Locked and Loaded

by Nenia Campbell

  I was starting to learn that there were some benefits to that lack of government intervention.

  There was more leeway to bend the rules.

  I figured Sergeant Asshole would keep our confrontation quiet. He seemed like the type who wouldn't want to advertise when he'd gotten served by a girl. At least, when it came to the kind of “serving” that didn't involve a sammich.

  Word must have gotten around, though, because in Language Lab, that jerk who insisted that he spoke Castellano and not Spanish, and who had been correcting my pronunciation and choices of words at every turn, sneered at me more than usual and asked how many dicks I'd had to suck to get the position.

  “You tell me,” I said. “It sounds like you're quite intimate with the drill-instructor.”

  He called me a rude name in Spanish. It's like calling someone a “fucking bitch,” but there are sexual undertones to it that aren't present in the English counterpart that suggest the woman is loose in more than her morals.

  Then he lunged at me.

  I grabbed my pen, with the intention of stabbing him with it if necessary. It wasn't. One of the other men in the group held him back. The one who spoke Chilean. He looked furious.

  “What the fuck is your problem? You don't get to say shit like that here. Not to any woman, but especially not to these women. ¿Comprende?”

  I have no doubt that he did “comprende” but whether he learned from the encounter I never found out because I never saw him again after that.

  He just…vanished.

  Michael

  What transgressions had the BN committed to put Callaghan on the warpath?

  Hiring Christina?

  That couldn't have been the only reason, but it did make me wonder. If it was a witch hunt he wanted, if he was trying to flush her out, he was going to get it if he went after their children.

  Some men just want to see the world burn.

  Christina

  I was curious what happened to the repulsive man in my Language Lab, but it was not a prominent curiosity. Mostly, I was grateful for his absence and cautious about looking the gift horse in the mouth.

  I didn't find out what had happened until the first of my bimonthly evaluations with Hawk. “He's been terminated,” he said. “For gross misconduct.”

  “Because of me?”

  “Among other things.”

  He didn't elaborate, though, and I knew better than to ask.

  “You've been making good progress, Ms. Parker. In everything, it seems, but combat and physical training.”

  “My report cards used to say the same thing.”

  “It says here that Sergeant Smith filed a request that you be held under review for Reprobation.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “It is, Ms. Parker. Here it can mean imprisonment or even death.”

  “Like a court-martial?”

  “Worse.” He reviewed the file in front of him. “According to Sergeant Smith, you refused to attend your training sessions.”

  “I didn't want to fire a gun at the range, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “I'm not a killer.”

  “We expect our operatives to be proficiently skilled in all areas.”

  “And I will be. I just don't want to learn how to kill people.” I swallowed, then said, “Look, I don't have the mentality for it. You can…have me evaluated if you don't believe me.”

  “I believe you.” He folded his hands on his desk. “That's not the issue at hand. The issue is that you walked out on your training.”

  “He wouldn't listen to me.”

  “He doesn't have to. He's the instructor. The moment you left those grounds without permission you were in violation of our rules, and put yourself at risk for a Reprobation hearing.”

  “Is he allowed to say the things he did? Telling me he isn't giving me a free pass because I'm some sort of whore? Calling me a spic and a wetback? Encouraging his trainees to attack and shame one another? That doesn't seem good for group morale.”

  “He has been warned.”

  I slammed my hands on the desk. “Warned?”

  “It's more severe than it sounds, Ms. Parker.”

  “Like the Reprobation?”

  “This is very serious.” His voice was grim. “I don't think you realize how serious. You have created quite the delicate situation here.”

  “Believe me, I understand completely.”

  “I hope so. In the meantime, you will continue your physical training as usual.”

  “But — ”

  “Let me finish. You will continue your physical training but no more WT, and no more walking out. It's bad for morale. In the future, if you have a problem with an instructor or a session they teach or the way they teach it, you wait and take it up with me personally before you do something rash.”

  Was he letting me off?

  I held my breath, afraid the slightest movement on my part would be enough to change his mind.

  “Is that clear?”

  He was letting me off. It was more than I'd dared hope for. “Yes, sir,” I said, bowing my head so he wouldn't see the sheer relief inscribed there.

  I was horrified that I would have to face S.A. again after spitting in his face, especially now that I knew that the fight was apparently common knowledge among the other recruits, but the fact that Hawk had agreed to remove Weapons Training from my schedule was more than I'd hoped for.

  It meant I'd won.

  “Dismissed, Ms. Parker. I expect no further complaints about you.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said again.

  And that was that.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mobility

  Christina

  I found it difficult to believe that I had gotten off with a mere reprimand. Once the relief wore off, I resumed waiting for the other shoe to drop. It didn't; my Physical Training sessions were reduced to every other weekend instead of every weekend.

  I suppose Hawk wanted to reduce the fallout of the confrontation by giving us both time and space.

  As promised, Weapons Training was eliminated from my schedule entirely. I was given extra computer lab sessions with Mr. Chou in his alternate bloc instead.

