“Domino’s just told me a story,” Copal said. “Let me see if I’ve got it straight. You,” he thrust a finger at me, “vandalized company property in order to obtain confidential information so you could take your illegally-modified company car and your unlicensed driver and run Domino here off the road! And all in order to steal a client from her legitimate agent!” He made an effort to pull himself together. “Did I leave anything out?” he asked Domino who shook his head.
“There’s nothing legitimate about this place,” I protested. If I was going to be canned, I thought, I might as well go down fighting. “You give all the good cases to Domino.”
“Oh, Manny!” Domino exclaimed. “Now I’m embarrassed for you.”
“You’ve embarrassed the whole office,” Copal snapped. “I’m going to call the woman in here so you can apologize to her yourself.” He punched the intercom button. “Eva! Send in Miss Colomar!”
“She already left, sir,” Eva replied. “She said she had a long walk ahead of her and she wanted to get started.”
“Walking!” Copal nearly shrieked, jerking his finger off the intercom button as if it were red hot, sounding more panicked that angry. “She had a ticket on the Number Nine!” he shouted at me. “Why does she think she has to walk?!”
“That’s the best package I could find for her,” I admitted weakly. Domino started to laugh.
Copal rubbed his temples. “That woman was a saint and a shoe-in for a Double-N ticket that she’s not going to get because you just couldn’t find it! And now,” he snarled, “because of your little stunt, she’s out there, on her own, walking by herself through the Petrified Forest, facing the demons of the underworld alone and unprotected!” Copal’s threw up his hands and exclaimed, “This is her reward after a lifetime of hardship and public service!?” For a second I thought he was going to slug me. Instead he turned to Domino and said, “It makes you sick, doesn’t it? Her destiny stolen by this overreaching, has-been salesman looking for a fat commission he doesn’t deserve!” Copal sighed heavily and rubbed his face. “You’ve got a phone call to make,” he said to Domino who nodded and left the office.
Copal grabbed an arm and pushed me toward his office door after Domino. “Someone’s gonna to take the fall for this, Calavera, and it ain’t gonna be me!” He propelled me past Eva’s empty desk and into the elevator. We went down a lot of floors while Copal just glared at me. He was still furious, yet he seemed oddly twitchy. I wondered what he meant by me taking a fall and not him. He took me to a storage closet and shoved me inside hard enough to send me sprawling. “Get in there and stay put.” He slammed the door shut and locked it. Then I heard him say, “Hey, you! Make sure he doesn’t get out of there!”
Come the Revolution
I picked myself up and listened at the door. After Copal’s stomping faded I could hear someone moving around. “Hey,” I called out, “is anyone out there?”
A soft, low voice answered me, “How’s my little Count of Monte Cristo?”
Oh, great. “Who’s out there?” I demanded.
“I’m you,” the voice said. This was getting too weird. The voice went on. “Or, rather, I was you… years ago.”
So that was it—I was being toyed with. “Yeah?” I sneered. “Well, I’m me now so get lost!”
The voice didn’t respond immediately. When it did, it sounded thoughtful. “I see you still have some anger issues, my friend. I’ll come back when your head is clearer.”
I felt a little panic. I didn’t want to be left alone. “Wait,” I said quickly. “What do you think they’re going to do to me?”
“I don’t want to alarm you, Agent Calavera,” which was exactly the wrong thing to say, “but have you ever seen a man sprouted?”
“What do you mean, ‘sprouted’?”
“Then you don’t know?” the voice asked, sounding surprised. “There’s nothing more horrible than the bite of the sprouter. It’s deadly stinger spreads a green disease through every calcified pore of you body, leaving you veined with roots and flocked with grass,” I started to shiver, “steadily growing thicker and thicker until you crash and bloom out in a horrifying bouquet of pain and fragrant suffering, screaming until your mouth fills with petals and your nostrils shoot out thorny stems, and the bulbs sprout in your eyes,” sonofabitch, “leaving you nothing but a patch of wildflowers on the ground, swarming with butterflies.”
This guy must’ve been great around a campfire. “Are you done?”
“Yes,” the voice said.
“Then get me out of here!”
“The only way out, Manuel, is to be taken back in. If you are truly still loyal to this company—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, “lay down, roll over and bark the company fight song. Well, get cracked, flunky. The DOD runs a crooked game and I intend to prove it.” If I weren’t stuck in this closet, that is.
“You would do that?” The voice sounded surprised. “That could cause this agency a lot of trouble.”
“I’m gonna blow the lid off this place!” I growled.
“Young man,” the voice said sharply, “you are an enemy of the Department of Death!” The door opened suddenly. A very tall man dressed in green fatigues stood outside. “Welcome to the club!” he said with an air of satisfaction. He gestured to me to come out as he looked around. “Hurry, Manuel,” he said. “We must move quickly.”
I walked out of the closet a little unsteadily. Things were changing too fast. Who was this guy? But I asked instead, “Where are you taking me?”
“To the headquarters of the LSA,” he said quietly, but with an air of authority, then pulled me down the corridor and through a door into the service stairwell.
“LSA?” I asked as we trotted down the steps.
“The Lost Souls’ Alliance,” he answered as he led me out through the garage and across the loading dock. We ducked into the alley between the Acquisitions building and the next one. “We’re a small group, Manuel, and we’re always on the lookout for new soldiers.”
We came to a stop and my rescuer addressed a particular brick on one wall. “Salvador Limones and guest,” he said.
There was an underground rattle and a lift platform rose up behind us.
“To do what, exactly,” I asked as we stepped onto the lift which then lowered us into the disused delivery area beneath the alley. The hatch closed over us with a clang.
“We need help in our intelligence unit.” We reached the bottom and Salvador led me down a short tunnel and into a small, poorly lit room. “You know Eva, of course,” he said, gesturing to her. I shook my head, wondering if I was seeing things.
“Manny,” she said in greeting.
“So, you’re not really a secretary?” I asked, feeling completely lost.
“I’m a spy, Manny,” she answered.
“Well, that’s the last time we use that temp agency,” I said.
Salvador had moved to stand beside Eva. “I was once a reaper like yourself, Manuel,” he said, “but I discovered a web of corruption in our beloved Department of Death. I have reason to believe that the Bureau of Acquisitions is cheating the very souls it was chartered to serve.” That got my attention. “I think someone is robbing these poor, naïve souls of their rightful destinies, leaving them no option but to march on a treacherous trail of tears, unprotected and alone. Like babies, Manuel,” his voice came close to cracking, “like babies.”