Chapter 32

“Okay, we’re ready to begin.”
It was a closed meeting this time, with only Lorenzo, Jean, Ferro, and Jamie, yet somehow the nervousness weighed heavy on Michael as he placed photos on the board. He was under the gun again, but this time it was a matter in which he had nothing to gain and everything to lose. 
“The man in the picture is the U.S. ambassador’s number-two man, Randall Smith. His purpose, ostensibly, is to be the ambassador’s trouble-shooter, taking care of little things that crop up, etcetera. His real job is as the CIA’s station chief here in Italy. All of the Italian cells report to him, and he reports directly to Langley. We have several photos of his couriers meeting with Padania operatives, though nothing of value has changed hands, so it is my feeling that they are simply watching both sides of our conflict to keep advised on it.
“The real reason we’re watching Mr. Smith is his attempts to compromise our technical teams. Langley has become interested in our secret nanotech trade with the US bio-firm, largely because of how under-the-table it is, and it seems someone in the lab has given enough information for them to open up a file for it.”
“Internal security is being handled as we speak.” Lorenzo was planning a personal interview with the individual who had been selling them out, an interview Michael would rather not think about.
“Good. They’re still wanting for information, though. I know how station chiefs work, so I know Smith has fired off a basic tasking message to say that he’s on to something, but I don’t think he has enough to compromise our operation. He needs real data to start the probe back in the states. This is where I come in.”
“In what way?” Jean was watching Michael closely and with the same appraisal he had in Paris when he recruited the man. Lorenzo had no doubt told him what Michael’s ‘safety’ plan had been, and such a betrayal, even as impersonal of one as that, grated on his nerves.
“I’m going to offer them the information they want: The complete synopsis of the Cyborg program in exchange for Jamie’s and my own protection.”
“How does this help us?”
“The only way I can get close is to offer him something of value. Observation, analysis, approach, and eliminate. Every step will have to be perfect to maintain the illusion that I am wanting out and am trying to keep under your radar. When the time is right, I close the trap and eliminate him.”
Lorenzo rubbed his eyes before looking to Jean for his views on Michael’s idea, receiving only a frown that Michael’s actions had thus far earned in Jean’s mind. Turning him loose with his cyborg to lead an official-covered member of the CIA into a trap seemed fraught with hazards.
“Ferro?”
“Sir?” She had been paying attention, as usual, and was prompt in her response.
“You’ll work with Michael on this one. Give him everything he needs to shut this leak down as soon as possible, but he is to take the final moves alone. I don’t want anyone else’s hands in this matter in the event it goes wrong.”
Ferro nodded at her orders but Michael caught the hesitant glance she threw his way, unhappy at the thought of working with him again.
“Christiansen... I leave this matter entirely in your hands.” By which Lorenzo meant that he was being hung out to dry if things went wrong. It was this kind of support that Michael did not miss from his time in the CIA.
Lorenzo stood and led Jean out of the room in a definitive end to the meeting, and Jamie and Ferro sat quietly to wait for Michael’s first decision on the action. He seemed to be playing things around in his head, staring at the conference table for a long time in silence and seeming to ignore the others in the room. Ferro was just getting ready to stand up and leave when Michael looked up from his reverie at her and Jamie, his eyes serious and cold.
“Yeah... I think that’ll work.” His eyes met Jamie’s questioning glance and returned a curious combination of sadness, determination, and regret.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He stood and pulled the files in front of him together for later study. Ferro stood and straightened her suit.
“I’ll be in my office, Michael. Let me know what you need.” Her voice betrayed her displeasure at the arrangement they now had to put up with, and he could not say that he blamed her, but at least she knew enough to follow orders.
“I will. Lets go, Jamie. We have work to do.”
“Yes, Michael.” 

