Death Wish (16 page)

Wish 21

The next morning I pull my hair back into a ponytail, slip on a green silk camisole and light gray cigarette pants, and call my boyfriend to tell him I’ll be at the office soon. But the second my feet touch the pavement outside Robin materializes beside me.
“Hey,” I say with a yawn. I was up late into the night researching and I’m doing my best to wake up without the aid of caffeine. It isn’t going well.
“Morning,” says Robin, and to my delight she holds out a to-go cup. “Mocha?”
“Oh my gosh, yes,” I reply, a huge grin breaking across my face. She laughs when I grab the cup from her, and after I take a delicious sip I ask her what she’s doing here.
“The Chief wanted me to come get you,” she replies, and turns to head down the sidewalk. I follow her. “He says that, since you’re going to be working with us, we need to give you a way to communicate with the group whenever you find something about the Life Chips.”
I nod, still taking sips of my mocha. The espresso is starting to take effect; already I’m feeling more awake and alert. I want to tell Robin about my epiphanies last night, and that I’m feeling more confident about my involvement with her group. But I don’t want her to know that I essentially lied to her and her boss yesterday, so I keep those thoughts to myself. We walk in a companionable silence. Robin leads the way, and I let the warmth of my drink seep through my veins to fight off the slight chill in the air. I should have grabbed a jacket.
I still feel incredible guilt over lying to Harrison. There were so many times last night, when my thoughts kept me tossing and turning in bed, that I wanted to pick up my pendent, call him, and tell him everything. But each time I did, I remembered the dead faces of the Smiths. If the Security Branch found those responsible, I know that they would be swiftly executed. And I refuse to put the man I love in danger. So while the guilt carves up my insides like a knife, I keep silent, knowing that my deception is saving his life.
When we near the mouth of the alleyway near
The Roasted Roost
café, I take the final sip of my drink, throw it in a nearby trash can, and sigh. I quirk an eyebrow at Robin, and she pulls the blindfold from her back pocket with an apologetic smile. I fight the urge to roll my eyes, but don’t resist while she moves to tie the fabric over me.

*

Darkness covers my world and, with her hand encompassing mine, Robin leads me forward. There is a small itch on the bridge of my nose, and I lift my free hand to scratch at it. When I do this the blindfold shifts upward, and suddenly I can see a tiny bit if I move my gaze downward. I see Robin’s feet moving in front of mine, but she doesn’t stop to fix my blindfold. Gleefully, I realize that she hasn’t noticed I can see. While we are walking, I keep my gaze downward and commit our route to memory.
In the alleyway where I was knocked unconscious by James more than a day ago, Robin pauses. She stops in front of the dumpster, but my limited view only lets me see her feet. She shuffles around for a few moments and suddenly the dumpster moves to the left, revealing a hole in the wall behind. She grasps my hand and pulls me downward. I know that she wants me to kneel, but to keep up the premise that I cannot see I stumble a bit before moving into the cold blackness with her. After ducking through the small opening we both straighten, but there is nothing but darkness. She leads me once again, and for a moment I’m worried that my blindfold has obscured my vision. But then, with a small click to my left, Robin turns on a series of lights that reveal a tunnel stretching forward and down. I thought that we were in the building that the hole in the wall revealed, but somehow we have ended up underground.
Shit
. I know where to go from the dumpster, but I have no idea how she got us into this tunnel. I will have to try shifting my blindfold again when we leave so I can connect the dots.
We walk for such a long time in the dim light of the underground walkways that counting the steps we take in each direction becomes too daunting. Instead, I commit landmarks to memory whenever we change direction.
Left turn at the pile of broken boards. Walk straight until the first adjoining corridor and turn right. Slight curve when you see the stripe of red ore in the rock wall.
This goes on for some time until, finally, I hear voices up ahead. We take a final left turn into a more brightly lit room. Robin removes my blindfold while saying with a flourish:
“Welcome to Revolutionary headquarters.”

