Rating: PG-13 Contact: Praise and constructive criticism to Flames to tom.delaymail.house.gov.
Web: azephirin. Archive: Mos def! Just let me know where so that I can come visit.
Summary: A stranger in a strange land.
Author's notes:
1. I started this story in 1999, almost exactly seven years ago, then put it aside for a long time. Thus, quite a bit has happened in between. This story starts in early Season Three and diverges completely from there. Consider it to have spoilers up through "Cat and Mouse," but after that, it's an AU. "Outside the Box" and everything following that never happened in this world.
2. I don't see Birkoff with Nikita (unless it's her evil alternate) and I didn't envision this story as slash (though Birkoff + Michael yummy), so I created a character of my own in order that Birkoff might get some. If you have a problem with that, go find some other, uh, deep and meaningful fanfic to read.
3. This is not the original version of the story. Plotwise, it's completely intact, but, bowing to rules, I have debootyfied it and taken out the worst of the swearing. (Violence in either version is minimal.) However, there are still some four-letter words, and there are certainly "adult" themes, though I don't think anything that warrants more than a PG-13 rating nowadays. If you are of age and not offended by two consenting adults enjoying themselves/each other (as well as copious use of the F-bomb\), the full version is on my LJ. If you're not of age, read this version. Absolutely everything else about the story is the same.
Disclaimer: clears throat With the exceptions of Marin Rosenthal and Sunday McDaniel, these characters are the intellectual property of Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution and LFN Productions Inc. They surely do not belong to me, and I surely am not making any money from this. If I was, I'd move somewhere without roaches.
Dedication: To Agent Cupcake, who egged me on for seven years, the better part of a decade, from start to finish. This one's for you, dillweed.
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Marin Rosenthal. She lived in a studio apartment in Portland, Oregon, and she did network security for an internet provider. She had a boyfriend, almost fiancŽ, named Robert and a cat named Nickel. Her parents were Casper and Eliana Rosenthal, and she had been named Marin for the county of her birth and for her grandmother, Marina Einhorn, who had come over from Poland at age fifteen. Marin had a brother named Nikolai who was three years younger than she was and who lived with his own boyfriend on an island in Puget Sound.
Marin liked to hike in the Cascades, to sail in the Pacific, and to find things on computers. Finding things, she called it, not hacking: she wanted to see what was there, the same little girl who had climbed high trees so that she could see for miles. A way to know her world.
She got the tip from an acquaintance in South America--there's supposed to be some crazy shit in here, but if you get caught they'll kill you. You ever seen it, Marin asked. I'm not that dumb, the acquaintance said. But you said you wanted to try everything, so here it is.
Marin let it lie for a few days, and then she tried it, and then she died.
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I know this because I remember. I remember that I am Marin Shoshana Rosenthal, who was born and lived and lives still. I remember despite this black hole that I'm in, despite the electrical shocks that paralyzed me for days, despite the hunger and thirst and time without sleep that make hours into years and shadows into demons.
I remember my grandmother's white hair. Snow on April Fool's Day. Where the knots form in Robert's back. The sun on the floor of my kitchen at three in the afternoon on a Saturday. Accidentally saying "shit" when I messed up on the Torah reading at my bat mitzvah.
I remember it all. If they kill me, my memories die, but as long as I live, I remember it all.
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They redyed the black in my hair, which had faded from the weeks of recruitment to its natural unextraordinary brown. Outside the room, the cell, that morning were new clothes, tasteful and tailored for my body. After I put them on, two men took me to show me where I would live. It turned out to be a pretty one-bedroom apartment near a park in the city, across the street from a school, in a quiet building with trees and a courtyard.
