Triptych

by J. M. Frey

  Gwen nods, and clicks off. Then she goes up into her bedroom and comes back downstairs with a pistol strapped to her thigh. Kalp feels his tongue go dry.

  Kalp has never seen Gwen carrying a weapon before and it frightens him. He tries to kiss her, to gain reassurance that it is not he that she is arming herself against, but she refuses him. When they decide to share a pot of tea and watch the chickens, she sits with the gun on the far side of her body from him, where he could not possibly make a stealthy grab at it.

  This hurts more than anything else she has done.

  Gwen no longer trusts Kalp, not because of something that Kalp has done, but because someone else has told her not to.

  Basil does not come home that night. Kalp waits and waits for the phone to ring or for Gwen’s ear piece to click to life. He waits for someone to tell them that Basil is dead. No such call comes, but Kalp loses a whole night of sleep anticipating it nonetheless. By the time the sun rises, his eyes are heavy and his body feels slow and stupid from lack of rest.

  In the morning, Agent Aitken returns, relieves the night guard, and sits quietly on the sofa. Nobody plays video games.

  Gwen goes to work early and Kalp sits in his room and reads the letter over and over again, trying to screw up the courage to sneak out of the house and flee. He turns the lump of metal and wiring over and over between his fingers, as if he would learn the sender’s intent by osmosis. He does not know where the address leads, but maybe he can figure it out once he is away. They have cut internet access to the house, so there is no way he could use the online mapping function and search engines to decipher the intended meeting location. Worse, Kalp cannot even gain access to his email to ensure that Basil is well.

  It is a tedious, knife-edge afternoon. Every sigh, every squawk, every sound of something dropping or every puffing automobile bang outside makes Kalp’s ears shoot up and his lips curl off his teeth. His anxiety is making Aitken more and more nervous, and her nerves are jangling across his. The chickens’ pecking no longer feels like hail, but bullets across his face. He wishes they would just stop moving.

  When night falls, Gwen and Basil are still not home. They do not answer his phone calls to the office, and the night security guard refuses to try to gain contact for him. Kalp scrolls through the television news channels obsessively, trying to find any indication if there has been another shooting, or where the object he was sent is from. As far as he is able to ascertain, there has not been a shooting or an explosion, but would it be broadcast now? There seem to be so many secrets, so much dishonesty. The Institute has probably dropped a blanket of silence over everything.

  He wishes he could just ask and get answers. But nobody will listen.

  The night passes and the day comes and still nobody will talk to him, and his Unit still does not come home, and a sense of foreboding builds in Kalp’s chest, hot and twisting and awful.

  Something terrible is coming and he must get out of its path.

  The letter has made its demands clear enough. If he wants to live, he must depart, but he fears the security guard will surely shoot him if he tries to go. Gwen and Basil will be angry if they return home and he is gone, but Kalp thinks maybe once he has fled, once he has found where he must go, he can call here, leave a message with the answering service or on the machine, tell them about the package. And they will be safe, that is the most important thing.

  They will all be safer if he goes.

  Maybe he can simply leave the letter and the object behind for them to find. There is not much information in it, and Kalp has already read it so many times that he has the threat memorized. He could tear away the bottom of the page, keep the address for himself.

  He loves his Aglunates.

  He will find a way to leave them word, and when the assassin is caught, they will reunite. He must go.

  Plan made, Kalp rips the bottom of the letter off and carefully places the slip of paper in his pocket. He lays the remainder of the letter out carefully on the dining room table, where it is sure to be seen immediately upon walking into the house, and puts the triangular metal lump on top of it to keep it weighted down.

  He wants them to know why he has fled. Perhaps then, when they have read it, when Basil has had the chance to decipher the meaning of the metal object — as Kalp has no doubt that Basil will — they will not come after him with guns, but protection.

  Kalp wonders if the rendezvous location will be a trap, but decides to worry about escape first, and then try to decide whether to meet his correspondent or not.

