Yesterday's Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  Felicity is not. “Arthur,” she says, slowly, carefully, “how much do you trust Ogden?”

  I’m not too carried away to notice something is clearly off. “Who?” I ask.

  Felicity nods, as if this was expected. “Our cleanup man in the subbasement. His name is Ogden Beauvielle. You didn’t know that, did you?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t see how that’s important.”

  Felicity contemplates a coffee mug. “You don’t know much about him.”

  Again I shake my head. But my stomach is sinking faster than a holed battleship.

  “But you trust him as a source? Nothing seemed odd about him to you?”

  Felicity reminds me of defense lawyers I’ve seen pick apart my cases in court. Go after the validity of the witness first.

  “He had no reason to lie to me,” I counter, dodging Felicity’s precise question.

  “I’ll take that as a yes then,” Felicity replies, her bullshitometer as effective as ever.

  “He didn’t lie to me.” I try to say it calmly but I’m getting belligerent. And I really should play nice, but I’m getting sick of this. How many times can my evidence be ruled too thin? “He’s reporting exactly what he saw.”

  Felicity spreads her hands facedown on the table, stares at them for just a moment before looking up at me. “I’m just asking you to see this from Coleman’s perspective. How will he respond to this?”

  And it’s right there. Right in front of her. It’s plain as goddamn day. The smoking gun. All she has to do is pick it up and show it to the world.

  Except…

  She doesn’t believe me.

  I mean… I’ve known that. Always known that, I suppose. But it’s not an easy thing to admit. And she’s trying to pretend she has an open mind, and I’ve been playing along, but she doesn’t. And… God… I should leave well alone, but I just feel fucking sick right now. It doesn’t get more obvious than this. They’re throwing the whole world away.

  “Why is it so hard for you,” I say, “to imagine that I might be right on this one? Why do you have such a problem with it when other people can see it plain as day?”

  Shaw cocks her head. “Other people? What other people?”

  Oh shit. My heart doesn’t so much sink as much as it goes through the floor, heading for Winston’s subterranean branches. Oh shit and balls. Oh, I should not have said that. That was really—

  “You mean, Devon?”

  I try to keep the relief off my face, out of the heaviness of my breath.

  “I mean,” Felicity carries on, “she’s nice enough, but talk about wet behind the—”

  And then she stops.

  And apparently I didn’t keep the relief off my face.

  “No,” she says, and she shakes her head. “Not Devon.” Her brow furrows. “Who did you tell, Arthur? Who did you talk to about this?”

  I close my eyes. And I am such a shitty liar. I have no idea how to get out of this. And I was so not prepared to fuck up this bad.

  And then I don’t have to lie, because Felicity is smarter than that.

  “Oh no,” she says. “Oh no, Arthur. Not them. Not the Weekenders.”

  Clyde probably knows a spell about having the ground swallow you up. I should ask him about that.

  “Fuck!” The curse explodes out of Felicity. She seems rocked by the force of it, flinging herself back in her chair, her arms going up. I take a step back. “Fuck!” she shouts it again. It seems so foreign coming from her, from this neat little woman, so foreign in this neat little room. She stands up, kicking her chair back. It slams off a filing cabinet and careens into a wall.

  “Was I not fucking clear, Arthur? Was I not explicit enough for you?”

  “You know—” I start, but Felicity has no time for my answers.

  “You’re out, you know that, right?” She spins, seems constrained by the enormity of her rage. This room is hardly big enough to hold it. “Coleman will have every inch of your arse for this. He’ll have mine too. We’re fucked. We’re both fucked. Because of you.” She holds her head in her hands, as if trying to contain the thoughts, as if to hold everything together.

  And it was bloody her that put me in this position. She has to see that. I step towards her. Try to get her to see one last time.

  Her palm whips out. It crashes into my sternum and I stagger backwards, trip, sit down hard.

  “Don’t you fucking touch me,” Felicity says to me. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

  And… Jesus. That’s what it comes down to? That’s how this all ends? Me sitting on my arse in the remnants of my career and my relationship, staring at the end of everything.

