Stone arches—some open to the air and sunlight of the sprawling patio outside, others windows and doors decorated with intricate wrought-iron latticework—encircled the room. Elevated marble-floored walkways between the central columns. Expensive and tasteful antique furniture dotted the room, including pieces of Grecian statuary, an armoire, and an old, heavy iron, multilevel birdcage. Stone stairs led down into a sunken conversation pit with a lovely view of the living cypress tree that grew up out of the wooden floor and whose leaves received sunlight through a square skylight.
The room was also a museum of death, a showroom of destruction. Several transparent panels stretched from the floor to the ceiling, lined with “samples” of various weapons from millions of different worlds and galaxies, lethal instruments of all imaginable shapes and sizes. The ugly truth marring the beauty of the room was that Riza’s business was selling slaughter. The occupants of many worlds across the universe had paid the ultimate price in blood for her to live in such opulence.
“This one here,” a slender man with a razor-thin mustache was saying, “is the prize of the lot.” The man looked human. He spoke English with a thick French accent. Only the curve of his ears and the mirror-like quality of his eyes gave away that he was not a native of Earth. Riza’s desk was a sheet of glass held aloft by two chromed columns beneath it. On the desk in front of the man was a small plastic cage. Inside the cage was a small, cute pink creature. The animal looked a little like a hairless badger with a small, furry horn on its forehead. “Forget its size, it’s a killing machine,” the man went on. “One prick—” he indicated the creature’s horn “—and you are dead before gravity takes you to the floor.” The man gestured to the creature in the cage, with a flair of showmanship. “A Medoosean bark mole. Beyond endangered. He is the absolute last of his breed.”
Riza regarded the little pink creature and the alien salesman. On Earth, nature often warned of the danger of another organism by marking it bright, colorful, and beautiful. The same warning applied to Riza Stavros. She was breathtaking in her beauty and unmatched in her cruelty and madness. Riza had long, straight hair that fell to her shoulders. It was pale blonde in color with black horizontal stripes that made one think of a tiger’s coat. She wore a bare-shouldered diaphanous dress with a tropical pattern of blue and turquoise with gold highlights. The dress showed a lot of well-shaped leg through a long slit. She wore a cape-like wrap that matched her dress.
Her eyes flicked up to the salesman and all the affection vanished from them, like someone flipping off a switch.
“The very last? Do you have a certificate of extinction?” Before the salesman could reply, the small earpiece in Riza’s perfect ear gave off a tone notifying her of an incoming call. She held up a finger to silence the salesman. “So sorry,” she said, “I’ve been waiting for this.” She tapped the earpiece with her exquisitely painted and manicured nail. “Hi. Klim, bit of a problem. The plutonium in the Eviscerator you sold me was C grade.”
The salesman could faintly hear Klim on the other end of the call, protesting his ignorance and innocence in a language that sounded equal parts Khoisan, Dutch, Arabic, and Auto-tune. Riza shook her head as she listened. “You had no idea? Yeah, well, here’s the problem: if people aren’t getting vaporized, that reflects poorly on me.”
As Klim retorted, sounding a bit annoyed, Riza nodded toward the bark mole, and spoke in a slightly lower, much sweeter, tone to the salesman. “He is cute, but is his little horn crooked?” Her voice switched abruptly to cold and angry. “Klim! I know plutonium, I love plutonium!”
Riza ducked down behind the desk and picked something heavy off the office floor. She returned to the salesman’s sight holding a large and dangerous-looking rifle—the Eviscerator in question, clearly. She cradled the gun like a child and chambered the weapon with a loud cha-chock. The gun’s breach was open, a sickly green light spilling out. She never took her eyes off the salesman. “And I know when something doesn’t smell right.”
The salesman swallowed hard as Riza bent her head down to sniff the open chamber on the gun deeply like she was smelling wine, or doing a line of cocaine.
“Okay, Klim, here’s the deal. Some associates of mine are going to stop by.” The salesman actually thought he heard Klim make a frightened “eeep” sound over the earpiece. Riza continued as if she had heard nothing. “My advice is not to resist. Less splatter for someone else to clean up.”
