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Part V: There but for Fortune
"Come now, Mr. Hickock," Yusuf, dusty and ragged, nonetheless maintained an aggravatingly debonair manner of speech, as if this were all only a mild inconvenience, "A man in your line of work knows the best confessions aren't obtained at gunpoint."
"If that's a smartass way to get us all to lower our tools, you'll have to try harder," said Eliza.
"You had interests in Isaac Hendricks's work, yes, Ms. Taylor?"
Eliza shrugged, "I mean...I'm at gunpoint, so how honest can my answer be?"
"Yes, you did. The people who commissioned me to curtail his lecture your had opposite interests."
"As in...they weren't interested in his work or they weren't interested in me having my interests satisfied?"
"What do you think?"
"Right," she bit her lip, "By any chance, would you know what was so special about his work?"
"The people I work for are careful about what they divulge."
"And he is careful of who he honors," Saba snarled derisively, turning to Chip, "Don't expect him to answer your questions."
"Mr. Hickock, considering your notorious line of work, surely it can't come as a surprise there are people on several continents who would like to see you brought to account," said Yusuf, "Your presence in the region was noted by one such person, and one such person made it known to my organization that they would very much like to meet you. That is it."
"Only it isn't."
"Saba!" Yusuf warned.
"Give me the pearl, Taylor, and I'll tell your boyfriend everything he wants to know."
"You expect me to fall for that bullshit?" prompted Eliza.
"Yes, or don't, your loss."
"You might as well give me the pearl," said Yusuf, as if he found the whole notion highly amusing, "I'll tell you who was so interested to have Hendricks put away. I will take my quarry, you can take your information, and we can all wander the trackless desert on our own merry way."
"Oh," Liz breathed, looking from one of them to the other, "...shit."
-Eliza, Yusuf, and Saba
It was wet, he could tell that much and he knew why from the copper taste in his mouth. , the air smelled of blood and burning metal. Kori would not next to him the driver king dead who he had taken over the wheel from. He grabbed the side piece, hoping he wouldn't need it, that Yusuf was dead and Saba had escaped to lick her wounds, hoping even more that nobody had gotten the pearl. He dragged himself from the wreckage, only to see the stand off happening around him. Slowly he got up, quiet as a mouse as not to draw attention. He raised the gun, and fired. A mighty splatter leaving the forehead of the man who had started all of this. Yusuf would no longer be a problem, and now he only had one other complication. He fired again, a bullet passing through Saba's knee. "I'm sorry, but the pearl will be taken where it belongs."
Chip stared in shock as some of Yusuf's blood splattered on his face. Shock quickly turned into rage.
"You stupid son of a bitch!"
He crossed the threshold in an instant his clenched fist connected with Kori's jaw, knocking him to the ground.
"He was our only lead! What the hell were you thinking, motherfucker?! HUH?! Now where the hell are we?!"
"Oh, what the fuck?" Eliza squealed as Yusuf dropped dead with an almost comical swiftness given all the agita he'd given her the last 48 hours, "And...oh what the fuck?" again, as Chip laid into Kori. This was overlaid with something that might've been 'what the fuck?' in Arabic or Persian or something as Saba doubled over on her unhobbled leg.
"Hey, hey, hey..." Eliza hurried over to the men to break things up, first setting the pearl down and giving Waffles a look like 'No funny business', "Hey! Stop it! Chip! He didn't know!" she put her hands on his shoulders, pulling him back and then looking down at Kori, realizing how rapidly her heart was beating.
She slapped Kori too, just to get it out of her system, "That was for everything else," she told him, "Like, in general."
-Eliza and Saba
Kori took the hit, feeling a swift crack in his nose as he hit the ground. He spat at the man's feet before receiving more abuse at the hand of Eliza.
"He was scum, and an obstacle in my pursuit."
"Well...yeah," said Eliza, "But we...we needed him..."
"You're smarter than that!" Saba snarled.
"Oh, thanks."
