by Nina D'Aleo
Since Dale there really hadn’t been anyone, serious, or even casual, and it was coming up to two years now. I didn’t like to use the words ‘dire’ or ‘desperate’ but it was getting that way.
“Fine—how about we stop by Walmart after this and I’ll buy you some flowers—would that satisfy you?” he asked.
“Again with the flowers,” I muttered. “And no—it wouldn’t.”
“Spoilt—that’s what women are these days—they want everything and they want it now. It didn’t used to be like this. Men were men and women knew their place.”
“I could literally punch you in the face right now, Dark,” I said. “I’m this close.”
“And right there is why you’re not wife material. Case proven. End of story.”
“You are a gigantic a-hole, do you realize that?” I told him.
Dark grinned. We turned back to the screen and several moments later the bachelor staggered out of the limousine to the exuberant cheers of his friends.
“Cheating rat,” I muttered.
“What happens on bucks’ night stays on bucks’ night,” my partner said.
I rolled my eyes.
The group bunched together and headed up to the club. Our walt straggled at the back of the pack. His feet dragged with every step. He was right on the edge of going green and not in the eco-friendly way: more like the incredible hulk. One of the other guys put an arm around walt’s shoulder to support him.
When they were at a safe distance Dark said, “Andiamo. Let’s go.”
We left the car and headed for the club. I was freezing but sweaty, weary but wired, hoping for the best grab scenario and preparing for the worst.
3
In this club, La Nox, the term exotic dancer didn’t quite cut it. Seriously I had to admire the athleticism of those girls. They were managing to maintain sexy while performing major feats of strength and acrobatics. They were flipping, jumping and kicking, dancing and sliding up and down poles that extended the full two stories of the club—all this while virtually nude. I had a mental flash of myself up on stage, out of breath and sweaty, mascara running and flab flying as I failed at cartwheels and fell into the crowd. Not a pretty sight. Maybe the imagery was overly self-critical. I did maintain a certain level of fitness—it was necessary for the job—but even so, the usual extent of my nude escapades involved dashing from the bedroom to the shower and back and I couldn’t imagine that changing any time soon.
Not surprisingly Dark knew exactly where he was going, so I trailed him through the club, which was crowded with patrons both male and female. I spotted the bachelor party, now one of many, settling into a corner booth. Dark and I took a position by the bar where we could keep them in sight and wait for our chance. A topless waitress came to take our drink order. She recognized Dark and spoke to him by name. They exchanged niceties and, to my partner’s credit, he looked her in the face the entire time—which was surprisingly more difficult than it sounds. In most human cultures, staring directly into someone’s eyes while talking, other than in intimate situations, comes across as threatening or strange. Our eyes naturally wander, especially to anything unusual—like a gigantic pair of double-Gs covered only in body glitter. She tried to strike up a chat with me as well, but I gave closed answers and kept my arms by my sides—my Italian parentage tended to make me talk with my hands, and the last thing I needed tonight was to accidentally grope some unsuspecting exotic waitress mid-conversation about the sunny weather we were having. She left and Dark glanced at me and snorted.
“What?” I asked.
“Could you be any more uptight?” he asked.
“We’re not on vacation here,” I told him defensively. “We are actually working.”
He shook his head and muttered, “Another arrest by the fun police.”
I gritted my teeth. I hated when he called me the fun police. It made me feel like he was some young springbuck cavorting through the fields of fun while I was the grumpy frumpy killjoy chasing him down with an oversized net, trying to foil all his good times. In reality, whatever Dark did with his time off was his business. Whether he felt as if we were married or not the fact remained we weren’t. I didn’t keep tabs on him and I didn’t try to curtail his fun. I could be fun and spontaneous too … At least I kept telling myself that and hoping it was true.
It was something I questioned, though: how did people see me? How did I want to be seen? How did I even see myself? Who was I? I’d heard that whoever we really are emerges when we’re all alone, unobserved. Well, when I was alone … I was usually asleep. It was the only chance I got. I wasn’t sure what that said about me, but now wasn’t really the time for self-reflection. Now we were working.
