Out of Character:
The room was a rectangular box with white walls and no windows. A distant yet hauntingly close keening filled every corner of the building. It gnawed at my soul like a rat sneaking under a fence. I heard distant voices and doors banging, an edge of hurry fringing each sound.
A lifetime had passed since I sat in a place like this. The polished leather chair swiveled soundlessly as I banged its mahogany arm against the matching table. It stirred the golden ballpoint pen that lay uncapped across a hundred year old oak's worth of documents.
It felt like a lifetime, but the date stamped next to each signature line read Thursday September 26, 2013.
Eight years since an experimental portal had dropped me into a medieval forest with a two hundred page notebook and a set of nunchucks. In that time I'd fought in earthen pits and atop coveted pedestals, sailed on frigid seas and hunted through frozen streets, climbed mountains and killed immortals. I'd buried lovers and won wars, stood among deities and dueled with demons till their fires flickered and died.
"Do you need me to read them for you?" The beautiful blonde seated across from me inquired. I might have lost myself in her full lips and lapis eyes if not for the strong citrus perfume covering her scent. She was all carefully controlled vitality, long locks bound in a bun behind her head, pantsuit pressed as if ironed to her body. She was all woman beneath that monogrammed mask.
"I'm fine, actually I learned three languages on-" she slammed her palms on the table so hard the pen jumped and rolled off. I moved my foot about a centimeter and caught the pen on my dark metal boot with a soft ting.
"You can't say anything about your mission until the release and waiver are signed at least." She sighed and shook her head almost apologetically, smoothing out her neatly tucked shirt before it could wrinkle. "Look, if you'd rather spend another day alone in here, I have twice this much paperwork sitting on my desk. But honestly I'd rather hear your story. You just have to sign." She picked up the pen's cap, emblazoned with the same logo as her jacket, and tapped two of the top pages.
My foot flicked and the pen jumped into my reaching hand. I signed smoothly above the bold typeface reading Joshua Cronen Agent 016573.
The spy across from me closed her mouth and blinked the shock from her eyes and smiled.
"My name is Victoria," she said, "and now that we're acquainted, please start with February 17th, 2005."
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