Reconnaissance

"I'll explain after I put Noah to bed," he says, almost robotically, his face a mask similar to when I first encountered him. His son lays his head on his shoulder and reaches up grubby fingers to stroke the stubble on his chin.

"Sure."

. . .

I'm swaying in the chair by the time he gets back, exhausted but thinking about the implications of what he wants me to do. Am I supposed to be a live-in nanny? Wasn't there anybody else he could ask, any connections? A private company? No, I remember, no privatized services since the new regulations.

"You could've gone back up to bed, I would've found you," he says from the doorway, before sitting back down in his chair. He looks like a spirit, with a halo of curls surrounding his face.

"Yeah," I mutter. "But this is as close to a conference table as we've got."

He laces his fingers together and stares directly into my eyes. I stare back, distrust probably plastered across my face.

"Noah's previous caretaker is now a member of the federation, and it took a lot of moves to ensure that they wouldn't disclose my status to anyone. I've been handling things since then, but last week's launch was the first time I had nowhere to turn. I have no family or friends in this area, and Noah's mom is not in the picture. So last week, he was sleeping in the room beyond the one you found me in."

"I see..."

"And I'm not letting the agency take my son."

"I see."

"Those were rubber bullets, standard issue. I figured I'd let you know with the first shot, and escape with the hit to your leg. I guess a breeze slammed the exit shut, and there we were, trapped. I tried to knock you unconscious, but you're very fast," he comments, eyes boring into mine. "And you were heading back towards my son. So I took another shot to slow you down, only I was too close. Way too close."

He pauses for breath, and I break into a light sweat from the strain of sitting upright.

"And then you know, you found..."

"Yeah."

"And you went deathly still when you fainted. I brought you to the nearest urgent care and explained that we'd gotten mugged, filed a report, but that you lost consciousness on the way home. They asked for ID, but, you know," he snorts sarcastically here, "all our things were taken. They fixed you up, told me you had internal bleeding from blunt force trauma. They held you for a day and made sure it tapered off; you regained consciousness, though you probably don't remember now. Everything else just needed time and care. So, I provided the time and care, and I had a physician I trust come in to give you a once over; that's where I got the sedative. The anti-paralytic is, uh... I don't know your confidentiality level and I don't want to cause trouble for you when you get back, so I'll shut up about that."

Like I'm going back to the agency after this. "Couldn't the agency track you down with my appearance at the urgent care?" Why ask, Janelle?

"I turned in some false papers about three days ago, saying we're from out of town. So no alarms sounded there."

I sigh, my breath hitching at the sharp tug of my injuries. That's disappointing - I think. If everything he's said is true, then allegiance to the International Council would trump anything with the UNA, and I should be helping. If it's true.

He sighs from deep within his chest and continues. "The man in the ICU right now was a visiting inspector and had a heart attack when the bomb hit. I personally think he's going to survive, but until the hour comes, I am, for all intents and purposes, no-kill. And I did do some research before considering you."

I try to ease back in my seat, but my aching body won't let me. I lean forward, arms piled on top of each other on the table. "Is that right?"

"I still have access to the agency database. Born and raised in New Winchester, joined the agency through a friend at 23, and you work day-to-day as a music teacher. You have four sisters, seven nieces, six nephews. You participate in a community choir after work Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Unmarried, largely uninvolved, living in a single bedroom apartment in the quieter part of Santinio. Am I right?" Everything hurts now, and I shift to ease the pain in my leg. My back screams, and my chest screams at my back for screaming. I grunt, partly to acknowledge his words, and partly in acute pain.

He places his hands flat on the table. "So?"

I'm in a world of pain. I breathe, "Makes sense." I lean my head over my arms, exhausted.

"Shit," he exclaims. "Meds." I hear him launch himself from his chair and rattle around in a cabinet, before he gently taps the shoulder he'd almost pierced with his fingers not too long ago. "Here."

I open my eyes to a pair of capsules, and I don't even question throwing them back with the glass of water he hands me. "Thanks." I don't even care right now if he was going to kill me last week, I'm thanking him for the drugs.

I try to lay my head back down on my arms, but he stops me. "No, let's go, you're gonna rest." He holds a hand out, and I begrudgingly grab it, bracing on him to stand most of my weight on my good leg.

