Stars and Moon (chapter 8)

Chapter 8
Q fever

Kit's lying on the floor at home watching Jean watching him. There's a soft fuzzy glow about everything, and light streams through the tan window shades obliquely, casting a faint halo around Jean's head. They're lying propped up on their elbows, face to face - so close that he can feel her breath on his lips. So close that he can't see her lips, but he can tell from her eyes that she's smiling. It's a perfect moment, too perfect to spoil, and he wishes it could last forever. An eternity passes as they gaze into each others' souls, and then, with infinite care and slowness, she gently inclines her head forwards a fraction of an inch and...

... bites his brains out.

Bang. Explode to light. Pain. Head. Hurts.
Gnngh, Kit groans and curls into a fetal position on the cold stone floor.

"I think he's coming around, Sir."

"I can see that, Ding."

There're two pairs of boots standing directly ahead of him behind what appear to be metal bars.
The bars go up, and up, and up some more to the ceiling. Oh. I'm in a jail cell Kit thinks dully, and turns his attention to the boots. They're joined to blue trousers, and butts, and shirts, and the back of two heads capped by police hats.

They're facing away from him (just in case you haven't figured that out yet) looking into another jail cell.
There's someone else sprawled face-down on the floor, his trenchcoat looking slightly the worse for wear. From the looks of the little trickle of blood running down his chin, he hasn't been having a very good day. His fingers twitch once or twice then go limp again.

"Okay mister, quit playing dead. It's time for your trial. You're charged with the assassination of our Patrician, BG Lea. Get up you bloody murderer."

There's the rattle of a key in a lock and then the door swings open and one of the pairs of boots tramps into the cell.

"I said get UP." One of the steel-capped boots draws back to deliver a gentle message of encouragement - and the figure's eyes flicker open. He looks across the floor directly at Kit and winks.

The lights go out.

There's the distant thump and crackle of faraway fireworks, and a not-so distant thump of a body hitting the floor hard. Someone says "SIR?", and then groans and thumps to the floor.

The lights come back on.

Trenchcoat's standing in the middle of the room over the prostrate form of the badge named Ding, brushing down his sleeves.

"Ah, Kid. We meet again."

"I'm sorry do I know you?"

"Last night. You hired me. Don't you remember?"

"Hired? To do what?"

Trenchcoat gives him a long, level look.

"Ah. You're not with The Resistance are you? How'd you get roped into this?"

"What Resistance? And what did I hire you to do?"

"That letter you gave me, kid. It was a contract to assassinate the Prime Minister. I'm a professional killer."

"...grahrr."

"Look we don't really have time for this. I suppose you'd better tag along for now."

Trenchcoat reaches down, retrieves a keyring from Ding's belt and unlocks the door to Kit's cell.

"Come on."

"How did you do that anyhow? Make all the lights go out."

Trenchcoat smiles. "You could say it's a talent of mine."

He takes out a pair of geeky, thick-framed spectacles and hands them to Kit. "Here. Put these on."

"I don't know. They don't look quite me."

"Shut up. They'll help you see in the dark. Do try to keep up. It'll be such a bother if I have to kill you because you were slowing me down."

Time to run.

*****
A dark figure sits by a window, sillhouetted in the dim night of dusk. Hiss...purr. Hiss...

"My Lord." Tremulously speaks the shaking leaf of a petrified Senior officer of the Empire addressing the supreme leader of the Empire, The Mentor.

There's a whine and a hiss as an imposing helmet slides down from the ceiling and clicks into place. The Mentor's breathing apparatus continues to whine and purr and he makes no move to acknowledge his underling's presence.

"The Brigadier has been assassinated by the rebel scum."

Hiss... purr... hiss...

Slowly, the (Ikea, tm) armchair swivels around revealing the grotesque visage of The Mentor's facemask. The shiny black orbs of his eyes stare metallically at him, silently condemning him to an unimaginably horrible fate.

"The assassin."

"Escaped milord."

Black gloved fingures steeple deliberately, and thoughtfully together.

"Have you activated the Drizzletroopers."

"No milord, I came directly the second I heard the news."

"That displeases me."

"......"

"Guards, take this man away and execute him."

"Milord... nooo..."

"And flog him beforehand. 20 strokes of the rotan."

