Innocence Lost

by O. J. Lowe

  He hadn’t been able to tell them the truth, for obvious reasons. Couldn’t mention his fight with the hulking man mountain… Couldn’t tell them the truth about how they’d gone toe to toe and he’d thrown everything at his unstoppable opponent and been shrugged off completely… Couldn’t tell them about Agent Harper and how she’d died. He’d told them he’d fallen down some stairs, it’d been about the best he could come up with in the moment.

  They hadn’t believed him. It was the story he’d given them and stuck to it, even babbling under painkillers. Truth be told, he’d been impressed with the resolve he’d shown in himself. Eventually they’d come to accept it, not as the truth, but as the only truth they were going to get. He’d been transferred to a Unisco medical facility the first chance he’d gotten, had had his injuries fixed with impunity. He just wished that the process of healing would speed up, that the aches and twinges of pain would leave him. A reminder that nature couldn’t be denied what she wanted.

  All thoughts he put out of his mind as he raised the X7 in a two-handed grip, tried to ignore the tremors rippling through his arms and stared down the sight at the target. Twenty yards away, visibility good. Not too long ago, an easy shot. Unisco training meant even an average agent could make a shot like that with no difficulty. Those that couldn’t were drummed out pretty quickly, moved away from the field. Perfection, or as damned near close to, was needed. It was not a cruel act, rather a means to survive.

  He fired, aimed at the sweet spot in the centre of the composite target and frowned as he saw the burn mark present itself a good few inches up and left of where he’d pointed. Not satisfactory. Acceptable perhaps, would probably be a kill shot on a living enemy, it’d definitely disable them unless they wore armour or a shield, but for his own personal standards, then it wasn’t good enough. He squeezed off more shots, emptying the power pack before pausing to survey his handiwork. Only one landed where he’d intended to put it, some of the shots hadn’t even brushed the standard of acceptable.

  He couldn’t take much more of desk duty. They hadn’t even given him as much sick leave as he’d wanted, granting him two months to recover, the following period of his time at Unisco consisting of office work. He’d spent his time compiling intelligence reports, examining various information coming in from the field, basically everything he’d suspected they’d done before but now had confirmation. Working in what was now Liam Caulker’s Intelligence department wasn’t entirely as bad as it could have been. Nobody had shot at him since the mission aboard the Eye of Claudia. That was almost worth it all on its own. Still in the time he’d spent sat at the desk, he’d started to realise the ugly truth about himself.

  He wanted it back. He wanted to be back out there where the action was. More than that, it felt like he needed to be. As much as he might have tried to convince himself in the past that he wasn’t a trigger-happy asshole like some of the people that worked out in the field for Unisco, he definitely missed it. He missed that shot of adrenaline rushing through his veins when the action kicked in, the feeling of cold metal in his hands, the exchange of shots no matter how terrifying it might be. It was always set to be a brief but exhilarating life; he’d had that proven to him already.

  The whole Harper thing had proved that. Melanie Harper had been a Unisco field agent like him, part of the team who’d entered the Eye of Claudia with the sole intention of capturing Claudia Coppinger and bringing Nick Roper out of his undercover role. The latter a stint so secret that only the director and Will Okocha had known about it beforehand. They’d gone in, they’d achieved the mission and Harper had been the only casualty. She’d been killed in close proximity to him, life snuffed out of her by the big man. Domis di Carmine. He was the one who’d damned near maimed Wilsin in the process. Beaten him down and killed Harper. Wilsin had fought back, continued to fight and fight until he’d taken an opening and he’d thought he’d killed Domis. At least he’d avenged Harper. She’d been a friendly enough woman, married to one of the training instructors in the Banga academy. Soon as he could, Wilsin had sent Dirk Harper his condolences. She didn’t deserve what had happened to her. And to just rub salt into his wounds further, Domis wasn’t even dead. He’d been the one who’d killed Nwakili and a part of David Wilsin had died all over again when he’d seen him stood parading the premier’s corpse around like some sort of grisly trophy.

