Agent Nomad 1 Read online

  I hit the road with a smash.

  I lay beneath the stars, gasping for breath, as storm-water roared in the gutter beside me. Everything hurt: my hands, my back, my legs. Finally, I forced myself to my feet. Something crunched as I stood, and I realised too late it was the broken shards of my phone.

  Even so, its screen flashed.

  I bent, slowly, to pick it up. Through the cracked remains of the screen, I glimpsed a distorted line of text. Just two words, with enough power between them to make my entire body clench in fear.

  Turn around.

  I turned.

  A figure stood behind me, a gleam of metal in his hands. Was it a knife? He flicked on his phone’s torch, illuminating his face through the rain. He was tall, draped in a thick black coat, and his eyes shone sharper than blades in the night.

  ‘Hello, Natalie,’ said John Smith. ‘We have much to discuss.’

  I stared at him, tight with dread.

  ‘My dad’s a policeman.’ I almost shouted, projecting my voice over the rain. ‘If you hurt me, he’ll find you!’

  I half expected a sneer, or a smirk. I was entirely at his mercy. But instead, John Smith’s expression was … blank. Disciplined. A soldier performing a drill.

  Focusing on the object in his grip, I realised it wasn’t a knife. It was a small metal crossbow, glinting in the dark. It wasn’t loaded with a bolt, but with a translucent bead.

  ‘The weapon is not intended for you,’ he said.

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘It’s for them.’ He tilted his head slightly, surveying the street. ‘The Inductors. I thought they might follow you, although you’ve done a decent job at evading them so far.’ He looked down at the wreckage of my bike. ‘Until now, at least.’

  ‘Who the hell are “the Inductors”?’

  John Smith shook his head. ‘This isn’t a safe place to talk,’ he said. ‘If you want to live, you’ll come with me.’

  I stumbled backward, putting more distance between us. The pain of the crash was fading, but my grazed knees and hands still stung. ‘I’m going to the police. I don’t know who you think you are, mister, but you’d better back off.’

  ‘They broke into your house, Natalie,’ he called. ‘They were looking for you.’

  I stopped walking. Even now, I still desperately hoped it was just a random burglary. Perhaps the men had been after our TV, or the old silverware we’d inherited from my great-uncle.

  Thunder rumbled. Rain splattered around us, eddying into tiny whirlpools at the entrance to a nearby drain.

  I sucked down a sharp breath. ‘I’m going to the police station.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re not.’

  I wet my lips, fighting to make my voice stronger. I’d often heard my mother negotiate with foreign dignitaries via diplomatic phone calls – and although I hadn’t understood her discussions, I’d understood her tone. She had a steel in her voice that could smash a man’s brain far more effectively than a cricket bat.

  ‘I don’t know who you are, or what you want,’ I said, with all the confidence I could muster, ‘but it’s got nothing to do with me. I’m leaving. If I were you, Mr Smith, I’d get out of here before the police arrive.’

  I gave him one last glare for good measure, and began to turn away.

  ‘They’re after you,’ he said, ‘not your father.’

  I paused.

  John Smith must have seen my hesitation, because he took the chance to press his advantage. ‘If you go to the police, Natalie, you’ll only put your father in danger.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure as hell not going anywhere with you,’ I said.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk in a neutral location. There’s a pavilion in the park across the road.’

  ‘No,’ I said sharply. The park was dark, without a single street lamp. I wasn’t stupid enough to head off into the darkness with a stranger – especially not a stranger who mysteriously knew my name and number, and who had a weapon. For all I knew, he was some kind of deranged stalker.

  Down the street was a petrol station, bathed in cold fluorescent light. There would be people in the building – a cashier, at the very least – and I liked the idea of a well-lit location with security cameras.

  ‘There,’ I said. ‘The petrol station.’

  John Smith raised an eyebrow. ‘Well chosen,’ he said. ‘Secure location, lights, CCTV.’ He gave a slow nod – and for the first time, he looked almost impressed. ‘Very well chosen indeed.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Are we doing this, or not?’

