The doctors had advised that Anya should take a little more time off from school, so when Monday came, Anya had hoped to use the extra time to get a bit more sleep.
Loid had other ideas. "You're behind enough as it is," he said. "And besides, it's good to give yourself something to do during the day."
She had scrunched her nose up at him and tried to complain, but in the end, she knew he was right. Eden College didn't forgive easily when it came to missed schoolwork.
The good news was that he and Yor had also decided to take a little time off work. They discussed that it would be better for Anya to recover at home while both parents were present, but Anya knew the real reason that they stayed home with her.
Both of them were terrified that she would be taken again.
She wanted to comfort them, to tell them that it would be okay, but even Anya wasn't so sure - and everyone told her that she was such a bad liar anyway.
The doorbell rang, jolting her out of her thoughts. Even with all the buzzing of the thoughts in the building, she didn't hear this one coming.
She clutched her pencil tighter, and tore her eyes away from her schoolwork, while a pit formed in her stomach. Was it another Subject? Was it someone else coming from the lab to get her?
But when Yor opened the door to Sylvia, Anya both breathed a sigh of relief, and found that her confusion hadn't ebbed at all. She was pretty sure she had been able to read Sylvia's mind before (even though she tried not to).
"Anya," her mother called from the front door. "Sylvia's here to see you."
Anya sensed her mother's caution, but she noted that none of Yor's alarm bells were ringing. That was good. Anya reasoned that Sylvia was probably there to talk about her recruitment into WISE.
"Hi Anya," said Sylvia casually and gave her a little wave, before she turned to Loid, who had been washing the dishes. "Sorry to drop in like this. Is it alright if I speak to Anya alone?"
After Loid tentatively agreed, also cautious as to why Sylvia had felt the need to visit their home directly, Anya showed Sylvia to her room and closed the door.
It was weird having her father's boss (and maybe her own future boss?) in her own room, but it sent a giddy shiver through her. Was it about the test? Was Sylvia going to talk to her about being a spy?
Sylvia had kept careful control of her facial expression while she was in the corridor, but once Anya closed the door behind them , she sighed and took off her hat, as if in deference. Sylvia sat herself in Anya's desk chair, while Anya perched on the edge of the bed facing her.
Something seemed off about Sylvia's actions. She didn't sit as straight as she usually did, and she seemed to have a hard time meeting Anya's eyes.
With a start, Anya realised why Sylvia was acting strange.
She was embarrassed.
Sylvia had styled her hair into a sleek ponytail, but with her hair completely tied back Anya could see that Sylvia was wearing ear plugs, and if she concentrated in their direction, she could hear a slight buzzing emanating from them.
"Sorry about this", said Sylvia apologetically, and tapped her ears. "It's just a precaution."
"Are those…" said Anya. "Earphones that block thoughts?"
Sylvia nodded. "Bingo. We found some in our sweep of the lab, before we had to hand over the investigation to the SSS. We found out that they created these as a portable shield against telepathy. It emits a sound that prevents the wearer from having their mind read."
Anya's widened, and she couldn't stop herself from wondering if it also worked the other way around. Is that why she couldn't read Adrian's mind? Was he able to read hers?
"It makes sense," Anya murmured thoughtfully. "It's a security breach for you that I can hear thoughts. You want to make sure that you're keeping information confidential while you meet me."
Sylvia smirked. "Huh, now I'm not so sure these are working after all." She met Anya's eyes with a playful smile. "Just kidding. Would you say that you're good at reading people even without your ability?"
Anya shook her head. "Actually I think people are confusing, even when I know what they're thinking. People lie, and they lie for different reasons, and then sometimes people act completely differently to how they feel on the inside."
Anya frowned to herself. Kind of like a certain golden-eyed boy that she knew…
She pulled herself back to the present. "When I can't hear thoughts I have to rely on everything else, and that's hard too."
"I think I understand," nodded Sylvia. "People are hard to interpret even at the best of times." And then she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her legs. "Do you know why I'm here?
Anya thought about it for a moment, but only one answer was clear to her. "You want to know about the Director."
"Very good. The truth is," Sylvia started, and she wrinkled her face in something that looked like shame. "We tried our hardest to look for the Director and take her in without causing you too much trouble. I know you have been through a lot already, but I've come up empty handed, and I've let you down. Unfortunately, I'm going to need your help. Is that okay?"
Anya ignored the nausea in her stomach and nodded.
Sylvia continued. "Can you start by telling me a bit about what you know of the Director?"
"Um," Anya shuffled in her seat. She didn't know where to start.
Sylvia sensed Anya's hesitation, and gently asked another question. "Do you know her name?"
Anya shook her head.
"Can you tell me what she looks like?"
"Um," Anya mumbled. "Black hair. She normally tied it back in a low bun at the back of her head. She always wore either a white pearl necklace, or a white diamond bracelet, or both. She's a bit taller than I am now."
Was she doing it wrong? She felt like this information was useless to WISE. the Director could be any woman with black hair, really.
