Yesterday's Hero (14 page)

Clyde nods and hums a bit. “Bit touch and go, my end,” he manages eventually.

“Really?” I say. Could there be trouble in paradise this early? Not that my relationship is free of its early day screw-ups.

“The whole reading at the table thing.”

“The what?” I ask. Clyde is being oddly minimalist in his answer.

“Definition of rudeness.” He makes a circling gesture with his hand. Something almost impatient. Waiting for me to catch up. A very un-Clyde-like gesture.

“Oh right.” I remember the conversation at the museum.

“Well, you know, it rather turns out, the whole digital thing—” He taps the mask. It’s unlike the other
times
he’s
tapped it, I notice. Not a sullen gesture. It takes me a moment to place the emotion. But in a story about how Tabitha’s pissed at him, Clyde’s abruptly excited.

“I can speed-read,” Clyde says.

This story is taking an odd tack. “Congratulations?” I try.

“I mean, I don’t wish to brag,” he continues, clearly lying, “even worse habit than the table reading. But, well…” Clyde actually rubs his hands together. Only Clyde could have a Scrooge McDuck moment over the number of books he’s read. “I may have read one thousand seven hundred and thirty-six books last night.”

“Holy crap,” I say in a moment of great eloquence. That’s… It’s not a possible number. It’s… Jesus, it’s…

Inhuman.

God, I’ve been trying to avoid that word.

I see that tiny square of wood peeking out from the pinched hood.

“You know what I found really fascinating though?” Clyde asks me, bringing me back to the conversation.

I shake my head. I have no clue what Clyde found fascinating. I don’t have a clue about anything any more. About how to define the existence of my friends.

“How very good John Grisham is.” Clyde nods. “Blew me away.
The Pelican Brief
. Impressive stuff.”

That snaps me out of it right there.

“Grisham?” I say, failing to keep the incredulity at bay.

“Master of suspense,” Clyde replies.

“Out of seventeen hundred books, Grisham was the author that stood out?” I really can’t let that lie.

“Oh yes.” Clyde nods. “Totally engrossing.”

I cannot believe we’re having this discussion. I cannot fathom any aspect of it. I cannot believe Clyde enjoys such tawdry crap.

Somehow I need to find a way out of this conversation, back to some sort of comfortable ground.

“But Tabitha wasn’t so impressed?” It’s a low blow, but it’s for the sake of my sanity so I’m going to call it fair play.

I imagine Clyde’s face falls beneath the mask. Assuming his face does anything beneath there. He shuffles his feet at least, picks at the baggage handles. “Yes,” he says. “While reading… The whole talking thing, I sort of fell down there. Arse over elbow to be precise. She…” He shrugs furiously. “She doesn’t sleep as much as, well, as Devon did. Which is not a criticism. As I explained to her last night. Repeatedly in fact. Thought I was quite clear on the matter. But anyway, that was always reading time for me, and, of course, I recognize that with the advent of never sleeping ever again, spare time will be more abundant, but I just… well, let’s just say I was excited. Like a small child on his birthday, for example.”

“Tabitha, not so much?” I’m not comfortable with any of this. I can’t even imagine the response of someone dating him.

“Not so much.” Clyde nods.

I think about that. About Clyde. About what he is.

What is he?

A friend. I need to treat him like the friend he is. Stop tripping over myself. “It’s early days.” I clap him on the arm with the sort of camaraderie that seems to be natural to people cooler than me. “Teething problems is all,” I tell him.

Clyde nods. “Yes. Negotiating new terms and all that.” His knee gives an involuntary shake. “Living together is just a period of adjustment. I read that. Tried to explain the whole thing to Tabitha actually. Never been one for self-help books before, but the author seemed quite insightful on the subject. Tabitha wasn’t overly receptive to the theory.”

“Just give it time,” I say. Another platitude. But I’ve got nothing of substance here. I need time to clear my head.

“Plenty of that.” Clyde taps the mask again, not so excited this time.

We begin the complicated maneuvering that will allow us both to escape the room. I head downstairs, Clyde to his room.

In the lobby, Felicity is waiting. “That took a while,” she says. “Everything OK?”

“Clyde read seventeen hundred books last night.”

She raises an eyebrow. “The mask?” She looks concerned. I find that reassuring. Concern seems like a more appropriate reaction than excitement.

I nod.

“You worried about him?”

