Truly Deadly: The Complete Series: (YA Spy Thriller Books 1-5)
Page 87
52
Full Circle
Brussels, Belgium.
Pedestrians and traffic passed by on the other side of the window. A TV played in the corner of the fast-food restaurant. Double-duvet coverage of the events. A new revelation every day. And it wasn’t gonna stop anytime soon.
“The latest big data leak reveals an organisation behind GEMA known as the Joint Peace Alliance Committee,” said the news reader. She wore a bright suit even redder than her bob hair. “This inconspicuous institution has been around since the post-war period. What can you tell us, Chris?”
The news item cut to Chris, a handsome black guy in a grey suit. He stood in front of a giant screen with a timeline of JPAC’s greatest hits.
Philippe came back from the counter. He slid my tray over and took a seat—still a bit ginger when he sat down.
“Scar still hurt?” I said.
“It’ll be fine once it hardens,” he said.
“Let me see,” I said.
He lifted his navy-blue tee and showed me the purple scar where the surgeons had implanted the kidney.
“How about yours?” he asked.
“Ah, it’s nothing compared to the heart,” I said. I pulled my top up at the side and showed him my scar.
“Now we’re snapsies,” Philippe said, tucking into his lunch.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, giving him the funnies. “Snapsies.”
I looked at my tray. I looked at his. He’d got us the same thing—falafel burger and fries. He bit into his burger.
I looked up to the TV again. The anchorwoman was back on. “And in the latest shocking twist, many of the world’s elite have been exposed as members of this so-called JPAC. Not only does the organisation have strong ties with intelligence agencies. It's believed to be the driving force behind many of the world's most powerful governments.”
The news program switched to footage of UN soldiers raiding a bunker in the Alps. Presidents, prime ministers, billionaires and mafia kingpins, all hauled out. The report cut to another man in the Hague. Glasses and a thick silver mane of hair. Henrik Mikkelsen, dubbed The Chairman. Aka the big dog we'd been fighting all this time. I took a bite of my falafel burger. The bun was soft and warm. The salad crisp. The cheese the best I’d tasted.
“Mm, totally nom,” I said.
“I know, right?” Philippe said, stuffing in another mouthful.
“Everything tastes great now JPAC aren’t trying to kill us,” I said, glancing back to the screen.
Philippe nodded, doing his usual food-ramming thing. Even that didn’t grate on my cheddar so much anymore.
“The clean-up is underway all over the world,” the newsreader said. “But what will happen to these armies of deactivated or destroyed drones?” she asked a studio guest.
He was an Arab man with white hair, a military expert and professor from the states. “Well naturally,” he said, “each country will claim any drone within their borders as their property. Which is correct, of course. So I would expect them to integrate the technology into their own arsenals. I’d expect this to accelerate modern warfare by ten to twenty years.”
“Just when you thought the world was a safer place,” I said.
“There’ll always be another JPAC,” Philippe said.
“You reckon Nadia shopped the rest of the board and committee?” I asked him.
“I know she did,” Philippe said.
“Coming up in this broadcast,” the newsreader said, “The aftermath of The FM Virus. The consequences of rapid depopulation hit home, with a shortage of skilled workers and markets crashing to an all-time low . . . And with the world in political chaos, is this a victory for the younger generations who won the so-called Day of the Drones? And what does it mean for the global institutions that lie in ruins?” The news cut from Youtube videos of kids celebrating victory over JPAC’s war machines, to an image of a giant pink pig. “But first,” she said, “Exploding Pigs and DreamPlay were taken off the market today, amid a storm of brain programming allegations . . .”
As I worked my way through my burger and fries, my phone buzzed on the table. It was a text. I smiled and texted right back.
“What are you grinning at?” Philippe asked.
“Just a text from Alex,” I said.
“How long’s it been going on?” Philippe asked.
“How long’s what been going on?”
Philippe raised a caterpillar brow. “Come on, you’re glowing.”
“I’m not glowing . . . But since X21,” I said, another smile breaking out.
“You weren’t going to tell me?” Philippe said. “He could be a spy. A mole.”
