Chapter Text
“You weren’t at work yesterday.”
The words reach him like the smoke wafting through the room.
Despite it being his office, Handler was there the moment he walked through the door. Wearing the candy striper uniform she used to infiltrate the hospital, the woman stood staring out the open window, one arm crossed while the other bogarted a cigarette.
Loid would’ve been surprised to find her if not for the fact he was expecting some type of remonstrance for not reporting to work at the hospital yesterday. Although WISE might claim the reason for punishing him for not reporting to work is due to the damage it could cause to Loid Forger’s reputation as a psychiatrist, by the way they regularly diverted him from hospital work to complete missions, he was certain that was not the case. Rather, they were punishing him for not reporting to work because it meant that, for a short while, he was unaccountable.
In the spy business, where agents ran the constant threat of being captured, killed, or defecting to the other side, being unaccountable was a great concern. Although Twilight was afforded more leniency on account of his status in the agency, an alarm was most certainly raised at headquarters the moment he failed to report for work. The headaches that the alarm produced is most likely what he is being punished for.
With the transformation the spy has undergone since the disappearance of his wife, however, Loid cannot find it within himself to feel overly apologetic. His priorities, it would seem, have changed drastically in favor of his family.
Taking one final drag from her cigarette, Handler blows the smoke out into the open air before snubbing the dying end out on the windowsill. Then, turning to face him, arms crossed, asks, “Care to explain yourself?”
By the steel in her gaze and tapping of her fingers, Twilight knows her words are less of an inquiry and more of a directive and yet, he is in no rush to provide an answer she already knows. The sole purpose of having him answer, he knows, is to shame him. Far from feeling any shame, however, Loid takes his time to respond. Paying Handler no mind, he walks to his desk, sets down his briefcase, and, unfastening the buttons on his suit jacket with one hand, settles into his chair. Then, while making a scene of sifting through the papers piled on his desk, he finally replies.
“I was conducting an investigation that I believe is integral to the success of Operation Strix.”
“Or in other words,” Handler says, approaching his desk, lying her palms flat against the hard oak surface and glaring down at him, “you were searching for your fake wife. Weren’t you informed that Yor Briar is no longer necessary to the success of Operation Strix?”
“Forger,” the man replies, meeting her gaze with cool defiance. “Her name is Yor Forger.”
Loid finds it almost humorous how, at any other time in his career, he’d have loathed to defy Handler. However, Loid came to the conclusion yesterday that he would do anything to get Yor back and, today, that meant looking straight into Handler’s eyes.
If she’s surprised to find him pushing back, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she lifts the framed photograph—the same one he pretended to be missing yesterday—from his desk and shows it to him, her finger strategically concealing his face.
“Remember Agent Twilight,” she warns, “Yor Briar is not your real wife. The Forgers are not your real family.”
“I believe Handler,” he responds threateningly, rising out of his chair and to his full height. “That I am the only one who gets to decide who my family is.”
“And what will you do”, she wonders, “when you have sacrificed everything just to find out your wife is dead?”
The words affect Loid more than he would ever care to admit, the possibility of Yor being well and truly gone having haunted his every waking moment since the day she left.
“Everything I can”, he vows, “to ensure that Anya never has to lose another parent.”
Handler seems to consider him a moment, as though testing his resolve, and then, tossing the photo frame carelessly back onto his desk, says “You will be suspended from all operations other than Strix until further notice.”
Having received his punishment, Loid is surprised by the lack of severity. Although he supposes it would be too much of a hassle to restart Operation Strix with another agent, he was fully expecting to be burned. Especially since he knows that, after the conversation they just had, he was not being punished for being unaccountable but for being compromised, completely and irrevocably compromised.
“I understand, Handler,” he replies.
Whether or not she accepts his response, Handler makes to leave. Just as she is about to exit the door, however, she turns to him and, fingers grasping the doorknob, says “I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into, Twilight.”.
After the door clicks shut, Loid retrieves the fallen photograph of his family and, gazing on their happy faces, breathes, “It’s Loid. My name is Loid Forger.”