And yes, I am. But maybe I should be more supportive of a friend.

“I don’t know,” I hedge.

Felicity nods. “He’s been through a lot. We should keep an eye on him. Make sure he’s OK.”

I nod again. It’s a simple enough solution. Except it doesn’t feel like a simple problem. But how do I just come out and say that I’m scared my best friend is losing his humanity?

“Would you stop fussing!” A booming voice from the top of the stairs interrupts my mental circling. Devon’s voice.

There’s a muttered response. Then she booms again. “I am telling you that this is how shoelaces work. How it has been done for thousands of years. Well not thousands. But for a very long time. I imagine Robert Browning did this exact same thing just before writing his godawful poetry, not to insult a Scottish legend, of course, except well… what do you lot see in him?”

There is another pause, another barely audible response.

“No I do not need a cookie!”

Silence.

“Yes, I do like cookies. Obviously this figure does not come without a certain amount of help from the Pillsbury dough boy, delicious little bugger that he is. But now is not the cookie moment. Eleven o’clock—yes, that would be lovely. Right now, I am digesting an ample breakfast. About the only healthy meal I have in the day.”

Another pause as we collectively digest this surfeit of information.

“Well, if you insist I shall take the cookie and eat it later. Probably at eleven. As I mentioned.”

Felicity and I exchange a look but no words. And I think I know who Devon’s talking to but I can barely believe the conversation.

There’s a clatter of feet on the stairs. Felicity and I quickly try and find something to stare at.

“There you are!” Devon booms. “And here I am. All unpacked. All settled. Snug as a bug in a very tight and cramped rug.” She clomps down the stairs. “Hello Arthur!” She flings two meaty arms around me and attempts to crack my ribs. “Lovely to see you. Lovely to be here. Seat of the empire and all that. Not that empires have to sit down, I suppose. Silly anthropomorphism. And not that London would really be that comfortable to sit on. Big Ben poking up your jacksie. Terrible place to rest I imagine. But, well, all the same, excited.”

She casts a vaguely baleful look up the stairs. “Kayla informs me she will be down in a minute.”

I nod to myself. I’m in a room with Shaw. Clyde’s in with Tabitha. So… Devon in with Kayla. Just as Kayla seems poised to unleash every ounce of mothering on the poor unsuspecting woman.

Perfect.

Someone clears his throat behind Devon. Devon turns. “Not excited to see you, of course. You shit,” she informs Clyde.

Oh wait…
now
this is perfect.

I would move closer to Felicity for comfort but it’s not actually possible in the confines of the lobby.

And just as the tension starts to congeal the door flies open.

“What in the name of fuck are you all still doing here?” Coleman booms. He aims an umbrella at us all, then singles out Felicity. “Communication. Command. The basics, Felicity.”

“I’m sure you’ll grasp them all soon, George.”

I check the flowers perched on the front desk to see if her scorn has wilted them. It’s good to hear the acid back in her voice.

“Email, Felicity.” Coleman waves a phone at her. “The twenty-first century. Priority communication.”

“If you’d set us up in a hotel that had—” Felicity starts, then cuts herself off. She takes a breath. “What’s the message, George?”

And why did she bite back on the aggression?

Flop, flop—stop it.

“Russians, Felicity,” Coleman snaps. “Trafalgar Square. Now.” He looks at me, at Devon, Clyde, at the others jammed behind him on the stairs. “Go!” he demands. “Go now! Go!”

W
e bundle out into London and rain. Felicity throws open her minivan door. Tabitha and Clyde pile in one after the other. I step aside for Devon, but Coleman grabs her elbow.

“This way, my lovely.” He tugs her towards a sleek black penis extension with a BMW logo on the hood.

Devon resists. Inside the van, Clyde gets his legs tangled with the seatbelt. Devon closes her eyes. Coleman tugs again and she goes with it.

And Devon had my back in the conference room in Oxford; there’s no way I’m abandoning her to this fate.

“Wait—” I start, grabbing her other arm.

Then Kayla comes out of the hotel at the sort of speed that puts the fear of God into world-stability-threatening creatures from every plane of existence.

“You,” she points a finger at me, “don’t get her wrapped up in your feckin’ trouble.

“You,” she fixes Coleman with a deadeye stare that would shake even Clint Eastwood on a main street at high noon, “keep your dirty feckin’ hands to yourself.”

I’m not sure if Coleman or I swallows harder.

