Jim Baen's Universe

Introducing: Stories by new authors

The Girl With the Killer Eyes

Written by B. B. Kristopher

Illustrated by Ural Akyuz

"Look, Roy, I'm telling you—"

"Yeah, Mike, I got it. A really hot redhead who shoots laser beams out of her eyes."

Jodie looked up from the guest register she was filling out intending to make a scathing comment about sexism in the work place and men who treated women like sex objects, but the two men who were talking weren't even looking in her direction. One was a tall man with graying brown hair and the other was a shorter man with thick curly brown hair and olive skin. Both men seemed completely oblivious to anything but their conversation, at least if the flailing arms were any indication.

"Dude, don't start."

"Start?" the taller man said. "Mike, we've been having this same conversation for years. You can't see the future."

The shorter one, Mike, raised his index finger. "Then how do you explain Amber?"

"If that makes you able to see the future, then our entire high school qualifies. I'm the only person in the school who didn't think she'd cheat on me."

"But—" Mike said.

"And then there's football."

"Don't go there," Mike said in a warning tone.

"We've made the same bet every year for sixteen years . . ."

"Dude, this is Buffalo's year."

". . . and every year you lose."

"But—" Mike said.

"You owe me twelve hundred bucks."

"That much? Really?"

"Yes!"

"But—"

"I don't even watch football!"

The conversation trailed off as the two walked through the security checkpoint. Jodie shook her head, trying to get rid of the headache that had been building steadily through the bureaucratic nightmare that was the last two days, and turned back to the latest bit of paperwork. Once she finished signing her life away, the guard handed her a visitor's badge with a small, blurry, reddish picture of her printed on it.

"Just follow the green line, darling, and Special Agent Peterson will meet you," the guard said.

Jodie started to bristle but she stepped on it. In the last forty-eight hours, she'd been called honey, darling, baby, and sugar more times than in the entire rest of her life, but mostly it had been by women who were either older, African-American, or who had a heavy southern accent. Near as she could tell, it was just normal around Atlanta. Knowing that didn't do anything for her headache, however.

"Thank you," she said, doing her best to take it in the spirit in which it was offered. She picked up her purse and headed for the security checkpoint.

The checkpoint was the usual elaborate affair with thick walls, lots of guns and even more guards. She extended the visitor's pass to an armored man who was about 6'6" and built like a professional football player.

"Energy projector, huh?" the guard said as he read her badge. He pointed at the blast tank off to the side. "Try not to punch through the gizmo."

Jodie walked over and put her arm in the tube. "I'll be careful," she said. She took a deep breath and fired a blast into the tank and true to her word, she was very careful about just how much power she let out. First time she'd used a profile tank, she'd punched through the very expensive "gizmo," the bottom of the tank, the floor and a foot of concrete foundation. The guard at the Superhuman Registry Office had been less than amused.

Unfortunately, being careful didn't stop the blast from filling the hall with the rotten egg smell of sulfur.

"She's a match," a woman said from the other side of the barricade.

The guard, his eyes watering slightly, offered her the visitor's pass back.

"Welcome to the Atlanta office, Special Agent Adan," the guard said as the door swung open.

She glanced at his badge. "Thank you, Sergeant Miller."

"Call me Frank. Everybody else does."

****

She was surprised at how short the wait was before a tall woman with straight black hair and a hint of Native American in her features and coloring stepped through the Barricade.

"Hey, Frank," she said.

"Hey, Mary," Frank replied.

Mary turned to face Jodie. "Special Agent Mary Peterson," she said, holding out her hand.

Jodie took it. "Special Agent Jodie Adan."

"Welcome to the Atlanta Office."

"Thanks."

"Well, come on. It's best not to keep HR waiting. They sign the paychecks."

"Right."

****

Two hours, a stack of forms, three hand cramps, a splitting headache and two aspirin later Mary lead Jodie out of the HR office.

"Your head doing any better?" Mary asked.

"No," Jodie said. "It always gets like this when I'm irritated. Airport security, movers, Superhuman Registry Office and HR all in one week . . ."

"Yeah, that would irritate anyone. Come on." They rode the elevator down to the main office and Mary led her into the cube farm where most of the Agents worked.

"Interrogation rooms for normals are off to the left," Mary said, pointing at a series of doors on one side of the farm. She turned and pointed at a massive bank vault style door that stood open off to the right. "The armored interrogation rooms are through that door for the übers."

Jodie flinched at the term and felt another throb of irritation. She hadn't heard anyone use anything other than 'empowered humans' since she was about eight. Mary didn't even seem to notice, she just kept talking, so Jodie decided to let it go.

"If there's ever a breakout, stay clear of the door though. It weighs eleven tons and the rams drive it shut in about two seconds."

Jodie nodded even though she knew all about blast doors. At the academy, they'd shown her a video of an agent who hadn't gotten clear during a breakout. It had been more than enough to drive the lesson home.

