TWENTY

Connection

 

Alex had returned to the car for the guns. The tranquilliser pistol lay on the scarred bedside table, he had checked the chamber, four darts remained, he could feel the ghost of one dart as it fizzed past his ear in the house, missing him by a fraction of an inch. The shotgun stood sentinel like against the table. He sat in the chair and reached out his hand. He could reach the gun easily. He practised snatching it and pointing it at the door. He was quick, but would he be quick enough? He hoped not to find out. He made sure the safety was on and returned the shotgun to its position. Madeleine returned from the bathroom as he replaced the gun.

The room was basic. The walls covered in cheap wallpaper, peeling at the edges in places. There was a table, small and round with a single chair. A chest of drawers with a smudged mirror fixed to it and the bed. The duvet was thin and worn, patterned with faded sunflowers which swallowed up the dim light from the bedside lamp, leeching the pale glow from the room.

“It’s cold,” she said, pulling the cord and switching off the bathroom light, plunging the corner of the room into shadows. There was a small convection heater affixed to the wall and she switched it on. The mechanism began to groan and thrum. She rubbed her hands and held them over the apertures in the heater as warm air began to flow from the vents.

“Are we safe here, Alex?” She yawned as she asked him, tiredness catching up with her.

He shrugged in response. “I don’t know, maybe, for a while.” She yawned again. “You need to rest anyway, we both do. And we need time to think, I’ve got to figure out what to do.”

She skirted around the bed to the side away from the guns, and sat down. “Any ideas yet?”

“Not really, everything seems to have gone so fast, I don’t seem to have had a chance to do anything except just survive,” he looked at her, “It’s all been a blur to me, since I found the record room on the island. It’s like it’s all too much, I can’t take it all in. All I know is they killed my father, and probably my mother and that I’ve been used. And I don’t know which is worse, that they could kill my parents or that I’ve probably been responsible for the deaths of I don’t know how many people.” His voice faltered, his words choking off as a wave of turbulent emotion washed over him.

Madeleine grasped his jaw and turned his face so she was looking into his eyes. “Listen to me,” she told him, her voice stern, “whatever happened, whatever does happen, you are not responsible for anyone’s death, do you understand me?” She did not give him time to answer. “They used you, that’s what you just said, and it’s true. For God’s sake, Alex, you were just a boy, you didn’t know what was going on, nobody could expect you to. They are responsible, they are the killers. They. Not you. Don’t you see that? It’s not your fault.”

“And if they kill you?” He asked plaintively.

“I’m a grown up. I had a choice in all this. Besides, they have to find us first. Now, tell me, are we safe here?” She held his gaze, locking his eyes to her own.

“I don’t know,” his fear came out as exasperation.

“Tell me.”

“What do you…”

“Tell me what you see.” She took his hands and held them to her face. His eyes glimmered with understanding but he rebelled, he did not want to look at her like that, did not want to see her as he had seen her before, it terrified him. But it was too late. He sighed with resignation as the murky clouds began to part from his inner eye and even the pale glint of the cheap lamp trickled away. The sepia tone of his vision slid viscously over his sight, running, almost pouring into the lens through which he saw the things others couldn’t. And there was Madeleine. He flinched from the image, made to remove his hands but she held them and he was forced to see her mangled body again. But, he realised, it was not the same as before, not exactly. She was still dead, the knife had still left its bloody marks upon her, had sliced and punctured her soft body, but… not as much. It was a fine distinction and one that made little difference if this was her future. He saw the bloody tableau with unblinking, unfaltering clarity and knew this was her future. But it was not here yet. The vividness of the scene was diluted, the rust shadings of her bloodstains lighter, and it signified to him that this vision was further into the future than before.

Madeleine watched lines furrow his brow, the flesh tighten around his eyes as she forced him to see the images in his brain. She gripped his hands when he tried to pull away and then released him when the tremor passed, felt his breath shudder in his lungs and saw his eyes move beneath his lids, darting back and forth rapidly. And then it was over. He exhaled a long breath and opened his eyes. She saw pain there, reflected in the dark, near black orbs that stared back at her, and something else too. Something like relief.

