Incursion

Chapter 22: Christina

// November 15, 2016 //



Christina Valentine drew the oversized hoodie more tightly around herself and let out a tired sigh, her breath creating a cloud in front of her face that rose in the air and vanished within seconds. Though she was protected from the falling snow by the overpass above her, the cover didn’t help her keep warm at all. Her fingers shook as she repeatedly curled and uncurled them to keep her blood flowing. Her toes felt numb, protected only by a pair of ill-suited socks and runners.

She took a look again at the tin of sardines sitting by her feet, feeling her already low spirits sinking further. Yesterday wasn’t a day with a good haul by any means, but at least she had managed to get twenty dollars and some change. Today, not as many passers-by came down this part of Brooklyn, most likely because of the heavy snowfall. Today, she’d made just shy of six dollars.

Christina brought her knees to her chest, hugging her thighs and burying her face in them. It was rapidly getting darker, but exactly what time it was, she wasn't sure. She didn’t have a watch anymore, having pawned hers off weeks ago for a measly fifty-four dollars that despite rationing lasted only three days after spending it on food and a warm place to stay for a couple of days. That was four weeks ago – she thought that was the lowest point in her life. Today, she wasn’t as sure.

“Hey, girlie.”

A man’s voice suddenly spoke to her from somewhere above her. Christina lifted her face from her legs and looked up to see a man wearing a dark gray jacket and slacks standing over her. Even though her nose had gotten somewhat desensitized thanks to the cold, Christina could smell the strong stench of alcohol about the man. He didn’t seem debilitatingly drunk, but at the same time Christina could tell he wasn’t exactly sober. His ‘clouded’ expression was hard not to notice.

“Hello,” was all she could think to say.

“You look like you need a quick buck.”

“I do, sir,” Christina mumbled, blinking her tired eyes. “Can you spare any change, mister? I would greatly appreciate anything.”

The man smiled. If Christina was any more alert and any less desperate, she would have noticed the excited glint in his eyes.

“I’ll tell you what,” the man said, every other word he said carrying a momentary slurring, “You do a little something for me, and before tonight’s over, I’ll give you a hundred bucks and I’ll even throw in a place you can stay for the night. What do you say?”

Christina’s back straightened. A hundred bucks would last them five days or so… maybe even enough to put a bit aside for their mother.

She coughed into her knees and glanced back up beadily at the man. “A job, sir? I’ll… I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll work hard, I promise.”

“Great!” The man practically clapped his hands together in delight. “You look like a hard worker, all right.”

“What sort of job do you need me to do?”

“Don’t worry, girlie. It’s easy and won’t take long. We can start right now, even.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Right here, right now. You don’t even need to do any lifting.”

“Oh… okay. What should I do, mister?”

“Welllll… you’re kinda short, but if you get on your knees you should be able to reach.”

Christina hesitated, her weary mind making the connection with promptness that belied her body’s lethargy.

“Hmm?” the man said with slight impatience when she did not move. “What’s the matter? Don’t be scared. Just ten minutes, girlie. Ten minutes for a hundred bucks.”

Christina stared at the man for another moment, then she slowly rose to her knees.

“Like this, mister?”

“That’s right.” The man took a step closer to the 21-year old girl, such that his crotch was practically against Christina’s face. “Now just work the belt and get my buddy out. After that… well, you look smart. I’m sure you know what to do.”

Christina eyed the bulge on the man’s pants with trepidation and mortification. Still, she eventually lifted her leaden arms and found the man’s belt and slowly began to unfasten it.

Christina slowly peeled the man’s pants and underwear until his member was fully exposed. She stared at it for another few seconds, fighting against her dignity and trying to focus on the one hundred dollars.

“Come on now. It’s freezing and I could do with some warming up.”

Christina looked up at the man’s face, then back down at the growing thing almost touching her face.

Eventually, she worked up the courage to take the man’s genitals in one hand. She gradually parted her lips and approached the tip with her open mouth.

“Christina!” A different voice thundered at her.

Christina jumped a little and glanced to the right at a younger man storming toward her with a look of contained fury on his gaunt face. She recognized his unkempt brown hair and his sharp hazel eyes. He wore a navy blue puff jacket and worn jeans that, much like her own clothes, looked long overdue for a wash. A pair of dirty white running shoes kicked up clouds of snow as the owner stomped over from the mouth of the nearest alley.

“Get away from her, you son of a bitch,” the newcomer snarled, then shoved the man with his pants undone away from the girl.

The somewhat inebriated man went tumbling to the side, landing on his backside on the cold pavement. When he managed to sit up with a little difficulty, his eyes glared at the other man who was perhaps twenty years his junior with a mixture of anger and apprehension.

“Get in line, son,” the man who reeked of alcohol slurred at the one who pushed him and positioned himself in front of the girl. “I found her first!”

“That,” the young man said with some of his anger starting to spill in his voice while pointing behind him at Christina, who fell back to a sitting position and bowed her head, “is my sister, you piece of shit. Stay away from her.”

“Or what, you gonna go to the cops?”

The man in the navy blue jacket reached into his pocket for a Swiss Army knife. He flicked out the blade and held it up for the drunk man to see.

“Or I’ll kill you.”

The older ma saw the knife flash in front of his face and paled at the sight. He clumsily got to his feet and scampered away in the opposite direction, pulling up his pants and stumbling a couple of times on the hem of his slacks.

The man with the knife waited until the drunk was out of sight before pocketing his makeshift weapon and crouching down in front of Christina.

He grabbed the girl’s shoulders, squeezed them, and shook her almost violently. “Damn it, Christina! What were you thinking? Didn’t you think he could kill you after you did him a favour?”

Christina kept her head bowed. “I’m sorry—”

“I told you, you’re not going that far! Were you even listening to me? You’re an accounting student, for God’s sake. Have some dignity!”

“I’m sorry!” Christina almost shouted back at him, looking up now with her eyes stinging. “I’m sorry, Mikey! I just… We needed the money for Mom. He was going to give me a hundred bucks. What he was asking for wasn’t even hard.”

Michael Valentine gritted his teeth, prepared to harshly reprimand his younger sister for her foolishness. She was smarter than that, and both of them knew it. But as she saw Christina’s eyes growing shinier in the fading light, his resolve faltered. He pulled his sibling roughly to him, pressing her face against his chest.

“I know,” he whispered to her, stroking Christina’s hair.

He allowed Christina a minute to gather herself while he embraced her with one arm, letting her decide if there was anything she wanted to say to him. When after a minute had passed and she seemed content not to speak any further of what had just happened, he spoke again.

“Come on, Crispy,” he said, using the nickname he’d used to call his younger since they were little kids. “Let’s have dinner. Tonight’s special. We can splurge a bit.”

Christina lifted her face from her brother’s chest, her eyes still heavy with embarrassment. “Huh? We can’t afford to spend more than necessary.”

Michael sighed and smiled faintly at her. “Trust me. Don’t you?”

Christina slapped her hands to her cheeks, trying to shake off her mortification. She then nodded at him. “Of course I do.”

Michael pulled his sister to her feet and together, the two gathered their few belongings, which consisted of two trolley bags they lived out of. The two siblings left the area, walking a few blocks east through the gloomy streets in the dying light of dusk.

Michael by then had a fair grasp of where the law enforcement and military checkpoints in this part of Brooklyn were, so he was able to lead the way down alleys and through abandoned subway tunnels as he and Christina made their way back to their temporary shelter: a boarded up warehouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

For over half an hour’s worth of walking, Michael held on to Christina’s free hand. They didn’t used to be the type of siblings who did this sort of thing, and he knew his sister was independent and could most certainly walk on her own. But ever since their father was killed in a rebel attack on a government building in their home town four months previously, the girl had become more withdrawn and uncertain of herself. When Brendan Valentine died, Michael was the first to hear from the hospital that tried to treat his father. But he wasn’t the one who took the news the hardest. His mother, Amelia, whose heart wasn’t the strongest even during the best times, became bedridden. Christina, usually the outgoing and sunny sibling, clammed up and her once seemingly infinite supply of confidence dried up. With the current political climate and the loss of the family’s primary breadwinner, Michael took it upon himself to drop out of university within a few days of the tragedy to find steady work.

