I Am the Mission

by Allen Zadoff

  I don’t yet know what Francisco’s trying to achieve, but I remind myself to stay sharp until I understand him better. I take long, slow, deep breaths, keeping my tired muscles oxygenated and at maximum readiness.

  “When did you know?” I say.

  “For sure? Not until this morning during the defense drill.”

  “And everyone else?”

  “Only Moore and I were in on the plan. We warned Lee about you in a general way, but he is easily swayed. He believed in you.”

  “What about Miranda?” I say.

  His eyes widen slightly.

  “Does that matter to you?” he asks.

  I think of her in my room last night, standing naked in front of me. Was it all a trick to confuse me and get me to reveal myself? The idea is upsetting to me, much more than it should be.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “And she doesn’t matter.”

  I can see it on his face. He knows I’m lying.

  “We left her out of it,” he says gently.

  I feel relief inside. The feeling surprises me.

  “You’re the only one who knows, then. You and Moore.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you bring me out here to kill me?”

  “I brought you here to talk to you. Because as I got to know you, Daniel, I saw something in you that I didn’t expect.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Potential.”

  He drops the pinecone at his feet. I keep my attention on his center mass, ready to defend myself against a potential strike.

  But he doesn’t strike.

  Instead he tells me a story.

  “MY NAME IS FRANCISCO GONZALEZ,” HE SAYS.

  “I am the son of a Mexican tycoon. My father made his fortune in banking. I had a blessed life because of the family I was born into and the natural talent God gave me. I was a soccer player, recruited to the Cruz Azul Youth Academy before the sixth grade. I was away and training when the accident happened. My parents died in a private plane crash. Pilot error, the authorities called it after they investigated.”

  Pilot error. He says the phrase like it’s an insult.

  “You don’t believe it was an accident?” I ask.

  “I lost my parents, and then The Program came for me. Would you believe it?”

  “It’s hard to know what to believe when The Program is involved.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “The Program told me they were offering me a new life. I was lost after my parents died, and so I agreed. I chose to go with them, but I didn’t know what I was signing up for. None of us do.”

  I remember Mother in a room of the training house after my parents died. I remember her talking to me for the first time, giving me a choice between life and death.

  “How old were you when they came for you?” Francisco asks.

  “Twelve.”

  “Do you think a twelve-year-old should be asked to make a choice like that?”

  Life or death. Not much of a choice.

  “What does it matter now?” I say. “It’s over and done.”

  “I’m not blaming you,” he says. “We all made the same choice in the same situation.”

  “We? You mean there are more of us?” I say.

  “There are a few.”

  “Before this mission, I only knew about two. Me and the one who brought me in.”

  “Who was that?” he says.

  “He has many names. But I know him as Mike.”

  “Mike,” Francisco says. His face goes pale. “I thought they’d send him for me.”

  “You know him?”

  He nods.

  “If you know him, then you would have seen him coming,” I say.

  “Maybe. You never know with Mike.”

  “You’re afraid of him,” I say, surprised.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I’m not afraid of anyone.”

  “That’s what you believe,” he says.

  “Because it’s true.”

  He smiles and shakes his head. I don’t like the look on his face.

  “I’m afraid of Mike for good reasons,” Francisco says. “I’m afraid because he is Alpha.”

  “Alpha?”

  “The first. The Program began with him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’m Beta.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. The Program has been cloaked in mystery to me, revealing to me only what they felt I needed to know.

  The curiosity inside me is overwhelming.

  “What am I?” I say, my voice barely a whisper.

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  I shake my head.

  “I can’t say for sure,” he says. “But looking at you, I’d say you’re Epsilon.”

  Epsilon. The Greek number five.

  I sort the information Francisco is giving me. I see the schematic in my head.

  Francisco Beta

  Mike Alpha

  ? Delta

  ? Gamma

  Me Epsilon

  “There are five of us,” I say.

  “Maybe more,” he says, “but five that I know about.”

  “Mike is the oldest.”

  “And you’re the youngest.”

  “What happens after?” I say.

  Francisco smiles then. A kind smile.

  “You’ve thought about it, too,” he says.

  I look at the ground, ashamed.

  I have avoided these questions and the dangerous places they can take me in my mind, but talking with Francisco, the questions come rushing to the surface:

  What happens when we reach an age where we no longer fit in? What happens when we can’t pass for kids anymore?

  What happens to a teen assassin who is no longer a teen?

  Francisco says, “I don’t know what happens, because nobody has aged out yet. Mike is the closest, but he’s found a niche for himself.”

  “A niche?”

  “Recruiter. I was next in line, but I wasn’t going to wait around to find out what would happen. Not when there were better options.”

  Camp Liberty. Francisco’s assignment turned into his way out.

  “I have a question for you,” Francisco says. “What was your exact assignment?”