A drive found them in Rome, having lunch at a cafe and watching each other’s back for any signs of their enemies. In spite of the danger, Michael seemed focused on his thoughts more than things around him, making Jamie take on more of the responsibility for them both, her eyes scanning the people they passed from behind her sunglasses. 
Michael steered her down an alley and to a phone booth, posting her on guard outside of it as he pulled a phone card from his pocket and snapped off the corner. He dialed a number from memory and waited for the encoder tone to sound, letting the earpiece slip from his ear until it finished.
“United States Embassy.”
“Undersecretary Smith, please.”
“Who may I say is calling?” There was noticeable confusion from the operator as the line was a dedicated (and unlisted) line for agents.
“John Clark, it’s urgent.”
The confusion was even greater now, but the tone in Michael’s voice was serious enough for the operator to do as she was told. “Please hold.”
There was a long wait, likely as the number was being traced and Randall Smith was trying to figure out who was calling. After two minutes he picked up, “This is Smith.”
“Your informant in Section Two was picked up last night. I thought you’d like to know.”
“I hadn’t heard. What will happen to him?”
“I can’t say for certain, but you need to know that Lorenzo is not a man to be trifled with on any day of the week. If you want to salvage anything of this situation, cut your ties to Padania and the FRF immediately, and reduce your operations to the minimum necessary until the internal probes are finished.”
“You know a lot of how we work here. I’d have to guess that you’re Christiansen?”
“Do you really have to guess? You’re watching me from your office window.” Michael turned to face the front of the embassy that was across the street.
“I can see that you’re as knowledgeable as they say. What is it you want?”
“We’ll discuss that at a time of my choosing. Just cut off your operations before you get someone killed.”
Michael cut off the call and stepped from the booth, flipping the card into a trashcan as he and Jamie walked by. He couldn’t see her eyes through the sunglasses, but he knew she was confused, having only heard his part of the call.
“Is this going to be as tough as Paris?”
“No, this will be harder.”
Jamie tugged his arm and brought him to a stop, turning him to face her and pulling off her sunglasses. His face was serious. It was the same as he usually looked before an action, but there was something else to it. The feel of his mood had changed on some level and it was only her closeness to him that allowed her to see the pain that he hid behind the look.
“Tell me.”
“No. It’s not for you to worry about.”
“If it is a threat to you, it is my responsibility to understand and deal with it.” 
“No it’s not. It’s your responsibility to do what I tell you.” He was still feeling the hangover, had just started an irreversible action that would probably get them killed, and his plan was still only half-baked at best. Jamie’s insistence was only serving to aggravate his already frayed nerves, a frustration that came out in the angry tone of his voice.
Jamie stepped back from the words and the anger that delivered them, feeling his tension level skyrocket. He was under so much stress, both internal and external, and it was eating him alive. She could not tell what exactly was the root cause, but she suspected it was a build up of what he had been dealing with since Tanya was killed. He stored it all inside and never let it out, and even though he knew better, he was letting it destroy him.
Michael started walking again and she followed him, slipping her shades on to hide the worried look in her eyes and watching him closely for any further signs of fatigue. They were taking a roundabout path back to the car, she noticed, and it was only luck that a sign caught her eye. It was an advertisement for a place that sounded relaxing and interesting, and it was the overwhelming stress that they had been under the past month that gave her the desperation necessary to try it.
“Michael?”
“What?” He didn’t look back as she spoke.
“I want to take you out some place. We’re going to be working hard from here on, and I know that we’re both feeling the strain, so...” 
He finally stopped and turned to look at her, a chance she took to hit him full-force with her most influential “please?” face. She hammed it up a bit, making sure that he knew she was really wanting it. It was a face similar to the one she had used in Venice when she saw another interesting clothing shop, and at that time he hadn’t had the strength to fight her. She hoped he didn’t have the strength now, either.
“You’re not going to buy another dress, are you?”
“No. It’s a spa!”
“A spa...” He turned and continued walking, not even bothering to respond with his thoughts about her needing a spa treatment.
“No, really, c’mon, Michael! You’ve been really uptight lately and I think some relaxation time would do you good.” She hooked her arm around his and held onto it, falling into the role she had in Paris, that of a bubbly girlfriend.
“I’m plotting the killing of a man and you want me to get a manicure and rub-down?”
“Michael, I’m just... I’m just trying to help you. I think a few hours in a Jacuzzi might do some good for you, and it’s not as if we don’t have the time at the immediate moment.”
“I said no, Jamie, and that’s final. I don’t need to relax, and I certainly don’t need to soak in a tub.”
He just didn’t get it. She was working to find some way of helping him and he was blowing her off, barely attempting to listen to her ideas. Ever since he had watched Tanya die, he was allowing a cloud to hang over him. There were times when he was able to push it all aside, but the previous night had shown that he was losing the battle against his depression, and the stress and fatigue were the results. His frustration was also contagious... It was only way she could later explain her next comment.
“You just need to get over Tanya and start being a man again.”
She had said it to herself, but aloud, and the speed at which he turned on her was shocking. Michael’s hand struck her full-force across the face, cracking like a whip and sending her reeling backwards onto the ground. People stopped to look at the pair, one with a hand to her cheek and thoroughly stunned at the act, the other breathing hard and working desperately to hold back a rage from deep inside.
Jamie’s eyes had tears; her stomach churned sickeningly from her outburst, and the most painful part was the way he was looking at her. He hated her. He hated her as much as any of the scum that he had been exacting justice upon, and replaying the comment in her head, she really could not blame him.
“Michael... Michael, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that! I just...” She tried desperately to explain herself, but he never gave her time to. He turned his back to wait for her to get to her feet.
“You’re just my partner, Jamie. Not my mother, not my wife... My partner.”
“I’m your friend. I’m your sister!” She cried it aloud in the hopes that someone, anyone, would care. “I’m the person who cares about you the most!” She was on her knees, practically begging him to listen and ignoring the stares they were getting from the passers-by. “Nothing- nothing- in this world means as much to me as your happiness, and I try every day to live up to your expectations so that I am not a burden on you. I work hard to make your life easier, to take a few of the things off of your mind so that you can devote yourself to the important things.”
He was listening now, she could tell, but that knowledge did little to phase the wave that she had unleashed. She had to get it all out while she could, and the tears flowed freely as the words came from within her, 
“But now you’re pushing me away. I’m trying to help you in any way I can and you’re pushing away in some masochistic, self-aggrandizing belief that you can solve all of your problems alone. Well you can’t! No one can. All we can do is cling to each other and fight to retain what little sanity the world around us allows us to keep.”
Michael still had not looked at her, but she had hope that he was taking the lesson to heart, letting his mind cool down as the words spoke to his soul.
“Tanya spoke of the place where the wind and waves threaten to tear us from our humanity- a place where all people like us end up at some point in time.” The tears slowed as her inner strength began to take up the fight. “Maybe I started out in a place similar to that, but you helped me find my humanity again. I can see it. I can see and feel the pain you’re in and I want to help you out of that place. Please let me help... Before it’s too late for you.”
She ended her plea with her hands held close to her heart, the very image of praying to the one she held so high. The sight was not lost on the spectators, most of whom were curious about the drama unfolding in their midst, and they all looked to Michael for his answer, not knowing what it was all about, but hoping for the best for the girl.
Michael turned finally and Jamie’s heart sank as her heart read the look on his face. He wasn’t angry, but neither was he amused or warmed by her words. If anything, he was even further into the pit of emotional numbing than he had been before.
“Get your ass up and let’s go. You’re making a scene.” He continued down the sidewalk towards the car, leaving everyone who had witnessed the scene in a state of shock at the lack of caring displayed by the man. 
The on-lookers looked back at Jamie who climbed to her feet slowly, rubbing her eyes dry of her tears, and trying to phase out the looks from the people around her. A young woman, perhaps only a couple of years younger than herself, placed a hand on Jamie’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. 
“Are you alright?”
Jamie looked at the girl and managed to contain her shock at the girl’s uncanny resemblance to Carol, with her red hair and green eyes, and a smile all her own. Somehow the resemblance made the gesture more comforting that it otherwise would have been, and for that Jamie managed a soft smile.
“Yeah. He’s hurting inside... I love him, so I can’t help but try to understand.”
The girl didn’t smile back but she understood Jamie’s point, so she gave the cyborg a friendly pat on the shoulder and continued on her way. Perhaps it was the meeting of parted spirits, those of her and Carol, but even if it wasn’t, Jamie was grateful for the help when she needed it.
She had to run to catch up with Michael, managing to climb into the Jag just before he pulled away, not even caring if she buckled in or not. Between his silent anger and the car’s horsepower, they made if back to the agency in near-record time, and on climbing out, Michael pointed her to the practice range.
“Go change and double-time it over to the rifle range. I want fifty X’s out of fifty shots on your scorecard at eight-hundred yards before you return.”
Jamie glanced at the helipad by the hospital and could see the windsock flipping randomly every few seconds to almost its full length in concert with the wind. It also swiveled markedly on its post, the combined effects known in pilot-speak as “variable and gusting.”
“In these conditions?”
“Is that a problem?” His voice made it clear that there would be some problems if she saw it as one.
“No. No, I think can do it, but it’s going to take me quite a while.”
“Report to me in the office when you are finished.” Michael started walking towards the office complex, leaving Jamie staring at his back as she considered the punishment he had just lumped on her. She had just started to turn towards the dorm when she heard him call over his shoulder, “And don’t forget to run your laps.”
It occurred to her that he was just getting her out of his hair for a long while, forcing her to remain at a distance rather than dealing with her attempts to comfort him. More than that, it almost seemed that he was afraid of being comforted.
Michael was hurting inside from the loss of Tanya, the loss of his homeland, and with this new mission, the loss of his patriotism. Love, Identity, Beliefs... As she started pulling her suit off in her room, she had to wonder if the man had anything left to live for, and whether that was explanation for the depths of his sorrow.
“What do I have?” She started to apply the same standards to her own case, an effort that really did not take much thinking. 
She loved Michael, plain and simple, and with unconditional devotion. Jamie now knew that the agency could not make her love him as much as she did. There was no level of brainwashing or chemicals that could give her the warmth in her heart when she saw Michael smile at her, or the way he laughed when she bought something to wear, all the while thinking of how hopelessly warm a person she was.
Jamie now also knew who she had been, the kind of strength she had before, and how she had started out with nothing as a cyborg. Her memories were integrating into her personality, giving her hope and understanding when she needed it, and resolve and strength when she really needed it. Still, she could not say that she was Janet Wells again. That connection was still eluding her, likely because of the part of her that she didn’t control was still using it. Maybe she was the same person but with a different name- a sort of marriage of the two individuals inside her. She was now Jamie Christiansen, a type-two cyborg of the Social Welfare Agency, and her loyalty was to Michael and the agency. This was her identity.
The beliefs thing was a bit trickier, but then again, beliefs always are. There were hints in her head of her old thinking, the belief in God and the Holy writ. She could sometimes remember the feeling of singing songs of praise in front of people, her public announcements of her beliefs and her own way of helping others understand the faith she had, and perhaps encouraging them to seek it out for themselves.
Now... Now she could feel the difference in Janet and herself. Janet would not have killed, would not have enjoyed doing it, and certainly would not have made an effort to exact revenge on the people who had hurt her. The person who was exacting that revenge was the Janet who had lost her faith in everything except herself. The bloodshed, the tears, and burning anger... It was all the product of those hours in that warehouse and the hard truth of reality hitting a blind young woman in the head.
For Jamie, the killing, the evil people, and the reasoning for it all were something she had been taught from day one as a cyborg. The things she did were in response to the reality that had taken Janet Wells by surprise, and perhaps it was why she could cope with it all now when her mind had previously been unable to.
So what did she really believe in? While she still believed in a God and in something resembling the theological understand of Fate, she really could not say that she had patriotism as it compared to Michael. She remembered her home in Springfield and the concept of having a home to go to at the end of the day, but she could not say that she really felt it to be the place she would never leave. The dorms, while comfortable, and understandably ‘home’, in the emotional sense, they really did not hold her loyalty in a way that helped her to understand Michael any.
No, Michael’s beliefs were not rooted in a place so much as an ideal or set of them. He felt himself to be an American, first and foremost. He believed in liberty and justice, the protection of the weak and the punishing of the wicked. He believed in apple pies and hot dogs and cold beers while watching sports on Sundays. Even through all of his time in Europe for the CIA, he knew in his heart that he had never betrayed or carelessly misplaced his beliefs in all things that he felt were American. 
But now... Now he was hurting because he had to give them all up. He was committing an act that would forever brand him a traitor- a deserter in keeping the faith of those things. Even if they got away clean with the killing of Randall Smith, Michael would still know in his heart that he had broken faith by becoming a traitor.
Michael was lost because he could not feel that there could be an outcome favorable to him. Maybe he had given up caring about consequences beyond those that would affect the outcome of his missions. What was it Tanya had told her? If Michael had been with her after he was cut from the CIA, he would not have been as devastated?
About the only thing he considered himself to have left was his mission: the annihilation of Amherst and his organization... and all of the killing along the way.
As Jamie walked along the road towards the rifle range, she had a glimpse in her head of just how bad that method of living could be. She pictured the scene of Tanya fighting viciously against Michael as he held her to the ground, trying desperately to calm her down. Her mind quickly morphed it into Michael on the ground and herself trying to find some way to calm him, a frightening idea in that the man simply did not know how to give up. He could not, and in that light the only thing she could count on was the same as Michael had- the breakdown of the physical body. If he could not give up, she would have to hurt him. It was a thought that made her sick even without the conditioning.
The range was silent but for the wind blowing randomly through the windsocks that were spaced every couple of hundred yards. There was a hint of another round of rain/snow as it approached and gave the air a bitter feel as it ripped through her BDU pants and also across her exposed hands. The conditions were terrible for sniping, perhaps only able to get worse if it were actually raining, at night, and during an actual war. 
There had been nights where Jamie had lain awake, gazing at the picture of Lyudmila Mikhailivna Pavlichenko that resided on the desk next to her cleaning gear, wondering what such an environment as war-torn Odessa had been and whether she herself would have had what it took to be infamous in the eyes of the enemy. On her best day Jamie could proudly say that she could match the woman in skill, if not experience, and thus was likely to be a welcome colleague to Pavlichenko. 
Jamie chose to ignore Michael’s order to run her laps before shooting, instead settling into her prone position with the blanket over her and the rifle on its bipod with the legs wedged between two sandbags. Michael’s order was foolish enough to be contemptible, as there was nothing to be gained skill-wise by pointlessly trying to shoot fifty straight X’s in terrible conditions, after having run ten kilometers. He was getting her out of his hair for an extended period of time by making the rules insanely difficult and the results impossible to attain. That idea was reinforced when her eye caught the two-hundred meter flag drop and start to shift towards her left even as the eight-hundred flag was still blowing almost seven knots to her right. Reading the wind and understanding its dynamics was not difficult, but predicting it in this situation was impossible, and that meant the shot was also, or nearly so.
Still, it was something of a challenge, so she loaded her ready magazine in the rifle and flipped the bolt through it’s motion, feeling the familiar gentle thumps as the cartridge transitioned between the mix of metal surfaces on its way to going into battery. She settled in with her left fist loosening slightly to give the shot the proper arc it needed for the shot. The safety clicked off and her finger rested lightly against the trigger as she read the wind in the grass and flags, waiting for a moment of serenity amidst the chaos. 
Her body was infused with calm, deathly still but for her shallow, controlled breathing and her relaxed heartbeat. The crosshairs never budged from the hold she had on the target, just a little high off of the top edge of the black-on-white splotch that was so distant. A moment came when the winds were the same at all of the flags and she instinctively adjusted for it as her finger squeezed through the trigger’s motion. The rifle roared and the flame propelled the bullet downrange at supersonic speed, lancing its way through the target and leaving a hole touching the bottom corner of the X-ring. 
She smiled as she recorded the shot in her book, thinking that perhaps it wasn’t so much impossible to accomplish Michael’s task as it was unlikely. It was the same with her attempts to save him from the path he had chosen of late, that of isolation and self-destruction. It was unlikely she could sway him from the path, but it was not impossible, and that made it worth trying until it was final in one way or the other.

