Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller (25 page)

How often do we think we drive when we’re really on tracks?

How often should we go and stay, without the coming backs?

As often as the stars and wheels turn above the earth.

A fate to drive, drivel, driven; a stake into your worth.

 
The Ergonomic Box (& Other Disappointments)

Harris Oliver

I watched through the window as Leonora joined her small party, the huddle bubbled and got mildly agitated. Governor Rose made two dismissive gestures, wafting her hand in the air as if annoyed by an invisible wasp. The Chief of Security was looking back through the window at me, obvious consternation and mistrust glaring across the churchyard cobblestones.

I stared back.

I had not intended to do this today.

Out of respect for my brother I had intended to be sentimental, wallow a little in self-pity and think about my past, not my future, but I needed to grab this opportunity to propel this thing forward; he would have expected or respected nothing less.

Leonora grabbed a small vanity case, an official looking leather satchel and then whispered something to a neat, small man, who scurried off for the car.

She tugged the hem of her jacket back into place again then made her way back over to reception. I pretended to be engrossed in a leaflet about internment options for the future and looked up from it when she entered.

‘The Governor said it was highly “irregular” but in light of our current… ah... proposition, she thought it might give you longer to consider your answer.’

‘Or give you longer to work on me,’ I said, dropping the leaflet back onto the counter.

‘I reassured her that I can trust you,’ Leonora said.

‘You did?’ I said.

‘Yes. I did,’ she said. She held out her vanity case for me to carry. I ignored it, and her, and strode through the open door to the car that had just pulled up outside. As the small driver turned the engine off, I heard her huff behind me.

The small neat man presented me with the car, looking like he had a bad smell under his nose, that, with his proximity to the floor, would undoubtedly be much more intense for him than anyone else. He had the same demeanour as that of an ageing father giving his daughter the keys to the family car: anxious, dutiful and begrudging. He did not want to let them go, but despite his misgiving was compelled to by the inevitability of service and orders. Just like the majority of ageing fathers that I had met before.

I climbed in and slung the driver’s seat right back and began to adjust the mirrors. Leonora opened the boot, placed her two bags neatly inside then closed it with a satisfyingly solid clunk. The car was modern, large and suitably ostentatious for its duties which no doubt included the luxurious ferrying of the Governor here and there, to visit the Lowland Groundbound masses trying to convince them that she really was
on their level
. Leonora opened her door, tutted, then slid into the passenger seat.

‘And can I?’ she asked.

‘Can you what?’

‘Can I trust you, Mr Theron?’

I ignored her and stooped to look where to slot the key into the ignition.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t get in the back,’ I said, gunning the engine. The car started then idled with a low purr.

‘I did think about it,’ she said.

I was starting to like her honesty, but then again, my abrupt nature was not leaving much room for anything else.

I eased down on the accelerator, disengaged the handbrake and rolled across the cobbles in a wide arc towards the cemetery gates. The noise the tyres made across the ancient raised cobbles made it sound, and feel, like we had four flat tyres.

‘You look exhausted,’ I said.

‘They said you were quite the charmer, I did not believe them until now.’ She sat still a moment longer then dropped the visor just above the windscreen and used the mirror in it to inspect why I had made that observation; to inspect the damage.

‘They?’ I said.

‘The military personnel officers who supplied us with your contact details, not that they were of any use.’ She began to apply a coat of lipstick.

‘Like I said, I am already involved, I have had to keep moving.’ I emerged from the gates at speed, threw the car into a sharp turn and two flower sellers tending multi-coloured buckets full of cheap home-grown tributes, visibly jumped as I passed them. One of them waved a fist.

‘You look worried, too.’ I watched as she removed a line of gloss that had smeared across her cheek from the turn. Huffing, she closed her lipstick then dropped it into a small clutch bag that I had not noticed she had.

‘The Governor was not best pleased at your request to commandeer her vehicle, she will have to make other arrangements to get back to her Nimbus City transportation.’

‘You mean a Zeppelin?’

