It was only years later that Nikita thought to ask Michael why he’d gone down to the 13th level that Saturday. And even after all that time, he couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer.

There wasn’t an answer. Not unless you believed in fate. Or karma. Or destiny. Or instinct. And Michael believed in none of those things. He believed in things that could be seen, felt, heard, trusted.

Yet, for some reason one quiet Saturday afternoon, he pushed his chair back, turned off his computer and left his office. But instead of checking a SIM with Birkhoff or discussing a recent recruit with Madeleine, Michael headed not toward the exit of Section One, and not toward any of the other places he might possibly have a reason to visit.

He went to the elevator, pushed the signal and waited. When it arrived, he stepped in and with no conscious thought, he pressed 13. The elevator descended.

It was only then that he realized what he’d done. Michael sighed and tried to stop the elevator -- he had no reason to go to 13 -- but the elevator refused to respond and sank even lower into Section. Michael sighed again. He’d have to wait for it to reach its destination before he returned to the top floor.

Punching the wrong button in an elevator isn’t cause for alarm with most people. But Michael knew he’d been a bit on the dim side lately and it worried him. It was a combination of stress -- his mission load had been heavy lately -- and mental apathy.

Next week was Adam’s birthday. He’d be 6. Michael hadn’t seen him since he’d turned 3; the thought suddenly occurred to Michael that Adam had now lived half his life without his father. Michael missed him. He’d thought that as time went by, the longing for Adam and even for Elena would dull. In a way, it had. He no longer thought of them every day, but when he did think of them, the hurt was sharp and raw.

Having Nikita helped, but even now he sometimes lapsed into dark silences when they were together. He knew it annoyed her at first, but she gradually learned to let him be. She kissed him, wrapped her arms around him, and without saying much of anything, she left him alone till his dark mood passed. When his depression lifted, she welcomed him back enthusiastically. It took him awhile to realize what she was doing: telling him good-bye when he felt mean, then greeting him when he returned to normal.

He felt another stab of longing -- not for Elena and Adam this time, but for Nikita. She was gone, though, on a mission that would keep her out of Section and away from him for another month.

The elevator stopped abruptly, and Michael waited for the doors to open so he could punch 1 and be done with it. But when the doors opened, he froze.

Level 13 was supposed to be a storage area. An unused portion of Section, it had originally been used for weapons training. When the new floors had been built, all with better security features, the lower floors were abandoned. No one was supposed to be here. And there certainly shouldn’t have been any power this far down.

But level 13 was definitely occupied. The lights were all on, but more than that, there was a vibrance in the air. It wasn’t stuffy; the ventilation system was circulating fresh air. Michael frowned and stepped out of the elevator. Was someone using Section property for something unauthorized?

Directly in front of the elevator was a heavy metal door and an old-fashioned cardlock. They used alpha sensors now, which automatically recorded who accessed what area of Section and stored the information on a database; this was one of the older models they’d used when Michael first arrived in Section. Walter hated them. For one thing, you could never tell who entered and exited with them -- they weren’t that sensitive. That meant you also had to install a camera to watch the entrance. It was extremely inefficient.

This entrance didn’t have a camera, though. Michael figured it was probably because, in all of Section, only three or four people still had their old keys for the system. Madeleine never threw anything away; Michael knew she had at least one key to the system because she had at least one key to everything. Walter was just as bad. Birkhoff might have a key somewhere, but chances were he’d never be able to put his hand on it.

Michael kept his key for another reason. Simone borrowed it on her last day in Section; it was the last thing she’d given to him before she went on her ill-fated mission. At first Michael kept it to remind himself what an awful person he was; then he kept it to remember Simone by; then, finally, he kept it because he couldn’t throw it away. He’d never considered himself to be sentimental, but where this key was concerned ...

Michael turned the key in his hand, inserted the card, and turned the lock.

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

The first thing that registered was, the room was big. Bright colors, bean bag chairs, everything small. Low bookshelves lined the far wall. Work tables were scattered with computers and crayons. Childish artwork was pinned to the walls.

Michael’s heart stopped and he slowly entered the room. He and Elena had entered Adam in a preschool very like this one; he almost expected to see Adam’s bright eyes peering from behind a beanbag chair.

Michael shook his head, trying to reconcile the fact that children weren’t in Section, yet he was obviously in a kindergarten.

A few years ago -- two? Three? Nikita had come to him in a panic. She was sure Section was doing some sort of cloning project, and Michael wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been correct. But when he’d gone with her, there weren’t any children to be found. “I know what I saw,” Nikita insisted, but privately, Michael wondered. She’d just finished an extremely stressful mission that involved quite a few drugs; the possibility that she’d been suffering delayed effects of something wouldn’t have been odd.

The room was empty, but unlike the room Nikita had dragged him to, this room was for children. And they’d been here recently; the air still smelled like stale graham crackers and the sweet, sticky odor peculiar to kindergartens.

His eyes scanned the room once again, noting how many computer monitors there were and looking for cameras, hidden or otherwise. He slowly wandered through the room, wishing he’d brought a scanner --

“Are you the new doctor?” a small voice asked. Michael spun around and came face to face with ... his sister?

“Am I -- what?” he asked, staring at the little girl in front of him.

“The new doctor. Matron said we were getting a new one.”

Michael stumbled to a chair -- child-sized, so it was far too small -- and collapsed. The little girl couldn’t have been more than 5, he thought, dazed. She had the same wiry, wavy light brown hair Samuelle children had; she wore a white tank top and loose pajama-like pants, but her feet were bare and Michael saw the first two toes of her feet were webbed, just like his mother’s and sister’s were. And she was the spit of his sister when she’d been that old.

No, he realized, looking at her more carefully. She wasn’t an exact image. She had the same forehead as his sister, and looking at her hands, he saw that her fingers had short, stubby nails -- another trait in his family. But her eyes weren’t brown, they were a pale blue. And right now, they were puffy and filled with tears.

She swiped at her eyes and ducked her head, clearly expecting to be scolded. Where had Michael seen that gesture before? It was so familiar ...

Then she looked up at him again, uncertainty plain on her face. This one wasn’t old enough to hide her emotions, and Michael suddenly realized she probably would never master that particular skill.

“What’s your name?” Michael asked gently.

She blinked, and another tear escaped. “My ... name?”

“What people call you,” Michael prompted.

Puzzled, she said, “My number is 9150595. Is that what you mean?”

They numbered them? And was that sequential? Or a code? Michael said, “People call me Michael. Do they call you something, too?”

“Sometimes ... she used to call me Nona.” She twisted her fingers together -- a Nikita gesture, with the body of his sister -- and Michael nodded.

“Nona,” he said, and smiled.

Uncertainly, she smiled back, then the smile vanished and she took a step back. “If you aren’t the doctor ... are you going to punish me?”

“What for?”

Nona’s lower lip trembled -- another Nikita gesture -- and she began to cry again. “I just miss her. I know I’m not supposed to, but our groups did a lot together. I miss her. I want her to come back. Please ...”

Michael leaned forward and gathered Nona in his arms, sat her on his lap, and gave her a handkerchief. She sobbed for a few more minutes, a tiny bundle of misery, then she blew her nose. Michael sighed. “Again,” he instructed, just as he had hundreds of times for his little sister.

“Now,” Michael said, after she calmed down, “Tell me about your group. And who it is that you miss.”

“You don’t know?” Nona turned around, surprised. “I thought all grown-ups knew everything.”

“I know very little at all,” Michael said. He shifted her so her hips didn’t dig quite so painfully into his thigh, and she settled in the curve of his arm, absently playing with his necktie, a gray silk that Nikita had bought him.

“My group is just ... my group.”

“Is everyone the same age?”

“No ...” She yawned.

“Is it all girls? All boys?”

“No ...” she frowned. “We’re all ... all the same. We’re all nines.”

“I don’t understand,” Michael said.

“You know ... I’m 9150595. Then there’s 9250493, 9031194 ... but we all start out as nines.”

“I see,” Michael said. “And how many are in a group?”

“In my group, there’s four. But one group has only three; one group has 12. Her group had six. Now ... there’s only five.”

“How many different groups are there?”

Nona thought for a moment, her fingers crimping his tie. “There are four different groups,” she said finally. “There used to be more, but now there are four.”

“And all of them stay here?”

