The Regional Office Is Under Attack!: A Novel Read online

  RIVERHEAD BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by Manuel Gonzales

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  eBook ISBN: 9780698139367

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gonzales, Manuel, date.

  The regional office is under attack! / Manuel Gonzales.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59463-241-9

  I. Title.

  PS3607.O56227R44 2016 2015024640

  813'.6—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  BOOK I ROSE | Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  SARAH | Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  BOOK II ROSE | Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  an interlude: | THE HOSTAGE SITUATION

  BOOK III SARAH | Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  BOOK IV SARAH | Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  ROSE | Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  SARAH | Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Acknowledgments

  For Anabel and Dashiell and, as always, to Sharon

  Get out, get out of my sanctum and drown your spirits in woe.

  —Pythia, the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi

  From The Regional Office Is Under Attack:

  Tracking the Rise and Fall of an American Institution

  If you were wealthy, but extremely so, and you were in the market for a lavish adventurous getaway, one that might require the retainer of Sherpas—in the event that you came across a mountain you wished to scale—as well as a hot-air balloon and balloon crew in case, well, that came up, too, the desire, if you will, to hot-air-balloon over the glacial formations off the southern coast of Chile, then you could hardly do better than to contact the staff at the Morrison World Travel Concern. Located on the ground floor of an unassumingly expensive building on Park Avenue between Fifty-Sixth and Fifty-Seventh, the Morrison World Travel Concern catered to only the most lavish of vacations.

  Although, in truth, if you were the kind of wealthy individual who could afford the kind of service provided by the Morrison Concern, more than likely, they would have already contacted you. They had been known to do this with an almost preternatural instinct for not just the best way to find you but for offering you a vacation package you didn’t know you had always longed for until it was offered. Then, once it was offered, you would experience such a strong urge to take the vacation they had suggested that you would be practically unable to do anything else until you had.

  The agents of the Morrison Concern once set up an illegal nighttime zip-line tour of the Manhattan skyline (for a prince of Saudi Arabia) and, a few years ago, handled the arrangements for a private, curated tour of the Titanic, led by the filmmaker James Cameron, the travelers exploring in retrofitted (for safety and comfort) nineteenth-century diving suits they then had the option to purchase as keepsakes (for a Canadian couple who wish to remain anonymous). There is a rumor that they once burrowed deep into the Perito Moreno Glacier and there constructed an elaborate reproduction of the interior of Sleeping Beauty’s castle for a young girl’s seventh birthday party, and another rumor that they once entertained but ultimately declined a young tech-industry billionaire who wanted to host a New Year’s Eve party on a submarine as it sank into the deepest depths of the Mariana Trench.

  How they obtained the resources to outfit such expeditions, no one knew, but outfit them they did, and with uncanny skill.

  If, however, you were not wealthy, or even if you were, but were not particularly interested in the Mariana Trench or New Year’s Eve parties, but were interested, rather, in the amassing forces of darkness that threaten, at nearly every turn, the fate of the planet . . . or, say, you were concerned with the fate of your mother, who was stolen from you when you were very young, abducted and then brainwashed and made into a triple or quadruple agent, only then to be killed in a firefight thousands of miles away, and you were seeking cold retribution for this . . . or maybe you had been told a frightening prophecy about your as-yet-unborn first child and you wished to have it confirmed or refuted by an oracle . . . or your daughter, your once-sweet little girl, had begun exhibiting problems at age fourteen or fifteen, or not problems but issues, or not issues but powers, had begun to exhibit unprecedented physical strength and mental willfulness that you hoped to have fixed, or not fixed but cured, or not that either (the word you were searching for, ultimately, was honed) . . . if these were your needs, then once again, there was perhaps no better place to start than at the offices of the Mor
rison Concern.

