Black Tie: Book One of the Sparrow Archives

by Kieran Strange

  By the time he made it back to the scowling assistant outside Elliot’s office three hours later, he was thoroughly impressed with the young man’s preparation and forethought. He wondered if – seven years ago, when Elliot’s father had died and he had inherited the Fortune 500 company as a man barely old enough to vote – the security measures in this building had been as state-of-the-art as they were now, and it was something Elliot had continued to put time and money into, or if Elliot himself was the one who was extremely paranoid.

  The thirty-eighth and -ninth floors were the penthouse suite, Elliot Wright’s personal apartment and abode. Floors thirty-four through -seven were Elliot’s personal storage facilities, most of which were locked and seemed secure enough, and so Cabe moved onto the man’s actual home, more than a little curious about what sort of furnishings the legendary playboy had chosen to surround himself with.

  The elevator doors (which, according to the blueprints, were reinforced and bulletproof) parted to reveal the main living area of the luxury suite. Glass windows wrapped around fifty per cent of the open space, offering a stunning view of downtown Portland and the Willamette River. Everything was hardwood floors, chrome finishings, and soft creamy leather, from the three-piece suite beneath the wall-mounted plasma screen to the home bar with refrigeration and crystal drink-ware. Further in was a huge gourmet kitchen and a large bathroom with a tub and dual rain shower (which looked fun, to say the least). Around the corner from that was a big, comfortable den-slash-bedroom with another wall-mounted television and a snooker table. Cabe couldn’t help but notice that this room very deliberately had no windows, filing it away for later as a possible safe space within the otherwise relatively exposed and unsheltered apartment.

  A wide set of open, mauve-gray carpeted stairs led up to the second level, which appeared to be Elliot’s bedroom. Cabe’s curiosity was piqued by how insanely tidy it was; any dirty clothing was separated into colors, darks, and whites and tossed neatly into closed hampers, and his walk-in closet was open but everything inside was meticulously organized. The only thing that seemed somewhat out of place was the messy mountain of plush plum-colored duvet in the centre of the huge raised-platform bed. The hot tub by the window was emptied out and cleaned to a sparkling finish. A door beyond the jacuzzi led to a second tub and hexagonal-shaped, lavender-tiled swimming pool outside, sunken into the wooden decking of the balcony that extended over part of the building. A gazebo with curtains over the hot tub and a low wall of black glass around the entire deck offered some privacy; this, coupled with the largest barbecue Cabe had ever seen and top-of-the-range WrightTech stereo system, told him that this area was obviously set up for entertaining.

  It was already pitch dark out; bloody Winter. Cabe walked back inside the bedroom and closed the glass door behind him. The blueprints had told him that the glass on the top two floors was reflective on the outside, making it next to impossible to see inside, but even still… he couldn’t imagine living in this place. He felt like he was constantly on display, in some sort of cage or fish tank.

  Though, if he were to stereotype along the lines of Elliot Wright’s personality archetype, going in balls-deep in front of the entire city could definitely be seen as a turn on.

  With a sigh, Cabe mentally concluded his evaluation of the building. On the downside, he was looking at a metric shit ton of glass, and while some of it was supposedly ‘reinforced’, it was a little too open and exposed for his liking. That being said, the security was top-notch; there weren’t many suggestions he was planning on making to Elliot and his security heads when they had their initial meeting later that evening. The biggest and most obvious, glaring issue was the lack of security guard presence on the thirty-third floor itself, which was easily fixed by placing a guard, or even Cabe himself, at the desk with Ms. Bell whenever Elliot Wright was in his office.

  Cabe made a quick but important note not to personally volunteer for that position unless asked.

  Out of the peripheral of his vision, something moved. A sound, like cotton sliding over cotton, accompanied it, and his hand was inside his jacket and upon the butt of his Glock before he even realized he was reacting. It was actually kinda scary how his body had a tendency to do that.

  On the bed, Mr. Elliot’s Duvet was shifting about, and after a few seconds of throat-tightening silence, Cabe realized there was a person underneath. Despite the fact this subconscious knew where this was going, he kept a hand on his gun as the person’s face emerged through white sheets and crimson curls.

