detective The Littlest Spy [Chapter 40 / 2025-04-10]

[Kitty Angel]

Here's the start of a story I've been posting on a few different sites. It's a slow burn, but any criticism is very much welcome. I think I've got thirty-something chapters written now, so might take a while to catch up with the other places I've been posting.

Any comments and corrections very much welcome. Specifically, I'm never sure if I'm being too heavy-handed with foreshadowing and clues. If you can see what's coming, please let me know; so I have a better idea if it's too obvious or not.

 

ACT I: Briefing

1. Prologues

Light on the factory floor was mostly from the faint glow of furnaces, or some complex chemical process. Occasionally, the flicker of welding caused the shadows to shift for a couple of seconds before darkness returned. The machines didn’t need light to work by. The shadows seemed alive, writhing in the corners and clinging to every surface. Narrow metal catwalks lined the perimeter, suspended precariously over a sprawling industrial space. Below the walkways, massive stainless steel vats brewed and distilled mysterious chemical concoctions, bubbly liquids gurgling as gases percolated up through them. Steam rose in wispy tendrils, collecting under the catwalks and obscuring the view across the cavernous hall.

A figure walked along down below, a flashlight casting to either side. Maybe a janitor or night guard inspecting the place. The days when a site like this would have required hundreds of workers to keep it going were long gone. Now, the only serious tasks were making sure that none of the machines had warning lights lit, and that there was nobody here who wasn’t supposed to be. The last intruder had been a rat, found nesting in the ductwork a month before. People were still talking about it.

On the gantry above, if you looked from just the right angle, you might have noticed a couple of shadows looking a little more organic than the latticework of steel and concrete. A really careful observer, if they waited long enough, might have seen those shadows moving again after a long, cautious pause. Two figures, scurrying across a catwalk while keeping low to the ground so they couldn’t be seen from below. The larger one went first, moving with a quiet confidence, while the frustration of the second was clear in the way that it moved.

Their footsteps didn’t make a sound even on the metal gantry, and the distant man on the ground was completely unaware of them as he continued surveying some of the industrious machines. As they came to the middle of the catwalk they moved more nervously; exposed in the open space, with sheer drops on either side down to the chemical basins simmering stories below. Reaching an intersection, the taller figure paused, broad shoulders backlit by the eerie green glow of a monitor as he peered down each possible path. His muscular frame was obvious even through his dark utilitarian clothes.

Beside him, the smaller figure froze as someone else’s footsteps started to shake the steel beneath their feet. Their slim build was almost lost in the oversized utility uniform they wore, and they stood with a tension that said flight was an option at any moment. With a few quick hand signals, the partner indicated a patrol emerging from the left passage. Another gesture pointed towards a place where the computer terminal at the side of the walkway – maybe all the buttons to shut down the machines below in case someone were to fall – could conceal them from whoever was generating a more prominent set of footsteps. The smaller figure was moving back already, desperate to hide before they were discovered.

But the larger man didn't retreat. His head turned back and forth as if considering multiple options when there was only one sane choice available. With a sudden burst of speed he charged forward into the intersecting catwalk, directly toward the oncoming guards. A dozen panicked shots ricocheted in the darkness, nowhere near their target as they reacted in pure surprise. The brute’s bellow inspired terror before he crashed into them with the force of a freight train. They had guns, but those were no use against a figure within arm’s length, ignoring his own sidearm and swinging a length of steel pipe around his head. A fierce brawl ensued, but the guards had never signed up for this kind of conflict and their reflexes simply weren’t fast enough.

As three uniformed figures tumbled to the ground, one of them rolling over the side of the catwalk, the fourth member of the team just about managed to back away far enough to bring his rifle to bear. But he didn’t reckon with the second figure rising up behind him out of nowhere and tightening a cord around his neck. Seconds later he fell to the ground unconscious.

The smaller intruder cringed at the reckless frontal attack, but was smart enough to know there was no sense in complaining about what had already happened. There had been so much noise in the fight, and the sound of gunfire was sure to attract even more security. They needed to complete their mission as quickly and quietly as possible.

With a shudder, the slight figure pulled a security access card from the pocket of the nearest guard. They just needed to get to the records room, and they might just have time before more reinforcements arrived. Smoke was rising at the side of the vast chamber in any case, and there was an acrid smell in the air. There was more light now, an amber flickering glow, and it didn’t take a genius to guess that one of the vats on the far side of the hall could have been ignited by a stray bullet.

“Thanks,” the larger figure grunted, and then kept on walking in the direction they had been moving. He didn’t bother to keep low, focusing on speed now that stealth was off the table.

“Subtle as always, Dash,” his partner sighed, stepping over another fallen guard.

“We don’t need subtle, Ghost. We get the job done.” He was already at the door of the records room, seemingly oblivious to the growing flames and smoke on the far side of the facility. A few seconds later his partner joined him and swiped the purloined keycard to get the door open.

The records room was darker than the factory floor; there was no flicker of industrial processes here, and one computer screen in the corner was showing an endless montage of security footage from different parts of the facility. Right now, it showed a considerable number of running men with weapons, in between shots of more uniformed figures trying without success to stop a roaring blaze.

Brock stared at the screen for a moment, and then flicked the lights on. Fluorescent tubes buzzed into life, one of them flickering intermittently. While he stood a little way back from the doorway, expecting more intruders, his partner dashed straight towards one of the server racks and plugged in a ruggedised laptop.

A uniformed figure burst into the room, and was efficiently rendered unconscious. Brock barely broke a sweat.

“How long's this gonna take?” he asked. “Organised resistance will be here any minute.”

“That’s why we were supposed to avoid the guards until we’re here. I bypassed the encryption, just need to finish downloading the files. Guess there’s no point covering out tracks now.” He focused intently on the screen while a progress bar ticked across. "Shouldn't be long. But have you thought how we’re going to get out of here? They’re not going to–”

A sound like distant thunder rocked the building, and the floor shuddered beneath their feet. The security monitor showed scenes of utter chaos from the cameras that were still working. The acrid smell of chemicals flooded the hallway. Brock laughed loudly.

“That’ll keep 'em occupied! Explosions have a way of grabbing your attention. C’mon, let’s hustle.“

“Right!” The smaller figure sighed, hands flying across the keys. His voice didn’t betray any surprise that their mission had turned out this way; but it was clear that he was longing for a break. Moments later the computer signalled it was ready, and two figures were again running along catwalks as more explosions rocked the building. Dash was right about one thing: The guards had bigger things to worry about than two running figures.

* * *

Nina leaned against the bars enclosing her, trying to make out signs of anything interesting in the rest of the room. There were other girls out there, she was sure, but she hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to any of them yet. She could hear the sound of crying, which made her a little apprehensive about what might happen to her if she couldn’t find a way out of this strange place. But she didn’t really understand this place; her jailors had only ever told her what they wanted her to do, never going into why. But she could see the shape of it, and she told herself that she wanted no part of it; shutting down any hormonal fantasies that weren’t rooted in the real world. She twisted the ring on her finger, hoping that Victor would come to rescue her soon. They hadn’t taken the ring away; that must mean there was still a chance, mustn’t it?

She didn’t understand the chain of events that had brought her here. They were supposed to be spending a couples weekend at a luxury spa. It would have been one of the high points of her time with him; although their whole engagement so far had seemed to be nothing but a string of high points, and the house had been nothing to laugh at either. But… But now she wasn’t at a spa. She was trapped in this weird, creepy space god-knew how many stories below ground, where nobody would ever be able to find her. And she didn’t have the first clue what the people here were planning to do with her. She couldn’t escape; the bars were more than just ornamental. So all she could do was hope that Victor would come to look for her sooner or later.

Footsteps approached before two figures in white-and-blue uniforms reached her enclosure. This was a familiar routine as well. She recognised the taller figure, a woman who had introduced herself as Claudine when they first met. She was probably in charge, because she was the only person Nina had seen wearing a name badge in here, and in fact the only person whose name she had known in the last week. The other person was just there to provide muscle; nameless, and interchangeable. They never said Nina’s name either; though she had no idea whether they actually didn’t knew it, or just knew how much dehumanising her added to the emotional impact of this experience.

“Time to eat, sweetie,” Claudia said with a sadistic smirk. Nina cowered back, knowing what was coming and also acutely aware that it was her own fault. She had refused to eat on her first day here, wanting to show that there were some things she was still in control of. They had proved her wrong. On the second day she had been given another chance to prove that she was willing to go along with the programme; but she had been too stubborn. They wouldn’t give her the choice again. And the knowledge that she had wasted a tiny sliver of freedom on something so petty only reminded her – every time she thought about it – that she would have more freedom if she did what she was told in future.

The man beside Claudine responded to her glare by turning and fiddling with the locks for a moment. Then there were no bars between her and freedom, just two people larger and stronger than her. They picked her up without any apparent effort, and carried her between them. She was going to get breakfast now, and it was clear that she had no choice in the matter. She didn’t bother to fight, she knew that there was no point. And her new compliance earned a smile and a pat on the head, along with a few reassuring words about what a good girl she was. Nina found herself blushing, surprised by how quickly she had gotten used to this treatment. She didn’t say anything as they deposited her on the chair, and set about strapping her in so that she couldn’t escape even if she thought there might be some chance of finding her way up to the surface through this labyrinth.

A rubbery bulb was forced between her lips and Nina knew better than to fight it. A moment later there was warm sweet liquid filling her mouth, and she had no choice but to swallow. And despite her fear, she found herself somehow feeling not entirely afraid in this situation. Sure, she was trapped with no suggestion of when she would get out. But they weren’t actually hurting her, and so long as she did everything they wanted, she would be pretty comfortable. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

After Claudine and her assistants had left the room, Nina still never felt like she was alone. She didn’t know that there was a doctor watching her on a video monitor; but there was something about the decor that made it feel like she had no privacy at all. It was the kind of place where there would always be someone watching.

She swallowed again, feeling the warm liquid running down her throat. It was actually pretty nice, if she just didn’t think about the situation, or her lack of choice in all of this. And it was easy not to think as she drank more. She found her thoughts getting fuzzier, and everything starting to blur. A minute later she would have been smiling, but for the bulb dispensing medicine into her mouth. And a little after that, she wasn’t thinking anything at all.

Nina didn’t hear the conversation between Claudine and Dr Renault, commenting on how well she was progressing, or how soon she would be ready. And even if she had heard, she wouldn’t have been able to comprehend long words like “conditioning”. But that didn’t matter at all; it felt so good to just suck, drink, and smile.

2. Irreplaceable

The air was filled with the insistent click-click-click of a dozen keyboards. Everybody in the office focused intently on their work, sure that what they were doing mattered. Even when they couldn’t make any deductions right away, they were chipping away at the rock face of ignorance, and sooner or later they would manage to unearth a nugget of truth. Or at least, that was how it seemed to Isadora as she pushed a stray lock of dark hair away from her face. She knew that her own work, even if it was related to something minor like a dead-drop in the back streets of Tarawa, actually mattered, and she was determined to do it to the best of her ability. Even if her hazel eyes were bloodshot from staring at a monitor all day by the time she got back to her apartment. It would have been worth it, and she was already looking forward to being able to relax and indulge herself later.

But there was no time to be thinking about that. She straightened her glasses and smoothed down her sensible blouse as the interdepartmental mail trolley rolled by. Sheila's laughter at the mailroom guy's jokes grated on Isadora's nerves. Didn't they understand how crucial their work was? Isadora would never even consider flirting with a coworker, not one of the office staff. Even having a closer bond with an Operative could be dangerous; and Isadora wasn’t the only one who looked down on the various Monitors who had reputedly hooked up with the agency’s most notorious womaniser, Agent Brock. Isadora found herself sneering without thinking when that image crossed her mind; she knew she would never fall for that kind of flamboyant playboy.

She tried to put it out of her mind, and turned back to the list of cryptographic signatures in front of her. She had an iron will, and remained focused on the screen for a whole two seconds until a letter landed on her desk with a quiet flutter. Then her hands froze over the keyboard, and she wondered if this could be it. The answer she had been waiting for.

She hesitated, and froze with the letter in her hands. There was just her name and desk number typed on the front, with no indication of which office it had come from. But some instinct told her that her answer was inside. The final results after eighteen months of training. If the letter said yes, she wouldn’t need to keep sitting here decrypting messages to tell Brown and Johnson where they needed to be. She could travel with an Operative and give him support in the field. She could watch dots on her screen indicating where guards might be, and give her Operative advice in real time, telling him when he needed to duck, and when he needed to fight. On paper, there was little difference between the duties of a Monitor and a Field-certified Monitor, but in practice it meant that she could do all the things that required a real time response, and it meant that sometimes she might be less than a mile from the bad guys. It was a prospect that terrified Isadora, but if it meant that she could spend more time close to Brown, and even get him to speak to her for more than a casual ‘hi’ as they passed in the corridors of Millennium House, it would all be worthwhile.

Shaking, and aware that she was distracting herself from her all-important codebreaking work, she tucked away an errant lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail and then drew her thumbnail carefully through the top of the envelope.

A handful of minutes later, Isadora could hardly contain her excitement as she strode down the familiar wood-panelled corridors. A part of her still couldn’t believe it, but seeing her name on that certificate had put a new spring in her step. She hadn’t told any of her colleagues where she was going, and she doubted that any of them really cared. But she wanted Brown to be the first person she told.

Brown was the Operative she wanted to work with more than any other, and it was his strength that had first inspired her to try getting into the field. He wasn’t an egotistical jerk like the legendary operative Brock, whose reputation included all the chauvinism of James Bond without any of the subtlety. Brown was a consummate professional, who made it his goal to learn everything he could possibly do to make the mission go down smoothly. And to Isadora, his caring nature and attention to detail made him much more attractive than toned muscles and dark-bronze skin. She’d respected the man ever since she first heard stories of his dedication and courage, and once she had actually seen him around headquarters she had been totally enthralled. The one time she’d spoken to him on the job, passing over a bunch of schedule data for an arms shipment, she’d seen that he had other impressive qualities as well. Brown would never see a mission as a checklist of goals. He cared about the people; both the ones he was working with and the innocents they were supposed to protect. And she had found herself dreaming of how well they could work together if they could properly synergise their skills.

It was Brown who had said that teamwork was an Operative’s greatest strength, after all.

She clutched her certificate, heart fluttering. She knew it was a little silly to be so emotional about this. She was just going to visit the man in hospital; to share the good news that they could work together once he was discharged. She’d brought a get well card as well, of course, and a little box of dates and walnuts because she remembered him saying that he didn’t have a sweet tooth. But she wanted him to be the first person she confided in about being approved as a Field Operative. He would give her some moral support, she was sure, and advice about managing her nerves that would seem like common sense as soon as she heard it. He’d be impressed by her qualifications as well, and tell her how well she had done. She could almost see it in her mind’s eye now.

Reaching his door, she had to shake away her head to clear away those mental images. Those things were just dreams, they would never happen here and now. They would have to work together, and get to know each other more and more closely, for at least a few months before the calm and careful Brown would make the first move. He was a gentleman, after all. He wasn’t Brock, or one of the agents who idolised that guy and his refusal to work by the book. Brown would take his time, and always take care of her feelings. Because he was the kind of man who would respect her; and the only operative she knew of who had never tried flirting with the girls behind desks at headquarters.

After steadying her nerves, Isadora knocked sharply. No matter what, she resolved to show Brown her very best. She would make clear she was ready for the field, and that they would make an unstoppable team. After all this time, her chance was finally here.

“Come in!” a voice called from inside. It surprised her a little that he sounded confident and healthy, but that shouldn’t have been a surprise. Brown wasn’t seriously injured, and was only still in here because his doctors had insisted on a period of observation to demonstrate that he was fully recovered.

“Hi,” she introduced herself with a nervous wave, before pausing to wonder if she should address him as ‘Brown’, or ‘Mr Brown’, or even ‘Agent Brown’. In a world where almost everyone was known by surnames alone, she wasn’t sure how to be either deferential or charming without sounding a little weird. She’d spoken to him before, of course, but only in a more formal setting within headquarters, when they happened to be assigned to related projects. This was different, because today she was actually making the initiative to see him.

“Hey,” Brown answered. He was lying back in a hospital bed, with bandages around his arms. But he seemed happy and relaxed, with no signs of pain. It would take more than a little misfortune to keep Brown off the case. “Isadora, right? How’s the wonderful world of cryptanalysis treating you?”

“Great thanks,” she answered, heart beating a hundred times a minute as she realised that he actually recognised her. A cynical part of her mind said that being able to identify a face in a crowd that he’d only glimpsed for a second before was a big part of his job. But it still made her feel special, like he actually cared. That was a magic that the flirts and chauvinists would never care about. “I’ve just been… Well, obviously I can’t say the details of what I’m working on. But I just got…”

She did her best to breathe calmly, telling herself how important it was to appear professional. If he thought she was one of the airheaded clerical workers who had a crush on some agent, he would never want to be in the field with her. And she knew that she was better than that. Her interest and admiration was professional and entirely appropriate, even if it sometimes felt like something more. While she didn’t quite trust herself to speak clearly, she held up a hand with two envelopes in. One of them she had so recently opened, while the other had Brown’s name on the front. Of course, he smiled graciously as he took the one that was addressed to him, feigning a complete lack of curiosity about the other letter. But Isadora held it up anyhow.

“I got my field certification,” she squawked, already sure that she was saying the wrong thing, but desperate to say what she had planned. She wasn’t going to come right out and ask, but it couldn’t hurt to informally assess his enthusiasm for being placed together. “I’ll be a real Field Monitor, in the field. Undercover, and all that. I’m so nervous still, but I thought… I mean, is there any advice you can give me? You’re probably the most professional Operative on the roster, so if I want to get advice from the best…”

“Of course,” he said with a smile. “It’s a different system now, though. When I was paired up with Doc, he was an Operative first, studying the Monitor duties in the background. So I don’t know how different it will be for you. But there’s two pieces of advice I would give you, even if they might be a little… less dry and emotionless than what they teach in Spy School.”

“Oh, that’s perfect!” Isadora gasped, and then hesitated and wished she could take the words back. “I mean… learning what matters from someone who’s actually lived it.”

“Modesty suits you,” he said. “And as long as you’re willing to learn, I think you’ll make an excellent Field Monitor. Have you been assigned a partner yet?”

“No, I…” Isadora hesitated. There was a part of her that just wanted to ask right out if he was willing to work with a new partner while his on-and-off companion Doc was recuperating after their last adventure. But somehow it felt somehow impolite to admit that she’d been paying so much attention to his life. That sounded like something he should volunteer; even if it seemed like he could be asking if she wanted to join him. “I only found out today, but I was wondering…” As much as she knew that she would need to start showing determination, that was as much as she could stay.

“Whoever it is, they’re lucky,” he said. “You strike me as a very competent woman. And not at all overconfident.” It was the perfect compliment; and the exact opposite of what she would expect from the growing number of operatives who modelled themselves after a dinosaur like Brock. His kindness made her even more determined to say what she needed to say.

“Thank you. How about you? I mean… I know you were injured. Will you be waiting for your Monitor to recover before you continue?” She knew that wouldn’t be the case. Brown couldn’t bear to stop working; the next mission was the only thing that mattered to him. But she could ask, and it would sound like something a concerned friend would say. She could hope that he would open up to her then.

“We both got hurt a little,” he said. “And that’s… ugh, I haven’t talked to anybody about this yet.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“No, no. It’s fine. But I’ve got two tips for you, right? Things they never teach you in training. And I think this is a perfect example of the one I should have learned years ago. I wasn’t badly hurt this time, you see. But the circumstances made me think about what would have happened if I didn’t make it back. I always told myself before that one man is a small sacrifice; that the mission is more important than just me.”

“That must be the hardest part of it,” Isadora mumbled, as soon as Brown paused. He seemed so intense now, and that only made her more eager to share this life with him. “Putting yourself in second place.”

“Not really. A lot of people can sacrifice themselves. The hard part is realising that it isn’t all about me. Thinking about how my family would feel if nobody could tell them what happened to me. And when I think about all of it, I know I can’t do that. Sacrificing myself for the job is a small price to pay if the job gets done, but hurting all the people I care about… I can’t do that. I can’t take that risk with a clear conscience.”

He hesitated then, opening the get well soon card she had brought and standing it up beside his bed. Isadora knew enough basic psychology to recognise displacement activity; a man doing some simple task as a way to put off thinking about his next words. She felt like she should say something, or reassure him. But she was just standing there with her mouth open, barely taking in what he was saying. After a long pause, he continued:

“I thought about it a lot,” he said. “I’ve spent three days now, drafting and redrafting my resignation letter. I haven’t mentioned it to Forstadter yet, and I was kind of dreading it. So thank you, Isadora. Telling someone at work, someone I can trust… I think you’re already helping me over the largest mental hurdle.”

“You’re quitting?” It seemed obvious, but she asked for confirmation before her brain had even processed what she had heard. It was almost unthinkable. Did that mean she would never get a chance to work with Brown? Did it mean she wouldn’t be able to see him outside work either?

“Yeah. I’m sorry, I feel like I’m letting you all down. But when I imagine Dave sitting alone, never really knowing what happened to me… that’s not something I could ever do to him. I’m sure there are plenty of Operatives who can do what I do, especially with talented people like you to support them. But Dave, well… He’s only got one husband. That’s where I’m irreplaceable, and to me that’s more important than any genius with delusions of world domination.”

He didn’t say any more, and for a few minutes Isadora just didn’t know how she could possibly respond.

3. Two Rules

“You’re resigning?” Isadora managed to get the words out at last. A part of her was screaming inside, wanting to ask more questions, but just about everything she could have thought of to say would have been highly inappropriate. Brown had a husband? She’d had no idea. She thought that she knew him, but that revelation shattered the image in her mind. It was like there had been a part of himself that he always kept locked away; and once she started thinking about that, she was also realising that his professional demeanour had completely hidden any hint of a life outside work. She didn’t know what music he liked, or what sports he followed; let alone his family. She knew that he could talk confidently about just about any topic, but that was pretty much a job requirement for an Operative. He needed to be at home around the water cooler when infiltrating any stratum of society; and there was no hint there about which topics were of interest to him personally. “What happened?”

“Davy called in for me,” he said, looking down at his hands as he spoke. “Said he had a bad feeling, was worried about me. The Monitors decided to put him through; he’d had enough background checks, and they can trust me not to say anything he’s not cleared for. But…”

“Did he overhear something?” Isadora guessed. She knew so little about Brown’s latest mission that any guess she made would just be a stab in the dark. But she felt like she had to say something. She could feel that this decision was really hard, even for the man who was never scared of anything. And she needed to help him. A part of her still hoped that she could help him to make a different decision; but she wouldn’t even know whether that was possible until she knew the truth.

“Kind of,” he said, and flashed the kind of smile that is only ever used to hide pain. “We were ambushed. We were preparing for the start of the mission, and Doc thought it would be okay to put him through to me, to wish me luck. But the shooting started before we were ready. I was hit, a flesh wound really. But it was chaos, and everything went to hell. Doc called back to SO3 that I was hit, and Davy heard that. I heard his response, in that moment. For weeks afterwards, I kept playing it over and over in my head. And I knew I never wanted to scare him like that again. He’s given up so much for me, and he deserves to know that I’ll be coming home from work. So…”

“I’m sorry,” Isadora said, eventually. “I never even thought… I guess I’ve never really been that close to someone. And I can see where you’re coming from. But is there anyone who can do what you do? I mean… everybody knows you’re one of the best. I’m worried that important jobs might start going to the wannabe James Bond types. There seems to be more and more of them, and… I guess I was hoping you’d be a positive role model for the newer Operatives, showing them what they’re supposed to be.” She started blushing again after that flood of words, and resisted the urge to pull her bendant out from beneath the collar of her shirt. It was special to her, a single piece of jewellery with a secret meaning, and holding it always helped to relieve stress. But it was also pretty childish, so she usually did her best to keep it out of sight when she was around anyone whose opinion she valued.

“I think I know the type you mean,” Brown answered with a wry smile. “And I can think of one or two who still need ideas from the movies removing from their minds. But not as many as you might think. Certainly, amongst some of the old timers, there’s a kind of hidden joke. If someone in the refectory asks how the latest job went and they don’t want to reveal compartmentalised data, they’ll describe it like an action movie. A lot of those stories enter into office gossip, but it really isn’t how the Operatives in the question act in the field. Even my old friend and Monitor, Doc, has a reputation around the break room for sleeping with a gangster’s moll on every assignment. But in reality, he sits in his room reading briefings. Everything at our classification level, every document we have access to, so that if our bandits cross over into someone else’s assignment, he’ll know who to get in touch with. Seriously, the guy won’t step outside his hotel room once until he needs to be somewhere. And then it gets to the point where the admin staff make up their own stories to paper over the gaps if they don’t know what we’ve been up to. Don’t trust the gossip, that’s one of the tips I wanted to give you.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. And even if this was a bittersweet discussion now, there was still a warm glow inside her from knowing that Brown seemed to respect her abilities. “Two tips, you said?”

“Yeah. The first rule, don’t take anything for granted. When you’re assigned a partner, get to know them. Not just what people say about them, or even what they tell you, but watch the way they act. See when they react quickly and when they pause to think. See if you can understand who a person is beneath all the walls they put up, so you can know what they’re really capable of. That’s more important than most people would believe. And the corollary, make sure that you act rationally around your partner. When you’ve been working together for a long time, you can get blind to someone’s weaknesses. Like when I… When the whole business on my last mission went down, Doc put himself in the line of fire trying to help me. Didn’t stick to protocol. I appreciate that he cares, but all it meant was that we both got injured. As much as I appreciate the sentiment, I feel bad about that. I should have reminded him to stay put. So that’s the rule. Know your partner, and know yourself. Know the mistakes you’re likely to make, so you can avoid them. We always talk about knowing your enemy, but knowing yourself is so much more important.”

“I think Sun-Tzu said that,” Isadora responded, a little distracted by the mental image of someone getting shot in the field. It was easy to conjure up a pure-Hollywood image of diving in front of a bullet to protect Brown; that would be a true act of heroism. But when she thought about someone sacrificing themself for her, even someone completely unlikely like the irritating mailroom guy, she could see a shadow of Brown’s disapproval. It made the whole situation seem real in a new way.

“One of them, anyway,” Brown said, and smiled. “You know they think The Art of War had at least seven authors, a bunch of different books put together under the name of a semi-mythical genius tactician?”

“Yeah, I heard,” she said. “I guess it’s like you said, don’t trust the legends. So what’s the other rule?”

“Think about why you’re doing this. I guess that’s part of knowing yourself, really. But it’s something a lot of the old-timers never considered. For so many years, I really didn’t know why I’m in this life. I signed up when I was young, because they said I was good about it. And I never thought about quitting, because people needed me. But I never questioned my own motivation. You should. Do you want to do this because you think it’s needed? Because you’re good at it? Because the movies make it seem so glamorous. Because let me tell you, it isn’t. Think about why you want this life. Think about how much those feelings mean to you. And think about who will miss you if you don’t come back, and how much you mean to them. And if you’re not absolutely certain that it’s a trade worth making, take a step back. For a life like this, you need to be sure. I didn’t think about it until it could have been too late. I was lucky. You can do better.”

“I… uhh…” Isadora stammered, finding the whole conversation heavier than she had expected.

“I think you’ll be a good Field Monitor,” Brown said, cutting through the tension. “I really do. And I hope you’ll be protecting the country from the bad guys. And being a good role model for the more impetuous. But I don’t want you to dive into it without really knowing that’s what you want, or without asking yourself why. You deserve better than that.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

They kept on talking, and the discussion was lighter now that all the serious issues were out of the way. But twenty minutes later, Isadora’s shoes rapped slowly against the wooden floors of Millennium House as she returned to her department. She had such a lot to think about, and now she really didn’t know if she wanted to be an Operative or not. Without Brown in the picture, she felt like the whole career path was out of focus and not quite what she had expected. Had her desire to go into the field really just been a desire for one man, without her being able to admit that to herself His questions cut deeply now, in ways she had never even expected. Was she throwing away a promising cryptography career on a promotion that she didn’t really want?

It didn’t help that as soon as she swiped in through the last security checkpoint, the screen told her to go straight to Kane’s office, on the seventeenth floor. That gave her a lot more time to think; as well as adding a whole lot of new worries to the mix. Emerson Kane was a veteran Monitor, one of the best of the best. Everyone in the building had heard of him, but it was a long time since he had been in the field. Now he moved in the upper circles of the Agency, managing funding and politics. He was a big picture guy, who would never need to look at an individual case; and being sent upstairs was rarely good for anyone in the administrative side of the building. Isadora spent half the walk up there wondering what she could have done wrong.

When she reached the office, she found herself standing outside, too nervous to knock. Her hand closed around her pendant, grasping so tightly that the plastic edges probably left white lines across her palm. She needed comfort now; she needed to remember a time without so many responsibilities. Because everything was happening at once, and she didn’t know how to deal with all the things that were worrying her right now. Running away wasn’t the right answer, she was sure. But moving forward terrified her, and she didn’t know if there was even a point to it now.

“Enter.” The word came from the intercom beside the office door, brusque and businesslike but without any obvious signs of impatience. She hadn’t even knocked, but of course her security badge would track exactly where she was within the building. Kane would have been able to watch her on the map, coming closer to her scheduled appointment. She took a deep breath and stepped forward, dreading whatever was next for her.

[BabySofia]

🙂 Glad to see you posting here! I have a feeling people here would love your Hypnosis series if you post it here! 

[Kitty Angel]

55 minutes ago, BabySofia said:

🙂 Glad to see you posting here! I have a feeling people here would love your Hypnosis series if you post it here! 

Sadly those ones need a bunch of editing… it's not easy to copy and paste a bunch of text over to a site when there are edit suggestions in the middle of it. But I've started going over the text again, coming up with a revised version ready for posting elsewhere (and also tidied up some early instalment weirdness)

Hope people like this one too 

[BabySofia]

20 minutes ago, Kitty Angel said:

Hope people like this one too

They should from what I've read of it! 🙂

21 minutes ago, Kitty Angel said:

it's not easy to copy and paste a bunch of text over to a site when there are edit suggestions in the middle of it.

Not to mention an incredibly long work! 😉 Been there. Good luck with it! 

[Kitty Angel]

Happy to see people liking this one  Here's the next chapters, then. Still not sure how many chapters is best to post at once… I'm aiming for around 20 chapters per act (5 acts, with slightly different perspectives on littleness), but I suspect the story as a whole will probably come to about 120-130 :S 

Would very much like to know if anyone has guesses about where the story is going, and/or which character(s) are into ABDL or will end up being by the end.

4. Last Choice

“I don’t need a new partner,” a muscular figure snapped, and he was sure that from the tone of his voice it would be clear that he was struggling to keep his anger under control. “I’m not doing that again. I won’t have it on my conscience.”

“Well, you’re not going to Venezuela on your own.” Emerson Kane could have been angry, but his voice betrayed as much frustration as a librarian ordering coffee. His arms rested comfortably on his desk, perfectly fitting into the narrow space between the blotter and the edge, and his fingers were steepled in front of him. “We have rules and protocols for a reason. And I believe this is now the seventh time you have petitioned to be assigned a solo job. You should have learned by now that the answer is not going to be ‘yes’.”

“But you need me! Nobody else can do what I can do. Nobody else would have managed to stop the Prosetzkin dossier from–”

“Nobody else would have broken the ambassador’s Fabergé egg and left us with the bill, Brock. Nobody else would have left stories in the local paper about people doing rooftop parkour on the night of a major political incident. And Prosetzkin? I don’t remember you having any exceptional computer hacking skills, Brock. In fact, I believe the mission reports showed that your largest contribution was fighting your way past two different groups of private security personnel, and knocking out two local police officers who were in the way.”

“Nobody else could have–”

“Any other operative would have kept quiet, Brock. There was no need for the security firms to even know that you were in the building. And the intelligence you recovered would have been vastly more useful to us if they had been unaware we had it. Sure, you can take down a dozen armed criminals practically single-handed. But that doesn’t mean you’re any better than a man who can get in and out without being seen. You are not irreplaceable, Brock. And you’re not invulnerable.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Brock couldn’t help raising his voice this time. “Eight months in hospital. Three months with the shrinks prodding me, telling me I’m not ready to go back to action. And my partner…”

“You were offered counselling,” Kane said, and for once his expression wasn’t a perfect poker face. When it came to his subordinates, he would allow a flicker of emotion to enter his eyes. “The Agency has done everything in its power to help you deal with the outcome of your last assignment. However, there is a limit to how long we can humour you. You are ready to go back to the job, you have said that. And it is the opinion of our psychologists that a return to the field will be beneficial for your mental health. However, we cannot allow you to go alone. Especially not in your current state.”