"I was resting," I gasp. He spots me as I travel up the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing, and I feel like fainting when I finally reach the bed.

"Alright," he says. "I'm down the hall, you've got another dose of percocet on the nightstand and a bottle of water. If you're still up when the sun rises, that'd be about time to take it again." He pauses, turns to go, and turns back. "For whatever an apology is worth, I'm sorry. There's no excuse for what I did, and I'll try my best to make it right."

I can't manage more than a tight "mmhmm," at this point, eyebrows furrowed in concentration to detect the slightest evidence that the medicine is kicking in.

The man leaves after a moment, and I'm staring up at the ceiling again.

. . .

"What's the rest of your terms?" I say at breakfast the next morning. Noah is decimating a bowl of chopped-up pancakes with rainbow sprinkles over top, and whipped cream already all over his mouth. The man slides a stack of three in front of me, with eggs on the side. No sprinkles.

He sits. "I plan to take out the remaining two bases in the next eighteen months," he says, "before I apply for amnesty over in Europe. I'd like for you to care for him for that time while I work on the last two projects. Round the clock, once you're all healed up, which should be a good month, month and a half."

I nod, mouth full of eggs.

"In return, I let your family know you're laying low after two months have passed." I don't choke on my food this time, but I blink back sudden tears. I look over at the baby, drool spattering the front of his shirt as he grips the handles of his sippy cup full of watered-down orange juice.

"Two months because that's when the agency stops supporting and reaching out to the family," I offer.

"Yes."

"What if I decide not to?" Noah finishes his juice and flings his empty cup to the ground. The man ducks under the table to pick it up.

"I don't tell them, and you're confined to the guest room for the next eighteen months." It's not death, I reason as we eat. I honestly don't fear him, even if he's lying about anything. It could be my own bias; my parents were enemies of the UNA. I wonder if he saw anything about that in my file.

In any case, I'll eventually get to see my family again. They'll have suffered through grief and loss, but I'll be back soon. According to him it's a certainty, and right now I have to believe it.

"Alright."

He looks up at me from the mess of syrup on his plate, one hand holding Noah's bowl fast to the table and the other sticky and tight around his fork.

"Yeah?"

I shrug. "If I'm gonna be here for over a year, might as well be...." assisting the man who almost killed me to deal costly damages to the government? "Useful," I say carefully.

"Alright. You should hang around with us over the next month or so while you heal up, get to know how stuff works." The man stands to take my plate and his from the table and wrestles Noah's empty bowl from him once more.

"Right." I gingerly sit back in my chair and watch him wash and dry the dishes, wondering about the particulars of my deal with the devil. Then I think for a second.

"What do I call you?"

The man cranes his neck to me and places the plates and bowl in the drying rack next to the sink.

"What do you call me?"

"I assume you're not going to tell me your real name, but I don't want to say 'hey you' all the time," I explain.

The man brushes his hair back, but I watch it spring back into place.

"You can call me my name, just like you call Noah. I'm Micah." He walks over to stand in front of me, offering a damp hand to shake.

I take it. "Janelle," I say, "which you already know."

"I do." He grins, and I smirk back.

. . .

The next six weeks prove to be much of the same routine. We wake up, eat when the baby eats, which is about four times a day, and go to sleep. I watch Noah take wobbly steps in his nursery as his father assists, watches TV, or works on his computer.

I'm hesitant to ask about some of the things I need for the next year and a half, but my period fast-approaching puts a fire under my ass. After a stilted conversation Micah gives me access to the cryptostore he uses, and a few days after he goes out to retrieve the few sets of clothes, hair products, and toiletries I ordered.

I slowly but surely regain the ability to laugh, cough, and sneeze without feeling like my chest is going to cave in, which can't come soon enough, because Micah is getting busier and busier. He's constantly at his computer, sometimes calling me at odd hours of the night to sit with Noah while he leaves to conduct some business. Those are the moments, sitting up waiting for him, that remind me most of waiting for my mother and father to come home from doing the same sort of activities.

