"Bagged and tagged," Weitz had concurred with characteristic disregard for political correctness. Then, shifting gears, he'd raised his voice and called, "Yo, Walter! I found the problem with this f---ing piece of junk. What do I get if I fix it?"

"A chance to kiss my bony butt," a gravelly voice had called back. A moment later, Section's weapons chief had walked out of the storage area in the rear of his work space. He'd been carrying an armload of equipment which he deposited on the table. He'd given Pollard a quick up-down-up appraisal, then extended his hand and said, "I'm Walter."

"Pollard," the transfer had responded, giving the proffered appendage a quick shake. Davenport had gotten the impression that he'd been taken aback by the older man's hippie-esque appearance.

"Pollard's thinking about putting the moves on Nikita," Weitz had announced with a snicker as he'd begun adjusting the firing mechanism of the weapon he'd nearly dismantled.

"I admire your taste, man," Walter had declared forthrightly, scrutinizing the newly arrived operative once again. "But take my advice." He'd leaned forward, his expression grave. *"Don't go there."*

"Exactly whose is she?" Pollard had countered pugnaciously, jutting his jaw.

Almost simultaneously, Davenport had caught sight of a lean, black-clad figure striding out of one of the corridors opposite Walter's alcove, PDA in hand.

"His," he'd said flatly, jerking his head.

************

Pollard had turned, looked, and turned back. His expression had suggested that he hadn't been very impressed by what he'd seen.

"So who's he and why does he have an exclusive on the hottest piece of ass--"

"His name's Michael," Walter had cut in, his voice as sharp as a surgeon's blade. "Hers is Nikita. And I'd be careful how I referred to her, if I were you."

"Very, *very* careful," Weitz had echoed mildly, extracting a small file from a battered tool kit sitting to his left.

Pollard's gaze had ping-ponged between the weapons guru and his burly, ad hoc assistant. Then he'd swiveled his head and taken another look at the individual under discussion.

*"That's* ... Michael?" he'd muttered, frowning.

Davenport had known exactly what was going through his head. He'd experienced a similar sense of disbelief -- or had it been disappointment? -- the first time he'd laid eyes on Section's most lethal operative. Michael was a goddamned legend. He'd expected there to be ... well ... *more* to the guy.

"Don't bother telling us you figured he'd be bigger," Walter had said. "Davenport's already used that line."

Pollard had eyed his tour guide curiously. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," Davenport had acknowledged. Funny, he'd reflected. He'd forgotten that Walter had witnessed his initial sighting of the enigmatic man he'd come to recognize as his superior in just about every sense of the word. "But my perspective on the size issue changed pretty damned quick."

"He saw him buck naked in the locker room," Weitz had responded, grinning. "Michael's hung like a horse and poor Chris here--"

"Shut the f--- up, Weitz," Davenport had interrupted. He hadn't been bothered by his friend's outrageous explanation. "Or I'll tell Pollard that padding you put in your mission pants isn't for protection."

There'd been a pause. Walter had given a half-strangled chortle, then suddenly gotten very busy with the equipment he'd brought out.

"So ... what happened to change your mind, Davenport?" Pollard had eventually questioned. He'd sounded genuinely curious.

"I went one-on-one with Michael a couple days after I first saw him. Unarmed combat." Davenport had shaken his head, remembering the humiliating square-off. "After the fifth or sixth time I found myself flat on my back with him a centimeter from delivering a killing blow, I decided the guy was a f---ing giant."

"Huh." Pollard had glanced out into the main Command and Control area once again, apparently tracking Michael's elegantly economical movements. Davenport had watched, too. After a few seconds, the Class Five operative's path had intersected with that of his former material. He'd extended the PDA to her. She'd smoothly accepted it.

He hadn't checked his stride. She hadn't checked hers. And although there'd been an instant of eye contact when the transfer had taken place, they hadn't even brushed fingers.

Davenport had experienced a sudden, sickening flash of anger as he'd witnessed the encounter. Until that moment, despite the rumors he'd heard and the chilling account of Nikita's actions during the Dryzinski mission he'd had from Weitz, he'd been able to cling to the notion that the recent alterations in the blonde's demeanor were strictly surface. Part of a ploy to gain her and Michael a little maneuvering room. But something about the Ice Princess indifference he'd just seen ...

She wasn't trying to game their superiors, he'd decided, a sense of depression settling over him like a lead blanket. Her aloofness was real. She'd been ... *gotten* ... to. Somebody, somehow, had short-circuited her ability to care and connect. They'd ripped out the core of compassion that had made her so very special.

And as far as he could tell, Michael wasn't --

"No *way* those two are making it," Pollard had snorted.

"Making it or not, she's his and he's hers," Walter had shot back with startling ferocity. "You want to reduce your life expectancy to minus nothing, try stepping between them."

There'd been another pause, much less pleasant than the previous one. Right then, Davenport had begun to suspect that the weapons master had a pretty good idea of what had been done to Nikita and why. He'd also gotten the distinct feeling that the older man's take on Michael's apparent acquiescence to the situation was a lot different than his.

"Okay, okay," the Class Two transfer had returned, making a not-very-gracious gesture of surrender. Then he'd looked out toward Command and Control for a third time. Davenport had followed suit.

Nikita had disappeared from view. Michael, however, had been standing by Birkoff's work station, listening attentively to the young computer whiz. Off to his left, a delicately pretty brunette with an ugly black and blue mark on the side of her jaw had been gazing at him worshipfully.

Davenport had identified the young woman after a moment of cogitation. He hadn't been able to recall her name, but he'd known who she was. He'd also known why she was staring at Michael as though he was God Almighty covered with hot fudge sauce.

"Guess that little dark-haired honey didn't get the No Trespassing memo," Pollard had drawled snidely.

Weitz had given him a scathing 'get real' look.

"Regan's not even on Michael's radar," he'd said dismissively.

"Maybe not. But he's definitely looming large on hers." Pollard had laughed lewdly. "Look at her, man. She's *creaming* for him!"

"Wise up, Pollard," Walter had snapped, slamming down a piece of equipment he'd just picked up. The show of anger had surprised Davenport. The weapons chief usually kept his cool. "Most of the women in this place -- some of the men, too -- have a yen for Michael."

"Yeah," Weitz had agreed, calmly exchanging the file he'd been using for a small screwdriver. "The guy's like a contagious disease. I swear, every time he says the word 'reconnaissance,' another chick keels over in front of him with her legs spread. Not that he seems to notice. 'Course, Regan's got an especially bad case of it. She's hot for him because Nikita was on the verge of blowing her f---ing brains out a couple of days ago and Michael saved --"

************

*Shit!*

The van hit another pothole. Or maybe it was a crater from a meteor.

Pollard fell against him again, more heavily than the first time. Davenport shoved the operative back into place.

"Either epoxy your ass to the seat or put on a harness," he ordered.

"Yeah, sure," Pollard quickly assented, fumbling with the clasp on his safety belt. "Okay. Sorry."

Davenport glanced toward the front of the van. His vision wavered briefly, then cleared. God, he hoped he wasn't concussed again! The vision thing didn't bode well. But at least the ringing in his ears had stopped.

Michael was still sitting, rock steady, working at the computer console. It was as though he'd been equipped with some kind of internal gizmo that kept him balanced, no matter what.

Davenport wondered briefly what he was doing with such fierce concentration. Reconfiguring another profile, maybe? Or reaming somebody out via the 'Net?

Hell, maybe he was bidding on e-Bay.

"Check him out, Davenport," Pollard muttered, finally managing to click his harness closed. "I know you've got to be some kind of freak to make Class Five. But I gotta tell you. I'm beginning to think that son of a bitch isn't human."

All of a sudden, Michael wasn't focusing on the computer screen. Instead, he was staring at the two of them. Davenport felt his mouth go dry. Could he have heard--?

