by Meli Raine
“How would anyone recognize you?” I ask Callum.
His hand moves like a knife cutting a rope, finger digging into the thick cords of muscle at his neck. “I don't know.”
But I do.
It's his birthmark. The one on his neck, like red wine soaked into silk.
Like blood gone wrong. It's as if Callum's veins overflow, the extra needing to find its way out. It tried, but the skin is a fence, a forcefield, a barrier too strong to break. The port-wine stain announces itself, big and irregular, so utterly imperfect and human.
If Callum didn't have it, he'd be ten times more prized.
It's a shame, Angelica always muttered under her breath when she looked at it. In fact, her eyes are glued to his neck right now.
I think it's a work of art. Of beauty. We're not supposed to have such thoughts.
But I do.
Torn between talking to Callum and seeing my sister on the television, I'm emotionally blinded by so much sudden light.
I lean in and say to him, so softly it's as if the words are smoke, “I have to see her.”
“She's never, ever coming back. Glen's too high up now to be associated with this place. She's one of the stars. She's the crowning achievement of the entire project, Kina.”
“I thought Romeo was.” And you, I want to add.
“He was. And now he's dead, through stupidity and pride. Never let your emotions make you do something that compromises The Mission.”
“Maybe The Mission isn't all there is to life.”
My words are enough for him to snap my neck right here, right now, and for our bosses to hail him a hero. No one else could give me space to say those words.
Callum isn't anyone else. He is my friend.
He is my lifeline.
Or, at least, he was.
“This isn't the place for practice,” he says evenly. “Your psychological technique is very good, though. I see that hasn't changed in nine years.” Appreciative eyes sweep over me. “Though you have.”
He waits. I meet his eyes.
“I'm serious. I need to see my sister.”
“Let's go for a walk.” There is no choice for me in his words.
We're walking, like it or not.
I don't.
“Where the hell do you think you're going?” Smith barks as we reach the doorway.
“Svetnu's not here yet. Neither are the other leaders. When they arrive, I'll come back.”
“This is crazy.”
“No, Smith. Romeo's plan was crazy. And look where it got him.”
With a jerk of his head, Callum makes it clear I'm to follow him.
I do.
Never one to patronize, Callum doesn't walk slowly so that my shorter legs can match his stride. I take two steps for his every one, the rush making me feel younger, anxious, perpetually behind. I keep up, though.
I'll be damned if I'll let him get away again.
We're walking into the woods, hidden by foliage, before he pulls out a tiny device from his pocket, grabbing my arm.
“What are you–”
He presses it against my wrist. A high-pitched whine, abrupt and sharp, stops within two seconds. The echo is faint, as if I imagined it.
But Callum holds my forearm and continues to press the strange metal bar against my skin.
“It blocks the surveillance,” he whispers.
“What surveillance?” The words are out of my mouth before I think. Then I remember.
My chip. It's been in me for so long, I've forgotten it's there.
“Why are you disabling my chip?” I demand. We've been taught that people will cut it out, chop off our body parts, do whatever it takes if they know about the chip. Callum has been gone for nine years.
Who knows if he's a double agent? Who knows whether he's been corrupted? Romeo just died as his partner.
What do I really know about the boy who left nine years ago? Callum is all man now before me, glaring at my arm and the device, silent and brooding.
“Because you need to hear this.”
“Hear what?”
“The truth.”
“Whose truth?”
"Before they officially interview me," he says, ignoring my question, his chest rising and falling with rapid effort, "I want you to know what happened to Romeo."
"Romeo died," I say.
His fingers cover my lips. Callum leans in, eyes intense like a blue flame. "He died by his own hand with a cyanide capsule."
Cold dread covers the back of my neck. I can't speak. The heat of his fingers on my mouth is all I know right now.
"Romeo suggested that weapon to you when we took The Test nine years ago, didn't he?" Callum insists.
I nod almost imperceptibly. He knows the answer.
Nine years ago, Callum, my sister Glen, and I were part of The Test. It was nothing but bloodsport. Time has given me more perspective. Nine years spent here at the compound has given me plenty of time to think.
Raising the babies full-time in the nursery, the oldest now nine and on the cusp of puberty, means I've spent every spare moment thinking through all the permutations of what I learned the night the leaders conspired with my fellow classmates to kill me.
Survival is an instinct deeply ingrained in us.
I see it in the newborns handed to me.
I've spent nine years of sleepless nights nurturing and comforting babies and toddlers so that they will become emotionally attached.
Survival is stronger when people are attached. Who they are attached to does not matter as long as the bond is real. I once had a bond with my identical twin sister. We shared a womb together, shared a bed when we were scared. We shared DNA. She looks exactly like me, and I like her, but now we are so different.
She is out in the real world on assignment, deep cover, and I... I am standing here before a man I haven't seen in nine years, his fingers pressed against my mouth, silencing me as if I haven't been silenced for nine years.
A scream, loud enough to shatter glass, rises up my throat.
"Romeo and I set a trap," Callum explains, "for the daughter of the president of the United States."
