The Miranda Contract

by Ben Langdon

  “You’ll have to come back another day,” Theresa said softly, and she stopped moving her hands, as if surprised to hear her own voice.

  “That’d be great,” Miranda said, and reached under the table to take Dan’s hand in hers. He nodded, eyes on Miranda’s, his fingers entwined with hers. She said it would be great, he thought, over and over in his head.

  Theresa smiled a little and then stood, supporting herself on her chair.

  “I shall go and …” her voice trailed off and she shuffled out of the kitchen.

  When she was gone, Miranda dropped Dan’s hand and lifted her handbag onto the table. Her eyes were bright, filled with something Dan thought might have been excitement or fear. He’d seen both so often in the past day.

  “I got a call,” she said, and pulled out a phone.

  “Okay,” Dan said. He looked at the phone, but he was more worried about Miranda pulling her hand away from his.

  “It’s not my phone,” she said. “It was in my bag.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It rang twice. I ignored it the first time. I was kind of wondering where you were, so when it rang again I picked it up. Thought you might have left it for me to make sure I wasn’t worried when you left.”

  Dan shrugged and felt his cheeks burn.

  “It was your friend,” she said.

  “Who?” Dan wondered if he had any friends left. “You mean Halo?” he asked.

  “The same.”

  Dan picked up the phone. He could sense the power in it but it was just a normal, throw-away phone. He focused and the phone turned on. The call history had already registered in his mind but he scrolled through the recent calls list anyway.

  “He wants you to call him,” Miranda said.

  “He’s an idiot.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Dan looked at her suddenly, the memories of his jealousy uneasily fresh in his mind. She took the phone back from him, and as her fingers touched his he forgot it.

  “What did he say, what else?”

  “Nothing,” she said. Her fingers pressed at the keys and with each impression Dan received the number. “Just to call him.”

  “So you’re calling him? Are you nuts?”

  “Probably,” she smiled. “But you’re stubborn and we don’t have time. He got you your mojo back and he didn’t have to. We don’t have back-up, not anymore.”

  “I’m sorry about Sully,” Dan said.

  She passed him the phone.

  “Hey Dan,” the voice of Halo came through clearly. “Enjoy the surf?”

  Dan stood up and cupped the phone to his other ear, his eyes out to the front yard, bordered with gums and hidden from the road. The highway was beyond and the ocean beyond that.

  “What do you want?” Dan asked.

  “You need to finish this. There’re a lot of us who need closure, Dan, not least of all, you and the lovely Miss Brody.”

  “I thought you and the Russian were doing well enough,” Dan said.

  “I was doing fine when he was dead, actually. The old guard are past their relevance and you know it. They’re still dangerous; your grandfather probably more than the others.”

  “Is he there with you?” Dan pushed his senses outward even as his eyes scanned the trees again. He picked up the other outlying houses in the area and a few cars on the highway.

  “He’s flipped again. Thing is, he doesn’t want you back anymore, Dan. He wants to consume you, make you part of him, rub you out entirely.”

  Halo laughed again.

  “I don’t think it’s funny,” Dan said.

  “No kidding, but he’s losing it here. If he can’t get you face to face he’s going to rip Melbourne apart.”

  “He won’t get far,” Dan said. “The Knights will be back soon and the army would’ve been mobilized after last night. Like you said, he’s an old man now.”

  “But crazy-old. He’s not going to let this go, Dan. You have to come back. You have to face him and stop it from spreading.”

  “Why don’t you do it?” More laughter. “It’s not funny, Halo. Why the hell don’t you do something about it?”

  “Because I’m not in your league. None of us are, you idiot. What do you want me to do? Read his mind? It’s pretty clear he’s wigged out. You don’t need to be psychic. I’ve given you the break you need, the chance to go head to head and beat the old man. But it’s your choice.”

  “That’s not a choice. You want me to come back and die so he’ll not blow up Melbourne?”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  There was silence.

  Dan put his hand and the phone down against the bench. He could hear Miranda behind him: her body was crackling with electrical impulses. He closed his eyes and for a flash he could sense everything around him: the walls, the electronics, Miranda, his mother sitting alone on the veranda. Humans were made up of electrical impulses and he could see Miranda so clearly, so intricately.

  “I have to go,” he said, bringing the phone back to his jaw.

  “I know,” Halo said. “I guess you’ve traced the call by now.”

  Chapter 28

  Bree

  Bree stood on the edge of the cliff, looking down at the beach. She wore a hooded jumper and running gear, but she knew she wouldn’t complete her circuit. Halo slid a phone into his jeans and joined her at the cliff edge. His self-satisfied grin reminded her of the younger Halo. He kicked a clump of clay over the edge, but didn’t even bother to watch it tumbling down.

  It had been his idea to get the Small Gods back together. After years of growing, each in their own way, Halo suddenly decided they needed to be reunited, that the world needed some kind of apology from them for the crimes they almost committed. Bree thought it was a ruse for some new Halo-scheme. She knew he was embedded in a handful of crime families, playing them off against each other by systematically uncovering their secrets and then selling them to the person most likely to cause trouble. He had undermined the criminal network in Melbourne, even Madame Pearl, the untouchable one.

