Deep dissatisfaction ate at the man's insides, but he was about to feed that hunger with the only meal it could stomach. The chain of events he prepared to set in motion was a banquet from which he would feed and feed and feed until, bloated with the satisfaction of his revenge, he could happily explode just from the thought of success. Long chains had their beginnings, and so did this one, albeit a simple one.

For a long time he had gripped power with a most competent hand.

Now he held nothing.

Oh, he was led to believe that his new position held value but he had been spoon-fed lies and placating reasoning that transparently proved to him the utter lack of eminence he held now. He felt disappointment-how could they be so inept in handling him? How could they discard him so casually? Oversight should have been his!

"Your years of service have been a boon to us," George had said over three years ago. "The Agency wouldn't be what it is today without you."

"Don't gild this lily. It won't cover the stench."

"Geoffrey, really." George frowned. "This is the best compromise we could think of. It will serve us all better this way."

"Serve whom? You? Your precious Sections? So you think! As for me, I don't see the advantage at all. Security Maintenance?" He had turned his head away in disgust. "Why not just put an empty pistol in my hand and set me up in a dusty warehouse as a security guard? Save my dignity and plant the bullet now."

"That was a ranking ambassador you sacrificed, putting us in a most precarious position in a part of the world in which we needed stability. You expected what from your error, a reward? You know exactly what the consequences are for the mistakes you made."

"It was not a mistake, damn it," he retorted through clenched teeth.

"Take some time, Geoff." George's voice suddenly flattened with a weighty clarity of strength that transformed a simple directive into a command difficult to resist.

"Time. Yes. Of course. The truest and only effective curative we have in this world."

"Your sarcasm is ill-advised. This is a gift-take it."

Geoffrey Blanchard left the Agency as ordered, at first sequestering himself in his home, surrounded by the trophies of his past conquests and reminders of his past glory.

What was the past? What was the future?

They are both what I chose to make of them.

He had left the dull walls of home and traveled. George and the others at the Agency saw this motion forward as a positive sign that Geoff would soon be back to work and settled into his new place in the scheme of things. Three weeks later he seemed to prove them correct for he once again strolled confidently through the halls.

His confidence came from success, as it always had, a trait of his they all knew about. They never looked into the root cause of his confidence those three years ago. He had laughed to himself. They should have seen his insurrection, but they did not! Security Maintenance was an insult to his ambition, but it did afford him unparalleled chances for revenge, a final irony

Section One is George's fair-haired son, he thought. George could not be confronted directly, but he had his weaknesses. Everybody did.

Even I do, he thought bitterly. But even old men learn. He would not fall into the same pit again. He would have his revenge. Pity almost found a finger-hold in his conscience for the leaders of Section. Almost! This was a vendetta for supremacy among wolves and even the dying losers felt the justice of it.

Geoffrey had quickly found a crack in the defenses of Section One's security. He resisted the temptation to leap forward with this prize, instead assuaging his petulant need for action with the cool balm of logic, for he needed a plan. So, he thought, and researched, and thought some more until a perfect plum of strategy fell out of his head.

He then trolled the underbelly of human nature to find a suitable agent for this exquisitely wrought plot. Hardin fit the bill nicely. Knowledgeable, amoral and greedy, he was a tool crafted of the perfect ingredients. Geoffrey pointed him in the right direction and let him go, confident in his own ability to predict Hardin's behavior.

Hardin performed admirably. He quickly grasped the nature of a single page of computer code that came to him anonymously. He proved how deep his depraved greed ran by ransoming nothing less than the entire directory of Section One in a financial bidding war between Section One and the notorious terrorist, Benko. When the time came for Hardin to deliver the directory to victorious Section, Geoffrey took steps to make sure the disk left Hardin's possession before he met his fate on a grimy winter street. After sufficient time had passed, Geoffrey slid the disk down a circuitous path until it landed in the hands of Red Cell.

Red Cell could not rise to the occasion. Geoffrey found no revenge that night at all, for Section One repelled the attacks, lured its enemy into a most audacious trap and soon emerged stronger than ever, pruned of deadwood. He had raged through his house that night, ripping objects from the walls and thrusting his fists through the plaster.

In retrospect he decided placing a simple directory of names and files into the hands of an opportunistic enemy had been too hurried, too convenient, not personal enough. Now, more than three years after his humiliation, after careful maneuvering and testing, he found himself poised on a predatory height, ready to pounce.

He leaned forward, leather upholstery creaking comfortably around him as he traced the line of his white-streaked red eyebrow with a forefinger. With a delicately precise thrust, he stabbed one button on the cell phone lying flat on the desk before him.

Beep.

It was done.

He remained on the edge of his chair for a moment longer, gathering himself and standing with a motion as fluid as it had been forty years before. He removed the battery from the back of the cell phone, then the front plate, putting all three parts in different pockets before he left his office.

His perverse sense of righteousness demanded that he walk by George's door before he left to dispose of the electronic evidence of his rebellion.

"Goodnight, George." He leaned into the man's workspace from the door, his still-muscular frame filling the doorway, ignoring the priceless objets d'art gracing the walls.

"Leaving for home?"

"Yes. I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight, then." George nodded briefly before bending his grizzled head to work once more.

Fool!

Before the echoes of his footfalls faded he could hear the clarion alert ringing insistently from George's office and the accompanying scurry of the resident machinery.

Fools all!

A watery sun released the pungent smells of infant spring, gaining power each day as the world tilted closer to its fiery wellspring of energy. Reminders of last night's rain lay limpid in every depression on the sidewalk, splashing up with flat silver smacks as Birkoff walked quickly through them, splattering his trousers with icy drops of muddy water. He welcomed the sensation of cold dampness around his ankles as much as the furry chill he breathed in with the sharp scent of burgeoning green life for it cleared from his head the uneasy echoes of troubling intrigues careening around Section One. By the time he reached his destination, he felt able to appreciate the prospect of his actions.

Two miles was a long way to walk in the cold. Warmer today than yesterday, the temperature still hovered near refrigeration levels, rendering his breath visible. Although the trees and the earth could feel and act upon the warmer weather, his nose and ears were red when Birkoff entered the coffee shop. He bee-lined for the counter and ordered the daily special which turned out to be a "Kiss me, I'm Irish Mocha" coffee. The young male server behind the counter blandly recognized him as a face he saw periodically enough to know he was a regular, but not enough that he knew Birkoff's name. He rang up the purchase and Birkoff threw the change in the tip jar.

Ambling nonchalantly to the back of the shop while he waited for his order, Birkoff glanced through the door into the other part of the establishment. From his vantage point he could see a half dozen computers on cheap laminated fiberboard desks ringed around the back room, only two of them occupied. He rubbed his chilled hands together and blew on them, lightly fogging his glasses in the process.

"Excuse me, your special is ready." The young man behind the counter set down a tall paper cup with a plastic lid.

"Thanks." Birkoff picked it up, greedily leeching warmth radiating from the cup to continue thawing his fingers. He returned to the back and passed through the door.

Neither of the computer users looked up at him. To the left, a pudgy man in his early forties with a goatee and satyrical features under thick sandy hair sat absorbed in his own computer. He looked up as Birkoff passed his desk.

"Hello there. You're, um--don't tell me--Peter, right?" he said with counterfeit friendliness.

"Uh, yeah," Birkoff replied.

"Need a game today?"

"No. I'm just gonna surf."

"Enjoy yourself, then." The owner bent back to his own devices, leaving Birkoff alone.

Birkoff chose the PC furthest from the others and logged on, looking over his glasses and picking out the letters one-handed as he sipped his too-sweet coffee. The timer window popped up, obligingly counting the seconds--and cents--he spent. He didn't care about the money or the quality of the coffee. He set down his drink, activated the browser and the microwave satellite up-link shot him onto the information super highway at top speed. He punched a URL memorized weeks ago to access a little-known free e-mail service, entered his user name and password. He paused over the 'enter' key, then hit it decisively. He picked up his coffee and waited, holding the cup suspended between a breath and anticipation for a scant second as the system kicked up his mailbox.

Three messages waited for him, all from "WendyMoria4187".

He began breathing once more and took another mouthful of whipped cream and chocolate sweet coffee.

Half a year ago, Madison had transferred to Section One Headquarters. In the cool of a summer morning she had presented her papers and was pressed into service that very night. Birkoff had not yet met her when he provided the communications on her first mission at headquarters, but that little mattered to him. He provided support to scores of operatives that he hardly knew. It used to be a matter of pride when he helped bring a mission to a successful conclusion with the best possible statistics; by the time Madison joined the team he had been Nikita's friend long enough to develop more empathy for agents in the field.

He found Madison to be easy to direct via the com units, but then, he expected that out of special task ops. When she was trapped on top of a building due to an update of mission parameters, he gave her the only exit possible: leap to the next building. She hardly hesitated and flung herself over the void with utter trust. Landing hard on the neighboring rooftop, she broke her ankle, but as that building was rigged to explode, she had to escape somehow or be caught in the immolation. Birkoff gave her the route and she made it out with seconds to spare. From that bumpy beginning she forged a niche for herself in Section headquarters, which eventually came to encompass a place for him.

Or she almost did.

One night she had gifted him with a small token that bespoke of her willingness to go forward with something other than friendship; a single chocolate candy kiss. Too late and too tired to respond to her gesture, Birkoff had gone to bed, warmed and content by her apparent interest in him. He slept late the next day, rushed through his ablutions and breakfast so he could call on her before lunchtime, slowing his pace only as he approached her room, hoping to appear less eager than he felt.

He found her room empty. A two-man custodial team finished loading up the last pieces of furniture onto a flat cart, leaving behind a sterile vacancy. The eradication of Madison's presence was complete.

Confused, he retreated from the doorway, eventually snapping into the routine of the day with distanced purpose when his efforts to locate her failed. When it came time for him to work, he did his job with the slightest of frowns tugging at one eyebrow indicating that a corner of his brain was allowed to run around and around the puzzle of Madison's whereabouts. He asked Nikita when the dinner hour struck as she rushed by, pre-occupied.

