When the rains may come (Science Fiction)

39. The man named Mist

Forty eight hours. That was the amount of time Command had given him. Luce didn't really blame her. She wasn't cutting corners on purpose. Gabriella Dale was a crazy woman who was too good at her job. If she was to uncover all the truths that he and Command had been hiding, the price would be paid by the entire Vigilant Squad Division.

The man they were after was Mist--the one most likely to be the leader of Last Hand. Mist had been an ex-agent of Vigilant Squad. He'd been scouted and commissioned a few years before Luce had joined the Division himself. That must've been nine years ago. Just one year since the war began.

VS Division had the policy of erasing all personal details of a newly recruited agent--including the first and last names. The agent's only identity after that would be the one that the division gives them. They would still be allowed to get married and have family but at work, they are what the division made them.

The record of these details was with the division, of course. But about eight years ago, the records had been destroyed. All agent data wiped out of existence. And the person responsible for it was Mist. Other than extinguishing those records, Mist had also taken the liberty to kill the person who held Command's position back in the day--the only person who could've known Mist's true identity.

With the ex-command dead and all the records gone, Mist had become an urban legend in the division. None of his colleagues had known anything of substance about him. And he'd already covered any tracks that he might've left.

That single incident had sent the government into a frenzy. They'd created the VS Division to replace the police force for maintaining order in the cities (especially the ones that were sectorized). But after the mess that Mist had created, they realized the division wasn't too reliable on its own. The system could be exploited by someone crazy enough to go against an entire government organization. They needed someone to keep the VS division in check. And thus the Clandestine Division was formed.

Fortunately VS didn't recruit another lunatic like Mist but the damage that he'd caused them was already quite severe.

Luce had stayed up till two o'clock in the morning laying out his objectives for the next two days to come. He had to keep his investigation laser sharp. Trying to wing this thing wasn't stupid, it was suicidal. He'd made a list of people he was going to question regarding Mist. Some of them had left the country and were untraceable. Others had retired and took a bit of convincing to talk about it.

First on this list was ex agent Douglas Foss (Agent name: Olym). Douglas Foss was a new identify that the Division was responsible to give him on retirement. That was a compensation only for the agents whose records had been wiped by Mist.

Foss had retired five years ago and was currently married and a father to two middle school girls. He worked at a pharmacy and had hung up on Luce the first time he'd told him about himself and the purpose of the call.

Luce had rolled his eyes as he stood in the phone booth a few blocks from his living quarters that had been assigned by the Division. He'd used a phone booth on purpose because he was sure that his house phone was bugged by the Clandestines. And he didn't want to keep any records with the phone company by using his cellphone.

He'd called Foss again. "I swear this won't take more than five minutes," he said as soon as the man picked up the call.

"No."

"It's a matter of national security!"

"And that's not my concern anymore. It stopped being my concern five years ago. Let me live in peace now."

"And I promised you, it won't take more than five minutes. You can hang up the moment the fifth minute ends."

There was a long pause. Luce held his breath. Foss let out a sigh, "You only have five minutes. Shoot."