‘Aunt In says the car is parked a few streets away. They couldn’t bring it up to our – the house or Mike might have seen it.’ I curl my hand into a fist in my pocket, hoping Pie didn’t notice the slip. If she did, she doesn’t say anything. She simply nods.

‘Do we have everything?’

‘You tell me. Darts.’

‘Check.’

‘Guns.’

‘Check.’

‘Bullet proof gear.’

Pie tugs at the strap on her own protective vest. ‘Check.’

‘Car.’

‘Don’t have it yet, but we know where it is.’

‘So check. We’ve got everything.’

Pie glances out the window at the dark sky. ‘I guess… we should go then.’

‘I guess.’

The wall between us gets thicker. Pie looks over at me. Her hair is tied up in a high ponytail, she looks small and young in the dark protective gear. Fleetingly I consider asking Pie to stay behind. To not come with me for this final part of the mission. But that’s selfish on two levels. One – Pie is a fully trained agent. She can handle herself without my protection. Two – the idea of never seeing Pie again after this is like an ulcer. If we said goodbye now it would be somehow easier for me because every second we spend together I have to talk myself out of believing she’s here forever. So I don’t say anything. Pie grasps the handle and pulls the door open. We move outside and lock the house for the final time. For a moment I press my hand against the wood, allowing one more instant of daydreaming. Then I stand back.

‘Where’s the car?’

+

The building Mike pulls up to is so stereotypical I have to bite my lip to stop from smirking. A large, abandoned-looking warehouse with flickering lights in the windows. We park the car a street away, and proceed on foot to the door of the warehouse. Pie leans over and gazes through the crack between the door and the wall while I stand beside her, gun out, watching the darkened road in-front of us.

‘How are we going to do this?’ Pie whispers after a moment, turning from the door to look up at me.

‘What’s going on in there?’

‘Mike and some of the others in there are unloading the crates from the back of his car. The rest are taking stock, looks like.’

‘Ok.’ I hold up four fingers. ‘We need to get information on these things. One, the address of this place. Two, take photos of the G.O.L.F members, anything defining. Three, Number plates. Any vehicle around here should be taken just in case. And we need to learn more about the stuff Mike dropped off. What it is, where they’re taking it, when they plan on moving, all that.’

‘The first three things are easy,’ Pie murmurs. ‘We can do them all out here.’

‘But we’ll need to find a way in.’

‘Yes.’

‘Alright.’ I take a deep breath. ‘You take note of everything out here, I’ll go inside.’

‘No!’

‘Pie –’

‘We shouldn’t split up! That’s a rookie mistake, idiot!’

‘It’ll take less time if we do it that way. Less time to get caught.’

‘Kim – ’

‘Trust me,’ I say. Pie clamps shut, glaring at me. For a few seconds, she says nothing. Then she sighs.

‘Alright. But you better meet me back here. Half an hour, that’s all you get and then you have to come out no matter how much information you’ve got. Deal?’

‘Deal.’

We stare at each other. I feel I should move, head inside as fast as I can, but the idea of breaking eye-contact with Pie is almost ludicrous. Pie’s face is millimeters away. Her lips brush against mine, fast, so fast it feels like an accident. I blink and she’s leaning back, looking away from me down the empty road.

‘Go,’ she says. I go.

+

By the time I’ve found a place to perch in the rafters, a paleness is edging into the corners of the sky. Below me, the men are talking amongst themselves, some carrying crates. Mike stands off to the side, conversing with two other men in suits. Carefully, from out of my pocket I pull one of the remaining bugs. For a moment there’s only the muffled sound of voices below as I sit, legs hooked either side of the metal plank. Then one of them shouts. I glance down, watch another man open his mouth to shout, and throw. The bug flies through the air, becoming invisible to me within a matter of moments. I know it stuck to something because suddenly my earpiece is filled with the sound of Mike’s voice. I clench one hand, bones pushing against skin, listening.

‘-go home and get the rest of the stock.’

‘I thought,’ says one of the men politely, ‘we instructed you to bring the whole load in one go.’

