Artful Evil Read online

  “Hey, you’re talking about my home, you know. I have quite a few friends among those creepers.”

  Alex rolled her eyes and turned back to her computer. “Whatever. It’s about time you got here. I’ve been doing research for our little side project all morning. I have a lot to show you.”

  I groaned inside, wishing she had said almost anything other than that. I never thought I would wish so hard for an assignment to come down from above. I didn’t want to deal with any sort of catastrophe, but anything would be better than an idea that Alex cooked up. This train thing was all her. She owned every bit of it, and worse, she seemed to be enjoying it.

  “Sit down.” Alex motioned to a chair next to her desk with a nod. “Let me show you what I’ve got so far.”

  I sank into the chair and leaned into her desktop so I could see her screen. “Are you sure we should go through with this? Maybe we should take a step back and—”

  “I’m sure.” Alex cut me off fast enough to blunt a meat cleaver. “I’ve made a list of possibilities and narrowed them down to these six rail lines. They’re all leaving within the next three to four days and have one load of hazardous cargo or another.”

  Every word that came out of her mouth turned my stomach into a pit of writhing snakes. I had spent almost every moment since the day Judas had summoned me to his office feeling guilty because I had to lie to Alex about my true position in the Denarii Division. I had jeopardized her job more than once to prevent The Agency from carrying out one atrocity or another. I regretted every lie because I believed deep down she was a good person stuck in an impossible position. Now I questioned that belief. How could she be good inside and still be willing to hurt so many innocent people?

  I leaned in to examine the trains she had listed on a sheet, still finding her willingness to go through with this plan hard to believe.

  “Each one of these could be derailed in locations that would do a significant amount of damage, it’s just that ...”

  She hesitated, and I turned my gaze from the computer screen to her eyes. They were unsure and full of doubt, but also full of determination and malice.

  “It’s just that what?” I prompted, hoping she had second thoughts about the whole thing.

  “It’s just...” She sighed. “The only places we can derail these trains are in heavily populated areas, and I know you’ll throw a fit about pulling something like that off. So, it’s a great, big problem, that’s what.”

  Alex crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the screen, refusing to meet my stare. I fought to keep a smile from creeping onto my lips. I knew she had a heart in there, even if it wanted to use mine as a scapegoat.

  I looked back at the screen, bypassing all the trains she had chosen, and looked for something different, something that might work for the both of us.

  “There.” I pointed down further on the list at a coal transport train scheduled to depart from Portland in two days. “What about that one?”

  Alex snorted out a laugh. “That train transports nothing but coal from a mine in Montana to a seaport in Oregon. It wouldn’t even be loaded. It’ll be an empty cargo train headed back to the mine to pick up another load.”

  I looked at Alex and raised my eyebrows. “No hazardous cargo to cause mass casualties. I could sign on for that as long as we pull the engineer and conductor off.”

  “When I suggested derailing an empty train in the middle of nowhere, I was only kidding. This is no different than dropping a bomb in the middle of a desert. If there are no people around to see it ...”

  Alex paused and seemed to work something out in her head. Her sudden change of heart did not give me the warm fuzzies.

  “Hold on a second.” She turned to her computer, moved her hands around like she was conjuring some sort of voodoo magic spell, and brought up a map of a railroad. It ran all the way from the coast to the coal mine, passing through several smaller towns along the way ... and one larger one.

  “Bozeman, Montana.” Alex proclaimed and punched her finger at the screen. “There is a bend in the line right in the middle of town and a switching station a few miles ahead of it. We can catch them when they stop to switch crews, pull everyone off, and let her rip. The train will hit this curve full speed and bam, derailing catastrophe.”

  Alex looked over at me and threw an arm around my neck, pulling me in for a hug. “Thank you for this. It’s a great idea.”

  I put an arm around her to sort of half hug her back while my brain franticly tried to backpedal out of the hole I had dug myself into.

  “I didn’t mean we should ...”