Michael held his gaze steadily for several excruciatingly long seconds, then flicked a chilly glance at Pollard. A moment after that, he returned to his task.

"He is," Davenport said under his breath, flinching inward at the expression he'd seen in Michael's gray-green eyes. "Trust me."

*******

Had Chris Davenport had any doubts about the validity of his assertion about Michael's humanity, they would have been dispelled by an encounter he observed several hours later. The venue was the corridor outside van access.

Nikita was waiting for them when they arrived, ostensibly to take custody of the data nodes they'd retrieved. But something about her manner suggested that she might have other ... more complicated ... reasons for showing up.

If Michael was surprised by her appearance, he disguised it perfectly. He produced the recovered intel before she requested it, then preemptively inquired whether she required him to undergo additional debriefing.

*Additional* debriefing? Davenport wondered, forcing down the impulse to manufacture an excuse to linger on the scene and sauntering by the couple. When had Michael had a chance to --

Ah.

So *that* was what he'd been doing at the computer during the trip back to Section.

"Your report is sufficient for now," he heard Nikita reply. Her voice was level. A little *too* level, in his opinion. She sounded programmed. "You're down until oh-eight-hundred the day after tomorrow."

There was no audible response from Michael. Davenport pictured him politely inclining his head and turning away.

Reaching the end of the corridor, he slowed his stride and risked a glance back in the direction from which he'd come. Michael was moving toward him, his expression determinedly blank. Nikita was standing where she'd been, staring after him. Her pale brows were drawn together as though she were trying to puzzle out the solution to a very troubling problem.

"M-Michael?" she suddenly called, her voice no longer absolutely steady. The name seemed to well up from the very core of her being. Davenport had the feeling she'd fought to choke it back, but failed.

Michael's features tightened. He took two more steps, then stopped. After a moment, he pivoted around to face his one-time trainee. While the movement could not be described as clumsy, it lacked his usual fluid grace.

Maybe he *had* been injured in the blast. Then again, maybe he was hurting for a another reason ...

"Yes?" Davenport heard him answer. His voice was quiet.

Nikita blinked several times, as though having trouble with her vision. Then she angled her chin up a notch. Her fair hair rippled silkily over her slim, strong shoulders.

"Are you --" she hesitated, her throat working "-- okay?"

There was a long pause. Davenport had no idea what -- if anything -- the beautiful blonde saw in her ex-trainer's face as the silence stretched on and on. But *something* made her lips part and a flush of pink stain her cheeks.

He shifted, knowing he should look away but unable to force himself to do so. He *had* to see this. Because maybe ... just maybe ... those emotional circuits he'd thought had been shorted out were finding a way to regenerate themselves.

"I'll be fine, Nikita," Michael finally returned, his accent intensifying as he pronounced her name. "Thank you for asking."

************

Four days later, Nikita sat in front of a computer console in Systems, methodically reviewing a long and jargon-laden report on a recent problem at a nuclear facility in the former Soviet Union.

She hadn't been assigned to the task. Quite the contrary. She actually was supposed to be off for the next twenty-four hours. But after bolting awake shortly after dawn, then spending most of the morning prowling around her neat-as-a-pin apartment searching in vain for something to occupy her time, she'd decided to come in and do some work.

And why not? After years of what she now dispassionately regarded as childish resistance to the inevitable, she'd finally become comfortable in Section.

Well...no. "Comfortable" wasn't *quite* the adjective she was looking for. But it would do until she consulted a thesaurus and found a better one. There had to be a word that captured the sense of belonging -- of having a higher purpose -- being a part of Section inspired in her.

She now understood that she was at her best when she was there. When she wasn't, she felt...*diminished.* She lacked meaning. Motivation. It was as though she was less than she knew she ought to be.

So, what "ought" she to be?

Stupid question, she chided herself, massaging the bridge of her nose with her right thumb and forefinger. The answer was so obvious. Basically, she was supposed to be exactly what she was.

Or, rather, what--after so much wasted time--she'd come to terms with being.

*A woman with your looks who can kill in cold blood...*

The faintly-accented assessment whispered through Nikita's brain, triggering a queer jitter in her stomach. She shifted abruptly, crossing her sheerly-stockinged legs. Her stomach fluttered a second time. Her breathing pattern snagged.

*Damn!* she thought with a flash of temper. *Not again!*

Nikita was bitterly aware that there'd been a time when she'd rejected that ruthless summation of why she was of value to Section. A time when she'd tried to despise the man who'd calmly flung it in her face in answer to an anguished question. Now, however...

She shook her head in a jerky, back-and-forth movement, wanting to purge all recollections of that period of her life. *Never mind,* she told herself, unpleasantly conscious of the sudden acceleration of her heart rate. *Just do the job.*

Inhaling on a short, sharp breath, she forced her attention back to the computer screen. Focusing on the document displayed on it, she expelled the air from her lungs with far more deliberation than she'd drawn it in.

She'd experienced this type of panicky distractedness several times during the past few weeks. All the episodes had been triggered by thoughts of -- or contact with -- the same person. She'd considered consulting Madeline about them, but ultimately discarded the idea. Although the older woman had shown herself to be almost maternally solicitous in recent days, Nikita knew that she had far more important things on her agenda than dealing with a Class Two operative's petty emotional weaknesses.

She inhaled again.

Slowly. Soothingly.

She exhaled.

Ahhhh...

Agitation slipped away. Equanimity slid in to replace it. She was herself once again and nothing -- *no one* -- could touch her.

Another deep breath.

All right.

All right.

*Back to work,* she told herself. *Back to what matters.*

The official explanation of the nuclear plant incident was that human error had caused a minor "accident," necessitating a temporary shutdown. While there was no hard intel to contradict this scenario, something about the timing of the episode nagged at her.

*First notice of the deviation from standard operating procedure apparently was delayed because of an unanticipated overload...*

Nikita frowned a little, then scrolled back several paragraphs. After rereading them twice, she clicked to the file containing a series of satellite reconnaissance photos taken before and after the supposed accident.

Still frowning, she highlighted a portion of one of the images and enlarged it.

Hmmm.

She highlighted and enlarged again.

And again.

Uh-huh.

Back to the document.

Searching...

Searching...

*Yesssss!*

Got it.

A spurt of satisfaction suffused her. Had she been a cat, she would have wriggled her body and purred.

Her superiors -- those who had taken a discard from the gutter and transformed her into something useful - would be *very* pleased.

************

Nikita glanced toward the analyst sitting to her left, intending to alert him to what she'd discovered. The announcement died, unspoken, when she realized that he was looking at her.

Instinct told her that he'd *been* looking at her for quite some time.

There was nothing sexual in his assessment. Despite the general indifference to physical desire that had enveloped her during the past month or so, she still knew when someone's interest was carnal.

And when it wasn't.

Which wasn't to say that the analyst wasn't *intrigued* by her. He obviously was. But in a clinical kind of way. As though she were some kind of ... of ... specimen.

He didn't want to bed her, she thought, stiffening. He wanted to take her apart and figure out what made her tick.

*Bastard,* she cursed silently with a shocking burst of hostility. She didn't like being spied on. She wasn't an animal in a goddamned zoo! She'd thought she'd made that crystal clear when she'd ripped the surveillance equipment out of her --

STOP!

Nikita gulped in a harsh breath, squeezing down on the fury geysering up within her. She muscled it back into the dark mental compartment from which it had escaped, then slammed the lid shut and locked it away.

Her lungs emptied in a shuddering rush. Her head spun. For a sickening moment, she thought she might vomit.

Okay, she told herself, lacing her fingers together to stop them from trembling.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

*Better.*

Inhale.

Exhale.

No. Not "better."

