Agent Q, or the Smell of Danger!

by M. T. Anderson

  “By the sulphur tides of Io! I do not think you should laugh at a profession that ensures that every American citizen may—”

  “Please, children!” said Drrok with annoyance. “We are trying to save your friend! Stop the silly fighting!”

  At this, Lily and Jasper were overcome with shame. They went from feeling almost like adults to feeling 100%, 120%, even 200% like children. Lily couldn’t believe that because of Taylor Quizmo’s weird conversation, now the Resistance thought they were squabbling, loud little brats. She wanted to sink through the cobblestones.

  Jasper, she noticed, was blushing.

  Drrok gave a few final comments. He bowed to the soldiers. They bowed back and ran off.

  “We have spies inside the Castle,” said Drrok. “They will tell us what has become of the boy.”

  “Spies inside the Castle?” Jasper repeated. “Swell.”

  Drrok nodded grimly. “It is our mission to try to infiltrate the Governing Committee’s ranks and get our hands on the list of all the secret government agents in the city of Wilmington. Then we will make their names known to everyone in town, and nobody will be fooled by the Autarch’s evil spies anymore.”

  “You’d have to get up pretty early to fool Taylor Quizmo,” said Taylor Quizmo.

  Drrok ignored him. He said, “Do not worry for the moment, children. We will seek out news of your friend.”

  After this, he showed the kids to their rooms—one for the boys, one for the girls. There were no beds, but the brick floors were warmed by flues, and he said that they would be comfortable in their sleeping bags. Lily started to get the idea that Drrok, the gardener, wasn’t really the gardener. He seemed like he was in charge of the safe house. He asked the kids if there were any other questions.

  Katie asked about the lobsters. Lily had wanted to, but she felt too shy to talk. She was already intimidated by Taylor Quizmo—and now she felt completely humiliated because Drrok had reminded them that they had to be quiet. But Drrok did not seem to be angry anymore. And certainly, Lily was wondering about the lobsters.

  “Ah, the lobsters,” said Drrok. “Indeed. They guard the door for us.”

  “And you eat them?” said Katie.

  Drrok laughed. “No! No, you never eat a sentient lobster. They are as smart as you or me.”

  Jasper asked, “Are they part of the Resistance movement, then?”

  Sorrowfully, Drrok nodded. “The Autarch is hated even by lobsters.”

  Taylor Quizmo whistled. “Coo-whee,” he said. “When even seafood hates you . . .”

  “They are not,” said Drrok forcefully, “seafood. They are allies disguised as seafood.”

  Jasper said, “I think that’s rather big of them.”

  Drrok nodded stiffly.

  “They are poets,” he said, “and painters, and they have a curious kind of silent drama that they perform in shawls. Their small black eyes are very expressive and darling.”

  “Darling?” said Taylor. “You mean ‘yummy,’ old man.”

  Drrok frowned.

  Things weren’t going very well for the kids, making friends with people from the Resistance movement.

  And things weren’t going very well for young Bvletch in the depths of Wilmington Castle, either.

  THE GLOVES COME OFF

  At first, hay, later rock, some cement—all of these complicated, rough surfaces . . . bobbing in front of Bvletch’s eyes as he gradually awoke . . .

  The truck was passing through huge metal gates, above which hung a sign that read KRAGB VILMINGTONIKA (Wilmington Castle), SSFRT KYELPII DOCHLA! (Secret Agents Welcome!). Bvletch shook his head. The worst thing that could happen to a friend of the Resistance had happened to him. He was being hauled into the Castle for questioning. Soon he would sit before the servants of the Autarch.

  “Come on,” the guards said to him, bundling him out of the back of the truck. He was sore and still dazed. He stepped gingerly on the cobblestones and stumbled. He was in a smoke-streaked courtyard. At the old windows high up, soldiers were posted. They carried big guns and peered down at him.

  His whale-and-spaniel shorts were bristling with hay. It had gotten stuck in the pockets.

  They led him inside.

  They passed great flights of stone steps, down which the princes of Wilmington once swept with their brides and trains. Now many of the stained-glass windows had been smashed and replaced with particle board.