—
Yuri Briar is lying unceremoniously across the small couch in his apartment, arms and legs dangling over the cushions and neck craned so that red, blood-shot eyes care stare blearily at the wall. Yuri had been unable to concentrate on anything, much less a single point on the wall, since returning from the meeting with his brother-in-law the day before. Every time he tried to do anything, eat, drink, or especially sleep, his mind would spiral into the past. Traitorously, Yuri would remember every moment he ever shared with his sister, every hard-won meal and imbalanced study session, and then painfully dissect each of them in search of the lies she told.
If only it ended there. After the dissection, after desecrating his most precious memories, he’d have to face the blood on his hands, the incredible guilt of suspecting her; suspecting her of what? He does not know. And then, he’d feel the even more incredible guilt of not protecting her; protecting her from what? He does not know.
“ARGHHH, I’M COMPLETELY USELESS TO HER,” he yells, just one of the many exclamations, bore witness to none, thrown pointlessly across the apartment.
It was impossible for him to sleep with so many thoughts running through his head and, it’s only by some great fortune that one of those thoughts is towards the bug he had planted in McMahon’s office.
Finally having something of value to do (value being determinate on conduciveness to finding Yor), Yuri flies from the couch to the radio, donning headphones and dialing into the proper frequency. The static cracking over the line lets him know he’s connected and yet it’ll be several hours before City Hall opens. Frantically tapping his pen against a pad of paper, Yuri counts the seconds.
It’s quiet for some time until the tell-tale sound of a lock clicking followed by footsteps alerts Yuri to McMahon’s arrival. Holding his breath despite the lack of a speaker, Yuri listens as McMahon approaches the desk, pulls out the chair, and takes a seat. Due to the location of the bug on the underside of the table, Yuri can hear McMahon’s knee bump against the hardwood as he adjusts his distance to the desktop. He then listens intently as the man works in relative quiet, the shuffling of papers and occasional throat clearing the only sounds captured until a single knock emits from the door.
Transmitted through Yuri’s headphones, the sound may have well been a gunshot.
A voice that, based on its proximity to the bug, Yuri knows belongs to McMahon invites the visitor in. Despite not registering any audible footsteps, Yuri can tell by a slight creaking noise that the visitor has taken one of the two empty seats across from McMahon.
“Do you think he’ll be back again?” The visitor asks in an unfamiliar voice.
Considering the biometrics, Yuri can conclude the visitor is an adult male, likely in his twenties, possessing a slight northern dialect. If he could only get his hands on the City Hall directory then he could match the profile to a person and identify the visitor.
“I’m not sure, but you’ll notify me if he does.” instructs McMahon.
‘WAIT! ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT LOID?’
“I don’t get why he’s being so persistent,” the other voice says with what sounds like a scoff.
‘OF COURSE HE’S BEING PERSISTENT! HIS WIFE IS MISSING!’
McMahon hums in agreement, “It’s interesting, I wasn’t expecting him to be.”
‘THE NERVE OF THEM TO DOUBT HIM!’
“Do you think he’ll learn what happened to her?”
‘HE WON’T STOP UNTIL HE DOES!’
“He can’t,” McMahon responds firmly. “Not unless I tell him.”
‘YEAH, WELL GOOD,’ thinks Yuri angrily, ‘BECAUSE THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT WE’RE GOING TO MAKE YOU DO.’
—
After bidding farewell to the last of his colleagues, claiming he needed to stay late to catch up on all the work he missed when not coming to work yesterday, Loid positions himself in the psychiatry department’s consultation room. The simplistic furnishings and earthy color palette of the consultation room were chosen specifically to create a comforting environment where patients felt safe enough to discuss their problems with licensed professionals. Sitting in the room now, however, Loid feels anything but comfortable. Despite all the intentional features, the ticking of the clock is the only thing he registers. It reminds him, somewhat eerily, of the night, less than a week ago, when he resigned himself to staring at the clock while waiting for Yor to come home only to be disappointed. This time, he won’t be disappointed, because, this time, McMahon is the one he is expecting.
