Agent Zero

  “Yes, sir.” A brisk, efficient movement, and the sudden flood of light stung. He blinked, surveyed her legs again and once more noticed her depressing dearth of chest. She was getting skinny.

  “Analysis, Three.”

  “Confusion, sir.”

  Well, that was unexpected. He blinked, examining her blank, serene expression. Like a doll. No makeup, but flawless skin. Maybe he should order her to wear lipstick. Something slut-red. Now that would be exciting.

  “Yes? I mean, ah, please explain.” Goddamn it. They should have succeeded in complete emotional noise suppression with a man; it grated on you to have to ask something with breasts for an explanation.

  She didn’t move, her hands empty and loose, her stillness eerie. Her shoes were functional black nurse’s brogans instead of a nice pair of heels. Of course, she was supposed to be a bodyguard, too. “Control is exhibiting less attention to detail, and is also allowing emotional noise to become more of a variable in program processes. This is a marked change. It indicates the program itself is drifting.”

  Bodyguard in a skirt. What was the world coming to? “Damn.” Now that he thought about it, she was right. That was the shortest call he’d had with Control in a while, and there had been other program agents brought in and canceled for less deviance than Eight was currently displaying. Were they loosening protocols, or...

  Bronson tapped a paper clip on the desk’s glass surface. Eyed the stack of paperwork. “The question is, changing to what?”

  “I would require more data, sir.” She was even pretty, in an unremarkable way. Maybe he should tell her to wear her hair down.

  He heaved a sigh. Program protocols weren’t his problem. Command and control was his problem, and paperwork. “Go on down and send someone for a bacon cheeseburger, Three. And onion rings. Use the petty cash. Then come on back. There’s forms to fill out.”

  “Yes, sir.” The door closed behind her. Even the ass wasn’t sufficient.

  Well, a man worked with what he had. Would it have killed the gene jockeys to put a little more meat on her while they were taking all the emotion out? “Damn it,” Bronson muttered, and dragged the first file folder across the desk.

  * * *

  It was a good thing Holly was habitually early. Ten minutes before is right on time, Dad used to say, squinting through the truck windshield every morning as he dropped her off at high school. It was one of the many things he’d learned in the army, like how to fill out forms, how to heft a rifle and just how wrong your country could do you when you believed in her. Or in the men claiming to speak for her.

  Which added up to Mike Candless’s daughter getting to work just as Doug was threatening to quit again. Ginny had just poured a glass of ice water on a grabby-hands patron, and the espresso machine was making that wheezing noise again.

  Just another day at Crossroads Diner. In other words, welcome to hell.

  “Thank God someone sane is here.” Barbara cracked her gum, the sound lost in the ancient time clock punching Holly’s card. “Can you talk to Doug? I’ve got a guy threatening to sue—”

  “I saw that.” Holly struggled out of her coat, clipped her name tag on, and was in the process of twisting her black hair up. “Ginny strikes again.”

  “You’d think her ass would come with a warning label.” Barbara fishhooked a wad of pink gum out, flicked it accurately into the scrap bin and sallied through the swinging doors to pour oil on the troubled waters of a businessman with wandering fingers.

  Steady cursing came from the other end of the short hall. Holly finished twisting her hair into a bun, slapped a band around it and called it good. She stepped into the kitchen’s heat and vapor. “Doug?”

  “Holly!” Doug Endicott waved a knife while skinny Bart, his understudy, rolled his eyes. Bart was hunched over the grill, tending what looked like the mother of all breakfast rushes. “I can’t work like this!”

  “You say that every week. What’s wrong now?”

  “The fan!” Broad-shouldered, buzzcut, and loud, he was more of a sonic assault than a visual experience.

  Holly took a deep breath, reaching for patience. “What about it?”

  “It quit working.” The cook was the very definition of built like a brick outhouse, and the tattoos on his neck were pure jailhouse art. However, right at the moment, he looked like a balding, petulant three-year-old.

