14 February 2021, 18:00 hours…as hundreds, if not thousands, of other star-crossed lovers gaze longingly into each other’s eyes, (Valentine’s Day, wouldn’t you know it?), operation ERI (the agency’s acronym for Erase, Reset, and Integrate), has been activated – again.
20 resets in 12 years; that’s once every 1.67 years, or approximately every year and 8 months, but this assignment had ended after just 8 months…
With three recent assignments in a row all less than a year in length, the agent had been more willing to roll the dice. The odds were in favor of this assignment being a longer one…with any kind of luck, maybe even 3 or 4 years. Given the situation with the pandemic and all the confusion caused by shutdowns all across the world, it was just going to take time to get things moving again, so the prospects for staying put awhile were pretty well a given. Beyond that, the assignment itself was a fairly low-profile gig, in a low-profile area, etc., etc., and everything was rolling along pretty well according to plan, so the odds were definitely in favor of a longer run this time. But you know how it is with any type of gambling…even good hunches don’t always pay off.
It’s not that leaving Worcester, MA in the middle of February, or the gig as a lab tech at the Covid-19 research and development center of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals was a thing. It wasn’t…in fact, one could hope that the next assignment would be in a warmer location, and you know a little more challenging would be nice! The monotony that so often accompanied the type of work assignments the agency required to assure agents could maintain a low enough profile to…” remain hidden in plain sight” …as the agency called it…, was one of the most difficult mental challenges for all agents – much less one with an IQ of 150.
It was usually boring, to be sure, and why it was also so tempting to allow oneself the liberty of personal involvement. Despite their training, agents are still humans – at least a kind of human. Able to be fully detached and fully present…somehow. The fully present part, like with any normal person, enjoys building closeness with another human being, so there is always that temptation to allow yourself involvement on a personal level with someone.
Every agent knows the risks. Your assignment can be cut short with no warning (…and for the stupidest of reasons!), and it doesn’t matter one wit. The agency’s program is as successful as it is, due to its zero-tolerance policy. When you get the call to go, you go, no exceptions, and no questions asked.
Two hours…it’s not much time. To the agent, it often felt like acting out the story of someone’s else’s life; like reading the story of their life as written in a book, and suddenly receiving a call from the director of the play who then tells you, “The play is cancelled. We’re burning the book with your script (and we’ll bury the ashes). You just head to the new theater for the start of the new production. Here’s your new script for the new character you’ll be playing there. We’ve booked you a flight to get you to the new theater. Your plane leaves in two hours. Be on it!”
Sometimes real threats of discovery happen. The bad guys – they don’t really ever get tired of searching for you…
This wasn’t one of those times though. In all truth, it was just the dumb luck of a too curious 12-year-old Ukrainian boy who just stumbled upon the lab’s human resource files…because Jessica, a too young and too attractive lab assistant, had failed to take down a couple of old selfies of herself in some little skimpy pajamas, from one of her sorority parties of years past, before she ever took a professional job at the lab.
Apparently, the kid just was on a mission. After seeing Jessica’s cutesy pictures, he just kept trolling hers, and her friends, and friends of friends, social media sites until he stumbled upon someone in the lab’s Human Resources group, and miraculously managed to login to the Human resource system with a lucky guess on an easy password. And as they say, the rest is history…
Anyone, for any reason, hacking into the Human Resource data files, however, could get some information, and you know, potentially connect dots… The agency considered it was too much of a risk…much easier to just Erase, Reset, and Integrate, than deal with any real, or perceived, threat to the program, or the agent’s cover.
But that of course did not make it any easier, and especially with knowing how the rest of the story would play out for the one you chose to involve in such a close personal way…
What do they teach…? Shock, disbelief, denial, and ultimately acceptance…
The scene played out silently in the agent’s head…. a cozy table, the romantic setting, other couples also getting engaged on the perfect day for lovers to declare their undying love, sitting there, waiting expectantly… Then a phone call comes in. A note is quickly scribbled on a scrap of paper, and an apologetic manager approaches the table to deliver the message as compassionately as one can in these situations…when dealing with terribly, undeniably tragic, news. A lab explosion and fire…sudden death…burned beyond recognition… The next of kin have already been notified – devoted, caring and compasionate, parents (never met before – they travel, and live out of state – but suddenly are on the scene…other agents, of course, called in for a short cameo assignment…the clean-up crew, so to speak…), which had already identified what was left of the body, by DNA testing…
The last act of the play would be over in lighting speed. It would play out so quickly but every ‘i’ would be dotted and ever ‘t’ crossed so thoroughly.
Ray would never even know what hit him.
Of course, he would move on with his life. He’d have to… The shock and speed of closure would help with that…you’d have to sort of block it all from your memory pretty quickly, just to keep your sanity.
In time, he’d be okay. He’d find someone else and go on to have a lovely life. She hoped.
She made her plane within the two-hour cutoff. Silently, Agent Nora Sullivan raised her hand and touched the plane window briefly in a silent goodbye. A single tear rolled down her check. “Goodbye my love. I’m so sorry.” A tender parting gesture and quiet apology spoken into a dark, lonely night, and heard only by her own ears, to the man she loved, who had been planning to propose marriage to her at the romantic French restaurant they loved so much, and whom she would never see, ever again.