Zero.

Chapter Eleven

Day 37

IT WAS Monday, and I wasn't in the mood. Chief's visit was still fresh in my mind, but more than that, the sting of frustration for him preventing me from breaking into the vault had me impatient and irritable. Now, because of him, I was behind on schedule. The vault was highly secured on weekdays and even more so during weekends.

Friday was the perfect day to break in, it was the day when security switched out, and there was a grace period of 1 minute when the vault was less secure than usual. I had missed that window and I would have to go today instead.
I was currently punching holes in a few documents Lee had given to me to file away. At the time the thought of passing time with such a tedious task had me on edge, but now I welcomed the opportunity to punch holes in something.
Though I would rather punch Lee and force him to tell me what he knew.

Or punch Chief and demand he explain himself for Friday, this would also suffice.

After what happened with Lee last week, he hadn't spoken to me directly, instead he opted for sending me voicemails of various tasks he wanted me to accomplish.

I couldn't decide if his avoidance was because I had technically seen my boss shirtless, or if he was being wary because I had seen his scar.
That scar had proven to me that he was an agent at some point. It was shaped like the arrowhead that was tattooed on all of Headquarters' agents, but Lee's was burned off. I had never heard of an agent burning there tattoo off, but from the aggressive arrowhead shaped scar on Lee's chest, that was exactly what he had done.
Immediately after I saw his scar, he had basically dropped me and left to grab one of the spare shirts he kept in his office. I tried to bring up the incident the rest of that day, but every time I brought it up he apologized again for the "indecency of the occurrence." His excessive apologies would have been amusing under any other circumstances, but at the moment they just seemed like fillers in the conversation until he came up with a reason for his scar.

With a sigh, I put the hole puncher down on the desk harder than necessary. Regardless of any more surprise visits, I would be breaking into the vault tomorrow night. I wanted to go tonight, but my mind was still too frustrated about Lee's invasion and Chief's visit. If I went tonight then I would no doubt miss something vital, and it was too late in this game for mistakes. Regardless of my impatience, I settled to go tomorrow night. Nothing would stop me this time.
*~*~*~*~*
Agent One
I'd be watching Zee for the past few days, but she still made no attempt to break into the vault. I was certain on Friday she would go, she was dressed for the occasion, down to the weapons. So imagine my surprise at seeing Chief there. I was still uncertain at what I'd seen. From my perch outside her apartment window I could only see that they were on the couch until she abruptly stood and all of a sudden, he had her pinned.

The dramatic part of my brain, itching for something interesting wanted to say that this looked like a lover spat, agent style. But the more rational part knew Zero.
Chief was up in the air and I knew enough about our relationship to know that he tolerated me, but that was the extent of our partnership. But Zero... it didn't take a rocket scientist to know he was her favorite. Sure my memory was a bit foggy on the topic, but it was obvious in the way he handled her. When we were together he always seemed to be speaking directly to her, which is why I never bothered to show our conversations much attention. I could be in the background doing one arm front flips and his eyes would never leave hers.

Even knowing he preferred her, until Friday night, I would have never assumed there was something going on between them. Chief was a lot of things, but he was a rule kind of man.
Nothing was ever more important than the mission, so it seemed unlikely that he'd break one of the most important rules we had: No relationships. Headquarters didn't care what we did outside the base but is was an unspoken rule that for us, love was not an option.