Mockingbird: Take Flight

[Mir]

Sweat was nothing new to Rowan Chapman.

As she ran along the Potomac River, her noise canceling headphones strained to keep pace with her. She breathed in the crisp spring air. Her running outfit was in good shape so far, a dark orange leggings and sports bra combination along with a dark gray sweatshirt crop top cover. Her little reward for herself for completing her training at the Farm. Rowan was hoping that with the premium she’d paid for the outfit, it would hold up longer than some of her other sets. Money wasn’t tight, not with the salary the CIA paid, but that still didn’t mean she wanted to waste her money.

Not when she knew what she had to do to earn it.

She was awaiting news she wasn’t looking forward to receiving. But she knew it was something she was going to have to face at some point. Her scores in training and the reviews from her trainers had basically spelled it out.

She wanted to succeed. She wanted to excel, but she wasn’t sure if the cost was something she was willing to pay. Rowan slowed down as her phone buzzed, and she felt the vibration against her thigh. Sliding the phone out of the thigh pocket, Rowan looked at who it was and she sighed.

She had a feeling it was time to pay the piper.

The Director was setting up an appointment.

Putting the phone away, she turned around and started running in the opposite direction.

As she ran, the sweat came down into her eyes and she blinked. She wasn’t sure if it was the sweat or the worry. Rowan kept running though. She’d known.

She’d known what was going to happen from the moment she had signed her name on the contract. It was different though from what she had gone through in her life though. She had competed in wrestling in high school, against the boys sometimes and she had won. Rowan had been a champion in a lot of things. But nothing was like this.

You only got one shot at this and you had to get it right. For a reason. They had to know they could trust you. Otherwise you could be a field agent, but there were limitations on what you would be allowed to do.

It was time.

Time for the infamous red test.

Rowan had to kill.

==-==

Rowan shook hands with the Director as she walked into his office. She’d gotten back to her apartment and had changed, quickly. Being late wasn’t something she wanted to do during a one on one meeting with the Director.

“Rowan, thanks for coming in.” He said, gesturing at one of the seats. She sat and he walked over to the bar but she shook her head and he walked back to his seat behind his desk. “I think you know why you’re here.” He said and she nodded. “That’s good, we can get straight to business.”

He pulled out a folder and opened it. She took that moment to cast a glance around the room. The office looked a lot like she thought it would. The decor kind of reminded her of M’s room in the Bond movies. She brought her eyes back to the Director as he started speaking.

“We have a company that we use for different contracting jobs. Sapphire Development. Sapphire does a lot of different research projects for us. One of their researchers, Logan Hall, has appeared to go rogue. He stole a bunch of research and is attempting to sell it to the highest bidder. The transaction, the auction is taking place in Madripoor. Your job is to get in there and get back the research.” He said. “In the process, we want Dr. Hall terminated.” He said, finally looking up from the folder.

“What is the research?” She asked. “What should I be looking for?”

He leaned back in the chair, steepling his fingers. “That’s part of the problem. We know what he took, but we’re not sure of the exact form. There’s two components. The first part is pretty straightforward. Vials of a serum. The second is more complicated. Data files. The data files could be in any form. You’ll have to ask him when you see him.”

“Ask him?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Politely, of course.” He said, giving her a small smile. “Rowan, you’re one of the most promising prospects we’ve ever had. Your test scores are some of the highest out of the Farm that I’ve seen during my time as Director. I’m placing a lot of trust in you and I know you’re going to reward that.” He said. “Do you have any further questions?” He asked, closing the file and holding it out to her.

She rose herself, accepting the file. “I don’t think so. I’ll review the file and let you know if I do have anything.”

“We have reliable intel that the auction is taking place in one week.” He said. “You have some time, but we really do need this data back in our hands.”

“I understand.” She said as he now extended a hand.

They shook.

[Mir]

“Jordan is looking forward to it. He got to meet my parents when they were in town, but he wants to see Goose Creek. I think my dad likes him, which is big, you know? My mom is just happy I’m with someone as long as they treat me right. When do you think you’ll get a chance to get back home…Row, are you listening to me?”

