Recalling Destiny

by Michael Blinkhoff

  “Here?”

  “Oh, here is espionage headquarters!” Harrison boasts. “Centre for truth and honesty, apartment of Awesome!”

  Truck rolls his eyes, Smith doesn’t say anything but looks around the room inquisitively.

  “Oh, this is my room, pretty cool hey! Do you like it?”

  Smith frowns, remembers something and then fumbles the pocket of his faded overalls, pulling out a small Chewbacca figurine and holding it up to inspect.

  “What is that?”

  “Chewbacca.”

  “Huh, that’s right. You had that in the car.”

  “Yes … see as seen.” he held it up to the duvet cover, matching it next to a similar caricature that’d been printed on it. Looking around the room he notices posters with the same character on it also.

  “Why have you got that in your pocket?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Great,” Harrison slaps his forehead. “Here we go again!”

  “Han Solo.” he points at Harrison.

  “Yes, we’ve already had this discussion.”

  “Yes.”

  “Chewbacca.” He holds up the figurine like a child.

  “So?”

  The door to the room knocks, interrupting them, and an elderly man enters the room.

  “Aaah, I see the patient is awake.” A white-haired man enters, “how are we feeling Mr, umm?”

  “Smith.” Harrison answers on his behalf.

  “Right, Mr Smith ... Is that your only name?”

  No response.

  “Might I ask what your full name is?”

  “Smith.”

  “He’s a bit,” Harrison searches for the right words, “special.”

  “Ok, Smith. Let’s have a look at you anyway.” he indicates for Smith to take a seat on the bed.

  Smith stands, still looking at Doc, “ok, man.”

  The elderly man smiles, “would you like to take a seat then, so I can take a look at …”

  Smith lunges forward suddenly, reaching for Doc.

  “Hey, easy there,” Doc backs away a little offended “What’s your problem?”

  “Smith!” Harrison curses him, “like this …” He holds his hand out, demonstrating the normal way to greet a person using a handshake. “Remember?”

  Smith frowns.

  “Believe me you can trust him, he’s been with us from the start.”

  Smith frowns but alters his hand, just as he did for Truck, he extends his hand in a proper gesture of greeting.

  Doc looks to the others for reassurance, Harrison urges him on and Truck only shrugs his shoulders. He hesitantly takes Smith’s hand and shakes it awkwardly, “nice to meet you Smith.”

  Whilst this takes place, Truck shoots Harrison a questioning look suggesting he isn’t entirely happy with their new guest. Harrison’s return gaze keeps him quiet though.

  “I assure you Mr Smith, a concussion is a serious cause for concern and I …”

  “Cannot harm …” Smith responds.

  “Smith, at least let him …” Harrison pleads.

  “Need speak … Suni …”

  “What? Who?”

  “Suni … lover of Doc.”

  “What? How did you know Suni was my partner?”

  “See as seen.”

  “What?”

  Smith moves to get past the three men in the room but is blocked by Truck.

  “Smith? What are you doing?” Harrison asks.

  “Must touch … see as seen.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Suni ... see as seen.”

  Harrison moves out of the way to let him pass but Truck still blocks his path defiantly.

  “You ain’t going to touch nobody champ!” Truck stands tall.

  “Please, here.”

  “And just how would you know that?” he asks, arms folded tightly to his chest. “Just who are you working for strange man?”

  Smith holds his gaze, “see as seen ...” he points to Doc.

  “Doc didn’t say anything about her.”

  “See as seen …”

  “You ain’t going nowhere buddy, there’s no-one else here, got it!”

  “What’s going on in there?” a voice sounds from behind Truck.

  Truck’s eyes instinctively flick backwards at the sound of the voice and when he looks back, Smith still has his eyes fixed on him. They stare at each other for a short moment until Smith brakes the silence and calls out to the voice.

  “Suni?”

  “Oh whoa!” a woman greets him by the door to Harrison’s room. She smiles forcibly as she enters the room, the strain on her face apparent as she sees him. Clearly his appearance has unsettled her as she feels the need to mask her emotions.

  “Suni.”

  “Welcome then, to our humble dwelling?” she replies, looking up at him shyly.

  No response from Smith, prompting the woman to raise her eyebrows and shift her balance nervously.

  “And, ah, how are you?” she says, clearing her throat.

  Smith doesn’t budge or give any expression, his eyes are locked on the woman and his mouth remains shut.

  “Smith?” Harrison asks of him, “she asked you a question.”

  Smith again doesn’t respond, just leers down at the woman.

  “So why are you here mister?” The woman tries another question.

  “Harrison … help.”

  “And so, you just obliged him them?”

  No response.

  “Mr?” she questions again with her hands now open wide.

  “Smith.” he responds.

  “No, I meant …” she stutters. “It doesn’t matter, how are you Mr Smith?” she eyes him cautiously, unsure what his intentions are.

