The Nine Read online

  “Alex said they initiate these kinds of dry run missions all the time.” I shrugged. “Is it possible he didn’t care whether the virus took or not? Maybe he was just happy we didn’t screw up the mission.”

  Judas paused, waiting for me to answer my own question. After a moment, I shook my head. “No way. He seemed much too happy about it. I could see him being satisfied or a little surprised, but not happy. Not if the mission were a total failure.”

  Judas considered and nodded in agreement. “I can’t help but think there is something we’re missing.”

  Judas turned to Procel, who stood at his usual post like a giant gargoyle opposite Mastema. “Do a quiet inquiry through your sources and see what you can discover. Perhaps there is someone out there who can shed a little more light on this situation.”

  Procel answered with a single deep nod of his head, and Judas faced me. “Have they given you access to the Splice points yet?”

  I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out the lapel pin Alex had given me and ran my thumb over the shiny black J. “I haven’t tried it on my own yet. My partner gave me the pin today.”

  “Be careful when you use the Envisage Splice transporter. You could be watched when you come and go, but if someone takes an interest in what you’re doing, your destinations can be tracked as well. Make sure you don’t do anything that would raise suspicion.”

  “Not me.” I smiled. “I’m a picture of stealth and shadow.”

  Judas paused and narrowed his eyes, giving me his be serious look.

  “As I said, wait a few days for things to settle, then go back to that town. What was the place called?”

  “Briarsville. I noticed it on a sign last time we were there.”

  “Fine,” Judas looked irritated, probably because he couldn’t figure out what the Agency was up to any better than me. “Go back to Briarsville in a few days. See if you can turn over a few new stones. Perhaps you were distracted last time.”

  I got lost for a moment trying to decide if there were any distractions during our original missions. It was only me and Alex. Alex and her tattoos, her milky white skin, that blue hair, and her lips ...

  Shut ... up...

  Judas stared at me, waiting for an answer to a question I hadn’t heard. I nodded, hoping it was the correct response. “I’ll head back as soon as I can.”

  In the meantime, I wondered if I might be able to turn over a few stones here at the Agency about Stray and that lurker Scarecrow.

  Judas nodded. “Let me know what you find out. I will pass word to you if Procel turns anything up that you need to know about.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A half hour had passed before I tracked Alex down again. When she wasn’t in her office, I asked about her apartment, but she wasn’t there either. I went from tower three to tower four and to the top floor of tower six before someone told me she had gone to an event in the gym.

  A loud cheer rose from a room I couldn’t see and then calmed to a low murmur, but the rumble of voices never died away. I walked past several vacant training rooms, walled in glass for outside spectators, full of equipment that looked both familiar and completely alien. They contained everything from baseball bats and katanas to Whip-Cracks and some strange weapon that looked like a three-piece nun-chuck with retractable blades on the ends.

  I resisted an urge to examine the new toys and followed the rising roar coming from the main room ahead of me. When I opened one of the big orange double doors, I realized why Alex was there. Pretty much everyone in the building had come to see the show—whatever the show was. Seemed I was the only one who didn’t know about it. I excused myself and pushed through the shoulder to shoulder crowd. The bright room, about the size of a couple of basketball courts, held a decent turnout, only without the baskets or the overpaid athletes. I started to wonder if I could spot Alex among the throng of shouting spectators, even with her distinctive blue hair. That’s when I realized I had been looking in the wrong place.

  One of the Woebegone fans shouted in excitement and grabbed my shoulder. When he pointed toward the center of the room, I saw her. Alex wasn’t there to watch the event, she was the event. I had become so preoccupied with the crowd, I hadn’t bothered to check out the show.

  Alex stood in a floor level fighting ring, and by ring, I mean a maze of wooden pathways lined with rows of spiked poisonous-looking plants, kettles of boiling liquids, and posts with sharpened blades, jutting out at a million odd angles.

