by Anna Ferrara
—I always was.
Like him, I was always right on time, every time.
Everquest taught me I was supposed to be.
And I knew how to manipulate a security camera’s tape too.
“Find out who else might be looking for him,” Alpha had said.
Frankly, why would you care who else might be looking for him unless... perhaps because... you...
I bolted up, straight, right as a huge smile appeared on my face and my heart began to race.
On my computer, I closed the MPEG player and brought up the word processor. On a new document, I typed fast and furiously. ‘C39 Conclusive Report’, I wrote.
Under that, I spelled out everything I now knew about C39, Milla, 81M and the Milones. I wrote down every detail—their relationships, Milla’s pregnancy, C39’s drug dependency, homelessness, joblessness and his lack of status in the underworld. Then, I wrote about the fat man with the newspaper, and what I thought about his presence, and also about who I thought had removed C39 from his ward. It was a far-fetched conclusion, I didn’t have proof, but somehow, in my gut, I just knew there was a ninety-percent chance I hit the nail on the head. My report turned out four pages long. I wrote it in less than twenty minutes.
Once that was done, I did a quick spellcheck before packaging the document into an encrypted email and typing my boss’ email address in the address field. I hit the ‘Send’ button and in the blink of an eye, my computer was making a loud swooshing sound, telling me that my email had been delivered.
Done. I completed my test. My answer could be wrong, but hell, what else could it be? I had no other leads. I threw myself down onto the floor and stretched out like a starfish. For the first time since getting the assignment, I felt my body properly relax. I did it! I actually did it! I solved my assignment; in less than three weeks too!
I didn’t write about having slept with Milla, of course; I didn’t want Alpha or anybody telling me what to do with the woman I loved. But the timing was just perfect. Now that it was done, I wouldn’t need to send my office the cards from Milla’s apartment; I could delete the footage from the night before without anyone knowing about them and I could start dating Milla without wearing my office’s glasses ever again. Just absolutely perfect.
I laughed to myself and laughed again when I realised how insane I sounded laughing to myself that way.
I smiled as I got started cleaning myself up; smiled as I brushed my teeth and took a shower; smiled as I made myself a cup of instant coffee and while leaning against one of the bare white walls of my apartment to savour every last mouthful of it.
I kissed a woman, I thought. I made love to a woman, and I loved it! I really loved it! I’m so gay. I’m so definitely gay, and I don’t even care that I am anymore!
My Nokia rang. I didn’t stop smiling.
Alpha, my office or Milla, it no longer mattered. I was in a good place. I feared nothing. I picked up.
“De Roller.”
It was my boss. “Yes, sir,” I said. I found myself grinning.
“I want you in my office now.”
“Of course, sir.”
“In the meantime, remember what your contract says. Non-disclosure, always. Do you understand?”
“I do, sir. I’ll be right over.”
“Good.”
I was still grinning when I hung up and I grinned the whole way over.
Chapter 21
7 Jul 1999, Wednesday
“Good job, de Roller, you passed our test,” Mr Yamamoto said when I was in his office, seated on the other side of his desk as always. “Next month onwards, your official title will be Security Agent. There will be a bump in your salary too. Here’s your letter of promotion.”
He tossed a remarkably uncreased brown file over the piles of files, papers and stationary on his desk and I caught it with both hands before it reached my lap. Bingo!
I looked up at him, beaming from ear to ear as I had been doing since the moment I stepped into his office. “Rest assured, I know every clause in my contract by heart, sir. Thank you.”
He leaned in and put his big, dry paws onto his stacks of papers for support. “I’m proud of you, de Roller,” he said in an unusually low voice. He sounded as if he were telling me one of the biggest secrets of his life. “Not everyone passes this test, you know? How did you do it?”
“Well, it just... made sense.” I grinned. “Once I was sure the Milones and 81M hadn’t kidnapped him, I figured the terrorist organisation he was working for might have done it but that didn’t add up. Firstly, because I couldn’t find any information or proof of their existence and secondly, because C39 seemed to have come to Hong Kong only because Milla had. I didn’t know where to go from there until I saw the man with the newspaper. He was obviously an Everquest agent, working to protect me, so I didn’t understand why I hadn’t been informed about him at any point in time. Then, I remembered I was being tested. And I remembered C31 and everything just… clicked.”
Mr Yamamoto raised both eyebrows and looked more interested in what I had to say than he had ever done in my six years of working for him. “What about C31?”
I beamed. I would have liked to stop myself from beaming but I couldn’t do it. I was simply too happy; wall-bouncing, spirits-fluttering type of happy. “She wasn’t a terrorist either, was she? This whole six years has simply been one giant test, hasn’t it?”
Mr Yamamoto’s eyebrows never went down. He licked his lips and stared right at me. “Why do you say that?”
“I lived her life for six whole years, sir. I watched her almost every single day, inside and out, and she never once tried to hurt another person, not even when she was fuming mad. I didn’t think Everquest would lie before because I didn’t know why else I’d be spying on a woman for six whole years, but after seeing the man with the newspaper, I think I’m starting to see there might be more to Everquest than I’ve been told. And I want to know what it is. I think I’m ready to know what it is, sir.”
