Identity X

by Michelle Muckley

  “I want what you want, Ben.” She turned her head up to look at him, and her eyes looked swollen and set to burst. “My father is dying. So am I. I want a chance to live to grow old.” The pain in her face, in her blurry eyes and crumpled brow was a feeling that he recognised. He understood those feelings, and he felt them every day in every one of his mutated cells. Her words could have been his own, his own feelings, his own hopes, his own aspirations. Any fears he had, any caution for the woman before him had passed. He saw his own reflection in her glassy eyes as he contemplated her sadness and regret. It softened him and he sensed the need for truth and trust, believing in the freedom and strength that it offered.

  “Ami, why am I not dead already?”

  “I don’t know. You should be. What she gave you should have been enough to kill you?”

  “What who gave me?” He saw that same sense of pity on her face, as she wiped away a tear from her cheek. He traced his thoughts back to when he passed out on his settee, how he assumed he had merely been drunk, and how he had been dragged up the stairs, and how he had slept for thirty six hours, and how he had been sick, and how it was still there the next morning, and the next morning, and how Hannah hadn’t been home. Suddenly he had visions of her as a spy carrying a gun and speaking in Russian on a foreign mission and seducing people to steal data chips. Again, he reminded himself that such an explanation was utterly ridiculous. Yet still he said it. “You think Hannah tried to kill me?”

  “No, Ben. I know she tried to kill you. She poured you champagne, right? It was drugged. That’s why you feel so awful now.” She sat down on the bench, steadying herself, attempting also to steady Ben with a hand on his arm, a real connection. She knew they had felt that connection before, and she hoped he felt it now.

  “I threw up,” said Ben. He thought back to the pile of sick on the floor and couldn’t remember ever being so pleased that he had been ill. He tried again to remind himself of the absurdity of her accusations, but found that the more time that passed and the more he listened to himself, the dismissal of her theory didn’t seem quite so easy. He didn’t have any other explanations to work from.

  “Then that’s why you’re still here.”

  “Ami. What do they want from me?”

  “They want you dead, Ben. It’s their only aim. To them,” she paused apologetically before she finished her sentence, “you already are. There is no record of your life anymore. It’s not like you died, it’s like you never existed.”

  “Unregistered,” he whispered as he looked away. He bit his lip and tried to think what to do. He looked to Ami. “Will you help me?” She nodded reassuringly. After everything that had happened this morning he had only one other question. “Ami, where have they taken my son?”

  EIGHT

  “Ami, come on. Where have they taken him?”

  “Ben, I don’t think you understand. It’s not going to be as simple as walking up to the door and asking for him back.” She could barely look him in the eye. Instead she looked around at the broken buildings in search of absolution for her involvement.

  “Ami.” Ben bent down in front of her and took her face in his cupped palms as he had with Hannah only days before. Her cheeks were frozen, and in spite of her olive skin appeared pink and wind battered. At first she had looked so tough walking across the square in her Macintosh and heels, his only source of help. Now he found himself wanting to comfort her, as he saw the softer Ami that he had grown so fond of in the laboratory. He knew how he felt about her ever since the first day when she walked in, introducing herself as she threw her bag under the nearest chair in a nonchalant manner. The rest of his team were uptight and focussed, with no space for fun in their structured and orderly lives. But Ami breezed in without a care in the world. He fell for her in an instant, but he suppressed and stifled his passion for the love of his work and his son. “Ami, it doesn’t matter how difficult it is. Where have they taken him? Nothing else is important anymore. Where is he?”

  “There is so much that you don’t understand yet.” She looked over to her right hand side. Ben followed her eye movement to see what had alerted her attention but saw nothing.

  “Start by telling me where they have taken him.” As he finished speaking he saw Ami look over her shoulder again. Ben heard a high pitched whistling sound above their heads. He instinctively ducked, recognising the sound from earlier on in the day. It was moving too fast, like an asteroid through the atmosphere, there one moment and gone the next. Ami heard it too, and she knew what it was. Immediately he heard her scream, fright and panic straining through her voice.

