For Your Eyes Only

Rating: PG

Title: For Your Eyes Only

Author: Lyta

Lyta_1028@yahoo.com

Summary: Liam waits for Sandoval to arrive at a meeting

“For Your Eyes Only”

Liam Kincaid was bored. He was supposed to have met Sandoval in his office, but a sudden crisis had come up and the implant had been delayed. Liam had quickly grown tired of staring at the framed prints on the walls, and at the collection of leather bound books on the small bookshelf. Most of the titles were classics, The Prince by Machiovelli, The Odyssey and The Iliad, a few of Shakespeare’s plays, and a worn copy of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens completed the top row. Liam pulled down A Christmas Carol, surprised by its presence. It was one of those editions made to resemble the original printing and obviously part of a complete set of Dickens’s works. Sandoval probably had the rest at his apartment. Liam opened the book and noticed some writing in bright blue ink on the inside cover: “To Ron, best wishes and all my love, Dee Dee.”

Liam immediately closed the book and put it back on the shelf. There were some aspects of Sandoval’s life that he would not invade.

He sat down again and watched the clock tick off another five minutes before he pulled out his global and downloaded the Washington Post. He scanned a front page article on the Resistance before closing his global in disgust at the proganda and hate filled text.

More time trickled by and still no Sandoval. Liam’s eyes went to the desk, it was in perfect order, but he was unnerved by the lack of personal effects. There were no pictures or nick knacks that dated back any further than two years in the entire room, aside from the book. Then, Liam supposed that when you have a CVI the presence of mementos could easily bring forth painful memories.

Then he noticed a page stickling ever so slightly out from a security manual on the desk. Carefully he opened it, hoping to find something on one of Zo’or’s black projects, only to find a piece of cream colored stationary covered in Sandoval’s handwriting, but not as he had ever seen before. There were scratched out words and additions scribbled in the margins, it had the look of a letter in progress and Liam was about to put in back when he happened to read the first line.

“I don’t know much about you. Not your age, your name, your mother’s name, what you look like, where you live, whether or not you like spaghetti or play a musical instrument. What I do know is that you are my son.

It is not enough.

I want to know you, to be able to tell you the stories my father related to me and to show the leather bound family Bible that was my mother’s, your grandmother’s, most cherished possession. I want to add your name and birth date to the empty places below my own and to add a small lock of your hair to the envelope pressed flat by the weight of the book that contains a lock from five generations of our family.

I know my career does not leave much time for family, but I would love to take you camping and point out all the constellations. I would find a way to spend time with you. To the world I am Agent Ronald Sandoval, a man whose only ambition is to destroy the Resistance, but I will tell you now in this letter meant for your eyes only, that I tire of that role but see no way out of this trap of my own making.”

Liam closed the security manual and sat down feeling simultaniously elated elated and guilty. He wondered if Sandoval ever intended for his son to read the letter, and what he would think if he ever learned that his son not a little boy but a co-worker he had tried to kill.

Liam wondered if he even wanted to know the answer to that question.

FIN