Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets

by Jeffrey Cook

  “So, my parents—”

  “Are not to know anything. Your maternal grandfather didn't tell his daughter, and neither of their psych profiles suggest they would take it very well.

  “A—” Mina attempted to interrupt, but the woman spoke right on through.

  “When we need you, we'll arrange reasons for you to be out of the shop for as much time as needed. Right now, for example, there's a complication with your chipping, and you're under observation. That will go on through your meeting with the Deputy Mayor.

  “But A—” Mina tried again. The Director was having none of it.

  “You will have regular deliveries to make in the mornings for some time. Primarily, this will give us time to introduce you to your first assignment. It will also let us work on your physical training.” Finally, when Mina was giving up on getting the question in, Director Richter affirmed, “Yes, your maternal grandfather was one of our agents. The shop still has a couple of hidden areas. It had the advantage of being one of those rare places anyone could reasonably walk into without drawing attention, and few people tend to associate flower shops with spycraft.”

  Mina blinked several times. A bit of additional motion to one side drew her attention, snapping her back to the realization the other people, still all in black, but no longer masked, were still flanking her. To her left was a tall, thin man, now revealed to be perhaps a few years older than her parents, with hints of mixed Asian ancestry of some sort.

  “Your grandfather taught me everything I know about the job. He was a good man,” he said, with an easy smile. “Now I get to return the favor. You'll be reporting in to me tomorrow, and I'll get you all caught up and start your training.”

  “What kind of training, exactly?” Mina asked, directing it vaguely between the older man and the Director, for whoever cared to answer, finding herself hoping her new trainer would be the one to field it.

  No such luck, the Director took the initiative again. “Part of the selection process for agents is physical ability. Every agent tests in the top percentiles in numerous areas. Endurance, fitness, ability to push themselves—trying to get into a top ballet academy has served you well. You pushed yourself to the top of the toughest dance program in your price range. You then biked a dozen miles at a time through the hills on deliveries. It was enough to get you in the door. Now we're going to take that potential and push it to its limits. You'll be trained to ambidexterity. Get as comfortable with backwards or lateral movement either direction as normal walking. There will be overspeed training. Most importantly, we'll be coaching up your fast-twitch muscles. The chip in your spine lets you react as close to the speed of thought as your body is physically capable. Your reaction to Agents Park and Hall showed that to be reasonably capable, but your muscles are still unused to this kind of action. We need to improve on that speed, and we will.”

  Agent Park, she guessed, was nodding to one side. Mina wasn't entirely sure she liked the look of his expression, and could already start to feel the burn in her muscles. She was positive she didn't like the look on the Director's face though, so she still thought it preferable.

  A glance, at last, in her other direction, and Mina's heart skipped a beat. She hadn't dated much in school. That would have taken time from work—not an option—or dance class, equally non-negotiable as far as Mina herself was concerned. She did know the boys she had seen here and there for school functions weren't really her type, and she'd tried to just not worry too much about it. (It had helped that, even at the worst of the boy-crazy phases of most of her friends and classmates, Miko had continued to profess that the only guy she had the vaguest hint of a crush on was John Belushi, whoever that was.) Whatever defined her type, though, she was pretty sure Agent Hall was it. Tall, dark, just a little rugged. Maybe four or five years older than she was. Mina felt a slight heat, her cheeks coloring, and tried to bring herself back to the seriousness of the situation. Thankfully, or unfortunately, the Director's stern gaze did wonders for dragging her back to the moment.

  “Now, the initial test is done, and my comm just told me the Deputy Mayor has arrived to meet our newest agent. I'm sure she'll be happy to take the rest of your questions,” she told Mina. Left unsaid, but clear, nonetheless, was anything about exactly how unhappy the Director was to be being pulled away from her workload to answer rookie questions at all. “Agent Park, can you show Agent Cortez to the meeting room and help her get acclimated?”

  Agent Park—the older man, as she'd guessed—quickly agreed, much as Mina found herself wishing it was Agent Hall helping her get acclimated. Even so, she was hating this less and less by the moment.

  Chapter Seven

  “So these are the Seattle FBI offices? Quite a drive from the Bellevue chipping center,” Mina remarked during the short tour of the building she'd awoken in. It was going much better than the previous conversation.

  Agent Park nodded. “Your doctors and nurses were cleared to handle the sensitive information chips. Once you were safe to move, the nurses got you dressed and loaded into a refitted police transport truck, sort of half-ambulance.”

  It was nice to get reasonably sensible answers to her initial questions. “And it's okay to just go anywhere in this place?”

  “Technically, yes. Don't let any of the FBI staff get too used to you, though. Agents, civilians, anybody. Except, obviously, Director Richter. Her day job is here.”

  “That's probably convenient for her, right?”

  “Yes. It lets her monitor federal investigations, stuff that connects to the bigger job.”

  “And you? And, um, Agent Hall?” She told herself not to blush.

  “Police detectives,” he said, not letting on if he noticed the blushing or not as they walked to a particularly quiet part of the building. “This bit here is our corner, for when we all actually do have to meet in person. Director Richter's office, a couple of typically empty meeting rooms, and a temp office for the Deputy Mayor, 'just to coordinate with various authorities for the city's Security Commission,' you know.” The older man's tone grew lighter and drier as he pointed out the appropriate doors.