With the bills just to keep their humble two-story home in Poughkeepsie piling up, compounded by the medical expenses for their ill mother, Michael and Christina were forced out of their home when they couldn’t pay for the mortgage anymore thanks to its rates – which had been exorbitant since the last year. Even pooling their savings couldn’t pay for their monthly bills, not if they wanted their mother to stay in the community hospital where she stood the best chance at recovering.

Michael and Christina eventually managed to get back to their dark warehouse hideout just as all but the last traces of daylight disappeared from the sky. As usual, the two of them had to enter the building via a hole in its wall facing the East River, which they had to crouch down to pass through. When they were both inside, Christina got to work lighting their two remaining gas lamps by one corner of the building where they had set up their sleeping bags and their meagre possessions. Michael, meanwhile, secured their entrance with several pallets to block off the hole and keep anyone from encroaching on their haven.

He joined Christina in the corner, who had plopped down dejectedly on her sleeping bag beside one of the gas lamps. Michael removed his backpack from his shoulders and dug into it to take out a transparent plastic bag. From the bag, he took out something wrapped in white paper and held it out to his sister.

Christina’s eyes widened upon seeing what Michael was handing her. “Mikey, this is—”

“Told you we could splurge a bit tonight. I got you your favourite: turkey and ham with Swiss and olives. I even have a chocolate chunk cookie for you.”

Christina looked up at Michael. “How much did you pay for all this?”

Michael shook his head sternly at her. “Don’t worry about that. Let’s eat first, then I have something to talk to you about. I’m sure you’re hungry, Crispy.”

Christina hesitated, looking from the sandwich to her brother’s eyes, then back. Michael had to shake the paper in her face before the younger Valentine took the food from his hands and began to unwrap the paper.

“Thanks, Mikey.”

“No problem. Enjoy it, yeah?”

Christina nodded.

The next ten minutes were relatively quiet. Michael periodically lifted his gaze to watch his sister devouring her sandwich with the gusto of a starved animal. Despite their dire situation, Michael hid a smile behind his own pulled pork sandwich. Though she was much smaller and slimmer than him, his sister’s appetite was vastly larger than his.

Naturally, Christina was the first to finish eating. By the time Michael had finished his sandwich, Christina had downed her dessert and was halfway through her bottle of water.

Michael crumpled the sandwich wrapper he was holding and waited for Christina to meet his eyes.

“How was it?” he asked her when their eyes met.

Christina wiped her mouth with the cuff of her sleeve. “It was good. Best sandwich I had in… a while now.”

Michael dragged his tattered backpack closer to him and unzipped it, reaching inside for a sheet of paper. Before he brought it out to show Christina, he gave her a tentative look.

“Crispy?”

“Mikey? What is it?”

“I’ve… found a job that’ll pay for Mom’s medical bills.”

Christina’s eyes lit up and she leaned toward Michael without really thinking. “What job is it?”

“I’m going to ask you to keep an open mind.”

Christina seemed to curb her hopefulness slightly. “Umm, okay.”

Michael studied his sister’s face a moment longer, then with some resignation extracted the sheet from his backpack and held it out to her.

Christina gingerly took the piece of paper from him and glanced down at it. On top of what appeared to be an application form was an emblem she vaguely recognized. Underneath it were three words:

Northstar Security Solutions.

Christina glanced back up sharply at Michael, who immediately sighed at her and held up a hand.

“Crispy,” he began, clearly anticipating this exact reaction from her.

“No.”

“Please listen.”

“No. No, you can’t.”

“I said, listen to me. We won’t last another two months with what little savings we’ve got left. Mom will be lucky to spend Christmas indoors at this rate. There are no more jobs elsewhere. And you know times like this, governments and companies are always looking for more soldiers.”

“We can keep looking, Mikey.”

“We’ve looked. Everywhere. Even if we could get into a bakery, or a grocery store, or a freaking sweatshop, they wouldn’t pay nearly enough for us to sustain ourselves and Mom at the same time.”

Christina looked back down at the application form, torn between opportunity and safety. After a moment, Michael spoke again.

“I want you to go back to Poughkeepsie.”

“Huh? Why?”

“To stay with Mom.”

“And you?”

“I’m joining that PMC first thing tomorrow. I have the hospital’s address, so as soon as I get my first paycheck, I’ll send it to you.”

Christina shook her head, slapping the form down on the cold cement floor. “You can’t just expect me to stay here while you do this. This… It’s a dangerous job.”

Michael rose to his feet and plopped down beside his sister on top of her sleeping bag. “I know that. But we have no other choice. All I care about is you. You and Mom. I’m not going to let either of you starve or freeze in the streets.”

When Christina didn’t look convinced in the slightest, Michael tried to ease her mind further: “I hear this PMC is the best one around. Professional. Besides, the recruiter who handed me the form told me most of their work nowadays is guard duty to protect the government against rebel attacks. A handful of rebels are hardly a match for a company as large as this.”

Christina stared hard at her brother, who took her hands in his and squeezed. She wished she had a fraction of that determination and willpower he had. When their father had died, Michael hadn’t shed a tear. Instead of falling apart like she had, her older brother immediately dropped out of school and went around looking for a source of income to support the remainder of their family. Though he was less than successful in that regard, Christina secretly admired her big brother for being quick and resolute. He knew what had to be done and didn’t hesitate to get right to doing just that.

Right now, he was doing what impressed her all this time over again. Michael was no soldier or fighter. He was a dropout from law school, which was admittedly an increasingly irrelevant field to study or work in nowadays with the country’s descent into authoritarianism. He wasn’t a violent person. But like always, he knew what needed to be done.

Christina let her brother idly massage the back of her hands before she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Then I’m going with you.”

Michael’s fingers stopped moving. When Christina opened her eyes again, she found his had hardened.

“No, I can do this on my own. You stay here in New York.”

“I’m going, Mikey. Sitting here worrying about you will kill me.”

“Crispy—”

“No, Michael. I’m going. I can’t…”

Christina hesitated, what she was trying to say bringing a slight flush of embarrassment. She realized she was going to sound childish and immature, but right now she felt the need to tell her brother what she really felt.

“Being apart from you scares me,” she told him, looking away as a light tinge of pink visited her cheeks.

Michael blinked, both surprised at Christina’s expression and frustrated by it. Brother and sister stared at each other silently for several seconds before the older sibling closed his eyes in exasperation.

“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?” he said, conflicted between feeling concern for Christina’s rash decision, pride at her grit, and his appreciation of her honesty.

Christina let out a nervous laugh, prompting a smile from Michael. It felt like a long time since either of them had a laugh.

Once the two of them sobered up again, Michael gave his sister a serious look.

“Christina, this job… It’s not going to be easy. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I get it.” The truth was, the thought of holding a gun and getting shot at absolutely terrified her. But the thought of being safe while her brother faced constant dangers scared Christina even more.

“I don’t know when we’ll get to go home, either. Are you ready to be away from Mom for a while, if need be?”

Christina nodded, trying not to look so glum. She knew she’d miss seeing her mother, but if doing this meant she could take care of her from a distance, she would do it. Besides, with her brother by her side, she could pull through somehow. All she had to do was follow his example.

“I’m ready,” she answered.

Michael closed his eyes again.

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”





// February 10, 2017 //



Sweat trickled into Christina’s eye from exerting herself on her fourth run of the training course. Just as she was about to fire her MP5 submachine gun at the last popup target of the course, her eye began to sting from the sweat that had found its way in.

She dropped her strafing speed just a little and lifted her protective goggles so she could rub at her eye, but—

“OI! VALENTINE! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? ARE YOU A DUMB SHIT? FINISH THE COURSE!”

