“Danny, I’m here to talk,” the older man in my apartment said through the door. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”
I didn’t know the man at all, but something told me he was telling the truth. Both hands on my weapon, I entered my living quarters. It was dark. A red glow came from the tip of the cigar in the man’s mouth. He puffed at it, the glowing red tobacco shining bright as ever.
I took a moment to make sure he was indeed alone. It wasn’t difficult to see he was telling the truth. My apartment consisted of a single large room outside of the bathroom to my left. In front of me was my small table and kitchen area. To my right, my bed pressed up against the wall.
I went to the light pad set into my wall and pressed it. The room filled with illumination a moment later.
The man sitting at my table was indeed the same elderly gentleman who warned me about the knife in the thug’s boot earlier that night. His face was wrinkled and beaten with age, his eyes twin stones of chocolate brown. He wore a trench coat, both hands in front of him on the table.
I guessed this last part was more to put me at ease than anything else.
“Who are you?” I asked, deciding on this question first. There were a dozen of them I wanted to ask. “You’re speaking to me like you know me. How do you know me?”
“You really don’t remember a thing, do you, Daniel?” he asked, looking at me past the barrel of my weapon. Most people would squirm under having a hand cannon pointed at them. Not this man. “How far back can you remember?”
“I asked you first,” I said, unwilling to divulge information to a complete stranger. “Who are you? How do you know me?”
“My name is Wesley Cage and I work for a private organization that employed you in the past.” The man lifted a hand to the cigar in the corner of his mouth. He let out a long, slow puff of smoke. “I was your point of contact, Daniel. I sent you and the others out on your missions.”
“Others?” I asked, wondering if there were more people like me, whatever I was. “How many others are out there?”
“Seven in your graduating class, but there have been others since then,” Wesley said. “How long back can you remember?”
“Five years.” I readjusted the grip on my weapon. So far, Wesley seemed like he was telling the truth, but there was no real way of knowing. The fact was, I didn’t trust anyone who could break into my apartment on a whim.
“Five years,” Wesley repeated. “Five years ago, we sent you on a mission. We lost contact with you. We thought you were dead until news reached us and the company decided to investigate.”
“Company? What company?” I asked.
“All in good time, Daniel,” Wesley said, leaning over the table with the smoking cigar in his hand. “One more question from me first. How did you remember your name? How did you know?”
“I woke up from whatever it was that happened to me more dead than alive,” I answered, recalling the events surrounding my first memory. “There was a single piece of paper in my pocket. It had a name and a number on it. Daniel Hunt, number one. That was it.”
Wesley slowly nodded as if he understood it all.
Hinterspace Episode 8