Echoes

by Honor Raconteur

  He shooed me on. “Be the spy you were meant to be.”

  Snorting, I went up ahead. Mentally I sent up a prayer the woman was at least halfway decent and possessed the patience of a saint. She’d need it to deal with Chi. What I’d say to convince him to at least give her a shot—well, I had a whole therapy session to come up with a game plan.

  Before I made it to the second story office, I pulled on Serious Face, as it wouldn’t do to give the game away this early. I knocked ever so politely on the door and got a call to enter in a light, feminine voice. She even sounded nice.

  This would go so poorly.

  The room was decorated with the idea of ‘soothing’ in mind. Pale blue walls, potted plants in the windows, comfortable chairs in a circle in the center of the room with lots of pillows. The therapist sat in the center chair, near the window, a pretty woman with an upturned nose and brown hair cut in a short, tousled way. She wore the MISD blue, but without the jacket, her white shirt sleeves rolled up as if to make the session more casual.

  I had a feeling I might regret this. But Chi was a buddy, I should at least try and help out, right? Right.

  “Agent Hach Xian Liang, correct?” she asked with barely a glance up at me. Pointing her pencil toward a chair, she directed, “Sit.”

  “I go by Bannen, actually,” I corrected her, sitting, although not at my ease. I stayed on the edge of the chair because something about her expression and body language suggested she didn’t want me here, and that made me agitated in turn. Weren’t therapists supposed to be friendly?

  “I’ll address you by your legal name, Agent.” With another glance at me, she flipped the top sheet over on her clipboard, eyes scanning through it. “You’re here for a wellness check, according to your form.”

  “Right.” Please just sign the thing.

  “So you have nothing you want to discuss? No symptoms, no concerns?”

  “Ah, well, my only concern at the moment is about my teammate, Chinnadurai Franklocke. He’s, ah, got some pretty bad insomnia while out in the field. Makes him go loopy.” I didn’t want to throw Chi under the bus, but I had the feeling he wouldn’t tell her about this, and she might do better with a head’s up. Assuming she could pull her head out of her clipboard at some point and focus. “Last mission, it got to the point that he couldn’t sleep at all. Went three days without it before Rena figured out he’d sleep like the dead as long as he could hold onto her.”

  Clara stopped writing and turned those baby blues on me, cool and analytical. “Hold onto her…how?”

  “We actually ended up in a kitten pile, all four of us,” I admitted cheerfully. “It’s the most insane sleepover I’ve ever seen as an adult, especially with Vee being so tall, but we managed somehow. It got him to sleep, at least.”

  “Agent Hach, that is entirely inappropriate behavior,” she informed me, voice flat, and went back to writing. “I don’t encourage you to do it again. I’ll speak with Agent Franklocke about this as well.”

  Ah, regret. You came faster than I anticipated. That gut feeling that she wasn’t a good therapist came back stronger than ever and at that point, I saw no reason to try and cooperate any further. If this woman couldn’t be troubled to look me in the eye, or respect my culture, or the attempts I made to help a friend in trouble, then she was not someone I wanted to speak with. Much less confide in.

  Yup, I was done.

  “What are your symptoms?”

  “Right now? I’m experiencing a very strong case of ergophobia.”

  She lifted her eyes again to give me a flat look. “You are not funny, Agent.”

  “I’m hilarious,” I disagreed with flash of teeth that might be mistaken for a grin. I forget where I’d learned the word, but I remembered it just because it was a convenient excuse for paperwork situations. Although I did feel a certain fear of my workplace environment at the moment—mostly the fear I’d be forced to come back and talk to this woman.

  “Please stop throwing random terms at me. What are your symptoms?”

  “Chaetophobia.”

  Clara’s eyes roved over my many braids and if possible, became even more frustrated. “You clearly do not have a fear of hair.”

  “I have a very real fear of losing my hair, does that count?”