  You never knew what you had until it was gone. His old life felt so very far away right now, going back to it felt almost impossible. Things had changed. They’d changed a lot. The re-shuffle of Unisco might not be good for him, they’d set up thirteen new departments to replace what came before. He had only seen Arnholt in passing in recent months, sightings of him around the buildings were becoming less and less. Between the Senate’s investigation of the ICCC and their connection to Claudia Coppinger and the same organisation determined to appoint their new leader to walk straight into a crisis, it felt like he might be getting stuck in a rut. New agents were coming through all the time, the training facilities had been working overtime, those that had nearly been there had been fast tracked, those that had started within the last year were almost there. Tod Brumley, now in charge of recruitment, was rumoured to be close to breakdown over the sheer amount of numbers that were passing through now. When new people got into your old position, the chances of you getting it back felt slimmer and slimmer.

  He'd fired another power pack off at the target, wiping it clean with each fresh load. Training rounds were different to the regular loads they used out in the field, they carried a lower power yield. He had to do this. He couldn’t spend another year like this. He wanted back out there, he’d been pushing himself to get back into fighting shape for weeks now. Pain be damned, he was doing this. Slowly his blaster eye was coming back in, he could even take to the mats and deal out as much as he took in unarmed combat. Some of the staff ran refresher courses across the week and he’d gone back through the basics, reworking his knowledge and his technique. That had been going on a lot longer than the shooting. His doctors had told him that he needed to. The more he worked at it, the sooner the bones would start to feel natural again.

  David Wilsin was being watched, he could feel the gaze on the back of his neck and he did his best to ignore it as he continued to work through the six power packs he’d brought to shooting practice. He couldn’t say for sure who was watching him, but using the clues that were available to him, he could hazard a guess. The breathing was heavy, a decent sized man then, going to seed, maybe a bit of a gut. He’d walked the stairs up here and now he was panting. Probably not a field agent, maybe someone in management. He could smell them as well, a faint hint of earth and clay hidden heavily beneath a potent aftershave. Only one man wore that combination of scents.

  When the last pack ran dry, he cleared his throat and removed his soundproof headgear. “Chief,” he said warmly, turning and firing off a salute with his non-blaster hand. His visitor looked older than he had the last time Wilsin had seen him on Carcaradis Island. Those days felt too long ago. What had gone on there had changed everything, expecting the people who had lived through it not to have was a fallacy. His face was more lined, his eyes weary and he’d packed a few pounds on around the waist. Yet he still didn’t look like the sort of man you’d mess with. He’d always had that way about him. Once his hair had only been greying but now there were definitely some hints of white in it. Being stripped of command didn’t look like it had suited him, he looked sullen and tired.

  “At ease, Agent Wilsin,” Brendan King said, and he duly dropped the hand, popping the pack out of his weapon before sliding it into the holster at his waist. “Heard you were down here.”

  “And you thought you’d stop by to see me? I’m touched.”

  “Yes well,” King looked uncomfortable, enough to set Wilsin’s warning senses jangling. Of all the possible reasons he could have for walking in here, very few struck him as being good “When the needs must.” He inclined his head towa
rds the door. “Walk with me, David. It’s time that we had a talk.”

  Wilsin nodded, loaded up a fresh power pack into his weapon and closed up his jacket, buttoning it at the front. He’d been waiting for this day for a while. King led, he followed, the two of them striding in silence until they reached an office. King pushed the door open, didn’t even knock and moved to sit behind the desk.

  “Please, sit,” he said. This wasn’t his regular office, but he treated it like it was. It didn’t look like it belonged to anyone, Wilsin noted, there was a distinct lack of personal effects ongoing in the room. It had the strange sterile empty effect going on with it that felt so familiar to anyone that had ever attended a Unisco training academy. Torlis had been like this. He had a feeling the one at Iaku was as well. For a few moments he hesitated before sliding into the empty seat.

