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On the second floor of a quiet house, a few miles outside the city limits of Toronto, Ontario, a single window glowed amber in the fading twilight.

A peek inside would reveal a large man hunched over his desk. Although he was young, barely out of his teenage years, the man’s appearance was intimidating, even frightening. Long, tawny hair trailed halfway down his expansive back and hung in curtains over his shoulders as he hovered above his work. His beefy hand rose to stroke his double chins, the thick fingers tugging absently at his unkempt beard.

The females in Terrance Phillip’s life – friends, always just friends, with the exception of his mother – told him that if he would only cut his hair and shave that beard once in awhile, he might actually have a shot at picking up a woman. Terrance – or TP, as he now preferred to be called – didn’t believe them. All the hair hid his fat rolls, he felt, and gave people something besides his girth to notice about his physical appearance. Besides, it was just easier, not having to mess around with going to the barber or shaving every morning.

It was easier to hide behind the hair, just as it was easier to claim that he was too busy for a social life, what with community college and his pizza delivery job, and that he would rather stay at home than go out, anyway. In reality, the existence he lived was a lonely one, but even for the loneliest of souls, life is not without its pleasures.

Terrance, bending over his scrapbook, was immersed in one such pleasure. Last night had been the best of his life, and eighteen hours later, he was putting the finishing touches on the page that would preserve it, a memento he would always have to look back on, an exquisite record of a dream come true.

He had collaged every scrap he’d salvaged from the concert he had attended the night before, from his ticket stub right down to the bits of confetti he’d plucked from his hair and beard after the show. He’d listened to all of their albums, in chronological order, as he’d worked, singing along to the lyrics he knew by heart.

“Na-na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na, na… na-na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na…” he belted out in his toneless voice, using glue dots to carefully adhere the confetti pieces to his scrapbook page. “… I wanna show you how good it will be… Never needed anyone the way I need you right now…”

He drummed his slightly gluey fingers on the desktop, smiling down at the case of the CD that was playing, where the youthful faces of his four idols grinned up at him from a pit of colorful balls. It was their greatest hits album, Best of The Moffatts, and until last night, Terrance had never heard the songs on it sung live and believed he never would.

He’d been a boy of fourteen when his favorite band, The Moffatts, had gone their separate ways. For nine years, he had regretted never having convinced his mother to take him to one of their concerts, believing it was now too late. And then, just a few months ago, the announcement that had left him weeping for joy in front of his computer. A one-night-only Moffatts reunion show, right in his hometown of Toronto!

It had seemed almost too good to be true, that the four brothers would be reuniting for this one show, and that they’d be playing it on the complete other side of the country from their own home city, Vancouver. But the news was more than a dream. For Terrance, it was a dream come true.

He’d thrown all of his energy into preparing for the show, and now that it was over, he felt oddly depleted, lethargic. It had been a difficult day; on one hand, he’d reveled in the memories of seeing his favorite band live after all these years, but on the other, the post-concert depression had affected him physically almost as much as emotionally. He’d felt tired, under the weather, all morning, as if he were coming down with the flu. But he knew it wasn’t that. All he had was a case of the blues.

After lunch, he’d printed out his photos, sorted through his souvenirs, and sat down to scrapbook, hoping the memories and music would lift his spirits. And they had. He’d worked happily through the afternoon.

He reached for the last piece of metallic confetti, plucking it up carefully between his sausage-like fingers, so as not to smudge its shiny surface with his fingerprints. He dropped it into place on the scrapbook page and drew his fingertip along its edges to smooth it down. The swiping motion was too quick, and the edge of the confetti sliced into his index finger.

“Ow!” hissed Terrance, pulling his finger back as if he’d been burned. He held it up to the light to inspect the damage and saw a long slash across its tip. Beads of blood were starting to appear between the parted flaps of skin. It stung terribly. “Uncle Fucker, that hurts!” he exclaimed, sticking his finger in his mouth. He sucked on the blood, and his saliva worked to soothe the sting in his finger.

