Amy looked at the stack of dossiers on her desk. It was her first day on the job and she was already months or maybe even years behind. It was not surprising really, the job had been here waiting for her ever since she had agreed to take it on eight years previously. Since graduating med school she had been recruited to be the head investigator for this secret government division and in the mean time the tasks had fallen mostly to the FBI or CIA. Those agencies were hindered by rules and diplomatic realities, she was not technically government, so she was not. The task was basically to do as much as she could, her victories would be silent ones, and maybe were just a small ripple against the huge storm, but she would focus on the areas that were the most important and maybe catch some bigger flies in her web than others had been able to.
Amy looked out her office window. This was her first job and so this was her first office. She looked out on a rather boring field in a rather boring commercial area. She didn’t much like it, but maybe that was the point. If she was here she wasn’t doing her job anyway. For the time being though she settled in and moved in a few personal items before taking a seat in her chair. It was a nice chair - at least the office had that if not a view. The dossiers on her desk seemed to be a nearly impenetrable mass, but there was no need to tackle them right away, instead she took a moment to reflect on what had brought her here. She kicked off her shoes and recrossed her legs. Looking down at them she realized she wouldn’t have much need for skirts, pantyhose or high heels in this job, even her painted toenails would seem out of place. Still she wanted to look professional for her first day. With the first meeting with the team at 10 she had two hours to basically sit and do nothing. For one of the rare periods in her life Amy had nothing to do, and lost herself in her own thoughts. She thought back to the weird path that brought her to be sitting here today.
Her story began before birth. Her ancestry was so varied that she was perhaps one of the finest examples of the multicultural melting pot. Her father Adam was an aeronautical engineer and came from a background that was mostly pretty typical for the . His grandparents had all immigrated to the , and all from similar though different countries – , , and . Her mother, Angelica, had a quite different background, her grandparents were a much stranger mix – Hungarian Roma (which some might call a gypsy), Dakota Native American, African American and Hispanic Cuban. Her mother had been raised in various places around the country, from hippie communes to Indian reservations but once she randomly met Adam on a city bus, their paths were intertwined. She had been working as an artist, practically penniless, but it didn’t matter, it was love at first sight, and the two were inseparable afterwards. He was substantially older than her, by eleven years, but they each provided something the other wanted. Angelica gave Adam a feeling of liberation from the strict confines applied to him by his occupation and his family. Adam gave Angelica a firm steadiness she had never known and the feelings of both freedom and security reinforced their love into an unbreakable bond.
Their love would only produce one fruit, and that was Amy. Her name was something of a compromise between parents. Her full name was actually Amaranta Falcon Dover, her father had wanted to call her Amy after his mother, but Angelica was free to make that happen however she wanted. Her interesting genetic heritage gave her striking physical characteristics. Her exotic form of beauty captivated most from a young age but those who focused on her outer appearance missed her greatest asset – her mind. Growing up she was constantly challenged by her parents, not in a torturous way, rather they quickly understood her talents and sought to prepare her for a life of accomplishments related to her mind and not her body. Her father took care of the formal side of education and her mother focused on the less structurized creative aspects. Amy also learned a variety of languages growing up, something she was a natural at. Her mother spoke mostly Dakota with her mother, and her father either Polish or German with his parents, and Amy adopted these languages as her own. Her exposure to Spanish on her neighbourhood streets also did not go long without being understood.
Her advanced mental aptitudes placed her teachers in school at odds about what to do with her. She was already exhibiting the skills of a sixteen year old at age nine, and no matter of advanced classes or extra homework was sufficient for her. She was eventually placed in a school for the gifted, where her remaining years of school were but a formality. At age 10, Amy was already off to medical school, with the goal of her graduating as a doctor by the age of 16. Her university years were difficult, especially as she was studying with people more than twice her age, at a time when girls her age were still playing with dolls. This did not stop her though, she was as apt to succeed here as everywhere else, and she graduated just shy of 16 at the top of her medical school class. Her path onwards from here was not as clear. Her parents assumed that she would be happy applying herself to becoming a world class doctor, but her mother’s wild streak still ran in her veins.
