Rise and Run

by RJ Plant

  “Then you have the men who want to stay in the dark. That usually turns out poorly too. It’s rare to find someone who knows what to know and knows what to tell. A moderate man, I suppose.”

  “And you, Mr. Evans?” Her voice was pleasant to listen to, but there was a force behind her words. “Are you a moderate man?’

  “Call me Rey,” I said. “Why be formal?”

  “Mr. Evans, please answer the question.”

  I touched the frosted glass separating us, drew an X on it with my index finger. Then turned my back to it and wandered off. The room—white, round, and empty but for an inlaid camera, white plastic table, and matching chair—was getting tiresome.

  “Do you want to know why moderation is such an easy concept, but so impractical?” I asked. “Or practically impossible?”

  “Do tell,” the voice said.

  “We’re stupid. We have certain drives that keep us from stopping ourselves when we know we’ve had enough. We want and maybe we think we deserve or have some sense of entitlement. Just as we tend to lose sight of compassion, sometimes for the sake of self-preservation or plain selfishness, we tend to ignore the necessity of moderation, because what if we won’t have the opportunity to eat the doughnut tomorrow, or use what’s in the needle or fuck the hooker? So we take it now and we take it in abundance.”

  I took a closer look at the camera. Did it lead into the same room behind that glass? I assumed so.

  Multi-monitoring of subjects.

  I moved away from the camera. “Do you disagree?”

  No answer came.

  The door to my room was set between two panels. It only opened when whoever was running the interrogation wanted to let you out. Or let someone else in. Seeing as the door opened and no one walked in, I guessed they were letting me out.

  The pinkish-beige hall seemed almost flush with color after the stark white of the previous room. It smelled only slightly less offensive than a hospital, in that you knew death was all around you here, though not from any illness. The sterilization, sanitation, it was just to get the blood off. Don’t suppose I expected anything else. I’d never made a playdate with anyone from GDI before, but I was well versed in the kind of people they were. I’m fairly certain the company motto for those lower on the totem pole is “I was only following orders.”

  When did that ever make a difference?

  “Mr. Evans, I’m Kaitlyn Henderson. This Jonathan Shoreman,” the voice said, stressing my false surname. I turned around, and there she was.

  Kaitlyn. She’d filled out well. Still relatively short, maybe five and a half feet. Curvy in some very good places.

  The man, on the other hand, was not really my type. Tall, my height I’d say, which put him right around six-foot-three. Lanky, lab coat, khaki slacks, black dress shoes. Average face with no scars or marks to call him out on. Dark hair. Glasses. There’s an old term I used to hear back when I was in the States: “Nerd-chic.”

  This man was not that.

  I held out my hand. It was a struggle not to pull away at the dead fish of a hand he placed in mine.

  “Very smoke and mirrors around here,” I said. I drew my hand back, stopped just short of wiping it on my shirt.

  “Cloak and dagger,” Kaitlyn said. “I believe that would be the more appropriate expression. We’re not illusionists, after all.” One corner of her mouth made the barest movement, though her eyes were smiling brightly.

  She held a plastic clipboard to her chest with one arm, tapping at the board’s metal clip with her pen. Her other hand was tucked in the pocket of her neat white lab coat. Her hair was pulled back, not tight enough that I couldn’t tell it had a lot of curl to it.

  I’d thought I might not recognize her, but her hair, her eyes … Things were threatening to come up in a way they hadn’t in a very long time. I shoved them right the fuck back down and sealed them away in the cellar of my little primal brain. Where all the bad things ate each other only to shit them out at inconvenient moments.

  “Fair enough.”

  “Looks like your fitness test went well. Your physical exam turned up nothing out of the ordinary. The HR matron will look everything over before she sends it to Agent Bernard,” she said, referring to her clipboard. “I’ll get your blood work to the lab. Mr. Shoreman will see you to our in-house psychologist.”

  Kaitlyn brushed me as she walked past, a light touch that made me glance her way, catching her eyes when they cut to mine.

  Shoreman and I took the lift up. No music inside, no posh voice announcing the floor or whether we were going up or down. Just the little red dot along the top of the doors and the lettered buttons alongside a card scanner.

  A wedge of light came through as the doors parted. I followed Shoreman into the lobby. Too much glass for a place like this. Good for employee morale, sure, but safety first.

  “Will I get a tour after the evaluation?” I asked.

  “The main facility is off limits to civilians,” he said.

  “But the interrogation rooms don’t count?” He smiled. “Oh, is it something you people are quite proud of? Use them often, then?”

  “I wouldn’t say that they are our main attraction,” he said, likely referring to some dark room with a drain in the floor and soundproof walls.

  The psychiatrist’s office was just to the left of the reception area. I was surprised to see a normal door instead of the seemingly GDI-standard slick sliding panels. The milky silver surface of the handle pressed cold against my palm and fingers.

  “Well, then. Mr. Shoreman,” I said, “it’s been a pleasure.”

  “Mr. Evans,” he said.

  He turned, headed back toward the lift.

  I read the plaque on the door: Clare L. Folly, Ph.D.

  The door opened with resistance.

