Castling (14 page)

This wasn’t a question, but the Boss nodded anyway.

“… And then we hammer
whoever’s
responsible, brutally, publically. That’s bound to raise a hackle or two.”

Rook nodded his assent, a grim acknowledging smile on his lips. He liked her plan
. It was simple, achievable and had that callous logic that sent most people running.

Of course,
I
like it.

More ambiguous was why someone as decorated, beloved and openly maternal as Torcher would commit to it. He guessed asking couldn’t hurt,

“Well, turnabout’s fair play: So tell me straight, why are you doing this?”

“
You mean why aren’t we just a gang of mercenaries with hearts of gold who dedicate themselves to white knuckle justice and world peace?

Admittedly
, it hasn’t worked for E.M.F.U. or C.A.M.L. or C.A.P. but we’ll nail it first time because we’re smarter, right? Maybe because we’re meaner? Or wiser? Or just generally better?

No, Rook.

I know you can feel it: The tension, the aggro, all those wee supers itching to pound one another into paste. This world is getting ready to eat itself. And if we want to spoil its appetite, we need to feed it a villain. A real villain. Only then will you get heroics from the aforementioned prima donnas!

And i
n the absence of a good, old-fashioned, clean cut, baddie,
we
will have to wing it. Stand in. Do our very best imitation. With a lot of luck, maybe we can stave off a meta-human war that bit longer.

And g
ive my wee sister time to do what she does best...”

Fixer...

Rook waved his hands in an attempt to brush away the confusion,

“Yes
, yes, I’m clear on that. We’re on the same page, Torcher. (It almost definitely won’t work, you know. But it sounds like fun so I’m with you all the way!)

But what I was asking is
why are
you
doing this? Did you lose someone? Someone, I don’t know,
not
like us?” His faint chuckle escaped as a sigh, “Someone innocent?”

“
A few of the kids have. Hinge’s partner was sideswiped by a chucked lorry. And I pulled young Jo from the rubble of Budapest, but couldn’t find her family. She never recovered. Not really.

Fact is
, most of them downstairs have a personal stake in this. And they were only too glad to make this sacrifice.

But
as for lifers like you and me, Rook? Well, I suppose we never had anyone to lose in the first place now did we?”

Rook suspected she had stumbled upon an excellent point,

“Suppose we didn’t. Well, this is getting awful maudlin!”

“It is. I blame the lateness of the hour. Go to bed.”

Rising with no intention of lying down for eight hours, Rook lied,

“Gladly, Boss.”

“And Rook...”

He stopped at the door to her office, leaning back with a hooked brow.

“Go to
your own
bed.”

Giving her a f
ull view of the mischievous grin slapped across his face, he closed the door behind him.

*

Rook sat in the dark. Head cradled in clawing hands, he bent over the kitchen table.  On the street outside the pedestrian crossing chirped periodically before being swallowed whole by the night’s oppressive silence. The occasional late night tram sped by with a softly fading electric whine. And excluding the gentle flutter of sleeping bodies floors beneath him, the headquarters was still.

Save
, of course, the rhythmic grunting of Hatch and Molly directly below.

He was not surprised. His ears
latched onto her quickened pulse in the war room earlier. He’d caught the scruffy man’s pupils dilate when Molly grabbed his tunic roughly. He’d felt the jealously peel from Hatch as Molly bantered incessantly with the team’s enigmatic new strategist. And Rook was genuinely astonished no-one else could actually smell the tension between them.

But
he felt no betrayal, no disappointment – if anything, he sympathised.

Yet to meet a Meta without some kind of vice: And at least hers is comparatively harmless. A little flirting never killed anyone.

In fact, this recent revelation stirred nothing within him.

Quite conversely, inside
the confines of his skull, things were far from tranquil.

Rook’s
head was ablaze, burnt to ashes from withdrawal.

His body a constantly churning cocktail of epinephrine,
assorted neurotransmitters and (for lack of a long-winded scientific descriptor) Rocket Fuel, the agony of so much unspent energy had only worsened with age. By his twenty third year it had all but devoured him.

As much as he wanted to assure Torcher he was
an impassioned, emotionally available member of her crew, the truth was he had suffered little beyond the searing torment of his condition for years.

Necessity demanded he find a way to numb it. An addiction of
his own design, the slightest trace of sucrose triggered a deluge of painkillers. But the comforting endorphins washed him clean.

When Rook wasn’t in pain, he was numb.
A trait he hid expertly.

But
curiosity had bested him. Something the Boss had said resonated. So he braced the anguish and went in search of sentiment. Provided he could recall what it felt like...

‘Well, we’ll all be sorely tested then...
Even a cold bugger like you, Rook.’

He honestly wanted
to prove her right. One day.

But tonight, unsurprisingly,
he discovered only pain.

No joy, no remorse, not even the
satisfaction of a job well done: Just the weight of dependence and the fires of his affliction. This at least would have made anyone else miserable, frustrated, manic, depressed. But it only made Rook sore.

A bowl, piled high with ice-cream
, slid under his nose.

“My favourite” he
groaned, “How on earth did you know?”

He heard her stir minutes earlier. He caught her scent, however faint, as she crept into the kitchen. He had even felt the thump of her heart as she spooned chocolate goo into the bowl.
But the withdrawal had dulled his focus and he’d forgotten she was even there.

