“You’re right. What could possibly be important about Dio?”
“Like I said...I don’t know.” Smoke’s eyes narrowed: “But...actually...I really fucking should. It’s definitely within the scope of my need-to-know. Unless it’s related to one of ‘The Seven’...or to Galt, himself...” Smoke trailed off, a species of mildly irritated concern creeping over her features. She shook it off: “But even so, Dio’s not remotely my biggest concern, here.”
“What’s your biggest concern?” Smoke rolled her eyes, before quietly admitting:
“You are.” Yvonne stifled a snort.
“Yeah, okay. You barely know me.”
“Sure. Yeah. But I know I don’t want to live in a world that doesn’t have you in it. Y’know?” Smoke turned leaning slightly toward Yvonne, who mirrored the gesture. Their noses were almost touching.
“A week ago – ”
“ – Fuck...‘a week ago’, Yvonne. I need you to believe me when I say this: if you come down on the wrong side, here, they will fucking...kill...you. Do you get that?” Yvonne nodded slowly, her nose and Smoke’s bumping together at the tips. Their eyes meeting, Yvonne found herself staring into a smouldering blur of steel-blue-ice, maybe ten centimetres – if that – away from her.
“Yes. I get that.” She almost whispered the words.
“So...getting that – and believe me, putting this on you is something that I sincerely wish that I could avoid – I need you to make a decision.” Smoke told her.
“What decision?”
“Are you in? Or are you out? This thing is gonna happen, either way. There’s no getting around that. And I’m not like your BFF: I don’t do blind loyalty. I do respect. I do strength. I do the right thing by the people I think deserve to be done right by, and, currently? That list is pretty much you.”
“I thought...”
“I know. I’m meant to be important; a ‘player’. But it’s amazing how...no matter how high you rise, you’re still the same base-level intake to someone. Nothing ever feels different: the only thing that changes is the size of the crowd beneath you. The ones below you still think you know everything, when, really...the more you know, the less you fucking know. It’s cliques within cliques within cliques. That’s how they keep it all ticking away like clockwork: they make a shift to the side look like a shift upwards, but all you ever find are more questions; more fucking bullshit to work around. But I know what I know. I know – now at least – that Galt tells Wright more than he tells me, even though I’m meant to be Galt’s personal fucking enforcer. He’s probably even met him. I get instructions through...” She rolled her eyes, clearly unable to find a simple way to explain the system: “Never mind. It doesn’t even matter, in the end. None of it does, because I know that Wright is one of them in a way I’ll never be. I’m just...one of the ‘lab-rats’, when all is said and done.” Yvonne reached up to touch Smoke’s cheek. Smoke shook her head, clasping her hand...the look in her eyes saying: ‘have you made a decision?’.
“So what if I want in?” Yvonne murmured.
“Then I’ve got your back. All the way.” Smoke replied without hesitation.
“And what if I want out?” Smoke smiled sadly.
“Then we’re out. You and me: all the fucking way.”
“Do I have some time?” Smoke shook her head.
“Not really. Everything happens tomorrow, apparently. If we’re leaving, we’ll want to be off and fucking running before things really kick into gear. But I can give you until whatever’s happening starts. I’m guessing it’ll be obvious. Down here in Palatine, at least. Dunno what it’ll look like, topside. But just remember: we don’t know when. We don’t know what. So don’t wait too long. The sooner, the fucking better.”
“Smoke and Eve.” Yvonne nodded. “Either way?”
“Either way. Smoke and Eve. Or...” Smoke hesitated: casting a small, uncharacteristically shy smile in Yvonne’s direction “Yvonne and Aviary.” Yvonne nodded; leaning into Smoke and softly kissing the shyness out of the smile that had invaded and re-shaped her lips.
“Aviary.” Yvonne pulled back from the kiss...testing the newfound word; sounding it out...feeling it roll over her tongue. Her eyes fixed on the woman to whom the name belonged; the woman who she appeared to be – rapidly: frighteningly rapidly – falling for, and she decided that the name was beautiful, and that it suited Smoke perfectly.
She decided that she liked it very much.
