The TEO director helped the home secretary get into her seat.

“Please, be seated,” she gestured, then nodded at the TEO director as a quick thank-you. She had a folder in her hand that she laid on the table. Her dark eyes acknowledged all of us, especially Anna and I.

“I didn’t expect to see the hero here. That’s a pleasant surprise.” She didn’t even take her eyes off me, “Perhaps I missed the memo.” It was obvious that she was throwing shade at the TEO for not updating her on this change, but she proceeded to ask for a report of the events anyway.

“Four devices found, three defused and being investigated by our bomb squad. One was detonated in the subway,” Esther Serrette brief her.

“Casualties?”

“Fourteen.”

A pause of silence came, and this home secretary looked at me once more. Even with age beginning to sabotage her, she was still a rather beautiful woman. I fumbled a bit with my coffee as our eyes met.

What the hell, J? Are you in love or something? I snapped myself out of it and took a deep breath.

“Mr Ugo, I sincerely thank you for your courage today, and also for your presence here.”

Something just snapped in me and I took a longer than usual sip of the coffee. “I’m honoured, Home Secretary.” I cleared my throat gently, “Uhm, you’ll forgive me if I don’t quite catch on to the social cues of your usual conversations, but are you asking that I leave?”

She took quite a while to answer compared to her usually snappy conversing pace. “No, I am not.”

“You are.”

Once again, she took a while to answer. “I am,” the truth revealed was set naked, “but, I think I’ll change my mind if you tell me something.”

Now I took a few seconds until I answered her. Don’t like where this is going. Is she trying to get an answer out of me by appeasing my curiosity of this meeting? These damn bigwigs. I should storm out, but then I wouldn’t know what question she’s going to ask. Still, it wouldn’t be a question of any great interest if she’s in a meeting where they’re taking minutes. Hmm…

“Mr Ugo?” she brought me out of my mind.

“Yes, Home Secretary. Please, ask what you wish.”

She smiled, quite a devious one. “Are you actually an accomplice working together with David Cennet?” she inquired. A direct and bold attack of thoughts I didn’t even think they’d conjure up.

“Wow! Ma’am, that’s an interesting question! I’m curious as to what you’d do if I said ‘yes’.”

“You’ve proven yourself a smart and able person, Mr Ugo. I’m sure you already know what we’ll do.”

I squeezed my lips together and shook my head, “I’m still just a kid. I can’t say I’m that familiar with our judicial system. Perhaps you can elaborate at a time,” a faint smirk appeared on my face, “more convenient.”

“Mr Ugo,” she leaned forward, “are you asking to meet the Home Secretary on more, personal grounds?”

“I guess I am.”

She relaxed her body a bit, “That can be arranged.”

“Splendid!” I stood up. “I don’t suppose you could afford an adoring fan a handshake?”

“Why of course, Mr Ugo,” she stood up and we met on the half to shake hands. Before getting up, I stuck the little recording device in the webbing of my thumb and index fingers, away from the prying eyes of our audience. We shook hands, and she placed her other hand on the back of mine and gave an extra pump. “A pleasure, Mr Ugo.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Home Secretary. Goodbye.”

As we let go, she took the device. Reckless, yes, but I knew that plan would either blow up in my face or work out perfectly. It was a risk I was willing to take, and also somewhat of a test to see the kind of person she was. As for why Sean Murray handed it to me, I couldn’t be sure.

Anna and I left for home in an escort. A housekeeper saw us in and we plopped onto the couch. Anna got a drink of bourbon from the bar.

“Well, this is a first.”

She looked at me, wordless, then placed her eyes down into the drink. “I’ll resign as CEO.”

“What? Why?!”

“Because, Jared, there’s not enough time to be CEO and be there for you. You’re going off on your own,” she began tearing up, “to fight terrorism! That’s not your job, Jared! It’s not…” her hand squeezed the glass and she dropped her head on the counter. “It’s not your job. I don’t know what you’re turning into. You know things kids your age shouldn’t know. You know people kids your age wouldn’t bat an eye at! You’re suffering, and I can’t do anything about it. I’m, usele–”

“Anna!” I yelled, jumping her. “Those aren’t the things a mom is supposed to say.”

“I,” she went quiet, “I know.”