"He was a manipulative liar. Whatever he told you would've been a half-truth at best and complete bullshit at worst. You'd have gotten no answers from him," she grimaced, turning to Kori, "You didn't shoot to kill," and then some remark in Arabic that Eliza used context clues to deduce meant something like "Pussy", though she said it almost endearingly.
"Okay, well, the fact remains that he's dead and Isaac's dead and, as far as our end of this whole thing goes, this was nothing more or less than What's-Her-Name getting jumped by those mountain lions on 24. Nothing gained..." she looked around, "I won't say nothing lost, though."
"For you, maybe," said Saba.
"Girl, if you're gonna bring up that pearl..."
"It is mine! I got it from you in the museum, and I got it back from Yusuf..."
"Yeah, and now I have it, so by your stupid desert pirate logic..."
"Fuck you, I have a masters' from Cairo University."
Eliza tried her best not to look surprised, "Well. I went to Tulane. Anyway, that doesn't matter. Who cares? It's just a stupid pearl."
"It's priceless! One of a kind."
"I mean, I know Kori has the somewhat honorable motive of wanting to return it to, er...to whoever it was whose left of, um...yeah, I forgot most of that. It was pillow talk and I was still a little woozy."
"He has that effect," said Saba, "I'm losing the blood to prove it."
"Oh, come on, it's not that bad..."
"Give me the pearl!"
"Well, I don't have it, it's right..." she turned to where she'd left it, only to see the white globule in Waffles's jaw, like an oversized tennis ball, "Nice. Okay, Waffles, baby, you can...you can put it down now."
Waffles didn't, tail wagging merrily as a retriever's.
"This day," she breathed, "I can't even."
-Eliza and Saba
"Waffles, abandon your life of gray moralities and fight for a righteous cause. Bring me the pearl, and join me."
Kori said, reaching out for the dog.
"Waffles...God knows you've got a good head on you. And an even bigger heart."
Chip slowly nodded and said, "Why don't you give it to who deserves it the most?"
"Oh, that's a loaded question," muttered Eliza, "'The one who deserves it'...I mean, really. How is there even shit left to stir? I mean, really..."
Waffles dropped the pearl. Like, not gently. She was practically spitting it out so that it dropped like a stone to the ground. Eliza prepared a scathing witticism about how, clearly, none of them deserved this lost treasure so now there was nothing else for it but to wash their hands and go home, but then the pearl opened up. Like, on a hinge, the entire upper hemisphere lifting up like a lid.
"Um," Eliza looked at Waffles, "Good dog," and raced over to peer inside.
"What is it?" asked Saba.
"Maybe a bunch of tinier pearls," Eliza muttered, only to have this immediately disproven as she bent down, "It's, um...a piece of paper. Or, um...papyrus? No, maybe it's parchment. I don't know, it looks old..."
"It is old, you idiot. Jahittiyi lived and died 200 years ago."
Eliza made a face, gently holding the yellowed scrap up, "It's, um...there's some writing on it and, uh, a sort of design like um...a map, I guess," she turned it so the others could see, "A treasure map."
-Eliza and Saba
Kori's face dropped in horror as the pear broke, and quickly filled with anger as the map was revealed. Muttering something in Arabic along the lines of his regret for having ever crossed paths with the Americans.
"That doesn't belong to you."
"Oh, don't get your testicles in a twist, man," Eliza handed him the map, "I'm chasing enough golden goddamn geese. I don't need to add Atlantis, or El Dorado, or Xanadu, or whatever the hell to my list."
"What does it say?" Saba hobbled unevenly upright, "Let me see!"
"Jesus, get some new material, huh? Or else fuck or something. This is embarrassing."
-Eliza and Saba
Kori looked at the now crippled Saba, and handed her the map.
"It says I should've waited five more minutes before making the decision to shoot you. I'm going to need your help on this journey."
He told her before looking back to Eliza,
"So what will you do now Ms. Taylor? What journey awaits you with Yusuf gone?"