“And what does that mean,” Brock snarled. “A new partner is a new risk. Someone to slow me down. Putting the mission in danger. Putting himself in danger. There’s nobody here who can keep up with me. Ghost at least made himself useful, but–”

“But you said exactly the same thing when he was first assigned to work with you,” Kane responded calmly, his crisp tones effortlessly cutting through Brock’s yelling. It was the kind of calm tone that would make anyone terrified to see him lose his temper. “Yes, you have been through a traumatic experience. But I’m sure you don’t blame your partner for the explosion, do you? You are prevaricating, Brock. Putting off the inevitable because you are afraid.”

“I’ve never been scared. I’ve fought–”

“You’re scared of caring. Scared that you aren’t good enough. Scared of your own guilt, because you know why your methods are frowned upon. Yes, we may occasionally need someone of your unique skill set. But you also need to learn when it might be time to keep your head down and play by the rules. That versatility would vastly reduce the friction between you and your Handlers. Our motto is ‘walk softly’, not ‘move fast and break everything’, Brock.”

“Actually, Sir, the motto is ‘Per silentium incedimus’ or ‘in silence, progress’,” Brock answered. But then he hesitated, his mood softened slightly by the distraction of thinking in Latin for just a moment. “But I understand what you are saying. Still, my habits have had a long time to become set, Sir. I can’t promise that I will be able to change. I am, as they say, a post-cold-war dinosaur. I would have to think about how much change I am still capable of once you have a new partner for me to consider. He would have to accept me as well, of course, and I expect it will take a long time for you to find anyone brave or foolish enough to put up with me at my worst.”

“Actually, I may have the perfect partner for you, Brock.” Kane glanced down at the screen on the corner of his desk, and then pressed one button on the intercom, and then spoke sternly: “Enter.”

A young woman stepped into the office, hurriedly straightening some kind of necklace, and then clasped her hands nervously in front of her. Brock scowled, but a moment later he adjusted his face into something closer to a professional frown.

“Perfect timing,” Kane said, pushing false joviality into the atmosphere of instnt distrust which had filled his office. “I’d like to introduce you to your new partners. This is Isadora Folker, formerly of cryptoanalytics, now qualified as a Field Monitor. Maybe a little nervous, but I am assured that her skills are more than sufficient. And this sullen gentleman is Dashiel Brock, of whom I am sure you have heard.”

The two looked at each other, and there was no sense of camaraderie here. Neither of the potential partners said a word, but their mutual disapproval was loud enough to drown out the silence until Kane spoke again.

“I understand that you are both disappointed with this assignment,” he said. “We expected that. But we have received intelligence suggesting that the Arrencani family, a noted criminal syndicate, is branching out into human trafficking. We need our best people to confirm these stories, and right now that’s you two. I would hope you are both professional enough to set your prejudices aside for the sake of the mission. Yes?”

“Yes,” Isadora was first to speak. “Yes, Sir. I’ll do my best.” She certainly wasn’t enthusiastic about the assignment, being paired with a reckless, misogynistic thug who, more than anyone else in the agency, thought he was James Bond. But she also knew that Kane was the best, and tried to tell herself that there must be some reason behind the unexpected pairing.

“You can’t be serious, Sir!” Brock argued. “There’s no way she can–”

“Mister Brock!” Kane cut him off. “We are not here to argue. If her inexperience is a problem, teach her. Understand? I will give you a little time to get to know each other, and then I expect you to answer me together. You can take the mission and partner I have assigned to you, or you can quit, Those are your options now, and the choice is on both of you.”

“Sir, I can do the job better by myself,” Brock insisted. “Babysitting a new monitor will only hold me back. You know me well enough to be sure of that, don’t you?”

Isadora found herself blushing again. Her first instinct would have been an irate outburst, berating Brock for treating her like a child. But she forced herself to hold her tongue, just hoping that it would give a better impression. She needed to remain in control of herself, so that she wouldn’t be to blame for any of the fallout after whatever was about to go down.

“You can’t,” Kane answered. “Not this job. Not least because Strategic have been analysing the situation, and every plan they will approve is for two.” And then as Brock started to speak again, the senior officer held up a hand for silence. “Don’t start telling me about how you have the strength of ten men, Brock. Because this is a covert investigation job. You will need to get close to Lorenzo Arrencani without arousing his suspicions. Long term undercover. And Arrencani does not socialise with lone wolves. The best option available is a country club, which is open to married couples only, followed by the local Home Owners’ Committee, which again is in a neighbourhood consisting only of family homes.”

“Sir, isn’t there someone better suited to…” Isadora finally spoke up, hoping there was a way to defuse the tension in the room. But then she saw both men turning towards her with the same disapproving glare. There was a part of her that wanted to fight them, to prove that she was every bit as capable as any of the men she knew; but there was still a tiny worm of embarrassment gnawing at the back of her mind, making it hard to focus. And she needed more than anything to keep some of her own secrets hidden from her bosses.

“Discuss it,” Kane said firmly, interrupting whatever Brock was about to say to her. “The two of you. And give me an answer when you’re in agreement. I gave you two choices, and you do not get to invent a third.”

He wasn’t shouting. He didn’t seem at all angry. He was just very, very certain of what he was doing, and it was clear that he wasn’t prepared to give this job to a team who already knew how to act like a married couple. It made no sense to her, but Isadora had barely studied the political oversight of the Agency’s operations; and she didn’t know what other details she was missing. Kane stood and walked out of the room, leaving her in a room with the ultimate archetype of an agent who saw himself as a real life James Bond; the one member of the Agency she knew she would never trust. She didn’t want to be alone with a guy like that. And now her job was predicated on her ability to work with him. They really were between a rock and a hard place, and despite all her recent Field certification training, Isadora was fighting against an urge to cry.

“Great,” Brock sighed, and walked around the desk. He didn’t seem perturbed at all, but pulled open one of the desk drawers and retrieved a bottle. It said Cockburns on the label, and looked pretty fancy. Brock poured a glass, and then offered it to Isadora. “You look like you could use a drink?”

“No,” she shook her head, not sure what to think. “What are you…”

“Fair enough,” he said, taking a sip from his glass. “Kane knows by now that I’ll help myself to his stash if he gives me the chance. Maybe he thinks I’m more likely to go along with his plan this time.”

“And what are you planning?” Isadora snapped. “This should be a job for a couple who know each other well. There are real couples in the Agency, aren’t there? You can’t just assume I’ll–”

“It’s a test,” he interrupted, and the answer was unexpected enough that Isadora found her voice fading into silence as she tried to understand what he was telling her. “I’ve got a bit of a reputation. Some people say I’m like James Band, for better or worse. So I’ve always been a bit of a loose cannon. I told Kane I… I don’t want another partner. I want to do this job on my own. But it’s not the job, is it? This is a low-stakes case that could probably be pulled off by a couple of surveillance drones and wiretaps. And as nasty as Arrencani can be, that’s a job for the cops. Not our circus. So he wants to send us there as a test. So he can see if I’m capable of playing well with others. Probably testing you as well, or he’d be matching me up with somebody like Luis or Vanessa.”

“You…” Isadora started. “You always second-guess the Directors? Aren’t we all on the same side?”

“I trained myself to notice details that don’t fit,” Brock answered. “Look, you probably heard I’m this trigger-happy jerk with a big ego, and that’s probably not far off the mark. But I don’t get ambushed, either. I listen when people are talking around me, I can tell when somebody’s lying to me. And those skills don’t turn off around people I trust. I wouldn’t have lived this long if I stopped analysing everything. And we’re going to play this one straight. Get in, do the mission, show Kane that he can rely on us. Got that?”

Isadora found herself meeting the philanderer’s eyes then, and she couldn’t look away. It felt like he was reading her darkest secrets off the back of her head, and she didn’t know how to respond. She’d assumed that this guy didn’t care about the job or the rules; but she had never expected to meet such intensity in his gaze. What could she say to that?

5. The Brief

“I can’t do that,” Isadora whispered, after what seemed like an eternity.

“You’re quitting already?” Brock snapped, and the venom in his voice was just as unexpected as the seriousness in his unblinking stare. “We have to prove ourselves, and we pass or fail together. Understand? You can throw your own career away, but you’re not keeping me from doing my duty. I’ll make it easy for you. If we need to be a couple to get close to the target, you can stay home like a good little housewife and I’ll do it myself. Is that what you want?” He seemed almost angry there, and that was finally enough to snap Isadora out of the fear that had paralysed her. She might not have experience in the field, but she wasn’t going to let a womaniser like Brock criticise her dedication to the job.

“I’m not an Operative, but I’m field trained,” she barked. “There is no way I’m backing down from the job. I am not a child, and I’m not afraid. I do this job because I want to do my bit and take down the most abhorrent members of the human race. But I’ll tell you now… this assignment is just degrading. You think anyone would want to be your wife?”

Of course they would, she mentally chided herself. It seemed like half the admin staff were lining up to throw themselves at Brock, even if his reputation hinted that they might be a little too boring for his tastes. But she knew what she meant; this job was beneath her. And there was no way she was going to be some kind of toy for an agent who wouldn’t respect her. She wanted to actually investigate and to take down the bandits, not be a gift to get an Operative with a bad reputation back to work.

She didn’t know how she expected him to react, but she certainly hadn’t thought that he would laugh at our indignation. And after a few seconds, he caught his breath and then gave her a reply.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I kind of… My first impression of you might have been a little off. There’s been quite a few young women from admin, crypto, and similar who go for field training because they have an unhealthy obsession with an Operative. And Kane’s tried to put me with one of those before. Girls who think it’s going to be all glamorous and sexy like in the movies. Not sure why, I kind of pegged you for one of them to start with, but I think there’s something more. You actually want to make a difference to the world, don’t you? Well, I can appreciate that. And if you can keep your mind on the job, I don’t have a problem with you tagging along. Think you couldn’t play my wife well enough to fool the target?”

“No, I…” Isadora stammered, but then she thought about it and realised that those worries were lurking somewhere at the back of her mind. Alongside the suspicion that Brock would just expect her to act like a dutiful wife was the worry that if she didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to fool the people they were supposed to be getting close to.

“It’s okay. Roles are built around the Operatives, and nothing’s set in stone. I don’t know details about this Arrencani guy, but from what Kane said I’m imagining some kind of posh gated community. Want to approach him as a neighbour, we need to fit in. But in a place like that, I’d guess my legend will be pretty wealthy. So, may as well make it an arranged marriage. I’m some businessman, you’re the trophy wife. Pushed into it by a family who owes me money, or whatever. Means you can hate me all you want, and it’s not suspicious. Also means you’ve got a built in excuse if you’re caught somewhere you’re not supposed to be, though I’d hope that won’t be necessary. Look, I can coach you to some degree in the field. First mission, after all, and I’ll do what I can to find a role you can play more easily. But I am not going to give up so quickly.”

“Wow, I…” Isadora mumbled. Everything Brock was saying made so much sense, and she found it hard to see anything to be angry about. But she still couldn’t trust him. After everything she had heard, she knew that she couldn’t trust him to be such a gentleman once they were away from Millennium House. But she had to hope that she would work out how to deal with him at some point down the line. He was saying all the right things now, acting like he cared about the job. And even after everything, after having her dreams of a career with Brown had been shattered, she was surprised to find that she really did want to stop the bad guys. If Brock could keep his libido in check for long enough to get the job done, it would hopefully give her enough time to prove herself to her superiors. “That makes a lot of sense. It’s not just about the role, it’s just… Whatever, we can do this. He said trafficking, and I’m not going to let anyone get away with that. We can do this.”

She was breathing hard as Brock walked around the desk again. This time, she accepted his offer of a glass of Cockburn’s, whatever that was. Somehow it seemed they had reached a truce, and that was a situation that needed some kind of toast. And after the two glasses clinked together, Brock pressed a button on the desk and spoke to the intercom.

“We’re taking the job, Sir. Thank you.”

Isadora glared at him, but there wasn’t much else she could say. No matter what this jerk thought, stopping the bad guys was important to her. And that wasn’t something she was willing to give up on. She sipped her drink, which tasted sweeter than any wine she’d tried in the past, and waited to see what would happen next.

“Drinking, Brock?” Kane asked, reappearing in the room.

“A toast. To a new partner and a new mission.”

“I see. And how many glasses has this toast taken you?” Kane asked, but then shook his head and poured himself a glass before returning the bottle to his desk drawer. He did seem annoyed, but barely said anything about it, so Isadora could guess that this was something he’d talked to Brock about in the past. They were old friends, then, more than just Operative and Handler.

“Well then. You are both willing to undertake this undercover operation?”

“We are,” Isadora said, her voice still not so steady. The thought of spending any length of time alone with Brock put her on edge. “But it’ll be hard. Playing the role of a wife, I mean. How are we supposed to–”

“We’ve thought of that already,” Kane said. “Please, take a seat, and I’ll explain.” He gestured for them to sit as he settled back into his chair, steepling his fingers. Isadora perched nervously on the edge of her seat while Dash sprawled casually, one arm draped over the back.

"As I mentioned, this mission will require long-term deep cover," Kane began. "You'll be posing as a married couple, which means your cover needs to be airtight. You should be comfortable with each other’s presence, and any quarrel between you two will better fit the legend if it feels like the continued simmering of long-term issues you’re working on together."

Isadora nodded, her mind already racing with the challenges ahead. Dash’s plan certainly seemed more believable than a normal marriage, but she still wasn’t sure that she would be able to pull off the complex emotions she would need for that situation. Not just a couple of days after she’d met the guy. And at the same time, she found herself feeling a little excited by the casual way Kane dropped in the Agency’s peculiar slang. A cover story was a ‘legend’; enemies were ‘assets’, ‘rogues’, or ‘bandits’ depending on their political affiliation. Sooner or later someone would refer to the agency as ‘Mother’. Isadora had heard those terms bounced around the office for years, but now a senior officer was talking about her legend, it made the whole thing seem so much more real.

Then she realised that Kane was still talking, and turned her attention back before she missed anything.

“Before we send you into the field,” he was saying, “you need to act like you’re familiar with each other’s attitudes and mannerisms. That’s not something you can pull off in a day, even for the very best actors. So you’re going to have some preparation time. You’re going to be living together for three weeks, so that you can get into the role. And if you can convince me that you’re a married couple after that, we’ll finalise the plans for moving into Arrencani’s neighbourhood. Understood?”

“Sir,” Brock spoke up then. “You said human trafficking. Surely any delay in investigating–”

“We know,” Kane cut him off, steady and authoritative. “But our intelligence suggests this has been going on for at least four years. An extra month before launching the investigation is not likely to make a significant difference. And it allows us to collect more passive intelligence, as well as making your legends airtight. So, do you think you can manage three weeks of domestic bliss without blowing up your wife’s apartment or shooting the neighbours?” Kane's gaze flicked between them, gauging their reactions.

“Wait, my place?” Isadora blurted out, her eyes wide. "Living together? Is that really necessary?"

“Relax, Princess,” Dash chuckled, seemingly amused by her discomfort. “You’re right to be scared of my cooking, but it’s not going to kill you. And it has to be your place, because I’m used to being shipped out on a new mission as soon as one’s available. I’m only in headquarters for a week at a time, unless I’m in the infirmary, so I usually get a hotel for those days.”

“Yeah, but–” Isadora shot him a withering glare, trying to hide her own nerves about how much Brock might see if he was spending even a night in her home. But Kane continued before she could retort.

"It's standard protocol for long-term undercover teams. You need to be completely comfortable around each other, to the point where your interactions are second nature. Any hesitation or awkwardness could blow your cover."

Isadora chewed her lip, trying to quell the rising panic. Three weeks alone with Dash, pretending to be his wife... it was like a nightmare come to life. But she couldn't back down now, not when she'd just committed to the mission.

"Fine," she said tightly. "I can handle it. For the mission."

Dash smirked, but there was a glint of something like respect in his eyes. "Atta girl. We'll make a spy out of you yet."

Kane nodded, apparently satisfied. But there was something that said he was still watching, still assessing them. "Good. Now, we’ve got the basics of your legends here, so you’ve got a few weeks to get used to answering to those names. If there’s anything you need to change, let me know as soon as possible so I can get the IT boys to work on your records."

He slid a folder across the desk to them. Isadora reached for it, but Dash snatched it up first, flipping it open and skimming the contents.

"Bernard and Estelle Klein," he read aloud. "Businessman and trophy wife. Cute."

Isadora gritted her teeth at the "trophy wife" label, but held her tongue. It was just a legend, she reminded herself. A character she would be playing. Not a reflection on her actual worth.

"You'll move in tonight," Kane said. "Take the time to get to know your legends inside and out. Learn each other's habits, quirks, likes and dislikes. By the time you arrive in Arrencani's neighbourhood, I want you to be the Kleins."

“Sir,” Isadora answered, her voice shaking. “Tonight? Can we… I mean…”

“Cold feet?”

“No, Sir. I just… I’ve been working a lot of overtime on the Longridge ciphers, Sir. I haven’t been… I mean…”

“You mean your home is buried in a swamp of half-eaten takeout containers and unwashed dishes, and you want time to clean up before your husband sees it?” Kane said, raising an unexpectedly perceptive eyebrow.

“Not quite,” Isadora stammered. “I mean, I was planning to…” How could she even start to explain what she had planned to help her unwind tonight?

“Or you want time to hide away the whips and chains before I get there,” Dash joked; and it was impossible to guess what he thought of that idea, or how serious he was. “Well, it’s going to make your neighbours suspicious in any case. Might be better if you tell them somebody’s going to be staying over, so nobody thinks it’s weird.”

“I’ll do that,” Isadora answered, hoping that she wasn’t blushing enough for the men to see. “Tomorrow okay for you?”

Brock tossed the folder back on the desk and stood, stretching languidly. "Guess I better go pack to move. See you in two weeks, old man." Isadora watched in disbelief as he walked away, not even waiting to be dismissed. Then she turned back to Kane, trying to project a confidence she didn't quite feel. “Thank you, sir. For the opportunity. We won't let you down.”

[Kitty Angel]

6. Clean Slate

Isadora paced nervously around her apartment, her mind whirling with doubts. Agreeing to this experiment had seemed like the only choice back in Kane’s office, but now she wasn’t sure if she could even go through with it. Living with Brock for the next two weeks, putting on an act as husband and wife... It seemed like an impossible task. It wasn’t just playing a role, she’d had plenty of training in that. But how was she supposed to feign intimacy with a man she barely knew, and was almost certain she wouldn’t even like?

She spotted a stray letter, something about the maintenance fees, lying on the floor, and quickly transported it to the right drawer. Then she saw that the countertop in the kitchen was dirty and needed wiping down. But she quickly realised that all this work was just displacement activity. She was trying to avoid the important things she needed to do before Brock got here, as if not being ready would somehow postpone the so-called master spy’s arrival.

She took a deep breath and bit the bullet. There were things all over the apartment that she absolutely didn’t want Brock to see. And he wasn’t going to avoid looking at things just because they were still out in the open. Everything else was a secondary concern; there were plenty of things that she couldn’t afford for her partner to know about her. So she started in the bedroom, pulling out an old suitcase that she hadn’t touched since she was a child. It was bright pink, with a much-repaired plastic shell. One corner had a dozen layers of duct tape wrapped around it to keep a crack from spreading; and smudged marker on the tape that might have spelled out lewd words, courtesy of one of her college roommates. Of course, it hadn’t remained unused since the childhood holidays where she remembered dragging it around cobbled streets and lifting it onto a funicular railway. It had been pressed into service at college too, simply because she didn’t have enough cases to transport all of her things. But in her mind, it was always going to be a piece of her childhood.

It was exactly what she needed now: Battered and clearly well-used. All her secrets could be shoved in there and moved to the back of the closet, covered with coats that hadn’t fitted for years or would never be in style again. With a plan in mind, she knelt down on the floor and reached under her bed, first grabbing some books that a respectable young woman like her would never be interested in. They went into the case. All the toys from the bottom drawer of her nightstand quickly followed them; along with a couple which she must not have cared enough to put away, and which had been scattered across the bedroom floor. And just like that, the case was almost full. There were still more things though, all over the house. Things that a casual visitor might not have paid attention to, but which she knew she couldn’t keep a secret agent from noticing during a three week stay.

While she was looking around for anything that could possibly give her away, she noticed the boiler cupboard in the box room. Once upon a time, she thought, someone might have hung drying clothes over the boiler, so that everything would be warm and dry, easy to fold later in the day. Or people like her dad would have put bread in the warm space to rise. But her boiler was relatively new; the landlord had replaced it a couple of months before she moved in. So the space above and below it was barely any warmer than the rest of the building, and reserved for the storage of dust and cobwebs. A perfect place to put a tiny suitcase and two cardboard boxes. To make the illusion a little stronger, Isadora brushed some of the dust and dead flies from the cupboard over them before pushing them inside. A perfect example of old college things that she hadn’t touched in years; certainly not something she would have been embarrassed about. There was no way Brock would think of looking in there.

Cleaning the rest of the apartment should have been easy. She wasn’t particularly untidy, and would never let unwashed dishes pile up for longer than a couple of days; a week if she was having a particularly bad time at work. She always made an effort to vacuum regularly, and flicked a duster over all the surfaces she could reach. She might not be obsessively houseproud, but she knew how much effort it would be to clean up without the regular daily or weekly chores, and so she always did her best. In her mind, that was the real sign of maturity: to understand that she couldn’t put anything off forever. And she would have to be an adult now. So there wasn’t too much mess; but with every surface she cleared, she found something else that should have been secreted away.

Everytime she found something new that needed hiding, even silly things like jewellery she would never have the nerve to wear because of what people might assume about her, she needed to pull out one of the boxes again. Or should she assemble her later finds into little piles and hope that she had time to move them into whatever tiny sliver of space remained in the top of her case before Dash arrived? She had to weigh the time taken wrestling with the sticky catch on the boiler cupboard every five minutes against the risk that she would make a little pile of incriminating evidence somewhere and then not have time to move it when the guy knocked on the door ten minutes early. He didn’t seem like the kind ro play by the rules.

Isadora wanted to show to the world how responsible she could be; and that meant picking the best option and sticking to it. But in the end, the war of competing fears left her attempting a vague kind of compromise, moving every problematic slip of paper she found – even old utility bills that had some weird doodles in the margin – from where she found them, but not actually dealing with them yet.

Absorbed in her anxious thoughts, time slipped away from her. Before she knew it, a loud knock at the door startled her out of her ruminations. Frantically, she scanned the room one last time. Of course, there were little piles of junk everywhere. The sudden pressure jolted her into action, flipping the switch to start the coffee machine. It was already loaded and ready to go; but if she’d been in the middle of pouring water into the reservoir when he knocked, that would justify a delay of up to two minutes. Then she darted around the apartment like a headless chicken, grabbing frenziedly at all the disorganised clues that probably wouldn’t mean too much to a stranger anyway. She pulled open the top of the most-damaged cardboard box in the boiler cupboard, rammed everything inside, and then dumped a stained and faded Barbie duvet cover on the top. It had certainly seen better days, and there could be no reason to keep it except for the sake of nostalgia; a perfect camouflage to give the impression that these boxes hadn’t moved in close to twenty years.

Then she slammed the cupboard, throwing all her weight behind her shoulder to guard against it sticking again, and ran to the front door. As she passed the mirror in the hallway, she could see that she had ancient dust on her hands and on her cardigan, but there was nothing she could do about that now. And, to be honest, he already thought that she was tidying up desperately because she’d been some kind of slob through most of her single years; so dirt would be expected. So much easier to hide a lie inside the truth, and that was something else that the Field Monitor training had taught her.

She opened the door, breathing a little heavily after the sprint across the apartment. Just enough to disrupt the rhythm of her speech, and make lies harder to detect. Brock stood there, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder and a faintly amused look on his face as he took in her flustered appearance.

"Hey there, wifey," he drawled. "Ready to play house?"

Isadora struggled to rein in her irritation at his flippant attitude. Stepping back, she gestured stiffly for him to enter. "Come in. I'll show you around. There’s not much storage space I’m afraid, so you’ll have to put your bags in a corner until I can clear a couple more drawers.”

“I can live out of my bag if it’s easier,” he said with a shrug. “If we had to worry about bandits snooping around, I might go to Creek & Wells or TopBloke and buy a couple dozen shirts to fill out a drawer or two, but we don’t have to maintain cover here.”

“Wait…” Isadora answered, a little taken aback. “You mean that’s everything? No more bags in the car?”

“Two spare shirts, one pair of chinos in case I need to be smart, three days of socks and underwear. Pocket knife, water bottle, bag of trail mix and a couple of protein bars in case I’m caught without food. Toothbrush and razor. Phone charger, though I’m forever leaving those behind. Trashy novel with a backwards hammer and sickle on the cover gives the bag some weight in case I need to hit somebody with it. What else do I need?”

Isadora wasn’t really sure what she could say to all that. She would carry more than that even on a weekend break – although it was years since she’d been able to drag herself away from the office. But Brock had said he didn’t have a permanent residence between assignments, did that mean that he was listing his entire worldly possessions? That was a mindset she couldn’t really understand. But as Brock sauntered past her into the apartment, Isadora couldn't suppress a shiver of trepidation. This was it; her chance to prove that she had what it takes for field work. The next three weeks were going to be a true test of her acting skills and her patience, and she still had real concerns about how Brock was going to treat her for that time. But now that it was actually happening, she found that her nervousness was morphing into a strange kind of excitement. 

"Nice place," Brock commented, glancing around the living room. "Very... tidy."

Isadora couldn't tell if that was a compliment or a subtle jab at her frantic cleaning. She chose to ignore it. "Thanks. The kitchen is through here, and the bedroom is at the end of the hall."

She gave him a quick tour once he’d dumped his bag on the coffee table, and started to build a little more confidence. But when they returned to the lounge two minutes later, Brock reached into his bag and pulled out two bottles of wine.

"Figured it would be appropriate to bring a housewarming gift," he said, with a smile that he probably thought was flattering. “Something to express my gratitude for putting up with me.”

Isadora eyed the bottles sceptically. She wasn't much of a drinker, and the idea of getting tipsy with Brock made her uneasy. And she had very clear views on the kind of guy who would try to get her drunk as soon as he moved in; just what she had expected from the famous womaniser. But she also knew that bonding over a drink or two was a common tactic for building trust and rapport. If she wanted to prove she could handle this assignment, she needed to be willing to step out of her comfort zone.

"Thanks," she said, mustering a smile. "But I was just putting coffee on. We can open a bottle later, okay?"

Brock nodded and headed for the living room, already twisting the cork out of one of the bottles. Isadora took a steadying breath and turned back to the kitchen counter, where the coffee machine had a flashing yellow light to say that her drink was ready.

As she picked it up, she could hear Brock moving around in the other room, the clink of glasses and the glug of wine being poured. It wasn’t clear at this point whether he didn’t like coffee, or if this was some effort to get her drinking more quickly. Her stomach fluttered with nerves, but she fought to push them down. She could do this. She had to do this.

With one last glance around to make sure she hadn’t missed any personal items in here, Isadora squared her shoulders and went to join her new "husband" for a drink.

7. Legends and Lies

“It’s a small place, though,” Isadora finally managed to get control of the conversation, taking advantage of the first topic that remotely headed in the direction she wanted. This way, she could raise the issue before bedtime, and it wouldn’t seem like it was the only thing on her mind. “I mean, I’ve only got one bedroom. So I was thinking–”

“Don’t worry about it,” Brock answered with a shrug. “I’m used to hotel rooms, remember? And the barracks before that. Half my life has been spent in homes the size of your kitchen. Now, we should start looking over these. See if there’s anything we might have trouble with. If you got a problem with the background, make sure we know in time to change it.” He pulled out a bundle of papers, slightly creased, and Isadora saw the name ‘Klein’ on the front page. Their legends; their cover identities. Those bundles probably included everything from high school report cards to printouts of twelve years of family photos from a fictitious FriendSpace account. Everything they would ever need to know about who they were supposed to be.

Isadora opened her mouth to respond, but she knew there was no way she could get back to the previous topic of conversation without revealing how heavily it was weighing on her mind. She wanted to make it clear she planned to sleep on the couch while he was here, before he got any other ideas. As if he wasn’t already thinking about those things. But this was the first time she’d seen full documentation on the Kleins, and she knew that if she was trying to show how responsible she was, she would need to prioritise learning this information.

"Right, the Kleins," Isadora said, trying to focus on the task at hand. She took a sip of her coffee, savouring the bitter warmth, and then reached for the papers. "Let's see... Estelle Klein, née Dubois. Born in Paris, moved to the US for college. Studied linguistics at UCLA. Bit of a world traveller, it seems. Primary specialisation in comparative linguistics."

"Sounds like a good fit for you," Brock commented, leaning back in his chair. "You've got that whole bookish, academic vibe going on. I’m guessing you studied languages in college too, right? They’d try to make it easier for you."

Isadora bristled slightly at the characterization, but tried not to show it. The fact that he was right only made it worse. "I suppose. It says here she was headed for a career in politics, but was disappointed by the corruption she saw. Ended up becoming a high school French teacher instead."

"Noble," Brock said with a smirk. "And let me guess, that's where she met the dashing Bernard Klein?"

Isadora scanned the papers, her brow furrowing. "No, actually. It says they met at a charity gala. Bernard was there representing his company, and Estelle was interning for some… senator, I think?" She made a mental note to look that up later; she wouldn’t be able to get away with forgetting such a memorable note in her résumé. “She got his number for her boss, but ended up calling him for help when she dropped out of the political sphere.” She tried to think about how that would have felt for Estelle. Would she just have reached out to a rich guy who’d been creeping on her at a gala, in the hope of finding a sugar daddy? Or was she supposed to believe that she’d found the jerk attractive or something? She flipped back and forth through her notes, but she couldn’t find the answer she was looking for. They had times, dates, and places; but there was a big gap when it came to explaining why she would have done that.

"Love at first sight, huh?" Brock said, pouring himself another glass of wine. “I guess a bit of swagger made me seem confident and dependable. Or we had a hobby in common or something.” He held the bottle out to Isadora, raising an eyebrow in question. She reached for her coffee mug again, and then saw that her last sip had emptied it.

"Sure, why not. When in Rome, right?" She hesitated, then sighed and held out the mug. With her free hand, she shifted the papers around on the coffee table in front of her, looking for anything she could see about hobbies. “What would they have in common?”

Brock chuckled as he filled her mug nearly to the brim. "That's the spirit. And there might be some things in there. Things that link to your career, or would lead to qualifications with a paper trail. But we can fill in the gaps with what you know. Getting excited about some interest is hard to fake, you know? So what are you into; what do you do with yourself outside of work?”

Isadora took a drink of the wine, and was surprised by the sweetness. She didn’t know much about wine, but she could imagine drinking way too much of this stuff without realising. She hesitated, knowing that the interests that first came to mind would never be suitable for sharing with a colleague.

“I've always been good with languages and puzzles,” she suggested hesitantly. “That’s almost why I ended up at the Agency, as well. Cryptography seemed like a natural fit, the closest my hobbies came to an actual career."

"But you didn't stop there," Brock pressed. "If that’s your motivation, you’d make a perfect Monitor. So what made you decide to go for field training?"

She shrugged, not comfortable sharing just how much her feelings for Brown had influenced her decision. Or how much she had failed to recognise those motivations herself, until her plan had come crashing down. She felt like she should just come up with a generic answer, and try to divert the conversation back to Estelle Klein. "I wanted to do more. Make a bigger difference, I guess. But that’s not one of Estelle’s qualities."

"Admirable," Brock said, but there was a hint of something like amusement in his tone. "And you’re right. We should be thinking about emotional bonds we can apply to our legends. The records for our families are fairly sparse, so we can probably fill in what works for us. How about your family? They must be proud of you, taking on such an important job."

Isadora's grip tightened on her mug. "I don't really talk about my family." Maybe it wasn’t exactly true; but she didn’t want to drive a wedge between her and Brock. Well, a part of her did, but only to keep away any predatory advances. She still needed to be able to work with him, and with that in mind she needed him to trust her.

"Come on, we're supposed to be getting to know each other. Isn't that the whole point of this little exercise?"

