Going Grey

by Karen Traviss

  Ian realised courage wasn't the obvious thing he'd thought it was. It was having bigger fears than saving your own ass. Mike was more afraid for the people he loved.

  "Yeah, I get it," Ian said.

  "I know you like movies, buddy, but the way they depict combat usually makes it look like you can see everything and take decisions the way you do in an office. But it's not like that. There's so much you can't see or hear. And you can't tell what's reasonable force, whatever the hell that means. Even if you're used to it, the adrenaline's pumping. You don't have a conscious second to rationalize. Your training kicks in and you just react." Mike paused, still working shoe polish into the leather. Ian couldn't tell if he was picking his words or trying to recall detail. "Anyway, I took this guy's knife and stabbed him, then I grabbed his rifle and shot him. I don't even recall his face."

  Ian remembered Rob's account of the firefight. They'd been right in the middle of it. They could both have died. Killing an asshole trying to drag you away to an uncertain fate seemed perfectly reasonable, exactly what Ian expected a guy to do.

  "Do you feel bad about that, Mike? Because you shouldn't."

  "No, I don't. But in my head, I didn't think he was going to kill me right then. And I wasn't thinking about killing him. I was just determined to escape or die, and that was the only way I could do it."

  "Self-defence, if you ask me."

  "What's clear to regular people is something else when a lawyer decides to argue a case years later. But I'm just telling you why I ended up killing a man, and why I know I'd do it again."

  Mike stopped rubbing the brush back and forth across the toecap of his boot. He looked frozen for a moment. Ian didn't know if he'd finished.

  "Well, I hope I'd have the balls to fight back," Ian said.

  Mike shook his head. "I never told my sister or Mom all the details. If Charlotte started with her legal bullshit about rules of engagement, or her husband gave me his armchair opinion on how he'd have handled it, I'd never be able to speak to her again. And that would be awful for Mom and Dad."

  Ian had yet to meet Charlotte. Rob said she was nice enough but a bit of a know-it-all. "Would she really question it?"

  "Well, I think she might. So I never want to know for sure. She's got no idea what it's like to spend every minute among people trying to kill you. And I've got zero patience with someone who can't see how that changes everything."

  Everyone lied or hid something, then, even the most honest guys like Mike, and often for the best of reasons. But Ian decided he didn't want to keep anything from him. Mike had trusted him with really painful, personal stuff. It made for powerful bonds.

  "Would you rather I didn't tell you about my morphing?" Ian asked.

  Mike picked up his other boot and began polishing again. "Would you be happier telling me?"

  Ian's pants were a similar DPM pattern to his old jacket. He put his hand flat on his thigh and visualized the skin mottling and darkening to match the camouflage. He almost didn't need to shut his eyes to concentrate now.

  "That's a sitrep," he said.

  Mike looked at Ian's hand for a while, saying nothing. Ian gave it thirty seconds before fading the skin back to normal, then looked for some reaction on Mike's face. Mike just nodded slowly.

  "It's like I said to Dad." Mike slid his clean, shiny boots under the bench and stood up. "It's all under control. Nothing to worry about at all. Right?"

  Ian understood completely why people not only needed truth and illusion to be woven together, but why they wanted it be.

  He nodded. "Right."

  CEDARS SPORTS CLINIC, PORTON, MAINE

  FIRST WEEK OF NOVEMBER.

  Rob presented his shoulder to the physiotherapist. "I'm a compliant patient, Ryan. I've been doing my exercises."

  Ryan took Rob's arm and eased the joint through its full range of movement. Nothing pulled or grated, but Rob already knew it wouldn't. His rotator cuff problem had cleared up a few weeks ago. Ryan didn't need to know that.

  "Your problem's not knowing when to stop," Ryan said.

  "That's what they pay me for. It's only pain."

  "Well, it seems to be healing fine. Pain's a message, by the way, and it isn't saying 'push harder'."

  Rob tried his shoulder again. "I'll be back in the ladies' volleyball team in no time."

  He had his reasons for continuing the visits. The primary one walked past the treatment room from time to time: Sarah, brunette, forty-ish and divorced, another physio at the clinic.

