8FOLD/ACRA: Jolt City # 21, "Promise and Terror!" (Part 3 of 3)

[Tom Russell]

THE STORY SO FAR: Each of our heroes is running his own investigation
into the unknown and the uncertain. ADA Tad Dmowski has asked Martin
to prove that Pocket Vito is still alive. Martin seems to hit a
dead-end when Frankie Salad, his way to get to the short man, is
murdered by Vito's hitman, Fix. But a new if dangerous avenue presents
itself in the deadly rivalry between Vito's suspected capo Fishface
and the man Fishface disfigured, Vise-Head. Meanwhile, Derek is asked
by Homeland Security agent Rebecca Glass to help prove the existence
of a terrorist group she calls FEVER, responsible for four bizarre
suicide bombings and the Cradle Research break-in that Derek foiled
with the help of Knockout Mouse.

               "PROMISE AND TERROR!"

   EIGHTFOLD PROUDLY PRESENTS
////////////// TOM RUSSELL'S
    ////  //////  /// //////  ////// /// ////// \  //
// ////  //  //  ///   //    ///    ///   //     \//# 21
//////  //////  ///// //    ////// ///   //      // PT.3

Glass gives Derek access to her investigation files; it makes him feel
awfully grown-up, and takes away a little of the sting that came with
the revelation that the federal government had deciphered his secret
identity. He thought he'd been doing pretty good with the alter ego
thing. Well, at least no one else knows.
   There's a lot of information here. Photos, videos, memos, police
reports. Almost too much to absorb; where to start, and where to go
next?
   Well, he starts with what he knows. He digs into the files about
the Cradle break-in. Here are the reports he gave to the police. Here
are the autopsy photos. Here's a transcript of Knockout Mouse's
conversation with Glass. Glass was right; they did ask her before
going to Derek.
   What Glass had been cagey about is why. Throughout: "Blue Boxer
suggested we investigate the explosion"; "Blue Boxer asked me to break
down the door, then he threw in his flash-bulbs" (no mention that they
were duds); "Blue Boxer used his ventrilowand to distract the guard".
Derek yells at the screen in disbelief. "Lady, you were the one that
did everything! You did an earthquake punch!"
   If Derek was the one who had done everything, he would make damn
sure well everyone knew it! (Modestly, of course.)
   "Really," Knockout Mouse had told Glass, "the one you want for this
is Blue Boxer."
   That's just nuts. He's the one with the fizzling light grenades.
He's the one with the glass jaw. He's the one who revealed their
location with flatulence. Flatulence! Blue Boxer is something of a
joke, and sometimes he knows it. Knockout Mouse, she's the real deal.
Derek can't understand why someone so talented would constantly
dismiss their accomplishments to focus on their failures.
   Speaking of. He checks the autopsy report for the mook that had
fallen down the hatch. Death by poison. He had broken his bones, and
would have needed medical attention and hospitalization, but nothing
that would have killed him. She's in the clear. He wonders if she
knows yet. He decides to call her and pulls out his DFCA-issued cell.
   "Boxer?"
   "Howdy."
   "What's up?" She sounds stressed.
   "Well, I got some good news for you. You might know it already, but
if you don't, I thought I should let you know..."
   "Hang on a second."
   THOOM!
   "What's going on there?" says Derek.
   "I'm kinda fighting a god right now, a little bit," says Knockout
Mouse. "Is this super-important?"
   "Um, yeah, but not, you know, god-fighting important. Call me back?"
   She hangs up. Well, back to work then. He skims through the other
autopsies. The doctor notes high fever marks on all the teeth. Glass's
name for them is making more and more sense. Now that he thinks about
it, there was something off about them, they did seem a little
under-the-weather. (Still managed to knock him out cold with one
punch, though.)
   Glass interviewed several Cradle scientists about the nature of the
tanks they were designing. It was, indeed, a government contract.
There's nothing special about the ordinance, the treads. Inside the
tank is another matter. At the core of the tank is what the scientists
call its "heart". The explanation is more than a little technical, and
includes some pages-long equations and wormholes. Glass literally
asked one of the scientists to "dumb it down" for her, and he did, but
even reading the dumbed-down version Derek is hopelessly lost, and he
thinks Glass was as well.
   But looking at the specs, the heart takes up almost the entire
hull. There's no room in there for a crew.
   "It's a drone tank," says one of the scientists. "Like a UAV, but
much more sophisticated. It will be controlled remotely, with the tank
almost an extension of the user's body. If and when we get it right."
There's some documents pertaining to that, but it's clearly the heart
of the tank that worries Glass. The technology is enormously powerful.
Volatile, explosive, disastrous. The scientists say they've stabilized
it, that there's no danger, but Glass wasn't so sure. Derek gets two
sudden chills, one after the other.
   First is the possibility, narrowly avoided, that one of the hearts
could have exploded when Knockout Mouse shook everything up.
   Second is the possibility that FEVER has one in the works. None of
the mooks got out of there alive, and none of the hearts went missing.
But if they got some kind of information about it, uploaded it
somewhere to the rest of them... if they can tease out how to make a
bomb of it...

