Into the Violet Gardens Page 2

  A Special can be seen in the back motioning to retrieve the empty trays of cups from one of the tables. The robot attempts to make its way to the four, but Troy easily waves his hand, dissuading the Special, and the waiter moves on. Suddenly Troy narrows his focus to Pitch, smiling.

  “Pitch,” Troy says. “You may be Martial. But I got to say. You’re one of those veteran agents that GAVE us that chance to grow in the Division. And here’s something guys.”

  The three nod, waiting. Imbibing the last ounce of his water, Troy says, “Starting out from recovery, I was a goddamn angry one. I was burning inside for what the Cartel did. Yet I was still in shock.”

  “I mean, we’ve all been in that phase?” Taylor remarks.

  “Yeah. I couldn’t believe where I was. Until you—Pitch and the others showed—”

  “Wait.” Pitch signals, interrupting Troy.

  The silver Martial stares upward, and his golden digital eyes obscure, as if malfunctioning. Taylor shifts in his seat while Jin’s cheeks redden. Troy grimaces.

  Come on. What’s going on?

  “Hey, Pitch,” Troy says dauntingly. “Your Apt Brain. Is there something—”

  “Oh, this doesn’t sound good,” he says. Pitch lowers his head, facing everyone slowly. His eyes remain tenacious behind the lens, and his reverberating voice carries a strong dullness.

  “An asylum train was eradicated a day ago.”

  “Hours—a day ago,” Troy repeats imminently. The air numbs over him. He frowns. “The—”

  “Mendoza Cartel,” Pitch says flatly.

  Taylor burps under his breath. “Well, that may have killed my night.”

  Jin, on the other hand, conceals the red burning on his nose. Such news couldn’t get any perfunctory, yet at the same time, a part of Troy knew this wasn’t to his surprise, coming from the Guatemalan syndicate responsible for the deadliest drug market in Latin America. This Drug War gets worse every year, and the Cartel finds any limit they can break to push the FBI to the edge.

  Imagine if Rivers gets his hands on this.

  “He’s alert,” the Martial replies arbitrarily. “PMCs of the Jaguars of Apollo were assigned to secure the seekers from Mexico. Until…”

  “How many of them died?” Troy asks.

  He’s seen plenty of these fellow Virtuals roaming the metropolitan cities in broad daylight, taking in the seats of those who’ve abandoned their purpose wittingly. With their warfare, it was an understatement for the Cartel to deem them underdogs easily exploited. Together, the FBI and JOA were the main allies that were dependent on ending this war.

  “Not enough information,” Pitch replies. “The last survivor was an agent. His recovery didn’t last.”

  Goddamn. This can only get worse.

  “Aye!” a lady’s voice greets. “Right on time!”

  The chilling vibe breaks like a shell shattering into the cube’s exterior, and air whooshes its way inside. Troy’s heart beats to such a reminiscent voice behind. Turning his head, Troy catches a human, approximately five-eight in height and suited in a leather coat, approaching his way smoothly on her bronze boot’s heel, which matched the texture of her jeans. She brushes icy dandruff from the side of her black hair, which was laced with a tinge of auric shade. Her round earrings dangle gently on her ears, and the Dome’s lighting reflects on it. She smiles, waving fervidly.

  So you’ve finally made it.

  “Alana!” Troy greets. “Welcome!”

  The Virtual finds himself beaming at Alana Torres hands wrapping around his neck. His blood warms to her embrace and salubrious whiff. Troy skids, and Alana motions to an open space on the sofa, sitting close to him. She puts the purse on her lap.

  “Mind?” Troy questions the three agents lightly.

  He sees Taylor beckon her almost flirtatiously with his glass, his grin mirroring at its surface.

  “She’s…human,” Jin comments gauchely. A smile wobbles nervously on his lips upon locking eyes on Troy’s longtime companion.

  Alana holds her laughs, but it blossoms out either way. Gloss glimmers over her lips, and the color dims, giving a pristine sight to her light olive skin.

  “Well, guys. And yeah Jin,” Troy acknowledges. He gives Alana a glance. “Special invite. This is Alana. We’ve known each other for a long time ago. Good company.”

