Behind a desk with a finish so smooth it could have been the mirror in a telescope, a thin woman with short, vivid red hair put one hand to her headset as the other continued to type.
“
Mr. Archer's private line. May I ask who's calling?”
The question was a formality. Only one person had access to the number, and it was usually a bad sign when Archer got a call on it. The voice on the other end was what the woman expected, gravelly and old, strained by too many years full of too many worries. But the voice was also filled with the solid confidence of a man toughened by years of being right when no one expected it.
“Yes, sir. I understand, sir. Would you like me to transfer you to Mr. Archer, or—?”
The man on the end of the line replied, and the girl nodded. As usual, conversation between the two men was avoided when possible.
“Of course, sir. I'll be happy to pass on the message.”
Nicki Baxter touched the headset again to end the call and swore to herself. The boss was not going to like this. Not a bit.
When most people hear about covert government facilities, they think of Area 51 or hidden missile silos. Reality usually rides shotgun with disappointment, and at the same time Rowan Archer was being told the bad news by his loyal and long-suffering assistant, Kitra Singh was being called into the high-end Intelligence version of the principal's office.
In a gymnasium that could have been transported from any college, a man in a black suit, white shirt, black tie and an expression of distaste was gesturing wildly.
“
Singh!” the agent shouted above the din in the training center. “Robinson wants to see you ASAP!”
Kitra put her hands up to her opponent, signaling that the round was over. All around, men and women gave full-throated screams as they practiced a smattering of six different martial arts. Today's theme was control, focusing on touching your opponent without doing them harm. Their hands had been chalked to allow the touches to show on their dark uniforms. Singh's was pristine. The agent who bowed to her as she backed away, Stevie Higgs, had enough white on his togs to make them look gray.
Giving Higgs a wink and a crooked smile, Singh turned and trotted over to the waiting agent.
Ugh,
she thought with mild distaste.
Phillips. Robinson has a whole barracks full of people to send. Why this jackass?
Agent Phillips stood at the edge of the gymnasium, twirling his finger impatiently, telling her to pick up the pace. She snatched a towel from the pile of gear at the edge of the mat, taking her time wiping off nonexistent sweat.
“Singh, stop screwing around. Robinson wants you in his office. Now.”
She turned a baleful eye toward him. “I'm sorry, Agent Phillips. What was that you called me?”
Phillips turned pink. Such a by-the-book asshole, he'd let his dislike for her make him forget the rules of the organization he held so dear. “I'm sorry,
Special Agent
Singh, but Robinson was clear that he wanted you in his office pretty much yesterday.”
Phillips might be a pain in the ass, but he generally didn't start trouble. Singh grabbed her gear bag and gestured for him to lead the way. Behind the clear lenses of his thick glasses, Phillips narrowed his eyes before heading for the exit.
It was a mannerism every person in the unit was used to. Phillips was usually the go-between when the brass needed face time with the unit members, which meant that any displays of their powers were met with the small but noticeable reaction. She should have left the bags behind to avoid irritating the man, but even after three years he hadn't forgiven her for breaking his arm. And it had been
his fault
!
As Kit Singh followed the irritating agent, she wondered for the hundredth time what that look signified. If most people had seen her effortlessly throw a bag the size of a steamer trunk over her shoulder, three hundred pounds of gear no more troubling than a backpack, she would say they were scared. That a simple change in expression meant disapproval.
With Phillips, she wasn't so sure. He had been the one to break routine during mixed training in her early days with the unit. A normal human, trying to prove something in a bout with one of
them
. A broken arm taught him to use caution with her, but it also bred animosity. He'd never displayed a hint of dislike for the other superhuman agents.
She could almost swear that it was envy. As if, by every show of power, the men and women of the unit were mocking the fact that they had it and he did not.
Kit was blessed in that she didn't have to suffer the way so many other Next did. She wasn't out in the open, part of society, name in a database and searchable on the Internet. The general population of Next were forced to tell the world what they were or face penalties, treated like criminals for a twist of genetics.