*Fine.*

She fixed the analyst with a frigidly contemptuous stare, imagining what it would be like to crush him beneath her heel or snap his scrawny neck. He flushed, but managed to hold her gaze for several defiant moments. Then the color in his face began to drain away, leaving his complexion pasty pale. Finally, he swallowed with an audible *gulp* and dropped his eyes. He squirmed in his seat, angling his body away from hers.

Nikita felt ... nothing.

Dismissing the analyst from her mind, she turned back to the computer console. A few minutes of fiercely concentrated work later, she'd tagged the information she'd found and routed it to the proper files. That accomplished, she logged off, shoved back from the data station, and stood up.

Her body was humming with energy. It prickled along the nerve endings just beneath her skin, making her muscles itch and twitch. Her pulse was racing. Her respiration, swift and shallow.

Adrenaline rush, she diagnosed. The backwash of her anger at the analyst, perhaps. Or of her pleasure at having once again served Section to the best of her abilities.

She needed to run.

Or jump.

Or *punch* something.

A workout, Nikita decided abruptly, swatting a strand of hair off her face. What she needed was a *workout.* She could sweat herself back into balance. She'd done it before. Exercising to exhaustion was the perfect antidote for potentially counter-productive emotionalism.

She headed toward the exit with a get-out-of-my-way stride. A few feet from the door, she nearly collided with the tech shift supervisor, a ferret-faced cyberpunk named Gandolf.

Gandolf was reputed to be superb at his job. Socially inept and borderline paranoid, too. Which wasn't a problem. In fact, both qualities probably had contributed to his professional success.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, giving her a nasty, why-don't-you-look-where-you're-going? glare. "Watch it, will you?"

"Sorry," she retorted, her tone making a mockery of the apology.

Gandolf's nasty look morphed into a suspicious frown.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, the small silver ring in his left nostril quivering. "I didn't see you on the personnel roster."

"That's because I'm not on it. I'm down today. I came in on my own."

"Why?"

"To review the report on the incident in Novosibirsk."

Blink. Blink. Nikita had the feeling that the younger man was accessing one of his mental data banks.

"The nuke screw-up?"

"That's right." She allowed herself a small smile. "I found an anomaly between one of the surveillance photos and the on-site tick-tock."

Gandolf's watery blue eyes flicked back and forth, back and forth. "What kind of anomaly?"

"See for yourself. It's flagged in your file."

The suspiciousness faded, but didn't completely vanish.

"Came in on your own, huh?" the analyst mused after a moment, scratching his goatee'd chin. There were tiny flecks of something -- dandruff? crumbs of food? -- clinging to the wispy strands of hair. He gave a grating little snicker. "Nothing better to do with your time off?"

If he was trying to goad her, he failed.

"No," Nikita answered icily. *"Nothing."*

************

Nikita arrived in one of Section's "private" workout rooms about ten minutes later, expecting to find it empty.

It wasn't.

A chestnut-haired operative clad in a skintight tank top and loose fitting, drawstring pants - both black -- stood in the middle of the mat-covered floor performing a series of slow stretches. Although the pace was languid - almost lazy -- the man's sleekly muscled arms and broad shoulders were sheened with sweat.

Uninitiated observers probably would have dismissed the movements being executed as easy. But anyone familiar with the martial arts would have recognized the demanding nature of the elegantly precise exercises and understood the amount of practice required to master them.

"Michael," Nikita murmured, her breath catching for an instant. Surprise at seeing him, she quickly assured herself. Nothing more.

That she'd wanted him once upon a time, she couldn't deny. Likewise, that she'd allowed her wanting to cloud her judgment -- permitted desire to override and compromise duty.

Thankfully, that shameful period of her life was over.

Finished.

Utterly, absolutely, done with.

She could still remember -- at an indifferent distance -- what she used to feel for Michael. Or, rather, what she'd let herself be seduced into *thinking* she felt.

God!

She'd been so *foolish.*

So unforgivably weak.

But now...

Now, finally, just about everything was precisely as it should be. And those few things that hadn't quite fallen into line soon would.

Yes, she'd been concerned during the first week or so after the change had come over her. Concerned and confused. Periods of exhilarating clarity and soaring confidence had been alarmingly punctuated by moments of emotional instability and frightening self-doubt. She'd been plagued by flashbacks. The present had seemed to collapse inward on itself, leaving her floundering between reality and recollection.

She'd honestly feared she was going crazy.

The turning point had been Michael's unheralded visit to her apartment. She'd been at her lowest ebb when he'd shown up. The encounter that had followed had been awkward. Uncomfortable. Even ugly.

And yet...

*I don't love you anymore,* she'd told him.

She'd taken no pleasure in the pain she'd sensed those words had inflicted. Had hurting him been her aim, she would have followed the first assertion with a second one.

*I don't love you any more,* she would have said. *And I know you never loved me.*

A man who loved her -- really, truly loved her -- would not have used, abused, lied to and exploited her as Michael had, over and over and over again.

She wasn't certain what she'd expected him to do once she'd finally laid her lack of feelings on the line. Dig deep into his bag of Valentine tricks and attempt to rekindle the sexual flame that had seared both of them? Try to "reason" with her? Assault her?

With the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, she'd come to the conclusion that Michael's response to her closing the door on their past actually had been quite predictable.

He'd walked away and he hadn't looked back.

She hadn't encountered him for several days after the episode in her apartment. In the interim, they'd been deployed on separate flash missions on different continents. Both highly dangerous. Both extremely successful.

"Good work in Malta," had been the first words Michael had said to her in the wake of her *I don't love you any more* statement.

The compliment, uttered in passing during a chance meeting in a corridor, had caught her off guard. She'd tested it -- and his expression -- for deception, then decided he was being sincere.

"Yeah," she'd concurred, her lips curving. "It was."

And with that simple, seemingly spontaneous exchange, they'd begun anew. No longer mentor and material. No longer lovers. Not equals, precisely. In truth, Nikita doubted that they'd ever be that. But definitely comrades-in-arms.

A team.

Tied by mutual respect.

Shared beliefs.

Bound ... remarkably ... by a burgeoning spirit of trust.

Although Michael had his back to the door, a fractional shift in his posture told her that he'd registered her entrance -- and deduced her identity -- before she whispered his name. Characteristically, he did not acknowledge her presence until he completed the form he'd been doing.

"You were called in?" he asked quietly as he pivoted around to face her. He segued smoothly into another series of stretches.

The question was revealing on two counts, Nikita reflected. On the one hand, it made it clear that he was still keeping tabs on her schedule. On the other, it implicitly conceded her independence from his authority.

She shook her head, her pony-tailed hair swishing against her nape. Her gaze was irresistibly drawn to the subtle bunch and release of the muscles beneath her former trainer's lightly bronzed skin. The tan was a souvenir from his flash mission, a surgical strike against the Taliban.

So much power, she thought admiringly. So perfectly controlled...

"I came in on my own," she answered after a moment, shrugging. "There's always work to do."

"Ah." Michael swept his arms outward, wrists supple, fingers flexed. He held the position for several seconds, then fisted his hands and pulled them into his solar plexus. He drew a deep breath in through his nostrils, then released it through his mouth. The thin, dark fabric of the tank top pulled taut across his chest at the peak of the inhalation.

Nikita shifted her weight. Like him, her feet were bare. She was acutely conscious of the texture of the mat beneath her soles.

"You're usually in here earlier than this," she commented. What prompted her to offer this observation, she wasn't sure. It certainly wasn't a desire to make idle conversation. A bit of tit-for-tat, perhaps? Putting him on notice that he wasn't the only one who tracked other people's work patterns? Or maybe a little angling for information about what had caused him to alter his schedule?

His eyes met hers for an instant, then shifted to a spot behind her.

