Nikita waited patiently for the stoplight to change. Her black Porsche was behind a large black Chevrolet pickup with several sets of what she snidely referred to as “road-rage lights” mounted on the top. She speculated that it no doubt had an equal number of fog lights mounted under the front bumper, too. The license plate frame read, “Have you driven over a Ford lately?”

She snorted in disdain. Catching a glimpse of the driver of the truck in his side-view mirror, she could see that he was heavy-set, long-haired, and had a cigarette hanging precariously from his bottom lip as if defying gravity. For just a moment, she wished fervently that she was driving a Hummer. Or a tank.

Nikita was feeling aggressive and slightly crabby. Her last mission had been a disaster, through no fault of her own. Two of her team members had become lost in a dense forest and had not been on mark. The retrieval had had to be executed without them, which had meant a last-minute change in the profile. Operations had NOT been pleased, though they’d managed to achieve closure on the mission. He always wanted perfection in an imperfect world. Nikita mused dispassionately that one day, his unreal expectations would result in a fatal heart attack, or an equally-fatal drive-by shooting.

Now, as she watched the light turn green and the black Chevy truck remain unmoving, she felt a now-familiar antagonism in her. She muttered, “No, I haven’t driven over a Ford lately, but I’m about to waste a Chevy.” She honked the horn. The truck didn’t move. She honked again. The driver got out, to her slight astonishment, and stalked back to her car. Without a word and with all his might he delivered a savage, powerful kick to her door, denting it. Then he stood pugnaciously, waiting for her to burst into tears or hurl verbal abuse at him.

Nikita did neither. She quietly opened the mangled door, climbed out of the vehicle, drew back and punched the man directly in the face, breaking his nose. Then she kicked him in a tender part of his anatomy with her pointy-toed shoe. He dropped like a dead fish in a seafood market.

She got back in the car, slammed it into reverse, and drove out around the unconscious man AND his monster truck, grumbling, “Late… I’m late… Operations is gonna shit egg-rolls. Again.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Michael strode into the briefing room, instantly noticing Nikita’s empty chair. A fleeting irritation set up a vibration in his head, and he could feel the beginnings of a pounding that, he knew, would become a migraine soon if he didn’t take something for it immediately. There was no time for pampering himself. Operations was visibly angry.

No. Angry was too tame a word. Operations was rabid. When he opened his mouth to speak, a fleck of foam was visible on his bottom lip. He was obviously fighting to control the tone of his voice – his jaw worked, but for a moment, no sound came out. Michael dreaded what he would hear when the voice-box finally became functional.

“Where is she?” Operations asked after a tense minute, his voice deadly quiet.

“She was called in,” Michael said, not attempting to evade the question with another question as he was sometimes known to do.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“I think you’re covering for her.”

“Think what you like. I’m telling the truth.”

Operations stared at Michael as if he’d grown a third arm out of his forehead. It was the first time he’d ever heard his Level-5 operative talk back to him in such a sarcastic tone of voice. Well, not the first time, but that other had been under extremely extenuating circumstances.

Operations decided to let it drop. After the other members of the mission had straggled in and were settled, he began the briefing. Midway through his dissertation on the latest terrorist-du-jour, Nikita walked into the conference room and sat down without a word. At Operations’ icy glare, she said softly, levelly, “I’m sorry for the disruption. Please go on.” And she focused her attention on the hologram in the middle of the table.

The briefing went on for several minutes. Michael darted a glance at her and saw – nothing. No frustration, no concern, no emotion. Total involvement with the information being presented. A chill went down his spine, and he felt his headache ratchet up a couple of notches. It would be a long, difficult day – he could feel it in his bones.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Walter stood in his work-area, scratching his temple under his blue bandanna. What did I DO with it? he thought, and began pacing, his long, slightly-bowed legs surprisingly impressive in his black jeans. He was unaware of the picture he presented to Nikita, who had silently approached the workstation.

She watched him, and her brow creased. Wondering what was troubling him, she said nothing – just observed his body-language. He seemed, not quite white-hot angry, but disturbed and distracted. Nikita waited for Walter to notice her presence.

