I managed to get us off the interstate and back to the Drake in one piece. It wasn’t easy. The highway was littered with chunks of asphalt and abandoned cars, and once I got off the interstate I inched along, weaving through a massive traffic jam, every street clogged with cars and bicycles, and people dodging between them carrying suitcases. I passed broken storefront windows and could see people milling about inside, looting.
I didn’t see any valets in front of the hotel, so I double-parked about two blocks away. The wind howled and swirled and little flecks of burning ice stung my cheeks and I worried one would land in my eye and blind me. Op Nine’s head lay in the crook of my neck as I dragged him into the lobby. Nobody paid any attention to us because the place was crazy, the front counter packed ten people deep and cell phones ringing and people mingling about either talking very fast or talking not at all but walking around with dazed expressions, and I thought, Hang on, people, ’cause you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Back in our room, I threw Op Nine on the bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. He was shivering pretty badly, muttering under his breath, and his right eyelid twitched. I’d figured out by this point what was wrong with him, so I grabbed a towel from the bathroom, rolled him onto his side, and tied his hands behind his back. The towel was too thick and the knot too big to hold him for long, but it might give me a few seconds to get to him once he woke up.
Then I searched his pockets.
A handkerchief, a travel-sized plastic bottle of Visine, nose spray, a comb, and a crucifix. Then I found his cell phone and clicked through the address book. I highlighted the entry called “HQ” and was rewarded with a recording that all circuits were busy and to try my call again later. I didn’t have much “later” left, nobody did, but I slipped the phone into my pocket to try later or in case it rang.
I went into the main room and booted up the laptop. This time I tried to crack the code, but nothing worked, including such attempts as “SPA,” “NINE,” “9,” and “OUR FATHER.”
I went back into the bedroom and sat beside him.
“The phone lines are out,” I told him as he lay there, muttering and sweating. “I can’t get into your computer and we have forty-eight hours till they consume us. Well, more like forty-six hours. I know you’re hurting right now, but sometimes you have to suck it up and just push through. Take it from me; I’ve done more sucking it up than your average NFL quarterback.
“I need the access code to your computer, Nine. We’ve got to get in touch with headquarters, let them know what’s happened, and come up with some kind of plan. It would also be helpful to know what and where the devil’s door is, and you’re the expert. I’m just a kid mucking around with these demons, and I’m losing my grip. I mean, I think I’m going insane. I’ve been having these hallucinations about killing you, so I’m starting to not trust myself when it comes to homicidal impulses. I’ve got to get a grip on this situation because right now it’s got a grip on me—both of us, I guess.”
He probably couldn’t hear a word I said. I got a wet washcloth from the john and wiped his face with it and shouted right in his ear, but nothing worked.
Back in the main room, I opened up the minibar (I figured we were traveling on the corporate tab) and ate a chocolate bar, drank a Coke, then brought a bottle of Evian back into the bedroom and dumped the contents over his hound-dog head. He still didn’t wake up. I felt pretty bad about doing that, so I fetched a towel from the bathroom and dried him off the best I could.
“They get you with the worst thing,” I told him. “For me it was my mom. What are they doing to you? What’s the worst thing, Nine?”
I had a feeling I knew, and that gave me an idea. I sat back down in front of his IBM ThinkPad and typed in “ABKHAZIA.” A box popped up on the toolbar: “WELCOME NINE.”
I clicked on the SATCOM folder. The screen flickered, then another message box popped up: “SATCOM DOWN.” Below it was the little e-mail icon, so I clicked on that and his in-box popped up. There was only one message.
From: Aquarius
To: Nine
Subject: RE: OPREQ
As you predicted, Research
advises active agent cannot be cloned or synthesized. What an
annoying habit you have of always being correct. Accordingly,
unless conditions on the ground warrant otherwise, protect at all
hazards the ACTAGE carrier. Do not put him in harm’s way unless
absolutely necessary.
Aquarius
I read this twice. What was “OPREQ”? Operational Requirement? Operative Request? “ACTAGE” must be short for “active agent,” but what was the active agent he was talking about? Then I remembered the briefing, and Op Nine talking about the 3XDs and the active agent, the whatever it was that gave the ammo its bite. And I remembered asking him in the desert if the bullets were loaded with holy water and him saying no, it was something he hoped was more powerful.
Then I remembered my dream, of the gigantic Kropp Fish and the little suckers all over my body, and how when I first woke up on the Pandora, I was dizzy and drank those big glasses of orange juice. I remembered the soreness under my arm, and suddenly it all came together. The sore spot must have been the insertion point for the needle they used. The needle to drain my blood.
