Agents of the Glass (3 page)

*1
My own mentor reminds me almost daily that “
character
means ‘doing the right thing even when no one is looking.' ”

*2
Not his real name, of course. The names of all current Agents have been changed for their protection.

What Silas had to tell him would take a lot more than an hour, but first he had to see if he was willing to listen. Andy was his youngest recruit in years, and he had to remind himself to be patient, to take it one step at a time.

“How about a soda?” Melvin asked, handing Andy a bottle of GoodTimes root beer.

“That's your favorite, right?” said Silas.

“Um, yeah…How did…Oh, never mind. You know
everything
about me,” Andy said as he twisted off the cap and took a healthy swig. “What are you, some kind of spy or something?”

Silas tugged on his left earlobe and glanced around the room before saying, “Something like that. I'll tell you a little about myself, but first tell me about Friday afternoon.” He pointed to the bandage on Andy's forehead. “Tell me about the bank and the backpack and…what happened after that.”

Andy's eyes narrowed, staring straight into Silas's. “You're not a spy. You're a reporter, aren't you? I'm not supposed to—”

“I'm not a reporter. I'm not recording you. That's a promise. Here, check my phone. It's turned off. In fact, you can hold on to it until we're done. Have you talked to anybody about that day?”

“Just my parents. And the police. And the FBI. They asked me some questions about what I saw before the bomb went off, but I don't remember anything. I was just walking along and then…” Beginning to relax, he told Silas about the fateful pickle, the explosion, seeing the homeless man and his cans get blown into the street, and lying under the delivery truck, listening to all those sirens.

“You were very fortunate,” Silas said. “Do you really believe that the pickle was fate telling you that it wasn't your time?”

Andy twisted his lips to the side, thinking. “I don't know. It's just…when I picture that poor guy in front of me and think that could have been me…that maybe it was
supposed
to be me…”

“I think I can safely say that it wasn't supposed to be you or the homeless man, either. It just…was. Now tell me about the backpack. Did anybody tell you that you should keep the money?”

Andy squirmed. “Well, my dad didn't exactly seem thrilled when I said I was going to give it back. But that's just the way he is.”

“What about your mom?”

“She didn't know until after I gave it to the police. She left for Africa on Saturday morning. I told her about it on the phone last night.”

“What did she say?”

Andy blushed and looked away. “I dunno. That she was, you know, proud of me.”

“That's nice. I'm sure she is. Your dad is, too. He just has a harder time saying it, I'll bet. Still, weren't you tempted at all to keep the money?” Silas pointed at the
Indefatigable
kit in Andy's hand. “Would have bought a lot of model ships. Almost would have bought a real ship,” he added, laughing.

“I thought about it for a second,” he admitted. “My dad said it would pay for college, but…”

“So what was it that made you want to give it back to the bank?”

He shrugged and twisted his lips again. “It was…the right thing to do.”

Silas fought back a smile. Andy had said the magic words:
It was the right thing to do.

“Do you always do the right thing?”

“I try. I mean, I'm not perfect, but—”

“You did it again today, a few minutes ago, with Melvin. You could have taken that great discount and just walked away with your model ship…and no one would have blamed you after the way you were treated. You're not like most people, Andy. You're special—a lot like Horatio Hornblower, now that I think of it. And we want you on our side.”

“We? Who's
we
?”

“Before I tell you that, I need you to promise me that you won't reveal what we talk about today…ever. To anyone. In a little while, you're going to have a decision to make, and if you choose to join us, you'll understand the need for secrecy. If you decide to walk away and forget you ever met me, though, that's exactly what I want you to do—forget everything you hear today and just go on with your life. Do you understand?”

Andy nodded, even though he didn't really understand what he was agreeing to.

“You probably want to know a little about me, starting with who I am, right? I suppose, in a way, I'm a recruiter, but there's more to it than that. Sorry, I don't have a business card to give you, but they're against our rules. My branch is called Special Services, but it's not like that's written down anywhere. My job is to find people like you—
quality
people who can help us—and bring them aboard. Train them, get them comfortable, work alongside them occasionally. With some people, I'm involved for a few months; with others, for years.”

“What's your name?”

“For now call me…Silas.”

“But it's not your real name, is it?”

“No, but that's not important right now. I know this is what everyone says in moments like this, but it's for your safety as much as mine. It would be impossible for me to explain
everything
in an hour, or even a whole day, so I'm going to give you an abridged version, and then, if you join us, we can fill in the blanks as we go along. Sound fair?”

Another nod.

Silas looked long and hard into his young recruit's eyes. “Do you believe in evil, Andy?”

The question caught him off guard, and his eyebrows rose noticeably. “Um, I…guess so. At least, I think some
people
are evil.”

