I give a nod of agreement and stand up from my seat, the impending dismissal obvious in Anabelle’s tone.
Anabelle doesn’t need to ask me to leave. I go for the door, only stopping when Anabelle calls to me.
“Please, Leo.” She hesitates for a moment as I turn my head to look at her. There’s a note of warning in her voice. “Don’t disappoint me in this.”
A small pain clinches inside my chest. I nod again, more rigidly this time, and leave the office.
CHAPTER TEN
JACK
Of all the psychiatrists FISA has thrown into a room with me since I was captured by the British agency, Agent Green is by far the most formidable.
Most people wouldn’t think her a threat at first glance. Green is skinny and small, made to look even more so by the overly large clothes she wears. She has bony shoulders, thin wrists, and drab, mousy-brown hair, which she always has tied up in a messy ponytail. There’s something inherently weak about her posture, how she holds herself, how she sits in a chair, as if she’s a snail that could snap back into her shell at any moment.
But what I have come to learn is that the phrase “appearances can be deceiving” was meant to describe people like Green. Her weakness is an illusion, purposefully conjured to fool someone like me into letting down my defences and allowing her to worm her way inside my head without me fully realising until it’s too late.
I can understand why Director Snow has Green tending to all her Liquid Onyx assets. It would be too easy for a woman who appears as fragile as Green does at first, second, and third glance to draw out and claim the trust of superhumans who have chosen to spend their lives protecting those who they perceive as the vulnerable. Innocent civilians. Ordinary people.
They would see Green and be reminded of the civilians they go around saving from mad supervillains and violent criminals andme.
It’s a clever ruse, I’ll give her that.
Over the last three months, I’ve been evaluated and interrogated more times than I can keep track of. They came at me again and again, asking for information about OI, getting me to talk about my missions, my training, my life as an OI agent.
But it wasn’t until I told them about the drug that they really seemed to come alive with interest.
They were very interested in what the blue drug did to me. More than one FISA interrogator sat down with me to ask a barrage of similar questions. At one point, they sent Stone’s spawn and a woman who introduced herself as Agent “Dru” Nash in to speak to me about the drug OI has created. Their questions were specific and focused almost entirely on what I felt both upon initial injection and the immediate physical aftermath. Neither of them seemed to care about the warehouse full of people I slaughtered whilst mentally absent.
I’d expect that level of emotional distance from two agency scientists, especially Stone. If OI taught me anything, it’s that scientists are a breed all their own. They’re cold-blooded creatures. At least, the more successful ones are.
I distinctly remember an OI scientist saying that generation-changing discovery takes true innovation, which can only be achieved when you put aside the notion of ethical impossibility.
The memory sticks out in my mind because it was the first time they opened me up on the surgeon’s table while I was still awake. They wanted to find out if there was a difference between the speed and scope of my healing abilities while I was conscious as opposed to when I was sedated. I’m not sure how old I was then. Maybe eleven.
What I remember most was looking sideways and seeing another table across the room with my brother strapped to it. They were doing the same thing to him, slicing tendons and cutting into soft tissue. Except Dan was unconscious.
I felt glad. I felt jealous. I wanted them to stop touching my brother. I wanted them to sedate me and wake him up.
Contradictions. My whole life. Split thoughts, splintered emotions. Never simple, always conflicted. A relentless struggle I couldn’t win but to lose.
Now I’m under FISA’s protection, and the only thoughts and wants and feelings I have are for myself. It’s become more of a burden than I could have predicted.
“You have been under the influence of Obsidian Inc. since your early childhood,” Green states, her pencil poised over the notepad she has settled on her lap.
I’ve come to hate that notepad to the point where I sometimes daydream about setting fire to it.
I offer Green a mocking smile.
“Nope, ’fraid not, Doc. That’s just a rumour. I was actually abducted by aliens, and Obsidian Inc. took the credit because they have an evil-bastards rep to protect.”
Green doesn’t even react to the baiting in my voice. She’s gotten rather good at ignoring the things I say that she has no interest in responding to.
Today’s session with Green has already been running for a good forty minutes. It’s the first time they’ve trusted me to sit in her office rather than having Green meet me in an interrogation room. I suppose they think since I’ve agreed to go out on missions for them that I won’t turn around and kill one of their shrinks.
It’s a risk. A test from Snow, maybe. I’m under no illusions about my usefulness outweighing the safety of FISA personnel. Snow made it clear I would be disposed of without hesitation if I made a move towards one of her agents. It seems she is forgiving of attacks against her personally but not against anyone else. Not a bad trait for a leader, I guess, if caring about the lives of their subordinates is something you think matters.
Ian Stone would likely argue the end result is the only thing worth caring about when in pursuit of a goal.
