by Nina D'Aleo
I gave a small laugh and it hurt on all levels.
“See you tomorrow,” he said.
I nodded, relocked the door and went back to my computer. I went into the work databases and started searching for mentions of anything like what had happened to us. I scoured countless reports, but there was nothing—at least not at my level of clearance. In the back of my mind I heard the General telling me to stop here—don’t dig any deeper and draw attention—so I resisted the urge to make my search terms any more specific and just hoped I’d stumble across something. Somewhere in the ugly hours of predawn morning, I fell asleep with my head beside the keyboard. My dreams were freakish and confused. I was flying, but not high enough to escape shadow hands reaching up for me. I was screaming to my family and to Dark.
The screams of my dreams shook me awake the next morning. A timid light peeked around the curtain. I immediately called the hospital. A nurse told me that Dark was resting and that I could come in to see him, though they weren’t accepting any other visitors at this stage. I got up and hobbled to the bathroom, where I downed a few pills and got ready. As I dressed, my mind kept going over the attack, and over my conversation with the General. Things weren’t adding up. If they knew this mutant walt had broken-thru, why hadn’t they brought him in for re-capping? Was he hiding and avoiding capture? Was that even possible? And if it was, what did that mean? Could there be other mutants walts out there—self-aware walts with dangerous abilities? I’d never thought about it as a possibility, but now that I’d started I couldn’t stop. What if it was true?
14
Everything ordinary felt corrupted without Dark. I approached Headquarters and saw only my reflection in the glass. I limped past Norm alone. In the elevator the voice only said my name and only I recited the password. Before coming into work I’d gone to the hospital. I’d found Dark sleeping with his arms resting over his chest. His tattoo of Pepé Le Pew had looked deflated and tired. I’d kissed my partner’s cold, battered face and told him I loved him, then started crying again. He’d stirred and let out a slurred, “Go home!”
He’d tried to roll onto his side away from me. Dark was afraid of emotions on a good day, or maybe, better put, he was a man of action not contemplation, and there was nothing he could do to stop me crying, so it was making him feel terrible, on top of already feeling like death. I attempted to control myself, but not before his rolling dislodged one of his wires and set off an alarm on his cardiac monitor. Nurses suddenly flooded the room, pushing me back to get to him. Once they’d seen the cause of the alarm, a few gave me irritated looks, but one of the others said kindly,
“He’s doing real well, but probably best he gets some more rest.”
I nodded and stepped closer again to say goodbye. Dark had slipped back to sleep. I really wanted to talk to him about what the General had told me, but he clearly wasn’t up to it. I relied heavily on Dark’s thoughts in most of my decisions, but this time I’d be going in it alone. He had to recover and I had to go to work and start investigating. The General had told me to keep it superficial, and I needed to listen otherwise it put us all at risk, but where the line between superficial and digging too deep lay I wasn’t sure. I just had to hope I didn’t cross it without knowing. I kissed Dark again and told him I’d be back soon to panic him further with my unrestrained sobbing. He didn’t stir.
When I arrived at the entrance lobby, Marissa at front desk was also red-eyed and snuffling into a disintegrating tissue. I could see she was looking for a comforting word, but I had nothing. I was using all my reserve energy just to keep up a professional front. She buzzed me through and I entered the office. Colleagues were on their feet and coming at me from all angles. When an agent gets hurt everyone takes it personally. Agents I’d never spoken to before were hugging me, everyone was asking questions and telling me I shouldn’t have forced myself to come in so soon. I lost count of how many times I heard some variation on ‘You should be resting.’ Even Adonis, my office crush was there, rubbing my back. I felt nothing. All I wanted was to find Byter and talk to him about the footage from the attack. Thankfully Jovic and Feng were in. They waded through the concern and hustled me to our pod. Feng started to go in for the hug, but then decided against it last minute and gave me a few awkward pats instead. Usually it would have made me smile.