  A woman greeted me with her hand thrust forward. Chubby fingers and dry knuckles, the rest of her hand unmarred.

  “You must be Mr. Evans,” she said, smiling. It looked genuine. She, as well as the room, looked out of place.

  I took her hand.

  “I’m Dr. Clare Folly. If you’d like to go ahead and take a seat, we can get started.”

  Two pale pink chairs occupied a corner of the slight room. I took the chair providing a wall at my back and a view of the door. The chair felt uncomfortably soft. The doctor settled across from me with a file, a pen, a chart.

  “All right, Mr. Evans, we’re just going to start with a few questions to get a general assessment for GDI records.”

  I nodded, beat a rhythm on the chair’s arm with my fingertips. Tried to still my fidgeting when I noticed it.

  Dr. Folly flipped through the file. She looked young, face free of tired lines.

  “This evaluation has been requested by GDI for employment purposes,” she said.

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  She flipped through more pages, eyes skimming the words.

  “Now, I have a few general details from your application, as well as notes taken during you PT test and physical, but I’d like to get to know you a little better,” she said.

  “Are you hitting on me?”

  She smiled politely, scribbled something on the chart.

  “Are you currently in a relationship, married or otherwise?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Have you ever been married?”

  “No.”

  “Would it be safe to assume you have no children?”

  I nodded.

  “What’s your highest level of education, Mr. Evans?”

  “Some college,” I said. “Before the War.”

  “And what was your area of study?”

  “General.”

  “I’m going to list a few symptoms geared toward areas of concern. I want you to respond with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as applicable.”

  I crossed my legs, leaned back in the chair. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” she repeated with a smile. “Do you have any somatic concerns—pain or general healt
h issues?”

  “No.” Although I was sure by the time this session ended, I’d have a general pain in my arse.

  “Do you suffer from any compulsive behavior?”

  “No.”

  “Do you or have you ever felt anxious, depressed, or suspicious of others?”

  “No,” I said.

  The doctor pursed her lips, frowned. Was I not being the ideal patient?

  “Do you have a history of substance abuse in your family?” she asked.

  “Biological family?”

  The question seemed to spark a renewed interest in her. She leaned forward, nodded.

  “I don’t know. I never knew my parents. Or at least I don’t remember them,” I said.

  With that one insignificant admission, the room grew smaller. The silence held little comfort. The warm colors, shades of brown and tan meant to calm patients, were wasted on me. The clock on the far wall read 8:23. I wondered how long the doctor’s hair would be if she let it down.

  “What happened to them?” she asked.

  “Don’t know. Never asked.”

  “Is there anything you do remember about that time? Where you lived, your general surroundings?”

  I couldn’t remember anything before age eight. Even then, much of my past was a mystery to me. Before my medication was perfected, Conor had told me about the first time he’d met Rian.

  “Sour smell of the tenement building, the one room we lived in filled with strange faces and stomping feet attached to legs, attached to nothing.” I said, recalling what Conor had told me.

  The people he’d stayed with had been corralled out, he’d said. When he’d tried to run, a man grabbed him, threw him against a wall. The impact had broken his arm. Then Rian had showed up. Shot the man. James Moran had been there too, along with other uniformed men.

  That first meeting, Conor had said, was when he’d gotten his name.

  Dr. Folly nodded. “Okay, well, let’s explore that.”

  “I’m not sure there’s anything to explore. I was found, moved into the system, got adopted, went to school,” I said, staying as close to the truth as I could while sticking to my cover story.

  I’d never put much stock in trying to remember a past that so thoroughly evaded me. But something about being in this room jarred a curiosity I’d quelled long ago.

  “Mr. Evans?” She was writing something.

  How many times had she said the name?

  “What was your home life like after you were adopted?”

  “Good. It was good. I did well in school, was social, excelled in extracurricular activities,” I said, opting to leave out the nature of those activities.

  The doctor nodded, scribbled. “Mr. Evans, have you ever gone through any other traumatic experience?”

  No shortage of responses came to mind. One repeated itself: Well, doctor, this one time when I was seventeen … I doubted the doctor would appreciate the response: I made my first kill. Or Conor had.

  For a moment my whole body burned.

  “Nothing comes to mind,” I said.

  More questions.

  More robotic answers.

  “Well, Mr. Evans,” Dr. Folly said, standing. “I think that about sums it up. I’ll send your file over to HR.”

  She walked to the opposite side of the room, set the file on her desk.

  I left her office, headed out toward the light, the air.

  *****

  26 October 2042, Dublin, United Irish Republic

  Finally alone, I could flush the waste from my mind. It had felt so normal to be near Kaitlyn, but the ease with which she spoke to me made the guilt even worse.

  Shouldn’t feel so guilty. Wasn’t all my fault.

  And she was fine, she was okay. I hadn’t damaged her, hadn’t ruined her.

  I moved on, moved forward, took a few steadying breaths. The air stung a bit, but the United Irish Republic was one of the few territories left where you didn’t need to use a breather.

  Not many people out on the street, despite the late afternoon hour. The few that were milled about aimlessly, looking for food, shelter, a job that didn’t exist. The buildings, all varying shapes, sizes, and styles had one thing in common—they looked equally worn. Older than they should be, or maybe just used harder.

