Yesterday's Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  “So listen to me!” I reach Devon decibels.

  Felicity sits down then. Just collapses into a chair. “Who on earth, Arthur, do you think is listening to me?”

  And, I have to concede, I do not have a comeback for that. I sit down hard. Smacked by a vision of how the land lies.

  Felicity runs her hand through her hair again. If she does it any more she’s going to wear a groove.

  “I’m on the thinnest of ice, Arthur. No one wants me in this position. Especially Coleman. And my only hope is that he’ll hang himself. He’s done it plenty of times before. But right now all he has to do is do nothing. And he knows it. Because if we fuck up, just once, he’s won. And, God, Arthur, you are not helping.”

  I sit and dwell on that. She sits silently opposite me. And she is the closest thing I have to an ally. Jesus… she’s still my girlfriend. Whatever else has been fucked up in the past few days, that is still true.

  I think about reaching out to her, taking her hand. I don’t know if it’s too soon. But if I’m not willing to make a risk here then what am I willing to take risks for?

  I take her hand. She stiffens. But then she relaxes.

  “It’s the truth,” is all the defense I have.

  “Clyde doesn’t think so.” She meets my eyes, face open. It’s as much a comment as it is a challenge.

  “I know.” I shrug. “I don’t know why.”

  Felicity echoes my shrug. “He’s the expert, Arthur. He might not always seem it, but trust me, he is one of the smartest thaumaturgists in the world. He is very good at what he does. And knowing magic is what he does, it’s his role on the team. You can see why his word has more weight than yours, can’t you?” She’s almost imploring. “You can see why Coleman will believe him over you?”

  “What about you?” Because that’s really the crux of it. Maybe it’s not the most important point in the grand scheme of things, in the overall fight for survival. But here, now, it’s the most important point to me, for the survival of “us.”

  Felicity closes her eyes. My heart clambers handhold by handhold up into my throat.

  “You’ll need proof,” she says after a long while. “Incontrovertible proof. Not supposition. Not something that looks a lot like proof. Actual, real, undeniable proof. Proof that not even Coleman can piss away. That’s the only way I’ll be able to move on any of this. To even openly support any of this. You understand that?”

  She’s side-stepped the question, and she’s done in neatly. I see the move, but suddenly I don’t want to call her on it. Not at all.

  We sit there looking at each other. A table between us. A table and so much more. And maybe that’s what this whole thing comes down to, in the end: what’s worth fighting for.

  “Hey,” I say, taking another risk, “at least I killed the pigeon.”

  Felicity’s face shudders. Her mouth works. And then… a smile.

  “A mutant pigeon, Arthur?” She shakes her head. “In the history of this department only you could have gone face-to-face with a mutant pigeon.”

  She’s told me I’m on my own out in the field. But at least I’m not in here.

  “How’d you feel about dating a pigeon killer?” I ask her. I’m smiling too. A sudden boldness seeping into me. It’s good to have friends. Even secret friends.

  And there’s a thought in that phrase. The barest edge of a plan. I remember the phone number in my pocket.

  “I know,” Aiko said when I told her I’d call.

  “I’m surprised,” Felicity says, “I chose to date someone who smells so much of bird shit.”

  I smile at that. But already I’m slipping away from this moment. Slipping towards a plan. Towards doing something Felicity really wouldn’t approve.

  “I should get going on this whole saving the world thing.” I squeeze her hand.

  She rises. I rise. We meet at the end of the table. She catches my arms, holds me as close as the smell will allow.

  “The next time I see you,” she says into the inches between us, “you better have at least killed a mutant squirrel.”

  I can’t help but smile.

  “I promise.”

  She kisses me gingerly on a clean inch of cheek.

  “Go on,” she says. “Shower. Work out where the Russians are hiding. Save the world.”

  “Yes ma’am.” I nod deeply, almost a bow.

  She holds the door open for me. We smile at each other, long, maybe even a little lingering. And now, having earned Felicity’s trust, it’s time to totally betray it.

  The Lamb and Flag Public House

  “A mutant pigeon?” Aiko looks at me as if I just pissed in her pint.