When he did, he stopped his pacing abruptly, as if embarrassed that she’d possibly caught him surrendering to emotion. He pasted on a smile, secretly very grateful that Nikita was there. He was with a friend. He was safe.

“Hey, Walter,” she said in her whiskey-soft voice. Her eyes were a little glassy, but Walter attributed it to a lack of sleep. Operations and Madeline had been piggy-backing missions because of the shortage of operatives, and Nikita had been working far more than normal – she had to have been exhausted.

“Hey, Sugar,” he retorted, and a twinkle came back into his eyes. She could always inspire him to lechery, no matter what kind of emotional shoot-out he might have been experiencing at the time. He looked her up and down appreciatively, his eyebrow went up, and he said, “Darlin’, if you looked any better you’d be on top of a bowl of ice cream and drippin’ down the sides.”

Nikita laughed huskily, enjoying the moment. She forgot, for a second, why she was there – then the realization came back with the onset of a stabbing pain in her head, and she became all-business again. “I need my package,” she said, and her face was cold.

Walter felt a chill as he witnessed the transformation from Nikita-the-woman to Nikita-the-robot. It never got less. It never got easier. A little of him died each time it happened. He wondered, sometimes, how he was still alive at all, after seeing that creepy metamorphosis so many times in a month, or a year.

He grabbed her equipment, and, suddenly remembering where he had put what he’d been looking for originally, he said, “Hang on a second, Sugar. Got something special for you.” He went back into the supply area, and reached into a dark corner of a little-used storage bin. Withdrawing something, he cradled it in his hand as if it were a gold ingot. He managed to slip it into her backpack as he was handing her all the necessary accoutrements to a spy on a mission. She didn’t notice his subterfuge. She’d find it later.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Nikita huddled on the rooftop, in the dark, shivering from cold. She was dressed warmly, but the dry winter snow seemed to chill her to the bones anyway. Miserable, yet hyper-alert, she waited. Watched. Wished.

The mark made his move down below her. She leveled her high-powered rifle at him, aimed carefully, and squeezed the trigger. The man dropped without a sound like a rag doll. Two operatives on the grounds below her hastily bundled up his body and carried him away before the search-lights scanned the area again. “Target secure,” she said softly into her comm unit.

An answering voice spoke into her ear. “Get to egress. Five minutes.” The voice, with the subtle French accent, did nothing to stir fire in her. Nikita shook her head slightly, frustrated. That voice – Michael’s voice – it should have created some kind of reaction in her. She sensed that at one time, it had caused all manner of crazy hormonal imbalances in her. It had once possessed the capacity to make her shed her inhibitions – and her clothes – no matter where she was. It had held the deft ability to drive her wild.

Now, it was almost an irritation, an unscratchable itch. She wished it to go away – it gave her headaches and blurry periods of non-remembrance. It scared her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Debrief. Brief. Nikita was cut loose with a haste that instantly set her teeth on edge. She was never excused without a brutal game of twenty-questions. Something was wrong. Something was strange. And Michael was nowhere to be found. And Walter hadn’t been at his station when she’d gone to check in her gear. She’d wanted to ask him about an anomaly that’d had nothing to do with the mission parameters.

She’d found a ring in her pack. At first, she’d been a touch puzzled, but hadn’t had time for more – the mission had been foremost. The ring had been shoved back into her bag of tricks, and she hadn’t thought about it again until she’d climbed into the mission van and settled in for the drive back to Section. During that trip, she’d remembered it and had taken it out, studying it closely. It appeared to be expensive – at least 14 karat gold, with some sort of engraving on the inside of the band.

‘Walter must have put it there,’ she thought. Then, she wondered why he had trusted her with something so obviously valuable. No, not trusted – he’d planted it there, intending her to find it later. “Walter, what the HELL were you trying to tell me?” Nikita wondered aloud. She felt the wire-taut thrum of a headache beginning, and she shook herself mentally.

Suddenly, she had an idea. Glancing around cautiously, seeing no one, she slipped behind Walter’s workbench, switched on the lamp of his magnifying light, and held the ring under it, squinting at the tiny engraved message on the band. “Where you go, I follow.”

