by Jason Beech
The shorter man shrugged his shoulders. “From a petrol station?”
“I'm hungry.”
“From a petrol station?”
“They do some decent sarnie’s. I had a chicken tikka sandwich from here once. Went down lovely.”
“And came out the same I'm guessing.”
“Suit yerself. Don't say I didn't offer.”
The seated thug laughed. “That's an offer I can refuse.” He made some voice like he had those little pads in his mouth that dentists give you to numb the gums.
“Jesus.” The big man tap-tapped the car door. The man in the seat craned his neck to follow his colleague’s gawp. He mouthed a mumble of swear words which smashed and cracked into each other.
They both sensed a watchful eye and checked their shoulders, but Dean remained ice cool and they could see only the mucky white and green of the petrol station’s brand colours. The shorter man stepped out of his car as if nervous to awake snapping crocodiles round his feet. Sultana taunted them with hands on hips, her jaw jutted towards them in defiance. Her sneer dragged a few “what the fuck’s” from these bastards. Dean removed the nozzle from the car’s tank and let the liquid pool around their feet. It took them a while for their noses to direct their eyes to the petrol which washed around their feet. They squeezed their eyes at each other until those slits expanded from the force of popped eyeballs. The pump sat in the air – a cobra spitting venom – independent it must have seemed to them, of any guiding hand.
“She's a fucking witch.”
“What did we do?” The shorter man smacked at his jacket, Dean guessed for a weapon to avert the disaster about to hit him.
The flame flickered and the men stood hypnotized to the spot.
“Right here.” Dean dropped the nozzle and tossed the lighter by the tall man’s feet. Shut his ears to the men’s screams and aimed the fuel at their bodies and heads. He released the trigger and dropped the pump to the ground.
The attendant charged to the chaos and flapped his bright green jacket at the flames without effect as the men flailed and wriggled. Their primal screams charged Dean and added to his sense of power. He stepped away from the heat and fire as it gained a hold on the pump. The men fell to the ground, as Dean had earlier, the flames off their backs the bristled hair from a demon-dog’s back. Hellish howls dampened to pathetic groans, the kind of whimpers Dean had no doubt they'd induced in many others. Dean didn't flinch – he watched as he would at a stuffed Guy Fawkes as fire burned away its clothing and its innards fell out. The taller man slumped first, without drama, face first. The second man rolled on his back and laid still, the only sound a crackle of fire and skin above the traffic. Cars pulled in and jerked still at the horror.
The attendant said “Oh my God” on repeat until his worn jaw couldn't move any more. He managed to crank the mobile to his ear and call whoever he thought important to the event. He looked the type who'd call his manager before the police. He remembered the fire extinguisher and got to work.
Sultana? She hadn't moved. Her sneer had turned into a wild-eyed gape. Her fingers stretched down towards her feet, stalactites calcified in fear. Dean changed gear, pulled at her arm, and walked her away from the station. He directed her to the desolate subway beneath the roundabout where he pulled the rucksack from her hunched shoulders.
He made sure they remained alone and unzipped. Positioned himself fully into her sight line and stripped. Wanted her to see him. Everything. Sultana’s attention concentrated on the concrete, flickered across graffiti, settled on his face. He shook his frustration away and hurried into his clothes.
“We got ‘em, Sultana, we fuckin’ got ‘em.”
He aimed for a hug, but she flat-palmed him from her. “What was that?”
He let her spittle run down his face. A shrug asked the question he couldn't utter.
“What was that? I …”
“Revenge. Revenge. They hit you hard, Sultana. You haven't seen your face, yet, but it’s … it's really big. You look like a football.”
Her fists hung like hammers. “We don't know who else will come for us. The other man? Where's he? The petrol station will have had CCTV cameras. I might be on one. Now they'll have me on the news. My dad will see me. Other men, their … their gang will see me. Oh my God, Dean, what have you done, you idiot?”
“Revenge …”
“That wasn't revenge … It was suicide. What made you do it?”
