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'I suggest you listen to me, seeing as I'm your only source of sanity in this messy melangé. You may despise me for being inhuman, but right now if my job is to keep you alive you will stay alive so long as I draw breath. Just be sure to keep up, and don't be a nab about it. Don't worry about the security systems: I'll take care of all those. You just shoot  where I direct you to, and we'll get along splendidly.'

    The first thing that one must know about Mr. McCaffrey is that there are two types of Morgans: the one who works and the one who doesn’t. The difference between these two species isn’t much numerically speaking, but they are as significant as a vivid yellow snake with black stripes and a plain green one.

    When Morgan has his hands on a keyboard or his mind on a job, he becomes as cold as the code he writes, harshly efficient and sweepingly ruthless. He is goal-oriented and will do anything to accomplish the current objective (whether it was set by him or someone else), which means that he is in no way averse to finding and exploiting loopholes in laws or rules. Of course he’s willing to own up to anything wrong he does along the way (if you can catch him at it, and that’s a big if), but he is a very ends-justify-the-means type of person, so if he just helped to save the world, for example, you’ll be hard pressed to argue against him.

    If you do try, though, you will find that he is fiercely competitive and his instincts all scream at him to win, win, win. Morgan is nearly always vying (subconsciously) for a fight, though not of the physical kind. His pride, while not arrogance, is high enough for him to not back down, hold his head high, and never beg.

    Many of his colleagues find him unsettlingly emotionally detached, however. As he is behind a screen, Morgan becomes desensitized to human lives that hang in the balance during missions, including the life of the agent in question. This stems from the fact that growing up he has played dozens of video games with his sister, some of which were first-person shooters and RPGs (Role-Playing Game, much like this one), and therefore has developed a disconnect with what appears on screen and how it connects to real life. At least, that’s what he forced himself to believe in order to carry out his job with maximum efficiency.

    He usually does not display much by way of facial expressions during work hours, unless he’s good friends with you or is taking the time to pull a cheeky face to snark at you with his bone-dry sense of humour. The latter is one of his special weapons, finely honed by an acerbic wit, sharpened by scathing sarcasm, and encrusted with shot-in-the-heart bluntness. He speaks the truth whether you want to hear it or not, and the truth usually hits home due to his sharpshooter observation skills. On occasion he has been shown to possess a mile-wide mean streak, which he absolutely relishes. This is why most of the researching department thinks he’s either a prick or a robot that runs solely on lemon juice. His few friends know otherwise, but now and then they still probably think him a proper knob.

    Proper can also describe Morgan’s sense of dress and workspace: he is minutely organised (everything has it’s specific place and so help you if you move that mug just one inch to the left) and smart casual to impeccably suave is his range of clothing. He is terribly finicky about other people touching his things, and would be wont to throw an uncharacteristic tantrum if you invade his privacy without his permission. Clean freak also fits him well, as he definitely does not like to (literally) get his hands, or any of his person, dirty. His Marianas Trench level tolerance (read: hella low) for incompetence and slacking/dickering about files into this category of snip-snap pet peeves that will inflame Morgan’s annoyance and temper, resulting in the aforementioned tantrum. Few things break his cool, and these are the major ones. Some of his more trickster-inclined peers have seen first-hand what pranks in this nature can do to him, and it really is quite the spectacle to see ‘emotionless’ Morgan explode.

    Don’t think you’ll get away scot-free though. While not too tricksy, Morgan does reserve a special spot in his heart for vengeance, particularly of the short, sweet, and scalding kind. Comes with a free shit-eating smirk.

    Despite all this, Morgan is admittedly an intensely reliable rock in times of tumultuous water, being adept at multitasking and quick on his feet. His efficiency and decisiveness in his work, not to mention his natural skill with computing, is why he’s head of the Software department at a relatively young age.

