Donovan Meanwhile: Kings of Sparta

by Bierley, B. L.

  This room is easily twice the size of the entire rest of the bunker.

  Along one wall is a row of vehicles.

  Along the other, a row of guns, gadgets and gizmos.

  I’m half expecting Q to step out from behind a mannequin and try to offer me an exploding piece of gum.

  And I’m not too far off the mark.

  A young girl of maybe twenty years old with orange-red hair comes walking up holding a clipboard, looking me up and down and mumbling to herself. She chews on the end of a pen.

  “I hope that’s not going to explode,” I joke. I’m the only one who thinks its funny.

  She stands next to Bellamy as she evaluates me like a piece of meat.

  “I’m going to have to have Gavin adjust the suit for tonight. It’s not going to fit him.”

  Bellamy looks me up and down as well, trying to see what the other girl does. “They’re identical. They’re literally the same person.”

  The girl tut-tuts and pokes me in the stomach with her pen. “Except one of them’s been eating a few more donuts than the other.”

  She holds up a clipboard and makes a few notes, then looks at me again. “How good are you with a piece?”

  “Of?”

  That is literally the last thing she wants to hear. She audibly growls as she makes another mark on the clipboard.

  She throws a look at Bellamy, who passes it off to me. “A gun, Donovan.”

  My eyes get huge. I’ve never shot a gun in my life!

  “We won’t need guns for this mission,” Bellamy tells her, sounding more and more aggravated. “It’s a dinner party, not a shooting gallery.”

  The girl cocks her head to the side. “Don’t you remember Iran? You said the same thing.”

  “Well, Iran...” Bellamy trails off. “I’ll make sure he gets some training after tonight, okay? We just need him to be wired for sound right now.”

  “I know what we need, Bell,” the girl says. At that, Bellamy turns and storms off, barely containing her rage. I had never seen her act like that in all the twenty hours I had known her.

  She slams the door on her way out, and I turn to the girl with the clipboard.

  “You must be Tez.”

  “Yup. Now, before we get you wired up I’m going to have to walk you through the plan.”

  “I know the plan,” I say, but she turns on her heel and starts walking towards one end of the room with a small rack on it.

  “Step one, you and your little tart are going to arrive at the party fashionably late. It’s the best way to make an entrance, and get Chevko’s attention. The daughter Chevko, not the father. We actually don’t want to get his attention too much at this point.”

  I nod silently, even though I’m behind her.

  “You’re going to be wearing a rig that allows us to see and hear everything you see and hear, and it will allow us to communicate with you through an embedded earpiece.”

  “Sounds like typical spy stuff.”

  Again she ignores me.

  “Olivia has been instructed, at her discretion, to leave the party temporarily. She’ll pretend to get a phone call that she has to take. While she’s gone, Nadia will approach you and that’s when you’ll make initial contact. Now—“

  “How do you know she’ll approach me?”

  Tez spins on me and I’m pretty sure I let out a little squeak. “Because you’ll be flirting with her behind Olivia’s back, obviously.” Then we keep walking.

  Flirting!?

  First of all, I barely know how to attract the attention of guys that I like, let alone members of the opposite sex. I put the idea out of my mind as best I can for now and focus on what Tez is telling me.

  “You are going to establish a rapport with Nadia Chevko as swiftly as you can. The idea is that by the time the night is over, you’ve made plans to see each other again.”

  “What about Olivia?” I ask. I admit, at this point I’m starting to feel somewhat bad for my dopplegänger’s ex-girlfriend.

  Tez just shrugs. “She’s going to break up with you. The phone call she got was a former fling of hers who invited her on a trip out of the country. It’s a perfect excuse for her to end things with you and for Nadia to pick up the broken pieces of your heart.”

  “But I thought she was supposedly competitive.”

  Tez stops again. “Yes? So?”

