That night she lay awake for hours mulling the whole thing over. When she got up in the morning she had made her decision. She gave it two more days before once again telling her boss she needed to run a few errands. The remaining hours until lunch she was so anxious she could hardly concentrate and already ten minutes before twelve she got up from her seat and headed to her car. She drove across town in a flurry and arrived in the industrial park just 15 minutes later. She hastily parked the car then took up a position close to the Investibles building, waiting for someone she could follow inside. A couple of minutes later she saw a person coming her way and even at a distance she immediately recognized her husband. She ducked behind cover, her heart racing. She could feel doubt starting to bubble up in her stomach but she pressed it down, forcing herself to concentrate; this was as good a chance as any. The moment her husband stepped through the doors, Sara left her hiding spot and followed him into the lobby, keeping her distance. When the elevator arrived she rushed in behind him and before he had time to react she jammed her finger onto the Door Close button.
He looked up at her, his eyes widening as he recognized her. “Sara?” he exclaimed. “So exactly what are you doing for The Agency,” she asked, her voice level. The slight smile on his face vanished, “so you figured out I’m working for them?”
She nodded.
“How much do you know?”
“It’s a global, supra-legal organization dealing with ‘anomalies’ – whatever they are – that’s so secret that most government officials don’t even know it exists.”
“If you’ve come that far I can see no harm in telling you my role in it,” he said just as the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open.
He led her to the office of Investibles, unlocked the door and brought her inside. Inside the glass doors was a small lobby area with a reception desk backed by a sign saying Investibles. Knowing what she knew about The Agency, she could easily see that the lobby was just a front made to fool the casual observer. Behind the lobby was a small shared working space, four cubicles grouped together in a sterile, windowless room. Though she couldn’t put her finger on what, something made Sara feel like this area was also part of the front. From the shared space there were corridors leading off to the left and right. Her husband brought her to the left, passed a small meeting room and into an office. In the middle of the room was a large desk covered in all manner of things, as if someone was working on about four different hobby projects at the same time. To the left of the desk was a row of bookshelves and to the right a row of metal shelving units loaded with cardboard boxes. Behind the desk was a large window with closed curtains and opposite that, a white board covered illegible writing. Her husband showed her to a chair then took his seat behind the desk.
“So this is me,” her husband began, “I’m really the only one working here which is why I got all this stuff in my office. The rest of the place is more or less just for show, although the shared spaces and meeting rooms do get used occasionally if someone from another branch comes to visit. We do also have someone who comes in to man the reception from time to time, but like you can probably guess, that’s just to make the front company seem real. I’m a field agent, my job is to keep track of, and “deal with” any anomalies in this region. The reason it’s only me doing this is because anomalies are extremely rare. Most of us field agents have very little to do, The Agency just keeps us at our stations in case an anomaly is discovered in the area.”
“Do you remember about two months ago,” she interjected, “when I called you at the office every day for like three weeks?” “Now that you mention it,” he responded, “that was a bit odd.” “That confirmed that you were at your “normal” office every day,” she continued, “how do you get this work done?” “Easy,” he replied, “most of my work can be done remotely. The main part of my job is to track down anomalies and the easiest way to do that is to listen to rumors. You see, when strange things start happening, people tend to talk about it. At breakfast I scan through the local newspaper for any stories of ‘strange events’, and at my normal job I like to keep the local talk radio station on in the background, in case someone calls talking about ‘bugs in The Matrix’ or something similar. Nowadays most stories like this come from social media and for that we have software that scans the internet for certain keywords and produces a daily report. I really only come in here once a day to access Agency computer systems and go through that report. Of course, if I discover what I think is an anomaly I have to come in here to investigate it, but like I said, that rarely happens.” He leaned back in his chair and looked expectantly at her. “Anything else you want to know?” he added.”
“What exactly are these anomalies that you speak about,” came her reply directly. “How much do you already know,” he countered. “My sources didn’t say much, they mentioned suspending the laws of physics and reality being broken but no details. Frankly I didn’t quite understand what they were going on about.”
“In that case I can’t tell you anything more.”
“Why not?”
“So far I’ve just been confirming things you already knew or could have figured out by yourself. The Agency won’t be too happy about that if they find out, but ultimately I don’t think it makes much of a difference. Explaining the anomalies in detail is another story.”
Sara frowned, “you can keep all this secret from me for I don’t know how many years but you can’t explain the anomalies to me?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to Sara, it’s just that explaining the anomalies would be to divulge forbidden knowledge and-“
“I don’t give a shit about forbidden knowledge, I just want to know what my husband is actually working with,” Sara interjected.
“What I was about to say before you cut me off, is that I can’t tell you because it’s dangerous. Both of us could end up in serious trouble if I do.”
Sara stared at him but said nothing. “I can’t risk you getting hurt,” he continued, “I care about you too much”. Sara looked at the floor for a couple of moments then shrugged, “then I don’t have any more questions.” She got up from the chair and started moving towards the door. “Wait,” he shouted. Sara stopped and looked at him over her shoulder but said nothing.
“Before you leave I need to ask you one thing.”
“Fine!”
“How did you find out about me working here?”
Sara briefly explained how she had managed to track him down; her suspicion that he was cheating, researching all those odd transactions, finding the connection to the holding companies, the old BBS post about The Agency, and finally tracking him down to the Investibles office. When she was finished her husband said “Impressive! With those research skills you could become a fine field agent.” She smiled but shook her head. “I’m not joking,” he continued. “I know,” she replied, “look, I really got to get back to work.” She started for the door again and this time he didn’t stop her.
When Sara’s husband was sure she had left the Investibles office, he logged on to the Agency computer and started the reporting software. He opened up the form for security issues and started filling it in, giving it the heading ‘Agency cover compromised by civilian’. When he was done he moved the mouse over to the send button but didn’t click. Instead he leaned back in his chair and sat there for a couple of moments before getting up and going to the pantry to get himself a cup of coffee. When he came back he deleted the form and opened an old case file titled Anomaly 0100467. Under the notes section he made a new entry for the current date: “Worrisome new development: anomalous subject Sara-0100467 has, by her own volition and effort, discovered the existence of The Agency. The full extent of subjects knowledge has not yet been confirmed but it cannot be considered minor. In connection with this incident, the cover of field agent AN-323, who is in charge of monitoring subject Sara-0100467, has been compromised. Sara-0100467 is not yet aware that she is anomalous. Recommend to continue treating subject as if she were a civilian. Situation requires close monitoring from now on.” He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, then hung his head as he pressed the ‘update to server’ button.
Thank you to David Dyck for helping to edit this story.
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