now

Margot has eyes as blue as the sea. She’s a dental hygienist who dreams of being an actress; she even keeps an eye out for local casting calls. She’s deeply timid but will be the first to storm the stage at karaoke night. She’s a good talker, a better listener, and has the cleanest smile you’ve ever seen.

This year alone Margot has killed three people. Tonight will be the fourth – unless I stop her.

In the bathroom of her apartment, I splash my face with warm water. I can hear the scrape of plates on the dining room table – one for her, one for me. Quietly I chamber a cartridge into my nanite pistol and a number blasts across the blank canvas of my mind like a comet: 1.14. I block it out before any real damage is done and gently stow the derringer into the inner pocket of my denim jacket.

I take a breath and step into the hallway to meet my fate.

Then

How does a man get into this line of work, you might ask.

Just shy of ten years back, I was at a gas station in Missouri, going god knows where buying three gallons of gas and a pack of Skittles when two masked men with shotguns walked into the place. They told the clerk, me, and the three other customers in the store they were not afraid to use those guns if any of us caused trouble.

The pair clocked me first and decided the thin teenager wearing a ragged shirt was neither a threat and probably too poor to be worth their time. When they turned their backs so they could focus on the other would-be victims, I gingerly slipped my fingers around the handle of my folding knife.

Seconds later, they were both bleeding out on the floor, the bigger one twitching as life danced away from him. A woman was screaming.  The clerk’s shaking hand lifted his cellphone to his ear, his eyes fixed on my bloody knife.

The cops came. They reassured me I wasn’t under arrest but asked me to stay in town so they could “figure things out” before closing the case. 

Two men showed up to my hotel the next morning. They wore black suits and shades but each had a mouth of pearly whites. Not policemen. Federal, I assumed.

They wanted to take me out to breakfast at Denny’s. They wanted to have a talk - about my potential.

*****

The first Attuned popped up in 2017. She could read minds is my understanding. Soon there were more of them, these individuals with incredible abilities. People who could breathe underwater, who could see miles away with their very own eyes – even those who claimed they could hear the dead speak.

That was nearly 40 years ago. The Attuned are bad news now. Some of them are sane, registered and work for the government. We call them collared. But most go feral before they’re 30 years old and take to killing scores of people. Nobody knows why. These Attuned, they don’t even know they’re murderers. Most of the time they’re just…normal. They go to work, pick up groceries, take their pets to the vet, browse dating apps.

When they kill, it’s like someone else is in control. Someone dangerous. This duality makes them difficult to track and even harder to put down.

That’s where I come in. One kind of monster to catch another. 

*****

Three months ago, I returned from a mandatory “vacation” to find Lynn Fletcher waiting for me in the agency lobby. My handler’s thin lips had never once formed a smile in the decade we’ve worked together but we were familiar enough that I knew her raised eyebrow meant she was relieved, even possibly excited to have her star agent back in the stable.

In her office, we chatted about my time away. She asked if I had a restful period. I told her it was nice. I got out of the city. Rented a cabin down near Boulder Creek. Watched a lot of French New Wave. I didn’t tell her about the nights staring up at the ceiling or waking up on the floor in a cold sweat.

“If you need to take more time….I know last year’s events were traumatic.”

“No, director. I’m ready for my next case.”

“Very well.”

She brought out the dossier and laid out the entire scene for me, just like we had done countless times before.

A rash of killings had been unfolding near the center of the Sunset District. Seven people over a series of two years. Our local drones had identified a likely culprit, one Margot Davis. Twice the past month, a drone had captured her body temperature briefly rising to 150 degrees fahrenheit before dipping back down to the high 90s a second later. Lynn showed me a snapshot of Margot walking down the street with a coffee in her hand, a few other pedestrians behind her eating breakfast on a diner porch. Then she dug out a thermal scan of the same image. The diner customers were largely colored green with spots of yellow and red. The woman, Margot, was all red.

“Maybe it was the coffee,” I said.

Lynn, per usual, ignored my remark and kept the briefing going. “She’s the only candidate we’ve currently identified in San Francisco.”

“What if the real killer is coming in from elsewhere?”

“You know it’s statistically unlikely. An Attuned rarely hunts more than 3 miles from its den.”

“Unlikely does not mean impossible.”

Lynn locked eyes with me. “Is this about the last case?”

“I just want to make sure.”

“Agent, what happened last time was an anomaly.”

“A mistake,” I said before I could think the better of it.

She frowned. “It happens. Rarely.”

I let it go. “What else do we know about her?”

She passed me a manila folder. “It’s all in the file. Per procedure, you have two weeks to prepare before engaging the target.”

I took the folder in my hand. Strange how light the entire record of someone’s life could feel.

Lynn looked at me with what I assumed was her practiced attempt at motherly concern. “I meant what I said earlier…if you need more time….”

I thought of my apartment. Of all the thinking I could do, of all that I had already done these past three months. My dark dreams of a dead woman named Patricia.

I reassured the director I was ready. I left her office and took the elevator 27 floors down to the cubicle farm deep beneath the surface of a quaint two-storey out in San Francisco’s Financial District. I laid the dossier’s contents out across my desk, itself spotless except for a sleek laptop and a notebook.

I got to work.

*****

I watched her car move through the city’s arteries from above, observing through a small camera the size of a thumb. We have thousands of such drones scattered across the city, millions in all cities across the US, some of them even assigned to people like me. I call mine Poe.

Poe followed her movements for two days straight, recording non-stop as she rose and dressed for work, fought traffic to get to Miller & Ward Dental, and then stopped for an Oreo milkshake at a fast food joint on the way home from work – catching it all in glorious upscaled 8K resolution.

Night surveillance was a simple matter of having one of our tech boys grant access to the two wireless security cameras in her apartment, one in the kitchen, the other in the living room. In the den of my own sparse apartment, I watched moments of my target’s life unfold, the full picture coming into view piece by piece through my laptop screen.

