Empowered: Traitor (The Empowered Series Book 2)

by Dale Ivan Smith

  “Ah, I see you understand,” Zhukova said, sounding sympathetic. Maybe she was, or maybe she was just manipulating me. Her face was serious, almost sad, and again she reminded me of Warden Fulbright back in Special Corrections, when she wanted to play my friend.

  “What you have uncovered in Colombia will be investigated,” Zhukova said.

  Round filed was more like it. I’d never learn what they found. My chest tightened. “But will you do anything about it?”

  “When we have more information, then perhaps we will take appropriate action.”

  I jumped to my feet. “Appropriate action? Like what?”

  “When we have more information, then we’ll know what action to take.” Nothing seemed to rile her. It was annoying as hell. She pointed at my chair. “Now, please sit and we will discuss the Inner Circle of the Scourge.”

  Just like that we were done talking about Colombia.

  I sat down again. “I’ve only met Ashula.”

  Zhukova sat perched on the edge of her chair. She must have been a ballerina when she was younger; she sat like one, all poise and balance.

  “Precisely. You have only met Ashula Singh. We need to know precisely how many there are. You must meet the others, ascertain where they meet.” She looked like a cat about to pounce. “Then we cut off the head of this snake.”

  “It’s not exactly easy. They move around.”

  Zhukova shook her head. “We don’t need excuses.” She leaned forward. “Your objective is to learn what the Scourge’s ultimate goal is, and what their immediate plans are toward actualizing that ultimate goal.”

  Actualizing. Now she sounded like the psych stiffs back in Special Corrections.

  “You will continue to report what you learn. It is imperative that you continue in your role as a cell leader, further prove your worth to the Inner Circle, which will raise your worth in their eyes.”

  “Fine.”

  She watched me. I wondered what her cybernetic lens made of me? Was it monitoring my skin temperature, heart rate, pulse, or was I just being paranoid?

  “You must keep us apprised of your situation and what you learn.”

  “I said fine,” I snapped.

  “Please say, yes, Director. There is no need for emotion here.” She was cool and collected. Nothing seemed to ruffle her.

  Alex looked imploringly at me. Nice to know he cared. Winterfield just gave me a “get-on-with-it” look.

  “Affirmative, director.” That left a sour taste.

  “Thank you. See that you check in at regular intervals and keep us in the loop. Be prepared at all times for new instructions, is that clear?”

  “Affirmative, director.” I didn’t bother keeping the snarl out of my voice, but Zhukova just watched me like she was scrutinizing a bug.

  “Very good. Dismissed.”

  Winterfield gave a very slight head shake. “Let’s go, Brandt.”

  Zhukova had already turned away and was reading her data pad.

  I followed Winterfield and Alex out.

  This bug hated the new boss.

  Chapter 8

  Winterfield and Alex escorted me back to my cell, guest room, quarters. Whatever it was. Winterfield did the wrist thing with the lock pad and we went inside.

  I sat down on the bed, while Alex leaned against the little desk. Winterfield pulled a chair over, flipped it around and sat with the back against his chest. This must be the Winterfield equivalent of letting your hair down.

  “Now you know about the new boss, Brandt.”

  I twisted my fingers, trying to burn off some of the energy from listening to the new boss. “Who put the Ice Queen in charge?”

  Alex stifled a laugh.

  Winterfield sighed. “You have no imagination, Brandt.”

  “What?”

  “Everyone calls her that behind her back.”

  “Maybe because it’s true,” I said. “Nothing seems to get her worked up.”

  Alex didn’t even try to fight the laughter.

  Winterfield cut him some slack and ignored the laughter. My eyes widened. I hadn’t expected that maybe deep down inside that hardassed exterior was a hardass who occasionally cut his partner slack. Maybe Winterfield was human after all. I’m not sure I could get my mind wrapped around the idea, but there it was.

  “Zhukova served in the Russian Reclamation Sectors,” Winterfield told me.

