"What do we know so far?" I hadn`t even made it through the doorway to Brian`s office before I started asking. He turned around from his large desk and looked at me. I didn`t realize he was on a phone call, but at the same time, I could have cared less. I continued to march past the rows of machines and other technological devices and straight towards the source of who I thought would have the best answers.

　　"I will call you back once I am done." Was all I could make out as Brian finished the call and looked up at me. "I`m sorry what was that?" He leaned slightly forward with his eyebrows raised in curiosity towards the inquiry he had not caught.

　　"I said& what do we know so far?" I lifted my hands for emphasis.

　　It had been close to 36 hours since I left a mound of carcasses in Sparks, Nevada. The blood thirst and boiling anger was deep within me and had still felt as if it was satisfied. We had lost two agents in a deliberate hit against them and what seemed to be our agency in general. Though I had no recollection of ever meeting them or working alongside them, that was all beside the point.

　　They were one of ours, and that was something that I was happy to avenge at the first available opportunity. The retaliatory strike that had occurred at the Travel Center was only the beginning in my mind. I wasn`t going to be happy with the end result until I knew for sure every single bastard that had a part in the hit was dead. Every-fucking-person involved.

　　Brian stared up and me as he composed himself a little more and had a cold and emotionless expression on his face. "We know two of our agents are dead& with a third that will more than likely pass away& within the hour."

　　"Don`t you fucking do that to me Brian! I know that you have a lot more information than that!" I snapped with a sharp tone that he didn`t want to hear, but I certainly didn`t I care what he wanted at that moment.

　　"B2& this is a part of your world now. We lose agents, and we& sometimes don`t always get the justice we wish to have, or at least when we want it to happen. Our agents were taken out, we took them out& that is it for now."

　　"That isn`t fucking good enough!" I gave Brian a firm knife hand as if I was a military training instructor at basic training.

　　"Well, that is all you`re going to get. We operate on a very thin line of reality. Many people see us, know that there is more than what they are being told, and let it slide by. Others don`t believe we exist at all, the thought that what happens is from a harsh cruel world with evil growing more rampant every day. That is the best way in-which he stay veiled. We are the knives that governments use when they want to have proxy-wars. We are the eyes and ears when the other side wants information on the client who just hired us. We are the defenders to the little guy against the big school bully. Just as graphene is formed in hexagonal lattice to create different shapes, sizes, and densities, so we must do the same in our operations. Yet& we must also know when we must take the hits, pull back and wait it out." He said.

　　"Our agents` bodies may be cold, locked in the fucking morgue, but they are certainly more alive here." I slammed my right index finger down onto my chest. "Then they are there!" I turned my hand and pointed at Brian. "You brought me on and gave me the capabilities to be this& fucking super soldier. But now, now you place me in hand cuffs and tell me I can`t go out and do what I do best? Give me their fucking names! Give me their fucking locations! And get the fucking hell, out of my way!"

　　"Take a seat." Brian motioned with his head towards the chairs off to the side of the room. He swiveled around in his chair and reached towards a desk drawer and began to open it. He reached inside he grabbed a small wooden box and opened the lid to it. As he turned around, he closed the drawer and I was able to see the two cigars he held in his hand as he stood up and walked over to me, he said. "I hope you realize how rare it is that I allow tobacco smoke within my office."

　　I wanted to refuse, my anger was at a point that I wanted to reject everything Brian was trying to tell me. If it wasn`t the names of my next targets of those involved, then I didn`t want it. As he started to approach, I looked into the man`s eyes.

　　Though I had just accused him of not giving a damn of my fellow field agents, I saw his eyes. The gaze of a man who was holding back a wave of emotions with everything he had, and I knew that I needed to be more willing to accept his peace offering. My mental gaze focused on the beautiful smile in the top left corner of my HUD; I was positive Sasha would understand my passion, but I assumed she would tell me to be more mindful.

　　Brian handed me a cigar and a lighter. My thumb flipped the cap up and I begin to bring the stogie to life. I puffed away as the smooth smoke lifted from the foot of the cigar. He must have known my preferences as he had handed me a Fat Bottom Beaty, off of the Deadwood series made by Drew Estate. The sweet flavor started to coat my lips and my mouth started to water as I savored every drag from the tobacco leaf. I could feel my internally raging inferno slowly begin to recede.

