by Will Hill
He had been denied permission to see Matt Browning ever since the boy had awoken from his coma. The operating theatre at the rear of the infirmary had been cordoned off, and the boy had been placed in complete isolation; only his doctor and the nurse who had treated him were allowed entry, and they were forbidden from discussing anything other than strictly medical matters with the teenager.
Jamie understood the protocol that had been put in place; the boy was lying in the middle of the most secret government installation in the country, and the only way it would ever be possible for him to be returned home was to prevent him from seeing or hearing anything that would make him a security risk. It was the right thing to do, but Jamie didn’t care; he felt a remarkable bond with the boy, with whom he had never spoken.
Matt’s life had changed forever on the same day as his, and in the dark nights that followed, as Jamie had fought to keep himself going as horror descended around him, he had sought solace in the unconscious teenager, making regular visits to his bedside. He had told Matt what he was going through, grateful to have the ear of someone who was incapable of lying to him, or trying to manipulate him.
It was more than that, though; Jamie had been at the Loop for less than an hour when Matt had arrived, barely breathing, after Larissa had torn his throat out in his small suburban garden. Larissa hadn’t meant to do it, claimed to not even remember having done it, and Jamie believed her; it was merely one of the long list of things that filled the vampire girl with guilt, and was why she had refused to help him when he explained his plan to her.
But whether she had intended to or not, she had almost killed Matt, and the sight of the pale, critically injured boy in the hangar on the night that Jamie had arrived had served as a warning more real than any of the hundreds he had received during his training. Matt had been the barely-living proof that what Jamie had found himself a part of wasn’t a game, or an adventure; it was life and death.
Since Matt had woken up, Jamie had repeatedly petitioned Admiral Seward for permission to visit him, until the Director had threatened to place him on the inactive list. Jamie hadn’t asked again, but nor had he given up; he had begun to observe the patterns of the security that had been placed around Matt, and after a week or two, had identified a window of opportunity.
Every evening, there was a hole, sometimes as long as six minutes, often no longer than three, where Matt was unattended; it happened during the shift changeover at 8pm, when the doctor in charge of the infirmary went to his office to send his update report to Admiral Seward. His office was at the far end of the corridor, near the lift, and he was always gone for at least ten minutes.
The problem was the Operator who was on guard outside the door; only once in the time that Jamie had been watching had the sitting officer been physically relieved; the vast majority of the time he left with the doctor on the stroke of eight, before his replacement had arrived. This was by any measure unacceptable, and Jamie’s response to the discovery should have been to alert Major Turner, the Department’s Security Officer. Instead, he kept it to himself, and waited to put his plan into action.
Now that moment had arrived.
Jamie checked his watch, and saw that it was thirty seconds until 8pm. He lowered the visor on his helmet, not far enough to look suspicious, but enough to obscure his features to anyone who took more than a passing look at him, and waited. Then he heard the rush of air as the infirmary doors opened, and two voices echoed along the corridor, decreasing in volume as they walked briskly away from where Jamie was standing.
Regular as clockwork, he thought to himself, and grinned.
He raised his head a fraction, and saw the doctor disappear into his office. The Operator was standing with his back to Jamie, waiting for the lift. This was the crucial moment; if the lift opened and the relieving Operator stepped out of it, then he was screwed. He felt his heart begin to beat a little bit faster as he heard the lift slow to a halt.
The doors slid open to reveal an empty metal box. The Operator stepped inside, then turned to face down the corridor; Jamie felt a sudden burst of panic as the man’s eyes seemed to momentarily meet his own. But the expression on the Operator’s face didn’t change; the lift doors closed, leaving Jamie alone in the corridor.
He immediately set off towards the infirmary, his footsteps loud on the concrete floor. He reached the double doors, took a deep breath, then pushed them open and stepped quickly inside. The beds that lined the walls to the left and right were all empty; establishing that fact had been the first thing Jamie had done, via a conversation with one of the nurses in the dining hall. At the rear of the room, the door marked THEATRE was closed, the chair positioned at the side of it standing empty.
Not for long, he thought. Hurry.
Jamie crossed the wide room, gripped the handle of the theatre door and pushed it open. Matt Browning looked up from the bed he was lying on, the expression on his face one of awful boredom, but then his eyes flew wide as he saw the dark figure entering his room.
“Who are—” he began, but Jamie cut him off.
“Keep your voice down,” he whispered. “I’m not supposed to be in here. If they catch me, it’s going to be really bad for us both.”
“Who—”
“My name’s Jamie. Jamie Carpenter.”
“What do you want?”
Jamie paused. He was suddenly unsure why it had seemed so important that he see this boy again. “I don’t want anything,” he said, eventually. “What do you want?”
“I want to go home,” said Matt, instantly.
“I can imagine,” said Jamie. “Have they told you what happened to you?”
“Sort of. They said I had an accident. But I can’t remember.”
“I heard. How far back?”
Matt’s shoulders tensed, ever so slightly. It was barely noticeable, but Jamie saw it.
“I remember working at my desk,” said Matt. “It must have been late afternoon, early evening. Then I woke up here. Everything in between is gone.”
