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The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
-Sun Tzu
When Iris Thompson was nine years old, she pulled the tails off the tiny lizards she found in her backyard. She’d read in a boldly illustrated book on local wildlife that the tails grew back after they fell off. It was a defense mechanism, how they escaped predators. Being caught was so much a part of their nature that they’d evolved biological traits to more easily allow them to escape. The idea fascinated her. She wondered if she was evolved to do the catching.
The first time Iris did her own investigation, she caught a little yellow one between her thumb and forefinger. Sure enough, the tail came off in her hand, and she watched with interest as the rest of the body of the lizard scurried hastily away into the shrubs. She was left with her prize, a curl of scaly tissue smaller than her little finger. It was dry to the touch and the color of sandstone. It felt like something special, something she was never meant to have. She made a little hollow in the soil and put the tail into it, then covered it with a leaf. This was her cache.
Every day after school, Iris would go out to play in the garden and search for more lizards to toy with. Since the flowerbeds were rarely weeded, there was plenty of plant life for them to hide in. She soon learned that getting the tails didn’t require much force. Some of the lizards released them when they were startled, and the rest she only had to tug on. It was just a matter of being quick. Every time she caught a tail, she’d add it to the secret place she’d marked. The older ones dried up and grew rigid, snapping between her fingers if she handled them too roughly, a bit like fingernail clippings. The newer ones were more interesting, sticky between the pads of her fingers and still bright in color.
One Friday afternoon, Iris’s mother went out to check on her and discovered her crouched over a flowerbed, a little brown lizard trapped between her palms.
“Don’t torment the poor animals!” she chastised, tucking her hands under her arms. Her mother was a thin, nervous woman with prematurely greying hair. She often slunk into her bathrobe around midafternoon, and today the bathrobe had been on since morning. “How would you like it if someone pulled your arm off?”
Iris let her captive go. It skittered away into the peonies, and she felt a clench of anger at being forced to give it up. Her mother had had a crying fit over breakfast, and so Iris was already feeling particularly sour. “I don’t even have to pull them off,” she muttered, brushing the dirt off her hands onto her jeans. “Usually they just fall off by themselves when you get close enough.”
Iris’s mother shuddered and pulled the grey robe tight around her shoulders. “Don’t say things like that,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”
Iris walked back to the house without looking at her. “Maybe I’m disgusting,” she said.
Iris had never expected her life to be particularly exciting.
Exciting in the Facebook way, maybe. Here we are vacationing in the Galapagos. Every day is a blessing. She would have gone to college. Art school, if all went according to plan. She’d have met someone there, a sweet-eyed boy who played guitar and took her out to eat often. They’d have adopted a dog together. Maybe there would have been children. Her life had been plotted out before she was even born, the perfect example of middle-class mediocrity. She would have made a decent living and her parents proud.
The handcuffs chafed around Iris’s wrists.
The police officer opposite her in the interrogation room was examining his notes. He pulled a pad of yellow lined paper out of his breast pocket and clicked his pen. Iris wondered if he was the bad cop or the good cop.
“Nervous?” he asked.
Iris nodded quickly. She kept her eyes down.
“Why?”
“I’ve never been...someplace like this.”
The pen was tapped against a lip. “I know. It must be stressful. You don’t have to worry. I want to figure out what happened to Ben. You can help me with that. We both want the same thing, Iris.” The use of her name made her feel cold. It was obvious he didn’t mean a word of it.
“Okay,” she said. Her clothes were damp with sweat.
“That was a hell of a story you told in court.” He yawned, forced nonchalance. Then he leaned forward to pick up a lock box that sat on the floor by his feet. He’d been carrying it when he walked in. He set it down on the table with an ominous clunk. He popped it open and Iris watched, suspicious, as he removed a single Polaroid photograph of a whitewashed cinderblock wall. It had been taken somewhere inside the building, Iris realized. He lifted it carefully and set it in front of her. “This was taken with your camera. I’m going to undo your cuffs, and then you’re going to show me what you can do with it.”
“What?”
“I want to see you use your ability.”
Iris exhaled heavily. “You don’t believe me. No one does.”
The officer sat forward to look into Iris’s eyes; she had her head tipped forward. “I do believe you. And I can help you. I just need to see you do it.”
“Okay,” said Iris. “Okay.” He stood carefully, like she was an animal that he was trying not to startle, and circled the table to stand behind her. Iris heard the jingling of keys, and then he was lifting her wrists and slotting the key into the lock. The pressure around her wrists eased; she pulled her hands out of the cuffs and curled them protectively against her chest. Her interrogator returned to his chair.
“Please demonstrate your ability.” There was something clinical in his voice now, all the false friendliness gone. Iris reached for the photograph and stroked the glossy material. Like a mirage shimmering into view, the man sitting in front of that piece of wall appeared in the photograph, which had apparently been taken in that very room. It was a perfect mirror, like a little video embedded in the square of paper. He watched all this with no apparent surprise. That alone put Iris’s hackles up. Then he nodded once.
“I’m going to escort you out of the building for some secondary questioning,” he said. “We’ve got a quieter place for you, much less chaotic.”
“Why? Aren’t you-”
“Please put your hands behind your back.” Iris did, but her face burned. She felt humiliated as the cuffs were closed around her wrists again, but what was she supposed to do? If she ran, they’d kill her. Iris was pulled to her feet, and then out of her chair and to the door. He kept one hand on her as he unlocked the door. Two more police officers were waiting. Iris’s mouth went dry. Her body was turned left. They walked as a pod, one man on each side, the last behind her. Her breath came fast. Why did they need three people to move one teenage girl?
When they unlocked the door at the back of the facility and Iris saw an unmarked van waiting for her, Iris felt her stomach clench.
“Where are you taking me?” She hated how shrill she sounded. The man who’d interrogated her made a facial expression that she supposed was meant to be reassuring. It wasn’t.
“Just to a more low-security facility,” he said. “If you could just climb in there-” He unlocked the doors and slid them open. Iris balked, digging in her heels. The two men on either side of her picked her up at the elbows like she weighed nothing and lifted her bodily into the van. She was too shocked to protest. Iris was sandwiched in the middle of the back seat, bodyguards on either side. She’d shown him. Shown him what she could do. The full ramifications of that were only hitting her now. What if they were going to sell her to the government? They could do whatever they wanted with her now. With her body, anyway.
The doors clicked, locking fast. The man who’d interrogated Iris was in the front seat. Iris couldn’t remember his name. The one sitting next to her turned to look into her eyes and Iris felt something cold crawl up her spine. The van’s engine rumbled to life. SCP personnel didn’t debrief her on the reality of her situation until they arrived at Site-17, but it didn’t matter. Iris knew from the moment she climbed into the car that she was never going to see her parents again.
