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“Quite the weather we’ve been having.”
“Quite. Might be a record. Fifth day this year of near gale force winds.”
To the casual observer, the polite conversation between the man and woman on the bench was just like any of the hundreds of chance encounters occurring every day in Berlint’s largest public park.
Though his hair was gray with age, the man held himself with a poise that indicated lifelong athleticism. His gloved hands rested on a cane, a rolled up newspaper tucked into a deep pocket of his coat so the strong winds wouldn’t blow it away.
On the other end of the bench sat a prim, slender woman with curly ash blonde hair streaked with white. She wore a deep burgundy cape coat over a long pleated skirt and leather boots, a portrait of elegance and timeless beauty. Between her fingers was a fresh cigarette, its tail of smoke curling and dissipating with each gust of wind.
“What are the odds we’ll see another day like this?” she mused.
“The fall, perhaps,” the man answered. “Warmer weather will arrive sooner than we think.”
To the trained eye, however, the conversation between the two was anything but ordinary. Underneath each mundane pleasantry was another layer of meaning, made evident by the peculiar movements of the conversants’ lips. Film aficionados might find it similar to the slightly out-of-sync dialogue common to foreign movies in translation.
The real exchange taking place had nothing to do with the weather, without a single word wasted.
You’ve made further progress on Strix.
Yes. Anya has earned her fifth Stella.
More than halfway there. Estimate for the sixth?
Second year. Unless she somehow aces spring exams.
The woman nodded, and tapped a bit of ash off the end of her cigarette.
“Any travel plans this spring, then? Or summer?”
Status on Plan B? And C?
“Not spring. Summer is more likely, depending on my wife’s schedule.”
Not on B. C is more promising, though Melinda canceled her last appointment due to a speaking event.
Another nod.
“Is your wife a rather busy woman?”
Your investigation into Yor Briar?
Only the most seasoned operative would catch the slight stiffening of the old man’s spine beneath his deceptively casual demeanor. The ash blonde woman happened to be one of those operatives.
“Not particularly, though at times work calls her in on nights and weekends.”
Shadowed her on two separate nights City Hall called her in. Nothing unusual.
The woman raised an eyebrow.
“Nights and weekends? At her age? I’d hope you’d seek a word with her superiors, as any concerned husband would.”
By your own reports she’s only an average performer. Why the continued favoritism? An affair with her boss?
The reply was swift, the layers synchronized.
“No.”
No.
A corrective breath. Again, the man spoke without code.
“Her manager is well-respected within the community. He sees her as the daughter he never had, and looks after her well despite the extra work he assigns her.”
The explanation didn’t fully placate the woman, who took a drag of her cigarette with thinly veiled irritation. But before she could inquire further, something changed in the man’s posture.
Across the field, a young mother in a long pink coat came into view, holding the hand of a rambunctious little girl in a puffy jacket. Though the woman’s hair was black and her daughter’s pink, they shared the same practical hairstyle, a tight ponytail behind a sporty headband.
A large white dog trotted after them, a tennis ball between its teeth. As the girl chattered away, the woman set down the large tote bag she had been carrying and took out a colorful kite shaped like a bird.
For a minute, neither occupant on the bench moved, their attention riveted on the three newcomers among the dozens of parkgoers wandering about the footpaths and grassy field in front of them. The wind drowned out the girl’s shouts of delight as the kite flew free of her mother’s hands and gained altitude breathtakingly fast. It joined five other kites sailing valiantly in the sky, all commandeered by families or young couples out on a date.
“Any plans this afternoon?” the woman on the bench asked her companion.
Was this planned?
The old man shook his head.
Whereas the other kite enthusiasts struggled to control their kites against the buffeting winds, the black-haired woman held her spool and string without the slightest sign of strain, laughing as she raced around the meadow after her daughter.
“Sometimes an afternoon of leisure is just the thing you need,” the blonde woman remarked.
Timely. Saves me the trouble of going behind your back.
