Blades of Winter (3 page)

Next there was a little war in Korea. This ground on for two years before the U.S. dropped the world’s first atom bomb on a Chinese army base in northern Korea. The end. The Korean War was where my father served as an army officer. After the war, he went into army intelligence, which led to his career as a covert agent at ExOps. There was plenty of work to do. The Chinese wanted Japan and Mongolia, the Germans wanted the Soviets’ half of the Middle East, and the Russians just wanted everything.

After we gave Castro the boot and made Cuba a state, the U.S. wanted to be left alone to wallow in the American dream. But the dream kept getting messed up because we had to work so hard to stay touchy-feely with Greater Germany. President Nixon hated the Germans in general and their enslavement of Europe’s Jews in particular. His attitude led us to the brink of war with Germany during the oil embargo. Bad times. I was only a kid when all that went down, but I still remember the air raid drills: all of us hiding under our desks like idiots.

I twist my kneecaps back on, pack up my tools, and put Li’l Bertha into my dad’s gun safe. My father didn’t always take his gun with him when he traveled; it depended on the Job Number. One day, eight years ago, he left for a job and never came back. When ExOps told us the Germans had executed him, I spent two terrible days and nights down here, shrieking and throwing stuff around. My mother tried to console me, but she was
such a mess herself that she could barely get out of bed. The second night I dragged a chair over in front of the safe and climbed up to spin the dial. I’d swiped the combo by peeking while my father did it. I unlocked the door and found Li’l Bertha inside.

Of course I couldn’t activate her since I didn’t have my Mods yet, but she felt perfect in my hand, and after a few minutes I was doing a nice fast draw. I thought it was Dad’s ghost teaching me. Sounds funny, I know, but c’mon, I was twelve. A few days later a very tall woman came to the house to clear out my dad’s classified materials.

She also came for me.

Brief History of Mods and Enhances

In 1944, all of the four victors of World War II launched major initiatives to help them hold and consolidate their end-of-war positions. The Americans and Russians applied their industrial might to the production of vast navies and mechanized armies. The Germans and Chinese turned to their respective scientific communities to develop the soldier of the future.

These supersoldiers would require greatly expanded physical capabilities. To this end, scientists in Stuttgart implemented a range of mechanical modifications while researchers in Beijing experimented with a suite of chemical enhancements. Both programs eventually shifted their focus from mass-produced frontline troops to individually crafted superhuman spies.

These upgraded agents quickly came to rule the clandestine battlegrounds. It became clear that the Shadowstorm would not be won by fleets of ships and tanks but by the bionic and biotic agents from Germany and China, respectively. The question was which of the two superspy technologies would win out.

The answer arrived from an entirely unexpected source. Jakob Fredericks, a senior American intelligence officer at Extreme Operations Division, had his medical technicians install both chemical enhancements and mechanical modifications on several of his field agents. The results were stunning and heralded the world’s first Levels. Within months, these dually enhanced and modified agents took command of the Shadowstorm.

Mods and Enhances have come a long way since those early days, of course. What was once a radical combination of two competing technologies is now practiced by all the major intelligence agencies. If the stealthy and sudden delivery of death and chaos can be considered a gift, the world has only to thank Jakob Fredericks.

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be caffeine.” I swig my coffee and continue. “Now where the hell is my bus? Amen.”

I’m down the street from my house, waiting for the number 23 bus. My sunglasses serve as a dam of hipness against my school uniform’s ocean of dorkitude. My dark red hair, starched white shirt, and forest-green blazer conspire to transform me into a refugee from Christmas Freak Island. At least the pants are simple khakis.

ExOps agents who haven’t finished college are required to pursue a bachelor’s degree. A normal school would let us wear ripped jeans and Elvis Presley T-shirts, but we don’t go to a normal school. We attend a special satellite of George Washington University called Saint Boniface Academy. It’s basically a finishing school for government-spawned homicidal maniacs like me. The academy is modeled after private Catholic schools, hence my stupid outfit. The strict discipline and structure supposedly helps us become better agents, but after two years at St. Bony’s I’m not sure it’s the students who need discipline and structure.

To help me through my daily imprisonment, I begin every school day with a big travel mug of my mom’s atomic-powered Cuban Blend. My father called it “Java Más Macho” and said it could put hair on a Dutchman’s ass. This kind of language usually got a harrumph out of Mom while Dad would peek over his newspaper and wink at me.

I’m so tired this morning that I’d drink this coffee even if it put hair on
my
ass. My mind kept me awake all night, replaying yesterday’s excitement in New York. The Med-Techs have named this type of insomnia Post-Stimulant Sleep Disorder. If you asked me, I’d just call it a freaking action hangover. Then this morning we had no hot water, so I haven’t even had a shower. Blech.

A midsize black Cadillac glides up the street and stops across the road. The tinted driver-side window whirrs open to reveal my field partner, Patrick. ExOps teamed me with him after we graduated from Camp. We’re the same age, and at five foot six he’s taller than me by two inches. He’s got light brown hair and a round face that always seems ready to break into a grin.

When we met back at Camp, he was in the middle of going through puberty. His voice broke during our first year, which led to some hilarious low- and high-pitched comm-training phrases like “TARget AcquIREd Alpha LEAder. Please adVISE.” I teased him mercilessly about his squeaky voice, but he’s so good-natured that he just laughed along with me. He’s smart, he’s funny, and his devotion to my every need plays out well in the sack. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner.

Patrick leans out the window and calls, “Hello, little girl. Want some candy?”

I’m about to launch into my oversexed schoolgirl act when Raj leans forward from the backseat and growls at Patrick. “Knock it off, Solomon.” Then to me: “Get in the car, Scarlet. The Front Desk wants to see you.”

