Leave No Blood in the Snow

Image by Bradley Andrews

Leave No Blood in the Snow

by Donald McCarthy

The man with only a mouth takes the seat next to Melissa, even though the star liner’s passenger deck is otherwise empty. She remains silent, waiting for the man to speak as she processes how best to discard the last year of her life, the one she lived on a world she’ll likely never step foot on again.

They called Melissa by the name Bethany on that world. Well, mostly. Her lover Mathis, the one she partnered with to fit in, the one she irrevocably harmed just hours ago, called her Beth. She thinks he knew about her nature. Not completely but to some extent. He sometimes he looked at her like she was not just a foreigner to the minor colony world of Berrion but a member of an entirely different species. When she inquired, he would wave it away, blame it on the mental health issues he long suffered from. “I get spacey sometimes.” The health issues that were made so much worse over the last year.

If he knew she was different, he was certainly correct. She grew up on Symoria and served Symoria’s Foreign Intelligence Agency. She sheds names and backstories like a snake does skin. She’s unknowable to Mathis, to herself, to anyone. She may as well be an alien, a ghost, a shadow.

And now, to many on Berrion, she will be exactly that. Even to Mathis, whose memories so often betrayed him even before Melissa made her mark on him.

“You did everything right,” says the man with only a mouth. His face has no bumps nor indentations, no hair nor blemishes. Just two small holes where his ears should be. A disguise, surely. No one could actually have only a mouth. Just a little obscene game the Agency likes to play, surely. “I have a few questions for you. Bureaucratic things. A couple of i’s to dot and t’s to cross.” His voice is soft but carries through the empty passenger deck, the ninety-eight other seats vacant.

“Go ahead,” she, once Bethany but now back to Melissa, says.

He smiles. “Let’s talk about Agatha.”

Before extraction, Bethany owned a small home with Mathis, one just a few blocks from the spaceport. Life went quietly, albeit with the steady moan from the factories as Berrion produced spacecrafts, mostly but not exclusively warships and cargo vessels for the Aligned Colonies, including her true world, Symoria.

Most work mornings went the same. She woke, dressed, ate, and kissed Mathis goodbye. She started work an hour earlier than him, leaving him an hour to himself. She returned home an hour before him, giving her an hour. It helped their relationship, making sure each had time to themselves.

“Don’t let them drown you in nonsense,” Mathis would say before she left. Or something along those lines. He’d be having his coffee, his brown hair still unkempt (with him, his hair never became fixed so much as slightly improved).

“I just smile and do my job,” she’d usually reply. Her position as office manager in one of the factories allowed her to keep an ear to the ground as rumors built of a worker’s revolt. She called little attention to herself, which meant people spoke around her more openly.

She did her damnedest to make certain the details of her life were similar to everyone else’s. Monotonous work, casual conversations at lunch, forever hoping it wouldn’t snow faster than Berrion’s self-warming sidewalks and -streets could handle. At home, she’d chat with Mathis, they’d watch films, read, make love. A normal, slow life.

With occasional exceptions.

The first time Melissa met Agatha, and she had to be Melissa and not Bethany around her superior, she was invited to the older woman’s home. A breach of etiquette, but Agatha had been here a while. Perhaps she understood the situation better. “They can’t hear us talk,” Agatha told her when Melissa arrived. “I scan twice a day.” She dressed well, expensive pantsuit, her gray hair always impeccable, never a strand out of place.

It snowed more intensely than the norm that day, near white-out conditions at times. A fireplace crackled in Agatha’s living room, although it was decorative, not actual fire, merely a holographic projection with a manufactured scent of burnt wood.

Agatha sat on her black couch, sipping coffee. Melissa had turned down an offer for the drink and sat on the edge of the rocking chair opposite Agatha.

“You’re probably wondering what you did to get a bum assignment like this.” There was a hint of pleasure in Agatha’s voice, as if she enjoyed making the cynical observation.

“I go where I’m told,” Melissa replied. She didn’t much mind the assignment, unglamorous though it may be, but if she did, she certainly would not tell Agatha. Cautious silence might be unexciting but always ended up the right move in Melissa’s profession.