September finds Derek in Dr. Fay's AATS group. Going in, Derek figured
he'd be able to distinguish himself, to be the stand-out. He was
during her classes last spring; that's why she picked him in the first
place. It somehow didn't occur to him that the other five students
would also have been stand-outs. Suddenly, he's not feeling so smart.
   But that's okay. He doesn't really mind being the dumbest genius in
the room. He still gets to open and close pin-sized rips in the fabric
of the universe; he still gets to teleport marbles from one end of the
lab to the next; he still gets to fly around the gymnasium wearing the
Icarus Belt. Clumsy as he is, his flight is erratic, herky-jerky, and
short. Dr. Fay makes him sit on the bench with his head between his
knees so that he doesn't get sick.
   The others are better at it than he is, of course, and the best
among them is Vanessa. She moves through the air like a bird, no: she
moves through the air like a breeze, gently weaving, whispering,
brushing against your cheek, cool and coy. Vanessa has an aptitude for
most of the alien tech Dr. Fay puts into their eager hands, and she is
lovely with many of them, but she is loveliest and happiest when in
flight.

Two weeks in, Dr. Fay brings out her pet zombie ant.
   "This is Trajan. Geniuses, Trajan. Trajan, geniuses. Trajan died
two years ago." She taps at her phone. "Or did he?" Trajan starts
walking along the countertop, to a predictable chorus of oohs and ahs.
   "Trajan, along with the rest of his colony, and several others, was
abducted by an alien species that had mistaken ants for the dominant
life form on Earth. Of course, they outnumber us something like
166,666 to 1, so who knows? These aliens killed the ants by exposing
them to extreme cold. Then, they put an implant into their brains and
warmed them up. And so!" She taps her phone, and the ant takes a sharp
stumbling left.
   "Now, I know what you're not thinking: they mind controlled the
ants! And you're not thinking it because you know that mind control
isn't real. But think of the ants as a kind of machine, just as parts.
That's how the aliens saw them! And the implant sends signals to the
brain, which really ceases to be a brain. Now it's just a router. If
anything, it's body control, and Derek where are you going?"

He calls Glass.
   "I don't think they're after the hearts," he says.
   "Not over the phone," says Glass. "I'll meet you for lunch."

Glass picks a slightly upscale Thai place. Derek looks at the menu
with empty-pocketed trepidation. "Are we going Dutch on this, or is
this an expense account thing?"
   "I'll cover it," says Glass.
   Derek looks at the menu again. "Coconut milk, coconut milk, coconut milk..."
   Glass raises an eyebrow over round rimmed sunglasses.
   "I only like Thai food with coconut milk. There we go, number
sixteen." He closes the menu.
   Glass takes another moment to look over hers. Well, "his"; Glass is
disguised, not entirely unsuccessfully, as a man.
   After the waitress takes their order, Derek turns on the scrambler.
   "So," says Glass. "If it's not the hearts..."
   "It's the drone tech. Because they're drones themselves."
   "Go on."
   "The implant in the brain. Controls the body like a puppet. A
couple hours ago, I saw an ant with something similar. Same idea,
just, you know, bigger."
   "The four you fought didn't move erratically."
   "I don't think it's a keyboard interface. It's brain to implant to
body. Speed of thought. Just like the drone tank."
   "If that's true, why would they need the tank tech?"
   "The bodies burn up."
   Glass closes her eyes as if listening to something. Then she nods. "Fever."
   "I could be wrong."
   "But you could be right," she says. "If the bodies burn up quick,
too quick to run sustained terror operations, it makes sense to move
to something that doesn't burn up. Mechanical bodies?"
   "That's what I'm thinking," says Derek. "Using other bodies,
organic or otherwise, it keeps their motives and their identities--
cultural, religious, geographic-- hidden. So even if we identify or
stop their operatives, there's nothing to trace it back."
   Glass shakes her head. "Terrorism is violence with a purpose. If
they keep their agenda hidden, their cause, the violence doesn't
forward it."
   Derek doesn't have an answer for that.
   "At the same time," says Glass, "this is making some kind of sense.
It explains why my four didn't fit the profile or share anything in
common. It explains why your four were in the Cradle lab. Stealing
plans for the hearts isn't worth the hassle when bombs can be cheap.
But if you're right about the implants, then the drone tech makes
perfect sense."

