The sun was creeping over the horizon and I was starting to regret bringing my coat when I reached the kebab stand at 5 am. The world shrunk at hours like these, hardly anyone was awake, and everyone who was was in their own small world. It was lonely, but a comfortable kind of lonely. In the summer though, it wasn't nearly as cold as I'd expected it to be; I shifted in my heavy coat, trying to get the warm spot at my back to shift.

I was aware of how awkward I looked. I tried to appear natural, inconspicuous. But I'd left my phone at home, God knows why, some half-baked idea about hackers tracking it, so I may as well have been waiting for a drug trade. That seemed less outlandish. I picked at a hangnail till it started to bleed, then looked back up. The square was lined with shops, mostly chains of fast food or electronics. Aside from the yellow arches of a 24-hour McDonald's, the lights were all out. If I craned my neck I could barely see in through a window, I'd met the morning shift crew, on the occasion that I'd been on it at the cafe. What were their names, Tom and Alex, Jon and George, something like that? They were nice enough, if perpetually tired, and the one that might have been Tom was chatting with an equally tired looking customer of about fifty while the other one, Josh sounded about right, busied himself with the order. God, what were their names? the second one definitely started with a J, or a soft G. James, maybe? no, that wasn't right, but Josh wasn't quite it either. This would annoy me, I knew it.

The kebab stand. the reason I was here in the first place. Right. I looked back at it, there was a man there now, I'd been too distracted to notice. He was standing in its shadow so I couldn't see him, but he didn't seem to notice me either. From what I could see, he was of average height, a bit shorter than me, bald, dressed like a stripped-back version of a cologne ad; a shirt with rolled sleeves, trousers rather than jeans. He didn't at all look like the kind of man to meet at 5 am, but then again, neither did I.

Last chance to turn back. I'd had that thought so many times that it was almost funny, but I didn't feel funny as I approached him. He was talking to the person on the stand, an apathetic teenage girl, presumably conscripted for half-term or the weekend. I reached him just as he was finishing his order. He glanced back at me and did a quick double-take, before turning back.

"...make it two, actually, one for my friend here."

He turned to me and smiled, it was the kind of smile you'd see on a billboard. He was black, with clear dark skin and large eyes. He carried himself as if he knew everyone around him and he was familiar too, I felt like I’d seen him but I couldn’t pin it down anywhere.

"Tall, purple hair, you must be Chloe."

I tried to sound cool in response

"How- yeah I'm- that's me. I'm Chloe."

It didn't work, but he didn't seem to notice

"Good, I'd have hated to waste a kebab some random passer-by." He reached out to shake my hand, before reconsidering and sticking his elbow out. "That's never going to catch on," he joked as I did the same. "I'm Addie by the way, why don't we head somewhere better for talking?"

"So. Do you have any questions?" Addie had produced a thermos full of lukewarm coffee and poured it into two disposable McDonald's cups.

Shit, what questions did I have? The murders, the man in front of me, there was so much I wanted to know, but formulating it into questions was impossible, and he really did look familiar.

"The card." something simple and easy. "How did that work?"

Addie smiled and reached into his pocket, bringing out a thin wire metal ring

"It was one of Katrine's theories. Magic always works on dream logic, to some extent, what does 'creation' really mean anyway?" He held it between his thumb and forefinger and talked, "She figured that if you can use magic to create a force, then a memory isn't that big a leap of logic." He wrinkled his nose slightly and placed the wire on the table. "And if you break a circle, the effect takes hold in the nearest possible space. Since you can't put memory in a tree, that means you, when you tear the card and the teeny-tiny foil ring in the paper. Try it." he gestured to the wire. I gingerly reached towards it, and slid it over, off the table into my palm. What was he talking about? Magic? Actual, real magic? How was he being so casual about it? How was I not freaking out more? I put my index fingers in the ring and pulled it apart

I blinked, expecting some epiphany. but there was nothing, not even a change in the air. Of course, it was all bullshit, of course, magic wasn't real, of course, I was just-

Wait,

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

No,

A memory, a recent one, was playing out in the back of my mind. The man across me, pouring out the coffee into the cups, but it wasn't my memory. I felt the coldness of the metal, smelled the air from the thermos, and the drop of spilt coffee on his hand, right next to the ring on his left middle finger. It was warm, but not hot, and I hadn't noticed it before. I looked back at his hands, a droplet was still there.

