“I don’t know.”
Stephen held the glass up to Roen and they touched glasses. Then he waited until Roen finished the entire drink before he put his own down, untouched. He stood up and patted Roen on the back. “Well, I’m giving you time to find out and sending you home. You think things over and come back when you’re ready. To be honest, I never agreed with the way the Keeper pushed your training, Tao or no Tao. The Quasings are important, but it’s the humans who support them who do all the hard lifting. If she has a problem with it, she can take it up with me. This would be a lot to take for anyone with a civilian background.”
“Home? What about Africa?”
Stephen shook his head. “Not with where your head’s at. You have some thinking to do.”
“What if I’m never ready?” Roen said in a small voice.
Stephen turned and walked toward the door. “Then count yourself blessed and don’t come back.”
Sean stared impassively at the screen at a chastised Marc. This was the last straw. Could he be so incompetent? The assessment on Jeo showed anything but incompetence. Unimaginative, yes; but an unmitigated failure, no. Still, two botched ambushes.
It could be that Tao’s host was now fully trained and had become the second coming of Miyamoto Musashi, but Sean doubted that as well. All reports indicated a long-term project. He should have been ripe for the picking after only a year of training. Sean knew Tao was good, but could he be that good? The responsibility ultimately fell on Sean; he accepted that. Now, he was going to correct his mistake.
“You imbecile,” Sean snarled. “How the Holy Ones could have blessed you with one of their own is beyond me. That boy was never even in the Boy Scouts, let alone military training, and you lost him twice now!”
“Father,” Marc began, “I have found a solid lead on another senior…”
“Utter another word and I will order you to draw your pistol, put it in your mouth, and pull the trigger,” Sean growled. “I’m tired of your empty promises. Your standing is nothing now. I am removing you from the Tao mission. Your place is now at my side on security detail and filling my wine glass and doing my laundry until such time that I feel like you can handle tasks that do not require an apron!”
“But-” Marc stammered.
“Agent Sandis,” Sean barked at Iku’s vessel. “You are in charge of the team now. If that moron standing next to you utters another word, shoot him in the head.” Sandis, looking grim, drew his gun and pointed at Marc’s head.
“Anything else to say?” Sean snarled. “You are damn lucky your security exploit resulted in some benefits for us. Otherwise, I would be more than content to extract Jeo from that sham of a host and give him to someone who deserves a Holy One. Now get out of my sight.” Sean turned the screen off and stared at it for a few moments longer. Nothing more could be done about these recent failures. At the very least, on the bright side, he now had a new butler.
“Third time’s a charm, Tao,” he muttered. “I still owe you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY: BACK HOME
On his deathbed, Francisco Cisneros brought Paneese, his protégé, into his chambers and together, they prayed and waited for Francisco to die. Chiyva hoped for a smooth transition to continue his work and assure his place on the Council.
Since Rianno’s death, I had prepared for my vengeance. On the day of Francisco’s death, I struck. Disguised as a priest, I walked into Francisco’s room, closed all the windows, and slew Paneese before the transition could be made. Then I revealed myself to Francisco and slew him as well. I took out a small baby turtle and placed it next to Francisco’s bed. Chiyva had no choice but to join with it instead. Then for the next hundred years, I imprisoned him.
Roen went home the next morning, feeling relieved and ashamed. He couldn’t look the others in the eye as he said his goodbyes. They all gave him sympathetic looks and told him to get some rest. He wished them luck and took the lonely flight back to the States by commercial airline.
Sitting in coach on the way back was a far cry from the private plane he flew out to Europe, underscoring just how his status had fallen. Roen returned to Chicago and promptly withdrew from everyone. The few times Tao tried to speak with him, Roen ignored him. Roen spent the first few days sitting on his balcony drinking and watching the clouds pass by. He often woke up in the middle of the night with Gregory’s eyes haunting his dreams.
It didn’t help his mood when he learned that the Prophus failed to secure the base in Africa. The Genjix had successfully raided the stockpile and removed the majority of the armaments before the Prophus even got there. By the time the Prophus assaulted the base, the Genjix were thoroughly entrenched and repelled them during two frantic days of battles. The news went downhill from there. Both Paula and Sonya were injured before the Prophus finally ordered a withdrawal.
The ensuing fight was a disaster for the Prophus; they also lost a warship and over thirty agents, three of them hosts. Could he have made a difference? Probably not. Could he have saved Sonya and Paula from getting injured? Possibly. Regardless of the scenarios that could have happened, he was never going to find out, because when push came to shove, he gave up and went home. Yes, Stephen had ordered him to, but Roen didn’t contest it. Instead, he accepted it. In fact, he was downright relieved.
He struggled with his decision to leave, wondering if it meant that he was a coward. Then again, when had he ever been brave? It seemed a year of training hadn’t improved his courage. Or maybe it was something deeper? Was it not so much his courage, but his objection to a life of killing and war? Or was he simply hiding his fear behind some facade of morality? Roen didn’t know the answers.
At first, he thought Tao would try to guide him out of whatever was happening with him, but Tao was uncharacteristically silent. It felt strange to have that voice missing in his head. Roen didn’t want to admit it, but he missed Tao. It was as if a part of him had just disappeared. And with Tao’s absence, Roen again lost any semblance of purpose in his life.
“Tao, am I a coward?”
Oh? Are you speaking with me again?
“Forget it.”
There was a pause before Tao finally spoke in a calm, soothing tone, as if speaking to a child. No, Roen, you are not a coward. You are no more a coward or fearful than any of my other hosts.
“You mean Genghis had bouts like this?”
No. Genghis was stupidly brave. That trait had nothing to do with my influence.
“Then what’s wrong with me?”
I would tell you what I told Edward when he threw his first tantrum. You are causeless.
“What does that mean?”
Find yourself and maybe you will understand.
Roen wasn’t sure how to go about finding himself. Luckily, he had plenty of free time to figure it out. He was still receiving assignments from Command, albeit less frequently than before. He used to receive a steady stream of assignments at least once a week. Now, he’d only heard from them once in the last month.
The quality of his assignments declined as well. Most of them were back to the boring observation details. Roen was playing in the minor leagues again, receiving rudimentary missions of very little importance. That suited him fine. He just didn’t care anymore.
Somehow, he had come full circle and was back working at a job that had no meaning to him. He might as well be back at his old company. When he was on an assignment, he did just the bare minimum to get by. Roen didn’t know how it could be possible, given the events of the last year, but he was back to a meandering existence. Life as an agent now felt as pointless as being a computer engineer.