"Madison? I just saw her leave Madeline's office."

Birkoff had looked around. "Do you know where she was heading?"

"Birkoff, I don't know, and I don't have time. Sorry." She left him standing by the briefing table, her mind obviously leaping ahead to some troubling distraction.

He turned slowly, looking at all the various hallway entrances and wondering which one to chose.

"Birkoff."

"Madison!" he turned around, startled. "Where were you all day? What's up with your room?"

"I--," she stuttered. "I--."

"You what?" A puzzled smile crept up one side of his mouth.

"I have to go."

"Go? What, on a mission? Nothing's ready for transport right now."

"No." Suddenly he could see the upset she packed down tightly inside her. "I've been transferred. I've got to catch a plane in half an hour."

"What? Where?"

Madison snorted bitterly. "Not here, and no where close."

"I--." He suddenly lost coherent thought. "I--."

"Sucks, don't it?" Madison looked down at her hands as they twisted around each other painfully.

"Can't you--?"

"Do what? Lodge a complaint?" She sounded bitter. "I didn't do myself any favors when I asked Madeline about it earlier; she wasn't happy about it at all."

"The transfer didn't originate with her?"

"She just about said as much, although not in plain words."

Birkoff chewed on his thumbnail for a second, thinking. "If she wasn't behind it, then what about--?"

Madison quelled his musings with a gentle finger on his mouth. "It is far too late for anything like that. I'll be missed if I don't gather my bag and report to egress now."

He drew in a breath noisily and shook his head, agitated.

"Too bad we didn't get a chance to go out," she said, regret making her voice husky. "I know we would have had a blast."

"Madison." Birkoff took hold of her arm, just above the elbow, and pulled her close, not sure what he was doing. She looked at him, her lips parted in surprise. Her gaze alternated suddenly upwards. He could see the bright square stare of Systems reflected in her wide eyes and for the first time he was close enough to see the various pieces of faded blue and brown, ash, lead, and charcoal that made up the dark gray of her eyes. They blinked back at him again, this time her brows drawn together.

"That man . . . and her," she said in a voiceless whisper that yet conveyed vehement resentment. Birkoff did not need to look up to verify whom she referred to. She spoke louder, then, some of the intrepid verve so intrinsic to her nature inflating her words. "Ah, if that room were empty, I'd give you a real kiss to remember me by. The hell with thimbles and candy! As it is, however . . ." She disentangled her arm from his grasp with her free hand then slid her fingers up under his sleeve and encircled his wrist with a cool embrace. She squeezed gently until he could feel his own pulse against hers then released, moving away, trailing her fingers down the back of his hand until the tips of their fingers fell apart from one another.

"Take care of yourself, Birkoff."

"Yeah. You too," he replied numbly.

Birkoff was proud of himself that he never once looked up at the voyeurs lurking over his head as he watched her disappear around the corner of an open hallway. Instead he had sauntered back to his computers and continued his work as if nothing in the world could be wrong.

At first he thought it was the abruptness of her departure that skewed his days with regret. Section was like that and a person got used to it, even if it stung. People came and went every day. It wasn't as if they had some hot and heavy romance going on, but each day that passed increased the lingering feeling that he had missed the bus to someplace he really wanted to go-which summed up his life more succinctly than anything else he could think of. He had missed a great deal, living in Section for his entire adult life, and this most recent opportunity snatched away underscored how empty his life was with permanent black marker.

Nikita was right. It was easy to sit back and let stuff happen to you. It was far more difficult to get out and find the jeweled treasures that life could offer. An unlikely opportunity to go looking for treasure lost grabbed him two months later in the unfriendly attentions of Michael.

Birkoff ranged further and further from Section One's protective grasp, answering a need to separate from that aching center of trepidation he had called home for so long. He moved into an apartment after the holiday season and spent more of his downtime doing things he wanted to, snatching up recreation with a wary but willing hand. Section provided him with the ultimate in up-to-date technology, but he still preferred the sub-standard equipment he found in the arcades, the cyber-cafes and bars to take his recreation on. At least the walls weren't metal and plastic. His sense of reality flipped inside out, however, when one day he sat down in front of a computer on rented time, loaded a game, and was suddenly jerked back to reality by Michael's hand on his shoulder.

"Do this or I'll kill you," was the gist of the ultimatum he was given. Birkoff had no problem believing Michael capable of killing him so he performed the illicit computer search and covered Michael's whereabouts with Section as requested. Of course, that was The Section Way; it was amazing what a person could do when faced with death as the alternative.

Birkoff found the intel Michael needed, and with less trouble than he thought. When he finished the nearly impossible task, he realized he could go hunting on his own, and for his own reasons. Hacking Section wasn't the safest thing to do, but he had done it before, and now he knew all the back doors, having built several of them.

He also remembered the e-mail link Madeline asked him to create for Madison.

She didn't tell him where the transfer was taking her, but her previous commission was as good a place as any to start and probably the most likely. He found her right where he thought she would be-back at her old sub-station. The search took hardly any time at all, but negotiating an untraceable way to pass messages back and forth took longer. He e-mailed her anonymously from a public library computer, pointing her to a bulletin board. On the board, he posted a message he hoped she would recognize was for her. Racking his brain for some way he could identify himself to her without revealing his identity to anyone else, he used references to Peter Pan, echoing comments she made to him. It seemed to work: she posed a reply . . . and he knew it had to be her for he recognized the IP address listed on the post as one used by her sub-station. He replied to her post with a laconic comment: "Don't use the computer from home. Duh!" Soon her posts came from as many different sources as his did.

Now, six months after she had left Section headquarters, Birkoff read the latest volley of e-mail from Madison; friendly, occasionally flirtatious exchanges that gave away nothing but light-hearted morsels of her daily life. The first two messages followed this format, but the third did not.

Peter,

Okay, now I'm concerned on two fronts, and I don't like it one bit. Plain speaking isn't a strong suit here, I know, but where the hell are you? It's been a while since I last heard from you. "Dad" has gone ballistic over something as well, and between your radio silence and his pitching a fit I'm getting damned uncomfortable out here. There's something in the wind, something that comes from the upper stratosphere, maybe even the moon, you know? "Dad" knows, I can tell, but I sure don't!

Just let me know you're okay out there, and Capt. Hook hasn't gotten you, okay? Drop a message bottle in the Mermaid's Lagoon if you can't tell me any other way.

Wendy

Birkoff re-read each e-mail. Twice. True, he had been too busy to get away long enough to access his e-mail in the past three weeks. He could have done so within Section, but he knew better than to chance that. The date on the last message was two days ago, the message before that was a week old, the first one was a reply to his last letter that he send over two weeks before.

Curious, he read the last message one more time before he deleted them all. "The Mermaid's Lagoon" was their code word--her choice, not his!--for the message board, so he typed in the URL and watched the screen re-dress itself. He scrolled down the page, passing message after message that had nothing to do with him or Madison. Near the middle he found what he was looking for.

Subject: Peter Pan, Where Are You?

Message: I'm beginning to wonder if I will have to round up some of the Lost Boys and go a-hunting for you. Send Tinkerbell with some news! Better yet, give me some news yourself!

Posted by: Wendy

Birkoff typed in a quick reply: Peter Pan is fine. Check your mailbox. He submitted the memo and returned to the mail server. He typed rapidly, tapping out a reassuring--if ambiguous--letter. He poured out the little things going on that he could, dream-spinning a bit just like she did with him; the meat and potatoes of their exchanges. What else did life in Section leave but dreams?

The cursor slowed, unresponsive to the keyboard and lagging when he wiggled the mouse. It could be a resource problem he thought for a split second. Who knew what got downloaded onto these public machines? Suddenly the monitor flickered as the internet connection dissolved.

"No!" he exclaimed.

"Aw, shit," swore the young male user across the room. "Not again!"

Birkoff pounded futilely on the keyboard in frustration then pushed back and stood up. The owner of the café came out from behind his larger desk responding to his irate customers with arms spread in a conciliatory gesture.

"Sorry, kids. It's out of my hands."

"Are you sure? Where's your network server?" Birkoff asked with unconscious authority.

"It's the microwave up-link. There's nothing I can do about it until the service is restored on their end."

"You've got a regular modem, don't you? I could fix it--."

"No one touches my system," the owner said, a genial warning. "What are you, a college student taking computer courses? You think I'm about to let every kid with a LAN course under his belt fiddle with my network?" He smiled to take the sting out of his rebuke, a commercial façade with no honesty.

Birkoff shot the man a look of disgust generated partly from impatience with the man's arrogant ignorance and partly with his own stupidity for even asking about it. He turned to leave, but the man stopped him.

"Sign off and pay up first," he said. "Please."

He left, walking without direction and mused on what Madison hinted at in her communiqués. "Something from the upper stratosphere" . . . Could it be the repercussions of Adrian's attempted coup of Section were felt as far as that? Tensions still ran high in Systems. Birkoff knew more about the fiasco than he felt comfortable knowing; all of it secondhand, but nevertheless it was dangerous information to have. People had died because of what they knew about Adrian. Nikita almost died. That was scant weeks ago.

He told himself it was unlikely that Adrian's death would have anything to do with Madison. She was probably out on a mission and he would get a relieved reply to his bulletin post from her in a few days. He seethed when he dwelled on the fact he lost the chance to send an actual e-mail this time. Birkoff enjoyed the short notes they passed back in forth, not unlike much-folded pieces of paper that pass surreptitiously from hand to hand in a junior high class, although the sanctions were stiffer if he got caught. He liked pulling off something he wasn't supposed to, and he liked holding on to a friendship, even through such tenuous means.

Rousing himself to take notice of his surroundings, he decided to use the library internet access to send his mail. The connection speed was far slower, but better than nothing and it was the closest place he considered safe. Higher in the sky, the sun took an edge off the cold. As he passed through the door, his cell phone pulsed, interrupting his strategy. He answered it to be called in by Michael.

