by C. G Harris
I hesitated, not knowing what to call it, then said, “MiRACL.”
Nick smiled and nodded. “I am excited to see this through together.” He handed her the now empty briefcase.
Alex headed for the exit. I followed close behind but stopped before we got to the door.
“Tell Ryan it was nice to meet him as well. Should we bring him something next time?”
“It’s not necessary, but he has an affinity for old, rough, or homemade things. That little figure was perfect.”
I nodded, still wondering who or why anyone would add that to the delivery, not that anything in this mission was adding up.
“Got it. Thanks for your time, and I’m sure we will see you soon.”
Chapter Three
“I just don’t understand.” I stepped out of the elevator that wasn’t an elevator, but a breakneck nauseator used to travel back and forth between Topside and The Underworld. The device was called an Envisage Splice, and it had a creative sense of humor when it dumped its passengers out at various locations in the living world. At least Splice-Vader always brought us back down to the Judas Agency in The Nine, even if I was ready to hurl on my shoes. “Seems like we’re helping Nick and his company do something ... you know ...” I stopped short of using the G word.
“Something what?” she asked.
I leaned in and whispered. “Something good.”
She looked surprised. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Really?” My eyebrows went up. “You didn’t wonder ...”
She smacked my arm and rolled her eyes. “Of course, I thought about it. But then I remembered the moral policy of the Judas Agency is none our damn business. If Sabnack assigned us to go Topside and deliver a 2Pac CD to the head of the KKK, then the Grand Dragon will be beat boxing by sundown.”
I twitched. “I’m sure that made some sense to you, but when I was alive, a CD was an investment opportunity and a two pack was a very disappointing quantity of beer. Please try to keep your pop culture references to the pre-nineteen-eighties.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “Never mind. Point is, we were told to deliver that case to Nick, and we did.” Alex peeled off her wig and shook out her blue hair, somehow making it look like a beautician had tousled her long, silky locks into perfection. “Would you rather torture kittens or rough up little old ladies? Be glad we get to do something good and stop complaining.”
I cringed, and my eyes shot up and down the hallway as she drew out the word “good.” I didn’t have an aversion to being a do-gooder. Far from it. My rather discreet job description even demanded it. But announcing the G word among the halls of the Judas Agency was something akin to reciting filthy limericks at the Vatican. It just wasn’t right.
“Of course not. And I am glad, but I can’t help but wonder if there is another angle ...”
Alex rounded on me and put a finger in my face, stopping me in my tracks. “Not again. Do not start overthinking, scheming, or coming up with reasons to screw up this assignment.” She lowered her voice to a hissing whisper, but somehow it still felt like she was yelling at me. “You may have gotten away with that last stunt, but I am not going to gamble my job every time you get a little tingle of doubt. This place is the only thing standing between me and the frozen, psychotic wasteland waiting outside those doors. I, for one, am willing to do about anything to keep it that way.”
She lowered her finger and poked me in the chest as if to punctuate the point.
“If you don’t have the stomach for this job, fine, but don’t drag me down with you.”
Alex glared at me for a moment longer then turned to resume our march toward the locker rooms.
“You realize I still call those psychotic wastelands home.”
“Yeah, well, you’re psychotic, so it fits.”
I blinked. “That’s something coming from a tattooed bombshell with blue hair. Now I feel special.”
“You’re some kind of special, all right. Look, all I’m saying is we have a nice thing here. It’s not perfect but ... you know ... we’re in Hell, so let’s make the best of an imperfect situation. I hate doing bad things. Let’s enjoy helping a good guy this once.”
She paused outside the doors to her locker room and turned to look at me. As I peered back at her, I couldn’t help but wonder why Judas had chosen me as one of his thirty double agents. Why not Alex? She was at least as moral as I was, and Alex had a lot more skill in the espionage department. Why did I have to be the one to sneak around and lie to all my friends?
“Hello?”
I blinked as Alex snapped her fingers in front of my face.
“Have you heard a word I said?”
I nodded, although I had zoned out on the last few minutes of her speech. “Relax, don’t screw things up ... See, I listened.”
Alex stood there for a minute then rolled her eyes again. “So glad I wasted my breath.”
She turned and went to head through the door, but I reached out to grab her shoulder and stop her.
“Look, I’m still new to all of this. And I know you stuck your neck out for me on that last job, but don’t worry. I won’t do anything to mess things up for you here. I understand what this job means to you ... and what it would mean if you lost it. I won’t let you down.”
The smallest smile touched her lips, and for one suicidal moment, I found myself wanting to kiss them. Silence seemed to stretch between us for an eternity and something began to vibrate in my pants.
The coin I absently fingered in my pocket buzzed and I jumped back, almost throwing it across the hall.
Alex reared back as well; her face screwed up in surprise. “What is with you?”
“Sorry. Just a ... spasm ... thought I might sneeze.”
“Well, thanks for not spasm sneezing in my face.”
I nodded, trying to ignore the growing vibration in my pocket. This paging feature was a new addition to the coin’s rather obscure list of abilities. Now, every time Judas wanted to see me, the coin, and my pants, started vibrating like a loose hubcap.