Nothing scandalous in those early observations. She lived a busy, talkative day at work and came home to recharge, like any introvert. She microwaved meals or ordered in, watched one of three sitcoms she had on rotation as she sat on her couch in gym shorts and a baggy shirt – one that belonged to an ex-boyfriend, I imagined.

I took notes as she watched her television. She found comedy of errors storylines to be amusing but body humor elicited a frown. She had a habit of absentmindedly scratching behind her left shoulder and just above the knee on her right leg.

Her apartment was surprisingly spacious for the salary she earned and where she was living; I took it to mean she was a good negotiator or deal-finder as opposed to anything nefarious. The design of the apartment itself was heavily Scandinavian with clean walls of sterile white and oak wood furniture. Her small bookshelf was lined with page-turning thrillers and well-worn romance paperbacks. I made a note to dig into her dating history.

She went to bed both evenings just shy of midnight. I kept the cameras recording to see if the thing inside her would take control and confirm what the agency suspected, but I’d never had a job wrap up that easy before, and sure enough, she remained in her room all night.

Day 3 was when the social media survey I requested came in from the monitoring team. The report spanned so many pages they had to send it over digitally instead of the usual print-out; Margot was quite the scroller. She didn’t post that much but she spent a lot of time engaging with content on all of America’s trending social media apps.

She watched many mouthwatering recipe and kitchen-hack videos (despite the fact she didn’t appear to cook herself), bounced between a number of fashion gurus, and appeared to be a devout follower of all things K-pop.

Her dating history came back too. Only one long-term relationship, ended three years before this point, as well as a series of lackluster one-night stands orchestrated through a handful of dating apps. The picture filled in some more. Margot Davis, a successful woman with a steady job and nice apartment was starting to feel the creep of loneliness. 

Based on the algorithmic profile the team put together, her dream partner was male, athletic build, but also emotionally available and intelligent. Nothing I had seen from my own research disagreed with that conclusion.

Yes, I thought. No problem.

*****

A week before deployment, I was flipping through the pages within the thick manila folder in the breakroom when Todd Kilroy and a couple of his flunkies squeezed through the doorway.

“If it isn’t agent Twink himself, back from his exodus,” Todd said, pouring himself a mug of burnt coffee. Todd was the leader of the local Dragoons, the brute squad the agency sent to put down feral Attuned in emergencies. They weren’t too different from your bog-standard militarized police: too much ammo, too much skull, not enough brain. The key difference was that all of them had been dismissed from their local PDs for being too violent, which is saying something. 

The feds were more than happy to bring them on and give them a bump in pay to boot.

He took a seat across from me, his massive body looming over the small table. “Heard you’re going under the Mangler today.” He grinned. I could see pieces of ham and rye between his teeth. “How you coming out on the other side this time? Thin latino boy? Maybe a black fella with one of them killer smiles, hmm?”

His breath smelled of the bourbon he kept in his desk drawer. 

“You know we’re not allowed to discuss case specifics, officer,” I said, closing the folder and rising to leave.

“It doesn’t matter what they make you look like, Bishop. You got that baby bitch aura about you. I’ll always be able to see through it. It’s your softness coming through.”

“I’d rather be a soft boy than a walking brutality case.”

He laughed in that cruel high-pitched way that seemed so strange emerging from his brick house body. “We’ll see if you feel that way when they call us in to save your ass. You just run along now, go have a good cry about that woman you got killed.”

I stopped at the doorway. Words surged through my mind, magma-hot. My hand formed into a shaking ball.

A second passed by. I walked on.

An hour later I was prepped for surgery, sitting in a waiting room wearing a gown. I was next to agent Lydia Marcell. They were prepping machines for both of us. That day agent Marcell was a 5’4 black, stocky woman with vibrant green eyes and thin lips but who knew what would emerge from that operating room?

Lydia has a couple of years on me as a Faceless. She was in the first wave a decade ago, back before they worked out the kinks in the psychological conditioning and physical modification process. The first Faceless were more test subjects than anything else. Out of the 46 participants in that group, she’s one of only seven that remain both alive and (relatively) sane. 

I don’t have friends. Solitude is a necessity in this line of work. But Lydia…Lydia is as close as it gets.

“What’s on the menu today, Agent 9?”

She smiled. “You always know it’s me.”

“You tap your left foot in the same way when you’re bored. Plus, the scar on your left inner forearm.”

“Ah yes,” she said, looking down. “Back when the Metamorphosis 4040 was a Metamorphosis 2010. Stupid prototype. I’ve got a couple of fault scars on my left foot too.”

“At least they’ve fixed it since then.”

“To answer your question: white girl. Short brown hair. Stocky body. Chin dimples.”

“Hopefully you get to keep those eyes. They’re quite striking.”

The smile widened. I wasn’t flirting, more like appreciating the fine craftsmanship of a hand-made armoire or a hobbyist’s project car. “They are quite good, aren’t they? I quite like your nose. Like a Roman emperor or something.”

“Unfortunately, it’s gotta go. Target has a thing for small noses.”

“Ah. Quite the change,” she said, looking at my wide-set eyes, freckles, and shoulder-length chestnut hair. “Are they altering the height?”

“Not this time.”

She sighed. “Lucky. My target is really into women’s basketball.” She peered down at her legs. Height alterations were the only procedure that required post-op recovery and a healthy dose of pain meds.

 “Ooof.”

“Speaking of oofs, I heard those meatheads were giving you trouble about the incident from last year. First off, to hell with them. Second, are you OK?”

Those green eyes shone brightly with pity and concern. I saw sincerity…but you never can tell.

“I’m good. The time away gave me a lot of rest I didn’t know I needed.”

She smiled. “That’s excellent, Agent 82. I was worried we’d lost one of the best operatives we’ve ever had.”