"I ought to shoot you just for saying that," said Saba, turning the map upside down as if this would reveal some hidden secret which, judging by her unchanged resting bitch face, it didn't, "But someone will have to carry the bags, and all the easy fucks around here have been blown to bits and bacon," she almost smiled, "Beggars cannot choose."
"This is a very unhealthy relationship you two have," said Eliza, "But as long as you've stopped trying to kill me..."
"It wasn't personal, Reporter Bitch."
"Sure," she turned to Kori, "I'm not sure if I regret letting you take me on a tour of the city. I mean, for my money, it was a great time. Admittedly," she folded her arms, "Where do you, um...where do you think that map goes?"
-Eliza and Saba
"I do not regret a single moment we shared before the party Eliza."
He said, turning to look at Saba holding the map struggling to find any meaning in it before turning back to Eliza.
"Redemption possibly, or my untimely death. Only time will tell."
"Oh, well..." she cleared her throat, "Good luck with that, then," she patted him awkwardly on the arm, then the shoulder, before impulsively kissing him on the cheek, "It's been real. When it hasn't been insanely unreal," she cleared her throat, "As for what's next, well..." she looked around the smoking wreckage strewn across the desert, "That's a very good question. I dunno, I'll...think of something, probably. It's my job," she paused, "Or, well, it's supposed to be. Arguably, if I was thinking more, none of this would've happened, but then...what are you gonna do?"
She stepped back, "If you find Atlantis, I know a great editor. Yanno, for the tell-all book. And before you get all principled, somebody is going to write the book, and you might as well do it yourself."
-Eliza
Chip walked over to Waffles and started scratching her ears. There would be so many treats for her, when they got back home. And it seemed like that WAS the only option, since their only leads were dead.
"I guess this is the end of the road for us, isn't it?"
Eliza turned from Kori, "Well...don't count me out yet. Anyway, I don't know that you can go home being...well, officially dead. I'm not really sure what the optics are in that situation."
She folded her arms, "I mean...it's not like we have no leads. They aren't, like, sexy leads. No fancy treasure map for us, but..." she cocked her head, "It's something."
-Eliza
"What do you mean? What leads?"
Eliza didn't want to preen, but sue her, she'd missed the feeling of knowing things. Even if she only knew just that little bit more.
"So, Isaac might be dead...which is very sad for him and inconvenient for us...but I don't think he was lying when he said he didn't know who was bankrolling Kevin's therapy. Anybody going to all that trouble would probably keep super hush-hush. But they must've done business with someone at that place to get everything set up. Someone at GASLIGHT must have been in contact with Kevin's benefactor. And if there was anybody at the Gates & Shepherd institute for the Study of...whatever-whatever-whatever...who would've had that kind of access, who d'ya think it would've been?"
-Eliza
"Eliza, I'm still feeling that dope he gave me, I don't know." Chip shook his head, "Who is it?"
"The guys whose names were on the building, silly!" Eliza didn't bother to disguise her pride at having gotten to this, "Gates. Or Shepherd. Maybe both. The GASLIGHT guys. Or women. I dunno. Nobody seems to know anything about them, and they didn't leave much of a digital footprint."
She cocked her head to the side, "But that should be nothing for a gumshoe investigative reporter and her favorite wire-tapper, hm?"
-Eliza
"Compared to this?" Chip chuckled as he waved at the wreckage around them, "Hell no."
"Oh great, good...yeah, I am sick of this climate..." she looked around, watching sand billowing by in a dry wind, "How...um...how are we getting out of here?"
"Don't look at us!" said Saba imperiously.
"Okay, well, I wasn't. Obviously, you're screwed like we are. But go ahead, fine, I hope you and Kori enjoy being toxic and insufferable all the way to the Lost Roanoke Colony or wherever the fuck..."
There was a soft rumble of an engine from close at hand: one of the convoy's ATVs, evidently the only one that had been spared Le Log's rampage.
"Oh, shit, which one of them is it now? Not the Italian guy, I'm pretty sure he lost an arm or a leg and...blew up. And the Nazi totally killed himself in that little rocket thing. Ooh, maybe that sad eunuch Saba got to fly the helicopter..."