“What? Of course, I’m listening, Nora.” Rowan replied.

She was in fact barely listening to Nora, one of her childhood friends. She had Nora on speaker phone as she sat in a chair on the balcony of her third floor apartment in Georgetown. Nora was telling her all about her planned trip back to Goose Creek, where they’d grown up. She was leaving in a few days. Meanwhile, Rowan was going to be leaving in a few days herself, to Madripoor.

She had the file that the Director had given her on the glass table in front of her, next to a glass of lemonade. It was open and she had been reviewing the information that analysts had provided. There was a lot to cover and she had to know the contents of the file backwards and forwards.

“Well, when do you think you’ll get a chance to get back home?” Nora asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t have the freedom you have with your job as a fashion designer.”

“Hey, I had to get a lot done to get this trip arranged.” Her friend replied, laughing. “Besides, just the flight from National City to Goose Creek is going to burn a whole day. You’re in D.C., you could make the drive in a a few hours.”

“Eight. I know from experience.” Rowan replied, pulling a leg up on to the chair with her and wrapping her arms around it. “That was a fun trip.”

“Hugh didn’t go with you right?”

“No, he was busy with some legislative meetings.”

She sighed, inwardly. She understood his job was busy but there never seemed to be time for anything unless it was the things he wanted to do. Understandable, but you couldn’t make time one time to be able to see her hometown? It was still a bit of a sticking point, so she didn’t want to dwell on it, but she knew Nora was going to push a little bit. Her friend wasn’t being a dick, it was more her personality.

“I want to meet him.” Nora replied, her tone a mixture of needling and envious. “Jordan’s great and all, but you’re dating someone in Congress.”

Rowan had to laugh now. “I am not dating ‘someone in Congress’. Hugh’s a senior aide to a junior senator from Nevada. That’s hardly someone in Congress.”

“It’s closer to it than you and I are.” Nora retorted. “Speaking of, what are you doing these days with the CIA? Or are you sworn to secrecy? You have to know such interesting people between Hugh and the CIA.”

Rowan eyed the file on the table.

“I’ve got a few things I’m working on. But it’s nothing exciting, trust me.” She stated, hoping Nora would drop it. There was one way to play defense and that was to go on offense. “So things are getting serious with Jordan then?” She asked.

“I would say so.” Nora replied, as Rowan sipped from her lemonade. “I think we’re going to move in together when our leases are up.”

She almost bobbled the lemonade. “You’re kidding, that’s awesome. Are you ready for that?”

“I’m the one pushing for it more than him.” Nora said. “I really think he’s the one, Row.” She said.

Rowan smiled. “That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you, Nora. You know what, maybe I’ll see if I can head out to National City in a few weeks and I can meet this magical guy.” She said.

“I’d like that. Listen, Row, I gotta go. I’m getting a call from Kenzie.” She said.

“Kenzie…Sanders? The model?” Rowan asked, a bit incredulous.

“Yeah, she needs some information about a fitting we’re doing for an ad campaign. Luckily, she lives in National City so maybe I can get her into the office later. I gotta run, love you babes.” Nora said, before hanging up.

“And she says I must know interesting people.” Rowan said, out loud, chuckling. She drank more of her lemonade and remembered that she still had the preparations for this op to complete. Nora's phone call had been a nice break from reality but that's all it really was, a break from reality.

Time to get back to work.

[Mir]

Rowan’s eyes were technically looking at the mat, but with them widening, she definitely wasn’t focusing on that. She wanted to work her jaw around, make sure nothing was out of place, but she knew she didn’t have time. Spinning around, she dropped into a guard position, keeping her eyes now on the Japanese man towering over her and moving with a grace and elegance she could only dream to one day possess.

His eyes were not like hers, somewhat unfocused. No, they were like laser beams, always on target. That was nothing she wasn’t used to seeing. Neither was the way he launched himself at her, shoving past her legs to take a full mount. She kept her hands up, protecting her face, but that opened up one of her arms to be snatched for an armbar. Rowan pivoted, trying to get to a vertical base. The weight advantage favored the Japanese man.

