The RV, which was now fixed, with the van in the back area (also fixed) pulled towards the gate. Alyssa had it set up so face recognition got her and the team through the gate.
The entrance opened and the RV continued down the driveway. The house - the teams home came onto view and Alyssa breathed. It had been debatable if they’d live to see it again, so it was a really good sight.
The RV parked now, it was 2 AM as they had just driven, pretty much, straight though. Alyssa made the announcement, " We’re home."
She jumped out of the driver’s seat and on to the pavement. A stretch and then, “Let’s just get what we need to inside. The rest can wait until later after we get some sleep.”
Sartre said, “Some time off will be a good thing.” He grabbed only his clothes and his side arm and headed inside the house. “What do you have planned on doing with your time off, my hacker?” he asked.
“I can’t think beyond getting a late snack and sleeping, right now.” Alyssa responded
Sartre said. “Sounds good my hacker.”
Alyssa woke up hazy, for a moment she forgot where she was. Her dreams were a blurr, she had been more exhausted than even she herself thought .
The RV…no…oh yeah they were home. For however long that lasted. A stretch, yawn - a reach for her phone - which silently announced it was 11 AM. Later than Alyssa had woken up in a very long time. She should really get up but with nothing pressing at the moment, just felt like laying there a bit longer.
“Sleepy hacker.” said Sartre, before he headed down stairs and grabbed orange juice. Winter snow was covering Virginia.
“Can you make some coffee?” Alyssa yelled after Peter as he left.
She crawled her way out of bed and peeked through the shades. Snow. This was her kind of weather, where one could just sit at home and be warm but the hacker had another plan.
The shower was calling her and she made her way there.
Sartre moved through the hallway like a man half-distracted, his footsteps muffled by thick Persian rugs that covered the creaking wood beneath. The mansion, a Federal-style estate nestled deep in the folds of Virginia’s Williamsburg, groaned softly in the wake of the storm. Outside, snow fell in slow, lazy spirals—thick, wet flakes that clung to the windowpanes like spectral fingerprints.
He passed a long mirror in a gilt frame, barely noticing his own reflection—hollow-eyed, unshaven, still wearing yesterday’s rumpled shirt and holster. His mind remained fixed on two things: the dream he’d had (if it was a dream at all), and Alyssa’s request about coffee.
The kitchen, despite its modern appliances, retained the heart of the house’s history. It smelled of brick dust and pine cleaner, though the coffee machine clicked and hummed like a content beast stirring from slumber. He moved past hanging copper pots and jars filled with pickled things he never remembered buying. As he prepared the coffee—dark roast, he glanced out the frost-laced window.
Beyond the glass, the grounds stretched away beneath a thick quilt of snow. The woods were close here, unnaturally so, as if the tree line crept closer each night when no one was looking. Bare branches clawed at the gray sky, black veins against a washed-out canvas. The wrought iron fence that ringed the estate had half-disappeared beneath the white, leaving only the tops of spears like crooked teeth grinning at the world.
He caught a flicker of movement near the hedgerow. A shape. Then it was gone. Just the wind, he told himself but the wind did not move like that.
A shiver passed through him, unrelated to the draft that always leaked in through the kitchen’s ancient stone walls.
He poured the coffee with practiced ease, the steam rising in soft spirals.
The mansion’s silence pressed against him, deep and layered. It was the kind of quiet that came with weight,like being buried alive beneath memory and ice. Somewhere beneath the house, the wine cellar door still refused to close all the way, no matter how many times he repaired it. Sartre told himself it was just the house settling.
He entered the bedroom without ceremony. He held the coffee. Her clothes were scattered across the bed: jeans folded with hacker’s precision, shirt still warm from the body that had fled it.
Steam crawled from the bathroom like ectoplasm, spilling into the colder air like a silent argument between worlds. He stood there for a moment, framed by the doorway, coffee in hand, watching the vapor coil and fade like thought itself.
Turning off the shower, Alyssa hadn’t heard Peter come back up stairs but could almost sense him at this point.
Using a fluffy white cotton towel the hacker dried off, her body then vigorously rubbed her hair so it would be still damp but not dripping. Being so petite another white cotton towel easily fit her body and she tucked one side into another so it stayed up. Then made her way out of the bathroom.
A smile crossed her lips, upon seeing the man holding the coffee. Alyssa took the still warm cup and gave Peter a small kiss, “Thanks.”
Sipping the hot liquid before putting it on a side table and getting dressed. “Anything planned for today?”
