Chapter 16
I opened my eyes. Grey light streamed over the grimy ceiling. Bloody hell did I feel groggy—my brain was banging against my skull like a madman. This was no ordinary “massive” hangover. More like waking from death. To make matters worse, I could hear Daryl and Bill talking seriously nearby. The sound was so painful in my ears I wasn’t able to process the words. I tried to speak, to tell them to shut up, but it came out more like a pathetic moan.
“Dave?” said Daryl.
I looked up at him. He had a big white bandage covering his recently twatted nose. He looked ridiculous. But I could only manage a vague grunt.
“Dave,” repeated Daryl, snapping fingers over my face.
I wished he would stop that. Bill came over too, and I noticed that he had a massive black eye. Everyone seemed to have an injury of some kind.
“The effects of the drugs are only just starting to wear off,” said Bill.
Drugs? Oh dear.
“What are we going to do with you, eh?” Daryl sighed, shaking his head at me. “Now you’ve really done it.”
I wanted to tell him to piss off, that I was in a very bad way, or at least tell him how silly he looked with that bandage, but I couldn’t even manage that. In fact, with the effort of trying, I found myself feeling extremely sick. Before I knew it, I was gagging, hot vomit slurping its way up from my rippling stomach.
“He’s going to throw up!” shouted Bill, quickly turning me over.
I puked violently, straight down over Daryl’s shoes.
“Ah gross…” moaned Daryl.
I managed the weakest of smiles and, having finished with the puking, felt myself slipping away again. I laid myself down and everything went back to black.
*****
The next time I woke up, I felt a little better. I managed to turn my head and to lift it slightly. The door to the corridor was open. Bill was sat on a chair in the hallway, watching me.
“How do you feel?” he said, squinting through his black eye.
“I’m alright, I guess. Pretty bad headache. You don’t look so good yourself.”
He put a hand to his affected eye, wincing at the touch, his other arm limp in a sling.
“I’ll survive,” he said. “She was quite some woman though.”
“You’re telling me…”
I sank my head onto the pillow, thinking back to that insane evening.
“Do you want to know what happened?” he asked.
“Not particularly. I’m guessing there wasn’t a happy ending.”
“No. Daryl’s furious. And not just about his shoes.”
I laughed through the pain.
Bill brought me some water and painkillers.
After lying still for a time, collecting my wits, examining the cracks on the ceiling, I felt able to talk some more.
“Go on then. Tell me what happened, why don’t you? What’s the beef?”
Bill talked. The beef was I had been completely hoodwinked by a beautiful seductress, a professional of some kind who had flirted me out of any smidgen of good sense I might have had. Once it was clear that I had been drugged, good old Bill had confronted Julia, only for her to respond with a series of judo moves that left him a sprawled, unconscious mess on the floor and with a black eye and several nasty bruises. After that, she had gone on something of a spree, breaking into the labs, taking pictures, stealing samples and documents, and generally being a nuisance until Bill woke up and set off the alarm. She legged it at that point, and much of this was caught on CCTV camera, apparently.
The whole thing was extremely perplexing, and I had decidedly mixed feelings about it—ashamed at being such a plonker and shocked that I had been the victim of such cynical and professional work. Also, from what Bill was saying, I wasn’t sure they were even aware of the fire in the square.
“Who does she work for?” I asked after a few minutes spent mulling over the catastrophe.
“Daryl is having her looked into,” he said. “But I think the general consensus is she is some kind of a Russian spy. It’s highly unlikely she’ll be caught.”
“She did tell me she was from Russia…”
There I’d been, blabbing away to that barmaid for all to hear. Such an easy target, I guess—at least for someone who was targeting.
“It was stupid to bring her down here,” he said.
“I know, I know,” I said. “I was drunk. But I’d had a long day. Didn’t you hear what happened with Daryl?”
“I heard that Molly quit. And he had some kind of an accident.”
