Green Junco

GREEN JUNCO

Marjorie Clavell Keane

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Marjorie Clavell Keane

Cover and cover image copyright 2013 Marjorie Clavell Keane

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

About the Author

Bonus Material: Sneak Preview

Dedication: For Anita! For Dr. McClure! And for my family, here and gone.

Chapter One

Things aren’t looking so good these days, here in Spook Central. Budget cuts. My partner Jake and I stand before a large rosewood desk while our boss yammers away at us. We’re standing because there are no chairs in the office anymore. Apparently we can’t afford to buy any new chairs, so the ones the PDA already has need to be spread out a little. Jake and I had witnessed the Triumphal Claiming of the Chairs just moments ago as we waited in the hall for our boss to summon us: two profilers had marched like pinstriped warriors into his office, a brief commotion had ensued, some confused squawking, then the profilers had emerged from the office with the chairs held victoriously above their heads—a successful kill!—and had carried them off to Conference Room Three, brimming with satisfaction. Jake and I had watched in silence, disheartened by the scene.

Bad sign? Jake said.

Four horsemen bad, I replied.

Our supervisor’s office is even more cluttered than usual, and I wonder if some of his filing cabinets have been taken along with the chairs. There are about twelve crushed cans of Mountain Dew scattered around the room, as well as a giant drift of shredded paper partly burying a carton of congealing Chinese food. The delicate scents of sweet-and-sour sauce and MSG fill the air.

Gentlemen, Harold says, despite the fact that I am a woman, Intelligence has picked up bizarre readings out in Arkansas. He fiddles with a pencil as he talks. Place near a little town called Berryville. Intelligence is thinking it’s a gate or a summoning, and it’s not authorized by anyone in the Agency.

Ah, I say, while Jake fidgets in place.

The power signature coming out of there is too big to ignore, so we’re sending you two in to investigate.

What? Say what? My inner recording device scrapes to a halt at the alarming word investigate.

Wait a minute, I say. Investigate? Jake and me?

That’s right, Harold says, beaming. You’ll drive in from Little Rock, how does that sound?

That sounds silly, sir, I say. Jake and I don’t do investigations. That’s not our field.

I’ve never investigated a thing in my life, Jake agrees.

Well, Agent Wright, Harold says to me, nearly stabbing his own hand with the pencil, we know that, but lately we’ve had to downsize the intelligence-gathering departments of the Agency. Frankly, you’re all that’s available right now to go out on a field mission.

That’s bad, Jake says, and our supervisor sadly agrees.

Things will be better next year, Harold says. Don’t worry. He tries to hand us a dossier, but neither of us will take it. Here. Here’s the report on your mission. Go on. Take it.

But we don’t know how to conduct intelligence missions, Jake says, looking very unhappy. We’re Combat, not Intelligence. We’re not qualified to do this mission.

You are now, Harold says, beaming again. From this moment on, he glances at his watch, as of six-thirteen A.M. on the twentieth of July, team Green Junco is qualified for investigative missions. Isn’t that wonderful?

Jake and I just look at each other, stricken. Four horsemen! Jake gasps.

Oh, don’t worry about botching the mission up, Harold says, twirling his pencil. It’s just signature relay. We don’t care what you do, just so long as you find out what’s going on in Berryville, and report back to us.

Jake relaxes somewhat. That’s it? We just do some spying in Arkansas, then report back to you?

Well, we also want you to neutralize whatever’s behind the power signature, of course. Unauthorized power of that magnitude is an obvious threat to national security, and must be dealt with accordingly!

Jake and I look at each other again. So we’re allowed casualties?

As many as it takes! Harold says. His doughy face shines with happiness for us. "You can kill civilians, too! Remember the PDA motto: ‘No Loose Ends!’ And our other motto: ‘Keep it Hush-Hush!’ And our other other motto: ‘There’s No Such Thing As Gratuitous Killing!’ Although we’d like to keep the civilian casualties count to a minimum this year. Our collateral damage rate’s been too high lately."

How many civilian casualties is a minimum? Jake asks.

Harold pulls an inter-office memo from a stack of papers and squints at it. Around… thirty, give or take a couple.

Per year?

Per field mission, says Harold.

Holy crap, I say.

Really, it’s a cakewalk, dear. Harold forces the dossier into my hands. Just go down to Berryville, find out what’s going on over there, and neutralize everyone responsible. What could be simpler?

I feel kind of uncomfortable with going out and cutting through a wide swath of civilians to bag a couple of magic-makers, I say.