Michael was still at his desk when Jamie entered the office several hours later, her rifle slung on her back and her pack in her left hand, her brown hair dripping with the cold rain that had begun to fall in the past hour. Ferro glanced up at her from her position next to Michael, stopping mid-sentence in her report on the assets devoted to tailing Michael’s target, feeling a slight chill from the presence of an openly armed cyborg in the office.
“Michael...”
He turned to look as the subtle tones in Ferro’s voice told him that he should. He caught Jamie’s eye as his own appraised her condition, taking note of the look on her face and reading it for what the lack of enthusiasm represented.
“Finished already?”
Jamie stepped over and tossed her damp score-sheet on the desk amid a spread of droplets from her sleeve. “Yes. Sorry it took so long.”
She waited as he glanced at it, noting the positions of the dots she had scrawled in to represent the locations on the large target she left on the range. The score was tallied on the right side of the sheet making it easy for him to understand at a glance what she had accomplished.
“Thirty-seven Xs, eight nines, four eights, and a flyer.” He looked up from the sheet with a hint of anger mixed in the disappointment. “I said not to come back unless you had a perfect set of X’s.”
“It wasn’t possible in the conditions that existed. Seventy-four percent with another eighteen makes for a ninety-two percent fatality rate, more than acceptable in the circumstances.” She even rolled her eyes to express how foolish she knew the task to be, an act that grated on his nerves.
“Go back out and do what I told you to do. I won’t accept failure.”
Jamie was ready with her reply, steeling her stomach against the onslaught that was sure to come. She turned her back and flipped her free hand in the air, the gesture representing the way she was tossing his opinion aside.
“Then do it yourself. I’ve given it my best and the weather did not allow me to do any better, so I’m not going to waste any more time on it today. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.” 
Ferro gave a disapproving look and Michael started steaming in his suit, clenching his pen tightly.
“I gave you an order, Jamie.”
“And I followed it to the best of my ability.” She stopped at the door and looked back at him, feeling the warnings from within her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do any better, but continuing in the manner you specified would only dull my edge, not hone it. I’m not going to destroy what we’ve worked so hard for just because you tell me to. You told me to be smart, and I’m doing so right now. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”
“Jamie!”
Ferro grabbed his shoulder as he started out of his chair, preventing him from following Jamie from sight.
“What is going on?” Michael’s anger was no longer being concealed and Ferro had to believe that it was more on Michael’s side than Jamie’s. He had lost control of it and the stark contrast with the man that had come into the agency could not be more damning.
“Nothing!”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not your problem.” He went back to the documents on his desk, feigning their study to try to get rid of the pest.
“It is. The effectiveness of the teams is one of the things I’m tasked to evaluate, so when I see any problem, it becomes my problem.” Ferro stepped to the front of the desk and leaned on it, her hands holding down the papers he was trying to read. “So what’s wrong with you?”
Michael sighed, looking up at her and wishing she were a bit more feminine. If he was going to have to look at her, the least she could do was be a bit more pleasing to the eyes. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing. I’m the same I have always been. This discussion ends here, Ferro.” He snatched the papers from under her with a glare that told her there would be nothing further said on the matter.
Ferro could see what Jamie was concerned about now. The way Michael had stood up to her was not the same man that had his head so attached in Venice. His leadership was being based mainly on force and intimidation, and it was a bad way to fight unless you had the hardware to back it up. Michael knew that, and the fact that he was ignoring his own sage advice meant that he was possibly losing control of himself.
Ferro let him have his space for now, but his victory would be short lived if she had anything to say about it.

It had been a long time since Ferro had walked among the cyborgs in the halls they considered their domain. Most of the girls looked at her as an almost alien presence- entirely out of place and probably not welcome. Fortunately she had no trouble finding Jamie’s room, knocking twice at the second door from the top of the stairs and waiting patiently for either Maria or Jamie to answer. 
“Is there something you need, Ferro?” 
Jamie was toweling dry her hair as she rounded the corner from the staircase, her wash-kit in her other hand and a somewhat stunned look on her face.
“Er...yes. I wanted to speak with you.” Jamie gave a suspicious look- one Ferro could not blame her for. “It’s about Michael.”
“I see.” Jamie opened the bedroom door and stood aside to let Ferro in, closing it behind her as the woman looked casually about the room. Everything seemed clean and in order, so Ferro took a seat in the desk-chair and waited for Jamie to finish drying off.
Jamie dug into her drawers and came out with a clean t-shirt, which she pulled on after taking off her robe, not even caring about modesty in front of the other woman. “This is unexpected.”
“I know. I don’t often find myself compelled to interrogate the cyborgs on their handler’s activities, but in this instance, I have no choice.”
“I thought you might see it.” She pulled on her sweat pants and settled onto her bed with her guitar, picking at it randomly, but with something of a natural progression to the notes. “Just so you know, I’m not going to hand him over to anyone. My responsibilities are towards protecting him, and anyone that thinks they’re going to hurt him had better have a full-strength company of soldiers at hand.”
Ferro could feel the attempt at intimidation that lurked in Jamie’s words. It was used much as a rattlesnake might- the sounds being warning enough for those who knew them, but speaking of incredible dangers if ignored. Jamie was such a person, or had become such because of Michael’s teachings, and her threats were certainly real to those who understood her capabilities that she covered with exaggeration.
“I’m not looking to hurt him, Jamie. I need to know what has been happening to make him like this.”
The girl started strumming a rhythm on the guitar, her long fingers effortlessly picking out the notes she needed as she stared past Ferro at the wall, letting her heart flow through the strings. It was a quiet, thoughtful tune that spoke of her sadness at the situation.
“He’s broken... He’s been cracked for some time now, but this latest mission has broken him inside, I guess. He’s lost his reason to live, the things that have kept him going.”
“Explain.”
Jamie sighed, remembering that she was talking to someone who hardly felt anything at all. “The things that have defined his existence as Michael Christiansen have left town. His love, his patriotism, and his determination to do the right thing... They’re all gone. What remains is the shell of a man, not unlike the homeless people I played for back home. He exists, and that’s about it. His days are filled with the tasks put to him, and his nights are filled with memories and regrets, amplified by the alcohol.”
“Hmm...” Ferro had thought that might be the case, but having Jamie confirm it made it more worrisome. She was smart, just as Michael had been trying to tell them, and if her actions earlier in the day had shown anything, it was that she could not follow him into utterly foolish actions, even if he ordered it. “You’re saying that he is no longer competent.”
“That’s not what I said. What I said was that he is self-destructing because of this latest action. If you want the CIA boogeyman dead, Michael will accomplish it. The concern you should have is what will be left of him at the end of it. He isn’t going to accept having the mission taken away from him, and with his actions this morning, you really can’t do that and still have an available target.”
“So you’re saying that we need to fix him. Any ideas on how?”
The guitar continued its lonely tune, barely wavering as Jamie shrugged, “Take some of the workload off of him? If I can get a bit more free time with him, maybe I can coax out his frustration and get him back on the path. The big problem with that is how he’s ignoring me. He hears what I say, but he is really not interested, and the fact that I disobeyed him today makes him less interested, not more. He is slowly closing off everything around him.”
“So what you need is something that is sure to get his attention.”
There was a knock on the door, the harsh sound of the heavy hand announcing the intentions of the face that leaned around the opening door. 
“Excuse me, Ferro.” Olga’s husky voice and Russian accent did not fit the apology in any way except to show it as a courtesy to Jamie. “The surveillance teams are in place and waiting for the target to head back to his residence. Michael has demanded to lead one of the teams, but I informed him of your control on the matter. He is probably looking for you as we speak.”
“Thank you, Olga. I will deal with him when I find a chance.”
Olga started out the door but stopped, looking back at Jamie and feeling the sadness that seemed to enter her face lately whenever anyone mentioned him. “Forgive me for intruding, but there are only two sure ways to get a man’s attention: his favorite food, and in his bed.”
Ferro and Jamie had the same stunned look on their faces for a moment as Olga’s words sunk in, finally eliciting a thoughtful expression from Ferro and an embarrassed flush from Jamie. Olga’s ears had to be pretty good to have heard their conversation from the hall.
“That’s...”
“That’s very insightful, Olga.”
Jamie glanced at Ferro with a questioning look, her eyes searching for the answers that Ferro’s seem to say she had.
Olga smiled softly; glad to have helped at least a little. “I’ll be in town on the surveillance mission with Priscilla if you need me. Good luck, Jamie.”
“Luck?”
What, exactly, was she going to need luck for?

Chapter 33

The plan was finally in place... Three weeks of work had developed a sound strategy that Jamie could find no flaws in, with perhaps the possible exception of Michael’s complete refusal to participate. To that end, she stacked the deck as much as possible, even enlisting the help of Priscilla and Olga, and having Ferro order him out to track a suspect they had been watching.
The air in the van was stifling with the smell of sweat, coffee, and cigarettes. More than once Jamie had caught Michael glaring at Olga, obviously suspecting the tough woman of being the source of the prevalent body odor smell, though Jamie had to wonder if it might actually be Priscilla since it had become much more pronounced since the woman had taken off her jacket and was now wearing only her tank-top. It was no wonder that Michael had camped out next to the window that was cracked for air.
“There he is!” Priscilla took several photos of the man as he casually walked along, never suspecting that he was the object of government scrutiny.
“Anyone with him?”
“No, he’s alone this time.” 
The man came into Michael’s field of vision and the keen eyes tracked him until he entered a restaurant, having taken a suspicious glance around for a tail before slipping inside.
Michael dialed his phone and waited for Ferro to pick up. “It’s me. The target went into a restaurant on Viale del Policlinico. He was alone.”
“Okay. I want you to apprehend him immediately and bring him in for questioning.”
“Right.” He hung up and shot a glance at Jamie before motioning her to get ready. “Let’s go get him, Jamie.”
It was all Jamie could do to hold back the smile she felt inside at how he was falling into her trap. 
“Yes, sir.” She added a bit of the stress she had been feeling lately into her voice. Michael had become even more distant of late, to the point that their only contact was now on the professional level. He had even been fetching his own coffee in the office, refused to discuss anything other than the work, and completely avoided her in the off hours.
His physical health was now a major concern for her as he had not taken any exercise in those weeks, had become close friends with several liquor-store owners, and was taking the occasional pill alongside it all. Today was going to be the day of reckoning in this whole mess, and one way or the other, he was going to get some help.
Jamie zipped her jacket and grabbed her guitar case, taking a spot near the sliding door. “I’m ready, Michael.”
“It’s about damn time.” The door opened and he slipped out, opening the sliding door for Jamie and glancing around at the people on the street, constantly scanning for dangers. Jamie stepped a few feet away to give him his space and then followed him across the street to the restaurant.