    On the other hand, Morgan outside of work is a slightly different story. He still, of course, holds all the traits explained above, but his empathy kicks in a bit more afterhours. Dubious or risky actions taken in the course of the day come back to nibble at his mind, and while he is not the self-deprecating type at all, Morgan still suffers from the thought that he could have done better for the sake of the mission. When lives are lost he goes home and has several moments of silence, mulling about how he could have avoided the casualties and cementing the thoughts into his brain for the future. If friends or family are caught in the crossfire then you can well expect tears, though not for too long. Life is too fast to linger in the past.

    Surprisingly, Morgan is softly affectionate to those who deserve it, being the type of person that revels in hugs and kisses, touches and hands that stay a tad too long. This side of him would shock 99% of his colleagues, and while it’s not hard at all to get him to open up about his life and feelings, you must earn the title of ‘trusted’ first. For many, that’s the most difficult stage, as his usual personality is like a hedgehog that spits acid. Persistence and a certain personality are key here.

    As a rule Morgan does not tend to readily and willingly mingle with people if there is no reason to. If he were in a club or a pub (very unlikely), he would be the type that stays in a corner all by himself or is forever shadowing whoever dragged him there, occasionally throwing scornful looks at select patrons. Reticence is his default state, which might again surprise some people as in the department he always seems to be in control of the situation and speaks to everyone without a hitch. This is because during work Morgan has a purpose and that purpose often involves interaction. He is not the type to go out solely to meet new people.

    Due to an educated childhood, manners and eloquence make up the foundation of Morgan’s etiquette. He speaks politely and articulately unless the situation calls for a change in tack (and my, what a change it can be). A fun pastime of his is to hide his sarcasm behind flowery words, therefore becoming predatorily peaceful. The rules of hospitality were also drilled into him, so if you ever find yourself in need of a place to stay, you can always count on Morgan McCaffrey (provided you can find his flat). Even though he might hate your guts, he will welcome you inside because decent people do that. If you’re lucky the drink he offers you might not even be spiked.

    All in all, Morgan is very much the same outside of work as when he is in the midst of it, except that he becomes more withdrawn yet also much more open towards those who earnt the attention, and there is a little more humanity added into his seemingly cold and calculating mind. In whatever case, though, he has the tendency to think of things in gaming terms, for example phrasing friendliness with people as ‘relationship levels’ and framing any formidable obstacle as a ‘final boss’.

Sweet Treats – Morgan is blessed with an insatiable sweet tooth, snacking on all kinds of candy, pastry, or sweetmeat at any given time, even while on the job. You can always find candy on his person, and if you ask nicely he might let you off with just a snigger. Chocolate bars, lollipops, mints, taffy, gummy bears, macarons, sour strips, you name it Morgan loves it. Of course, bakery is included in this category, as well as sweet fruits, drinks (milkshakes, for example), and (the few) vegetables. Unsurprisingly he manages to keep his workspace spick and span even though he eats around there all the time. He also maintains his teeth’s whiteness by the power of compulsive cleaning and good genes (probably).

Video Games – Ever since he was old enough to handle a console, Morgan has been gaming together with his sister. They’ve played everything they could get their grubby hands on, from RPGs to first-person shooters to visual novels to MMORPGs (massive multiplayer online role playing game) to dating sims to puzzle solvers to platformers. Oftentimes he plays games to relax, cats crawling all over his crossed legs. This is also why when behind a screen he becomes the desensitized, unfeeling monster whose subconscious believes, out of habit, that you can keep reloading a save when your character dies.

Cats – His flat has them lithely padding all over the place. Of all the animals in the world, Morgan feels a distinct connection with these feline friends in particular, probably because their general personalities match so well. The cats themselves seem to be especially affectionate towards him too, rubbing and purring against him with what appears to be genuine sentiment. Morgan lives with six cats, three neutered males (Jasper, Rasmus, and Zigs) and three spayed females (Emily, Abbey, and Chell).