A group of lap dancers had surrounded our bachelor party. One girl stood gyrating in front of the walt. He was rocking, but not in time with the music or with the hypnotic circles of her hips. He was moved by an even more savage, primordial drive, one that was about to rip through his reasoning and send him green. The dancer would be the first one hit. I imagined pieces of sequined thong, silicone and lower intestine splattered across the walls and this time the imagery was not exaggerated.
“Bos, we’ve got to move now,” I said.
“No shit,” he muttered back.
“I’ll try to get him to the bathroom,” I said.
“I don’t think there’s time,” Dark replied.
The walt staggered to his feet, knocking the dancer out of the way. Dark reached into his jacket and drew his primary weapon. If the walt lost it before we could get him, there would be no other choice but to put him down—not a concept that sat well with me. As a partnership, we’d never had a fatality before and that wasn’t pure luck. I put myself on the line every time to stop a shoot. The put-downs were murder—no matter how you dressed it up. Not that I had ever mentioned this conviction even to my partner, let alone any of our colleagues.
I moved past Dark, weaving a quick path through the crowd. I reached the walt and, with a glance to make sure none of his friends were looking, took hold of his wrist and directed him away from the dancers. He resisted, pulling back sharply. His otherwise handsome features twisted with anger and confusion. I tried to give him a reassuring smile and spoke close to his ear, “It’s okay, buddy. I know you’re not feeling great. Come with me, I’ll get you some help.”
I touched his hand lightly, slipping a sedation patch onto his skin. I noticed the spot from the laser sight of Dark’s weapon vibrating on the side of his head. I tried again to lead him away. This time, the sedative working fast in his system, he followed with minimal struggle. I took him down a crowded hall toward the women’s bathroom.
In most clubs on a busy night, the line to the ladies’ room would be a mile long, but here, with women guests the minority, it was inhabited by only two other girls. They were dressed in super short dresses and heavily inebriated. They were hugging each other and singing loudly into the mirror, using their tiny shiny purses as microphones. Their ankle-breaking high heels slipped around on the tiles. They cheered as we entered and both tried to high-five me on their way out, missing completely. One slapped my shoulder and the other lost her feet and fell over—legs in the air, flashing her underwear to the world. She lay where she’d fallen, paralyzed by hysterical fits of laughter. Her friend joined her on the floor and the two of them rolled around wetting themselves with the hilarity of it. The scene didn’t look quite so riotous from where I was standing, but I’d had my fair share of drunk and disorderly nights in my younger days so I really couldn’t judge.
I managed to shuffle the blitzed duo gently out of the bathroom and close the door on them. I moved the walt into a cubicle and sat him down on the toilet. I turned and locked the door, but as I turned back, it happened. He gasped. His pupils went from pinpoint to fully dilated in one second. All his muscles tightened. The veins in his neck bulged. I only had time to duck as he lunged at me, taking a swing that ripped the cubicle door off its hinges and sent it fly
ing into the bathroom. It hit the mirror with so much force the glass exploded. I twisted and lunged backward, trying to get out of his way, but the walt caught me with an upper cut to the stomach. My ballistic vest absorbed the impact, but it still knocked the air out of me. I landed sprawled on the tiles and the walt rushed me. Completely disoriented by his condition, he misjudged the distance between us and smashed into the wall instead with a brutal whack that rattled my teeth and broke a row of tiles.
He reeled around, blood streaming down his face. He tried to charge again and toppled sideways, taking out a sink. It shattered to the floor and water gushed from the fractured pipes. I took the chance and leaped at him. I caught him around the middle and crash tackled him to the ground. I tried to pin him, but I may as well have been wrestling a rhinoceros. He flipped up with so much force we hit the ceiling and crashed back down to the tiles. His body mostly broke my fall, but then he was on me, his fingers clenched into claws, reaching for my neck. I went for my TRANQ gun.