  Alana Torres and he had held a deep camaraderie since Boston University, as colleagues, back when he was just as equal to the majority in nature. In times where bonds easily fade to dust, Troy was, without doubt, thankful for this. Even as he underwent his involuntary initiation into the FBI’s Virtual Division, she never turned her back on him. At times she stuck her nose out for him randomly from afar during his operations. For that, though she was no native to his home in Boston, Alana was a special kind of human.

  “Yeah!” Alana complies. She looks at Troy, rubbing his shoulder. “We been tight companions since BU! And I usually like to say to y’all. I’m from Miami, but this like a second home to me now.”

  The group hums in approbation. Pitch nods as if bearing eyes at a piece of motionless stone.

  Removing his winter cap, Troy clasps his hands, and his steely palm numbs. “You guys are definitely free to take a stretch.” He gestures to Alana. “I’ll be touring her.”

  Troy’s nerves vibrate, spreading a ringing sensation in his head. That is, until he glances.

  “Should be fun,” Taylor’s voice utters musingly within Troy’s neural interface. His mouth barely moves.

  Troy flashes a casual grin in return before moving on. The Virtual and Alana motion to the Dome’s glass, marveling at its byzantine texture. Fireworks continue to splash in the sky, and Troy can witness the train of colors descend in Alana’s hazel pupils like a rainbow showering down.

  “No wishes for this year?” he asks. Troy’s dreadlocks, styled in a ponytail, sway freely behind his neck. The Dome’s lighting gives a small shining to the white, simplistic, fire emblem on the posterior of his gray bionic hand. His left human fingers flex on the railing stand.

  Alana tilts her head, placing her fingers gently upon the plate’s glass. “Naw. Same old shit every year. I mean…” She motions her gaze toward her Virtual companion, who stood in his towering frame over her. Smiling, she undoes her coat’s buttons, giving air to her cold shoulder sweater, dazzled in blue tribal prints giving semblance to Aztec aesthetics.

  “To be honest,” she says, “I’s only relieved you still in one piece.”

  “I’m not too easily broken, Alana.”

  Alana reaches her hand over, caressing his back. A Special makes its way toward the two, handing over a fresh glass of juice in the direction of Alana. She winces to the pixels glinting in its lens, but Troy simply beckons in reassurance.

  She’ll like it, Troy voices into the robot’s Apt Brain.

  “Oh, that for me?” she remarks, flabbergasted. “Damn, you so wonderful.”

  She takes the drink lightly. Sipping, she turns her focus to Troy again. Somehow her expression turns ominous.

  “Aye,” she continues, “Heard something deep went down at Mexico,”

  Troy’s eyes widen, nonplussed by her sharp awareness. The tension creeps in his chest again.

  So she knows.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I was told.”

  “Family was telling me.” Alana drinks her juice in full, forming a bubble in both her cheeks before it subsides. She steps close to Troy. “They’s saying the drug lord. HE himself called it down.”

  “Goddamn,” he says chillingly. “If that’s true, you’re way ahead of us.”

  He anticipated more detail behind this incident, but it turns out this one is one step forward. Several more to go and everything will be whole grimly.

  Troy rubs his left eye, attempting to suppress the eeriness behind this incident. He returns focus to what’s outside, and Alana follows. The two remain close. She taps his hand eagerly, locking his attention to fixed-winged planes gliding above. Its
propellers glisten in the clouds like a butterfly embracing its newfound capability to explore the skies, and the nocturnal scenery plays itself out for the two.

  Chapter 2

  Bethesda, Maryland

  Eva Moreci looms curiously near the frozen stream, analyzing the three deer roaming the field across her. She sits at the boulder, crossing her bionic legs comfortably as she reaches for her whiteboard. She dips her fingertip into the paint box, feeling her prosthetic bones vibrate as she paints over the first antler.

  The sun shines dully, obscured by the clouds above. Snow spills from one of the tree barks before being blown by the air’s gush. The stream remains rigid as concrete, and vapor breezes from the surface.

  Her scarf wraps tightly over her neck, but the inhibitors in her body were enough to warm her blood. Mist whistles from her nose as she brushes the paint meticulously. She looks up closely, and finds one of the deer exchanging glances with her. Her reflection shines behind its pitch black eyes, as if the creature is eager to know what she’s concealing. The crosshairs in her eyes zoom toward the creature. Naively, Eva gestures her finger over its head, and her cheeks blush.

