“So you can do things that men can do,” I whispered.
“You’d better believe it,” he winked. “When we get to the reception, I’ll even drink a beer. Without retching.” He nodded suavely, before amending: “Well...much.”
“A whole beer?” I verified, raising a sceptical eyebrow. He shrugged.
“At least a mouthful.” I returned the shrug, raising my eyebrows and nodding enthusiastically.
“Okay. I’m impressed. Well done. Clearly you need to get on me. Like...now.” I informed him, managing to succeed in holding a completely straight face throughout.
“Just like our first time all over again.” he shook his head. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yeah? You wish I was that easy.” He moved even closer, as if to tell me something particularly private: stepping into my space until my lips were flush with the clean black shoulder of his tuxedo jacket.
“Yes, dear?” I whispered, still chuckling quietly.
“I just realised: knowing that you’ve basically been getting off on my social anxiety makes you even sexier to me. Is that messed up?”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “My kind of messed up, anyway. I hope you’ve got something about it in your vows?”
“Uh...I’ll put it...before the bit about how working out a safe-word earlier rather than later brought us closer together, but after the bit about your insistence that all dirty talk conform to AP-style.”
“What can I say? It’s important to have standards.” I paused, realising that the Celebrant – just close enough to faintly overhear us – was looking slightly uncomfortable. “I think we’re making him anxious, now.” I whispered.
“Hot.” Naithe murmured, unable to keep himself from cracking a broad grin. He reached for my hip, sliding his hand quickly down to covertly pinch my thigh through the layered material of the wedding dress, making me squeak and jump slightly. “Hey. Kay. I love you.” He whispered.
“Really should have worn the dress.” I mocked, clicking my tongue faux-judgmentally. “You girl.” Stepping back, he rolled his eyes. “I love you too.” I – feigning reluctance –mouthed.
And so I did.
I also really...really loved to needle him. I had from the very start. It seems strange that of all the things worth holding onto about our time together, that’s what I remembered the most vividly: how much I loved pushing him and provoking him. Playfully, of course. Affectionately. It was all about that little scowl that washed across his face in the moment before he remembered not to take things too seriously. He had this very precise breaking point, when his neuroses would give way to amusement...like he was futilely trying to be offended by a joke made at his expense – as, of course, he often was – but that he couldn’t help but find incredibly funny. I think I loved him a little bit more every time I noticed it.
We tried to calm down, but our initial, internal struggles had given way to nervous excitement. No longer weighed down by ourselves, we reverted to type. And both of us, unfortunately, shared the habit of behaving like teenagers whenever it wasn’t appropriate.
So, predictably, the rest of the ceremony was mostly spent ‘playing grab-ass’, as Naithe’s dad might have put it. We couldn’t stop whispering to each other, or giggling stupidly while the Celebrant talked about the solemnity of the occasion; making faces at one another as we recited our vows, and trying to slip one another up. It was ridiculous. It was juvenile. For people who weren’t us, it probably would have been more embarrassing, rather than less. But that was the point, y’know? That was us: not a whole hell of a lot like the people who we weren’t. We were one another’s best and, really, only allies worth a damn against the people who expected us to be different than we were, and the people who – without one another – we might have eventually become. That was why we were doing what we were doing.
I loved it. I loved him.
IV – Xibalba
~ Dio ~
23/11/2023
“Palatine Hill is, simply put, a stationary headquarters for The Organisation as a whole.” Wright explained. “We maintain a number of similar installations...each division, naturally, requiring a centralised command of some description, with a suitable, physical location purposed to the particulars of that command’s structure. Palatine Hill, however, is the prototype – the blueprint if you will – for the majority of our ‘peak’ Divisional hubs. It remains the largest, most sophisticated, and most significant facility under our jurisdiction.” At this point, Wright handed Yvonne and Dio thin manila folders with logos comprised of seven crimson, variably sized dots set against an embossed, slanted, black matte oval. “Please. Acquaint yourselves.”