  Growing impatient, she flipped to another page and listed off, “You’ve been summoned twice as a familiar, spent the past three years outside of your home country through no choice of your own—”

  “Excuse you?” I spluttered. Where had she gotten that idea? Rena was entirely my choice!

  “—battled Toh’sellor twice, and you mean to tell me that you have no symptoms?” She finished in a triumphant manner, as if listing all of that out made her point. “You’re clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.”

  Well, if she wasn’t going to listen to me, why should I listen to her? “Wise sage, give me what I need to banish the darkness from my mind!”

  “Agent Hach!” she snapped.

  “Have you ever wondered why everyone says ‘housewife’ or ‘house-husband’ when ‘house-spouse’ is not only gender neutral, but also rhymes?”

  “Agent,” she hissed.

  “No, okay, I do have a serious question,” I assured her with a completely straight face. “So, if you put art on your walls, you’re sophisticated, right? If you put art on your body, that makes you a delinquent? Why? I don’t understand.”

  Clara fell to glaring at me.

  I could feel her temper about to explode. Any second she was going to throw me out of here. Just one more push… “Then again, if you put bodies on your wall, you’re a serial killer. I guess there’s no winning, huh?”

  “Good day, Agent. I’ll be seeing you again tomorrow morning for another session.”

  Half the battle won, then. I grinned, gave her a little waggle with my fingers, and escaped like my tail was on fire. Gaining the hallway—and thereby freedom—I saw Chi lurking near the waiting area next door and made a beeline straight for him. “Chi. It’s not good, man.”

  Chi’s hopeful expression morphed into a frown. “Like on a scale from nice to psycho, what are you rating her as?”

  “Judgmental. I don’t have any experience with therapists, so you tell me if I’m off, but is it normal for therapists to never make real eye contact? To not even listen to what you’re experiencing before diagnosing you? To ignore your preferences on how you want to be called?”

  Grimacing, Chi stared at the closed door. “No wonder she was free on short notice. She’s a bad therapist.”

  “So, not normal. Great. She said I’m due for another session tomorrow morning. I got the impression she wants to wash her hands of me, though.” I waggled my eyebrows at him. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Chi cracked his neck to either side, grinning like a feral raccoon. “This will take me ten minutes, max.”

  “Go get ’em, champ.” Should I feel sorry for the wolf about to enter the lamb’s door?

  Naaaaw.

  We ended up at the cafeteria afterwards. It was mostly a default for me and Chi. If there was downtime to be had, we either ate or trained. Rena was supposedly doing a physical checkup while I was in ‘therapy,’ and I was eager to hear her results. I mean, she looked peachy fine to me, but I wanted it validated that she was good on a cellular level.

  At this time of the day, the place was only about a third full, the rows of tables and chairs for the most part deserted. The service bar didn’t offer actual food, more like snacks and deserts, but I made myself up a sandwich, snagged two slices of pie, and a hot green tea. Chi did something similar before sitting across from me.

  Lifting my mug, I toasted him. “To a song well sung.”

  Cackling, he clinked mugs with me. “I do approve of my music selection as well.”

  Maksohm stormed into the room, spotted us, and made a beeline. I knew that expression quite well. He stomped to our table, eyes flashing fire, arms crossed over his chest, befor
e zeroing in on Chi. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have you both killed. One good reason. I have something in place to blame the government with already—no point in having a plan unless you get to use it—and this seems like a very good reason to use it.”

  “Because that would be a vast overreaction?” I offered. “And you’d make Rena sad.”

  He ignored me. “Chinnadurai.”

  Chi spread his hands to either side, artless in his ignorance. “I went to therapy. I talked to the lady.”

  “You sang your answers to her, Chi.”

  “I have a very nice voice,” Chi responded with false modesty.

  “He actually does,” I chipped in. “I listened in. I’m actually surprised, Chi, you could have been on a stage with a voice like that.”

  Maksohm stared at us, for once perfectly speechless.

