76°00'08.2"S 53°43'31.2"E - Nuevo Trujillo, Spanish Antarctic Colonies

  26.05.2024 14:30, UTC+03:00

  Ricardo coughed awkwardly, clearing his throat as if ready to speak, but said nothing instead. I was standing on the other end of the lift, making a point of maintaining my posture and a neutral expression. The lift moved slowly, letting Agents off and on as it climbed down from the highest of the floors. Its mechanical whirl irritated me, but provided a stimulus to focus on, instead of the conclusion of the latest briefing.

  Reassigned. It was the way Azura chose not to demote me. My T4- Agents were either dead or comatose. The T5s that were under them were mostly stationed in Santiago, and for some reason, my going there was not an option.

  No, I had to find a place to fit in, in N.T.

  “This was not my intention,” Ricardo said eventually, as we were the only ones left in the lift. We were heading to the basement.

  I turned my head ninety degrees and looked at him: a forty-year-old grey-haired bearded Spaniard, who just had to be the boss. He did not turn to meet my eyes.

  “No, it makes sense. You have a station here. I can be useful. I have skills. It makes sense,” I said coldly.

  He blinked his eyes and moved his lips, striving for the right words. He made no sound for a good few seconds.

  “You remain a T-3,” he said finally.

  “I will be reporting to you, another T-3,” I retorted.

  “That doesn’t change anything.”

  I turned my head forward again. Why did this man try to rub it on my face? Why couldn’t he admit he loved this situation?

  “Doesn’t it, boss?”

  I was bitter. But confusingly, it made sense. I had failed to protect two of my T-4s within a few days. Staffing new agents under me would seem like a punishment to anyone, so they needed to wait until it was not a sore topic anymore. I couldn’t feel wronged by that – both Catalina’s and Miguel’s condition was in fact my fault. Catalina died right next to me, and Miguel was soothed into a coma by me. But they didn’t know that, so at the very least, I had to look like I felt wronged by the decision.

  The lift eventually reached three levels below the ground. The secret operations level: a complex of offices, data centers, and prisoner cells. I used to be responsible for a similar location on the outskirts of Santiago, so everything was already way past my clearance. But yet, this was Ricardo’s turf. Not mine.

  The doors opened and I stared at him to move ahead first. Instead, he walked up to me. His frown was menacing, but his voice was soft.

  “Elena, no matter what you think of the situation. No Cursed should be alone. Within my unit, you can have a temporary coven.”

  My skin crawled at the wording. I had made it a point to Miguel not to ever call us a coven. We were not witches or fairies from fairytales. We were Cursed.

  I nodded.

  “I feel welcome already,” I said. He nodded back and led me to my new office.

  It was depressing. A lone desk at the edge of a corridor, office number twenty-nine. The cement walls were lined with metallic paint, attempting to give off a futuristic look, but the whole area was nothing but a glorified bunker. Santiago HQ had a way better operations center.

  At the very least, the other Agents avoided me, which was good, as I remained zoned out through most interactions. After Ricardo briefly introduced me to his closest T-4s, I blocked out the noise. I simply nodded and greeted them. Eventually, I was left alone in a single office, with the door half-opened, staring at a desk and a stack of papers I had to fill in with details.

  The report of this morning’s incident. I had already completed oral interviews, and these were all the compiled notes. I was supposed to spend the rest of the day making sure all details were captured as accurately as possible.

  Usually, that kind of work lulled me, but now I could not stop shaking my leg. I had to lie in my report. Say I never saw Catalina.

  “You can do this,” I whispered, and I grabbed the pen on the desk.

  I started reading through the paperwork with all the notes. I added a few comments left and right until eventually I stumbled over an open question: how many of those terrorists attacked us?

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  I had to provide an estimation, which I had not done before. I tried to replay the scene in my mind’s eye: the details were blurry, but it should have been just around…

  “Sixty-six,” I said as I scribbled the number on the page violently. As I saw the number in front of me, I knew this was completely off. “No… what?”

  I tried to rewrite the number. Instead of replacing it, I simply traced the lines again and again. I dropped the pen.

  Was this a side-effect of my broken brain?

  They were way less than sixty-six. They were…

  “Sixty-six,” I said again, grabbing the pen and writing the number on a small sticky note. I picked up another note, and I tried to write any number starting from zero, one, and two.

  “What the…” I looked at the small note in front of me, full of sixes next to each other, scribblings of a lunatic.

  As steps approached my office, I grabbed the pen and the pieces of paper and put them in my pocket. My heart rate raced as the steps went further away past my office.

