night. The darkness. I hate everything involved in this torture of returning from a mission and having nothing to return to. Getting nothing. Not a single moment of happiness. A simple nod that I did well. Not once do I even get a chance to enjoy myself in a comfortable part of town. Like some rich hotel with pools, massages, and HDs with an unlimited supply of movies. Forget all that fancy junk; I’d be happy with just an small HD in my room and free movie rental.
I turn towards my hotel. If I can fall asleep, I can get my next mission sooner. Maybe tomorrow. Enough people won’t want them right now with the holidays coming up. Sure, I don’t particularly want the missions either; but I hate this loneliness more.
I find my hotel in a sketchy part of town. Nothing special marks it as a hotel besides the half-burned out neon sign. Nor is it anything special. Half the rooms smell; I know, because I’ve been here before. It’s like my bosses don’t have any clue about what I’m capable of. I mean, sure, they know I’m very good at not being traced back to them. But do they realize that I can manipulate thoughts? Do they realize that if I wanted to, I could convince every single one of those men in that room to increase my pay by 1000% and they would do it? In a week, they might wondering why they did, but they would it.
I pause across the street from my hotel and stare at the sky. Why don’t I? Why don’t I just walk into a fancy hotel somewhere and ask for a nice room for free? I would deserve it; veterans get it. And I could get them to do it for me. I can get anything I want. A nice HD. A better job. Good assignments. The ones that don’t take too much out of me. Anything at all.
Instead, I try to scrap by on my own in this world and where does that end? Most everyone whose plans I’ve stole or sabotaged through work would laugh at this right now. Me--one of the most successful spies galacticly--here. Most everyone expects I’m from one of the central planets--the ones that have super-advanced technology for specialized training and medical alterations. Not an inner edge planet. Not standing in the middle of a street littered in garbage, something putrid burning nearby, a fight down the alley and a stray rat poking its nose around a wall. That doesn’t include the things no one else can see but I can sense. The gross. The filth. The miserable drunks hiding in the shadows. The drug users and prostitutes near by. And in my pocket, a two-year-old pod with Cash’s voice echoing through my head.
Who ever came up with the name of pod for a music player anyway?
I start to cross the street. A door slams open; a drunk trips down the stairs and almost lands on me. Reactively, I punch him in the chest, then slam him to the ground. He crumples with a moan. Only then do I fully realize what I did and shudder. I try not to look down as I step over him. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I had two choices as a teen to get my anger out: fight in the gym or get in trouble with the law. The reflexes built up during that time have only been sharpened through my current training.
I glance back at the drunk, still on the ground, gripping his chest. I probably broke his sternum. At least his sternum.
My throat begins to close. I gasp. I need to get away. I turn and run. The darkness swallows me, swallows his moans, and in an instant, I’m gone.
The next thing I know, I’m at the river. The cool wind whips my hair around my face and tugs at my clothes. I duck under the condemned sign and walk onto the old bridge. Here, no one will bother me.
The dark water swirls beneath my feet. I shudder as I watch it. I feel compelled to jump. Like it’s another stunt to show I’m not afraid. The water whispers my name and seems to pull me to itself. Why? Why?
Cash whispers the answer to me. Pain’s all that’s real in this world. It’s the only way I can know if I feel anything. It’s the only thing that I can feel through the darkness around me.
Maybe I’m tired of being so dead. I want to feel something tonight; I would feel something if I jumped. The panic as I drop sixty feet; the crash of the water as my body hits; the tingling stabs as I break through; the water closing over my head; the darkness, and then--for once--to not have control. Crazy talk from a girl who’s struggled her whole life to stay in control. Yet--my whole life I’ve been forcing my way into the control seat. Making people tolerate me long enough to get something. What would happen if I suddenly just stopped worrying about that?
What would happen if the water swallowed me?
I should turn away. Leave this death trap. Leave the water. This is nonsense. I should go back to that hellhole of a hotel and leave this all behind. Leave the temptation to try something I would regret--if I even survived. No one would care if I did though. Not even....