“You're my girlfriend. You like to live dangerous. You shoplift …”
Her laugh chopped at his justifications, sliced them all and shoved them into a bin.
“Give that suit to Mr Breckin, before it eats you up.”
He swung it behind his leg as a mother would her child at any hint of threat. “No. This is me. You're me. I have power, now. You see how I've changed? You like me as I am now. Right?”
“Why don't you go back to being that little boy, Dean. Shove yourself back into that corner where I don't have to see you again.”
“Where you going?”
“Home. To my dad. Away from you.”
“You can't stay out here.”
He circled the bag with his arms and watched her up the slope until he could see only her body, her legs, finally her feet, until she'd gone. Revenge’s thrill had been but a firework, and now it lied empty on a field somewhere, spent and unnoticed.
12.
“You smell of petrol.”
“You look all washed up.”
His mum’s forehead changed with each emotion. “I'm worried for my son. You're the only thing I've got.”
“Well, you're not the only thing I've got.”
“Dean? What is this?”
“Why did dad leave you?”
Dean couldn't tell if she bit her lip to dam her words or emotions. She turned back to the TV, her comforter every night. He didn't want this future. Cosy within four walls, a cage barred against the world, the TV a drip direct into the brain.
“I think you're becoming very disrespectful, son.”
He shrugged his shoulders and slow-stepped upstairs where he collapsed onto his bed.
***
Sultana’s bulbous face haunted his dream and made sure sleep didn't hold. His leg bounced up and down so he almost slipped from his perch on the bed’s edge. She had laughed at his claim on her singledom. Those soft brown eyes had hardened and embittered, all dark chocolate. It pinched at his soul and churned his stomach. Love must have a hold on him because he clambered out the room, unable to grapple door handles, and retched over the toilet. His throat burned and his stomach ached, but nothing shot from his guts. Empty. That's all he felt. The two men flittered around his head for brief moments before he dismissed them.
His phone buzzed. He snatched it from his pocket. Somebody in the world wanted to talk to him. The text read: CUTLER’S HALL. BRING THE SUIT.
His heart leapt like the twelve lords. Sultana wished to play. Except, it didn't come from her number. Or she'd decided to withhold. He texted WHICH SUIT?
He laughed at his joke, though she'd paid no attention to his birthday suit after the fire. His grip on the phone tightened at the response: WE HAVE SULTANA. BRING THE SUIT. DO IT NOW.
His stomach must have filled, because now it emptied.
13.
The Cutler’s Hall lies round the foot of Fargate as it nudges into Church Street. Its grand Roman columns and solid stance, now he stared at it, made Dean contrast it with the boxy house he called home, which always shook as if on the verge of take-off with every gust of wind. This place has history, something deep he couldn’t fathom. His family history, as far as he could tell, went no further than his great-nan, who his mum said lived in a slum. Nothing much had changed for the family, then.
Dean wrapped his arms against the cold. Gritted his teeth against their chatter. He tensed to control the shiver, but his body shook anyway. He shoved the bag beneath the skip before he stepped out from the alleyway. Late night trams glide
d past and cars skipped across the frozen tramlines. Dean ran across and tried the front door. It remained as firm as a palace guardsman. He smiled at passers-by, embarrassed at the unsuccessful heavy pull, and realised nobody could see him. Would Sultana want to see him, after what she said? Would she blame her situation on him? Anger at what these kidnappers might have done to her warmed him a little as he made his way down the building’s side. Nobody had locked this door.
He suspected an attempt to funnel him to the point of a gun. Outdoors might have frozen his bones. Now he'd entered the building a different kind of shiver set about him, a starter course for the trauma these men might inflict on his flesh. Dread fired in his veins for what he’d started.
He crept along the whitewashed corridor from shadow to shadow in the little alcoves which led to side-rooms, until his skin prickled, dot-to-dot from forehead to behind the knees. They had turned up the heat. Sultana had told them the suit’s properties. Idiot.
