Balancer

by Patrick Wong

  A second later, a SWAT member emerged from the house carrying Amy’s dog, Brutus. He would have barked at the sight of his master had it not been for the large clump of Amy’s hair currently wedged in his mouth.

  If looks could kill, Amy would have been dead on the floor right then.

  She and Mrs. Jessica had done their best to throw the FBI for a loop, but whatever they had done would only stall their progress — not stop them completely. Amy had bought Nicole precious minutes, and that was the main thing.

  Still, Carter circled them as though he was taking it all too personally.

  “Don’t leave this house,” he growled menacingly.

  Mrs. Jessica put her arm around Amy’s shoulders protectively. Amy thought she heard her mutter something about “damned spooks,” and she allowed Mrs. Jessica to lead her back inside.

  As he pushed past them, Carter pressed on his earpiece again.

  “Ignore earlier search region. New search region. Suspect is on the move and heading south toward Lake Fairfax. Repeat, she is heading toward Lake Fairfax.” Carter heard the sound of the helicopter overhead and grinned. “Have the chopper sweep the area with infrared, standard fugitive-tracking pattern. Agent Bishop will coordinate all teams. I’m going in pursuit on foot now.”

  With that, he disappeared through the gap in the Madigans’ hedge.

  If Amy hadn’t been so worried for her best friend, she would have congratulated herself on her Oscar-worthy performance. Her hair was a small price to pay for what Nicole had done for her. She only hoped it had bought her best friend enough time.

  A Greater Power

  Five minutes into the woods, and Nicole realized just how much she missed her smartphone. The sun was setting, and it would be pitch-black soon. Deep in the thicket of trees, with no sign of light indicating a clearing up ahead, she knew that very soon she would be hopelessly lost. More than ever, she yearned for the satellite map app and the comforting blue dot charting her path. She realized that the flashlight she had brought would attract too much attention, so she would have to go on without it for as long as possible, using only the natural light. There was every chance she had been running in circles. The darkness and gloom of the muffled woods was disorientating at best. Even though, the wildfire had been terrifying and choky, it had at least afforded some illumination. Still, this was how it was, and there was no other choice but keep moving.

  She had ridden Troy’s bicycle until the first field and then left it behind, hoping that the possibility of throwing her pursuers off her trail outweighed the risk of being too slow.

  Eventually she’d have to dash through the campgrounds where the wildfire had happened. Everything had been burned to the ground there, and she’d be exposed for a while. But if she could make it beyond the edge of the park, there was a dense shopping area in Tysons Corner. It’d be a long run, but that’s where she stood the best chance of blending in. She’d be just another teen with a backpack. Maybe she could duck into a gas station or a fast food bathroom and try to change her appearance. She had considered calling her mom, but as the FBI had her smartphone’s recent call history, her mom’s line was probably already bugged. Worst-case scenario, she had Amy’s mother’s old cell phone, but she would only use that after she knew she was safely out of harm’s way.

  After a while of keeping up her exhausting pace, she heard a distant pulsing sound. The dense woods warped the noise, so it was difficult to actually determine its source. Soon, she found her body was naturally responding to the thump of this mechanical beat, and the gentle thud of her feet hitting the heaped pine needles on the forest floor issued a dull bassline to her run.

  It was an odd kind of comfort. Perhaps it meant she was closer to the campgrounds than she thought?

  Can’t see.

  Nicole had been running for a while now, so that would make sense. She thought about her mom, blissfully unaware of what Nicole was going through right now. She had no idea what the next few hours would have in store for her. What if …?

  No. Don’t go there.

  She wouldn’t entertain the worst kind of thoughts. She couldn’t afford them right now.

  Straight ahead, she saw a circle of trees with a glimpse of dark blue sky above where some stars were beginning to peek out. Then, as she approached and craned her neck to look upward, the mechanical noise became very loud indeed. Suddenly, the source of it swooped across and away again.

  It was a helicopter!

  “No!” she screamed, horrified. She began to run again, wildly now, fear throttling her lungs and dragging at her ankles.

  She was being tracked!

  Like she’d seen countless times on crime shows on TV, her movements were being followed, probably by thermal imaging cameras. Wherever the swirl of yellows and reds of her figure ran, the helicopter could find her.

  She was trapped.

  She stopped running now and stood rooted to one spot, her mind racing. Her blood was pumping so furiously that she could hear it in her ears, and the trees were beginning to spin. She doubted herself then. What had she hoped to achieve by running?

  Then, she heard the unmistakable noise of a shoe heel impacting on twigs.

  She froze on the spot, hoping it was some small creature or a trick of the woods.

  It wasn’t.

  “Hello, Nicole.”

  Steeling her nerves, she spun around toward the voice.

  There he was. The trench coat, the serious expression and the misleading warm brown eyes of Agent Carter.

  Nicole gave in to her first instinct, which was to run again.

  He sprang lightly after her, and she thought she heard him arming his gun.

  Not even during the wildfire escape had her legs contained so much coiled elasticity. She was gasping for breath, but all she could think of was getting as much distance between her and the agent who was pursuing her so relentlessly.