“Yes.” Her quick fingers smoothed the wrinkles out of his tie, then stroked the soft silk material.

“Tell me about the one that left.”

“She was in Group 8. Group 8, 4 and 9 are small, so we do a lot of things together.” She was quiet for a bit, and Michael thought she wasn’t going to answer him. Then she said, “They take the broken ones away.”

Had Michael thought Nona was trying to be secretive, he might have lost his temper. But he could see she was struggling to find the right words to use with him, so instead of getting impatient, he merely said, “How was she broken?”

“She couldn’t see.”

“What about the other broken ones?”

“A long time ago there was a boy with no face,” Nona said sadly. “And there was someone else who didn’t have legs. Not everyone is perfect.”

“Are you? Perfect?”

“They say I am standard.” She wrinkled her forehead. “What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Michael said honestly. Then, realizing suddenly where he was, he asked, “Where is everyone else?”

“It’s time to sleep. But I was too sad. And there were pictures in my head.”

Pictures? “Dreams?” Michael asked.

“It’s when you close your eyes,” Nona explained seriously. “But instead of black, you see people. Pictures. And you can’t sleep. Is that a dream?”

“Yes,” Michael nodded.

“I don’t like them,” Nona decided.

“You should go back to bed,” Michael said, setting her on the floor.

“I don’t want to. It’s dark in there. I’ll see those pictures ... dreams? ... again.” Her lip began to tremble, and Michael quickly suggested the only remedy he knew.

“If you promise to go to bed, I’ll read you a story.”

“Promise?” Nona asked, head cocked, looking more like Nikita now than his sister.

Michael nodded, and Nona very carefully picked out a book and handed it to Michael. He opened it up and she scrambled into his lap, leaning against him. She stroked his tie again, and as he began the story, she sleepily put her thumb in her mouth, her fingers still wrapped around his tie.

“‘Old Mrs. Twiggly lived in a tree, with her dog and her cat and her color TV,’” Michael began. “‘She lived how she liked, and she liked how she lived, and when company came, Mrs. Twiggly hid,’” he continued. He felt Nona relax against him. He droned on through the story, the rhyming lines making it easy to lull her to sleep, and when he was done, Nona lay lax in his lap, her thumb loose in her mouth. Michael slowly stood up, kicked one of the beanbags into shape, and lowered Nona onto it. Then he put away the book and, just as quietly as he’d come, he left.

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

Once he was on Section’s main floor, Michael went immediately to Birkhoff’s station.

“Birkhoff.”

“Hey, Michael,” Birkhoff nodded, his eyes on his screen. “What’s up?”

“I need a favor.”

Birkhoff sighed and turned around. “What is it?”

“I need you to lose something for me.”

“That’s a change,” Birkhoff grinned. “Usually you want me to find things. Intel that’s nonexistent. Terrorists. A needle in a haystack --”

“I’m going to be accessing the library,” Michael said, ignoring Birkhoff. “I’d like you to erase my trail in two hours.”

“That’s all?”

“For now.”

Birkhoff considered. As favors went, this one was a snap. “Okay, sure.”

Michael waited, and when Birkhoff didn’t say anything else, he prompted, “Is there nothing I can do for you?”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” Birkhoff said vaguely, his mind already back on his computer. Michael turned to go, and Birkhoff said, “Two hours?”

“Yes.”

“You got it.”

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

9150595. 9150595. A code? A sequence of something? What? Children? Trials? Nona said they were in groups and she was in Group 9. So, discounting the first digit ... that made Nona’s number 150595.

Michael added the numbers, then he took an average of them, then he wrote them backwards. He assigned them letters, but nothing made sense. Maybe it was just a random sequence. Or maybe he was so angry, he wasn’t thinking clearly.

150595. 150595.

1 50595? 15 0595? 15059 5?

No, he realized suddenly. Not 150595. It’s 15 05 95. May 15, 1995. Her birthday. So then, the first nine would stand for ... what? The number of her gene pool? Maybe it was random?

From his office, Michael accessed the library database, searching the records for Nona’s number. Nothing.

He sat back, closed his eyes and thought. They’re cloning us, Michael. I’ve seen pictures of me as a child ... that little girl was me.

Cloning. Did it start as cloning? Or did it start as a breeding program? Because breeding programs ... well, that was old news. And it was easy to do, especially now that you could grow a human outside a body. Michael had seen the machines they used to incubate fetuses. A breeding program ...

So many of the things Section did were a result of World War II scientists, and the bulk of the research Section depended on came from Germany. Germans kept good records and performed numerous human experiments during the war. From methods of efficient killing to torture techniques, Section had taken the material left from the war, modified it, refined it and discarded the useless bits. For instance, Section wasn’t interested in genocide. But it was interested in human research. The research that had been the most valuable over the long-term was Mengele’s twin research -- it was the forerunner of DNA testing.

But the Nazis did other experiments too, and one thing they’d been very interested in was a perfect master race.

What had Nona said? Name? My number is 9150595. Is that what you mean?

Michael’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, then, very quickly, he typed in the name of the old program: Lebensborn.

The screen flashed and the program opened. Michael looked through the page map and went to something labeled “current programs,” then he typed in Nona’s code and immediately her file came up. Michael scanned it quickly; he didn’t have a lot of time. Where was her gene map?

There. At the bottom. It wasn’t a surprise Nona was a product of Michael and Nikita. But beside Nikita’s name was a number.

Nine.

Michael’s eyes narrowed. Nona said there was a group of them. All nines. And there were four in her group. By tunneling around in the system for a few minutes, Michael was able to locate the group file.

He scanned it quickly and downloaded it to study it later, then he sat very quietly for a few moments.

Nikita was 9. They were identifying the groups through the female. That made sense, genetically -- you tracked certain strands of DNA through the mother. Certain DNA didn’t change; they’d be identical in all of Nikita’s offspring and in her offspring’s offspring. But Nona mentioned four groups. So, who were the other maternal contributors?

It would have to be the top ops, he decided. He thought carefully and objectively through all the female operatives he’d known throughout the years. Slowly, Michael typed in a string of code, and after a few false starts, was rewarded with another file. But this one was older than Nikita’s, and instead of having four children, there were five and all of them were older than Nona.

The group originally contained 7. The earlier ones, had they lived, would have been nearly 13 now. But they’d been born with deformities or imperfections of one kind of another and had been terminated, not unlike the imperfect Lebensborn children in the ’30s and ’40s. When he read a few of the medical reports, Michael couldn’t be sorry. One had no lungs; another had no arms or legs; another had an extra leg. But about 8 years ago, apparently Section started improving, because the children began to be healthier. Whole.

Almost, anyway. Nona had been crying because she missed someone, someone who was blind. Scrolling through the file, Michael found one folder that had been recently updated. He pulled it, and a picture of Simone popped up.

Michael blinked and reached out to the computer screen. Not Simone -- this was a product of he and Simone, but evidently Section hadn’t gotten it right yet because she was born blind. Sightless almond-shaped eyes stared out at him. She couldn’t be more than 10, he thought.

Michael’s two hours were up. He logged out of the system and watched while Birkhoff typed in the appropriate codes, effectively erasing Michael from the records.

To make children, you had to have certain parts of other people. How had Section acquired his sperm? And what about the eggs they apparently harvested from the women donors? When would they have --?

But suddenly, Michael knew. On one of the first missions he’d ever gone on, he’d been wounded badly. He’d spent a long time in Med Lab, and for the most part he’d been sedated. Even now, the memories were vague and ill-formed -- not unlike the children he’d just sorted through. But he distinctly remembered feeling uncomfortable. Embarrassed. He’d had a dream, something wild and ...

Michael flushed, even though it hadn’t been his fault and he couldn’t have done anything about it anyway. Someone apparently had harvested his sperm without his consent. Did that constitute rape? And even if it did, so what? It wasn’t like he could go to a higher authority. Section was the higher authority.

His mind went back to Nona. Section probably froze his sperm; they’d probably harvested him several times while he was unconscious throughout the years. But it was more difficult to harvest an egg.

No, he realized. Not an egg. Many eggs. They’d probably increased her ovulation ... if Nona was five, that meant she’d been conceived somehow about six years ago, when Nikita first entered Section. How had they done so without her knowledge? Harvesting eggs was a painful and tedious process. It wasn’t as if she wouldn’t notice.