  “Oh, hey there.”

  It was a woman, a young and beautiful woman, and she was blinking and smiling at him in far too comfortable a manner for someone who had just been caught naked in a billionaire’s bed by a complete stranger. Her voice was friendly and chipper, and she didn’t bother trying to hide the fact that the curve of one milky breast was exposed in the tangle of blankets.

  “You’re a friend of Elliot’s?” she asked in a peppy tone.

  “Um.” Cabe dropped his hand and kept his eyes firmly level with hers. “An employee, I’m a new member of the Personnel Department. Mr. Wright asked me to fetch something from the balcony.”

  “Ooh, you have the cutest accent! Yeah, he always leaves his stuff laying around,” she laughed, shaking her head. She sat up more and the duvet fell down, bare breasts and pink nipples jutting out shameless and proud. The skin across Cabe’s cheekbones flushed a few shades darker. “I swear, he’d leave his dick up here if it wasn’t screwed in.”

  “You mean screwed on,” Cabe corrected her, and immediately wished he hadn’t when she grinned at him.

  “No,” she said, and she giggled again. “Sorry… I’m not usually like this. He just gets me all riled up, I don’t know what to do with myself.”

  “It’s all good,” the bodyguard answered, stepping away from the bed. “Don’t mind me, I’m just the help.”

  “Elliot must appreciate you a lot if he let you up here unsupervised,” the redhead said, tilting her head to watch him cross the bedroom.

  He paused and looked back at her, one eyebrow lifted with feigned curiosity… or, at least, partially feigned. “Oh? Well, that’s good… I have to admit, I was pretty anxious about this job, I’d heard he’s… not the easiest guy to work for.”

  “Really?”

  Every word that came out of Cabe’s mouth was screened several times over before it was awarded its freedom. Not only did he want to encourage the conversation to go a certain way, but he had to anticipate the possibility that everything he said to her was going to be repeated to his new boss. He wanted to make sure he painted the perfect picture of WrightTech’s newest employee.

  “Well, yeah, but I don’t listen to that stuff. I’ve heard it before, and I’ve found people can be a lot different in person than the way the media portrays them.”

  “Tell me about it,” the girl replied with a roll of her eyes. “Like, Elliot? Legit the nicest guy I’ve ever met. But all those assholes online talk about him like he’s some kind of skeezy fuck-boy.”

  “Well, they just want the hits, right?” said Cabe with a shrug of one shoulder.

  “No joke,” she scowled. “No one wants to read about how sweet or charitable or generous a person is. People like to feel better by comparison. Sorry, I’m Lara, by the way. You are?”

  Cabe eyed her for a moment, sitting there so casually in what could probably be called one of the most infamous beds in the country. This morning, the man who owned it had publicly announced his status as an Anomaly. Had she known? Or was she a one-night stand who was just so obsessed with his celebrity that she was honored by it all?

  He had just parted his lips to respond to her when the sound of a heavily-amplified voice from outside cut him off. It was muffled, no doubt coming from street-level almost forty storeys down, but the words themselves were clear.

  “You are all gathered here in violation of the commandments and the will of God! You defy his name, you DEFY it! And now
you must REPENT!”

  “Okay, who the hell pissed in his Cheerios...?” Cabe was turning his field of vision back to the bed, but Lara was already sliding across the duvet to plant both feet on the carpet.

  Aaaaaaand, of course, she was still naked. Cabe politely averted his gaze, choosing to lead the way out onto the balcony so he wouldn’t be stuck... y’know. Behind her.

  “Oh, the counter-protest finally showed up?” she was saying as she edged impatiently around him. She stood against the glass (which he was grateful was opaque and at least as tall as her collarbone) and peered down toward the city below, without any apparent concern for how cold both the air and the glass were against her skin.

  “Ah, yep. Here they are. Geez, late to the party much.” Lara rolled her eyes and turned back to Cabe, who was just approaching the barrier. “A.R.M.’s been here since about four. Even sparked one at four-twenty. Counter-protestors’ll say they ‘should get a job’ and all that, because it’s totally impossible to have a full-time job and also to be free at four o’clock on a Friday afternoon.”