  A thought crossed my mind. Was this Insight? This was how Catalina looked when she scribbled.

  I stood up. I noticed my hands were trembling. I tightened them in fists until they calmed down. My nails hurt my palms, but the pain grounded me. I inhaled and exhaled. If anything, the interaction with Catalina had taught me I needed to trust my mind and not fear it.

  In that case, all I had to do was listen to the numbers. I walked out of my office and started exploring the corridors. I passed through the common room, where Ricardo was having a heated discussion with one of his T4s. I ignored them.

  “Sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty…” I hesitated as I reached room sixty-six. Whatever my mind was trying to tell me, it couldn’t have been more obvious.

  Room sixty-six had a wide window next to its door, a one-sided glass divide that allowed one to peer inside. Two hospital beds were set across from each other in the room, with electronic screens on both walls. Two columns with IV drips were set next to each of the beds.

  Miguel and Oriol lay unmoving and pale, just barely alive based on the heart rate monitor and slight movement of their chest. Masks lined their faces.

  I looked around. I was all but alone in this corridor. Maybe this note was a warning from my own mind. A warning of a loose end. I walked to the door and touched the door handle, unsure of my plan. Maybe all I needed to do was soothe Miguel to death.

  “All personnel on deck. T-Agents, report on the roof,” Ricardo’s voice echoed through speakers in the corridor. He sounded rattled, angry even. Well, angrier than usual.

  My hand lingered next to the door’s handle. If everyone were gone, what better timing?

  My earpiece chirped with an incoming message.

  “Elena, Palmira, Zhong. I need you right away. There is Royalty landing on the HQ,” his voice commanded us through the private channel.

  I retracted my hand and started running.

  “Who is this Royalty, exactly?” I shouted at Ricardo as soon as I ran next to him, trying to be heard past all the noise the three helicopters created as they hovered on top of the HQ’s roof.

  Ricardo and I stood in the front, as his two T4s stood behind us, and a whole group of T-Agents lined up behind us. The wind was raised by the helicopters that were coming down, violently shaking my hair and jacket. Ricardo looked stern despite the wind that shuffled his hair.

  He only looked at me once and tried to answer my question, but I could not hear anything.

  I nodded in frustration, but not long after, the helicopters had landed, and T-Agents exited all three of them.

  “Sagrado Padre,” Ricardo said, as one of the Sagrados stepped out of the helicopter, with the aid of two sacred maidens.

  His ceremonial outfit, a long dark blue robe with the Trastamara insignia, eerily remained unmoved by the helicopters’ commotion. The maidens’ blue robes were ruffled less and less as the wind died down, but Padre remained unbothered as he walked past them and the T-Agents accompanying him.

  Ricardo and his T-4s kneeled. I did as well, as was expected in the presence of the Sagrados.

  “What is he doing here?” I asked Ricardo.

  Out of all of them, he had the second highest rank, only outranked by Sagrado ante Todo, and was the prince’s right hand. The golden embroidery of his robe was stitched by the Queen herself when he was anointed in this role, while his Curses were blessed by the Queen’s Domain. He was a symbol of perfection, traditional middle-aged beauty, and eerie calm. At least, that’s how everyone looked at him.

  Instead, all I could see was a man drawn by dark pencil ink, stalking me while I played in his Prince’s court. Catalina had unlocked a memory of him, a memory of him commanding me to soothe the Queen.

  He was there; he must have been. He knew me. And if I was not mistaken, I knew him too. But I wasn’t supposed to.

  “He asked to lead the interrogations himself,” Ricardo said.

  “Romero? The terrorist?” I asked, lowering my voice, while I looked forward. Sagrado Padre walked confidently in our direction as the helicopters powered down. He had not yet given the signal for us to stop kneeling, so we all remained on our knees.

  Ricardo bit his lip.

  “All of us. They dare to think there are moles. Double agents. In my fucking turf,” he said between his teeth.

  I almost lost my balance as I remained kneeling. I was not a double agent. But what would he do if he learned I was piecing things together? Or rather, when he learned. It was a matter of time.

  “Enough, agents,” a deep voice commanded us once the noise was gone. Sagrado Padre stood before us, and we all stood up.

  His gaze met mine only for a brief moment before landing on Ricardo.

  “I bring blessings from Santiago and the Queen herself. Nuevo Trujillo will heal. Do not worry,” he said and patted Ricardo’s shoulder. He slowly turned to look at all of the agents on the roof and then, finally, at me, “There is nothing to fear.”