Mystified, Nikita turned off the light and abstractedly made to leave the workstation, her mind a million miles away. Walter? Poetry? Was he giving her something belonging to Belinda? The thought unnerved her more than she’d expected. It was as if—

“Sugar, what’s up?” Walter’s voice cut through to her and she almost dropped the ring in her alarm. She hastily shoved it into her hip pocket, turned, and pasted a smile on her face.

“Nothin’, Walter,” she said, and smiled wider. Her eyes betrayed her thoughts, though, and Walter stared intently at her for a moment.

“That’s bullshit,” he said bluntly. “I can read you like a Playboy magazine.”

At that, Nikita chuckled, and her smile became real. She shook her head in amazement and said huskily, “I forget that sometimes. No one knows me like you do.”

She was expecting him to beam at her, and was surprised when he didn’t. In fact, he furrowed his brow and leaned over his workstation to her. “Nikita, one person knows you better than anyone else, and you haven’t been talking to him lately.”

At the obvious reference to Michael, Nikita felt the vibrato of nerves in her head again, and she fought to keep the shiver of revulsion from becoming visible. She managed a curt nod, a quick glance up into Walter’s wise eyes, and then she lowered her head, hoping he’d accept her expression without prying into the why and wherefore behind it.

Mercifully, he let her off the hook. As she strode away, he shook his head sadly and whispered, “Nikita… where are you?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Three days later, after some much-needed downtime, Nikita was summoned back to Section for a flash-mission. She knew there was a possibility of running into Michael, and she’d taken four ibuprofen tablets in preparation for that likelihood. She hated that the very sight of him could cause her such discomfort – she hated even more that she didn’t know the reason for her atavistic reaction to him. He’d done nothing, recently, to exacerbate the antagonism already existing between them – in fact, he’d seemed to stay away from her as much as possible in an effort to avoid that very thing—

At the briefing table, it was a repeat of countless other mission briefings. Operations paced, his eagle-eyes scanning the eyes of each member of the team, searching for weaknesses. His hunting gaze settled on Nikita and he glared at her, hoping to elicit some response from her. Instead, she gazed placidly back at him, unblinking, her eyes clear, blue and completely devoid of expression, until he was finally forced to look away. Nikita directed her attention back to the screen.

Michael darted a glance over at her after watching Operations in a moment of rare defeat. She was unmoving, her eyes fixed on the holographic display in the center of the briefing table. She seemed hypnotized by it, morbidly fascinated to the point of oblivion to her outer surroundings.

Then, she turned her head slightly and caught Michael looking at her. She flushed a little, and that small show of color sent Michael’s heart into an uneven lurch. She did feel something—

Very softly, she uttered, “Keep your focus, Michael. It’s the mission that matters.” Her eyes were flinty.

Michael died a little more.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Several weeks went by. Nikita was in play more often than Michael – due, in part, to her efficiency and her ability to detach herself from anything non-mission related. She seemed to be the perfect operative. The perfect machine.

Madeline caught herself staring pensively down from the aerie on many occasions, watching Nikita’s interaction, or rather, her lack of interaction, with other operatives. Nikita seldom visited the people who had once been her friends, and she avoided Michael as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks. Even her expression reflected her distaste at having to encounter him periodically. Madeline at first found the dance amusing – now, though, she was disturbed, and it took a lot to disturb the Mistress of Mind-Games.

Operations was studying a profile, deep in thought, squinting through his bifocals at something which puzzled him. He was so engrossed in his research that he didn’t hear Madeline’s high heels on the hard floor. Her presence at his side startled him – he recovered quickly, saying, “I’ve been looking over the Morantz mission. There was an unusually high number of casualties.”

“Yes, I know,” Madeline replied. “It seems that Nikita viewed them as hostiles and killed them.”

“They were members of her own team!” Operations hissed, quietly enraged. He wished Madeline would react with something other than the calm, tacit patience she always used with him. She seemed to be condescending, and it enraged him even further. “The Gelman process isn’t working with her. She’s more uncontrollable than ever. We need to find a way to reverse it.”

“It can’t be reversed,” Madeline said softly, standing with her hands clasped in front of her. “We knew the risks when we undertook this experiment. We knew it could have disastrous repercussions, and we agreed that the risk was acceptable.”