  “So taking out the competition seems to me like the exact opposite thing we’d want to do. It certainly won’t be as much of a challenge for Nadia if she finds out I’m on the market already. I mean, not that I’m advocating that I should come off as a cheater, either, because that’s also not an attractive quality, but...“

  Tez is chewing on her pen again, lost in thought. “You’re right. Dammit, you’re actually right.”

  “Thank you?”

  After a few more moments of thought, she continues walking. I notice the sharp sound of her heels stabbing the concrete floor.

  (I also notice the concrete floor for the first time, which is charred and stained in myriad ways I don’t want to know the story behind.)

  “I’ll talk to Bellamy about adjusting the timeline of events. We can’t risk Nadia losing interest before you’ve had a chance to infiltrate Chevko’s operation. Good thinking.”

  She gives me a look over her shoulder that lets me know she’s already reevaluating my abilities.

  “The important thing tonight, like I said, is that you and Nadia leave the party with plans to see each other again. You’re going to have to be at your most charming, start to finish. I’m sure you can handle it, loverboy.”

  “Uh—“

  We reach the rack at the end of the wall, and now I see it’s lined with a variety of smaller weapons and gadgets. Tez peruses a collection of watches.

  “Did you bring your watch?” she asks. I’m so glad to be able to say I did. I shudder to think what she would’ve done if I had said no.

  “Good, hand it over.” She grabs another watch—identical, mind you—and gives it to me as I hand her the one I just removed from my wrist.

  “This is more appropriate for tonight. It’s got the usual Invisible RF tracker built in, but it will also allow you to pilot the Spy Fly.”

  “The what?”

  She rocks her head back. “That’s right, you would have no idea, would you? Over here.”

  Boy, the annoyance is just dripping down the walls in here.

  She shows me to a glass case that has a collection of little remote controlled drones in it. She points to the Spy Fly, the smallest one of all, no bigger than a dime.

  Tez grabs my wrist and taps a few commands on the face of the watch. The black glass screen is replaced with a view from the underside of the drone, an image of Tez and I standing there looking at it. The picture is remarkably clear.

  “You’re going to use this to get inside Chevko’s office.”

  “Come again?”

  “What, you didn’t think it was going to be as easy as charming the panties off some new dame, did you? Donovan, please. There’s going to be a ventilation shaft that leads from the hallway just off the main ballroom, directly into Chevko’s office. At some point in the evening, we need you to send the Spy Fly up there and capture as many images as you can inside the office. That’s it. Just in and out.” She shrugs, like she had just told me I needed to make a bologna sandwich.

  “You can’t get someone else to do that? Don’t forget this is my first mission ever. I don’t even know if I can make it through the night without breaking out into a cold sweat and vomiting in the punch bowl.”

  “The fact that you believe there will be a punch bowl certainly doesn’t fill me with a great amount of hope.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “Wait, there’s not going to be punch?”

  “Don’t worry,” she says, ignoring my very serious and legitimate question re: punch. “The drone does most of the flying itself. You jus have to direct it where to go and maybe help it out from time to time. Bu
t I promise it’ll be easier than you think. It’s idiot proof, if you will.”

  “I will not.”

  “Now, let’s get you wired up.”

  We go into a small, adjoining room with what looked like a dentist chair in the center under a big lamp.

  Unspecified chairs under lamps make me nervous. Something I learned about myself in that moment. “I thought I was just wearing a wire.”

  “Yeah, basically. But I did mention the embedded earpiece, remember? This is where we embed it in your ear.”

  “I thought it was like a hearing aid or something.”

  “Right, exactly.”

  “A hearing aid that goes in your ear,” I say, sticking a finger in my own ear to demonstrate.

  “Right. In your ear,” she repeats. She really put an alarming amount of emphasis on the word “in”. Then she cocks her head to the side. “How do they do it in your world?”

  “How do they do it in yours?”

  “Surgery!”

  “Oh god!”