For the umpteenth time today, Christina jumped as the speakers blared deafeningly at her from seemingly every direction. She hastily rubbed her affected eye and brought her goggles back over both. She then raised her gun and shot the last target, managing to hit it in its center mass… only to realize a split second later that she had fired on a silhouette of an unarmed woman.

A buzzing noise sharply reprimanded her for her error. She stood still a second, dwelling upon her mistake, until the instructor yelled at her again over the speakers set up around the course.

“KEEP MOVING, DIPSHIT! FINISH THE COURSE! HURRY UP!”

With her neck and cheeks burning, Christina charged past the doorway where the civilian popup went down, eventually stepping over a green line at the end of the hallway of thin wooden walls. Once she was past the finish line, she gasped and heaved as she put her free hand to her knee. Her legs felt wobbly and her head felt light from having to run the course for the fourth time today.

A pair of heavy boots came thudding toward her from the nearby monitoring booth. From the darkness came a tall, stern man wearing a black T-shirt with ‘Instructor’ printed on the back in bold white letters.

Christina wasn’t done catching her breath before the instructor, Kane, started yelling at her again.

“Tell me, Valentine! Do you have stones for brains?!”

Christina forced herself up to a standing position and snapped to while still breathing raggedly. She tried desperately to calm a stitch in her side as she responded to the instructor. “Sir. No, sir!”

“Then what the fuck was that shit you did back there? You stopped midway through!”

“Sir, yes I did, sir!”

“Why’d you stop, you useless shit?”

“S-Sweat got in my eye, sir!” Christina chanted back, trying not to let her tone soften even as she felt all but overwhelmed by this man sending spit flying at her face and calling her all manner of discouraging terms.

“I don’t give a shit if you can’t see outta one eye! That’s why you have two in your head! You stop like that in a real combat situation, you’re done! Dead! Worm food! Do you get me?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“Why’d you fire on a civilian?”

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t thinking before I fired, sir!”

“You know if we had a hundred of you, we’d be out of business, right? You’re a useless little bitch, am I right?”

“Yes, sir…” Christina mumbled, choking back a squeak.

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

“Sir, I’m a useless little bitch, sir!”

“Goddamn right, you are! Now get outta my face! If you don’t pull your ass out of that number twenty spot by Monday, you better start looking elsewhere for a career! Got it?”

“Sir, yes sir!”

Not waiting to see if there was anything else the man wanted to call her, Christina scurried past Kane and headed for the armory where she unloaded the firearm she was carrying and replaced it in the proper rack. On her way out, she briefly read from the automated leaderboard, her eyes naturally falling instantly to the bottom:

20. C. Valentine 1:43:14

Her eyes then tracked upward until she found a similar name:

6. M. Valentine 0:57:32

With a burning shame bubbling in her gut, she lowered her head and briskly walked out of the armory and traversed the vast PMC complex to get to the recruits’ barracks. She passed several Northstar mercenaries in full combat gear by the helipad on her way, all of them readying up to board a Black Hawk helicopter. Her eyes took in their confident strides and the professional way they conducted themselves as one by one they got on the chopper. Against the backdrop of the orange sky and the setting sun, those men and women looked legendary to Christina.

Can I even come close to that?

With an increasingly glum feeling eating away at her, Christina headed back to the women’s barracks, where she showered and changed into some fresh clothes, ready to unwind for the day. It was just a little before 1800 by the time she left the barracks to get to the complex mess hall for dinner.

When she got there, she found the two-thousand capacity mess hall fairly full and buzzing with pre-weekend energy. There was a definite air of enthusiasm in the hall, what with the next day being a free day for Northstar recruits.

Christina walked past countless tables until she reached the back of the mess hall, where a familiar face waved her over from a small, two-seater table.

“Hey, Crispy!” Michael called out to her as she approached.

Despite her less-than-positive experience from her last course of the day, her spirits lifted regardless when she saw her brother’s face. She made her way down to him and eventually plopped herself down on the chair across from him. It wasn’t until Christina had sat down that she noticed a dark discolouration under Michael’s left eye.

“Mikey, what’s that?” she asked, leaning toward Michael and pointing at his face.

Michael touched the bruise gingerly with a fingertip. “Oh, this. It’s nothing serious. Got it from sparring earlier today.”

Christina sighed, continuing to eye the bruise. “Did you get an ice bag on that?”

“Of course.”

“Okay, good.”

“So, how was today?”

Christina smiled ruefully. “Not too good. Kane made me run the training course four times in a row. I just keep messing up.”

Michael leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay. What’s the problem? Your time?”

“That and shooting a noncombatant by mistake.”

Instead of further lecturing her, Michael gave his younger sister a soft look. “Figure out what’s tripping you up?”

“I don’t know, Mikey. I hear that starting Klaxon go off and I get really tense. Knowing I’m being timed seems to make me clumsy. I’ve dropped magazines, fumbled for charging handles, mixed up full-auto and semi-auto… It’s like half my brain shuts down whenever I run courses like that. Of course, Kane getting in my ears doesn’t help. I think he despises me.”

Michael nodded sympathetically, not bothering to give the instructor any credit. “Kane’s a real bastard. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with him.”

“Lucky me. I think he’s going to boot me off the program by Monday.”

“He said that?”

“If I don’t stop being the bottom of the barrel, he said he might see I get… well, fired.”

“He can’t do that. Only recruits who are obviously dead weight ever get dismissed.”

“But I am dead weight.”

Michael shook his head and fixed Christina with a sincere stare. “You’re not. You’re fantastic at Infiltration.”

“So I’m good at hiding. Big deal.”

“It is a big deal, Crispy.”

“Not really. Not if I’m a terrible fighter on top of that.”

“Being good at combat isn’t everything. You’ll have a role once you graduate.” Michael let a warm smile spread across his face. “Besides, you’re also a great medic. Come on, you can’t forget about how your instructor showed you off to the class last week.”

“Well…”

Michael chuckled, giving Christina a teasing look. “Go on, downplay that.”

Christina couldn’t help smiling a bit bashfully upon catching the smirk on her brother’s face. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to wipe her smile away.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Despite her slight embarrassment at being praised, Christina felt immense gratitude toward Michael. He could be counted on to keep her head up.

“Besides,” Michael went on, his seriousness seeping back in.

Christina glanced back at him.

“Thanks to both our earnings, Mom got into a better hospital,” the elder Valentine said.

Christina nodded. Two weeks ago, the siblings found out that with a portion of their paychecks, they could afford to have Amelia Valentine moved from the smaller community hospital in Poughkeepsie to a larger one in New York City. The Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan was far more advanced and better equipped, and as such both Christina and Michael felt more comfortable that their mother was receiving the best care possible.

Only three months ago, they were near despairing that they would be forced to subject their mother to her deteriorating health in a cold shelter at best with no medical facilities. Now, she was being cared for by some of the best medical staff in the country.

“You helped with that,” Michael told his little sister sagely. “You helped Mom get the best chance at getting better. Don’t ever forget that, Crispy.”

As always, Michael was right. He was right when he decided to drop university. He was right when he decided to get into Northstar so they could pay for their mother’s medical bills.

Christina wouldn’t ever outright say it, but she was relieved to have such a capable, reliable brother who truly cared for his family.

At that moment as she gazed at Michael’s gentle smile, Christina felt thankful for the first time in what felt like months.





// February 28, 2017 //



Christina clenched and unclenched her hands, trying to stop them from shaking. She adjusted her position on the briefing table and listened to the silence of the room. She glanced around at all the empty seats around the table, then up at the clock on the wall above the projector screen, reading the time as 1052.

She’d been summoned to this briefing room shortly after she managed to pass the rigorous final exercise in the training program two days previously, and ever since she’d been a bundle of wracked nerves. Her trainee days were over – she was past that stage now.

She was an operative of Northstar Security Solutions. Being assigned to her official fireteam was the first step to being a full-fledged mercenary. Naturally, she felt nervous about meeting the rest of the team.

All of a sudden, the door to the hallway outside opened and two men walked in. Christina appraised them furtively as the two chatted away during their entrance.

