Chapter Fifty-Nine
Raine
Diffuse morning light spills across the table in a way that feels ridiculously normal. Asher and I sit close, neither one of us willing to put the door at our backs.
“Tell me what I’m looking for,” he says as he takes another sip of coffee.
I’ve already divided the GSD personnel files, giving him the oldest of the bunch—from when agents went through the voluntary program. I doubt any of these agents were “disposed of.”
“Start at the beginning. Make note of any updates tied to the approval code and language that mirrors what we saw in the archive files. References to thresholds, risk justification, compliance…”
My voice isn’t entirely steady, even after two cups of coffee. I lost count of the number of times I woke gasping for breath overnight, braced for a correction that never came.
“If you find an RJ-3 escalation and the file ends within days, flag it. If there are a couple of monitoring notes after RJ-3 and then nothing—no return to active duty—those are the agents we might be able to find.”
“All right. But Raine…” Asher rests his hand, palm up on the table between us, and I lay my fingers over his. “If you need a break, take it.”
I nod, because I won’t lie to him. Part of me wishes we could spend the day in bed, or lounging on the couch watching old movies, or planning some sort of future. Together.
But without evidence, there’s no chance we’ll have a future—together or otherwise. GSD will keep putting pressure on Asher’s aliases. Tessa. Everyone I’ve ever worked with. And eventually, they’ll find us.
So I give his hand a squeeze then open my own personnel file. Sixteen years of a life I’d made my own. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine.
Training scores, deployment notes, commendations, performance reviews, clearance bumps…
The notes are dry—clinical and boring—though vague memories pop up here and there.
Almost falling through the floorboards in an old shack in Kabul.
The first time I had to kill a hostile in Bangladesh.
Getting drunk with Jonas in Hungary at the end of the last op we worked together.
Five years ago, I find the first blip.
Calder escalated missing timestamp data to handler after mission leader directed her to disregard the issue. Risk Management approval granted for RJ-1.
So many ops blur together. But this one I know all too well. I looked at the field report a few days before they took me. It was one of the ops tied to the problematic Contractor ID.
Marisol leans out the window, her fatigues strategically ripped to give the twenty-something kid with an AK-47 a show.
“We got lost three times on the way here,” she says in perfect Russian.
“You look like an important guy. I bet you can call the Minister of Transportation so I can talk to him about all your missing road signs.”
I’ll never forget the dressing down Mari’d received that night from our field team leader. He’d threatened to send her back home mid-op for her behavior at that border checkpoint.
No.
The coffee cup wobbles in my hand. A month after that op, Marisol retired. But there was no retirement party. No company-wide “Thank you for your years of dedicated service” email. Just a three-line memo in bland language and instructions to call HR with questions.
My eyes burn, and I reach for Asher’s challenge coin. The motion is familiar now. Around. Over the top, trace the three straight lines, flip over, use the rough raised text as an anchor.
I make a careful note on the paper next to me.
Marisol Vega - Retired or sent to CP? Find her personnel file.
Scrolling again, it’s all routine until my last mission.
Calder continues to push back against mission objectives to the point of disruption. Risk Management approval granted for RJ-2.
A subtle flush of anger rolls down my spine. I didn’t disrupt the mission. I’ve never disrupted a mission. Not even after someone shot me.
The next line in my file is blank. That’s…odd. Claire has full access to my file as my supervisor. I move my mouse over the field and the pointer changes at the very end.
Why would there be a link with no text? I click it and frown.
My medical file? I scroll through a handful of updates until I find the notes from that last op.
Field treatment and shoulder reduction.
Immobilization ordered pending surgical reconstruction.
Per JV, given RJ-2 status, continued presence in the field would be inadvisable. Surgical approval revoked.
The words start to blur.
Revoked.
The first doctor I saw told me I was a good candidate for surgery. But the second and the third disagreed. So I’d been sent home with physical therapy and a shoulder that was never supposed to heal.
The room tilts. My shoulder catches, though I don’t mean to move it. I need…tea. Or more coffee. Air.