*

I try not to let out a gasp, but I fail immediately.
The home base is far more advanced than I thought it would be. I was expecting a few people huddling over antique machinery in a cramped, dank cave. But instead, I have stepped into a large, well-lit cavern bustling with activity. From my quick scan of the room, there are between twenty and thirty people busily working away at advanced computer terminals that rival those of the Life Chip Engineers. It is incredible. It is also somewhat nerve-wracking that such an organized underground movement has gone undetected for this long.
When we enter I see Chief Darian across the room, talking to a woman with black hair by one of the computers. He looks up, throws up his hand in a quick wave, and walks over to us. Unfortunately I see James, the Revolutionary who hates me, follow close behind.
“Good morning, Agent Sun, Miss Hayworth,” Darian says, nodding to each of us in turn. We return the greeting. I notice James glaring at me over the Chief’s shoulder.
Great
, I think,
it’s not even nine and I’ve already gotten a death glare.
“So, Miss Hayworth,” says Darian, reaching into his pocket while he speaks, “since you’ll be assisting us with gathering Life Chip information, you will need a way to report your findings.”
He draws a transparent disk from his pocket. It’s about the size of my palm and has a red button at its center. He hands it to me and I inspect it while he continues talking.
“This device is one of our communicators. When you learn anything of importance regarding the Life Chips and how to disable them, press the red button. A menu will come up
—
it’s operated through voice-control. Simply select the ‘New Data’ option and, when it prompts you, relay the information. The communicator will record you and send the video to our computers here in headquarters. After you finish, say ‘end transmission’ and press the red button to shut off the communicator. Any questions?”
I shake my head. “Nope, sounds simple enough. It’s pretty similar to the transmissions we send to Godparent H.Q., except ours just take voice recordings.”
When I say this, James grinds his teeth. I shoot a cool, slightly patronizing look his way. I know that the only way to deal with bullies like him is to stand your ground and pretend they don’t bother you in the slightest. Fortunately, not only am I good at acting, but with James I barely have to pretend at all. It works
—
he just whispers “You’re making a big mistake, Chief,” to Darian and slams his shoulder into mine while he pushes past me to leave. It stings slightly, but I stand my ground. I can’t help but smirk when the Chief comments, “Sheesh. Sometimes I wish my own people were as well-behaved as you, Hayworth.”
He turns around and motions for me to follow. “Now then. While you’re here, I’d like you to meet a couple of the other members of our team.”
He waves over two people from the computer area, the dark-skinned, black haired woman he was talking to earlier and a younger blonde girl. They look familiar, but it takes a moment to place them. As they draw close and smile, I realize with a shock why I didn’t recognize them: I wasn’t expecting Kelly the barista and Doctor Sloan from the medical team to be in Revolutionary Headquarters!
My mouth drops, and Kelly laughs when she walks over.
“Hey, Ells!” She waves, her platinum blonde hair bouncing behind her in a high ponytail. Doctor Sloan doesn’t give any sign of recognition but, since I saw her in a room full of Fairy Godparents, she probably doesn’t know who I am.
“I suppose this will be a
re
-introduction, rather than an introduction for you, Miss Hayworth,” says Darian. “These are Agents Michaels and Sloan, and from the data we received on you from Robin, it looks like you already know them.”
I nod, but look at Robin with a raised eyebrow while
I respond. “Yes I do, but I didn’t realize that
data
was being collected on me.”
Robin laughs. “Yeah, sorry, ‘Liza,” she apologizes. “But after my first Wish, I started considering you for recruitment. I relayed information about you to the Chief, but you caught me in the Research Wing before he made a decision.”
“She took a big risk taking you to the Chief,” says Kelly, moving over to slide her arm over Robin’s shoulders. “If he had decided you didn’t have Revolutionary potential, she would have been in a lot of trouble.” She laughs when Robin looks self-conscious and gives her a kiss. Then she extends her hand to me and I take it.
“Hey, Ells. You already know me as Kelly. My full name is Kelly Michaels, and not only am I a coffee-slinger, but I’m an Agent for the Revolutionaries and the girlfriend of your undercover protégé here.”
I’m surprised. When the two interacted in the cafe, I had no
idea
that they knew each other. They are really good at hiding their secret identities.
I return her easy smile and shake her hand. “Hey Kelly, nice to
officially
meet you,” I say with a laugh. She winks and turns to Darian when he coughs. I wonder if he’s uncomfortable with affectionate displays.
“Right. So you know Sun and Michaels, and now I’d like you to meet Doctor Harriet Sloan.”
Doctor Sloan extends her hand as well, and it feels warm to the touch when I grasp it. “Nice to meet you, Miss Hayworth.”
“You too, Doctor Sloan,” I reply. “I was actually at your meeting about the Smith couple a few weeks ago.”
She flashes a demure smile. “I thought you looked familiar. I inserted myself into the Smith case to run interference. I did my best to remove any trace of the Revolutionaries’ handiwork, and as far as I can tell we’re in the clear.”
I nod, but it would be a lie if I said I wasn’t intimidated. The Revolutionaries’ reach extends so far, and it seems like their undercover agents are everywhere. It’s pretty scary.
How
has Darian been able to lead this group without
anyone
getting caught? At least, without anyone besides
me
catching them. And sheer dumb luck was the only reason I caught Robin red-handed. How deep does this rabbit hole go?
“So,” I ask, addressing the assembled group, “I have a question. How
exactly
am I supposed to get the information on how to disable Life Chips?”
Darian answers me. “As a senior Godparent, you’ll be able to access files that our other agents can’t. Look through the files of your previous Wish assignments, look through the databases you can get to
—
anything you can find regarding Life Chips. Report the information you gather back to us.”
Robin steps forward and hands me a sheet of paper. On it is a list of random numbers that are in groups of ten digits each. Several of the numbers are crossed out, but one is circled in red.
“I was able to find these access codes deep in the Godparents databases. If you use this login,” she explains, pointing to the circled number, “you’ll be able to research Chip information without it being traced back to you. Normally you would have to scan your fingerprint to get into the archives, but if you type in this number at the login screen you’ll be able to bypass the need for a fingerprint scan.”
I nod and fold the paper, slipping it into the back pocket of my pants.
“Also,” adds Doctor Sloan, her voice calm and professional, “I’m going to work on getting you access to the Engineering building. When you can get in, try to integrate yourself with members of their team. That way, you’ll probably be able to gain even more information about how the Chips operate.”
A small pain throbs in my chest.
More people to lie to
. It’s funny
—
even though my career revolves around acting and deception, I hate lying to others. But I remind myself that those lies will be for the betterment of everyone and nod.
“Sounds good. Anything else?”
Everyone looks to the Chief, and he shakes his head.
“No, that’ll be all. Best of luck, Consultant Hayworth.”

