Empowered: Agent

By Dale Ivan Smith

The world says those with superpowers are either heroes or villains. But what if you’re both?

The last thing Mathilda Brandt ever wanted to be again was a super-villain. But a secretive government agency gives her a stark choice: either return to prison for life, or infiltrate the Scourge, the world’s most notorious Empowered criminal organization. She’ll have to fight to survive in the Scourge, with dangers on all sides. She’ll have to use her superpower to commit crimes.

She can’t trust anyone. Being exposed would mean losing her life. Failing her mission means returning to prison. Failing also means jeopardizing the lives of her sisters, her grandmother, and thousands of other innocents.

Only one thing is for certain: Mat never backed down from a fight before, and she’s not going to start now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale Ivan Smith
• Release date: Dec 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370635627

Dale Ivan Smith

I love writing and reading fantasy and science fiction, and also enjoy watching fantasy and SF movies and TV shows. I love gaming of all kinds--board games, RPGs, video games.In grade school, I got into trouble for sneaking off to the school library during class, so naturally I ended up working for Oregon's largest public library system.

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was the three-month anniversary of my being paroled from Special Corrections. All I wanted was a job, to get out of this wet dress, and a break from the chorus of plant voices singing their happiness in my head now that it was finally raining again.

Today’s interview went like all the rest for the last month. Badly. At least the weaselly interviewer didn’t try to steal a look at my chest. He was too scared of me, the paroled rogue Empowered. An interview without chest ogling to piss me off was nice for a change, but the rest of the interview sucked.

Worse, the plants would not shut up.

I stepped off the bus at the 151st Street stop and into rain. My damn heel caught in a sidewalk crack. Just managed to save it. Couldn’t afford to break a heel. Not until they'd helped me find a job.

The damn crabgrass growing up from the crack in the sidewalk brushed against my legs and hissed softly in my mind.

Begging for my help. It needed more water.

I could do it. I could urge the roots to grow and spread, pulling water and nitrogen from the soil. I could make the blades wider, to catch more of the drizzling rain. I could help it, give it just what it wanted.

And go back to prison. For life, this time.

Convicted rogue Empowered weren’t allowed to use their gift.

Period.

When I spotted the cardboard sign with the familiar looking sketch of a seeing eye pyramid fastened to the bus stop sign, I was already in a crappy mood.

I yanked it off the metal post. The pyramid was sketched in deft little strokes, and the eye radiated squiggly lines of electric power. If I squinted, I could just make out the faint curve of a smiling mouth in the pyramid below the eye.

I knew who drew that.

Gus Silco. My old teammate in the Renegades, and a weasel if there ever was one. The cardboard was damp, not soaked through, so it couldn’t have been there very long. Which meant he might still be hanging around here. This was his crazy way of leaving me a message, letting me know he was here. What I wanted to know was why he was here. He was the last person I ever wanted to see again. Looked like I had no choice though, if only to get him the hell away from me, once and for all.

I tore the sign in half and tossed it in the street. Started looking for Gus.

Douglas fir trees ran in a line behind a slat-board fence. The firs murmured sleepily in my mind like softly humming giants. They liked the drizzle, and for an instant their pleasure made me happy. Only an instant, and then my resentment bubbled up. What had my power ever done for me except land me in prison?

My parole might forbid me from using my power, but it couldn’t stop me from hearing plants in my mind. It wasn’t like I had a choice. I had to fight to keep the plant chorus from drowning everything else out, and I couldn’t completely stop hearing them.

Just like I couldn’t stop detecting others like me. My skin tingled. Another Empowered was close.

Gus. It had to be him, since I couldn’t see anyone else.

Damn him. Jerk would get me thrown back in prison.

Gus, I know you’re here. Appear already. There wasn’t much for him to blend into here. Across the street, a line of abandoned cars slowly rusted in front of a fenced junkyard. The only plants there were a few dead Queen Anne’s Lace from last summer. I pulled my power’s awareness back before it could feel the dead plants and shuddered. The dead plants couldn’t tell me what I needed to know.

But he had to be over there.

Gus, come out!

He didn’t.

There was an old Ford pickup with a tarp-covered bed directly across the street from me. Okay, so listen. I don’t want to see you! I shouted. Ever again! He was probably standing there smirking at me, his body blending in with the junker truck. Perfect camouflage for a scumbag. What the hell did the weasel want with me, anyway?

I turned and headed for the Shadow Wood Apartments, wiping the damn rain off my face and keeping my eyes fixed on the apartment complex sign. Didn’t work. I heard footsteps on the pavement coming up behind me. I kept walking. No way was I talking to that traitor.