“Does this mean a nicer bunker?” Dio looked up, smiling a jovial little smile. Wright laughed.
“You are, of course, now on the path to becoming part of a highly regarded elite. As we speak, accommodations befitting your newly verified status are being prepared. I have no doubt whatsoever that you’ll both be pleasantly surprised by the calibre of the resources we are, now, able to provide for you.” Dio smiled in Yvonne’s direction, finding her with her left eyebrow arched and her mouth curled down at one edge in a grimace of confusion.
“There’s not really anything here,” She commented as she flipped through the file: seemingly unimpressed by the diagrams and flowcharts; the brief descriptions and carefully worded summaries.
“It is rather minimalist, I agree.” Wright nodded. “Until you are appropriately vetted, of course, your access to information will remain on this level. Let me assist you, Yvonne: we’ll see if, together, we can’t glean a few scraps of worthwhile Intelligence.” He held out his hand for the file. Yvonne handed it to him courteously.
Wright, sitting down with Dio and Yvonne, began to go through the identical skeletal outlines of The Organisation’s structure contained within each of the folders. As he did so, he liberally sprinkled in bits and pieces of extra information, to round out – presumably – Dio and Yvonne’s understanding. Dio couldn’t help but notice the way that Smoke – every time Wright made an addition or amendment – shot poisonous little glances at the three of them. The look in her eyes reminded him of a couple of officers he’d served under; anal-retentive about rules and organisation, and, at their fundamental cores, committed to the maintenance of a formalised and militarised buffer-zone of professional distance between themselves and their subordinates. The comparison, superficially at least, seemed to ring true.
Dio tried to concentrate on what Wright was saying:
The Organisation’s various divisions, apparently, were named for the seven hills on which the city of Rome was constructed. Dio and Yvonne had been employed by – or, more accurately, had been offered asylum through – the Esquiline Division.
This much they already knew.
Essentially, Wright outlined, The Divisions fell into two basic groups. The Capitoline, Aventine, and Palatine Divisions belonged to the upper, more prestigious tier. The Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline Divisions comprised the entirety of the lower, supporting tier. According to Wright, these two broader groups were meaningfully – and deliberately – separated from one another by unassailable shunts of rumour, intrigue and bureaucracy.
The sole exception to this rule lay in the heart of The Organisation. The so-called Caelian Directorate was the administrative and bureaucratic superstructure of The Organisation. The Caelians carefully collected, vetted, repackaged, and disseminated information. Beyond that, they operated as a kind of internal oversight body. At the junction of those two roles, they controlled – tightly; and with machine-like focus and resolve – the entirety of the small amount of information that was pushed back and forward between the Divisions, and between their respective tiers. Upwards, too, potentially: towards a mysterious ‘peak’ Division that Wright, on several occasions, seemed to Dio to be alluding to the existence of.
Wright took the position that the fundamental separation of the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ tiers was simply a matter
of best practice. ‘Controlled information’ – a suggestive term that Wright made no effort to further define – was deliberately split across the seven branches of The Organisation. Split, that is, in such a way that full comprehension required resources from across a number of divisions for any given project. This was to ensure that such ‘controlled information’ was able to be worked on in its component parts by the various subsets of The Organisation without the possibility of multiple elements ‘converging’. Unless, of course, such a ‘convergence’ was the result of a decision made by ‘The Seven’. Dio assumed that ‘The Seven’ couldn’t be anyone or anything other than a sort of a ‘Council’ of the Hills’ leadership.
“It’s what we call a ‘Divisional Structure’.” Wright summarised. “Each section is essentially autonomous. Better for productivity. Better for morale. Better for security.” Dio and Yvonne both recognised the basic idea behind the internal compartmentalisation.