  Two minutes later, we stood in the light of the petrol pumps. We were out of the rain, so it was slightly easier to speak, although my entire body was starting to shake with the cold. Probably a bit of shock too, I suppose. It was starting to hit me now: the terror of intruders in the house, my desperate flight through the darkness, hurtling through the air and crashing into the asphalt …

  I balled my fists and tried to control the quiver in my hands, determined not to show weakness.

  Be brave, Natalie, I told myself. Be strong.

  John Smith, I couldn’t help noticing, had concealed his weapon beneath his trench coat. He had also produced a cap with a dark brim, which partially concealed his face, and he angled it carefully to avoid the overhead camera.

  I stood on the most brightly lit patch of concrete, right in front of the building’s doors. I briefly considered going inside, but something told me John Smith wouldn’t reveal his secrets within earshot of the cashier.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘what did you mean about my dad being in danger?’

  He ignored my question. ‘Today in your school gym, I activated a certain device. It was designed to trigger latent abilities in those with the correct potential.’

  I blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘You are the only student who reacted,’ he said. ‘I do, in fact, owe you an apology. I never imagined someone with such strong potential would be sitting in that gym. If I’d known, I would never have awoken your abilities in public.’

  He shook his head, looking regretful. ‘Now it is too late. Your power flared into life in a most spectacular way. You think this storm is entirely natural? When a power like yours is first awoken, it causes … ripples.’

  John Smith paused. ‘The Inductors are not fools. Their equipment must have detected the distortions in the lightning. They know who you are, and they are coming for you. If you allow us to help you, you may survive this. But if you try to fight them on your own …’ He trailed off. ‘They will kill you, Natalie. They will kill you, and your father, and anyone else who stands in their way.’

  ‘Who are the Inductors?’ I said. ‘What on earth are you on about?’

  ‘You have a gift, Natalie,’ John Smith said. ‘You felt it today, in the gym – the moment your powers awakened.’

  I stared at him. My throat felt dry and crumbly, as though I’d swallowed a bite of burnt toast. I wanted to deny it, to call him crazy, to run into the petrol station and beg the cashier to call the police.

  But I remembered the gym. The weight of the air. I remembered the wallop of agony, the shock and terror as my body tautened and fire exploded through my veins.

  ‘What …?’ I wet my lips and tried again. ‘What did you do to me?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘I work for a unique organisation,’ he said, his words slow and hoarse. ‘We are not constrained by national borders. We have branches in many countries, and agents in many fields and conflict zones.’

  I stared at him. ‘Like the CIA or something?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You’re a spy? Like James Bond?’

  John Smith hesitated. ‘Our organisation is called HELIX. I am the head of the Australian division. We do not investigate the usual threats that spies and intelligence officers deal with. The dangers we investigate are a little more … specialised.’

  Silence.

  John Smith’s gaze did not waver as
he raised a hand. He thrust it forth, almost like brandishing a sword. As nervous energy flooded my veins, the world seemed to darken, as if I were sinking into a trench of shadowed water.

  The air began to stir.

  I froze, startled. A gleaming tendril emerged from John Smith’s fingers, twisting and curling. It reminded me of a time-lapse video I’d seen on a nature doco, where fronds of a fern had sprouted, grown and curled into a tangled spiral in only moments. The air was oddly … visible. As if a kind of dust had settled in its movement: a dust made of light flecks, or glistening dew. John Smith tugged at it with his fingers, pulling the amber tendrils into a deliberate shape, as if to paint a symbol in the air.

  He pushed the light towards me. It lunged forward, rippling with violent heat. I staggered backward, but the heat pursued me: stinging and painful, as if I’d brushed the side of a boiling saucepan. ‘What …?’

  ‘Heat,’ John Smith said. He looked utterly unconcerned by the security cameras, or potential witnesses. It was as if this wild air were invisible, and no one else could see its shimmer.

