Twilight arranged the bottles in the center of the table that served as Franky's dining room, writing desk, workbench, and possibly bed. He put down the glass he had brought from home next to his seat. It was never a good idea to assume whether any glassware in Franky's hideout was supposed to be used for drinking or for storing corrosive material.

"So the invincible Twilight has finally caught a case of the cooties, huh?" Frank said, rummaging through his battered refrigerator.

"I'm not sure. That's what I'm hoping to figure out," Twilight said, sitting down. "You're being quite understanding about this, Franky."

"Well, I've got enough self-awareness to recognize when the universe is paying me back. And, you brought booze," Franky said, face still in his fridge. The smell of old leftovers drifted past Twilight. An empty takeout container bounced out of the fridge bearing the logo of a restaurant that Twilight knew had closed a year ago. "You want any mixers? I got some sodas and some lemonade."

"No mixers," Twilight said. He was not here for enjoyment. He was here for answers.

"Suit yourself," Franky said, walking back with a bottle of cola.

Twilight realized, dimly, that he treated his own internal turmoil like any other mission. The enemy held information, and it was his duty to use whatever tools were available to access that information and resolve the crisis. It was just that the information was his own emotional state, the enemy was his own brain, and the tool was a shelf's worth of hard liquor.

"You want to start talking now, or wait until we've had a few?" Franky said, dropping a handful of ice into his glass.

Twilight assessed the strength of the enemy's defenses. In his mind's eye, he saw redundant security checkpoints, a perimeter surrounded by a minefield, watchtowers and anti-aircraft batteries all surrounding a sealed concrete bunker. "Give it two drinks at least," he said.


Franky poured another drink for Twilight with the air of a man who was aiming at an increasingly small and erratic target. He slid the glass back across the table, and took another sip from his own as he watched Twilight take a large medicinal gulp.

"So what's the verdict? You love her yet?" Franky said.

Twilight measured the scope of the enemy's fortifications with the benefit of a more proximate vantage point. He was finding it difficult to get actually, properly drunk. Even if he was bypassing all the more direct defenses like dumping his glass and the old "shaken not stirred" trick, there were obvious situations where a spy had to drink for the sake of a mission, and WISE had accordingly stuffed him full of training to maintain sobriety under any circumstances. Counting successive factorials. Eye-focusing techniques. Self-adrenaline boosts. He was pretty sure that they had surgically implanted something into his inner ear at some point. Trying to get drunk was like trying to forget how to walk.

"Still no idea. Gonna be a long night, Franky," he said.

"Oh no, whatever will we do?" Franky deadpanned, shaking up a can of tomato juice and a bottle of squid ink. "Here, let me show you an idea I've got. It's called the Berlint Bloodstain."

Twilight had seen Franky mix drinks once or twice before and was glad that he had clarified his intent to drink everything straight. Franky was good at coming up with new drinks, but only in the same sense that Neo-Surrealists were good painters. Only the hippest, most cutting edge, and certainly most expensive bars in the city would agree with Franky's assessment of what made a good drink after Franky had already had a few. Any other would have just had him flogged in the name of public decency.

"What do you say we try some thought experiments? See how you react," Franky said, mixing his certainly blood-colored drink with a dirty spoon.

"Okay. I'm ready," Twilight said.

Franky pointed a finger at Twilight. "You come home from work. It's been a long day and you're tired. You open the door to find your wife making out with me on your couch. What do you do?"

"I wake up from the dream you're having," Twilight said

"C'mon, take this seriously," Franky said. He took a swig with an inexplicable look of enjoyment on his face.

"I will if you give me a serious scenario," Twilight said.

"Alright," Franky said. "You're on a mission with Nightfall. She gets shot in both kidneys. The docs say she won't live without one of yours. What do you do?"

"We don't have compatible blood types," Twilight said.

"C'moooon, man. Stop overthinking this," Franky whined. "You're stranded on a desert island and you can only bring Nightfall and one book. What book do you bring?"

"Franky."

"You're at a river crossing with Nightfall, Anya, and a wolf. There's a boat that can carry you and one of the others across at a time, but Nightfall will eat the wolf if you leave her alone with it, and-"

"Franky!" Twilight said. "I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not ready. Let's just keep drinking."

"Fine; you're the boss," Franky said.

He started chugging his Berlint Bloodstain. "Man, this is good. You think I could pick up chicks if I became a bartender?"

"Franky, you're doing me a big favor here. So as my way of returning it, I promise I will do everything in my power to stop you from becoming a bartender."


Twilight watched with mild interest as Franky fried two strips of bacon on a hotplate after a sudden burst of inspiration. A blender half-filled with salt and vinegar and fine gin was already poised to receive its bounty.

"All I'm saying is that I might be fooling myself," Twilight said.

"Sure," Franky said over the sound of crackling bacon.

"Nightfall's objectively beautiful. We work well together. We have a long history," Twilight said, counting off on his fingers. "I might just be confusing the natural response for love."

"That's one idea."

