Something Dated
The
next morning had started a lot like the previous for Ed. As per usual, he had
been the last one to join the breakfast, and just like the day before, their
handler, Elizabeth, was already gone. Ed loved the breakfast though. It
reminded him a lot of his days before the Agency. Before this country went to shit, Ed echoed in his head as he
finished up and got up from the table where the three of them headed to the gym
to work out for a bit. Once there, the three of them entered actual
conversation for the first time that morning.
"You look like shit, man,"
Ed said as he adjusted the weights he was busy lifting.
"Had a bad night is all,"
Ian replied after he saw that Devon was at the back, probably out of normal
hearing distance over the volume of the workout.
"Yeah? Missing Danny?"
"Mm-hmm. That, too."
"Smile and carry on," Ed
started, "that's WHAT IS keeping me going -- all that MATTERS."
"I hear you," Ian said and
winked at Ed while he benched, so that it seemed normal under circumstances. Ed
knew that Ian felt that he couldn't speak at the moment, and that it was
probably too unsafe or something.
"Elizabeth is hot,
though," Ed said after a while, which made Ian simply stare at him, all
confused. The thing that made him most confused though, was not that Ed was
making small talk which was already unusual, but rather that Ed actually
sounded as serious as can be. "Yeah, I'm serious," Ed then said which
made Devon laugh as he walked over and took the bench over from Ian, who had
moved on to the shoulder press machine.
Once
the three of them had showered and cleaned up, they met back at the library
where they would be waiting for whatever assignment would be knocking in their
door. By 2 PM Ed and Dev was in the library doing whatever they could not to be
bored while Ian was out "exploring" again.
"You really think she's
hot?" Dev asked as he put a car magazine back in its place on the end
table next to one of the couches in the library. "You know what happens
when you fancy your employer, right? Especially in your case."
"I do. And I do. Besides, I'm
doing this for Aaliyah."
"Just asking," Dev said,
and then looked over to the door where Scars shoved Ian through it before
looking at him with his let me catch you
again and you'll be the one in the body bag next time look.
"Thanks again." Ian smiled
wryly at Scars before he disappeared out the door, slamming it ever so
slightly. "Afternoon," he then said, walked up the couch Dev sat on
and fell back onto it.
"Have YOU seen the flowers on
our way back in from the gym? FOUND out in one of these magazines what they're
called -- Alitalia or SOMETHING."
Ian looked over at Dev who was
sporting his most sincere face. He had gotten better over the past few years.
Something neither of them thought age would accomplish.
"That's NOTHING. What I found
INTERESTING was the way they were planted."
"Of course," Ed chuckled.
"Anyway, I'm off to the pub..."
Dev looked at Ed and jumped up.
"Does that mean I can go and see Melisa?"
"Well, they didn't say anything
about having to spend every hour of the day in this place," Ian said as he
rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb respectively, which made all of
them want to face-palm themselves. If they had thought about it earlier, they
wouldn't have had to worry so much about all this cryptic talk. "I'll be
at Danny's then. Meet back here tonight?"
"Mm-hmm." Ed was already
heading for the door before Ian stopped him. "Ah, yeah. Meet me at the car
then."
JR
woke up a little after his alarm went off. He had set it for 8PM as he had
lined up a date a couple of days ago, though how he felt at the moment made him
not even consider getting up. Instead, he grabbed one of the beers next to his
bed, turned his music on and took a few gulps. He found that he could drain the
voice out with his music and his beer, though he also found that if he did
that, his veins essentially turned green again.
He was covered in what almost made
him look like a live circuit board, and it had already started to go all the
way down his torso and down his legs. He didn't even want to see how his crotch
must have looked like. At least it's not
an STD, he thought as he finished the can of beer in another couple of
gulps.
Just as another Bullet For My
Valentine song started playing the power went out, leaving JR in darkness. His
veins pulsated ever so slightly, which gave the entire bedroom an extremely
eerie atmosphere.
"All alone," the female
began. JR looked over to the small mirror above the drawer near the door, where
the woman was standing in all her naked, green pulsating glory, combing her
virtual looking hair. "We are all alone in the dark," she went on.
"They'll be back in the
morning," JR lied, though he knew full well that the woman would know it
too. She was in his head after all. And he had come to terms with that. What he
hadn't come to terms with, was how annoying he found her mere presence.
"And I'm talking to myself again."
"You're talking to me,"
she said and made her way to his bed. "Let's go out. You have a
date!"
JR looked at her then decided to get
out of bed and started to dress. When he grabbed his keys on his desk and
looked around to where she had gone to sit down, she was gone. "I have a
date!" he said, all excited all of a sudden, zipped his bomber jacket all
the way up to his neck in order to cover his veins, and headed out the door.