  And, God, is it really my fault? What exactly have I done wrong here? I’m the only one in MI37 who sees this threat for what it is. I’m the only one doing the right thing.

  “What the fuck?” I’m yelling suddenly. Bug-eyed with anger, sitting on my arse. “Are you really so fucking blind?” I pick myself up. “I’m trying to do the right thing. I’m trying to save the bloody world. But Coleman, and Clyde, and, goddammit, you, Felicity, you keep standing in my fucking way. You keep making mistakes and slapping me down when I try to fix them.”

  “This? This is fixing a mistake?” Her laugh is bitter as coffee laced with lemon juice. “God, I’d love to see it when you really screw up.”

  I close my eyes. She’s not just capitulating to Coleman, her psychology has been colonized by him. She’s as bad as him. “You’re handing the Russians the Chronometer,” I say. “When you cut the power to London, you’re serving it to them on a fucking platter. You!”

  Felicity seizes her head again. Her mouth is stretched in the rictus of a smile on a face that’s been robbed of mirth. “And whose theory is that, Arthur?” she asks. “The Weekenders? Whose life are you looking to end, Arthur? Whose do you want on your conscience? Clyde’s? Tabitha’s? Devon’s? Mine?”

  And God, it’s as plain as goddamn day and she cannot see. She will not see.

  “Do you want six fucking billion lives on yours?” I step in closer. Keeping just out of fist range.

  I’m the only one here trying to fix this. It’s suddenly clear. MI37 is done. It’s finished and useless. Coleman has broken it irreparably. Whatever I do here, it will be too late.

  “No Arthur,” Felicity says. “I don’t want any lives on my conscience.” Her voice changes, is calm—an ice field crystallizing. “That’s why I’ll have your gun and your badge.”

  And God, it’s so fucking cliché. It’s so the absurd echo of every action movie I’ve ever seen. It’s like Felicity and I are playing at cops and robbers. And what can I do? What else can I do, but what Kurt Russell would do?

  I pull my badge from my pocket.

  “Agent Arthur Wallace,” Felicity’s voice is shaking with anger. “You are hereby suspended—”

  I fling the badge at her, hurl it in the face of her bullshit. “You know what?” I say. “I fucking quit.”

  FORTY-SIX

  And there it is. Out there. Said. Done. And I don’t even regret it.

  I move towards the door.

  “Arthur!” There’s a warning edge to Felicity’s voice.

  I keep moving.

  “Arthur Wallace you get your arse back—”

  She’s cut off as I slam the door behind me. Calling me by my full name stopped working about the same time as my balls dropped.

  That said, Felicity knows a lot more kung fu than my mother ever did.

  Just in case, I start to run.

  Thirty minutes later

  Finally, exhausted, sides heaving, I collapse, land on the sidewalk. A few people look at me. A bedraggled man clutching his sides, rain spattered and puddle stained.

  Holy crap. I just quit. I just ran out of MI37. Literally ran.

  It was the right thing to do. I had to do it. I don’t know what else I could have done. My movie viewing has not prepared me with any other response.

  God, I’m on my own. Really o
n my own. All the resources I enjoyed thirty minutes ago, gone. All my friends. My colleagues. Not mine any more.

  I just ran out on Felicity. On our relationship.

  I quit. I really quit.

  I could go back, of course. I could beg forgiveness. I could deal with my suspension. I could sit on the sidelines. I could see if Felicity and I could pick up the pieces.

  Except that then the Russians will win. And I’ll be as culpable as Coleman.

  So if I don’t turn back? If I do the right thing?

  Onwards. I have made my bed. Now I lie in it. And I have made it with others in mind. Maybe not MI37, but…

  I reach into my pocket, pull out my cell phone. I dial.

  “Hello?”

  “Aiko,” I say, “we need to meet.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Aiko’s apartment is surprisingly cozy considering it belongs to someone who spends their spare time hunting down supernatural horrors. She’s decked everything out in sunny yellows and soothing greens. Polaroid snaps of London are scattered like barnacles over bookshelves and CD-racks. A rainbow of pushpins tack more to the walls. A few faces appear again and again, Malcolm and Jasmine among them. A young Asian man appears in them frequently too.

