The following gift was a fertility statue that was well over a thousand years old, with a small note attached reading ‘From the Smithsonian Heist in ’98. You could find many more stolen or missing treasures if you returned!’

Jacob delivered it back to the museum. They were quite grateful, and he was a little baffled. He’d thought that he’d returned that statue, but extensive testing proved that the ‘gift’ was the genuine article while the one on current display had been a very immaculate replica. Jacob could have gone his entire life without knowing the truth, and the museum for much longer.

Why would Damien reveal a crime he had truly gotten away with? It seemed absurd to think that he was only doing it to get Jacob to rescind his retirement. Yet there wasn’t a more immediate logical explanation.

Apparently, Damien took offense to Jacob returning the statue.

One morning shortly afterwards, Jacob received a text from Kay [I’m about to turn on your television, don’t freak out.]

He was going to angrily reply that every part of that sentence was the opposite of reassuring, when the screens in his apartment clicked to life.

He dropped his phone onto the floor at what he saw.

A lovely young reporter was standing in front of the museum he’d redelivered the artifact to, droning on about current police speculations and discovery times. Jacob was too riveted by the sight of a giant to-scale replica of the statue sitting in the middle of the square outside the building.

Garish bright red letters painted the face and body but avoided the ‘fertility’ portion. A normal person would assume that it was due to embarrassment, but Jacob knew it was because the news cameras would only show a portion of the message otherwise.

The eighty-foot-tall structure demanded ‘COME BACK’ in cardinal red.

Jacob remembered that he was a functioning human with thumbs and scooped his phone off of the floor. [FAKE???] he pleaded to Kay.

He hadn’t seen the effects Doctor Damien’s Enlargement Cannon in well over a decade, but he could certainly recognize it. Jacob had thought the damned thing had been destroyed when he’d dropped a building on top of it. Either it had survived or Damien didn’t mind building a new one.

[Afraid not] Kay replied [and while that’s impressive technology, literally all I’m thinking about is that chocolate bar scene in Willy Wonka.]

Jacob didn’t have a chance to reply before she said [Never mind, I’ll put it in your movie library later. Anyway that’s the very real statue that just became that square’s centerpiece. Have fun explaining that to the curators.]

On cue, his phone rang with the museum’s number. He hastily denied the call, and stared at the television. Surely this would blow over soon. This was just another frustrated attempt at attention. Once Damien saw that it didn’t have the intended effect, he would either back off or go back to leaving Jacob small gifts at his doorstep like a cat.

Definitely, Jacob thought to himself in a vehement voice that was absolutely not denial, this would all revert back to the bizarre spectrum of ‘normal’ he’d become accustomed to.

When he returned home the next day to find a USB stick in an unmarked envelope, he’d been relieved. Perhaps this was a memento from their encounter in Bangladesh, when they’d both been after the same data files. Or maybe it was filled with photographs of Jacob that had been taken by Damien’s spies. That last suggestion was a tad…unsettling, but not outside the realm of possibility.

Instead it was a video of a well-dressed man caught up in familiar sticky white webbing. He seemed to be struggling a bit in the substance’s hold, but Jacob knew that unless the man happened to have some vinegar on hand, he wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon. He sighed, wondering when exactly the agency had sent a different agent on a mission against Doctor Damien.

That was when he noticed that the footage was dated for this morning. If Jacob could sputter, he would have. Then Damien’s face slid into frame. He smiled genially and waved at the camera.

“It’s a true shame what they call their best and brightest these days isn’t it? Don’t worry, I’ve upgraded my serum since you’ve seen it last, it will wear off in about—” he looked away, presumably at a timer or a clock “eight hours. In the meantime, he can sit up there and think about what it means to go up against the infamous Doctor Damien under-prepared!”

He pointed at the man accusatorily, who looked intensely grumpy. Jacob winced in sympathy when he saw that some of the material had covered his mouth. Whether or not the man could speak was irrelevant, that stuff tasted horrendous.

“When you’ve finally decided to come out of retirement, I’ll have someone that can properly best me again. Have a pleasant day, Agent 200!” The video cut out on Damien’s smug grin.

