Spell Robbers (12 page)

THE
cell was about the size of their small training room. Ronin stood in the center, inside a clear box of a cage. He had a cot and a toilet in there with him, but not much else. He was in his socks, his boots tucked under the bed. As they got closer, Ben saw thin golden wires embedded in the plastic walls of his prison. Perhaps those had something to do with how the cell neutralized actuation.

Ronin raised an eyebrow at Mr. Weathersky. “The Old One comes to see me? This is an unexpected honor. What brings you down from on high? Something big must be happening.”

“Hello, Ethan,” Mr. Weathersky said.

Ronin looked around. “This cell is an upgrade from when I was last here.”

“Your previous escape showed us our design’s weaknesses.”

Ronin looked at Ben. “I see you’re starting them even younger now. Who’s the prodigy?”

Prodigy?

“This is Ben,” Mr. Weathersky said. “Our newest recruit.”

“I’m surprised you’re not just stealing them from hospital cribs by now.”

“Don’t be vulgar, Ethan,” Mr. Weathersky said.

“It’s Ronin, now.” He sat down on his cot. “And how are your grandchildren doing in the League?”

“You can change your name, Ethan, but that doesn’t change who you are. And to answer the implication that I am unwilling to make the same sacrifices I ask of others, let me say that I have lost many friends and loved ones in the line of duty.” He paused. “As have you.”

Ronin looked up. His face bore an instant look of such hatred and anger it made Ben take a step backward. Mr. Weathersky didn’t move.

“Don’t you dare.” Ronin’s whisper sounded like a wind that threatened to storm. “You of all people. Don’t you dare.”

“I don’t mean to hurt you,” Mr. Weathersky said. “I only meant to say that I know something of what you went through fifteen years ago, when you lost —”

Ronin flew at them and slammed the wall with his fists. “DON’T YOU DARE SAY THEIR NAMES!”

“— your wife and daughter.” Mr. Weathersky never even flinched.

Tears formed in Ronin’s eyes. His fists squeaked down the plastic wall. Ben wondered what had happened to his family fifteen years ago. That was the same time he had gone rogue. The two events had to be related.

Mr. Weathersky cleared his throat. “I can see your pain is as fresh today as it was then. Perhaps you’re still trying to run from it.”

“Why have you brought me here?” Ronin asked. “To torture me?”

“I told you, I don’t mean to hurt you. In fact, I’ve come because I may be able to bring you some comfort.”

“You?” Ronin laughed. “You really don’t get it.”

“I know you blame me.” Mr. Weathersky took a step toward the cage. “But your daughter is alive, Ethan.”

“What?”

“Eva is alive.”

“Stop.” Ronin held up his hands. “Just shut your mouth. I don’t know what this is. Some kind of twisted revenge against the agent who turned against you? Well, it’s not going to work on me.”

“She’s alive, Ethan.”

“I saw their bodies.” Fresh tears came, and Ben could tell Ronin was seeing the bodies now. “I saw what they —” Ronin clamped his mouth shut.

“There were two bodies, yes.” Mr. Weathersky’s voice sounded gentle. “One, I am heartbroken to say, was your wife. But the other was not your daughter. In the condition you found … They wanted you to think it was your daughter so you wouldn’t come after them.”

“No.” Ronin had gone pale. He shook his head without taking his eyes off Mr. Weathersky. “No, you’re lying.”

“I am not lying.”

“You’re lying!” Ronin punched the wall again.

“I am not lying, Ethan. We found her a few months later, alive, when we raided the Abandon crew’s safe house.”

“If that were true, why did you wait until now to tell me?”

“By the time we found her, you had already gone rogue. You were
unfit
. She became a ward of the League.”

Ronin leaned his forehead against the wall, closed his eyes, and rolled his head back and forth. “Why are you doing this?”

Ben pitied him, and he had to wonder the same thing. In the space of a few minutes, Mr. Weathersky had emotionally ripped this man open. Was that another ability the director had?

“Because I need something from you, Ethan,” Mr. Weathersky said. “And I need it badly enough I’m willing to give you something in return. That is another reason why I have waited until now to tell you about your daughter.”

Ronin pulled away from the wall. “Show her to me.”

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be —”

“Bring her here, Old One!” Ronin spread his arms. “If she’s alive, why can’t I see her?”

Mr. Weathersky’s lips tightened.

“That’s what I thought,” Ronin said. Ben could almost see him rebuilding his defenses. Driving back the pain.

“If I bring her here,” Mr. Weathersky said, “will you help us?”

“If you bring my daughter here, I’ll do anything you want.” Ronin grinned, and his face wrinkled the way the leather of an old boot bent. “I’ll put on a costume and be the Quantum League’s mascot.”

“Very well,” Mr. Weathersky said. “Come, Ben.”

They turned to leave.

“Boy, something has you spooked,” Ronin said. “The Weathersky I remember would never have made a deal with a rogue agent, and he certainly never would’ve let one set the terms.” Ronin looked at Ben. “Does it have something to do with him? Why did you bring him here?”

Mr. Weathersky returned to face Ronin. “You are right. Something does have me … spooked. The Dread Cloaks have kidnapped a professor. Ben’s teacher.”

“What else?” Ronin asked.

“She’s not an Actuator. She’s an innocent quantum physicist.”

“And?”

“And,” Mr. Weathersky said, “she may have developed the technology for portable augmentation.”

“And there it is,” Ronin said. He brought his hands together and started cracking his knuckles one at a time. “I see it now. Yeah, this is big. Big enough for you to get involved, that’s for sure. And you want me to infiltrate the Dread Cloaks, right? Be your inside man with Poole?”

Ben was amazed. Ronin had figured out their entire strategy in a matter of moments.

