by Gayle, A. B.
There was the slightest twitch in his lantern jaw, but Big Stupid fought his emotions down like a trooper. “I think you’re the first volunteer, Trainee Archer.”
He couldn’t say he didn’t see that one coming. When your mouth wrote a check, you usually had to hope your butt could cash it. With a sigh, he levered himself out of his folding chair and stepped onto the grungy blue mats. “You know, I’ve actually killed a person. Do we really need to be doing this?”
More gasps, although not so many this time, probably because most of the kids in the room thought he was joking. Big Stupid had this look in his eye that suggested he knew he wasn’t. He was eying Flynn like he would a rabid dog. “Could just have been luck. It’s best we find out now.”
Flynn had a sneaking suspicion this guy was supposed to make an example of him. He bet he could too. Guys with no neck were usually good at kicking ass, and little else.
Flynn stood loose, trying to remember the stuff he learned from the tae kwon do classes his dad made him take as a kid, and then he gave up. It didn’t matter; Big Stupid had to be better at this than he ever could be. He couldn’t fight him on his terms, not successfully. He had to get Big to fight on his terms. The question was how.
As if to prove that, Flynn waited for Big to make the first move, a chop towards the face, and while Flynn got an arm up to deflect it, it was a feint, and the big thug’s real move, a left upper cut, connected. Flynn saw stars, and as he staggered, Big Stupid swept his legs out from under him and sent him sprawling on his back. “Lesson one,” Big Stupid said, crowing to the crowd. “No matter your skill level, there’s always something you can learn.”
Flynn wiped his mouth, sure he could taste blood, and got up to his feet. “Sucker punch. Can’t do it twice.”
Big Stupid gave him a self-satisfied smirk, and threw another lazy punch towards his face, which Flynn blocked with his forearm, but this time he was ready for the left handed hit and blocked that one too as Big launched a kick that hit him in the side of the knee. Of course the knee buckled, and as he dropped to one knee on the mat, Big planted a solid kick to his chest that put him back down on the floor again.
“Lesson two,” Big said. “Even when you think you’re ready, you might not be.”
Flynn was really tired of looking at this ceiling, and on top of that, his chest now hurt. He was going to bill Eidolon for the bruise he was sure to have after this. “Okay, now you’re pissing me off.” He rolled up to all fours, then got to his feet.
Big Stupid’s smile was smug and teasing. “You’re free to sit down.”
“So are you. What are you waiting for?”
He sighed in a tolerant, amused way. “As you wish.”
Flynn stepped forward, as if he was going to make the first move, but Big was fast, and he threw a punch that Flynn already knew was a feint because of the way he hadn’t stepped into it. On each genuine hit, Big had shifted the weight to the balls of his feet; on the feints, he kept the weight on his heels. So Flynn didn’t bother to block the blow. Instead, he decided to kick a field goal between Big Stupid’s legs.
He connected solidly with Big’s balls, and the man let out a sort of pained huff as he doubled over, allowing Flynn to grab his head and send it down to meet his upraised knee. Big’s face crunched against Flynn’s kneecap, and Flynn shoved him down to the mats. “Lesson three,” Flynn told the shocked faces of the trainees. “Even a dick ass who calls himself a “sensei” can become smug and stupid. And here’s some other shit this butt clown probably won’t teach you. No fight is clean, and there are no rules. None. The faster you can end a fight, the better, and no matter how big or more experienced your opponent is, if you’re willing to do anything to survive – and I mean anything, kiddies – there’s a good chance you will. Points are not handed out for technique or Marquis of Queensbury rules, and if you’re waiting to launch your “big” move, you’ll never get the chance to use it.”