　　Brian sat back down and began to light his cigar as well. "Here is what I know. I know that the analysts are still going over the massive amount of data that has been collected within the last 48 hrs." He looked at me, and could see it clear as day within my eyes that I was not going to accept surface level answers. He looked down at the floor and paused, taking a drag off his cigar. I watched as his left hand slowly started to ball into a fist and then re-opened itself. The motion reoccurring as if he had been rattled and he was afraid to actually share what was on his mind.

　　Brian quickly turned and then pushed a button on his desk, the movement at the back of the room caused enough of a stir that I glanced behind me and noticed he had closed the door to his office. I turned back around to see him take another long drag and then blew out the billowing cloud of smoke as he finally said what I wanted him to. "The Erothka Syndicate & they were the ones associated to Proporchek. They were in coordination with Anvil to& take out James, Angie, and Ryan. The thing that is alarming is that Scalpel goes through the highest degree to protect and secure our agents` information. Location, identities etc. Years upon years were spent, building the back door accesses, placing people in specific agencies and locations within governments to ensure that if any of our systems that were set in place fail, they were there to& cover the tracks."

　　"You don`t think there was a failure of the system, do you?" I asked during his short pause.

　　Brian looked directly into my eyes, and I could not only see the seriousness within his soul, I could hear it in his voice. I believed him whole heartedly when he said, "No& I don`t. I believe& that either Anvil has corrupted and turned one of our agents against us. Or& we have an agent that has gone rogue and is openly trying to take out our agents."

　　"What makes you think that?" I asked as a large smoke cloud exited my mouth. My fist was clenched tight and tried my best to stay level headed.

　　"Because& there is only a select few people who knew it was you that carried out that mission against Proporchek. Our system utilizes a scramble algorithm which doesn`t actually list who the agent, or agents were that carried out a mission. Our analysts, such as Terra or Nate, see the missions come up, and can see when you accept them on the MOOBR, or will assign them to their agents on the agents` behalf when requested. Should another analyst look at the mission files, the field agents name, notes, requests& are all scrambled and constantly changing, in an effort to protect agent identities from even yourselves."

　　Brian lifted his finger to pause and then turned around and retrieved a bottle of scotch from another desk drawer and quickly poured himself a glass as he continued. "Let`s say you get captured on an operation, you are then tortured for information regarding other operations and missions that have been conducted by your peers." He took a sip of his drink, "Or& instead of giving them all this information, you are only able to provide a very small portion of information because the rest is a jumbled mess. Now granted, there are times when multiple agents do assist one another of missions, such as LDS with your Mexican shootout, but that doesn`t always happen, additionally& having three agents such as James, Angie and Ryan all together& there was insider information."

　　"Can we pull any video footage or data from their Neurochips and see what they saw last, maybe& any possible clues?" I asked, trying to think outside the box and see what could potentially lead me towards a target.

　　"No& for the same reason as the encryption of the missions. Once the life of an agent has ended and is gone past five minutes, the neurochip basically burns itself up and destroys all information it contains. A& self-destruct function, so to speak." Brian took another sip of his drink as he brought the glass down onto his lap and sat there. He looked to be in deep thought, but eventually continued. "Additionally, none of them sent us the files remotely. Someone knew the location of Angie and Ryan."

　　He paused as he noticed the tilt of my head and gave more context, "They were married actually& hence why they were together. But& James must have been, invited over to visit or something, because he was at their house when they were attacked. Someone knew where they lived, someone knew James was over there, and someone still wanted to take the risk of taking all three out at once. Additionally, they had both Anvil`s agents and Erothka Syndicate members involved."

　　"Do you think it could have been someone on the exec board?"

　　Brian`s face looked as if he pondered the thought for a moment. "You mean as the possible insider?"

　　"Yeah."

　　"Unlikely& Highly unlikely even, they have too much invested in each of you, and the amount of shit y`all have done for the agency& It just doesn`t make sense to believe they would be a threat. Besides, they could easily give an execution order and take you out one by one if they really wanted to breach contracts and such."

　　"Well& let`s go hit these Anvil pieces of shit and these, fucking Erothka bastards and finish this once and for all!" I could feel the cauldron awaken down in me. I could feel the darkness begin to fall over my soul as I smirked and imagined walking through a facility like scalpel, not leaving it until I had painted all the walls red.

　　Brian lifted his hand with his cigar still clenched between his two fingers, "Take it easy& I know what you want, and trust me, I want that too, but we can`t just go in guns blazing."

