Sam

I had never heard the sound of a man passing through glass. It wasn't the loud but delicate ching that movies so often portrayed, but rather a meaty crunch, with a brief screech of metal on metal as the doorframe scraped along the floor. I cringed and recoiled, but Maryam, still atop me, kept me from rolling away.

Her gaze shot toward the sound, and when the discomfort of the noise passed, I tried to turn for a better look. In the mess of shards and metal that had been the double doors at On to Logic’s entrance, a large man was being throttled by a well-dressed, dark-skinned woman.

“Tamika,” I said too loudly. The two men behind her, who had been moving in to join the brawl, instead turned to look at me.

“Damn,” Maryam said, pushing me painfully against the ground as she rose to standing, then dashed to join in as well. The man she rushed spread wide to absorb the blow, but Maryam unexpectedly slid between the man's legs, grabbing both his ankles and pulling his feet from beneath him.

I knew I had to help them, but all I could do was watch in awe and fear at what I was seeing. Tamika’s target was flailing, beating at her arms, but she dazed him with a blow to the ear. He cried out as she raised her knee, then slammed it into his groin.

Maryam was doing just as well; she had her mark pinned to the floor stomach-down, and was holding his head up by his hair. She threw quick jabs like bee stings into his face.

The third man deliberated for a moment, then decided that Maryam - older and smaller than Tamika - was the easier target.

Suddenly, he froze. Everything stopped when a loud sound like the arc of electricity rang through the air. Tamika screamed in pain as a spray of blood erupted from a small hole in her shoulder. The man beneath her fell limp, and blood began to pool beneath his head. 

"Stop," Said a man who stood in the doorway, his voice so calm and proper as to be offensive. His full head of hair and thick mustache were bright white, and his cream-colored vintage suit was faded, but not a single hair or thread was out of place. In his hand, he held a device that looked like a small toilet plunger with a handle nearly as thick as its business end.

"Back inside, both of you," He said, waving the device at Tamika and Maryam.

"Clive," Maryam said, voice calm and almost bored despite her shaking hands, "I see you've made a new toy."

"Hello dear. Yes, do you like it?"

"A gun disguised as a tool, I take it?"

"Of course."

"Thank you."

Clive had time to give one confused tilt of the head before the loudest sound I'd ever heard ripped through the air. I covered my ears and squeezed my eyes shut. 

When I opened my eyes again, Clive was on his back, writhing in a pool of his own blood. When my ears stopped ringing, I heard his gurgling moans of pain.. 

I looked at Tamika, wondering if something had perhaps exploded inside of her, and if the shrapnel had blown into Clive on its way out. She was still in one piece, struggling to get to her knees as she pressed a hand to her wound.

"You two. Drag your boss out the door. You, help Ms. Hess," Maryam said. She pointed the small pistol in her hand at Clive's confused, frightened men.

Outside, vehicles marked SIG were arriving. Uniformed officers with pistols were shouting orders at people outside. The thugs nervously darted their eyes to Maryam's gun, then to the SIG officers zip-cuffing their partners as they were ripped out of the green vans, then back to Maryam.

"There's enough in the clip for all of you, if you prefer," She said, raising her voice only slightly. The three obeyed, dragging the groaning, wheezing Clive through the entrance, ignoring his cries of pain as they pulled the heavy man in jerking motions.

"Come, Sam," Maryam said, never taking her eye or her gun off the three in front of her. As if on cue, her phone, which she had dropped when she joined the melee, turned a blood orange and began to sound an alarm.

I ran to Tamika's left side, taking her by the unsupported shoulder. She winced as she threw her arm over me, pressing her hand harder to her wound as blood continued to ooze from under her hand.

“She’ll be alright,” Maryam said, eyes still trained on the thugs ahead of her as she pushed them out, then closed the double doors behind her. Again, I found myself wanting to believe her.

Tamika sneered, which meant that Maryam was probably right.