"Lindsay Bosworth?" I ask over his fingers, which he drops.
One head shake and I understand how much deeper this goes.
“No, a different daughter.”
I just blink.
“The idea was to lure the special ops security protecting Jane Borokov.”
I jolt. "I know who she is."
"Everyone knows who she is," he says with an acid tone in his voice. “You can't watch television without knowing.”
"She is Bosworth's daughter?"
Callum's eyes flicker with intensity.
"Yes."
He watches me, seconds ticking by before finally he says, "You've matched it, haven't you?"
I nod. "So the attack on Lindsay Bosworth, years ago–was that meant for Jane?"
A wry smile twists his mouth. “You must be amazing in your field assignment.”
His words are like gravel dragged across my skin. They hurt at the same time that the pain makes me feel more alive than I've felt in nine years, because the pain is coming from him.
It comes from a sense of connection, from someone who cares. Cared. But if he really cared, he would have come back. If he really cared, he would have helped me.
And even if he does care, it doesn't matter. I'm ruined already. I'm damaged goods.
My only role in forwarding The Mission now is to act as a counterexample. I am what the leaders can point to as a warning to the trainees.
This is what happens when you're not good enough.
"We were sent to a private club to take out Borokov, but it was too complicated. Romeo was the one who went to get her, and in the end he had to pretend to save her. That was two years ago. We waited for two years. Romeo slipped up. He shot someone thinking it was Jane, but it turned out to be her friend who looked almost exactly like her."
"Lily Thornto
n," I say, knowing exactly what he's talking about.
"Yes. Jane and Lily weren't related, but they looked so much alike–Romeo made a mistake."
I let out a bitter laugh, "Romeo doesn't make mistakes."
"Well, he did this time," Callum says. "He did last night. The ultimate mistake."
The hand that was touching my lips now shakes at his side. His other hand rakes through his short hair. The port-wine stain is exposed, the button at the top of his shirt popped off.
Only now can I look at him and see how roughed up he is, how jittery. If it's true that Romeo just died on his watch, stress hormones must be pouring through him.
Just died in front of him.
“You saw him die?”
“Not directly. It happened in another room at the sex club.”
“Sex club?”
Chapter 17
Callum
* * *
“Yes, sex club,” I echo, wondering why that's such a shock to her. “You know we operate wherever we need to.”
Did she just blush? She’s gorgeous. No make-up, hair pulled back, her cheeks are pink and her face somber. Kina has changed for the better in nine years.
Have I?
“Right,” she replies quickly. “Of course. Best location for gaining an advantage.”
“In this case, Romeo thought so. He was wrong.”
“What happened?”
“Taken out by a smarter operative on the other side. You know how it works.”
“Mmmm,” is all she says.
“Where are you stationed?” I ask, knowing time is running out.
“Stationed?”
“I'm based in Pittsburgh, working cybersecurity for a multi-national tech company. They bring me to DC when needed. You?”
Eyelashes fluttering, Kina's face goes through an extraordinary change, the morph from intense curiosity to guarded suspicion so rapid, it's like watching someone flip masks.
“I, um–”
“Callum!” Angelica and Smith appear with Hokes and Stratton behind them, both in suits that make it obvious they're some kind of security team, even if I didn’t already know. Having them assigned to me puts my teeth on edge. They're typically used for high-level private citizens who are part of The Mission.
Not for the true Stateless.
“What?” Careful not to arouse suspicion, I slide my chip blocker into my pocket. No one knows I have this. No one knows it exists.
That's because I invented it. You don't spend four years earning an electrical engineering degree, and two more in a robotics lab, without gaining some exceptional skills.
Specialized skills I never told my Stateless supervisors about.
“Leave,” Angelica snaps at Kina, who turns with an obedience that grinds my soul.
“Kina!” I call out as she leaves. Coming to a halt, she just stands there, not turning around.
“Yes?”
“We're not done.”
I can feel her smile.
“Go do your job, Kina,” Angelica practically snarls. “This isn't your assignment.”
She turns to me, cold eyes hiding what I know must be a vicious panic. “You shouldn't have left. Svetnu and Josephs just arrived.”
“A short wait won't hurt them.”
“Who do you think you are, Callum?”
Towering over her, I use brute threat to intimidate. I'm not a cowering eighteen-year-old boy anymore. Nine years have turned me into a man.
A man who knows exactly how full of shit most of the people running this place really are.
The Mission itself remains the single most important goal of mankind.
But these people? They don't know what they're doing.
“I think I am Romeo's protégé, Angelica. I'm the one he trusted the most. I’m also the one who knows his methods best. I know how to replicate them, and I know how to improve on them.”
A bitter sound comes out of her.
“And I know all the kompromat I need to have on every single person here,” I whisper, leaning in like a lover telling a dirty secret. “All the dirty secrets about everyone. Because Romeo kept those files. Except he wasn't as good at computer security as he thought, now, was he… Stacia?”
The use of her real name, which I know she knows, makes her chest seize, the muscles of her diaphragm climbing up, breast wall tightening. It's a strange spasm and one that makes her look like she's trying to breathe but can't.
