“There weren’t any disturbances at the bodega…”
“None that your people monitoring me would have noticed,” Roman explained. “This guy’s power deals with oxygen. He can manipulate it somehow, and he got a hold of my lungs just as I got a hold of his heart. After what happened yesterday with the intelligence officers, I’m not fucking around any longer. I don’t want to be used, I don’t want to be exploited. So I took his heart as quickly as he took my oxygen.”
“And then what?”
“Then he told me who he was, an operative from the Western Province named Orange. Ring a bell?”
Ava started to shake her head. “I know exactly who that is. Continue.”
“Orange told me that I’m actually adopted, that I’m not from Centralia, that I’m from the Western Province. My father was a man named Malus who had an ability similar to mine. He was Orange’s teacher or something, and he just so happened to also be Margo’s father.”
Ava nodded, her lips tightening.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
“That you were adopted? Yes. We would have those records. That you were related to Margo, or were Malus’s son? No.”
“So you think it’s true? I mean, I don’t know how much I should believe this guy. He just shows up and tells me the stuff and offers me a little bit of evidence. But anyone can fake anything, especially with the right exemplar working for them.”
Ava lowered her arms from her chest, relaxing just a little. “I never told you much about my involvement in the Western Plague, the vampire infection that nearly spread over the border to our country. It was a decade ago that Centralia sent my team there on a humanitarian mission. Of course, it wasn’t a humanitarian mission at all; it was mostly to aid Western Province forces in the infected districts of Ravja.”
“And you knew him then?”
“I did. Orange was part of the Protectorate, and we aided their teams more than once. Because of the strength of their exemplars—which, I’m not going to lie, is as real as any fictionalized version you’ve ever read—they usually patrolled in two- to four-person units. They were incredibly destructive. The exemplars in the West tasked with handling the vampiric outbreak were raised by the State to be in peak condition, and Orange’s group in particular had trained together since their early teens.”
“And Margo was in this group?”
“Yes, and while we were there, Margo and Orange often patrolled together. They sometimes did a four-person patrol with two operatives named Destry and Amethyst, but usually it was just the two of them. In my time in the Western Province, I became quite familiar with their group, especially Orange, who was their leader.”
“So I can trust him, then?”
“I don’t know if you can fully trust him. He’s a spy, no better than the one who disappeared off our radar, Nadine, or Paris, or even Margo for that matter. There may be something more to the story. Perhaps he was threatened by Margo to find you. But if that’s the case, he went against her wishes by giving you enough information to get a head start.”
Roman considered this for a moment.
Whoever Margo had been years ago, there was no way she was the same person now. Ava had said she was part of a government unit, and Roman couldn’t imagine a unit having to put up with her wild antics.
“Well, then it’s true. I am…” Roman looked back at his parents’ home. “That’s why I’m here, you know. I wanted to find out from my parents if they really had adopted me. So everything is checking out. I just wanted to know if I should believe the rest of what Orange said, about being related to Margo.”
“I only wish I could see the documents he gave you,” Ava told him.
“He didn’t let me keep a copy, unfortunately.” Roman shook his head. “This just gets weirder, doesn’t it? My half-sister’s trying to hunt me, and she killed your sister.”
“There’s another piece to this,” Ava said. “I’ve been sent here to get you.”
“Get me?”
“I suppose I should reword that. Not get you—escort you.”
“They’re having you work even after your sister just died?”
“What else am I supposed to do?” Ava asked, her voice rising. “My sister would have wanted it this way. I know she was strong in the end, and I have to be strong now. So yes, I’m working. And I need you to come with me, Roman.”
“Do I have a say in this matter?”
“No need to make this difficult. I’m not taking you into custody or anything,” she said, a fire igniting in the palm of her hand. “And I hope you’re not thinking of doing something to one of my internal organs.”
“You know, I’ve wanted to say so many things to you over the last month, and…” Roman swallowed hard, casting his gaze back down to the pavement. “I’m just sorry for how things turned out. I guess that’s the gist of what I wanted to tell you. But I missed you. There’s that, too. It wasn’t the same without you around.”
“Roman, now is not the time…”
“When is the time? Margo is apparently hunting me again, and she’s already killed—the fucking bitch. Plus, you’re taking me into custody…”
“I’m not taking you into ‘custody.’ This is actually a good thing that I am about to do for you. I’m trying to help you, Roman.”
“Usually when someone is trying to help someone, they don’t need to be ‘escorted’ somewhere. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a month now. You beat me down. Not you particularly, but our government. I went from up here,” he said, gesturing above his head, “to down here.”
Ava sighed audibly. “That was your choice, Roman. You disobeyed a direct order.”
“Have you ever had your power stripped from you?”
“Yes, we trained with the power nullifiers. In fact, in the first year of my training, they had us work on combat weekly with someone who had taken away our power.”
“How come you didn’t train me this way?”