“No,” he said. “Only this. Only hanging out with you. That seems sufficient. What do you want to do today?”
The words might have been simple, but they echoed like scripture. Only hanging out with you. Not as possession, but as presence. A confession: that freedom is most frightening not in isolation, but in the gaze of another, where one becomes real by being chosen.
Outside, the world continued in its ruin and noise. But here, between them, was an architecture of breath and waiting—fragile, fallible, and unspeakably human.
“What do you think Sung is up to?” Sartre asked.
Alyssa nodded and gave Peter a slight smile. “That sounds nice. We haven’t had a chance to check out the indoor pool and hot tub, maybe we can do that later?”
As for Sung, the hacker shrugged. “Not sure. He’s probably been awake for hours. Maybe doing those- drills or whatever he calls them.” She finished getting dressed. “Should we go downstairs and find out?”
“Do you want the hot tub or pool later Alyssa ? I want to talk to you about something later.” “Lets go see Sung.” he said.
“Yes, later.” Alyssa agreed. She headed downstairs to the kitchen and started looking around. “Can you go find Sung? I’ll make a grocery list. We do need to go shopping, probably, at some point today as well.”
Sartre searched the house for Sung
As the morning sun rose into the sky, beams of light showed through the clouds. The light shone on Mr. Sung’s shirtless body, warming it. He moved gracefully as he worked through each kata movement, his hands flowing and his feet sliding as he moved around the brick pad in the house’s back yard. This workout took about an hour. With another hour with weapons, completing the whole training would take two hours.
His hand opened and closed, his arms moving, demonstrating different strikes and weapon use. A fist could represent a club or any blunt weapon. The open hand could be an engaging weapon, locking, grasping, and flipping. It took 10 years to master Hwa Rang Do and Moo-Gi-Gun. The energy he demonstrated in his movements started his body sweating.
He was about done when he could feel someone watching as he moved his sword through the air, slicing the air with a powerful sound. He turned towards the house with his last movements, as if he were cutting through something standing next to him. He stopped, stood, and bowed toward the house and those watching.
“Nice martial arts there Sung. How do you think they would fare against Gracie style grappling or catch wrestling?” Asked Sartre as he looked at the other team member with respect at his marshal skill.
“I’ve ridden that horse, and it was a tie, but I have a healthy respect for that Jiu-Jitsu style. You can say Hwa Rang Do is a mixed martial arts style, and Moo-Gi-Gun is more of a weapons side. If you join them and spend ten years learning them, it turns into a 1000+ year-old discipline,” replied Mr. Sung, thinking about how to explain the discipline.
" It has hand strikes and kicks, circular parries, flips, Locks, throws, chokes, and throws. The idea is to keep on moving continually. Spinning and jumping, with body flips and throws, hand strikes, locks, and chokes reserved for finishing off the opponent, it has parts of many Japanese, Korean, and Kung Fu, styles," explained Sung, hoping he would get the idea.
“Anytime you would like to spar, let me know. What is on your mind, Sartre?” he asked politely.
"“Just wondering what your predictions are for the secret world in the future, Sung.” said Sartre.
in the chip: “What are you wanting to pick up at the grocery store Alyssa?” asked Sartre.
"I’m still making the list. " Alyssa replied, into the chip. As she continued checking around the kitchen; throwing out anything expired.
Sung let out a breath slowly and looked at Sartre. “Unfortunately, I am like the wind, drifting and moving around the world as it changes. The dragon’s organization, I will not say, does not plan. But more see how things go. The organization is the most secretive of societies, with no fixed territory or structure. So you never know what is next. We watch the events and act accordingly.” Sung started to explain.
"I was asked to watch over the team and give advice. That is what I have done, " he said, putting on his shirt. “I have observed that Alyssa has something to do with the information and the end of this crisis.
I will continue supporting and watching over her as my orders demand.” Sung reassured Sartre.
“I have been wondering about the new lady we met recently. I do not trust people that easily, and I trust her less. I have not asked my people yet, but I plan to. The Delta Green team does have a reputation. but do we trust them nothing for free.” says Sung, looking at Sartre.
“Interesting using the chaos theory of the Dragon. As for the Delta Green agent, I think we can trust her, they’ve had a lot more experience than even I have before I swallowed that bee back in the summer of 2012. I’ve wondered what would have happened had I not gone home that night.” said Sartre. They called us “Gaia’s chosen. When the bees would speak to us, they would speak to us in poetry.”
In the chip: “My guess is the hacker will buy hacker snacks.”
“Of course,” Alyssa responded into the chip. “But living on potato chips might not work for everyone.”