Jamie stared at the boy for a long moment, then leant down towards him. “I don’t believe you,” he whispered, then smiled.
Matt’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice trembling.
“I mean, I don’t believe you,” repeated Jamie. “I think you’re either a brilliant liar or a natural actor. Because I think you remember exactly what happened to you. And when you do what I do for a living, you rarely believe what anyone tells you.”
“So you kill vampires?” asked Matt, his face and shoulders relaxing, and his mouth curling fractionally upwards at the edges.
Jamie recoiled, then grinned. “I knew it,” he said. “I knew you knew. What made you lie?”
“I didn’t know what they would do to me if they knew,” replied Matt.
“Smart,” said Jamie. “They’re releasing you tomorrow, did they tell you that?”
“No,” said Matt. “They don’t really tell me very much.”
“It’s the protocol,” said Jamie, his voice still lowered. “They can’t let you see anything that would make you a security risk if they let you go. If you want to see your parents again, stick to what you’ve been doing.”
“You came here to tell me that?” asked Matt, his brow furrowing. “I was doing that anyway. Why are you here?”
“I came to visit you when you were in a coma,” said Jamie. “The night I arrived here was the same night you got hurt. I… don’t know. I just wanted to meet you.”
“Can I ask you something?” asked Matt. His voice rose as he spoke, and Jamie shushed him again.
“Go for it,” he whispered.
“Where the hell am I? You’re wearing the same uniform the men who came into our house were wearing, and the girl who landed in my garden was a vampire, it’s obvious now. She should have been dead, but she wasn’t. And then she…”
“Don’t think about that,” said Jamie, quickly. “Her name is Larissa, by the way; the girl who hurt
you. She didn’t mean to do it.”
“You know her?” asked Matt, his eyes widening.
“Yeah,” replied Jamie. “I do. It’s… complicated. But that doesn’t answer your question.”
He took a deep breath, as he prepared to break the most fundamental rule that Blacklight operated by. “This place is called the Loop. It’s a military base, completely classified. It’s the home of a branch of the government called Department 19, the department that polices the supernatural. I’m what they call an Operator; it’s like a soldier, but a top-secret version. There are hundreds of us here, hundreds more abroad; basically, you’re lying in the middle of the biggest secret in the world.”
Matt stared at the ceiling for a long moment, and Jamie feared, for a moment, that he had overwhelmed the teenager, given him too much too quickly. Then he said something that Jamie wasn’t expecting.
“That sounds amazing,” he said. “How do I join?”
“Join?” spluttered Jamie.
“Yeah, join. How do I get to be like you?”
“It’s not that simple,” said Jamie. “Most of the Operators are recruited from the military, or the police. I was just lucky; I’m allowed in because I’m a descendant of one of the founders.”
“The what?”
“No time,” said Jamie, checking his watch. He had been inside the infirmary for more than two minutes already. “If this is what you want, then there’s only one bit of advice I can give you: find your way back here.”
“How do I do that?” asked Matt, his eyes full of excitement.
“I don’t know,” replied Jamie. “You seem like a smart guy, figure it out. You can’t let them know you know; you have to let them take you home tomorrow. I don’t know what they’ll do if they find out you’ve been lying to them. And I can’t say anything to help you, it wouldn’t do either of us any good for them to know I’ve been in here. So once you’re out, find your way back. It’s the only thing I can think of.”
Jamie backed away towards the door.
“Wait,” said Matt, his voice rising again. This time Jamie didn’t quiet him, he just stopped with the door handle in his grip.
“What?” he asked. “I really have to go.”
“Why are you doing this?” asked Matt. “Why are you trying to help me?”
“I don’t know,” said Jamie, and then grinned, a broad smile that was beautiful to look at. “I just have a feeling about you. I don’t know why. Good luck.”
With that, Jamie threw open the door and ran across the infirmary at a dead sprint. His watch read 20:02:41; over two and a half minutes had passed. He mentally cursed himself for being so careless, but even as he did so, realised that he didn’t regret it; finding a way to see Matt, to tell him what he had told him, was the right thing to have done, he was absolutely sure of that.
There was a moment’s silence, then the Director of Department 19 exploded.
“Despite all the times I explained to you why you couldn’t!” shouted Seward, his eyes blazing with anger. “And all the times you told me you understood. You stood where you’re standing now and you lied to me, Jamie. I could have you court-martialled for this.”
“I know, sir,” said Jamie, his eyes never leaving the Director’s. “I really am sorry, sir.”
Seward held his gaze for a long, fiery moment, then rubbed his eyes with his hands. Suddenly the Director no longer looked angry; he looked simply exhausted.
“Do you realise how many regulations you just confessed to breaking?” asked Seward.
“I’m guessing quite a few, sir.”
“That’s right,” said Seward. “Quite a few. A lot in fact.”
The Director leant back in his chair, and regarded Jamie with a look of obvious disappointment.
“What am I supposed to do about this, Jamie?” he asked. “If you were me, what would you do?”