  Dublin hadn’t faired too poorly, all things considered. Like with most other major cities, its roads were in poor condition. Unless you had a specialized vehicle, walking was the primary means of intra-city transportation. No more Dart trains, no more Luas tram. The buses couldn’t run, and why would they need to? Who would they be transporting?

  Walking wasn’t the worst, considering the size of the city center, and the road conditions got a little better heading away from the city proper.

  I headed north on Mellows Bridge. Less of a bridge and more of an overpass.

  “Need a ride?” Shaina called out. Hadn’t noticed her, hadn’t noticed the hulking roller.

  She was leaning against the roller on the opposite side of the bridge. The great beast of a machine rigged to go over nearly anything. The body, painted flat black, could hold five passengers. It was shaped like a pod with three large tires, two in the front and one in the rear.

  When it rolled, it rolled.

  Shaina watched me as I pulled a hand-rolled out of my silver case and lit it, her green eyes giving her face an exotic appeal.

  “You know Rian hates it when you smoke in the roller,” she said, pushing away from the vehicle.

  “We’re not in the roller yet, so.”

  She snorted. “How’d the interview go?”

  “Being watched through a camera and a two-way mirror while delivering nonsense answers to nonsense questions? Well enough, I suppose. The psych eval on the other hand …” I shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out what’s what when the blood work gets back. It’ll be nice to see how Rian wants to cover that up.”

  Shaina nodded, took the feg from between my lips, and tossed it over the side of the bridge. “I’m sure he’ll find a way.”

  She climbed into the roller.

  “Doesn’t he always?” I muttered.

  Shaina took us around north to Bridge Street Lower and onto King Street. From there she took us farther north via what was left of the A1 and M1. God bless the roller’s suspension.

  *****

  26 October 2042, Belfast, United Irish Republic

  Although it was now united with the rest of the island, Northern Ireland wasn’t like the rest of the Republic. In that respect, it hadn’t changed. It was an epicenter of refugees. Many of the former U.S. and U.K. rebels, the men and women trying to undermine GDI at every turn, were holed up either in Scotland or within the United Irish Republic’s northern counties.

  The compound was just outside Belfast proper, blessedly away from potential neighbors. There were no markers for its narrow, hidden drive. You knew it or you didn’t.

  Half-dead trees surrounded us, the fading light casting strange shadows through the withered branches. Shaina downshifted the roller as we ascended the main drive.

  The compound made for a much more effective base than the Dublin GDI building could ever dream of being. It was a squat, ugly building made of steel and stone with a noticeable shortage of windows, extremely depressing, slightly prisonlike in appearance.

  Home.

  Shaina pulled us around the circular drive, came to a stop by the main entrance. The air here was even better than Dublin’s and I took it in greedily. I stretched, getting the kinks out from the drive, then marched up the steps that led to the front door.

  The compound’s entryway opened into an expansive, cavernous room. Rian’s office was straight back and to the right, ground floor, easily defensible and easy to escape if it came to that. Hallways for days. I double-tapped lightly on the last door.

  Rian grunted something. Shaina led us in. I shut the door behind me, took a seat in front of Rian’s desk, leaned back in the chair. Might as well get comfortable.

&
nbsp; Rian stood, the lion of a man just past sixty. He moved like a man in his prime. Moved like he had no worries. Wireframe glasses perched on a slightly crooked nose glossing green eyes that seemed bright, warm, fatherly.

  I knew those eyes could easily turn cold.

  He walked around his desk and perched on the edge, right in front of me, leaning against it with a casual ease. He crossed his legs at the ankle, hands in his pockets. For a long moment, he simply stared at me.

  I looked away.

  “How’d it go today, then?” he asked.

  I told him, not sparing the boring details, since that would have meant not saying a word.

  “Can you find out why she’s been targeted?” he asked. Straight to the point. Probably for the best.

  “Let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves. I have to get in first. The blood work, Rian,” I added, voicing my real concern as I leaned forward and rubbed my palms together.

  “I’m counting on Kaitlyn to help with that,” he said.

  I laughed. What else could I do? A fecking long shot, so. I steepled my index fingers in front of pursed lips. Then, too agitated to sit still, I stood, walked toward the door.

  “If she doesn’t help?” I asked, turning back.

  “There are alternative means of getting her out,” he said. “But we need to know why she’s been targeted in the first place, or else what’s the point? Besides, it would be more than a little advantageous to gain access to GDI’s resources.”

  “Oh yes,” Shaina said. “Their information, their weapons, their money, their red shirts.”

  “Your inside source can’t provide all that?” I asked Rian.

  “She’s in a … delicate position,” he said, offering nothing more in such a way that I knew that there was more.

  “Right. And if Kaitlyn not only doesn’t alter the blood work, if she sounds the alarm. What then?”

  “I knew the risks going in, boyo. Trust me, no one will come for you.”

  Of course I trusted Rian, but there’s always that baser human instinct, the fear, the desire for self-preservation inside you that lets you know when you may have fucked up.

  And mine was screaming at me.