Work Text:
Project Icarus
Age: 16 yrs
Supervisor: Colonel S. Riggins
Log Entry: 02818.1
Having received unanimous approval from the research team, Icarus goes out on his second external mission today. Agent Kelly has been assigned to replace Agent Jonathan as Icarus’ supervisor.
As per standard procedure, Icarus and Agent Kelly will share an apartment in the target location, and non-emergency visits from other staff members will be prohibited.
From the desk of Colonel S Riggins
Please find attached the briefing document that I gave Agent Jonathan before his mission with Svlad; not much has changed since then so I see no point in drafting a new one. Fortunately, you’re a lot more qualified than Agent Jonathan was.
I expect that you’ve read all of the reports regarding Project Icarus’ first external mission, so you’ll understand why we’ve hidden the true purpose of this mission from Svlad. As far as he is concerned, he’s tracking an object and nothing more. He should under no circumstances be made aware of the fact that this object is being tracked for the purpose of locating the individual who carries it.
One last note: I still worry that your age will make it hard for Svlad to confide in you. Prove me wrong.
Agent Kelly hated his job. This was ironic, because he’d actually worked very hard to get it. He’d spent weeks preparing for the interview, reading every document about Icarus that was accessible at his clearance level.
On his first day, he’d been greeted by a sharp-eyed, dark-haired woman in a lab coat who had taken one glance at him and scoffed.
“Let me guess,” she’d said, “You heard Icarus was Riggins’ favourite, and you came here hoping to get noticed for a promotion?” She’d raised an eyebrow at his dumbfounded expression, and then handed him a stack of papers. “Either you’re good and you’re stuck here forever, or you screw up and they assign you to one of the Lovecraftian types downstairs. You can work on accepting your fate while you shred those files for me.”
Kelly wished he’d had a conversation with Dr Patel before taking the job. Three days babysitting Icarus and he was about ready to retire.
He cleared his throat as he watched Icarus browse through a rack of ties.
“You’re sure this is relevant to the mission?” he asked drily. Icarus startled a little, apparently totally absorbed in choosing between a star print and a turtle print.
“Oh, yes, of course it is! You see, if I’m to be a detective, then I need to talk to a lot of people. And if I’m going to talk to people then I’m going to have to look approachable,” Icarus began, and Kelly mentally checked out for the rest of the ramble, “The black suit and tie is a very suave combination, though I’m not quite sure if I’ve mastered suaveness like you have… Okay, well, I suppose you didn’t notice that compliment. That’s fine. Anyway, suaveness is not the same as approachability and I feel like I should look very approachable. Do you think turtles are more approachable than stars?”
Kelly took a glance at the price tag on the turtle tie, and immediately regretted it. Who knew turtles were so high-end?
“I don’t think this is what the CIA budget is intended fo-“
“Colonel Riggins said that I could choose my own tie,” Icarus interjected hurriedly, “He said I had to wear a black suit but I could pick the tie. And I explained, it’s important for the case. You’re a new assistant, so perhaps you just don’t understand the particularities of detective work yet.”
The expression that Icarus wore was obviously intended to be unyielding, but Kelly was well-trained, he could see the underlying nervousness a mile off. He knew that he could say a few firm words and Icarus would probably back down, but he was also supposed to be staying in Icarus’ good books for this mission.
“One tie. Get the star one, it’s cheaper,” Kelly conceded after a moment of terse silence, and Icarus beamed. Kelly may not have been psychic, but he still had a vague premonition that he’d soon come to regret this lax approach.
<to: b.lee@[REDACTED].gov; r.esposito@[REDACTED].gov>
<from: a.patel@[REDACTED].gov>
Did you watch the surveillance footage from last night? I couldn’t tell who Kelly wanted to throttle more, Icarus or himself. I’ll be surprised if he lasts to the end of this mission.
Dr Patel
<to: a.patel@[REDACTED].gov; b.lee@[REDACTED].gov>
<from: r.esposito@[REDACTED].gov>
Somebody should have pity on the man and allocate them an apartment with a TV next time. I know I’d go crazy having to entertain Icarus all evening. But then again, he’s not very talkative with me.
Dr Esposito
<to: a.patel@[REDACTED].gov; r.esposito@[REDACTED].gov>
<from: b.lee@[REDACTED].gov>
Might be something to do with that electroshock machine of yours, Rick, just an idea. Anyway, I specifically asked them to under-furnish the apartment. I want to hear what Icarus has to say. And I have good reason to believe that he’ll confide in Kelly more than Riggins expects him to, if Kelly would just make a little effort and play nice.
Dr Lee
Food shopping was harder than Dirk had imagined. On his last mission, with Jonathan, they’d just eaten out for every meal. Agent Kelly said that eating out was a waste of CIA money, and that he didn’t want to go to a restaurant with Dirk.
He squinted down at the list Agent Kelly had given him, but was struggling to figure out what some of the items were. Eggplant? OJ? Spam? The words might as well have been written in a foreign language.
The list wasn't the only tricky thing about shopping. It was hard to walk around the supermarket and not have his attention captured by the variety he saw on the shelves. So, yes, a few items had been slipped into his basket that weren’t necessarily on Agent Kelly’s list. Dirk wanted to make the most of this brief reprieve from the horribly bland CIA meal plan, which had simply cycled between the same fourteen meals, week in week out, for the past eight years of Dirk’s life.