  Alex sat back and turned to the screen again. “This is perfect. I really thought you were going to try and stop me. I even considered talking to Sabnack about ...”

  Alex pulled up short, not finishing her sentence.

  “Talk to Sabnack about what?” I asked.

  “It’s not important now. I was wrong. Let’s just focus on this mission.”

  I stared at her. “You were going to ask for a new partner, weren’t you?”

  Alex didn’t answer which was answer enough for me.

  “That’s great.” The pang of disappointment that punched me in the gut was hard to ignore. “You weren’t even going to tell me?”

  “I’m sorry. It was selfish. I got so obsessed with this whole freelancing thing, and I thought you wouldn’t go along with it. Then I grew a conscience and couldn’t even go through with the original plan myself. Then you come up with this.”

  She smiled, holding her hands out to the screen as if it were a finished masterpiece. “It’s just bold enough to make a statement without creating massive destruction.”

  “Derailing a train in a town is pretty massive,” I said.

  “You know what I mean.” She beamed. “Casualties will be at a minimum, and it’ll still be seen as a success.”

  Alex threw her arms around me again, pulling me in tighter this time. I couldn’t help but be distracted by her body so close to mine. I fumbled my arms around her while trying not to seem like I wanted to hug her too much, even though that’s exactly what I wanted to do.

  Alex straightened and smiled at me. “I’m sorry for even thinking about a new partner. It won’t happen again.”

  I shot her a sideways smile. “You say that now ...”

  Alex laughed. It was a musical sound that made me tingle all over. I decided to drop the train discussion and try something else.

  “So, just how powerful is this search program of yours?”

  Alex eyed me, picking up on my sudden change in subject. “This is The Judas Agency. It is the most powerful information gathering system in the world. Why do you want to know?”

  I shrugged. “Could it look up a former client? Maybe the head of a cutting-edge medical company who happens to have a grudge against The Judas Agency?”

  Alex shook her head. “No, we are not doing that.”

  “Come on. Let’s see what our old friend Simeon Scott is up to nowadays.”

  Chapter Six

  “No way. What’s with your obsession with that guy? Let it go.” Alex pushed me away from her desk and hit something on her keyboard that made her computer screen go black. “Simeon Scott is someone else’s problem now. It’s bad enough the way we let that mission end. I’m not going to stick my nose into that hornets’ nest to get stung again.”

  Alex and I were supposed to make sure a nano-tech company brought a revolutionary new medical treatment to market. That was weird enough—The Judas Agency making sure something good happened in the world. That’s when Simeon Scott stepped in. He was a Judas Agent with a bad reputation. Simeon had found a way to possess the autistic genius who had developed the revolutionary advancements. That, combined with a tragic accident that killed the CEO of the company, put Simeon firmly in the driver’s seat. Oh, and if that weren’t enough, Simeon used to be a part of the Denarii Division. Disavowed, presumably for his betrayal. Yeah, nothing to be curious about Simeon at a
ll.

  “Come on. What can it hurt to do a little inter-web-net investigation?”

  Alex snorted. “Did you just call it the inter-web-net?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “It’s called the Internet.” She grinned.

  “Whatever. Don’t you want to know what he is up to? Why would he resurface now, and how did he manage his possession trick? That isn’t something that happens every day.”

  Alex stared back at me without saying a word. After a few seconds of tortured silence, I sat back in my chair. “Fine, if you won’t do it for Simeon, do it for Ryan. He’s a good kid, and he had his body hijacked by some power-hungry lunatic.”

  Ryan was the Autistic savant Simeon chose to inhabit, pushing Ryan ... Well, I wasn’t sure where that put Ryan, and that was the point. Ryan was an innocent, and I didn’t like the thought of his mind being held captive while Simeon used his body like a cheap suit.

  “At least find out what’s going on up there for Ryan’s sake.”