  The secondary objective was to pick Ryan's brains about the kind of detail that could be detected by an x-ray or scan if Ian ever had some kind of medical emergency. Even Kinnery couldn't get his hands on an MRI scanner without involving too many people who didn't need to know. Rob gathered whatever intelligence he could. The more he learned about genetics, the more he realised how much the experts didn't know. Ian had been lucky that shuffling the pack had even given him a head and limbs in the right places, let alone anything that could pass as normal.

  And now he could match his skin to camouflage patterns. Bloody hell. That wasn't as useful as it sounded, but it was one more thing that would interest all the wrong people.

  "Ryan, can you see nerves on a scan?" Rob asked.

  "Yes. They look like white wiring."

  "So what can't it show you?"

  "It really is just a partial tear in the tendon, Rob. But if you want an MR arthrography, we can do that."

  "No, I'm just curious."

  "An MRI images by density, so it isn't going to find microscopic detail. But it gives you a pretty good look inside the body. And scanning technology's getting better all the time."

  Anything that could see nerves was probably a bad idea for Ian. It was a racing certainty that his skin and hair would look weird under a microscope, but not even Kinnery knew what else was in there.

  "Isn't science wonderful?" Rob said. "See you in a month, then."

  Rob took his time getting dressed and paying his bill in the hope of running into Sarah. She couldn't have missed his name in the appointments diary, so if she didn't pop out of her treatment room to catch him, he'd know that first drink at the bar had been his last chance. Eventually he decided he couldn't loiter any longer. Bugger it, he couldn't wow them all. It was her loss. He was getting into his car when he heard someone calling him.

  "Rob?" Sarah trotted across the parking bay, not quite breaking into a run. "Are you all clear now? Shoulder okay?"

  "Possibly." Rob perked up. He was still in the game, then. "Do you fancy dinner some time?"

  "Sure. Why don't I cook it?"

  "That's an offer I can't refuse." Objective achieved. He tried not to look too pleased with himself. "Pick a day."

  "I'll give you a call when I've fixed my schedule."

  She gave him a promising smile and went back inside. A second date meant he'd have to tell her a little more detail about his job than just "security." She knew he'd been a Marine, but while everyone understood more or less what Marines were regardless of the country they came from, "PMC" or "PSC" didn't provide instant meaning for the average civilian. Rob had spent a couple of years trying to distil the job into a one-liner that he could fire off before someone said mercenary and told him what they'd seen in some shitty movie.

  No, I don't assassinate people or stage coups. You need to call the CIA for that. Do you want to hear about stopping suicide bombers at checkpoints, though? Escort detail? Close protection? Anti-piracy?

  If things worked out with Sarah, he'd fill in the gaps as far as he could. He just hoped that the ones he couldn't fill didn't show too much.

  There was a lie at the heart of what he did every day now, something that was changing the way he behaved. It was Ian. Rob had to sidestep so many routine things that he felt furtive, so he was bloody sure that he looked furtive too. And Tom was coming to stay for Thanksgiving. Ian seemed to have his morphing under control, but Rob couldn't rule out accidents. How would Tom take i
t if Rob hadn't warned him?

  Every solution that Rob came up with involved having to answer more awkward questions. Mike had already lied to his mum about not going to the family Thanksgiving with Livvie because Rob had plans for them. Adding any more layers to that lie was asking for trouble. Lies needed too much maintenance.

  I'd be shit at intelligence work. What sort of prick actually likes living a permanent lie? Christ, even Kinnery doesn't enjoy it.

  Livvie intercepted him when he walked into the hall, brandishing a FedEx package.

  "Business cards," she said, plucking a few out and handing them to him. They were heavy grey card with black heat-embossed lettering, not a plumber's instant-print variety. "Robert Rennie, security consultant."

  "Thank you, Mrs Mike. Now all I need is something to secure. And consult on."

  "Can you extract my husband for lunch? I'll pay you in peach margaritas."

  "Consider it done, ma'am."