Yuri, Loid knows, is in his psychiatrist office. The plan is for him to use an audio device to monitor the conversation about to take place—apparently, Yuri’s desire to be involved in the interrogation superseded his concerns in regards to his secret profession.
Naturally, the younger man wanted to also be in the room but Loid convinced him it’d be better for him to remain out of sight so McMahon still did not know they were collaborating. While this was the sole reason Loid presented to Yuri, he was also worried about Yuri’s ability to control his emotions. Were Yuri in the room with Loid, they ran the major risk of the man reacting in a way that would jeopardize the mission. Loid knows how the SSS operates and would like to avoid torture as much as possible. Even with Yuri ensconced in the other room, Loid feared he was liable to burst in at any moment.
‘Although’, Loid thinks wryly, ‘can I even be sure that I won’t lose control of my emotions?’
He was a spy, completely capable of controlling his emotions, but that was before Anya, before Yor, before Loid.
It had been evident since the very start of Operation Strix, when he failed to stand down during the interview for Eden College, that Yor and Anya were an emotional trigger for him. On that occasion, he had almost jeopardized the entire mission all because some pompous professor had provoked them, and that was when they were still veritable strangers to him.
‘How would it be now that they were a real family?’
Considering the consequences of losing emotional control, Loid looks grimly at the honey stained surface of the coffee table.
The moment of contemplation is broken, however, by a sharp knock at the door. As Loid straightens himself in preparation, the door opens to reveal McMahon.
“Dr. Forger”, he says in greeting once the door has clicked shut behind him.
If the older man is at all surprised by the ambush, he does not show it.
“I received a call saying that my wife had been admitted to the hospital,” offers McMahon, adjusting his glasses by the bridge. “I rushed over as soon as I could.”
He really had as it had not been more than fifteen minutes since Loid, using a disguised voice, made that call to City Hall.
“I would like you to know your wife is perfectly safe,” Loid responds honestly. “She never had a part in any of this.”
The older gentleman raises an eyebrow at this, perhaps not having expected Loid to have made such a concession this early into the conversation. From a strategic standpoint, it would have been beneficial to keep a hostage or, at least, the threat of a hostage to encourage compliance. However, by the calm McMahon exuded since arriving, Loid highly suspects the man is aware that his wife was never in any danger. And, in that case, it would have been foolish to maintain the charade. Besides, there was also a greater point he was trying to make.
“No one”, he adds, “should have to worry for their wife like that.”
The implication of the younger man’s words not being lost, McMahon makes the accession by offering to take a seat. Directed to the couch intended for patients, McMahon takes his seat while placing on the honey stained coffee table the bouquet of flowers he had been carrying. Having noticed the red colored blooms upon the man’s arrival, Loid assumed they were intended for his wife. However, having now come to the conclusion that McMahon was never under any misconceptions about his wife being admitted, Loid wonders about the reason for the roses.
Perhaps the greater mystery, however, is why McMahon would show up to the hospital knowing it was a trap?
The man seems to be under no illusions as to why he is here and yet, he shows no fear. Not in the self-satisfied way of a man who does not see the threat but the self-contented way of a man who sees the threat and welcomes it. There is something in McMahon, Loid decides, that reminds him of a death row inmate.
And so, Loid enters the interrogation as the executioner.
“Are you responsible for my wife’s disappearance?” he questions.
“Yes”.
—
The air stills around the two men as the admission settles over their heads. McMahon has confessed. It is exactly what Loid wanted to happen and yet there is something in the resignation of the way it happened that tells Loid there is more to the story.
“Are you familiar with the organization known as Garden?” McMahon proceeds.
The mention of the shadowy organization takes the seasoned spy by surprise. He is aware of Garden but, like most people in the underground, he believed it to be an urban legend, a boogeyman designed to instill fear among potential traitors to the state.