If Phillips really was jealous, it was the simple and uninformed envy of a child. The unit had been her saving grace. Out there in the mix, vulnerable and exposed? Who in their right mind would want that?
Fourteen hours, one hastily packed bag, two frustrating changeovers, and several desperate (and failed) attempts at hotel reservations later, Kitra Singh stepped off a plane and into the large walkways of Louisville International Airport. Despite the fact that only a handful of people knew she was coming, Kit couldn't shake the feeling that she was in a movie and some hapless limo driver would be waiting with a hand-scrawled sign bearing her name. After all, the previous day had been so unreal it might as well have been the plot to a movie character's life, but not hers.
With a sigh she made her way down the vast halls, flashing her identification at three checkpoints before being stopped at the fourth. There, they studied her badge carefully for thirty seconds before calling in a supervisor. The shining gold watermark spiraling across her cards was clearly above their pay grade.
A minute later she was being escorted through employee-only doors, hustled down private hallways, and bundled into a long, black car with official plates. Her bags were stowed with the terrified efficiency of men handling a bomb, eager to get the job over and hit the bars to celebrate another day of survival.
As the driver put the car into gear without being given a destination, Kit mused that they really ought to come up with another name for it. Being superhuman wasn't very super. Mainly because the last day made her realize how few people would actually treat her like a human.
A quiet, tense twenty minute drive left her standing with bags in hand in front of a set of buildings. From the outside they looked much like any collection of matching offices. There was a large garage off to the left of the main complex that looked like a fire station. The place was done all in brick, no bells or whistles. Plain. Forgettable.
Covert installations usually were. Though, to be fair, this one wasn't so much covert as low-key. No one wanted to draw any more attention to the area than necessary. It had seen quite enough of that.
Shouldering her luggage and mustering courage, Kit Singh made her way through the front doors.
As she passed through them, a faint buzzing sensation washed over her. It felt like fresh laundry when you pass your hand over it, that barely perceptible rush of static electricity. Strange.
She expected a lobby but got a waiting room straight out of a prison. The entrance area was empty but for lines of chairs wrapping around the wall, each of them one solid piece and bolted to the floor. Ten feet in, a wall of steel and concrete stretched across the width of the room. It was broken only by a heavy steel door banded with yet more steel, and a window constructed with the same security measures in mind. A bored-looking man of middle years leaned back in his chair behind the bars of the window, giving her a lazy glance.
From the sound of it, he was playing
Angry Birds.
The disciplined agent in her began to twitch, but outwardly Kit was placid. The man paid her little mind as she moved toward his cage, finally looking up only after her bags were on the floor and her arms folded over her breasts.
“Help you?” the man, whose name tag bore only the word “Tucker,” said laconically.
Kit took a deep breath and channeled her calm. “I hope so,” she replied. “I'm Special Agent Kitra Singh. I've been assigned here from—”
Tucker put a finger to his lips and interrupted her. “Not a good idea to mention names in the public areas.”
Kit looked around the empty room pointedly. “I really don't see how that matters, since there's no one here to overhear me.”
Tucker's finger darted away from his face and toward the corners of the room. Kit followed the motion and saw cameras nestled in the high places. A lot of them.
“
About a year back,” Tucker said, “We had a fella could take control of electronics. Did it subtle, avoided messing things up. Didn't make it obvious, but he was gathering information on us by watching the camera feeds. So, no, lady, it isn't a good idea to talk out here.”
With that he slapped a button, and the door beside his cage slid open.
Kit hesitated. “I don't know where to go.”
Tucker waved toward the door. “Just follow the cussing,” he said, his southern patois growing thick. “You'll know you're there when it's right in front of you.”
Kit's eyebrows came together in confusion. “Cussing? Like, someone swearing in anger?”