"Dimitri is dead!" said Saba quite proudly.
"You are still alive?" asked the driver of the vehicle, drawing up close to them.
"Abbas!" Eliza gasped, "You are also alive! Oh, and there's Nadim..."
Nadim, sitting beside his mercenary colleague/not-so-mercenary (one must hope) boyfriend, blinked impassively.
"We made it out of the wreckage..." Abbas began.
"Guy, I guess everybody did," said Eliza.
"Is that Farzan?" he nodded to the corpse on the ground.
"He has been killed," said Saba casually, "The Ivory Glove is no more."
"Wait, this whole thing had a name?"
"Not a very good one," said Saba, shrugging.
"Well, that's shit," said Abbas, "Nadim was hoping to finish art school on that man's dollar."
"Oh, despair not," said Saba, "There's unmarked bills and barons' spoils aplenty at the compound. As I see it, first come, first serve."
"Not like you to be so magnanimous," Abbas cocked an eyebrow.
"I am chasing more lucrative payouts."
"Boys," Eliza leaned over the truck, "I know we got off on the wrong foot, fighting on different sides and all that..."
"Get in the car," said Abbas casually.
"Wait, really?"
"Just get in the car. There's no Yusuf Farzan, no Ivory Glove...no reason to leave people behind in the desert," he waved, "In. At least as far as the next village. If we reach a military checkpoint, we can commit ritual suicide and call it a done deal."
"I like your spirit," Eliza nodded approvingly, sliding into the backseat.
-Eliza, Saba, Abbas, and Nadim
Chip wordlessly flicked the safety back on, and sat down next to Eliza, before patting his lap for Waffles to hop in.
MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE IN THIS WASTELAND, MILES AWAY...
Had it not been for the flaming wreckage and corpses, this would have been a serene sight to behold. One could easily picture the Bedouin or Lawrence of Arabia riding on horseback on these majestic dunes, silhouetted against the blazing sun. Instead, it felt like a graveyard, littered with charred corpses and mangled bodies. So many young men: dead.
Ironic that the oldest among them was still alive.
CLUNK! THUD!
The hatch from Dr. Nefario's escape capsule popped off with ease, allowing the decrepit mad scientist to stumble out into the hot sands. Disoriented and nauseous, his first course of action was to violently throw up. His escape had not gone as expected. Perhaps he should have allocated more time on a proper brake system than making sure the driver's seat was comfortably upholstered.
Oh, but his back issues...
Those were the least of his problems as Dr. Nefario took in his surroundings. "Oh, no..." He staggered around, his hands to his head. "No! This...this is a massacre! Mein gott! It is like Berlin all over again! And I am left alone...again." The Nazi doctor broke into a chain of German profanities.
"ohhhhhhhhhh..."
Dr. Nefario perked up. He was not alone!
"ohhhhhhhhhh, il padre, il figlio e lo spirito santooooooooooo..."
"Fission!" Dr. Nefario frantically rushed to the flipped-over truck where he found the Italian pyromaniac and religious fanatic crawling from under the wreck. "You are alive!"
"Nefario?" Fryer Fission looked up in a daze. "You are alive? Ah, il buon Dio smiles upon both of us today..."
"And no one else it would seem." Nefario didn't bother helping Fission out of the debris, relieved he would not suffer alone. "I have tried to radio our infidel leader but all I have had is radio silence! I fear we are GOTT IM HIMMEL! YOUR LEG!"
"Huh?" Fission had fully pulled himself out of the wreckage, to reveal his right leg was gruesomely mauled. "Oh, si...the American, she did this..."
"That witch!" Nefario shook his fist in the air. "She interrupted my operation!"
"She must pay..." Fission feebly shook both of his fists (both flesh and robotic) and joined along. "La vendetta, la vendetta..."
"Oh, she will pay! Her and her Amerikaner associate..." Another glance at Fission's leg almost made Nefario puke once more. "But first...we must amputate..."
