Kay knocked on the door and entered when she heard Aye's voice inside. The office was grey, like nothing else at Abscess. His mahogany desk was in the middle of the room with a small bar to the left and a brown chair to the right. Kay never sat. She stood in front of his desk, her feet properly spaced out and her hands behind her back, poised and ready for whatever news Aye might give her.

His grey hair glinted in the soft light from the lamp behind him. This was the only place in Abscess that felt comfortable. It was the only place without LED lights and it was the only place that Kay felt everyone wasn't actively out to get her.

"Kay," Aye said, his voice a low rumble that she felt under her skin. "How have you been?"

"Working," She said, her eyes trained forward. She knew her place here, even if Aye seemed determined to blur the lines. "What did you need me for, sir?"

Aye cocked his head, "You know you can sit down, right?"

"I prefer to stand."

He shrugged, "Okay." Reaching under his desk he pulled out a file and handed it to her. "Your next mission. I want you to head it with El inside and Zed on emergency sniper duty."

Kay nodded. She flipped open the file and read the information on the target inside. She was a prostitute and Kay was slightly confused as to why she'd be taken out. "Who is she?"

"Amanda Slow, more often referred to by her working name, Mandy. She's someone who worked a little bit too closely with Senator Cole and found out a bit too much. She's a threat to national security." Aye stood up from behind his desk to look at Kay in the eye. His suit was perfectly pressed and not a single thing about him looked out of place.

She nodded in response, the file making more sense now that she knew the past of the woman. Mandy could absolutely have information she shouldn't have and it could be dangerous to have her walking around with that information in her head. "You wanted El and Zed on this mission with me?" Kay asked.

"Yes."

"Alrighty," Kay said, turning away from Aye. It felt like the meeting was over but a sharp snapping sound called her back. She turned, seeing Aye's hand up in a snapping motion. It was a sound she'd been on the receiving end of before. A quick way to call attention. "Is there anything else, sir?"

Aye frowned slightly. It was a face Kay'd seen many times before but that still perturbed her the slightest bit. "You remember our original Agent Jay?"

Kay wasn't able to cover up the slight flash of sadness that flashed across her face. Jay had been her friend. Her partner. They worked together on most missions, all of them except the last one, the one where Jay messed up so badly. Not just in falling in love with her target but also in getting into that car a year later.

"Of course," Kay said. "Jay made a mistake and paid for it with her life."

"Byron Miller was her target and she went too far with all of it," Aye said, his eyes trained on Kay's face. "Do you think you'd talk with Jay if she showed her face to you today?"

What? Jay was dead. She'd been the one to scour through the carcass of the car. Kay'd been the one who'd found the burning remains of her old friend. She knew that Jay was dead. She knew that for a fact.

She didn't see any reason to lie, it wasn't something that was possible in any sense of the word, "Yes, I'd talk to her. I'd have to know why she did what she did that night. I'd have to know why she drove that car off the cliff."

Aye nodded. "Alright, you're good to go, Kay. Please run the mission as if I were watching every movement." The 'because I will,' went unsaid.

~

Kay's red hair was tied up in a ponytail as she likes to keep it during things like this and her outfit was pitch black, as was the dress code for missions. El was wearing a soft-looking sweater and a pair of jeans. Zed, his curly hair almost making him look younger than he actually was, wearing a dark outfit, his backpack a bit heavy from the sniper rifle within.

"Alright," Kay said from the platform above the training deck. She was the getaway driver as well as the head of the mission, meaning she was going to be in their ears the entire time. "You guys know what your jobs are here?"

Both of the boys nodded, El on one side of the room and Zed on the other side of the room. The practice run of the mission was often one of the harder ones. Every person had to memorise the floorplan of the building before the practice run, Zed had to memorize two, the building he'd be sniping from and the hotel in which El and the target would be meeting.

"Well, let's get started." Kay started her stopwatch, watching as Zed crouched down and started counting under his breath, the sound a soft whisper through the large empty room. All that was in the room was the floorplan of both buildings on the floor in tape. "Zed, where are you in your building by now?"

"3rd floor, halfway to 4th," Zed said, standing up as he reached the floor he needed to be on. The 5th floor of the abandoned office building. "Alright, setting up my rifle now."

Across the room, El was standing in a small space in the room that had tape on the floor to reflect the floor plan of the hotel room he'd be in. He poured water from a pitcher into two cups sitting on the floor. "Pouring out the water and–"

"What do you do if she shows up early?"

El turned to stare directly at Kay, his voice blunt but almost joking. "Make her wait."

Kay shrugged, it wasn't a horrible idea and it honestly worked fine. He could say he'd been in the bathroom or something. It wasn't stupid. It would work.

He went back to the water, pouring coloured water from a vial hidden up his sleeve into the glass. El's eyes were sharp as a recruit walked into the makeshift hotel room. She was new and didn't have a name yet, still in training and she'd jumped at the offer to play target for them.

El smiled and spoke with her for a minute before leading her to the window looking out at the city. He handed her the glass of water and she drank it, taking a moment before she started couching and dying dramatically, her acting was not awful but Kay may need to send her to Bee for additional lessons.

"Reset," Kay called through the room. Her voice echoing slightly. The boys looked over at her and frowned but this was their job and they did as told. Zed took apart his weapon and El reset his water contraption, helping the new recruit off of the floor before he did so.

Kay nodded from her position above them. "Okay, and go." She started the stopwatch again. "This time I want the target to say no to the drink. What do the two of you do then?"

"Lead her to the window and just, stand there, follow along with the story, keep her there until Zed can take the shot," El said, as he started to restart the mission.

Across the room, Zed nodded. "I shoot, dismantle the weapon, and run over to help with moving the body." He started setting up the weapon on the 5th floor as he'd done before. This time he waited for the target to enter the room. This time the recruit shook her head and said no the drink.

Zed grinned and the red dot of his sight appeared between the recruit's eyebrows. "Pow. You're dead."

The recruit laughed slightly as she fell over.

Kay wouldn't note that, besides making sure Zed and this recruit never got placed together again, they couldn't have the two of them becoming close, that was dangerous. Relationships like that were dangerous. She nodded, "Now what El?"

El motioned taking his sweater off and spoke, "Take off outside clothing, put on the service outfits left in the wardrobe." He walked to the square of tape on the floor that represented the wardrobe and mimed reaching for clothes. "Then wait for Zed."

"Exactly," Kay said, starting to move from her position because in the actual mission, this would be the moment she would start her car and drive to the side service entrance to the hotel. She made her way to where that would be, a bit slower than usual because she was on foot versus in a car but also, the space they were in wasn't entirely to scale. Her timing of the whole thing would reflect that.

Zed, having changed his clothes while on the move, arrived in the hotel room with El, the two of them picking up both ends of the recruit. In reality, they'd shove her body, in the duffle bag under the bed but it wasn't necessary for this practice run. They mimed walking down the back stairs to the service entrance, where they plopped the recruit at Kay's feet.

"Then you drive away," Zed said.

"In an ideal world," Kay said, looking at the two boys in front of her. Despite their ages, that's still what they were, boys. Even though they were Agents and adults in the eyes of the government, they were still kids. Kay didn't like to think about that much. It was for the good of her country. "We've still got a lot more contingencies to figure out. Let's reset."