“Is that so?” the man mused. The sort of polite thing a stranger might say when uninspired by a conversation that had run its course. Or in this case, fearful that it had only just started.
“Kite flying seems almost like fishing, when you’ve got a bite on the line.”
You’ve said she’s athletic. Martial arts, tennis, volleyball. What else, I wonder?
A yellow bowed kite suddenly veered wildly off course and blew clear across the meadow as the spool fell from its owner’s hands. The boy’s father jogged after the kite, trying to intercept it before it got tangled up in a tree. But he’d grabbed the string too late. The kite had embedded itself in the upper branches of a giant oak, easily twenty meters off the ground.
The woman tsked in genuine pity. “And there’s a fish that got away.”
The mother and daughter duo paused their game of chase as the boy made his distress known to everyone within shouting distance. As the boy’s hapless father tried to reassure him, the pink-haired girl pointed at the tree and said something to her mother in earnest. The latter nodded with a smile and quickly reeled in their bird-shaped kite, placing it back in her bag. Then she ran over to the boy and his father to offer her help.
“Or…perhaps not?” the woman mused.
What else indeed.
In a flash, the black-haired woman leaped three meters straight up off the ground to grab onto the lowest branch, a height Olympic athletes could not achieve at a run. She swung herself up into a crouch, keeping her balance as gracefully as an acrobat. The thick foliage obscured the rest of her journey up toward the kite, but her pink coat was faintly visible as she alighted on the branch where her quarry rested. There she paused, as the kite was at the very end of the branch, far out of range of where an adult human could safely stand.
Her melodious voice carried far and wide as she shouted a warning to all the bystanders who’d gathered below. Immediately they backed away a healthy distance, parents pulling their overexcited children along as it became clear what the strange woman planned to do.
Clinging to the trunk with one arm, she brought her foot up and stomped hard on the offending branch at its thickest point. A tremendous crack rent the air as the branch splintered and toppled toward the ground, sending myriad leaves aflutter in the brisk wind.
A cheer went up from the crowd, and the boy broke free of his father’s hold to disentangle his kite from the fallen branch. In the hubbub, no one noticed how the woman descended from the tree in record time, save for the two elderly observers in the distance. They alone saw that she hadn’t climbed down. She had jumped. Her landing had been completely silent.
“What. Else,” the woman said in a hush. Whether she realized she’d spoken code aloud was unclear.
The man cleared his throat uncomfortably, as he too abandoned code. “Climbing trees, apparently.”
The woman turned to face her companion fully, a glint of open hostility in her narrowed eyes. “Apparently?”
Explain. Now.
The man merely looked confused. “What a wonderful act of generosity. Look at how happy she’s made that boy. A great example for her daughter, too.”
Didn’t Nightfall report the result of their tennis match? And the Lady Patriots made no secret of the hole she put through the gym ceiling. And at Newston Castle…
He wisely switched tack as the woman’s eyebrow twitched.
Yor’s strength isn’t without precedent. Her own brother has reportedly been struck by trucks multiple times and survived with minimal injury. Nightfall’s fight with Wheeler should have been impossible to win, but she somehow destroyed him.
Another, angrier twitch.
A-and…you’ve wiped the floor with countless trainees, Handler, no matter their weight class or prior training…
Her stare intensified, but she did not respond. The man shut his mouth and waited. The only thing worse than having to maintain eye contact in these circumstances was to dare to break it.
Both had been trained, however, to maintain awareness of their surroundings at all times. In their peripheral vision, they saw that the heroine of the hour was attempting to exit the area with her daughter and dog, having grown uncomfortable with the fawning attention of the kite-flying crowd.
“All this wind has me feeling weak,” came the clipped reply at last. “Would you be so kind as to accompany me home?”
We will tail them until you give me an explanation that isn’t utter horseshit. Or I discover it myself.
Nothing out of the ordinary occurred in the fifteen minutes that followed. Mother, daughter, and dog made their way toward the newly renovated playground at the northwest corner of the park, stopping intermittently when the little girl wanted to walk along the edge of a fountain like a balance beam, or the dog wandered off the path to sniff at odd scents in the grass.