The door opened and a shadowy pair entered, a man in a suit with a young woman wearing jeans and a jacket, carrying a guitar case in her pale hands and a soft smile on her lips. The door closed and the man flipped the sign in the window around to discourage any customers from adventuring inside.
The target looked up from where he was seated at a table, and the waiter placed the last piece of an extensive meal at the second place setting, glancing around to make sure the place was empty of other customers.
“Emilio Costanzo...” Michael stepped to the table with his hand on his gun while the girl simply looked on from behind her sunglasses. “You’re under arrest. Come quietly so we can avoid a disturbance.”
The target smiled at Michael while he munched on a French fry from the plate in front of him.
“Do you really know why you’re supposed to bring me in?”
“I don’t really care.”
“You might...” His hand slipped under the table and Michael’s Smith was in his face before he could flinch.
“Hands where I can see them or you’ll be painting the wall like Michelangelo.”
“Take it easy, Christiansen. It’s not what you think.” He didn’t look up at the surprised expression on Michael’s face, instead carefully withdrawing his hand from under the table, revealing a small package that was gift wrapped in gold foil.
It was enough to catch Michael off-guard and he stepped back slightly. “What is this?”
“It’s the only thing I could think of.” Jamie’s hand touched his, slowly lowering the gun to point safely at the floor. Michael’s surprise changed to an angry glare directed at her.
“What do you mean?”
“This is Emilio Francesco, one of Olga’s friends from Section One. He’s been acting as a suspect in this investigation in order to lure you here today. Ferro helped me arrange for this special meal for the two of us, including the privacy of the closed restaurant.”
“All of this the past two weeks was a sham?” Anger still lurked in his voice, a sign that he had not decided what to feel about it yet.
“Yes. You’ve been ignoring me. You have refused to listen to anything I say, anything I do. The only thing I could come up with was to make it part of the job.” She took the gun from his hand and slipped it back into his shoulder holster, leaning her head against his chest affectionately as she did so. His body stiffened at her touch and he backed away to gain some space from her.
“Mister Christiansen,” the waiter chimed in. “The chef has worked hard to provide you with an excellent sampling of simple American cuisine. Please, enjoy.” He motioned to the table and Jamie gave him a grateful look, hoping Michael would take the hint and sit down to lunch with her.
“Michael, please... sit down and-“
But Jamie was suddenly speaking to his back as he walked angrily to the door, making sure he slammed it on the way out. His actions made it clear that he was not the victim of his circumstances as she thought. He was willingly hurting himself inside to keep his aggression up, likely in the mistaken idea that his fury was going to pull the day when it finally came. While fury can give a person temporary strength, it wears out the body quickly and soon loses it’s effectiveness. Like vengeance, she now understood, it could not sustain a person’s soul.
“Michael...”
She could sense Emilio and the staff staring at her and waiting for her orders. She had put all of the ideas into motion with Ferro’s help and it was simply not the solution that she had hoped.
“I’m sorry... I thought this would be something he liked and I was wrong.” She turned to face them, being brave in the face of her failure. “Please, enjoy and don’t let the meal go to waste. You’ve all been very helpful and I thank you for your efforts. Please tell your chef that it all looks wonderful, and that we will come back to taste his works after all of this is sorted out.”
Emilio placed the gift in Jamie’s hand and offered her a smile. “Don’t lose hope, Jamie. He’ll come around eventually.”
“I know. I won’t lose sight of that. Thank you.”
The gift went into her pocket and she ran out the door with her case to try to catch up with Michael. She caught up to him at the corner and could tell that he was fuming from the disappearance of the van.
“They went to lunch, Michael.”
“I figured that.”
The light changed and they crossed the street, Jamie’s memory of the area telling her he was heading for the nearest place he could rent a car. For Michael to ignore the fact that he could just call Priscilla to pick them up meant he was angrier than he was letting on, if that were possible. Jamie reached for her own phone but a glance from Michael made her hesitate in dialing, her hand starting to shake slightly at the directed anger.
“Want me to call them so we can get a pick-up?”
“No. I want you to follow me for a while longer.” There was a subtle hint of his action-voice in his words, the same voice he used when he was making decisions of life or death on the fly. It reflected his mind’s focus on everything around him and was rarely influenced directly by his mood, so it was in this that she often felt comfortable following his orders.
“Okay.” Her own tone told him that she was waiting for his instructions, something he seemed to be okay with.
They walked the same as before, with his body language speaking of a preoccupied mind and careless moves and her movements responding to his, even as they both were scanning the people around them. Her instincts finally keyed her into what he had picked up on the moment they had left the restaurant: a tail in the form of two men about twenty yards behind, trying a bit too hard to look normal. A car traveling the other direction honked its horn and she used the opportunity to look back at the men, sizing them up and catching the print of a gun through the one man’s jacket.
“Jamie,” his voice was low, almost as if he were mumbling to himself and so softly that she had to strain to hear him with her earplugs in. “I’m going to cause a commotion in a moment. I will send you away, so you’ll need to circle around ahead of me and be ready for them.”
He trusted her silence was her understanding and timed his next move carefully, spinning around on Jamie in anger.
“Goddammit!! I told you to leave me alone! I don’t want to talk it out and I don’t want to listen to your inane rambling, so back the fuck off!”
“Michael!” She had been ready for it and recoiled in surprise and fear for the entertainment of the masses.
“Just stop!” Michael pointed her to a narrow alley. “Just go away and get the hell out of my life!”
“Michael, please...”
“I’m done with it all. Just go away.” He shoved her into the alley roughly before turning his back in his feigned anger, storming away under the eyes of the people around him. 
Jamie walked the length of the alley slowly with her head hung low, playing the role for anyone who might be watching from the street. She made a fast turn at the next left and ducked down to get her rifle out. The latches popped on her case and she felt blindly inside as her eyes closed and her ears locked onto the sounds echoing down the alley from the way she had come. 
There were footsteps there, only one pair, and they sounded like the cautious approach of a man about the height she had seen when she had looked back. Her hand went to where the grip of her G36 should be and her fingers brushed across the metal strings of her guitar, freezing her in her thoughts. 
In her concern and confusion regarding Michael and the day’s planned events, she had brought the wrong case...

Michael turned the next corner and caught the split up of the tails with a sideward glance. Jamie was positioning herself around the next corner and with any luck she would time it all right, catching both men off-guard with the overwhelming force. 
He slowed his walk, acting the part of struggling with his emotions even as his mind had pushed everything emotional from it. He was every bit of machine as Jamie in his actions, now. His body was craving the action against the man following him, making him sweat and feel stiff enough to warrant the loosening of his tie. After loosening it, his hand slipped into his jacket and popped the thumb-break off of his Smith, getting it ready for a moment’s action without being obvious.
The tail had picked up his pace a bit, a move that Michael suspected was designed to time the attack for when they arrived at the alley and Michael could be shoved out of sight of the general public. Little did the attacker know that he was being led into a trap.
The alley was beside him and the footsteps sounded loudly behind as they closed the final paces, a precursor to the hands that clamped onto his shoulders as he started to spin around at the noise. He was viciously thrown into the shaded alley and he stumbled over a crate, falling onto his stomach. Jamie would be arriving in a moment to save him, so he felt no fear when he was unceremoniously kicked onto his back and a gun pointed at his forehead.
“Amherst said to watch your back, Christiansen.” There was amused evil in the man’s face as he stared at Michael through the sights of the Beretta he held. “He has a few things he wants to say to you in person, but he wasn’t specific on whether he wanted you unharmed or bleeding profusely.”
Jamie would be arriving any moment...
“I would think he wants to torture me for a while, so harming me would probably be a mistake.”
“Yes, but one of the people you murdered in your little quest for revenge was my brother, so if he put me on the job of finding you, he must expect me to rough you up a bit.”
The logic was reasonable so Michael could only shrug his understanding, but a part of his mind was getting concerned at Jamie’s tardiness. Concerns became moot when the man started kicking Michael in the ribs with his steel-toed boots, knocking the air from his lungs and racking him with pain.
“Feels good, huh? I bought these boots with you in mind. The thought of kicking your skull in makes me feel alive!” Another kick to the ribs and Michael thought he felt something crack, the pain excruciating. It took all of his mental fortitude to focus past it and clutch his arms across his chest, trying desperately to go for his gun. It was obvious that Jamie had failed him and that he had to rely on himself.
His hand touched the stippled grip of the pistol and started pulling it free, his eyes flashing anger at his assailant in an unconscious warning of deadly intent. The gun cleared his jacket and started to angle up, the pain flashing through his chest and arm, slowing it down. His target’s steel toe smashed against his wrist, kicking the gun into the trash littering the edges of the alley. 
A knee pressed onto his aching chest, crushing the breath from his lungs even as the muzzle of the Beretta pressed into his forehead. 
“Nice try, but now it’s time to say goodbye. For my brother... I’m sure Amherst will understand.”
Jamie rounded the corner from the street, swinging her guitar with a scream of rage that sounded down the alley like the wail of an angry banshee. It caught the man under his chin, shattering the body of it and launching him off of Michael to land almost ten feet away. Michael’s eyes saw the flames of anger in her eyes as she stepped over him to the still-conscious man. The goon had started to get to his feet as Jamie approached but nothing could spare him from her wrath, and her eyes burned with fury as she kicked him onto his back and plunged the broken neck of the guitar into his chest.
There was a final cough from the man, the sounds of Death claiming another soul, and Michael watched Jaime pull the makeshift spear from the body and sag against the side of the alley, gasping for air and holding her left side. He could see blood under her hand and realized that her attacker had hit her.
“Jamie...” Michael struggled to his feet through the pain of his cracked ribs, catching his breath before pulling out his phone and dialing Ferro. “It’s me again. Jamie and I were attacked on the street, about five blocks east of the restaurant. We need clean-up and medical here ASAP.”
The alley was silent, and somehow in Michael’s mind even the sounds from the street were blocked out. The only things he could discern were his gasps for air, the breath halting each time as the pain heightened, and Jamie’s muted whimpers as she started coming down from her aggression and began to realize the pain she felt.
“Jamie, how bad are you hit?”
“It’s nothing, Michael. It’s just a scratch.” She checked her hand that she had been holding against the wound beside her breast and watched the blood drip from the heel of her hand onto her jeans.
“That’s more than a scratch.” He stepped to her side and quickly folded the handkerchief that he usually kept in his suit pocket, forcing her hand aside and pressing it into the wound. Her body was burning with the heat of her exertions but the blood on her shirt had cooled noticeably in the cool air, creating a mix of sensations that seemed to shock his brain. 
Blood.
In the past year he had seen more than he ever had in the CIA. It never really shocked him anymore, though, and it was to be expected in the missions he accepted. He was constantly getting the wet work.
He had overheard Jean speaking to Lorenzo once about how they had a new fixer to replace Lauro, and from what Michael had heard, Lauro’s work mainly entailed taking the final step in “negotiating” with informants and people who seemed to be in the agency’s way. That he was a right bastard in the process never seemed to enter anyone’s mind. About the only thing of note that he had received from anyone was a warning from Jose to never lose sight of how important Jamie was.
Now... Now his hands were covered with Jamie’s blood, and while it certainly was not the first time, it had never felt as alive as this moment. It was warm but cooling rapidly as it touched the air, and it was this noticeable contrast of sensation in his hand that changed something.
She was crying. Her tears began to run down her cheeks as she held the broken remains of her guitar- the neck- in one hand. Her main outlet for all of her emotions was now lying in ruins before her, covered in the blood of some man she was forced to kill in order to protect him.
“Jamie... What happened?”
“I fucked up.”
Her use of profanity was a shock and spoke of how badly she felt that she had failed.
“I grabbed the wrong case this morning. I had packed my Walther and the H&K in it and set it down by the dresser last night. This morning I was occupied by what I was planning for you, so when I grabbed the case by the door, I didn’t realize it was the wrong one. I made it worse by not checking it before I left the van.”
“It can happen to anyone.” And it had happened to him once, though he had never needed the bag of phone taps that he had mistakenly forgotten in favor of C-4 bricks.
“Not to me! I’m smarter than that.”
He could feel her anger at herself.
“Then when I realized my mistake, it was too late. He got a shot off at me before I could get into a close-quarters defense. I broke the slide off of his gun when I disarmed and killed him, so the only thing I had left to use to help you was my guitar.”
“I’m sorry. I know how much it meant to you.”
Jamie huffed at the irony in the statement. “Only now do you see...”
“What?”
Her eyes met his and the force of her look nearly knocked him down. There was hatred there again, but this time it wasn’t the dark side of Jamie that was behind it. It was Jamie’s own anger that was boring into his soul.
“It’s all your fault, Michael. You don’t know how much it pains me to say that to you, but I love you too much to keep quiet anymore. The only reason we are sitting in this alley, bleeding, is because of the way you have been acting. You have been sulking in your troubles, pushing away any and all attempts to help you in the hopes that some bastard would get lucky enough to put a hole through your head and end it all.”
She brushed his hand from her wound and held the bandage there herself, pushing him away physically with her free hand.
“Today was an attempt to help you remember that you are still as noble and patriotic as you have ever been. I was hoping the American meal would spark that feeling of home inside you and help to fix the problem, but I guess there’s no helping someone who is hell-bent on destroying themselves. I realize now that there is one aspect about life that I have a better grasp on than you do.”
The blue eyes met his again.
“When you force yourself to remain in that deep hole you’ve been in, you’re only burdening the ones who care about you. Others have made sacrifices for you and you refuse to notice, and I have tried and tried to help you out of that place but you would not listen. How much more do we have to give up for you, Michael, before you get it?”
Tears dripped from her chin.
“How much more do I have to suffer before you realize that I love you, and that I can’t live with you ignoring my efforts to help you to live?”