The rental papers were clean, and they even gave me a copy of the lease: it was rented to Isabel Dauphin, whose driver's license, birth certificate, and passport all lay in the file cabinet next to the desk. The picture looked like me, though it wasn't my old Oregon license picture or the passport photo I'd had taken when I was nineteen for my college trip to France. It might well have been me, taken from some obscure file somewhere, or it might have been doctored up with an image editor. There was a wallet in the dresser in the bedroom, and I put the license inside along with the money that was already there. There were some other cards in the wallet as well: Isabel Dauphin held a Visa card (with, I discovered when I found the paperwork, a very generous credit limit) as well as membership at a chain of video rental stores and the local library.
I couldn't figure it out at first, and I stood there stunned for several minutes after the men left. But then I got it: if I lost hope, if I died or killed myself, my training would be wasted, and I would be useless to them. Section had an end of the bargain to hold up, too.
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Michael I'd trained with during my recruitment, and it was Madeline who had taught me to replace my inborn Pacific Northwest candor with the manners and subtlety of an operative. Operations and Walter I'd also met, albeit briefly. Though I'd heard about Birkoff since the first days--if I lived through recruitment, we would work together--so far I'd never seen him. I wondered if they'd even told Birkoff, whoever he was, to expect a partner.
He showed no reaction when we were introduced. "We brought you a playmate," Madeline said. "Birkoff, this is Marin Rosenthal."
"What's she for?" He keyed in a code, unsuccessfully.
"I'd try going in through the patch in the Korn shell," I suggested. "Another one of those and they'll figure out you're here."
Still not an upward glance, but a pause. "You think I didn't try that?"
"I think you didn't try hard enough. You could drive a truck through the security holes in this version."
Madeline smiled. "I'll have you two alone. I'm sure you have a lot to talk about." She left, pointedly ignoring whatever it was that Birkoff muttered under his breath.
"So how would you do it?" he asked once she was out of the room, his eyes behind their tinted frames still focused on the screen in front of him.
"The last time I cracked something like this, there were a couple of things I did. It'd be easier to show you than to tell you."
He moved over enough for me to pull up a chair and take the keyboard. "They'll roll over and play dead," I told him, "if you do it like this."
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It wasn't a bad living, being dead, and one day I bought myself a silver hairclip at a jewelry store near my apartment. The barrette was shiny sterling with a round lapis inset. In my old life, I would have feared losing something so expensive. Now I didn't care.
In the midst of surveillance on an egregiously flagrant double agent--I wasn't sure what the point of watching was, since everyone knew he'd just screw up like he always did--I took out the clip, twisted my hair, and pinned it to the back of my head. Then I went back to spying--although given the target's stupidity, we probably could have sat next to him with video cameras and microphones and he wouldn't have noticed.
"I don't get it, Rosenthal," Birkoff said after a moment. His voice startled me; we'd both been engrossed in our ridiculous target. "How do women do that?"
"Do what?"
"That defying-gravity-with-your-hair thing. It's like a bumblebee flying. It shouldn't happen. There's all that hair and only one piece of metal. Nikita can do it, too, and I never figured out how."
"For one thing, your hair's too short."
"Didn't used to be. Went down past my shoulder blades at one point."
It was hard to imagine; his hair was so short I wasn't even sure what color it was. "When did you cut it?"
"A few years back. I shaved my whole head."
"How monastic of you. Any particular reason?"
"The person with long hair is dead," Birkoff said, and turned back to his monitor.
I reached behind my head and took the clip out, shaking my hair down around my shoulders. This move was the main reason I kept my hair dyed: it was a lot more impressive with ebony than with mouse-brown. "I'm not dead," I pointed out.
"You're as dead as I am. Shave your head and get it over with."
One keystroke by me and his screen froze. Take that, geek boy.
"What the hell was that?" he demanded, voice rising; it was the first time I had heard him swear. He didn't have a screen to bury himself in, and so he looked at me.