  “How have you been?” King eventually asked. “You suffered some bad injuries, I’ve read your medical reports and it’s good to see you back on your feet.”

  Wilsin considered the question, weighed up his answers, wondered what he could possibly say. It felt like his situation had been wholly summed up in just those few short sentences.

  “Recovering,” he replied. “Still some discomfort but that’s not to be unexpected, they tell me.”

  “Only natural,” King said. “I hear you want to return to the field soon.”

  “That’s correct,” Wilsin said stoically. “I’ve been out of the game and I want to get back in it. I want…” He caught himself before he said something stupid. Admitting he still wanted revenge wouldn’t be a good thing. Might bring up all sorts of questions whose answers wouldn’t reflect well on him. “… I want this to be over and I want a part of it. We need everyone available.”

  “Liam Caulker speaks well of you,” King said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Says you’ve shown a sort of dedication that he hadn’t expected of someone in your position. I also hear you’ve been learning Vazaran.”

  “Just the prime language and a few key phrases in local dialects,” Wilsin said. Every Unisco agent was required to know at least two of the prime languages across the five kingdoms to the point of fluency. Each kingdom since the five of them had become united, had set about to ensure that they had one main language exclusive to their region, as well as the universal tongue that kept everyone talking no matter where they came from. But some local dialects still survived. People could be insular when they wanted to be. “It seems like that’s where we’ve got the most trouble lately…”

  “Actually, Vazara is no longer our problem technically,” King said. “They’ve broken from the rest of the kingdoms, they’re on their own. Their people come into our jurisdiction and break our laws, we can lock them up. But any sort of operation on Vazaran soil is not something we can go about lightly these days. Which is why I’m here.”

  “Do you think they’ll remain apart forever?” Wilsin asked. “I mean, if we remove Claudia Coppinger from the board, do you think Mazoud will…”

  “I do not know Mazoud as well as the director does. He was once one of us, you know, a very long time ago and not for very long, but do not assume him to be our enemy. Our true enemy in all of this, as you have said is Coppinger. With her out of the picture, we can start to rebuild some semblance of normalcy. With her still active, it is a futile gesture. She has Mazoud under her thumb and isn’t going to let him go. His success is tied to hers. Without her, he might not survive what happens next. She is immensely popular in Vazara. She did what nobody else ever did. She’s given them hope. She has given them what they believe to be a future. That sort of gesture builds fanaticism.”

  “The whole stuff with the Green? Did anyone ever manage to explain that away?” Wilsin felt he already knew the answer to this question, something confirmed as Brendan King shook his head.

  “No. Never. If we could…”

  He didn’t have to finish that thought. If they could prove that the sudden rush of fertility and forest that had rushed through Vazara wasn’t a divine act of generosity from Claudia Coppinger, then it might rob her of some of her followers. It might show her up as a fraud. It might do a lot of things.

  What King said next startled him out of his thoughts. “Not quite yet anyway. There might be something…”

  Usually there always was a potential something. He didn’t know why he’d doubted otherwise. That Brendan King had a plan wasn’t something he shouldn’t be surprised by. Wilsin couldn’t even bring himself to hide his relief.

  “Only a small chance, mind,” King said, almost more to himself than Wilsin. “But we’re not really presented with a lot of other options. The Coppingers have dispersed, they’re hiding in plain sight.” He looked exasperated by the notion and Wilsin couldn’t blame him really. After all it was the same tactic that Unisco agents had been employing for years and they’d had pretty good success with it. “The only time we can hunt them down in great numbers is when they want to be found. Every one of them that we take off the board, two more replace them. It is a war of attrition that threatens to grind us down unless we can change the rules of the game quickly.”