The bathroom door flew open. Dark charged in with his weapon drawn and took aim at the walt. The young guy broke for the window, smashing through the glass and a good part of the wall. Dark and I both cursed and rushed for the damage. We looked out and saw the walt crashing down the fire escape. He found his balance and jumped from the structure down to the alleyway—a good twenty-five feet below. He landed on his feet running. We scrambled out onto the metal steps and flew down after him. We reached the alley and sprinted toward his fleeing shadow.
“No good,” Dark yelled out to me. “He’s heading for the road.”
We couldn’t allow the walt to cause a crash. Dark pulled up and dropped to one knee. He took aim at our walt’s back. I kept running, drawing my TRANQ and firing before he could get a round off. The dart struck dead on, into the back of the guy’s neck. He ran at least another two yards with enough sedative in him to drop an elephant, and then the effects hit him and he stopped. He didn’t fall, which would have been normal: he just froze. We ran the distance and as soon as we got to him, Dark threw the stocks around the walt’s arms and locked him down. We were literally five steps from the end of the alley, where sidewalk met a busy inner-city road. A constant stream of headlights passed before us. Our walt was shaking.
Tears shimmered on his cheeks. He looked young and scared, confused. He was struggling to whisper, his lips reluctant to move, “I’m sorry. I want to go home. Where’s Mom? Where’s Dad?” Then he bucked back and shouted. “Fuck off!”
Dark fought to hold him. I ripped a syringe off my duty belt and pumped another dose of paralytic into the guy’s neck. His eyes rolled back and his head hit his chest.
Dark and I exchanged a glance. This one was a real fighter. He stumbled to one side and we struggled to right him. His wallet tumbled out onto the ground. I crouched to pick it up, while Dark started walking the walt back down the alley. A honking horn drew my attention and I glanced up. Across the street, I saw the silhouette of a man in black standing, watching. I couldn’t see if his eyes were on me or not, but somehow I felt they were. A bus crossed in front of my line of sight and when it passed the person was gone. I dismissed him as a random passerby.
“Sil,” Dark called for me from halfway down the alley. I shoved the walt’s wallet into my pocket and rushed to catch up. Dark was already on his cell phone calling in the catch and ordering a clean-up crew for the bathroom and a tech to check for CCTV footage. For sure Chapter 11 surveillance would have recorded the catch—including my use of the TRANQ, which was, as I well knew, against Chapter policy. Since every person is different we couldn’t be sure of the exact amount of drug needed to bring down any one individual, so we couldn’t be sure that one hit would be enough and that wasn’t good enough as far as the Chapter were concerned: regulations were to go straight to lethal force. Even so I’d always preferred to answer to my superiors than to my conscience.
“I’ll lay the cover for the friends,” I told Dark as reached the parking lot.
“No, you take him. I know who to ask,” he said. He handed over the shackled man and flipped me his keys. I headed for the car while he jogged back up to the entrance of the club. We needed to get someone to tell the friends the cover story—that our walt had decided to call it a day and had caught a cab home to sleep it off. I assumed Dark would ask one of the girls he knew in there to pass on the message. I looked around for witnesses to refute the story, but there were only a few knots of people up near the entrance of the club and no one was looking. The clean-up crew would double-check that.
I reached Dark’s car and directed the walt into the caged-off back seat.
“Watch your head, buddy,” I said, helping him to lower in. I locked the door and went around to the passenger side. The adrenalin was draining fast from my body, leaving my limbs weak and heavy. It hadn’t exactly been a flawless catch, but the job was done. Zero fatalities.
4
We escorted our restrained and sedated walt along the streets of central Toran-R toward Chapter 11 Headquarters. At this hour, the business district was virtually deserted, save for patroling security guards and a random partyer who had taken a wrong turn and was now trotting down the semi-lit street, glancing behind him and peering ahead with an anxious look on his face.