  His face grew grim with concentration – and suddenly the tendril was gone, lost in a blast of boiling air. This wasn’t a delicate frond of light. It was a scorching crash that whisked and tossed around our bodies, a whiplash of summer wind.

  With a glint of satisfaction, John Smith smiled. He adjusted the angle of his hand, tilting it backward slightly, and twisting his wrist to the left. He pulled another strand of light through the air, then flipped the shining symbol he’d created upside down. And suddenly – as if he had turned the knob on an air conditioner – the heat vanished.

  In its place, there was cold.

  No, not just ‘cold’. It was ice. Sharp and violent as pure Antarctic air. It blasted my face and I recoiled again, shielding my eyes, as my nose burned with a sudden stinging pain. I was shaking. I felt like a leaf in autumn, ready to crumble into fragments. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be possible.

  Yet somehow, it was.

  John Smith lowered his hand.

  One moment, the air was alive with pain and terror – and the next, it was silent. Just the dappled lights of the petrol station, and the rattle of rain on the street beyond. John Smith looked slightly strained, yet satisfied. For a long moment, I stared at him. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. My tongue had forgotten how to work – or perhaps I’d simply lost the ability to form sentences. I swallowed hard, staggered to my feet, and managed a single word. ‘How?’

  ‘Originally,’ John Smith said, ‘scientists thought that electric and magnetic forces were separate. As it turned out, however, they were merely two sides of the same coin.’

  ‘Huh?’ I said, still too shocked to manage a better response. After that display, the last thing I’d expected was a high school science lecture.

  John Smith smiled. ‘And yet, even now that scientists know of this connection, they are still missing part of the puzzle. There is a third aspect of electromagnetic force.’ He paused. ‘Electricity, magnetism and quintessence.’

  I stumbled over the word. ‘Quin …?’

  ‘Quintessence,’ he said. ‘Of course, you might prefer to think of it as “magic”.’

  I stared at him. My entire body was prickling now, torn between shock and denial. It was insane. It was ridiculous. And yet, I couldn’t deny the weight of truth behind his words. I remembered the light in the gym. The pain in my head. The men at my door, and now the power that had blasted from John Smith’s hand.

  Magic existed. It really existed. It wasn’t just for fairy-tales, or children’s books, or nursery rhymes. It was as real as the rain, or the sky, or the sodden school dress that clung to my skin in the lash of the storm. My mother’s voice rang in my head, over and over: ‘You’re growing up, Natalie. Enough of these silly fantasies.’

  But what happened when fantasy leaked into reality?

  Finally, I shook my head. ‘No, it can’t be! Someone would’ve noticed by now. A physicist, or a mathematician, or –’

  ‘Quintessence cannot be detected by an ordinary human,’ John Smith said. ‘Its magic exists in a non-linear dimension, which most people cannot access. Only certain people can learn to use its power, due to a genetic quirk in their DNA. We learn to gather it, to manipulate it, to utilise its energy.’

  ‘Certain people?’

  He inclined his head. ‘We are called sorcerers.’

  ‘No,’ I said, the word tripping on my tongue. ‘You can’t possibly keep something like that a secret.’

  ‘We are good at keeping secrets,’ he said. ‘Most of us live in the Clandestine Zones – secret colonies of sorcerers, hidden around the world. Others choose to dwell in normal society – and so they put their powers into stasis, and live an ordinary life.’ He paused. ‘Some, I am afraid, join the Inductors. And some of us join HELIX, to fight the Inductors and to protect the innocent.’

  ‘But who are the Inductors?’

  ‘This isn’t the time for details,’ John Smith said. ‘Simply know that they are sorcerers, and they have their own agenda. They will not hesitate to kill to achieve their goals.’

  ‘But if all this is true …’ I struggled to force my wild thoughts into comprehensible sentences. ‘I mean, even if it’s true, what’s it got to do with me?’

