Yesterday's Hero (23 page)

Clyde gives me nothing. I don’t even bother double-checking with Kayla.

“It grew,” I hedge. “And shrank. Not all of it. Not one giant wing. Bits of it multiplied, divided. A wing made of lots of wings. Of other bits of bird.” It seems ridiculous to be describing such a thing in the confines of such a neat, tidy conference room.

Coleman nods his head in such a way that it utterly fails to communicate any sort of agreement.

“And when it died?” he asks.

“It sort of folded away. Shed bits of itself.” Again I look to Clyde. “Bits of it seemed to rot very fast. Other bits regressed, became chick parts.”

Coleman works his jaw. “As if bits of it were moving through time, Agent Wallace?” He rolls his eyes. “I’m sensing a tediously familiar theme.”

Fuck. Shit, and balls, and fuck. The problem with Coleman, well, one of the myriad problems, is he’s not as stupid as he looks.

I shrug at him. “What can I say? I see a spade. I call it a spade.” I look again to Clyde. Come on. Please. Help me out.

Nothing. Not even a twitch of the mask. Just his arm.

And then, “Was a regular bird at first.”

I start slightly at the voice from behind me. Kayla’s Scottish brogue. Low, mumbling.

“Went under one of the tarps covering where the lions had been. Saw the wee bugger do it. But when it came out it were… It were like he said.” She nods my way minimally, a look of distaste on her face. “Weren’t as big then. But more bits of it. A pigeon collage. Sort of. And it went up and up, and it got to growing. More bits and bits. And I thought, I thought to myself, that’s a bad thing. And I thought maybe I should kill it. Climb up the pole, slash it while it was still small. And then I thought about that and, well, it’s a life isn’t it? It’s all life. And where does one life stop and another begin? Who gets to weigh those decisions? Why is it always me? And what if the Russians are right? What if it would be better with them in charge? So maybe we should all feckin’ die. Or maybe we should all live. I don’t know. And I thought, well maybe I can just keep one person safe. Maybe I can turn that streak around. If I couldn’t save two girls, maybe just
one this time. Just defend her. And I did that. I mean, I shouldn’t have thrown the stone at the bird. Just trying to drive it off. But I did. But then when it came at us, I did save her. I stopped the harm from being too bad. But she doesn’t want that. No one wants just that.” She works her jaw. “Stupid feckin’ idea. All of this.”

“You threw a rock at it?” I don’t know why that stands out the most from everything she said, indeed this should probably be a moment of pathos for a poor woman lost in her grief, but… a rock? You have to be kidding me.

Kayla’s eyes flick up at me. She drops her shoulders, her mouth tightens, her knuckles whiten.

Suddenly I am very afraid. Very afraid indeed.

And then Kayla slumps. Folds back in herself. “Don’t think this excuses you, you feckin’ waste of space. You still didn’t protect my Ophelia. You’re as feckin’ guilty as me.”

I close my eyes. The world back—all wrong.

“Well.” Coleman claps his hands. “That’s just marvellous isn’t it? A swordswoman who refuses to use her sword” He snorts. “A real team of winners you have here, Felicity.” He sneers even harder round the room. Kayla seems to recoil from the gaze. Clyde’s hand drums uncontrollably against the side of the chair.

God, it’s not just the team that’s falling apart, it’s each of us. This was meant to be my moment of triumph, but everyone’s too locked in their own disaster to stand back and see the big picture.

“At least she put a team together,” I say, “rather than just pick one apart.” I’ve put up better defenses to accusations, I have to admit, but right now, his argument doesn’t seem too far off.

Coleman shakes his head. “You’re the big man, is that it now, Wallace?” He looks at me with disdain. “The Russians either got the drop on you and enchanted some bird while you weren’t looking, or they left a booby trap and you wandered straight into it. And just because you didn’t die, you think you’ve redeemed yourself.” He sneers. “Personally I just see more of the same.” He stomps out, even gives us a gratuitous slam of the door.

Felicity stares around the room. “Thanks, guys,” she says. She doesn’t mean it.

And what to say to her? What to say to my boss? My girlfriend? I don’t know if I have anything she wants to hear. He’s wrong. You’re wrong. If we follow your plan then the whole of western civilization is doomed to, at best, a life of slavery.

