Dead Roots (The Analyst) (2 page)

Tom groaned loudly, “God, no, please.”

“No, no, look, you'll love this. I promise.”

“Quarter in the promise jar, son...” Tom sighed exhaustedly as he leaned over to witness whatever it was Artie had found on the Internet. The same candid clip of Tom conversing with the target started, but when Tom fired his handgun and sent the teenager's form to the ground, the clip shifted into slow motion and the colors flashed in and out of negative over some god-awful death metal.

“Fuck yes.
Nile,
” Artie exclaimed with his other hand thrust up in the horns. “Nile owns my balls.”

“Speaking of terrible shit that I never want to hear again in my life, who is this?” Tom pointed up at the ceiling. The P.A. system wasn't directly over them, but Artie got the point.

“Are you kidding? Rebel Meets Rebel, shit-for-brains. Dimebag
fucking
Darrell.”

“I don't know what any of that means. You're lucky you're a decent Operator or you wouldn't be able to hold down a job at fucking Best Buy. With that hat. And that music.”

Artie chugged the remaining half of his beer, waving his hand for another. “And yer lucky that I'm the best damn Operator in these United States, or you'd be cooing in the gutter like a lost puppy, Tom.”

“Phone call for Thomas Bell.”

 A smooth-faced waitress with short brown hair interrupted Tom as he opened his mouth, preparing to lay a diatribe on Artie, the likes of which he had never endured. She was flicking her bangs with a finger. Cute, Tom thought. The kind he could get into-- if he were six years younger. She smiled at him, which didn't assuage his wandering fantasies any, but he managed a response nonetheless.

“Excuse me?”

“Phone call. Thomas Bell?”

“Did they say who it was?”

“Margaret Redding.”

“
Margaret,
” Tom exclaimed in irritation. “Who calls the bar anymore? I have a fucking cell phone.”

“Are you sure? Says she tried it,” came her reply through a smirk, her fingernail running along her cheek coyly.

“She says she...” Tom reached into his pocket and drew his phone. The screen was dead black.

“Aw, shit,” he spat, standing up and stepping past the waitress. He heard Artie asking for another beer as he approached the counter, hailing the bartender and taking the offered phone with a quick sigh hidden behind his hand.

“Hi, Margaret,” Tom offered gently, testing the waters.

“Your phone is dead, Bell.” Margaret's voice was granite on a warm summer evening. She could be his best friend, or a boss worse than any creature Tom had ever faced.

“Yeah, I'm sorry, I must've forgot to plug it in after—”

“After you left the hospital.”

Tom winced. He could practically smell her lilac perfume hanging in the air, clouding his judgment, as she turned him into a kid with bad grades in front of the school principal.

“Yeah. How is the kid doing?”

“Kenichi will be just fine, and we have Aki in custody. The California Department of Justice will be making sure that he receives the best medical treatment available and that Arthur Connors will be handing in his badge tomorrow morning, no doubt to fade into total career obscurity.”

Tom managed a small grin. Things were looking up. It could be cigarette time.

“You're a dream, Maggie.”

“Mm, I'm the best thing that's ever happened to you. But you're not off the hook yet, Tom. You were using chems.”

Definitely cigarette time.

“It was just a two and a half,” Tom pleaded calmly, reaching into his pocket and motioning for permission from the bartender. He got the okay and lit up. “If I had Artie on the line—”

“It wouldn't have happened? You know what a solo run means, Tom. You're trained for this kind of thing. You didn't need the chems.”

“I got the job done.”

“Don't push me, Tom. You got lucky. If that thing had to come out in public...”

“That wouldn't have happened. It didn't happen.” A cloud of acrid smoke flew out of his mouth.

“You're not making a very good case for your continued employment, Bell.”

Tom sighed again, disguising it with an exhalation of smoke. “I'm sorry, Margaret.”

“Well. You can start making it up to me right now.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“You're taking the entity back home.”

Tom's chest seized. He put a hand on the bar, his voice raising. “Bullshit, I'm supposed to get—”

“A week of personal time after each
successful
solo run.”

“I got the job done,” Tom insisted, fuming cigarette smoke.

