Jonah turned the page and stared blankly at the choices of desserts available. He should have known the fatter one would put the blame of losing the decoder on him. He wanted to say something to defend himself, wanted to point out that without him, they wouldn’t have known the SEED was in Frankfurt, that he wasn’t the one who had failed to capture that remote viewer. In fact, he’d been the only one who had done everything right and had been quietly sitting inside the vehicle watching them fuck up. It wasn’thisfault they couldn’t get inside a building themselves. Hell, those other agents did.
He frowned. He didn’t want to think about those moments when he was remote viewing that building. He didn’t want to remember the loss of his precious cache.
He snapped the menu shut. All his wonderful sex-filled recordings he’d carefully collected and stored for his viewing enjoyment. They were his comfort in the stupid medical place. Now nothing to fill that empty void. Remote viewing was no fun without that serum. Just another fucking task to help these idiots get their reward. 51 go here. 51 look for that. What about his reward?
“So you’ve decided what you want to order, 51?”
“It’s Five-One,” he corrected with slow emphasis. If they were going to use him, they needed to at least call his special handle correctly. “It’s Five-One, not Fifty-One.”
He stared back at the man studying him. He heard the fat one snorting impatiently. The first agent put up his hand to stall his partner’s sarcastic remark.
“Of course, if it’s important to you,” the agent said mildly. “I didn’t know that’s the correct way to address you.”
Which told him that these two weren’t ever involved with the original CIA programs. There was a reason why the numbers were called out individually instead of as an entity. Five-One would have told a knowledgeable agent the division and experience. There were very few with the experience level he had and that was why it irritated him to be treated like a useless experiment by these assholes.
“Fifty-One makes it sound like I’m just a number down a long line of experimental remote viewers. I’m not. I’ve been handpicked for veryspecial assignments, including for part of the supersoldier-spy program.”
“Which you failed almost immediately,” the other agent sneered.
Jonah refused to acknowledge that he was considered a failure. He was more than an experiment; in fact, he was a success for a long time. Why the fuck would climbing a rope or running for miles be so damn important anyway?
He shrugged. “I’ve never been in the army. I didn’t know they were expecting me to train like some athlete.”
“The serum, Five-One, was supposed to help you through that phase. Anyway, let’s get back to ordering food. We aren’t here to discuss the success of the program or the serum.”
Jonah reopened his menu, restlessly looking at the items again. Of course, they didn’t know how successful he really was with that serum they’d fed him. Not only was he more clear-minded, not only was he able to function physically without the usual downtime after a remote-viewing session, but he’d discovered he could pull and absorb certain energy from those he was covertly watching.
He’d gone after the pretty ones, the ones with their sexy late night romps still lingering around their aura. He wasn’t stupid. He put his life on the line for their covert games every time they shot him up with the juice, so he should have a few perks too. He’d kept his new power a secret. No harm done.
Payback was a bitch, though. The longer downtime and the headaches took him out for days. But his cache of recordings was worth it. In those hours of pain and darkness, he could retreat into himself and let all that sexy energy wash over him. He would replay them over and over and no one knew because he was left alone to rest.
But his treasure was all gone now. He felt that rage inside him growing again. He wasn’t enjoying his downtime at all. He needed the serum in his system soon. He had to get out there in the ether and get his fix, or break down like a lunatic. A fix, that was all. Just to tide him over until he found that bitch who stole his cache.
“I want the house steak, rare, with spicy potato wedges,” he said, “and afterwards, a banana split, with everything on top. Can I have coffee too?”
Caffeine and nicotine were no-nos during prep time for remote viewers. He had snuck a couple of cigarettes in past sessions. Unlike their tests, he found that the nicotine calmed him down. No one was regularly checking his blood pressure anyway. Besides, it wasn’t as if they were right about their serum. He couldn’t do what that bitch did.
“No caffeine, sorry, Five-One, but everything else is fine.”
“Am I remote viewing again so soon?” He hid a surge of hope.
“I haven’t gotten the green light yet but I’ve put in the suggestion to use your ability to find the missing explosive device in Macedonia,” his monitor said. “So, we should be prepared in case the higher-ups give the thumbs-up.”
“Is it like the last assignment, when we were looking for the data converter device?” That was what the SEED had appeared to him when he was looking at it through remote viewing. It was used by some operative to retrieve some kind of codes from the computer. “And are we working against that other team we bumped into in Frankfurt?”
“Yes to the first question, not sure to the second, although the location’s a bit trickier this time. We have the basic location but it’s a lot bigger than a building. But let’s not get into the details right now.”
“Okay.”
“Think you can locate it this time?”
He looked at the fat one. He wished they would give him their names but they were so damn secretive. So, Fat One and Thin One.
“I located the SEED for you all,” he calmly pointed out. “I wasn’t the one who failed to get that woman.”
“You were supposed to get information on which exit she was using,” Fat One growled back.
“I did!”