Trekking to the com area half an hour later, wondering what problem required sacrificing his day off, he nearly ran into a knot of operatives. Escorting a handful of prisoners from access, the operatives were matched one-on-one with each captive. None of them were restrained in any way, an extremely unusual occurrence. Birkoff spared the group a glance, intent on his destination, and stopped dead.

"Madison!"

Madison walked with a beefy operative's hand holding fast to her upper arm.

"Hold it," Birkoff said. The group stopped, and he walked up to Madison and looked at the operative holding her. "What's going on?"

Before the operative holding her could say anything, Madison stepped up, drew back her unrestrained right arm and slapped Birkoff across his face, her hand landing with a resounding crack! and knocking the glasses from his face.

The op roughly pinioned her arms to her side as Birkoff reeled, stunned. He gathered his wits as best as he could and stared at Madison, his hand covering his flaming cheek.

"You bastard!" Madison snarled. "Why did you do it?"

"What?" Birkoff stared at her in disbelief, shocked. "Do what?"

"Don't talk to me!" she ordered furiously. To her captor she demanded, "Get me out of here."

The op gave Birkoff a sour look and hustled the group along, leaving him to find his glasses halfway down the hall. He slowly made his way to the com where Operations paced impatiently and Michael stood, erect and silent, surrounded by brisk action about the com. Operations' belligerent gaze seized Birkoff as he walked up slowly, pushing his now-loose glasses up his nose.

"There you are," he said irritably. "We need you to rake a data-base."

"Sir?" Birkoff asked, still processing what happened down the hall.

"We're facing a serious breach of security. A sub-station commander for one of our U.S. cells is under investigation."

"We're looking to see if he's been suborned by an outside agency," Michael added as he watched data stream across a monitor over Simon's shoulder. "We found financial evidence of bribe-taking."

"Simon's been working on the mission archives. I want you to get going on the directory and personnel files."

"Oh." Birkoff absently shrugged out of his coat and hung it over the back of his chair before he sat down and stared at his computer.

Operations looked askance at him, taking careful inventory of the livid handprint on the young man's face and his lack of focus. "Anything wrong, Birkoff?"

Birkoff looked up, startled. "No. No. I'm fine." He gathered up scattered intellect, falling into the familiar path of work or suffer the consequences.

He had already anticipated the name on the file.

Seth Jensen.

In his head he began crunching the progress that had been made without him, organizing a better strategy to search through the data for evidence of seditious activities and burying his confusion in work. Operations watched over him a moment until he seemed satisfied with the level of industry, then paced around some more, leaving Birkoff alone.

Operations circled the com once more, waiting for Madeline and anxious for her preliminary observations. She was with Jensen in the white room now and he expected her to emerge any moment to allow her underlings to finish the dirty work.

"The initial survey of mission archives is finished," Michael said from his post behind Simon.

"And?" Operations stopped his pacing.

"Everything checks out. His missions are clean," Simon said.

"His survival statistics are high," Michael added.

"Hm," Ops grunted in acknowledgment. "Begin on the personnel dossiers. That's the most likely area you'll find anomalies. Coordinate with Birkoff's efforts."

Michael nodded and Simon began working once more.

The glaring luminosity of white light on white walls overwhelmed Jensen's vision. Only occasional bland metal broke the assault. He knew this place. He had one much like it . . . or used to. Now he knew he owned nothing, not even his life.

The door opened and provided a dark rectangle for him to focus on. A beautiful white visage drifted into that void. Two white hands clasped like slumbering doves in front of her midnight clothing. Madeline held her pose for another heartbeat then stepped in. The door slid behind her, throwing her darkness into sharp relief.

"Madeline," he said in greeting when she said nothing.

"Seth." She nodded in return, a frozen smile warning him that he lost the first volley by speaking first. "Would you like to begin?"

"Begin? Begin?" Jensen laughed softly. "It is a terribly long story. Are you sure you want it from the beginning?"

"All right. I'll settle with the highlights for now." Her smile warmed, as if amused by the exchange.

"This is a case of mistaken identity."

"Is that all?"

"Does there need to be more? You have some treasonous evidence against me, proof of bribe taking. Killed once is enough."

"And you say you're not the man we're looking for."

"I know I'm not. I know what's fabricated against me." He spoke firmly, with confidence.

"Do you?"

Madeline unclasped her hands and circumscribed the room, the trousers of her navy suit rustling faintly as she walked. Bound to the stark chair, Jensen could not gracefully track her progress so he did not, instead laying his gaze gently on the nearly invisible seams around the door.

"You care about your people." Her voice surrounded him in a progression from left to right, describing her movement behind him.

"Yes. I do." He held the same firm conviction in his voice, but it took more effort as a scaffold of fear for his people surrounded his throat.

"How much do you care for them?"

"As much as I can."

"I see." Madeline finished her first circuit of the room and once more stood in front of Jensen. She looked at him, carefully examining every detail from head to foot, then directly into his eyes. "I want everything you know about Adrian."

Jensen halted the compulsive swallow his dry throat wanted to take, but his eyes narrowed and he cursed his lack of control. He should have expected she would be asking about this.

"You had some contact with her, and you used your clout with her to pull favors from Oversight."

He said nothing.

"That clout no longer exists without Adrian."

Clout. That was one way of putting it. Adrian had recruited him to her cause, concerned as she was over the Operations' leadership--she actually used the word "mismanagement" once--of Section One. Jensen had less political interests than he thought he might over the whole situation, but he did have his own agenda.

Jensen was a frugal man. He abhorred the senseless spending, not only of money and equipment, but also of the human lives that slipped through Section fingers like so much wastewater. He found the same quality of waste not want not in Adrian. He admired her strength and intelligence and felt that when she made her move, she would be successful in her bid to recoup her leadership of Section.

It seems they were both wrong.

Jensen bowed his head. Adrian was dead; it must be so. With one silken-steel admission from Madeline, coupled with his inability to raise any contact with Adrian or her people for the past month, he knew he was a dead man. George had no idea what became of Adrian and Jensen was no fool: he knew Madeline would never let him leave this room alive to alter that ignorance.

Madeline read the tell-tale signs of defeat in Jensen's posture. She had the answer she needed in the question of his complicity with Adrian's schemes. All that remained to be done was documentation of the details. Others could attend to that.

"I will speak with you later, Seth," she said, and left him helpless in the chair.

Walter calibrated bio-sensors for invasive testing in a darkened booth. Before him on the other side of a glass barrier an empty chair sat alone in an empty room, electrical appendages coupled to nothing, impotent. That would change soon.

Walter had arrived at Section less than a half-hour ago, called in just as he walked through his own door, suitcases in hand. He had just returned from a weekend of downtime, his first respite in months, a carrot from Madeline for getting back into harness at work so quickly and well after recuperating from injuries he suffered in an explosion last year. Of course, he had been responsible for that blast, but he had acquitted himself so admirably in the meantime and served penance for so long that he figured he was forgiven.

He was scheduled to return to work tomorrow, but he felt no need to consider grumbling at the loss of half a day--as it was, he knew he was lucky to have gotten three days of precious solitude to himself. Obviously, the shit had hit the fan for someone, and he was needed in-house to help deal with it. Over twenty operatives had been questioned already this morning and he was preparing for the last half-dozen or so.

"Hello, Walter," Madeline entered the booth, smiling in greeting. "Did you enjoy your little vacation?"

"Yeah," he said curtly. Unless required, he was reluctant to discuss any aspect of his life with Madeline. "So what's going on? Operations didn't bother filling me in."

"A high level operative has been breached. We're questioning those under his command to see how far the corruption goes." She visually checked the equipment from over Walter's shoulder.

"Who?"

"Seth Jensen," she replied. "Do you know him?"

He hesitated. "A little, from when he was here years ago. Tall guy, right?"

"Yes. Are we ready?"

"Uh, sure." Walter kept his face down to avoid showing his surprise. He had seen Seth Jensen, and not years ago, either. Just days before Madison had been abruptly transferred out of Section headquarters Walter had been paid a visit by Jensen. He thought back to the incident last fall.

Walter had sat down and ordered a draft in a small bar he liked that lay off the beaten path. No one had joined him that night as he'd been spending time with himself lately in the old tradition of "misery loves company" since Belinda died, but he hadn't felt so miserable then. Nope, that night the irascible tiger felt downright mellow. He had pulled a long draught of beer and sighed, content.

A man sat down next to him. In unfailing habit of survival, Walter flicked out a brief but penetrating glance at him, assessing what he could in a second. Most times his first impressions were carried out, but this was not a first impression. He knew this man.

"Walter," the man nodded genially. He indicated to the bartender that he wanted a beer.

"Seth, isn't it?" Walter nodded back, cautious. He had not seen the lanky man in years. The sudden reappearance triggered sharp suspicion.

"Yes, I'm glad you remembered." His smile seemed genuine. A beer appeared in front of him and he took a drink with obvious pleasure. "God, that tastes good."

"How long has it been? Fifteen? Twenty years?" Walter asked. As he recalled, Seth Jensen was granted a Section sub-station of his own to run several years ago. Having learned quickly as a recruit and acquitting himself more than adequately during his assignments not only in South America but also Spain and South Korea, he achieved level five status after twelve years of service to Section. Upon his promotion, he gained his own command in the American southwest. Walter heard little of him after that, just the odd tidbit here and there through the years. "Last I'd heard you were running things in Arizona. What brings you around here?"

"You, actually."

"Me? Really?" Walter said casually and shifted his weight on the stool, preparing himself for whatever might happen next. He did not fear cancellation like the younger operatives did, but he could never be one hundred percent sure it wouldn't happen, either. Walter often thought that Operations would take care of him personally if it ever came down to that.

"Yes." Seth paused to drink again. He set the mug down. "Most recruits remember you, Walter. I always looked at you as a role model. In fact, I've based some of my own philosophy of training on what I learned from you."

"I'm flattered. I think. But you've lost me."

"I'm wondering if we have a mutual friend, you and I." Seth turned so he faced Walter, one hand resting on his thigh, the other elbow casually leaning on the bar. Walter remembered the young recruit, tall and gawky, at once scared out of his mind and full of false bravado. That was over twenty years ago, however. He had done well, advancing quickly with a knack for profiling The man in front of him had that silent sense of deadly readiness all the upper level operatives gained, his youthful awkwardness gone, replaced by a purposefully nondescript demeanor graven about his face.

