Broken Hero (6 page)

I don’t think I can handle drunk Clyde. It’s too much. Then I lose focus on the street for a moment. When I get it back, I look down at Kayla. “Sustain the now,” I tell her, and then I have to sit down in the street myself because I’m laughing so hard.

When I recover Clyde is standing over us. “So,” he says, “just to recap. Tabby. I should…”

“Stick your dick in her before I stick my sword in you,” Kayla says.

“Don’t do it!” I shout as loud as I can. “Everything is good! Everything is perfect! Hold onto it! Don’t throw it away! You’re a fool to yourself!”

Kayla reaches up from where she lies in the street and pushes me over. “Shut up, Arthur,” she says. “You’re feckin’ drunk.”

She’s right. I am. And it’s glorious.

Oh God. Being drunk is awful.

At some point I thought there was a certain entertaining irony in programming my cell to ring like a horrible office phone. The sort of electronic bleating that would emerge were an electronic sheep being brutally murdered in an electronic slaughterhouse. In retrospect, I probably should have given more thought to how it would sound when I was epically hungover.

My phone slices through sleep and violently kicks me into consciousness. A moment’s disorientation. Eventually I realize I am in my apartment, face down on my bed, and still wearing my clothes from the night before. My tongue appears to have doubled in size.

My phone lets loose another barrage of electronic murder. I try to grab the thing from my bedside table, fail. After two more attempts, I realize my phone is still in my pocket. I fumble it out, try to focus on the name there, fail, and just accept the call.

“Urghn?”

“Hello?” It’s Felicity’s voice. She sounds concerned. “Arthur?”

“Urnugh,” I confirm.

“What?” There’s silence. Then, “I think this is a bad connection.”

The morning light is dim and heavy in the room, tumbling in around the edges of dark green curtains. Stacks of vinyl records propped on a bookshelf at the foot of my bed cast reassuringly familiar shadows. I attempt to rally a little. Enough to at least master the basics of the English language.

“Sno-kay,” is the best I can come up with. “Just woke up. Head… ouch.”

“Head ouch?”

I nod gently, then remember how telephones work. “Close enough,” I mumble.

There is silence on the end of the phone. Then, “I rather expected you to be home when I got in last night.”

It’s not exactly an accusation. Not yet anyway. We’re still at the statement-of-fact stage. I attempt to dredge up my decision-making process from the previous evening. It is like putting my arm in sewage up to the elbow.

“I went out for drinks with Kayla and, erm, Clyde,” I manage. “And it went on, erm, a little longer than expected. And I suspect I probably thought something along the lines of you not wanting a heinous drunk in your apartment.”

If pursed lips made a sound, then I would hear it right now. Then, “OK, I mean, yes, of course. That makes sense. I just, well, I don’t know, I just thought after yesterday’s conversation about the whole living arrangements thing, that you’d be here, I suppose.”

Oh crap. I wrack my sodden memory a second time. Bits of the previous night tumble back. I sort of wish they hadn’t. I think I was a bit of an ass.

“You weren’t worried, were you?” I ask. That’s the last thing I would want to make her. She has enough on her plate without worrying that I stumbled into the path of some oncoming car.

“No, no. Just… surprised, like I said.” Another pause that I am in no fit state to interpret yet. “Look Arthur, just, when you get in this morning, if you could come straight to my office, OK?”

“Erm, yeah, sure,” I say. “Yes, boss.” A little joke, and not enough to really cover up the fact that I got wasted last night and reneged on a fairly major life promise. And if wincing made a sound, Felicity would probably hear that now.

Despite its subterranean location, Felicity’s office is full of daylight. Clutching a Starbucks coffee large enough to drown a child in, I blink owlishly at the myriad of bulbs clipped in place along the shelves that line one office wall. Under their watchful gazes, orchids slowly, delicately bloom.

Along the office’s facing wall, there are filing cabinets. They’re easier on my headache.

