The Lethal Agent (The Extraction Files Book 2) (9 page)

SHUTTLE DOCK NYY-616, NEW YORK

SEPTEMBER 5, 2232

The travel badges, the equipment bag, the emotionally unstable partner. These little excursions were becoming almost routine.

This time, though, they would cross an ocean. They would leave North America entirely, and if anything went wrong, Dr. Arrenstein wouldn’t jump on a shuttle to save them.

Theo would have to be the responsible party this time. And he was determined to be.

International travel required a few extra steps, bag searches and scans, and two forms of identification. Nick provided them with everything they’d need. Theo, as Dr. Albert Munroe, was a frequent traveler recognized by both American and EU governments. Mable, as his wife, Dr. Alice Munroe, was afforded the same privileges, bumped to the front of the line, and cleared for boarding without a search of any kind.

They practically waltzed onto the shuttle. The flight from New York to Berlin would take a whopping five hours, so they put in their orders for drinks and a meal while they waited for the rest of the passengers to board.

“Hey, why does everyone call you Maggie?” Theo asked to pass the time. He rubbed the baldness of his head, sad over the loss of his hair, even if it was only temporary. Osip had made quick work of his dark locks.

“They don’t.” Her eyes were lost in the digital pages of whatever book she was reading.

Her own appearance was dramatically altered. She had bright-red hair a shade lighter than Dasia’s, and where it had been straight before, now it held a considerable wave. In an indigo body suit that matched his own, he almost didn’t recognize her.

“Yeah, that Ramona called you Maggie. And Dr. Arrenstein does all the time.”

“He’s just bad with names.” She didn’t look up. The same old Mable, despite her appearance.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you could have just said.” Theo settled into his seat and pulled up the music application on his wristlet.

“I believe I just did.”

He slid his audio devices behind his ears. “I only meant that if you like to be called Maggie, then that’s what I’ll call you. But if you don’t, I’ll stick to Mable.”

“I like Mable,” she said. Her voice sounded quieter, though that could have been because of the music streaming into his ears.

Theo turned off the music for a moment, unable to hold it back any longer. “You know, you can pretend to be this tough girl who doesn’t care about anything all you want, but I know that’s not who you are. I was there when you cried over Hadley and Rowen. I know that deep down in there, you’re a good,
caring
person. So whenever you’re ready to stop pretending to be a hard ass, let me know.” With a tap on his wristlet, he let the music fill his ears once more. He didn’t know if Mable responded, and he didn’t really care.

Once the passengers were boarded and the shuttle was in the air, the Craftsman servicewomen came around with drinks for both of them, water again despite their orders. Three hours in, two bowls of the nutritional provisions arrived.

Mable pushed hers away.

Theo nearly gagged. He would never touch it again.

Three seats to his right, Theo saw several passengers receive plates of roast chicken with vegetables and start eating.

He’d never wanted real food so bad.

Mable was silent for the duration of the flight, probably mad at him. Theo couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. Most of the time, he liked talking to Mable. As much as he would never have thought it possible upon first meeting her, Mable was smart and creative, and he enjoyed her company. Other times, she was a wild, feral cat, ready to pounce on him with claws out whenever the mood struck.

Nonetheless, Theo was pleased to get a chance to listen to music, uninterrupted. He’d missed it more than he’d realized. More than once, he found his fingers tapping the armrests along with the beat, as if the songs coursed through him.

Once landed, their travel badges coded for a pod to take them to a hotel. It was late, almost midnight in Germany. With Dr. Ludwig at her family home with two small children, they would have to wait until morning.

Theo pressed his palm to the scanner by the hotel door and watched as a thin, plastic card emerged. On it, the room number 832 was printed.

Mable yawned as they filed into the elevator and made their way to the eighth floor. Little pieces of hair splayed out all over, and her suit was wrinkled from the shuttle flight.

They both needed a good night’s sleep. Theo was eager to get to the room and collapse into bed.

Neither of them expected what they’d find.

Room 832 was small, with a single bed, narrow shower, and window that faced the adjacent building. It had a low crimson chair that matched the crimson bedding and crimson curtains, but Theo could only see the bed. The single, solitary bed.

They both stood in the door pretending the situation wasn’t awkward.

“I’ll take the floor,” Theo grumbled as he filed into the room and threw his bag onto the chair. Too late did he remember the jar of ammonium nitrate they would use to collect the Echo tomorrow.

