A Brief Debrief
We rode back to the home base in silence. I was lost in my own thoughts. I had been so caught up looking for some sort of grand purpose, a meaning to my existence. But maybe there wasn’t one. Until tonight, I had been thinking this was the world I now belonged to. These people did real, awesome, crazy things. They lived wild lives, and it took a certain kind of mentality to do it.
I wasn’t that. I just wanted to go home and watch the game with my dad. Eat some of my mom’s home cooked meals. Catch up on the latest show with Emalee.
It had taken actually going out and experiencing what they experienced to learn this. I wasn’t a superhero, or even a regular hero. I was just a normal guy attending community college who was in way over his head.
This is Tom’s fault. I dismissed the thought as soon as it entered my mind. He had just encouraged me to find the answers on my own, and now I had. I was the one responsible for coming along. I wanted to train with them. I wanted to see how they lived. I wanted to be with Holly. This was my decision, and now it was my problem.
I had been entirely useless for the mission. I had dropped my weapon the moment we had contact with the enemy. I had seen death, and blinked. Or more like shut my eyes tight and pulled the covers over my head.
I didn’t want this kind of life.
What kind of tragedy did it take to make the kind of person who would want this? Enjoy it? I was not made from that mold, cut from that cloth. I was out of mental idioms.
Seeing myself, my own family, profiled and documented, I no longer felt safe. I no longer felt they were safe. No wonder it was so hard to have a real life outside of work when you were in this type of business. Now that I thought about it, none of the people on the team seemed to have anyone besides each other.
If I had come from the backgrounds they did, maybe that sense of brotherhood would be enough. But I had a family that loved me. And even though I rarely showed it, I loved them too. I needed to get back to them.
But what would I do? Drop in and say, hey, by the way, I’ve been living a secret life for the last month or so. I didn’t come home straight away for Christmas break so I could go on a secret mission with some crazy super soldiers. Yeah, I basically have superpowers. Do something with them? Nah, I decided to try getting a bachelor’s degree instead. Oh, and now it appears as if there are some real bad guys after me, and possibly all of you.’
“If you could loosen up that grip a bit, that’d be great,” Holly gasped.
“Sorry!” I realized I’d been holding onto her for dear life.
Holly. What about her? I knew I most likely wouldn’t be able to have her if I left. Dammit.
Eventually, we arrived back at the base and pulled into the garage in the rear of the building. The others seemed preoccupied discussing whether or not we had been tailed. I followed them back to the equipment room.
The mission had taken a lot out of everyone, and now a heavy sense of melancholy hovered over the locker room. I kept to myself while the rest of the team was in various stages of undress, talking about what had happened in hushed tones. It didn't seem like much to me. The preparation and travel for the mission had taken longer than the entirety of the action. Was it always like this?
James called Holly over, and they began debriefing in the other room. I was too lost in my own thoughts to try to listen in.
As I was stripping off the gear, something tumbled out and onto the floor. I reached down and picked it up. It was a bullet. The front was completely deformed. I carefully looked over my uniform and found the hole. It was just to the side of the lower back. I checked the armor. The bullet had hit a seam between two Kevlar plates.
The bullet’s path was clear: straight through the outside uniform, between the plates, and through the armor, into me. I felt down on my lower back where it must have struck. Nothing. I tried to casually check out the area in a mirror across the room.
“Need any help?” Holly asked as she returned from the briefing.
“Yeah. This stuff is even more difficult to take off than put on.”
I quickly pocketed the bullet and bent down, pretending my contorted position was for the purpose of taking off my gear.
Holly didn’t seem to notice.
She helped me remove everything, just as she had helped me put it on. Her fingers were deft, cool against my skin. Her touch sent a tingling through my body. She had already undressed to the point of only wearing tight-fitting sports bra and... I tried to keep my eyes from wandering lower.
Luckily, she seemed too preoccupied to notice the little hole in the gear. And she didn’t say anything about my back. From my short glance, it hadn’t even looked bruised. It appeared as if Derek had a point with his whole argument about the value of blades.
Once I was dressed, I headed upstairs to shower and changed again, this time into sweatpants and a sweatshirt.
I was laying on the small bed in my assigned room, looking around at the mostly barren space. I needed to call home, make sure everything was alright. I pulled my phone from the charger at the wall.
