The Rogue Agent

by Shiloh White

  Scott kept walking through the crowd, so I couldn't stop to check. And I didn't have to. I ran forward to catch up, and bumped into a man in front of me. “I'm sorry, sir—” I started to say, but I froze when he turned around.

  The man standing in front of me looked exactly like Dad. I blinked really hard and opened my eyes again, but he was still there. “Just watch where you're going, kid,” the man grumbled and walked off in the other direction.

  Trying to move again felt like breaking my body out of a block of ice. Once I finally got my legs moving, Scott was further ahead now. I didn't want to get separated if this was what my mind was going to do.

  “Scott, wait!” I yelled as I ran to catch up with him. He didn't turn around. My voice must have been drowned out by the crowd of people. I kept my eyes on his black hair that stuck out a couple inches more than most of the people and, making that my goal, pushed past people and vendors to catch up. I just about yelped when one vendor grabbed me by the arm and pulled me over to his booth to see the clothes he was selling.

  I shook my head at him and turned around to catch up to Scott, and bumped right into another person, falling onto my backside in the process. The person reached down to help me back up. When I saw his face, everything stopped.

  I was looking up at my dead brother Lucas.

  ✽✽✽

  He tried to help me up, but I pulled my arm back like he was a ghost. He looked at me funny, with the exact same eyes my brother did. Then he shrugged and walked off. I sat there for a second, hugging my knees and processing what just happened.

  It couldn't have been him. Lucas was gone. If it were possible that he wasn't, how would he even get here? Plus, it would mean that my dad and my gym teacher were here too, which was impossible. So how did it look exactly like him? I felt a tear fall down the side of my face as my brain tried to rationalize this problem.

  “Lucy!” I heard a familiar voice yell. I forced myself to stand up, and I looked around. Scott was coming back this way on the path. “Over here!” I yelled and waved at him, running in his direction. As I got closer, I decided to scrape up what little bit of sanity I still had. So I stopped running and wiped my tear.

  “Where did you go?” he asked, looking like he'd seen a ghost too. “One second you're behind me, and the next, poof!” I shrugged. “

  I don't know what happened.” I lied, avoiding his gaze. “I was trying to catch up to you.” I continued. “The crowd must have separated us.” Scott studied the look on my face.

  “Lucy,” he said, “this place is a lot less protected from The Dust than the Depression Force is, so it's a lot easier for your Depression to get the better of you. It's important that you stay focused on what's real, and what's really going on.”

  So it was the Dust. I let out a small sigh of relief. I was still upset that my Depression was still doing this, but at least I was aware of it. So I could try to force down those thoughts.

  “Come on,” Scott said as he started walking again, “We're almost there. It's just past this booth.”

  As we walked past “this booth,” it smelled like much more than just “this booth.” The wafting aroma of fresh bread and other baked goods invaded my nose and I swooned. I looked over at the booth, and it was full of all kinds of bread. Did I mention I love bread?

  The smell reminded me of Anna. Her parents owned a Mexican-style bakery when we were younger. Some mornings at school, Anna would be dropped off with a bag full of pan dulce for the two of us to share at lunch. I tried to hold back the fact that my mouth was watering a little.

  For a moment, it took over my senses. I reached out subconsciously towards the booth and the smell got stronger. Before I knew it, my feet were leading me in that direction. Then something tugged on my arm and I stopped. “You have to stay focused,” said Scott, from behind me. I turned around and saw he grabbed my wrist to keep me from getting lured into the booth. “Fine,” I said as I pulled my hand back and reluctantly walked past the booth, “I'm focused. But did you not smell how amazing that was?” I asked. “It's not important right now. Now come on. It's around here somewhere.” Scott said, looking around as we walked. He moved off the path and toward the side of an old building wall. He peeked around it. “Ahh, here we are,” he said, walking around the side of the corner.

  It opened into a small alleyway, with a singular purple tent at the end. From what I could see, it was no larger than a portable toilet. For all I knew, it was what the Square considered a bathroom. Maybe they were all over the place.

