Blades of Winter (9 page)

I do remember that. We were always on the lookout for inexpensive furniture at secondhand stores and yard sales. I never thought about what happened to it all, but it sounds like they went through their bedroom sets like other people go through bottles of laundry detergent. I guess I never noticed because when I went into their room, it was always at night. I’d crawl in with my mom after one of my nightmares. When I’d fallen asleep again, she’d carry me back to my room.

“Why would he smash up his own bedroom?” I ask. It seems like a stupid question, but I can’t figure it out.

“Oh, God … so many reasons. Mostly he needed to vent his anxiety from the field. He’d be alone for months under terrible conditions. Spying isn’t like the movies—you know this. There’s no room service or fancy cars.”

“What was it like?” I talk quietly, the way you do at a funeral.

“He’d be sent to some hellhole to retrieve someone or some item. He’d stake out an obscure little location for weeks, or they’d send him in to do something fast and dreadful. But he’d always do it alone.”

“Alone? No Info Operator?”

“Back then Levels didn’t have IOs. They did everything by themselves. They’d be inserted alone, and they’d return alone.” She looks down at her hands in her lap, “If they came back at all.” I reach out with my left hand and wrap my fingers around hers.

Nowadays, all ExOps Job Numbers include a dedicated resource from the Information Department. Exceptions are made for really short jobs, like the one for following Hector around. In those cases, the Level is entrusted with the entire mission, including data acquisition. Most of our missions are big mean mothers, though, and require Info support.

The type of support depends on the job, which means
it mostly depends on the Level’s class. Infiltrators typically operate in such deep, long-term cover that they have to get their Info support remotely. Protectors usually work as a security team that includes an Info Operator to synchronize their efforts. Vindicators like Raj tend to act as heavy muscle for larger missions that already include an Info resource.

Then there are Interceptors, like me. We generally don’t work as part of a larger group, so we’re usually partnered with an Info Operator. Interceptors pull off deep penetrations that result in a lot of intel, but the missions are short, a couple of days to a couple of weeks. Most of the time we only need to maintain a surface cover, which consists of carrying a fake passport and remembering which language to speak. The Info Operator manages the harvested data while the Interceptor does everything else.

I’m not a big rules person, but even I can see where this protocol comes from. I never would have kept my shit together during Mom’s rescue if Patrick hadn’t been guiding me through it. It hadn’t occurred to me that Extreme Operations didn’t always work this way.

I ask Cleo, “What made ExOps start requiring Info support?”

She takes a soft breath. “Your father. They’d been thinking about taking that step for a while, but his last mission is what made them finally do it. If he’d had a dedicated Info resource, he probably wouldn’t have been captured.” She pauses for a minute and almost whispers as she goes on. “He was one of the best they’d ever had. Him and a few others. They created a whole new rating for them. Levels used to only go to 19. They wanted to avoid 20 because it sounds like so much more than 19. But your father and two or three others really were that much better than the other Level 19s.”

“What made them so good?”

“They were totally dedicated to the work, and they took the upgrades a lot further than the other Levels.
They were all friends who had entered ExOps around the same time, but it got to be this real macho thing. Who was the toughest? Who could be the most shot up and still finish their missions? Who had modified or enhanced the biggest percentage of their body? They all tried to outdo each other to see who could be the first Level 21.”

When I ask her why they did this, she replies, “I think you can answer that for yourself, Alixandra.”

She stands up, leaves the room, and returns a moment later with a pack of cigarettes. I’ve never seen her smoke, so I can only stare as she fluidly pops a cigarette out of the pack and lights it. She inhales deeply and lets out a big cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. She looks fantastic with a cigarette in her hand, and I immediately resolve to take up smoking.

“Alix, after what I saw you do on Friday, I decided to take a good long look at your medical records.” She pauses to take another drag on her cigarette. “I suspected that you’d hidden some things from me, but I had no idea you’d gotten so much work done.”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d let me, so—”

“You’re damn right, I wouldn’t have! For Christ’s sake, you’re still a teenager and you’ve had almost 25 percent of your body modified or enhanced!” She’s upset, but I can’t blame her. This is my big lie, and I’m totally snagged.

“Cleo, I need them for work.”

“Need! What need? Who says you
need
to be a Level 6 already? You’re already way ahead of your class, and most field agents don’t make Level 6 until they’ve been in the field for twice as long as you have!” My face must have shown surprise, because she continues, “Yes, I know about your promotion, too, and how Cyrus sold it to Director Chanez.” She carries her ashtray over to my bed and sits down next to me again. “Angel, I’ll never forget that you came for me, and I love you for it, but I’m also furious that you’re turning into your father.”

“
Mom
, I’m only—”

“I’m not angry at you, sweetie.” She takes my hands. “I’m mad at myself.”

