Mr. Clear

by Stewart, Graham

  They had never been alone like this before.

  When Eve finally did find her tongue, her only words were on leaving. They had no choice she insisted. If they stayed, they would die.

  So they did leave, and took their chances in a world Ben had never known.

  The flood resulting from the storm would go down in history as one of the greatest natural and humanitarian disasters to ever befall the country.

  It took more than two weeks for the waters to recede, and in that time Eve’s and Ben’s fears of discovery became greater.

  But that wasn’t all they had to worry about.

  The fetid waters on which they floated, clinging to flood debris, and through which they waded, were toxic.

  Eve fell gravely ill.

  Unable to attract the attention of what few rescue choppers flew over their heads and fearful of exactly how they would be accepted by the crew or the rescue teams they encountered, her condition deteriorated rapidly.

  Eleven days after leaving the confines of the house in which Ben had been reared, Eve died.

  Rather than sounding the death knell for Ben, the event spurred the boy on, igniting a fire in his belly and a burning desire to survive.

  The depth of pain he felt after losing everyone he had ever known in such a short space of time was something Ben never wanted to experience again. There was only one way, in his eyes, to make sure of that.

  He consigned himself to life on his own.

  In those intervening years, Ben had convinced himself that it was working out. That he was getting by with no need for anyone else in his life. With no requirement for any petty little emotion such as love.

  He was sure of it.

  Until the day she got on the train.

  4

  Yesterday.

  It was always warm in Miami. Even when those who had lived there all their lives maintained it was cold. That’s why he had chosen to move there. There were worse places to try and live if you were homeless. There were probably better.

  The trick was not to be seen. For Ben, that did not present much of a challenge, unless he was biblically careless.

  He liked to ride the train in the morning, really early, before it got too crowded. People were not as alert, or as perceptive, as they might be later. He liked that.

  The elevated track also gave Ben a great vantage point to scope out possible future places to bed down or explore. He had developed a system for filing these locations and ideas mentally. It was not like he could carry a notebook.

  The view wasn’t the only reason he had taken to riding the train at this particular time of the morning.

  It slowed as it made its approach into the next station and Ben started watching the window. He had not chosen this carriage at random. The train always stopped at the same point on the platform. And the doors lined up perfectly with where she, regular as clockwork, always stood.

  The wheels screeched a little on the tracks as the train ground to a halt. And when the doors parted, sure enough, there she was.

  As ever, she moved confidently, with a unique blend of caution and grace. She barely needed the white stick. It served more as a badge of identification to other commuters than as an implement to help her find her way.

  She sat down in her usual spot, resting a palm on the seat to ensure it was unoccupied, which it somehow never was. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and it slipped right back out again.

  The girl never wore make-up, not that it was needed. She was flawless. She didn’t wear dark glasses the way blind people did in the movies. Her eyes stared straight ahead, right through Ben sat in the seat opposite.

  “Hello again,” she said.

  Ben looked over his shoulder. No one behind. And there was no one else in earshot of them either.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not going to bite.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Hello.”

  “Where do you work?” she asked.

  “Work?”

  “Yeah. Where are you heading? To work? Or home from work? You’re always on the train at this time.”

  He hadn’t thought this far ahead. In fact, he hadn’t really thought at all. “I work for the city.”

  “Clerical?”

  “What?”

  “Well you’re hardly a garbage man or in sewage. I’d smell it. Even if you’d showered relentlessly, believe me. And you’re not a cleaner because I don’t get any hint of detergents or bleaches. So I’m guessing you’re in clerical.”

  “That’s very perceptive. Is that how you knew it was me? My smell.”

  She nodded. “You don’t wear deodorant or aftershave.”

  “I don’t normally need to.”

  “I think it’s nice. Most guys laminate themselves in the stuff.”

  Smells were distinctive. They were remembered. He always did his best to minimize his, or try to have none at all. Odor presented problems with animals, especially dogs.

  “Talkative type, aren’t you?” she said.

  “I’m a man of few words, you could say.”

  “Got a name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. What is it?” She laughed. It was a beautiful sound.

  “Ben.”

  “Ben,” she repeated. “Ben what?”

  “What?”

  “Watt?” she said.

  “I’m sorry?” he answered.

  She laughed again. Ben found himself smiling and laughing too. It was something he did not do very much.

  “Is that your surname?” she said. “Watt.”

  “Oh. I get you. No. Just Ben.”

  She angled her head. “Okay, Just Ben. I’m pleased to meet you. My name is Freya.”

  “The Norse Goddess of Love,” he said. “And beauty.”

  Her face lit up with a smile that was even more beautiful than her laugh. “You know you’re the first person I’ve ever met who I didn’t have to explain my name to.”

  “I read a lot.”

  Her eyes, although sightless, stared right at Ben’s mouth. “Oh my mom would just love you,” she said.

  “Is she-“

  “Blind too? Nope. It’s not hereditary. My mom got rubella while she was pregnant with me, bad. I was born like this.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not your fault,” she said. “My mom can see just fine. I might bring her with me tomorrow. She could tell me what you look like.”

