I groaned and batted away the hand shaking my shoulder, rolling over to face the opposite direction. Unfortunately, a shaft of sunlight had wormed its way in through the crack between the curtains and I was forced to close my eyes tighter as it fell across my face.
“Ray, wake the fuck up!” the voice sounded irritated.
Reluctantly, I shielded my face with my hand and peeled my eyelids open. Looking up, I saw Tom looming over me, his brow crinkled and eyes stormy. Rubbing my face with my hands, I pushed myself up into a sitting position and licked my lips.
“What is your problem?” I asked.
It didn’t take much acting to appear to be irritable and groggy. I had only gotten about 2 hours of sleep and I was really getting too old for that sort of thing.
“My problem is that I told you we shouldn’t have been drinking last night, and now everyone has overslept. We have to be at NovaChem by noon and no one is ready.”
I checked my watch,
“Jesus, Tom, it’s 6:30 in the morning. We have time.”
“Not that much. We still need to get dressed, review the plan, pack everything up…”
“I’m going to go take a shower,” I cut him off. “Get everyone else up and ready, then we’ll review.”
I knew I should have added more sedative to his tea.
“Well, hurry up, we have a lot to do,” he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Are you going to be like this all day? Seriously, you need to relax a little. Everything is going to be fine. Try taking a few deep breaths while I am gone, maybe do a few yoga positions.”
Before he could answer, I clapped him on the shoulder and headed to the bathroom. The hot water was pleasant, and I briefly contemplated taking a short nap in the steam but determined that I didn’t need to rile Tom up any more than I already had. So, I finished quickly and returned to look for the rest. When I emerged, Luke was waiting for me on the couch in the living room, looking a little worse for wear. He drummed his fingers nervously on the coffee table and chewed constantly on his bottom lip.
“Well,” I clapped my hands. “Ready to have some fun?”
“This is fun for you?” Luke groaned. “The only reason I haven’t been throwing up this whole time is that you have been hogging the bathroom.”
“To answer your first question, yes, this is absolutely my favorite part of the job,” I grinned. “Second, if you aren’t ready for this, you can certainly wait in the car. There is no shame in it, and you don’t need to push yourself, we can manage if we need to.”
Luke seemed to consider that for a moment before straightening his spine,
“No, I’ll be alright,” Luke took a deep breath. “I can do this. It’s just a bit of nerves.”
“Alright, but you can still change your mind any time, ok?” I put a hand on his shoulder.
He wasn’t the first I had said that to in the last 24 hours. I doubted he would listen, either.
“Thanks, Ray. I… don’t want to let everyone down, you know?”
“You wouldn’t be letting anyone down, I promise.”
He shook his head resolutely,
“No. I am doing this.”
“Well, if you are determined to come with us, then don’t worry, you are going to do great. You might even have fun once we get started.”
“You know, that’s what Liz said, too,” Luke replied thoughtfully.
“You, uh, you saw her this morning?”
“Yeah, I was kind of sitting in here, hyperventilating. She came in and we had a chat. She is… not what I expected.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Well, I kind of expected her to be like Vicki, you know? I figured that she would enjoy my discomfort, maybe even mock me for it, but it wasn’t like that at all. She was kind, seemed to understand what I was going through, and she genuinely wanted to help. Some of her advice was really insightful, even.”
“I told you, not all ubarae are like Vicki. She is really in the minority if I am being honest. Most of them are good people.”
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“Yeah, I know you said that, but there is being told, and then there is seeing it, you know?”
“Uh huh,” I rolled my eyes. “Well, maybe you will trust me a bit more next time, huh?”
“I will, I promise. But the whole thing has kind of got me thinking, you know? It’s just…” Luke hesitated. “Are we maybe…?”
Before he could continue, I heard the door open, and Tom and Liz entered from the hallway. I cursed internally. That was terrible timing. Just when Luke seemed like he might have been going somewhere important. Hopefully, we would have a chance to revisit this conversation, later.
“Hey, where have you two been?” I asked, quickly moving on before I could find out if Luke knew to keep his mouth shut about such things in front of Tom.
“Just brought some stuff down to the car,” Liz replied. “How are you doing?”
“Amazing,” I grinned.
I certainly didn’t look amazing, compared to her. Liz appeared, against all odds, to be well rested and perfectly put together. I wondered how much sleep she had really gotten, after what we had discussed. I wasn’t likely to have a chance to ask her, but it couldn’t have been much more than me.
“Forget that. What I want to know is if you are ready,” Tom snorted.
“Of course. We can get this show on the road whenever,” I replied, cheerfully.
“What exactly are we going to do now?” Luke asked.