Derek's theory is (tentatively) verified by a reexamination of the
surviving implants. Now that they think they know what it's for,
Glass's team can see how the technology works and compare it to the
Cradle drone tech. That suggests some avenues and shuts down others.
It gives Glass a case to work, and she works it. Derek's good when it
comes to big ideas, sudden flashes of genius, "the clock is wrong".
He's not so great with the fine details (malfunctioning gadgets
serving as a particularly embarrassing example) and is glad to hand
that off. (He wishes Martin would learn to do that; the man's
exhausting himself on this Pocket Vito thing.) [1]
   Like I said, Glass works the case, and Derek doesn't hear a thing
from her until the end of the week, when she calls him in to the FCL.
Glass has once again commandeered Trimmer's office, only this time,
Lacey is present and mildly fuming.
   Glass ushers Derek in and closes the door behind them. "We've
identified a potential target," says Glass. "Maybe not for an attack,
but probably for some theft in the same vein as the Cradle break-in.
Hard to tell at this time, but some of the breadcrumbs seem to lead
towards it."
   She turns her laptop towards Derek (she's awfully fond of
laptop-pivoting). "The... 'Tokyo Super Robot Casino Go'?" says Derek.
   "World's first automated casino," says Glass. "Completely staffed
by pre-programmed robots. It's having a grand opening tomorrow night,
invitation only. Our intel tells us FEVER is going to crash the
party."
   "And so am I?" says Derek.
   "In a manner of speaking," says Glass. "You'll be the plus-one for
Snow Belle. Heard of her?"
   Derek shakes his head.
   "French, ice powers. Real name: Alix Corneau. Hotel heiress,
socialite. She only dates black superheroes, and so, perfect cover."
   This makes Derek a little queasy. "I don't know about this."
   Glass pulls up her photograph.
   "Wow. Okay, I'm in. Do you have, like, a file on her? Thanks." He
immediately begins to flip through it.
   Glass clears her throat.
   Derek closes the file. "So, what do we know about what FEVER is up to?"
   "Nothing," says Glass. "And it could be that this is a goose chase.
But if it is, you get a free trip to Japan and you get to share a
luxury hotel room with a gorgeous and purportedly easy woman."
   "The things I must endure for my country."

Japan!
   Bright! Neon! Gaudy! Japan!
   Dizzy! Crazy! Music! Japan!
   Ancient and revered, new and irreverent-- Tokyo is a city from the
twenty-second century stranded in our own. Derek steps off the plane
drained and exhausted, and then everything punches him in the face and
he's wide awake: Japan!
   He touches down in the afternoon. Alix's car picks him up at the
airport and takes him to the hotel. "Mademoiselle is waiting for you
in your suite," says the driver. He hands Derek the key.