  “Moore,” I say.

  I see him swallow hard. “What about me?” he says.

  I shake my head. “They thought you were dead. They didn’t send me for you; they sent me because of you. Because you lost the mission.”

  An expression of pain crosses his face. He stands and rubs his forehead, pressing at the sides of his temples.

  He is emotional, much more than I would expect for someone with his training. It makes me wonder about him, gives me some clue into his strengths and weaknesses.

  “So you’re my replacement?” he says.

  “That’s right.”

  He laughs, a loud laugh that echoes through the forest.

  “That’s fucking great,” he says. “I went off grid and they couldn’t figure out how or why, so they told you I was dead, right?”

  “They had to assume you were dead,” I say. “What else could you be?”

  He laughs again.

  “Don’t you see? I confused the hell out of them,” he says. “Their soldier turned against them. It’s so inconceivable to them they could only assume I was dead. I would pay to have seen Mother’s face after I dropped off the grid.”

  “How did you go off grid without them knowing?” I say.

  “I destroyed my phone,” he says. He steps toward me, his voice dropping to an intense whisper. “And something else.”

  “What else?”

  “I’ll show you,” he says.

  He looks around the woods to check that we’re still alone, and then he unbuttons his shirt, slips one arm out of the long flannel. It’s afternoon now, and the woods are cast in a golden glow. He runs his fingers down his arm, tracing something there.

  I step closer, squi
nting until I see them, cut marks running up and down his arms and across his chest as if he were attacked by an animal. Some are scarred over, others are still healing.

  The flannel shirt. He wears it to hide the marks.

  “It took me a while, but I found it,” he says.

  “Found what?”

  “The Program. It’s inside us.”

  He points to one particular scar on his bicep, near the shoulder joint.

  “You’re implanted, too,” he says.

  “Implanted?”

  “They put a chip inside you,” he says.

  I flash back to the house where I was trained. I try to remember any medical procedures, surgeries, anything invasive enough to have been an implantation surgery.

  I don’t remember anything like that.

  “What kind of a chip?” I say, not believing, but wanting to keep him talking.

  “It’s a neurosuppressor,” he says. “You already know what it does.”

  “How would I know?”

  “Because you’ve felt it,” he says. “It takes away your fear.”

  I look at Francisco standing without his shirt on, a ghostly glow around him.

  I am alone on a mountain with someone trained just like me, someone who is my enemy, miles from help or support.

  I should be afraid, but I am not.

  I’m never afraid.

  Through mission after mission, through dangerous, near-death situations, I do not get afraid. I have moments of fear that fade as soon as they arise.

  “Let’s say you actually found a chip. How would you know what it did? Did they tell you?”

  “Never,” he says. “They’re not going to tell us we’re the subject of an experiment. I know what the chip does because I took it out. Then everything became clear. It’s like an emotional throttle. You start to feel fear, and it clamps down, sends a signal to your brain that takes the edge off. This is why I could go into any situation, no matter how dangerous, and still function. I could think clearly no matter what was going on around me.”

  He’s describing my own skill set. Characteristics I thought were a part of my personality and training.

  “The part they don’t understand…” he says. “If you don’t feel fear, you don’t feel joy or love. Not in any real way. Without the fear, the risk is gone. And without risk, rewards don’t matter. You’re left with nothing much at all. You’re numb.”

  He watches me, gauging my reaction.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “I would be thinking the same if someone had told me this four months ago.”

  “What am I thinking?”

  “You’re thinking I’m insane.”

  I look at Francisco sweating in the cool forest air, his flesh marked by a hundred cut marks, his eyes wild.

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re also measuring what I say against your own experience. So you know it’s true.”

  I smile, trying to placate him.

  “I know you believe it.”

  “You still don’t understand, do you?” he says. “I’m telling you these things because I want you to know. So you can save yourself.”

  My smile fades.

  “I don’t need saving.”

  “Do you know the easiest way to die, Daniel?”

  “I know several ways.”

  “Not the easiest way to kill. The easiest way to die.”

  “In your sleep.”

  “Very good. And why is that?”

  “If you’re asleep, you don’t know that you’re dying,” I say.

  He nods. “That’s you. You’re dying right now and you don’t know it. You are asleep and dying. I’m trying to wake you up.”

  He steps toward me. I look at the marks up and down his arms.

  He says, “Find the joint where your humerus meets your elbow. Check an inch interior from there.”

  I can’t listen to this anymore. It’s a distraction. He’s trying to trick me, get my arms out of position so he can strike.

  “Check,” he says, his voice urgent.

  “There’s nothing to check,” I say firmly, and I step away from him.

  He looks at me, astonished.

  “They own you,” he says in a whisper.

  “It’s not ownership,” I say. “It’s loyalty. I’m a soldier. You seem to have forgotten that.”