“He’ll be fine,” Jovic told me, gruff from the effort to express emotion while remaining macho. “He’s a tough guy.”
“Should you be here?” Feng asked, staring at the wounds on my face.
“I need to find who did this,” I told them and they both nodded in understanding, then glanced at each other, maybe thinking how they would feel if it had been one of them, or maybe that they were thinking they had to watch me in case I went off the rails.
“We’ll find them,” Jovic said firmly.
“Tell us what to do and we’ll do it,” Feng added.
Feeling many watching eyes, I looked around the office. “It seems crowded in here.”
“Everyone’s been called in,” Feng told me. “Something serious is going down—I mean, other than Dark. I’m not sure exactly what, but all the big boys are in a tizzy.”
She leaned in to tell me something, but before she could say any more, an announcement came over the intercom, “All agents proceed to Auditorium twenty-one. Repeat—All agents proceed to Auditorium twenty-one.”
Twenty-one was the largest auditorium at Headquarters, situated at the far end of level one.
“Let’s go,” Jovic prompted us and we joined the crowd of Op Services agents shuffling toward the auditorium. A constant stream of operatives from other divisions was merging with us from the stairwells and elevators. I couldn’t remember any other time when all agents from every division had been called in together. I kept my head down, trying to avoid attention, Jovic and Feng walking on either side of me like bodyguards.
We entered the darkened lecture theatre and I saw all the division bosses and a good number of Conference members standing up on the front stage. The General was notably absent, but Eric was up there handing out glasses of water, groveling and crawling. I scanned the crowd and finally spotted Byter sitting midway down. His beard stood out a mile away.
“Catch up with you after,” I said to Feng. She seemed hesitant to let me go, but nodded and hustled to keep up with Jovic, who was already halfway along a row of seats. I pushed down the stairs and climbed through to the spare one beside my friend.
He glanced my way with bleary eyes, registered it was me and jolted back. “Silver! Geez! You look …” He searched for lost words. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be in hospital?”
“I’m all right,” I told him. “Looks worse than it is.”
“Try a lot worse.” He stared at my face. “Seriously, you should be resting.”
“So everyone keeps telling me,” I replied. “But I don’t feel like resting. I feel like finding whoever did this.”
“I know … me too.” Byter shook his head wearily. “I’m so sorry, Sil—I’ve been working on it non-stop, but I haven’t had any luck with refining the footage. Everything from before the murders to just after the explosion is ruined. I mean, it sounds impossible, but there doesn’t actually seem to be any footage … it’s just gone. I’ve never seen anything like it before and I’ve done everything I can think of …”
“Damn,” I murmured. “I really appreciate you trying.”
“I haven’t given up,” he told me, looking into my eyes. “I’ll think of something.”
I patted his hand and thanked him again, half-disappointed he hadn’t found anything, and half-relieved that he hadn’t because it would put him at risk. I thought about warning him, but that was a danger in itself.
The noise of the crowded auditorium quietened as the bosses on stage sat down and one of the Conference guys took the podium. A photograph flashed up on the screen behind him—a head-and-shoulders shot of a man. He was attractive, but his lips were twisted in a contemptuou
s, almost predatory way, and his dark eyes had a disturbingly deep stare to them. I immediately recognized Omen.
“Agents,” the Conference man spoke close to the microphone, “memorize this face. This is the face of the enemy.”
A murmur ran through the gathering. Beside Omen’s picture, other photographs of his extensive tattooing and scars appeared. That tat of a black sun split in half on his wrist flashed up and made my skin prickle. How was Omen connected to the vics and what did he have to do, if anything, with the walt who had attacked us behind their house? I straightened in my chair and listened.
