The Nine Read online

  An obvious attempt to change the subject, but Alex let me off the hook.

  “We are heading back over there.”

  She pointed toward a house I recognized. It was the place where we infected the milk bottle with the cave contagion. As we got closer, Alex’s face became strained, and her forehead wrinkled with worry.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  Alex held up a hand and made her way to the front door of the house. Last time we had approached the little white house from the back, walking through the fence and crossing the big yard. This time we circled around to the front, and I discovered, like many other homes in the area, part of this one had been converted into a business. A doctor’s office. Maybe the only doc in town.

  Alex opened the door and walked over to a little desk in the front waiting area. An older woman sat there in a conservative violet-colored dress with a silky white scarf tied around her neck. Her glasses were perched at the end of her nose, and she peered up at us with a smile as the jingle of little bells rang on the doorknob behind us.

  “Is the doctor in?” Alex asked.

  “He is, but I am afraid we are very busy today.” Her eyes flicked around us, and we turned to find a waiting area hidden around the corner. Almost every chair was filled with miserable-looking people staring at the ground, looking at magazines, or struggling to keep their children quiet while the others basked in their own exhaustion.

  “Wow, are you always this busy?” I asked.

  “Not always,” The woman said. “But we are the only office in town. When the flu hits around here, it hits us hard. You’re not from around here.” It was a statement, not a question. “Mind if I ask why you’re looking for the doctor?”

  Alex opened her mouth to answer, but she seemed to stall out, as if such an obvious question had never occurred to her.

  The silence felt about as comfortable as an accidental fart in a crowded elevator, but I managed a smile and put a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “We’re just passing through on our way home to visit my parents. We stayed in a hotel last night, and I realized I forgot my prescription. I don’t want to drive all the way back. So I hoped the doc might re-write it or verify it, so I can get a refill.”

  The nice Purple Lady never lost her smile. A real smile, not the smile you see down in The Nine where a smile meant you were up to something.

  “Well, that shouldn’t take long,” she said. “Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  Alex smiled back at her, and I noted hers seemed decidedly more Nineish, but it was still pleasant. “Thank you.”

  We sat down, and Alex resumed her worried expression. She rubbed her palms on her legs and stared at the wall as if something ate at her and wouldn’t let go.

  I put an arm on the back of her chair so I could lean forward and speak at a whisper. “I know we’re not here for a millennium physical, so what are you up to? I’ve never seen you this worried. You’re starting to freak me out.”

  Alex surveyed the room and leaned in my direction without turning to face me. “I found out what that sample contained. The syringe didn’t have some little cold and flu bug. We injected that milk with a virus no one Topside has ever encountered. The Judas Agency wanted to know how effective it is on humans.” Alex rubbed her face and glanced over my shoulder, searching for unwanted eavesdroppers. “They don’t care if this guy is immune; they want to know if he gets sick. If he does ...” Alex’s voice cracked. She stopped for a second and then started again. “If this contagion makes him sick, The Judas Agency has found an all but unstoppable disease.”

  My stomach dropped clear to my turkey poop shoes. I could have stopped it—twice—and now we waited to see if the guy I had allowed Alex to infect would come out to look like patient zombie zero.

  A door to an exam room opened, and a man walked out. He staggered and coughed, clutching a bouquet of tissues in his left hand and a stethoscope in his right. Stars swam into my vision. I wondered for the first time if I had the ability to faint. Alex had gone so stark white, her tattoos looked as if they were painted onto typing paper.

  “Sorry, Doc,” the man said. “I didn’t mean to knock this out of your hand.” He turned and faced someone else coming out of the room.

  “No worries.” Another man, this one wearing a white lab coat, appeared in the doorway and took the stethoscope. “No harm done.”

  I let out the breath I had stifled in my lungs with an audible whoosh. The way my luck was running, I’d make a boatload of money if we went to Vegas.

  The patient made his way toward the desk. The doctor followed him out. He seemed to be in his mid-forties with a full head of salt and pepper hair and a short-trimmed beard to match. Best of all, the man looked to be the most fit person in the room, Alex and me included. The guy must compete in pentathlons for lunch every day. If he was sick, I wanted whatever he had. This small-town doc looked like the fountain of health shimmering among all the sick and wounded in the room. Color washed back into Alex so fast she looked like she had blushed. The heat of circulation returned to my skin too. My stomach even made the return trip from my feet.

  “If you’re still feeling bad in week or so, you come back and visit me. We’ll do a few tests and see what we find, but I think this is something that’ll run its course,” the doctor said. “Stay out of those fields for a few days. Rest and drink plenty of liquids. You’ll be fine.”

  The patient nodded and headed for the door. “Thanks, Doc.”

  Purple Lady raised a hand before the doctor had time to escape and waved him down. “David, can I bother you for one moment?”

  She glanced over at us, and my panic resurfaced. Purple Lady was about to call our bluff.

  Alex pulled out her smartphone and waved the little black Android, which I had yet to see, in the air. “I’m sorry. I just got off the phone with the pharmacy. They said we can have our regular doc call, and they will refill the prescription for us.”