"AArrrrrg"

*****
Let's gloss over the hundreds of armour-plated, laser-rifle wielding, clanking, creaking drizzletroopers Kit and Coat dodge through the evil-blackened night, or the countless others that vanish mysteriously for the rest of their (rather foreshortened) lives during unexpected nationwide-blackouts that comprise the next five minutes of continuous and intensely boring footage that we're forced to endure by way of the artistic directors who're paying Drgoat good money to come up with this convoluted storyline. (okay, so they're not. sue me.)

Let's all stuporously yawn as yet another predictable fight sequence crops up, where, in a feat of amazing martial-arts prowess flawlessly blended with supercomputer-enhanced technical wizardry reminiscent of yet another cheap MatrixMovie wannabe clone, Kit and Coat, in intensely painful slow-motion moves that would have a taichee expert applauding rapturously in bullet-time, intrepidly flee from the enemy.

Let..s.mummblemumblegrmmph. Oh. Sorry, dozed off for a moment there.

Ah yes, where were we.

Kit spins around with his eyes wild and his hair gleaming. Or was it the other way around. His pigeon-chest heaves as he gasps to catch his breath. His legs feel like lead. And not of the HB variety either.

They're standing with their backs to the wall in a dingy little alleyway share only by a nonchalently bemused and rather fleabitten Kucinta cat.

"We're cornered, like rats in a fishbowl, like fish in a maze, like... like... a fly in a Venus trap!"

Somewhere in the not-so-distance the heavy-shod sound of clomping boots approaches. Little tinny voices are saying nastily inauspicious things like "target acquired Sir" and "we're moving in for the Kill."

The first rays of sunlight stream sleepily into the alleyway as the overhead street lamp flickers automatically off, then on, then finally, as an afterthought, off again. (Made in Malyasea, aka Redland.)

"We're out of darkness!!! Shi* we're going to die! What are we GOING TO DO?!"

Trenchcoat smoothly and stylishly reaches into his breast pocket and takes out his mobile phone.

"Hello, I'd like to order a pepperoni pizza please."

"WHAT?? HOW CAN YOU THINK OF FOOD AT A TIME LIKE THIS!"

Coat looks askance at Kit and adds "and a happy meal. With fries."

Just as the first rifle-barrel rounds the corner, the floor swings up silently and swallows our heroes into the ground.

*****
The large, shiny metallic doors slide open with a hiss.

Don't ask how our dynamic duo have come to wind up here. One minute they're falling through the floor, and the next a pair of large, shiny metallic doors is sliding open with a hiss. This is called a cut-to. It's a cinematic tool, and doesn't require your belief to answer its existential anomi...anomo... anomollilissness.

A large sign conveniently situated on a random wall reads "RESISTeNCE SECRiT UNDERGRND FACILITy #1. SMoKING iS InHIBITED", ostensibly for the slightly less cerebral members of the resitance movement.

It's a veritable hive of activity here. All around them people in drab grey uniforms mill about, solemnly performing their little tasks - which upon closer inspection appear to involve making various repetitive and unconstructive movements cleverly choreographed to trick the viewer into imagining that they're actually working.

It's actually a little reminiscent of the Singalander Armed Forces HomeGuard, the voluntary-conscript force that the country proudly trains with the latest cutting edge military techniques imported from the middle-east to be highly motivated and competent cannon-fodder.

Coat and Kit glide unseen amongst them, as if in a dream. Nobody looks up from their clipboards or computer terminals to challenge them except a slightly frightened-looking poodle being worked on by four white-coated scientists (you instantly know they're scientists when you see them. Maybe it's because they have geek stamped all over them, or maybe it's the barcodes on their foreheads. No, wait those would be the engineers. My bad.) in a little re-inforced plexiglass shelter marked "BMX Group. (Biological Munitions and eXplosives.)"

A sad little frog looks imploringly up at them as they walk past before swelling out its throat and croaking in an explosive flash of light and sound. (croaking. pun. ha ha.)

They walk past a firing range and watch a Lucy Liu lookalike testing a prototype Hamster Gun. Don't ask. Good looking weapons experts are hard to find.

Then there's the cubicle marked "Weapons of Mass Destruction group" where a small group of George Bush clones lies dormant in their hibernation pods.

The MisInformation and Espionage group has a grinning Tony Blair clone wired up to a lie detector. Every now and then he glances adoringly out the window towards Weapons of Mass Destruction, and his heart monitor races a little earning dejected headshakes from the scientists surrounding him.

