Robert Crane - Family

“Yes,” Ariadne said. “Fine. But I want constant communication between the guards. If someone goes silent I want everyone on them within a minute. None of this ridiculousness where we don’t find out until later that we’ve lost a string of agents. Constant. Communication.” She put emphasis between the words. “Got it?”

“Yes,” Eve answered more abruptly than the others. “But you know, we don’t have to let Sierra leave after the trade—”

“No,” Ariadne said.

“Why not?” Eve’s balding head flushed red at her cheeks, the new skin redder than her older, giving her head a blotchy look.

“Because,” Ariadne said as she looked at me, “we’re going to keep our word.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Parks said with a nod, and turned to file out of the office. Bastian followed him, and Eve began to extricate herself by walking around the length of Ariadne’s desk. Clary stood and then turned toward me, looking down on me as though he had an eye on an insect. I watched him, and he jerked toward me as though he were about to hit me, but stopped after only the barest start to the motion. I kept my cool but glared at him, and he smiled in return, and let out a chuckle before walking past me and out the door.

“So am I going back to the confinement cell?” I asked, jarring Ariadne out of her thoughts. She put the pen down and I noted that the end of it had been worn to a nub by her teeth. “Or am I free to wander about the campus?”

“No to the first,” she said, straightening up in her seat, “no to the second. I’ll have you stay here in headquarters, but you can remain up here on the fourth floor while we wait. I’ll have some food brought around since you haven’t eaten.” She picked up her phone and started to dial. “Want anything in particular?”

“Anything but meatloaf,” I replied. She got a curious look on her face, then shook it off.

“How was your stay in the Chateau Directorate?” Reed asked me. He was still standing where he had during the meeting, only a foot away from me.

“The beds were poor, the food was terrible, and they didn’t have turndown service,” I said. “I think I’ll book another getaway next weekend.”

He smiled. “Good to see you’re keeping a perspective on the whole thing. I’m not sure I’d be quite so forgiving if my employer had imprisoned me.”

“What else was I going to do?” I asked. “Weep? Scream? Tear my hair out?”

“Leave?” he suggested. “Strike out on your own? Find something else to do with your life?”

I looked back at him, pondering a reply. “Jury’s still out on all that. Looks like I’ll be going with my mother for a while, anyway.” I fumbled my hands, and reached into my pocket, where I felt the weight of the watch that had supposedly belonged to my father. I pulled it out and tried to slip it on my wrist, but it fell off and I caught it as it did so.

His face got inscrutable, and he looked down. “Nice watch,” he said.

“This?” I raised it up. “Apparently it was my father’s.”

Ariadne hung up the phone. “Your father’s? Where did you get it?”

“My mom left it for me,” I said, “the other night when she snuck on campus.”

“Are you freaking kidding me?” She was on her feet in an instant.

“No,” I said. “It was on my bed when I got back—” My face went blank. “Oh. Wow, do I feel stupid.”

“Give it here,” she said, fingers out and beckoning. I gave it a last look of longing and let it fall into her hand.

“Be careful with it,” I said, “in case it’s real.”

“I’m sure our tech guys will disassemble it with the utmost care,” she said, “since it’s probably laden with bugs. This is how she’s finding out everything—”

“It’s not,” Reed said with a gentle shake of his head. He looked at the watch, still suspended from Ariadne’s fingers, and drew my gaze there as well. “It’s not from her mother. I left it there.”

“You?” I asked, and my mouth dropped open. “How…why?”

“You read my note?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Your father would have wanted you to have it.”

“You…you knew my father?” I stared at him hungrily. “You knew him?”

“I did,” Reed said. “Before he died. He was the one who was responsible for me joining Alpha. He had been with them for years and years.”

“I need a name,” Ariadne said, sitting back down in her chair and sliding to the hutch behind her, where her computer waited.

Reed hesitated. “Jonathan. Jonathan James Traeger.”

She blinked at him for a moment and then turned back to her computer, typing. “Jonathan James Traeger…hmmm…” She squinted and stared at the screen. “He was a handler for the Agency before it was destroyed.” She looked up at me. “I would presume that’s where he met your mother.” She looked to Reed, who nodded. “Previous affiliations…hm…looks like he died in the attack that destroyed the Agency.” She looked at Reed. “That doesn’t really jibe with him working with Alpha.”

“Actually, it does,” Reed said. “He was working for Alpha the entire time, keeping an eye on the Agency. They were concerned the Agency was overstepping its bounds, suppressing metas’ rights – which is something that tends to happen when a government becomes aware of metahuman existence and starts to view them as a threat.”

“Were they?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Was the Agency killing them, on government orders?”

Reed shrugged. “Not really. I mean, they certainly made a few really bad ones disappear into a deep dark hole never to return – not unlike you guys – but I’ve read his…uh…Jon’s reports, and they seem to point to an Agency with an almost pathological desire to avoid that sort of anti-meta trap that other governments have fallen into over the years. He thought it was because the Agency’s upper management wanted to stay on the right side of it, that it wasn’t an accident and that they tried to keep a good reputation among metas.”

Ariadne looked at us, her smoky eyes making it hard to discern what she was thinking. “We’ve tried to do much the same. For metas that are awakened, that are aware of the world and whose parents have told them, there’s a tight-knit underground community. Ruin your reputation and a lot of doors slam shut in your face; burning bridges like that can be a quick way to ensure you have to work five times as hard to get half as much done.” She blinked. “At least that’s the way the Director has always explained it.”

“Whatever the reason,” Reed went on, “Jon kept working with the Agency after his assignment for Alpha was completed.” He turned to me. “It was because he met your mother.”

I stared back at him, trying to process everything. A question popped to mind. “You said he’s the reason you got into Alpha.” Reed suddenly looked deeply uncomfortable. “How old are you?”

He seemed to let out a slight sigh of relief. “Twenty-five.”

I frowned. “But then, when the Agency was destroyed, you would have been like seven—”

A beeping cut us off, the sound of Ariadne’s cell phone going off. She blinked at it then picked it up and held it to her ear. “Yes?” Her eyes widened. “What?” She rolled in her chair backward to the window and looked out. “Son of a…all right.” She pulled the phone from her ear and spun around to me. “Your mom is already here, waiting on the lawn with Kat.”

“That was fast,” Reed said. “She was on campus already when she called?”

“Or close nearby,” Ariadne agreed. She looked to me. “You ready to go with her?”

My jaw tightened. “Not really. But I’m not all that excited to spend the rest of my life in a holding cell, either.”