  Mina recognized the tone as referencing an apparent cover story. She was clearly going to have to get used to a lot of those. “So what about the part of that I don't know?” Mina asked.

  “More of a question for Miss Lasko herself,” Agent Park said, smiling. “Now, the next part of the rundown. I want you to think of St. Joshua's medical clinic.”

  At the request, Mina picked up on that hint of aluminum that she was beginning to associate with her chip kicking in. The name of the clinic triggered five different routes to get there, along with the uses of each route. One was fastest. Another let her avoid cameras. One was only accessible by foot or bicycle at several points. Eventually, it settled on a combination of the address, and knowledge of precisely whom to talk to and what to say to be allowed into the elevator to the basement.

  “Training facilities for tomorrow are in the clinic basement. It's one of several safehouses we've got available to us in the city.” Park continued outlining the usual plan for getting her to such places. She'd get a call for delivery to any of a number of locations at the far end of the usual 'biking range,' or a series of closer deliveries. Either way would justify a couple of hours. Her tracking comm implant had already been rigged so that she could appear to be anywhere she wanted within the region, should her parents check up on her progress, or if Miko were looking for her.

  “Fortunately, the whole 'medical complications' excuse that's covering for you here now should prevent your parents being too surprised, these next couple days, if you come back more out of breath, or don't quite hide the stiffness properly when you walk.”

  “Oh, that doesn't sound ominous,” Mina remarked ironically at the implication for her initial physical training.

  “It didn't? I must not have said it right,” he said with just a hint of a smile. “We're going to be thorough, Cortez. From the sound of things, yo
u're enough like your grandfather that you wouldn't settle for less even if we would.” More of a smile. “Which we won't.”

  “So his car accident—”

  Agent Park sighed slightly. “I think you can guess what kind of 'car accident' it was, but that's also more of a question for the Deputy Mayor. Today or a day like it, obviously, not during everyday life.”

  “This stuff and everyday life ... it's a little bit of cognitive dissonance.”

  “Yeah. The Inquisitor angle—” At Mina's sudden eyebrows, Agent Park clarified with a sheepish gesture. “The organization, 'this stuff'—it will bring some big cases. Sometimes very big: international crime syndicates, black marketeers, and human trafficking. Most of the time, though, I'm a cop. You're a florist.”

  Mina nodded. But the big stuff colored everything else, really. Even deliveries would be part of her chance to do something important. Which reminded her. “The Director mentioned a first case. What is it?”

  Agent Park sighed. “That's not really a question for me either,” he answered, before urging her towards her next meeting before she inquired further.

  There was a lot she was still confused about, but she was feeling better about the situation in general. Suspicions about the veracity of any of this cropped up now and then, but her earlier encounter with the Director amidst a police investigation helped. She was able to confirm pretty easily that they were at the FBI building. Likewise, while still uneasy with being kidnapped at all, she was positive that anyone able to kidnap someone from the chipping center had to have some pretty high level clearance.

  Now, they were willingly dragging her before one of the city's longest-serving officials. While it was further evidence the 'secret police' were legitimate, that meeting still made her nervous. She was pretty sure she wasn't on the Deputy Mayor's list of favorites after their meeting at Scott's party. Just standing in front of the door, that growing comfort from Agent Park's easygoing frankness suddenly dissipated.

  * * * *

  Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't the friendly greeting she received. The Deputy Mayor met her at the door. The big man Mina had seen at the party was settled onto a couch to one side of the office, along with a much smaller Japanese man in a similar suit. Where before, she had had to wait for the hint of gun oil to guess at the man's being armed, now tiny telltale signs raced through her brain, sizing both men up for armament, combat readiness and state of alertness, and that was with little beyond a cursory glance.

  That glance was all she got before the Deputy Mayor all but hugged her. “Mina! It's wonderful to see you again. I'm so sorry for the awkwardness at the party. Despite all of your marks, no one was quite certain about you as an agent. It's a lot of tough criteria, and not very many people are suited for it.”

  “So, are you one of the Secret Police?” Mina asked. Her chip gave her the all clear on talking to the woman, at least.

  “Oh, no. At least not as an agent. I'm a political liaison. While I have a lot of responsibilities, one of the big ones, at least as concerns your organization, is to make sure that the city, state, and federal authorities aren't in your way, and coordinate with you when necessary.”

  Mina blinked a couple times. “Federal? So ... where, exactly, do we rank compared to the FBI? The Director mentioned multinational work.”

  The Deputy Mayor nodded. “You'll work with select agents sometimes, if they get sufficient clearance to know that some of you are undercover, though they never know precisely who you're undercover with.” Mina could sympathize. Miss Lasko continued. “Please come and have a seat, and I'll give you the standard history lesson.”

  Mina started towards the desk. “You do this a lot, um, Ma'am?”

  “Please, Mina, call me Deborah,” she said, then shook her head. “Not as much as I used to. Certainly not as much as my predecessor. The role of your organization has been steadily decreasing with each generation.” she explained, as she moved to the other side of the desk.