  “So. Totally. Awesome.” Jasmine emphasizes this point with a spectacular popping of her gum. She’s even slid her headphones down around her neck. Something with more beats per minute than a jackhammer emanates tinnily.

  Malcolm greets the news stoically and takes another sip of his Guinness. I’m not sure what would faze Malcolm.

  Maybe if I kissed him?

  Not really worth finding out.

  They sit opposite me, like three witches ill-met on some Scottish hilltop at midnight. At least they would if that hilltop had a cheap leather booth and a jukebox that was about to play “November Rain” for the third time in a row.

  I asked Aiko to bring them along. If I’m going to be running my own sub-operation then I’m going to need as much man power as I can get my hands on.

  It’s four in the afternoon, still technically work hours, and the withered stump of the policeman I used to be feels guilty as I sip my beer. But Aiko refused to buy me a coke when she offered to buy the round.

  “A mutant pigeon?” she repeats.

  “A pigeon,” I say, as significantly as it is possible to say the word, “unglued in space and time.”

  She shrugs. “We already knew the Russians were messing with this stuff. It’s just corroborating evidence.”

  How can it be so obvious to the Weekenders that this is evidence and so difficult for everyone at MI37 to grasp?

  “Something was off with how it happened.” This has been playing in my head since leaving Felicity. I describe it to them as Kayla described it to me. The pigeon enters the tarpaulin normal, exits with a definite normality insufficiency.

  Malcolm gives me a long troubled stare. “The Russians,” he starts, then examines the white froth of his Guinness, “they booby-trapped a pigeon?”

  And I thought that was odd as well. So I describe the crumbling corner of Nelson’s Column, the strange pattern of repair and decay on the street.

  “Some sort of residual effect,” Aiko says ruminatively. “Whatever they’re doing, it’s not clean.” She plays with her ponytail, twisting and untwisting the hair.

  “But,” Jasmine looks almost apologetic, “what about, like, a trap?”

  Malcolm nods. “A planned counter-operation.”

  I try to consider that fairly. As if I’m not simply averse to the idea because Coleman suggested it.

  “It seems too random for that,” I say. Aiko nods along as I speak. I’d forgotten how nice it was to have someone do that.

  “Pockets of disturbed space-time?” Malcolm chews his lip ruminatively. “That’s your theory?”

  And yes, I suppose it is.

  “Anyone else back at MI37 believe it?” Aiko asks.

  I shake my head, and then pause. “Well,” I say. “Devon might, if I tell her. She’s been generally supportive.”

  “Devon?” Aiko arches her eyebrows.

  “Oh.” I shrug, slightly taken aback by her tone. Almost… accusatory? “She’s a researcher. New. Probably very good at her job.” I realize I’m not totally sure what Devon has researched for us so far. “Probably,” I repeat, due, apparently, to my desire to emphasize my lack of clarity on the issue.

  “Is she good-looking?” Aiko asks, which seems oddly off-topic.

  I blink. “Well, erm…” I look to the others for help, but they are b
oth taking large drafts from their pints. “I mean, she’s a bit…” How to put this? “Well I’m dating someone. But, you know, if I weren’t. Well, I… wouldn’t… date Devon.” I limp to an end. I am not sure that’s really what I meant to say or if it’s what anyone wanted to hear.

  Somehow Malcolm is still working on that same sip.

  “Girlfriend?” Aiko’s eyebrows are still up.

  “Leave him alone,” Jasmine says, slapping Aiko’s arm with the back of her hand. But Aiko doesn’t stop looking at me.

  I have a horrible feeling I might know what the cat-and-mouse smile was all about last time I saw Aiko here. But I think I’d rather pretend I don’t.

  “Err… yeah.” I take cover behind my pint. “You met her. At the Natural History Museum. Not the goth girl. That’s Tabitha. The smartly dressed, pretty woman.”

  “The ice queen?” Jasmine’s eyebrows meet Aiko’s up in the stratosphere.

  Malcolm finally puts down his pint. “Jasmine,” he rumbles.

