Curse of the Potency

by Oliver Franks

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  I sat down and turned on the TV.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, closing the door.

  “Wait!” I called.

  “What is it?” He opened it again.

  I scratched my chin and stared at the TV.

  “Well?” he said.

  “What do you know about Frank?”

  “I dunno.” He shrugged. “Never saw him till a couple of weeks ago. He’s definitely a bigwig. Got a strange sense of humour sometimes. What do you want me to say? He’s American.”

  “I suppose.” I nodded thoughtfully. “Alright. Cheers, Bill. You can go back to the party now if you want.”

  “Glad I have your permission.”

  I ignored the joke. I had far too much on my mind now.

  *****

  Things did need thinking through, serious thinking through, but it all just seemed way too much to take on board. Daryl and his family had pissed me off—not to mention the rest of the company. You better believe, I was pissed off.

  But Frank? He’d scared me. He was much higher up the food chain—someone who ate people like Daryl for breakfast and far bigger fish for lunch. If half the things he’d said were true, I should be extremely worried. Part of me was screaming to just leg it out of the place right there and then, run for the hills. Enough was enough. But another part of me was more cautious. It was late at night in the middle of winter, and I had nowhere to go. Plus, both the police and MI5 expected me to stay. I’d be a fugitive. On top of that, Frank would be after me. God knows what he’d do.

  Yet something about Frank didn’t add up either. Then I had a truly scary thought: what if he wanted me to quit Solar Ray? He’d sent that Russian lady to ‘fuck me up,’ he said. But why? So I’d get in trouble and the police would come down on me? Or maybe he wanted to steal secrets for himself. Or maybe he was playing me somehow. Why talk to me that way, deliberately trying to scare me? Or maybe that was just his style—a corporate American ball-buster. Maybe he was simply fed up with my issues with Daryl.

  With this all swirling in my mind, I hit upon a stopgap plan.

  I’d smash another beer or two, have a couple of fags, calm down, and see how I felt after that.

  *****

  I flicked on the TV and changed out of the shirt and jeans. I had only been lounging on the bed with a beer and a fag for a few minutes when I heard the knock at the door.

  “Dave.” I heard the posh voice from out in the corridor. “Can we come in?”

  Daryl and God knew who.

  “What do you want?” I said grumpily.

  He opened the door, which I had stupidly left unlocked, stepping in and smiling childishly at me. What’s more, Butter was stood behind him. He looked uncomfortable, hardly able to look me in the eye.

  “Just to talk, Dave. Please,” said Daryl gently.

  “Looks like you’re gonna do what you want anyway.”

  I stared at Butter and he gave me a little nod. A fatherly sort of a nod, I guess. Telling me to listen, to behave, but that he understood how difficult this was for me.

  Daryl kept on smiling like a schoolboy. I guess he was off his face, drunk and whatnot. It was the Christmas party after all. But after everything I’d said to him, I struggled to see how he could come down here and act like nothing had happened. I certainly couldn’t shake the memory of his disgraceful performance on the stage.

  “Can’t we just be nice for a moment?”

  I sighed, took a swig of my beer, and ignored him.

  “Do you fancy a beer, Butter?” I addressed the policeman.

  “I think I’ve had enough,” he replied, hanging back behind Daryl.

  I shrugged and focused on the TV. Reruns of Friends, I think, but it was better than listening to Daryl.

  “Well, okay, I’ll talk,” said Daryl. “You just listen, okay?”

  I gave another shrug.

  “So,” he said. “Firstly and most importantly, I really just want to say that I’m sorry.”

  I ignored him. He stared at me in silence. I could hear the fear in his voice. Did he really think there was any way back for us? I kept my eyes fixed on the TV.

  “Are you going to quit then, Dave?”

  I laughed. “Scared now, are you?”

  “Dave, I just—”

  “You’re just… screwed without me?”

  “Er, well—”

  “Exactly that, I’d say.”

  There followed yet another moment of awkward silence. Awkward for him, anyway.