Derek opens the door. "Hello? Snow Belle?"
   "Oui," she calls from the bathroom. "I am just having a soak."
   "It's Blue Boxer," he says.
   "But of course," says Alix. "If you were an enemy, you would not
have said, 'Hello, Snow Belle'."
   Derek looks around while she has her soak. There are several rooms,
a large television equipped with a full library of video games and
DVDs, a balcony, a king-sized bed. He plugs in his laptop; he could be
mistaken, but the outlet covers look to be ivory.
   He checks his email. A few more orders came in that Martin will
have to take care of. Mold treatment, debris removal, a lockbox order.
(That last one was reassigned to him from another contractor who had
installed the original lockbox inside the house. Derek affords himself
a facepalm.)
   "Boxer?" calls Alix.
   "Hmm?"
   "I require your assistance."
   Derek locks his computer and heads to the bathroom door. He knocks.
   "Come in, please."
   Derek opens the door. She is standing with her back to the door. A
black dress clings to her body; her lovely back is exposed.
   "Zip me," says Alix.
   "Sure," says Derek.
   He grabs the little zipper dangling below the small of her back and
rolls it up the length of her. "Nice to meet you," he says.
   "Likewise," says Alix. She turns towards him, her body brushing up
against his. Her dress is thin; he can feel the softness of her. She's
cool to the touch.
   "Well. Uh. They tell me you have ice powers?"
   She smiles. It's a sly smile, yet it's big and shows all her teeth.
With her long slender arm, she reaches behind her, dragging her
fingernails across the mirror. Delicate trails of frost are left in
her wake.
   He nods, somewhat dumbly.
   She touches her fingers to her lips, tracing the fullness of her
mouth; her lips turn a glossy blue.
   "I can do very much more," she promises, "but it is an awfully
small bathroom." It's bigger than Derek's living room, but he's not
one to argue with a lady. He follows her outside. "I hope this little
adventure is not making too much trouble for you?"
   "Trouble?"
   "With your girlfriend," says Alix. "Pretending to be my lover."
   "No girlfriend, no trouble," says Derek. "For you?"
   "For me? No, no trouble for me. I don't have a boyfriend. I don't
like boys, really."
   But Glass said she had a thing for black heroes. "Oh? I thought... "
   "It is an act, to make my father angry," says Alix. "I am using you
just as you are using me." She sits on the bed. "Boxer, I have a creek
in my neck. Rub it for me."
   "Sure, sure," says Derek. He climbs on the bed behind her. "So, you
don't like boys. Do you like, uh, girls?"
   "Not really," says Alix.
   "Are you, um, asexual, then?"
   "So many questions about my sex life!" says Alix with a light laugh.
   Derek's face flushes strawberry red and he begins to sputter a
string of incoherent syllables.
   "I'm only teasing," says Alix. "Rub me lower, please. My back."
   His hands press between her shoulder blades. Her skin is a cool
breeze rustling through the fabric.
   "Besides," she says, "I'm the one who brought it up, in a manner of
speaking. No, I'm not asexual. I am a very sexual person, actually.
Rub me lower, please. I am, how do you say," oh my God, the French
girl just said 'how do you say', "auto-sexual."
   "That means you like cars?"
   "No," she says with a silent laugh. "It means I like myself. I am
my own lover. Every inch of me, I adore. What woman is as beautiful as
me? What man? None. Why settle for less when I have all this to love
and explore? Lower."
   He's touching the small of her back now. As he presses down, his
wrist brushes against her shapely derriere. "Well, uh, that's
something we have in common. I am also auto-sexual. Just, you know,
not by choice."
   She bursts out laughing. She flips onto her back, her mouth open
and smiling and all perfect teeth, still laughing. Then it stops and
her mouth closes, still smiling.
   Alix lunges towards him and kisses him exactly once with her hungry
freezing mouth. "We shall be great friends, I am thinking," she says.
She slides off the bed and onto her feet. "The casino opens at dusk. I
have a lot of shopping to do, and very few hours in which to do it.
Coming along, boyfriend."

Snow Belle's name might not carry much cachet in the States, but she's
big in Japan. Every store, every street, young people gather, and
gawk, and take photos, and ask for autographs. Some even ask Derek for
his, assuming that Blue Boxer must be somebody important if he's
schlepping her shopping bags.
   It's weird: back home, people gather, and gawk, and take photos.
But they do it to hassle him. To tell him how they're better qualified
for the job, or to remind him about the time he ran into the telephone
pole, as if he could ever forget it. It's not as bad as it used to be,
but he isn't well-liked, and he certainly isn't adored. Snow Belle is.
And the weird thing is, it feels exactly the same to Derek as people
hassling him: people gather, and gawk, and take photos, and eat away
at his time.
   Suddenly she has a hold of him, cold and bracing, and now they're
in the air, propelled up and away on swirls of ice, thin and fine as
filigree. "I think you got into the wrong line of work," Alix
observes. "If you don't like the people."
   "You noticed?"
   "I notice a great much," says Alix. "It is my real super-power."
   "Well, the ice isn't bad," says Derek.
   "No, not bad," says Alix.
   "Awfully thin, though," observes Derek.
   "That is on purpose," she says. "The ice will melt, yes? Big ice, a
big melt. I use to make a big ice, when I first started. Big melt. Big
mess. Careless. And so now I use only as much as I need. Everything we
do, it can have consequence. And so I am careful. Whether I am getting
around town, or I am," she shadow-boxes with an imaginary black cape,
"I am always careful, and always noticing."