“Yes…” I said. “Well, no. Actually, Daryl and I… We, er, had a bit of a barney.”
Bill looked perplexed.
“Come on,” I said. “You don’t seriously think something like that could accidentally happen to his nose.”
“That was you?”
He seemed both completely surprised and somewhat impressed.
“No point in hiding it.”
But perhaps Daryl didn’t see it that way.
“So anyway,” I continued. “I was not in the best of moods last night. And that lady was, you know…”
I found myself swimming in the memory of those kisses. James Bond would have been proud. Er, well, no. Actually, he wouldn’t, because I had fallen for the oldest trick in the oldest book of old tricks.
“You need to be a lot more careful,” said Bill. “We’re creating revolutionary materials here, you know, able to withstand any blast, take any heat, block any radiation. A lot of people are going to be interested in that—and in you, if and when they find out about you.”
“I suppose,” I said, feeling like the only child in the class who’d completely failed to understand the lesson. “But still, isn’t it a bit random for some spy woman to be hanging around in the local pub on just the night when I happen to go on a bit of a bender? Or did I miss something? It’s still early morning, okay? Give a bloke a break.”
Bill shrugged. “As for spying, I wouldn’t know. But it’s not early. It’s four in the afternoon.”
*****
Some grub was arranged for me. I was starving, as you might imagine. Bill also told me to go and see Daryl in his office as soon as I felt up to it. That was the last place I wanted to go, to be honest, especially with the way I was feeling—dodgy, a constant cold sweat, thumping headache and the lingering urge to puke. Also, the whole thing was just a great deal for me to take in. I needed time to recover emotionally, as well as physically. It very much felt as if I had been… violated. I mean, there had been more than enough on my mind even before that crazy Russian beauty came along, what with Molly leaving and those hot words with Daryl.
As a measure of how messed up I was, I wasn’t able to eat much, only a couple of Pop-Tarts, a few sausages, maybe two eggs, a tin of baked beans, a litre of Coke. Nothing else at all.
In fact, I hardly felt well enough even to potter about out of bed, so I decided to stay put on the horizontal right on top of it and wait another day to see Daryl. I knew I had a bollocking to come, and I deserved it too, but that was nothing that couldn’t wait. If I talked to that guy when I was in such a fragile state, I just knew he’d try and push things, use this all against me. There was also the small matter of what my fist had done to his face. He wouldn’t forget that in a hurry.
So I got nice and snug and watched a bit of telly. All well and good, you might think, and yeah, it was, until I had the misfortune to flick over a bit of news. One particular headline caught my eye, to say the least.
“SHOREDITCH FIRE-BOMBING LIVE: SUSPECTED TERROR ATTACK,” it said, and they were showing a bird’s-eye view of a certain London square, blue-green smoke billowing out, several fire engines dousing the flames.
What the hell?
It looked like the same square from the night before, but that had been almost twenty-four hours ago. Surely, they’d put it out by now. Moreover, the flames on-screen were engulfing the entire square and were not limited to just the area I’d p
issed in. Yet the colour of those flames was unmistakable.
I began to feel afraid. How bad had it gotten? Had anyone been hurt? Who did the police think was responsible?
I listened closely as a reporter recapped what they knew so far. A huge fire had been started late the previous night. Whoever had done it had used some kind of “unknown and highly flammable chemical agent.” Apparently, the fire had threatened to spread to the nearby buildings, but people had been evacuated in time and the firemen had contained it. Phew. Amazingly, though, they were struggling to put it out completely. Police suspected a terror group and were speculating that anything on this scale had to have serious financial backing, possibly even the support of a foreign state.
Shit.
All this gave me massive déjà vu. It was just like before, when I’d been running, when that homeless guy had been killed—I had no idea what to do. A million questions ran through my mind. What would happen now? They’d put the fire out at some point, and it wasn’t terrorists, obviously. It was yours truly on a crazy bender. Could they link the fire to me? Would there be any evidence left after such intense flames? Perhaps the whole thing would just go down as a mystery to be forgotten once the next big news story hit. Or would someone else get the blame? “Terrorists”? Would they end up pinning it on innocent people?