No missed calls. The only new text message was from my parents. They were sorry I was going to be a few days later, couldn’t wait to see me. Before I could type back a response, there was a knock on the door, and Holly entered.
“How are you doing?” she asked as she sat on the bed next to me. She put a hand on my leg.
I put the phone in my pocket.
“Not great,” I replied honestly.
“Why do they have all this information about me and my family?”
How could a few Rogues know about me when I barely knew about me? What did they want with me? My family?
Holly sighed and pulled both of her legs up onto the bed, turning to me as she sat cross-legged.
“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” she said.
I waited for her to continue.
She looked down, then back up at me before proceeding.
“We weren’t the only ones interested in you. You were one of a handful of cases that…” She trailed off. “Let me start over.”
“Please do.” I attempted to keep the hostility out of my voice.
I wasn’t mad at Holly, but the idea they had been lying to me, she had been lying to me, made me feel sick to my stomach.
“We’ve known about you for a while now,” she began again.
“Remember how I told you people were recruited from all different walks of life? Well, sometimes that included patients who were terminally ill. If the virus worked, it would cure them. But you were a special case.
“There were only a handful of people in the entire country whose blood had tested even remotely compatible with this new virus. Since it was entirely synthetic, it took just the right set of DNA to even have a chance for survival. For years, the scientists who made it thought they might never find anyone.
“But then, three positives, all at once. Unfortunately, before we could even attempt to make contact, one had already succumbed to their disease. There were only two options left. They decided we couldn’t go through the normal recruitment procedures. There just wasn’t time.
“The virus would be marketed as an experimental cure for whatever illness you were battling. Then, if you survived, you would be recruited. The government didn’t see anything wrong with this, since your time was limited regardless.
“But I did have a problem with it. I told them I wouldn’t go through with it. But they said they would go forward without me, and that they’d find someone who would play along. I knew the best chance I had to help whoever was going to get this virus would be to stay on the case. I agreed, but I would do it differently. I wouldn’t simply pull you out of your life and into this one. I would bring you along slowly, give you the choice.
“I-I never anticipated actually falling for the person I was supposed to recruit.” She looked down.
“Unfortunately, it looks like somehow they found out.” She looked up at me fiercely.
“The Rogues will try any means possible to get to you, because you could mean the difference for their cause. I get why the government wanted to do it their way now, why they wanted to tell your family you had died, pull you into a secret program, not give you a choice. I didn’t want to do that, and now your family is in danger. Because of me. I’m sorry,” she finished.
I tried to wrap my head around everything she had told me. I had thought I was going to die. I had thought I’d been offered a second chance at life. But everyone in this world already had plans for me.
How much of what had happened up to now had been coincidence? Any of it? Holly confessed she fell for me, but how could I trust her?
I felt tears burning in my eyes as I looked at her.
“Who are the Rogues, really? This wasn’t just some lone guy. This was organized,” I accused.
“You’re right. I didn’t tell you the whole truth. The Rogues have a network of people, like us, who are actively resisting the government. They are not simply trying to live their lives peacefully. They think the government uses people like us for their dirty work. Treats us as expendable, and casts us aside when they are done with us.
“It looks like this group of Rogues were a part of that movement. They use entirely different, unethical means to get what they want. But we won’t let them get to your family” She gave my like a reassuring squeeze.
“So my family is in danger?” I felt little reassurance.
“They are looking over everything we were able to recover, downstairs. But James doesn’t think so. He said it looked like purely reconnaissance,” she answered quickly.
“But they could be.”
“They could be,” she admitted.
“And you knew that this could happen. That this was a possibility if you… recruited me.” I practically spat out the last few words.
I couldn’t help it. Even if she wasn’t lying about falling for me, even if she had broken every order she’d ever been given to recruit me “humanely.”
At the end of the day, she initially only had interest in me because she had been ordered to. The only reason I was here in the first place was because of a random genetic defect.
I could see my accusations hurt her.
“James talked to the boss. He said he’s going to reroute Michael from whatever he’s doing. He’ll be watching over your family till you get there. After Christmas, we’ll get to work making sure you never have to worry about them ever again.” She paused, her eyes pleading. “And if you don’t want to come back, you don’t have to. I understand. This life isn’t for everyone.”