The Valkyrie Project (6 page)

Before he could spit or swear again, there was a whistling sound and the guard's head exploded, spraying Ana and Marisol with blood and brains. His body went limp as Ana sprang up, her gun searching for the source of the interruption.

Marisol called across the warehouse, "Justin, protect him!"

It was too late. Barely audible over the ringing of Marisol's voice, Ana heard the soft whine of another shot followed by Justin, much louder. "Dammit! What the—?"

The body of the insolent guard Ana had pinned was now gone from the shoulders up and rapidly disappearing. Green liquid bubbled, eating up armor, flesh, and bone. Gas hissed from the liquid, penetrating Ana's nostrils. She reeled back as more of the acrid vapor leapt from the liquid that consumed the guard's corpse.

Ana struggled to look around for the assassin, but her eyes were welling up from the acid's byproduct.

"There!" she heard Marisol yell. Shots fired. At least one of them could see.

Then a male voice rang out. "Infinite Army!" It wasn't Justin.

Ana wiped the tears away just in time to see the man on the catwalk's head explode with the same green gel that had now more than half-consumed the guard on the floor. His hand held a gun, pointed at the place where his head had been a moment before. Then his shoulders were gone and his arms fell, still locked at the elbows from ho
lding the gun to his head.

Ana
moved away from the disintegrating guard on the floor, trying to get beyond the tear-producing range of whatever was now destroying two—probably all three—of the people they'd encountered in the warehouse.

"What the hell was that?" Ana’s question was basically rhetorical, but directed at Marisol. Then, "Justin! Status!"

The familiar voice called back, "Well, I've got a guard turning into a pool of green acid, and the shooter just blew himself away with the same gun!"

"Well," Ana said to Marisol, "
no one to question, but at least we've got the place to ourselves."

Marisol raised a single eyebrow. "Yeah, I'm sure we'll find plenty of clues in here. Maybe we can start by searching the bodies of the guards. Oh
, wait."

The guard's body was just a pair of quickly disappearing combat boots. From what Ana could see, the assassin above them would be gone soon as well.

Justin appeared from around the side of a crate. "What the fuck is the Infinite Army? If they're infinite, should we be expecting more guys to pop out and shoot each other with acid disintegration guns?"

"Well, unless one of them called the Infinite General of the Infinite Army before impersonating the Wicked Witch, then I think we're clear of said army for now."

"Would be one of our easier fights, though," Marisol said.

"So, what now? Just search the place?" Justin asked.

"I suppose so. Looks like just the one large room here and a control room upstairs."

Ana nodded in agreement.

"Justin, you want to check the control room? Ana and I should be able to case this place pretty fast."

And they did. Justin was still loading information onto his comm when they met him up in the control room.

"Nothing suspicious down there," Marisol said.

Ana didn't exactly agree with her, but she couldn't figure out why. It was just a small tangled thread with one end tethered somewhere in the back of her mind. Half of her was worried that if she pulled on it too hard, she'd just get a bucket of water from the bottom of a well. The other half was worried that if she didn't pull, the child trapped at the other end would be trapped in the well until he starved. Still, she said nothing. There were times when a gut feeling was enough for a Valkyrie to go on, but
this one wasn't strong enough for Ana to act on. Yet.

--
 

Ana spotted him through the window, balanced on a half-sphere, throwing a full sphere against a wall. Bounce. Catch. Bounce. Catch. Swaying a bit, but staying balanced.

Sweat shone in the shards of sun that stepped through the window, over Ana's shoulder, onto the skin of the few people who occupied the gym. A bronze hue hung in the air like a filter on a camera lens.

She pushed through the door.

Bounce. Catch. Bounce. Catch.

Ana approached, wondering if she looked to outside observers as much like a cat stalking a mouse as she imagined she did. Of course, this mouse could probably have her for dinner instead of the other way around. And in a place not as sparkling clean as this gym, the thought might have turned into an innuendo in her mind. For now, though, it remained a decent hunter-prey metaphor.

Bounce. Catch. Bounce. Catch.

"Hey there, handsome."

Bounce. Smack.

The sphere appeared much heavier when it struck Jrue's stomach than it had when he was tossing it against the wall. He caught the ball, held it against his stomach, then turned to look at her. He held the pain from the impact to a small squint in his right eye and a sharp intake of breath.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be such a distraction." It sounded a lot more like a pickup line than she'd intended.

"No problem. Just surprised to see you."

"Aren't doctors always supposed to check up on their patients?"

"I don't think that applies to field doctors."

"Nevertheless, here I am. So, how are you doing?"

"As well as can be expected, really. The docs said that I'll be able to fly again soon. I'd say they said it was thanks to you, but I'm pretty sure your job has already given you an inflated head."

"Speak for yourself. Your head isn't doing you any favors." Ana blurted the insult. Then after registering what he'd said, "Do people really think that? That Valkyries think their shit don't stink? I've been in the bathroom with those girls and I can provide positive proof to the contrary."

"Please
, Ana dear. Are you really trying to play off that you didn't know the Valkyrie Project is the alpha dog pet project of this whole place?" He was still smiling a bit. She wasn't sure, though, if he was really amused or just trying to be nice.

"I"
—her mind stumbled in searching for the right words—"I don't really talk to many people outside the Project."

"So, what, you guys just go around patting yourselves on your insular backs?"