“I don’t think either of us knew exactly HOW disastrous those repercussions could be. Now we do.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that the process can’t be reversed.”

“That leaves us no alternative but to take the risk factor out of the mix.”

“You’re saying—“

“Yes,” Operations interrupted sharply. “Cancel Nikita. Make sure Michael’s a thousand miles away from her when you do it.”

“When I do it?” Madeline queried, her eyebrow going up in amusement. “You’ve given the directive – you should be the one to carry it out.”

Operations smirked. “That’s why I have you, Madeline.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Michael was in the middle of heavy crossfire on a mission gone sour. Israel was not a good place to be in the dead of winter, and it especially was not a good place to be when there were snipers all around and insufficient backup. Michael wracked his brain, trying to come up with a plan to extricate himself and his team from what promised to be a bloody mess in a very short time.

The crackling static of his comm unit let him know that someone from Section was trying to contact him. He could only make out every other word, but from what Birkoff was saying, Michael could gather that reinforcements were on the way via helicopter. All he had to do was wait, and he was a master at waiting. He’d been doing it for half his life.

Very softly, he alerted his team. “Stand by. Backup en route.” Closing his eyes for a moment, he pictured Nikita in his mind – the old Nikita. His Nikita. She was laughing at something he’d said in complete innocence. Her eyes were like opals…

It had only seemed a few minutes, but in fact had been more than an hour, when the sound of a chopper grew nearer. From the craft, flames gushed out in a long, thin stream, torching everything in its path. Humans scattered to avoid being burned alive. Michael watched as his team was literally smoked out of their hiding places. They made for the landing chopper and climbed on board as fast as they could. He was the last one in, and he covered their escape with scatter-fire and one cleverly-lobbed grenade.

Secure in the air, safely away, he allowed himself to relax. At the moment his eyes closed, a thousand miles away, in an isolated room in Section One, a single shot was fired…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

EPILOGUE

Michael debarked, prepared to hand his panel to Operations and head to debrief. He was surprised to be greeted at van access by Nikita, whose face was even more somber than usual. She had obviously been crying.

A quick glance down, and Michael saw that she’d also been wringing her hands – a nervous habit she’d always had, and which the Gelman process had not been able to bleed out of her. “Is something wrong?” he asked quietly as the rest of the weary team straggled out behind him and headed to Walter’s station to check in their weapons.

“Madeline’s dead,” Nikita said without preamble, no emotion in her voice. “She committed suicide.”

Michael, for the first time in recent memory, felt faint. He swallowed once. He blinked once. He said nothing for a long moment. When he felt his voice would not crack, he asked, “Where’s Operations?”

“He’s in seclusion,” Nikita replied, her eyes never leaving Michael’s face. “He sent me to tell you that you have command until further notice.” She clasped the chain around her neck, pulled it from under her black pullover, took it off over her head, and handed the key to Michael. As she did so, Michael noticed something that had eluded his perception before – Nikita was wearing a gold band on her left ring finger. He knew, without having to verify, what was inscribed inside the band.

Madeline’s funeral was brief and simple. Michael, Nikita, Operations, Birkoff, Walter, and a few others attended the ceremony, and Madeline’s ashes were scattered over the wooded area near her favorite place – the place where she was reminded of her childhood, with the smell of burning leaves. No prayers were said. No tears were shed.

As everyone left, Nikita put a hand on Operations’ shoulder. He turned, looked pointedly at the hand and then back at her face, waiting. Very softly, Nikita whispered, “I’m sorry, Paul. More sorry than you could know.” Her hand slid from his shoulder, and she took off the ring she wore – Michael’s ring. Carefully, she took Operations’ hand, placed the ring in his palm, and said, “You’ll need this.” She walked away from him, pretending not to see the moisture welling in his tired blue eyes.

Glancing up as she approached Michael, she saw he’d been watching the entire exchange. He gave a small, curt nod of approval. They left the funeral side by side. A light rain had begun to fall, and the smell of wet leaves added a poignant, melancholy air to the already somber events.

Nikita took Michael’s arm as they walked, and she said, very huskily, “Do you think he’ll read the inscription?”

Michael replied, equally softly, “Yes. He’ll read it. Let’s just hope he understands what it means.”

The End

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