The halls in the hospital were quiet at the late hour, an hour that Michael could only determine by glancing at the clock on the wall. Why was it that the mind drifts philosophically in the middle of the night?
The doctors had finished patching Jamie’s wound up at around ten, the end of a five hour process of delicate wires, stainless-steel tools, artificial muscle, and skin grafts that Michael had watched with an impassive face and aching heart. Her body had taken yet another injury because of his actions, her lifespan shortened again, and he had overheard one of the technicians mention that she was on the “short list”. He had never heard of such a list, though its ominous sounding nature made him sure that the Belisario and the other neurologists had one. 
Its implications were painfully clear: Jamie was dying.
Angelica had fallen when her mind had lost its ability to control her body. She had been wrought with injuries and chemical dependencies for quite some time, and even if Jamie was a major step forward from the first cyborg, she was still a young woman in a mechanical body.
“You’re here late, Christiansen.”
Michael turned from where he had been resting his head on his arm against the recovery-room window, sizing Belisario up with practiced eyes and noticing the fatigue starting to take hold of the man. Answers would come easier than normal...
“I can’t sleep after what I did.”
“I see.” The doctor settled into the bench-seat, flipping through the chart in his hand.
“I’ve been so stuck on myself lately. The pain inside has been the only thing I could feel, and yet I can only understand that by looking at it in hindsight.”
“Depression is like that sometimes. The mind blocks out many other things and emotions are sometimes the first to go. You shouldn’t feel bad about it, especially now after you understand it. What is important now is how you deal with the effects of your actions.”
“You mean Jamie.”
Belisario closed the chart and set it aside, thoughtfully stroking his moustache. “Yes.  We did another scan this evening before the surgery and found some more changes in her brainwave patterns.”
“She’s almost back to her old self.” Michael could feel that. 
“Yes. Well, from a technical standpoint that’s true. Her personality is quite different though, and it’s because of the way she has been integrating her older life into the new one. I have been amazed at the way she is doing it, and have to admit that I was doubtful that a cyborg could successfully integrate their lives together. Jamie has been doing so, and that’s why I have been recommending that it be allowed to happen. She has become stronger because of it, not weaker, something that gives us hope for how the third generation designs will fare.”
“Hmm.”
“But her strength comes at a cost...”
“The ‘short list’?” Michael chided himself mentally for asking about it so soon- another sign that he was pretty tired himself. Belisario seemed to shrug off any shock he might have had at Michael knowing about it.
“That’s not something you need to be concerned with.”
“Really?” His eyes met the bald mans’ and Michael felt the deception in his mind. “She’s been injured numerous times, her mind is in shambles, and her conditioning is nearly useless... Everything I know about the cyborgs tells me that these are the signs of the end. You’re the one who told me to watch out for such symptoms, so I’m asking you a direct question, as a handler, and man to man if it makes any difference. Is Jamie going to die?”
Belisario stood and stepped to the glass, gazing at the resting form of Jamie, a work of art in every sense of the word, and one he was genuinely proud of.
“We’re all dying, Christiansen. From the day of our birth we are dying. These girls have been given a reprieve from their inevitable death, not salvation from it. What we have done here with technology is no different than those few days you bought her in Paris, at least in the long run.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s all the answer I can give. I can’t tell you when it will end for her, or for any of them. I can tell you when one cyborg is starting to fail, when another is becoming forgetful, and even give an approximate time for both, but it’s never certain. Angelica held on to life in ways we could not imagine possible, and even knowing the time was near, I could not tell Marco when. It’s not within my power, nor is it my responsibility.” 
He turned and started back to his office, having discussed it enough for one day, but Michael could not be left in suspense.
“Hey!”
The angry yell received Belisario’s attention from over his shoulder.
“Is she on the short list?”
The sound of a deep breath and its release was the only thing to be heard in the hall. 
“Yes. So are many of the first generation cyborgs. Maria was just taken off of it...” He could feel Michael’s confusion at the mention of a cyborg being removed from it. “The short list is just that, a short list. We have a very finite amount of time in which we can monitor the cyborgs, and then discuss and devise repairs or fixes to what we think might be problems. To maximize the value of such time, we focus on a small list of cyborgs at a time. 
Maria’s problems had her on the list from almost day one, but since she started to develop into her body and role, she has been removed from it. Jamie has been on the list since the bombing in Rome, initially for observation, but her actions since then have made us focus on her more. The list is not something to worry about.”
He began to walk away but another thought hit him and it seemed an appropriate reminder to give.
“Just the same... If you care about her, you shouldn’t waste any more of the time you have left. What you do is dangerous and there is no guarantee from day to day.”
Michael looked again at the sleeping form in the bed. She had always been on borrowed time and he had wasted weeks of it in a cruel manner.
“Weeks we just don’t have.”

Warm sunlight filtered in through the window to stir Jamie from her fitful sleep. There was a healing strength in the rays, a strength that slowly seeped through her tired limbs as her first full day out of the hospital began. The damaged areas were repaired and the newer nano-tech skin-grafting technique made for a near-perfect repair to the silky smoothness of her skin, but the feeling of the injury remained with her. 
Even as she stretched in front of the mirror she could feel the nerves tingling halfway down her left side, a sign that some of them were still damaged from where the bullet had ripped through them.
“Ugh...”
She looked at Maria’s tired face in the mirror, her hair a mess from her own tossing and turning in the night.
“Morning, Maria.”
The younger girl looked around with tired eyes and smiled at Jamie. “Good morning. What’s for breakfast?”
“I don’t know. Does it really matter?” Jamie smiled and went back to her stretches in the mirror, flexing her arms and torso in an attempt to find anything else that might be hurting.
“Not really.” 
Maria slipped from her bed and into her sweats for her morning run, trying to get a head start on Jamie’s own exercise. Her relationship with Mario had become closer since she had forced her way in to see him, pouring her aching heart out on him and successfully breaking him of the depression he had been suffering through. 
She stopped to wrap her arms around Jamie and hug her in a sign of their warm friendship- a sign Jamie knew was a friendly ‘thank you’ from the girl for her help. 
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ll see you at breakfast.”
Jamie was alone again, so she let her eyes wander to the empty guitar stand next to her bed. She had really needed it while she had been recovering in the hospital, but now her heart positively ached for release through its strings. The pained expression on the face in the mirror pulled her back and reminded her that Michael was well again, so its sacrifice had not been in vain. 
He had been there almost every day she had been in the hospital and his own aching from his heavily bruised ribs prevented him from leaving too soon after he sat down. In the time they spent together, they had managed to get back into a warmer relationship. They had both been adults about their feelings, finding common ground once again and pulling closer because of it. It was this change for the better that made her curious as to why he had avoided her the previous day. 
As she started her morning run she thought about his actions, and as hard as she tried, she could not figure out why he had skipped out on her. By the sixth kilometer, she had come to the conclusion that he was certainly back to his normal self in that he was doing things in secret once again.
She met up with Claes and Maria as she closed in on her tenth kilometer, passing them by at first with her long legs and constant cadence, and then slowed to a less stressful pace to allow them to catch up with her. When they finally stopped in front of the dorms she had to wait for them to catch their breath to speak, perhaps reveling a bit in her stamina advantage over them.
“That was- a bit tougher.” Maria had just started running her six kilometers and Claes was straining to keep up at the pace. It had been a whimsical decision on her part, one she now questioned after seeing the way the older girls could put her to shame.
“Are you okay, Claes?”
“Yes. I’m just a bit winded, that’s all.” She sat down on the wall of her garden and glanced over the empty space, thinking about what she was going to plant in the upcoming spring and where. The simpler pursuits were her fare now.
“By the way, Jamie, we saw Michael pull in when we passed by the gate. He went into the handlers’ dorm carrying some stuff.”
“Oh?” Jamie looked towards the building, hardly needing any contemplation on her next move. “Don’t wait up for me on breakfast. I’ll catch up with you later on, okay?”
The two watched her run towards the dorm at her top speed and Maria flashed a smile after her hopeless friend. “A girl in love...”
Claes only shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

