by Gow, Kailin
If it’s bad for me, it’s far worse for Jack. He tries to distract himself by talking to me and spending time with me, but even so, I can see the worry in him starting to creep through. Several times, he leaves me to check on how the preparations are coming, and each time, I get the feeling that he’d send us off on the mission right then if he had his way.
Eventually though, we’re ready to go. That means yet another private plane ride, and we take the helicopters to a small airfield where our jet can take off. There’s a small group of us going; less than a dozen, composed almost entirely of Faders in their late thirties and beyond. Mostly beyond. When I shoot a questioning look Lionel’s way and glance over to them, he seems to get the message.
“They are our master instructors,” Lionel says. “As I believe I mentioned before, many of those at Location Two are simply trainees, and so are not ready for combat.”
The master instructors are certainly ready. They load enough assorted weapons onto the plane to take on a small army. I hope we won’t have to. I go aboard with Jack and take my seat, keeping as close to him as I can. Since the plane is a private one, there’s plenty of room, but why would I want to be anywhere else?
We get airborne, winging our way across the ocean to set up the rescue. How many trips like this have I taken in the last day or two? Still, all I have to do for now is sit there and relax, so maybe it won’t be so bad.
Grayson is out towards the front of the plane, working with one of the experienced Faders on combat moves. The moves themselves are simple things, from upward palm strikes to the jaw to chopping moves attacking the throat, but the speed with which the instructor makes Grayson work makes it all far more complex. When they drop to the floor of the aircraft, working on grappling moves, it’s hard to even keep up with what’s going on.
Maybe I should ask them for a few tips on fighting too, yet right now, I can’t bring myself to move away from Jack. Right here, we can just be alone together. I reach out a hand to cover his, the way I used to when it was just Jack Simple and Celeste Channing, the young couple so deeply in love around the New York fashion scene.
I know we should be careful. I know Jack has told me that much. I even know that I don’t want to flaunt our relationship around Grayson. Yet none of that matters right now. Even Grayson doesn’t matter, because half the time now, it’s not like he’s the same Grayson he was before. Maybe, thanks to the memory device, he isn’t.
One of the female Faders steps in to take over training Grayson, and she quickly has him in knots, tripping him and moving him to awkward submission holds with ease. She laughs while she does it though, and Grayson laughs too. It’s only then that I realize that they’re flirting as they go along. Flirting, right in the middle of their training session. And even though she’s one of the younger instructors, she’s still far older than Grayson. Far too old for Grayson. She’s not even that pretty. Not really.
I look at the way I’m thinking, and I realize that I’m jealous. Pointlessly, irrationally jealous. I shouldn’t be. I’m sitting here with Jack, holding onto him, being close to him. Jack’s my boyfriend now, and Grayson… well, he’s just someone who used to be my boyfriend. Except that it doesn’t feel quite that simple. I think the problem is the way we broke up. Or rather, the way we didn’t break up. We never made a clean break of the relationship, so I can’t help feeling a little connected to Grayson.
Still, I put it aside as the trip goes on. We make our way over the Atlantic, and beyond, into land where farms stretch out below us in seemingly endless spaces. Jack eventually has to go talk to Lionel about what they have planned when we land. I’m not alone for long though, because Grayson takes his place. He’s sweating from the workout he’s had, and I’m reminded of all those times we went out running together. It seems that Grayson is too.
“Look out there, Celes,” he says. “All that open space. Do you remember running together after school, just practicing?”
I nod. “Do you?” I have to know that. How much does Grayson remember? How much did they take? From what they said back at Location Six, he was only partially Faded before he broke out. He obviously got a lot of the knowledge, and some of his memory seems to be gone, but how much?
“I remember some of it,” Grayson says. “I remember running. I remember running with you. I know that we were once in a relationship together. I just can’t remember the details of it.” He sighs. “I kind of miss the days when things were that simple.”
He reaches out for my hand. It’s not the same as it was with Jack’s. This is about reassurance more than anything else. I squeeze his hand back. For a moment, just a moment, I can pretend that it’s the old Grayson there.
“I know,” I say. “I miss those days, too. It was so much easier, and I didn’t have to know all of this… stuff.”
I feel him reach over to hug me, and I let him. I remember the way Grayson used to take care of so much when we were together. He was the one I would go to with problems, and he would make it feel just like everything was fine. Of course that was back before I knew all about his father, all about the Others. I know things can’t go back to that, and in any case, I wouldn’t want them to. I love Jack too much for that.
Grayson pulls back, looking at me seriously. “There are so many things I don’t remember,” he says. “You’re going to think this is stupid, but I don’t even remember why we broke up. I don’t even remember breaking up. I know we must have, but it’s just a blank for me.” He shakes his head. “No, it’s more than that. I feel like there’s something missing that I should know. I feel… every time I see you with Jack, I feel so sad, as though I’ve lost something so important to me, a large part of me.”
“That didn’t stop you flirting with that Fader.” I realize what I’ve just said. “Not that it makes any difference to me.”
“Who? Phillipa? She’s old enough to be my mother. I was just being… well, maybe I just wanted to distract myself.” He looks at me intently then. “Seriously, Celes, why did we break up? What did I do?”
