Harvest *HF*
By Scrib
Prologue
It’s raining again, but that doesn’t really surprise me. It has rained non-stop, more or less, for the last month, and I suppose I’m used to it by now. Everything has that grey washed-out tinge to it, even the trees in front of Belfast City Hall, and all the old buildings just look dirty at the minute, with the pigeons huddled in the dry bits of the windowsills. City Hall looks its age tonight.
Its mid-November, and all the shops are getting ready for Christmas, as are all the customers, bustling about and pushing through the crowds. The lights are getting put up on the lampposts, and all the tacky Santa stuff is being brought out of hibernation. There’s a clown miming outside one of the big shops, and he is the unhappiest looking clown I’ve ever seen. He’s standing still, pretending he’s a statue, but he isn’t very good at it, as he is obviously shivering. Ah well, if he wants to dress up stupid in the freezing cold, it’s his own stupid fault.
I’m not enjoying this trip; I hate crowds of people, too many bodies in not enough space. I get bumped into continuously, and never get an apology; more often than not, I get a glare as if to say “what the fuck do you think you’re doing getting in my way?” I’m starting to get really cross, and so I decide to get a cup of coffee. Of course, the only decent coffee shop is at the other side of the street, and that may as well be 5 million miles away, there are so many people in the way. None of this is helped by the fact that I have an absolute bastard of a migraine coming on. The fact that I’m supposed to be enjoying myself (I am, after all, buying Christmas presents) seems wasted on me at the minute.
Eventually, I get to sit down in the coffee shop, with a big mug of coffee in front of me. I’m sitting looking through my bags, checking my purchases to see who I’ve left out, and what I have yet to get, when I notice a man standing at the counter, staring right at me. He’s tall, about 6 feet at least, with really dark brown eyes and slicked-back sandy brown hair. He looks just like any of the other businessmen in the coffee shop; dressed in a well-made suit, with one of those long coats that only really tall people can wear and make it look good. He is, of course, totally soaked and extremely good-looking. When he notices that I’ve seen him, he looks a bit startled, and then he grins, and he looks so familiar that I smile back at him, even though I don’t really feel like it.
“Tracy? Is that you? I don’t know if you remember me, I’m Kent! Kent Williams!”
As he comes over to talk to me, leaving his coffee behind, all I can think of is that this gorgeous man who is talking to me, says he knows me. It doesn’t even sink in that he has a Canadian accent.
“It was about 5 or 6 years ago, in Oshawa? You came to a party with Simon?”
Then I know him. Kent was a friend of my cousin Simon, I had met him a couple of times, and I had fancied him like mad. He had bought me beer for the party he had mentioned, as I was extremely underage and looked it. I stand up to shake his hand.
“Hi Kent, yeah, I recognise you now. How have you been….”
I trail off as I realise he’s not listening. He is actually quite busy getting tangled up in his coat and bags, and generally making himself get all flustered and confused. I take his bags off him, before he manages to kill someone or himself, and then help him out of his coat. He looks down at me, and manages to make himself look even cuter because he is actually blushing.
“Uhm…thanks for that, I got a bit tangled up there…”
I get him to stop apologising and sit down before going over to the counter and lifting his coffee, which he has forgotten about completely. When I put it in front of him, he jumps a bit, and then looks up at me, and smiles again. Oh dear God, but he is well cute.
“I’ll bet you’re surprised to see me here, eh? I mean, you haven’t seen me in 5 years, and I just appear in front of you like that, what a coincidence, eh? You’ve let your hair grow, its nice, better than the short ‘do”
He’s obviously nervous or excited about something, I don’t remember him as being one for jabbering on, more like a bloke who would sit there and listen to everyone else. We get chatting, and it turns out that he’s working for a company that’s looking to expand into Europe, and the lower tax rates in Ireland made it look a likely place to start. It’s a company I’ve never heard of before; Massey Pharmaceuticals Ltd. He’d only just flown in this morning, and has been up all night, which explained the jitteriness and clumsiness. He tells me about all the progress his company has made in the medical world, which means nothing to me, something about genetics, and I tell him about my dissertation and mapping projects I have to do to get my degree.
Then we talk about anything and everything until the girl behind the counter has to kick us out, and then we move to the bar in his hotel (I can finally get him the beers, he jokes). Funny thing, my headache never develops into anything, I suppose I’m having too much fun to notice.
…
She gets off the tiny plane in Belfast City Airport, after almost a full day travelling. She had flown from Toronto to Gatwick (she had missed the direct flight to the international airport in Belfast) and then had to sit and wait, on stand-by, for almost 4 hours before there was a space on a flight to Belfast. As a result, she is quite tired, and just wants to get to the nearest hotel so she can get a room and sleep for a while.
After collecting her luggage, she gets into a taxi, asks for the nearest hotel, and looks out the windows at the view. Belfast sits at the mouth of a river (the Lagan, according to the taxi driver), which follows a course through a glacial valley, before flowing into a Lough, which opens onto the Irish Sea. This has meant that Belfast is framed by quite large hills on three sides, and sea on the 4th. The airport itself is situated along the edge of the Lough, in the middle of what appears to be an industrial estate. 2 massive cranes dominate the skyline.
“That’s Samson and Goliath, miss, they’re the shipyard cranes. There’s some folks round here think they helped build the Titanic, but they’re talkin’ outta their arse.”
The taxi driver thinks he knows an awful lot of stuff, and normally the tourists love to hear all he had to say, usually asking for a tour of the city, especially these American ones, they believe any crap you’d tell them. Hell, one Yank woman had actually run from the airport doors into his taxi, lain down and covered herself with a blanket, “so that the snipers won’t shoot me,” she’d said. This one, though, she doesn’t seem to be interested in anything he says, she just sits there, looking out the window.
“So, are ye here on business? Or holiday? If yer here on yer holidays, I reckon ye’ve picked the wrong time to visit, the weather’s wild. Ye should come in July, we get some crackin’ weather then, and ye can see the parades, if yer into that sort of stuff”
“Visiting …family”
“Oh, right, you back to see your mum and dad? My sister, her son, he went off to live in New York, or some Yank place, I never paid that much attention….”
She listens as the taxi man kept talking about his ‘ne’er-do-well nephew’ and his stupid ideas of making money in the states, up until he reached the hotel, and dropped her off. As he drives off, he notices that the woman looks a lot better than she had when she got into the taxi, but then, he’d always had a way of relaxing people and putting them at ease.
She does feel better, and it is due to the taxi driver, but not in the way he thinks. She hurries into the hotel foyer, as it is raining extremely heavily and books a room.
Her unpacking done, after a short sleep, she opens the file she has in her bag, and starts to read it, again. There isn’t much, just what Charlie was able to get from Frank’s mind. A name, brief physical description, parent’s names and last known address, and anything else they could find on the Internet. The only real lead she has is the University, where there is a final year geology student by the name of Tracy Keenan. As she lies on the bed in her room, watching the T.V., she plays with the set of dog tags she wears at all times. They are, after all, very dear to her, as is the man who gave them to her. She dozes off again, thinking about what Tracy will be like, and the rhythm of the rain hitting her window sends her fully to sleep.
Chapter 1
I manage to get up in time for lectures, but I don’t think I’ll be able to pay much attention if I keep feeling the way I do at the minute. My head is pounding, probably making up for the migraine I missed last night, and my stomach is lurching at the very thought of food. I can’t seem to remember what time I got in at last night, but I have vague memories of staggering home sometime after 4.
There would have been no point in letting Kent walk me home, he was in a much worse state than I had been, and anyway, he would definitely have gotten lost on his way back to the hotel.
Eventually, I leave the house, and arrive at the Geology Building earlier than usual (I’m only 10 minutes late this time). I go back to the Students Union shop, grab some milk and something extremely bland to eat for breakfast, and pick up a newspaper to read while I wait for my next lecture. I’m sitting on the stairs outside the lecture theatre, skimming through the paper, when a headline in the business section catches my eye.
Shock Deaths affect Massey Corporation Share Prices.
It seems that Kent’s ultimate boss died of cancer a couple of weeks ago, and his son committed suicide not long after. Stupid bastard. Not only that, but there was the fact that some wee kid had inherited all of the company. Fuck, Kent will not be pleased about that, looks like all the departments are getting sold off. I’d better tell him.
I’m putting the paper in my bag when the lecture theatre doors open, and all my classmates come out for a break. Kirstin and Mary come over to see where I had been last night that would make me be late this time, and they both agree that Kent seems a good reason. Mary asks if he has a brother (“Not that I know of”) and Kirstin just wants to know why I didn’t make more of an effort. Whether she means with Kent, or getting into class on time, I’m not quite sure.