  “NO!” She set off, running towards her right, grabbing Ben as she took off. He saw a man dressed in casual grey trousers and a winter jumper slump to the ground just inside a doorway. Ami was running towards him, her head ducked down and her shoulders hunched over, all the while pulling Ben with her.

  The bullet had caused a cavernous red hole in the centre of the man’s forehead. Ami stumbled to the pavement in front of the man, ignoring the bloody gloop oozing from his head as she cradled him. She pulled Ben down to join her, pushing him underneath the cover of the ornate porch. She gripped Ben’s arm with her free hand and opened her mouth to speak, but then came that air-splitting sound again. It was the whistle of the bullet piercing a channel through the air as it thundered towards them. Ami’s head shot back as if she had been punched in the face, before falling flaccidly, collapsing into Ben’s arms. The weight of her body pushed him behind the wall of the porch, protecting him even in her death. Blood and fragments of her flesh and bone sprayed over his face. Her head flopped forwards and hit him in the chest. He began to fidget and shout in revulsion as her body slumped lifelessly on top of him. He fumbled his hands up through her hair and grabbed her by the face, holding her as he had done only moments ago. He calmed himself by taking some deep breaths and then rolled her head back to reveal the full force of the impact. Scarlet blood and lumps of matter oozed from the hole in the side of her skull. His fingers slipped around in the warm silken fluid as he brushed her hair back from her blood streaked face. The horror of what he saw before him wasn’t just death. Death had visited his life before. He knew death. What he saw today was incomparable. His father’s passing was peaceful. A relief to the agony. But there was no peace here. He thought how only minutes ago she had told him that she wanted the chance to grow old, and he began to cry. The tears streaked through the crimson droplets that had settled on his face, before falling onto Ami’s cheeks and doing the same.

  “What do you want from me!” he screamed as hard as he could, his words stumbling over the lump of pain that sat in his throat. He sobbed as he said the words over and over, quietly and with no particular audience. He was paralysed by what he had seen. He sat there for several moments, cradling Ami in his embrace. But then he saw a dust cloud whip up in front of him as another bullet hit the ground. His leg was in full view, and whoever was responsible for the death of Ami and her friend had a new primary target. He dragged his foot towards him, wriggling his whole body about underneath Ami’s in order to break free. He held her face up towards his lips, his fingers weaving in and out of her slick black hair. He kissed her on the unblemished half of her forehead and silently offered an apology for her death.

  He couldn’t stay here, and so far he knew he had ridden a wave of good fortune to still be alive, but he couldn’t shake the thought that his luck was about to run out. He tried the door handle. It was locked. He pushed harder and harder. The door gave way a little but it didn’t budge. He rammed it again with his intact shoulder, harder still this time. It hurt terribly, but he kept jamming his weight behind it. He could feel the skin on his arm breaking and bruising underneath the repetition of each impact, but there was no other option. Eventually the door burst open in a cloud of wooden shrapnel, and his body fell into the empty room into a cloud of kicked up dust. He coughed as he stood up, before spotting that the man who was lying under Ami was still holding a g
un. He didn’t know what type it was. He barely knew anything about guns. He dragged the body towards him wiping, his bloody hands on the man’s torso before picking up the black handle of the gun. His hand was still weak from where he had been shot earlier, but he mustered the strength to grip the weapon. He had never fired a gun before, but he had seen them fired hundreds of times on the television. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his stolen trousers. His mind raced fortuitously ahead, and his hands delved into the pockets of the dead man. Inside he found what looked like an identity card, immediately recognising the green plastic token. He shoved the card into his pocket and headed into the derelict building.

