Operation Blackout

by J. L. Middleton

  Despite the care with which he’d attempted to frame their work relationship, Orion felt a stab of renewed grief: For all of his flaws and annoyances, Connor had been the first person to take an active interest in him in several years, and he begrudgingly considered him a friend, albeit a conceited, self-important one. However, he’d started acting distant after Scotts Ridge, which had culminated in their fight at his apartment, and this conversation accentuated their false comradeship. “Is that how it is then?” he asked, pulling himself out of his slouch to lean aggressively against the counter. The acid in his response matched the bitter, half-cocked grin he’d acquired from his not-partner.

  Connor’s smiled faltered, fleetingly exposing the doubt he may have felt before turning brighter. “Oh, don’t be like that,” he teased cheerily. He ceased pacing and faced Orion broadly, holding his palms out in an act of appeasement. “It’s a job, and my job is to make sure you’re ready to do yours.”

  “Fine,” he agreed cynically; regardless of his personal feelings, he still had to work with Connor until his training was complete. “Then how am I supposed to trust you?”

  Connor’s expression became suitably somber as he tucked his hands in his pockets and looked Orion in the eye. “You have my word of honor.” Orion gave him a dead stare in return, skeptically raising his eyebrows and crossing his arms, and Connor scowled sourly, reproachfully amending, “You just are.”

  The answer, no matter how sincerely it had been offered, did little to reassure Orion, and he intensified his scrutiny. Their whole relationship had been based on trust—his sister’s continued well-being, his own personal safety, and his belief that cooperating with the BSI had been the correct course—which now appeared to be misplaced. He’d had reservations about his cooperation with the bureau, and it had been Connor who’d assuaged them; at the time, he’d believed Connor’s heart-to-heart had been genuine concern, but he now began to question his motives.

  Connor’s gaze slipped to the floor. “Look, I know it’s not easy,” he admitted quietly. He hesitated, focusing on the polished tile for several moments, and then he sniffed sharply, sauntered back to the island, and casually retook his seat. “I had this buddy—right git he was. He couldn’t even be trusted to fry an egg. Don’t know for the life of me how he made staff sergeant.” His lips twitched, hinting at a smirk, but his face remained set in a scowl, and he didn’t look Orion in the eye as he usually did when he was going to be facetious; instead, he was focused intensely on the spoon that he was twirling on the counter. “He was a terrible influence—messy uniform, poor hygiene, bad attitude—anything to push our lieutenant’s buttons just for the hell of it. But when it came down to it, he didn’t hesitate to sacrifice his life for me. Not for one second.” His movement ceased, save for blinking back his denied tears, and he seemed to become lost in thought. Orion remembered seeing him like this before when they had worked their first case together; Connor had thrown cutting jibes at him when he’d inquired about his personal history, despite him asking the same of Orion only a few minutes prior, but he’d still revealed more intimate details than he’d intended that night. The tiny crack in his otherwise mordant bravado had been the first stepping-stone toward deepening their superficial relationship, and the reappearance of it had meant that there had indeed been something genuine about their interaction.

  The agent sniffed again as he resurfaced from his reverie. “He was terrible at his job, but he could still be trusted, and just ’cause I’m doing a job doesn’t mean you can’t also trust me,” he said, and this time Orion believed him. “You can.”

  Orion nodded slowly. He didn’t know the circumstances behind his earlier outburst or the inimical words he’d uttered recently, but he was reassured that deep down, he could trust Morgan Connor. Despite his flaws, the older man had given him advice and information beyond what was required of him, and his wellness checks were superficial only in the fact that they were awkward and tactless, not paltry attempts at camaraderie.

  Connor clenched his jaw and attempted a reassuring smirk that didn’t quite make it to his eyes. “There’s a good lad,” he commended, clapping Orion on the shoulder.

  Part IX

  Code Names: Penumbra & Singularity

  Cassie despised public transportation outside the city. In most places, like Waynesboro, it was so inefficient that it might as well not exist, and the more time she spent in the sprawling cities, the more she realized the value of a driver’s license. She considered obtaining her own, although she doubted the Vickers would lend her their car, and she knew that her brother wouldn’t buy her a car if he didn’t own one. Like most people in the city, he didn’t have use for one because the bus and subway provided affordable transportation. Since a handful of her friends could borrow vehicles, she didn’t often concern herself with travel arrangements, but the night’s activities had been canceled by the group, so Felix had invited her over because his father would be working the night shift. Though he’d pretended that the reason she was coming over was to study, she had a feeling that he had something else in mind, and while she didn’t fancy him, his house provided a better hangout spot than her temporary home. The two of them would probably end up watching a movie until it was time for her to leave.

  She didn’t bother knocking, instead letting herself into the trailer. Felix’s father would likely return in the early morning hours, and his mother had unfortunately passed away several years ago, leaving Felix to care for himself while his father worked. He never cared about personal safety, which she supposed was normal behavior when one lived in the outskirts of a town with a relatively low crime rate, and he rarely locked his doors. However, she was entirely surprised when she entered the mobile home to find that Felix was not alone.

