Page 57 of Agent Zero
She’d never been able to see, let alone read her own file.She was perhaps the only person who had noticed severalotherfiles, not just the doctored ones, missing after Eight was cleared for release.It was, after all, her job to bring them when Bronson ordered so.He had not asked for any, but perhaps he would, soon?
“Good.What about that goddamn doctor?”
“Tied off.”Caldwell sounded happy about that.He had a fresh crewcut, and his uniform was ironed as well.
Trinity watched her own heavy black loafers, diligently carrying her forward.Tied offcould mean any of a number of things.The odds favored a staged suicide at Dr.Hemings’s apartment.The doctor had taken Trinity’s vital signs more than once, asked her questions.Now he was gone.
It...bothered her.More than it should.How many casualties had she reported on since the induction?
Had shereallysigned up for this?Without her memory, how could she truly know?
“Thank God.”Bronson slowed down.He sweated, even at this moderate pace.It was amazing, how his body kept going through all the cholesterol abuse he piled on it.
The guard at the double doors saluted; the trio plunged into the nerve center.Grids running, cores being checked, screens everywhere, people running back and forth with papers and clearances, phones softly beeping.They thought they were hunting a terrorist.The misplaced patriotism was astonishing.You could almostsmellit, bright and shiny but with a rancid undertone.
Caldwell was immediately swarmed for answers and orders, Bronson reduced to tagging along and listening.Trinity glanced over the room once, collating information.Ah.Eight has made his move.Too late, though.Assuming he did not wish to catch Six.It would take them, she calculated, approximately six more hours to realize they had lost Eight for good, unless someone here noticed one or two small things.Perhaps she should help them?
Why?
It was such an elementary question.Terrifying, in all its implications.Why do anything?Control over her autonomic functions was not complete, but she could perhaps—with enough concentration—stop her own heart.Why bother continuing, especially if she was to be used in this fashion?
Illogical, Trinity.What did it matter how she wasused?
She stopped, head down, swaying slightly.Caldwell and Bronson kept going, information they didn’t need thrown at them from all angles.Trinity could have told them ninety-eight percent of what they were taking in and collating was useless now that they had sent Eight out, that removing Eight’s civilian entanglement would simply intensify a certain dangerous sector of the emotional noise.How had he talked them into it?Fatigue and Bronson’s arrogance no doubt had given him an opening, but?—
“Three?”
She replayed the last few moments of mental footage.What was that rasp against her nerves?It wasn’t physical at all.
Irritation.She wasannoyedat being disturbed.
“Sir?”A single word, uninflected.Sweat prickled along her lower back before she brought that bodily reaction under control.
Bronson gazed sourly at her, holding a clipboard.Perhaps one of the workers had handed it over to keep him occupied, like granting a toy to a child.“The chances Eight will bring Six and the civilian in alive.”
Calculations tangled inside her head.Zero.He doesn’t want to retrieve them.She had a choice, now.
Was this what other people felt?How did they stand the uncertainty?
Answer as if his assumptions are correct.Immediately the pressure eased, and she found answers.“Both alive, forty percent.Six alive, thirty-three percent.Civilian alive, sixty-eight percent.Civilian alive and uninjured, seventy-four percent.”
“Why is Six’s survival chance so low?”
Assuming he and Eight engage in combat, and Eight wins.It was much easier when she simply added their inaccurate assumptions to what she was supposed to answer.“Six will ensure the civilian survives, even at the cost of his own life.”
“That goddamn emotional noise,” Bronson muttered.“At least you’re still working, Three.”
Am I?She hadfelt.Only a flash of mild impatience, true, but still...she was to report any oddity, no matter how slight.
If I do, odds of my own survival go down drastically.She gazed over his head at the screens—traffic feeds, information flashing by rapidly, grainy surveillance footage of Six and the civilian.Her long black hair, distinctive, and her pinched, pale face when they had brought her in reeking of sedation.Why had Six settled his attention on the woman?Candless, that was her name.
Irrelevant.
The only truly relevant matter, Trinity decided, as a harried-looking brunette woman brought in a fresh pot of coffee and Bronson quizzed one of the engineers about draining satellite platforms to track the car they thought Six was driving, was her own chance of survival.If she began showing signs of emotional noise, there was an unacceptable risk of them seeking to imprison or liquidate her.
Or to try the induction process again.
“Three.”It was Caldwell.The major held out a cup of coffee, steam rising gently from trembling dark liquid.“Here.As soon as we find them we’re going to scramble copters.”
