I’d be annoyed by how unhurried Snow is behaving, but I’m already annoyed, so there’s nowhere else for me to go. Emotionally. Also, literally.
I suppose I could make a run for it. Snow left the door to my cell open. But Snow didn’t bring any guards, and I know it can’t be because she trusts me. She has to trust her base security and the agents within it will contain me if I try to make some kind of escape.
Snow’s confidence could be misplaced arrogance, but I doubt it. I’ve been taught to read people, and nothing about Snow suggests a false sense of self.
When Snow finally deigns to snap her attention back to me, I instantly want her to look away again. There’s an entire Arctic Ocean’s worth of chill in her gaze. It makes me feel more isolated and set adrift than I did before, like I’ve been thrown overboard and left floating on a sheet of ice.
“We need to have a discussion about your future, here,” Snow says without any inflection to suggest what she really means by that.
“Here?” I ask, unwilling to give so much ground this early in the conversation. “As in FISA or on this plane of existence?”
Snow releases a low sigh, the weight of the world fused into the sound, like I’m just another tonne of earth that’s piling on top of her.
“I hope this little flair for the dramatic is something you’ve picked up from my nephew,” she says, voice as sharp as a very thin blade, “and it isn’t how you’re going to behave all the time.”
“A very hopeful person, are you?” I ask caustically.
This gets me another blood-freezing stare. It makes me wish I had a single shard of glass to work with. I’d hack that ice right out of her veins.
“Have you thought about what you want?” Snow asks then, ignoring my needling like the responsible leader she seems determined to be. Why, I have no idea. There’s no one to impress, and I’m already terrified of her.
“I’m guessingto leaveis out as an option.”
Snow raises both her shoulders and drops them lightly in a delicate shrug. She’s watching me with a placid expression, no emotion betraying her thought process to me.
“To be clear, Mr Roth, please be aware that whatever the outcome of this conversation is, it will certainly not be your execution. So you can stop scowling at me.” She takes a short breath as if readying herself for a difficult revelation. “I won’t lie; there is a chance you will be incarcerated by the British government for the numerous crimes you committed on behalf of Obsidian Inc. I would like to avoid that outcome. But I can only do so if you are as honest with me as you can be. I need to know what it is you want, or if it’s easier, what you don’t want.”
There’s no possible way I should believe my death has been taken off the table as an option. It seems such an obvious solution to the many problems I could present to FISA.
Apart from Obsidian Inc., I’ve made a lot of enemies during my OI career. Dan and I left a shitload of carnage in our wake. Neither of us cared because we were doing what we’d been ordered to do. We needed to complete the mission by any means necessary. I’ve lost track of all the countries that would be overjoyed to have me in their custody.
Snow could sell me to one of them, easy. Probably earn herself some points with her government in more ways than one.
It’s Snow’s job to protect the agency, not me or anyone like me.
But I can play along for now if that’s what Snow needs me to do to get on with it and make a fucking decision.
“I don’t want to go back to Obsidian Inc. I want my freedom.” A moment of hesitation. Then, “I don’t want to hurt people without knowing why I’m doing it.”
“Okay,” Snow accepts, nodding thoughtfully. “I can work with that. Would you be willing to offer us information about your former employer?”
“In exchange for what? A lesser sentence?”
“How about we take this one step at a time,” Snow offers noncommittally. “You agree to offer information, and I will agree to offer protection.”
That could mean a lot of things.
“Who from?” I ask for clarification, not because it will matter in the end.
“Everyone,” Snow answers with some finality. Then she adds, “Includingthe British government.”
“You work for the British government,” I remind her, like she might have forgotten.
“I work,” she corrects, “for the British people. It is FISA’s responsibility to protect them as best we can, in whatever way is deemed necessary. If you can provide assistance in this endeavour, I will consider you an asset, not just to myself but to the protection of my country’s populace.”
How much of that I’m supposed to believe is unclear. We’re both aware this is my only real option, so the point in grandstanding, lying, seems ultimately pointless to me. But Snow is a political animal; she would need to be to have gained the position she has now. We’re entirely different species, ones who have spent our lives hunting in different habitats. I can’t predict what Snow would think is worth playing pretend for.
“Right,” I say smoothly, “so do I actually have to sing ‘God Save the King’ to prove my undying loyalty, or?”
