by Nina D'Aleo
Op Services and Surveillance and Tech agents had dual clearance because we moved between the two floors so much. I stood beside the elevators looking around. There were only four floors between Medical and Surveillance, but they were worlds apart. Here it was non-stop banter and calling out, clattering of keyboards, phones buzzing, chairs squeaking, coffee percolating. In fact it was almost too much—stimulation overload. My head was starting to ache and the skin of my face felt like a mask tightening over my skull.
A pair of large, cool hands slipped over my eyes from behind and a familiar voice said, “Guess who?”
“Just the man I was looking for,” I replied.
“And I was just on my way to see you. There’s our telepathy again.”
The hands slid away and I turned to my friend Evan Ostby (Codename: Byter). Dark and I had met him at basic training and we’d been close ever since. He had a frightening intellect, and with very little effort he could have made everyone else feel like complete imbeciles, but he never did. He was one of the good guys. A rare breed. He would have been quirky-handsome too—if not for The Beard. Long, thick and bushranger bushy, it made him look like Santa, The Teenage Years. Even if a girl decided she did want to kiss him, despite the facial forest, it was highly probable that the hair itself would prove an impassable barrier. I looked away from the beard to the rest of my friend. His outfit today was boho meets gamer, a bit of both, but achieving neither. I guessed that was how new trends got started. I, myself, had no style whatsoever—unless ‘cat fur and washing-machine lint on black’ suddenly came in. Not that it stopped me buying beautiful clothes, but most of them just hung, like works of art, in my wardrobe. Still, if Byter didn’t lose the beard soon, I was going to break into his apartment and depilate him in his sleep.
“You’re thinking about my beard again, aren’t you?” he said.
“I can’t help it,” I said. “It’s just so—”
“Sexy, manly, playful—like Sean Connery and Harrison Ford’s love child.” He raised his eyebrows.
“Not exactly,” I said. “More like Hagrid crossed with Gimli the dwarf.”
“Awesome! Even better!” Byter seemed genuinely delighted.
I shook my head and said, “No. Not awesome.”
He laughed. “Don’t worry—it will grow on you.”
“I hope not.” I touched my face. “I’ll have the biggest waxing bill in history. Listen …” I searched for the right words. “I may have discharged an extra amount of sedative into a walt tonight at La Nox. It may have happened instead of lethal force.” I raised an eyebrow and Byter caught on immediately.
“Ah,” he said. “Well no worries. I’ll look into it.” He gave me a smile that said if there was footage of me using the TRANQ in the laneway, no one would be seeing it.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Is something else wrong? You seem stressed,” he told me, massaging my shoulder.
“Just one of those days,” I said. “or nights … day-nights.”
“Yup, I’m hearing you.” He nodded in understanding. “Just a while ago I locked myself in the toilet—I had to SMS for help, so now I’m officially known around the office as the Toilet-Bowl Bandit.”
I smiled. Byter could make fun of himself and I admired that.
“Speaking of the bathroom,” I said. “I gotta go.”
“When you gotta go—you gotta go,” he said. “But before you go—where’s Dark?”
“Medical,” I said. “Dropping off a walt.”
‘Well, when you see him, can you tell him I scored those tickets? The game is a go.” He did a happy dance.
“What game?” I asked.
“Football—don’t worry, you wouldn’t understand it,” he teased.
“I’m sure I would if I bothered to try.”
“Well I only got two tickets.”
“Just in case I try to intrude on your bromance with Dark,” I said.
“Hey, what can I say? He’s very,” he lowered his voice, “cute.”
I sucked the air in through my teeth. “You’re skating on thin ice,” I warned him.
“I live life dangerously,” he grinned. “Hey—what did you think of the whole ‘guess who’ intro there?” Byter liked to re-visit and over-analyze mostly everything he did. “Too high-school?”
I laughed and said, “It seemed fine to me. I probably wouldn’t use it for a first date or anything though—might come across a bit …”
“Stalker-ish?” Byter asked. “Over-eager-beaver?”
