His previous agent had been lost.
The last thing he'd received from him had been one final burst of light, accompanied by a spike of utmost terror, and then …
Nothing. Just … gone.
He hadn't sensed anything from him since.
Which, considering that you were more or less linked constantly on a subconsious level and kept receiving what he called „background noise" from your linked partner's mind once the bond was firmly established, right up to the point when it was deliberately severed again, was really pretty scary.
They had given him the usual debriefing. He had told them everything about the mission and they'd given him several hours with a therapist to ensure he had suffered no lasting trauma that could interfere when he started melding again. There had been no new missions since.
Five months.
And now they were pairing him with this new, female, agent.
He had been given a superficial physical description. A psychological profile. Parameters to scan for in order to find her and link with her mind.
He had only worked with four women since he had joined TE, and the last one had crashed it, quitting after three months because she had flat out refused to work with a guy „like him" any longer after not quite three months. She'd called him disrespectful, annoying and downright creepy. She'd claimed that he'd mind-yelled at her. So their link had been severed and that had been that.
So for the last year he had worked with just two guys and he now found himself apprehensive about taking on the link with this new woman.
He had got along with the guys well enough; they were easy to link with and the links had been simple to maintain. They weren't complex creatures that you had to tiptoe around, touching them with kid gloves. However, the women...
They had all been complicated. Even when he had been linked up with them they had managed to keep stuff secret from him, and it pissed him off. To be able to help them effectively and keep them safe during missions, he needed to know everything about them. All their triggers, all their fears, everything that could be used against them.
To establish and maintain a link like the one TE used for these missions, both sides had to be perfectly open and honest with each other, or both would ultimately fail in whatever it was they were trying to accomplish. Trust was everything, and sometimes women just had … issues … with trusting a man to that extent. Especially if the man was their guide and didn't have to be quite as wide open as them.
He was curious to find out what it would be like with her.
Closing his eyes, Daryl Dixon reached out for Carol Peletier with his mind.
.-.
She had been given his name and little else as he, as her guide, would be the one to initiate the link, as per standard procedure. She had been told that the last woman to work with him had asked to be put back with a woman after just a few months because she had felt he was unbearable and she couldn't trust him the way she needed to for this to work.
Nevertheless, Carol had decided to give it a shot. Apparently, going by the information in the slim dossier she had been given on his previous missions - or at least the part of his missions that weren't classified - he was a very good link-guide with men and had brought all but his latest agent back safely. She had always been one to give people a second chance, so maybe they'd be able to make it work.
Carol leaned back into her chair, relaxing as she gazed out of the only window of her furnished apartment. The sprawling city beyond was bathed in harsh sunlight and she squinted in the brightness as she picked up her cup of caf and took a sip. She grimaced at the taste, realizing it had grown lukewarm during her wait and she rose to dump the cooling liquid into the sink. Her mother had once told her about the real stuff which had still been available - at horrendous prices - until her mid-thirties and had talked about the aroma and taste that today's synthetic product just couldn't replicate.)
After rinsing her cup, her hand strayed to the small bump behind her right ear, where her earlobe and hair were hiding her link implant. Her last three missions had been with women, and she wondered what it would be like to work with a man again after slightly more than a year.
He was due to contact her within the next few minutes for a first mental handshake. They would continue linking for increasingly longer periods, doing increasingly complex things, over the next few days to strengthen the bond until they both felt safe relying on it during missions. After all, her life would depend upon this connection while she was out there. Only once they were both satisfied with the other would they be given their mission briefing. As always this would be done via link as well, instead of face to face, because they were not supposed to become personally attached to each other at any level.
They would never meet in person, or even talk to each other, outside of their link.
Glancing at her scratched old watch she allowed her eyes to unfocus for a heartbeat, opening her link implant with her mind, preparing for his first touch.
She took one last look at the transparent data sheet, still displaying the page with what little personal information she would ever get on him, to find his name.
Daryl Dixon.