I don’t get the chance to ask her what she means, though, because just then, Dr Moles comes over to talk to Kirstin and me about our mapping project. Just before we have to go back into the lecture theatre, I’m told to go see him after the end of the lecture. He doesn’t seem too cross, so I doubt its about me being late every day for the last fortnight, but you never know.
The next lecture is extremely boring, and that, along with the fact that the room is warm, and the lecturer has a dull, soft monotone voice, means that I doze through most of it. It’s just as well I sit at the back. When the lecture is over, Mary nudges me awake, hands me her notes, so I can photocopy them, and tells me good luck for my meeting with Norman. I just grin at her, and wander down to Norman’s office.
On the way, I realise I’m actually really hungry, and my headache is gone. I’ve always been lucky like that, I seem to be able to shake off most bugs going around, and hangovers never bother me for long.
I reach Norman’s door, and I can hear him talking to someone, so I knock on the door and just wait for him. Eventually, he opens the door and blinks at me for a while. A tall man, with glasses, he seems to be hugely ineffectual, until you get to know him, and you realise just how intelligent he really is.
“You asked me to come see you, sir.”
“I did? Oh, yes, of course I did! Silly me. Do come in, Tracy, sit down.”
As I enter, I notice there’s a woman in the room, looking out the window. All I can see, since her back is towards me, is a mass of long dark hair, and longer legs. As I sit down on one of the stools Norman has in his office, the woman turns round and smiles at me.
“Tracy, I’d like for you to meet Samantha Logan, a mature geology student from Canada.”
I mutter pleasantries at her, while Norman whitters on about the research work she’s done on the mineralogy around some mining area in Ottawa.
“The reason I asked for you to come here is because I know you have an interest in Canada and I thought you two would have something in common. If I remember correctly, you were over in Canada last summer?”
Samantha looks up quickly at that, as I reply
“Yeah, but I was only in Toronto and Oshawa, I wasn’t near that mine you mentioned”
For some reason, she shakes her head a wee bit, and smiles again.
“I understand that, Tracy, but I think it would be good if you were to be Samantha’s guide, so to speak. Show her around the Campus, where the libraries are, that sort of thing. Is that ok? Good.”
Norman smiles at the two of us, and then motions for us to go, before sitting down at his desk and losing himself in his minerals again.
As we walk towards the main door of the geology department, Samantha stops for a minute, to look at some maps or something, and I get a good look at her. She’s about the same height as me, which is good; I’m always the one that gets looked down at so it’ll be nice to look someone in the face for a change. She doesn’t appear to be so short though, and I can’t work out why. She’s wearing a big warm polo-neck jumper, and a pair of Levi’s. Her eyes are the main things I notice, though. They’re so blue! She also looks like she works out a lot, as her body has that toned look I could only dream of having.
“Uhm…I’m sorry about Norman, he’s a bit…strange, I suppose, until you get to know him”
“I’ve known stranger.” And she smiles again.
“Aye, well, he’s sound, is what I’m trying to say. I suppose, with you being from a big huge University in Canada, you’d get to meet a fair few people like that, you know?”
She laughs at that, but in a nice way. Her voice is really soft and quiet, it sounds like velvet feels, unlike Kent’s voice. He’s got a really loud brash voice, and it makes me think he’s hung out with too many American business men like you’d see on the news or something. I start thinking of Kent, until I realise Samantha is saying something.
“Sorry, Sam, I was miles away there, what did you say?”
She looks at me in a strange way when I say that, but then she just continues what she was saying
“What’s the building?”
We’ve left the geology building, and I realise Sam means the Students Union.
“Oh, that! That’s the Union. A triumph of bad architecture, but it has the cheapest pints in town, and some really crackin’ discos. C’mon, we’ll go for a quick pint, and get some lunch. I’m starving, and then the day is yours! I’ll take you where you want to go”
As we go in the back door of the union, I see a poster up on the notice board. Apparently, today is Mexican Day, so there’s Chilli and Tacos and that sort of stuff for lunch, and there’s a big themed disco on tonight. It has Tequila promotions and spot prizes, so I’m interested. I turn to check if Sam is interested, and she nods, with another one of those huge smiles. We head up to the café, and get lunch.
As we’re eating, I ask Sam where she’s from, which bit of Canada?
“All over, really”
She continues eating, and its becoming obvious she isn’t one for chatting so I just keep talking to her, about what Queens is like, things to see in Belfast, good places to eat, and of course the best pubs. Gradually, I realise, she might be nodding in the right places, but she isn’t really listening. Her mind seems to be elsewhere, and then her head shakes “no” just a little bit, and then her eyes flash with panic…
“Sam? Are you ok?”
No reply
“Sam? Earth to Sam? Come in please? Are you receiving me?”
“Pardon?”
“You zoned out for a while there, are you alright? I suppose you must still be jetlagged, I know it took me a couple of days to recover every time I came back from Canada.”
She nods agreement, and goes back to eating. I can’t help but notice that she looks extremely worried about something. Ah well, it’s none of my business.
“Is your food ok?”
Again, another silent nod. She must be exhausted, I mean, I’ve sometimes got so tired I don’t want to speak, but that’s usually after being out all night, or after staying up to do essays. I start to ask her where she wants to go in the town, and tell her what the best shops are, when she just looks right at me.
“Excuse me, could you tell me where the restrooms are?”
“Restrooms? Oh, toilets. Sure. Just go out the doors we came in, turn to your left and they’re behind the wall of glass blocks. The woman’s are on the right.”
“Thank you”
She stands up to leave the café, and it strikes me again how she appears much taller than she actually is. It must be the way she holds herself, I decide. I’ll bet she comes from a rich family, I mean, the way she talks, all polite, and how she walks and stands…I laugh to myself, as I realise she’s almost the opposite of me.
I’m about as polite as a brick, and as rich as one too. Living off a student grant isn’t fun. She must have money coming out her ears. I’ll bet she has such an easy life, if she’s rich.
……………
She finds the restrooms easily enough, and goes into one of the cubicles. She just about makes it before her knees give way, and she collapses onto the seat.
Ok, Sam, calm down, he might break the programming, he’s done it before, and he can do it again. Just because he reacted to Frank’s programming, doesn’t mean he’ll forget this time.
These two sentences are running through her mind like a mantra, and she can feel the anger building up inside. She was so close to having the only thing she had ever really wanted, and Frank ruins it for her, yet again. Even when he’s dead, he won’t leave her alone. She’ll never be free of him…
The pain in her hand makes her realise what she’s doing. Her hands are clenched in a fist, so tightly that the fingernails have dug into her left palm and broken the skin. She stares at her hand, and watches as she makes the small cuts heal up and disappear.
She forces herself to be calm, after all, she can’t do anything here, and she’s 5000 miles away from…where it’s happening. Charlie will let her know what’s happened, and she won’t gain anything by fretting. What happens will, you can’t change it. Eventually, she feels steady enough to go back to the café.
When she gets to the main doors, she doesn’t go in. Instead, she stands just outside them, and looks in at Tracy. The girl is sitting at the table, as she left her, but has obviously forgotten about the food sitting in front of her. Tracy is reading something, probably notes, and seems to be oblivious to everything going on around her. Wisps of her long wavy blonde hair keep falling into her way, and she keeps putting them behind her ear, but they don’t stay there for long. Could this girl be her daughter?
She quickly runs through the description that Charles could glean from Franks mind, and checks it off against Tracy. She’s the right age, and definitely the right height. The hair matches what she’s been told, and her eye colour also. Tracy’s eyes are almost as blue as her own, but not quite. They look as if her eyes had been diluted or something. The fact that Tracy has an extremely soft voice also makes her think that this could be the one. She has no problems hearing the girl, but she’s noticed how most people who talk to her ask her to speak up. The man who served their lunch had to ask her to repeat her order three times, as she was so quiet.
With that thought in her mind, she walks back to the table and sits down again, but Tracy doesn’t notice. In fact, she’s almost finished her coffee before Tracy looks up from her notes again.
“Sorry, I didn’t realise you’d come back.”
She smiles, and then shrugs, as Tracy quickly puts things away in her bag.
“I’m always doing that, I get lost in whatever I’m reading, I can’t help it. Unless, of course, its coming up to exam time, and I’m trying to revise. Then, anything’ll distract me. Are you finished? Oh...yeah, you would be…” as Tracy grins, managing to look a bit embarrassed at the same time.
“Well, do you want to go shopping? The crowds shouldn’t be too bad, its only…2 o’clock. We’ll have plenty of time. Do you mind if we stop off at my place? I want to leave my stuff behind, won’t take long, I promise”
………………
Kent is in a meeting with a minor pharmaceutical company, discussing how their business operates in Ireland, suppliers, trade expectations, how many jobs will be created if Massey Pharmaceuticals decide to expand over here and so on.