  Holly put her hands on her hips. “Did you check the fuse box?”

  Silence, broken only by the sizzling from the grill. Holly sighed, marched past him into the utility closet, and a few seconds’ worth of fiddling had everything set to rights. “Honestly,” she continued, stepping out and kicking the door shut with her heel, “it’s two steps away, Doug.”

  “He just wants you to talk to him.” Bart grinned, his gold-capped tooth flashing. He was a little slow sometimes, but those knob-knuckled hands of his could coax the balky old grill into behaving and clean it to spotless, and he was pretty laid-back even when Doug went on his rampages.

  “Shut up.” The senior cook’s ears had turned bright pink. Looked like the special today was something to do with asparagus. At least it wasn’t like the time he’d brought in buckets of oysters. Got such a deal on them, he’d crowed, and nobody had the heart to disagree.

  Who’s going to pay for oyster anything? Antony had moaned, but he didn’t get rid of Doug. Or the poor oysters.

  Antony was a softie. Also, nobody had gotten any food poisoning, which was damn near miraculous.

  Holly clucked her tongue and escaped before Doug could find something else that needed attention. It was going to be a long day.

  As soon as she hit the swinging doors, Ginny descended. The tall girl, whorls of color marching up her arms and her bottom lip pierced, was afire with righteous indignation. “Can you believe it?” She swiped at her Bettie Page bangs with the back of one hand, and her kohl-smeared eyes blinked rapidly.

  “Second time this week? Or third?” Holly tucked a fresh order pad into her apron. “What’s it look like?” She could very well glance over Ginny’s shoulder and see the usual brunch rush, but getting the girl distracted would make the rest of her shift easier.

  “Hell.” Ginny swayed a little. She was in the combat boots again. At least she wasn’t trying to work in heels like she did at first. “And your weirdo’s here.”

  “Which one?” But she saw him, and her heart sank a little bit.

  It was the usual table, tucked against the corner. He always moved the chair, though, resting it against the mirrored wall. Dark hair, dark eyes, wide shoulders, in jeans and a T-shirt most of the time but with a nice watch. Always ordered coffee, sat for at least an hour...

  ...and left a humongous tip, which would have been great, except he asked for Holly every damn time. He never even drank the coffee.

  All of which added up to potential trouble, and attention Holly didn’t want. She was trying to slide by unnoticed, but people just kept latching on wherever she landed.

  She put her smile on, hipchecked the closest undercounter fridge door to make sure it was closed and headed for the espresso machine. Antony had picked it up somewhere and kept putting off the servicing. Can’t afford it. I got a sinking ship here, folks, he’d say, rubbing at his salt-and-pepper stubble.

  Didn’t they all.

  * * *

  She put it off as long as she could, but the tables filled up fast and she had to make a coffee round eventually. She saved him for last, glancing out the window at traffic heaving slowly by on Merton. Crowded pavements, too, even in the rain. The Crossroads had a great location, near both downtown and the naval base butting up against the river, and that was probably its only saving grace.

  Well, that and the fact that staff turnover was low. Antony was irritating sometimes, but he did right by his workers. All in all
, she was lucky to have ended up here. Sometimes, though, it didn’t feel like it. Mostly when she got tired, and the thought of something malignant crouching somewhere inside her body, quietly growing in the darkness and listening to her heartbeat, filled her throat with a rock and her eyes with hot water.

  Don’t brood on it. Just keep working. The doctor’s office had stopped calling, finally. Holly had changed her number, too, just to be sure. Twenty bucks she couldn’t afford, but it was worth it to have the damn thing stop ringing.

  Holly halted near the table near the window, summoning a smile that felt like a mask. Ginny called him “your weirdo,” and Barb kept bugging Holly to use those customer-service skills to find out more about him. Dark hair, dark eyes, aquiline nose, wide shoulders; dark blue T-shirt, jeans, the same canvas jacket with a high collar as always. His capable-looking hands were scraped up pretty badly, and there was a shadow of a bruise on his cheek.

