Fight the Darkness

by W. J. May

  Simon raised his eyebrows when he saw the alcohol, setting his bag down on the counter beside them. “How did you get that past the trainers?” he inquired appreciatively. “I’m assuming they strip-searched you when you got inside. Checking for wires, taps and what have you.”

  Tristan chuckled. “Believe it or not, it was left here by the previous tenants. A trio of guys who also worked for the Council. Consider it a house-warming gift.”

  Simon grinned and popped the tops off both bottles. “Cheers.”

  They took a huge swig. Then another. Then another. Swept away with the sudden freedom of two boys branching out for the first time on their own. The independence was catching, and soon one beer became two. Became three.

  That was about the time they realized they had left the stove on.

  “You’ve got to be more careful,” Tristan said with a bit of a slur. He’d dumped the pasta into the pot where it was quickly congealing into one misshapen lump. “We’re homeowners now, we’ve got to be responsible.” He flicked the heat on high and walked away. “I can’t have you taking any cues from your girlfriend, setting half of London on fire.”

  Simon shot him a look and walked forward to stir. “You were the one who turned this thing on, not me. And while we’re at it, you were the one who wanted me to go back to the market and buy you a chef’s hat. So however this meal turns out, it’s on you.”

  Tristan rose to the occasion with a flushed grin. “Challenge accepted. And it’s going to be brilliant,” he muttered under his breath, before picking up the sauce and squinting contemplatively at the label. “So do I have to add spices to this, or is it already done?”

  “Just dump it in with the water and the noodles,” Simon said authoritatively. “They’ll spice each other.” Tristan nodded and did as he was told.

  About two hours later, both the pasta and the idea of dinner had been long forgotten. After the clump of noodles had started to darken around the edges, sunk beneath a layer of murky tomato water, both boys graciously said that they were fine with just beer, and then helped themselves to another. They were already starting on their fifth when the smoke detector began to scream.

  For a second, they froze dumbly on the couch. Both of them blinked up at the ceiling, wincing against the repeated screeching ring. Finally, Tristan turned to Simon. “Did you remember to turn the stove off?”

  “No...I thought you were turning it off,” Simon hastily replied. Although, to be honest, he was having a hard time remembering.

  Tristan was having similar luck, but in a drunken bout of pride he felt the instant need to defend himself. “I told you to do it! It was your solitary job!”

  “My job was getting the groceries,” Simon yelled, raising his voice above the alarm so as to be heard. “You wanted to be the one in charge of the meal, remember?”

  A cloud of smoke wafted into the room, and Tristan’s face blanched in panic.

  “I changed my mind,” he leaned back into the couch. “I don’t want to be in charge.”

  The smoke was followed with a sudden deployment of extinguishers, and the next thing the boys knew they were being drenched in a stream of water from the skies.

  “What the hell is this?!” Simon cried, following his friend as he darted into the kitchen. The air was full of dark coiling smoke and he ran around, haphazardly opening up windows as Tristan started striking blindly at the stove.

  “Simon!” he yelled, cursing violently as bits of scorched pasta flew into the air. “It’s not turning off! The thing is demented or something!”

  “Turn the dial!”

  Tristan tried, but in his panic the plastic crumbled beneath this hand. He glanced at the fox on his arm guiltily, before shooting a glance over his shoulder. “What if the dial doesn’t work?”

  “I don’t know,” Simon cried. “Rip the whole oven out of the wall if you have to!”

  By now, the whole lower story of the house was soaked. The top, no doubt, would be soon to follow. Despite their frantic efforts to put out the flames the intricacies of the oven were enough to baffle them, and they were still shouting at each other in front of it, directing a useless stream of water onto it from the sink, when the front door opened unnoticed behind them.

  “You were the one who said you know how to use this damn thing!”

  “No, I was the one who said I wanted pizza!”

  It was hard to say how long they were being watched before they noticed the troop of men standing in the doorway to the kitchen. By the look on the men’s faces, it could have been a while.

  The only reason they noticed them at all was that Jason hopped up onto the counter and ripped the batteries out of the smoke alarm. The water system was soon to follow. The house fell into a sudden, ominous silence, leaving both Tristan and Simon looking rather bedraggled and drunk, standing in front of their first home- cooked dinner...

  ...in front of Royce Masters.

  By his side was Francis Wainwright and another mystery man from the Council, both of whom were staring at the boys with a look of equal parts frustration and amusement.

  “So,” the mystery man said dryly, “this is them, huh? Our bright hope for the future?”

  THE PASTA CLEARLY HAD to be thrown away. The wet clothes were replaced with new ones. And numerous tooth-brushing followed by breath mints consumed as the boys raced back downstairs to meet their guests, trying desperately to appear as sober as possible.

  Not the easiest task. Especially with this crowd.

  Jason’s eyes danced with a not-so-hidden smile as both Simon and Tristan took a seat together on the far couch, hastily piling the empty beer bottles beneath the glass coffee table.

  Glass. Perfect. Of course the table had to be transparent.

  “So,” Masters looked similarly amused, “how are we settling in to our new house?”