Normally, Kent would be in his element. He loves the fact that his company is one of the major players in the medicine world, and the fact that he has personally been chosen to spearhead this operation had him determined to succeed. After all, Frank Massey had picked him especially for the task.
The only problem is that he hasn’t been able to concentrate on anything he’s been supposed to do. All he can think of is that girl he met, Tracy. He can’t think why, since he doesn’t think she’s particularly attractive or anything. Her accent gets on his nerves, and he hates the fact that he has to get her to repeat everything, she’s so quiet. But still, he finds himself daydreaming about how she would say things, what she did when he asked her questions.
“Mr Williams? Excuse me, Mr Williams? Perhaps we should take a brief break, you seem to be *ahem* still jet-lagged. I suggest we take an hour for lunch, and we shall reconvene at two-thirty. Does that suit everyone? Good. Two-thirty, then.”
Kent looked up at the chairwoman of the company who smiled down at him, and then left the room, followed by her fellow employees.
“Shit! That stupid girl! How am I supposed to get my work done with her floating around in my head?”
The notes that had been left on the table jumped, as Kent slammed his chair against it, and stormed out of the boardroom. He found his way down to the canteen, and ordered himself a coffee, before going over to sit at an empty table. As he sipped at the coffee, which was absolutely disgusting, his thoughts drifted back to the time when Mr Massey and the board of Directors had asked him up to dine with them, “For doing such good work”.
He had laughed at their small jokes, nodded and agreed at their opinions and kept silent as they argued company policy. It wasn’t until the end of the meal, as they were all sitting with their coffee, that Mr Massey had turned to Kent and began to talk business with him. He had been impressed with Kent’s work, and had wanted to reward him, by letting him work on a major part of the company’s expansion into Europe. Kent wasn’t sure he was up to it, but Mr Massey, or Frank (as Kent had been instructed to call him from now on) said he knew he could do it. After all, Frank had gone through his files, and had been watching him. He knew he was the man for the job, even if Kent didn’t know himself.
After that, his memory grew fuzzy on the whole thing, like it did when he had been drinking. The funny thing was, Kent knew Mr Massey…Frank didn’t approve of drinking. “It confuses the mind and damages the thinking process” was how it was put in the introduction manual, and so Kent knew he wouldn’t have been offered anything alcoholic to drink, at all. He simply put it down to being excited about the prospect of doing such important work.
Now, of course, it seemed like none of his plans would come into action, and all because of that stupid girl! The fact that he was still going to meet her tomorrow night at some bar she had mentioned, just to see some silly band who she knew, annoyed him all the further. He didn’t want to go, he couldn’t afford to waste the time, but the minute she had asked him, he had said yes, and he couldn’t go back on his word now.
As he sips at his coffee, he stares out the window, and all he can think of is her.
Chapter 2
An hour later, we’re in the city centre. I’m pointing out all the landmarks, and the shops I would normally go to, and of course, all the good pubs. Sam listens, half-heartedly, until she notices something. She turns to me, and points at some old army surplus shop, before asking, “May we go there?”
“Uhm…yeah, no bother, come on.”
As we enter the shop, Samantha goes straight to the counter, and waits until the shop assistant notices her. I look around, and as usual, the slightly musty smell that these shops always have makes me feel a little bit ill.
“Can I help ye, miss?”
“You cut dog tags?”
“Yeah, we do. We can cut ye American Issue, British Issue and even German issue, although not many people want them. We charge £3 for the actual tags themselves, and then an extra 25p for each letter we stamp on them. Most people get stuff like Metallica or Korn on theirs. Is this for yer brother or something?”
“Can you copy these?”
As I watch, Sam takes the dog tags off from round her neck and shows them to the shop assistant. I haven’t noticed her wearing any jewellery up until this point.
“Where’d you get dog tags from, Sam? Were you in the army?”
“No.”
The shop assistant asks if he can take them so he can write down the number and name that were on the tags, and she agrees, but her eyes never leave them.
“Ok, so that’s 458…25…243, and the name is…Wolverine? Strange name for someone…must be some band I never heard of before. Heh, I wouldn’t have put you down as someone who would listen to Thrash or stuff like that!”
“Can you copy them or not?”
“Uh, yeah, no problem…it’ll take an hour or so to do it, I gotta lot of these to cut now, but…”
“An hour.”
With that, Sam goes out of the shop in a hurry, leaving the shop assistant and I staring after her.
“Jeez, tell yer sister to calm down, ok? I was only asking…”
Sister? I don’t have a sister…
“Yeah, sure. How much will that be? We’ll pay you when we get back, ok? One hour, right?”
“That’s going to cost you £7.25 altogether, and yeah, one hour.”
I run out of the shop, and look for Sam. She’s not too far away, sitting on a bench and just watching people go past. I walk up behind her, and she turns round when I’m still about five metres away. I walk closer, before sitting down beside her.
“Are you ok? You seemed a bit upset back there…”
“I’m fine. Where to now?”
“Are you sure? We don’t have to stay down the town, if you don’t want to. I can take you back to your digs if you want.”
“No, I’m fine.” And she grins “Come on, show me the Sights!”
We wander about the city centre for an hour, looking at all the old buildings and looking in some of the more interesting shops, until we return to the Army shop. Sam stays outside, while I go in to collect the two sets of tags. As I leave the shop, I start to feel a bit woozy, which means I have another headache coming on. I hand the tags over to Sam, who automatically puts one of the sets around her neck, and puts the other in her pocket.
“So, where to now? I think we should go and get a cup of coffee, ok?”
She looks up, smiles and nods. I take us to the closest coffee shop, and I can feel the headache building with each step. It feels like it’s going to be a bad one, and my sight is getting a bit blurry at the edges. We make it to the café, and I just about sit down before my head feels like it’s about to explode.
……
She turns to check what Tracy wants to order and stops before she can say anything. Tracy is sitting with her head in her hands, and she looks as if she’s in agony.
“Are you alright?”
“Uh huh, s’just…a headache. Get them…from time…to time…”
“Do you want a drink?”
“Just water…thanks”
She goes to the counter and places the order. As she waits, she looks at the tags. She’ll need to scuff up the new set, and make them look like they’re as old as the originals, but they should do, just fine. She works at the little clasp parts on the removable tags, and swaps the two bits over, so each set of tags contains a new and an old tag.
She carries the drinks back to their seats, and sits down. They sit there for a while, as she drinks her coffee, and Tracy takes small sips of water.
All of a sudden, Tracy looks up, mutters something like “have to go outside, fresh air” and stumbles out of the shop. As she’s getting past their table, she stumbles a bit, and grabs at the table for support, knocking her glass of water off the table.
The glass falls, and water goes everywhere, as do the shards of broken glass.
Sam goes to the counter and gets one of the staff to help clear up the mess, and as the girl cleans up the glass Sam checks on Tracy, who’s standing outside, leaning on a wall.
“Heh, sorry about that, needed to get outside. Did I break something? I thought I heard something, but I wasn’t sure.”
“Just a glass.”
“Oh. Right. Well, I’m feeling better now, I think I should go in and apologise, and you probably have coffee to finish.”
As they go back into the shop, the girl still hasn’t finished clearing up the bits of glass.
“Sam, can you get me a coffee? I’ll give you the money back, I’m just going to help the girl, ok?”
As she nods, Tracy bends down to help finish tidying up, and apologises to the assistant. She orders another coffee, and while she’s at the counter, something occurs to her.
Tracy’s glass had shattered before it hit the ground.
She had been watching Tracy leave the shop, when she heard the sound of the glass breaking; as she had turned to look at the broken glass, she saw the pieces continue to fall before they hit the ground. As she thinks through what this means, she takes the fresh coffee down to where Tracy is sitting, having finished clearing up.
“I’m so sorry about this, Sam, I’m always doing things like this. Guess I’m just a klutz. How much do I owe you for the coffee?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You’re sure? Cool, thanks!”
“How’s the head?”
“Oh, It’s feeling better now, which is good. Sometimes they can last for ages and ages, others they just come and go, like this one.”
“And…are they always this bad?
“Uhm…not always, why do you ask?”
“Just wondering. Maybe you should see a doctor?”
She’s drinking her coffee, and so doesn’t notice Tracy’s eyes start to harden.
“And why would I do that? They go away again, you know. Its not like I’ve broke my head or something, you know? And anyway, what would they say? ‘I’m sorry, Tracy, it appears you have a headache. Please go away and stop bothering me.’”
“What? No, I just mean…”
“Yeah, you and my mother both. “There’s something wrong, you get headaches, that’s not right.” Well yes I do get headaches, but so does everyone else. And it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me. Not ONE thing!”
And with that Tracy storms out of the café, and into the street.
“Oh shit.”
She notices that in Tracy’s haste, she’s left her coat behind. She finishes her coffee and then goes out to look for Tracy. It isn’t difficult, since the girl is standing in the same place as before, except this time, she looks extremely embarrassed.