  “It’s useless now and you know it. We have you surrounded! Whichever way you go, we’ll find you. You’ve had your fun, but now it’s time to face up to what you’ve done.”

  Agent Carter was right. For the life of her, Nicole couldn’t fathom how she could get out of this. Yet up ahead was the clear blue of evening light and the possibility of a clearing. It gave her hope and spurred her ever onward.

  But when she finally reached the light, further disappointment was waiting. She let out a cry as she found herself in all too familiar territory. It was the burnt and stubbled wasteland — the wake of the Lake Fairfax wildfire.

  As she took in the bleak, scorched earth around her, she knew running was now futile.

  Carter stared at her and issued a bitter laugh.

  There was only one way left to escape. Looking up above, Nicole observed the helicopter and calculated the extent to her powers. Could she reach them up there? If she was somehow able to injure the pilot, then it would cause a crash, which she could use as cover to make a good escape.

  She sighed.

  She also knew that if she did that, she would be crossing to the other side of the moral divide. She had already killed a man, but that was different. If she wielded her powers in anger and hate, she would be showing she was as bad as the FBI had feared. She would probably escape with her life, but could she live with the guilt? Up there were innocent agents, just doing their jobs, and she would take them down all because she had deemed her life to be more important than theirs?

  No.

  Not knowing what else to do, she fell to her knees and held up her hands.

  “Good girl. Now put them behind your back.”

  Nicole did as she was asked and waited. Maybe this was for the best. Amy could still get word to her mom. She figured she’d tell the FBI the truth, whatever they wanted to know. Perhaps that was the only way out of this mess now?

  But the handcuffs she was expecting didn’t arrive.

  Agent Carter also wasn’t radioing to his partner or signaling to the helicopter above.

  In fact, when
Nicole looked his way out of the corner of her eye, she could see he was texting.

  From what she had seen, Agent Carter had done things by the book whenever he was with his partner, but now he was acting strangely. Nicole knew about Homeland Security and wondered whether this man had another agenda, as Ben had feared.

  A part of her was screaming at herself to run.

  But where would she run? Even if this guy was acting outside of the law, the FBI was still on her trail. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Whichever path she chose was looking very bad for her right now.

  She felt the warm breath of Agent Carter on the back of her neck as he leaned down behind her. It made her shiver in fear.

  “I can see you’re looking for a way out. No more escapes, please, Nicole. We have plans for girls like you.”

  “You’re not really with the government, are you?”

  Carter let out a laugh that froze Nicole’s nerves. “Oh, I am with the government. But I answer to a greater power. You’ll be meeting him shortly, in fact.”

  Nicole turned to look up, and the moment she met his eyes, she heard what must have been an exploding noise and felt a slicing pain course up her right leg.

  She screamed.

  Birds all around fluttered up from their high tree perches and into the evening sky. Nicole wondered when the burning would stop, but it didn’t. It carried on, like a flame at the end of a smoldering fuse.

  When she looked up at Agent Carter again, his face showed only grim determination.

  She felt down to her lower leg and found a steady trickle of blood.

  He had shot her.

  Eye of the Needle

  Nicole pulled herself along through the pine needles, but the biting pain wouldn’t cease. She knew it was useless to think that she was ever going to be able to escape the agent. But she had decided it was far better for her to take her chances with the FBI now. This man was insane.

  She also had a plan and was trying to push aside the terrible pain of her gunshot wound and focus on that.

  Concentrate, Nicole.

  Trouble was, every time she glanced down at the blood oozing from her leg, she felt her stomach turn. Yet every fiber of her being told her that she needed to get away. Not just for her, but for her parents and Amy and all her family. If this man took her now, then they might never know the truth.

  She felt some of the fogginess of the pain lift, and she could see her wound now, like a rip in a garment that needed to be mended. In her mind’s eye, she focused on the image of a needle and thread.

  “What are you doing?” Carter murmured coolly.

  But she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She took his evil, silky words and imagined them as healing thread for her wound. She would heal herself — and extract from him whatever life it took to do it.

  Then he’d see who was stronger.

  She crawled away again, hoping to put him off, all the time imagining threading the needle with the agent’s life force.

  Come on.

  She urged herself forward, but the blood pulsed on and out, and the pain in her leg wasn’t going away. She imagined the needle piercing the garment and drawing the thread through, but when the needle emerged, there was no thread to heal the tear.

  Perhaps the pain was taking her mind away from Balancing? She would need to calm herself down enough to try again. Confident that it was just a blip, Nicole attempted to thread the hole a second time. But her fingers in her mind’s eye were shaking, and the end of the thread kept missing the hole on the needle.

  Again and again she tried to pass the thin thread of life through the eye, and each time it just missed and skimmed alongside the metal of the needle.

  She glanced up at the agent’s merciless expression and felt a renewed determination. This time she could get the thread through the needle, and before her fingers could start shaking again, she poked the point through the garment.

  With a cry she realized that once again the needle emerged bare. Then it struck her: She had never tried to heal herself before. What if she couldn’t?

  She caught Agent Carter’s expression then as he looked down at her. He smirked.

  “Look around you, Nicole. What do you see?”