Tucker smiled at her like she had learned a new trick. “Yes, ma'am. That'll be Director Archer. He's expecting you.”
Kit dragged her gear to her shoulder and strode through the door. Better to get it over with now.
While the entrance to the place was severe, the hall behind the bars was tasteful and pleasant. The cold white paint and industrial materials of the facade were nowhere to be found. The hall beyond the entrance was drywall, painted beige, with dark mahogany trim and cream carpet. It made the place look like a law firm, a sharp contrast with the forbidding lobby.
Most interesting were the pictures. Along each side of the hallway, identical silver frames showed a progression of images that depicted a transformation to Kit as she walked along. The first showed an aerial shot of a massive crater—no, not a crater. It was a famous picture, maybe the most famous in the world. It was the perfect half-sphere left in the dirt after the disaster at Fairmont.
A mile and a half in diameter and cut scalpel-clean, Fairmont had been wiped off the map in a heartbeat. Whatever Ray Elliot had done, it had turned a large chunk of a Louisville suburb into a basin devoid of life. That moment, too big and deadly for any sort of cover-up, had ushered in the era of the Next. In the hearts and minds of people across the world, the destruction of Fairmont had begged the question.
What are we, compared to that?
The pictures alternated across the hall, next showing the huge memorial ceremony held not long after the disaster for the thousands who had died. Kit remembered it clearly, as she did the president's speech a week later declaring the site off-limits to civilians. The remaining residents of Fairmont were given a large subsidy and notice of eviction. That had caused enormous outrage, but the end result was a media blackout of the ruined town still in effect more than a decade later.
No cameras, no satellite imagery, no aircraft shots. Nothing. Trespassers tried to get close, but after the first few were tried and convicted in federal court, loudly and publicly, the number of people who tried trickled off to one or two a year.
Looking at the pictures, Kit understood why the government was so keen to keep Fairmont off the map.
The sequence of events was laid out before her. Heavy equipment, fleets of earth movers and trucks bearing soil and gear of all kinds, worked across the images. Steel frameworks began to rise inside the crater, massive beyond belief. The town around, a blip of civilization in an otherwise heavily wooded area, was razed to the earth and planted over with trees and grass.
Dotting the pictures were the occasional Next, carrying immense loads in one frame, blurring from job to job at super speed in another. On the one hand, it was hard to imagine a structure so large being built at all, much less in the span of a few years. On the other, a workforce including hundreds of superhumans would have been a huge advantage. It must have been, given the results.
In the void created by a single man, a subterranean building grew. The last few pictures showed the strange underground structure being covered with a layer of soil, seed, and hay. Only a few pieces of infrastructure jutting from the ground gave any indication of what lay below.
Around those elevator shafts and power lines, buildings were erected. They looked like offices. There was even a garage.
Looking at the last photo, taken from nearly the same position as the famous original, Kit saw that the very place she stood was precisely in the middle of where the crater had been. Ground zero.
Her eyes unfocused from the image, though not before she noticed the frozen tines of wind turbines nestled behind the trees surrounding the place. A lot of them.
Kit saw her face in the glass of the photo's frame. Thin, with smooth skin the color of caramel. Her black hair was cut boyishly short, barely long enough to wrap around a finger. Hazel eyes stared back at her from the angular cheekbones shared by tens of millions of Indian women, but with the full lips of her father.
Just a woman. But then, Ray Elliot had been just a man.
“You Singh?” A resonant voice asked from right beside her.
Kit had trained too long and hard to be easily rattled. She didn't overtly react despite the stress of the day wearing on her nerves, though she was surprised anyone could sneak up on her. That shouldn't be possible for a normal person.
Kit turned calmly to face him. That bit about normal people came back to the front of her brain as she took in the speaker. Suddenly she didn't feel so bad.