  There was an additional bonus: on Sundays, I received a throwaway phone from the receptionist in the library. I was permitted a supervised thirty-minute phone call with my father about supplementary programming techniques.

  This sounds like the BN trusted me. They didn't, and they were not according me any privileges that any other recruit in good standing wouldn't have received as well. My chaperone was a big, brutish man who, at the slightest hint of potentially compromising talk, would have terminated the connection and dragged me to the correct authorities.

  My father was reluctant, angry even, that I had allowed myself to become enmeshed in the same dubious occupation that had landed him in so much trouble. Or, as he put it, “You're as bad as your mother and that ridiculous memoir.”

  That made me angry.

  “Except I didn't have a choice in the matter. I'm not showboating or doing this as some kind of publicity stunt. I'm doing this to stay alive. If I hadn't worked for them, they might have killed me because you made me dangerous. Do you understand that, Dad?”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, I do. I'm sorry, Sweet Pea. I shouldn't have—”

  Hearing him sound so tired and broken caused pieces of me to fracture. I told my heart to sit down and shut up. Shooting a nervous look at the silent guard, I said, “Will you help me or not?”

  He decided that he could be of some help.

  My evenings were mine to do with as I wished, provided that I wished to spend them locked up in my room. The memo pad on the desk was for writing down things I needed or wanted. Things like books, beverages, writing materials, electronics.

  'Forbidden' requests went unanswered without explanation. So while I might be granted a request for scissors, for example, a similar request for tweezers would be denied.
r />   If there was a pattern at work, I didn't see it.

  Mostly, I spent my evenings reading. It was easier not to rock the boat with superfluous requests, especially after what had happened on the shooting range — and in the library.

  The looks being thrown in my direction had taken on a distinctly accusatory tone, and I had no doubt that I was blamed for that recruit's abrupt disappearance.

  I tried not to think about what might have happened to him. I had the feeling he could be dead.

  We knew too much. All of us did.

  Like I said, I tried not to think about it.

  I read books about fantasy and pop-science, in addition to the store of classics on the bookshelf. Romance novels irritated me; the men in them did not seem real and the women's insipid and unfounded attraction to the dishwater-dull male leads required a further suspension of disbelief from what I was willing, or able, to provide.

  Here, in this soulless room whose sole purpose seemed to be to crush my spirits, I made a point to count my memories the way a miser counts his coins.

  I was Christina Parker.

  I was a survivor.

  I would get through this.

  Or die trying?

  Michael

  The girl they wanted me to snatch was sixteen-years-old. A child. A fucking child. I tossed her file aside, running my hand over my face. Sixteen. Fuck.

  “Try not to fall in love with her this time.”

  Callaghan had made sure to say that within earshot of at least three other operatives, two of whom would only be too happy to spread the news to everyone else about Michael Boutilier's latest failings.

  Once I had been one of the best. Respected. Feared. Sought after. Now, I was a laughingstock.

  I stared down at the face in the folder.

  Poutain de merde.

  I could not allow this to happen. I had to warn Christina.

  She had to warn Hawk.

  Otherwise — maudit, they might hurt her to get back at me. No matter how cozy the BN was with their operatives, blood was thicker than employment contracts. I'd seen this play out before. Seen the most submissive and docile of women become enraged killing machines in the face of their children's demise.

  They would be out for blood. Only blood would satisfy that homicidal frenzy. And if they couldn't have mine, I suspected Christina's would do just fine.

  None of this made sense. Fucking none of it. Why was Callaghan doing this? What was he after? Our tensions with the BN were at an all-time low. My mission as red herring in Europe had served the dual purpose of cowing their agents in both England and Scotland. They had returned to their home base in France with their respective tails between their legs as they scrambled to pinpoint their intelligence leaks. If an IMA pig-dog could get in, anyone might.

  It was an extreme loss of face. Such failure had turned them into a mockery in all the circles that counted. Thanks to me they were no longer the danger they might have posed.

  I had two theories at this point. Either this was personal—always a likely possibility—and Callaghan had some sort of grudge against the BN that he wasn't talking about or, likelier still, he had an upcoming business venture he wasn't talking about and he was trying to get me out of the way.

  If Callaghan was doing some major changes at the corporate level they wouldn't be too difficult to find. I opened up a proxy and opened a search tab. I specified the search, typing in several of the IMA's subsidiary divisions, and set the time frame from six months ago to the present.

  That was when everything started going to hell.

  It took several hours of wading through press releases and business articles before I got anything useful. I'd gone through three or four Irished-up cups of coffee by the time I hit pay dirt.

  Callaghan had been a very busy boy, indeed. He'd acquired several new companies. Software design firms in Japan. Several large production companies in China. A couple media outlets in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Europe. All strictly legal.

  This was one of the more brilliant aspects of our organization. The IMA didn't operate behind a facade of halfheartedly constructed business fronts. We were the fronts. They were legitimate business enterprises with the paperwork to prove it if a bureaucrat ever came knocking.

