The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer
Riley took his nose out of the fruit bowl. “Thanks for the grub and everything, mate, but none of you Yankees knows what you’re talking about. Garrick will come for me.”
Chevie opened her mouth to disagree, but all that came out was a soft sigh. Garrick had come through a wormhole to find Riley. He had overcome Smart’s ninja hazmat team. It seemed unlikely that a hobbit and a locked door would keep him out.
She checked her watch. “So, Gim— Waldo. Fifty-nine minutes, right?”
Waldo made a sound that was very close to an actual harrumph, then composed himself and smiled sweetly before extending his left hand, palm up.
“Tell me you are not looking for a tip,” said Chevie in disbelief.
Waldo’s smile disappeared and he closed his fingers tightly, as though crushing the soul of an enemy.
“Force of habit,” he said, and beeped himself out of the door.
Chevie and Riley spent the next half hour trying to relax somewhat, but neither of them could shake a feeling of frosty foreboding. And it wasn’t one of those vague feelings that something bad was on the way; it was the very specific belief that any second Albert Garrick was going to burst in through the reinforced door and shoot them both in the head.
Chevie wondered if she should call someone, and if she did call someone, what would she tell them?
The FBI have a set of secret time machines that we use to hide witnesses in the past.
Or, A death-dealing magician has come from the nineteenth century to kill an urchin.
Or, The world’s greatest scientist has been turned into a dead monkey by a wormhole.
It sounded pretty insane, whatever way you presented it. Better to wait until reinforcements arrived and hope that the agent in charge would have some previous knowledge of what was going on—otherwise Chevie was going to look guilty of something.
Riley emerged from the bedroom all dickied up in what looked like a school uniform, taken from Waldo’s stash. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and seemed surprised by his own features.
“That’s an excellent looking-glass, Agent. I never saw myself so clear. Look, my hair has both brown and black in it. There’s a turn-up for the books.”
The boy studied himself for a long moment, pulling at the skin of his pale face, sweeping his long dark hair back from his forehead. In the mirror he caught sight of the flat-screen television on its bracket.
“What is that device bolted to the wall? Is it a work of art, perhaps? A cloudy night, or some such? Toffs will buy any old rubbish if they believe it was scribbled by a master.”
“It’s a television, actually, Riley. Moving pictures on a screen.”
Riley turned to stare at the TV. “Moving pictures.” A thought struck him. “When I woke this morning it was the year of our Lord 1898. How far have I traveled?”
“More than a hundred years,” said Chevie softly.
Riley sank deep into a sofa, eyes downcast, and hugged himself.
“A hundred years? That far. Everyone I know is dead, and everything I know is gone.”
Chevie didn’t know what to say. She tried to imagine herself in the boy’s situation, but couldn’t. The shock must be incredible.
“I feel lost at sea,” Riley admitted. He pondered, then said, “But Garrick doesn’t. He is somehow different. Something has changed him. He has knowledge of your weapons and codes. Who’s to say he does not already have the codes for this gaff?”
Chevie sat on a low glass coffee table, facing the boy. “Garrick would have to be crazy to come here. He’s got all of London to get lost in. Why would he even bother tracking down a kid?”
“His reasoning is difficult to explain,” said Riley, frowning. “He calls me his son, to save or drown as he pleases. But I ain’t his son, and I hate him. I have bolted before, and he has followed me across the whole of the city.” Riley pointed to his right eye. “I ran away to Saint Giles last year. Squared myself away down with the guttersnipes, but Garrick’s snouts informed on me. That devil rooted me out and gave me a sound thrashing. The eye was never the same, but I can see out of it clear enough. Now Garrick has even followed me here, like Mr. Wells’s Time Traveler.”
“Well, Mr. Garrick has no snouts here,” said Chevie. “And, just for your information, people have being trying to find the outhouse for years. People from this century—if they couldn’t find it, neither will he. You have no idea how things have changed since your day.” Chevie thought of something. “But I can give you an idea. Sit there.”
Chevie pointed to the deep purple sofa in front of the flat black TV. She logged on to the Internet and navigated to a Web site that had a series of videos documenting major political, scientific, and cultural changes. She chose one and played it.
“Now sit there and learn something,” she instructed the Victorian boy.
Riley had been dumbfounded so often already this evening that he did not remark upon the HD graphics, but the site’s music almost moved him to tears.
“It’s like sitting beside the entire orchestra,” he said softly. “A music machine with pictures.”
Chevie walked toward the bathroom. “A music machine with pictures. I like that. Okay, you absorb whatever you can while I clean up a little. Just don’t touch the screen.”
This time Riley did look away from the TV. “Why not? Would I be transported to the land of the magic machine?”
Chevie was tempted to say yes, but the kid had been through enough for one day. “No, this ain’t Tron. But you would smear the screen, which would freak out the elf.”
Riley returned his gaze to the screen. Freaking out the elf sounded like a terrible thing indeed. He would look but not touch.