“Something like that.” I laughed again and started to turn away.
“Oh and hey—sorry—just one more thing,” he called me back. “How’s it going?” He made a gesture to his arm.
I automatically squeezed my forearm and said, “Great.”
“So it’s working?” He raised his eyebrows.
“You haven’t been tracking us?” I asked.
“No,” he said and I could immediately tell he was lying. “Well not much,” he clarified. “Not to keep tabs or anything, just now and then to check how it was all looking from a tech perspective.”
“It’s okay,” I told him with a laugh. “We signed up for this.”
Dark and I had agreed to be test subjects for one of Byter’s new tracking systems. It was the tiniest of microchips embedded into our forearms. It communicated with an app on our phones and showed our precise locations. It wasn’t highly confidential, but Byter had asked us to keep it quiet due to some issue in his division of design copying.
I took out my phone and opened the app—it showed a map of the city and rushed down and down until it pinpointed Dark’s location as below us, still on Level Eight.
“Any pains?” he asked. “Any pins and needles or numbness?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Cool,” he said. “I’m working on the next stage now—establishing visual—RFID implants are not new technology by a long shot, but it’s new in the way it interacts with the body … You know how previously we couldn’t physically tag walts because of the way their bodies responded to the implants? Well I don’t want to jinx myself,” he lowered his voice, “but I think I may have cracked it.”
Whenever Byter talked about his work, his face lit up and his words raced. He loved his job, but I felt suddenly ill-at-ease. Swallowing it down I said, “That’s good—but I better go and get this report done; apparently we have a performance review today.”
He grimaced, and said, “Fun times.” He knew my history with the boss. We said our goodbyes and I headed for the ladies’. When I went in, I checked that the outer door was definitely unlocked. I didn’t want to repeat Byter’s mistake and become known as the Toilet-Bowl Bandit’s less intelligent accomplice. Things like that tended to stick. Another friend for Op Services had been saddled with the codename Brownman after an unfortunate incident during basic training involving too much curry and a lack of public-toileting facilities. Still I could think of worse names that could have come out of that particular event.
Afterwards, I made my way back to the elevator and got in line behind a pair of colleagues, who I recognized as fellow Op Services agents. They were partners with the codenames Omen and the Rose. With my mind on other things, I didn’t immediately notice the tension between them, but then it hit me like a physical shove. Their bodies were so tight and upright, their silence so suffocating, I wondered if either of them was actually even breathing. I seriously considered taking the next ride up, but I really needed to start the report and it was only a few floors. So when the doors opened, I shuffled in. The pair stayed to the front of the elevator and I moved to a back corner. I knew these guys were intense—they had a reputation as ruthless operators in the field—but they were usually icy emotionless, like Feng but without the well-intentioned heart. Today they seemed volcanic. The Rose was smoulderingly beautiful as always, with waves of shiny chocolate brown hair cascading down her back and a curvaceous body poured into a tight red dress. It wasn’t exac
tly subtle agent garb, but it was possible that she was on a specific assignment that required that kind of clothing, and I highly doubted she’d get any complaints from the bosses either way. The Rose was the type of girl I tried not to stand beside, in case I looked like the ultra-unflattering before shot from an extreme makeover show.
Her partner, Omen, was similarly searing, with infinite dark eyes and heavy arched brows, a face with a million expressions a minute, all equally unreadable, and all laced with an undercurrent of contempt for everyone and everything. As well as being ruthless, I’d heard they were also elite—consummate professionals—but at this particular moment it was difficult to imagine either of them being able to blend in anywhere—let alone everywhere. They both looked pale, sweaty and, in short, extremely pissed off. Omen’s hand was jittering at his side. I looked at it and it stopped. He had a black sun, split in half with a jagged line, tattooed on his wrist. The Rose huffed heavily and crossed her arms across her chest, and I got the distinct feeling then that the tension between them was sexual tension.
