Donovan Meanwhile: Kings of Sparta

by Bierley, B. L.

But I get dizzy looking down at the city below.

  We’re in D.C., from the looks of it. I mean, I recognize the monuments, but I can’t quite get my bearing for some reason. You’d think having grown up here I would know it like the back of my hand, but for some reason I can’t figure out where we are in the city based on what I’m looking at.

  “Go ahead,” Hanson says, and he takes my hand. I look down at his hand in mine, and back up at him. “Just keeping you safe,” he says defensively. “You’ll thank me in a minute.”

  With my other hand I slide the glasses on, and I’m still looking at D.C.

  But everything is rearranged.

  No wonder I couldn’t get my bearings. Through the glasses, the way it all looks, I recognize it as the D.C. that I remember. I can see Dupont Circle, and Logan Circle. The Capital Building.

  I tug the glasses down a bit and those things disappear.

  “Where’s the Capital Building?”

  Hanson points eastward. “Over there.”

  He’s right. Same building, different location.

  I push them back up. It’s like I’m looking through a window into another world.

  Real reality.

  “Look down,” Hanson says.

  I do, and then I realize why he felt the need to hold my hand.

  The building we’re standing on is gone, and I’m floating in midair hundreds of feet above the city. My head gets all swimmy and my knees buckle under me.

  But Hanson grabs me and holds me up.

  “Whoa, it’s alright. That’s probably enough for now.”

  He gently pulls the glasses off my face and I’m relieved to be looking into his dark green eyes.

  “Quite a trip, huh? Let’s get you back downstairs.”

  As we’re standing in the elevator heading down, I look at my shoes.

  “How do they work?”

  He chuckles. “If you’re asking me about the science, I honestly have no idea. You’d have to talk to the guy that made them. But the function is pretty straightforward. You activate them by tapping one heel to the other toe, twice.”

  I think back to the foot chase outside the thrift store. I did collide with that poor woman. Maybe in that tumble I must have activated the shoes on accident. That’s why they lit up?

  “Once they’re activated, you have to go through a portal of some kind.”

  “I don’t remember any portal.”

  He holds up a finger. “The doorway in the alley.”

  Of course. I went in, heard that sparking sound, and suddenly I’m being accosted by Malik the chef.

  “Does it have to be exist in both dimensions? Here and there?”

  “Doesn’t have to, no.” The elevator doors open and he leads me out. “It was just as likely you’d go through the door over there and end up in a field, or on a highway, or in a wall. Whatever occupies that space in the Meanwhile.”

  I scratch my head. “Sounds dangerous.”

  He hands me the sunglasses he was still holding. “That’s why these are so useful. Look before you leap, Donovan. Always remember that. I know this is a lot to process. Trust me. The first time I found out about your world, I went through some major denial myself. Take your time. The team really needs you to be at the top of your game when it’s time to party.”

  Team. I’m on a team?

  Hanson takes me on a tour, walking slowly next to me with his hands folded behind his back. He doesn’t rush me at all, giving me plenty of time to absorb everything he’s telling me and everything I’m seeing.

  The whole facility is three stories, all underground. Not a single window or ray of sunlight anywhere.

  It’s a privately owned office building above us, and the owner makes sure nobody goes poking around down below.

  The top floor of this complex is where I was brought in. It’s offices and what he calls “meeting rooms,” which I assume is what I was in earlier.

  Below that is the living quarters, which is like a huge living room with a couch and entertainment center on one end and a kitchen on the other. Bedrooms extend off either end, six in all—although there are only five current members of the team.

  The bottom floor is partly used for recreation. The rest is Tez’s territory, he tells me. I don’t know what that means, but I assume I’ll find out eventually.

  He tells me that this is the facility headquarters of the MeanWatch, which of course I have to ask him to repeat a few times before I realize it’s like a shortened version of Meanwhile Watch.

  “A portmanteau,” he tells me. That’s a word made up of two other words combined.

  “We call ourselves Meanies. When people find out about the split in the worlds, and how they’re connected, it’s natural for some of them to want to find a way to exploit it, you know? Our job is to basically monitor all activity and make sure there’s nothing crossing over—whether it’s people or information or whatever—that isn’t supposed to. Which is basically everything.”

  “Except for me, I take it.” I look down at the shoes I’m wearing again. They look so ordinary, and yet they brought me here somehow.

  “Well, you’re special. You’re one of us.”

  “Since when?”

  I hear a little electronic chirp, and Hanson lifts his wristwatch to look at it.

  “Ah,” he says. “They’re ready for us in the briefing room. Time to get your mission, spy boy.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Hanson isn’t sitting next to me in the briefing room, but I wish he was. He’s sitting at the back of the room with a couple of other ranking members of MeanWatch, and I’m sitting in the middle of the room in a plastic chair like I’m on trial.

  In front of me is a blank white wall and Bellamy is standing off to one side, preparing a presentation of some kind.

  After a few moments of silence and shuffling papers, she looks up at me.

  “Mr. Burke,” she says. “Are you adjusting?”

  I nod. I feel woefully unprepared for this briefing, and there are still so many questions I have. But what are you gonna do, you know?