  Nicole lowered her gaze again. She would do nothing this man wanted her to.

  “Deadness. No life. Nothing for you, Balancer.”

  Nicole stopped moving, chilled by the realization that he knew the things Ben knew. He reached down to hold her by her chin.

  “Oh, and you’re trying so hard.”

  He squeezed a little tighter, and she felt fury and despair grip her. How could he be so cruel to her? What had she done to him? Tears sprung to her eyes, but she refused to meet his callous gaze.

  She tried the needle for a final time, now concentrating her anger and her pain on him, her humiliation and her fear.

  But still nothing happened.

  With a flick of his wrist, Carter threw Nicole aside, and she cried out as she felt the blow against a rock impact her wounded leg. She groaned.

  “You’re not omnipotent, Balancer. There is a limit to your skills. Oh, your little boyfriend didn’t figure out that part, did he? It’s so ironic. You can save me, but you can’t save yourself.”

  Carter’s cruel laughter echoed across the barren woods.

  Nicole screamed. If she couldn’t get away from him through her powers, then she would have to find another way. She grabbed hold of the rock under her and, drawing on all of her strength, lifted herself up on her good leg and swung her arm at the surprised agent.

  The rock hit the side of his face, and the impact made him stumble back.

  Without looking to see what had happened, Nicole took off, letting her wounded leg trail behind her.

  She was too determined, too angry and too afraid to let pain prevent her escape.

  Now she needed the FBI to find her before Agent Carter did. That was her new plan.

  Her only plan.

  Just Say No

  Bishop hadn’t heard from Carter in ten minutes, and it was unnerving him. He was sitting, uselessly, in the passenger seat of their Suburban, waiting for a call from his partner like some lovelorn kid.

  He knew the helicopter had tracked Nicole to the center of the scorched woods near Lake Fairfax where the wildfire had begun. The trees were bare and brittle there and had offered the fugitive no hiding place. Moments ago, the pilots reported that another person — most likely Carter — had caught her.

  Why hadn’t he radioed this to Bishop?

  The silence was suspicious, as was his partner’s determination to pursue a dangerous suspect without him. Bishop pressed his earpiece again.

  “Carter, this is Bishop. Report your position and exact whereabouts.”

  Silence.

  “God damn it, Carter!”

  “Sir!”

  One of the field agents had knocked on the window. Bishop wasn’t able to hide his anger, and he greeted his colleague with what amounted to a frustrated growl.

  “You’re going to want to see this.”

  “What is it?”

  Bishop scooted across the seat for the agent to join him and was handed a laptop computer.

  “The chopper pilots report a trail — most likely of blood — behind the fugitive.”

  “Show me.”

  The agent showed Bishop the thermal imaging. Sure enough, two figures and what looked like a smear of rapidly cooling blood was trailing behind them.

  “That’s not all.”

  The agent called up another piece of footage from a few minutes earlier, featuring the human-shaped swirls of reds and yellows against the cold blues of the woods. The smaller of the two, presumably Nicole, appeared to be crouched down on the ground. Carter was circling her in what looked to be an intimidating way.

  Suddenly there was a white-yellow flash, and then warm reds leaked out of the figure on the ground. A few moments later, Nicole made a little movement followed by a sudden jolt, and Carte
r fell back.

  Bishop stopped the footage. He felt sick to his stomach.

  Carter had shot her. Why had he done that when she was crouched on the ground?

  This didn’t look good.

  This, in fact, looked a lot like uncharted territory.

  “Connect me to FBI Internal Security,” Bishop said.

  He sat back as the agent followed his command. When connected, Bishop cleared his throat, the only sign of the nervousness he felt.

  “I need clearance to access Agent Carter’s emails and correspondence … No, I don’t care. Now.” Bishop inserted his smartcard into the laptop’s security slot. A series of questions appeared on the screen that required responses indicating the severity of the security breach. His answers provided all of the necessary confirmation needed for temporary access to Carter’s communication records. Everything Bishop did from now on would be monitored and reviewed. But Bishop felt justified that this was necessary given the circumstances, and he was willing to face whatever judgment came later for his actions.

  After a moment, he was in. Eight years of loyal partnership dissolved in an instant. But Bishop couldn’t think about that now; there were lives at stake, and he could not afford to take any more risks. He scrolled through Carter’s inbox very briefly. It was as suspiciously clean as any felon’s.

  He pressed his earpiece. “Where are his text messages? Get me all of Carter’s texts from today!”

  Bishop could hear the sound of the FBI analyst typing rapidly on a keyboard. “We’ll be receiving those texts from NSA momentarily. They need about one minute to break the encryption. I’ll forward them as soon as they are received.”

  After a brief pause, Bishop received the incoming messages, and when he pulled up the text history, it confused him. Apparently, the only person Carter had been texting was somebody named “Prof DuBois.” He wasn’t from any known terrorist or criminal organization that Bishop was familiar with. An FBI file on a thin, elderly man with wizened eyes appeared. DuBois worked over at Columbia University and lectured on antiquities. So why was Carter in touch with the professor, and how come Bishop knew nothing of it?