Unless ... Michael always assumed he’d been informed of Nikita’s presence in Section soon after she’d been recruited. But she’d been vastly underweight when he’d met her, and he remembered track marks up and down her arms. He assumed at the time her appearance was due to jail, but now he wondered. Perhaps she’d been recruited, sedated, harvested, then turned over to him. He frowned. Her scores were very poor the first few weeks she’d been in Section and Michael attributed it to the newness of her position. But maybe it was because she was in physical pain. Or had been comatose for so long her body needed time to catch up.

For the first time in a week, Michael was glad Nikita was out of town. He went home, located a book and spent the next five hours reviewing the Lebensborn program.

It was estimated the Nazis had about 7,000 children in their program, which spanned 10 years. Himmler’s goal was to have a race of people who physically were perfect Aryans, which Michael found somewhat curious considering that a great many of the children were fathered by German officers, many of whom didn’t have blonde/blue characteristics and whose racial purity went back only one or perhaps two generations.

The original Lebensborn program was really more of an elite adoption agency. Couples with the correct racial criteria were examined and if they met the qualifications, the woman could enter a special clinic, have the child in secret, and be on her way. The child, if it also fit the racial bill, was accepted into the program and eventually adopted by infertile Nazi couples; if it didn’t fit the racial criteria, it was sent to a regular orphanage to be adopted. If it was deformed, the Nazis treated it like any other deformed human: it was killed.

Michael closed his book finally and sat back, eyes closed and brain furiously whirling. The Nazis wanted a perfect race. Section didn’t care about race; it wanted the perfect operative. That meant a combination of correct genes and environmental stimulation. Clearly, Section stole genes from its own operatives, probably when they first entered Section and had completed the first round of potential assets tests.

So, Section took the eggs and sperm of its operatives and combined them. In the real world, a surrogate mother would need to be used, but years ago, Michael had seen Walter working on some type of small tank; when he’d asked, Walter said something about incubation and Michael hadn’t questioned it further. But now, the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Section didn’t need a person to incubate the fetus; it had a machine to do it.

Physically, the children would have the framework to become good operatives. But becoming an operative was more than just good genes. It took nurturing. Environmental stimulation.

What kind of lessons did the children receive? Would they be something like what Nikita witnessed once: all weapons and self-defense, all brainwashing? Or would it be something different?

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

Michael waited a few days, then, when everything was quiet, he went back down to Level 13. He half expected it to be dark and dank, but as before, the air was fresh and scented with Play-Doh. He listened carefully at the door this time, and when he heard no movement, he entered.

This time the playroom was empty. Chairs were on top of clean tables and the room smelled faintly of disinfectant. The waste cans were empty of trash, and there were different pictures tacked to the walls. He slowly went around the parameter of the room, checking again for cameras and surveillance equipment.

“Hello.”

Michael jumped and twisted around. Calm blue eyes stared up at him, and he smiled. “Nona. You startled me.”

“I’m the best at sneaking.”

“Sneaking?”

“Being quiet, quiet, quiet when you move. Want to see?”

“All right.”

“Close your eyes. Count to ten in your head. Then guess where I am.”

Michael obediently closed his eyes and counted, his ears straining for any sound from Nona. “Are you ready?” he asked, but there was no answer. He smiled again. “You haven’t moved, Nona --” he started, opening his eyes, but Nona didn’t stand in front of him.

Michael blinked, then turned around, scanning the room. Nona crouched under a table at the far end of the room. She grinned up at him. “You didn’t hear me.”

“You win,” Michael agreed. He sat down near the bookcase and pretended to look over the selection.

“Dr. Michael?” Nona scrambled from under the table and came to stand beside him.

“It’s just Michael. I’m not a doctor.”

“Oh. Michael.”

“Yes?”

“You won’t ... you won’t tell on me, will you?”

“For what?”

“For being out of bed. Matron gets so angry ...” her voice trailed off and she twisted her hands, worried.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Startled, she started up at him. “What do you mean?”

Michael bent down lower and said conspiringly, “I’m not supposed to be here, either.”

“You aren’t?”

“No.”

“Then ... I won’t tell.”

“I appreciate it. And I won’t tell on you, either.”

“Would you like to read a book?” Nona asked, their friendship sealed by their mutual disobedience.

“Sure. You pick.”

After some serious consideration, Nona pulled a slim volume from the shelf and handed it to him. Michael sat down on the floor, leaning back against the shelves and Nona squatted down beside him, her arms around her knees. Michael opened up the first page, then looked at her. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Oh. Okay.” Nona sat down next to him, but Michael lifted his arms and his eyebrows. Hesitantly, Nona climbed into his lap, settling down between his legs, her eyes on the printed page. She was stiff as a board at first, but she gradually relaxed against him, and Michael got almost to the end before he noticed she was snoring softly.

Just like Nikita, he thought, grinning. Somewhat awkwardly, he got to his feet and put Nona in a beanbag. Then, instead of leaving, he decided to go exploring.

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

They were segregated: boys in one dormitory, girls in another. Not unlike operatives during their first two years of training. Most of them were near Nona’s age, but two very small ones -- maybe a year old, he guessed -- were curled up together in a crib, and a couple of the children looked older, maybe 8 or 10 years old. The children slept in Army cots and at the foot of each bed was a small trunk. Michael peeked inside one and found two pairs of underclothes, two pairs of outerwear and some socks. Shoes were placed beneath the cot. Everything was labeled with the owner’s number.

Except for Nona, all the children slept soundly. One or two murmured in their sleep; a few snored slightly. With his tiny penlight he examined their faces and saw glimpses of himself, Simone, Nikita, even, he thought, Jurgan.

Odd. He didn’t see any hint of Madeleine or Operations. But then, if Nikita’s code was 9 and there were only four groups left, perhaps all the offspring of Madeleine and Operations had died long before.

Michael stole quietly out of the barracks and investigated the rest of the compound. Another few classrooms, similar to the one he’d met Nona in. A kitchen stocked with vast quantities of catsup and peanut butter. He looked carefully through text books and school equipment, but the most dangerous thing he found was a chemistry set. No bombs. No weapons. No diagrams of the weak points of human anatomy. Over the years, Michael had trained a hundred operatives, and he could tell that with the materials here, no one was being trained to kill.

Maybe they were too young, he mused. He carefully made his way back to Nona, picked her up and carried her back to bed, tucking her in carefully. He went back to the kindergarden, made sure there he’d left no trace, and left, still thinking about training.

Okay, so they weren’t teaching them about weapons or killing. From what he could tell, the subjects were unremarkable -- art classes, mathematics, English, Spanish, French, Japanese. Perhaps the language classes were unusual, but there were plenty of private schools that offered the same curriculum -- he and Elena had puzzled over Adam’s education long before Adam would be able to attend school, and in fact had placed Adam on a waiting list for one of the more prestigious academies in the area. It offered six languages.

Michael hesitated once he reached the top floor, then he walked to Birkhoff’s station and waited for Birkhoff to notice him.

“Yes, Michael?” Birkhoff didn’t take his eyes from the screen, where he was running code.

“I need another two hours.”

“Not now, okay? I’m busy.”

“It’s important, Birkhoff.”

Birkhoff glanced at him, then sighed. “If I don’t get this decoded ...”

“I could help.”

“It’s linear,” Birkhoff said. “You couldn’t do it.”

Michael didn’t say anything. Birkhoff frowned, then said hesitantly, “But there is one thing you could do for me ...”

“What?”

“The SIMs for the Donavan mission. I haven’t had time to run them since the mission was reprofiled. And they’re nonlinear.”

“Where’s the file?”

“I’ll send it to you. Operations wants them in half an hour.”

“I’ll let you know when I’ve finished.” Michael didn’t say so, but the implication was clear: I’ll do your homework if you can help me squeeze by. Birkhoff nodded.

“I’ll get you a window of two hours at midnight. Good enough?”

“Yes.” Michael turned to go, then hesitated. “Thanks, Birkhoff.”

Birkhoff didn’t answer. He was already immersed in code again, and Michael silently went to his office to run the SIMs.

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

Over the next week or so, Michael began making a daily pilgrimage to Level 13. After each visit, he found he had even more questions, questions that Nona couldn’t answer.

He gradually began to meet some of the other children. Not many; they were usually all asleep by the time Michael arrived, but one night one of the boys had been ill and another night, one of the girls sleep-walked around the floor.