Still in the process of deciding her future, she received an invitation to an unconventional interview. She was to meet with two people well outside her field, Special Agent Dan Paulson and Colonel Taylor Dane. They had an offer for her, a unique offer, and that offer is what got her to this desk where she sat today. The government was growing increasingly concerned about the growing threat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and they needed someone to counter their proliferation. Not someone like a special operations military group, but a field agent who understand the threats and knew how to find them and neutralize them. Someone who could operate independently outside of the confines of the government was also needed. Amy was the sole interviewee and the position was hers alone to either create or watch perish. Dan and Paul tried to sell her on the patriotism angle, the job perks and various other things. The truth is though Amy was sold almost immediately, the challenge was one which she needed, something to keep her constantly on her game mentally.
What followed were eight years of intensive preparation. Amy still got to live something of a regular life, but everything was designed to teach her. She immediately began working on a Ph D in nuclear physics, her Ph D in Organic Chemistry would come next. Her Masters in International Relations would come during the other two. Her free time was spent learning the skills of an agent, hand-to-hand combat, firearms handling, and a host of other languages among them Farsi, Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Arabic and Russian. While it might have been assumed that her studies would take up all her time, these were actually only of equal importance to teaching her streetwise skills. Her summers away from study were spent traveling, so much so that she had forgotten how many countries she had been to. Although she considered herself Caucasian, her exotic features came into heavy use as she learned to blend into societies where others could never dream to fit in. Finally the skills of manipulation and seduction were taught to her to make her even more potent.
Amy snapped out of her daydreaming, thinking back it all seemed like yesterday, but she also seemed to have already lived five or six lifetimes. She had already been to over 100 countries, could speak ten languages and had four post graduate degrees by the point in most people’s lives when they just looking for their first real job. She heard a knock on her door and signalled the visitor in. It was , she recognized her from the files. Amy slipped her shoes back on and stood up to meet her.
“Hello ,” she said, “it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“Hello, ma’am,” replied, “its great to finally great to be here.”
was somewhat of a prodigy herself. She had risen quickly through the ranks of the Navy as one of the experts in military intelligence. She had accepted to revoke her commission and be transferred to work with Amy as a civilian at the personal request of one of the admirals. She didn’t feel as though she could say no. Still Amy was a little annoyed, even though was ex-military and not intended for any field ops, all reference to military protocol would have to be erased around here if they hoped to maintain their cover when on assignment. She was going to brief the others later as a mistake like that could compromise a mission and even cost lives.
“Just Amy is good ,” she replied, “we have that meeting at 10 o’clock..”
“I will make sure everyone is seated five minutes before, Amy,” replied
was the team’s administrator. They were a small cell and they wouldn’t depend on secretaries or other support staff. In terms of life at the office, was it. So while again Amy felt that her authoritarian response was maybe a bit too military like, at least for now it had to be tolerated and maybe perpetuated indefinitely. At least she had called her Amy and not ma’am.
Amy sat back down and grabbed the top file off the pile. She would have to become familiar with all of these. They all either were related to certain key people, dangerous locations, or specific items to be seized or destroyed. She picked the top file off of the pile – Aral Sea Bio Weapons.
Yuri Andreovich Petrov stood looking out at the bleak terrain. He had seen it many times before, but he had always hated it. His mother felt that this place was home. Her parents had relocated here at the suggestion of the government of the so that the Central Asian regions might become more Russified. Yuri’s father had met her when he was a young soldier in these parts and she moved to soon after. His father was long since dead. They told Yuri it was the war, but he didn’t believe that. The dates and times didn’t match up but he also didn’t care. The military told the lies that it needed to accomplish what it must. Yuri was a soldier and understood this all too well already, though not even yet thirty. His mother had moved back here after his death and lived within her means. But Yuri was here in an adopted ancestral home not to celebrate life, but rather to recognize death. His mother had been dying of a cancer that the doctors either knew nothing about or chose to do nothing about. He had just come from burying her in this harsh soil.
The shrinking may have actually been the thing which had cost her the life which she held on to so tenaciously at the end. Some scientists speculated that the salts that blew in the air were causing the many illnesses in the population. Yuri had not much time for speculation, his military career taught him to only deal in facts. And the fact was that the which had killed some of his Russians, would soon be killing some more, only this time not the innocent and not his countrymen. A one time biological weapons facility which once had been on a remote island was now part of the mainland, and a small depot was all the remained behind. The depot contained what Yuri was after, and in a few short hours he would have the ability to fundamentally alter the world order.
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