Page 2 of Agent Zero
A glare-white corridor lurked right outside, anonymous doors opening off either side, full of disinfectant and the colorless reek of pain.Another agent had been this way recently.Reese inhaled, filing away the markers—male, healthy, with the bright buttery note that generally meant blond.
The desk was manned by a petite civilian brunette with a pert smile, part of the subcontractor apparatus calcifying over every defense-spending teat nowadays.She switched her hips while bringing his clearance packet, and if he hadn’t been so tired he might have felt a faint flicker below the belt.
Don’t think about that.
No use at all.He’d tried again in Paris, a good town for getting off if there ever was one, and paid half again as much when the inevitable happened.Failure to engage, failure to load, failure to take off.
There was a fix, though, and he knew right where to find it.Didn’t he?
I said don’t think about it.Christ.Focus.
The watch was set; he checked it against the clock behind the brunette’s smile.Red silk shell, cute tartan skirt and the pulse in her throat fluttering a little.She smelled of recent exertion, probably a workout, and in the time it took him to check the wallet and slide it into his pocket, get the watch on and pick up the sunglass case while making small talk he knew her name was Donna, she was ovulating, she’d had one too many gin and tonics last night, and the patent-leather pumps she wore had been cheek-rubbed by a very affectionate cat.Probably Siamese.
He checked the watch again, ran a hand back over his dark hair.It wasn’t perfect, but it was adequate.There was an hour and a half to kill, and the apartment to check.He’d only been gone two weeks, but it was good practice to force himself to make sure nobody else had gone in and looked around.
Reese gave lonely little Donna a smile, and got the hell out of there.
TWO
“He’s cleared the base, sir.”An anonymous male voice, a brief burst of static through the handheld receiver.
Bronson pressed the button, wincing at the thought of the next budget request forms to be filled out.“Ten-four.Eyes on the prize all the way.”
“Affirmative.Red Rooster out.”The man on the other end didn’t sound happy about the overtime, but that wasn’t Richard Bronson’s problem, no sir.He turned the talkie off and set it in its lead-lined drawer, then leaned back in the creaking black ergonomic chair, settling with a sigh and regarding the screen on the other side of the room.The stack of paperwork wasn’t enticing, but at least he had a good report.
Buried down here in this windowless black-walled office, it was hard to believe there was a world outside sliding toward chaos and terrorism, a world that needed people like him to fight the good fight and prop up democracy.There wasn’t a lot of satisfaction to be had sitting behind a desk and pushing paper around, or in debriefing arrogant superhuman jarheads.He wondered, not for the first time, if he should bring a poster down here, something motivational.A kitten—Just Hang On.
And, like he did each time, he dismissed the thought as a little less than manly.
There was no sound from behind him, where she would be standing.There never was.He cleared his throat, made a mental note to have lunch delivered.He couldn’t stop thinking about it.Sitting across the table from the Frankensteins gave him the willies.Their matter-of-fact recitations of the things they did, even with all the code words and jargon, wore on him.“Three?”
“Sir.”Flat and neutral, her voice, just like a computer’s.Despite that, it was pleasant; she had a light alto purr.Before she’d been...modified, it had probably been a phone-sex siren’s song.
“Anything to add?”
“No, sir.”
There rarely was, but he still asked.Sometimes it was good to have a ritual.Really, he liked hearing her, even if it might as well have been a recording.If there was such a thing as full success when dealing with modifying a human being, she represented it.The only trouble was the hands-off bit of the contract.If they could just make a more...physically amenable version, the applications—and profit—of the induction process could be intriguing indeed.
The viral process, though, couldn’t be sold.There was probably profit there, but sellingthatto Commies or terrorists wasn’t a good, red-blooded American thing to do.That was why Division had government oversight.
Such as it was.
“Okay.”He spent a few moments tapping at the pad, keying in passwords, the thumblock scan giving him a brief shiver, as always.The secure uplink began loading, and on the other end, a light would be flashing.
He was precisely on time.Control disliked tardiness.
The bluescreen came up, a smear showing as the scrambler ticked along a stripe at the bottom of the picture.The blurred figure sharpened, but only enough to give you a headache if you stared for too long.Control settled into a chair as well, and the familiar click.Cigarette lighter, perhaps?Or recording equipment?Why would Control bother with analog when digital was so easy and secure?
Scrambled and modulated, Control’s deep voice burbled from the sleek speakers.“How’s our boy, Bronson?”
“Which one, sir?”Always best to be precise.He’d learned that early on in this job.
A weirdly modulated laugh.“The one who just came back.The news is full of running and screaming.Goddamn chickens, all of them.”
Well, that was a good sign.It was the intended effect of sending Six out—that, and eliminating a troublesome rallying point for the opposition to some very important policies.“I’ve sent my notes, the feed of his debrief and analysis?—”
“I know, Dick.I’m asking you for a verbal rundown.How’s Number Six?”
