Secret Agent Man

Gerard walked through the glass doors of the agency’s building just as his watch beeped to show that it was 3:00. Though reluctant to walk into his superior’s office a full hour late, he let no trace of this show on his face as he stepped into the elevator at the end of the hall. He pressed the button for the top floor and waited. Just before the doors closed, a thin arm clothed in loose black fabric slid through the gap and forced them open. Gerard blinked in slight surprise as a woman entered the small space, dressed much less formally than him. For a moment he wondered if she had simply wandered in off the street thinking the agency was some other place, but through his sunglasses he could see the gun she clutched inside one pocket of her hooded jacket and knew she was not an outsider.

“You can stop staring at me,” she said curtly, continuing to glare at the mirrored doors before them. Gerard brought his own eyes back to the doors, wondering how she had known he was looking at her. He was always careful to only rotate his eyes, but he supposed he must have slipped and turned his head ever so slightly. It was not often he made the mistake, but it had been known to happen. He noted the displeasured tone in her voice and almost thought to ask why, much as he hated the idea of light conversation.

The elevator reached the chosen floor, and Gerard stayed still so she could leave first. She simply shot him another glare before continuing on her way. He raised an eyebrow at her strange attitude but let the subject drop from his mind as he walked off to his boss’s office. He saw no movement on the other side of the door’s frosted glass window and walked inside with a kind of stealth that came from more than practice. He took a seat in his usual chair and studied all the strange objects on the mahogany desk. All kinds of small mechanical contraptions covered the surface and seemed to continue on to the shelves lining the room. He lit up a cigarette. As he slid the lighter back into his pocket, he reached out to touch the nose of a tiny seal balanced precariously on a metal disk.

“Don’t touch that.” Practiced indifference kept him from jumping at the sudden sound of his superior’s voice. A crystal ashtray found its way into his field of vision, and he looked up at the other man as if he had just been told to jump off a cliff. Gerard let his eyebrows knit together in a show of disdain, but eventually ground the cancer stick into the glass plate as expected.

“I assume you know how late you are,” the man continued. Gerard remained silent. “I already warned you about this last time.”

“Can’t control traffic,” he finally answered. He shrugged. “Thought I left with enough time to get here.”

“Regardless of your intentions, the end result is the same.” The man sat behind his desk, hands folded as if he was in deep thought about something.

“Well, I’m here now,” Gerard answered. “What do you have for me?”

“Case all the way from the other side of the country,” his boss answered, tossing him a file folder. He opened it and began flipping through the papers absentmindedly. “So far, every agent who’s investigated it has turned up dead.”

“Interesting.” Gerard’s eyes widened when he saw one particular photograph, and he quickly thumbed past it to see the next. “Wait…Toro was working this case? And Bryar? I haven’t heard from either of them in years!”

“Both missing, I’m afraid,” the man answered. “Haven’t reported back in weeks. Presumed dead.”

“Always so quick to assume the worst, Frank,” Gerard muttered to himself, not caring if the other man heard him or not. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Frank tense up at the sound of his name, showing the biggest reaction he ever had to anything.

“From the last report you submitted, I’m a little surprised you even survived,” he said. “You expect me to believe that you escaped two bombs?”

“And a flamethrower,” Gerard added. Frank just rolled his eyes.

“You’ll be working undercover as a high roller for this assignment. I presumed it would suit your style.” The door opened quietly, and Frank glanced at the strange-looking clock on his desk. “Ah, Miss Ballato. On time as always.” He glared at Gerard as his eyes passed over the black-haired man and trailed up to the figure now standing in the door. Gerard looked over his shoulder and let his eyes follow the girl as she circled around him to sit in the chair just a few feet away.

“Way, this is Lyn. She’ll be accompanying you on this mission.”

Gerard was appalled. “I don’t need any help,” he said numbly. Frank narrowed his eyes.

“She’s an expert undercover agent who’s already been working on this case for several months, so I’m sure she knows a hell of a lot more about it than you.”

“No offense to either of you, but I work alone.” Without another word, Gerard stood and turned as if he was going to leave. He opened the door and glanced back at them for any sign of a reaction. He was a little startled to see that Lyn had taken off the baggy hooded jacket and hung it over the back of her chair, revealing the tightly fitted gray t-shirt she wore underneath. He raised an eyebrow questioningly. She crossed her arms and glared at him even further, so he just placed his sunglasses over his eyes and walked out the door with the case file under one arm.
-
Gerard drove around aimlessly for a good amount of time before he decided to return home. Combined with the crawling rush hour traffic he had to fight through, he didn’t actually make it back until almost seven thirty. He ate dinner and watched TV for a while before going up to his bedroom to review the case more thoroughly. The faint sound of nails scratching against wood caught his attention. He cautiously stepped towards the noise and saw Rex clawing weakly at the door and giving off sporadic, low growls.

“What’s wrong?” he muttered more to himself than the dog. Once he opened the door, Rex backed away and relaxed, as if confident that he could handle the problem. His eyes found only darkness within, as he expected. He halted his breathing for a moment to listen for anything that might be out of place but found nothing.

“There’s nothing in there, girl,” he whispered to the dog. Gerard did feel mildly annoyed from being interrupted for nothing, but he quickly ignored it and stepped inside the room, closing the door behind him. He noticed the faint blue glow from the security sensors on the floor and was reassured that nothing could be wrong.

A soft sound from the other side of the room made him rip the gun out of its holster and point it at a prospective target, but instead of seeing someone else trying to kill him (as he had expected), he had the strangest feeling that the person was now behind him.

“So…you work alone,” the voice whispered, ominously close to his ear. He instantly recognized it and almost felt he should be relieved because of who it belonged to, but instead he became more wary by the second. “That can’t be much fun for you.”

“Lyn…”

She placed her hands on either side of his neck and slowly moved to take his sunglasses, but he stepped away and turned around to face her.

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“I have my ways,” she said quietly.

Gerard raised an eyebrow, then quickly frowned. “Whatever. Listen, I’m not sure how you got in here,” he said, his vision falling upon the untouched security sensors again, “but please get out of my sight. Not that there’s anything wrong with you, but it’s damn creepy when you break into my house in the middle of the night like some cat burglar. You are scaring my pets.” A loud squawk from the macaw in the corner of the room confirmed his statement, and he walked over to the cage to calm the bird down.

Gerard busied himself shutting down the sensors so she wouldn’t trip the alarms on her way out. He had initially hoped that Lyn was going to simply follow his instructions and get the hell out already with no complications, but he soon decided he was thinking too positively in his sleep-deprived state, as when he turned around he was faced with the sole of a hard rubber boot.

All he could see for half a second was a black pattern; the fine lines printed deep on the bottom of Lyn’s narrow-heeled shoe were a vague memory in his head before he scrunched his eyes shut, bracing himself for the full blow of a kick to the face and frantically cursing himself over and over for not being more careful.

Gerard didn’t know what to think when no pain shot through his head. In fact, if there was any pain at all that he could pinpoint, it would be the handles of his sunglasses catching against the tips of his ears as they flew up into the air, only to land in a white palm with glossy painted nails.

He almost didn’t know how he managed to open his eyes after that, but once he did he couldn’t stop staring in wonder. She folded the glasses with one elegant motion and placed them upside down on the small end table next to her, smirking.

“You can’t live your whole life alone, Gerard,” she said as she stepped closer to him, letting the name roll off her tongue. She wrapped her arms around his neck again, and when she suddenly kissed him, he did nothing to push her away.