  Alex’s eyes softened, and her shoulders fell. “I liked Ryan too, but that doesn’t give us the right to barge into their business. If Ryan’s still in there, he would’ve surfaced by now, and I would’ve seen it.”

  Alex held her mouth open a second too long, as if she were rewinding her words in her head, then she clamped her mouth shut and looked away.

  “What do you mean you would’ve seen it?” I leaned in close to her, trying to catch her wandering gaze. “How would you know if Ryan had surfaced or not?” I sat back and smiled. “You’ve been spying on him, haven’t you? You’ve been spying on them, and you didn’t tell me. Admit it.”

  Alex threw her head back and let out a breath. “Fine. I didn’t tell you because I knew you would get all weird about it and want to do more. And clearly, I was right. Yes, I’ve been following Ryan ... Simeon on the Net, but nothing odd has happened. MiRACL is growing by leaps and bounds, and their nano medical technology is spreading all over the globe. Simeon is using the company to help millions. I saw an article talking about the fact that he’s given away as many treatments or more than people have paid for. He is a worldwide hero.”

  I shook my head. “How does any of that make sense?”

  Alex shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s true. Looks like Simeon is one of the good guys, even if he did inhabit an innocent to get a second chance at life.”

  Alex’s gaze fell to the floor as she considered something. There was more to the story between her and Simeon, I just didn’t know what it was. I did know that Simeon had no business existing Topside or anywhere else for that matter. When an Agent betrayed the Denarii Division by revealing its existence, their soul was forever banished to the nowhere realm of the Denarii.

  Turned out nowhere wasn’t all that forever after all. Point was, Simeon knew the Denarii Division’s secrets, and he held that fact over our heads. He wanted to be left to his own devices, which made me want to know what he was up to even more. It couldn’t be good. It was all more than my curiosity streak could handle.

  “Well, I, for one, don’t buy it,” I said, breaking her trance. “We should go up and pay him a visit. See what’s going on for ourselves.”

  “And that is exactly why I didn’t tell you about my little spy mission. I knew you would get all crazy and want to take things to the next level. Leave it alone. Sometimes things are just what they seem to be.”

  “And sometimes they aren’t. What’s with you and this Simeon guy, anyway? How do you know him, I mean really?”

  Alex kept her gaze on the ground. “I told you. I only know of him. Just his reputation, that’s all.”

  “But when we saw him, he recognized you. There must be—”

  Alex stood up from her chair and grabbed my hand. “Enough of this Spy vs. Spy stuff. Let’s get out of here.”

  I stood up as well, not missing the sudden change in subject or the fact that she was holding my hand. She led me into the walkway. It felt like wading into the middle of the deep, grey sea again. “Where are we going?”

  “Don’t you worry about that. I have a big surprise for you. Say what you want, The Judas Agency looks out for its own, and it’s about time they started looking out for you too.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Okay, open your eyes.”

  Alex pulled her hands away from my face, and I looked around, not knowing precisely what I was seeing. We stood in a long hallway carpeted in a deep burgundy, and the walls were lined in a fabric of the same color. The entire space had been dampened so much that sound felt like a sin. Each wall contained a honeycomb of hexagonal windows about twice the size of a manhole cover, and I could see odd footholds jutting out between them to allow access to the windows higher up. They were stacked four-high and stretched about as far as I could see, but not one of them seemed to offer a view to the outside of the building.

  “I don’t get it.” I ducked to peek into the closest window. “Where are we?”

  The glass was tinted, preventing me from seeing what was on the other side, deepening my confusion.

  Alex skirted around me and pulled on a small handle to a window located at shoulder level. As I peered inside, it reminded me of an MRI, or maybe a casket, or a mix of both. The opening sunk into the wall about seven feet and maintained its hexagonal shape. The walls were lined with more fabric, and there were small shelves located on either side. The bottom was padded with a thin mattress, and there were fresh linens and blankets folded up neat enough to be in a cruise cabin.

  “Is this some sort of suspended animation torture? It looks like Dracula’s hipster nightmare come true.”