A chime on the door in front of us. It slid open and a man wearing a labcoat stepped out and looked at Lydia. “Agent 9, we’re ready for you.”

Lydia rose and, before heading to surgery, gave me one last look of warmth. “What happened wasn’t your fault, I promise.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything. She went away for her date with the alteration machine. A few minutes later, my own attendant, a woman, came and cheerfully told me they were ready for me. 

She guided me down a white, sterile hall to a large room with an operating table. I laid myself across it and stared up into the gaping maw of the Metamorphosis 4040, AKA the Mangler. The machine was the size of an 18 wheeler’s engine block, encased in white plastic and steel ports that hid fibrous tentacles wielding an array of instruments in their claws – scalpels, forceps, clamps, electric saws. On the front plate of the machine was a massive port that slid down to reveal a high-powered laser as well as a receptacle for synthetic skin that the tentacles could pull from.

The lab attendant approached me with a large syringe in her hand. Despite having done this procedure nearly a hundred times, the needle was always the part that unnerved me the most. I closed my eyes as she plunged the tranquilizer into my neck.

“Okay, sweetie, you should be out like a light in just a few minutes. I’m going to boot up the machine and feed the design of your identity into it. The whole thing should only take a few hours, all of which you’ll be asleep for.”

I nodded slowly, fog already rolling across the shores of my mind. The color of the world diminished as I slowly sank into darkness, the machine above me whirring to life and reaching down to slice and fold and break and fasten these pieces together into a whole new man.

*****

The new apartment was northwest of Sunset. I hated it. The man who lived here wasn’t me. He liked his world cluttered with the things he owned. Vinyl records. Shelves of books. A medley of overpriced kitchen appliances.

Standing in a living room far too large for my liking, I looked down at the ID card staring up at me from my wallet. Olive hair. Tan skin. Medium-length black frizzy hair. Small brown eyes. Manny Winter. I roll the name around in my mouth. It was strange and new but that would fade over time as it became more familiar, another name in a jar of names I’ve called my own.

In preparation, I spent the last two days poring over Manny’s extensive, fabricated personal file, which I had created alongside the agency’s narrative team. It was carefully edited to be believable but also exciting, with several elements that spoke to Margot’s interests.

Manny was an avid reader – everything from the classics to bodice rippers – a lover of coffee (ugh) and classical music, a devotee of the opera but an enemy of all things rock and roll. He played racquetball down in Lakeshore three times a week and treated himself to Gogi every Saturday. An imaginary woman had broken Manny’s imaginary heart some two years ago and he was reluctant to be in love again.

I had three days to become integrated with my new persona. I spent hours pacing the apartment, surrounded by all of this made up man’s junk, reading aloud with this new mouth the details of the file in my hand. I walked around the neighborhood, ate at a local Thai place I decided would be his favorite restaurant and found a dive bar to call his own. I made up memories for him to tell later – most of them pulled from a repository I had built up over the years. I was so drunk one night I tripped over this bike rack and ate total shit…. And I met a mime here once just a couple of minutes after midnight.

Things finally clicked two days into this exercise. I was sitting on a couch at a cafe, a cortado in one hand, a paperback copy of The Bloody Chamber in the other and it occurred to me that Manny was no longer a name on a page. I was him. My body was Manny. My mind had processed enough data, creating new memories and remixing old ones to fabricate a convincing facsimile for a personality.

Riley Bishop…Agent 82…not a person but a malleable concept, sank into the marsh of my mind, ready to emerge only when I needed him again.

Manny. My name was Manny Winter. And I had an appointment to prepare for.

*****

I arrived at Rapunzel’s Cafe just shy of 10. In the quaint cafe, I found myself a bartop seat and ordered a coffee, black, a cherry danish, and pulled out a well-worn copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover.  

There is an art to waiting without appearing to be. We Faceless are not your CIA stooges, clumsy and obvious despite years of training. We have been rebuilt many times over solely for this. I am not playing pretend. Nearly all of me belongs to Manny Winter. Despite my personal abhorrence for coffee, my heart beat just a little faster with excitement as I lifted the mug to my lip. An involuntary shudder of disgust passed through my shoulders as the cafe speakers switched from quiet folk music to a chart-topping pop song.

Manny was fully part of this world and I merely the eyes behind his eyes, watching as Margot entered the cafe at 10:26 AM, a solid 45 seconds past her usual arrival time. She was wearing a jade blouse with jeans, hair tied back into a ponytail – a brown purse hung off her shoulder. 

I didn’t have to do anything but gently push my book a little further away from me to make the cover more prominent. I watched as she clocked the cover while looking for her own seat. There was a momentary pause in her step but she kept going. I waited. Seconds drifted by until the blouse came back into view.

I looked up. She nodded at the book. “You SoCal Lit, too?”

“Sorry?” Not annoyed. Confused and intrigued by the attractive woman spouting gibberish.”

She laughed in embarrassment and pulled from the bag her own copy of the novel, hers in pristine condition. “I’m sorry. I’m part of an online book club. Massive server. This week we’re reading that one. I just assumed you might have been part of the group.”

“No, but I should have said yes. Unfortunately, I’m just a weirdo reading an old horny book in public.”

“It’s super horny, right?” She sat down on the stool next to me. “Like, even for an old-ass book it’s a little spicy.”

“Yeah. I picked it up because I’ve been going through this list of classic books they say you should read before you die. I tried the guy’s other book…um…” Careful snapping of the fingers as I pretended to search for the answer in the archives of my mind.

“Sons and Lovers,” she said.

“Right. That one didn’t do much for me. But this is…well, I haven’t stopped reading yet.”

Another smile. “It’s pretty good.”

I watched as the impact high of our worlds colliding left her eyes and she shifted back into someone a little more quiet and slightly embarrassed. “I’ll let you get back to your reading. I’m sorry, I just…”

“You haven’t bothered me at all…I didn’t get your name.”