As I thought the thought both agents turned to look at me with an eerie synchrony. Their eyes had an uncomfortable intensity to them. Thankfully the elevator stopped and I maneuvered my way past them and out into the entrance lobby. They exited as well and headed toward the external elevator. I guessed they wanted to get out of Headquarters, find somewhere in the city where C11 cameras weren’t watching and have a massive screaming argument. Or some massive screaming sex. Or both. There was another reason agents shouldn’t date agents—especially not their partners. If Dark and I had no escape from each other, there was no doubt it’d be war—nuclear. I headed back to my desk, composing the report in my mind as I walked.
6
I pushed my hand into the device on my desk that we called the Shake. No one could access C11 files without first ‘shaking hands’ with the most advanced computer security system in the world. The Shake read my fingerprints and skin density and a hundred other things in one second then logged me into the system. A box popped up on my computer screen asking for my name, codename and password. I typed in Silvia Denaglia—Silver—Yzzirf (the name of one of my cats spelled backwards). My desktop loaded and Dark and my open cases flashed up. I had a few low-priority tasks to deal with, but they would have to wait until after the report. I opened a template and sat for a long moment to gather my thoughts.
A shiver ran through me. It was hard to think with the air-con gusting at sub-arctic temperatures, not to mention the low lighting. After a Workplace Health and Safety report suggested that the blaring office lights were contributing to agent psychological ill health (though somehow neglecting to address the ridiculous air-con), they’d changed all the fluoros to mood lights, which made it feel as if we were out to dinner instead of at work. So now we were all cold, depressed and hungry.
My eyes ran over the objects on my desk—a photo of my cats, a photo of my family and Dark at my brother’s wedding in New Zealand, a multiplying random stack of papers in my inbox, my coffee cup, which I wished was full and not bone dry, and a somewhat sickly pot-plant geranium that I’d felt sorry for and purchased even though I definitely did not have a green thumb. I noticed the edge of a bag of chocolates peeping out of my top drawer. They called to me with tiny delicious voices. In what state of mind had I ever thought I was strong enough to have a stash of “emergency” chocolates? Just one, I thought—knowing full well there was no such thing in my world. I broke my junk-food-on-weekends-only promise to myself on a daily basis. Why did chocolate have to taste so good? No-no foods and long hot showers topped my list of vices. I liked to read those health articles they put out every now and then with experts claiming chocolate was good for you—though I tended to skip the paragraphs where they talked about limiting intake to like one square a fortnight or whatever. Who only eats one square? Actually, I did have a particularly regimental friend who only allowed herself to smell chocolate and not actually eat any. Whenever she felt depressed she went around inhaling peanut butter cups. I admired her resolve, but I also sort of felt sorry for her. Was that much deprivation necessary? Each to her own, I guess.
I leaned back in my chair and glanced around the office. My eyes were drawn to my latest office crush, Wyatt (Codename: Adonis). But he really wasn’t Adonis, just the most attractive of what was currently available. I sighed. I was like a man-seeking missile sending every male in my path running for cover. Maybe a little self-critical again, but still sometimes it definitely felt like that. When I was younger, I’d felt a quiet excitement about the prospect of meeting the man of my dreams. There was something magical about the idea of eyes meeting across a room, a first kiss, shared interests and experiences and now … I just wanted to know exactly where all the normal, non-personality-disordered, caring guys hung out and I wanted exact directions how to get there.
I realized I was procrastinating, but instead of getting straight into the report I found myself checking my work email. There were a couple of forwards, and way too many anal, annoying memos from my direct supervisor, Eric Wickwhitter (Codename: Turbulence)—delete, delete, delete—I made it my mission in life never to read any of his emails. I wasn’t against authority. I would stick by a leader I respected to the ends of the Earth and back, but I had no time for connivers who expected respect without doing a thing to earn it. They weren’t great men. They were just men who thought they were great. Eric fitted solidly into the category. He lurked, he lied, he came in on the joke just a few beats too late. He wormed his way out of work. He passed the buck. Because of him I had perpetual backache—not because of the completely unergonomic chair he’d assigned me, but from the knife he put in every time I turned away. I flicked over to my personal email.