  “Would it make any difference if I said we are much closer to constructing your toilet? The plumbing will be viable soon. The Americans have been running some advanced modelling on it. So you’ll be able to move out of this place.”

  He’d say anything, wouldn’t he?

  “Also,” he continued, “you’ll still be under guard, but you’ll be able to go out at least. That’s why your old friend DCI Butter is here. To escort you.”

  I looked up at Butter again. He did his best to smile at me. But it all felt wrong.

  “I should count myself lucky, eh, is that it?” I said. “You’re all bending over backwards for me. Dave the crazy yob who doesn’t know when he’s onto a good thing.”

  “Well I wouldn’t quite put it like that but—”

  I crossed my arms. “Still quitting.”

  Daryl looked helplessly at Butter.

  “And just to be clear, that’s nothing on you, Butter,” I said. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  “Cheers, Dave,” said Butter faintly.

  “No,” whined Daryl, turning back to me and sounding more petulant every second. “I don’t think you quite understand. You’re not in a position where you can just quit and—”

  “Leave that to me, yeah,” I said. “I’m a big boy. Now get out. Both of you please. I want to be alone.”

  Butter looked at the floor, vaguely sad.

  Daryl looked positively distraught.

  “But… But…” he stammered, “you did speak to Frank, didn’t you? He was going to try and get you to see sense.”

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Yes, I did speak to him, actually. Now I understand a whole lot more. For instance, who really wears the trousers around here. No, you and your company are nothing without me. And you’re the one who is finished. The moment I leave, you’re finished.”

  “But, Dave, I—”

  “No, that’s enough. Get out, I said!”

  And Daryl left, throwing his arms in the air.

  Butter gave me a grim nod.

  “Dave,” he said. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

  I nodded. Then he left too.

  My hands were gripping the bedding tightly.

  *****

  Once I knew enough time had passed for them to be out of earshot, I let out a huge roar and smashed my fists down onto the bed.

  “Aaaarrrrrggggghhhh!!!”

  I was deeply frustrated on so many levels. All the conniving and plotting around me, putting me down, trying to tempt me, manipulating me, using Butter like that, certainly not respecting me at all yet needing me desperately. No, not needing me. Needing my member. My toxic, screwed-up, radioactive, luminous green wee-producing member. I felt like a multistorey car park overflowing with old bangers. If one more car parked in me, hundreds would come crashing out from the sides, smashing down on the helpless sods below.

  I took a swig on the beer and lit up a cigarette. I held it up in front of my eyes. I watched it burn, watched the golden embers, the smoke trailing up.

  Soon my mind cleared, and thoughts began to ring for me, bursting one after the other. These were truer thoughts than I’d had for a long time, quite possibly the truest since I quit uni, split up with Alice, and decided to just live life like a lad.

  Enough was enough.

  I needed to do something major.

  Escape wasn’t enough.

  And if I didn’t tak
e action now, perhaps I’d never have the chance again.

  Things would get worse. I’d forever be a slave, their “golden goose” and their private joke. Hunted and imprisoned. I’d never have peace. Whatever happened, there’d always be Frank and Omega, wouldn’t there? I had to face the truth—they were a few steps away from locking me away completely, making me permanently invisible. That was what Frank really wanted. And he was in a pretty good position to get whatever he wanted, certainly rich and powerful and ruthless enough. Or so he seemed. Whatever happened to me, it depended on him.

  No thanks.

  There was an abyss just up ahead of me and I had to swerve or I’d fall straight down it to hell. I had to take a new direction while I had the balls and the anger, while it was all fresh in my mind and I was still a little bit drunk, while my fate was still in my own hands, while my knob still belonged to me.

  That’s when I settled on the crazy idea. It had been gestating for a while, I suppose, ever since that evil woman flipped a ciggie and I saw my wee burn that square to a smouldering crisp. The idea had lingered at the back of my mind, only a dream, really, or perhaps a nightmare. Nothing real.