  He shakes his head.

  “That’s what I thought. They taught me to forget my old life and replace it with loyalty to them. But they didn’t finish the job. Because the memories came back. It took years for me, but they did. The chip only works on fear. Everything else is still there, suppressed by your training. Until it isn’t anymore.”

  I think about the way my memories come back between missions. The way I still see my father when I close my eyes, the way he sometimes visits me in my dreams.

  Francisco says, “These people you work for, they’re not good people.”

  “They defend this country,” I say. “They’re patriots.”

  “They are not,” he says. “When you remember, everything changes.”

  There’s only one thing I must remember. My training. The things I’ve been taught to do, the way I’ve been taught to do them.

  “You’ll look for the chip later,” he says.

  He traces the fresh cuts that crisscross his chest, some healed, some still pink and raw.

  “I had to look for a while,” he says. “But eventually I found it. You’ll find it, too. Then you’ll know I’ve told you the truth, and you’ll get out.”

  “I’m not looking for a way out,” I say.

  “You’re still asleep,” he says. “I feel sorry for you.”

  There’s something about the way he says it, what I perceive as a sneer on his lips, his tone of voice.

  “And what are you?” I say, my anger flaring. “You’re training to poison the water supply, or blow up nuclear power plants, or whatever the hell you’re doing, and you call that being awake? You’re a terrorist.”

  His face goes rigid. He holds up a finger in warning.

  “Don’t you dare use that word,” he says.

  “Does Moore have a different word for it?”

  “I don’t agree with everything Moore does,” he says, “but the end justifies the means.”

  “What end? You’re a soldier like me, Francisco. You were trained to protect the country, not dismantle it.”

  “I’m still a soldier,” he says. “But I have a different mission now.”

  “What mission?”

  “To wake up this country.”

  “They don’t need you, Francisco; they’re already awake. Nine-eleven. The Cole bombing. The war in Iraq. The attacks in Syria. They are wide awake.”

  “What about us?” he says.

  “Us?”

  “The Program,” he says. “The things their country is doing behind their back. Are they awake to that?”

  I can see now that I am the only patriot here. Francisco has become something else.

  A traitor.

  He is a traitor, and I cannot allow it.

  So I attack.

  I cover the ten feet between us in an instant, opening with a lightning-fast strike to the center of his chest that stuns him. Then I quickly turn to the side, grab his arm, and spin him hard, slamming him against a tree.

  There is no reaction time before he is coming back at me. In an instant his energy shifts from attacked to attacker, so fluid it would be easy to miss. Miss and die.

  That’s how well trained he is.

  He aims a strike toward my head, but I sidestep and take the force of his blow to the shoulder instead. Even this is enough to send a shock wave through me.

  We separate in the woods, and I look at him, shirtless, muscles rippling. What seemed a moment ago like an average body seems like something else.

  His body, his style, his reaction time—they’re all too familiar to me.

  It’s almost like I’m fighting myself.


  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” he says.

  “How else can it be?”

  “You asked me why I let you into the camp when I could have killed you. It’s because I knew you had doubts about The Program. Just like I did when I came here.”

  “You’re wrong about me,” I say.

  But it’s not the truth.

  I doubted during my last mission. And I doubt now. My purpose for being here, the reason I was sent in the first place.

  “Look at me, Daniel. I’ve gotten my life back. You could have yours back, too.”

  “I already have a life,” I say.

  I come at him, indicating a high attack while I strike low at his feet.

  He does not take the bait but kicks out at me, his style suddenly switching to Muay Thai. I instantly match him, our legs flying, shins crashing together, a spin kick to my head that I dodge, a return kick toward his chest that only just misses contact.

  But it sends me off balance, and he pounces.

  He is as fast as me and as smart. Yet he is not my equal. Not quite.

  Because in surrendering his mission, he has not gotten stronger. He’s gotten weaker. Something is broken inside him. I sense it like an animal senses weakness in another animal. Beneath the hard exterior, the training, the calculation, the intelligence—

  He

  is

  damaged.

  An operative who has stopped operating. Such a thing cannot be allowed to exist.

  Suddenly my phone buzzes in my pocket, the single vibration that indicates a text message coming in.

  Francisco senses my distraction and takes advantage of the moment, coming at me with a side swipe, then a full-on kick to my chest that sends me careening against a tree trunk.

  The force of the kick is such that it takes my breath away, a shiver passed down through my body.

  A shiver, but also a realization. I was out of position and the kick hit me dead center.

  Francisco has the strength and training to kill with one kick.

  A heart blow. A heel to the chest, a twist at the last moment to sharpen the angle, shatter the ribs over the pericardium, puncture the fluid sac, and cause heart failure.

  He could have killed me, and he didn’t.

  Which means he pulled his kick, sparing my life.