  “The Committee is very interested in talking to you,” one of the guards told Bvletch. “They have a few questions.”

  “They’ll ask real gently,” said another guard. “‘Pretty please.’”

  Then both guards laughed kind of meanly.

  Bvletch felt awful. For days he had been feeling bad. He had been feeling alone. He was a very tenderhearted person, and so it was difficult for him to be snooty and sarcastic to Drgnan and Grzo all the time. He hated sneering and making up insults. In a strange way, he felt better being mocked by the guards.

  But now he was more alone than he ever could have imagined.

  The great hall, the ballroom, the audience chamber—all these had been turned into workrooms for hundreds of agents who ran New Castle County’s spy network. The huge rooms had once been elegant, but now they were crammed with desks. On the walls were frescoes of court life in antique times, back when counts and damsels rode out to hunt for unicorns, and when all the great families of Wilmington would open wide the gates of their tall, faceless palaces and come out into the streets for festivals.

  Now holes had been drilled in the paintings so that wires could pass through the walls. The head of a dancing prince on the wall had been smashed to make way for a pneumatic tube that rushed messages from one office to another. There were wires everywhere, hanging from brackets, clamped to the walls, nailed onto wooden posts. On the desks were old computers—big, lumpy monitors yellowed with age, and dot matrix printers chattering away while rolls of paper slowly chugged onto the floor, crammed with lists of allies and aliases and what free gifts they had requested for turning in their friends and family members.

  Men and women from the Ministry of Silence looked up from their computers and watched Bvletch pass with disgust in their eyes, with reproach, with pity, with glee.

  He stared at his feet so he wouldn’t have to see them.

  He came to a low, arched door, and the guards pushed him through it. He found himself in the jail. A man in a black linen hood and a caftan made of body odor led Bvletch along a row of cells. In each one was an enemy of the Autarch. They looked up blankly at the new prisoner, then their heads drifted back down onto the wet hay that surrounded them.

  The black-hooded jailor was about to throw Bvletch into a cell when a guard behind him said, “The Committee wants to see him now.”

  Bvletch was startled. He thought he would have a few hours to compose himself.

  “They want to see if he’ll squeal about where this safe house is.”

  Bvletch decided, right then and there, that he was not going to let them know anything.

  But now he was shoved along farther, and through another door.

  It was a dark, dark chamber. There was only one shaft of light. It shone on a little wooden grade-school chair. The chair had shackles attached to the floor on either side of it. Motes of dust floated through the spotlight above it.

  Bvletch was seated roughly in the chair. His hands were clamped into the shackles.

  The guards stepped away, out of the circle of light.

  A long time passed. Bvletch’s eyes started to adjust to the brilliance and shade. He began to pick out objects ranged around the edges of the room. They were machines. Awful machines. He could not see well enough to make out their mechanisms, but their purpose was clear.

  Evil, evil machines, glinting and waiting.

  Bvletch decided they could never make him talk. He thought of Drgnan, Lily, Katie, and Jasper off at the safe house, counting on his silence. He thought of the single file of
monks making their way through the wilderness to their new home. Though he didn’t know where exactly it was now, he did know things the Autarch would be interested to find out: Bvletch knew that Vbngoom had moved. He knew that it had relocated somewhere in the western reaches of the Newark Mountains. And the Autarch must never find either of these things out, under any circumstances. Bvletch closed his eyes and tried not to cry.

  “Rise for the entrance of the Governing Committee of Wilmington!” barked a guard.

  Bvletch rose as best he could, being partially held down with chains.

  A door in the far wall slammed open. He could hear it but not see it.

  Then the Governing Committee entered.

  Footsteps approached. Only one set of footsteps.

  The Committee was a tallish, thinnish man in a long, black coat. The coat had a row of tiny buttons all the way from his neck to his knees. The Committee wore a high collar, and his hands were clasped in front of him. His face was long, like the sole of a shoe.

  “I am the Committee,” he said. “Sit.”

  Bvletch sat.

  The young monk waited for the rest of the members of the Committee to enter.