She had a choice to make.

He was going to pull on that arm until she gave up or the arm did. She had a few options available to her but all of them risked some kind of damage. Allowing him to stretch her arm further, Rowan dropped her left knee into his back, pushing against his spine. He responded by trying to drop his hips. She pressed again and he dropped again. On the third time, she pulled the knee and pressed off the ground with her dominant right foot, causing a flicking motion. This freed her up.

A judo type throw was easy enough to bounce back from, a dislocated elbow, less so. She rolled to her feet and started running forward. Now it was her time to shine. She got him into a front guard and went for a front guillotine. He, naturally, pressed up, knowing her weight wasn’t going to work in her favor. She tried to keep the hold on, but his weight advantage was going to be too much, she could tell.

Time to fight a little dirty.

Taking the heel of her left foot, she pressed it against his right hip joint and pressed. A similar thought process to the armbar situation earlier. If he kept trying to post up, he would stress his own hip socket, similar to how when she applied pressure to his back, she was hurting her own elbow.

Then she heard him chuckle.

Fuck. How does he have me?

He rocked backwards, his arms coming up and wrapping around her and pulling her with him into a weird throw. At the same time, he hooked one of her free legs and pulled off the weirdest fisherman she’d ever been hit with.

She saw stars.

This time she couldn’t roll over in time, she couldn’t do much of anything, he had her.

==-==

“You seemed distracted.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Why do you lie to Sakuraba?”

Rowan offered up a small smile as he sat down next to her.

“I’m not lying, I wasn’t distracted.”

She wasn’t looking at him, but she knew he didn’t believe her. She didn’t need to look at him. She didn’t believe her which made the lie rather unconvincing. Rowan was getting better at the lying part of her job, but at the same time, she was too worn out to try to make it convincing. The thoughts raging in her mind and the nerves raging in her damn elbow from where Sakuraba had hyperextended the joint were having their own jousting match in her brain.

“Then suddenly you forget how to wrestle, Rowan? You’re one of the best talents I’ve worked with here.”

She sighed. Damn, he had her right where he wanted her. Again. “Fine, I’m distracted.”

“Distraction is death.” He said and she parroted the words as he spoke them, though she didn’t say them herself. “You know this, clearly.”

They looked at each other in the reflection of the mirrors on the far side of the CIA combat gym. She’d gotten him her fair share of times and the win loss column had been reflecting that for a little while. She should have known he would know the jig was up when she’d tapped. She should have had him. By all rights, she should have. Rowan had been good when she’d gotten to the Farm but she’d been downright deadly when she’d left and under his tutelage on grappling alone she had become, in his estimation, one of the foremost grapplers in the world. Possibly the best ground based fighter on the planet.

Considering his background, she wasn’t going to argue with him.

“You asked for this session.” Sakuraba’s eyes were on her reflection. “Why?”

“I needed to clear my head,” Rowan replied, as she adjusted her gi. “I had a conversation with a friend and it got me thinking about a few things and I wanted to clear my thoughts.”

“I hope they have been cleared, though now you have an embarrassing loss that should be making your thoughts murkier.”

She smiled and nudged against the older man with her shoulder. “It’s not embarrassing, you’re a killer man.”

Sakuraba shook his head. “Those days are behind me,” the former Hand ninja said. “I train, I do not kill.”

She nodded. Sakuraba was one of the head trainers in combatives for the CIA wetwork operatives. He wasn’t just anyone though. A former Hand ninja, he had opted to leave the tribal clan and make his way to the West, this time without an agenda that served the Beast. He had done well for himself and the CIA had hired him, to both offer protection and in exchange to make use of his talents. She probably would have quibbled with the idea that he wasn’t a killer. Was someone who trained killers not, indirectly, a killer? Then again, that was probably deeper down the rabbit hole than Row wanted to dive down at five in the morning.

“What is bothering you?” He asked.

