The Dead Drop

Mara moved through the office like a zombie, that particular variety of the walking dead created by fluorescent lights and endless quarterly projections. Three years of corporate espionage will do that to a person. She'd been feeding marketing strategies to their competitor for eighteen months, and somewhere along the way, she'd forgotten how to care about anything.

Then came James.

James from accounting with his terrible dad jokes and habit of leaving those little chocolate mints on her desk. James who invited her to trivia night and remembered she took her coffee black. James who'd somehow become her friend when she wasn't looking, when she'd stopped believing she deserved friends.

"You seem tired," he said yesterday, leaning against her cubicle wall. "More than usual."

She'd almost laughed. The dead don't get tired. They just persist.

The data packet was due tomorrow. Everything on the upcoming product launch—enough to bury the company and everyone in it. Including James.

Mara sat at her desk at 2 AM, the USB drive burning a hole in her pocket. She'd done this a dozen times before. Transaction complete, payment received, soul slightly more corroded. But this time, she thought about James finding out he'd been collateral damage. She thought about him looking at her with anything other than his terrible, genuine smile.

Some spy she was. She'd infiltrated the company but couldn't protect herself from something as simple as kindness.

The USB drive went into the shredder. Plastic and silicon reduced to confetti.

Tomorrow, she'd have to disappear. New identity, new city, new target. The Agency wouldn't forgive a burned asset. But as she watched the sunrise through her living room window, finally feeling something like hope, she thought maybe that was okay.

Better to be a live refugee than a dead woman walking.