"Yes," he laconically affirmed, sinking down into the martial arts equivalent of a second position *grande plie.* His rock-hard thighs were absolutely parallel with the floor.

Nikita felt the muscles of her upper legs tighten. She shifted a second time, her toes curling against the mat.

Closing his eyes, Michael filled his lungs once again. Suddenly, he was all physicality and focus. The strength of his concentration was palpable. The air in the room seemed to resonate with it.

"Well," Nikita finally said, tilting her chin. "I'll come back later."

She pivoted.

Took two steps.

Reached for the touch pad that would open the door.

Somewhere in the dim recesses of her memory, her mind replayed the first time Michael had turned his back on her. She'd gone after him like an angry, untamed animal -- which, in a sense, was exactly what she'd been.

He'd used her wild momentum against her, taking her down and establishing his dominance over her with frigid efficiency. The finesse he'd demonstrated had frightened her more thoroughly than a show of brute force would have. Brute force, she understood. She could contend with it, to a degree. But the ruthless intelligence she'd sensed behind her captor's undoubtedly lethal fighting skills was outside her realm of experience.

And then -- *then!* -- the jade-eyed bastard had calmly instructed her how to attack him more effectively in the future.

She'd hated him with every fiber of her being when he'd done that. Hated him, even as her body had thrummed with the perversest kind of sexual arousal. Because in that brief, breathless space of time when he'd been stretched out on top of her, there'd been a part of her that had --

"No, Nikita." Michael's voice jerked her back to the present, causing her to freeze in her tracks. "Stay."

************

As the head of the most covert anti-terrorist organization on the planet, the man known as Operations literally had the power of life and death over his subordinates. It was a heavy, heavy responsibility - one which would have felled many individuals to their knees, or worse. But while the leader of Section One was always conscious of the weight he bore, he'd been trained -- from his days as a plebe at West Point -- to carry the burden of command.

As the head of the most covert anti-terrorist organization on the planet, the man known as Operations was *also* tasked with a seemingly endless roster of bureaucratic duties. There were moments when he found this almost as onerous as his unrelenting awareness that orders he gave could -- and often did -- cause other people to be killed.

To put it bluntly, the man who'd once been a hero named Paul Wolfe -- a hero the world believed was dead -- loathed paperwork with a passion. Even paperwork that, thanks to the miracles of cyber-technology, didn't involve any paper.

"Clerk and jerk" work -- a phrase from his Army days -- was how he privately described that part of his job. He performed it because he had to and performed it superlatively. But he hated it all the same.

*"Just two kinds of officers that I can see, sir,"* a grizzled Special Forces sergeant had told him many, many years ago during a drunken carouse through Saigon. *"Desk jockeys and warriors. Both of 'em can get you killed. But a desk jockey'll f--- you up with forms before he lets you die."*

One of Operations' abiding fears was that he'd wake up some morning and realize he'd become a desk jockey. Or even worse, a REMF--Rear Echelon Mother f---er.

Given all this, it was no surprise that the head of Section One was not in the best of moods after being forced to spend an entire morning and half of an afternoon dealing with budgetary minutia, procurement and recruitment procedures, and equipment allocations. Had this butt-numbing effort not provided him with ample opportunity to put the logistical shaft to Oversight, he would have been truly pissed off.

"Happy reading, George," he said sardonically as he clicked his computer's *send* function and dispatched the final page of the documentation his hierarchical superior had "requested" during a terse conversation earlier in the day. "Enjoy the footnotes."

That done, he swiftly cursored through his active/update file. Things appeared to be relatively quiet, he noted, massaging what felt like a walnut-sized knot of tension in the back of his neck. Nothing that required his immediate attention. Only two missions running, neither of them particularly risky. And of the four -- no, just *three* missions on pad, only one seemed likely to be classified as Alpha priority before it went on line.

Mmm...

He kept reading, shoving aside the problematic truth that when all was going pretty well with the world, Section One's *raison d'etre* was diminished. And should the brutal battle against terrorism ever be won...

Operations shook his head grimly. Not in his lifetime.

An item near the end of the file caught his attention. *Novosibirsk?* Now why had someone flagged--?

He opened the document. Skimmed it quickly. Began to smile, just a little, about halfway through.

"Commendable, Nikita," he murmured, his smile widening a tad. *"Very* commendable. And on your own down time, too."

Finishing the succinctly worded memo, he checked the time it had been sent. Then he reached over and depressed one of the keys on his intercom system.

"Sir?" a nasal male voice asked a split second later.

"Is Nikita on site?" There was little need for niceties when dealing with ISS -- Internal Security and Surveillance.

"Yes, sir."

Something about the celerity of this response caused Operations' smile to contract. He was aware that Nikita attracted an unusual degree of attention from more than a few members of the ISS staff. Not necessarily a bad thing, considering. She bore watching. But there *was* a danger of objective observation metastasizing into obsession. Section had run into that problem several times in the past.

"Location?"

"Exercise G5." Obviously, the man was watching the blond Class Two at that very second. "She's working out with Michael."

She's. Working. Out. With. Michael.

For a moment, Operations' brain refused to process the words. But once it did...

"How long has this been going on?" he demanded, his voice tight.

"Uh --" It apparently began to dawn on the watcher on the other end of the line that his ability to provide instant intel on Nikita's whereabouts might *not* be creating a completely positive impression. "Not ... very."

"Did they arrive together?"

"S-sir?"

"Does this 'workout' session appear to have been pre-arranged?"

"Oh. Uh -- no, sir. She -- Nikita -- was in Systems for a couple hours, reviewing reports. Then she, uh ... uh ... you know. Uh, changed. Into, uh, workout gear. Then she went to G5. Michael was already there. She ... uh ... I don't think she expected to see him. Or vice versa. But it's hard to tell for sure, especially with him. Her, too. Lately."

The head of Section One took a deep breath, thinking back to any number of instances when monitoring transmissions involving Michael and Nikita had gone to dead, turned to electronic hash, or produced nothing but ear-piercing gibberish.

"Have there been any problems with the surveillance feed from G5 thus far?" he asked.

"Any ... problems?" the watcher parroted. Then comprehension apparently kicked in. "Oh! You mean like the times in Michael's office when --"

The surveillance operative broke off with an audible gasp of dismay. There was a painful pause, punctuated by a lot of throat clearing. Finally, very subdued, came the answer to Operations' inquiry.

"Uh, no, sir. The feed's clean. Clear as a bell. Not a nanosecond of disruption."

Operations grimaced as though he'd just been force fed something sour. Nothing, he told himself. A clean, clear feed meant *nothing!* Least of all, that whatever was going on in G5 was completely above-board, as the watcher's tone plainly suggested he believed it was.

Christ! he swore silently. It would be just like Michael to take the game he was playing -- assuming he was playing one, which was still infuriatingly unresolved -- out in the open for a round or two. The audacious obviousness of such a ploy --

"Uh ... sir?" The prompt was tentative. The vocal equivalent of tiptoeing on eggshells. "Is there anything else?"

"Yes. Route the output from that exercise room to my station...*now!"*

************

*"-- rushing the transition,"* the head of Section One heard his top operative say a moment or two later. A surveillance image flickered to life on one of his monitoring screens at the same time.

Afterward, Operations asked himself what he'd expected to see when he tuned into G5. Michael and Nikita with their heads together, plotting in a corner? Or locked in a sweaty embrace, copulating on the floor?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

He never really arrived at a satisfactory answer.

What actually appeared on the screen was two magnetically attractive, magnificently athletic people doing exactly what they'd been reported to be doing.

Working out.

With each other.

*"Show me,"" Nikita responded, apparently unoffended by what Operations deduced had been Michael's critique of the exercise she'd been performing. Like her former trainer, she was bare-footed and dressed in black. She was also sweating.