While receiving possible confirmation of their existence is surprising, receiving possible confirmation of their existence in relation to Yor’s disappearance is terrifying. If even a modicum of the stories concerning Garden were to be believed, then Loid feared the worst.
His only conciliation was the unlikeliness of an assassin group targeting Yor. Even if she was involved in some type of prostitution, he maintains, by the likelihood of her having been exploited as a child, that she was a victim.
‘If Garden targeted anyone, it should’ve been McMahon,’ Loid thinks to himself while staring across the divide of couches.
Perhaps sensing Loid’s growing anger, McMahon makes a placating gesture with his hand before continuing.
“I have been a member of Garden for over forty years. Formerly known as Foxglove, I currently hold the title of Director. While I do consider myself responsible for your wife’s disappearance, I think it’s important for you to listen to my story to understand why.”
Accepting that there is much he does not know—the only cause of action after learning that you’re sitting across from a legendary assassin—Loid agrees to listen.
“When I was twenty-two”, McMahon begins, “I was drafted into the First East-West War of Unification. Having grown up hunting, I was already a highly skilled marksman by the time I was enlisted. After an exceptional performance during mobilization training, I received my designation as a sharpshooter.”
“My first stint of active duty was during the Battle of the Hohe. My troop was given the orders to hold possession of a bridge, a defensive which prevented Westalians from crossing over into the town of Hohefluss. As the sole sharpshooter, I was positioned in the clock tower while the rest of my troop was positioned on the bridge. Within minutes of the first shot ringing out, my entire troop was wiped out. Still under orders, however, I did my best to defend the bridge until reinforcements arrived.”
“Within the span of nine hours”, McMahon confides, “I killed sixty-seven Westalians.”
Loid debates whether or not he should feel threatened by the admitted brutality to his fellow countrymen—he is a Westalian spy speaking to an Ostanian assassin—but ultimately decides not to as there is nothing in McMahon that suggests he feels proud of the accomplishment. It is quite the opposite, in fact.
“For my actions, I was labeled a war hero,” McMahon continues. “I was celebrated but haunted by the innocent lives I had taken. Unlike others, I was never under any misconceptions about the war. I knew it was not about east versus west but power versus powerless and, being a member of the powerless, I did my duty. Just as those sixty-seven men did theirs.”
Loid feels a tinge of shame when he thinks of his younger self—ignorant, angry, and eager to carry a gun as a result—but is unable to dwell on the feeling for long when McMahon addresses him directly.
“You are a psychiatrist,” he says. “So I’m sure you are aware of the phenomenon known as shell shock. In the wake of the Battle of Hohe, I experienced a complete loss of mental and physical sensation. It was only on the nights when I actually woke from my nightmares that I remembered how to feel anything at all, the intolerable guilt and the icy hands of those sixty-seven men wrapped around my neck.”
“I was discharged on account of my condition and taken to an asylum. I remained there with no signs of improvement until Garden recruited me. They had heard of my performance at the Battle of Hohe and knew of my skills, they also knew of my condition. Unlike any of the doctors, they understood that my guilt came not from killing but killing innocent men. And so, they offered me a job killing men who weren’t innocent.”
McMahon’s eyes search for Loid’s so the younger man has no reason to doubt his resolve when he announces, “Although I can never make amends for the innocent lives I have taken, I can prevent others from taking more.”
Understanding the desire to protect the lives of the everyday people, Loid nods his approval.
And, to Loid’s surprise, a look of relief flashes across McMahon’s face before he proceeds with the story.
“Garden, as you may know, has existed in Ostania for centuries. It was established during the Miteran Empire when the monarchy, fearing governmental corruption, appointed a group of highly skilled individuals to protect the empire from traitors. At the beginning, recruitment was based purely on heritage. However, as numbers dwindled, recruitment expanded so that civilians, like me, could be trained. Unfortunately, there existed a great deal of animosity between the old blood and new blood.