Jacob sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then there was a familiar four-part coded knock on his door. Jacob went still, hoping that he hadn’t made too much noise to indicate he was here.

The second time the knocks were made, there was an additional ‘HURRY’ and ‘STOP HIDING’.

He walked up to the door and used the spy hole to peer blatantly into the hallway. At this point, he had abandoned caution and fully welcomed anything that might put an end to this nightmare.

His old handler stood on the opposite side of the door, wearing the perpetual look of flustered consternation he always did. Jacob sighed and tapped his head against the door. He unclicked his deadbolts, and entered his passcode to let him in. Whenever Lucio was this aggravated then it would take nothing less than eight feet of reinforced steel and concrete to keep him away.

‘Hello Lucio’ Jacob signed with an expertly practiced smile, ‘how are you—'

“Don’t you start,” Lucio barked back. His face was lined with more wrinkles than Jacob’s. Probably because Jacob was responsible for approximately forty percent of them.

“Whatever you’ve started with Doctor Damien needs to be put to an end,” Lucio ran a hand through his grey hair, another attribute Jacob had unwittingly sped along.

‘I would if I knew what I started, Jacob signed, smile gone. ‘As far as I understand it, he’s upset that I’m retired, and that he doesn’t have anyone that’s his equal in the field anymore. That is strictly the agency’s problem, not mine, not anymore.’

He watched Lucio track his hands, his brow furrowing ever deeper as he translated in his head.

“I was in agreement with you, originally. But then he stuck our best agent to the ceiling after we tried to see if he had anymore ancient artifacts in his possession. He’s becoming more agitated, we haven’t seen him this active in years. Jacob--”

‘No.’

“We need you—”

‘No.’

“To come out of retirement.”

‘No.’ Jacob signed an inch from Lucio’s face, who hadn’t backed away as he’d gotten closer.

“Look, I’m not saying you would be back on the field. Doctor Damien would be your only priority. Just—just making sure that he wasn’t doing anything ridiculously harmful, or harmfully ridiculous. That’s all you would need to do.”

‘No.’ Jacob stepped to the side and pointed to the door.

Lucio frowned, “Your salary would be reinstated. In fact, you’d be generously compensated for your ‘sacrifice’ if you--”

‘Has he hurt anyone?’ Jacob asked.

Lucio sighed, “No, but--”

‘Has he caused untold damages to infrastructure or culturally significant monuments?’

Lucio took a moment to process that one, “I suppose he’s more of a public nuisance than anything, but—”

‘Then we’re done here. I’m not coming out of a retirement that I earned just because he’s throwing the world’s biggest hissy fit. Tell the agency to start growing a spine in their genetic labs, that I’m not supposed to know about, instead of super soldiers, which I’m also not supposed to know about.’

It took Lucio a solid ten extra seconds to figure out what he was saying. Jacob suspected it was the word ‘genetic’.

When he figured it out he threw up his hands, “Fine then! You leave me no other choice,” and Jacob tensed, ready to draw blood in reaction to whatever drug or hypnosis trick Lucio was going to pull, begrudging colleagues or not.

“We’re going to tell Damien you refused to accept our offer.”

That took Jacob some solid extra ten seconds to process.

‘You wouldn’t,’ Jacob signed with a minutia of a tremor in his hands.

Lucio saw it anyway and grinned, “We would.”

‘He’s already insufferable! You just said he’s been escalating! What do you think he’ll do if you tell him that I said no to the agency?’

“Don’t know. But I guess that makes it your problem now.”

Jacob seriously considered knocking out Lucio’s teeth. Or at the very least punching him. But Lucio was already striding out the door, gliding like his feet were made of buttery smugness.

“Let me know if you change your mind Jacob!” he called out from down the hallway.

Jacob took a step towards the door, and Kay’s voice piped up, “Don’t do it! You know he’ll take it as an admission of defeat if you go after him.”

Jacob dragged his hands down his face as he stared up at his ceiling.

Well then, it was time to do what he’d been avoiding this whole time, but was usually the solution to dealing with a Damien Problem.

Time to confront him head on.