“Neutralize,” she said to the man who would never be her boss.

“Yeah,” the Boss said. “Neutralize. I want this little punk stomped on.”

She was in the place she’d swore she’d never return to, then swore she’d return to only once. She didn’t touch the coffee the Boss’s assistant had brought her. She didn’t make a move toward the chair the Boss had offered her. “Stomped on.”

“Yes, Caitlyn, I’d be tempted to ask if you’re hard of hearing, except I know you’re far from it. Stomped on. In the last nine weeks he’s come up with the Hello Kitty virus, the Kiss Me virus, and the Do Me virus.”

“Heh,” she said, though it wasn’t very funny. She’d managed to avoid two of them, but Do Me had infected her hard drive with porn.

“We’ve tracked him down, and for your first assignment—”

“First? Boy, were you not paying attention last time.”

“—I want you to neutralize him.”

What, he thinks I can’t crack his code? Neutralize. Ha. “This is what the O.S.F. spends its time and money on?”

“If my computer sends one more picture of a hum job to my sister-in-law,” the Boss said through gritted teeth, “I will not be responsible for what happens next.”

“This time,” Caitlyn said, doing her Steven Sea-gal squint, “it’s personal.”

“And another thing. I’ve been paging you for eighteen hours. Where the hell have you been?”

“A party.”

He frowned at her. She thought. His smooth forehead didn’t wrinkle at all. Botox? Deal with the devil?

“Okay, well, now that you work for me, you’re supposed to lie and say something like your pager was broken, so I don’t think you were blowing me off.”

“It’s working fine.”

He narrowed his dirty-water-colored eyes at her. He was dressed in another dark suit today. She didn’t know if he had one, or twenty. “Caitlyn, you’d better cut the shit.”

“Not part of our deal,” she said, and got up and walked out. She was meanly glad to see he hadn’t replaced his door.

The evil genius who had violated over a million computers lived in a red brick split-level in Chicago, Illinois. The O.S.F. plane had her there in about seventy minutes.

There was a car waiting to whisk her from the tarmac to the house, and while she made small talk with the driver, she couldn’t help but wonder if all these people knew what she was, and what she was going to do.

“No,” the driver, a heavyset woman in her fifties with red curly hair and laugh lines, replied in response to her question. “We’re just supposed to take you from point A to point B and back to point A whenever you’re finished. You know, finished with whatever it is you need to finish. Then back you go for a debriefing.”

“Debriefing? Like, I tell the Boss everything that happened?”

“Exactly.”

“Because I’m not going back there. Ever.”

The driver had no response to that, then said, “You’re definitely the youngest agent I’ve ever squired around.”

“Thanks.”

“Too young by far, if you ask me, I don’t know what the Boss is thinking.”

“I’m not that young,” she pointed out. “I finished college. I’m Caitlyn, by the way.”

“Mmmf,” the driver said.

“See, what happens is, then you give me your name.”

“It’s Sharon.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Sharon. Thanks for the ride, I guess.”

Sharon rolled her eyes, then pulled up to the split-level. Eight one three Feather Avenue. “Here we go.”

“You drive right up to the front door?”

“What, I’m supposed to drop you off a block away? It’s pouring out.”

“Just doesn’t seem very, uh, spylike.”

“Well, it is. Now go in there and shoot him in the face.”

“What?”

The driver flapped a hand in her direction. “Or, you know, whatever it is you need to do.”

“Jeez,” she muttered, and opened the door. “I’ll be back in—I have no idea.”

“I’ll be here.”

Caitlyn slammed the car door shut and headed up the sidewalk. This was extremely weird, and not at all like spy games on television. Did she knock on the door or kick it down or ring the bell or sneak around back or what? This was so weird.

She was stretching out her hand to ring the bell when the door opened, and she was nearly knocked off the steps by an older woman in an obvious hurry.

“Sorry, dear, didn’t see you.”

“I’m looking for T—”

“Yes, yes, he’s in the basement, go on in, dear. I’ve got to run to the store and then get my tires rotated…. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

And she charged down the sidewalk, jumped into her Ford Escape, and squealed out of the driveway.

I’m supposed to kill this guy while his mommy’s shopping?

She thought it over for a minute, then went into the house.