In Israel – particularly since the Damascus Incidents of twenty-nineteen and twenty-twenty – the threat of intelligence leaks, as well as those of double agents and fifth columnists, were handled in much the same way. By ensuring that all information needed to be ‘assembled’ from multiple sources in order to be meaningful, the chances of an operation being compromised were made exponentially more outlying. By minimising the access of individuals in one area to the data of another, would-be traitors – both those with bleeding hearts and those with greedy pockets – were kept isolated from sources of temptation.
The true beauty of such a system was its’ intrinsically heuristic core. In both Israel and The Organisation – Dio had to assume this was true in the case of the latter, but it seemed like a safe bet – things like loyalty and honesty may have been theoretically desirable, and rhetorically significant...but were, actually, completely unimportant. Even – a cynical person might have concluded – unhelpful. Counterproductive. Dio was well aware that, when it came to systems such as these, the strength was in the stress-test.
In his specific case, for example, Dio’s treason may have been enough to write his death sentence...but it had also exposed a flaw in the system which, ultimately, might have led to a much greater loss of life at a much more problematic moment in time. His ‘treason’ had highlighted the flaw, and, no doubt, ensured that it would be eliminated. In a more honest world...a better world...he might have been praised – rewarded, even – for his transgression. After all...in the long term, he had been both morally upright and inherently patriotic: he had protected innocent lives, and aided the Israeli military in their quest to galvanise themselves against systemic weakness.
It was an idiotic argument and he knew it. Still...that didn’t necessarily make any particular part of it wrong.
The more salient observation, though, was how frightening a truth it was for the individual to encounter: that even the truest blow to the most vulnerable and unprotected flank of such a gestalt monolith was worse than worthless. Anything less than the total, root-and-stem annihilation of the structure in its entirety would drive its evolution beyond the reach of any such subsequent attack.
Obviously, though...a Human structure could never completely overcome the core, Human fallibilities of those who originally designed – and continued to maintain and operate – it. There would always be points of ingress. There would always be systemic liabilities, vulnerabilities, and weaknesses to exploit. At least, that was Dio’s evaluation.
Wright quickly ran over staffing and recruitment, which, again, conformed to a starkly hierarchal and compartmentalised outline.
At the base were ‘recruits’. The single word – ‘recruits’ – rolled off of Wright’s tongue like a particle of day-old-food, hitherto wedged in a crevice between two teeth: he spat it out bleakly, and with a kind of self-conscious revulsion.
Above the recruits, were several tiers of ‘command’ – roughly parallel in each of the Divisions – where internal stratification was obfuscated based on clearance. For example: the lowest tier of the command hierarchy knew their superiors only as an aggregate mass sitting between themselves and ‘The Seven’. For the various tiers above that, the relationship between all subordinate tiers was clarified, but the relative authority of all superiors, again, was aggregate. Dio realised that this was the core, fundamental purpose of the aliases: they were titles. Titles that obfuscated rank.
Wright continued:
While most ‘recruits’ were immediately and specifically assigned to certain Divisions and roles according to their specialisations and experience, a thin band of ‘intakes’, as Wright referred to them, were – like Dio and Yvonne, themselves – initially sequestered in ‘peripheral facilities’, like the bunker they’d shared. Wright – somewhat apologetically – explained that this had to do with ‘screening’. Dio had no doubt that, in the year that they’d been together in that bunker, The Organisation could have, had they the desire to, exhaustively mapped both he and Yvonne’s near-complete psychological profiles. Which was, apparently, precisely the point. Looking back, the logic was as incredible in its simplicity as it was sophisticated in its execution. He’d never really considered it before, but...the range of behaviours two individuals might exhibit; the array of insights that might be gleaned from observing those individuals throughout a year of boredom, and the freedom to structure one’s own responses to it? He shivered.
“Officer training?” Yvonne guessed. Dio’s brow furrowed. He didn’t see the line of connectivity between the ‘intakes’ and what she was suggesting. He’d assumed it had to do with quarantining and evaluating fugitives.