Agatha snorted. “Well, yes, of course we do. That doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it. But in this case, you should be. I’m sure you had visions of ending up on Hazel, getting in tight with one of those revolutionary groups or whatever they call themselves. Find out what they’re planning. Defend the people of Symoria from terrorist threats. That’s horse shit, though. This, right here, this is what’s important.”

Melissa knew Agatha wanted her to ask why. She did ask but not before waiting a second, making sure Agatha could tell she wasn’t too eager.

“It’s about money,” Agatha answered. “A terrorist attack is bad, yes, but not as destabilizing as the economy taking a hit. You stop production here, Symoria’s industry gets crippled and so do the other colony worlds and their little settlements. Every intelligence agency, every police force, any aspect of the security apparatus the colonies hold so gosh darn tight, their absolute number one priority is the stabilization and growth of the economy. That’s how I know they must think so highly of you to place you here so early in your career.”

Left unsaid, Melissa notes, is that it took Agatha a lot longer to gain such a position. Maybe that’s why the older woman’s gleeful tone seemed to mask sneering condescension. “Like I said: I just go where I’m told.”

“Make sure you do as you’re told, too,” Agatha replied. “Then it will all work out well.”

To that, Melissa did not deign to reply.

“Maybe you’ll even replace me,” Agatha continued. She swung her right leg over her left. “The Agency always likes younger people, you see. With age comes wisdom, but those above us don’t always like that. Wisdom makes one hard to outwit, and the higher ups in the Agency enjoy being a master of manipulation.” The disdain in her tone was thicker than even the snow outside. “If you learn nothing else from me, at least bother to remember that.”

“Noted,” Melissa said, knowing she really said nothing at all.

“One last thing.” Agatha removed a small box from her pants pocket. “There are three rings in here. One is pink, one is amber, and one is green. Each has a sharp needle pointing outwards so make certain not to poke yourself, only whomever you want to be the recipient of what these rings do. The pink ring, you see, causes a memory loss of the previous 30 seconds. The amber does five minutes. The green does an hour, although it can have unfortunate long-lasting side effects. I understand you’ve taken up with a partner here as instructed. That’s good. Makes you seem normal. If he senses something, sees a little sight he shouldn’t…”

She handed the box to Melissa, who weighed it in her hand. “They’re effective?”

“Very,” Agatha said. “The pink one is best since it’s so short. Most folks don’t even realize they’ve lost track of any time.”

“That doesn’t seem likely.”

“Doesn’t it? Tell me, do you remember walking through my door? Not approaching it. Not sitting on the chair. Walking through my front doorway, taking off your shoes. Do you remember that?”

Her throat tightened. “I do,” she said. “I do remember that.”

Agatha chuckled. “The lies come so easy after a while, don’t they? Or maybe you believe it. Maybe you really do think nothing has been taken from you. But I trust I’ve made my point.”

The man with only a mouth interrupts her. “Agatha never visited your house?”

Our house, Melissa thinks. Hers and Mathis’s. Well, Bethany’s and Mathis’s. “No, she didn’t. I only went to her house twice. Once early on, and then right before extraction.”

The man taps his knee with his forefinger. A tic? A code she can’t understand? Something she’s making too much of or something she’s not making enough of? “And it was Agatha who first thought to nab that woman, Karla Sorell?”

“Yes.”

“Was Karla one of the workers you were keeping an eye on, or did Agatha bring her up to you?”

“I knew of her, and I heard she had sympathies for the Worker’s Army, but I didn’t have her as a top figure.” Melissa remembers Karla’s eyes, bright and blue and angry. “I mentioned her in a report to Agatha, but she was just one of many names.”

The man scratches where his right eye would be. “I see. Tell me about when Agatha brought Karla in.”

The night before Melissa met Karla, Bethany and Mathis failed at making love.

It started fine, the two of them in bed, the lights off, the soft patter of icy rain outside. He placed his hand on her stomach, kissed her neck, and she put her hand on his back, pulling him on top of her. She enjoyed him like this, when he became urgent, full of lust and passion. Once, early on, she scratched him, dragged her nails down his back; the action broke skin, summoned blood. She hadn’t meant to do it, not really, it just came over her.

