With a massive effort, she pulled herself together. Nothing that she would go through could come close to what was happening to those men inside. She had to suck it up.
She tore her eyes away from the grey doors and moved to the east side of the building. Drifting through another set of doors she found an office-like space – it resembled old pictures of military bases in the Second World War – tables with charts and maps, with figurines representing the players in the game dotted all around. Soldiers in immaculate uniforms swarmed all around. More men came in, barking orders at others who updated files and tapped away on ancient-looking typewriters.
Again, Sunny lamented the fact that she decided to take French as her language electorate instead of Korean. She couldn’t make heads or tails of any of the files that were lying around. She drifted to the far end of the office.
There was a large desk in the corner. A small man in a dark blue uniform sat there, radiating power and superiority. He had so many medals pinned to his jacket that he looked ridiculous. Maybe that’s why he sat behind the desk, Sunny thought, if he stood up, he’d probably fall over. That must be what it’s like to have big boobs.
The man was poring over a map, making annotations in certain spots. Sunny watched for a while, trying to figure out what he was doing. He filled in another note, making elegant strokes and dashes in tiny script. He folded the map, inserted it into a stiff, heavy buff envelope and sealed it with dripping wax.
He barked an order to a guard standing by the desk. The guard took the map and frogmarched down the hallway. Sunny followed the guard, as he marched out the doors into the parade ground. A group of soldiers stood to attention there. The guard handed over the envelope to one of the men, and they scrambled into a waiting truck.
Orders, Sunny thought. I bet that document would be handy. But she couldn’t even read it! It’s a shame she couldn’t steal it…
But what if she could? She hadn’t even tried taking anything. For a second she stood there, smacking herself in the head over and over. How could she have not have tried to take anything with her yet? She wasn’t naked, so obviously some things could come with her when she materialized and dematerialized in and out of Reality and the Alternate.
How could she have been so stupid?
Now was a good time to find out. The soldier with the envelope marched to the cab door and opened it on the passenger side, and placed it on the dashboard as the rest of the men scrambled up into the truck. Sunny didn’t dare think about what she was doing – she zoomed into the cab of the truck, pushed the vibrations down and became visible, grabbed the envelope and stuffed it down her shirt, then quickly re-entered the Alternate. Then before she could find out if anyone saw her, or if it had even worked, she shot straight up into the sky and headed south, not daring to look back.
She had never flown faster; she was so scared. She wanted to get as far away from that death camp as soon as she could and hand the information she’d gotten over to Hunter. Thinking about Hunter made her heart race faster, and she was starting to feel a bit dizzy… she flew faster and faster, countries and continents whizzed underneath her. She found Sydney quickly, and then the suburb of Coogee, then she zoomed above Hunter’s apartment and landed right outside the door. She pushed down the vibrations – oh, her head was spinning! And knocked on his door.
He opened the door, a surprised expression on his face. Before Sunny could say anything, she got distracted and confused at the fuzzy black spots that appeared in front of her. They were getting bigger and bigger…
Then her eyes rolled back in her head, and he caught her in his arms as she fainted.
Chapter 9
When she came to, she was lying on his squashy sofa. The events of the past hour assaulted her as she slowly regained consciousness, mashing through her head in a jumble, and she took a few moments to get everything in order.
She knew where she was. She knew what had just happened. But why had she fainted?
Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked around.
Hunter was sitting in the armchair opposite, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, observing her carefully. He’d put on a white t-shirt since she’d left him, which was slightly disappointing, but it was tight enough that you could make out the planes of his sculpted chest. He looked like a Calvin Klein model.
He spoke.
“Are you ok?”
“Uh, yeah. I think so. I still feel a bit…” She trailed off. “I guess I’m a bit dizzy. I’m still very new to all this, so I think I might be over exerting myself somehow, but when I’m doing it, it’s pretty effortless, so I really don’t know…”
He was still watching her intently. At least he’s not hostile anymore, Sunny thought. She lifted her head again but felt weak enough to let it drop back on the pillow behind her. It was an extra-soft landing, even softer than the nicest softest couch cushion.
He’d gotten her a pillow from his bedroom. That was nice. She looked over at him again, and he had raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Tell me. When did you last eat?”
“Ahh…” Sunny couldn’t remember. She didn’t eat the sushi at lunch; she had been too preoccupied. Had she had breakfast? And of course, she’d skipped dinner at home for a quick trip to Korea.
Hunter got up and walked over to the kitchen, opened the pantry door and got out a loaf of bread. He picked out two slices from the bag and put them on a plate, opened the fridge and got out a couple of packets and jars. He took a butter knife out of a drawer and smeared mayonnaise over the bread, popped on a few slices of ham, peeled some cheese out of its plastic wrapper and placed it on top of the ham. Then he dabbed the tiniest bit of mustard on the other slice of bread and put it on top. He cut the sandwich in half and walked back to her in the lounge.
“Here.” He put the plate on her chest.