The Casino is not quite what Derek was expecting. Granted, he wasn't
quite sure what to expect, but he guesses he was assuming something
out of a spy movie: classy, refined, just a dash of seedy, the robots
in tuxedos, subdued. But "subdued" hasn't really described anything
he's seen in Japan so far. Still, he wasn't expecting every robot in
the place to affect the style, both verbal and sartorial, of a
Japanese game show host.
   Every robot is shouting, leaning forward at canted angles,
extorting the virtues of their table in fast-paced Japanese with a few
words of English thrown in seemingly at random. One of them says
"something something bakara James Bond something fun-time!!!"
   "What's this?" says Derek.
   The machine's single red eye dims for five long seconds. Then,
still leaning and canting, but in a crisp English-English monotone,
"This is baccarat, the game of James Bond. Fun-time."
   Derek reaches into his pocket, fondling the money Glass had given
him for expenses. "How do you play?"
   "First, bets are placed either for the player or the banker. Then
we deal two cards to each, face-up. Tens and royals are worth zero. We
total the points. Example: two and four are six. But points only going
up to nine. Example: two and nine are one. If total is eight or nine,
winner. If not, game continues. Object to get closest to nine."
   "Okay..."
   "If player's hand is five or less, he must draw third card.
Otherwise, no card."
   "So far so good."
   "Banker may draw. If player's third card is 9, 10, royal, or ace,
banker draws if his hand is three or less. If player's third card is
8, banker draws if his hand is two or less. If player's third card is
6 or 7, banker draws if his hand is six or less. If player's third
card is 4 or 5, banker draws if where are you going? Thank you
something something bakara James Bond something fun-time!!!"
   Derek shakes his head as he and Alix wander off.
   "Not your game?" says Alix.
   "I don't think so," says Derek. "Why do you even need a player or a
banker at all? They don't make any decisions."
   "Does anyone make decisions?"
   "You mean, in life? Yeah. Of course. Of course people do. What are
you talking about?"
   "It is... difficult to express in English. We make decisions, yes,
we choose this or that, but who decides our options? Where do the
choices come from? What control do we really have? And how many
decisions do we really think about? You decided to come here, to
Japan, with me. But would you really have said no? So, what decision
did you make? What decision did your government make in asking?
Everything is cause and effect, forever. Because of this, that.
Because the player's card is an eight, and the banker's hand is two,
the banker draws."
   "That's really nihilistic and depressing, thank you," says Derek.
   "I am French. And you are welcome."
   A robot approaches them, clad in a tuxedo and bowler hat. The robot
has a single red eye like all the others. "Snow Belle," he says,
bowing slightly and curtly.
   "Hello," says Alix, taken back. She stares at him, searching her
memory. "Right, Detective Nine Ninety-Nine. How could I forget? This
is Blue Boxer. My beau, this week."
   "A detective?" says Derek.
   The robot flashes his badge. "Special investigator for the
Kieshicho. I am programmed to find and punish all robo-crimes. Snow
Belle assisted me in a difficult case on one of her previous trips to
Japan." [2]
   "It's nice to see you again," hazards Alix.
   "Thank you," says the robot. "You remain most pleasing to my optic sensors."
   Alix laughs, covering her mouth with one hand and touching Derek's
shoulder with the other. "You flirt."
   "I... must be going," says the robot, struggling. "My sensors...
detect possible robo-crimes. Sayonara."
   Alix and Derek watch him leave. Alix leans in, her breath crashing
against his cheek. "Robots are terrible liars."
   "He did seem. Unnerved," says Derek.
   "I met him once, in passing," says Alix. "We had a photograph taken
together."
   "There was no team-up?"
   "No," says Alix. "But if someone only saw the photo, they might
assume there was."
   "If FEVER has him, you mean," says Derek. "Shall we, uh, assist him
in his battle against robo-crimes?"
   She nods with a closed-mouth smile.