"...and upgrade!" Fission crossed himself before his next words. "Dio mi perdoni, but my God-given flesh has failed me. Please, Dottore, enhance my leg has you have my arm! Only then can I become il diavolo needed to complete our mission of vengeance!"
"Well, I'm sure I can create something out from this scrap..." Nefario scratched his head. "...and perhaps I can repair my capsule, allowing us to master this desert landscape as Rommel did in the North African sands..."
"But what of gli Americani?" Fission inquired, wincing as he spoke. "We do not know where they are or where they are going or even if they still live!"
Nefario chuckled, steeping his fingers together and hunched forward, causing an audible snap in his back. "Contingencies, my holy friend! They were why mein fuehrer was a mastermind. Had your 'duce' been so clever, the war would have turned out quite differently!" He revealed a device from his lab coat. "As is custom for all my patients, I implant a tracking device in their skulls, should they somehow escape from under my watch." Nefario pressed the button, opening a GPS map, centered on bleeping dot currently in motion. "The Amerikaner is no different."
Fission could not hide his awe, nor his excitement. "Ha..." He laughed, starting out slowly. "Ha ha! HA HA HA!"
Nefario joined his conspirator, unabashedly proud of his own genius. "Hahahahahaha! HAH HAH HAH!"
"MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!" Fission erupted in maniacal laughter, eager to receive his upgrade and conclude this vendetta!
"BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!" The mad scientist danced merrily (though not lively; he was a senior citizen, after all), having survived yet another crisis, as a cockroach prevails during an air raid or an atomic explosion. No longer was he a mercenary, forced to work under that Arab Yusuf! He could endeavor on his own crusades, such as this mission of vengeance!
Sure, he had lost much of his equipment and his funding but Nefario would make do! He was a free man once again!!!!!!!
In this moment, as Nefario scavenged for materials and Fission celebrated in Italian, the world was theirs to conquer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
-Dr. Nefario and Fryer Fission
"This is nice," said Eliza determinedly as they all crowded in wherever they could fit, "If I were, like, Rachel Maddow or somebody, I'd make a diabetes-inducing metaphor about how, really, we're not so different and are capable of common ground…"
Saba was giving her a poisonous look and she desisted.
"But I'm not Rachel Maddow or somebody," she paused, "I'm a globe-trotting journalist on the trail of the case of her career," she looked around at the dusty, disheveled, bloodied lot of them, "And I'm having a great time."
She wasn't, obviously, in the literal sense. That would be insane. She'd been blown up, shot at, abducted, betrayed, stabbed, dropped from a helicopter, upstaged by an animal, disappointed, humiliated, propositioned, and broadly inconvenienced for what, as Chip had pointed out, amounted to nothing. It was only on the flimsiest desperate hope…that Gates and/or Shepherd were real people and not just names grafted onto a shitty acronym and, further, that they were still alive…that she based the next leg of this increasingly unpredictable journey.
Also, somebody somewhere was trying to kill Chip and, since they were still together, that meant they may as well be trying to kill her. Which wasn't very fun.
And then there's whoever was behind the deaths of Greg in New York and Kevin in Yuma, the massacre at Chip's restaurant and, presumably going to the source, the murder of Terrance Smith in Lakewood. Somebody wanted to shut up people connected to Lakewood murders past and present. Someone was at least invested enough in this whole GASLIGHT conspiracy to kill for it, even if they weren't behind the hiring of Yusuf's mercenary band.
So it wasn't a great time.
And yet, somehow or another, Eliza was beginning to enjoy herself. Not in that she was having any real fun, but in that there was an undeniable rush that came with all this high octane crazy shit.
She was on a case. A real case, with real, life or death consequences. Just what she had wanted her entire life, just what she had relished when death had come to Lakewood, just what she'd been kept away from behind the cameras in that Manhattan studio.
This whole thing was less a story than a tangled clusterfuck of assumption, happenstance, mishap, and danger…and Eliza must be the only journalist on the face of the Earth who even knew it was happening.
Whether she was able to decipher it, well, that was another story. But Eliza had faced doubters before, some of them in this very overcrowded vehicle trundling into the setting sun.