Nona was amused. “She does that a lot,” she said quietly, taking the other girl’s hand and leading her back to bed.

Michael learned Nona, despite her initial reaction to him, really didn’t like to be touched. The first time he met her she’d been upset and sleepy; the second time, he’d bribed her with a book, and usually if he sat down to read she eventually ended up in his lap. But as for casual touching -- she jerked away from him. Like Nikita, he began to let her make the first move.

“Tell me what you do all day,” Michael asked her one evening as she chose a story.

“Just school,” she answered absently. “You know ... letters ... numbers ... adding ... One of the kids in Group Seven threw up. All over Matron’s shoes.”

“Poor Matron,” Michael said, and Nona frowned.

“You don’t know her.”

“Where does she stay?”

“I don’t know. She leaves every day and wakes us up in the morning.”

“She leaves you here all alone at night?”

Nona turned around, her book tight against her chest. “Well, yes,” she said, sounding surprised. “Why not?”

“What if something happened?”

“Like what?”

Like ... anything, Michael wanted to say. Like someone getting sick or hurt or having a bad dream ... but then, this wasn’t an orphanage or a boarding school, Michael reminded himself. This was Section and, though Section considered the children valuable enough to put them on their own floor, they obviously weren’t valuable enough to monitor full-time, not even electronically. So instead of answering, Michael held out his hand. “What did you pick this time?”

“‘Bread and Jam for Frances,’” Nona answered, showing him the book. Michael sat down and Nona, after a brief hesitation, situated herself in his lap. She leaned back against him. “You like this book,” she said softly, and the implication was clear: she’d chosen it because Michael liked it, not because she wanted to hear the story.

“Yes,” Michael said, “I do.”

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

Sometimes when Nona fell asleep in his arms, Michael would sit quietly, remembering how it felt to hold his own child.

But then, Nona was his, in a matter of speaking. Part of him had created her.

Nona was bigger than Adam had been when Michael left him. But when he shifted her to take her to bed, she curved her arms around his neck like Adam used to, and the shadow of her lashes mirrored Adam’s. He loved the feel of her slight weight against his chest and the way she breathed through her mouth. She wasn’t a boy and she wasn’t Adam. But ... sometimes when he carried her to bed, he could almost believe she belonged to him. Almost he could believe he was her father, and not just a sperm donor. Sometimes he went as far as imagining a life with Nikita and Nona.

Then he put Nona in bed, pulled up the covers, and left her and the rest of the children.

They were all alone, and it haunted him at night -- his night was their day, though, so he couldn’t check on them. He didn’t know who Matron was and he didn’t want to know. He was pretty sure it wasn’t Madeleine, but then again, who was he to know how Madeleine spent her free time? He couldn’t imagine Madeleine as a schoolteacher, but stranger things had happened, particularly in Section.

He began to miss Nikita more and more. The weight of the children was beginning to be too heavy, and if he hadn’t noticed track marks on Nona’s arms one night, he might have considered just letting them go and getting on with his own life. After all, what did it matter to him if Section had stolen bits and pieces from operatives for Lebensborn?

But then he saw the bruises on Nona’s arms and said, “What’s this?”

Nona pulled away at his harsh tone and looked up, scared. She held her arms tight to her chest. “Nothing.”

Michael took a deep breath, then said, very calmly, “Nona, come to me and show me your arms.”

She still looked suspicious. “Are you mad at me?”

“No. I’m sorry I spoke harshly. Let me see, please?” Michael coaxed, holding a hand out to her.

“You never talked to me like that. All hard and mean.”

“I don’t like to think that someone is hurting you. It makes me angry inside. I wasn’t angry at you, Nona, just at the people that did this to you. Did it hurt?”

Nona unfolded her arms and showed them to Michael. Faint bruises would darken by the next day and little red pinpricks ran up and down her arm, clustered at the crook of her elbow and at her wrist. Michael took her thin arm in his hands -- so like his sister’s! -- and said, “This must have hurt, little one.”

“I didn’t cry.”

Michael looked up, and she explained, “If you cry, you get punished. I didn’t cry.”

“Good for you,” Michael managed to say.

“This arm,” Nona said, holding her left arm out, “Is the ‘out’ arm. And this one,” she held out her right arm, “is the ‘in’ arm.”

“What goes in and what comes out?” Michael asked, his hands on her shoulders now.

“Blood goes out. I don’t know what goes in. Plastic bags of water. But not water. Not juice ... something else.”

“I see.”

Something of what Michael felt must have shown in his eyes, because Nona pulled away from him and frowned. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Using your angry voice. I don’t like it.”

“I’m sorry, Nona. Forgive me, please?”

She stared at him, looking exactly like Nikita did when she was deciding whether to give him another chance or cut him loose. Then her eyes changed, and Michael smiled at her.

“Okay,” Nona conceded, “But you have to read two stories this time. And I get to pick.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Michael said.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Do you know ‘negotiation’?”

“Sure, Matron talks about that a lot. It means neither side gets what they want.”

“Not exactly.” Michael took the books she handed him and sighed -- he’d be here quite a while if he had to read them both. “It means agreeing on something. In this case, I agree to not talk in an angry voice if you let me still be your friend.”

“Oh.” Nona climbed in his lap. “Negotiation. All right.” She waited for a moment, then impatiently she thumped the book. “Read,” she ordered.

“Of course,” Michael agreed, opened the book and began the story.

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

Michael was sent on a flash mission to Barcelona. Because it was sudden he didn’t get time to tell Nona good bye or that he’d be absent for a week, so when he returned to Section, he was anxious to see her and know how the rest of the children were doing.

He debriefed quickly and went to turn in his weapons, but Walter’s station was empty and the grill was locked as it always was when no one was in attendance. “Walter?”

No answer.

Michael frowned. Then, since he couldn’t leave weapons lying around, he put everything in his office, locked the door, and slipped off to Level 13.

When the elevator doors opened, his heart stopped.

For the past few weeks when he’d gotten off the elevator, the air was fresh, scented with Play-Doh or Crayons or Kool-Aid. Now it had the distinct odor of disuse. Because they were so far underground, air circulation could be a problem in Section; if the air flow was off just a bit and the air didn’t circulate properly, it began to smell of tomb. And when Michael stepped off the elevator this time, that’s what it smelled like: a crypt.

The lights were dim, too. No wasted electricity down here.

He swallowed and considered turning around and going back upstairs. Then he set his mouth in a thin line, unlocked the door and entered.

The room was lit, but the air was close and chilly. The children sat around the room looking listless. Some were sleeping in the beanbag chairs; some were coloring rather aimlessly; others were flipping through books. One of the older ones was trying to feed one of the babies; the formula looked watery and unappetizing. When he walked through the door, the activity stopped and 25 pairs of eyes zeroed in on Michael.

He’d never seen them all together except when they were asleep. One slight figure detached herself and trotted to him. “Hi, Michael.”

“Nona,” Michael greeted her, squatting down. He ran a hand up her arm, but the skin wasn’t marred. “What’s going on?”

“Do you have anything to eat?”

“To eat?”

“Matron hasn’t been here for a long time. And there’s no more food ...”

“I’ll bring some,” Michael promised. “What’s happened?”

One of the older children came forward, his eyes just as wary as Nona’s had once been. “We don’t know. Matron hasn’t been here for six days. We thought --” he exchanged a quick, furtive look with one of the other boys, slightly younger, “We thought maybe you might know. Since you’re Nona’s friend.”

Michael rose and took off his leather jacket, fumbling in his pocket for a bite of something to eat. It wasn’t nearly enough for 25 children, but Nona munched happily on the chocolate bar, splitting it with one of the other children. The others looked enviously on, and Michael said, “I’ll be back with more food. And I’ll find out what’s going on. Stay quiet.”

He ran a hand over Nona’s brown head, nodded to the boys and left, carefully locking them in, then he went upstairs.

Getting food downstairs might pose a problem, Michael thought. Especially since they’d need a lot of it, and he seldom carried anything heavier than a handheld through Section -- unless it was a downed operative, and then it was quickly removed by someone who was a lower class than he.

As he passed by Walter’s station he saw the gate was up, so he went to his office, collected his weapons and returned to Walter.

“I need to check these in,” he announced.

“Leave it,” Walter growled, and Michael, momentarily distracted from the question of where he could procure peanut butter in Section, paused.