  Alex wore nothing but a tight pair of shorts and a sports bra. Her tattoos knew no bounds, covering her thighs, back, and even her feet. She had her long blue hair bound in a high ponytail with a hot pink ribbon, completing the punk rock warrior look. My mouth fell open in awe, and I had to force my lips closed with a snap of my teeth. I couldn’t stop my eyes from taking in her supple skin and hard muscle. I wanted to look away or at least avoid acting like a midnight stalker at an adult theater. A trench coat and dark glasses would be less obvious.

  I was glad she hadn’t noticed me. I couldn’t tear my eyes away, despite my embarrassment. I didn’t want to know how she would react if she caught me ogling her picture-perfect body. From the looks of her fighting gloves, they had already done a fair share of damage that evening. They didn’t need to add any of my blood and humiliation.

  Her opponent, a scared looking man wearing bright orange sparing armor from head to toe, leapt a hedge of spiked death cactus and tried to reset his defensive stance. Alex anticipated this maneuver and jumped before he did. She met his awkward landing with a hard roundhouse kick to the chest, sending him flying toward a post full of jagged blades.

  Alex smirked, leaped forward like a cat, and diverted his fall with a quick jerk of his arm. The man flailed. His head whipped to the side like a toddler saved at the last second from falling down a flight of stairs. Alex let go, and he slid across the wood floor, stopping before he hit another of the death cactus hedges. The crowd went wild again. The stunned Woebegone opponent got up, bowed, and sprinted out of the ring.

  Alex held her arms out, and the crowd went quiet. “Any other lessons today?” Everyone found something fascinating to study on the ceiling, on their shoes, on the person standing next to them—anywhere other than a direction that might cause them to make direct eye contact with Alex.

  I waited a second, then moved forward through the crowd. Volunteering was a bad idea, a very bad idea, but my legs ignored all of the logic being shouted from my brain. I had just stood the Terminator up for a date and had determined that I wanted to keep my blood and my dignity, or what’s left of it, safe within my body. Now I was going to invite Alex to kick my ass in front of all these nice people. Yeah, I had everything well under control.

  I moved to the front of the crowd. Alex’s gaze locked on mine. A grin, wider than the Cheshire Cat’s, grew on her face, and my legs finally got the message. Too late to turn back now. I opened my mouth to announce voluntary suicide, but a voice from the other side of the ring called out to Alex first.

  “I have time for a lesson—if you are willing to learn.”

  Her roguish smile transformed into something more wary and welcoming. She turned toward the Woebegone man emerging on the other side of the room. The crowd began to murmur, and I felt the tension rise. Whoever this Woebegone was, he had just earned a Twinkie from an anonymous fan.

  “Sensei Mitsu.” Alex bowed. “This is an unexpected honor, though a true master knows a teacher can learn as much from his student as the student can learn from her teacher.”

  Sensei Mitsu bowed his head. “Learn, yes. As much?” Sensei Mitsu shrugged a shoulder and leapt a spiky planter, clearing one of the wide paths to bound off the edge of a boiling cauldron. His feet made contact for less than a millisecond, but the strike was enough to tip the cauldron over in Alex’s direction. The slick, boiling liquid rolled toward her like a wave.

  Alex back-flipped to another path and managed to stay clear of the hot oil, but her landing looked of
f balance. This was the first time I had ever seen Alex seem unsure of herself.

  That wasn’t quite right. She had the same unbalanced expression earlier; when we were talking, and she had asked me out on a ...

  All at once I realized how hard it must have been for her to open up and offer that invitation, and how bad it had hurt when I pretended nothing happened. My face fell as I realized I may have done more damage to her than she could have ever done to me in that ring.

  I stared at Alex’s smooth powerful movements and thought that might be stretching things a bit, but I had hurt her, nonetheless.

  Sensei Mitsu took advantage of Alex’s momentary misstep and flipped over behind her, attempting to catch her in the kidney with a reverse donkey kick.