Iris’s life at the Site was completely identical to being in prison, except that it was slightly cleaner and the food was even worse. It was the same routine for weeks on end, day in, day out. The same clothes, the same food, the same sterile-smelling packets of shampoo, the same interviews. She was moved from place to place like a piece of furniture and returned to her room at the end of the day. There were eyes on her at all times - they claimed there were no cameras in the little bathroom attached to her cell, but one day she went in there and lay down on the floor with her eyes closed, and someone came to check on her within minutes. The only thing that lessened her distress was the tiny zing of pleasure she felt at remembering that she was here because she was different. She had a gift that no one else in the world had, and because of that she got to see things for how they really were.
If there was one thing Iris had learned from photography, it was that perspective is essential.
When Iris heard shoes scuffling unexpectedly outside her cell at three in the afternoon, she arranged herself in a posture of defeated sadness, hands folded in her lap. She didn’t look up when one of the guards who usually escorted her to and from the cafeteria appeared in her doorway.
“Come with me,” he said.
Iris furrowed her brow. “Why?” she asked meekly.
The guard shrugged. “They didn’t give me that information,” he said. “I just know where you’re supposed to be and when.”
Iris got to her feet and followed her handler with more than a little trepidation. An unannounced visit was weird. They always told her when someone would be coming so she could be sure to be dressed and ready. Iris knew she hadn’t done anything, so presumably she wasn’t being hauled off to be punished.
Iris normally zoned out when she was being carted around, but this time she tried to pay attention to where they turned. She wasn’t sure it would do much good, but it didn’t hurt to try. They finally arrived at a nondescript-looking door at the end of a row of what looked like offices, and the guard waved her in with a nod before shutting it smartly behind her. He stayed out in the hall. Now Iris was really worried. The room she found herself in was stuffy and packed closely with too much furniture for the small space. Sitting at a cozy-sized table in front of her were a dark-haired woman in a pantsuit and a man that Iris vaguely remembered as a social worker.
“Good afternoon, Iris,” said the woman. She sounded surprisingly personable, almost warm. She stood and offered a hand, which Iris took limply. It felt strangely adult. “My name is Maria Jones. I’m the site director here. Why don’t you have a seat?”
Iris did, tentatively. She could cry if she needed to, but she decided to save it for now. It probably wasn’t good to get in the habit of bursting into hysterics every time something bad happened; it would lose its effect, and Iris had already shed plenty of frustrated tears in front of the social worker. He adjusted his coat and coughed, but didn’t speak.
“What I wanted to talk to you about today,” the director started, “is an initiative that the Foundation is- ah, sorry. Is a...group of people the Foundation is putting together to handle certain situations. Some of them are dangerous, but all of them are very important for the safety of the general population.”
“Okay,” said Iris, to fill the pause.
Maria smiled reassuringly. “We have a lot of these groups - they’re called Mobile Task Forces - but the one we’re working on is special, and that means I need to ask you for your secrecy. No talking about any of this, not even to other staff. This is between you and me for now.”
“And him.” Iris glanced furtively at the social worker.
“And Harry,” Maria confirmed.
“Okay,” Iris said. “I...sure. Who would I tell?”
“I trust you,” said Maria. “Because- well, because I have to. But you’re clearly intelligent, and when the facts are laid out, I think you’ll understand what’s at stake here. The task force I’m talking about is unique because one of its members is...someone with an anomaly, like you. And if you’re willing to help, you would be an incredible addition to the team. We would want to...do some tests. If it looks like you would be a good fit, you would be invited to join them.”
Iris felt like she was sitting through a parent-teacher conference. “Would I have to fight people?”
“No, not at all,” said Maria. “Your job would be using your skills for recon, gathering information and passing it on, since you can see things that are happening anywhere in the world in real-time. You’d be helping your team, but also the rest of the Foundation. You’d be helping protect people from all the nasty stuff that’s out there.”
Iris liked the sound of that. It was the same secret excitement she felt when she got to show someone her anomaly. They always watched her with bated breath and sometimes even a little bit of fear.
“I know how difficult all of this has been,” Maria continued. “But I think this experience would help you understand just what the Foundation is dealing with every day. It sucks living here, I know. But these rules are what’s stopping the world from falling apart. We’re not the bad guys. I think you already know that. And there is so much more for you than sitting in a room all day.”
Iris’s heart was beating fast. She chewed on the corner of her lip. “Can I think about it?”
“Oh, of course!” Maria looked relieved. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “Take all the time you need. Do you have any questions for me? We won’t do the full debriefing just now.”
“Who is this other person I’d be working with?”
“That…” Maria took a deep breath in. “...requires a bit more explanation. We’ll talk about that later, alright?”
Iris frowned. “And I wouldn’t learn to fight at all?”
“Well,” Maria said, “basic arms training is part of all MTF initiatives, even the ones that never see combat. It’s a safety precaution.”
Iris felt a thrill of excitement. “Guns?” she asked.
“Guns,” Maria confirmed hesitantly.
Iris smiled tentatively at the woman across from her. “That would be kind of cool,” she said. “Sort of like a spy movie. The whole recon thing? But I don’t...I wouldn’t ever want to have to hurt anyone.”
Maria’s smile was strained. “I know a bit about your character from having read your files,” she said. “We decided that you might not be suited for that, because you’re…” There was a long pause that hovered awkwardly in the air between them.
“Fragile,” said Iris. Her recruiter raised an eyebrow. “It’s okay,” Iris said. “I know I am.”
She studied Iris for a moment, then snorted softly. “Then you aren’t fragile at all, are you?”
Iris flushed. “I guess it depends on how you look at it.”
Iris had been given a thorough debrief (she was learning the lingo) on the head of the team she was to audition for. Volatile was a word that they’d used. Very particular, that was another. Iris was pretty sure the words they actually wanted to use were a huge asshole. Still, that was alright. It was all very action-movie. As they trotted her outside to meet SCP-076-2, Iris pictured herself in a black turtleneck and sunglasses. With her camera, which she’d been allowed to bring with her.
“That’s him,” said Maria. Iris looked up quickly. He was leaning against the wall of the concrete building they’d just left, arms folded, looking disinterestedly up at the grey sky. There was an outdoor complex here for training activities. Technically it was all walled in, but it was big enough that it didn’t feel that way.
SCP-076’s chin dropped abruptly and he turned to face them as they approached. He stood rigidly, shoulders rolled back, like a drill sergeant. Iris realized she was being reshuffled so that there was a guard on either side of her, and then she was standing in front of him, Maria Jones carefully to the side. His chest and arms were completely covered in the weirdest tattoos Iris had ever seen, and she could see all of them because he hadn’t bothered to wear a shirt to their meeting. His hair came down to his elbows, black and stringy.
“This is Iris,” the director said curtly. Iris was shivering.