‘I know,’ Mike says, his voice apologetic. ‘I know. But I made more than I thought I would.’

‘And this isn’t the dud stuff we were given last time? This works?’

‘I tested it myself, sir. This works.’

‘If you have to make another trip, leave now. We’re vacating this location by sunrise and you won’t be privy to the address of our next place of business.’

‘Doesn’t matter to me.’ Mike raises both his hands in the air, palm up. ‘I just want my money.’

‘Bring the rest and you’ll get it.’

Mike nods, first at one and then the other of the suited men, and walks away. I focus more intently on the pair remaining. Two men, stocky build from the looks of it. Both wearing black suits, one with sunglasses, the other without. I check my watch. Fifteen more minutes. The two men don’t speak again until Mike reappears, panting slightly, holding another crate in his arms.

‘This is the last one,’ he says, placing it carefully on the ground. A suitcase is presented to him which he opens. Mike grins. ‘Pleasure doing business with you.’ I check my watch again. Seven minutes. Come on… say something good…

Mike disappears again, this time walking out of the warehouse for good, and one of the two men claps his hands for the worker’s attention.

‘You’ll be taking these to base. Be in and out before 2am.’

There are various nods, the final crates are hoisted onto shoulders when suddenly one of the workers bursts into the warehouse dragging –

Dragging –

Please. I would have closed my eyes to pray, but I can’t look away from the sight of Pie, lying on the ground, limp, unmoving –

‘She was outside,’ the worker says. He glances at the others. ‘One of In’s.’

The man with sunglasses takes Pie from the worker’s grasp and lifts her over his shoulder. On the beam, my grip tightens painfully. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. I can only repeat her name over and over again, disbelief dampening my brow, fear forcing my breath to quicken. Pie.

Pie.

I begin to move back down the beam. Only ingrained reflexes keep me from moving too fast and either falling or making a noise, the years of training hush my movements, keeping me steady. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie.

Similar to the first night we visited Mike’s house, I make my way down the wall almost in a daze. My head is too fogged with anger, too light with anxiety to be of much use as I scramble back to the dark ground. I move around the corner, looking for a hole or a crack that will allow me to see inside, all the while the G.O.L.F members decide what to do with Pie. I can feel the pressure behind my eyes that comes from tiredness, the aching need to sleep, to breath, as I press my face to the ground by a fissure in the concrete. Pie.

The voice of one of the G.O.L.F operatives rips through my panic.

‘We should bring her back to base,’ he says, smoothly. ‘Use her as a trial run for this new batch.’

Biting coldness rips at the back of my neck. Pie is carried to the door of the warehouse along with the crates, and I sink further into the shadows.

I can’t take the car In sent us. They’d notice someone trailing them, so my only option is to stow away. The operatives are splitting up, one pair hold a crate of blue vials between them. They load it onto the back of a large truck, then throw tarp over it, concealing it. Perfect

There’s no fear left, which is a small blessing. It’s been pushed aside in favor of determination. There’s no way they’re going to harm Pie. I’ll die before I let that happen. Other GOLF operatives are now spilling out of the warehouse, clambering into cars and trucks. I stand with my back pressed against the wall, the night and my dark combat gear providing near perfect camouflage. None of them are looking for me anyway. Another small blessing.

The two I’m watching slam the doors of their truck, there’s a low growl as the engine is flicked on. There’s no time to be cautious. I leap out of the shadows and onto the back of the truck in two, silent bounds, rolling under the tarp and pulling it down over my face. The truck begins to move, crates shift slightly and bump into me. I pull out my phone, tapping a hasty message onto the keypad.

Aunt In. You should come visit us! We haven’t had you over yet, and Pie is desperate to see you. Reply and I’ll tell you the address.

After the message delivers, I shove the phone back into my pocket and rest my forehead against one of the crates. There’s nothing left to be done right now. Nothing except sink into my own jagged thoughts about Pie and the danger she’s in. I lie quietly on the back of the truck, and ache.

The phone buzzes. I’m busy, lovely, but there are some other people who want to come see your new house. I’ll send them over xoxo

She must have the tracking device in my phone and on the gear she sent Pie and myself.