  “Good, let’s begin.” Bellamy cocks her head toward the wall next to her. Presently a man’s face appears on the wall, projected from behind me. Rounded, bald head and narrow eyes that are a piercing, ice blue color. Looks to be in his fifties or thereabouts.

  Does not look friendly.

  “We have a Russian problem,” she says. “Hanson tells me you’ve already found this out for yourself.”

  “Yeah. The guys that chased my brother—er, the guy that said he was my brother.”

  “This is Andrew Chevko. He’s a techology mogul from Saratov, and he’s also becoming an increasingly big pain in our sides.”

  Chevko looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. Maybe because she said his name, and knowing the name automatically made him seem like someone I had heard of. But, still. It nagged at me.

  “He started in the software industry back in the early 70s when it was still getting underway—”

  “The seventies?” I say, incredulous. “I thought tech didn’t start until, like, the eighties?”

  Bellamy just tosses off a shrug. “In your timeline, that’s possible. There are a lot of differences in this world, more than just that. Now tell me something.” She stopped and waited for my response.

  “Ok, what?”

  “Are you going to interrupt me every time I say something that doesn’t match your timeline or can I get through this presentation?”

  I straighten in my seat.

  Well excuse me.

  “Let me get through this and then I’ll have Hanson answer more of your questions, ok? Just keep them to yourself for now.”

  I make the classic motion of locking my lips and throwing away the key.

  Bellamy scowls. “Anyway. He began to gain notoriety in the nineties for his work on virtual reality. But while the rest of the world was focusing on interactive games and exploring other worlds, Chevko’s focus was on long-distan
ce, instantaneous communication. Instant, visual communication without lag or buffering. It was revolutionary for the time, and it’s the reason we have the type of global communication network we have today.”

  The picture of Chevko disappears and is replaced with a candid photo taken of him crossing a busy street somewhere. A European city by the look of the road and the license plates on the cars in the background. He’s kind of looking over his shoulder, like that famous video of Sasquatch.

  Note to self: ask about Sasquatch in the meanwhile.

  “The point being that Chevko naturally has a lot of connections—deep connections—in the technology world. And that’s where we get to the juicy stuff.” She looks at the photo on the wall next to her as if she had seen it a thousand times. She probably had.

  “This picture was taken two weeks ago as Chevko left the house of Reggie Feldov, a Russian crime boss hiding out in Germany.”

  I wanted to ask how they knew where he was if he was hiding out, but I suppose the answer would’ve been obvious and the question annoying.

  “Feldov has a few ties that we also find very interesting, but the biggest point of interest of his lately is a recent underground auction he was known to attend. Six months ago our contacts in Bolivia spotted him and several other top criminal bosses from around the world at said auction. Among other things, Feldov was the highest bidder on this box.”

  The image changes again to show a narrow, flat, red box, like something that you might put a flute in, or a necklace. Not very large, from what I can tell. No ornamentation of any kind.

  “What is it?” I ask without thinking. Luckily the question seemed to be a welcome one.

  “Well, frankly, nobody knows. But it has a long history that, honestly, I don’t think we have time to go into now. Suffice it to say, Burke, that this box is connected to the existence of the Meanwhile.”

  “Connected how?”

  “Basically, through association. Some of the people who have held this box have been previous targets of ours, some have been previous allies. If you want a complete history of the item, I’ll make sure that Op provides you with whatever you need. But for now, you’re just going to have to take my word for it.”

  Chevko reappears on the wall, the original photo of his bald head.

  “This brings us back to our Russian friend. We have reason to believe that he may now be in possession of the box in question. We’re not sure if Feldov bid on it on orders from Chevko, or if Chevko just happened to hear about it and came calling. Either way, he’s certainly got the money to pay Feldov whatever he paid for it twice over, and the fact that he has it makes us very, very nervous.”

  I looked over my shoulder at all the other people in the room. Dweeble, Mastodon, Hanson, others. They all look bored.

  Am I the only one paying attention?

  “What do you think he’s going to do with it?” I ask, feeling like the star pupil.

  “We don’t know, because we don’t know with certainty what the box contains. But if it’s connected to people who have tried to take down the Meanwhile in the past, then it’s not something we particularly want Chekvo to have his hands on for very long.”

  I raise my hand.

  “Yes, Burke?” She sounds exasperated, and I can’t blame her.

  “Why am I here?”

  “Everyone else has already had this briefing, unfortunately. You have some catching up to do.”

  She is about to continue talking but I raise my hand again.

  “What.”

  “No, I mean, why am I here? Like, at all?”

  “In the Meanwhile?”

  “Yes,” I say with more frustration than I intended to reveal. “But specifically in this room. Why are you telling me all this? Who am I to you?”

  She just stares at me for a moment. Then her eyes lift to Hanson at the back of the room.

  “I didn’t get around to that part,” he says defensively. “I’m sorry.”

  Bellamy runs her tongue along the edges of her top teeth. She looks down at me.

  “There’s a duplicate of each of us on both sides of the Divide, the plane that separates the two worlds. Your duplicate on this side? The Donovan Burke that lives in the Meanwhile? He was our top asset on this mission. We went to a lot of trouble to recruit him.”