Oh, like you don’t do worse in Combat, says Harold. Remember what happened in Cape Town!

We had absolutely nothing to do with that fire, Jake says, indignant. And HQ had better not be saying anything different.

Of course, says Harold. We have every confidence in your abilities, Agent Velkinov, with or without the use of accelerants. Now you’d both better hurry. The boss folds his hands on the desk top. Your plane leaves in three hours.

Of course. Jake and I roll our eyes at each other, then we walk out of the room.

* * *

The Preternatural Defense Agency first got its start in 1948, when an FBI agent dashed into a Saint Paul grocery store shrieking, "Oh my sweet Jesus the car flew! and then demanded that the grocery clerk let him use his telephone. What had just been a routine search into Communist activity turned out, forty-five photographs and one reel of film later, to be the very first instance of government-documented supernatural phenomena. Telekinesis, to be exact. Scared the crap out of the DOD. There had been investigations into that sort of craziness before, but nothing so concrete, so well documented, so alien from everyday activity. Something had to be done. Enter, the Investigative Agency against Unnatural Phenomena, or IAUP for short. It was like the FBI and the CIA, only it was bent toward an almost purely supernatural angle. The sole aim of the Agency was to identify, categorize, learn about, and destroy all unnatural" activity—magic, monsters, vampires, werewolves, telepaths, anything considered out of the realm of reality. The Loch Ness monster, the Abominable Snowman. Leprechauns. Mermaids swimming in the Atlantic. Giants sleeping in the earth with hearts tucked away in birds’ eggs. Eight-legged creatures from galaxies away. Anything at all, it was a possibility with the Agency.

I don’t know how high-tech the Agency was when it was still the IAUP, back when computers took up entire rooms and building nuclear fallout shelters was the new national pastime, but I’m guessing the Agency wasn’t too terribly different from what it is today. There’s a guidebook for field agents from 1958 describing how to proceed when confronted with a zombie:

STEP ONE: Decapitate zombie.

STEP TWO: Incinerate zombie.

The most recent guidebook says the exact same thing. That’s one good thing about the Agency: it doesn’t mess with what works.

I leaf through the zombie section of the guidebook while Jake haggles with Requisitions over what hardware we can take on our mission.

The rifle is really very important to me, Jake tells Nadine Moyers, who sits primly before the armory lockup and shakes her head at him. I can live without the nano spies, but I really need a rifle.

Sorry, Agent Velkinov, but it’s pistols only.

"I always get a rifle on a mission," Jake says.

Nadine Moyers shrugs: what can she do? Policy is policy. For this sort of recon mission, we only allow small arms.

"Rifles are small arms."

Compared to pistols, they are not.

Compared to anti-aircraft cannons, they are, Jake says.

You get a Topsy, JA-TECHS, an Atomizer, and your personally-issued firearms and that’s that.

Jake scowls at Nadine. She remains unmoved. I lean over Jake’s shoulder and scowl at her, too. She barely notices me. She scribbles on a requisition form and slides it across the counter to us, and Jake picks it up reluctantly.

I’ll get your equipment, Nadine says, and leaves us standing impotent at the counter.

I’m thinking of filing a complaint with the management, Jake says, looking down glumly at the form in his hand. Do we have a customer satisfaction department in this dump?

I rustle a page of the guidebook. I’ve been looking through the guidebook, and it doesn’t say anything about the proper procedure for spying on people. Jake shifts his glum gaze from the form to my book, and we both contemplate an illustration of a dissected gremlin for a moment.

So nothing about how many car lengths you should keep between yourself and the werewolves joyriding on the highway, then, in here, Jake says.

Nope. But the drawings are nice.

I liked the 2009 version better. You could tell the artist was having a good time with the material.

The vampire battle frontispiece was pretty inspired.

We’re poring over a Venn diagram for poltergeists when Nadine comes trip-trapping back from the armory in her sensible shoes. She dumps a pile of equipment on the counter before us, then hands over a clipboard. Please check all of the hardware and then sign here.

You know, you never gave us a hard time over small arms before, Jake says, picking up the Topsy and inspecting it.

You’ve never been Investigative before, Nadine replies. It’s different from Combat. It requires subtlety.

We don’t do subtlety, I say.

Here’s a tip, then, Nadine says. Don’t get into any public fights and don’t blow anything up.

Thanks, I say, and Nadine smiles and trip-traps away.

That Moyers, I say, "she’s so sassy. Or do I mean classy? I guess she’s both, really."

