“You’re very uppity for a brainwashed superhuman,” I tell him, scanning my eyes over him judgmentally. “I was expecting more blinking into the middle distance and trauma flashbacks.”
Dan gasps sarcastically. “Are you calling fake news on my PTSD, you bitch? Because that’s offensive. You’re offending me with your blatant disrespect for my trauma.”
“Pics or didn’t happen, Dan. As you young people say.”
Dan scrunches his eyebrows together. “Aren’t you, like, twenty-four?”
“I’m still older than you.”
“I’ve killed more people than you,” Dan says, like that’s a valid argument.
“You don’t know that. I could have killed loads of people. I’m very dangerous.” I wiggle my fingers in his direction.
Dan looks at my fingers dubiously. “Oh yeah, the fear is real.”
There’s a sudden bang on the door, and then Rohan’s voice calls out agitatedly, “Hey, are you two done bonding or fucking or whatever it is you’re doing in there? I know he looks like the other one, Leo, but we can get nametags!”
Then there’s a scuffle from outside, which is clearly Jack and Rohan getting into some sort of bitch-slapping fest.
I roll my eyes at Dan and tell him, “Don’t think you need to worry so much about killing your brother. Pretty sure Rohan is about two seconds away from doing that at any given time. Good chance he’ll beat you to it before this little world-saving road trip is over.”
Dan crosses his fingers on both hands and holds them up.
Jesus Christ, this whole thing is going to be one long test of my sanity and patience, I can already tell.
Past
Rohan
In the morning, we don’t talk about what comes next, because we both already know how this thing is going to play out; no point in raking up all the reasons whywe can’t do thisif we’re just going to bury them six feet under all over again afterward.
Aaron doesn’t tell me he’s stepping back as my handler, but a few days after the mission, I get called into Snow’s office, where she explains that I’ll be base bound for a while until they can reassign me to a new leash holder. I can see she’s expecting a fight, possibly even some kind of supermarket toddler-level tantrum, and it’s very gratifying in the moment to deny her that.
Snow lets me turn my wheels for a few weeks while she struggles to find someone else who will agree to be my handler. I don’t know if it’s because of my past, which most of the agents on base shouldn’t know about, or if Aaron dropping me like an unpinned grenade really marked me as trouble that explosively.
When Snow gets bored trying to sell my virtues to other senior agents, she throws in the towel and sticks me with a temporary handler for each assignment instead. The only saving grace for that is she lets me decide which missions to take, an option I’m certain most junior agents are not granted, and I use my unearned privilege as I have throughout my life, to it’s fullest extent and without an ounce of shame.
Most of the handlers Snow throws me at are fine, but none of them are as skilled or competent as North, and the problem with having the best right out the gate is that anything less than that starts to feel like an insult on my own capabilities.
“Your senior agents,” I tell Snow after one particular job that got far messier than it should have done, “are fucking weak. You should kill them all and start over.” I’m very reasonable about it, but Snow still looks at me like she’s wondering if I’ll be one of those mistakes she’ll regret forever, or if I’ll do her the favour of dying so she doesn’t have to.
“Thank you for the assessment, Agent Sathe,” Snow says, dry as a rusted machete. “I will certainly keep that in mind for the future.”
Despite my frustration with FISA’s ongoing addiction to red tape morality bullshit, there’s a stretch of time where everything is ok, trudging along with very few issues. I don’t see much of Aaron because he’s out on missions even more often than I am, but it’s fine. I went eighteen years of my life without Aaron North and his large hands and vaguely amused quarter-smiles, I can survive a few fucking months of no contact well enough.
But then everything goes to shit during a mission in Novosibirsk, fucking Siberia of all places. It’s a nightmare right from the start, when the intel on how many people are supposed to be showing up at the weapons exchange is grossly incorrect, as well as the buildings interior maps being outdated, so half the exit points are justwallsnow.
I get clocked by some hyper Siberian arms dealers and they send their goons after me. With more luck than anything else, I find my way out onto the streets and start running. But we’re in a bad part of town, all gaps, entire pieces missing like chipped teeth, nowhere to hide, and I have zero idea where I’m going because my hit and run handler—Senior Agent Lane--goes radio silent on the comms.
Since there’s no one around here to call the police, or everyone who is here knows better, the well-armed Siberian lackeys feel free to unload their weapons on me. Bullets fly past my head as I sprint along snow-slick cobbled streets, and getting shot starts to feel like an inevitability that I’m going to need to plan my survival around rather than hold out hope for avoiding entirely.
“Fucking Siberia!” I growl as I slip on a patch of ice which only narrowly prevents me from receiving a bullet to the throat. “Fucking cold bullshit weather. No grit on the roads? Where the hell is the commitment to health and safety regulations in this country?” I sound half hysterical, which is good, because that’s only half as hysterical as I feel.
There’s a crackle of static in my ear and for a moment I think maybe my part-time handler had a fit of conscience that he will severely regret when I survive this and come for him, but then a different familiar voice comes through the comm line.
“Agent Sathe,” Aaron sounds blessedly unruffled, his usual gruff bark of command a welcome reprieve. “Go left at the next building.”
“Hey, babe!” I trill, following his advice and cutting abruptly to the left, narrowly avoiding another series of gunshots to the back, turning the corner of a large building, bullets hitting the chipped brick behind me.