I read the e-mail again: “. . . protect at all hazards the ACTAGE carrier . . .”
I clicked on the other boxes: Sent Mail, Trash, Drafts, but every file was blank.
So I clicked on the Compose button and wrote:
To: Aquarius
From: Nine
Subject: Help
I’m not sure who you are, but I guess you’re Director Merryweather. This is Alfred Kropp. I broke into this computer bcuz Op Nine is hurt. Still in Chi. City burning. Two days to get Vessel or world ends. Need help here. Send help.
AK
I hit the Send button and the message vanished. Then a dialogue box popped up.
Message Undeliverable: Unknown Recipient
“Wuddya mean?” I yelled at the computer. “ ‘Unknown recipient’?”
I hit the Compose button again.
To: Aquarius
From: Nine
Subject: Help
This is Alfred Kropp. We
need help. No Hyena in Chi. Raining fire. Op Nine very hurt. 2 days
or else. Send help!
AK
I hit the Send button and
again the little box popped up. I clicked on his address book and a
long list popped onto the screen. So I wrote a third e-mail to
everyone on the list, a kind of bulk mail SOS.
To: ALL COMPANY PERSONNEL
From: Nine
Subject: Help us
This is Alfred Kropp. Op Nine
very hurt. 2 days to give them Vessel. Don’t have Vessel. Don’t
have Hyena. Where is devil’s door? Please send help.
AK
I held my breath, my index finger hovering over the touch pad. I clicked, waited, and then a box popped up.
Message Undeliverable:
Unknown Recipients
I gave a yell of frustration and pushed back from the table. From the bedroom Op Nine moaned loudly, as if in answer.
His body jerked on the bed and his head lolled back and forth on the pillow. His color, never very healthy looking, now looked even worse, a kind of burnt orange, and spit rolled from his open mouth. I went into the bathroom for a fresh washcloth and caught my reflection in the mirror.
I froze. Red spots with white centers the size of nickels had appeared all over my face and neck. I touched one on my cheek. It was like pressing the head of a hot match against my skin, and I yanked my finger away. What now? What the hell were they doing to me now? I pulled the sweater off and lifted the shirt underneath. The marks were there too, and on my back. I was covered in boils.
“Okay,” I muttered, dropping my shirt and ducking my head over the sink as I wet the washcloth. “Okay. Pustulating boils. That’s fine. You wanna play hardball. I can take it.”
I returned to the bed and wiped Op Nine’s face.
“I can’t get through,” I told him. “I don’t know, maybe headquarter’s been destroyed or something. We’re on our own and since I can’t get through to you either, I guess that means I’m on my own. Not a happy development in terms of MISSCOMP.” He moaned, eyes jerking behind fluttering lashes.
“You guys did lie to me,” I went on. “I’m the carrier. My blood is the active agent in the 3XD ammo. You must have taken a couple pints from me on the ship to put in your guns, and that’s really low. That borders on the despicable. You could have just asked. But I guess being a SPA means you never have to ask. No wonder Ashley told you to take a hike. You’re gonna have to answer for that, but you’re not going to have a chance to answer because they’ve scooped you out too, and you can’t help me find Mike or the devil’s door and so everything’s screwed. Game over.”
His arms began to pull against the knotted towel, his fingers clawing in the air. I didn’t have much time before he went for his eyes. I went back into the bathroom and smashed one of the drinking glasses in the sink, picked up the longest shard, and without even a second of hesitation cut my left palm open and walked back to the bed, my hand raised over the level of my heart, palm upward, cupping the blood.
I sat on the edge of the bed, dipped two fingers into the blood pooling in my palm, and smeared the blood over his eyelids, saying the whole time, “Now in the name of Saint Michael, I order you to be whole—though I oughtta . . .” Then I stopped, because a healing was no place for bitterness. “So be healed, Operative Nine, be healed.”
I traced a cross on his forehead with my blood and then took my hand away. The moaning stopped, the eyes went still, and the hands relaxed. I gave his shoulder a little poke, but he didn’t wake up. Something had happened, though.
I wrapped a hand towel around my left hand, dragged myself into the main room, collapsed on the sofa, and lay there for a few minutes before I got back up, went into the bathroom, and trimmed my toenails.
Then I went back to the sofa, threw an arm over my eyes, and fell asleep. It would be the last sleep I got for a very long time.