  “Don’t be scared,” she whispers.

  She may not be as fond of this season, but nature never failed to amaze her. Her hometown of Bethesda is home to parks like this which gave her that chance to embrace its beauty, and she basked in its tranquility since she was young. To her, the best kind of art came from solitude.

  She sees the paint gradually stiff, and Eva dabs her tongue at her index, moistening it on the paint. Before proceeding, she arches her shoulders to a child’s yelp. The deer scram to a group of young boys tossing snowballs obnoxiously, hoping to get a hit, until an adult intervenes, waving off their indecorous demeanor. Eva stares down at her incomplete artwork, rolling her eyes.

  Well, that killed it. No thanks to them.

  How irksome can one be to perturb an entire space just for attention? The question speaks for itself when her smartphone vibrates, and she reaches for it reluctantly. She witnesses the contact’s identity, and her chest freezes.

  Director Wayne?

  “Moreci,” her Director acknowledges deeply, “Greetings!”

  “Director,” she replies shockingly. Glancing at both directions fastidiously, Eva sets it on speaker “Same.”

  She attempts to lean her art piece at a wooden log, only to bite her lip deeply upon the paint drizzling freshly like teardrops. What a pity.

  “I may be curtailing your creativity there, officer,” Wayne muses randomly.

  Eva winces, stunned to hear such a coincidental remark until she realized Wayne had usually been the person to know her routine outside his office at Langley.

  He continues, “But know this IS a significant report I’m uncovering to your benefit.”

  “What’s the situation, sir?”

  The phone rests on her lap. A screech echoes in the phone line until sound normalizes.

  “Month ago,” he continued, “To refresh your memory, a grave incident at an asylum train took place. Or I can term it the Baustista Ambush. The Mendoza Cartel tested our patience…bodies were recovered on sight, even from our allies from Herndon. No survivors.”

  “Oh no,” Eva says grimly. The air darkens around her, and it wraps her by the shoulders. Where…where was this again?”

  “Ciudad de Mexico. Unfortunately, the Jaguars of Apollo were hit deeply, and the CEO Ottoman’s in serious need.”

  Jaguars of Apollo.

  “Wait. Those are the private military contractors.”

  Her mind jiggles as if recollecting pictures buried inside storage for decades. The Jaguars of Apollo, a state-of-the-art PMC recruiting cyborgs with military or agency experience as contractors, shared in the federal government’s grievances in the Drug War. Calling it a mere company was slight thinking; their stations were situated over Central and South America just to combat the Cartel’s dominance, which spread like a locus. She owed them for recovering her fellow officers from death’s hands many times. As civility dwindled in the Latin countries, she remembered the Jaguars of Apollo declaring it their mission to get as many asylum seekers out of Latin America with no question.

  “That’s correct. Now the kingpin, Paolo Mendoza…we found he was present. In response, all agencies decided on the union in targeting and bringing forth the drug lord in El Salvador.”

  Eva frowns. “He can be anywhere.”

  The past never fails to rein its head. So many operatives over the years went out of their way in hunting down the kingpin, only to come missing or anguished. Worse is when someone is herself, a Virtual.

  “Our sightings are firm, Moreci.”

  The phone’s surface warms against her cybernetic thigh, followed by a brief silence.

  “Apologies,” Wayne excuses. “FBI will be down immediately in finding the kingpin. We, the CIA…our target—your target’s Dante Guzman.”

  Eva gazes silently to the breeze unfolding in the park field, absorbing the exiguous detail like juice.

  “Welcome to Operation Jackal, Moreci. Guzman’s a rogue Salvadoran politician for the Cartel’s mission. He’s played a big effort in destabilizing the PMC, up to now. Your Division’s put the trust in your hands to dispatch him.”

  “No question,” she says firmly.

  “I know you can. More detail, it’s best you come to our HQ. My agent Salazar will be pleased to see you. Wayne signing out.”