Between the opposing walls stand two women. Felicity—dressed efficiently in a practical pants suit and sensible shoes—and a younger black woman I don’t recognize. The latter is dressed… well in many ways it mirrors what Felicity’s wearing. It is a pants suit. Sensible, flat-soled shoes are involved. And yet, something is somehow subtly altered. While Felicity’s suit is perhaps a little severe, the other woman’s is more relaxed, and gives off the vague sense of asymmetry. Where Felicity’s shirt is white, the other woman’s is a defiantly bright purple. Felicity’s hair is shoulder length and pulled back in a loose bun. The other woman has cut it short, tight curls cropped close to the skin. Felicity eschews jewelry. The other woman has series of jade studs stitching their way up her right ear.

“Ah,” Felicity says, as I push open the door, “Arthur, excellent. Come in. I want you to meet Hannah Bearings.”

Grossly hungover is not usually how I like to meet people. Or do anything except curl up and wait for tomorrow. But we don’t get a huge number of visitors at MI37, and when they do come, they rarely bear good news.

I try to kick the withered stump of the detective I used to be into action despite the soupy slur of my hangover. Hannah Bearings is in her late twenties. From her clothes, I’d guess she’s ambitious but holding onto her individuality. So not necessarily someone who will play well with others, but possibly someone who’s good enough that they don’t have to. It’s just what she’s good at that I don’t know.

I step up to her, my hand extended, trying to cover up how much I’m assessing her.

“Hi,” I say, “Arthur Wallace, nice to meet you.”

“All right,” she says, with a light cockney accent it seems she’s decided to not lose entirely. She shakes my hand. A firm grip.

“Arthur’s our field lead,” Felicity says.

Which means Ms. Bearings is aware of who we are and what we do. Which means government.

Felicity keeps talking. “You’ll be reporting directly to him,” she says to Hannah.

Which means…

“Say what?”

In terms of welcoming someone to the family fold of MI37, it is possibly not the best way to handle things. But the best way to handle things probably doesn’t also involve me being blindsided while horribly hungover.

“Hannah,” Felicity says with a degree of force that I suspect is meant to reach back in time and erase my faux pas, “is coming to us
on transfer
from
MI6
, where she has garnered the
very highest praise
from her
superiors
. She is the
bright young thing
over there and we are
very lucky
to have her.”

MI6. The last time I had a serious encounter with MI6, I was running through their offices while their agents tried to shoot me. We haven’t really been on speaking terms since.

Hannah feigns being oblivious to all this subtext, examining Felicity’s office plants.

“Orchids, right?” she says, looking up from the shelves.

“Yes.” Felicity is all smiles again.

“Nice,” Hannah says. “They’re tricky, though, right? I fancy spider plants myself. Little buggers spread all over the place and take over everything, but you only have to water them once a week and you’re golden.”

It’s said in a friendly way. There’s a smile behind it. But still I flick a glance at Felicity, try to use the telepathy of a year-long relationship.
Really?
I want to ask her.
You went to 10 Downing Street and all you brought me back was this lousy MI6 agent?

Felicity arches her eyebrows meaningfully, but the exact message is probably about as obvious as mine is. Which means I’m none the wiser.

“So,” I say, trying to affect a tone that’s more jaunty than suspicious, “what’s your background?”

She turns to me, another big friendly grin. “You know,” she says, “standard drill.” She shrugs. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

I laugh. It’s a little laugh. Because I’m waiting for the actual answer.

It doesn’t come.

“Wait,” I say. “Seriously?”

“Well,” Hannah shrugs, “you know, not trying to be a dick about any of it, and, you know, I’ve seen your file and you’ve done some really stellar stuff, I must say, but I reckon if it came down to a square standoff, I could probably murder you, yeah.”

I look up at Felicity just to make sure this is still reality I’m in.

“She’s part of MI37, Arthur,” Felicity says with patience that seems more than a little feigned. “You’re not part of MI6. Your need-to-know is not her need-to-know. If you ever go and join MI6, I’m sure you can find out lots about what they do.”

I shake my head. It throbs back at me. This is reality. It’s just shittier this morning than it usually is.

“All right,” I say, “so you’re an MI6 badass. That about cover it?”

“Well,” Hannah gives me a look that’s as assessing as any I’ve given her. I’m not the only one trying to work out where the land lies. “I’m trained in small arms, rifles, machine guns, a smattering of heavy artillery pieces. I’m proficient in jujitsu, tae kwon do, capoeira, krav maga, and a few other martial arts. I’m also a pretty decent friend to have in a knife fight. I’ve been a field operative in deep cover for three years, and I speak eight languages. Is that enough for you?”

