‘Blamed it on the terrorists,’ Nasira said.
Jay shrugged and, as the waitress returned with their coffee, spooned in an obscene amount of sugar.
‘So Denton pretty much just hired us as his clean-up crew,’ Damien said.
‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ Nasira said.
‘What happened to him?’ Damien asked Sophia.
She didn’t know what to say. ‘He vanished. I don’t know where he is.’
‘Will he come for us again?’ Damien asked.
‘To kill us or work for us?’ Nasira said.
Damien shrugged. ‘Neither sound appealing.’
‘Is he back in the Fifth Column now?’ Jay added.
Sophia shook her head. ‘I wish I knew.’
‘I wish I didn’t,’ Jay said. He slumped back in his seat, pulled a twenty from his wallet and added it to the modest pile in the middle of the table. ‘I’m guessing we don’t get paid for this one?’
‘Afraid not,’ Sophia said. ‘All the Akhana accounts disappeared overnight.’
‘Motherfuckers cleaned it up real quick,’ Nasira said.
‘I just wish we could’ve done it differently,’ Damien said, stirring his coffee.
‘You can’t wish that,’ Sophia said. ‘You do what you’re trained to do, you adapt to the situation and you find a solution.’
‘Yeah, but what if you don’t like the solution?’
She reached over and held Damien’s spoon still. ‘If you couldn’t adapt, you wouldn’t be here. None of us would be.’
She knew what he was going through because she was going through the very same thing. She wouldn’t dare admit it, but everything she had was sitting at this table.
‘We just, like, totally saved the world from the brink of collapse, huh?’ Jay said.
‘No.’ Sophia reached into her jacket pocket and touched the cool glass of the tangerine vial that contained the anti-Chimera vector. ‘But we postponed it.’
Acknowledgements
A big thanks to my writing buddies Melissa Cranenburgh, Danika Hadgraft, Jess Howard, and Toni Jordan for reading my endless drafts in various states of disrepair. And a long overdue thank you to my close friends, Luke Galanti, Ben Lollback, Wayson Ly, Aaron Sansoni, Michael Mei and Michael Tran for always being there when I needed them most.
A notable thank you to the late Andrzej M Łobaczewski, who endangered his life and career to unravel the nature of psychopathology, and to Laura Knight-Jadczyk, Harrison Koehli and many others for continuing the research and sharing it at no cost to anyone but themselves.
Thank you to those who believed in me: to Xavier Waterkeyn, my literary agent and exceptional mentor for seeing potential in my debut novel and nurturing that potential. My publisher, Joel Naoum, for believing in me from the beginning and taking the chance. And my editor, Nicola O’Shea, for her patience and exceptional work.
And finally to Sam Linton-Smith and my mother, Loretta Farrugia, for encouraging me to pursue my passion from a young age.
About Nathan M. Farrugia
Nathan Farrugia served in the Australian Army in infantry and reconnaissance, and studied film, television and professional writing. He worked as a post-production video editor, colorist and copywriter, where he earned the nickname Fagoogoo because no one could pronounce Farrugia.
Nathan lives in Melbourne, Australia. In his spare time he discovers hidden places around the world with urban explorers, practices lock picking and escaping from plasticuffs and straitjackets (you never know when that will come in handy, right?) and studies Systema, a little-known martial art and closely guarded secret of Russian special forces. Nathan has trained under USMC, SEAL team and Spetsnaz instructors, the Chiricahua Apache scouts and Australian Aboriginals. He also drinks tea.
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