It cannot last, of course. A narrower, human-dug canal crosses the bayou from north to south. The fifolet turns south along it, so they do as well.
“I wonder what these canals were for?” Caleb says. “Or are for?”
It is strange that Caleb wonders such things. The canal is here; humans built it; what does it matter why?
“Because it would be cool to know the history.”
Mortal nonsense.
“You only say that because you lived history.”
An odd sound interrupts the silence of the swamp—not the movement of animals through the underbrush, or the splash of fish or muskrats, or the whisper of the breeze through the tree limbs. This is more of a dull clatter.
“Like wooden wind chimes,” Caleb suggests uneasily. “But not quite.”
The sound comes and goes with the wind. The canal intersects a second bayou, or perhaps a branch of the first, and they turn once again deeper into the swamp. As they go, the animals become less frequent, and soon all is still except for the sway of branches in the breeze and the clatter of whatever is in front of them. It feels as though the world is holding its breath.
“Look,” Night whispers, voice so low it is barely an exhalation.
Ahead of them, hanging from a tree like a macabre wind chime, are human bones.
“You should eat something, John,” Zahira said.
John stared at the ceiling of the hotel they’d checked into. He and Ryan shared this room; though Zahira had ended up on another floor, she’d come up so they could order room service together. He’d only shrugged when they asked him what he wanted, then stretched out on top of the duvet on his bed, listening but not moving when the food arrived.
At first, he’d thought the ceiling was perfectly white. But as he stared, he became aware of a discoloration. Somewhere, amidst the pipes and ductwork, moisture had begun to drip. In time, the stain would grow darker, larger, until everything crumbled.
SPECTR had betrayed him before, in the form of Graham Forsyth. And certainly working under District Chief Barillo hadn’t been fun for anyone. But thanks to Kaniyar, he’d been able to put those instances down to bad actors. People abusing their power within the organization, but who had ultimately been excised like cancerous tumors, before their evil could metastasize to the whole.
He’d been a fool. Forsyth hadn’t been some rogue agent—he’d been Executive Assistant Director for the Non-Human Entity Research Division. No one got that high up, was granted so much funding for his twisted projects, without structural approval. His demon army hadn’t been the start of malfeasance, but rather one more ugly incident in a long sequence.
Ever since John had decided to go to the Academy and train to become an agent, he’d looked at SPECTR as his replacement family for the one that had rejected him. But the truth was, they’d been the ones to take his real family from him. Worse: they’d stolen his very identity, then stepped in and made sure he continued to be their tool.
The sense of betrayal was so huge it crowded out everything, leaving him numb.
“John?” Zahira asked again.
“I’m not hungry,” he replied this time.
Forks scraped on plates. “You need to keep up your strength,” Ryan said. “Come on. Just take a few bites out of your burger. Or the fries—they’re a little limp, but it’s hard to go wrong with potatoes.”
More to make them happy than anything else, John dragged himself off the bed. Zahira ate at the room’s tiny desk, and Ryan perched on his own bed. John took his burger and fries back to his bed and sat on the edge, balancing them on his lap. None of it looked appetizing, but he forced himself to eat some of the fries.
Maybe it was what he’d needed, because once he was done, he found the smell of the burger more appetizing. Before he knew it, he’d eaten the entire thing.
“Better?” Ryan asked.
“Better,” John conceded. Physically, at least. He gathered the empty plates and stacked them on the tray, before depositing it in the hall.
When the door was closed again, Zahira said, “What are you going to do?”
John went to the window and looked out. He could see the lights of the airport glittering like stars, the planes streaking the sky like comets. “I don’t know. All of my answers are somewhere—in some SPECTR storage room, most likely, unless they were shredded or deleted.”
It could happen. No one would ever know all the horrors the CIA had perpetrated during MKULTRA, thanks to the purposeful destruction of documents. Why should Operation Mephisto be any different?
Sekhmet give him strength. SPECTR had taken literally everything from him, including his name. Let him continue on with the delusion he was John Starkweather, because it was more convenient for them. Told his actual family…what? That he was dead? Or had they been paid off, the way the Starkweathers had apparently been paid off?
He’d been so proud to be an agent. So convinced SPECTR was righteous, even when the evidence otherwise had stared him in the face.
“Do you think Director Kaniyar knows?” Zahira asked softly.
“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” John leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window. “Who knew what, and when, and kept it from me? Did the administration at the state school know? What about the Academy? Kaniyar was district chief—did she know even then, when I first came to work for her? Is that why she expected so much from me, or did she just think I was good on my own merits?”
“I’ve never met her, obviously,” Ryan said, “but the fewer people who know a secret, the more likely it is to stay that way. And I’m guessing this is something SPECTR absolutely doesn’t want getting out. Something like Operation Mephisto has to have a high level of classification.”
“Was it some project of Forsyth’s?” Zahira wondered. “Before he decided to start building a demon army out of regular people, maybe he considered building one out of paranormals. Only he tried drugs to control them instead of shock collars.”
Maybe. But the Forsyth scandal had taken down a lot of people, including the former director. If Kaniyar knew…
He could just ask her. He’d always trusted Kaniyar to do the right thing. Though what would she even consider the right thing in this case? Kaniyar was many things, including ruthlessly practical.
Or had his trust been misplaced all along? If she’d known from the start…but as Ryan had said, that seemed unlikely.
Didn’t it?
Thank Goddess Caleb wasn’t here. The thought felt disloyal, but the truth was, Caleb wouldn’t consider this rationally. He’d declare Kaniyar was in on it, that SPECTR was rotten to the core, and they couldn’t trust anyone in the agency apart from Zahira.
Maybe he’d even be right. But angry ranting wouldn’t help John figure any of this out. As for Gray, he’d want to take the most direct action possible, starting with Walsh.
He wouldn’t go on a bloody rampage without John’s permission. But given the things Walsh had said, how he’d spoken so easily about abandoning the girl possessed by the naga, how he’d framed the torture of children as a scientific necessity…John would be lying to himself if he said the temptation to turn Gray loose wasn’t there.