Suburban Cyborg

by Gloria Martin

  What was he thinking? Didn’t he realize that he was her entire world and she didn’t want to live without him?

  He said he loved her, but she didn’t see how that could be. How could you love someone and still choose a game over a long life with them? Abby didn’t know, but she doubted that Trevor did either. He was going after what he loved without worrying about the consequences.

  Abby straightened up the apartment, cleaning up the dirty dishes they’d left and making sure that everything was where it belonged. She threw away any evidence of Trevor in her life, dropping it into the trash and tying up the bag. She placed the bag in the dumpster and took one more turn around her apartment.

  Everything was back to normal and as it should be. Tomorrow, she would go to work as usual and forget that Trevor had ever been a part of her life.

  It was settled.

  So why was she still so angry?

  *****

  Abby paced the floor, her anger overwhelming her.

  “What the hell is he thinking?” she said out loud to the empty apartment. “Maybe he wants to die.”

  She was so angry. They had a good thing, and he was willing to just give it up for a stupid game. Hot tears threatened, but Abby pushed them back. If Trevor Miles wanted to end his own life doing something stupid and pointless, that was his fault.

  But she couldn’t let it go. She couldn’t just walk away from the greatest love she’d ever known. She had to be there. Maybe, if something happened, she could save his life. What better way to use her skills than to save the man that she loved?

  Or maybe nothing would happen and he would be fine. Not every game ended in a head injury, right?

  “Yeah right. Don’t be naïve, Abbryana,” she admonished herself. “Something will happen, it’s only a matter of time.”

  Decision made, she packed her doctor’s bag and headed to her car. She might not be able to stop him from playing, but she didn’t have to sit back and watch him lose his life if she could stop it.

  She threw the bag into her BMW X5 and slid behind the driver’s seat. She wanted to race there, but it was hockey season, which meant the city of Blaine was blanketed in snow and ice. She was racing to save a life. She couldn’t risk losing her own in the process.

  Abby tried to remain calm, thankful for the SUV’s handling in the icy conditions. She eased the accelerator down, tiny snowflakes flinging themselves silently against her windshield.

  She got to the rink quicker than she expected. She jumped out of the car, shoes crunching in the fresh snow. Abby’s breath crystalized in the air before her. It was freezing, and she wasn’t dressed for this. It didn’t matter, she was on a mission.

  She paid for a ticket, stepping through the doors and looking at the clock. Her heart sank. It was already the third period. The game would go on until someone won, and she wouldn’t have a chance to talk Trevor out of playing if he wasn’t already injured.

  She stepped carefully down the stairs of the center aisle, ignoring the whispered hisses of the people she blocked as she went.

  She couldn’t see Trevor. What number had his jersey read when he was admitted to the hospital? She couldn’t remember and she kicked herself for forgetting something so important.

  But, with so many white men with almost the exact build of Trevor, it was going to be impossible to pick him out of the team.

  Defeated, she took her seat to watch the rest of the game, setting her doctor’s bag on her feet rather than the sticky floor.

  What did people see in this experience? It was loud, the floors were sticky with eons of spilled soda and food and it was cold. So freaking cold.

  Abby was miserable, but she focused on the task at hand and tried to push the rest out of her mind. Being cold was the least of her problems right now.

  She watched as the puck was passed from man to man, marveling at how such hulking men could be so light on their feet. They ducked and weaved through the mass of shoving bodies, gliding along the ice as if the skates were merely an extension of their bodies.

  Abby got caught up in the beauty of it. The sound of the skates cutting the ice and the clap of sticks slapping together was mesmerizing. Abby found herself enjoying the game even while she desperately searched the men, looking for Trevor. He had to be here somewhere.

  A timeout was called and the crowd booed. Abby didn’t know what had happened, but it didn’t matter. The men were skating to their respective coaches, removing helmets as they went.

  This was her chance to spot Trevor!