“Terrance! Dinner!” his mother’s voice drifted from downstairs, and Terrance turned down the music a little, checking the wall clock mounted among his Moffatts posters. It was already six o’clock.

Mooooom, I told you – it’s TP!” he called back. He looked down at the nearly-complete scrapbook page. He hated to leave it unfinished, but he also hated missing mealtimes. With a sigh, he put the CD player on pause and rose from his chair.

With the motion and effort of hoisting himself to his feet, the nausea came. It came suddenly and severely, and Terrance doubled over, one arm wrapped protectively around his stomach while the other clapped across his mouth as he tried to fight his gag reflex. The effort was in vain; after a couple of dry heaves, a sickly burp gurgled out of his throat, and in its wake came the vomit, rising unstoppably up his esophagus like magma in a volcano.

He erupted then, projectile vomiting right over his desktop, and as the acidic chunks of his partially-digested stomach contents spattered across his scrapbook, he cried out in horror, not only because his day’s work, his lifetime’s memories, were ruined, but because the vomit, like hot magma itself, was tinged bright red.

His cry was choked by a second attack of uncontrollable vomiting, and what finally brought his mother racing upstairs to his room was the thud of her son’s heavy body slamming into the floor above her as he collapsed.


  


“008!” Agent K shouted, causing the blonde-haired agent on the other side of the gym to look up from his punching bag and run over.

“Mornin’ K,” Nick replied, out of breath. It was then that he noticed the young man standing next to his boss. This couldn't possibly be good news… “What’s up?”

“I have a surprise for you, 008,” K replied. Nick looked at him expectantly, and he continued, “This is one of our new recruits, Chris Brown.”

“Okay…” Nick hoped this conversation wasn’t going the way he knew it would. He already had so much on his mind after everything that had happened to him over the last few months; the last thing he needed was-

“He’ll be paired with you while he’s in training.”

“Aww, come on, K!” Nick whined, and then looked at K with a raised eyebrow. “You really want me training a new agent?”

“There’s no one else who can, 008, so I don’t have a choice.”

“But I don’t have time for a shadow, K.”

“You’ll make time for a trainee, 008, or I’ll make time for you by keeping you away from any missions for another six months. Is that clear?”

Nick groaned. “Yes, inescapably clear, K.”

“Good.” He gave Chris a pat on the back, then looked back over at Nick. “I’m sure you two will get along just fine. Try to stay out of trouble.”

I was trying to stay out of trouble in the first place, Nick thought to himself. How am I supposed to get anything done with this kid following me around like a shadow?

“So…” Chris said once K walked away, noticing Nick deep in his own thoughts.

“Oh, sorry, man.” Nick said, as if waking himself up. He shook Chris’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Chris; I’m Nick. Please don’t call me 008.”

Chris laughed and shook Nick’s hand. “Hey, Nick. And you don’t have to call me Chris; people usually call me Styx.”

“Cool, Styx,” Nick said, before an awkward silence crept up on them. He looked back, saw the sparring ring was unoccupied, and an idea struck him like a moonwalking penguin that wasn’t paying attention to where it was going. “So, how about we get to know each other better and start your training at the same time?”

“Sounds good to me,” Styx replied, looking over at the same spot and flashing Nick a smile that he was sure made him as popular with the girls as Nick’s trademark grin had made him. Styx followed Nick over to the mat and took off his hoodie, revealing a wifebeater that showed off his defined muscles. Nick hadn’t expected anything less, since he knew that strength and agility were important qualities that HimTak looked for in its trainees. The question he had now was, Just how strong and agile is this kid? And why does K seem to think that no one else around here can train him?

“Let’s start with one round, and we’ll see how this goes. Alright?”