"You're doing great," said Sylvia. "Is there anything else you can pass on? Anything else you know about her?"
Anya squinted her face and tried to think of something useful.
Everything Anya knew about the Director was based on the direct contact that they had. She never heard any of the staff talk about her while she wasn't present, and only heard snippets of information when the Director was in the room.
"Anything at all," Sylvia gently prompted.
Anya closed her eyes, and tried to remember, really remember, what she knew of the Director, but she had nothing recent to go on, so she tried to cast her mind even further into the past.
Anya tipped her head back, and just that movement alone prompted a memory.
She was three years old.
And strapped to a chair.
Anya felt her heart start to beat louder in her chest, but she tried not to let it distract her from the details of the memory. She could almost see the doctor standing in front of her, holding the needle. "This won't hurt," he said. "Much."
Anya tensed her body, and with a sick dread, Anya realised that the only memory that came to mind was the moment that pulled her into a flashback in the infirmary.
She swallowed, and tried to slow down her breathing, and her racing heart. She had to stay and see what the memory was trying to tell her.
Someone scratched notes in the background.
She had seen this before, and yet even a memory could be wrong. Anya remembered that she had originally thought the man was the doctor, and the person in the background was the assistant, but it was the other way around.
The Director stood holding the clipboard. "Lets try this next serum…" she started to say above the noise of Anya's own screaming, and the door opened, with a man looking a bit sweaty and harried.
"Director," he panted. He had clearly just run from somewhere. "The Investor is on the phone for-"
The pencil snapped in her hand. "Ugh! I'm in a hurry. Just tell him I'm at the stables or something, and get him off my back. Now for the next test-"
Anya sucked in a breath and let the memory fade.
She lifted a trembling hand and wiped the tear from her cheek. She didn't even know it was there.
Sylvia waited with her hands clasped, but Anya couldn't bring herself to look at her directly. Would Sylvia think she was weak for crying? Would she change her mind about recruiting her and think that Anya wasn't fit to be a spy?
Only her breathing could be heard in the silence between them, and Anya let herself try to slow it down first before she carefully told Sylvia what she had seen and remembered.
Anya trembled as she spoke, and though he tried to hide it, Sylvia had noticed it.
"Thank you for your time, Anya. I'm sorry for dropping in on you like this, I'll let you get back to your day."
As she stood to go, Sylvia pulled something else from her pockets.
"You'll notice that I've been wearing these earphones with you to protect my mind, but I have a feeling they might work the other way round. You can keep these ones, and if the outside gets too much for you, you can try putting them on and seeing how you feel."
Anya took the earphones gratefully. It was suddenly hard for her to speak.
In the next room, Loid and Yor tried not to listen in to whatever conversation Sylvia was having with Anya inside her room, but there was something that Yor could not ignore any more.
"Are you really happy about this?"
Loid tore his gaze from his clasped and sweaty hands to see Yor's serious face. "Excuse me?"
She didn't hesitate to ask again. "Are you happy Anya will be a spy like you?"
Something in Loid's chest sank. He knew that most parents would be proud for their children to follow in their footsteps, but being a spy was a burden he took to protect children.
The truth fell out of his mouth. "I thought I would be."
It surprised him for a moment, but Loid was filled with instant regret. "It sounds silly now."
She reached for his hand, slowly intertwining her fingers in his. If she lowered her arm any further, their hands would be resting on her leg, and Loid honestly couldn't remember the last time they were able to show this much intimacy to each other.
"Darling," she breathed, "we are long past silly.'' She met his eyes with a serious look. "Tell me."
Heat flooded his face, and he wondered how Yor knew that he had been having mixed feelings about Anya's recruitment.
Well, they have spent twelve years together. They clearly knew each other better on a deeper level than he had ever anticipated.
Loid squeezed her hand, an acknowledgement of her concern, and he sighed. "I've sometimes imagined Anya coming with me on missions, but now that Handler has asked me to train her officially… I'm scared."
He tightened his hold on his wife, and gritted his teeth. "She was almost taken away from us. All I want is to keep her safe, but I can't even do that."
Loid added; "I became a spy so that the generation after us would have a better life, but if Anya becomes a spy with WISE, that means that she will have to take on the burden of the world. It means that I failed."
Yor's look softened, and she stared at the ceiling with a thoughtful expression. "I became an assassin to help support my family, so that my brother could go to school. I continued because I was good at it, and the Garden is good at choosing targets that will help the world." She shrugged, but even with that noncommittal gesture, she couldn't hide her worry. "But Anya has been obsessed with Spy Wars since she was a child. She helped you on missions. She has been intentionally aiding you on your mission for twelve years. Is that something that we should take away?"
Loid could only stare at Anya's closed bedroom door, knowing that on the other side of it, Anya's path for the future was already being determined, and there was nothing he could do about it.
"I don't know."
Yuri stared at the pile of documents in front of him.
He had read them all. In fact, he read them all twice, and he still wasn't sure if he believed it.