Sunny felt her face go warm. She picked up one-half of the sandwich and took a bite.
“Oarh. This is good,” Sunny said around a mouthful of ham and cheese. “I feel like such an idiot; I can’t believe I’m just hungry. I thought I was somehow draining my life force or something.”
“Well, the best explanation is usually the simplest one,” Hunter said. He retook his position on the armchair opposite her, watching her eat.
“I guess I’ve been so caught up in what was going on that I forgot to eat.” She took another bite and chewed slowly. The sandwich was delicious. The mustard was a nice touch.
Hunter stared at her for a while as she ate, then got up again and headed back to the kitchen. He went to the fridge and popped a can of Coke, and brought it to her with a straw.
With a straw. She felt her heart flutter. Geeze, she was going to have to get this crush under control if she was going to work with him.
She finished the sandwich, and he picked up the plate off her chest and took it to the kitchen. She took a few sips of the Coke and sighed contentedly.
“So.” He thought she was ready to talk, it seemed. “You weren’t ready to go yet? Did you make it home, at least?”
“Huh? Yeah, I went home…” Sunny was confused.
“You’ve only been gone an hour and a half,” Hunter said, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.
“Oh. No, I can go very fast when I’m in the Alternate. That’s what I call it when I become completely invisible and I can see the energy of everything. It’s like an Alternative reality, but it’s still this reality, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t. But go on.” He sat back down opposite her and took up his t-shirt model position, legs apart, elbows on knees, leaning forward.
“I guess the best way to explain it is… well, I’ve been home, and I’ve been to North Korea, and I found your prison camp.”
“Really.” He didn’t believe her.
“Yeah. It was where you said – around ten miles east, then ten miles south of Chongjin. It’s huge, a massive five-sided building in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a square concrete fence with ba
rbed wire on top. The whole thing is grey, and there’s a huge field in the middle, and soldiers everywhere.”
“What colour are their uniforms?” He was testing her, looking for confirmation that she wasn’t making this up.
“Most of them were this kind of dun colour. Some of the guys who were obviously higher up the food chain were in a dark blue.”
“Okay. Go on.”
He didn’t seem convinced. Sunny cleared her throat. “Anyway, well, uh, there were prisoners being led into the west side of the building. I didn’t want to follow… I didn’t want to see…” She swallowed hard, not wanting to remember the chains of men being led into that dungeon. “The building to the east side looked like their offices. There were tables with old-school war-game figurines on them. There were guys sitting at desks with typewriters – Typewriters! I didn’t think they even made typewriters anymore!”
“I see. Anything else?”
He’s losing interest, she thought desperately. “Just that I don’t see how you are going to do any kind of rescue. The place is packed with guards, and the walls are way too thick and high. The prisoners…” She trailed off for a second, but regrouped and soldiered on. “There were heaps of them. And I only saw the ones that were being led in right there and then, but there were at least twenty of them. It was seriously scary.” Acutely aware of how stupid she sounded, Sunny shut up and sipped at her Coke again.
Hunter sat back and took a deep breath, but he didn’t say anything. Sunny felt so disappointed she thought she might cry. She wanted to impress him so badly, to help him, to help those poor men that were prisoners in that hell-hole, but she couldn’t do that if no one believed the information she was giving. She sat up on her elbows to hide her disappointment.
There was a faint rustling sound, a small discomfort from her stomach area.
“Oh! I forgot!” She scrambled to undo the top buttons of her shirt.
“Hey hey hey, hang on!” Hunter said loudly, holding his hands up in alarm. She paused, confused. This was the most emotion he had shown so far. “Hold on now. No need to take your clothes off.” He was backing away from her with his arms outstretched.
“Oh. Oh no, I’m not…” Oh God, this was mortifying! “I’m not trying to… oh geeze, look! I got this; I had to shove it down my shirt so I could bring it back with me. It looks like I can take stuff with me, I think as long as it’s touching my skin…” She pulled the envelope out from her shirt and tossed it to him.
Hunter caught it in both hands. He stared at it, turned it over in his hands slowly, studying the seal.
His mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding me.” He softly and delicately peeled back the seal, opened the envelope and drew out the paper within.
Even his flabbergasted face is gorgeous, Sunny thought irrelevantly. He studied the document for a minute, then looked down at her, still awkwardly half-lying on the couch. She started to do up the buttons of her shirt self-consciously.
“I’m going to have to get this to Linguistics and Imagery Analysis right away. I have to leave. Will you stay here?” It didn’t sound like a request. “We need to talk.”
Sunny gestured to the envelope. “So what are you going to tell your boss? Where are you going to say you got that from? Please, I really want to stay anonymous. I mean, I just want to protect myself.”
Maybe I should have had this conversation earlier, she thought miserably. Another stupid rookie error.
“Don’t worry; I’ll make something up for now. And since you can disappear in an instant, there’s no point pissing you off when you can obviously help us. We’ll sort out the details later. But I have to run; I think this could be important,” he said, edging towards the door.
