It is an interesting fact that if you bring in a man for a recent crime, you can get an insight into his guilt by his demeanor. If he’s jittery, nervous, and wired, then he’s probably innocent. If he’s calm, relaxed, or even sleepy, then he’s probably guilty. This is because of the adrenaline of the act wearing off.

When Sophia brought me into the metal room I’d first awakened in and handcuffed me to the chair, I was asleep within minutes. It was perhaps the best rest I’d gotten in months and that included the mission in Thailand. This time, no dreams or memories interrupted my sleep, just the cold reassuring nothingness of oblivion. I was hoping Hell was like that.

“G,” Persephone’s voice intruded on my rest, followed by the sound of a metal case slamming down on the table. I was jolted to consciousness, finding myself face-to-face with the director.

Still dressed in the same attire she’d been wearing in her holographic projection, Persephone looked halfway between relieved and pissed at my survival. The short elderly woman was my personal bane, and only the fact that she could have me murdered at any moment kept me from saying what I really thought of her.

“Five more minutes, Mom,” I said, straightening my back.

Not that I was respectful.

On the table was a metal camera case, the kind the International Refugee Society used to smuggle weapons and sensitive equipment through airports and security. Anyone who scanned the interior would find nothing more than the kind of thing people expected inside. It was the heavy-duty version of my briefcase model and usually given to agents who were about to go on missions that required extensive fieldwork. It was a sign I wasn’t about to be shot in the back of the head for my screw-up, not that I’d seriously entertained the idea.

Twenty percent chance at most.

Persephone tossed me the keys to my handcuffs. “I’d give you the dressing-down of a lifetime for the absolute clusterfuck you’ve left us to clean up at Logan, but I’m too pissed off about F’s defection to care. That slimy little bastard managed to fool us all, and I’m about ready to have S punished for killing him since it deprives me of the satisfaction of having him tortured.”

“We have better methods for interrogation than that, ma’am,” I said, unlocking myself.

“The torture would be after we interrogated him!”

“Point taken,” I said, taking the briefcase, and checking the contents. There was a disguised sniper rifle, pistol, explosives, disguised knife, knock-out drugs, poisons, bugs, tracking devices, and other tools of professional murder. Strangely, the case was absent the usual tablet and cellphone info-jacks. “Missing a few things.”

“We’re upgrading your IRD implant to Generation Four. Everything will be wireless from now on.”

I grimaced. “That’s not going to require more of my brain being removed, is it?”

“It’s actually smaller. Not that you ever used what we removed.”

“I love you too, ma’am.”

Persephone raised an eyebrow at him. “Your boyish charms are lost on me.”

I was about to say, “So you admit I’m charming,” but decided against it. This was a serious situation and I didn’t want to test Persephone’s patience right now. “So, was F telling the truth about Gordon?”

I assumed she’d finished debriefing S and Marissa. I had an unnaturally good internal clock and could tell about four hours had passed.

If Persephone knew of any relationship between the two of us, she didn’t show it. “Yes, he was being transported here by his guards when they were ambushed around the jet transporting him.”

“How does this relate to Y and Z?”

“Whenever there seems to be a large-scale threat to our agents, Gordon is supposed to be summoned as a consultant.”

I blinked, wondering what I’d stepped into. What was my father’s relationship to the Society and Letters program. “I see. So, they were killed to lure him in.”

“Not just them. D and M were also killed.”

They were another husband and wife team. African Americans. Genuinely happy as far as I could tell.

They hadn’t needed their memories back.

“Then they slipped him right out from under our nose in our backyard,” I said, shaking my head. “I’d admire the audacity of it if not for the fact that it’s gotten my friends killed.”

“Co-workers,” Persephone corrected. “Let’s be honest, you don’t have many friends here.”

She was wrong. Y had been my friend. I wasn’t about to clue her in to how we had bonded, though.

“So what now?” I asked.

“As appallingly stupid as your setting off a bomb in an American airport was, I can’t fault you for the damage you did. If nothing else, we don’t look like complete fools before our clients. We have to retaliate against the Carnevale and recover Doctor Gordon.”

I nodded. “I’d think you’d want to destroy the Carnevale for this.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Persephone looked up and gave a half-smile, which I found chilling. “Oh don’t get me wrong, I intend to pay them back in a way that will make those Italian pricks’ grandchildren feel it. However, we must avoid appearing unprofessional in front of our clients. If we look like we’re reacting in a manner other than business-like, then we’re likely to lose clients, and that is unacceptable.”

Ah, yes, business. What it always boiled down to. The cheapest of the Society’s hits cost a hundred thousand dollars, and they didn’t even bother using Letters for that, subverting our entire purpose. Instead, the International Refugee Society specialized in contracts costing millions and often being accompanied by favors that made them hundreds of millions in the long term. I had no idea who controlled the Society, but its board of directors had to be filthy rich. Assuming it wasn’t our Karma Corp’s shareholders or a government we answered to.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, taking a deep breath.

“The other Letters have already been briefed on their missions to make the Carnevale regret their decision. You, on the other hand, are going to Italy.”

I blinked. “All right.”

“Your mission is to recover or terminate Gordon.”

I kept my face impassive. This was almost too good to be true. “You want me to track him down?”

“We want you to infiltrate the Carnevale and find out where he’s kept. Once there, you’ll contact us and we’ll advise you on how to proceed. I question your judgement, loathe your personality, and would love to put a bullet in the back of your head—but you are a very good agent in complicated scenarios. It’s about the only reason you’re still alive.”