  “Do you need to use the restroom?” I blurted out to Scott before I could compose my thoughts.

  “What?” he turned around, a confused look on his face.

  “I just figured…” I gestured to the tent as well as I could, but he wasn't looking any less confused.

  “You know what? Forget it. What is this place?” I asked.

  “It's where Dart gets pieces for antiques, like our TransPort.” I shifted from foot to foot.

  “Antique? You mean it's that old?” I didn't quite like it being called an antique, considering I was the one who had to sit in it.

  “Huh?” Scott looked at me like I made a joke he didn't quite get. “Oh, right. I understand why that'd be a problem. To answer your question, it's not that old. Just think of it like something refurbished.”

  Right, I thought, Refurbished. That was basically a nicer way of calling it “an antique that we still use,” which didn't really ease my worry.

  “Anyway,” Scott said, waving away the topic with his hand. “I want you to wait out here while I get Dart's piece.”

  “How is that a good idea?” I asked. Considering he'd just told me to stay focused and be safe and not get lost out here, it sounded more like a contradiction than an idea.

  “The less people who know there's someone like you, from the other side of the Dust, the safer you'll be.” Scott said.

  Then before I could protest, he disappeared behind the front flap of the tent.

  ✽✽✽

  I succeeded at waiting for about four minutes, give or take a few seconds. I lost count around two hundred thirty-seven.

  Don't judge me. I needed to calm down somehow.

  Everyone made such a fuss about not letting me get hurt or go anywhere or be seen by anyone. Now here I was, purposely left alone in an alleyway. Make sense to you?

  Me neither. In fact, it just made me angry.

  It also didn't help my waiting either that I was just around the corner from the bread cart; wasn't long before the smell of the bread creeped around the corner with a convincing aroma-I mean argument: I smell heavenly. I taste even better. What are you doing all the way over there? Come try a bite. (No lie. That's what it said. I swear I heard it.) Then a loud GRRRRRWMPH from my stomach told me I wasn't crazy.

  I wasn't waiting any longer, and my tummy was in agreement.

  I paced back and forth trying to remember my last meal. It was lunch at the cafeteria...with Anna. School seemed so long ago. I'd almost forgotten about that. This whole Depression thing was a little overwhelming.

  GRRRRRWMPH went my stomach again...

  I didn't have a clue how to tell time in The Dust, and it certainly didn't help that we were underground. But lunch felt like over a decade ago, thanks to my stomach. And my stomach usually wasn't good at convincing me of things. Before I knew what was going on, I found myself at the open end of the alleyway.

  I watched the booth owner sell a brown bag of bread and biscuits to a lady standing with two little boys. Both of them each had their hand on one of the lady's—which I assumed was the mother's—arms. As they walked away, I realized that they were dressed in old, tattered clothes. It made me wonder if the bread would be cheap, since that woman could afford it.

  How insensitive of me, I know. But come on, my stomach was in charge right now.

  As I started to walk over to the booth, I stopped and noticed something about the crowd. A vast majority of the people were also in these o
ld clothes. Was I in a poor part of the neighborhood?

  I took a bigger look around the area I was standing in, particularly at the carts and booths and sure enough, even the vendors' clothes were nothing to gawk at. I began to wonder if maybe the Square was a huge open market where people could sell anything because that's what they had to do to get by. A wave of pity started to wash over me. It would explain all of the variety I'd seen since I arrived.

  GRRRRRWMPH, my stomach growled again, pulling me out of pity and sealing my fate. I walked over to the booth. The smell was overwhelming, and the selection of bread was just as stunning. I was wondering if the vendor would trade a limited edition Depression Force HQ hoodie for some fresh pan dulce, when a voice behind me shouted,

  “LOOK OUT!”

  I looked over with just enough time to see someone barrel down the path and straight into me with an “OOF!” knocking us both into the dirt.

  “Owowow...” I said while rubbing the elbow I landed on. “Could you watch where you're going next time, please?” I barked, pain fueling the anger in my voice.