“OK, I’ll just stay -”
The door slammed, he was gone.
“- Here then.” She slumped back on the couch. “Huh.”
And she did. The couch was just too comfy, and she had almost three hours before she was due home anyway. Hunter’s apartment was almost the opposite of what his personality had displayed to her so far – it felt warm, cosy, comfortable and entertaining. She felt oddly at home here. She could relax in a way that she would have thought impossible when she was near him; she had a heart rate like a meth addict when he was around.
She sighed and snuggled into the couch. The pillow – the one from his bedroom – smelled faintly of him, a mixture of cologne and a fragrance that was essentially him; it was clean and fresh but with a hint of muscley musky man-sweat, and a touch of the ocean breeze in there too. It was such an intoxicating smell. Sunny savoured it.
Sniffing his pillow. What a weirdo.
Those were her last thoughts before she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 10
The bang of the door woke her; she hustled to sit upright, hastily wiping away a string of drool from her chin. She looked down – oh God, there was a wet patch on his pillow. She’d drooled on his pillow! She quickly flipped it over as Hunter came into the lounge and sat in the armchair opposite her.
“You’re still here. Good.”
“Yeah, I thought I’d hang around. I even took a nap. Your couch is pretty comfy,” she said, understating her love for his sofa quite vigorously.
“So, I took the map to Linguistics; they confirmed that it was genuine.”
“I know it’s genuine. I was there, remember?”
“Yeah. Okay, well they confirmed that it was orders to a Republic platoon to secure territory right on the new border of South Korea. The information was extremely valuable. It means we know what their strategy is, and we can try and combat it.”
“Well, good. That was the idea, to try and help a bit.” She looked down in her lap modestly, but her internal organs danced little jigs of pride. “So what did you tell them? I mean, where did you say that you got the envelope from?”
“I told them that I’d been approached by someone deep within the new Chairman’s enclave. An American sleeper agent planted many years ago by a now defunct department within the CIA. I kept it simple and didn’t give many details. I don’t have to at this stage, although there might be many more questions later, depending on what we give them. As long as I still have access to this agent, I’ve just been given orders to direct them as my superiors deem it suitable.”
“Oh. So, I’m the agent?”
“Yes.”
“And you can do that? You have the authority?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “If you still want me to be your handler.” He looked her right square in the eye, and she felt a tingling deep down inside her.
“Yeah, I guess I’d want you to handle me. I mean, be my handler,” she mumbled.
Hunter’s beautiful sulky mouth curved up at the corner ever so slightly.
“So, what should I call you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re still pretty keen on remaining anonymous, I take it? You don’t want to tell me who you are?”
“No, I, ah, I guess maybe I could have a code name or something?” Sunny mentally rifled through lists in her head of the coolest secret agent names she knew. “Can I be Ghost?”
“Why Ghost?”
“Well, you know, I can be kind of invisible, and I can move through things, and I can become, like, diaphomous…”
“Diaphomouse?” Hunter actually smiled. Smiled! When he smiled, his face lit up like the sun. The perfect planes of his cheekbones moved to emphasise the squareness of his jaw, his eyes sparkled like deep rock pools of phosphorescence. Sunny was too entranced to realize what he had said. He composed himself, still smiling slightly and said, “I think you mean diaphanous…”
Oh God. She’d only ever seen that word once or twice and was only vaguely aware of what it meant, but she thought it described how her body could become transparent. Why the hell had she decided to use it now? Her cheeks grew warm.
He chuckled again. “No, that’s great, Diaphomouse, Anonymouse. I think we’ve got your code name. Mouse.”
“I like it, and it suits you.” He looked at her and smiled again, and she was lost. “Besides, you have no idea how many guys at the agency want the code name Ghost. It runs a close second to Phantom. And anything prefaced with “Black.” You know, like “Black Panther” or “Black Eagle.” Nobody gets to choose, anyway, the code names get assigned, so you don’t get to choose either. You’re The Mouse.”
“Fine.” No one else would know she had a dorky code-name anyway. She felt too embarrassed to put up a fight. “So, what’s next?”
“You’ve given us some great intel, but I think we need to slow down a bit. I’m a bit worried about you.”
“Worried? I’m doing fine!” Sunny was keen for him to see that she was tough, that she could handle anything he could throw at her.
“You said that you didn’t know that you could take stuff with you. And you don’t know how much you are exerting yourself. I’d like to experiment a little bit, do some training. I don’t want to send you into a hostile environment when you don’t know what you’re capable of, and what your weaknesses are.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stood up. “So first, we train.”
“Okay….” Visions of Hunter in a tank top were disrupting her train of thought. She should have chosen the older guy to be her handler. But she knew in her heart that Hunter was the only guy in that building that would protect her, protect her secret.
And she’d been right so far. She got to her feet and stretched, raising both arms over her head to see if she was as tall as Hunter with her arms raised above her head. Yep, she was. Then she caught a glimpse of the clock on the microwave in the kitchen.
The Mouse Page 6