| Subject: Re: Jericho II: 07 |
Author:
Anon
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Date Posted: 22:38:55 02/13/02 Wed
In reply to:
Anon
's message, "Jericho II" on 23:17:33 01/28/02 Mon
**
Sitting alone in a darkened corner of the club, Michael contemplated Nikita’s readiness for the Chandler mission as he observed her interaction with others at the bar. He had entered ten minutes after her, spotted her easily, and then made his way unobtrusively to the opposite side.
Being a weeknight, the club was not as crowded as it would be had it been a Friday or Saturday night. Nonetheless, Michael observed, there was still more than an adequate selection of subjects present for tonight’s exercise.
He had phoned Birkoff and had him open a secure channel, and now, through his com unit, Michael listened in as Nikita ordered a drink at the bar. There was a sharp edge to her voice, caused no doubt by her irritation at having been lured into another training run. From where he sat Michael was unable to see her face, but he didn’t need to to know that she was scowling. He was also willing to bet that she was probably cursing him underneath her breath with every vile obscenity she knew.
The thought of her doing so was enough to almost make him smile. It wasn’t that he took any pleasure in her discomfort. He didn’t. But Michael had to admit that there were times when Nikita’s stubborn-headed mulishness, and refusal to cede easily on certain matters was… comforting. Of all the people under his command in Section, she was the only one who could make him want to smile.
Nikita would hardly consider that a compliment, but to Michael, it was. Section was full of operatives ready to kill at a moment’s notice. It’s what they were trained and expected to do. Nikita, on the other hand, balked at any order to kill and openly questioned first the purpose behind it. Admittedly, at times, her defiance was enough to make Michael want to physically shake her – another human reaction he hadn’t had in a long time, but her questioning was also not without merit.
“If our purpose is to protect the innocents,” she had asked him once, “then why are we killing them out in the field?”
“They’re acceptable collateral,” he had attempted to explain. “Sometimes it’s necessary that a few innocents die in order to save the majority.”
Nikita had huffed in disgust at that answer. “Maybe to Section and you they are, Michael,” she’d replied. “But not to me. Those ‘acceptable collateral’, as you call them, are people. They’re somebody’s mother or father, brother or sister. They have lives and people who care for them. People who will weep over their senseless death.”
It had become a never ending debate between the two of them: Nikita was the champion of the human race and he, as Nikita had angrily called him once, was Section’s number one ‘yes’ boy. Michael was certain that if Operations ever heard her during one of her tirades, he would cancel her on the spot.
Nikita. Michael didn’t know at times what to do with her. She was, in his initial opinion, innocent and naďve in her view of the world. The extent of that naďveté surprised him considering how long she had lived on the streets. But as time had passed and Michael became more acquainted with Nikita, he realized that it wasn’t naiveté that ruled her behavior, but a stubborn and strong conviction that there was good in the world. She believed in the human conscience and refused to let hers go no matter how many times he had tried to rid her of it.
In training sims, she consistently disobeyed profiles that placed any civilians in danger. Michael purposely worked that very schematic in time and time again to force her to see that sooner or later civilian lives would be lost if they were caught in the crossfire. But still she refused. He could see it in her eyes every time she was faced with the same dilemma; kill or not to kill?
Finally, after a long and grueling session, she had come to his office late at night, long after he thought she’d gone to bed, and she had asked for his help. Her eyes had been red-rimmed and there was a weariness in the way her shoulders drooped. Seeing her there, like that, looking so young and defeated, had made Michael think of someone he hadn’t allowed his thoughts to linger on in a very long time – Monique, his sister.
His heart had gone out to Nikita that night. Against every shred of ingrained Section training Michael had etched into his soul, he made a silent vow that night to help Nikita survive.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, sitting in his chair across the desk from her. Nikita had taken from her pocket a folded piece of paper and laid it on his desk. She opened it and smoothed it of it’s wrinkles and looked across at him.