  Purple Lady smiled and nodded. Doctor David looked confused. “Never mind, I guess we got everything worked out on our own.”

  She glanced back at us as we stood to leave. “If you need anything else, I’d be glad to help.”

  Guilt washed over me. Here we were trying to infect this poor office with who knows what, and this kind and unassuming woman wanted to do anything to help us. I needed to get a whole lot better at doing my job for Judas.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said, “but I think we have everything covered. I appreciate all your help.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Alex and I headed back toward the Splice to report on the good doctor to the Judas Agency. I hadn’t taken the time to notice on our way in, but the town still seemed deserted. We were here in the middle of the night last time. It had made sense for the place to be empty. Now, in broad daylight, the place looked downright desolate. The windows were clean, and the displays looked fresh and tidy. A few parked cars even lined the street, but there still wasn’t a soul to be seen. I wondered how anything in the town managed to stay open. They didn’t have much of a tourist trade. Most of their clientele had to be the local farmers and ranchers in the area, but business wasn’t exactly booming.

  One other thing didn’t add up either. If the Judas Agency wanted to test out an infectious contagion, why do it in a town the size of a postage stamp? The best they might hope for was a few hundred infected people. Someone might pass through from out of town and carry the disease out, but that was a long shot. Anyone who got sick would hunker down and wait it out at home. Not exactly an epidemic befitting the Disaster Factory.

  “You mumble.” Alex stared at me as we walked.

  “Sorry?”

  “I said, ‘You mumble,’” Alex repeated. “You quiet down and then start this indiscernible grumbling, mumble thing. Like a stalling engine stuck in a vat full of pudding. It is not endearing.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize I was doing it.”

  Engine stuck in a vat full
of pudding. Worst metaphor ever.

  “You’re mumbling again.” Alex backhanded me in the chest. “What is wrong with you? Are you some kind of lunatic? I should have come up with a better metaphor.”

  Now she freaked me out.

  “Can you hear ...” I made a vague gesture toward my head and squinted, wondering if I had grumbled my thoughts out loud or if she had read my mind. I decided against finishing the question.

  “Forget it,” I said. “Hey, can I ask you a something without you getting all defensive and fist-punchy?”

  “With you, it may be impossible, but ask anyway.”

  “When we were in the office back there, you seemed awfully worried about the doctor, and about what it might mean if that virus had been a viable.”

  “Yeah, so? I’m not a monster.”

  “That’s just it,” I said. “You work for the Judas Agency—The Disaster Factory. How can you work for them and still have that kind of conscience? Isn’t a handicap like that sort of detrimental to your career?”

  We walked along without saying anything. I wanted to wait her out and let her answer when she was ready, but the silence wore me down. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean ...”

  “Not everyone can survive out in The Nine the way you do.” Alex almost shouted the words, making me want to jump out of the way. “I spent a lot of time recycling through the Gnashing Fields while I lived on the streets of that burned-out, frozen junkyard full of killers, thieves, rapists, and abusers.”

  Alex clenched her fists, and I had a sudden urge to fall back out of her reach.

  “I had to learn how to fight and claw my way out of the gutters. The Judas Agency gave me a place to live and relative safety. I even own a thing or two. I have more now than I’ve ever had, and I earned every bit of it. If you’re asking me if I feel guilty about doing my job? No. I do what I have to in order to survive. I just learned how to do it better than most.”

  Perfect. First, I make her think I’m a lunatic, and now she wants to kick my ass.

  “It was just a question,” I said. “No judging. I’ve done plenty I’m not proud of, both alive and dead.”

  I cringed, realizing what I had just implied. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I am proud to work for the Agency. Try climbing down off your high horse, and you might see that we’re not all bad. You might even find you’re not as perfect as you think you are.”

  “I’m sorry.” I didn’t try to refute her accusations. “Like I said, I was curious. That’s all.”

  “Well, now you know.” We walked in an uncomfortable silence after that. I was thankful we didn’t have much further to go. Our conversation had carried us all the way down Main Street, up the short distance on the country road, and then to the driveway leading to our Splice location. Alex stopped at the top of the dirt drive and dug something out of her pants pocket. “I almost forgot. I have something for you.”

  I felt my face brighten. “Is it a gun? Or a knife? Some sort of fancy hellion weapon that makes me irresistible to women?”

  Alex peered at me. “A fusion-powered pheromone bomb wouldn’t be enough to do that.”

  I put my hand over my heart. “You wound me.”

  “Shut up. You make giving you things so hard.” Alex grabbed my hand and slapped a small metal object into my palm much harder than she had to. It was about the size of a quarter. An obsidian J encircled by a brass compass.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a lapel pin. Be thankful I didn’t decide to attach it to your chest before you opened your mouth.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, Alex, this is great. But I didn’t get you any ...”

  “I’m not giving this to you to be nice, freak.”

  “Oh, well ... none taken.”

  “This is a portal key. This lapel pin allows you to use the Envisage Splices to travel.”

  I raised an eyebrow and shot her a mischievous grin. “You’re giving me keys to the family Buick? Are you sure I’m ready for this? What if I head straight to a frat party or something?”

  “Then you will be the creepy old guy that makes everyone uncomfortable.”