"Mutual friend? Anyone in particular you have in mind?" Walter asked.

"Catherine Madison."

"Madison?" Walter's eyebrows shot up.

"You know her, then." Walter nodded. "I recruited and trained her. She was with me for almost five years until she transferred to headquarters." Seth leaned forward slightly. "I wonder, has she found you to be as helpful as I found you when I first came in?"

Walter faced the bar, defensive and suspicious. "Who sent you? Did Madeline send you?"

"Far from it."

"So what are you here for?"

"Madeline is investigating me." Seth abruptly turned and took another swallow of beer. He leaned his arms on the bar. Real concern furrowed his brow.

"So it'd be in my best interest if we weren't seen together, I gather?" Walter said sardonically.

"Still sharp as a tack, I see," Seth said and a weary smile stretched his mouth.

"There's some history here, but what I really want is to keep Cat's ass out of the fire when they come to roast mine."

"Cat? You mean Madison?"

"So, it's Madison this time?" He looked into the distance. "That's interesting."

Seth explained. Five years ago, he was called to help track an arms dealer's trail that led to Dallas, coordinating with Michael out of Section headquarters.

"Turned out we weren't the only one with an agenda that day," he said wryly. "Cat wasn't some marginally involved low-life player. She spilled the brains of our package along with his bodyguards, and one of my men as well before Michael took her down." He swilled another mouthful of bitter drink and swallowed audibly. "It only seemed fitting to me that she take the place of the op she'd killed, so I recruited her out of the prison hospital."

She trained well, absorbing the lessons like the child she was. He found troubles after six months of digging history and psychological exams, however. Her family had been wiped out in a single instant while on vacation in Europe when a terrorist bomb transfigured a car into a deadly explosion of razor sharp shrapnel. Hiding behind a stone column so she could spring out and startle her brother, she survived unscathed for the most part. Seth had uncovered the details of that day over the months of her training, and also a disturbingly selective ability for her to recall other aspects of her life.

"That she showed some memory abnormalities and nightmares, well, it just wasn't enough for me to scrap the whole training regime," Seth said. "Some recruits need more time, or a little more care is all. It worked for her, too. I spent time and treated her for post-traumatic stress syndrome, and she came around fine. God, her ability to hit a target alone is phenomenal, she gets along with anyone, and she's as willing as the day is long."

Walter nodded. Sounded like Madison to him.

"But, not everyone sees eye to eye with me on training protocols," he said bitterly.

"Madeline."

Seth lay his finger on his nose. "Bullseye. She requested a copy of my personnel file and Cat's original." He sighed heavily and ran his hand through his hair. "Things changed when Adrian left."

"That's life, ain't it? Change?"

Seth laughed caustically. "I reckon so."

They drank in companionable silence as a hooker brought the jukebox to rumbling life with Mick Jagger singing about wants and needs.

"So, you looking to get something from me, Seth?" Walter asked shrewdly when the song ended.

The taller man regarded him with affection mingled uneasily with rancor. "Maybe I am, Walter. But I'm not sure what it is yet. I just might need a small thing, an exchange of disks, a useful distraction . . ."

"I haven't made it as old as I am without a healthy dose of caution." He drained his glass and signaled the bartender for a refill.

"Or caring. I would never ask you to do this for me. I might ask you to do this for Catherine, though." Seth pushed his unfinished beer mug away and lay money next to it. "She's a good kid and a good operative."

"Yeah, she is."

"I'm not asking for anything. Yet." He stood up then. "I've got to go now. I'll talk to you later."

Walter had nodded. "I ain't promising anything."

"Take care, Walter." He strode out of the bar.

Seth never did get back to Walter, and Madison disappeared days later, transferred back to her old station according to scuttlebutt. Knowing Madeline like he did, Walter began to feel extremely uncomfortable sitting next to her in the dark booth, wondering if she would find out about his clandestine meeting with Jensen and what she might do to him if she did. He mentally shrugged. The less he said the better and the future would take care of itself.

Madeline toggled the intercom, drawing Walter back into the here and now. "Send in the next, please."

A technician led Catherine Madison into the room, wiring her to the various leads and sensors in the chair.

Walter cleared his throat.

"Is there a problem, Walter?" Madeline asked.

"No," Walter replied. "I'm surprised, though."

"Will it impair your efficiency? I know you two were friends."

"Of course not," he asserted.

"Good. Proceed."

Walter spoke into the microphone. "What is your name?"

"Catherine Madison."

"What is your designation?"

Madison sat still and answered calmly although it was easy to see she was unhappy. Her hair was different; no longer clinging with wispy tendrils to her jaw but grown out and cut into a thick bob, her bangs short and straight as a knife-slash. Walter continued asking the routine questions, establishing a standard by which to evaluate the probing questions Madeline began to pose.

"How long have you known Seth Jensen?" Madeline asked.

"Five years."

"Do you consider him a friend?"

"Yes."

"Are you or have you ever been lovers?"

She snorted. "No."

"Has Seth ever accepted money for bribes?"

"Never!"

"Has he exhibited unusual behavior lately?"

"No."

Walter saw it was a bald-faced lie as soon as Madeline did.

"You're lying," she said firmly. "Describe any unusual behavior Seth has shown. Now."

Madison frowned and squirmed. Her readings indicated heightened anxiety.

"He's been preoccupied. Worried."

"About what?" Madeline prompted her.

"I don't know. He wouldn't tell me."

Walter caught Madeline's eye. The young woman spoke the truth.

"Do you have any idea at all what it could be about?"

Madison shifted in her seat again. "I-I think it has something to do with upper management."

"Have any names come up?"

"No . . .." Her confusion with the question showed in her voice and frown as well as in the sensor equipment with vacillating numbers.

"Has Jensen ever mentioned the name Adrian before?"

Walter looked up at Madeline, surprised.

"No," Madison said.

Truth.

Madeline paused. She summoned the technician. "She's finished for now. Take her back to holding and bring me the next one."

Operations stood outside the white room, looking in on the piece of wreckage that used to be a person strapped to the chair. His hands clutched each other behind his back, vise-grips that controlled all hint of what seethed under his skin.

They never understand, he thought bitterly. The men with high ideals, the women with too much empathy, the people who operated from a core of moral fiber that they thought was the end-all and be-all of correct action were all wrong. It was strength, ruthless strength and cold intelligence that were the only pure touchstones for what Section did. Madeline dared to suggest that was the unconscious reason why he changed his hair into a banner of silver, wanting to capture his own version of the power of age that George disseminated.

She could be right.

Whatever unknowable impulse prompted him to do it, he knew Jensen failed to conceive that, just as his mentor Adrian had failed--to their collective grief. No matter what perceived achievements they thought they gained they were wrong and he was right. He allowed himself the luxury of a sigh.

"Disquieting, isn't it?" Madeline said softly behind him, looking in at the blood and pain. Blue-tinted light united them as they gazed ahead.

"It's unfortunate for Section."

"Yes. He was very effective."

"But not immune to weakness."

"Nor temptation." Madeline took her place beside Operations. "Have you decided what you would like to do with his people?"

"How many were cancelled?"

"Five out of twenty-six. Two had been working for Adrian as Seth had. It seems Adrian tried several agents before she settled on Nikita. It's a good thing we used the best bait." She paused, took a breath. "Three were cancelled for total incompatibility with the requirements of Section responsibilities. Ultimately there may be more, considering how lax he was in pruning the deadwood during the recruitment process."

"Of course, all five reports will state incompetence as the reason for cancellation."

"Of course."

"I'll send them back with a new commander. Robert Cusumano would be my first choice."

Madeline smiled. "I agree; he should do very well in that position, but you may consider sending in additional help for a week or two. All the recruits should be thoroughly re-tested for competence by someone we know can do it right."

"Michael."

"That's what I was thinking. He has no more obligations holding him exclusively to this location." Madeline stared ahead, thoughtful. "I'd like to retain one of Jensen's operatives."

"Madison?"

"Yes. We still have need for her marksmanship skills; that didn't change when Jensen pulled his strings to bring her back under his command."

"I was under the impression she was one of the recruits not properly trained," Operations looked down on Madeline. He had noticed through the years how certain recruits appealed to her, usually destitute young females. Madison had been an heiress. He could also sense how annoyed she was that Jensen upset her plans for this particular recruit. He spent a fraction of a moment making note of Madeline's interest and filing it away for future reference.

"Oh, I'm sure of it, but I think that with the proper direction--."

"From you, of course."

"Yes, from me, of course. She will be an excellent agent for us."

Operations lay his hand on her shoulder. "You know I trust your judgement. Take her back, if that's what you think is best."

"I do." Madeline said firmly. She looked at Jensen again. "How long do you plan to stand here?"

Operations sighed again. "I'm done. I should go order transport for Robert and the surviving operatives. I'll call Housekeeping."

"No, leave him there for a bit longer; I need him for just a while yet." She activated the intercom next to the viewing screen and ordered Madison to be brought to her there outside the white room. To Operations she said, "If you would be so kind as to be the one to inform Madison of the change in her fortunes? This shouldn't take much time."

"Of course." He knew what Madeline required of him. He glanced at Jensen one last time, seeing the waste, the arrogance--and the object lesson. "Is this the last, you think?"

"The last of Adrian? We can hope, but hanging our fate on hope is a foolish thing to do. We've made it this far. We must remain vigilant if we are to triumph."

Operations smiled at Madeline, so pleased with how she anticipated his thoughts.

Nikita tautened her arms over her head slow and easy, carefully working the knots from her muscles, paying close attention to the pangs and aches that had nearly faded into nothing. The beating she received at the behest of Mihai Brevich during her last mission was far from the worst she had ever gotten in her life. Her facial abrasions were light enough to cover with a thick application of make-up within a day; still, she eagerly took advantage of the past few days of rest. She lowered her arms and twisted her torso, bending one way and then the other, groaning with satisfied pleasure.