Mable tossed her bag onto the bed and stripped out of her suit in a flash. Before Theo could stop her, she stood beside the bed nude but for a pair of slim, black hip-hugging bottoms.

Theo couldn’t help but stare.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was your first,” she said sarcastically.

“First?”

“Naked girl. You need to get out more.” Mable made no attempt to cover herself as she dug through her bag.

“I’ve seen girls before,” he protested.

“Then why are you staring?” She cocked an eyebrow at him.

“You look a lot different. You had more tattoos last time.”

“And a top,” she reminded him.

“A very small one,” he rebutted. “And your belly button was pierced, too, wasn’t it?”

Mable stood up straight and dropped a shirt back into her bag. She took a few steps and arrived mere inches from him. He shook like a leaf, but refused to let her know how much she unnerved him, especially so bare.

Her hands dipped down and she pointed to a hip with each index finger. “I had two here. A chandelier here.” She pointed to her navel. “Both nipples.” Theo couldn’t help but watch as she touched them as well. “Fourteen on my left ear, sixteen on the right. A ring in my septum.” Mable pinched her nose lightly. “One in each corner of my lower lip, and one through the middle. Two on my eyebrow, and two little studs in my cheeks.” She pressed her fingers into the place where dimples might be.

“That’s all?” He smiled to hide his nerves.

“There may have been one or two more.” His smile faded when she winked and walked back to her bag. He could only imagine the spots she
hadn’t
mentioned.

“Dr. Arrenstein made you get rid of them?”

“Yep.”

“What about the tattoos?”

“Yep. Those, too.”

“What about this one?” Surprising even himself, Theo stepped forward and pressed a finger to the bright-yellow tattoo along her ribs. He could hear her breath stop at his touch.

“I asked to keep it.”

“And he said yes?”

Mable looked up and smiled. “I’m very persuasive.” A moment later, she put both her hands around his and moved it up until his fingertips pressed the soft flesh of her chest. She gazed up at him, but he didn’t know what she expected. Theo didn’t want only a night of her, and he knew she didn’t want more from him.

Theo complied for a few seconds before he pulled his hand back. “We should get some sleep.”

“Really?” She rolled her eyes and returned to her bag where she slipped into her shirt followed by a pair of loose pants. “Do you want the bathroom first?”

“Yeah, sure.” Theo sighed. There was no middle ground. She either liked him or hated him, and if he didn’t wise up soon, she’d likely hate him forever. Theo couldn’t figure her out.

CPI-RQ2-04, NEW YORK

SEPTEMBER 5, 2232

Mable didn’t show up that night, though Dasia should have known better. One of the profiles from the matrix had disappeared. Someone had gone to extract the bug. Mable was gone.

It didn’t take Dasia long to figure it out.

She was just disappointed. All day she’d waited to see what Mable had in store, what cleaning had to do with changing herself. She was excited, more than she let herself admit. She wanted to be new again, to be more than the shell Cole left behind.

When Osip knocked on her door, she didn’t have much of a choice. She’d avoided him all day, and without Mable to be her excuse, she had no reason not to open it and let him in.

“Hey D. Another profile popped up. I thought you’d want to go over it together.” Osip had none of the smile or life in his eyes he usually had. Instead, his brow was wrinkled, as if he hated talking to her at all.

“Yeah, sounds good. Your room or mine?” She tried to sound less nervous than she was.

“I’m all set up in mine if you want to come over. Or I can move it over here. Whatever you want.”

“Okay, let me grab my stuff.” Dasia pulled the tablet from her desk and the sweater on the back of her chair and walked across the hall to Osip’s room. The door was open and waiting for her.

It was strange to be in his room now. The walls mocked her, the chair laughed at her. Now, she sat in it again, refusing to cower.

“Here, this one’s gone, Dr. Ludwig in Berlin. They sent a recon team, so next up is this one. Dr. Virgil Rathbone.” Osip spoke like she was his boss, like he was delivering a book report. He tapped the profile and produced the photo and data for yet another possible host.

Dasia scanned the information, as confused and clueless as ever. “You think we should go ask Nick?” They weren’t getting anywhere on their own.

“Because he was so helpful the first time?”

