by Lynch, S. M.
Camille walked over to a woman sat at a control panel, a wall covered by several screens featuring images produced by CCTV.
‘Are they dealt with?’
‘Yes, we took them to our safe house and are keeping them there until further notice.’
‘Good. I don’t want their employers to know we’ve got them. Get their chips removed, put the safe house on high alert, and get them re-civilized. Those two could be handy once they’ve had all the rubbish pumped out of them.’
Camille turned to me with a fire in her eye; this was her domain, her true occupation. I knew then, this was what she lived for. She was someone very much like me.
‘Officium use drugs on their emissaries to make them more pliable. On the odd occasion we come across these creatures, we try to normalize them and give them a chance to start afresh. It’s not always their fault that they ended up leading such lives.’
I nodded in understanding, secretly wowed by the facility that had been set up, especially as it was beneath slipshod old buildings that once sold meat. I peered at the screens and saw the two emissaries tied up in an empty room, seemingly knocked out by sedatives or perhaps still reeling from the effects of Camille’s handiwork.
Camille clapped her hands together and everyone in the room, perhaps around 20 people in total, stopped whatever they were doing and stared in her direction.
‘Everyone, you all know Seraph, Eve’s niece. Two emissaries followed her, so we all need to pull together to ensure they don’t get a second chance. From Birmingham to Glasgow, get word out to everyone on the street, and I mean everyone. Our efforts need to be concentrated here, especially for tomorrow.’
The team looked at me warily, as if I was the fly in the ointment, but Camille reiterated, ‘Snap to it, get to work. Most importantly don’t forget to monitor the perimeter of this building.’
Camille went to speak to some members of her staff quietly, leaving me to observe the scene. The staff rattled off messages here, there and everywhere. I wondered whether they would hook themselves up to their workstations if they could, intravenously drip-feeding information down the networks instead. I watched these people and realized they were elite professionals, a small band of geniuses who read the outside world via their quick ability to process tons of information. I had some notion of being smart myself but these others were… technical minds. So, no, this was no amateur band of resistance fighters. These people had form.
They had highly-sophisticated xGens hooked up to enormous monitors in front of them, while their devices had scrambling sticks to prevent Officium tracking their communications. A lot of the staff also wore tiny earpieces to be able to talk to not only each other, but anybody they decided to call up with the touch of a button. As each flicked between audio hackware, documents, messaging, GPS tracking and websites, I felt dizzy. It would probably take years to work out their practices.
‘Seraph, we need to talk. Now you’ve seen in here, let’s go up to Eve’s flat.’
I nodded in a daze of compliance and followed Camille as she led us back out, gesturing to the operatives that she was going upstairs if they needed her.
We climbed the rickety spiral staircase to the top floor of the bridal house, where Eve’s living quarters were exactly as I had imagined. Humble but tasteful. Dark, solid wood beams punctuated the mostly white ceilings and walls. The rickety wooden doors had old-fashioned metal latches and the ceilings were so low that I almost had to stoop. The furnishings were antique, but very well-kept. The living room was a mixture of block pastels and flowery prints. At its centre sat a large, cream, high-backed Victorian sofa with brass feet, covered in large cushions. The furniture, most of it solid oak, was tasteful and elegant – pieces not found so readily – the collection of a true fanatic. In front of the sofa sat a chunky coffee table constructed using railway sleepers.
There were rows and rows of books, every space of wall available was used to hold a bookcase full of reading material against it. A huge oak writing desk resembling an accountant’s workstation was pushed up against one wall under the room’s windowsill; bits and pieces of paper poked out of multiple drawers both on top of the desk and underneath.
In the bedroom an iron-framed bed was positioned at one end and at the other were huge wardrobes stretching across the entire length of the L-shaped room. The curtains were pink and a sturdy rocking chair sat in one corner. The spare room was similarly decorated with a simple single bed and flowers in the window.
In the kitchen, a great surprise awaited me. This was one part of Eve’s flat that was modern, with completely white units, white tiled walls and flooring. Everything about it was generic, in keeping with contemporary living. Not even Eve could keep a kitchen spic and span for decades without having to have it replaced, and this style is probably all she could find. Eve hadn’t managed to keep the new world out of her home entirely.
While I sat in Eve’s sturdy, studded-leather desk chair, I surveyed the living room and watched as Camille pressed for a glass of water from the drinks unit in the kitchen.
The Frenchwoman sat on the sofa opposite and waited for me to start asking all the questions she knew were buzzing around my journalistic brain. However, for once I was stunned, totally shocked into silence. I started laughing in disbelief.
‘What is it?’ Camille asked calmly.
‘I should have realized when she came to New York that time, but I could never have imagined she was that person. I mean, it never entered my mind. I always viewed her as a sort of simple spinster who had somehow managed to make a success of herself. How wrong was I?’
Camille opened her hands. ‘Seraph, I don’t think you realize how close you came to getting yourself into trouble with Reiniger. He used that vile outfit to put us off the scent. Eve of course watched your movements over the years… she had an instinct something was going on for you to be stealing all your time tracking him. One mark and no other? It didn’t sit right with her. You have no idea how much it pained her to have to make that trip.’