She could prove the naysayers wrong. Which isn't quite the same as being right, but if she handled it well, one would slot into another.
So long as she played her cards right.
***
In an isolated compound somewhere across the desert, an attendant debriefed his superior through a sheet of mosquito netting.
"The wreckage was scattered…a radius of eight kilometers. If there were survivors, they didn't linger long at the scene."
The figure behind the netting stirred only briefly. Two thin hands, just visible beyond the edge of the screen, manipulated a playing card: the Queen of Spades.
"Farzan?"
The attendant cleared his throat, "Definitely dead. Shot, and his body left for carrion birds."
The figure sighed, "It is the life he courted."
"Yes, Madame."
The figure, the woman, adjusted in her seat, "Callously, we put considerable expense into this enterprise. Money I do not expect to see again."
"It is a…shame, Madame. The Ivory Glove was supposed to be the best outfit of its kind…"
"Ivory is only deceptively hard. It cracks under enough pressure. Usually heat. And Farzan was closer to silk than ivory in any case."
A belabored silence. A stiff breeze entered through the room's lone window, carrying the smell of the not-so-distant sea across the sand to them.
"And the package we entrusted the Glove to carry to us?"
The attendant hesitated before answering, "There is no sign of Hickock, Madame, nor the woman he was traveling with."
"The reporter he was traveling with," the woman had a chuckle in her voice, "You don't watch enough television."
"I am afraid not, Madame," he almost smiled.
"We must presume they have survived," she said at last, "Or that he, at least, has survived," a slight edge crept into her voice as she set the Queen of Spades down on the nearby trestle table, "Our meeting has been delayed enough already."
The attendant looked dubious, but nodded anyway, "What would you suggest, Madame?"
She rose to her feet, towering at an impressive height, and pushed past the netting to face her subordinate directly. She was an angular, regal woman in a black crepe gown, light for the heat, but still dark enough as to be stifling under the suppressive sun, though heat didn't seem to bother her. Thin hands clasped before her, she said, matter-of-factly, "We find him."
"If he is dead?"
"We ascertain that with proof."
"And if he lives…"
"Then we proceed," rouged lips curled into a thin smile, "We have too much to discuss."
***
"And, in the parlance of the suit-and-loafers classes…all that remains is to sign on the dotted line."
"Do we get loafers in the onboarding package?" Phyllis asked wryly.
Vice Principal Kellerman smiled, "No, but you'll get a cracking good thermos. It keeps cold things cold and hot things inside."
"Sounds wonderful," Phyllis signed her name with a flourish. Theodora nodded in approval, collecting the contract, "I'll have Ms. Hayward print you a copy," she lifted her head and extended a hand, "Welcome to George Washington High, Dr. Hendricks."
Phyllis got to her feet, shaking the older woman's hand, "I have to thank you again for having me. I'm so excited to get started! It's all so new, of course, and that you and Principal Teague have such faith in me…"
"Oh, well, Dr. Hendricks, flattered as I am that you expect the best from us, now that you're on payroll, I can give up the ghost and admit we aren't the type of institution that attracts top talent," she spread her arms, "The state budget doesn't allow for that. Really, I must be appreciative to you, leaving your private practice…"
"To slum it as a school social worker?" worried she had been too forward, Phyllis hastily backtracked, "Which I am very thrilled about. I'm only…"
"Saying what others must surely be thinking?" Theodora cocked an eyebrow, "Not to be forward…"
"Oh, there's nothing to be forward on. Micah's been very good about it…"
"A son thrilled to have his mother working at his school?"
"Well, he's a better actor every day," Phyllis conceded, "And as for my husband, well…he has his own practice. I don't think he bothers too much with what becomes of mine. Anyway, I think there's more worth to be had here. These kids have suffered so much and…"
"And we could use a real professional to help sort them out, as needs sorting," Theodora continued, "All due respect to our last guidance counselor, but for all his fondness of charts and diagrams, he could hardly sort out himself."