  Both boys blushed with similar guilt, before Tristan leaned forward in a valiant attempt to smooth things over. “It’s wonderful. Thank you. More than we could have...” He trailed off as a soggy glop of crown molding fell on the table between them. “We’ll be more careful with it.”

  Masters’ eyes twinkled. “See that you do.”

  Then, with no further ado, he leaned back to allow the mystery man on the Council to speak.

  “Mr. Wardell, Mr. Kerrigan—my name is Philip Keene. I’m going to be your case manager whilst you’re stationed here in London.”

  The boys absorbed the information with equal looks of shock.

  “I thought...” Simon swiveled his head around to where Jason was leaning up against the kitchen doorway, looking like he was considering taking a beer for himself, “I thought that Jason was going to—”

  “Can’t stay in the nest forever, baby bird,” Jason interrupted with a grin. “Have to fly away eventually.”

  “Jason will continue on with your training,” Masters explained. “And he will, of course, be available for any questions or concerns you might have. But whilst you’re away on assignment, you are to direct most of that communication to Mr. Keene.”

  Both Simon and Tristan turned immediately to begin sizing up the new man, nervous to see that he was doing the same thing.

  Masters interrupted the tension with a chuckle. “As this is to be your first assignment, I expect there will be a slight adjustment period. Every agent goes through it. Like Mr. Archer said...in this job, it’s simply part of growing up.”

  Tristan raked his wet hair back from his face as Simon nodded anxiously. He was suddenly as desperate as ever to create a wonderful first impression for the man who was to be his mission supervisor. A task at which he was failing spectacularly thus far.

  “Well,” he began without thinking, “we would offer you some dinner, but—”

  “Why don’t we just move on to the assignment,” Masters wisely intervened.

  Yeah, you drunken idiot, Simon chided himself. Why don’t you keep your stupid mouth shut?

  The coffee table was cleared, the plans were
laid out, and just a few minutes later Simon and Tristan were staring down at the face of their first target.

  “Who is he?” Tristan asked with a frown.

  “Mark McAllister,” Keene replied. “He’s a scientist from the States, now living in Munich. Specializes in neuro-manipulation.”

  Simon looked up slowly, the alcohol working hard against him. “And by neuro-manipulation you mean...?”

  “Memory,” Keene summarized succinctly. “The active manipulation, recall, and suppression of memory.” He pointed down to the blueprints of what looked like an underground laboratory. “According to our source, he’s been working on creating some sort of device—the kind of device that could render a group of people sufficiently helpless to whatever message he tried to instill.”

  Francis Wainwright chimed in. “The kind of device that could be disastrous were it ever to fall into the wrong hands.”

  Simon nodded quickly, absorbing only about every third word, but eager to catch on. “So what? You want us to kill him? Bring back any pieces of the device?”

  Both Wainwright and Masters shared a brief look as Keene stared at Simon intently. Behind him, Jason’s face had clouded with the tiniest frown.

  “No,” Keene clarified, “we don’t want you to kill him. We do, however, want you to incarcerate him. There’s a friend of ours waiting for receipt of the prisoner at a black ops facility at the edge of the city. Once you’ve located and subdued McAllister, you’re to drop him off for processing and confinement. And yes,” he added quickly, “if his theories have progressed to something more tangible, we would, of course, like you to recover any such work.”

  “And if he,” Tristan paused, eyes flickering around the group, “if he doesn’t come quietly?”

  Keene exchanged a look with Jason, before offering a casual smile.

  “Get creative.”

  Get creative? Did I just hear that right?

  At that moment Masters got abruptly to his feet, bringing the impromptu meeting to a close. The others were quick to follow, scrambling behind his long strides as he headed back to the front door.

  “All the information you’ll need is inside,” he said as he walked. “The way in, the way out, no less than five possible escape routes if you hit any trouble. If that happens,” he turned around suddenly, “I don’t want you to hesitate to call. This is no time for pride, gentlemen. It may be your first mission, but it’s of the utmost importance. We were told we could expect great things from you.” His eyes flickered to the trails of water dripping from the ceiling. “Don’t let us down.”

  With that, he swept out into the cold... followed by his three dark-cloaked companions.

  Simon and Tristan stood framed in the doorway behind them, smelling of burnt pasta, looking slightly lost, wondering vaguely how to get smoke stains out of wallpaper.

  “Well...” Tristan began as the dark tinted car pulled away into the night.

  Simon pulled in a deep breath. “...we have a lot of work to do.”

  “Our first freakin’ job.” Tristan grinned.

  Simon punched him in the shoulder. “I’ll order the pizza.”

  Chapter 11

  THE COFFEE MAKER WAS unearthed from the basement, and before long the scent of bubbling caffeine replaced the smell of smoke. Or intermingled. Or they went nose blind to the smell. It didn’t matter. As the upstairs had been mercifully spared the fire-choking spray of water, both Simon and Tristan set up camp there, spreading the maps and files over a large desk in the study and settling in to work.

  Two hours later, they had yet to make much of any progress.

  “All those different lessons they gave us in combat training,” Simon muttered. “Egyptian sais, Norwegian long-bows... And not a single class on how to decipher a basic mission report.”

