“You do that?” Maggie asked, eyebrows raised. “Don’t you feel strange without them?”
Frank just shrugged. “It’s nice. There’s no running commentary in my head. No analysis of every little thing I do. No opinions on how to cook a goddamned egg, or whether I’m doing enough weights at the gym, or arguments between voices on what’s the most authentic way to eat caviar with tea.”
“That happened?”
“Yeah, just now at the hotel. Apparently, you can either serve it on half a boiled egg, or on bread with butter. If they weren’t just disembodied voices attached to random memories, I’d swear the people in my head would’ve ended up in a fist fight.”
Frank thought that would make Maggie laugh, but she just shook her head. “All that company with you, all the time. You’re never lonely. That’s something.”
“Wish I were sometimes,” Frank said. “That’s why I use the null generator, just to get some alone time. You don’t ever use one?”
“Hell, no,” she said, looking alarmed. “I’d feel… blind. Scared. I wouldn’t know how people were feeling, what they’d be likely to do.”
“You mean exactly how the rest of us live our lives?” Frank asked. “I have no idea how people are feeling except for what they say or how they look.”
“Most people hide it well,” Maggie replied, clutching Frank’s hand a little tighter as they walked, part of their married couple ruse, an old tradecraft habit. Their Russian tails likely already had a brief on them anyway. “But under the surface, they carry around so much anger. Disappointment. Lust. Sadness. All of it. That shit builds up and you never know when one of ’em is just gonna pop. The average person is just a stupid, instinctual, emotional powder keg ready to blow. All they need is the right push. And I don’t wanna be around when that happens.”
“You sound like you really don’t like people anymore,” Frank said quietly.
“People are shit, Frank. They really are. In the end, they’re just fight or flight, pleasure and pain. Everything else is just window dressing to cover up the fact that they’re animals.”
“Including me?” Frank challenged. “Danny? Cal?”
Maggie smiled slightly at hearing Cal Hooks’s name. Frank knew Maggie was fond of the old Negro man who could absorb life force to get younger and stronger, or spend it to heal others at the expense of his own health and age. Lately, Cal had taken to appearing as his actual age, pushing sixty, though with a strength and spryness of a man half as old. Cal was a good man, a religious fellow who, thankfully, knew better than to try to Jesus everyone up. He had an almost paternal thing with Maggie. Frank figured Cal felt sorry for her, somehow.
“Cal’s okay,” Maggie said. “I mean, he gets angry and sad and scared like everyone else. But he has such a handle on it. Better than you or Danny or anyone I’ve ever met. Honestly, I don’t know how he does it. He — wait.” Maggie’s walk slowed as she looked off into the distance; Frank knew that look. She sensed something. “Anger and fear coming for us. Six o’clock. And… ten o’clock. And… fuck, three o’clock.”
Pincer move. Multiple directions. Capture or kill, came the voice of U.S. Army General Mark Davis. If it’s more than five, you need to leave.
“How many?” Frank asked quietly.
You should’ve brought a gun, added Gunnery Sergeant William Collins, one of the best shots to come out of World War I. Even one of Mrs. Stevens’s pea-shooters would’ve helped.
“I’m sensing six,” Maggie replied, her body tensing. “Three pairs. Thirty seconds out, give or take.” She opened her clutch casually and pulled out her makeup case, clicking the side two times, then two times again, while she ostensibly checked her rouge. It was the signal for immediate danger and enemy contact. She then pulled out a cigarette case. “Rose specials,” she said. “One for each of us. Got your lighter?”
Frank smiled. He’d forgotten about the lighter in his pants pocket, and hadn’t thought to pack any of Mrs. Stevens’s “special” butts. “I do,” he said quietly. “You aim right, I’ll take left, and the lighter will handle the guys behind us. Ready?”
Maggie put her cigarette case away and leaned toward Frank with a slight smile. “Always, darling,” she said, putting the cigarette between her lips. “Light me up.”
Frank flicked the lighter and lit her cigarette, then his. He turned to his left just in time to see two men in dark suits and coats striding toward him purposefully, grim looks on their faces. One on the right looks like the bruiser, said James O’Keefe, a two-bit boxer and bouncer who died back in ’51. Take him out with the cig and—
The voices suddenly went silent, like a door slamming shut between them and Frank. “Null field,” he whispered.
“Fuckers,” Maggie spat. “Let’s go.”
Frank smiled at the approaching goons. “Privet tovarishchi. Chto ya mogu sdelat’ dlya vas?” Then he pointed his cigarette at the bigger one just in time for the tip to explode, launching a sleeper dart that plunged itself straight into the man’s left eye.
Wasting no time, Frank flicked his lighter again and threw it to his left, where the two suits behind them had rushed to catch up. By the time Frank had turned to punch dart-guy’s friend in the face, the lighter exploded, spraying the Russians with concentrated oil that immediately caught fire — and engulfed the two in flame. The guy who took the dart to the eye — unlucky bastard — was on the ground writhing in pain, but Frank’s punch didn’t seem to faze the last Russian much, and Frank had to duck awkwardly to avoid the man’s roundhouse.
Frank kicked a leg out and caught the Russian’s knee from behind, staggering him as the missed roundhouse sent him twisting off balance, exposing the back of the man’s head to Frank. Immediately, he remembered one of O’Keefe’s signature moves and jammed a fist into the back of the man’s neck, just under his skull, likely sending a shockwave of pain and disorientation through his body. The man staggered as he turned around, but Frank was ready with an uppercut that caught him right under the chin and sent him sprawling down onto the gravel pathway of the garden.
“Enough!”
Frank whirled around to see the last Russian standing — holding a gun to Maggie’s head. She stood at arm’s length from him, staring at the barrel from just a few inches away. She looked incredibly pissed.
“Easy there, friend,” Frank said, his hands instinctively up. “Let’s not get anybody killed today.”
The Russian nodded to the two men who had taken the brunt of Frank’s lighter grenade. They were crumpled on the ground, completely on fire. “It is too late for that, I think. We have more coming. You will hang for this, American.”
Frank smiled his best, most diplomatic smile. “Look, we’re with the American Embassy, and honestly, I thought we were getting mugged. I mean, I’m from New York. That happens, you know? My uncle Tony, he was walking on 42nd Street, right near Times Square of all places, and out of nowhere three guys came up and just—”
“Quiet!” the Russian shouted. It didn’t take an Enhancement to see that the guy was agitated as all hell. “Get on the ground! Now! Both of you!”
Sighing, Frank did as he was told. “I’m telling you, Comrade, this is gonna really blow up in your face. I mean, we have diplomatic immunity.” Frank kept talking, stalling for time while trying to come up with a way out of this. Without the breadth and depth of expertise available to him through his Enhancement, he was left only with memories of past accomplishments and his own instincts — just like normal people.