“Because we never finished training together. I had other plans for you, but then you took matters into your own hands. It was something I wanted to do at some point because it’s good to be reminded of what it’s like to be powerless.” She frowned. “So yes, I know what it’s like. And I wouldn’t jump to conclusions about why they’ve sent me to fetch you. You aren’t really in trouble or anything. Not yet, anyway.”
“All right,” Roman said, pointing to his dolls, “but they come with me.”
Ava smirked. “I assumed that would be the case.”
“And before I reanimate them, before we go to wherever it is you want to take me, I just want you to know how incredibly sorry I am for your loss. I thought…” Roman bit his lip. “I thought Margo was dead. And to find out that she’s not only alive, but she’s killed your sister and now she’s still gunning for me? It’s just a lot to take in. A lot. I’m sorry, Ava. I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this.”
“Thank you, Roman.” Ava took a tissue from her pocket and wiped her eyes, steeling herself. “Just give me a few moments to collect myself before we go.”
Roman, Ava, and his dolls appeared in a special teleportation zone in front of the Centralian Intelligence Agency. There were several zones, but this one was private access only, so Roman didn’t need to go through any security measures after they arrived.
They found Rafner waiting for them, the man wearing a black outfit with the agency logo on the sleeve. He approached Roman, his hand extended. “I’m glad you were able to make it. You left so suddenly yesterday.”
“Yeah,” was all Roman could say.
“And Ava, I’m sorry to hear about your sister. If you would like, I can take it from here. You do not have to be part of this meeting.”
“No,” she said, her head held high. “It’s better for me at the moment to have a distraction. Besides, I trained him, as you already know. I would like to at least see this through.”
“Very well,” Rafner said, glancing at Roman’
s dolls.
“They stay with me,” Roman said.
“I don’t see any harm in that.” Rafner turned toward a walkway lined with shrubs. A quick look around told him they were in an atrium garden, steel slats above them arranged in a zigzag pattern. There were statues of various exemplars in parts of the garden with placards before each of them, and a few people were standing around a particular statue featuring a woman with wings.
Rafner walked with his hands behind his back, the fingers of his left hand clasping the wrist of his right. Calm, collected—the exact opposite of Roman in that moment.
They came to a door that opened on its own, the handle pressing into the surface of the door as it slid into the wall.
Roman looked over his shoulder at Celia and Coma as he walked. Casper was in his pocket, the tiny doll deanimated for the time being. He almost wished she was with him; he was in desperate need of a snarky remark or a witty observation.
After taking an elevator to the second floor, their group came to a conference room that was set up the same way as the one Roman had nearly demolished a day earlier.
He expected to find the other intelligence officers in the room, and he tried to remember what they looked like as Rafner scanned himself in. Roman was relieved to see there was only one other person present, the telepath with the blue hair named Miranda.
Roman felt the tendrils of her power almost immediately, lightly flickering against the back of his skull.
He looked at her and focused on her throat, watching as it constricted.
“That will be enough of that,” Rafner said as he took a seat across the table. “She is only here to record everything said. No need to threaten each other.” He looked from Miranda to Roman.
Roman took a seat with Ava to his right and his two dolls in a pair of chairs to his left.
The dolls definitely caught Miranda’s attention. The telepath looked at them for a moment, clearly wondering why she couldn’t check their minds. Her answer came in a matter of seconds as she took in some of the other thoughts in the room. The woman bit her lip, making a face that almost looked like she was disappointed in herself.
“Are you ready?” Rafner asked her.
Miranda nodded.
“Roman Martin,” Rafner began, “we have brought you here today to make you an offer to join our agency.”
Roman gulped. “Excuse me?”
“We have brought you here today to make you an offer to join the Centralian Intelligence Agency, the unit I oversee.”
Roman looked at Ava, the fire user keeping her attention on Rafner. He then glanced at Coma and Celia, both of whom simply nodded.
“It is a strange offer, I agree, but having seen what you are capable of in some of the trials before your powers were stripped, and after your powers came back, the evidence is clear: you are incredibly powerful, and you have a very unique power that would be an asset to your government.”
“I’m adopted,” Roman said, almost as an afterthought.
“Be that as it may, you are a Centralian citizen, an exemplar with a unique ability. Your power will help us gather intelligence to better protect innocent Centralians at home and abroad, and it will go a long way in maintaining the status quo in our world. There is no country like Centralia.”
“You let me rot in a bodega for a month, and the moment my power shows itself, you offer me a job?”
Roman stopped himself from saying what he wanted to say next, that Ava’s sister could have technically given him his power back.
If his ability to animate inanimate objects hadn’t arisen on its own, and Margo had still killed Ava’s sister, Roman would have been left with nothing aside from an overnight job at a bodega.
But he didn’t say this.
He cared deeply for Ava, and he knew it was taking all she had to keep it together, even if she didn’t show it.
It was best not to mention her late sister.