"This...child," said Able. His voice was deep and carried an accent that Iris didn't recognize. His grey eyes met hers, and some primal thing in her hind-brain quickened. She couldn't have said why, but her heart was racing immediately. She felt like a startled rabbit, small and weak compared to the man in front of her. It didn't help that he was at least a foot taller than her.
But he was also beautiful.
His appearance was striking enough, but it wasn’t that. There was something alien about him, something that made it hard for her brain to register him as human. He stood so still that it made her hair stand on end, like a monolith more than a man. There was an aura about him of something deeper than confidence, something unshakable: it was power. It rolled off of him in waves, and Iris had never wanted anything so much.
“I’m fourteen,” said Iris tremulously, because she didn’t know what else to say.
Able looked at Maria, eyes narrowed. “You told me sixteen. This was not what I expected.” He gestured dismissively at Iris.
“That was a miscommunication,” said Maria quickly. “You’re right. Fourteen is her actual age.” Miscommunication, Iris knew, was code for lie.
Able rolled his eyes extravagantly. “And what use,” he drawled, “does a child have for me? I need soldiers, not urchins.” Iris felt herself inhale.
“I’m not a soldier,” she said. “I’m a spy. I can watch people from anywhere in the world if I have a picture of the place, and I can move things from a distance, too.” She was shocked at her sudden surge of confidence; she felt slightly dizzy. Maybe it was a sort of contact high.
Able raised a brow. “I have not heard of such an ability before.”
“It’s unique,” said Maria.
Able ignored her. “I have prepared a test of your skill,” he told Iris. He spoke to people as though whomever he’d stopped training his attention on simply ceased to exist. “I will explain to you the rules. My own speed and agility will be compared to your...camera.” The corner of his mouth curled up, and Iris could feel his scorn washing over her. She ran her fingers lightly over her weapon of choice.
“Okay,” she said.
And Iris wiped the floor with him.
She’d expected him to throw a tantrum over the results - he oozed arrogance like an unpleasant slime - but he simply met her eyes and said, “I concede.” Iris dipped her head.
“I, um. Good game,” she said.
Maria looked between them slowly. “So, what we agreed…”
“You do not need to remind me of my promises,” Able said. “The girl is one of my men, young as she is.”
“And she’ll have her own unit?” Maria prompted.
“Yes.”
“Th- thanks,” said Iris.
Able grunted. Man of few words, Iris thought. Given how rude his words tended to be, she supposed that was alright. And then he simply turned and walked away. No one seemed especially surprised by this.
“He gets bored easily,” said Maria, watching him walk across the field. Iris shrugged.
“Me, too.”
Able had a presence that was even larger than his towering body.
People watched him pass and murmured urgently to one another. Rumors spread, funny stories, theories. It was almost mythic, the way they talked about him. They knew about the things he’d done, and still they spoke about him like he was a god whose divinity they wanted to taste. It made Iris oddly jealous. They didn’t know the first thing about Able.
Not that Iris did. Not that anyone did. For all that he had absolutely no problem telling the people around him exactly what he thought of them, he was a pathologically private person. He never answered a question about himself, and he tended to punish his teammates for even having the audacity to ask. Interacting with him was an absolute nightmare. The rules seemed to change constantly. Did he like eye contact from his subordinates, or hate it? Did he want them to give their honest opinions, or agree with everything he said?
Iris figured it out by accident.
She had started to lean into her role a little, and for a few nights The Art of War sat on her nightstand. One evening, she was reading with the sort of disinterest that meant she only remembered half the words her eyes passed over when one line jumped out at her: Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.
That was food for thought. Able would demand that Iris look into his eyes, but when his second-in-command stared him down he got chewed out for disrespect. What explained all the contradictions? That he wanted them to give whatever showed the most self-mastery. Forthrightness from the weak; humility from the strong. It made sense, in a twisted sort of way, if you were someone whose only hobby was making war. Iris lay back on her bed to think about this. The Art of War stayed in her room. The Foundation could afford a second copy.
The next morning, Iris tested her theory. They were supposed to practice hand-to-hand combat, grappling and the like. Iris kept Sun Tzu in mind and greeted their commander with a simple nod, which he returned. She didn’t try to talk to him. Most people didn’t. She wondered what that was like, only ever speaking to people when they wanted something from you. Iris slunk across the room, hoping to hide behind the rest of Team Iris.
Said team greeted Iris with their usual camaraderie. It was nice, the way they treated her. They protected her because it was their job, yeah, but she could tell they genuinely worried about her. It was almost like having parents again, a thought that was just sick enough to make Iris shudder. She’d been a bona fide part of Omega-7 for less than a year, and already she barely recognized herself at times.
“Happy birthday, by the way,” said Andrews. Iris frowned.
“What? Oh, yeah. Huh. I forgot.”
“Fifteen,” he said, and scrubbed at his face with his hands. “Jesus.”
“The last year has felt more like five,” said Iris. “I’m basically an adult now.”
Andrews shook his head. “You think you’re joking, but you have no idea how true that is.”
Able cleared his throat at them expectantly. Immediately, they all fell silent. These people were exmilitary, but it wasn’t habit that held their tongues. “Continue as you did last week,” he said curtly. “Except for Iris.” Immediate tension. Andrews looked askance, but Able provided no answers. Iris sighed, steeled herself, and tried to stand up straight as Able directed her to an unused corner of the room with a gesture.
“Today,” he said, “you will be receiving training in an older, more reliable weapon than a firearm.” He had a duffle bag with him; he set it down, unzipped it, and retrieved a hunting knife, much to Iris’s horror. He kicked the bag aside.
“That’s...sharp,” she managed. “I don’t think we’re supposed to-”
“I don’t care,” Able said. He handed her the hilt of the knife, which she took gingerly. It felt alright in her hand, despite her anxiety about the lethal-looking blade. Able adjusted her fingers.
“What am I going to do with this?” Iris asked. Sun Tzu’s advice wasn’t helping much with the urge to hide her eyes.
“Practice,” said Able simply. “First, I want to see how you move with it. Attack me.” He folded his arms behind his back. He did this often, making himself a target and then taunting his team as they did their best to kill him. Occasionally someone would get a hit in, but not often, and when it happened it was about keeping Able on his toes rather than overpowering him.
Iris stabbed him.
She stared at her hand in shock where it was still holding the knife which was now embedded in Able’s chest wall. There had been no hesitation, no real thought. Maybe it was trust, or maybe it was just that Iris had gotten incredibly used to doing whatever he said. It didn’t matter; he clearly hadn’t expected anything more than her usual awkward cringing, or maybe a lazy swing of the arm. He looked down at the knife hilt jutting out of his right pectoral in surprise.
“Oh, my god,” said Iris, covering her mouth with her hands. “I stabbed you!”
