The Spy Who Haunted Me

Eventually, I forced my head up and looked around me. We had to find shelter soon, or cold like this would kill us all. But I saw only the widely spaced trees and the harsh stony ground stretching away to the horizon in all directions. Miles and miles of nothing but forest. My face and hands were already numb, and I could see hoarfrost forming on the others’ faces, flecks of gray ice across blue-gray skin. Ice forming on my eyelashes made my eyes heavy.

“Where the hell has your grandfather dumped us this time?” said Honey, forcing the words past numb lips as she beat her hands together to keep the circulation going.

“Don’t ask me,” said Peter. “You’re the one with a computer in your head.”

“No wonder you put Area 52 in the Antarctic,” said Walker to Honey. “Safest place to store all that alien technology you’ve accumulated down the years and still didn’t know how to operate.”

“First things first,” I said quickly. “We need to find some kind of shelter, or just the windchill will finish us off. Anyone know how to build an igloo?”

“I think you need snow for that, don’t you?” said Peter.

“Contact Langley,” Walker said to Honey. “Have them find out where we are, and then have them drop us some survival gear.”

“I’ve been trying!” Honey said through teeth gritted together to stop them chattering. “They’re not answering. I’m not picking up any comm traffic. The best my diagnostics can suggest is that something is blocking the carrier signal. That would take a hell of a lot of power, so the source must be somewhere nearby.”

“Good,” said Peter. “Let’s go there right now and get warm. Before things I’m rather fond of start falling off me.”

“Look around,” I said. “There isn’t anything but trees. We’re on our own out here.”

“What?” Peter glared wildly about him. “There has to be something!”

“Try not to panic quite so loudly,” murmured Walker. “It’s bad enough being frozen to one’s marrow without being deafened in one ear.”

“Screw you!” said Peter. “I can’t feel my balls anymore!”

“If you’re looking for help there, you’re on your own,” said Honey.

“I think you’re supposed to rub snow on them to prevent frost-bite,” I said.

“Rub some on yours!” said Peter ungraciously. “Mine are cold enough as it is!”

“You just can’t help some people,” said Walker.

“Let me try something,” I said.

I forced myself away from the relative warmth of the group, subvocalised the activating Words, and armoured up. The golden strange matter slid over me in a moment, covering me from crown to toe, and it was like slipping into a well-heated pool. I gasped out loud as the armour insulated me from the cold and the wind, and already I could feel sensation flowing back into my numbed extremities. I gritted my teeth against the pins and needles of returning circulation, and through my featureless golden mask I looked slowly around me. The mask boosted my vision until I could see clearly for miles and miles, my eyes seeming to dart and soar over the dead and frozen ground. And still there was nothing until I raised my Sight as well, and then at last I detected faint emanations rising up in the distance. An energy source of such size and scale practically promised a good-sized city. But it was seven, maybe eight miles away, on foot, through cold dead wilderness.

Under normal conditions, an easy stroll. Here, just possibly a death sentence for some of us.

I armoured down, gasping as the shock and pain of the awful cold hit me again. I gestured northwest with a shaking hand.

“There’s a city . . . that way. I think. Can’t say what kind of welcome we’ll get, but it’s our best bet. Hell, it’s our only bet.”

“How far?” said Walker.

“Seven miles,” I said. “Maybe less.”

We all looked at each other. No one said anything. No one had to. We all knew what that meant.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Sooner we’re there, sooner we can lounge around in front of a great big fire with hot toddies and a steaming fondue.”

“Fondue,” Peter muttered disparagingly as we set off. “So bloody up itself. It’s only bread and cheese, when you get right down to it.”

I led the way through the trees, and the others stumbled after me. We couldn’t even huddle together for warmth anymore; the uneven ground kept shaking us apart. So for a long time we struggled along in silence, heads bowed to keep our vulnerable faces out of the cutting wind, conserving our energy as best we could. The unyielding ground made every step an effort, like walking along the bottom of the sea with chains around our ankles. There wasn’t a sound to be heard anywhere in the forest. No birds singing, not the slightest sound from any animal. As though we four were the only living things left in this dead deserted land. My feet grew so numb I had to crash them against the hard ground just to feel the impact, and then my legs grew so tired I couldn’t even manage that anymore. I kept going. Complaints wouldn’t help and would only take up energy I couldn’t spare. Besides, I was damned if I’d be the first one to stop and call for a rest.

Not least because if we did stop, I wasn’t sure all of us would be able to find the strength to start up again. Real cold is constant and unforgiving, and it kills by inches when you aren’t looking.

After a while, I realised Honey had moved forward to trudge along beside me. I raised my head just a little to look at her. Honey’s coffee skin had gone gray from the cold, and her eyes had a flat, exhausted, hurting look.

“Why aren’t you wearing your armour?” she said abruptly. “Then you wouldn’t feel the cold.”

“I chose not to,” I said. My mouth was so numb I had to concentrate on carefully forming each word. “Because . . . we need to work as a team. Working together, striving together. As equals, respecting each other. Because if we’re a team . . . maybe we’ll stop killing each other.”

“You didn’t believe Katt’s and Blue’s deaths were accidents for one minute, did you?” said Honey.

“No. You?”

“Of course not. I’m CIA. We’re trained to see the worst aspect of any situation and plan accordingly. And you heard the Independent Agent. Only one of us can return to claim the prize. Killing each other off was inevitable at some point.”

“Killing is never inevitable,” I said roughly. “I’m an agent, not an assassin.”

Honey shot me a heavy glance from under iced-up eyelashes. “You really think you can keep this group from each other’s throats?”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m a Drood. I can do anything. I have it in writing, somewhere.”

“You could put on your armour,” said Honey. “Run ahead to the city and send back help.”

“No telling how long that would take,” I said. “Or how many of you would still be alive when I got back.”

“You can’t worry about all of us.”

“Watch me.”

She chuckled briefly. “You’re a good man, Eddie Drood. How you ever got to be a field agent is beyond me.”

“I bribed the examiner.”

We strode on, fighting for every step and every breath, forcing our slowly dying bodies through the dead forest. I lost track of time. The sun seemed always overhead, the shadows never moved, and every part of the forest looked just like every other part. No landmarks, nothing to aim for, nothing to mark distance passed. We were all close to failing, the last of our hoarded strength draining away, only willpower and brute stubbor

I could have armoured up. Gone on, and left them behind. But I couldn’t do that. Someone had to lead this group by example, and unfortunately it looked like it was down to me. Considering how much trouble I always have with authority figures, it’s amazing how often I end up being one. Sometimes I think this whole universe runs on irony.