  The inside was a striking contrast to the ornate facade of the old buildings. The covered windows concealed a rundown interior. The floor was scattered with old paperwork. His eyes darted around, taking in the peeling paintwork and doors which were hanging from their frames by nothing but the odd screw. The rooms formed an interconnected labyrinth with no discernible exit to freedom. He looked towards the windows, single paned and easy enough to break, especially with the butt of the gun resting inside his trousers. But the thought of the noise and commotion seemed like a prime reason to try to avoid that idea.

  He knew that he was getting close to the opposite end of the building which would open out onto Seventieth Street. That meant that he was getting closer to some sort of public place, which he presumed must be safer. To his right, he could see a door on the far side. It was the first door that sat in the place where it should, secured by a frame, and from the look of the window lined wall which it intersected, led to the outside. He headed towards it, the inertia of his run broken as his body hit the thick wooden door. He tried the handle, never really expecting it to budge. Gripping it tight with both hands, he crouched a little, straightened his arms in line with the level of the handle. He braced his feet apart and placed the sole of one foot against the door frame and pulled and twisted the handle as hard as he could. He prayed that with time the mechanism of the lock, or even the door itself would have degraded sufficiently for him to be able to disturb its position, but it stood firm, barring his escape. The windows to either side were also sealed shut by several layers of paint.

  He began to pace around in small circles, his hands running through his sweat-drenched hair as he muttered words of desperation. He remembered the gun as his arm brushed past the handle sticking out from his waistband. He took hold of it and his hand slid into position, his finger slipping onto the trigger as he had seen thousands of times in movies. His breathing was hard and shaky, and the sense of power that he had seen so many characters exhibit as they held the cold black metal in their hands was lost to him. He felt at risk with the weapon capable of both protecting him and ending his life, depending on whose hand controlled its power. He didn’t know if it was loaded or ready, but despite all of his other concerns an overwhelming sense of necessity crept upon him. In his life he never had the need for such an accomplice, and had no desire to own or fire a gun. But today, every rule by which he had lived his life so far had been subverted into a position where they no longer held any weight, and whatever position it was that he had found himself in, this weapon suddenly seemed like his best, if not his only option.

  Gripping the handle tighter, he held the gun shakily in front of him. Remembering every Hollywood lesson, he popped the button to the front of the handle and the magazine slid out of the gun, hitting the floor. Instinctively he jumped back, his fear of its power betrayed. Snatching the magazine back up from amongst the scattered papers he could see that there were more than a handful of bullets, and looked just short of being full. He slid it back into position, ramming it hard with the base of his hand. He pointed the business end towards the handle of the door and squeezed the trigger. The bullet left the gun at a force that he had never experienced before. The muscles in his arm shuddered at the impact, shooting upwards as his shoulder buckled from the shot. The bullet flew upwards, tearing into the plaster of the wall, and a small cascade of crumbling lime plaster work feathered to the ground. Ben held his breath, realising that a different strategy was required.

  He stuck the nose of the gun directly into the locking point between the door and the frame. Bracing not only his hand, but also his stance, arms, and shoulders, he fired again. This time, although his arms jolted back, his shoulder painful and acid hot, he stood firm. Shards of wood sprayed backwards and the door wobbled out from its position and he saw the safety of daylight stream inside. He dragged the door open, its swollen underside catching on the floorboards. Realising the gun was still in his hand, he stowed it back into his trousers and covered it with his stolen jacket. He stood for a moment on the steps of the old building, looking both left and right. He could see the entrance to where he had just come from. Just in view was the back end of a black van, the kind that until today didn’t automatically look to him like the kind that people get bundled into. But now, knowing that this van had not been there only ten minutes before, and was stationary with the engine running, it looked like exactly that. He didn’t doubt that this was for him.

  He pulled up his jacket collar and slipped down from the steps making his way right. He knew that only two streets away from here there must be an underground line. If he could make it there, he would be able to get away easily enough, as long as the identity card worked. After that, he had to find Hannah. He had to find his son. And with Ami dead he only really had one option. Mark. He had to get to Twenty Second Street, even though every single thing about that decision felt wrong.