He hated it. She apologized, said it was an accident. He accepted it, said not to worry. But worry she did as she’d stopped being Bethany in the moment and allowed Melissa to come out. She’d considered using one of the rings then, but fool that she was, the box was in the other room, and time had passed, so long she’d have to use the hour one. She didn’t. A mistake? Maybe. But that ring came with possible side effects, deep ones, and the man she’d chosen to be her lover had enough mental health issues to begin with. Ones that had only grown worse with the smaller pinpricks she occasionally had to give him.

So now, as he entered her, kissing her, she was ninety-five percent there. But five percent of her remained on guard, making sure Melissa did not creep out and that even during pleasurable moments enjoyment did not cloud reason.

He thrusted gently, but she could tell something was wrong. He hovered, gradually going soft. He stared down. “Wait,” he said. “Who are you again?”

“Mathis,” she said. She hoped hearing his name would make him more present in the moment. “I’m Beth, you’re girlfriend. We are in our house. You’re safe.”

He climbed off her, walked to the window. “Okay,” he said. Did he watch the rain hit the walkway beside their house? Or did he not even register that?

Not the first time this happened, but the first time it happened during sex. He warned her early on about what he called his spaciness, and she assured him it was fine, that everyone had their “thing.” There was no question his spaciness had become full on disassociations, though, that his mind betrayed him more by the day.

She sat up in the bed, rearranging the pillows to provide her back support while she watched him. She didn’t think he’d harm himself but no reason not to be cautious. It’d be awful if he did, and it would bring unnecessary scrutiny on herself.

He walked away from the window and settled in the corner of the room, sitting crisscross on the floor. “I think I’ll sit here for a while,” he said.

“That’s okay,” she said, voice low. “Stay there as long as you need. Come back to bed when you’re ready. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I mean it.”

She knew he did, just as she knew he did not entirely know whom he spoke to. She told herself it wasn’t her fault, that he just suffered from this, that her own lies were not making it worse, that the one or two or three times she dashed the past thirty seconds of his life wouldn’t really impact him.

He watched her, eyes bright in the darkness, and she watched him back. If anything went wrong, she knew the box with the rings rested in her nightstand’s drawer.

The morning after, Agatha contacted Bethany through Bethany’s makeup kit. A false bottom hid four small buttons: red, blue, yellow, green. Bethany checked each morning to see if one was lit. Usually, none were. Sometimes, the blue was. Occasionally, the green. Today, the yellow shone. First time. Bethany resisted the excitement that rose in her. That wouldn’t help her stay alert.

She joined Mathis in the kitchen. They’d already talked briefly this morning, when she asked how he felt, when he apologized, when she told him it was nothing, when he told her how lucky he felt to have her even as his disassociations seemed to become worse.

“Time for me to head to the grind,” she told him as she put on her scarf and coat. The latter went down to just below her knees, the black cloth frayed at the edges from weathering over the past year. “You need to take it easy at work. I’m sure you didn’t sleep much.”

“Neither did you,” he replied as he worked on his second cup of coffee. He stood by the stove, his hair as disheveled as ever.

“I’m better at managing a lack of sleep,” she said, tossing him a smile. “You get goofy.”

“Maybe I’ll lift spirits at the office then. Bring a real shine.”

“You’ll melt all the snow,” she told him. Then, she stepped out into the cold, knowing Agatha waited and not alone.

Bethany walked up to the abandoned factory, but it was Melissa who entered it. The inside was almost as cold as outside, her breath forming little clouds. She stepped softly even though there wasn’t likely to be anyone else in a mile radius other than Agatha and whomever she’d brought here. An entire ghost town of out-of-date factories sat next to the bustling city, and, with the right payoff, you could make certain the authorities steered clear. Melissa assumed far worse happened here than whatever she and Agatha would get up to.

But perhaps not.