Hardly
ideal for a man as widely disliked as Rook.

“
I’m a fifteen year old girl and you eat twice as much ice-cream as I do.” Jo explained, “Didn’t take a genius.”

“Thanks” Rook smiled, one finger still on his temple, pawing the bowl closer to him. Clad in comically oversized
pyjamas, an obscure anime logo plastered across her t-shirt’, Jo climbed into a chair alongside him. Gathering her knees in her arms, hooding her toes in excess pyjama leg, she advised,

“You hide it too well.”

Pain receptors overtaxed, patience too thin, he simply stared at the young girl. It took less effort than conjuring a pithy quip.

“You have them convinced. They all think you’re like them.
Just
like them.” She interrupted herself to reach out with a previously concealed tea-spoon and scrape away some midnight desert. Smiling, Rook nudged the bowl closer to her. “So when, like tonight, they get a glimmer of what you really are, it freaks them the fuck out.

It’s
best if you just ease them in. Let them come to terms with what you really are gradually. Take me, for example: Everyone knows I’m a bit... off. I just can’t
care
in the same way they do. I pretend like it got worse when my Dad and my brothers... But... I dunno.

They
can’t
empathize, they
can’t.
But they try their best to be patient. And when that wears thin they’re nice enough to give me a wide berth.”

“
No-one’s avoiding you, Jo” Rook ventured automatically, mimicking concern,

“Stop that
!” She bit “See, that’s what I came to talk to you about: You needn’t. Not with me. With me you can relax, because I get it: You don’t mean a damn word you say.

And
I don’t need you to.”

Giving in, Rook shovelled a heaped spoon into his mouth. An eerie calm fell upon him as a fog.

“What gave me away?”

“Nothing.
You have
them
” Joe flicked a wrist, gesturing to the wider world, “down better than anyone. Better than me, anyway. And that’s the problem – you’re going to break their hearts.

My best friend was singing your praises earlier
. You stood in front of a gun for her...”

“It was only a .
22. Barely even qualifies as a gun-”

“And then she cried herself to sleep tonight
having seen what you did to that old guy. Or maybe it was how you did it. Or why you did it.

The point is, I don’t know why they get so upset but they
always
do.”

Rook jabbed an accusatory spoon in her direction, licking
ice-cream from his lips before it set and cracked,

“She mu
st have seen worse than that these past few months...”

“
Oh she has. But from grouchy old warriors and, what’s the word, veterans? She
expects
Breaker to be vicious. Not sweet men who wink at her and make jokes and put their hand on her shoulder and tell her what a good job she’s doing. She had no idea you’d be capable of such... callousness, I guess” she shrugged, becoming braver with the size of her scoops.

“But you did, Joe. How did you know?”

“I
always
know, Rook. All the sodding time! For as long as I can remember. No surprises, no twists or discoveries. Just this oppressive...”

“Omniscience?”

“That’s a big word for this late. Anyway, I just thought I’d give you a heads up. Dial it back a bit. A little coldness now will mean a lot less heartbreak later.

G’Night Rook.”

Leaving her teaspoon in the half-emptied bowl, Joe unsheathed her toes and made to leave.

“Stay where you are, young lady.

If you really wanted me to buy your little spiel, you probably wouldn’t have handed me a bowl of medicine. Besides, you said it yourself, I’m a perfectionist. I’m hardly going to pack it all in, am I? Not just to save their feelings. Feelings I can barely define anymore.

But you already
knew
that. Just as you
knew
I’d see right through your little pep talk and confront you.

In future
, you needn’t go to all that effort, Jo. Not with me. Never with me.

So why don’t you p
ick up that spoon, help me finish this ice-cream and just tell me straight why you came up those stairs in the first place.”

Jo smiled, not with joy or relief, but with a grim satisfaction. The cream cold on her molars, she worked it around before swallowing and admitting,

“I love Sabs and the rest but... It’s lonely being the only hollow.”

“I know.”
Rook admitted, truthfully.

“I figured we could keep each other company. Maybe
share a giggle at all that nonsense
they’re
always crying about. Look out for one another, I guess. And before you start, yes, I believe even someone like
you
needs a friend to look out for them. Someone to, what’s the word-”

“Empathize?”
Rook hazarded, pulling the spoon from his smacking lips.

“Bingo.”

“Empathy...” Rook daydreamed, wondering if he could actually appreciate the concept on anything beyond an intellectual level, “Sure, why not? Let’s give it a whirl.”

“
You promise?” Joe looked up at him sceptically. She was instinctually disinclined to trust him. Chiefly because he reminded her so much of herself.

“Promise.”

“
Are you upset about Molly?” She asked abruptly, finding no need to linger now the former subject was put to bed. Yawning, Jo was about to follow suit.

“
Kid, I don’t even understand why I would be.”

“
Awesome. Me neither.” Joe nodded, genuinely excited to agree with someone for a change.

“Good
. Now go and get some sleep. Sabs has stopped whimpering.”

“
Well thank Christ!” Joe exclaimed. And as Rook let out a delighted chortle, she bent down to kiss his cheek before scuttling off to bed.

Rook turned back,
regarding the silence, the darkness. He didn’t resent the comfort and familiarity they brought as much now. And he was content to let the numbing mist of dopamine consume him until morning.