Page 13 of Operation: Defiance

Chapter Five

No one comes right away.

The room stays cold, quiet, and unchanged. The camera light doesn’t blink. My heart rate wants to tick up, so I curl my toes against the soles of my shoes, then rub the edge of my ring over and over again.

Time passes. I count it by the HVAC cycles, by the subtle ache in my shoulder as the room cools another degree.

What’s taking so long? I’ve never had an intake interview before—a gap in my knowledge that feels acutely relevant right now.

Eventually, the door opens.

Two people enter. Different than before. No uniforms this time. Plain clothes. Neutral expressions. The man carries a tablet. The woman carries nothing.

“Agent Calder,” the woman says, her tone professional. Not cold. Not warm either. “Thank you for your patience.” Her badge is clipped in a way that I can’t quite read her name.

“Our intake interviews always begin with a brief medical review,” she continues. “Routine questions. Nothing to worry about.”

Routine is a word that depends on repetition.

At least the medical review part I understand. Though I’ve only been through one of those before. When I left the field. But that took place in a doctor’s office, not a windowless room at a field office with two people I’ve never met.

She slides the clipboard across the table to me. “We’ll start with a few confirmations.”

I swallow the reaction my face wants to show. Confirmations of what?

I glance at the form. Boxes to check. Questions that could be answered more efficiently on a screen.

“Why paper?” I ask.

She smiles. “Redundancy.”

That’s not an answer. It’s a conversation ender. I don’t push.

The questions themselves are broad. General enough to be harmless if answered carefully.

Sleep: adequate.

Stress: within normal limits.

Pain level: minimal.

Workload: stable.

I answer the way I’ve been trained to. Not defensively. Not expansively.

Nothing false. Nothing that creates room for interpretation.

I finish checking the last box and pass the clipboard back across the table.

“I’m fine,” I say, because that’s the answer that keeps the process moving.

My phone vibrates on the table.

The woman slides it away from me, still face down. “I’ll hold on to this so we can focus.”

“I’m waiting for a message.”

She smiles again. “We’ll make sure anything important is handled.”