She looked out the window at the petulant morning sky and debated a short run. Clouds commanded most of the upper atmosphere but they were more white fluff than menacing gray. A most merry blue peeped out between the gaps.

Hm, maybe I will run, she thought.

Breeee! Breeeee!

Then again, maybe I won't. She frowned ruefully and answered the cell's insistent call.

Within the cool halls of her Purgatory, Nikita felt closer to paradise than hell for once. The days of rest helped rejuvenate her from not only the battle wounds she suffered, but also the aching fatigue from trying to guard Michael in his nadir of grief for the loss of his son. Gratefully, the highest hurdle of bereavement was behind him and she could not help but rejoice for his deliverance.

Nikita reported to Systems as ordered, climbing the stairs with youthful energy, her heels clicking and overcoat whispering. She entered the ego of Section to find Operations and Michael conversing. Both men turned simultaneously, casting an eerie resemblance between them.

"Hi," she said, smiling.

Michael nodded a greeting to her, his face at neutral but not cold. Dressed in customary black suit, the turtleneck was forgone for a tee shirt, exposing his neck. Perhaps the difference was in response to the changing season outside. He looked to Operations once more. "I've gotten all the profiles Madeline had time to prepare last night ready to take with me. Is there anything else?"

"No. I have confidence in you regarding this matter."

"And my suggestion for additional personnel?"

"Denied."

Michael nodded his head and left.

Operations picked up a pad sitting on the ledge and handed it to her. "Read this."

Nikita scanned the summery that prefaced the bulk of data. She recognized Michael's touch in the wording.

"So this commander, he was guilty of taking bribes?"

"Among other things. That's just background-read the details later. What we want from you is to take an operative under your wing for a few days."

"Oh?" Nikita looked up from the P.D.A., eyes wide, curious.

"You recall Madison? The shooter?"

"Sure. Her?"

"Yes." Ops smiled, amused. "It seems Madeline thinks you've got the ability to empathize with her and establish a bond of trust."

Nikita cocked an eyebrow at him. "Why?"

"She's full of resentment toward us right now because of what we were required to do to her commander. Madeline deemed her salvageable, therefore that resentment must be rooted out."

"And I'm the one to help her overcome her resentment towards Section," Nikita said, lightly sarcastic.

"Oh, not toward Section. If it were that bad she would be cancelled by now. No, just get her able to work with us here in headquarters." His grin tightened further.

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"You'll do it or she'll be cancelled." The smile evaporated instantly.

Nikita swallowed the information without response this time.

"She's down in holding. Go get her and take her home. For the time being you've got a roommate."

Nikita took her leave, recognizing a dismissal when she heard one. She thoughtfully scrolled through more of the information on the pad as she walked slowly to her destination. Michael halted her progress with a soft utterance of her name.

"Michael," she smiled at him, still feeling tender to the recent loss he suffered. He led her to his office.

"Have you heard?" he asked as the door shut behind Nikita. He leaned against the front of his desk while she stood by the door.

"That I've got a roommate?" She gave a quick moue of annoyance. "Yep."

"No. I've been given a temporary assignment at another location."

"Oh." The automatic support of her expression failed and the smile fled. "When? How long?"

"A few days, a few weeks." He shrugged. "I'm leaving today."

"Why?"

Michael's eyes slid away. "I'm needed." He looked at some distant memory, far from the walls around him. "I'm available."

"Michael," Nikita's concern reached out, palatable.

The momentary lapse ended. Michael faced her once more. "There are some things I'll require you to do in my absence. I also have my notes and files on Madison; you will find them helpful now that she'll be your material."

"Operations didn't say anything about her being my material."

"I am. I will be the one to perform any re-training she needs. You could get a head start on that for me." He turned and retrieved items from the desktop, handing them to Nikita. She took them, two mini disks, and tucked them into the pocket of her trousers.

"Michael, what is it about Madison and you?"

"Why do you ask?" He countered automatically, a reflexive response that required true effort to circumvent.

"Well, it seems to me that--."

"I feel a responsibility to her," he interrupted her with an unexpected explanation. "She's in Section because of me."

Nikita aimed a look of puzzlement at him.

"Ask her."

"I did, last year. She said she'd never met you before she transferred here."

"She knows now." He approached the door. "Be careful while I'm gone."

"You, too," she said, standing close enough so smell him. He touched her chin with his thumb, a curious gesture of farewell, and left.

She should feel gratitude for life. She didn't.

Madison wished she was in Jensen's place, physically broken and now at peace. Physical pain, unpleasant as it was, could be borne. The constant barrage against her heart could not. People died of anguish, at least in gothic romance books, but no matter how awful it got she never died. She never fainted. It just continued and she couldn't even scream. For the first time in her life she wondered if that was why they never cancelled her.

Madeline magnanimously granted her life. Paradoxically the woman looked more mature wearing boyish hair, more refined and efficient and pretty having stripped away a veneer of sensuality with her long locks. Madison accepted the gift stoically. She had wanted to be dead since she was barely eighteen. Although she could recall plenty of friendships and good times they were just faded pictures in her head, devoid of anything but image. It was impossible to muster gratitude for her life right now.

She was alive, but Seth was dead. She kept tripping over the fact, feeling the shock anew each time. Operations had found it amusing to inform Madison of her reinstatement at headquarters while standing in a darkened hall outside the white room, Seth's gruesome body leering at them through the viewing screen. Madison forced herself to look, knowing she must be brave for his sake even if she would never forget this moment. He had odd marks on his face, horizontal slashes splitting the swollen flesh amid more conventional signs of abuse: lacerations, burns, blood-soaked clothing, vomit. One of his eyes was swollen shut while the other was open the merest of slits as if in a flippant wink.

Don't bother to find a way of seeking revenge, she imagined him saying through fearsomely grisly lips. These monsters will never be answerable for the carnage.

She had bit down on the inside of her cheek, deliberately inflicting as much pain as she could to dispel the macabre vision. She said nothing but nodded at the appropriate times to Operations' pronouncements. When he finished, her guard escorted her back to holding and left her in a room by herself. She had walked to the sink and spit out a mouthful of blood before she lay on a bunk and whiled away the rest of the night wondering where her surviving compatriots were.

"Hey, Madison."

She remained laying down, facing a blank wall. That accent, that purr . . . it was Nikita. The swish of fabric announced her sudden weight on the edge of the bunk.

"Madison?" Nikita's voice was a gentle, sympathy-ridden caress.

Madison turned and looked up at her. She hadn't changed one whit, still beautiful as a golden lioness, careful now as with a sick cub.

"Get up. I'm taking you to my place." Nikita read the surprise in Madison's face. "Yep, you're rooming with me for now."

Madison sat up. She almost began talking, but the words log-jammed behind her breastbone. If she were to start the flow, there would be no stopping it from escalating into a scream of rage and grief. She set her feet on the floor, eyes wide and silent.

"You ready?"

Madison nodded.

"Do you have any bags, or . . .?"

"No." One syllable seemed safe. She chanced some more, filtered with sullen anger. "I have nothing."

"We'll fix that," Nikita got up, sounding confident. "Come on. We're going home."

Surrounded by simple walls and stillness in Nikita's building, Madison detected something returning to her, a sense of self that held a maelstrom of emotions. She walked straight from Nikita's front door to the bathroom and stripped off her clothes.

My name is the same. My name is the same. She chanted the simple mantra to herself as she sat curled in a ball on the floor of Nikita's shower while steaming water pounded her nearly senseless. My name is the same. The scalding water etched away feeling, leaving only fatigue and intellect, a drained and clean sensation.

"Madison!" Nikita said suddenly as she pulled the shower curtain back, appalled.

"What?" she replied as if puzzled by the taller woman's actions. Madison . . . my name is the same.

"That's too hot--you'll burn!" She reached in and turned the water spigots off before she shook out a bath sheet and held it up wide. "Come out of there."

Obediently, Madison stood up and allowed Nikita to wrap her in the folds of terrycloth.

"What were you thinking?" she chastised.

"I wasn't thinking at all," Madison retorted.

"Let's find you some clothes and get you to bed."

"But it's ten in the morning." Her protestation held no passion.

Nikita sighed in exasperation. "Humor me, okay?" She bundled Madison into her own bed wearing borrowed underwear and tee shirt.

"Sleep as long as you want." Nikita cat-footed out of the room and sat on her couch. When the girl woke up they would have to go shopping for clothes; she was half a foot shorter than Nikita. Nikita felt hard-pressed thinking of something that would fit to get her out the door.

She leaned forward and snagged the data pad with Madison's file from the coffee table, looking at it with all the enthusiasm of a kid tackling a six-week school project. It's glorified babysitting, she silently sniped. But . . . it had to be done. Annoying task or not, if she failed Madison, the girl would be killed. Nikita could not allow that eventuality. She could see how Madeline took advantage of her now, then shuddered, abhorring a sudden empathy with Madeline. She heaved a sigh and began outlining the necessary string of tests, realizing that what she did now would save Michael that much more to do when he returned from his assignment.

Dreary gray earth dropped away outside the jet window. Michael stared through the porthole, his depth of focus shortening until his eyes could find no touchstones in a fuzzy void as the plane penetrated cloud cover. Insistent drag of gravity and acceleration continued pressing him back into his seat as the pilot pitched his climb at an uncomfortable rate but Michael welcomed the sensation. His body craved sensation to combat the frozen numbness it had been prisoner to these past days. His body needed to explode, for his mind never would.

As for his heart, when was the last time he had heard it beat with anything besides pain? When was the last time he felt the riotous strength of immature arms cling around his neck, a sweet-smelling cheek softer than angels' wings rubbing the rasp of his own shadowy face? The moment was the same.

Intelligent, sensitive, he perceived some fundamental lack in himself that allowed him to live through such brutal ruination in his life, but he could not define what that lack could be. Or maybe it was something extra built into him, constructed brick by brick of horrifying experiences. Once he could tell. No longer. Now he could define things he could not before: no loss comes without some gain. Now he could elucidate hell.

