A Town Called Discovery

by R. R. Haywood

  ‘We don’t know,’ Thomas says, giving her an open look. ‘Where are we going for lunch?’

  ‘Good point,’ she says slowly. ‘Anyway, I was saying it’s funny how life works out.’

  ‘Yeah, like that morning I had ten bucks and then I didn’t have ten bucks…’

  Zara sips her coffee, relishing the strong taste while thinking. ‘It’s the memorial thing this weekend…’

  ‘Gee bring the mood down will ya,’ Thomas says.

  ‘Just saying,’ she says. ‘We have to go.’

  ‘Correction. You have to go,’ Bear says.

  ‘We all have to go,’ she says.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Bear, imagine how it will look if you ignore it.’

  ‘It doesn’t really matter either way does it,’ he says as James slides the tray of food onto the table. ‘I go and everyone hates me for turning up. I don’t go and everyone hates me for not going. So I might as well not go.’

  ‘We’re going,’ she says, ‘thank you, James.’

  ‘That’s okay, Zara,’ the big man rumbles, thudding off back towards the counter.

  ‘Listen,’ she says, reaching out for a pancake.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Thomas cuts in, shaking his head. ‘It’s breakfast.’

  ‘I was just saying that…’

  ‘Say it after,’ he says. ‘I’m having me some Monday morning carb loading without work talk.’

  ‘Fine. But we’re going.’

  ‘Quit trying to get the last word in.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I was just saying we’re going.’

  ‘Dude. You’re doing it again…’

  The squabble continues as they devour the food and drink the coffee with caffeine levels and blood sugar spiking quickly, animating their conversations as their voices grow that bit louder before heading for the planning offices, pushing in to see Jennifer lurching to her feet behind the desk.

  ‘Morning, Bear,’ she says brightly, ‘and you other people,’ she adds with a wave of her hand.

  ‘Hey, Jen,’ Bear says.

  ‘He called me Jen,’ Jennifer says. ‘He wants me…’

  ‘You look nice today, Jen…’

  ‘Er piss off, Tom…how was your weekend, Bear? I saw you running this morning. You looked like super-fast. I was totally thinking I should start running.’

  ‘You should,’ Bear says as Zara tuts, grabs his arms and pulls him on down the corridor towards the stairs.

  ‘So fit,’ Jennifer mutters.

  ‘We can still hear you,’ Zara calls back.

  ‘So? I said he’s fit…he is fit.’

  ‘At least someone likes me,’ Bear says going up the concrete stairwell.

  ‘That’s a whole wrong level of liking,’ Zara says. ‘Morning, morning,’ she leads the way into the large open plan offices rapidly filling with workers tugging coats off, logging into terminals and hovering around the coffee machine.

  ‘Big guy!’ Terry says, beaming at Bear while dancing on the spot throwing a few air punches. ‘Saw you running this morning…’

  ‘Er yeah,’ Bear says.

  ‘Totally going to start soon,’ Terry says earnestly. ‘Got a tweak in the old calf though. Should rest it first.’

  ‘Whenever you want,’ Bear says.

  ‘Morning,’ Allie calls, walking towards them. ‘You smell of coffee, how’s my diner?’

  ‘It’s James’s diner now,’ Thomas replies.

  ‘It’ll always be my diner,’ she says, walking off to grab a big pile off folders before following Zara into Martha’s office.

  ‘No middle ground with you buddy,’ Thomas remarks to Bear as he looks round the room. ‘They either love or hate you, huh?’

  ‘Is what it is,’ Bear says.

  ‘Personally,’ Thomas says, ‘I hate you.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Bear asks.

  ‘Man, like so much…you know…like inside…there’s so much hate right there…’ he rubs his stomach. ‘Or I might just need a shit…yeah, I’m going to deploy in trap one,’ he rushes off for the toilets, leaving Bear to cross a room filled with people that either rush to say hi, or ignore him completely.

  ‘Morning,’ he stops in the doorway, seeing Martha look up with a hand waving in the air while engaged in conversation with Zara and Allie. He leans back, resting against the frame and looking round while thinking on Zara’s words that its funny how life goes on and how things change.