  The letter is vague — purposefully so, Kalp suspects, in case it is intercepted — and Kalp is still unsure about whether the writer really is foe, or if they are friend. Either way, he cannot stay in this house. He will be killed if he does, and worse still, like Barnowski and Lalonde and Ogilvy, Gwen or Basil may be killed along with him.

  Kalp takes two apples, and all of the cash currency in the house that he can find. He feels guilty for taking from Gwen’s purse without first asking permission, but Units share and he can pay her back once they are together again. Aitken is outside on the street, doing a sweep of the neighbouring houses and gardens, and Kalp knows he has about ten minutes before she returns, if no one else arrives here to draw her attention back to the house before that time is up.

  The fingers of his injured hand have not regained their full strength and mobility yet, but Kalp thinks that if he stands carefully on the chicken coop roof, he can boost himself over the garden wall and into the neighbour’s courtyard. From there he can scale the next garden wall, and then the next, slipping between rose bushes and barbeques and patio sets until he is at the end of the street.

  Kalp knows which way London is, and if he moves fast and stays low, he thinks he can follow the train tracks all the way there. Once in the bustling city, he could lose himself in a crowd and…

  Kalp has forgotten for a moment that he is not on his home planet, and this realization settles with a startling bump. He is in a place where he cannot get lost in the crowd. He stands head and shoulders above everyone else, his skin and fur too colourful to miss. They will be looking for him, too.

  No, no public places. Sewers, maybe? Or catacombs, until he can find a library with the internet freely accessible, somewhere he can sneak into after closing to determine where the address is leading him. Never mind that Kalp has no idea how to break into buildings. He is an engineer. He is pretty sure he can figure out how to use a crowbar. The vibrations of the electricity in the walls are tell-tale enough that he thinks that he may be able to hack the tiny computer lock pads with which some of the doors on Earth are equipped.

  He wraps his fingers around the latch of the patio door and depresses it quietly. The slow, sad roll of the door seems to scream along his skin. It seems abnormally, incomparably loud. Aitken surely must have heard it, must hear his pounding heart and nervous breaths, he is certain, for they are so loud in his own ears. He stands still, waits for the sound of heavy boot-tread footfalls, of shouted orders to “freeze!”, and marvels when they do not come.

  Softly he takes a step into the courtyard, toes splayed wide so the pads are near silent on the stones, arched to keep his nails from clicking. A wide step and he is on the grass. Its tickle gives him no pleasure right now.

  Another step and he is over at the wall, his hands raised and gripping the top when one of the chickens sticks a curious head out of the blue box. It cocks it first in one direction, then the other. Kalp goes still and watches the bird, hoping that it will love him enough to withdraw and let him go in peace.

  But no, he has trained his pets too well.

  The chicken sees Kalp and associates him with food. She waddles down her ramp, flaps around the corner and over to him and squawks loudly, demanding the seed she expects to be in his palms.

  “No, no,” Kalp hisses. He drops to his knees, tries to pinch the sharp orange beak shut with his fingers, and gets a particularly painful nip in response. He c
hokes off his own involuntary yelp and closes his fingers around the neck of the bird.

  It squawks again, this time a high and terrified sound.

  Kalp cannot bring himself to tighten his grip.

  There has been too much death in his life, and he does not wish to add this innocent animal to the list.

  Instead he shoves the chicken, protesting loudly, back into the coop and pulls the mesh wire door closed. He straightens up and that’s when he hears the click of Aitken’s pistol coming off of safety.

  “Back in the house, freak,” Aitken says.

  “Please,” he says, without turning around, eyes still on the chicken coop. “I was…” he hesitates, ears pulling flatter against the back of his neck. “Only…the chickens, you see, I was…”

  “You were on top of the coop. You were trying to go over the wall.”

  “I…” He cannot lie. He is so weary of lies. “Yes,” he says, then: “Please. I have to go.”

  “No,” says a voice, and it is not Aitken’s.

