EPILOGUE:
OIPEP EMERGENCY SAFE HOUSE
(ESH: “KINGFISHER”)
SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE LONDON

That was my second death.

Which brought me to my third life: I didn’t make it through the golden door. Just as I was about to step over the threshold, I heard a woman’s voice calling me back. I didn’t want to go back. I guess that isn’t hard to understand. But the voice kept calling and the door began to recede into the white mist that also wrapped itself around the shapes of my mother and my father, then around me, until I couldn’t feel them beside me anymore but felt something or someone else, hugging me, and then there was this sensation of falling and this being was falling with me. I didn’t have to hear the voice calling me beloved to know who it was. I “pushed” against him. I was hungry and tired and I never wanted to leave my mom again, but I heard Not yet, not yet, my beloved.

I told him I hated him. I told him it wasn’t fair, that some fine guardian angel he was, letting me steal his Sword and letting all the knights get killed and me too—twice now. I wanted to stay with my mom.

Someone kept calling me, though, and that someone wasn’t the Archangel Michael.

That someone was Abigail Smith.

“Alfred . . . Alfred . . . ! Alfred, can you hear me?”

I opened my eyes. I was lying in a bed inside a room with whitewashed walls and a wooden floor, and beside me on a little table was a vase full of flowers. Daisies, I think.

“Oh, crap,” I said. “Extracted again.”

She was sitting beside the bed, smiling, and the white on the walls seemed yellow compared to her dazzling orthodontics.

“More lives than a cat,” she said.

“Two down, seven to go,” I said. “Where am I?”

“A safe house.”

“Am I? Safe?”

“Of course you are.”

“Where’s Sam?”

“He’s here. Would you like to see him?”

“Maybe not right now. Did he tell you what happened after you left Camp Echo?”

She nodded. She took my hand. “I should not have left you there, Alfred.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” I snapped back. “Why did you?”

“I believed the only hope of saving you was a direct appeal to the board.”

“And you didn’t know what Nueve was planning?”

“Of course not. I left specific orders that nothing was to be done without my authorization.”

I thought about that. “It’s hard to find good help these days, isn’t it?”

She gave one of her gentle English trilling-type laughs.

“Dr. Mingus has been terminated. You won’t be seeing any more of him.”

“That’s good. He didn’t have much of a bedside manner. What about Nueve?”

Her smile went away. “The Operative Nine has been suspended pending a full review of his actions upon my leaving Camp Echo.”

“Oh. What’s that mean exactly?”

“It means he’s in deep doo-doo.”

“You got the board to change its mind?”

“I made the board’s mind irrelevant. I’ve taken on emergency powers, Alfred, which I am allowed to do under certain unique circumstances. And this circumstance certainly qualifies as unique.”

“What about Ashley? Is she in trouble too?”

“Don’t you think she should be?”

“So you arrested her.”

She studied my face for a long time before answering.

“What do you think I should do to her?”

I thought about it. “Nothing.”

She seemed surprised. “Really? Nothing at all?”

“I don’t think she ever wanted to hurt me. She was trying to protect me the best she could, but she was in a bad spot, because of Nueve. Because she . . . well, I guess she loves him. And you can’t always choose who you fall in love with, like those girls in vampire stories or in real life when a girl falls for a doper. It’s one of those things that just happen and then you’re kind of trapped in a situation you want to control but can’t. It’s almost like being an Op Nine or a knight like my dad or even somebody really messed up like Jourdain.”

She was looking at me like a mom with a babbling kid who was just learning how to talk.

“The thing-that-must-be-done,” I said. “My father swore to protect the Sword no matter what, even if that what meant the Sword would kill him. When he was the Operative Nine, Samuel had to think the unthinkable, even if the unthinkable meant putting the SD 1031 in my head. See? Even Nueve and Mingus—well, maybe not Mingus, that dude was seriously messed up with a capital mess—thought there was no choice, and Ashley was given one between just abandoning me to Nueve or trying to help me the best she could . . . though I wish she had told me when she had the chance.

“And Jourdain. I think he really believed his dream that the Sword would come back if he took revenge for what I did to his dad. What happened to Jourdain anyway?”

Just like with Ashley, she said, “What would you like to happen to him?”

“Nothing. Well, he probably should get some therapy. We both should. I used to hate going to therapy, but now I’m thinking we should maybe do a group thing. Me, Sam, Ashley, Jourdain.”

She laughed like I was making a joke, but she didn’t know it was only half a joke.

“Not Nueve?”