For a long time, Mr Yamamoto simply stared at me without answering. Then, when I least expected it, he laughed and sank back in his chair with amusement all over his face. “What do you think it is we really do, de Roller? What have you… deduced?”
“Well, I think maybe… high level kidnappings or even assassinations, maybe?” I tried to remove the grin from my face once again but I think I ended up looking like I was trying to stifle a laugh instead.
Mr Yamamoto smiled in return. “Seems like you might be even smarter than I thought.”
“Am I right?”
“I’ll tell you when the time is right, de Roller. In the meantime, I have a question.”
“Ask away.”
“How did you get Milla Milone to tell you everything? And why weren’t you wearing your glasses while doing so?”
That took the stupid grin off my face at last. All of a sudden, I remembered where I was and how I was supposed to behave. I cleared my throat, straightened out, took a deep breath and said, “I wanted to look sincere. I bought her a flower and apologised for lying to her. I told her I was an undercover reporter by profession and I let her kiss me. After that, she told me everything.”
His mouth fell open. His eyes bulged behind his thick glasses and dropped down to my chest for a brief second afterwards. (My blouse was again buttoned all the way to my neck and I had, again, a jacket over my chest, mind you.) “How was it?" he asked. He scratched his oily, brown forehead and patted down his side-combed hair.
“Not pleasant, sir,” I said at once. “I just did what I had to do to solve the case, sir.”
“Hmm. That must have been quite the sacrifice, then?”
I found myself taking a deep breath. That grin I had been struggling to get rid of before was now far from being a problem. “It was but the job always comes first for me, sir.”
“And,” I added, as swiftly as I could. “Now that I’ve passed my tests, I’m more than ea
ger to start on a real assignment, sir.”
“Ha,” he said and took his eyes off me, and my chest, at last. “I like your enthusiasm. Unfortunately, I need you to help clean up the loose ends of your tests before we can get you working proper. Just for another year or so.”
A year?! Another twelve whole months doing… nothing important at all? “Okay. Bring it on.”
“It’s an easy assignment. Nothing like the one before. You could do it with your eyes closed, I think.”
“Okay.”
I waited for him to turn to the metallic shelf next to him and bring out a brown envelope like he had done when he had assigned me the C39 assignment, but he didn’t. He didn’t turn in his chair or vanish behind the mess on his desk. Instead, he simply leaned in and smiled at my chest.
“Your new assignment is T45,” he said. “I don’t have a file for you because you don’t need it.”
I found myself leaning all the way back into my chair, as far as I could get from his eyes. “Why?”
“T45 is Milla Milone, de Roller.” He said so with a face so plain, you would think I had no reason to be horrified or shocked by the news at all.
Yet I was. Immensely so. I couldn’t even figure out what to say to get the conversation going like I should.
“All you have to do is monitor her and make sure she and all those around her don’t keep trying to look for C39,” he continued. “All we need from you are weekly reports and footage from her apartment, which should be a piece of cake, now that she sees you as more than just a friend, perhaps?”
My heart began pounding under my shirt and I could feel its vibrations against the collar on my neck. “I will do my best, sir,” I mumbled. I knew I should have sounded firm and confident but I wasn’t quite able to get a hold of myself in that moment. My skin began to crawl yet I had no idea what to do to stop it from crawling. I liked my job; I didn’t want to have to quit it because of the situation but, at the same time, I didn’t want my office seeing who I really was either; I didn’t want them seeing me make love to Milla, for God’s sake!
“Good. I’ll contact you when it’s time for your next assignment. In the meantime, any questions?”
I was about to shake my head and flee when I thought of one I really wanted the answer to. I nodded.
“Yes?”
“Why did you take Danny Diaz? Why him?”
Mr Yamamoto smiled again. “Do you know what CSR is, de Roller?”
“Corporate social responsibility?”
“Yes. Smart girl. Every year, Everquest chooses a cause to support—our way of giving back to society. This year, we pledged to protect vulnerable individuals from dodgy organisations; 81M being one of them. We had intel they were trying to kill an American tourist so we decided it would be to everyone’s benefit if we saved his life. He’s safe now, we made sure of that. Don’t you worry. Any other questions?”
I had another. “Is there any chance you could tell me how I could get in contact with Benny? I think I’ve grown a lot in the past six years and I’d like to thank him for having taught me everything I now apply daily at work.”
“I’m afraid I can’t. It’s against company policy,” he said. And that was that. “Anything else?”
I blinked twice then shook my head.
“Great. In that case, it’s time for you to get back to work! Why don’t you book a romantic restaurant for dinner with T45 tonight? Have fun while you’re at it?”
He said this with such enthusiasm, I felt myself recoiling from the neck down. I put on a smile, nodded and excused myself.