My sisters are sets of twins ten and twelve years older than me, and they'd remember it a lot better than me, but I have foggy memories of my five-year-old self being passed into their arms when my parents had to leave in the middle of the night. I wonder if Noah is going to have the same memories, and my heart breaks a little. There came a time when my mother and father didn't come back.

Micah does return though, sometimes a few hours later or in the late afternoon the next day; sometimes excited, sometimes disappointed, but always tired. I take over making our meals, and as I shift to a solidly domestic role in the house, I wonder.

What if the agent they sent in that day hadn't been me? Would he have asked them to take over for the care of his son? Or was my little quiet life the only one that fit the bill? What if they said no? Would Noah still be put in dangerous situations with his father hustling him out to conduct business all times of night; would Micah hurt more people to protect him?

More than that, what does it say about me that I'm complying? I'm fully recovered and able to hold my own again, and though there's a set of passcodes on the front door I could try to knock Micah out and attempt an escape easily enough. I cook his food, I care for his son. There are ways I could get out of here, and I'm sitting idly by while he makes preparations to literally blow up two more military bases.

But, that's the thing. I cook his food. I care for his son. The fact that he attacked me without hesitation wars against how hard he worked to bring me back from the brink of death. It really, really shouldn't, but it does. I can't put anything about this situation into a box to separate the good from the bad, and it's tiring to think about for hours on end. Even my own parents were on the same side as him, fighting for pretty much the same cause. But would they make the same decisions?

A week before the two months are up, he wakes me up at around four in the morning, shoves Noah into my arms, and rushes out of the house, calling that he'll be back tomorrow.

Noah questions me with the one of the few words he has a solid grasp on. "Baba?" He blinks sleepily up at me and I blink sleepily down at him.

"Baba will be back," I tell him, lifting the blanket to draw him in against my chest. "Go back to sleep, baby."

We spend the next day waiting for Micah. Noah asks me, in his little two-word sentences, for his father multiple times, and as evening approaches I start to wonder too. He's never out this long.

I put the half-eaten pan of baked lasagna back in the fridge next to his breakfast and lunch, wondering if I should freeze the rest. It's never occurred to me what might happen if Micah doesn't come back. It's foolish oversight now, I realize. This is a dangerous thing he's doing. The people he deals with might actually be deadly, as rare as that is nowadays.

We go to sleep late into the night, with Noah fussing until I let him lay his head on my chest to listen to my heart. He does that thing that little kids do when they knead or rub your arm or chest; his little nails scrape my skin, and I wince as I remind myself to cut them tomorrow. If his father is home, that is. If not, I've got to do something.

I don't know what time it is when I feel Noah sliding out of my arms. I automatically pull him closer, and he wiggles around before settling down again, his hand tangled in his blond curls. "You're alright, baby, Nini's got you," I soothe.

I hear a slight sigh above me, too deep to be coming from Noah. My eyes shutter open and fall on a dimly outlined silhouette that lifts its hand to brush its mop of hair off of its forehead.

"You're back." The relief flows through me like a river.

"I'm back."

"You okay?" I pat Noah's back as he shifts again, flipping his head back and forth before finding a good position. I inspect Micah with blurry eyes.

"A little banged up," he admits. "A deal went bad and I had to scurry around most of the day."

"I see... how long you been home?" I worry a little at how casually I'm calling this place home. It's not.

"Long enough to patch up and shower. I popped my head in to check on you guys as soon as I got here, and just now I was coming to take Noah to bed." He pauses. "We need to talk about what to do the next time something like this happens."

"We do." My eyes are a little better adjusted to the dark and I finally see how exhausted he looks; his hair is falling in poorly-dried ringlets around his head, and his eyes are swallowed by shadows. The sight of him pulls suddenly at my heart, much like his son does. I make a decision. "Not tonight, though. Just lay down."

He shifts on his feet, and I'm sure he'd stumble if he took a step. "Here?"

I flip the covers off of the other side of the bed. "Lay down, Mike, you look like a ghost." I close my eyes and return to patting Noah's back, listening to the long silence and finally hearing him move. He does trip a couple of times, going around to the other side of the bed, and I feel the mattress shift. "Night."

"Good night."

I'm glad he's back.

. . .