  But Bree agreed to listen, at least. She had managed to keep away from crime, even as she deliberately avoided heroism and altruistic endeavors. Keeping below the proverbial radar was her goal, and it worked for her. Dan became an indentured servant of the government, while Halo and Lily became pawns of bigger bosses. Only Bree was her own person, and she wouldn’t be giving that up any time soon – especially for Halo.

  Bree could tell the others made decisions based on family pressure. Lily had no chance of escaping her grandmother’s influence, while Dan was left in a vacuum with no one to care for him. One was drawn deeper into the criminal world while the other floated around, aimless. Halo, on the other hand, had outgrown his family. He was forged by a desire to be the best, to outstrip everyone and everything around him.

  Her own family was simply a veneer. When she was fifteen she realized her adoptive parents were employees of the Mad Russian. She had faded away from them, turned to dust and never returned. It was her way: to disappear when things became too demanding. Halo pointed it out to her frequently.

  Still, there was a part of her that wanted to erase the sins of her childhood. The Mad Russian had done horrible things in their name, had brought upon great destruction and death while they stood in the public’s eye, even if it was just for a few days.

  He would have to face justice.

  Death.

  Bree knew it was the only way, and so did Halo. Interestingly enough, it was Dan who seemed the most reluctant, even though he suffered the greatest. Bree assumed it had something to do with guilt and family.

  They tended to go hand in hand.

  “Is Dan coming back?” she asked.

  “Of course he is,” Halo said.

  “What happens if this doesn’t work out?”

  “Nothing, really,” he said. “At least, nothing for the two of us.”

  She smiled sadly and turned away from the cliff, wa
lking towards the car park. Halo trailed behind her.

  “You go on being his hound, and I’ll just flit away,” she said. “You haven’t changed, Sohail.”

  “We never do,” he said.

  At his car, Halo handed her an envelope. She hesitated, watching his eyes rather than his hand. She had no more secrets to hide from his penetrating stare, but she hoped to catch a glimpse of his true motive. He winked at her and flicked the envelope.

  “Memory stick inside. Details about Grandfather Time and the hostage. We need to get him back into the game or Dan’s not going to last long.”

  She nodded and tore open the envelope. Sure enough a small memory stick lay at the bottom. She tapped it on her hand and it slid out.

  “You do your bit and I’ll do mine,” Halo said, smooth voice close to her ear as she examined the USB. “We need to get Dan all juiced up and angry, just like the old man planned. We push him, pull him, move him into place where he can go all-nuclear like his dad and take out the Russian.”

  “You make it sound like a game,” Bree said as she slipped the device into her pocket. She didn’t like the way Halo used everyone around him, but she wasn’t surprised. “Don’t you care about Dan at all? He was like your brother.”

  “Dan’s a good kid, no problem. But he’s wasting his life and I’m not going to lose five years’ work just to give the kid a second chance at what he’s already blown. The Russian has to go, and Dan’s the easiest way to get rid of him.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” Bree said. “And it’s never that easy.”

  “The girl’s the key. Dan really loves her, stupid kid, and that makes it easy.”

  “You’ve told the Russian that Dan is coming, haven’t you?”

  Halo smiled and pulled on his shades. He jutted his chin towards the ocean and Bree followed his gaze, taking in the sweeping and diving gulls. She felt a pang of regret, like her choices were slipping away. She hadn’t felt that way for years.

  “You can’t see the storm,” Halo said. “It looks blue and forever out there, but you can feel it. You can’t stop it, so I figure why not get it over with?”

  “And what if this works, then?” she asked.

  Halo shrugged.

  “Seriously, what happens if the Mad Russian is stopped? What happens if Dan actually steps up and does something for once?”

  “We cheer, I guess,” Halo said, smiling. “Maybe throw him a parade. It doesn’t matter, Bree, baby. You and I both know there’re already other people shuffling to get into position. The Russian should have stayed dead and gone. Pearl had the place running smoothly enough. Now he’s back, things are confused.”

  “Not you, though.”

  “I have a feeling about this,” he said. “Everything that happened before, it was meant to be. The old man was right about us, about us being the future. Thing is, he wanted us to be his version of the future, but I don’t think we’re those kind of people.”

  “No. But if this ends with the Russian out of the picture, we’ll need to work out exactly what kind of people we are.”

  Halo leaned forward and kissed her cheek. His lips brushed against her skin so quickly that he was back watching her before she could react.

  “Good luck,” he said, and then opened the door.

  She stepped back, hands in her hoody.

  When his car moved out into the street and towards the city she relaxed a little. A part of her wanted to run, to push herself around the coastal track and forget, even briefly, about what would happen that night. But her fingers closed around the memory stick and she knew she had to leave immediately. There was no time.

  She smiled at the reference.

  Bree remembered Grandfather Time from an evening long ago. She had been with Lily and Luke Ma, at some gathering of criminals. The tall, dark-suited man with the top hat had simply appeared amidst the Chinese businessmen and corrupt local councilors. Bree remembered seeing his eyes looking right at her from across the room. She saw his pupils, was transfixed by them. She had known in that instant, that one day they would face each other, and that it would be the death of one of them.