Oh and of course the Covert Rodent Guerilla Group deserves special mention. A two-foot mockup of the Angsana houses two small armies of heavily armed mice determinedly going through their paces obliterating each other in various entertaining ways. Kit feels particularly warm fuzzy thoughts about the one wielding a mini-RPG launcher and incessantly squeaking what sounds suspiciously like a swearword in Universal Rodent. It looks adorable in a slightly rabid way, and it doesn't seem averse to blowing up any of the mice on its own team. Hmm. Didn't know that mice could giggle - fancy that.

The facility is built in the shape of a giant wheel, with research labs forming the outer hub, and long corridors comprising the spokes that radiate inexorably ever inwards to terminate in a small metal chamber marked "Center Of Secret FacIlity. No TOIlets here."

Eight familiar figures in black suits and raybands are standing guard at the eight entrances to the center of operations. Kit feet smoothly about-heel and scrabble futily on the white-marble tiled floor even as Coat's hand closes around his right bicep and draws him onwards in a vice-like grip. (whimper) Kit says quietly, knees knocking together tremulously.

Eight pairs of raybands simultaneously swing towards him and hold him trapped in their steady, impassive gazes.

"Halt. Identify yourselves" one of the suits drones imperiously, bringing up his hand smartly in that universal traffic-cop/wuxia motion that means to different audiences, either "Stop!" (append : in the name, of love for a really select audience.) or "My Lotus-Palm stance is superior to Your Drunken Prawn!"

The lights flicker out for a fraction of a second, and then come back on. PalmoSuit lies crumpled on the floor with his legs drawn up in agony, clutching his unmentionables. Coat smiles pleasantly at the other seven suits, who draw back in a wincing mixture of masculine horror and empathy.

The grip around Kit's arm eases, and together they push open the ornate gold-leaf double doors before them.

Silently, on well-oiled hinges the doors glide smoothly inwards and draw our heroes into the Inner Sanctum of the Resistance.    # Re-minisce denies liability.8/21/2004 04:09:00 pm

Stars and Moon (chapter 7)

Chapter 7
An Officer, and A Gentleman

"Sir! Take a look at this!!"
PC Ding is a policeman. He isn't the sharpest knife on the block, and one supposes if one was to refer to him in culinary terms he'd probably be a meat tenderiser. If he was English, his surname would be Plod. What he lacks in brains, he makes up for in sheer persistence. Right now, he's persistently badgering his immediate superior, Inspector Sum.

To be absolutely frank, their names really don't matter since it's always the lot in all narratives and movies of industrious flatfoots and other figures of civil authority to unglamourously become cannon fodder to gun-toting / dai-katana-wielding heroes and heroines. Nonetheless, in reverence to their parents' dedication, perseverence, and in Singaland, sheer ingenuity in creating them, we'll call them Ding and Sum.
"What is it now?" sighs Inspector Sum, cradling his head in his hands. PC Ding has the manic enthusiasm of a child in a candy shop, and half again as many wits. Add to that the propensity to take flying leaps of logic that would do an American President with an obsession for Weapons of Mass Destruction proud and you have the most trying person on the force to work with. Maybe a transfer to nice quite departments like the Anti-Terrorist department, or the Narcotics buereau...
Squeeglesqueeglesqueegle. The video footage PC Ding's been poring over for the last eight hours rewinds yet again. The CCTV image is small and grainy but a fairly ordinary view of a street and the occasional car taken from a high vantage point, probably a streetlamp.
"Watch this, Sir".
An unimpressive young man and a rather impressive young woman appear and stop partially out of view of the camera, standing immediately under the lamp. From this bird's eye view, Sum has a pretty nice view of...
"Sir! Watch the road!!!"
A black minivan swerves into the edge of the screen, then out again, as the girl falls out the picture.
"F**K! Don't we have any audio on this thing?? Play it back again!"
Squeegle...
Girl Falls.
"Play it back!"
Girl Fa...
"Pause!"
..lls.
"Did you see that??"
"Yes Sir, I wasn't sure but..."
"He pushed her."
"Yes, he must have - there's no reason she would have fallen into the path of the van like that otherwise, is there Sir?"
"The bastard! She had such nice..." Insp Sum trails off thoughtfully. "Hmm. Play the rest of it."