  Livvie could tell he was getting restless, then. It wasn't boredom. It felt more like skipping the gym for a few months and then finding he couldn't handle the same weights when he went back, not that he'd ever missed his phys for more than a few days. Mike was in the stables with Ian, working on the kill house. Rob had to hand it to him. If Mike lost his fortune overnight, he could get a job on a construction site the next day. Ian was competent too, but then he'd had to be. Mike hadn't. He surrendered to having contract cleaners and gardeners come in once a month. Rob knew that he would have dispensed with that as well if he could have done.

  Just as well, though. How would we explain Ian to a daily housekeeper?

  Rob stuck his head through the doors to check it was safe to enter. The whine of a power saw and a thumping hammer drill set his teeth on edge.

  "Excuse me, sir," Rob yelled. "Can you remember your wife's name?"

  Mike stopped and switched off the saw. "Am I in the doghouse?"

  "Unless you want Oatie to have your lunch, shift your arse and get over there. You too, Ian."

  Ian stood back to point out some features that hadn't been there before, including an extra set of steps up to the hayloft. "We'll be finished in a few days," he said. "This is going to be great."

  Mike beckoned to Rob and loosened his belt. "Look."

  "I've seen it before, Zombie. I've got one too."

  "I mean this."

  Mike turned around and pulled down his waistband on one side. There was a spectacular bruise developing just below his hip.

  "He shot me in the goddamn ass. Point blank." He buckled his belt, obviously more amused than hurt. "I've asked Brad to hold a couple of places for us on the next kill house course. You want to make that three, Rob?"

  He obviously meant to take Ian. "Okay, I'm in." Rob seized every chance to stay on form. "Lunch. Move it."

  Mike and Ian seemed to be enjoying each other's company these days instead of trying to pick their way between pity, responsibility, and gratitude. Rob could see it in the way they stood closer and even horsed around. Mike was the better man for the job. Ian was past the stage of needing someone to give him structure and push him to find his potential. He didn't just need a dad. He needed someone who knew how it felt to have to keep something of himself hidden to pass as a regular human being.

  Yeah, I'm not one of life's blender's am I? I'm the bloke with what I am written all over me, and proud of it.

  Except that's not what I am now. And I still haven't let go.

  Livvie served up lunch, steaming plates of cassoulet with crusty bread. "Get used to it, guys," she said. "This is from the gourmet caterer in town. I'll be back to my normal schedule after Thanksgiving, even if you aren't. You know where the freezer is."

  "It'll never be as good as yours, Mrs Mike." Rob checked his phone for messages from Tom or maybe even Sarah. There was a text from Leo instead, straight to the point: ROB, PLEASE NAG YOUR KID BROTHER TO VISIT MOM & CHARL BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS. "But it's still very nice."

  Mike stole Rob's crust from his plate. "You're such an ass-kisser, Rennie."

  "And your dad says you've got to visit. Come on. Charlotte's almost human when she's had a few martinis."

  "Okay. I'll call them and fix something."

  If Rob mentally deleted shape-shifting, billionaires, and their respective jobs, it became a normal domestic scene; working mum, convenience meals, family spats, a small business to run, and a dog that needed walking. Mike had achieved his ordinary life, in an exotic kind of way. Livvie seemed happier too.

  Ian cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. "Can you give me a ride to the mall, please?"

  "Sure," Mike said. "How about now?"

  "Great. Are you coming too, Rob?"

  It sounded somewhere between a plea and an invitation. Ian certainly liked the mall. As Rob had predicted, he'd discovered it was the only decent place to check out women if you were still too young to hang around bars.

  When did he last mix with girls? He must have been six or something. Jesus, he's going to get a shock when he catches up.

  Rob patted his pockets for his wallet. "Yeah, I need to get some stuff for Tom. Only a couple of weeks to go."

  Tom still hadn't told him anything about the mystery summer placement. It was harder than Rob expected to let go and keep his nose out of his son's life, but he'd wanted him to be confident and self-reliant, and that was exactly how he'd turned out. Maybe this was guilt. Rob was worrying about Ian when he should have been paying attention to Tom, even if he didn't need it.

