"You really think she'll come?"
"I do."
"You're dreaming."
"And you're an idiot."
"She's a rich-git. Why would she ditch all the fancy digs and the golden education to go slumming it with us?"
"Because she's not stupid. At the end of the day she knows she's got the gift, and she knows she has to use it. Call it intuition."
"I call it wishful thinking."
Darien sighed heavily and swivelled in his seat to face his companion. Idas could be stubborn at the best of times; mostly he was downright obtuse, with all the empathic capability of a lump of rock. Fortunately what he lacked in personality he made up for with his skills as a Blink operative. Just as well he had the gift, Darien thought, otherwise he'd probably be little more than a dead-end delinquent.
"I get it," Darien said. "You don't like her because she's happy with what she has. Not everyone is like you and me. We didn't have anything better. Amber's got a family, friends, a school, a career, and she's smart. She'll make a better operative than you or me."
"You've got a lot of faith in her," Idas muttered.
He shrugged and turned back to face the screen, slinging his feet up onto the table. Their shuttle was parked in the city space-dock, given a private bay away from prying eyes. Behind them, tucked away in the rear compartment stood the navigation rod. A solid spike of metal two metres long, ringed with bands of electric, pulsing blue, it served to guide the Blink operatives when they transported themselves. Depending on the individual Blink travel could vary widely in its accuracy. Although he was considered to be one of the most precise operatives, Darien still liked the comfort of the nav-rod, its reassuring presence in his mind. It was like an anchor for him to hold on to. Without it he was at the mercy of his own capacity for concentration and human error.
The two operatives had been stationed in the city for the better part of two weeks, surveying a handful of potential Blink candidates. Amber was the only one who'd ticked every box, and then some. Absently, Darien found himself scanning over the records of her life, the cumulative data that pointed to one inescapable fact. He made tiny flicking motions with his index finger and the images on the screen changed with his movements.
Amber LeVare Garret: a child of unparalleled ability that had somehow slipped through the usual screening processes. At five years old she could read, write and count at the level of someone twice her age. At eight she swept her school sports day medal count in every event she entered. At twelve she undertook advanced classes in meta-mathematics and amateur navigation. By the time he and Idas found her four years after that she was probably more capable of flying a space ship than the most skilled navy pilot. She excelled at everything, in every way.
Darien bit his lip. After all the painstaking work that had gone into finding her, there was still a better than even chance that this exceptional individual might slip through his fingers. The thought made his stomach knot. Blink desperately needed new recruits. Even throughout the web of dozens of human-inhabited worlds finding someone that fitted their requirements so perfectly was next to impossible.
"We can't wait here forever," Idas pointed out.
"I'm well aware," he answered. "But you know as well as I do that we need her."
"Only if she's willing. No point dragging someone kicking and screaming into our little club. Remember how that worked out?"
Darien glared at his companion. "I'm not likely to forget."
"I'm just saying, no matter how much we need her, if she doesn't want to join up there's nothing we can do."
"I'm not going to go in there and drag her out by her arm if that's what you're suggesting."
Idas didn't respond and they fell into a merciful quiet. Darien sat with his thoughts, hoping and praying. He looked at Amber's image on the screen. The intelligence agent responsible had caught her out and about in the town with her friends. She was smiling, deep brown eyes twinkling in the sunlight. He sighed. Would it be better if they left her alone? Did they really have the right to come waltzing into her life and spiriting her off to work for Blink? He drummed his fingers against the desk. No – what Blink did overrode anyone's personal ambitions, and working for them was far from the end of the world.
Hours ticked by. Idas fell asleep in the passenger compartment but Darien had no appetite for rest. He lounged in the chair, re-checking the information on Amber that he already knew to be correct, reading snippets of books programmed into the shuttle's memory banks. He listened to music, rewrote the shuttle's navigation matrix for the umpteenth time, and all the while keeping one eye on the clock that counted down. They had less than a day until they would be called back to Blink HQ, with or without Amber.
The clock wound down to less than two hours and Darien was beginning to resign himself to having to return to headquarters without their star recruit. Idas stumped through from the passenger compartment and leaned on the back of his chair.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing." Darien rubbed his eyes with both hands.