Winning – The rush of adrenaline that culminates in the blissful, satisfied blossom of bliss is a sensation that Morgan absolutely adores. It tells him that he was right all along, that he made the proper decisions, that his handling of the situation was impeccable and precise. It’s an afterglow type of feeling, and much like his beloved cats with warm sunlight, Morgan basks and revels in it. You can often notice a smug smile on his face and a self-satisfied sparkle in his eye, which for some reason makes it even harder to approach him (if you’re his colleagues, of course).

Instrumental/Electronic Music – A large percentage of Morgan’s music library is made up of instrumental tracks of all sorts, whether they be from movie/game soundtracks or indie bands. A pair of headphones is omnipresent on his person at all times, and he finds this kind of non-vocal music pleasing and adaptable to any situation. There are times when he pretends that whatever music he’s listening to comprises of the background audio in his life, like he was in a movie or TV show or something. Apart from instrumental tunes, Morgan listens to a few English alternative rock bands such as Muse or Arctic Monkeys, but for the most part you put his iPod on shuffle and you’ll get 200 straight tracks without a single word at all.

Archery – A habitual pastime of his, since he’s been shooting arrows for as long as he could hold a bow. It’s a bit of a niche sport, so training ranges are hard to find, but there is one that he frequents whenever he feels the need to polish his skills. Needless to say Morgan is far more comfortable, as well as better at, firing arrows than bullets.

Crowds – Mass millings of people make Morgan queasy, and he finds the chaos irritating. If he’s caught in the thick of it then that’s even worse as he’ll try to escape to an empty space with the earnestness of someone with claustrophobia. He starts to lose his cool at an alarming rate in these situations.

Incompetence – Daft muppets who can’t do things swiftly and effectively instantly get on his nerves, especially since Morgan himself is a well-oiled machine of efficiency and surety. He is more likely to snap at you and pay you more nasty attention if you show vulnerability, for example blubbering about how you don’t know how to do a certain thing. Should you admit that you have no clue what’s going on then the worst you’ll get is a long-suffering sigh, but he’ll help you out if he has to.

Hospital/Medical Smells – Something about the antiseptic, sterilised smell that hovers around hospitals and sickbays doesn’t sit well with Morgan’s nose. It usually makes him feel a bit light-headed as well, so he tries to avoid getting sick or visiting inpatients as much as possible, which may seem a bit harsh but it’s not like he’s ignoring you or anything. He’s just trying to keep his brain from unravelling.

Alcohol – There are several reasons for this. First of all, despite being Welsh and a tad bit Irish, Morgan is an absolute lightweight (even meats marinated with alcohol will give him a bit of a flush). He also is not fond of his drunken state. Secondly, he finds the taste of beer, gin, whisky, and most wines appalling, and if he drinks at all cocktails are the way to go. He much prefers tea or water, in any case. More hydration by far.

Overly friendly people – Mostly Morgan just sees them as insincere chumps who go around getting to know loads of people but ultimately making few actual friends. They also tend to be chummy extroverts who try to get into your personal space and life when you vehemently don’t want them to. Morgan is wont to disdain these kinds of people even more than the usual crowd (though they may truly be well-intentioned).

Develop HUD glasses – More specifically, to use in coordination with a specially made mechanical bow (this is also one of his goals, to be honest), just for him. Morgan wants to incorporate the gaming into real life missions, much like an Oculus Rift but instead of feeling like you’re in the game, you’ll feel like life is the game. As he cannot actually build exceedingly complex equipment, he plans to work with someone from Engineering, and then he’ll take care of the software programming himself, for both the bow and the glasses. Once he perfects the pairing he’ll look into creating the only the HUD glasses for agents, which would be able to tell them whatever useful information they require (heat signatures, target heartrate and health status, direct feed from the handler’s computer to the agent, etc.).

Beat Jackie in archery – The entire brood of McCaffreys have taken archery lessons since the day they were old enough to hold a bow, and as always Jackie’s managed to beat both Morgan and Tomàs in everything: accuracy, speed, and form. This is one of the reasons that Morgan wants to make that bow-and-glasses combination, because it’s going to help him turn the tables (even though that’s technically cheating, but Jackie said to bring his own bow, so…). Archery is also actually one of the only physically offensive skills Morgan possesses, as he cannot throw a decent punch to save his life.

