Red Cell Seven by Stephen Frey

partial.”
    “Perhaps.”
    “Could it have been Travers?”
    Kaashif shrugged. “It could have been.”
    “Think back. It’s important that you—”
    “They have too many rules,” Kaashif interrupted, “too many regulations. They have chains of command and due process. They think their Constitution is so grand and so much better than the founding principles of all other societies. They think it makes them invincible.” He laughed confidently. “But what they think makes them so strong is precisely what makes them weak. They cannot react quickly because of their rules and regulations. They cannot be agile like we can, because their Constitution weighs them down. In time it will pull them all the way down. It will be their undoing.”
    “Careful. Don’t be arrogant. That’s when we find trouble.”
    Kaashif scoffed as the pickup truck moved through the cold, gray dusk settling down onto Philadelphia. “They thought I was actually scared.” He sneered. “I am never scared.”
    “Did you tell them anything?” the driver asked. At thirty-four, he was ten years older than Kaashif. “Anything at all?”
    Kaashif smirked. “I told them only that I will need to make up my high school calculus test. Which, I guess, I will have to do.” He rolled his eyes. “What a joke. I could take that test in my sleep and get one hundred percent.”
    “You will definitely make up the calculus test.”
    “Whatever.”
    “Do you think he believed you were in high school?”
    Kaashif chuckled caustically. “I am in high school.”
    “Do you think he believed you were seventeen?”
    “Absolutely.”
    The driver pursed his lips as he checked his mirrors. He wasn’t as confident that things had gone smoothly in the interrogation. He had extensive experience with U.S. intel, and he knew how good they were. And he’d heard of a man named Wilson Travers who could supposedly see into the future. But if Travers was the interrogator and he could see into the future, why would he have allowed Kaashif to go free? It didn’t make sense. The driver checked his mirrors again worriedly. Still, he saw nothing.
    “Everything must seem real. The illusion can never be discovered.”
    “You worry too much,” Kaashif chided. “Enjoy life a little.”
    “I don’t have time for that. Neither do you. That is not why we were put on this earth. We will enjoy ourselves in the next life.”
    “Ah, you don’t know what you are talking about. So, how are my ‘mother and father’ doing?” Kaashif asked sarcastically.
    “They went to the police this morning and filed a missing persons report. Just as concerned parents would do. As I said, the illusion must seem real. We will arrange for a reunion scene tonight. The story will be that you ran away from home for a few days because they are so strict. Everyone will believe it, most important the agents who interrogated you. They will believe you are too afraid of them to tell anyone the truth about what happened. It will be good.”
    “They said they would be watching me. Well, they will see me go into the high school in the morning and come back out in the afternoon. But they will have no idea what I do at night. And then one morning soon I will go into the school, but I will not come back out. Not the way I went in, and they will never know how I slipped away. It will be exactly the way I did last week to see Imelda. That went off without a hitch, and no one ever knew I was gone from school for most of the day.” Kaashif laughed again, this time very loudly. “And they will never find me after that. I will be gone forever.” He nodded. “I will have beaten them, and hell will be raining down by that time. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to trample them. I only wish I could see their faces when the hour is upon them.”
    “Just do your job. Don’t look at this as a competition.”
    “Everything in life is a competition.”
    “Keep your focus, Kaashif. Don’t make me—”
    “Do you