Agent Charles Crowley sat and looked around at the bedroom in which he was situated. Over an hour had passed since the receptionist had directed him wordlessly to this apartment, and Crowley was starting to get impatient. (This was an understatement. He was furious.) This was the first time that an agent had kept him waiting for so long.

As he fumed, Crowley turned the token that he had been given over in his hand. It was made of ivory, and a small, intricately-made caduceus was embossed atop both its sides: winged, with two snakes intertwined. A winged helmet was balanced jauntily atop the caduceus, and a pair of winged slippers sat at the bottom. Wings, wings, wings, Crowley thought, disgruntled. This agent really likes wings, doesn’t he?

“Evening, Agent,” he heard from behind him, and Crowley turned, removing his gun smoothly from his holster and aiming it in the direction of the sound as he jumped to his feet. His finger was on the trigger.

There was a woman standing in the bathroom. A riot of densely-packed russet curls spilled from her newsboy cap as she smiled at him from the doorway, her stocky form draped in a loose hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. She was barefoot. Crowley kept his gun trained on her as she stepped out into the bedroom, leaving muddy footprints in her wake.

“Where did you come from?” he demanded. He’d gone over the entire apartment with a fine-toothed comb while he’d been waiting for Hermes to walk through the front door; nothing out of the ordinary had turned up. He’d searched in all of the usual places: nothing. “Who are you?”

“Me? I’m Hermes. Crowley, I presume.”

“Bullshit,” Crowley spat. “I was told that Hermes was a man.”

“Was that what you were told?” The woman shook her head, sighing. She had a round face; her mouth was wide and expressive. She moved with a certain fluid grace, and her gaze was calm and steady. Crowley wasn’t even sure if she’d blinked. “I regret to inform you, Agent Crowley, that you’ve been operating on flawed premises.”

“You’re not giving me much reason to trust you,” Crowley growled.

“Am I?” The woman raised an eyebrow, crossing her legs, and disappeared. It took Crowley a solid two seconds to comprehend what had just happened.

She’d vanished.

Between one breath and the next, the woman had disappeared completely: a physical impossibility. Crowley lowered his gun, breathing heavily, and raised his head to stare at the vents on the ceiling. Beads of cold sweat gathered on his brow. Had he ingested a hallucinogen? Was this entire affair an elaborate set-up? Pivoting on his heel, he set a course for the door and paused as the bookcase to his right vibrated.

He, Charles Crowley, was standing in a serviced apartment in Astoria, Queens. It was a relatively small affair, all things considered, with only one bedroom. Clean, yes, but dressed-up in dark, velvety colours, a far cry from the minimalist postmodernism so popular everywhere else. If he could sum it up in one word, he’d describe it as vintage. He was standing in the sole bedroom, which contained a large, luxurious bed, an en-suite bathroom, and a vast walk-in closet. The curtains were drawn, and the walls were covered in competent paintings of various cityscapes: Shenyang here, Cairo there. There was a bookcase to his right. Crowley had given it a once-over; it contained several old books, but nothing out of the ordinary. As it swung forwards, though, he was forced to re-evaluate his previous position.

A bald man appeared in the darkness behind the bookcase. He was wearing a mauve bathrobe. He was clearly well into middle-age, and as he stood in the opening, head tilted, Crowley raised his gun again disbelievingly, moving entirely on autopilot.

“This,” said the man, sounding exactly like the woman who had just disappeared, “is more trust than most people get.”

Crowley returned to the bed and sat down. His head was spinning.

The man stepped out from behind the bookcase and slid it shut. There was a soft whir as it clicked into place. Crowley holstered his gun. “What is this?” he croaked.

“What do you know about Hermes?” the man asked. His tone was conversational. His voice was firmly masculine; the lilting femininity of a few seconds ago had evaporated completely. As Crowley’s head throbbed, the other man, who could only be Hermes, leaned against the bookcase and folded his arms.

Crowley shook his head. “Only what I’ve been told,” he said. “It’s a punishment posting. My boss broke the news to me in person. He said it was an honour, but word is that those sent to handle Hermes leave the Agency feet-first.”

“They’re not wrong,” said the man, and turned into a woman.

Crowley watched him change. He stared, barely daring to believe it, as the other man’s chest swelled before his eyes into a pair of exquisitely-shaped breasts, warping the satiny fabric of his bathrobe. Black hair sprouted from his scalp, cascading down in ringlets to his shoulders. His wrinkled skin grew firm and clear, liver spots blinking out of existence one by one. When it was all over, a woman stood before him, her features vaguely Mediterranean, and pursed her lips. 