  Six months ago this week he dropped through the sky. Six months ago this week he met Zara, Thomas and James in the diner run by Allie. Now James runs the diner and Allie works for Martha in support of Zara. Six months ago there was a backlog of over three hundred RLI’s. Now there are less than fifty and at the rate they are working that will be clear by the end of this month.

  ‘I’ll grab a brew,’ he says.

  ‘Sure,’ Zara pulls back from her chat to nod at him. ‘Where’s Thomas?’

  ‘Deploying in trap one.’

  ‘That’s gross,’ she says. ‘Briefing in five…’

  He walks down the corridor lined with deployment rooms to the end and the door marked

  OPERATIVES PREP

  He pauses to draw air before turning the handle. In truth, he’s not all that bothered at being disliked but this is the bit he doesn’t like. The split-second when he walks into a room and sucks the life from it, robbing the conversations that instantly drop away with a shift in mood from jovial to hostile. It happens again when he enters, but he shows no reaction and heads for the drinks machine.

  Easy chairs here and there. Coffee tables and desks at the sides with doors leading off to rooms filled with uniforms, period clothing and equipment. Kit bags and parts of costumes dotted about. A busy room full of operatives getting ready for their deployments.

  ‘Bear,’ Larry says curtly, leaning past to get a mug.

  ‘Ah, bonjour,’ Pete booms, walking in from the changing rooms. ‘It is suddenly quiet in here is it not?’

  ‘Hi, Pete,’ Bear says, ‘coffee?’

  ‘I cannot drink coffee with you,’ Pete says, his voice still loud. ‘My peers yes, they will ignore me if I am seen to be colluding…’

  ‘Can it, Pete,’ someone says.

  ‘Or what?’ Pete fires back, instantly passionate. ‘I will talk to who I want. I am a free man…’

  ‘Gee,’ Thomas says, balking as he walks in. ‘Nice mood in here. That you again, Bear?’

  ‘No, it is Marco…’ Pete shouts, glaring at the man who told him to can it. ‘He spews shit from his mouth like other people do from their backsides.’

  An eruption of voices clamouring in anger as they lay into Pete who returns fire with equal passion. Jacob walks in from the changing rooms, his tweed suit dapper and neat while he shakes his head. ‘Like bloody children,’ he grumbles, checking his watch. ‘Briefing. Come on. Get to it.’

  A mass exodus from the offices and prep rooms to the vast briefing room on the ground floor. Operatives, handlers, planners and researchers clutching notepads and pens. Bear goes in with Thomas, Pete and Jacob. Shuffling to find seats as Martha takes the front, shouting for quiet.

  ‘Settle down. Come on, shush. Thank you…’

  Thomas watches Martha speaking on the podium with the lead handlers arranged in a neat line behind her and Zara in the middle of them all. He stares at her, watching her closely and giving a cheeky grin when she spots him in the audience, chuckling when she rolls her eyes.

  ‘The backlog is forty-eight.’ Martha continues. ‘Which we aim to clear by the end of the month, and if we do then it will be the first time in living memory that Disco has a clear worksheet, which gives us breathing space…’

  Thomas snorts a laugh. Breathing space? Everyone else here already has breathing space because of him, Bear and Zara. The hours everyone else works are already decreasing. They even get days off now if they want.

  ‘The memorial is this weekend and I repeat, we will have a one hundred percent turnout. I want our entire depar
tment at the event without exception…we will also show a united front,’ she adds firmly, casting a hard gaze over the audience that all know exactly what she means. Bear drops his head, scratching his nose while Pete chuckles next to him.

  ‘Something funny, Pete?’ Martha asks when the murmurings start.

  ‘We would be dead,’ Pete calls out as the volume rises.

  ‘I said, thank you,’ Martha snaps, claiming an instant silence. ‘We have a busy week, look after each other, operatives keep your beepers on you. Your handlers have your assignments. Everyone else stay vigilant and do not…I repeat, do not fall into a false sense of security. Freedom has not gone anywhere. They will surface at some point.’

  ‘It’s fine, Bear can kill everyone again if they show up,’ Marco calls out.

  ‘GO FUCK YOURSELF BUDDY,’ Thomas shouts, surging to his feet with Pete.