  She jumped out of her seat and rushed down the stairs. Her eyes were locked on the men as they came to the railing in a line to speak with the coach.

  Abby moved until she was close to where they were filing by, but she still didn’t see Trevor. Had he been taken to the hospital already? Had something happened to him on the road?

  Their fight flashed through her head and Abby’s stomach knotted. Would the last thing she said to him be the last thing he heard? How would she live with herself?

  “Abby. Abbryana! Over here.”

  Was she hearing things?

  “Abby! That’s the wrong team.”

  Abby looked up and down the rink to the other team’s box. It was Trevor shouting at her from behind the bench. Abby couldn’t believe her eyes. What was he doing there?

  She worked her way over, ignoring the angry words of people as she passed down the row. There was no one on the ice, she didn’t know why people were yelling at her to sit down.

  Abby finally reached Trevor, surprised to see that he wore his jersey and a pair of jeans and sneakers.

  “Did you get hurt?” she blurted out.

  “No Abby. I didn’t.”

  “Then why are you not on the ice?”

  “I did a lot of thinking, and it turns out, you were right. I talked to the coach and he’s hiring me as his assistant. No one knows yet, but Coach is retiring at the end of the year. When he does, I’ll take his place.”

  “So that’s it? You’re just giving up playing?”

  The relief she felt was clear. Trevor smiled tenderly at her through the plexiglass.

  “I’ll never forget what you asked me before I left.”

  “‘Are you going to choose love or the game?’” Abby remembered.

  “And I realized. I didn’t have to choose. I could have both.”

  “You can?” Abby teased.

  “I can. After all, choosing to play meant I could lose you. And a life without you, Abbryana Ferris, isn’t really a life at all.”

  THE END

  Bonus Story 9/40

  Secret Heat

  They had acquired their target, and it was him. Passenger Robert Whitman had thought the Cypriots might put eyes on him after he cleared customs, but they were on him the second he got off the plane at Larnaca Airport. A baggage handler on the jetway followed him up to the non-EU line, where a uniformed agent milled about aimlessly, but always in his vicinity. The agent at the counter scanned and stamped his passport with a gulp and pushed the document back through the gap in the Plexiglas booth with trembling fingers. At the baggage claim, Whitman’s luggage appeared on the conveyor only after every other bag had been snatched by its owner, or made several laps around the baggage area. They’d taken a good look inside the suitcase, no doubt, but there was nothing to see.

  No one tailed him from baggage claim, but he picked up on a couple of possibles as he made his way to the car rental desk. He wasn’t actively seeking them, but he’d developed some pretty good intuition over the years. He reminded himself that he wasn’t even supposed to look for surveillance on this operation. Well-trained habits die hard, though.

  He saw them as he left the parking garage. There were at least three vehicles following him as he headed north and west along Larnaca Bay on the B3. They were matching his speed and attempting to keep an incidental vehicle or two between them and his rearview mirror. The result was a sort of vehicular body language that gave them away to the train
ed eye. When he made his turn into the parking lot of the Misty Beach Hotel, one of the suspect vehicles continued past him and the other two turned off into parking lots on either side of the road.

  It really was a game this time – a rigged game, and he was on the inside – but the Intelligence Division of the Cyprus Police didn’t know that. They also didn’t know that Robert Whitman wasn’t his real name, or that he didn’t really work for the State Department, or that their surveillance team was itself under surveillance. All they knew was that the CIA wanted them to keep an eye on him, if they could handle it, and to report on anything he did while on the island. They were not supposed to apprehend or engage, just observe and report. That made Whitman’s job easy; he was just a rabbit leading the dogs around the track.

  ***

  The inland side of the Misty Beach Hotel could have been mistaken for a municipal administration building but for the hotel logo painted onto the clean white cinderblock and the green awning that covered the last few feet of walkway before the entrance. Not quite like the brochure, Whitman thought. The tinted glass doors slid open to admit him onto a marble floor that reflected light streaming in from the bay side of the lobby through three story glass walls framed in antique bronze. Beyond the glass, a swimming pool meandered toward the bay, and beyond that, a beach dotted with umbrellas and sunbathers.