Ensure the safety of the country – Cold-hearted he might be, Morgan also happens to also live in the UK as well (his family too, so that’s another big factor), so it’s not like he’s going to go out of his way to slack off. What’s more, that’s pretty much his job, keeping the country safe, and he is someone who is strongly work-oriented, as shown multiple times above. This would probably be one of his life goals, since Morgan can see himself staying in this line of work far into the future.

Drowning – Morgan cannot swim. That is a fact that doesn’t make itself known in daily life since it’s not like he’s going to be pushed in a lake every other Wednesday. It remains that Morgan is deathly afraid of large bodies of water, and would never, ever go on any time of floatable craft for fear of dying. The sensation of your lungs chocking on an inundation of water, and all your bodily orifices being filled to the brim with nothing but liquid is a terrible thought. Sometimes Morgan gets nightmares of drowning, and wakes up in a cold sweat. It’s ironic that something so drenched in life-giving meanings can also extinguish a life with ease.

Family in danger – The closest people to him are his mother, father, brother, and sister, and without them he would probably have had a terrible childhood full of loneliness and growing bitterness. Luckily his family was what a family should be to anyone: trustworthy, approachable, supportive, and close. Though they don’t exactly know what Morgan does for a living (although Jackie has the nearest idea), they have enough trust in him to not question too much. And since Morgan is indeed working for the MI6, he has a large, intimidating well of resources to keep his family safe as well as carry out revenge if anything should happen.

Failure – Means that a blow was struck against the country, that his programming was defective, that casualties occurred, that an agent died. That they probably have to go back to the drawing board all over again and pick out new plans and new solutions. It wastes time and energy, means that he has to stop and glue the pieces back together instead of making leaps of progress elsewhere. His pride gets struck hard as well, even more so if it was an important, vital objective of some sort.

    Compared to a large majority of the people at MI6, Morgan has probably had one of the tamest upbringings. His parents, Allen and Abigail McCaffrey, lived in Cardiff, Wales, where Morgan and his siblings grew up. All of the young McCaffreys have a bit of Irish blood in them as their father’s father was Irish (Seamus McCaffrey’s entire family has fierce roots dating back to the Irish Rebellion of 1798), but for the most part everyone is Welsh. Morgan’s sister, Jackie, was first in line, and then three years later Morgan emerged into the world as the middle child. Finally, the house poet Tomàs popped out after another three years.

    As mentioned before, Morgan is quite close with his entire family, a relatively rare feat for anyone with more than one sibling. Jackie was always the leader of any shenanigans, rushing in headfirst and bringing her little brothers along with her. Tomàs was the gentle one, forever the voice of care, caution, and negotiation, with a talent for sweet-talking the trio out of sticky situations. Morgan was also a problem solver, but he preferred to use his burgeoning intelligence and observation skills instead of charm (of which he had none), and often times got them into as much trouble by opening his mouth as Jackie did by randomly kicking other children.

    All their relatives say that Jackie inherited their mother’s fiery spirit, which was somewhat ironic considering that she is, in fact, a veteran firefighter. Their father is a sort-of-but-not-really successful novelist whose speciality is high fantasy, the kind that stems from telling children made up bedtime stories and then realising that a bit of profit can be made out of that if you just inflate the lore a bit more. There is unanimous agreement that Tomàs got this end of the stick, with his flair for literature and many, many notebooks filled with poetry and prose. He will almost definitely surpass his father one day. Morgan, meanwhile, was blessed with intuitive, high-functioning technological expertise from who knows where, always having felt most at home and in control when in front of a computer.

    The McCaffrey brood were signed up for archery lessons ever since each one was in the womb, and as a result they all are relatively good at it, if not by way of natural talent, then from the ability of young children to adapt to new skills at brilliant speeds. Not a single one of them possess any morsel of musical talent, save for Tomàs who managed to pick up the alto saxophone before it was too late. The combination of a wanderer’s soul and lots of free time meant that you could hear and see the youngest child strolling through the house, playing low, mournful melodies as he walked from room to room. It makes for good background music during rainy days.