She decided that, perhaps, she even loved it.
She decided, finally, that she’d wait until morning...but, whatever she chose when morning came...the real decision – the important decision – had already been made.
“ Yvonne and Aviary,” She repeated back. “‘All the fucking way’.”
Act 3
The Collapse
§
Shadows fall, grey-black
On silken skin. Thunder rolls;
Time moves on her prey.
XV – Breach
~ Kayla ~
01/12/2023
“You haven’t said a word all morning,” Naithe observed, obviously concerned.
“Don’t really have much to say.” I mumbled. I hadn’t slept.
“Or else, you have too much to say.”
“Stop knowing me. I hate that.”
“You love that.”
“I do love that.” I admitted. My voice cracked a little.
“Hey, hey...” He sat down next to me, wrapping me up in his arms. “What is it?”
“Fuck, Naithe...” I whispered. I had tears in my eyes and vodka on my breath. There was no point hiding it. “Ambrose made contact last night. Ambrose Portokolos.” He raised his eyebrows.
“Where was he? Was he okay?” I fought back an angry, bitter laugh.
Was he okay? Yeah. Yeah, he was peachy fucking keen.
“I’m more worried about us, honestly.”
“You and me?” I shook my head.
“All of us. Stars and stripes...blues, reds, and whites. Anyone poor, or tired, or huddled...” I stumbled to my feet, eyeing the mostly empty bottle of vodka still on the kitchenette counter. “If you happen to know any masses, I’m quite worried about them, too.” I got as far as the door-free doorframe before Naithe grabbed me around the midsection, pulling me close. I wriggled free, snatching up the bottle and necking a couple of painful mouthfuls before Naithe grabbed the bottle away from me.
“What the fuck, Kayla?” He wasn’t angry, but he was definitely demanding an explanation. He had every right to one. Unfortunately for him – or so I suspected – the only one I had was a far cry from comprehensive or ideal.
“Ambrose wasn’t kidnapped.” I shrugged...a hopeless, horrified little smile on my face. “None of them were.”
“Where are they, then?”
“Fuck knows.” I burped, surprising myself. “Sorry. I’m really drunk.”
“I can tell.” He deadpanned.
“Look. I don’t know where he was when we talked. Wherever he was, he’s probably still there.”
“Shouldn’t you...call someone? The police? The FBI?”
“I don’t know. I have no clue what to do. Something’s coming, Naithe. It’s coming now.”
“What do you mean?” He sat back a little, looking at me, deadly serious.
“He said...I mean...he implied that...fuck...” I was choking on my own breath, now. “An attack, or something like an attack? It’s going to be big. Huge. And it’s too late to stop it: it’s already happening.”
“If it hasn’t happened yet then it can’t be ‘too late’...” he reasoned. “Let’s get someone on the phone. They’ll understand. They’ll be able to do something.” I sniffled pathetically.
“If you’d heard him, Naithe: that voice...” I breathed deeply, composing myself. “His fucking voice. He was too rational. Too certain that nothing could be done. And they’re all in on it. All of The Disappeared. Every...single...one. What do you imagine anyone could do to st
op something that that group of people got together to make happen? Ambrose is just some guy, but the rest of them? Powerful people. Brilliant people. Some of the cleverest people on the fucking planet are on that goddamn list. What the fuck are they even thinking?”
“Maybe he was trying to confess; to stop it...”
“No.” I said. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind about what I was saying. “If you’d heard his voice, Naithe, you’d know. You have to trust me on that.” And he did. I wouldn’t have. But he did. Not that it made a difference, in the end.
“Why, then?”
“He was...he was trying to give me a way to get away from it. Just me.” I looked deep into his eyes. “Just...me. No telling; no bringing anyone along; no nothing. ‘Safe passage’, he called it. Good for one, and one only.”
“Why would he do that?” Naithe’s brow furrowed. With anyone else – if they believed me, which was a huge ‘if’ – there would have been some kind of suspicion. I knew that. If I’d been in Naithe’s position, I would have been suspicious of me. I would have thought that maybe I’d been in contact with him before. That maybe I’d hidden something, or led Ambrose on, somehow. But Naithe knew me better than that.