“I’m alright.” Devon’s voice is small, but she meets Kayla’s eye—a feat I’m incapable of. She shakes off my hand and Coleman’s.

The intensity of Kayla’s gaze slackens from “flame broil” to nonplussed.

“But,” Kayla says, “the Underground. We can take—”

“I’m alright.” Devon’s voice has gained in strength. She turns to Coleman, grimaces. “Let’s get on our merry way then.”

Coleman recovers. “Step into my parlor,” he says. He even manages to leer as he opens the car door.

“But—” Kayla says to the closing door.

“But—” I echo.

“Come on, Arthur!” Felicity calls from the front seat. Coleman slams his door and revs his engine.

I get into the van. Kayla swings up behind me, settles disconsolately beside Clyde and Tabitha. Felicity stamps the accelerator to the floor. Tires screech. Rubber burns. We spin out into traffic.

And then the seat belt nearly chokes the life from me as she stamps on the brakes.

Black taxis. Red buses. Red lights. London traffic.

“Shit!” Felicity loses control of her temper if not the vehicle.

In front of us, Coleman lays on the horn. I hope Devon’s OK in there.

I glance back over my shoulder at Kayla. Our resident swordswoman is chewing on her collar, staring blankly out at the rain-spattered streets.

I need to explain to Devon what’s going on. What Kayla’s going through. So Devon can explain to Kayla that making her a surrogate daughter is not a healthy or fair thing to do.

So I don’t have to explain it myself.

Ahead of us the lights flicker to green. We gain approximately six inches of blacktop. And red. A herd of pedestrians swarms across the road.

Felicity’s phone buzzes. She flips it open, one eye on the traffic light, foot ready to pounce on the gas. She punches a button.

“—cking bullshit lights. Fix this, Felicity. Sirens. Police. Anything,” Coleman’s voice barks.

“Clandestine organization, George,” she says, sugary sweet.

“Fix it!” he barks. The rest of the car grimaces at the phone. I think I can see Kayla reaching for her sword.

“Tabitha?” I fight my seatbelt and call over my shoulder. “Any chance you could help us?”

Tabitha is already unfolding her laptop. “Course,” she says. “Hack into the grid. Rejig the algorithm.”

“Oh wait!” Clyde pipes up. “I think—”

“No,” Tabitha says. There is no debating that word.

“But I think I can—”

“No,” Tabitha says again.

Even my balls retract at that one. Clyde says nothing.

“Clyde?” says Tabitha. She sounds suspicious.

Still nothing.

And then: the jingling of change.

I strain to look around. Even Felicity takes her eyes off the light.

“Oh you stupid silly fuck!” Tabitha’s fingers suddenly blur across the keyboard.

And I see Clyde’s hand. His hand in his pocket. It’s vibrating, rattling the coins.

Man, Clyde has some stones.

My eyes fly from his pocket to the traffic light.

“What are you silly bastards playing at?” Coleman says over the phone. “Fix it already.”

Red. Red. Red.

“Lives on the line, you incompetent fucks!”

“Oh yeah,” I snap, unable to bite my tongue. “Well that sort of encouragement is definitely going to help save them.”

“The day I start taking leadership advice from an incompetent fuck like—”

Green.

Cars lurch forward. Pedestrians scatter. Coleman is cut off. We all brace for the slamming on of brakes.

And it doesn’t come. Green. Green. Green. Light after light.

“Got it,” Clyde says. “I got it.”

He sounds like a man who just ran a marathon. Who just ran it and won. He’s breathing hard, lying back against the seat. It’s the moment in the movie where Kurt Russell would roll the girl off him and light the cigarette.

“More bloody like it,” comes Coleman’s disembodied voice from the phone.

London passes in a blur. Record stores. Theaters. Pubs. Accounting firms. Law firms. Government buildings. History. Far too many tourists for anyone’s liking.

Tabitha still types furiously.

“I got it, Tabby,” Clyde says. He finally seems to have noticed that she’s pissed at him. He reaches out a hand to her. “I got it.”

“Stupid,” Tabitha says, shrugging off the arm. “Silly. Fuck.”

“But I—” Clyde starts. “I fixed it. We’ll get there.”

“Yes,” Tabitha snaps, finally looking up from the screen. Her fingers don’t stop moving though. “You cleared a path. Fixed the lights. But, I mean, for a moment, did you think to put them back afterwards?”