Chapter 11
AMELIE
PLAYLIST: TINY RIOT - ORCHESTRAL VERSION — SAM RYDER
Monday morning.
“Enter,” she says, and I open the door. An appreciative smile hushes over her face as I close the door behind me.
“Hi,” I say.
“SF-86,” she says, and hands me a form. “Needs to be filled out. You will undergo a formal interview for a psychological evaluation, background evaluation, and financial review at the DCSA on Friday.”
“What will happen there?” I ask because it sounds like I am being taken apart—and while I know I have legit, institutionally organized papers and am a professional liar, an agency evaluation was not on my list.
Fooling agents isn’t what I had in mind.
“They will conduct a polygraph interview, you will undergo a stress test, and be asked questions about your past and present.”
I swallow, staring at the form
I can’t do that. It’s too risky. It will—I’m good, but fooling a polygraph?
You were trained for this, says a voice in my mind. You switch. End of story.
Only it’s not that easy, and my mind wanders off to the training I underwent for years. Learning how to fool everyone before I was even twelve. Twelve. Back when we were in London.
A shudder runs down my spine.
“You look like you have seen a ghost,” she says and snaps me back into present reality. I did indeed see a ghost, a ghost of the past.
I say nothing.
“Will the background evaluation or polygraph be a problem?” she asks me.
My eyes snap to her.
“No,” I say automatically, but I know I don’t fool her; she is, after all, a behavioral expert.
She draws an eyebrow.
“It will be fine,” I say.
“If you perform like this, it won’t,” she says, and I smirk. I like her directness.
“I perform, because you don’t need to know my full story. An agent can,” I say to wiggle myself out of the situation.
My words hit her exactly where I intended them to, and she is now occupied with her own desire to know everything, only to be denied that knowledge. While I do respect boundaries, it brings me immense fun to push her beyond them and ruffle her feathers a bit.
“Do you intend on watching me fill it out now, or can I do so at home?”
“You will have to take it to your appointment on Friday. I am certain you are capable enough to fill it out by yourself,” she answers without looking at me while organizing a bunch of papers on her desk.
“Where and when do I have to be?”
“You should have an email in your inbox,” she says efficiently, and leans with a pile of papers and folders over to me. “Read through this, and give me a wrap-up on your conclusions next week. Also, the contract. Your details are missing.”
“I don’t need the money,” I say. “I’m not doing this for the money.” I don’t even know why I tell her. I could’ve just signed and ignored it. But I had to open my mouth and say those fundamentally stupid words.
Her eyes flash at me—of course.
“Tell me how you afford to live in a penthouse on Walker Street, not needing money as a student.”
I consider her for a moment.
“I inherited a shit ton of money when my father died,” I say, in a rather harsh tone, not because of the question, but because I am angry with myself. “Those twenty-six dollars per hour? My money makes that in interest alone every minute.”
She looks at me the way everyone does when they find out the person in front of them is loaded. And she doesn’t even come from nothing; her parents are both neurosurgeons, she comes from a lot of money, but it feels like she has a disregard for it.
“What did your father do?” she asks in a distant tone.
“Business, of all kinds,” I say briefly, and before I can stop myself, I ask, “What has money done to you?”
Her eyes become slits, like every time when I see something I shouldn’t.
“Money brings evil,” she says.
“Does it?” I ask her as I get up with my stack of papers she gave me.
“I mean, you are the behavioral expert, but your personal experience seems to cloud your judgment. Money is neutral. Money just is. The problem is human nature. The human desire to do evil. So don’t hate the money, hate the human nature and all the things done by men that led us here. ”
Her gaze is unreadable, with slightly parted lips and wider eyes. She is not used to being challenged or talked back to.
“See you tomorrow,” I say and leave.
I grin to myself as I walk away from the office. She is so unbelievably raw, it brings me immense joy to watch her react in real time, unmasked to everything I say or do.
The moment I am around the corner, I store the papers in my backpack and get outside. I have a big, big problem to solve. That form she gave me, it needs to be gone. While my papers are legit, some things won’t add up in a proper background evaluation and will be flagged.
I get to a cafe somewhere far away from where I live on 55th Street. There, I open my laptop, log in to a separate OS on it, plug in headphones, open the emulator, and enter my credentials.
The software has only one purpose: to anonymously call a single number for emergencies.
“It’s me,” I say when the ringing stops. “I have an interview for a research assistant position. It requires a background check, a polygraph, and a resume review. I need it to go away.”
“What agency?” says my contact. The one who got me the necessary paperwork in the first place. He comes from the network I worked for.
“DCSA,” I say as I look at the email sent to me on my phone. “Friday, 11 am.”
I wait.
While I do, I watch the busy people rushing past the window. People of all different kinds. People who are the reason why I fell in love with New York City. Because they allow me to blend in.
“Dionysus Eta 6, a CIA program for the neurochemical modulation of behavioral risk through directed cognitive intervention, led by Professor Jane Arabella McKenzie,” he says.
“Interesting. There will be no appointment. Clearance will be issued on Monday. Access will be granted program-wide under classified assessment. You may not speak of it. Sixty stones.”
With that, he hangs up, and I open my Bitcoin wallet on the encrypted device and enter the verification code to transfer $ 60,000 to the designated wallet.
It is sent within a minute, and I wipe my history from the system. I log out and leave the cafe.
It is a wonderful feeling I have right now, because who has the ability to make a national security check go away? I feel invincible. The way I only feel when I get high with El.
And while I don’t give it another thought right now, my mind can focus on the information I just got.
A CIA program for the neurochemical modulation of behavioral risk through directed cognitive intervention.
A very questionable approach, because messing with someone’s biology is a very thin line to walk on.
I get back home, and to my surprise, El is back. After what happened between us, I don’t even know what we are doing here. We let our confessions die in silence and never talked about it again, and then El had to accompany her father to some business meetings.
“How was L.A.?” I ask her as I get inside. She lies on the floor, her leg up on the couch.
“Don’t ask,” she says. “My father is such a fucking bastard.”
“What did he do?”
She doesn’t answer. I walk over to her and sit on the couch. Only then do I see the red swelling around her nose with dark eye rims. I am on the floor immediately and grab her jaw, kneeling above her and looking at her nose.
“Did he do that?” I ask angrily.
“It’s okay,” she says.
“Nothing is fucking okay. Did he do that?”
“It’s okay, really, we fought, I was drunk and high, I slapped his face and—“
“I am going to kill him,” I say, and get up, completely forgetting that I am Amelie, and not a trained professional anymore. El jumps up and grasps my hand.
“Seriously, it’s nothing!”
“Nothing! He beat you up, El. He beat you up. Just because he’s a rich untouchable asshole, he can’t do that!”
“I was out of bounds, he just—“
“You are his FUCKING CHILD!” I shout at her. “It doesn’t matter how much out of bounds you were; no reason in the world legitimates him hitting you!”
She looks at me, close to crying.
“Amy, please,” she says ever so silently with pleading eyes.
I sigh.
She Amyed me.
There is nothing I can do about it.
I look at her for another moment. It’s probably the first time I've seen the hurt soul behind her perfect mask.
I sigh again, smile weakly, and then hold out a hand.
“Come,” I say. “Let’s cuddle up in bed and forget this day.”
It’s probably the most stupid thing I could do after everything, but when we lie in bed, her, cuddled up in my arm, and I stare at the ceiling, softly caressing her hair, everything feels as it should.
Almost like home.