Walter was hunched over a handheld, apparently taking an inventory of sorts. “Damn it,” he muttered, and finally tossed the computer to the worktable. “What is it, Michael?” he asked impatiently. “Just leave it, I’ll take care of it later.”

Michael slowly unloaded his rucksack -- it was just the right size for the food he’d steal from the kitchen -- and said, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Michael waited patiently, and finally Walter said slowly, “You ever have jobs in here you hate to do?”

“Some.”

“I guess for everyone it’s different. Some people hate killing. Some hate hostage situations. Me, there are certain things I don’t like to build.”

“Why? Too tedious?”

“I don’t mind the intricate stuff,” Walter said, studying the tangle of weapons Michael had unloaded. Slowly, Walter began sorting through them and categorizing them, putting them away.

“What do you not like to do?”

“I hate making hydrocyanic acid,” Walter sighed. “Hate the stuff.”

“Why? Because it’s deadly?”

“Nah, lots of things I make are deadly -- hey, deadly’s what I do best, right?” Walter joked, then his face closed up again. He was quiet for a few moments, and Michael, keenly aware of the hungry children waiting for him, almost turned to go when Walter said, “You don’t know a lot about me, Michael.”

“No,” Michael agreed.

“My mother --” he hesitated and glanced at Michael, but whatever he saw apparently reassured him. “She was a good woman. Strong. A survivor. And I mean that in every sense of the word. My grandfather was an important man, a writer. Well-respected in his community and -- well, he wasn’t famous, but he was well-known. He thought he had some influence, and maybe once, he did.”

“Influence?”

“Politically, I mean,” Walter said, the knife he’d been cleaning forgotten in his hand. “They lived in Germany. He didn’t like the way things were going in the ’30s, and when his friends began to leave, he stuck it out. Kept writing editorials. Kept irritating the local law enforcement. He was asked to speak at a college, so he went. He took the family. And when he was done speaking -- it was another anti-government speech, naturally -- they took them all, sent them to camps.”

Michael didn’t say anything, afraid to break the mood. Walter tossed the knife he’d been polishing in a drawer, then picked up Michael’s gun, checked to see if it was empty, and began to clean it. “My mother was young. Maybe 15. The family was split up. She and one of her sisters were quartered together with a group of gypsies. And one day she looked up and saw a row of men being led to the gas chambers. One of them was her father.”

“What happened?”

Walter shrugged. “He died. She lived. She never found her mother or a younger brother. The war ended, finally. She fell in love with my dad, had me, had my brother and sister. But I’ll tell you something: she never forgot it. Never. Terrible nightmares sometimes. When she smelled almonds, she flipped out.”

“Almonds?”

“Yeah. From the cyanide they used in the gas. Hydrocyanic acid, that’s what they used to gas people with. You know, Zyklon B. That’s what it was. And that’s why I hate making it. It’s like ... I don’t know ... I’m betraying her.” Walter shook his head and finished cleaning the gun. “Crazy, huh? She’s been gone for years, but I still feel like I’m dishonoring her.”

Michael gripped the edge of the table tightly. “Why hydrocyanic acid?”

Walter shrugged again. “The Nazis used it because it’s cheap and potent. Easy to disperse, if you’ve got correct ventilation.”

“That’s not what I meant. Why are you making it now?”

“Orders. Apparently there’s a vermin problem in Section.”

“Vermin?”

“Yeah ... there have been reports of rats on one of the levels.”

“Isn’t gassing ... dangerous?”

“Yes, it is.” Walter frowned. “That’s another reason I hate this particular assignment. Each floor has it’s own ventilation system with an outside source, you know that. Any floor, in theory, can be isolated.”

“In theory,” Michael repeated.

“Exactly. I mean ... what’s wrong with traps? They’re safe -- unless you’re a rat -- the bodies are easy to collect, they don’t get caught in hard-to-reach places and rot ... This whole thing is crazy, but if Zyklon’s what they want, Zyklon’s what they’ll get.”

“When?”

“What do you mean?”

“When do you release it?”

“Not for a couple of days at least,” Walter said. “I’m out of phosphoric acid and can’t get enough for a few days.”

“This floor with rats ... it wouldn’t, by any chance, be Level 13?”

Walter froze, then his eyebrows elevated slightly. “Why, yes. It would be. Why?”

Michael took a deep breath. Then he uttered the three most difficult words in the English language. “I need help.”

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

Michael had never met secretly with Walter and Birkhoff, but from the way the other two acted, this was a regular occurrence for them.

After he’d stolen some food and delivered it to the children, a crumpled piece of paper had been crammed into his hand. At first, he hadn’t believed it. Then, thinking about who he was meeting with, he decided it was probably on the level.

He’d met people in bars, restaurants, hotels, parks, libraries, stores of all kinds, schools, parking lots and public restrooms. But receiving directions that looked like a kids’ treasure map was a first for him.

Finally, after counting off his steps and looking for landmarks (trees, a large rock), Michael slipped between a government building and an overgrown bush.

“Geez, Michael, what took you so long?” Birkhoff complained, blowing on his hands.

“You were five paces off on the second point,” Michael said, showing Birkhoff the paper.

“Yeah, well, I’m not a profiler,” Birkhoff muttered.

Walter frowned. “Show him what you’ve got, kid.”

They crouched down on the ground around Birkhoff’s laptop. “I can’t get into a lot of the Lebensborn programs. That’s the name you’re looking for, right?” Birkhoff asked. “They’ve been sealed, and it’ll take time to break in. But I can access the current files.”

“What do they say?” Michael asked.

“The program’s been shut down.”

“Why?”

“Apparently, the test results weren’t acceptable. Actually, this program’s been in decline for the past couple of years. I’m surprised they didn’t pull the plug before. Now, though, with the new budget considerations ...”

“Budget?” Walter asked, confused.

“Section One has come under scrutiny lately,” Michael said thoughtfully. “We aren’t a good ...” he searched for the correct term -- “Return on investment. We require a lot of money, but it’s difficult to prove our worth. So they’re cutting funds.”

“And a lot of unnecessary programs,” Birkhoff added. “Like Lebensborn.”

Michael frowned. “So they’ll kill the children ...”

Birkhoff and Walter looked at each other, confused. “What children?” Birkhoff asked.

“The Lebensborn children,” Michael said impatiently.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Birkhoff said. “These experiments have been done on animals, not people.”

“How do you know that?” Michael asked.

“Well ... geez ... from what I can see, it’s all about gene therapy and stuff like that. Even Section doesn’t have the ... oh. I guess maybe it does, huh?”

“Where did they get the kids?” Walter asked gruffly.

“They’re Section-produced,” Michael said, thinking furiously.

“You mean --”

Michael interrupted Walter. “You’re supposed to release the gas in a few days, right?”

“Yeah, as soon as I get all the components. Doesn’t take much, just pound or so.”

“Then, after the gas is dispersed, what happens?”

Walter and Birkhoff exchanged another look. “Then,” Walter said, as if Michael was slow, “We make sure the area’s clear and can re-enter it.”

“Yes, but who disposes of the bodies?” Michael asked patiently.

They were silent for a moment, thinking.

“We need someone on the outside,” Michael said thoughtfully. “Someone who knows about Section, but who isn’t Section. Someone who likes children. Someone ... like an informant. Someone ... we can trust.” He looked pointedly at Walter. “Do you know anyone like that, Walter?”

“Ah ... well ...”

“It is against policy to tell informants about Section,” Birkhoff parroted, “Unless they’re green-listed.”

“Not anyone on the green list,” Michael said, still staring at Walter. “Someone in the periphery. But someone who knows enough to keep the children out of danger.”

Walter swallowed. “There might be someone ... I’m not saying this is a great idea or anything, and I’m not saying I broke protocol ...”

“Walter ... you didn’t --?” Birkhoff asked, eyes wide. “Oh, great. I bet I know who it was, too. It was that woman, the one you see every once in a while, the one that when you come back, you’re so cheerful ... how could you? How could you tell her?”

“It’s not like that --”

“Can we please focus?” Michael asked crisply. “Walter, you arrange matters with your source. Tell her there are 25 children. She’ll need help with them so tell her to arrange for an assistant. Birkhoff, funnel money from the general Section account into Mick Stoppel’s off-shore account. Mick will donate the money to your source for a new, much-needed orphanage. She’ll need papers, too -- set it up as an adoption agency. After you do that, make sure you delay Walter’s order of the acid for as long as you can.”

