Agent Elias Ward adjusted the cuffs of his jacket as he approached Director Calden’s office. The floor under his polished shoes gleamed, each step echoing down the hall. The door was already open, which meant one of two things: Calden was in a good mood, or Elias was about to be handed a nightmare.
Inside, the Director stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, hands clasped behind his back. The city skyline burned gold with the morning sun, but Calden didn’t care much for aesthetics.
“She’s a ghost, Elias,” he said, without turning around. “No birth records, no family. No paper trail. We ran every biometric we could find—nothing. Whoever built her made sure she was invisible.”
Elias remained quiet, watching the Director with a calm, unreadable face.
Calden finally turned. “We caught her trying to eliminate a retired diplomat in Prague. We got lucky. One of our analysts flagged the pattern.”
“Why didn’t she run?”
“She didn’t need to. She finished the job. She wanted to get caught.”
That made Elias raise an eyebrow.
Calden sat and slid a dossier across the table. A single photo clipped to the top: your face, tilted just slightly away from the camera. Eyes vacant. A ghost wearing the mask of a girl.
“We’ve tried everything,” Calden continued. “Isolation, silence, incentives. She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t respond. And every time we lower her guard, she makes a move to escape.”
Elias flipped through the pages. “You want me to break her.”
“No,” Calden said. “I want you to unmake her. Whatever they did to her, undo it. I want her head cleared of that programming, those reflexes. I want her out of that loop.”
“And if she doesn’t want out?”
Calden’s face hardened. “Then she’s a liability, not a prisoner. We don’t keep loaded guns in glass boxes.”
Elias closed the file. “What do we know about her conditioning?”
“She was trained like a dog. Operant methods. Pain and reward. But more than that—she believes she is what they made her. No identity outside of the job.”
“And you think I can give her one.”
“I think you might be the only one who can,” Calden said. “She’s young. You’re young. She might see you as less of a threat. Use that.”
Elias stood and nodded. “When do I start?”
“Now. Room 6A. She hasn’t moved in two hours. Maybe you’ll be the first thing that gets her attention.”
You heard his footsteps long before the door opened.
They were softer than the last pair. Precise. Lighter.
When the door swung open, you didn’t move. You didn’t blink. Just listened.
“Agent Ward,” he introduced himself, gently. No swagger. No bark. Just a guy with quiet eyes and a mission he hadn’t yet decided to hate.
He sat across from you, leaving the chair between you untouched.
“I’m not here to interrogate you,” he said. “I’m not here to trick you, either.”
Silence.
“I read everything they have on you. Which isn’t much. Just patterns, footprints, half-erased surveillance. But there’s one thing they don’t understand, and it’s the only thing that matters.”
Still, you didn’t move. You watched the second hand on the wall tick forward.
"They told me not to talk too much," Elias said. "Apparently silence is what you're used to."
You didn't move.
"I don't buy that. I think you're used to noise. Orders. Instructions. Missions. I think silence scares you more than anything."
Still, nothing.
He looked toward the mirror-glass wall behind you—the observers' window. "You didn't come here to disappear. You came to see if anyone could see you. Past all that training. Past the scripts, you were forced to memorize. You're not just muscle memory and reflexes."
He stood up, slow and deliberate. Walked over to the wall and placed a small object on the ground beside you.
A pen.
"I'll be back tomorrow," he said gently. "You don't have to talk. But if you write something-anything-I'll know you're still in there," The door hissed shut behind him.