The first man, the more noticeable one, was wearing the same olive drab fatigues she was – the standard uniform for all Northstar operatives. He had closely shaved dark hair, ebony skin, and a neatly-trimmed goatee. Christina immediately homed in on two things: the man’s sheer physical bulk, and his deep, domineering tone as he spoke. From how he looked and sounded, Christina surmised that he was the kind of person whom everyone either feared or respected. Someone no one else wanted to cross.

The second man wasn’t as imposing as the first, though even he wasn’t quite unremarkable. With his sleek black hair that was fast reaching his shoulders, his somewhat pale and sickly skin, and his beetle black eyes, Christina couldn’t help thinking he would be the one student in class whom no one spoke to unless necessary. Something about this man just seemed… wrong. Creepy.

As the two men turned to her, she hastily lowered her gaze to the table, wishing she could shrink.

One pair of boots trudged around the table. From the heaviness of the footfalls, Christina knew they belonged to the bigger man. The other pair lightly pattered closer and closer until they stopped behind her chair.

“Hello,” came the silky voice of the second man from behind her.

Christina turned in her seat to look up at the pale man, more out of politeness than genuine friendliness. The instant she locked on to his eyes, she wished she hadn’t. His bottomless, black pupils seemed to probe every facet of her. It was worse than being mentally undressed, and she was the victim of that a few times before now. This man seemed to be digging deeper than the surface. It felt like he was examining her mind, or her soul, however impossible that sounded.

“Hello,” she mumbled, managing an awkward little smile.

“My name is Theo Rhodes,” he said in an unpleasantly pleasant manner. Something about the way his voice sounded – a bit on the higher end for pitch, yet so relentlessly smooth at the same time – made Christina’s spine tingle with unease. “Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m… Christina Valentine. Nice to meet you, Mister Rhodes.”

“Do call me Theo.” He smiled slightly. “And I’ll call you Christina.”

Christina forced herself to nod, settling for agreement so he would hopefully move along. “Okay… Theo.”

“Excellent. Looking forward to working with you, Christina.”

Theo Rhodes held out a hand with distinctly slender fingers toward her. Christina took and shook it gingerly, maintaining a thin smile that seemed to please the man. Fortunately, Rhodes retreated after that, making his way to the other side of the table to sit beside the larger man he entered with.

Not long after Rhodes had seated, the door opened again. Christina felt immense relief as she recognized Michael Valentine, who spotted her instantly and sat down in the chair immediately to her left.

“All right here, Crispy?” he greeted her with a warm smile.

“Yeah, all good, Mikey.”

“Imagine the odds of us working together in the same fireteam, huh?”

“Yeah. Lucky.”

“You’ll be okay. You graduated from training. You’re ready.”

Christina wanted to voice some doubts about that, but her brother’s assuring smile stopped her. Instead, she nodded and smiled back timidly.

“Yeah. I suppose I am.”

The door opened a third time, wiping any further remarks Christina wanted to make from her mouth. The Valentine siblings turned their heads to see a man in his early thirties, dressed in the same fatigues as everyone else, stride behind their seats and make his way to the desk in front of the projector screen. He had the most serious, no-nonsense expression on his face, and Christina was sure he was the kind of person who appreciated no jokes and would no sooner twist a jester’s arm than crack a shred of a smile. Her nerves began to grow again as the newest arrival stood behind the desk up front and stiffly gazed at the four other occupants of the room.

“Congratulations on all of you passing your training program,” the austere man said dryly to all four operatives at the table. “I’m aware the past three months were a challenge for you, but that you are here in this room means you each persevered and deserve to work with the best soldiers in the country.”

The dark skinned man sitting across the rectangular table leaned slightly toward Theo Rhodes and gave a discreet scoffing noise.

The man in front of the room turned his head in the direction of that noise. “Do you have anything to share about what I just said?”

The large man appeared slightly abashed by being called out directly. He leaned back in his seat. “I was just saying that it wasn’t really hard. It was easy. Almost too easy.”

He got a slight narrowing of the eyes back for that remark.

“I see. So what you’re saying is that our standards are rather low. Is that right?”

“Well. I—” The large man began to backpedal.

“Regardless of what you thought of the training program you passed,” the other man interrupted him in the same serious tone, “it’s important to remember that it was still only training. Your careers as elite operatives has only just begun. Make no mistake: from here on, ‘easy’ doesn’t exist. ‘Easy’ ends with the CQB courses, the shooting ranges, and the supervised sparring classes. From here on, you’ll be facing opposition that can and will kill you if you let them. Leave your hubris at the door.”

Even though he was comparable larger and beefier, the dark skinned operative looked mildly chastised by this. He looked ready to fire back a comment, but in the end, he decided not to say anything else.

“Does anyone else have any other misconceptions they would like addressed before we move on?” the severe looking man glanced around at the others at the briefing table.

When no one answered him, he nodded almost imperceptibly. “Good. Welcome to Alpha 2, your official fireteam. I’m Noel Reyes. I’ll be acting leader of this team.”

He consulted a folder that was on top of his desk. After a few seconds, he lifted his gaze again to give the team a measuring look.

“As you know,” he began, “the United States government and its armed forces have entered into a partnership with Northstar since 2015. Since the country’s drastic change in government and policies both national and international two years ago, resistance against the new regime increased tenfold. As much as fifty-five percent of its Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and law enforcement personnel have turned on the government and chosen to oppose it. Naturally, facing such overwhelming odds, the government turned to us for help in restoring order.”

He paused, then his eyes randomly landed on Christina’s for no apparent reason. She wanted to avoid looking back, but that gaze pinned hers in place.

“The militia’s ranks are comprised largely of former US military and law enforcement. Some of them are volunteers with no prior combat experience, but don’t be fooled: plenty of them are professionals with more years of fighting than you. Don’t underestimate them. Misjudge them, and you’ll be well on your way to a casket.”

Christina couldn’t help nodding, feeling as though she was being prompted for one.

Reyes finally looked away from Christina. “Our first mission starts at 0700 tomorrow. Is everyone ready to get to work?”

“Yes sir,” the pale skinned man who spoke to Christina earlier replied when no one had answered back after a slight pause.

Reyes nodded, apparently pleased enough with that response.

“Good. Then let’s begin.”





// March 24, 2017 //



Christina was packing her clothes and other essentials in a trolley bag in the women’s barracks late that evening in preparation for the next operation which Alpha 2 would depart Northstar headquarters for early the following morning. She was putting away a change of civilian clothes when her cellphone that was resting on top of her pillow lit up. Since she had only one contact saved, she immediately knew who was contacting her.

She paused packing to check her phone. On the screen was a notification that she had received a text message from Michael. She opened it and read:

“Need to talk to you in person right now.”

Christina blinked in surprise. It was pushing eleven o’clock in the evening, and Alpha 2 was slated to leave HQ by five in the morning. She found Michael’s urgent message and timing rather strange.

She texted him back: “Sure. Where?”

Michael’s response came a minute later:

“There’s a small hangar housing those Little Birds to the southwest of the women’s barracks. Meet me inside. I’ve left the west door unlocked. Hurry.”

Christina replied by telling him she would be there as soon as she could, then slid her phone into her pants pocket. She pulled on a Northstar jacket and left the barracks.

The journey to the hangar in question amounted to just under than a kilometre, but Christina took ten minutes to complete it. Though it was Friday and most operatives had the following day as a rest day, the lights-out and curfew rules were still applied. All Northstar personnel had to be in their barracks by eleven in the evening regardless of the day, unless they had reason to be out such as a mission or appointment. Anyone caught outside – within the complex or out of it – was subjected to disciplinary action at best. With a sinking feeling in her gut as she stuck to shadows and behind crates and vehicles on her way, Christina recalled how one of the women a few bunks down from hers was stuck in the brig for a week for being caught out of the barracks after lights out two weeks ago. The woman had apparently wanted to see a fellow operative in the men’s barracks on a romantic rendezvous but was caught by perimeter guards before she could reach her destination. In addition to being confined, she was docked a week’s worth of pay because she couldn’t participate in any missions for the duration of her incarceration.