The unimpressive guy kneels down out and vanishes out the corner of the screen. An instant later, he stands again. He's holding something in his hand. And then he swivels around and disappears out the corner of the screen.

"He stole something from her too."
"Yes Sir."
"The poor girl. Any news of the body?"
"Not yet Sir."
"Shame. I'd like to know who she was."

pause.

"Well, what are you waiting for! Let's reel him in!"
"Sir, yes Sir!"
"And Ding..."
"Sir?"
"When will you stop calling me Sir? You make me sound like a bloody schoolteacher!"
"Sorry, Sir!"

*****
They call him The Iron Patrician, because he rules with an iron hand.
Right now, he's demonstrating the finer principals of this to one of his subservient staff.

PIAK.

"I said a diet coke with ice! This is pepsi!! Any moron can tell the difference!"

PiAK.

"Well?? And bring me a cheeseburger, extra cheese, hold the beef, lettuce, mayo and ketchup!"

The snivelling manservent flees the room, his rifle rattling tremulously as he runs.

"Good help is so hard to find nowadays." he mutters, shaking his head.

BG Lea Sing Longandstrong is the strongman of the empire, and Steward to his people.
Stewardship is hungry business.

BG Lea believes in leading with a firm hand. His people are like sheep: soft, fluffy and clueless - just the way The Empire likes them. He's the man to lead them into the next millenium, the eighty-year technicalities of which, with the steady progess his human-augmentation project is making, will be a mere and insignificant speedbump on his route to immortality.

He settles back into his gilt-lined high chair to resume the duties of his God-Given birthright, administering to the mundane running of The Empire.

*****
Life moves on.
Kit's sitting on the train again on his way to work.
The events of yesterday, and last night in particular feel slightly surreal in the harsh light of everyday - did they even happen? Maybe it was all a dream. Kit's feeling slightly depersonalised - which was that again? When you feel unreal or when the world around you feels unreal?

My mind's running around in circles. It's probably a coping mechanism...

Stop. Enough.

He runs his hands through his dishevelled hair and looks up dully , straight into the headlines of a copy of The Straight Times which a decidedly un-straight male in a shiny purple dress shirt is poring over across from him.

The Straight Times, August 9, 2020.
HIT AND RUN ON GARDEN ROAD! the headlines blare.
And underneath them, an image... of Jean.

Craning his head and straining his eyes he just makes out the words : "hit and run accident... black minivan... critical condition... intensive care... Singalander General... police."

His heart leaps.

She's still alive! She didn't die!
His feels himself stand and leave the train even as his mind struggles to comprehend this new reality. He was wrong... and suddenly he can see clearly again.

He has to see her again.

*****
"Target acquired. Close to range."

Ah yes, Insp. Sum's in his element, another few seconds and...

"Sir?"

... alt-tab. Command and Conquer Generals vanishes obligingly and turns back into innocent old Windows XP.

"Yes, Ding. What is it now."

"Take a look at this."

It's another CCTV video clip of John Doe. This one shows him walking into a disused polyclinic, and then walking back out a half hour later.

A short while afterwards, a shady character in a trenchcoat and fedora steps out the building and glides away with cat-like grace.

"Hmm. This is very suspicious."

"Why's that Sir?"

"How many people have you ever seen wearing a trenchcoat in this country?"

"Good point Sir."

"We'd better tell the commissioner."

"Yes Sir!"

"And Ding... nevermind."

*****
Kit's footsteps echo eerily after him as he traverses the faintly antiseptic-smelling corridors of the hospital. It's strangely empty, and with every step he feels a little more uneasy. Any second now a man in a black suit is going to appear... He rounds the corner.

A small group of senior doctors with their glassy-eyed students firmly in tow (and bearing a passing resembalce to ducklings) glides past.

"...definitely had symptoms consitent with polymyalgia rheumatica... Spiral CT scan showed..." Their voices fade away into incomprehensibility as they round the corner. Not that they were particularly comprehensible beforehand.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. It's going to be okay. Jean's still alive!

Ah at last. Intensive Care Unit.

A pint-sized nurse at the desk with the countenance of an irate and extremely constipated pit-bull glares at him for an instant before glancing dismissively away at the computer screen before her, no doubt monitoring all her patient's vital signs.

"Hello... Sister?"

She looks back up and frowns.

