Page 61 of Agent's Integrity

I was still contemplating what that reason might have been when there was a knock at the door. My eyes opened, and my heart thumped in my chest, but I didn’t move from my position on the floor. “Come in.”

The door opened, and Julia’s face appeared. Something in me settled when I saw her, as though her presence was calming to me.If she’s here, then she probably wants to talk. If she wanted to hear what I had to say, then there might be a way to mend the trust I had broken.

She took a small step into the room. Her eyes dropped from my face to my bare chest, and she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

I blinked, taking in the vibrant green shirt she was wearing. She looked good in it. “You are not interrupting. I’m not finding it easy to meditate today.” I carefully stood up. I remained where I was, hoping I wouldn’t scare her away. I felt like that was a real possibility, like one wrong move would send her back out the door, and she’d never come back.

Julia nodded. Her fingers laced and twisted, as though she was nervous or searching for words. “It’s been a crazy couple of days.”

“True. How are you feeling?”

“Like new again. I must admit, those nanobots were amazing.”

“That’s good news. I’m glad you’re feeling better.” I pressed my lips together, not sure what to say now that I had the opportunity. So, I said what I thought was most important. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes jumped to mine but slid away after a moment. She didn’t speak, and she didn’t have to. “I lied to you. At the very least, I kept something important from you. Once I learned you were IPF, I knew if you found out about my past you would never trust me. So, I hid it from you.”

“You were right about that. I never would have trusted you. I would have abandoned you at the first opportunity and tried to strike out on my own.” She sighed. “You’ve been nothing but kind and helpful to me, and you’ve put your life in danger for me. I owe it to you to at least listen to whatever you have to say. Tell me the truth. About everything.”

I took a deep breath and prepared to plunge into the story of my past. “Everything I’ve told you has been true. I grew up on Fairfax in the Novem tribe. My grandfather raised me, but he was a cruel, angry man. The boys I grew up with became like brothers to me. We did everything together. Once we became teenagers, it was easy for us to join the Goliath gang. I grew up only a few miles from their fields. We were young, and there weren’t a lot of other options out there for us. It’s not an excuse, but I didn’t see another path at the time. Joining the gang was just what you did unless you wanted to work for the farmers for a pittance.

“Five of us grew up together and joined the gang together. We were the best of friends, but Sosa and I wererinwayo—brothers not of the same blood. Nothing will separate our bond. I can’t even describe with words how important he is to me. As the years progressed, we moved up the ranks. It didn’t take Sosa long before he became Goliath, the head of the gang. He always had a knack for leadership, and he kept me by his side as his second.”

I remembered those days and everything that happened, both good and bad. I turned away from her, ashamed of my actions. “I was a punk kid, but I liked the life. I didn’t care about selling drugs, and I certainly didn’t care that half of what we did was illegal. We rarely had troubles with the cops, and Sosa kept most of them well compensated for their inaction. We faced little opposition on Fairfax. Life was grand.”

When I fell silent, Julia spoke. “What changed?”

I smiled fondly, though the memory was bittersweet. “There was this old woman, not even Novem, who came into our territory. She was ancient, small, and wrinkled, and she walked with a cane. Our territory was dangerous for outsiders, so I asked her why she was there. She said she was looking for her grandson. He was a drug addict, who spent all his free time with the Novem. I offered to help her find him. And we did. She took him home, and a week later he was back, and so was she. Every time he came back, she would come and look for him.

“Every time she came, I’d help her find him. He’d say he wouldn’t come back and that he was finished with drugs, but he always found his way to us again. And she always came back for him. I asked her why she kept coming for him, even though it was obvious he would never stop doing drugs, and she said anyone could change.”

I touched my left palm and gazed down at the key I had gotten tattooed there. It felt like ages ago now. “She told me each person holds the keys to their own fate. We each have the power to choose. We spent a fair bit of time together. She asked me why I was in the gang and what I would do if I could do anything in the whole universe. I told her about how I loved nature and the weather, and she told me I could go to a university and study meteorology. No one I knew went to university. It just wasn’t done. The Novem has a long history of being shunned from higher education opportunities. I wasn’t sure I believed it was possible, and I doubted I could afford it even if it was. I didn’t understand the concept of saving money back then. I was an idiot kid who was flush with cash compared to everyone else. I grew up poor so you can believe I spent every dollar I earned. All the money I took in went right back out the door.”

Julia took another step into the room and leaned her hip against the bed. “She convinced you to go to university?”

“Yes. It took a while, though. I had to deal with some hard stuff before I realized I didn’t want to live my whole life in a gang. And then she stopped coming, for several weeks. She turned up again one day and I asked her if she wanted me to help her find her grandson, but she said no. She said he was in a treatment center and was making remarkable progress. She had stopped by to thank me for helping her find him all those times and she hoped never to have to come back.”

That old woman was one of the best people I’d ever known. “That’s when I realized she was right; we control our own destinies. I went to Goliath and asked to leave. No one ever left the gang unless they died. That was just the way it was. But I told him my plans—that I wanted to go to university and study meteorology—and he agreed to release me.” I’d never forget what Sosa had done for me. It meant everything to me that he loved me enough to allow me to do what I loved.

My hand went to the necklace I never took off. “I’m an honorary member. Third-in-command is merely a place of honor, not power. He always said the door was open if I wanted to go back, but I didn’t. I don’t. I went to university and busted my butt working and taking classes, and I graduated and was picked up by Centric Enterprises almost immediately to be a climatologist. And I love my job now. I got out of Goliath and out of the drug business.”

Julia stared at me, and I could see her mind working behind her eyes. “Those Novem, who brought us here, to Concordia, they also work for Goliath, don’t they?”

“Yes.” I wouldn’t lie to her, even if it was a hard thing to admit. “I know the distribution lines quite well, and when I saw those two, I had a suspicion that they worked for Goliath. I confirmed it when I talked to them.”

She rubbed her forehead with one hand. “They use the spices as a cover.”

“The smell makes it nearly impossible to detect the drugs. Some places still use canine units to sniff out illicit drugs, and the spices make it nearly impossible for them to detect anything.”

I had been nervous about bringing Julia onto a shuttle with them. If we hadn’t been desperate, I wouldn’t have even considered bringing her around them. She was a cop and could easily destroy Goliath’s operation. I didn’t want to cause problems for Sosa. That was the last thing I wanted. Ignorance had been my only saving grace. I had seen she was suspicious, but she hadn’t had any context as to what the issue really was. But both our lives were in danger, and I had taken a risk that had, thankfully, paid off.

“So that shuttle was packed full of drugs.”

It was a statement, not a question, but I confirmed it anyway. “Yes.”

She looked agitated as she turned to the side, facing away from me. “You do understand that it’s my job to arrest criminals, right? I am duty-bound to report crimes and not aid criminals. I could be fired, arrested, and imprisoned for that.”

She was right, and I knew it. “I know. And I’m sorry to put you in that situation. I didn’t have a better idea.”

Looking pensive, she was quiet for a full minute before she spoke again. “But,” she hesitated, “it’s a little hypocritical for me to say that while I’m currently working with a wanted mercenary captain to find a missing batch of illegal arms.” She sighed and her shoulders sagged. “I’m in quite the mess, aren’t I?”

---