5

MARK TOLD THEM TO go fuck themselves, of course. The rest of the night had dissolved into a shouting match between Mark and General McAdams about his “responsibility” to his country, and all the various punishments he’d face if he refused. Mark brought up the ironclad contract he’d signed with the government granting his severance and cutting all ties with his former employer. McAdams laughed at the idea that a digital file with an electronic signature and seal allowed Mark anything of the sort. Mark, absent restraints, would have loved to crush the man’s windpipe to stop the grating sounds escaping from it, but all he could do was glare. In the end, they said they’d give him time to think, and Mark was injected with something that made him faceplant on the metal desk within seconds.

When he woke up back in the condo, he found it had been put back together. Holes in the walls were patched and painted, a brand new door had been installed since the other one had been reduced to little more than a blast crater. Hell, even his pistol had its firing pin replaced, he discovered. The clean-up boys never missed a beat.

Mark himself was not so easily fixed. Though they’d treated his injuries, he limped around the apartment grasping at the various clusters of pain that emanated throughout his body.

He had known a day like this would come. Either it would be the government knocking at his door (or blowing through it, as it turned out), or the Chinese looking to finish what they started. Mark had given up looking over his shoulder, not particularly caring whether an assassin’s bullet drilled through his skull at any given moment. He was almost annoyed it was Gideon who had found him first.

And for what? The most ridiculous assignment he’d ever heard of. He couldn’t imagine why else they’d come to him unless their active agents were all occupied running ops that actually mattered. Entering a brutal TV gameshow didn’t really seem like Homeland Security territory, and allowing the CIA to run an op on American soil instead of the NSA or FBI certainly wasn’t kosher, even if it was a joint project. Yet last night wasn’t a dream.

Christ, maybe it was, Mark thought as he rubbed his eyes and stumbled around his pristine apartment. The cleaners had literally cleaned, and his place was so spotless it would actually be a red flag for anyone other than Mark who’d been in his place in the last few years. Between the recently vacuumed floor and a body full of bruises, Mark knew it had all really happened.

He collapsed on his couch and draped his hand over his forehead, trying to process it all. He flung his palm at his TV, which turned on and bathed him in light and sound.

A male reporter with plastic white hair stalked the pavement, which was lined with hordes of grinning men and a sparse smattering of women. A camera followed him, and the banner across the bottom of the screen read THOUSANDS LINE UP FOR CHICAGO CRUCIBLE QUALIFIERS.

After watching a few unsettling interviews with potential participants fighting because they were either clearly unstable, in desperate need of cash, or both, Mark swept the channel away with his hand, He dove into his data drive, which had appeared on the screen in its place. He scrolled through the list of files and clenched his fist to open one labeled “Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto - August 26th, 2026.” The playcount said this would be his 133rd time watching it.

Riko’s dress was a thousand silk orchids sewn together to make one flowing fabric sculpture. The pearl white veil trailed behind her, floating in mid-air like a spirit. She approached the ancient stone altar wearing a smile meant only for him, with porcelain skin and bright green eyes that were heartstopping. The sight still took his breath away even now. As she reached his side, she bent over to him and whispered—

THERE WAS A KNOCK on the door. Mark waved the TV into blackness and bolted up, suspicious. Though if Gideon was back with another tac team, at least this time they bothered knocking. Or maybe it was the Chinese with that bullet after all. He craned his neck around to check the video feed on his wall. It was … Brooke? She stood patiently with her hands clasped behind her back. Mark limped over to the door and opened it. It still smelled like fresh paint. Much to his surprise, Brooke marched straight into the room without waiting for an invitation. As soon as she opened her mouth, he knew something was wrong.

“We need to talk, Mark.”

Her ocean blue eyes blinked, and there was something in her gaze that unnerved him. He could count the number of times she’d stepped foot inside his place on one hand over the last few years, and it was almost always some grocery-related emergency about needing an extra egg or some sea salt. She’d invited him over for dinner a few times, which he’d always refused. He interpreted it as a potentially romantic gesture. But more than likely it was pity, he later realized.

Brooke was sweet and kind, but the stern-faced girl on the couch was neither, he could tell that from just the five words she’d spoken so far.

“I said, we need to talk.”

This was not Brooke. Or rather, Brooke was not Brooke.