"Well, we all have our own journeys."
"Some with an awful amount of traffic," the Vice Principal walked around her desk to stand abreast of Phyllis, "Speaking of traffic, best we mosey along to your new office before the bell rings and this place becomes Grand Central Station."
"Right," Phyllis shouldered her handbag and started after Theodora down the hall. Ms. Hayward, the administrators' receptionist, twiddled her fingers merrily as they passed.
As they proceeded, Theodora would occasionally attempt to offer interesting details about the school, "Over there, are the water fountains. You can still see the plaster cracks where they used to have the 'Whites Only' sign."
"I see."
"Now, Mr. Frey's old office wasn't the best in the building by any means…"
"Oh, I'm sure that will be quite alright."
"There's no natural light. There were…I hesitate to call them roaches. Bedbugs perhaps. He was in the habit of ordering takeout food and eating right there on the desk."
"You don't have to apologize for anything, Vice Principal, really," said Phyllis, "I'm not looking to be canonized just for taking a job at a public high school."
"You'll have to forgive me," said Theodora, "Between you and the new English teacher, Mr. Evans, that's two qualified adults in as many months. That level of good luck is very spare around here, and more so these days."
"Well, I just hope I can live up to expectations."
"I've worked here almost 20 years, Dr. Hendricks. My expectations can't get much lower."
They stopped in the doorway of Phyllis's new office: a room the dimensions of a coat closet, illuminated by a fluorescent rectangle that gave the whole place a sterile, antiseptic quality. Mr. Frey had apparently not lingered long following his row with Principal Teague; there were effects of his all over the place, inspirational posters plastered over the wall.
"Hang in there!" Phyllis read off the familiar depiction of the cat hanging off a tree branch, "I haven't seen one of those since college."
"A gift from the Superintendent of Schools," Theodora said dryly, "Or possibly a threat. Feel free to throw it out. Or, well, recycle. But knowing this town, it all goes to the same landfill regardless."
She must have looked well and truly spaced out because Theodora prompted, "If you'd like a few moments to take stock of the place…"
"Oh, yes," Phyllis nodded, "Thank you. I'll try and have most of this place sorted before I start."
"Take your time," as the bell rang for the end of lunch period, "And at the risk of sounding redundant…welcome. And thank you."
She marched off down the way, gently closing the door behind her. Phyllis sighed, setting her purse down on the desk, which was so marred by scuffs, coffee rings and pen scratches that it might qualify as modern art.
It would be an adjustment to be sure, but she'd told herself when she got into this work that she wanted to help people. Sure, she might've lucked into a high income bracket with well-to-do patients, but that was a matter of zip code. As a young idealist, she'd dreamed of being a social worker first and a person-to-person psychotherapist second.
She wasn't old yet; there was time for her to make a change…no better time, in fact. To be close to her son at a time like this, well, it seemed only right.
Anyway, there was something happening at this school, to these kids, that bore significant attention. It would be cruel, callous, and irresponsible to turn a blind eye to…
Phyllis was jarred out of her ruminations by her phone ringing. She retrieved it from her purse, squinting at a number she didn't recognize. You couldn't be too careful these days, as her son could testify.
But the area code didn't look like anyone Phyllis had ever seen before. That alone might mean…
"Hello?" she answered.
"Dr. Hendricks?" a woman's voice, lightly accented, though Phyllis couldn't place it.
"Speaking," she leaned against the desk, "Is this, er…I'm sorry, are you calling from the other Dr. Hendricks's office?"
"I am."
"Oh," she smiled, "Well, that's great. Is…is he available? I've been trying to call him for days. We last spoke, he was in Cairo. I…" realizing she was getting far too ahead of herself with this TA or assistant or whoever she was, Phyllis amended, "Is he canceling the rest of the tour?"
There was a short silence; Phyllis knew people enough to pick up a sense of discomfort which was a good enough answer.
"So, no."
"In fact, he's…extending it."
"Extending it? T-to where?" Phyllis snapped, her already brittle restraint giving way, "He's already gone through December."
