a bath the next chance she got.
“Rental?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Well, the cars the Prophus had available just wouldn’t do. Dreadful choices really, and I didn’t have time to arrange to have my Aston shipped over, so I did the next best thing. Fun little bugger.”
Jill couldn’t help but smile as she shook her head. “You’re an awful spy; you know that?”
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“Because you look the international superspy with your flashy car and demeanor. You stick out like a sore thumb. Supermodels are supposed to be kept in New York City or cages.”
His smile brightened when he saw his gift wrapped around her wrist. She had to consciously tell herself to not touch it. It was a beautiful silver bangle bracelet with a single diamond in the center and several intricate grooves running along its edges. It was overwhelming, and she felt more than a bit uncomfortable wearing it.
“Do you like it?” Marco asked, opening the passenger side door, which made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. She appreciated a man with manners.
Roen has not opened the door for you since your first month together.
“I’m not going to play that game, Baji.”
You should, then maybe you will know what you are missing.
“It’s lovely,” she replied, “but why did you get it?” She got into the car and inhaled that fresh new car scent.
Marco got into the driver’s side and pulled away from the lot. “The bracelet has a microphone and monitoring device. If your life signs fluctuate past a certain point, the audio channel opens up and a tracker kicks in. So if you have been knocked unconscious, I can come to your rescue as fast as possible.” He turned to her. “I’m your security now and I take that role seriously. We’ll go over the ground rules over dinner and a nice glass of wine.”
They went to dinner at the iconic 1789 restaurant, housed in an old federal building in the affluent Georgetown part of the capital where, over dinner and several drinks, they went over the protocols of her protection. He would pose as her boyfriend for all public functions and would never be further than a klick away any other time. Marco was exact on every minute detail, from her positioning when they walked together to what their emergency rendezvous points were. By the time they were on dessert, he had combed through every part of her daily routine.
“So here’s the deal,” he said as he drank his bourbon. She noted that it was his third glass of a particularly expensive bottle of Glen Garioch and wondered how someone on Prophus salary could afford it.
Old money. Lots of it. Marco’s family once reigned over the Duchy of Brittany. Ahngr has been with his family for almost a thousand years.
“A rich kid who fights for fun?”
You would be surprised how many bored wealthy young men choose this path.
“Boarding school must really be dreary.”
“Sometime this week,” Marco continued, “I’m taking you through your paces. You will need to understand not only my role as a bodyguard, but yours as my ward. If I’m taking a bullet for you, it had better be for the right reasons. I also need to know how well you take care of yourself. Your file says you only took basic training. As a civilian host, that’s usually all that is required.”
“I’m a political operative,” she said stiffly. “Fighting and all that jazz I leave for you roughnecks. Tomorrow’s going to be a little tough to fit in my schedule. I kind of help run a country, you know.”
“We’ll see about that,” he grinned. “We’ll call it a first date. Paula did tell you to follow my instructions. I believe I have rank in this matter. Your file says you used to be a gymnast?”
“In high school,” she grimaced. “Twenty years ago.”
“And you haven’t maintained yourself since?”
“I’m not that out of shape,” she felt insulted. “I did the Wisconsin Ironman a few years back.”
“As spectacular an accomplishment as that is, unless you plan to jog away from the next Genjix you come across at a meandering pace, you will require more training,” he replied.
Jill had a bad taste in her mouth as they left the restaurant. She sat in his little Roadster and brooded. She already had three people’s worth of work on her plate. The last thing she needed was a personal trainer filling up her busy schedule. Well, he could try his best to bust in on her time, but she had her priorities. Still, she admitted it might do her good. A little brushing up couldn’t hurt, could it?
Reserve judgment on how little that brushing up is not going to hurt you until you have experienced it. I knew Marco’s father. If the man is half as crazed about calisthenics as his father was, we are in trouble.
And she was.
THIRTEEN
Taiwan
The next ten million years were called the Time of the Gathering. Those of us who were found were sent out again to search for others who were still lost. Slowly, the hierarchy of the ship reorganized. The Grand Council built a kingdom of primates in what is now known as Africa, and sent out searchers through migratory animals to seek more Quasing.
I was one of those searchers. The odds of finding another were low. To find one of our kind within a thousand years was considered a great success. I personally found twenty-four. I was not a good searcher.
Tao
Roen landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International shortly after ten, three days late on his promise to Wuehler. It had been a long, draining flight. He was delayed in Los Angeles, missed his connecting flight in Tokyo, and forced to go on standby for six hours. Wuehler must be frothing at the mouth.
It is not all bad. You got to miss having to unpack and set up the safe house, though you probably got the worst bed.
“Probably have me sleeping in the bathtub.”
Taoyuan was a busy hub and the lines were long even at this time of the night. It took almost an hour to get through customs and pick up his luggage. By the time he was finally ready to leave the airport, it was midnight and he was in a decidedly crappy mood.
Taiwan, like many subtropical islands this time of year, was very wet. The instant he stepped out of the air-conditioned airport, the humidity smacked him in the face and beat on him until his body dripped like a leaky faucet. After five minutes standing on the curb, his shirt was saturated with sweat. Roen’s time with the Prophus had taken him from the ice peaks of the Himalayas to the deserts of northern Africa, but nothing ever bothered him as much as the tropics. He didn’t have, as Tao often said, the pores for this sort of climate.
“These austerity measures suck. I’m on a world-saving mission. I shouldn’t have to fly like a common pleb.”
Our apologies, Mighty World Savior. Would you rather travel like a peasant or run out of bullets and armor?
“There has to be something else we can save on other than transportation.”
Taco Wednesdays at the office were already cut.
“I miss tacos.”
Hailing a cab and figuring out how to get to the Shilin district in Taipei proved to be challenging. Unlike many Prophus agents who were fluent in several languages, Roen was completely ignorant of the Taiwanese language, and though mo
st locals spoke Mandarin, his knowledge of Mandarin consisted mainly of important phrases like “where’s the bathroom?” and “hello, you are beautiful, and I am single”. Luckily, being a former Chinese emperor, Tao was able to help him through some of the trickier questions, though truth be told, Tao’s Chinese was dated by some eight hundred years. Roen ended up sounding like a bozo speaking in an archaic Ming Dynasty dialect. By the time he stepped out of the cab at the Shilin Night Market, he was starving and irritated at the entire world.
Taipei was famous for night markets that ran, as their name suggested, all through the night. Roen passed by throngs of people browsing the many booths and stores that lined the narrow streets. Here, street vendors sold anything from all kinds of foods to plastic toys to bootleg DVDs.
His senses were overwhelmed by the sheer size and magnitude of the market. The most interesting thing he saw by far, though, was the food. Between racks of raw chicken claws, glazed sugary cherry candy on a stick, and flavored shaved ice desserts, it seemed he could find everything here. From fried cuttlefish to small ghastly looking black eggs, much of the food here looked like it came from another planet. And almost everything smelled great. There were more than a few times when he had to stop and stare, mouth wide open, at some of the strange contents on the carts.
It might seem strange to have a safe house in such a high-traffic place, but these areas usually made the best safe houses. There were so many people milling about that it was easy to lose oneself in the crowd. He sniffed the air as he passed by a particularly repugnant-smelling stall.
“What is that?”
I believe the locals call it stinky tofu.
“Name certainly fits. Smells like road kill.”
It is supposed to be delicious. They say the stinkier it is, the better it tastes.
“Then that tofu must taste like filet mignon drizzled with cocaine. I guess that’s the first thing up to bat. I still haven’t met a delicacy I couldn’t stomach.”
Except durian.
“Ugh. That foul fruit is the devil!”