The briefing went for well over an hour, but it could be boiled down to these facts—Omen—real name Gabriel DeLeon—had, the night before, gone rogue. He’d murdered four fellow agents, including his partner Evelyn Drake—the Rose. I’d gasped along with everyone else when they’d announced this information. I’d seen something was strange between them in the elevator, but I hadn’t thought for a second that he was about to kill her. After seeing her so vivid and fiery only two days before it was difficult to believe she was now gone. After the murders, Omen had stolen a whole lot of data from the system and vanished, which, considering the totality of coverage of C11 surveillance cameras, was not an easily accomplished task. In fact I’d never heard of any agent—anyone at all—disappearing so completely. I would have said it was impossible. The Conference spokesman informed us that the surveillance and management of walts should continue as always, but that a special taskforce had been set up to track and apprehend Omen, and that all agents should prioritize aiding said taskforce in any way directed by their division leaders. We were all expected to put in double shifts, triple if necessary, until Omen was caught.
As soon as the lecture finished, I murmured a goodbye to Byter and hurried up the stairs. I kept my head down, hoping to avoid all conversations. Byter caught up with me again in the hallway outside the auditorium and said, “I almost forgot. I went through the logs and recorded all interference to surveillance similar to when you and Dark were attacked. I compiled it on this, but I haven’t had a chance to analyze it.”
I took the portable hard drive he was holding out to me and thanked him. I headed to my desk, but before I could reach it, all the Op Services agents were called into Twenty’s office to be given new directives and tasks. We packed in, everyone trying to get a back-line spot, as far away from our boss as possible. As he looked up and saw me, an expression came over his face which I would have described as suspicious, and it made me wonder why—what was he thinking? He started off saying a few words about the attack, and about Dark. He said nothing much about the explosion, framing it as an attack by an, as yet, unidentified civilian who was linked to the killings of two walts.
He said there was no evidence that being walts had anything to do with their murder and that they suspected their involvement with extremists. As he spoke all I could think about was the split-sun tattoo and that the couple being murdered and Omen going AWOL at the same time was not a coincidence—it wasn’t extremists. Twentyman was just selling us a cover story. I glanced up and saw Eric watching me from where he stood beside Twenty’s desk and I saw it again—suspicion. I looked down quickly. What did they think I’d done? Had I already said too much and was I being set up for a fall?
At the close of the meeting, I started heading for the door with everyone else but heard Twentyman say, “Silver, remain.”
I stopped and stood against the wall to let everyone pass me. Feng shot me an anxious look as she exited. Finally it was just Twentyman and Eric left and my throat felt so dry I couldn’t swallow. My fingers kept straying to my duty belt, toward my gun … I had no idea what was about to go down.
Twentyman removed his glasses and sat back in his chair, scrutinizing me with those cutting eyes. I did my best not to squirm.
“In your own words what happened at the Bank Terrace house?” he finally asked.
Eric cleared his throat and I glanced at him, thinking he wanted to speak, but he gestured back to me and Twenty gave him a hard look.
“We attended the crime scene and while we were searching the house, a man jumped out from a cupboard in the kitchen. He fled, we gave chase along the street behind the house. Dark was about to drop him when a car pulled up at the end of the alleyway—two men got out and then … then there was the explosion.”
Twentyman nodded—he’d been watching my mouth as I’d spoken, now he looked up to my eyes. “And in your opinion, what caused the explosion?”
“I didn’t see,” I told him. “It was a shock …”
Eric cleared his throat again.
“Was there anything of interest about the crime scene that you would like to report?” Twenty asked leaning forward and I got the feeling it was one of those questions where the person already knows the answer, but wants you to say it. I seriously considered telling him about the tattoos, but stopped myself, hearing the General’s warning replay in my thoughts.
“Nothing I can remember at this stage, sir,” I said.
“Nothing at all?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
Eric gave what sounded like a snort and Twentyman shot him a glare then said, “Desk duties for the rest of the week, Silver. Take today off. I’ll re-assess you on Friday.”
I nodded.
“Dismissed.”
I turned for the door, feeling them watching, and left. They were both acting out of character, Twentyman by saying too much and Eric by saying too little—and it felt like Twenty was almost going easy on me … That made me extremely nervous.
I headed to my desk where Jovic and Feng were waiting.