“Margot.”

“Nice to meet you, Margot. Your parents had good taste in names, picking one that starts with M. I’m Manny.”

I stuck out my hand in a measured fashion, charmingly clumsy but not awkward. She was a good sport and shook it. Her touch was warm and soft. Manny liked it. I think I did too. “It’s nice to meet you, Manny. I guess I'll see you around.”

“I hope so. Readers of horny weirdo books have to stick together.”

She gave a little laugh. “That we do.” She got up, gave a little wave, and left to go sit in her own corner of the cafe to read.

The next Saturday she found me in the same spot, reading a new book. She stood above me, hands cradling her mug of coffee, as I flashed her the copy of To the Lighthouse.

“Decidedly less sexy, I take it.”

“Unless stories about sad families and all the things they’re sad about get you off, I’d say no.”

“I’ve tried Woolf a couple of times. Not for me.”

“Yeah. There’s some lovely writing in here but I’m mostly bored.”

“You read Tropic of Cancer yet by Henry Miller?”

“No. It’s on my list, I think. The one I told you about.”

“It’s a great book. Sexy and sad. You get the best of both worlds.”

I tossed To the Lighthouse to the side with a dramatic gesture. “Sold. Sorry Virginia.”

A polite little laugh from her. A flash of something in her eyes. Hope? Enjoyment? My stomach tightened. I wondered if perhaps there were eyes behind her eyes too, looking through Manny and seeing me. 

“It’s nice to have someone to talk books with. I don’t have anyone outside of the server I’m in, which is nice but…”

“It’s different. Talking with someone in the proper world.”

“Right.”

“Well, I’d like to talk more about books with you, if you’re up for that. I’m enjoying myself.”

She cracked a smile. “That’s a pretty smooth way to ask for a date.”

“You gave me the opening unless I’m misreading. And if I am, I apologize. I’m quite happy to be here every Saturday for little chats.”

Her smile grew a little bit wider. “What if I told you I needed time to think about it?”

“I can wait.”

“What’s your number?”

We exchanged numbers and then she left to go read on her side of the cafe. I finished my coffee and left to fulfill Manny’s Saturday routine. I went to the park for a quiet walk, then to the gym for Racquetball. By the time I got home, there was a message from Margot on Manny’s cell.

A date might be nice.

I texted her back. We made plans for next Saturday. Breakfast in her neighborhood instead of our usual encounter at Rapunzel’s Cafe.

I put on a pot of coffee and wrote up a mission update for Lynn. I described the preparation procedures, Manny’s persona, and how I had arranged for a date with the target. I wrote that there had been no signs of ferality yet but I would be able to confirm her status as an Attuned shortly. I put in a request to check out a nanite pistol shortly from the armory.

I did not drift into easy sleep that night. I watched the ceiling for a while and thought about a dead woman, Patricia Quinn, her body slumped over the chair in the diner, the wall behind her soaked in red and bits of brain and skull.

I thought about the agency margin of error, that inescapable figure: 1.14%. I had been so sure she was Attuned. The agency was too. The math made sense. The flashes of predatory patterns.

But she had just been a 32-year old woman. Lonely and in love.

I got up to check my bedroom to make sure there were no bugs listening in. I closed the blinds and locked the windows to keep out drones monitoring my apartment complex.

And then I cried for the woman I had murdered and I cried for me and I cried that I lived in a world where monsters such as myself were made.

*****

“Who the hell doesn’t like The Rolling Stones?”

We were sitting near the marina at dusk, cracking open crabs at a seafood joint. Margot was gaping at me.

I shrugged sheepishly. “Rock isn’t my thing.”

“Wait, so it goes beyond that? You can’t be serious.”

“I like classical music. Can’t really do anything else.”

“No way. One cannot live on bread alone. There’s gotta be something a little more modern you like.”

She ran through the classics as I continued to shake my head. “Beatles? Fleetwood Mac? Outkast? Led Zeppelin? N.W.A? Lady Gaga? Nothing?”

“More of a Mahler kind of guy,” I answered before tossing some crab meat down my gullet. I watched her reaction carefully. This, like all the moments leading to it, was a calculated gamble. Is it off-putting to tell someone on a first date you don’t care for pop music? Absolutely. But Margot liked quirks and challenges.

She sighed and then smiled. “We’re going to have to change that. There’s more to life than symphonies and novels, as wonderful as they are.”

I cracked open another crab leg. “I’ll happily take recommendations.”

“Or we could go to a concert,” she suggested, wiping butter from her hands, her expression relaxed. “Count Riptide is playing downtown next week.”

“Who?”

Another sigh. “They’re one of the most popular bands in the world. My friend can get us tickets for cheap. We don’t have to if you don’t want to…it just might be fun.”

“Well, you’ll be there, so I’ll have fun no matter what, I guess.”

Pearly white smile. “That’s the spirit.”

And just like that: another date. The band – an odd experiment trying to live with one foot in shoegaze and the other in pop punk – was pretty shitty, but I played Manny carefully, a man out of his comfort zone having fun in spite of himself. In turn, Margot got to live out her little fantasy of influencing a person to discover new experiences and evolve in a positive fashion. She danced slowly next to me during the slower songs and even put her head on my shoulder at one point.

“This is fun right? You’re having fun?” she yelled.

“Yes, this is nice!” I answered in a loud, shaky voice to suggest Manny was uncomfortable but also happy to be here with her, his new special person, his rock concert Virgil. 

She kissed me on the cheek and went back to dancing.

A week later there was another date, at an Italian place in the Mission. There was gnocchi and wine and cannoli and plenty of soul-sharing. She told me about her dad dying when she was in high school and having to help her mother get through alcohol recovery. I knew these things already but Manny reacted appropriately, a gentle lust-less I’m so sorry caressing of her hand. He told her the story about his mother getting dementia, still alive an elderly home somewhere in Colorado but disappearing into the unending dark of her mind. It was a story I had used many times, changing the names, the locations, but it always worked well in helping manufacture an intimate connection.