But really, I just needed to simplify things. As far as my panicked mind could figure, I had two choices: come clean or keep my mouth shut.
If I told the police, that would mean giving them the whole story, all the details about what a plonker I’d been. I’d have to tell the tale of how a suspected “terror attack” was actually just the foolish result of one stupid young man’s brain being hijacked by his lustful desires. Admittedly not your everyday story. Whoever heard of a man pissing such a highly flammable substance? Perhaps it was the most extreme example in the history of men doing stupid things to get into a lady’s pants. Undoubtedly, that was a long and illustrious history, but it was a hell of an awful fire I had started. I mean, for Christ’s sake, the thing had been burning for over twenty-four hours! Aside from it being massively embarrassing, would they care I’d only meant to destroy the gating, a part of the gating, that the fire bit had been an accident? I certainly wasn’t a terrorist, but whatever way you looked at it, I was a massive plonker.
Christ, I thought. I could really go to prison now.
But if I kept my trap shut, would I actually get away with it? Surely someone at Solar Ray would figure out it was me. Maybe even the police would. But they hadn’t yet, had they? Nobody at Solar Ray had mentioned it to me, neither Daryl nor Bill.
Beyond all that, I still had the decision to make on whether or not to stay at Solar Ray in the first place. Now that I knew my wee was flammable, possibly the most flammable substance known to man, perhaps that changed things. I couldn’t see how, really, given all its other ridiculous attributes, but it seemed as though it must have some significance.
Anyway, I turned the sodding TV off and turned in for the night. Tomorrow was another day.
*****
On Sunday morning, the grogginess still hadn’t quite left me, and neither had the confusion or the growing sense of dread, but by now, what with not eating properly the day before, I was absolutely starving. It had been a stressful time, no question, and what I desperately needed was bacon, sausages, eggs, beans, fried mushrooms, toast, hash browns, and anything else that could be fried, all plonked together onto a lovely big plate. Plus Coca-Cola—gallons of it. Then maybe I could come to terms with things, figure them out, or at least have the comfort of a full belly as I spent another day wallowing in anxiety, not to mention the joys of the bollocking from Daryl that was surely coming my way.
I headed to a local greasy spoon, a busy little cafe called the Breakfast King, where I had the “Deluxe Full English,” an awesome symphony of a fry-up with every single thing you could possibly want, even black pudding, bubble and squeak and a nice spot of porridge. Yet eating was no pleasure. This deep sense of shame lingered over me, a constant stream of flashbacks blazing through my mind: Julia, kisses, cigarettes, kisses, drinks, Julia, creaking gates, kisses, burning flames, Julia, kisses. Those last two repeated several times. I was on edge, constantly looking over my shoulder for spies, hot Russian female ones or otherwise, wondering if I was being watched or if I’d be approached again or worse. Perhaps they wouldn’t be so “friendly” next time—whoever “they” were.
Beyond that, there were just so many things up in the messy air of my life now. My future. My mutated member. The consequences of the break-in. Getting found out for the fire. Things would never just calm down and sort themselves out nicely for me, would they? They only seemed to get worse and worse, over and over again, in new and nasty ways I couldn’t possibly predict.
Done with the meal, I couldn’t face going straight back to the basement. I found myself gravitating towards the square. The whole place was cordoned off with police lines and whatnot, though on the plus side it looked as though the fire was finally out. I approached a barrier and, head hanging low in my hood, I took a good long look at the massive destruction caused by the igniting of a single bladder’s worth of my wee.
