The Thirteenth Skull
“You could have told me about it. You had the chance. I asked in Knoxville about SOFIA and you said there was no such thing.”
“I believe I said there was no such person. ”
“Ho, well, at least you were being honest about it. How do I know you’re being honest now? How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t, Alfred,” she said, and she sounded sad. “We’ve done very little to earn it. I can’t give you a reason to say yes. To be perfectly honest, if the roles were reversed, I might very well say no.”
“So why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re something very special, and I’m not.” She stroked my forearm as she talked. “Though I’ve studied it all my life, I’ve never quite touched it, Alfred, not in the way you have.”
“Touched what?” I asked, though I knew what.
She put a hand on my shoulder. “I shall tell you a secret: I envy you, Alfred Kropp. We long for the divine. We long to touch it. We long for it to touch us. At every turn in this affair you were met by betrayal and treachery—Samuel, Nueve, Ashley, among God knows how many others—and yet at the end, you were willing to sacrifice yourself for a world that must seem cold and brutal and quite unforgiving.”
“Well,” I said. “It wouldn’t be right to let your personal hang-ups get in the way of the stuff that really matters. There wouldn’t even be a thing like OIPEP if the world wasn’t worth saving, right?”
“Then your answer is yes?”
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course. Take all the time you need. It will take a while to decide Nueve’s fate.”
“What does Nueve’s fate have to do with me saying yes?”
“The day is coming, Alfred, sooner rather than later, when I must designate a new Operative Nine.”
She waited patiently for that one to sink in. I let it sink till it reached bottom, and then I said, “You’re going to train me to be an Operative Nine?”
“I can’t think of anyone better suited for the job. Perhaps, in the most ironic sense, you’ve been training for it for quite some time.”
I didn’t say anything. She gave my hand a squeeze.
“Don’t answer now. You’ll have two years to think about it. The Company needs people like you, Alfred. Sometimes we lose sight of what really matters in our relentless pursuit of our goals—but through all this, you never lost sight of that. Of the things that really matter. It’s a rare quality, and something without which our organization—well, the entire world, as a matter of fact—will perish.”
“Sounds like you’re asking me to save the world.”
“Yet again,” she said with a smile. “Do you think you’re up for it?”
An orderly brought me a light meal after Abby left. Beef broth, hot tea, and some tasteless crackers. After I ate, a doctor came in and checked my vitals.
“Hey, I know you,” I said. “You’re Dr. Watson from the Pandora.”
“My name isn’t Watson,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “That was just my name for you.”
“Is that what you do?” he asked. “Give people names?”
“I was filling in the void,” I said. “You remember, we talked about butts.”
“I don’t remember talking about your butt.”
“It wasn’t my butt in particular.”
“Whose butt, then?”
“Nobody’s really.”
“It was a philosophical discussion about butts?”
“I didn’t know why we had cracks.”
“And did we resolve the issue?”
“When somebody laughs really hard, you say they ‘cracked up.’ ”
“Few people know this, but we’re born crackless, until our first hearty gale of laughter splits apart the glutes.”
After he left, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. I was a little afraid of what I might dream, but I was pretty tired.
I was just drifting off when I heard the door open and the heavy tread of boots on the wooden floor. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who it was.
“Hi, Sam,” I said.
He hovered near the door.
“You can come in,” I said.
He walked slowly to the chair beside the bed. Sat. Looked at me.
“I guess you got me on that chopper in the nick of time,” I said.
“Thankfully, yes. The doctor expects a full recovery.”
“Did you hear what Abigail Smith expects?”
He answered slowly, choosing his words carefully.
“Not what either of us expected, of course. But I think it’s an intriguing proposition.”
“I’d have to trust her.”
He nodded. “Do you?”
I thought about it. “Oh, heck, Sam, I guess if I gave up on that I might as well stay dead.”
“Nueve will fight for his position. And it’s quite difficult to fire an Operative Nine. It’s considered a lifetime appointment.” “It’s weird,” I said. “Until all this happened, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, but it sure wasn’t being a Superseding Protocol Agent.”
“Becoming one might be your only way to ensure SOFIA is never reborn.”
“You gotta become a devil to fight him?”
He looked at me with those dark, hound-dog eyes, so homely and also so sad.
“Somehow I don’t think that will ever happen with you, Alfred.” He changed the subject. “She’s asked to see you.”
“Ashley.”
“Yes.”
“Should I?”
“It was the worst kind of blackmail, Alfred. Nueve used her to monitor you after your escape from Camp Echo, used her feelings for him. She never wished any harm to come to you.”
“She should have told me the truth.”
“We avoid truths that terrify us.”
“Is that why you didn’t tell me about SOFIA?”
He looked away. I looked at his hands, at the missing fingers.
“You never told Vosch anything, did you?” I asked. “Even when he chopped off your fingers, you didn’t tell.”
He cleared his throat. “When I left the Company, I abandoned the oath that bound me to insert the SD 1031. I took a new vow, a vow to protect and guard you against all enemies. I will never break that promise, Alfred. But now we are back to trust, aren’t we?”