  Now I was going to make it real.

  *****

  Several minutes later I was lying down on the bed, flat on my back, breathing deeply, looking up at the light in the ceiling where I now knew a camera was installed. I was running through the plan once again, steeling myself for it, trying to forget the fact that it was dangerous and foolish and possibly would backfire completely. But I had nothing to lose, did I? If there was one thing I learned in my time at Solar Ray, it was how the state of being extremely and utterly pissed off truly can focus the mind.

  This was my bloody time to do something and I was going to bloody do it, even if it bloody killed me!

  I focused my thoughts on that room at the end of my corridor. The humming room, as I had taken to thinking of it. It had never particularly interested me before—just a place for the technicians and for the storage of my crazy urine. I know some people might have shown more interest, but well, to be honest, I am not like most people. For good or for bad, I’ve always been happy to just smile and accept my lot, to blank out the sordid mess of my life, not to mention the sordid mess of the world. Up until now, I hadn’t cared about most of the stuff they were doing, aside from the stuff that affected me directly, the salary and making my toilet for me and all that. Not anymore though. That tank might be the key to my future.

  I stood up and packed a backpack with some clothes, toiletries and a few packs of crisps. I downed the can of beer, opened another, and downed that too. I ate a bag of Doritos. I thought about writing a note for them to find or sending a text to my mum and dad but decided against it. Calling Molly was tempting too. Give her a hint, ease the shock. But she’d know something was up. She’d only try to talk me out of it. Calling Martin was also something I thought about again. One last call. It would be now or never. There’d be no turning back. But the same questions came to mind. What would I say to him? What would be the point?

  Forget calling anyone. That was just a distraction, I told myself.

  I knew exactly what I needed to do now. I just had to do it.

  But still I hesitated. Final worries niggled at me.

  The first was that I might get caught before I could finish the job. After the words Daryl and I had just had, I ruled out him popping back down. Bill might, possibly, but highly unlikely. No one was working the labs upstairs and the party was still going. Even on a normal day, he rarely came unless I rang the bell. Tonight, the Christmas party, was the best chance I’d ever have. They were all up there, getting pissed as farts. The one night in the year when I could pretty much guarantee being left alone. And God knows, tomorrow I may even have a “personal bodyguard.”

  The other thing that worried me was if I actually had the ability to execute my madcap plan successfully and without anyone coming to harm. Aside from luck, success relied on three things: timing, a bursting bladder and a certain amount of hand-eye coordination. The second wasn’t an issue—the beer had seen to that—but that beer also meant that the first and the third might have been compromised.

  I told myself to stop worrying. Surely, I was livid enough to pull it off. Peeved, teed off, threatened and just generally hopping mad? Yes! After all I’d consumed, technically I should have been sloshed, but did I feel any slowness, tiredness, or generally any lack of self-control? No. I felt only an undeniable sense of injustice and a burning desire to act. A sense that, while I was not blameless, things needed putting right for me and needed putting right now.

  This is self-control, I told myself. So just do what you need to do. Be a man. Get to work.

  Still, I thought, unable to stop looking at the drawer where my phone had remained hidden away for the past couple of months, if this was truly “it” for David Smith, that wasn’t fair for everyone. I suddenly realised that it was this that was causing my hesitation. I had one last thing I had to do.

  *****

  “Mate.”

  “Davey?” Martin sounded predictably manic. “How in the hell have you been? We thought you were dead. Your phone wasn’t picking up. Your parents wouldn’t say a word either. Where are you? What’ve you been doing? Are you in London? That’s where the police said you’d gone, but you never phoned or anything. What’s going on?”

  I let him get it all out of his system.

  “I’m alright,” I said. “I guess. How’s the leg?”

  “What?” He seemed to have forgotten. “Oh, that. Yeah, it’s fine. They put it in a cast, but it came off a week or so ago. Good as new. Back into the five-a-side already.”

  “Good.”

  Already we found ourselves lost for words.

