Naked and Discarded.
"How are you doing today, Jessica?... Are you getting used to your new accommodations?... Have you noticed any difference in your mood since changing your medication dosage?... How are you feeling today?"
Dr. Thurman leaned forward slightly, her dark eyes searching me for any semblance of life. I started to tell her she was wasting her time. There was no life left in me.
I was dead.
All that remained was just the body I continued to inhabit no matter how hard I tried to get rid of it. There was no use in me even trying to pretend I still wanted to be a part of the human world. Not when it was very obvious that it was going to be completely inhumane to me. Why should I let any of them have the satisfaction of knowing that I could still feel? I had been able to hide behind a wry grin and a flippant attitude before, but after hearing the words come from Madeline's mouth, I could no longer hide. My covers were ripped off me without so much as a warning that it was going to happen. There, in Madeline's office, I stood just as exposed as if I were stark naked.
"You will not be returning to Hershel's team, nor will be returning to Beckett."
"Can I ask why?"
Madeline leveled her black eyes on me and steepled her fingertips on her desk. I stood in place, daring not to breathe. It was hard already. I had not breathed much since my last mission.
I was on a recon mission. It was simple enough. All that was needed was a few audio clips from some suspected weapons dealers, and a few photographs to help build the case for Echelon. I had already grabbed a few visuals when the scene began to heat up. I did not know that Michael's team was going to be intercepting the deal. I was surprised to see him hopping out of the black SUV looking every bit the part of an arsenal buyer looking to score a deal on some off-market illegal artillery. I was supposed to be taking more photos of the weapons, but my attention was on Michael the entire time. I couldn't take my eyes from him. When it came time to pull out, I missed the call. Viewing Michael through the telephoto lens was almost like being right beside him. I couldn't hear him speaking German to the dealers, but I knew it was perfect and well within the correct dialect for the region he was feigning being from.
To this day I'm not exactly certain what went wrong. I was watching the scene, studying every movement both bold and subtle, and then suddenly I found myself alone. I turned to find my partner missing and the area where my team was posted empty. I radioed for position but did not get back any response. My Comm Unit only crackled in my ear.
It was dead.
The line had been severed leaving me stranded on a hilltop overlooking an open airfield. Michael was still with the dealers, negotiating I guess. A few moments later, he was climbing back into the SUV and speeding away into the night. He didn't know that I was left out on the field. He likely had no clue that I was there watching. My team had left me stranded where I lay in the tall grass without bothering to come and rescue me, or even send someone to extract me. Whatever information I had gotten with my camera was left for me to have to explain if I ever was caught.
I had to think fast.
I gathered my equipment and started towards the last spot I remembered seeing the Convoy. My heart was beating hard in my chest, almost as if it were trying to run faster than I was. My feet hurried to try and catch up. When I made it to the clearing, it was empty. I knew it would be, though. I knew that they were gone. I turned back towards the direction of the airfield. I had to find a place to lay low until I could figure out something else. I didn't want to risk getting spotted, and I certainly didn't want to get captured. I ducked down into a thicket of grass and tried my radio again. I tried every channel and frequency I could think of. I knew that I was risking being overheard by anyone scanning the area, but I had to try. My mind was beginning to suggest horrible outcomes for me causing my body to begin feeling cold and shaky. I breathed hard, attempting to steady myself. Memories of my field training came back allowing me to scan through the lessons to find the series of actions I should take should I find myself separated from my squad. But that was only in the heat of a battle. I was not in a battle. I had not been separated due to the field heating up with hostiles.
I was left. Discarded.
Someone had to have known that I wasn't there when they did a headcount. They probably counted off all the operatives that were necessary and dismissed those who were considered expendable. Being a G.O I knew I was automatically considered cannon fodder. At that moment, I knew exactly how Michael felt when he was left at the chemical plant watching his salvation ride away into the darkness. I felt cold both inside and out. I wanted to try my radio again, but I knew I would not get anyone. I was by myself and because of that fact, I had to do whatever it took to get myself back to base.