‘What did you do with Reiniger?’ I asked.
Camille looked up at me from beneath hooded eyes and swiped a hand across her throat. ‘You don’t need to know how.’
‘Okay,’ I accepted. ‘As for Eve, I hardly know what questions to start with, perhaps you ought to tell me everything you know about my aunt. About how she could have ended up doing, this?’
Camille stood to look out of the window. She avoided my gaze and revealed, ‘Eve would have preferred it if you never found out about her secret life. And if she ever thought you needed to know, she would have wanted to be the one to tell you herself.’
‘So, what does that mean?’
‘She made provisions to bring the truth to your attention. I believe the will might reveal more.’
‘I can’t wait for that Camille. You’ll just have to tell me yourself. I’m goin’ out of my mind… I loved her more than anyone else I’ve ever known!’
My hands went over my mouth because I was struggling to contain this constant, uncharacteristic outpouring of mine.
‘I loved her too, Seraph. She was my best friend. But there were things she never even disclosed to me. There was a reason behind her role as the Operator, quite a devastating one, and it will not be easy for you to hear.’
My mind drew a few conclusions. Unable to hold the bile down, I rushed into the kitchen and heaved into the ceramic sink, the acid burning the back of my throat as it spluttered out of my mouth.
Camille held my hair back and waited for me to finish, passing over a towel when I was done.
I struggled to hold my body up let alone speak as dread washed over me. I managed two words quietly, ‘My parents.’
Camille nodded reluctantly, but I sensed there was more to it than that. I just didn’t know if I was braced for anything else.
‘I need a drink Camille, a stiff one.’
She led me to the couch and offered, ‘I’ll go downstairs for some sherry. Wait here.�
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I listened to every step Camille took as she descended the stairs, counting them until I realized my entire body was shaking. Whether it was because I had just thrown up, or whether it was the shock of everything, I wasn’t sure. I grabbed a woolen blanket draped over the back of the couch and pulled it around myself.
I wanted to start crying. I thought I might cry forever if I allowed emotion to get the better of me. The surroundings of the room vanished as I got lost deep in thought… my dear mom and dad, Eve, all these coincidences even I never anticipated.
Without me realizing it, Camille arrived back in the flat and brought me a tumbler from the kitchen containing a large shot of sherry.
I snapped to with her sharp words, ‘Seraph, here, you, are. Take it, but drink, slowly.’
I saw the comforting liquid and swallowed it in one go. I held the glass back out toward Camille, gesturing for more.
Camille shot a disapproving glance but would I take no for an answer? Camille refilled the receptacle and I took a sip, plucking up the courage to ask, ‘How did you meet Eve?’
‘It’s a long story…’
I fell back on the sofa, trying to get comfortable.
‘Do I look like I’m going anywhere Camille?’
We still had hours before the funeral, time I didn’t really have spare. I was clock watching continually and the hands were ticking slower and slower.
‘Okay, I will tell you, but you must listen and not ask questions.’
‘I’m listening. Tell me everything.’
CHAPTER 9
Camille paced while she told me her story and I shut my eyes to absorb her words, determined to let them all sink in.
‘I was raised in an orphanage on the outskirts of Paris after my parents died in 2023. Like you I have no brothers or sisters, so I became a creature of solitude, preferring not to entangle myself emotionally. What happened in 2023 was terrifying, but for the children, even more so. Some lost their siblings, some their parents, most their grandparents. I had not a single person left in the world. It seemed as if we had all been born merely to suffer and to try and survive as best we could with what we were left with.
‘At the orphanage, I realized my forte for sewing and it’s something I went on to pursue. And so at age 18 I left the suburbs behind after winning a scholarship to attend the Parisian School of Art and Design, graduating in 2034. After that, I spent years traveling the world, making garments to sell on the streets, randomly moving from one place to another. I begged, borrowed and sometimes even stole to keep food in my stomach and clothes on my back. I fell in with a street gang in Budapest and we moved from one place to another together, doing whatever we needed to in order to overcome the noose Officium had hung around the world. For at least five years, I had no fixed address whatsoever. It didn’t bother me sleeping on the streets, or in alleyways, or on someone’s cold floor. I’d never known comfort, and so, it was normal. I woke every day knowing that the search for food came second to my need for excitement.
‘I’d grown extremely tough and people back then knew me as something of a scrapper. I was just desperately seeking my place in the world. I always knew that there was only one person I could rely on and soon friendships broke down, loyalties became divided and I broke free. An attempt to spring a group of factory workers from their bonds went wrong and I decided it was time to put some distance between myself and Europe, taking myself off to the Orient.
