MF1.0 - 41 - Rooftop Retreat

Stef looked up at Ryan. ‘Does this place have a roof?’ she asked.

He silently pressed the “R” button and waited for the doors to slide closed. ‘Recruit…’

‘Not yet,’ she said quietly, ‘can’t breathe yet.’

The doors slid open and she practically ran out. She made a beeline for the edge, and held onto the railing. ‘City’s no so ugly when you see it from this height, I guess.’

‘Recruit…’

She looked out at the buildings, at the reflections in the glass, at the trash on the wind, anything except him.

‘Did I lose my name when I signed up for this gig? And you didn’t give me a lexicon either, are we supposed to get a handbook or something?’

‘Mimosa…’

‘Closer. It was so hard to breathe in there, humans make me feel like I’m choking. They thicken the air with bullshit, cruelty, prejudice and lies. You know, if the ability to tell the truth was removed from the world, I think like exactly seven people would notice. Seven’s a good number, days in the week, sins, colours of the rainbow, virtues, lucky seven good number.’

‘Stef.’

‘You’re not human. You put a gun to my head. I know for a fact you murdered people last night, you expected me to handle all this stuff without blinking, and I think you’re secretly mad that I’m still wearing sneakers.’ She went quiet and stared out over the cityscape.

‘I hate to ask,’ he said after a moment, ‘but are you continuing this conversation in your head?’

‘No, just trying to find an eloquent way of…’ she rested her head on the railing for a moment, then turned to face him. ‘They said you killed your last recruit. I don’t know you, not really, not at all, yet…I’m more willing to believe you than them.’

He gave her his emotionless look. ‘I did kill my last recruit.’

‘Yeah? What’s the other half of the story?’

‘A member of the Solstice shot him, the injuries caused by it…the doctors would have been unable to do anything, it was better than him suffering.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘Do you know for certain that they would have been unable to help him?’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘Medical Agent Parker confirmed before I shot him.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘Enough time for a diagnosis, not enough time to get him to the hospital?’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘The diagnosis took three seconds. Not even Agency doctors could have done anything in that span of time.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘So it was a mercy killing.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘The other recruits do not see it as such.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘They’re human, they’re flawed.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘So are you.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">She pouted. ‘Human or flawed?’ She shrugged. ‘I guess I just have a different perspective on stuff.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘That…would be my fault.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘Something to do with you kidnapping me?’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">He sighed. ‘For the absolute last time, I did not kidnap you.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘So tell me what did happen then.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">He stood frozen for a long moment, then sighed. ‘I was pursuing a cultist, he went into a house for cover – there was some sort of party or event going on.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘Probably a family meeting, if I’m as young as I think I was, then it makes sense, they would only bring out the babies when they were being cute.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘He took you hostage, he tried to use you as leverage. I shifted you away from him, he got desperate and fired. You died, instantly.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘So there’s some sort of second-chance scenario built into the world?’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘Not so much. Not in the way that you might think. And not in this case. I stopped you from passing, I begged the Lady, I went to Limbo to see you. You chose to come back. Apparently, hugging the leg of an agent who gives you a doll is a “yes” in that situation.’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘I still have the doll. She’s broken, someone stepped on her.’ She turned away, to look at the city again, just in case she was showing too much emotion. ‘So you do that for every fat-faced toddler that gets killed? Some sort of superhero who saves babies?’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘I felt it was my responsibility to try. If I had handled the situation differently, you might not have died. You wouldn’t have your different perspective on the world, you…’

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘…wouldn’t be looking at zeppelin floating over Brisbane?’