Wish 22

Robin removes the blindfold when we’re back out in the alley, and I hide my disappointment that I wasn’t able to dislodge the cloth again when we left Headquarters. I pull a cigarette from my pocket. Surprisingly, Robin takes up my offer of one. Something else I didn’t know about her. We both head to the Fairy Godparent offices, and while we walk I ask her about Kelly.
She tells me that the two met through their work with the Revolutionaries, and they’ve been together for a few months now. Kelly’s job is to gather information, which is why she has a job at
The Roasted Roost.
The cafe is right by the Security Branch complex, and off-duty Godparents, Engineers, and Surgeons make up the bulk of the clientele. Kelly uses her position as an employee to slip through the crowds unnoticed and eavesdrop on potentially information-laden conversations.
“She isn’t able to get a lot,” Robin shrugs, “because most of the people who work directly with the Chips aren’t stupid enough to blab about them in public. But she does overhear the occasional juicy tidbit, and every piece of information always help us move closer to accomplishing our goal.”
While
we walk, I glance down. I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but she’s wearing shorts today and I can see her full tattoo of a vine snaking up the side of her leg.
“Hey, cool tattoo,” I comment, blowing a puff of smoke from between my lips. The vine starts at her ankle in a brown color, looking withered and dead. But as it moves up her calf, the color changes to a lush, vibrant green, finally sprouting at the top of her thigh in an array of large, healthy leaves.
Robin glances down and then looks back up with a proud grin. “Oh yeah. Isn’t it awesome? I got it once the Chief made me a full-fledged member.” She twists her leg to give me a better look, and I inspect it approvingly. The design and detail are very impressive.
“The artist did a great job. But why does it change color halfway through?”
“Oh,” she explains, her eyes lighting up the way Harrison’s do when he talks about the Old World. “Well, once he made me a member, I wanted to do something to commemorate it. It took me a while to come up with the design, but it suddenly came to me.” She leans down, and gestures at the dry and brittle roots wrapping across her ankle. “At the bottom, the plant starts out dead. But as it grows up, it becomes green and lively. I wanted it to symbolize the central message of the Revolutionaries: that life comes out of death. I wanted a sign on my body that says that, without the presence of natural death, we cannot experience true life.”
I take another drag of my cigarette, and a faint smile traces my lips.
“I like that, Robin,” I say, thinking on the message behind her tattoo. “I like that a lot.”
A cold breeze blows by, and once again I mourn the absence of the jacket I left at Harrison’s. My shoulders curl forward in a shiver, and I hear Robin gasp.
“Oh my
God
, Eliza! What the hell happened to your back?”
Shit
. I was exhausted from my late nigh of research when I woke up this morning, and in my tired haze while dressing I forgot that the camisole I’m wearing has a low cut back. I don’t have to turn to know what she’s seeing. Two large, deep, vertical scars mar the skin of my back, starting at the top of my shoulder blades and stopping just above my lower back. I look down at her, and see that the happy expression she was wearing earlier has been replaced by one of horror. Her hand hovers hesitantly over my back, and I shrink away.
“Eliza...” She says my name again, but this time it’s a hushed whisper, like the soft voice you would use with a frightened, wounded animal. “What happened?”
I look at her and try my best to muster a smile. But I can’t
—
the memories I had spent so many years repressing surfaced last night while I tossed and turned, and now they’re too fresh to brush aside. My eyes fill with tears, and while I do everything I can to hold them back, I tell her what happened.
I tell her about my third Death Wish.