“Why do you give in to him?” If she could just answer that for me. If she could just give me a reasonable explanation. Maybe I could understand.

Felicity looks at me, slightly incredulous. “Here?” she asks. “Now?”

I just look back at her. There seems to be something that happens to words after they leave my mouth, something lost in translation.

She waves at the door. “Clyde, Kayla… Just go, and… find something out. Anything. Where that meteorite from the Natural History Museum went. Who the fuck those Russians are. Come back with something other than a beating from a mutant bloody pigeon.” She can’t even look at us as she says the last few words.

Silently they head for the door. I stand my ground. Felicity watches me. Two gunslingers facing each other at high noon.

“Right then,” Felicity says as the door slides closed, “you and I need to talk.”

“Y
ou know what’s at stake, don’t you?” she says. Her eyes are fixed on me, deadly intent. “I know you’re not as stupid as you’ve been acting the past few days.”

So that’s how we’re going to do this.

She has her hands on her hips, mouth drawn into a sour line. Her hair is pushed back awkwardly, defying her part. Her suit is rumpled.

And I feel bad for her. I feel sorry for all she’s going through. The part of me that is boyfriend wants to comfort her. But we’re in the office now. She defined these rules.

“You know I’m right,” I say. I stand tall and stiff, matching her inch for defiant inch.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re right!” She throws her hands up like this is the most obvious thing in the world.

And… what the… “Are you shitting me?” Suddenly I find a vent for my words. “The fate of the western world is at stake. I think a little thing like addressing the correct fucking problem might be important.”

Maybe I should bite back my bile. Should play this game with a little decorum. But my meditative calm has been somewhat ruffled over the past few days.

Felicity puts her hands to her head. “You were a police detective. A successful one. Surely you must know something about politics.”

“Sounds like the sort of thing that got innocent men convicted,” I snap back.

“It doesn’t matter,” Felicity repeats slowly, enunciating carefully, “if you’re right, if no one’s listening to you.”

“So listen to me!” I reach Devon decibels.

Felicity sits down then. Just collapses into a chair. “Who on earth, Arthur, do you think is listening to me?”

And, I have to concede, I do not have a comeback for that. I sit down hard. Smacked by a vision of how the land lies.

Felicity runs her hand through her hair again. If she does it any more she’s going to wear a groove.

“I’m on the thinnest of ice, Arthur. No one wants me in this position. Especially Coleman. And my only hope is that he’ll hang himself. He’s done it plenty of times before. But right now all he has to do is do nothing. And he knows it. Because if we fuck up, just once, he’s won. And, God, Arthur, you are not helping.”

I sit and dwell on that. She sits silently opposite me. And she is the closest thing I have to an ally. Jesus… she’s still my girlfriend. Whatever else has been fucked up in the past few days, that is still true.

I think about reaching out to her, taking her hand. I don’t know if it’s too soon. But if I’m not willing to make a risk here then what am I willing to take risks for?

I take her hand. She stiffens. But then she relaxes.

“It’s the truth,” is all the defense I have.

“Clyde doesn’t think so.” She meets my eyes, face open. It’s as much a comment as it is a challenge.

“I know.” I shrug. “I don’t know why.”

Felicity echoes my shrug. “He’s the expert, Arthur. He might not always seem it, but trust me, he is one of the smartest thaumaturgists in the world. He is very good at what he does. And knowing magic is what he does, it’s his role on the team. You can see why his word has more weight than yours, can’t you?” She’s almost imploring. “You can see why Coleman will believe him over you?”

“What about you?” Because that’s really the crux of it. Maybe it’s not the most important point in the grand scheme of things, in the overall fight for survival. But here, now, it’s the most important point to me, for the survival of “us.”

Felicity closes her eyes. My heart clambers handhold by handhold up into my throat.

“You’ll need proof,” she says after a long while. “Incontrovertible proof. Not supposition. Not something that looks a lot like proof. Actual, real, undeniable proof. Proof that not even Coleman can piss away. That’s the only way I’ll be able to move on any of this. To even openly support any of this. You understand that?”

She’s side-stepped the question, and she’s done in neatly. I see the move, but suddenly I don’t want to call her on it. Not at all.