  A lot of people had died in that part of the old Soviet Union during the Three Days War. Lands blown to hell and poisoned with radiation fifty years ago. It was ancient history, except radiation kept time differently. The Russian Reclamation Sectors made the Washington Zone seem like a park. What had been D.C. and Baltimore was a controlled area—the Washington Zone—but western Russia was still a lawless wasteland, with fortress-like UN bases.

  You’d figure that the mighty Hero Council would fix that.

  “Focus, Brandt,” Winterfield said dryly.

  “Sorry.” Ruth had spent part of her time in the US Army in Europe a decade after the Three Days War, and told us stories about guarding the borders of the old West Germany and Russia, and keeping what was within those blasted hells inside.

  Winterfield rapped the chair back with his knuckles. “Still not focusing.”

  I blinked. For an instant, there was a glimmer in his eyes like he was laughing at me inside, but it was gone before I could be sure. And he was right, I’d been drifting, thinking about Ruth.

  “Okay, so I’m focused now,” I said. “Why isn’t our new boss taking my report about Colombia seriously?”

  “Do you think that’s the only thing Support has to investigate?” He snorted. “It isn’t even on the list.”

  I caught his side glance at Alex. The cue for Mister Good Cop.

  “I wish we could tell you even half of the situations Support is currently investigating,” Alex said, “but we can’t.”

  “Yeah, I get it. I’m a security risk” I shook my head. “I’m not a rat,” I mumbled.

  Winterfield’s eyebrows shot up. “What’s that, Brandt?”

  “Support thinks I’m a rat. That’s why I’m told jack squat.” After all I’d done and risked working my way into the Scourge, Support still distrusted me.

  Winterfield leaned back. “Trust has to be earned. Besides, you heard Zhukova—you can’t reveal what you don’t know.”

  It still sucked.

  “Okay, we’ll give you a crumb,” Winterfield said. He looked at Alex. “Bring up the incidents list.”

  Alex fiddled with his wrist comm. The wall display came on, ran a graph and lots of numbers. Rogue Empowered Incidents. Even I could tell they were increasing in the past couple of years.

  “Okay, so more knuckleheads with a power are causing problems.” Not a huge surprise. I’d heard there were more Empowereds showing up lately. Usually Empowering happened when you were a young teen, but sometimes adults suddenly got powers, too.

  Data scrolled by, something about correlations and coordination. I couldn’t really make sense of it. Alex tapped his comm and the display went to a map of the US. There were a lot of black dots.

  “Those are incidents involving rogue Empowereds.”

  “As opposed to what else?”

  Winterfield snorted. “You don’t need to know.”

  “I’m still a mushroom,” I griped. “That wasn’t much of a crumb.”

  Alex stepped in, easy as you please. “We don’t want to distract you with things you can’t change.”

  “So why show me this then?”

  “Deep breath, Brandt,” Winterfield said. “We’re not done yet.”

  Fine. I took a deep breath, tried to unkink my neck which was suddenly all in knots.

  Red dots began replacing black ones on the display.

  “Red are incidents we connect with the Scourge.”

  More and more black dots became red, until most were red.

  Shit. That was a lot of dots. Dozens and dozens of incidents.

&nbs
p; Alex went on. “We estimate at least seventy percent of the incidents in the past three and half years are from Scourge activity. In the past eighteen months the number is eighty three percent.”

  What had the Scourge been up to?

  “You want specifics?” Winterfield asked me. “In the past six months in the United States alone there have been a half dozen thefts of high grade military equipment traced to the Scourge. Four bank robberies.” His gaze hardened. “Eight Support agents killed by the Scourge, along with twenty seven members of law enforcement. And just in case you might be thinking, that’s all part of the job description, try this one on for size—fifteen private citizens killed by the Scourge simply because they had something the Scourge wanted, or were connected to a company that the Scourge wanted to hit.”

  He stood. “We’ve got to stop them.” He got a slightly disgusted look on his face. “Like it or not, that makes you very important. Which means you, Agent Sanchez and myself have to be focused on taking them down. Do you understand?”

  It was annoying when he had facts on his side. The problem for me was, he usually did, so I was annoyed a lot.