“Oh God, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to get so…you know…”
“Its ok. Your coat?”
She holds out Tracy’s coat to her, and the girl lifts it off her.
“So, where do we go to get ready?”
“You still want to go out? After…you know…”
She nods.
“Great! Well…we’ll need to collect clothes for you, unless you want to buy some, and then we can go back to my place and get ready there. Sound good to you? Lets go!”
Chapter 3
We eventually make it to the Mandela Hall, in the Students Union. It might not look like much, but I think its one of the best places to go in the whole of Belfast. It plays great music, the atmosphere is good, the drink is very cheap, and there’s plenty of it. I wanted to be here for nine o’clock, but the lads in my house kept talking to Sam, and offering to take her out places. I think they amused her more than anything, but whatever they did, it seemed to cheer her up a bit.
Sam looks around when we get in; when she sees the bar, she heads straight for it. I follow her over, and recognize one of the bar staff. When she sees me, she nods, finishes pouring her pint and then comes over to me.
“Give us a Double tequila, with the salt and lemon thing, and…Sam? What do you want?”
“Same!”
“Aye, Gail, make it two doubles, thanks”
Gail sets up the 2 drinks, and leaves the lemon slices out for us.
“You want to race them? Or just in our own time?”
Sam grins, then picks up her glass.
“Race them.”
“Fair enough. Go!”
Salt. Tequila. Lemon.
We’re pretty much the same time, and Sam grins at me. “Another?”
“Fuck, aye. Gail? Same again, when you get a chance, thanks.”
After about 4 more doubles, I feel as if its time for some dancing. I don’t know how Sam feels about it, but I drag her out onto the dance floor anyway. I’m happy enough to be dancing, and don’t really notice the music, just the beat. The music is very rhythmical with lots of drum beats.
I look around at Sam, and she’s lost in the music, like it’s taken over her. People are stopping to watch her, and she doesn’t even notice. She is a fantastic dancer. It doesn’t even faze her when some drunken idiot starts trying to dance along with her, she just carries on dancing around him.
Eventually, the drunken bloke sees someone else to dance with (not me, thank god) and wanders off. When Sam eventually stops dancing, we head back to the bar for more drinks (Mexican beer for me, Sam wants Coors or something).
“You were having fun out there!”
She turns and just grins at me, before downing her bottle of beer. At that moment, the DJ starts talking, which is unusual, since he’s just let the music go on all night up until now.
“Since this is Mexican night tonight, we thought we’d give you all a bit of a challenge! We need ten drunken idiots…I mean volunteers…for this little game. Who’s up for it?”
“Come on, sounds like fun!”
She’s grabbed my wrist, and pulling me forward to underneath the DJ’s box.
“Wha…Sam? What are you doing?”
“We’ll play!”
Strange…Sam’s voice sounded…different. I shrug it off as me being ever so tipsy (well, six double tequilas and some bottles of beer, plus a few random drinks will do that to you), but I’m almost certain she spoke differently, and in a different accent? Nah, can’t be. I need to drink more. So I do.
We get dragged up on stage, along with eight other “Volunteers”. Our task, should we choose to accept it, is to eat 10 chillies, the little red type, and then down a pint, in as little time as possible. Before I have time to say “I don’t like Chillies”, the buzzer goes. Thank God I had that drink.
I hate chillies. I hate them, but I still eat them, and then down my pint. I look around to see who else has finished, and see that it’s just Sam, some guy and me. The other seven people are still gagging on the chillies.
“Well, it looks as if we have a tie, people! These two lovely ladies, who are called…”
The DJ holds out the microphone to each of us.
“Samantha”
“Oh, a blow-in in our midst! How interesting. and you are..”
“Tracy”
“And a brave young man, who we shall call…"
“Jim”
“Ok! So Samantha, Tracy and Jim are all equal when it comes to drinking pints and eating chillies. Let’s see how they get on with the Tequila! And remember people, there’s a prize in it for the winner! A bottle of Cuervo Gold Tequila, plus your own worm!”
I look at Sam, and we grin at each other. Poor Jim, I don’t think he stands a chance. The challenge is to drink, as quickly as possible, a tequila slammer, followed by a tequila shooter, followed by a Montana Shooter. The DJ explains how all the drinks are to be taken, in case no-one understands the terms, and then the barstaff set up the three drinks in front of us.
It’s all over very quickly, and Sam wins by about half a second, followed by me, and then Jim. Sam gets the bottle of tequila, and a cuddly toy worm, which she gives to me, and a round of applause.
“Thank you for playing, people! We’ll have another game later on tonight! And now, a special slow set, for all you latino lovers out there. We have a true mix of Mexican music for you tonight! So here we go, with U2, and One.”
As we come down off the stage, Sam looks confused.
“I thought…They’re Irish…”
“Yeah, its *hic* oh…’scuse me…it’s a term for people from Down South. They’re south of the border, you see. They’re Mexicans. Hehehehe, thanks for the worm, he’s cute. I shall call him Jim.”
Sam looks at me and begins to laugh. I must look drunker than I feel, and I feel pretty tipsy. Not drunk, though. It takes a hell of a lot to make me drunk, and I haven’t had anywhere near that amount.
All of a sudden, she stops laughing. I look round, expecting to see that someone has bumped into her, but she’s just standing there, with her hand to her mouth, staring at the ground.
“Sam? You alright?”
She looks up at me, and I feel extremely sober once more. She looks right at me, and I can see her eyes. They look as if something deep inside her has been shattered, and it’s almost more than she can bear. Then she blinks, and it’s as if nothing had happened.
“Sam? Do you want to go? You can stay at my place if you want.”
She doesn’t say anything, just nods.
……
She’s having a good time tonight. The music helps her forget what might be happening with Charlie, and the drink is surprisingly good. Winning the bottle of Tequila is an added bonus, but it wasn’t a particularly difficult challenge for her, since she wasn’t drunk at all.
The reference to U2 as Mexicans confuses her, until Tracy explains the in-joke. All in all, it’s been a pretty good night.
And then Charlie tells her the news.
“Samantha?”
“Yes Charlie? Is he ok?” please let him be ok, please…
“Physically, yes, he’s fine, but… I’m so sorry, Samantha. Logan remembers nothing of his regained memories. He thinks he’s had a bad accident on his bike. He seems a little disorientated at the minute, he knows something is missing, but not what. I am so sorry, my dear. If there is anythi…”
“Thank you, Charlie. Just…Just make sure he’s ok.”
She closes her mind to him. She’s alone again, and wants to keep it that way.
Her first thought is how ironic his timing is. U2 are mid-song, and the lyrics sum up how she feels.
Did I ask too much, more than a lot
You gave me nothing, now it's all I got
We're one, but we're not the same
Well, we hurt each other, then we do it again
“Sam? You alright?”
She looks up at the girl, and Tracy looks so concerned that she almost tells her everything. Why should she be the only one to suffer? Let someone else know how I feel, just let go for once, God damn it, Frank, JUST LET ME BE!
She closes her eyes for only a millisecond, but as she does so, she hears his voice
“Yer one o’the strongest people I know, darlin’. Ya got through it before, an’ ya can do it again. Fer me, darlin’. Be strong.”
She realises he’s right as she opens her eyes, and forces everything back down. She tries a smile, but it doesn’t work, not yet.
“Sam? Do you want to go? You can stay at my place if you want.”
She looks at Tracy again, and nods. She doesn’t trust herself to speak yet.
As they leave the Union, and begin the walk back to Tracy’s place, she starts to count up all they had to drink, and realises exactly how much they both had. It’s not a problem for her, especially with the amount of noise in that place, but Tracy shouldn’t even be standing, let alone walking and talking. Ok, she breaks glasses when she gets headaches, and drinks almost as much as I can with no problems…She has to be a mutant.
Just then, Tracy turns to her.
“Sam? I was wondering, if you wanted to go out with all of us tomorrow night. It’s just, there’s a band playing down in the town, and I know them. They’re really good. You fancy going?”
She smiles at her, before replying
“That would be great, thanks.”
Chapter 4
Kent sits in the pub, and sips at his pint. He can’t quite get over just how much nicer the beer is here, so he’s drinking it slower. He arrived at the pub early, to get a good look around. If he’s going to spend the evening here, he might as well know where everything is, especially the cigarette machine. He had also arrived early enough to get a pub meal before they stop serving, and now he’s sitting at a window seat, watching as the tail end of the five o’clock rush goes past.
I start getting ready for going to the gig quite early, since I had promised to help the band set up their equipment. Sam offers to come down and help as well, and mentions something about helping with the sound test.
“Heh, you a sound engineer as well as a geologist?”
She just looks at me, smiles and walks off to get ready.
“You’ll see.”
“Oh, do you need any more clothes? You don’t want to call down to the hotel, do you?”
