Rise and Run

by RJ Plant

  The big fella was Joe McNamara. Poor Joe’s old man had said something or done something that Rian didn’t like. Maybe he owed Rian something. I didn’t need the specifics, just needed a name. I had a hunch that I’d be hurting the old man worse by going after his son. Too bad for Joe.

  I grabbed the front of Joe’s shirt and pulled him close, waiting until his eyes tracked mine.

  “When your old man asks what happened, you tell him Felix Quinn let you off easy. Because if you see me again, Joe, it’ll be the end for you. And you have your da to thank for that.”

  I let my arms fall, a cue for the man’s mates to walk him over to one of the booths before he made nice with the floor.

  With a nod to the barman, I paid up and left the pub. No one followed. I didn’t expect them to. It was rare to see money these days, even in Green Sites, so any inconvenience on the owner’s part would be overlooked. Business as usual.

  Since the War of 2026, the world had been blocked into Red and Green Sites. Red Sites were uninhabitable. Most of Russia, Japan, and China had gone Red—and not from any type of deep-seated communist tendencies. Most of what used to be the U.S. was listed as Red too, though the mountainous regions had faired okay, and some of the northern states.

  I’d been born into war. Never knew the world at peace. Almost overnight, the War on Terror—that’s what they used to call it—turned into the War of 2026. The War to end the world. There may have been a clear divide once. In the end it was about survival, not patriotism or alliances.

  I stood outside the pub and felt around my jacket pockets. I found the silver case, pulled out a hand-rolled, lit it. I made my way to the Old Infirmary on Johns Hill. The part that hadn’t been blown to shite during the War or the brief period of subsequent lawlessness. The distance from the pub to my flat lasted long enough for my body to begin shivering, little muscular contractions attempting to stimulate heat.

  I walked into the Old Infirmary. Five flights of stairs. If someone asked me what color the walls were, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. Never really cared to see.

  I saw her as I reached the fifth-floor landing. Shaina Moran. Name like music.

  She stood in front of the door to my flat, leaning against the frame, giving me a once over. Tall and lean, her skin some shade just short of tan, more brown-hued than red. Her mother’s complexion.

  Red gloves, black coat, gray pantsuit. And a duffel bag.

  I thought about retreating, but she was looking right at me.

  Still …

  I’d known Shaina since I could remember. Her father had started working for Rian Connell—my adoptive father—before I’d been brought into the family.

  “Felix,” Shaina said, her deep voice deeply familiar. “I would have let myself in, but I figured you might get in a twist.”

  Her accent was still strong. She’d grown up in Maine. So had I, though an incident when I was seventeen prompted Rian to move us to Belfast. Every day here pushed out traces of that near-extinct dialect and replaced it with more of a brogue. Of course, I’d been here a lot longer than Shaina. Well, not here in Waterford. I’d only come to Waterford for the McNamara assignment.

  Not long after I turned nineteen, Rian’s specialist finally nailed down the proper formula for my medication. The medication manufactured to keep him out.

  Conor—the byproduct of my chimerism.

  He’d grown out of control, so Rian helped me cage him. As long as I took my meds, Conor didn’t bother me.

  “In a twist,” I said. “Over someone breaking into my place? I wouldn’t consider it.”

  “It’s not really your place, though, is it?”

  “It’s not not my place.”

  She stepped aside to let me unlock the door. I let her in before me. The light in the kitchen, the light that always stayed on, filled the main space of the flat. The bathroom and only bedroom lay hidden in the darkness beyond the hall.

  Shaina’s hair caught the track lighting, emphasizing the blue tint peeking through the dominant near-black shade. She sat in the only chair at the meager dining table, which was less for dining than drinking in a dark corner when I shacked up here.

  Shaina took her gloves off, one finger at a time, then set them in front of her, idly rubbing a thumb across the smooth leather. She scooted the chair out so she could lean into the table, head propped on her hand.

  “How’d it go?” she asked.

  “You mean you weren’t peeking in through the window?” I asked, grabbing two bottles of water from the cooler and handing one to her. They came from an aquifer in the Faroe Islands, one of the last natural sources of clean water north of Africa. I leaned against the wall across from her. “Your unannounced appearance speaks volumes, so it does.”

  “I know your habits,” she said. “You always wait until the last night.”

  “Better to catch them off guard during a routine you know they’ll stick to.”

  “It was a bar fight, not a hit.”

  “It pays to have finesse either way,” I said.

  “Finesse? More like a case of roid rage.”

  “So you did have a wee look then. It’ll get the message across. What did his old man do, anyway?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. I got out my now-empty silver case, pulled a tin of loose tobacco and a pack of rolling papers from my jacket pocket, and leaned over the table to work.

  “He tried to make a side deal with one of Rian’s men,” Shaina said. “Take a little currency off the top, a little product off the bottom, and McNamara has the means to work around him.”

  She stood up, stripped off her coat, and moved into the main room to settle herself on the couch, stretching out and curling back up, a feline movement. Odd thing for someone who didn’t like cats all that much. Not that owning a cat was high on anyone’s priority list anymore.

  I straightened, lit my hand-rolled, took a long drag. “Drugs, drink, or medicine?”

