Blades of Winter (19 page)

The woman spun around, her eyes wide open. She gaped at me, looked at the elevator door, then looked back at me.

“That elevator is fucked up,” I continued. “You’d better call a mechanic.”

She stared at me for a full ten seconds, then finally said, “Let’s take the stairs, then.” I was grinning like a fox while I followed her upstairs.

I found out later that the elevator is a panic test. They want to see how you control your emotions when you’re trapped in a small dark space—if you keep your cool or if you freak. You’re not supposed to escape. I heard from Mom that my Houdini act set off a series of phone calls that flashed up the Extreme Operations org chart like flames climbing a pile of napalm. Within half an hour, the Director was told that they might have found themselves another Philip Nico.

Every morning the sun blasts through the goddamn window and shines right in my face. I’ve been able to ignore it until now, but today it’s especially insistent. I open my eyes for the first time since I got pulled out of Baghdad, which feels like a hundred years ago. There’s a short, chubby woman sitting on a chair at the foot of my bed, doing a crossword puzzle. I try to talk, but it comes out as a scratchy hiss. She looks up.

“Oh, thank God,” she proclaims. She gets up and bends over me, looks in my eyes, then looks over my head. She’s dressed like a nurse. “Sit tight. I’ll call the doctor.”

I’m like, oh, okay, because I was about to jump up and go to my fucking tennis lesson. I look to see what’s so interesting above my head. It’s a video monitor with lines and numbers on it. Attached to my temples and chest are a half dozen sticky pads with wires coming out of them. I try to sit up, but my muscles are as limp as boiled lettuce, and I just flop back on the pillow.

The nurse returns with a tall middle-aged man wearing a sport coat and black pants. “So our little phoenix has risen from her ashes. Let’s have a look at you.” It takes me a moment to recognize that it’s Dr. Herodotus. He looks in my eyes, then at the monitor over my head. It would seem that “me” has been reduced to my eyeballs and whatever is on that stupid screen.

“Harriet,” Dr. H says as he studies the monitor, “let’s get her loop before it overwrites itself.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Harriet the nurse grabs a data pod from the side table and walks to my side. She slides the data pod into the port in my hip.

Dr. H shifts his attention from the monitor to me. “Alix,” he says, “can you do something for me?”

I nod my head.

“I want you to copy your Day Loop to your Bio-Drive right now.”

My doctor needs me to initiate this because only I can access my Day Loop. I grapple through my physical soreness and mental disorientation to do as I’m told. Quicker than I can say Autonomous Single Day Memory Recall Loop it’s backed up to my Biotic Data Drive. Now whatever’s in my loop won’t be lost during the next twenty-four hours.

“Done,” I whisper.

Dr. H punches some buttons on the keyboard under the monitor. My Eyes-Up display shows him copying my archived Day Loop file from my Bio-Drive to Harriet’s data pod.

Harriet says, “I’ve got it.” She pulls the data pod out of my hip and gives it to Dr. H.

“Okay,” he says, “we’ll take a look at this and see what survived.”

“Doc,” I croak. “What happened?”

He answers, “I was told that you took on a platoon of Arab terrorists and Russian mercenaries and then drove a flaming car into a river. When you arrived here three months ago, you were quite a sight, let me tell you.” Dr. H
has that annoying doctor’s black humor where he gets all peppy describing his smashed-up patients.

There’s a bendy straw in a glass of water on the table next to my bed. I lean over and drink from it, then try to growl while I say, “Just tell me what the fuck happened to me.” It comes out more as a rattle than a growl, but it gets their attention.

“Ah, yes.” Dr. Herodotus sighs. “Wonderful vocabulary.” He pulls a clipboard off the foot of my bed. “Well, you came in here with twenty-three wounds from bullets and shards of glass. You also had second- and third-degree burns on about 20 percent of your body, mostly your neck and back …” He reads on and adds, “Also, your legs were badly broken …”

I remember now. The bullets. The fire. How the car hit the river. I gingerly move my hands over my face.