“I should get going.” I offered Alex a sideways smile. “I meant what I said though.”
“You better.” Alex narrowed her eyes, but they contained no malice. “I can still make you pay in pain.”
I smiled, knowing she would do just that.
“Believe me, I have no desire to wind up in one of your jujitsu thigh locks.”
She blinked at me, then turned toward the door. “Get out of here, Gabe. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I watched her disappear through the door, loosening my collar and wishing I had time to change as well. It’s not like Judas cared about my wardrobe. He would only care that I showed up when he called, and that meant showing up right now.
Chapter Four
I reached up to knock on the huge, carved wooden door to Judas Iscariot’s office, but it opened of its own accord before my knuckles touched the door. Walking into the domain of the great betrayer was no small thing. Dread hung heavy in the air, and every step felt like it should coincide with a growling soundtrack that foreshadowed my impending doom.
Judas sat at his desk wearing a black on black tailored suit that made mine look like a K-Mart knock off. Procel and Mastema, his most trusted companions, flanked him on either side. The two Hellions were imposing enough to make Superman blanche. Procel was an 8-foot mountain of albino skin, dusky wings, and fiery red eyes. Horns stretched out of his forehead and reached up another two feet, increasing his intimidating height even more. But he wasn’t the one who had my feet tittering on the floor ready to run.
Mastema perched on her pedestal like a bird of prey—all sharp claws, leather, and shapely skin. A sadomasochistic nightmare gone terribly wrong. She wore a blindfold as if to punctuate her undeniable lust to hunt anything that moved. Despite her lack of vision, she tracked my every step, grinning with sharpened predatory teeth. It made me want to freeze a few steps inside the door every time I saw her.
“Come forwar
d, Gabriel.” Judas did not look up. He just motioned with his hand and continued to write on a piece of parchment with a large raven quill.
I slunk toward him and stood behind one of the chairs made of human bones opposite his desk. “You know there is this thing called e-mail now.” I cleared my throat and tried not to sound like a pubescent teenager. “You can send messages instantly.”
Judas stopped writing and glared up at me without moving his head.
I offered a weak smile. “You don’t have to use pigeons, or smoke signals, or this coin.” I held the denarius up like he didn’t know what it looked like. “Just click a button and whoosh, off your message goes. I hear you can add cute little smiley faces to ...”
“Stop talking.” Judas’s voice boomed out into the room as if he had shouted into a subwoofer.
I jumped, dropped the coin, then bumped the skeleton murder chair in front of me and had to catch it before the creepy thing fell over. “Yes, sir, shutting up now.”
Judas glared at me a moment longer while I righted his furniture and made a point of avoiding eye contact at all cost. The coin appeared back in my hand, thanks to the annoying never-be-rid-of-it feature, and I put it back in my pocket while Judas completed whatever death decree he jotted on his evil scroll. I just hoped he hadn’t added my name to the list.
When he finished, Judas placed his quill on the giant slab of black obsidian he called a desk and stood to face me.
“I trust you are settling into your position here at the Judas Agency.”
I nodded and did my best not to fidget like I was about to pee myself. “Things are going much better now. I feel like I am getting the hang of this whole ...” I looked around and lowered my voice to a whisper. “You know, the double agent thing.”
“Yes.” Judas made no such effort to lower his voice, and the contrast made me jump again despite myself. “There is no need to whisper here. I’m aware of the ... double agent thing. I am, after all, the one who recruited you. Do you have anything to report?”
I shrugged, thinking about the odd mission Alex and I had been tasked to. “Yes and no.”
Judas sighed. “Please don’t waste my time with indecision. Tell me what you have.”
I nodded. “Sorry. The job we’ve been assigned to, it’s almost too easy. We deliver super-secret reports to a guy who seems to be doing ... well, good things.”
Judas stared at me for a moment. “That’s it? You’re worried that you are helping someone?”
“Well, when you say it like that, the whole thing sounds silly.”
Judas stood and bared his teeth in a snarl beneath his ragged beard. For a moment, I thought he might crawl over his desk, but he decided to take the long way around and stopped just inside of what I would call personal space.
His eyes met mine, and I did my best not to lean away. Every muscle in his body seemed too tense, and the vein in his forehead throbbed like a big bass drum.
“I don’t care about good deeds. Your job is to report bad things. Stop wasting my time with useless information.”
“Don’t take this wrong.” I tried to prevent my mouth from finishing the next statement, but I couldn’t shut it down. “You seem a little intense today. And for you, on a scale of one to ten, that’s about a fifty-three.”
Judas backed down a bit and crossed his arms, taking a moment to breathe. Mastema took the moment to giggle out a shimmering little trickle of murderous laughter, making my spine go cold.
“I apologize.” Judas nodded and paced away from me. “To be honest, a report was not the only reason I called you here. I need you to follow up on some distressing information I received.”
Inside, I cursed every second I had complained about my simple courier mission with Nick.