“Tom, I have a Class-II aberration in DPSD custody that needs an escort back to Tokyo by tomorrow afternoon. White has been applying for vacation leave for six months. Your colossal
fuck-up
this afternoon gives him a good opportunity to get in some family time while you go to time out.”

Tom finished his cigarette in what he figured was record time, stubbing it out in a nearby ashtray, and punctuating the silence with a long smoky exhalation.

He grunted his reply:“Where? When?”

“I'm sending Artie an address. You can go over—alone, mind you, as soon as you two are done boozing it up—and get ready for your redeye flight.”

“
Tonight?
”

“You have your orders.”

Tom stopped himself from reaching for another smoke. He looked over at Artie, who cast him a curious look. He swiftly stopped giving a fuck and drew a new cigarette, lighting it as he prepared to hang up.

“All right.”

“You better believe it, all right.”

It took all of his reserves of tact not to quip back in anger. He handed the phone over to the bartender and sighed, taking the ashtray with him back to the table. Behind him another roar rose from the crowd around the flat screen

Tom sunk heavily back into his chair, resolving to finish his smoke and then leave. Artie chided him gently.

“You get the shark, or the mermaid?”

“Fuck you. What's the address?”

Artie drew his phone, clicking his tongue to scold his friend. He was halfway through his new beer. “Oh, easy. Fifteen Fern Crescent, your GPS'll take you right there. Twenty, thirty minutes.”

“Fern Crescent... right. You know, Artie, I was about to say, you're not as great as—”

“Waitress back there?” Artie cut him off, motioning at the young server now making her rounds of the far end of the bar. She sauntered from table to table with a tray in one arm, delivering wings and fries to balding blue-collar schlubs and clearly enjoying every second of their drunken leering.

“What about her?”

Artie sipped his beer as he nonchalantly plugged at something on his phone. “Possessed. Aberration. Class-IV, probably, just here on a routine possession. Personal trip, I bet.”

“What the fuck.”

“Watch her.”

Tom watched her hand sweep down her side and it drew his attention up to her breasts. He tried to think like Artie, and noted her thighs rubbing slowly together as she walked.

“New body,” Artie began, drawing little circles in the air with his index finger while pointing at her. “Watch how she touches herself.”

“Huh-huh,” Tom indulged a juvenile chortle.

“Brushing the hair, rubbing her hips... Probably never been on this side before, at least not in a female. She told me her shift finishes in an hour—probably gonna try and take home one of these married morons and take in all the new sensations, but first she's gonna come over here...”

Tom watched in silent indignation as the waitress, true to Artie's call, started making her way to their table. She caught eyes with Tom and grinned, brushing her hair out of her face again.

“And she's gonna try and take you first, because sadly enough you're the best looking guy in here, or if nothing else, the least out of shape.”

“Artie. Fuck you. She's just seeing if I need a refill.”

“Hi again,” the waitress greeted warmly. “Can I get you a fresh one, Mr. Bell?”

“No, thank you, I'm on my way out,” Tom replied, flashing Artie a smug look. Artie glugged down a mouthful of his beer. “But my friend here will take another one.”

“You're leaving?”

“Yeah, I have... I have a plane to catch, evidently.”

“When?”

Artie's mouth turned up in a small grin. He didn't make eye contact with either of them. Tom pursed his lips and turned back to the waitress to reply.

“In, um, about four hours.”

The waitress looked back and forth. She bit her lip and ran a fingernail across her chin. Her hand swept down across her hip. Tom was starting to find these little tics rather infuriating.

“Listen... I'm kind of new in town and I finish in an hour. If you maybe want to hang out a bit before your flight...”

Tom resisted the urge to frown, as well as the urge to text Margaret that he was quitting right then and there. He shot Artie an annoyed, defeated look. Artie just smiled before masking it in another sip of beer.

“I'm sorry—um, what was your name?”

“Serendipity.”

Fake. Absurd. Definitely a Class-IV. Tom choked down another irritated frown.

“I'm sorry, Serendipity. I'm married.”

“That's a shame.”

“You're not married. He's not married, he's not wearing a ring,” Artie exclaimed. He pointed enthusiastically at Tom's hand. Tom tried to hide it quickly under the table.