  When Kalp turns, it is Gwen who stands in the living room, between the mantelpiece and the large sofa, with her gun aimed at his head. Aitken is behind the dining room table, aiming across one upraised shoulder, keeping Gwen out of her line of sight. But Aitken’s eyes are on the metal lump on the table, and they are white around the edges.

  It takes a second to decipher the utter terror on Aitken’s face, but then Kalp realizes: Aitken has seen this object before.

  Kalp swings his gaze to Gwen, to see if she too knows it, if this is something of which the Institute is aware, but Gwen’s face is closed off. Kalp searches for the woman he loves in that face, the woman who held him and kissed him, who cleaned the sick off his fur and who let him be the father of her child, who opened her home and family to him. Who has lost so much.

  All he can find is the loss.

  Three others in black are standing behind her with their pistols raised as well. Gwen is in black, too. She has her hair pulled back, under a blank black ball cap, and she wears a tactical vest Kalp knows is lined with Kevlar. She looks alien, more unknowable and surreal than any human that Kalp has ever met, because this is the same body but not the same person inside of it. The world dips and swivels under his feet, and Kalp thinks it is because of the shock of seeing Gwen dressed thus, though it may also be from the lack of sleep and the hormones coursing through his blood to keep him alert in this time of danger.

  “Gwen, please,” Kalp says softly. “The letter…”

  Gwen’s eyes flick to the letter, sitting partially refolded on the table. Her hand never wavers. She scans it and frowns.

  “Who is E?”

  “I don’t know. It is a threat, Gwen.”

  “It’s correspondence! It’s orders,” Aitken shouts, and her lips are curled in a sneer that seems triumphant to Kalp. It is terrifying.

  “No,” Kalp says quickly. “I am not part of anything. This was just sent to me.”

  “Where are you supposed to meet?”

  “I don’t know — the address is strange.” He pulls it slowly out of his pocket and tosses it at Gwen’s feet. The paper flutters to the carpet like a wounded bird. She looks down, but the gun still doesn’t move.

  “That looks just like a safe house address,” Aitken says. “He’s not supposed to have access to anything.”

  “I do not!” Kalp insists.

  Aitken sneers. “Traitor.”

  “No!”

  “Shut up!” Gwen growls. “If it’s what you say, then why didn’t you tell me about this?”

  A hot surge of bitterness wells against the inside of his chest.

  “Why did you not tell me about Pias and Lalonde? Ogilvy and Vius?” Kalp counters, aware that anger will do nothing to help his situation now but unable to hold back the petty accusation. “You do not trust me anymore Gwen.”

  “No,” Gwen says, “That’s not true.”

  “You do not love me.”

  “That’s not true!”

  Gwen’s hands are shaking now, and her eyes are wet, and that heartbeat Kalp is so very fond of is racing so fast he fears for Gwen’s health. For a moment he worries for the baby, but then he remembers and his whole innards sink. No baby. And now, no Gwen.

  Gone.

  “Please,” Kalp pleads softly, hands held out, up, to prove they are empty. “Please believe me. It is not me. How could it be me?”

  From outside, Kalp hears a car arrive in the front drive and stop, the engine clicking to a cease. The car door opens and closes, a soft metallic whump, then there are thick-soled, booted feet coming up the driveway.

  Basil comes in the front door. Kalp can hear him, his well-loved heartbeat, the zinging zap of his keen mind. He too is dressed in black, and he is holding the locked black case in his hand. He stops just inside the door, gobsmacked. The BlackBerry that was tucked under his elbow is released in his shock, and it falls to the tiled entry floor, the back cover snapping off, the battery skittering away and into the kitchen.

  “Basil!” Kalp begs. “Please.”

  Basil looks surprised by all the guns. “What, Gwen? What’s going on, I thought you said — ”

  “I’ve done nothing!” Kalp says. “I swear to you. I love you, and I — ”

  “Don’t you lie to me!” Gwen shrieks and everyone around her blinks, but otherwise does not move. Kalp winces at the shrillness. “Is it you, Kalp? Are you killing these people? Are you doing it?”