“Getting to know our characters,” she said sharply. “Who I am doesn’t matter, it’s Estelle Klein you’ve fallen in love with and taken to some weird gated community. It’s her you should be asking me about, to make sure that you know me”

Brock held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Sorry, I didn't realise it’s a personal question. I’ve just found that for undercover work, it’s better to have a kind of natural rapport. And that’s easier to maintain if you can build it as yourself, before dropping into the role.”

“Maybe you should try asking me more about Estelle, and less about me,” Isadora said tartly. She drained the rest of her wine and set the mug down with a thunk. Brock didn’t respond right away, but started casually flipping through his own set of notes before responding.

“Do you want kids?” he asked, after a while. Isadora didn’t answer, but sat in silence. Her eyes darted back to the empty mug, and she wondered whether she should refill her drink. But even that could be part of some plan to get her drunk; was he trying to annoy her on purpose? She wouldn’t put anything past this guy.

“It won’t be in the file,” he said, after a little pause. “That’s the kind of thing we have to make up for ourselves. But I thought it would be a good reason to have a little tension in the marriage, if we’re not quite in agreement. A way to explain how we’re not always finishing each other’s sentences and all that jazz. Help bring the role alive.”

“Does Estelle want kids?” Isadora asked, restating the question to cover how flustered she was by the realisation that her anger had probably been misplaced. Or perhaps Brock had just made a very good save. But all the pages she’d read about her legend didn’t include anything that might have given her a clue. And she realised that this was the real reason for these weeks; so that they could work out all these little details, the parts that were more open to interpretation. And then she saw one page that might give her a little more of a hint, and pulled it to the top of the pile.

“You had an appointment at a women’s health clinic,” Brock said. Either he could read the scratchy doctor’s handwriting quicker upside down than Isadora could process it the right way around, or he’d already found his copy of a similar document. “Just a few weeks after the wedding. I doubt Arrencani can actually pull our medical records, but who knows? So there’s a chance he could find that you had some fertility tests, but didn’t show for a followup appointment.”

“I think she…” Isadora mumbled, and then hesitated while Brock poured her another mug of wine. She saw that the bottle was almost empty now, but then quickly noted that they were already on the second bottle. She wasn’t going to get drunk on that, she was sure. “Estelle thought Bernard would want kids. Successful businessman settling down for family life. She wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going to disappoint you. They said I should go in for more tests, something not conclusive or whatever. But when I mentioned it you didn’t seem to care. Like… if kids happen, it happens, but that’s in god’s hands. Or whatever. Are you religious?”

“Brock, or Klein?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “In both cases, I think the answer’s the same. Faith is a hard thing to fake. Raised by a churchgoing family, might pray occasionally when something’s worrying him, but more because that’s the way I was raised. I suspect unless you make a big deal out of religion, you wouldn’t even know what denomination.”

“That’s something I can live with. My folks were Branch Ecclesiopian, took it a lot more seriously than I do.” Isadora hesitated, and decided that it would be best to make Estelle’s faith the same as her own. The best way to avoid ingrained habits from childhood giving her away, if there were some she hadn’t managed to forget. “I never believed, and saw the church as kind of like a social club. A place to meet the neighbours and make friends. I… It says here we were married at an evangelical chapel, but you don’t sound very evangelical either. I’ll bet that some great-aunt I never liked insisted like it’s some kind of family tradition, and we went along with it just because it’s less hassle that way.”

“Sounds good,” Brock said with a nod, moving pages around in front of him again. “Yeah, I’ve got an Aunt Mary buried in the same town as the wedding, a couple of months later. So I’ll bet the funeral is the last time either of us have set foot in a church.”

“That’s something we’ve got in common then,” Isadora said. “One bond, at least.” And as soon as she said it, she hoped that Brock wasn’t going to take that as a hint she might be interested in him. She told herself that this was just something to make the Kleins more believable as a couple; even if it happened to be something in common between the Monitor and her Operative as well.

“And I’m on the fence about starting a family. Like, having kids would be fun, but I’m enjoying my life as it is, so I’ll be happy either way. And you really don’t understand that, because you’re more goal-focused. You wonder if it might indicate a lack of commitment. I’ll bet you’re the type who can’t go on vacation without a list of attractions to check off and sights to see, while I’m more likely to land in Rome and wander around soaking up the atmosphere of a foreign city until I see something that catches my interest. See what happens.”

Isadora rolled her eyes. She knew just the kind of frustration Estelle would be feeling in that situation. “I bet some of those problems will come to a head in the new neighbourhood. I’ve got plans, but you’re not following them. I’m bound to end up seeking sympathy from the wife next door, if there’s an hint they’re not experiencing perfect domestic bliss. And you’ll have a chance to vent about how I’m trying to control your life. Straight out of the manual, inviting bystanders to take sides makes it easy to ingratiate yourself.”

“Maybe,” Brock answered, and shrugged. “Let’s play it by ear. But I’ll admit that might be an option. Maybe you thought that moving out of the city would help you to relax a little. Or I guess, this is the first place we’ve actually bought together, rather than me dragging you to where business takes me. So it could be an attempt to compromise. Show that determination. So you’ll want to give me the benefit of the doubt for a few days, at least.”

“Yeah,” Isadora said, finally starting to warm to the role. “But I’ve got plans laid out. Meeting the neighbours, a cookout to get to know everybody, joining the HOA, all that. You better believe you’ll be sleeping on the couch if I arrange something and you’re off meeting new drinking buddies.”

“I’m a successful businessman!” he said. “Networking is an important skill, and I think I know how to meet people by now. That’s practically my job. You don’t need an appointment to make friends.”

Isadora felt her anger rising, and then Brock’s frustrated expression morphed into an easy laugh. This was Bernard’s biggest problem with his wife, she realised. He was just playing the role assigned to him, and he slipped into it so well. The way he had started out playing both sides, pointing out how frustrated she would be by his lack of routine, showed that he could at least see both points of view. And he was picking one that would give Estelle an excuse for the first stirrings of resentment. Playing opposite Isadora’s natural tendencies, so it would be easier for her to act that way.

“Don’t go over the top, though,” she said. “I mean, there’s a little trouble in paradise, but not a major argument. Unless it looks like I can seek solace with someone on Arrencani’s staff, maybe then there’d be a reason to ramp up the arguments, but… Well, we can’t plan that far ahead.”

She sighed, and put her mug down. It was almost empty again, and she realised that she was starting to feel a little tipsy. But she’d had probably two medium-size glasses, while Brock had polished off the rest of two bottles. She was sure he would be feeling it more, and she wondered if this might be the perfect opportunity to ask a little more about him. After everything he’d asked her before, it seemed only fair for her to ask some questions of her own.

A second later, she realised that it would really have been a good idea to follow up on the comments about sleeping on the couch. She needed him to know that she wouldn’t be sharing a bed with him, for the sake of their cover or for any other reason. She should have mentioned it when she had the chance. But as he drank more, she told herself that she didn’t need to worry too much. After so much wine, he wouldn’t be bringing his A-game to the rest of the conversation. She just had to watch out for an opportunity to say what she needed, and hope that he wasn’t in any state to argue.

[Kitty Angel]

Happy to see people are enjoying this one! Please let me know if you can see where it's going (or where it appears to be going); I'm really in the dark when it comes to working out if the clues I'm dropping in the text are too heavy-handed or too subtle.

8. Loose Ends

There were a lot of things to say. So many documents to go through before Isadora and Brock could properly understand the characters they were playing. But the more the evening wore on, the more Isadora started to wonder about the Operative in front of her. Maybe he was just asking about Estelle; about how she interpreted the character. But there were still questions that sounded too personal until she viewed them through that lens. Was he prying into her personal life, or encouraging her to develop the more private side of her character? She had no idea, but it contrasted sharply with his reluctance to talk about himself. Every question she asked, even if it could have been about Brock, was answered by Klein. And the more he answered, the more he seemed comfortable in the role – although Isadora had to wonder how many of the details he actually remembered, while he just skimmed most of the documents and picked out only a couple that caught his eye.

Not long after the wine bottle was empty, her curiosity was too strong. She wanted to see an answer from Dashiel Brock, not the character he was playing. And there was one question she knew would elicit that.

“So why did you join the Agency?” she asked, aware that the words would be a big departure from their conversation so far. “Sorry, I know that’s pretty personal, but I can’t help wondering…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a smile. “With all my legends, I get quite enough of secrets and lies. I don’t want to be hiding stuff when I’m off-duty as well. My life is an open book.” He hesitated a little while, before qualifying that: “Mostly.  But signing up? I don’t really know. I guess I always knew it was what I wanted to do. I mean, I did mechanical engineering in school. Woodwork, metalwork, all those things. And I decided to be a locksmith. And from there, a lock picker. Wanted to know how to use my skills for good.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Dash Brock all the legends are about. I thought you were like a head hitter?”

“Tales grow in the telling,” he said with a shrug. “I started out as a Monitor. Locks, looking up blueprints at city hall, that kind of research. Went to be a field operative, and discovered some talents I would never have expected. Turns out that fighting comes naturally, and it took very little effort for my hands to become lethal weapons. But then, when everything became computerised, most of the stuff I’d learned in school was no longer helpful. I could have gone in for retraining, I’m sure I could have picked it up, but I didn’t want to go back to the classroom. So we switched roles, and I became a full Operative.”

“And your partner?” Isadora asked. That was the one thing she wanted to know more than anything. Why was someone as experienced and decorated as Brock looking for a new partner? Maybe he was hard to work with; that was entirely possible, especially if his partner had been a woman. But then, the way he said swapping roles made it sound like he’d been with the same partner for a long time. “I mean, have I got big shoes to fill? Did you decide you need a younger model or something?”

“I said almost anything,” Brock snapped. “Don’t talk about Ghost, okay? You don’t know anything.” There was real anger in his eyes now, like a mask in front of a confused tangle of emotions that he didn’t want to unpack or to share. Isadora knew that she had touched a nerve, but she didn’t have the first clue why. The resentment between Brock and his previous partner ran deeper than she would have expected for a guy like him.

“Okay,” she said quickly, eager to turn the conversation back to a more comfortable place. “So what are you into? Like, hobbies or something?”

"You know, the usual,” Brock answered curtly. “Work out, read, catch up on sleep. Not a lot of room for hobbies in this line of work. But I guess I like learning new things. Taking up a new sport or whatever. I’ve done rock climbing, martial arts, badminton, skeet shooting, making soap, watercolours… Even learned to play the clarinet a bit. My legends all have new hobbies, so I can learn something in enough depth to be an unskilled enthusiast. Helps to sell the role, you know, to throw a lot of time into something trivial that I’m not so good at. And to get better."

“Oh, neat,” Isadora said. That was something she hadn’t even thought about. “So what about Klein? I didn’t see anything about hobbies on his background.”

“He’s fairly well off, a successful businessman. So maybe he just likes travelling. Or he’s picked up some exotic thing on a business trip. Maybe I’ll take up kintsugi, that would be a nice change. But the people around us will all be fairly wealthy too. Wouldn’t surprise me if a bunch of our neighbours have some hobby in common that they could help me to pick up. Was there a golf course nearby?”

“A country club,” Isadora answered, quickly pulling the map to the top of her piles of documents. “Could be golf, they’ve got a lot of green space. But the satellite image shows more outbuildings than I’d expect for a golf course, so I’d guess a small golf course and… probably horses. That’s a hobby for the rich.”

“Animals never liked me that much,” Brock said with a shrug. “I’d probably end up on the ground a lot if I tried riding. But that could be a way to build empathy. I’ll have to decide when I get there, really. Make sure I’ve got a couple of past country club memberships in my file, so I can bluff whatever seems appropriate as I get to know people. So… how about you? Crosswords?”

“More often sudoku,” Isadora said with a shrug. “I’ll do the crosswords if I’ve got nothing better to do, though.” She made a mental note to sort out the club membership, as well. That was her responsibility as the Monitor; to liaise with the Handlers and Kingmakers back at Millennium House and make sure that all their documents were in order.

“I never got into those,” Brock answered with a shrug. “Maybe I should give it a try. All kinds of puzzles in the newspapers now, I guess.” Isadora nodded, and didn’t say anything else. The comment was a stark reminder of the age difference between her and her supposed husband; and that brought about feelings that she didn’t know how to process right now.

“Ghost was a good operative,” Brock said, after a moment’s pause. “We worked well together. Great bloke, liked me enough to invite me to his poker game in downtime. I think you’d have got on well. But now…"

Isadora could hear the regret in his voice. Did this mean he was hoping to work with this Ghost guy again? Was she just a rebound partner, to keep him busy until he got another chance? And what would that mean for her career prospects in the future?

"Did something happen?" she asked, hoping that wasn’t too close to the still-fresh wound in his heart. Had Brock been too intent on a solo career? Had he done something to offend his partner? Was it just the handlers who had thought they would be better on separate postings? Isadora really wished she could at least understand the shape of the situation. “Was it the job, or…” she wondered for a second if there might have been something else between the men. It certainly sounded like they had been close, and Brock’s guarded response was clearly based in his emotions.

“I spent months in hospital after our last assignment,” Brock said slowly, and Isadora knew that this one answer would be the only one she got. He wouldn’t allow this conversation to go on any longer. “There was an explosion. I got shrapnel in my back, needed surgery to remove it, then physio, and counselling. I’ve been out of the game for a while, I think you know that. I was the lucky one.”

He slammed his glass down on the table, the sudden noise making Isadora jump. "You don't talk like that about my friend, you understand?" he growled, his voice low and dangerous. "Ghost was a damn good operative, and a friend. And now he's gone. That's all you need to know."

Isadora shrank back in her seat, her heart pounding. Seeing Brock like this, raw and angry. It was a stark reminder that beneath the suave exterior was a man who had seen and done things she could only imagine. She’d never even thought it could be something like that, and she started to realise that through her field training she had put a lot of unconscious effort into not thinking about the risks involved in their work. That this time, it could be her who didn’t come home.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, not quite meeting his eyes. "I didn't mean to pry. Or to make light of... what happened."

Brock took a deep breath, visibly forcing himself to relax. "It's fine. Just... leave it alone, okay? We've got enough to worry about with this mission without dredging up the past."

Isadora nodded, eager to change the subject. She glanced at the clock, surprised to see how late it had gotten. She knew she should probably bring up the sleeping arrangements, but the moment never seemed right. Every time she had tried to steer the conversation in that direction, Brock would deflect or change the subject. And she certainly didn’t want to talk about their sleeping arrangements when Brock was in such an emotional state. But maybe that would be for the best; he was unlikely to have anything on his mind but anger and grief after this conversation.

They kept on talking, minutes slowly creeping past. They both read the dossiers in front of them, and quizzed each other on their characters’ backgrounds. Isadora could quote the dates Klein had been in school from memory now. Dates and places for their first meeting, first date, engagement, and wedding. Brock’s answers were more curt now; if she asked when Bernard had graduated high school, or what modules he studied in college, he might give a year, or mutter something vague about finance, but he was hazy on the details.

Still, they were still learning. She was sure that he would manage to take in the details later, so long as he kept studying the documents. She would have to do her best to help him, so that they could both do their best on the upcoming mission. But that meant a detailed study of both of their backgrounds; which was already a little intimidating.

Isadora pulled the papers closer again, and looked at the next page. Past vacations; dates and places. The Kleins had been together quite a while before they were married, and Isadora was determined to remember all the places they had been and the sights they had seen.

“Right. We went to Tokyo last year,” she said. “Do you remember the museums we visited?”

There was no answer, and after a couple of seconds had passed Isadora raised her head. Across from her, Brock had slumped lower in his chair, his head lolling back against the cushions. An empty glass dangled between his fingertips. His breathing had slowed, and Isadora realised with some surprise that he had fallen asleep right there in the living room. She hoped that he would be more alert when her safety depended on him.

Part of her wanted to wake him so that they could finish their conversation. But another part of her, the part that was exhausted and more than a little tipsy, couldn't bring herself to disturb him. She couldn’t sleep on the couch when he was here, but that barely seemed to matter when he was asleep in an armchair. It meant that she could go back to her own bed after all, and if he was this tired it was unlikely that her partner would disturb her.

Slowly, carefully, she levered herself out of her seat. After returning his glass to the coffee table she grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over Brock's sleeping form, taking a moment to study his face in the dim light. In sleep, he looked kinder, the lines of tension and cynicism smoothed away. Still older than her, but he looked distinguished and respectable. She wondered what dreams haunted him, and whether his calmness simply hid nocturnal regrets about his former partner. But those were questions for another time. For now, all Isadora wanted was her bed and the oblivion of sleep.

As she stumbled down the hall to her room, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of relief as she wedged a chair under the door handle. The conversation she'd been dreading could wait until tomorrow. Tonight, she would sleep alone, her secrets and her space still her own for now.

9. Breaking Eggs

Isadora groaned as she woke up, wishing for just a couple of hours more rest. She hadn’t slept well, having woken numerous times and tossed and turned for half the night. Her mouth felt like it had been stuffed with cotton as well, a possible consequence of drinking too much wine last night and then not getting enough water to keep her hydrated. Something hadn’t let her sleep well, but to start with she wasn’t too sure what it had been.

She sat up with another groan, and took a few stumbling steps towards the bedroom door. And then she knew; she saw the chair propped up there, in case her “husband” decided to make an unexpected check on her during the night. She remembered that she no longer had the apartment to herself, and that she would have to deal with Brock. And a moment later, she realised what had awoken her. It was the smell of smoke, rich and woody. And after a moment of confusion with all kinds of possibilities flashing through her mind, she finally reached a slightly more rational answer. She could smell bacon. Good bacon, being fried, the kind that carried the scent of fragrant woodsmoke along with it when it was cooked.

She took a deep breath, and double checked that the door was securely closed before opening her closet and dressing for the day. She didn’t have any real plans, but figured she needed to be prepared to fend off any unwelcome advances from Dashiel Brock; so she selected tan jeans and a faded sweatshirt. One of the outfits she informally thought of as her gardening clothes; an affectation inherited from her mother, as there was no chance of affording a garden this close to the inner city. It was comfortable, casual, and didn’t restrict her movement at all – and also perfect for letting a hot older guy know that she wasn’t interested in him.

After checking how she looked in the mirror for the fifth time, she finally moved the chair away, opened the door, and went to see what was happening in her kitchen.

Brock was standing at the stove with his back to her, spinning a spatula in one hand like the hero from some western, showing off his manual dexterity while he waited for the food to be ready. He was dressed in a t-shirt and well-loved chinos; probably the most informal selection from his modest wardrobe. A bowl beside him held a small mountain of scrambled eggs, and a large serving plate was slowly accumulating a selection of bacon, sausages, mushrooms, toast, and waffles, as well as what might possibly be fried quarters of a large tomato. It seemed he had used every pan she owned. But she also noted that he must have been shopping as well, because she didn’t think her fridge had contained most of these ingredients, and the packaging in the top of the bin bore a distinctive orange and red owl logo.

Isadora didn’t shop at Orsk. It wasn’t that she was opposed to their food, which was always high quality, or the decadence of visiting a supermarket with an on-site traditional butcher, baker, cheesemaker, and brewer. It was just that after paying her rent and utilities, she didn’t have enough slack in the budget to consider the bougie boutique at the end of the street.

"Morning," Brock said without turning around, when Isadora had been so sure that she had approached in silence. "Hope you're hungry. I might have gone a little overboard."

Isadora gaped at him, momentarily at a loss for words. Of all the things she'd expected to find this morning, a legendary misogynist cooking breakfast in her kitchen was not one of them.

"You... cook?" she managed finally, cringing inwardly at the inanity of the question.

Brock chuckled, glancing at her over his shoulder. "Don't sound so surprised. I like learning new things, and there’s been a couple of legends in the past who dabble. Any time you’re short of dinner ideas, I whip up a mean biriyani; and if I’ve got time to go out for decent ingredients, I’ll happily make you some macarons."

He slid the last of the bacon onto the plate and turned off the stove, moving the skillet to the sink. "Figured it was the least I could do, after crashing on your best chair last night. And, you know, I hope I wasn’t too aggressive when you asked about Ghost. It’s still kind of raw for me, but I’m sure you wouldn’t have asked if you’d known."

Isadora felt her cheeks heat at the mention of their conversation the night before. "No, I'm the one who should apologise. It was none of my business, I let my curiosity get the better of me."

“You have every right to know.” Brock waved a hand dismissively, carrying the food to the small table by the window. He set the plates down and pulled out a chair for her, grinning. "We’re partners. We need to be able to trust each other. And that doesn’t just mean knowing that we’ll follow the plan, and that I’ll have your back when it comes to it; it means being able to predict each other’s actions in unforeseen circumstances. But now, Mrs Klein, you need to eat. We've got a lot to go over today, and we'll both think better on a full stomach."

Still a little dumbfounded, Isadora sat down, watching as Brock poured her a cup of coffee and slid the sugar and cream across the table to her. Her machine couldn’t do two large cups at once, so he returned to the counter and waited for it to warm up again. It was such a strangely domestic scene, so at odds with the tense, guarded man she'd argued with the night before.

“I should say I’m sorry as well,” she said. “You slept on the couch. Well… the armchair, which must be even less comfortable. But it seemed like you nodded off, and I didn’t know…”

“I don’t think you’re one of the fangirls I keep getting memos from in my email,” Brock said, a little sternness entering his voice. “You’re not silently bitter that we didn’t share a bed, and trying to bring it to my attention. And so I can give you a straight answer. Yes, we’re supposed to be a married couple. But practicalities have to be more important than the image sometimes. And I’ve been in surgery. Significant injury to my lower back; strains and bruising as well as the shrapnel cutting through my muscles in places they were never designed to separate. Thankfully, it doesn’t impact my operational efficacy at all. I can fight as well as ever, but there’s still things I can’t do.”

“You can’t…” Isadora found herself answering, aware that her curiosity was reaching a little too far but unable to stop herself before the words were out. She absolutely did not want him to think that she cared about that at all.

“I can’t lie down,” he answered, feigning ignorance to what Isadora’s subconscious had wanted her to ask. “Or if I do, it’s painful. I’ve been sleeping in chairs for six months, and I’d like to say that yours is a lot more comfortable than what they have in the hospital. So we won’t be sharing a bed, and I think that if you’re disappointed by that, I have misjudged you.”

“I’m not,” Isadora said, giving a sigh of relief. Maybe the stories that circulated about Brock weren’t quite as accurate as she might have thought. And that was cause for a wry smile as well; that in an office full of people whose entire job was built around their ability to assess data objectively and separate facts from rumours, she had still been part of passing around stories which seemed to have very little basis in fact. She wondered if it would have been different without the injury, but there was something in his demeanour that said he was only thinking of the logistics.

Isadora, on the other hand, was thinking about how she would have responded to having something as fundamental as lying down taken away from her. She could imagine that most people would see that as a reason to quit the agency, but not Dashiel Brock. He took it in his stride, found a way to make it work, and then thought no more about it. Of course, she didn’t know how he had reacted when he first got the news. But in his place, it was hard to imagine that she would have been so calm about it less than a year later. She was starting to see the man in a slightly different light - not just as the brash, womanising Operative of office legend, but as a human being who was doing the best he could in circumstances that noone could envy.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I had no idea. If there's anything I can do to make you more comfortable while you're here..."

Brock waved off her concern, and filled up his coffee mug. He was apparently making himself a very strong black coffee, with a spoonful of honey and a generous measure of what was presumably whiskey from a battered hip flask.

“A hair of the dog makes it easier?” she asked, glad to have something less worrying to talk about. She was feeling a little under the weather after the wine last night, and he had probably consumed three quarters of the bottles; so it was perfectly understandable that he might prefer to take breakfast with something that could take the edge off a hangover. If so, it was impressive that he still sounded so composed and confident.

“Just a habit,” he said with a little smile. “A colleague told me when I was green that he likes to start the day with a little indulgence, celebrating the fact that there’s unlikely to be anybody trying to kill him today. On assignment, he has to keep his senses too sharp, so he celebrates the breaks by doing things he couldn’t do when working.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Isadora said hesitantly, but she was still finding it hard to wrap her head around thinking like an Operative. Apparently, there was a big psychological difference, on top of the things she’d had to learn for field training. She hoped that she would be able to cope with the stress once they were actually in the field; if she ever managed to get that far.

“And don’t worry about my comfort,” Brock said, taking a long drink from his mug as he sat down. “I’ve found things that work for me. But there are a few things we should do to keep up appearances."

Isadora raised an eyebrow, just waiting for what he was going to say next. Was this going to be more practical, helpful advice that turned out to be more useful than anything she could have picked up in the classroom? Or was she going to be seeing Brock’s true colours now that he’d started to earn her trust? Her hand tightened around the handle of her coffee mug, ready to throw it if the next words were anything inappropriate.

Brock leaned forward, his expression turning serious. "It would be a good idea for me to keep some of my stuff in the bedroom. Pick one side of the bed that can be mine. You know, a few clothes in the closet, my watch on the nightstand, some novel about soldiers or something beside it, and reading glasses. Those kinds of things. And maybe keep one side of the bed a little more rumpled than the other, unless you’re in the habit of properly straightening it every morning. Make it look like I’m actually sleeping there, just in case anyone comes poking around."

Isadora blinked, surprised by the practicality of his suggestions. She hadn't even considered the possibility that someone might snoop around her apartment, looking for signs that their marriage was a sham. And when she thought about it, she really couldn’t imagine it happening. Although she suspected some of her friends might want to know the new man in her life, and would be only too happy to sneak a look in his sock drawer on the way back from the bathroom if they came to visit. But that wouldn’t be such a big deal, would it? She didn’t want her neighbours to actually think she was married, because that would only raise more questions when he left again.

“Do people actually do that?” she asked, not quite believing it. “I mean, most of the people who might visit us here know about my career anyway, and they’re not going to be in touch with the–”

“It’s for practice,” Brock answered quickly. “When we begin the actual assignment, we’ll need to convince nosy neighbours that we’re a not-quite-happily married couple. And we’re trying to get to know a mafia boss, who would certainly listen to rumours of anything out of the ordinary. Might even try bugging our place, if he has even the slightest reason for suspicion. That kind of ruse, well, it’s not going to come naturally. So we get into the habit of getting changed for bed, saying good night in the bedroom, and then I slope off back to my armchair. It has to feel natural, not rehearsed, long before we’re within spitting distance of the bandit and his monkeys.”

"That's... a really good idea," she admitted. "It makes a lot of sense. I guess I'm not used to thinking like a spy yet."

Brock grinned, the tension in his face easing a little. "You'll get there. It's all about the details, creating a believable illusion. If you have time, you can practise all those things until they become second nature, so that it seems natural to anyone who sees you together. Now, some of the Operatives can do that the first time they meet someone, but I’m not one of them. That’s what gets me in a lot of hot water with Kane; if the job is urgent and I don’t have time to settle into my legend, people see right through me and have to be dealt with in other ways. To avoid unnecessary casualties on this job, I need to train my muscle memory to act like a husband around you, and that means we play the part even before we need to. The more real we can make this look, the better our chances of fooling Arrencani and his crew."

“We’ll need to get out stories straight, too,” Isadora said; still not quite comfortable with how little Brock had seemed to care about getting the details right when they were reading through their files last night. She pointed through the door, to to piles of paper which had colonised the coffee table in the lounge. “We need to know these legends inside and out, until they feel like second nature."

“Yeah, I guess,” Brock nodded, and finished the big mug of coffee while thinking about his answer. “I think I’ve got the bones of Klein in my head, anyhow. We can keep on looking through the rest, to see if there are other things we need to memorise.

Isadora nodded, rising to help him clear the table. As they worked together in the small kitchen, moving around each other with surprising ease, she couldn't help but marvel at how quickly her perception of Brock was changing. He was helpful, he was tidy, and he hadn’t done anything so far that really seemed inappropriate. She was starting to think that he was someone she could trust after all. And maybe that was what Kane had wanted to prove to her, forcing them together like this. Just yesterday, she had been dreading the idea of spending any length of time with the famous Mr Brock, convinced that he was nothing more than a chauvinistic dinosaur with as little respect for personal boundaries as he had for the rules. But now, seeing him in this domestic setting, hearing him talk about the challenges he faced with such matter-of-fact honesty... 

She was starting to realise that there was a lot more to Dashiel Brock than met the eye. He was still a mystery in many ways, with a past that was clearly haunted by tragedy and loss. But he was also a professional, a man who took his job seriously and was willing to put in the work to make their mission a success. He wasn’t doing this for fun, or for the benefit of his love life, no matter what fantasies certain people in the office might have about him.

And if she was honest with herself, she was starting to feel a grudging respect for him. Not that she would admit it out loud, of course. They still had a long way to go before they could call themselves a team, let alone friends. But as they settled back down at the table, fresh coffees in hand and those documents from the lounge spread out in front of them, Isadora felt a flicker of hope that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to pull this off after all.

 

[Kitty Angel]

10. Inquisition

Slowly, their tentative attempts at acting like a couple morphed into a routine. It was a little crowded in the apartment, which was clearly designed for a single person, but it wasn’t as hard as Isadora might have expected. The fact that Brock was nearly always awake first, washing dishes from the night before or crushing a forest of empty beer cans and transporting them to the big recycling bins in the yard, meant that mornings were always easy for her. Later in the day, she would try to take responsibility for preparing dinner, if Brock didn’t get there first. And sometimes she let him cook, because he seemed to take a quiet pride in preparing something that was both tasty and nutritious.

Today, Isadora had decided to make breakfast. It was a decision she’d made many times before, but this was the first time she had been up in time to actually follow through on the promise to herself. And even as she fired up the stove, she could hear the faintest movement from the lounge to suggest that Brock was awake; whether he had been awake earlier or the faintest trace of her footsteps on the soft carpet had been enough to rouse him. He didn’t say anything, though. He must have known that she had something to prove; even if she wasn’t quite sure in herself what it was.

She didn’t go for the full spread Brock favoured. She hoped that he wouldn’t mind too much. And then she grinned a little, realising that she wasn’t obligated to make him happy. They could quiz each other about the Kleins’ backstories just as easily between bites of scrambled egg on toast. And if her taste for black pepper in the eggs was more than he preferred, then that was too bad for him. It would give Bernard Klein something else to whine to his country club buddies about; the surprise when he learned that his wife’s tastes didn’t perfectly match his own. That wasn’t something for Isadora to feel bad about, and she found herself almost hoping that he would be unimpressed. She wasn’t sure why she felt like that. Maybe it was just an irrational feeling of inadequacy creeping over her, after all her effort, that she hadn’t actually added anything new to their legends. She could quote dates and places from memory, while Brock barely seemed to be trying, but he was always the one to come up with details that would make so much sense to add.

She had her head down and was studying the papers in front of her when she heard a knock at the door. She quickly rose, automatically checking that she was dressed properly in the hallway mirror, to head off any irrational fears about her reputation. She didn’t need to do that now; she already knew that she’d gotten dressed in comfortable-but-casual clothes this morning, and since Brock’s arrival she wouldn’t even have dared to leave her bedroom without putting on respectable clothes. Still, the habit was so deeply ingrained that she rarely even noticed it.

Standing outside was a middle-aged woman wearing a tweed skirt and blazer, one pearl earring jiggling slightly as her hand brushed it while checking her hair. She had a small selection of envelopes in one hand. It looked like an even mixture of advertisements and letters from the taxman; the two inescapable burdens of independence.

“Good morning, Mrs Jennings,” Isadora greeted her. “Have they been putting my mail in your pigeonhole again? It’s not like we even have similar names.”“Well, it’s that new porter,” her neighbour said, and gave an exaggerated frown. “You know what they say about those people. They only make the effort when it’s their own kind.”

“Uhh… yeah…” Isadora said, accepting the bundle of letters. She hadn’t seen the new porter yet, so wasn’t sure which particular demographic was to blame for a careless mistake today; and she didn’t want to get into a debate about the issue. Her neighbour was relatively pleasant, but she divided the world into a tiny ‘us’ and a whole variety of ‘them’s, and while she would never say anything to those people directly, Isadora was eager to avoid a lecture on what the nebulous and ever-changing ‘they’ had supposedly done.

Ms. Jennings nodded, but her gaze had drifted past Isadora, into the apartment. Isadora followed her line of sight and realised that she was looking at Brock, who was sitting at the kitchen table cradling his first Irish coffee of the day.

“I see you’ve got company,” Mrs Jennings said, a faint note of accusation in her voice. “I do hope that I’m not interrupting, but I heard that you had a new friend, but I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” Of course, she never entertained the possibility that Isadora might not want to introduce Brock to all her neighbours.

