Medic slowly regains consciousness as pain and nausea creep in.
With eyes still closed, he tries to remember the previous night. He’d been out drinking by himself, took an unusual shortcut through the park, met some odd characters, then crawled home and into bed.
Right?
No, wait; that was a few nights ago. What happened after that?
It takes agonizing effort for him to gather his memories into a cohesive timeline.
The woman with the captivating eyes, The Handler, she gave him her business card, he accidentally set it on fire which revealed an email address on the back, he used it to contact her and she responded with a time and a meeting location where she told him some uncomfortable things, he was followed back to his place by some strangers in a car, found his apartment broken into and torn apart … and then?
Oh, right, he didn’t know what to do so he contacted her again and she told him to meet her at a grubby old bar down by the docks. There he was introduced to Dominic and Dmitri, the other two members of Section B, they all drank some strong liquor together, they shared a convincing analysis of the situation with him, and The Handler somehow fucked with a random guy’s mind in order to answer a question that Medic had asked her. She called it her “modus operandi”. And they’re all secret agents working part-time, it seems, for some incredibly nebulous organization known only as the agency. Then they drank some more.
Somehow he made it back home and must’ve collapsed on an overturned mattress. That explains the alien feeling of the bed beneath him. However, he can’t account for the dull metallic clanks he hears at regular intervals, or what feels like a gentle rocking motion cradling the whole room.
He opens his eyes. The ceiling is much closer than he remembers and it’s coated in some thick-looking glossy white paint. This isn’t his ceiling.
He rolls over to have a look at his surroundings. He’s in a white room with a series of sloping iron ribs that run up the walls into the alien ceiling. Spaced evenly between every third rib is a very convincing porthole window. Medic is amazed at the nautical feel of the room, the way it perfectly reproduces the inside of a ship.
It takes him a few moments to consider the possibility that this might actually be the inside of a ship.
As he sits up, Medic notes that the motion of the bed is independent of his hangover, and it’s definitely not helping matters. “The toilet’s through there,” sounds The Handler’s voice from somewhere to his immediate right.
He turns his head to see her pointing to an open ship door a few meters further to the right. Feeling the vomit churning in his stomach, Medic lurches over the slip-resistant floor toward the washroom. He stubs his toe on the raised lip of the opening and stumbles painfully to the stainless steel toilet bowl, arriving just in time.
At long last, having expunged everything in his guts Medic sits on the floor of the narrow washroom, exhausted. The smell of industrial disinfectant at this moment, at this level, is refreshing and welcome. He rests here for a bit.
Finally feeling more steady, he pulls himself up by the small steel sink beside the toilet. He’s surprised to find a mug of black liquid and two small round pills of different colours sitting on the wide lip. Lifting the mug to his nose he confirms the presence of coffee and looks at himself in the small oval mirror above the sink.
He looks like the same old reheated shit he remembers, still dressed in the same clothes, but there’s something in his reflection that feels more alert and vital than the previous time he’d woken up like this. It could just be the foreign lighting in here.
Medic sips on the warm and pleasantly balanced coffee, pondering his situation, staring vacantly at his image in the mirror while steadying himself on the sink.
He’s on a ship, that much is certain. He doesn’t know what kind of ship it is, doesn’t remember how he got here, and has no idea where they’re headed. He also doesn’t have a clue as to how long he’s been passed out. He’s hoping that The Handler can provide some satisfactory answers.
Trusting that they’re intended for his headache, he pops the pills on the sink with the next gulp of coffee and slowly makes his way back to the adjoining room.
Sitting at a small table that’s bolted to the wall of the ship is The Handler. On the sturdy planks in front of her lies a plate of food, a small stack of file folders, an open laptop computer attached to a monitor, and what looks like a metallic breadbox with vents. Out of the box extends a loosely draped length of wire that disappears somewhere into the ceiling.
The Handler has her hair pulled into a ponytail, shades perched above her blunt bangs like a tiara, all of it creating an effect similar to the one he remembers. There’s no jewellery or accessories of any kind and if she’s wearing makeup it’s not obvious. This is all put together with a crisp white dress shirt and pleated black slacks as she sits cross-legged and barefoot in her swivelling chair.
“Those pills on the sink are for the hangover,” she says as she spins around. “Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen. Between those and the coffee you should feel better.”
“Can I be honest with you?” she asks after a slight pause.
Medic nods plaintively.
“I think we overdid it a bit last night,” she divulges with a sheepish grin. “I spent some time over the bowl myself. Food helped a lot though.”
“Here, have some,” she says, motioning toward the plate of food.
The meal consists of some fried bacon, a couple of poached eggs, a pile of baked beans, and two slices of toasted bread. With hunger greatly overshadowing the lingering nausea, Medic finds some napkin-wrapped cutlery tucked beneath the lip of the plate and digs in as eagerly as his diminishing hangover allows.
After a few bites he stops for another sip of coffee. “So, you wanna explain this to me?” he says to The Handler, waving his fork at their surroundings
“You don’t remember?” she asks with surprise. “Jeez, you must’ve been really wasted last night.