“Who are you?” Mark said, understanding.

“That’s all it took to figure it out, huh?” she said, cracking a thin smile. “Just me dropping the act for a few seconds?”

“I said, who are you?” He flexed his fingers and his eyes darted to the various weapons resting in their hiding places.

“I’m the girl next door,” she said, spreading her arms.

“You have five seconds, or I will kill you,” he said through gritted teeth. Brooke rolled her eyes at the threat.

“God, Mark, calm down. If I was here to take you out, this would have been the world’s slowest assassination.”

Four years, by his count. It didn’t make sense. Unless. Of course.

“You’re my monitor.”

“There we go,” she said. “Can you sit down now? You’re making me nervous.”

Mark thought back to every encounter he’d ever had with her, and realized what a fantastic actress she’d been this whole time. Utterly flawless. It had honestly never even occurred to him.

“You’re one of Gideon’s. Why the hell did they put a monitor on me? What the hell have you been telling them all these years?”

“Mark, did you really think they were going to let one of their top operatives out and never keep tabs on them? You have to know better than that.”

Mark’s knuckles were white.

“Four years,” he said. “Jesus.”

“Hey,” Brooke said. “Give me some credit. I don’t spend all my time writing down every time you take a shit. I run plenty of local ops for Homeland that are far more important than being your shadow.”

“What have you told them?” Mark repeated. “And why are you telling me all this now?”

“As for what I’ve told them, that’s all locked away in a data center somewhere on servers a mile below the earth, I’m guessing, but you can imagine the highlights. You’re generally a complete waste of space and a horrible mess after what happened. Understandable, but you’re not a lost cause either.”

Mark just shook his head, trying to comprehend it all.

“And as for why we’re having this conversation, it’s because I’m about to graduate from being your monitor to being your new handler, considering you’re going back in the field.”

“Oh God,” Mark said. “Not this Crucible shit again.”

“They asked me if you were ready for it. I said yes, but they wanted to test you anyway with that little tea party last night.”

“That was a goddamn stupid thing to do,” Mark said. “I could have killed any one of them.”

“You didn’t. But it wouldn’t have mattered,” she shrugged. “They were all Glasshammer mercs. I’m pretty sure you can get like a twelve-pack of those guys at Boxmart.”

“I’m not entering the Crucible,” Mark said. “It’s absurd.”

Brooke nodded.

“It certainly is, but Crayton is trouble. You know how big his file is?”

“How big?” Mark asked.

“It’s non-existent.”

Mark’s eyebrows went up.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean in a data-gathering age when I can tell you what kind of cancer your dog died from when you were five, or your great-uncle’s shoe size, we have nothing on Crayton. Not a thing. His public backstory is all air, completely forged. Behind it there’s nothing. It’s like he simply popped into existence, cash spilling out of his pockets. Now he’s got half of Washington on his payroll and burning desire to get people on TV to kill each other. We need to figure out what the hell is going on, and we need you to help us.”

“Us? You can’t be more than five years out of the academy. You don’t know what I—”

“I do know, Mark. I know it all. To take on this assignment, I got the full report. Even the blacked-out pages. Even the pages that weren’t even pages.”

She paused, her tone growing softer.

“I know what was done to you. I know what you had to do. I know what you lost. And I know what it means to be told you have to jump back in.”

She leaned forward.

“I’m not here to threaten you. You know how this works and how uncomfortable the cell of an Icelandic blacksite is, and I know that doesn’t scare you. But you know what else I know?”

He stared at her.

“I know that you want to do this. I know that you need to. I’ve watched you drift aimlessly through life these past four years in a fog. I expected this to be a short assignment given that you seemed like you were going to off yourself in the first month, but you didn’t. Not the first year. Not all these years. You’re waiting for something. For some purpose. Some reason to exist again. And I’m telling you, this is it. Crayton is powerful and very clearly a sociopath. That would be a dangerous enough combination on its own, but if the Chinese or anyone else have their hooks in him, that could spell disaster. This may be a joke op, hence them pairing you and meI together, but there could be something much larger going on here.”

She waved her hand.

“But I’m not here to tell you to do this for king and country like Gideon or General McIdiot; I’m telling you to do it for you. Take this assignment and start living again. A person without a purpose is one of the most profoundly tragic things in existence, and I can’t watch you wallow for one more day.”