Isadora had hoped that she could get through three weeks without having to speak to the woman from the apartment across the hallway, who still had no idea what Isadora’s job actually was or who she worked for. She was someone who couldn’t know the truth, because she was a natural squawker. Anything Jennings knew would be known by everyone in the building by the following day, and splashed in public posts all over FriendSpace, in communities ranging from the local residents’ association to assorted cat appreciation groups.

“You’d better come in, I guess,” she said with a little smile, gesturing into the apartment. “Dan, this is my neighbour from across the hall, Mrs Jennings. She wasn’t home when you arrived, I think. And this is my coworker, Dan Brooks. He’s sleeping on my couch while the builders are working on his place.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs J,” Brock said, raising his mug as if offering a toast. “Coffee’s on, if you’d like one.” Isadora hoped that he could pick up from her attitude that he needed not to mention anything about work. Would he have been briefed about which of her neighbours were cleared to hear limited details? Isadora wasn’t sure, but she hoped that Brock would get the message. His name was so well known in espionage circles that even a casual mention of it online could get people paying attention, so she’d decided that it would be a better idea to tell Mrs Jennings something different. Nobody would be poking around searching for random names that didn’t mean anything; but it was close enough that an overheard mention of his real name while she was still getting used to the whole spy thing wouldn’t be enough to break their cover. She hoped that Brock would be mature enough to realise that, but she didn’t know.

“Oh, yes,” Jennings answered with a thin-lipped smile. “Coffee would be good. Although I hope you’re gentleman enough not to ask Isadora to fetch it for us.”

“Of course not,” Brock answered with a smile that gave away nothing at all. But when he met Isadora’s eyes, she was sure that he had picked up on everything. After days of putting in the minimum effort, he was actually paying attention when it mattered; and that gave her a little more confidence. Brock stood up and moved to the coffee machine, and Mrs Jennings walked through into the lounge without needing an invitation. Exactly what Isadora would have expected.

“Daniel,” Mrs Jennings said, as soon as they were sitting down in the lounge. “A biblical name. But something tells me you’d be better with the lion.”

“I’m sorry?” Isadora responded, barely having time to think about it. She didn’t understand the subtext there; or what her neighbour had actually said.

“He’s a little old for you, isn’t he?”

“What?” she asked in confusion, and then realised that Mrs Jennings must have assumed there was something between two people staying together, even without any kind of evidence. “No, it’s nothing like that. We work together, is all. He’s only here because it’s convenient.”

“Oh, are you sure, dear?” Mrs Jennings answered. She didn’t believe; but then she’d always been prone to believing what she wanted to in spite of the evidence. And that was something that Isadora really wasn’t sure how to respond to. “Well, you know we’re all around you, you know? Neighbours support each other. Sooner or later you’ll understand that a man like that, his promises aren’t worth the breath that goes into making them. And if you need our help to explain it to him, we’ll be here for you.”

“No, no,” Isadora said. “It’s really nothing like that. No secrets, no relationship. Just a guy sleeping on my couch. And he hasn’t tried anything, not even once.” And as she said that, she realised that it was true. Maybe she could stop propping up a chair in front of her bedroom door each night; it wasn’t like it would stop Brock if he was serious anyway. It was weird; she’d been reassuring herself that she could trust the man on a daily basis, but it was only when she heard someone else casting the same aspersions on him that she started to understand just how silly it sounded.

If Dashiel Brock wanted to take advantage of her, there was nothing she could have done to stop him. Her bedroom door was cheap hollow chipboard; and she had no doubt that he could break it down in ten seconds flat. Although the rumours about his amorous adventures were debated now, nobody was questioning the accuracy of everything she had heard about his ability to get into places where he wasn’t welcome. And yet he always went to sleep in his chair, and showed absolutely no interest in anything but a professional relationship.

“Whatever you say, dear,” Mrs Jennings nodded slowly. “But I do hope you understand me. Don’t let yourself be blinded by your emotions, dear. We know you’re trusting, and that’s a good thing. But it will get you into trouble sooner or later. And we don’t want to see you as some older man’s plaything.”

Isadora would have responded reflexively with yet more denials; but when she thought about being enthralled to an older man, some part of her mind jumped to all the secrets that she had tucked away in a suitcase of childhood memories; and for a moment maybe she could see what her colleagues were feeling when they spoke about the legendary conquests of Brock and his ilk.

“Three coffees.” Brock’s words yanked her abruptly out of her reverie, and for a fraction of a second she didn’t know what she was supposed to be feeling. But Mrs Jennings was still on the ball, and leapt into a string of rapid-fire questions about work, life, politics, and his intentions. Brock had been paying more attention than she had thought, because his every answer was polished and perfect. The answers of a workmate couch surfing for reasons beyond his control. But Isadora did pick up a casual mention of a former partner dropped into the middle of an anecdote about some past promotion. And it seemed so natural that the name stuck with Isadora through the rest of the slightly-awkward social gathering.

As soon as Mrs Jennings was gone, after the mandatory sigh of relief, she felt like she had to ask. Normally she would have been reluctant to pry, but her recent conversation with Brown had convinced her that she might not know as much as she thought about the people around her, and she didn’t want to make the same mistake about two potential Operative partners in the same month.

“Duncan?” she asked. “Your ex?”

“First name that came to mind,” he answered with a shrug. “Last movie I watched was an adaptation of Macbeth. It’s clear from the body language that she worried that I’m a work superior using the personal dynamics between us to create an unhealthy power gradient. I figured that allowing her to figure out that I’m gay would dispel those worries.”

“I… see…” she said, taken aback by how matter-of-fact he was about these things. It wasn’t the way she would have expected him to act at all.

“Of course, I could have been bisexual, but I got the impression that her mental stereotypes were codified in a time when the average person didn’t know nearly so much about other people’s preferences, and that would likely not occur to her.”

“I see,” Isadora mumbled weakly, wondering if she was just as easy to manipulate. “So are you… I mean… You could really have convinced me that you’re super gay and super discreet about it. And that’s something that’s completely at odds with your reputation, and I… I have no idea what’s real anymore.”

She knew as soon as she said it that she really shouldn’t have, and wondered if she’d been drinking from Brock’s liquor-infused coffee by mistake. But there was nothing she could say after that but wait for the answer.

“Am I gay, you mean?” he asked, and seemed more serious than she’d ever seen him. “No. I’m a real Captain Kirk in that regard. Not into guys. Or women, now. I’m not ready to have my heart broken. Better to be married to the job, even if people want to make up their own stories about me so they can live in their fantasy land. And trust me, you don’t want to know any more about that.”

Isadora looked up and tried to meet his eyes, but his expression was so cold, so isolated, that she couldn’t really understand. He’d been angry when she asked about his former partner, but there was an emptiness in his gaze now that really scared her; and she knew that she really didn’t want to know what was behind that.

11. The Teacher

Isadora sat at the kitchen table, her brow furrowed as she flipped through the pages of Bernard and Estelle Klein's background files for what felt like the hundredth time. Brock was washing the breakfast dishes this morning, having already done the cooking, but she felt that he still had the easy job. She had been quizzing him on the details of their cover stories while he worked, and she just couldn’t believe how little he seemed to care about such a crucial stage of getting into character.

“Okay,” she said. “The mascot for your high school football team.”

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I was never into the whole sports thing. I mean, yeah, I was on the team for like half a season, but that was only because Mandy DD was on the cheer squad, and I spent half the practices in the locker room with her. Never actually made it off the bench.”

Isadora sighed. That was exactly the kind of response she might have expected from Brock, and she was starting to wonder if her earlier thoughts about his professionalism had been misplaced. She’d been asking him questions like this for a couple of weeks now, and he gave no impression of caring about Bernard’s background, or Estelle’s.

“Leopold the Tiger,” she said with a sigh. “Surely you could remember that? Just visualise Mandy with a tiger tail, or something.” She gritted her teeth, and tried to understand how a man could ever gain the role of Operative without being able to memorise even the basics about his cover identity. Glancing down at the fake yearbook page in front of her and seeing that the school did indeed have a cheerleader called Mandy “Deedee” Dyson didn’t do much to reassure her. If he could only remember the name of a well-endowed cheerleader from the photos, it gave a clear impression of what he’d been thinking about when he looked through those pages.

“Okay,” she asked, her tone sharp. If she could get at least one right answer out of him, it would be a good start. “What’s the street I grew up on?”

Brock shrugged, and took a long sip on his coffee. “Something with a tree in it?” he guessed. “Maple… Avenue? Maple Crescent?”

Isadora sighed, setting the papers down with a little more force than necessary. "Maple Grove. Come on, Brock, this is basic stuff. How are we supposed to convince anyone we're a real couple if you can't even remember where your wife grew up?"

“I never…” Brock mumbled, leaning back. “I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t remember my wife’s home town unless I met her there. It’s not a part of my relationship with her.”

“Okay,” Isadora conceded. “Maybe that’s true. That’s a detail that I should know, rather than us. But what about… We’ve recently come back from a honeymoon. Where did we stay?”

“Rome,” he said. “The hotel was odd, looked so ancient on the outside, like it goes all the way back to the romans, but as soon as you step inside it’s all cool AC and automatic doors. And a neat little minibar that raises up when you open it.”

“I mean where was it?” she pressed. “What part of Rome?”

“They said it was central,” he said, leaning back and racking his brains. “Three streets over from the Trevi Fountain. Maybe it was, but every time I went out of the place I got lost in a maze of back streets and it took me twenty minutes just to find signs in English.”

Isadora had to laugh at that. The gesture of humility, admitting that he wasn’t good at geography, made it easy to like Brock. But she couldn’t look past the fact that he was just using this to cover up his lack of knowledge about the facts. And when he was talking to the bandits, they might not be so willing to let him get away without answering. He needed to know their background. She turned to the next page, and tried to pick a question that he might actually know the answer to.

Brock leaned back in his chair, seemingly unfazed by her frustration, and spoke again to interrupt her concentration. "Relax, Isadora. It's not about memorising every little detail. It's about the big picture, the overall impression we give off. I’m pretty sure that Estelle Klein is going to get mad at her husband for not remembering the date they got engaged, or the name of that hotel. But you know what? A lot of people can’t. A person who can reel off details gives the impression they cared about memorising it. Bernard is a big picture kind of guy, he might remember that he bought you a drink in a hotel bar when your taxi was delayed, and finally got you to open up and start talking about stuff other than work. And he might remember what drink you asked for, but there’s no way he would ever remember the name of the bar, or whether the prices were reasonable."

“So what was the drink?” Isadora asked with a smirk.

“It’s not in the file,” he said with an unbelievable level of confidence. “I’d guess you asked for a wine spritzer or something like that. Your choice. But that’s the kind of thing I need to remember. I’m not supposed to be memorising the whole file. It’s more important that we learn how to give the answers that Bernard and Estelle would give.”

Isadora hesitated for a second, but she couldn’t see any flaws in the logic there. They were revising these facts because they needed to become the Kleins, but most people weren’t experts on their own lives. It was a running joke in sitcoms that a man would forget his anniversary, and she’d had enough conversations with people who were surprised to realise just how long “a couple of years” had actually been. In a way, Brock was right. He might have been covering up the low effort he’d put into learning these facts, but he was right that she needed to start thinking about how Estelle would remember the details.

“Low alcohol wine,” she said, with a sigh. “In a low class place like that, I wouldn’t even trust them to put a spritzer together. But it’s all the same to you, isn’t it? Beer when you’re bored, or anything that burns your throat as it goes down.”

“I like drinks that are honest about what they are. And that’s the last time we went to a place like that, isn’t it? I learned what you like.” And Isadora really couldn’t help smiling at that. It was just the kind of thing a henpecked husband might say. He wanted to show that he cared about her, even if avoiding that hotel in future wouldn’t have been practical without remembering the name. And that was the first lesson she was learning from the more experienced Operative – not the actual details, but what they told you about the person. How Bernard or Estelle might remember these dry details told a lot about their character, and which details they would choose to focus on as well.

“Okay,” she said. “I need to think about the emotional side of my background, and put some spin on it. But you still need to actually learn the facts, as well. What happens if one of Arrencani’s people knows Rome well, and can say that there isn’t a hotel three streets over from the fountain?”

“I’ve been to Rome a few times,” Brock answered with a shrug. He’d finished his coffee now, and topped it up with a splash from his hip flask in the bottom of the mug. “Mostly with work. Once for a dirty weekend. There are dozens of hotels that could charitably be described as within three streets of the fountain; and hundreds more who would claim to be in the hope that someone will think they’re central. I suspect that for the honeymoon, Bernard would focus more on the amenities than the location; concentrating primarily on his new wife. So it’s entirely possible he assumed he was getting lost in the back streets and never realised how far from the centre they really were.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Isadora said slowly, really thinking about her character now. “Bernard didn’t book here. Estelle is the administrator, she would have been used to booking hotels, so she insisted on setting up the honeymoon. But she’s used to picking a place with all the features her boss asks for within a certain radius of a conference, or taking the client’s recommendations. She’s never really had the freedom to travel for leisure before, and isn’t used to how misleading the ads can be in a tourist trap. So she booked a place that was ‘three streets over’ when it’s actually on the edge of the city. And Bernard focuses on the positives, because he doesn’t want her to feel bad about it. Actually… I’ll make a note of that. Get some holiday photos from relatively obscure tourist attractions that are off the beaten track, which we saw because they were on our way into town. I think Bernard’s the kind of guy to make the most of what they’ve got, while Estelle would rather plan for perfection and be at a loss if she doesn’t get it. So maybe that honeymoon started to teach her that there are benefits to being flexible; even if she won’t admit it.”

“We’ll make an Operative of you yet,” Brock said with a laugh, draining his mug again. “That’s what we need to be thinking about, not memorising lists of names and numbers.”

“The details matter, Brock. Sure, we need to know how our legends feel, but we need to know the facts as well. One slip-up, one inconsistency, and our whole cover could be blown. I worry that –"

"You worry too much," Brock said, draining the last of his coffee and standing up. "Listen, I've got to head out for a bit. Why don't you keep studying, and we'll pick this up later?"

Before Isadora could protest, he was out the door, leaving her alone with her stack of files and a growing sense of unease. How was she supposed to build a convincing cover with a partner who didn't seem to take any of this seriously?

She spent the rest of the day buried in the Kleins' backstories, committing every detail to memory. Birthdays, anniversaries, childhood pets... she would make sure she knew it all, even if Brock couldn't be bothered.

She was still trying to get all the details into her head while she prepared dinner that evening. In the kitchen was a stand designed to hold recipe books at eye level, but she could make a risotto without needing any reminders so she was reading a list of childhood friends and their birthdays as she stirred. Her mind was starting to feel as full as a certain box stowed away in the boiler cupboard, and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to squeeze anything else in. And that set her thinking about the items in that box again; how much she wished she could take something small out, just to help her blow off steam a little. Maybe she could move one of the toys to her nightstand, a small one. Brock wouldn’t see it, would he? He mostly avoided the bedroom, as he had promised. But she couldn’t afford to let him find out just what was lurking behind her businesslike exterior. Even just one toy, for half an hour before bed, was too much of a risk. She needed to prove that she could put her desires to the back of her mind, and think about the things that really mattered. Wasn’t that the essence of maturity, being able to draw a line between essentials and luxuries?

She didn’t have time to wander too far down that confusing rabbithole, because that was when Brock walked back into the apartment. Isadora was still shocked each time she heard the door open; it was hard to get used to someone else having a key to her home. But for a little more than another week, she was sure that she could put up with his presence. She didn’t ask him where he had been; that wasn’t any business of hers. He always said that he didn’t do anything outside of work, but his job right now was right here in the apartment. Maybe he was reaching out to his connections, trying to find someone who could assign him a different partner. Or perhaps he’d felt like he needed exercise, or a drink. After their argument this morning, with the tension building up, she wouldn’t have blamed him.

She didn’t say anything right away, just devoted herself to the document in front of her and studied it as studiously as she could manage. And then there was food on the table, and they were both enjoying it too much to talk. Or at least, Brock was shovelling food into his face fast enough that there was no time for words to escape. When the meal was over, he put an envelope down in the middle of the little table.

“What’s this?” Isadora asked, though she wasn’t sure what kind of answer she expected. She opened it anyway, and pulled out what looked like a couple of train tickets and some kind of booking slip.

"Pack your bags, Mrs. Klein," Brock said, with what he probably thought was a charming smile. "We're going on a little trip.”

 

 

Author's note: Any guesses where they're going? Is Brock's secret visible yet, or Isadora's? And which do you think is likely to come out first?

[Kitty Angel]

12. Personal Effects

Isadora set aside the tickets and pulled out the glossy pamphlet behind them. Her eyebrows rose as she read the bold print on the cover. "A weekend getaway to the beach? Brock, what is this?"

“I can see you’re trying to get into the role. But it’s hard, especially when the neighbours know who you really are. You can’t introduce me as your husband, and you can’t get used to acting the part. So I thought it would be better to spend some of our training elsewhere. Kane approved it, but he wanted me to pay. Typical old skinflint, but don’t tell him I said that.”

“Just so you’ve got me to yourself?” she asked, all her nerves from the first day returning.

“I’m still sleeping on the couch,” Brock answered with a shrug. “But I figured, well… we could try to make some memories. When someone asks about the honeymoon, we’ve got a holiday to draw memories from. Things that go wrong, things that go right, we’ve got something that we both remember to give some shape to the legends.”

Isadora sighed, not sure what to think of the idea. She hated that Brock had gone out and arranged this without consulting her; but she couldn’t exactly yell at him for that. He was supposedly the experienced operative, after all. And maybe this was something that they did sometimes, to settle into a difficult role. Or maybe it was just a crutch for a newbie, and if that was the case Isadora was sure she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to feel like she had training wheels for the whole mission because she hadn’t lived up to the Agency’s expectations. So the only humiliation-free solution was to go along with what Brock said, and tell herself that it was a good idea. Still, she hated the thought that he might not think she was good enough to do this job without extra help. Isadora had spent too much of her life already being treated like a child at work, and she’d hoped that she was long past that stage now.

She couldn’t argue, because there were no valid points to argue. But she couldn’t agree with him either, because it felt like he wasn’t respecting her enough. She could say that she would get a feel for her character by reading through the files again, and she could suggest that he do the same; but she couldn’t deny that even without the facts and figures, Brock was a lot closer to seeing the world through Bernard Klein’s eyes. And that made a world of difference. The next day, without really agreeing or disagreeing, Isadora was thinking about what she would need to pack for this little trip. And when Brock came back with a slightly battered suitcase that looked like it had seen better days, she knew that it was too late to state any objection.

“I thought you didn’t have worldly possessions?” she asked. The case was probably almost as old as he was, and although the corners were scuffed, it still looked to be in good shape. It must have been cared for, but nothing would look like new under those circumstances.

“There’s a flea market at St Mawdryn’s church,” he said. “Raising money to get a wheelchair ramp to the confessional, apparently. Some devout person must have donated these, and I think they’re a bargain. I mean, buying new would make it look like I’m not used to travelling, which doesn’t fit Bernard. Four or five years careful use is more his style.”

As they began to plan and pack for their impromptu getaway, Isadora couldn't shake the feeling that this was a test of sorts. A chance for her to prove that she could handle the unpredictable nature of field work, even if it meant stepping outside her comfort zone. Or maybe just a test of whether she was willing to accept Brock’s decisions. That was probably what was expected of her as a field monitor; she would always play second fiddle to the operative. But she didn’t know if that should have bothered her more.

She tried not to think about it. She picked out a selection of clothes for the trip after checking the weather for their destination. But she wanted everything to be perfect, so she also checked FriendSpace and other social media sites, constructing abstract graph queries to pull out photos tagged within a mile of the town even if she wasn’t friends with the people in them. About half of them were private; that was no big surprise. But she would never underestimate the willingness of people to post pictures on social media without realising how widely they would be shared. She looked at the same dates for the last four years, and found that they all showed pretty much the typical weather indicated by the hotel’s brochure. That wasn’t too much of a surprise, but now she knew for sure that there was little chance of unexpected wet days or anything like that.

By the time she had everything she would need packed into a suitcase, she started thinking about Bernard’s luggage. Brock had been shambling haphazardly around the house, but now she thought about it Isadora realised that there would be relatively little stuff for him to pack.

“You’ve got suitcases,” she said, stepping out into the hallway. “But what are you going to put in them?”

“I bought some stuff,” he said with a shrug. “Spare shirts. Beach shorts. A half dozen awful spy novels to read on the train. Bottle openers and novelty travel mugs, the kind of things a church has trouble selling because nobody wants them. Also the kind of junk that a businessman might keep with him because it was a gift from someone who matters. I could do with more stuff, really. Don’t suppose your ex left any stuff around? Like, spare clothes and junk so I don’t need to make another shopping trip?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Isadora shook her head. She didn’t want to admit that there wasn’t an ex to speak of; that she hadn’t even offered a guy a drawer since she had moved into the apartment. She sighed, and then stuck her head into the lounge, and then the kitchen, trying to work out where Brock actually was. She found him in the box room, of course, looking through the closet in there to see if there was anything suitable for Bernard’s suitcase. “Will we have to do all this again when we move to our new house? I mean… The Kleains’ new house. If we’re moving there we’ll need luggage, won’t we?”

“The Agency sorts all that,” he said. “We can put together some personal stuff, like a shaving kit and distinctive clothes. But they can supply us with everything else, bundled up and ready to move in. Our furniture will probably be new, shipped in from a local dealer. My old place was a furnished rental, and everything Estelle had for herself was inexpertly-assembled Ikea stuff, so we decided to buy new.”

“We’ll have to have some older stuff though, won’t we?” Isadora asked. “I can imagine people wanting to buy a whole bunch of new things, but surely there would be some pieces with sentimental value that they wouldn't want to part with."

Brock nodded, considering her point. "You're right. It would be odd for a couple like the Kleins to have everything brand new. We should have a few older pieces, things that might have been passed down from family. I don’t think that Bernard would have that much, but there may be some heirlooms. He wasn’t close to his family, but he would still value inherited items. Now, the kingmakers and supply are happy to provide unusual items, even particular eras if we have a reason for it, but we’d have to ask."

He glanced around the room, as if searching for inspiration. "We've got a few options, though. If there’s anything you’ve already got that you’d like to bring, that shouldn’t be a problem so long as it fits Estelle. But bear in mind that we don’t know if we’ll be able to bring stuff back again, depending how the assignment ends.”

“We’re not going in like James Bond,” Isadora said, sensing that she was poking at the elephant in the room now even if she wasn’t quite sure of its shape. “We’re there for surveillance. To watch what they’re doing, and report back whether Arrencani is actually smuggling people. It’s not like we’re going to go out in a blaze of glory, some chaotic shootout in an old shoe factory with gangsters on one side and us on the other. When it’s time to leave, we can move out without them ever realising we’re connected to the Agency.”

“Right,” Brock nodded, and glanced away for a second. Isadora was sure now that this was something he’d been in trouble for in the past; trying to stop a criminal operation by himself instead of reporting his findings and moving on. But there was something else there; a cagey attitude that she couldn’t explain. She didn’t say anything, but it was only a second before he turned back towards her to continue what he was saying. “Or we could hit up a local thrift store or garage sale, see if we can find something with character. Or the default, of course, tell the kingmakers what we want and they’ll make it happen."

Isadora nodded. The kingmakers were among the most respected part of the administrative infrastructure at Millennium House; they were responsible for making sure that an operative’s legend passed muster. Not just writing the stories about who he had been, but making sure that there was a digital papertrail, and forging physical records as well. And, a part that she’d never really seen the importance of before today, creating or sourcing mementoes and heirlooms. She thought about taking some of her possessions with them to stand in for Estelle’s stuff, but almost everything she owned had been bought more for function than style, and it was hard to imagine anyone actually caring about it. The kingmakers were probably their best option.

Even if she could somehow drag her mind away from worrying about how much danger they could be in if Brock couldn’t refrain from trying to take on the mafia on his own.

“I think we can trust headquarters,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll have a think about it later, look through the family tree and work out what kinds of things I can imagine Estelle keeping from her family. Right age for her parents’ first house, and stuff like that. I think it would be a good idea. But that’s not the point now… we need belongings for this trip, right? I don’t think there’s time to get a message back to Millennium and have a response before the weekend. If you haven’t got clothes, we can go shopping. You haven’t got any decent beach clothes anyway, have you? When I met you work was all you had, and now you’ve barely changed. Even if you’re in chinos, you walk like you’re in a suit. And your casualwear just looks like…” She hesitated, took a breath, and let herself fall completely into character.

“You’re not in the office, Bernard Klein. You’re taking a vacation. And I don’t want you looking like you just stepped out of the boardroom, or like you asked your secretary to pick an outfit for casual friday. We’re going shopping, and then we’re going on vacation, and you’re going to relax this time.”

Brock smiled this time, and a fraction of a second later there was a nod. “An excuse to have new clothes for the trip,” he said. “And I can imagine that scene perfectly. Yeah, Bernard is laid back and doesn’t sweat the details, but a part of that is feeling comfortable around the office, which means that he never feels the need to dress down. Perfect excuse for his loving wife to give him a makeover. She probably picked out his clothes for the beach vacation, and then a whole new shopping trip for the honeymoon in Rome. So… you want to go to the store and pick out what you would have bought me, or leave it to me?”

“We can do it together,” she said firmly, not sure if the determination came from Isadora or Estelle. “Look, we’ve got an hour and a half break changing trains at Greater Ashfields. So we set off with a half-empty suitcase, and get you stuff on the way.” Then she could feel a moment of pride; because she’d found a situation where paying attention to every detail really did make life easier. She didn’t know if Brock would learn from that, or if he was just too reluctant to study, but he had to appreciate it. He gave her another enigmatic smile and a nod before heading back to put whatever he’d just picked up in his suitcases, which now stood in the lounge.

Isadora was still congratulating herself twenty seconds later, when she was about to leave the box room. But she froze, and wondered if she could have been careless. As she moved, the faintest shift in air currents caused a light tap as the cupboard door bumped on its frame. She hesitated, breathing more quickly now, and looked through to the lounge. Brock was pouring himself a vodka tonic with just a splash of tonic, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Isadora’s heart was racing as she nudged the box room door closer to being closed, so that there wasn’t as line of sight straight across the apartment.

Then she moved closed, and she could see that the door to the boiler cupboard was ajar. Could she have been mistaken? Could she have left it open without realising? But she was so careful with those little secrets, and she knew there was no chance she would ever leave that room without checking a dozen times. Well, then, perhaps Brock had just opened the door in search of the clothes of some imaginary ex, and then turned away when he realised there was nothing in there.

That wouldn’t have explained the box being free of dust. All she could hope for now was that he’d seen a bunch of brightly coloured plastic shapes and folded cloth, and hadn’t bothered to investigate what those toys were, or to look at her clothes in any more detail. She felt like she would die of shame if Brock actually saw what was in that cupboard; but if he saw anything, he had to have gone through a whole conversation without mentioning it. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it?

She told herself that she was safe, and that there was no reason to worry. But she also knew how observant Brock could be. There was a dread in the back of her mind now, held at bay by the last desperate hope that he hadn’t paid attention to anything more than a mass of old clothes and toys. He still might know what he’d seen.

Isadora took a deep breath and tried not to panic. If Brock hadn’t said anything, that meant he hadn’t seen anything that would offend him. She was good. And that thought would have been oh so reassuring, were she not thinking about an accomplished secret agent for whom hiding his true feelings was practically a job requirement.

She hoped that he hadn’t seen her toys, but right now Isadora just didn’t know.

13. Insight

“I had to feel sorry for that German couple though,” Isadora mumbled, as they walked down a sunlit street. The light was so bright that she could barely see where they were going, although that could have been because the sun was low in the sky now, barely above the rooftops. It apparently didn’t stop other people seeing her, though. Her dress was more revealing than anything she would have chosen for herself, and she felt like every guy they passed was staring at her bare legs, or a plunging neckline that promised to reveal a lot of cleavage even though she wasn’t particularly well endowed. It was her second day passing herself off as Estelle Klein, the trophy wife dressed according to her husband’s tastes, and in a way she was glad that they’d taken this vacation. It gave her a little more time to get used to how other people might view her.

“I heard somebody speaking German on the way to the gents,” Brock said. “Austrian accents. Did they have a problem?”

“Oh, yes,” Estelle said. “They kept asking if they had a menu, even when they were holding one. The waitress seemed to be kind of confused. Eventually they managed to order, but I’m not sure what the problem was. Maybe they thought there are different menus at different times of day?”

“I wish I’d heard that,” Brock said. “You don’t speak German, do you?”

“No?” Isadora answered. “Well, I can ask for directions to the embassy, and understand enough to recognise a bomb threat or a request for asylum, but not enough for everyday conversation. Why?”

“‘Menu’ is the German word for a set meal,” Brock explained, pronouncing the word slightly differently. “In some restaurants, you could just ask for the menu and the waiter will bring you whatever is good today, saving you the effort of choosing.”

“Ohh, that makes so much sense!” Isadora answered. “You’ve been to Germany, then?”

“I don’t think so. But I picked up a bit of the language from a German neighbour when I was stationed in Kranj for six months. I’d like to think languages have always been one of my strong suits.”

Isadora wasn’t sure what else she could say, but she was spared the need to answer when they turned into a little courtyard, surrounded by picturesque buildings. This was where they were staying; an ancient hotel which had probably seen better days. Theoretically it wasn’t far from the town centre, but was hidden behind a maze of back streets that made it almost impossible to get anywhere in a timely manner. Isadora had done her best to memorise the street map before arriving, while Brock just walked down streets at random until he reached an area with more tourists than locals.

Isadora had already started to understand that this was supposed to be the same attitudes they’d taken on in Rome, for their honeymoon. Bernard just trusted in fate to get him somewhere near to his destination, while Estelle would do her best to find the shortest path. Of course, in Rome they wouldn’t have had the easy alternative of going out the back door and walking along the beach until they reached the pier and its steps; but it helped Isadora to wrap her head around how her character was supposed to feel about Bernard. His ineptness was frustrating at times, but also kind of adorable. So although she lectured Bernard constantly about planning ahead, she could be confident that nothing bad would happen.

“So, how about you, Bernard?” she asked as she hunted through her pockets for their room key. “You took a hell of a long time finding the restrooms. Did you get lost there as well?”

“Oh, I was passing through one of those weird little courtyards, with the climbing plants growing up the pillars. And, well, there was a very persuasive vendor there, selling stuff out of a wheelbarrow.”

Isadora turned to see what he had bought now, hoping that it wouldn’t be impossible to fit in their suitcases. And Bernard held out a single lily, its stem captured in a thin plastic tube. Maybe that meant it would stay alive a little longer; she didn’t know.

“I uhh…” she stammered. This was the last thing she had expected. Sure, Bernard Klein was supposed to be a real romantic, but Brock didn’t need to get into the act, did he?

Isadora took the flower, her fingers brushing against Brock's as she did so. She felt a tiny spark at the contact, a jolt of something she couldn't quite name. Not actually passion, but the sense that she could understand what Estelle must be feeling in this situation. She was connecting to her character, and suddenly all the facts she had read in the character summary actually meant something. She held the flower carefully while Bernard unlocked the door; apparently finding his keys quickly after a jug and a half of sangria wasn’t so much of a problem for him.

"Thank you," she murmured, not really sure how she was supposed to respond. If this was the kind of thing Bernard was prone to doing, she should probably respond in kind. But she didn’t think she could act that well; and she was sure that any bystander seeing one of these displays of affection would figure out quickly that they weren’t really a couple. Still, for the sake of their cover she should probably try to respond as Estelle. Maybe that was the point he was making: that she needed to be able to stay in character when it was tough. Or just as likely, he was a little drunk and not thinking about anything so deep.

“Thank you,” she said, forcing a smile. “It’s beautiful.”

Brock grinned, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Not as beautiful as you, Estelle. My wonderful wife."

“Something tells me that’s how you talk when you want something,” she said, but she could still feel her lips turning up a little. Even if he was talking to her legend, even if she knew there was no real emotion behind the words, even if a little part of her couldn’t set aside the situation that Brock might try to take their roles too seriously, she couldn’t help smiling at the apparent complement.

It was such a cliché, the kind of line Isadora would have rolled her eyes at in any other context. But here, now, with the setting sun casting a warm glow over everything and the distant crash of waves providing a romantic soundtrack... it felt dangerously real. It was too easy to imagine Brock hitting on her, and she found herself worrying about what she could do if he decided to change the rules when they were so far from any kind of supervision. Even though she’d seen Brock paying no real attention to his cover and skipping over parts of their briefing documents, she knew that he still had an incredible reputation. And when it came down to it, she knew that meant that he could get away with whatever he wanted. That was a theory that she really didn’t want to test.