There is a challenge at the end of the sentence. Whether it’s there consciously or not, I’m unsure.

In the end of course, it is impressive. And we do need more hands in the field.

Except…

Except every time we’ve introduced a new element to the mix somebody has died. Often, to be perfectly honest, it’s been Clyde. But others have fallen along the way. And capable though she may be, Hannah Bearings has not seen what we have seen, has not been prepared for what we deal with. There’s throwing someone in at the deep end and there’s tying concrete blocks to their feet and hurling them into the Marianas Trench.

And I could be the person who pays the price for that…

I shut that line of thinking down. I’ve had enough of that. Today is a new day. I hit the reset button. Everything is OK. I shove my hands deep into my pockets.

“Of
course
it’s enough,” Felicity says. “Arthur isn’t challenging you. You’ll just find that this job breeds a certain amount of curiosity.” It’s a smooth recovery.

“Of course,” I manage. “Good to have you on board.”

Hannah Bearings is still weighing me. “Yeah,” she says. “Totally.” Her nod is slight, her smile slighter.

“Now,” Felicity says clapping her hands in a business-like fashion, “I believe Tabitha wanted to talk to us about something she found in the files last night. Arthur, show Hannah to conference room B, would you?”

I hold the door for the newcomer. She slips through. Just as I’m about to follow, Felicity catches my elbow. “That coffee,” she says, “drink it faster.”

All eyes fall on Hannah as we enter the room. Kayla sits with her back to the white board, feet up on the table, holding a small tub of yogurt, spoon jammed in her mouth. Tabitha and Clyde huddle together at the far end of the table, papers spread out before them, muttering and pointing. They look up, fingers still on the page, tips pressed together.

I buy a second with the last dregs of the coffee then meet the gazes. But Kayla’s mouth is already off and running.

“The feck are you?” she asks Hannah.

“Hannah fucking Bearings,” Hannah replies without missing a beat.

Kayla nods. “All right then.”

I do my best to ignore this preamble. “This is Hannah,” I say to the room, “formerly with MI6 and now a field agent of MI37.” I nod in Kayla’s direction. “That’s Kayla MacDoyle, another of our field agents. She…” I struggle for a job description.

“I feck things up,” Kayla offers. “Professionally.”

Which seems accurate. So I move on, pointing to Clyde. “That’s Clyde Bradley, our magician.” I glance at Hannah to see if that knocks her off her stride, but she just nods.

“Nice one,” she says.

Clyde looks up, leans forward, eyes bright. “Completely charmed to meet you,” he says, “and very excited to have someone new on board. Really looking forward to working with you, which, well I don’t want to put you under any undue pressure, or make you feel as if you’ll be judged excessively, but I just wanted to say that I really think working in the field with you is going to be excellent. Very good feeling. Not a scientific assessment of course, can’t put too much stock in feelings. Well, some mediums with a low reality-barrier threshold can. But I’m not one of them, so I can’t. But still, confident. Totally confident.”

“Rrright.” Hannah drags out the word. And that might have thrown her off her stride a little.

Finally I point at Tabitha. “And that’s Tabitha Mulvani, our researcher.”

Tabitha eyeballs Hannah. “New field agent?” she says.

“Yeah,” Hannah and I both say at the same time. Out of the corner of my eye I see Kayla arch an eyebrow.

“So, I’m not going to be a field agent?” she asks.

Kayla’s other eyebrow pops up.

“No,” I say. This isn’t my mess, it’s Felicity’s. And I realize that I should be being more charitable, but… Well, I’m still hungover, goddamn it.

Tabitha fist pumps. “You,” she says to Hannah, “don’t screw up. I want my library and my laptops. You want balls on the line and threats of death. Keep it that way.”

Hannah just gives Tabitha a thumbs up and swings into a seat.

And it’s not as if she could know that it’s the seat I usually take. And I’m not one of those petty idiots who’s going to force the newbie to take a worse seat, but I am overly aware of Kayla’s raised eyebrow following me as I squeeze past Hannah to take a seat between her and Clyde.