Christina took her time getting to Michael’s meeting place, opting for careful stealth over speed. Though she felt her heart would burst out of her chest from how tense she was the whole time, she managed to evade all attention on her way to the hangar. Being proficient at Infiltration, she reached the hangar with more ease than she was expecting before she left the barracks.

She eluded a duo of guards patrolling the outside of the hangar, then slipped through the western entrance and quickly secured the door when she was inside the building.

“Psst. Crispy.”

A hushed voice called to her when she was done closing the door. Christina turned in that direction and in the dim light of the hangar managed to make out the head of her brother sticking up from behind a stack of weapon cases not far from where she entered the hangar.

“Come on, over here.” Michael whispered, gesturing for her to get behind cover with him. Christina thought he was acting rather too shifty from how urgently he spoke and how he seemed anxious to even stick any body part out of cover, but they were both risking getting caught outside after hours. Still, Michael had always been the more composed of the two of them, so seeing him act like he had something remotely questionable to sell unnerved Christina to an extent.

She complied, jogging behind the weapons cases and crouching down beside Michael. Michael peered up from cover again to double check that the area was clear.

“Mikey, what are we doing here?” Christina asked, staring at him as he finally settled down to a full crouch beside her.

“You’re sure you weren’t seen? Followed?”

“Pretty sure. That’s why it took me a while to get here.”

“Great. Nice work.”

“Why’d you call me out here?”

Even in the semidarkness, Christina could see the troubled frown playing at her brother’s lips. He seemed to hesitate momentarily before speaking again.

“Are you clear on what we’re doing for this next mission?”

Christina blinked, not sure what he was getting at, but nodding all the same. “Yeah. We’ve got four government officials to neutralize.”

“Canadian officials,” Michael added, as if to stress a point. “Doesn’t it strike you as strange?”

“Well…”

To be frank, Christina did think it was a bit of a leap, considering the last five or six missions Alpha 2 had undertaken were all about insurgency suppression in western US cities like Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. She was aware that as an army with no flag, they had more flexibility to operate in certain regions compared to armed forces of a country, like the US Army or the Marines. To go from operating within the United States exclusively the last month, to being assigned on missions taking place in foreign countries was admittedly odd regardless.

“Yeah, it is a bit of a break in pattern, sure,” she conceded. “But we were briefed. We’re after the officials for a reason.”

“Because they’re supposed to be hatching some countermeasures against the US, I know. I get that.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Michael sighed heavily. “I just got back from talking to Reyes an hour ago about last-minute details. We were at the range and just packing up for the day when Brian Walker and Tom Keenan came in and asked to speak to him in private.”

“Brian Walker?” Christina echoed, raising her eyebrows. Walker was the Chief Executive Officer of Northstar Security Solutions, while Thomas Keenan was the Chief Operations Officer. She had only ever met Walker once, and that was when she shook his hand at the graduation ceremony. Other than that one time, Walker was widely thought to be largely absent to grunts like her, Michael, and even Reyes.

“Yeah.” Michael’s frown deepened a little. “CEO and COO of Northstar both strolled up to Reyes, wanting a word the night before we’re set to step foot on a different country to get at some government officials.”

“I know it’s sketchy, Mikey, but we’re a private military company—”

“Doesn’t make what we’re planning legal, Crispy. The only advantage of using mercs to assassinate foreign government leaders is that we’re less likely to cause an international incident if things go sideways. Imagine sending in US Marines to do this covert job. They get caught, the US won’t escape scrutiny.”

Christina hesitated, not entirely sure what to say. She could see what Michael was pointing out, but she couldn’t see what either of them could do about the issue.

Not waiting for a response, Michael shook his head, closing his eyes. “Anyway, that’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

He took a breath, seeming to weigh his next words carefully.

“Reyes naturally dismissed me for the night, seeing as whatever Walker and Keenan had to say was for his ears only. I… thought it was strange for two management-level executives to want to speak to an operative, so I stuck around and listened in on their conversation.”

Christina gave Michael an incredulous look. “You risked getting caught to satisfy your curiosity? What the hell?”

He raised both hands in a placating manner. “Never mind that. They didn’t know I was listening. Point is, there’s been a change to the plan, courtesy of Walker.”

“What change?”

“We’ve received intel that the four targets aren’t going to be transported to Calgary via armed land convoy after all. They’ll be flown in via a plane directly from Ottawa. They’re supposedly meeting some financial backers in Calgary.”

“If they’re being flown in,” Christina said steadily, following the thread of thought Michael was unspooling for her, “how are we supposed to ambush them? Get them at the airport when they land?”

“That was Reyes’ first alternative, but that wouldn’t work. There’ll be a major security presence at the airport. The five of us won’t be able to guarantee getting all four of them.”

“Walker came up with the alternative we’re using. The only choice now is to get the officials while they’re all together at the meeting place.”

“Aren’t they supposed to meet at a restaurant?”

“Exactly. At a downtown restaurant, to boot.”

Christina clucked her tongue. “Damn.”

“Of course, we gotta pull this off while staying completely deniable. No traces and no witnesses,” Michael added.

“Naturally. But how are we going to do that?”

Michael’s expression turned even grimmer. Christina disliked seeing that on his face; Michael only ever got grim like that when there was a problem he either saw no way to solve, or a problem with nigh impossible solutions.

“Walker instructed Reyes to modify the plan. I suspect our team leader will inform us of this change in the morning, but he’s been authorized to neutralize the targets by any means necessary.”

“What does that m—” Christina blurted, starting to feel anxious about hearing all this information.

“A bomb, Crispy. Reyes was told to use Semtex, set in an inconspicuous spot, close enough to get all the targets in one blast.”

Christina’s jaw dropped. Michael nodded darkly to show his mutual wonder at the alternative plan.

“You’re not serious,” Christina said after a stunned silence.

“Look at me. Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“No, I know you’re not, but…”

Christina trailed off, wanting to propose a plan to counter Walker’s. but she had none. Even if she came up with one this instant, she doubted management would listen to a grunt.

Michael shook his head again, looking aghast. “We can’t go through with this.”

Christina responded by shaking her own head. “Mikey. We’re both in Alpha 2. We don’t get a say in whether we go or not.”

“I’m not saying we should bow out, not that we can opt to. I’m saying we can’t let this insanity go through.”

“What?” Christina had to remind herself to keep her voice down in case there happened to be guards nearby. “How are we even supposed to do that?”

Michael removed the backpack he was carrying over his shoulders and from within it took out a tan coloured block a little smaller than a standard C4 charge. He lifted it up for Christina to examine more clearly in the poor lighting.

“Coolant charge. I got three from the stores. These’ll freeze the bomb for at least twenty-four hours, rendering the explosive harmless temporarily,” Michael explained, shoving the block of coolant back in his bag.

“You stole them?” Christina hissed, her apprehension and incredulity growing exponentially.

Michael sighed, seeming to get impatient with her now. “Look, unless we do something, we’re going to go on and detonate a bomb that will kill a lot of innocent people. Don’t you get that?”

“I get that,” Christina said through gritted teeth. “But what you’re proposing is crazy. What if we get caught? No, even if we manage to pull this off, what’s to say Walker won’t send us in a second time to try again later? What then?”

Michael didn’t seem to listen to that argument. “We won’t get caught. Not if you and I work together. I need your help, Crispy.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Christina hissed sharply at him. “Walker will know eventually that it was us. We can’t hide something this big.”

Michael stared at his sister like she was someone he was having trouble recognizing. “Me, out of my mind? What’s wrong with yours? You’re really going to let however many people die, even knowing what you do now?”

Christina wanted to fire back with some foolproof argument, but she had none.

“It’s not up to us to decide this,” she told him, knowing that was hardly a good point.

“You’re going to kill people who don’t have anything to do with the mission,” Michael said emphatically, starting to sound genuinely angry. “Are you even listening?”

“I don’t care,” Christina shot back before she could really screen her words. “If we do this, we’ll get caught. Best case scenario, we’ll get fired. I don’t care about random people we don’t know in some other country. I care about you. You and Mom. Who’ll take care of her if we mess this up, Michael?”