Noah wakes me up with a little fist to the face, and continues stretching, little mouth in a wide yawning "O", as I glare tiredly at him. The clock reads 11AM, and I stretch as languidly as one can under a hefty toddler.

"Baba," he informs me, with a sleepy smile.

I look over at "Baba": his hair has dried out into its regular cloud. With his face completely relaxed, he looks younger than he is, although I know now he's three years my senior. A white arm stretches over his face, riddled with goosebumps. I pull the blanket up around him.

"Yeah, Baba's home, love," I grin. "You wanna make pancakes for him?"

Making pancakes involves letting Noah gnaw on a silicon whisk that I've dusted with icing sugar and me cooking in peace. I fry eggs and hold my breath as I sprinkle paprika over them; I've always hated the smell, but I love the taste.

I'm thinking about whether or not I should ask for the door code when I hear Noah giggle behind me. "Morning," I say over the eggs.

"Hey," Micah rasps. He looks better than last night, but consciousness puts about ten years back onto his face. He scoops his son up and holds him tight for a second, and I bring the food to the table.

"You wanna talk about it?" I don't want to care, but this is the only person I've been able to talk to for the last two months. I'm just trying at this point not to become a full-on 1950s housewife and rub his shoulders while he eats. Something's wrong with me.

He peeks over his son's curls. "I messed up and went to collect a drop at the same location as last time," he admits, "and on my way back to the truck I saw agents. I ducked into an alleyway and got to the other side of town, but by the time the sun rose the whole place was crawling with them. I hid in the back of a hardware store until nightfall, but I had to trek the long way through the woods I parked my car in."

I murmur my surprise, disguising my paralyzing worry with what hopefully comes off as mild concern. I bring the food to the table, and Micah sits down, his son in his lap. The first thing the baby does is hamfistedly grab the whipped cream off of the top of the pile.

"You think they got anything, or saw you?" I ask, watching him stare at his food.

"They for sure questioned my contact," he says, "but he has no information on me. I drove six hours out just for that, so it's nowhere nearby, no sell of parts that could identify me, or anything. I honestly think they detected my contact's signature on the web, not mine. I'm changing it today just in case."

"But we still need a plan," I add.

"We still need a plan," he agrees, finally digging into his eggs.

It's "we" now, in my head and his. We need a plan. I'm volunteering to take an active part in his scheme. All for a kid I met two months ago?

I know, as I stab my food around my plate, that it's not just for the kid. But I'll hold that little secret deep, deep down in myself, and play the reluctant and concerned agent until I can get out and deal with it. Stockholm Syndrome is something I've heard of, and I refuse to fall victim to it.

He sits back from an empty plate after only a few minutes, and I sit where I am instead of throwing more bacon and eggs into the pan. I don't need to cater to this man.

But I want to.

He finally sets Noah back down in his high chair to rip through the rest of his food. "I already have a second residence, but it's a cross-country drive and I need at least a good week to prep it for a sudden arrival. I could reach out to my old network..."

He trails off into thoughtful silence, and I speak up. "What do I do if you don't come back again?"

Gray eyes meet mine. "If I asked you to travel there without me, would you do it?"

There's a long silence after that, and he's asking an unspoken question. Am I with him?

"...Yeah." And here, I've crossed the line. Infatuation or no, why the hell am I saying yes?

. . .

I'm clutching a five-page letter from my sisters in my fingers, and I'm bawling. Micah brought it in, three days after he reached out to them, on top of a giant bag of clothes and two fresh pairs of running sneakers. Iris' message, written out and placed in the right shoe, says "In case you gotta make a run for it." I wonder if he saw it.

Priscilla and Maya took up two pages each with demands that I leave the agency when I finally get home, fired up over how they would thoughtlessly send a low-level agent into a high-risk situation and shrug when they lose her. Naomi's curlicue-script fills me in on how everyone is doing. It feels like a lifetime since I've seen them.

I lay out on my bed and start to draft a reply in my head, and gradually stop crying. Micah somehow delivered the little note I scrawled in my best handwriting to Naomi's apiary on the edge of town, saying I'm safe and well, and lying low for the next year and a half. Did they get to see him? I get lost in my thoughts about my family: I wonder if Jackie likes it at her new school, if Prissy finally potty-trained her hard-headed little boy.