“Well?” She licked her lips, her mouth dry with fear. She did not want to know what he saw, (I saw you dead!). His words echoed back at her and icy fingers crawled down her spine.

Alex traced the shadows under her eyes with his thumbs and then dropped his hands to his lap. “Yes,” he said, then stopped. He paused so long she thought he would say no more, but finally he continued. “We’re safe here. For a while, maybe twelve hours, perhaps a day, I’m not really sure how long. Enough to rest, to eat, recharge our batteries. But that’s all.”

“Then it’ll have to be enough.” She tried to smile at him and found it was easier than she imagined. He had spared her the details, as before, and she was grateful. Her demise had been delayed, that was what he was telling her, delayed but not averted. Not yet, anyway. She took comfort from the fact that she was able to think as positively as she was. “We’d better get some sleep,” her watch ticked towards four o’clock.

Alex nodded. He glanced around the shabby room. “I’ll take the chair.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, we both need some proper rest. Sleep here.”

He stared at her uncertainly. “But there’s only one bed.”

She laughed and rubbed her fingers in her eyes, they were sore and gritty with sleep. “I’m quite aware of that. What’s the matter? Do you have b.o.?”

“No.”

“Do I?”

“Huh? No!”

“Fine. I’m tired, what about you?”

He nodded dumbly.

“Then get into bed.” She pulled the sweater over her head and dropped it onto the floor. She kicked off her trainers, pulled back the faded sunflowers and got under the covers. Alex stood there mutely, looking at the bed, looking at Madeleine in the bed.

“Well?” She said.

He kicked off his trainers and slid between the sheets.

 

Alex was dreaming. He was on the island. It was summer. A crystal clear sky stretched as far as the eye could see. The sun dazzled and a heat haze rose from the verdant green of the gardens. The trees were taller somehow, bigger than he remembered, emerald green foliage and rough hewn bark the colour of freshly turned earth. Everything seemed bigger. Everything was bigger, because he was only eight years old. The Clinic was huge behind him, except at eight years of age, it wasn’t The Clinic, it was just home. His toys were spread out on the green carpet of lawn. Action figures and their transports, vans and trucks, jeeps and tanks. He had a submarine which he played with in the bath and in the pool, the sub now lay on the sea of grass, discarded and forgotten. Nanny was forgotten too. She sat in the shade of the awning over the windows. A paperback, bent open and laid, with its spine cracked and folded, face down to mark her place, on the table next to her lounger. The young woman was dozing in the pleasant heat of the summer day. Alex ran with his arm held above his head, the jet fighter clenched in his fist flying at 60,000 feet in his imagination. He was a fighter pilot, Alex “Ace” Rappaport and he was on a dangerous mission. A life or death raid at the heart of the Evil Empire. He made no sound of engine noise as he ran, partly because his was a secret mission and he had engaged his cloaking device, a magical instrument that not only concealed his fighter ‘plane from enemy radar but masked the sound of the jet’s powerful thrusters too. No one knew that Ace was on the job, not even Nanny.

The Clinic receded in the background as he swept down the long, manicured lawns, lost in his world of impossible heroics and deeds of derring-do. His engines made no sound, but suddenly there was the noise of an engine. A short stuttering bark of a motor, a throbbing pulsing sound that stopped him in his tracks. He scanned the azure blue for the source of the noise but saw nothing. Standing still he listened carefully. There it was! He gazed to the North, A blob, a grain of dirt in the sky that came closer and closer. The blob growing rapidly in his vision until his eyes could make out individual components of the machine making the noise.