“And what are you going to do?” Walter asked.

“I,” Michael said, “Am going to arrange transportation.”

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

Michael actually had the most difficult task. Birkhoff never left his computer and Walter was happy for any excuse to visit his informant. In fact, the transportation turned into the biggest problem.

“We could get them out between 2:37 and 2:53,” Birkhoff said. “That’s at the end of one shift. I could divert all the operatives to the opposite end of Section --”

“We are not,” Michael said firmly, “Parading 25 children across the main floor of Section.”

“The ventilation shafts aren’t big enough for people,” Walter said thoughtfully, “But there are some unused passageways --”

“Most of which are blocked,” Birkhoff said.

“We’ll ship them,” Michael said thoughtfully.

“What, Federal Express? DHL?” Birkhoff said sarcastically.

“No,” Walter said. “He means in my monthly shipment. A lot of the things I work with are controlled substances, toxic ... can’t just pour them down the drain. I usually have two crates I ship.”

“This will take perfect coordination,” Michael said.

“We’d have to modify the shipping units,” Walter said thoughtfully. “Maybe something like egg cartons, or wine boxes, with separate slots for each kid so they wouldn’t get jumbled around so much. Would you want to drug them? It’d be easier -- on them and us.”

“Maybe,” Michael said. “But remember, some of these children are pretty young. The dosage would have to be exact.”

“Exact,” Walter agreed, “Is what I do best.”

“I thought deadly was what you did best.”

“Well ... exact is a close second,” Walter grinned. “How is Mick coming along?”

Instead of answering, Michael said, “We’ll move day after tomorrow. Can you be ready?”

“Sure,” Walter said. “I’ve got my source set up, she’s already got several children in place --”

“Who?”

“Does it matter? They’re legit orphans. I think from Bosnia, but I could be wrong. Think of them as camouflage. You can’t just dump 25 kids out of the blue into the countryside. It’s nice out there. Lots of trees, they’re starting the new construction in a few weeks, so until the new buildings are up it’ll be crowded, but not too bad. You should go out there.”

“Maybe.”

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

Michael stood in front of the elevator with a very nervous Mick.

“If you ever tell anyone about what is going on, I’ll kill you,” Michael said conversationally.

Mick swallowed. “I underst --”

“I mean anyone, Mick. I will come to you, torture you and kill you. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good.”

The elevator arrived and the pair boarded for a silent trip to Level 13.

The hall was quiet. Mick stepped out of the elevator, nervously looking to his left, then to his right. Michael calmly slid his keycard into the lock and the door opened.

Children crowded around them, eager hands reaching for Michael’s rucksack, then divesting Mick of his. The food was handed around and everyone sat down for a picnic, but Mick, completely taken aback, leaned heavily against the wall and he wouldn’t have moved except Michael held out a baby. “Take it.”

“I don’t --” Mick started.

“It’s a boy. Take it.”

Clumsily, Mick took the fretting child and Michael shoved a baby bottle into his other hand. Then, Michael sat down in one of the small chairs, picked up the other baby, and began feeding it. Mick mimicked him, and within minutes, the child grew quiet, heavy ...

Michael looked over. “Give him as much as he’ll take. Keep him awake as long as you can.”

“But --”

“The milk’s drugged. We can’t ship the babies with the rest of the children. They’re too little.”

Horrified, Mick looked at the bottle in his hand and the small child on the other end of it, still sucking. “Drugged ... with what?”

“Nothing too strong. But they’ll be out for four hours. That should be long enough.”

“Long enough for what?”

“For you to get them out of Section.”

Mick’s mouth dropped open and he lost his grip on the bottle; the baby whimpered and Mick immediately shoved the nipple back in its mouth. “Me? How? Put ’em in a pram and waltz out of Section with them? Are you mad?”

The door opened and Walter and Birkhoff came through, rolling the huge crates into the room. “All right, kids,” Walter said, tapping the side of one of the boxes. “Twelve in one, eleven in the other. Go to the bathroom before loading up, it’ll be a long trip.”

The children chatted as they finished up their food and took their turn in the bathroom. Then, one by one, Walter helped them into the specially modified boxes. “Danger: Explosives,” was lettered on both boxes in huge, red letters. The tops of the crates were labeled; on the sides were warnings to “Keep contents stable” and “Do not shift.” Mick watched him, aghast. “They’ll suffocate.”

“Nah,” Walter said. “There’s enough breathing room. As long as the boxes stay upright, they’ll be okay.”

“And how do you guarantee that?” Mick asked, becoming angry. He didn’t even notice when Michael took the child he’d been feeding and began packing it into a duffel bag.

Walter frowned, and glanced at Michael. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Tell him what?” Michael asked, swaddling the children tight and arranging them so they wouldn’t smother or jounce too much.

“You,” Walter said, pointing at Mick, “Are the escort. Don’t leave the crates. Don’t leave the duffel bag.”

“What’s in the duffel bag?” Mick asked wildly, turning around. He saw Michael pat the children into place and zip up the top. “Are you insane?! You can’t pack children up like ... like sandwiches ... Forget it. I won’t do it. I won’t. You can’t make me. Kill me now, it’s not worth --”

Michael pulled out a hand-held computer, punched in some numbers and showed it to Mick. “This is your bank account now,” Michael said calmly. He punched in a row of numbers and Mick saw his balance double. “When you arrive safely and deliver the cargo, it will double again.”

“There’s not enough money in the world --”

“It’s a two-hour delivery job,” Michael said, his voice low. “Two hours out of your life. You make a lot of money. Money you can keep. Section doesn’t know about it. It’s yours, Mick.”

“But -- children,” Mick said, weakening.

“I can’t be absent from Section for two hours,” Michael said. “Neither can Birkhoff or Walter. Nikita’s out of town. I don’t want anyone from Section involved.” Michael paused, then played his trump card. “They’ll be killed if you don’t do it. Gassed. If you can live with the lives of 25 children on your hands ...” he let his voice trail off.

Michael didn’t threaten him, but something in Michael’s eyes made Mick think that he’d be damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. He swallowed hard. “Two hours?”

“Two hours, tops,” Michael assured.

Walter nailed the top on the last crate. “All right in there?”

There was a muffled affirmative, and Walter said, “All right, then. No more talking. I mean it. Silence.”

Michael handed the duffel bag to Mick, and he gingerly took it. It was heavier than he expected, and he hefted it to his shoulder, wincing when the children inside shifted. “So help me, Michael, if any of them get me in trouble -- or die on the way --”

“That’s why you’re going,” Michael smiled. “To make sure none of that happens.” He clapped Mick on the shoulder and helped Birkhoff and Walter roll first one, then the other crate into the elevator. The men squeezed in around them and Michael punched in the elevator code. The doors shut with a sigh and in less than a minute they opened again in shipping. A team of black-clad men came toward them and helped unloaded the crates. “Good luck,” Michael said to Mick.

Stunned, Mick watched as Michael, Walter and Birkhoff got back on the elevator. Then the doors slid shut.

Mick clutched his duffel bag to him, then whipped around. The loaders were already half-way across the floor with the children, and Mick hurried to catch up. “Hey -- be careful with that -- it’s likely to blow, you know --”

“Yeah, that’s what the box says,” one of the workers agreed, slapping the side of the box. Mick held his breath, but there wasn’t even a squeak of alarm from inside.

“Well, just be careful,” Mick admonished, hitching the duffel up on his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen.”

“Nothing’s going to happen. We take care of explosives all the time down here. Especially if it’s from Walter.”

Mick watched as the boxes were loaded -- carefully -- into a waiting van. Then, to his surprise, someone tossed some keys at him. “Unmarked, right?” the man asked.

“Ah -- what?” Mick stuttered.

“You’re supposed to get an unmarked van, right?” the man said, patiently. “No tracker, no mark, no surveillance.”

“That’s right,” Mick said quickly. “Unmarked.”

“Just remember -- if something happens, you’re on your own,” the other man warned. “Here’s the information --” he handed Mick a sealed box, and for the first time in hours Mick felt more comfortable. This was how he always got his assignments from Section. He punched in his code and the lock snapped open.

“Thanks,” Mick said, taking the contents of the box and handing the container back to the worker.

“Have a good trip.”

