by RJ Plant
About four, maybe four and a half decades my senior, Sully was a grizzled, graying man, a few inches shy of six feet, with the kind of sagging, plushy skin that made you think he’d had bulky muscles in his prime. He could be a little intimidating even now.
“All right there, Sully?” I said, getting out my tobacco tin and rolling papers.
He scowled. “Wishing there was more to life than looking at the pair of you,” he said in a heavy dialect—from an area he’d called Southie—that also reflected his years in the United Irish Republic. It was hard to understand him at the best of times. This was not the best of times.
I lit up. Spun my glass around with my fingertips. The light golden liquid sloshed around the sides. It was watered down—Sully had to make it last somehow—but it warmed the soul nonetheless.
“Looks like someone’s in a bad mood,” Seth said.
“Nah, mate,” I said. “That’s him being nice.”
Sully laughed without smiling and walked over to the other side of the bar to dust the counter.
“Come on, Sully. Why don’t you tell us a story,” I said to Sully’s back.
“Kid, I got stories that’ll make your sphincter pucker up like a virgin on prom night,” he said. And what an image that left.
“In that case, I retract my request,” I said. “Seth’s already anal retentive enough, so he is.”
“I never,” Seth said, channeling an antebellum southern belle. He jerked back as though he’d been hit. With a sly grin he added, “Well, maybe sometimes.”
We talked and drank for another hour or so before Seth went all business and I was starting to get too pissed to circumvent it.
“Think you’ll recognize her?” Seth asked. “Outside of just seeing a photo?”
“Haven’t seen her in … what? Seventeen years? Don’t know if I’ll recognize her, don’t know if she’ll recognize me,” I said, stubbing out a feg in a planter’s pot of an ashtray.
Kaitlyn Henderson. Jesus, fuck. It was being punished for something, I was.
Rian’s source in GDI had tipped him off about potential trouble. It seemed that someone at GDI had their eye on Kaitlyn, and not in anything at all like a good way. According to her file, she headed the Medical and Biomolecular Research Division at the GDI base here in Dublin, which meant there was no telling what she’d gotten into. Rian’s source couldn’t help, since that would blow her cover. She was also at a different base on a different land mass.
“So what exactly does Rian think you can do from inside GDI?” Seth asked, that bass of a voice starting to slur. A slight change, one you’d only recognize if you knew to listen.
“What’s he think … What’s the force that drives man forward?” I asked. “Knowledge, son. I’ve got to find out what Kaitlyn’s into that’s painted a target on her back. It’s not all fun and games and babysitting, despite what you might think.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“This is dangerous business. Dangerous. Business. If something needs to be shut down, I’ll … Well, it’s shut it right down, I will, won’t I?” I said, babbling now from the drink, knowing I was babbling and unable to stop it happening.
Admittedly, the thought of seeing little Kaitie again was bloody terrifying, wasn’t it? Oh, hello there, little Kait, how’s your old man? Dead, isn’t he? Oh well, that’s because I killed him.
“Wait, wait … Hold on. Did you drink my whiskey?” I asked, staring at an empty glass.
*****
Back in that house. After it happened.
After the blackout.
The house seemed so dark, sunlight barely creeping past the heavy curtains. I was on the floor beside Roy’s body. I managed to push myself from the floor, stumbled to the wall a few feet away.
Rian.
Had to call him.
“He’s dead,” I said. I couldn’t remember pulling the phone from my pocket, couldn’t remember dialing. My voice sounded small to my own ears. I licked my lips, tried again. “Roy’s dead. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I don’t know what happened. I was just … I just … I woke up and he was …”
I choked over the words.
Rian took a long time to respond.
“It’s all right, boyo,” he finally said. “It’ll be all right. I’ll be there soon. You just sit tight.”
I dropped to my knees, crawled back to Roy’s body. It was where I’d come to awareness, so it’s where I returned. Roy’s face was only so much meat staining the carpet around his head. His throat dipped in from heavy, poorly aimed blows. I stared at it as time slipped away.
Then Rian was finally there. I felt him kneel beside me.
“Let me see,” he said, holding his hands out for mine.
My knuckles had turned dark, purplish, swollen and cut in places.
“What happened, boyo?”
Several shallow breaths, hisses through tightly shut teeth and a clenched jaw—that was my answer. I couldn’t take my eyes off Roy’s body long enough to concentrate.
Rian squeezed my hands, trying to get my attention. I grunted, but the pain didn’t seem like much. I looked at Rian, could feel my eyes glaze. I was blank, a different person, seeing everything from the outside.
This wasn’t me. Wasn’t something I’d done. It couldn’t have been.
“I brought you some clothes,” Rian said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get you cleaned up, then you can tell me about it.”
I nodded but was unable stop the movement. Just ended up rocking back and forth. Rian helped me up, holding most of my weight as I stumbled to the kitchen sink.
“Wash off what you can. I’ll be right back,” Rian said after he turned on the tap.