Where there had once been a pleasant enough outdoor space with shiny gates and lots of bushes and trees, there was now just a huge smouldering mess. A flattened wasteland of smoky ash covered it from corner to corner. Even many of the nearby parked cars were burnt and ruined, and the upper floors of the buildings all around were blackened and dirtied with soot. It was so total I couldn’t even identify the side where I had actually peed. It was amazing and terrifying to think that one little tinkle from yours truly had caused so much devastation. Well, admittedly, it was a sizable tinkle since I’d had lots to drink that night. But still, with that one act, it looked like the place had been nuked. “Obliterated” was the only word for it, really. Total obliteration. Or perhaps annihilation. That was another good word.
*****
When I got back to Solar Ray, there were police cars parked out front and several mean-looking uniformed officers guarding the front doors with sub-machine guns.
“Name?” one of them said to me, not in a particularly friendly way, as I approached.
“Dave Smith,” I said.
“Dave…?” His eyes widened. “You’re wanted inside.”
“Got him, Sarge,” I heard him say into the mic on his jacket front.
He opened the door and motioned for me to enter.
“Go on. Inside now.”
I went in, really not wanting to, and headed down to the basement.
Bill was stood outside my door.
“Where’ve you been?” he said anxiously.
“Just out for brekkie. Why?”
“You’re not supposed to go out.”
“Even for brekkie?”
“No!”
I watched as he picked up his mobile and hurriedly dialled a number. He was being extremely stressy, I have to say.
“Daryl?” he said. “Yeah. He’s here now.” He paused while Daryl said something. “Alright.”
He put the phone back in his pocket.
“Daryl wants you upstairs now.”
“Right now?”
“Yes!” said Bill, looking like a vein might burst out of his forehead. “You were supposed to see him yesterday.”
“Alright, alright.”
I stood for a moment, biting my lip.
“Well, what are you waiting for, Dave?”
“Sorry, Bill, it’s just…”
“What?”
“I need to pee.”
Chapter 17
There was a tense atmosphere upstairs. Christine frowned at me and shook her head when I arrived at the reception.
“Afternoon, Dave,” she said, making it clear that it should have been morning and there was nothing good about either one anyway. “Go straight through and wait in Daryl’s office.”
“He’s not there?”
“H
e’s in a meeting now,” she said. “With the police.”
The way she said that, she obviously knew every last detail of what had happened. I nodded and went through, barely able to look her in the eye.
*****
I sat in Daryl’s office for some time, stewing over what might be going on and what was being said about me. Did they know about the fire? Should I risk delving into his fridge and helping myself to a cheeky beer? It would certainly calm my nerves, but it would not make the best impression if, say, the police commissioner of London walked in. Reluctantly, I decided against it.
Eventually Daryl came in with a man I’d never seen before, a tall man with a cleanly shaved head, a slight tan, a noticeably radiant face, and a black suit. Daryl frowned at me, yet it also seemed as if he was holding himself back. Also, his nose bandage still looked utterly absurd, covering a good third of his face with white material.
“Nice of you to join us, Dave,” said Daryl. Yup, a definite air of self-restraint. “This is Frank Stalbaum, from the Omega central offices in San Francisco.”
“Hello, Dave,” said Frank, emphasising my name like it was the word of the hour, talking with one of those clogged-up, nasal sorts of American voices that emanated somehow both from the nose and the very back of the throat.
“Hello,” I said.
Frank had been looking at me oddly the whole time. Frowning, sort of, or squinting maybe, kind of like he was examining me as you would a specimen.
“Are you alright?” I said.
“Oh yes,” he said with a little laugh, his eyes suddenly lighting up. “I’m fine. Bit of jet lag maybe but I’m used to it. And law enforcement never scares me. How are you?”
He somehow managed to fill the question with menace and accusation.
“Er, yeah, I’m pretty good, considering,” I said, feeling my face suddenly go all red. “On the mend, you know.”
“Well I hope you stay that way.”
Then he turned to Daryl. “Would you believe me if I said I had to go pee?”
Daryl laughed, looking nervously at me for a second. “Of course, Frank. I’ll show you the way.”
Curse of the Potency Page 15