“Er -- Thanks,” Mick said again, and he climbed in the van, carefully set his duffel down in the floorboard, adjusted the seat and looked at his orders.

A sheaf of money. He tucked it in his coat. Next was a key. That went in his pocket. Then a handheld.

He turned it on, read the instructions, started the car and slowly drove out of Section.

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

As Mick made his way through rush-hour traffic, sweating bullets because he knew he had human cargo in the back of the van, Michael went to his office, finished three profiles and finally, when he hadn’t had a call from Mick begging for rescue, he decided Mick had reached the safe house.

I didn’t even say good bye to her. I was so busy drugging and packing the babies, I didn’t say good bye to Nona. What if she’s scared?

No, Michael thought. Nona’s never scared. She’ll be fine. But I wish ... I wish I’d said good bye.

He waited a little while longer. Walter passed his office, looking innocent and carrying a one-pound gray canister marked with warning labels. Michael opened up a mission that was running and absently watched it play out while he waited.

Twenty minutes. Thirty. He didn’t know when the gas had been released on Level 13, and he couldn’t tell when the ventilation was turned on to clear the floor. But the minute the fire started, his office lights flashed twice and an alarm sounded.

He turned off his program, unplugged all his appliances and then, following protocol to the letter, he went to the main floor of Section, where all the other operatives were gathering.

For a group this big, it was very quiet. “Do you know what’s happening?” one operative murmured.

“Probably another explosion of Walter’s,” someone murmured back.

“They brought in some hostiles last night,” someone else said softly. “I wonder --”

But whatever else he would have said was drowned out by Operations. He stood before them, agitated but under control. “There’s been a malfunction on one of the lower levels.”

Everyone froze.

“It’s an unoccupied floor,” Operations continued, and the operatives relaxed. “We won’t know how it started until the area’s safe to enter, but we may have had a malfunction with the ventilation system. Each floor has separate ventilation; it’s unlikely that any other floors will be affected. Elevators on the south side will not be working until we know the extent of the damage. That’s all. You can go back to work.”

The operatives melted away, some a little anxious, others apparently relieved that it was nothing worse.

Michael stayed close to Section for the next few days. Part of him was sure he’d be called in and questioned like Walter had been. After the fire burned itself out, Walter and another munitions expert entered the area. The other man confirmed what Walter had said all along: the ventilation had been faulty. After being quiet for so long, once it was activated to disperse the gas, it short-circuited, resulting in the fire. Their report wasn’t questioned, and Michael was relieved to know nothing survived the fire.

“Gutted,” Walter grunted, satisfied. “Do I know how to set a fire, or do I know how to set a fire?”

“After killing and being exact, it’s what you do best,” Michael agreed gravely.

“So.” Walter continued with his inventory while Michael leaned against his workbench. “Heard anything yet?”

“No.”

“Going to check up on them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Walter finished calculating ammunition and glanced up. “You’ve done some rotten things in the past, Michael. But I think this might make up for most of them.”

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

Even though technically it was spring, it was still quite cold. Michael’s breath fogged the air, and he paused for a few minutes before ringing the bell.

He had to admit it: Walter had done quite well. Michael knew the facility; it was an old sanitarium that Section profiled years ago when they’d had to pick someone up in the area. At the time, it was abandoned and teetering between salvageability and ruin. Someone had bought it a few years later though and made some improvements before running out of money.

Money wasn’t a problem now. In the cold air, Michael could hear the sharp sound of hammers against wood as construction workers built the newest building on the property. He’d not looked at the construction yet, but he’d passed several trucks on the drive and they were all loaded with quality materials. If the workers were as good as their raw materials, the building should stand for many years.

Michael took another deep breath and punched the shiny doorbell. In a few minutes, a tall woman answered.

“Yes?” She looked at him from under haughty brows, and though he was just as tall as she was -- maybe even a little taller -- Michael suddenly felt like he was a child and not a very satisfactory one at that.

“I’m Michael Samuelle,” he said firmly, holding out a hand. “I called earlier.”

“Oh, yes.” She smiled then, and took his hand. “I’m glad you could come. And so promptly, too. Do come in.”

Michael blinked at her sudden change of attitude and followed her slowly inside.

“I’m afraid we’re a little crowded at present,” she said. “We’re having a new building constructed, but it won’t be completed till June. So we’re pretty full right now. Come this way -- my office --”

Michael found himself herded into a small room that barely contained a desk and two chairs. There were no windows but there was a large picture over the desk. Michael couldn’t decide if it made the place look larger or smaller than it was. She smiled apologetically. “I know it’s not very impressive. But we’re so cramped for room, a broom closet was really all I could spare for administrative tasks. I’m not here much anyway; we’re short a teacher, so I spend most of the day in classrooms. Now, Mr. Samuelle: tell me what I can do for you. Or is it what you can do for us?”

Michael smiled -- not a fake Section smile, but a genuine smile. “Well, it looks like you’ve got all the funding you need.”

“Oh, yes. Mr. Stoppel -- that’s one of our major benefactors here at the Sunshine Home -- he’s been very generous.”

“But I’m sure there are other things, Ms ...”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Wilhelmina Kresge. I forgot to introduce myself --”

“Ms. Kresge, surely there are other things the home needs?”

“Well ...” she hesitated, then said, “Perhaps it would be best if you told me why you are interested in supporting the home.”

Michael was unused to having his reasons for donating large sums of money questioned. Usually he pulled out a checkbook and people stopped talking. They just waited and watched when he begin writing figures out. “Mr. Stoppel is a friend of mine. He mentioned the home in passing a few weeks ago. My wife was an orphan; we always give to several charities, but when I heard of such a new establishment, I thought perhaps some additional financial assistance would be appreciated.”

“Oh, financial assistance is always appreciated,” Ms. Kresge smiled, then she tilted her head, studying him. “Why don’t I give you a tour?”

He’d been looking forward to -- and dreading -- this suggestion. “All right.”

They rose and left the broom closet. “The bottom floor we use for classrooms. You can’t tell it from looking at it, but this used to be a sanitarium. The ground floor originally was used for offices and examining rooms.” She showed off the kitchen -- outdated but clean -- and the dining room, lined with large picnic-type tables, also old but clean. The floors were tightly fit wood, only a little warped. She paused at a shut door and said in a low voice, “We just got in some war orphans -- they’re still convalescing, so I can’t show you the infirmary, but we have space for six children.” She led him to the stairway.

“Up here we have the children’s rooms. Girls on the right, boys on the left. Four children to a room. I know it’s crowded, but it’s within federal standards, and as soon as the new building is finished we can spread out.”

The rooms were empty, but cheerful -- and much different than what he’d seen at Section. Every child had a bed, not a cot, and they were piled with comforters and blankets, soft fluffy pillows, and for the girls, an occasional rag doll.

“At the end of the hall is the library. It’s one of the children’s favorite rooms,” Ms. Kresge said, opening the door. Sunlight spilled across low shelves stuffed with bright, new books. In the corner were stacks of unopened boxes and Michael raised an eyebrow. “Oh, a library donated some books to us. There’s not been time to unpack them. Maybe tonight after the children go to bed ...”

During the tour, Michael hadn’t seen even one child, and he mentioned it to Ms. Kresge. “Where are the children?”

“Patience, Mr. Samuelle.” She smiled and led him to the back stairs, motioning him to go first. “You remember I said this was an old san.”

“Yes.”

“Well, the top floor was the operating room -- skylights provided the best light in the old days. But we’ve turned it into a playroom.” She opened the door at the top of the stairs and Michael was blinded by sun and bright colors and noise -- a lot of noise. But the minute he stepped in the doorway, the room went quiet.

“Now, children, don’t be shy,” Ms. Kresge said, sounding surprised. “This is Mr. Michael Samuelle. He’s just come to visit us for the day.” She turned to Michael, puzzled. “I don’t know -- they’re never like this --”

The doorbell jangled from downstairs, and Ms. Kresge shot a worried look over her shoulder. But then one child glided across the floor -- she’d inherited Michael’s sister’s grace, luckily, not Nikita’s -- and smiled up at Michael. “How d’you do. Would you like me to show you around, Mi -- er -- Mr. Samuelle?”

“Thank you,” Michael smiled down at her. “I’d like that very much.”