Able pulled the knife out with a wet noise that turned Iris’s stomach. Blood burbled out of the resulting wound, but it wasn’t serious. Well, not for him. “Good,” he said, nodding his approval. “Strike immediately.” He looked almost proud. Iris realized she was giggling, high and reedy. It had to be shock. Able inspected the wound in his chest, prodding at it nauseatingly.
“Should I get the first aid kit?” Iris asked. She could see a sliver of yellow fat. Able healed fast, but that arm would probably be out of commission for an hour at least. Able’s mouth was a hard line.
“...yes.”
Iris fetched it from its place on the wall. In addition to that one, which got replaced every two weeks or so with the rate at which they went through bandages, they had a stockpile in one of the lockers in the corner.
“Do you want me to stitch it?” she offered. “I know how.” She felt giddy and slightly floaty. Able looked appalled.
“No,” he said.
“Are you sure? I bet it’d heal faster, and I don’t see how you can reach-”
“No!” he snapped. There was enough anger in it to mean real danger. Iris’s mouth went dry.
(And in an infinite number of branching timelines, Able pulled out his blade and cut them all down, one by one, except Iris; he killed them all and he didn't stop killing until the whole place was burnt to ash; he sealed his fate with no remorse. But not in this one.)
“Okay,” she said. “Sorry. I just wanted to help.”
“I do not need help,” he said, snatching the kit out of her hand.
Appear strong when you are weak, Iris thought. She sat down on the bench pushed against the wall to wait for Able to tend to his wounds and give her further orders. He patched himself with butterfly bandages while Iris watched. He seemed uncomfortable, shooting her odd hawkish glances out of the corner of his eye. He hadn’t been ruffled until she’d offered to help him.
When he was suitably stapled, he marched over and stood over her. “You are fast but weak,” he said pompously. “The wound was shallow. Your aim is to escape, not to overpower. If I were you, I will remember that.” Evidently she’d hit a sore spot; he didn’t ordinarily feel the need to deflate her ego. Fine, then. Iris could stand up for herself. Wasn’t that what she’d just proved? She didn’t need bulging muscles or the ability to pull swords out of her ass to do that.
“You would remember that?” Iris repeated. She said it just slowly enough to make the correction obvious, just slowly enough to be deniably condescending. She saw a muscle in his jaw tic and she knew he’d understood the implied insult. English was not his first language, nor his second. Iris suspected there were many more languages and dialects in between. It was understandable that he’d get some things wrong.
It there was one thing Able hated above all else, it was being proved wrong.
“That is what I said,” he snapped, dark brows falling heavily in a scowl.
“Okay,” said Iris. She used a substitute teacher voice, a nurse voice, soft and nice. It was one of those things you learned, living here: which voice to use and when. She pressed her tongue against the sharp edge of her front teeth and held her breath.
Able’s fists clenched, and he exhaled heavily through his nose. Oh, he was mad. She’d made him mad. But if he blew up now, he’d look stupid, since what she’d done to provoke him was subtle. And since he already felt stupid, he’d resist it. His vanity would keep him - just barely - in check. Stupid brute, barbarian man, too dim to learn to speak properly. Ego was a weak spot. She imagined how her slight was cutting him, and admired herself for devising an insult that would preempt any retribution.
“Get out of my sight,” he sputtered. “I have had enough of you for one day.”
Iris went.
She was eighteen when Able broken her ulna.
It was an accident, not a punishment. He’d used too much force, that was all. It was only a problem because it went contrary to the rules they’d established for themselves. They exchanged power without Able needing to lay his hands on her. He was also incentivized by the fact that damaging her would have ruined the organization of the entire task force. He could usually control himself enough to avoid the possibility of losing his team. Usually.
Iris sat on the floor and screamed, because suddenly feeling your forearm fracture will do that to you. Able just stood there, wild-eyed, grinding his teeth so hard his jaw creaked. He looked like he’d just dropped his nicest teacup. He was mad at her for letting it happen, but Iris knew what he was really angry about: that he allowed himself to do it. The slip-up showed a loss of control - how embarrassing. He’d been slipping a lot these days. Iris didn’t resent him for it any more than she absolutely had to. She did cry, making sure to look at him while she did it, tears running down her cheeks. She wanted to see how he’d react this time; in the past, he’d ignored her tears, as though he couldn’t even see them. Omega-7 had taught her to disconnect the responses of her body from her true emotions long ago, but the pain was bad enough to break through all of that. He looked away from her face. So that was something.
Afterward, with her arm casted and in a sling, she shambled around the facility looking for the perpetrator. She found him in the cafeteria, moodily eating coagulated macaroni and cheese. By himself, always by himself, and always with his back to the wall. She sat down across from him without any preamble, and he didn’t look at her. She’d become desensitized to what it felt like being near him; these days it was almost like talking to another human being. It wasn’t just him, she supposed. Iris had become desensitized in general, no longer quite so shy, no longer a child. She couldn’t figure out if it was a tragedy or just part of growing up.
“There are soldiers who lose a limb without screaming as much as you did over that...scratch,” Able said, when she didn’t speak first. Now he watched her, eyes steely and feelingless.
“I know,” said Iris. Her good hand picked at the unraveling hem of the faded sweatshirt she was wearing.
“Even so, an injury is a lesson learned.” She could see the beginning of a sneer on his mouth.
“I know,” said Iris. Then, inexplicably, “I’m not mad. I forgive you.”
She wasn’t sure exactly what she was trying to accomplish there; maybe she was even being a bit flippant, but the words seemed to strike something inside Able, and he was suddenly very still, staring straight ahead. She was reminded acutely of the incident on her fifteenth birthday. He’d gotten all weird when she’d said something nice to him then, too. It had unsettled him, just as this had, and as before, Iris felt a sort of tremulous power at seeing him shaken. She realized something then. Iris had wanted to mimic his strength, or at least to be caught in the wake of it, but that had been a fool's errand. She couldn’t be like him. She didn't need to be like him. She just needed him. Right where she wanted him. And if she could knock the words out of his mouth simply by extending her goodwill, that might be easier than expected.
“I kind of like you,” said Iris casually, swinging her legs back and forth, dropping another breadcrumb. Able curled his lip then.
“I broke your bones, you fool. Did you enjoy that?”
“No,” said Iris. “It’s just that everyone you’ve ever met hates you, and you don’t care at all. I wish I was like that.” He studied her for a brief moment, trying to figure out exactly what she meant. She always chose her words to him carefully. This time she didn’t expect any reaction in particular. She was just...playing. Sussing out the territory. Doing reconnaissance. “It would be easier for everyone if my family wished I was dead.”