I blinked again.

"Shit."

He smiled. "Shit indeed. anything else you got?" he leaned back in his chair and for some reason that one movement set me off. The police officer, the one who Dotty had argued with at. It was him, that was Addie!

“You’re the officer!” I said a little too loud. James, or maybe it was Josh, after all, looked at me, but I ignored him. Addie spread his hands.

“Guilty as charged.”

I slumped into the cracked red pleather of the booth and pulled my coat, haphazardly folded next to me, on my lap. What did this mean? What did this change? I raised the coffee to my lips, for no other reason than to buy me time to think. The coffee wasn’t even that bad, as far as coffee went.

“So are you with the police? Scotland Yard? MI5?” Shit, fuck, what had I walked into?

“Oh god no” he sounded almost offended by the idea and made the motion of a shiver. “It was all fake. The Met could only dream of being so efficient. No, me and a couple others played dress-up, worked a bit of abracadabra shit on the civilians to make it look more legitimate, and the Met never had to know.

Addie took a sip from his cup, playfully dancing his fingers through the steam

“I was worried that I was involved in spy shit, glad to know it was only a murder cover-up” I tried to be funny, but it didn’t feel it. Addie chuckled anyway.

“Why?” I asked, after a minute, poking at my kebab

“Hm?” Addie asked

“Why did you do all that? The coverup, I mean”

“Well, uh,” he chuckled “that’s classified”

Of course, it was

“Right, yeah. Okay, what about the people? Were they yours? Or is that-”

“Classified too, I’m afraid. For the moment at least.” I was starting to reach the edges of what he was able to tell me.

“Well, what can you tell me?” I crossed my arms

He pursed his lips and drank again

“At the moment? Not all that much, Sid hasn’t given me the green light for very many topics”

Sid, Katrine. Two names, names were good, I could do something with names. I didn’t know what, but I knew it was something

“Well, maybe Sid could tell me what she can’t tell me herself?” I said, with confidence I didn’t at all feel.

Addie opened his mouth to say something, then stopped. He looked back at me and scoffed.

“She’s going to be pissed,” he reached into his pocket, “but ask and ye shall receive” he passed the ringing phone over. “When she picks up, say 'green grasshopper' before anything else”

I put the phone to my ear as it rang

“What for?” I asked him.

“It’s a code” Addie took the opportunity to take a bite out of his kebab

Someone picked up, a groggy voice spoke,

“Adelaide Simmons, Simmons Glazing, how can I help?”

“Um, I’m- Green Grasshopper, I’m Chloe.”

There was a sigh from the other end of the phone, and the sound of shuffling.

“Blue Baja blast. Is Addie with you?”

Addie was preoccupied with his kebab, “He is. He says you can answer some of my questions?”

“He wasn’t supposed to involve me, but fine. What do you want to know?”

I still didn’t know what my questions were, and I regretted not writing them down.

“Why me? Why were there people near my flat, why are they dead, why did you cover it up?”

“That’s quite a few questions.” Her voice was deep, and unaccented, in the way that Swedish people often sounded. “The RWHS are a secret governmental organisation dedicated to killing people with our abilities. Frankly, I don’t know if you have those abilities or not, my contact didn’t provide enough confirmation, but eight RWHS agents died on the way to your front door, so regardless, you just jumped to the top of their kill list.” She took a moment to pause. “I lead a group of people with abilities fighting back, to take them down and stop them from killing more of us. We can offer you protection in return for another set of hands in the fight. Or you can try your luck with the next eight.”

I tried to form words, RWHS? Abilities? Eight people murdered? Addie looked up, and I realised I was staring into space through him.

“I… I…”

“If you say yes, I’ll have Addie bring you to the base. If you say no you go home, forget this ever happened, for just over a week, if that.” She spoke in a disaffected, bored manner; like she was talking about bowling scores.

“I… yes. Yes I’ll talk to you.”

“Good. put me on with him.”