  Bree took a breath and shook off her memories. Halo knew about the premonition and probably every other secret she had. All a person had to do was look in the man’s eyes and nothing could be hidden. She had learned that a long time ago, but she knew Halo well enough to know that he would never betray her.

  Her eyes closed and she felt her feet begin to swirl, faster and faster, transforming into a dust devil until her body had vanished. She allowed herself to dive down towards the ocean so she could skim across the surface, but before she had fully enjoyed the sun through her granulated body it was time to leave, and so she turned herself back towards the loft.

  With the ability to reduce herself to dust particles, and even smaller if she concentrated, Bree was able to get into any place, no matter how secure. And while she usually relied on her ability to get out of situations, there were times when she was called on to break in.

  Grandfather Time was an enigma. She had only met him once, but hadn’t spoken with him. He was English, she knew, but of an indeterminate age owing to his own strange abilities – the talent to step through time at his own pace.

  The house he was using while he was in Australia was in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It was large and surrounded by high walls and a secure gate, although Bree simply flew above the barriers and then down one of the many chimneys, into a drawing room. She could tell immediately that the house didn’t belong to him. The interiors were modern, and Grandfather Time was almost chronically tied to the past.

  Bree swept through the house, moving in a swirling pattern from one floor to the next. She eventually found a room with the definite touch of the master of time. Clocks lined the walls and covered the surface of desks, shelves and cabinets. The ticking sound seemed to push against Bree’s incorporeal body, so when she pulled herself back into solid form it was a relief from the pressure.

  She reached out and picked up a medium-sized clock made from a rose wood, with a clear globe over the clock face. She put it down and looked at the others, shifting some around to get better views at the ones behind. Many of the clocks contained people, or specters of people. She wasn’t surprised. She had heard the stories. Her fingers closed around a tarnished clock and shook it lightly but the image of a red haired woman didn’t move. Bree felt some recognition there, in the woman’s green eyes and pale skin, tugging at her memory. She shook the clock again and then replaced it on the shelf, turning her attention to the other timepieces. Dozens of faces stared out at her and she felt uneasy.

  They didn’t move, though. Their faces were slightly elongated, like they’d been caught in some kind of warp, which she supposed they had. She didn’t read science fiction, didn’t have the patience for make belief, but she knew Grandfather Time had captured these people, and captured them for some deliberate reason. There were always reasons.

  An ornate clock with a long-stemmed lily engraved along its edge drew her attention. She ran her thumb along the edges, even as she recognized the man trapped inside. He had a small black beard and a strong face, although his eyes were closed, like he was simply waiting.

  “Well, your waiting is over, Suleyman,” she said, and cracked the clock face against the edge of the shelf it had been standing on. The wood splintered and gears sprung out along with a purple mist which quickly formed a larger cloud in the room. Bree stood back as the cloud dissipated, leaving a hefty, slightly beaten man in its place.

  He took a deep breath through his nose. His eyes remained closed.

  “Mister Suleyman,” she said. “I’m not the enemy.”

  He smiled, eyes still closed.

  “Would an enemy announce herself, do you think?” he asked, breathing out, rather loudly. Bree placed the shattered clock on the shelf. “Still,” Sully continued, opening his eyes and looking at his new surroundings. “I do not suppose you are the enemy. I recall th
e one in question wearing an impressive top hat.”

  “That was Grandfather Time,” Bree said.

  “That name would be apt,” Sully nodded.

  “I’m here to get your help,” she said. “Miranda Brody needs your help, actually.”

  “Of course,” Sully said. “And she will always receive it. What is your name, though? Perhaps you would enlighten me while I take a breath or perhaps two.”

  Bree wasn’t used to being questioned. Her clients were generally in such a hurry that her reluctance to communicate was gratefully accepted. Still, Sully’s eyes held her in place and she felt compelled to speak.

  “I’m Sebriya,” she said.

  “Berber?”

  She nodded.

  “Hmm,” he nodded. “You are a gifted one, like Dan. Perhaps you even know him.”

  “We’re friends,” she said, although the word sounded unusual, even to her own ear. “The thing is, are you as gifted as they say?”

  “I am magnificent,” he said, bowing slightly.

  “You better be,” Bree said.

  He smiled again, flexing his arms as he moved towards the desk. His large hands picked up a clock Bree hadn’t checked yet and he lifted it to the light above. She noticed it held a swirling slate-grey cloud inside the globe. It looked like a storm in a snow-dome. She moved beside him and was amazed to see moving pictures in amidst the clouds.

  The Mad Russian was pounding his fists, revealed in the vision as if from above. He was in a study, surrounded by bookshelves. She hadn’t seen the place before, but she knew the old man.

  “This would be a spy glass,” Sully said.

  “Grandfather Time is spying on the Russian,” Bree said.

  “The vipers always watch their backs.”

  Sully grunted and placed the globe back on the desk, pressing with his thumbs on both sides which magnified the image, projecting it against the wall behind the desk’s chair.