"And you shot it as soon as it moved?" the investigator asked. It was the third time he'd asked that, in various ways. Daniel hated everything about him. The black suit, the white shirt, the way he said every sentence like he was calming a bear. The whole thing was practiced, the entire person was rehearsed.
"Yes" he said. Daniel had a trick to these interviews. He simply became someone who thought whatever he was going to say was true. It was very hard to be caught lying if you decided you weren't.
"Do you feel your supervisor, Agent…" he trailed off like he didn't know Henderson's name. He was hoping to measure some reaction to her name. Daniel let him sit there in silence while he pretended to look through papers. "Agent Henderson, put you in danger?"
"No."
Later when they were back at the house, Ms. Henderson gave him a curt nod. He knew this meant she'd been listening, and he'd said the right things. The house where Daniel and Sam lived was two stories tall and painted blue. It sat at the edge of Camp Deadrock, Kansas. There were a few other homes, like someone had plucked a single street out of a suburb and dropped it into a military base. The others belonged to officers with families, the kind of kids Sam wasn't allowed to play with.
Ms. Henderson handed them $15 for McDonald's, another curt nod in a way, and told them not to come back before 8:00. Daniel let Sam hold the money because it clearly made her feel grown up.
"I didn't tell them" she said, as they walked along one of side roads. It was getting late, nearly sunset. Through the window of one of the officers' homes, Daniel could see the officer and her husband eating dinner together with their son. Sam was waiting for his reaction.
"Good."
"So, what do we do next?" she asked. Daniel frowned, a nearly imperceptible shift in his face but one that Sam caught. "If we're doing anything next." she said quickly.
He had to be careful around her now. She knew enough to ruin both their lives. He looked around then back at the top of her red hair. "Do you want to know my secret to lying and not getting caught?" he asked. She nodded, of course she did. "You need to pretend that what we said in there was true. Pretend it until you're not sure if it is or not. Lie inside your own head every time it comes up. When you're able to lie to yourself, you can lie to anyone because you believe it's true."
They walked in silence until the base's overhead lights began to switch on. "Can you do that Sam?" Daniel asked.
"I think so" she said. She looked down and the overhead light cast a long shadow, stopping Daniel from seeing her face. At McDonald's, Daniel let her get a smoothie.
By the next day, everything was normal. An early start, training until 8 AM. A few of the soldiers congratulated Daniel on the kill. He was getting bigger, good enough at Judo to take on some of the adult trainees. Classes until 5 PM, one of the officer's sons kept kicking the back of Sam's chair. Training until 7. Dinner, laid out on the counter at the house. It was almost automatic for him, after eight years of routine. Which left plenty of time for Daniel's brain to work.
He had one clue, the gun. It was the same caliber as his and shot silver bullets— which meant it was probably an Agency service pistol. There were a few hundred of them, but one couldn't have gone missing without someone noticing. All he needed to do was figure out who.
Ms. Henderson pulled him out of class on Wednesday and into a room with a girl who looked like she was his age. That was a red flag, anyone his age or younger could be a Tracer. When the other adults in the room left, without looking at the girl, he was sure.
The room wasn't an interrogation room, which was either good or a trick. It was an unused school room. White tiles, blue plastic chairs. Three of them were arranged around a fake wood table. The chair furthest from the door was already occupied.
She was tall and thin, like him. A flinty, rock climber's build that came from all the rock climbing they were forced to do. A short cut mop of brown hair was buzzed at the sides before popping out in a puff at the top. Daniel had seen the haircut in some of Sam's YouTube videos, which probably meant it was fashionable.
Ms. Henderson watched him watch the girl, then looked at the girl. She shrugged, which apparently meant something to Ms. Henderson.
"Daniel, I need to ask you a few questions about Samantha." Ms. Henderson had a way of speaking sharply, like the ends of all her words had been cut with a knife. "And about the incident in San Francisco last week."
The girl was there for a reason, but he didn't know what. She was older than Sam, so she wasn't too powerful. The only smart thing to do was take it slow.
"Okay" he said. "What do you need to know?"