  I braced an elbow on the table and confided to Chi, “I think we broke him.”

  “It was a long time coming. Kind of surprised it didn’t happen sooner.” Chi offered Maksohm a cookie. With a groan, our team leader took it and bit into it viciously. “There, there, Dah’lil.”

  “You’re feeding him sugar.” Rena appeared from behind me, taking in the sight with justified worry. Maksohm had been on a diet the past three months to keep his girlish figure, so seeing him eat anything sweet was a sure sign of trouble. “Chi, what did you do?”

  “I was good,” Chi defended himself.

  Rena didn’t believe him. She was a smart woman that way. “Let me change my question. Dah’lil, what did he do?”

  “He sang to his therapist,” Maksohm answered around a mouthful of cookie. Shoulders slumping, he mourned the crumbles in his hands, the cookie well gone. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “I don’t know how you would’ve.” Rena snagged another cookie off of Chi’s plate and handed it over to Maksohm. All of us accepted the theft as payment due, and Maksohm ate that one, too. “That’s not something any sane person would’ve expected.”

  Leaning back in my chair, I commented, “I don’t think sanity is really a stat we have to take into account any longer. I blame you, Chi.”

  Chi pumped a fist into the air. “Yeah!” The other two swiveled their heads in his direction, expressions a mix of confusion and disbelief. “What? I’m going to be blamed anyway. I figure I might as well enjoy being blamed.” He grinned, unashamed. “It’s working for me.”

  “And that’s all that matters.” I held out a hand, and Chi slapped his palm against mine.

  Emily joined us at the table from somewhere, eyeing us all in turn. “Really? I thought it was just the sleep deprivation, but Chi’s just as bad as Bannen?”

  “You get used to him,” I told her.

  “That is the worst thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “Our relationship is still young, Em.” As she groaned, I turned eagerly to Rena. “So? Did the doctor say you’re spiffy?”

  Rena plopped into the chair next to mine, the most delighted expression on her face, literally trumping when we were told that she could have a permanent team. “I am in the best physical condition I’ve ever been in in my life, according to the doctor. No trace of strain in any of my organs, my bones have recovered their density, and he said I now have the right health to meet field requirements.”

  “Really? They let her out even though she was sick?” someone muttered behind me.

  Frowning, I cast a glance backwards but there were two tables of agents behind me, and I couldn’t see the source. Ignoring it, I focused on my wife again. “That’s great news, honey.”

  Someone else at the table behind me made a comment that had others rumbling with hard edged laughter. I cast them another glance, not liking the vibe I got from them. Had I missed something going wrong in the world? A few people glanced Rena’s way and I didn’t like the flat glares or sneers on their faces. I hadn’t heard there was any opposition to Rena and I joining the MISD. What was going on here?

  Then again, in any large organization there were bound to be the jealous ones. As long as they kept their comments to their own little pocket, I could ignore them.

  Even after sleeping on it, my physical exam results made me entirely too happy. Bannen had never known me healthy, not until this past year, as it had taken years of being bonded to him before the effect of my magic balanced out. He’d shown me how happy he was about it last night, and the memory of that brought a smile to my face.

  I wished he had as good of luck with his own exams. The physical exam he of course passed with flying colors—I would have been shocked if he hadn’t—but it didn’t seem like he cared much for his therapist. He’d not looked at all happy to go to another therapy session this morning. I had a bad feeling that he would clam up on the woman and not talk at all. For all that my husband chatters, he could be incredibly difficult to get information out of sometimes.

  While Bannen was in his therapy session, I ran a few errands. Mostly because I hadn’t been able to complete all of the paperwork before to switch from my maiden name to my married one. It required going to multiple offices and then filling something out in Archives, of course, because nothing about being in a large organization was easy when it came to this sort of thing. I didn’t mind, though. It gave me a better orientation of the building. I’d mainly been here to attend meetings, so I only knew how to reach about four different places inside of headquarters. Which was a little ridiculous since I was a full agent now.