*

I was eighteen at the time, and I had finally finished my Fairy Godparent training. I had already done two Wish fulfillments with my mentor. This was the first Wish I would complete by myself, and the third one I had been assigned to.
The file seemed strange to me, but my mentor assured me that it wasn’t too out of the ordinary. Sometimes clients have strange fantasies that they want completed, and it’s the job of the Godparents to give them whatever they want.
My client had wanted to be killed by an angel.
It was an oddly specific Wish: he wanted a Godmother to dress as an angel, come to him, and tell him that it was his time to go. He wanted to get in a fight with the angel, rip off her wings, and to have her finally kill him with the knife he used to remove her wings.
I felt so queasy. With the exception of the Life Chip Extractor’s blade, this was my first time using a knife on a Death Wish client. I didn’t want to stab him because I was scared about what it would feel like. But it was in the Wish, and it was my job as a Godmother to grant his final request. So despite my nerves, and with the gentle pushes of my mentor, I set out to complete the Wish assignment.
He had requested that his Death Wish take place in an abandoned factory a few miles outside of the city. I showed up clad in a diaphanous white robe. A gold braided rope was tied around my middle, and feathery white wings burst from my back.
The Costuming Department at headquarters had a lot of fun with the wings. They wanted them to look real, like I was an actual angel come to Earth to bring my client to Heaven. So instead of using some sort of contraption with gears and pulleys, they surgically grafted the joints of the feathery appendages to my shoulder blades—for anyone who didn’t know better, it actually looked like I had wings. They had warned me that it would hurt somewhat when he ripped the wings off.
If they had known what he was going to do, they wouldn’t have used the word “somewhat”.
The wings felt strange and foreign on my back, and their presence threw off my balance. I did my best to practice walking with them, but the Wish took place so quickly after the surgery that I was still shaky when I showed up.
I walked into the warehouse, doing my best to look like I was floating, and spoke the words that were written in the file’s script.
“Mr. Jackson,” I called out into the darkness of the warehouse. The only shaft of light in the space came through a hole in the ceiling, which illuminated a spot in the center of the floor. It was into this spot that my client, Alfred Jackson, stepped. I gave him my most angelic smile and walked over, spreading my arms as if preparing to embrace him.
“Alfred,” I said, letting love and acceptance caress my voice. “It is time to leave this sullied world behind. Come with me into the light.”
He remained rooted to the spot, as he’d said he would, and I moved forward again, as I was supposed to.
“Alfred,” I cooed, feeling my nerves abate as I became more confident. “Come with me. It’s time to leave your mortal shell.”
He started laughing, and my smile faltered. It wasn’t a laugh of joy, or a laugh that comes from relief. It was a laugh of desperation, and malice, and excitement for something evil to come.
“I’m not coming with you, false angel,” he said, a too-wide grin spreading across his features. “But you are coming with me.”
Before I could respond, he darted forward and knocked me to the ground. An
oomph
escaped me when my head slammed against the ground, and before I knew what was happening he had flipped me over and was straddling my back.
I began crying and screaming, but he continued laughing. I had no idea what to expect, but when the knife bit into my skin I knew instantly what was coming.
The costume crew told me that it would hurt when the grafting came off. It did, but my mentor always warned me that some Wishes would involve pain. I hadn’t gone through it yet, but the knowledge made me believe that I could handle it.
What I couldn’t handle was when the knife kept digging into my back.
The metal bit into my skin over and over, severing muscles and veins and then severing them again as they tried to heal. The wings the Costume Department had spent so many hours crafting lay in the dirt, discarded and dirtied. Some of the feathers still drifted around my head, and those were what kept drawing my eyes while I screamed.
I later learned from some of the people who worked in the Clerical Department that when Alfred Jackson had submitted his Wish request, he had seemed a bit
off
. It turned out that he suffered from severe hallucinations, and when I came to the warehouse in my costume he thought I actually was an angel of death.
And, even when the costume wings came off, he kept digging the knife up and down my back to get rid of the wings he thought were still there.
High-pitched, agonized screams kept pouring out of my mouth just as relentlessly as my blood spilled on the floor. I struggled to get out from under my client, and even though any movement sent trails of fire across my skin, there was so much adrenaline coursing through me that I was able to block out the pain. I finally succeeded in throwing him off of me, and the knife got knocked out of his grip. I dove for it before he had the chance, but in my hysteria I grabbed the knife by the blade. The metal bit deep into my skin and I dropped it with a hiss of pain. But I picked it up again with my uninjured hand
—
by the handle this time
—
and shoved it into the center of his forehead with an ear-shattering scream.
His eyes widened in shock. This was
not
part of his Wish.
The blade pushed through his skull and the maniacal grin on his face slowly slid away. His eyes rolled back in his head and he slipped into unconsciousness, the presence of the knife preventing his Chip from fully healing the wound. I fell back to the ground in relief when he passed out. Panicked gasps still tore themselves from my chest, and tears continued streaming down my face.
My Life Chip went into overdrive, trying
t
o heal the still-bleeding wounds on my back.

