Chapter Text
Being a secret agent, Michael Guerin was rapidly discovering, was nothing like the James Bond films. There were a lot more tests, for one thing, and fewer exotic death traps.
Somewhat to his surprise there hadn't been any testing of his powers, at least not yet. Oh, Doctor Diane had given him a medical check-up "for a baseline," done a double-take and redone her tests before accepting that his body just was that weird, but those had all been external checks. There had been no blood samples and only one cheek swab which still had Diane muttering about impossible biology. None of the things Michael had been expecting when he'd been practically drafted into the NSA and nothing that made him feel like a guinea pig. It was kind of unnerving.
In fact all his training and assessment so far was with firearms and unarmed combat. Michael didn't see the point, and told his trainer as much.
"Some day you'll need to defend yourself without using your powers," Kyle Duarte said unsympathetically. "It's happened to Jake more times than I care to remember."
"True," Jake Foley admitted, wrinkling his nose at the memories. "Pretty much immediately after Kyle first got me to shoot straight someone smuggled an EMP bomb into the building. I had to deal with them without any of my enhancements."
"An EMP bomb wouldn't affect me," Michael pointed out.
"Something will," Kyle said, and Michael hated that he already knew that was true. "Or you'll be in a situation where you absolutely do not want to break cover. Knowing how to hold a gun — hell, looking like you know how to hold a gun could be the difference between success and failure."
"I know how to hold a gun," Michael groused.
"Yeah, no," Jake disagreed. "Whatever that security firm taught you, it wasn't firearms proficiency." He smirked as he lounged up against the wall.
"Some moral support you are," Michael told him.
So Michael's 'orientation period' was filled with training he didn't want to go along with paperwork that nobody wanted. He also had to help Jake and a reluctant Kyle carve protective runes into every door lintel in the building, because apparently he even needed a cover with his co-workers.
"You're seriously telling them I'm a magician?" he asked.
"We're seriously telling them nothing," Kyle said. "When they go digging they'll find hints that you've been involved in things that don't have a rational explanation, and have an interest in mystical bullshit. Feel free to deny that, by the way. The more they have to work for the information, the more they'll believe it." He seemed amused at the idea of putting one over on his colleagues.
"So you don't trust your own agency with this?"
Jake and Kyle shared a look. "Michael, the President himself told Lou he didn't trust her superiors," Jake said seriously. "She doesn't report about you to anyone other than him."
Michael felt his jaw drop open. "The President knows about me?" he asked weakly. It wasn't a squeak.
"Somehow," Kyle said. "Lou isn't talking about it."
"At least he isn't telling her what to do," Jake said with more of his normal humour. "We'd all know about that."
Kyle turned back to his handiwork while Michael tried to process all that. He was important enough for the President of the United States to personally keep tabs on him. Him, Michael Guerin, not King Max. This was so far beyond weird as to be on another planet.
"Does this look right to you?" Kyle asked, as if he hadn't been the one making Michael memorise mystical symbols.
Jake looked over. "There's another crossbar on that last symbol," he said. "Come on, let's get this door finished, then we can go blow stuff up. That always puts you in a better mood."
Well now, wasn't this interesting? For the first time he was glad of his orders to infiltrate this wretched organisation. He had nothing but contempt for the humans here, who thought they knew so much when they knew practically nothing. He didn't even have to work at corrupting them. They came up with the most ludicrous excuses for their actions while earnestly insisting they were doing good. It was like the Inquisition all over again.
But this Jake Foley... Well, well, well. Whoever it was working on the NSA's higher ups had been keeping secrets. If he had even heard of something like this, he would have dropped everything to investigate. It sounded so close to his dream...
He'd had a taste before, that had been the cruel thing. He'd thought he had been so clever, bargaining with impossible conditions, but That Man had done the impossible like it was nothing. It had been glorious, but he couldn't hold it together, couldn't stop the panic that took all of them off the cliff. Even the farmer he'd ruined in the process turned out to be someone else's pet project. The bollocking he'd got just for coming to That Man's attention... no, cruel barely began to cover that whole episode.
Foley and his nanites could change all that. They had the potential, even he could tell that. He neither knew nor cared enough about the technology to have much grasp of the details, but he didn't need to. With the nanites he could control what had got out of hand before. He could have that glory and keep it.
Screw the rest of them, the Earth was his.