  “I think that would spoil the illusion,” he said.

  Freya brushed the strand of rebel hair behind her ear again. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  The train slowed and she stood, taking a tight hold of her stick. “Well, this is me.”

  The train shuddered as it came to a stop and she stumbled. He wanted to reach out and prevent her from falling, but if she grabbed him for support she would instantly know he was not wearing any clothes.

  In the event, she didn’t fall. She steadied herself on the handrail and turned her head in his direction. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  “You won’t what?” said Ben.

  “Bring my mom tomorrow. You’re right. I’d hate to shatter the illusion.”

  The doors opened.

  “Bye,” she said, and turned on her heels, striding out on to the platform, as surefooted as any sighted person Ben had ever seen.

  He watched her continue down the platform as the train resumed its journey, until she was well out of sight.

  Downtown Miami passed him by. From station to station, people and commuters got on and got off. He alternated between sitting and standing, making himself as small as possible to avoid anyone bumping into him. There didn’t seem to be many people who got on at the first stop, as he did, and ride the train all the way to the last. Usually it was just Ben and a Puerto Rican looking lady in a blue overall that always looked jaded and wore huge headphones. He guessed she worked nights somewhere. Maybe she was on her way home now, or maybe even to the job she held down during the day.<
br />
  This morning was different in that there was one other traveler on board who was going the distance too.

  Ben had never seen him before.

  But damn if this guy wasn’t seeing him right now.

  He could have sworn it.

  Ben checked over his shoulder, just as he had with Freya, to see if maybe he was in the eye line of someone the guy could have been looking at by pure coincidence.

  He wasn’t.

  When Ben turned back, the guy was stifling a small laugh. He continued to stare, not so much as blinking.

  The train was slowing on its approach into the next station. Ben got up as quietly as he could off the vinyl seat, even though no one could have possibly heard his bare skin peel away from the chair’s surface, or his feet on the floor as he padded across the floor and stood at the exit.

  Looking back down the carriage, the guy was now swiping at his phone. Maybe the direction in which he had been looking had been a coincidence after all.

  The doors opened and Ben stepped out on to the platform, heading for the stairs down to the exit. He stood aside to let a woman oblivious to his presence rush past.

  Curious to see if she would make it, he watched her hurry across to the door he had just exited. Standing at the top of the staircase, Ben’s eyes drifted to the window where the man sat.

  He was not looking at his phone anymore. The man was looking right at Ben, with a big smile on his face. As the train pulled away, the stranger winked.

  5

  As a rule, Powell always slept facing the door. There were plusses and minuses to this practice, the chief disadvantage being that in motels, such as this one, the one and only window was on the same wall.

  Given that he was a nocturnal animal and slept only during the day, if at all, this posed a problem when the window in question lined up perfectly with the evening sun, especially when the curtains on said window were as about effective as a paper towel.

  Still, if blinding light didn’t wake Powell up, the deafening sound caused by a fist doing its best to pound the door off its substandard hinges surely would have.

  Outside, Powell found Morgan standing there as bright eyed and bushy-tailed as a man with a shaved head, standing six foot two and weighing two hundred and twenty pounds could be. “You look like shit,” said Morgan.

  “Thanks,” said Powell.

  “You should go get yourself a facial and a hot oil massage in the spa, like I did.”

  “This shithole has a spa?”

  “No, hate to break it to you, boss, no. The Four Seasons, this is not.”

  “Nothing but the best always,” said Powell, “you know that. Where’s Dyson?”

  “He’ll be here in a minute. I think he’s putting his action figures away,” said Morgan. “We’re going for a beer.”

  “You and Dyson? Does he even know what a beer is?”

  “Says he does. He probably looked it up on Google or something. I know the answer to this question already, but do you want to come along?”

  “Thanks for the invite, Morgan, but you’re right, you do know the answer to that question. I need to get my head together, then call and check in with Crane.”

  “Not a problem. I’d say sleep tight, but I know you’re not going to do that either.” He gave a little salute and set off across the parking lot. Dyson jogged after him, giving a friendly nod in Powell’s direction.

  Powell watched the shapes of the two men fade into the distance as they crossed the boulevard and took a short cut through a gas station. A well-weathered neon sign belonging to the bar the guys were heading for towered into the sky behind, doing its best to buzz to life as night fell.

  Powell started to close the door when he heard a woman’s voice call out a name. A small boy on a scooter sped past and looked up at Powell just as an ancient Honda Prelude with blacked-out windows, kitted out to look like some sort of joke store Batmobile, bumped over the curb and rumbled into the lot.

  The woman’s voice called the boy’s name again, but he was in a world of his own, fixated on Powell, still looking back, as he veered out into the lot behind the team’s panel van and right into where the Honda would be in three seconds.

  No way the driver was ever going to see the kid in this light.

