Tracker gently placed the screen of her tablet-laptop convertible onto the cushioned sheets of her bed and tried hard to not rub at her done-up eyes with a small amount of frustration.

The day had mostly been all hers, allowed to do any work that she needed from the comfort of her own room, and all that had really happened was Aaliyah’s progress in her training and some other bits and pieces amongst the other trainees. After helping Mirah in the morning, Tracker had been able to go to her room and stay there.

She hadn’t forgotten that tonight was the night that she was to meet with Chef—someone she was sorely regretting not learning the name of. She had spent the day theory crafting an outfit, something that she was adept at, even if she mostly defaulted to the custom fitted, exceptionally protective suit that she had spent an eyewatering amount on.

However, for whatever reason, she had blanked all day. In the end, she went with a decent dress. Nothing revealing or formal, but a nice blue dress made to fit a large variety of social situations. One she hadn’t worn due to the total lack of any social situations that she attended on her own time.

She had done a full face of makeup, unlike the minor amounts she used on a day to day. It certainly wasn’t gaudy, but it was just a little bit more—adding little to what she normally wore, but enough to differentiate it by look. She wore her long dark hair in a similar bun as she always did, though just a little looser than normal, less manufactured and corporate.

She realised that she had completely over-engineered her current outfit, for what it was, but she could hardly care at the moment. She had much more important things to worry about.

Communication.

Something vital to any good conversation was the method of communication. Some worked better in certain situations, like texting was when trying to keep things quiet, but most of the time, the method of choice was to simply speak. Problem being, Tracker could barely decipher Australian Sign Language.

She had a friend long ago that had taught her a fair amount, enough to have a basic conversation at the time, but now years had passed, and she had forgotten much of the language. It was a good thing that Tracker was exceptional at learning. Memorisation was something that she needed to get a grip on in her earlier days; locations, movement patterns, who was who and where was where. All of this information needed to be learnt at the drop of a hat in a dire situation.

In rare situations, that also had applied to languages. She had learnt the basics of a handful of languages, focussing more on their radio chatter, and other communication that could be intercepted. But she had managed to learn a language to nigh fluency within a week once, a task she had thoroughly impressed herself, and her contractor by. She had been paid handsomely for that job.

However, today she was accomplishing something she never had before. Today, she had learnt ASL as quickly as she could, her mind whirring with an anxiety unlike anything she had experienced, at least not for years. It was one-part impressive and one-part mortifying; the anxiety of the near future pushing her mind so much harder than a life-or-death situation had in years.

Now, as she finally pried herself from the screen that was streaming comprehensive ASL lessons on four times speed, she rushed herself out the door and into the elevator before she could stop herself.

There hadn’t been a set place to meet, mostly because it was inherently obvious. The man was literally granted the name Chef, and anyone who knew him, called him by Chef—oblivious of his real name. Tracker made her way to the cafeteria, which had very few people sitting within its numerous tables and chairs. None of which lifted their head to look in her direction.

Tracker moved with a grace that she didn’t feel towards the doors of the kitchen and gently made her way through them, careful to not make much noise, lest someone take precise notice of her.

She slipped inside to find the kitchen empty and dark, but she had read up on the building plans weeks ago and knew that just through a connecting door was a corridor that eventually led to two living quarters. She stepped on through that door and found herself enchanted by the smell of cooking, a specific smell that reminded her of warm moments from a household she had left long ago.

She had always laughed at the cartoons where a character smelt something nice and floated on over to where it was, but now she was almost embarrassed to find herself standing in an open doorway into Chef’s living quarters—the sudden displacement from where she stood was almost jarring. She found the tall and fine man standing over a stove, stirring a pot or two with a loving focus. He turned to her and gave her a wide smile, flashing two rows of almost perfect teeth—something Tracker couldn’t help but prefer to the overly white and aligned teeth of almost every American celebrity.

He was clad in more casual clothing than the strict and maintained work uniform he had been in when they first met. He wore a pair of jeans, not quite skin-tight, but enough that it accentuated the length of his legs. His shirt was a nice dress shirt; a slightly darker blue than his bright eyes—covered over by a generous apron to protect his clothes against the occasional sputter out of the pots. He was just as gorgeous as Tracker remembered him to be, almost intimidatingly so, and it made a small part of her even more anxious now that she was here in his presence.

The man gestured over to a simple table, not large by any means, but more than enough to house four or so guests. Two places were set semi-formally with nice cutlery, placemats and small bowls and plates.

Tracker took a moment to look around the man’s living space and found it to be surprisingly nice. Though it wasn’t on the same level of luxury that she and the rest of the team enjoyed on floor eight, this was easily one of the better accommodations you could find yourself in within the building. It had excellent and expansive kitchen, filled with pans and tools of all sorts for obvious reasons, including a separate area of a bedroom and a bathroom.

It wasn’t long before the man was finished cooking, and even less time until a large array of food was laid in front of her—letting her feast with her eyes. A larger bowl of what looked and smelt to be chicken tikka masala, the lovely red-brown hue of it’s gravy leaving Tracker’s mouth salivating. There were various other small dishes, including a smaller serving of tadka daal; a mild and warm dish she had loved cooking with her mother during her youth.

She realised that she had been staring at the array of food for more time than was polite, and she forced her eyes up to the chef himself, staring at her with a gentle smile on his face—clearly enjoying her expression of rapture.

“You made all this?” Tracker said aloud and equally as dumbly. Chef raised an eyebrow amusedly, before pulling up a small tablet with an electronic pen. Tracker almost smacked herself over the head. She had been planning to greet him smoothly with sign, but her dumb mouth just couldn’t stop itself. She quickly caught the man’s attention and begun to sign rapidly and accurately.

