The Silent Army (9 page)

“Who are you?” I asked.

“What?”

“Goddamn it, I know you,”
I said.
“You were down in that fucking pit. I went in after—”

I remembered then. Last time I’d seen her, she was on the other side of a cage door. Everything was burning. People were shooting. I looked through the glass, and saw a stream of fire reflect off it. I went down there to get her. Somehow I knew her.

She knew me too; I could see it in her eyes. She knew me.

“You’re wrong. I—”

I stepped in on her and she stepped back, against the wall. She looked scared as I stuck my finger in her face.

“Don’t lie,”
I said.
“Tell me who—”

Her eyes changed then. The black parts got big, until the green part was almost gone. My voice stopped cold and I just looked at her.

“Sleep,”
she said. Nothing happened for a few seconds; then she leaned close.

She looked scared before, but not now. In the recording, she looked at me like a bug under a magnifying glass. It happened just like that, like someone flipped a switch.

“Can you hear me?”
she asked.

“Yes,”
my voice said.

“You don’t know me. You have the wrong person. Whoever you think I am and whatever you think is going on, you’re wrong. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to tell you to unstick the elevator, and when I do, you’re going to forget this whole thing. Whatever you planned to do, you decided not to do it. We don’t know each other. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“I’ve got stuff I have to do during my lunch; don’t follow me. Now unstick the elevator.”

I watched my hand reach out and hit the button again. The bell stopped and the elevator kept going. We both just stood there the rest of the time. She left, and I stayed behind.

What the fuck?

I went back to a freeze-frame of that ugly face staring up at me, eyes gone black.

Who the fuck are you?

At the front door, I hit up the guard.

“Do you know who that was?”

“Who?”

“The stick. The one with the red hair.”

“Oh, her,” he said. “Name’s Zoe Ott.”

“Who is she?”

“Don’t know. Some contractor.”

“That’s it?”

“She drinks, I think.”

“Zoe Ott, huh?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thanks.”

When I got outside, she was long gone. I had a name and a face, though. Ten minutes and twenty bucks later, I had more than that.

Name: Zoe Alia Ott. Sex: Female.

Hair: Red. Eyes: Green.

Parents: Harold Llewellyn Ott (deceased), Nichole Alia Donovan Ott (deceased).

Citizenship tier: Three. Served: No. PH: No.

Criminal Record: (7) counts of public drunkenness.

Employment: Self/Other. None.Awarded monthly compensation in work-related death of Harold Llewellyn Ott. Currently contracts for Federal Bureau of Investigation in undisclosed capacity.

I brought up her picture again, staring up at me in the elevator. It was like she just erased my goddamned memory. How the hell had she done that?

There was more info on her, but mostly stuff I didn’t care about. I skimmed through until I found the one thing I did care about.

Last Known Residence: Pleasantview Apartments, apartment #613.

Zoe Ott—Mercy Greaves Medical Center

The second part of Nico’s little favor took me halfway across town, a tidbit of information he’d completely forgotten to mention when he was blowing me off. I had to call Karen to bail on lunch, but I was all the way to the hospital and she still hadn’t picked up. A sign outside said I couldn’t have my phone on once I went in, so I’d been waiting in the rain for ten minutes before I finally got her on the line. I was going to be late.

“You have to cancel,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Karen. Really.”

“Don’t sweat it,” she said. “It’s just lunch; we’ll go tomorrow or something.”

“It’s just something came up. Nico’s got me doing this thing, except it’s not at the Federal Building. It’s off somewhere else across town, so I had to go right over there.”

“That’s good, though, right? You get paid by the hour, don’t you?”

“I guess.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know. It feels like he’s using me sometimes.”

“Zoe, it’s work you get paid to do,” she said. “He’s not using you. He’s contracting you.”

“I guess.”

“He does that because you get results. Plus you’re working with him. That’s one of the best ways to get to know someone.”

She had a way of making things seem better than they probably were. I guessed what she said might be true, but I was still ticked off.

“He ditched me today. I’m doing this totally on my own.”

“He trusts you,” she said. “He knows you can come through on your own.”

“Maybe.”

“Here’s what you do; instead of us going to lunch tomorrow, you take him to lunch tomorrow instead.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Zoe, it’s been, like, two years. You’re never going to get him if you don’t even try.”

My face got hot when she said that. It was easy for her to say. Guys stared at her all the time; they never looked at me that way. It wasn’t the same.

“It wouldn’t work anyway,” I said. “He’s hung up on someone else, I think.”

“You always say that. You always say ‘That wouldn’t work anyway.’ You’re just afraid to try.”

“Look, if you’re so smart about guys, then how come you’re still hooked up with that loser?”

“He has a name,” she said, clipped. “We’re not talking about that right now.”

“Yeah, I know. You always say that. He’s bad news, Karen. I know he’s bad news.”

She didn’t say anything for a minute.

“Just ... go do whatever you have to do,” she said. She sounded pissed.

“Fine.”

“I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up.

I shut my phone off like the sign said. First I was late getting into work; then those jerks made fun of me when my back was turned. I had to miss my lunch, and now Karen was pissed at me. Plus that woman . . .

This one is a destroyer. She will cause you to lose something very dear. . . .

She was in the green room. In the elevator I thought she was going to punch me. How did she remember me? Back then, I made her forget. How did she remember?

Shaking off my umbrella, I closed it and went inside, where a bunch of people were sitting like they’d been waiting there forever. A big, round woman in a flowered shirt sat behind the main desk.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Jan Holst,” I said.

“Visiting hours resume at one,” she said. “You can have a seat and wait if you like, or you can come back.”

“I’m not here to visit. I’m here to do an interview.”

“Interview?”

