The Recruit

Chapter 8

I stood with the Freedom Fighters as Father Anton told the Fighters they could take me.

"What? Why? Who is going to check on Father Budi's eye injury? What about the children in the orphanage? How are you going to tell them where I went? I haven't said goodbye to the nuns!"

"I'll tell them you are sent to the Vatican by the pope's order and we don't know when you'll be back."

"You – you are a priest! You shouldn't lie like that. I knew I wasn't your favourite helper and I make trouble every where I go, but you couldn't have hated me that much to send me off to some strangers." I was more surprised than hurt at this point as it seems so easy for him to say that.

"I don't hate you, Liv. On the contrary, you were always brave and carefree. I wasn't kidding. It's just that one of the higher ups in their organization is the pope. They have sworn me to secrecy and signed a note to send you off or they... these people would cut my fingers off one by one. I'm sorry my child." My jaw dropped open as I looked to Cora who just shrugged.

Seeing that I have no choice, being pit against the pope, the assassins and the priest. I let them haul me into their chopper that was parked out back and fingers crossed they wouldn't kill me.

Summer 2020 - Vaticano, Italia

The familiar smell of the Rome hit my nose. I looked at St. Peter's Basilica from afar, suddenly remembering agood memory of me and Jake walking around the Basilica. I wonder if he had gone back to Rome after our last trip to Germany or he was back to Florence. Before I could reminisce longer, I was brought into a secret building below St. Peter's Basilica court area through a nearby old Roman sewer system near the Castel Sant' Angelo.

Then we had to get through a thick security as I saw my handler passed by easier than me, I had to go through all sorts of questioning even though I was brought here against my will. Once that was done and over with, they told me to get a physical exam. 

I don't know how to escape from this 'maximum security prison' building anyway, so I just go through everything they asked of me. I thought by now, I could enter the actual building, but no. They assured me psychological exam would be the last one and it was mandatory for all personnel that went through similar thing as me to check for any mental damage (say, killing someone before training).

See, what I don't understand is that I am not even personnel. I'm supposed to be here to greet the pope and go back, right?

Some of the questions hit close to home. I feel like I failed the tests that I called "emotional fucking balance", and "tendency for violence ". The assessor's facial expression gave nothing away, but what I know is that these tests were definitely custom tests tailored to the what this underground society strictly needed to know, not something that was inspired off from DSM-V. I got a hint that the blood in my phys test earlier, were also tested for genetic trait testing to see my "true nature".

What the fuck I have gotten myself into?

"Um, listen. I know I need to do this but psychological testing is usually non-mandatory and I know they will be probably disclosed to your... employer. So can I just leave... and...." I was about to stand up and the psychiatrist looked like she was about to murder me with her cold looks alone. Thus, I sat my arse back into the comfy chair behind me and take more questions. 

They saved the best for last really, as I found myself working on a FUCKING IQ TEST, the test that has been stopped to assess children to admit them in schools, but still largely used in Asia to do aptitude testing for school and hiring purposes. At the end of the test, I am pretty sure I scored badly on at least three scores, including the IQ test.