"Is there a... Jean.. here? Road Traffic Accident?"

"Cubicle Seven. Over there." she barks, pointing cursarily at one of the doors and returning her concentration Solitaire for Windows.

Kits heart claws its way up his throat into the back of his mouth and sits there waiting in anticipation as he opens the door.

She's lying in bed facing away from him, bundled up under the bedcovers.
All around her, various pieces of monitoring equipment beep callously to their own internal rhythms, a macabre orchestra of near-death.

Step.

She looks... so small. And so still.

Step.

"Jean?"

She's asleep, or at least her eyes are closed. And She's ... not Jean!

It's that girl from the train. With the big head. Pink.

She opens her eyes and smiles evilly. "hello, we've been expecting you."

He backs away. "What's going on? I don't understand!!"

Bump. There's someone standing behind him. Two someones actually. He turns around slowly. Two BIG someones to be precise. Two big, muscley police-someones with jaws the size of shovels.

"Uh... hello officers..."

Oww! There's a sharp pain in the back of his knee. Then, as he falls to the floor someone thumps him hard in the back of his head. Fade to black.

"Was that really necessary ma'am?"

Pink glares at the men towering head, neck, and upper-torso over her.

"Don't tell me how to do my job! Two thousand superiors can't be wrong!"

"But ma'am, we don't have..." Big policeman #1 trails away into silence under the force of Pink's glare.

"Go with the flow, Joe." Big policeman #2 mumbles, as they pick the limp and extremely unconscious Kit off the floor.

*****
BG Lea's inspecting his body-double delivering His national day speech on television from the comfort of his high-chair inside the Seat of All Parliament, the Angsana. "He's getting a little bit chubby, doesn't look at all like me." He thinks as he chews down thoughtfully on his cheeseburger. "Must make him exercise more, and if dares to object, I'll sla..."

The lights go out.

WTF?A power failure? NOW?? During the Parade?! BG Lea glances out the window - as far as the eye can see - pitch-black. An island-wide blackout. It's only ever happened once before.

Ohboy... someone's head is really going to roll for this.

"SINGGGGGGH! SONGGGGGG!!" BG Lea screams for his two stoic and stalwart bodyguards standing just outside the door.

The door opens and a figure stands sillhouetted cast by the half-light of the moon through a window behind him.

"CALL THE POWER DEPARTMENT! TELL THEM I'M GOING TO FIRE THE"

The lights come back on.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?? WHERE ARE SING AND SONG?"

The figure stands impassively still before him.

"HOW DARE YOU INTRUDE ON ME? And WHAT are you WEARING??! IS THAT A FEDORA??"

piak.

"GUARDS! GUARDS!!"

piAK!

"ARE YOU TRYING TO INTIMIDATE ME??"

PiAK PIAK

"TALK DAMN YOU! TALK!!!"

PIAKKKKK

"Are you quite done yet?" the figure asks quietly as BG Lea hyperventilates and quivers in an unbridled apoplectic rage.

"SO! YOU SPEAK! WELL I'LL HAVE YOUR HEAD FOR THIS! DO YOU KNOW WHO MY DADDY IS???"

"Yes. May I be so bold as to ask you a question? Why do you keep slapping yourself while you're talking?"

"I try to keep my hands off strangers. My daddy says it's not hygenic."

"Ah. Yes, quite. Do you know who I am?"

"NO! WHO THE F*** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

"Oh, good. Well I have a message for you, from the Resistance."

There's a faint "snk" sound, and then BG Lea's gaze travels slowly and uncomprehendingly down towards the sword handle protruding from his breastbone. It's the last thing he ever sees.

Humming softly to himself, the Architect draws his sword out of the body and wipes it clean of blood with some kleenex procured off ex-BG Lea's desk.

He turns around and steps over the unconscious bodies of Sing and Song on his way out.

There're two policemen waiting at the front door for him with their pistols drawn. Their nametags read Ding and Sum.