Big Stupid had shoved himself up to his hands and knees, shaking his head, hand unconsciously snaking down to his bruised dick. He was panting, suggesting he was trying to breathe through the pain. Did that ever work? “Also, learning how to take a beating and roll with it is as valuable as learning how to hand one out. ‘Cause, no matter how dominant you are, you will get hit, and you will lose fights. You gotta learn to go with it, and learn from your mistakes. Oh, and one last thing.” Flynn approached Big Stupid, and when Big looked up, Flynn punched him in the nose. There was an audible crack, and he exclaimed an almost incoherent curse as he rolled onto his back and grabbed his face as blood seeped between his fingers. “The nose is the most broken bone in men’s bodies. There’s a good reason for that.”
Two thick armed goons appeared, their faces as inexpressive as Easter Island statues. He wasn’t fighting them, mainly because there was no point. “Also, learn to recognize when you have no chance of winning a fight, and find an alternate way of obtaining your goals. With that, it looks like I’m gonna be spending a night in the box. Sensei Archer out, bitches.” He flashed them a two fingered peace sign which could pull double duty as an offensive hand gesture, and followed one of the thick armed goons out, the other following right behind him, making him the center of yet another ‘ugly’ sandwich.
To his surprise, they led him back to his quarters, but as soon as the door opened and the first goon stepped aside, he saw he had a visitor. A tall man with walnut colored hair and the bland, square jawed handsomeness of a reporter on a network news show was sitting in the room’s lone armchair, his dark suit impeccable and his hazel eyes unreadable. The man – whom Flynn mentally dubbed Captain Haircut, due to his undoubtedly expensive but still not flattering ‘do – simply nodded at the goons, and they left, closing the door behind him. “You look a bit overdressed for a hit man,” Flynn said.
Captain Haircut raised an eyebrow at that. “You really think we’re the bad guys, huh?”
“Good, evil, I don’t know, and I don’t really care. I’m being played here, and I’m sick of it. Do what you’re gonna do so I can get out of here and get on with my life.”
Captain Haircut gave him a disappointed look that would have been more at home on the face of his dad, if his dad wasn’t a dismembered corpse. “We have an agreement. We keep Aiden safe, you work with us. That little display in the training room didn’t appear to be working with us.”
Flynn flopped on his bed, deciding to stare at this ceiling for a while. He rubbed his jaw, and felt a lump forming. Goddamn it, he was going to have to ask Mindy for an ice pack, wasn‘t he? “I have no evidence you’re living up to your end of the bargain. And these games you’re playing suck.”
Haircut shifted in the chair, and Flynn glanced over at him, wondering if he was going to pull a gun. But Haircut pulled out a phone, which he dicked with for a moment. What a time to send a text. Finally, he turned the phone towards Flynn, and a small video was playing on the tiny screen. His heart caught in his throat as he realized he was watching Aiden from a distance, loading a suitcase in a car. He sat up and reached for the phone, but Haircut held it back. “As you can see, we’re moving him somewhere safe, somewhere where the Russian mob will never find him.” He snapped the phone shut, and tucked it back in his pocket. “And, in spite of your asshole behavior, someone here wants you to succeed, Flynn. You’re being moved up to advanced training, which means you will be reunited with your boyfriend sooner, as long as you play by the rules.”
There were so many things wrong with these statements he almost didn’t know where to begin. “What do you mean someone wants to see me succeed? Who?”
Captain Haircut stood up, pulling on his sports coat to straighten out any wrinkles. “Finish advanced training, and find out.” He rapped on the door, and one of the goons waiting outside opened it for him.
Before the door closed, Flynn said, “Could you cryptic that up for me? That made too much sense.” He knew Haircut heard him, but the only response was the shutting of the door.
Well, they’d proved one thing. They had access to Aiden. But were they protecting him, or just keeping him in reserve to use as a threat? Flynn wished he knew, but he also knew that, until he figured it out, he had to keep Aiden safe.
Goddamn it, he hated these no win scenarios.
11: So Where The Bloody Hell Are You?
Miles Sutherland and Gideon Sterling
with mention of Carter (Gil) Gillespie, Lyle Ashley Tate, Aiden Parker and Flynn Archer
___________________________________________________
25th January 6.00am, Mystery Island
“We’ll be landing soon; you better go back and tell everyone to strap themselves in.”