Hell was not some gaping pit, no cold fire of divine retribution.

Hell was Futility.

Futility was stronger than anything in the universe; lover of hopelessness and father to apathy. Michael had been deep in the grip of futility after he became a ghost yet again, this time to his son. His wife Elena's pain, witnessed in the confines of a small hospital room filled with the bitter smell of gunpowder and her father's contrition, had been hard to bear. Gratefully, at the time Michael had closed his eyes in mock-death as his murder was staged and shut out Elena's image, if not her screams. Imagining how his son would be presented with the fact of his father's death had hurled him under the tread of that demon Futility, gasping for breath as the weight crushed his chest.

He considered his other son, his dead son. Death promised finality and, if a person believed in God, a chance at heaven. For his firstborn son's sake he could pretend to believe and imagine him at bliss in Paradise. Adam, however, had naught but the mature suffering of bereavement. Oh, thank God, at least both sons had their mothers with them!

Michael closed his eyes as the haze outside the window brightened and thinned. Unveiled sunlight fell upon his face and blood-red random images sluggishly swirled inside his eyelids. He opened them once more and instead of cheerless wet landscapes, now creamy white clouds fell beneath the wings of the plane, brilliant under an unfettered sun in a sky of intense blue.

Gold sun, blue skies . . . gold hair, blue eyes.

Tear out my heart, ere it betray me again.

Madeline once told him he had a heart big enough to survive anything. Early in his training he did not know what she had meant. Although not yet honed to Section's cutting apex, still he possessed his searchlight perceptiveness and it was enough for him to detect how convinced she was in her certainty.

"Never give in to it," she warned. "But use it. It makes you better than other men and it will make you into something great one day."

Whatever she believed, he knew what his heart did to him, time after time. It set him up with love like hunger, and cast him down because he would never be granted the chance to live love in peace. And this time, as the barriers to Nikita's love fell, he was as helpless with her as with all the others. His heart had betrayed him again.

The intercom cracked and the pilot's voice announced their cruising altitude had been reached. "It'll be a smooth flight and we'll reach north Phoenix in the estimated time." The PA crackled once more. "Ground temperature in Phoenix right now is 79 degrees Fahrenheit with expected temperatures in the mid- to high-90s when we land."

Robert Cusumano sat down in the empty seat next to Michael, his wide frame filling the space uncomfortably.

"Yes?"

"Here are the projects currently hot for the station," he explained, gesturing with the pad he held. "I was hoping you might have input to a possible priority list."

Michael took the offered device and scrolled down the contents. Robert had a reputation for oblique information gathering and Michael knew what he really wanted to ask-did Michael, with his superior resources, have inside information that he was willing to share? Out of the three developing situations detailed, one was flagged with a comment placed there by Operations: "Possible manifestation of ARM?"

"Give this one priority."

Robert nodded. "I'm to take care of getting morale back. Madeline has given me guidelines, but do you want to add anything? You will be overseeing re-testing." Well-educated and fluent in the English language, his North American Spanish accent softly flavored his words.

"No. You take care of it." Michael paused. He retrieved a data-disk from the bag under his seat and handed it to Robert. "Find a likely operative to help you, someone the others trust. You should be able to find someone based on this." Anyone but me, he thought.

"Thanks." Robert took the data, slipped it into his shirt pocket. "It seems like we're in for some nice weather."

Michael grunted, disinterested. Robert shrugged and returned to his seat at the back of the plane. Michael took out his laptop computer and buried his morbid musings under the mountainous load of paperwork required for this assignment. On the ground after the promised smooth flight and landing, Michael, Robert, and twenty-one operatives deplaned, blinking in the glaring sunshine. Waiting for them at a cavernous and private hanger were eight of the ten agents who had operated as a skeleton crew while Madeline and Operations had conducted their investigations. Two of the ten-member team remained at the base.

"Michael, Robert: Welcome to hell!" Dave Griffin stepped forward and grinned, hand extended. Robert shook it heartily. Michael did not. "I've been loving it, but you won't in a month or two. They're predicting one of the hottest summers in years!"

"Ah, I miss the heat," Robert grinned back. "You can take that horrid northern climate and keep it."

"The plane will be ready to return in fifteen minutes. Get your people on it," Michael ordered Griffin.

"Right," Griffin threw a mock-salute off the end of his white-tipped spiky hair. "Oh, I bought a mountain bike. I figured it wouldn't fit on the plane, so I left it in the main office. Use it. They've got trails out here to blow your mind."

"You managed to find downtime?" Michael's voice held no doubt about his displeasure.

"Okay, okay, so I spent five hundred bucks on a bike I got to use only once," he hunched his shoulders in mock repentance. His mischievous grin returned. "But it was worth it: every penny."

"Keep the bike. You'll be staying here with me until I finish evaluations."

"Ah, yes, sir," Griffin straightened in response to his superior's tone and his grin fell to the ground. He walked off to take care of equipment and personnel transport.

At the sub-station Robert took over Seth Jensen's old office. Michael settled into the second-in-command's office, resting lightly on the surface of a dead man's personal space. Robert would be choosing his own lieutenant, but while he performed evals Michael required direct access to Robert and the population of the station.

Housekeeping and the skeleton crew had already taken care of the living quarters of the dead operatives. The survivors re-settled warily into their old lives, torn apart days ago; on edge as the future seemed chancy at best. Michael began testing that afternoon and did not stop until far into the night, ignoring his circadian rhythms until he could be sure fatigue would guarantee a night's dreamless sleep.

The last of six operatives he worked with that day dropped to the floor with a grunt of pain, her face distorted as he flipped her to the floor. She, too, was tired, and disoriented as well from the past few days of interrogation and investigation, but like the others he had tested tonight, Michael had to determine how well she could fight unarmed. Before he could begin to censure her, her left leg swept suddenly in a powerful arc and tumbled him to the floor. He rolled with it, reflexes automatic, and pounced on her as she flipped to her stomach and tried to escape. He released her before she could bring other defenses to bear.

Enough was enough.

"Good." Michael wiped dripping hair from his eyes. "Dismissed, Lily. Get some rest." He deliberately used her name in an effort to combat the raging resentment all the operatives here had for him and Robert.

Panting, she got up and left, her silent glare full of animosity his only thanks.

Michael slung a towel around his neck after scrubbing his face and hands with it. The afternoon temperature had reached 98 degrees F-a record springtime high. Poorly ventilated, the gym acted as a heat sink, slow to exchange hot internal air with cooler night air outside. He hated the heat. He picked up a P.D.A. and punched in the relevant information on Lily's eval before he forgot details, leaning against a counter in the abbreviated gym, his military green drawstring pants and tank top splotchy with rapidly drying sweat.

"Excuse me."

Michael's head snapped up. He had not heard the quiet approach.

"Yes?"

"Is this a bad time?"

Nearly midnight in an alien time zone after exhaustive physical work, and a serious young man asked was it a bad time? He had been awake for over thirty hours. A chuckle born of fatigue-poisons threatened to escape but Michael had far more self-control than that.

"What do you want?"

The man crossed the room. Slender, with eyes so dark they looked black, and thick dusky brown hair, he was youthful looking. As he came closer Michael could see the lines that framed his features, marking him older than at first impression, perhaps in his early thirties. Michael's memory obligingly offered the correct name: William Falkenburg.

"I, I don't know if I should ask, but," he stammered, increasing the appearance of youth, "I wanted to know what happened to Seth's personal belongings."

Michael stared at him.

"It's just that I had given him some things. I'd like them back. We were friends for a long time."

"Housekeeping took care of his living quarters."

"But it's all boxed up, ready for inventory, right? When whoever's done with processing it, I just want a chance to, to . . ."

"It was sent to Headquarters. Madeline's people have it."

"Oh." He looked at the floor.

"Is there anything else?"

"No. I, I'm sorry to have bothered you." He left.

Despite weariness, the dreams came.

Mid-morning the next day, Falkenburg interrupted Michael at his desk as he laid down another layer of qualifications to Lily's eval.

"Robert wanted your heads-up on this," he said and lay a diskette on the desk.

"We've been keeping tabs on the remains of an anti-government group active in Kingman ever since we infiltrated and neutralized them a couple of years ago, and it looks like they've got something brewing again."

Michael said nothing. He slipped the disk in and read the intel.

"They called themselves the Red Hawks, just a bunch of ignorant anti-government bigots, pumped up on a testosterone. We fed the local authorities and they took care of it from there," Falkenburg verbally summarized the information--a trait shared by many Section-trained operatives. "The report is prefaced with the last intel Gary brought in before, uh, before . . ." Gary had been one of the five operatives cancelled.

"What do you want me to do about it, William?"

"Falky, please. We've already got another Will on site." When Michael did not reply, he continued. "Um, the Red Hawks were Gary's project. This just came in this morning to the drop he arranged with them." He sighed. "We knew they were talking to another supplier, but now it looks as if they've got a target."

A graphic grew on the computer monitor. Detailed blueprints of a building had hand-drawn placements of bombs marked in red. Bomb specifications, again in red, decorated the margins. Whoever had drawn the various components had a steady hand and Michael recognized the detonator configuration from schematics Walter had generated from memory of the very same devices.

It was ARM.

"Do we have a timeframe on this?" Michael looked up.

"Yes, a very limited one. Twenty-four hours on the outside."

"Tell Robert to open a secure channel with headquarters. I'll be right there."

With background on ARM provided from Section headquarters via Birkoff, Robert and Michael developed a profile for the mission. Of the operatives permanently stationed in Phoenix, Michael trusted none of them well enough to use. He saw Jensen's softhearted coddling of the people under his command as criminal negligence. Anti-terrorism was a difficult career and only the strongest survived. Knowing the members of Red Hawk would reject him for his foreign accent, Michael chose Griffin as the only appropriate op he considered reliable to replace Gary as the contact person.

Griffin was accepted as Gary's replacement within hours of communication--a credit to his powers of persuasion--and he arranged for a meeting at the temporary weapons depot two nights later. Intel was sketchy at best for although the Red Hawks were willing to meet with Griffin, they didn't trust him enough to tell who would be there.