"FREEZE! DON'T MOVE"

Ah, Bummer.    # Re-minisce denies liability.8/11/2004 08:22:00 am

Stars and Moon (chapter 6)

Chapter 6
The Unwitting Accessory

His lungs explode.
Well, not quite. But it feels like they're going to, soon.
He's running on empty now, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his legs twin stumps of leaden jelly. Somewhere on the threshold of hearing, somewhere behind him he hears the faint echoes of extremely expensive designer shoes ringing crisply off the impeccably clean concrete floor of the underpass. Slightly beyond that threshold, if his heart wasn't pounding fit to burst and if the flurry of his crazed footsteps wasn't quite so ponderous, he'd be able, if he really tried, to make out the eerie swishes of expensive trouser legs barely brushing their opposite numbers as their owners athletically lift their legs and plant them down in the perfect heel-strike positions for their next immaculate toe-offs.

Pan camera left, then zoom in on the figures neatly rounding the corner in pairs.
These guys make the Agent Smith clones of yesteryear look like frank amateurs. They don't even appear to breathe as they run, arms neatly tucked in by their sides and legs loping in easy strides that belie their speed.

Several well-endowed models, barely covered by their redundant wonderbras and long, flowing tresses watch impassively from their holographic windowlets either side of the tunnel, bouncing and oozing into suggestive, yet not-quite salacious poses and beckoning to the black-suited figures flashing by.
The eight pairs of Calvin Klein dark glasses never once waver from their almost-acquired target dead ahead, somewhere around the corner.

Some of the more progressive ads feature impossibly hunky men as well, bare to the midriff and holding their female partners sexily, yet at the same time suitably chastely to their South East Asian six-packs. Kit's oxygen-starved mind wanders fleetingly back to the days of yesteryear when the ads first started turning faintly bawdy, which coincided funnily enough with the government's push for a more populated populace.

He sidesteps around a grinning geriatric blind solo-act wheezing out a barely discernable tune on his state-of-the-art combination accordian/keyboard/techno drum set/er-hu/home PC/playstation-2 musical gadget, and darts doggedly into a stairwell, slowing to a crawl as he superhumanly mounts the steps one at a time.

His deceleration proves to be his salvation.

That and the visually-challenged uncle with the Cheshire Cat smile, who continues blithely with his raucous rendition of Unchained Melody (complete with nasal lyrics) effectively obliterating all traces of Kit's less-than-stealthy retreat. As the eight Agent Smith lookalikes synchronously pass him handsomely by, not-quite Stevie Wonder somehow manages to stagger obliviously into their paths.

There's that noise of a bowling ball achieving a perfect strike that invariably accompanies scenes like this, and the eight immaculate runners suddenly find themselves sprawled on the ground.

One of them snarls and draws back a lethally-curled fist, which stops abruptly in mid air as his gaze follows blind uncle's toothy smile and subtly extended index finger to the Webcam mounted on Uncle-Steve's PC. It's currently displaying a humourous image of nine men in Calvin Klein darkglasses, eight in suits and one in singlet and shorts in an undignified heap on the floor. It's also logged wirelessly onto the internet.

*****
"Train doors closing. Beepbeepbeep."
He glances furtively about himself as the train pulls out of the station. There's :

1) an offensive-smelling boy in uniform sitting across from him staring vacantly at his nuts lap.

2) a kindly little old man buried somewhere deep in his copy of The Straights Times

3) some guy in a too-tight T shirt reading a copy of The Gay Times. The Gay Times evidenced the progressive, passionate spirit of the New Government, building further on the starting blocks of True Freedom initiated in their wisdom by the Old Government, namely the legalisation of bungee jumping and bartop dancing. It was the brainchild of The YMPA (Young Men's Pagan Association) which sprung up surprisingly quickly the day after the Singalander government declared police registration of apolitical groups optional.
Naturally, homosexual sex remained illegal.

4) Another guy in too-tight trousers reading The Gay Times.

5) Yet another guy reading The Gay Times.

6) A svelte, slim and nubile young woman snogging :

7) another svelte, slim young woman. Nubile, too.

And most importantly,

8) no men in black suits and dark glasses.

Kit starts breathing again and for the first time tonight glances surreptitiously at the tan envelope.
It's good quality paper, and sealed with wax.

It smells of Jean's light, summery perfume - light, sexy, and nearly edible. His heart pounds as he remembers her eyes glazing over as she slumped back out of his arms into... he can't think it.

He can't think that she's dead.

Look at her handwriting on the front of the envelope. Blue ink. And she curls her Rs... A silent tear escapes his eye and works its way down his face.

It's an address. An address, on an envelope, he thinks hysterically. How sensible. How logical. How... odd.

There's a time on it as well. And a date.