How could she hold back? Seriously, they might have tortured her, or God knows what. He cussed at his arrogance, at how he'd taken things to extremes to impress her. He had a flame inside which powered his ego to something he'd never experienced, and it felt so good he never wanted to go back to that invisible lad. Invisible to Sultana. Invisible to himself as much as anybody else.
“Bloody hell.” He stared through ping-pong eyes down his outstretched arm. His skin illuminated as if the sun peaked above the horizon to expose every shadow. He pulled his arm tight to his body, scared somebody might grab at it. He spun, his hands on the floor and his knees bent, ready to pounce to safety. A man in a suit had slammed the door shut – the one in which he'd entered the building. The man spoke into his lapel. Dean didn't quite hear him, but he somehow knew he said, “He's here.”
Dean’s thigh materialised, pale as a joint of pork you'd see hooked in a butcher’s. He'd seen gangster films where they hid the evidence by chopping their enemies to pieces. That image didn't help. His nipple came into view, hard. Pointed at the man who headed his way. Dean slipped through the alcove door to a little office where some poor desk-jockey must spend a working life in wonder of where their dreams had escaped. He held tight to the door handle as the man’s feet tick-tocked. Slow. So slow.
Dean concentrated on the noise, made it rise above the fear so it pushed it down below the marble floor. He made his heart synchronise with the steps, and imagined his problems in a little black box he could shut and lock with a ten-number code. He wanted only to sit side-by-side with Sultana in Mr Breckin’s class, intense about a formula or problem. After all this, what need did he have for the suit?
He stared at the ceiling and let its white wash over his emotions until cold reset in his bones and his flesh merged with the marble floor, the bland ceiling, the Formica desk and everything else around him. His cool acted as thimble to the needles which had prickled him. He peered through the little window to check the corridor and made it out the door without alerting the enemy. He padded behind the man to see where he headed. Worked on that heartbeat – pulled it down to a slow jazz snare. It nearly turned into a war beat at the sight of the man’s gun, sat in a hip holster. The fella checked the odd office window until he came to the door at the end. He swiped on his phone, looked like Facebook from where Dean stood, and shouldered the door open to the main entrance hall. Dean snuck through before the opening closed. The man scratched at his stubble – the sound of a struck match. Stood still, phone held in his palm ready to view, but eyes to the side – on Dean’s chest. Worked his senses to detect something. He must have felt the waft as Dean rushed by. Dean’s breath locked in his throat. His lungs burned to push it out, but a foot or two separated him from the mobster, so he maintained the burn.
Red carpet washed down the broad staircase and pooled at the bottom. The man continued to swipe at his phone. He acted way too casual … as if he knew Dean followed him. Dean swerved from his path into the Hall’s centrepiece room. A man stood busy at the other end, at work on an iPad and projector screen beneath a couple of wall lights. The fountain chandeliers glinted above in the small light. Dean squinted as he headed by, and almost tripped over a chair at the recognition. The tweedy jacket with patches on the elbows, the whitening scruff on his face, the enthusiasm in his work – Mr Breckin …
He had some conference here? A teacher’s conference? A science conference? It didn't make sense … the gangsters – why had they brought Sultana here? How did a bunch of thugs have such access to a city landmark? Dean worked to douse his internal furnace. The gang is part of the city establishment? Sheffield runs on corruption?
Dean shrunk at his own insignificance. He had the urge to tell Mr Breckin. He could help rescue Sultana. But what could sir do? He didn't have an invisibility suit. Dean had the suit. “I'm the only one who can help. I'm the one.”
Dean skirted the wall, edged past the silver cutlery displays in glass cases, and climbed the stairs. Checked each room without success, before he soft-footed his way to the basement. Fluorescent lights bounced off white walls down here, numberless points of light that hurt his pupils like interrogation lamps. Every muscle strained at this stealth. One shock might snap him in two. He allowed himself a deep breath and peered round a wall. The fluorescents bounced a danger beacon off another man’s bald head. The man fiddled with a piece of technology, something plastic where a strap dangled. Dean snapped. Threw himself back behind the wall. The man who'd chased him down the gennel, whose balls he'd smashed with that well-aimed kick at the football. That moment had seemed easier than this – the chase had sprung him into action. Now Dean had to deal with the anticipation of action. He stood tall and tip-toed close to the man. The guard stood before a door with a little window. Dean closed the distance between them to about ten feet. Peered over the man’s shoulder through the glass.