It seemed to do the job here too.  I’m so sorry, she said, her big blue eyes looking into mine. Again, a ripple of unease deep beneath the flesh. Does the thing inside you see me, Margot?  I wondered from deep within my own vessel. I searched her eyes as Manny’s mouth spun a comedic story about getting drunk and waking up naked in a college library. I looked and looked and looked for anything that would give away the predator living within her: a slight uncontrollable shaking of the ring finger the Attuned sometimes have, a nearly imperceptible ripple briefly altering the shape of the iris. Nothing. By all appearances, she was just an ordinary woman. An ordinary, tipsy woman leaning over, caressing Manny’s hand.

“I think we should go home,” she said.

“Home?”

“To my place. I’d like you to come home with me. If that’s okay.”

Manny laughed nervously. “I would love that.”

Hours later, she was sleeping soundly next to me as I watched her. Breathing normal. Skin warm, but not infernal. Going home with her had been a risk. The nanite pistol hadn’t been delivered to me. If she had gone feral, I would have no means to defend myself.

It was sloppy work, against procedure. And yet, I had felt compelled to go into the monster’s lair. Certainly not out of lust. Margot was attractive, proficient in bed, but something else had guided me there that night.

The next morning – after we had a quick breakfast of coffee and granola bars – and I was walking back to Manny’s apartment, my thoughts turned to Patricia again. 

Patricia who had never done anyone wrong, who had been sweet and kind – a lover of paintings and long hikes. Patricia, who volunteered at the soup kitchen every Sunday. Patricia, whose blood and brains and everything she had ever been trickled down the wall of a Greek sandwich shop as people screamed all around me. Patricia, who I had killed, because every agency report and my own internal senses determined she was a monster.

1.14 percent.

Later, I stood in the den of Manny’s apartment, staring down at the picture of Margot in her case file, searching searching searching for some sign I knew I wouldn’t find that would confirm she was a danger to everyone around her.

Around 11, there was a knock at the door. I waited two minutes, per official guidelines, and opened the door to find a small cardboard box in the hallway. No logo, no shipping label. I gently plucked it and brought it inside.

I opened it, already knowing that my nanite pistol – a single round already loaded into the camber – would be there. I stared at the gun for a time before putting it away in the top drawer of my desk. 

And then I went to bed.

*****

The Attuned were a problem. Faceless agents like myself are only half the solution. The other half is the nanite pistol – or as nearly all agents know it, Little Lad. The pistol is barely larger than your average derringer and is made to be tucked into sleeves and small jacket pockets for quickdraw solutions to dangerous problems.

The single round entrusted to agents per assignment is not your standard gunpowder-packed round. The bullet actually contains many tiny nanite bombs that – upon penetration – send said bombs spreading through the target’s muscle, bone, and organs over a wide area. Detonation occurs less than two seconds after striking the target.

A gruesome, yet necessary solution as the Attuned shrug off conventional rounds, causing immense damage and casualties before finally being put down.

The pistol was strapped to my ankle the evening we went out to the pier. We had baskets of oysters and fried shrimp and were drinking cocktails at a small bar looking out across the bay.

“I think they shot some of Zodiac near here,” she said, stirring the straw in her drink.  “Or maybe that was somewhere else.”

“Zodiac?”

“Yeah, it’s a movie. About the killer.”

“You like movies a lot don’t you?”

“Oh yeah. When I was younger, I wanted to be an actress. But not like a stupid one, y’know? Not a bimbo. I wanted to be hot and intelligent and aloof. A striking figure but one that’s always distant.”

“Like Cate Blanchett?”

“Precisely. Who doesn’t want to be Cate Blanchett?”

“I wanna be Cate Blanchett.”

“Baby, you’re wonderful but you’re no Cate Blanchett.”

I…that is to say, Manny shrugged. “A boy can dream.”

We both laughed.

 “So, Miss Blanchett, what’s your favorite movie,” I asked.

“Oh that’s a toughie. I think I’ll need to go another round for that one.”

“The night is young.” We ordered more drinks. She thought for a bit. “So you’re asking me my favorite movie?”

“Right.”

“Not the greatest movie of all time?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, one is my favorite movie. Something I can watch over and over again that speaks to what I love directly. The greatest movie of all time is, like, y’know – what I think is the most important movie ever made.”

“Okay, I want to hear both.”

“Greatest movie of all time is obviously In The Mood for Love by Wong Kar Wai.”

“Obviously, of course.”

“And my favorite…tough. Maybe North by Northwest.”

“That’s Alfie right?”

She chuckled. “Yeah, it’s a Hitchcock."

“What do you like about it?”

“It’s just got everything. It’s a spy thriller with romance, very sexy romance. It’s funny. It’s suspenseful. I saw it when I was a kid and it blended all those genres together in a way that’s stuck with me over the years. I can watch it whenever. It’s a perfect movie.”

“Perfect? That’s high praise.”

“It’s earned.”

I downed the drink. “I have a confession. I haven’t seen either of those movies.”

She shook her head. “I can’t believe I’ve opened my legs to a rube.”

“A rube who is willing to learn. I’d like to see them. I want to see what you see in them.”

She downed her glass. “Mister Winter, I do believe I like the way you think.”

“Why thank you Miss Blanchett. I do try to put what little grey matter I have to the best possible use.”

“Well, why don’t we settle up here, grab a bottle of something fancy from the liquor store, go back to my place, and watch ourselves a movie…maybe get up to some other shenanigans too?”

“I like shenanigans. Big fan of shenanigans.”

She pulled me by the collar over to her and laid a soft kiss on my lips, her teeth nibbling my lower lip before pulling back. “Well, let’s go roll then.”