“You okay?” Feng asked immediately.
I grabbed my jacket off my chair and said, “Just a debrief. I’ve been told to take the day off … got a killer headache anyway.”
“Go and get some rest,” Jovic said. “I wasn’t going to say it—but you look like a zombie from that show … what’s it called?” he snapped his fingers.
“Shut up, Dragomir,” Feng said. She took my arm. “Do you want me to drive you home?”
I shook my head. “Thanks, but I really am okay—don’t worry.”
She nodded and released me. I lifted my arm and said, “Not a bad touch—felt natural.”
She grinned. “Practice makes perfect. Call us when we can visit Dark. Get some sleep.”
I thanked them and headed for the exit, with no intention whatsoever of resting.
15
I couldn’t go home, where my parents would be hovering like well-meaning helicopters, so I went to Dark’s apartment and used my spare key to get in. I booted up his computer and hacked into police records with C11 passcodes. I scanned the report from the murder scene. The only mention it made of the complete obliteration of the street behind the house was that there appeared to have been some kind of electrical fault that had caused a minor blast at the back of the place. The C11 clean-up crew had done their job—as usual. The murder victims were identified as Adam and Tracy Bushel. The cause of death for both was a single gunshot wound to the head. I searched for photos of their tattoos, but didn’t find any, which seemed strange considering they were distinguishing marks. I saw Omen’s face in my mind and picked up my phone to dial the General.
He answered almost immediately and said, “Silvia, how are you?”
“Sir, there’s something I need to tell you,” I said. “The vics at the Bank Terrace crime scene had black sun tattoos on their wrists, and the agent who’s just gone rogue, Omen? I saw he had the exact same tattoo in the same place …”
There was a brief silence on the other end before the General said, “Okay … have you mentioned this to anyone else?”
“No—Agent Twentyman questioned me earlier, but I didn’t say anything.”
“At this stage it’s probably for the best—we’re not sure of Omen’s involvement in the wider situation we were discussing earlier,” he said, avoiding giving details. Agent cell phones had secu
rity software installed named Fortress, which supposedly prevented anyone from tapping into them, but who knew if this was true.
“Do you think he could be involved with the people who attacked us?”
“It’s uncertain,” the General said. “Leave it with me—and please remember what I said.”
I assured him I hadn’t forgotten and hung up. I went back to the computer. The police report said nothing about a young man being discovered at the scene, though certainly someone would have seen us chase him across the lawn. There had been cops everywhere and we hadn’t made a secret of it. For some reason, no one was speaking—it may be Chapter-directed or maybe it was something else. Maybe they were keeping details back to use once they identified possible suspects?
I found a list of names of officers and police personnel who had attended the scene and printed it. I’d have to question them individually. But before I did that, I needed to scan the failed footage Byter had given me for any connections. I dragged the external drive out of my pocket and spent hours trawling through its contents. Mostly it seemed like momentary glitches, but there were several prolonged incidences of fuzzed vision.
I used Dark’s external Shake to log into C11’s system and ran a search using the dates and times of these incidences. Something came up—around each incident, at similar places to the footage disturbance, there’d been a report of the symptoms of a walt who was breaking-thru spontaneously resolving. I narrowed my eyes, staring at the information—this meant something significant. I could sense it. The most recent was a woman in her thirties who started going green at home. I wrote down the address. I needed to pay her a visit and ask some questions about what had happened to her while the surveillance was down. There was a chance it might shed some light on the whole situation.
I shut down Dark’s computer and stood on numb legs. Pain shot through my injured knee and I groaned and reached down to hold it. A scratching noise near the front door froze me mid-motion. The door handle rattled. I drew my gun and moved soundlessly across the floor. The lock clicked and the door began to push in. A person shuffled into the apartment. I stepped into their path and pressed the end of the barrel to their forehead. Dark’s cleaner, Mrs Smithy, gasped and stared at me with terrified eyes. I dropped my aim.