The amusement was gone. That was a flat-out insult. Well, maybe not, but close enough that Ana felt her stomach coil like a snake, ready to strike. The anger reached from there almost far enough to stir her hand to slap him. The nerves tingled in her hand, but she held it in check.

"We're reviewed on a regular basis by the head of the
Project and all of our reports are available to the Board. If we were a bunch of inbred suck-ups who weren't doing the right thing, someone would have called us out by now. The government stopped blindly throwing money at anything remotely off-book long before you and I were even born."

Jrue reacted like the medicine ball had been a stun grenade and had just exploded in his hands. Ana realized she should have taken another moment to consider his words instead of rushing to misinterpret his perception of her and the project that had taken the place of her family. Especially since he had no way of knowing the parts of her life and personality she'd had to bend and reshape in order to even make it to this point. So she began to backpedal.

"I'm sorry. Like I said, I don't really talk to anyone except, y'know, my co-workers." Not enough, but it softened the blow somewhat.

"Don't take
it personal, Ana. People talk behind your back. If they can't say it to your face, it's 'cause they're scared or jealous. Probably both."

"Thanks," she said, then looked at her feet. She didn't usually
—okay, ever—shy away from conversations, or confrontations, or whatever, but she'd already embarrassed herself pretty thoroughly when all she'd wanted to do was come by and see how he was doing with his recovery.

Then a strong, gentle finger guided her chin up until her eyes were drawn as if by a tractor beam into alignment with his. She bit slightly, unconsciously, at her lower lip.

It was at that moment of a budding but precarious intimacy that her comm chose to crash between them with a sonic boom. She jolted with the noise; Jrue shook himself free of the momentary reverie.

"Shit. I got to run. Keep up with your recovery. I'll see if I can get you flying for me some time." She said it with a tone of professional courtesy, but she wanted desperately for him to misinterpret it as badly as she'd done with his comment.

"I'll keep my comm on."

--

The temperature didn't change as she entered the room, but Ana definitely knew she was walking into a firestorm. She managed to shut the door against a backdraft and faced a good-looking silver-haired gentleman with gently tanned olive skin. In addition to the skin tone, the Senator's eyes were wide and dark, all too similar to those of her brother. That had to be why his son looked like her lost sibling. A little bit of hope surged within Ana but was quickly consumed by the conflagration of rage swirling around the Senator.

"I thought this project was supposed to help people!"

"It does," Marisol said, but the words barely made it over his shoulder.

The man
—the father of the kidnapped child, Ana presumed—whirled to face Marisol. "Well, it's not doing a very fucking good job finding my son."

Spittle flew across the room, thrown as if from a bio-grenade, a poisonous gas looking for its next victim. Pointless anger reddened the senator's face. Ana's backbone stiffened to a level close to where Malcolm's already appeared to be. Marisol and Justin were significantly more relaxed. Justin she could understand, he didn't seem to be the target of the invective attacks. Marisol had skin lined with a titanium alloy. Ana could practically see the laser beams from the senator's eyes bouncing off of that metal
-infused skin.

Luckily for the three Valkyries, Malcolm wanted to remain in charge.

"Mr. Senator, I can assure you that we are doing everything possible."

"Wow. How old is that line? I thought we gave you the budget you've got so you could be more than a fucking police station."

"I'm sure you understand that this assignment is different from the projects we typically work."

"What I understand is that I came to you as a specialty
Agency because I have friends who run your program and they have told me about the great work you do." The 'great' came with a set of air quotes, but the inflection in his voice made them entirely unnecessary.

"Your friends have not deceived you. We do a lot of good here. But as I said, our assignments more often consist of information
-gathering and counter-intelligence activities."

"Perhaps I should go back to the police, then, and leave you to more important matters than my only son."

Again with the air quotes. Several sets in that last sentence.

Ana stepped up. "Sir, after tracking down the van that was used in the abduction of your son, we were shot at by guns containing acid bullets which completely destroyed all organic material they came into contact with."

She paused, hoping the impact would register before she continued.

"Do you want the traditional child abduction unit from the ordinary police force trying to figure out how to deal with that? Or do you want this
Agency, which remains on the cutting edge of scientific and technological advances, handling people with that sort of weaponry?"

The senator's chest rose and fell as he let go of a heavy breath. The fire that warmed the room still simmered in his eyes. Ana worried that if he snorted, flames might shoot from his nose like a dragon. Then, just as quickly as he
had thrown out insults, he walked out of the room without another word.

"Idle threat motherfucker," Marisol mumbled.

"If I get to decide who lives, it's not going to be him," Justin said.

Malcolm turned to them, but it was Ana who spoke. "Guys, seriously. The man just had his son kidnapped, I'm sure you can understand on some level that he's more than a little stressed out."

Three sets of eyes rolled. It wasn't like Valkyries were used to cutting anyone a lot of slack. No one ever did for them, and since they most often worked with each other, after a while it became a force of habit to return the favor. None of them spoke. They didn't have to; they already knew what the others were thinking to a level of confidence that would make Aerin accept them as psychic.

"Any other leads?" Ana asked. The point was that a child had been kidnappe
d and they needed to find him, even if his father suffered from a general lack of tact and social graces.

"Aerin has some ideas
." Malcolm paused, hesitating. "But I'm going to let Rani, Kara, and Melanie follow up. They've been resting. You've been working. You've been attacked."

"But," Ana sputtered, "we saw the organic destruction weapons! We know about the kid! His school!"