  “I didn’t realise it was that bad,” Wilsin admitted. “I mean we’ve had some losses recently…” He was thinking of the shooting of Unisco agent Baleric Tong in Burykia while he’d sat down for a meal. The Coppingers had taken credit. They’d cited it a blow against the cruel enforcement of the laws of decadence by a bloated government. “But…”

  “You don’t have a but, do you Agent Wilsin,” King said. “You’ve been in Caulker’s department; you’ve seen some of what comes through. We can’t go on like this. They use clones as well, you know. Automatic training schemes go through their minds while they’re being grown, they can produce new soldiers, pilots, spies faster than we can. We’re looking for their facilities, but intelligence is slim on that part.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Wilsin said. “So, what’s your something? A location for one of their key bases?”

  King shook his head. “Nothing so prosaic. Nothing useful really. Get our people into one of them, we might be able to strike back. No, what I have in mind is… Different. Several months ago, I dispatched a research team into the Green in Vazara, I wanted definitive answers and I don’t trust what our supposed allies in that bloody kingdom are telling us. I sent them right to the heart, get to Ground Zero and see what they could pull up for me. Maybe there’s something that can prove things one way or another what happened. Unfortunately, I lost contact with them. We can’t find them with our satellites, anything across that area is hard to pin down. I have been granted permission to send a second team in, a much smaller one and I intend to lead them.” He smiled wearily. “If you feel up for it, I want you on it.”

  Wilsin couldn’t hide his surprise. “Me, sir?”

  “Yes. If you feel up to it. I saw what you did on Carcaradis Island, I’ve read your reports. You’ve acquitted yourself admirably ever since you became an agent, I believe firmly in your capabilities. You’re exactly the sort of person that I wish to have watching my back on this jaunt.”

  “Sir, if you’ll have me, I’ll be there,” Wilsin said immediately. “I needed this, thanks.”

  “David.” King’s voice took on a more personable friendly tone, the sort that Wilsin had very rarely heard from him before. “Agent Harper… It wasn’t your fault, you know. You didn’t get her killed.”

  “I know I didn’t,” Wilsin said, blinking. He hadn’t expected those words and it felt strange that they’d been brought up. “I know that.”

  “What you’re feeling over her death, it’s natural. When someone dies around us, on our side, and we live through it to regret, it’s hard. Guilt is the most natural thing imaginable in all this. I’d be worried if you weren’t feeling some sort of sorrow over it. I saw you at her funeral. You looked like you were taking it badly. She knew the risks. We all do. Dirk Harper doesn’t blame you. Nobody else does either. If you’re feeling conflicted over it, direct it a
t those that are truly to blame.”

  “The whole Domis thing pisses me off,” he said before he could stop himself. “I mean, I killed him. I thought I had. Shot him in the head and kicked him out of that thing. He should have died. Nobody should come back from that.”

  “From our reports, it appears that like his boss, conventional means are not going to be enough to destroy him,” King remarked. “He’s an unusual figure. Most of what we have centres on what he can do, not who he is. You couldn’t have known, you know. Better that you survived to tell the tale than dying with Harper.”

  When it was put like that, it stung a little. Wilsin cleared his throat. He didn’t want to go through this conversation much longer. Brendan King being friendly and comforting, he didn’t want any evidence of the world going to hells more than he already had.

  “Nothing about this whole Coppinger thing is really in our remit, is it sir?” he asked thoughtfully. “We’re all operating out of our comfort zones.”

  “Just a little, David. Just a little.” He said it with a smile rippling across his leathery features. “Of that, we can have no doubt.”

  “Tell me more about this mission. Any way I can help, I’ll do it. Besides, I want to get out of this building.”

  “Our mission is to travel to Ground Zero for the outbreak of the Green,” Brendan King said. In front of him, a hologram showed an outline of Vazara, the parts of it that had been overcome by the green highlighted in the same colour. It was, Wilsin noted, an eye-watering amount now. It had taken a few days to be noticed outside of the kingdom. Now, well over half of it was green, mostly in the middle and spreading outwards. Slowly it was advancing. And what would happen when it overtook the whole kingdom? That was something he’d wondered about whenever he’d seen it mentioned. Nature didn’t behave like that, not that quickly anyway. Who was to say it’d even stop the moment it came to a large city. It had swallowed up whole towns and villages so far, the people not heard from since.