“Yep!” Styx gave him a nod as he stepped onto the large mat and got into a fighting stance, with his right fist near his ear and his left fist closer to the front of his face. Nick hit the “start” button on the automatic buzzer and got into his own fighting stance as they stared each other down, waiting for the first bell to sound. As it did, seconds later, Nick and Styx moved closer to each other, careful not to bring their fists down from their faces.

“So, how old are you?” Nick asked.

“Twenty-two. You?” Styx responded, taking a shot at Nick.

Nick ducked and moved to the side, taking a swipe at Styx. “Twenty-six.” He tried to throw a roundhouse kick, but Styx narrowly avoided it. “Where are you from?”

“Virginia.” Styx threw a kick of his own, but Nick was already on the other side of the mat, ready to throw another punch at him. “But I was recruited here from Duke University in North Carolina.”

“Duke, huh?” Nick’s punch landed in Styx’s arm, not its intended target. Styx was unfazed and tried to counter, but Nick blocked his punch.

“Yeah, I was a drummer in the marching band.” Styx tried to kick Nick in the stomach, but once again missed his target. He shook it off and refocused himself.

Nick watched him closely as they circled each other, formulating his next question. If there was one thing he’d learned from his time listening to Grasshopper and his wacky proverbs, it was that fighting was like a dance. One person leads, the other person follows, and right then, he was leading. The next move was his, and he needed to figure out what that move was going to be. He wasn’t going to let his new shadow get the best of him during their first sparring session. “So,” Nick said, taking a step to his right and smirking as Styx did the same. “How does someone go from being a marching band drummer to this?” Nick took this time to quickly step forward and throw a punch at Styx.

Styx, anticipating that Nick would strike, blocked the punch, although not as well as he had hoped, since the force of the hit did jolt him a bit. “Well, I got my degree in Criminal Justice. I also learned how to fight when I was about sixteen, because guys kept trying to kick my ass for hanging out with their girlfriends. I was sick of getting into trouble, wanted to know how to get myself out,” he explained, amongst various kicks, punches, and dodges from both sides.

Nick chuckled. “Girl trouble, huh? I’ve been there.” He threw another kick that Styx actually caught. He grabbed Nick’s leg and pushed him to the ground, a move that impressed Nick, since he probably would have done the same thing. It was then that he realized why K had assigned Styx to be his trainee: they were very much alike. Still, he wasn’t sure if that would work to his advantage, or be more trouble than he’d already expected.

“Not anymore, though,” Styx said with a sigh. “Well, actually, now I have a different kind of girl problem.”

“How so?” Nick asked, having picked himself up a few moments earlier. They’d resumed their pattern of circling the mat during the lulls in their conversation, but Nick was about to test a way to keep Styx on his toes. He remained in his place as Styx responded to his last question.

“My girl is pissed ‘cause I can’t spend as much time with her as I should,” he explained as they continued to circle the mat. Styx guessed that Nick was trying to surprise him with a random attack, which only caused him to be even more guarded, while continuing, “I think she’s about ready to kick my ass. She’s sexy as hell, but she could rearrange my face if she wanted to.”

“Sounds rough,” Nick replied, knowing quite a few girls who matched that description – most of whom worked for HimTak. “What does your family think of her?”

“They love her,” he replied, still wondering when Nick would make his next move. “Everyone thinks we’re a hot couple.” Styx was beginning to grow impatient, but knew that Nick was counting on that. “What does your fam’ think of you working here?”

“Actually,” Nick began to reply, finally making a move to swiftly kick Styx’s feet out from under him, successfully causing Styx to fall hard to the ground.

“Oh Nicky, be gentle; don’t hurt the fresh meat too quickly!” Lancy called out to Nick from where he stood just inside the door. He ran his eyes up and down Nick’s sweaty body. “What can I get you to do to get that sweaty with me?”

“How long have you been standing there?” Nick asked Lancy, holding his hand down to his defeated trainee. With one swipe to move his hand away, Styx kicked his legs out and jumped to an attack-ready position.

“You distracted me,” he spat out. “Rematch.”

“You’re not bad though, kid. Just takes time and training; you should’ve seen me when I started.”