  “So,” he said, “are you in London then?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Still peeing green?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ah…”

  Again, an uncomfortable silence.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ve all kept very quiet about it. It’s been really weird, actually, not having you around. It’s like we have to pretend you don’t exist. And when people ask after you, we just tell them ‘he’s gone away.’ That’s it. I’m not sure what people think. At first, we talked about you all the time, but now, I dunno. It’s just… weird. Like I said, it’s not the same without you, Dave.”

  I sighed. I knew this would be difficult.

  “I know,” I said. “Been a bit weird for me too.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Another uncomfortable silence. Far too many of them for my liking.

  “Guess what, Dave!” he suddenly burst, trying to sound like we were having a normal conversation. “James is getting married.”

  “What? To Emma?”

  “Yeah, course to Emma. He’s very keen on having kids apparently, though he never mentioned that to us before, did he? They’ve booked some country estate up north for the party. She’s from up there, so I guess it makes sense. Tony’s his best man. He’s already planning the stag. We’re going to Prague, apparently. In spring. Next year. And you remember Ed Morden, don’t you? That guy from the accounts department. Well he—”

  “Martin.” I had to interrupt him. “Sorry, mate, I have to go.”

  “What? Already?”

  “Yeah. Look, it was just a quick call. I’m glad you’re all good. I just wanted to say…”

  Now that I was talking to him, I didn’t know, really. What did I want to say?

  “What, Davey?”

  “Well, goodbye, really.”

  “Goodbye?”

  “Yeah. That’s it. Cheers, mate. You were a good mate to me, yeah. Thanks for everything.”

  “But—”

  *****

  I put the phone down on him. Only then did I notice my hand was shaking. It actually felt like somebody had died. And, strangely, that person was me.

  The phone shortly rang again, as I knew it would. I turned i
t off and stuffed it back into the drawer.

  So, call to Martin made, plan thought through, beer finished, Doritos munched, worries worried, there was nothing to stop me now. Now was the time.

  I stood up, picked up my bag and strode to the door.

  Chapter 25

  Bag slung over my shoulder, I crept out into the corridor. There was no one about, just as I knew there wouldn’t be.

  This was it.

  I strolled down towards the grimy metal door at the end, staring at the big “No Entry – Extremely Dangerous Toxic Substances” sign like it was some kind of challenge to my manhood. If I could open that door, get in there and pull off what I had in mind, there’d be nothing to hold me back. Not ever again. From this moment forward, I’d be a free man. And I’d do it properly this time. Life, I mean. I’d do what I wanted and take no shit from anyone. Well, actually, if all went as planned, the world would think me dead. But who cared? The new me would live like a legend.

  I ignored all thoughts of what would happen if my plan failed. Hard to imagine any get-out-of-jail-free cards this time. But sod it. Even if things did go wrong, I’d have tried. I was facing life in that bloody basement, ruled over by Daryl and Frank. This was the only way of guaranteeing that didn’t happen. What did I have to lose, really?

  Turning the cold metal handle, I pushed the door inwards. It moved easily, opening with barely a creak, but then the loudness of the humming increased three- or four-fold, hitting my ears and buzzing all up the soles of my feet. It reminded me of the demonstration Byron had given, that wisp of metal withstanding the crushing tonnage of a bus. No more material for you, Byron. Sorry. But I’m sure you can find a nice well-paid job somewhere else. And you’ve got that girlfriend of yours. No sympathy from me.

  I stepped inside.

  The room was oily-smelling, grimy, windowless, large and sparse. The tank shook away like a washing machine on full spin, a white and green silver sphere positioned roughly in the centre. Maybe the size of a large washing machine too. Some kind of a man-sized generator with blinking lights positioned against a wall was connected to the tank by several fat wires. That must have been making the tank shake. They were mixing the wee inside, shaking it up like a cocktail. Maybe to keep it from concentrating and burning out? Strange idea, but nothing seemed really strange to me anymore.