Jim and Steve materialized at the Alliance base. The former spy held his stomach and exhaled sharply. Steve assumed he hadn’t crossed mediums in some time. It took at least a week of constant travel to become accustomed to this level of teleporting. Fortunately for Steve, he’d been doing it for years. As they walked down the corridor to the lift, he glanced over at Jim’s expression. It was blank as an empty canvas. Not even a clench or a muscle twitch.

Jim was a mysterious character. Nobody knew who he really was. That’s what made him the best spy the Alliance had and possibly the only reason he escaped Sigvald’s watchful eye alive. But being the spy he was, Steve watched him harden over time. Jim was willing to do things John and the rest would not dream of which made him the perfect man to do the dirty work for the leader of the Alliance.

The silence between them swelled, Jim’s presence becoming even more awkward. To the rest of the Alliance Jim had died years ago, his rouse only being known to Steve and John. The two most senior members of the organization.

“I’m sorry,” Steve finally said. “For putting you through all this.”

“Apologize to me when the mission is over. When Sigvald is dead. When the bioweapon is defused. When SEKT is no more,” Jim replied as they waited for the elevator to arrive at their floor.

Jim was a good actor, but even he couldn’t contain the guilt he felt. What did he do there? Steve asked himself.

“Do you think they will welcome me?” Jim asked.

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “There were mixed feelings surrounding your death. Some mourned, others didn’t.”

The elevator beeped and the doors opened for the two to step inside. Steve stepped inside but saw Jim frozen in place. “Come on, Jim. I’m sure it will be fine.”

With a courteous smile, he stepped into the elevator but it soon vanished the moment he turned around. This is not going to go well, Steve thought scratching his forehead.

***

Breach’s fist landed cleanly on Jim’s cheek, his body falling to the concrete floor with a thud. As Steve tried to break up the fight that had immediately sparked the moment Breach caught sight of the spy, the others watched unbothered. Ethan winced intermittently after every blow dealt to Jim but only pleaded for Breach to stop. After a minute of Breach’s onslaught, Amber sighed and yanked Breach away from Jim’s curled up body.

“That’s quite enough,” she said, tightening her grip on Breach’s arm.

Jim wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and looked at it with disgust. He wiped it off on his shirt and stood up with a groan. “It’s nice to see you too, Breach. I nearly forgot what your knuckles felt like.”

Breach scowled. He ripped his arm from Amber’s grasp and moved it around in a circle, massaging his strained muscle. His gaze did not meet Jim’s. Instead, he made every effort to avoid it. Steve and Amber both flicked their eyes between the two, concerned.

He decided to change the topic to something more professional. “Jim has returned from his undercover work and has some information about the bioweapon.”

Steve observed Ethan attentiveness to the subject being discussed. Rico arrived late… As usual… His mouthed still chewed on the last bit of food left and a bottle of water in his hand.

“Sorry I’m late, Sir,” he said with a casual salute.

The leader of the Alliance rolled his eyes and gestured for Rico to join the round table. Steve hauled a small cube no larger than the palm of his hand and slid it to the middle of the table.

“Show us what you’ve got,” he said nodding to Jim.

Jim placed hovered his tablet over the cube momentarily until a green light flashed twice. A holographic interactive screen appeared and filled the table. A rotating map of South Africa stood before the team of infiltrators.

“As you’re aware, the bio-weapon has been around for three months. While there is no concrete link between this and the bombing of the teleporting station a few days before its release, it’s too much of a coincidence to think they aren’t.”

He pulled up a model of the bio-weapon on screen. “This is a similar model to the viru—”

“The virus that was released as a bomb ten years ago,” completed Ethan. “A mutated form of it, in fact.”

Steve glanced at Jim who looked perplexed at the young man’s knowledge of the bio-weapon. “So, you’ve studied this one before, Ethan?”

“Of course I have. I wrote a dissertation on it and the causes for the mass casualties.”

Jim gestured to Ethan to speak, realizing this was not his area of expertise. Ethan pointed to the diagram and looked at Steve asking for approval to proceed. Steve nodded slowly and allowed Ethan to explain.

After a few seconds of analysis, Ethan leaned forward. “This is not looking good. It’s almost identical except for one characteristic. It mutates too rapidly and too sporadically to predict.”

“What does that mean?” asked John.

“It means a vaccine could work but it’ll take significantly longer,” said Ethan. “There’s really only two ways to kill off this virus.” He spread his arms out, zooming in on a piece of machinery embedded in the RNA of the virus. “This device right here is what controls the bio-weapon and its symptoms. Upon receiving specific frequencies from a main server, it forces a mutation in the RNA and transmits the signal to its closest agent.”

“Like a row of dominoes?” asked Breach.

“Disable the original transmitter and the bio-weapon is about as mild as the flu. It’s that or take your chances waiting for a vaccine.”