Raj and I just missed each other at spy school, which we called Camp A-Go-Go. He graduated the year before I started, but stories about me trickled up to him before I got out of Initial Training. Mom told me that some of the ExOps staffers started a pool, betting on how fast I’d get promoted, until their boss shut it down.

When Raj met me, I was the youngest agent ever to graduate into the field. The big guy had been ExOps’
previous flavor of the month, and he didn’t like being pushed aside by some pip-squeak fifteen-year-old no matter how famous her father had been. We were the big assholes on campus, and since we were both hopped-up, psychotically competitive youths with more pride than sense, that rivalry played itself out with elegance and grace.

Raj is six years older than me and carries 295 pounds on a six-foot-five frame. He tends to wear heavy motorcycle boots, black jeans, and big capelike duster overcoats. We’re both seen as fast-track Levels, him because of his size and mission capabilities, me because of my speed and rapid progress through Camp A-Go-Go. Since Raj is a Vindicator, we don’t compete for the exact same assignments, but competing for attention hasn’t made us any friendlier.

I hop in the front passenger-side seat and say to Patrick, “Hi, Trick. How’s tricks?”

“I’ve been busy, my dear,” he answers as he drives the car away from the bus stop. “But not as busy as you’ve been.”

The word “busy” has a few meanings in our business. What it means here is that he (and of course all of Extreme Operations) has figured out that Virgil’s incompetence as a dispatcher allowed me to sneak onto a Job Number meant for a much higher Level. “Busy” also refers to the fact that I told my Med-Tech I had the proper clearance for my new Mods before that was, in fact, the case. Trick doesn’t care so much about bureaucratic propriety, but he knows that the Front Desk really frowns on that kind of procedural chicanery.

Raj is bucking for another promotion, so he frowns on it, too. “Scarlet,” he rumbles, “do you have any idea of the resources that have gone into your current system?” As a Level 8, Raj is my superior. He reminds me of this as often as possible. He insists on calling me by my ExOps field name, Scarlet. We field agents use each
other’s handles when we pull a mission, but it’s more personable to use our regular names when we’re just driving around. Raj isn’t very personable. He’s never even told any of us what his real name is. I tried convincing his former Camp classmates to tell me, but they all refused. Our boss knows, but by the time you’re a Front Desk at Extreme Operations, you’ve learned how to keep a secret.

I pull the vanity mirror down so I can see Raj’s big head and reply, “One million, six hundred sixty-nine thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two dollars.” That kind of money used to produce a Level 10, but nowadays it’s average for a Level 4 like me.

Raj does some calculating, then announces, “It’s got to be more than that now.”

We keep arguing while Patrick drives across the Williams Bridge into D.C. I keep it out of my voice, but I’ve started to regret my recent visit to Dr. Herodotus. I honestly thought the whole clearance thing was a load of bureautrash. While I pretend to listen to Raj, I mentally access my copy of the Administration Department’s equipment manual. It lives in my head along with all the other files the Med-Techs stuffed in there when I had my Mods installed.

The virtual document appears in my Eyes-Up display and overlays my view of the physical world around me. I focus my gaze on the table of contents entry for maintenance, and the document scrolls to that chapter. Reading, reading … there’s all kinds of stuff in here about how to maintain Extreme Operations property, including oneself. I run a search for the word “clearance” and get 179 matches from this chapter alone. Damn.

Raj finally finishes blathering: “… and now you’ve thrown off your Level Cycle and Development Schedule.”

I turn around to look at Raj and say, “Look, Rah-Rah, I’ve already got one mother to deal with. Tell me something useful, like if I need to let anyone know that
I’ll be out of school today.” Raj glowers at me but doesn’t answer. He hates it when I call him Rah-Rah.

Patrick answers my question. “We’ve already notified the head of your department, Alix.”

I look over at Trick and inquire, “So what’s happened to Miss Alixandra Nico that keeps her out of the academy today? Have I stopped to help a homeless band of gypsy children? Have I been abducted by aliens?” Normally, Trick would begin to trade progressively more ridiculous situations with me, but instead he laughs weakly and doesn’t look at me.

This makes me uneasy. I grumpily cross my arms and turn my head to look out the window to hide my nervousness. I’m dying to talk to Trick over our implanted commphones, but I’m worried that Raj will be able to tell and will insist on knowing what we’re comming about. He’s really observant, and little changes in our expressions can sometimes reveal that we’re comming to each other.

Some people have trouble using a commphone, but I picked it up easily. I got a head start from going to holiday dinners at my mom’s parents’ house. My grandparents expected everyone to carry on three conversations at once, so they would ask you a question even if you were already talking to someone else. The only time I experienced a similar cacophony was the day I went away to Camp with seventy-four other kids.

I decide to comm anyway. If I keep it short, hopefully Raj won’t pick it up.

I comm to Trick, “What’s going on?”

He comms back, “You’re in the doghouse, Hot Stuff.”

Now I don’t care whether Raj hears us or not. I shriek, “Are you kidding? What for? I kicked ass!”

“I guess the Front Desk thinks you overstepped a bit,” Patrick mumbles.

“How was I supposed to know it was such a crazy mission? It sounded like a basic Creep ’n’ Peep.”

Raj leans forward and shouts, “Scarlet, all Level 12 jobs are crazy!” He sits back and adds, “Dumbass.”

I turn around in my seat and yell back, “Rah-Rah, the brief listed a single fucking objective: follow one goddamn guy. No big deal.” Raj crosses his arms and glowers at me until I give up and face the front again.