I stuck my head under the running water. An elbow on either side of the sink helped me stay upright. My hands started to fall away from my head as pale pink rivulets snaked down the drain.
Rian turned the tap off and squeezed some of the water from my hair. I swatted at his hands and he moved away as I shook my head like a dog shaking water from its fur.
“I’ll be outside,” Rian said.
I dressed, switched to autopilot as I went through the motions. I walked to the doorway, hesitating at the brightness. I’d have sworn nothing could penetrate the dark of that house. My shirt was damp around the collar, tight against my throat.
“Let’s go,” Rian said.
And we did, not looking back.
No going back.
*****
24 October 2042, Dublin, United Irish Republic
My vision swam as I sat up. My fecking head. I’d forgotten why I never tried to keep up with Seth. That wiry eejit could throw them back like water, with about as much effect. Fucking Texans.
“Seth,” I said, the name coming out as an unhappy wail.
I waited for the room to come into focus. Or maybe for it to stop running circles around me.
“Finally up, huh?” Seth said, walking in.
“What time is it?”
“You got about an hour before your fitness test,” he said, handing me a glass of murky liquid. “Egg flavor.”
We were staying at the Dublin flat, which happened to be right under Kaitlyn’s. Rian had bought the building before setting Kaitlyn up here. Now she was the only one who occupied the building year-round. The rest of the rooms were used as needed and only by those Rian allowed. This morning I was especially glad of the convenience of it. GDI’s Dublin base was only a short walk away.
“How are you …” I asked, motioning to Seth’s general lack of a hangover, “like this?”
“I have a glass of bacon liquid before drinking. It’s scientifically proven to reduce hangovers. Or so I hear.”
“Right. Get away,” I said. “Get away before I throw this glass straight at your obnoxious head.”
I drained the glass, fell back against the bed, and pulled the covers over my head. Bloody fit test.
*****
24 October 2042, Dublin, United Irish Republic
Thick rope netting hung in a checkerboard pattern from the stadium’s roof—what hundred or so feet of it was left on the stadium’s north side. The netting dropped to the ground, spooling around the track below.
Five men and three women were already lined up in front of the netting. I joined them. No one said a word, just stared out over the collapsed stadium. I probably could have gotten another five minutes of sleep.
A young guy, maybe mid-twenties, came over to stand in front of us. He was pale and blond, a lean figure out of place in his black suit, the rest of us in shorts and t-shirts.
“I’m Agent Langley,” he said in a regionless American accent. “I will be overseeing your physical capabilities today. I do not care who you are outside of this moment. From now until you leave, from left to right, you will be numbers one through nine.”
I was nine.
“I am here under the assumption that you are all well-conditioned. If you are not, you should leave now.” He waited. No one moved. “Good. Now you are all going to get the fuck up that rope course. At the top, swing over and climb down the other side. If you are not prepared to run three miles within five seconds of your feet being back on the ground, you will be dismissed.”
We were moving the second he stopped talking. I pushed and pulled as I climbed, trying to even out how the fatigue would hit. The silence as we moved higher was like a foreign pressure. Only panting, now. A greedy, steady sucking in of air.
One of the women was ahead of me. A tiny blonde with short hair slicked back to her skull. One of the men was quickly closing the distance. Bald with corded muscle shot through by a roadmap of veins. He shook the netting as he climbed. Almost jarred me loose. Completely jarred the woman loose.
I hooked my left leg and arm in the netting, hugging with elbow crook and knee joint to stabilize myself. I reached out and grabbed Blondie by the wrist, using the momentum of her fall to swing her to my left side, back onto the ropes. I made sure she was holding on, then started after Baldy.
I’d been trying not to use more energy than necessary, but needs must when the embodiment of testosterone was trying to throw you from a rope course. I wrapped my right hand around his left ankle and pulled. His feet slipped, but he held on. I got a little higher, parallel with him, and drove my elbow into the top of his head. He latched onto me, his giant hand squeezing low on my neck, just above my collarbone.
I wrapped both my hands around his wrist, used my feet to push away from the netting. The sudden jerk of my weight loosened Baldy’s grip on the netting. I hooked an arm around one of cords and kicked out, knocking the breath out of him, which made his grip on me loosen. I kicked again, then watched him fall.
No one moved for a moment after the thud of the impact. Then, as one, everyone’s face turned my way. I resumed climbing, swung myself over the top, started the descent. No one looked at me as I passed.
I climbed down slowly, used my arms to drop me down rather than letting my legs take more weight than necessary. I glanced at Baldy, looking a little worse for the wear—and very definitely dead—then at Langley. He smirked but said nothing, made no move to stop me. I ran, moving at a steady pace I could maintain. It almost felt like a reprieve after the climb.
Blondie caught up. Surprising, since she wasn’t much over five feet.
“Can’t say I’ve ever had a man throw someone to his death for me before,” she said.
“Still can’t,” I said.
“No?” She looked almost smug.
“Bloody eejit almost threw me too. Important to be a team player. He wasn’t.”