Tamika

I'd heard from old interviews what it felt like to be shot. Most said that you didn’t feel the bullet itself, only an unbearable, stinging heat a few seconds after it passed through. I couldn’t really add to that description; all I could say was that I preferred being stabbed, if I had to choose between the two. 

Maryam had made the better shot. As much pain as I was in, I could tell from his hysterical, liquidy cries of pain that Clive would die without medical attention. Still, the well-dressed maniac was determined to fight to the end, even if all he could shoot was spiteful curses.

"Ohh…how'd you get a gun, bitch?" Clive asked, gurgling every other word.

"We haven't been properly introduced, love," Maryam said, pulling a SIG badge from her bag and opening it for him to see.

"Hah. Well played, officer," Clive choked out, "I knew you were a cold-hearted hag, but-" He coughed, wheezing painfully, "I'd hoped I'd managed to charm you a little. Don't break my heart."

"Maybe a little," She agreed.

This wasn't a victory. Any decent med school student could use an autosurgeon and have him walking by tomorrow. And while any of the things Clive had done would put even a millionaire in prison, people as rich and connected as he was, never saw the inside of a prison cell. Even SIG couldn't touch him.

Or so I thought.

"So…what are the…charges, love?" Clive struggled to say. Maryam tilted her head in amusement.

"Charges?" She laughed, "You aided and abetted terrorists, deployed a bioweapon on English soil. You're not going to jail. No, you're going to disappear."

"You can't put me…in a black site. You know who I know," He said.

Maryam pulled her gun from her holster. My eyes went wide in disbelief as she racked the slide and leveled the weapon at Clive's forehead.

 "That's true," She said with a crazed smile, "But I know some people of my own."

The pistol barked out a single shot, and Clive fell to the ground unceremoniously. With practiced efficiency, Maryam removed the magazine, racked the slide to remove the bullet in the chamber, then holstered the weapon.

Her face turned to stone once again. Strangely, the only thought that came to mind was that I was probably still out of a job. 

Maryam

The logic of the thing I had done was easy. The bastard had been right: he would have forced the government to bring him to trial, where the charges against him would die, one way or another. Taking him to a black site would have only made things worse.

So I killed him. Self-defense, I'd claim, and every officer here would back me up. The emotions surrounding the killing of someone I was supposed to love, even as a facade, were complex. I'd have to sort through them later, I told myself, though I doubted that "later" would happen during my lifetime.

I could practically feel Sam and Tamika’s wary gazes as I presented my badge to the various officers that needed to see it. We always circled the wagons when one of us shot someone, seeing as it was a high crime that would get even the most powerful of men publicly executed. In a way, I was lucky Clive was so arrogant and stupid.

At some point, I’d have to explain myself to the two. I wasn’t legally obligated to explain anything, but they’d be less of a headache later if I took the initiative now.

“First time seeing a gun, I take it,” I said to Sam. He seemed like he'd be the easier one with which to break the ice.

“I didn’t expect it to be so loud…” Sam said distantly.

He was in shock. No one, save perhaps a sociopath, ever failed to react to someone dying in front of their eyes, and especially not from a gunshot. It was a loud, chaotic, grotesque, traumatic event.

“You used me, didn’t you?” Sam said. It was an accusation, softly spoken though it was.

Tamika glowered at me, a look that said that I’d better tell the boy the whole truth, and that she’d know if I did anything less. And Sam…well, what he was feeling wasn’t all shock. He was intelligent, and he was now seeing it all, but the stress of the day made it so that he had to put the truth together in tiny pieces.

“Undercover,” He continued, pausing, his face going blank.

“They call us sleepers, and they do understand the irony,” I tried a smile, “And gods, am I relieved I’ll never have to sleep with the bastard again.”

"A mostly female profession, I assume," Tamika's condemnation was far less subtle. It was fair. I wouldn't point out that domineering billionaires with aspirations of unchecked power tended to be men; she'd be well aware of that.

On Sam's face, I saw a look I'd witnessed before. It was the expression worn by those who got a firsthand look at just how entrenched SIG was. They'd know about the cameras on every street corner, the garbage-sifting robots looking for clues, the gun-detecting quadcopter drones, and the too-friendly plainclothes officers in every crowd, at every tacky restaurant, and working every job. Still, few would ever need their lives saved by SIG, not directly.