Michael’s eyes widened for a few seconds, then they narrowed slowly until they were closed. A sad, pained expression spread across his features.

After a while, he opened his eyes again. When he did, Christina saw not anger in them, not even determination or defiance.

There was only disappointment.

“Fine,” Michael said finally, his voice suddenly sounding heavy and a little lethargic. He slung the backpack’s straps over both his shoulders.

He stood up and sighed one more time. “If you won’t help, then I’ll do this on my own.”

He walked around Christina and started for the same door Christina had used to enter the hangar.

Christina rose to her feet and tried to follow after her brother. “Mikey, wait!”

Michael, however, did not spare her another glance. He simply walked out the door and into the late evening.

Christina stood in place for a few moments, feeling as though she had lost her brother in a way that she was yet to fully understand.





// March 27, 2017 //



Christina reached the roof of the National on 8th bar where Reyes was standing watch close to the ledge of the three-story building. In the glow of the brilliantly lit Stephen Avenue below, the man looked dark and ghostly as always with his gray trench coat flowing a little in the cool, spring air.

Christina tentatively walked past several metres of ventilation ducts and stopped right behind the Alpha 2 leader.

“Christina,” he said calmly, turning his head slightly but not enough to actually look at her. “is it done?”

She nodded nervously even though the team leader wasn’t even looking her way. “Yes. Yes, sir. Building surveillance is offline.”

“And you weren’t seen sabotaging the system?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Rhodes and Yansen should be back soon from setting the Semtex. Where’s your brother?”

Though Reyes wasn’t even looking at her, Christina nearly emitted a frightened little squeak.

“I sent him to verify our targets are inside the restaurant about half an hour ago,” Reyes mused aloud, glancing at his wristwatch. “He should have been back by now.”

“I… don’t know, sir.”

“Hmm. All right.”

Christina approached the ledge and pulled out a small pair of binoculars from her coat pocket. She placed the lenses to her eyes and trained the device southwest across the intersection, at the Earl’s Kitchen + Bar establishment just a stone’s throw away from her position. She frantically searched the faces of the patrons sitting outside at the patio tables for Michael’s.

Where are you, Mikey?

Her heart pounding in her chest, she became more anxious with each second she failed to locate her brother with the binoculars. For the last couple of days, he had been considerably more distant with her, speaking to her only to talk about the ‘official’ mission. Christina wished he would talk to her like normal again but couldn’t bring herself to make the first move to patch things up between them. If it was possible to miss a person who’d never left, Christina felt that way toward Michael.

Just as Christina was about to reluctantly conclude her reconnaissance of the restaurant, the metal door to the stairs leading to the lower floors swung open with a distinct creak.

“Reyes! We’ve got a problem!”

With a sudden plunging sensation in her stomach, Christina pocketed the binoculars and turned around to face the direction from which the voice was calling.

Three men emerged from the stairwell. The two on the sides were holding the third between them with clearly hostile intent.

Christina’s heart fell when she saw her brother Michael being held at the arms by both Rhodes and Yansen. Her older brother’s nose was bleeding, and his left eye was swollen shut from presumably being punched there.

He struggled wildly to break free from his captors’ hold but was ultimately unable to. Rhodes and Yansen pushed Michael down to the ground on his knees and held him in place.

Christina could only watch as Reyes walked over to the three men and glared at the two operatives who brought Michael up.

“What is this, Rhodes?” Reyes asked, his voice never losing that frigid calm.

“Caught this bastard trying to disarm the Semtex, boss,” Yansen answered, fighting against his captive as Michael again tried to shake both his captives off to no avail.

“What?” Reyes sounded slightly surprised, though his body language hardly betrayed him.

“We suspected this,” Rhodes said, panting slightly with the effort to restrain Michael. “Remember the missing coolant charges? We found them on him.”

From his own overcoat’s pocket, Rhodes produced a small block and tossed it to the Alpha 2 leader. Reyes caught it in and inspected the device that Christina recognized instantly as one of the coolant charges she was shown just days earlier.

Eventually, Reyes dropped the coolant charge almost lazily and took one step closer to Michael.

“Michael. So it was you, then? Did you think you could stop this?”

He asked for my help, Christina recalled with horrible clarity. He asked for my help and I made him do this alone.

I should have stopped him.

“This isn’t right, Reyes.” Michael replied, his voice sounding unusual and distorted thanks to his broken nose. “You’ll kill dozens of civilians down there. There has to be another way.”

Rhodes shook his head at Reyes. “Contract is time-sensitive, Reyes. We won’t get another shot at those officials.”

For a moment, Reyes did not move and said nothing.

“Rhodes,” he said after falling silent a few seconds, “Is the Semtex still intact?”

“Affirmative. I stopped this guy before he could use the coolant.”

Reyes bent down slightly to address Michael again. “Who have you told about our plans, Michael? The police?”

Michael did not answer.

“Who else helped you? Your sister?”

This time, the older Valentine sibling was quick to react. “No!”

Christina’s blood continued to chill in her veins. She wasn’t surprised if it had stopped flowing altogether.

Reyes glanced back at her over one shoulder, his expression still hauntingly static.

“Did you know about this, Christina?”

Christina’s heart jumped into her throat, rendering her unable to speak.

“I said, she had nothing to do with this!” Michael protested loudly, trying to stand up but being forced back down immediately. “Christina doesn’t… She didn’t know! It was me! Just me!”

“What are we doing here, boss? Window’s closing,” Yansen said to the team leader.

“We’re moving ahead with the plan.”

“What about this guy?”

Yansen shook Michael roughly, then jerked his head in Christina’s direction. “I bet girly over there was in league with this prick. They had to be. They’re siblings.”

Christina barely suppressed the urge to step back.

Reyes paused again, then glanced at Rhodes.

“Rhodes, did you grab all his gear? His comms?”

Rhodes nodded. “I got them.”

“I want all his equipment when we’re done here. I want to know who knows about this.”

“Done.”

“Damn it, listen to me, all of you!” Michael shouted to everyone on the roof, sounding well and truly desperate. “We can’t do this! That bomb will level the entire building! We’re only here for a few government officials! You’re going to kill everyone in there!”

“What are we going to do with him?” Rhodes asked, looking around at everyone.

“No loose ends.”

Reyes turned to face Christina, leering at her with dispassionate eyes. “Christina, did you know?”

“She didn’t! She didn’t know, I swear to—” Michael protested again, but was interrupted by Yansen punching him in the ear.

“Shut up!”

Christina took a half step forward, wanting to keep her brother from being hurt further, but was stopped by the sight of Reyes drawing a Sig Sauer P226 from his hip and aiming it at her.

He advanced on Christina, who kept backing up until she reached the ledge again and could retreat no further. Reyes stopped when the tip of the pistol’s suppressor was nearly at Christina’s forehead.

“I’m asking you a question. Did you know your brother was going to sabotage the explosive? Do you know who he's told about us?”

Christina managed to look a little past Reyes top Michael, who turned his head from side to side almost imperceptibly.

Reyes pushed down the P226’s hammer to cock the weapon. Christina nearly resolved to fall over backwards in terror until she somehow remembered there was nowhere to go behind her but to the street, which was a long way down.

“N-No,” she said, her voice cracking. “I didn’t… I didn’t know. I don’t know anything.”

Reyes took another step forward and touched the cold aluminum suppressor to Christina’s forehead. The touch of the metal made Christina whimper discreetly.

I don’t want to die, she pleaded to no one. I don’t want to die.

“Please—” she said in a choked voice. She was sure Reyes would pull the trigger and send her lifeless body plunging to the street below, but he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he spun the suppressed pistol in his hand and offered the grip to her.

“Then kill him,” he commanded.

Christina’s mind went into full-blown panic mode. Yet she stayed frozen.

“Take the gun,” Reyes ordered. His voice remained as emotionless as ever, devoid of sympathy or mercy. “You know we can’t have loose ends. Nor traitors. Shoot him, Christina.”