“Should be fine, thank you.”
After I’ve showered and changed, Sam goes in to get ready. After about ten minutes, I knock on the bathroom door.
“Sam? Did I leave you enough towels?”
I don’t think she hears me, so I go to knock on the door once more, when I start hearing a voice. Except, it isn’t Sam. It’s a man’s voice.
“…love ya Sam, I always have. I know ya feel the same. I won't let ya go till ya agree ta be my wife. Not tomorrow…”
How…? A man? In the bathroom? PROPOSING?
I walk away from the door, quite confused.
I’m in the kitchen, making coffee, when Sam comes out of the bathroom.
“Did you have enough towels?”
“Yes, thank you.”
I hand her a coffee, and go down to the bathroom, to get any damp towels for the laundry. There’s no one in the bathroom, and I would have heard them leave, I know I would. Then I notice the top window is open. I can hear the TV from downstairs quite clearly. It must have been that.
Kent is enjoying himself tonight. He hasn’t done anything other than sit at the window, nursing his pint, but he enjoys the fact that he’s not expected to be doing anything. His watch says it’s only half past seven, which means he has another two and a half hours until he has to move upstairs. That suits him fine, and he orders another pint before making himself comfortable. I could get used to this, quite easily.
We get down to the pub at about half eight, and after a little argument with one of the bouncers, we get allowed upstairs to help set up the equipment and start drinking. It takes about forty minutes to get everything set up to the bands satisfaction, and then the sound tests begin.
After the lads belt out a couple of their songs, Sam surprises me by getting up and asking if she could join in. After they get over the shock, Paul and Stephen, the two singers, help Sam onto the stage. Paul hands over his microphone and goes to get a drink, while Stephen checks what Sam wants to sing.
“One of your songs.”
“Are you sure? I thought this was your first time hearing us…”
She nods, and Rory starts drumming. Stephen starts singing after Benny and Aonghus join in on lead and bass guitar, and cues Sam in when it’s her turn. She is note and word perfect on all the songs that she sings, and when she harmonises with Stephen, it’s amazing to hear, and it gives the songs a completely different feel.
After about fifteen minutes, she turns to Stephen, thanks him and the rest of the band and then steps down off the stage.
“Ok, what else can you do? All-singing, All-dancing geologist. You’d be fun to have on field trips.”
She just nods, and takes a few sips from her glass of water.
“How’d you learn the words so quick? You only heard them once, and you didn’t make one mistake!”
“Just a knack, I guess.”
Just then, the rest of the people from the house arrive, and they all want to talk with Sam. I go to get another drink, and end up being roped into buying a round.
Kent notices a lot of people leaving to go upstairs, and checks his watch. It’s only 9.40. I’ll finish this pint and then go upstairs. I wonder if Tracy’s there yet.
I don’t get a chance to talk to Sam until about a quarter to ten.
“Oh, I forgot to mention, there’s another Canadian coming here tonight, bloke called Kent Williams”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I should introduce you two. Actually, you might know who he works for, its some big company I only heard about recently. Some pharmaceutical company, uhm…let me think…Massey, that’s it. Massey Pharmaceuticals Ltd. Have you heard of them? Kent says it’s a big company, but like I said, I hadn’t heard about them until I met him again, and then there was something in the news about them. Must just be big back in Canada.”
“Ma…Massey?”
“uh huh. You know them? Oh! There he is now! Kent!! Over here!”
Kent has just walked in the door, and he looks about to see where my voice is coming from. I walk over to meet him, and offer him a pint.
“No thank you, I’ve had about three already, I have to go into the office tomorrow.”
“On a Saturday? That sucks. Oh, I want you to meet someone.”
I grab his hand, and bring him over to the table where Sam is. That’s funny…she looks scared or something.
“Kent Williams, I’d like you to meet Samantha Logan. She’s a Geology student from Cana…Ow! Kent! Stop it! OW! Let go, that hurts!”
He’s grabbed my arm! And he’s squeezing it! Fuck me, it hurts! I turn to look at him, and he has the most horrible sneer on his face.
“Do come outside with us, “Samantha”, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss this.”
“Kent, what…ow…are you doing…ow…”
Kent enters the upstairs room where the band is going to play, and immediately hears Tracy shouting for him. Unfortunately, he can’t see her, as there are too many people in the way. Then he sees her making her way towards him. There’s someone over where she was sitting and he almost recognises her.
“Hey Kent! I’m glad you could make it! Do you want a pint of anything? There’s some great offers on tonight.”
“No thank you, I’ve had about three already, I have to go into the office tomorrow.”
“On a Saturday? That sucks. Oh, I want you to meet someone.”
Tracy takes his hand and guides him towards that woman. There’s something about her, like he knows her…but he can’t place her.
“Kent Williams, I’d like you to meet Samantha Logan…”
Those are the last words Kent hears, before the mental suggestion in his head activates.
And we leave the pub.
Chapter 5
“Where is the nearest place where we can be alone? Child? Answer me!”
“Let go of me, Kent, you’re hurting me.”
“ANSWER ME!”
“B..B..Behind the cinema, there’s a car park…its usually empty…Will you let go of my arm? I can’t feel my hand any more”
“Be quiet, child.”
Where’s Sam? He told her to come with us…where is she? I can’t feel my arm below the elbo…OOOW Fuck it hurts…
“Where is dear “Samantha”, hmmm? It’s extremely rude of her to not come with us, don’t you think, child? Never mind, we don’t need her. Now, this car park?”
Then he leans over to whisper in my ear.
“Oh, and don’t even think about calling out for help, or I will break every bone in your arm. One at a time.”
As if to prove his point, he grabs my wrist, and starts to squeeze. I don’t want to, but I start to whimper as I feel the bones grind together. Something cracks but I still can’t feel anything below my left elbow.
Kent puts his arm around my shoulders then, and he grabs my right shoulder. I guess it’s to stop me from going anywhere. Not that I’m planning on it. Since he let go of my elbow, the blood has been getting back into my arm, and the pain is growing with each second. When it reaches my wrist, the pain is too much, and my sight starts to get a bit blurry. I’ve never broken anything before. Is it always this bad?
“What are you doing, child? Your little power is a touch useless at the minute.”
“What?”
“I know what you are. I know what you can do. I’ll wager I know more about you than you do. Your pathetic attempts to get away from me are useless. You are untrained, and unfocused. All you are doing is causing some shopkeepers to have to spend more money.”
“What? What do you…*groan*…what do you mean? Powers?”
He spins me round to look at where we’ve been walking. Every single shop window has been broken. Some have huge cracks in them, others are obviously Safety glass, as the entire window is a mass of tiny glass shards.
“You did that. Now come on, where is this car park.”
As she was leaving the pub behind Tracy and Kent, her mind was racing. Frank? It can’t be, he’s dead. But Kent works for him…oh God, no…Frank’s been into Kent’s head. He must have been bringing in the kids, to see if their genes could have kept him alive. Kent must have been sent for Tracy.
As a result, she is lagging behind the pair. She can still hear them, and when Tracy tells him about the car park, she quietly “echoes” through all that Tracy had told her on the previous day, and works out where the car park is.
She also realises that she knows a different route to it, and runs off to the car park. She gets there with enough time to hide beside the recycling bins before Kent drags Tracy into the place.
Kent near enough throws me into the car park, and it jars my arm enough that I cry out.
“Oh, do be quiet. It’s only a broken wrist. Now tell me, what has our dear Samantha told you?”
“What are you talking about? Sam’s a Transfer student, I was showing her around until she got her bearings…”
“That is utter bullshit. Stop lying to me, and tell me what she told you!!!”
“I’m telling the truth! She’s a mature geology student from Canada, and she transferred over here for a semester. I was asked to help her get settled in. That’s it. She hasn’t told me anything! I swear it! Kent? What are you doing? No!”
As he’s moving towards me, he grabs for my wrist. He gets it, and starts to squeeze more and more, and I think I’m going to be sick…no, I think I might pass out.
She hears everything, and when Tracy shouts “No!”, she comes out of her hiding place, to see Kent standing over Tracy, with his hands on her wrist, and he’s squeezing. Tracy passes out after about half a minute.
“Frank!”
“Ah! There you are, my dear Sarah. Although, you should know, I’m not Frank.”
“Kent, then.”
“No, I’m afraid Kent is no more. Kent stopped being, the instant your little girl introduced us. I’m the Security Measure. Frank guessed you might do something like this, and so he installed one in the people he sent out to bring in the genes. If you hadn’t showed up, Kent would have decided to take Tracy back home.
Now that you’re here, of course, I’m afraid I’ll have to kill you, and maybe even Tracy. After all, if I get the body into storage quick enough, there won’t be any damage to her genes, and Frank can get his serum.”
“I see a small problem.”