Alex felt excitement rise up within him. A helicopter was approaching the island, approaching and slowing down. They were going to have visitors! The helicopter hovered over the landing pad to the rear of The Clinic, revolving once slowly in the air before coming to land gently in the centre of the H. Alex began to run back up the lawn towards the helicopter. The door to the ‘copter opened and a man stepped out, ducking under the draughts of air stirred by the rapidly slowing rotor blades above his head. Alex had never seen the man before, he wore a dark suit, his tie tight against the neck of his white shirt. The suit looked out of place in the brilliant sunshine. It didn’t matter to Alex who the man was, he barely gave him a second look. His eyes were taken by the glistening paintwork of the helicopter. He’d been in a chopper before, three or four times. Joe had taken him for a spin and he had been over to the mainland as well, but this helicopter was different. Newer, bigger, shinier.

The man in the dark suit and the tight tie disappeared inside before Alex made it halfway to the helicopter, but the pilot still sat at his controls. He didn’t look at Alex when he reached the aircraft, not even when Alex moved around the nose of the cockpit and stared up at him through the tinted window, his face pressed against the bottom of the glass, standing on tip toe to peer at the dials and instruments. The pilot just stared straight ahead. He did not smile or scowl, he just ignored Alex.

Eventually, after peering through the window for a long time and tracing his hand along the flank of the chopper, walking all around the machine several times, marvelling at the gleaming paint and shiny metal, Alex became bored. He wandered off towards the house. Nanny had woken briefly when the helicopter had come in to land, noticed Alex and now she relaxed back in the lounger, her eyes shut against the glare of the sun.

There were voices coming from the open doorway to the reception area. Alex could not see who was speaking, but he recognised one of the voices, it was Anthony, his daddy. Not his real daddy, his real daddy died a long time ago, a cloud darkened Alex’s thoughts at that, as if he should remember more, but he couldn’t, he worried about things sometimes, things like not being able to remember when his daddy died. When he got worried Anthony—he never did call him daddy, despite Anthony asking him to—always told him it didn’t matter, it was okay not to remember, it was in fact, the best thing. Alex wasn’t sure he was right, but it didn’t matter anyway because his memories were fading away, little by little, he couldn’t really remember what his real daddy looked like anymore.

The voices were coming nearer, Anthony’s and one other. It must be the man from the helicopter, the man in the dark suit and the tie that was too tight. Suddenly, Alex was afraid. He didn’t want the strange man to see him, that was suddenly very important. The voices were almost at the door now, Alex quickly turned and ran to the corner of the building. He flattened himself against the white painted wall. He could feel the reflected heat of the sun’s rays warming his skin through the thin cotton of his T-shirt. He could still hear the voices talking.

“. . . progress is excellent.” The stranger.

“It’s on schedule,” Anthony Shelton, trying and failing to keep the smugness from his voice.

“The Organisation is very happy, and not just with this but the rest of the work here. I’ve been asked to pass on thanks for the Kalodner job. Another big mark in your credit column, Anthony. In fact, the extra funding you requested has been agreed, due in no small part to the excellent resolution of that situation.”

“It’s what The Adam Project was created for. There are still things that need ironing out, but they will be, you can be sure of that.”

“It’s incredible what you have achieved since the boy’s father…” The rotors atop the helicopter began to twirl lazily as the pilot fired up the engines. The rest of the stranger’s words were lost under the rising pitch of the engine’s whine and the whooshing sound of the rotors carving the still summer air. Alex began to creep closer to the edge of the building to peer around the corner. That was when the shadow fell over him. He jumped and spun around. Nanny was towering over him, a stern look on her face.

 

“Alex? Alex? Are you alright?”

He came to, disoriented by the sudden change in his surroundings. The sunlight was gone, replaced by a faint gloominess. “Huh? What?”

Madeleine was leaning over him, shaking him. The dream let go its tenuous hold of his brain and memory rushed back in. His muscles tensed and his arm reached for the shotgun.

“It’s alright, Alex. You were dreaming, that’s all. You woke me up.” She stared down at him, hands on his shoulders. He sighed and she felt him relax. “You okay?”

He nodded, “Just a dream, a memory I think, I was a child again.”