The van stops without warning and I jerk forward, throwing my arms out to brace myself against the back of the truck. I lift the corner of the tarp and peer out. The ceiling, high above me, glistens with metallic beams reflecting the car’s headlights. There’s the sound of a door slamming, then boots thud against the ground. I slip out from under the tarp and instead crawl beneath the truck, then watch as two pairs of boots appear in my line of vision. The truck shakes slightly above me as the cargo is unloaded. There are six crates on this truck, and they can only carry one each at a time, which gives me ample time to move somewhere else. Aunt In will have activated the tracking device on my phone and gear, and her text meant she’d be sending back up. How long it’ll take to get here, i can’t tell, so until they arrive ill need to find and protect pie myself.

Pie…..

I shake my head. Can’t focus on her or I’ll get bogged down with fear for her wellbeing. The feet reappear, and remain for a few moments. I hear the creaking sounds of the crates being moved, and then the feet vanish. Now.

I slide out from my hiding place and crouch on the floor, by one of the back wheels of the truck. The room I’m in right now looks like a large parking lot but…cleaner and more sinister. Various vehicles are parked along the polished granite walls, and there are four doors situated around the room. Only one, however, is currently open, and that’s the one I move towards. The corridor it opens onto is as dimly lit as the room I just left; I flick the safety off on my gun.

The corridor stretches out, twisting away from me to the left, the floor clanging quietly underfoot. There are more doors leading off of the corridor, I pause by them as I pass but none show what I’m looking for. My own footsteps are blanketed by the footsteps of the two men in front of me.

I’m not expecting to hear Pie screaming or pleading for help, she’s too good a spy for that, but right now there’s nothing I want to hear more than her voice. Even just to guide me nearer to where she might be held. I pass another door and push experimentally. It opens silently and I press my eye to the gap between the door and the wall. The room is shaped like an amphitheater, circular rows of seats leading down to a circular platform where the sunglassed and unsunglassed men from the warehouse stand. And in between them, a strap pressing across her forehead and chest to keep her from slumping forward is a very unconscious Pie. Even from my vantage point I can see blood on the side of her neck. Pie!

The two crate carrying men begin to make their way back up the stairs. I stand on the other side of the door and watch as they pass, not bothering to close it behind them, and slip into the amphitheater. One of the crates is open, the lid resting on the ground beside it. Sunglasses man has one of the blue vials between two fingers and is pressing it into a large syringe.

‘Now,’ he says, holding the syringe aloft. ‘We have spent four years developing this serum. Four different phases. Four different trial subjects. The three before were failures, of course. None of them were wiped completely, all three trials retained semblances of their past lives and personalities. With this next batch, we have been assured that it will do exactly what we want it to do.’ He turns and points to Pie. ‘And we will know with the results of this one final test subject.’

For a moment, my brain feels hollowed out. Something rattles. There’s a faint echoing. I feel compressed, a pressure against my chest and my forehead and a ringing in my ears. Pie, forget? Forget everything? Loose her personality? Stop being Pie? Is that even possible? And then, reverberating through my very bone marrow:

Forget me?

The needle catches the light, throwing blue streaks over Pie’s face, and my skin burns with cold sweat. Heart beating too fast, blood rushing to my ears and blocking out any further noise, all I can see is that streak of blue moving across Pie’s forehead as the syringe gets closer and closer to her neck.

And then I’m running.

If the agents around me say anything, if they scream or yell I can’t tell and I couldn’t care less because all that matters is stopping that liquid from entering Pie’s bloodstream. I reach the center of the stage and throw myself over Pie, my arms wrapping around the back of her chair so as to properly shield her with my body.

The syringe pierces my skin. The blue liquid is cold, cold like my sweat. Underneath me, I can feel Pie shifting; her hands grip my top. I pull back, the syringe in my neck, to meet her eyes.

‘Kim,’ she breathes.

‘Don’t worry,’ I say. I can feel it leaking upwards into my brain, like pain medication. Cloudy and bilious. Undefined. Then I close my eyes as the world melts around me.