Michael’s voice sounded normal when she knocked on his door, his voice strong and clear as he bid her to enter.
“Good morning, Michael.”
“Good morning.” His eyes scanned over her in his habitual way, gleaning any bit of information he could from her before getting past the pleasantries. “You look tired.”
“I just finished my ten-kay. I came straight here afterwards, sorry.” She had to admit that she certainly smelled like sweat, a state that the more feminine part of her personality was self-conscious of. 
“It’s okay. I’m glad to see you exercising after the hospital time.” 
His hands shuffled some papers from one place on his desk to another and it saddened her that he was bringing the work home with him, though with the time they had invested in the ruse, she could understand his efforts to catch back up. Still, he really did not have to make up much, as Ferro had been carefully coordinating everything so as to lose as little time as possible.
“I talked to Bianchi this morning...”
Jamie looked away to try to hide the annoyance that her face betrayed over the troubles she had in her evaluation two days before. “What did he say?”
“He said you’re having some trouble with your weapons.”
“Bianchi said that, huh?” She closed her eyes and took a few breaths to calm a sudden anxiety she felt. It was a feeling that had been occurring since she had awoken from surgery, and it seemed most pronounced when she tried to pick up her guns.
“Yeah. It seemed important enough to warrant telling me.”
“It is.” The bed was comfortable enough so she sat down on the edge nearest him. “I can’t pick up my guns. My hands tremble uncontrollably whenever I try.”
“What did Bianchi say about it?”
There was a heavy sigh from Jamie as she released a bit of her stress in the one place she could do so freely. “He said it was in my head. That I’m just not interested in fighting through the failure I perceive in my mistake.”
Michael turned to look at her out of concern. He trusted her to be strong enough to work through it herself, but the struggle he could feel from her made it clear that she needed his help. The next forty-eight hours depended on her strength and there was no way she could find it fast enough with the empty places in her head. 
Belisario had found one of the major sticking points with another subconscious test and had recommended that Michael fix the problem as soon as possible, lest the girl start listening to the other voice in her head.
“Jamie... There is something I need to tell you.” His voice spoke of something very serious so she looked him in the eyes, but his eyes were averted down at the floor, a look of pain and shame on his face.
“What is it?”
“It’s... Um, remember when you asked me why I was avenging you and your friends, and how I said it was because no one else would?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s not the only reason.” He had managed to get the ball rolling, but now he had to get it all out before it ate at him anymore. “The reason is more personal than that.”
“Is it because of Emmy’s sister?”
“No. It’s because of me and something I did.”
A chill ran through Jamie and she felt the familiar stirrings of the woman inside her mind, the faint echo of her warnings that Michael could not be trusted. “Please tell me.”
“Well... Well, I guess there’s no easy way to say it.” Michael closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as if to begin purging himself of something he had been suffering from inside. His eyes opened again and Jamie felt a dark and burdened sincerity flow out from him. “I set you and your friends up.”
Jamie blinked twice, feeling as if her heart stopped and refused to continue beating. She silently mouthed the word ‘what’, unable to find the breath to speak aloud.
“I sent you to that club on purpose.” He had to force himself to swallow- the look from Jamie making it difficult to continue on, but the knowledge that it had to be spelled out entirely forced him on. “I was paid to send you there, by someone representing Amherst and company.”
“Michael... Michael what-“
“Let me finish, Jamie, while I can.” He had to summon up more courage for the rest, but the hard part was probably behind him, he hoped. “I was in a tight spot with my money, you know. I was barely making the rent, barely able to afford to eat, so when this guy comes up and says that he’d pay me to nudge people towards the club, I naturally thought it was a good thing. I dealt with a lot of tourists so it was only natural that I would be able to send some that way. What was it to me, you know? It’s a club, some people like it, and there really wasn’t anything in my mind that said it might be something I didn’t want involved in.”
Michael’s eyes had moistened as he talked and a part of Jamie told her that he was feeling an intense shame at how foolish he had been.
“So, I sent people there. Mostly adults, but there were a few young women, and I should have been suspicious that the guy said the club preferred the younger ones. I just figured it was the Goth generation, or something like that. It went on for a few months, getting an extra fifty or hundred a week, depending on how many I honestly claimed I sent, and I never considered that something was wrong with it all.”
His voice cracked with the last words and a tear slipped from his control to roll down his cheek and drip from his chin. Between his pain and his words, Jamie could only sit in a stunned silence and continue to listen to the details of his betrayal of her and her friends.
“Jamie, I swear to God that I didn’t know what was going on. It’s easy for me to look back now and connect the string of rapes and killings to what I, and possibly others, were unintentionally doing. It all hit me after I found you bleeding in that warehouse and went on to the hospital, and I felt so stupid at how I had let myself be used. What happened to you and your friends is my fault, Jamie, whether I meant for it to happen or not. There is no way I can hope for forgiveness- not from you or anyone. It sounds selfish, but I’m killing them for how they used me as much as for you and Carol and Angela.”
There was only silence from the woman across from him, and somehow that seemed worse than any other reaction she might have had. He could not tell whether she was angry, or withdrawing further, or anything else, and that frightened him. She was faced with information that contradicted everything she felt and had been programmed with, so where she would come down was anyone’s guess, but he was certain that this revelation was going to be a make or break matter for her.
Jamie would either become stronger from it, or she would die... and so would he.
“Jamie. Jamie, say something please?”
When the eyes flashed back up from the floor they were the eyes of a victim, the woman she became that night in Paris. Her body trembled from a cocktail of anger, anguish, fear, and sadness, and her mouth opened and closed wordlessly, as if what she had to say could never be uttered aloud.
“Jamie-“ He reached out to touch her arm and the act served to sever her from her silence.
“Get away from me!!!” 
Michael’s ears were assaulted by the loudness of her scream, the pain almost as bad as the sting of her hand as she slapped his away. She lurched to her feet and took two steps before doubling over, her knees collapsing beneath her and her body shaking terribly even as she continued to crawl her way towards the door. 
At first Michael thought it was the conditioning taking hold once again, but something told him that it was not. It was the breakdown of the separation within her mind; similar to the night she had killed that Martin guy outside of Paris. Her mind was being deluged in memories and sensations that she was powerless to stop.
“Jamie, let me-“
“Shut up!” She somehow managed to stand on shaky legs, holding her stomach with one arm while sticking her other out to keep him at a distance. She was fighting to keep control of her body in order to give a threat less opportunity. Michael was the threat, he understood from the look in her eyes, a threat she only wanted to get away from.
“Please...”
Her body shook with a tremor as she summoned strength from deep inside. “Stay away from me, Michael Christiansen. Stay away or I will hurt you.” 
He could read a considerable amount of confusion in her eyes, but there was a determination to no longer be a victim that was overpowering it, and this was driving her.
“I’m sorry.”
His apology did not faze her in the least. “That means less than nothing to me now, Michael. I’ve been with you through all of this thing you thought would be a life, and yet you were lying to me through most of it. I trusted in you to do right by me- to protect me, and to guide me. And even in the moments that we failed each other, I knew that we were trying our best.”
The strength within her surged for what Michael knew was the final word on the matter.
“There is no longer any trust, Michael. It can’t exist within me anymore, and in that you have violated me worse than they did.” 
She slammed the door behind her, providing a somewhat welcome wall between the focused anger and his heart. He sat down on the bed, running his hand through his hair and thinking of her words, and how true they really were. 
What was he asked before? What would he do when she finally found out what part he had played... or something like that. The question was more accurately phrased as what would she do to him when she found out. Events were moving rapidly along and he had to have her ready to meet them face-to-face, so the decision to confront her with the truth was one made with relatively good intentions in mind. The risks seemed worth it, but her actual reaction was not something that would be easy to fix.
Maybe he had counted on her love too much. 

Chapter 34

The light had long started to fade from the pre-spring sky, and the reddish hues that tinted the clouds promised another fine day the next- sights and thoughts that were observed and discarded in the troubled mind of a young woman as she continued running the long series of roads that circled the agency campus. Normally it would have been worth stopping for a moment to enjoy the view, but not today. 
Today she only felt the desire to run away.
Michael had betrayed her. There was no other way to put it, and in that there was a desire to leave everything behind and make her own way in life. It had even occurred to her to jump the fence and take off, and to live as long as she could on the run. It would be a challenge, but the things she had endured in both of her lives had made her strong and quick witted, and the test would be in how long she could go before they caught up.
But those ideas were only her mind’s way of imagining a possibility in favor of calming her down. There was no way she could escape entirely, not with her dependencies and that damn tracking device in her head. She could never sleep soundly for fear of being caught off-guard, and even the long run she was pushing herself in reminded her that she simply could not run forever without a rest.
And then there was Michael. The man did not know how to stop. He would continue pursuing her, unceasing and inevitably towards her recapture. He had tracked her in Paris and she had been entirely oblivious in spite of her training and careful eyes watching for such a follower. Her skills were no match for his, not to mention that he knew how she thought and had taught her how to do everything. He knew where her weak points were, where her strong points were, and exactly how to strike at her.
Jamie paused in her run, slowing to a stop and hunching over, hands on her knees and lungs gasping for air. She could feel every muscle in her body aching, the dull burn telling her that they had been pushed harder than before, and she had been running for hours straight, marathon distance, with her only companion being a long-empty water bottle. 
It wasn’t a matter of being a runner junkie, but of her seeking for the feeling of escape. Her hands felt weak from her lack of playing on her guitar, so the rest of her body felt like doing something else to compensate. 
The road ahead was darkening in the dusk and she knew she had to go back. She was thirsty, hungry, sweaty, and so very tired. Maybe that was what she was looking for- a physical feeling to match her emotional and intellectual feelings. 
If that were the case, she was now feeling it.
It didn’t matter though, because no matter how tired she was there were still a few miles more to go to get back, and she had to finish it.