After a quick detour for a bottle of whiskey, we went to her apartment and watched some Hitchcock. She fell asleep on my shoulder before we could get riled up but I didn’t mind. I felt comfortable and at ease sitting on the couch next to her, close to drunk, and warm. And she was right: the movie was quite good.

When the credits rolled, I took her to bed and then pretended to sleep next to her for the next 10 hours – just in case.

It was nice. I liked it.

*****

A month after the operation began, I found the note. It was inside a Ziploc bag taped to the bottom of a recycling bin a block from Manny’s apartment. The bin was a designated dead drop point that I had been instructed to check every day at least once. 

That morning was the first time there was a message for me, hastily written on a yellow Post-It: 

AYE MATEY’S

TUESDAY @ 7:00 PM

Aye Matey’s had once been a Denny’s before it got gutted and turned into an overpriced pirate-themed family restaurant down in the Mission. The place had actually gone bankrupt years ago but the agency had bought it from the owners and now – alongside serving the rare legit customer – it operated as a safe place for meetings. Today, there were two other filled tables – one family of five and a couple on a date. I wondered if they were plants.

Lynn was sitting at a booth in the back. She was wearing a blonde wig, glasses. As I got closer, I could see she had applied just a bit of makeup and a fake scar right above the lips. Before riding a desk, she had served on the field herself, when disguises were created with the same sort of mindset responsible for special effects in movies. 

When I took a seat, her thin fingers pushed a coffee mug in my direction. “I ordered you the Swashbuckler’s omelet. Sorry if that isn’t what you wanted but I was getting hungry.”

“No worries. I’ve already had dinner. If we could speed things along, I have an engagement with the target at 8:30.”

“Of course. Just wanted a quick check-in. How are you feeling?”

A chill ran over my shoulders. “Right as rain.”

“This the longest you’ve ever been on a case, I believe.”

“Except for the Dolberry case.”

“Yes. Of course. The slasher of Bayview. How could I forget?”

“He was rather elusive. I had to be sure.”

“I take it that’s what’s keeping this current operation from speeding toward its conclusion?”

I blinked. 1.14% flashed through my mind again. “As much as one can be.”

“Were you not sure a week ago when you put in the request for the nanite pistol?”

I looked straight into the eyes behind those dark shades and remained as calm as possible, hoping no temple sweat or lip twitch would betray my elevated heart rate. “I ordered it as a precautionary measure in case I need to defend myself should an extreme situation arise.’

“The likelihood of which increases with every passing day. Initial estimates were she’d go feral within a month and a half. The actual date can fall on either side of that prediction, as you know. The window for action is rapidly closing.”

I took a sip of my coffee to buy myself time to form a response. “Director, I promise I am handling this with the utmost urgency and discretion.”

Lynn was quiet for a moment. “Agent, would you agree the work we do is important?”

“I hope my years of service answer that.”

“I understand the matter with Patricia Quinn was deeply devastating to you. The matter haunts me and I merely oversaw the case.

“Director–”

“Please let me finish, Agent 82…Riley. Everyday, agents like you are the last line in defense against a horrific massacre. If I could tally all the lives you’ve likely saved the past 10 years through your work, you’d find it’d probably reach into the thousands. Miss Quin’s death is deeply unfortunate, but mistakes are made – even in the course of vital work, you see?”

“So she was just a number then?” The response slips out before I can stop myself.

Lynn sighs. “My position requires me to accept that though every life is valuable, some must be sacrificed for the good of others. Take the Attuned themselves. All research shows that most of the time they’re normal people. People with ambitions, with desires, fears, loved ones. They have no awareness of what is inside them. And they have to die. Really, are these poor people any more deserving of death than a bystander like Miss Quinn?”

I said nothing. She was right. 

She touched my arm in a way that should have been comforting but felt all too-practiced. “We can pull you out, you know. If you need more time.”

I shook my head. “No, we’re near the end. pulling out now would jeopardize the operation, make us have to start fresh. Plus, if she is Attuned…she could go feral anytime now. I’ll go ahead and wrap this job.”

She nodded. “Yes. Afterwards, perhaps we schedule a psych eval…just to see where we’re at,” she added, catching my expression. “Maybe you need more time to recover. And that’s okay. The agency is here for you. I’m here for you.”

The food came. Syrup-drizzled pancakes for her, an omelet filled with sausage and tomatoes for me. I asked the waitress to put it in a box. 

A minute later, I was rising to leave with my to-go bag. “Thanks for dinner.”

“Of course. Always my pleasure.”

I turned to go and her voice called to me one last time, firm but gentle. “Agent. Let’s get it done. This week, yes?”

I nodded and left without another word.

*****

It finally happened. After 10 years of service, a slip-up. 

We were at Manny’s apartment. I was washing dishes after a romantic dinner of home-made stuffed peppers and fine wine. It had been a fun meal. Margot told me about her day, how she calmed a child right before they were due to get a cavity filled, how she took a walk through a nearby park at lunch and got to pet a handsome Irish Wolfhound. I told her all about the day I made up in my head. Working from home, lunch and reading at Rapunzel’s, a racquetball session in the late afternoon, and now a lovely evening with a lovely lady.

I felt warm and comfortable…content.

I was running the plates under warm water when I felt Margot’s fingers dance across my shoulder. I looked back. She was smiling widely.

“What?”

“You were singing.”

“Sorry?”

“Under your breath. I think you were singing Patti Smith.”

That warmth suddenly became a chill. “Patti, who?”

“That’s right. I caught you singing a rock song, Mr. Classical Music Only.”

“Nah. You’re mistaken.”

She laughed. “Oh no, I heard you. Because the night belongssss to lovers.”

“I wasn’t!”

“You fucking were, dude. I heard you. It’s okay. It’s cute. It’s very cute. I think I’m rubbing off on you. Soon you’ll be blasting The Rolling Stones, shaking that cute butt to Kesha.”