  Aiko emerges from one of London’s customary nutshell-sized kitchens holding two mugs of tea.

  “Your boyfriend?” I say, tapping the young man’s face on a nearby picture.

  “Brother. So… no, that’d be a bit creepy.” She hands me the mug. “The position of boyfriend is currently vacant,” she adds. “Not much time for much outside of the Weekenders, and Malcolm’s a little old for me.”

  I’m worried we’re heading towards Cheshire cat territory which is something I really cannot deal with less than an hour after throwing a badge at Felicity, but Aiko just sits down in an armchair opposite me with a slight sigh. So, apparently I’m an egotistical fool as well as all the other types.

  In fact, Aiko hasn’t said much since I phoned her and laid out my current employment situation. She told me to come over, and when I did asked me if I could take my shoes off, and if I wanted sugar with my tea.

  Now finally she gives me an appraising look.

  “You have any idea what you’re doing?” she asks me.

  I think about that. “Not really, no.”

  She nods to herself. “You’ve got balls, Agent Arthur. I’ll give you that.”

  “I threw my badge at her,” I say, contemplating the depths of my tea. “Actually flung it at her face.”

  “Your boss?” Aiko checks. “Your girlfriend?”

  I nod.

  “Bold, Agent Arthur. Definitely bold.”

  I think about it, and, no, my tea mug is definitely too small to drown myself in.

  “Hey,” Aiko sets down her tea, “chuck us your phone, would you?”

  My wariness perks its head up again. The last thing I need is Aiko making a phone call to Felicity. “Why?” I say.

  Aiko rolls her eyes. “Look, Arthur, let’s face facts here. You have clearly thrown your chips in with us Weekenders at this point. It’s a little late to stop trusting us.”

  She has a definite point. A sharp one. For better or worse now, I am a Weekender.

  Every single time they’ve been involved in an MI37 operation one of our people has died.

  Clyde’s words echo up at me. That’s me now. On the outside looking in.

  I throw my phone over to Aiko. She catches it one-handed, flips it over and yanks the battery, then she fishes the SIM card out. She folds it neatly in two.

  I almost object, but then I realize what she’s doing. This is thriller movie 101. Remove methods of being traced. And cell phone triangulation is number one on the list. Still…

  “I think just turning it off works, as well,” I point out.

  Aiko shrugs apologetically. “Malcolm’s drills on this stuff are pretty thorough.”

  Drills? He makes them break other people’s cell phones on a regular basis?

  “You’re not going to try to cut up my credit cards, are you?”

  She shakes her head. “Though I will want to seal them in a bag full of water and freeze them.”

  I close my eyes. This is what it’s come to. But this really is the only way I see forward. I start to dig through my wallet for the cards. Then the doorbell rings and I dump it, seizing my pistol.

  Aiko stifles a laugh.

  “What?”

  “Calm down, Agent Arthur,” she says. “It’s just Malcolm and Jasmine. I called them as soon as I got off with you.”

  She gets up, answers the door, ushers the pair in from the hallway. Malcolm lands on the couch next to me. Jasmine perches on the couch arm on my other side. Cozy takes a definite step towards cramped.

  “You actually, genuinely, positively quit MI37 today?” Jasmine even pulls off her headphones to hear my response.

  “Yes.”

  “To be one of us?” Her eyes are virtual saucers.

  I glance to Aiko and Malcolm. They give me nothing.

  “Oh my God.” Jasmine explodes with radiant joy. “I think I love you.”

  “Erm.” She’s joking. Please let her be joking.

  “Jasmine,” Malcolm warns.

  “Totally platonic. Totally. Totally.” Jasmine lays a hand on my shoulder. “Totally,” she says again, looking at Aiko this time. I try to keep my imagination under control about what that look means.

  “First things,” Malcolm says, mercifully changing the subject.

  “I know this!” Jasmine bounces up and down on the arm of the couch. “Cell phone. Credit cards.”

  An almost parental smile crosses Malcolm’s lips.