‘Yes. Zeppelin. Look, we have been planning a very big launch, hence the dark circles under my eyes.’ She looked again the mirror. ‘In just over three weeks’ time something big is happening, something that will change the face of Nimbus, Mr Theron.’

I did not rise to the bait, did not ask her what it was about. I was not interested in publicity stunts and electioneering.

‘I doubt very much Governor Rose has been inconvenienced by anything,’ I said, ‘those balloon boys can get a limo at a fart’s notice...’ I looked across, Leonora’s face resembled the driver’s when he had handed me the keys. My vulgarity was beginning to wear her down. I turned back to the road and crunched the stick into third to take a corner way too fast, the rear end of the car swung out and I fought to keep control. ‘Anyway,’ I continued, ‘Let the bitch walk.’

Leonora’s lips thinned.

I pulled up at the motel I had been staying at, checked the mirrors. We had not been followed.

‘I am going to be a few minutes. Got a sympathy card from a friend I need to deal with.’ I patted my inside jacket pocket and left Leonora in the car; I did not wait for a response.

I was still cautious as I approached my room and went around the back of the low ranging building to check everything was still in place through the rear window. After seeing that no trips had been set off and the indicator wires were all where I had left them, I jimmied the window, climbed inside and grabbed my things. I stuffed a sharp, small paring knife and a length of thick, sterile medical tape next to the card in my inside pocket. I dropped the crossbow into my large duffel bag. I wound the trip wires and indicator wires back onto their spools, and placed them in the bag along with the credits and my change of clothes.

I left from the bathroom window, and after checking no one was observing, I popped the bathroom window of the room next to mine and climbed inside. I quietly checked the main room was empty then went back into the bathroom. I popped the side panel off from the bath and stuffed my bag underneath. I replaced the panel, grabbed one of the grubby hand towels then left, managing to re-engage the latch from the outside, using some of the tape and the knife. I jogged to the edge of the building and peered round, saw Leonora still sat in the car, looking down in her lap; it looked like she was working on something. Maybe she had fetched her satchel from the boot.

No other cars had pulled in.

I ran back round to the rear of the building and removed my jacket and shirt then sat down with my back to the pebble stuccoed wall. It was cold and made me hitch a breath. I crossed my legs and turned my palms to the air, emptied my mind of the day and slowed my breathing. Concentrated on my heartbeat. Focused on Newt and the day ahead. I looked as if in meditation.

I took a deep breath in, held it then exhaled slowly and took the knife from the pocket of my jacket that now lay at my side. I sterilised the blade with a small lighter, until the end glowed orange-hot. I swapped it to hold it with a hammer grip, as I would be cutting across and down. I inserted the point in my chest three inches from my armpit and up from my left nipple and cut four inches across in a straight line. My teeth were gritted too tight and I felt my jaw ache, I tried to relax and thought about my breathing again. The pain was sharp. I breathed into it. Blinked my eyes to focus. Breathed. Focused. Relaxed my clenched grip on the knife.

Calmer, I placed the knife in the start of the cut again, this time pointing right down and paused. The pain was an exquisite eye opener, tears brimmed and I hissed in air and held my breath this time. I pushed the knife through my subcutaneous tissue and down about three inches to create a shallow and neat slit beneath my skin. Like a shirt pocket but in my chest. I continued to check my breathing and then took out Bleecker’s swipe card from my inside jacket pocket and pushed it into the open wound. I swooned. Blood that had started to collect along the surface of the cut oozed out and ran down my chest. I exhaled, my heart pounding. I pressed on it and more blood oozed over and out of the cut. I wiped it clean again, flinching at the rawness, then dried it as best I could on the towel. When it was as dry as I could get it, I tore a length of the medical tape and placed it along the edge of the cut. It took four pieces to hold. I applied two cross pieces so it would stay in place. It looked as secure as it could be, considering the circumstances. I thought that Leonora might be getting restless, so hurriedly wiped myself down, climbed back into my clothes and grabbed my things. I dumped the towel in a waste bin, circumstantial evidence did not matter anymore, as I made my way back to the car. I was happy the card was concealed but reachable, and happier still that Leonora still had her head buried in paperwork, in the passenger seat. I approached with a false wave, she returned like for like. I climbed into the driver’s seat and ignored the sharp shooting pain I felt in my chest as I turned to place my jacket on the back seat.