The car was easy to hear with her earplugs out, and its approach as she was closing in on a single mile remaining made her slow her pace in order to be easier seen in the darkness that had fallen. The headlights approached and slowed as they gave her space on the road, and Jamie finally recognized it as Priscilla’s Beetle, perhaps the least offensive person she could think of at the moment.
“Hey!” The older woman slowed and paced Jamie as she settled into a fast walk to cool down.
“Hey.”
“How far have you gone?”
“Almost four hours...about twenty-eight or thirty miles.”
“Wow!”
Priscilla dug around in her car, swerving a bit as she did so, and quickly stretched an arm out the window with a fresh bottle of water. Jamie took it without hesitation and took a large mouthful, holding in her parched mouth for almost a minute before slowly swallowing it.
“You look tired, Jamie.”
“I am tired.”
As if to punctuate the statement, her foot caught on a hump in the asphalt, causing her to stumble forward. She managed to stay on her feet and continue on, though, under the worried look of a friend. The water had given her some more strength, and she felt enough of it to believe in her ability to finish the last mile.
“Would you like a ride back?”
“No. I want to finish this run.”
“Okay,” said Priscilla with a resigned look. “I’ll just stick here with you in case you change your mind.”
Michael had sent her, Jamie could tell by Priscilla’s tone as she tried to cover something up. She always had terrible duplicity. 
“What about you? Are you just out for a drive?” Jamie picked up the pace a bit to a steady jog.
“Err...Sort of.” The words trailed off for twenty yards or so. “Actually, Michael sent me out to find you. He was worried that you did not come back for dinner.”
“That’s nice.”
She started running faster out of irritation, forcing Priscilla to actually give the car some gas to keep up, rather than letting the engine idle.
“He said we should talk.”
“Why? Is he too much of a coward to do it himself?”
“He doesn’t want to hurt you any more.”
“Why not? He seems to take a perverse pleasure in it.”
Priscilla swerved the car closer and grabbed her arm, yanking Jamie to a stop as she slammed on the brakes. Jamie glared at the woman and forced her instinctive response to fight back down where she could control it.
“Is that what you think?” Her tone was sharp and put forth to show Jamie just who was the grown-up in the conversation. Their eyes leveled on the field of battle and even with Jamie’s height advantage, the blonde was not going to back down.
“You know what he did?”
“Everybody knows what he did back then. Hell, the hard part was getting him to shut up about it!” She leaned against her car and looked around at the blackness that was engulfing the evening. Jamie could not know what Michael had been like after he first joined the agency, and that lack of knowledge was perhaps the one thing that Jamie needed to understand him like Priscilla could. 
“Jamie, Michael could not live with himself if he had been purposely hurting you like that. When he first joined up and started to grasp what it was the two of you would be doing, he began to worry about how well he would be able to ‘help you’, as he put it.”
Jamie gave a disbelieving look but it vanished just as quickly when she read the sincerity in Priscilla’s face.
“He said that?”
“Yes. He has never viewed you as a tool or someone to do his work for him. It’s what sets him apart from everyone else here, Jamie, and you know him well enough that you know it’s something he has stuck to and is proud of. It’s why he can’t see the ways in which he’s changed since coming here- because the focal point of his heart has not changed.”
Jamie didn’t respond, instead her mind worked the idea around inside, fitting yet another aspect of Michael Christiansen in to the puzzle that she could not solve.
“He loves you, Jamie. His heart has always wanted what was best, even from that moment you coughed a desperate breath in that warehouse. It’s his nature, just as your determination is part of yours. When he took charge of you then, he knew in his heart that he was in it forever. For most men that is a frightening thing to face, but he never, ever, shied away from it, and you know it.”
“You’re saying that what he did wasn’t wrong?”
“No- No of course it was wrong. He made a mistake, Jamie. He was trying so hard to keep you developing into your own person that he lost sight of how much the truth can hurt. I know he’s struggled to decide when to tell you. I also know that it has been hurting him inside as the consequences of telling you have become more overwhelming by the day.”
Priscilla could see that Jamie was thinking beyond her anger now, and it was all Michael had asked Priscilla to assist with.
“He’s human, Jamie, the same as you. Everyone makes mistakes, many of then hurt like Hell at the time, but the ones that have to simmer for a long time are the worst. He hates himself now for having held that information from you. He hates that you no longer feel you can trust him. And he hates the fact that he has hurt you so much that he has to hope to God that you’ll forgive him for it all. Through all of that hatred he has for himself, he still has love for you, and he’s hoping you’ll understand that.”
A cold breeze picked up and made Jamie shiver in her damp clothes, giving her another reason to just accept everything and get in the car. But there was a part of her that said she needed time still, and that the time was worth a little suffering.
“I need to think on this. Thank you for coming out and speaking with me.”
Jamie began to run again, this time back the way she had come. She needed more time and it seemed like the best way was to run another full lap of the compound. She could hear Priscilla dial her phone behind her, the sharp tones being carried on the wind and the tones telling Jamie whose number she had dialed. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t guess anyway, but the woman’s words that followed the tones told her enough about how much pain and fear Michael had in order to ask someone else to come out for him-
“...No, Michael, and... I’m sorry.”

She had fallen asleep in the shower, Jamie realized, and the tile-floor awakening she had received complemented the aching feel in her muscles as they began to stiffen up from the hard exercise, the result of which made her struggle up the flights of stairs with an off-balance sway. Her towel came in handy at the top when her exhaustion hit hard and only a quick flip of the towel around the banister had saved her from a long set of steps and the associated embarrassment. 
She regained her footing after a moment of gasped breaths and flipped the towel onto her head, fluffing a bit more of the dampness from it as she blindly opened the door and stepped inside her room. The reading light had been visible from under the door so she had naturally assumed that Maria was still awake.
“I’m back.”
There was an uncomfortable silence that made her hair rise a bit, or at least enough so that she flipped the towel off her head to see what was wrong. Her eyes came to rest on Michael, who was patiently waiting for her in the desk chair, and had a face as sad and lonely as the one she’d seen the day Tanya was killed.
There were no words worthy of speaking in her mind. She really could not say that she was thinking anything, either. It was as if the moment had wiped her entire mind blank in the unexpected shock of the situation. The heated feelings of the day, along with the strenuous exercise, had left her emotionally empty to the point that a reaction was not available. 
A minute passed, and then two, before she finally managed to focus on the fact that her roommate was not around. She clicked the door closed and stepped past Michael to her clothes hamper, dropping her sweaty clothes inside with the rest of her laundry, and then placing a post-it note from the desk on it to remind her to do her wash.
“Where’s Maria?”
If her decision to converse surprised him, he did not show it. His tone suggested that he was as drained as she. “Mario took her out for the weekend to help with her recovery.”
“I see. Did she let you in?”
“No, I let myself in. I’m sorry.”
The apology did not warrant a response, so none was given as she pulled her pajamas from the dresser, turned her back to him, and slipped the robe from her shoulders. A glance at Michael found him looking at Maria’s side of the room, seemingly in a tired sort of daze and entirely oblivious to the now-naked young woman near him. Her clothes were pulled on quickly and she settled onto the bed next to a large box he had evidently brought with him.
“What is this?”
“Hm?” He gave her a confused look until his eyes landed on the box she was quietly tapping. “Oh. Those belong to you.”
Jamie was curious at this odd behavior from him, so she pulled off the top of the box and pulled out a battered notebook, one of numerous identical pieces that were inside. She flipped open to a random page and glanced at the writing, feeling out of sorts as she recognized it as her own.
“This-“
“Those are your diaries from your life. They were given to me when you were still being trained to walk and talk again, and I have kept them safe in the hopes that I could understand, and maybe even rebuild, the woman you used to be.” He let out a long, drawn-out sigh, letting the world slip from his shoulders for a few moments. “But in that I was wrong. You’re not Janet Wells anymore. Parts of her live on within you, but hoping that you would go back to being that girl was nothing but the selfishness of a guilt-ridden man. I was hoping that- If I could only get the woman you used to be back, in whole, that I could somehow explain everything, and then be granted a meaningful forgiveness.” His sad eyes moved to her briefly before returning forward for his next admission. “ ‘If only you were her, the words and meaning would be real’, I thought.”
“You think that, because I’m a cyborg and have a different personality, that I can’t grant you that forgiveness?”
“At this point, Jamie, I don’t think anyone can. Maybe you were right. Maybe there really is no forgiveness in the larger scheme of things.”
Jamie put the book back in the box and set it gently on the floor before stretching out on her bed, pondering the thought for several moments.
“If that’s the truth of existence, then what is love?”
“Love is an anchor that drowns a man.”
“ ‘Love is never having to say you’re sorry’. In those words is the quintessential requirement that you must know someone, be so in tune with their emotions, that you know that they know where your heart lies. To believe such a situation to even exist means being able to forgive, not just another, but one’s own failings.”
He thought about that one for a while as the silence continued to surround them both, and the warm, comfortable surroundings weighed heavily on their tired souls. Neither would fall asleep- Sleep was simply not possible until they had resolved their problems.
“Is it a matter of asking for your forgiveness?” Michael was asking for help in doing the right thing by her, as he simply was not sure what he should do to fix the problem.
“No. It’s a matter of you figuring out whether or not you have earned my forgiveness through understanding. You have hurt me, Michael, and at a time that I really have no outlets for the many other pains that I feel.” She gestured at the box with a sweep of her arm. “You’ve returned something to me and for that I am thankful, but it can’t buy my heart.”
“That wasn’t my intention. I can’t keep anything from you anymore, not after what I have done. In promoting your understanding of self beyond what the agency has wanted, I made you reliant on your own emotional and intellectual gifts, and I have been starving you of the things you need to grow in order to maintain some control over it. Maybe it’s habit, maybe it’s ego, but it happened and it was wrong.”
“So...” She stared at him from the bed, her eyes still speaking the doubt she held deep inside. “Where does this leave us? You don’t know how to regain my trust, and I don’t know whether to believe you anyway.”
“Yeah...”
There was another long pause while they both thought of any way they could salvage the situation but the gulf between them was too wide. There was nothing Michael could do or say that would assure her trust in him, and there was nothing she could say that would help him feel less guilty about his acts. They read each other and silently agreed that there would be no end at that time.
Michael stood and pulled on his coat for the walk to the handler dorm. “I guess I’ll be going now.”
“Okay.” Jamie rolled from the bed and walked him to the door. There was a moment as she started to close the door when their eyes connected. It lasted only a fraction of a second, but Jamie felt nothing from it. The way her heart leapt was noticeably absent, the unconscious anticipation of it leaving her feeling empty inside as the door latched shut.
Her legs felt like rubber, her entire body and mind were empty of emotion, and the fatigue blinded her to her guitar case at the end of her bed and how it was laying flat and in her path. Her foot caught on it and she stumbled, catching herself with a quick hand on the bed before she could fall to the floor. 
There was a stunned look on the face of the woman she saw in the mirror as her brain tried to filter out the extraneous information from what had just happened, working to bring forward what had tripped an alarm bell in her brain. She gave the case a kick with her foot and a resonate tone sounded after the thump, a nearly silent bit of noise that only her ears could have heard.
Jamie settled onto her knees and pulled the case to her, feeling it’s heavier weight as it slid across the floor, and her heart quickened as her fingers popped the latches without conscious thought. The lid opened, and her heart stopped, as her eyes and memory seemed to conspire to drive her mad any way they could.
Inside the case was an acoustic guitar, well worn but functional, and pale-white in color. There was a faded pawnshop tag on the bottom near the strap pin, and a single button was missing from the pickup equalizer on the top. A pick was set between three of the strings and she pulled it out, holding it in her teeth as she brushed her thumb across the strings, feeling the warm and comforting tones as they wafted from the guitar, a guitar she knew better than anything else in the world.
It was her guitar, the one she could never forget, and he had given it back to her without any conditions.