  Powell was already moving. He sprinted down the near side of the van and met the boy as he rounded it, scooping him up off the scooter and running with him out of the path of the Honda to the far side of the lot, like he was a running back streaking into the end zone.

  The car crunched over the scooter and ground to a halt with a screech of rubber as Powell set the boy down. The child was nonplussed. He had no idea whatsoever of the danger he had been in.

  The woman rushed over and knelt down, cupping the boy’s face in her hands. “Oh my God, thank you,” she said, looking up at Powell. “Jonathan, are you okay, honey?”

  The driver’s door of the Prelude burst open and a wiry guy who couldn’t have been more than twenty jumped out. “You gotta be shittin’ me,” he shrieked, striding around to the front of the car to see what damage had been done by the now mangled scooter. “Look at the damage your stupid little shit did. You want to be keeping that thing on a leash.”

  The woman was so caught up in checking over her little boy, she didn’t hear a word said.

  “He’s fine,” Powell said to her. “ Just had a close call, that’s all. No harm done.”

  “No harm?” the driver yelped. “I’ll do you harm if you don’t get your wallet out of your pocket right now, man. Shit needs fixing.”

  “You’re right,” said Powell, kneeling next to the fender and pulling the twisted scooter out from underneath the car. “I think a hundred bucks should more than cover it.”

  “It’s gonna cost way more than a hundred,” said the driver, incredulous.

  “To replace a scooter?” said Powell. “I think you’re being generous. But okay then, if you insist. Hundred and fifty. But no more. I won’t hear of it. You’re going to need to hang on to your cash to get that ridiculous looking car of yours repaired.”

  The driver marched up and got in Powell’s face. “Are you high or something, dude?” The passenger door of the Honda opened and a guy the size of a phone booth stepped out. The driver pressed his face so close that his nose was touching Powell’s cheek.

  “You a comedian or something?” the driver spat through gritted teeth.

  Powell shook his head. “No.”

  “Damn right-” the driver started.

  “Which you’ll find out real soon,” Powell interrupted, without flinching. “Because if I don’t have a hundred and fifty dollars in my hand within the next half hour, the one thing you will not be doing is laughing.” Then without showing any inclination of what he was about to do, he head-butted the driver hard in the nose. Before the man could get his hands to his face, shock took over and the guy went down like a sack of rocks at Powell’s feet.

  Powell looked over at Mr. Phone Booth on the passenger side of the Honda. “Just as well he brought a big lump like you along. He’s going to need some help getting up.”

  If the little boy’s mother was in any way fazed by what Powell had said or done, she didn’t show it. Her son was very impressed though, if the open jawed grin on his face was anything to go by. “Thank you again,” she said. “Kids. You take your eye off them for one second, and they’re gone.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” said Powell.

  She watched out of the corner of her eye as the big guy heaved his friend up off the ground. “Those parenting instincts die hard. You got kids of your own?”

  “No,” said Powell.

  “Really?” she said, smiling. “In that case, you don’t how lucky you are.”

  “No,” he said. “I guess I really don’t.”

  ***

  “El Paso was a waste of time,” said Powell. “Yet another in a long list of wastes of time.”

  “Nothing ventured, and all that crap,” said Crane, h
is voice crystal clear on the other end of the secure satellite line. “Any ideas on what to do next?”

  “Resign maybe, get a proper job,” said Powell.

  “Proper. That’s another word for boring,” said Crane. “Besides, you know you’re the best man qualified to do this job. You’re the only man qualified to do this job.”

  “And the only one dumb enough to have ever thought there was any chance of success,” said Powell.

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” said Crane.

  “And the will is being tested,” said Powell, “so if you come up with any ways, please do keep me informed.”

  “We’re all over it here,” said Crane. “In fact I’ve upped our game; requisitioned more bodies for the cause.”

  “How’d you pull that off? I thought you were squeezed on funding as it was.”

  “I don’t tell you everything,” said Crane.

  “That, I’m sure of,” said Powell.

  “I’ve got some, shall we say, specialist information gatherers working for us now.”

  “Hackers in other words,” said Powell.

  There was a tiny beat of hesitation from Crane. “I believe they sometimes go by that name, yes. But these aren’t your common or garden scruff bags living at home in grandma’s basement. They’re all ex-members of Echelon.”

  “NSA?” said Powell. “You sure that’s wise?”

  “Like I said, they’re ex. And acrimoniously so, by all accounts. These guys know how to cover their tracks and stay under the radar,” said Powell. “I’m making it worth their while. Believe me.”

  “Oh, I do.”

  “Anyway, these coneheads are wired into everything, keeping their pointy little eyes and ears peeled for any trigger terms. Phones, radio waves, internet, the whole nine yards.”

  “Soon as you get something, anything, that even half smells like-“

  “I’ll be straight on to you. Have no fear of that,” said Crane.

  Powell heard a rustle and turned to look at the motel room door. Three fifty-dollar bills were slid underneath, one at a time. Footsteps padded away from the door as quietly as they could. A hunched silhouette passed by the thin curtain.