She heard him inhale. He stood to leave without saying another word, and he stomped across the room with a glower on his face. Ouch, she thought. She kept her face carefully impassive, but inside she was tap dancing with glee. Able always got the last word in. She’d gotten him. He’d take it out on someone else later, but she’d gotten him, disoriented him, nipped him where it hurt, trapped a tempest between her palms. It didn’t matter how big you were; if you knew the right technique, you could fight with any sort of weapon. All Iris needed to operate Able was the right technique.
She finished his lunch for him.
“You’re a good influence on him,” said Agent Maddox, plopping down across from Iris as she was eating the last few bites. She didn't clarify who she was talking about, but she didn't have to. At Area-25, a nonspecific him was always the same person.
Iris finished chewing a mouthful of overbaked mac and cheese. It crunched. “Thank you,” she said.
“I don’t know why, but he seems to respect you. Or something close to it, anyway,” Maddox continued. “There’ve been improvements, long-term ones.”
“I don’t know,” said Iris. “His brain is pretty scrambled.” Respect was an interesting way of couching it.
“That’s one way of putting it.” Maddox leaned her elbows on the table and folded her hands together. She glanced around casually. “But in the past two years the number of on-site incidents has dropped dramatically. It’s about status, isn’t it? There's a sort general-and-lieutenant dynamic.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Iris echoed. She tapped her fork against the plastic tray, staring at the macaroni dregs. “I guess…we play by the same rules.”
“Which are?” Maddox looked far too attentive to be asking this out of simple curiosity. Iris wondered who she’d be relaying the information back to. Probably the psych team. They were still trying to unravel him, to find the incantations that that would take him apart, and Iris wouldn't be the one to tell them that they'd never find it - because the solution wasn't silver bullets or a stake to the heart, no magic solution to the problem of Able.
"I think that everyone thinks that Able is a lot more interesting than he actually is," said Iris. Maddox laughed.
"Oh, you're right about that. There are people here who'd live in his pocket if they could. He's not some big enigma, is he? His mind is completely nonhuman."
Iris pushed her hair back from her face, feeling hot. "That's kind of the opposite of what I mean," she said. "He isn't like that for no reason. I'm pretty sure he was human once. I think if whatever happened to him happened to some of us, we might turn out the same way."
"I'd like to think there's bit more standing between you and indiscriminate murder than a few rough days," said Maddox.
"More than a few," said Iris. "But the thing is that he makes a lot more sense if you look at him like a person. He's like half the people I was in jail with. There's just a lot more of it."
"More of what?"
Suffering, thought Iris. So much that it didn't belong to him anymore, but bled out of him in all directions to crash down on the people around him. He was a sucking wound in the chest of human history. How did you plug a wound like that?
"I don't know," said Iris. "Whatever's wrong with horrible people."
Maddox nodded thoughtfully, or pretended to. "You understand people a lot better than I do. I think that's why you've been so effective. There's a lot of empathy fatigue around here."
Iris nodded, passively accepting the compliment.
"I don't think Able is the only one who gets misjudged," Maddox added. "I know you're not as naive as you pretend to be."
Iris's face flushed; her mouth popped open. "I don't- I never pretend-"
"Yeah, yeah. Come on. I'm not judging you. You know the effect you have on people and you use it. That's a skill. But it seems to me that you use it pretty indiscriminately." She was half-smiling, but her eyes were hard.
"What are you saying? Do you think I- I don't even know what you're accusing me of." Iris's voice rose a little; she couldn't help it. She felt uncomfortably scrutinized. Maddox folded her arms across her chest, cool as ever.
"I'm not accusing you of anything. I was just making an observation. You have to perform to survive here. Sometimes I wonder who you are when no one's watching you."
"You and me both," said Iris. There was a moment of somber silence that Iris spent picking at what little remained of her food.
Maddox cleared her throat. “I just have to say this: don’t make excuses for him, okay?” The older woman’s face was drawn.
Iris gnawed at the inside of her cheek. “Why not?”
She didn’t get to answer; the doors to the mess hall burst open to let in the sound of someone yelping with pain. Iris looked over her shoulder to see Able dragging an intern across the concrete by his hair. Maddox sighed heavily, shooting Iris a glance.
"There but for the grace of God go I, huh?" she said.
The thing was, Iris decided, he knew what to do with aggression, with anger and hate and cold indifference. But when it came to kindness, he was simply at a loss. That was why he froze up. The part of him that might have known how to respond to it was hollowed-out, empty. Iris wondered whether she could put something else into that void. Of course, there was a decent chance he’d snap and kill her if she pushed too far.
Sun Tzu says, When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.
It was like approaching an aggressive dog. You had to go slow and let him get your scent, or you’d be bitten. With that in mind, Iris gave him his space for the next few weeks. She stopped crowding him at meals the way she sometimes did and kept an eye on him from a distance: reconnaissance. It was, after all, her job. She was surprised to find that he watched her back. He didn’t try to hide it, just stared her down from across the room whenever he could. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. But the look on his face reminded Iris of a dog staring through a pane of glass, confused at what stopped it from getting inside. She wondered if he was missing the head pats.
When Iris decided that enough time had passed, she launched her next assault. She waited until they were being transported back after a job, when they were all sitting quietly in the van, tired and contemplative. Most of them were tired, anyway. Team Iris had gotten too close to the action and some of her soldiers had had to fend off the opposition. Iris remembered the pale, spidery thing clambering toward her out of the darkness and shuddered. There would be nightmares about that one.
Iris turned to Able, who’d wound up in the seat next to her. Transport vans were crowded, and they very nearly touched. He’d ended up to the left of her during transport on the past two jobs. She wondered if it was intentional. Able was staring into space, appearing deep in thought. After he’d killed, he often seemed like that. With the urgency of the fight gone, he was almost relaxed for a while, like he’d relieved himself of some terrible burden.
“I wish I could watch you fight sometimes,” said Iris quietly. Able swiveled his head to look at her.
“You have,” he said coolly.
“Not in training. For real.” Iris stared at his chin. “There’s no one who fights like you.” She patted his shoulder lightly.
Able’s hand shot out to seize hers in a crushing grip. Iris realized she’d never touched him like this before, or at all aside from when she was trying to hit him. Iris wondered when some easily-fooled part of her brain had stopped seeing Able as a threat and started thinking of him as a comrade. Stupid, stupid mistake. She inhaled shakily, waiting for pain, but it didn’t come. He simply held her hand there, her bones grinding together. The warmth of his shoulder sank into her palm, and Iris could feel his pulse against hers. She wasn’t sure whether she was surprised to find his heart still beat. She slid her eyes up to meet his, and he was staring at her with...not anger. It was something else, something rawer. Like he hungered impossibly for a food that hurt to eat, eyes wide and almost crazed with it.
“Please let go of my hand,” said Iris quietly.
He dropped it, saying nothing, and returned to pondering. Moment over. Iris flexed her fingers, wincing. She was good at her job because of her anomaly, but also because she was good at thinking ahead. It was Monopoly-strategy thinking. It was a skill that could be learned, but for Iris it was a talent. Now she thought about her next move.