The apartment manager had gotten the tags on the sign painted over again, but hadn’t bothered to clean up the bottles and crap all over the ground.

God, I had to get Grandmother Ruth and my sisters out of this dump.

But I had to have a job first. I could still hear Gus behind me, so I walked faster. Along with using my power, talking to a known criminal, normal or Empowered, busted my parole. I’d go back to prison for life. My family would be hosed.

The moss under my feet moaned softly. It would be so easy to reach out with my power, caress it, and cover the trashy ground with a thick carpet of the stuff.

No more. Never again. I pushed the urge away and kept walking, almost running now. Mister Get Me Thrown Back in Prison was right behind me.

Then I heard swearing and the clink of bottles.

I whipped back around. Gus sprawled on the dirt next to the sign, face down on slimy wet newspapers. His jacket hood had fallen back, and I could see long dark hair beneath a knitted black cap. A lone beer bottle rolled across the sidewalk and clattered over the edge into the street, while two more bottles spun slowly near his feet. Tripped by the party from last night. If I wasn’t so ready to punch him, I’d be laughing.

The fall must have broken his concentration, and without that, he couldn’t blend in, and hide.

He still wore that grungy old army field jacket of his. It was ancient, made just after the Three Days War. There were blank patches where the radiation detectors used to be.

Gus got onto his knees and looked up at me. The same old Gus. Pale face, and nervous eyes that never looked in any one place for long. His black hair hung down from under a dirty orange cap. He was maybe five years older than me, but he looked…old.

I clenched my fists. Why are you here, Gus?

He got up, brushing newspaper and wet leaves off his cargo pants. Working himself up to say whatever it was he had come here to say. He was shorter than me by a lot, so he had to look up.

He was taking too freaking long to get to the point. I can’t talk with you, Gus. It’s against my parole. Not that you would know about parole. Since you skipped out before they came for us.

Gus looked guilty. He should be back on his knees begging me to forgive him Saying I’m sorry won’t cut it, will it, Mat?

Damn straight it won’t.

He swallowed again. I want to make it up to you. His voice sounded hoarse now.

I shoved him, hard, and he stumbled backward until he hit the sign with a loud thump. He vanished.

That’s right, pull your blender act, I said. Blender had been his nickname back in the Renegades. His power was great for running away.

Gus reappeared behind me, in the parking lot. I can make it up to you.

Hah. Make it up to me. That was a laugh. But okay, I’d bite. "How can you make up for cutting and running, Blender?"

I wanted to shout at him, and how will you bring Tanya back from being dead? My best friend, dead because of this waste of skin.

He blinked. I can help you.

Blood pounded in my ears. Just like some of the other inmates in Special Corrections who said they could help me. No thanks. I just wanted to get a job and not deal with creeps like Gus. Leave me alone, Gus. I stormed past him. I managed to not kick him in the crotch, and headed toward my apartment building.

I looked back and Gus was still following me, not even trying to hide this time.

I couldn’t let Ruth or the twins see me talking to a scumbag like Gus. They’d recognize my old teammate. Ruth knew full well I wasn’t supposed to talk to criminals.

I wanted to kill the bastard, but couldn’t.

And he wasn’t going to leave me alone until he’d said his piece.

I stopped. All right, Gus, you can say what you came to say. But not here in the open where everyone can see us. I nodded at the complex’s storage building. Follow me, I said. But first, do your Invisible Man act.

He vanished. My skin still tingled from him being nearby. All of us Empowered are able to detect other Empowered when we're near each other. It means we have a hell of a time sneaking up on each other. Gus’s blending gave him an advantage and the little creep always took maximum advantage.

I went to the storage building, unlocked the door, pushed it open.

In, I said. I waited long enough for him to get inside, then followed. I turned on the light, and closed the door behind me.

Gus stood in the middle of the room, flanked by storage cages, looking like a trapped animal. Which he was as far as I was concerned. Bastard weasel.

He flinched when I walked up to him and looked at his hands. Your hair is so different, it’s so short now.

I grabbed his jacket, hauled him up close to me. What the hell does that have to do with anything? You’re wasting my time, jerk.

His Adam’s apple was bobbing like a cartoon character's. He was scared to death. Sweating. Gus had always been a bit fragile. Back in the Renegades, the Professor used to say Gus took careful handling, that fear drove him more than most people. Yeah, well, Gus’s fear killed the Professor and my best friend because he wasn’t there when we needed him.

And now he was back, trying to screw up my life again.