  Alex may have been off balance, but she was able to shift enough to make him miss and then spin to face him. They traded punch after punch, kick after kick, designed to trap joints, break bones, or crush throats; each masterfully blocked and countered with precision.

  The mood of the crowd changed. They went from rough and rowdy to watching in shocked awe.

  Alex broke the rapid stalemate with a feint to her left and a side flip to an adjacent path. She touched down and reversed directions as Sensei Mitsu took the bait. He leapt toward her with a flying kick meant to hit her in the back and drive her to the ground, but Alex was already in the air, her fist cocked out to the side of her body as she leapt past him with an ugly WWF-style clothesline.

  Sensei Mitsu had just enough time to register the fact that he was screwed before Alex’s fist hit him in the face.

  The blow wasn’t enough to do any real damage, but the strike slowed his forward momentum, sending him straight down toward the spiked death plants at his back.

  The crowd took a collective gasp. Sensei Mitsu flipped over like a cat in midair and landed in a bridge position across the plants on his fingers and toes.

  He stayed that way for a second, then Alex strolled over and put one of her bare tattooed feet right in the middle of his shoulder blades.

  Sensei Mitsu laughed. “For a moment, I thought you might help me up.”

  Alex smiled and shook her head, “That is one lesson I will never forget. I’ll never make that mistake again—at least not until you say the magic words.”

  Sensei Mitsi’s arms began to shake. Alex’s smile faltered.

  The room was silent enough to hear a flea fart, then Sensei sighed. “I yield.”

  The crowd went the kind of wild you would see if the Cubs won the world series, like that would ever happen.

  Alex pulled her foot back and helped Mitsu up. This time he bowed as deep as she did. They both smiled and turned to go their separate ways.

  I worked my way through the smiling throng, already rehashing the fight with flailing fists and wild exaggerations. I pulled up beside Alex and shot her my most irresistible smile.

  She resisted.

  “I thought you had to go home to the wife and kids.” Alex kept walking, not bothering to slow down.

  “I heard about some sort of hot chick death match going on up here, so I decided to stick around.”

  I realized that I called Alex a hot chick and prepared myself to be flung into one of the spiked death plants or have my face scalded off with oil. Alex stopped and smiled instead. “I hope you enjoyed the show. About time you headed back to the little woman though, don’t you think?”

  I paused for a second, realizing the pile of dog crap I could be sinking my foot into.

  “Look, I need to explain something about Stray.”

  Alex started walking again. “No explanation needed—or wanted.”

  “She’s a fresh born I saved before that last firestorm,” I stepped to keep up with her. “I put her up until she can figure things out, but I think she has been used as a Disposable for a very long time. When she gets her memories back, things might not be so good for her.”

  That stopped Alex in her tracks. “How do you know she’s a Disposable?”

  “I have local sources. I hoped you might be interested in abusing a few of your professional powers to help her out. Find out what she’s into and how to keep her safe. Someone known as the Scarecrow was her handler. Ever heard of him?”

  Alex stared at me for a minute, looking like she might be considering something, then she shook her head. “This is none of my business. And it’s not yours either.”

  She started to walk away again, but I grabbed her arm. I heard the collective gasp of the crowd play through my mind, but it was too late to do anything about it. Alex looked down at my hand and up at me.

  “Stray is one of the good ones.” My life was literally in the palm of my hand, but my voice stayed steady, and I stared Alex dead in the eyes. “You know as well as I do, the good ones are pretty rare down here. No one deserves to be used up and thrown away like a Disposable. She needs a break.”

  A long moment passed where our breathing seemed to be the only thing that existed in the world, then Alex clenched her eyes shut. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  I smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Let go of my arm.”

  “Right,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

  “Grab me like that again, and you will be. And don’t thank me for helping you yet. Scarecrow works for some real bad people. You cross him, you are buying into serious trouble. The kind of trouble your back-alley friends won’t be able to help you out of.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing the midnight ninja’s on my side.”