Lancy giggled. “He was tripping over himself every two steps. I’d rush to help him, of course.”

“I still want a rematch, man.” Styx grinned good-naturedly. “See if I can’t teach you a move or two.”

“Boys, boys, as much as I’d love to watch you fight over me, Red has requested the honor of your presence in her lab.”

“New, and already being requested…” Smirking at Nick, Styx moved towards the door to leave, only to be stopped by Lancy placing his hand on his chest. He let out a small “oh.”

“Oh honey, not you; she wants Nick.” Lancy stuck his lips in the form of a pout at Styx. “You can stay in here and get all sweaty with me.” A small smile spread across Lancy’s face into a wide grin.

Nick pushed his way past the two, trying hard to hide his growing smile. “You boys have fun.” When he was safely away, Nick let the chuckle he was suppressing come to a hearty laugh. Quickly, he made his way to Red’s lab, curious as to why she would send someone to disrupt a training session. Pushing his way through the doors, Nick started to say some smartass comment, but stopped himself, seeing Jay and K standing in the room, waiting expectantly. K’s face was serious, showing no signs of the Disney mission months before and the side Nick had been able to glimpse that one time.

Nick moved his eyes from where Jay and K stood to Red Jewel’s face. Her face was solemn, though she attempted to smile when she saw the blonde agent walk into the room. “What’s new?” Nick asked, dispensing with his usual quirky banter. He could see this was not the time.

“An old friend just called me…” Red started.

“Was she not a good friend?” Nick asked playfully.

“Nick! Not now.” Red continued, “She works for the CIDPC, Canada’s Center for Disease Control, basically. There’s been some new outbreak that no one is able to pinpoint the origin of. The threat is fast-acting: those who are infected feel fine one minute; the next, they are vomiting blood. The cases they have seen come in do not last long, and some medical staff have become infected while aiding the ill.”

Nick had no comment for Red. How could you make a comment of any kind when you’d just found out that there was a disease killing many innocent people quickly?

“She’s called me in to see if I can be of some assistance; I have some resources available to me that she desperately needs.”

“What does her needing your help have to do with me?” Nick asked, feeling a bit selfish for seeming to care only about himself at a time like this.

“Nick, we need you to go with Red. This sounds like an act of bioterrorism. We need to find out how this disease started, how it is spreading, and hopefully find a way to contain the threat.” It was K who spoke. “You and Red will be catching a plane to New York... there, you will meet up with Brian, and the three of you will continue to Canada, where you will research the outbreak. Hopefully, Red will be able to come up with not only what – or who – started it, but also how to contain, if not cure, this disease.”

“You have no time to gather any items.” It was Jay who spoke this time. “You and Red are leaving immediately to the airport. Red is already ready to leave.”

“I was just in the training room; I am covered in sweat and am sure I smell funky. Can I at least clean up?”

Jay and K looked at each other, then verbally agreed. “No” was their answer. The four walked silently from the room. “We packed your gear already, buddy; well, I did ‘cause I have the fashion sense.” Jay handed Nick a bag, ignoring the look he earned from K. “You’ll find enough clothes for a week; everything else you need will be in the car in New York. Airways are already being closed down up north, so you’ll be driving to Canada after you meet with Brian. You can clean up then.”

Nick took the bag from Jay and followed Red down to the garage. Whistling appreciatively at the leg that showed as Red entered the car, he followed suit. The car raced off to take them to the airport. The ride was silent for only a few minutes before Nick could no longer take the quiet. Leaning in towards Red, he began to whisper in a pouty tone. “Too bad we are in such a rush; it would have been nice to take a nice, long road trip alone with you.”

Red rolled her eyes and pushed Nick away. “I wish they’d let you shower before we left. Maybe if they had, I wouldn’t have minded some ‘us’ time.” She smiled at him then.

“There’s always the ride home, Jewel.” He smirked. “There’s always the ride home.”


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