“Oh wait, before you go, Sandra…”
I turned from the door and found him pulling out a name card from a transparent sleeve within his Rolodex. He held it out to me and looked as if he expected me to take it, so I did.
“In case T45 needs an English-speaking gynaecologist, here’s one my wife said many good things about. She delivered three of my sons and my wife still doesn’t hate her so, I would think the woman’s pretty good at what she does.”
I put on a really big smile, thanked him for the card and got out of his office as quickly as I could because I could feel him gazing at my ass as I walked out.
On the way home, I stopped to get a bouquet of roses for Milla and got caught in the peak hour rush for the first time in a long time. Like all the other office-attired individuals around me, I became preoccupied with keeping my body—and roses— from rubbing against perfect strangers who were often only centimetres away, moving as quickly as slow bicycles; I got preoccupied with trying to stay upright amid the stuffiness of the underground train station, with trying to figure out where I was supposed to go amidst the persistent motion and commotion all around me.
I wanted to think of something to tell Milla with regards to C39 and work out how I was going to modify the video clips from Milla’s apartment from that day on, but I couldn’t. The moment I let my mind wander or slowed my steps, a person would crash into me or brush against me or push past me; I would get glared at and scolded too, sometimes. I didn’t enjoy the journey to my train one bit—I felt harassed—and I thought everyone else looked just as miserable as I was.
By the time I made it into my train, by jumping in at the last minute and ramming my back against the people standing by the door, forcing them to move backwards and rub up against everyone else already in the train, I felt lucky to have my job. I couldn’t imagine having to deal with the peak hour rush every single day; I thought I might rather just be poor than have to live that way.
Only when the train moved off and I could remain in one place and reduce everything around me into a blur, could my mind turn inwards properly again. I worked out a story to tell Milla. The government would be responsible, I decided, since it was unlikely Milla or 81M would be able to fully get inside the government to verify my story. I would say I came to the conclusion because they had been really persistent in avoiding my enquiries about it, which would be unusual because they normally had something to say about everything. I would then say my boss had, coincidently, on that very day, mysteriously called off the assignment and that would thus confirm my theory about the government’s involvement. That would be all I knew about it and I would suggest Angelo try hitting somebody else to prove his worth instead. That should do it.
Once I had that figured out, I felt much better. I found myself no longer bothered by the crush around me, or the fact that my roses had already been flattened, and got off the train with a bounce in my step.
A woman in her fifties, wearing a business suit with a handbag slung over her shoulder, pushed past me and made me drop my roses. As I glared at her, I couldn’t help but think of my mother who was also in her fifties for she owned a handbag exactly like the one the woman was carrying. I remembered how badly she wanted me to get a promotion so I decided to call her on my Nokia. She didn’t have Caller ID at home so it didn’t really matter which phone I used.
“Lola? What happened?”
“Nothing. Just wanted to tell you I got promoted today. Got a small pay increase too. Five percent.” The last part, I made up.
“Congratulations, baby! You should come home for dinner tonight so we can celebrate. You can pick up that red packet Daddy and I packed for your birthday too!”
“I... can’t. I already made plans with a friend.”
“A boy friend?”
I felt my heart trip over a beat. “No. A girl friend.”
“Don’t waste your time on female friends, Lola. Your priority now is to get a husband. Tell you what, I’ll invite our new neighbours over tonight. They have a son who’s just two years older than you. He’s single, quite handsome and he’s a pilot!”
My face went stiff and I felt my steps become heavy all over again, like my mother had just put her full weight on my feet. What would my mother say if I told her I already had a girlfriend? A Caucasian, drug-dealing tourist at that. She would scream and drag me to a doctor right aw
ay, I knew. And maybe the police too. Then, her husband would know, and the neighbours, and Carla too. “Maybe some other time. I’ll check my schedule and call you back,” I said.
“Do it quickly, before he gets attached.”
“Alright.”
“I mean it, don’t waste the opportunity.”
“Okay.”
How strange life was, I thought when I hung up and went back to being just one of the many fighting to get through the turnstiles.
Here I was, surrounded by hundreds of people, yet I felt as if not one of them would understand what I was going through. Fact was, even if they did, in secret, they likely wouldn’t even admit it.
I knew I wouldn’t.
Chapter 22
8 - 23 Jul 1999
In the two weeks that followed, Milla and I didn’t leave her apartment once. We lived off pizza delivery, wore only her pyjamas and panties and kept our bodies no further than five inches apart the whole time. We watched television together, ate together, slept with our bodies entwined, went to the bathroom together, stared at the ceiling together, shared our thoughts and feelings about each other and smiled so much our cheek muscles became sore.
I let the hidden cameras in her apartment run out of battery on purpose and didn’t bother going to get my glasses, which I hadn’t worn to my meeting with my boss and thus wasn’t wearing when I went right back to Milla’s apartment. I wrote, in an email to my office afterwards, that she hadn’t let me leave her apartment so I hadn’t any chance to do a camera swop or get the glasses, but in truth, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want my office seeing how happy I was in her presence.