In the lounge area of their little suite, she sat down on one of the recliners. The little pile of essentials on the end table marked this as the place where Brock had decided to sleep, but Isadora’s nervousness had returned again and she found herself worrying about how to barricade herself in the bedroom if she needed to. In case a couple of drinks with dinner had been enough to erode the barriers that lay between Bernard and Brock.

He was standing over her then, his height projecting an aura of danger that Isadora had never felt before. Her breath came irregularly, and she felt she might be starting to understand why so many of the girls in the cipher room had been fascinated with this guy. There was a kind of power in his every movement, smooth and confident. Isadora swallowed nervously as she realised how close they were standing. She imagined that she could feel the heat radiating off Brock’s body. It was like a scene from some trashy romance novel; except that the feelings swelling in Isadora’s chest now were centred around fear rather than lust; and these nerves did nothing to excite her.

Then Brock stepped back, breaking the spell. He held out his arm, a playful glint in his eye. He must have been able to see how he affected her, but he brushed it off as if it were nothing. Maybe because he was a much better judge of character than she would have expected for someone of his reputation.

"Shall we, Mrs. Klein?"

Isadora blinked, then quickly slipped her arm through his, falling back into her role. "Lead the way, Mr. Klein."

As they made their way up to their room, Isadora's mind was racing. What was happening to her? She was supposed to be a professional, an agent trained in the art of deception and control. But somehow, Brock had a way of making her feel off-balance, of blurring the lines between pretence and reality. Her mind kept conjuring up the image of him as the legendary womaniser suggested by the office rumours, but it seemed so absurd when she compared that to the thoughtful way he had treated her for nearly two weeks now. There had never been any suggestion that he was attracted to her; and when he offered even an admiring glance over her body in these revealing clothes, he was always careful to make it clear that he was just playing the role he had been assigned.

She still didn’t understand Brock. She was under no delusions on that front. She’d initially thought that he wanted to get all the girls like a Hollywood spy, and that he’d be trying to win her over as soon as they were alone. The vacation would have perfectly supported that theory; if it hadn’t become clear that he’d picked a place thematically similar to the honeymoon trip in their legend; and if he hadn’t gone out of his way to create anecdotes that they could use as in-character reminiscences of the trip. Little snippets of emotion; frustration, amusement, and laughter at each other’s expense. Not anything intense, not attempts to seduce her, but real moments with real emotion. Like holding the door for a stranger, and then walking straight into a pillar as he turned around again. There was no way that Brock was that clumsy, if even a fraction of the notes she’d read about his martial arts training were true. But she could remember the surprise, the embarrassment, and the impossible challenge of trying not to laugh all rolled into one.

She was sure that when she recounted that story to one of Arrencani’s neighbours a month from now, they would be able to know from the lines on her face that it was a true story. Brock had set it up deliberately to help her sell her role as Estelle. And there were dozens of tiny moments throughout this trip that were probably just the same. Even when he seemed to be fooling around and having fun, he was one hundred percent on the job. And although this vacation was standing in for their honeymoon, the most lustful thing he’d done was buy her a single flower from a seller in the courtyard of a tourist-infested restaurant. Totally believable, kind of romantic in its way, but a long way from any serious attempt to seduce her.

Maybe she wasn’t his type, she thought. Or maybe, despite all the rumours, Brock was gay. It wouldn’t have surprised her now. But he was still a void cloaked in riddles, and it frustrated her that she knew so much more about his legend than about the man who was supposed to be her partner. She tried to believe that all the things she had heard about him were pure fantasy. It should have been easy; everything he did was respectful, professional, and thoughtful. But there was a part of her mind that wouldn’t let it rest, and kept on trying to find something, anything that would justify her suspicion. To see every kind action or lighthearted comment as an attempt to foster romance.

She knew that she needed to get over this. She knew that she needed to be able to trust him. But as she left him in the lounge and wedged her suitcase under the bedroom door handle, she couldn’t quiet the suspicious voices in the back of her mind.

Only time would tell. And they still had a long weekend stretching out ahead of them, full of opportunities for slip ups and self-discovery. Curling up under the covers of the large, empty bed, wishing that she had one of her toys with her to take her mind off all these too-serious thoughts and make her feel less alone, Isadora hoped that one weekend would be enough time to settle her nerves.

[Kitty Angel]

14. Point Blank

Isadora woke the next morning feeling groggy and unrested, her thoughts from the previous night still weighing heavily on her mind. She lay in bed for a long moment, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling and slowly becoming aware of the clammy sheets clinging to her skin. The feeling wasn’t a pleasant one, and wasn’t familiar either, so she could distract herself from the bigger issues for a while trying to deduce the source of her physical discomfort.

Of course, the air was hot like an oven; and the sea breeze added salt spray without really cooling them down. Especially in here, with the balcony door and windows closed tight against the distracting noise of the waves. Isadora had never liked sleeping in a place that wasn’t silent, and she dimly remembered having a music box which would play all night, drowning out the traffic noise from beyond the window when they had lived too close to a major highway. But if she was going to sweat this much, she might have to learn to deal with the waves after all.

She stood up, and peeled off her pyjamas. Of course, they smelled strongly of sweat, and she would need to find out if the hotel had a laundry service today. This was one possibility she hadn’t thought about when she was reading all about the sunny climate here. She would have liked to take a shower, but she couldn’t get to the bathroom without passing through the little lounge area where Brock was sleeping. And that thought put her on edge again. So she wiped herself down with a towel, and put that in the same bag with her pyjamas. To be dealt with later. Then she dressed for the day, choosing a flowing dress that showed off just as much skin as the one from the day before; but this time she was starting to realise that the light coverings were intended to help her stay cool. Her wardrobe wasn’t just tailored for the male gaze.

As she got to the bedroom door, she knew what she had to do. It would have been easy to put it off. She knew how to ignore the elephant in the room. But they would be close to Lorenzo Arrencani; a man well known for the unfeeling execution of anyone who crossed him in business. There was a good chance that her life would be in Brock’s hands then, and so she needed to trust him completely even before they got there. So she would bite the bullet, rip off the band-aid in one sharp movement. She would ask him right out whether he had any feelings towards her. She knew what she had to do, and she knew that she had to do it right now, or she would just get more and more nervous. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier to ask the question.

With a sigh, Isadora dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom. She took her time getting ready, brushing her teeth and splashing cold water on her face as if she could wash away her doubts and insecurities. When she finally emerged, she found Brock already up and dressed, sitting at the small table by the window with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. And breakfast ready for both of them on a tray; he must have gone down to the café downstairs. He looked up as she approached, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Morning, sleepyhead. I was starting to think you’d decided to spend the day in bed." And then seeing her sigh, he continued: “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. If you need a rest, you can just take it easy.”

Isadora didn't return his smile. Instead, she sat down across from him, her hands folded tightly in her lap. "Brock... we need to talk."

“Okay,” he said, and nodded. “Talking is good. There should be nothing that we can’t discuss, because we need complete trust. What's on your mind?"

Isadora took a deep breath, steeling herself. "I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me." Brock just kept nodding, not giving her any hints about his emotional state. He just seemed calm and unconcerned, like this was the kind of conversation he had every day.

"The rumors," Isadora blurted out, unable to keep the words back any longer. "About you. About your... your reputation with women. I need to know how much of that is true. I know we mentioned it before, but you just brushed it off. I need to be able to trust you, Brock. And that means knowing whether little romantic gestures like that flower… I need to know if that’s purely in character, if you’re just trying to be a friend, or… if you’re trying to get in my pants in some subtle way. We don’t need mind games, if we’re going to trust each other."

For a long moment, Brock just stared at her, his face a mask of surprise and something else, something Isadora couldn't quite decipher. Then, slowly, he shook his head.

“The flower was just a dumb thing I saw. It seemed like the kind of thing Bernard would buy. Wasting money on simple tokens, because he doesn’t really value money that much. Random gifts are his way of showing that he cares. And me… Well, I guess it says a bit about me as well. You seemed a little stressed, and I wanted to get something that would cheer you up. No ulterior motive. And I promise, there’s no way I would ever try to seduce you.”

“Why not?” Isadora snapped back, before she even had time to think about what she was saying. “I mean…” She wasn’t really sure what she meant. Her initial thought had been trying to discern whether he just wasn’t attracted to her, didn’t trust her, wouldn’t date a coworker, or even wasn’t into women. She felt like she needed to know a little more, because there would be a huge difference between a man who didn’t want her, and a man who was too nervous to act on his feelings for one reason or another. It would have a big impact on his behaviour, even subconsciously. And she wanted to know whether she could expect his feelings to change in the future. But her own love life had been so sparse that she only had a vague idea of the concepts she was asking about, and she really didn’t know how to put her question into words without sounding confrontational.

Brock raised an eyebrow, and Isadora could see the gears spinning behind his eyes, trying to assess every detail before responding. Had she sounded like she was upset by his lack of interest? She could see a lot of guys jumping to that conclusion, and she had no idea to purge that idea from the conversation.

“Those rumours aren’t true,” he said firmly. “I would never date a coworker. I never really understood… Well, lust, I guess. I learned how people act when they’re in love, and how they act when they want something more primal. The social rituals, and the lies you’re supposed to tell so that everybody knows what you really mean. But I never understood the feeling. I thought I… maybe I might have felt those things once, but that was a long time ago now. And that hurt too much for me to go through it again.”

He finished with a sigh, and Isadora felt that the answer only raised more questions. But she didn’t know what to ask, and she knew she was prying into something private now. Something she would have been so offended if he’d asked the same of her.

“I know I have a certain image,” he said. “Sometimes I use that. I can be charming when I have to be. It’s a persona that gets results, and gets people to trust me. But that’s the job. And I know there’s stories about me, but that’s just the rumour mill running wild. It was Kane who first described me as a real James Bond, and his tone makes it clear that he didn’t mean it as a compliment. He means that I get angry sometimes. If somebody’s hurting children, or dealing in slaves, I might not want to watch and collect intelligence. There’s some crimes that make my blood boil, and a couple of times I’ve reacted prematurely, according to the analysts. Or without enough discretion. Blowing up an arms dealer’s warehouses instead of waiting for an officially sanctioned plan to arrest him. That works in the movies, but it’s a headache for the political types when you do it in real life.”

“But people heard him calling you James Bond and they imagined a womanising dinosaur left over from the cold war?” Isadora asked, thinking she might understand that.

“Yes. And the tale grows in the telling. Denying it would only give it more of a boost, so I mostly ignore the stories I hear. I know that I wouldn’t do any of those things, and my partner always knew. And Kane knew my actual record, of course. Nobody else’s opinion matters.”

“Are you not interested in…” she started to ask, unable to back down now the questions had started. She had to know if there was any chance he could develop feelings for her in the future, or whether those feelings were there but well hidden. If he said it was because she was his partner, that might mean he was constrained by the rules of their job, but would act differently if he got a chance. If he said she wasn’t his type, he still might change his mind as he got to know her. And both possibilities could make him act irrationally when she was in danger. So she needed to know.

“You had a kid, right?” he asked. “I know, it’s private. But it seems today is the day for asking personal questions. So, is that something you’ll share? What happened?”

“What?” Isadora stammered, completely lost at sea now. “No! Why would I have a kid? I’ve barely had a real boyfriend, even. Why would you think that–”

“I have,” he said suddenly. “I had a son. Have, even. But I haven’t seen him in eleven years. It was a mistake. I thought I wanted to have a well-paying job, a girlfriend, a family, a nice house. Like everybody else. All of society says that’s the dream, right? But six months raising a child, and she finally realises that I’m married to my job. That the whole thing was based on how society expects us to behave, what the media tells me I’m supposed to want. One day I woke up and they were gone. Sold the house a month later, and I’ve been on duty ever since. I found out that I don’t care about relationships, or the messy stuff around them. I do my job. I hurt the right people, and help the right people. And for me, this is life. This is my place in the world, my niche, and doing what I need to do gives me fulfilment. No, I’m not interested in girls. Or guys. I’m into doing my job to the best of my ability. And whatever nebulous definition you have for ‘love’, it can’t compare to the bond with a partner who I know will have my back. So I can play the loving husband, but it will only ever be a role. I hope that’s not too much of a disappointment.”

Isadora sat there, stunned by Brock's revelation. She could imagine him as the hard-nosed operative he seemed to be, or the playful charmer persona he was putting on as Bernard Klein. She could just maybe see him as the lady killer the crypto girls wanted to believe in; but a family man waking up in an empty house just didn’t seem to fit. It was hard to imagine Brock ever being lost, or surprised. It was a side of him she'd never thought could exist, a perfect poker face to cover a depth of pain that Isadora couldn’t even comprehend.

She suddenly felt guilty for prying, for pushing him to reveal such personal, painful details. And yet, at the same time, she felt a new level of understanding, of empathy for her partner. His dedication to the job, his seemingly single-minded focus... it was the same feeling she had when she was trying to piece together a message intercept, and she couldn’t tear herself away from the screen; a primal need to finish the job, but for him it was turned up to eleven. And she felt that she could trust him so much more now, even if she wasn’t close to understanding where feelings like that could come from.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, reaching out to touch his hand. "I had no idea. I shouldn't have... I didn't mean to dredge up painful memories. I worried so much about hiding some parts of my story, but I never thought about you having… anything like that."

Brock shook his head, a rueful smile tugging at his lips. "It's okay. You needed to know. To trust me. And now you do, I hope. We need to know each other, if we’re working so closely. You need to be able to guess my responses, so that you might be able to guess what I’m thinking in situations without freedom to communicate. And really, I should ask you as well."

“I haven’t got anything like that,” she said, turning her eyes away now. “My life’s been boring by comparison. Dated a few guys, but it never became serious. They were all after one thing. And in college, I guess maybe I was too. It didn’t mean anything. And no, I don’t have a kid. So I can’t understand that pain.”

“But you have toys,” Brock said, suddenly blunt again. “You hid them, probably when you found out I was coming. Maybe they were around the apartment like ornaments. Old-fashioned rag dolls. A Barbie in a pinafore dress, and carefully folded human-size version of the same outfit. More things I didn’t want to look into. I saw them in your cupboard when I was trying to find if you had any of an ex’s beach clothes. They’re in an ancient suitcase, clearly designed to look like mementoes from your own childhood. But the talking cat dolls that repeat what you say were a trend about seven years ago. And I know you’re not old enough to have had some of the doll accessories I saw. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have looked, but once the box was open it’s too late not to see what’s in front of me, and I can’t stop my brain from adding up all the clues pointing to a child you don’t want me to know about, or don’t want to remember.”

Isadora could barely move. She swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. "I... I don't know what you're talking about."

Brock raised an eyebrow. "Come on, Isadora. We just agreed, no more secrets. No more lies. If we're going to trust each other, really trust each other. It’s not a big deal. Your story can’t be more embarrassing than mine. And if it’s tragic, just say that. I won’t push something that hurts you. But I can’t just let a lie slip past me."

Isadora closed her eyes, her heart pounding. She'd never told anyone about those things before, and she didn’t know where to start. She didn’t even know how much detail he would want. Maybe he was the kind of guy who wanted to know everything. Perhaps it was just because she’d made him spill the beans about his biggest secret, and he wanted to make her understand how that felt. Or maybe it was like he said: He’d trained his instincts for so long that he immediately knew that she was hiding something from him, and the simple fact that she would lie to him made him uncomfortable. But she could see now that there was no way she would get out of telling at least some part of her darkest secret.

15. Innocence

Isadora stared across the table at Brock, knowing that she had no excuse to hold back now. She had opened the deepest wounds in his soul, demanding answers about things he’d avoided thinking about for a decade. All he wanted now was the truth about things that were still in her apartment. Not some painful history but the very real skeletons in her closet right now. And as scared as she was to share this with anyone else, she knew that she wasn’t enough of a coward to focus on her own privacy while rampaging over his.

“They’re mine,” she stammered, trying not to cry. “The toys. The dresses. I mean… not from when I was a kid, obviously. But sometimes, the world seems like it’s too much. When I see all the things that bandits get up to, and when I read the most depraved messages they were trying to keep us from seeing. I don’t want to live in a world where that stuff happens. It gets to a point where I just don’t want to be an adult anymore. I want to imagine I’m a child again, so I don’t have to understand how twisted people can be.”

“Like a child?” Brock asked. “I think perhaps… I don’t understand that. But I can see that it’s hard to share, and you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I know it’s weird. But when I was young and there was something to worry about… Ugh. I don’t know if it’s relevant, but I should tell you. One of my friends in school was… I guess you’d say precocious. Didn’t want to be a kid anymore. Hanging around with older boys, so excited at getting early access to booze and sex. It kind of drove a wedge between us, because I couldn’t understand that. I think I knew on some level that she was building her happiness into a house of cards that would come crashing down sooner or later. And I knew some of those older boys were taking advantage of her, treating her like a toy. But I didn’t know their names, it was her secret, and I couldn’t persuade her that this wasn’t good for her. I wanted to… I wished we could go back to the days when neither of us thought about boys. When we’d just lie on the floor of the lounge with colouring books, or playing with Barbies – she had a huge doll’s house, I remember. Or just sitting there watching cartoons, with a bunch of cuddlies arranged in neat rows beside us so we could pretend we were at the cinema.”

“That’s adorable,” Brock laughed as Isadora’s voice trailed away, and somehow that was reassuring. He wasn’t calling her a freak, or any of the other things she might have expected. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. And not judging you at all, I’m sure everyone played similar games as children. But when you talk about that, it’s like your face lights up. And yeah, I guess it’s easy to imagine you as a child, which I couldn’t do for a lot of people. Kane, it’s like he was born aged forty-something; it’s impossible to imagine him not being middle-aged. But yeah, I’m sure you were such a good kid. The kind everybody loves. That’s not something you should hide.”

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “Well, I’m not a kid now. Baby-faced, yeah, but it’s hard enough to get respect when people won’t look past my body. But maybe sometimes… Anyway, when O– When my friend started flushing her life away, I felt like I needed to escape. I missed those childhood sleepovers so much. And I couldn’t persuade her to hang out with me anymore, beyond chatting at lunch and helping each other with homework. But I missed what we used to have. And one day I decided that I needed a break. So I got some of my old toys out again and tried to imagine I was still that little kid. Lying on a rug on the floor, staring up at cartoons on TV. Playing with dolls, and pretending they were all too innocent to know about the stuff my friend was so worried about. When true love meant you kiss someone and then get married and live happily ever after. And I know it didn’t help. It didn’t convince her to stop sending pictures to sketchy guys online, or even give her a reason to talk to me more. But it made me feel better, and for a little while that was enough. Enough for me to keep going, to finish school and set my sights on the Agency. You could say it’s a coping mechanism, or just think of it as a way to relax. And I know it’s weird, but sometimes it helps. And there’s no real kid involved. Just me, and toys, and childish clothes. Is there really anything wrong with that?”

There was a long silence then. Isadora forced herself to meet Brock's gaze, bracing for judgement, for disgust. But there was none of that in his eyes. What was there, she couldn’t understand.

"Okay," he said simply. "Thank you for telling me."

“You think I’m a freak now,” Isadora said, shaking her head. “Can’t cope with the real world, needs these dumb things to make life tolerable.”

“I think you’ve found something that works for you. And I think you’ve been under a lot of stress since I got here. You’re under more pressure this week than at any previous stage in your career, so I know that you can do it if you have to. But it doesn’t make sense for this to be the week that your emotional support toys are all locked away.”

“But I can’t…” she blinked. “You... you don't think it's weird? Disturbing?”

Brock shrugged. "We all have our ways of coping, Isadora. Some people bury themselves in work, some people gamble, some people take it out on others. Compared to the ways I’ve seen people handle emotional pressure, I’d say that being a child again is pretty harmless. If it helps you, if it keeps you sane in this line of work... then who am I to judge?"

Isadora felt a wave of relief wash over her, so powerful it nearly brought tears to her eyes. She'd been carrying this secret for so long, terrified of what would happen if anyone found out. But Brock understood. He accepted her, quirks and all. The same way she needed to accept him; setting aside all illusions about the kind of person he might be based on his reputation.

"Thank you," she whispered. "For… for not judging me. For understanding. You’d really be okay with… I mean… you wouldn’t think I’m weird if I want to sleep with a huge cuddly shark, or have a threadbare teddy on my nightstand watching over me? Just for this week?"

Brock smiled, a genuine, warm smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "That's what partners do, Isadora. They understand each other. They support each other. I want you to succeed. You, not the person everyone expects you to be. And…" There was just a little hesitation there before he spoke again. “Maybe I shouldn’t ask that. Not yet. I’ll have to think some more about it first. But you can rest assured I won’t think any less of you for knowing how to manage your mental health. And I don’t need to share that with anyone else, either. Your secret is safe with me, until you find the confidence to share it with others.”

Isadora’s mouth opened, wanting to thank him again, but she just couldn’t find the words. The event that she’d been dreading ever since she received this assignment was finally over; and Brock’s playboy image was completely shattered by how supportive and understanding he had been. He hadn’t made it weird at all, or made any kind of inappropriate comment. There was a new edge in his attitude, but she couldn’t quite see where that was coming from. She was sure that whatever he was going to say, she could cope with it. And she felt so much better now for having everything out in the open.

Brock stood up, stretching. "Now, what do you say we get out of here? It would be nice to say we saw the parade before we leave, and we’ve got a long journey this afternoon. So how about we get moving.”

Isadora nodded, rising to join him. She felt lighter somehow, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She knew there would be challenges ahead, knew that their mission was far from over. The mission hadn’t even started, in fact, but now she could approach it with confidence.

She didn’t really know why it made such a difference. Practically, having a discreet suitcase full of secret toys hidden in the boiler cupboard would be the same as having it sitting at the side of her bedroom like an improvised toy chest, when she was hundreds of miles away investigating the bad guys. But she could relax before they went away, and that might make it easier to get Kane to approve them for actual deployment. But in a more abstract sense, simply knowing that she could trust Brock with this would make it easier to trust him with her life. It was a shared secret; a kind of bond that she had never really understood the power of. It was proof that she wouldn’t be facing these challenges alone; that Brock was really her partner, and not just somebody she’d been assigned to work with. Maybe even a friend, as well. It meant he cared about her.

So they walked into town and watched the parade go past. As Isadora craned her neck to see over the crowds, Brock very gently put his hands on her hips and lifted her above all the other heads; and she felt that could only be a symbol for the way he was ready to support her now. And the way she would be supporting him as well; watching out for him.

After lunch they packed up their belongings and checked out of the hotel. Isadora couldn't help but feel a sense of anticipation, of excitement for what lay ahead. There would still be challenges; like proving to their superiors that they were ready for this mission. But she really couldn’t imagine getting rejected now. This was it; her chance to do right. Yes, they were heading into danger. Yes, they were about to put their lives on the line for the sake of the mission. But they were also heading into a new chapter of their partnership, one based on honesty, on trust, on a deep understanding of each other's hearts and minds.

And that, Isadora knew, was worth any risk.

* * *

Isadora looked across the room at a suitcase covered with childish stickers. It was the most infantile thing visible in her room; if you didn’t take note of all the things inside it. The fact that it was even here was a big change. They’d been back from their vacation for a day now, and there were only a couple of days before their ability to work together as a team was to be assessed. And she had decided that she should make an effort to be as calm and confident as possible before their interviews. So this morning she was going to go all-in on acting like a little kid. Instead of swapping her pyjamas for day clothes, she’d worn a robe over the top for breakfast, and now she was changing into different pyjamas; cosy, pastel-coloured ones made from synthetic fleece, with some long-forgotten cartoon bear on the front. She was feeling more like a child already.

Brock was in the lounge. He had found a set of kettlebells in her box room, and was working out so that he wouldn’t get bored while she was relaxing. Isadora still wished that he would take the mission more seriously, and take the time to learn about the characters they would be playing. But she was grateful that he was able to support her, and that was more important than the trivia. As much as she hated to admit it, she knew on some level that his apparent preference for bluffing must be effective, or he would never have become so famous.

She took a deep breath, and pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind. She didn’t need to think about that now. She had more important things to think about; like dragging all the pillows off her bed, and pulling two spare duvets out of the cupboard to build a little fort. Then she could lie on the floor and feel like she was the centre of the world; like a chick in a nest or something, with soft surfaces all around. Next, she turned on the TV. It wasn’t like watching things on the big set in the lounge; the TV in her bedroom was rarely used and from a previous generation of technology. A child wouldn’t have their own TV, after all, unless some uncle was disposing of an old portable set and didn’t find anyone else who wanted it. Old technology, blocky characters on the menus, and a practically ancient top-loading DVD player. The player had stickers on it as well. That was one thing she hadn’t been too concerned about hiding when Brock had moved in; she’d just shoved it into the back of a cupboard confident that it would pass for the remnants of someone who felt bad sending obsolete technology to the scrapheap in case it came in useful someday.

Her cartoons and kids’ shows were packed in the bottom of the suitcase. Nostalgic television, rather than the current generation. Some of them were in a mesh wallet, while a few were in boxes. Some of them were even in the right boxes, but picking a box and then watching whatever was in it somehow recreated the experience of childhood more for Isadora. Remembering the days when she didn’t always have to choose what to watch.

She lay sprawled out on the floor, and all the worries of the adult world quickly drifted away. When she finished watching, maybe she would try a colouring book. But Mr Sharkie wanted to watch just one more episode first, and he was the softest friend in the world so she had to oblige him.

Isadora didn't know how long she'd been watching when a soft tap on the bedroom door startled her out of her reverie. She turned towards it, and as she moved saw that the clock was showing half past one now. She’d had no idea that so much time was passing, and it was easy to see that Brock would be worried about her. She desperately tried to think of something to say, but before she got a word out the door started to open. Isadora was frozen in place, the relaxed innocence of her inner child completely unprepared to explain to her partner how she had gotten so carried away.

[kerry]

I just read through this entire story (so far), having managed to miss it before. I'm so glad to have found it! I love stories that create dynamics that are unlike the clichés that most writers trade in, and this is one of the best I've come across. I hope that Brock really is what he now seems to be; that's the guy I want exploring her little self with her.

[BabySofia]

1 hour ago, kerry said:

and this is one of the best I've come across.

Generally describe's Kitty's writing! One of my favorite authors in the regression genre, and by far the best with anything involving hypnosis. I hope Kitty will bring more of their works onto here too! 

I haven't been commenting since I've read further than this. I was just checking to see where you were up to on posting it here. I'm genuinely glad to see you posting on here! 🙂

[Kitty Angel]

20 hours ago, kerry said:

I just read through this entire story (so far), having managed to miss it before. I'm so glad to have found it! I love stories that create dynamics that are unlike the clichés that most writers trade in, and this is one of the best I've come across. I hope that Brock really is what he now seems to be; that's the guy I want exploring her little self with her.

Thank you  It's always good to hear that someone is enjoying the story.

Did you guess that this was what she was hiding earlier? I'd love to know how clear some of my hints are, or where people see it.

 

 

16. Boundaries

Isadora panicked for a moment, not wanting to be seen like this. Pastel pyjamas like these would be even more embarrassing than her regular nightwear, and she didn’t want Brock to see her like this. And at the same time, she felt like getting carried away with her inner child should be something to be ashamed of; she should have known when it was time to return to adulthood, and been back with him in time to prepare lunch. She didn’t want to establish a precedent of letting her partner down every time she allowed herself to play.

“Hey, kiddo?” Brock’s voice came from outside, and the door started to whisper open before she had even gotten up to let him in. And then his head appeared around the edge of the door, a little hesitant. “You want something to eat?”

Isadora couldn’t say anything. She lifted the duvets up around her, vaguely aware that although the pyjamas covered her body, they did little to conceal the shape of her. But hearing Brock address her as ‘kiddo’, and the sing-song cadence of his voice, made it easier for her to stay in that weird childish state of mind where she didn’t need to think things through properly. She felt like she had to grow up and act her age, but she didn’t really want to, and Brock’s tone made her feel like it wasn’t mandatory to act her age.

That impression was further reinforced when she looked at what he was holding. He was bringing her lunch in for her, but the plate in his hand was a disc of bright orange plastic, the kind of thing a child might eat from. She didn’t think she’d seen it before; so all she could think of was that Brock must have bought it when he went out yesterday. When she looked closer, she could see what might be a little plastic knife or fork as well, a handle sticking out over the edge of the plate. She couldn’t see the food from her place on the floor, but just not knowing made her feel so small. In his other hand was… well, it was a cup. But the kind that had a flip-up spout on the top, to guard against careless spills. It was two layers of clear plastic, with a motif of dancing princesses sandwiched between them so that it wouldn’t be scratched or faded in the dishwasher. The utensils were perfect for a child, and that just made it harder for Isadora to summon back her adult thoughts.

Brock just smiled, a warm, understanding smile that immediately put her at ease, and sat down on the corner of the bed.

"Hey there, little one," he said softly. "I thought you might be getting hungry, so I made this for you. I hope it’s okay.” He put the plate and cup on the floor next to Isadora, and she felt her heart swell with gratitude and amazement. She’d never even considered doing things like this to indulge her inner child, but it made her feel so safe and protected. The plate was divided up into sections, for reasons she didn’t quite understand. Most of them were filled with sandwiches cut up into crust-free triangles, but one held a small selection of salad leaves arranged like a bouquet of flowers, and there was also a little area packed with celery stalks and carrot sticks, as well as what looked like a tiny pot of jelly to dip them in. It felt so right.

As Isadora reached for the plate, Brock ruffled her hair affectionately. This wasn’t what they had talked about. He wasn’t just allowing her some time to relax now, he was actively participating in her play. And he knew just what to do to make her feel small and safe. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that she should have felt threatened; and if anyone had asked her, that would have been the response she expected. But Brock was there to protect her, he was clearly on her side. And it was so easy to keep on responding like the child she wanted to be; accepting his gratitude and enjoying herself without a second thought. She’d never even thought that it would be possible for someone else to tolerate this side of her. But here was Brock, her partner, her friend, meeting her exactly where she was without judgement or hesitation.

She looked up at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "Thank you," she whispered, her voice small and soft. "For... for everything."

Brock just nodded, his own eyes crinkling with warmth and understanding. "Any time, kiddo. Any time."

He slipped out of the room at some point while Isadora’s attention was occupied by her cup of apple juice. The spout required her to suck to get anything out, so drinking wasn’t the casual action it would otherwise have been. When she looked up Brock was gone, but she knew there was now nothing to stop her eating lunch and then watching cartoons for as long as she wanted. Maybe she should have been nervous; or angry that Brock had chosen to join in her special, private moment without any kind of discussion beforehand. But right now, she knew that a little kid wouldn’t think about things like that. And it was so easy to let her mind focus on things that were fun, and things that were in front of her right now. And even when she was ready to address the more complex thoughts, something told her that she would just be happy to feel so safe, so protected, and so cared for.

* * *

Isadora was still lying on her tummy, watching the TV above her, later in the afternoon. The duvet fort had morphed into a much more disordered kind of nest; more like a load of pillows, cushions, duvets, and every soft thing she could reach piled up in a chaotic heap, with Isadora somewhere near the top. She didn’t pay any attention as her phone chirped on her nightstand. She already knew that just about every notification was going to be advertising anyway, and had decided that when she was a little kid she didn’t have to keep up with the just-in-case urgency that usually drove her.

She couldn’t lie here forever, though. For one thing, she was taunted by the ghost of a now-empty sippy cup of sweet apple juice. Sooner or later, she would have to get up to use the bathroom. But the thing that finally got her to move, in the end, was the realisation that she was enjoying a cartoon she had watched only a couple of hours before. She’d gone right round a DVD without noticing.

She stopped and laughed to herself; she’d never actually done that before. It was easy to guess that with shows aimed at younger children, finishing a disc would loop around so that they didn’t disturb their parents asking for more. But it wasn’t something Isadora had ever needed to realise, because there was always something she needed adult thoughts to deal with. Even something as simple as preparing herself a meal would be enough of a break that it seemed like a good idea to put on something different to watch as well. But this time, she really was getting the experience of a small child. The realisation that she’d probably taken an episode or two to realise that it was repeating made her blush even more; but somehow that was a positive thing.