  “So there used to be more than ... what, four of us in the city?” Mina checked, trying to get a sense of what size organization she was a part of.

  She nodded. “In your grandfather's day, there were quite a few just in Seattle. Now, there are, yes, less than half a dozen normal agents, a few contacts who know part of the story, and a few emergency contacts.

  The allied governments are paying a lot of money for each fully chipped agent to be doing another job. In some cases, where they're still doing police or security work, the politicians who know what's going on are more easily convinced that it's still a worthwhile investment.

  Police have strict limitations that private investigators don't, though, and then there's all the delivery people, people who run import/export companies, translators, private chefs, wine tasters, and others whose jobs give them excuses to end up in sensitive places or getting close to just the right people. Instead of grasping that, the paper-pushers just see expensive chips and salaries for everyday jobs and don't want any more.”

  Mina settled in, considering the Deputy Mayor. “So ... my organization, the secret police, the ....Inquisition? We work with the FBI, but we're not part of them. It's been around since my grandfather, but ... I'm still missing a lot of details here. What organization am I working for, exactly?”

  The Deputy Mayor nodded. “Ultimately, you're the Allied Investigative Agency, or AIA. A multinational organization with broad investigative powers.

  “I'm not an expert on that sort of thing,” Mina said carefully, “But aren't limits actually a good thing for ... secret police?”

  “I know the term often makes for images of brute squads, people disappearing in the middle of the night and Big Brother listening in on every word... ” Deborah Lasko smiled, her hands in a 'but wait' style of gesture. “This organization is tied to no one country or regime, does not support or oppose any political party, and only gets involved with high profile organized crime and similar concerns. The program only selects agents with psych profiles with the highest scores as far as personal integrity and responsibility.”

  Mina managed a sheepish smile. It was a little flattering, certainly. Some of the commentary still made her uneasy, but she was glad to hear that there was at least some kind of checks in place.

  “Historically, the AIA have always tried to intrude on the day-to-day lives of most people as little as possible, aside from keeping them safer from multinational cartels and threats on a similar scale.”

  “Historically?” Mina was glad for the opening.

  Miss Lasko settled back in her chair a bit, Mina taking her easy smile as approval of the general line of thought. “It started after the Decimation Event. After the supervolcano in the American Midwest, there was almost no sunlight for a year and a half. Earthquakes, floods, armies of refugees. No one was prepared for a disaster on that scale. Uncontaminated drinking water was going for fine wine prices in some regions. Survival necessitated international cooperation on a massive scale. Problem was, it took a lot of people a long time to realize it. Wars broke out—everyone wanted organization to be on their terms. Eventually, though, there were enough food riots, coups, and real threats that the bullying and flag-waving stopped and negotiation started.”

  Mina listened and nodded. “But those were trade and aid agreements, to get food and whatever from wherever anyone found sunlight or new farming stuff. How did ...?”

  “The problem afterwards was simply that no one trusted each other. The United States and China, in particular, had a great deal of trouble dealing with each other on a diplomatic basis. Combined with rampant organized crime and the black market having boomed, and the whole process threatened to fall apart.”

  Mina reflected that Miko would probably have some interesting commentary on all this. She decided it was best not to ponder any of this coming up to Miko, and continued listening.

  “England managed to bring together a number of nations with reasonably good diplomatic relations. The purpose of the AIA was to m
onitor some of the heavy international travel and trade for signs of black marketeers, enemy spies, and signs that other nations weren't holding up their end of the deal. Unlike most of the security agencies who worked within only one nation, the agents were given broad rights across the alliance. There were no central offices, no acknowledgment that the organization existed, or anything for the political machine to latch onto and start legislating. There were abuses of power. The AIA's early history was occasionally ugly, and not that dissimilar to that of most top-secret programs with little limitation on their power.”

  Mina was a little shocked that the woman so readily admitted the abuses. She wasn't whitewashing the AIA's history, and she definitely didn't seem to be glorifying the United States' role in things. Miss Lasko continued to surprise her. She nodded her understanding, gesturing for the Deputy Mayor ... Deborah ... to continue.

  “But the AIA eventually instituted strict rules for the recruitment of agents based upon psychological profiles. Worked right alongside the evolution of chipping, really. The world was in desperate need of more doctors and farmers, fast. Various agencies, meanwhile, needed loyal agents who were up to their high standards. At that point, the AIA had people everywhere, particularly among the crowds of refugees, merchants, and aid workers. With a more responsible AIA hiring policy, the abuses of power dropped drastically. The less people had to worry about the secret police, the less anyone wanted to believe in such an unpleasant-sounding thing.”

  “So they ... disappeared into skepticism?”

  “Pretty much. They adopted a strict policy of not interfering in anything that didn't strictly follow the organization's mandates, because that was what resulted in them getting the most funding and freedom to do their jobs in those cases where they were necessary. People like me started being hired on, not to be agents, but to handle the bureaucracy so agents didn't have to. We took jobs in Parks and Rec so that we could go to the agents,” Miss Lasko grinned a bit. “And evidence of conspiracy to enforce the law became harder and harder to find.”