  Smith responds by sticking his hand out, this time in the manner Harrison has taught him. He does it slowly, extending his hand in a greeting gesture that surprises the lady for a moment. She hesitates until she realises she needs to take his hand or risk being rude.

  “My name in Suni.” she takes his hand in hers, feeling an immediate sense of calm overwhelm her as she does so.

  Harrison meanwhile watches their exchange with more than a keen interest, licking his lips a little as he watches them shake hands. He does find it intriguing to watch Smith during the hand shake, noticing his expression go from normal to one charged with emotion, he wonders what happens every time he touches someone that makes him do that.

  “I do believe we owe you our gratitude on behalf of Harrison?”

  “Suni Chanjin …” Smith says aloud. “Destiny.”

  “Ah well! It seems Harrison has been telling you a few tales then!” she laughs nervously. “He’s known to tell quite the tall story from time to time.” She winks at Harrison, steps back and tries to move the group back into the living room.

  “Suni no friend … not like Smith.” Smith says, standing strong.

  “Straight to the point, aren’t you?” she replies, a little annoyed.

  “Want me to get rid of him?” Truck steps forward menacingly, eyes still fixed on Smith.

  “Oh do calm down Truck.” She scathes him, “always so aggressive.”

  No expression from Smith, who now stands there looking away, as if in contemplation of something important.

  “What are you doing here Smith?” she cut right to the point. She’d seen the news reports on this man recently and given other recent events was not at all surprised to see him in her living room.

  Harrison’s about to speak up on Smith’s behalf, having been the one responsible for bringing him here, but he thinks better of it and allows the conversation between the two to play out.

  As per normal Smith has chosen not to answer her question by remaining sile
nt. Suni stubbornly decides she too will remain quiet until her question is answered. And so the two stand, eying each other surreptitiously.

  She’s not a young woman, but still has a very striking beauty. Her hair was long, the black starting to turn silver in parts and her eyes were a light green. She made no more comment, just stood there looking at him, eyeing him up and down with her hands folded in front of her.

  “See as seen.” Smith reveals, feeling her staring him down. “Suni not friend ... not help Smith … Smith disappear.”

  Suni’s the one who doesn’t answer this time but her gaze turns down, she cannot look him in the eye anymore. There is a history between these two, a history she hoped he had forgotten.

  Smith decides to change tact, “Suni left ... escape Destiny.”

  “I don’t know, did I?” she answers mockingly, arms now crossed firmly across her chest. “How were any of us to know what went on that night?”

  “See as seen,” he responds.

  Suni turns and looks away, unable to answer him. Harrison rolls his eyes and decides whatever game these two are playing he needs to leave them alone, he detects a history here but decides it’s between them. He can sense Smith really wants to talk to Suni, maybe to clarify some past event and decides it best he leave them alone. He lets out an audible sigh and drags Truck with him back into the room as he does so.

  “Good luck guys, we’ll leave you to it,” he waves, trying to edge the door to his room closed whilst tugging on Trucks arm.

  Suni turns, motioning for Smith to follow and the two of them move into the kitchen dining room, taking up seats at a kitchen table opposite each other. It’s here Smith sees they’re in an apartment, he takes in his surroundings quickly before sitting down.

  “Three-bedroom apartment, and also you have the apartment next door?” Smith says.

  “And what would make you think that?” she replies, noncommittal.

  “See as seen.”

  “Oh damn it!” she exclaims loudly in frustration. “Why do you always do that, its freaking annoying!”

  Smith turns quickly at a noise from behind and sees the figure of Truck hastily moving toward the room. Suni lets out a sigh as she realises her small outburst has brought the protective man out of Harrison’s bedroom.

  Truck moves with purpose and marches right up to Smith and stands there in an overbearing manner. Nobody says anything, Truck’s just trying to establish his dominance and protect those he loves.

  “So Smith hey? What did you say you were doing here again champ?” Truck looms over him from above. He must’ve been well over six foot eight, intimidating to the best of men, but Smith remains placid.

  “Hey!” Harrison’s voice calls out from his room. “Hey Truck, come here, I have something to show you.”

  “Not now.”

  “Truck, come here!”

  Truck pauses, his eyes flinch and he looks at Suni cautiously. She quickly gives him a reassuring nod and waves her hand at him. Deciding that’s enough, his eyes flick back to Smith and he backs away from the room slowly, not taking his eyes off him until Harrison pulls him out of sight and into his room. The door closes quickly, leaving Smith and Suni alone in the kitchen together again.

  “Don’t be afraid of Truck, he can be a little over-protective.”

  Smith smiles at her for the first time and it makes her think of something in the past, she pauses a moment before answering the smile with, “nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Cannot harm what doesn’t harm … I remember that, I remember you being the one telling me.”

  “See as seen,” he nods.

  She frowns, “I hope not, there are so many bad things to remember.”

  “Bad things.”

  “What do you remember? The things that I see, right?”

  “Yes, see as seen. But missing something.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “I really don’t know enough about you to be honest, we never really spoke that much back then.”