The room got brighter, and I stared at her until her fat face went slack.

“Just tell me where her room is.”

“Sixth floor. Room 6E7.”

“Go back to what you were doing and never mind me.”

I stopped pushing her, and she looked back to the computer screen.

Alone in the elevator, I hit the button for the sixth floor. The inside of the door was mirrored, and in it I looked like a drowned rat. My hair was frizzed and tangled, and my face was blotchy. My ears were bright red.

As the car went up, I thought about that woman back at the FBI, Alice Hsieh. She had the same abilities I did—I was sure of it. For the first time, it occurred to me that if I noticed her, she must have noticed me too. If that was true, she must have known how I got the information out of the guy in the wheelchair. She must have seen too when I got the information out of Vesco, but she didn’t try to stop it or ask me about it after. She just left, and never said anything about it at all.

“You think Wachalowski hits that?”

The memory wormed its way in, pushing the other stuff out. Vesco joked about Nico having sex with me. Then he and his friend laughed about it. Nico being interested in me physically was actually a joke in the office. It was something to laugh about.

My reflection got blurry, and I wiped my eyes. Any second the elevator door was going to open and I’d be standing there crying. I took a deep breath, but my reflection stayed blurry. I blinked hard a couple times and rubbed them, but it didn’t go away. It was like I was looking through a haze or something, or like heat was rippling the air. The elevator floor creaked and I turned, but nothing was there. When I looked back, my reflection was normal again.

Shit. Not here.

When I saw things, it happened out of nowhere and it didn’t matter where I was. I couldn’t afford some kind of episode in the middle of a hospital, when I was supposed to be doing an interview. I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. The antsy feeling I got up and down my spine when I really wanted to drink was kicking in big time. The last thing I needed was some kind of panic attack. . . .

The bell dinged and the doors opened up. No one was waiting for the car on the other side. I smoothed down my hair and wiped my eyes one more time, then stepped out. The door clunked behind me, then slid shut.

I found the right room and went inside, where a man in a white lab coat stood next to a hospital bed. I peeked past him to see the woman who was lying there. There was a bandage across the front of her neck, covered in gauze tape. After a minute, she noticed me and looked past the man in the coat. When she did, he looked over.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Jan Holst.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Zoe Ott.”

“You’re with the FBI?” He said it like he couldn’t believe it.

“Yes.”

I fished my contractor’s badge out and held it up so he could see it.

“Okay,” he said. He turned to the woman. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

She nodded, still looking at me. She looked pretty beat-up, but she smiled, just a little.

“You’ll have to leave,” I told him. He frowned, and I felt a little surge of anger come from him.

“Look, Miss Ott,” he said. “This wom—”

He stopped in midsentence as I concentrated and the room got bright. As the colors drained away from everything except the light around his head, out of the corner of my eye I saw the woman’s smile get a little bigger. I pushed back the spike of red light that had been forming until it disappeared back into the blue.

“I need privacy,” I told him. “If anything happens, I’ll get you.”

He nodded. In the doorway, he looked back at her one more time, then left, closing the door behind him. The lights went back to normal. When I turned and looked at her, she was still smiling. There was a chair in the room and I pulled it over next to the bed and sat down.

“How are you doing?” I asked. She shook her head, and pointed to the bandage over her throat.

“Sorry, right.”

Nico told me about that in the phone message. I had to sign out an electronic tablet. I took it out of my purse and turned it on, making the little gray screen light up. She held out her hand and I gave it to her.

“Does it hurt?” I asked. She shook her head, then tapped on the little keyboard and angled the screen so I could see.

I’ll be okay.

“Good.”

What did you want to ask me, Agent Ott?

“Miss Ott. I just work for them sometimes.”

Digging in my coat pocket, I found the list of questions I was supposed to ask and pulled it out. Smoothing the paper, I looked at the first question.

Where is Hiro Takanawa?

I focused in on her so I could put her under, and she closed her eyes. When the aura appeared over her head, though, I saw that thin, white halo. The swirl of color behind it stayed calm when I tried to change them, and couldn’t. She opened her eyes and smiled as she met mine.

My heart was beating faster. Nico’s questions sat forgotten in my hand.

She tapped on the tablet’s keyboard.

You can see.

“Yes.” She could see me, too.

We’ve contacted you more than once. Why don’t you respond?

That was true. I’d gotten several notes and a few weird phone calls. I knew they were interested in me. The weird little woman that appeared after the revivor took me and wired me to their machine told me they were interested in me.

I didn’t have a good answer for her. I just shrugged.

Aren’t you even a little bit curious?

“I’ve just . . . been avoiding it, I guess.”

Why?

My words got caught up in my throat, but then I started to relax a little. For a second, it actually felt like I’d taken a big shot of ouzo. I felt the tension inside me loosen.

“Because I was scared,” I said.

Scared of what?

“Nico doesn’t trust you . . . I thought he’d be mad . . . I was worried he might be right, maybe, or that . . . I wouldn’t be special?” I said. The words were flowing like I was drunk. “That I wouldn’t be any good, and I’d be as bad at this as I am ...”

I trailed off, and she smiled again.

You are special, and there’s no reason to be scared. We would welcome you, and I know how lonely it feels to think you’re alone.

My throat burned and I felt tears in my eyes again. She was right, in a way. It seemed like I’d gotten to the point where I was doing everything right, or the way I was supposed to do them anyway. I was trying to be like everyone else, to go to bed sober and wake up and go to work and make friends, but it wasn’t working. Even though I knew more people now than I ever had, I was lonely. Karen acted like it was the drinking that made her kick me out, but it wasn’t. It was part of it, but it was the other stuff she couldn’t stand. My ability, and the dreams, and all the things she thought were so cool at first; they started to scare her.