The salesman heard Klim frantically babbling, pleading. Riza tapped the earpiece and disconnected the call. She placed the rifle on the desk in front of her and looked up, all malice gone from her eyes and voice instantly. She cocked her head slightly. “Now, where were we?” She looked from the clearly rattled salesman to the little pink animal. “Ah, yes. My little chubby bubby with the crooked horn,” she baby-talked at the creature as she opened the plastic cage’s door and reached inside.
Riza scooped up the badger-like animal and carefully lifted it out of the cage. She stroked the little creature’s back and then looked up to the salesman as she flicked the fake horn off its head with a single finger. The salesman paled visibly.
Riza looked back to the badger. “Oh. Oh dear. Did the bad man crazy-glue a pipe cleaner to your head?” She set it on her desk and took up the rifle again, bringing it humming to life with the push of a button. She aimed it at the salesman, who curled away in terror.
“Speaking of extinction…” Her finger tightened on the trigger, preparing to fire.
An alarm tone sounded from one of the half-dozen tablets Riza had on her desk. She glanced over at the tablet clamoring for attention. On the screen she saw live security camera footage of a sleek speedboat approaching her island. She reached out to activate the web of underwater mines that encircled her island, but paused when she got a better view of the man at the helm of the boat. It was H, Agent H. Her H.
Riza looked back to the hapless salesman who had been seconds away from pain and oblivion. “I’m so sorry,” she said to the terrified man, her voice once again pleasant and businesslike. “Can we do this another time? I have a visitor.”
25
H piloted the classic, wooden speedboat toward the private island of Riza Stavros. He knew from personal experience how intricate and expansive her security was, and he was certain she already knew he was coming. Physically, the island was beautiful and intimidating, just like the woman who owned it. The crumbling but still-formidable walls of an ancient fortress ringed the lower approaches to the island. Riza’s guards patrolled those walls and the boat docks, making unseen approach and infiltration impossible. There was one possible exception to that—the jagged, vertical cliff on the back side of the island. Riza’s multimillion-dollar villa was the crown on the highest peak of the island, nestled among the still-majestic ruins of a crumbling twelfth-century castle and an abandoned monastery, with its basilica dome still intact and shining bronze in the sunlight. H cut the engines and drifted in, closer to the dock and pier complex.
He put on his most charming smile and blew a kiss toward the villa.
From dozens of different hidden emplacements among the rocks, large turrets bristling with alien weapons appeared, their barrels extending, all trained on H.
H’s smile fell and he hastily pulled out a handkerchief, waving it above his head wildly.
“Riza, don’t shoot! It’s me. It’s H!”
There was no response for several very long seconds, as H’s voice echoed through the stone canyons. Then the gun barrels retracted and the turrets descended below the rocks once again. H sighed with relief and steered the boat toward the dock.
Beside Riza’s yacht, a fleet of speedboats, and an assortment of small pleasure craft, H also saw Riza’s personal bodyguard, a hulking, eight-foot-tall Tarantian brute named Luca, waiting for him. Luca was all gray muscled skin and scowls. He had a mane of blue hair that fell to his shoulders. From his forehead to the tip of his nose formed a tapered, almost arrowhead shape of thick bone plating.
His eyes were shaded over his massive brow and looked small and cruel. H waved at Luca and the two-armed alien guards that flanked him, as he tossed the big Tarantian his bow line. Luca handed it off to one of his subordinates who quickly tied the line, securing H’s boat. H stepped onto the dock, covered by the other guard. He carried a multicolored gift bag, tied closed with a ribbon. H walked up to Luca.
“Hey big guy,” H said, looking up into Luca’s angry eyes, “miss me?”
“No,” Luca rumbled. The bodyguard shoved H in the direction of a path at the end of the docks that led upward into the broken rocks of the island’s mountain face. H followed the path, Luca at his shoulder, the two guards pointing their guns at H’s back.