  In which case, you asked for Kathy and then mentioned that you would like to book a trip to the Lost City of Atlantis. A few years ago, you would have asked to book a trip to Akron, Ohio, under the assumption that no one walking into these offices would have actually wanted to book a trip to Akron, Ohio, until shockingly enough, one particularly wealthy and eccentric older gentleman did, which led to any number of complications and a prolonged and messy bit of cleanup, and eventually, a protocol change. Regardless, mention Atlantis and Kathy and you would have been led by a woman not named Kathy—no one named Kathy has ever worked for the Morrison Concern—to a special VIP elevator, which would have delivered you nearly a mile belowground to Level B4, the only level accessible by this particular elevator.

  At this point, you would have left the offices of the Morrison World Travel Concern and would have found yourself inside what was sometimes known as the Regional Office. Hopefully you would not have found yourself there by accident. In either case, when you arrived at Level B4 the elevator doors would have opened and you would have seen, stenciled on the wall in light-blue calligraphy:

  The Regional Office: uniquely positioned to Empower and Strengthen otherwise troubled or at-risk Young Women to act as a Barrier of last resort between the survival of the Planet and the amassing Forces of Darkness that Threaten, at nearly every turn, to Destroy It.

  Standing there waiting for you, most often, would have been a woman named Sarah, who (so it was rumored) had a mechanical arm, and she would have taken down your information, offered you a consultation, and then, most likely, sent you on your way with a promise to handle whatever situation needed handling, a promise that they would put their top people on the job, a promise that they would soon be in touch. On the elevator ride back up to the Morrison World Travel Concern, you would have been spritzed with a mist that wiped your memory of the Regional Office and everything you’d just witnessed.

  On rare occasions, though, depending on your needs, depending on who you were, you might have been met by the director himself, a friendly and calming man named Mr. Niles, and ultimately, after answering a short survey, Mr. Niles would have entertained your particular needs, your desire to work for the Regional Office, or any other questions or suggestions you might have had in order to fight against said amassing forces of darkness, etc.

  This happened infrequently, however. The Regional Office was finely tuned, equipped with its own protocols and devices to root out forces of darkness—the evil undead, alien creatures threatening earthly annihilation, superpowered evil masterminds—as well as potential superpowered warrior women who would be trained (honed, you might say) to engage in this never-ending fight. But should you suspect that the crack den in your neighborhood was less a crack den and more a den of werewolves, or a nest of vampires, or that your child’s ninth-grade science teacher had more than the spring science fair on his agenda, had possibly developed (so you suspected) a chemical compound from which he hoped to extract world domination, or that your teenage daughter had grown into a young woman of potentially exceptional (and difficult) powers, the Regional Office was where you went. Mr. Niles was whom you should consult (consultations were free), as the services provided by him and his well-trained staff were unparalleled, or nearly so.

  If you found yourself facing a problem, in other words, that did not appear to be easily solved, the good folk at the Regional Office were the ones who could solve it.

  But not today.

  Almost any day but today.

  Because today, the Regional Office is under attack.

  ROSE

  1.

  Or it would be, shortly.

  In ten minutes, more or less.

  Rose wished it would be less.

  Less would be, Christ, less would be amazing.

  Mostly because Rose was ready to get this thing started, but also because she was sitting quiet on forty well-trained and slightly antsy mercs in full combat gear who were also ready. Ready to storm out of their unmarked gray vans, their fake delivery trucks, their ATM vestibules, ready to invade and then take over this plain, unremarkable office building, ready to force their way a mile belowground and into the heart of the Regional Office and wage their full assault on it. Then, soon after that, if all went according to plan, ready to level the place, make the whole thing shudder to the ground.

  Metaphorically speaking, that is, what with the Regional Office already located mostly underground and all.

  Rose was ready for it to begin because she was seventeen and impatient and she was sitting on all of these men who were amped up on testosterone and protein power shakes. Superpowered, highly trained supergirl or not, Rose felt her control over these grunts slipping, ever so slightly.

  And she had to pee.

  But she had her orders. They couldn’t move until seven forty-five. She didn’t know why, but those were her orders. Hold the men until seven forty-five.

  Rose checked her watch. In five minutes, the assault was a go.

  She’d been practicing.