  The dour-looking man was well dressed in a suit that had been properly tailored to his frame, yet its uneven, worn appearance revealed its age; there were several spots—particularly the abraded lapels—that had been cleaned asymmetrically, implying a concentrated effort to scrub those areas. Though he was not a large man, his frame was sturdy, and he projected power. His eyes looked tired and worn, but they held resigned determination as he pointed the pistol in her direction.

  Cassie froze, immediately harkened back to the confrontation with her father. She felt the initial impact and experienced disbelief that she’d been shot. She knew that she should have felt burning pain and the warmth of her fleeing blood; instead, she was numb, wondering if she’d imagined the gun’s report echoing off the walls and filling her ears. Her equilibrium failed, and the delicate balance keeping her in shock was lost. As she fell, she felt the heavy molten weight of the bullet burrowing through her chest, and the pain came all at once, shrinking her world to distressing sensations.

  Felix, who knew nothing of her frightful experience with firearms, apologized immediately. “I’m sorry, Sid,” he said, using her newly acquired nickname. His hands were in the air, clearly visible beside his head, and he was shaking, no longer the macho anarchist he played at school. With a bloodied lip and disheveled clothes, he looked like he might’ve taken a beating before he’d contacted her. “He threatened my dad. He said there’d be an ‘accident’ if I didn’t text you,” he explained desperately. “He said he just wanted to talk.”

  Cassie reexamined the stranger, trying to determine whether she knew him. The dour man was not related to any of her New York friends, whose fathers and brothers wouldn’t have allowed their suits to become visibly damaged, and he was not a frequent customer at Hallowed Grounds because she knew everyone by name, and the few who didn’t enjoy the kitschy niche café never returned. He was no one she’d met during her brief time at Plum Island, where all the agents wore a universal, bland design, and the staff wore business casual, save for a handful of instructors. Finally, he was not one of the two individuals from SION whom she’d met that fateful night. She did not recognize this man and
, therefore, had no idea what he wanted from her, but she was also unwilling to find out.

  The BSI’s training regimen focused on control by extinguishing a fire once it had been summoned, assuming Cassie would be its source as well as its solution; it was not concerned with the fine-tuned manipulation of the flame itself, which was a skill that she’d developed with guidance from her friend Sone prior to her apprehension. As much as she loathed her ability, she saw it as a self-defense mechanism, and proficiency with it was necessary to avoid another incident in which someone died. The trailer was small and full of ignition sources, and though she’d used the incandescence of lightbulbs before, they were inferior to actual living fire. The quality of the pilot light was preferable, and she drew the small flame toward her, stretching it into a ribbon to be wrapped around the stranger. It took a wide arc around the man, converging on his firearm, which she intended to superheat until he released it and thereby negate the threat he posed with minimal harm.

  However, things did not play out the way she envisioned. A thick, mucous-like substance manifested from the dour man and encased his weapon and his skin. Her flames licked its surface, but the material absorbed the heat, and ultimately, no damage was done as her fire smoldered and snuffed out. Once the threat was gone, the dour man reabsorbed the viscous fluid. Though the gun had been aimed at her, the stranger smoothly switched targets to Felix and immediately fired his weapon as if nothing had occurred. She watched helplessly as his head exploded, splattering gore over the small confines of the trailer.

  Cassie screamed, backing away, and the doorknob slammed into the small of her back. She had not managed to gain control of the situation; she’d only worsened it by getting Felix killed. She recalled the canister of pepper spray she kept in her bag despite its ineffectiveness against the Vanguard, and she dismissed any thought of using it; she doubted it would prove any more effectual against the stranger, and she shouldn’t risk angering him further if she wanted to survive. She was defenseless and at his mercy.

  The dour man cleared his throat as he reacquired his bead on her. He smiled lopsidedly, seemingly to place her at ease, but the result was forced, as it came from a man who was never amused. “Mr. Lionhart cordially invites you to join him in New York City,” he announced, his thick Brooklyn accent and prior actions undermining the courteous tone he affected. “I regret to inform you that he will not take ‘no’ for an answer.” He nodded toward the door, and Cassie had little choice but to obey.

  - - -

  Orion sighed heavily, slouching into the chair he’d pulled up beside Connor. “Why are we doing this again?” he asked. Despite his uninterested tone, the younger man was in better spirits this morning and had been for the last week. Something must have worked between his visit to his sister and his heart-to-heart with Connor to inspire an attitude improvement: He’d gone grocery shopping, finally refilling his cupboards with appropriate sustenance, and had even prepared breakfast in anticipation of Connor’s arrival.

  “I told you, it’s good for you,” Connor laughed, secretly pleased that the rapport between them had been mended; it made it easier to pretend his objectivity wasn’t an issue and that Orion was a normal human partner. “You’ll be doing this sort of work back at headquarters.”

