Instead, I turned away from him, watching as that womanclimbed into that black van Olivia had seen earlier. She climbed into the back and slid the door shut quickly.
I took a drink of my coffee, trying to catch a glimpse of the driver beyond the glare, but no dice.
Hmm, maybe her sixth sense was onto something. “I’ve been thinking about what I want this thing to be in the future,” I brought up confidently. It was time to test it out with him because in a few years time, I might not have a choice. Malachi would be looking for a solution to a problem that had started years ago, and I believed I had it.
“Oh? Hoping Malachi kicks the bucket so soon?”
“Thinking of a successful future when we are all long since gone,” I countered. “Thinking of how long this will last as it’s going.”
“Well, tell me. What ideas have you come up with?”
Something I had brought up to Azrael in the past, and he seemed to like it. Although, there was no way to tell whether he actually liked something or not with that creepy smile he always wore.
I straightened. “The chances of us keeping our identities a secret for the next few decades is slim,” I said, gesturing to my face which was maskless today so that my targets wouldn’t recognize they were in trouble before I was snapping their necks. “Along with the fact that eventually, we will run out of people to recruit before word gets out about what happens during the program.”
Beckett nodded. “The anonymity of it has always concerned me,” he agreed. “You can’t have an army without word about building it finally getting out. It’s bound to happen.”
I took a drink. “So, my thought was to let it out. Open up a kind of school. Private, rigorous screening. Malachi would be the headmaster, we can hire older Initiates, those who aren’t in the game anymore to teach the classes. Four years, each yearis progressively harder. You’re a recruit until you graduate into Initiate and then,” I shrugged, “maybe another year or so of training, if they qualify, and they can try to become a Shadow.”
I had it all written down on paper. A way to make it successful. The idea came to me during a meeting a few years ago when Malachi mentioned six other families who were going to be in charge of different sectors. Why not take it a step further? Create a private college that people can apply to in order to become like us.
It would completely irradicate the invisibility of it all, but why not? The world should know that there were people like us out there, watching them, hunting them, breaking every law there was. We already had the police under our belts, some members of the FBI, Homeland Security. Everyone knew who we were, just not what we looked like.
Doing this seemed like the next logical step, especially with the fact that eventually, they would figure out what we looked like, and then what? Malachi never talked about what came next, and it was something we needed to start considering.
“Would we allow civilians to enter?”
“That’s why it’s four years. If they want to see if they have what it takes, they can, if they decide to back out, whatever year they are in will tell us what their consequences are.”
Beckett looked over. “The higher the year, the more information they know?”
I nodded. We would have to kill them. Maybe enact some brainwashing, or just tell them that they have the chance to go back to their normal lives, but that we were always watching. If they fucked up, they died.
Contracts would be involved. Blood contracts. A promise to the institution that their souls were no longer theirs, whether or not they made it through. Maybe some kind of branding perhaps.
He considered this. “What about the girls?”
“Two separate training programs like we have now. Malachi’s and yours. If they think they can make it through Malachi’s like Rae did,” I shrugged. “Good on them. If they don’t, they can take yours like Greyson and our sisters did.” I didn’t think any less of them knowing they did that. Most women who went through Malachi’s program died a gruesome death. Evelyn, Poppy, and Zo were amazing at what they did, and the years of experience they now had under their belts made them lethal, just like it had Greyson. It wasn’t always about the training, but what came after graduation too.
They were picked to be put with us for a reason, and I didn’t doubt them, just like I didn’t doubt Greyson, not for one second.
“It seems to me you have it all planned out,” Becket hummed. He was quiet a moment. “I think it’s a solid idea for a few simple reasons,” he went on, turning to me. “I think you’re right. Eventually, the world will know who you boys are. The world already knows about the program, the Initiates, the only thing they don’t know at this point is what happens during the program, but the more people that go through it, the harder it is to keep it that way.”
“Which is why I think this is our next step. The hierarchy only remains if we keep things new and unpredictable. These last few years, the ropes around our necks have been tightening, and I can’t figure out why, so maybe this should be what we do next. Build a campus, buy one, whatever, create the rules to live by, find the professors, and go from there.”
Beckett glanced towards the street, searching for something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
After a few seconds, he turned back to me. “I think you’ve got something here. Where would the campus be set up?”
“Clear the space around the training building, build off of it. We can build a house for us, the main house where we will staywhen we’re in Washington, and the campus can be down the road. Fit with classrooms and a building where the recruits will stay while they’re taking classes before they graduate. Then they will get their assignments and move on.”
“What degrees will they earn outside of ours?”
I shrugged. “We’ve got the money to buy whatever we want. If they want to be doctors, lawyers, whatever, we’d be better for it. Then they would give us a stipend every year so our funding remains strong, even during our tougher years.”
He rose a brow. “But they won’t actually be those people?”
I took a drink. “We can give them a courseload, buy their way into the position, go from there. Money does a lot in this world. If they’re smart and strong enough to get through our training, getting enough information to pass as a good doctor while they complete their courseloads shouldn’t be hard.”