  “Yeah, I get it.” I knew the Scourge was ruthless, killing fifty people in six months, shit. I swallowed. The guards in Colombia couldn’t be on Winterfield’s list, and we hadn’t killed anyone. Seriously injured a few people, I couldn’t pull punches, but we weren’t out to kill people. But the same wasn’t true of the rest of the Scourge. Shit.

  Alex looked at me sympathetically. My surprise at what Winterfield had told me must be written all over my face. “We should let you get some rest,” Alex said. “It’s after midnight.”

  “I’m doing another sleepover in wherever this is?”

  Winterfield gave me a thin smile. “Got it in one, Brandt.” He unlocked the door with his wrist. I’d never stop finding that weird.

  He glanced back, Alex beside him. “Get some sleep. You are going to need it.”

  Mister Sunshine and his partner left.

  How was I supposed to sleep after that?

  A loud chiming sound woke me from another fucking nightmare about kids covered in green living slime and zombie-like people shuffling in a field, collecting sunlight with the green leaves that had sprouted from their arms while Ashula and some Empowered I didn’t recognize killed farmers because they were in the wrong place.

  I sat up, tossed off the blanket and rubbed my eyes.

  Overhead lights came on with a soft glow. The door chimed, opened. Alex came in.

  No sign of buzzkill Winterfield.

  I had slept in shorts and a tank top. I could see Alex trying not to look me over.

  He was dressed in his man-in-black outfit.

  “Let me guess, I’m still locked up,” I groused.

  “Good morning, Mat, how are you?” He winked. “This is what we call a greeting.”

  I put on a fake, perky expression. “Hi, Alex. Sleep well?”

  A smile played around the edges of his mouth. “Better stick to glowering,” he said.

  “Funny. You aren’t locked up, so you can joke all you want.”

  “Mat, you’re not locked up. You’re in a secure location.”

  “Oh, is that what you call this?”

  He shook his head, grinning. I told the butterflies in my stomach to go bug someone else. Maybe Zhukova. But it was impossible to imagine anyone giving her butterflies.

  “Better get dressed, Mat. We have stuff to do.”

  “That the official Support designation?” I stretched and noticed Alex studying the wall behind me.

  I went to the closet. My clothes hung there, along with a gray jumpsuit. I had a sneaking, nasty suspicion what was next on my schedule.

  “Let me guess, the jumpsuit for me today?”

  Alex nodded. “Don’t want to get your clothes dirty.”

  I pulled the jumpsuit off the hanger, and went into the tiny bathroom to change. It would have been so much easier if Agent Cute had waited out in the hall, so there was room to move my freaking elbows and not bang my hands pulling on the jumpsuit. Being six foot one in a toilet with no standing room was no fun at all.

  The jumpsuit was tighter than I would have liked. Alex tried not to show it, but when I came out of the bathroom I could see him take in my curves. He wasn’t leering, just sneaking a glance.

  The last time someone had leered at me it had ended with me constricting him and his minions in blackberry vines I’d grown to monster size.

  I wouldn’t have minded if Alex had leered, even a little. He stayed professional, unlocked the door with a swipe of his wrist.

  “You are not going to tell me where we are going, are you?”

  “That would spoil the surprise.”

  Support loved surprises. That harshed my buzz big time.

  He led me through the maze of identical looking corridors.

  “This is the most boring dungeon ever,” I said when we’d reached another intersection. I’d lost track of how many.

  “Dungeon?” Alex asked, puzzled.

  “Sure seems like one to me.”

  He laughed. “I suppose you could call it that.”

  “What would you call it?”

  He tapped his nose. “That’s on a need-to-know basis.” He winked.

  I scowled. “Yeah, and I don’t need to know, is that it?” I stepped away from him. “Must be pretty hilarious to you?” I don’t know why I’d found him attractive, he was a jerk like all the rest of them.

  “Hey, I was only trying to lighten the mood.”

  “Being ignorant of what is going on isn’t funny to me,” I said. Crossed my arms and turned my back on him.