Quiet and still, that was how he got when she...didn’t touch a nerve, really, but rather the opposite, poked her fingers into that consuming blackness that lived inside him. She’d never seen anyone else do it, and she liked that thought. The thought she liked more was that he let her do it. Cringing, tense, he accepted the little crumbs of affection she doled out, hand to mouth, even if what he ate burned his lips. There was a time when the realization that she had become this manipulative would have bothered her. That part of her was gone. That part of her lay cold and still under the earth. That part of her was still in her parents’ house, eating dinner at their table, sitting cross-legged in bed in her room with the lavender walls.
The part of Iris that walked and talked and wanted cornered Able in the mess hall again the next day. She felt emboldened. Today she sat next to him and scooted so that their elbows almost touched.
“That’s close enough,” he said, voice low and dangerous. He was glowering at her. “I am beginning to think you have some foolish ideas about what I am to you. I am not your friend, Iris. I am your superior, in every sense. Know your place.”
Had he actually gone soft like Beatrix said? There was a time when he’d have corrected her assumptions by taking her into the wilderness and leaving her there overnight just to show her how little he cared. Words with no action were Iris’s style, not his.
“I thought you didn’t care what I thought of you,” Iris said. “I’m just being nice.”
“I don’t care. Your childish behavior is a liability. I do not need you clinging to my ankles.”
Did Able have any right to set these kinds of boundaries when he had absolutely no regard for the boundaries of anyone else? Yes, said the high-schooler who died in her parents’ house, and she was right. No, thought Iris Actual, laying her to rest. “I think you deserve this,” said Iris, and while he was processing that she rested her forearm on the table and slid it across so it was flush with his. But he didn’t move away; if anything, he leaned into her a little. Maybe there was still some animal part of him that needed human contact, even if the rest of him didn’t. He still lived in a body, after all. He still had to eat and drink and sleep, though admittedly not a lot of that last one. Was that what she was giving him? A balm for the muffled, screaming part of him that was still human?
“Girl, you are playing with fire,” said Able. Girl. He called her that when he was riled up, as if putting her in her place would make him more secure in his. The thing was that Iris felt no shame in being called a girl; that was what she was. Boy, she thought, looking at him. She swung her leg back and forth. He was piano-wire tense. That was alright. He’d shove her if it got to be too much. She was surprised he wasn’t swinging already. But there was a formula for that, wasn’t there? He knew how to react when someone pissed him off and at what point to start doling out beatings. This was different. This, she suspected, scared him.
Something about that made him a lot less terrifying. It was so human.
“I like being near you even if we’re not friends,” Iris said. “I don’t know if you realize how crazy that is.”
Was it a compliment? Was it an insult? Whatever it was, it had the desired effect. He responded by huddling over his plastic tray of cafeteria food without comment. Keeping him disoriented, that was important. Boy, Iris thought again. He harrumphed.
“I wanted to ask if I could have more training this week?” Iris asked. She made her tone deliberately meek, backing off a little.
“In what,” he said.
“Throwing knives,” said Iris, picking at random.
“Why not firearms?” he said. “‘You people like those. Easier.”
“I’m not interested in practical,” said Iris. “I want to fight more like you.”
What did Iris need from him? For him to need her.
The two of them a serpent, gnawing off its own tail.
Iris didn’t know the details of 076-2’s containment procedures, but they’d told all of Omega-7 the general gist, just so they knew what they were up against, just so they knew what he could survive. She didn’t connect the unspeakable horror of them to Able’s aversion to bathing until she was nineteen and saw him get his face submerged in water for the first time. It was less than three feet and he was up in an instant, but he reacted by thrashing and spitting like he was going to die any minute. And that made sense, didn’t it? The last, oh, seven dozen times he’d experienced it, that had been exactly what it meant. Not even Able was immune to pattern recognition. Water equals death. Iris filed that away for later, as a good spy does. It wasn’t until the following winter that it became useful.
They were in Norway, both teams moving from Point A to Point B in a clumsy mob. At Point B they’d separate again, but until then Iris was with Able. They weren’t often side by side in the field, and Iris appreciated the opportunity to watch him. It was easy going until they came to a narrow wooden bridge over a lake that appeared frozen. The ice looked thick, but if the aging wood caved, someone could end up dead, trapped under the ice. That gave Iris an idea.
“I’ll cross first,” said Iris. “Since I’m the lightest. Then Able?” She looked to him briefly for approval. He nodded once. It was a good way of securing the bridge while they crossed: Able on one side, everyone else on the other.
Iris stepped up onto the icy wood. It was more rickety than it looked, and it swayed slightly under her weight. She took a few tentative steps. “I think it’s fine,” Iris lied. She was light; it would be alright for her. The rotting wood creaked under her feet, but held. She gingerly edged down the bridge until she reached the other side, where she waited for the others. Her little white lie worked better than expected; it seemed Able trusted her too much. He went right through the mealy wood, all 200 pounds of him, and through the thick crust of ice covering the lake below. Iris blew out a breath that fogged the air around her.
“Oh, shit!” someone shouted. It had looked pretty dramatic, but it wasn’t like he was in any danger with his strength. But he didn’t pop back up immediately, and Iris figured he’d lost the hole where he went in. That was what they warned you about. Iris felt a shadow go over her heart as she considered what that might feel like. Trapped and submerged was how the Foundation liked him best. If he killed anyone after this, it would be her fault.
It took him a surprisingly long time to make a new hole in the ice, but after a tense couple of moments, a tattooed fist punched through, flailing. The rest of Able came shortly after, scrambling to escape with a frantic urgency that was unusual for him. He stood, slid on the ice, and nearly toppled. Watching his large frame sliding around like a baby giraffe was funny; Iris had never seen him clumsy before. Less funny was the expression on his face. The whites of his eyes were visible all around, his teeth bared. It was blind panic filtered through rage, and when Able found his way to shore, drenched to the bone and trembling with everything but cold, he immediately took off into the woods.
“The fuck was that?” was hollered from the other side of the bridge. “Able! Where is he going?”
(When Iris was eleven, birds had nested under the eaves of her family home. Her mother, always careful, had told her not to get too close or she’d startle the babies, but she’d snuck up to them anyway to get a peek. A terrified fledgling had fallen out of the nest in an effort to fly away and it had died. She’d felt regretful afterward.)
Watching Able go, she thought of soft swirls of little grey feathers.
It was lucky for all of them that he came back, stomping through the woods an hour later to join them like nothing had happened. But he was cagier than usual, and spoke little on the rest of the trip. If anyone else noticed, they didn’t say.