They follow him out of the main room, into the hall, and up onto the balcony.
   "I can sense you following me," says the robot, before turning
around to face them.
   Derek thinks fast. "We just wanted to help."
   "With stopping the robo-crime," says Alix.
   The robot hesitates. "...Thank you. But I do not require your
assistance for this case."
   "Come on," says Derek, patting the robot on the arm. "Your sensors
detected something, so tell me what's wrong."
   He pulls back from Derek's touch.
   "No, Boxer," says Alix. "This was a bad idea. We should let him get
back to his investigation. Apologies, Detective Nine Ninety-Nine."
   "Apologies," echoes Derek.
   Alix slips her slender fingers around his wrist and pulls him into
the hall. "You have to be more subtle," she hisses. "Patting his arm,
challenging him."
   "If I didn't pat his arm, I couldn't have slipped my bug on him,"
says Derek. "We can keep our distance, and keep tabs on him."
   "Brilliant," says Alix. She kisses him hot on the mouth.
   Damn. He liked her, too. "I'll keep an ear on Nine Ninety-Nine, you
go mingle, see if any of the other robots are acting strange. Uh.
Stranger, anyway."
   She smiles, all lips and no teeth, and descends the stairs.
   The robot's voice hums over Derek's earpiece. "My preferred
designation is Three-Nine, not Nine Ninety-Nine. I assume you know
that something is wrong, Boxer-san, otherwise you would not have given
me a comm-link."
   "Like I said, your sensors detected something."
   "She seemed unfamiliar with my existence," says Three-Nine. "More
importantly, her body temperature is far outside the range I have
previously observed."
   "She has a fever," says Derek. "It's a side effect. Her body is
being controlled remotely by terrorists. An implant in her brain. And
her smile was wrong, too. Her laugh was wrong. Her outlook on life."
Since they set foot in the casino, she's been someone else.
   "Hold," says Three-Nine. "Yes. I have consulted the most recent
scan, and can confirm its presence."
   For once, Derek hates being right.
   Suddenly, screams and explosions from the main room.
   Derek rushes down the hall. Three-Nine runs in from the other direction.
   "There is something else I need to tell you," begins Three-Nine,
weirdly out of breath.
   Derek's already started running down the stairs. Or falling,
rather. Derek misses a step and now he's falling down the long stone
stairs.
   "Perhaps it can wait," Three-Nine's voice pipes over the comm-link.
   Derek finds the casino in total panic. The robotic casino workers
are moving bizarrely-- more bizarrely, anyway. Tables have been
overturned, arms are outstretched towards terrified humans.
   In the center of the room is Alix. Bursts of ice fly from her
fingertips at the marauding robots. "Run!" she yells to the civilians.
"Get out of here, I'll try to hold them off!"
   "Maybe she regained control?" says Derek over the comm-link.
   "The signal's still broadcasting," says Three-Nine.
   "A little help, boys?" calls Alix.
   Three-Nine pulls out his pistol and leaps from the top of the
staircase. It rings out thrice; three red-hot beams zip into robotic
hulls, leaving clean and smoldering circles. He lands on his feet and
fires thrice more; three more hits.
   "That's a neat gun," says Derek as he stands up.
   "Thank you," says Three-Nine. "It was acquired on an archeological
dig in America, found among some fossils." [3]
   Out of the corner of his eye, Derek sees something flying towards
him. He tries to dodge it but ends up moving into its path. Before it
clobbers him, he recognizes the baccarat card shoe.
   He staggers back to his feet; the baccarat robot is closing in on
him. From his action bag, he tosses out his pulse-paralyzer. It's
enough current to shock a person into submission. It has little effect
on the robot. He's not sure if it's because it's a robot, or if his
gadget is on the fritz. He throws out two more. It does the trick.
"Baccarat's a stupid game, anyway."
   Something hits him on the back of the head. Derek pitches forward.
Should've been paying more attention.
   Shouldn't have stopped for the one-liner.
   Shouldn't have
   Everything goes white, then black.

