The Meteor 2 by Calvert Joshua T

The Meteor 2 by Calvert Joshua T

Author:Calvert, Joshua T.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-09-28T00:00:00+00:00


12

JENNA

The coast of Siberia looked like a washed-out Renaissance oil painting, a flattened brown plain against a green backdrop of stoic trees that, weathered and stooped, had braved the burdens of snow and wind for centuries. Autumn was just beginning, so scattered islands of red and orange in the canopy of leaves brought the odd touch of color to the desolation.

Jenna didn’t know if it was her hypothermia, her injury, the shock of running into the Black Widow, or just this place, but she felt lonelier than ever before. Loneliness wasn’t a new feeling for her—she’d had plenty of experience with it—but the fact that she had merely herself to worry about usually outweighed the feeling. She loved her independence, her freedom in choosing strategy and methodology. Cultivating and systematizing her own actions was exactly what had driven her into this job.

She didn’t function well as part of a team because compromise—to her thinking—was about as purposeful as eating a block of cheese when constipated. It tasted good, but it didn’t solve any problems, it merely created new ones. Learning of Feyn’s betrayal had brought that home to her. If you open a door, you’d better know what’s behind it beforehand.

“I made a mistake,” she said. “I broke your rule, Tony.” She could hear his response as though he were with her.

“Every human being has to trust someone in order to survive. Without trust, you’re an emotional cripple, and you can’t run a marathon if you’re crippled. This job is a marathon, Jenna. You need help to get ahead. You need to use the slipstream of others to gain an advantage. But you can only cross that finish line alone. There is no second place in our trade.”

“I’m cold, Tony,” she quavered as she paddled with the BCD inflated on her back and approached the shore. She hadn’t felt her arms and legs for a long time, but she could see that her impulses to move were still causing her body to obey. “I’m so cold.”

A couple of seagulls circled above her head, eyeing her suspiciously—or greedily.

The water enclosed her like a fist, yielding to every flap of her fins, yet patiently returning, as if to make it clear that it had all the time in the world, and hers was slowly but surely running out.

“He betrayed me, Tony.”

One of the gulls uttered a hoarse cry.

“I really had a good feeling about him,” she tried to justify herself. “I realize I did wrong, but how could I have known he was counting on me to request him for the mission?”

A gush of the salty Pacific water sloshed into her mouth, temporarily choking her. Panic wanted to spread through her like wildfire, but she simply spat and coughed as much as was necessary without stopping her movements. The gulls—she counted four now—lowered their flight a little and were now circling not three meters above her.

“Excuses. I know,” she muttered, her teeth chattering so much by now that she could barely understand her own words.



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