“You want the truth?” I grew tired of her sombre mood. “Here’s the truth. My truth. You’re right, you’re useless to me, practically speaking. When I’m flying about the city and rescuing hostages or taking down Cennet’s TS, you’re not there to help. When I’m defusing bombs, you’re not there either.” She curled within herself even more. “But you know what? I don’t want you to be. Hell, I want you to be as far away from that as possible!” She finally looked up. “Anna, I don’t want you to be some superhero who comes down from the skies and fixes everything. What I want from you is to simply be alive, well, and happy. What I want from you is to go home after hard days like this one and see you. What I want is for you to hug me, and tell me everything will be alright. As long as I have that, I can live through anything anyone throws at me. Now,” I sat next to her and grabbed a glass and the bottle of bourbon, “Let’s have a drink, yeah?”

Before I could pour any, she snatched it away. “You’re too young for this, mister!”

I smiled, then burst into a bright guffaw, “That’s the spirit.” I hugged her, “Thanks for being here with me. And don’t drink too much of that. The CEO,” I emphasised, “shouldn’t miss work.”

She returned to work to finish up what she had doing, somewhat tipsy. The day ended with me going down to my old lab in the basement and recollecting the things that happened. The next day started with a phone call waking me up.

“Hello?” my morning voice.

“Oh, goodness. My apologies for waking you, Mr Ugo.”

My eyes shot open, “Ma’am!”

“It’s not nice to keep a lady waiting, Mr Ugo.” She hung up.

What the… I got up and meandered outside the basement, appearing in the living room. The stairs towards the bedrooms upstairs had a bodyguard standing at its plateau. I paused when I noticed him. “She’s up there, isn’t she?” I asked and saw the home secretary walking back to the stairs.

A couple minutes later, we sat with tea and coffee on the sofas. She sat about an arm’s length away from me.

“So, Ban sleeps in the basement,” she commented.

“You read my file, Home Secretary. I suppose I should feel honoured.”

She took a sip of her tea, “You took quite the risk, giving me that thing. I bet you thought it couldn’t be traced back to TEO Sean Murray, since it wasn’t their standard issue device.” A couple blocks of sugar and she stirred, inhaling the tea’s flavourful aroma.

“Hmm, yeah. Fingerprints, right? I realised that could’ve been the only way you could figure out who gave it to me. What will you do about it?”

She took another sip, giving a small nod to confirm her passing of it. “For now, nothing. Not until we figure out what his reason for giving it to you is. As for why you passed it to me, the one person in the room you definitely shouldn’t have passed it to… Well, that’s what I’m here to find out. I knew it wasn’t mere bravery. That was a calculated risk. A risk I want to uncover the meaning behind.”

I rested my mug back onto the saucer, snickering a bit, “One of the reasons, was to somewhat size you up. Before making it a problem, you sought to find out if it was a problem in the first place. I don’t mind disclosing things to someone level-headed. But, trusting you is a whole other story. Plus, I get the drop-dead gorgeous Home Secretary all to myself. I do feel a bit special.”

She looked right at me, and I at her in response. “You said ‘one of the reasons’. What are the others?”

“No response on my compliment? Level-headed indeed. The other reason, was to actually hear the recording. I needed to know what the higherups would decide to do about David Cennet.”

“We plan to stop him of course. But that much is obvious, isn’t it? So why do you want to know what we’re deciding to do about him?”

I looked forward and took my coffee up. “Because, Home Secretary, I may have to stop you from pursuing him.”

“I’m sorry?” She came closer to me, “What was that?”

“No, I’m not in cahoots with him. But I’ve seen what he can do. I’ve felt what he can do. He is cunning, and will not engage if–”

“Get to the point, Mr Ugo.”

I sat up properly and looked her right in the eye, our faces barely close enough for our eyes to focus. “I don’t want the Andino brothers to die. I don’t want anyone else to die. Unless I know for certain you have ways of subduing him or killing him without getting the police, TEO, or military killed in the process, then I’ll allow you to do just that.”

“You’ll allow it? Are you saying you have the ability to disallow it?”

“No. I will not directly confront any authority. But I can heavily slow you down until I take out Cennet myself.”

“Are you saying you’ll interfere with the work of national security in order to save people you barely know?”

“Yes,” I answered stoically, unmoving in my resolve.

She sighed and smiled, looking forward. “You remind me of my late husband.”

“I-I’m sorry, Home Sec–”

“Rosa. Just call me Rosa. Doesn’t feel right for a thirteen-year-old to call me by my job title. He’d also call me that, jokingly.”

“Don’t tell me you want me to marry you, Rosa.”

“What if I said I do?”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to say no.”