I’d ruthlessly snub her, says Jake, if only we knew each other outside of work. He pretends to menace Nadine’s vanished form with the Topsy, and I smile.

* * *

We stand in line at the airport, surrounded by vacationing families and clumps of excited, boisterous teenagers. We’re in the line to get in line to go through security. The pre-line line, so to speak. The proto-queue. No private air travel for us. Budget cuts. Jake and I both have government documentation to get us through security with a minimum of fuss, our baggage filled with high-tech gadgets that nobody can get into, no dog can sniff out, no X-ray screen can detect. It’s actually frightening to think about, in this day and age, how two anonymous-looking people can get away with what Jake and I are about to get away with. With the right credentials, I can get away with anything.

Today Jake and I are federal marshals, which will make chitchat with the security personnel entertaining. Lord help us if any real federal marshals show up, spot our badges and paperwork, and decide to talk shop in the airport’s Cinnabon. Once Jake and I were masquerading as FBI Special Agents at LAX, and while I was waving my badge around and Jake was standing nearby, looking important, with the airport personnel looking duly impressed, three real FBI agents who’d also been standing in line moseyed on over to see what was going on. It was mortifying. Jake and I were on our way to decontaminate an infested apartment building in Denver, and had not been planning on explaining ourselves to anyone with any authority at all. The highlight of our conversation with the FBI agents was when one asked what branch we were with, to which Jake had replied, Fresno, to which the agent had replied, There’s no such thing as a Fresno branch. It’s a good thing that Jake and I excel at frantic backpedals, or we’d have looked fraudulent, rather than simply incompetent (and possibly drunk).

When we finally get to security, a uniformed woman glances over Jake cursorily, then away, briefly brushing her eyes over me. I can actually see her dismiss us from her mind. It’s a comforting ritual, well-practiced, the ritual of anonymity. Both Jake and I are like a set of worn-down bookends: normal-looking, easily forgotten, nothing to attract interest. We’re so ordinary and average-looking and invisible that it’s a wonder we show up on film. Jake can fade into the background in a way that nobody else can, blending seamlessly into the scenery. The eye almost doesn’t even register that he’s there at all, much less something to be noticed. Me, I’m like a very well-groomed ficus plant. I’m so neat and uninteresting that I might as well be a ficus, for all the attention I call to myself.

Leaves hardly rustling, we float neatly and serenely through the metal detectors, collect our carry-on bags, and waft Zen-like down the terminal, sniffing out something to eat.

Burger King or TGI Friday? Jake asks, and we link hands like Hansel and Gretel.

Pretzel place, I say, with a sudden hankering.

Cool, Jake says, and we turn in to the pretzel shop like two stately cruise ships, leaving barely any psychic wake behind us.

* * *

We sit side by side on a Boeing 737, our equipment safely stored in the overhead compartments, impossible to get into, stamped with government seals.

I have the window seat, and watch as the plane slowly taxies down the runway, gets in line behind a bunch of other planes. American, Delta, Southwest. Parked at a dock is a little FedEx plane, cute and pointy-nosed. I remember a time when TWA was the only airline I ever used, back when McDonnell Douglas was still around. Even more, I can remember a time when flying was white-only, male-only, and I never would have been able to fly, being a black woman. No metal detectors, no government ID, no security checkpoints, and no me. All of a sudden I feel old. How can so much time have passed, so much changed? I can’t be that old. I don’t feel that old. I take a deep breath and let the shock of time’s passing go, let it recede. I’m only forty-seven. This is ridiculous. Especially considering that my partner sitting next to me, looking no older than twenty-one, was born during the Depression and died before I was born. Just silly.

The plane is pretty full, but we sill have the row all to ourselves. After we take off and the Fasten Seatbelts sign blinks away, I open up the dossier without worrying that civilian eyes will see it.

Hrm, I say, looking over the documents.

Jake grunts and peers over my arm at the papers. Hrm, he agrees.

Haven’t done much signature relay lately, I say, and Jake nods.

I look at the file in my hands and sigh. I hate signature relay. Too much magic involved. I’m much better at sentient object eradication. Just ship me out to the combat zone, point out the demon or monster to be neutralized, and then let me kick its ass. Badabing, badaboom. Job done, target dead, we can all go home and watch TV.

Signature relay missions, though, they’re just dreadful. Bad enough when we just had to neutralize them. Now we have to investigate them as well.

A flight attendant stops in the aisle next to us and says, Would you like some pretzels? and holds out a basket filled with little packages.

Sure! says Jake, and she hands him some packets.

Thanks, I say, and get some packets, too.

