The safehouse smelled like dust, old paper, and burnt coffee. Four walls, one flickering bulb, and a table that had seen better days. The air was stale, heavy with a kind of stillness that always reminded me of the places the Directorate sent me: forgotten, temporary, useful only because no one wanted to look too closely.
I'd stayed in worse.
Agent 002 was already there, slouched in his chair like he owned the place. He always did. One leg on the table, smoke curling lazily from the cigarette in his fingers, a chipped mug of black coffee within reach. His grin was the same as ever — smug, unbothered, like he'd been waiting for me just to piss me off.
"About time," he said, raising the mug in mock salute. "I thought maybe you got lost."
"I don't get lost," I said with a faint smile, trying for light.
002 squinted through the smoke. "Sure. And I don't gamble." He leaned forward, grin widening. "Kid, you could say it with a balloon and a birthday hat, but your eyes would still give you away. Always scanning. Always counting exits."
I forced the smile to linger anyway. No point giving him more fuel.
"Perfect soldier," he went on. "Never lost, never scared. Always brooding with that dead-eyed glare. A real poster boy for the Agency."
I shook my head, let out the smallest chuckle. "Glad I make the pamphlet look good."
That earned a low laugh from him. He thrived on needling me, but he also liked when I threw a jab back.
I crossed to the table, ignoring the way his eyes followed me. The folder sat between us, thick and stamped in red: **PROJECT AEGIS.**
I pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down. "What's this?"
"Your next assignment," he said, nudging it closer with two fingers. "Cover identity puts you as a new hire at a promising tech startup downtown. Shiny building, fresh paint, all the right buzzwords. On paper it's clean, but the higher-ups aren't buying it."
I flipped the folder open. Surveillance photos, grainy and gray. A man in a suit stepping into a car. A woman handing off a briefcase at a train station. A face blurred midstride on a crowded street. Bank records. Numbers that didn't add up. Names scribbled in the margins, some crossed out, others underlined.
Half the pages were blacked out so heavily they looked like abstract art.
"You don't even know what Project Aegis is," I said, scanning another redacted page.
002 smirked, tapping ash into the tray. "Don't need to. The people circling this 'startup' aren't just investors. They're known assets of Eastern covert ops. The kind who don't sneeze without clearing it through the Regime. And now they're suddenly entrepreneurs?" He shook his head. "Too neat. Too quiet. Smells wrong."
I flipped another page, watching names vanish into black lines. "So you're sending me in blind."
"Blind?" His grin widened. "Nah. Just half-blind."
I shut the file. "Feels like a minefield."
"That's the job, kid. But you're good at this. Best damn infiltrator we've got. Me? I'd stick out like a sore thumb. You? You walk in cold, steady voice, friendly smile, eyes like glass — they can't tell if you're one of them or the guy about to bury them. That's a gift."
I didn't call it a gift. Just surviving.
He leaned back, chair balancing on two legs, smoke rising toward the ceiling. His whole posture screamed careless, but his eyes never stopped watching.
"You're not dancing on the borders this time," he went on. "You're heading into the East. Deep. Kessan District. Their turf. Over there, people don't laugh without checking the walls for ears. You slip once, you're not just burned. You're gone."
He wasn't wrong. The East and West had been circling each other for decades, a cold war gone lukewarm. Skirmishes flared on the borders, but the real fight was quieter: intelligence, sabotage, who could choke the other faster without triggering a warhead launch.
"That's why Aegis matters," 002 said, tapping the folder again. "If the Regime's covert ops are funneling money into this startup, it's not business. It's leverage. Maybe surveillance tech. Maybe something nastier. Either way, you're going in to find out."
"And if I get caught?" I asked, tone casual — but my eyes flicked down to the folder too quickly.
"You won't." He said it like the weather. Then he smirked. "But if you do, don't expect me to come drag you out."
I gave him a dry smile. "Good to know you've got my back."
"Damn right." He grinned wider, striking a match and lighting another cigarette.
That was 002 in a nutshell. Too smug, too casual, too comfortable being everyone's problem but his own. The Agency called him my mentor. I called him an accident waiting to happen.
He exhaled smoke and tilted his head. "Oh, one more thing. Your living arrangement in Kessan. You'll be renting a room, playing the 'quiet tenant' angle. Easier than sticking you in some crumbling flat where the neighbors ask questions."
I arched a brow, let a wry smile tug at my mouth. "So I get a landlord and a startup. Anything else in the package deal?"
"Not simple. Someone vouched. A contact." His grin sharpened. "Mary. You'll like her — warm, domestic, knows when to look the other way. She's been vouched for by someone with pull in the district."
"Who?"
He took his time with the cigarette, letting silence stretch. "Valerie," he said at last. "You'll hear the name soon enough. She runs things in Kessan the Regime pretends not to see. If she says Mary's safe, then she's safe."
I gave a light nod, like I didn't care, but my gaze stayed on him a beat too long. Valerie. Even unspoken, the name already carried weight.
002 let the subject drop like ash. "Anyway, play the good tenant. Pay rent, wash your dishes, keep your cover clean. You spook her, you spook the whole chain."
"Sounds domestic," I said with a faint grin. "Never my strong suit."
"Relax," he said, smoke curling. "Blend in. Don't slip. And for God's sake, fix that look of yours — you'll spook them before you even shake hands."
I met his smirk with silence. Respect was earned. 002 hadn't earned mine.
I stood, tucking the file under my arm. "I'll handle it."
"I know you will," he said, leaning back like the night was already over. "That's why they sent you."
The safehouse door groaned shut behind me, and the city's cold air hit my face.
---
The streets outside were hushed under the Regime's watch. Posters of the leaders glared down from brick walls, slogans promising unity and prosperity. The paint had begun to peel, but the eyes still followed.
Patrols marched in formation, boots striking pavement in a rhythm that set the pace of the city itself.
People moved quietly, heads lowered. A ration line coiled around a bakery that hadn't smelled of bread in years. A vendor sold thin soup out of a steaming vat, and the queue shuffled forward, bowls in hand. A whispered joke sparked between two workers, but the laughter died when a patrol turned the corner. Silence fell like a curtain.
On the corner, two men sat at an open-air bar, nursing the same glasses of vodka for an hour. Suits too crisp, haircuts too clean. They pretended to chat, but their eyes never stopped moving — across the street, down the alleys, over every face. Regime agents, watching. Everyone knew it. Everyone pretended not to.
I kept my shoulders loose, my stride easy, like I was just another young man in the crowd. But my gaze betrayed me — always scanning windows, alley mouths, hands that lingered too long in coat pockets. A front is only skin deep.
I was still thinking about the file when a kid barreled out of a convenience shop and smacked into my leg. His lollipop hit the pavement, skittered into the gutter.
"Sorry!" his mother called, hurrying after him, her voice low and strained. She grabbed his arm, pulling him close. Her eyes flicked toward the corner — toward the agents.
The boy's lip trembled. I crouched, bought him a new one from the counter, and pressed it into his hand. "No problem," I said, adding a reassuring smile.
His face lit up for half a second — a spark in a city where sparks didn't last long. He glanced back at me, clutching the candy like treasure, until his mother yanked his hand down. Her eyes didn't linger on the smile I gave her. They lingered on my eyes. Then she hurried him away.
I straightened, file under my arm, and moved on. Every smile, every kindness, every handshake I left behind carried risk. Collateral wasn't a possibility here. It was a certainty.
The Directorate always knew how to make the game interesting.
Somewhere in that silence, a shiny new startup waited with too many secrets. And buried inside it, Project Aegis.