Michael Vaughn looked around at the room of strangers. The florescent
lighting and the taupe carpet reminded him of a hallway with chairs.
This was not what he was expecting when he joined the CIA. This was not what he was expecting, ever. He'd imagined a warehouse and drop off and pick up points and white electrician trucks and black leather gun holsters.
He'd imagined that he'd be put in the field and given a chance to capture one of the ten most wanted and prevent a nuclear war and maybe save the president. He wouldn't have already spent a month at a desk job with no clearance and by thirty he'd have a metal and early retirement. He'd have made sure his father's sacrifice would have been worth it, and he would raise kids and teach them about their grandfather and how brave his was and how their daddy had saved the world so that they didn't have to.
Now he was in a room in a blue suit surrounded by people wearing hello my name is stickers and trying to get comfortable in yellow plastic chairs arranged in auditorium rows.
He wondered what this room had looked like when his father was here- he wondered where his father had been taken for this introduction. He wondered if his father had had the same notions about what this was supposed to be.
He wondered why his father had chosen to be a father when he knew who and what were in this world. He wondered if his existence had made his father die, and if his father was trying to make sure that the world was safe for his son, and he wondered if he would die also trying to save his father's memory.
He wondered why his father had joined in the first place.
This was not what he was expecting when he joined the CIA. This was not what he was expecting, ever. He'd imagined a warehouse and drop off and pick up points and white electrician trucks and black leather gun holsters.
He'd imagined that he'd be put in the field and given a chance to capture one of the ten most wanted and prevent a nuclear war and maybe save the president. He wouldn't have already spent a month at a desk job with no clearance and by thirty he'd have a metal and early retirement. He'd have made sure his father's sacrifice would have been worth it, and he would raise kids and teach them about their grandfather and how brave his was and how their daddy had saved the world so that they didn't have to.
Now he was in a room in a blue suit surrounded by people wearing hello my name is stickers and trying to get comfortable in yellow plastic chairs arranged in auditorium rows.
He wondered what this room had looked like when his father was here- he wondered where his father had been taken for this introduction. He wondered if his father had had the same notions about what this was supposed to be.
He wondered why his father had chosen to be a father when he knew who and what were in this world. He wondered if his existence had made his father die, and if his father was trying to make sure that the world was safe for his son, and he wondered if he would die also trying to save his father's memory.
He wondered why his father had joined in the first place.