Her adult mind slowly resurfaced. She stretched, and then climbed out of the pile of duvets. She made a token effort to spread them out on the bed, and then thought about what to do next. Of course, she could put on a different DVD and wait until Brock decided it was dinner time. And that thought almost startled her again when it arrived. She realised she had no doubt that her partner would do all the mundane stuff so that she could keep on acting like a kid, even though they’d never really discussed him participating in anything like this.

But that wasn’t really what she wanted. Or rather, as much as she wanted it, she knew that it would need more discussion first. This wasn’t something she had asked Brock to do, and she didn’t even know if she was comfortable with it. It made her feel so safe, like he was standing between her and all the terrors of adulthood. But at the same time, these childish moments had been her biggest secret for all her life. Somewhere deep down, someone seeing this side of her felt like it was somehow intimate, or at least important. She hadn’t told Brock that it was okay to come into the room while she was little, and she was sure that she should feel angry about it. Why, then, did she feel somehow grateful for him helping her to keep feeling like a child? Someone else acknowledging her role as a little kid, and providing the structure so that she didn’t need to think about it, had made the whole experience richer and more real than ever before. But still, she wished they would have talked about this beforehand, when she could bring her adult thoughts to bear and discussed the pros and cons. She hadn’t ever given him permission to interact with her most private moments.

But she hadn’t told him not to, either. She knew that when she looked back on their few conversations on the subject. She might have said that there had never been anyone she could share this with, and that it was something she did alone. But maybe she’d sounded lost when she said that; sad that she didn’t have a friend to share it with. She thought about it for several minutes, before concluding that she’d never told him that she expected it to be just her in those moments. Just that she was always alone, a lonely little kid. And she’d probably given the impression that she was sad about that. So he’d done what he could to help her feel cared-for, without intruding too much into what was a very personal experience. It really was the best reaction she could have hoped for. Maybe it wasn’t what she wanted; or maybe it just wasn’t what she thought she wanted. She didn’t know, now. She was sure that they should have talked about it first, but she wasn’t entirely certain why that should be the case.

Isadora sighed. After everything, the only downside here was probably the realisation that she didn’t understand her own feelings. And it was hard to explain what she didn’t know herself. But she knew that she needed to talk to Brock. They needed to lay down some rules, so that she wouldn’t end up confused like this again. She didn’t know what the rules should be, but they had to at least talk about it so that she wasn’t taken by surprise. He was just a work partner; he shouldn’t be enabling her fantasies and making her feel so secure and content without prior agreement.

Isadora changed out of her pastel pyjamas and into her regular clothes, the fabric feeling strange against her skin after the softness of the fleece. She took a deep breath, centering herself, and then headed out of the bedroom. She rushed to the bathroom first; she might have been trying to ignore it in order to prolong her child time, but as soon as she started walking around the pressure in her bladder really demanded her full attention. Once the most urgent issue was dealt with, the went looking for Brock and the smell of garlic and chillies drew her quickly to the kitchen.

“Hey, kiddo,” Brock said with a smile, and then turned away from the stove to look at her. “I guess not ‘kiddo’ anymore. All grown up now?” Then he turned back to focusing on his hands, which were still stirring a large pot in front of him, and the scent of the steam coming off it quickly piqued Isadora’s curiosity, as well as her hunger. But what was the polite way to ask what he was making, when it was clear he was making something for her without even being asked? Even after everything they had been through, and her hope that they were starting to understand each other, she was still nervous to ask the simplest questions. It was enough to make Isadora doubt she would ever be ready for the mission ahead.

[kerry]

I am really enjoying the slow build here. You asked whether I knew what she was hiding; well, this is an ABDL forum, so I guess that helped make it obvious. Nice work in slowly revealing it!

[Kitty Angel]

On 12/16/2024 at 6:26 PM, kerry said:

I am really enjoying the slow build here. You asked whether I knew what she was hiding; well, this is an ABDL forum, so I guess that helped make it obvious. Nice work in slowly revealing it!

I mean, it could have been Brock. Or someone they'll meet on their mission; or something they discover later. They might even have found that the trafficking operation they're investigating is shipping unsuspecting young women to an island somewhere for mass forced babying.

I think there were probably enough clues hinting at Isadora's secret, but I'm never sure whether they're too obvious  So I ask for guesses.

Thank you

Anyway, another chapter for you… getting closer to the end of Act I now, so then we'll be seeing a bit of a different direction for these two.

17. Strategic

“Louisiana-style linguine,” Brock said, when he saw Isadora’s gaze on the pot he was stirring. While she was still a little hesitant after letting her inner child play for a while, it seemed that he was completely on the ball. “I wasn’t sure when you’d be back to your grown-up self, so I wanted to make sure we had something with a complex enough flavour to delight an adult palate, but still fun to eat for a little kid.”

Isadora didn’t say anything; she just looked down at the pasta swirling in the sauce. It was so easy to imagine a child inexpertly twirling a fork, being proud of how many noodles she could get coiled up around it. And she thought that it had been a perfect choice. Of course, she wouldn’t want to expose a child’s taste buds to the complex mix of spices she could smell. But feeling childish or not, it wasn’t like her body was changing. She was sure she would have enjoyed it just as much with her head in that childish space. And she thought that Brock might have actually thought about that, analysing this in more detail than Isadora had ever considered.

“Thank you,” she mumbled. And that was an understatement for what she was really feeling by several orders of magnitude.

"A big girl now, I see," Brock said, with no trace of judgement or disapproval. "Feeling more confident now?"

“Yeah…” Isadora mumbled. She was even more sure that they needed to talk, but the way he had treated her made her feel so warm inside, she didn’t want Brock to think she was ungrateful. She was surprised to learn that her biggest fear right now was discouraging him from coming close to her. The conflict between the way he had been when he saw her at her most vulnerable, and all the things she had heard about him in the past, left her completely unsure what the right thing to say might be at this moment. But she reassured herself that Brock was her partner in a work sense. Not anything more than that. And however good it felt to let him take care of everything, she needed him to know that she was still her own woman. Just because it felt surprisingly good to let him do things for her, that didn’t mean she couldn’t do all those things herself. “I think we should talk. Seriously, I mean.”

“We can do that,” Brock answered. “There was one big thing I did want to say, now I think I’m starting to get a handle on this whole regression thing. Over dinner? This is almost ready now, so it’s probably easier to wait until I served it up before we talk more.”

Isadora nodded, feeling a flush creep up her neck. "Yeah. Thank you, for... for everything. For being so understanding and supportive."

Brock shrugged, turning back to the stove. "Of course. That's what partners do, right? I don’t like the idea of taking you into a dangerous situation, but so long as you’re here I want to make sure you’re effective."

Isadora leaned against the counter, watching as Brock deftly manoeuvred the pasta onto two plates. She knew that she would have to say something about what had happened; they needed to set boundaries. But she wasn't quite sure where to start.

"I’ve been thinking," Brock said, as he set the plates down on the table and started on his own dinner. "About your little kid stuff. It’s already clear that you’re less on edge this afternoon. You’re more comfortable in yourself, and I suspect that means I could rely on you more. So, what selection of that stuff do you want to take with us on the mission?"

Isadora frowned, caught off guard. That wasn’t even something she’d thought about.

“What do you mean?” she said. “I can’t take that stuff when we’re actually on duty. It’s not like I need it, you know? It’s just a way to relax. And there’ll be plenty of time to unwind when the mission is done.”

“I thought about it,” Brock said. “And it’s just a guess, but I think you would be able to execute your monitor duties more effectively now than you would have last night. Denying yourself something leaves you wishing you could have it, and that will always be a distraction even if you’re used to ignoring it. I want you to be at one hundred percent.”

Isadora didn’t answer for quite a while, focusing instead on separating the strands of linguine on the plate in front of her. She didn’t have the first clue what an actual answer might be. She tried in vain to think of something, while Brock lifted a forkful of noodles to his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

“You’re nervous, your first job in the field. And maybe that’ll be noticeable. Worse, even if we do everything right, getting close to Arrencani might mean his people come poking around. They’ll be looking for secrets. And maybe it seems counterintuitive, but sometimes the best way to stand up to investigation is to have a secret. Imagine, for example, a couple of monkeys coming to search our house while we’re out. Trying to find out if we’ve got secrets. If we’re a threat to them. Imagine they find a box of kids’ toys hidden away. Maybe some childish clothes in your size. They figure out that Estelle is into age regression, which is a thing a lot of people might be embarrassed by. And then any cagey or nervous behaviour from us is explained. We wouldn’t have anything on paper about the job, so that’s all they’ll find. And having come across one secret that’s not too well hidden, it will be natural for them to assume that we’re not that good at hiding things. It can be quite an effective cover.”

“I…” Isadora started, but she didn’t know the rest of the sentence beyond that letter. It made a lot of sense, when she thought about it like that. But she was terrified of someone else finding out her biggest secret. She’d managed to keep it even from her closest coworkers and neighbours for years, but Brock was suggesting that it was okay for the bandit to discover? She had no idea how she felt about that.

“It works on multiple levels,” Brock explained, between mouthfuls of linguine. His attitude should have infuriated Isadora, making light of something that mattered so much to her. But somehow, she found herself eating as well, and that took the edge off her worries.

“Multiple levels?” she asked.

“Yes. It means that you don’t have to go for what might be months without a chance to do the thing which most helps you to relax. And it gives Arrencani’s goons something private to find which is entirely unrelated to our actual secrets. And in a way, I suspect it might make it easier for him to trust us if he finds out. If we both have some secrets that the system disapproves of; a kind of anti-authoritatian sympathy. It’s the same as the solidarity between the gay and fetish scenes in the eighties, simply because the self-proclaimed moral majority hated both of them. Although his own secrets are very different in tone, and he has victims rather than partners, he might be more inclined to open up to someone who would also be demonised if everyone knew the truth about them.”

“I guess,” Isadora mumbled, but something about those words still made her uncomfortable. And then another thing jumped to the forefront of her mind. Completely outside of feeling like a little kid, she prided herself on having a large vocabulary; and the thought that a knucklehead like Brock knew a word she didn’t made her kind of uncomfortable. “You said ‘regression’. What does that mean?” The word felt strange on her tongue, but she had to ask.

Brock nodded. "That's the term for it, right? When an adult mentally and emotionally reverts to a childlike state? I mean, literally it means to go backwards, but there’s a lot online about age regression. Both as an involuntary response to trauma, reverting to a childlike state, and as a deliberate choice to revisit a child’s feeling of security. I did some research after our conversation the other day."

Isadora felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach. The idea of Brock researching her deepest, most closely guarded secret... it was both touching and terrifying.

"I… I guess so," she said slowly. "Are there other people who do this? I always just assumed I was some kind of freak, and I’d always have to hide this from everybody. I never even knew there’s a word for it. But… trauma? I don’t have that."

“Trauma could be anything that hurts you,” Brock said, with a level of certainty that would have taken Isadora at least a week of full-time research to reach. She had to admit that although her partner seemed to have little ability to remember details, he was a master at pulling out the things that mattered from a broad topic. And she wondered if she should have been giving him just a little more credit for that. If only he wasn’t let down by the lack of detail. “It doesn’t have to be a major thing. And regression doesn’t require trauma; it’s just that a lot of people who have been through a bad situation seem to end up coping in a similar way. All I care about is that it helps you to focus. A healthy partner – body and mind – is less likely to become a liability in the field.”

“Okay,” Isadora answered, but she still wasn’t sure she agreed. Yes, it would be nice if she could have a break from the adult stresses of the mission. And she was almost sure she could trust Brock to keep other people out of the way. But at the same time, it felt unprofessional to let something like that leak over into her work life. “Regression. I’ll think about it. I don’t know if that would make it harder to separate myself from Estelle. And I don’t know if I’d be too scared. But it’s something to consider.” Brock just nodded, and finished the glass of wine standing beside his hand.

Isadora watched him, but held her tongue. She had seen him drinking quite a lot over the last couple of weeks, and perhaps more disturbing was that he didn’t stop. He would pour some spirit from that hip flask when he made his morning coffee, but he would be drinking from the flask again before the coffee was even finished. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him drunk, but she was starting to suspect that she’d never seen him sober either.

She didn’t want to say anything, because they were supposed to be partners. They needed to trust each other. But worrying about how much he was drinking would surely make it harder for her to trust him completely. But she didn’t really know his situation; maybe the booze was just his way of coping with all the worst moments in his past. Did it help him to relax like being a kid again did for her? And if he was turning to the bottle to keep himself sane, should she see that as a reassurance or a red flag? She really had no idea. As long as he seemed to know what he was saying, she decided, she would let him manage his own problems in his own way. So long as he could actually learn his legend, and remember the facts that he needed to know. Those were the things that mattered.

“Thank you,” he said, setting down his refilled glass after another gulp. “I know it must be hard to deal with something so personal in a work context. We don't have to decide anything right now. But I want you to know that I'm here for you, Isadora. In whatever way you need me to be. As your fake husband, or as your partner. So long as you’re here, I will keep you safe.”

Isadora felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. As much as she wanted to tell herself that this was all business, she couldn’t remember someone ever supporting her like that before, so wholly and unconditionally. It was overwhelming, and she couldn’t be sure if that was a good thing or not. After making a fool of herself in front of Brown, she couldn’t bear to let her emotions get the better of her again; but it was so hard to remember that Brock’s support was purely professional. He didn’t want to get in her pants, but that didn’t mean he was a friend. Not yet. And she shouldn’t think of him as one until she knew what he really wanted.

She took a shaky breath, meeting Brock's gaze again. "I don’t know if I can do that," she said softly. "But I’ll try. Let's… let's think about it. About how we can make this work, for us and for the Kleins."

Brock smiled, squeezing her hand. "That's my girl. We'll figure it out together."

And with that, they turned their attention to their dinner, the conversation shifting to lighter topics. But in the back of her mind, Isadora couldn't stop thinking about Brock's suggestion. For all she wanted to keep him at arm’s length, there was a big little part of her that could see the upcoming mission as a dream come true. She could only hope that the dream didn’t quickly become a nightmare. But in that little moment of equilibrium, she couldn’t even have imagined the path their lives were about to take.

[Kitty Angel]

18. Gatekeeper

Another morning, another set of questions. Isadora sat across the kitchen table from Brock, piles of papers spread out between them. Most of the documents were face-down now. She was sure that she had memorised almost every detail, and if Brock challenged her answers she could find the right page to justify herself in an instant. She only wished that her partner could say the same about his own knowledge.

She wished that he even seemed to care, as well. Or that he was capable of discussing this without the ever-present hip flask in his hand. It didn’t reassure her any to know that it was filled with top-shelf brandy today; it would still be an impediment to his recall of the details.

“What was the name of your woodwork teacher at St Evelyn’s?” she asked, pitching a softball question in the vague hope that she could hit on at least one detail that he remembered.

Brock shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "Howler Monkey,” he said, after just a little pause. “I mean, Mr Howler, obviously. Guy had a moustache like a walrus, and he’d yell so much if you ever lost a chuck key. We’d joke that he was in love with the drill press, and didn’t like to see his beloved mistreated."

“Howlett,” Isadora corrected. “Not Howler. And the rest of that isn’t in any of the notes, not even in the yearbook. I mean…” she picked up a couple of pages from one of the many piles. “I mean… he has a moustache. But that’s about all you got right.” She couldn’t bring herself to say anything about the somewhat simian appearance of Mr Howlett. It was easy to imagine a bunch of unruly boys giving him a monkey-based nickname, so it was clear that Brock had at least glanced at the page. But it didn’t excuse his failure to take in any of the real details. Right now, she wished that she could have a partner who actually cared about this stuff; but she knew there was no time to drum the importance of studying into him now. There was less than an hour until they would have to prove that they were ready for this mission, and she knew that if they didn’t pass scrutiny together, she had flushed away her last chance at field work.

“Okay,” she muttered, trying to keep her temper under control. “Ask me something.”

"Alright, Estelle," Brock said, a hint of a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "Tell me about your college thesis. Why did you choose such an obscure and academic topic?"

Isadora took a deep breath, her mind racing through the details she'd committed to memory. There was something somehow judgemental in the question, but it was hard to tell whether that was a judgement of her concern for book-learning, or an in-character difference of styles that could cause friction between Bernard and Estelle.

"My thesis was on the linguistic differences between French and Belgian French, with a focus on the influence of Dutch and German on the latter. I chose the topic because I've always been fascinated by how language evolves and adapts based on geographic and cultural factors. Plus, my grandmother was from Belgium, so I felt a personal connection to the subject."

She looked up at Brock, her heart pounding. She was sure she'd gotten every detail right, but the way he was looking at her, his expression inscrutable, made her doubt herself.

Brock leaned back in his chair, taking a long swig from his flask. He didn’t even pick up the piles of papers to see if what she’d said matched the words on the page. Isadora felt a surge of frustration. Was he even listening to her? Did he care at all about the work she'd put into this?

“I guess it got you into my entourage,” he said with a laugh. “So it had to be a pretty good thesis. I barely understood a word of it, though.” Then he tossed his empty flask down on the table, splashing a few final drops of brandy over the pages he had never read.

"You know," she snapped, her temper finally getting the better of her, "maybe if you spent less time drinking and more time actually studying our legends, you'd be better prepared for this."

Brock's eyes widened, and for a moment, Isadora thought she saw a flash of hurt in his expression. But it was gone just as quickly, replaced by his usual inscrutable grin.

"You're right," he said, setting the flask down on the table. "I’m sorry. I guess I get carried away, and don’t realise how it’s getting more… Well, more. When I was in hospital, after my last assignment… I could barely move for a while. I had to stay lying down, and even reading was a chore. I started drinking then, just to take my attention away from all the things that were on my mind. And maybe I didn’t notice that it’s starting to become a problem…”

Isadora felt a pang of guilt. She hadn't meant to lash out at him like that. And she hadn’t even considered how the constant presence of a bottle or glass in her partner’s hand might be related to some of the things he had been through. She knew he was trying, in his own way. But the stress of the impending assessment was putting an edge on all her feelings, making her wish that there was some way she could find a different partner. And when she’d actually said something, the guilt threatened to overwhelm her. Brock was still talking, but she didn’t want to hear anymore. It just made her feel worse.

"No, I'm sorry," she said, looking down at her hands. She needed to change the subject, if only for her own peace of mind. "I shouldn't have said that. I'm just… We need to… Okay, what was your first job after school?"

Brock sat back in his seat, and his mouth opened but there wasn’t time to answer before they heard a loud rap at the door. Not angry, not invasive, just firm and with unshakeable confidence. Kane and his associates were here to test them, and their future as partners hung in the balance. Not just that, but Isadora’s fragile hopes of being able to work in the field for her country would all come down to this one interview.

They went to the door together, and Brock opened it after giving Isadora’s hand one last squeeze. Isadora took a deep breath, and was only slightly surprised to see that Emerson Kane was standing alone on her doorstep, in a jacket just as smart as his work suit. This was it; the moment of truth.

Kane strode into the apartment, his keen eyes sweeping over the living room. Isadora felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach as she watched him, praying that she hadn't forgotten to put away any of her childish toys. She was sure that Brock would have noticed them if she had, but that didn’t cut down her nervousness at all. She was still expecting a worst case scenario.

"Isadora, Dash," Kane said, nodding to them both as he settled into a chair. "I trust you've been making good use of your preparation time? Do you both feel that you are ready to undertake this field assignment?"

Isadora nodded, trying to project a confidence she didn't quite feel. "Yes, sir. We've been going over our legends. I’m confident that I know all the background details now.” She hoped that Kane wouldn’t ask whether Brock knew everything; she didn’t think she could lie to a supervising agent.

"And how do you feel that's been going? Do you think you're ready to inhabit the lives of Bernard and Estelle Klein?"

Brock leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "I think we've made a lot of progress, sir. Working on the dynamic between us, so that we can play the roles convincingly. Our recent trip provided a few anecdotes which we can use to establish a credible dynamic. I think I’m really inside Bernard’s head by now, and I’m confident that Isadora is feeling a similar affinity for Estelle. They have several things in common, after all.“

Kane raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? Well, let's put that to the test, shall we?"

He fixed Isadora with a piercing stare. "Estelle, tell me. When you're at the grocery store, do you tend to buy organic produce? And is there a price point which would change your opinion?"

Isadora blinked, caught off guard by the question. It wasn't something that had been in any of the files she'd studied so diligently. How could she have missed a detail like that? She needed to think about that, or she would have been paralysed by indecision the first time she went shopping. She tried to think like Estelle, to put herself in the mindset of a woman who cared deeply about language and culture. She knew that Estelle was deeply concerned by thoughts of doing the right thing, but did that mean organic?

"I... I think Estelle would prefer organic when possible," she said slowly, trying to put herself in her legend’s shoes. "She's the type who cares about quality, about knowing where her food comes from. It’s not something she’s actually researched, but since she’s been moving in Bernard’s social circle, she must have heard a lot of the women talking about organic food. So, she’s willing to spend a little extra to fit in. She's always been practical, so is reluctant to spend more than she has to without really understanding why, but she’s slowly getting used to having more money to spend, so by now she’ll probably buy the brand which has all the current buzzwords on, even if she doesn’t see the benefit herself. She… Yeah, she doesn’t want to embarrass her husband.”

Kane nodded. “Good enough,” he said. “Although I hope that when you face a question like that in the field, you won’t need to stop and think for quite so long. Thinking on your feet is quite an important skill.”

“Yes Sir,” she nodded, and couldn’t quite meet his gaze as he turned to Brock.

"And Bernard? How would you react if a campaigner from the local Green Party approached you on the street, asking for votes to help prevent the construction of a new road through a nearby woodland?"

“Well, I hadn’t heard about these proposals before. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Do you have more details about the planning application? I believe a grassroots movement from local residents is often the best way to thwart new construction projects, and I would be more than happy to help once I know the details.” Brock hesitated, and his body language changed almost instantly. It was only then that Isadora realised the impression of support he’d been generating with open hands and a friendly smile. “Welcoming, supportive, but asking for more details. I want to give the impression that I support them without making a commitment. Asking for the literature is usually a good way to do that, because people don’t generally ask. And although Bernard is more likely to ask an assistant to summarise it for him, he’s built a habit of finding out about everybody’s problems, because that enables him to be influential. If everyone thinks he is on their side but not necessarily a safe prospect, they will want to stay on his good side. And that’s a skill he’s had a lot of opportunity to cultivate over the years. It’s what makes him so good at his job.”

He winked at Isadora then, and she realised that he wasn’t giving all this information for Kane’s benefit; it was a crash course in how Bernard Klein thought, and suddenly Isadora thought she could see what Estelle saw in him. Brock was painting a picture of his legend as the kind of guy who would walk into a crowded room like he was parting the red sea, constantly working out the angles so that he could hold onto everybody’s respect. Juggling people’s hearts and minds; not the kind of guy you would expect to burst into the bad guy’s manor with guns blazing.

“Think you can pull that off?” Kane asked, and he didn’t say anything when Brock just nodded. So Kane turned back to Isadora and continued: “What’s Bernard’s favourite tipple when he comes home from a long day at work?”

“Whatever we’ve got,” she said, mind racing as she tried to decide whether Bernard liked the same booze Brock did, or whether there was something in her husband’s profile to help her answer this question. Right now, she thought, it would make more sense to act slightly peeved. If Estelle was wrong, her answer would seem like mere hyperbole, rather than ignorance or a lie. “He’s promised to cut down, but I won’t push it when he’s got something on his plate. And he doesn’t seem to care about the flavour, he’ll take the first thing that comes to hand. We’ve got no end of expensive bottles in the drinks cabinet, from sixty-year scotch to gin from Indian cities I’ve barely heard of. But I think Bernard sees it more as a status symbol, something he buys the best of as a statement of how well off we are, not something he really cares about. And something he can offer to his rich friends, as well.”

“I guess I do fall back on a mug of booze a little too often,” Brock said with a sigh. “And I promise, this time I mean it. New house, new routine. I won’t drink except when entertaining guests, or a suitable aperitif with meals. Or if my wife thinks I’ve done something to deserve it.”

The smile said he really meant it.

“Really, Brock?” Kane asked.

“Really. I think for Bernard it became a bit of a habit when he was travelling around the world. A lot of people do use posh spirits as a way of keeping score, who has the most exclusive options in their drinks cabinet. Maybe he started tasting them to work out what the appeal was, and got carried away on long work days. He used to get drunk, but hasn’t done that recently. But this time, he’s promised Estelle that he’s going to quit. And for me… Well, it took the edge off after my last mission. But I know it’s not healthy, and I need to be at one hundred percent while we’re undercover. So I’m cutting it back, and hopefully any ill-effects will be over by the time we arrive at the new place.”

“You won’t be needing all those decanters in your luggage then?” Kane suggested with a laugh.

“They’re going straight to the back of the cupboard,” Brock said firmly. “Although, on the topic of our luggage…”

Isadora’s confidence suddenly evaporated, as she could guess what Brock was going to say. He was going to ask about getting some ageplay stuff packed for Estelle, although they hadn’t really discussed whether that was a good idea or not. And when he was talking about it in front of Kane, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to duck any following questions. She would just have to hope that their boss would go easy on her.

[Kitty Angel]

19. Qualified

“You’re not an exotic weapons collector,” Kane said, watching Brock’s response calmly. “This is recon; you have no need to be carrying an antique carbine or something.” Isadora found that she was on the edge of her seat; a situation she’d never had in her own lounge before. This was when she would learn if her desire to feel like a little kid occasionally was enough to exclude her from her mission, or even for the Agency to revoke its trust in her completely.

“That’s not what I was thinking,” Brock said. “I just had an idea for a hobby the Kleins might share. Something that will help them grow closer. But maybe something a little… unusual. We’ve spoken about it, but not reached a final decision. If Estelle agrees I’d like to order some extra items from the quartermaster. And add some sites to our social media papertrail as well.”

“We can do that,” Kane said, steepling his fingers. “What kind of hobby did you have in mind?”

“I’d rather not say, Sir,” Brock said abruptly. “I’m aware that there are a lot of rumours among the staff at Millennium House. And Folker has friends among the crypto crew, people whose respect she needs to keep. I don’t want anything in there that some desk jockey might think is funny, so this isn’t going through the kingmakers. We’ll order items direct to packing, and I trust my monitor to update the profiles on our legends.”

Kane looked back and forth between the two, and then sighed. Isadora knew what Brock was getting at; and she felt a lot more confident when she realised that he was making a real effort to get Kane’s approval without actually telling him; so that her secret could be kept out of the office rumour mill. He didn’t need to do that, but he had. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to do this, but she seemed to be in a position to make it possible. She could talk about it with Brock later.

“I think it’s a good idea, Sir,” she said. “Something quirky might be memorable for our new neighbours, make it easier for them to pigeonhole us. And if Brock is thinking of what I think he’s thinking, it would give us a legitimate cover for an instance or two of unusual behaviour. I’d hope to never be suspected at all; but at the same time, it’s better to have an insurance policy. Right?”

When Kane’s stare fell on her, she felt like he could see right through her. But she couldn’t let him shut down Brock so easily. As he asked one question, and then another, she responded carefully and thoughtfully. Somehow, along the way, she went from deliberately-vague reassurances to actually lying about what Brock had in mind; though she couldn’t have pointed at the dividing line between the two. She didn’t even know if she actually agreed with Brock’s plan, but she told herself that they would be able to discuss that later. If Kane said no, there was no option to change her mind.

Suddenly, Kane was asking the same kind of questions as before. Testing them on their legends, and on their ability to make up things they had never been taught. And that was another reason for Isadora to have second thoughts. When Brock had kept on talking about feeling like the character, rather than memorising the details, she hadn’t been sure if he was just trying to cover up his weakness. But almost every question Kane asked was about things that weren’t in the file; details that an operative might realistically be forced to answer on the spot while playing his role among strangers. Kane didn’t ask about years of employment or anything like that. And the more questions he asked, the more Isaodra started to realise that he was asking questions that people might ask them. Neighbours, monkeys, enemies, it didn’t matter. When it came to proving that they really were the people they claimed to be, nobody was going to ask them to remember all the numbers. But improvising was something they needed to know.

“Bernard,” Kane asked, and for just a fraction of a second his grin looked like a crocodile snapping down on its prey. “Do you think any of your school friends would worry about your drinking problem if they saw you now?”

“I don’t…” Brock hesitated for a moment. “Okay, I don’t see it as a problem, and I could field that question by being belligerent. But if you want an answer, I think that Chalky Welsh would tell me I had a problem. But then, he always resented me. And a good deal of the reason he studied so much was because his parents drank too much and he was trying to keep away from them. Joined every society going, taking extra classes he didn’t need, so I have no doubt he’d overreact again. Trish wouldn’t care. She said wine is refined, wine is fine. Even in high school she knew where she could get a glass at lunch time, and back in the day everyone respected her. The others? Well, aside from Walleye, I don’t think anybody would even care. I’m functional in public. And you know, I’m going to cut down on the drinking in my new home.”

Kane nodded, and fired off another question to Isadora. But she wasn’t listening now. She couldn’t think about anything about what Brock had just said. And it wasn’t his promises, either. It was the fact that he had referenced a bunch of Bernard’s classmates so quickly. The nicknames weren’t in the notes, or in the yearbook. Isadora didn’t know if the kingmakers had added Brock to the roster of a real school class; if the people mentioned were entirely fictitious; or if he’d been inserted in place of a real Bernard Klein who could be relied upon not to get in the way. But when he used those nicknames so casually, she found that she could easily imagine the people he was talking about, and what their personalities had been like back in their school days. He made up anecdotes for these people who were little more than names. But when Isadora tried to recall their club memberships and quotes from the yearbooks, she was surprised to realise that everything he had said seemed to fit.

She wondered what she might have picked up if she’d tried analysing the information as she was reading it, as well as trying to remember everything. And she knew that she had to test her theory.

“Sorry, Sir,” she said, realising that Kane was waiting for an answer. “I just thought… Bernard? Do you remember if you celebrated your classmates’ birthdays at school?”

“Oh yeah,” Brock said without hesitation. “I mean, nothing crazy. We’d all get cards at least for Stannick, he’s the oldest in the class and otherwise he’d feel left out. And then there’d be no birthdays for ages, but then there’s a dozen guys getting older in like a week and a half at the start of December. So it turned into we’d all make plans at school, and then Corky Hayes would throw a big party, the day before the school Christmas party, so everybody could have fun together. I mean, some people I knew more than others, but the whole year was there for the big party.”

“Yeah, I…” Isadora stumbled to a halt. “You remember everyone’s birthdays, don’t you? Even though it’s not going to matter, like you keep saying. And you’ve got nicknames for all of them based on their hobbies. When did you find time to study all that?”

“First night was memorising the bundle,” he answered. “It’s the way I always do it, even if it means I’m a bit tired in the morning, depending how late I stayed up. Ever since is building the legend. Feeling my way through the history, trying to work out which bits Bernard would remember, and trying to work out how I feel about all those people in my past. That’s the hard part, and I think you noticed that I wasn’t quite sure at the start whether I should know things or not.”

“I was just…” she realised that her voice had dropped to a whisper. That wasn’t the answer she had expected at all. “I thought you hadn’t studied yet, and you seemed to not remember the details. But you had the facts in there all the time?” It was hard to believe, but she couldn’t deny that he was coming up with new details that would need an in-depth understanding of so many different details from different documents. She’d thought he was slacking, when he was going way beyond what she had even thought to attempt. “I don’t even know if I’ve memorised everything, even after weeks.”

“You’ll learn,” he said. “It’s not something you can pick up studying by the book. It’s not reasonable to expect you to commit so many pages to memory, when your past experience is all based on the data being on a screen in front of you. That’s why I suggested you would be better focusing on just a few parts of your background, so you can really get the feel of them. You can always study more later, once you’ve really internalised one section you can rely on.”

“I didn’t do that well after all,” she said.

After what felt like an eternity, Kane spoke again, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Well, agents, I have to say I'm cautiously optimistic. You've clearly put in the work to understand your legends, and you’re doing better than I would expect for new partners. And when it comes to your special request, well…"

Isadora froze again, hoping that she hadn’t jeopardised their chances of approval by coming out too strongly in favour of Brock’s request. Did it really matter to her that Estelle shared her weird little quirk?

“You lied to me,” Kane said. “Both of you. You’re trying to get me onboard without telling me your real reasons. And I know that wasn’t a part of your plan, because of the amount of hesitation you showed.”