"You know that Holocaust museum they built in Washington, DC?" I said. "My goddamn grandmother's in there, Birkoff, with all her hair shaved off. They put her in Treblinka, tattooed numbers on her arm, and told her she was dead. Well, now she lives in Miami, she raised five Jewish children, and she has white hair down to her ass. She married a man who fled Russia to escape Stalin's purges, who walked across Europe and snuck onto a boat bound for New York just so he could stay alive. The shit they put me through to recruit me was nothing compared to what my grandmother saw in the camps, and she's still alive and so am I. So they may try to tell you that you're dead, Birkoff, and you may even believe it, but if you do, you're no better than they are."
I was out of breath, so I unfroze his screen--really a simple trick, I was surprised he didn't know it--and started to go back to work. I didn't hear Birkoff turn, though, and after a moment he said quietly, "My grandparents were in the purges. One side was Jews and the other side was anarchists, so they were screwed either way."
"Anarchists?"
"Yeah. Why do you think I'm so good at this? I was raised by people who collected bomb recipes."
"Remember any?"
"Nothing that would do much damage. They were trying to raise me to stay out of trouble."
"Fat lot of good that did."
"They were old-school anarchists. Didn't figure you could do much damage with a computer. By the time I was thirteen, I was doing more damage than they ever did."
"You get caught cracking the wrong system, too?"
"For my fourteenth birthday, a friend of mine gave me a way into the CIA mainframe. I got in without any trouble--their security's laughable now, but it was worse then--and started to dig. I found a file on Section and then waltzed into their system like I owned the place. It looked easy at the time, but they came for me the next day. I left that morning for school and never came back."
Birkoff couldn't have been much older than twenty, although his small frame and soft features would probably always make him look younger than he was. "How long have you been here, Birkoff?" I asked.
"A third of my life, more or less."
"You've been here seven years?"
"Give or take a month."
I thought of my brother at fourteen: carrying a skateboard, trying to be a man but still wanting Mom to make lasagna for him, still having nightmares that required Dad to sit in his room until he fell asleep again. Fourteen wasn't an age for hunger, thirst, torture, sitting in a dark cell for days to weeks while Section tried to convince you that you were dead. "No wonder you believe them," I said after a moment. It began as a thought until I realized that I'd said it out loud.
"Believe what?"
"That you're dead."
He shrugged. "I was raised dead."
In a moment his keyboard began to click again, and work resumed.
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It was a long night, and not even half over. Part surveillance and part legendary hack, we'd worked through the day and into the dark. Birkoff had been drinking coffee like water and popping caffeine pills along with his ubiquitous Oreos, but it had stopped working. I was feeling slightly more awake, so I kept an eye on a prostitute who was in the midst of stealing documents from a diplomat while I also persisted at my system crack and tried to eat a salad, my only food that day, with my fingers.
There was a loud thump, and my zone was broken. I started, turned, and saw Birkoff lying sprawled on the floor. "Make sure the woman gets out," he rasped. "Give up on the hack. We'll finish it tomorrow."
"What are you going to do, sleep there?"
"My back feels like I got hit by a truck. The likelihood of my getting up and making it to my room is minimal."
I watched the girl put the papers in her bustier and make her rendezvous with Nikita. Thank God. The hired girl had performed well. I wondered if she would live to see the morning.
"That's all, folks," Nikita said quietly into her wire after the girl left. "We're done."
"Good job," I answered. "I'll maintain the uplink until you're back in the building." Nikita and Michael would meet with Operations and turn over whatever it was that they had; as for Birkoff and myself, as long as they got home safely, our job was done. The crack was just icing; I really could finish it tomorrow.
The sounds that followed were normal--the van door, the terse conversation with Michael--and I tuned them out to look at Birkoff. "Ever done shiatsu?"
"Is that something you eat?"
"It's a kind of massage. My boyfriend and I used to do it."
"You had a boyfriend, Rosenthal?"
"The element of surprise in your voice is not welcome, my friend. We were both coders and we had messed-up backs, so we learned shiatsu to fix them. Turn on your stomach and stretch out your arms."
"Do you know what happened the last time a woman offered me a massage?"
"I have a feeling you're going to tell me."