“This is the Tenebra in some ports of call, the Rhosus in others. It’s a small trans-oceanic cargo vessel that’s been retrofitted as a private pleasure craft slash smuggling ship. We’re currently en route to Cape Verde.”
“Are you fucking with me right now?” asks Medic as forthrightly as he can. “And where the fuck is Cape Verde?”
“No, and off the western coast of Africa somewhere,” she replies calmly.
“Africa? What the fuck?!” screams Medic, causing his headache to explode. He clutches his skull forcefully with both hands.
“Dude, relax,” she says in a gently commanding manner. “You forget who you’re with.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” he says with subdued agitation.
“Don’t you remember last night? That douche at the bar? The wallet?”
In the daze and confusion of the morning’s hangover he had pushed The Handler’s demonstration to the back of his mind.
“Yeah,” he replies, a little more subdued.
“That’s how I got us this ride,” she explains with an exuberant flare. “The ship’s owner’s had a soft spot for me ever since our torrid love affair. Unfortunately, after much tragic deliberation we had to break it off, but he said if I ever needed anything, he’d be there for me.”
“So he’s in love with you or something?” asks Medic.
She throws her head back and heaves a loud sigh of frustration.
“Dude, seriously?” she says with annoyance. “I just told you that I did the same thing to the owner of this ship as I did to that guy at the bar.”
“And what exactly did you do to them?” he asks calmly, now pain-free enough to drop his hands.
“Okay, well, we’re skipping ahead a bit here. That’s fine,” she accepts grudgingly.
“So, not everyone is susceptible. You, Dmitri, Dom, for example. Doesn’t work on any agent as far as I know. But it works reliably on cocky jackasses. Maybe not for you but they’ll put their defences down for widdle ‘ole me,” she says, smiling sweetly and batting her eyelashes. “Then BAM” – she pounds a fist into her open palm – “I move in.”
He puts a forkful of eggs and bacon sideways into his mouth as he listens intently.
“The technique has a few nuances,” she continues. “It works best when they’re not expecting it, when they have no walls up. First impressions are crucial. You have to hit their subconscious right away. Instant, deep eye contact stuns people like deer in headlights.
“Then I just say some nonsense rhyme to add to the confusion and when I see on their face that their brain is farting I give them an instruction. Something simple and innocent at first in case I’ve misread them. After that I just have to use my imagination. And the meatier the head, the more they’re convinced that it’s all real, or that it’s all their idea, or whatever. There’s something karmic about it. Sometimes even satisfying.”
“So you hypnotize them, basically,” summarizes Medic.
“Yeah. Like hypnosis on steroids.”
“Wait,” he says, pausing with the coffee mug halfway to his mouth. “Is that what you tried to do to me in the park that night?”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding with mild embarrassment. “If it worked I never would’ve given you my card. You’d never even know we existed. The agency communiqué explicitly stated that I wouldn’t be able to manipulate the target. I tried but you just wobbled a bit.”
“Huh,” replies Medic, searching his own memories.
“So that guy that ran out of the park afterward, after you left, was that your work too?” he asks as he remembers the moment following their the encounter. “He looked really freaked out. Looked like he’d pissed himself or something.”
“Harold, that jackass. He tipped us off to all of this when he broke into our boo and took some of my research,” she explains.
Medic looks away as he tries to remember what that familiar-sounding word means.
Reading his cue The Handler clarifies, “Base of operations.”
Medic nods.
The Handler continues, “After he told us who hired him I wanted to make sure he didn’t fuck with us again any time soon. Funny thing is that I didn’t even tell him anything specific. Whatever he experienced was the creation of his own shitty mind.”
As Medic pieces together what she’s been telling him he begins to understand why their circumstances don’t seem as alarming to her as they are to him: she’s probably been doing this sort of thing for years.
Then he starts considering the possibilities.
“So could I learn to do something like that too?” he asks with some enthusiasm.
“Dude, of course!” she assures him with gusto. “That’s, like, basic training. We have a lot of ground to cover by the time we get to where we’re going but this will definitely be a part of it.”
At this Medic pauses a moment to reflect on what he’s leaving behind him. Mostly just the apartment. Eventually the landlord will liquidate most of his belongings. Probably won’t even begin to cover the rent and damage.
Although he’s still a little pissed at not getting a sober say in the matter, this radical departure from the tedium of his previous life is sort of welcome. Maybe even necessary. And the Academy came after him too. He’s implicated whether he likes it or not. He’s now a target.
“So if I were to come with you, what would the mission be? What would we be trying to accomplish?” he asks.
“We find out why Shindan is after us and put an end to it, permanently,” she says confidently. “Your part in any of this is your choice, but it seems to me like this Academy business affects the whole Section. Right now you’re the least equipped to handle it on your own, and you’re already here, so it might behoove you to, you know, stick around.”
“Just saying,” she finishes, holding up both hands to surrender her suggestion.
Medic closes his eyes and pauses for a few a moments, deep in contemplation.
“Okay, so why are we going to Cape Verde? And where are Dom and Dmitri?” he asks, feeling a lot better than he had only a short while ago.