  ‘We have been looking for you, Natalie,’ John Smith said. ‘Our detectors indicated a spike in latent magic down here on the peninsula. I have scoured every town nearby to find you.’

  I must have looked alarmed, because he added: ‘When you were a baby, someone placed your powers into stasis. They cut off your connection to quintessence.’

  ‘But who –?’

  ‘In a normal case,’ he went on, ‘we could not detect a sorcerer in stasis, but you are not a normal sorcerer. Your abilities have been straining against the stasis lock, and that internal pressure set off our detectors. It was only a matter of time before our equipment picked you up.’ He hesitated. ‘Ours, or the Inductors.’

  Silence.

  John Smith reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black device. ‘This is called an actuator. It unlocks the power of sorcerers whose abilities have been frozen. When I read the numbers on its screen today, I knew I had finally found what I was looking for.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Quintessence behaves unusually for an aspect of electromagnetism. It gathers around living creatures, floating like an invisible cloud. Every sorcerer can learn to control his or her quintessence – to tame it, and to use its magic.’ He stared intently at me. ‘However, there is an even rarer power. Only one or two sorcerers in a generation will be born with such an ability. They are called Witnesses.’

  I stared. ‘Witnesses?’

  John Smith nodded. ‘A Witness is a sorcerer, just like any other. He or she will possess a certain amount of quintessence, and can learn to control its magic. However, a Witness also possesses a very special power. The rarest of them all.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The power to see the quintessences of others. The power to see the magic that gathers around us all.’ He held up his hand, a solemn look upon his face. ‘A Witness can look at a man and see what magic he is performing. A Witness can read another sorcerer’s quintessence like a book, and reveal his magical secrets.’

  ‘I still don’t see what it’s got to do with –’

  He cut me off. ‘What colour was the symbol I just made?’

  ‘Amber.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have seen that,’ John Smith said. ‘I should be the only one who can see my own sorcery. Only me, or a Witness. You are a Witness, Natalie Palladino. Your powers have finally been awoken.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘And now,’ he said, ‘you are in more danger than you could ever imagine.’

  John Smith gave me a long, steady look. ‘The Inductors will come for you,’ he said. ‘You are a threat to their plans, and a threat to their secrets. By reading
their quintessences, you could unmask their evil, or uncover the illegal magic they have performed. They do not recruit Witnesses. They do not trust Witnesses. It is their leader’s policy to kill any Witness on sight.’

  ‘But they can’t –’

  ‘I know how they operate, Natalie. They will isolate you. They will trap you alone, exposed and vulnerable. Tonight, they used a sorcerous firewall to block your phone signal, to prevent you from seeking aid. If I hadn’t known how to sneak a message through their system, you would already be dead.’

  My fists clenched. ‘Mr Smith,’ I said, ‘I can’t just –’

  ‘My name is not John Smith,’ he cut in. ‘I have many names, and many titles. If you wish, you may call me Centurion.’

  ‘Centurion?’

  ‘It’s a codename,’ he said. ‘You will need to choose one too, if you join us.’

  ‘Join you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If you joined HELIX, you might make a real difference to our cause. You could save lives. You could prevent atrocities, and help to keep civilians safe.’

  ‘I am a civilian!’ I said. ‘Look, this is ridiculous – I haven’t even finished high school, I can’t just pack up my things and run off to join a … a magical spy agency, or whatever you are.’

  But even as I said it, my resolve was crumbling. After a childhood of travelling, I’d spent five long years in Hollingvale. Every day I woke in the same room, with the same light streaming in my window, dappled by the same gumtree. I passed the same streets. The same houses. The same school and teachers. I even ate the same soggy tomato sandwich for lunch every day.

  It was as if my life was a novel, but now I was trapped on a single page. All I could do was read the same few paragraphs, over and over. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year. I’d give anything to start a different chapter.

  And so, although I was going through the motions, saying the things I should be saying, the things that any rational, sane person would say … I was in no way rational.

  Perhaps I wasn’t entirely sane.