“Thank you for the meal, though I hate to think how long it took you to just feed me.” She said, the awkwardness of her mind having to translate from the raw signed words into more comprehendible English was now gone, letting her communicate almost as fluently in ASL as she could speak English. Chef jolted a little, before he placed down his tablet and grinned boyishly.

“You’re a fast study it seems.” He stated, his elegant fingers moving quickly with the words. He was still signing slower than he had with the other man she had briefly met in the kitchen, but it was faster than she would have been able to read only the day before.

“A skill that comes into use often.” Tracker replied sagely, finding herself easing back into the groove of not being wonderstruck by the gorgeous man in front of her. He spent a few moments organising the plates on the table, and giving her one, as well as pouring her a glass of water, then commencing their feast.

They didn’t speak while they ate, for obvious reasons, but Tracker found herself unable to even if she desperately wanted to. The food was so reminiscent of the food that she had once cooked with family and extended family as a child—the lovely moments of cooking with her mother and her aunt, on the occasion that she visited from India. She didn’t quite realise that she had abandoned the cutlery and instead begun to eat with her hands, like she had all throughout her childhood, the chapati comfortably holding the rice, vegetables and a decent helping of the main dish.

The time flew by as they both ate, enjoying their company and mutual enjoyment of the food at hand, but before long the food was all gone—somehow just enough to fill but also leave a small, unfulfilled space, leaving you wanting more.

“You enjoyed my cooking, I hope?” Tracker took a deep breath, feeling the light burn from the spice in the food. She looked at the man in front of her deeply, the slight smile on his androgenous features along with the faint wafts of his black hair that had come loose from his tightly controlled and artistically created bun. She swallowed the last of her class of water and cleaned her hands before she signed back at the man.

“I’d swear that you learnt to cook from my grandmother. Are you sure you haven’t met her?” She saw the grin sprout on his face, along with a rare pang of an untainted emotion within Tracker’s own chest. She almost felt ashamed as she admitted to herself that it was joy.

“I wish I could travel to India. I believe that I could learn much about the food there but being Linked there is very unsafe.” The man shrugged sadly, and Tracker understood. She’d only been to India twice while she was young, mostly at the behest of her maternal grandfather’s funeral and shortly after her grandmother’s, but it was already dangerous to be there then. Now, it was a constant warzone, Linked clashing against one another with practically nothing that can be done to stop them—leading those without a link to call their own with no choice but to run and hide.

They chatted idly for a few moments longer before they eventually arrived at the topic of Mirah. Strangely enough, all of the responses she received made sense. The man had an empathic link, to an extent. He was capable of feeling the general emotions of someone, though usually it was muddy, and was also capable of random flashes of inspiration or understanding—allowing him to almost embody the mindset and memories of someone else for just a moment.

It was one of the links that, if you changed it only minorly, would easily allow someone to be incredibly powerful. The ability to assume someone’s mindset so completely that you could recount memories that they’d had, emotions they’d experienced, and things important to them? It was a spy’s wet dream.

Though, Tracker found herself relieved that a man like Chef was the one to find himself with that link, as obscure as its use was in such a volatile form and as clearly undefined as it was categorised. Instead of being someone who lies and cheats to rise through the ladder, he used it to isolate foods distinctly tied to emotions to help people. To help her.

To help her. A perfectly cooked Indian dinner, almost exactly how her mother would have cooked it herself, in just the way that she liked it. Tracker gave into the warm emotion that realisation left in her chest, allowing herself to feel the warmth that she so often had to manufacture for the sake of appearances. Conversing came easily after that, looser than Tracker had allowed herself to be with anyone in forever; exhilarating in the sheer connection that she could feel between them.

There was something between them, as Tracker and Chef talked about nothing more important than their favourite meals and the pastimes they enjoy. It was undeniably rapturous, the claws of the beast sinking deep into her flesh and dragging her closer towards him, despite her trained mind screaming at her to not let it happen. Her mind knew that it was a fool’s wish, something she had seen go horribly for any number of ex-co-workers.

Finding love, that is.

Tracker almost jolted out of her chair when that thought hit her mind, startling the beautiful man opposite her. Her stomach dropped with the leap out of her chair, the beautiful emotions she was feeling surrendering to the pull of the void in her gut. She had half a mind to grab them and hold them close, but the anxiety paralysed her as she watched them disappear, subsumed almost entirely—nothing but anxiety left behind to fester.

“Are you alright?” He asked gently, making sure that she saw every movement. Tracker nodded shakily, but now the warm trance she had found herself in was gone—leaving her with a heart beating at a million miles per hour, the adrenalin kicking in only moments later, making her feel ill.

“I’m fine, I just…” She paused, unsure what to sign next, but she saw the flash of understanding in the man’s eyes. Tracker couldn’t be sure if he had received a moment of her mindset from his link, or if he was just good at reading the room in general.

“I understand.” He said, his gentle hand gestures somehow translating into a calm and soothing voice in her mind. Tracker swallowed against a shock of sickness from her stomach and promptly signed goodbye, before practically running from the room.

When she finally made it back to her own room, she didn’t even bother to change clothes before she launched herself, face first, into her bedsheets. She wrapped herself in them and sat there silently for a few hours, contemplating everything as tears somehow made their way to her long since tearless eyes.

“Well,” she said softly to no-one, “at least I got the answers I wanted.”

No, she didn’t, she realised. She didn’t even get his name.