I’m so-so-orry, he stuttered. Pl-lease-- I gave him a hard look, which shut him up. He wouldn’t have lasted a day in Special Corrections.

Cut to the damn chase, Gus. The longer this went on, the more chance there was of someone seeing us together, even holed up inside this storage building.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved hand. He wore those old, beat-up fingerless gloves of his. He always wore fingerless gloves.

Okay. He swallowed again. I wanted to yell, enough with the swallowing, but kept my mouth shut. Anything to get him to spit out what he wanted to tell me.

I can hook you up with people who can help you.

I don’t want your help, Gus. The blood pounded louder in my ears. "Or these people’s help either." I glared at him

He surprised me. He didn’t duck his head, kept right on talking. Mat, you need help. This group can give you what you need.

"Group, Gus? Group!" I grabbed the front of his coat again. Let me guess, these are Empowereds, aren’t they? Idiot. He was stupider than I thought.

He nodded.

Damn him. Damn him to hell.

The Scourge can help you.

The Scourge! Don’t fuck with me, Gus.

He shook his head frantically. I’m not, Mat, I’m not! I’m in the Scourge.

Stop lying! I slammed him into a storage cage. I wanted to slam him again and again. He deserved it. I leaned in close to him. The Scourge is gone, asshole.

He winced. No, they aren’t.

Gus was lying. He had to be. The Scourge had been destroyed while I was in prison. The world’s Enemy Number One, the biggest, baddest super-villain group, ever. The Renegades had been nothing by comparison. But the Scourge had still gone down. Rogue Empowereds always got caught in the end.

Why are you wasting my time with this bull?

His eyes were wide, spit on his lips. The weasel. It’s true, Mat! I’m in the Scourge.

Gus had gone crazy while I was locked up. He must have. He never would have had the guts to try and feed me made-up garbage like this crap story.

I can talk to my cell leader. He can help.

I ground my teeth. Cell leader? What a load of crap. You came here just to give me a BS story about the Scourge somehow coming back from the dead?

He wouldn’t stop. I’m not lying. Listen, I’ve got a place. He told me the address. Think it over. Come see me. I can get you in, I promise.

That was it. I slugged him, fist smashing his jaw, sending spit flying as his head snapped back. He slid down the cage’s mesh.

Damn, it felt good.

I yanked him to his feet, frogmarched him to the door, and shoved him through.

Leave and don’t come back.

He vanished, leaving spit and tears splattered on the pavement.

Gus was a crazy fool. I was done with crazy fools, especially him. I slammed the door behind me. What in God’s name had gotten into him to try and feed me lies? I shook my head. He was crazy as a rabid bat.

I looked up and saw Ruth watching me from her bedroom window.

Ruth was going to be pissed. I pounded up three flights of stairs to the apartment. I’d tried to talk her into moving to a ground floor unit, but she liked this one, said the exercise was good for her. But these days she didn’t leave her apartment much, thanks to Thalik’s disease. She also said she liked being able to see the world from higher up. I couldn’t figure out why. Why would you want to see a dingy apartment complex and a bunch of trees? I sure as hell didn’t.

I reached our door and stopped because I still wanted to break something. I took a deep breath, then went inside. The living room was empty, no sign of Ruth, or the twins.

The television, a big thirty-inch model, was on, tuned to the Triple N, the National News Network. Ruth must have been watching it. The twins could care less about the news.

Rebuilding Russia: An Ongoing Concern, crawled across the lower part of the screen below an image of New Moscow. Whatever. I was about to turn it off when the video switched to a reporter talking to a woman in a white UN military uniform and a huge man dressed in a deep blue jumpsuit with a gold Hero Council badge. I shuddered. I recognized him. I’d seen him the day they caught me. My stomach felt like ice. The day Tanya and the Professor and the rest of the Renegades died.

That was Titan, President of the Hero Council and the only founding member still alive. He was still built like a giant linebacker even though he was ancient, like seventy-five years old. The reporter asked him something about unrest in Russia. Titan said rebuilding always takes longer than people want. Thanks, Mister Hero Council President. He went on about the responsibility of sanctioned Empowered to aid society and how the Russian Rogue Empowered were only holding their people back. Sure, if Empowered weren’t sanctioned, meaning part of the Hero Council, then they were part of the problem. The only choice they gave you if you didn't join up was to sign on the dotted line, saying you’d never use your power.

I turned off the television.

I heard Ruth coughing in her bedroom. The racking cough made my skin crawl. I went through the kitchen, past the sink filled with dirty dishes that the twins obviously hadn’t taken care of and the still full garbage can, down the short hall to the two bedrooms. Ruth’s was the far one. The door to the twin’s room was covered in new doom ballad posters. Apparently Four Horsemen was their favorite band this week. I shook my head. Predictable.