BEDFORD SQUARE. BLOOMSBURY. LONDON. NOW
At first Albert Garrick was mightily angered by being trapped in Bedford Square, but such were his new powers that a dozen solutions to his problem soon flowed like a balm across his spiky mood. The magician calmed himself and sat in front of his laptop in the ground floor office.
No, not my laptop. Felix Smart’s laptop.
Though that more or less amounted to the same thing. Felix Smart’s mind was inside his own, leaking information like a cracked gourd.
And there is more. The explosion inside the wormhole has changed me. I am more than human now. I am the universe’s first quantum man. The rules of normal space do not apply to me anymore. My very appearance is fluid, and my mind is chock-full of useful nuggets.
It took Garrick mere seconds to lift the lockdown from Bedford Square, and he listened with satisfaction as the shutters rolled back from the windows.
The magician cackled aloud.
Computers! Wonderful machines.
He was free now to leave and wreak havoc on this new age, with no one to stop him or even understand what they were trying to stop.
So, why don’t I abandon my hunt for Riley and disappear into the multitude?
Garrick now understood his need to track the boy down. Garrick’s father had deserted him in dramatic fashion when he was ten, so he had a deep fear of desertion.
You is sorted proper now, my son, his father told him one morning. And I cannot live sober with what my hand was forced into doing to secure your future. I slit the throat of my best mate and a few more besides to keep you in a bed away from the Old Nichol.
The ten-year-old Garrick noticed his father’s belongings tied in a pillowcase at the foot of their room’s small bed.
Are you leaving me, Da?
Tears flowed down his father’s ruddy cheeks as he answered, I am, boy. You know I have struggled with a grog habit all my life. And now, with dreams of blood and your poor brothers and sisters occupying my mind, I can’t fight no more. So it is my intention to return to the Nichol and drink myself into the grave. Shouldn’t take more’n a month. Don’t try to find me, as I plan to be drunk and violent. I will shout hello to your mother on my way past the pearlies, and keep an eye on you from the devil’s shoulder.
I was deserted and so have a fear of desertion, concluded the creature that was Albert Garrick. I know this but still feel it.
But there was more to this current pursuit than a fear of desertion. Wherever Riley was, there too would be Chevron Savano. Garrick had an urgent desire to make contact with that young lady, for she possessed the final remaining Timekey, and with that he could return to his own time and be its master.
Garrick knew that in this world he was something of a prodigy; there was much he could achieve, but he would always feel the scrutiny of satellites, crouched like electronic spiders in high Earth orbits. And with enough resources, his enemies could find him and kill him, as there were many with his knowledge in this era. But back in his own time, Albert Garrick could be godlike. In Victorian London, a man with his knowledge and foresight could be a prophet in his own land.
I could lead a revolution against the government. I could discover antibiotics and invent the solar panel. I could build the first working airplane and drop hydrogen bombs on my enemies. There is nothing I could not do.
But first I must open the wormhole. This is where my efforts must be concentrated.
Given ten years, unlimited funds, and the backing of a large government, Garrick knew that he could possibly construct a Timekey, but there was already a key in existence and it hung around the neck of Special Agent Chevron Savano.
That strange and stupid girl, thought Garrick. She will follow procedure and I will trap her in the Bureau’s own red tape. Once I have the key, all I need is five seconds with the WARP pod.
Garrick quickly posted out a Be On the Lookout report to the Bureau network for Chevron Savano, and tested the extent of his new computer skills by inserting her on the FBI’s most wanted list. The hazmat team was gone, so why not make Miss Savano responsible for killing them?
Hazmat, thought Garrick. What a delightful word.
Garrick removed his own bowler, plucked Smart’s softbrimmed hat from the stand by the desk, and, tip-tapping his spidery fingers along the brim, put it on.
Only six people in the Bureau have met Felix Smart since he came to London. Four are dead, one is on the run, and the last is on assignment in Iraq.
“Hello, Waldo,” he said, trying out Smart’s voice. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Agent Gunn. At last we meet face-to-face. I believe you’ve got a couple of fugitives for me in the penthouse?”
It was a fair approximation of the Scottish agent, and perhaps there was more he could do to bolster his impersonation. He was the master of illusion, after all, and the world’s first quantum man.
Garrick checked his appearance in the hat-stand mirror. His face had always been plain as tapioca, which was a boon in his line of work, as people tended not to notice him, or to forget him instantly if they did. During his theater days, he would literally paint a personality onto his face, changing it to suit the illusion.
Garrick stared into the mirror and watched as his skin began to bubble.
For Garrick had come by more than knowledge in the wormhole; he had gained control of his own workings, right down to the smallest particle. Where most men operated on a small slice of brain, Garrick had the choice of the whole pie. This did not lead to telekinesis, but it meant Garrick could communicate with his own fibers more efficiently. He could control the whorls of his own fingerprints, or the balance of his thyroid to turn hair gray. Or, with a little effort, he could communicate with the marrow in his bones or the layers of fat under his epidermis to entirely change his appearance. He could not become just anyone, nor stray too far from his own mass, but he could certainly allow a physicality that was already inside him to emerge.