He wakes and rises at the same time; Three-Nine is helping him. The
robotic equivalent of carnage covers the room, coils in place of
entrails, lubricant in place of blood.
   Alix is sitting on the bottom of the stairs. No. Not Alix. But the
thing in Alix's body, drenched in sweat. She gives another thin smile.
"This body burns up a lot faster than the others. Must be the powers."
   "I knew it was you," says Derek.
   "And I knew that you knew," says Alix's stolen voice. "You think I
couldn't tell the difference between a comm-link and a bug?"
   Three-Nine points his beam pistol at her. "Release Snow Belle."
   She waves him away dismissively; a wave of ice knocks the pistol
from his grip.
   "What's going on?" says Derek. "Who are you? What do you want?"
   "Questions, questions," she says. "Questions are much better than
answers. 'Who was that masked man?' Question. Perfectly satisfactory.
The answer ruins it. Doesn't it, Derek Mason?"
   "You have to want something," he says. "This killing, stealing
people, this... whatever this was, what is it all for?"
   "What is the purpose," she says. "What are the goals being
furthered by the terrorist group FEVER? Tell Becky Glass we like the
name, by the way. We'll use it. But you want to know what little
ethnic group wants land and UN recognition, what oppressed people is
sticking it to the man, what ideology we espouse. As I said the first
time we met, right before I had that hot little slut blow her own
brains out, no, I think not."
   "If you're not going to tell us anything, then let her go," says Derek.
   "You mean, if I'm not going to use her to further our ends?" she
says. "That's where you're wrong. The puppets aren't the means to
conduct our attacks. They are the attack. One thousand puppets in your
United States. And twenty thousand more worldwide. Give or take."
   "Twenty thousand?" scoffs Derek. "You're crazy. We'll stop you
before you get that far."
   "Before we get that far?" she says. "We're already there. This
bitch? This one right here? We got her last year. We've been at this a
very long time. We're not preparing anymore. We're doing."
   "Bullshit," says Derek.
   "You," she says. "You, we spliced early last year. When you were
pretending to be the Green Knight. You got knocked out, then you woke
up in the alley a few hours later with one mother of a headache." [4]
   "Bullshit!" says Derek.
   "It's true," says Three-Nine flatly. "I was trying to tell you
earlier. In my scans of you, I picked up the same implant, but
dormant."
   "And it will stay dormant, for a while," she says. "You won't know
quite when we'll switch you on. When all this goes public, twenty-one
thousand people won't know when we'll switch them on. Millions,
thousands of millions, will have no idea if they're a sleeper or not.
If their spouse is. If their child. And all of you will live in fear.
A fear that will suffocate you. That will crush the life from you.
That is our goal, Derek. For we shall become the common enemy of
mankind. The FEVER will rise!"
   The body goes limp. Derek rushes in. "Alix?"
   "The signal's gone," says Three-Nine. "I couldn't trace it."
   "Bonjour," she says, weakly. Her face is red.
   "We're going to get you help," says Derek. "Three-Nine's already
calling it in, aren't you, Three-Nine?"
   "Yes."
   "You're going to be okay," says Derek.
   "I don't think I will very much," says Alix. "I liked you, Boxer."
She smiles: all teeth.
   "I liked you, too."
   He holds her. Her body is warm. Then, cold.

The cover-up begins immediately: Snow Belle died heroically fighting
alongside Blue Boxer and Detective Three-Nine against a freak robot
riot. FEVER, and its twenty-one thousand sleepers, aren't a part of
that story.

Two days later. Derek heads home on a chartered plane.
   Glass asks him if he wants anything to drink. He shakes his head.
   "Have you looked at your file yet?" she says.
   He looks at the Japanese hospital report in her hand and nods.
   "There's no way to get it out of your brain without killing you," says Glass.
   "That's what they said," says Derek. "But they never met Doctor Fay."
   Glass doesn't look so optimistic.
   Derek looks out the window. "They made their first mistake this time."
   "Oh?"
   "They made it a while back. They just didn't know it yet. And that
mistake was, they put their implant in my brain. And today, they told
me about it. To scare me."
   "And you don't scare?" says Glass skeptically.
   "Oh, no, I scare," says Derek. "I can scare something awful. They
said they wanted the world to live in fear. A fear that suffocates and
crushes. But I've had that fear for a long time. I've been afraid for
a long time now. Afraid of losing my house. Afraid of getting myself
killed jumping around on rooftops. I'm afraid that I'm not good
enough, that I'll always be a joke. That I'm going to blow my second
chance. I'm afraid sometimes that I didn't even deserve it in the
first place.
   "But that's what keeps me going, is that fear. And when I get
going, I can do amazing things. I can save the world."
   "Twice," says Glass.
   "Twice!" agrees Derek. "And I did it all out of fear. So this thing
in my head, it doesn't cripple me, doesn't paralyze me, doesn't stop
me. No! It gets me going. Motivates me. Turns me into their worst
enemy. This thing they did, it just gave me super-powers. We're going
to find them, Glass. We're going to stop them. And we're going to save
the world. Third time's the charm."

COPYRIGHT (C) 2014 TOM RUSSELL