I woke to a knock at the door and felt my hands instinctively reach for my pillow, before I remembered I wasn't in my own apartment, so my weapon wouldn't be there. I sighed and sat up.
“Come in,” it wasn’t like I could really keep them out, anyway.
Frankly, it was kind of ridiculous that someone was knocking on a door that was locked from the outside, anyway, but perhaps I should just appreciate the small courtesy. I heard the bolt slide open and a young man stepped into the room, hovering in the doorway. He ran a hand through his dark hair and cleared his throat awkwardly before he spoke.
“Hello, ma’am. I apologize if I woke you.”
I recognized him as the kid from the gym, the one whose wrist I had grabbed earlier today, but I couldn't for the life of me remember his name. I was going to blame the concussion for that.
“T-the Chief sent me to ask if there was anything that you needed,” he stammered slightly as he spoke. “He, uh, wants me to assist you while you are here. Says that I owe you for keeping me out of the infirmary.”
“You don’t owe me anything. Truthfully, he should be the one that owes you, for putting you at risk like that. Wallace should have trained you properly from the beginning, then no intervention would have been necessary.”
My visitor noticeably winced.
“Respectfully, ma’am, you don’t understand the situation. I already owe the Chief my life. I am grateful to be of assistance to him, in whatever way he requires. He is just trying to do the best he can for humanity, in an impossible situation.”
I rolled my eyes,
“Fine. If that’s the way you want it. I made a list of the things I will need. It’s on the desk," I gestured to the table by the door.
Surprised, the kid picked up the note and studied it. As he read, I watched a frown slowly form on his face.
“I… don't think I can get you some of these things, ma’am,” he studied me over the top of the paper, presumably trying to assess if I was being serious. “I mean, vodka, gin?”
“I'm trying to make healthier choices, so I’m switching to clear liquors.”
“I don't think that's exactly how that works...” he replied hesitantly.
“And you would know, would you?” I raised an eyebrow. “Are you even old enough to drink?"
“I'm 21,” he replied indignantly.
“So, barely, then.”
He snorted in irritation, but moved on without further comment.
“Ok, but what about this?” he pointed to the list. “You really want me to get you a gun?”
“Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to go out and buy one or anything. I just need someone to bring me a gun I already own. More specifically, my favorite gun. It’s no big deal, you just need to get it from my apartment, while you are picking up my clothes. Ask Tom to show you where I keep it.”
“I do not think they will let me bring you a weapon," he chewed his lip, anxiously.
“Come on. You must have a firing range here, right? Just store it there and I will only use it when I go for target shooting. Surely, they will be fine with that. I need to practice, after all.”
He nodded slowly, considering the logic.
“Ok, I guess I can try that, maybe. But even beyond that, some of these things are going to be hard to get, and some I doubt they are going to want me to bring into the complex. Like, are some of these even safe to have indoors?” he raised a skeptical brow.
“Look,” I tented my fingers. “Maybe you should consider this a lesson. A test of your ingenuity and resourcefulness. After all, you are going to need to get used to doing much more challenging things in this line of work, trust me.”
“A lesson? Does that mean you are going to be teaching us, after all?” he asked.
“Yeah, probably," I admitted. “It's not like I have anything else going on, right now.”
I watched his attitude change, slightly, at the news. He straightened his spine and squared his shoulders before he spoke again.
“Well, it will certainly be nice to have someone with your experience as an instructor.”
“Relax, you don't need to kiss my ass. I doubt it will benefit you around here, anyway,” I shook my head. I could see why Wallace had sent him. Teacher’s pet.
He blushed, slightly,
“Sorry. "
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“Don’t worry about it, kid.”
“Do you…” he hesitated, “Do you think you could maybe call me Luke, ma'am?”
Right, that was the name. Lucas.
“Sure, Luke. But only if you call me Ray. I feel old enough in this place as it is without some 21-year-old calling me 'ma'am' all the time.”
“Yes, ma'am, er, Ray," he corrected himself.
Luke looked down at the list again, studying it for a moment.
“Alright, I will work on retrieving as many of these things as possible. The clothes shouldn't be a problem, of course. Everything else... I will do what I can.”
“Then I look forward to seeing what you are capable of,” I smirked lightly.
Luke folded the paper and tucked it into his pocket. "Is there... anything else you need?"
Obviously. A cell phone, a computer, a way to get out of here. But I kept those thoughts to myself.
“No, I'm good.”
He nodded curtly,
“Alright. I will be back with… as much of this as I can manage. I apologize for disturbing your rest.”
Luke saluted sharply, then turned to leave, as he did Wallace appeared in the doorway behind him. Luke lowered his head and stepped to the side, letting the older man enter. Once he was inside, he motioned for Luke to go and then he closed the door behind him before he spoke.
“I am glad to hear that you will be accepting my offer, Rayna,” Wallace smiled. “Though I am disappointed to hear that you think so poorly of me.”
