Page 60 of Agent Zero
“Why?”Now he sounded amused.“What if I like it where I am?”
“It’s okay—” Holly began, but there was a definite stirring.He didn’t feel so feverish now, and when she eased her hips a little to check, the hypothesis—so to speak—was verified.Things were definitely looking up.Her stomach had calmed down, too, and she actually...
Well, she actually feltinterested.
“All sorts of physical benefits.”It was his turn to whisper in her ear.“You didn’t think it was over, did you?”
THIRTY-SIX
Amid the storm,under layers of ice and packed snow, the cabin was a warm dark kernel.A layer of blankets, and then him, curled around a sleeping glow, the heart of vast night.Soft, warm, so deeply relaxed she was barely breathing.Pulse nice and slow, her scent all over him in layers of memory and flash impressions, her, all her, closing around him, tight hot velvet, the taste of her sweet and a touch of strawberry-acid, her soft little noises and delicious slight movements.He’d gone over pretty much every inch of her, learning, discovering, and if she hadn’t been sleeping he would have done it again.And again.That metal tang to her scent, the yellow-sharpness, made the rest of it just that much more enticing.
She was so thin, though.He had to get her to eat more.
Reese lay in the darkness, the fire in the stove banked and the fire in his blood a comfortable, comforting heat.Sticky, glued to her in a web of scent, he could finally think about Tangiers.
Desert wind.Dust.The smell of the sea, a thick cloud of smog.The call to prayer echoing through narrow hot streets as the Ka-Bar slid in.Twisted, wrenched free, and he was on to the next.Five men in the room, blood spraying as he bent impossibly far back, spine crackling, foot flicking out to catch the only one who had time to react under the jaw with a sickening snap.On that last man to make sure, knifeblade dragging through flesh, and instinct knew before the rest of him, because he was already turning.
The knife didn’t fly.It clattered to the floor, his fingers at the last moment refusing the directive from his cold, active brain.
There in the doorway, the children.A black-haired girl, dark eyes wide and horrified, holding the brown, pudgy hand of a toddler.Boy, Reese’s nose told him.Naked except for the white of the diaper, the toddler stuck its other fist in its mouth and regarded him solemnly.
The girl was inhaling to scream.She couldn’t be more than nine, and her print cotton dress moved a little as she began to tremble, shock releasing a flood of chemicals he could taste into her bloodstream.If she howled now it would alert the rest of the compound.
Mission compromised.Silence the incidentals.
The moment stretched like taffy, mind and body straining, two dogs and he was the bone in the middle.Cold logic told him that the girl was dead anyway, or she’d be traumatized the rest of her life by this sudden eruption of violence.Was one of the men her father?Brother?Uncle?Who knew?
They didn’t tell me about killing kids.
The trouble with the virus’s cognitive enhancement was that the memory was like being there all over again.He buried his face in Holly’s tangled hair and inhaled, deeply.
The girl didn’t scream after all, just gave a whispering, mewling moan.Maybe she thought she was screaming, but her little body couldn’t catch up.Reese’s hand flicked out as he bent, and he had the knifehilt.Cocked it and threw; the blade arrowed through dapples of sunshine robbed of force by stone lattice and waving draperies...
...and the knife thudded into the wall beside the arched doorway, stuck there quivering.By the time the children looked away from its trembling black hilt he was gone, out the window and up, scrabbling across heat-simmering rooftops.They had a description of him now, and the city had closed itself against him.Shot twice, blown out of every hide he could find, he’d barely made it to the extraction point even with the virus in his blood.
Afterward, whenever he’d try to visit a girl, those huge accusing eyes intruded.Except sometimes they were Holly’s wide blue gaze, her horrified expression as he tried to touch her.
A man capable of killing children—was that what they’d wanted to make?Had something in his psych eval after Tangiers clued them in that he wasn’t reliable?He’d given them everything he knew they wanted to hear, playing the part during every interview, every appointment, hiding inside himself even in the apartment.Crouching, day and night, inside the safe shell of the killer they wanted.
Except when he visited the diner, where he could fill his lungs with Holly and pretend he was a real human being.
Emotional noise is also a variable, agent.
Missions were easy.You had your briefing and whatever support they saw fit to give, you went in anddid.How much easier was it now that he was off-rez?No support but his own wits and the virus, and Holly to keep safe.Of course, running simplified things.When all territory was hostile and the enemy was everyone else, he didn’t have to make any hard decisions.His path was laid out, nice and straight.Get her out of the snow and over the border, settle somewhere for a little while and play house.Then, in stages, they’d get halfway across the world and fall into the expatriate life.He could probably even pick up a few merc jobs—work like that wasn’t hard to find.
Still, what would Holly think of it?She wasn’t an agent.She wasn’t even close to informant status or training, for Christ’s sake.Getting her anywhere near a mission was unacceptable, and if he left her somewhere, in some city, how could he be sure she was safe?It would distract him.
The alternative was a cover and some other kind of job.
Reese sighed.Here he was next to her, right where he needed to be, and he couldn’t stop going over and over the next set of problems.At least he’d managed to redeem himself from the first embarrassment.Getting her there took a little patience, but the reward was well worth it.She made such interesting, helpless little sounds—and if he kept her happy, it would make it easier to keep her close.
The closer she was, the more he could feel as if he’d salvaged something from the brutality of a world that could make agents and send them out to kill kids.
He relaxed all at once.Brought his pulse down even farther, lengthened his respiration.If he could get it to match hers, he’d fall asleep.Outside the cabin, the night was alive with little crackles of ice falling, flash-freezing over the massive wet blanket of snow that had erased their tracks.For the moment, they were safe, she was in his arms, and there was nothing more in the world to want.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Someone moving around,a sizzling and a gurgling.The marvelous, rich smell of coffee blending with the heavenly aroma of bacon cooking.The low, staticky buzz of the weather station radio.Her mouth tasted awful and her head was stuffed up, and she was sweating under the blankets.
