Not My Story

"What are you going to do when all of this is over?"

I never thought of an answer.

She didn't look at me, just waited for me to say something back. I don’t think she cared if I answered or not. She was watching the canal, leaning against the railing on the boat's bow. One hand was curled around the railing, pushing her shoulder up, turning her body to slope forward. Her other drifted lazy in the air, one finger cutting left to right as we went around a bend. I couldn't see her eyes. If I could, I know they would have been focused in the little lights in their corners, information I'll never see flashing straight into her optical nerve.

The boat turned, and the motor sagged from a distant hum into a brief, violent chug before stopping altogether. We stepped down the ramp in the loping hops that disembarking from a not quite stationary motorboat requires. It was cold out. The sun was just far enough gone that the corners of things were hidden, but not quite enough that the streetlights came on.

An old woman in tight pants met us with a tighter smile. I tried to act surprised, chewed my lip. She blinked at us, and Elle blinked back.

Fighting the wind, the old woman brushed her hair out of her eyes and held it to the side of her ponytail. "We've found someone on the inside." she said. "You'll like it."

Elle cocked her head. Their eyes flashed, and Elle grinned.

---

The room was larger than it needed to be, with only two lamps set in the ceiling at the far end for light. There was nothing in it but two chairs and the table between us. Behind me was the door, and behind my interrogator was a frosted glass window.

"I know you don't want to think of this as an interrogation, but it is necessary." the interrogator said.

"Of course."

The interrogator flicked their finger. A light flashed in the corner of their eye. "How well do you know Elle?"

"We used to drink together. She's serious, never smiles, but she has a lot of good ideas." I paused just long enough for the silence to hang in the air. "Fun ones. We went to a wine tour at a museum once." I paused again, shorter. "With my wife of course." I added.

The interrogator tapped their finger. "Do you know this man."

I blinked. "I'm sorry." I said, trailing off.

The interrogator tapped their finger again. "What about this woman?"

I chewed on my lip. "I don't have implants. They took my glasses at the door."

The interrogator blinked, exhaled a burst of air all at once. "Of course." The interrogator smiled. "We'll save that for later then."

I smiled back.

---

Six O'clock, every storefront on the corner trying too hard to look like a corner in Paris. The morning fog hadn't dissipated, and most of the tables outside still had chairs on them. One didn't. A woman in black glasses sat at the table with a chair pulled out for Elle. The woman had dry black hair with bright red roots, the kind of red you don't get without bleach and dye.

"Hey." said the woman with the black hair.

"Hey." said Elle, her eyes a little narrow.

"Are you going to sit down?" the woman asked.

Elle blinked, nodded. "Yes. Of course." She sat.

The woman raised her eyebrows, took a sip of coffee. "You need a vacation."

Elle shook her head, incredulous. "Is that a joke?"

The woman rolled her eyes. "Yes, that was a joke." She slid forward, elbows on the table, and she took her glasses off.

Elle inhaled, slightly, sharply. She looked away. First at me across the street, then down at her feet.

The woman grimaced. "You know for someone who wanted to meet so badly, you don't seem excited to see me."

Elle shook her head, eyes closed. "I'm sorry. It's, ah." She opened her eyes, made eye contact. "You look just like her. Just like she used to." Before Elle could bring herself to ask, she let the moment fill with silence. "What's your name?"

The woman leaned back, grinned, spread her arms. "Oh come on, that's too easy."

Elle folded her hands on the table. She glanced down. Then she made eye contact, shifting her weight, letting her nervous energy out of her legs and out of the conversation. "What do you call yourself."

The woman's smile slipped, her arms hanging limp on the back of her chair. She chewed on the moment. "Zero."

Elle frowned, closed her eyes, and reached into her coat. The woman shifted her body forward, fidgeting deliberately, moving everything but her left hand.

I didn't like it. “Elle," I said. But she didn't respond. Her eyes were on the woman in front of her. For the first time, she ignored the lights in the corner of her eyes.

Elle slid an envelope across the table. "This is it."

The woman flipped open the envelope, glanced down with her eyes, neck steady. It wasn't sealed. "Plane tickets?"

"China."

"Why?"

Elle cut in. Her voice cracked. She swallowed and started again. "I want you to be safe." she closed her eyes. "You're all I care about."

The woman huffed, shook her head. After a long pause, "Can I ask you something?"

Elle's face was tight. "Anything." she said then, struggling to keep her face in line.

The woman chewed her lip. She leaned forward, putting her sunglasses back on, one eyebrow cocked. She asked Elle a question. Elle never answered, because Zero moved her finger and Elle died.

---

"Thanks." I smiled at the guard. The guard gave me a half smile back, and left the room. I forgot about the glasses in my hand for a moment and watched the guard leave. When the door closed, I put the glasses back on and nodded to my interrogator. "Thanks." Again.

My interrogator sat upright, arms folded in their lap. They nodded. "Of course." They tapped their finger, and my glasses lit up, projecting an image of an old woman with a tight smile. "Do you know this woman?"

"No."

The interrogator tapped their finger again. "What about this one."

"Of course." I said it, confused. Before I had the words out, they caught in my throat.

The image projected into my eyes was a young woman, frowning. Her hair was white. The corners of the interrogator's mouth turned up, briefly.

I chewed on my lip. "That's an agent, one of the field agents, isn't it?" I asked the interrogator.

The interrogator did not respond.

We sat in silence for several seconds. I counted my breathing. "I think that's one of the agent's that was... taken from her mother."

"Whose mother." the interrogator was ready with the words.

"Elle's mother." I didn't think then because I had thought so much already about Elle. I was tired. "Why are you asking me this." I didn't get an answer. "They're all dead."

The interrogator smiled. "This is agent Zero."

Before the weight of that statement could hang in the air, I responded. "If Elle knew there was one left, she would find them."

"She would stop, and look for them."

---

The bullet didn't hang in the air. First it had not been fired, and then Elle was on the ground in a bed of a broken chair, and the bullet had bounced off of the cobblestones and buried itself in a wall. A breath later there was a crack. The sound didn't last, but it's echoes left down the street behind us at a leisurely pace. I ran to her side.  

"This isn't what I wanted." I held her by the shoulders, struggling to keep grip without moving her torso. I could feel the blood, but couldn't see it yet.

"This isn't what any of us wanted." she said. Her mouth was tight. She didn't match my gaze but not because she couldn't. Her eyes weren’t narrow in the fading sag of someone losing their grip but with anger, frustration. "I fucked up." she said. Her mouth was red at the edges. "The rest of you can still do it."

I narrowed mine to match hers.

"Find her." she hissed, and her eyes flashed red, gaze fixed on the data outrunning her.

"I'll find her." I lied.

She smiled. "Good." she said, and she looked at me for the first time in weeks. She didn't smile. She did reach towards me with her right arm, and I held onto it. She didn't have a hand to hold onto, only a burnt twist of wire and gunmetal. I held onto it until she died.