Butterfly Arc -- #6
Title: Literate Butterflies
Theme: #5 Essays, articles, newspaper
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama, humor
Summary: He could never wrap his mind around the wild tangles of her job and her mentality, but at least he tried.
Criticism: Moderately harsh. If that makes sense. Don't tell me what I wrote was total crap and I should never consider a career as an author, but don't sugarcoat me. I like my candy bittersweet.
Literate Butterflies
She was bent over the books, hair falling out of the messy bun, bags lining her eyes and crow's feet indicating that she was either getting too old for this or that she worried too much. Considering how she hadn't hit thirty yet, he opted for the latter. The library table was littered with pens, pencils, pieces of paper, open books, stacks of closed books, and coffee cups. The blouse she wore was wrinkled and her knife was loose on her hip, meaning that she had been playing with it more often than not.
"Hey," he whispered. In the dead quiet of the Company's library, it rebounded and echoed.
Her hand flew to her knife, but she took him in, spiked hair mussed around as if a tornado had zipped through it, and relaxed. His highlights were neon blue this week. They reminded her of Sonic the Hedgehog. And she said as much.
"Hey there, Sonic."
"Thanks. Never using the blue ever again now." He collapsed into a chair next to her, scowling and leaning back. She winked at him and rolled a tip between her fingers, bringing out a sound of annoyance from his throat.
"I dunno. It looks nice on you... Sonic."
"What are you doing?" he asked, steering the conversation in another direction.
"Research," she replied waspishly. The tired look came back, replacing the teasing tone her eyes had taken, and he gave her a chagrined sort of look. "The Company's ordered me to get into -"
Silence fell when she stopped herself and she searched a neon orange folder for something. His eyes zoomed in on her nails: perfectly manicured, lined in white, made to sparkle with stray silver glitter. Classic.
She pushed the photo towards him. He inhaled sharply.
"You - you're insane... They can't be serious," he finished weakly.
The CIA department stared up at him from below their hands. She quirked an eyebrow.
"It's looking like it's my big pay-off, you know? It'll be difficult, but I know what to do."
"Then why are you researching?"
She didn't respond, amber eyes searching for a way out, and he grasped her hand. It was sweaty.
"You don't want to do this, do you?"
"It's worth a quarter-mil. I need this job."
"There's a difference between need and want."
She tore away from him, shoulders tensing.
"It could be my last." Her voice was tight, strained. "If anything happens..."
"Hey..." He turned her to face him. Her face was immobile, stone, her eyes flashing in an effort to not show emotion. Like she had been taught. "I thought you were hired because you were the best." He arced his eyebrows into his hairline, listened to her deep, shaking inhalation. As if she had just finished crying.
"I was." Razor steel edged her tone. "That's why I'm doing this."
"At least let me help?" She snorted at him, but didn't say no. He shifted through the books and papers at his end of the table, knocking a Styrofoam cup to the floor. Neither stirred as it rolled around. "Erm..."
"Anything that might be useful in any stage: entering, executing, exiting."
"The Three E's, eh?"
Her right hand stopped scribbling on the yellow note pad, her left stilled pointing out words in the book she was reading. Her index finger tapped once, twice, and she nodded before continuing. He shot a look at her out of the corner of his eye. Her hair had come almost completely undone, riotous molten chocolate curls bouncing down her shoulders. She wriggled uncomfortably and proceeded to shed her jean jacket. It took him a moment to remember to not stare at the revealing of her neck and shoulders, as she was clad only in a white tube top.
"You okay?"
"Fine."
She reached for another book and he crossed his eyes at the book he was trying to read. Some sort of way to bypass security systems. Not very interesting.
"Listen to this," he said anyway. "If one is between infiltration and undercover, with high security systems, infiltration is always the way to go. Create a repertoire, a character, an alias, and connections. Who the hell wrote this book?"
"Do you never come to the library, doofus?" she asked. He detected a hint of warm exasperation in her voice.
He beamed at her.
"I'm pleased to say that I have never found the need when all the books I needed were right on hand."