"I got seduced by an evil alternate Nikita, caused a security breach, and generally made an ass out of myself."
"All because of shiatsu?"
"I don't know if it was shiatsu. But it felt really good."
"I'm not offering you sex, Birkoff. You're too young for me, and some strange part of my brain still believes that I have a boyfriend. So you can either take me up on completely nonsexual shiatsu, or you can lie there and be miserable."
"I love it when you take charge, honey."
"Don't mess with a good thing, Birkoff. Roll over."
He did, and I sank my fingers into his back. His bones betrayed that he was bigger than he presented himself: taller, his ribcage wider, his back long. The knots were in the same places that Robert's had always been, and my hands rediscovered familiar ground as I poked and prodded. "What do you think?"
"Mnr. Rnh. Mmm. Grmp."
This had usually reduced Robert to speechlessness as well. I worked my fingers into the bony joints that connected Birkoff's skull and spine, rubbing the soft triangle at the top of his spinal column where vertebrae met cranium. His shoulder blades crackled in relief as I eased them back into place. I'd usually done this to Robert when he was shirtless, but I didn't think Birkoff would respond well to a request to disrobe. Despite the barrier between fingers and skin, I could count his ribs beneath the cloth, could feel the gentle indentation where they ended. Birkoff started when I worked my way outward from the base of his spine, towards the points of his hips. "What are you doing?"
"Finishing. I'm not pulling an evil clone trick here. I'll stop if you want."
"No. It's... it's OK."
I finished with his back and gently massaged each of his arms, my hands meeting skin where his black T-shirt ended. His skin was warm, as soft and pale as a baby's from the lack of exposure to sun. The fine hairs were a light honey brown, about the same color as what I could see of the hair on his head.
"God," he said as I pressed circles into his forearms. "What the hell are you doing? Are you sure this isn't an evil clone trick?"
"People who do computer work usually have sensitive forearms. Do you want me to stop?"
"Hell no."
I pressed the joints in his hands between the pads of my fingers, feeling the tightness give way. Then I let him go, patted his back, and stood up. "You're done. Go get some sleep."
"Slept here before," Birkoff answered, his voice muffled in the floor. "Can sleep here again."
I took the liberty of rubbing his shorn hair under my hand, feeling it bristle. "I'll finish the hack, then."
He didn't respond. In five minutes, I was eating a tomato slice and sliding into the foreign mainframe. Birkoff was asleep, his breathing shallow and even.
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Some weeks passed, and I learned Section just as Section learned me. Nikita began to smile at me instead of giving her usual expressionless stare, and Walter started calling me "darlin'." I would have preferred to be at home in Portland, but I would survive here. Unless I got killed first.
I walked in one morning to find Birkoff setting the machines on autorun. "We've got a briefing in ten minutes. Come on."
"What's it about?"
"They're finally going into that building we've been getting intel on. Don't worry, we won't have to talk."
I followed him to a long narrow room where the rest of our team was gathered. Operations was standing in the front next to a holographic projector. He waited until everyone was seated, and then began. "Thanks to bribery and some good intel, we've finally gotten enough information to send a mission into the Wallenberg Building, where we have known for some time that Dieu et Pays has an operations center. We have complete plans of the building, and we've narrowed their location down to two floors. We will have the building surrounded by a large team; however, we will only be sending two operatives inside. Michael, I want you to lead the team and go into the building. Birkoff, due to Nikita's recent injuries, you will take her place. You know the building better than anyone except perhaps Marin, and you will be able to lead Michael through it."
I could tell that Birkoff was about to argue, but a look from Michael shut him up. "Yes, sir."
"The team will assemble at the west exit in one hour. Marin, you're to stay here and provide support to the site team. Dismissed."
Everyone got up to leave, and I went back to the main floor to start setting up. Birkoff appeared in a few minutes. "You know how to run this, right?"
"Backwards, forwards, and sideways."
"Are you sure? It's complicated."