  But the man who had just sat down opposite him, barely visible outside the ring of brilliant light, said, “We aren’t waiting for anyone. I am the whole Committee. After some disagreements a few years ago, a few of my fellow members unfortunately had to resign. And fall into the ocean. A shame. I was sorry to lose them. The work? It is a hard burden for me to bear alone, but I manage.” The Governing Committee sighed. He looked around. His face looked like white, powdered leather. “So. To begin. You know the old saying? ‘We have ways of making you talk’? It is true, citizen.” His voice was slow and soft and scratchy.

  “I wish,” the Committee explained, “to hear about your home. Who does not enjoy a memory of home when he is far from it? Our questions shall begin there, child.” He waited. There was silence in the chamber. “It is no use resisting,” the Governing Committee hissed. “I rule here with an iron fist.” He held up his white hand and curled the fingers cruelly.

  He looked at it. He frowned unhappily.

  He called a guard’s name. The guard stepped forward.

  The Committee said, “Shouldn’t I have some metal gloves? I feel like this kind of thing should be done with metal gloves on.”

  The guard cleared his throat. “We got you some metal gloves, Committee, sir. We had them made up.”

  “No. No, you did not. Those were not gloves, citizen. Those were mittens. There is a difference. A key difference, soldier. Metal mittens do not frighten people.”

  “Why weren’t they gloves, sir?”

  “Because gloves have individual fingers. And mittens just have a kind of a big . . . finger blob, I suppose you could say. With a separate thumb.”

  “There’s not much of a difference, Committee, sir.”

  “That’s a huge difference,” the inquisitor snapped.

  “You don’t need your fingers for interrogating, sir.”

  The Committee pressed his palms to his eyes, then folded his hands in front of him. “Citizen,” said the Committee with a sigh, “that is not the point.”

  “Well,” said the guard, “so what is the p—?”

  “Go ask the ocean,” spat the Committee, and pressed a button.

  The guard disappeared into a trapdoor that presumably led to the sea. There was a long, echoing yelp.

  The Committee turned back to Bvletch. “Fine. Good, citizen,” he said. “Shall we begin?” He stood, drawing himself up to his full witch-broom length. He pondered for a moment, looking shrewdly at his monkish prisoner.

  “It really would be better if I had metal gloves, wouldn’t it?” he asked.

  SPIES, FRIES, SURPRISE

  In the courtyard of the safe house, it was a beautiful evening. The air was warm and luscious. The courtyard smelled green and full of the fragrance of fruit. There were candles lit in alcoves, and a little band played the old folk songs of Delaware while a few dreamy girls sang along, braiding one another’s hair.

  Katie sat beside Drgnan on a flight of steps.

  “They’re really nice to help us,” said Katie.

  “The monks of Vbngoom and the Resistance have always helped one another,” said Drgnan. “We all wish with our whole hearts that the elected Governor of Delaware would be restored to the throne and would rule with benignity and peace as in the days of yore.”

  “When exactly was yore?”

  Drgnan and she smiled at each other—but their smiles did not last long. They were both worried.

  “We all must help one another,” said Drgnan. “The legs of the donkey do not quarrel. They do not go off in different directions in huffs.”

  Katie squeezed her hands between her knees. “I’m worried about Bvletch,” she said. “What do you think is happening to him right now?”

  Drgnan did not even want to answer. He envisioned the interrogation rooms that must be up at the Castle: awful machines; evil, evil machines, glinting and waiting.

  He could not bear to think of his spiritual brother locked up there.

  Katie whispered, “I wish I were at home.” Then she looked quickly at Drgnan and said, “I mean—not without Bvletch. But all of us. I wish we were already there. I can’t stand all these people having to hide, and worrying about who’s going to turn them in, and . . .” Katie felt like she was about to cry at the thought of all of it—the Castle looming above the sooty city, the burned-out hills of Brandywine, the hopelessness of it all. “I wish I were home and my father was with me,” she admitted. She pictured her dad, his hair as dark as his suit. She didn’t feel strong, suddenly, like a girl used to fighting mutant armies with a toilet plunger. She wanted to hear her father say, “Hey, honey. I’m right here. Don’t be afraid.”

