But now I’m with FISA, and as shady as they are, being a government agency, I don’t mind digging into old ideas like this one.
For weeks following my night with Aaron at the safe house, I bury myself in creating a new material, one similar to Kevlar, but better, stronger. A material capable of standing up to bullets,fire, and explosions while being lighter and more flexible than any existing form of body armour.
I don’t think about Aaron too much if only because I’m so caught up in my work, barely giving myself time to sleep and eat. I don’t think about Aaron’s rough mouth on my skin or his strong hands fisting my hair. I don’t think about his sex-soaked voice challenging me to fuck him harder or the totally blissed-out look on his face after he comes.
It’s during one of these all-night sessions that I’m confronted with a face from my past that I didn’t expect.
Dru Nash is a young computer hacker, an undeniable genius of the game who OI tried to recruit a few years ago when she somewhat foolishly managed to land herself on their radar. She successfully avoided being snatched up and forced into servitude to OI, an impressive feat all on its own, and seemed to disappear completely.
I remember the loss of temper by my dad when his agents lost her, when they failed to bring her in. He threw a chair at one of them. A fuckingchair. It was hilarious. I probably owe Dru a present just for inspiring that little dramatic loss of composure.
Dru catches me in the lab, barely coherent after too many energy drinks and nowhere near enough food, having no clue what time it is or even if it’s day or night outside, and she asks me what I’m working on. I’m reluctant to engage at first, but Dru is persistent, and we spend the next few hours discussing my project, throwing ideas back and forth, Dru offering some invaluable insights I wouldn’t have considered.
After that, Dru comes into the lab whenever she feels in the mood, either to bring me food and coax me into taking a break or to help me with my work. She doesn’t ask about my dad or my reason for joining FISA although I can tell she’s very curious, keeping our discussions strictly science based or surface level mockery about more recent events.
Admittedly, it feels good to talk to someone who doesn’t expect any kind of explanation about my past even if she does like to make lots of cracks about the fact I got dumped by Aaron after only a handful of missions with him as my handler.
It’s one such night, where I’ve been alone in the lab for hours, that she wanders to lean over my worktable and once again distract me from my frantic, possibly manic, note taking.
“You look like shit, mate,” she says without any other lead-in.
Dru is an attractive woman, with her dark, curly hair pulled into a messy ponytail and large, round-rim glasses perched on her pretty, heart-shaped face. She has lovely brown eyes a few shades lighter than her skin and an easy confidence in how she holds herself that only accentuates her natural beauty.
Still, I’m here trying not to think about a man old enough to be my dad who handed me off without a word and hasn’t once come to see me since we fucked, and I’d rather not be interrupted, thanks and goodbye.
“Do I look too busy to deal with your unwarranted complaints about my physical appearance? Because I’m definitely that on the inside.”
Dru leans more heavily on the table, half bent over it with her arms crossed and resting on the metal surface, as she scrutinises me through squinted eyes.
“Why are you wearing pajamas, though?” She sounds wary, like it could be part of some plot that I’m committing myself to.
“’Cause there’s nothing in my contract saying I can’t,” I say wryly. “Double-checked with Liz.” And what a fun conversation that had been. Dealing with our head of HR is like haggling with a corporate lawyer who, inexplicably, only charges ten quid an hour for her advice. Her advice being, mostly,go fuck yourself.
“You look like a sleepwalking teenage hobo.” Dru tilts her head slightly, eyes running over me as if reconsidering. “Or a uni student.”
“Why did you just say the same thing twice?” I ask, feigning perplexion, looking up from my work and offering Dru my undivided attention for the first time.
Dru, as expected, immediately abuses it. She gives me a knowing little smile, like she’s in on a secret. It makes me nervous even though I have no idea what she could possibly think she knows that would scandalise me.
“Senior Agent North wants to talk to you,” she says, and a terrifying mixture of dread and toxic excitement flares to life inside my stomach, the hot tendrils coiling around each other like burning snakes of flame in a firepit.
“About what?” I ask, going for nonchalant and likely failing if Dru’s spark of amusement is anything to go by.
“A mission involving OI,” she says pointedly as if to say “what else,” and she’s right. What else would Aaron possibly want to talk to me about?
I take my disappointment, useless and pathetic as it is, by the throat and plunge it under water, holding the fucking feeling there until it finally stops thrashing and dies.
“Where is he?” I ask, all business, much to Dru’s obvious disappointment.
She pushes away from the worktable and jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “Said to go find him in his office.”
Dru watches me as I put a concentrated effort into making my walk out of the lab look casual, devoid of the agitated desperation that’s shouting for me to sprint all the way there to find out what could have possibly caused Aaron to break the silence between us since that night at the safe house.
As promised, I find Aaron waiting for me in his office, leaning against his desk. He looks the same as always, serious and aloof. His face doesn’t change when he sees me, but the immediate dilation of his pupils and the way his eyes drag over me in a slow, thorough assessment, as if some part of him is greedy toconsume every little piece of me he can without being able to reach out and touch, tells its own story.
I’d be pissed off about the relief at our separation having obviously impacted him if I wasn’t so preoccupied with taking him in too, cataloging every detail down to the minutiae like I’m going to be asked to describe him for a police sketch artist later.
He looks tired, not quite exhausted but close. There’s a heaviness to how he’s holding himself, a slump to his usually rigid shoulders, and a strain to the cross of his arms over his chest as if he’s struggling to keep it together.