  Putting aside for a moment the creepy notion of another me walking around out there, I asked the more pertinent question.

  “Why isn’t he doing this, then?”

  “Because we don’t know where he is. He went missing two weeks ago.”

  My mind starts drifting to the possibilities, but one stands out more than any other.

  “Chevko?”

  Thankfully, Bellamy shakes her head. “No. We know enough to know that he’s not behind it.”

  “Then who is?”

  “Mr. Burke, really, this is a conversation best had another time.” She shoots Hanson an angry look again. “Just let me get through this briefing and I promise all will be explained.”

  I sigh.

  “Fine.”

  Bellamy clears her throat and continues. Knowing that she undoubtedly told this whole thing to the other Donovan Burke already, I can understand her frustration at having to say it all again. “Now, Chevko is hosting a party at his New York City penthouse very soon. He’s invited business leaders and dignitaries from around the world, most notably the President of the United States.”

  When she says that title, she looks up at Hanson again. I turn and look at him, too. He’s shaking his head for some reason and Bellamy looks annoyed.

  “The President is, in fact, the guest of honor. Chevko is billing this as a celebration of industry and government working together. You would have no way of knowing this, but Chevko’s company is currently seeking permission from a number of states to do some controversial testing on nanotechnology, which is still a bit of a grey area, legally-speaking. No pun intended.”

  I got the joke. ‘Grey goo’ is the term some scientists gave to the hypothetical scenario wherein a bunch of self-replicating nanorobots the size of molecules basically turn all the mass they consume into more of themselves, creating what would look like a ‘grey goo’ that ends up devouring the entire planet. Good one.

  “Everyone assumes that if he can get the President’s approval, even unofficially, it will sway those states to go along, or risk seeming unpatriotic if they don’t. An alternative theory has been put forth, though, that this is a way for Chevko to take a swipe at Russian president Boris Vasiliev, who actually refused to allow any of Chevko’s nanotech experiments to happen on Russian soil. Animosity between Chevko and Vasiliev goes back decades, ever since Vasiliev passed him over for an infrastructure contract.”

  She waves her hand in front of her face. “This is all boring and unimportant, really. We don’t really care about his reasons, we just want to know what’s in that box, and we’re going to use the party as our first step towards finding it out.”

  The wall switches to an image of a pretty young girl. Maybe 18 years old. Long, auburn hair, and the same piercing blue eyes as Chevko.

  “Nadia Chevko, his daughter. She’s his pride and joy, Reportedly the two are very close, so it’s our opinion that if you can get in good with Nadia, you’ll have access to her father in ways that you might not otherwise.”

  I nearly choke. “I’m sorry. What do you mean by ‘get in good?’”

  Bellamy rolls her eyes. “Get intimate with. Is that better?”

  It wasn’t.

  I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder at Hanson. He didn’t seem to be looking my way.

  “So, my other self. He, uh, was cool with that?”

  A snicker passes through the room.

  “It was his favorite part,” Bellamy says. “But just to encourage young Miss Chevko to take the bait, we’ve made arrangements for you to have a partner.”

  Please say it’s Hanson.

  Please say it’s Hanson.

  “Nadia is
notoriously competitive, even in her love life. So we thought we’d give her a little healthy competition. Or at least the illusion of it.”

  I hear the door behind me open and a young girl walks in. Tall, and slender, with long, blonde hair and thick eyebrows.

  Dammit.

  She looks right at me with a look of unrequited recognition.

  “Hello, Donovan.”

  Bellamy clears her throat. “He doesn’t know you, I’m afraid. Donovan Burke, meet Olivia Chambers, your ex-girlfriend.”

  I nearly choke for the second time.

  “The two of you will be temporarily renewing your relationship for the purposes of this little mission, at least as long as it takes for Nadia Chevko to pounce. And before you ask, Mr. Burke, yes, the other you was ‘cool with it.’”

  Tell them, Donovan.

  No.

  Resist.

  Survive.

  “I still don’t understand how this relates to me, or even the other me. You said you recruited me—him—specifically for this job. I take it he was also invited to this party for some reason?”

  “Not just some reason.”

  The image on the wall flips to a portrait of a man in a black suit with a bright red tie. Behind him is the American flag.

  The man is my father.

  Hair is different, but that’s about it. And I’ve never seen my dad wearing a suit, except probably at my Grandma Lily’s funeral.

  “My dad is one of the business leaders he invited?”

  “This is a photo of the President of the United States.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Olivia and I get to know each other over styrofoam cups of lukewarm coffee in the mess hall on the first floor.

  It’s the most intimate conversation I ever had with a stranger who was my ex-girlfriend.

  “My dad works construction. He has a GED. He’s not Presidential, like, at all.”

  She’s stirring sugar into her cup. I don’t understand how people can drink anything other than straight black coffee. “Not in the this reality,” she says.

  “You sound like one of them.”

  “It was hard to get used to the idea at first, but I’ve had a few months to process it.” She sips her coffee and puts the cup down but doesn’t let go of it. “Tell me something. In the other place... Never mind.”