The Mouse

by Lauretta Hignett

  Just two men, seated at a plain white table opposite each other.

  The one facing Sunny was another guard, in a heavy blue uniform. He held a small device in his hands, staring intently at it. He flicked a button, and a tiny green light flashed on. About ten seconds later it switched off. The guard flicked the button again, and the light came on, only to extinguish itself moments later.

  Sunny stared at him, dumbfounded. That was the device? That tiny machine? It was no bigger than a cellphone...

  Her attention went to the other figure in the room, the man sitting opposite the guard, his back to Sunny. Alarm bells started to ring within her as she clocked his pale blonde hair, stark white t-shirt, and trousers. She floated to the left, taking in the handcuffs that bound his wrists to the chair, and moved further around to see his face properly.

  He was pale, with slightly ruddy cheeks that suggested former good health. His hair was the colour of ash, and it was clipped close to his head. Eyes closed, his head leaned back slightly, showing boyish features, hollowing cheeks, and long eyelashes. Sunny watched mesmerized, as a tiny tear welled up at the corner of his closed eye, and trickled slowly down his cheek.

  A prisoner, here in this little white room, in a bizarre reinforced building in the middle of North Korea. Was he another soldier, a prisoner of war? Sunny was confused, and she searched his empty face for clues.

  The guard stirred, his head snapping up to look at the prisoner. He held the small device with the tiny light on it tightly in his hands, and rapped it sharply on the table, at the same time barking something in a strange language. The prisoner’s pale blue eyes snapped open in alarm, and Sunny jumped at the sudden loud noise in the eerie silence. The guard bellowed again, an order in a language that fell strangely from his lips. The prisoner took a breath, regrouping, and the guard turned his attention back to the machine in his hands. The tiny green light on the device flicked off again.

  Sunny’s mouth fell open. The EMP wasn’t a machine. It wasn’t a huge, hulking contraption or a whizzing giant computer. That man was doing it. That prisoner, chained to the chair, was producing the pulse that was knocking out every electrical device for hundreds of miles around. Sunny was frozen in shock, staring at the prisoner as he slowly shut his eyes again. Another single tear ran slowly down his cheek.

  A premonition of her own doom finally galvanized her into action, and she shot immediately out of the ceiling of that tiny white room, through the next empty, sterile floor and out of the roof of the building. She shot high into the sky, desperate to escape what could one day be her fate.

  She flew in a panic, faster than she had ever flown before, zooming like a rocket back towards Australia. The west coast was in sight in a few seconds, and she hesitated between Forster and Sydney, unsure of her next move. Her heart was still thumping erratically, and she was finding it difficult to think, her mind was still with that man handcuffed to the chair, being forced to use his strange gift to benefit the North Korean Army.

  In her mind’s eye, his face kept changing to her face.

  Screaming in frustration, she stopped dead in the air a thousand feet up and pulled out her mobile. She pushed her hand out of the Alternate and dialed. The dial tone sounded, and Hunter’s voice answered.

  “Hi.”

  “Hunter! It’s not a machine! It’s a – “

  “Mouse? Are you there? Hello?” He interrupted as if he couldn’t hear her.

  “Yes, I’m here! I’m trying to tell-”

  “Are you okay? Talk to me!” Hunter’s voice became tinged with worry as she finally realized he couldn’t hear her.

  Her hand was in reality; her voice box wasn’t.

  Quickly scanning the ocean below, she picked out a large buoy far out to sea, and headed straight down and was soon perched precariously on it, holding onto its steel frame with one hand and clutching her mobile in the other.

  Hunter was still on the line, pleading, as she pushed herself into reality. “Mouse, if you’re there, please say something…”

  “I’m here! ImhereImhereImhere... Sorry! This is so crazy, Hunter, I’m really starting to freak out a bit here!” Sunny shrieked into the phone.

  “Oh, thank God you’re okay.” Hunter sighed with relief. “What’s wrong? What have you done?” He added, more suspiciously.

  “It’s a man! A maaa-haaaannn!”

  “What’s a man? Mouse, please calm down.”