  ‘YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF,’ Marco says, surging to his feet while everyone else surges to their feet while Bear and Jacob stay seated and nod amiably at each other.

  ‘I think we’ve all got London this afternoon,’ Jacob says over the shouting. ‘Fancy meeting for lunch?’

  ‘Sounds great,’ Bear shouts back, giving a thumbs-up. ‘What year?’

  ‘Ask Zara,’ Jacob mouths before getting up to help Martha quell the uprising.

  20

  MONDAY

  It’s too much now. He can’t take anymore. The isolation has become unbearable. The loneliness. The sheer awfulness of being alone amongst so many souls that all seem happy and content. Everywhere he looks people hold hands, chatting, talking, making connections. There is no one in the world for him and there is no place left here for him to fill.

  He looks up at the sky, waiting for the divine intervention that doesn’t come. Tears stream down his cheeks and his lips tremble with the utter heart-wrenching knowledge that not one person will miss him or even know he is gone.

  All he has to do is take one step and the pain will be gone.

  His right foot comes out, hovering in the air as his weight starts to shift and still the divine intervention doesn’t come and the cars stream by heedless to his plight. Unseeing, uncaring and rendered insentient for their lack of compassion and life. His foot goes further and his eyes snap open with a decision made to do it, to end it, to choose death over the crushing emptiness of his life.

  He drops to plummet to die and such is the emotional outpouring he doesn’t feel the arms grip his chest until he’s swinging through the air and then going up and over the barrier to come down hard on the metal surface of bridge.

  ‘Easy…we’ve got you,’ a soft American voice speaks into his ear. ‘Easy buddy, we’ve got you…’

  ‘You’re safe now,’ an English voice, both deep and gentle. He starts to sob, to weep and break apart but they hold him fast, speaking soothing words into his mind.

  ‘You’re not alone,’ Thomas tells the man. ‘You’re not alone…’

  Sirens come closer. A cop car veering through the traffic with the blue and red lights strobing to clear a path.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Bear says, holding the man tight. ‘You’ll be okay, I promise you…’

  Hank Peterson sobs hard, weeping from the first human contact in years. The sirens switch off, the wheels screech and doors slam.

  Hank blinks his eyes open, seeing through blurred vision to the woman running at him, the woman who drops to wrap her arms round the neck of her brother. Her brother who she lost contact with three years ago when he was laid off from his job and became a recluse from the shame of poverty. Her brother who she couldn’t find until a phone call twenty minutes ago told her where he was.

  ‘You know this guy?’ the cop asks as Bear and Thomas draw back, leaving the man and woman clasped in tears on the floor of the bridge.

  ‘No, Sir, just walking by,’ Thomas says.

  ‘Walking by?’ the cop asks, frowning at them. ‘In New York? And you ain’t allowed to walk on Verrazano bridge...'

  ‘Sorry, Sir,’ Thomas says sincerely. ‘We’re not from here.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ the cop says, losing interest.

  That act of kindness stays with Hank. It changes him. He reconnects with his sister and starts a charity that encourages lonely men to gather and talk, and a few years later, late one night, Hank is there when an angry young man finds a place to open up which eventually stops his obsessive thoughts of taking an assault rifle into his former high school.

  Father Donnelly smiles at the boy, reaching out to ruffle his hair. ‘I’ll see you on Sunday, Mikey…’

  ‘Father, I can’t thank you enough,’ the mother gushes, her New Jersey accent thick and grating.

  ‘It’s fine, I love kids…’ Father Donnelly says.

  ‘Sunday school, Mikey,’ the mother tells her son. ‘You’s be a good boy for the Father now, Mikey. You’s do what he says…’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he will,’ Father Donnelly says, rocking on his heels while resplendent in his black suit and white dog collar.

  ‘Thank you again, Father,’ the mother gushes, nodding, grinning and thinking to make the cross while not knowing how to make the cross so sort of touching her head and bowing a little bit. She takes Mikey by the hand, leading him out of the church. A beautiful woman with a fine figure. Shapely legs and curves in all the right places, except the Father doesn’t watch the mother, he watches the boy.

  ‘Damn,’ Thomas whispers, his eyes firmly on the mother. ‘She was beautiful.’

  ‘Help you?’ Father Donnelly asks with a start, spinning round and wondering where the two men came from.

