Stef Mimosa vs. The World - Chapter 2

'Better,' Curt said after a few minutes of successful dodges.

She took half a second to smile, and to force the about-to-fall feeling from her mind, as he jumped up and came at her again. He grabbed her arm and brought it around, trying to pin her, but a quick shift had her out of his grasp, and gave her the distance to put two dye rounds in his back.

'Oh great,' she said, 'that time I didn't even choose to shoot you.'

'You still shot me,' he said, 'for whatever that's worth.'

She required away her gun. 'I am never going to get used to this.'

'I had to get used to fighting for the system instead of against it. I had to get used to drinking with fairies instead of bottling them, and learning about magic all over again from people who didn't hate it.'

'If you really were my friend, you'd let me wallow in self-pity.'

'You don't know much about friends, do you?'

She shot him a withering look. 'Duh.'

She required a thick gym mat and sat down. 'I've been practicing on my own, you know. I'm an agent. I don't have to sleep that much and just sometimes I don't feel like surfing the net, so I do my duty.'

'You're running sims by yourself?'

'No, automations - trying to get used to this. It's not helping. Part of the problem I have is I'm not a fighter, I wasn't in fights before I got this nifty suit, so I'm practicing with physical actions that are actually familiar to me.'

'And that is?'

'Not for you to know.'

'You're kidding me.'

'What? I'm allowed to have secrets. And an embarrassing past.'

He joined her on the mat. 'Now you've got to tell me,' he said as he required a bottle of water.

'No...'

'Newbie.'

She buried her face in her hands and told him.

'I can't hear you.'

She kept her face in her hands, but spread her fingers enough to let some sound out. '...ballet.'

'Oh wow, you really were a little rich girl weren't you?'

'Dance, mainly ballet, riding lessons, language lessons, etiquette and decorum classes.'

He stared at her. '...I have no response to that.'

'Probably the safest course of action.' She required a can of soft drink, downed a few mouthfuls, then burped.

'None of it stuck, did it?'

She glared at him, then required away his half of the mat, leaving him to sprawl on the floor. He curled an arm behind his neck. 'Fine, but just so you know, this time isn't being deducted from your training.'

She leaned closer. 'Enterprise was the best thing to happen to the franchise since they killed off Tasha Yar.'

He grabbed her by the vest and dragged her off the mat, rolled her over him, then let her flop on the floor beside him. His gun appeared, and her control over her body disappeared, her leg swinging up to kick away the gun, before jumping up and placing a foot on his chest.

He knocked away her foot, jumped up and bounced back. 'Your height always has you at a disadvantage. You sure you can't get Jones to add six inches to you?'

He was talking. He wasn't attacking. She twitched her fingers to make sure she was in control of her body, then swung her leg, proving that her height wasn't always a disadvantage.

The colour drained from his face, and he went down with a whimper, a lounge chair appearing under him as he collapsed. His hand went to the sore area, as did an ice pack. 'That wasn't fair,' he said after a moment.

'You get to use live ammo on me, I've got to even it out somehow.'

'It's. Fighting. Dirty.' he said as he shook his head.

'Yeah, and I'm sure the Solstice play by Queensberry rules!'

'Really not the point,' he said, 'you'd be pissed as hell if I grabbed your boob and tried to defend it.'

She looked down at herself. 'Good luck with that.'

He required a pair of tweezers and tossed them at her.

'Recruits...'

She turned, saw Ryan, and waved.

'Do I want to know what's going on?' he said as he came closer.

She grinned. 'I won.'

'Stef, are you done here?'

'Yes!'

'She's only done ten minutes, sir,' Curt said, 'and most of that was insulting me.'

'Nonetheless,' he said, 'I need you.'

'There wasn't anything scheduled sir,' Curt said as he stood.

'It's just come up,' Ryan said, 'a Solstice informant wants to talk to us.'

'Name?'

'Bill Johnson. He's been informing for us for a few years now, about a thirty percent success rate.'

Curt nodded at this. 'Then he's probably for real,' he said, 'but still afraid of the Agency. He wants to give you scraps of truth because he's starting to feel it's the right thing, but the indoctrination is strong, and he still fears the suits.'

'And your opinion, Aide O'Connor?'

Curt seemed to swell at the use of his title. 'Trust his success rate,' he said, 'thirty percent of what he says, don't go into a blackout zone with him and don't use the good silver.'

'You never use the good silver,' she said, 'only the second best, third best for the children, sometimes even the really cheap stuff, unless you like them, or want to impress their parents. You only use the best silver for royalty, potential royalty, or money better than yours, and then, claim it's not the best, blame the help, and fire the closest serving girl if you sincerely need to make a point.'

Curt stared at her, then let out a low whistle. 'Ok, my parents divorced, but remind me never to switch childhoods with you.'

'Sorry,' she mumbled, 'tangent.'

Ryan squeezed her shoulder, and the comfort banished thoughts of her old family. 'Come on,' he said, 'we've got work to do.'

She smiled. 'Kay.'

He bent down to her level, and she felt her clothes ripple as her suit refreshed, then he straightened her tie. 'No matter how many times I scan you, I can't be convinced that your ability to get dirty isn't some sort of fae power.' He stood straight. 'I just hope you'll grow out of it.'

