"I'm Agent Carte, but my friends call me Blanche. That's not my real name, of course. You may be wondering what it is, but I'm not at liberty to say."
"Ha, just kidding! The truth is I don't know. My parents disappeared when I was a baby, and I've been raised in top secret by the secret organization Orange Team. Yesterday was my twenty-first birthday. Today, my first real mission as a special ops assassin!"
"Sneaking into the bar was wild. I just walked right in! Flashed my legit and verified ID and my award-winning smile to the bouncer. He did a double-take at my name. Yeah, it's not so convenient; I wish I knew my real one too."
"I got myself a legit, legal drink (rum and coke, my father's favorite, I'm told) and settled into an inconspicuous little booth. Back to the wall, clear view of the door. My mother's one-of-a-kind pistol was nestled in my hand. I see him enter: my target, a conspicuous fellow in a plaid shirt, with a swagger and a big cigar. He'd be right at home in a Western, I thought. He was pretty to look at, but his kiss probably reeks."
"I'm not here to kiss him though, I'm here to kill him! I fired off a single bullet, aimed right between the eyes. I'm a brilliant shot, and it's not boasting. I've never missed."
"(It's my first mission; I've never hit either, but let's keep that between ourselves.)"
"That's a bit long for a simple Who are you, don't you think," Special Agent Flint said with a hand pressed to his forehead. He'd sat down in her booth, looking perfectly at ease, for a man who'd caught a bullet in his hand. He'd ordered a tray of cheese sticks, which he was now pulling apart like a child.
"Well, you're the one who asked," Blanche responded, feeling a little offended. "Say, how did you survive? I'm a brilliant shot."
"Yes, you've mentioned. I can hear thoughts, remember? Yours were coming through loud as a megaphone. Nearly took out my eardrums." He winced. "Anyway, I've got a one-of-a-kind device just like yours." He opened his hand to show a golden gauntlet, just barely dented where the bullet had struck.
"Oh, like I'm going to believe that." Blanche rolled her eyes. "What am I thinking right now?"
"No way in hell he can hear thoughts," Flint said. He smirked as Blanche wilted in disappointment.
"Okay, lucky guess. What number am I thinking of?"
"Thirty-seven and a half. Next."
"Alright! Fine!" Blanche slumped onto the table. "Well, it's been nice knowing you, Orange Team," she sighed to no one in particular. "I'm about to be captured, tortured for information, and killed. At least I don't have anything useful to give away."
Flint rolled his eyes. "Relax, I'm not going to do any of those things. But I do have to do this. Sorry, Carte!" He did not sound sorry as he tilted her face up and kissed her, ignoring her startled gasp. His tongue slipped into her mouth, laced with sleeping powder, and she swallowed it without protest.
Her last thought before the darkness claimed her was that he didn't taste of cigar smoke after all. It must be a prop, she decided.
Blanche woke up deep underground—exactly fifty-five meters underground, she knew without thinking. "Where am I?" she asked, before realizing she knew that too.
"Ah, you're awake!" Flint stood with his back to her, fiddling with the controls on a large screen. An image began to form, grainy at first, before resolving into Orange Team's halls.
"You're spying on us?" Blanche snapped indignantly.
"Hey, I have my reasons, which you shall soon see." When Flint turned to face her, she startled: the prominent mustache was gone, and the angles of his face were subtly different. Stage makeup, she realized. Most notably, he was dressed like a Victorian gentleman: long, ridiculous tailcoat with far too many buttons, and a ruffled handkerchief at his neck.
"It's called a jabot," Flint said, annoyed.
He was holding a remote. Blanche eyed the button warily, but quickly gave up: It was harmless, she could sense it.
Flint pushed play.
A pair of masked and suited agents appeared on the screen. "Such a shame about her parents," one was saying. "Do you think we should tell Blanche?" another asked. "No," the first said with a shake of the head.
The video froze. Flint regarded her gravely. "They're hiding something," he said.
"What is it? Can't you use your hearing to decipher it?"
Flint shook his head regretfully. "I can hear thoughts when I look at a person, in close range and in real time, but surveillance videos are different. The image isn't having thoughts of its own. But I will make you a deal." He approached Blanche, his eyes gleaming. "Get me into that compound, and I'll stand with you while you interrogate them. Even if they don't answer, I'll hear their thoughts and relay them to you after... if we both survive."
Blanche studied him, weighing her options. "Why do you want to get in so badly anyway?" she settled on.
Flint smiled grimly. Instead of answering, he pushed play again.
"She won't like what we're planning for her kind," the first agent finished.
Silence filled the room while Blanche thought over what she'd heard.
"As you can see, your precious Orange Team has something sinister planned. Isn't it worth finding out? Besides, you can reveal who I am and get me captured, or worse, anything you like. You hold all the power." He shrugged. "I'm placing my life in your hands, all for a chance to stop what's coming."
