"Want the radio on?"

Elena is in the driver's seat. Her chair's pulled in so close to the wheel that her legs are pressed up almost to her chest. We're in a Jeep that reeks of old boots. My oversized rucksack with tent, food, clothes, flair, and all the rest, is sprawled over the backseat.

"Nah."

She nods and her fingers tap nervous waves over the wheel. "Good choice. It's going to be a short ride, so there's really not that much point. As soon as you get into a song, it'll be over, you know? So annoying when that happens. I remember as a kid, Dad pulling up to the house in the middle of my favorite tune, and I'd make him just sit there with me, parked up until it finished. Then I'd let him turn the keys and escape." Nervous laugh.

The air's electric still. That sensation when your body knows somethin' bad -- maybe a storm, maybe not -- is about to hit. The trees are pale in the morning light, as if they've not quite woken up yet. Their verdant splendor is more of a reluctant mold-green.

I'd spent the night back at the base. Got briefed, as much as they were willing to tell me. Got a check-up with a doctor who himself looked on the cusp of death, which didn't seem a great sign.

Got dinner with Susie, too.

That had been the worst of it. Like having dinner with the ghost of someone you'd once loved. Not even the ghost, just the trampled on memory of the person.

She hadn't changed much physically. Still svelte and tight around the waist, still curved in the other places that mattered. Her hair was a more peroxide blonde than I remembered it, but there ain't nothing wrong with a woman that dyes. If anything, the gentle crows-feet around her eyes, and the more careful, measured smiles suited her. Mature, but classic. The opposite of what I had become. Juvenile and stale.

Yeah, she hadn't changed much physically, but Christ, it didn't feel like I was catching up with the Susie I knew. Hey Sam, nice to see you again. Have you been well? I have a kid now. I hear you're going into the fog. That's neat -- back on the team, like old times. Gee, isn't the food here terrific, considering the circumstances?

Susie, the one locked away in my memory vault, was full of life, and what the French call joie de vivre. She was caring, considerate. A skinny dipping sex hound that every man, woman, wanted to just... to just be near. To bathe in her aura and try and take a bit of it home with them.

Hear you're going into the fog. That's neat.

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Yeah, neat that I'm going into the fog. To very possibly die. Her voice hadn't cracked with concern, her hand hadn't trembled. Eleven years of heartache burning away at me, and she was looking through me wondering if she could get more mash. I ask about the dead storms. Yeah, that's too bad.

"You okay?" says Elena, her fingers still rapping away on the wheel.

"Mmm hmm." I force my mind away from Sue, and watch as the valleys plunge and rise out of the window, like the lines on an EPG, as I hurtle forwards towards fate.

"You've every right to be nervous. I mean, who wouldn't be, right? Who knows what's causing all this? Who knows, even, how your body'll react to it for sure?"

I give her a stern look. She catches it.

"Sorry. I'm just... I guess I'm just a little nervous."

She's fucking nervous? "About getting so close to the zone?"

"Yeah. That. And other things. I honestly don't know how you're handling it so well."

Oh, I just squeeze my eyes shut and think of all the ways I'm going to waste my soon-found wealth. Hookers, snooker, Cubans, rum. "I'm just doin' my best."

She nods. "I think you're brave."

"Uh huh."

Elena opens her mouth and closes it again. Her fingers tap faster.

"What is it?" I ask.

"Huh?"

"You want to say something, so just say it."

Her cheeks flush red. "Just that I'm sorry."

Ah. Guilt. That's what it is. She's not going to make much of an agent if she feels guilt like a normal person does. Heck, all she did was try to trick me into coming to the base. How would she survive real assignments if-- Then it dawns. She feels guilty because she thinks I'm going to die. She's treating this as some kind of confession with a prisoner who is on death row. Well, what she needs is a priest, not a prisoner.

"You've said that already."

"I know," she says. "I just... Wanted to make sure you knew."

She wants absolution but she's looking in the wrong place. I wonder if this is the only sin that she's feeling remorse over, or if I'm some kind of vessel she's unloading into. Then she'll send me sailing into the night, set on fire, soon to sink with all my secrets on board.

"Anything you want to tell me?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "Nothing other than what I said. I don't always like how we have to go about getting the job done."

"Right."

We spend the next few minutes in silence, me staring out the window trying to decide how I'll spend my millions. Her tapping away.

Something in the Jeep begins to beep.

"What's that?"

"That's how we know we're getting close," she says.

As we crawl forward, off the road and between trees, the pace of the beeping increases, until soon it's like a heart before it has an attack. BeepBeepBeep.

Eventually, we pull over.

Elena looks at me, big eyes, cute mole. "This is as far as I can take you."

I nod, get out, get my bag from the backseat and sling it over my shoulders. Fucker's heavy. I'm starting to wonder if Carl didn't put a few boulders in the bottom just to mess with me.

Elena points to a hill. "That way," she says. "You should see the haze of the fog once you're up on it."

"I've got a map, Elena. I've got a compass. I've been briefed."

"Right. Yes, of course. Sorry."

I turn and begin my hike towards the hill. That wild electric feeling still buzzes through my body. I suddenly notice how good I'm feeling.

Maybe the best I've felt in weeks.

"Good luck," she shouts after me.

I almost expect a 'and I really am sorry' to follow it. But it doesn't come.