Page 100 of Trigger Happy Ending

The steward stops outside Carson’s office and knocks on the brown, walnut door. He pauses briefly and waits for the muffled “Come in” before opening it. The office is typical of a yacht study. Standard brown, yet expensive furniture, white orchids and model boats decorating the many shelves. No photos, which doesn’t surprise me. When you run in these circles, the less your associates know about your personal life, the better. People are known to use what you love against you.

Carson’s behind his desk with a steaming cup of coffee. “Lukas, good morning. Sleep well?”

“Very.”

We exchange pleasantries for a few minutes, mostly discussing the revelry of the night before. He doesn’t bring up Alex, which I’m thankful for.

“Remember when I said I might have something different for you?”

I keep my body language casual, even as every part of the soldier in me bristles awake. Everything Raine and I have worked towards these past few months boils down to this. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Please, take a seat.” Carson gestures to the empty leather chair across from his desk. “I want to show you something. Have you ever heard of PARM-17?”

I shrug, mask in place. “Should I have?”

“It’s a serum,” he says simply. “Designed to take the weakest humans and make them near invincible.”

“Right.” I huff out a laugh. “Sounds like science fiction bullshit.”

Carson pauses, his eyes narrowing. He leans forward and steeples his fingers.

“What if seeing is believing?”

I pause and angle my head. “Show me what you got.”

Carson slides a matte-black digital case out from under the desk and places it on the surface. He unlocks it and pivots it towards me, tapping play. A title card flickers on screen Untitled_Test_Subject_2_PARM-17.

I’m surprised to see it’s the same video Agent O showed to Raine and me in the briefing way back when. How did Carson get this?

I pretend this is the first time I’ve seen it, playing curious to the vision of the soldier being injected with PARM-17. “What the fuck?”

“Coined PARM-17,” Carson replies, watching my reaction to the vision closely. “It's a molecular rewrite. When injected, it triggers a full-body metamorphosis and turns the recipient almost superhuman.”

I stare at the screen. “Where’s it come from?”

“Does it matter?”

“Well, if you want me to sell this—which I think you do, because why would you show me otherwise—my connects are going to have some questions.”

Carson clicks his jaw. Tells me he probably had his jaw broken at some point.

“Ever heard of the Agency, Lukas?”

My blood runs cold. Carson knows about the Agency? I have one millisecond to choose the lie. “Heard of them in passing.”

Carson’s shrug is nonchalant. Like it’s neither here nor there. “It was developed by a geneticist there.”

Agency developed?

Well, this is a new development. The news rocks me, and it takes all of my training to remain neutral. This sounds like pertinent information that Raine and I should have known. So if it was developed there, that means at one point it was in their possession.

How’d they lose something so dangerous? And when?

“My contact wants to cash in. He’s got access to ten vials. Each vial is enough for ten operatives. That’s a hundred enhanced assets you can’t kill the usual way. Basically a whole fucking super army.”

“Price?”

“Two hundred fifty million.”