The cherry on top of the entire night’s fiasco was that the safe house was a total dump. Now, a safe house disguised as being run-down was expected. Safe house exteriors were supposed to look like places no one stayed in. Gone were the days when they were ski resorts nestled on top of the Alps or penthouse suites located in five star hotels.
The interior, however, was another matter. Roen expected these havens to have weapons, medical supplies, two exits, a communication system, and a stocked fridge. That was the minimum. However, he also expected a clean room, a warm bed, a hot shower, and enough space to house all the personnel. This was where this dump was woefully inadequate.
The agent in front must have notified Wuehler because the grumpy old guy was sitting in a chair in front of the door like an angry parent waiting for his kid who had snuck out in the middle of the night. Roen walked into a room the size of a small truckers lodge and was taken aback by five pairs of eyes staring him down.
We might want to consider an escape plan.
“Hi?” he said with forced cheerfulness.
That probably was the wrong expression to come in here with. Wuehler’s teeth grinded so loudly the entire room could hear them. Faust, standing behind Wuehler, kept his face neutral, but he was suppressing a grin. At least someone thought it was funny.
“I expected you to be a day or two later than promised. Somehow, you exceeded even my lowest expectations. I didn’t think that was even possible. Yet I can’t say I’m surprised.” Wuehler began. “Just because you’ve been stuffed down my throat doesn’t mean I have to put up with your insubordination.”
Be civil. Remember, you owe him one.
Roen swallowed a snarky remark and took the rest of Wuehler’s berating with as much dignity a full-grown man could muster. It was his bad after all; he had missed his self-imposed deadline. Besides, butting heads with your commanding officer usually led to unpleasant jobs, like all-night guard or latrine duty. Wuehler wouldn’t make a host clean the toilet, would he?
Just to be safe, he appeared properly chastised when Wuehler was done. “You’re right. Circumstances had changed on the ground and I was delayed. I would have contacted you except for the radio silence. Please accept my apology and, on my honor, I will follow your orders to the letter for the duration of this mission.”
Not too shabby. I almost bought that.
“See, all that money I lost in poker went to a good cause.”
Still a far cry from an Emmy.
Wuehler seemed taken aback by Roen’s sudden capitulation to his authority, his prepared words stuck in his mouth. He gave a stiff nod and motioned to the back. “Stow your gear. You got second watch tonight.”
“Good ol’ second watch. And thus my punishment begins.”
At least you can get some dinner first. We are pretty hungry after all.
Roen perked up. That was a bright spot. Now in a little bit of a hurry, he plopped his stuff down and raced out of the safe house before Wuehler could say anything else. He had about three hours before first watch ended. A good soldier kept his stomach full. His porker days were behind him, and Tao had long since stopped regulating his diet. It was something he now did on his own. Still, it was hard to maintain his diet while on missions, so he didn’t bother. Besides, exotic cuisine was one of the few joys of traveling.
Faust caught up with him as he left the claustrophobic underground market. “Getting a bite?”
Roen grinned. “Going native and trying that stinky tofu.”
Faust made a face. “Passed on it the first day. Haven’t built up the courage to try yet.”
A few minutes later, the two sat on rickety plastic stools at a counter and snacked on the hideously smelling tofu over a plate of veggie pickles. It was delicious. By then, the crowds were thinning just a bit, and the two caught up on old times. When he had first met Faust, things were quite different. Roen had just learned how to shoot a gun, and Faust kept him from panicking during his first firefight. In return, Roen saved Faust’s life by chucking a rifle at a Genjix sniper because he momentarily forgot how to reload a clip. The two had kept in touch ever since.
That felt like a lifetime ago. Roen was now a deadly host with a reputation within the organization as a maverick, often disobeying orders and going off on his own. Faust had faithfully followed Wuehler and was on the short list for peaceful or voluntary transition. Those were pretty rare these days though.
They exchanged photos of their family and talked freely about the dire situation with the Prophus losing on every front. Faust told him about the action he saw at Boulder and how his entire squad had perished while defending the sewage entry point. That was the battle where Wuehler had earned Ramez. A portion of a ceiling had collapsed on top of Jacques, the general in charge of the defense of the base, during the siege. Wuehler had dug him out just in time for Ramez to make the transition.
Roen talked about his suspicions about Genjix plans and regaled Faust with his exploits of the past two years. Prophus command had initially declared that some of his projections were so outlandish that he was a conspiracy theorist. Now, each small piece was falling into place just as he feared. The only question was whether things were too far along for the Prophus to stop.
“Quasiform,” Faust mused, tapping his fingers on the counter. “Like a bad sci-fi flick. Is it even possible?”
Roen, who was busy with a second helping of stinky tofu, shrugged. “They think it is. All the live data backs it up.”
“Does the data back up the conspiracy or does your conspiracy back up the data?” Faust wondered.
“That’s what the Keeper accused me of when I first showed her the data,” Roen replied. “It comes down to this. We know that the Genjix had two large-scale programs in the past ten years: the Penetra Scanner and this ProGenesis. The Penetra Scanner allowed for detection of Quasing inside hosts. The ProGenesis allowed their species to reproduce. Two dramatic leaps that changed the rules of the game. What does that mean?”
“That they’re dying out one by one and want to make sure their species continues?” Faust suggested.
“Or they aren’t trying to go home anymore,” Roen said.
“That’s a bit of a stretch,” Faust, munching on a meat lollipop called pig’s blood cake, grunted. “You’re telling me the Quasing, who have been trying to go home for millions of years all of a sudden decide they like this dump and want to stay?”
“Well, if you put it that way,” Roen grumbled. “I’m sure they had deeper discussions than the planet’s hygiene and our four seasons.”
It has been speculated for some time that we would be extinct before technology advanced enough for deep space travel.
By the time they finished dinner, the two were quiet. The grim news had sunk their spirits. None of the agents these days talked much about the future, especially when none of them were confident they had one. There was hardly a worse feeling than knowing that the game was lost and that the only thing the players could do was run out the clock. It was even more terrible that both men knew how the consequences of the loss would affect their children.
“Have you made any headway locating Dylan?” Roen asked.
Faust shook his head. “Still too early. We got three guys out around the clock digging up what’s left of our network: local police, crime syndicates, Buddhist temples, a couple of corporations. From their reports, it’s pretty barren. The Genjix were pretty thorough wiping out our footprint on the island.”