The doctor glances up from his clipboard and finishes his carnage countdown with “… and your face required extensive reconstruction as well. Both your upper and lower jaws were shattered, and you lost most of your front teeth.” I run my tongue around the front of my mouth. It feels normal to me. Dr. Herodotus notices me checking myself out and says, “You’re all healed now. We patched up your wounds, set your broken bones, replaced the burned skin on your shoulders and neck with Exoskin, bolted your jaw back together, and replaced your missing teeth. You’d almost never know what a mess you were when you came to us.”

I’m
really
glad I slept through all this. I wouldn’t have wanted to be awake when they bolted my jaw back together. I gently run my hands over my face. It feels normal. A bit tender in front, right under the nose. I move my hands down my body to my legs. They feel straight. I hope they look all right. My legs have been shaping up nicely, and I’d hate to ruin them.

The doctor blathers on. “Some of our best work, wouldn’t you say, Harriet?”

Harriet replies, “Yes, Doctor, especially since all these
wounds were floating around in a filthy river.” They continue to discuss in minute detail what a great job they did. These two will be the death of me.

“When can I bust out of this nuthouse?” I ask.

“You’ll have to do a lot of rehab, then it’s up to your boss,” Dr. Herodotus states as he places the clipboard back at the foot of my bed. “We’ve told him you’re awake. He should be right up.” The doctor gives Harriet some instructions before he leaves my room.

That tells me I’m in Washington, in the ExOps hotel. This also tells me that Cleo is around here somewhere.

“Where’s my mom?” I ask Harriet. Talking hurts. I drink some more water.

Harriet says, “Right now she’s over in the main building, but I know she’s still living upstairs. She had plans to move into another house when you got back from your mission, but she decided to stay put when she found out what happened to you. Your mom and I have talked quite a bit while you’ve been recovering.”

“Is she mad at me?” I don’t know why I ask Harriet this. It just pops out.

Harriet’s eyebrows move up, then she smiles and gently shakes her head. “Sweetie, I’ve seen a lot of parents at their children’s bedside, but your mother absolutely broke my heart. She slept on the floor next to your bed for a week. We offered to bring in a cot for her, but she thought it would make too much noise, so she unrolled a sleeping bag, like she was camping. The night nurses kept stepping on her by accident. Once you stabilized, we were able to talk her into sleeping upstairs.”

Warm tears run down the sides of my head and into my ears. Maybe Harriet the nurse isn’t so bad, after all. Her head turns toward the door as it opens, revealing an unexpected visitor.

It’s Raj. He nods hello to Harriet and comes in. Harriet excuses herself, thinking we’re friends. I quickly wipe my eyes dry while Raj looks around, scoping out my room.

He walks over to my bed. I stare straight up at the ceiling and grouse, “Come to gloat, Rah-Rah?”

He doesn’t say anything. I keep staring, and he keeps not saying anything. Finally I look at him and demand, “Well?”

His low voice rumbles, “I just wanted to see how you were, Shortcake.”

Shortcake?

I ask, “You aren’t here to tell me how much I cost ExOps by fucking up my Job Number?” Raj sits down in the guest chair, next to the bed. I continue, “And since when do you call me anything but my field name?”

“Scarlet,” Raj says, “I read the reports from Rashid and Patrick. It sounds like you did a great job getting yourself out of there in one piece.”

“The doctor makes it sound like it was more than one piece.”

“Well, whatever. All the pieces are still alive. Look, I know we haven’t gotten along since the day you blundered into ExOps, but you showed me some real potential when we rescued your mother. And now this impressive escape. It’s made me think we have more similarities than differences.”

I move my eyes up and down his giant limbs and torso. “I don’t know, Raj. It seems like you could eat me for dinner and still have plenty of room for dessert.” Raj looks at me for a moment, then bursts into one of those big deep-voiced guffaws where you can’t help but join in. It hurts my throat to laugh, but it feels good to have this giant on
my
side for a change.

“Yeah, Scarlet, I could, but all your metal and plastic wouldn’t be so good for my digestion.” In spite of myself, I laugh again.

