The Son Rises
The police officer noted to himself that she didn't ask if that was him. She knew it when she looked at him. The little boy sitting in the police interrogation room. She looked him over.
"You cleaned him? Fed him?" M asked.
"Cleaned him, haven't gotten a chance to feed him yet though," the officer said.
"Ass," she said.
The boy was staring at the two way mirror. She figured that he didn't know that she was watching him. But they were coincidentally locking eyes. She could see the same look that she had seen in agents after so many years. He was looking at something in the far distance.
She could see his life stretching out before him. He would become a ward of the state, put whoever ended up with him as their foster child through hell. The sadness would give way to anger. Anger would become rage. He would learn to fight the hard way. He would put someone in the hospital early. He would go to school and drop out by grade four or so. He would get involved in drugs or something along those lines. He would have a gun in his hand by sixteen. People would be dead by seventeen. If he was good enough he would be picked up as a gun hand by someone. He would die in violence and anger.
She hoped that he wasn't too far gone. Maybe he could be saved. Trained and turned into an agent. He was an orphan, which was one of the primary requirements for one of her handpicked agents. She would have to keep an eye on him. She didn't just want to make a much more educated mercenary.
She noticed that his eyes had followed her when she walked into the room but his head hadn't moved. He continued staring at her when she sat down.
"Hello, my name is M," she said.
"M isn't a name, it's a letter," the boy said.
"Right and what's yours?"
"James Bond."
"I'm sorry about what happened to your parents."
He looked at the table.
"Are you hungry?" she asked him.
"Yes," he said.
She opened her bag and handed him a candy bar. The boy opened it and destroyed it in a few seconds. He wiped at his mouth and licked his fingers clean. She looked through his file again. He had been found with blood on him. She had hoped that it would be someone else's but it was all familial. Mother's, father's and son's.
"I want to let you know that you're going to be okay," M said. "We're going to take care of you."
He went back to staring at her. She didn't think it was dullness that made him do it, she could see in his eyes that he was whip smart.
"You'll be sent to school, where if you don't do well, I promise things will get worse for you," she said. "But as long as you try, things will go better for you. Do you accept this?"
He stared at her for a long time. Then he looked away.
"Yes, mum," he said.