“It’s because I didn’t tell his story.” I admitted. “All those articles...there were things I talked around. I didn’t tell the world what his family did to him.” I shook my head. “I think he found me...relatable somehow.” I chose to leave out the other issue: that I had related to him.
“What do you mean? I thought...” he paused, choosing his words carefully. I placed my hand on top of his, rubbing it reassuringly.
“I didn’t lie.” I met his eyes, making sure he could see the truth, there. “My parents did die in a car crash. There was just a little more to it than I wanted to go into. It’s been driving me crazy for the last week or so.”
“Do you need to...want to, I mean...”
“Yes. But not now. We need to focus on them. Whatever they’re doing, it’s happening soon, and it’s going to affect the whole of North America.”
“That’s impossible, Kay...you know it’s impossible.”
“If you’d heard his voice...”
“Let’s think it through, sweetheart...”
“I don’t know if there’s anything to think through. What I do know is that we’re going to need to run. Or, more accurately, fly. And we’re going to have to do that before it starts, or we’ll have about as much chance of getting on a plane as an Arab guy called ‘Bin Laden’ on Christmas Eve, twenty-oh-one.” Naithe’s face was blank.
“What happened in twenty-oh-one?” Naithe asked. I raised an eyebrow, my lips involuntarily forming around the words ‘for-fucks-sake-Naithe’. A stupid smile spread across his face. “Kidding?”
“Seriously?” I deadpanned. “Given the situation, that’s really fucked up.”
“Oh come on.” He rolled his eyes. I reached out, taking his face in my hands and looking him straight in the eyes:
“Fine, sweetie. It was fucking...hilarious. Can we make a plan now, please?”
“Kayla, do you really – ” Naithe was interrupted by the buzzing of my mobile phone. We both stared at it. “Ignore it.” He said: a pleading undertone to his voice.
“Baby,” my right eyebrow dipped, forming an empathetic – if drunkenly exaggerated – little valley. “Ignoring it won’t make it go away. This is happening.” Naithe nodded mutely. I picked up the phone, my eyes not leaving his. My throat was dry.
“Yes? Darren, hi. Okay...slow down. Darren, slow down. Darren...what do you mean: ‘a hole’? Yeah, right. No. We’ll see. Well, I’ll find out if that’s even true first, and then...yeah. If it’s true. Yeah. Yes, I am fucking...drunk: It’s my fucking honeymoon. No, it’s fine; sorry for being a bitch about it. Yeah, right. Okay, I’ll let you know.”
“What was it?” Naithe asked as I hung up.
“It was Darren. My Editor.”
“Yeah. I got that.” He acknowledged, motioning for me to continue.
“He says something’s happened in Pueblo. That there’s a hole.”
“What kind of hole?” The space between Naithe’s eyebrows squeezed into a tight little ridge under his deeply furrowed brow.
“Like a sink-hole. It’s getting bigger, though: he said that, from what he’s heard, it’s expanding. That something’s eating into the ground under Pueblo, and it’s speeding up.”
XVI – Smoke and Mirrors
~ Dio ~
01/12/2023
“That’s not what I asked.” Yvonne shook her head with a vague, disaffected species of resignation. “I asked if you’d killed.”
“And I said ‘yes’.” Dio repeated back mechanically.
“You really don’t get the difference, do you? Between being responsible for a death and taking a life? No two things could be more different.”
“Wright said...” Dio paused. He’d forgotten the precise shape and contours of the argument that, last night, had been so very convincing. He still felt it though; the rough shove of conviction that the argument had instilled in him. If he didn’t know better, he would of suspected Wright of having some sort of power to manipulate minds; to bend the will; to augment emotion. Yvonne shook her head. She reached out, stroking his cheek with the tips of her fingers. She’d never been so familiar with him; so intimate.
“You’re not talking about people dying, here. You’re talking about making people die. Not because you’ve been ordered to, or because it was an ethical collateral, but because you chose to participate. How can you even think it, when we both know that you’ve never taken a single life?”