Michael inclined his head with a hint of irony, then went through a sequence of movements Operations recognized, but could not put a name to.

It was like watching water flow in slow-motion. Almost balletic in its beauty. Yet beneath the organic grace was the potency of an elemental force.

Operations had received a fair amount of martial arts training in the military and had become quite adept in several different disciplines. But he knew that even at the peak of his proficiency, he'd never come anywhere near achieving the level of mastery Michael had.

That some of what the younger man knew had literally been beaten into him by his trainer, Jurgen, Operations was well aware. He was *also* aware that Michael had been singled out for special instruction by Section's top expert in unarmed combat within a few weeks of his induction.

"Why?" he'd asked when the slight, serene-faced *sensei* had politely solicited permission to deviate from the normal training protocols. He'd already received a similar -- although more profanely worded -- request from Walter. There'd also been an offhand but unsettling comment from Madeline that the pretty-boy bomber he'd initially resisted recruiting might eventually warrant some hands-on attention.

The teacher had pondered his question for a few moments then said, "He has the spirit for it."

"The ... spirit?"

*"Hai.* Or, perhaps, there is a better term. I think -- 'calling?' What you say a man has when he is drawn to becoming a priest?"

*A priest?!?!*

"Section isn't in the business of upholding religious doctrine, Kenzo," Operations had pointed out with a trace of asperity.

"Of course." The *sensei* had sketched a small bow, his mouth curving into an agreeable smile. "Still. I ask your ... indulgence ... in this."

"And *I* ask why."

The Asian had straightened to his full height, about a head shorter than Operations. His expression had smoothed out. He'd fixed his superior with a steady stare.

"Most, here, we break," he'd replied. "This one, we would be wise to teach to bend."

Operations pushed the memory aside and leaned forward. He watched as Nikita determinedly attempted to duplicate the movements Michael had just demonstrated. She did well the first time. Even better the second. But on her third try, she over-reached an inch or two and started to lose her balance.

Michael was there to steady her, almost seeming to anticipate his former material's equilibrium problem before it occurred.

Operations detected nothing *sexual* in the contact between the two operative. Not when he watched it happen in real-time. Not when he reviewed it later. And God knew, he'd seen Michael seduce by touch enough times to recognize the technique!

Contrary to her reaction weeks before in her apartment, Nikita seemed perfectly comfortable having her former trainer's hands on her, he observed. She wasn't *enjoying* it, exactly. She was simply accepting it as a matter of course.

*"Not an asset,"* the head of Section One suddenly recalled himself saying to his second-in-command.

*"Excuse me?"* she'd returned.

*"You said adjustment had transformed Nikita from a distracting influence into a dependable asset. I think dependable *ally* is a lot closer to the mark."*

Michael stepped back from Nikita with no sign of reluctance. If touching her had stirred him in any way, he didn't show it.

The workout went on.

And on.

And then, by some unspoken agreement, they began to spar.

The first fall went to Michael.

And the second.

Operations frowned as he watched Nikita get to her feet. It seemed to him that she was ... what? Holding back? No. Not precisely. But her fighting style was more ... more ... *restrained* than usual. Indeed, her form was almost as flawlessly elegant as Michael's. All remnants of the street urchin who'd actually bitten the ear of one of her instructors -- and unceremoniously booted another one in the balls -- had been totally obliterated.

The head of Section One was startled to find he wasn't certain he approved of the change.

The third fall went to Nikita. She waited, her beautiful face blank, as Michael rose from the mat in a swift, seamless surge.

The fourth fall was his. He put his fair-haired opponent down, hard. She got up, rubbing her rump and breathing heavily. A drop of perspiration trickled down from her forehead and plopped off the tip of her nose.

They engaged again.

Grappled.

Michael reversed the move he'd used previously and put his sparring partner down again, even harder than before. His lips moved as he did so. What he said, Operations couldn't make out. But whatever it was, it obviously was audible to Nikita.

It took her a little longer to regain her feet this time. A thick lock of her hair had worked itself free from its confining ponytail. She swatted it away, gulping in air. Her face was pale. Her eyes, blazingly blue.

Michael smiled, just a bit. The curve of his mouth was insolent -- insulting -- in the extreme.

Nikita attacked. There was no other word for it. She attacked, plainly bent on doing physical damage.

She landed two viciously calculated blows. Operations winced involuntarily at the savage force of them.

"What the *hell* --?" he muttered, beginning to become genuinely concerned. While he'd definitely wanted Michael and Nikita out of each other's arms, he had no desire to see them at each other's throats!

Michael struck back, swift as a cobra. The move he used had nothing to do with the classic techniques he'd learned from his Section tutors. It was, Operations suspected, a gutter-spawned trick he'd picked up during the eighteen hellacious months he'd spent in prison.

Nikita stumbled back, the expression on her face impossible to describe. It was beyond hurt. Beyond rage. Beyond ... the moment. It was almost as though she'd been jolted into some kind of fugue state.

The two operatives battled back and forth across the exercise room. Kick. Punch. Feint. Punch. Punch. Lunge. Reverse. Kick.

No words.

Just animalistic grunts and desperate gasps for life-sustaining oxygen.

Finally, seeming to sense a weakness, Nikita launched into a roundhouse kick that probably would have shattered bone if it had connected. But Michael was ready for her. He deflected the blow with bruising precision, then used the feral momentum she'd built up to spin her around. A heart-stopping instant later, he had her slammed up against one of the room's padded walls. Grasping her wrists with one hand, he yanked her arms up and pinioned them above her head.

How long the two of them stood that way, their shaking, sweat-drenched bodies practically glued together, their flushed faces just a few inches apart, Operations never knew. He could have put a watch on it, after the fact. But there really wouldn't have been much point. The exact amount of time involved was ... irrelevant.

"P-please ..." Nikita eventually said, her voice husky. Her lower lip, faintly puffed, trembled. She looked bewildered and frightened, like a child waking from a nightmare. She also looked perilously close to tears. "I ... I d-don't ..."

She stopped, her throat working convulsively, her eyes flicking back and forth, back and forth, as though she was seeking a way to escape.

"M-Michael ..." Very soft. But more whimper than whisper.

"Shhh."

"I ... I d-don't ..."

Operations watched as Michael lifted his free hand to Nikita's face. Watched as she flinched away, for just an instant, then seemed to settle. Her lashes fluttered down as her one-time mentor traced the arch of her eyebrow with the pad on his thumb, then charted the curve of her cheek.

"I know, Nikita," Michael told her. "I know."

*"Goddammit!"* the head of Section One cursed, slamming his fist down on his desk. A moment later he swiveled around and stabbed one of the keys on his intercom.

"Yes?" a mellifluous female voice responded.

"Are you watching this, Madeline?"

"By 'this' I assume you mean what's been going on in G5."

"Congratulations. You assume correctly."

A sigh. "Yes. I'm watching."

"Fine. Then you've obviously seen that something's very wrong. Find out what it is ... and FIX IT!"

************

A day and a half later, Section One's Mistress of Mind Games sat in her spartanly furnished office, savoring a freshly brewed cup of Earl Grey and contemplating the fortuitous ambiguity of a two-letter pronoun.

*"Fix it,"* Operations had ordered her.

Very well.

She *would* fix it.

But in her own way, in accordance with her own schedule.

And if her definition of the "it" that required repairing turned out to differ radically from her superior's ...

Madeline smiled benignly and added a lump of sugar to her tea. After giving the sugar a few moments to dissolve, she took another ladylike sip of the steaming beverage. Then she turned to her computer console.

She inputted a command with one hand, calling up the surveillance tape from yesterday's -- ah -- *workout* in exercise room G5. It took only a second or two to load and start playing.

