This choice: Meet Rick at the airport • Go Back...Chapter #80Several Kinds of Idiocy by: imaj   You doze fitfully in the passenger seat of the hire car. Rick’s angry with you, you’re sure, but he’s restrained himself so far. He’s only said a few words to you since you met him in the concourse at Heathrow Airport in London. You glance at him with half eyes. He’s focused on the road, seemingly marshalling his thoughts before talking to you.
Dawn is starting to break, the half light spilling across the freeway Rick is driving along. Traffic is light, at least in the direction you are heading, but the road leading back to London is busy already. As the sky lightens, it’s getting harder and harder to sleep, despite how tired you feel.
“Do you know why I’m annoyed at you,” asks Rick quietly.
You yawn and stretch before settling yourself down in the passenger seat again. “Because I didn’t go back to Kali’s apartment like I was told to,” you reply miserably in Jen’s voice. You haven’t changed since leaving the airport, Rick insisted that you stay as you are.
“That only a small part of it,” explains Rick, his eyes still firmly focused on the road. “Doing what you’re told to is important. Sometimes it’ll save your life, sometimes it’ll get you killed,” he adds grimly. “You need to be able to tell the difference, and know when to act on your own initiative. But that’s something experienced Stellae know how to do, not weeks old acolytes. Otherwise we end up with squirts doing all kinds of stupid, stupid things.” He turns his head from the road briefly enough to glare at you. “Like this.”
“Sorry,” you say in a very small, very quiet voice.
“But that’s only part of it,” continues Rick, pushing hard on the gas as he overtakes a dawdling car. “It’s the mess you’ve caused for this woman,” he explains, taking one hand off the wheel to gesture at you. “You’ve left her stranded in America with no clothes, no passport…” Rick sighs and shakes his head. It probably isn’t a good idea mentioning that you left her the set of Kali’s clothes you had worn to the airport. “Once you’ve finished with that face you’re going to take the time to mail everything you stole back to her, but not before you’ve put a sizeable chunk of cash into her bank account.”
“How am I going to do that,” you whine. “It’ll be traced back to me. I don’t even have much money.”
“You’ll do it in person, with cash,” explains Rick. “And I’ll lend you the money. You can work the debt off.”
You sit in abject silence. You don’t know what kind of work Rick has in mind for you, but you get the feeling it will not be pleasant.
“You’re damned lucky, you know that,” he adds after a minute.
“What? How?”
“That Jen dame, she’d have been knocked out for about ten minutes, wouldn’t she,” asks Rick. He doesn’t wait for an answer. “So she wakes up ten minutes later, naked, wherever you left her. What if she’d gone to security? What if someone had found her? You’d have a big security alert, planes grounded and people asking awkward questions like ‘how come you look exactly like her’. Christ squirt, do you realise the level of paranoia that would have opened up?”
“She didn’t wake up after ten minutes,” you reply, still in that quiet voice.
“Say what?”
“She didn’t wake up after ten minutes,” you repeat, a little louder. You explain to Rick how you modified the sigil to extend the length of time Jen would be knocked out for.
“Interesting,” says Rick to himself, nodding slightly. He’s got that look on his face again, the one where he’s picking apart something or thinking it over. Then it abruptly vanishes. “You still got lucky squirt,” he says. “Lucky that no one found her unconscious. You know what makes me really angry though?”
You do not, and you say as much
“That you gave yourself away so easily on the plane. Using my name, that’s a Rookie error,” he explains. “I’d never have guessed otherwise. Letting me get an eyeful of the goods was a nice touch, but you undid it all with my name.” He sighs and shakes his head again. “You got a lot of potential squirt, a hell of a lot of potential, but you’re gonna be playing for keeps once you make full member. Mistakes like that are gonna get you killed.”
You have no response to that. The pair of you sit in awkward silence as Rick turns the hire car onto an offramp signposted ‘Oxford’. “I’m sorry,” you eventually work up the courage to say. “I’ve let you down. What happens now? Do I go back home?”
Rick looks thoughtful as he turns the hire car onto another road. “Nah, now you’re here it would do you good to see Margaret anyway. She’ll know better than me what to do about your little adventure anyway.” That sounds a little ominous and you squirm in the chair. “What you said about putting the real Jen to sleep,” he continues, changing the subject. “You changed the sigil to make it last longer?”