“I’m sorry, Sir!” Isadora gasped. “I didn’t mean… It’s like, we should–”

“Please, listen,” Kane said; and the authority in his voice was enough to make her quiet down without him even needing to raise his voice. “I noted that you have a common objective, and you were able to improvise a story that might have convinced me, reading between the lines to see where your partner was leading. That kind of improvisation is a rare quality, and I’ve seen now that you have actually accomplished something which, based on your disparate backgrounds, I might not have expected. I’m not entirely certain why you felt it necessary to keep this secret from me. But you have shown that you can think on your feet and bluff convincingly. I appreciate that. And your request is approved. But…”

“Sir?” Brock asked.

“Isadora, I am asking you to keep an eye on your partner. Whatever he’s planning, you need to ensure it is sane, and veto it otherwise. You will need to approve these purchase orders and legend changes. I am trusting you to make sure Brock is not going off the rails again. But if you really feel that his choices are constructive to the assignment, I will allow you to make that call without oversight. Can you take responsibility for that?”

“Yes, Sir,” she answered again. “Yes, I can do that.”

“Well then, Mr and Mrs Klein. You have my approval. You will have the committee’s sign off tomorrow. And please, remember that this is a big responsibility. Don’t let me down.”

Isadora swallowed hard, feeling the weight of Kane's words settling on her shoulders. She glanced at Brock, who was watching her with an unreadable expression.

Could she do it? Could she keep Brock in check, keep him from veering off course? She wasn't sure, but she knew she had to try. For the sake of the mission, and for the sake of their partnership.

"Yes, sir," she said, her voice steady despite the churning in her gut. "I can handle it. We're a team, and we'll have each other's backs out there."

Kane held her gaze for a long moment, as if searching for any hint of doubt or hesitation. Finally, he nodded.

"See that you do, Folker. A lot is riding on this mission. Don't let us down."

 

End of Act I [Introduction]

I hope everyone has enjoyed the first part of this story… four more parts to go, which might have quite different tones. Would love to hear how you're expecting this story to go…

[dmavn]

On 12/18/2024 at 9:07 AM, Kitty Angel said:

I mean, it could have been Brock.

Well.. from the beginning Brock was giving me Daddy vibes and I kept waiting to hear that there was a paci on Isadora’s necklace she was always holding.. It IS a “pacifier” after all.. What better to have to combat stress and anxiety. Now to go back and read the last 3 chapters… Just when I think I’m caught up I’m behind again..

[Kitty Angel]

Merry Christmas everybody! Hope you're having a good time.

This is a chapter full of information. I wonder which bits might be relevant later. Can you spot them all?

Act II: Meet the Kleins

20. Turbulence

The gentle hum of the plane’s engines was a constant backdrop as Brock and Isadora settled into their seats. The budget airline didn't offer many frills, but the quiet flight was a welcome respite from the bustling airport. Isadora glanced around, noting the sparse scattering of passengers.

"Looks like we got lucky with this flight," she commented, keeping her voice low. "Not many people around to overhear us."

Brock shrugged, his gaze fixed on the window. "Luck had nothing to do with it. The Agency knows what they’re doing. They’d book us onto the redeye so fewer people see us, but when they have access to every passenger manifest, finding the flight which actually has fewest people can be trivial."

“It still seems weird that we even need a flight,” Isadora said with a shrug. “I mean… two flights even. It’s crazy that we’re barely travelling a few hundred miles, but we’re spending almost a whole day on planes and in airports.”

“We’re not,” Brock shook his head. “We’re only getting one flight out to Vancouver. The Kleins are getting a connecting flight back from there after their honeymoon in Rome.”

“I know,” Isadora said, frowning at his cynicism. But she chose not to comment, instead reaching into her carry-on bag and pulling out a thick folder. "Just feels like a whole day cut off from the world. Might as well use this time to go over the files on the Arrencani family."

Brock nodded, leaning over to get a better look as she flipped open the folder. They began to read through the documents, their heads bent together in concentration. Isadora felt a flicker of nervousness as she scanned the pages, trying to commit the details to memory. She’d always prided herself on being able to learn the key facts from a document quickly, but now that she was actually going into the field she found herself doubting her own abilities. “There's so much information here," she murmured, her brow furrowed. “What if I miss something that turns out to be important?”

“That’s why we study together,” Brock said. “Makes it easier to learn. And also means there’s a better chance that at least one of us will hold onto every detail.”

Isadora knew that was true. She’d spent a significant portion of the last three weeks berating Brock for not remembering every detail about the Kleins, only to discover that he’d managed to pick up way more than she thought. They were both good at learning.

“Yeah,” she said. “But learning all this now, when we only had vague details before… It’s not like we’ve got weeks to learn it.”

Brock glanced over at her, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Aww, is someone feeling a little overwhelmed?" he teased, his voice taking on a sing-song quality. "Maybe you're just too little to handle all this grown-up stuff."

Isadora shot him a glare, but she couldn't help the slight quirk of her lips at his playful tone. "Very funny," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not a child, Brock. Not when it matters." She was aware that some of the luggage they’d ordered might suggest differently; but that wasn’t the point now. She still hadn’t decided whether she would actually use those things, or just keep them hidden to add depth to their cover.

"No, but sometimes it's okay to let yourself be one," he said, his voice softening. "Especially when things get tough. It's alright to lean on your Daddy sometimes, you know."

Isadora felt a warm flush creep up her neck at his words. It was strange, hearing him refer to himself as her Daddy. Strange, but not entirely unpleasant. There was something comforting about the idea of letting him take the reins, of not having to shoulder all the responsibility herself.

But she couldn't let herself get too caught up in the fantasy. They had a job to do, and she needed to stay focused. "I appreciate the offer," she said, trying to keep her tone light. "But I think I can handle a little reading without a trip to the nursery."

Brock held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Fair enough. But the offer stands. So long as you’re not getting in my way, I’ll do whatever I can to help my partner out. Anytime you need a break from being a big, bad operative, you just let me know."

Isadora shook her head, fighting back a smile. "I'll keep that in mind. But for now, we need to focus on the mission. The Arrencanis aren't going to infiltrate themselves."

With a mental shake, Isadora forced herself to focus on the task at hand. She would have time to explore those feelings later, when the mission was over and Arrencani was behind bars. For now, she had to be Agent Folker, cool, collected, and unflappable.

"Aye aye, captain," Brock said, giving her a mock salute. "Back to work it is. So, Lorenzo Arrencani."

“Old money,” Isadora answered, bringing back everything she already knew about the target. “A free agent, so far as we know. Imitating the stylings of the Sicilian mafia to inspire respect. Tied to drugs, extortion, gambling, possibly guns. But never any proof. Rumoured connections to human trafficking are what brought us here.”

“Right,” Brock agreed. “Married Alessia Strong in 2001, had a pretty big society wedding. But her last movie was out the same year, so we guess they’re going for a traditional family dynamic. Stay-at-home wife.”

“Or something else…” Isadora said, actually looking at the papers in front of her now. “Alessia’s bank accounts have been dormant, and then closed. Her passport hasn’t been renewed. Last trail of any online activity was six years ago. Annoyed her husband too much? How does the mafia deal with an unfaithful wife, or a headstrong one?”

“Not well,” Brock admitted. “Or she could have run away, found a new name. Arrencani might prefer to pretend she doesn’t exist than have a public divorce.”

“I don’t know,” Isadora said firmly. “Guys like that? They’re animals. It’s hard to assume the best.”

“Don’t assume anything,” Brock said. “Just keep all of the options in mind.”

They talked a little longer, studying thirty pages of notes about Arrencani’s legitimate business interests, real estate holdings, valuable objects on his insurance policies, and everything the Agency had been able to discover. Even going back to his high school yearbook, where his photo was inexplicably holding a crochet doll.

“Given to him by a childhood sweetheart?” Brock suggested, when he peered at the picture. “One detail we don’t even have theories about. Somehow, I doubt it will be the key to this case. Although… if he’s still got that doll, it might have enough value to him to count as a hostage.”

Isadora shook her head and sighed, with no idea how serious he was.

“Okay, Enzo,” she said. “Is he a part of the family?”

“He’s Lorenzo’s brother,” Brock said, flippantly. “That would normally be considered family.”

“You know what I meant,” she said with just the faintest hint of a laugh to break the tension. “And the answer seems to be we don’t know. Was engaged; fiancée ditched him when he enlisted. Long time in the army, mostly logistics. Final rank Captain. Decent but unremarkable scores for marksmanship. Wanted to keep on rising through the ranks, but it looks like his immediate superiors blocked him for reasons they never put down on paper. Maybe not a likeable man.”

“Living with his big brother, it sounds kind of suspicious,” she said, staring down at the serious glare on the most recent photo of the brothers. “There must be a reason for that.”

“In some cultures that would be normal,” Brock said with a shrug. “I think it’s probably related to the family business, although he doesn’t draw a paycheck from any of the legitimate ones. Could be just that he couldn’t adapt to civilian life. I’ve seen that happen to good men. So Lorenzo stepped up, offered him a room and a stipend. Not likely, but we can’t just put him in the crosshairs until we get closer.”

“We hardly know anything about this family,” Isadora said with a sigh. “For all the crimes, it’s just a web of rumours. We say this should be a job for the cops, but they can’t do anything without proof. And really, they don’t even have an accusation. Just whispers in the shadows and nothing to back them up. Whether the trafficking thing is true or not, we’ll be able to hand them a whole bunch more intel on the family.”

“If the supervisors think it’s a good idea,” Brock said, sounding way too cynical for a moment. “We’re secret, remember? Good chance we’ll find out a whole bunch about the inner workings of this organisation, who Arrencani’s generals are, how they communicate, how they manage to stay so tight on evidence… and then it’ll all get stuck in a file somewhere, never to be used. Not agency business, they’ll say. Unless we deal with it ourselves.”

“Which isn’t our job,” Isadora said sharply, and reached out to take the tiny little bottle of rum that Brock had just opened. “You’re not James Bond, remember? And you’re supposed to be quitting drinking, if you didn’t forget that too. Or at least cutting down.”

“Bernard is,” he said. “I mean… Bernard’s giving up the booze. Once we land, I’ll bet that there’ll be enough adrenaline to keep me wired anyhow. So my quitting starts when I put on the Bernard Klein mask. And to be honest, I think I might slip a few times. Of course, it might be non alcoholic shots at home. But based on what we’re expecting from Lorenzo, I think that he’d sympathise with a guy whose wife is trying to change him. Regardless of how his own voyage down that path actually went.”

"Says here Lorenzo's grooming his son Marco to take over someday," Isadora observed, tapping a fingernail against the page. "But…”

“But there’s no evidence of that,” Brock said. “I noticed the same. They think that because that’s how mafia families often work, but there’s no evidence for it. We’re in the dark about everything that goes on in that house.”

What they did have on Marco was a bunch of school records, showing that he was above average in European languages, struggled with mathematics but had finally caught up to reach the average for his age group, and had won a contest for postgothic emotive poetry when he was seventeen. He had multiple social media profiles, one where he was a spoiled rich kid and one wallpapered with edgy photos that he didn’t actually appear in, trying to convince the world that he was a dangerous badass.

“Kid trying to say he’s a rapper,” Isadora said, not sure how seriously to take it. “But no sign of actual music. And the slang is… all wrong. He wants to cap somebody’s ass, and says he’s tweaking but doesn’t look like he knows what it means. I mean, that was when he was like fifteen. No employment records since leaving school, so maybe he regrets the fantasy stuff once he was actually allowed to join the family business.”

“Or he was just a poser and grew out of it,” Brock said. “What about that one? What are ‘Guns of Liberty’?”

“Video game. Survival times in the top thousand players for a couple of less competitive maps; pretty good, but not quite good enough to make a career out of it. He’s got coordination and reflexes, which could reflect he’s capable with actual guns, or just with a controller. Everything I see here points at a kid who might have some potential, but he’s just been a spoiled brat all his life.”

"Could be useful," Brock mused. "If he's the weak link, he might be our way in. If he’s even in."

Isadora nodded, making a mental note to keep an eye on Marco. She flipped to the next page, which contained a grainy photo of a man with a buzz cut and a scar running down his cheek. "This must be Roman, the head of security. Ex-military, from the looks of it."

There were more members of the family, but none of them actually lived in the area. Suggestions about who was involved with the Arrencani Crime family were nothing but guesses. Brock and Isadora spent a couple of hours looking through page after page and committing them to memory, and Isadora got more and more embarrassed each time she realised that Brock was waiting for her to finish reading. Did the guy who she’d dismissed as a James Bond wannabe have some kind of photographic memory?

“We can look through those again later,” she said, not sure that she’d taken them all in. “While I’m fresh, I’d rather focus on people we’re actually going to meet. The household isn’t just three people, right?”

Brock nodded, and they moved on to the household staff. Isadora held up photos of a couple of young women; one very serious and one dancing on the beach with a smile. The different attitudes were probably because one of the photos was from the website of a company who hadn’t removed the girl’s picture when she resigned, while the other was from a friend’s wedding. But it was easy to imagine that their general demeanour would be very different as well.

“Selma Woolsey,” she said. “Housekeeper. Cleaning and general chores, I’d guess. The police have some blurry surveillance photos of her washing dishes, and hanging laundry out on the line. Not particularly notable. Originally hired through a domestic service agency, but left them to work full-time for Arrencani. A lot of holiday pictures on FriendSpace, seems she has a weekend overseas every couple of months, and a full week at least once a year. And these aren’t cheap resorts. That’s very good pay for household chores.”

“It could mean Arrencani wants to buy silence in case she sees something,” Brock said thoughtfully. “Or it could mean that he wants someone who can be called on 24/7 to clean up any spills or whatever, and he wants loyalty. Staff who keep smiling and never complain if they’re woken up to do something in the middle of the night can command a high wage.”

“Her wages aren’t actually…” Isadora mumbled, trying to make sense of the numbers on the page. “Okay, she gets a pretty high wage, but that’s topped up with a whole range of expenses. Her clothing budget is astronomical, but then I guess that looking perfect is a part of the role. And… tips from guests to the house. Is that normal?”

“It is if she’s performing specialised services for them,” Brock said with a shrug. “Could just mean she gets well compensated for working unsociable hours. Could mean she indulges Arrencani’s kinks, or the guests’. Or it could be a payment for looking the other way, or cleaning up blood stains without complaining.”

“Yeah,” Isadora said with a sigh. “We don’t know anything. Hmm… she used to help with gardening too. They get a professional landscaping firm who do most of the neighbourhood, but the cops had some pics of Selma helping them out. I wonder… ah. She had a crush on this guy. Making excuses to be outside so she can talk to him. But he was only doing landscaping for a year out, to pad his bank account before college, so no longer in the picture.”

“Okay. So, one mystery. Next?”

“Geoffrey Turner. Also ex-military, you’d never guess by looking at him. Six years in the French foreign legion. Reported to be extremely loyal to the men around him, punctual, and disciplined. Following that he lived in France for two years. Trained as a sommelier, and later worked in hospitality. Uhh… was assistant manager of a hotel owned by one of Arrencani’s legitimate businesses. Now his job title is butler.” They both looked at the photos there; which showed a very well turned out man who had the bearing of someone much older. He looked more English than French, and posed like he had stepped right out of some period drama. He had the kind of no-nonsense stare that said he was in control of everything in his house.

“Looks kind of intimidating, in a way,” Brock said. “Like some teachers, in the last generation. When they could actually discipline you. Well behaved in the Legion, or just very good at not getting caught? I totally wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got another role behind the scenes. Accountant, perhaps, keeping two sets of books. But again, we have nothing to go on, unless we find out for ourselves.”

The next member of staff was Claudine Knight. The other young woman; an assistant housekeeper and sometimes cook. Like Selma, she had been recruited through an agency for domestic staff but now received a higher wage directly from Arrencani.

“Personal services?” Isadora suggested, on noting that the assistant housekeeper had a significantly higher wage than the woman she was assisting. “There’s no way that’s just for cooking and cleaning.”

“Or first aid,” Brock guessed. “Look, she studied medicine in college. Six years as a registered nurse at the St Cwrig Teaching Hospital in Birmingham, before she went into cleaning. Maybe she knows enough to provide medical care to injured guys for the enterprise, or something. When they don’t want a record of how those people got shot or whatever.”

“Could be,” Isadora sighed. “But there’s still so much we don’t know. Lots of guesses.”

“It won’t be so bad,” Brock said with a shrug. “We know what we know. And that’s the foundation we can add to with anything we discover. So, let’s see who else we’ve got.”

“Okay. Next up is Roman Bercher. Arrencani’s head of security. That’s something that got the police’s attention. Because why does an affluent middle-class guy living in a gated community need professional security?”

“Right,” Brock said, staring down at a photo of a man with angry eyes and a scar across his face, practically glaring at the camera. “Where did he serve?”

“You mean…” Isadora started to speak without thinking, then looked through the documents again. “Navy. Quite a few years. No record of his final rank, that’s weird. Must be something wrong with the database.”

“I can guess what,” Brock said. “Technically not a dishonourable discharge. He did something bad, and they insisted that he had to leave. But the disciplinary proceedings are expunged from his record because he’s got dirt on someone higher up the chain of command. A troublemaker. Maybe even had parts of his record cleaned; special forces, even black ops, but there’s no way we could find anything about it now. And even if we don’t have any evidence, that guy is involved. He’s used to hurting people.”

"Great," Isadora sighed. "So we're not just dealing with your average thugs. These guys are professionals."

"If they were garden variety thugs, we wouldn’t be here," Brock said, his tone serious. "It’s just all the more reason to make sure our cover is airtight. We can't afford any slip-ups."

Isadora swallowed hard, feeling the weight of responsibility settling on her shoulders. She knew Brock was right. They had to be perfect, had to become Bernard and Estelle Klein down to the smallest detail. Any cracks in their facade could be deadly.

As they delved deeper into the files, Isadora couldn't shake the feeling that they were wading into dangerous waters. The Arrencani family was powerful, ruthless, and shrouded in secrecy. And now she and Brock were tasked with infiltrating their inner sanctum, ferreting out the truth behind the whispers of human trafficking and corruption. Brock had said that this assignment was just to test them, and it was clear he would normally think it was beneath him. But he was still taking it seriously.

They kept on reading the files until they were too tired to continue. There were dozens more names; part time employees on the housekeeping; neighbours; the landscaping and catering companies Arrencani used; and employees and managers at the man’s legitimate or front businesses. It was impossible to take it all in. But Isadora was determined to try her best, and before the flight was over she was quietly confident that she’d at least committed the important details about the most likely members of Arrencani’s operation to memory. She could only hope that the Agency would be pleased with her work.

[Kitty Angel]

Any guesses which of the people mentioned will be involved in the Arrencani crime family, or not? Or who will end up being friends for Mr and Mrs Klein?

 

21. Carousel

Vancouver International Airport was a bustling hive of activity as Brock and Isadora made their way through the terminal. Even in the early hours of the morning, there were people moving in all directions. But unlike busier times of day, the vast majority of them seemed to be absorbed in their own thoughts, knowing in advance precisely where they needed to be. Night travellers, Isadora guessed, were either frequent fliers or businessmen.

They had just arrived at their destination and were navigating the crowded concourse with their carry-on bags in tow. Isadora scanned the signs overhead, looking for the baggage claim area. She was distracted by the city lights outside, though, giving a thin sliver of a view into a busy nightlife. She thought that it was a shame they wouldn’t be allowed to stop.

"This way," Brock said, nodding towards a set of escalators. Of course he could find the signs faster than she could, or maybe he’d just had a layover here before. He was one of the frequent travellers, after all, and he was all business now. The way he held on to Isodora’s wrist to keep them from getting separated, though, but some very unexpected thoughts in her head. Just a tiny touch could make her feel overwhelmed by his authority, and she wasn’t sure how to ask him to stop that.

There were no crowds at the baggage claim. They picked up a couple of suitcases, which they didn’t really need. The only reason they were here was to complete an illusion, and they didn’t expect any kind of problems.

Even the customs checkpoints were quick and pain-free. Their hand luggage was quickly scanned, they were asked if they had anything to declare, and their passports were stamped. For Isadora, it was one of the first times she’d ever been through this; but she guessed that Brock was moving almost by habit.

As soon as they had their luggage, they strode briskly across the concourse towards a sign offering secure storage. Banks of lockers gleamed by reflected light, yellow on one side and green on the other.There was a desk at the end of the room, with a man in uniform who could clearly see that nobody was trying to break into the system. But these days, the lockers were high-tech enough that it was possible to book one using the little keypad on the door, wave a credit card at it, and the key would just pop out. Not that Isadora and Brock needed to do that; everything here would have been set up for them.

“I always wondered why they have luggage lockers in airports,” Isadora mused. “I mean… an airport isn’t a place to leave things, is it? I guess it seems normal to a frequent traveller like you, but I never saw the need for one. Except for… well… you know.”

Brock didn't answer, his focus entirely on the locker in front of him. He pulled a key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock, turning it with a soft click. The door swung open, revealing a backpack, handbag, a briefcase, and a wallet inside. Behind those, there seemed to be some clothes as well. Brock pulled out the handbag first, and handed it to Isadora before he spoke.

“Most people, I think it’s just for a layover. Like, if you’re stuck here for eight hours before your next flight, you want to explore the city a bit, or just get lunch on the concourse. You don’t want to be dragging your bags around the whole time. Although some tour companies will transfer your bags onto the right connecting flight for you, not all do, especially if it’s a different airline. So… you can leave your stuff in a locker while you’re here.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Isadora said, watching with a faint smile as Brock turned to put a plastic flower in her buttonhole. It was cheap tourist tat, with pictures of tourist spots in Rome printed on the attached label; just the kind of thing Estelle might have picked up as a memento. Estelle’s passport, drivers licence, and cell phone were in the handbag, as well as a chaotic assortment of cash that barely seemed to be organised. Brock, meanwhile, was changing his jacket as well as picking up the briefcase.

“A briefcase?” she asked. “On honeymoon? Come on, Brock.”

“Bernard,” he corrected her softly. “Bags changed, remember. The rest of our luggage has already been checked. I’m Bernard Klein until we get on the next flight. And yes, a briefcase. I’ve been carrying it so long, it’s practically a good luck charm. I always have it with me, and it’s easier to stow in a locker or under a seat. The backpack’s yours. I think you’re kind of paranoid, packing so much stuff in your hand luggage just in case you need it, but I know you prefer to be prepared.”

“I’ve heard too many horror stories,” Isadora said, trying to think herself into Estelle’s habits. It wasn’t hard when so many of them made perfect sense. “I don’t ever want to get off a plane and find out that my meds aren’t there, or a change of underwear, or… well… Musume.” She unzipped the top of the backpack and pulled out a ragdoll with fluffy cat ears; it was probably brand new, but looked more like a doll that had spent several years being carefully transported in her hand luggage every single time she visited a new place.

"Good girl, you’re getting into it now. Just try to keep that up," Brock whispered, his breath tickling her neck. "Remember, from now on we're the Kleins. Everything we say and do has to reflect that. We can't afford any slip-ups."

Isadora nodded, her heart racing. She knew he was right. They were in enemy territory now, surrounded by potential threats. One wrong move, one careless word, and their entire mission could be compromised. Their lives in danger, even. And although she’d known intellectually that being a spy was a dangerous life, it was a completely different thing to actually know it was true.

“Scared?” Brock asked. “You should ask Musume for a hug. We’ll be on the plane for a long time anyhow, so you’ll have time to get used to the nerves. And of course, we’re recently married, moving into a new place, so nerves won’t be too suspicious. But you need to be on top of this.”

“Yeah,” she whispered, taking a deep breath. A second later, she found herself wondering why she’d felt that would help. It was just air, not some magical anti-anxiety gas. People always talked like taking a breath would calm you down, but for Isadora it didn’t do anything to calm her nerves. Or maybe it was just that her anxiety was at an all-time high now, and she would need to inhale a few hundred times to even make a dent in it.

Doing things would help, though. Practical things. She double-checked that she had everything she would need. Estelle’s passport, tickets, and bank cards were all in the handbag. Isadora’s could go into the locker. Brock tossed his own wallet on top of them. Then he lifted up their suitcases one by one and pushed them inside. The locker was almost overfilled, but there was space for the jacket he’d been wearing for the first flight.

“Sure you’ve not forgotten anything?” he asked. Isadora thought again, and then pulled out her cellphone. She hated that she wouldn’t be reachable for however many months this took, but she’d always known that a field agent had to make sacrifices. Into the locker it went. She nodded.

Brock closed the door, pressed down the button to lock it, and then posted the key through the narrow gap at the top of the locker. No physical objects now tied them to their real names. There was nothing anyone could use to prove that they weren’t Bernard and Estelle Klein, so long as they were both able to keep up the act. So long as Brock’s memory for the details was as good as he had claimed.

Brock turned back towards the escalators, the new briefcase in his hand. "Come on," he said, jerking his head towards the upper level. "We've got a plane to catch."

Isadora followed him, her mind racing. She understood the practical reasons for swapping all their luggage like this; but it also seemed like they were drawing a line in the sand. Marking a time when the mission really started. This was when things became real.

They made their way to the check-in counter, where Brock presented their new identities with a charming smile. The attendant didn't even blink, issuing them their boarding passes and directing them towards the security checkpoint.

As they walked, Isadora couldn't help but marvel at how easily Brock slipped into his role. Gone was the cynical, world-weary operative she had come to know. In his place was Bernard Klein, successful businessman and loving husband. He placed a casual arm around her waist as they strolled, the picture of a happy couple. In some way she couldn’t quite define, it seemed that even his gait was different.

A part of her wondered if his drinking would be different as well, because that was the one thing that really worried her. She could understand it, from the little she knew about what had happened with his former partner. But it still seemed like a liability if he didn’t have those habits firmly under control now.

Isadora pushed the thoughts out of her mind and tried to relax into his touch, to embody Estelle Klein as seamlessly as Brock had become Bernard. It wasn't easy, but she knew how important it was to maintain their cover. It was easy to imagine that they were being watched now, every move scrutinised for any hint of deception. Even if Arrencani hadn’t researched them yet, there was a chance that the reports of bystanders might get back to him eventually. Whether there was any chance of the enemy watching them or not, she had to be Estelle. Completely and without mistakes, from now until they landed in Fairhaven, and right through their time living in their new home.

As the plane took off, Isadora stared out the window, watching the city disappear beneath the clouds. She felt like she was leaving her old life behind, shedding her skin to become someone new. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once. In the back of her mind, a little voice whispered that this was the thing that had scared her most when she signed up for field training. Not leaving her life behind, as such, because there weren’t many things that mattered to her outside of the Agency. But leaving her inner child behind; the knowledge that no operative would ever understand the ways she found to relax, and that even if he was by some miracle supportive, doing anything weird would be a threat to her legend’s integrity.

Now she knew different. Brock supported her, and Estelle was a regressive little. Their home in Evergreen Estates would have a room outfitted as an actual nursery, both to give her a chance to indulge her fantasies and as a mask to keep their real secrets from anyone invading the house. The only thing that was really keeping her from letting her inner child out to play was her own reluctance. She was here for a reason, after all. And she couldn’t fulfil her duties when she was in that state of mind. It was only a game, a role to play, but when her inner child was playing with toys it would take too long to get back to any state where she could actually help if needed. And Isadora knew she could do better than that. She wouldn’t let Brock down.

Isadora took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. She was ready. Ready to become Estelle Klein, ready to face whatever challenges lay ahead. With Brock's help, she knew she could handle anything.

The plane soared higher, carrying them towards their new lives, their new identities. And as the miles ticked by, Isadora felt a sense of purpose settle over her. She was exactly where she was meant to be, doing exactly what she was meant to do. And nothing, not even the threat of the Arrencani family, could shake her resolve.

[dmavn]

Lesee, I think the Dr created some type of drug that regresses people and Arrencani’s wife was one of the first “Test” subjects..

[Kitty Angel]

17 hours ago, dmavn said:

Lesee, I think the Dr created some type of drug that regresses people and Arrencani’s wife was one of the first “Test” subjects..

Oooh  I like that. Closer than I expected in some ways, but further in others. (I actually suspected that everyone would have forgotten a single brief reference to a doctor by now…)

Thank you! It's really great to see people making connections, and assessing my ability to judge what information you should have.

 

22. New Neighbours

Bernard and Estelle’s first view of Evergreen Estates was from high above. It was nestled in the valley, a sprawling array of suburban homes separated by many trees, which made it hard to count the number of buildings or streets. They were in a taxi for now; Bernard’s new car had been ordered from a local dealership, and would hopefully be standing outside number 42 Tennyson Avenue already. But as the vehicle drew to a stop, they were still a long way from their new home. There was an archway across the road; decorative iron gates suspended from faux classical pillars.

Isadora looked up; and her mind went straight away to how easy it would be to climb over the wisteria that decorated the wall on either side of the gate, or the trellis supporting it. Or the odds of a sturdy 4×4 crashing straight through the barrier. This wasn’t a serious attempt to isolate the homeowners; it was a status symbol, and and ostentatious sign that they were too right to share their air with people just passing through. Even Isadora, whose knowledge of fieldwork came straight from the books, immediately saw at least four ways she could have gotten inside undetected, and three more ways to demolish the barrier with only items that a typical traveller might have to hand.

Brock went for the simpler solution today; standing and walking over to the little gatehouse. Isadora wondered for a second if she should get out too, but by the time she’d thought about it he was already talking to the guy, his body language a pantomime of how far they’d flown and how late it was. He showed the security guard a letter, and his passport. A minute of two later, he was getting back into the car and tossing a couple of items into Isadora’s lap. As they started moving again, Isadora investigated her prize. Two bunches of keys, each with the same four keys on. Front door, back door, garage, and mailbox? She wasn’t really sure what the smallest one was for, but she could guess from the house number stamped on two mass-produced keyfobs that these were the keys to their new home.

The other item had a suction cup on the back, and looked like some kind of solar-powered radio gadget. Her only guess was that they should mount it in their car, to automatically open the gates when they got close. Like the transponders that some toll roads still used to identify regular customers.

“We’ll need to get another one if you want a car too,” Brock said with a smile. “Let’s see if one car is enough for a couple of weeks before we decide.”

“I’ll probably be okay,” Isadora said with a shrug. “Thanks, honey.” It felt kind of weird, but she knew she would have to get used to using some term of endearment for him sooner or later. She was his wife now; Mrs Klein. And she wasn’t sure if an airport taxi driver who’d come all the way from Fairhaven would even care who they were. But he was local, and the first person they’d interacted with since landing. The flight attendants didn’t seem to count, somehow, because those people hadn’t even asked their names.

As they drove through the new neighbourhood, Isadora felt overwhelmed by the size of many of their houses. The notes they’d already seen included a number of houses, and area, but they didn’t really do the place justice. And overlooking the valley hadn’t really painted a better picture. The trees between each property were old, and large. Hedges stretched high enough to completely separate some houses from each other, while others just had picket fences an implausible distance from the house. Where they saw private pools, it was clear that the size of the properties hadn’t imposed any restrictions on the design. Every block seemed to have only a dozen houses, around a spacious park with immaculate landscaping, and the houses weren’t the cookie-cutter suburban homes she might have expected, but expansive properties where it was clear that the owners could afford whatever improvements and additions they wanted in the name of individuality.

The taxi pulled up outside 42 Tennyson Avenue, its tires crunching on the perfectly manicured gravel driveway. The Kleins’ new car was already parked in front of a double garage door, but there was no shortage of space to turn around. They didn’t have as much grass as their neighbours, but Isadora already knew that most of their land was at the back of the house. Initially she’d imagined a front yard with a little strip of grass between the driveway and the row of bushes separating them from the street; but that was probably because she had imagined the driveway being about the width of a car, rather than paying attention to the scale.

“It’s huge,” she whispered. “I just… my whole apartment would probably fit in the den here.”

“Different strokes, sweetie,” Brock answered with a smile. “My city pad was never this big either, but that’s the price you pay for having all the amenities so close. It’ll be nice to have space to stretch out again.”

“It’s nice to see you so happy,” Isadora ­– or Estelle, perhaps – answered with the slightest hint of sarcasm. Isadora had never imagined she could live in a house this big, and she knew from all the facts and figures she’d tried to memorise that it wasn’t even one of the bigger ones in the neighbourhood. Estelle, of course, had a more frugal upbringing, and simply wouldn’t know how to respond to the realisation that houses like this actually existed. Their courtship had mostly taken place on business trips, so consisted of any number of penthouse suites in different cities, but this place would be like landing on an alien planet for her.