  “Oh.” She toys with her headphones. “Sorry. I just… Totally not what I meant.”

  “It’s OK,” I say. “She can be brusque at first.” I smile a little. I think I thought something similar about Felicity when I first met her.

  “Does she know you’re here?” Aiko asks. She’s going to give herself frown lines if she keeps her eyebrows up there much longer.

  “Oh,” I start, then go back to my pint.

  “What will she do if she finds out?” Aiko asks, all sweet innocence.

  I need a “get out of jail” card really badly right now. And then I realize that out of all the people I know, Coleman has provided me with one.

  “Oh my God,” I say, “I haven’t even told you the worst part yet.”

  “So tell us,” Malcolm says with unusual quickness.

  So I tell them, or at least I tell Jasmine and Malcolm, without really risking a look at Aiko, about Coleman’s mad plan to EMP London.

  “Wait.” Jasmine holds up a hand. “Like, seriously?”

  “Completely.” I nod.

  “No.” Aiko shakes her head. “No he can’t do that. That’s too big. Everything? The financial district…” She shakes her head again. “He can’t.”

  “He says he has approval.” I shrug.

  “Do anything they damn want.” I glance at Malcolm. Either his Guinness has done something to piss him off or it’s getting the brunt of a glare meant for someone else.

  “You remembered to take your meds today, right, Malcolm?” Jasmine reaches over and pats Malcolm’s arm. He shrugs it off. This is not a joke, I realize. I flashback to my conversation with Clyde about the unsuitability of the Weekenders as colleagues.

  “Still got the right to be pissed,” Malcolm mutters.

  “Wait.” Aiko half drops her pint onto the table. She stares across the table. “Wait. Hold on a fucking minute. No electricity.” All the playfulness is gone from her. She looks stricken. “Big Ben.”

  “Big Ben?” Jasmine looks dismissive. “Like tourists won’t be able to tell the time for…” Then she gets it too. “Oh shit.”

  And again, they see it so quickly and so clearly. Something that no one at MI37 seems capable of seeing. And how do I bring that vision across.

  “The Russians will be able to teleport into the Chronometer,” I say. “They’ll be able to take time apart.”

  “Oh fuck,” Aiko says. She teaches small children with that mouth.

  “This Coleman guy is, like, a complete prick, isn’t he?” Jasmine says. “Like, just totally.”

  “Like, just totally,” I say.

  “It’s worse.” Malcolm’s baritone sweeps under the rising sense of panic at the table like a riptide. We all turn to stare. “They might want to turn back time,” Malcolm says, “but they won’t. Nobody will be doing shit after they go in there.”

  “Malcolm,” Jasmine sounds as stern as her years will allow, “you did take your meds today, didn’t you?”

  Malcolm turns to her, slow as thunderheads rolling through the sky. “Residual. Effect.”

  And… Oh shit. Oh balls.

  “What?” Aiko doesn’t see it.

  “We were just talking about it.” I try to keep my head up, to support it under the weight of the colossal fuck-up in the Russian’s plans that I now see. “The residual effect of these spells. Things coming unstuck in space and time. And what if one of them teleports in right next to the Chronometer? What if the very thing governing time comes unstuck?”

  FORTY-THREE

  It’s difficult, I find, to fully hold in my mind something enormous. Even something like an elephant. Ears, trunk, tail—I have to break them down into small manageable parts.

  Time itself, unstuck in time. That’s enormous. I can’t… I give it one more try. No I can’t quite grasp that.

  “Bits of the world.” Aiko shakes her head as if trying to clear it. “Bits of everything. Some moving forward in time. Some just in stasis. Some slipping back. It wouldn’t… You couldn’t live in a place like that. It would be the end of everything.”

  A phrase of Clyde’s slips into my mind. “Standard end-of-the-world scenario.”

  There’s silence at the table. Around us the pub patrons carry on drinking, and laughing, and talking about lives, and loves, and all the petty bullshit that we seem to fit in between the important moments. And it seems briefly wondrous because it suddenly seems so fragile, so close to not being.

