Every potential operative needed 60 hours of time on the shooting range prior to graduation and assignment with no exception. Some agents, even some of the very people training others in the use, cleaning, and legality of the weapons, claimed they led to escalation in otherwise-reasonable scenarios. Some cited the increase of spectral and demonic activity in areas of high violence of any kind--whether or not an agent wielded the weapon. No matter their complaints, statistics, or actions on the field, each and every one of them did their 60. That was just a range, and those were just paper targets. Everyone had to take his turn.
Arthur knew that. He knew that he was cutting it too close; he'd have to really stretch his time to get his hours in during his last few months of training, alongside all of the other obligatory courses, meetings, and field work. He knew it each time he blew off the range to go out on the town--but when else could he learn pick-up lines from an actual succubi--and when he sprained his dominant hand in that off-roading trip. Arthur heard it in his trainers' polite inquiries about his weekend plans. He saw it in the look on his roommate's face, that guilty schadenfreude of better-him-than-me, when Arthur returned home from his last class of his last year to find a letter on the dinette table.
The runed eye in the center of the agency sigil glowered at him. Arthur picked the letter up with leaden fingers; he turned it over as slowly as he could. It had either been lazily sealed--or been tampered with somehow. Arthur glanced at the man studiously reading on the couch. Reading, but his eyes weren't moving.
Arthur opened the envelope and slipped the letter out. A pained breath escaped him: nothing useful here, nothing to calm the panic in his chest. Just a time tomorrow and a location: not the school overseer's office, but that of the agency director. Arthur's fingers trembled, and the paper slid from his fingers to fold as it landed on the table. That glowing red eye stared up at him from the back of the page.
"Ah, fuck," Arthur said. He stayed where he was as his roommate rose, changed, and left the house. He stayed there, contemplating his last tomorrow, until tomorrow arrived.
Arthur hadn't been through the agency headquarters since selection. A sort of dumpy building, stone in places, brick in others, patchwork and run-down. He shivered as he stepped through the foyer into what had been--and still was--a parlor. Arthur stopped so solidly he rocked on his legs. The homey rugs, comfortable furniture, and fire in the hearth couldn't drive away the subconscious urge to get out. Arthur gripped the badge in his pocket, and the sensation lessened. He pushed forward, past the parlor, into the agency proper.
Flickering fluorescent lights had played over the tile and cinderblocks of these halls when Arthur had last been here; some time in the past four years, someone took the time and twisty legal effort to get faelights; they glowed steadily from their sconces, giving the acerbic halls a welcoming warmth that belied not only the agency's nature, but that of the fae, too. As Arthur passed one faelight, the creature grinned too wide for its round head. It beckoned him. Arthur swayed toward it mid-step, but the sharp edge of his badge bit into his hand. Arthur shook his head and continued on; he ignored the scowl pointed at his back.
The director's office laid in the heart of the too-large complex; as Arthur approached, tile and cinder block became gleaming wood. The fluorescents returned, though. Arthur stared between the gold letters on the door and the sweat-stained page in his hand. Director Meredith Desanno. Arthur freed his hand from pocket to knock--and a wave of panic overcame him. He turned to go, made it four steps, and then intense heat burst into his fingers from the letter in his hand. Arthur yelped, dropped the letter, and froze in the act of putting his unburnt fingers to his mouth when the door behind him opened.
"Arthur Keaton?" His shoulders hunched, but Arthur forced himself upright. He turned. The woman peering from the door was short, and older than most of his trainers. He was inclined to see her as grandmotherly, except for the no-nonsense cut of her white hair and the small badge pinned to her lapel.
"Yes," Arthur said. He cleared his throat. "Yes, ma'am." Director Desanno stepped back to open the door more widely. As though drawn by a faelight, Arthur's wooden legs led him inside.
Fooled again by the grandmotherly skin and eyes, Arthur expected to step into another version of the visitor parlor. Instead, the huge room--bigger than it could be, given the halls around it--was stark, with metal furniture and blank white walls. The director supplemented her florescent lighting with bulbs hanging under large metal shades. Arthur stopped stock still while the director continued on toward a table spread with documents. An interrogation room. Who knew where that door usually went? To some office with comfortable seating, and a cheery fire in a hearth, maybe. But here, for him, it was the end of the line.
The director turned back with a file in her hand to where Arthur should have been. She lifted her gaze to find him at the door.
"Come here, please." A stunned automaton, Arthur obeyed. He settled in the seat across from the director while his mind raced. He'd been with the agency, training, for four years. Even if they didn't do him in outright, that was four years of memories just wiped. Maybe the effect would come from one of these lights, or the glare reflecting from the table. As the director settled across from him, still pursuing her file, Arthur latched onto the idea of the director herself; maybe high-level agents could use hypnosis, or she had something that could blank him out. Or maybe they'd keep him confined. Would that be better than losing almost half a dozen years? Arthur gripped the edge of his chilled metal seat with fingers that creaked.
"I don't see any records of range time," the director said. "Graduation for your class is in a week, Arthur. Have you been shooting at all?"
"No," Arthur managed. "No, I haven't."
"Never handled a gun?" the director asked. Arthur stared too hard at the woman, but he couldn't quite meet her eye. Arthur found himself focusing on her furrowed cheeks and the other lines of her face until she cleared her throat
"N-no," Arthur said. "I know I should have been on the range, that no one but myself was going to make me go, that I need to, to graduate, but--please, don't steal my memories!" The director lifted her eyes from the file, which drooped almost to the desk.
"Your memories?"
"Scott told me that people who can't graduate, we know too much about the agency, we get wiped out, and everyone at the commissary backed him up. He said they use strobe lights." The director stared for a few more panicked heartbeats.
"If you can't graduate, we wipe your memories?"
"Yeah," Arthur said.
"And, thinking this, you procrastinated a requirement to the point of failure?"
"... yeah."
The director closed her manila folder to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Gods give me strength." She opened her eyes to frown at him. "Well, you're the only one we have, mister Keaton. Congratulations. Despite your best efforts, you have been graduated to full operative status. I'll have your new badge packed with your field kit." Arthur began to speak, but the director continued over him: "Say your goodbyes and get your roommate to look after any pets or plants; you've got a plane to catch. We'll brief you once we're airborne."
Arthur's mouth opened and closed a few times. "W-where?"
"San Jose, California. Final destination: the Winchester House."
The director gave no more explanation; Arthur, drowning in a wave of befuddled relief, could not request any. She saw him out of her office. The director's muffled voice gave him pause:
"Hello, mister Hopedale? I spoke with you yesterday. I know you don't remember the agency, but we need you. I'm begging you--" She fell silent, or Arthur moved too far away in his sudden rush to be elsewhere.
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