“Do? What makes you think you did anything wrong?” I ask, not understanding. I’m also worried. Things would be so much easier if Grayson would leave this alone. Yet I can tell that he isn’t going to.
“I must have done something wrong,” Grayson says, “because I don’t think you would break up with someone without a good reason, Celes.”
“And you’re so certain that I broke up with you, rather than the other way around?”
Grayson nods. “I know that. I would never break up with you, even as I am now. And that’s without half my memories. So you must have broken up with me instead, and there must be a reason.”
“I can’t explain it,” I say. “Please just accept that I’m with Jack now, Grayson.”
He hesitates, and I think that he wants to say that he can’t accept that, but he nods. He also gets up and moves away from me, back to the other Faders. I know I should have told him the truth, but sometimes it’s kinder not to, isn’t it? Circumstances have torn us apart, and it would be cruel to let Grayson think he has a chance when he doesn’t. I’m with Jack. I’ve felt a special connection to Jack almost since I met him. I’m not about to give that up.
The trouble is, while Grayson might not have his memories, I still have mine. I can still remember all the times we spent together. I can still remember wanting to run to him when my family went missing. I can still remember thinking of him, running back to him. It’s more than that though. Grayson is a link to my past. The last link. Without Grayson, there’s no one to remember who I was before. Without Grayson, it’s like Celestra Caine never existed.
Is that a good enough reason to cling onto him though? I should let him go, shouldn’t I? I should want him to be happy. So why can’t I?
Eventually, the jet lands. We transfer to helicopters, and head out into that broken up farmland I saw from the air. From this angle, Virginia is beautiful. We fly for maybe twenty minutes before touching down in the middle o
f a small farm, nowhere near as big as the sites used for Location Two and Location Six. It’s the kind of farm that looks like it must never make any real money for the owners, because it’s too small. It’s a few fields, and a few small outbuildings clustered around a central farmhouse, but nothing more than that.
Grayson and I haven’t spoken since the plane. Instead, I sit next to Jack, using his presence like a shield to keep the rest of the world out. My life is complicated enough without Grayson deciding that he wants to get back together with me. Or learning that we never really broke up. It’s better for things to be as they are. It really is.
As the helicopters touch down, we get out. The Faders move from them in well-rehearsed fashion, unloading them at speed while simultaneously checking the area for potential problems. Jack helps me out, leading me off to one side, while Lionel is the last one off. He signals to the helicopters, and they leave us there, taking off again so that in less than a couple of minutes, the farmyard is back to looking like nothing special once again.
“This is it?” I ask, speaking to Jack. He nods. “But it doesn’t look like anything.”
“That’s kind of the point.” One of the outbuilding doors opens to reveal the speaker. It’s Marlene from Location Six. Her arm is heavily bandaged. She nods to me, to Jack, to Lionel. She doesn’t so much as look at Grayson. I guess she’s still upset about the violent way that he broke out when they tried to Fade him.
“Hello, everyone,” she says. “Welcome to Location Four. Jonas is waiting for you inside.”
ELEVEN
There are Faders in the farmhouse, not to mention the outbuildings, the yard… suffice it to say there are a lot of Faders there. The Underground has obviously pulled together a lot of resources in order to make this rescue mission work, with the result that there are more Faders in one place than I’ve seen before. Or maybe that impression is just down to the size of the farm. After all, Location Four is a lot smaller than the other Underground bases I’ve been too.
Marlene looks at us. “I have orders from Jonas to show the new arrivals to rooms,” she says. “He thinks you’ll need some rest before you move on the Fortress.”
You, not we. It seems her broken arm is going to keep her out of that one. I wonder how it’s doing, given that it had to be set on the way out of a base that was about to explode. When I start to mention it, though, she ignores me. She doesn’t ignore Grayson, however.
“What’s he doing here?” she asks. “Hasn’t he done enough damage?”
Grayson looks down. “I’m sorry about your arm, but it was the only way.”
Marlene ignores the apology too, looking at Jack, “I’m still looking for an explanation, Jack. What’s going on? He’s already given up the location of one base.”
Jack shakes his head. “It isn’t like that. We don’t believe that Grayson had anything to do with it, anymore. It also looks like you achieved a pretty thorough Fade on him before… well, before he escaped. He’s working with us, now.”
“I don’t like it,” Marlene says.
Lionel obviously thinks it is time to intervene, because he steps forward between them. “You don’t have to like it, but given the seriousness of the situation, you do have to obey instructions if we’re going to get through this in one piece. Now, I believe you said that Jonas told you to show my Faders around. That includes Grayson here, so do so, please.”
Marlene stares at the major for a moment, then nods tightly. “If you say so. Come on then,” she says to the assembled Faders, then looks at Grayson. “And you.”
They head off together, not entirely happily. I’m a little worried about Grayson going with them, because Marlene really doesn’t look happy, but then, I guess I wouldn’t be if I had to spend time with someone who had hurt me like that, even if I had been trying to Fade him at the time. I guess I just have to trust that the presence of the other Faders will prevent any serious problems. When they’re gone, Lionel, Jack and I are left in the farmyard. We’ve been there a few seconds when the door to the farmhouse opens.