“Yes,” Mr. Weathersky said.

“What’s your timeline?” Ronin asked.

“Imminent threat,” Mr. Weathersky said. “We need immediate insertion. Which is why we came after your crew.”

Ronin leaned in close to the wall. “How
did
you know about the job tonight?”

“An anonymous tip came in last week. Someone on your crew must have loose lips.”

“No one on my crew. We’ve been together too long. If they were going to rat me out, they would have done it a long time ago.”

“My agents said you had an extra man tonight.”

“Extra man?” Ronin frowned. Then his eyes opened wide. “Oh, right. That guy. Inside man at the bank. The job was his idea. It was supposed to be clean, in and out.”

“You’re getting sloppy, Ethan,” Mr. Weathersky said. “Letting strangers on your crew.”

“He wasn’t a stranger, he was …” Ronin scratched his head. “He was one of yours, wasn’t he? You set me up.”

Mr. Weathersky shook his head. “But it seems that someone did.”

Ronin let out a one-breath laugh. Then he put his hands in his pockets. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Do what?” Mr. Weathersky asked.

“I’ll be your inside man with Poole,” Ronin said. “And when the job is done, you give me my daughter.”

“So you believe me?” Mr. Weathersky asked.

Ronin swallowed, and a shade of his earlier grief returned. “Even you wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

Ben wanted to believe that, too. That there was a limit to what the Quantum League would do.

Ronin grabbed his boots from under the cot, sat down, and pulled one of them on. “I’ll need someone in there with me.”

“Of course,” Mr. Weathersky said. “We’ll find an agent to —”

“No. No agents.” Ronin pulled on his other boot. “I want him.” He nodded toward Ben.

“Me?” Ben shook his head, confused. What could Ronin want with him?

“Yes, you.” Ronin stood, an inch or two taller with his boots. “I’m going to bring the Dread Cloaks a recruit, and you will look and play the part.”

“But Poole knows me,” Ben said. “I shot a lightning bolt at one of his men.”

“That’s even better,” Ronin said.

“Better?” Ben wanted to help Dr. Hughes, but Ronin’s plan sounded like suicide. “How is that better?”

“You’re going to pretend to be a League defector.” Ronin began recracking his knuckles.

“They’ll suspect he’s an undercover,” Mr. Weathersky said. “You, too.”

“Of course they will,” Ronin said. “And we’ll get caught. But then Ben will convince them that he
really
wants to defect, and he’ll become a triple agent. Poole’s been trying to get someone on the inside of the League for a while now. He will want to believe Ben is his man, and it’s easy to get someone to believe something they want to believe.”

Ben didn’t like where this was going. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Ronin. The man could have hurt him or even killed him in that alley. But Ben remembered Poole’s blue eyes searing him through the ski mask, and he was scared. Scared to leave Peter and Sasha, scared of the Dread Cloaks, scared of Poole.

“What do you think, Ben?” Mr. Weathersky asked.

If it was Ben’s decision, he had his answer. “Mr. Weathersky, I don’t think I can.”

“Then you better suit up,” Ronin said. “Call in every agent you have for a battle, Old One, and expect it to get ugly. My plan is the only inside job that’ll work.”

“You’re right, Ethan.” Mr. Weathersky sighed. He took Ben by the shoulders, towering over him, and Ben felt that same power emanating from him. “A direct assault would result in many casualties. Do you understand? Brave men and women, like Agent Spear and Agent Taggart. Like your trainer, Sasha. I don’t think you want that. I believe in you, Ben.”

Ben knew what the man was doing. He could feel it, and it wasn’t going to work. Ben was still just a piece in his game. Mr. Weathersky had brought Ben down here to keep him on the board, and had now found a way to play him. Well, Ben wasn’t going to be played.

“Sir, I —”

“I know what Agent Spear promised you,” Mr. Weathersky said. “It would be a shame to lose you, and I hope you’ll stay with us when this is all over. But if not, I plan to honor your arrangement.”

Ben felt suddenly furious. He was here because of the League. He was detached from his mom because of the League. And now Mr. Weathersky was making it sound like he was doing Ben some kind of favor to keep Agent Spear’s promise and give him his life back.

“And, Ben,” Mr. Weathersky said. “This mission may be the only way to make that happen.”

That did it. Even through all his pain and fear and anger, Ben knew he had no choice.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“Thank you, Ben,” Mr. Weathersky said. “Your bravery and sacrifice are to be commended.”

Shut up, Old One
.

“Excellent,” Ronin said. “Now let me out of here and let’s get to work.”

“I don’t understand,” Peter said, later that afternoon. “You’re going on a mission with Ronin?”

“Looks that way,” Ben said.

They were alone downstairs in the sleeping quarters, lying on their beds. After everything that had happened, Sasha had canceled their training for the day. Ben wondered if they’d cancel it altogether. Training seemed a little obsolete now.

“Why you?”

“Ronin asked for me.”

“Yes, but why you?” Peter fidgeted one of his ankles. “It’s because he saw you actuate, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Does he know you need a Locus?”

Ben didn’t want to deal with Peter’s insecurity right now. “No … I don’t know…. It didn’t come up.”

“When do you leave?”

“Soon. A couple of days.”

Peter rolled onto his side, facing Ben. “I think you’re the only real friend I’ve ever had.”

Ben snorted. “Come on.”

“No. Really.” Peter was silent a few moments. “I wish I could help her.”

“Who? Dr. Hughes?”

“Yeah.” Peter’s ankles came to rest. “Do you ever wonder about her?”

“Wonder what? If she’s safe?”

“No. What it was all about for her. I’m pretty sure her research with us was illegal. Or at least unethical.”