  She shakes her head and waves her hands in front of her. “Wait, wait, wait. You mean to tell me that in your world hearing aids just, like, sit inside your ear canal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “First of all that sounds incredibly ineffective. But secondly, if we outfitted you with a listening device like that how do you expect people not to notice?”

  “James Bond does it all the time.”

  She shrugs. “Who is James Bond?”

  Now it’s my turn to freak out.

  “Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me you’re a gadget tech person and you don’t know who James Bond is?”

  “I’m telling you I’ve never heard the name before. Did he invent the hearing aid?”

  “Hey, you guys.” Bellamy’s voice shoots out of my watch. “We don’t have much time left. Donovan still has to get ready for the actual party, you know.”

  I lift the watch to my mouth. “Hey, do you know who James Bond is?”

  “Is he going to be canceling the party tonight? Because if not then I don’t care. Finish up and meet me up top, ASAP.”

  Tez lifts an eyebrow, and then directs her eyes to the chair.

  I let out a deep sigh. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Alright, so the earpiece surgery wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I should’ve expected that since technology in the Meanwhile seemed so much more advanced than that in my own reality, it would stand to reason that surgery would be easier, too. I imagine it was kind of like getting your ears pierced, although I’ve never done that either so I have no way of knowing.

  While the surgery was happening—which took all of ten minutes—Tez placed a little, dime-sized patch on my side, up close to my armpit. This, she informed me, was the “wire.” It was a tiny microphone that collected sound waves from not only the location of the patch but all throughout my body. She said that when we hear sounds, the waves don’t just hit our ear drums. They are everywhere, and strike our skin and clothes, too. The little patch could pick up on those vibrations and suss out what the noise was.

  I asked about the camera, since she said they could see what I saw.

  Incredibly, it was the same answer. Basically the patch turned me into a giant microphone and the sound waves could be turned into visual information. Fascinating!

  (I also asked the surgery tech if he knew who James Bond was, and he said he doesn’t really keep up with the news. I took that as a no.)

  After that I was dressed in a very fetching three-piece suit with a deep burgundy color. In the Meanwhile, apparently, it was a pretty standard color for mens’ evening wear. In my reality, it would be considered a pretty eccentric choice.

  I liked it. I asked Bellamy if I could take it back over with me when this was over. Her answer wasn’t what I was expecting.

  “What makes you think you’re going back?”

  She burst out laughing after that. Apparently that’s what passes for humor in the Meanwhile.

  Later, with Bellamy’s ominous words bouncing around in my head, I’m sitting next to Olivia in the back of a sleek black limousine on the way to Chevko’s place in New York. The ride is smooth and quiet, like everything in this reality.

  Like I wish my own life could be. Slip through the cracks, unbothered and unnoticed.

  Escape.

  Survive.

  But those thoughts only lead me back to Bellamy’s words and the fear that I might not see my real family ever again. I know she meant it as a joke, but I was entering a pretty dangerous world now. There was a chance I wouldn’t make it back, joke or not.

  I kept picturing my mom waking up this morning and seeing I wasn’t home.

  By now she would be panicking, calling all her friends and acquaintances, going through the entire school phone directory.

  Nobody would have seen me.

  Nobody would know where to find me.

  “Are you alright?” Olivia says, putting a hand on my thigh.

  “Just focused,” I say unconvincingly.

  She squeezes my knee gently. “It’s going to be alright.”

  I wish it was Hanson sitting next to me instead, but I hadn’t even seen him all day. He wasn’t at the headquarters today, at least not that I saw. After talking got him last night via watch phone, I hadn’t heard from him again.

  Olivia’s looking out the window.

  I scratch my arm absently. An old habit when I’m nervous. “What did you see in me?”

  She turns to me and thinks for a moment, then breaks into a smile. “Well, the sex was pretty good.”

  “No, seriously.”

