The Rogue Element

Watching the blinking green dot on the screen reminded me of Jay Gatsby staring forlornly at Daisy’s dock light night after night, finding some comfort in its existence even if he couldn’t see his beloved’s face. I sighed and pushed away the thought—Jake wasn’t Daisy and I definitely wasn’t Gatsby. For the past three weeks, there was no communication, no updates, and technically no reason to worry, but anxiety had me crawling out of my skin. Something was different about this mission. Something had been different about Jake the night he accepted the assignment. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. A coldness. A distance. I only had the tracker, and it became the center of my attention. I neglected other assignments, delayed important paperwork, ignored emails because I didn’t want to miss a single moment of his actions. I needed to know where he was going and how long he stayed there. The hard numbers provided a level of comfort, but not much. Not as much as I needed. I resisted the temptation to activate his earpiece. The mission was deep cover and Jake was chosen specifically because everybody at Langley had complete trust in him. He was their Golden Boy. A perfect record. People around the office resented me, thinking I’d been given the cushiest assignment in the department, and nobody appreciated how difficult it was to keep the Golden Boy alive and in one piece. Jake was the ideal agent. His conditioning was perfect, his strength unmatched, his intelligence unwavering. He never spared a second thought to the implications of his work, and he executed his targets with brutal efficiency. Tonight would be the final night of radio silence. Jake had followed his script perfectly, completed every step of the plan flawlessly, and now he was perfectly positioned to complete the assignment. Another assassination, another notch in his belt. He didn’t ask any details about his target, but he never did. Maybe he didn’t like to know. Maybe he didn’t need to know. He always calmly accepted the dossier, studied it with blank green eyes, then nodded his understanding. His face never betrayed a single emotion. Except this time. This time when I handed over the dossier, Jake barely glanced at it. When I explained the mission, he barely acknowledged it. When I explained that radio silence would be necessary for the duration, I saw something flutter in his eyes. Some flare of emotion I never saw within him before. Then he was gone, and I was left unsettled and alone. I restlessly tapped my desk, anxiously checking the clock. Jake didn’t have a time limit, but every second I waited for his signal scraped across my nerves. He wasn’t my first agent, but I often wondered if he would be my last. I couldn’t imagine working with anybody else. I would never willingly leave the assignment, which meant only his death was likely to separate us, and the thought of his death always felt like a punch to the gut. When did I become so attached to him? How had I let myself get emotionally compromised by an agent? Granted, Jake wasn’t like any other agent I ever knew. A perfect physical specimen, he moved through the world as silently as a shadow, his sharp eyes absorbing every detail as his mind imprinted every image. The Agency had invested thousands of dollars into his training and God knew how much his upgrades cost them. It was impossible to know where the training ended and the man began. The joke around the office was that he was RoboCop, a cyborg and not a man. But I knew better. Somewhere inside of him was a man unlike any other. The green light flashed, then died. “What the—?” I tapped on the screen and it responded, but the light didn’t return. I immediately activated his ear piece. “Agent Hondo, come in. Come in, Agent Hondo.” An alert message popped up. Connection lost; please re-establish connection. Please contact system administrator if unable to re-establish connection. I picked up my phone and dialed nine. It rang only once before the system admin picked up. “Rollins here.” “I just lost Hondo.” “I’ll get him.” I heard Rollins type furiously, pause, then type again. Another long pause and somehow I could hear Rollins’ frown. “It says the connection can’t be established.” “What does that mean?” “It likely means his tracker is busted.” My stomach dropped like a stone. These trackers were not easy to break. They were designed to withstand an extreme amount of punishment, and even to continue to record after the agent expired. “Busted? Could he have turned it off?” Rollins snorted. “Those things don’t exactly have an off-switch.” Which means he likely removed it himself. “I’ll start the report,” Rollins added. “Thanks,” I said hollowly. He would notate this phone call and enter it into the database and the process would begin to move Jake from “Active” to “Missing in Action.” “I’m sorry, Jake. I’m sorry I failed you. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you when you needed me.” I touched the screen where the green dot had disappeared and closed my eyes, trying to imagine where he could be, what he could be doing. He would go to ground and nobody was better prepared to remain in hiding and one step ahead of everybody. He probably expected the Agency to send out a search-and-capture team, but I hoped he understood I had his back and would do everything in my power to protect his life. My mind went back several weeks to the last post-mission debriefing. All the signs were there in that final face-to-face exchange, and I didn’t recognize them. No, worse than that. I recognized them and I didn’t acknowledge them because I just didn’t want it to be true. Not only had I failed in my role of handler, I failed as a friend to Jake. I replayed the conversation again and again, wishing I could remember more details, wishing I had done something differently… * * * * “How are you doing, Jake? You feeling okay?” Jake smiled wanly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. There were lines on his face that I’d never noticed before—deep ones near his eyes and his mouth and through his forehead. There were also dark circles under his eyes. Honestly, not that uncommon for a normal man his age, but Jake was far from normal. I’d never seen him look so…human. “I’m good, chief.” “Have you been sleeping?” He shifted, a shadow passing over his face. “I’ve been trying to.” “Trying?” This was alarming. His conditioning and enhancements required a minimum of four hours of uninterrupted REM sleep. Otherwise, he physically would not be able to handle the changes that were made in order to make him the ultimate assassin. “What’s been keeping you from sleep?” “I’ve been having really weird dreams.” “Oh?” I made sure to sound neutral at the revelation of dreams. Our scientists couldn’t technically block dreams from happening—and we wouldn’t want to since dreams perform an important function for the health of the brain—but he certainly wasn’t supposed to remember them. “What kind of dreams?” Jake shook his head and sighed. “I’m not sure. They feel almost like memories, but I don’t recognize any of the people.” “How do you know they are memories?” “I don’t know. Like I said, they feel like memories. Like in one of them, I was in a cabin. Maybe in the mountains. And everything around me was very tall, or I guess I was very short. When I woke up, I thought, That was grandpa’s cabin.” Jake paused a beat, then added, “I never knew my grandfather. I have no family.” “I see.” I’d been writing notes for the final briefing report, but I put down my pen. This was absolutely something the head of the program would want to know, but I was already very protective of Jake, and I didn’t want to see him taken away for an overhaul. He was the most enhanced agent in the field, with more surgeries than any of his colleagues, and I didn’t want him to be subjected to another surgery. Or worse. And it could get much worse than another enhancement surgery. The review board may decide to terminate him rather than risk keeping him in the program. He wouldn’t be the first agent who showed signs of burning out to simply disappear. “Perhaps it’s time to take a short break. You know, a vacation somewhere quiet so you can recharge your batteries.” The wan smiled returned. “I don’t get any vacation days, and unlike you and the other agents, I don’t get to hand in my resignation. There’s no resting for me. I’ll never be free.” I looked down so he couldn’t see the surprise in my eyes. How did he know that? Did he know about the program? Did he remember receiving the secret enhancements that elevated him far above the other agents? My heart thudded in my ears, and I realized that dreaming of his childhood might be far from his biggest problem. They never gave me any instructions for what to do if he expressed any doubt or frustration. They had, however, given me clear instruction on what to do if he ever indicated he was self-aware of his actual role within the Agency. “Why do you think you can’t get any vacation days? Everybody gets vacations,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. “Yeah, chief, everybody but me. I’m too valuable to them and they’re too afraid of what they’ve done to me. If they knew…well, I don’t want die. Not yet.” What they’ve done to me. So he knew. Part of the process was to erase the memories of the surgeries, the drugs, and the conditioning. None of the agents in the special program knew they’d been given enhancements and elevated training. Each had signed a waiver when they’d entered the program, indicating they understood the terms and conditions, including the fact that who they were when they signed that piece of paper would no longer exist once they woke up. And that person would never exist again. The special program was designed to strip away individual humanity and turn them from a person into a weapon. “Why are you telling me this now? Aren’t you afraid that I’d write this in the debriefing report?” Jake looked me straight in the eye. I could see exhaustion in his green depths, and something more. A flicker of emotion that had never been present before. “I trust you, Mike.” * * * * It was the first time Jake had ever called me by my name. It was always “chief” or “sir.” Until that moment, I wasn’t even sure if he knew my actual name. He was right to trust me, though, because I would never report this conversation. The fact was, I didn’t agree with the intentions, the process, or the outcomes of the program at all. If I had known the specifics of my new position, I would have never accepted the promotion. I should have got him out of here. I shouldn’t have sent him on another assignment. I should have found somebody who could actually help him safely regain his memories and his mind. If something happened to him now, it would be my fault. I was the one he trusted. I was the one who should have helped him. Well, I could help him now. Later, I would add the designation “presumed dead” into my report, even though deep down inside, I knew he wasn’t dead. He had gone rogue. They would search the Earth for a rogue agent and Jake’s reputation, career, and life would always be in tatters. If they found him, he would be executed for treason and for the agency’s own protection. I couldn’t allow that to happen. It was my job to protect him from harm, and even though he’d abandoned me, I would never abandon him.