‘Sorted?’ asked Leonora. She had applied more make-up in my absence.

‘Sorted.’

‘Where are we going now?’ She asked.

‘Elsewhere,’ I said.

I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the curved side of Nimbus City looming like a tidal wave of sheer stone, the top was not visible from this close. I frowned and pressed a hand on my chest.

‘You OK? You look pale,’ she said.

‘Indigestion,’ I said.

‘The Governor wants to name a road or street after your brother, you know.’ Leonora said.

My lip curled involuntarily.

‘What about the others who have died? His three colleagues? The Slayers and Mudheads and thousands before us? What about them? How many roads you got?’

Something almost imperceptible had changed and now my whole being felt different. I think that is how we all feel when we stop being defined by the bad things that happen to us and take control, when we stop responding and start asking questions, when we stop reacting and take action, when enough is enough.

Leonora said nothing.

I pushed the car into gear and watched Nimbus City get smaller. I screamed around the first bend like my life depended on it.

I suppose, in a way, it did.

The human condition is one of an innate, natural negativity; how often we bemoan a poor view, yet rarely rejoice that we can see.

Excerpts from the Human Condition

Askwith, Atkinson & Soames

‘Are we going to drive the whole way in silence?’ said Leonora.

‘I like silence.’

‘I’m bored.’

‘So, talk then.’

Leonora looked out of the window and seemed to relax a little into her seat.

‘Have you always been like this?’

‘Like what?’

‘Selfish, arrogant. Cold.’

‘No, I’ve been working on it for years.’

‘Seriously, I’m asking, it seems like you are just doing what you want, saying what you want and not giving any thought to how that will impact on others.’

‘Seriously, I have been working on it for years.’

The car made little noise as it sped along. Unfortunately Leonora was not as compliant. She was obviously not letting me off the hook easily and pushed again for an answer or at least a start to a conversation. My chest was hurting and I was ready for a distraction.

‘I wouldn’t say I was arrogant, just untroubled by doubt.’

‘Ha ha, quite. I can understand the bravado, the posturing, the chest inflating, head-thumping machismo that would undoubtedly sustain you in battle or military service, but the selfishness, surely that is against what being in service teaches. Don’t you look out for one another?’

‘We are supposed to.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning what it says. We are supposed to but the government and the country or despot you serve and would die for does not look out for you. So you have got to be selfish to survive.’

‘And what about your brothers in arms who have died serving the cause of justice for Nimbus? Does that mean their sacrifice is meaningless? Why enrol or fight at all if you think that? If you feel that?’

‘I don’t feel anything anymore.’

‘I don’t believe that. I could tell at the funeral, everyone could.’

‘Second-guess all you want, Leo, there is only one number in my book.’

I turned onto the main through road to Lowriser Central, traffic was awkward but flowing better than the conversation.

‘So what about those who give their life for the greater good, those who are selfless and serve the public throughout their lives, what of their altruism?’

‘Good word, altruism.’

‘It means…’

‘I know what it means. It means selfish.’

‘No, it’s the exact opposite of that.’

‘Is it? Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ She folded her arms.

‘Think about it, we receive gratification and proof of self-worth through helping others and we need that affirmation, thereby making our proposed selfless acts of kindness ultimately selfish. We are doing it to get what we want.’

‘I see where you are coming from with this one, but isn’t that missing the point? The moral, the social benefits for everyone else are not selfish. Isn’t that what makes something truly altruistic?’ Leonora asked.