  She twists her body to face me, giving me her full attention. “Well. You’ve got a kind heart. Underneath the bravado and the posing, Donovan Burke was always a soft soul. Someone you could curl up inside and feel safe.” Her eyes unfocused. “If you could get down there, I mean.”

  Most of the rest of the ride up to NY is just us staring out our own windows, thinking about our own versions of the world.

  “Thank god,” Olivia finally says, breaking the silence. “I’ve got to pee so bad.” I realize we’re pulling up to the curb outside Chevko’s building. The driver lets us both out onto the sidewalk, and Olivia offers me her arm.

  Together we walk up the red carpet that leads to the entrance to the building, and then it’s a short elevator ride up forty-five stories to the penthouse. The place is a very modern affair, all angles and glass panels lined with stainless steel and concrete. It looks exactly like the kind of place a tech giant would live. Or a super villain.

  Or both, I guess?

  We’re let in by a broad-shouldered goon at the door wearing a perfectly-tailored tuxedo. I recognize him, although he didn’t seem to recognize me. I suspect that’s because his doppelgänger is the one who saw me before, as he drove past me in his SUV on his way to chase down Fake Matt.

  I try to give an expression that didn’t betray that we’d seen each other before. Should be easy, I think, but I’m not sure if I pull it off. He gives me kind of a weird look.

  Maybe I was giving him a weird look, too. It’s entirely possible.

  Inside, there’s softly-pulsing music playing through several large speakers built into the walls. The main living area is bigger than the gym at my school. There’s a glass staircase leading up to a loft area that overlooks the entire city.

  There’s even an honest-to-goodness swimming pool right there in the middle of it all, with women just laying out on pool floats like they were decorations. Which, I suppose, is exactly what they were being paid to be.

  “What now?” I ask my date, but she just shrugs.

  “I’m not a spy.”

  Bellamy’s voice comes into my earpiece. “Hang out. Wait for the daughter to show herself.”

  I scan the room. There’s a bar by the back wall of windows, with two well-dressed servers hustling back and forth to make cocktails. And also, a sight for sore eyes.
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  “Hanson,” I accidentally say aloud.

  “Yeah,” Bellamy says with annoyance in her voice. “He insisted on being your backup tonight.”

  I smile inside.

  He’s dressed in an incredible tuxedo, and I almost titter with glee.

  But I don’t. I don’t titter.

  I lead Olivia casually across the room, trying to account for the fact that in her slim, floor-length dress she couldn’t take very long strides. Personally, I wanted to skip, but even I know how to play it cool.

  We get to the bar. Hanson’s leaning with his back to me, sipping from a cup.

  “What are you having?” I say smoothly.

  He spins around and smiles when he sees me. Then he looks down at his cup with a frown. “Soda with lime. I’m only eighteen, after all.”

  “Nonsense!” I turn to face the bartender who’s patiently awaiting my order.

  “Three martinis for my friends and I.”

  I pause for effect, then add: “Shaken, not stirred.”

  Olivia scowls at me and says under her breath, “We’re underage. Your other self would never do this.”

  “Really? Man, I cannot get a bead on that guy. Anyway, I’m the president’s son. I’m sure it won’t be a problem.” I turn to the bartender and raise an eyebrow. “Will it?”

  He gives a sharp nod to indicate he’s cool with it.

  “What kind of martini, sir?”

  “Shaken. I said that.”

  The bartender gives another sharp nod.

  “But what kind of alcohol would like me to shake? Sir.”

  I try not to look at my companions while I search for an answer.

  The bartender begins to list them.

  “Gin, or—“

  “Gin,” I snap. “Obviously. Shaken, not stirred.”

  He clears his throat softly.

  “I wouldn’t suggest shaking that particular drink, sir. Shaking aerates the drink and binds the ingredients together, but a good martini should be smooth and thick, and the ingredients should be distinct. Same with an Old Fashioned. To shake a martini would be, to any bartender worth his margarita salt, to ruin it. Sir.”