  He stood up and brushed himself off, and I got a good look at him. I hoped what I thought about his appearance didn't show on my face. He was a relatively young man, probably in his twenties. He looked pretty well-off, unlike a large portion of the people here, in a white button-down shirt underneath a faded green blazer, studded with gold buttons. He also wore matching green slacks. The paleness of the green looked like someone who was about to throw up. To make matters worse, he wore a bright purple tie that threw off whatever ensemble he thought he was pulling off. He had dark brown hair, and between his knit eyebrows and crinkled smile lines, his face made him look as if he tried to be angry, but ended up in laughter all the time.

  “I'm so sorry about that,” he said in a smooth voice nothing like the shout from before, and reached down a hand to help me. I took it and he pulled me up, but didn't let go. He stared at me strangely and tilted his head and muttered something to himself, all while still holding my wrist.

  I was debating on whether to kick him and run, or yell for help. Before I could decide, he let go of me. “Oh, my apologies once again,” he said.

  I shrugged and smiled politely, feeling slightly less freaked out once I had my hand back.

  “Where were you going so quickly?” I asked, instantly regretting it. I shifted from foot to foot, wondering why I felt obligated to say anything to this weirdo.

  “I've got lots of things planned, you see.” he said with a straight face, still a bit distracted with looking at me rather than talking to me. Why in the world did I say anything to this guy in the first place? It must have been my stomach's doing; punishment for not eating soon enough.

  “You oughta be careful out here in the future, okay, kid?” He smiled at me with a crazy unnatural grin and rushed off down the path.

  I shivered after he was gone. Something about that guy felt really off. Between my stomach and the smell of the bread, however, I didn't spend too long thinking about him. I looked down at the hoodie and brushed it off, hoping the vendor wouldn't mind a little dirt. I walked over to the booth, and searched for the sort of bread I liked.

  “Lucy! Are you okay?”

  I turned and saw Scott running out of the alleyway, his face a mix of terror and relief. “I saw that guy run into you and take off,” he explained. “Are you hurt?”

  “I'm fine.” I assured him, one eye still on the bread cart.

  “Then you should’ve stayed where I told you!” he shouted at me. “It could have been a lot worse.”

  “It could've gone a lot better if you would have brought me inside.” I said, coming away from the cart. I was definitely cranky now. “Instead, you left me outside near my favorite food when I haven't eaten in too long. I can't think straight. There's my excuse.” I shoved out a frustrated sigh, and continued, asking, “Did you even get the piece?”

  He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small metal doohickey halfway-wrapped in a cloth, a grin on his face.

  “Sweet.” I said, only half-impressed at the little thing. I would have much rather seen a loaf of bread underneath the cloth.

  Scott placed it back into his pocket and gestured for me to follow him. “Next stop, De Mentoria.”

  ✽✽✽

  At this point, I was ready to skip De Mentoria altogether if it meant getting to eat something. The more I tried to ignore my stomach's hunger pangs, the worse they got. I followed Scott back down the path to the subway. Past the smell of the bread, and all of the other great foods that were being sold...I tried my hardest to stay focused. I kept telling myself, as we pushed past the crowds of people that could have knocked me over, that it was all for Chloe. I was just hungry. I could only imagine what she was going through right now.

  When we got to the steps down into the subway tunnel, all of the people started to bottleneck together. They pushed and shoved and yelled at each other like a stampede making their way down the steps. Scott was a few steps ahead of me now, and people kept pushing past me, making the gap even larger.

  I ducked underneath the crowd to try to squeeze past people to keep up with him, but it was like being dragged by an underwater current. I lost my vision on where he was going. I stood up and tried to look around for him, but I couldn't see Scott anywhere now.

  “Scott!” I yelled out, but my voice was drowned out by the shouting of the crowd.

  A wave of anxiety rushed through me. My fingers started getting jittery. I looked behind me at the steps and I wanted to curse. There was no way to back up to the entrance to the subway with all the people rushing their way down. I could hardly keep moving forward without falling over. I took deep breaths and walked down each step carefully until I made it to the middle of the terminal.