His thousand-meter stare only seemed to grow longer. I couldn't give him a quick fix for this. The kiss had been a shot of adrenaline to snap him out of a panic attack; it wouldn't do anything to help him process a terrible day he'd be seeing in his nightmares until the end, nightmares not just of monsters that knew him down to a genetic level, but of the slayers of those monsters. He'd hope without hope that the latter never came for him.

"So I take it you were never actually CEO of Looking Glass," Tamika growled as a paramedic tended to her shoulder. I waited to see if she'd add anything else, but she only gritted her teeth as the wound was stabilized.

"Best cover job is one you actually do," I said, shaking my head, "I had very little direct contact with SIG. Mostly gathered intel, little else."

"A spy, then," Tamika said, growing angrier, "Guess that explains why you didn't arrest the bastard three years ago, instead of marrying him."

I nodded. She was a veteran at this game, so she knew why I'd done things the way I had, but seeing as my entrapment game had nearly cost her her life, she had to get it all out. 

Her wrath was spoken more calmly than I expected.

"Does it ever occur to you that this is a fucked up way to do your business? That maybe you shouldn’t be seducing boys fresh out of uni so you can use them as bait?” She winced as she worked herself up, accidentally pressing her shoulder into the paramedic’s tool as it worked inside the bullet hole.

“You’ve got all this power. SIG can do anything they want, and…what? This is the best you can come up with?” Tamika said, her voice growing exhausted. The blood loss was getting to her.

“The best someone can come up with, Miss Hess. You know as well as I do that we’re no one."

Tamika scoffed as her head slumped over. She knew what I meant: we - the verifiers, SIG, England, the whole bloody world had set up this apparatus of surveillance, truth-tellers, and a gentle but firm hand of law enforcement, and it had all led to a world that wasn’t wholly better, just a different brand of bad than the one that existed at the turn of the century.

She felt it, too: the deep bitterness of having become part of something that was supposed to solve a problem, only to watch that problem change shape when we grasped it. It was an infuriating feeling of impotence, knowing of no other way to make sure truth and consequences could still have their day, and being forced to wait until someone “smarter” found a new way to go about it…all while making sure you didn’t starve.

That last part was probably her biggest grievance. With my wealth, I could afford to think about tomorrow.

“I meant what I said, Miss Hess. I’ll take care of On To Logic,” I said quietly.

“I’m sure you will,” She said through clenched teeth.

Admittedly, it was not the best choice of words.

******

Every CEO, upon consuming another of their competitors, swears it’s not personal. In their arrogance, they assume they have the better vision for the future of their field, and that they can better guide those who would choose to join in the work they lead. There was a time when I told myself that I was different - and I still do believe I’m doing the best thing I can, given the circumstances - but I’ve stopped trying to reassure myself of my morality.

To her credit, Tamika held onto her company until the end, refusing to sell her twenty percent stake in the company even after I had the majority. Looking Glass completed the purchase of the controlling stake in On to Logic that evening, and within hours, every other holdout pulled their golden parachute. It was hard not to admire her for staying at the helm as the ship went under.

“You needed to see me, Ms. Masters?” Sam said. He really needed to learn to knock, but I’ll admit that his appearance eased my irritation at having been startled. The boy had a good fashion sense, and his bigger paycheck had afforded him a smart, understated wardrobe.

“Act professional,” I inwardly chided myself, “He’s your employee now.”

“Please, Maryam is fine. Have a seat,” I said, pointing to the chairs in front of my desk.

He hesitated, looking around my office and down the hall behind him before entering the room. It was understandable; we’d had a unique introduction that was probably still vivid in his mind.

“Just want to see how you’re settling in,” I said. He blew out a breath into his hands.