“Sorry. I know it's a strange question. And it's a hard one to answer. Let me tell you a story: The organization that I work for—let's call it the Agency for now—has been fighting evil for over eight hundred years. The fact is, Andy, that evil—that is, the tendency to want to do evil, the
need
to do it, in some cases—is in certain people's DNA. They're born with it, the same way you were born with brown hair and hazel eyes. Eight hundred years ago, a young monk named Brother Lucian made a startling discovery in the ruins of a church near Newcastle, in the north of England. The east wing of the church had been built a century earlier along the edge of a rocky precipice two hundred feet above the North Sea. Unfortunately, only twenty years after it was built, an earthquake—very rare in northern England—caused part of the church to collapse, sending the entire east wing crashing into the sea.

“Fifty years later, Brother Lucian was walking along that shore when something caught his eye—a circle of blue glass, about two inches across and worn smooth from decades in the sand and rocks. Realizing that it had come from the stained-glass windows of the ruined church, he searched the area for several more hours, wading out into the icy water, and found more than a dozen pieces in several different colors—reds, greens, yellows, and violets—but no more of the original blue. Tired, hungry, and numb from the cold, he climbed the path back to the church, where he would make the discovery of a lifetime—a finding that would change history.

“Inside the church that day was a group of stonemasons, working on the new east wing. Lucian stopped to watch them work, momentarily forgetting how hungry and cold he was. When the late-afternoon sun began to stream through the west windows, he held the disk of blue glass up to the light, marveling at its beauty. He had never seen that particular shade of blue before—the color of cornflowers, he said. While he was admiring the glass, one of the workers, a heartless, despicable man named Leveraux, stepped in front of him. Now, you've seen sea glass before, haven't you?”

Andy nodded. “Uh-huh. I have a few pieces from the beach in North Carolina.”

“Can you see through it?”

“Not really. I mean, except for a little bit of light, maybe.”

“Exactly. Light and shadow, and that's about it. So, imagine Brother Lucian's surprise when he found himself staring at a crystal-clear image of Mr. Leveraux in the glass.

“In his journal that night, Lucian wrote that he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. Leveraux's face, he said, could be seen more clearly through the glass. As if the glass was a filter allowing him to see the ‘real' Leveraux. And that terrified him.”

Andy leaned in closer to Silas, his curiosity getting the better of him. “What was it?”

“He had a distinct aura around his body—almost as if he were
glowing.
When Leveraux walked away, Lucian tried looking at him through the other pieces of glass, but he couldn't see anything. He went back to the blue glass and looked at all the other workers through it, but there was nothing. It was ordinary sea glass, except when he looked at Mr. Leveraux.”

Andy looked doubtfully at Silas. “Is this real? Or, like, a legend or something?”

Silas smiled. “Good. I love the fact that you're skeptical. You should be, at least until you see it for yourself.”

“What? You mean you have that piece of glass? Can I see it?”

“In time, Andy. In time. Let me finish my story. So, the next Sunday, Lucian secretly observed every member of the parish through the blue glass as they filed down the center aisle for Mass. Three hundred people walked past him, yet he saw only one person clearly through the glass: Mr. Leveraux.”

“What did it mean?”

“It took Brother Lucian ten years to answer that question. After observing thousands of people through his circle of blue glass, which hung from a string around his neck, he finally revealed his conclusions to his superiors. The aura, which he called the
lumen lucidus—
that's Latin for ‘bright light'—revealed the presence of a truly evil person. One day, if you're one of the fortunate ones, you'll see for yourself why he used those words. People with the
lumen
look like they're on fire when you look at them through the glass. Let me make this clear, Andy. When I talk about evil and the
lumen,
I don't mean someone who does a bad thing here and there. I mean people who are
consumed
with evil, people whose every waking moment is dedicated to the spreading of misery in the world. For the rest of his life, Lucian continued his research, and those afflicted with the
lumen
he called
Syngians. It came from an Old English word that meant ‘to commit sin.' ”

“Are—are there a lot of them?” Andy asked, glancing up as a boy of fifteen or sixteen entered the store and made his way to the fantasy games section, one aisle away but still in sight.

Silas lowered his voice to a whisper. “More than you'd think. And there are more every day.”

“I don't get what this has to do with me.” He paused, and then his face fell. “Oh, no. I'm one of them, aren't I? I'm a Synergism.”

Silas laughed out loud, catching himself as the boy in the fantasy aisle looked up. “No, no, no. It's Syngian, and you are about as far from one as you can get. And
that's
why you're here. Over the past few hundred years, the battle has changed and escalated. Brother Lucian first organized a society in 1212. At that time, all that the members could do was identify Syngians and try to keep an eye on them, to warn others—secretly—about them. In 1342, a hundred years after Lucian's death, that all changed when a powerful politician, Abeniz Caiotte, who was surrounded by the clearest, most distinct
lumen
seen up to that time, learned of the existence of Lucian's society and of the
lumen lucidus,
including how it was detected. Over the next ten years, he secretly removed thousands of pieces of that very special blue glass from stained-glass windows across Europe. According to legend, he was buried in a coffin made of blue glass, but his grave has never been located. We've been searching for hundreds of years, but the trail has gone cold. It's also rumored that he had discovered the secret formula for manufacturing the glass and that it was buried with him.”