“Oh really? What would this problem be?”
“Well, two problems, really. First, you really should keep up to date. Frank’s been dead for at least two weeks. I should know, I was at his funeral. Second, the day you kill anyone is the day Hell freezes over.”
Since Tracy is unconscious, and there is no one else there, she Echoes the entire conversation, using almost as many voices as there were words in her sentences.
As the Kent-thing takes in this news, she moves forward, towards Tracy.
“Even if I did believe you, which I don’t, I’m still going to kill you. I may not be Frank, but I know what he thought. And you, my dear, are not long for this world.”
“That’s where yer mistaken, bub!”
She attacks, and takes “Kent” by surprise. As she relaxes into the fighting moves, all her anger and frustration of the last few days get poured into her attack. After a while, she doesn’t even need to think about her moves, and “Kent” staggers backwards under the force of her attack.
She doesn’t let up for a second, and so “Kent” doesn’t even get a chance to think of an offensive move. After a few minutes, she realises that Tracy hasn’t started to come round yet, so she moves in for the finish. A few nerve pinches later, she stands over the slumped body of Kent.
She then runs over to see Tracy. As she tries to lift the girl onto her feet, she notices her left wrist. The bruising looks bad enough, but the way the hand is hanging…it’s definitely broken. Taking care not to knock the wrist, she manages to get Tracy upright; she leaves the area as Tracy begins to come round.
“Ugh..wha?…Sam? Whas happnin? My han’ hurts…FUCK! Kent!..he…he went mad!”
“It’s ok, come on, I’m taking you home.”
“No, not here, Kent knows where it is, I told him the address…*groan*…ooooh fuck, my hand hurts…”
“It’s your wrist, actually. Kent was strong enough to break some of the bones in your wrist. Where do you want to go? Come on, I rented a car yesterday morning before I went to Queens.”
“Ok…first, I want a load of painkillers, and something to strap this up, I keep trying to move it…Then, I just want to go home. To my mum. Please?”
She nods.
After a brief stop at Sam’s hotel to get some bandages and painkillers they go to Sam’s car. She bandages Tracy’s wrist up, gives her the painkillers, and they set off for Derry.
“So, what do you want to know?”
Chapter 6
There is silence in the car for a few minutes, as she drives away from Belfast. She can see Tracy is cradling her left arm, and the bumps in the road don’t help the girl’s arm feel any better. Eventually, Tracy turns to face her.
“What do I want to know? I want to know why Kent broke my wrist. I want to know what he thinks you told me. I want to know who you are. For starters.”
“Fair enough. I guess…. Kent works for…”
“Massey Pharmaceuticals, I know. I told you that!”
“Yes. I know. Shit…how do I say this….”
I might as well, she’ll find out some time
“Name someone we’ve met. Both of us, I mean.”
“What? What’s this got to do with anything?”
“Just…name someone.”
“Ok. The barman. The one in the pub tonight.”
Here goes nothing
“Alright lads, first round is on the house. Band members only, mind!”
She looks over at Tracy, who is staring at her, open mouthed.
“You…you didn’t move your lips…that was him exactly…oh fuck…”
“Tracy, I’d like for you to meet Samantha Logan, a mature geology student from Canada.”
“That’s Norman…”
“Uh huh, s’just…a headache. Get them…from time…to time…”
“Me? How…how are you doing that?”
A song, I think
“You ask me to enter, and then you make me crawl. And I can’t be holding on….”
“Holy fuck…instruments?”
“I’m a mutant. I can reproduce sounds. Any sound I’ve heard. Voices, animals, machines, instruments, you name it.”
She is piecing her conversation together again, like she did in the car park. Tracy gets a little bit startled at the multitude of voices, but recovers fairly quickly. She still has a wild look around the eyes, though.
“People call me Echo, for obvious reasons.”
“No shit.”
Tracy doesn’t speak for a while, she just stares out into the night. They drive for maybe twenty miles before she speaks again. When she does, she doesn’t look round, she talks to the window.
My wrist is killing me. I focus for a while on trying to not scream or groan or cry with the pain. Once I’m sure I’m not going to do anything like that, I start to talk
“I broke that glass, you know. I don’t mean that I knocked it off the table, either…I broke it…my headache just…I don’t know…I’ve been getting headaches since I was about fourteen, and things always happen.
It’s like…it’s like I push the headache away, and it goes and breaks stuff. I’ve just pretended I’m clumsy all this time. I broke all those windows too, on the way to the car park. I didn’t mean to, but he hurt my wrist, and…I made some of the pain go away into the windows…He felt me do it, and showed me what I’d done…said it was useless… “
I don’t know what else to say, so I shut up for a while.
“So…I take it you aren’t a geology student, are you? You lied to Norman.”
“No, I’m not a student.”
“Then why are you over here? Oh god…” We’ve just gone over a pothole in the road, and it hurts like hell. “Have you any more painkillers? Or better yet, some whiskey…”
“Here, but be careful. You’ve had four already.”
Sam hands over the rest of the painkillers.
“Why am I here? Simple. To help you.”
“What?”
“You remember the name of Kent’s Company?”
I nod.
“The owner, Frank Massey…he…he was also a mutant. He could…read minds, and he could get…”
Sam looks really upset. I guess that explains why she stops speaking, and starts using all the voices again.
“Frank could manipulate minds. Not only that, but he had developed a way of extending his life, using…certain DNA strands only found in certain mutants…he set up a database, found and tracked these mutants. Then, when he felt he would need more DNA…He’d bring in one of those mutants, and…I guess, he’d try and harvest them. I gained access to this database…You’re on his list.”
“I’m what? How…me? What have I got…me???”
What has this got to do with Kent? I don’t get it…
“You. You have whatever it is Frank wanted. I’d hoped I would have reached you
earlier, and then none of this would have happened. Unfortunately, he got to you first. He sent Kent to bring you back.”
“WHAT?! Kent?”
“Let me finish! Like I said, Frank could manipulate minds. He gave Kent the suggestion that he would like you, and offer to take you back to Canada for a holiday.”
“How do you know this?”
“I was told. Unfortunately, Frank guessed I would be trying to stop him, and installed a “Security Device” in Kent’s head. When you introduced me to him, it triggered the programme. It’s taken over Kent. It’s programmed to take you to Frank, and to get rid of me. That’s why “Kent” knew me, and it was the programme that broke your wrist, not Kent. The ironic thing is, none of this is necessary. Frank’s dead.”
“Yeah, I saw something about it in the papers. Why you, though?”
“Huh?”
“Why does it want to kill you? What did you do to Frank?”
She doesn’t answer, at all. We drive along in almost silence for a while, the only noises being me groaning when the car bumps over something.
“We need to get that seen to. Is there a hospital on the way?”
I nod and then wince.
“I’ll show it to you…pretty easy…to find.”
I look down at my hand, and the bruising is worse. It’s reached past the end of the bandages, and the bases of my fingers have turned black already. The Claddagh ring I’m wearing is far too tight, so I take it off and hand it to Sam.
“Here…hold onto it for me?”
She takes the ring off me and puts it in her pocket.
Eventually, we reach the hospital, and after a small wait of about two hours, I get my wrist put in plaster, some industrial strength painkillers (Which look like giant red smarties to me) and instructions to be more careful when I’m out drinking, and to watch how I fall. There's no point in going to my parents house at four in the morning, and even less point in trying to get a hotel room, so we park the car in a car park, and try to get some rest.
Chapter 7
Sleeping, or rather, trying to sleep in the front seat of a rental car is not something I intend to repeat for a very long time. I have kinks in places I didn’t even know existed. The only good thing is that I can't feel my wrist. The magic smarties are working fine, and the only way I’m aware of my arm is that it feels heavier than normal. That’ll be the cast, I’m guessing.
I feel slightly “out of it” as well, and that’s probably due to the amount of painkillers I’ve taken in the last twelve hours or so, as well as the lack of sleep. Its like I’ve been drinking for a few hours. I have the “slow vision” thing going on, you know, when you move your head, and it takes a wee while for your sight to catch on that you aren’t looking at the same place any more. Lots of fun.
Anyway, while I’m wondering just what shade of blue-black my wrist is under the cast, I miss what Sam’s saying.
“Hunh? Sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked what time you wanted to go to your parents at. It’s after Eight thirty now.”
“I want to get something to eat first. I don’t like taking these tablets on an empty stomach.”
After calling in at the local supermarket, Sam drives us round to my mum and dads house. Derry isn’t what you’d call big, so it doesn’t take that long. We get to the house at about quarter past nine, and park the car in the drive. I get the key my mum always hides in the back yard, and let us in. It feels good to come home, especially since I haven’t been here in about two months. Even then, it was only for a day. I start to make us some coffee.
“You have a cat?”
Sam is standing looking at the bowl of cat-food beside the back door.