“Silver.” Eric’s weasel face popped up beside me. I tapped Ctrl F4 rapidly to close the screen. “Have you read my emails?”
“I was just about to get to them,” I lied.
“Great. How’s the workload?”
“Well actually it’s a bit—”
“Great.” He handed me a heavy stack of papers. “Can you process and file? I’ve got a long weekend coming up and my secretary can’t get to them. Just shoot off an email to me once you’re done. I’ll give you a call later to touch base—and if you wouldn’t mind answering my phones for me. Just jot the messages onto the yellow pad beside my computer and at the end of the shift type them up and save to desktop. Thanks a whole bunch.”
“Right,” I said, keeping my voice civil, while I gave him the finger with both hands under my desk.
“Agent Wickwhitter.” A voice, deep and mellow, spoke just out of my sight.
I straightened up as Landon ‘Jack’ Marshall (Codename: the General) stepped around the pod divider. He gave me a conspiratorial smile and lifted the papers Eric had just given me off my desk. He spoke genially, handing the papers back to my supervisor. “I’m afraid Agent Denaglia will be tied up with something for me for the next few weeks, but thank you for considering her worthy enough to take over your role.”
Eric’s Adam’s apple bobbled as he swallowed the lump in his throat. He took the papers and said, “Absolutely, sir, and may I say what an honor it is to have someone you personally trained working under my direction.”
“You may,” the General said. He turned to me. “Do you have a moment to take a walk with an old man?”
I jumped up and followed him through the desk maze. Awed eyes tracked the General everywhere he went. There was some jealousy there too. I knew a few of my colleagues felt threatened that the General had been my Case Officer during training, and I understood why, but to me he was much more than an ex-mentor. He’d changed the whole path of my life. I’d first gotten into law enforcement, despite the needs and expectations of the job being totally contrary to my nature, because of an incident in my neighborhood that profoundly affected me as a child. A few twists and turns had led me into the Federal Police, where I was partnered with an officer by the name of Boston Bonacci-DeScuro.
It had turned out we’d gone to the same high school, though had of course never socialized. According to him, I’d been a nerdy, book-hugging overachiever and, according to me, he was a crass, moronic, sports fanatic—cheating on all his exams, smoking dope behind Block A and doing burnouts in his pickup truck. Despite this unfortunate history, we’d managed to bridge the gap and discovered we actually worked well together. We even had things in common.
Although we achieved at work, however, we never progressed in rank. For whatever reason—Dark’s temper, me being female—we were held back year after year and I started to feel like a bird running along the ground trying to take off—maybe not a majestic bird like an eagle, more like a seagull or a magpie—but still I wanted us to fly and I was desperate for someone to believe we could. The General had believed.
He’d recruited me and Dark into C11 and personally acted as my Case Officer and mentor. He’d counseled me through the grueling training in the tradecraft. He’d given me assignments above my level that no one else would have given a woman in an organization still controlled by a boys’ club of aging male bosses, all scratching each other’s backs raw. To me, the General was a great man. He wasn’t afraid to challenge convention. I had all the respect in the world for him, and I wasn’t alone. Everyone knew who he was. His reputation loomed large and so did he. He was a hulking force—tall, wide—sixty-something, but ageless. He spoke softly, listened intently and remembered everything. He could verbally eviscerate someone and never lose the jovial twinkle in his eyes, which, understandably, some people found unsettling. But I understood—he liked to play with words and didn’t take anything too seriously. He ranked way higher in the agency than my biggest boss, Twentyman. In fact he sat on the Conference—the ruling board of Chapter 11, but he never acted like it. Instead he made plebs like me feel important. Obviously I couldn’t say enough about him.