“Hackers need protein.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Alyssa joked. “I’m adding some healthy stuff, as well. Does Sung know how to cook?”
“Sung, can you cook?”
In the chip: We’ll talk in the hot tub after you get back Alyssa."
“I’m just going to order the food. They’ll deliver it. Its easier than taking the van.” Alyssa responded, into the chip.
In the chip: “You want to eat first? Or the hot tub?”
“I meant I was having the groceries delivered but we can get takeout as well.” Alyssa explained
“Sung, what would you prefer for groceries?”
He thought about the cooking question. He can cook, but not everyone likes food from Korea, Japan, and some American stuff. “Yes, it depends on what you want.” he answered. “why do you ask?”
“Groceries? Hmm… Coffee and tea. I am not used to being in one place for very long, so I do not cook much. I know how, but I just don’t do it much. What about you, Sartre?” Mr. Sung asked. “I doubt that Alyssa does but she can surprise people.” added Sung.
“I dont cook either.” said Sartre.
He smiles, “We all going to die of hunger,” he says jokingly. “Let us go see what we do have.” said Sung, walking towards the house.
“Sung is good with anything Alyssa.” Sartre said in the chip.
“Well, that narrows it down.” She joked. “Maybe we should just get some take out Japanese for tonight and the groceries. Did he tell you if he could cook?”
“He said he doesn’t cook.”
“Well, there’s recipes and demonstrations online. Maybe we can figure it out, but not tonight.” Alyssa responded. “I’m ordering Sushi but you and Sung will have to decide what you each want from the Japanese takeout place.”
“I’ll have what the hacker is having. Do you want to talk in the hot tub before or after dinner?”
Sartre said, "Sung, what would you like from a Japanese take out? If you have any interesting theories on new martial arts styles. I’m always available to learn more. Just practice your grappling. It’s like strategy " Sartre respectfully left the martial arts and combat master to continue his training.
“Okay, its only about 1 so I’ll be ordering the take out later. The groceries now but they’ll be here later. So let’s talk in the hot tub.” Alyssa replied.
Sartre got into his swim trunks, this would be his first time trying the hot tub. He had questions for Alyssa, but also look forward to the time they spent together. He always did.
He waited for the hacker.
With the groceries ordered, for delivery later. Alyssa got into her 2- piece and met up with Sartre. “I’m ready if you are.”
She hadn’t been in this hot tub either or the pool as they had had no time for such things before.
“Feel free to push me in.” He smirked. “There are things I want to talk to you about. Our relationship seems to have changed. In a positive way, a few weeks ago back at that apartment complex I noticed that if anything we have seemed to grow even closer than we were. I want to know what that means to you.”
She turned the hot tub on, it would take a few minutes to heat up. “Well, the hot tub is a little shallow for that but the pool isn’t.” After almost drowning a while back she was unlikely to shove anyone into a pool.
Alyssa sat at the edge of the hot tub and dangled her feet in while it warmed up as Sartre asked his question. “I’m not sure. I feel closer to you than anyone and anyone I’ve been around in my past. Though if you want to know the truth, it’s a little scary at the same time. I don’t want to be dependent on anyone as much as I love you, as close as we are I still need to feel independent as well. At the same time I feel like I wouldn’t know what to do if you suddenly weren’t around.” Alyssa slid into the now warmed up hot tub water. She allowed herself to be vulnerable with him but, for some reason, she still couldn’t quite get used to being vulnerable around anyone.
He followed her. “What what make you feel more independent?”
“I don’t know. Being able to defend myself better has helped. Maybe learning more things. I don’t really know.” Alyssa tried to come up with the correct words. “Before you and the team, I had been on my own in many ways, for a long time. I didn’t have to think about being independent because I had no choice. So, now I don’t know how to bridge the two - being so close to you and having actual friends and not losing that independent part of me. The part that could rely on myself. It’s much easier, it seems, to rely on yourself when you only have yourself. It feels too easy to use you or the team as a crutch. I don’t want that but I like that there are people I can rely on.” Alyssa got quiet, she realized she had done a poor job explaining it but… “I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“What’s going on in there? In your head? The next time we… May I use my ability, like the time you passed out at the motel and I saved you?”
“Maybe, later. Not when we are and not now. But maybe again at some point. I’m not sure getting in there will make any more sense, anyway.” Alyssa breathed as if she had just held her breath. “Know this I love you and I trust you. I’m just figuring out the rest myself.” The hacker paused. “Have you ever felt totally and completely alone even when surrounded by people? Like there was no one to really turn to?”
