"What is this?"
"A test." Webb sets down the tablet. "And an opportunity."
"Explain."
"Briar Harrington is a liability. His recent... attachment to Mr. Thompson has raised concerns among the Custodians. Sound familiar?" Webb's smile is thin. "The man who was supposed to be eliminated as part of a routine cleanup operation is now living in Brook’s Alpine retreat. Eating his food. Sharing his bed. He bought himself time with his escape and subsequent bigger issues, but I’m demanding retribution"
I think about Elliot. About the marks I left on his body. About the way he’s starting to trust me. It sounds a hell of a lot like Briar and Landon.
Do I want to erase them to save Elliot?
Without a doubt. I’d destroy my own kin to save him.
"What does this have to do with me?"
"Everything." Webb leans closer. "The Custodians want the problem resolved. Quietly. Permanently. And they want you to do it."
"Kill Briar Harrington."
"And Landon Thompson. Both of them. Make it clean, make it untraceable, and make it look like an accident or an outside attack." Webb straightens. "Do this, and I release your asset. I destroy the evidence of your deviation. I report to the Custodians that your conditioning is intact and you remain operational."
"And if I refuse?"
Webb's thumb moves to the button on the collar controller.
"Then I activate this device, and you watch the only thing you've ever cared about die in front of you. After that, I take you back to the Foundry and we start the reconditioning process. By the time we're done, you won't remember his name. You won't remember anything except the mission."
I look at Elliot. He's shaking his head, tears streaming down his face, trying to say something but unable to form words.
I look at Webb. At the calm certainty in his eyes. At the thumb resting on the button.
I look at the photographs on the tablet. Briar Harrington. Landon Thompson. Two people I've never met. Two people whose only crime is finding something in each other outside of The Silents directives.
Two people who are just like me and Elliot.
"Why them?" I ask.
"Because they're the same kind of malfunction you are. Because eliminating them proves that the conditioning can be corrected. Because it sends a message to anyone else who might be developing... feelings." Webb picks up the tablet, studies the photos. "And because you're the best person for the job. You understand the target. You understand the weakness. You know exactly how to exploit an attachment."
He's right. I do know.
I know because I have the same weakness now. The same vulnerability. The same point of failure that makes me sitting in this chair instead of fighting my way out.
"There's also a certain poetry to it," Webb continues. "A broken Reaper sent to eliminate a broken Custodian. Both of you corrupted by the same disease. Both of you proof that even our best work can fail." He sets down the tablet. "When you kill BriarHarrington, you'll be killing the version of yourself that exists in him. The part that wanted something it wasn't supposed to want."
"And if he kills me instead?"
"Then I'll find another Reaper. And your asset will still die." Webb shrugs. "The outcome is the same either way. The only variable is whether you survive it."
I think about the photographs. Briar's face, sharp and controlled, the kind of face that gives nothing away. Landon's face, softer, more open, the kind of face that probably trusted too easily and paid for it.
I think about what it would take to kill them. The planning. The approach. The moment when the blade finds flesh or the bullet finds bone. I've done it two hundred and seventeen times. I could do it again.
But something has changed.
Before Elliot, killing was arithmetic. Input, output, result. There was no weight to it, no cost, no residue that stayed after the job was done.
Now there's weight. Now there's cost. Now I understand what it means to look at someone and see something worth protecting instead of something worth eliminating.