“I don’t know, sir,” replied Jamie, his stomach churning; it was only now occurring to him that his Blacklight career was hanging by a thread. “I suppose I’d do what I thought was for the best, sir.”
Seward looked up at him, and the slightest hint of a smile curled the corners of the Director’s mouth. He leant forward and spoke into the intercom again.
“Marlow?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Bring Mr Browning up to my quarters immediately. Ask Major Turner to accompany you. Try not to let anyone else see him.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Marlow. “On our way, sir.”
Seward got up from behind his desk, then walked over to the armchairs that stood before the wide fireplace that dominated the Director’s study. He flopped heavily down into one, and motioned for Jamie to take the other. As he did so, Seward lifted a cigar from the box on the coffee table, and lit it with a long wooden match. Once the cigar was under way, he leant back in his chair and looked at Jamie.
“How does this end, Jamie?” he asked, breathing out a cloud of thick blue smoke. “What good can come of bringing this poor boy back here?”
“Let him help us, sir,” Jamie replied, instantly. “He’s smart, sir, and there’s no doubt that he’s brave. I can look after him, put him in my squad, show him—”
“Out of the question,” said Seward, firmly. “I bent the rules once for you, Jamie. I’m not going to do it again just so you can have a friend your own age. If he stays, he doesn’t set foot outside this base until he completes his training. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Jamie. He was disappointed to hear the Director refuse to allow Matt to join his squad, but he was elated that Seward appeared to be at least considering the possibility of a role within Blacklight for Matt.
“This won’t make up for it, Jamie,” said Seward, suddenly. “What you’re trying to do. It won’t bring him back.”
“I don’t understand, sir,” said Jamie, confusion on his face.
“Frankenstein,” said Seward. “Matt isn’t going to be able to replace Frankenstein. It’s not going to make losing him any easier.”
Jamie felt as though the armchair beneath him was collapsing.
Is that what I’m doing? he asked himself. Trying to use that poor kid to make up for what happened?
“I don’t think that’s what I’m doing, sir,” said Jamie, his voice unsteady. “If I am, I didn’t know it.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” replied Seward, regarding the teenager with a smile that was very close to paternal. “You’re many things, Jamie, but cruel isn’t one of them. I’m sure you were doing what you thought was for the best.”
Silence descended over the two men, so different in age and experience, so similar in temperament and love for the job that had been entrusted to them. For a long time, Jamie watched the smoke from Seward’s cigar coil into the air, before he spoke again.
“What was he like, sir?” he asked.
“What was who like?” replied Seward, although he knew the answer.
“Frankenstein, sir,” answered Jamie. “When he was young, I mean. Before I knew him. What was he like?”
Seward considered for a moment exactly how much to tell the teenager; his own memories of Frankenstein were complex, as full of pain and fear as they were of triumph and companionship.
“He was a man,” he replied, slowly. “As full of flaws as any other, perhaps more than most. But more than that, he was my friend.”
25
THE ILLUMINATED CITY, PART I
PARIS, FRANCE 23RD AUGUST 1923
Frankenstein leant back in his chair, the tightly woven wicker groaning appreciably beneath him as he did so, drank deeply from his glass of wine and surveyed his companions for the evening, arranged around one of Café de Flore’s round, glass-topped tables on the wide pavement of Boulevard Saint-Germain. He had found himself between conversations, and was content for the moment to merely observe, and listen.
To his left, Jean Hugo, Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein were engaged in a heated debate about the merits and principles of literary pa
tronage. Frankenstein knew without paying attention to the details that the cause of the disagreement was the presence for dinner at Stein’s apartment two nights earlier of a young French writer whom Hemingway thoroughly disliked, and had been actively offended at being forced to share a table with.
Stein was making the not unreasonable argument that she would invite whoever she damn well pleased into her own home, and that Hemingway was more than welcome to decline any future invitations if he felt so strongly about the issue. Hemingway, the bluff, belligerent American, was slowly colouring a dark shade of purple, and rhythmically clenching and unclenching his fists, a sure sign that his perennially loose grip on his temper was in danger of failing him completely.
Hugo could clearly see it too, and was attempting to play the role of peacemaker; he was suggesting compromise after compromise, to little response from either party. Stein was sitting calmly to his left, a sweet, eminently reasonable expression on her face, while to his right, Hemingway openly stewed, and fought to control himself. Frankenstein watched them for several minutes, then turned his attention to the trio to his right.
Jean-Luc Latour, the only member of the company whom Frankenstein genuinely considered a friend, was discussing art with Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, gesturing enthusiastically with both of his pale, slender hands as he held forth on the excitement that the recently-named New Objectivity movement was causing throughout the salons and cafés of Paris. He had, he was informing his companions, been greatly impressed with the recent work by André Derain, and was keen to hear Picasso’s views on the matter.
Picasso was, for the moment at least, keeping his own counsel, while Cocteau was agreeing in declamatory terms, praising what he called the “return to order” that had flooded through European art in the aftermath of the Great War. It was, he was claiming, the bedfellow of German New Objectivity, and marked the first steps of a fractured continent back towards the sublime.