“Very astute, Yvonne.” Wright smiled. “The more comprehensive and involved the vetting procedures, the more comprehensive and involved the roles earmarked for the candidates in question. Of course, the formal intake, which you will soon undergo, will form our basis for determining your exact assignments. You would not, however, be in the positions that you are in, if you had not already been selected as ideal candidates for roles in The Organisation’s command. Operative Smoke has, of course, already made certain...recommendations.”
“Has she?” Yvonne’s words formed a question, but her facial expression...her tone...conveyed a deadpanned, resigned: ‘of course she has’. Yvonne glanced back at Smoke, who was staring directly ahead, seemingly, now, disconnected entirely from the situation. She returned Yvonne’s glance; startling Dio as her perfect, statue-stillness was eerily subverted by the movement of, literally, not a single muscle in her body other than those it took to redirect her eyes.
“She has.” Smoke confirmed.
“Tactical support.” Wright recalled. “Correct?”
“Correct.” Smoke, again, confirmed. Wright sighed.
“Ignore her. She’s in a mood.” The words positively dripped with sarcasm.
“Suits me.” Yvonne shrugged, breaking a strange, lingering stare-off with Smoke; turning back to Wright.
“Are we going to be working on the same project?” Dio asked, suddenly curious. “In a different capacity?” Wright’s brow furrowed.
“Refresh me, if you’d be so good?”
Dio briefly ran over the basic details of their work – the surveillance and record-keeping – and outlined the small amount he and Yvonne had known about the project as a larger whole: that at some indeterminate point in the future, a list of ‘identified targets’ – over the course of precisely eight hours – would need to be located and detained. Dio had assumed it was training; to test their skills and instincts. Yvonne hadn’t been so sure. Dio felt it best to leave this final detail – regarding their speculations – out of what he told Wright.
“Oh, no...” Wright shook his head emphatically. “Palatine does have some stake in that particular project, but that’s...” he laughed: “No. Never fear: we have much loftier plans for two individuals of your calibre than that.” Smoke coughed. “Problem...operative Smoke?” Wright enquired. Smoke shook her head.
“Nope.” The blonde replied icily. Clear
ly there was. Dio wondered what it could have been? From the smirk he noticed on Yvonne’s face – dimpling her cheeks ever so slightly – he suspected that she had a theory or two.
“This is where I leave you, for the time being.” Wright said, getting to his feet. “Yvonne? Dio?” He warmly shook both of their hands, clasping a second hand over each of theirs as he did so. “The Esquiline Division has been lucky to have you. Palatine will, I suspect, be even luckier. And...just to assuage your concerns in terms of any uncertainties or misgivings that may be troubling you...the commander of Palatine Hill is not particularly besotted with...‘micro-management’.”
“Too busy peeling the wings off of flies and torturing house-pets, probably...” Smoke quipped darkly, getting to her feet. Wright shot her a look which said, opaquely: ‘tread...carefully’. She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. He continued:
“As such, I will continue to liaise with you directly on behalf of The Seven throughout your intake and, in all probability, throughout any subsequent training or participation in any...‘professional development’ activities that are likely to be required of you. Operative Smoke...if you’d be so good...” He sighed, holding a hand out in the general direction of the bunker’s entrance. Or, in this case, its exit.
“Yeah. Whatever.”
“I will, of course, see you both on the other side.”
§§§
Leaving the bunker, Smoke, Yvonne, and Dio – in that order – had emerged into the near-freezing November night. Smoke had hurriedly bundled them into a waiting, window-tinted town-car, which proceeded to speed towards the heart of Pueblo. While not as long as a stretch-limousine, the town-car had been converted to hold two sets of seats – facing one another – in its’ back section, with a blacked-out privacy screen dividing this section from the driver’s compartment. Smoke sat in the back – across from Dio and Yvonne – avoiding eye contact. She focussed her attention out the window: slumped forward; arms folded over and resting on her knees.
Abyss (Songs of Megiddo) Page 5