‘In Japan, I found my second home. There, I appreciated the culture, the society and their way of living. It was even more cramped than in Paris but that didn’t matter to me. Living in a pod was luxury compared to my previous habitations! Quite by chance, I developed a friendship with a sensei, after he bought up some of my silk dresses for his daughters. He was a tiny, unassuming man, devoted to his wife and family. His clan was brave enough to live in some abandoned farmland just outside Tokyo and one day he invited me to his humble abode for dinner. I was struck not only by his generous hospitality, but also by his family’s skills in Shotokan Karate. There were hundreds of trophies dotted around their shack, dating from as far back as the Seventies. He was the only person in the world to have reached his eleventh Dan, a grandmaster of unparalleled skill, agility, strength and speed – but something of a pariah. I asked one of his daughters to show me her skills and she nearly broke my back as she grappled me to the ground with one fell swoop. I was so impressed, I begged him to teach me everything he knew. He refused at first, but I was persistent. For weeks, I laboriously cycled from the city to his home every day, turning up with more gifts for his daughters. Each time he turned me away, I refused to be dissuaded. Then one day, he relented, and my tutelage began in the boggy rice fields at the back of his home.
‘The fertile green surroundings and the prolonged and unforgiving rain became the backdrop and the dojo of my lessons – and my enemy. Barefoot and dressed sparingly, I took a lot of blows at the will of his hand. He nearly knocked the life out of me as my face was continually pushed into the cold, life-draining, damp mud. While the family ate their meals together inside, I was left out in the cold in my makeshift bamboo shelter to survive on decaying vegetables and dried fish. I nearly gave up so many times, but that would have been the easy way, and that had never been an option for me. I knew that as long as I had breath and strength left in me, I would never break.
‘I still remember so clearly the relentless circuit training in the unforgiving earth of those fields, performing press-ups while he stood on my back taunting me with abuse, saying I was just another pathetic woman who would break against his will. Each taunt made me more determined, more resistant to failure, and I began to feel invincible. I rose above the idea of being weakened by my human form. After mastering the basics, I grew so physically and mentally strong that when it came to combat, the process wasn’t a conscious experience for me. My very first attempt to smash through a wooden plank was successful, easy even. Until you actually participate in the disciplines of martial arts with a humble approach, an open mind and a full heart, you can never understand the mentality it enables you to develop. Once the mind has been broken, and rebuilt, you can become whatever you want to be. If you will something to be so, it must be. My body became a highly-tuned force of rigidity and I was no longer a creature of reaction, more one of calm and serenity, allowing the world to wash over my being. The key was not to react, merely to retain strength. Unless it was really necessary to perform, only then would I execute myself, and if so, only absolute exhibition of one’s skills would suffice. Sensei Toshiro and I formed a bond that went beyond the one he shared with his family even. We were equal souls existing on a level plane, and even a whisper of breath from one of us revealed to the other what we were thinking or feeling; we were so in tune with one another.
‘However, opponents soon became too easy and I tired of my life in Japan. I began to yearn for the streets of Paris back home and returned there in 2041 after several years of living from hand to mouth, from country to country.
‘I maintain my discipline and still spar and meditate every day even now. It was something that I knew would never leave me. Many members of UNITY have been taught by me, and I’ve now reached my eighth Dan, which is simply a testament to all the wonders that martial arts have enabled me to enjoy – friendship, discipline and freedom from fear.
‘After returning home from Japan, I got by selling millinery on the streets of Montmartre, until one day an elegant Englishwoman turned up and bought everything on my table. She noticed my shabby clothes and unwashed appearance, declaring, “How is someone of your talent doing this?”
‘At first I was reluctant to latch on to her friendliness, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer when she insisted on buying me dinner that night. She offered me a job at the bridal house then and there, but I challenged her motives.
‘She gave me that stern look of hers, and simply said, “Because I know a woman of your caliber will be indispensable and instrumental to my cau
se.” I was instantly intrigued and she began to explain how she’d heard from Sensei Toshiro that I’d left Japan and come back to Europe. He was part of the movement and had informed her of how good a combatant I had become.
‘Then she had some revelations that I wasn’t expecting. She told me that my mother and father had been in the French Secret Service, a fact I knew nothing about until she disclosed it to me. She placed a file on the restaurant table and I looked it over with interest and horror. I began to get some sense of my identity and realized my similar pursuit of thrills and adventure was something I’d undoubtedly got from them. They were not killed by the flu, but by Officium, and I knew then that my lot was to join Eve’s efforts.
‘I moved to York and settled for a quiet but purposeful life, helping her make this place more successful than either of us could have ever imagined. Many of our members met and married through the work they carried out for Eve – and the women became clients at the shop. However, don’t let that overshadow her success Seraph. She still had dozens and dozens of customers who came from the farthest corners of the globe to have their wedding dresses made by her. I suppose it was the romance of this building that drew them here, but also the relatively small fee she charged for them to have a gown made from scratch, and to their exact specifications. Her decision to remain open amidst a world of declining craftsmanship somehow paid dividends, and for once, refusing to follow a trend proved unbelievably canny. There were still a lot of people who had managed to find happy lives for themselves, but they were very few and far between after 2023.
‘She was the bedrock of this place and it simply won’t be the same without her. I loved her dearly and never expected to feel so sad about her loss. I never in my wildest dreams ever thought anyone could be as good a friend to me as she was. I never thought such kindness existed in the world until I met her. She was the ultimate person, ultimate woman, ultimate warrior even.