  Ian was coping, though, and far better than a kid raised like a hermit should have been able to. When they got to the mall, he announced he was going off to buy something and that he'd call them later to meet up. As he walked away, Rob automatically memorized what he was wearing – jeans, cap, navy blue padded jacket, and a grey fleck jumper. It was a habit he'd developed when Tom was little. Mike kept watching until Ian melted into the crowd of shoppers.

  "If he's meeting a girl," Mike said, "then I don't know how he hooked up with her. Unless I've missed something, it's not the girl from the patisserie"

  Rob steered Mike in the direction of the gadget store. "He's the only lad in creation who doesn't live on his phone, surf porn, and hang out online. Maybe there's a gene for that. It'd sell really well."

  "He's going to turn into a normal guy sooner or later. Even I had my wild year. Or two."

  "Look, he's not going to run into women living in the middle of nowhere. Maybe I need to take him for a lads' weekend somewhere, just so he learns the basics safely."

  It took Mike a couple of seconds to catch on. He looked genuinely shocked. "Hookers? Jesus, Rob, are you serious? Would you do that with Tom?"

  "Tom's probably getting more action than I am right now. And he wasn't raised by wolves."

  "Sure, but paying for it?"

  "Okay, okay, Mr Squeaky-Clean." Rob didn't think it was such a bad idea. "But it's not as emotionally charged, is it? Ian's not even used to being around girls. What's his first crush going to be like? Or were you counting on introducing him to Felicity Mainwaring-Chinless at the hunt ball?"

  Maybe fifteen years of unusually happy marriage had made Mike forget what it was like to be eighteen and sex-starved. Rob had been thrown back to that desperate teenage state by divorce and upheaval. He knew what underpinned Ian's every waking thought.

  "Well, at least I don't have to explain to him where babies come from," Mike said at last.

  "Can you tell me, then, Zombie? It's been so bloody long since I got my leg over that I've forgotten."

  "But you're on a promise with that physio. Sarah."

  "Fingers crossed. She'll probably put my back out."

  Mike seemed to be thinking of something else. "We're going to need to move somewhere less isolated. Whether it's for Ian or the kid we end up adopting. Or you, even."

  He looked a little shell-shocked as they browsed in the gadget store to find something fun for Tom. Poor sod: he liked his lovely farmhouse. But having kids meant
you had to make big changes in your life, and the detail of that never ended.

  Mike's phone rang about ten minutes later while Rob was paying at the cash desk. "Ian?" He paused, listening. "Sure, on our way."

  Rob followed him out of the shop. "So is it a girl?"

  "I don't think so. He just wants us to look at something. He's waiting by the elevator to the food court."

  Rob's first thought was that there was a display of some kind that had grabbed Ian's imagination. They worked their way through the busy mall until the crowd thinned out near the lifts. Mirrored doors made the short marbled passage look twice the length.

  There was no sign of Ian. Rob knew he was okay, but his stomach still knotted. Suddenly he was back home, looking desperately around a supermarket to find four-year-old Tom, a few minutes of absolute terror of a kind he hadn't felt before or since even on the front line. But Ian was an adult. He'd called them. He was waiting somewhere.

  Mike looked behind him. "Where is he?"

  A few people were standing around, chatting on their phones or waiting for the lifts. A young bloke in a red padded jacket and carrying a shopping bag walked through the door marked REST ROOMS. Rob still couldn't see Ian anywhere. He took out his phone.

  "I'm calling him," he said, thumbing Ian's number.

  Rob let it ring a few times, starting to think irrationally worried thoughts about KWA. The restroom door opened. Rob was too busy scanning all the routes leading to the lobby to take much notice until Mike turned and made an ahhh sound. Rob could hear Ian's sonar ping ringtone close by. He scanned around him to work out where it was coming from.

  Ian stood clutching a carrier bag, looking uncertain rather than smug.

  "You walked past me, both of you," he said. "Rob, you looked right at me. Red ski jacket. Does that ring a bell?"

  Rob replayed the last few minutes as best he could in his head. Yes, he'd seen a lad in a red jacket, but he hadn't recognised anything about him. He looked at Mike for a reaction in case he'd missed something obvious. Rob knew Ian could get back to his default appearance if something made him morph, but this was a whole new situation.