Ms. Henderson's eyes flicked over to the girl again, and this time she spoke. "He relaxed when you said it wasn't about him."
Ms. Henderson smiled, which was a rare and frightening thing. She was out of practice, showed too many teeth, and didn't move her eyes. "That's good to hear. Daniel, meet Ellis. Ellis already knows you. She was sitting with us when you talked to the investigator last week. Her trace allows her to measure someone's emotional state."
Daniel nodded, thankful that he'd remained calm. He wondered what Sam had done. "Like a polygraph machine" he said. With the benefit of his own trace, he saw Ellis' eyebrow twitch. A micro-expression held for half an instant. She didn't like being a machine The Agency wheeled out. That, he could work with. Hopefully he wouldn't have to cut Sam loose.
"Not quite." Ms. Henderson said.
"He knows" Ellis interrupted. "He just said that to see how I'd react."
Ms. Henderson smiled horribly again. "Thank you, Ellis."
"What's wrong with Sam?" Daniel asked.
"She panicked when the investigator asked her about details" Ellis said.
Daniel scoffed. "She panicked when a big blue thing with teeth jumped out of a building at her. She's fourteen years old."
"Fifteen." Ellis corrected. Which meant, Daniel realized, that she had seen their files. This Tracer had access to information about other Tracers, the number one thing Ms. Henderson had stopped him from getting.
Ms. Henderson cleared her throat in a way that made it clear she didn't like the way this was going. "I'll ask the questions Miss Ellis." She sat down at the table's third chair. "Is there anything you left out of your report Daniel?"
Daniel thought hard. As far as he could remember, he hadn't. The version of events where the monster was already dead wasn't true after all. Knowing that relaxed him. He didn't even have to lie.
"Nothing important. Some details I assumed you didn't care about."
Ellis shifted uncomfortably— maybe out of frustration? "He's calm. Slightly concerned."
"What details?" Ms. Henderson asked.
"Uh. The monster landed on a Dance Dance Revolution machine. One of the machines was missing, which I thought was weird."
"You're right, I don't care about that." Ms. Henderson said sharply. That was a relief that she didn't care about the missing source. Even if it was true, he didn't have to talk about it. Daniel relaxed a little further into the knot of false logic he'd tied. He was careful not to get excited either. He wasn't beating anything after all, just telling what he thought was the truth. "Why didn't Samantha use her Trace?" Ms. Henderson asked suddenly.
"I think she was surprised. We didn't expect there to be a second one." Then, because he'd promised to look out for her, he added "And I moved fast. I thought there was something wrong, so I already had my gun out in the arcade."
"True." Ellis said.
"Do you think she would have been able to use her ability to protect you if you needed her to?" Ms. Henderson asked.
"I don't know. It never worried me."
"She's not your mascot." Ms. Henderson said with a sneer. "She's there to do a job, like you. Do you think she can do it?"
"I've never worried about our safety. I think she's well trained."
"True."
Ms. Henderson's eyes narrowed. "Were you worried about her in the arcade? Did you have to protect her?"
"I think she had to make a few quick decisions, and I think she made the right choices."
"True."
Ms. Henderson leaned in. "That's not what I asked, Daniel."
Daniel put on his concerned face. "Could you clarify the question Ms. Henderson?"
"I know you see her as your sister."
"Confusion, anger." Ellis interrupted. Ms. Henderson tilted her head. Inviting Daniel to explain.
"I think I understand the question now." He said slowly. He hadn't expected all of that when she said 'sister'. A wave of memories from before he knew Ms. Henderson or The Agency had hit. Not full memories. Just smells and sounds. Things he'd last felt when someone said 'sister' around him. He carefully packed them up and put them away.
"He's calm again."
"My focus right now is on stopping the Phenomenon that killed my family. I'll always work towards that goal as effectively as I can." Daniel paused. "I wouldn't ever put that at risk for Samantha. I have never 'protected' her in that way."
Ellis' face wrinkled in a new way. Disgust. She would have preferred him to stand up for Sam.
"All true" she said.