I took stock of what I knew about 'Agent Red', temporarily going by Ilaria, and the F.D.D.I as an organization. The latter I knew plenty about, as did anyone who paid attention in history class, it was the former that gave me trouble- even after going out of my way to do some reading on them.

There just isn't much public information on Agent Red, which makes sense. That would defeat the purpose of them being an infiltrator. I know they can shapeshift, meaning they can alter their body at will, but to what extent is unclear. It's safe to assume any human is probably within their ability. But beyond that, It's mostly my inferences and guesswork. They were effective, almost definitely. There's nothing on whatever jobs Agent red took part in, but you don't get into the 'Agent' rank in the F.D.D.I by being 'good enough'. The Agents of F.D.D.I can rival the best in whatever field they specialize in, and that's before considering their powers. Simply put, if Agent Red wanted me dead- no one would notice I was gone until they were long gone.

Luckily, I knew Smith had contingencies for that sort of thing. I also knew that killing someone would be off the table when dealing with a high profile target like Amanda Smith. The F.D.D.I wouldn't try anything like that. Even if they did anyway, all hell would break loose when people found out someone was killed without so much as a court hearing. Empowered, counter to what the rush would imply, have settled into a nice and simple 'stick to the law, and don't cross the line' mindset. There were exceptions, but those almost always got stamped out quickly before the F.D.D.I even had a thorough profile on them. All of that to say the F.D.D.I would face a strong backlash from a majority of the population. That wasn't even taking into account their own empowered or just a higher up at the F.D.D.I being displeased with the decision and making it the entire organization's problem. They haven't been the kind of organization to act as the executioner for rogue empowered in a long time, and it's very likely that sliding back into those behaviors would cause trouble. The simple truth was, even with all of the factors against clandestine assassination, none of it mattered. The F.D.D.I, and by extension most of the people working there, aren't the type of organization to do that. I wasn't likely to be in any real danger in the first place.

That didn't change the fact I was still terrified. Worrying about Agent Red took up more of my thoughts than actual work.

I have every reason to know that I should feel safe, but that's like saying spiders aren't dangerous to an arachnophobe. I'm sitting next to a person I know close to nothing about, while also trying to make sure they don't find out about what little I do know. As much as I talked a big game about making their life miserable, pushing buttons is the worst possible move I could make. Even if they can’t do anything to me, publicly or not, it still might tip them off that I know something. So honestly some caution is warranted with how I behave, intentionally making their life worse is a bad call. I mean, I suppose having to learn how to be an internal auditor while also being tasked to do multiple months' worth of evaluations could be considered a form of torment, but that would be putting myself in the crossfire in a different way.

Ilaria had functionally been given the role as our Chief Accounting Officer. Nominally she was still a Financial Accountant, but I had them going over our previous audits and financial reports for any remaining mistakes and malicious alterations from the fraud. This put them in my proverbial line of sight at all times, as Smith had asked me to do, but also meant I had to double check their work.

Yeah, I can't exactly bank on them having trouble doing their…. her job. I should refer to them as their civilian identity, I don't want to slip up like an idiot. Disregarding that, her failing to do her job makes my job harder. Which I might have to deal with at some point since her cocky attitude did a one-eighty once she was actually given work to do. I can't tell if the change was genuine or an act, but that makes sense. Infiltrator and all that. Despite her newly unsure demeaner there had yet to be any mistakes. For the time being at least, the workload should be less intense-

"Mr. Rodgers,"

A meek voice interrupted my thoughts, sounding as if they were trying to whisper while also throwing her voice.

"I think I might have made a mistake on an audit table. Can you help show me what went wrong?"

SON OF A-

It took 3 hours to find the problem. It was one of those small but crucial mistakes that you look at and wonder how you missed it the first time around while also marveling at how much damage a single difference can do. Along with that, the tables themselves were a mess. I had set up a policy of formatting the tables a certain way for audits.

Which I haven't taught her yet. Great. At this point I should just make a list of everything extra I have to do, then I can at least feel like I'm making progress.

Making a mental note to do just that, I finally returned to my desk after an unnecessary amount of "sorry" and "thank you" from Ilaria.

Maybe now I can get some work done. I mean, that was why we hired her in the first place. To make sure I didn't have to do all that busy work? Whatever, I'm sure things will get easier as she gets used to this.

Thus, my work day continued.