'You can hope all you want,' she said as they walked out of the gym, leaving Curt to slump back onto his required chair with his ice pack.

[I'm not going to specifically introduce you,] he said as they passed a group of displaced recruits, [as either a recruit or an agent, only by name.]

[Ashamed of me?] she asked, before quickly calling up a text window to send [:P].

[More that it's an advantage that we can use.] He opened the door to his office. [Just like we do with actual infiltration agents, just like we're designed to do.] He sat. 'Some Solstice automatically assume everyone is an agent, these people are difficult even within their own ranks, and it's a symptom of a larger paranoia and largely makes them unsuitable for field work.'

'Cause otherwise they'd just walk into the mall and start shooting everyone.'

'...they have Stef, and not just here.'

'Sorry.'

'Most common is the kind of person who will believe everyone is human unless given reason - however flimsy - to believe otherwise. You've seen this. Did the question of whether you were an agent ever come up in Russia, or were you accepted as a recruit because of Curt's say so?'

'True.'

'In your case, your height and appearance really do help.'

She pouted. 'Everyone is calling me short today.'

'Sorry.'

'It's ok, it's true.' She spun on her chair. 'So why does he want to talk to us?'

'He won't say, usually he does letterbox drops. It's a public place, a decent way from any of their territory...other than the Wintergarden, of course, so it doesn't really mean anything. On the other hand, it could mean he's ready to convert.'

'I haven't actually looked up the stats on this stuff, how often does it happen?'

'Honestly? Not as often as we'd like. Some people get afraid and stop informing, some are plants...most are plants, some are killed. The majority of people who do turn are just sick of the life and want a way out. Most of the time it's twenty minutes with the Parkers then a relocation and a pension. One less enemy is one less enemy, so it doesn't really matter if we have to pay for their retirement.' He shuffled the papers on his desk. 'People like Curt are the truest minority, long term missions, blackout bombs set off in Agencies, lots of agents killed, we've had these things happen more often than we've had a turncoat become an Aide.'

'That's why it took something so extreme for you to trust him?'

'Yes, precisely.'

'Do you trust him now?'

Ryan stared at her for a moment. 'I'm learning to. It's a failing, but I do have a bias against those who have worked for the Solstice.'

'I could have been Solstice, you didn't have any reason to trust me.'

He smiled. 'Bias was also a factor in your situation.'

'If that's the case,' she said, 'if you don't like Solstice, why did you take him on? You're in charge, why not send him to Ipswich or something?'

'Because I knew I wouldn't kill him.'

'Huh?'

'Traitorous actions are traitorous actions, but a lot of agents, when it comes to people like Curt, would take any opportunity to construe a relatively innocent action and use it as an excuse of execution.'

'"Relatively innocent"?'

'For example, Curt has a habit of walking into blackout zones. Most of the time, it's accidental - he doesn't have them all memorised. Sometimes it's on purpose, but never for anything counter to Agency interests.'

'If you give him more work, he won't have time to do that.'

'If I give him more work to do, I may genuinely have some free time.'

'Oh, zomg, that would be horrible. It's so horrible it would have to go get a PhD to prove it.' She stared at him. 'What's wrong with having free time?'

'It would be...unfamiliar,' he said, 'I'm used to not having any large amount of time for my own uses, and knowing that work is waiting if I do take time for myself.'

'...I'm sure there's a cloning tank somewhere in this building, just use that, clone Curt, and you'll have a ton of free time.'

He smiled, but shook his head.

'Ok, this is what I want to know: you run the place, you're in charge of Jonesy and Taylor and everyone else. You're also in charge of all the little remote Agencies. You're like the...SEQ warchief.'

'Accurate, I suppose.'

'Ryan...my grandfather has more staff than you. Can't you just order a dozen new, shiny agents?'

He shook his head. 'Not until the situation is completely out of control. I keep things in control, so I don't need help. We are to remain in the minority. We're already more numerous than we've ever been, there's no need to exacerbate that.'

'How many are we?'

'All up, every agent, doctor, secretary and miscellaneous staff member...less than a quarter of a million.'

'I thought there would be more.'

'That thought does help us against the Solstice. Some are cautious because they expect us around every corner.' He stood. 'Now, let's go, we don't want to be late.'

'Not even fashionably so?'

'Only when meetings are held here, where we know, barring any extreme mitigating circumstances, we control the situation.'

And the horizontal, and the vertical?

She stood, an idle thought refreshing her uniform again. 'Where are we meeting him?'

'Just down in the mall.'

'Anything more specific, or are we just going to walk up and down the mall calling out "here Solstice, Solstice, Solstice, sooooooo-eeeee!"?'

'The bottom level, in the food court there. He comes in by bus and leaves the same way - I think he believes it helps keep his dealings with us unnoticed. So far, if he's being truthful, it's working.'

'...if we're in the mall, can I go buy video games?'

He looked down at her. 'How much of your paperwork is Curt doing?'

She stared at the ground. '...most.'

'Most, not all?'

'No, not all, I am learning!'

'Then yes, after we're done, you can go buy video games.'