“I do my best.” I paused. “Infiltrating the Carnevale will be difficult since they have my face.”

“We can fix that.”

I continued to keep my face impassive but grimaced internally. “All right.”

“We want you to impersonate Agent F.”

I blinked, repeatedly. “You can’t be… of course you’re serious.”

“Delphi has managed to crack the method of communication used between F and the Carnevale. They were using a worm inserted into Delphi that made her blind to their e-mails and instant messages, but they were still recorded. You’ll study them, act like they expect, win their trust, and get Gordon out. Oh, and if you are capable, kill both the Caesar and his daughter.”

That last bit would have caused a double take if I were a lesser man. “That’s a lot of mission parameters.”

“We won’t get another chance to get this close to the Caesar. The only good thing to come out of this is the chance to strike at that fat bastard.”

“And his daughter?”

“A successful assassin in her own right. She is likely to take over the Carnevale upon his death. Whether she helps him along or not.”

“I’ll need information on them both.”

“Delphi will brief you personally.”

“Delphi doesn’t have a person.”

“Don’t get snide. I know that’s difficult for you, but this is a mission where you’re very likely to get killed and then I’ll be forced to fake a terrorist attack at the most likely locations for Gordon or something even less subtle.”

I believed she should. “All right. I’ll take the job—”

“As if you had any choice.”

“Provided the fee is high enough.”

Persephone’s expression didn’t change, but there was something hinting at respect behind her eyes. Speaking in a low, dry tone, she asked, “Have you already gone through the hundred thousand dollars you were paid for Redwood?”

“This isn’t a client contract. This is a revenge contract for the Society. That means I want a personal contractor’s fee equivalent to the danger and priority of the target—”

“Yes, yes.”

“Then I want you to double it.”

Persephone paused, now no longer amused. “He’s a target Delphi puts the client price for at twenty million Euros. That would equal to two million for your efforts.”

I sucked in my breath. I’d never been paid anything close to that.

Persephone said, “I’ll pay you twenty percent above the additional rate and give you two weeks of vacation. If you ever try to strong arm me again, I’ll have you killed.”

“Understood.” I couldn’t help myself, though. “And the daughter?”

“A straight million dollar fee. Well above what she’s worth.”

Three million dollars bought a lot even in this line of business. I’d been looking to purchase a yacht or mansion separate from the one S and I theoretically inhabited. I wouldn’t get to spend much time there, but every moment was precious when your entire life consisted of five years.

“And Gordon?”

Persephone was through playing games. “I won’t have Marissa killed or transferred. I don’t mind Letters fucking their Assistants. That’s part of what they’re there for. However, I do mind when they develop feelings that might compromise their objectivity during a mission.”

I mentally made a note to make sure she died in a way that didn’t reflect on me. “Point taken.”

Persephone nodded. “Good. This is not a mission with the option of failure. Marcus Gordon is a gifted geneticist and cyberneticist who is responsible for many of our advantages in the field. However, that’s not what makes him dangerous. Marcus has spent the past decade in an administration position that gives him unparalleled access to countless other areas of Black Technology research. The Carnevale having access to Fourth Generation technology would be bad enough, but they could sell it on the open market and bring an end to the international embargo which has kept the world at peace for the last fifteen years.”

“North Korean cyborgs, African warlords with AI hacking the Pentagon, and mafia men able to delete their profiles in every major criminal server. I get it.”

“You really don’t. Forget all that. Imagine some Dotcom releasing all our advances to the public. Before the year is out, countless people will have altered what is believed to be human, and then who knows what will happen. We’re as likely to have as much in common with the next generation of humans in such a situation as I do with the roach I stepped on an hour ago.”

“We’ve got roaches down here?”

Persephone narrowed her eyes. “The Singularity may not be possible to avert, G, but one of the Society’s goals is to control what form it may take, as well as delay it for as long as possible. Keep that in mind.”

Persephone turned around and walked out the door, leaving me alone in the metal room. I then saw Marissa, having changed back into her goth attire, at the door. She was peering in.

“Heard all that, did you?” I asked.

Marissa nodded. “I suppose we were fools to believe we could hide our relationship from our masters.”

I closed the case on the desk and picked it up. It weighed about fifty pounds, but to me, it might as well have been weightless. “I’m still glad we tried. What the hell is a Singularity?”

“It’s a theoretical state described by Polish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam in 1958 in which technological progress reaches the point where humanity as we know it ceases to exist. Brain uploads, gestalt consciousness, AI building other AI, mass-cloning, self-replicating nanotechnology. and other stuff.”

“So, Black Technology.”

“Generation Six or Seven would probably qualify. We’re not quite there yet.”

“And when we are?”

“Imagine God. Imagine we built her.”

I was now deeply uncomfortable. “I liked it better when all we did was kill people for money.”

Marissa walked in beside me and wrapped her arm around mine. “I’m pretty sure that’s still what we’re doing. The governments of the world would love to ban Black Technology, but it’s too damn useful. Hence, it’s being used for the oldest service of them all.”

“Prostitution?”

“Second oldest service.”

“Ah, murder.”

I forced aside all thoughts of superhuman enhancements and the fact that I was being sent to kill who was possibly my father. Instead, I focused on the two things that really mattered in my life: the woman at my side and the big honking payday that awaited the successful completion of this mission.

And what could be more human than that?