If I put the name “Rohan Stone” down on these forms, that’s who I’ll be. Leaving my dad’s world was supposed to put an end to the power that name held over me. But as with many times in my life before, the very fact of who I am is the reason why this agency wants to hire me.
In truth, if I had really wanted to distance myself from my name, I should probably have moved to Australia and opened a bakery, or something equally mundane, and lived as an ordinary man would, with holidays and taxes and hobbies and boring relationships I’d never truly care about.
And if my dad hadn’t somehow brought back Liquid Onyx, maybe I would have done that. But he did, so I’ve got no choice other than to stick it out till the end. Whether that be his or mine.
Preferably his, but I don’t want to be greedy. An end is an end is an end, after all.
I must have been sitting here staring at the blue form, black pen poised over the name question box for too long because Aaron takes notice and decides to get involved. A strange decision from him, really, but peoplearestrange sometimes.
We’re sitting on opposite sides of his desk, my third desk of the day, and by far the best suited to its owner, not too small or too ornate. Aaron watches me from across it with a steady gaze that has the hairs on the back of my neck pricking with awareness.
“What was your mother’s name?” he asks.
I frown at him, suspicious of the reason behind his question since I’m certain he already knows my mum’s name. He doesn’t elaborate or take back the question at my adverse reaction; he just sits there, patiently waiting for my answer.
For fuck knows what reason, I indulge him.
“Esha Sathe.”
Aaron nods, his mouth curving up on one side into a slight smile, a softer expression than I would have thought him capable of. “That’s pretty,” he says. “I’ve seen pictures of your mother. Names don’t always fit with the person they’re given to, but Esha Sathe suits her. She doesn’t have any family, does she? No one else to carry the Sathe name.”
It’s painfully obvious what he’s trying to get at, and the bluntness of it is almost too aggravating and guileless to take. But there are worse things to be than a bad manipulator.
“You’re really shit at this, you know,” I tell him just in case he thought otherwise.
Aaron raises his eyebrows. “At what?”
“Being wily.”
Aaron sighs, fixing me with a more intense look than I was mentally ready to defend against. “Not everyone’s first instinct is to trick people into things, kid,” he says, quiet and somber, like he’s try to be gentle with me.
I don’t respond to it, any of it, out loud, because I have nothing nice or inoffensive to say, but I do write the name “Rohan Sathe” on the form.
Present
Jack
“You can’t trust him,” I say emphatically, bringing my hand down on the meeting table hard enough to hear it crack under the sudden impact.
“We aren’t saying we should go in without any recon at all, Agent Roth,” Snow replies sternly, like a highbrow headmistress at a school for over-pampered bluebloods. She has a particularly garish flint to her eyes, too, that has me wishing I could challenge her to an alleyway fistfight. “But we can’t just ignore the information your brother’s given us either if there’s even a chance it’s real. I’ve already contacted the nearest FISA base in that same area, and they’re dispatching a team right now to check out the location for its validity. When they report back, we’ll decide what to do from there.”
Watching Leo interview my brother was one of the tensest experiences of my life, and that shit’s got some real hardcorecompetition. Dan used every tactic we were trained for by OI to get under any interrogator’s skin, to push and stab at them, to dance and swerve until they’re tied in knots and full of holes, bleeding from places they were too twisted up to see.
“Fuck this!” I snarl, getting up from my seat and storming out of the room.
Ever since Dan gave up that obviously bullshit information about the machine, I’ve been stuck in a meeting with Snow and our unit, tearing his intel to shreds, arguing over what the hell we should do with it.
My vote to ignore anything Dan tells us has been summarily shot down every time I try to voice it, probably because Snow is getting desperate, which is fair given the enormous crap storm coming our way if we don’t find the machine before OI decides to use it. She’s likely getting all sorts of sonic pressure from her bosses in government to get this shit sorted.
Leo follows me out of the meeting, jogging to catch up with me on my hostile stomp down the corridor, frightening young junior agents, sending them scurrying, like packs of fish dispersing in the path of a pike that would otherwise devour them. That’s right, arseholes, you all want to survive like Nemo? You’d better move the fuck out of my way.
“You know I’m with you, yeah?” Leo prods when I make no move to acknowledge him. When I don’t respond, he carries on. “I think Dan is lying too. Almost certainly. I just can’t decide if he’s doing it on purpose, or if OI has ordered him to.”
“I don’t give a shit either way,” I growl, frustrated by just about every fucking thing happening around me, mostly because there’s not a lot I can do about any of it. “We have to work out how to un-mindfuck him.”
Leo’s brows draw together in a slight frown, thinking that over before nodding in agreement. “We need to talk to Rohan, then.”
“Where the hell do you think we’re going?” I gesture aggressively at the hallway in front of us.