“Here’s the sim we did today,” she said, and showed to him the penciled outline she’d drawn. Marked on it were the location of where the hostiles had been, Section personnel, and the innocents Michael had deemed acceptable collateral. “If you were in my position,” Nikita began, looking earnestly at Michael. “And you were given new orders that said these innocents were ‘not’ to be harmed, how would you alter the profile?”
“Section would never give that order, Nikita.”
“I know,” she sighed, undeterred. “But how would you do it?”
Michael stared at her for several long seconds. Nikita stared back, not showing any sign of backing down.
”You want me to teach you to profile.”
With her eyes still on him, she replied evenly, “I want you to teach me how to save lives.” She turned the paper over and pushed it slowly toward him. “Will you teach me, Michael?”
Michael accepted her requests on two conditions: First, she had to promise she would obey him – no matter what the circumstances – when they were out in the field. And second, she had to verbally acknowledge, right there in his office, her acceptance that sooner or later some innocents would inevitably be caught in Section’s crossfire and die.
Her struggle to accept his conditions was displayed plainly on her face. Her gaze faltered. She sat back, bit down on her lower lip, and then stood and walked over to the window and looked out at the main floor of Section. She was quiet for so long, Michael began to think she wouldn’t agree to his terms. But then, drawing a deep, slow breath, Nikita nodded her acceptance. She turned and looked at him.
“I promise to obey every order you give me when we’re on a mission,” she said.
Michael waited. The second condition he knew was even harder for Nikita to make. She walked up to the edge of his desk and there was in her eyes a trace of that stubbornness he’d come to know so well. Her voice was low and even. “I acknowledge that civilians may die as a result of Section action,” she said to him. And then, tilting her chin up slightly, she added, “But I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything I can to prevent it, Michael.”
And that, Michael sighed, had been the end of that. After Nikita’s regular training was over, he would spend an hour or so with her in the evening teaching her profiling. Mainly he gave her scenarios of past missions that had not gone down as efficiently as they should have. While Michael worked on his reports at his desk, Nikita curled up on the chair across from him and pored over the profiles, making notes and altering parameters. She caught on quickly and, to Michael’s pleasure, argued for and defended each of her proposed changes.
Michael came to enjoy those times together with Nikita in the evenings. He was aware that there were rumors circling amongst the other operatives about the amount of time he spent with Nikita. But he couldn’t care less what they thought. Nikita was his student and she was smart and willing to learn. He admired that in her. If people thought there was something more to their relationship than that, then that was there problem.
“Michael, are you there?”
His thoughts were riveted back to the present by Nikita’s voice over the com unit. Michael looked over to the bar and saw that she was sitting with her drink in one hand and her head bowed. The seat to her left was unoccupied, but to her right sat a young man in his early twenties and he was obviously scoping Nikita out.
Michael activated his unit so that he could communicate with Nikita. “I’m here.” He heard her sigh with relief. Or maybe it was disgust. With Nikita it was hard to tell.
“Well what are you waiting for?” she growled. Beside her, the young man looked around with a puzzled a look on his face.
“Excuse me?”
Nikita’s head jerked up and she turned to look at him. “Oh. I… uh…” She faltered a second, embarrassed, and then Michael felt her mood shift. She sat up straight and twisted in her seat to face the young man beside her. From where he sat, Michael saw her smile. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just… uh… practicing my lines. You see, I’m an actress, or, trying to be one.”
Nikita flipped her long hair over her shoulder and gave the young man another bright smile. Her companion smiled back and he leaned towards her. Soon he and Nikita were involved in an easy, lightly flirtatious conversation.
Just don’t try to touch her, Michael mused. She’ll kick the crap out of you.
Still listening, Michael scanned the room for a more challenging target. “Nikita,” he said, when he had picked out his mark. “4 o’clock. Blue shirt, red tie. Tag him.”
Nikita turned casually in the direction he indicated and spotted the man Michael had picked out. She then finished her drink, made an excuse to the young man at the bar, and got up and made her way slowly towards her mark.
**
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