“Candy. She’s my mum’s cat really, and she’s spoilt rotten. She’s normally asleep on the back of the sofa, in the living room. We can go sit in there with the coffee, if you want. Mum and Dad are at work, so we’ll have the house to ourselves, and if you want, after lunchtime, I could take you over to the city centre.”
“Sounds good.”
Sam makes me go and sit down, and she finishes making the coffee. We move into the living room, and Sam immediately moves over to the photos my mum has on display.
Strange, that’s a lot more than usual
“Are these you?”
“Yeah, the small one with the blonde ‘fro, that’s me. Cute wee thing, wasn’t I?”
Sam seems very interested in my baby photos, and its almost like mum put them out on purpose. I hate the damn things; I’ve never liked getting my photo taken, at any age.
I hear Candy coming down the stairs; she must have been asleep up on my bed when we came in, and our noise woke her up. I walk over to see the photos, and start pointing out who everyone is.
“Such a pretty family it is too, don’t you agree? When I found all the photographs, I just had to put some out for you to see.”
We both freeze.
Oh shit. He’s here.
“I must admit, you’ve been extremely slow in getting here. You are painfully predictable, my dear, I mean, where else do wounded animals go? But I suppose it is to my benefit, so who am I to complain?”
He’s spun me round by now, and has my good arm in his grasp.
“Ah, I see.”
He lifts the arm in the cast, and slowly shakes his head.
"You couldn't deal with a little bit of pain? tut tut. I am terribly sorry about having to do that, but if you won’t co-operate, I will have to punish you. So, you see, it’s your own stupid fault. Thanks for the coffee, though, very kind of you.”
He takes the coffee out of my hand, and drinks it all in one go.
“Rather too milky for me, my dear, but you’ll learn. Oh, and tell your friend that if she wants me out of the way, nerve pinches are a tad redundant. She really has to get rid of that compassionate streak in her. What do you think, Sa…”
“Let go! Let go of me! Don’t you touch me, do you hear?”
All of a sudden, Kent begins to make a noise not unlike a small kitten, a high pitched groaning noise. The fact that my knee has connected quite squarely with his crotch may have a lot to do with it. He lets go of my arm, and slowly curls over onto himself.
“Charlie! CHARLIE!! Can you hear me? CHARLIE!!!”
“Sam..Samantha? what is it? Its four in the morning…Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, really, but I need your help.”
She quickly fills him in on the details of the past few days, especially what has happened to Kent. She notices that Kent is turning Tracy round to face him.
”Is there anything you can do?”
“Can you give me some time? I’m not strong enough unaided, I must reach Cerebro, before I can even begin to help.”
“Of course.”
“…rid of that compassionate streak in her. What do you think, Sa…”
Tracy starts shouting at him, and then…She winces as she sees the force Tracy uses to drive her knee into Kent’s groin. As Kent crumples to the floor, she grabs Tracy’s good arm, and pulls her out of the living room.
“Where can we go? Is there anywhere we can go to try and get away from him?”
She looks at the girl, who seems rather distant.
“Tracy! Tracy, come on. Are you ok to run?”
They go out the back door, and start to run back towards the Supermarket
“Yeah…he followed us…how did…”
“He knows what Frank knows. Frank knew your parents lived here.”
As they run, she notices that things are breaking, like ceramic flower pots, and garden ornaments.
“You have to hold it in, Tracy! He can follow us if we leave a trail.”
“I can’t help it, my wrist’s sore!...I can’t run any more Sam…It hurts too much.”
She gets Tracy to a relatively safe place, a small cul-de-sac in the middle of a housing estate near the girl’s house, and gets her to sit down and take more tablets. Her face is rather grey looking, most likely due to the pain.
“Are you sure I should take more tablets? I mean, it’s only been about an hour since I took the last lot…”
“It’s only this once, I think you’ll be fine, but…I wouldn’t take any more tablets until tomorrow, just to be on the safe side. What do you think?”
“Mmmm, sounds like a plan to me.”
Those painkillers are wearing off quite fast. Either they aren’t as strong as the hospital says they are, which I doubt, or she’s neutralising the drugs before they can really start to work…
“Ok, I want you to stay here. Don’t argue, but you are in no fit state to be dealing with him. Besides, I’ve got an advantage over him he doesn’t know about. You stay here and get better. I’ll be back in a while, ok?”
“Charlie? Are you ready?”
“Yes, my dear. What’s happening?”
She lets him go through the past half-hours events in her head, so he knows exactly what she knows. Then she sends him what she knows of Kent, including the fact that whatever is in charge isn’t Kent at all, and claims that Kent is gone.
At the same time, she follows what Tracy is saying.
“What advantage? Oh…you’ve fought him before, right?”
“Something like that. Now you stay here, ok?”
Tracy nods.
As she runs back towards Tracy’s house, she begins to come up with a plan between her and Charlie.
“Samantha, I’m locating a strange thought pattern in your vicinity. It seems…the thoughts are conflicting…There are two distinct patterns coming from the one source, one seems ordered and almost like a computer programme, although I am sensing it’s in a lot of pain.”
She laughs a little at that
“It is the more dominant of the two. The lesser pattern is scared, confused and lost. It is extremely faint, though. If that is Kent, and it sounds rather like it is, then the persona that is Kent is still in there. If we can ‘dislodge’ the over-riding implant, Kent should resurface, so to speak.”
“If I can distract him, would you be able to get rid of the suggestion? Would it be easier?”
“I think so. I take it you are intending to attack him? If so, he will be concentrating on defending himself, and so will hopefully not notice anything I would do…”
“That sounds like a good enough plan to me, Charlie. How…How is he?”
“He’s fine, my dear. How are you cop-”
“That’s good, as long as he’s alright… Tracy’s house is just ahead. Is Kent near here?”
“Yes. I shall let you get on with it, and I’ll let you know when I am about to start ‘work’, as it were. Good luck, and be careful.”
She approaches the house as if she has every right to be there (no point in making the neighbours think there’s something wrong) and enters through the back door again.
Running really isn’t a good idea when you have a broken bone, believe me. If the bone isn’t being jarred every time one of my feet hits the ground, then it’s causing wave after wave of nausea to make me think I’m going to be ill. After Sam leaves me resting in the cul-de-sac, I spend about five minutes trying to get on top of the pain, and making sure I’m not going to throw up the painkillers.
Once I can think clearly, I start to go over what had happened in the house. It’s early on Saturday morning, so mum and dad should be at home, as should my brother…oh God…where were they? Kent wouldn’t have…he wouldn’t hurt them…oh fuck, I have to go check…
She checks every room in the house, and finds nothing. The mug he had taken off Tracy is lying in pieces on the living room carpet, and some of the photos have been knocked over, but there is no other sign that he had been in the house. She quickly leaves the house, and goes into the back garden. A quick check behind the small wooden shed and inside the garage comes up empty.
Where is he?
Chapter 8
She turns to go back and check the house again, and finds Kent standing in the doorway, leaning on the frame watching her. She jumps, her heart in her throat. How had he slipped up so close behind her? Normally, she can detect another person by the sound of their heartbeat.
“I knew you’d come back, Sarah. You had to.” He straightens as he speaks, advancing menacingly. She backs away into the more open area of the yard. If there’s a fight, and by the looks of things, there will be, she doesn’t want anyone else to see it, and the yard is pretty much enclosed.
“Do you know what I’m going to do to your daughter, Sarah?” Kent asks, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m going to break her pretty little neck, flash freeze the corpse, and send her back to Massey Industries’ home office labelled as caviar. Poetic, don’t you think? She started life as a packaged egg labelled as a human organ. It’s fitting that she end up as packaged organs labelled as eggs.”
As he speaks, he continues to walk towards her, forcing her to go further back into the yard.
Suddenly, he attacks, lunging at her, his hands outstretched.
Samantha easily avoids him, stepping to the side and grabbing his arm. She pulls, swinging him past her and into the side of the garage. She moves in to knock him out, but he leaps to his feet before she can reach him. He grabs for a garden spade in one hand, and gets up, slashing viciously with the rusty tool.
“I don’t need you any longer, Sarah. You were nothing but a disappointment.”
The words are hurtful, but she realises they are just meant to try and put her off. The way Kent says them tells Echo that what Charlie had told her was indeed the case. Kent had been taken over by a program. That was all that was left. Kent, himself, was gone.
Don’t listen to him. Just a distraction. Concentrate, dammit…
She catches the handle of the spade as the blade flashes past her face, and pulls Kent toward her, her enhanced strength a bonus of her mutation and Frank’s experiments. Kent drops the makeshift weapon rather than come within her reach.
“That was too close! Charlie?”
“Yes, Samantha?”
“Kent’s here. Can you do anything? Is my attacking him helping you?”