　　"We fucking sure as hell can!" I said with a snap.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

　　"B2& if we were Anvil and wanted to be on the verge of being taken out by seven governments, executed at a black site and be done with it all. Then sure& but we`re not. This is a part of our world, and we have to wait and know for sure exactly how this all happened, and that can only be done through time and analysis. You know we have some of the best nerds who are in the back dark room, clicking away on keyboards and working to get to the bottom of this. Give them time to do their jobs and you just focus on checking your back every once and a while. Stay focused on keeping the course you`re currently on. No more HR briefing type of events and just stick to the missions. That`s it."

　　I knew he could see my teeth grinding down and my jaw clenched tight. But I gave him the response he had been waiting for. "Fine&" But the look in his eyes told me he knew all too well that I was not.

　　I watched him press his lips together and then looked dead at me, "B2& when was the last time you were home?" He paused as my brow furled, "I mean& really home& like, Monmouth& home."

　　"Shit& well, I was in the coma, and then& waking up and getting right back into training and running missions for close to three months now. So-"

　　Brian cut me off, "Too long& that is the correct answer. It`s been too long." He took a puff on his cigar before he gave me my next set of orders. "You`ve done good for the agency, the exec board is happy with you getting back into the field and getting shit done, in the good ways I should emphasize. Therefore, it`s time you got back to your roots and took some time off. The neurochip is going to keep you where you are now, and you can actually have some time to decompress and rest. You need to relax& especially with you practically back to full status. Your body, though you don`t feel it because of the chip, does still need time to recover. You`ve been beat up pretty significantly. Remember, your Lone Survivor Attribute has already taken approximately a year off your life expectancy. Go home and we`ll reach out in two or three weeks when your next mission is ready. But for now, go put Bloodbath on the shelf and go be Trevor for a little while."

　　The first couple of days being back in Monmouth were hard. I had a lot of resentment towards Brian for forcing me to take the rest and relaxation. My time being back with Scalpel had brought my mindset back to the way I was with the military. The perspective of, all go, no stop . The belief of, we`ll sleep when we`re dead. I found the sense of purpose I had been looking for all over again. To take a break and tell myself to relax, shit, I questioned how the fuck someone even does that.

　　Though I had pumped a full magazine of lead into the two mother fuckers who had assisted in taking out three of our agents. As well as all the extra participants who decided they wanted to play along with me that day at the travel center. I still felt the job was incomplete and that didn`t sit well with me. The few days that I sat at home in silence left my mind time to have the creepy little voice come crawling back within it.

　　"Is it time for us to play? Bloodbath going to go play?" It would ask me.

　　The creepy fucker had actually awakened me a few nights in my sleep. I would be dreaming of a black void, only to see this tiny little fucker come charging towards me out of the darkness. He`d leap towards me as he held a large stone club in his hand. His giant bushy beard and face all covered in red blood as he bellowed out for more of the life source. The whole event within the dream would launch me up and wide awake.

　　I had tried to utilize the hibernation mode within the chip, but that didn`t stop the little creepy fucker from showing up either. It merely forced my mind to live through all the craziness and was practically a mind torture session. I stopped doing that after only one night of experiencing it all.

　　I was also re-visited a few times by some of the faces I had seen as I pulled the trigger. The three kids in the basement outside Chicago, the two people in the warehouse in Phoenix. I was a little embarrassed when I went to get groceries at a local store in town. My shopping cart rounded a corner and I locked up frozen like a statue as one of the store workers looked like the fucking twin to the kid in Chicago I had shot with the shatter round.

　　The whole ordeal kept me locked up inside my house for a while until a video chat from Terra helped bring me back down to earth. She was worried and wanted to see how I was doing with readjusting to life. Apparently, it was common protocol for green field agents to have these sensations during their first R&R. Though I had already worked for the agency before, the whole memory loss thing was sending my nerves into overdrive all over again.

　　I finally woke up one Sunday and decided that I was going to take a trip to the coast. By now the vast majority of my memories had returned to me. That was, everything except me joining Scalpel, still. As I closed the door to my minivan with my bags in tow, I headed to one of my favorite spots on the coast, Canon Beach.

　　I setup shop in a small weekend rental right off the beach. I listened to the waves crash upon the sand and shore all evening and into the night. The slight reverberation of the waves rumbled inside my chest, but the sensation also touched my soul. There was nothing like falling asleep to the natural sound of the ocean. I was grateful that my sleep was uninterrupted that night as well.

　　The following day I spent adventuring throughout the area of Ecola State Park, just North of the beach. The location made famous by the movie, The Goonies. The spot where the kids held the amulet up and matched the holes with the rocks jetting upwards out of the ocean. I stood there at the same spot and thought of how many adventures I had been on, there was only one treasure that came to mind though, and I was curious on when I would hear from her next.