  He stepped in front of me. “Listen, I’m sorry.”

  “Whatever. Can we get on with this?” I wouldn’t meet his gaze. I was sick and tired of being kept in the dark.

  He started to say something else, then must have thought better of it, and went back to leading me through this endless maze.

  Chapter 9

  We reached a room with a big set of double doors. Could have been the briefing room from yesterday.

  My skin tingled.

  An Empowered was in that room. Alex did the wrist swipe thing, and the doors swished open.

  I went in. The doors swished shut behind me.

  A familiar woman waited for me. She looked Chinese, wore a black jumpsuit, and her long black hair fell in a braid to her waist. She smiled at me.

  It was “Flick,” who had tested me the first time I had been here, right after being recruited by Support. It wasn’t really her fault that during the last test I’d nearly killed us both, but I still blamed her. She had pissed me off.

  Next to her was a garden of sorts, dirt piled inside of some kind of giant enclosed planter thing. There were no plants in the soil, but it looked watered.

  “Long time no see.”

  “Hello, Mat.”

  I walked up to her. She did a little half bow as I joined her that made me feel like a clumsy ox.

  I tapped the rim of the metal planter. It made a ringing sound that stopped quickly, because of all the dirt piled on it.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “This is a test.”

  Her lips curved up in amusement. “Perceptive.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Little Miss Obvious.” I nodded at the soil. “I need to grow plants?”

  “There is a certain straightforward quality to this exam, isn’t there?”

  “Any particular sort of plants?”

  Her dimples crinkled and her face took on a playful look.

  “Now, wouldn’t that be interesting. Perhaps I should have you grow a rare orchid or an alpine flower of a sort you’ve never seen before.”

  Funny. I didn’t smile, and didn’t speak up. I wasn’t about to agree to anything.

  She shook her head. “No, Mat, we will keep this test simple, but not too simple.”

  Something about that bugged me.

  “You may create whatever you’d like to cr
eate, and grow it, while following my verbal instructions.”

  The doors opened behind us. I turned, half-expecting to see Winterfield and Alex walk in.

  No such luck. Instead, my new least favorite person in the whole wide world, Zhukova, entered. She wore a black jumpsuit, identical to Flick’s. Great, I got to put on a show for the new boss. Just what I lived for.

  “Carry on, Ms. Brandt,” Zhukova said. She stood by the wall, arms folded.

  Fine, I’d do my best to ignore her.

  I rubbed my hands together, trying to wake myself up. They’d gotten me up at Zero Dark-Whatever-The-Hell-Time-This-Was on purpose. Manipulative jerks.

  I closed my eyes. If there were no seeds, no “organic material,” if these bastards had sterilized the soil, I’d be up the proverbial shit creek without a proverbial paddle. I stretched out my hands, and sent my power into the “garden."

  The soil teemed with life. Worms, bugs, seeds of all kinds. Grass seed. Lots of grass seed. I smiled. Blackberry seeds. Someone knew my go-to vine.

  I slipped my sense into the blackberry seeds, urged them to grow, put my life essence into them. Pulled nutrients and moisture in from the soil. The seeds sprouted roots, then vines, slithering through the dirt like snakes. Upward, I urged the vines.

  Something pelleted my face, and I lost my connection. My eyes snapped open. I put a hand to where the skin stung. More tiny things stung my face and my hands.

  Damn it.

  I crouched down, trying to avoid being targeted. Flick gestured and a shower of BBs smacked into my chest and groin. It was like being stung by a swarm of bees. Ow ow ow.

  She was grinning, too.

  Fuck. I hate it when assholes use their power against me, and I hate it even more when they are smiling like sadistic freaks.

  I darted to the far side of the giant flat planter, urging the vines up. Bolt shaped objects smacked into my back. God that hurt.

  I wheeled around, dropped flat. Vines broke the soil, sprouted leaves. I pushed them harder, but they stopped growing and drooped less than a half a foot above the soil. More freaking ball bearings and bolts bounced off me, a pain-making iron rain. I covered my head with my arms, which meant my arms got a royal going over.