Fear alone operated her body, making her take the handgun despite a voice screaming in her head not to. As if she’d lost control of her legs as well, Christina walked alongside Reyes until she was standing over her big brother.

Michael stared up at Christina. He did not plead. His resolve was plain to see in his battered face.

Reyes drew a backup subcompact pistol from the small of his back and pointed the muzzle at Christina’s temple.

“Where do your loyalties lie, Christina? You have five seconds to decide.”

Christina shakily raised the pistol she was given, training it on Michael’s forehead. She placed the pad of her index finger on the trigger. Her heart frantically thundered in her ears.

I’m sorry, she silently tried to tell her brother. I’m sorry, Mikey.

Michael shook his head very slightly again, his one good eye appearing to gleam in the late evening light. He smiled and slowly opened his mouth to form two words that Christina somehow managed to decipher.

It’s okay.

Seeing the complete trust and surrender in Michael’s face, Christina’s eyes filled with tears. Shame and fear pulled at her like two opposing ends of a rope. Without thinking, she aimed the handgun lower, lining the sights up on Michael’s left shoulder instead.

Reyes, however, immediately noticed her compromising.

“In the head, Christina,” he said.

His terse order forced Christina’s aim higher again. Her finger on the trigger felt numb. She couldn’t move it.

Michael’s eyes hardened a little.

Do it, Crispy. You have to.

By then, Reyes had gotten impatient. “Five seconds.”

“Five,” he said, beginning to count down.

Christina glanced at the Alpha 2 leader. “Please, sir. My brother… he doesn’t have to die. Can’t we just… detain him? Dismiss him?”

“I gave you an order, soldier,” Reyes said coldly, ignoring Christina’s plea. “Four.”

“P-Please—”

“Three. Choose, Christina. You or him. Choose quickly.”

Christina shook her head, truly caught now between two defined choices. Neither of which allowed her to win.

He’s my brother. I can’t shoot him.

I don’t want to die. God, I don’t want to die. I’m not ready.

“Two.”

Michael’s hazel eye flashed again. This time, Christina wasn’t sure anymore what he was trying to tell her.

I don’t want to die, Crispy.

Christina blinked, a single tear escaping her eye.

Please, I don’t want to—

“One.”

—die.

There was no loud crack, only a quiet metallic sound and the sensation of the weapon’s recoil jolting up Christina’s arm. For a moment, she wasn’t quite sure what had happened.

Michael’s head lolled backwards, and his struggling ceased. Rhodes and Yansen let go of his arms simultaneously a second later, and Christina’s brother fell on his back and became still.

Christina didn’t understand. Why had the weapon discharged? She hadn’t pulled the trigger—

That was when her index finger finally lost all tension, and it rode the trigger forward as the trigger reset forward in the guard.

Reyes placed his hand over the P226’s slide and gently took the pistol from Christina’s hand.

“Well done,” he told her in that same impassive tone, holstering the Sig.

Without another word about the deed, Reyes turned to Rhodes.

“Is everything ready?”

“Affirmative,” Rhodes said promptly. “Just need to arm the bomb.”

“Good. Where’s the detonator?”

“Right here.” Yansen produced a device resembling that of a chopper pilot’s navigation stick with a small screen on the top.

Reyes took the detonator from him, tapped on the ‘Arm’ function on the screen, then looked around at the remainder of Alpha 2.

“Another successful mission,” he remarked blandly. “Good work, Alpha.”

With that, he thumbed the red button sitting underneath the detonator’s screen.

Christina, whose mind had been blank and numb for the past minute, was knocked to the ground on her side as a powerful shockwave swept the area from the epicenter of the ensuing explosion. A deafening boom angrier than that of thunder filled her ears for a couple of seconds, then a persistent ringing took its place. She cracked her temple on the roof, jolting her out of her trance and bringing her back to the present, though now her ringing ears made her question again if all of this was even real.

She breathed harshly through her mouth, the noise managing to occupy her ears as the ringing subsided gradually. With painful and growing clarity, she realized that her heart was still beating. She was still alive.

She kept still where she lay, listening to her heartbeat and her tense breaths. Eventually, from somewhere outside of her field of vision, she heard some vaguely recognizable voices.

“Everyone all right?”

“Copy that, sir.”

“I’m up, boss.”

“What about her?”

“I’ll check her. Rhodes, Yansen. Get to taking care of Hayden’s little errand, but be quick. After that, clear out of this area. We can’t be spotted here when authorities arrive. Go.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

Christina felt the ground beneath her head vibrating a bit, the motions eventually decreasing in intensity. She eventually felt hands take hold of both her shoulders and flip her so that she was on her back and looking up at the starry night sky.

Reyes appeared over her, his outline appearing wavy and obscure. He leaned over her a little.

“Christina, can you hear me?” he asked in a muffled voice.

Christina stared up at his face, trying to get rid of the two or three other outlines of Reyes in her vision. She did not answer.

Reyes shook her lightly. “If you can hear me, soldier, blink once now.”

Christina blinked her eyes almost involuntarily.

“Good. Mission’s done. We need to exfiltrate now. Do you remember the rendezvous point?” he continued.

Without thinking, Christina blinked again.

“All right.” Reyes nodded, then glanced around as screams and yells began to erupt in the distance. It took Christina a moment to recognize the voices for what they were. “Pick yourself up and clear out of the area, understand? Meet us at the rendezvous point. We’ll hold for two hours, but no longer. Don’t be late.”

Reyes looked around again with growing urgency in his movements, then looked down at the dazed Christina.

“We need to split up,” he told her. “They’ll be suspicious of groups. Get up, all right? You get back up and find us, soldier.”

With that, he stood up and left Christina’s field of view, presumably heading for the stairwell to reach the ground level.

Christina remained on her back a while longer. She wasn’t sure how much longer she’d been lying there, but by the time she shakily picked herself up to a sitting position, the ringing in her ears had gone completely. In its place were the sounds of people groaning in agony, wailing in grief, and screaming for help.

She managed to get to her feet briefly, her sense of balance still not fully recovered. She stumbled to her knees next to the one other person still lying on his back on the rooftop with her.

Christina grabbed the shoulders of his brown cargo jacket and shook him with as much strength as she could muster.

“M-Mikey,” she stammered, her teeth chattering. “Come on… we need to get out of here…”

For some reason, Michael wouldn’t stir. Christina continued to grapple and shake him.

“Mikey, come on…! We gotta… We gotta go…”

When he still did not move, Christina reached for his face, intending to slap him to consciousness. That was when she saw that Michael’s good eye was open, but something red was pouring down to one side of his forehead. That same red had splattered between his eyes, on his cheeks, and soaked one eyebrow.

It took Christina another few seconds to realize the bullet wound dead center on her brother’s forehead. Yet as much as she tried, she couldn’t reconcile the result with the cause.

She remained on that rooftop another five or so minutes, alternating between rousing her brother and simply staring at his lifeless eye, her mind failing to understand that Michael would never stand again.

Eventually, as if some automated function in her brain suddenly came back on, she let go of her sibling and without a single present thought, she left the roof and staggered down the stairwell, losing her footing a couple of times and nearly falling down a flight or two.

Sometime later, she stumbled out of the building and into the street. The fog around her mind had lifted slightly by then, allowing her enough use of all her senses to appreciate the full scale of the devastation before her.

The restaurant that had stood next to the mall only minutes ago was now gone. The building itself was still standing, but the restaurant on the ground level was nowhere to be found. The next two floors above it were just as absent. In their place was a mountain of cement and hot metal rebars sticking up in places. A thin fog of dust hung over the area, making Christina choke and cough as she numbly picked her way to the epicenter of the explosion.

A couple of people ran past her and proceeded to try shifting some of the rubble that occupied what had once been the patio area of Earl’s Kitchen + Bar. Christina watched them, still numb to much of what emotions hung thickly in the air like an invisible gas.