In the center of the derelict factory, a woman had been tied to a conveyor belt on which, long ago, spacecraft parts journeyed before they joined the bodies of warships and cargo vessels. The woman, younger than Melissa, glanced at her as she entered but kept her face hard. Her black hair hung off each side of the conveyor belt, the strands tapping the floor.

So. It was torture Agatha had in mind.

“The folks back home are getting impatient,” Agatha said to Melissa, her voice bouncing around the room oddly, almost as if repelled. She’d probably set a voice dampener, making sure what was said, or screamed, in here did not escape the premises. “We need some answers, so I’ve decided to take the initiative. Figured we’d do it old-fashioned, too. You ever heard of the rat torture?”

“Yes.” Melissa stopped just before the captive. Karla Sorell, a union worker. She’d spotted her at some of the public meetings but had little idea Sorell was involved in the more militant aspects of worker movement growing here. “You brought her here yourself?”

“In a drugged stupor,” Agatha replied. She wore her formal clothes, had her hair straightened, and wore diamond earrings. Did any occasion exist that she wouldn’t dress well for? “She was quite amicable to my suggestions; the drugs have that effect. We need her sober to get the good stuff, though. Luckily, she’s seeming sharp now.”

Melissa looked around the room, saw how the conveyor belt snaked around, saw the old machines hanging from the ceiling, nothing but mechanical corpses. It’d be just the three of them, along with remnants of industry. The only item that stood out was a black container on the other side of the conveyor belt, one which Agatha stood right next to. Melissa asked, “Has she said anything yet?”

Karla remained silent but kept staring at Melissa. Not entirely unlike Mathis had the night before. Melissa shoved the thought aside, though; no need for her fake life to impact her real one.

“She’s said a lot,” Agatha answered. “Most of it involving some very unmannered language.”

Melissa had never seen torture up close before but had read enough about it. Agatha mentioned, perhaps only the second time they’d met, that it might be called for. Melissa privately disagreed but kept it to herself. This was Agatha’s world, not hers. Melissa still stood as a mere mentee.

The older woman opened the black container, its top sliding off. A whining sound came from within it. “Time for you to see the real work. The undercover part, that’s easy. All human relationships rely on deception. We lie to each other every day, just as we lie to ourselves. There’s no bond between two people that isn’t reliant on deception. This part, though, heh, this part is a bit different. This is where we find out whether someone is the real deal.”

From the container, she removed a creature about a foot and a half long, one that looked like an ungodly cross between a human fetus and a cockroach. It squealed, flashing sharp teeth, its six little legs kicking in protest or fear.

Melissa’s stomach cramped, but she kept straight. She knew better than to show a negative reaction. She learned that long before she joined the Agency; the ability to bury emotion was a gift from her parents. What was it her father had said? A flinch may as well be a surrender?

“This is an Eater,” Agatha informed her.

Karla looked from Melissa to the creature Agatha held above her. Still, she kept her face hard.

“The Eaters,” Agatha continued, speaking to Melissa but presumably for Karla’s benefit, “come from an uncolonized world. They’re all over the planet, but they’re unique: they only eat each other. Grotesque though they are, they’re harmless. Unless you apply a little pressure.” She dropped the Eater onto Karla’s stomach. The creature yelped a protest before sniffing the captive.

Karla breathed quickly, looking around, clearly confused as to Agatha’s plan. “You’re insane,” Karla told Agatha.

Agatha leaned over her captive, smiling. “Happy to chat now? It’s all up to you.”

“I have nothing to say.”

Agatha spread her arms. “So be it.” She leaned down again, removing from her container a foot and half long clear bin that she then placed over the Eater. She then produced a clear tape and secured the bin down, trapping the Eater on Karla’s stomach. “We’ll see how much of a fanatic you are.” She retrieved one last item: a narrow cylindrical device. It took Melissa a moment to release it was a welding tool, designed to become extremely hot on one end.

“Take this and hold it against the top of the bin,” Agatha told Melissa.

For a second, and it was just a second, Melissa paused. She’d studied the psychology of extremists while she was trained at the Agency. She knew one violent act could open a door to many more. Most people couldn’t kill, couldn’t blow a building up, but if they did pass that first hurdle, well, so much would suddenly become possible. She knew the same could be true for herself.