"Home sweet home," Brock said, his voice effortlessly slipping into Bernard Klein's more jovial tone. He squeezed her hand, a gesture that felt both reassuring and slightly presumptuous. "Looking forward to a new life here, darling?"

Isadora nodded, trying to channel Estelle's excitement. "It's beautiful," she breathed, and she didn't have to fake the awe in her voice. The Agency had certainly gone all out to establish their cover.

As they climbed out of the taxi, Isadora noticed movement in the house next door. An older woman peered out from behind lace curtains, her curiosity evident even from a distance. Isadora gave a small wave, remembering that one of her targets was to make friends with the neighbours, and to establish a rapport with the other bored housewives of Evergreen Estates. There hadn’t been that much detail about Margaret Stanwick, a widow, but she was probably one of the people Estelle would end up confiding in when things got rough between her and Bernard.

Brock had been paying the driver, but when Isadora turned away from the house again she saw that the taxi had already gone, and that Brock was already carrying two of the largest suitcases towards the door from a small pile on the gravel.

“Welcome to the neighbourhood!” a cheerful voice called out, and Isadora turned back again – almost making herself dizzy – to see that Mrs Stanwick was walking along one of the paths through their garden, presumably reached using some unseen gate between the adjoining properties. She had a bright smile on her face, and a covered dish in her hands. She seemed awfully enthusiastic about welcoming the new neighbours, but Isadora was just as curious to find out what she was going to offer them.

“Hey,” Brock called out to her. “I’m Bernard, and this delightful lady is my wife, Estelle. We’re new here, you might have guessed, so I can’t shake hands just yet.” He gave a half shrug, bobbing the cases he was carrying up and down, before continuing towards the door.

"Oh, hello!" Isadora said, and then realised she was instinctively trying to add extra warmth and compassion to her voice in an attempt to sound more like Estelle. And she knew what a bad idea that was, because there was no way she could keep it up for weeks. Estelle had to sound like Isadora if she was to have any hope of pulling this off. "How kind of you to welcome us."

“It's not every day we get new neighbours,” the older woman greeted her. “I'm Peggy Stanwick, I live just next door. I had brought you a little something for dinner, as I doubt you’ll be ready to cook after a long journey. Unless you have someone cooking for you, I suppose, but I don’t see anyone. Maybe I’m a little early though. Perhaps I can offer you a glass of sweet tea while your young man takes the cases inside. Better not to get under his feet, I think.“

“Thank you,” Isadora answered with a genuine smile, and then glanced back over her shoulder to where Brock was standing on the doorstep. “Although I think I’ll need to help here. I’ve got the keys, you see. But I’d be happy to offer some refreshments as soon as we’re inside.”

“Of course, dear,” Mrs Stanwick offered a grin. “I’ve got my own set of keys, in any case. I used to catsit for the Munroes when they were on a trip, and the lock on that place can be a little temperamental unless you know just how to jiggle it.”

She bustled past Isadora, produced a key from her pocket, and unlocked the front door with practised ease. Isadora took a careful look at which key she was using. She only seemed to have two on a ring, presumably the front and back doors. Isadora quickly filed away that information, so she would know which key was which. But at the same time, she wondered if she should ask for the return of those keys; or whether they should be thinking about changing the locks. She wasn’t comfortable with someone she didn’t even know having a copy of their keys, and now how could they know how many other copies existed.

Isadora finally found her voice. "You have a key to our house?"

"Oh, of course," Mrs. Stanwick said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I keep spare keys for most of the houses on this street. Everybody’s a traveller, you see. Pets need feeding when you’re away, and houseplants need watered. Plus you never know when someone might lock themselves out. Don't worry, I'll have a copy made for you two right away."

Isadora exchanged a glance with Brock, seeing her own unease mirrored in his eyes for a split second before his Bernard persona smoothed it over.

"That's very thoughtful of you," Brock said, manoeuvring the luggage through the door. "We appreciate the gesture, but we already have keys. And we were assured by the agent that these are the only copies. Does anyone else have a key?"

As they stepped into the house, Mrs. Stanwick followed, her eyes roving over every detail. For a brief moment Isadora started to worry if this much curiosity was natural. But it didn’t take long for her to realise that this must be strange for the middle-aged woman. She’d been here before when there was a family here, and this must be strange for her. A familiar place that had become different. And being curious now was a strong sign that she hadn’t come in during the weeks the place was vacant. Even if she loved to crane her neck at anything that interested her, she wouldn’t allow herself to invade their privacy.

“Oh, I think the boys at the gatehouse have one as well?” Mrs Stanwick answered. “I’m not sure, to be honest. But you don’t need to worry. Everybody gets on well around here, and if anyone causes trouble the Arrencani brothers will stamp down on it with an iron fist. They run the Home Owners’ Committee, you know? And they want everybody to get on well here.”

Isadora just nodded, not sure what else she should say. Could she even challenge their neighbour having a key without making the woman suspicious? Anything she could think of right now, she couldn’t say because it wouldn’t be right for Estelle. The secretary would always defer to her boss, or her husband, in situations like this. And as soon as she thought that, she realised that she had no need to worry. Brock had moved into a legend’s house a hundred times before; had lived practically his whole life in places like this. And he would know exactly how to deal with it without breaking character.

“I’m sure we’ll get to know them soon enough,” he said. “And thank you for the casserole. I certainly wouldn’t want to put Estelle to the trouble of cooking after the day we’ve had, so I am very glad for your support.”

“I’ve got a basics box for you as well,” Mrs Stanwick said. “Milk, coffee, bread, ham, cheese, and salad. All the essentials for a first day in your new place. I know it can be hard when you’re starting out, and wouldn’t want you to find you’re missing something.”

"That's incredibly kind," Isadora managed, forcing a smile. "You really didn't have to go to all that trouble."

"Nonsense. It's what neighbours do. Now, why don't you two get settled in, and then come over for a cup of tea later? I'm sure you must be tired from your trip."

"That sounds lovely," Brock said, smoothly taking control of the situation. "We'll just freshen up a bit and be right over."

As Mrs. Stanwick finally took her leave, Isadora let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. She turned to Brock, her eyes wide with concern.

"She has a key," she whispered urgently. "She's been in our house. She seems nice enough, but what if she sees…"

Brock held up a hand, silencing her. He moved closer, wrapping an arm around her waist in a gesture that looked affectionate to any outside observer but allowed him to speak directly into her ear.

"Relax," he murmured. "This is good. It means she's nosy, which we can use. And now we’re here, even if she stops by she wouldn’t be prying into the hidden compartments of suitcases hidden under the bed.." He pulled back, giving her a reassuring smile. "Remember, we're newlyweds. She expects us to be a little nervous. Use that to conceal your worries.”

Isadora nodded, taking a deep breath. He was right, of course. This was what they had trained for. She could do this.

"Now," Brock said, his voice returning to its normal volume, "shall we see what other surprises our new home holds, Mrs. Klein?"

As they began to explore the house, Isadora couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. Whether it was Mrs. Stanwick's prying eyes or something more sinister, she couldn't be sure. But one thing was certain: their mission had well and truly begun.

[Lionsheart]

I finally got into reading this and WOW. This is such an incredibly built out story and I'm in love with the characters! I've only made it to chapter 10 and plan to read more tonight. My thoughts so far on the characters is that Isadora has a lot of secrets she's hiding. I'm hoping she gets caught soon! Also, I love the 'enemies to lovers' type of character dynamic I'm seeing so far. I hope diapers are involved in later chapters and I imagine Isadora is the ABDL from reading to chapter 10. Love this story so much and it's been some time since I've been addicted to a series and all I want to do is sit and read. Admittedly, I'm a bit late to work today because I couldn't put this story down, haha! It's high stakes, has a lot of danger in the future, and is a slow burn - all my favorite things! 

Anywho, although I'm behind, I'm sure I'll be caught up to the most current chapter soon. Can't wait to keep reading and love to see that there's over 100 chapters! Keep up the great work!

[Kitty Angel]

1 hour ago, Lionsheart said:

I finally got into reading this and WOW. This is such an incredibly built out story and I'm in love with the characters! I've only made it to chapter 10 and plan to read more tonight. My thoughts so far on the characters is that Isadora has a lot of secrets she's hiding. I'm hoping she gets caught soon! Also, I love the 'enemies to lovers' type of character dynamic I'm seeing so far. I hope diapers are involved in later chapters and I imagine Isadora is the ABDL from reading to chapter 10. Love this story so much and it's been some time since I've been addicted to a series and all I want to do is sit and read. Admittedly, I'm a bit late to work today because I couldn't put this story down, haha! It's high stakes, has a lot of danger in the future, and is a slow burn - all my favorite things! 

Anywho, although I'm behind, I'm sure I'll be caught up to the most current chapter soon. Can't wait to keep reading and love to see that there's over 100 chapters! Keep up the great work!

Thanks for the feedback

Not a hundred chapters yet, unfortunately. Only 22 posted here, and up to 31 elsewhere… I really need to get my focus back to this story and get it finished. Although the plan is for 5 acts, of which the first one (19 chapters) feels like it will be the shortest… so a little over a hundred seems likely.

Want to respond to your predictions, but don't want to leave spoilers 😛 So I'll just say thank you for letting me know, because seeing people's thoughts is important so I can learn which hints are likely to be noticed.

 

And, while I haven't posted yet this year, have a new chapter to celebrate

23. Confidential Informant

Estelle smoothed down her skirt nervously as she and Bernard approached Mrs. Stanwick's front door. The house was similar to theirs in size and style, but each owner had clearly stamped their personality on their home in years past. The garden paths connected together, but this path changed from neat limestone rounds to crazy paving when it crossed the boundary. The garden here was clearly loved, with well-tended flower boxes bursting with colour beneath each window, like a mirror so that the person inside the house could see the flower beds below.

Bernard squeezed her hand reassuringly before ringing the doorbell. "Remember," he murmured, "we're just a normal couple getting to know our neighbours. Nothing to worry about."

Mrs. Stanwick answered the door before Isadora could respond. "Oh, you made it! Come in, come in. I was just pouring tea. You like sweet tea, yes?"

As they stepped inside, Isadora couldn't help but notice how cosy and cluttered the house was compared to their own. Every surface seemed covered with knick-knacks and framed photos of relatives. It was easy to make out at least a dozen young people; probably nieces and nephews. But despite the density of mementoes on every surface, it was also fastidiously clean. That should have been impressive, but Isadora quickly found herself thinking about how much time Mrs Stanwick must have, living in a family home after her husband had passed away. Was all the housework, and nosiness about her new neighbours, a sign that the widow needed something to fill her time?

"Your home is lovely," she said, unable to find anything more specific to say about the clutter. There was almost too much to take in.”

"Oh, thank you, dear," Mrs. Stanwick beamed. "I do like to keep things homey. I never had kids myself, more’s the pity, but all the nieces and nephews send me a lot of mementoes from their travels, so it’s like a collage of all the places they’ve been. Now, why don’t you take a seat and I'll fetch the tea."

As they settled onto an overstuffed floral sofa, Bernard leaned in close. "She seems eager to share," he whispered. "Let her direct the conversation. It’s okay to show enthusiasm if she has interesting anecdotes; don’t worry too much about remembering every detail."

“I know,” Isadora hissed, just a little frustrated that he was treating her as an apprentice rather than a partner. She’d done all the classes on information gathering, and she was sure that she’d had more experience with neighbours than Brock could imagine. She wanted to tell him that she knew what she was doing, and that this wasn’t a babysitting job, but Mrs Stanwick was already back in the doorway with a tray. There were three ornate crystal glasses on the tray, each decorated with a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint on the rim, as well as a large pitcher of iced tea.

Sure enough, as soon as the tea was poured Mrs Stanwick launched into a detailed account of the neighbourhood's history and current residents. It wasn’t clear what order she was mentioning them in; she seemed to jump back and forth between people in their street and those who lived on the far side of Evergreen Estates, and even former residents who Bernard and Estelle were unlikely to meet. Isadora recognised many of the names, and did her best to match the stories their host was spinning against the profiles she had done her best to memorise; but so many of the stories seemed to be lacking in purpose, odd factoids that she couldn’t see any reason for Stanwick to mention.

"Now, you simply must meet the Arrencani brothers," she said, and Isadora suddenly tried to give her full attention. It was hard to focus, though, when she was sure she’d just seen Brock perform some mysterious sleight-of-hand with his glass. "They practically run this place. My husband would quarrel with them on occasion, but never about anything important. Wonderful boys really, always looking out for everyone."

Isadora nodded, careful to keep her expression neutral. "That sounds wonderful. We look forward to meeting them."

“Oh yes,” Brock said with a nod of his own, and raised his drink to his lips for a second’s pause before continuing. “I believe you mentioned them before. The Home Owners’ Committee, right? We were actually thinking of getting involved with something like that. I’d love to be a part of this neighbourhood, now I’ve got somewhere to settle down instead of constantly travelling.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Mrs Stanwick answered, but for some reason her eyes were on Isadora as she spoke. “When new people move in around here, well, they don’t always make an effort to understand the spirit of the community. I’m sure you can understand. So you’ve got me a little…”

Her words were cut off as they heard a knocking at the door. Mrs Stanwick leaned back in her chair a little and craned her neck; and Isadora couldn’t quite understand what she was looking at, until she visualised the gardens outside. There was a mirror in one of the trees, wasn’t there? To provide better visibility for people backing out of the driveway. So would Mrs Stanwick be able to see all the way across into their front yard from here?

“Oh, looks like it’s Selma. I’ll bet that she’s come to welcome some new neighbours as well, she’s always attentive and wants to protect everyone like a mother hen. There’s some rumours she might have a little more care for young Marco Arrencani, but I wouldn’t pay heed to gossip like that. She doesn’t seem the type, I’m sure.”

Isadora blushed at those words. On the planes to get here, she had suggested a possible relationship between the two young people, based on the few fragments of available information. Brock had dismissed it out of hand, which only made Isadora wonder what he’d seen in the files that she hadn’t picked up on. But if other people in the neighbourhood said the same thing, maybe she should be considering what Brock might have missed instead.

Brock and Isadora exchanged a quick glance as Mrs Stanwick wandered back out to the hallway and returned leading a petite brunette in a neatly-pressed blue and white dress that could so easily have been taken for some kind of nurse’s uniform.

"This is Selma," Mrs. Stanwick announced. "She works for Lorenzo Arrencani up at the big house. Selma, dear, these are my new neighbours, Estelle and Bernard."

Selma smiled politely, but Isadora noticed a hint of wariness in her eyes. "Welcome to Evergreen Estates," she said. "Mr Arrencani asked me to drop off a welcome basket for you. I did knock next door, but of course there was no answer. I guessed that you might be meeting Mrs Stanwick already. It’s a pleasure to meet you both."

She reached out to offer handshakes, and Isadora noticed that she had a firm grip and possibly a strength that belied her size. 

"How thoughtful," Brock said, rising to shake her hand. "Thank you very much, Selma. And please, convey our thanks to Mr. Arrencani as well."

As Selma set down an elaborate gift basket, Isadora caught a glimpse of expensive wines and gourmet treats inside. Or maybe they just looked expensive; she was no real judge of that. She wondered idly if any of it was bugged, but then inwardly chided herself for thoughts that seemed more than a little paranoid.

"I’m afraid I can’t stay to chat," Selma said as Brock tried to make more conversation, already backing towards the door. "Lots to do at the main house. It was nice meeting you both."

“I understand,” Brock said easily. “So much work to do, so little time. In a way, I’m glad that I won’t have that problem soon. I do hope that the rest of the day is pleasant for you. Perhaps we can get to know each other a little better at our party.”

“Party?” Selma asked, seeming a little surprised by the turn the conversation was taking. Isadora was just as taken aback, but somehow managed to keep her instinctive response comparatively muted.

“Oh, just a little housewarming thing,” Bernard said. “Always good to meet all the neighbours. I’ve got to invite everyone, I think, but while you two ladies have been the first to welcome us to the area, I think you should also be the first I invite around.”

“Oh yes, that’s a good idea,” Isadora said. And after a moment to think about how Estelle would respond, she added: “I’m sure I can put something together. Something to show our new friends that we’re really committed to the community spirit, and that we want to integrate into this new… umm… community?”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Mrs Stanwick beamed. “I’ll be happy to let people know about it, if you would like. I'll make sure everyone who's anyone attends, and then you’ll be properly one of us. So much better than hanging around on the edge of town, wouldn’t you say?”

“Now, I don’t think that’s fair,” Selma answered, and Isadora could only look at the two women in confusion. There was something here going over her head, and it was a fundamental part of Isadora’s character that she didn’t like to be in the dark about any mystery. But she wasn’t really sure what she could say now, because she didn’t even know what the question could be. “You can’t… We don’t know anyone else’s situation, and there’s no need to be speculating. Perhaps she has a sick relative or someone who needs her. You’d feel bad if she comes back and hears all the things people have been guessing, wouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t mention anyone,” Mrs Stanwick answered, raising an eyebrow. “But I do think that Mr Solomon deserves better. I know what it’s like to lose someone you thought you could depend on. And it’s not a good feeling, it it. If it was a family thing, I’m sure he would at least know where she was, but we can all see him fretting.”

Isadora tried to put the pieces together in her head, but she just didn’t have enough information. Someone in the neighbourhood had done something the gossip disapproved of, that much was for sure, but she didn’t know what the context could be. And as the dutiful housewife, she couldn’t even ask without seeming nosy.

“Trouble in paradise?” Brock asked, and Isadora felt herself shrink back into herself. He couldn’t be going to blow their cover right away, could he? Surely even he would know better than that. “I shouldn’t pry, I know, but I always say it’s not good for a young man to have too much time by himself. Maybe he needs an evening out with the boys to take his mind off whatever has him fretting.”

“You could be right,” Selma said with a subtle nod. “Young Victor hosts a poker game for some of his friends in the Estates, so I’m sure he’s not as lonely as all that. He’s got his friends, after all. And like I say, a couple don’t have to spend every minute together.”

“She should be there to look after him,” Mrs Stanwick insisted. “Not swanning off God-knows-where and leaving her husband to fend for himself. I’m sure you’d never do that, would you, young lady?” She ended with a piercing stare, which seemed to rob Isadora of the power of speech. She should have been paying attention to the conversation, but instead she’d been searching her memory for neighbours named Victor. Victor Solomon, she thought. Had a house on the very edge of Evergreen Estates, near one of the back roads which led away from the area. His was one of the properties she’d tried to memorise the layout of, in case there was some need to leave the neighbourhood without passing through the monitored gates. But that didn’t tell her what she needed to say to this sudden question.

“I can take care of myself,” Brock answered smoothly. “Estelle is happy to do everything around the house, but sometimes I think I’ll have to be firm about wanting to pull my weight. So if she has a family emergency, or a bachelorette party with some of her school friends, I would be happy to deal with things by myself.” He reached across to Isadora and warmly gripped her hand, and she got the distinct impression of a man who liked to be in control showing what a good husband he was. It was all about his image. Was that because Brock wasn’t good at playing the romantic role, or because Bernard was supposed to be someone who described himself as more of a nice guy than he really was? Isadora felt that she needed to say something, though, so he wasn’t the only one pulling his weight.

“You mean you’d like to buy yourself the fanciest food you can imagine without me telling you it’s a waste of money?” she asked.

“We can afford it,” Brock said, not turning to meet her eyes. And Isadora just nodded; of course they could. And that was exactly how he wanted the new neighbours to see them; an overconfident man and a slightly neurotic younger wife who couldn’t quite adapt to the fact that money was no object now. It was easy to imagine how Estelle might feel, because those feelings were so close to her own. She was almost starting to feel confident in her ability to play the role; which meant that her anxiety over the unexpected housewarming party was the biggest worry in her mind right now. What was Brock thinking? They hadn’t planned anything like that. But then, her concerns would all be shared with Estelle, who would be just as worried about impressing the posh new neighbours. Maybe it would help her to get the sympathy of the other women in the area; because she was already getting the impression that the men here were used to getting everything they wanted. There was a good chance she would be able to find a kindred spirit among the wives, and maybe hear the secrets that the men didn’t want to share.

“I should probably head back to the house, anyway,” Selma said, glancing at her clock. That was no surprise to Isadora; she knew that the woman was some kind of domestic servant to the Arrencanis, so wouldn’t have much free time to gossip with the neighbours. But was she really hurrying back to work, or did she just want to extricate herself from any more gossip about an absent friend? It was hard to tell.

“We should probably be getting back to work as well,” Brock said with a shrug. “Those boxes won’t unpack themselves, will they, sweetie?” He offered his hand to Isadora, helping her stand, and somehow that touch felt more intimate than she could easily explain. She was speechless for now, and glad that Brock was so confident in taking the lead.

“Thank you so much for the tea, Mrs. Stanwick,” he said “And for the casserole. I’m sure we’ll see you soon. And Selma, please convey our gratitude to Mr. Arrencani for the welcome basket."

Isadora rose, smoothing her skirt. "Yes, thank you both. It's been lovely meeting you."

As they walked back to their new home, she waited until they were out of earshot before whispering, "A party? Are you sure that's wise?"

Brock grinned, his eyes twinkling with a hint of mischief. "It's perfect. We'll get to meet everyone at once, establish ourselves as sociable neighbours, and maybe even gather some useful intel. Plus," he added with a wink, "I do throw a mean cocktail party."

Isadora couldn't help but laugh, despite her lingering anxiety. "Alright, Mr. Klein. I suppose I'd better start planning then. But please, tell me those cocktails won’t be as strong as your usual?"

As they entered their new home, Isadora felt a mix of excitement and apprehension mixed in with her uncertainty over the way he hadn’t answered. Their mission was truly underway now, and there was no turning back. She only hoped they were ready for whatever challenges lay ahead. But as she watched Brock whistling cheerfully while he unpacked, she realised that maybe, just maybe, they might play these roles well enough to make the supervisors back at Millennium House proud.

[Kitty Angel]

Thank you for all the reactions! I feel like I have fans

Wonder what you'll make of this one… Act II does seem to be quite investigation-heavy, more than character based, so there are a lot of "clues" packed in here. Are you picking them up, or getting impatient hoping I'll introduce a new baby?

 

24. Housewarming

Isadora stood in front of the full-length mirror in the master bedroom, smoothing down the front of her dress for what felt like the hundredth time. The emerald green cocktail dress was beautiful, far more expensive than anything she'd ever owned before, but she couldn't shake the feeling that it was all wrong. Too flashy, too revealing, too… everything. She wasn’t comfortable like this, and wondered that it would be obvious. But of course, she had already reasoned that Brock was playing on that deliberately. Estelle Klein wasn’t a socialite, she was an administrator. And even their courtship wouldn’t have changed that. Spy novels might have taught the world that an experienced operative could act naturally in any company, but if she thought about it seriously she knew that the Agency had gone one better by giving her a legend who would be just as uncomfortable as Isadora herself in some situations.

“You look stunning,” Brock's voice came from behind her. She turned to see him leaning against the doorframe, already dressed in a perfectly tailored suit. “Every woman at this party will be green with envy.”

Isadora forced a smile. "I just hope I don't spill anything on it. Or trip and fall. Or say something stupid…”

“Stella,” Brock said consolingly. “Stella, Stella, Stella. You are smart and beautiful. Nothing you ever say could be considered stupid. Just be yourself, and I guarantee everyone will fall in love with you.”

It was probably the worst possible advice on how to play her role; but of course it was exactly the advice Bernard would give. He couldn’t see the world from any point of view other than his own, looking down from a world where confidence and first impressions were the only things that mattered.

“Don’t call me Stella,” she answered, and pouted. “It’s Estelle. I’m not just some doll to hang on your arm, you know? And I think one lovesick idiot hanging on my arm is more than enough for me. I don’t need anybody else’s attention.”

“Touché,” Brock smiled, clasping a hand over his heart as if mortally wounded. “I’m sure you’ll be great, anyway. Mrs Klein.”

He crossed the room in a few quick strides, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Hey, relax. You've got this. Remember, you're Mrs Estelle Klein now. Confident, charming, the perfect hostess."

“I think you’re confusing me with someone else,” she joked. “But yes, I’ll do my best. I still don’t know why we need a housewarming party, though. Or why we have to buy more food than we need and get it all from luxury brands that charge twice the price for just the name.”

“Isn’t the name important? Estelle?”

“I guess,” Isadora said, looking down at her hands and blushing. Most of her worries had gone away now, so Brock must be better at this than she had expected. Of course, the things she’d been worrying about had merely been supplanted in her mind by the things that should have made Estelle apprehensive or frustrated, but that was still an improvement. He was guiding her into her legend like a master, and she could really be grateful for that.

She took a deep breath, trying to imagine Estelle getting over her nerves for the sake of her husband’s social standing. It was hard, but she could remind herself that she was supposed to love this little bundle of arrogance. "Right. Estelle Klein. I can do this."

The doorbell rang, startling them both before Bernard could dig himself any deeper. Brock glanced at his watch. "Right on time. I’ll go greet our guests. You finish up here and then come down to corral any wandering wives, okay? And just this once, let me worry about the food."

“And the drink?” she asked.

“I’m sure I can handle a few.” He didn’t wait for a response before he breezed off downstairs. Isadora took a deep breath and counted to ten, hoping that his apparent lack of concern there was only Bernard’s way of thinking. She needed Brock to stay sober behind the mask, and catch any clues dropped by Arrencani and his people. But somehow, she thought her confidence was growing. It was easy to imagine that Brock didn’t see his drinking as a problem; after all the excuses he’d made during their training. But it was very hard to imagine him actually making a mistake on an assignment. She just had to keep reminding herself that the latitude Kane gave him was probably because he was good enough to earn it; maybe even as good as Brown, once all the rumours were set aside.

She turned to the mirror for one last check. And for just a moment, she wondered if she was seeing the pretty woman that Bernard saw in her; mature and confident, able to bring even the successful businessman to his knees. But she wasn’t comfortable in the role, and she was realising now that her discomfort wasn’t just from the belief that she would never be mature enough to fill a chic role like that. More importantly, there was a part of her that never wanted to be so conspicuously confident. As Brock's footsteps faded down the stairs, she reached into the drawer of her vanity and pulled out a small, stuffed shark. A talisman that none of their guests would ever know about.

"Wish me luck, Mr. Sharkie," she whispered, giving the toy a quick squeeze before tucking him back into his hiding place.

Downstairs, the house was a flurry of activity. Isadora made her way through the living room, where Brock had opened up the doors to his drinks cabinet and spread the most accessible bottles along the top of the sideboard as a kind of makeshift bar. She guessed that there was some kind of unspoken code between gentlemen, and that they would ask before reaching into the drinks cabinet itself for the bottles with the three figure price tags. Or maybe those were reserved for neighbours who knew what they were; she didn’t know the etiquette that well. She did, however, note with some relief that most of the bottles were still sealed.

In the kitchen, she found platters of finger foods already laid out; some they had prepared earlier, and some supplied in an artistic spread from the upscale supermarkets, so they could just pull away a foil lid and the food would be ready to serve. The main event was the frill outside, though. Brock had been intermittently tending to the charcoal all day, and had assured her that it would be ready to cook on twenty minutes after the first guests arrived. Of course, there were already a few men peering at the coals, ready to criticise or compliment the man of the house on the distribution of small and large pieces, or how thickly they were spread, or whatever else made a difference to the task of cooking food over charcoal. It was a type of cooking Isadora had never mastered; but she was getting the impression that there was some kind of primordial desire to play with fire in all men, even those who would normally leave cooking to their wives, or rely on three-star professional chefs for every meal.

In the middle of the group, she wasn’t surprised to see Brock carefully tending the grill. He probably had more experience burning things than anyone else here; but she could hope that he wouldn’t bring the house down today. He was fussing over the leftmost grill, a look of intense concentration on his face. It was almost comical to see him in his tailored suit, wielding barbecue tongs like they were some kind of precision instrument.

"Need any help out there?" she called, sliding the door open.

Brock looked up, grinning. "I've got it under control, darling. Just have to wait a little before it’s ready to cook."

Around him, she could see some other men offering unsolicited advice, which he accepted graciously and would then probably try to ignore while still making them feel valued. While they talked, Isadora tried to put names to the faces, some of whom she had only seen pictures of before. The tall, distinguished-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair was undoubtedly Victor Solomon, who had bought a large house near a back gate of Evergreen Estates only a year before. Next to him stood Harold Pemberton, a retired accountant who had once testified about millions embezzled from a company pension scheme. According to their briefing pack, he was now best known for his prized rose garden, although the Home Owners’ Committee had once voted against a byelaw to discourage him from boring people with long stories about his grandchildren.

On the other side of Brock was Frank Donovan, a jovial man with a ruddy complexion who owned a successful chain of hardware stores in the region. Isadora recalled from the files that he was an avid golfer and had recently been elected to the board of the local country club. A bit further back, nursing a glass of whiskey, was George Whitman, a reclusive novelist who rarely attended social gatherings. The dossier had mentioned his penchant for conspiracy theories, which made Isadora wonder if he might have picked up any information that would actually be useful to them; although it was likely to be very difficult to get any concrete facts out of the man.

As she observed the group, she noticed how seamlessly Brock integrated himself, laughing at their jokes and asking just the right questions to keep the conversation flowing. It was a masterclass in social engineering, and Isadora found herself both impressed and a little unnerved by how easily he slipped into the role of Bernard Klein, charismatic new neighbour and aspiring grill master. She also found herself speculating about whether he could make a steak on a grill taste as good as any of his varied creations of pasta and rice.

Another man approached, tall with red hair. He was nibbling on some hors d'oeuvres, and before Isadora could put a name to the face, the doorbell rang. Startled out of her thoughts, she called "I'll get it!" and hurried back through the house.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the front door to reveal Mrs. Stanwick, beaming and clutching a potted plant.

"Hello, dear!" the older woman exclaimed. "I hope we're not too early. I brought you a little housewarming gift."

"Not at all," Isadora replied, channelling Estelle's warmth. "Please, come in. Bernard's just firing up the grill out back. Oh yes, and I keep forgetting to return the casserole dish you lent us. It’s in the nook near the back door, if you want to take it back to your place."

As she ushered Mrs. Stanwick inside, more guests began to arrive. A few chose to ring the bell, while more were able to follow the scent of smouldering charcoal to the back of the house. Some brought bottles; while a man who introduced himself as Gerald Neek arrived carrying a foil-wrapped parcel of meat from his own smoker. Soon, the house and garden were filled with the buzz of conversation and laughter. Isadora found herself flitting from group to group, making introductions and ensuring everyone had drinks and trying to put every piece of gossip she heard together with her mental database of known backgrounds and affiliations.

She was just refilling the ice bucket when she felt a presence behind her. Turning, she found herself face to face with one of the people she had seen assisting with the grill earlier. He was one of the people she had been most interested to speak to, especially given the inscrutable glances that Mrs Stanwick kept casting in his direction.

"Mrs. Klein," he said, his voice smooth as silk. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure. Victor Solomon." He extended his hand.

Isadora took it, trying to ignore her own nervousness while also presenting the image of a woman much less self-assured. “Call me Estelle, please. It's lovely to meet you, Mr. Solomon. I hope you're enjoying Victor’s cooking?"

"Indeed I am," he replied, his eyes never leaving hers. "Though I must say, the company has just improved dramatically."

Isadora felt her cheeks flush. Was he flirting with her? Was he so energetic with everyone? She scrambled for a response that Estelle might give, something polite but not encouraging.

Before she could speak, Brock appeared at her side, slipping an arm around her waist. "Victor! I was wondering where you had got to. The first rack of ribs is ready, if you’d like to sample that paprika and blue cheese sauce in its natural habitat. I see you've met my better half."

Victor's smile didn't falter, but Isadora sensed a subtle shift in the air between the two men. "Indeed I have. You're a lucky man, Bernard. And I sincerely hope that your marital bliss is still binding you so closely as the years pass."

“I’m sure it will,” Brock replied, his tone light but with an underlying firmness that Isadora hadn't heard before. “I don’t think I’ve met your young lady yet, you shall have to introduce us. From what I hear, our wives might get on just as well. But right now, I think it would be a crime to leave those ribs waiting.“

As the men moved away, Isadora let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. She wasn’t sure if she’d been worrying over nothing, or if Brock had just saved her from a moment of embarrassment, but in either case she was glad the moment had ended; and somehow felt a faint stirring of irrational jealousy as she watched how easily Brock had earned the man’s trust.

She didn’t let herself dwell on it. The party was in full swing now, and she knew the real work was just beginning. Somewhere in this crowd were the answers they sought. All they had to do was find them.