"Birkoff, I set up most of it. I'll be fine"
"You're sure you're sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure I'm sure. And even if I weren't, I don't think Operations is about to change his mind. What made him put you on this mission?"
"I don't know. I don't know what the hell he's thinking. There's got to be someone else they could have found. I hate missions"
"Maybe he's trying to train you out of the fear."
"It's not fear."
"OK, out of hating missions, then. Whatever."
"I can't believe he's sending me in. Leaving you here on your own."
"Before I came along, you always did this on your own."
"That was different. I'd been here a long time. You just started."
"Maybe he's testing me, too," I said gently. "Think about it: every other time, I've had you to back me up. They probably want to see if I can do it on my own. It'll be OK, Birkoff. Really. Remember, you said yesterday that it was going to be routine. We know where everything is. Just go in, do what Michael tells you, and get the job done."
"Right. I'll do that." He let out a long breath. "See you in a few hours."
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Four vans went out, each taking a different route. By the time they arrived at the building, I had everything I needed in front of me. Michael and Birkoff both connected to the radios at the same time. "We're here," Michael said. "Are you ready?"
"When you are."
The surrounding team went out first, encircling the building and disposing of anyone who shouldn't have been there. This was routine. "Commence stage two," Michael said, and I watched the orange dot that was him and the blue dot that was Birkoff enter the outline of the building.
"First location is second floor, north wing," I told them. "Intel shows that you're alone in the building."
"I know where we're going," Birkoff said.
"I'll stand by." I watched the dots make their way through the halls. "Team captains, tell me your status."
"All clear on the north," red captain answered.
"All clear on the south," said blue team captain.
"All clear on the east," said green team captain.
"All clear on the--" And then the signal was gone.
"Yellow team captain, give me your status!"
Nothing. And then, one floor down from Michael and Birkoff, an army of black dots appeared.
"Operatives, we have visitors. At least twenty of them, approaching from first floor west"
"It isn't here," Birkoff said.
"Second location is between tenth and eleventh floor, north end of the building. Recommend going up north stairs and then through the heating duct in the hallway. Remember that only one person can fit in the duct."
Five minutes later, they were at the duct. "Birkoff, you go in," Michael ordered. "I'll stand guard."
A breath from Birkoff, and then his wire showed that he was in, crawling slowly through the duct. I directed him as calmly as I could. "It's about an eight-foot drop to the safe," I said when he was almost there. "Don't jump too heavily or you'll go through the ceiling."
"That's encouraging, Rosenthal."
"Just hurry. They're going to know where you are soon."
"I'm down," Birkoff said after a moment. Silence as he entered the combination, replayed the false voiceprint we'd given the team, put containers inside his clothing to take back. A grunt, and then he was back up in the duct, making his way back to Michael.
"Jesus!" came the shout. "Someone shot at me!"
The cameras showed nothing; motion scans of the rooms were equally silent. "They're somewhere in the ducts, Birkoff."
"Get me the hell out of here, Rosenthal."
"Michael, I'm taking him out the back way. There's ten of them headed up the stairs towards you. Get out."
"We'll meet at the van," he said.
"Birkoff, I want you to go back to the room with the safe," I said. "This time, jump as hard as you can. You're going to go through the ceiling to the tenth floor."
Running, and then crashing, and then panting. "I'm on the tenth floor."
"Agents coming your way from the south. There should be a duct in the north corner of the room. Get into it and take a right. You're going to wind up at the elevator shaft."
Michael's dot was out of the building; Birkoff's wound its way through the ducts and then came to the main shaft. "You're going to climb down the shaft and open the doors at the second floor."
"Jesus Christ. OK."
Down, down, down, the dot made its way. "Birkoff, they've figured out where you are. Hurry."
I heard gunfire just as I heard Birkoff kicking the doors open. "I'm here."
"Good. Go down the service stairs on the south end and out through the kitchen."
"Christ, Rosenthal, there's more goddamn gunfire than I've ever seen. I'm at the kitchen. There's the door."
