Chapter The Sixth:
Amon glared hard at his desk, not looking up to meet Mireille's eyes. It was several minutes before he felt he was controlled enough to address her. When he did speak, it was with a dark voice that barely squeezed past his tight jaw.
"I'm not going to ask what happened in there," he said, still looking at nothing on his desk, "because it doesn't matter now. But we lost an excellent operative tonight, and I do not want anything like this happening again.
"I blame myself, because it went against my better judgment to put you in this situation at all, but I let myself be talked into it. Even so, I had faith that you would be capable of setting aside your personal involvement for this case and remain dedicated to the purpose of your visit. Apparently I overestimated your capacity for indifference, and for that too I take responsibility." He held up a hand to stay her protest. "No matter how physically or emotionally involved you may be, it is imperative that you stay focused. The mission must come first. If you can't meet that demand, then you will be relieved of your duty and placed in a position where the safety of your fellow operatives is not dependent on your decisionmaking."
He finally wrenched his gaze away from his desk and turned his face to meet hers. This would hurt more than any verbal lashing he could give, but he had to tell her. "Alfred also became emotionally involved in this case," he said, "albeit in a way we couldn't have predicted. He gave his life, not for the mission, but because he wanted to protect you. Had it not been for his sacrifice, everything – the mission, our lives – would have been lost." Amon fell silent, his gaze still boring into hers.
Mireille's eyes glistened with tears, but she did not look away. "Is there anything we can do?" she whispered. "Surely he isn't gone forever… Can't we get him back? Could he be placed in a new location, like I was?"
Amon shook his head. "I don't know," he said flatly. "This is out of our control. We didn't have charge of him when he died. Furthermore, it wasn't in his own story; it was in a world that no longer exists. The continuity is irreparable."
Mireille excused herself and escaped to the hallway, and sounds of muffled sobbing retreated down the corridor. Amon buried his face in his hands, hiding his own burning eyes.
How could he have let this happen?
---
Noin was prepared to tear into Amon for calling her back to headquarters the morning of her first day off, but she abandoned any hard feelings the moment she walked into his office.
"You look terrible," she told him as soon as she saw him. "What happened yesterday?"
Amon raised bloodshot and shadowed eyes to her. "Quite a bit. Most notably, the death of one of our agents."
Noin sank into a chair, body tense, eyes wide. "When you say 'death'…"
Amon nodded and rubbed his eyes. "Irretrievable. I contacted Steed, who said he'd petition a higher authority, but I don't know if He has that kind of power."
Noin couldn't voice the question, but Amon understood. "Alfred," he said quietly. Noin fought a surge of mixed emotions – but surprisingly her sorrow and anger over Alfred's loss was overwhelmed by her sympathy for Amon, who was clearly blaming himself for whatever had happened. Her own words returned to her: My soldiers are not trained to die. Battles that risk lives are miscalculations. She knew her fellow Director believed the same, and she had experienced the limitless pain of self-reproach.
"The truth is…" Amon interrupted her thoughts. "I asked you to come in for a different reason." Noin looked at his face again, and saw the uncertainty in the purple-rimmed eyes. "I know I have no right to ask this, but I think it might be important." He took a breath, watching her, apologizing silently. "Tell me about him… this person you're looking for."
It took a moment for Noin to recover from the whiplash of hearing the tragic news and then being questioned about her non-Society activities; when she did, she was angry, but the pain in Amon's face eased her back to civility. She was silent for a few minutes, collecting her thoughts. Even if it did violate the trust of their unspoken arrangement, there could be little harm in giving Amon a bit of factual information.
"He was my partner," she said quietly. "He was lost when my own world fell apart."
"What does he look like?" Amon asked. That surprised her; she had expected questions about their relationship, or her intent once she found him.
"He's tall, about six-foot-one. Blue eyes, delicate features. And very pale blond hair, almost white. He typically wore—" she caught herself, "—wears his hair long, down to the waist." He was still out there, she knew it, she had to keep thinking of him in terms of the present if she was to find him…
Amon was frowning deeply. "Any outstanding characteristics? Does he favor any particular kind of weapon?"
Noin had no idea where this was going, but her patience was nearly expired after the emotional shock of the morning. The words rushed out in her irritation. "He's a brilliant tactician, he loves to read, and he plays an excellent game of chess. When we were young, his preferred MS was the Leo, but then he surpassed that and used the Tallgeese, and later advanced to the Gundam Epyon." She saw Amon's blank look; his world must have been devoid of Mobile Suits. "But since all of those have been destroyed, I don't know what he'd be using now. He uses a pistol or a nine-millimeter when necessary, but he doesn't normally carry a gun. I'm the expert marksman, so he generally left that to me. Any other questions? I'm afraid I don't know his shoe size."
Amon shook his head. "I'm sorry; I don't mean to pry. I saw someone that I thought might be the person you were looking for… but I must have been mistaken."
---
Amon watched as Noin left, looking more despondent than he'd thought possible for someone with such a strong character. She had been justifiably angry at his questioning, but he had seen the flash of hope kindle in her eyes – and then watched it die as quickly when he told her it wasn't the man she wanted. He was sorry he'd brought it up, especially coming on the heels of the news about Alfred; the double shock must have been devastating. Despite her attempts to answer his questions indifferently, he could see how desperately Noin wanted to find her partner. She lived day to day on the hope that something might lead her to the person she sought. Amon understood better than she could imagine; he had lived on the same hope since joining the SPCFC.
What disturbed him even more was the thought that he might not have been mistaken about the stranger's identity. Noin had not mentioned any kind of sword, which gave him hope. Still, the man he'd watched slaughter Alfred had been tall, with long pale hair and piercing blue eyes. There were a dozen similar men he could name from as many different worlds, but all of those were known and accounted for… and this one was clearly a lost or rogue character, capable of traveling in worlds that were not his own. In the history of the SPCFC there had only been a few such cases in which a character was not bound to any world in particular, but Amon didn't know of any besides Black who could travel between worlds without the Society's technology. This silver-haired stranger seemed to have broken any ties to his home world, if he had one.
And apparently he was amassing a private militia. That was problematic in itself, but coupled with the fact that he seemed to have powers beyond those of the Society's operatives, it became potentially devastating. The resources of the SPCFC were strained enough without the possibility of facing an all-out conflict with another organization.
They had suspected, before the fire, that they were not alone in their ability to travel between worlds, removing characters and making changes when necessary. There had been evidence all along that there was another source of outside interference, though they hadn't known if it came from an individual or a competing organization. Then a rescue attempt had gone horribly wrong, the unstable split-personality subject had escaped, and an entire wing of the SPCFC headquarters had been destroyed in the catastrophic fire that ensued. It had been clear then that the subject – a boy named Dilandau, at that moment – had escaped with help from the outside. Amon was certain that the boy involved in that case was the same one he'd seen tonight, standing beside the white-haired man with the impossibly long sword.
Still, he didn't know anything of their motives or their intent. It was possible that the devastating events were the result of some sort of miscommunication, and with a little rectification the two organizations could coexist peacefully, or even cooperate.
But after Alfred's murder it seemed, at best, unlikely.