Oh, well, okay. As long as I’m off the hook
. “How do you mean I’m turning into Daddy?”

“Well, let’s go back to why you got all the Mods and Enhances.”

“I told you, it’s for work. I need them to—”

She gives me the hand. “There’s another reason, Alix. Think about how you feel before and after you have these upgrades done.”

I think. “Well, before … I feel kind of normal, and then after, I feel, I don’t know …”

“Super?”

Damn, look at the big brain on Mom
.

“Well, yeah …” I think for a few seconds. “Because I can do things I couldn’t do before.”

“And how long does that feeling last?”

“It’s not like I forget I had them done.”

“That’s what you think, not what you feel.” I’m dimly aware that my mom has a background in behavioral something or other. Here I’ve thought I’ve been so sly, hiding things from her. Clearly she’s seen a lot more than I thought.

“Cleo, look, I don’t know. Like I say, I need them so I can do my work.”

Silently, she grinds out her cigarette in the ashtray, then stands up and goes into the kitchen. I think she’ll come right back, but she stays in the other room. I switch to infrared and see her leaning against a counter with her arms wrapped around herself. It isn’t until she buries her face in her hands that I realize she’s crying. I switch off the infrared, suddenly feeling like a Peeping Tom.

Patrick picks this fabulous moment to comm in. “Hey, Alix, got a minute?”

“Uh, not really. I’m in the middle of some intense time with Mom.”

“Oh, sorry. I’ll comm you later. This can wait.”

“Real quick, what is it?”

“We’ve got a Job Number.”

I sit up straight, and my pulse shifts into overdrive. “Where? When?”

“France. As soon as your hand is healed enough for you to travel. We’re going to retrace your father’s last mission and see what we can turn up while Info looks into Carbon. Chanez wants us to start by talking to our House in Paris.”

“Why don’t we just call him?” I comm.

“Because the Director wants to keep this job out of CORE. Long-distance comms go through the satellites and are automatically logged. Chanez doesn’t want to leave any kind of data trail to tip the other agencies that we’re going after Big Bertha.”

“How would competitors’ agencies read our comm logs?”

“No,
our
agencies,” Patrick comms. “He’s setting us up with a cover mission. Something we’ll have to physically go to Paris for.”

What the hell is he talking about?
I tilt my head to one side. “Huh?”

“I’ll tell you later. You get back to your mom.”

Whatever
. “Okay. Later.”

“Later,
ma cherie
. Hang in there.”

One advantage of being so short is that I’m perfectly comfortable in an economy airplane seat. Trick also fits well since he’s only a couple inches taller than I am. I feel bad for those huge guys who have to fold themselves into a pretzel whenever they fly coach.

We drink cherry schnapps and play cribbage on the flight from Washington to Paris. The cribbage board sits on my partner’s tray table since he’s the one who deals the cards, keeps score, and pours the schnapps into the cans of Coke we got from the waitresses. I’m a terrible card player, but I make it clear that I won’t play if I lose. When Patrick points out that it’s always
my
idea to play cribbage, I up the ante and tell him I won’t sleep with him if I lose. This isn’t a very realistic threat. I love him, and he knows it. Fortunately, Trick doesn’t care about winning arguments or card games.

It was a busy week for each of us. I spent most of my time with the Med-Techs, learning how to use my new hand. At first I kept overdoing everything. I’d move too fast and knock stuff over, or I’d grip something too hard and bust it. I must have broken an entire crate of wineglasses. I got better when I stopped trying so hard and made myself relax. My synthetic sense of touch will take some getting used to. Everything feels like I’m wearing a thick glove. The Meddies say they can recalibrate my new hand’s sensitivity for me after it’s more firmly settled into my nervous system. They also grudgingly told me that yes, I’ll be able to punch things much harder than before.

Meanwhile, Patrick stuffed his head with intel to prepare for our trip. He’s got twice the work he normally does, since we’re being sent on two missions at once. After we had our mission brief with Cyrus, I understood what Trick had been trying to tell me. The Fuerza Libertad brief was neatly typed and had been properly entered into CORE. The documents detailed the time frame and the mission goals and parameters and included pictures of our targets and news clippings about their victims. All very official.

Our brief for the Big Bertha job was the exact opposite. It was entirely verbal: no paperwork, no Job Number, nothing. It was like we took extra-strength sneaky pills.

My partner and I haven’t had any private time together since I pinched the Hector job. While we waited for our flight, Trick asked me how that evening with my mom went. I told him I had let Cleo cry for a few minutes, and by the time I’d worked up the nerve to go into the kitchen, she’d stopped. She said she was okay in this distant, detached way I hadn’t seen since … well, in a long time. I gave her a little hug and went back to bed. The next day my mother was already at work by the time I woke up, but she’d left me a note.