“You're not married?” Serendipity asked curtly, pouting.

“Well—I am still, legally, but—”

Artie came to the rescue.

“Hey, miss. You said you're new around here?”

“That's right,” Serendipity responded coolly. She gave another playful flick of her bangs.

“So you're... what, on a pleasure trip? A little weekend getaway to the surface world?”

“No, I have a job. I live here now,” the waitress replied with a frown.

“What class are you?”

There was a pregnant pause. Serendipity ran her tongue over her lip and fidgeted. She eyed Artie with a subtle, but obvious coldness—obvious to anyone who was looking.

“I
really
have
no idea
what you're talking about.”

“We're DPSD, miss,” Tom responded. Her look darkened.

“You're... what?”

Tom responded by drawing his wallet and opening it to display a badge. It read Federal Agency for Domestic Investigation-- a “fabricated front organization, to be invoked by an agent in the field to ensure seamless movement and activity in Objective/Visible scenarios, and any situation involving civilians,” as it was stated in the Department of Paranormal Study and Defense training manual.

“FADI?”

“It's a front. We're with the US government's paranormal agency. If you're here legally, you've heard of us.”

The waitress bared her teeth. She leaned down to Artie, placed a new beer on the table heavily, and looked him coldly in the eyes.

“Don't
fuck
this for me,” she spat quietly. She stood back up and folded her arms. Her fingers scratched at the skin of her forearms. “I'm
not
haunting,” she snarled. “I'm registered.”

“Ah, so you have heard of us,” Tom said shrewdly.

“I'm just busting your balls, sweetheart,” Artie replied. He ripped into another toothy laugh.

“This
body
doesn't
have balls
,” the reply came swiftly. Serendipity stomped off back to the bar, almost knocking over a table in her wake. She returned to the other customers with considerably diminished pep.

Tom turned to Artie, who grinned as he recovered from a particularly good laugh. The gap in his teeth showed.

“You're a shithead, Artemis.”

“You have a flight to catch. Enjoy the double shift, movie star.”

Tom didn't even bother to swear at him.

********

The house was in one of those cream-and-reddish, vaguely Mexican-looking developments that more-or-less defined Californian suburbs. Tom's rented hybrid car rolled to a stop in the wide driveway, silently switching off.

Tom took in an eyeful of the line of uniform houses laid out to his left. Christmas lights in the winter, July fourth barbecues—these were comforting thoughts, in this fucked-up parody of a life he'd found himself living nowadays.

Tom walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. There were no footsteps coming from inside, nor any lights. This had to be the right house, and no one was dead asleep by nine. Other houses down the road were still bright. At least one had people on the front porch talking about the same football game that had dominated Kickoffs.

Tom reached for a smoke and lit it grumbling and turning away from the door. He either had the wrong house or was early—or late. He hoped it wasn't late.

“Please finish that before you come in.”

The instinct to jump when startled had been trained out of Tom years ago, but he found that he missed jumping—it felt more natural than just letting a cold shock flow through him and start his heart playing drum and bass.

A pale-skinned Asian man stood in the doorway. His hair was tied back into a slick ponytail, and he wore a tight black turtleneck and black jeans. Had they met on the street, Tom would probably have figured him for a pretentious art gallery type, or a homosexual. The man wore a docile smile.

“Sure, sure.” Tom grunted, taking a long drag off of the cigarette and then dropping it early. He stubbed the not-even-half-finished butt out on the concrete.

“Mr. Bell? I am Shinichiro Keda. It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Tom replied curtly, taking the man's small hand and giving it a cursory grip before taking his own hand back earnestly. “Keda, you said?”

“That's right. Come inside.”

“I've heard the name. You're a Medium, right? Where do you want my shoes..?”

“Leave them on. Yes, I've been with the DPSD for some years now.”

Tom figured it couldn't have been too many, as this guy looked younger than he. Keda led him through the darkened house. As near as Tom could tell, there were no lights on—nothing except the glow of what he presumed were some candles coming from behind a door ahead of them.

“So you're here to help with Aki?” Tom inquired.