Chapter Text
The room could have been anywhere. A tastefully furnished penthouse in any capital city in the world, glass and steel, holographic displays and modern art on the walls. Talon maintained rooms just like it all over the world. Somewhere for high-ranked agents to rest their heads between deployments.
The man in it, though, he could only have been one person. Most Talon operatives pride themselves on their ability to blend in, but not Reaper. Quite the opposite.
He drank thousand-dollar whiskey straight from the bottle and watched the holo-screen in front of him with practised disdain. On the screen: ten silhouettes that spoke with voices masked by computerised distortion to protect the speakers’ identities.
“So she’s out of our reach then?” one of them asked.
“No-one’s untouchable,” another countered.
“You can’t touch someone you can’t find.”
“Bah. She’ll stick her head out eventually, and when she does, we’ll lop it off.”
“With what? Have you already forgotten what happened the last two times we tried?”
“Despite the recent failings of our top agent –” not even the disguise on the voice could mask the disdain, Reaper rolled his eyes “- I remain confident that with the correct application of force…”
“Forget it.” A new voice, one everyone in this conference call half-recognised. One worth listening to. “As of right now, I think we shall close the book on Project Widowmaker.”
Murmurs of assent, some half-hearted. Reaper took another swig.
Morrison liked whiskey. Reyes was a bourbon man.
The thought bubbled up in his head like foetid gas in a swamp. His face twitched. Smoke billowed from his nostrils and mouth.
On another screen, to the left of the main one, was everything Talon had on the chronal accelerator. He had read and re-read it before the call began. No answers in it.
“With the loss of one of our top agents a certain… reconfiguring, will be necessary.”
“Agreed. Our ability to project force-”
“Has barely changed,” Reaper (Reyes) snapped. “One woman doesn’t make up for an army. You have me and my men.”
“And as you proved on both sides of the Channel, she was better than both.”
A hairline crack appeared in the whiskey bottle under Reaper’s clenching fingers.
“She got lucky and had outside help.”
“Is that an excuse?”
“Feel free to fire me if you don’t like my performance,” he snapped. “See how much reconfiguring you need to do after that.”
“That will not be necessary. Calm yourselves, the pair of you.”
The other one apologised. Reaper just made a dismissive noise.
“On to other things, then. Next item on the agenda?”
“Vishkar. And I can inform the board that my contacts there say things are progressing nicely. Working prototypes within two weeks.”
“Excellent. And while we’re on the subject – Rio?”
“Primed for our intervention. And Vishkar’s looking forward to picking up the pieces.”
The meeting moved on. Reaper tuned out. They were done talking to him anyway.
He sat there in the anonymous apartment as the sun sank behind tinted glass, drinking down to the bottom of the bottle and remembering things from a lifetime ago.