I slept the night in the grass. Well...Sleep would be a matter of opinion. I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to wander out into the field while my body lay shivering in the little hole I dug for myself to keep warm. The next morning came bright and cold. I stiffly pulled myself up to my knees and scanned the area. It looked much the same except sunny now. I tried my radio again and got back what I expected to hear.
Static.
I got to my feet and started towards the main road that we came in on the night before. My feet felt heavy in my boots, and my back ached. When I made it to the road, I checked to make certain no one was coming either way before I began taking off my gear to hide in my backpack. I brushed my hair back from my face and tucked it under my skully. Even though I was dressed in all black, I tried to look like a drifter just passing from town to town just in case someone happened to drive past. By the time I made it to a semi-populated area, I was exhausted and hungry. I was happy to have remembered to bring my B.O.B which would give me at least 72 hours to stay below radar and wait for extraction. Section normally sent out an S&R (Search and Retrieval) team if an operative failed to check-in. I had been off the grid for almost ten hours now. An S&R would be in the area after three. Their first choice of contact would be to find me either in any local hospital or locked up at the local police station for not having any identification. The best I could do was to find the nearest phone and call in.
I spotted a small diner a few yards down the main road, so I headed that way. My senses were sharp and I could almost smell the atmosphere of the town. It was quaint, homey, and sleepy. It was the kind of place someone went to get away from people. A person could utterly disappear in a place like this one. Then it hit me. The thought came at me like an aimed shot and stopped me in my tracks.
If Section left me, they must've assumed I was dead or expended in some way. They weren't coming for me. They weren't looking for me. If I didn't check-in, they wouldn't know where to find me….
I stood a moment outside the diner trying to decide if I should go inside. My mind told me to go in and ask for a phone. I could dial the number for the Location Satellite and submit my coordinates. All I would need to do after that was wait for S&R. I would get brought in to debrief and explain why I didn't make it to the egress point and exit the mission with the rest of my team. I would likely be reprimanded, but the only thing lower than being a G.O was to be placed on inactive status… Unless they deemed my getting left behind as some sort of breach of security in which case I would be put in abeyance…
I was dead either way.
If I turned around and went past the diner to disappear into the nothingness of the town and its surrounding wilderness, I could be lost for about a week before a Tracker was sent to find me. If a Tracker was sent, I was as good as dead. There would be nowhere that I could go. My bank accounts would be frozen, my credit cards disabled, even my IDs flagged. I would be a ghost, living off the land and whatever else I could scramble together. I had no offshore accounts or stashes of cash hidden in lockboxes just in case I managed to bail on Section. I had no plans to. I had no reason to. All that I was and became was tied tightly with Section.
My heart was at Section!
I couldn't leave it, no matter how badly I wanted to. I could have just turned around and been gone. By the time a Tracker found me, he would only have to deal with my cold dead corpse. Like prison, there was no way that I could ever go back if I found myself suddenly outside of Section. Yet, if I didn't go back, I would lose Michael...Forever. I would not see him, smell him, hear his voice, or sense his presence near me. Even though I was no longer directly under his charge, I could still see him and love him from afar. I could still admire his sweet smile whenever he did manage to show it. I could marvel at the gentle grace of his movements as he sparred with Master Hiro, or did yoga with Annette. I wouldn't ever get to see him strut his famous swagger across the atrium floor, or watch him type peacefully away on his computer in the darkened cave of his office.