We sit there looking at each other. A table between us. A table and so much more. And maybe that’s what this whole thing comes down to, in the end: what’s worth fighting for.

“Hey,” I say, taking another risk, “at least I killed the pigeon.”

Felicity’s face shudders. Her mouth works. And then… a smile.

“A mutant pigeon, Arthur?” She shakes her head. “In the history of this department only you could have gone face-to-face with a mutant pigeon.”

She’s told me I’m on my own out in the field. But at least I’m not in here.

“How’d you feel about dating a pigeon killer?” I ask her. I’m smiling too. A sudden boldness seeping into me. It’s good to have friends. Even secret friends.

And there’s a thought in that phrase. The barest edge of a plan. I remember the phone number in my pocket.

“I know,” Aiko said when I told her I’d call.

“I’m surprised,” Felicity says, “I chose to date someone who smells so much of bird shit.”

I smile at that. But already I’m slipping away from this moment. Slipping towards a plan. Towards doing something Felicity really wouldn’t approve.

“I should get going on this whole saving the world thing.” I squeeze her hand.

She rises. I rise. We meet at the end of the table. She catches my arms, holds me as close as the smell will allow.

“The next time I see you,” she says into the inches between us,
“you better have at least killed a mutant squirrel.”

I can’t help but smile.

“I promise.”

She kisses me gingerly on a clean inch of cheek.

“Go on,” she says. “Shower. Work out where the Russians are hiding. Save the world.”

“Yes ma’am.” I nod deeply, almost a bow.

She holds the door open for me. We smile at each other, long, maybe even a little lingering. And now, having earned Felicity’s trust, it’s time to totally betray it.

The Lamb and Flag Public House

“A mutant pigeon?” Aiko looks at me as if I just pissed in her pint.

“So. Totally. Awesome.” Jasmine emphasizes this point with a spectacular popping of her gum. She’s even slid her headphones down around her neck. Something with more beats per minute than a jackhammer emanates tinnily.

Malcolm greets the news stoically and takes another sip of his Guinness. I’m not sure what would faze Malcolm.

Maybe if I kissed him?

Not really worth finding out.

They sit opposite me, like three witches ill-met on some Scottish hilltop at midnight. At least they would if that hilltop had a cheap leather booth and a jukebox that was about to play “November Rain” for the third time in a row.

I asked Aiko to bring them along. If I’m going to be running my own sub-operation then I’m going to need as much man power as I can get my hands on.

It’s four in the afternoon, still technically work hours, and the withered stump of the policeman I used to be feels guilty as I sip my beer. But Aiko refused to buy me a coke when she offered to buy the round.

“A mutant pigeon?” she repeats.

“A pigeon,” I say, as significantly as it is possible to say the word, “unglued in space and time.”

She shrugs. “We already knew the Russians were messing with this stuff. It’s just corroborating evidence.”

How can it be so obvious to the Weekenders that this is evidence and so difficult for everyone at MI37 to grasp?

“Something was off with how it happened.” This has been playing in my head since leaving Felicity. I describe it to them as Kayla described it to me. The pigeon enters the tarpaulin normal, exits with a definite normality insufficiency.

Malcolm gives me a long troubled stare. “The Russians,” he starts, then examines the white froth of his Guinness, “they booby-trapped a pigeon?”

And I thought that was odd as well. So I describe the crumbling corner of Nelson’s Column, the strange pattern of repair and decay on the street.

“Some sort of residual effect,” Aiko says ruminatively. “Whatever they’re doing, it’s not clean.” She plays with her ponytail, twisting and untwisting the hair.

“But,” Jasmine looks almost apologetic, “what about, like, a trap?”

Malcolm nods. “A planned counter-operation.”

I try to consider that fairly. As if I’m not simply averse to the idea because Coleman suggested it.

“It seems too random for that,” I say. Aiko nods along as I speak. I’d forgotten how nice it was to have someone do that.

“Pockets of disturbed space-time?” Malcolm chews his lip ruminatively. “That’s your theory?”

And yes, I suppose it is.

“Anyone else back at MI37 believe it?” Aiko asks.

I shake my head, and then pause. “Well,” I say. “Devon might, if I tell her. She’s been generally supportive.”