"Have you moved at all?" Idas asked.
"Nope."
"You may have to let this one go, Darien." The other boy clapped him on the shoulder. "I know what this means to you. Since...well, you know."
"It's not about me," Darien said quietly. "She's a good recruit. I'd be sorry to lose her."
"Yeah, you and me both."
Darien was about to reply when the shuttle's communications console suddenly began bleeping with an incoming message. He glanced at the called ID in the bottom right corner of the screen and sat bolt upright in the chair. He blinked, rubbed his eyes and looked again. A thin smile slid across his face.
"You were saying?"
"She might be calling to say no."
"Ever the pessimist," Darien muttered before touching the screen. He felt his heart quicken when Amber's face appeared. "Hello again."
"Err...hi, I guess." She smiled awkwardly. Darien found he quite liked the sight.
"I take it you've made a decision one way or the other?" he asked.
She nodded. "I have."
"Well, don't keep us in suspense," Idas grunted from over his shoulder.
"I thought about everything you said and...well I decided you were right. If I've got this gift you say I do, then I should use it." Amber took a deep breath. "I want to join Blink."
Darien could barely contain his relief. It felt like the weight of the world had just been lifted from his shoulders and he relaxed back into the seat.
"Alright then," he said, grinning. "Nice to have you on board, Amber."
She smiled again. "So...so what happens now?"
"Now you'd better pack a bag. I'm going to beam over a list of what you'll need. Everything else will be provided for you."
"What, err...when do we leave?"
"As soon as possible I'm afraid," Darien replied. "We've got a bit of a tight schedule. Don't worry. Tell your parents that you've been selected for an advanced naval pilot programme. I'll include the documentation when I send you your equipment list. Then we'll be taking a shuttle out to Blink headquarters. When you've packed up and said your goodbyes, come to the North Quarter Space Dock."
"We're going into space?!" her voice leapt in pitch and her face lit up.
"Yes...?" Darien exchanged a dubious look with Idas. There was a long pause before she replied.
Her smile broadened, showing her gleaming alabaster teeth. "Awesome."
*
The rain had started to fall thick and fast by the time the car reached the space dock. Its laser films sloughed off the sheets of water and the bullet-like vehicle powered on, a trail of steam in its wake. In the driver's seat, Amber's father – a kindly, iron-haired spindle of a man – sat in stony silence as he guided them through the storm. The space dock's palatial bulk reared up in front of them, illuminated by the light of a hundred landing pads and the blazing velocity boosters of departing ships.
Amber ignored her father's morose demeanour. She loved watching the dock, seeing the fireworks of engine flares and blast-off plumes as the different ships arrived and left. The designs varied wildly: some still followed the old earth model of a massive rockets pointed skywards, their engines concentrated at the rear in one immensely powerful thruster. Newer models took off like jet planes, catapulting themselves from small runways into the storm lashed air of Illuvari. Others helicoptered into the sky, using their sheer momentum to overpower the planet's gravitational pull. The eclectic mess of the space-dock's structure represented a microcosm of interstellar human civilisation.
Her initial shock at the Blink operatives' visit had faded quickly. The more she thought about it the less mad the idea seemed. After all, she'd seen Darien vanish with her own eyes. They weren't lying. Their security cards had been passed by the house's state of the art sensor apparatus, authenticated against the ever-expanding sea of fakes that flooded into the criminal underworld of the colony. Darien and Idas were the real deal.
The details of the contract they wanted her to sign were exactly as Darien had described too. The initial length of the deal with Blink signed her up for five years. After that she could walk away and never look back. She'd hunted through the fine print looking for some clause or glitch, waiting to find a catch that never came. She could contact her family whenever she wanted, so long as messages did not divulge the specifics of the Blink operations. They guaranteed her six weeks of the year to take as leave, where she could do anything; go anywhere. The only caveats there were that she couldn't talk about her work, and she would be permanently on call in the case of any emergencies. Then she reached the part about payment.