　　That night I enjoyed the same routine as the night before, only this time I made a small campfire with some of the drift wood I found on the beach. A nice cigar added to the aromatics of the smoke which lofted around me as the ocean mist carried it away with the rest of my concerns. The soft sound of " Nuvole Bianche" by Ludovico Einaudi played throughout the night as my eyes looked up to the heavens and gazed upon the sparkling radiance of the stars above.

　　My eyes were so captivated by the heavens above that I had not even noticed the movement. There was no way either I would have heard her over the sound of the music and waves. But as she spoke, I felt it within my heart.

　　"Hey stranger."

　　I lowered my gaze and saw her standing before, illuminated by the dancing flames of the fire. Her legs glistened in the light as they stretched out from the dark board shorts she was wearing. A dark navy-blue hoodie complimented her short jet-black hair. The ends danced and swayed upon her jaw line as the slight breeze from the ocean carried them forward. Her hands were tucked in the front pockets of her hoodie. The playful smile was on her face as she chomped down on some gum.

　　"Is that seat taken?" She asked.

　　Her eyebrow arched with curiosity as she looked to try and compose her smile. She seemed to stop fighting the desire and let her joy remain visible to me within the vulnerability of the moment. I glanced over to the wooden lounge chair identical to mine, placed just opposite the camp fire I had made.

　　"It`s& open and available only to you." I replied.

　　She let out a small sigh and began to approach. She took me by surprise as she lowered herself down and took a seat in my lap. Her legs draped off to my left side, as she buried her face into my chest. Her head nestled just under my left cheek as I tilted my head down to embrace her even more. My arms wrapped around her and held onto her close as she simply remained there, with me, in the moment. We didn`t say anything for what seemed like an eternity, but nothing needed to be said.

　　I smiled as I felt her heart pound away and match the rhythm of mine. I huffed at the thought of our hearts having tiny mouths and their pounding was them singing a song of happiness that they had both been reunited with one another. I huffed at the goofiness of my thought, a slight chuckle as Sasha looked up at me with curiosity.

　　"What`s so funny? Huh?" She danced her eyebrows upwards as she tried to interrogate me.

　　"Nothing, just happy to have you here. I didn`t think I would get to be in this moment with you."

　　"Well hell, you had better be happy I`m here, fucker!" She snapped at me with a soft voice, but then leaned upwards and kissed me deeply before I had a chance to respond.

　　We stayed there until Sasha had fallen asleep while snuggled up into me. I carried her inside and tucked her in bed as I then lay next to her, my head on the pillow and I looked up at the ceiling. This must be heaven , because there was nothing that could top this. I told myself.

　　I awoke the next day to find an angel wrapping her arms around me, she pulled me in close and did not let go as she snuggled me like there was no tomorrow. She leaned upwards and planted a warm, soft kiss on my lips. The two of us making out that morning until the rumble in her stomach had warned me of the monster that would fully awaken if I did not get food within her, and fast.

　　Sasha walked off to the bathroom to quickly brush her teeth. I got up and got things adjusted and ready to head for a breakfast meal. I could hear her toothbrush scrubbing away on her perfectly pearl teeth. As she turned the corner out of the bathroom, she looked directly at me and smiled. It was my time to take the lead and I leaned in and planted one right on her lips. The moment, however, was cut short.

　　"Hold on, I`m getting a call from Brian." I said.

　　I leaned back, and pulled away from the kiss to only see Sasha glaring at me& or maybe her scowl was meant for Brian now interrupting us& perhaps both? The expression only made me smile bigger as I whispered, "Just give me a minute." I mentally chose to answer the call and heard his voice come inside my mind.

　　"How`s vacation big guy?" He asked, a chipper tick in his voice.

　　"It`s heaven on earth& I had a surprise visitor show up, and& well& I don`t think she`s going to want me to return to work anytime soon." Sasha arched an eyebrow up at me, but seemed to find the playful smirk all over again as she couldn`t help herself.

　　"A little birdy, also known as Terra , may have told a certain someone where you were and how she could surprise you." Brian replied.

　　"Did she now?" I asked, and now it was my turn to return the arched eyebrow and smirk down to her.

　　"That she did& but& that is also part of the news as to why I am calling&" I could hear the tone in Brian`s voice change and just like all of my previous military experiences& I knew exactly what was about to happen next, as Brian continued. "You ready for your next mission? You`re about to go international."