Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [1]
Matt finally looked up at Aaron and stared at him. "It's the only way this'll work."
"It's insane. Matthew, we cannot involve a civilian in this."
"Civilian? Listen to yourself, Aaron. We're all civilians. The whole point of this organization was that it was as outside the system as Umbrella is above it."
Aaron grabbed his glass of wine. "Yes, but at least we all know the risks. And yes, we're all civilians now, but most of us at least have the experience necessary for this kind of work. Your sister—"
"Can do this." Matt leaned back in his chair. Only then did Aaron notice that he was fiddling with a paperweight that Aaron had been trying to find for the last two months. "Look, if we try to send anyone else in undercover, it won't work."
"That's ridiculous."
"No, it isn't. If I go in, or Marcus, or Dora, or Zara, or Ripley, they'll make us. And you know why?"
Sighing, Aaron said, "No, but I assume you'll tell me."
"Because we'll all have cover stories."
"Of course you will." Aaron finished his wine in one gulp. It was definitely too smooth. "That's what the 'cover' in undercover means."
"And that's why it won't work. Umbrella's got their fingers in everything—no matter how good a cover we come up with, they'll find some way to plow through it, and we'll not only be back where we started, we run the risk of exposing the whole operation. That's why we need Lisa."
"So you're saying that the only person who can possibly successfully infiltrate the Umbrella Corporation in order to obtain the information we need to bring them down is someone who has absolutely no experience in infiltration or information retrieval."
"Yes and no."
Aaron rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger in a futile attempt to stave off a headache. "Matthew—"
"Yes, she has no experience in infiltration, except what she may have picked from me by osmosis."
Chuckling, Aaron said, "Talked about your work in the Federal Marshal's office around the dinner table, did you?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Matthew, this is ridiculous. It's too dangerous—"
To Aaron's surprise, Matt slammed his hand on the oak desk, sending several pieces of paper, two CDs, and a Post-it with Aaron's daughter's cell phone number onto the floor.
"This whole fucking thing is dangerous, Aaron! If it wasn't dangerous, it wouldn't need to get done! But the longer we sit on our asses worrying about what risks we might want to take, Umbrella keeps getting closer and closer to doing something they can't cover up without getting a lot of people killed! Now either we do this, or I'm out."
At that, Aaron laughed. "An action which will have repercussions from one end of your head to the other. Honestly, Matthew, do you truly think yourself so mighty a cog in our wheel that we will do something insanely stupid just to appease you?" He leaned forward. "I helped found this organization, and I've been one of its primary financiers. Believe me, no one wants to bring Umbrella down more than me. One of the reasons why Umbrella doesn't know about us is because we're well spread out, well organized, and because we haven't taken stupid risks."
"Yeah, and Umbrella's still going strong without any sign of being actually brought down by this organization dedicated to doing so because you're not taking any risks, stupid or otherwise."
Aaron got up. "I need another drink. You want anything?"
Ignoring the question as Aaron went over to the wet bar, Matt instead sat bolt upright in the guest chair. "Besides, if I quit, it just means I'll go off on my own. One nice, big loose cannon asshole of an ex-Marshal who'll stumble around like an idiot trying to expose Umbrella, and probably get captured along the way. That wouldn't bode too well for your precious fucking organization."
Rolling his eyes, Aaron said, "Really, Matthew, if you were the sort to do something like that, I never would have recruited you in the first place."
Matt deflated, now slumping. "Yeah, I know, but it was the only card I had." He