THE GARDEN HOTEL. MONMOUTH STREET. LONDON. NOW
Chevie took a quick shower, strapped a gel-mask across her eye to bring down the swelling, then checked the closet for something to wear other than the workout gear, which seemed to scandalize Riley. There were numerous outfits to chose from, all draped in plastic, including several pairs of crime-scene overalls, a leopard-skin dress, and a puffy cartoon character mouse costume.
Some of these people were deep, deep undercover, she thought, selecting an Armani suit and a pair of black Bally loafers that would have cost her more than a month’s pay.
Finally. A perk. The suit fitted well, and after Chevie had checked herself in the full-length mirror, she sat down to compose a report on the bedroom computer, trying to make the day’s events read more like real happenings than an episode of a sci-fi miniseries.
Found out I was guarding a time machine in case the inventor happened to pop in from the nineteenth century.
Nope, there was no way to make it sound like a serious report, even by using bureau buzz terms like unsub, asset, and AO.
By the time she had pounded out five hundred words on the keyboard, Chevie was developing a headache behind her right eye and was glad to hear the doorbell ring. She pulled off the gel-mask.
The cavalry, finally.
Riley was still stuck in front on the TV when she passed by, stuffing his face from a platter of cold meats.
“I hope you’re not drinking brandy,” said Chevie.
“Absolutely not,” said Riley, waving a brown bottle. “Beer only, Agent. I do as I am told, I do.”
Chevie deviated from her course to snag the beer bottle. “No alcohol, Riley.” She nodded at the screen. “How are you liking the twenty-first century?”
Riley burped. “The Take That are most melodic. And God bless Harry Potter is all I can say. If not for him, all of London would have been consumed by the dark arts.”
“Keep eating,” said Chevie, thinking that she would have to watch the videos with him next time. “And you can stop worrying, kid. Help is here.”
“We need all the help we can get, Agent. You should fill your belly, so we can face the challenges of the day with full bellies and without weevils in our shirts, eh?”
Chevie was not sure what a weevil was, but she was pretty certain that she did not want one in her shirt.
“No weevils,” she said. “I’m with you on that one.”
She left Riley by the TV and walked to the door, flattening herself to the wall as she had been taught, drawing her weapon, and pointing it at the spyhole. There was a small video intercom mounted on the wall beside the door, and Chevie was relieved to see Waldo on the screen, looking even grumpier than last time, which was somehow reassuring. The security camera showed that the hobbit-like liaison officer was alone in the corridor.
Chevie pressed the talk button. “Has the Bureau team arrived?” she asked.
“They are on the way,” replied Waldo. “I am to debrief you, apparently. Though that is not in my job description. What do they think I am, a secretary?”
“Don’t get your baggins in a twist,” said Chevie. She holstered her Glock and opened the door. “This is an important case. We need to work together.”
Waldo stood in the hallway, hands behind his back, not looking remotely in the mood for cooperation.
“Work together, you say? Like you worked together with the hazmat team?”
Chevie felt her stomach lurch and reached for her pistol. She even managed to get it clear of the holster before Waldo whipped a stun gun from behind his back and fired two needletipped darts into Chevie’s chest, sending 50,000 volts sizzling through her frame. Chevie felt the shock like a thousand hammers pounding on every inch of her skin, forcing her to her knees and then onto her back.
“I got the BOLO from Agent Orange,” she heard Waldo say. His voice was thick and slow, floating from far away. “You killed those men, and one of them owed me money.”
No, Chevie wanted to say. It’s a trick. You’re being tricked.
But her tongue felt like a
“I’ve got one more charge,” said the harmless-looking hobbit in that faraway, underwater voice.
Run, Riley! Run! Chevie wanted to scream, but all that came from her mouth was a hiss of dry air.
Riley heard the exchange in the hallway, and then that particular rumbling sound of a body falling over. Garrick! he thought, and sprang to his feet on the sofa. He wanted to help, but that would seal his own fate as well as Chevie’s.
I must hide, he realized. But there was no time for such tactics, as Waldo stepped briskly into the living room brandishing a metal tube.
“I will only use this,” he said, “if you attempt to flee, if you attack me, or if you insist in speaking in that ridiculous accent.” Riley tested the spring of the cushions underneath his feet. With my training, I could jump clear over that little man’s head, like
Spring-Heeled Jack, he thought. That baton of his won’t be much use if I stay beyond arm’s length. Riley bounced twice, then threw himself into the air, arcing over Waldo’s head, leaving the FBI agent no choice but to shoot him in the stomach with the second charge from his stun gun.
Riley’s head hit the floor with a thump, and in his dream the thump was Albert Garrick rapping him on the forehead with sharp knuckles during a lesson.
“Attention, son,” he said. “This is one of the basic principles of stage magic, which is the kind we are stuck with presently.”
They were on stage at the Orient, where Riley’s lessons were conducted. On these boards he studied fencing, marksmanship, strangulation, and poisons, as well as the more exotic skills of escapism and camouflage.
“Now, I pose the question again: Where is the guinea?” Riley stared at the three cups on the boards where he knelt and hesitantly pointed to the center cup, already knowing that the coin would not be his.