*

“What happened after that?”
Robin’s voice is hushed when I finish my tale.
“Fortunately, my mentor had been nearby because she was worried about me. She came in, extracted the client’s Life Chip, and called the cleanup crew while she took me back to Headquarters.” My voice is dead, monotone. I recite the story like it happened to someone else, not like the evidence of my story is plastered across my back in toughened scar tissue.
Robin is silent. I cross my arm over my chest to brush the top of my back with my fingers. It happened so many years ago, but the old memories of fear and pain still well up when I tell the story.
“Why, um... Why are the scars still there?”
Robin’s question is hesitant. I look down at her with a blank stare and she elaborates.
“I mean, they should have gone away, right? No matter how bad the injury is, as long as you go to your doctor’s appointment it will be fixed. So why are your scars still there?”
I nod. “They are supposed to go away, and they would have if I had let the Surgeons complete a new skin graft over the damaged cells.”
“So why didn’t you?”
I drop my hand from my shoulder to slip it into my pocket. I run my other hand through my hair and look off into the distance.
“It was actually because of something another Godmother said to me. After the Surgeons had done the initial patch-up work, I had been crying in my office. This Godmother
—
her name was Ashley
—
came in to talk to me. She was comforting me, and while she was talking she said something that stuck with me.”
“What was it?” Robin is staring at me with undivided attention.
I exhale, pushing down the fear and panic that always accompany thoughts of my third Death Wish. “She said, ‘I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now, but I can promise you that you will come back from this’. So that’s why I asked that they not fix the scars. I wanted to remember that, no matter how horrifying things in my job got, I would always rise above it in the end. That nothing, not even these scars on my back, could keep me down for long.”
Robin stares at me, and after I few seconds I look away self-consciously. But then she places her hand on my shoulder and, in a voice trembling with anger, says:
“We will take down the Life Chips, Eliza. And when we do, no more Godparents will have to suffer like you did. That’s my promise to you.”