“There are three levels of security clearances used by the CIA,” said Hermes, voice ascending by several octaves mid-sentence as Crowley’s head spun. “There’s CONFIDENTIAL, there’s SECRET, and then there’s TOP SECRET. You’ve risen very swiftly through the ranks, Agent Crowley, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to the fourth level. The one above TOP SECRET.”

For the first time in his life, Crowley was speechless.

Hermes interlaced her (his?) fingers. “Somewhere in the desert, there is a facility called the Centre. There, you can find dozens of people like me.” She gestured at herself as she settled into a chair. “I’ve seen a boy about a third your age bring a building down with his mind. I’ve seen a dumpy teenager burn another boy alive for insulting her mother. I’ve seen a pint-sized Korean girl summon dozens of shadowy creatures from nowhere with naught but a gesture.” A wry smile. “And they’re all loose. In the wind.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“If we are to work together, Agent Crowley, there must first be trust between us.” Hermes leaned forwards, inadvertently(?) giving Crowley a splendid view of her cleavage. “You have been unwittingly conscripted – nay, volunteered – into a secret war that has been raging for longer than you have been alive. The Centre rarely lends its agents to the American government; indeed, I am but one of perhaps a dozen or so. That being said… we are very, VERY effective.”

“I can imagine,” Crowley murmured. His analytical mind had seized upon the possibilities and opportunities that Hermes presented as an engaging diversion. “Hadid in Somalia?”

“Me.”

“Azania?”

“Me.”

“Prague?”

“Well. Not me. Someone else like me, though. I’ll give you that.”

“What is the Centre’s goal?”

Hermes spread her hands, slipping into another language. “The strong do what they have to do, and the weak accept what they have to accept.” 

“Thucydides.” Her Greek was impeccable.

“Just so. DC likes to say that it supports – what is it? – human rights. Universal suffrage. Democracy. Absolute, total freedom. The CIA, though… it’s much more honest. That’s something it has in common with us. After 1945, the Centre was formed from a dozen predecessors to reshape the post-war world with Columbia at its centre. Not London. Not Paris. Not Berlin, or Rome, or even goddamn Moscow. But Columbia. DC. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in God we trust. In the 1950s, we were the closest we’d ever been to total global hegemony. That shining, unipolar moment was and remains the ideal. That, Agent Crowley… that is the dream.”

“The Soviets have their own Centre, don’t they?”

“You’ll meet them soon enough. There’s gulags in the Siberian tundra where orphans from Omsk train to set the taiga aflame with a single matchstick. We took a bite out of the British programme with the Portuguese and the French a few decades back; they’ve never really forgiven us for that. There are other facilities further afield, of course. You’ve got the Gobi desert. The Amazon. The Congo.”

“You said the children were in the wind.”

“They are.” Hermes closed her eyes briefly, as if pained. When she opened them, her eyes had changed from brown to blue. “There was a riot. Why do you think the National Guard is being mobilized, Agent Crowley? I expect that’s been a real topic of conversation at the Langley water-cooler. Of course, the FBI had nothing to do with it.”

Crowley found himself inexplicably disappointed.

“There are others, of course,” Hermes continued, briskly. “We’re up against a horde of up-jumped vivisectors and an association of limp-wristed academics, but they’ve never posed much of a threat. In any case, you won’t be coming along on those operations, Agent Crowley.”

Her lecture was at an end. As Crowley stood, Hermes crossed the floor to her walk-in closet and pulled it open with a flourish. Tossed over her shoulder: “You should see my wardrobe at the Centre.”

“What now?”

Hermes turned, untying her bathrobe. “What now? Nothing. Consider this your orientation briefing, Agent Crowley. From now on, you will accompany me to overseas engagements as my CIA liaison. You will debrief me telepathically, and I will send you reports in the same fashion.”

“You’re telepathic?”

“Is that so surprising, Agent Crowley?” Hermes pouted, the bones of her face rearranging to accommodate her expression. Her bathrobe fluttered to the floor. “Expect certain doors to open to you that were closed before. You’ll find that when you speak, the President himself may well find himself obliged to listen.”

Crowley rubbed his chin. “I suppose I’ll leave, then.”

“No,” Hermes called, having disappeared into the depths of her walk-in. “We’re going to have lunch.”

“Fraternizing with assets is typically frowned upon.”

“Oh, don’t be such a prude, Agent Crowley. I’ve made love to all of my handlers.”