“Once in a great while, something referred to a Catastropher is bred and released onto the world. It is usually a person with the potential knowledge, position, or power to do enormous harm. Placing a Catastropher requires monumental planning and effort—years of breeding and preparation, sometimes even from birth. But the result of having someone in such a position is designed to bring about long-reaching catastrophic events to the living.”
Judas crossed his arms and paced the room.
“Such a person is almost always conceived above the level of this agency, and I have very little control over preventing it from happening. But unusual events landed the information in my lap. I know next to nothing other than the Catastropher is soon to be in a position of substantial influence and power. Your job is to discover the Catastropher’s identity and find a way to frustrate their plans.”
Chapter Five
“Wait.” I tried to let everything sink in, but Judas’s words bounced off my head like a dull mallet every time I tried to process them. “Far reaching consequences, a level above this agency, something you don’t know about? We just stopped a worldwide plague from infecting the human race.”
A few weeks ago, Alex and I had foiled a plan to spread a virus across the planet and pretty much end all life as we knew it. A plan assigned by the Judas agency to a pair of ruthless Judas Agents named Max and Jake. We discredited them both, killed Max, and Jake hadn’t been seen since. We did this all without revealing my true agenda about the Denarii Division to Alex.
“How could there be anything more wide-reaching than that? And who has authority over you, at least as far as disasters are concerned? I thought The Judas Agency was the cornerstone of catastrophe?”
I realized Judas had stopped pacing to stare at me while I finished my little tirade. “Sorry,” I cleared my throat and sank down onto the bone chair. “Please continue.”
I made a weird motion with my hand as I sat that made the whole action seem more like a curtsey than a prompt to keep talking. Judas stood there a moment longer, and I prayed he wouldn’t sick his crazy S&M assassin on me. Last time Mastema had hit me with those claws and leathery wings, I had all but stroked out hoping she wouldn’t suck out my eyeballs ... or whatever it was she did to her victims.
“To answer your question, no, a worldwide virus would not be the worst thing that could happen to the human race. Yes, something like that would be catastrophic, and I have every desire to prevent such an event from happening. But there are worse things than disease, or war, or any of the other such trivialities we tend to deal with here.”
Judas continued pacing as if he were talking to himself as much as me, considering his words and thoughts as he went. I had to bite my lip at his use of the word trivialities to describe war and worldwide disease. My eyes flicked up to Procel. He shook his giant horned head in slow swooping arks as if to warn me that another outburst might be enough to loosen Mastema’s chain after all. Procel was no saint, but he was a pussycat compared to Mastema. If she acted as Judas’s Pitbull, Procel was his cat, slinking in the dark, watching, listening, waiting for you to fall asleep. Neither gave me happy dreams with clouds and rainbow-farting unicorns.
I managed to keep my mouth shut, even though Judas took an inordinately long time to continue. He let his last statement hang in the air as he examined a gruesome piece of artwork on his wall, all but daring me to interrupt again.
“Take for instance, the nuclear technology,” he finally continued. “Scientists took what should have been a remarkable advance in power, medicine, and industry and turned it into a weapon of war that terrorizes, pollutes, and destroys still today—and will for generations to come. Who would have ever believed that the mass production of the automobile would cause pollution with irreversible global effects, wars, and the overuse and depletion of something now known as fossil fuels? A disease can be cured, a war will end, but revolutionary advancements pushed in the wrong direction? A political leader who can guide and influence their agenda for generations—centuries—after he is gone? Democracy, yea for the good guys. Socialism, not so much. And even the wins are many times twisted until they are indistinguishable from the losses.”
Judas rounded his desk, sat down in his
chair, and steepled his fingers as he settled his gaze on me. He peered into my eyes so long I thought he might break into a power ballad. I smiled at him, then shifted my weight and stared at the ceiling It felt like anticipating a five-thousand-volt electric shock, only you weren’t allowed to act like you were about to receive a five-thousand-volt electric shock.
Just when the tension made me want to jump out of my chair, Judas took a breath and leaned in to speak a little quieter, as if he were afraid someone might overhear him. The sheer implication of the act made my skin crawl. He ran the Disaster Factory. The fact that he spoke in whispered tones now made me want to unhear anything he might say before he said it.
“You asked if there was an authority above me.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, besides Big Red ...” I held my hands up above my head like makeshift horns then glanced at Procel and put them down again. “No offence, big guy.”
“None taken.” His deep voice vibrated the room, and I shot him a wink in response before I realized Judas had his glaring eyes on me again.
“Sorry. Nerves make me say stupid things when I shouldn’t, you know?”
Judas shook his head. “It’s a wonder an intelligent word ever manages to come out of your mouth.”
My lips spread in a grin, and for half a second, I thought about giving Judas a high five for the burn but then decided it might earn me a burn of a whole different sort. Instead, I forced myself to fold my hands in my lap and lean forward to listen.
“You were saying something about troublemaker royalty or some such?”
I raised my eyebrows and waited for him to continue. After another long moment, he let out a sigh and went on.
I was definitely growing on him.
“There is an organization known as the Council of Seven.”
“Like the seven deadly sins?” I scowled, then winced, when I realized it had only taken me five seconds to interrupt Judas yet again.