“Job’s great. I uh…yeah. Good team, same thing I was doing at On To Logic, and, uh…your AI is way more user-friendly than the Causal Engine,” He stammered, trying for a smile. I didn’t return the expression; when you wanted to know what someone was really thinking, you couldn’t let them mislead you, not even as sympathy.

“Something’s bothering you,” I said, trying to make it sound like a question, and not fully succeeding.

“You…” He started, “This…this is going to sound like an accusation. I…I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“It’s OK. A lot has happened. Speak your mind,” I said.

There were any number of things he could have taken to me to task for, and amazingly, he managed to cover most of them with one question. He had a future in this career, if anyone did.

“When we met, you told me I’d stop caring about the truth after too long on this job. That it’d just become another paycheck to me,” He said, then paused to deliberate on his next words for several seconds. I hadn’t told him exactly that at our introduction, but it was close enough to what I had meant.

“I…I know you don’t care. You’re like Tamika. You care about finding truth, but only so long as you get paid for it,” He said timidly.

“You make me sound like an ontological mercenary,” I laughed. His face turned beet red, and I almost took his hand to reassure him, but he laughed along quietly, saving me from performing another unprofessional act.

“I…yeah, I guess that’s what I mean,” He said. I took a moment to appreciate the kid’s spine.

“I care about the truth, Sam. Everyone in this job does. We just see the lies win the day so often that it’s hard to root for the truth like it’s a team in a football match."

From the way his face twisted in disgust, I could tell he'd heard that before. He wouldn't like what was coming next either, but it had to be said.

"Truth is brittle, quiet and small, Sam. The only way we can find it, save it, preserve it, is with machines."

"That's horseshit. Everyone can find truth," Sam said, beginning to gesture angrily, but checking the motion. He immediately lost his fire as the next thoughts visibly moved through his mind, and after a few seconds, he could only scowl at the floor.

“Say what you’re thinking,” I said softly.

“What’s the point? What will it change?”

I paused. Emotions didn’t ratchet up so quickly if there were a few seconds between responses.

“Might change how you feel,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter,” He replied.

“Only thing that matters. Only thing you know you can change.”

When he looked up to meet my eyes, there was a rueful calm to him.

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” He said, sighing heavily, “Don’t know our asses from holes in the ground.”

I couldn’t completely stifle my laugh. It wasn’t the appropriate response, and I instantly regretted it, but he smirked a little.

“Never heard that one,” I said.

“American idiom,” He sputtered, “It’s…I read 1984. There’s no 2+2=5 nonsense, but I didn’t expect the death of truth to be so…collectively stupid. You can’t agree on anything if everyone just believes what’s most convenient to them. It just doesn’t work: democracy, the courts, bloody society itself, it’s all impossible. So people get…us. A computer to tell them the truth, because the people around them won’t.”

He gestured to me, taking a nervous breath.

“And you…and SIG. Christ.”

All was silent for a long time. I felt terrible for shattering his innocence, but someone eventually would. This game needed players like him, ones who would play with honor. We couldn’t afford to lose him because he unknowingly picked a fight with someone too big to be taken down by even a mountain range of evidence. He’d nearly done just that with my ex-husband.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll head back to my desk,” Sam said.

I allowed my face to relax into a flirtatious smile. Devious as I was, I’d only pull on the hooks I’d sunk into the boy to keep him in safer waters. From the way his body rose from its depressed slouch, I could tell the smile had done its job. Nothing cheered the soul like arousal.

After he left, the phone on the desk rang. I pressed the speakerphone button, and my secretary’s voice came through the speaker.

“Dunning’s on the line. Think you’ve gotta take this one,” Cheri, my secretary, said. She sounded irritated; likely, the PM had given her a verbal lashing.

“Put him through,” I said.

In the brief moment before the serpent began speaking, I tried to think like Sam. Never accept that men like Dunning were the final destination of humanity, I told myself. 

It helped, but not in the way I expected. My chest filled with a sudden warmth, and my sultry grin became less of an affectation. There were more than a few benefits to having Sam around. 

So long as I was doing bad things for good reasons, I supposed, perhaps I could make things more enjoyable for us both…