  “Eh, they’re grabbing at straws, let ‘em grab.” Cabe rested one elbow against the smooth, curved top of the glass barrier and allowed his gaze to travel downward.

  In the time he’d been ensconced in the building, a splash of color and light had firmly taken hold of the sidewalk curling around WrightTech – about fifty or so citizens who most definitely had something to say. The majority of the protestors were bundled up in parkas and hats and scarves (which gave them all a decisively ‘Canadian’ look, he decided) to stay warm in the frigid December air as the sun went down, but the cold didn’t seem to have quelled their spirits any. Two men in nothing but snow boots and cerulean boxer briefs had scrawled ‘KISS ME, ELLIOT’ and ‘ANOMALY PRIDE’ across their chests respectively in Sharpie. The two of them, and a group of about six or seven others of all genders, were waving rainbow pride flags to the beat of a small portable speaker someone else was toting as they moved through the crowd with a sign reading ‘JEW, BLACK, GAY, TRANSGENDER, MUSLIM, ANOMALY – YOU COULD BE NEXT’. Cabe watched as she walked past three young Muslim women, two of which were in hijabs, and one of them gave her a nervous but excitable high five. Her sign read ‘IT’S MY TURN TO BE YOUR ALLY’.

  The protest seemed to have stayed peaceful so far, which was good. That was a concern when A.R.M. was involved, though the majority of the violence and rioting seemed to be happening in the southern states, and was typically in response to police use of force, or in some cases brutality. The Pacific Northwest and East Coast branches had a tendency to keep things less chaotic... though whether that was because the cops reacted better to these types of protests in those states, he didn’t know. But as of six-twenty-six that evening, everything was calm and controlled.

  Well. Everything and everyone, except for a trio of counter-protestors who appeared to have deliberately put down roots in the centre of the protest, right in front of the store entrance. That was where Cabe discovered the megaphone he’d heard seconds before. It was in the hands of a man about his own age, Caucasian, much smaller and thinner than he was but every bit as loud. He was with another man in his mid-twenties and an older gent, both of whom were wearing very recognizable, stark-white scarves wrapped around their necks; even from forty storeys away, Cabe could guess the words that would be embroidered along the soft-knitted accessories in crimson, along with a little American flag at either end: ‘OUR PRIORITY IS THE PEOPLE’.

  “You must repent for your sinful ways, repent and give yourself to Christ, or you WILL burn in agony for the rest of eternity!” Megaphone Guy was yelling, in a way Cabe was sure would’ve made a loving, peaceful fella like Jesus very proud. Hashtag sarcasm.

  The crowd was getting a little riled, but that only seemed to spur him on more. “There is a DEMON inside you, and it prays on you! It leads you to temptation, and you have given yourself over to the dark side! Anomalies are NOT of Christ, Anomalies are a tool of the Devil!”

  “White Scarves,” he huffed out. “That’ll be the source of all the negativity.”

  “Usually is,” muttered Lara bitterly.

  She reminded him of Ronnie in so many ways, which he really didn’t want to think about while her breasts were squashed against the glass and her bare ass was jutting out beside him.

  “How long’ve we been putting up with their crap now?”

  “Five months? Maybe?” Cabe mused aloud. “Ever since the G.O.P. freaked out when President Dunn cracked down on all those anti-Anomaly state laws. Personally? I think it’s one-hundred per cent for the best that any laws regarding Anomalies be written federally... guess a lot of people didn’t feel the same way.”

  “A lot of people did,” Lara replied. Quick as a cat. “The ones who are smart enough to realize Dunn’s decision is gonna stop a lot of the discrimination.”

  Cabe smiled at her, very sadly. “Unfortunately, mate, a lot of the people fighting the decision have figured that out, too. Hence the fight.”