I push back from the table too quickly. The chair legs scrape, and my heel catches the floor. I make it three steps before my knee bangs into the cabinet, I redirect, and end up in Asher’s arms.
“Raine.”
It only takes my muscles a second to realize I’m not in danger. But in that brief moment, my shoulder flares as badly as it did the day I was shot. The pain runs down my right arm, all the way to my fingers, and my breath stalls on the way in.
“Breathe with me.” Asher exaggerates his own breathing, his chest rising and falling against mine. It helps enough for me to speak.
“I was moved to RJ-2 after my last field op,” I manage. “And there’s a note…in my file—” I shake my head, stepping out of Asher’s embrace so I can lean against the counter. “‘Per JV, given RJ-2 status, continued presence in the field would be inadvisable. Surgical approval revoked.’”
“Fuck.” Asher’s hands ball into fists, but he quickly forces them open, turns around, and spends a few seconds getting himself under control. “It’s not bad enough they tried to kill you, they had to permanently injure you first?”
I curl my left hand around the edge of the counter, letting it bite into my palm. “They could have fixed me. But Voss had already decided I was headed to RJ-3. He didn’t want me in the field when it happened.”
By the time Asher fixes us lunch, my head is pounding. Even the thought of food turns my stomach, but I force down a few bites of the sandwich anyway.
I closed my own file for a short time after discovering GSD wanted me out of the field badly enough to withhold treatment for my shoulder, turning my focus toward two dozen other personnel records.
Of those, five end with either retirement notices or a simple note about permanent reassignment “offsite.”
Those five names sit on the notebook page between us.
Asher’s files, so far, have been much less…
alarming. A couple of retirements with all the bells and whistles that should accompany that status change, a handful of agents demoted to desk duty after their time in the OSI program, but they all went on to have full careers with no additional “monitoring.”
With a fresh mug of tea in front of me, I go back to my own file. Not because I’m ready for it, but because not knowing is worse.
The note scheduling my “transfer” to Coherent Path is as bland as everything else in my file.
Calder escalated concerns outside her scope to a restricted subject. Escalation to RJ-3 approved. Internal transfer protocol initiated.
Within hours, there’s another update.
Reassignment complete. Corrective intervention plan initiated.
Then, seven days later, the file is marked closed.
Retirement notice issued.
Three words to reduce a human life—my life—to a memo.
For a moment, I turn to the window. The sun has moved behind the building now, casting shadows over the neighboring high-rises.
I miss my apartment. My things. The freedom to go out in public without a disguise. I miss my work, as dull as it was sometimes.
GSD took all that from me. Because they could. Because no one stopped them.
We’ve only made it through a fraction of the files I downloaded yesterday. I can’t spend any more time on my own records. I have to move on. Find Marisol. Or Ellen. Or Jonas.
The next few files are agents who haven’t yet hit RJ-3. I copy their names onto a separate page so I can find a way to warn them. My shoulder aches, more from memory than injury now. I ignore it and keep going.
Asher’s phone vibrates on the table between us. He glances down at the screen and stiffens. “That’s Mason’s inbox.”
My fingers freeze on the trackpad. “I thought you burned everything related to him.”
“This is the only footprint he has. I left it open deliberately. Because even a sprawling bureaucratic nightmare held together with duct tape and delusions of grandeur eventually gives up on tradecraft and resorts to sending a strongly worded email. I’m surprised it took them this long.”
He taps the screen a couple of times, then sets the phone between us.
Subject: Final warning
“Well, that’s suitably ominous,” Asher mutters.
Mr. Locke,
This has gone on long enough. You and Agent Calder will turn yourselves over to GSD’s Security Service within twenty-four hours or the final correction referenced in the video proceeds on schedule.
Asher’s gaze locks on mine.
“Play the video,” I whisper. My heartbeat kicks. Hard. Asher links his fingers with mine, and clicks the link.
Concrete walls. Harsh lights shining on a metal chair bolted to the floor. A plain steel table a few feet away.
Two men in dark gray pants and blue shirts bring Ellen into the room. She’s dressed in pale gray scrubs, thin soled shoes. Her hands are cuffed in front of her, but her ankles are free.