  And if those trucks and warehouses were occasionally used to store more than boxes or crates, no one would ever be the wiser. The actual covert branch was quite small, only a couple hundred or so. Most of the businessmen did not know it existed, and the ones who did were in on the deal. Their horror, if any bodies or weapons were ever found in their midst, would not be feigned.

  But if Callaghan had one weakness, it was his self-absorption. He'd been assuming that it was his terminal, the executive terminal, that Christina had been trying to hack into. If it had even been Christina at all. Yes, he'd assumed that, too.

  And you know what they say about assuming.

  Christina was brilliant but inexperienced. It would be months, probably years, before she was at the level where she could access any sort of computer barricaded by our level of security. Then there was the matter of covering her tracks. Even her father had failed in that regard, and Callaghan claimed this hacker was good at encryption.

  Then there was the name. Cassandra. She wouldn't be so obvious. It was too cute.

  Christina Parker didn't do cute.

  That led me to one other conclusion.

  Somebody was trying very hard to frame her.

  I continued clicking through the various business transactions and taking down notes.

  I was going to find out who.

  And why.

  Christina

  I was still on my best behavior, trying not to make waves. I found that with Sergeant Asshole not breathing down my neck quite so relentlessly, I could—and did—make progress with my agility, endurance, and strength, once I stopped getting sick. S.A. tossed off a few more remarks about maggots when I vomited, but the racial slurs were absent.

  I had never felt so in command of my body before and it was a good feeling. It almost made up for the evil looks S.A. sent in my direction.

  Almost.

  Physical Training would never be a favorite. Tolerable was the best thing I could say about it. A lot of things were tolerable in small doses.

  Root canals. Dysentery. Jerry Lewis.

  Except —

  While running that morning, the strangest thing had happened. I still shook a little whenever I caught myself thinking about it, it had been that startling.

  The shooting range is near the track, which is how S.A. was able to have us switch off so quickly before I dropped WT. The targets were nowhere near the running area, so it wasn't an issue.

  Or it wasn't supposed to be an issue.

  I'd been jogging, and a large black wasp had buzzed past my head. When I heard someone else scream, I thought the wasp was going after her, too, but the girl was on the ground, hand clapped to her shoulder. Blood was oozing between her fingers.

  I'd seen some bad bee stings, but nothing quite like that. Because this wasn't a bee sting, no.

  She'd been shot.

  The wasp hadn't been a wasp at all — it had been a stray bullet from the shooting range.

  But as I said, there was no way the bullets could go this far by accident, which could only mean one thing. Somebody was aiming for the running track.

  Whether as a joke or out of malice wasn't quite clear. Obviously nobody was confessing, and S.A. had interrogated the lot of us, asking if we'd seen anything. We hadn't, and he took the opportunity to ask if his trainees had been replaced by a bunch of newborns from a maternity ward, “since you're all as blind and helpless, and weak, and running around as if your pants were full of shit over one measly bullet.”

  If what I had done was worthy of a Reprobation Hearing, what, I wondered, would be the cost of a misfire with such potentially catastrophic outcomes?

  The Language Lab, meanwhile, had grown on me considerably. Today's lesson had
been a particularly good one. The other recruits were making great strides in their conversational abilities.

  In today's session we talked about accents and how to recognize what country someone came from by certain pronunciations or even by various slang words. It was a great way to include everyone in the discussion, because each of them had experience with different kinds of hispanohablantes.

  It was also a simple lesson, and I only had to expend about half the brain power on it as usual. During the lesson, as the guy from Chile talked about the cultural melting pot of his country, I replayed that incident on the track over and over in my head.

  I hadn't seen anyone.

  The shooter could have been hiding, though. Or using a sniper rifle. They had those on the range, too, training the next generation of Snipers.

  All told, the evening had gone extraordinarily well and I was still patting myself on the back for that discussion idea that had come to me on a whim.

  Except for the shooting, it had been a great day. But the bullet really put a damper on things.

  So I was completely unprepared when the guard appeared out of nowhere — where did he come from? I was starting to think that he wasn't even human, but some sort of real life Terminator prototype — and said, “Mr. Hawk wants to see you. Immediately.”

  “What did I do now?”

  He didn't respond.

  That's not good.

  “Christina. Thank you for coming to meet with me. Please, sit down.”

  “Is there a problem, sir?”

  “Not as such, no. Your class this afternoon was brought to my attention, however.”

  The Language Lab? “Did you get a complaint about me or something?”

  “Hardly. You are one of our most popular junior instructors, Ms. Parker. Your students find you warm, open. Perhaps a little too open.”

  I knew there was a 'but' forthcoming.

  “Wait, just so I understand — am I…am I in trouble for doing my job well?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what's the problem?”

  “Your life is the most valuable thing you possess. You only get one. Do not be so quick to give pieces of it away, Ms. Parker.”

  I shook my head. He still wasn't making any sense to me. I made another effort to unscramble his words. “So you think that I can't be trusted.”