  A look of genuine confusion creeps up on her face, she shakes it off quickly as another thought occurs to her. “Care for a coffee?” she asks, getting up.

  He shakes his head.

  “Bikkie?” she asks, taking a Tim Tam from its packet in the fridge.

  He shakes his head again and leans forward in his chair with a look of intent on his face, but says nothing.

  “You look different, I mean, you’re the same but you look a little different, I …” she stutters, unsure of how to explain it. “I just, I ... the handshake before, did you?”

  He nods in response, pauses and asks, “speak thought.”

  “I ... I don’t know if I want to talk about my …”

  “Please.”

  “Don’t you know everything?”

  “Only see as seen.”

  “So why are you asking me then? You can only see the things I see and not the things I think?”

  He was leading her somewhere. “Yes. Want know why Smith here.”

  “How would I know …” Suni wonders aloud. “You’re a complete mystery to me.”

  “Guess, want know what think.”

  “Well, ok then. If you’re here, it’s because of …” her hand covers her mouth instinctively as a thought strikes her. “Wait a minute, can you tell me what happened that night, the last night I saw you?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Ha!” she laughs nervously. “Famous words from you!”

  “Don’t know.” His eyes plead this time.

  “True, sorry,” she feels guilty for mocking him. “Alison told me about you, not much, just a bit here and there between the two of us. But who and what you are, what your purpose is … I don’t really know. We never spoke in the beginning and the others didn’t really say much after that night.”

  Another silence ensues in the room, giving Suni enough time to quickly retrieve her coffee and return to her seat opposite Smith on the kitchen table.

  “So you want to know what I think? What about specifically?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Bugger, sorry … I forgot who you were and how this works.” She scratches her head and continues, “I think you are someone who is not like the rest of us. I think that you were on a mission and that mission is very important to you, I think that mission brought you here to me.”

  “Yes, here.”

  “Which means you must want to be a part of what we are doing. That perhaps you wanted to help me somehow. I can’t think of any other reason why you would have come here.”

  “Help?”

  “What?”

  “Help?” He points to her.

  “I, aaah, we have plans to locate and …” she shrugs her shoulders unsure of exactly how to communicate with him.

  “What plan?”

  “We plan to find the thread. We have Alison …”

  “Benchley … Greece.” Smith confirms.

  “Correct. And we also found the device …”

  “Device?”

  “Umm, yep, yep. Harrison’s probably looking up the location details now on the USB he recovered.” She tries to keep pace with him.

  “Send the device to the kid.” Smith muses.

  “Huh?”

  No response and an awkward scratch of the head from Suni.

  “I know what I want to do, my plans thereafter when we discover the two.” she continues the conversation.

  “What?”

  “We are going to start our own Destiny, our own facility so that we can protect the people of this world from the menace of that woman and her facility.”

  “Not problem.”

  “She is evil, she is …”

  “Not problem. Something worse, hiding.”

  Suni purs
es her lips at his continued ignorance of her protestations but knows she’s the one who’s in control, for Smith is at the mercy of her memory and therefore cannot know everything. She relishes the control.

  She ponders his reasoning for being here but dismisses it, if he doesn’t have any memory of it then she isn’t going to fill in the gaps, she wants the control.

  Guilt from the past though, still plagues her.

  “You know, you’re different from what I remember, but somehow also the same. The last we met was, wow, like thirty odd years ago, and you looked a lot different.” She hangs her head as she recalls events from the past. “I do remember you Smith, I’m sorry for my part.”

  Smith shakes his head but says nothing.

  “But?” she protests, “I thought that you were gone, that it was over. Whatever you said back then was of no importance, because you never came back, we never thought you would, so we continued the only way we thought best.”

  “What change? Don’t understand blue light.”

  She looks away thoughtfully, over towards the window as if in a day dream. She feels no compulsion to answer him quickly and takes her time in preparing a response, she feels like she’s in control of him and relishes the authority, the power. But after her pause she realises he has infinite patience and could certainly outlast her.

  “A lot has changed ...” she says, looking back at him. “Right then, up with you, I have something to show you.”

  Smith calmly gets up from his chair and makes after her through the connecting door into another adjoining apartment, this apartment though is a little different than the last. The connecting door opens into a lounge area that instead of being a lounge, has been converted into a computer workstation room.

  Not much else is in the room, a few maps on the walls, charts and a photo board similar to one you would see in a police station. The workstation itself comprises of a series of computers, one of which is currently being manned by Pigeon. He turns and gives them a wave and a smile and continues with his work.

  The lady turns to Smith. “So, Smith, welcome to our little operation.”

  Smith doesn’t move.

  “Right then, I’ll keep this as simple as I can for you, at the end you may ask me any question and I shall do my best to answer, ok?”

  Smith nods in acceptance.

  “Right, so you have this thing called the internet, it’s this massive global system of interconnected computers. Oh, and a computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically.”