Now I was enjoying the distraction. ‘Okay. If we claim our actions are the result of free will and that we choose to do good things because of moral or social implications, then are we not naïve? In democracy, the individual never comes first. Our moral codes are imposed by society, by the state. Everything we do is subjective, everything. We redress no good and evil imbalance with our supposed selflessness; we just think we do; and that is enough of a reason to stay in line, to bide our time, to bite our tongues, in case there is an afterlife and someone’s keeping score. To do the right thing by everyone else when it suits you, that is not altruism.’

‘Drake, you talk like you drive. It’s either dead stop or one hundred miles an hour.’

‘Is that your best response?’

‘Look, we are talking. This is not a competition or fight.’

‘All conversation is a fight, of some sort or other.’

‘Are you really that cynical?’

‘It is not cynicism, it is realism.’

‘So you think what you are saying is grounded in realism? That we should screw everyone else over and do what we want? That altruism, doing something for others without gain for oneself, does not truly exist? Come on Drake, even you cannot be that jaded.’

‘I am not jaded, I feel liberated.’ I eased out from behind a large cattle transporter, the smell of which was beginning to get up my nose.

‘God! You are so pig-headed and negative.’

She was beginning to understand me.

‘God? What if there was no God?’

‘Ha. Here we go. No God? And you say you are not jaded?’

‘This is the same argument, think about it. No God, Heaven is a cheap motel? That this, life, was it? That our finite time on earth was all the time we would ever have? That hedonism is the ultimate act of altruism? To give up the constraints we place on our behaviour and desires and strive to squeeze as much as we can from life? To experience the things we want to experience, rather than the things we should?

Heaven is nothing but the promise of water, and life is champagne. I want to taste it, and not by association, through the good deeds I am supposed to do. I want to drink freely knowing it is my choice to create my heaven here. I want to guzzle and belch and upend the bottle.’

‘And you are trying to tell me that is altruistic?’

‘No, what I am trying to say is that selfishness is the same. Altruism is a screen for the something that is missing in your own life. It is something you do to try and feel good about yourself. I say, stop feeling bad about what you are lacking, acknowledge what is missing, then go out and get what you need, for yourself.’

‘So why did you join up then?’

‘Because I didn’t know that then.’

‘So what has changed?’

‘Nothing’s changed.’

‘So what’s changed you?’

‘Having my wings removed, nubbed by Doc.’

‘Why would anyone ever do that? I mean being able to fly is surely…’
      

‘I killed a kid.’

The conversation stopped then.

It usually did.

I wound my window down a little. Talking philosophy was fine, but personal was not. I had said it to disturb her and it had worked, but it pulled something loose at the middle of me too. I pressed the accelerator down harder, to speed me back into the real world and further away from the past. Though time or distance were not enough and never would be. Self-forgiveness as impossible now as it always had been.

‘There a drink in here?’ I asked.

Leonora took a small, heavy designer bottle of water from her bag.

‘No alcohol, but you can have this if you like.’

I nodded, she twisted the top off and passed it over. I drank.

‘It wasn’t just Bethscape. It was Blackwings. Your government. Everything. I had had enough.’

‘So you sequestered yourself away from the world. You left the Slayers like you were leaving a friend due to irreconcilable differences. They’ve gone too far, enough is enough, etc., etc.’ Her tone was getting more harsh and I preferred it, I felt I was maybe one or two jabs away from an interesting conversation.

‘Leo. You are deluding yourself if you think you have friends in your profession, or that what you have chosen to do for a living, is altruistic. You like getting your way, along with the best of them and to say you don’t is naive to the nth degree. You will wind up crapped out of the other side of this machine before you can spell ‘altruism’ with nothing to show for your trouble but a new tweed suit and the same old wrinkles. Thanks for the drink.’

I put the empty bottle in a cup holder in the driver’s console.

‘You’re a fucking coward, do you know that, Drake?’

I carried on driving.