  Whitman walked to where the lobby began stepping down to pool level, then turned back toward the plain little reception desk, and the plain blonde woman behind it.

  “Hello. Welcome. Checking in?” The blonde’s accent was part British, part Scandinavian. It was interesting, and she was suddenly not so plain. Kind of cute, actually; he put her in her mid-twenties, so probably about 15 years younger than him.

  “Are you sure you’re not a tourist pretending to work here?” He handed her his passport. “You don’t look or sound too Mediterranean to me.”

  “Well, you sound very American to me, Mr. Whitman.” She smiled and handed back the passport. “But that’s a good thing.”

  “Really? I thought everyone just groaned and slapped their heads when we came around. But back to my original question: Are you sure you’re not some lost Norwegian tourist? ” He gestured toward her lapel. “You don’t even have a name tag.”

  Robert Whitman was supposed to be quite the womanizer, and the man playing him was beginning to enjoy the flirtation. It had been a while, and the blonde’s smile and the tilt of her head gave him a feeling he couldn’t quite identify.

  “Swedish, not Norwegian,” she said, “and my name is Pia. I came here as a tourist a few years ago, and I loved it so much that I decided to make it permanent.”

  “Fell in love with the sun and the sand?”

  “And with a man.” Now she was practically glowing. How had he ever thought of her as plain?

  “I take it he hasn’t broken your heart yet.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he ever will.” The best part of her smile was in her blue eyes.

  “How about you, Mr. Whitman? How many hearts have you broken?”

  “Me? I don’t break hearts. I take broken-hearted women home and hand them a glass of wine and rub their feet.” And then I go on missions, and can’t call or email, and they’re gone when I get home.

  “If you just walk around and say that in your sexy American accent, I think you’ll find plenty of feet to rub.”

  “Sexy American accent? Is that really a thing…? I might have to move here, too.”

  She slipped two key cards into an envelope marked “319” and handed it to him. “You should probably move into your room first, Mr. Whitman.”

  “Please call me ‘Robert,’ Pia; and I have one more question: Where can I get a cheap meal and a beer around here?”

  “You might try pub across the street. The fish and chips are excellent, and there will be lots of drunken British girls in uncomfortable shoes.”

  Beautiful and funny. “Why, thank you. That sounds like a fine evening out for a gentleman.”

  He turned toward the elevator and his peripheral vision caught movement in the same direction from the lower lobby. He had to hand it to the Cyprus PD, they were taking their job seriously.

  His new shadow arrived at the elevator door in a whiff of coconut sunscreen and an emerald green bikini, the top of which should have been handed down to her little sister long ago, with a sheer white wrap tied around her waist. She seemed a bit young too be working for the local service; at least twenty. Probably older though; he tended to underestimate. Whatever her age, she was clearly there to appeal to the womanizing American who was getting so much attention from the intelligence division.

  No surprise that she didn’t need to press the button for another floor.

  When the elevator doors opened, he ushered the girl out first and followed as she turned in the direction of his room. As she walked, the hallway lights cast little reflective bands that slid down her black hair as it swayed over her olive skin. She stopped at 317, adjacent to his room and between his room and the exit. As he pulled out his key card, he heard her say, “Looks like we’re neighbors.”

  He looked toward her and smiled. “Well, I’ll try to be a good neighbor. Do you like the hotel?”

  “Yes, I’ve stayed here a few times. It’s really lovely.” There was no Scandinavian flavoring in her British accent, but her bikini top was interesting in an engineering-the-impossible kind of way. She walked toward him and extended her hand. “I’m Helen.”

  “Of course you are.” He took her hand and held it for a moment while he looked in her eyes. “I hope Paris isn’t too noisy when he comes to steal you away.”

  “Does every American read Homer before their Cyprus holiday?”