The next aisle was drinks, and Dirk was initially content to ignore it because their apartment had a water cooler, but then something caught his eye. Cream soda. Reading the label on a bottle shouldn’t have made his breath stutter in his chest, but it did.
The thought of the sickly sweet vanilla flavour took him back to England, back to a garden that he’d staunchly not let cross his mind in years and years. Back to fleeting days of English summer, when he would wait for the adults to look away before standing on his toes to pluck barely-ripened plums from the tree, when he would peer over the fence to talk to the neighbours’ children about their favourite animals and superheroes, when he would run a delicate finger down the backs of caterpillars that grazed on the cauliflower. When a soft and comforting figure would join him out in the greenery and pass him a perfectly chilled glass of cream soda with a scoop of ice-cream sat on the top, the vanilla flavour settling into his taste-buds, ready to bring back hazy memories just at the sight of those two words.
Dirk bought three bottles, and didn’t even feel bad when he got back to the apartment and Agent Kelly told him off for wasting money.
Interview with Project Icarus conducted by Dr Lee, Transcription Extract
DL: Subject is currently aged 11. Analysis of physical development shows a slight, but not particularly concerning, delay. Psychological development is unsurprisingly skewed and difficult to analyse in terms of normal developmental markers. You can let him in now.
Icarus enters, sits down
PI: Good morning, Dr Lee.
DL: Morning, Svlad. Sit a bit more comfortably than that, the chair isn’t going to bite you. I know this isn’t our usual room, but I had to borrow Esposito’s because they’re repainting. You don’t have to worry, he won’t be joining us. I wanted to talk about the past today.
PI: The past? Like history? I don’t have any books on history, am I going to get some?
DL: Not the distant past. Your past. Before you came here, do you remember much about that?
PI: The colonel used to say I shouldn’t talk about it.
DL: I want you to talk about it. What do you remember about the world outside of here?
PI: I remember having a big bedroom. But it might have just seemed big because I was small, like how my bedroom now feels smaller because I’m bigger.
DL: Do you miss going outside?
PI: Yes. I miss talking to new people too, and being able to go to the library and find new books, and wearing different sorts of clothes, and playing on seesaws, and going to school, and eating new food. I miss a lot of things. That’s a silly question to ask.
DL: Oh. You’re upset. Or angry. It’s not like you to get angry, Svlad.
Pause
DL: Does it hurt, talking about these things?
PI: It hurts thinking about them. Can we talk about something else?
DL: That’s not how these things work. Why do you say you miss meeting new people? I’m new, aren’t I? Well, I suppose it’s been nearly a month now.
PI: It’s not the same here.
DL: Why not?
Pause
PI: Meeting new people here… The nice people usually leave. So, I know that if I meet somebody new, they’re either going to be mean, or they’re going to have to go away soon.
Dr Lee laughs
DL: Does that mean you think I’m going to go away soon?
Agent Kelly was beginning to think that ‘keeping Icarus focused on the mission’ was an impossible task, and he was sure Riggins had known that when he’d assigned it. Sometimes, the kid behaved more like a twelve-year-old than a sixteen-year-old.
He’d thought sending Icarus to do the shopping would be a great way to get some peace and quiet for thirty minutes, but he hadn’t considered the long-term consequences.
In this instance, ‘long term consequences’ referred to a sugar-high teenager clinging to Kelly’s arm and dragging him through the city centre, changing directions with every new whim that flitted through his brain.
“Don’t you feel it, Mr Kelly? It’s like… Like buzzing all around me and everything is linked together in some sort of connective manner. Connected! Did I mention that to you yet?” Icarus had mentioned that about thirty times in the last ten minutes. “Oh, no! We need to go this way! Do you remember that flyer we saw earlier this morning, the one about the stolen wallet?”
“No,” Kelly replied, a reply which went entirely ignored. His attempts to shake off Icarus’ grip were also going ignored, and he briefly wondered if he was allowed to hit the subject. Riggins probably wouldn’t approve.
“The picture on the flyer was the same- ugh, no, too much to explain. We just have to go this way! I’ll explain as we go. So, you see, the wallet on the flyer had a little logo in the corner and the crocodile on that logo is the exact same-“
Kelly endured the hyperactive ramblings for about ten more minutes before something inside of him snapped. Waiting out the sugar high no longer felt like an option he was willing to pursue.
“Shut up! God, do you have any idea how infuriating you are?” he finally shouted, tugging his arm out of Icarus’ grip so roughly that the boy stumbled back a little, looking stunned.
“I onl-“
“No! I don’t want to hear another damn word. You have a mission. You are going to work on that mission and nothing else. None of this tangential wallet nonsense. No more messing around shopping. No more treating me like I’m your friend, or your assistant or whatever. I’m here to stop you from doing the many, many moronic little things that your moronic little brain wants to do. That is the full extent of our relationship. Do you understand, Icarus?”
Kelly didn’t care one bit that Icarus looked on the verge of tears; it felt so damn satisfying to finally let out his frustration. Eventually, Icarus mumbled an apology and they walked back to the apartment in blissful silence.
Icarus sequestered himself away in his bedroom for the rest of the day. Kelly poured the remaining bottles of cream soda down the drain.
Log Entry: 02832.2
Icarus has returned to [REDACTED] Base after successful completion of his mission.
Agent Kelly’s methods have received mixed feedback from Project Icarus staff members, but they appear to have significantly improved Icarus’ efficiency. A performance review will take place tomorrow to determine whether Agent Kelly will accompany Icarus on future missions.