  Alex punched me in the ribs, knocking the wind out of my cynicism. “This is a standard issue Judas Agent apartment. Yours is number 316.” She gestured to the numbers stenciled above the window in looping script. “It’s a safe place to sleep, read, whatever, and I stuck my neck out to make sure you got one.”

  I pinned my forearm to my side, trying to stabilize the pain from her jab, and looked in again. “My mistake. I must have had something in my eye. It’s lovely. Thanks for thinking of me.”

  Alex slammed the window/door to the sleeping coffin and turned to leave. “You’re impossible sometimes, you know that?”

  I reached out to grab her arm. “I know. I’m sorry.” She stopped pulling away and turned around to look at me. I made an over dramatic show of nursing my ribs. “You just caught me a little off guard, that’s all.”

  She looked down at my side and poked at me with her finger. “If you want, I can make the other side match, so you don’t have to walk all crooked like that.”

  I straightened immediately and dropped my arm. “Nope, all of a sudden, I’m feeling much better.”

  I shot Alex a grin, but she didn’t return the sentiment. “If you don’t want the apartment, tell me now. I’ll turn it back in, so they can give it to someone who’ll appreciate it.”

  I sighed. “I said I was sorry. What do you want? I’m used to staying in my shop. I know Scrapyard City isn’t uptown, but at least I have a little elbow room.”

  “Yeah, you get to rub elbows with the nicest rapists and murders. I can see why you wouldn’t want to give all that up.”

  I groaned. “Okay, I’ll give it a shot.”

  “Don’t do me any favors. If you want to sleep in a cesspool, that’s your business. I was just trying to do something nice for my partner.”

  I dropped my head in utter defeat. “And I appreciate it more than I can say.” I looked up at her and took her hand in mine. “Thank you very much. I really do appreciate it.”

  Alex softened a little and pulled her hand out of mine. “All right, now you’re laying it on a little thick. Bathrooms are down the hall. You’ll find a locker inside corresponding to your apartment number. You can keep your stuff in there at night.”

  I eyed the tiny space again, trying not to look as skeptical as I felt. “Got it. Where’s your apartment?”

  “It’s past the locke
r rooms on the women’s side.” She pointed down the hall. “After our workout, I’ll show you your office space and get you going on a computer. You’ll have to learn how to work one without yelling at it.”

  “Be still my heart. A sleeping coffin and a place to kill my soul too. You really are good partner.”

  Alex drew back her fist for a low jab. “It’s not too late for that matching ribcage.”

  I stepped back and held up my hands. “Just offering a compliment, that’s all. See what I get for trying to be nice?”

  Alex turned to walk away for real this time. “Just get to the gym. You didn’t even try to dodge that poke to the ribs. We have a lot of work to do.”

  I let her get several strides away then said, “It was a lucky shot. You’d never get it in again.”

  Alex turned on her heels, but I was already headed off the other direction. She would just have to wait until we got to the gym. I wondered if they had body armor in the locker rooms.

  Chapter Eight

  When I walked into the gym, Alex was already practicing her katas on the mats at the far side of the room. She wore her usual workout clothes, tight shorts and a sports bra that exposed the many tattoos covering her supple skin and hard muscles. Watching her like this short-circuited every wire in my body, and I had to rein in the impure thoughts that inevitably surfaced.

  I forced myself to look away toward the other Agents who worked out in different areas of the psychotic training layout. The Judas Agency didn’t believe in weights and stair-climbers with convenient cup holders for your squeezy bottle. They took more of a survival of the fittest track on the whole fitness idea.

  A large portion of the gym was dedicated to a demented sparring course full of spiked pitfalls, boiling oil, and pointy posts. I would kill myself just walking on it, much less fighting within its fatal confines. I had seen Alex go to work there once, showing off her graceful and deadly moves against an opponent. It was a sight beholden to see, and one I never wanted to experience first-hand.