It is like the aftermath of a storm. Standing, waiting. Wondering if some tree has been shaken loose of its roots, will topple and fall, crushing all in its path.
Mostly I stare at Kayla. If looks could kill, they’d have dropped her on Hiroshima. Then she slowly lets the muscles slacken.
“Feckin’ told you,” she says.
I claw gently at my cheeks, and bite my tongue. Because it’s done now. We fired the long shot and missed the target. That’s all there is to it. Further recriminations will only get me turned into an Arthur Wallace-shaped kebab.
And, honestly, I think I have a little sympathy for Kayla’s position after all that. Bloody teenagers.
“All right. All right,” I say, trying to swallow my disappointment and move on. Trying to bring some semblance of clear-headed plan to the surface.
But in the end, we don’t have leads so much as we have a tattered pile of frayed ends. “We’re in the same place,” I say. “We still need to know more about the Uhrwerkmänner. About Friedrich. The devil is in the details.” I think aloud in the hopes someone else will jump in when they’re good and ready. “Tabitha is looking at the papers we got from Nepal. So that leaves two sources. Whatever we didn’t have time to look at in Lang’s underground hidey-hole in London and the Uhrwerkmänner themselves.”
“Don’t think they’re feeling overly chatty right now,” Hannah points out.
“Which is why,” I say, the next steps clicking their heels in my head to show they’re ready now, “you are going to take your winning personality to London to retrieve anything you think might be interesting from Lang’s papers.”
“Messenger duty?” She sounds incredulous.
“While Kayla and myself go to the Uhrwerkmänner in Sheffield and charm and cajole them in equal parts until they tell us something useful.” I nod. “They know more than they’re sharing.” I say it like it’s a fact and not a prayer.
Hannah purses her lips.
“Come on,” I say, “let’s hear the better plan. You’ve only got a little while to get these off your chest.”
There’s cynicism in Hannah’s eyes. “When you say a little time, are you saying it because of my transfer, or because your fuck-ups are going to end the world?”
“You’re one of us too, right now,” I say. “These are your fuck-ups as much as mine.”
Hannah stares at me for a moment. I expect hostility, but it’s something more subtle than that. I wish I knew what.
“London then,” she says after a moment.
“London,” I say.
“Whatever.” A moment later Kayla and I are alone in the room.
“You drive.” Kayla tosses her keys to me as we approach her car. I manage to get a hand up before they break my nose.
To describe the silence as tense would be a little like describing the Uhrwerkmänner as giant mechanical robots designed by the German, Joseph Lang. It would be describing it perfectly.
As we pull out into traffic I feel I need to break the silence before it breaks me. “We have to do something about Clyde,” I say. “Talk him back down. I can—”
“Shh,” Kayla hisses at me.
I glance over. She has her mobile held to her ear. “Yes,” she says, her voice far softer than I’ve ever heard it before, the harsh edges of her accent become gentle curves. “Doctor Merrigold please.” A pause. “Yes, I’ll hold.”
God, is Kayla going to make a booty call while I’m in the car with her? Though some old-fashioned part of me is impressed that she’s hooking up with a doctor at least.
The traffic nudges forward, disgorging us into a faster moving road—cars eager to escape Oxford’s maze of streets.
“Hello,” Kayla says, pauses. “Yes, I’ve thought it over and I looked at the files you’ve given me.” Another pause. “Yes, I found a candidate I like. A very impressive selection. Thank you.” Another pause. Then a laugh. Soft and sweet. And genuine, which is what really blows me away. “Yes. Next week sometime? Tuesday sounds fantastic.” She hangs up. After a moment she catches me looking.
“Feckin’ what?”
“Who—” I start.
“Feckin’ personal business,” she snaps.
I shrug, still mindful that my pre-emptive death could trigger a whole end-of-the-world type of scenario. We escape the gravity of Oxford’s roads.
“Sperm bank,” Kayla says suddenly. I almost crash into an oncoming Vauxhall.
“What?” I manage.
“On the phone earlier,” she says. “It were the sperm bank. I’ve picked one to baste my belly.”
Well there’s a lovely turn of phrase. I try to avoid the image it wants to summon. “Oh,” I say. I think I even manage to keep my voice level. Then an additional concern hits me. “Not the guy from the restaurant?” I say. My voice is less steady this time.
Kayla snorts. “No, not that wee one. Pretty, but far too feckin’ interested in organic composting for me to want to carry on his feckin’ seed for another generation.”
Personally, I think organic composting sounds like a noble goal, but maybe it’s not a good opening gambit on a first date. There again, given the state of my love life maybe I’m not one to give advice.
I try to think of more substantive commentary, mindful of Kayla’s threat regarding her sword and my posterior.
I settle for a good, meaningful, “You’re sure about this?”
“I just rang the fecker and made the appointment.”
I nod. There is that, but…
“And you saw her,” Kayla says more quietly, maybe sensing my unspoken objection. “She’s not interested in me any more. She’s off to bigger, better things. I’m wee, and mortal, and… old. She’s a Dreamer. What can I offer her that infinite possibilities can’t?” She suddenly sounds very defeated. But then she rallies. “I’m going to start over. My child. Something I have a stake in. That has a stake in me. I’m taking charge of my future. Some bullshit like that anyway.” She looks at me, and the belligerent fire is back in her eye. “Feck this preordained destiny bullshit, I feckin’ say. I’m captain of my own feckin’ ship. And it’s a pirate ship, and we drink rum every night, and piss on our enemies. And anyone who wants to steer the feckin’ tiller is going to have to go through feckin’ me.” There is a swagger in these last words, a tricky thing to pull off in a car passenger seat, but she pulls it off.
“Aye captain.” I even throw her a salute.
“You making feckin’ fun of me, Agent feckin’ Wallace?”
“Not for a moment.” And it’s the truth too.
“But you’re still going to be a miserable bastard about all this? This going-to-die shite?”
I shrug. “I’m here, aren’t I?” I say. “I’m still fighting.”
“That because you still have a spark of feckin’ hope in you, or just because you don’t know what the feck else to do with yourself?”
Kayla’s words are as sharp as her sword sometimes.
“Can it be both?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I don’t feckin’ know. I don’t watch that morning television shite. I just pick something and feckin’ do it. All this waffle bullshit isn’t worth the time.”
I smile. I should spend more time hanging out with Kayla, I think. Even if it might require body armor for me to feel totally safe.
“Amen to that,” I say, and we drive on.