I kept breathing steadily. Conversation was not an easy feat. My head pounded in time with my feet against the track. The steady thudding gave me something to focus on. I was glad of the overcast sky. I widened my stride, pulled ahead. Blondie caught up again.
“Self-preservation,” she said. “I can respect that. I’m Ada. Ada Beckert.”
“You’re a Yank,” I said, somewhere between a question and a statement.
“Yes,” she panted. “I grew up just outside of Seattle.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything,” she said, haltingly, maybe trying to figure out what it was I wanted to hear.
“Good,” I said, picked up my pace.
One mile down. I glanced back to see how many of us were left. Two miles in and down to five. Four after the third mile.
Pull-ups came next, then pushups. Then there were three.
“Four, Two, head inside for your physical,” Langley said as we finished up.
Ada looked at me before walking after Two. Langley and I stared at each other until they were out of sight.
“This test was not to see how easily you could kill,” Langley said. He crossed his arms. Trying to look more authoritative, maybe.
I shook my head. “That eejit was never going to make it as an agent. Too clumsy, too bulky, too visible.”
“So you kill him as opposed to, say, waiting for him to fail?”
“His disregard of his surroundings forced my hand. Rather one dies than eight.”
“There is no way he would have shaken all eight of you.”
I shrugged.
Langley shook his head, but the smirk never faltered. “Go ahead and join the others,” he said.
Preceding the stadium’s exit were two tables set against the exterior wall. Ada was sitting on one tabletop, Two on the other. Also on the tables were blood pressure cuffs and reflex mallets, along with a few things I didn’t recognize. I’d assumed the physical would take place at the base.
“They’ll do a full-scale workup if they invite you for the final interview,” Ada said, answering the question that must have been written on my face. “And of course, you have to pass the psych evaluation.”
I nodded, moved to stand against the interior wall, waited for my turn.
4
24 October 2042, Dublin, United Irish Republic
In the flat, hovering over the porcelain god with tears in my eyes and bile running down my chin.
Shaina stood in the doorway, hip cocked, arms crossed under her breasts. Seth poked his head around the doorframe and made tsk-tsk noises before running off.
“At least I waited until I got back,” I said, throat burning. The taste, even just the thought of the vomit lingering in my mouth made me shiver and retch again.
“Not really sure why you thought drinking the night before a fitness test was a bright idea,” Shaina said.
“Because your husband is a terrible, horrible, really bad influence.” And because of this assignment, I didn’t add.
I spit out saliva, then eased my back against the wall. It took a few tries to stand without upsetting my stomach further, but I finally made it over to the sink. Shaina handed me a bottle of water. I rinsed my mouth out. Spat again. Brushed my teeth.
I walked into the main room, coming to a rather abrupt halt when I saw Seth thrusting his mobile at me and smiling more than a little suspiciously. I took the mobile from him, stared at it for a long moment before putting it to my ear.
“You weren’t answering yours,” Rian said, irritation bleeding through the speaker.
“I’ve been a bit indisposed, so,” I said.
“How’d it go today, Felix?” he asked, throwing me off a bit by actually using my name.
“Surprisingly well, considering …” I trailed off, thought better of finishing that statement. “There was a bit of an incident during the fit test.”
“Anything I should be worried about?” Rian asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “Don’t think GDI is crying about it.”
“I’ll trust your judgment, boyo. I’ll put
some calls through, see if we can hurry this along.”
“Keep me posted.”
We disconnected. I pushed past Shaina to get back into my bedroom. I fell onto the mattress, face down, deadweight.
*****
Here I was in the police station. Just after the incident.
The station wasn’t as uninviting as it used to be, as those first few times I’d come with Rian to visit James Moran, Bar Harbor’s police chief and Rian’s closest friend. Moran also happened to be on Rian’s payroll.
Officer Finley escorted us to the room Kaitlyn occupied. A yellow-painted cinderblock room with two long faux-wood tables, and a television set that Rian said must have been manufactured in 1980-something. An old coffeemaker sat on the far counter, the muted smell of stale coffee coming from the carafe.
Kaitlyn sat at the table farthest from the door, her head resting on her bag. Her hair, red and angry. Gray eyes like her father’s, though still bright with something like hope, like life. My stomach turned.
I stood behind Rian, between him and the door.
“Kaitie, dear,” Rian said.
Officer Finley left the room, closing the door behind him.
Kaitlyn smiled and stood for a hug. She waved at me, but I couldn’t wave back, couldn’t move, could barely look at her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked Rian. “Is Felix in trouble?” Then to me, “What happened to your hands?” And back to Rian, “I’m not even sure why I’m here. I didn’t do anything wrong, Mr. Connell.”
I’d never heard Kaitlyn call Rian by anything other than “Mr. Connell.” The two had been estranged since Marie—Kaitlyn mother, Rian’s sister—died.
“Of course not, dear,” Rian said, ignoring the other questions.
“Where’s my dad? I was expecting him to pick me up.”
Rian motioned for Kaitlyn to sit as he took the chair across from her, folding his hands and placing them on the table.