A good distance behind them, the elderly duo strolled arm in arm at a leisurely pace. Joggers and dog walkers passed them with admiring smiles, inspired by the picture they presented of lifelong love, or perhaps the promise that it was never too late to find one’s soulmate. None of them could see how the woman’s nails dug into the man’s elbow like the jaws of a praying mantis.
“Tell me more about your ex-wife, if you don’t mind,” she said, deceptively soft and without code. “It sounds like you’re still quite fond of her.”
If one had been following their conversation since the bench, they would find it odd that the wife prone to working overtime was now a divorcée. Usual practice among agents was to keep a cover conversation consistent, and no one was stricter about its enforcement than the Fullmetal Lady herself. To break her own rule in public could only mean she had a greater prerogative.
“She is a very kind woman. An excellent mother to our children, providing the nurturing care and sense of security they needed to grow into confident adults.”
She continues to be vital for maintaining a stable home environment for Anya, keeping her on track toward those last three Stellas.
“How wonderful. And what about your role in the family? Don’t tell me you made your wife do all the childrearing and housework, even if your career kept you busy.” No code.
The man coughed, trying to find a diplomatic answer when the woman questioning him was the one who made his schedule so busy in the first place. Luckily he was spared by the sudden aggressive barking of the fluffy white dog up ahead.
“Anya, look out!” the young mother shouted.
In an instant the two elderly onlookers tensed, and it was only the woman’s iron grip that kept the man from abandoning his cane and dashing toward the family. A large Rottweiler had broken free of its leash and was racing down the hill toward the white dog and the little girl beside it.
Faster than the girl could shriek for help, her mother jumped in front of her, grabbed the Rottweiler with one arm, and spun in rapid circles to disorient it before setting it down on the grass. She kept a firm hand on its collar until its owner, a portly middle-aged man, arrived red-faced and out of breath.
As the man gushed apologies and scolded his dog, the elderly couple resumed their walk slower than before. Unlike the kite rescue, fewer people were around watching this time.
“That dog is easily 50 kilo,” the woman said quietly. “She lifted it like it was a chihuahua.”
This time, the man refrained from offering commentary. He could only remain mute so many times, however, before she’d believe he was hiding something or decided he was too incompetent to continue in the field.
Unfortunately, the afternoon of Rottweiler-turned-chihuahua stunts was only just beginning.
“Mama, help! Anya is stuck!”
Within minutes of arriving at the playground, the little girl had gotten her head stuck between the rungs of a metal ladder. No matter how much she twisted and tugged, she couldn’t extricate herself. Other children and their parents crowded around in concern while the boy who had goaded her into it scurried away guiltily.
“Oh dear! Should I call an ambulance?” one of the other adults asked.
“That’s alright! Thank you for offering to help, though!” the black-haired woman said, far too cheery for a parent whose child was caught in such a predicament. “Don’t worry, Anya, I’ll be right there.”
She climbed up seven rungs to the top of the slide where her daughter was stuck and patted her on the back soothingly, whispering comfort in her ear. The girl nodded and stood still, her small hands gripping the sides of the ladder. Her mother then took hold of the two offending rungs and—
“Should I be surprised?” the elderly woman muttered to her partner. They had seated themselves on a bench overlooking the playground.
—pulled them apart like they were made of putty. The metal creaked as it bent to the woman’s will, in danger of snapping free at the ends.
“Can you get out now, Anya?”
“Yeah!” The girl managed to slip her head out, drawing a big cheer from the growing crowd below. She turned around to sit on a warped rung and pumped a fist in the air. “My mama’s the strongest lady in the world!”
“Anya!” her mother chastised her, her cheeks growing pink. “Don’t boast!”
“Wow, strong lady!” another girl said in awe. “Can you spin us around on the merry-go-round thing?”
“No, I want her to push me on the swing! I wanna see if I can really go to Inside-Out World if I swing all the way up and around!”
“What about if all of us get on the seesaw and you get on the other end, lady?”