But she took the tool.

“Now, turn it on,” Agatha told her. “Don’t worry if our little friend squirms. Either of them. And don’t worry about the bin: it’s a special design. The outside won’t melt but the inside walls of it will.”

Melissa pressed the button at the center of the welding tool. A small hum sounded as the heat increased. The Eater inside the bin did not notice at first, still sniffing Karla.

“And you say I’m an extremist!” Karla shouted.

“How’s that now?” Agatha asked. Her tone sounded almost kindly.

“What the fuck do you call the type of person who’d do what you’re doing?”

So, Karla had figured out the fate that awaited her. The Eater soon would, too. The bin heated, its interior melting but its exterior holding strong. The creature screamed as liquid heat dropped onto it, the scent of burnt flesh sharp. Some of it fell onto Karla, burning her fabric and eventually her skin, as well. Karla’s eyes turned red with pain, but she held back from making even a groan.

“I would love it if you could give me the names of the people in charge of the Worker’s Army,” Agatha said. “I believe they call it the Worker’s Council? Seven of them? Or eight? I’ve heard different tales.”

Karla squirmed, but the restraints stayed tight.

Melissa decided to look at Agatha. No need to look down. No need to look at Karla. The shriek from below was enough, the sound of skin being bitten away as the Eater tried to escape the heat. Karla screamed, too.

“You can start talking anytime,” Agatha remarked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Karla shouted. “Listen, okay, I have no idea. No idea at all. Oh, my God!”

The chewing came so loud, but was that just in Melissa’s mind? How could the chewing be louder than the screaming?

Melissa vanished then. Not physically, no, she still stood there, burning away the container, forcing the Eater to eat into Karla’s torso as a way of escape. But she no longer felt present. She walked in her own mind, walked into a dark room where other Melissas sat and waited. She’d been some of these Melissas in her life and others she knew she’d one day become. Some of them would be better for this very moment, but she wasn’t sure which quite yet. What she was sure was that even though she held the welding tool, even though Karla screamed and bled out beneath her, even though the Eater died as the inside of the bin burned through its skin, Melissa was not really there.

In that moment, Melissa understood Mathis quite well.

“You can turn it off. They’re both dead.”

Melissa flipped back to the moment and turned off the welding tool. The air smelled of flesh and death, and, despite the heat from the tool, the room seemed colder, her breath an even darker cloud. She reprocessed her surroundings but kept her gaze away from both Karla’s corpse and the Eater’s.

“God only knows if the names she shouted out at the end were legitimate,” Agatha said. “She’d probably say anything to make the pain stop at that point. I’ll investigate, of course, but she sure held out until the end. Still, even her disappearance will be fruitful. The Worker’s Army will realize someone is onto them and probably do something rash, which our side can take advantage of.”

“Makes sense,” said Melissa. And it did. She couldn’t argue with Agatha’s logic. The more pressure the Worker’s Army faced, the more likely they were to screw up. A disciplined organization would proceed cautiously, but this movement was new, thus more prone to errors.

“You can head back,” Agatha told her. “I’ll handle the body. There’s a change of clothes in the backroom. Can’t have you dripping blood out there. The red looks so bright in the snow.”

Spoken with the taint of past experience.

As she changed, Melissa’s stomach settled, and she felt, well, not herself per se, that was too much of a luxury, but she did not feel like the person who’d helped kill Karla Sorell, either. She felt in-between, part Melissa and part Bethany. To her surprise, she felt ready to return to the latter.

When she departed, she noticed Agatha standing over the corpse, watching as a tiny spider-like robot sliced apart the body with red lasers, the beams coming from its front legs. Flesh, skeleton, and muscle alike were cut through until Karla’s body was turned into hundreds of little meat cubes that Agatha could discard wherever she desired.

“It’s a shame how long we’ve been here,” Agatha said.

“What do you mean?”

“Two hours. If it was only an hour you could’ve erased it. If the sights and screams bothered you, that is.”