  “Food, actually.”

  “Shite. I’d be mad as hell too, so I would,” I said. “Where’s you better half?”

  “Rian’s got him working the cell towers again, trying to widen our communication range.”

  The existing cell towers, and some newer additions, were maintained by GDI—Government Directive International, the very first agency established after the War. Its mission was to distribute resources, rebuild territories, and research ways to restore some semblance of decent quality of life. An agency with total territorial jurisdiction, whose purpose was to benefit all of humanity equally.

  Of course, GDI was really the world police, the world military, the world power in all but name, controlling communications, SecureNet, electricity, water filtration, food sources, medical resources, you name it. With bases across every habitable country—and some questionable countries—GDI employed scientists, researchers, medical professionals, former world leaders … and assassins. Or agents—depends on your perspective, I guess.

  Shaina got up, walked down the short hall to the bedroom.

  “I forgot this one was the one-roomer,” she said, silhouetted in the hallway’s mouth. She returned to the couch, folding her legs under her and draping her upper body over the arm.

  “No,” I said before she could ask. I stubbed the feg out in the sink.

  “I haven’t asked anything,” she said, her words taking on an edge of laughter, her smile pushing her cheeks up to make little slits of her eyes.

  “But you’re thinking it.” I ran a hand through my hair, looked at my watch, at the duffel on the floor. “We’re really not going back tonight, then?”

  “Sorry,” she said unapologetically. “Believe me when I say it’s for your own good. We do need to get back pretty early though. Rian has something else for you.”

  I nodded, grabbed a spare blanket from the closet, threw it at her. She caught it, snorted.

  “I really did think you’d be gentlemanly enough to let me have the bed.”

  “Told you not to even as
k,” I said and walked into my room.

  *****

  I was seventeen again, standing in front of an old two-story house surrounded by taller housing units, not far from downtown Portland. Chipped and peeling paint that was once white now had a soured yellow tone. I could still hear Rian’s voice in my head, so heavy with anger that his words were almost tangible.

  I knocked on the door.

  Hadn’t Rian said that Roy deserved to die? I couldn’t remember the words exactly.

  But the anger … So thick in Rian’s throat it turned his face and neck purple.

  It’s not you he’s mad at.

  Conor’s voice. It was in the back of my mind, comforting, familiar.

  When Roy finally opened the door, he leaned his torso against the frame, using the wood as a crutch. The skin of his face was as jaundiced as the house.

  Brown hair curled out from under his baseball cap. The cap he wore to show his support for the Portland Sea Dogs while preying on drunken college girls as they wobbled up the concourse to use the bathroom.

  Like the one he’d attacked two days before.

  She ended up in the ER, underwent emergency surgery. Died on the table.

  Roy’s gray eyes were glossed over, his speech slurred when he spoke. “I suppose Rian sent you?”

  “I’m coming in,” I said.

  *****

  23 October 2042, Waterford, United Irish Republic

  I leaned against the cold glass of the passenger window, my head aching from my hangover and less than four hours of nightmare-ridden sleep. Amber street lights, pale in the predawn cold, marked our progression through the United Irish Republic. The fact that there were street lights meant GDI ran this part of the neighborhood. The rest of us were left to the dark.

  The roller’s interior was immaculate, no dribbles in the cup holders, no stray wisps of hair on the leather upholstery. It was only ever scrubbed clean like that after certain … events. I drew on the window in the mark left by my temple.

  “Shaina?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Did Rian say what this next assignment is about?”

  “No details. I was just told to grab you once you were done with this one,” she said without looking over as she downshifted through a tight curve in the road.

  I could see the muscles in her thigh flex as she pressed the clutch. The transition back to fifth was equally smooth.

  “I wonder why he didn’t call ahead and fill me in.”

  “Maybe it’s something you aren’t going to like.”

  I looked at her. She kept her eyes firmly forward.

  “Maybe,” I said. And maybe that’s why Shaina had waited until the morning to take me back. A reprieve between assignments. For my own good, she’d said. Meant she knew something—something she didn’t want to tell. Today just got better and better.

  *****

  23 October 2042, Belfast, United Irish Republic

  Shaina dropped me at the largest and newest structure in Belfast, one of the only office buildings Rian had left. Built post-War. A glowering patchwork gray building with infinite windows, sunlight reflecting harshly off each one—the light acting as a deterrent, a warning beacon. Glass doors opened to the lobby of the twelve-story building. Rian’s office took up the entire top floor. This was a structure out of place, out of time. Comforting and alien.

  I walked to the receptionist’s desk. She was young, early twenties maybe, with a face and body to remember and a name to forget. Which probably explained why she was scowling at me.

  “Hiya, love. You look well,” I told her.

  “Piss off,” she said. I staggered back, grinning, with a hand held to my heart.

  “You wound me,” I said.

  She laughed despite herself. “Right. Well, yer da is waiting, so. Best be off.”

  I gave her a smile, then tried to set my mind for business. If Rian was briefing me at the office instead of the compound, this was definitely going to be something I didn’t like. The compound was home, the office was ugly business, so it was.