“And you?” Dio snapped. “What do you know about it? Have you taken a life?” It was a stupid question, and he knew it. What’s more, he already knew the answer; in an abstract way, at least. He felt guilt surging up in his throat like bile as he registered the hurt in Yvonne’s eyes. He realised...too late...that he’d just shattered the covenant between them. In that moment, he hated himself beyond his ability to fathom that hate. His best friend... his only family: a woman that he loved with all his heart. And there he was...stupidly, selfishly tearing open the one door inside of her that she couldn’t bear to see reopened.
“You know I have, Dio. You know. But I doubt you’ve ever really imagined the extent of it. Have I taken a life? I’ve taken a hundred. More.” Yvonne admitted sadly. The tears in her eyes were like knives in his gut. “The Damascus Incidents, back in twenty-nineteen and twenty-twenty? Those were dark days. A lot of us did a lot of things that we wish we could go back and change.”
“But you did it for the good of others, right?” He was ashamed to hear something of a desperate edge to his voice. He wanted the answer to be ‘yes’ more than he necessarily believed that it would be. And, he knew, it wasn’t just because he didn’t want to know that about her; that he didn’t want the way he saw her to change: It was also that, in some strange, twisted way, he felt like it would justify his position. The position that, sometimes...death was necessary to the creation of a better world. A small voice, deep in the back of his mind, laughed a bitter laugh...as if to say: ‘Who are you, Dio?’
In response, Yvonne gave him a look. That look. The look he’d seen a thousand times on the faces of innumerable Israeli girls back home. The one he received from them when he tried to argue about military brutality and excess. The one that said: ‘You think you know? You don’t know. You’re a man. The worst our enemies can do to you is kill you.’
“We’re nothing alike, Dio. This is not a road you want to go down.”
“It’s not your decision,” he shrugged. “Wright said that – ”
“ – Fuck...Wright.” Yvonne snarled. “What has he done to you? Why are you acting like this?”
“He’s opened my eyes,” Dio insisted.
“It feels like that, in the beginning,” Yvonne acknowledged. “But by the time you realise what a lie it is, you’ll have gone too far. You’ll be like me. And there’s no coming
back from that.”
“Would it be such a bad thing? To have your closest friend see you more clearly?”
“You don’t want to be like me.” She said flatly. “You’re better than that.”
“I don’t accept that,” Dio muttered, as if that were the end of it.
“You can ‘not accept it’ all you like, Dio; but I have reasons – good reasons – for feeling that way. What do you think people like me did after Hezbollah started killing settlers? Do you think we went and politely asked them if they’d stop? No. Sarin, Dio. Sarin. VX. Have you ever seen what nerve gas does to a person?”
“No...” Dio admitted.
“We killed them. We killed every one of them that we could find, and we were glad to be doing so. If you’d been there, you’d have done the same. If you’d been there, you’d have felt the same, too. The rage; the hate: those animals were using that stolen, Syrian nerve gas to fight their war on our country through innocent farmers and traders; through defenceless women and children. And so we killed them...and it felt like justice. And if we had to do it while they slept in their beds? Then so we did...even if families were caught in the crossfire. We wrote them a message; wrote it in blood and death, and we kept writing until they stopped. We played their game and won; we made them stop. But we didn’t stop. We couldn’t: there were others. Others and worse. And so we went after them, too. We went after the Syrians who started it all; we stalked them in the daylight and hunted them at night. Fatah...Hamas...their weak little friends, huddled in Gaza, East Jerusalem, and Hebron; if they weren’t respecting the armistice – respecting it heart and soul – they died. And that was right. We did...the right...thing. I never doubted it. It was meant to be the end of it; we all believed that, at the time...that it would end. When we saw squads and regiments of recruits and reserves, they’d be singing, and celebrating. We all believed that this was the last time. That we would finally unburden Israel of prejudice and hate, pushing in from without. But by the time we realised that it was just another mission; just another failure...we’d gone too far. Far too far, Dio. It was all just...too wrong.”
Abyss (Songs of Megiddo) Page 20