That the encounter in G5 had not been orchestrated in advance, Madeline was ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent certain. That Michael had recognized a strategic opportunity and single-mindedly exploited it, she was similarly sure.

As for the aim of this exploitation ...

Still, unfortunately, a question mark.

Suppressing the urge to sigh, Madeline tapped a function key and froze the tape a couple of beats before the fourth time Michael threw Nikita. She examined the Class Five operative's face for nearly a minute, fervently wishing that budgetary constraints had not forced a cutback in the installation of internal surveillance cameras.

Nothing, she finally concluded, taking a deep drink of tea.

Absolutely ... nothing.

Depositing her china cup back in its saucer with a decisive *clink,* Section's second-in-command began to advance the surveillance tape frame by frame. Somewhere in the back of her mind she marveled at the symmetrical perfection of Michael's martial arts form in each and every image.

She leaned forward, eyes narrowing, as she reached the point where Michael spoke to Nikita. Pressing another function key, she allowed the tape to resume playing at normal speed.

Nothing.

She racked back.

Replayed, this time at *half* speed.

Rewound again.

Slo-mo'd through the sequence.

*Nothing!*

Madeline froze the tape again, torn between real anger and reluctant admiration. She'd assigned Section's best technicians to the task of determining exactly what her one-time protege had said to his former trainee prior to flinging her to the floor. Those technicians had immediately snapped to, bringing all of Section's resources to bear on the challenge they'd been given.

They'd enhanced image and audio.

Digitized and remastered.

Filtered for interference.

Even run the bloody thing through a specially written lip reading program.

NOTHING.

Madeline drummed her neatly manicured nails against the edge of her computer console. It was possible that Michael had simply gotten very, very lucky in his choice of tone and head angle, she reflected. Such things *did* happen. Even in an environment where the notion of leaving anything to chance was anathema.

Then again ...

The possibility that Michael might have mouthed some nonsense syllables for the "benefit" of the cameras he undoubtedly knew were recording every nuance of his encounter with Nikita flitted through her brain like a wasp. Madeline swiftly batted it away. She was *not* going to go down *that* path!

More nail drumming.

Perhaps she was making this more complicated than it needed to be, she mused with a flash of self-directed derision. The key to discovering what Michael had said was simple. All she had to do was ask Nikita!

Madeline made a small moue of distaste. Simple, yes. But so obvious. So ... *crude.*

There was also the little matter of whether Michael's ex-material, if questioned, would answer with the truth.

Madeline leaned forward again and clicked in another command, fast-forwarding to the moment when Nikita's conditioning appeared to crack. Freezing the tape, she highlighted and enlarged the blonde's face.

It was all in the eyes, she thought with an odd pang.

The anger.

The anguish.

The pain.

The passion.

*And the profoundest kind of confusion she had seen in a long, long time.*

What was that cliche? Madeline asked herself, enlarging the image again. Something about eyes being the mirrors of the --

No.

Wait.

She had it wrong.

Not mirrors.

*Windows.*

Yes. That was it.

The eyes were supposed to be *windows* on the human soul.

*Which would make her ... what?* Madeline cocked her head, considering, conscious of a sour taste in her mouth. *A professional peeping Tom?*

She advanced the tape several more frames, then highlighted and enlarged once again. This time, Nikita's eyes were empty. Unfocused. She was looking straight at Michael. Yet she gave the unsettling impression that she was seeing someone -- or something -- else.

What was she thinking? Section's chief strategist wondered. Or, more to the point -- if her adjustment was, indeed, deteriorating into retrograde deviation --, what was she *feeling?*

And whatever it was, was there any way it could be used to --

*Bzzzt.*

The intercom.

Madeline closed her eyes for a moment. She inhaled slowly. Exhaled, the same way.

The intercom sounded again.

Section One's second-in-command reopened her eyes. Then she swiveled her chair to the left and activated the necessary comm link.

"Yes, Mr. Birkoff?" Her voice was smooth as silk.

"Nikita's on her way."

************

The door to Madeline's office whispered open barely a minute later.

"You asked to see me?"

Section's chief strategist glanced away from her computer screen, favoring the leggy blonde who'd just addressed her with a cool, carefully calibrated smile. Although she doubted that her demeanor would have been one whit different had she not been notified of Nikita's impending arrival, she was glad she'd instructed Birkoff to give her the heads-up. It had allowed her to activate surveillance and do a preemptive evaluation of the younger woman's attitude and attire. And *that* had prompted her to tweak her agenda, just a tad.

"Yes," she quietly affirmed. "Please." A graceful gesture. "Come in and sit down."

Nikita complied. She seemed quite at ease. Obviously interested in why she'd been summoned, but not noticeably apprehensive about it.

Except for a slightly swollen lower lip, she bore no sign of her set-to with Michael. At least, none that Madeline could see. What kind of damage she might have hidden beneath her clothing ...

Ah, yes.

*Her clothing.*

Black, stiletto-heeled boots.

A gun-metal gray knit dress with a plunging, asymmetrical neckline and thigh-high slit that appeared to have been pulled on over nothing but naked skin.

A silver-studded black leather jacket, casually draped over the shoulders of said gun-metal gray garment.

Madeline toyed briefly with the notion of saying something about this rather ... ah ... *aggressive* outfit. But although several pointedly on-topic remarks occurred to her, she decided to defer uttering them. Fashion commentary could wait until after she'd finished evaluating the psychological significance of Nikita's wardrobe choices.

If the younger woman had dressed with the goal of attracting attention, she'd definitely achieved it. Having begun tracking Nikita as soon as she'd received Birkoff's message, Madeline had seen every one of the sidelong and over-the-shoulder glances the blonde had garnered as she'd glided through Section's concrete corridors.

She'd also taken note of the fact that *none* of these glances had been accompanied by a greeting.

"That was a solid piece of analysis on the Novosibirsk mission," she finally said. "Your initiative is appreciated."

"Thank you," Nikita replied, inclining her head a few degrees. She seemed pleased by the compliment. But not *too* pleased. The insecurity she'd exhibited in the past was absent. An aura of confidence enveloped her, like an expensive cashmere wrap.

The response -- and the attitude that went with it -- were in line with post-adjustment psych projections, Madeline reflected. While this wasn't conclusive proof that the process was holding, it certainly had to be viewed as a positive indicator.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the lapse in G5 had been no more than that. A *lapse.* A temporary deviation from what was now the norm.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Nikita's conditioning had been integrated to the point where it had become self-correcting. And if *that* were the case --

"Birkoff said you wanted to brief me on my next assignment?" the Class Two operative prompted, edging forward in her seat. Her spine was yardstick straight. Her hands, loosely folded in her lap.

Madeline allowed herself a moment to absorb the bizarre contrast between the eager schoolgirl posture and tough slut attire. Then she manufactured another deliberately nuanced smile.

"That's right," she replied, picking up a PDA and extending it across the desk. "Single objective scenario. Limited timeframe. You'll probably find the profile rather simplistic compared with most of the ones you've been involved in during the past year. Don't interpret that as a downgrade. We're very pleased with your performance levels. I can promise you that once you've completed this particular mission, we'll find something more challenging to occupy your time."

Nikita accepted the PDA. "Should I read this now?"

"Yes. And then we can discuss any questions you may have."

Madeline watched closely as the blonde bent her head and began reviewing the profile. After less than fifteen seconds, blue eyes lifted to meet brown ones.

"Is this a reconfiguration?"

Madeline hesitated, taken aback by the tactical sophistication this inquiry suggested. She honestly hadn't expected Nikita to read between the lines so skillfully.

Had it been *Michael* scanning the PDA ...

"Yes," she said firmly, holding the younger woman's gaze.

"What happened to the original team?"