I knocked on Ruth’s door, pushed it open. It was freezing in there.

Ruth was sitting up in bed. She coughed again, but shook her head no when I started to move forward. I stood there, twisting my hands. Ruth looked terrible. Her face had more lines in it than this morning, and her short gray hair was a mess.

Her reading glasses were on the nightstand, on top of her current book, something about the Long Winter. Ruth loved history and current events. Magazines on politics, foreign affairs, and science were stacked on another little table by the window.

You’re up, I said lamely. That’s me, Miss Obvious. I hated seeing her like this. Thalik’s disease was the bitch queen of all diseases. The mystery disease that had no cure. No one even knew why you got it. Sure, it was rare, but what good was rare when it got you, or someone you loved?

Ruth sipped from the water bottle she kept by her bed, hands trembling, and took a pill.

Her skin was really pale and she’d lost so much muscle since I’d gone to prison.

No cure whatsoever for Thalik’s.

She was taking expensive medication to help her cope, but was still dying day by day. If I could get a job and hold it and then apply for a medical grant, maybe get some legal help, Ruth could get on a trial for some sort of new drug. Something. Anything. She had raised me and the twins after our parents died. Been there for us, was still there for us, despite everything.

I had to find a way to help her and get the girls on the right path.

She put down the water bottle, wiped her mouth and looked at me.

Mathilda, she said, using my full name. Only Ruth called me that. Her gray eyes searched my face. Who was that you were with just now?

Someone I used to know.

Someone from the Renegades.

I told him to fuc—I I told him to get out of here and not come back.

Why was he here in the first place? Ruth was angry, but she did the under control type anger, not like me.

I squirmed. He wanted to make up for something.

That was your friend Gus, wasn’t it? Even sick, Ruth’s memory was sharp. There wasn’t any point in lying to her.

I shook my head. He’s no friend of mine.

Seeing him breaks your parole.

I know, I know. Tell me something I didn’t know. This wasn’t fair. I hadn’t wanted to see Gus.

Ruth waved at me to come over to the bed. I slunk over, feeling way shorter than six one and like I was ten years old again.

Ruth reached and had clasped my hand. You only get one chance.

I nodded.

You can’t give up, Mat.

I’m not.

Ruth let go of my hand, lifted her chin. It looks to me like you are giving up.

I’m trying, Ruth, I’m trying! The potpourri scent in her room suddenly made me sick.

Ruth uncrossed her arms. You left your phone at home. Again.

Sorry, I forgot. I hated carrying that thing. My parole officer called? Winterfield always ruined my day. He was one hundred percent pure hardass and he rode me nonstop about getting a job.

Ruth frowned. Three times. You need to be reachable, Mathilda.

I know, I know. I spent five years in Special Corrections always being reachable. Once in awhile, I wanted to be unreachable.

I knew what she was going to say next. Going to go over the whole don't see any criminals thing anymore. I tried to relax, slow my breathing. Tried not to get angry.

Meeting with Empowered criminals is especially dangerous.

Yep. Here we go. Does it matter? I retorted. "If I see any criminal, I go back to Special Corrections."

Ruth shook her head at me, frowning. Mat, you know there’s a difference. Seeing a normal criminal is a violation, but meeting with an Empowered criminal is a one-way ticket to Special Corrections without appeal.

Okay, okay, she had a point, but I was trying to stay away from ALL criminals, not just Empowered ones.

What did he want? Ruth asked.

To apologize. Like it mattered. I couldn’t keep the disgust out of my voice.

That couldn’t have been all he wanted to say.

I shrugged. I wasn’t going to listen to anything else.

She squeezed my hand. If your PO finds out, you’ll be in trouble.

My face flushed with anger. I told the creep to leave me alone! I got up. Where are Ava and Ella?

Ruth sighed, suddenly looking not just old but ancient. Change the subject, why don’t you? she said in a low voice. She sighed. Out, just like you were.

But you don’t know where they went?

She shook her head, laughed sadly. That used to be you, she said.

It did. That’s why I worry.

The deep rumble of an eight-cylinder engine came from the parking lot, interrupting what Ruth was going to say next. I went to the window, and peered outside.

A newer model gold Lincoln Overlord pulled up below our apartment, whitewall tires and silver spoked-rims screaming ganger-mobile. A rear door opened and my younger sister Ella got out, followed a moment later by her twin, Ava. Ava’s raven