"Oh, and you'll want to keep a warm coat at your desk," Mary said. "It gets really hot in the city during the summer, so you'll want to wear lightweight suits, but the office is cut into a vein of granite that shoots off of Stone Mountain, and we've never been able to keep it warm enough."

"I'll keep that in mind," Jodie said. She was honestly grateful for the tip, but it meant shopping. She only had a couple of really lightweight suits. One more adjustment to make, she supposed.

They'd gotten about half way across the cube farm when a carefully folded paper helicopter complete with spinning rotors rose up from one of the cubicles ahead of her, sailed across the aisle and fired a pair of paper missiles through the entrance to another cube.

"Damn it, Roy, I didn't need to know that!"

Jodie groaned as she recognized the voice. It was Mike from the lobby.

Mary sighed and called out, "Am I going to have to separate you two?"

"What?" Roy asked. "All I did—"

Mike stood up and stomped out of his cubical. "All you did was load those stupid missiles with memories of . . ." He stopped and looked right at Jodie.

"What is it, Mike?" Roy asked. He stuck his head around the wall of his cubical and looked at Jodie. His jaw dropped.

"Dude," Mike said.

Jodie held up her hands "Don't say it!"

"But—"

"I mean it," she said. "I do not shoot laser beams out of my eyes."

Roy looked at Mike, who looked absolutely crestfallen, and started laughing. Hard. Pretty soon, other people were sticking their heads over the walls of their cubes to see what was so funny.

Mary gave Jodie an apologetic look and said, "Sorry." Then a long black tentacle stretched out from the shoulder of her suit and gave Roy a shove.

He squawked as he fell out of his chair.

It didn't do much good. Roy shut up, but Mike took one look at him lying on the floor and doubled over laughing.

Jodie reached up and started rubbing her temples, trying to ease her head, "Maybe I'll dye my hair."

****

Special Agent In Charge Scott Coolidge wasn't what Jodie expected. Somehow, she'd expected a man with his reputation to be taller. At 5'10", she had a good two inches on him. Worse, he seemed perky, and one wall of his office was almost covered with photos of women in various mildly suggestive poses.

"So, what brings you to our little corner of the world?"

"Well, sir, I graduated top of my class at Quantico so I got my choice of assignments, and the chance to work with, well, you, sir . . ."

"Ah," he said. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out an old, well worn pipe with a curved stem and slightly fluted bowl. The pipe was a dark yellow, but judging by the ivory white near where the black mouthpiece was attached, the yellow color was mostly a result of age and heavy use. He filled it from a small tin and packed it down with some kind of pocketknife-like tool.

She couldn't help but be surprised. The Bureau had a strict no smoking policy, and as the Special Agent In Charge, seeing that it was enforced was one of his jobs.

"You smoke, Ms. Adan?"

"No, sir."

He touched the tip of his finger to the tobacco and it glowed bright red. As the office filled with the smell of it she felt a flicker of irritation at the fact that he hadn't even asked her if she minded, but he didn't seem to notice. Instead, he took a long pull of the pipe, leaned back and blew the smoke in the general direction of an exhaust fan.

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear, agent," he said mildly. "Most of the stories about me are—"

The door swung open and Mary stuck her head in.

"Sir, we've got a live one."

Coolidge's chair snapped upright and he set the pipe into a shallow indentation in the ashtray on his desk.

"What is it?" he asked, suddenly all business.

"Bank robbery."

"That's a little low end, isn't it?" he asked.

"The perp tunneled into the vault, sir. Cleaned out all the safety deposit boxes and about ten million in cash. Thing is, the vault was cleared in five minutes."

"That does sound like one of ours. I take it team six is up in the rotation?"

"Yes, sir."

Coolidge turned back to look at Jodie.

"What about it, Agent, you feel like working a case today?"

She thought about it for a second. What she really wanted was a couple of more aspirin and a dark room where she could sleep off her headache. She hadn't been properly briefed on her teammate's abilities, or local comm. procedures, or local law enforcement or any of a dozen other things she should know before she went into the field, but Coolidge seemed to expect her to jump at the chance and she didn't want him to think she wasn't up to the job. Not only was he one of the best agents the Bureau had ever fielded, he was also the youngest Special Agent in Charge in Bureau history.

That, and he could sink her career before it even started.

"Yes, sir," she said, not entirely sure she was ready, but deciding there was no way she was going to disappoint Scott Coolidge on her first day.

"Got your badge and gun?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good girl. I hereby dub you Federal Bureau of Superhuman Investigation Enforcement Team ATL—06's official ranged attack specialist. Mary here can fill you in on the way." He turned to Mary. "And Mary . . ."

"Yeah?"

"Try to keep Tweedledum and Tweedledee in line."

She snorted. "Right. Me and what army?"

Before Jodie had time to ask what she meant, Mary turned to her and said, "Come on, kid."

****

The motor pool smelled faintly of diesel, but Jodie was use to that. The bureau always used diesels. They figured the extra pollution was an acceptable trade off for a fuel that was less explosive. After the first time she blew up a car on the training range, she had to admit they had a point.