She’d planned to approach him as soon as they were back on-site, but Able took off immediately, shooting into the building faster than she could follow. Iris spent a couple of hours roaming the halls looking for him and then walked back to the empty room he’d claimed as his. She’d never been inside, but she knew which one it was. She knocked, listened, and sat down outside his door to wait. She suspected he wasn’t inside; his reflex when he was rattled was to go as far away from anything familiar as possible. He had to be on-site somewhere, she reasoned, or they would definitely know about it. Iris drew a knee up to her chest and rested her chin on it, prepared to wait. Luckily for her, he came skulking down the hall after half an hour or so. He froze briefly when he saw her. Iris wondered if he was going to run again.
“Hey,” she said.
“Leave me in peace,” he snarled at her, fists balled.
“I hope you’re not upset about the lake,” said Iris. “It was just a little water. Everyone thought it was funny. I think they’re going to be telling that story for a while.” Iris was being very mean, she knew. He couldn’t call her out on it or he’d have to admit, to himself and to her, that it wasn’t just water. That it was the memory of being drowned over and over, that it was panic baked into his very bones.
Able spat on her. Alright. She deserved that. She’d done a cruel thing. He didn’t know she’d done it on purpose, but he probably blamed her anyway. She wiped at her cheek, grimacing, and then got to her feet.
“Leave,” Able said. He sounded tired. “I have no time for whatever it is that you want.”
“I just wanted to tell you something. I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” said Iris tentatively. “And it’s that I won’t let them put you back. They listen to me. They trust me. So you’re safe.”
“Do you really think I need you to protect me?” Able laughed mockingly, but it lacked conviction.
“It helps, doesn’t it? Knowing that one person’s on your side.” Iris twisted her fingers together, a show of timidness she didn’t feel. “I’d do whatever it takes to keep you free.”
Something gave in him then. Able braced a forearm against the wall and then leaned his forehead against it, hiding his eyes. He was muttering insults, but it was the most vulnerable she’d ever seen him. He looked like grim fucking death, to be honest. She’d underestimated how much this would upset him. That was good, though. That was useful. The Foundation owed her one. Good dog, thought Iris, patting him between his shoulder blades. Wherever he’d gone, he either didn’t notice or didn’t mind. Was this comfort? Was she comforting him? Iris realized she’d forgotten what that looked like. She touched his hair then, cautious, and he mumbled something incoherent but he let her do it. It would be very pretty if he washed his hair more often, she thought. She tapped her fingers against the gleaming metal failsafe the Foundation had collared him with. That was kind of pretty, too. She knew it bothered him a lot.
Able gave a heaving groan of dismay. There was something genuinely a bit unsettling about how pathetic this whole display was. Iris rested her hand on the back of his neck and kneaded gently. She was still cautious, but he relaxed under her touch. This was probably the first real human contact he’d had in eons. She decided he’d earned it, and she didn’t really mind, either. She’d become awfully fond of him. When had that happened?
“Okay, well,” Iris said. “I’m going to eat dinner.” Able muttered feverishly. The tone was plaintive.
She left him to his reverie.
That night, Iris stood and looked at herself in the mirror in her tiny bathroom. She’d sheared her hair into a pixie cut recently. It looked good on her. “You’re a bad person,” she said to her reflection, but she couldn’t keep a straight face.
Iris had thought for years that the Foundation had killed the best parts of her, but she realized now that she'd wanted them to do it. They hadn’t made her this way so much as cleared the path for her to walk it. Perspective, she thought. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t made choices. When she was a child, she'd wanted to befriend a boy in her class and had followed him around the school during recess. He'd told her she was creepy and when the teacher found out she’d cried and told her that he was bullying her. That was the sort of impulse she’d fed, even before she got locked up. What had really changed since then? She’d become a much more deliberate person, that was one thing. Another - and she blamed Able’s influence - was that she no longer really cared what anyone else thought. She knew what she wanted, and she would have it. Very soon, she suspected.
She wandered back into her bedroom and sat down on the bed. Sun Tzu still rested on the nightstand. She had three personal days coming up, ones it had taken her a long time to earn. It would be easy enough to avoid Able during that time, rallying before she attacked again. Leaving him on his own for a while after she’d just coddled him - that was effective strategizing. It kept him on his toes. More than that, it would remind him of what he would be missing without her.
Iris’s personal time was spent huddled in her room, doing crossword puzzles and thinking. It was nice to have a bit of rest. She also had to admit to herself that she needed a break from walking the tightrope that was her relationship with Able. That they could be said to have a relationship at all spoke to how far she’d come. She should have been the head of his containment team; everyone else was hopeless.
The night before Iris was to return to task force duties, she awoke to find him standing in her room, waiting for her. He was holding one of his strange weapons, a curving black blade that shimmered slightly in the orange glow from the nightlight on the wall that lit the way to her bathroom.
Iris sat up. If he was going to cut her head off, she wanted to be vertical when he did it.
“You are avoiding me,” he said. Pompous as ever, but with an edge of desperation.
“Kind of,” said Iris warily. “Does it matter?” Able’s free hand curled into a fist.
“What do you want from me?” he snapped. He looked angry and imperious, like always, and he circled her warily, pacing back and forth like a nervous dog.
“Nothing,” said Iris, getting out of bed. She wrapped a thin blanket around her shoulders. The floor was cold under her feet.
“Lies! Always you lie to me!” He was jabbing a finger at her now. “What do you want?!”
“That’s the thing,” said Iris. “I don’t want anything. I’m the only person who doesn’t want anything from you. I just like to be around you.”
He shook his head in furious disbelief.
“It’s true. Nobody else gets it. I do.” She allowed herself to smile hesitantly, taking a half-step forward. He stayed where he was, so she crept closer. There was a folding chair against the wall; she sat down so she was looking up at him. It was a compromise, a gesture of submission.
“I do not want or need your pity.” His teeth were bared, an animal smile. “I should kill you. No more of your- your mind games, your tricks…!” He brandished his blade.
Sun Tzu: Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
It was time to strike.
“It’s not pity,” said Iris. “I love you.” She paused for a moment, to let it sink in. He didn’t react except to make a wordless rasping sound of disgust. “And if I’m dead, no one else will. Not ever again. How could anyone possibly want something like you?” She could feel him unraveling. His brow creased, shoulders slumping. He was like a moth butting its head against a light: wanting what she had, but unable to comprehend it. He was so stupid, she thought lovingly. So incredible, but so stupid. “Everyone thinks you’re repulsive. Disgusting, actually. They hate you so much. It’s only me who doesn’t. Don’t you want that? Someone who would do anything for you?”
There was a long moment where they simply studied each other. “Come on,” said Iris quietly. He wanted to cave. As with everything she’d offered him, he would take it in the end. Able slowly released his weapon, which vanished soundlessly. He raised his chin, but lowered his eyes. Was it shame? Iris thought so.