Why was I not surprised that he had been listening in? Wallace had always had control issues.
“No, you aren’t,” I shook my head. “You know exactly what I think of you. I doubt you think any more highly of me. In fact, how about, now that it is just the two of us, we put everything on the table? I’ll start. I think you are a jackass, who has always wanted something like this to happen. I think you are happier with the new state of affairs, because it means you can do what you have always wanted to do, anyway. I think you are glad to finally have power and influence, and that you want these kids to worship you and serve you, but you otherwise don’t much care what happens to them.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but I raised my hand.
“Let me finish. You can deny all those things, if you want, but what if, instead of jacking each other off, we were actually honest, so that we can determine if we can help each other? Because while I believe all that to be true, I do try not to let my opinion of a person effect my judgement about the bigger picture. If you can convince me that this is all really necessary, for the greater good, I will help you accomplish your goal, even if I don’t like you.”
I had considered lying, shining him on about how much I respected him and his leadership, but I had determined that there was no way that he would actually believe that, and more importantly, I doubted I could manage to keep it up for any length of time. So, this seemed like a good alternative. I didn’t have to convince him that I liked him, just that I could agree with his plans. I had better odds of that. And saying all this outright made it look like I wasn’t hiding anything, hopefully.
Wallace chuckled, good-naturedly,
“Radical honesty, then? Alright, I can manage that. I didn’t want you here at all. I think you are unstable, untrustworthy, and a bleeding heart who can’t really be counted on to make the hard decisions. A liability. You say I don’t care what happens to my people, but I would say you only think that because you care too much. You would rather throw your own life away than lose a pawn, and that makes you a poor leader, because sometimes being a leader means making sacrifices. I told James that his plans for you to take his place would never work out, but he was also too idealistic for his own good. Frankly, I think you made the right choice when you retired. It was probably the smartest decision you ever made. But Tom ran his mouth when he shouldn’t have, and that didn’t leave me with many options, did it? And I am, admittedly, short of experienced personnel, so, while you wouldn’t have been my first choice, I can make use of you. But that doesn’t mean that I trust you.”
“Obviously.”
“Perhaps that will change, with time. For both of us. But for now, you had better get used to it. Because I will not allow you to jeopardize our mission.”
“Fantastic. That is why I tried to retire, after all. I know that my own judgement can’t be fully trusted, and I don’t want to jeopardize anything important because of that. But I have considered, and I think I can probably manage to run a sparring class for some kids. That is relatively low risk. Might even be fun. And besides, clearly someone has to do it,” I paused, glancing at the door. “Although, keeping me locked in this room is going to make it challenging.”
“How so?”
“Well, I am going to need to work out and visit the shooting range myself, if I am going to be of any use to anyone, aren’t I? Not to mention that if I need to be escorted out of this room like a criminal every day, it I going to be challenging to get the students to respect me.”
Wallace considered that for a moment,
“Very well, I will arrange for you to get a keycard with limited access to the building. You won’t be able to leave, or to enter any of the secure areas, but it will get you access to the cafeteria, the gym, and the firing range. Do note that the range is guarded, and you will be scanned for weapons before leaving the area. Acceptable?”
“Perfect.”
“Good. Luke will be your assistant. He should serve well enough, he is very eager, as I am sure you saw. He will come by tomorrow with your keycard and supplies. In the meantime, you have no reason to leave this room, since the doctor says that you need to rest. So, I will leave you to it. Just know that I will be observing you very carefully, for the foreseeable future, so don’t even think about trying anything.”
I shrugged,
“What exactly am I going to try?”
He narrowed his eyes and seemed to be considering saying something further, but instead he just shook his head and walked out, locking the bolt behind him. I leaned back on the bed. Well, this was going to be interesting. It wasn’t a great situation, but I had been in worse. If nothing else, he wouldn’t kill me. Not yet. Wallace felt like there was nothing I could do to obstruct him from in here, so he wasn’t worried. He thought if he kept me contained and occupied, I wouldn’t be able to cause problems. Now, everything mostly depended on if I could prove him wrong about that. I supposed we would both find out together. At least I had managed to negotiate some freedom, and I now had assistant. It would be interesting to see how much of that stuff Luke could managed to acquire. He did seem eager to please, but obviously his loyalty was to Wallace, who had set himself up as a savior figure to all these kids; the only one who could protect them from the demons lurking in the darkness. They truly believed Wallace had saved them, when no one else could, when no one else bothered, and that he was also the only one trying to protect humanity. That was going to be difficult to overcome. But I supposed I would see. It was one of the benefits of agreeing to Wallace's proposal. It would give me time to work with the kids, get to know them, and determine who might be amenable to persuasion, who might be willing to switch sides. It was, at least, somewhere to start. For now, though, sleep was the best treatment for a head injury, so I should probably get some rest, while I could. Tomorrow, I would apparently be going to work, for the first time in a while.