“There you are.” The voice is a hearty one, and comes from a man making his way across the yard to us. He’s a little younger than Lionel or Sebastian, good looking enough in his way, and dressed in rough work-clothes that fit in with the farm environment a lot better than anything we’re wearing. He walks stiffly and it’s only as he moves closer that I realize he has a prosthetic leg.
Lionel moves forward, shaking his hand vigorously and clapping him on the back in a way that suggests the two men have known one another for years. But that seems to be the thing with the Underground. It isn’t some government organization pieced together from people who have never met, it’s a private one, put together from people who have worked on the same kind of things for years. Of course they will know one another.
“Hello Jonas,” Lionel says. “It has been too long.”
The other man, Jonas, grins. “Well, we know you only get in touch when there’s some impossibly difficult mission to be done. What is it this time?”
Lionel laughs at that. “Not impossibly difficult, I hope. I’m going to be on this one, after all.”
“Ah, well it can’t be as impossible as all that, then, can it? Or it won’t be when you get through, anyway.” Jonas waves a hand towards the farmhouse. “Why don’t you head inside, Lionel? You can keep your Faders from taking up all the room in the place. It’s not like I live in a mansion.”
“Not still bitter about that one, are you?” Lionel asks jokingly, before going into the farmhouse. As he does, Jonas reaches up to put an arm around Jack’s shoulders. Presumably, they know each other pretty well too.
“Well, now that Lionel’s taken care of for now,” Jonas says. “I got your message about your dad, Jack. It’s a bad situation.”
Jack has been sending the head of Location Four messages?
“And?” Jack asks.
Briefly, I see Jonas’ eyes flicker over to me. “And I’ll look into it.”
“Thanks.”
Jonas shakes his head. “Don’t thank me. I’m interested. Exactly as you knew I would be, no doubt. This could be the breakthrough we’ve been working towards for years. How could I pass that up?” Jonas hesitates. “You have brought it with you, right?”
Jack nods. “Of course I’ve brought it with me.”
I can see the look of relief on Jonas’ face. Whatever Jack has brought along with him, it’s obviously important. The only thing I can think of that might be that important is the rock we found. Has Jack brought that? I would have thought they’d have it under lock and key in Location Four. Lionel certainly said something about his people analyzing it.
“Good,” Jonas says. “I’ll have my research team begin analyzing it. If we’re lucky, it will shed some light on a lot of things.” He looks Jack up and down then. “How are you feeling?”
“Aside from being beaten senseless, barely escaping the Others, and having to trek halfway around the world?” Jack asked.
Jonas looks at him in a way I can’t decipher. “You know what I mean.”
Jack nods. “I’m fine. Better than fine. I made a breakthrough. And it’s all thanks to Celes here.”
“You’ll have to tell me all about this breakthrough when we get a chance,” Jonas says. “Along with the rest of it. It’s not every day that my nephew loses his heart, and I want all the details.”
“Uncle Jonas…”
“Uncle?” I ask, looking back and forth between them. There isn’t a resemblance that I can see. “Jack, is everyone in the Underground related to you in some way?”
Jack smiles. “Not quite everyone. Sorry, Celes, I should have introduced you. It’s just that I haven’t seen Uncle Jonas face to face since… well, I don’t know how long it has been.”
“You were eight,” the other man supplies.
“Jonas is my mother’s stepbrother,” Jack explains. “We’re not related by blood, but…”
“But sometimes you don’t have t
o be,” Jonas finishes for him. “We’ve kept in touch through messages over the years, and I’ve tried to keep an eye on Jack’s career for Jacqueline’s sake.”
Jack nods. “Uncle Jonas, this is Celes.”
Jonas extends a hand to me, and I take it. His grip is firm, but measured. His gaze is slightly more disconcerting. He looks at me closely, as though he’s trying to spot something about me.
“Do I have something in my eye, or something?”
Jonas laughs. “No, sorry. It’s just that… well, you don’t know how excited I am to finally meet someone like you. Someone like Jacqueline was.”
That’s enough to make me feel a little strange. I know that the whole Underground thinks of me as special. I know that I have special powers. It’s just something else to meet someone who is that obviously interested in what I am.
“Sorry,” Jonas says. “I’m making you uncomfortable, aren’t I?”
“Just a little bit,” I reply.
“It’s just quite an exciting day. I get to see Jack again after all these years, plus I get to meet you. Jacqueline… well, I always knew that Jack’s mother was special, but Sebastian and I only found out quite how special when she died, by which time it was too late to learn more directly.”
“That didn’t stop Sebastian trying,” I say, remembering how interested the Location Six leader was in me.
“No, it didn’t,” Jonas agrees. “Sebastian got a little obsessed after Jacqueline’s death, and I have to admit that I wasn’t much better. It’s… well, you can imagine how important some of the implications are. You’re very special, Celes.”
I shrug, still not entirely happy with that way of thinking. Not happy with some of the situations being what I am has put me in, either. “So far,” I say, “being special has gotten me shot at, forced me to change my identity, and given me a power that means I kill people.”