Looking a little relieved, Ms. Kresge said, “If you don’t mind -- I’ll just go see who it is -- won’t be ten minutes --”

“That’s fine,” Michael said, and carefully didn’t say anything until the door closed behind her. The minute it did, the room erupted in questions.

“How did you get here?”

“Are you coming to stay?”

“Is Walter with you?”

“Do we have to go back? We don’t, do we?”

“They have lots of food here -- all kinds --”

Michael held up his hand. “One at a time.” He scanned the room, looking for signs of distress, and frowned. “Where are the babies? I didn’t see them --”

“They’re fine,” Nona said, swinging on his arm. “They’re already ’dopted.”

“What?”

“You know, where someone takes you home for their very own. Matron -- I mean, Miss Willy -- says babies usually go first but we’re not to worry because even if no one is smart enough to pick us, she thinks we’re all wonderful and we can stay here forever.”

“Not forever,” one of the older boys scoffed. “But till we finish school.”

“That’s forever,” Nona answered.

“Do we have to go back?” Another child asked, and Michael shook his head.

“You’ll stay here, unless someone adopts you. Then you’ll go live with your new mother and father.”

Michael sat down and Nona climbed in his lap. Now that she could choose her own clothes, she tended to lean toward bright colors: a bubble-gum pink shirt and wild paisley pants. Not unlike Nikita, Michael thought, grinning faintly. “So, what else has Miss Willy told you?”

“Oh, lots of things,” Nona said. The other children lost interest in Michael after their major question -- whether they’d stay or leave -- was answered, and went back to their activities.

“Like what?”

“Well, when someone says, ‘What’s your name?’ You’re not to answer with your number. You have to say a name. Otherwise, people think you’re peculiar.”

“What else?”

“When someone comes to visit, we’re only to speak one language. That’s hard to remember. Some words they don’t have in other languages.”

“Do you like it here, Nona?”

“Oh, sure.” She grinned up at him. “Miss Willy’s much nicer than Matron. And she reads to us at night. Matron never did. And Miss Willy doesn’t teach all our classes -- just a few. Miss Marion teaches the rest. But ...” she hesitated, and Michael’s heart faltered. “But the outside is ... too big. Miss Marion says it’s good for us to breathe the fresh air. But I think it’s scary.”

“Why?”

“It’s so big. I like inside.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Michael said, not unkindly. He glanced at the other children, pressed against a long, low window peering into the late setting sun. “What are they doing?”

“Watching the men build the new building,” Nona said brightly. “The trucks are so big. And loud. Miss Willy says she can’t hear herself think sometimes. It’s better up here. It’s not so scary.” She looked at Michael, stroking his silk necktie. “Are you going to come visit us? Till we’re ’dopted?”

“I’ll come when I can,” Michael said evasively.

“Maybe you could come with Mr. Stoppel,” she said. “He’s fun and comes a lot. Or maybe with --”

“Nona --” Ms. Kresge hurried up and practically snatched her out of Michael’s arms. “Nona, dear, don’t --”

“She’s fine,” Michael said, surprised. She hadn’t hurt Nona, but Nona looked profoundly ashamed. Ms. Kresge, on the other hand, looked scared. And defiant. Her eyes narrowed a bit, challenging Michael to something he didn’t understand. Then Michael realized she’d overheard their conversation. Probably the only other person that would come to see the children and Ms. Kresge was Walter, and Ms. Kresge very obviously didn’t want Michael to know about Walter.

Suddenly, Michael knew what the trouble was. He’d asked Walter for a source that knew enough about Section to be wary, but not enough to be in danger, and Walter had given Michael the most precious source he had. Not a lover. His sister. Michael blinked again and Ms. Kresge’s features -- her high cheekbones, her fly-away hair, her bright eyes -- rearranged themselves into Walter’s.

She was perfect. She’d understood why Walter needed someone quickly, and she’d felt instant empathy for children that were so like her own mother had been -- children known by number, not name, children used to a minimum of human contact, children so out of touch with society they’d need special help. In the same instant, Michael felt overwhelmed with Walter’s generosity.

Michael stood up and smiled down at Nona. “It was very nice meeting you.”

“It was very nice meeting you,” Nona said formally, looking a little embarrassed. Then, quite loudly, she said, “Don’t forget -- my name is Nona.”

Ms. Kresge relaxed and smiled, and Michael nodded at them both. “I’ll never forget, Nona.”

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

Michael listened to the radio on the way home. There was a segment about a mother and child separated by a private adoption and recently reunited. That, combined with his visit to the Sunshine Home, put Michael in a melancholy mood, but when he entered his loft, his spirits lifted a bit.

Nikita was home.

He quietly shut the door, listening for any of the sounds that usually accompanied a homecoming, but the only thing he heard was the steady ticking of the clock and the whirr of the refrigerator. If her boots hadn’t been in the hallway, he would have thought the apartment was empty.

Michael silently glided through his house, coming to rest at his bed. A familiar, dear lump was right in the middle, huddled under mounds of blankets. The only thing he could see was a tousled blonde head, and he bent down and pressed a kiss on her crown.

Nikita jerked awake. “Where have you been?” she asked scratchily, her eyes squinting up at him.

“Out. Visiting a new friend.”

“Mmmm ...” She cleared her throat and coughed. “Who?”

“Just someone I met.” Michael sat down and took off his overcoat, then his suit jacket and lastly his shoes.

“Woman?”

“Yes.”

“Should I worry?”

Michael slid his tie from around his neck, briefly fingering a faint peanut butter smear and smiled. “No.”

“Good.” She shut her eyes again, and he gave her a long, sweet kiss. She mumbled, “Come to bed. I’m so tired ...”

Instead of sliding in beside her, Michael said slowly, “I need to ask you something.”

“... so tired, Michael ... wait till tomorrow ...”

“It’s important.”

Nikita opened her eyes reluctantly and rolled over, rubbed her hands across her face and squinted up at him. “What?”

“What do you think about adoption?”

“This is what I had to wake up for? Jeez, Michael, I haven’t slept in --”

“But what do you think?”

“Honestly?” Nikita yawned so widely her eyes watered. “I wish I’d been adopted.”

“Why?”

Nikita shrugged and shut her eyes, her face relaxing. “Don’t get me wrong. My mother did the best she could with what she had. And if she didn’t have anything, she stole it. But ... she was so young when she had me. She was a child. She couldn’t take care of me anymore than ... than I could take care of a child now. You know?”

Michael didn’t answer, and Nikita reached over and took his hand in hers. “I don’t believe children should always stay with their birth parents. They should be with whoever loves them and can provide for them. I’m not saying my mother didn’t love me, but she would have been a lot better off if I hadn’t been there. And I would have, too.”

Still, Michael remained quiet. Nikita opened her eyes and focused on him. “Does that answer your question?”

“Sort of.” He hesitated, then asked faintly, “What if it were us?”

“You mean, what if we wanted to adopt a baby? Oh, Michael, be realistic.”

“No. I meant, what if we were the birth parents?”

“Then God help the child,” Nikita said lightly, but when she saw Michael’s serious face, she said, “Come on, Michael. It would be a disaster. We can’t take care of a baby. Best thing for the baby would be adoption. Don’t you think?”

“I guess so.”

“I know so.” Nikita turned over and the blanket slipped down. She was wearing one of Michael’s stretched-out T-shirts, and the top of her spine showed knobby under her neck.

“Nikita? What happened on the mission?” Michael gently traced a vertebrae that hadn’t been quite so prominent the last time he’d seen her.

“Nothing. There just wasn’t much food.” Nikita yawned again. “I ate at Section and then I came here and ate everything you had. I bet in a week I can fit in my clothes.”

Michael took off the rest of his clothes and slipped in beside Nikita. She sighed, contented, and nudged her skinny body next to his. “How about you?” she asked. “How was your month?”

“A lot of things have happened.”

“Mmmm....” Nikita murmured, but her breathing became deeper and even, and her eyes grew heavy. “Bad ... or ... good?” she mumbled.

“Both.” Michael remained very still; when he shifted around it irritated her if she was trying to go to sleep.

“Everything’s all right now,” Nikita sighed, clumsily patting Michael’s chest. While he was wondering how to respond, he realized she was snoring softly, and he moved her over a bit. She surfaced briefly to mumble, “Love you,” then she fell back to sleep, her fingers twined in his.

“I love you too,” he whispered, then he curled himself around her and went to sleep.

End