"The target acquired a new partner who'd been exposed to a green list operation in which one of them had been involved. The risk of compromise was deemed unacceptable." The explanation was glib. It was also -- insofar as it went -- absolutely true.

Nikita appeared to weigh this information, then nodded as though signaling her acceptance of it. A moment later, she went back to reading the material on the PDA.

Feigning interest in the data on her computer screen, Madeline used her peripheral vision to continue monitoring the blonde.

Nothing.

Absolutely ... nothing.

After five minutes of fiercely concentrated study, Nikita looked up once again.

"I see what you mean about being simplistic," she said, crossing her legs. The slit in her dress gapped open, revealing a creamy stretch of flesh. "But it looks solid to me. We go in -- when? Tomorrow night?"

"That's the plan," Madeline replied, searching the younger woman for signs of stress. She found none.

"Good."

There was a pause.

"Any other questions?" Madeline finally prodded. "Concerns?"

"Concerns?" Nikita repeated blankly, furrowing her brow. She seemed genuinely puzzled by the concept. Then, suddenly, one corner of her lush-lipped mouth kicked up.

"Ohhhh," she drawled. A spark of something -- could it actually be amusement? -- danced in her eyes. "You mean concerns about the fact that I'm being paired with Michael, and our cover may require us to have sex?"

************

Madeline steepled her slim, impeccably tended fingers, her gaze fixed on the younger woman's face. If this was a con ...

"Precisely," she said, biting off the word.

The light -- or was it the life? -- faded from Nikita's sky-colored eyes. Her expression hardened. "It's not as though we -- Michael and I -- haven't screwed for Section in the past."

Something deep within Madeline recoiled from the crudity of Nikita's language. That soppy-minded romanticism about sex was a luxury in which operatives could not afford to indulge was a lesson she'd repeatedly tried to drive home to the blonde. She was unsettled to discover that she felt precious little satisfaction at having finally succeeded in her effort.

"True," she conceded.

"Well, then ..." A small shrug tugged on the off-kilter neckline of the body-hugging knit dress. It was followed by a not-very-pretty smile. "We've done it before. I'm sure we'll manage to do it again to everyone's satisfaction. In fact, I seem to recall your telling me that Michael and I made a very believable twosome."

"I believe my exact words were that you were convincing as a young couple in love."

The smile snapped off.

"Whatever." For the first time since the interview had begun, Nikita glanced away. Madeline saw her jaw tense for an instant, as though she were clenching her teeth.

Section's Mistress of Mind Games allowed a few seconds to tick away. Then, with quiet implacability, she asked, "You're *certain* you have no reservations about the profile?"

Blue eyes returned to brown ones. "Why should I?"

Madeline arched her brows, tamping down on a spurt of irritation at having been subjected to the old answer-a-question-with-a-question ploy.

"The brawl in G5 the day before yesterday comes to mind," she responded tartly.

"That was nothing."

The swiftness of the assertion spoke volumes. So, too, the sudden rigidity in Nikita's posture. The fact that she seemed totally accepting of her superior's awareness of the incident in the exercise room was revealing as well.

The pre-adjustment Nikita probably would have pitched a fit -- or, at least made some bitterly impudent comment - - about Section's penchant for spying on its personnel. She probably would have challenged the description of what had happened in G5, too.

"Really." Madeline dropped the word like a stone.

"Michael and I just got a little ... uh ... primal."

The hesitation before the adjective intrigued the older woman. Likewise, the adjective itself. She'd never heard Nikita use it before. She wondered from whom she'd picked it up.

Michael?

Mmm. Possibly. Although --

No.

Wait.

Madeline repressed a sigh.

*Walter.*

Of course.

It had to have been Walter!

Madeline made a mental note to order a content review of all monitored conversations between the Section's weapons master and the Class Two operative she was painfully aware he'd nicknamed "Sugar."

"'Primal,'" she repeated distastefully, fixing the younger woman with a reproving stare. "Well, *primal* is hardly the mindset Section encourages in its operatives."

"I know that." Nikita looked -- and sounded -- genuinely chastened. "I apologize, Madeline. It won't happen again."

Another pause.

"I watched the surveillance tape from your little encounter," Madeline finally commented, moderating her tone just a bit. She was conscious that she was moving into largely uncharted psychological territory. "Michael said something while you were fighting."

A blink. "He did?"

"Yes."

"To ... me?"

"Yes." A beat. Then, very distinctly, "I'd like to know what it was."

Nikita furrowed her forehead. If she was feigning bewilderment, she was doing a remarkably persuasive job of it.

"I ... I don't remember," she said after several awkward moments. She sounded surprised.

"I don't believe you," Madeline riposted, almost automatically.

"But I *don't."* For the first time since she'd walked in, the younger woman began to seem upset. Her wide-set eyes shimmered with emotion. The color in her cheeks fluctuated between pale and pink. "I'd tell you if I did, Madeline. But a lot of what happened -- it -- it's a *blur."*

A third pause. Section's second-in-command frowned inwardly, her clever mind racing. She spent several seconds debating whether to show Nikita the G5 surveillance tape, then decided against it.

"You *did* appear rather distracted," she eventually acknowledged, weighing each word very carefully before she spoke it aloud. "One of the things we've been most pleased with during the past month or so is the marked improvement in your concentration. Your ... focus. Frankly, you came up very short in *both* those areas the day before yesterday. Had you been in the field --"

Madeline let the sentence dangle ominously, knowing Nikita's imagination would provide a suitably grim conclusion to it. She watched the blonde shift. Swallow. Then shift again.

Finally, after a long, long silence, her target offered a stark but cryptic confession:

"I ... I saw something."

************

"'Saw something'?" It required tremendous effort, but Madeline managed to keep her voice level.

"Images." More shifting around. Long legs uncrossed, then crossed anew. Blue eyes sought brown ones, the expression in them hauntingly similar to the one they'd contained immediately after their owner had emerged from adjustment. "I was -- was -- oh, God, I don't know! Flashing back, I guess."

"To some previous experience?" Madeline tried to clarify. The conditioning process had required a deep penetration of the subconscious, she reminded herself. It was possible that this had produced a form of post-traumatic stress syndrome.

"Maybe." The Class Two operative grimaced, then shook her head. "I'm not trying to be difficult, Madeline. I'm just *not sure.* I -- I'm very clear in the present, you know? But the past -- part of it, anyway - is all jumbled up and confused. I have memories. *Lots* of them. Only they don't always make sense. And some of them --" A second grimace. Then, "What can I say? I'm not even certain what I think I'm remembering actually happened!"

Madeline nodded slowly. "Do you recall what you were flashing back on during the sparring session?"

Nikita shuddered suddenly, her eyes clouding over. Madeline stiffened in reaction, anxiety spiking toward alarm. She relaxed a little a moment or two later when she saw Nikita -- with an almost tangible exertion of will - begin to bring herself back under control.

Inhale.

Exhale.

In...hale.

Ex...hale.

*Good,* Madeline thought fiercely, assessing every nuance of the younger woman's incremental return to calm. Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered that their breathing patterns were in sync. *Very ... very good.*

"Nikita?" she prompted softly when instinct told her the time was right.

The blonde met her gaze again, the potential cracks in her psyche apparently sealed back up and covered over.

"A man was hitting me," she stated in a matter-of-fact, operative-delivering-a-basic-debrief monotone. "At one point, he stopped. I told him not to. That he hadn't done enough damage."

"Was the man ... Michael?"

It was the logical -- though decidedly loaded -- question. Madeline knew that Michael had ordered Nikita beaten several years earlier, during the Wicke mission. It was well within the realm of possibility that the shock of that episode had caused the younger woman to fixate on the individual who'd commanded her brutalization, rather than the person who'd actually carried it out.

As for the part about her urging her assailant to go on hurting her ...

Mmm.