“You’ve discovered my secret and leave me with no choice.” I switched off the faucet, dried my hands, and did the only thing I could think of, whipping around to tickle her right below her ribs. She squealed in a mixture of horror and delight, fleeing from me as I chased her into the bedroom, a freshly disrobed t-shirt smacking me straight in the face and falling to the floor to reveal Margot, topless, and biting her lip. “Well, close the door. Don’t leave a lady waiting, yeah?”

An hour later, she was fast asleep and I was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, completely naked except for the gun in my hand. I watched her sleep for a time. At one point, I raised the pistol so that its barrel was fixed on her. I could have pulled the trigger then. Sure or not if she was an Attuned, the agency would have signed off on it. To Lynn’s point, wasn’t it better to make a mistake and lose a single life instead of risking multiple thanks to mindless dedication?

The mask had slipped. That had never happened before. Not once across my 96 cases. I had grown too comfortable with this woman. I entertained the possibility that all the signs of ferality were there but that perhaps a mixture of guilt and earnest affection had stopped me from seeing them.

I had been fond of the men and women I had eliminated before. It came with the territory. After all, I was breaking myself down and rebuilding to fit their desires. It stands to reason that I would at least convincingly fabricate some desire for them in return, to make the whole process believable to myself in order to do what had to be done.

But Margot…there was something else here. Manny loved her. But I loved her too. It went beyond words. Perhaps even beyond chemical. I just felt so comfortable around her, looking into those blue eyes, feeling her fingers caress my face, the adrenaline rush of tasting her.

I lowered the pistol, packed it away in the closet. Then I climbed into bed and slept, deeply and fully, for the first time next to her.

*****

Four sleepless days passed. I spent every moment I was with Margot truly with her. We rode cable cars and went to the museum of Modern Art, stalked deals in the flea market, caught a film – Carol Reed’s The Third Man – drank till we stank of whiskey and gin, made love until the early hours of the morning.

Then it happened, just a few hours shy of dawn. Instead of going to sleep, we lay in bed talking, clothes and covers strew around us. At one point, we surrendered at the possibility of going back to sleep and she made us coffee. “Tomorrow, we’ll pay the price but I’m having too much fun to be smart.”

“Me too,” I said. I watched her face as she told me about her childhood somewhere in Ohio. Summers spent wandering down roads leading to who knows where or playing hide and seek in cornfields, Nintendo games, and sleepovers.

I was admiring the shape of her lips. The symmetry of her face. How a few strands of hair always seem to fall over her left ear in graceful fashion. And then I saw it. I was looking deep into those fucking blue eyes of her, and the shapes within changed. Almost imperceptibility and only for a second, but I knew the sign, like an old friend at this point.

“Baby are you ok?” She was looking at me. “You look like you’re about to cry.”

“I just like this moment a lot” were the words that came out of Manny’s mouth. “I hope we get to have a lot of them.” My words.

She smiled. “Me too, baby. Well, I’ve talked long enough. Your turn. I wanna know all about Little Manny.”

I forced myself to tell her the story I had spun for Manny. Childhood in Manhattan. Estranged father. Overburdened and distant mother.  Found love and admiration in a church choir. An interest in Classical Music. A scholarship. Somewhere in all of those lies, some bullshit about him making it to San Francisco.

Manny talked and talked and talked while I tried not to go to pieces. Luckily, she had to go to work an hour later. She kissed me on the forehead goodbye, told me she’d make us dinner tonight.

“That’d be nice.”

When she was gone, I got dressed and crossed several streets to the recycling bin outside of Manny’s apartment.

Sure enough, another Post-It was tapped there:

WE NEED YOU TO COME IN 

I crumpled up the note and stowed it in my jacket. Then I went inside the apartment to get my gun.

*****

I took the elevator down to the cubicle farm and made my way to Lynn’s office. Todd Kilroy caught me a few steps from the door.

“Agent twink, been a while.”

“Not long enough.”

“Sassy today. You know, they’ve got us suiting up tonight. Just in case you can’t handle it. In case you’ve cracked.”

My response surged from me before I could clamp it down. “If you don’t get the fuck out of my way, I’ll make sure you’re cracked.”

Kilroy smiled. “Now that’s something I'd like to see.”

The door to Lynn’s office opened. She peered out. “Agent 82, please come in.”

“See ya Twink,” Kilroy said as I disappeared into my supervisor’s office.

She wasted no time getting to business. “We need you to execute tonight. The drones have captured three temperature spikes in the past 24-hours. Ferality is confirmed and disaster is inevitable unless we act.”

“I know. I saw her iris shift this morning. There is no shadow of a doubt now.”

She nodded, once again giving her practiced, motherly look. “We don’t have to do it by the book, y’know? You can sit this one out.”

“So Todd and his squad can make a carnival out of that woman’s death? No. I’ll take care of it.”

“Are you sure? You seem quite…attached to this one.”

I looked her in the eye. “It’s my assignment. My responsibility. I will see it through to the end.”

“Very well. We’ll be watching.”

“I know.”

A soft expression unfolded over her face. “This isn’t like Patricia, Riley. This time it’s different. You’ve seen it yourself. No room for doubt. If you don’t kill her…”

“I know.”

I left without another word. I went to Manny’s apartment and sat on my bed and waited, staring at the ceiling as the hours drifted by at a glacial pace, trying to clear my mind for what needed to be done.

When the time came, I holstered my pistol into my inseam pocket and walked to Margot’s apartment for dinner.

Now

I sit at the table. She’s over at the stove, stirring a pot with a wooden spoon as the smell of garlic and oregano drifts across the kitchen. A minute later, she’s scooping mushroom rigatoni onto our plates and pouring wine in our glasses.

I tell her it smells delicious.

“Just wait until you taste it.”

She takes a seat and then suddenly claps her hands. “Zula! Play Classical Date Night Mix.”