And then Michael's quiet voice, "Operative is out and target is being terminated." Which meant that the red team had detonated its bomb.
I breathed. Breathed again. Birkoff and Michael were safe. "Good work, gang. See you back at the ranch."
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Madeline, however, sent me home well before the team arrived back at Section. Too tired to argue, I stopped by Nikita's recovery room on my way out to let her know that Michael was alright. She was too drugged to have much of a reaction, but she smiled. "Heard you got Birkoff out, too"
"He got himself out."
Another smile, her eyes beginning to close. "He needs help getting himself out sometimes." Then she was asleep again, her sun-streaked hair falling across her face.
At home, I made myself tea and curled up under a blanket on the couch, shaking. They're OK, I repeated to myself. Michael wasn't hurt; Birkoff got out; they're OK. But even though I knew this, I still sat staring at the wall until a knock disturbed me some time later.
I was going to chastise Birkoff for not being at home asleep, or maybe yell at him for almost getting himself killed, but that all suddenly became secondary to wrapping my arms around him and feeling him breathe. We held each other in my doorway for long minutes, my forehead against his collarbone. "Come in," I said after a while. "I'll pour you some tea."
The green eyes regarded me. "This was a pretty mild one, you know."
"I know. Sometimes someone gets captured, or sometimes someone dies. That didn't happen this time."
"No one died," Birkoff said.
"No, no one died."
The mug was warm in my hands, and I slowly began to convince myself that everything was alright. Birkoff was sitting on my sofa with his knees against his chest; I had some tea; maybe everything would be OK.
"You're still scared," he said.
"I'm not in the habit of listening as my friends get shot at and talking people out of mousetraps. I design computer networks, not military intelligence. Of course I'm scared. I've never had lives depend on whether I could hack something or not."
"I knew you'd been good at this." Birkoff's eyes were focused on the other side of the room. "I was the one who caught you in the system. Operations was going to have you killed, but I talked him out of it. I said it would be a waste of a damn good hacker. I convinced him you could help us. And you did."
"I guess that means you saved my life, then."
"If you call this life." Birkoff paused. "I heard that if you save someone's life, part of them belongs to you forever."
"So that means we're both free now."
"That, or we belong to each other." Birkoff's eyes still weren't on me. "Madeline and Ops almost changed their minds once they found out more about you. You had a good life; there wasn't necessarily a reason for you to prefer being in Section to being dead."
"I'm from a family of survivors. We do whatever it takes. What about you? You were fourteen. How could you possibly have wanted to stay here? Your life was hacking, baseball cards, and eighth-grade girls"
"Yes, I was fourteen. And my father was an abusive bastard and my mother was a drunk. Section meant no parents and all the computers I wanted."
"I remember my brother when he was fourteen, and it's not that easy."
"Your brother hasn't been through recruitment."
"I've been through recruitment, and I was a lot older than you, and I still miss my life sometimes."
"That's it right there. That's why Operations didn't want to bring you in. You have something to want to go back to."
"If I go back, I die, Birkoff, and the people I contact would probably die, too. I'm not that much of an asshole."
"No, Rosenthal, you're not."
"Thanks for convincing them," I said after a moment. "I'd rather be alive than dead."
"Me, too, Rosenthal. Most of the time."
"I have a first name, you know. A middle name, too. You can start using either one at your convenience."
"Marin Shoshana. You're about as Jewish as the day is long."
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't talk, Seymour. If you hadn't been a hacker, you would have been an podiatrist."
"You know, you're a cold bitch, Rosenthal. Besides, I called my last partner by her first name. I figure this is a good way to get a fresh start."
"Gail," I said. "Heard she was your girlfriend."
"In a manner of speaking, I guess. Who was that Robert guy?"
"Robert Marcavelian. He ran Portland State's Unix systems."
"Did you love him?"
"I was going to marry him."
"But did you love him?"
"Buy a brain, Birkoff. Of course I did."