  “Morning.” She couldn’t help herself, even though she knew showing any interest was probably a bad idea. The quiet, borderline-handsome ones were never a good idea—they wormed their way in and before you knew it, you were eating your own heart out missing them. “Looks like you went through the wringer.”

  He waited until she got close enough to pour to cover his coffee cup with one banged-up hand. The bandages were fresh, and his hair was damp. Of course, there was the rain. “Hi, Holly.”

  One of these days she’d get a job without a name tag, or she’d finally keel over and the whole thing would be academic. Still, she couldn’t help smiling, more naturally now. He looked pretty pleased to see her, even if he was a little...weird. “Ah. Hey, you were in a couple weeks ago. I think you left the wrong tip.” Because a twenty for a cup of burned coffee isn’t strange at all, no sir. “I put the change in an envelope up at the register. I’ll go get it.”

  “No.” He leaned forward a little, as if he was going to reach out and stop her, and Holly noticed his watch again. Nice, heavy, expensive but restrained. What was someone who could afford that doing sitting in the Crossroads as regularly as he did? “Don’t do that. I left it for you.”

  “That’s really nice.” She reached for diplomacy, the coffee slopping inside its glass carafe as she stepped back. “I think you meant to leave a single, though.”

  “I didn’t.” He wasn’t quite staring at her, but it was close. His gaze flicked away, came back, and there was the ghost of a smile around his mouth. “It was for you.”

  Oh, man, this is not going to end well. Still, she could use the money. “Well, thank you. You look a little tired.”

  “Jet lag. Got in a couple hours ago.” He was freshly shaven, though, and something about the way he sat bothered her. Too tense. His back was straight, too. Good posture, but something about it warned her that he was ready to move at a moment’s notice.

  “You should get some rest.” She had four other tables needing some attention, though, one of them with kids. If he wanted to drop twenties just for sitting there, it wasn’t her business. This was the big bad city, and she carried Mace in her purse.

  “I will, but not for a while.” The smile was real now, and for such a nondescript guy he had a pretty good one. She couldn’t figure out what about him made her so nervous. Was nervous the word? “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s pretty busy, so flag me if you need a refill, okay?” Coming over and making awkward conversation with you is not on my priority list.

  “I will.”

  Did he watch her walk away? She had no way of knowing, though she could have sworn she felt him looking.

  Probably harmless, she decided. Maybe lonely. Although why he’d pick a washed-out divorcée in a sinking diner to fixate on, she had no idea. The world was full of strangeness—she’d seen more than enough of it working retail and food service.

  She racked the coffee carafe just as Bart hammered the order-up bell and yelled her name. Holly winced internally, put on her best smile and got back down to business.

  * * *

  He hadn’t slept on the plane. That made about ninety-two hours since his last kip, and he felt a bit draggy even with the little invaders working overtime to keep him tip-top. He should have stayed in the apartment and caught some lights out, given the little guys a break. Even if you could function without sleep, it wasn’t a good idea to keep doing it. The apartment was as close to a haven as he had now, and it could be blown at any time. Because of course they would know where he laid his head; it would be stupid of him to try to hide that.

  Still, Reese stayed through the end of the rush, watching. Right here wasn’t the safest spot to sit—no self-respecting agent would put himself willingly so close to that window—but it caught the air currents just fine, and each time she passed across any of three different lines he could get a whiff.

  It wasn’t her soap. Or her shampoo. She didn’t wear perfume, and the fabric softener on her was harsh and cheap. But under it, like heatshimmer off pavement on a fry-an-egg day, was something...

  He couldn’t quite figure it out. He kept taking lungfuls trying to, and getting distracted.

  Badly distracted.

  The trouble had really started after Tangiers. They kept agents supplied, of course—you used protection, stayed away from the fertile or diseased ones, paid the girls and forgot them as soon as possible. Just like brushing your teeth or washing your hands, another routine to keep the head clear. After Tangiers, the blood and the smoke and the screaming and those huge, accusing eyes, well...