"The Company library is made of normal things, yeah, stuff you'd find in any college library. But some of the senior workers and ex-employees, they write articles for the Company. To pass on the knowledge."
"All employees?"
"All the way down to the lowliest janitor."
"I... did not know that..."
"Obviously," she responded dryly. "What else does it say?"
He couldn't tear his eyes away from her face for a moment, until she arced one of those perfectly plucked brows.
"Blending is essential, so stakeouts are mandatory, especially with a high risk case. That sounds like loads of fun! Why don't you just blow the place up?"
She growled a warning sound deep in her throat. It went straight to his groin and he forced himself to focus.
"Sorry. Know your surroundings, know how people look when they walk in. Expressions and the way you hold yourself are key."
"Stop there. Who's the author?"
He flipped to the cover and then frowned. "It... doesn't..." The book was leather-bound and it read in the front: Assassins, Volume 5. She chuckled at his bemusement.
"I said people wrote articles. At the end of every year, they're gathered up into different books according to career. For instance, you'll have one for chemists and one for directors and one for spies and one for technicians..."
"So, what if somebody gets their hands on these?"
She smiled a mirthless smile, one that reminded him of that one night in the pub. He swallowed.
"If the Company is infiltrated, the Library has an automatic destruct button. This place is wired with bombs and live mines."
"Are you - Holy Mother of God!" She laughed at his expression. "Christ!"
"Who's the author?" she finally got out after both of them had controlled themselves.
He flipped back to the article and found the heading. "Shax. Code name, I take it?"
"Not all of them. Probably a nickname because they didn't like their real name." She peered over his shoulder, curiously. "Find another one."
"Tracy Johanssen."
"International agent, one of the best. Eliminated some very nasty problems in Russia..."
"Do you -"
She turned her head slightly to look at him. He didn't dare turn his because that would mean his face would be closer to hers than it already was.
"Do I want to go international?" He nodded. "International assassins are only the very best, the top two percent of the classes. They have no lives." She licked her fingers and flipped the pages. "I'm not willing to let go of absolutely everything. Besides..." She peered at the next article and made a sound of frustration. "I was only the top three percent."
He rolled his eyes at her before pointing at a name. "Who was he?"
"Ax Coralis? Another international agent. He retired in '97, I think. Liked big guns and lots of drama, but he got the job done. Renowned in assassin circles for eliminating a highly renowned diplomat who doubled as a sumo wrestler in Japan. With his bare hands. An ambassador."
He knew she knew more than that, but he let it go. He was a chemist, not an assassin.
"What did Jessy Raven do?"
"Eliminated a daughter of a noble. She had blackmail on us. Very useful. Raven's got a plaque in the assassin student dorms."
"What about Carl Messar?"
"Not an assassin, technically. He started out as an informant and a snitch, but ended up killing - and I say kill because he wasn't with the assassin quarters - a mole for the CIA in Ethiopia. Having an article here was an honor for him."
"What happened to him?"
"The CIA took him out for a nice, long drive." He winced.
"How about... Theresa S?"
"Eliminated an underground gang with Jessy Raven."
"Allen Sherwood?"
"You know JFK?" He did a double take. She laughed uproariously and almost fell off the bench.
"That wasn't funny," he muttered.
She waved him off and turned back to the books, chuckling. He gave up asking about the names and tried to continue helping her.
"You don't have to if you don't want to."
"No, it's okay." He closed the book. "Who were you sent to ki - eliminate?"
She grazed his face with her eyes, calculating, and then smiled. "You don't need to know."
They stared at each other in the midst of the library, of the articles that were risks to even touch, every one. Surrounded by essays and articles about killing and making things to kill with and operations that would most definitely be frowned upon by the general population, he dropped his gaze to the next book, volume seven.
"I'll get you some coffee."
She watched him walk away, stared after his ass wrapped in tight, washed-out jeans, at the hair held up by liberal amounts of gel, and pinched herself. Then, she turned to the next article, features immobile.
-End-