Capítulo 44: Questions

"We only have time for one more game before I need to go to bed," Claire informed him. "If you lose this one, we have to wait until tomorrow."

Alex nodded. "That's fine. The Oreo cheesecake revitalized me and I am ready to win."

His statement made her laugh but he wasn't wrong. He got lucky enough to buy both Park Place and the Boardwalk and quickly began building houses and hotels. She landed on the Boardwalk square and ended up losing all of her money in a single go a little over an hour into the game.

Claire held up her hand for a high five. "Good game."

He slapped her hand more forcefully than the first time they tried this but not so hard it hurt that much. He was getting better at this.

"I knew I would get it eventually. You're a good teacher, Claire."

No one had ever told her that before. Then again, she didn't have any teaching experience before this.

She smiled at him. "Thanks. I'm going to go get ready for bed now though so do whatever you want."

When Claire came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later she found him crouched down in the hallway petting Daisy and saying "good kitty" in a pitiful attempt at the sort of baby voice she normally used. She muffled her laughter with her hand and went to bed. It really was nice having someone else around the house.

===

Jared had dreaded the moment he would have to tell the Numbers what had happened with Six from the moment the plan was set. Not all of them—the only ones who needed to know were those who had been chosen to be a part of the special squad—but it was still a frightening prospect.

Picking the squad had been hard. Choosing the best possible agents out of the regular ones wasn't nearly as difficult as deciding which Numbers would go.

Knowing Six could take down at least half a dozen strong opponents by himself in hand-to-hand combat, they had decided to play it safe by sending ten people. Five from each group. The problem was choosing which five Numbers should go.

There were only eight who were combat ready. Jared and the other four members of the board had wanted to leave the three who were most likely to be influenced by Six's bad behavior behind but deciding exactly who those three were was harder than he thought it would be.

Every single Number who was old enough to go on missions had required retraining at some point except for Six. They normally started getting rebellious when puberty hit. The earliest retraining they ever had to do was at age twelve and the latest one to date had been at age nineteen.

Retraining was a vigorous brainwashing process but once it was done it didn't need to be repeated. Other agents were able to call retraining to the forefront of a Number's mind by using specific code phrases. They became perfectly obedient and emotionless once again whenever the code phrases were used.

Three and Four hadn't needed those phrases to be used in a while so sending them was the obvious choice. Five might be one of the safer choices as well because she had been wiped clean recently. As for the other two…

Ten and Eleven probably shouldn't go because they had barely any experience in the field and could be negatively influenced by this. They had gone through retraining six months ago at the same time and that had been rough.

Perhaps taking in identical twins hadn't been the Agency's best idea. It was impossible to hide the fact that they were related from them so they had a vague concept of family. They didn't seem to care for each other in any meaningful capacity but they did share a room and stuck together at meals.

Which meant that they had to decide which one would be left behind between Seven, Eight, and Nine. It was an almost impossible decision to make since they were roughly equal in terms of skill and had been reset a similar number of times.

Eventually they decided to leave Nine behind simply because she was a 5'4" female and would be less physically likely to overpower Six, who was 6'2", in a fight. The squad was set: Three, Four, Five, Seven, and Eight would be joined by Cobra, Jackal, Fox, Magpie, and Lion.

They needed to run some drills on the best formation to take down such a formidable enemy now that everyone was back in town but first Jared had to explain why it was necessary in the first place. He was concerned that the Numbers wouldn't take it well.

Six was the crowning achievement of the program and they all knew it. If even he could defect, they might get ideas about leaving themselves. He had a sinking feeling there would be a lot of resetting with the code words in his future.

"What I am about to tell you is completely confidential. You cannot speak of it to anyone outside of this room. Do you understand?" Jared asked once all of the members of the elite squad were gathered in one place.

A perfectly in sync chorus of "yes, sir" resounded in his ears. It could be a little eerie how they could do that but it also showed how effective the program was.

He continued. "We have a situation. Code Red. Six has been compromised by a target he was sent to kill known as Claire Conway. She is twenty-two years old, works as a pharmacy technician, and lived alone when the request originally came in.

"We believe Six is staying with her now and preventing the mission from being completed by anyone else. Your task is to bring him back for retraining and take down the target as originally planned. The client is waiting on us and we cannot fail them. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir!" rang out but one hand shot into the air.

Five. She had always been more curious than her counterparts, which was the primary reason she had been wiped clean so often even after puberty had passed.

"What is it, Five?" Jared asked, trying to hide his nerves. Questions were what he was most worried about with this assignment.

"Raven, sir, no one in this room is capable of taking down Six even with the benefit of outnumbering him. How do you propose we do it?"

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