  “But this is all we do,” he complained. Compulsively, he began stacking the breakfast plates so he could place them in the sink. He’d probably grab a dishrag in a few moments to start wiping down the counters if he didn’t start washing the dishes instead. Connor had recently come to realize that Orion’s cleaning habits weren’t just to avoid eye contact and social interaction; his anxious need to keep everything immaculate traced back to either his care for his sister’s environment or to a deeper neurosis.

  Connor held up his index finger. “Wrong,” he corrected. “I’ve taught you the basics. How the organization works, how it fits under the government, what to do when you encounter an Other…” He grimaced, knowing that none of their engagements had gone by the book. “How to handle yourself when a confrontation goes sideways… But most of it’s been lessons in administration and not actual fieldwork, apart from watching me. And I know how much you like that.” He flashed him a cocky grin and looked him in the eye. “How many cold cases have we worked?”

  Orion shrugged. “All of them?” he replied flatly. Connor’s expression told him that he was mistaken, so he counted them off using his fingers and amended the total. “Four.”

  “Two,” Connor said, “and I wouldn’t exactly count the last one since we stumbled across him.” Even then, Orion hadn’t actually worked the case; while he might have been present for Connor’s initial suspicions, he’d left New York far too early to have made a contribution toward solving it. “We’ve been working active cases, which is an entirely different skill set, and you need to develop this one,” he asserted and offered a smirk as commiseration. “It’s right boring, but you need to get it down.”

  “It’s interviewing people,” Orion replied unhappily. If it were the only skill needed, Connor would have petitioned his boss to reassign Orion. Despite rapidly improving his techniques, he knew that it placed undue stress on Orion’s social anxieties, and while normal career paths would promote that sort of difficulty as an opportunity for personal growth, Orion would never advance higher in the ranks, so putting him through it was an unnecessary discomfort. Fortunately, there was more to his job; interviewing was only a small aspect of it.

  “Yeah, and you’ve got that down. You just need a bit more polish,” he said, complimenting the younger man despite himself. “But there’s also analyzing clues and following leads, and we haven’t had much luck with those.” He chuckled sharply, rolling up his sleeves. “Or maybe we’ve had too much luck since it’s been so easy, like following a trail of breadcrumbs.”

  Connor’s career had been oddly charmed. There had never been any close calls with his personal safety, despite confronting Others who had dangerous abilities; he always knew how far to press his limits, and he never crossed the line. The incident with Pierce Starr was the only snag in his run of luck, and that could be written off as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As far as locating Others was concerned, he’d worked cold cases in the past and had always been fortunate enough to select a subject just as the Other’s ability was making a resurgence. The other agents weren’t as lucky, having a much lower success rate, and it might have been a better choice to pair Orion with one of them so he’d have more firsthand experience in the work that cold cases required.

  Connor placed his arms on either side of the laptop, which was still making its connection to the database. Once it was secure, he’d run a filter that would confine their searches to the New York area, and then he would have Orion take over so he could familiarize himself with the system. He didn’t know what kind of access Orion would be allowed, especially since both Starr siblings were already in the database, but he assumed it would be restricted rather than inefficiently forcing the younger man to go through an intermediary.

  “What am I really going to be doing?” Orion asked straightforwardly.

  “I told you.” Connor’s self-assured grin fell as he looked into the younger man’s face, which was a mixture of pitiable distrust and blatant cynicism. He had already been too honest with Orion, setting a precedent based on which the younger man expected the truth from him or he would sulk, and rather than deal with the latter and the subsequent damage to their rapport, Connor decided to be candid in spite of himself. His boss, William Terrance, hadn’t deemed it necessary to share the full plan with Connor, so he blended what he knew with his own conjecture. “They’re not going to send you into the field like Angel and Antithesis. You’re a new kind of asset, and they’re not going to risk you in a confrontation, though you’ve done well in the odd dustup.”

  Though Connor had been otherwise occupied when Orion had stood up to his father, both t
he report and Orion’s own account indicated that he’d kept a level head and had done his best to keep the situation contained; it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t had the training to keep it from accelerating out of his control. He’d also stayed out of Connor’s way when they’d confronted Lena Malmkvist, allowing the agent to talk her into surrendering peacefully. Connor might have even made a case that he’d handled himself well during the Phobos episode, utilizing his regenerative abilities to keep himself alive, if he chose to acknowledge Orion’s near-death experience and Connor did not.

  “No,” he continued, dismissing the event in Scotts Ridge from his mind. That needed to be put behind them, which was probably the reason he was being so outspoken now; he needed Orion to trust him to make their relationship work. “They’re more likely to use you in cleanup, and when you’re not doing that, you’ve got to earn your keep, so you’ll be analyzing old case files.” He nodded toward his weathered laptop. “That’s why we’ve got to develop these skills.”

  Since they were speaking candidly, Orion decided to ask the next difficult question. “Am I still going to be able to see my sister?”