  “Not funny,” Alex said, but she smiled.

  “I understand the trouble I’ll be getting into, but I think Stray deserves the hand. We all need one now and then.”

  Alex groaned. “Fine. I know where Scarecrow and his boys like to hang out, but there isn’t much you can do about it. You aren’t going to spook those guys into leaving her alone. As long as she knows what’s going on and how to protect herself, that’s about all you can do for her.”

  I twisted my face into an expression you might make when you stubbed a toe. “Does it count if she’s halfway there?”

  “I’m sure she can take care of herself, but I can teach her a few self-defense ...”

  Alex slowed down and stopped talking when I began to shake my head.

  “Wait, you mean she doesn’t know?” Alex threw a quick jab into my gut. I pretended like the effortless blow did not feel like a rocket propelled cinder block.

  “I figured she spent so much time in misery, I wanted her to enjoy what time she had before all those memories came flooding back. That sort of thing can change a person, screw them up for good. Years of abuse and death and torture with no memory of it, then everything in your past hits you at the same time? That kind of thing’s a little tough to bounce back from.”

  “That’s why you should have warned her,” Alex growled at me. “I know exactly what being flooded by all those memories feels like because I was just like her. I didn’t always survive on the streets. I did time as a Disposable too, but someone got me out.” Alex’s eyes flicked toward the ring and back to me. “I guess it’s time I return the favor.”

  Alex started walking again, and I followed. “Those memories are going to hit that girl harder than you can imagine, and she doesn’t even know they’re coming. You didn’t do her any favors. You gave her a little taste of normal, so when the shit hits her in the face, the experience will be that much worse. I’m going to get dressed, and we’re going back to your shop to warn that poor girl. Both about her memories and about Scarecrow. Jeez, you might as well strap a welcome sign to your roof with her picture on top.”

  I followed Alex through a door, and she turned around and shoved me back out. “You stay here, cowboy. I’ll be out in a minute. You go down and warm up your little smoking bike or whatever you call that scooter monstrosity. We’ll leave as soon as I get changed.”

  I nodded and tried not to panic. Alex was right. I’d wanted to help Stray, but I’d made things worse by not fac
ing the inevitable. She needed to know, and I should have been the one to tell her.

  I headed for the elevator, thankful I had Alex to help me. The least I could do was warm up The Rocket. When she was ready to ride, I would speed us back to the shop as fast as its knobby little tires would turn. I thought about what Alex said, about being a Disposable too. The realization explained a lot about her. Why she was so angry. Why her walls were built so high. I only hoped Stray would come out of her ordeal half as well as Alex had.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Stray was in trouble. I knew it before I parked The Rusty Rocket in the street. The door to my shop was open. Not just open, the armored metal had been torn off the hinges and laid in a mangled mess ten yards from the bent frame.

  I all but dropped The Rocket and ran up to the shop. Alex stuck close behind. The inside hadn't fared much better than the outside. Everything had been ransacked. The hidden door to the bus storage stood uncovered and open. They had taken everything down to the last root beer. Stray was nowhere to be seen.

  Alex peered into the bus over my shoulder and tried to say something, but I turned and pushed her to the side so I could head toward the front counter. My secret compartment appeared untouched. Whoever attacked had hit fast and hard. Stray hadn’t even had time to defend herself.

  I smacked the false panel and pulled the access open to peer at the contents. Everything was there. I felt both relieved to find my familiar weapons and upset knowing Stray had been caught so off guard she couldn’t try for them.

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but going after these guys with a couple of pistols ...”

  Alex stopped speaking when I pulled out the Whip-Crack and pocketed the Knuckle Stunner.

  “Okay, so you stashed away something better than pistols. That doesn’t mean you’re equipped to use them.”

  I ignored the comment and moved forward until I stood a few inches from her. “You said you knew where these guys hang out.” It was both a statement and a question I would have the answer to.