  “The pulse! It’s not a machine!” Her voice went up a couple more octaves. “It’s a prisoner. A guy, Scandinavian by the look of him. He’s chained to a chair in a Fort Knox-style building in North Korea. He’s the one making the pulse!”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone, as Hunter digested the news. Finally, he sighed.

  “I was worried about this.”

  “You were?” Her voice was getting so shrill that it was approaching sonar.

  “Yeah. It was one of the theories we had considered.” He was silent for a moment. “I’m glad you found him,” he said gruffly.

  “I’m glad I found him too, but seriously Hunter, what are we going to do now? I can’t just pick him up and bring him back with me! He really doesn’t look like the meditating type… and I’m reluctant to beat him half to death.” A thought suddenly occurred to her, and she shook her head in horror. “Oh, God no, Hunter, please don’t ask me to kill him. I don’t think I can. I’m not the killing type, and he’s so innocent looking, kinda cute really… I just couldn’t…”

  Hunter’s smooth, dark chocolate voice cut through her monologue. “Mouse. Calm down. No one is asking you to kill anyone.” She bit her tongue, and her heart, which already belonged to him, was doing his bidding and slowing down, gradually calming her. She took a deep breath and concentrated on his voice. “Now go to my apartment,” he continued. “Wait for me there.”

  And he hung up.

  She sat for a moment, there on the side of the bright red buoy, clinging to it as it rocked with the rhythm of the ocean, thinking of Hunter’s deep dark eyes and hunky frame until she felt more like herself. She pulled herself back into the Alternate and headed straight for Hunter’s apartment.

  Angus, sitting on the counter in the kitchen, greeted her by swiping his mangy claw through her before she could even buzz into reality, and had another go when she finally appeared, two feet out of range. It seemed that he had decided she was becoming more of a competitor for Hunter’s attention. He was upgrading his campaign against her from mere glowering death-stares to an all-out assault.

  “Watch it, asshole,” she growled at him, sinking to his level. He gave an odd strangled croak, flicking his tail he stormed off to Hunter’s bedroom.

  Sunny paced backwards and forwards through his apartment; the leftover adrenaline was making her twitchy. She was at a loss of what to do, so she decided to make a snack. There were a couple of fresh bagels on the counter, and she found some smoked salmon. Suspecting that Hunter got it as a treat for Angus, she decided to use it up. A quick rummage in the fridge revealed some sun-dried tomatoes, cream cheese, rocket, and half a lemon, and she found some baby capers in a jar in the door of the fridge. She split the bagels and lightly toasted them under the grill, smeared them with crème cheese and layered the salmon, sun-dried tomatoes and rocket on them, and sprinkled them with baby capers and a squeeze of lemon.

  Right on time, Hunter walked through the door. He rushed to her in the kitchen as she was sliding his bagel onto a plate, and he ground to a halt when she silently handed it to him.

  Sidetracked, Hunter inspected the bagel, gently pulling at the layers, and looked over at Sunny.

  “That’s exactly what I was going to do with them,” he said, puzzled. “Smoked salmon and crème cheese bagels, with semi-dried tomatoes and capers. What are you, a mind reader now?”

  “No,” she retorted. “It’s a classic combination. And I thought you might have gotten the salmon for Angus.”

  “Ah. You bitch,” Hunter teased, sliding
into the bar stool next to her. “I’m glad you’re a bit calmer. I thought you were going to break the sound barrier there.”

  She gave him a dirty look. “You would be freaking out too if you saw what I saw.”

  “And what was that?”

  “It was in a small town, a bit north of the front line. There was this building, fat and squat, about five stories, no windows and one door, guards everywhere. In this tiny room on the fourth floor, there was this blond guy, sitting with a guard. The guard had a small box with a light that he kept flicking on, and every twenty seconds or so, it turned off. I was watching when the light stayed on for too long, he yelled at the prisoner, who kind of woke up, and then the light turned off. It was him, Hunter. He was doing it. It’s not a machine; it’s a man.” She shuddered in horror. “They’re making him give off a pulse every twenty seconds. The poor man must not have slept in months.”