Her short gray hair is mussed and tangled. When we worked together, she was always put together. Not a single strand out of place.
Asher squeezes my hand as the men secure her wrists to the chair.
Ellen’s fingers twitch once, then settle. The men leave the room.
I catalog the dark circles under her eyes. Her dry lips. The darkening bruise on her jaw. It’s small. A single pressure point. Not quite purple yet, but close.
She flinches as a door opens somewhere outside of camera range. A man enters, followed by a woman with a clipboard. Same dark gray pants. Same blue shirts. Clothing designed to be forgettable. I can’t see their faces when they sit. Only Ellen’s.
“This is a compliance check.” The man folds his hands on the table. “State the rules.”
“I…” Ellen shudders, swallows hard, and tries again. “I stay quiet. I stay still. I let the program do its job.”
“Good,” he replies, and the woman checks something on the clipboard. “Do you understand why you’re here?”
“I crossed the threshold for reintake.” Her voice is so thin, she sounds like she’s about to shatter.
“How?” the woman asks.
“I shared confidential information with a person I was told not to engage with.”
The man’s tone sharpens. “Why didn’t you set up a meet with Agent Calder as you were instructed?”
“And let you bring her back here? We were friends…once.” A tear rolls down Ellen’s cheek.
“You were told what would happen if you refused,” he says.
Ellen’s lips flatten for a beat. “Yes. But you’d have forced me back into the program anyway. And Raine would have known I’d betrayed her. I recognize what I did wrong. I accept the consequences.”
The woman’s pen scratches over the paper. It’s too loud in the silence of the room.
Leaning forward, the man glares at her. “You told her about the program’s origin. That isn’t information you were cleared to have.”
Ellen squares her shoulders, lifts her chin, and stares right at them.
“I don’t work for GSD anymore. You took that from me the last time I went through the program.
And I got the name from paperwork someone in your position put right in front of me six years ago.
If you’re going to blame someone for that, blame them. Not me.”
“You broke protocol because you felt guilty,” the man says.
Ellen’s eyes narrow. She jerks the cuffs, the rattle of chains loud enough it hurts. “I broke it because this program shouldn’t exist.”
The man snaps his fingers, and two other men enter so quickly, they’re almost a blur. One forces the hood over her head and cinches the ties tight around her neck.
Ellen’s choked cry cuts straight through me.
The men move with practiced efficiency, unlocking the restraints from the chair and securing Ellen’s wrists behind her before dragging her out of the frame.
The woman scribbles something else on the clipboard.
Her partner sighs. “Downgrade the subject’s authority recognition and instruction adherence statuses. And shorten the recovery windows. She’ll be another compliance failure. The final correction has already been approved and scheduled for five p.m. tomorrow.”
My entire body is shaking now. But it’s not from shock or fear. No. This is pure, feral rage.
“We need to save that video,” I manage. “Play it again and record the screen.”
Asher taps the link, but all that comes up is an error message saying the file is unavailable. “Fuck. They deleted it.”
My eyes burn, and as I blink, I see Ellen shivering in the dark, her body forced into a position designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain.
“She’s sixty-four years old, Asher. Will she even survive another twenty-four hours?”
“I can call Inara and her team.” Asher shifts his chair so we’re almost facing. “I don’t know how many people that gets us—or what it costs—but we know where she is. They might be able to break her out.”
“And what if they can’t? What if they end up trapped there too?”
He doesn’t have an answer for me.
“I won’t let anyone else risk their lives, Asher.
Not until I know we can take down GSD. We need Coherent Path’s Procedure Index.
At least with that, I’d have proof of what they did to me.
Video evidence would be even better. Without that…
I’m an unstable, hysterical former agent no one will believe. ”
Asher scrolls through his contacts until he comes to one listed only as Client 7. The call goes to voicemail with no outgoing message.
“If you don’t get me your Northbridge contact in the next six hours, all of your offshore accounts get leaked to the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
I count through one full breath. Four beats in. Hold. Six beats out. We’re so close. But close won’t save Ellen.
Proof will.