If I ran away, I would lose Michael entirely…
The next few days I sat worrying about the decision I made. I couldn't sleep even for a minute, and what sleep I did manage to gain was tortured with what I knew might happen to me once I was picked up. It didn't take long for the S&R team to find me. Once my location was pinned by the satellite, they were at my hotel door within a few hours after I made the call. I was counted as failed to report which meant I was going to have to spend some time in the White Room with Madeline explaining my disappearance and relating every action I took from the time I realized I was alone in the field until the moment I was handcuffed and led out of my hotel room. I was beyond sweating at that point. All I could feel was a coldness spreading over my entire body and making my feet feel like they were concrete block weights. I was led to the White Room directly and deposited in the hard steel chair where my wrists and ankles were then bound. The Control Officers left me to await my fate. Moments later, Madeline arrived holding a panel in her left hand and a gun in her right. She closed the door behind herself and stood a long moment, studying me.
"I had hoped I would never find you here like this Vizcano. You were a very promising operative. One of our best, actually. You can't imagine how much it pains me to see you in this position now," Madeline began in her too cool tone.
I tried to keep my eyes on her, but I couldn't ignore the gun in her hand. She must've noticed because she slipped it back behind herself as if to hide it from view. She continued to tell me how disappointing I was to Section, but moreover to herself as she had great faith that I would rise to the top ranks at Section and would soon lead a team of my own. It was clear that I valued my position with the agency and that I endeavored quite persistently to be challenged at every mission. Even though I did not always do as I was instructed, or produce the outcome Section would have liked, I did indeed produce. I showed dedication and creativity in solving problems and finding solutions in scenarios where thinking outside the box was of a better benefit than simply following the rules.
"We need operatives like you, Vizcano. Risk-takers, although not entirely accepted, are well within their use and merit at Section. Though you take risks, you are well calculated in those opportunities and balance out your decisions well...When you are not otherwise distracted by specific outside influences, of course."
She said that last thing with heavy meaning to her tone. She looked directly at me. She walked up to me and stared down into my eyes as if peering deep into my soul. I gulped back the knot that was steadily forming in the center of my throat. Even though she hid the gun from my view, I knew she still had it in her hand. I wondered if she was going to use it and when. She would not have brought it if she did not plan on using it at some point during our conversation.
"Tell me something Vizcano," Madeline began in a near whisper. "What made you decide to make that call for us to find you?"
I stammered, my throat feeling hot and dry. The words barely made it past my parched lips.
"I-I was trained to give my position once I discovered I was separated from my team."
"The mission closed that same night. You didn't make that call until almost a full three days before our satellite pinged your location. What happened in those three days you were off the grid?"
"I found a hotel room and checked in under an alias. The attendant at the front desk didn't really care who I was so long as I had the cash to pay for the room. Didn't even ask for an ID."
"Were you hurt in any way?"
"Maybe slightly suffering from hypothermia, but that wasn't anything a hot bath and some food wouldn't take care of."
"So why didn't you call the day you realized you were left behind? We could have sent out a team to extract you before you had to spend the night in the cold."
"I needed time to think."
"About whether you wanted to return to Section or not?"
"Just think about what I wanted to do…"
My voice trailed a little, thinking back to the moment I picked up my hotel phone to call in. I was shaking when I did it, unsure of what I would return to and what my outcome would be once I made that call. I could only hope that I could in some way preserve my life just a little bit longer, if not to just say goodbye forever to Michael.
Madeline straightened and walked to the other side of the room where a metal tray table stood. She placed the gun down first, allowing the sound of the heavy firearm to resonate over the hollow walls of the stark white-tiled room. She then placed the panel down beside the gun. She folded her hands in front of herself and waited a moment, I suppose calculating her next words and tabulating the response to measure against what she was already deducing. I had always considered Madeline somewhat inhuman. I imagined her being a cyborg, a very sophisticated one created by Section to give the operatives a kind face to view and also be terrified of. If someone were to ever blow her apart, they would only find computer pieces, hard drives, and wires…
Like Bishop from the movie Alien…
It would not have surprised me if Section managed to duplicate such a monster and employ it in their service just to keep operatives on their toes. It was obvious that Operations was human. He was too emotional and erratic to be anything else other than a maniacal warlord hinging precariously towards becoming a supervillain. At times, with some of the actions he demanded the teams take while in-field, he did fit every bit a Disney villainous character with aspirations towards world domination. Madeline was just his robotic sidekick programmed to follow his orders only. In the back of her head underneath her lion's mane of dark hair was probably a switch that turned her from Good to Evil. She was no use to Section or Operations if she were left on Good...