Shortly after I arrived, I was partnered with a descendant of one of the most prominent families. He was a rarity among his peers; he held no prejudice against the new bloods and possessed a genuine kindness that was almost unheard of in our line of work. While Garden aided me in my recovery from shell-shock, I remained socially isolated—a struggle likely exacerbated by the nature of the work. Connecting with others felt nearly impossible until I met him. He was a man who existed in absolute earnestness, his thoughts and emotions always honest and never filtered. Because of that openness, our bond formed quickly; we grew so close that we were more like brothers than friends.
“His name was Thorn.”
At the mention of his partner’s name, McMahon looks to Loid as though gauging his reaction but, seeing none, continues.
“Garden had become aware of a human trafficking ring operating on the outskirts of Berlint which Thorn and I were assigned to. Our mission was not only to kill the traffickers, but set free the women and children being held on site. Typically, this type of rescue is not something Garden involves itself in today because it runs too much of a risk of operatives being identified and reported. However, this was in the early days of the National Unity Party’s rise to power and Garden, who had previously been aligned with the monarchy, did not know the threat they posed.”
“The site was old residential property, spanning three floors, in an otherwise industrial part of the city. When we arrived, we made quick work of pulling the weeds (McMahon looks meaningfully to Loid so that the true meaning of this statement is not lost) before searching the property for the women and children reportedly being held there. By uncovering a trapdoor hidden under one of the beds, we discovered they were huddled in a small crawl space under the house.”
“Having heard the commotion through the floorboards and then being met by two heavily armed men splattered in blood, the women and children were understandably frightened. There was, however, one woman who came forward. I remember how she poked her head out of the hole in the floor and, smiling, offered a dirt covered hand to Thorn who, in turn, took it delicately in his blood splattered one. He offered to pull her out of the hole but she refused and, instead, disappeared back under the floorboards. Moments later, she reemerged with one of the children cradled in her arms. Staying down in the hole, she handed the children up one by one. And then, when there were no more children, she assisted the women.”
“She made sure that everyone was out before she herself made to climb out of the hole. It was fortunate that Thorn had taken her hand again because, after all the strength she exerted while helping the others, she collapsed from exhaustion the moment she was freed. Thorn caught her as she fell and then carried her in his arms as we led everyone out of the building.”
“I did not know it then, but Thorn continued to see the woman after that night. He visited her in the hospital where we dropped the women and children off and, when she was discharged, took her on dates. When he finally revealed their relationship to me, they were already deeply in love and planning to get married. I was surprised but, ultimately, very happy for them. I knew Thorn was a very loving person and, when I got to know his fiance better, found that she was the same. Although a bit shy and soft-spoken, she shared his strength and his kindness.”
“It being a private affair, I was one of the few people in attendance at their wedding”, reveals McMahon and Loid, who had been wondering at the affectionate tone of the story, remembers the dried flowers in the envelope and the name McMahon said was his own; Foxglove.
“Yuily and Mina”, the spy breathes, realizing Yor’s parents are the people in the story.
McMahon nods.
“If it was only the marriage then Yuily would have continued his work as an assassin but they wanted to have children. Yuily, having been raised in the underworld, and Mina, having had a hard life even before being sold to traffickers, both wanted their children to grow up without experiencing any of those hardships. And so Yuily retired and they moved to Eastern Nielsberg to start a new life.”
“When Mina fell pregnant with Yor, it was not enough that Yuily was retired, any biological child of his would have been recruited on account of their heritage. So, to protect Yor, they kept the pregnancy and subsequent birth a secret from Garden. I was the only one to which that secret was entrusted.”
McMahon stops here and, removing his wallet from the interior of his suit jacket, slips out a small photograph and passes it to Loid. Accepting the photograph, Loid sees a baby, swaddled in cloth, being held by a woman whose face is shielded by a swathe of dark hair.
He knows who the photo is of right away but, flipping it over, reads the inscription anyway, “Our Princess, Yor”.
When McMahon accepts the photograph back, he allows his eyes to linger a moment, a small smile coming to his face, before returning it to its rightful place, which Loid can’t help but notice is awfully close to the man’s heart.