From the small but powerful speaker in the back of the kitchen, a piano began to play softly.

Manny and I both smile. “That would be John Field, I take it. One of the Nocturnes.”

“I looked up what classical music would make for date night. I sure hope this is off to a good start.”

My heart hammered against my chest. “You didn’t have to do this but yes, perfect opening at least. Pasta is pretty great too.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.”

Do it now, the voice in the back of my head says. Stop wasting time.

Carefully, with a free hand, I pull the pistol from my jacket. Beneath the table, I point it at Margot.

You’ve done this so many times. She’s telling me about her day at the office. She’s telling me how she couldn’t stop thinking about last night. My hand is trembling. Do it, do what you were made to do, goddamn it! My finger lightly pushes against the trigger. I’m so close. Margot doesn’t see any of it. She’s just laughing. She’s so happy to be in this moment with Manny.

And me? Maybe me? Could she love me too?

I relax my grip. The pistol falls into my lap as the tears surge forth in an explosion of sobs and heaves.

“I can’t do it,” I’m saying, softly, then yelling. “I can’t fucking do it.”

Margot wastes no time, rushing over to me, her elbow knocking over her wine glass to the floor as she wraps her arms around me.

“Baby, what’s wrong? What happened?” she’s whispering to me.

“They’ll be coming to kill you. And then probably me. You have to run.”

“Who?”

“My bosses. They think you’re a monster.” I pull the pistol from my lap and lay it on the table. “I’ll take care of it. You just run.”

I wait, expecting a flurry of protests and questions but she looks from the pistol back to me and she smiles softly. 

Something in me goes cold. She knows. She’s known all along.

She stoops down and, with gentle, still hands, brings my face to hers and kisses me on the forehead. “Don’t be scared, Manny. I’ll take care of it.”

“They’re going to be here any minute. They’re probably already in the lobby. I can buy you time.”

“Shhh, baby, I’ll take care of it. All of it. Just stay here.”

I watch as she darts across the kitchen into her bedroom, closing the door. I try to stand but my legs are jelly. I’m undone by nerves. I try to grasp the gun but my hand, instead of clutching it, swipes it to the floor.

Before I can pick it up, the front door shakes violently, ending with a massive crunch as the door flies off its hinges. The Dragoon squad surges in, assault rifles aimed directly at me. Todd steps out in front of the four officers and leers at me through the visor of his helmet.

“I always knew you were weak stuff, Agent Twink. Didn’t take you for a traitor though. Where’s the Attuned?”

“Gone. Far from here.”

“I think not. One chance: tell me where she is and we’ll take you in alive. Ass-whooped but alive. Otherwise, well…” He aims the rifle at my chest. I look down at my gun. None of the mental calculations I make – even in the most favorable odds – end with me getting a shot off before they pop me.

Before either of us can make a play, the floor rumbles like it’s under siege from an earthquake. The entire west wall of the apartment goes down in an explosion of rubble and dust, knocking us all to the ground.

I waste no time scrambling to grab the nanite pistol. I turn to find that Todd has already recovered, is on one knee, the rifle in his hands pointed at me. Too bad for him he doesn’t see what I see: something moving in the smoke above him. Something huge.

The shape lifts him like he’s a plaything, the assault rifle falling from his hands as he screams in terror. A wet crunch replaces the scream. I watch as the man’s headless body flies into the wall, leaving a red smear upon impact.

The other Dragoon members are screaming now. The shape cleaves one of them in half and catches the second trying to run for the door. Snatching him up in the air, it hurls him through the window, where he plummets to his doom several stories below.

The last soldier raises his rifle and has enough distance between him and the shape to get at least a few shots off.

My pistol makes sure he doesn’t get the chance. He has just enough time to look down at the spot on his arm where I tagged him before he’s reduced to red mist and chunks of meat.

I toss the pistol and slowly get to my feet. The thing in the smoke turns its attention to me.

“You have to go, baby.” I say. “They’ll send more.”

The massive shape takes a step forward. The dust swirls and finally dissipates, revealing Margot’s beautiful face, a band with a feather wrapped around her head. She towers over me, eight feet at least. Glorious green feathery wings have affixed themselves to her arms, now covered in Dragoon blood.

Questions surge through my mind. I settle for “What are you?”

“Something like you, my love. Something in hiding. But only lonesome things hide. You reminded me of that. We can be open now. Together.”

I look down at the empty pistol. “I was going to…I…” I can’t get the words out.

“Hush now.” She lowers herself to my level. “You could not hurt me because you are a good person, one worthy of my love.”

“I’m not. I’ve done things. Horrible things.”

“You have a good heart. You should trust me on this. I have many years of experience on this matter.”

I shake my head. I can work through this shit later, when she’s not in danger. “There will be more soon. They will find us.”

“Then I will take us where they cannot.” She reaches down with one arm. I take it and she pulls me up to her neck.  

“Cling tightly.”

“Where will we go?” 

“There are many places in the world where the likes of us can still find peace. Now don’t let go.”

I can hear them now, surging up the stairwell, screaming to shoot on sight. Beyond them, sirens screech as more shouting officers arrive and a crowd of bystanders gather to behold the disaster unfolding in the Sunset District.

But they’re too late. All of them. She takes to the night sky. A full moon illuminating our path amongst the clouds, the cool breeze blowing across our bodies as we search for a future where we can be the people we’re meant to be.

We are soaring.

Artist: Trevor Henderson

Trevor Henderson is a horror illustrator, writer and creature concept artist who is best known for creating the character Siren Head, which became a viral sensation online.

Trevor designed numerous monsters for the film Tarot, and is always looking for new creature concept design work in film or games. He wrote and illustrated the middle grade horror chapter book "Scarewaves" for Scholastic, and has a sequel due to be released this coming August.

Trevor lives in Toronto with his partner Jenn and their bossy cat, who is named Boo.

You can find Trevor’s portfolio here.