"Anybody would feel the same way in my situation. That doesn't mean it's love. I'm mixing things up because a reasonable man without my sort of professional detachment would be in love."

"Whatever you say."

Twilight paused, his glass halfway to his mouth. "You sound skeptical."

Franky scooped the strips of bacon out of the pan and straight into the blender. "I'm not gonna lie, man. Your wife scares the hell out of me."

"Oh," Twilight said. "Well. I guess it would be true of any man who was used to my line of work."

"Any man who was used to your work and also thought they worked well with Nightfall," Franky said, plugging the blender into an outlet that looked like it had been hammered into the wall with a chisel.

"Right," Twilight said.

"And also had a shared history with her,"

"Exactly."

"So any man who was, in fact, you."

Twilight raised a finger to object, but Franky chose just that moment to turn on the blender, drowning out any attempt at conversation. That was probably a good thing. Franky's argument was obviously preposterous, and it was a shame he couldn't think of a rebuttal right away.


Twilight took another sip, as if this one would make a difference.

He had reached what was, for him, final stage drunkenness. It was still possible for him to imbibe more alcohol, but the only point past this was the black abyss of unconsciousness and liver damage. And, annoyingly, he still felt mostly functional. He couldn't stop any of the little routines and exercises that kept him focused even through the creeping haze. Every time he tried to drift away, he just found himself counting factors of progressive numbers and he was back on top of the ball.

He ran a finger around the rim of his glass. "Suppose I only half-love her."

"Alright, that's it," Franky said, staring at him from across his empire of empty drink glasses, clutching the last mostly-full bottle like it was his only friend in the world. "I'm calling it, 'cause I'm sick of seeing you dance around the issue. Both of you sitting there. You're in love. That's a problem, but there are worse problems to have. I've fallen in love a dozen times this year."

Twilight, worn down by a night of drinking, accepted the premise for the sake of argument. "That's different, Franky. This goes against everything I've ever trained for." Factors of 51: 1, 3, 17, 51.

Franky pointed with the bottle. "I think that's the problem. 'Cause as long as I've known you, whenever you've talked about ditching some girl who was crushing on one of your disguises, you've always played the same oh-so-stoic 'I wasn't attached to her, that was just part of the mission' horse-hockey."

He gave him a smug look, and took a plain swig from the bottle. Twilight supposed every great artist's imagination had its limits.

Twilight shrugged. "Well? It's true. I can't let myself get attached to targets," he said.

"Yeah sure. But it's like," Franky said, raising a wobbling finger authoritatively. "It's like, it's like. It's like." There was a moment of silence as the thought descended, touched down, and settled into place. "It's like pillows."

"Pillows," Twilight said. Factors of 52: 1, 2, 4, 13, 26, 52.

"Yeah! 'Cause pillows have pillowcases. And pillowcases do two things, see. They make the pillow blend in. You don't want a white pillow on a bed with red sheets. It stands out. The ladies won't like you. So you put a red pillowcase on the pillow and it blends in perfectly. And as a bonus, it does the other thing pillowcases do, which is keep your pillow from getting dirty. The red might get stained or faded, but it's still white underneath," Franky said.

"What color is the pillow in your bed, Franky?" Twilight said.

"Yellow as pus! But that's not the point, spy boy," Franky said. "The point is. The point is, when you don't have a pillowcase, you can't clean it as easily. Any stains that get on that pillow are gonna stay on the pillow. Even if you try to put a pillowcase over it, it's still there underneath. And they don't really machine wash properly and they have these weird instructions on the tag and here's where the metaphor starts to die I'm sorry I did everything I could."

With obvious effort, Franky pulled himself together and resumed his tirade.

"What I'm saying is you, you, you're a pillow, you big softy. You've been spending all your time around this chick without wearing your pillowcase and she's rubbed her bare greasy head all over your soul. You can't pretend the feelings are just part of the persona. There's no persona to ditch. It's just you. And you're not gonna ditch yourself, are you, smart guy?"

His outburst completed, Franky slumped forward in his chair with a satisfied smile. He spread his palms out towards Twilight, as if he were a magician demonstrating how he had made Twilight's problems disappear.

"Her hair isn't greasy," Twilight said, mainly so he had something to say. Factors of 53: 1, 53. "It smells like lilacs."

"Ah, go home and kiss your scary wife, you stupid pillow," Franky said. Slurred, rather. His neck somehow remained perfectly rigid as his body steadily sloped forward, meeting the table at a speed only slightly slower than a falling feather. Twilight heard the snores before his forehead even touched down.

Twilight finished his last glass. Then, slowly, methodically, still basically just looking for something to do, he began cleaning up the mess they had made.

What if Franky was right? What if this was only happening because had gotten too attached to Nightfall without a cover identity to use as an excuse? Was that why he always had so little trouble abandoning his cover at the end of a mission, just because it was easier than letting the Twilight underneath get attached to somebody? But if he was afraid of that, wouldn't that make "Twilight" no different from any of his assumed identities, just another cover identity that he was too weak to abandon? But then what identity was under "Twilight"? Was there anything, or was there just a cavernous void with a file at WISE? It attacked the very foundation of his being. Nothing made sense.