He stared at her so intently, eyes blazing with conviction, that she wanted to believe him. "How do I know I can trust you?"
"I've give you something without asking anything in return, right?" he replied. "The ability to hear machines the way I can hear people."
"What does that even—" she began to say, before realizing she already knew. The uncanny understanding of the machinery around her, as intimate as limb of her own body—
Blanche grimaced to discover she believed him. She swallowed. "Alright," she relented.
"Thank you." Flint smiled then, a seemingly-sincere smile, and Blanche couldn't help but feel a warmth spreading through her.
"I like your shoelaces," Blanche said to the clerk at the door of the innocuous storefront. "Thanks, I stole them from the president," Associate Agent Fei answered, giving Blanche a knowing nod. She peered at Flint out of the corner of her eye, dressed in a leather jacket and a too-tight V-neck. "My bodyguard," Blanche explained, letting out a weary sigh for effect. "Ran into some trouble on my mission. I hired him to get me back here."
"Okay!" Fei said cheerfully.
They made their way to the back and ducked into a broom closet, where Flint nudged Blanche and jerked his head in Fei's direction, then pointed an exaggerated finger at his head.
"I know!" Blanche mouthed. She wiggled out the loose brick, pressed the hidden button, and they tumbled out into a secret hall.
Right at that instant, sirens started wailing. "Run," Blanche said.
They sprinted down the hall and up another. A group of guards burst out the other end, closing in on them. "In here," Blanche gasped. Together, they ducked into an empty room. Silently, Flint pointed a finger at the ceiling vent. He boosted Blanche up, then she pulled him up in turn. His feet disappeared just as the door burst open.
"It's not far," Blanche whispered. "This way." The crept silently along the vent and dropped out of the vent a few rooms over, landing squarely in the main control room. There, before a glowing console, stood Chief Scientist Iago, flanked by throngs of—
"Stand down," Iago told the assembled guards. "Why, hello there, Agents Blanche and Flint," he greeted them.
"How did you know my name?" Flint asked angrily.
"Come now, are you sure that's what you want to ask? Well, if you must." Iago pressed a button, and an image appeared on the main screen, showing Flint's hideout.
"You've been spying on me!" Flint gasped in outrage.
"Yes, it doesn't feel good, does it? Do I need to push play? Good," Iago rattled off impatiently. "Why are you really here?"
"As if you don't know!" Flint yelled. "I'm here to stop you from releasing the deadly neurotoxin! Project Amanita!"
Iago blinked. "Whyever would I want to release it?" he asked snottily. "I breathe here. Next time, instead of making assumptions, try asking questions."
"But—"
"No," Iago said. "I'm through with you." With Flint silenced, he turned to Blanche. "Now, dear, I'm sure you have some questions for me."
Blanche swallowed past the lump in her throat, mustering the courage to ask. "What happened to my parents?"
"As strange as it sounds, they were, ah, involved in a potential foreign contact event—"
Everyone jumped when Flint slammed his fists down on a console, and the guards raised their guns on him as one.
"Tell her the truth," Flint said, his voice hard and cold.
"She'll be caught between two worlds," Iago warned.
"She already is, even if she doesn't know about it," Flint said. They glared at each other a long moment.
"Please, Agent. I want to know," Blanche pleaded. Her voice wobbled, but she held Iago's gaze. "I need to know what became of my parents and who I am... I don't even know my name," she begged.
"...Come with me. The rest of you, at ease."
When Iago led them to the wreck of the vehicle, some sort of squat, armored tank, Blanche immediately felt an odd familiarity about it. The hull gleamed with an otherworldly light, streaks of pale green against the marbled bronze. With a gasp, she took out her custom pistol: it was made of the same metal.
"We found records describing the creation of a super soldier, and you were to be the first of your kind. Your parents died in the crash," Iago explained. "They were not investigating it, they were in it... as were you."
Trembling, Blanche approached the device and reached out with one tentative finger. The vehicle's body was warped and dented, but the engine was largely intact. She prodded gently until it gave up its internal state, a gentle sigh from a forgotten past. "It has latitude and longitude coordinates in its memory," she said in surprise.
"Well, Miss Assassin." Flint doffed his hat, and his voice was only a little hoarse. "It seems you have a choice to make."
Blanche took one more lingering look at the tank, imagining another life in another place, and saying good-bye to it. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "What are you talking about? I love my job," she said shakily. She squared her shoulders and drew herself straight, held up her thumb and index finger in an imitation of a gun. "Flint, you may have escaped today, but don't get cocky! I won't be so easily beaten next time."
She turned her back on her alternate life. She left the room the same plucky, proud assassin she'd always been.