As the woman tried to deflect the flurry of childish requests, her daughter glanced in the direction of the elderly couple on the bench. Perhaps it was a trick of the eye, but her happy smile flickered with knowing mischief for the briefest of moments before she turned back to her mother and tugged at her sleeve.
“Let’s go play fetch with Bond, Mama!”
The girl named Anya chose an objectively poor spot to play fetch—near the edge of the park, bordering a busy street by a metro station. She also had poor aim, made worse by the strong wind. It was only a matter of time before the ball sailed over the fence and rolled under a parked car.
“Borf…” their dog woofed sadly.
“Aw, man,” Anya said, scuffing the grass with her shoe. Then she looked expectantly up at her mother. Apparently their bond was so close that no words were needed. Her mother smiled down at her with just a hint of tiredness and promised to retrieve the ball.
“You wait here with Bond, alright? I just have to go through the gate over there.”
“Thank you, Mama!” Anya cheered, but a look of confusion crossed her face. “Can’t you just jump over it?”
“Shh,” the woman knelt down quickly to her daughter’s level. “No, I don’t want to attract any more attention. Let’s try to be more careful, okay?”
The girl nodded dutifully, though her puzzlement didn’t completely fade. She waited for her mother to walk to the opening in the fence at the end of the street, onto the sidewalk, and all the way back toward her to the parked car under which the ball had disappeared.
“A lot of traffic this time of day. I don’t miss those days of crowding into the metro at rush hour,” the blonde woman noted from a cafe window across the street. It offered a clear vantage point for lip reading the conversation between mother and daughter.
So she does possess some self-awareness. Are the circus acts stopping for today?
The gray-haired man seated beside her took a sip of his coffee. “Hopefully the new metro line they’re adding next year will alleviate some of the crowding.”
That was one of the jobs she worked in her youth, actually.
Steel blue eyes cut toward him through a puff of cigarette smoke. “New metro line? First I’ve heard.”
The circus? Are you joking?
Truth be told, stoking his handler’s ire was only a diversionary tactic. For if she were to look out the window at the moment, her temper would flare even higher. The black-haired woman had tried unsuccessfully for the last minute to retrieve the ball with one arm outstretched under the car. Now, with one self-conscious glance at her surroundings, she gripped the frame of the vehicle and lifted the entire thing off the ground.
“I suppose the city hasn’t done a great job of promoting its infrastructure projects. Next March is the projected completion date.”
No. She did have to work many odd jobs to support Yuri and put him through school. A lot of hard manual labor.
The man kept his face neutral even as dots of sweat appeared on his brow under the woman’s sharp glare. All the while he counted the seconds the car remained hovering in the air out of the corner of his eye.
“March? That’s far too late. If only they’d chosen the right contractors, they could have gotten it done by the end of this year, I’m sure.”
Have you gone daft, Twilight? The fucking circus? Manual labor? You know there’s only one way an orphan girl could have made that much money.
“There’s actually been a shortage of construction workers. A steady stream of blue collar folks are moving out of the city because the cost of living has risen so much. Government policy hasn’t yet caught up to the reality of the shifting demographics.”
I’m not saying she didn’t do that kind of job as well. In fact that is yet another reason she’s so proficient in self-defense. She had to become physically strong enough to protect herself in that line of work.
Several car horns blared simultaneously, jolting them out of their tense conversation about the progress of the metro line. There was nothing the man could do to prevent his companion from turning toward the source of the commotion.
Now standing upright, her pink coat streaked with dirt, the black-haired woman waved a tennis ball sheepishly in the air, choosing not to answer any of the concerned shouts of the drivers who’d stopped in the middle of the road. She hurried back onto the sidewalk and tossed the ball over the fence to her daughter, who fumbled to catch it with a delighted laugh.
“How rude,” the elderly woman gritted out. “Blocking traffic just to ogle a young mother while her child looks on.”
She lifted that car, didn’t she?
“Indeed. Those drivers must be from out of town. Their license plates didn’t have the Berlint designation.”