Once we were out of the car and crossing the sidewalk to Headquarters, a chill wind from the river howled through the center of the city and ripped at my jacket. It slid icy hands along my back. I clenched my teeth to stop them chattering. We approached the darkened glass doors at the front of Headquarters, walking to meet our reflections. As expected, my hair looked tragic (curls plus windy weather equals frizz); otherwise we were deliberately non-descript. Both Dark and I wore duty belts, jeans, black T-shirts, black jackets—mine was Kevlar lined, his all leather. I also wore body armor, but Dark wore none. Apparently my partner thought just looking cool would save him. The walt staggered between us. The poor guy was a little the worse for wear. He reeked of vomit and blood. His head still hung to his chest and we had to drag every step out of him.
“Almost there, buddy,” I murmured as we entered the lobby. It was a bland, emotionless space. It had a modern look and layout but zero personality. Like us: inconspicuously inconspicuous. The tap of our boots echoed in the silence. We headed for the elevators, passing a man dressed in janitor overalls mopping the floor. He was Norman—a C11 agent—our just-in-case man. I smiled at him as we came even. He returned an awkward shifty-eyed grimace. Some people just don’t have a face for smiling. Norm was more of a surly nod kind of guy. We directed the walt to the last elevator on the left. Dark swiped his hand across the sensor panel. The doors parted and we stepped in. A line of heat from the security check ran down our bodies from head to toe and a voice from the speakers above us said, “Silver, Dark. Please state today’s password.”
“Moncrieff,” we repeated in unison.
The elevator began its descent. Soft jazz hummed in the background.
Floors one to thirty-six of the building housed conventional federal offices. Chapter 11 operated in the building beneath the building. No buttons could take you there—just the highest security clearance possible, which no one outside the Chapter possessed. Even presidents, prime ministers and V-VIPS were all fed our cover story: that the agency was a deeply buried unit working on counter-terrorism and international security. Not a lie, but not the whole truth. C11 had branches across the world, with main centers in all the major cities, Moscow (Codename: Mosaics-Arc), New York (Codename: Eastmark-Rye-On), London (An-lend-long) and so on, but central Headquarters was right here in Toran-R. Hidden in plain sight.
“What a night,” Dark commented. “Great entertainment, fast grab—Why can’t every night be the same?”
I sniffed indifference.
“What?” he asked, then narrowed his eyes. “You think you’re too good for wrestling, don’t you?”
“No.” I glanced at him. “I don’t completely understand the attraction but—”
�
��The attraction is,” Dark cut in, “our human—inbuilt—need to witness competition.”
“Violent competition?” I said.
“Whatever. Look at history—the Roman gladiators—fighters pitting their strengths against each other for the entertainment of the masses.”
“Difference was that was real, this is pretend. No one is actually getting hurt.”
“It’s not about someone getting hurt,” Dark said. “It’s about the process—and there is actually a lot of skill involved in fighting and not hurting your opponent—have you ever thought about that?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Well maybe you should.” Dark took on a fake high and mighty tone.
“So sorry for questioning wrestling.” I laughed. “It’ll never happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t. It’s art.”
“Well …” I considered the concept “… it is one of the only public arenas where it’s okay to put your ass in someone’s face. You even get applauded for it. So I guess it could be art of some sort.”
“And so is this.” Dark smirked.
I rolled my eyes and held my breath. My partner thought breaking wind in closed spaces was the height of hilarity. Actually, he thought farting anywhere was side-splitting humor and he always had to share both the joke and the subtle variances of flavor and sound density. Unfortunately I found his noxious flatulence distinctly unamusing. Fortunately walt was too chemically lobotomized to care either way. The elevator came to a smooth stop.
The doors opened to reveal the entrance hall of Headquarters, lined with shiny black marble threaded with gold for as far as the eye could see. Unlike the lobby above, this room did speak: it said Expensive—Very Expensive. The Chapter 11 seal—the Uchelpaix, mythical bird of peace—was stamped across the center of the floor. We crossed it as we headed for reception at the far end of the hall.
