"Good." He stands, extends his hand. "Keep the asset functional. Keep producing intelligence. And try not to give Webb any more ammunition."
I shake his hand and leave.
The elevator ride down takes sixty seconds. I use the time to run calculations, assess outcomes, plan next steps. The dossier bought time. How much, I don't know. But time is a resource, and I've learned to use every resource I have.
My phone buzzes as I exit the building.
Unknown number. Encrypted signal.
I answer.
"Hello, Jace."
Webb's voice. Calm. Patient. The same tone he used when he was teaching me how to kill at twelve years old.
"Director."
"I have something of yours."
The words don't register at first. I'm still in operational mode, still running scenarios, still three steps ahead.
Then they hit me.
"What did you say?"
"Your asset. Elliot Rowe." A pause. "He's with me now. Such a fragile thing. I can see why you're attached."
The world goes white.
Not metaphorically. Literally. My vision blanks, my hearing fades, every sense overwhelmed by a surge of something I don't have a name for. It's not fear. Fear is weakness. This is something else. Something primal.
"If you've hurt him—"
"I haven't. Not yet." Webb's voice is pleasant, conversational. "But I will, if you don't cooperate. You know how thorough I can be."
I do know. I've seen his work. I've studied his methods. I've implemented them myself, on targets who were unfortunate enough to require extended persuasion.
The thought of those methods being applied to Elliot makes something inside me crack.
"What do you want?"
"A meeting. In person. One hour." He gives me an address. Industrial district, east side. The kind of location where screaming goes unheard. "Come alone. If I detect surveillance, if I sense backup, if you deviate from my instructions in any way, I will activate the collar around his neck and you will listen to him die."
Collar. He put a collar on Elliot.
My hands are shaking. I stare at them, fascinated by the tremor. I haven't shaken since I was nine years old, since the Foundry conditioned the response out of me.
"One hour," I say.
"Don't be late."
The line goes dead.
I stand on the sidewalk outside the Ministry building, surrounded by people who have no idea what just happened. Civilians. Workers. Lives that mean nothing to me, that have never meant anything to me.
Elliot means something.
I don't know when that happened. I don't know how. But the reality is undeniable: there is a person in the world whose existence I cannot accept losing, and that person is currently in the hands of the man who made me.