"He's added more stops to the tour. The lectures have been very popular…"
"Oh, I'm sure," said Phyllis, "Everyone just loves behavioral science seminars! Even better when they keep you away from your traumatized son…"
"Doctor…"
"What are you anyway? His research assistant?"
"...yes."
"That's grand for you. That used to be my job, way back when. And then I was his wife for a time, but I guess he's outsourced that position too…"
"Doctor, I'm…"
"You know what? I don't want to hear it. He can get on the phone himself and tell me why he doesn't want to comfort our son, or he can go on with his tour. Indefinitely! Why not? Don't stop with the Middle East either! Backtrack to the Near East, and then on to the Far East, and so far that he falls right off the edge! If he's feeling extra bold, he can give the address of whatever five star hotel you two are shacked up in so I know where to send the divorce papers. Goodbye, and tell Isaac he can call me himself next time, if he isn't scared to hear my voice."
She hung up before her husband's assistant or partner or mistress could get another feeble word out. With an angry shock, she realized she was shaking.
Isaac wouldn't call her back, she knew already. The night Terrance Smith had been killed, he'd sounded almost inconvenienced at the thought he should be expected to come home to be at their son's side, their son who had nearly been killed and watched his friend die all in the space of a few minutes. He had his research, his work, his lecture tour, which could be a gateway to a university position at last, at home or abroad, and to hell with the home they'd built here, to hell with the fact that their son had just two more years of high school and why uproot him now…
He had a life and a career. He was in no position to slow down now, for anything. After all, he had a wife to take care of their son, to mind the house, to wait for him to come home, if he ever decided that was a thing he wanted to do.
Phyllis wasn't sure why she was surprised. Somewhere, she'd always known it was going to end up like this. This was only a confirmation of something she'd already come to understand long ago.
Her marriage wasn't over. No, that would be too final. If Isaac had his way, it would continue to linger, on life support, for the rest of their lives. Maybe until Micah turned 18, if that was anything he cared about.
Probably, she would have to make the first move. Everything else was changing around her, by her own choice and otherwise. What was one more change?
***
"Doctor…"
Never mind. She could tell first off that she wouldn't be listened to. That, indeed, there was no point pressing on. For the best. She had no will to extend this farce any longer than it needed to be.
"She hung up," Zarah Ghazini said stiffly, "But her mind is already made up. She suspects a lot about her husband, but," her voice caught, "Not the truth."
If this had any effect on the man holding the gun to her head, it wasn't immediately clear. He didn't lower the weapon in any case.
"I don't know how you expect to accomplish this," Zarah kept her eyes on her hotel room window, "The exhibition center was attacked. Raider. Dozens died; many more were surely injured. Police were at the scene. You can't expect that woman will never learn the…"
She felt subtle motion behind her. Her instigator pressing the barrel of the gun into the back of her skull. She tensed.
"I'm a behavioral therapist," she said at last, "A glorified marriage counselor. He wasn't much more impressive for all his bloviating. I can't see why those…people would've been at all interested in…"
The man's grip didn't slacken. She'd found him in this room when she'd arrived, clearly waiting up all night for her. In the windowpane, she could see the reflection of the teddy bear she'd found sat on her pillows. A token or a calling card she didn't know. The man himself hadn't drawn attention to it, so it couldn't be some token to scare her.
Then again, the man had said very little, only instructing her to call Isaac's wife and lie to her. When she'd asked if he had anything to do with the attack on the conference, he'd merely shaken his head dismissively.
"Who are you with?" she asked at length, "What do you want? What more do you want from me? I-I'm nobody. If Isaac knew anything, he never told me. We didn't talk much. We…"
He lowered the gun. Zarah let out a soft sigh, "Well. At least you're capable of reason…" she began to turn, and was dead before she'd made the full 180 degrees.
She didn't even hear the pop of the gun yet, paradoxically, she felt her body meet the floor.
And then nothing.
-Eliza, Saba, Mysterious Woman, Phyllis, Theodora, and Dr. Ghazini