Something Communicated

            Ian was in the kitchen, staring at his phone. He had received a message from Ed just after he awoke. It didn’t say much, just that he was save, hunting down his own leads to find Aaliyah and that Ian shouldn’t trust the Oracle. Not that he needed to be told.

            JR came stalking down the stairs as the news came on.

  “Goeie more en welkom by die nuus om seve,” said the news anchor in Afrikaans.

  “Hell,” said JR, “I still can’t believe he’s still doing the news,”

  “I can’t believe he’s still on TV, although they moved him to the morning news,”

  “He still looks the same, though,”

  “Yeah, which is scary,”

  “Where’s Danny?” asked JR as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Left early for work, she’s on call again tonight,”

  “So it’s just gonna be the two of us? Hell yes, then we can catch up on our gaming,”

  “True that,” said Ian.

  “What are they going on about a communications blackout this morning?” asked JR in response to the news.

  “Every satellite went dark for exactly a minute early this morning. No cell signal, no internet, no radio, no TV,”

  “Fokol, fokol”

  “Fokol, fokol,” Ian echoed. “So what are you planning for the day?”

  “Thought I’d go visit Abigail, see how she’s doing,”

  “Good idea,”

  “You?”

  “Got to go see if I’ve still got a job with the Scorpions, then I’ve got to go see if Project 8 is getting anywhere with the development, and I’ve got some leads to tie up,”

  “Busy day, huh?”

  “Always,”

            JR entered the hospital and made his way to the front desk, where he asked for Abigail’s room and then made his way to ICU.

  “JR,” said Danny as she passed him in the hallway.

  “Hey,” he greeted her with a hug.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Came to see Abigail,”

  “Oh, that’s nice. She hasn’t had many visitors, other than Ian and Ed. You going to see Connor as well?”

  “No, probably not,”

  “Not your favourite person?”

  “Nope,” he answered and Danny’s pager went off.

  “I’ve got to run, see you around,”

  “Yeah,” said JR as she ran off down the hall.

            Much like Ed, JR was always left in amazement at the girl that Ian had managed to hook, although she wasn’t really JR’s type.

            He entered the room where Abigail was being kept and as she saw him, she sat up quickly and looked around for something with which to defend herself.

  “Relax, it’s me,” said JR reassuringly and started his search for a vase for the flowers he brought her.

  “How can I be sure?”

  “I brought you flowers,”

  “I hate flowers,”

  “Exactly,” said JR, somewhat deflated.

  “I was wondering when I’d see the real you again, the sober JR,”

  “Yeah, for a moment I thought I’d lost him. If it wasn’t for Ian-”

  “You give him too much credit,”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He’s just a man, that’s all,”

  “He’s my best friend,”

  “He still bleeds like the rest of us,”

  “Where’s this coming from?”

  “I know I’ve got skeletons in my closet, but he’s got a mortuary in his,”

            JR stood staring at her. He wasn’t sure what to make of what she was saying. After they had told him about their secret lives as secret agents, he had deduced that Ed, Ian and Devon had done things they would rather have forgotten. He didn’t ask them about it, out of common courtesy, something he knew he sometimes lacked. He was working on that.

  “I didn’t come here to talk about Ian, I came to see how you were doing,” said JR, changing the subject before either of them said something they would later regret.

  “They say I’ll be discharged by tomorrow,”

  “That’s good,”

  “Yeah, then maybe you can take me for that drink you promised,”

  “As long as you don’t bring him to my bar,” said Connor as he entered the room groggily. “I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime,”

  “You’re middle name is trouble, Connor,” said Abigail.

  “Touché,”

  “What are you even doing up?” asked JR.

  “I heard your voice, I am lead to believe you are the reason I shot myself. You induce mental breakdowns,”

  “Hey, play nice, he saved my life,”

  “Or so he would have you believe,”

  “Connor,”

  “Alright, alright,” Connor said, raising his arms as high as he could without the pain crippling him. “I’ll let you two love birds be,” he said and left the room.

  “Please excuse my partner, he’s an idiot,” said Abigail, blushing ever so slightly.

  “I’m used to idiots, I knew a few back in my high school days,”

  “Didn’t we all,”

  “It’s a fake, Erasmus,” said De Beer for the umpteenth time.

  “You mean to tell me they fed me this footage for no apparent reason?”

  “Not for no reason, they wanted you to see it, I think they wanted you to go after this lead. Either to waste time or to make you miss something bigger,”

  “Like what they are up to in that mansion,” said Ian thoughtfully.

            He was meeting De Beer in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Gauteng. There was a layer of dust a good two centimetres tick on everything and the rats were almost bigger than the cats that hunt them. Almost.

  “I need to get in there,”

  “You won’t be able to do it alone,”

  “No, and I’m not planning on doing it alone. And I’m sure as hell not going to do it without a diversion,”

  “I’ve only got a hand full of agents with me,” said De Beer.

  “It’ll be enough, I’m working out the kinks in the plan, will have something solid soon,”

  “Whenever you Agency agents have a solid plan, it involves a lot of hopes and prayers,”

  “You can do a lot with hope,”

  “And prayers?”

  “That depends on who you pray to. I didn’t take you as a religious man,”

  “I’m not. If me and mine are going to be the distraction, who are you taking in with you?”

  “Dev,”

  “Just him?” De Beer asked, contempt in his voice.

  “I’ve got another in mind, will see if he’s up to it,”

  “I stand corrected, clearly your solid plans are translucent at best,”

  “The better to hide them,” said Ian with a smile just before he turned to leave.

            Late that night he was looking out at the town below. He wondered how many of them knew what was really going on in everyday life, he wondered how many of them had hopes and dreams that they would never achieve. Then his thoughts turned to Danny where she was still at work and he missed her again.

  Thinking of raiding Cage, will be recruiting someone. DO NOT REPLY, Ian typed the message on his phone and sent it to the number Ed had used to contact him.

            They would have to find a different way to communicate, Ian had an idea how but it would require knowing where Ed was. Or perhaps not. Ian went down to Ed’s room and started rummaging through his closet.

            Ed had taken almost everything with him, but there had to be half an arrow left somewhere. And then he spotted it by the foot of Ed’s bed, the arrow Ed had used to swing at Ian a week or so ago.

  “Bingo,” Ian said