“Oh why? Cause a cute boy couldn’t possibly find me attractive?”
“You know I didn’t mean that,” Philippe said.
“Yeah, well I would have told you, only you were running around being evil.”
Philippe put down his burger. He stared at his plate.
“It's okay, you know,” I said. “Inge understood. Not like you had a choice.”
Philippe stirred his black coffee with a plastic spoon, even though it didn't need stirring.
“But if you wanna talk about it . . .” I said.
Philippe dropped the spoon and snapped out of it, trained to compartmentalise. “Just take precautions with this boyfriend of yours,” he said, looking me in the eye.
“Duh. We’re not stupid.”
“I was talking about checking for bugs, tails, misinformation. ”
“Ah, right,” I said.
He looked at me funny. “What were you talking about?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said.
Philippe sipped on his black coffee and pulled a face.
“Problem?” I said.
“A little strong for my tastes,” he said, adding some milk. He stirred the coffee.
Since when did he ever have milk in his coffee?
He took another sip. “You still having those dreams?” he asked me.
“Not since we won the war,” I said. “Why?”
Philippe put the coffee down and added a spot more milk. “I’ve been having the strangest dreams lately. All kinds of weird . . . Last night I was sat on a bed, kissing this really beautiful young woman. Dark hair, green eyes—”
“Pervo,” I said.
“No, I was young, too,” Philippe said. “In fact, I was . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Philippe said, waving the question away.
I shrugged and took a sip of water. Checked my phone and saw a beach selfie from Becki, posing in a red bikini next to a downed UAV.
I thought about dropping in on Becks now me and her had done our tearful heart-to-heart video call. There was nothing like a billion deaths to put things in perspective. And thank Plastic Jesus that Becks and Holly had survived.
I dipped a fry in ketchup and popped it in my mouth. I’d been on missions all around the world. And if there’s one thing I’d learned, Belgium did the best fries.
Philippe’s phone buzzed on the table. He checked it. “Finish up,” he said. “Roni found her.”
“Nadia?” I said.
“Two clicks from here. On the move with an armed escort.”
“You reckon she's building her own mini JPAC?” I said.
“Let’s not give her the chance,” Philippe said, snatching up his phone. We wiped our hands and mouths, screwed up our serviettes and dumped them on the table. We walked out of the restaurant and across the street.
A black van pulled up alongside the kerb. Philippe slid the rear door open and I hopped inside. Ling was in the driver seat, snacking on fizzy Haribo. Zak rode shotgun.
Roni and Giles sat close together in the very back, canoodling on their laptops.
You know, the more time I spent around them, the more I thought they made a good couple. And I had to admit Roni was damn good to have on your team. I mean, none of us would be alive without her. Perhaps I could learn to tolerate her, after all.
/> Philippe slid the door shut behind us. We took a seat on the middle row.
Roni looked up from her laptop. “As long as you guys enjoyed your lunch, don’t worry about the rest of us.”
“Whatevs,” me and Philippe said, rolling our eyes in tandem.
Ling put the pedal to the metal as she and Zak shared the Haribo. Roni and Giles tappity-tapped on the laptops. Me and Philippe pulled a pair of M4 rifles from under the seat. We locked and loaded ready for the mission.
I paused mid-prep. I looked Philippe up and down.
“What?” he said.
“You’re eating veggie,” I said.
“Yeah, so?” he said with a shrug.
“And you’re putting milk in your coffee.”
He looked at me blank.
“And you’re talking different,” I said.
“I am?”
“Yeah,” said Roni, eyes glued to laptop. “Like a chick.”
I loaded a clip into the rifle. “When did the dreams start?” I asked Philippe.
“Right after the transplant,” he said. “Why?”
I pulled up my top and looked again at the scar where the surgeon had removed my spare kidney. Philippe pulled up his t-shirt and looked at the scar from where the same doctors had given it to him.
“Those aren’t dreams,” I said.
We stared at each other across the van.
We spoke in chorus. “Oh . . . My . . . God.”
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Copyright © 2017 Rob Aspinall
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This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, businesses, locales or real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.