"I can only assume that the reason you made that call was that you knew what would happen if you chose the alternative...I'm glad you made the choice that you made, but I wonder...Are you?"
Madeline moved away from the table and towards me again. This time, she stood behind my chair and pressed the release button. The cuffs that restrained my hands and ankles suddenly released allowing me to move again. I rubbed my wrists and kept my eyes on Madeline as she rounded in front of me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Are you happy here, Jessica?"
The question sounded odd coming from Madeline. The way she said my name made me shiver a little inside. I had gotten so used to being identified by my last name that hearing my first name being called in such a semi-caring way made me feel off balance. I was very much aware of where Madeline stood in the room and where the gun was left on the tray table.
"You returned to us for a reason, but I'm not convinced it is the one that you are telling us. You came back for something else. What if I told you the real reason you came back is something that you will never get? What if I told you that the reason you came back for, who you came back for, will never be yours? Would you still be happy, Jessica? Would you still want to be back? If you knew the man that you loved most will never be yours? His interest does not lie with you. It is with someone else. Can you live with that? Knowing that?" Madeline walked slowly towards the doors. "A lot of operatives find their will to live in ideas and notions of doing a greater good. Then there are operatives like you who submit themselves to living for the hope of love even if it is unrequited. Find another reason to live, Vizcano."
She walked out of the room leaving me to stare at the tray table with the gun and the panel resting on it. I got up and walked slowly to the table. My eyes stared long at the gun before moving over to the panel. I picked it up and saw the image left on the screen.
I sighed.
Michael's pale looking eyes stared back at me, lifeless and conveying nothing. Like Madeline, he was a Section cyborg, moving around and functioning as a normal human, but was really controlled by Operations. His status read that he was on a special assignment which in Section terms meant he was on a deep-cover mission in progress, one that would have "valentine" parameters intermixed with mission objectives. Valentines were always with other women...or men. Constantly. They were always pimped out to various people for one reason or another making it impossible to carry on a meaningful relationship with any of them. How could they claim true fidelity if they knew at any given moment they were going to have to break their vows of exclusive commitment each time they were called in for work? Michael was not only physically unattainable, but he was also both impossible in mind and spirit. No matter how much I tried or wished it, or even prayed, Michael would never be mine alone. He could never be anyone's but Section's.
What if I told you that the reason you came back for, who you came back for, will never be yours? Would you still want to be back?
I had so many opportunities to tell him how I felt, to let him know. We were together on missions sitting side by side. I could have told him then. I could have spoken the words I longed to say to him when he rescued me in the warehouse. I could have told him on the elevator, sent him a note with his coffee and danish...Whispered it in his ear when I gave him his lunch. Would he have told me how he felt in response? Would he have shared with me his true feelings, that he loved me too, and was glad that I was on his team? Would he even say anything to me at all? Or would he stare back at me with the same blank expression he held on the panel screen?
I felt dumber than the day I stood in court receiving my sentence for having been involved in the murder/robbery at the convenience store. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew what the risks were, and what we all would be giving up if we went through with the act. Yet, I went along with my friends and wound up staring at the long dark line of a life sentence. I think the only reason I didn't get the death penalty was that I was in a state that did not honor capital punishment any longer. But wasn't I still serving a life bid in some way? Section was like another prison. You couldn't leave it. You couldn't quit the job. You couldn't call in sick from work and decide not to return. You couldn't run away from it.