“Actually, you were supposed to have your power given back to you. The decision was made two weeks ago,” Rafner said, sliding a paper over to Roman, “but the Council had a weeklong vacation and a backlog of cases, as well as a few other matters to see before they got to it.”
Roman looked down at the paper, noticing the official Centralian seal. The paragraph that followed explained that they had decided to return his power to him, that he had acted under duress, and that Margo had represented a threat not only to the government but to the world as a whole.
It didn’t quite say that Roman had done a patriotic thing in going after her, but it did say his effort would be internally recognized, whatever the hell that meant.
“You sat on this for over two weeks?” he asked Ava.
“What would you have done, Roman? I didn’t have the power to give it back to you…” Her voice trembled on the last word.
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Roman glanced back across the table at Rafner and Miranda. “So you want me to join then, that’s it? Because I feel like there’s a catch coming on here. One doesn’t simply join a high-level unit in the Centralian Intelligence Agency. I worked for the government too, and I’m aware of the red tape and bureaucratic bullshit that continues to weigh this country down.”
“You are aware of the differences in funding between the Centralian Immigration Service and the Intelligence Agency, correct?” Rafner asked.
“I’m aware there is a substantial difference,” Roman admitted, ignoring the powerful glare Miranda the telepath was giving him.
“Good. Things move differently here. There are recruits have who worked their way up from the bottom to the top. There are those who have trained for years, as Ava here has done. But the way we see it, you went up against perhaps one of the most powerful exemplars in our country. There is an internal ranking, you know, of our own exemplars and foreign exemplars, especially ones we expect to be in the country illegally. Margo tops that list. Now, there are others with different powers that can do a variety of amazing things, but in terms of sheer destructive capability, Margo holds one of the highest spots. And you went after her. And that’s not to mention you killed Hazrat, an equally powerful exemplar.”
“I had to,” Roman said, his voice growing haggard. “Margo disrespected my wife, Hazrat killed someone I cared for. They tried to destroy my life. I know for a fact there are non-exemplars out there,” he said, pointing to the wall, “who would have done the same thing, even though they would have been killed in an instant. What she did, what Margo did…”
Roman felt Celia’s hand lightly squeeze his leg under the table. He nodded. “I did what needed to be done.”
“And no remorse either,” Rafner said, “for the city block you practically destroyed in your fight against her, or all the people who got injured in the way. That is the part we have yet to forgive, but because of the way our government has been able to cover up the story, putting the blame on the foreign terrorists, we are at least able to forget it. On paper, anyway. Don’t for a minute think that anyone in this room or the people who will be on your team don’t know you put your own self-interest over your country. But as you just said, you had a pretty compelling reason to do so.”
“Thank you for understanding,” Roman said under his breath.
“While I understand, it does not mean I approve of what you did. But I’m also not stupid enough to throw an ability like yours away, especially with the fact that Margo is back now, and there are other issues plaguing this country that need to be addressed. Which leads me into how this is going to work out.”
“Here’s the catch I was waiting for…”
Rafner folded his hands together on the table. “You are right, there is a catch to all this. You are going to be given free agency after you deliver on a certain task we have in mind.”
Roman nodded. “You want me to find Margo and finish her for good?”
“What?” Rafner shook his head. “No. That isn’t what we want at all. Not at this time, anyway. It is almost poetic in a way, the f
irst task we’ve assigned to you.”
“And if I refuse?”
“We will charge you with attacking a government office, which is a federal crime that comes with a minimum sentence of forty years in prison. Depending on the severity of the attack—which could be expanded upon if we looped in some of the destruction you caused in your fight against Margo or at the immigration office—it could come with the death penalty.”
Celia gasped. “Don’t let them do this to you,” she whispered. “Just do what they want.”
Roman stared Rafner down. “What are you asking of me?”
“Relax, it’s not as difficult as it sounds. Well, there may be parts that make it complicated. We want you to bring Kevin Blackbook to justice. Yes, your former coworker.”
Roman recalled the last time he’d seen Kevin, in the debris caused by his fight with Margo. He had told Kevin to run. He didn’t remember much more of their exchange, only that key detail.
“You want me to bring Kevin into custody, is that what you’re asking?”
“No. We want you to bring Kevin Blackbook to justice. We want you to kill him.”
Chapter Seven: Personal Development Hell
Nadine Under shook her head.
Lunch had been too short, and now she was being corralled back into a conference room. The event’s host stood at the front of the space, going through her notes.
“Everyone take their seats,” the retreat host said in a high-pitched voice, beaming a smile that reached all of them but didn’t stay long enough for the employees to actually feel invited.
Nadine took her seat and closed her eyes for a moment, hoping to just power through this.
“Now, I know we’ve already introduced ourselves, and a few of you even work together, but I find this next practice to be incredibly helpful in developing a close-knit team. It’s also nice to do something just a little physical after lunch.” The host laughed. “Sorry, I just know how lunch is! So, let’s get started. I want everyone to look at their hand,” the woman said, sticking her arm out in front of her face.
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