Today's date. 23:30 - an hour from now.

*****
They call him The Architect.
Nobody knows why - they just do. He'd much rather a more menacing pseudonym like The Punisher or The Judge. But no, they have to call him The Architect.
Right now, he's (confusingly enough) in a doctor's office, seated in a reclining chair with his boots propped up on a desk.
It's an abandoned office, and he's sitting in the dark - the electricity has long since been discontinued. Dust cakes the desk, and the floor, and the solitary window. And everything else. As always, he's stylishly dressed in a Burbury's trenchcoat and fedora, making him hot. No, I mean hot. Singaland is no place for a trenchcoat - it's far too humid.
23.31. The contact's late, he's irritable, and it's hot. He lets the brim of his fedora slide down over his eyes and dozes off...

*****
The Old Ang Pow Polyclinic. He's here.
Kit looks doubtfully through the darkened window at the nothingness within, then tries the door. It's slightly ajar, and swings inwards with that dull, prolonged creak one associates with movies with the word "Van" somewhere in them, when he touches it.

It's dark in here, and there's a funny feeling in his throat. He's not sure, but it feels like his heart. And somewhere in his stomach a hundred butterflies unfurl their wings and begin fluttering.

Somehow, by the dim moonlight he begins to make out the shadow of a desk, and an examination couch, and a filing cabinet.

Then, as his eyes attune to the dark he notices boots lying on the table. And a hat on the chair. And...

There's someone in here with him. Someone who's sitting very, very still. The hairs on his neck stand bolt upright to attention. Psychotic violins begin playing in the background. Well, they would if this was a movie, but since it's a narrative there's an absolute and deathly hush.

"uh... hello?"

His words sound like a thunderclap in his ears.

They're met by silence. The figure doesn't stir.

He pauses, then slowly, almost afraid at what he's about to discover, he reaches out his trembling hand...

*****
Beach. He's lying on a beach with a beautiful broad in a barely adequate bikini. Breakers break around their entwined feet as they begin
(we interrupt this scene to bring you a message from our sponsors. This episode has been brought to you by the letter B!) to engage in that stuff broads like prior to bonking. Something, play they call it.

She runs a finger coquettishly along his neck, and then down his arm.
He kisses her neck, and feels her hands close around his shoulders and...

*****
... shakes the figure. It hadn't budged at his first tentative touch. It's still warm. There's a certain fatalistic dread in his heart. Death has stood by his shoulder once already tonight. Please don't let this guy be...

A pair of eyes snaps open suddenly, twin globes of white in the depths of the darkness.

"What." so crisply enunciated is the one word that it cracks like a pistol-shot in the still of the night.

"um. I, I. I've g-got a letter for you, s-ssir. At least I think it's for y-you. J-jean..."

Jean. Jean.

"Jean's d-d-dead."

*****
It's just a kid. A bloody kid. And he's snivelling. Oh God, now he's crying.
Jesus, the Resistance must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel if this is what they're recruiting now.
Still, a job's a job. Sometimes he finds himself wishing he had a more mundane career. Something nice and secure that involved a nice little cubicle and a nice little potted plant, with his very own desk and not some crummy doctors cheap plywood desk for the night. And lots of forewarning before each assignment. A nice predictable routine.

(And who the ____ is Jean?)

"Give me the letter."

*****
Kit hands the shadow the letter with a tiny sob of mingled terror and despair. His shoulders shake a little, but at least he's not crying. Or at any rate, he's concealing it well, he thinks.

His heart stops as he hears a metallic clink - oh God, is that a gun, isthatagun? There's a flare of light.

It's a cigarette lighter. His heart beats again. The shadow bursts crazily into light and sharp shadows. He's wearing some kind of hat and a coat. He's all angles in this light, except for his eyes, which are sharp and narrowed, and as he reads, narrow even more.

The light flickers out.

"Do close the door on the way out, won't you?"

Kit stands rooted to the spot in fear.

There's another clink. And this time it isn't followed by a flare of light.

"You did hear me...?"

The Shadow doesn't need to finish the question as Kit's cowardly legs decide to take action into their own, err... feet, and walk him out the door. Prestissimo.

He closes the door gingerly as he leaves.

Kit doesn't know it yet, but he's just become an accessory to murder.    # Re-minisce denies liability.8/09/2004 12:04:00 pm