No, it’s that her legs were sticking too far out into the road–
The woman’s hand shot out and grabbed the man’s collar faster than he could blink. The cafe patrons sitting nearby turned toward them in curiosity, but could only see the adoring look of golden age romance.
“Why don’t we go take a walk, dear.”
Gaslight me one more time. I DARE you.
“Aside from all the odd jobs she’s worked, there is actually plenty of external precedent for these feats of strength. You only have to look at the latest edition of the Gynness Book of World Records. A Polonian woman pulled a two ton car twenty meters with just her hair. That Bietle was less than a ton. You know how cheaply made Ostanian cars are. And the playground equipment as well.”
Their ‘romantic’ walk had taken them to an isolated part of the park where they were safe from any witnesses, civilian or SSS. Both a blessing and a curse for the man as he spoke as rapidly as possible, hoping to get his point across before further physical harm might befall him.
“But even if she lied about her background and is hiding a shadow career as you suspect, there is no logical explanation you or I could offer for why she would openly flaunt her abilities in public. If she were truly some sort of mob enforcer or hitman, she’d be much better trained to stay under the radar. I clocked this early on during the week of the Eden interview. We were in this very park, overlooking a busy street, when she spotted a thief stealing from an elderly civilian and immediately launched herself down the hill after him, shouting all the way. Her sense of justice and level of self-awareness are both very childlike.”
A long, measured silence. The pressure from her nails on his elbow did not let up.
“So then. In your professional judgment, agent, what is she?” the woman said in a dangerously low tone.
A deep breath.
“I know that we’ve been trained to believe there is always a deeper truth to uncover. That every human being accumulates layers of lies over time, and it’s our job to peel them apart. But…every once in a while, we encounter an anomaly. A person who is exactly what they say they are, no more, no less. Yor cannot lie to save her life. She falls for every cruel prank by her coworkers. She is so oblivious that she didn’t know Melinda Desmond was the former First Lady, or even what a First Lady is.
“And oddly enough, that is exactly what has made her an invaluable asset to Strix. She’s never questioned my cover story or any of my late nights at ‘work.’ She is incredibly devoted to Anya and has protected her again and again from violent threats. Her innocence and complete lack of ulterior motives have endeared her to Melinda Desmond. Without her, we wouldn’t have gained the unprecedented amount of intel on Donovan Desmond that his wife has disclosed as my patient.
“As to what might explain her abnormal strength…” The man hesitated, and let his shoulders sag in reluctant defeat. “Aside from the theories you’ve already heard, it’s possible that all the trauma she endured as a child triggered a ‘break’ in her fight-or-flight response. Research on this subject is still nascent, but anecdotal evidence has revealed that humans are capable of outlandish feats when in extreme danger. Lifting a car off their trapped child, for example. The instinctual restraints the brain places on the body for self-preservation are suddenly gone, and the person exerts ten times, twenty times the strength they are normally capable of.
“Yor’s case is certainly unique and would require further investigation to understand how she can sustain this level of output without being in a state of constant danger. But to put her under the spotlight of the scientific community would also present unnecessary risks to the mission. Thus, my recommendation is that I continue monitoring her quietly and maintain the many benefits she brings to Strix. I assume full responsibility for any adverse consequences. However, after nearly a year of cohabitation with her, I truly believe she poses no threat.”
Another long, potent silence.
“Throughout the day, I’ve entertained several creative ideas of how to get to the bottom of this massive intelligence failure,” the woman began with no small amount of spite. “Donning the role of your distant cousin, for example, to observe you both in the home. Or infiltrating City Hall to observe her independently, without the background noise of your groveling excuses. Or, when you deliberately tried to gaslight me, to take you up on your spur-of-the-moment agreement to Nightfall’s Operation Neo Strix all those months ago.”
She let him marinate in those unpleasant possibilities before continuing.
“But in part, you’re right. I can’t offer any logical explanation for what I’ve seen today any more than you can. And I can’t deny the progress Yor Briar has enabled for Strix, pulling all that weight on your behalf,” she said pointedly. “In fact, the final idea I came up with was to recruit her to WISE, if you indeed find her so trustworthy.”
