Page 79 of Sunflower

With our fingers interlaced, we made our way towards George and Boomerang, George hitting the elevator call button as soon as he saw us on the move. We went up nine floors before the doors opened to a small lobby and a hallway that kept going straight until it disappeared into the distance. Doors lined both sides, all with keycard scanners. Most seemed to have plates attached to advise workers what was behind each door. The entire area gave off a typical corporate office vibe, which I guessed couldn’t be helped. Thiswasa government building, after all.

George led us down the corridor before swiping his keycard at a door on the right. Beyond the door was an open floor plan cubicle farm with a large TV hanging on the wall opposite us. It was switched on, and seemed to be airing a news channel.

To our left, one long central strip of the wall had been converted into a corkboard, split into columns. There were glass doors interspersed between the different sections, one of which George led us towards, but we were waylaid by the only two other people in the room.

One I’d seen when he’d met us the night before—God, had it only been a single day?—to pass over the kit to Callum as we drove past. I hadn’t been introduced to Kiddo at the time, but as he stuck the parcel through the window, he’d reminded me remarkably of a young Manny Jacinto. Same lively energy, wide grin, and slim build, even going so far to notice that his cropped hair was styled similarly to his character fromThe Good Place. Where yesterday, he’d been wearing all black, today, he was wearing a rumpled pair of dark jeans that looked like they’d once been black a very long time ago, and a button down of indeterminate color that seemed to hover somewhere between a murky gray and a pale brown.

The second person I’d not met before. With the way Kiddo was sitting on her desk, swinging his feet underneath and carefully avoiding the three monitors that were also sitting there, I assumed this was Marcy. A gorgeous Black woman, with a riot of curls atop her head that almost covered the chunky silver jewelry in her ears, Marcy sat back in her chair as we entered. Her elbows relaxed on the armrests and her fingers intertwined on top of her fluffy, pure white sweater as she narrowed her gaze at us. Her vibrant red pants were the most colorful thing in her immediate vicinity and drew the eye to her long, slim legs.

“George?” she asked curiously, her half-hooded but serious eyes almost looking down her nose at us, as if she was trying to determine if we were worth her time.

Behind us, Boomerang had speared off to a different desk in the corner where a mess of rolled papers were waiting.

“Locksmith, I need you. You too, Foundling,” George said, not breaking stride, even though Callum had slowed a little. “War room. Now.”

Immediately, both became much more serious, grabbing notebooks and pens from wherever they could find them, beforescurrying to follow us. Locksmith stalled only long enough to log out of her computers.

“Locksmith is Marcy,” Callum muttered in my ear. “Foundling’s Kiddo, who you met last night.”

I nodded as he picked up his pace again. Wordlessly, I trailed after him, my hand still in his, before I noticed a corkboard that had a polaroid in a Ziploc baggie pinned to it. The image was of Callum, asleep on his stomach, his t-shirt bunched around his waist and his arm wrapped around a pillow with a natural half-smile on his face. It would have been a gorgeous photo of him, if it hadn’t been so creepy.

I tugged Callum to a stop and when he turned to see what had stopped me, I tilted my head at the polaroid and the rest of the information surrounding it, and gave him my best one-eyebrow raise to show my curiosity. I wondered if we had enough time for me to get caught up on what had been pinned there.

He shook his head before pulling me into motion once more to guide me through the doorway that George had already entered. “Later.”

Guess not. Sighing, I looked longingly at the wealth of data on the corkboard as I passed it, and promised myself I’d find a way to come back later to read it all.

In front of us were four large tables, stacked end to end, surrounded by twenty plush leather chairs. A whiteboard dominated the right wall, but unlike the corkboard outside, this had been wiped clean. The left wall was plain but had built-in seating. The wall opposite us was made up almost entirely of windows that looked out onto a corridor, with a closed glass door the only thing breaking up the wall of glass.

“Take a seat, guys,” George said, motioning at the room in general before tossing the baggie that still held my glove and the Agent’s hair in it onto the table.

Callum led us to two seats at the end of the makeshift long table, opposite the whiteboard, so we had a clear visual on whatever was to come. He rested his hands on the tabletop, taking mine with him as he still didn’t want to let me go. It only felt right to bring my other hand up to join our clasped fingers while we watched the door.

Kiddo was the first through the door after us, followed closely by Marcy. Boomerang came soon after, her arms overflowing with rolled up maps and plans which she dumped unceremoniously on the table and began spreading out in an order known only to her.

“Do I need to call everyone in?” Kiddo asked George as he beelined to the seat next to mine.

“Not just yet,” George replied. “We have two in the field now, and I want to see how successful they are before we bring any more people in on the situation.” He looked at Marcy. “We have a retired agent and her civilian husband coming in any minute. I need you and Foundling to handle them as best you can.”

Marcy raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow as she took her seat on the other side of Kiddo. “Handle them?”

From the other side of the tables, George sighed and scratched his chin as he paced. “I’m expecting them to be combative as soon as they arrive.”

“Got it.” Marcy scribbled something in her notebook. “How long will they be here for?”

“Unknown,” George said. “They could end up staying for a while in the units upstairs. That’s where I’ll need Foundling’s help. Neither have been to this facility since the rebuild, so they won’t know the layout.”

Marcy and Kiddo looked at each other and nodded. “We’ll look after them,” Kiddo said earnestly.

George’s phone rang, and he glanced at the screen before he said, “Speaking of…” He swiped at his phone. “You’ve arrived?”A pause. “I’ll send someone down now.” He hung up and looked at Marcy. “They’re at reception now. Can you grab them and bring them up? Once they’re here, I can explain more.”

“Done.” Marcy gathered her things and gently hip-checked Boomerang with a grin as she went past, making Boomerang chuckle and follow her out.

A tense silence filled the room as Callum and I drew deep breaths, readying ourselves for verbal combat. George looked resigned, his fingers alternating between scratching his chin and running through his now ragged head of hair.

“It’s great to see you again,” Kiddo said quietly, leaning his shoulder into mine as he played with his pen, flicking it this way and that. “I hope the kit helped you out last night.”

Surprisingly, after everything we’d been through over the past couple of hours, I found myself smiling. He was just too damn adorable in his eagerness to help. “It did what we needed it to do.”

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