"People don't always marry for love."
"I do." I took another drink of tea and stretched my legs out on the couch. I'd put on comfort clothes: flannel pajamas, a Polartec sweatshirt, and wool socks. Despite Madeline's best efforts, I'd stayed a crunchy Oregonian at least in matters of dress. "So you knew about me before I came in. What did you know?"
"At first, not much. That you were in Oregon, and that you somehow romped your way into a Section computer. Later they told me you were female, a little older than me."
"So why did you act like you didn't know why I'd been brought in?"
"Didn't want you to get to cocky. It wouldn't have done you any good to know that you were specially requested." The same smile. "Oh, and I knew your hacker name: North Star. Not very aggressive-sounding."
"I wasn't a very aggressive hacker. Except for the time I got into the R&D division at Microsoft."
"Nikita argued for you, too." Birkoff's voice had become slower and sleepier, and he stretched his legs out alongside mine. "She was mad about the system break, but mostly at me for not having better security in place. She told Operations he'd be a fool if he had you killed. She said I needed someone to back me up. She was even more adamant when she found out you were a woman."
"Feminism in Section?"
"I don't think that was exactly her motive." Birkoff's head had fallen to the side; he would be asleep soon.
I pulled my blanket closer around me. "Thanks for arguing for me."
His hand settled on my foot. "No problem."
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When I woke the next morning, the sun was shining pale yellow around the room. Birkoff's arm was slung across my lower legs. Asleep, his face was years younger, more a boy than a man. He slept with sprawled limbs: one arm across me, the other across the back of the couch, his legs tumbling over mine. It was the same way Robert had slept, like an amoeba engulfing the bed.
I sat up, and Birkoff's eyes blinked open. "Is it morning yet?"
"Nine thirty. Go back to sleep."
Birkoff rubbed his eyes. "Once I'm awake I stay that way. I don't think I've slept this late in years. Usually I'm busily hacking at this hour."
"Well, if Section wants either of us, presumably they know where to look."
"Hell, Madeline's probably watching right now."
"Yuck, Birkoff."
He swung his legs off the couch and got up. Still a little clumsy from sleep, Birkoff wandered into the kitchen. "There's juice in the refrigerator if you want some," I called.
"Your apartment's so cute, Rosenthal." I couldn't tell if he was saying it with distaste or admiration. "Have you seen Nikita's?"
"Yeah, Nikita and I have girls' night every Friday at her place."
"You do?" He wandered back into the living room and saw my smile. "No, you don't. Anyway, hers is all postmodern and black and white. Elegant, but you feel a little on edge inside."
"And when have you been in Nikita's apartment, Birkoff?"
"Not under the circumstances I'd like, I can tell you that. Just a couple of times, and only in emergencies." He leaned on the frame of the arch between kitchen and living room. "It really is cute in here. Near a school. Who are your neighbors?"
"No one I know very well. There are a couple of art students downstairs and a family across the hall with a new baby."
"I bet they think of you as that sweet girl with the pretty black hair. She's almost never home, though. She probably has a boyfriend somewhere. Wonder what she does for a living: maybe a teacher?"
"I actually have a teaching certificate, not that I can use it now."
"What are you certified in?"
"High school math. I was planning to quit my tech job and teach after Robert and I got married."
Birkoff laughed delightedly. "Rosenthal, the schoolmarm. Can I take you up on the juice offer?"
"Sure. Pour me some, too. Glasses are above the dishwasher."
Birkoff returned with two glasses of orange juice and made himself comfortable on the sofa again. "So did they just give you your apartment?"
"Basically. The day my recruitment ended, they gave me clean clothes and took me here. Everything I needed was all set up, even the silverware. It's nicer stuff than I've ever owned. Everything in my old apartment was either a hand-me-down from my parents or something I bought at a garage sale."
"That's what they did for Nikita, too."
"How come you still live in Section?"