“Well, since Tom thought we needed to be up at the crack of dawn, I guess we have time to quickly review everything. Does everyone remember what they are supposed to do?”
The group nodded, some more hesitantly than others.
“Fantastic. Then let’s go get breakfast.”
I poured syrup on my waffles and watched the building across the street with practiced nonchalance. There was no unusual activity, not that I had expected it. Still, the diner across the street was an excellent place to keep an eye on any comings or goings from the NovaChem building. Just to make sure there were no surprises. Taking a bite, I turned to Luke,
“You got everything into the car? Nothing left behind in the hotel?”
He shook his head,
“No, I checked. We are all set.”
“Excellent. You are going to be our driver, today. Remember, your main job is just to watch and take note of anything that seems unusual. Tell one of us if anything strikes you as off, alright?”
He nodded.
“Oh,” I continued, almost offhandedly. “And I want you to hold on to those Naloxone kits, make sure you have one with you at all times, in case one of us gets exposed.”
“Where are they? I didn’t see them when I packed up.”
“I put them in the car myself. I don’t want to take any chances with this stuff,” I bit my lip. “I’ll show you where they are before we go in. Just promise you will keep at least one on you?”
“Of course. Is this stuff that dangerous?” he asked.
“It should be fairly safe,” Tom interrupted, clearly not wanting any of us to go into too many details. “But Ray is right to be cautious. It is experimental, after all.”
Tom poked at his hashbrowns, moving them around, but not consuming any. I could hear the sound of his fork skittering across the plate, a sure sign that his hands were shaking.
“You seem a bit nervous, Tom,” I observed.
“Who wouldn’t be?” he asked.
“A salesman who has given this same talk hundreds of times,” I noted dryly. “You absolutely cannot look this anxious in front of our ‘client’. Bad first impression. By which I mean it could make people suspicious.”
“I’ll be fine once we go in,” he forced himself to take a bite of his food, as if trying to prove that he could.
“You sure?”
“What choice do we have?”
I sighed and reached into my jacket.
“I wasn’t going to suggest this unless it was necessary, but we only have a couple of hours left and it is going to need time to take effect. So, take this,” he held out his hand and I dropped a pill into his palm.
“What is this, Ray? I am not taking a random mystery pill.”
“Fair,” I tossed him the bottle. “It’s just a beta blocker, perfectly safe.”
“I don’t know Ray, doesn’t seem like a good idea to just take something like this, now,” he studied the label carefully.
“It’s nothing like that. It just helps with anxiety and… stage fright, so to speak. Musicians and performers take them all the time. And isn’t this really just a performance, of sorts?”
“Is this how you stay so calm?” he raised an eyebrow.
“Nah, I don’t usually use them myself,” I paused. “They were useful when I was starting out, though. Lots of people need a little assist their first time.”
“Where did you even get these?”
“Wallace,” I shrugged. “Who else? I don’t ask who supplies him.”
Tom hesitated, chewing his lip thoughtfully.
“It’ll take an hour or two to kick in fully, so you need to decide now,” I warned.
“Fine. Better safe than sorry, I guess.”
“Good,” I turned and gave our ‘intern’ a quick once over. “You could probably use one too, Luke. It isn’t as crucial that you look at ease, since you are just an assistant, but it still might help. Don’t need you throwing up in a conference room, do we?”
Luke nodded and they both took their dose, washing it down with coffee. It was for the best; they were both distractingly anxious and this would go a lot more smoothly if I didn’t need to worry about their nerves giving us away. I tucked the pill bottle back into my pocket. Liz, fortunately, wouldn’t need it, because I had no idea what the appropriate dosage for her would be. And I… well, I had lied before. I didn’t use them, even when I was new. I said I had mostly to make Tom feel better about it. Truth was, I hadn’t ever really needed them, because this kind of thing didn’t make me nervous. At least, not in the way it seemed to make others. If I had to describe it, I would say what I felt was closer to excitement. I loved the performance, the risk, the game. It was a rush. It always had been. That was partly why I had lasted in this job for so long. There were other elements that frightened or upset me, of course, I wasn’t cold or heartless. But this? This was a game I found endlessly amusing. And this particular nested con was the closest I had ever come to recapturing the high of my very first time. It seemed that what I needed was to up the ante, to keep things interesting. I decided now wasn’t the time to dwell on what that said about me. Especially since two of the people I was playing were currently at the table. So, we finished our breakfast in silence, and by the end I noticed, with satisfaction, that Tom’s hands had stopped shaking. Good. Nothing interesting had happened in the building across the street, either. Which meant that we were good to go. I grinned. As long as I didn’t get anyone killed, I was really going to enjoy this.
“Alright, if everyone is done eating, let’s go get changed. It’s finally showtime.”