Выбрать главу

They all fell into line in a way that would have made Mr. Niles proud, but what Sarah didn’t see, not at first, not until it was pointed out to her, was that they all fell into line behind her.

And after some debate, after plenty of hand-wringing on Sarah’s part, and questions, mostly along the lines of, Are you sure about this? But really, really sure you want me? Sarah agreed to step in as head of the Regional Office. Legal drew up a contract. Then it was official.

Sarah was in charge.

Of everything.

~ ~ ~

From The Regional Office Is Under Attack:

Tracking the Rise and Fall of an American Institution

This study would be remiss and incomplete if it did not take a moment to delve into the two theories on how Henry managed to so effectively enact his plans against the Regional Office, theories that speak to the pivotal question of whether he worked alone and in secret, or did he have assistance?

Obviously, Henry was aided, there is no question in this matter, aided by his own team of Operatives. Of the women who worked for Henry, we know for sure there was Wendy, Colleen, Windsor, and Rose. But the question then is: Was there someone else, someone equal to Henry, planning and executing this assault?

The theory that he planned and executed this alone proceeds thusly:

Oyemi told Henry he would be the one to neutralize Emma, who the Oracles had determined was the threat. How she had decided on Emma, Henry didn’t know. Still, he talked Oyemi into giving him two weeks to finish the assignment. Two weeks to kill Emma.

Of course, when he first met Emma, Henry didn’t know he loved her or would love her or that she would love him.

But isn’t that always the case?

You toiled in your job for year after year, training stunningly beautiful and dangerous young women to fight the encroaching forces of evil, caught up in a work life that offered satisfaction on many deep levels but that precluded any sort of real chance at long-lasting relationships. You resigned yourself to a life as a bachelor, to keeping your feelings for these amazing and powerful women on the level of friendly or brotherly love, whichever it was they needed to make it through the day, and in the process of doing all of this, you reached a bottom-level sort of contentment in life because what choice did you have, really? This was the life you’d chosen, or maybe it had been chosen for you, but it was your life after all and you’d made your peace with that, had resigned yourself to all of that when one day, along came a woman of extraordinary grace and beauty, the kind of woman you couldn’t help but fall in love with, except you didn’t say anything or make any moves because you were a gentleman and you were fully aware of that old saw about your pen and the company ink, not to mention, deep down you had always been a chickenshit. But still, for the first time, you could imagine how, under different circumstances, you might have had a chance with one of these women, with this one woman in particular, that she might have found some way to love you back, and for the first time, too, you began feeling the stirrings of some real and long-ignored dissatisfaction with this life you’d built for yourself. So maybe you paid her a little more attention than you did the other Recruits, the other field Operatives, and maybe she noticed and offered you sly, under-the-radar smiles, and maybe you began to share inside jokes with each other, or you brushed past each other in the narrow (but not that narrow) hallways. Or maybe one day you found yourself in the break room looking for your lunch in the fridge and she came up behind you and placed her hand on your shoulder and with that light but comfortable and unhesitating touch sent an electric jolt through you down to your very bones. She bent into the fridge next to you to see what you were looking for and even as the thought itself entered your own head, she beat you to it — she always beat you to these things — by saying, You know what, why don’t we just go get lunch instead, you and me, and maybe a drink, too, or not a drink but a something else?

And maybe you should have known how it would end. Or Henry. Henry should have known.

Or maybe not known exactly how it would end.

Who would have known exactly how it would end?

The Oracles, maybe.

Not that he would have believed them. Even if they had told him, had sent him a message. One day he would fall in love (not likely) with a Recruit who would love him back (as if). One day, he would learn that the woman who had captured his heart was also the woman prophesied to betray the Regional Office and destroy Oyemi and Mr. Niles and everything they’d ever worked for. Told him that he would be assigned the task of killing her, this woman he had come to love. Told him that he would be forced to choose between Love and Loyalty, that he would choose Love over Loyalty, and then told him that it wouldn’t matter because while Love might be eternal and undying, Emma wasn’t either of those and would be killed anyway.

If they had told him all of this, he wouldn’t have believed them.

Not that the Oracles ever gave such explicit instructions on the future of this world. More, The one who loved will destroy that which was once loved. That was more their speed. That was the kind of ambiguous bullshit the Oracles yammered on about.

Of course, he was strapped for ideas on how to wrangle his way out of this plan of Oyemi’s but figured an extra two weeks was an extra two weeks. Except the first week and a half he wasted by trying to come up with a plan on his own. And then Emma cornered him in the parking garage, asked him, “What the fuck, Henry, you’ve been acting like an idiot the past week and a half,” and that was when he told her. About Oyemi. About the prophecy. About his job to do.

Emma didn’t get angry or upset, didn’t become unsettled or frightened. Her eyes didn’t widen or even grow colder, more calculating. She listened to what he said and then she nodded once, said, “Right,” and then told him an address and a time, told him to relax, act normal, placed her hand softly against his face, smiled, and then she turned and walked off.

Once she’d gone, he spent his day as if it were any normal day.

He filed reports. He read and reread case files of potential Recruits. He sat in on meetings with Sarah and her mechanical arm and Mr. Niles. He expressed serious and real concern about the news that Emma had failed to show up that day for her briefing. Then the day ended and he packed his things but no more of his things than he might normally pack, and then he drove home as he should normally have driven home. The point being: He did not once give away anything about what he’d done, what he planned to do, had not let slip his affections, his sudden and vivid daydreams, had not confided in anyone, not even (or especially not) Sarah, who seemed to him just so beholden, not just to the Regional Office, but to Mr. Niles, and therefore, someone he couldn’t trust.

So it should have been a surprise when he arrived at the address Emma gave him — an abandoned, foreclosed house in White Plains — that he found her, Emma, splayed out on the ground, a pool of blood pooling up beneath and around her, a lifeless look to her lifeless face, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t a surprise at all.

Because here was the thing about Oyemi: The thing about Oyemi was she was no fool. She wouldn’t have had Henry and only Henry on this job. She probably hadn’t had only him on the job at all, in fact. Who she’d had on the job had been professionals, men or women or both, who would’ve known what they were doing, wouldn’t have cared about the target, wouldn’t have flinched at the prospect of what they were supposed to do, who would’ve prepared for every contingency, even and especially the contingency of his trying to warn her. Which was why, just as he moved toward her, to check her for signs of life, to take one last look, to dumbly try to staunch the bleeding, a fire was set loose on him from all sides. Not an explosion, but simply a rising wave of flames.