When the rains may come (Science Fiction)

27. The Promise

Clint and Marie had spent the past five weeks in the manor library, learning all that Gemma had to teach them. And Gemma had a lot to teach.

"When you will be out there on the field, you can't be yourself," she had said.

"Wait but didn't you say we were supposed to be ourselves?" Marie asked.

Gemma shook her head. "I did say that. But don't take it for the face value. You will have to pretend to be yourself," she said. "You can't really be yourselves. You are going to be performing roles you are comfortable performing, but you can't give away things about yourself that can be traced back to you."

"It is easier said than done," Clint said.

"It is." Gemma nodded. "Most spies hardly ever fail in the main objective of their mission. Where they fail is to keep their cover. Some tiny little detail that always makes its way past them."

"How are we supposed to keep ourselves from revealing those details then?" Marie frowned.

Gemma looked at them both gravely. "Simple, you always keep your cover. Even when nobody is watching. Especially when you feel like nobody is watching," she said.

Clint looked at her uncertainly. "I get that we have to keep our identities a secret because we don't want to give away that we are involved with the Last Hand or this town. But, you are making the unsectorized states sound like some kind of minefield."

Gemma's face turned grave. "That's an apt comparison, Clint." She leaned back in her chair. "Did you know they don't have operatives in the unsectorized states?"

"They don't?" Marie said.

"They have something way worse. They have the steel heads."

"What the hell is that?" Clint said.

"They are the local law enforcement but that's just me putting it simply. Just like the Vigilant Squad division governs the operatives. The Clandestine division governs the steel heads," Gemma said. "But the operatives are only responsible for maintaining the local order in the sectors. While the steel heads are responsible for not just the local order in unsectorized states but also for pinning down any politically seditious activities."

The sweat on his nose was making Clint's glasses slip down a bit. He pushed them back up. "And how do they decide if someone is committing sedition?"

"They have informers–citizens in plain clothes like you who look normal on the surface. They are the ones who can snitch on you. But that's not it, the steel heads have the power to arrest you even if they think you are doing something suspicious," Gemma said. "Does that sound like a minefield? Pretty much.."

The Harris couple felt an identical chill running down their spines. But Gemma was quick to interrupt their unease with reassurance. "But if you can keep up the facade of a 'normal boring family', you won't have to worry about the steel heads or their snitches."

Then Gemma had pushed a pile of books towards them. Books on psychology, conversational skills, and basics of acting. "Get studying. It'll only help in the end."

And so they'd spent all their time poring over all these books. Clint was especially thorough, burning all the midnight oil to internalize all that he could in those five weeks. It was like preparing for med-school all over again.

For Marie, it was all about getting the role right. She remembered the days when she had taken acting classes in college. Back when her peers and her mom had convinced her that her looks could get her to stardom or at least a decent modeling gig. She had never had much interest in being in movies rather than watching them. But the theater club had been a good hobby. And she was glad now it was coming to good use.