    Morgan spent many afternoons that bled into late nights playing all sorts of video games with his older sister, while his younger brother sat in some corner of the room peacefully looking out the window. They all went to the same school together in Cardiff, and then once Jackie completed her A-Levels she moved to London to attend UAL (University of the Arts, London), taking Game Design. The house atmosphere after she left was rather subdued, but it was still more than comfortable. When Abigail McCaffrey has to leave for an urgent call and Allen McCaffrey is out somewhere doing a sparsely-attended book signing, all that was left was the two boys. At first the snake was quite aimless without its head, but eventually Morgan and Tomàs fell into a nice routine of quiet relaxation. They were too old for adventurous romps anyway.

    Usually they would just talk about school and life, the older helping the younger with homework and the younger playing his sax for the older. Morgan tried to get Tomàs into games but the boy was never terribly invested in it like Jackie was, although he did enjoy visual novels, so oftentimes one of their parents would come back home and discover their sons huddled around the computer, reading text and occasionally discussing the consequences of making a certain decision. It was different from the cacophony of guns and the pings and dings of skill selection, but nevertheless it helped to foster Morgan’s current love for choice games.

    Because it’s Morgan, the school let him fast track through sixth form and go straight to A-Levels, meaning that once he hit 17 the middle McCaffrey left the nest a year early, but instead of heading to the capital, this bird flew straight to Cambridge. It wasn’t that his family could really afford this top tier, cream of the crop university, but Morgan’s own ability netted him a scholarship in Computer Science, for which his parents’ bank accounts were grateful. Sure he had a loan, but a loan only goes so far.

    His uni days were full of activity and hard work, and between keeping in contact with family members and striving to maintain his marks for the scholarship, Morgan had little time to draw social circles. Three students (Brandon, Hazirah, and Pearl) somehow managed to snag him though, and so these were the only friends he ever made in his three years. It was enough, as he’s always valued quality over quantity. Hazirah tried to get him to join the archery club, but he had so little time that he could only accompany her every twice a month.

    There were some cases when he bent the rules, because honestly Morgan isn’t a Lawful Good character at all (if anything more like a Chaotic Neutral), and if he can do something that will suit his purposes then you can be sure he’ll do a good job of it. Once, one of the professors was harassing one of his friends, and being a general dick to the first year as a whole (never really teaching, giving zero feedback, prone to punishing the whole class if just one student did something wrong, etc.), so Morgan wrote a program that would periodically link the professor’s work computer to underage pornography sites and hacked into said computer to plant it. Of course, he made it so that it would seem the professor was trying to be sneaky by using a proxy, but didn’t do it very well. After two months the professor was sacked and the whole first year rejoiced.

    During his first year he also developed quite the grudging, solely aesthetic crush on Arthur Kirkland (whose name Morgan found out through indirect means), a boy in his same year but in a different degree. He saw the blond every now and then around campus, and something about his demeanour drew Morgan in. His friends teased him about it, but he always shut the feelings away because nothing good could come of it. Besides, the guy didn’t even know him. Eventually, after several months Arthur disappeared and left Morgan’s heart in peace. In year two, Morgan had a tiny thing with Brandon but that only lasted for about two months, and since they were close friends that understood each other the fallout was almost nonexistant.

    He graduated with his BSc at 20, and then continued with his Masters at the same university, finally emerging at 21. Through the suggestion of his friends as well as his personal pride (and a bit of inspiration from his creative siblings), Morgan decided to look into working for some branch of the British government, putting his talents to the test on an international scale. Not too long after he graduated with his Masters, the MI6 contacted him much like a football manager would tap some young talent randomly playing in a field.