Mark gave a dry chuckle.

“But they put you up to this,” he said. “It’s the only reason you’re talking to me now. Your orders are to get me to join. And let me guess you have a PhD in psych to boot?”

“Yes, they put me up to this; yes, those are my orders; and yes, I am smarter than you. But what do you expect? Gideon used to know you well, but lord knows you’ve both changed, and now thanks to four years of intense stalking, I know you better than anyone. Probably even better than you know yourself. And I’m telling you to do it.”

Mark could hardly believe what he was hearing, and who he was hearing it from.

“What’s your real name, anyway?” he said, looking up at her.

“Take down Crayton with me, and I’ll tell you,” she said.

“No name is that interesting,” he said.

“Then Brooke it is.”

She stood up and walked toward the door.

“Forget China. Forget darkops. Forget Spearfish. Leave it all behind you. You’ve stared into that abyss for too long. Either jump, or come back from the brink. There’s work to do.”

BUT FORGETTING CHINA WAS impossible. Lord knows he’d tried, swimming in an ocean of alcohol for years. It was the sort of thing your mind should black out on its own out of shock and trauma, but they trained that out of you. You learn never to forget, given that some remote detail might stick in your mind through the horror of it all that would prove useful later.

When the CIA recruited him straight out of West Lincoln High, and offered to pay for four years of Caltech if he’d join them afterward, he’d gotten stars in his eyes. He’d be James Bond. Jack Bauer. Jason Bourne. All those heroes he’d grown up worshipping. A secret fucking agent. How cool was that?

He finished the four-year degree in three years, he was so eager to start and put his old life behind him. Almost immediately they shipped him out to Japan for training, and he discovered quickly that there were no sexy women to be rescued from maniacal villains. No nuclear bombs to defuse in mid-air as they hurtled toward a major city.

There was only China.

The media dubbed it “Cold War II” and it stuck, a familiar identifier everyone hoped wouldn’t morph into “World War III” instead someday. China’s population had reached a tipping point. Increased pollution had turned cities from toxic to downright uninhabitable, and respiratory problems and birth defects were sweeping through the country like wildfire.

The US took it upon itself to poke and prod. The CIA would spark riots and whip up the fervor of the public to hopefully topple the communist regime. China responded with some not-so-veiled threats about ending the “tyrannical” global reign of the US for good, and both countries threw up nuke-zapping satellites into the sky that would hopefully prevent the end of the world. But no one knew if any of the tech would work. As such, the war was fought on the ground, in the shadows. Whatever shots were fired were heard and seen by no one. Almost no one.

Mark was recruited at the height of it all, and he learned quickly his ancestry was just as much a reason as his test scores and obstacle course times. He’d grown up speaking Chinese thanks to his father, who had left the country decades earlier, running away with an American tourist he met. He thought he knew everything about the culture there was to know, but the CIA crammed even more in his head in preparation for the part he was to play.

“They’ll hate you, you know,” Gideon told him. “Everyone in the Academy, all your friends, will think you turned. The government will disavow you completely. That’s how dark this is going to get. But we’ll bring you home in the end.”

Mark’s mission was more complex than simple spying. He’d defect to China and “accidentally” get caught after a few months undercover. He’d cut a deal to avoid immediate execution by Chinese death squad, and turn double agent, spying for them instead. But in the end, he’d still feed the US the truly deep, dark shit they wanted to know, and wait for final orders and eventual extraction. If he lived that long. They screened hundreds of candidates for Operation Spearfish, and Mark was only one of a few left standing as they hacked through the list. They told him Spearfish was the key to winning the entire war. Perhaps he was naïve to believe them, but it turned out they were actually right.

It was 2026. He was twenty-seven. He got married the day before he left.

A week later, the government sent him a video file. A beaming, crying Riko told him she was pregnant. She wanted to name their daughter Asami, after her grandmother.

Sixty-three days. That’s all the time he had to be a flesh-and-blood husband and father once he came home and found a bright-eyed toddler with her mother’s smile and his left dimple. Sixty-three days, and then it all shattered.

He was finally just too damn tired of doing nothing but sweeping the pieces around.

Hours after Brooke had left, Mark went and knocked on her door.