  PART TWO

  NINE

  He didn’t look over his shoulder as he left the steps and headed along the pavement. He didn’t want to look back until he had put some distance between him and the black van. This was a quiet part of town, often the birthplace of trouble, and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He figured that whoever it was that shot Ami and her accomplice, and who had tried to shoot him too, would surely by now have realised that he had got out. They would have found the broken door. He listened closely for the grunt of an erratic engine in pursuit. He imagined the terrifying scenarios in his head, and the image of his own demise played out in myriad fashions, first being manhandled into the van, followed by the inevitable interrogation that somehow seemed more terrifying than a quick bullet to the side of the head.

  As he reached the first corner, he risked a glance back towards his escape route from behind the edge of the building. He gripped the corner of the wall, his knuckles so white they looked like the bones were coming through the skin. But the black van was still visible in the same place as before. Besides plumes of vapour pouring out from the rear exhaust, there was no other movement, and no man dressed in black chasing him. He reached inside his pocket and retrieved the identity card that he had taken from Ami’s accomplice. It looked like a regular identity card, green, with a small photograph and a metal chip that carried your details and financial status. The photograph was of a young blond man, maybe no more than thirty years old, and bore no resemblance to the man from whose pocket he had retrieved it. The man with Ami was no younger than fifty, and he had dark hair and brown sun-kissed skin. Ben stowed it safely back into his pocket and took another one eyed glance back around the building. Still nobody chasing him. He was overwhelmed by an unbelievable sense of luck, and then remembered that he still had Ami’s blood on his face and a pool of semi-congealed blood on his chest. He wiped his cheeks with the sleeve of his jacket, before zipping it up to cover his chest.

  After concealing the patchwork of blood that Ami’s crudely anatomized head had left on his grey T-shirt, Ben kept up his pace as he cut into the busier Sixtieth Street. There were crowds of people here and the street was lined with small shops and cafes. It seemed to Ben after witnessing Ami’s death, safer to stay enveloped within the crowd than it did to stay in isolation, so he slipped amongst the people and bustled his way towards the underground station. He remembered coming here with Hannah. She loved t
o visit the smaller districts of the city, where people courted art and culture rather than power and money. She always told him that it was those things that enriched their lives, and that made the world a better place. They would sip coffee and eat bagels for breakfast in one of the cafes, or when the weather was fine outside on small patio tables on the pavement. He passed the flower shop where he would buy her tulips in the spring and roses in the winter, and wondered if it was possible for everything to be a lie.

  He hung back on the opposite side of the road to the station, observing the entrance and its passing traffic. From his vantage point he observed nothing more than an ordinary scene as people dashed about during stolen time from work. As he scanned the changing array of faces, he found no trace of the shooter. There was no crowd of people on his tail, not least that he could see. There was no sign of the black van. He snatched up every ounce of his courage, knowing full well that staying where he was, was not an option. He took purposeful and determined steps. Hanging close to the wall, his eyes darted about the entrance foyer, scanning the room for signs of possible attack whilst trying not to alert the guards to his apprehension. He stood with his back up against the side wall of the newspaper kiosk. There was no sign of anybody that posed a known threat, and so he slipped into the queue, clutching his stolen identity card in his hand.

  His heart thumped in his chest, every beat reinforcing his anxiety as he held the identity card up to the small scanner screen. Each pulsation pleading Stop. The two seconds that it took to register the details seemed like a lifetime as he waited for the red or green letters to either permit him entry. The small red light flashed to green and the usual greeting message flashed up, greeting one Mr. Smith, and bidding him a good morning. There was no grey X, and the doors swung open in front of him. He breezed through, momentarily comforted by the brief realisation of success, before once again feeling the return of his overenthusiastic heart beat as he concluded that as of yet he had achieved nothing.