It was not in his pay grade to know how the State Security Service had taken over the cases of the survivors of Project Apple, but reading their files made him feel sick to his stomach knowing that children had been experimented on and tortured on Ostanian soil.
He was tempted to hunt down and eliminate whoever had ordered the project's existence in the first place.
The information in the files were incredibly detailed, even came with pictures of the children, so his department was able to identify all of them and house them in foster care placements. Which was why it was obvious to Yuri that there were two glaring mistakes in the paperwork.
Mistake number one, Subject 009 was nowhere to be found.
The photo showed a boy in his mid-teens with sour blue eyes and long blonde hair. Yuri wasn't against long hair as a rule since he tended to miss his barber appointments (they just didn't cut it like Yor did), but Subject 009 and his long hair could not be accounted for in any of the foster homes.
The file also described a boy who had gone through unimaginable torture, but who had also been stationed in Berlint for an assignment at the time that the facility was raided and shut down. Yuri hoped that he hadn't strayed too far.
Mistake number two, the file for Subject 007 was missing.
The scientists at Project Apple were meticulous. They kept everything in numerical order, which was why it stood out so much that there was a file missing, which led Yuri to believe that the file must have been purposefully stolen, or wiped. No trace of Subject 007 was left in the materials that had been handed over to them.
Yuri gritted his teeth, swiped the files back into their case, and locked it. He would have to deliver them by hand to the headquarters, where they would be locked in the vault for safekeeping. It was now a matter of national security for the identities of these children to remain secret, so that in the event of a war, they couldn't be used to fight for either side.
His interrogation partner had agreed to go back to the facility with some security and search for the missing files, but Yuri already knew that they weren't there. They had searched the place already, and the guards of the State Security Service were thorough enough that Yuri knew there was nothing left behind.
Still, they had to check. For protocol.
Yuri humphed and swung the briefcase out, letting the momentum carry him forward and out of his door. It wasn't a bad day to walk to headquarters, and he hoped that the walk would provide some inspiration for the case.
On Yuri's route to work, he wondered about his sister, as he often did. He wondered if she was happy, if she was eating, if she was enjoying being a mother still. He had to admit, the little chihuahua had gotten on his good side in the last decade, and he didn't mind so much that Yor was playing housewife to a man that Yuri felt strongly suspicious of.
He wandered into a bakery, lured in by the smell of strudel and the promise of sweet treats. He had been eating more sweet things recently too, as his boss had told him that he had a sour face, although Yuri mostly wanted the sugar out of spite. Yuri pointed at a pastry through the glass countertop, when he saw a movement in the corner of his eye.
Yuri, being a secret service policeman, was always wary, always on edge - especially when he was relaxed. That was when his peripheral vision was even more active so that he could put his guard back up properly whenever he needed to. There was a blur of movement just outside of the patisserie, heading into the alleyway next door.
Yuri paid for his pastry, and ran out of the shop, pastry in one hand, while the other held his briefcase with all the Subjects' information. He hoped he wouldn't need to use his gun.
He turned into the shadowed alleyway and immediately crashed into someone.
The figure was slight, and willowy, and Yuri noticed that the young boy had quite a scholarly build, with wide and frightened eyes.
Yuri immediately softened.
The child was clearly homeless, but Yuri guessed he hadn't been out on the streets that long. He was dirty, and his hair was long and shabby, and Yuri couldn't even tell what colour it was supposed to be from the layer of dirt that covered him, but there was something about him that was really familiar.
"I don't know you!" the kid burst out. "Leave me alone."
It didn't deter Yuri. In fact, it made him lean closer.
"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"
"Uh," the boy leaned back, and started to sweat.
Yuri scanned him. No, he was sure of it. He had been looking at this boy's picture just half an hour ago.
He must be subject 009, Yuri realised, and the boy took a fearful step back.
"It's not what you're thinking! I'm supposed to be this dirty, and my hair is a normal colour!"
Yuri tried to hide his smirk. It was so obvious that this kid hadn't grown up learning how to moderate his telepathy, or even interacting with the world around then. There was no doubt in Yuri's mind that he was speaking to Subject 009.
He should take him back, turn him in, give him to the foster families to raise him.
He should..
An idea came to him then, and Yuri knew that Subject 009 had seen it, because his eyes widened a little bit.
Yuri suspected that the experiment kid was trying to read his mind, search for any hints of lies or deception, or any indication that Yuri could give that would mean that Subject 009 couldn't trust him. For that one moment, he didn't mind, if it meant that the kid would be able to know that he meant no harm.
"Come with me," said Yuri. "And you won't have to live on the streets anymore."
But the kid also seemed rightfully wary, and having had a rough background himself, Yuri had an inkling why. He hated feeling like a charity case, like he owed his life to someone.
"You could work for it," Yuri added. "You're good at telling when people are lying, right?"
Subject 009 hesitated, and then after a moment, he nodded.
"Perfect." Yuri smiled. "I think I've got the perfect job for you."