Steve contemplated Ethan’s words as the chatter of his surroundings faded to the background. It would be difficult to locate the transmitter let alone disable it. But the vaccine could take too long. He didn’t know how long he had before Sigvald detonated it. Then there was Ethan’s truthfulness. He hadn’t determined if he was a spy or not so how could he trust anything he said? It wasn’t as if he had anyone else knowledgeable enough to call him out if he was lying about all of this to lure him into Sigvald’s clutches.

“If we go after the transmitter,” began Steve. “What are we looking for?”

Ethan stroked his chin and looked at the ceiling in thought. “I don’t know. A server room the size of the med bay maybe. It’s a lot of transmissions so the place has to be huge like back in the war. If you give me the doc I’ll have a look at some maps and try and narrow the position of the ser—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Steve said promptly. The rest of the infiltrators exchanged looks of confusion. While this was very necessary the last place Steve wanted vital intel in the hands of was Ethan. “I will deploy a handful or recon drones to scout for SEKT settlements and take them out one by one. We’ll find it eventually.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to ju—”

“No,” Steve cut off Jim firmly before he could plant that seed. “The more we spend our time analyzing, the less time we have to act.”

Begrudgingly, Jim backed off and the rest followed suite. Closing the hologram, Steve tucked the box into the top pocket of his white shirt. He dismissed everyone except for John and Jim who he kept behind for a meeting.

Though the table was small, John kept as much distance from Jim as he could. Steve could see the blind man’s muscles tense up. One slap from John might’ve been enough to knock him out cold. Steve tapped his feet twice and exhaled loudly. John released his clenched fist and tried his best to relax his body.

Steve slid Ethan’s file to Jim. “Haley’s son. Ethan Rider.”

Jim’s brows furrowed in confusion. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“He dropped in on of our missions. He was going to die so John brought him in. His willingness to join us is… concerning to say the least.”

Jim raised an eyebrow, “and you think he’s a spy?” Jim chuckled under his breath. “Spies are usually hard to read, you know. This guy? He’s an open canvas.”

“Perhaps too open?” muttered Steve more to himself than to the other two in the room. “He came in for an interview with our folks topside. He’s valuable. Too valuable.”

Jim’s eyes widened as he continued to read the dossier compiled of Ethan. “Is this why you let him join so abruptly? No checks? No verification with the higher-ups?”

Steve shifted in his seat. He was going to face a lot of flak from the higher-ups in his next meeting with them. “Times were desperate and his arrival sounded like a gift from heaven.”

“A curse from hell often looks more beautiful than a gift from heaven,” stated Jim.

Steve held an iron gaze with Jim. “Say whatever you have to say. Do whatever you have to do. Just make sure he isn’t a spy.”

Jim shifted his eyes between the tablet and Steve. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

After looking at Steve for permission, he left the room silently. At the door, he paused and sighed. “That was one hell of a welcome party.”

After Jim had left, John slammed his fist on the table making Steve jump out of his skin a little. “You better have a damn good reason for bringing him back here,” he hissed.

“I’m not thrilled about working with him either. If I could work without him, I would. But I need him. He has information and information is the name of the game we’re playing.”

John lifted his head and stared at the ceiling. He paced up and down the room, the worry growing on his face. “He’s unpredictable, disloyal and only serves his own goals. The worst part is we don’t even know what his goals are.”

“If we know one thing about Jim is that there are some pieces of information he will never share. There are secrets about SEKT he knows that no other human knows other than Sigvald and his inner circle. The same goes for the Alliance and in all our time of knowing him, he’s never shared either of those with the other side. We need not worry about information he holds about us. That’s the only part of him I trust.”

After a prolonged silence, John yielded. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”

“Keep him on a leash. I don’t care how you do it just make sure he doesn’t cross any red lines. We don’t want a repeat of Sakawira village.”

“And what of Ethan?”

“If there’s anyone who can snuff out a spy it’s Jim. Takes one to know one.”

John nodded hesitantly. “I hope you’re right about this.”

“I hope so too,” replied Steve.

The giant left the room, his heavy thuds fading the further he walked down the hallway. Steve rubbed his forehead, wiping the sweat from his brow.

***

“Getting ready for your first mission I see,” Steve said to Jim from the entrance of their barracks. Jim’s face was drenched in stress. Steve could see the sea of jumbled thoughts rushing through Jim’s head. He wondered if he even heard what he had just said.

“Hey! You’ll be just fine,” he assured his friend.

“It’s two years Steve. Deep cover. I’ve heard stories of people forgetting who they were. Some coming back with split personalities. Others suffering from the trauma of leaving their fake life behind. What if that’s me? I don’t want to come home different.”

Steve removed the hourglass necklace from around his neck and held it out to Jim. “Take this with you. It’ll remind you of all of us. As long as you do that, you’ll come back just the way you left and we’ll all be waiting for you.”

Jim took the necklace and held it tightly in his hand. He threw his backpack over his shoulder and walked towards the exit of the barracks.

“I want that back!” shouted Steve.

The rookie spy turned to bid his friend farewell with a warm smile. Dangling the necklace in front of him. “Sure thing, bud.”