“I’d receive the occasional update from Eastern Nielsberg, stories of Yor and later Yuri, and Yuily and Mina remained my closest friends despite the distance. That was, until their passing.”
“It is not against the rules for Garden employees to leave”, McMahon clarifies, “but some members regarded the retirement as a betrayal to Garden and, by extension, Ostania. As the descendent of one of the original members of Garden, Thorn was greatly criticized for abandoning his duty to his country around the time of his marriage. Over time, the criticism did die down but, unbeknownst to us, never fully disappeared. During the Second East-West War of Unification, when Ostanians were dying due to the greed and corruption of the National Unity Party, criticism arose once more. There was one specific member of Garden who harbored an inordinate amount of anger towards Thorn. His name was Dalibor Solance, or Nightshade, and he considered Thorn a traitor for having ‘turned his back on Ostania in its time of need’. And so, acting on his own volition, he did what Garden members do to traitors.”
“Garden’s investigation into the deaths of Yuily and Mina Briar revealed Nightshade had gone to their home under the guise of a friendly visit. The three sat down to tea that Nightshade, an expert in plant toxins, poisoned. Although Yuily was immune to most poison having received toxin resistance training, Mina was not. She collapsed and when Yuily went to check on her, Nightshade delivered a fatal blow to him through the back and into the heart. As is typical for Garden assignments, Nightshade removed the bodies. They never received a proper burial.”
McMahon takes a moment to collect himself before continuing, clearly struggling with the memory of their deaths despite the amount of time which had passed.
“When Garden learned of the indiscretion—Nightshade announced the deaths himself, not understanding the lapse in his judgement—Shopkeeper, who had just inherited control of the organization, killed him.”
“By the time the truth came out, however, it had already been months since Yuily and Mina’s deaths. The only one who knew of their existence, my first thoughts were to the children. I rushed to Eastern Nielsberg and found that Yor and Yuri, who had been living on their own since the death of their parents, were struggling to survive. After speaking to Yor, I learned that she and Yuri had been instructed to hide in their rooms at the time of Nightshade’s visit. No doubt, this was a measure taken to ensure the children remained a secret from Garden. Yuri had fallen asleep but Yor, who was curious about the mysterious visitor, watched through a crack in the door as her parents were killed.”
Loid thinks of Yuri’s recollection of Yor scrubbing the floor and realizes it was probably her own father’s blood she was trying to clean before Yuri could see. He shudders at the thought.
“You asked me before if I was responsible for Yor’s disappearance and it is for this reason that I said yes,” tells McMahon. “I recruited Yor to Garden.”
“I had told myself it was so she could have the means to provide for her brother and herself but, in truth, I could have provided for both of them. I could have retired from Garden, adopted the two, and raised them as my own. It’s what Yuily and Mina would have wanted had they known they wouldn't have been able to raise them themselves. But I was too afraid, too afraid of the guilt that Garden helped me to alleviate consuming me once again. And so, I recruited my best friends’ daughter into the organization they died shielding her from. I thought it’d be enough to watch over her, to ensure she was happy and healthy if not safe but it only added to my guilt.”
“I had wanted to recruit Yuri too but Yor made me promise that, if she became an assassin, it was under the condition her brother would not have to bear the same fate. She wanted to protect her brother, just as her parents wanted to protect her and I respected her wishes if not theirs.”
“Over the years, Yor became one the most effective pruners Garden had ever seen and, in honor of her father, was given the name Thorn Princess.”
After releasing that information, McMahon pauses to observe Loid, as though evaluating the man’s response to learning of his wife’s true profession. But Loid, who had been connecting the dots since the reveal of her parentage (improbable strength, non-kitchen conducive knife skills, and affinity for morbidity), had expected as much.
His concern was less for the truth of Yor’s profession, but the nature; an understanding of the danger involved in assassination had been developed like the tightness in his chest.
The most concerned he’s been for her safety since her disappearance, Loid only just manages to croak the next words out around the bile rising in his throat.
“Where is she?”