“I don’t think therapy would do him any good. He’d probably just whip out his sword cane and chop off the therapist’s head.”

Thinking of heads reminded me. “We gotta get those skulls back,” I said. “Put them back in the graves where they belong.”

“The twelve are being taken care of even as we speak,” she said.

“Good,” I said. “Which leaves the thirteenth. What happens to me now?”

Again, just like with Ashley and Jourdain: “What would you like to happen?”

“What I’d like to happen, you can’t give,” I said.

“I can give anything now, Alfred.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’ve taken emergency powers. Queen Abigail. Well, when you say ‘anything’ . . . ?”

“We could still extract you, give you a new identity, take you anywhere you’d like to go.”

“Give me a normal life.”

“Yes.”

“Insert me into a normal interface.”

“Yes.”

“And leave me alone.”

“Yes.”

“Forever.”

No “yes” this time. “For as long as I am in charge.”

“You won’t be in charge forever.”

“It’s the most I can offer, Alfred.”

“And if you lose your job . . . or when you retire . . . or maybe if somebody does something to you . . . then I’m fair game.”

“What’s done is done,” she said carefully. “I can’t go back and undo the past, Alfred.”

“I guess that’s been my biggest problem,” I said. “Getting hung up on that—the undoable part.”

“You have another choice. An alternative.”

“Those are good to have. What is it?”

“Do you remember a year ago my telling you that we are always looking for fresh talent?”

“Yes. And I called you after I got home and you basically told me to grow up first.”

She smiled and again for about the tenth time I reminded myself to ask her about her oral-hygiene regimen. Her smile had the power to blind you.

“A lot of that has happened, hasn’t it?” She didn’t wait for my take on it, but hurried on. “Alfred, I’d like to offer you a position with the Company.”

She waited for it to sink in. It had a long way to sink, but Abby Smith was a patient person. She didn’t move a muscle while I stared at her.

“A couple of days ago you people are sharpening the knives to lobotomize me, and now you’re offering me a job?”

“That wasn’t us,” she answered. “That wasn’t my Company. We weren’t created for it and we will not tolerate it. No, Alfred, you would be working directly for me. In return, I will see to it you receive the best of educations as well as the safest environment to pursue it. And, when you’re eighteen, you can decide if you wish to stay with us.”

“What’s the catch?”

“It might prove a bit . . . dangerous at times. But you’ve proven more than once that you’re more than capable of handling yourself.”

“What about SOFIA? How do I know you’re not just bringing me onboard to use me again?”

When I said the word “SOFIA,” her smile evaporated. The room got dimmer, as if she had flipped off a light.

“SOFIA is dead. The data has been purged from our systems and all the samples destroyed.”

“You could have told me about it. You had the chance. I asked in Knoxville about SOFIA and you said there was no such thing.”

“I believe I said there was no such person. ”

“Ho, well, at least you were being honest about it. How do I know you’re being honest now? How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t, Alfred,” she said, and she sounded sad. “We’ve done very little to earn it. I can’t give you a reason to say yes. To be perfectly honest, if the roles were reversed, I might very well say no.”

“So why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re something very special, and I’m not.” She stroked my forearm as she talked. “Though I’ve studied it all my life, I’ve never quite touched it, Alfred, not in the way you have.”

“Touched what?” I asked, though I knew what.

She put a hand on my shoulder. “I shall tell you a secret: I envy you, Alfred Kropp. We long for the divine. We long to touch it. We long for it to touch us. At every turn in this affair you were met by betrayal and treachery—Samuel, Nueve, Ashley, among God knows how many others—and yet at the end, you were willing to sacrifice yourself for a world that must seem cold and brutal and quite unforgiving.”

“Well,” I said. “It wouldn’t be right to let your personal hang-ups get in the way of the stuff that really matters. There wouldn’t even be a thing like OIPEP if the world wasn’t worth saving, right?”

“Then your answer is yes?”

“Can I think about it?”

“Of course. Take all the time you need. It will take a while to decide Nueve’s fate.”

“What does Nueve’s fate have to do with me saying yes?”

“The day is coming, Alfred, sooner rather than later, when I must designate a new Operative Nine.”

She waited patiently for that one to sink in. I let it sink till it reached bottom, and then I said, “You’re going to train me to be an Operative Nine?”

“I can’t think of anyone better suited for the job. Perhaps, in the most ironic sense, you’ve been training for it for quite some time.”

I didn’t say anything. She gave my hand a squeeze.