And what if Franky was wrong? What if this would have happened even with a cover identity, and these sorts of emotional fixations would cleave through any pretense if they were strong enough? Then everything he had told himself about his work was a lie. He wasn't some ethereal force divorced from mortal affairs thanks to superior training and willpower. He was just some guy who assumed he was invincible. And how could he be so sure about any of his skills if that one had failed so utterly? How could he be sure about any of his convictions? It attacked the very meaning of his life's work. Nothing made sense.

Twilight analyzed the problem from every angle he could think of, with medically inadvisable levels of alcohol propelling his thoughts like a freight train, and the idea that nothing made sense seemed like the most straightforward conclusion.

He plumbed the depths of his psyche and conducted a final mission analysis. It was utter failure, like he had never seen before. He had bypassed most of the enemy's defenses, exploited critical vulnerabilities, expended all his resources, only to find that the intel he had searched for so fervently was just bait. There were no answers here, only an ambush.

Franky's phone rang as Twilight was putting the empty bottles in the garbage. He walked over and picked it up, since Franky was out cold, and waited for the person on the other end to speak first.

"Franky? Is Loid there?" came Nightfall's voice from the phone.

Twilight's heart made complicated, untraceable maneuvers. "Fiona? It's me."

"Loid! Thank goodness you're safe, I've been looking all over for you," Nightfall said.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, Twilight said, rubbing the back of his neck to relieve an itch that wasn't there a moment ago. "I just visited Franky, to, uh..."

"We don't have time, Loid," Nightfall said. There was a click and hiss that meant Nightfall had transferred the call to an untraceable line. "They backtraced the signal of that tracer you found the other day based on its frequency and serial number. They've located the receiver."

"That's great," Twilight said. "Tomorrow, we can scout out the location and plan our next move from there."

"No point. WISE already sent a scout; they abandoned the hideout and the receiver earlier today."

"Then where did-"

Nightfall interrupted him again. "That's the thing, Loid. Only bit of intel we have left is a truck that was seen leaving the hideout earlier today. A reinforced military truck carrying at least three tons worth of material, with at least two cars escorting it, approaching Berlint as we speak."

Twilight's blood ran cold.

"The assassination might not be for a couple days, but they're preparing for it right now. We have to find out what they're planning while we have the chance, Loid. Get over here!"


The night air was still and clammy on the outskirts of Berlint. The enemy was coming in via the industrial district, through the forest of warehouses and factories, where any random truck in the middle of the night could effectively disappear if it wasn't watched closely. Even if the assassins didn't take the obvious step of switching out trucks at some point, finding a single vehicle in a single warehouse here was basically impossible without outside assistance.

Twilight looked down to check on the semi truck waiting at the intersection, manned by the only other agents able to join him and Nightfall on short notice. The plan was simple. The truck would roll out, blocking the street for just a few seconds as the enemy convoy arrived. Then, Twilight would sneak out onto the road and plant a tracer on the truck while Nightfall took photos of the drivers on the convoy, which would then leave none the wiser once the semi cleared the intersection.

The faint rumble of the convoy approaching became louder and louder. Twilight looked up to confirm that Nightfall was in position at the second-floor window in one of the warehouses, then pulled the mask over his face and took his position behind a convenient dumpster.

The convoy, two cars and the truck, came roaring down the street. Just as planned, the semi rolled out in front of them. All three vehicles screeched to a halt.

Twilight took a rapid analysis of the situation. Right. He had twenty seconds to act before the semi rolled forward again, or else the drivers might get suspicious. Ideally he could plant the tracer underneath the truck for maximum lack of visibility, but sticking it on the side would do in a pinch. The main thing was to avoid the headlights on the cars. But only one was behind the truck, and it had stopped slightly on the other side of the street. Lucky break, All he had to keep low and move in, and nobody would be the wiser. Just a straight line.

Twilight bolted from behind the dumpster. He took two steps forward and tripped as his ankle rolled under him.

As he fell forwards, and sprawled across the asphalt of the road, it only then crossed Twilight's alcohol-poisoned mind that curbs existed, and the straight line in fact angled slightly downwards.

"Hey! Who's that?!"

Twilight panicked, and reached for his gun as accompanying shouts resounded from the rest of the convoy. The engines roared back to life, and the rear car was already reversing back down the street. Out of desperation, he tried to climb up and run towards the truck, but the report of gunshots from the passenger window sent him diving for the ground again.

This was wrong. This was all wrong. He looked up at Nightfall's position, looking to see if any of the shots had gone towards her, and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of an intact window even as the truck rolled away.

The scream of tires behind him sent Twilight leaping back to his feet. He turned, and dived, but still felt himself rolling over the windshield of the forward car as it ran him down.

Twilight heard the crack as his arm smashed against the pavement and the convoy sped off into the night.