I hate school trips. They are worse than assassination missions.

Small children can die in so many unexpected ways, to begin with.

Unexpected for other people, that is. Yeah, right, their parents also think about some very obvious examples, like falling under a bus or eating a deflated balloon animal. But there are unfortunately two thousand five hundred eighty-six other ways in which a child under your care can decease. And people never seem to think about those.

I do.

They are lambs committed to my care, so obviously I do. It's my duty.

In the kindergarten, I took precautionary measures. I rearranged the classroom a bit, so the number of potential death threats was reduced to five hundred ninety-two. That's manageable. Okay, it still requires a constant counting on my part, but the probability of a fatal accident is successfully kept under 0.1%, and I'm able to run the calculations in the background of my brain while I sing nursery rhymes.

School trips, on the other hand, are the bane of my existence. My brain gets overheated from constantly checking the probabilities. I hardly finish assessing Zoe's situation with the dog shit when Chris jumps into a puddle. Tessa always lies down in the middle of the street, and while I pick her up, I almost fail to analyze the unidentified object in Bob's hand.

They are so much worse than field agents. Agents are usually shot dead, and that's it. They don't stuff potentially lethal shit in their mouths. Well, I heard about a man who swallowed a grenade pin, but not on my watch. Obviously.

Just thinking about tomorrow makes me extra anxious. We're visiting the Congress Palace. I envision lots of glass surfaces with even more tiny palm imprints on them.

Never mind. Let it be someone else's problem. The safety of the kids is mine.

Thank God it's a special needs class, so there are only eight assets. And they are also more reliable when it comes to crucial things, like code words. I've taught them only one to this day, so we still have a long way to go, but that one works like a charm. When they hear it, they stop whatever they're doing and listen to me, without exception.

Their parents seemed a bit concerned when they saw their little ones obeying a direct order for the first time. They probably thought I had tortured them into compliance just because they did something that seemed impossible until then.

To their parents, obviously, not to me. To me, it seemed to be a simple matter of repetition. Adults are simply not patient enough to repeat the same word enough times.

I am.

Neurotypicals find it annoying to repeat themselves.

I don't. I enjoy it.

So why not? Teaching them something new is a 374% more sensible way to spend an afternoon than to leave the safe building and take them to a place filled with marble statues of dead politicians.

I try not to think about the Congress Palace, and my eight little lambs in it, running in eight different directions. My obligatory anxiety attack can wait until tomorrow.

I tap my forehead with my middle finger three times. I breathe out. But I still feel it approaching.

There are so many dangers out there. Security guards, for a start. With guns. I wish I had some of the guys of my old team by my side, at least. They'd kill the guards in five seconds for me if they tried anything with the children.

Okay, slow down. Tap, breathe out. Who am I kidding?

There is a 99.99% chance that everyone survives.

There is, on the other hand, a 99.99% chance as well that we're going to be thrown out in a most humiliating way.

As usual.