“Don’t answer now. You’ll have two years to think about it. The Company needs people like you, Alfred. Sometimes we lose sight of what really matters in our relentless pursuit of our goals—but through all this, you never lost sight of that. Of the things that really matter. It’s a rare quality, and something without which our organization—well, the entire world, as a matter of fact—will perish.”

“Sounds like you’re asking me to save the world.”

“Yet again,” she said with a smile. “Do you think you’re up for it?”

An orderly brought me a light meal after Abby left. Beef broth, hot tea, and some tasteless crackers. After I ate, a doctor came in and checked my vitals.

“Hey, I know you,” I said. “You’re Dr. Watson from the Pandora.”

“My name isn’t Watson,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “That was just my name for you.”

“Is that what you do?” he asked. “Give people names?”

“I was filling in the void,” I said. “You remember, we talked about butts.”

“I don’t remember talking about your butt.”

“It wasn’t my butt in particular.”

“Whose butt, then?”

“Nobody’s really.”

“It was a philosophical discussion about butts?”

“I didn’t know why we had cracks.”

“And did we resolve the issue?”

“When somebody laughs really hard, you say they ‘cracked up.’ ”

“Few people know this, but we’re born crackless, until our first hearty gale of laughter splits apart the glutes.”

After he left, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. I was a little afraid of what I might dream, but I was pretty tired.

I was just drifting off when I heard the door open and the heavy tread of boots on the wooden floor. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who it was.

“Hi, Sam,” I said.

He hovered near the door.

“You can come in,” I said.

He walked slowly to the chair beside the bed. Sat. Looked at me.

“I guess you got me on that chopper in the nick of time,” I said.

“Thankfully, yes. The doctor expects a full recovery.”

“Did you hear what Abigail Smith expects?”

He answered slowly, choosing his words carefully.

“Not what either of us expected, of course. But I think it’s an intriguing proposition.”

“I’d have to trust her.”

He nodded. “Do you?”

I thought about it. “Oh, heck, Sam, I guess if I gave up on that I might as well stay dead.”

“Nueve will fight for his position. And it’s quite difficult to fire an Operative Nine. It’s considered a lifetime appointment.” “It’s weird,” I said. “Until all this happened, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, but it sure wasn’t being a Superseding Protocol Agent.”

“Becoming one might be your only way to ensure SOFIA is never reborn.”

“You gotta become a devil to fight him?”

He looked at me with those dark, hound-dog eyes, so homely and also so sad.

“Somehow I don’t think that will ever happen with you, Alfred.” He changed the subject. “She’s asked to see you.”

“Ashley.”

“Yes.”

“Should I?”

“It was the worst kind of blackmail, Alfred. Nueve used her to monitor you after your escape from Camp Echo, used her feelings for him. She never wished any harm to come to you.”

“She should have told me the truth.”

“We avoid truths that terrify us.”

“Is that why you didn’t tell me about SOFIA?”

He looked away. I looked at his hands, at the missing fingers.

“You never told Vosch anything, did you?” I asked. “Even when he chopped off your fingers, you didn’t tell.”

He cleared his throat. “When I left the Company, I abandoned the oath that bound me to insert the SD 1031. I took a new vow, a vow to protect and guard you against all enemies. I will never break that promise, Alfred. But now we are back to trust, aren’t we?”

I didn’t give him a direct answer. That’s an Op Nine quality. I said, “I’ll need a trainer.”

He nodded. “Most definitely.”

“Someone who knows the ropes. Someone who’s been there. Someone who can show me the way between doing the-thing-that-must-be-done and doing the right thing.”

“A narrow path full of pitfalls and hazards.”

“Because the right thing still matters.”

“The right thing will always matter.”

I thought about it. I thought about what he said and what I said and what had happened and what might happen. I thought about the golden door and the smell of my mother’s hair and the empty sockets where my father’s eyes had been and even ol’ Mr. Weasel, licking my blood from his fingertips. Life shouldn’t be what happens while you’re running from your own shadow. Maybe that’s why the angel pulled me back: I didn’t want to die because I loved the world so bad my death was the only way to save it. I wanted to die for the same reason I struck the deal with Nueve in Knoxville: I thought it was the only way to hide from the shadow with my name on it. The problem was you can’t run from it and you can’t hide from it, so what are you supposed to do about it?

I didn’t know, but I thought I knew how to start. I patted his knee with the hand I cut open to heal Jourdain, to heal Ashley, to heal him.

“I forgive you, Sam,” I said.

“And that matters most of all,” he said.