  They asked during psych evals and physicals, of course, so he gave them dates and places. He didn’t mention that he just sat motionless until enough time had passed for a good old fashioned hygienic clearing of the vas deferens, paid whatever girl sat uncomfortably on the bed to keep him company, and left.

  Sometimes he wondered if the docs tested for VD, and wondered if the invaders would eat any of those illnesses the way they ate every other sickness or infirmity. He also wondered if anyone would work his back trail and figure out he didn’t touch the girls. It could be a bad sign, and his continued existence probably depended on giving the program whatever it wanted to hear.

  The rush slowly cleared. The tattooed girl worked her tables aggressively, bending over and leaning in; the brunette with the bubblegum habit bounced along with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of fuss or emotion.

  Then there was... Holly. It wasn’t just that she smelled so delicious. The more he watched her, the more he liked her. She was just so...kind? Was that it?

  He inhaled, deeply, and it wasn’t just a twitch. It was definitely his body taking notice.

  Twenty blocks from the apartment was this run-down squatting tin cube of a diner. He’d come in on a whim, scouting the lay of the land near the base, part of an agent’s habitual recon. At first he’d thought it was a bakery; his mouth started watering as soon as he hit the door. He’d figured out it wasn’t fresh bread. The smell shifted—he could never quite pin it down—but it was definitely her. Whenever she brought the coffeepot, the hormone rush almost blinded him.

  Black hair, sweat-raveled on the back of her neck under the sloppy but effective bun. Dancer’s calves—she walked to work, too. Smoky blue eyes, fringed with charcoal lashes. No makeup, except maybe a bit of ChapStick. Cheap and sensible shoes, and the green of the polyester uniform did nothing for her—she really deserved red, a nice clingy number with spaghetti straps. Fingernails bitten down, no pantyhose. Sometimes, when she was coming through the swinging doors, she had a small smile, just a curve of pale lips.

  It never lasted. She set her shoulders, put her chin up and got her job done. She gave the kids an extra peppermint at the end of their meal, even the brats. Unfailingly polite, even with the trouble tables—the bubblegum and the tattooed girl both handed the problem ones over to her. She tipped in the kid doing the bussing and probably
the cook, too.

  The regulars asked for her, and she always had a soft word for them, remembering names and asking about kids, coworkers, hospital stays, if the vitamins worked, if they wanted their usual. The kind of employee nobody thought much about until they left and things went to hell.

  Thousands of women in dead-end service jobs all over the country, just like her. Used up and put-upon their entire lives. Maybe in a while she’d turn bitter instead of polite, and those eyes would go dark. Before then, maybe he’d get a chance to...what?

  Stupid. If he got close he’d foul her, smear all the blackness he carried over an innocent person’s life, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. She deserved better than this goddamn job, and he wanted to figure out how to give it to her.

  It was no use. He had to get some sleep.

  Still, he wrapped his hands around the stone-cold coffee cup. Nine months ago a man at the counter had dropped like a felled ox. Heart attack. Reese could close his eyes and see the light on Holly’s hair, how a few strands had come loose and fallen down, the high flush in her cheeks, the way she’d cradled the man’s hand and bent over him, whispering. It’s going to be okay, Ernie. Just hold on. Help’s coming, just be okay.

  She’d kept on talking to the man, even when he’d been strapped to a gurney, harried EMTs wheeling him for the door. She’d only let go when they lifted him into the ambulance, and after it had peeled away, siren shrieking, she’d come back in, pushing her hair back, and restored order with a few smiles and free coffees.

  At least they’d kept the siren on until they were decently away. He’d heard the sound cut off abruptly, and watched to see if she had...but nobody else in the diner was jacked into the red with happy little invaders. As far as they were concerned, the battle had been won.

  They were so busy congratulating each other nobody had noticed how pale Holly was, or how she shook. She covered it well.