"We'll take the van, capture as many as we can," Robert said. He sat behind his desk in his office with Michael, Falky, Lily and Griffin leaning or standing around the room. "It's almost a month old, but according to this intel we must take the Reed brothers alive. From what Gary discovered they were in contact with the new supplier."

"The drop is a commercial mini storage, surrounded by residential neighborhoods on two sides and a strip mall on a third. Across the street is an empty lot," Michael said.

"That doesn't leave much margin for error, does it?" Falky drummed his fingers against the desk edge he leaned against.

"No. It doesn't," Michael replied. "We'll go in with silenced nine-mils after a stealth creep on the stragglers with garrotes when Griffin gives the hostiles' configuration. I'll coordinate from the van." He looked briefly at Robert. "Get the brothers alive. The rest are collateral."

Robert nodded, accepting the correction on who was deemed important to save--and who was deemed insignificant enough to die.

Recon softened the area before mission start by knocking out three streetlights around the mini storage before night fell, giving night-goggled Section ops an advantage. At two AM, Griffin pulled up to the mini storage in an old white American-made pick up. Michael listened carefully as audio intel streamed in to accompany the inferred captures from the cameras on top of the van.

"There are five arranged around the perimeter and one in their vehicle," Michael said. "Kill them all." He looked up at the four operatives waiting to deploy. "Quietly."

Through the equipment in the van, Michael watched the scenario play itself out. Griffin talked to the Reed brothers and their peers as four stealthy voids ringed around five luckless targets. None were given a chance to cry out as thin wires stole their breath along with their lives.

"Get ready," Michael warned Griffin through his hidden com unit. "Stay close to the package."

His command sent the four operatives in a tightening spiral, working ever closer to the package. Of the four, he felt Lily was the most competent, so he ordered her to help Griffin secure the brothers. The others he aimed at the remaining acceptable collateral with nine-millimeter handguns.

"Now."

Bodies dropped. Voices raised in fear and shock. Michael opened the van door to receive the brothers Reed, one struggling in Griffin's grasp, the other in Lily's.

The elder Reed struggled silently, making it difficult for Griffin to thrust him through the door. He freed an arm long enough to take aim at Michael for a solid punch, but Michael's hand encased the fist before his brain was hardly conscious of the threat. He pushed down, squeezing until he felt finger bones crunch. The man gave up the battle with a cry of pain.

"Thanks," Griffin grunted as he sat the man down and cinched a restraint on him cruelly tight. Lily sat the younger Reed brother down next and followed suit with the bonds. Soon, three more inky, human-shaped shadows leapt into the van. The doors swung shut and the van rumbled away, leaving the corpses behind for Housekeeping to take care of.

Geoffrey drew the line of his brow with one forefinger, starting from near the bridge of his nose and following the motion with a cupped palm to sweep the stately hair that fringed his head. What little remained was nearly orange in color as white strands liberally streaked the remaining red. When he was young, the thick red locks had fascinated women all over the world. Many had twined their fingers in that verdant growth during sex, not aware that this red-crowned leonine lover would betray them before the night was through.

Life had been vastly more simple back then, he thought, although at the time his younger self would have debated the point passionately. Arrogant youth! He silently chucked at himself. Age brought its own arrogance as well.

A weak bleat burbled from his computer, quietly alerting him to the information he had told the idiot machine to look for. Electronically stealthy, he drew in the strands of information he sought and found confirmation of the success of this latest step in his plan--Michael Samuelle snapped up the bait in Phoenix. He had found that the hapless Reed brothers did indeed know how to contact the elusive ARM, and Geoffrey knew Michael had faced no real challenge to pry this information out of the Reeds. He had returned to Section headquarters already, package in tow. He thought, I expected that.

Michael had become almost predictable recently, Geoff thought.

He had only met the younger man in the flesh once, but had read many a report the man wrote or figured prominently in, and was suitably impressed with the caliber of operative he was. Geoff hoped to retain that one somehow when the time came to obliterate Section, but he was fully prepared to sacrifice the entire organization if need be.

Ah, such a pity.

After all, he did have priorities.

Madison stared at Nikita with naked defiance snarling her face. Eight days lay behind them since Nikita came to be her reluctant tutor and the senior op was dangerously close to washing her hands of the entire matter and letting Madison flounder in the deep end of the abeyance pool.

"You don't want to take the test, huh?" Nikita folded her arms. "Yesterday you wanted to skip weapons qualification, the day before that you refused to complete the computer assessment."

"I did too finish it."

"Yeah, and it was like pulling teeth."

"I don't need to take this test," Madison sulked.

"Tough. It's on Michael's list so you're gonna do it."

"I just had it a few months ago. Michael administered it to me himself for crying out loud," Madison retorted.

"Tough." Nikita repeated, enunciating the word with an exaggerated "f" at the end. "If he wants you to do it again then your gonna do it again."

"Fine," she muttered, sullen.

"Madison . . . what is it with you? God, I would've thought that you of all people knew how stupid and unfair this place it." Nikita grabbed her shoulder and shook it, angry.

"And your point?" Adolescent scorn could hardly be so cutting.

Nikita seized her upper arm and yanked the reluctant pupil along behind her, removing her from the hallway outside the testing area and pulling her into an empty access landing. She slammed the younger woman against the wall, the noise echoing against stark concrete walls and steel grates.

"What is it with you?" she hissed. "You've changed, and it's gonna get you killed."

"What's with me? What's with me?" Madison wriggled helplessly, unable to extricate herself. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

"Last year you were a completely different person," Nikita accused. "You were my friend. You had lots of friends here!"

"No I didn't! I had people eager to use me!"

"Use you?" Nikita frowned in disbelieving confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I was used and now Seth is dead!"

"Seth Jensen? I saw the report. He's dead because he was a traitor to Section, taking bribes for favors," Nikita countered, her voice hard. "You'll be dead soon, too, if you don't start cooperating!"

"Traitor? Hardly!" Madison spat. "He would never do that! The evidence had to have been faked. No. He's dead because of someone named Adrian."

Nikita's grip on Madison loosened. The younger woman jerked free and rubbed her arms where finger marks would leave bruises. Nikita took in a deep breath, her nostrils flaring as if trying to scent danger.

"Tell me all you know about Adrian," she demanded.

"I don't know anything about anyone called Adrian."

"You do! Tell me!" Nikita struck out and imprisoned Madison's upper arm once more in a vise grip, causing her to wince.

"I don't! But . . ." she gulped. "Madeline seems to. She asked me if Seth had ever mentioned that name before. As soon as I said no, she let me go."

"And?" She squeezed tighter. Madison bore it stoically this time.

"We weren't well isolated for a short time during the questioning period. I told Falky what Madeline asked me and he nearly fainted."

"Falky?"

"Will Falkenburg. Seth's, well, Seth's friend." She looked at Nikita's fingers buried in the flesh of her arm just beneath the sleeve of her gray tee shirt. "I'm losing circulation here."

Nikita let go and the tension between the two women slackened. Madison shook her arm and leaned against the wall, warily watching Nikita.

"What else?"

"What else? Falky knows everything Seth knew...or he did. I know Seth wasn't the only one cancelled that night, but I don't know who was. His reaction to Adrian's name, well . . ." She shrugged. "Seth had been upset about something for the past few months and it was coming to a head, I could tell. Maybe it was something about this Adrian person."

Nikita paced away, obviously thinking hard herself. She turned back.

"You know all about this, don't you?" Madison accused. Venom crept back into her voice. "I'll bet you all do."

"No. We don't all know." Nikita said stonily.

The last echoes fell like snowflakes and covered them with silence.

"I don't suppose I can go home now," Madison tramped harshly into the quiet between them.

"No. You can't. You've got a test to do." Nikita's voice was intractable. "And what did you mean when you said we used you to kill Seth?"

"Didn't you?" she said sourly. "Birkoff sure did."

"Birkoff?" Nikita almost laughed at the absurdity of the idea.

"He set up an e-mail account for me to write to Seth when I was here last year. Stupid me, I just thought he was doing me a favor. I thought-well, I don't know what I thought. He was just using me so Section could spy on Seth. The really awful thing is I believed him right up until they came to take us away a week ago." She thumped her head against the wall; eyes closed in mortification. "God, the things I wrote to him . . . I feel like such a fool."

"To Seth?" Nikita asked. She heard real vehemence in the word "him" and it flagged her attention.

"No, Birkoff." Nikita heard the very same ire, confirming her suspicion.

"You've been writing to Birkoff . . . how long?"

"You weren't in on it, huh?"

"No." She pressed her lips together for a moment. She didn't think Birkoff was, either, and said so. "You need to cut Birkoff some slack. I know him better'n you. He wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, right."

"C'mon. You've got a test to do--and you're going to do it without complaining about it, either."

"Whatever."

Nikita grabbed Madison by her throat and pulled her close until they were nose to nose. She spoke rapidly and intensely, her accent thickened with passionate anger. "Cut it out! You've been treated shabbily: so what? You've jumped to some conclusions that I know are wrong, so don't get all high and mighty on me. And if you want to go on breathing, whatever you do, don't ever mention Adrian's name to anyone, y'hear?"

Madison slowly nodded and Nikita dropped her. Suspiciously watching each other, they marched back to the testing area.

Disks of routine monitoring stacked up at Birkoff's elbow: information from satellites; information pulled from FBI, CIA, and DOD sources, both legitimate and illicit; information painstakingly taken in by snitches and summarized in reports; information compiled from AP and UPI wires; information plundered from tortured captives; even random samplings of data from the world wide web. Rarely was he required to plow through that kind of scut-work anymore, but he was responsible for assigning who did have to deal with it. He separated the disks into piles, one, two, three. Peripheral motion made him look up. Nikita walked straight toward him.

Nikita was always hard to miss. No room seemed able to contain her expansive vitality. She looked directly at him as she walked. He knew her long enough to read some of her body language and right now she was in what he privately called "determined acquisition mode".

She wants something, he thought.

From me.