She cackled, a laugh I’d never thought I’d hear. “Tell you what, Mr Ugo, if–”

“Jared. Just call me Jared. Doesn’t feel right for Rosa to call me by my surname.”

She guffawed yet again, trying to hold her laugh to a more ladylike standing. “Quite the joker, aren’t you? As I was saying,” she placed the device on my lap, “if you find it in yourself to trust me and tell me what you know, I can pull the plug on Cennet’s investigation.”

“I don’t want his investigation stopped. I just don’t want anyone to try to go out and confront him if they’re not going with a failproof plan. Investigate all you want.”

She curled the corners of her lips upward, “You’ve been hacking and seeing how far along we’ve gotten, haven’t you?”

I winked.

“If you have access to the TEO records, then you’re most likely ahead of everyone with intel. I doubt I need to tell you this, but don’t play hero. If you find a way of beating him, share it with us. Do not go alone. Just as you don’t want others to die, others don’t want you to die.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Rosa.”

“Thank you for the tea,” she stood up, and I followed.

“Until we meet again.”

“Hmm, that’s such a morose tone.” She winked, and walked out the house.

Okay, what just happened?

The military drove me to my lab at close to the pier, and when I entered, Michael Asher was there, waiting on me. I heard the toilet flush before we could say anything to each other, and the white-maned Franklin Donovan came out the washroom. “Oh, Ugo. Glad you didn’t take long,” he fixed his tie.

“We know you met with the Home Secretary this morning,” the minister pointed out. It appeared he was of a lesser power in the cabinet than the Home Secretary, so I knew if I had to really depend on anyone, it would most likely be Rosa. Seeing the TEO director bootlicking for favour made me realise Rosa was indeed the person to be feared. And seeing him also argue with Michael Asher over who held the rights to pursue the David Cennet case made me realise they probably competed more often than I thought, giving them both around the same level of power. Besides, one wanted me to kill Cennet, and the other calmly said he would deny ever having me assist the TEO if it ever came to light that we worked together. Not too ethical.

But now, for some reason, they both gathered under the same roof, on their lonesome, to see me. I hung my coat over the back of my chair, “I can’t imagine your knowledge of the Home Secretary’s whereabouts would please her security team. So, how can I help you gentlemen?”

“By keeping your mouth shut. Let’s get something straight, ‘Mr Ugo’,” Michael Asher mocked Rosa, “if she, or her office, finds out about the deals we made with you, Cennet would be the least of your worries.”

I stared at him, deadpan and unmoving. “Does he speak for you as well, TEO Donovan?”

“That he does,” the man replied snappily.

“Minister Asher,” he glowered at me, “you said Cennet would be the least of my worries. Should I take that as a threat?”

He stood up, “It would be in your best interest to,” and walked past me to go outside.

“I believe we have an agreement?” The TEO director extended his hand.

I shook my head, “I didn’t hear the tap run.” I refused his handshake, so he walked past and wilfully bumped into me.

What a pain in the ass. So, I have to look out for them as well. I sighed mentally. I should get them out of the way as soon as I can. The first thing I did was search the office and lab for any listening devices. Once I was sure no foreign objects were left behind, I went to an internet café in a mall and began digging up all the articles I could find on them. Any dirt I could get would be helpful. However, all of it was simply alleged, no one ever truly found their hands in anything dirty, which would explain why they still had their positions. After I compiled all the information I could, I whipped out a laptop with the tools I needed to get into their personal computers. It took all damn day, unfortunately, but I was able to gain access they couldn’t pick up on as long as their computers were turned on.

Day turned to night, and the café’s shift changed. I had dirt on both of them to give myself more than enough leverage. Transactions, a lot of them, to and from shady people with traces of incriminating conversation. Plus, I had the visit they made to me earlier that morning on record. Considering I got it done in one day, it wasn’t really that hard. They probably refused to get help from techies at their jobs, so they hid it with the knowledge they had themselves, which wasn’t enough.

Unfortunately, I had to shunt aside what I’d plan to do that day because of them. I decided to return to the lab when an email came through from what was clearly a throwaway account. There was an address, date, and time on it.

Flying over there, I noticed it led to a motel a bit in the countryside. Seven thirty, I thought, noting the time before I knocked on the door. The TK was nearby in the parking lot, using the guise of darkness to shroud itself.

The door opened and an overweight man answered. He’d grown a stubble and his ponytail was longer than the usual. “Ban, good to finally meet you, man. I’m Xeno.”