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Broken(31)

By:Robert J Crane


    Zack looked slightly rumpled across the desk from me. “Um … I mean, the Director made it clear to me that my current role was to get closer to the girl—”

    “Her name is Sienna,” Ariadne said simply. “And you may carry out whatever order the Director gave you,” ice frosted over her tone and I could sense the distaste for the Director’s order both in her head and in her tone, “when you get back, if he still wants to go through with that particular … “ She didn’t finish her sentence but I heard what she wanted to say in her mind—obscenity.

    “Um, all right,” Zack said, and stood. “I’ll … uh … “

    “There’ll be a helicopter waiting in a half hour,” she said, coolly watching him. “Be on it.”

    “Okay,” he said with a nod, and I looked at the lines of his face. He was handsome, no doubt, and I caught the hint from his look that he knew something else was going on, something with Ariadne giving him this order. He walked out without saying anything else, and the world changed dramatically in the moments after that. It took me a moment to realize that I was seeing time leap forward—the sun went down, the office became dark, shadows creeping in around the light cast by the fluorescents overhead. Ariadne sat there, her pen scratching out ink letters on a page in front of her.

    “You sent Zack Davis away,” came the rumble from the door, and Ariadne looked up.. The chill had crept into the room preceding him, and I saw Ariadne fold her arms across her chest, partially out of a sense of defense and partly to warm herself from the rush of cold air.

    “I did,” she said, pulling her arms tighter around her. “He’s on his way to retrieve M-Squad from South America. He should be back in a day or two.”

    “I see,” Old Man Winter answered coldly. “And did you do this because of my orders to him to get closer to the girl?”

    “No,” Ariadne said, and I knew that she was lying. Winter knew it, too, I was sure, but he said nothing. “He was available. A grunt, but one we’ve trusted with more responsibility. He seemed the one to do it.”

    “Is that so?” Erich Winter asked, his towering figure taking up the whole of the door frame. “I have taken the opportunity to use this to our advantage.”

    Ariadne froze in a way that had nothing to do with the cold in the room. “Oh?”

    “Yes,” Erich Winter said, “I’ve had him say a farewell to the girl that involved extracting a promise to remain here, on the grounds, until he can get back. It should give her some hope and allow us to keep her here just a bit longer. Perhaps it will give us some time to solve the mystery of what type of meta she is, which will perhaps give us some insight into why Wolfe is pursuing her as aggressively as he is.”

    Ariadne brought her pen up, but halted it an inch from the outside of her mouth. “He’s working for someone, isn’t he?”

    “Oh, yes,” Winter said, “but the question is ‘who?’ And also … ‘why’ is she so important to them?” Winter shook his head. “Wolfe has always been a dangerous foe, and his choices of employers is always carefully considered. He has served a dozen masters in the time I have known him, each dangerous in their own way, all of them a threat to whomever they considered their enemies.” Winter’s eyes narrowed. “This time feels different, though; whoever has sent him here has done so for reasons that he has left behind him. Wolfe wants to hurt the girl, now, to make her suffer because she has hurt him. He does not countenance any sort of will being turned against him; he considers it a challenge to break resistance that is offered to him. Whoever his employer is, he is not heeding their wishes at this point, I would wager. He will not take the girl unharmed, though whatever remains of her when he is done may eventually be offered to them.”

    Ariadne’s voice was low when she answered. “But we’re going to protect her, right?”

    “For a time,” Winter said. “We will keep her safe, for now, and try to determine what she is.”

    Ariadne frowned. “Wait. For a time?”

    Old Man Winter gave a little shrug. “She is of some import, to someone, somewhere. We need to find out who at some point. If we cannot gather these answers ourselves, the natural conclusion is to find a way to track her … and then make certain Wolfe gets his hands on her.”