  Where did Scott go? How was I supposed to find him?

  Dart said the far right train. That's where we were supposed to go next. I looked over at the right side of the station, and there was a rather empty car waiting there. That must have been it. I pushed through all of the people, trying to move towards the car. Each step was like walking through molasses, until I stopped completely.

  There was a hand on my arm, pulling me back. I yanked it back and broke into a run, anxiety fueling me now. Before I made it out of the crowd, there were two people grabbing at me. One of them took my arms, and the other wrapped a blindfold around my eyes. The last thing I could see was being dragged into a dark area; away from the crowd. How quiet they were started to freak me out. All I heard was the voice of one of them, whispering something real quiet. I screamed and flailed, trying to get free. Then my legs got kicked out from behind, and I fell to my knees.

  I was a lot weaker than I thought from not eating. It took all I had not to fall over and close my eyes, even though all I could see was blocked from the blindfold. I used the last of my strength trying to pull my arms free from behind me. Then someone put a cloth over my mouth and my senses shut down. I couldn't hear anything, and it felt like someone sucked all the energy out of my body. I felt like I was being pulled away from my own body. I tried to move and stand again, but as soon as I rose to my knees, I fell back down. A muffled voice growled in what sounded like anger behind me. The last thing I felt was a swift blow to the back of my head before I lost consciousness.

  16. Them Bones, Them Bones, Them…Eye-Bones?

  I woke up sitting in a large room that blinded me as soon as I opened my eyes. The entire room—all of the walls, along with the floor and ceiling—were blanketed in the color white. It gave me the strange sense of déjà vu.

  I took another look around, and the ceiling occupied most of my attention; it was stranger than the other walls of the room. An older-looking man in a sweater vest and a young girl in a blue sundress sat on the cleanest of white couches directly above me. Another man in a white suit paced back and forth. I couldn't understand how they weren't falling. Nonetheless, I stood up slowly and moved from underneath the couch. I tried to get to
the corner of the room where I could see the young girl and the man's face, but I didn't want them to notice me. To them, I might have been the one on the ceiling.

  “Could you…give any details?” the man in the white suit said in a very sophisticated and snobby accent. I stopped moving and held my breath, trying to listen.

  “Details about what?” the young girl asked. Something about her voice was strange to me. She sounded familiar, but in a creepy déjà vu way that gave me chills. The man on the couch looked down at her and put his arm on her shoulder.

  The man in the suit paced back to the other side of the room. “I want to know more about your brother.” he said, in that voice adults use to help explain something to a child. “What did he say when you saw him?” It sounded nothing short of immature and fake as it came out of his mouth. It made me angry.

  “Stop,” the girl spoke again, sounding angry herself. “You're just being mean.”

  Her voice rang that bell in my head again, but I couldn't figure out from where. The man in the suit stopped pacing and directly up and me and I froze.

  “Why should I stop, Lucy?” he asked. Before I could even think of anything to say, the young girl stood up.

  “Because my brother is dead.”

  I gasped, and as soon as I did, the room fell apart. The couch, the walls, and all three of the people on the ceiling all morphed into black smoke. It enveloped the room and came surging at me at full speed. It wrapped itself around me and covered my whole body until I couldn't breathe.

  ✽✽✽

  I came to gasping for a big gulp of air, and choked on it. (Not my finest performance, I know.) Turns out I could breathe just fine. It didn't feel like there was a Depression Agent coiling around me, sucking the life out of me. The only thing threatening to me that was an awful smell of rotten food and sewage. I opened my eyes to see what it was, but everything was still black. I hadn't noticed the blindfold still stuck against my face, wet with sweat. I reached up to take it off, but my arms didn't move from behind me. They were tied behind my back, and the chair I was sitting on. I struggled to get my hands free, but the knots were tight on my wrists. All I did manage to do was scoot the chair around.