Nikita *had* entered Section suffering from a very low sense of self-esteem. There'd unquestionably been a facet of her that had believed she "deserved" to have bad things happen to her.

And yet ...

*A man was hitting me. At one point, he stopped. I told him not to. That he hadn't done enough damage.*

Madeline expelled a breath. She couldn't imagine the Nikita sitting opposite her behaving in such a masochistic fashion. There was simply no way. But the *pre*-adjustment Nikita --

Oh, yes. She could easily conceive of that infuriatingly unpredictable creature goading someone to hit her again. Indeed, she could practically *hear* her telling a torturer that if the punishment he'd inflicted was the worst he could do, she wasn't really impressed.

"I don't know," Nikita answered, plucking fretfully at the cuff of her leather jacket. "Maybe. Maybe not. But if something like that actually happened between us ..."

At that point, the tall, Class Two operative levered herself out of her seat and crossed to the collection of exotic orchids displayed to the left of Madeline's desk. She didn't seem able to stop herself. That struck the older woman as very significant.

She knew from long observation that Nikita -- the pre-adjusted Nikita, that is -- tended to "act out" physically when she was upset. If her emotions bubbled up to a certain level, her impulse was to explode into some kind of action.

She'd been trained how to rein in this impulse, of course. Which wasn't to say that she'd always applied she'd been taught. Still --

Two recollections slammed into the front of Madeline's consciousness in rapid succession.

The first involved her conviction that Michael had recognized the chance encounter in G5 as an opportunity and seized upon it.

Section's top operative knew from intimate personal experience how vulnerable his former material was to physical manipulation. Where her brain balked, her body frequently yielded. He'd used his touch to stir her. To soothe her. To just plain steer her around.

*And the day before yesterday, he'd used it to try to start undoing the conditioning he might - or might not have -- provoked the leaders of Section One into imposing on her.*

The second recollection centered on Madeline's firsthand observations about the injuries Nikita supposedly had sustained during her alleged six-month captivity by the Freedom League. Although consistent with the torture the retrieved operative claimed she'd undergone, none of the injuries had been more than a few days old.

*A man was hitting me. At one point, he stopped. I told him not to. That he hadn't done enough damage.*

A chill swept through Madeline.

Was it possible that Michael could have brought himself to --?

Yes.

Was it possible that if his nerve had faltered at a critical juncture, Nikita could have --?

Again, yes. Absolutely, positively yes.

Madeline licked suddenly dry lips, watching Nikita stroke a finger along the curving stems of one of her orchids. The younger woman's touch was very, very delicate. Almost tender.

"Are you reconsidering your assertion you don't have any concerns about this new assignment?" she asked after a second or two.

Nikita turned. The color in her cheeks was higher than it had been when she'd gotten up.

"Actually," she replied with a hint of throatiness, "I was remembering the Armel mission."

Section's chief strategist barely prevented her mouth from dropping open. The *Armel* mission?!?

"Oh?" she responded, her mind streaking off in several different directions at once.

"I looked at the surveillance tape a week or so ago."

*The* surveillance tape. Actually, there were more than a dozen. But Madeline had no doubt to which particular one Nikita was referring.

"Did you?"

"Mmm."

"Why?"

Nikita lifted the hand she'd been stroking the orchid with and brushed a stray strand of hair back behind her right ear.

"I was curious," she admitted slowly. "I had a few flashbacks about it, too. I wanted to find out whether what I was seeing in my head bore any resemblance to reality."

"And did it?" This, in all honesty, was *not* a development Madeline had anticipated.

"Up to a point."

The older woman took a moment or two to formulate her next gambit. Eventually she asked, "What did you feel when you watched the tape?"

"Feel?"

"Yes. Angry? Embarrassed?" A slight, infinitely knowing smile. "Aroused?"

Nikita worried her faintly puffed lower lip with the edge of her lower teeth.

"Well ..." she began. "To tell you the truth, I didn't feel much of anything. Except --" a vague gesture "-- I didn't feel like I was watching me."

"No?"

"I *knew* it was me, of course. But it *felt* like it was somebody else."

"That kind of psychological distancing isn't all that unusual," Madeline offered after a small pause, shifting smoothly into counselor/confidante mode.

"I suppose." Nikita gave an odd little laugh. "Michael said something to me once about surviving Section by dividing himself in two. Do you think that's what I'm doing?"

Madeline wasn't prepared to share what she was thinking at that moment.

There was yet another pause. Then:

"Michael knew we were under surveillance, didn't he?"

"During the Armel mission?" Where in heaven's name was *this* headed?

"Uh-huh."

"Yes. Of course. You both did."

"Mmm."

"Why do you ask?"

Nikita toyed with the cuff of her jacket again, rocking back on her high, booted heels. "No reason."

"Nikita --"

The blonde reacted to the whip crack of authority.

"He protected me," she answered in a rush.

"Protected you?" Madeline was having increasing difficulty following the thread of this conversation.

"He kept his body between mine and the cameras," the blonde elaborated, flushing. "I'd heard - I mean, Walter mentioned it to me a long time ago. Some joke about Michael being a camera hog, I think. But I didn't really ... understand ... until I watched the tape."

"Is that 'understanding' connected with your confidence in your ability to complete your latest assignment?" Madeline inquired, resolutely shutting her mind to her memories of "the" Armel mission surveillance tape.

Nikita looked surprised, as though the connection had not occurred to her.

"I suppose," she allowed. Then she frowned a little and asked, "What does Michael think?"

Madeline slanted a quick glance at a small monitoring screen, discreetly positioned to her right. What she saw had her struggling not to smile.

Section One's Mistress of Mind Games was *not* a believer in serendipity, fate, or happy happenstance. But sometimes, just sometimes ...

"Why don't we ask him?" she suggested as the door to her office whispered open once again.

************

Michael's reaction to finding Nikita in her office was not what Madeline had anticipated it would be. And that, predictably, did not please her.

Anomalies -- especially anomalies involving Section's top operative -- might, very occasionally, amuse her. Or stimulate her voracious appetite for intellectual challenges. But they never, *ever* "pleased" her.

It wasn't that she'd expected Michael to be *surprised* by his former material's presence at what she knew he'd been led to believe was going to be a one-on-one meeting with her. She hadn't. But she hadn't expected him to be so obviously *un*surprised, either.

There was something vaguely ... offensive ... about his attitude. His usual aura of suave politesse was tainted with what Madeline could only describe as boredom. *Ennui.* Without uttering a word, Michael managed to communicate in no uncertain terms that he was beginning to find his interactions with her tediously predictable.

*Again?* his penetrating green-gray eyes derisively inquired when their gazes met as he stepped down from the doorway and crossed to stand in front of her desk.

Madeline tilted her chin, rapidly rethinking the scenario she'd settled on for this encounter.

"Michael," she greeted coolly.

"Madeline," he returned, matching her tone so perfectly it bordered on insult. He glanced to his right. "Nikita."

"Michael," the blonde returned with just a touch of wariness.

"We were discussing your little *contretemps* in the exercise room," Madeline remarked after a moment, her choice of words very deliberate.

Michael's eyes returned to hers. "Too much externalization of emotions," he apologized, his expression as bland as unsalted butter. "It won't happen again."

Section's chief strategist recognized the phrase, of course. And for one brief instant, she was genuinely shocked. It had been a long, long time since anyone had dared throw her words back in her face.

If she remembered correctly -- and she was quite sure that she did --, the last person to do so had been canceled shortly thereafter.

She lifted her chin another notch, irritated that she hadn't asked -- no, *ordered* Michael to sit down. She was acutely aware that the well-defined superior/subordinate dynamic to which she was accustomed had given way to something dangerously fluid.

"No," she concurred flatly, reminding herself who she was and what she was required to do. *"It won't."*