  “Already working on it,” Aiko says.

  “So, second things,” I say. “The Russians.” Because that’s it. That’s the nub. And it’s the same problem I faced with MI37. Except… and suddenly a feeling of liberation creeps over me. Because for the first time we can really address the problem. Now we can focus.

  “Chernobyl,” I say. “We need to go to Chernobyl.”

  I realize I have the attention of the whole room. And it’s not derisory attention either. It’s a heady moment.

  “That’s where this all started,” I say. “If we’re to find these guys before the seventeenth, we have to go back to square one. The real square one. There are answers there.” God, there have to be answers there.

  A contemplative silence.

  “Wow, Arthur,” Aiko breaks it, “you sure know how to turn a girl’s day upside-down.” But she’s smiling.

  “Won’t we, like, melt or something if we go there?” Jasmine asks. “Or, like, have mutant babies one day or something.”

  Except… “It’s not radiation,” I say. “It’s pockets of disturbed space-time. That has to be it. So as long as we avoid those—”

  “Oh well, that shouldn’t be a problem at all then,” Aiko says. The grin has a sarcastic edge now.

  “We have to go.” I genuinely believe it. “I don’t know what else we can do.”

  Next to me, Malcolm shifts his weight. The couch trembles. “One problem,” he says.

  Oh God, this is how it begins. The niggling doubts, the slow chewing away of resolve. And can’t we just—

  “Passport,” Malcolm says.

  Not what I was expecting. But, “Oh shit, yes,” I say. Because traveling under my own name would probably mess with the whole incognito thing.

  “You don’t have like fifteen secret identities?” Aiko looks disappointed.

  “My car doesn’t even have ejector seats,” I tell her.

  Aiko shakes her head sadly. “And you call yourself a secret agent.”

  “He’s perfect.” Jasmine pats my arm defensively. Not that needing to be defended by a teenage girl probably helps my standing here.

  “I might know a guy.” Malcolm says. “Knows a guy who knows a guy.”

  A false passport. Jesus. Again the enormity of the day’s actions swamp me. I’m totally adrift. I d
on’t even know where I’m sleeping tonight. I don’t have clothes for tomorrow. It’s not like I can just go back to the hotel.

  Shit and balls.

  “What sort of turn around for the passport with a Russian visa?” Aiko asks Malcolm. She’s all business now, talking shop. And they’re actually pretty good at this, I realize, no matter what the rest of MI37 claims.

  “Tomorrow morning should be doable. You got the camera?”

  “Sure.” Aiko nods, steps out of the room.

  “Camera?” I’m trying to play catch up. I’m used to being on the official side of secretly bringing down supernatural threats.

  Jasmine rolls her eyes. “Malcolm’s mad for passports. I’ve got, like, four now.”

  Malcolm gives Jasmine a withering look.

  “What?” she says. “You have a mad on for them. You know it.”

  “Language,” Malcolm rumbles. Jasmine just grins.

  And she’s a teenager. A teenager with four false passports. And I’m about to blithely drag her off into God knows what danger.

  “Do your parents know you’re here?” I ask her. There’s probably a way to ask that question that doesn’t make me sound older than Father Time, but I can’t figure it out.

  “Oh,” Jasmine waves a hand. “My parents haven’t known where I am for about four years now. I live in a commune.”

  “Ah.” And how do you respond to that? Part of me wants to march her to a phone right now and demand that she call them and tell them where she is. Except I don’t know the story, I don’t know why she’s here. Her parents could have done terrible things, anything.

  It’s like my first day back at MI37, starting over again, misjudging people again.

  I feel nostalgic, and sad, and a little like an idiot.

  Aiko re-enters holding a massive Polaroid camera with four lenses. She sees me examining it. “What can I say?” She shrugs. “I had a brief bout with kleptomania while working at a drugstore as a teenager.”

  So I stand, I smile, and blink in the aftermath of the flash.

  “All set,” Aiko says, handing the pictures to Malcolm. She turns to me. “You should probably lay low tonight. So I was thinking the best thing would probably be for you to sleep here with me.”