There she sat, her fringe a diagonal lightning strike across her forehead. She lounged as if waiting for one of her many, many exams, rather than her rescuer.
The man shook his equipment – a pair of glasses, a large pair, like sunglasses with a headstrap. The type on those video game adverts which soldiers wore in the dark to detect body heat …The man planted them on the bridge of his nose. He had the strap halfway over his dome when he stopped still. Couldn't quite believe what he saw – fumbled. The headgear slapped to the floor. He scrambled to get it back in place, but he crumpled as Dean kicked him in the chin. His head snapped back and he fell on a shoulder. Dean followed through with a kick to his balls. He spasmed around the floor, an electric eel. Dean cocked an eyebrow at how he might ruin this man’s love life. His foot throbbed and he limped to the door.
Dean squished his nose to the window. Sultana shifted foot to foot. Flattened her nose to the window. Felt like a kiss. Dean dragged the gun from the man’s holster as he heard feet charge down the corridor. He pushed the door in and forced Sultana to backpedal.
“Dean? Is that you?”
The gun suspended in the air must have freaked her out. She backed into the wall.
“Yes, it's me.”
She stepped to a pile beside the chair she'd sat on and grabbed a bunch of clothes. “Here, put this lot on. You don't need to get naked in front of me right now.”
So, she had seen him, and remained unimpressed.
“How did you free yourself from the chair?”
Her lips formed the way they would when she told a little white lie. “Never mind that, how did you intend to escape?”
He'd not planned a way out of this. His thoughts crashed into each other. Some linked into coherency, but then slid and split. He lost control of an index finger, which shook as if he rubbed at a bit of muck from a mirror.
“You come in here to rescue me and you didn't have a plan to get out?”
“How many of them?”
“I don't know, but you ought to have a seat and have a think.”
“No need to get sarcastic, Sultana, I'm here for you aren't I?”
“Yep, you've c
ome to keep me company in my captivity. Put the clothes on and turn that thing off.”
“Why aren't you scared? I'm shitting meself, and you're sat there as if you're waiting for a glass of wine and a ciggy.”
“Put the gun away, put on your clothes –”
“Dean …”
Dean swivelled and pointed the gun at the door’s entrance. Mr Breckin held a hand in front of his face, alarmed at Dean’s shaky hand.
“Please, Dean, lower the gun.”
“Sir? What are you doing? Are they making you do this?”
“No, Dean. I told them about it.”
Dean opened the headpiece on the suit and pulled it back like a hood. His head bobbed about in the air like the Wizard of Oz. “Sir, what you talking about?”
The man he'd kicked in the balls stepped in behind, his upper body slanted forward and his motion stilted. Satisfaction rumbled somewhere deep in Dean’s belly.
“This man is Penn. He's MI5, Dean. The government is very interested in the suit. It could be very useful to them.”
“Sir, you betrayed us?” He craned his neck to Sultana. “You, too?”
“It's not you, Dean. That thing has made you something you're not.”
“What am I, Sultana? You treated me differently once I started using this. Like … you know.”
“I always fancied you. This made you a little more interesting, but not that much.”
“You fancy me now?”
“… Yeah.”
Dean’s upper lip mangled, a tree root ripped from his lower lip. His hand wobbled and the trigger seemed to push into his finger. “You both used me to get the suit.”
Penn inched towards him. “Son, the suit is for the good of the nation, to help you and your family, to infiltrate groups who terrorise us – from the gang threatening you to terrorists in the Middle East.”
Dean’s head swayed a big No. “You betrayed me. All of you.”