Chapter 7

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchers? The answer is that we do. As you have already surmised, we work for the Union government, but not as yet another alphabet agency with a political overlord and a bureaucratic swamp to slow us down. We keep the PTE agents honest, police InterSys, and investigate corruption at the highest levels. Even in the Union General Secretary's own Rotunda. Here's the thing, though ... We don't answer to the Parliament. We don't answer to the Union General Secretary." Minerva had taken on a grave expression.

Kat cocked her head, a puzzled expression on her face. "No oversight? How can the government be sure you are not crooked? That you haven't gone off the rails and start working against the Union? Even the Secretary General is subject to recall at the whim of the Parliament."

Whim was not really accurate; it would take a seventy-five percent vote of the entire Parliament to recall a Secretary General. The last time a vote had reached that threshold was almost 300 years ago when a crisis had forced the Union to deal with the emerging threat of Nano technology.

"There are," Minerva paused, clearly searching for the right words, "certain guarantees, certain safeguards in place to insure that each agent working for our agency remains loyal. The head of the agency, for example, is known to only the Speakers for each of the three major political parties. The Speakers each have a device that sends a signal to the implanted explosive in the Director's brain. In turn, these Speakers know that to actually push that button would mean the full weight of the Agency would come down on them like a metric ton of plascrete, investigating the justification for that action. If the Agency decided that it was not justified, the Speaker would suffer a fatal accident ... consider it mutually assured destruction. There are lesser guarantees, though no less final, in place for each person who works with us."

"So signing on with you means I am signing my own death warrant? Who would agree to an insane arrangement?"

Minerva quirked an eyebrow. "Agencies like ours are nothing new. We can trace the origins of our agency to similar groups that did the same work, on Old Earth, more than a thousand years pre-diaspora. While it may sound trite, we are fighting the good fight. We believe in what we are doing and we know that the work is important. The Union needs people like us. Every agent, every sector commander and even the Director and his Second, are people just like you. They come from every walk of life, every sector of society. The one thing they have in common each has been in the position you were in. Each one has been faced with an almost insurmountable obstacle and an enemy that was above the law, untouchable. Each one refused to accept that limitation and, in their own ways, exacted justice."

"So you want me because I blew up a planetary Governor and killed a bunch of his staff? There were innocent people in that square, or mostly innocent, and I am sure one or two of the people on the podium didn't deserve to be blown to bits." Kat blurted. It was her recurring nightmare, those deaths. She had underestimated the strength of the explosives she had used and the death toll had been higher than she had planned. That she was sixteen at the time, an untrained youngster fueled by a thirst for revenge didn't assuage her feelings of guilt.

Minerva nodded her head, acknowledging her outburst but not accepting Kat's conclusions. "It may sound strange, but yes, that figures into our desire to recruit you."

"You are an accomplished assassin. Your work is thought very highly of, in certain circles. You are also self-reliant, able to adjust quickly to changing circumstances and more intelligent than most of your employers have realized. Your list of targets over the last few years has been impressive. You have never failed to terminate a target and have never been positively linked to a single hit." Minerva held up a hand, forestalling an interruption.

"You have trained yourself in multiple disciplines, are deadly with almost every weapon available to civilians, and some that are most definitely not. Your body is one of the less than 20% of the populace who can handle major tech invasion without side effects and one of less than 5% that can do so without regular anti-rejection therapy. Moreover, and most important to me, every single assignment you have accepted has been for a person who really needed to be dead. Even the activities on your home world showed extraordinary drive and intelligence, though the destruction of the city square was excessive." Minerva steepled her fingers before her face and appeared to be contemplating the woman in front of her.

Kat leaned back in the chair, uncomfortable with the sheer volume of information these people had been able to gather about her, her life and her actions over the last 22 years.

"How were you able to dig up all this information? I have been very careful to cover my tracks."

"My dear, we have been watching you since you left Ovid, though indirectly. Your exploits on Ovid fell under the jurisdiction of InterSys. Their investigation narrowed down the thousands of people who wanted him dead to 4 possible subjects, but was unable to conclusively identify the person behind the attacks. Of those four, two left the planet shortly after the death of the Governor. Then, a year later, a business man who was dabbling in sex slavery had his throat cut in much the same manner as the Peace Keeper on Ovid. You were on-planet at the time, though under an assumed identity. A decision was made to see what you would do, where you would go. Your next target was a woman who had framed her own husband and he was mind-wiped, all to cover an embezzlement scheme. Each target had a similar story and as long as you were fighting the good fight, we let you continue."

"So what changed? Why did you suddenly have a change of heart?"

"One of the reasons we kept an eye on you, other than, of course, so we could step in if you started killing school children for fun and profit, was that you fit the profile of the kind of people we want working for us. There was not a slot open in the organization for your particular skill set until recently. As I said earlier, dear, I want you to work for me."

Minerva leaned forward with the air of someone whispering a secret. "What would you give to have an immunity agreement, signed by the Union Secretary General and ratified by both the Parliament and the Supreme Court, in your possession? What about carte-blanche in dealing with scum like those that you killed on Ovid? Access to as much Tech as you need, as much as you can handle? These things, and much more, are what we are offering."

Kat temporized, unwilling to believe this wasn't some elaborate trap. It all sounded too good to be true and there had to be a hidden barb, a hook she couldn't see yet.