I read once about a person who was held captive for so long that they began to develop feelings and care for those that kept them locked away. I think it was called Stockholm syndrome. Perhaps that was what I was feeling for Michael, a kind of Stockholm that attached feelings of adoration and love to someone that was holding me in a place that I needed to escape. Even though Michael was not directly my warden, he held me more captive than any walls at Section. He was the true reason I returned. He was the only reason I did not want to leave Section. If I could somehow find a way to take him with me…
"There is no way out of Section," I remembered Walter said as he put our satellite trackers in our arms. "Well, that's not entirely true. There is one way…" Walter picked up the 38 Glock and laid it down on the table next to the syringes used to insert the trackers. "Red or Blue pill. Your choice doll face."
I looked at the pistol lying on the tray table. Since the moment I started at Section, my very first real memory of Section and all that it could promise me besides just an existence, it was Michael's face I saw clearly. He floated past me like an ethereal being, more majestic and fantastical than a dragon and more beautiful than a mermaid. He was all that I strived for, all that I truly desired and worked hard to get close enough to touch. He had become my reason for staying, my reason for progressing, my reason to get up in the morning and hope for another day to prove myself worthy of his love and attention. All that I did was for Michael. All that I ever loved was Michael. All that I wanted…
My Michael…
His interest does not lie with you. It is with someone else. Can you live with that? Knowing that?
I shivered.
My hand circled around the heavy grip of the pistol and slid it from the tray. The weight of it felt loaded with all the emotions that were now tumbling headlessly inside my body. I felt chaotic and sick again.
Dizzy.
I looked at the panel at Michael's serene face always gazing back out with dead eyes, no longer able to feel or comprehend what it was like to love someone so entirely, so deeply and carelessly that it encompassed every fiber of his being. He, who could lay with countless women all over the world and tell them lies as effortlessly as he could quote the alphabet, could not know the simplest desire to be close to him was all that I had. How could he understand the heartache I felt seeing him become utterly reduced to nothing when Section left him to die? How could he know my horror in seeing him be overlooked by Petrosian when he chose Nikita of all people as his second? Did he even know how much I cried the night he went AWOL and was under Mandatory Refusal after the deal went sour with Enquist. A strike team was sent out to "Put Michael Down" as if he were some dog in the street. Even when he had to kill his own close friend, I anguished with him, silently from afar. His pain was my pain. His heartbreak was mine too. I understood what he was going through, the sacrifices he had to make because of his devotion to Section. I felt them just as deep as though they happened to me. I stood beside him, ready to hold his hand if he needed the support. Ready to listen to his wails and catch his tears whenever he needed a shoulder to lean upon. I was there.
Me!
Yet, he never knew any of it. Section would never reveal it to him because they did not want him and me to be together. It was probably the reason why they brought along Nikita. They knew she would be just enough distraction for him to never come to know what true love was with someone like me. He had gone against their wishes when he married Simone. Maybe because of that, they made it so that Michael could never be tied to anyone save the people they wanted him to be tied to for however long they needed him to be tied to them. Once the mission was complete, they would sever him from the relationship and start him on a new objective.
If I stayed at Section, I would only subject myself to more heartache, more pain at seeing Michael continue without ever knowing my feelings. I would be forced to keep silent my affections and simply watch him as he passed before me every day, blind to my love for him. Find another reason to live she said as if it were something as simple as picking up an alternative to pepperoni pizza.
Michael is out of stock. Pick another person to love.
I lifted the gun towards my temple and rested the barrel against my head.
It would be so clean and easy to just get out the only way there was left to get out. I could pull the trigger and leave this world and never have to be concerned again of what team I had to be on, of missions I had to complete, or of all the things I wanted to say to Michael, but couldn't. Eventually, we would be together, free of all the constraints of this life, and I could finally love him the way he needed to be loved. What was time in death anyway? A moment? A second? Was there any concept of it at all?
I looked at Michael's picture. A tear dropped on the face of the panel blurring the image a little. I closed my eyes. The gun shook in my hand.
He's never going to belong to you...Never going to love you...His interest is in another. Can you live with that?
...No.
