She nodded. “I guess.”
“What’s in the Holy Vessel?” I figured if anyone would tell me, it would be Ashley.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Do you know why Mike was trying to kill me?”
She looked away.
“Can you tell me why he stole the Seals?”
“We don’t know why.”
I was feeling light-headed again, so I sank back onto the bed.
“Is there a doctor on board?” I asked.
“Why, are you sick?”
“I feel really dizzy. Plus I found this sore under my . . .” I didn’t feel comfortable for some reason using the word “armpit.” “On my skin. I wouldn’t care, you know, I’m a pretty tough guy, played football and everything, plus I’ve had my share of rough scrapes over the past year, including being killed, but my mom’s cancer started with a sore spot and you know that runs in families. Not sore spots. Cancer. Well, I guess sore spots could run in families too . . .”
“Yes,” she said. She was smiling for some reason.
“There’s a doctor on board. You want me to get him?”
“Maybe in a little while. It’s better when I sit down.”
She sat down next to me as if she needed to feel better too. Her hair fell across her cheek as she leaned forward, swinging her long legs against the bunk.
“I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot lately,” I said.
“After she died, things got really weird.”
She nodded. She hooked a thick strand of her hair around her left ear and looked at me out of the corner of her eye.
“You probably know all about my mom,” I said. “I bet OIPEP has a file on me and you had to read that when they, um, attached you to me. That’s how you knew my blood had the power to heal.”
“That’s pretty smart of you, Alfred.”
“So there is a file.”
“The Company keeps files on a lot of people.”
“How many people?”
“Practically everybody.”
“Why practically everybody?”
“Because practically everybody has the potential to be important.” “Well, I never saw myself that way. I mean, I know I’m the last living descendent of Lancelot, and my dad was pretty rich and important, but it was mostly dumb luck how I saved the world.”
She reached over and put her hand on the top of my hand.
“You’re very special, Alfred. You have a very unique gift; don’t ever forget that.”
“I don’t have any gifts.”
That was sort of an invitation for her to list my gifts, but she didn’t. For a tiny second I thought about putting my other hand on top of hers, but the second passed. She took her hand away.
“I have to go.”
“You’re on the team going in, aren’t you?”
She nodded. Her expression told me she wasn’t exactly thrilled she was on the team.
“Can I go too?”
She looked at me sharply. “Didn’t they tell you? You don’t have a choice.”
14
At that moment, the door swung open and Op Nine walked in. He was carrying a pair of combat-style black boots and a pair of thick socks. Ashley jumped off the bed and I did too, as if he had caught us doing something we shouldn’t. By the expression on his face, I figured maybe we had been.
“The rest of the team has already reported on deck,” Op Nine said to Ashley.
“I was on my way.”
“The deck,” Op Nine said tightly, “is two flights above us.”
Ashley left without another word.
I said, “Don’t dock her pay or anything. She didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.”
“It would be unfortunate, particularly for her, if she had,” Op Nine said. He set the boots and socks beside the bed and stepped back.
“Well,” I said. “She did tell me one thing. You’re taking me with you to the nexus.”
“It is unavoidable.”
“And why’s that?”
He just stared at me. I said, “I have this theory you might be a cyborg.”
“You are making a joke.”
“Half a joke.”
“How does one make half a joke?”
“I’ve never really thought it through. What if I refuse to go?”
“I would be forced to compel you.”
“I could fight you.” One of his thick eyebrows rose toward his hairline. “I’m a biter. And a scratcher.”
“I would immobilize you and carry you to the nexus over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.”
“That’s a joke, right?”
“Half a joke.”
He motioned to the boots and socks. He watched silently as I pulled them on.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Still a little dizzy.”
“That will pass.”
“How do you know?”
“I am a trained medic as well as a cyborg.”
He opened the bulkhead door and jerked his head toward the corridor outside.
“After you, Alfred Kropp.”
Something hit me then, and instead of keeping my mouth shut, which was probably the wisest thing to do at that moment, I blurted out, “I’m the bait, aren’t I?”
“Bait?”
“Or ransom or something. Mike wants you to bring me to him.”
“I doubt that.”
“Then why do I have to go?”
“Because,” Op Nine said calmly, “we say so.”
Dumb, Kropp, dumb, dumb, dumb, I told myself, and walked through the door anyway.
15
We climbed the circular stairs two flights to the top, turned a corner, and suddenly we were in the open air. It was colder outside than I would have guessed, but I think I read somewhere that the desert gets cold at night. The Pandora had anchored about two hundred yards from shore. I could see lights there. Marsa Alam.
A group of agents was waiting on deck. I counted ten besides Op Nine and Abby, so that made me number thirteen, which seemed appropriate and ominous at the same time.
When they saw us come up, the agents turned and stared at me.
“I’m Alfred Kropp,” I said.
“They know who you are,” Op Nine said.
I was about eight thousand miles from home, but some things you never leave behind, no matter how far you go, and right then, I felt like the big awkward dateless dork at the prom.