  As I walked down the hall, my ever-growing file in hand, I passed by two agents I barely recognized. Simons? Simonson? Something like that. I gave him a friendly smile, and his companion, not that I remembered her name.

  “Wait, Agent Rocci—” Sim-something said, flinging up a hand. The sandy blond hair and stocky build rang a bell with me, but I honestly couldn’t place him. Not in any of the battles with Toh’sellor, I knew that much.

  I stopped, curious. “Yes?”

  Shoving three books into my hands, he ordered, “Return these to the library for me.”

  I was headed in that general direction, so I didn’t mind and shrugged agreement. “Sure.”

  That wasn’t the reaction he wanted and his brown eyes narrowed to slits. “Excuse me?”

  Ummm…why was he mad? I realized I was low on the totem pole for agents, being brand new, but I wasn’t a probationary agent either. Even if I was, the MISD didn’t stand on ceremony for things like this. As long as you followed the commands of the senior agent in charge of an operation, and weren’t completely rude, they didn’t really care how you phrased things. This man might have a few years on me, but he wasn’t a special agent. We were basically the same rank. I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me and stared back at him, confused.

  The brunette female agent took a step forward, one hand on her curvy hip, putting us more in direct line of sight with each other, and the full curve of her mouth spoke of jealousy and smugness. “You need to correct your way of speaking to a senior agent, Agent Rocci.”

  What on earth was going on here? Was I missing something? “It’s, ah, Hach. Actually. I got married several months ago. And how did you want me to respond?”

  “Yes, Agents,” a dark voice purred. “How did you want her to respond?”

  We all jumped a little, none of us realizing that Maksohm was nearby. I swore the man could sneak up on a jungle cat when he was of a mind to. His skulking skills were on par with Bannen’s. He moved away from the doorway he’d been half-hidden in, and even his stride looked predatory, his dark eyes flashing with anger. I got a bad feeling from it.

  He flipped up the cover of the top book, eyes scanning the library entry card, then with a flick of his fingers let it close again. The way he stared at Sim-something made the man squirm like he had a lizard in his pants. “Make the new agent turn in overdue books, Simeon? Really? Is that the kind of behavior I should see from a veteran agent?”

  Simeon flushed and looked anywhere but up.

  “And you, Dewar, enco
uraging this behavior?”

  Dewar shrank back, also not daring to look up.

  Maksohm crisply took the books back out of my hands and shoved them into Simeon’s. “Go, both of you, before I lose my temper. But if I catch you harassing any member of my team again, I’ll report you both, and I won’t be kind about it.”

  They skedaddled with more speed than dignity. I stared after them, a little flummoxed. They were trying to harass me? “Why?”

  “Because you’re on the fast track to gaining Special-Agent status in the next year,” Maksohm explained with a growl, attention turning back to me. “And you’re famous in the organization and a favorite of the bosses. You really didn’t think they were trying something with you?”

  “Well, no?” I still felt bewildered that anyone would be irritated enough to even try. It wasn’t like I shoved my status in people’s faces or made a big deal out of things. “I didn’t even know their names.”

  “Ah, Rena.” He put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me to him. “You’re entirely too nice for your own good, sometimes. I see why Bannen’s so completely protective of you. You’re filing paperwork to change your legal name here, right? I’ll go with you.”

  “You don’t have to,” I denied, feeling like an imposition. “Even if someone else tried something similar, it’s not like petty harassment is going to do any harm.”

  “Really.” Maksohm quirked that expressive eyebrow of his. “Tell you what, why don’t you explain that to Bannen.”

  “Oh, heck no,” I denied fervently. My husband had no sense of humor about things like this.

  Eyes sparkling with laughter, Maksohm tightened his grip on me and turned us both, heading forward. “Then I’ll go with you and keep the pesky flies off.”

  Resigned, I stayed under his arm. “You do that.”

  “You know what I like best about running with Bannen?” Nora asked.