  Thomas smiles sadly, shaking his head. ‘You got women like that coming here and you go for kids? That’s fucked up man…’

  ‘What? How dare you! I have never touched a child in my…what are you doing? GET OFF…’ He doesn’t get to finish his sentence due to his spinal column snapping from Bear’s hands wrenching his head to the side and the paedophile priest falls dead on the cold flagstone floor of his church. Mikey doesn’t come to Sunday School now. His mother takes him to the new military cadets place in which Mikey excels and joins the Marines. He is later awarded the Medal of Honor for saving an entire platoon during a firefight in Afghanistan.

  ‘I’m so moving to New Jersey if they got women like that here,’ Thomas says as they walk out into the sunshine.

  Jean Stoll laughs at the message on her phone. She can’t help it. Her husband can always make her laugh. It’s just the way he words things and the hundreds of private jokes they’ve built up from fourteen years of marriage. The phone beeps again and she swipes to snort and giggle to herself, lost in the messages as she steps out to cross the road towards Old Holborn tube station in central London.

  A hand on her shoulder pulling her back and she cries out, thinking her bag is being snatched as the bus swooshes by an inch from her nose, the horn blaring.

  ‘Almost,’ Bear says.

  ‘Oh, my god,’ she gasps, looking up at the handsome man smiling at her. ‘I was…’

  ‘You take care now,’ Bear says, walking off to join Thomas as Jean gasps from the fright, never knowing that her death would cause her husband to self-destruct and spiral into depression until he tries gassing himself in their family home. An act that causes an explosion that kills the young boy next door. A young boy that will now grow to become a leading expert and government advisor on climate change.

  ‘COLIN! SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!’ she grabs at his collar, pulling it away from his neck that seems to be swelling by the second. His face bright red and the veins bulging as he gasps for air, clawing at his neck from his windpipe closing. Colin Jenson. Fifty-two years of age and suffering an extreme allergic reaction from the undeclared peanut sauce drizzled over his food. His wife panics, screaming out for an ambulance while waiters and diners gather in stunned shock.

  ‘Move back,’ Thomas orders, grabbing the woman’s shoulders to guide her away as Bear stares at the epinephrine pen. ‘Blue to the sky, orange to
the thigh,’ Thomas reminds him.

  ‘Got it,’ Bear says, plucking the blue lid off before driving the point into Colin’s leg. ‘It’s not doing anything.’

  ‘Give it a minute, dude.’

  ‘Shit…have we got another one?’

  ‘Dude, give it a minute…’

  ‘OH, MY GOD,’ Colin roars, suddenly able to breath.

  ‘See,’ Thomas says. ‘He’s fine.’

  Colin isn’t fine at all. But he does recover to guide his son into joining the US military as a combat engineer who later fixes a power supply into the comms system so Mikey can call for air support during the firefight in Afghanistan. A son who later develops a new way of creating longer lasting batteries that can drive engines. A system adopted by governments across the world after being convinced by a leading expert on climate change.

  Mary Lieber peers through the peephole, frowning at the two uniformed cops.

  ‘Who is it?’ her husband barks, stepping from the huge living room into the vast hallway. A big man, stubbled and hard looking. Thick arms and legs from lifting weights. A dominant man who jealously covets his possessions.

  ‘The police,’ she whispers, pulling back from the door.

  He scowls, marching over to push grab Mary’s arm and yank her away before peering through.

  ‘Open the door please,’ Thomas calls out, every inch the law-enforcement professional.

  ‘Not a word,’ the man hisses, squeezing his wife’s arm as he opens the door with an instant change. Giving the two officers the same charming smile Mary fell for so many years ago. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Sir, we’re conducting routine enquiries. May we come in?’ Thomas asks.

  ‘Can I ask what this is about?’ the man asks politely.

  ‘Sure,’ Thomas says, lowering his voice. ‘We’re concerned for your neighbours, we wanted a quiet word,’ he whispers.

  ‘Oh, I see, yeah, sure,’ the man says, a flash of relief in his eyes. He steps back, making room for the two police officers to pass in. ‘The wife,’ he says motioning the woman who drops her head to hide the faded bruises round her eyes covered in make-up.