    At first he underwent basic agent training and did one simple scouting mission, but he soon felt that he was definitely not built for fighting. Also, actually being in the field was a somewhat more immersive gaming experience than he wanted. This lasted for about a few months, and he still doesn’t know how to handle a gun with as much finesse as the way he handles a bow (hence the reason he wants to develop a workable bow-and-HUD combination).

    So, he moved to the research department and started a revolution, rising through the ranks like a firework from a lowly paper pusher to the head of the Software sub-department. He has his eyes on the position of Quartermaster, which comes with a cool pseudonym and basically absolute power over the entire department. He is also one of the agent handlers, but there was a bit of a problem during last year’s mission (see sample post).

    Recently a certain Arthur Kirkland barrelled once more into his life, turning out to be one of the MI6’s field agents. Morgan was appropriately shocked and reluctantly hopeful at the same time and spent ages subtly trying to catch Arthur’s attention, but also violently repressing his feelings. When it comes to Morgan though, subtle definitely means subtle, on the level of ‘even if you were just 10% daft you still wouldn’t notice anything’. Eventually though, earlier this year, the two managed to strike up a friendship, and Morgan has become Arthur’s unofficial handler. His codename is a combination of the word 'IT wizard' and his father's obsession with fantasy stories.

    ‘Keep moving, Piper, there’s five of them coming from the left corridor but you can outrun their field of vision if you put your mind to it,’ the calm, accented twang of Morgan’s voice flowed smoothly from his mouthpiece into the agent, The Piper’s, ear. There was little interference, quite the feat considering that she was currently underground. ‘The motherboard is two right turns away, little rabbit,’

    The Piper’s current mission was to infiltrate the hidden hideout of a semi-prominent drug cartel that had ties to a much larger organisation elsewhere in the UK. She was supposed to get in, enable access to their records, and get out. On her person there was a mini USB that would burn itself out once Morgan leeched all the information they needed.

    It was originally stealth but now she’s mucked it up, setting off that silly alarm and aggro-ing those mobs, going full survival, Morgan thought swiftly and with no little annoyance, watching the black blip on his screen move at an admittedly rapid pace towards the objective marked in green. I told her to disable it carefully but I suppose it was a different make than what they teach in training. Still though, I was going to walk her through in a second, she could have waited.

    It was a case of taking the chance and falling on the other 50%. Well, it was more like 30% actually, since The Piper wasn’t all that bad, but she was still relatively green and her marks in Mechanics were nothing to write home about (A, actually, while Morgan’s had been an A* two years ago). Why the administration thought it was a good idea to put a fresh-faced agent and an assistant programmer together was beyond him, but if it had been anyone else the mission probably would have been a failure from the get-go. As it was Morgan, well, they’ve come this far haven’t they?

    The Piper came to a small crawlspace that was the hideout’s main room’s ventilation vent, crouched, and swiftly unscrewed the steel grate from the stone wall. ‘I’m getting nasty readings, Piper, don’t exit the vent until you’re sure it’s safe. We don’t want a repeat of earlier,’ A hint of acid entered into Morgan’s voice, but it remained as still and cool as ever. On her end, The Piper scoffed and kept crawling forward. Morgan checked the progress of the five mobs. Their AI was actually quite clever (difficulty level probably at least Adept), and they seemed to have given up the chase in favour of heading directly to the main room.

    ‘The hrar from before are going to meet up with you in the room in approximately two minutes,’

    ‘The what?’ whispered The Piper fiercely as she did a quick visual survey of the room beyond the grate, afterwards taking out a scanner to check for beams and traps.

    ‘You’ve never read Watership Down? Oh right, you probably wouldn’t like it, since some of your kind get killed, little rabbit,’ Morgan cast a brief, but thorough glance at the bottom right display of his screen. No signs of life, but several lasers crisscrossed on the floor that would probably be deactivated from the actual entrance with a key-card or something similar. ‘I meant that your five friends from before are coming, so you might wish to wait until they nullify the lasers-’

    ‘Or I could take care of them myself, Morgan,’ The Piper started unscrewing the grate, her movements deft and precise. ‘I can dust those beams and then prance around avoiding them. Get in, get out, remember?’ She gently unhooked the grate and gingerly set it against the wall next to the vent. Taking out a canister of electrode dust, she stretched her hand out and sprayed out a wide half circle. The thin red bars of light were revealed and she started to unfold herself from the vent.