Just to one side of the path, a door embedded into the rocks of the granite island was set partially open. This was supposedly an old boathouse, H remembered—but he’d always suspected it was more than that. He peered in as they passed, careful not to show his escorts that he was scoping out the place, and was rewarded with the sight of a bank of high-tech security monitors at the back of the dark room. He let out a breath of relief, which cut short as he looked up at the alien gun mounts that surrounded the path. They seemed to be tracking him as he moved. He really hoped that was just an automatic setting. Riza wasn’t the type to forgive and forget.
“That’s the worst thing about breakups,” H said as they walked closer to the villa, “losing those friendships. We had some good times, didn’t we?”
Luca was silent.
“Well… Riza and I had good times. You just sort of lurked.”
The winding path brought the party to a flatter patch of land, still some way from the main villa, in which a large orangery nestled. Luca punched in a code to the keypad beside the orangery’s door. The door hissed open and Luca shoved H inside, then followed him in, leaving the other guards to wait outside.
Luca led him to a clearing in the massive glass dome. There was a tranquil pond and trees from hundreds of alien worlds scattered around the clearing. There were also orange trees among the alien flora, giving the whole place a lovely scent. H watched the silver and blue lilies on the pond’s surface drift lazily about. Then he saw the “lilies” rise up on the water’s surface—each alien on thread-like legs of silver—and skate, almost weightless on the surface tension of the water. They circled and danced in increasingly complex and beautiful patterns.
A tiny, orange alien hummingbird darted up to H’s face. The agent was able to see that the bird had a small face like a lovely woman wearing an ornate, purple masquerade mask. The long, needle-like “nose” of the mask was actually the bird’s beak. H smiled at the flitting creature, which was just out of his reach. The little face smiled back and seemed to be trying to say something with its minuscule mouth below the beak.
A woman spoke from behind him. “Wonderful, isn’t she?” H would know that voice anywhere. It filled him with a jumble of emotions, from anger to desire to fear. He turned as Riza, as striking and lovely as ever—no, she looked even better—walked toward him, like a sleek panther, out of the foliage. Luca, ever-present, lurked a few paces behind her.
Riza stopped inches from H’s face. “I love dumb, beautiful creatures.”
Her hand shot out to slap H’s face. H caught her wrist. She swung with her other hand and H caught that one too. Then her third hand flew up and slapped his cheek with a loud crack that made all the nearby birds screech and scatter. “Ow,” H muttered. He released her other arms, rubbing his stinging cheek.
Riza gave him an up-and-down look, noticing his lack of an MiB-sanctioned black suit. “MiB finally showed you the door?”
H bristled a little at that. “Showed myself out. Some horses are born to roam free.”
“And others,” Riza added, “they just get shot.”
H lifted up the gift bag, and produced a jar from inside. “Peace offering.” He held it up for Riza to see.
A wide, almost manic, smile spread across her beautiful face. Inside the jar, which had air holes punched in the lid, Pawny, minus his armor and weapons, capered about trying to look like a docile, mindless creature.
“Meep, farble,” Pawny babbled, eyeing H and secretly wanting to punch a bunch of air holes in the MiB agent. Riza made cooing sounds.
“He’s cute,” she said, glancing up at H, “in an ugly sort of way.” Pawny began to sneer and make a very un-docile, un-mindless, finger gesture at the arms dealer; but H shook the jar, just slightly, and Pawny’s face fell against the glass and slid down a little at a time like a rubber mask.
“Blaaah,” Pawny said, teeth clenched behind his bucolic smile.
“Last of his kind.” H offered the jar to Riza.
She melted a little at those words, holding the jar in two hands and placing a third hand on H’s chest. She looked up into his eyes. “You always knew the way to my heart.”
“And you always knew how to make mine beat that little bit faster.” H placed his hand over Riza’s on his chest.
“Can I turn my earpiece off for this part?” Em’s voice said in the tiny transceiver in H’s ear.