  Like, in front of her mirror for almost an hour last night, practiced that fucking move. Twirled her hand in the air in that military circle fist-pump thing that she’d seen before plenty of times in movies but had always assumed was made up. Anyway, she was totally ready to do that thing, whatever it was called, and then, Jesus, finally, these assholes could rush out and go and the hired help would be out of her goddamn hands and on their way to the assault and she could get on with her own business, which involved ghosting her way a mile belowground, without an elevator, thank you very much, in search of the director, who, if these grunts did their job the right way, wouldn’t know what the hell was happening until it was too late.

  Not that she wasn’t, deep down, feeling some small sense of pride in the fact that she had been given command of the mercenaries and put in charge of starting the entire assault. She was the youngest one on the team—didn’t hit eighteen for another two weeks—and hadn’t been what anyone would have called a model student at Assassin Training Camp or whatever the hell they wanted to call it. She’d almost quit after just a couple of weeks because she’d been a total spaz, so, sure, what a surprise that she would have risen in the ranks, etc., that this responsibility would have been bestowed, etc., it was an honor and a thrill, etc., etc., but really, if she were going to be totally honest about it, about leading the charge of forty grunts who were actually—no shit—grunting, like, all the time, she’d rather they’d just given her her job to do and not this management position because what a pain in the ass managing people was turning out to be.

  She’d already had to separate, like, two of them because they got into a shoving match about a fucking seat in the fucking unmarked gray van, and she’d had to yell at them, like, Are you fucking kidding me, are you goddamned third-graders?, and then shove them both apart, almost knocking them both unconscious.

  And she could tell, as she was yelling at these two assholes, she could totally see Colleen covering her mouth to keep herself from laughing, which only confirmed what she’d suspected all along: She’d only been put in charge of these assholes because being put in charge of anything was a shit job.

  She checked her watch, again.

  One minute. Jesus Christ, one more whole other minute.

  Fuck it, she thought. Close enough.

  She gave the signal.

  2.

  When Henry and Emma had first found her, Rose was running from a couple of assholes—Akard and Schroeder—who were in hot pursuit of her on their four-wheelers because they’d walked up on her pouring eye drops into the water bowls of their mangy yellow country dogs.

  It was their own fault—Akard’s and Schroeder’s, not the dogs’—for spreading lies about her all over school after Akard cornered her late one night near the courthouse down on the square and told her to suck him off and she told him she’d rather do one of his so
rry dogs before she did him, then she kicked him hard in his nut sack. She ran, then, too, pushed forward on adrenaline and an electric kind of fear, her heart boundboundbounding inside her head. She was surprised not at what Akard had done—word was he’d been making the rounds of all the freshman and sophomore girls—but that she’d been able to think of something smart and mean to say in the heat of the moment, which she never had been good at really, and then for kicking Akard in his balls.

  For a short time after, she mistook herself for the kind of girl who could take any shit dished out, and she sure as hell wasn’t the kind of girl who’d let an asswipe like Akard go besmirching her good name, but just now, as Akard and Schroeder caught her eye-dropping their dogs and started coming for her, Rose had seen in their eyes a serious and unsettling look of anger, and worse, a kind of glee at the prospects of what they might do to her. This got her to running, fast and hard but not as fast or hard as she could’ve because her feet were hitting the pavement weird because of how, even in late September, it still felt like summer, and the pavement was hot and she had lost her flip-flops and the roads in her shitty town were, well, shitty and full of rocks and divots and cracks.

  Not that running in the grass would’ve been better since there wasn’t much grass, just more rocks and dirt, and the little grass that was there was sick with stickers and fire-ant hills.

  She’d slowed Akard and Schroeder down with a couple of rolled trash cans and then by cutting through the Hunts’ backyard, but she could hear them behind her and now she was heading out of the neighborhood and around the next bend into open country—baseball fields, mostly—where she was pretty sure they’d have no problem catching up to her.

  As she rounded the bend, she looked over her shoulder to see if she could see them yet, and turned her head back around just in time to see a pickup truck headed right for her.

  If she’d had more time, she would have screamed, something along the lines of “Holy shit,” or “Jesus fuck,” but she didn’t have time and so she dove to the right hoping the truck, if it swerved, would swerve to the left.