    Morgan watched what the agent was seeing with an unmoving face, eyes darting up once because one of his colleagues was walking past with a box of sugared donuts. He wasn’t sure whether The Piper would tiptoe around fast enough before the mobs come (which would be any moment now). When they enter they could turn off the lasers but then The Piper would be vastly outnumbered and they would quite possibly prevent her from jamming the USB into the socket. She was halfway to the motherboard now, dusting as she went and hopping like it was some convoluted game of tic-tac-toe.

    ‘Piper. Piper, they’re on you,’ still calm, Morgan saw the five red dots coming to a stop in front of the line that represented the room’s main entrance. ‘You know how to use the tranquilizer gun, correct?’

    The agent was still several metres away from the objective (Damn this girl.), and in reply to Morgan she briefly pet around her ribs where the snout-headed gun was located. Obviously Morgan could not see this, but he felt like it was something she had done, as the a soft padding sound filtered in through his headphones. 

    ‘You should probably-’ the Welshman was cut off as the lasers abruptly blinked out of existence, the door slammed open, and one of the mobs fired a shot straight at The Piper before she could even use those reflexes of hers to grab the gun. Morgan knew that it was a flawed solution to a botched up situation anyway. He saw from The Piper’s eyes as she made an attempt to dodge and run, but the bullet still struck her left calf (he knew because she stumbled towards the left). She managed to get the tranq gun out and headshot a guy with the lightning fast needle (impressive critical hit) before another bullet when through her head and the feed went black.

    His jaw tightened imperceptibly.

    Morgan sat back and picked up the phone on his desk that had a direct, secure line to higher powers. ‘Morgan here,’ His voice was clear and enunciated, as well as perfectly professional. ‘The Piper has been terminated, mission to be transferred to another agent, request to be at debriefing,’ The phone was put down and he took a sip of his tea. Several people nearby his desk looked at him in shock and growing disbelief. A few started whispering amongst themselves, spreading the news that one of the new agents was killed. There was a sudden beep on Morgan’s screen saying that his request was granted and that he come immediately to the meeting room. He got up, brushed himself off, adjusted his headphones on his neck, and strode purposefully past the stunned and searching stares.

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    Later that night, Morgan sat in front of his personal laptop, face-to-digital-face with his sister and her navy dyed hair. Jasper and Abbey were curled together on his lap, sleeping, while the other four were napping all over the flat, save for Chell because she always went out hunting.

    ‘So, all your save files were corrupted so you’ll have to start the quest over again, kind of thing?’ Jackie sounded sympathetic as she chewed on a bit of carrot. ‘That’s harsh, mate, are you alright?’

    ‘I’m fine, J. The game gets harder every time you die though. You need to approach things differently to avoid the higher difficulty setting,’ Morgan paused, and absent-mindedly ran a hand through the curl of cats. ‘I could have been better though. Could have done better,’ A bitter edge crept around the edges of his voice. His pride had taken a bit of a blow, but nothing he couldn’t recover from. The agent was just another blip on the screen that had snapped out, a casualty that Morgan felt for but not as much as some thought he should.

    ‘Aw, c’mon Morgan, don’t be like that,’ Jackie pouted at him and continued, ‘It wasn’t all your fault now was it?’

    ‘I’m not blaming myself, just saying that I could have done better. That’s all,’ He looked up at her and she saw that it was the truth. There was no regret or remorse in those sun-dried brown eyes, and sometimes it scared Jackie, but mostly she just knew it was her brother’s way. ‘Next time I’m not going to make the same mistakes again. I know what I did wrong in this playthrough, so I’ll do better. I’m not going to waste my time starting all over again,’