“I can try. And yes, it is. His shields were surprisingly strong up until a few minutes ago. Whatever you are doing, it is working.”
Kent lunges for her again, his movements slightly stiff, like a puppet. Echo dances inside his reach, landing a solid blow to his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. He stumbles back, gasping.
My wrist hates me. I know this because it’s just one big ball of pain at the minute. All I want to do is curl up in a little ball, and sleep ‘til it’s better. Except…I can’t. He’s in my house. God knows what he could have done to my parents or my wee brother…or Sam. So I keep moving. The minute I get to the top of my street, I can hear sounds of a fight.
“Oh fuck…”
I start to run.
Their fight moves all round the yard, with Kent always on the defensive. He continually taunts her, telling her all the ways he could get Tracy’s body back to Frank, or how he was going to kill her.
Suddenly, Kent charges her again. She reaches up and grabs the cross bar on the revolving clothesline, kicking him in the chest with both feet, and knocking him down again.
“Very good, Sarah,” he murmured, clambering to his feet. He knew she could hear him. “Who taught you that move?” He smiles wickedly. “It sure as hell wasn’t that psychopathic weakling you insisted on taking to your bed.” She glares at him.
“Why, Sarah? Why did you insist on fucking that animal? He was never good enough for you. The thought that you might have cheated on him was all it took to drive you completely from his mind. Does he remember you now?”
The pain of knowing that Logan had, indeed, once again suppressed his memories of their time together, though not for the reasons Frank’s drone stated, combines with her anger at Frank for attacking Logan and Tracy and she loses her temper. She strikes, forgetting for the moment that Kent was an innocent, and aims for his throat. Kent was ready for her, though.
He ducks under what might have been a killing blow and grabs her wrist. With a savage twist, he wrenches her arm up behind her back, causing her to contort, trying to relieve the pressure.
“If I can’t have you, sister dear,” he whispers into her ear, “neither can anyone else!” He grasps her chin with his free hand, ready to break her neck.
I get to my house and run round to the back, just in time to see Kent grab Sam’s arm and twist it up her back.
Oh holy fuck…
I start to walk towards them, as Kent whispers something in Sam’s ear and then…He grabs her throat!
“Let her go!”
The next few minutes are a bit of a blur. I run towards them, and the only thing I can think of is getting him away from her.
So I hit him.
With my cast.
“Oh…oh…oh God…”
Kent lets go of Sam, and staggers about a bit, holding his head, but all I can focus on is my wrist.
It’s exploded, I’m sure of it, Oh God, that hurts, ow, oh fuck, that’s not good…
Suddenly, my face is on fire as well, and I’m on the ground looking up at Kent.
“You stupid bitch. You made me cross, so now I’m just going to have to kill you.
Ever so sorry and all that.”
Then Sam is there, kicking his legs out from under him, and squeezing his neck or something and he drops to the ground.
“Samantha.”
“Charlie?”
“I have managed to penetrate the defences of the inserted program.”
“Go ahead, Charlie. Kent’s down for the count.”
She gets up after checking Kent’s prostrate form and turns to Tracy. The young woman is sitting on the ground with her arm cradled in front of her, her good hand against the cheek damaged by Kent’s blow. She hunkers down next to her.
“Let me see, Tracy,” she says gently, pulling the girl’s hand away from her face. She gently takes her chin in one hand and turns her head so that the light is more directly on her face.
“Hmmm. Doesn’t look too bad. You’re going to have a shiner though. Let me see your wrist.” She examines the cast as well as the flesh above it. The cast isn’t damaged, and the swelling doesn’t seem too bad.
“Well, I don’t think you cracked the plaster, and as long as your arm doesn’t swell too much it should be all right.” She looks Tracy in the eye. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that smacking people about with a broken wrist is a bad thing?”
She‘s afraid Tracy might go into shock, so she makes an extreme effort to vocalise, actually speaking the words herself, rather than using her talent.
“No shit.” Tracy’s voice was barely audible, then she squeaked suddenly, looking past her. She turns toward Kent.
The young man sits up, a look of terror in his eyes for just a moment. Then his eyes roll back into his head and he collapses once more. She approaches him cautiously, but he doesn’t move. She checks for a pulse and finds one, though it isn’t very strong.
“Charlie? What...What happened…He is ok, isn’t he?”
“I’m so sorry, Samantha. The implant went too deep. Frank must have known we’d try this, and “booby-trapped” the implant. When I removed it, it triggered a complete erasure of Kent’s own personality. His body lives, but his mind is gone.”
She sinks to the ground and gives way to the tears that have threatened to overwhelm her since she discovered Frank’s interference.
“Is … is he dead?”
Tracy moves closer on cautious feet until the girl is standing right beside her.
“He might as well be.”
She looks at Kent’s body with regret.
“Oh God…What about my Mum? And my Dad? They should be here with Alan. Did he … did he hurt them?”
“Did who hurt who, Tracy?”
She turns at the new voice, and sees a young man standing at the corner of the house. He’s tall, well over six feet, and he has a confused look on his face. He also looks very tired.
“Alan?”
Oh, thank you God…
“Yeah, what?”
“Where have you been?”
“I stayed at Bryan’s last night…I got a bit too drunk to come home and…Oh God, Tracy, what happened? Your face…and your arm? Who’s this?”
“Never mind that. Where are mum and dad?”
“They were taking Granny to visit her sister today, don’t you remember? Why do you ask? Are you ok? Who hit you?”
“It’s ok, Alan, really…”
I turn to smile at Sam, to tell her its ok, they’re safe, except my mouth doesn’t work, and then the world spins and goes black.
Epilogue
Dear Sam,
I hope you had a good flight back to Canada, although it would have been nice if you could have stayed on a bit longer. This is just a short note to let you know what’s happening.
I’ll get the bad news over with first. Kent’s memory loss is permanent, it seems. The doctors say he’s got the mind of a baby. He’ll need hospital treatment for the next 10 years at least. I can’t help feeling this is all my fault, if I’d never introduced you two, he’d be ok, and nothing bad would have happened. The worst thing is, I haven’t been able to go and visit him. I don’t know if I’m scared in case the thing is still in his head, or if I’m scared because of what’s happened to him, but I just can’t seem to go. Does this make me a bad person? God, I hope not.
Mum kept asking what had happened, how I got a black eye, and so on. I just made it up on the spot, I really hope she bought it. I told her that Kent was a friend from Canada, who had wanted to see Derry, and that you were a foreign student I had made friends with, who wanted to come along as well. I said that we were sitting in the living room having a coffee, when Kent started feeling faint. He stood up to go outside for fresh air, and fell over, dropping his mug. We took him outside, where he had some sort of fit, and I got hit while trying to restrain him, and he hit his head when he fell. It sounds crap, I know, but she doesn’t ask about it anymore, so that’s good.
My wrist is much better now, the doctors couldn’t believe how quickly it’s healed. The cast was off after a week, and it’s as good as new now. And I told mum I had a bit too much to drink and had an awkward fall, landed on my wrist, and hopefully she believes that one as well. My dad just laughed at that, and said, “That’ll learn you.”
Remember the band we went to see? Well, they won a “Battle of the Bands” competition, and they won time in a recording studio, and a permanent spot in the pub we were in! Plus lots of booze and money, of course. Things are looking up for them!
All the lads from the flat say hi! And they want to know when you’re coming back over. I think some of them like you, Sam!
I’ve been practising with my “gift”, you know. I don’t get as many headaches, and I’ve found all these little tricks I can do! I can squash Coke cans better than anyone, and I can break bottles and stuff. I’m still not too good at fine-tuning it, but at least I’m working at it. Everyone is telling me how I’ve become “Un-klutz-like”, which is a good thing. I also don’t have to pay a fortune for replacing mugs and glasses anymore, so that’s good, more money for spending in the pub. I haven’t told anyone yet about it, you’re still the only person who knows. I haven’t even told Alan, or my parents. I don’t think they’d be upset or anything, I just don’t think I should tell them. Mum would only panic, Dad would start asking questions, and Alan would try and get me to do party tricks for his mates or something.
Well, I’d better go. I’m sorry this isn’t any longer, but I have exams to revise for and a dissertation to finish. Sucks, I know. Be thankful you aren’t a real student, there’s too much coursework. I can’t wait to get a break from all these essays and reports. I do want to do a Masters, but I want to take a break first. I could tour the world or something. I’ve always wanted to tour the States and Canada, I think that would be good. I’ve been thinking about applying for a masters over your side of the pond, actually. There’s a course I’m interested in, it’s being offered by a University in Toronto, a place called Ryerson. It looks good.
Anyway, I really HAVE to go now, I need to get to the Science Library before it shuts. I need to spend about £10 on copying papers. Not fun.
Ok, I’m going. I’ll see you sometime soon, I hope!
Luv,
Tracy