  But Katie’s father didn’t even know where she was. He and Katie’s mom were probably panicking, calling the police, terrified.

  And Drgnan Pghlik thought of his fellow monks wandering through the wilderness. Their safety rested with him and with Bvletch. He thought of his home, the monastery, standing empty, waiting to be filled again with novices playing volleyball. He thought of the hundreds of miles between him and his new home. He thought of Bvletch, somewhere in the dark, surrounded by cranks and cogs. Buried in a dungeon so deep that no one could hear his cries for help.

  “We’ll get there,” said Katie, “won’t we? We’ll get back to Pelt and you’ll see it? And my house? I’ll show you around?”

  Drgnan could only nod. He could not speak.

  “And Bvletch will be there, won’t he?” said Katie.

  Drgnan looked at her, and then he looked away.

  They both were so scared, so worried, that they hardly noticed when their hands slid together. They didn’t even look down when their hands met and held fast to each other, as if to say, It will be okay. Then Katie realized what was happening, and she felt a flood of joy—and a withering blast of guilt at feeling a flood of joy—and then the joy again, too strong to be frozen out—and Drgnan looked at her wonderingly.*

  Meanwhile, across the courtyard, at a picnic table, Lily couldn’t get rid of Taylor Quizmo, Secret Agent. It had taken her all afternoon, but she had finally realized what was going on: Taylor was not going to go away until she said he was cute. But there was no way she was going to tell him he was cute, because Lily always tried to tell the truth, and she thought he was kind of ugly and mean.

  At first Jasper sat with them at the table. A waiter asked them if he could bring them anything from the restaurant. They all said they wanted hamburgers, which sounded great, until Taylor started saying spoiled-kid things to the waiter like, “We don’t want just any old cow-butt, friend.” He chuckled richly. “You know what would be superb? Some bleu cheese on top, some fresh minced chives—fresh, mind you, otherwise they just taste like old onion—a dab of Worcestershire sauce . . . What?”

  The waiter said, “We don’t have bleu
cheese, kid.”

  “I forgot,” said Taylor, winking at his two dinner companions. “We’re not in Kansas anymore. All right, friend, what say to mixing some crumbled feta in with the ground sirloin, a little ground pork sausage, virgin olive oil, some fresh basil and dill, a red onion minced really fine—uncooked before you put it in the meat—all whipped up into patties and then topped with juicy slices of a thick heirloom tomato?”

  “We’re kind of a fried-clam joint.”

  “I’m fine with just a normal burger,” said Lily quickly. She could see that the waiter was getting irritated.

  “Ditto for me,” said Jasper.

  “I like the finer things in life,” said Taylor, casting an arch glance at Lily. “Have you heard of the Serbian cevapcici? Ringing the changes on the old burger of yesteryear. Some lamb, some paprika—”

  “Three burgers,” exclaimed the waiter, scribbling on his pad. “Want Kraft slices on top?”

  “Yes, please!” said Lily.

  The man nodded and walked off.

  Taylor said, “I’ve been around the world in my line of work, being a secret agent, you know, which is what I do. And I guess I’ve come to appreciate a good hotel and a fine meal. Not that we’re going to get either one here.” He chuckled. “Cheers,” he said, “to us.” He lifted up his Coca-Cola to click it against their Coca-Colas. “Normally I prefer to drink an Italian cremosa. A dash of amaretto soda syrup, seltzer, some cream . . . or something like a Vietnamese ginger cordial. Also excellent.” He looked intensely at Lily. “Which do you prefer? But I forget. You’re a Coke woman yourself. Aren’t you? Diet, I hope.” He looked at her face and her shapeless T-shirt. “Yes, ma’am.”

  This was incredibly mean, but Lily didn’t even care. She and Jasper felt tired and awkward. They were both worried about Bvletch. They hadn’t heard a word from the Resistance’s spies in the Castle. They’d spent a difficult afternoon waiting. They’d hung around the courtyard. A television was blaring, but there was nothing on. There were just programs like The Adorable Autarch’s Hit Parade or spy game shows in which the Autarch’s spies publicly unmasked other spies—game shows with names like I’ve Blown Your Cover! and This Is Your Double Life!