‘A fucking coward. Bravery has to be earned and not getting extinct like all the other dinosaurs, is not bravery. You haven’t lain down and you haven’t moved on. You are a fucking crippled dinosaur, alone, and waiting for the world to catch up, when it’s you that it left behind.’ She lowered her voice, ‘Everything you do is for yourself, even the constant purgatory you have created, and until you admit that, you are a fucking coward, Drake. Nothing more, nothing less. Now shut up and drive.’

I did both.

Smiling.

*

I pulled in to the side of the road and heard a discarded drinks container pop from somewhere underneath one of the wheels. The populace of citizens bustled back and forth across the litter-strewn pavements, hands thrust in pockets, heads bowed as if doing so might allow them to avoid more of the rain. People’s clothes were the same colour as their surroundings, greys on blacks and whites, tempered, worn and miserable. Here and there the occasional flash of colour peeked out from beneath a youth’s bedraggled raincoat, like a glimpse of spring in wintertime; they would learn soon enough.

‘We’re here,’ I said. It was the first I had spoken since our conversation’s end.

‘Where?’

‘Get out, you’ll be driving back on your own.’

‘What? Where are we? It’s started raining.’

Leonora peered out through her drizzle-streaked side window and saw nothing helpful. I reached into the back seat and grabbed my jacket,

‘Stay in here if you would prefer, but I have to go.’ I climbed out of the car, put on my jacket and flipped the collar up. The coolness bit into me and I could not decide if it was spiteful or refreshing. Leonora got out on the passenger side and looked across the car’s roof at me. She was not happy and visibly shivered, hunched her shoulders then turned her back.

Already people were starting to pay attention: the flash car, the lady who looked strangely familiar, me in my funeral gear looking about as incongruous as it got for the heartlands of this Lowlands City. Someone began to walk over to Leonora, the early glimmer of recognition and an undoubtedly banal question dancing in their dull eyes. They nudged someone near them, maybe a friend, maybe not. They both whispered to each other and drew nearer.

‘Aren’t you the lady who…’

I opened the car door and reached back inside to grab the empty bottle I had drained earlier. As I stretched, I felt the medical tape on my chest pull and snag my skin on the adhesive. Warm blood trickled and snaked down my chest, sticking my shirt to my body.

‘….with Governor Rose?’

I noticed Leonora’s whole persona had changed. Her body language was open and welcoming, she demurred a smile back as if slightly embarrassed by the attention and slightly pleased by it. She was good. A consummate professional. More people strolled over. Leonora looked at me pleadingly.

Get me out of here, her look said. You’re in your element, I smiled back.

A few more people gathered.

Perfect.

I strode around to her side of the car. ‘Excuse me,’ I said to the crowd as if they were an interloping male asking my date for a dance, and grabbed Leonora by her left arm, spinning her towards me and closer.

‘We are outside the Horizoneers headquarters, the main resistance movement and protesters against Governor Rose all work there behind that false facade,’ I pointed to a plain shop front offering dry cleaning and ironing deals.

Leonora looked confused.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘For what?’

‘For this.’

She barely had time to process what I had said when I pulled her into me, kissed her deep and long, my mouth half open and closing around her pursed lips. Her back arched in protest but I firmly held her. Her arms came up to resist and pushed at my chest, sticking it to my shirt even more. A strange low sound was coming from her throat. I pressed in harder, her rump against the car’s ticking wet bonnet. I heard interest from the crowd escalate, whispers and gasps of surprise and laughter. Perfect. Then I broke away and shouted:

‘For you, Leo, and for Governor Rose!’ I raised the heavy bottle theatrically, horizontally out and back, as if I were hurling a javelin, and threw it through the plate glass window. It shattered and I heard neon pop, a poster offering three for two somethings shredded and dissolved. I heard screaming from inside and absently speculated that I may have hit someone. The crowd withdrew but held a perimeter at what they deemed to be a safe distance, close enough to gawk and far enough away to have a reasonable head start. I sat down, cross-legged, with my back on the passenger car door and waited for the Mudheads to descend in their masses to arrest me.

I wondered if Leonora would keep shrieking until they did.