“My friend Nora.” Rowan said. “She and her boyfriend are getting closer together. Their lives are progressing. I grew up with her and she always seemed to know what she wanted to do in life. So did I, but then the Agency called when I was in college. It’s a different lifestyle. They’re going to be moving in together.”

“Buy them something nice.”

She laughed. “I will, don’t worry. Maybe a bonsai, I’ll say it’s from the both of us.”

He stared. “I do not know these individuals, they will surely not understand.”

“That’s for sure.” She looked around the room for a moment. “I have friends here. Jamie’s a real estate agent, Florence is a policy wonk. Amy is a graduate assistant and Phd candidate. I have friends.”

“But.”

It hung in the air.

“But,” She agreed.

Sakuraba’s eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly. “I understand better what is bothering you.”

“You do?”

“Your red test.”

She did her best to hide her surprise. A part of her wasn’t that surprised. Sakuraba was widely known as being tapped in as the kids would say. At a breezy “How do you know about that?”

He smiled. “I know things. It is natural, Rowan. You have been charged with taking a life. Whether that life should be taken or not, it is still a life. You are judging your own life to determine whether you are worthy to take that life.”

Rowan stopped and thought about what he was saying. “Fuck, you’re right.”

“I usually am,” He said, before smacking her on the backside of her head. “This word you say in my gym, you know you are not to speak in such a manner. Your parents raised you with respect.”

She rubbed the back of her head. “I apologize, Sakuraba.”

He nodded. “Rowan, your life is young, you are still growing.”

“I’m not getting any taller, unfortunately. I’m twenty-two and I’m stuck at this height.”

She had been picking at her gi and she looked up and saw in the reflection he was glaring at her. She made an apologetic, sheepish face and held her hands up. No need to get back to back smacks in Sakuraba’s gym.

“You’re tall enough. You are young and so you think that you have not earned the right to kill. But a child defending themselves or their sibling has every right to life.”

“Sure, but I’m not going to be defending myself. I’m the aggressor.”

“Of course, but we all have a role to play in the life of another. Even if that role is never being seen, never being known. We are the nameless, faceless people in dreams, the person that that individual thinks of when they think of far away places. We are who we are.”

“How did you get so deep?” She asked, dropping her chin into her hand and resting her elbow on her knee. She leaned towards him, her eyes angling upwards. There was a part of her that just could not help this kind of response. Just the way she’d been born, as her mom would say.

“My wife,” Sakuraba stated simply and directly. “She was, among many things, a poet.”

Rowan frowned now. Sakuraba rarely talked about his personal life. But that wasn’t the only thing that had been apparent.

“Was?”

“She passed away some years ago. It is why I left the Hand.”

She’d never really pried before and most people had told her not to ask. The ones who had told her to ask had definitely been trying to set her up for failure but Rowan Chapman was nobody’s fool. Another thing her mom would say.

“I think that’s what bothered me about the conversation with Nora. Hugh is nice and all but…I don’t know I can’t see myself with him for the rest of my life. I mean, he’s actually not very nice, when you push comes to shove.”

Sakuraba’s eyes flashed.

“Oh my God, no not like that,” Rowan said, thinking maybe something got a little lost in translation. “You think I’m letting Hugh Sanford of all people treat me like that?” She asked, shaking her head. “He’d be in a kimura so fast, trust me. He may be a senior staffer to a junior senator from Nevada but he’s showing up to work with a black eye and a broken arm.”

“So what then are you looking for?”

She leaned back, dropping so she was flat and staring at the ceiling. “Integrity. Respect. Obviously love, but I mean, the person has to be good. Someone who wants to help others. Someone who accepts the ugly side of life. I’m not the easiest person to put up with, my mother will be the first to tell you that. But…”

“You believe that taking a life will change you and scar you. Make you unlovable.”

“How can it not?” She replied, her voice dropping lower, closer to a whisper.

“It will create the opportunity for change,” He said, nodding slowly. “That soil will be there, the seeds will be planted. It will be your choice to water them, Rowan.”