“I know that feeling,” he said quietly. His voice was gravel edged with something older than sadness. “When the world crowds in, but you might as well be standing on the surface of the moon.”
He took a slow breath, steadying himself before he spoke again.
“I used to think I knew how people disappeared. Criminal profiling gave me patterns. Runaways, abductions, staged vanishings. There were rules. You could track them. You could find them. Then I joined the Secret World, and I learned just how wrong I was.”
He leaned forward a little, speaking lower now, the room seeming to lean in with him.
“I still think about Mekayla Bali. Sixteen years old. Regina, Saskatchewan. One day she just… walked out of her life. No real warning. Security cameras caught her leaving a bus depot. After that? Nothing. No sightings. No evidence. Not a damn clue. It was like the world swallowed her whole.”
Brian Schaefer," he went on. “Med student, Ohio State. 2006. Went out drinking with friends. Security cameras caught him entering a bar. Never showed him leaving. Not once. Not even a frame. They searched every inch of that place. No trace. No way out. Gone.”
A muscle in his jaw tightened.
“And Stephen Koecher. Journalist. Saint George, Utah. 2009. His car was found abandoned in a suburb, keys still inside. No struggle. No goodbye. Just footprints leading away into nothing. No one’s ever seen him again.”
“I started digging deeper. I had to know if there was a pattern. Not just these — us. Our people. Agents, field operatives, sometimes. Vanished without a ripple.” He exhaled, slow and heavy.
“I thought maybe it was just the work. High-risk assignments, foreign ops, bad luck. But it didn’t add up. It never does.”
His voice dropped even lower
“I started looking at Operation Condor. Chile. 1970s. They called it counterintelligence, national security. Truth is, they disappeared tens of thousands. Black bags over heads, secret detention centers, people air-dropped into the Pacific like trash. Most of the bodies were never found. It was like history itself tried to erase them.”
He stared at his hands for a moment .
"I thought Condor was evil because of what humans did to each other. Now? I’m not sure it wasn’t something else
Sartre finally met Alyssa’s gaze, his voice iron steady despite the haunted look in his eyes.
“So yeah. I know what it feels like to be alone. To know you could vanish between one heartbeat and the next and the world would just… blink and move on.”
He smiled then a small, broken thing and added, almost tenderly:
“But I also know when you’re lucky enough to have even one person you can trust in this world, you don’t let go of them easily.”
Alyssa nodded, “Yes. You don’t let them go.” She thought back on his words. The hacker had always wondered why Peter had chosen this life or maybe it was something else. “I feel often like this life…that of the secret worlds- chooses us instead of we choosing it. No matter much it seems like the latter.” Alyssa had strayed a little from the original topic. “I know having someone to trust, to hold onto when things get rough. To have love. Friendships. It should feel normal. While it feels right it doesn’t feel normal. Not to me, not yet. At this point I’m wondering how long it will take before it does. That alone feeling. The completely alone where’s there’s no one to turn to - even in a crowded room. I’m so much more familiar with that.” Alyssa pushed a hair, that had fallen onto her face, back. “But you…you I feel closer to everyday and it’s wonderful…scary at times if I let my mind drift to what might happen if something was to happen to you. ..but still wonderful. Yet, wonderful is still odd for me.”
Closing her eyes for an ever brief moment, as if she was letting some thought pass. “Do you ever wish I was older…or had more life experiences? Like you have?” She couldn’t help but feel young sometimes next to him, despite everything she had already been through.
"“I don’t wish that whatsoever, that way I can have the experiences alongside you as you experience them. I feel closer to you every day as well. I like these moments, these experiences and just hanging out with you. You’ve shown extreme bravery in the field and extreme courage. Of course I also enjoy the “Ohh that!” experiences that you have and that I can have with you. Should we take a few days off for that? I think we do need a makeout session now though, hacker.” He motioned her close.
Bravery? Courage? Alyssa felt many times she was just doing what she could to survive and make sure others did as well, as much to her ability. She certainly didn’t see herself the way Peter did. “Well, thank you for the compliment. I think you are as well. Not many would jump into someone’s mind to battle an unknown entity.” Speaking of which. “I am grateful your willing to experience things with me, considering what those things are, at times.” As for the "Ohh that comment. Alyssa breathed a laugh. “I’m never gonna live that down am I?” Though it was said lightly. The atmosphere in the room had clear changed becoming lighter but she felt even closer to him now. And at his request, she moved closer to him and kissed him…
Posted by : Cindy