  Sighing, he refocused on the counter-protestors in the crowd, grateful for his excellent long-distance vision as he watched the eldest of the three fussing about with something at knee level. A knot tightened in his gut and again he instinctively remembered the exact location of his sidearm, but his worse-case scenario preparation was unnecessary. It wasn’t a knife or a gun or a bomb he was wrestling with, but as the crowd seemed to draw back a little to give them space, Cabe noticed it was a girl. A girl of no older than seven, probably younger, who was pressed so tightly back into the man that Cabe could only assume she was probably terrified with her current predicament. And the fussing that was happening appeared to be the man attempting to wrap a scarf around the child’s neck.

  The scene was causing enough of a din that Lara had noticed. “Ew, oh my – are you seeing that!? She’s like, five! Why the hell are you dragging her to a counter-protest!?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think she wants to be here,” the Field Agent replied grimly, his jaw set tight. The girl had pulled a single coil of the scarf away, and her guardian was trying to convince her to put it back on. It was things like this that made him uncomfortable, and reminded him why he kept the hell away from the political side of this fight.

  “Repent unto Christ! REJECT demons that lurk within our streets! REJECT the Devil’s spawn in our children’s schools...!”

  Pawns, statements, chanting... rage...

  The sudden loss of Lara’s presence brought him back to reality, to where he was. To what he was doing. He was heavily undercover, and there was every possibility that this girl was a plant here to test or judge him. He had to remain focused on the job.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as she came back out onto the balcony, though it wasn’t really any of his business. If his focus was on the job, here and now, then his number one priority was to monitor the situation outside and keep it from escalating. Especially with the presence of White Scarves.

  “Texting Elliot,” was her reply as her fingers typed away furiously on her new model WrightPhone. “Telling him to send someone out there to give them a bigger set of speakers. I’m sick of listening to this religious bullshit.”

  “Hey, now. Not all religion is bullshit.” Cabe offered her a ginger smile. “Every single group and organization and minority has its own psychopaths and extremists giving it a bad name. My boss at Patriot is a Mormon, major Christian values. He doesn’t have a thing against Anomalies. I actually caught him last week quoting a Bible verse in their defense,” he added with a shake of his head and a slight smirk.

  “Right, right. Extremism is the enemy? I read that article.”

  “Which article?”

  “Just something a friend sent me on Facebook. A thing this Christian guy wrote about how it isn’t the groups and religions and minorities themselves that are the problem, it’s the extremists, on both sides, and we could probably all live in harmony without them?”

  Cabe shrugged, glancing b
ack down. The little girl had accepted her fate and had crammed herself between the two quiet counter-protestors, the white scarf obscuring part her face from his view. A small piece of his heart broke away. He’d seen some shit, but he never liked it when kids were involved.

  “It’s easy to pile on the hate when it comes to Anomalies,” he finally agreed, his brow furrowing in sympathy. “Mind you, it’s also easy to pile on the hate when it comes to religious folk. People lose track of what they really think and focus instead on what they’re supposed to think.”

  “And what do you really think, Mr. Personnel Department? About Anomalies?”

  Cabe’s honest, brown eyes locked with hers without a single hint of indecision, weakness, or doubt, and for probably the first time since he had arrived, he spoke something that was one-hundred percent truthful.

  “I don’t have any problem personally with them.”

  Lara smirked at him. “Good. Because you probably shouldn’t be working for one if you do.”

  “No shit.” Cabe deliberately chewed his lip at her. “Man, I wonder how many people resigned this morning…”

  “Or are going to resign after talking to their families tonight,” she added thoughtfully. “I know Elliot’s concerned about it, too… but like he says, if they can’t handle him at his presumed worst, then they don’t deserve him at his billion-dollar best.”

  Cabe studied her for a moment before letting out a short breath of awkward laughter.

  “Look, I probably shouldn’t be talking to one of Elliot’s girlfriends on his balcony like this,” he said, taking a step backward as if to excuse himself. “Especially when she’s all... y’know.” He didn’t want to spend too long upstairs, lest Elliot – or worse, that personal assistant of his – start worrying that he might not be who he said he was. It was about time he checked in with Her Royal Highness back down on the thirty-third floor before he drew any unwanted attention to himself. He didn’t want to ruffle any feathers on his first afternoon.