I’m not sure what’s happened to Raj. It’s like aliens came down and upgraded him while I was out. My voice rasps, “So what are we, friends now?”

Raj leans forward with a smile. “How about colleagues first? We’re both Levels on our way up, and it
could just as easily be me recovering in that bed right now instead of you. There’s plenty of work to go around, and I figure we’ll both do better if we watch each other’s back. What do you say?”

“Can I still call you Rah-Rah?”

His eyes narrow, and he thinks for a second. Then he smiles a little and answers, “Only if you don’t tell anyone I said it was okay.”

I grin. “Deal!” We shake on it. His giant paw envelops my tiny hand. We talk shop for a few more minutes, then he gets up to go to a meeting.

As he opens the door I ask, “Hey, Rah-Rah, now that we’re all colleagued up, what’s your real name?”

Raj stands in the open doorway and considers. “Nah, not yet, Shortcake.” Then he ducks out to the hall and calls back, “Maybe if you save my life someday.”

“Maybe?”
I shout at the closing door. Yelling so loudly strains my throat and triggers a giant coughing fit.

Just as I catch my breath, I hear footsteps racing up the hall outside. The door bursts open, and Cleo sails into the room. She flies all the way from the hallway to my bedside in one running step. “
Alix?
Oh, Angel, it’s true. You’re awake!” She smothers me in hugs and kisses while she cycles through, in no particular order: “Honey,” “Angel,” “Baby,” “I missed you,” and “Are you okay?”

I say back to her: “Oh, Mom,” “I missed you, too,” and “I’m fine,” also in no particular order.

We wallow in each other’s arms for a few minutes. Both of us cry and look at the other’s face, memorizing what her features look like.

“Alix, I’ve felt so terrible about us ending on a fight like that before you left.”

“I know, Mom. Me too. I didn’t mean to make you sad that night.”

She sits on the side of my bed and reaches out to smooth my hair. “I’ve got your birthday present upstairs. I’ll bring it down to you at dinnertime.”

My birthday? Cleo sees the confused look on my face. “Yes, Angel, you’re twenty now.”

I missed my birthday! Well, that sucks
. “What did you get me?”

Cleo smirks. “Something nice. You’ll see.” She puts her hand on my cheek, takes a breath, and says, “I’ve read the reports of your mission. I’m horrified by what you went through, but it’s clear to me why Cyrus needs you for this work. I’ve never seen such high scores assigned to a Level who came home in the condition you did.”

“Why would I get high scores? I almost got killed.”

“Well, that’s exactly it. You
didn’t
get killed. The Information Department has concluded that your odds of surviving that ambush were one in three thousand.”

“So I’m lucky?”

“Alixandra, you’re more than lucky. Cyrus thinks you may be the fastest, toughest, most talented Level that ExOps has ever had.” She pulls my covers up to my shoulders and says, “You rest, baby. We’ll talk more tonight. I have to get back to my meeting with the head of Administration. I ran out on him the second I heard you were awake. My pen is probably still hovering in midair.”

This cartoony image makes me laugh and almost start coughing again. Cleo kisses my forehead and leaves, taking a good look at me before closing the door behind her.

Later, Patrick and Cyrus visit me. They stand on either side of the bed until I make them move to the same side so I don’t have to keep swiveling my head back and forth.

Cyrus is glad I’m awake for a couple of reasons. He’s happy that his most sensational field agent is back, of course, but there’s another, more pressing reason. My Johnny Blaze trip into the Tigris broke more than my jaw and my legs. It also trashed the data pod I got from Rashid.

“Oh, crap,” I groan after Cyrus tells me this. “I’m
sorry, sir.” I brace myself for one of his roof-shaking scoldings.

Cyrus shrugs, and his eyes flick away from my face. “It happens.”

Uh oh
.

I keep my eyes pointed at my boss while I comm to Trick, “Why isn’t Cyrus yelling at me? What’s wrong with him?”

Patrick holds his expression steady. “Nothing’s wrong with him.”

“He
is
pissed, though, right?”