Gideon’s words roused Miles from his semi-doze. About bloody time. The seaplane flight had taken fucking forever. Apparently it was Tuesday the 25th — again — their own personal Groundhog Day. Hopefully this version would be an improvement on the last one: they’d done nothing but fly over water; lots of water, in fact a fucking endless amount of water.
After conveying the message, Miles returned to his seat in the cockpit. By his calculations, they’d been flying almost non-stop for thirty hours since leaving Japan. Their “minders” were sure pushing the schedule here, even the crew were getting tired. Having spent ten hours asleep during the flight in the Gulfstream and another ten during the first leg in the seaplane, Miles had been happy to switch places with the co-pilot and let the man stretch out and get a rest break.
Anyway, sitting up front killed two birds with one stone: he could pump the pilot for information and avoid having to talk to Gil and the others. They were probably still shirty with him for not keeping watch when he was meant to. Problem was, flying bored him shitless. Anyway, as far as he was concerned, if Eidolon wanted to harm them, they would have done so by now. That didn’t mean he trusted the organisation or its minions. Far from it. Too many things didn’t add up.
Gideon hadn’t exactly been chatty during the flight, refusing to answer any direct question about where they were going or what they’d be doing when they got there. Miles had started to wonder whether the pilot had any more knowledge of what was in store for them than he had.
The dour man had been happier to talk about the plane he was flying. Apparently Eidolon bought it from the Japanese manufacturers for amphibious search and rescues. While it wasn’t as luxurious as the Gulfstream, it must have still cost a bomb. The inside was equipped with tiers of stretchers lining the sides of the slender pressurized cabin, acting as bunks. That’s where his companions had spent most of the flight. Even that hadn’t been enough to convince Miles that there was any truth in the disaster relief cover story they’d used to explain their sudden departure from Haven Falls. The equipment on board seemed excessively sophisticated for a humanitarian effort, especially compared to what he’d experienced previously. Apart from state of the art medical equipment, sonar screens and other tracking devices were packed into a couple of cubicles next to the cockpit.
At each of the refueling stops, they’d also been told to stay inside, their minders only allowing him and Aiden out when they kicked up a stink about exercising their dogs. Miles had tried to work out where they’d landed, but their surroundings hadn’t given them any clue. The whole time they were outside, Gideon stood guard with a loaded automatic rifle slung over his shoulder.
Protecting them or stopping them from escaping? The gun just made Miles even more suspicious of what was going on.
“Fuck.” Gideon’s quietly muttered expletive startled Miles.
“Is there something wrong?”
“There’s more damage than when I was here before.” A few taps of his fingers on the semi-circular steering wheel were the only visible signs the man was concerned.
Dark aviator glasses may have protected Gideon’s eyes, but Miles had to squint against the glare of the early morning sun as their final destination came into view. Lucky he hadn’t taken any bets on the issue. It looked like at least a category three storm had hit. Nearly all the trees had been stripped bare, though most of the coconut palms had survived reasonably well: fronds hanging drunkenly from their trunks, connected only by the thick central fibres, broken but not yet dead enough to fall off.
“Steady girl,” Gideon muttered as he struggled to keep the plane on track in the face of the strong wind.
Girl? Miles smiled. He’d christened the seaplane ‘Storm Boy,’ as soon as he’d seen it, because it reminded him of a book he’d read about a pelican back in fifth grade. Gideon had certainly added to the impression, skimming the plane only metres above the wave tops at times, just like a bird coming in to land and then rising slowly to a more normal cruising height. Miles suspected Gideon was testing the plane, seeing what it could do.
As soon as the seaplane was tethered to a bollard, Miles settled Darren’s hold-all onto his shoulder, picked up Roofie and clambered down onto the floating pontoon and then up onto the fixed jetty. The tide was out now, so it was a bit of a scramble. As soon as Roofie’s feet hit the deck, the dog bounded over to one of the railing supports and immediately relieved himself.