The man was savvy enough not to take the bait and said nothing.
“You are dismissed, agent. Go home to your ignorant valkyrie of a wife, and ensure her continued cooperation. And if you ever try to gaslight me again…”
The man stumbled as her nails nearly punctured the thick fabric of his coat. With that, she released his arm and left him alone in the middle of the path without a backward look. If anyone who’d seen them earlier were present, they might shake their head in dismay at the sad ending of this love story. A hard lesson learned: an ice cold rejection and a broken heart were possible at any age.
“Papa! Papa! You missed the best part!”
Having spotted her father from across the field, the pink-haired girl slammed into his midsection with surprising force for her petite size. She looked up at him with a bright smile and a sparkle in her wide green eyes.
An upstanding citizen and well-reputed doctor of psychiatry, Loid Forger smiled tiredly down at his daughter. Although he hadn’t partaken in any of his family’s adventures around the park today, he looked as exhausted as if he’d run a marathon. Perhaps he’d walked a long distance against the strong winds.
“Oh? What did I miss, Anya?”
The girl’s beaming smile turned devious. “‘Member that bad guy who tried to kaboom the park with the big eska-vader? We ran into him again and Mama battled him!”
Loid paled instantly and swayed on his feet. The wind really wasn’t doing the poor doctor any favors today.
“Loid!” His wife, the black-haired woman whose effortless strength had astounded him countless times, ran up to them both and steadied him by the shoulder. “Are you alright?”
He nodded faintly and tried to refocus on their daughter. “I see. A pretend battle, I presume.”
Anya shook her head vigorously. “No, a real one! Even cooler than when you did it. She just grabbed the eska-vader and turned it sideways so he fell out! Oh, but first she snapped the big ball thingy off the chain.”
“Anya, what did I say about not boasting?” his wife scolded gently.
“Aw, but it was really cool!”
Loid nodded again as if he hadn’t heard his wife’s interjection, a hint of nausea discoloring his face. “...Is that so? What an imagination you have, Anya. Yor, a moment, please?”
Readily accepting her parents’ need for privacy, Anya skipped off to play with their dog Bond, the hard-won tennis ball clutched in her fist. Yor continued to hold her husband’s shoulder, rubbing his back with her other hand.
“What is it, Loid? Did you have a hard time at work?” she asked worriedly.
“You could say that,” he said with a cough. He squared his shoulders and looked at her solemnly. “Yor, I know I promised everything could stay under wraps. But I can’t keep this up on my side anymore. My handler was this close to killing me today when she saw what you’re capable of.”
It was his wife’s turn to whiten in alarm. “Oh no, I’m so sorry! She saw me tip the excavator?”
“No, not that, thank God. But everything else–”
“When I stopped the bus from hitting a pedestrian?”
“...No…”
“When I caught the window washer who fell from the skyscraper?”
“Yor…” The man shut his eyes and willed his heart not to fail. “Never mind what she saw. She saw enough. I managed to allay her suspicions by a hairsbreadth. And I do mean a hairsbreadth. There’s only one way I can see this ending.”
His wife’s earnest eyes widened in fear. “You…you’re going to divorce me?”
“No! No,” he said, grasping both her hands tightly. “I mean that we need to come clean. You figure out a way to tell your boss, and I’ll tell mine. The one piece of good news is that she was actually considering recruiting you at the end of our meeting today, so we have a bit of a head start there.”
“Really?” Yor’s eyes shone with relief and hope. “She thinks I’d make a good sp-”
He shushed her with a finger on her lips, then pulled her into his arms for a long-delayed embrace. Slowly, they melted into each other’s hold, and the coils of tension that had tightened to life-threatening levels over hours of clandestine interrogation loosened and fell away.
“She thinks you make me a better one,” he murmured in his wife’s ear, and kissed her windswept hair affectionately. “And I can’t argue with her on that.”