“You cried out, “Daddy!” once or twice,” she told him. He was conscious of her scrutiny, the frank way she looked at him, he felt embarrassed but looking into her eyes, saw nothing there to make him feel that way. She did not judge him, did nothing to make him feel he should have anything to hide from her, anything to cause him embarrassment.

“What time is it?” His watch was on the bedside table, she reached out to pick it up and he felt her weight as she leaned over him. Her breasts pressed against his chest and he was acutely aware of their softness. Her head was next to his as she reached out for the watch, her ear grazed his lips and he could smell her hair. His heart began to pound and he felt arousal awakening within him.

“Seven,” she said and he felt her breath on his cheek. A minute shiver ran up his spine and he felt gooseflesh on his arms. He exhaled and his breath tickled the hair framing her face. She started to pull back from him, paused as their eyes made contact. An understanding passed between them like an electrical current. A sudden spark of sensation that ignited a flame inside each of them. Madeleine could feel the increased tempo of his heartbeat and her own began to gallop in pursuit, her pulse quickening until it matched. Their eyes held each other for a second that lasted a lifetime and then they were kissing. Not gently, not like in the car when the brief grazing of lips took them both by surprise, but hard, insistent. Their lips mashed together, mouths parting, tongues darting, probing. They lost themselves in the kiss, Alex surprised by the contrast between the soft sweetness of her lips and the assertive, voracious jabbing of her tongue. She felt the rough prickliness of his beard scratch her face. Her hands came up to his face and he folded his arms around her, hands squeezing, stroking. Their breathing deepened as they opened themselves up to the pleasure and comfort of their needs, physical and mental. His hands found her breasts, felt the hardness of her nipples through the fabric of her T-shirt and bra, his thumbs brushed against them, rubbing the swollen teats and she moaned lowly. Their movements became more frantic and they pulled at each other’s clothing. He pulled the T-shirt over her head and she fumbled at the buttons of his shirt, her fingers raking his chest. Their mouths found each other again as he tugged the straps of her bra down from her shoulders, peeling the bra away from her breasts. His tongue traced a line down her throat, between the valley of her breasts before taking a nipple into his mouth, his tongue flicking over the hardened nub. She shivered and a groan escaped her lips as she ran her fingers through his thick dark hair, tugging his head back and seeking him out again with her mouth. His hardness pressed into her and she reached down to him and rubbed the heel of her hand against his crotch, his groan muffled by her mouth. Her fingers unbuttoned his jeans and pulled down the zip, sliding beneath his underwear and she grasped him, hand squeezing and rubbing slowly in a delicious friction. He groaned louder and slid his hands down her belly, snapping open her own jeans, releasing the zip. He pushed her jeans and panties over her hips and she freed him from his own clothing, guiding him into her with her hand, gasping once as he penetrated her and then they were moving to a singular, natural rhythm, their bodies in tune as if they were lovers of old and this was their thousandth time and not their first. They gave themselves up to their passion, the exterior world dissolving and fading, everything that had gone before or was yet to happen was forgotten, all that mattered was them and now. Visions and images painted the insides of Alex’s eyelids, a coruscating pattern of lights and showers of colour that lit up his mind like a firework display, overlaying the thoughts and images that strobed across his consciousness. Feelings and sensations he had never experienced before left his brain spinning gyroscopically, pictures and thoughts soaring around inside him; himself, Madeleine, now, before, the future and the past, their futures and pasts, appearing and disappearing in nano-bursts of energy that flashed across his brain leaving a residue of their existence across all his senses. He felt his mind meld with Madeleine’s as their passion reached a crescendo, their muscles straining, pores sweating. She arched her back, teeth biting her lower lip as she fought to contain a cry then giving in to a triumphal “Yes!” as she climaxed. Alex felt himself come at the same instant, a deep, shuddering tremor washed through him at the moment of orgasm and his own cry echoed hers. They remained locked together, limbs frozen in satisfaction for a long moment, then Madeleine leaned forward, kissing him gently, her eyes filled with tears. He crushed her to him. They said nothing, were beyond words. They held each other, listening to the beating of their hearts, mingling, merging, becoming one.