I want to stay. I stay. I watch as a cup gets thrown about by the water. There’s no fighting this current. Isn’t that what everyone else experiences? Absolutely no control over anything? An understanding of when to stop fighting? That’s something I don’t get. But don’t I deserve better than what they give me? Shouldn’t I take what I deserve?
No.
I don’t deserve it. Because I don’t earn it. What I do--the little effort I put forth--is not my own. It’s not hard for me. It’s easy to twist a mind once I learned how. But I don’t deserve anything special for it. I’m a monster. A freak of nature. Alive because of some radiation storms before I was born.
Cash’s response to pain is to leave. Give everything up and leave. Start again a million miles away. Somehow.
“But how, Cash? How?”
My voice gets swallowed in the crashing of the river. I can’t just walk away. They’ll never let me. I know too many secrets. Too many things they wouldn’t want a civilian to know. They wouldn’t trust me. Besides, I signed a contract. I promised I would work... least longer than I’ve worked so far. I don’t remember when it’s exactly up. I could twist their mind, but would that really be the best way to start a new life?
Anyway, it doesn’t last that long. They would realize what I did and throw me in prison for desertion. Then what could I do? Nothing. They’d make sure of it.
A gust of wind springs up and the rickety bridge rolls beneath my feet. A loose board plummets to the river below. White-tipped mountains rise and fall in mere seconds beneath my feet. A moment later, the board has vanished. The river is alive--and angry. What would it feel like be in that angry water below my feet? To let go? Like the board?
Maybe I do let go. Every day I let them tell me what to do--every day I don’t stand for what is right--I’m thrown about like the waters. Cash knows; I can’t back down. I can’t blindly listen to their demands. What would happen if--just once--I stood my ground against them?
I’d get fired.
That’s it. I just need to get fired.
However, that’s not easy. I have to be careful. If I just up and told the truth that my mom abandoned me and I’m dying inside, I’d be locked in a psycho ward. No good. The goal is to be free. And I can’t ruin a mission. I do that enough with my own “loving” personality that they wouldn’t ever think twice about it. And I can’t manipulate their mind.
I needed a new weapon. A new tactic. One of my own. One that relies fully on wit.
Cash follows me all the way to my hotel room, where I check in and find yet another room that smells a strange mixture of musty, sour and blah. The dirt is hidden by dim bulbs. I don’t sense any bugs though. An improvement to the last four times. I plop on the bed and try to think. The orange stains in the ceiling taunt me, saying I can’t do this. It’s a different kind of thinking than I’m used to. More complicated. But I like it. As the plan begins to form, my eyes drift close. With a quiet grumble, I shove myself out of bed to find some paper so I don’t forget what I have so far. If they bother looking through my stuff--and I doubt they do--I created a code when I was ten. I’ll write it in that. Just in case.
No paper in my bag. No surprise there. I only bring the necessities. I rummage through the drawers of the small desk. Nothing in the first five. On the last one, I pull it open and barely see the smallest corner of a piece of paper poking over the back edge. I pul
l the drawer out to find a piece of paper squished in the corner. Ah-ha! I grab it and flip it over. One side’s already written on by some foreigner. No matter. I can still use the other side.
Then the writing catches my eye.
The writing is mine but I don’t remember writing it. Yet--it’s written in code. My code. The paper is old and yellowed. Maybe two years. As I begin to read, a cold lump of dread forms in my stomach. I find myself reading notes on how to get myself free from this job with all the gaps filled in. At the bottom, there is a note that confirms a meeting with the director and a date and time.
A date two years and five months ago.
For a meeting that I never remember having--or arranging.
I begin to pace. First problem: How did the paper get here? No. That’s not a problem. I’ve stayed here often. I’ve probably had the same room before. The room numbers never really mattered to me.
Problem two: How did my plan for escaping show up here? I skim the paper again. It is the same plan that I just developed. Nearly exactly. But I never thought about leaving before tonight. Or so I thought.
Problem three: Why don’t I remember planning it? I wouldn’t forget something like this. I wouldn’t forget that I tried to leave once. Tried to have a new life.
I want to call up the