A challenge rested in the remark. Melissa left without addressing it.

“I don’t recall the names Karla screamed,” Melissa admits to the man with only a mouth.

He waves the comment away. “Agatha reported them in. Didn’t lead to anything. We rarely sanction torture because—” He jolts his head back. “What are you doing?”

Melissa looks down at herself and then up and down the aisle. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Sorry, sorry,” says the man. “My eyes are somewhere else. Sometimes I forget. Forgive me. Continue.”

Was that supposed to be a joke? A code? Or the truth?

Outside, the sidewalks steamed as snow fell. The warmth, provided by a heating system just below the surface, made certain the paths didn’t become too clogged with snow. Can’t have work at the factories delayed by the nuisances of nature.

Inside, steam came off Melissa’s black coffee. She took a sip; it almost burned her tongue, but the tinge of pain kept her alert. Probably why Agatha always drank some. Melissa sat at a table near the window, listening to the chatter of the others inside. One never knew when a stray word could illuminate.

The door to the café slid open with a hush as a man in a dark suit and black top hat entered. Conspicuous would be an understatement. Worse, this was the man Melissa came here to meet.

He took a seat across from her and placed a silver cube on the table: a sound dampening device. No one else in the café would be able to hear them. Rare to see one of those around here due to their expense. Mostly your average worker strolled in and out of this café, young people with ideas and vigor.

The man had dark skin and blue eyes; a small scar on the right side of his chin hinted at a story Melissa knew she’d never learn. “This meeting will be brief,” he said.

“And obvious,” she replied, not hiding irritation. This man, whom she’d met with twice before, could not have called more attention to them if he’d tossed coffee in her face. Yes, he was a higher up in the Agency, higher than even Agatha, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a fool.

“Deception is important ninety percent of the time” he said. “But there are times when you want to be blatant.”

“Are we escalating?” A polite way for her to ask if they planned to crush the Worker’s Army. Publicly.

“In a fashion,” her contact replied. “Let’s talk about our mutual friend, though. She put on quite a show for you with Ms. Sorell, I understand. Yet nothing seemed to come of it.”

“She believes the Worker’s Army will panic.”

“Panic is easy to cause. No, she did this for you. For me. For those back home.”

His implication slid into Melissa like a knife. “You think she’s, what? With the Worker’s Army?”

“The woman she took captive was with them; that woman was also an informant for Maldrove’s Intelligence Agency. Quite a coincidence she picked that person, no? And then made sure to be as vicious about it as possible, really show us she’s invested.”

No love lost between Symoria and Maldrove, but both colonies would be hurt by a work stoppage on Berrion. Enemies can become reluctant lovers when money became involved. Melissa asked, “Do you have proof?”

“We’ve searched her office, her home. Sometimes we have to do it when she’s there, which means she’s going to notice soon. Only so many moments can go missing before a person starts to go mad.”

This man had rings, too. Did they steal seconds from Agatha? No, it wouldn’t be just seconds. Minutes. Hours. Hours and hours, and sanity, too. “You now have proof?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I have instructions. Extraction for you in three hours. Spaceport four. A luxury star liner. There will just be the pilot and one other onboard. You’re to debrief with him. Take what you need from home, visit Agatha, and then board the ship.”

Visit Agatha. “I see.”

“Good. No need to clean up the mess at Agatha’s.”

Now that’s unusual. “Are we sending a message?”

He picked up Melissa’s coffee, took a sip, and said, “Remember the pecking order before asking so many questions.” He finished her drink and left.

Melissa needed so little. Her coat, her gun, and three datachips. She walked through each room of her house, however, double-checking for… well, she did not know. It was simply what one did when extraction time came.

“You’re leaving?”

Mathis. Home a little early.

“I am,” said Bethany as Mathis entered the kitchen, taking off his wet boots. “Dinner with Tomasin.”

Mathis nodded, washing his hands. “Did you tell me that already?”

“Yes.”

“Guess I’m losing it then. You know how I get sometimes.” He laughed but with anxiety. “Have a nice time.”