"First time out on a case?" Mary asked.

"Yeah," Jodie answered.

"Don't worry about it. You'll do fine."

"Right. Who are the other members of . . . oh no."

Mike and Roy were standing by the black Ford Excursion Diesel.

"See what you did?" Roy said. "On the team less than a day, and she already hates you."

"Me?" Mike said. "What makes you so sure it isn't you she hates?"

"Boys," Mary said. "She hates both of you. Now, can we go before APD taints the scene for Mike?"

"Right," Mike said. "I'm driving."

"Like hell," Roy said. "I want to live until dinner."

"Fine," Mary said. "I'll drive, and Jodie here gets shotgun."

"D'oh!" Mike said.

****

Atlanta traffic on a Monday afternoon was different from the L.A. traffic she'd grown up with, the Boston traffic she'd dealt with during her college years and the D.C. traffic she'd gotten use to at the Academy. She'd expected it to be tamer, slower. A bit more genteel. Heck, she'd expected people to yield for the siren and the dome lights.

Instead, she'd spent the last twenty-five minutes clinging to the handle strap above the passenger door of the Excursion as Mary whipped the SUV in and out of traffic and tried to hide her amazement at the number of pickup trucks, minivans, and junkers doing eighty on the midtown connector.

And if the traffic was bad, it was nothing compared to the arguing.

"We should take the Peachtree Street exit and avoid the traffic on the connector."

"You're nuts. If we take the surface streets, the perps will be in Mexico by the time we get there."

"No, don't take the Williams Street exit, go down to the Georgia State exit."

"Dude, she's not going ten minutes out of the way so you can ogle the co-eds."

"Fine, let her get stuck in traffic."

"Both of you shut up!"

By the time they pulled up outside of Peachtree Center, Jodie was convinced she'd been assigned to the worst team in the Bureau. Mike and Roy were idiots, and Mary must have done something spectacularly stupid to get stuck with them.

She also had something close to a full-blown migraine. The light and sound sensitivity hadn't started yet, but she felt like someone was pounding on her head with a sledgehammer, from the inside.

She tried not to think about it. She just put her headset on, set her comm. to the right frequency, got out of the truck and followed them to the bank entrance.

"Sorry, folks, this is a crime scene," the uniformed officer at the entrance said.

Mike held up his badge. "Special Agent Beyer, FBSI. Special Agents Barnett, Peterson, and Adan. Who's in charge?"

"Detective Warner."

"Well, that figures," Roy said.

"Roy," Mike said in a warning tone. "Where is the detective?"

"He's in the vault, sir," the uniform said.

"Thanks."

The uniform stepped aside but his shoulder brushed up against Mike as he walked through door and Mike stopped so suddenly Roy walked right into his back.

"Officer, do you own a Mustang?"

"Yes, sir," the officer said in confusion.

"You've been smelling gas, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't know much about cars, but I can't imagine a leak that's spraying hot gas on your engine block is very safe. You might want to get it towed to the mechanic."

"Yes, sir!"

****

Jodie was still a little stunned by Mike's behavior when they entered the vault. She'd assumed Mary was the senior agent, but the way Mike had taken charge had corrected that impression, and he'd been much more professional than she'd expected too. It was calming, both to her nerves and to the pain in her head.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't—" a man in a bad tan suit started.

"Don't say it," Roy said, cutting him off.

"Say what?" the bad suit asked.

"'If it isn't Nostradamus.'" Roy said in a mocking tone.

"Hey, you stay out of my head."

"Dick," Mary said, "He doesn't have to read your mind to know you're going to spout the same tired jokes that weren't funny the first time. He just has to smell your cheap cologne."

"What, a psychic boyfriend wasn't enough, now he's got a psychic nose too?"

"Warner," Mike said, "You want to fill us in on what happened, or should I start by ordering your people off my crime scene?"

"There's no evidence that this was done by a freak job."

"Hey," Jodie snapped, both her temper and her headache flaring. "Who are you—"

"Adan," Roy said, "leave it. 'Detective' Warner here isn't worth your breath."

Mike stepped past Warner and knelt down next to a large hole in the floor. "Tell you what," he said, "why don't we find out."

"Hey, don't contaminate my . . ." Warner never finished.

Mike touched the edge of the hole and his eyes glazed over. He stayed like that for almost a minute, then stood up.

"Three guys," Mike said. "One was a digger, one's a Telekinetic and one looks to be muscle. The digger got them into the vault. The TK picked the locks and the muscle collected the goods. All three were übers."

"And I'm just supposed to take your word for it?" Warner said.

"You know what," Mike said in an offhand manner, "I'm tired of having this argument with you, Richard. If you think your men can handle three übers, go ahead and send them out. Just don't expect us to clean them up. In the meantime, we're going to do our jobs. Mary, if you would?"

Mary nodded and her suit began to melt and shrink. The white shirt completely vanished as