Somehow Jamie had found the strength to run again, stumbling a bit on the stairs but trying for all she was worth to ignore that and the cold wind that assaulted her as she crossed between the buildings to the handler dorm via the shortest route. Michael was just unlocking his door when she caught up with him, gasping for air and holding back tears.
“Where did you find it?”
Michael watched her to make sure she was in a condition to deal with the answer, but then figured that she had run the whole way for an answer, so she deserved one- the truth.
“It was given to me along with the diaries... By Carol’s mother.”
“Evelyn...” She choked off a sob that had escaped. “She was always so good to me.”
“She loved you like her own daughter. She was in a lot of pain when I spoke to her, but she gave me your things in the hope that your words would help others in pain find their way, just as they had helped her.”
“That’s the truth?”
“God’s truth, Jamie.”
The tears refused to be contained any longer and she wiped them away furiously, trying hard to keep a controlled face. She had to know the rest. “You’ve kept it safe all this time? Why?”
“Because I knew that someday you would need it. I was scared to give it to you at first, but by the time I understood that what memories it would bring back were already there, you had become attached to the other one.”
She finally looked up at him, not caring what weakness her eyes would reveal. “Why didn’t you tell me in my room?”
“Because your happiness is not a bargaining chip. I returned it to you because I knew it would bring that warm smile back, even if we didn’t fix our trust in each other.” The door swung open and he stepped inside without looking back at her. “If I had handed it to you directly, you would have thought I was being less than sincere.”
“Yes. Yes I would.”
He waited a moment for that information to sink in, waiting for her to react in some way that he could work off of, but she was still stunned, so he decided it might be best if he called it a night. “Goodnight Jamie. Try to get some rest. We have a busy couple of days ahead.”
Michael closed the door between them but Jamie could not let it go yet. Her heart, which had recently been so filled with rage and disappointment at him, now had only a longing to be beside him. Her fists slammed against the door as the tears poured from her eyes, sobs racking her body, and no longer having any trouble saying what she felt.
“Michael! Michael, I forgive you! I forgive you Michael. Please, let me stay with you. I don’t want to be alone tonight!” 
Michael listened to her cries from the other side of the door and hoped she wouldn’t try to bust it in while he leaned against it. He kept telling himself that he needed some distance between them, and that feeling any form of attraction for her was wrong, but his heart was perhaps the new battleground. Her forgiveness had brought new life to a part of his soul that had been rotting away slowly, its putrid stench an irritation to him. He had felt less of a man because of it, and now that it was gone he could honestly feel worthy of her feelings again.
“Please, Michael.” Her voice quieted and was barely audible through the door. “Please... We’ve wasted so much time already.”
The words stabbed him through the heart, igniting the anguish he held over her short lifespan. It was his biggest regret now that the lies were behind him, and even as his mind questioned whether she knew that or not, his heart drove his hand to open the door. 
Their eyes met, staring into each other’s for long moments as they read the thoughts behind them, and Jamie realized she had been holding her breath, the long overdue exhale sending a tremble through her. Her hand reached out to touch his face, tracing the track of a tear he had been unable to contain. 
“This really has been killing you inside.”
“Yeah. Because I knew how much it would hurt you.”
“I can see that now. I understand.” 
She closed her eyes and tilted her face towards the heavens, a deep breath and its release calming her tired soul once again. Things were clear to her again, and the lifting of the distractions set her mind free. She had not felt this way in some time, at least since she had last seen Tanya alive. 
Her hand found his and the slightest of smiles formed on her lips. “Come with me, Michael.”
She led him outside and back across the courtyard, up the stairs, and back into her room. He had started to sit down on the chair, but she waved him over to the bed where she had settled against the headboard with the guitar, deftly tuning it to perfection.
“I’m going to play for you, because it’s the only way to tell you.”
Michael settled onto the bed, stretching out across the width, really relaxing for the first time in he didn’t know how long. He closed his eyes as she began to play a soft rhythm, picking the strings for a song he had never heard.
“We’re all guilty of the same things,
We think the thoughts whether or not we see them through.
And I know that I have been forgiven,
And I just hope that you can forgive me too.”

The guitar’s sound was unbelievable and Michael could not say that he had ever heard one so warm and inviting as the one Jamie now held in her hands. The notes invited his heart into hers- the instrument mirroring the soul of the player in every detail.

“So don’t you dare blame me for
Prying open the door
That’s unleashed the bitterness
That’s here in the midst of this
Sometimes we live for no one but ourselves.

And what we’ve been striving for
Has turned into nothing more
Than bodies limp on the floor.
Victims of falling short,
We kiss goodbye the cheek of our true love.

Cause we’re all guilty of the same things,
We think the thoughts whether or not we see them through.
And I know that I have been forgiven,
And I just hope that you can forgive me too.”

Jamie ad-libbed a flourish ending, feeling her body relax in the familiar sound and feel of her guitar. It had played perfectly, just as it always had, and she knew that the song had come to her again because her heart had needed to say it.
“That was beautiful, Jamie.” Michael’s eyes had not opened since he had leaned back, but she knew he could not fall asleep while she played.
“Thanks... It was a little strange to play that like this, since it was originally a faster-paced song. I met Reliant K several years back and this song was one of my favorites, because it speaks of the forgiveness we should grant because we’re guilty of the same things.” She began to play again softly with no particular song in mind, letting the sound fill the room with the relaxing feel.
“Yeah.” He turned his head to look at her, marveling inside at how strong and sure she looked now in spite of everything that had been happening between them. “You’re beautiful like that, you know.”
“Hm? Oh...” She blushed at his compliment but never wavered from her playing, but not knowing what to say. “Thank you.”
They continued in silence for a while, just listening to the guitar, and basking in the quality time they could spend together once again. The time spent was worth more than gold to them, even if it contained no words.
 Jamie was just beginning to nod off when a familiar sound met her ears, the metallic swishing sound echoing up the stairs and down the hall.
“Priscilla’s coming. She’s probably wanting to talk to you.”
Michael sat up and went to the door, getting there just after Priscilla knocked softly. She seemed surprised that he had opened the door so quickly but brushed it off as she gave Jamie an apologetic look.
“I’m sorry to bother you two, but Mario just got back with a prisoner and wanted you to meet him in the cell block.”
“A prisoner? I thought he was taking the weekend off.”
The woman shrugged, “so did he, I imagine.”
“Okay, I’ll meet him down there. Thanks.”
Priscilla looked past him to Jamie and waved. “I’m glad to see you two have patched things up again. Goodnight, Jamie.”
“Goodnight.” 
 Michael closed the door again and looked to his cyborg, his sister and friend. She slipped from the bed and walked to her dresser to start pulling some clothes out.
“You should stay and get some sleep, Jamie. We’ve got a lot of work to catch up on and I need you fresh and on the ball.”
“Are you sure?” The question was from a woman who loved, her concern dripping from the words.
“Yeah. I’m sure it won’t take long to deal with whatever Mario has for me.”
“Okay. Don’t get into any trouble without me.”
He smiled as he stepped out the door, looking back at her as he closed it.
“Me? Trouble?”

Mario was waiting outside an interrogation room with Hilshire, the smoke from Mario’s cigar curling lazily down the hall as it dissipated. It had a sweet smell that was not unpleasant and it reminded him of the pipe tobacco his grandfather smoked when Michael was a boy. It also reminded him that Mario only smoked that flavor when he had a successful mission. Maria was also there, staring into the room and clutching a bandage to her arm.
“You’re back early. What happened?”
“We were heading out of town when this joker and his friends ran us off the road.” He stuck a thumb past his shoulder at the man in the room who had been handcuffed behind his back to a chair. “It’s the same bastards that hit us in Pisa. Maria was smart and took the offensive before they even got their car stopped. This is the only one she allowed to live, and it’s only because he was dumb enough to surrender.”
“Nice...” Michael could see Maria’s face reflecting hatred in the window. “So what did you need me for?”
Mario pulled a shiny object from his pocket and held it out for Michael. “He had this on him, and Victor said you would want to deal with it.”
A curious look crossed Michael’s face as he held out his hand, but it was washed away by one of seething hatred as he flipped the Zippo lighter over in his hand and ran his thumb across the dragon emblem that was etched on the side. It was a unique design, only found in one place and in one way- killing ranking members of a certain Triad, one that had been peddling drugs in a market they shouldn’t have.
“I see...” Another glance at the prisoner, “has he been filed yet?”
“No. We haven’t made any official arrest. He’s been quiet so far.”
“Well then, I guess we can question him now.” Michael walked to the door, pausing only to pull Maria’s knife from its sheath, an act that did not faze her in the least. “I’ll make him talk.”
“Michael...” Hilshire’s tone was a warning to not step too far beyond the line.
“I won’t kill him.”
The statement was made coldly, and with the neutral expression of a man beyond anger. Hilshire wouldn’t place bets on what kind of condition the man would be in after it was all over, because he really didn’t know.

The room was cold and plain- the same as any other interrogation room he had ever seen. Of some difference was a set of blinds that covered the one-way glass to the hallway, and these he closed in the interest of his image. It wouldn’t do for the rank and file workers in the agency to know what he was capable of.
Michael glared at the man, his eyes evaluating what the man was likely to be able to withstand. His instincts were usually right on such things and he considered it to be a gift of sorts. The man looked up at him and read nothing, he could tell, and Michael almost had pity on the fool he was facing.
Almost.
“It’s only to sooth my conscience in advance that I am telling you that you really should tell me everything. The answers that I want are worth a lot of pain and suffering on your part, and I am going to collect.”
“Fuck you.” He spat and Michael’s shoe would need a cleaning. Michael refused to be baited, however, knowing full well that such a response meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
“Question One: Do you run into a lot of Triad guys in your work?” He held up the lighter for the man to see, knowing that he didn’t have a clue as to where the thing originated. He only knew where he found it. The lack of response was answer enough for Michael who did not want an answer anyway.
“How about blonde CIA agents?”
The eyes came up again, this time with fear that Michael exploited by stepping closer, casually flipping the lid of the lighter open and closed rhythmically.
“Doing Amherst’s dirty work has gotten a lot of people killed. More will be on the way to the morgue soon, of that you can be sure. But what I want to hear is how you caught up with her, where you took her, and where I can find any others involved that aren’t already dead.”
“I-I don’t have to answer anything without a lawyer!”
Michael smiled, amused at the man’s lack of understanding of just how serious Michael was.
“You are going to want to, believe me.”
Michael picked up the knife and leaned close to his target, resting the point of the blade just below the eye.
“Don’t sneeze.” He dragged the point slowly down the cheek, letting the razor-sharp edge carve into flesh, but only enough to bleed and scar. The pain was nowhere near what would be needed to get answers, but Michael figured he would give the man a chance at least.
 He still did not feel like talking, apparently, so the lighter came out. A yank of the head immobilized it in Michael’s firm grip and the flame cauterized the wound, forcing a shrill scream from the man as flesh and hair burned under the flame only centimeters from his eye. 
He flipped the lighter closed and sat down at the other end of the table with his notepad, certain from the look of pain on the man’s face that answers would be coming now. With pathetic lackeys like this, you only needed to reinforce the idea that there were worse things than death available to a determined interrogator.
“Now then, back to the question...”