* * *
On the jagged rocks below the villa, Em was slowly struggling her way up the cliff face, a comm unit in her ear, too. She’d sneaked out of the boat when H was being taken up the path by the henchmen—all the cameras she could see had tracked his movement along the path as she’d bolted for the cliffside and its camera-free climb. This Riza woman was clearly still holding a grudge, or obsessed, and H had been right that his presence would prove a good distraction.
It was too hot, and the work was too hard for formal wear. She’d ditched her MiB jacket, shirt, and tie back at the boat, and now wore only her black sleeveless undershirt and black pants and shoes. She was almost to the level where she had spotted the gun emplacements popping out of the rocks. It was slow going, but she knew she had to make sure every rock was really a rock, not a booby trap or panel that would trigger an alarm system. The wind had picked up a bit as she climbed higher, but it was a cool breeze off the water, not strong enough to be a risk of blowing her off the rocks and sending her falling to her death. She looked out across the perfect blue water, the sun flashing on its surface.
If it weren’t for the nauseating lovers’ reunion playing out in her earpiece, and the likelihood of imminent discovery and death, this would actually be a pretty fun way to spend an afternoon.
* * *
“Oh, H, I was looking forward to watching my guns tear you to pieces.” Riza stepped away from H. “But then I saw that sweet little grin of yours, and I had to know.”
“Know what?” H asked.
“The truth. Was any of it real? You, me?”
“Uh-oh.” Even though he couldn’t see it, Em’s voice gave away her grin. “This is going to be good.”
“I knew who you were from the start,” H said. “My job was to gain your trust; and when the opportunity came, take you down. That’s the truth.”
“You said you didn’t know she was an arms dealer!” Em snapped in his ear.
“What happened along the way—” he cupped Riza’s perfect chin, and raised her head to meet his gaze “—me falling for you? That was real.”
Riza’s cautious countenance softened and the two former lovers looked deeply into each other’s eyes. There was nothing else, no one else. The time, the angry words, they all fell away.
“There’s not a neuralyzer in the world that could make me forget that one,” Em said.
“Thank you, H.” Riza’s voice was both earnest and vulnerable. “For giving me closure.”
She carried Pawny’s jar over to a small wicker table between a pair of matching lounge chairs near the pond. She set the jar down on the table and turned back to address Luca, not H. When she spoke, her voice was detached and businesslike. “Get rid of him.”
“Hold on,” H said as a smiling Luca grabbed his shoulder in a vise-like grip. “I’ve got feelings too! Don’t I get closure?”
“Oh, an
d H,” Riza added, as he was being manhandled out the door by Luca, “here’s a tip—next time you come with a peace offering, don’t make it on the same day I come into possession of the most powerful weapon ever created.”
H grabbed hold of the door frame with both hands, struggling against the inevitable pull of Luca’s biceps. “This has nothing to do with that!” He disappeared from Riza’s view, save for his fingertips, still curled around the frame. His head and torso popped back into view. “It’s just an insane coincidence!” he shouted.
H vanished again—this time fingertips and all—as Riza’s Tarantian bodyguard finally yanked the agent free. The door hissed shut behind them.
Riza watched the door for a moment. A lone tear rolled down her flawless face. She dabbed it away with her third arm. Then she blinked, and it was as if the sadness had instantly left her. A weird smile came to her lips. She began to hum “I Will Survive,” as she picked up the jar with Pawny inside and made her way back to her office.
26
Luca had deposited H with the two guards waiting outside the orangery, and now they were walking him down the path back to the jetty, one on each side of H, blasters leveled at him. The agent babbled on as they descended closer and closer to the beach and, he guessed, his impending violent demise.
“I think that went pretty well, guys.” They were nearing a tight bend, where the path hugged the mountain on one side, with a sheer cliffside drop on the other. “What do you think? Do I have a chance?” They entered the turn and H kept talking. “I mean, has she been seeing anyone seriously?”
One of the guards pushed H again with the barrel of his rifle. H spun as soon as he felt the faintest touch of the gunmetal against his back. He grabbed the barrel with one hand and jerked the blaster out of the guard’s hand. He drove the heel of his palm into the guard’s chin with a crunch, sending the alien flying back over the side of the cliff.
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