“Um… yeah,” you reply, a little surprised at the change in topic. “I sort of meditated and Sulva broke it down into bits for me. I can show you the bit that knocks people out.”
“Maybe later,” replies Rick. “I’m driving.”
“Uh, ok. Yeah, the bit that knocks people out. I used Kali’s thoughts and memories to look at it. When I did that I saw that it was designed to let you change the power level of it. So you could send people to sleep for different lengths of time.”
“Useful,” replies Rick monosyllabically. “Worrying too.”
“Uh…” you reply, not quite getting what Rick’s angling at.
“Think about it squirt. You’ve got a sigil that’s designed to be changeable,” explains Rick. “But nobody can change it because you can’t copy the sigils from the Libra. No one can, no one except you.”
“What does that mean,” you ask nervously.
“It means we’ve got another reason for you to speak to Margaret squirt.”
You find yourself squirming in your seat again. “What’s she going to do?”
“Help you take a long hard look at yourself squirt, and you’re not gonna like what you see” explains Rick. “I didn’t,” he adds so quietly that you can barely hear him.
You find yourself thinking of the conversation Miko and Rick had back in Kali’s apartment. The one about Kali seeing either Margaret or Edward. Much as you have spent the last while feeling sorry for yourself, your suddenly find yourself feeling even more sorry for Frank.
“What is it,” asks Rick, glancing at you. “You got an odd look on your face.”
“I was just thinking about Frank,” you explain, looking out the window.
“Hmph,” snorts Rick. “Yeah, compared to the cadet, you got it easy.”
*****
Rick shakes you awake. You mumble incoherently as you stretch your arms and legs, hitting them off the roof and floor of the hire car respectively. That’s right you remember, we were driving to see Margaret Dillon. You blink a couple of times and crane your neck to look around.
Rick has parked the car in the gravel driveway of a detached villa, set into its own ground, much like Blackwell’s house back in Saratoga Falls. The comparison ends right there, because while Blackwell’s villa was an ugly, foreboding building, this villa is completely different. It has a simple style, no fancy stonework and large windows to let the light in give it an airy appearance. The garden is bright and well kept, and the front wall of the grounds is low. The other buildings in the street look similar.
Two other cars are parked in the driveway. A small European compact with flanks emblazoned with the logo of the same car hire company that Rick used. The other is a sleek luxury saloon, its plates noticeably different from all the other cars you have seen on the roads here.
“Looks like Margaret has guests,” says Rick and he gets out the car. “Come on squirt.”
You unbuckle the belt and climb out before fetching Jen’s suitcase from the trunk. You’re stuck with her clothes for now. The gravel in the drive crunches under your feet as you follow Rick to the door. He looks around the door frame before pressing a button he finds set there. Inside you can here a chiming sound.
There is the sound of movement inside and then the thick door creaks slowly open. Just beyond the threshold stands Kali, dressed in a simple bathrobe. “Hello Rick,” she says with a wan smile.
“Kali,” he replies. “It’s good to see you here, really it is.”
“Likewise,” she says without feeling before staring at you in some confusion. “Who is this,” she asks Rick. You watch as she thinks about it, and the pieces start to click into place in her mind. “No… Will?” You smile goofily and nod. “It wasn’t necessary to bring Will along Rick,” she says quietly, staring at the floor.
“I didn’t,” replies Rick. “Squirt took it upon himself to come out with me. I figured it would be a good idea to introduce him to Margaret while he was here.”
“Well, she’s still sleeping right now,” explains Kali. “Although I’m sure she’d love to meet Will later.” Kali looks at you again. “Speaking of sleep, you look like you are about to fall over child. Were you not able to sleep on the flight over?”
“No,” you say, stifling another yawn. “This woman is a flight attendant,” you explain, gesturing at yourself. “I had to do her job.”
“It’s a long flight,” says Kali, nodding her head sagely. “I don’t think we’d begrudge Will a couple hours of sleep before he meets Margaret, would we Rick?”
“If he wants to,” says Rick with a shrug.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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