"I came in before I hit puberty, remember. You can't exactly give a pre-adolescent boy his own apartment. It's not bad; it's just that there's no privacy. Whenever I walk into my room, I feel like I should wave hello to Madeline on the closed-circuit."
"I'm not sure it's any different here."
"But at least it feels like it has some kind of distance."
"That's true. When they let me leave, I can go home."
"Can I see the rest of it?"
"There's not much, but go ahead."
Birkoff stuck his head into my bedroom, but seemed nervous and didn't go in. He called from the bathroom, "You've got fish on your shower curtain!"
"I like fish!"
"So do I," he said, returning, "but not enough to look at them when I'm naked." Birkoff took another swallow of juice and studied me. "Polartec, flannel, and fish. You're a nice girl, Rosenthal. Probably the only nice girl in Section."
Nikita was friendly, but I knew what he meant. "I think I'm destined to be the nice girl everywhere I go. Even if I'm doing covert extralegal intelligence operations."
"Well, no one said that Section changes your personality. I'm sure Madeline was a scary bitch even before she was recruited." He glanced up at an imaginary--or maybe not imaginary--camera. "Hear that, Madeline?" Birkoff refocused his attention on me. "Nice apartment, nice girl. I could get used to this."
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A few days later, I had a debriefing scheduled for 0930. For some reason, though, the door had remained shut even past 0945, with no explanation at all. I leaned against the wall and waited, wondering what was taking so long, hoping they weren't killing anyone while I was standing outside.
To my surprise, when the door slid open, Birkoff came out, Madeline behind him. "I must tell you that I think this is a terrible idea," she said, voice even as always but her forehead tight with just the tiniest skein of tension.
"I've been here seven years. I want to be on the outside."
"Marin, please excuse us for another moment," Madeline said, and the door slid shut again.
What the hell, I thought. He wants to be on the outside? Does that mean he's leaving Section? Impossible: you only leave this place in a body bag. But what in the world could be taking so long? And what could make Madeline run late?
Ten minutes later, the door opened again and Birkoff walked out without looking at me. "Marin," Madeline said as if nothing were unusual, motioning me inside where Operations was waiting.
Playing along, I sat down across from them and set my folder on Madeline's desk. "Here's the profile I have so far. Joanne Lucey began her career as an IRA sniper before being recruited by Red Cell..."
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An hour later, when I returned to my workstation, Birkoff was plugged in, apparently oblivious to the world. I logged in and started the second part of my profile. After a moment, a small message box popped up on the lower corner of my screen:
/ Have something to tell you later. /
/ Care to enlighten me/
/ Not now. Later. /
His face was expressionless. I could have shot him. But I forbore, and kept working. Two hours later, I was close to finishing, and another message flashed on my monitor:
/ Level three. Twenty minutes. /
/ What is this, James Bond/
/ You'll see. /
"Bastard," I said under my breath, and kept working. Fifteen minutes later, I rose and went upstairs; Birkoff followed me. We found an unoccupied room and closed the door. "What's this all about?" I asked.
"What are you doing tomorrow night?"
"I hadn't thought that far in advance. What's going on?"
A grin broke onto his face. "I'm moving out of Section tomorrow. I had the argument with Madeline today."
"Jesus, Birkoff, was that what this morning was about? Madeline, who is never late, kept me waiting for half an hour to discuss an apartment for you?"
"She's weird like that. But yeah, that's what that was. I guess it could have sounded ominous, if you didn't know the context."
"Why all the secrecy?"
"I don't know. It just kind of seemed like a big deal. So do you want to come over tomorrow night and see it?" He paused. "Actually, I'm not even sure I could give you directions. It's on the subway, but I haven't quite figured out the train yet."
I smiled; I couldn't help it. "I know the subway pretty well. Why don't I just leave with you tomorrow?"
"Wow, that'll get the gossip flowing. Marin Rosenthal, Section slut."
"Pot kettle black, Seymour. Don't forget to find me before you leave tomorrow."
continued in part 2