  The phone’s light cuts, and Eva sets a hand over the screen. Eva glances at her artwork resting on the log, still halfway done. Sighing, she rises and reaches for it. As much as she yearned, it was extraneous for her lingering any longer in this park at this point. So much to get done; Eva should’ve been more apprehensive about the foreign reports last month. Hopefully, her anticipation for Salazar will placate these concerns.

  ***

  Entering inside the headquarters, Eva stumbles upon dense silence, minus the security explicating behind the desk a few feet. She removes her scarf and cap, freely throwing back her black wavy hair that was at length to her shoulder. She takes off her gloves, giving visibility to the colored pigments decorated on her bionic hands. The Virtual folds her right cybernetic palm, which was entwined with her organic arm, an element nonexistent in her fully augmented limb on the upper left of her torso. Pores manifest on the right palm’s knuckles.

  The warmness embraced her like an angelic tune from the clouds, freeing the Virtual from the cold, and the red diminishes from her fair skin. Her footsteps reverberate in the lobby.

  She comes across a human visitor with a sling bag motioning past her hurriedly. He glances down at her briefly, somehow with question, before raising an eyebrow and going his own way in the right direction. Eva frowns.

  What’s his deal?

  The silence breaks to a whistle, and Eva halts. She opens her eyes to a tall android, armored in black, waving from behind the security pools. Its eyes gleam gold excitedly.

  “Rip!” she calls out. Eva rubs a finger to her ear, perturbed by the sound, but she smiles. “Pleasure. But, don’t do that, next time!”

  “Can’t help it officer,” the Martial remarks.

  Eva’s team consisted of two other cyborgs, but Rip was a special kind, the only Martial to serve under her supervision. Regardless of his irksome habits, his presence never failed to shine a light when darkness makes way for the Virtuals. In fact, Virtuals and Martials were, without question, kindred spirits on their purpose.

  She taps her head, catching an idea click inside instantly.

  “Oh! Is Soriana—I mean, Salazar upstairs—”

  “I believe she’s—”

  “Here.”

  The Martial makes way and pardons himself to a uniformed officer standing on top of the corridors. The agent beckons toward it, and the android motions up the stairs, leaving the two aside. The Virtual’s mouth opens upon glancing at her former mentor.

  “Moreci,” she greets amicably. “Good. I’v
e just mentioned you recently.”

  Waving to the guard at the desk, Soriana breezes her way easily through the poles, and the lobby lighting shines at her cheekbones. The human officer’s heels click with every motion. Standing six inches shorter than Eva, she brushed the sleeve of her sky blue blazer to which she wore over her matching collar shirt and pants. Her long dark brown hair, which held the shade of a dark walnut in tantamount to her slight owl-like eyes, was laced with a small auric clip to the side.

  “Good day, boss—” She fumbles in her speech. “I mean, Soriana. Yes.”

  To someone who watched over her until her near-death accident and initiation into the CIA’s Virtual Clandestine Ops Division, it’s so easy at times for Eva to fall in the habit of calling Soriana “boss.” She still vividly remembers that operation; Soriana rushing her out of a collapsing edifice, rigged with explosives by the Mendoza Cartel’s financial backers. Her eyes went bloodshot with shock for hours, and she was only a tyro operative then. Nonetheless, she had Soriana to thank for giving her that leeway to adapt to the malicious climate that brewed in Latin America. Though she may be a cyborg, Eva was like a sister to her.

  Beaming, the Virtual nears, reaching and beckoning the officer with a tap to the shoulder.

  Soriana smiles, her lips gleaming bright red, and the air between them warms.

  “Over thirty, and I can tell you’re still looking sharp,” Soriana remarks.

  Aren’t we all?

  Despite her olive skin, her skin tone was much lighter than expected, thanks to the lighting inside the place. Soon she glimpses down at her coat’s upper arm, tainted in beads of stains. She twists her lip, giving Eva an almost critical expression.

  “Annndd…”

  Eva gazes to the paint marked at the top of her cybernetic fingers, and her eyes shrink. She laughs anxiously.

  That was uncalled for.

  “Oh no then,” Eva comments, “Thought they dried up earlier. Apologies.”

  “Well, no need. No need.” Soriana rubs the surface, and the stains disappear. “See? But, I’m aware my beloved Director informed you, a few hours ago on intel on the unfortunate train attack, did he?”