  She remembered something. “And they keep moving him. They’ve moved him every day for the last few days. He might not be there anymore now. And he’s really, really hard to find. Finding him in the first place was a bit of a fluke. The building struck me as a bit creepy, so I went in.” She looked up and caught Hunter’s eye. “I don’t want to lose this opportunity. We have to do something.”

  Hunter was silent for a moment, appraising her, mouth set in a hard line. “This makes everything more difficult.” He appeared to reach a decision and got to his feet, and put his hands on her shoulders, staring deep into her eyes. “Mouse, if I let you do this, you have to promise me that you’ll be careful.”

  “Do what?” She whispered, unnerved by the proximity, and by his cool breath on her face. She fought the urge to lean in closer, when he suddenly broke away and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small glass vial with a clear liquid inside and held it up to her eyes.

  “You’ll need to dump this in his food, or his drink. It’s sweet-tasting, so he shouldn’t be suspicious.”

  “What is it?”

  “Magic mushrooms. The active ingredient, extracted. With a little honey,” he added.

  “Ohhhh.” She took the vial in her hand and studied the clear viscous liquid inside. “Okay. So there will be enough to trip him out completely?”

  “There should be. Now, you said that the guard yelled at him, and he responded? Did he yell in Korean?” Hunter asked.

  “No. I’m pretty sure not. It sounded… weird, guttural. I know it’s not Spanish or French or Russian, and the guy was white…He looked Scandinavian of some sort….”

  Hunter pulled out his phone and fiddled with it for a moment. “Did it sound like this?” he asked, and hit a button on his phone. A voice spoke out of it, a short sentence in another language.

  “No. Similar, but I don’t think that was it.” She shook her head.

  He tried again. Another voice emanated from the phone, a sentence she didn’t understand. “No, that’s not it either. Why are we doing this?” she asked, confused.

  Hunter continued to scroll through some language options on his phone. “If you were tripping out, losing your mind and some strange girl appeared to you, would you want to go with her if she held out her hand? You’ve got to make him want to come with you, or else this is not going to work. So, the first thing is, we identify his language, then teach you how to say something in it, so he trusts you.”

  “Sounds like a bit of a stretch,” she commented, as he played her another voice. “That’s it! What is it?”

  “Norwegian. You were right about the Scandinavian part. Now…” He tapped another sentence into the phone. “Listen to this, and memorize it.”

  He held it out, and a soft female voice spoke an unfamiliar sentence.

  She repeated it back, slowly, and again, a few more times to make sure she got it. “What does it mean?”

  “’You’re dying. Come with me to heaven,” Hunter replied bluntly.

  “Oh. I suppose that might work. He is in hell anyway, I’m sure it will be a welcome upgrade,” Sunny murmured sarcastically. Hunter got up from his barstool and picked up her overnight bag the floor in the kitchen, and started rifling through it.

  “Um, excuse me? Can I help you with something?”

  “You’ll need to change. What have you got in here… oh great. This will be perfect.” He pulled out a white piece of fabric and threw it at her. “Go and put that on.”

  Sunny unfurled the material and held it up – it was one of her favourite sundresses, skimpy up top with spaghetti straps and white lace, with a demure scalloped hemline falling just on her knees. Puzzled as to why she should dress up to rescue a drugged-up Norwegian mutant, she slunk into Hunter’s bedroom and struggled into the sundress, taking a moment to thank the gods that she’d shaved her legs in Minka’s bathroom that morning.

  Hunter knocked on the door. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.”

  He came in and silently appraised her, smiling softly at her look of confusion. He opened one of his closet doors to reveal a mirror hanging on the inside and positioned it so she could see herself. She stared at herself in the mirror, wondering what he was looking for.

  The dress hung beautifully on her; the thin straps revealing her sculpted tan shoulders and shapely back, and the soft heart-shaped neckline emphasized her small firm breasts. The crisp white offset her colouring beautifully.

  Hunter stood behind her, looking her up and down, and frowned. “There’s something missing… I know.” Still standing behind her, he reached around and down, his hand moving towards her waist. Her heart started thudding in the silence of the room. Hunter’s hands grasped the end of her plaited hair, and he gently slid the hair band out, delicately using his fingers to unfurl the braid, one strand at a time. When her hair was free of the braid, he combed her hair out with his hands and ruffled it up softly at the roots.