  “I don’t want to be a total downer,” Jasmine breaks the silence, “but, like, a lot of your stories seem to involve the Russians kicking your arse.”

  I shake my head. She’s right. “We can’t take them alone,” I say. I know the enormity of what I’m going to ask them. “We need more people. We need MI37. I need you to help me prove to them that this is real.” And I have to remember that this was my plan all along. This shouldn’t seem so daunting. Nothing has changed. Except the stakes.

  “And why,” Malcolm rumbles like the warning of an earthquake to come, “would they listen to us?”

  “Evidence,” I say, earnest as a preacher man. “Undeniable evidence.”

  Malcolm isn’t done. “And why,” he says, “would we want to work with them?”

  “Because,” Jasmine answers before I can, “they’re totally awesome.”

  Malcolm does not appear convinced. But instead of answering him, I look at Aiko, the tie-breaker.

  “What are you thinking, Agent Arthur?” she asks me. This time I think less of a Cheshire cat and more of a sphinx.

  “We need them,” I say. “You saw what just two Russians did at the British Museum. And there are so many more.”

  “And what,” she asks, “makes you think that MI37 will want to work with us?”

  And that’s the million-dollar question, in the end. “If you’re the ones that go to them with the evidence,” I start, “undeniable evidence—”.

  “They’ll cut us out.” Aiko finishes for me.

  “I won’t let them.” I’m defiant.

  She smiles, a little sad, a little sweet. “If you had that much pull, you wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

  And she’s right, of course. I massage my temples. Suddenly it feels just like being back at MI37. “So,” I say, “we let the Russians win because of pissing matches?”

  Aiko lets out an exhalation of amusement. “No.” She shakes her head. “We’ll fight with you, Agent Arthur. But if you’re planning to lead on this one, I’d rather you had your eyes wide open.”

  And, God, I could kiss her.

  Except… well, I totally have a girlfriend. Just a figure of speech. Nothing else.

  “Can I just say,” Jasmine interrupts my mental backpedaling, “that this is totally awesome.”

  Malcolm rolls his eyes.

  And, OK, this is on. This is happening. There is traction, forward momentum. And it has been so long since I felt that way.

  “We need to go to places the Russians have been,” I say, “back t
o Trafalgar Square, the British Library, the Natural History Museum, places we know they’ve used intradimensional magic. We need to find out more about its effects. We need to research the meteorite they stole. We need to find out everything. And Chernobyl. We have to know more about Chernobyl. That’s the key to all this, I think. The lynchpin.”

  And they’re nodding. All of them are nodding. Even Malcolm.

  We divvy up the duties, we buy more drinks, and in that moment I’m even deluded enough to feel like it all might be possible.

  FORTY-FOUR

  October 12th. One day closer to the deadline.

  I ride down the elevator to the basement of 85 Vauxhall Cross, trying to rid myself of the mild nausea the last MI37 staff meeting has given me.

  It was all going so well. A status meeting. One Coleman had blown off via email as “a waste of fucking time.” It almost didn’t matter that none of us had anything. I’m not sure I really expect us to find anything until we start chasing the right leads. The Russians have gone to ground most thoroughly.

  But then… just after Tabitha told us the past 10 years of records on Russian spies were giving her nothing, just after Felicity had given us her version of a pep talk, Clyde stepped forward.

  “I just want you to know I can help,” he’d said. “I can be useful.”

  God, a vacuum cleaner is useful. Not a person.

  Then, across the table—sliding them with those long elegant fingers that don’t really belong to him—four flash drives. “If you need help,” he said. He looked at Tabitha, but she didn’t look at him. “It’s a copy of an application based upon some personality algorithms I’ve been working on.” He spoke carefully, no margin for error in his words. No margin for himself. “So if you want a digital personal assistant, a pretty advanced one, like the one I downloaded onto Tabby’s laptop then you can just run it on your machine at home.”

  Devon had balked. “These are copies of you?”

  Clyde again looked to Tabitha. “No,” he said. “A digital personal assistant based upon personality algorithms—”