  I took the stairs instead of the lift. Twelve flights of stairs might give my palms an excuse for sweating. The stairwell let out directly into Rian’s office, next to the lift doors.

  The spice of burning hickory spilled from the fireplace, filling the office. A synthesized scent. A constant reminder of loss. A paper screen hid the in-room kitchen.

  Rian, always the professional in a three-piece suit, sat behind his desk, jacket draped over his chair, hands placed neatly in front of him. I stood a moment, and for that moment, was unsure of myself. I finally convinced my legs to walk me forward. I sat in the leather chair across from Rian, tried to figure out what to say.

  Half-open blinds covered the wall of windows from floor to ceiling, showing a gray sky heavy with unshed rain. The very picture of my mood. I leaned back in my chair, spread my hands, palms facing up. Waiting for the answers he’d drop into them.

  “You’re the one who called this meeting,” I said.

  The clock mounted on the wall beside a fading and somewhat tattered poster that read loyalty counted out the seconds oozing lazily along. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  I wished the clock had a little more initiative.

  “Is it that bad?” I asked.

  Silence met my question. I leaned forward in the chair and tapped a finger against my chin. Decided to start again.

  “What’s the assignment?” I said.

  And that was the key. Business. Ugly business. A folder appeared in Rian’s hand. I hadn’t seen where it had come from. He slid it across the desk, a two-inch thick manila albatross.

  Kaitlyn Henderson’s picture was the first thing I saw. I slammed the file shut. My chest burned. I hadn’t seen Kaitlyn since the incident with her father. Just after it happened, when Rian broke the news.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  Rian got up, walked to the filing cabinet sitting below the loyalty poster, pulled another file. He still wore the watch I’d bought him for Father’s Day more than twenty years ago. Using his money, of course. What is it they say? It’s the thought that counts.

  The hands of the watch ticked faithfully, the face unmarred. As I took the file, I glanced at the poster again.

  The file, considerably smaller than the first, contained information provided by Rian’s source in GDI.

  Realization began to sink in. I looked at up Rian. It was the first time in years I’d seen him look worried. A line between his brows the only indication.

  I’d have to fecking work with her.

  “Yeah, old man,” I said, suddenly tired. Suddenly decades older. “I’ll handle it.”

  He might not have asked, but I knew he needed to hear my consent anyway.

  “Take this,” he said, handing me a wallet and several documents. I opened the wallet.

  Reynard Evans. The name on the ID. I nodded.

  “Shaina will take you south,” Rian said.

  I walked to the lift doors. I needed a feg. And I really needed a bloody drink.

  3

  23 October 2042, Dublin, United Irish Republic

  Seth Whelan. A displaced Texan who’d never lost his drawl.

  Friend, family, Shaina’s husband, king of tech nerds. Which was saying something, since only GDI, the wealthy, and the last standing puppet governments had anything like tech left. Then again, he did work for Rian, so.

  Seth was tall, slender, and sported a shock of straight black hair atop his head. He had one of those faces you could count on—cool, collected, trustworthy. Like many American survivors, Seth had come overseas to find—or regain—a life. He’d met Shaina during one of her assignments.

  “You do remember you have a fitness test and a physical tomorrow, right?” he asked in a voice like thunder, not at all a match with his appearance.

  When Rian gave me the assignment, I hadn’t realized he’d already been pulling the strings needed to shortlist my application process. Next-day turnaround was impressive,
even for him.

  “It’s sure I am that I could best you at both, even after another three drinks,” I said, but Jesus that was a lie and my slurring words betrayed me.

  We were sitting at the bar at O’Cairn’s, a pub nestled in a once-upscale hotel built in 2027, before that point when everything in the War turned to shite.

  After the War, the hotel became a more permanent living station to those brave—or stupid—enough to stay in the city. It was now locked off from the pub. I’d like to say that Sully—the current proprietor—bought the pub space, but he more or less just stated his intent to take it. Then he took it.

  He’d remodeled the place, collecting original flooring from the traditional pubs around the city that hadn’t survived the War. Patchwork of nineteenth-century stone laid out in no particular pattern. Like Rian’s office building, it was somehow comforting.

  The bar was made of real wood, heavy and solid, as were the stools. The mirror behind the bar, running the length of the wall, reflected the scattered and half-empty bottles of drink. Slim pickings, but better than the sludge offered elsewhere, so. All along the walls were little knickknacks and trinkets, musical instruments, mechanic’s tools, caps, photos of a time long passed, signed celebrity headshots, postcards, framed newspaper clippings. From the ceiling hung even more memorabilia. A reminder that at one time we, as a society, had a fondness for celebrating and indulging in various cultures and investing in the creative, the innovative.

  There used to be a restaurant in the pub, but that died long ago as the amount of fresh food, real food, diminished. Sustenance now came mostly in the form of canned, frozen, or freeze-dried bags of what I affectionately called “What the feck is that?”

  But you could always count on alcohol. As long as there was a human left on this planet, there would be alcohol. So much the better for me.

  Sully stood behind the bar, a dingy apron covering his yellowing white button-down and tattered navy and white pinstripe trousers. Arms folded and leaning against the industrial sink below the shelves of drink, he looked particularly grumpy tonight.