  I winked. “I stick to what I’m good at.”

  Alex sighed. “Try to pay attention. You need a visual point of reference for where you’re going, either through personal experience or a photograph. Then you hold that image in your mind when you’re in the Agency elevator and throw the lever. Simple as long as you don’t lose your concentration and start thinking about your sorority girl back at the shop or something.”

  “Wait, what happens if I think about sorority girls?” My grin grew wider.

  “To return,” Alex said, ignoring the childish comment, “all you do is go back to the Splice you arrived through, and it will pull you back in and return you to the Agency. Wanna try?”

  “Wait, that means we have to go back through the turkey farm again.”

  An evil grin grew on Alex’s face. “Yup, and I hear it’s singles night.”

  I ran my hands across my face and up over my head. “I should have never told you about that.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.” Alex’s smile grew larger, and she headed off toward turkey hell. “I’ve already thought of half a dozen gift ideas.”

  I groaned and followed. “Everyone has a weakness, you know.”

  “Yeah, but everyone’s weakness isn’t turkey-phobia.”

  “That’s not what it’s called.” I tried not to laugh, but even I recognized the absurdity. “It is called meleagrisphobia. It’s a condition.”

  Alex laughed. “Mellon-ass-phobia. Right, my mistake. You can put it in the report to Sabnack when we return.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “And what about his family?” Alex and I glanced at each other as Sabnack showed his huge feline teeth in a smile. “Did the doctor’s family show any signs of being ill?”

  “We didn’t think to ask,” I said, jumping in to take the hit before Alex.

  We had returned to the Agency to report our visit to the doctor’s office, thinking Sabnack would berate Alex for another failed mission and start my tally at one, but instead, he seemed happy about our news.

  “You could have done better with the children, but you came back with a successful mission, Alex.” Sabnack nodded at me. “Seems like a partner was just the thing you needed. Perhaps next time, we’ll send you out on something a little more challenging.”

  Alex smiled, but I recognized the mix of emotion in her eyes. Confusion, frustration, and maybe a little anger. “Thank you, Sabnack. I’m glad everything worked out.”

  I showed a smile too, and the three of us stood there, staring at each other like a trio of bobble-headed idiots.

  Sabnack’s eyes flicked out the side window to his office. I followed his gaze and recognized the two men entering the main hall. My stomach flopped.

  “Max ... Jake, get in here.” Sabnack’s smile disappeared, replaced by a tight-lipped snarl. “Some sort of bug video in Salt Lake City has surfaced on YouTube. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  All of a sudden, my legs wanted to run whether the rest of my body went with them or not. “We should let you go back to work, Sabnack ... Sir ... Mr. Sabnack.”

  Alex grabbed my arm and jerked me toward the door. Sabnack never gave me a second glance. We managed to escape before Max and Jake had spotted us in his office, thanks to a well-placed corner near his door.

  “We should let you go back to work, Sabnack ... Sir ... Mr. Sabnack.” Alex mimicked my stuttering exit a little too well.

  “We’re out, aren’t we?” I said.

  “No thanks to your graceful exit.”

  We made our way down the cavernous hall toward the elevator that would take us back to the main level. The glass-walled office reflected flashes of my likeness, along with Alex’s and all the other Woebegone rushing through the area.

  “So, I think we’re free for a while?” Alex cast her eyes to the floor
and kept walking, but the statement sounded like a question.

  I nodded, acutely aware of the odd tension that had exploded like a gas grenade into the middle of the hallway. I didn’t have time for this. I needed to talk to Judas and tell him about Sabnack’s reaction to our report. Something gnawed at me, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Alex let out a sigh and looked at me. “Do you want to abuse our authority and go Topside for a little fun? I need a break.”

  I stared at her, pretending I hadn’t noticed the awkward invitation to a real date. It was like trying to ignore an elephant dressed as a mime.

  “No, I think I’m going to head home,” I said. “I’m beat and need to check on a few things.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” Alex said under her breath.

  “Sorry?” I raised an eyebrow, feeling like the biggest idiot loser on the face of the earth.

  “I said, I have stuff to do,” Alex made an abrupt turn to head back the way we had come. “I need take care of some work before I head back to my apartment. Have a great ride through the slums.”

  Alex waved over her shoulder and marched away like an Olympic supermodel sprinter.

  I ... have ... lost ... my ... MIND! Maybe my meeting with Judas could wait.

  I watched Alex a moment longer, all but biting my knuckles with frustration, then turned to rush toward the elevators. The doors slid open with a rattled groan and a snake-faced demon got off. It actually hissed at me on the way by, so I gave him a thumbs-up and the cheesiest grin I could muster.

  Once I got to Judas’s office, I gave him a rundown of the situation. I hoped he would make that wrinkled, you’re a childish idiot face he always made when ... well, pretty much any time I opened my mouth, but this time he seemed as stumped as I was.

  “And Sabnack appeared to be satisfied the sample was not viable?” Judas scratched his beard and leaned back in his chair. I grasped the arms of my own bone chair and sat back as well. Seeing him confused and off balance was more disheartening than watching him try to resist the urge to strangle me.