  “Just the smart ones…I’m Robert, by the way.”

  “Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Robert.” She turned back toward her room and looked over her shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Thank you.” The wisp of a wrap around her waist did little to hide the triangle of green fabric below the small of her back which directed his eyes further downward. He wondered how close she was supposed to get to him.

  *****

  Helen, it turned out, was only responsible for him in the hotel. She kept showing up like a schoolgirl with a secret crush—at the breakfast bar, in the hotel gym, around the pool, and heading back to the room. Robert got the feeling that she might be writing, “Mrs. Robert Whitman” over and over in her notebooks. Joke was on her though, because “Robert Whitman” was just a mash-up of Robert Frost and Walt Whitman that had been approved as an alias for a man whose real passport said he was Kirk Blackwell, and whose military ID said that he was a commander in the United States Navy, and whose dress uniform was pinned with the gold Trident of a Navy SEAL.

  The first full day of Kirk’s mission was limited to enjoying the hotel, interacting with as many people as possible, and taking a little walk around Larnaca Harbor. Of course, it was all planned down to the minute, and everything was being recorded by the CIA contractors on his team using cameras hidden in beach bags, purses, and backpacks. Kirk wouldn’t even have noticed them if he hadn’t known exactly where they’d be and when. The Cyprus PD hadn’t been as discreet, but trailing surveillance was a lot tougher than static counter-surveillance. They had definitely grilled the clerk at the cell phone kiosk and now had all of the information to track the phone, but that was part of the plan as well.

  The next day was longer, but pleasant. Kirk couldn’t complain about being paid to tour Cyprus, buy souvenirs, and engage as many people as possible in conversation. He did his best to ignore surveillance, but saw and felt it each step of the way. They were in his rearview mirror up to Nicosia, and with him through the pedestrian area and down past the U.S. and Russian Embassies. As he drove out of town and headed toward Limassol, they were in his mirror again, though much farther back—likely because he was also being watched from the air.

  Limassol would be the last little test for
the Intelligence Division of the Cyprus Police, but it hinged on Kirk being able to bump into an unwitting American tourist staying at the Mediterranean Plaza Hotel. The CIA Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy had told the police that they could talk to anyone they saw their target contact. If that included any suspicious contacts with other Americans, then those persons could be brought to the Embassy for questioning. There was no wrong answer other than failing to report the contact at all, and all indications were that the Cyrus PD would at least talk to anyone Kirk bumped into.

  He parked his rental car at a supermarket a block from the hotel and went in for a bottle of water. One of his teammates was shopping the produce aisle, a signal that the team was ready to steer him to the bump; so he checked out with the water and set off on foot for the hotel. He walked east on the inland side of the B1, trying to ignore the cameras he knew were looking toward him from bags at a bus stop, a diner, and a sidewalk café. When he finally crossed toward the hotel, his peripheral vision picked up at least three shadows at various distances. One passed behind him, one paralleled his crossing one block back, and one sat down in an apartment stairwell to make a phone call.

  The Plaza had plush landscaping around its semicircular driveway and a more modern edifice than the Misty Beach, but the interior layout was almost exactly the same, though on a slightly larger scale. A tourist at the concierge desk scratched his head, elbow pointing toward the pool/beach exit, so Kirk continued that direction, winding his way around the hourglass pool and toward the beach as he looked for the next signal.

  As he passed the through the gateway of palm and hibiscus that separated the pool area and the beach, he spotted a familiar figure fifty meters down the beach. She was walking toward him but paused by an empty beach chair, hand on hip, and then turned toward the water. It was Nikki. Her skimpy two-piece was going to be a topic of conversation around the table back at the safe house. Kirk imagined that she was working hard to keep from breaking into a gigantic grin. The slim Dominican had an easy smile and an even easier manner. She was everyone’s first choice as a travel companion, but the team’s deputy commander pretty much monopolized her. The running joke in the house was that Kirk was madly in lust with her.