“True,” she admitted. A suffocating silence filled the room, as thick and inescapable as a haze storm. Dasia wished Mable had come, showed her how to be someone else. Given the choice, she would be like Cole. He was the best she’d ever known. Kind and open, confident in a quiet way, as if he’d known they’d end up together all along. He was smart and outgoing, friendly to strangers and loyal to friends. Sure, he was reckless and addicted and ultimately got himself killed, but there was so much good in the rest of him.

Dasia wanted to be like that.

And why shouldn’t she? She could be kind and friendly to Osip, even if she didn’t want anything else from him. “I used to have rabbits. Did I ever tell you that?” The silence disappeared as fast as it had come.

The corner of his mouth turned up into a slight smile. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yeah, they were these short-haired field hares. They were crazy fast and could hear you from a mile off, but I raised them all as babies. We had horses and a few cows, too.”

“Do you miss them?” Osip sat on the floor next to her and rested his arms across his knees.

“Not as much anymore. My dad sold them all a few years ago. We grew corn and potatoes after that.” In her mind’s eye, Dasia could picture the farm as it had been. Bolts of green shooting up from the ground, breaking up the orange that never quite seemed to dissipate. The tattered, antique farmhouse with modern fans and haze blowers. She remembered the sun, the bright blur in the sky, the sky they could only see at night. Sometimes it even had a star or two.

When she looked back at Osip, he sat smiling up at her, his hair fallen across his eyebrow. It had only been a little, a tiny piece of who she was, but she was glad she shared it with him. He looked up at her like he was desperate to know more but too afraid to ask.

So Dasia asked him, “What was it like in Dacha? Little girls that drink vodka?”

Osip laughed. His smile spread wide across his face. “Something like that. Potatoes grow pretty well in the underground, so they made a lot of potato vodka. It’s pretty smooth after a few rounds at the distillery. If you could afford it, you could drink it.”

“And you could always afford it?”

“Well, yeah.” He shrugged. “I ran jobs to the surface, some of them pretty risky. I ran a three man crew, so we split it. But still, the pot was sweet enough. We always came back with deep pockets.”

Dasia couldn’t imagine having such a life at so young an age. Osip had been valuable and wealthy at eighteen in a way she couldn’t imagine. “What kind of jobs?”

Osip launched into several stories about his old life, about the times he went to the surface with his team and collected something the city needed.

Dasia abandoned her chair to sit beside him on the floor and listen, asking questions when she didn’t understand one of his Russian words. His life seemed so colorful and exciting compared to hers. The parties and the bars and the group of guys with the loyalty of brothers—it was far from her quiet life on the farm.

“That sounds amazing,” she told him.

“It was. I loved it,” he replied with a smile.

“I’m sorry you had to leave it.” Of all of them, Osip had done nothing wrong. He hadn’t killed someone or been involved in a crime. He’d done nothing more than be born in the underground. It wasn’t fair.

“Don’t be sorry. I’m not. I loved living there, but I’ll never go back. This is my home now.”

“I can’t believe you can give it up so easily,” she told him.

“There was this woman—her name was Birdfoot or something—she was always going on about the old ways of the tribe. Some Native American stuff. When I was a kid, she’d give us these little treats, some kind of sweet bread with fruit in the middle. Damn they were good. Anyway, before she’d give us the treat, she’d tell us stories. One of them was about some thing called a firefly. I guess it was a bug that would light up at night.”

“Okay?” Dasia couldn’t see what one thing had to do with the other.

“Anyway, there was this warrior who asked the spirits about the meaning of life. They told him that life is like the night, and the good moments come as fast as the flash of a firefly. So the warrior tried to catch all the fireflies, but each one he caught would die. After a while, he couldn’t find anymore. Years and years he looked for them, and when he was really old, he couldn’t look anymore.”

“That’s kind of sad,” she told him.

“Yeah, but at the end, right before he died, a firefly appeared.” Osip smiled like he’d just told a hilarious joke.

Dasia shrugged. “I don’t get it.”

“You can’t go looking for the good stuff in life. You just have to live your life, and the fireflies will come to you.”

“You think that’s true?”

“Of course. You’re here, aren’t you?”

Dasia smiled. “So you think I’m a bug?”

Osip held up a balled fist, then spread his fingers wide as if releasing an insect. “Yep. The best kind of bug. The bug that lights up the night. A
firefly
.”