While he waited, Miles stretched and grunted in satisfaction as all the kinks popped in his back. A sign saying Welcome to Wherever would have been a help in identifying their location. But, nope, nothing but a long white jetty attached to a coral atoll. The fact that they’d re-crossed the dateline meant they were somewhere to the east of New Zealand. Seeing there were over seven hundred islands in Polynesia, that still didn’t tell him much. They definitely hadn’t come to any of the major islands of Fiji, Hawaii, Tahiti or Noumea. He’d been to all of those with his parents as a kid. This place was different.
It was strange that there was no-one here to meet them though. Usually whenever the Medecins sans Frontieres team arrived, they were greeted by locals, anxious to get their help.
Miles turned and checked out the opposite side of the lagoon. There was another island there, larger than the one they were on. From this distance, it looked a bit like a sphinx resting with its forepaws stretched out in front. One half seemed almost flat and then rose quite steeply to a rounded off peak. Rapatoka.
A quick tug of the lead told him Roofie was finished and impatient to be off. His dog grinned up at him as if to say: “Bet you wish you could do that!” then sniffed the air, taking in all the new scents. Miles took a deep breath. The familiar tang of saltwater was overladen with the smell of rotting seaweed.
Oh, what the heck, there was nothing to harm him here. Miles unclipped the lead and Roofie took off. Miles let him go; his mutt was probably dying to take another leak, a dump and stretch his legs in no particular order. Although the plane had been equipped with a head and a hand-held shower, Miles wanted to do the same.
As he followed his dog along the wooden structure, Miles studied the beach area. Broken branches and leaves were piled up with the seaweed. It was like a broom had come along and swept up the mess for them. Splashes of color: plastic bottles, white styrofoam segments mingled with the rubbish at the high water mark. Coconuts littered the beach area and some bobbed in the water like apples in a barrel. A few were covered in brown fibre, indicating they were ripe, but many were still green. At least they wouldn’t starve.
Roofie gave a startled yelp as he jumped off the end of the jetty and landed in shallow water, the spray flying up around him. Miles laughed; the look on his dog’s face was priceless. He’d obviously never seen that much water before. Not warm water at any rate. Droplets glistened in the early morning sun as his dog shook himself off, then headed to one of the pier’s supports. His tail wagged after he christened it as if happy to claim the island as his own.
There was still no sign that anyone else was here. Surely the locals weren’t too injured to seek help.
Miles took off his loafers, shoved them in the top of Darren’s emergency kit bag and stopped for a minute to bury his feet in the warm sand before walking along the water’s edge. Coming to a Pacific Island had always meant
meeting up with Darren again. He stared at the low-lying bushes lining the edge of the beach, half expecting to see a dark-haired teenager running out to greet him, talking non-stop, boasting about the fish he’d already caught and the great times they would have. Miles swallowed back tears and tried to chew a chunk out of the inside of his cheek. From the time Sandra Pierce had handed him the glossy brochure about a resort called Mystery Island, Miles had tried to blank his mind, refusing to think about what it might be like.
Gil had tried first to cheer him up, then snap him out of his funk, but disaster or no disaster, coming here was a mistake. He had too many memories, good memories… no, great memories, of places just like this. Darren would have been in his element. He hated the cold and the snow and loved running around with next to nothing on, getting more tanned every day. Miles just got sunburned and freckled.
Still there was no sign of habitation. Not in this section of the island at least. The beach of pure white sand stretched in a gentle uninterrupted curve as far as the eye could see.
A loud bark drew his attention back to the plane. Miles turned to check out what was going on and was surprised to find that while lost in his memories of Darren, he’d walked farther than he realized. Dante had joined Roofie, and the two dogs were chasing each other round and around in the shallow water near the jetty. They seemed quite happy with their new surroundings, not fazed by the heat or the difference from the place they’d left forty-two hours earlier.
