Disclaimer: I do not own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
~ Ilsa, meet Emma ~
A government-style open-plan office sometime before noon. Lots of suits in muted colors. A man reaches out to grab the ringing phone on his desk. His jacket rides up a little and reveals a holstered weapon.
The elevator signals. The doors slide open and three very grave looking men exit. As they slowly make their way through the office, all conversations come to a halt. They walk up to the mezzanine conference room section and open one of the glass doors. It's adorned with an engraved round seal, shield with scales in the center, laurels left and right, motto underneath - fidelity bravery integrity - and surrounded by thirteen stars.
They interrupt an ongoing conference. Everyone stares at them. The man in the darkest suit addresses one of the participants:
"You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you."
Everything turns pitch black.
In a rundown apartment somewhere in one of the seedier parts of Washington, D.C., Emma Barnes jerked awake. She stared into the semi-darkness for a moment, waiting for her breathing to normalize. When her pulse wouldn't stop racing, she switched on the lamp on her makeshift nightstand. "It was a dream, Emma, just a dream", she kept repeating like a mantra.
A mantra she had been saying a lot lately.
Every night for three weeks in a row, to be precise.
She felt the urge to get up and take a shower again, but her last had been only three hours ago. Her skin didn't take kindly to so much water and soap, it was already raw and itchy at some places and she really didn't need another problem on top of everything else.
The soft golden light of the night lamp revealed a tiny mouse, scurrying to and fro her bedroom floor, apparently looking for a way out. Emma figured she had accidentally blockaded the rodent's hole while shifting around moving boxes earlier in the day. She couldn't help but likening herself to the animal.
Cautiously, trying not to scare the tiny thing, she opened the bedroom door a crack so it could flee.
Gone it was.
Emma caught herself wishing she was the mouse.
She checked her mobile for new messages.
Nothing. For two days straight now.
This was even worse than getting a message. She felt like a puppet on a string, waiting for the master to pull.
Jesus, how could she have ever let it come to this?
"Relax, Emma", she tried to calm herself one more time. "You need to be at your best tomorrow, you can't afford this BS."
But sleep didn't come back to her.
Not even for a second.
An old Crowded House song kept replaying in her mind: The guilty get not sleep...
The guilty, indeed.