  Sunny worked hard to keep her eyes from rolling back in her head; his touch was rocking her to the core. He gently arranged her hair, so it fell like a wild mane all around her shoulders and down her back. A deep warm glow started deep within her and spread in a soft blush to her cheeks.

  Standing back, he nodded in satisfaction. “There. Perfect.”

  What was perfect? She looked at herself in the mirror, but couldn’t see it.

  “You look like an angel.”

  “Oh.” She could finally see what he was going for, and looking in the mirror, she had to agree. Hopefully, she could keep her mouth shut, and this charade might work.

  Hunter coughed behind her, clearing his throat. “Go back in, and hang around until they bring him some food,” he ordered. “From what I understand about how objects can stay with you if you’re touching them, you shouldn’t even have to pull one little pinky out. All you’ll have to do is undo the lid of the vial, and tip out the contents into his food. Try to choose something sweet, so it’s not too odd when he eats it.”

  He handed her the little glass jar, and she looked down at herself, trying to think of somewhere to put it. He averted his eyes as she tucked it into her knickers, and continued. “Wait until he’s good and out of his mind, then try and appear to him.” He turned her from the mirror to face him and put both hands on her shoulders for emphasis. “If it doesn’t work, then just come back here. OK? Don’t try anything stupid. Just come back here.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” she muttered.

  “I’m not treating you like an idiot; I’m treating you like a soldier. And these are my orders,” he said seriously. “Follow them. If he does see you, just say the line you memorized, and try and to take him with you. And remember -” he looked deep into her eyes, forcing her to register his words. “If it doesn’t work, come home.”

  Sunny stood motionless, savouring the weight of his hands on her shoulders. “Okay,” she whispered. “Oh hey,” she said, a bit louder, “do you have any more of the mushrooms? You know, just in case?”

  She half-expected him to blow up, but instead, he silently pulled a second vial from the pocket of hi
s coat and handed it to her, then turned and walked out of the bedroom.

  “I’ll be fine, you know,” she called to him, rummaging around in her knickers. She followed him from the bedroom. “So, if I can take him, I’ll bring him back here, yes? Or to the hospital down the road?”

  “No!” Hunter spun around. “Don’t bring him anywhere near Australia. We can’t have him here; it’s too hard to explain, and he might accidentally kill off all the electricity in the city. We’d have to manually reboot the whole of Sydney.”

  He thought for a moment. “Take him home,” he said finally. “Take him back to Norway. Make sure you find the most remote hospital you can and dump him there.”

  She liked the idea of taking him home. It seemed right. She took a deep breath and did a final run through of the Norwegian that she’d learned, and added the word ‘rest’ to her repertoire, just in case he got a little antsy.

  “Okay, I’m ready,” she said, steadying herself and giving Hunter a small wave.

  “Be safe.” He came towards her and moved as if to hug her, changing his mind at the last moment, he gave her a funny pat on the shoulder. It was quite a relief to see him behaving awkwardly, so she laughed to herself and punched him back on the shoulder. “Catch you later, loser,” she said, just as awkwardly, and she shot out of the room before she could see his response.

  The sun had almost fully set by the time she flew off in the direction of Korea. The night was warm and deepest blue, with a trickling of stars appearing in the darkest spots. She flew fast and found the town after a bit of struggle. With no lights to illuminate any landmarks, she was reduced to using the wan moonlight to guide the way.

  Even the pulse was no help – it seemed to have disappeared.

  As soon as Sunny realized that she couldn’t feel it, she felt a pang of despair – was her mission doomed to failure before it began? What if they had moved him, and she couldn’t feel the pulse anymore? She might never find him. He would be doomed to work his strange gift for his captors for the rest of his life.

  Eventually, through frantic searching and a few wrong turns, she found the town. The squat grey building was even more sinister in the darkness, and she gave a shiver as she floated down to it. She bypassed the entranceway and the statue-like guards. Instead, she glided up on the outside of the building and went straight through the wall of the fourth floor, slinking through to the stark white room inside.