I guess airlines just don’t serve peanuts anymore. Probably because everybody seems to be allergic to them these days. It’s all pretzels and little tiny servings of Sun Chips, or Wheat Thins, now.

At least they still have little bitty cups of Coke to wash down the dry and sawdusty pretzels. Sometimes I go crazy and buy a seven-dollar thimble of gin and tonic, but not today. Today I stick to the carbonated crap and like it.

And no plane trip is ever complete without the flight magazine stuck in the front-seat pocket, crammed cover to cover with useless junk. There may be no peanuts on this flight, but by heaven, there is a lot of unnecessary merchandise you can waste your money on.

Hey, look, I say to Jake, flipping through a SkyMall magazine. You can get a Wolverine statuette for a hundred and forty bucks.

Wolverine? Jake peers briefly at the magazine.

Like the X-Men. Like Halle Berry in that God-awful wig, remember?

Oh, yeah. I know.

Jake and me, we’re like the X-Men, come to think of it. We’re the science and genetics side of the equation. Like, the X-Men scraped out of a Petrie dish. Only we can’t shoot beams out of our eyes or fly. And we don’t wear spandex. And we don’t look like supermodels. Jake looks like a nondescript white college kid, despite the fact that he’s older than me, and I look more like Tyler Perry’s Madea than Halle Berry. But we’re awfully strong, altogether. My cells have been pummeled, blanched, spindled, folded, manipulated, and strained through a microscopic sieve, until at last the R&D department could stand back and say, I think we can smoosh a vampire with this one. Jake’s blood is even funkier. Changed, like mine, only mine was changed through industry, while his was changed in one reverberating phantasmal stroke, a long time ago, when he died in 1952.

I think of the crazy little DNA strands in our blood cells, all our cells, winding sideways, ready to fulfill themselves, ready to be useful to technology. I think of the strangeness of what pumps through our veins, through the valves of our indestructible hearts. Bad blood.

I toss down the flight magazine after looking at one too many automated pet-food dispensers and go back to the dossier, which is all the sci-fi I care to handle.

You gonna eat those pretzels? Jake asks, eying my packets, and I hand him one. Thanks.

Last time we went into a signature relay mission, I got goop all over me, I say, frowning down at the dossier.

Yeah, that was messy, Jake says.

"All I can say is, if there’s gunky junk involved in this mission, you’re getting all slimed up this time. You never get gunked on."

I get gunked on all the time.

You never, ever, ever get gunked on, gooped, or any other g-word I can think of.

How quickly you forget the Wall of Blood in ’92.

Oh yeah, I say, remembering, and smile.

Another flight attendant apparates beside us and hands us our drinks. She looks like the world’s most bored flight attendant, like she’s about to fall over in the aisle from terminal ennui. She hands us our drinks in a no-nonsense fashion, which I like and admire.

Thanks, we say, and I gulp down my Coke.

You’re welcome, she replies, in a voice that makes me fear the rigor mortis has set in. The stewardess moves on.

Plus I got gooped that one time in Florida, Jake says. Remember? Over in Miami? With the demi-morphs?

That wasn’t goop, that was a tuna noodle casserole, I say, and you only got a little bit of it on you, anyhow. I hold my fingers one inch apart to show him just how miniscule the amount was.

I remember there being a lot more of it than that, Jake says.

It was a tiny amount, I say.

Huh, says Jake. Then, I’m hungry.

After all those pretzels.

I have a very big stomach, Jake says, and looks mournfully down at his concave, emaciated belly.

I rummage around in my oversized purse and eventually pull out a sack of miniature Butterfinger candy bars. Jake gives a little squeak of joy when I hand him the bag, and tears it open.

See, this is why you’re a goddess and everyone should worship you, he says, grabbing a Butterfinger. Because you’re so incredibly awesome, and you love me.

Yeah, that’s me, I say. Olivia the in-flight goddess of junk food.

Damn straight.

Anyways, I say, and page through the file again, holding up a sheet. County Road one-fourteen, house number eight. Right off of Route K. Half an hour from Berryville. You ever been to Arkansas?

Drove through it a few times. Got lost once around Little Rock.

Huh. I had a sister there, before she moved to Illinois.

Mary?

Jeanette.

Right, right, Jake says.

Don’t know why she bothered to leave home, I say. She just lives in a great big Illinois corn field, instead of an Indiana one. Whew. Never get away from those cornfields. It’s like they’re after us. Haunting us.

That’s creepy, Jake says, complacently.

"Nah. It’s good. The