He couldn't often refuse her.

He used to spend time chasing her around his imagination, knowing that was the only way he could ever have her, for those hopes had been dashed long ago. Still, she also had this way about her that made a person do what she wanted, and all through sheer force of willful spirit.

Nikita was Madison's mentor at the moment. Birkoff had a sudden premonition of what Nikita might be after. He got up abruptly, gathering stacks of disks. He turned his back on her relentless advance and began dispensing raw intel to the appropriate techs. She couldn't ask anything too sensitive of him while in the company of others--she wasn't like that.

"Birkoff," she tapped him on the shoulder as he explained to a new technician what he wanted.

"What?"

"Just wanted you to come with me for a bit," she said, a friendly smile on her face as she slung her arm around his shoulders.

"I'm in the middle of something here," he protested.

"I'll bring him right back," she wrinkled her nose at the young man holding the disks and kidnapped Birkoff out of his work area. "It won't take long."

"What's this about?" Birkoff asked as Nikita hurried him further down the hall.

"You'll see." She maneuvered him into a deserted corner of Section, one Birkoff knew was outside surveillance.

Nikita released him.

"What have you been up to, Birkoff?" Her teasing manner turned intimidating.

"What do you mean?"

"How long have you and Madison been communicating? I want the whole thing; how you did it, what you said, and who knew about it. And be quick about it before Operations misses you out there."

Birkoff told her. Madeline had come to him late one night and asked him to establish an e-mail link for Madison to communicate with her former commander, Seth Jensen. The catch was he was supposed to make her think he did it as a favor, hiding Section's involvement. Madison had been transferred out of headquarters the very next day. He explained how he searched out his own method to electronically contact Madison after she had gone.

"No one knows about it," he said. "Except Madison."

Nikita nodded. "So you wrote to her for personal reasons. Because you like her."

"Well, yeah." He glanced away and back again, self-conscious.

"Is it possible that Section monitored what you did?"

"No."

"You sound awfully sure . . ."

Birkoff regarded her solemnly. "I would have heard about it if I'd been caught."

"Hm." Nikita absorbed the information thoughtfully. She looked at him, a wry expression on her face. "Well, Madison sure thinks you had a different motive. You two might want to have a talk."

"She doesn't want to talk to me. I tried." He had only faced her twice since she returned. The first time he approached her she slapped him. Hard. The second time he saw her Nikita had brought her to the computer center to be tested. He pulled rank to administer the evaluation and was rewarded with nothing but a view of the top of her head as she stared at the floor. He tried to be helpful, friendly--anything to get her to do something besides belt him or ignore him but nothing worked. She gave him curt, one-syllable answers to his evaluation questions and ignored him when he tried to talk about anything unrelated to the test.

"Birkoff, she's confused." Nikita found it easier to defend the girl while not distracted by her exasperating behavior.

"She's confused? I'm confused!"

The metal clang of a door shutting reverberated in the empty landing and measured footsteps prompted Nikita to usher Birkoff casually but quickly back down the hall. They exchanged looks, confirming to each other the need for silence. At the door, Nikita gestured for Birkoff to go through first.

"Talk to her," she urged him. He looked at her, troubled, then left. She waited, the door open, wondering if Madison was finished with the test or not.

"Nikita."

Surprised, she spun around, letting the door fall closed.

"Michael!"

Nikita felt internal alarms of surprise quake through her but years of conditioning prevented them from reaching her skin.

"I didn't expect you back so soon."

"Robert has things under control now. I was no longer needed there."

"Ah."

"I was looking for you. How did Madison perform for you?"

"Fine. In fact, she's in her last test right now."

"You've kept Madeline updated?"

"Of course."

"Good. I'll finish her eval from here, then."

"All right." Adrian's specter loomed large in her mind. There could be no way for Nikita to bring her to light with Michael. Too vividly she remembered Michael's implacable strength flattening her against her own refrigerator, demanding truths from her she could not give. She felt a fraction of regret as she recalled urging Birkoff to talk to Madison. Would Adrian come up in their conversations? Nikita leaned on her faith in Birkoff's intelligence to keep his mouth shut, just as she counted on Madison's sense of self-preservation to the same end.

"It's been a long week," Michael said, his tone clipped. Nikita looked at him in a mild double-take, not entirely trusting her ears.

"A long week?"

"It was unseasonably warm." Green eyes slid away and back and away once more.

The chance to reply was denied Nikita as the door opened and a female op pushed by, carrying a hard-sided case with her. She muttered an apology, eyes down, and ascended the stairs.

"Thanks for your help while I was gone," Michael said softly, and passed through the door leaving Nikita alone once more.

Madison shook drops of moisture from her hair as she walked along the sidewalk. Yesterday's burst of brilliance gave way to this morning's rain but did little to dampen her mood. In her pocket rode a single key, the entry to her new home.

She felt exhilarated by the sense of ownership, a strange feeling of freedom. Madison had not lived on her own, ever. She used to have an apartment, but she had shared it with two fellow Section operatives. They were dead and gone. This flat was hers alone, and she found herself looking forward to the solitude. She found herself looking forward to anything.

Anticipation. She looked forward to living in the apartment; buying furniture, dishes, towels . . . all very mundane stuff, but activities she had never done for herself before. Her roommates had taken care of her first apartment after becoming an employee of Section, and during the years between her family's demise and her recruitment, she had stayed with friends, or with the petty criminals she sought as tools for revenge. One month when she was nineteen, she had slept on a bench in a park.

As her new apartment was situated nearby, she soon approached the street entrance to Section One. People passed by the façade everyday, hundreds and hundreds of people, and none of them knew what happened underneath that stone building. Madison thought hard about her confrontation with Nikita in an echoing stairwell within its bowels. Nikita towered over her by half a foot and was stronger than most men she knew.

When she shook sense into a person, she shook hard.

It was difficult to recall the exact words of their conversation, but Madison was slowly absorbing the gist. Nikita was trying to give her a long overdue wake-up call by pointing out just how childish she was behaving. She had a good point.

I have been acting like a brat, Madison thought.

Somehow, today she felt far more herself than since before Seth died. Was it the new digs? Was it just time? Small moments during the day still tumbled her so hard she wanted to lash out or cry, but she had experienced the phenomenon before--many times.

Practice makes perfect, she though bitterly. She seemed to be in some calm, the eye of the storm, perhaps, and she had no intentions of examining her reprieve from despair too closely.

She paused before she entered Section's deceptively ordinary maw, leaning against the wall, delaying the inevitable. Michael had returned three days ago from a short assignment outside of Section and informed her he would be overseeing her last test: this one dealing with hostile interrogation situations.

It would be unannounced, very unpleasant, and soon.

Someone emerged from the building. Madison stood up straight suddenly, and he turned at her movement. It was Birkoff.

He turned, took a step closer, then stopped.

Madison cleared her throat. "Hi."

He looked at her, neither smiling nor frowning, his eyes hidden behind his glasses, unreadable.

"I . . ." Madison began, stopped. She tried again. "Nikita said . . ." Her voice gave up.

"What?"

"I guess--well . . . I'm sorry. For, y'know . . ." She shrugged, frustrated with her inability to determine what her own mind was thinking, let alone how to communicate it. He seemed to understand, however, for he nodded slightly.

"You busy?" He moved closer.

She thought about what most likely awaited her inside and wanted to say, "No! Let's go someplace--anyplace but here!" but her purse bleated peremptorily. Disconcerted, she fished for it and answered the cell phone on the fifth ring.

"Leona."

"Yes."

"Report to Systems now."

"Yes." Madison hung up the phone and returned it to her purse. She shrugged. "I guess I am busy."

"Later, then?" His words were cool, but his voice and expression had warmed.

She nodded. Madison figured she got more than she deserved from him. He turned and walked away. The anticipation she gained this morning shriveled, giving trepidation fertile ground to grow. She shouldered her bag, slicked damp hair from her face with twin sweeps of her hands and marched quickly to Systems.

Michael and Ops spoke together as she entered the room. They ignored her as she stood waiting, so she at once fell into a relaxed and ready stance, fixing her gaze on the far horizon with her face in neutral. Ops barely registered Madison's presence as he concluded his business with Michael and left. Madison drew herself to attention. Michael nodded in the direction of the door.

"Follow me," he said.

Michael led her, this time not to the testing level, but straight to the White Room. Two operatives, men she never met before, stood waiting for them. Michael nodded, and they grabbed her roughly, divesting her of her purse and patting her down for weapons. They hauled her inside the White Room, leaving Michael outside holding her purse.

Oh, god, she gulped compulsively. Is this really a test?

The white room echoed, completely barren. The larger man, bearish in the way he slouched and how his arms bulged with thick muscles, held her helpless in the center of the empty area. The other operative stood in front of her, his legs wide on a steady stance while he dispassionately examined her, stroking his clipped brown moustache.

Without warning, he punched her in her ribs, forcing air out in a painful whoosh. He waited a beat, then struck her again on the other side.

Communication seemed a risky bet. Madison rolled with the punches as best she could and began to back down from the fear that this was a real interrogation. She had known the evaluation was coming; this had to be it. Besides, Madeline would have overseen the process if it were not a test.

The objective was to resist and escape, although that seemed a difficult goal while carefully laid blows rained on her. The larger operative remained a stoic wall behind her as the other continued to strike her, laying his punches so as to inflict pain, but not permanent damage, pausing occasionally to rub his hairy upper lip and pant. Madison had continued practicing her hand-to-hand combat skills since she left headquarters last year and she longed to practice some of them on this weasel of a man right now. She resisted the temptation, curling away from the impacts as best as she could, showing more pain and disability than she felt in an attempt to lull her captors, for they were not the ones she needed to outwit.

Michael entered then, in his role of inquisitor. He twitched his head and weasel-man moved to one side. The jabs ceased, but her arms were still held painfully behind her back by the operative that she mentally dubbed 'Bear', as she named the smaller one 'Weasel'. Bear placed too much confidence in his strength, however, for Madison could tuck two fingers of her right hand into her back left pocket and she felt the hard-ridged edge of her key.