  Tristan shook his hair from his face with a look of intense frustration, holding two different sets of papers in both hands. “I’ve seen agents go through these at a glance. It all makes sense to them. Somehow...”

  A key phrase caught Simon’s attention and he frowned. “Hey Tris, what does it mean when they say target is a ‘suspected civilian?’”

  Tristan didn’t glance up. “It means they don’t have any ink.”

  “That is not what it means.” Both boys jumped with fright to see Jason standing in the hallway behind them. He was holding two bags in his hands, and regarded their hasty set-up with a small smile. “Honestly, boys, did I teach you nothing?”

  Simon started to get to his feet, but Jason gestured him back down as he came inside instead, throwing his long jacket over the couch as he settled himself down beside them. He acted like it was most natural thing in the entire world, but Simon still couldn’t get over the fact that he was there.

  “How...? How did you—”

  “You two should really invest in a door lock, by the way.” Jason started rummaging around in one of the bags, oblivious to the pair of incredulous expressions.

  “No, seriously,” Tristan continued. “We saw you get into the car with them—”

  “I did,” Jason replied as he continued to rummage, “I rode with them all the way back to London. They couldn’t shut up the whole time about the little vaudeville show you guys put on when we first got there. Thanks for that, by the way,” His eyes rested for a second on each of them. “Makes me look really good as your trainer, when the two of you can’t manage to boil water.”

  Simon flushed, while Tristan paled in embarrassment, but Jason only laughed.

  “Relax. They thought it was hilarious. I’d never actually heard Masters laugh before,” he chuckled to himself as he remembered. “If you’re lucky, they might even send you a care package.”

  “So is that why you came back?” Simon was feeling much more relaxed now that their little fire had been swept under the rug, and he was actually quite thrilled to see his mentor. “To rub it in our faces?”

  “Partially, of course.” Jason finally extracted three sets of utensils before pulling out three helpings of fish and chips as well. “I was also worried the two of you might starve, so I brought you dinner. But I can see you already got pizza—”

  Fortunately, there was no limit to the amount of food teenage boys could consume, and before Jason had even finished explaining they were wolfing down their second supper. He rolled his eyes, biting into his with considerably more restraint, before reaching his conclusion.

  “And...I thought you might want some help with those mission reports.”

  Tristan and Simon froze at the same time, then looked down helplessly at the papers littering the floor in front of them. As if their complete indecipherability wasn’t enough, a few of them were now sporting grease stains around the edges.

  Simon swallowed and washed down the bite with a swig of coffee. “Actually, that would be really great. We’ve been trying to get through it, but—”

  “To start,” Jason interrupted, “‘suspected civilian’ does not mean that the target doesn’t have any ink. It means they don’t think the target has any ink. There’s a big difference.”

  Tristan shook his head blankly. “It says here that they’ve been watching him for the last four months. How could they possibly not know?”

  Jason raised his eyebrows, ever the teacher. The boys listened attentively, ever the students.

  “If I set up a minimal surveillance on you for four months, a team that was required to stay outside your residence and place of work while maintaining a careful distance from your person, do you think I would know for sure whether or not you had ink?”

  Tristan and Simon shook their heads.

  “People don’t use their abilities out in the open,” Jason reiterated, pointing down at the phrase in question. “That’s why when you see a classification like that, you almost always have to take it with a grain of salt. But at this point it hardly really matters.”

  Simon frowned. “Why is that?”

  Jason shot him a faint smile. “You’re going to be attack
ing the man with the intent to capture. I promise, you’re going to find out soon enough whether or not he has an ability.”

  When phrased like that, the task in front of them suddenly sounded especially ominous.

  Jason read their despondent expressions correctly and inclined his head. “On that note, do either of you have any idea yet how you might go about that little, but clearly most important, task...?”

  SIMON DIDN’T CARE WHAT the record books said about Jason. He didn’t care if his casualty rate was far too high, or his personality was far too stand-offish, or whether or not he was ever going to let Simon live down that time he accidently turned into a dog.

  He was a damn good Botcher. A teacher above any professor at Guilder. That’s all there was to it.

  Over the next few hours, he walked them through the mission report—step by step, page by page. There was a shorthand to these things that Simon and Tristan didn’t yet know; Jason wrote it out. There were notes and suggestions scribbled hastily in the margins; Jason showed them which to consider, and which to discard. He wanted them to be bold, but not to over-reach. Safety was the number one priority; he stressed this again and again. It was spoken like a man who had trained too many teenagers and watched them get gunned down in the line of duty. Simon remembered his story about the agent who had been stabbed to death in Verona. A man Jason said he’d trained.

  Simon wondered if it was why he had come back that night.

  When he was finished explaining the report he sat back and made both of them explain it right back to him, picking through any soft spots until both Simon and Tristan were confident that they could do it in their sleep. No question was too silly to answer. No detail too small to overlook.

  It wasn’t until they had started to shuffle the papers back into their original pile that Jason looked up at Tristan with sudden illumination. “Tris...did you break your nose again?”

  Tristan glanced up in confusion, then hung his head with a sigh. “Simon did it.”