Amber hadn't thought the money would factor into her decision making, but she was wrong. The salary on offer was staggering. It amounted to more than triple what the average fleet navigator would earn. She could spend five years working for Blink on that kind of money and then do pretty much anything she wanted for the rest of her life.
"I don't like this," her father grunted as they approached the gaping ground entrance of the space-dock.
"I think you've made your position clear on that."
"All this smoke and mirrors makes me uneasy."
"Dad, c'mon," she said. "This is what I've been working towards. They just let me...skip a few steps."
"But not being allowed to tell us where you're going, what you're doing?"
"It just shows the job is important." She smiled her most winning smile. "This is big, Dad. You're always saying I'm special. Looks like you were right."
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. "It's too soon. You're too young."
"I'm old enough to make this decision for myself," she snapped. "And you can't stop me." Immediately she bit her lip. An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment. She looked at him and felt a shudder of regret at her words.
"I suppose I can't," her father said quietly. "And if you're old enough to think you can speak to me like that then I guess you're old enough to go."
"Dad-,"
"Forget it. You've made your point."
"I'm sorry, it's just...this means a lot to me," she pleaded. "This is better than working for the fleets. I get better pay, better holidays and I'll be out there doing something that'll really make a difference. Isn't that what everybody wants?"
"I just want you to be safe."
"There's nothing safe about flying a spaceship," she pointed out.
"Maybe not, but at least I'd understand exactly what you were doing," he returned. "I'd understand the risks you were taking. This...there's just too much I don't know – too much you can't say."
"I'm not a little girl any more, dad. This is my choice. You know I'll stay in touch."
"I know." His grim expression didn't falter, however.
Amber sighed. There was nothing she could say or do that would make her father accept what she was doing. Worse, she understood why he felt the way he did. It felt horrible even feeding her parents the white lie Darien had provided. They believed she was shipping out to a special academy for gifted navigators, a place where the Exploration Fleet harvested its top recruits. The lie passed comfortably, but not being able to give them any more information on what she would really be doing put a sick feeling in her stomach.
They pulled into the space dock parking lot, slotting into the ever-changing jigsaw of cars coming and going. Amber unclipped her seatbelt and clambered out into the hustle and bustle of interstellar transport. She checked her data pad. Dock 61A.
Her father walked with her in resigned silence as far as the ticket scanners. Instead of facing a transport attendant, however, Amber found two familiar individuals were waiting. Idas was lounging against the scanner gateway – a rectangular aperture that generated a film of green light for prospective passengers to pass through. Darien stood further in front and he gave them a nod of acknowledgement. Amber waved.
"Mr. Garret," Darien said as they reached the gate. He held out a hand.
"Hello." Her father accepted the hand, but he didn't sound particularly friendly. She shot him an angry glance.
"I appreciate you bringing Amber down here. I know this may seem quite irregular."
"Quite," her father agreed. "But she's old enough to make her own choices."
"Rest assured," Darien said. "She is safe with our organisation."
"It's okay, Darien," Amber cut in. "You could take me to a fortress on Mars and he'd still worry about me."
"A parent's prerogative," her father retorted.
She smiled weakly at the two operatives. "Could you...could you give us a minute?"
"Of course." Darien smiled, inclined his head briefly then motioned to Idas. The pair moved off towards their landing bay.
Amber faced her father and forced a smile across her face. "I'll stay in touch, Dad, you know that."
"I know, I know," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "I am proud of you, Amber. Don't think for a second that I'm not. I just can't help feeling uneasy." He eventually managed to smile. "Ignore me. I'm just a paranoid old man. I guess I am still getting used to the fact that you're not a little girl any more."
Amber nodded, feeling a lump rise in her throat. "I love you, Dad."
"I love you too." He pulled her into a gentle hug and spoke quietly into her ear. "Just make sure you come back soon."
"I will." The tears that threatened to come told her it was time to make an exit. She disentangled herself from her father's embrace and stepped through the green film. It flashed blue for an instant, accepting her ticket's code. She stopped and turned, looking back through the curtain of emerald light. Her father waved and his smile widened just a little, generating that tiny bit of warmth she needed to push her off into the next chapter of her life.