I know what it looks like when someone truly can't breathe. It's not pretty.
Little sounds–like uh, uh, uh–come out of her. I am not laying one finger on her. I don't have to.
This is how you dysregulate someone with words.
My instructors taught me well.
“Hokes!” I shout, leaving Angelica and heading toward the wall of men. “Where are they?”
“Cobalt Hall, Room 3.” Hokes is a wall of muscle and nothing but a glare. He’s the perfect security guy.
“Thanks.” I walk with purpose toward the building, blood making wavelike sounds in my ears. Being back at the compound is a surreal experience. Improvements have been made steadily, but everything is browner, drier, deader, than in my memory. There are new buildings, but the old ones seem smaller than I remember. The faces I recognize are outnumbered by those I don't.
This is an orderly settlement, designed to fuel the greatest realignment of humankind ever achieved.
And yet it’s run by people who think that petty control is the ultimate authority.
Nine years I've spent out in The Field. Nine years of interacting with American society, learning mainstream social culture. Nine years of pretending to be one of them.
Nearly a decade of careful disguise.
I learned so much.
What I learned most of all, though, is this: The vast majority of the people fulfilling The Mission have no clue what they're doing.
I take the steps to Cobalt Hall two at a time, ascending with compact, intense movements to let my muscles expend some energy. Seeing Kina came with costs.
Emotional ones.
Oh, yeah. Another thing I learned in The Field: Emotions have a purpose.
And not just as a tool to manipulate others.
Dr. Svetnu is in the same conference room where I first saw Kina half an hour ago, seated next to Marshall Josephs, who is the sitting president's chief of staff. A big guy with a balding pate and a growing midsection, he's tall, red in the face, and about as powerful as a person can get in the U.S. without holding elected office or possessing on a nine-figure fortune.
He's also extremely pissed.
My goal: to make sure I'm not his target.
I nod to both. We sit. Svetnu is a formal man, tight in how he holds his body. Josephs, on the other hand, lumbers around like an elephant. A graceful one, though. He carries himself like a man accustomed to deep authority and careful study, a dangerous combination.
We might be on the same side in the fight to realign the world order, but that doesn't mean we all have to like each other.
Svetnu scratches his forehead, avoiding eye contact. “Explain.” Always a man of few words, he's even more taciturn than usual. While I've been gone for nine years, we've seen each other every six months or so, out in The Field.
I wonder if Kina's had the same meetings with him, wherever she lives.
“As you know, Romeo worked his way into Drew Foster's private security company,” I begin. “I remain in Pittsburgh, working in cybersecurity, creating loopholes in laptops, smartphones, and internet routers used by foreign and domestic intelligence agencies. Romeo called me in for a special case. Said I was the only person he could use.”
“Why?”
“He didn't say.”
Josephs and Svetnu exchange a look I really don't like.
“And?” Josephs asks. “Now he's dead. What happened?”
“Using his role in Foster's firm, he poisoned one of his team. A guy named Seamus McDuff. Then he kidnapped Lily Thornton,
a friend of Jane Borokov, who Romeo mistakenly shot about two years ago. Romeo used Lily to lure McDuff–he was her assigned security.”
“Why?”
“The guy knew too much. He’d pieced together President Bosworth's involvement with El Brujo and possibly figured out the Stateless mission.”
“Why you?” Josephs' eyes narrow. He's growing jowls and his nose has red roadmaps around it, his skin ruddier than I realized. He has the face of a drinker.
I shrug. “I assumed it was for hacking. Or hardware manipulation. He never said.”
“How'd he die?”
“We went to this sex club. Hid in the back passages. He stuffed Lily Thornton in a room and had me join him. The place is clean for bugs. Some kind of jammer makes it impossible to get a signal in or out. I tried to undo it all but whoever swept that place did a damn fine job. No chance it was us?”
I get stone-faced replies of silence.
“I'll take that as a no.”
“Get to the point,” Svetnu says, sounding bored.
“Romeo sent me as lookout. He insisted I needed to go work the perimeter, that he had it all under control. But with no signal, I had no way to communicate with him. He killed a worker at the club to get her keys.”
“Fool,” Svetnu mutters.
“I'm sorry, sir. I was following orders.”
“I meant Romeo. Not you. Go on.”
“There was a gunshot. Then someone discovered the dead worker. Screaming commenced. I was on my way to the room to find Romeo, but it was too late. That McDuff guy blew out his knee, and then Romeo ate cyanide.” Like Jason, I don't add.
A creepy feeling invades my skin, cut short by sheer willpower. Kina fed Jason cyanide provided by Romeo.
Could Kina have somehow been involved in Romeo's death?
Impossible. She was here when I arrived. There was no way for her to be at that club and fly back in time.
Or was there?
What, exactly, is her role in The Field?
“Why did Romeo eat the capsule?” Josephs asks.
“I don't know.”
“Were there signs of torture on his body?”
“Sir, I have no idea. I got a brief sight of his very dead corpse and got out of there, fast, before being further compromised.”