  “No, no, I’ve said I swear. I just received the letter, it is not me.” He lifts his hands, reaches towards his lover’s face. “Gwen,” he says softly, pleading. “Gwen…” He takes a step forward, and then he hears the gunshot.

  It is flat and surprisingly loud in the small space.

  It sounds nothing at all like the gunshots in the films that Basil likes.

  He hears Basil scream, and Gwen scream, and then he is on the floor and he does not know how he got there. The back of his head hurts. His chest hurts more.

  This, Kalp thinks, this is unfair. Has he not suffered enough in this lifetime?

  Suddenly his whole torso burns, radiating heat and agony like a small star. When Kalp tries to take a breath, all he hears is a gurgling sound and he gets a mouthful of blood. Kalp guesses that no, apparently he has not suffered enough.

  But like his beautiful black chicken, someone has finally put him out of his misery.

  He feels Basil’s hand on his cheek and he turns his face into it.

  He doesn’t want to close his eyes, but there is blackness all the same.

  He reaches out for Gwen, and she is not there.

  PART III: AFTER

  Basil Percival Grey had been given two things by his father.

  The first was his admittedly horrendous name, which had earned him more than his fair share of scorn in the school playground and the rough teasing of his two older sisters. The name had made Basil defiant from the beginning. It had made him snappish and standoffish in school. Combined with his higher-than-average intelligence and his smug acknowledgement of his superiority to his classmates, Basil had grown up into a right proper snot.

  The second thing that Basil’s father had given him was imagination. When it seemed that Basil’s loud self-importance and brash isolationist tendencies might nurture him into a serial killer or vicious bully, Richard Grey had taken his son aside and handed him H.G. Wells’ The War of The Worlds. Basil was stunned and shamed and torn.

  Stunned that such intellectual and scientific literature existed, full of stories about people like Basil — smart and keen on science and useful in the saving of worlds. Shamed, because Basil knew that if life out there did exist, then perhaps his own petty behaviour would not be very impressive to any docile or benign visitors that arrived and interacted with him (as they inevitably would, Basil being the pinnacle of intelligence on Earth in these limited childhood fantasies). Torn, because he wanted to be someone worth meeting, but was unsure where the first step on that journey
should fall.

  Humbled, Basil quickly moved on to Asimov and Shelley. He returned to the comics magazines that he’d scorned in school, and found that they had matured with him and now portrayed at least a lingering pseudo science. Suddenly the petty territorial squabbles of the playground seemed so inconsequential. So…childish.

  Basil and Richard spent long afternoons repairing hobby radios and telling each other stories of the sorts of wonders the future would hold: the technology, the people, the exotic places they would visit on Venus and the moon. Basil quickly found his penchant for verboseness, and the cares of the persecuted schoolyard victim fell by the wayside. All that mattered were the stories, heard, read or told, and afternoons working on the radios with his father.

  Not long after that, Richard Grey died in a tunnel accident that could have been prevented had there been an advanced enough communications system in his mine. Basil turned that vast and fantastic imagination onto science. The hobby of tinkering with radios became an all-out obsession with building a better telephone, a faster electric wire, a clearer radio signal. Aliens and spaceships and beings from other worlds still held a place in Basil’s heart, but as he forged forward his imagination and creativity were harnessed into technological advancement.

  Basil had lost a father, but retained his lifelong love of the fantastic.

  He rose quickly to the top of his classes, and in university had a penchant for leaping to strange and strangely workable theories before most of his classmates even understood the questions they were being asked to solve. He had a reputation for figuring things out in the most eccentric and science-fictiony way possible — an observation which was meant to be an insult, but which he took as a compliment every time.

  And then the Institute had come knocking on his door.

  All of which had somehow, in some strange and circular way, led him here. Here and now, to the place where all of it, everything, came together and defined his life in ways that Basil could never have imagined. In ways that mattered.