Bethany touched the front doorknob, paused, and looked back around. “I might be wrong. I might not have told you, actually. You know what, I didn’t.”

He poured himself a glass of water and took two of his pills. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you tonight, Beth. Love you.”

She stood there for longer than she should have. She wondered if it’d hurt him more if she said she loved him back or if she didn’t. She decided not to utter those powerful words and began to step out when he spoke again.

“Wait a second. I actually saw Tomasin earlier today. She was at the same deli I got lunch. She didn’t mention anything.”

Melissa reached into her jacket pocket, felt the ring box. “I’m not having dinner with Tomasin,” she said. “I meant Alexandra.”

But the lie was pointless. She saw the doubt in his eyes as they narrowed so briefly.

She walked back into the house, pulled him close to her. Kissed him, deeply, with one eye open, making sure she had the right ring on, the green one, the one that would steal the hour, the one that would make his mind so much worse.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“A breach,” Melissa told Agatha. She barely felt the cold of the afternoon as she stood in front of Agatha’s door. “Someone searched my desk at work.”

Agatha moved aside, ushering her into her house. Melissa entered and walked down the hallway, stopping in the entrance to the living room. The fireplace crackled, producing the fraudulent smell of burnt wood.

“This is not protocol,” Agatha snapped, crossing her arms. “You’re supposed to send a message first.”

Melissa removed her gun from her coat pocket and aimed at Agatha’s forehead. The older woman had but a second to widen her eyes and utter a soft gasp. Melissa fired once. Blood sprayed backwards, spattering against the paintings hung in the hall. She checked herself quickly, seeing if any blood got on her. It’d been Agatha who’d warned her about such a risk.

Once convinced she was clean, she walked out into the cold. It was all very quick, especially with no clean up required. Compared to Karla, this was, frankly, nothing at all.

“You did very well,” the man with only a mouth says.

Melissa has the impression he knew everything she just told him. Was he just making sure nothing was missed? Or was he testing her honesty, wondering if she, too, had been compromised?

“Have you put together why your contact told you to leave Agatha’s corpse in her house?”

Of course. She’d thought it over on her way to the star liner. “Agatha’s cover as a representative of Symoria’s Aid Department means her death will cause an outcry, the Worker’s Army will be blamed, and I would guess our president will threaten harsh sanctions. Should kill the enthusiasm for the workers’ revolt.”

“Yes. For now.”

“The presence of my other contact was obvious, which will send the diehards in the Worker’s Army a message that we’re onto them. They’ll also know I was a spy and start questioning each other.” Melissa pauses, then asks the one question that’s bothered her. “Were you sure Agatha was actually a mole?”

“Of course.”

She wants to stare at him, to challenge the statement, to go so far as to mention that Agatha, so near the end of her career with the Agency, might be more useful dead than alive no matter her allegiances. But she doesn’t. She can’t. What is there to stare at on this man’s face?

“The Agency already has a new assignment brewing for you. Provided you’re comfortable with how it all turned out here. You don’t have regrets, do you?”

She flinches. “I did what I was told.”

“Exactly.” He smiles and the smile on that otherwise featureless face seems so very wide.

The man with only a mouth leaves her after a few more idle questions. She sits alone, then, the hum of the star liner’s engines the only conversation. She goes through her extraction again, recalls the gunshot that ended Agatha’s life, how easy it was to pull the trigger.

And then Mathis. Mathis who she took in her arms, who she kissed, who she—

No. No, she cannot remember inserting the needle into him. She remembers slipping the ring on, lifting her arm to stab him but not the moment itself. Yet she must have done it.

She touches the right side of her neck. A bump so small you barely notice it. A bump in the same place in the neck she always stuck the needle into Mathis.

She inserted the needle into him, didn’t she? Of course. It’s just that afterwards she must have inserted it into herself. To save herself from having to remember doing that final cruel act to him?

Or did she see something worse, did she see that in taking that hour from him she took from him the final boundary between his mind and madness?

No. No, she couldn’t have. He’s back there angry and hurt his lover left him, absolutely, but he’s fine. She didn’t break him. She didn’t.

She didn’t.