Iris opened her arms, and he came to her, kneeling on the floor to lay his head in her lap. She petted his oily hair, smiling. To the victor go the spoils. His face was turned away. Iris couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She scratched his scalp lightly with her fingernails, and she heard him exhale heavily.
“Witch,” he said.
“What?”
“You’re a witch. I know it. I’ve met your kind before.”
Iris smiled contentedly. “No, I’m not. I don’t know any magic. Wait- do you know some? Can you teach me?”
“When I find out what you have done to me, I will kill you.”
Iris almost laughed. “If I cursed you, I don’t know how to undo it. Sorry.” She patted his cheek soothingly.
Able didn’t love her, Iris knew. He couldn’t. Whatever it was in him that could feel had died long ago, and what he felt for her, if anything, was like the pins and needles in a phantom limb. But he needed her to love him, and that was almost as good.
He was baffled by love, repulsed by it, devoid of it, so of course the taste of it had drawn him in. It was the call of the void, but backwards, because if there was a void it existed inside Able. He was a black hole.
“Put your head on the floor,” said Iris. Able straightened immediately and turned to look at her, eyes blazing.
“How dare y-”
“Do it or I’ll kill myself the next time you’re asleep.” Able stared at her, eyes darting between her eyes and her mouth. He didn’t know if she meant it. Iris didn’t, either. “That would suck for you, because you’d be alone again. I kind of don’t have much patience today.” Goosebumps prickled on Iris’s skin, hairs standing on end. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so energized.
“I don’t care. Do what you will,” he spat.
“You do care.”
“I do not.”
“Okay, prove it,” said Iris. She licked her lips. “Kill me right now.”
Able seized her by the throat. He pressed his thumbs into her trachea, cutting off her air. Iris’s pulse pounded in her ears. She sank her nails into his arms, scrabbling. Just when she was starting to see spots, the pressure vanished. Iris sucked in a breath that came out on a peal of giddy laughter.
“I knew it,” she wheezed. “You are such a liar. Put your head on the floor.”
Able slowly bent and pressed his forehead to the dirty linoleum.
The next day, Iris came to Able. She didn’t know what he actually did when he locked himself in that room. She didn’t really care. She knocked on the door politely, and when he saw her standing there he wavered only a moment before standing back and allowing her entry. She had a pair of scissors tucked into her belt. Able closed the door and stood there, eyeing her from a distance as though he were afraid of her. Maybe he was. Able’s was a short list of fears: drowning in darkness and being owned.
Iris sat on the unmade bed. So this was where he slept. That he’d allowed her entry seemed significant. Baleful looks aside, she knew he wouldn’t do anything. He needed her. He’d shown her that.
“Would you cut off one of your fingers if I asked?” she said, lightly, like it was a joke.
“I would prefer to keep them,” Able said through gritted teeth. Prefer. That was the answer she needed. She drew the scissors out of her belt. She’d found them in a supply closet. She snipped them in the air. “With that?” he asked. He sounded half-resigned.
“No,” said Iris. “I want to cut your hair.” He recoiled at that.
“Never.” She’d figured that was a weak spot. Someone so devoted to fighting had no reason to keep such extravagantly long hair. It was pure vanity.
“That’s not something the sort of people that I love would say. You don’t realize how much energy I spend taking care of you.” Snip, snip. Able kept his eyes on the scissors. She wasn’t lying; it was a very difficult thing, spoon-feeding him affection in ways that he could accept, as though it were some bitter medicine.
“Let me,” said Iris. “Let me, please.”
“How much?” he said.
“All of it.” Iris crossed her legs. Able made a face. “Come sit.”
He dragged himself across the room like he was going to the gallows and sat beside her. She decided to reward him for his obedience by leaning her cheek against his shoulder. He sighed a bit.
“Thank you,” Iris said. She straightened and collected a fistful of hair. Able flinched when she cut it off, close to the scalp, and dropped it onto the floor. A bed wasn’t the best place for this; his sheets would be full of scratchy hair clippings. Iris scythed off another section, and she could see Able grinding his teeth. He did that when he was embarrassed. She continued cutting off his lovely long hair in bits and pieces, taking her time. Able did not speak. When she was done, he reached up to feel the inch or so of hair he had left with a vacant look on his face. Iris wondered whether this was as bad as the lake or worse.
“Thank you,” Iris said again. “You did good.” There was a pile of black hair on the bed and on the floor. “I’ll let you grow it out again sometime.” It was very odd seeing him with short hair.
Able’s eyes burned hot. “Why did you.” Complete sentence. She honestly thought he might have preferred losing the finger. He clenched and unclenched his fists. There was a sort of childlike anguish in him.
Iris thought about it. “Why do you kill people?”
“Because I can.”
“Yeah.” Iris sheathed her scissors. She half-wondered if anyone would be suspicious about Able's new haircut.
“You’re not on their side any longer,” Able observed. “What happened to your convictions?"
Her convictions. They’d never been as strong as her wanting. And she’d been patient, playing the long game. She’d done a lot for the Foundation, been loyal as a lapdog. They couldn’t blame her for having her own goals.
“Lost them somewhere,” said Iris.
“Are we done?” Able asked gruffly. He was so moody. No doubt he wanted to sulk by himself.
“Actually, I need you to do something else for me.” Iris scooped up a handful of sheared-off hair.
“What?”
“Kill everyone who tries to stop me from leaving here.”
Iris left the Foundation with her hound at her heel. From the facility, they hauled their way across open country. The environment told them little about where they actually were. Iris’s arm bled where she’d cut out the tracking chip, and the wound kept opening again when it got wet with sweat. By the time they were close enough to a city to hear traffic, her entire bicep was slick and aching. Iris tore a strip of cloth from Able’s shirt - he wasn’t wearing it, anyway, but had tucked it into his belt - and wound it around the wound, cursing at the sting.
“You cut too deep,” Able observed.
“I noticed,” said Iris, gritting her teeth. She was hot and irritable. Worse, the arm hurt to move, and she was starting to worry she’d damaged something, muscle or nerve. “If they find us, promise me you’ll kill me before you let them take me back."
Able shrugged. “I don’t make promises,” he said. Being free of his cage had soothed him. For now. He tilted his head back to scan the skies. Getting the collar off had wounded him, and the reforming skin between his chin and chest was raw and shiny. “Soon we will be too close to the city for them to strike from above without destroying civilians.”
“And they won’t risk attacking you in a major metropolitan area,” said Iris, wiping sweat from her brow. “My guess? They’ll try to negotiate.”
Able’s eyes rested on Iris. His lips quirked up, amused. “Let them try,” he said.
(And in an infinite number of branching timelines, Iris let the Foundation catch her; Iris cared more about goodness than she did about power; Iris was less like Able and more like her mother.)
(But not in this one.)