“
I asked if you're Agent Singh,” the man said again, and this time she nodded. He wasn't especially tall or broad, but he was still
huge
. The normal negative spaces people have, such as the spot between the thighs where they don't touch, or the distance between the arm and side where the forearm dangles at rest, just weren't there. The man was thick in every dimension. His arms were inhumanly muscled and nearly uniform in width. He wore sweats that sat on his frame like spandex, every inch of him outlined in detail.
Another Next, here? What is this place?
“Yes,” she said, clearing her throat. “I'm Kitra Singh. Ah, Special Agent Singh, that is.”
“
Deakins,” the man said, thrusting out a hand. Kit shook it—strong, and with the intentional delicacy of the abnormally strong—and let out a breathy sigh. Deakins chuckled. “I know. New place, kind of strange. The driver should have let you off in the back. That's where the employee entrance is. Probably one of Archer's jokes.”
Kit raised an eyebrow. “Jokes? Making me think this place is some kind of jail is supposed to be funny?”
Deakins motioned for her to follow him with a broad smile. “No, dealing with Tucker is the funny part. As for this place being a jail, well, I'll let Archer fill you in on that.”
“
I get the feeling this is going to be an interesting day, Mr. Deakins.”
A muffled laugh came from the man. “A lot of people make that mistake. I'm actually a woman.”
The long hallway opened into a vast office space. Windows a foot wide spanned the entire room. They stretched from floor to ceiling, set apart in three foot intervals. They let in enough natural light that the overhead fluorescents were turned off. The room was a hundred feet deep and half that wide, dotted with desks that were universally piled with papers. Computer monitors flickered, and the occasional desk lamp shined buttery yellow over the hunched form of a person trying to finish their work.
“
Hey, Deakins,” someone shouted from the back of the room. “That the new girl? Archer's in a bad mood. Maybe she should come back tomorrow.”
Every face looked up, the sound of keyboards clacking and pens scritching away on forms suddenly gone. Kit stood framed by the dark hall behind her, an object of rapt attention.
Her brow furrowed. She could fight her way through a platoon of enemies, reassemble two dozen firearms—blindfolded—in the time it took most people to jog to the mailbox. She was not going to be nervous. She would
not
allow these people to intimidate her. She would give a good first impression.
“
Hey, look at the poor thing. She's terrified,” a woman with blonde hair near the front said.
“
I'm not—”
“
I know,” said a tall man leaning against a nearby desk. “And she's so little. Archer's gonna eat her alive.”
Kit scowled. “Now, listen—”
“Probably a good idea to just turn around and leave, especially after what Archer did to the last guy. We were cleaning up that mess for three days,” a portly gentleman with a biker mustache added from near the water fountain.
“
That's plenty, thanks, guys,” Deakins said, putting a hand on Kit's shoulder. “They're just messing with you. You'll do fine.” Turning back to the crowd, Deakins frowned. “Archer
is
waiting on us, people. And don't you all have work to do?” The last sentence got louder as Deakins said it, voice dropping to a bass so low it shook the floor.
The mustachioed man rolled his eyes. “Yes, mother.”
Deakins smiled. “Good. Then get to it.”
Kit followed the massive woman to the back of the room and up a segmented, twisting staircase. The second level of the building was less open than the offices on the first, and Kit didn't see much of it. Deakins guided her toward the front of the building. Apparently, Archer's office was directly above the entrance.
A slim redhead sat behind a desk polished gem-bright, the name Nicki on her name badge. Not slowing in her work, she jerked her head in the direction of the closed door before lapsing back into total absorption in her typing.
“
Okay,” Deakins said. “Here you go.” She turned to leave.
“
Wait, hang on,” Kit said, grabbing Deakins' arm. “You're leaving? Aren't you going to come with me?”
Deakins gave her a gentle smile, odd on that severe face and even more severe body. “He's harmless, honey. Don't worry about it. You'll be fine.”
Kit couldn't help noticing how quickly and silently Deakins slipped away when her arm was free, though.
Taking a deep, calming breath, she opened the door and stepped through.