After a while, she turned to a mound of rubble near the opposite side of Stephen Avenue and found a human hand sticking out of the bottom. As if something else of her logical facilities had just returned to her, Christina descended upon the mountain of cement and steel and began shifting the debris.

Some of the debris was too heavy for her to move on her own. In her mad scramble to dig the owner of that hand out, she slashed and tore both of hers multiple times against jutting metal rebars and jagged edges of cement. The stinging and throbbing of her own hands from her careless movements barely registered with her. All she wanted to do was to get whoever was trapped under the rubble out.

Christina eventually managed to push away enough concrete, steel, and bricks to expose all of the victim’s face and part of their chest. In her thawing mind, Christina saw that the victim was a young girl, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old. Her shoulder-length brown hair was filthy with that dust and dirt. The girl’s glassy blue eyes stared up at Christina as if to accuse her of what had become of their owner. The girl’s pale pink lips were parted slightly, and in Christina’s eyes it wasn’t hard to imagine that the last words that had passed between those lips were pleas of help for someone to save her.

Christina shifted more rubble off the girl with her feeble strength, enough so that she could reach for the girl’s chest. She placed her bleeding hands on top of each other on the young girl’s chest and began to perform chest compressions.

“Come on,” she muttered repeatedly, putting as much of her weight into each push, “Come on, come back to me—”

Somewhere in Christina’s disorganized mind was the crucial lesson she learned in her medic classes: that CPR alone was almost always insufficient to save a person in cardiac arrest. She needed an automated external defibrillator. She knew that somewhere deep down, but during that moment her brain refused to make the connection.

She wasn’t sure how long she was performing chest compressions on the girl for, but eventually her arms began to fatigue. Though she fought to keep providing what emergency aid she could, though she barely recognized that sometime after she began she’d broken a rib or two, her compressions gradually slowed and lost most of the power required to properly provide first aid.

Towards the end, Christina panted harshly and struggled to keep going, even as her pushes had next to no force behind them and her pace had slowed to uselessness.

“Please, please… don’t give up. I’m right here. I’ll help you, but I can’t do this alone. Please, I’m begging you—”

“—please let me save you.”

But no matter how much she exerted herself, the girl failed to revive. Eventually, Christina stopped pushing down on the girl’s chest. She could go no more. Her exhaustion had finally forced her to cease.

Christina’s lips trembled as she stumbled backwards and fell back to a sitting position, bruising her rear end on some jagged concrete. Her tears, bitter and hot, began to flow freely down her face.

She didn’t even know the girl she failed to save, but all the same Christina’s heart seemed to ache for her. Her tears kept coming for the girl still partially buried in the rubble in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” Christina sobbed uncontrollably, her nose starting to run alongside her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…”

The wail of ambulance sirens, by some miracle, managed to rouse her from her grief, if only just enough for her to get to her feet.

What her team leader told her about needing to vacate the area and avoid the authorities came back to her.

Christina stood still and tried to reason with herself that with her training, she could still find and save someone, but her fear of persecution still continued to eat away at her.

As the first ambulance appeared and came barreling down Stephen Avenue from the east, Christina’s self-preservation finally won. She turned and pushed through to the west with equal parts carelessness and precision so as not to stumble and crack her head on the rubble around her.

The sounds of sirens from seemingly everywhere filled Christina with dread rather than hope was she eventually got clear of the affected area and took off at a sprint further west, away from the screams and wails that seemed to echo after her.





// January 20, 2019 //



Christina opened the passenger side door of the sedan and grabbed the duffel bag resting atop her feet from the floor. Just as she was about to stick one leg outside, the driver of the car cleared his throat to catch her attention.

“Ahem. Angel.”

Christina glanced back at the 30-year old Mikhail Loskov, who was the leader of her Glacier Team. He had offered to drive her to her home after the team came back from another successful operation.

“Yes, Razor?” she said, addressing Loskov by his callsign. She had always called everyone in Glacier Team by their callsigns, and Loskov and the rest called her by hers.

Loskov offered Christina a thin smile. He didn’t usually smile or show anything remotely clos to happiness or amusement, but on occasion he did give his team members some gestures of encouragement or even praise.

“You did some good work on this op,” he told her.

Christina managed an equally small smile. “Right.”

“Angel, we would have had twenty-three dead civilians if it wasn’t for everyone’s hard work. Yours, in other words. Learn to take credit.”

“Thank you. But I’m just doing my job.”

Loskov sighed gently, shaking his head with a rueful air.

“All right,” he said, choosing not to press the subject. “At any rate, you did well. Have a restful few days off. We’ll see you soon.”

Christina nodded curtly, then stepped out of the car, hauling her duffel bag of clothes and some Clandestine Operations Sector gear with her. She politely waved Glacier Team’s leader goodbye as the car pulled off, then retreated to her humble basement suite and dumped the bag she was carrying on the walkout basement’s foyer when she was inside her home.

Without changing out of her ‘work’ clothes, Christina went through the motions of preparing a simple baked salmon dinner for herself. Preparing and cooking the food took just over an hour, at which point she ate a little and stored the leftovers in the refrigerator.

When she was through eating, she left the unwashed plates, utensils, and cookware where they were and settled down at the desk she considered her study, and booted up her personal laptop.

She opened a web browser and navigated to her bank’s online services site. She clicked on the ‘Transfers’ tab once she was logged in and took a moment to look at the long list of deposits she’d made. There were so many that one page couldn’t contain the transaction details.

The last batch of money transfers were dated December 26, 2018. On that date, there were sixteen instances of transfers from Christina to sixteen different email addresses.

Christina’s eyes lingered on the total amount of funds in her bank account. She noted how the amount was different than when she looked the day before; today she was paid her monthly salary by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service for her work as a C.O.S. operative. She nodded at the fairly ample amount she now had, then opened up a transfer minipage and began to fill in the required fields.



Account: Basic Banking Account 4537************

Payee: [e-mail]

Amount: 1000.00 CAD

Optional Message: I am sorry for your loss. Although this won’t bring them back, please take it.



Christina clicked on ‘Send Funds’ and consulted her transaction history for the twenty-sixth of the previous month. Taking note of email addresses to which she’d sent funds the last time, she spent the next half hour sending her money to the sixteen other addresses that didn’t receive any from her in December.

Transfer after transfer, Christina’s funds dwindled until they stopped just short of two thousand Canadian dollars. She was used to this, to not having a substantial amount of savings to her name. She’d been through this a dozen times for a year now. If she had ever had any reservations about never having more than two thousand dollars to her name, she couldn’t remember. To her, things like ‘rainy day funds’ or ‘saving for retirement’ meant nothing.

Two thousand dollars – just enough to pay for rent and the necessities to exist.

She had no future. She’d resolved long ago that this was how she’d live the rest of her life. No matter how much money she sent to the families of those she took away, she’d never be able to bring any of those victims back.

Despite that, she kept sending her money to them every month without fail. If anything, doing this over and over kept her guilt at bay just enough for her to justify her life.

She’d set up barriers to keep her transfers from being tracked thanks to the technical help of a fellow C.O.S. agent, although every time she sat down at that desk to go through this ritual, she wondered why she bothered to hide in the first place. Part of her wanted to remove the security measures she’d put up.

Part of her wanted to be caught. It was, after all, what she deserved.

But for every instance she refused to reveal herself to those she’d wronged, her shame and self-loathing grew. The more she became burdened by her guilt, the harder it became for her to find reasons to stay.

Ironically, the one thing that had brought her to this point was the only thing that kept her going: cowardice.

When she was done, Christina shut down her laptop and retired to bed, still dressed in the same clothes she had come home in. She drew the covers over her head and laid on her side, then simply stayed awake for the next hour. She wished, as she’d done too many times now to count, for another C.O.S. operation to demand her attention.

For an hour, she stayed conscious. She spent that time secretly wishing for an end to this personal hell, then immediately after faulting herself relentlessly for ever desiring an end to it.

For that hour, she repeated the ruthless cycle countless times until her turbulent thoughts exhausted her enough that sleep was finally able to pull her into the comfort of a brief reprieve.