Zachary Rawlins - The Academy

She stirred, shifting her hips, drawing her knees up close to her chest, her lips mouthing words that he could not hear, but recognized intuitively, and almost understood. He watched her chest rise and fall, let his eyes linger on the curvature of her white calves, moving against each other with furtive languor. Alex watched Eerie sleep, and felt something like peace, for a little while, wondering what it was that she dreamed of.

In the half-light of the early morning, in a room that was not quite cold, on top of a bed that was not his own, Alex watched Eerie breathe, her face untroubled by whatever passed for a changeling’s dreams. He waited for her to wake, for her to open her eyes and speak to him, to say his name and make everything real.

The two guards behind the desk didn’t seem to like Alice’s cheerful smile very much.

The heavy duffel bag she dumped on the faux mahogany desktop with a series of metallic thuds they appeared to like even less.

Alice didn’t look like she was working, to Chris. She looked like she was reveling in the moment, relishing every action.

To say that her job was her life would be to trivialize it. The reality was, the only time that Alice honestly felt like Alice , was when she was she was in the midst of an Audit. Chris had seen it a dozen times, in various place, and it never got less unnerving. He didn’t blame the guards for stammering and hugging the wall. He pitied them.

“My name is Alice Gallow, and I’m here in regards to an ongoing Audit of the Terrie Cartel, as ordered by the Director,” she gushed, grinning at the bank of cameras above the security guards’ heads. She unzipped the bag, one of the guards leaning cautiously closer to peer inside. She upended it onto the desktop, pouring dozens of heavy green German anti-personnel grenades, their pins daisy-chained and attached to one end of a carabineer with wire.

“I don’t have an appointment. Is that going to be a problem?”

Both of the guards moved in unison, one reaching for his gun, the other trying to meld himself with the marble paneled wall behind him, his mouth moving in some kind of desperate plea or prayer, his eyes mad with panic. Alice paused a moment to relish it, before yanking on the carabineer. The pins gave way in rapid succession, a satisfying chorus of near-simultaneous clicks. Alice fell backwards through her own shadow just ahead of the blast wave.

The detonation itself was deafening. The wall panels buckled and rattled, and the air was suddenly dense with particles of glass and wood, and bits of the unfortunate guards, all deformed by the velocity of the force that propelled them. The desk area itself simply disintegrated, the larger chunks tossed straight up toward the white painted ceiling, leaving behind a pile of splintered, smoldering wood.

Next to Chris, huddled behind a retaining column near the glass frontage of the office building, Alice laughed until she wept, pressing her face into her folded arms and rocking back and forth. Chris looked away, carefully removing the fragments of safety glass from his hair, the front windows and doors having shattered with the shockwave of the explosion.

“I do hope that the rest of your plan is better thought out,” Chris said, standing up and wiping soot and dust from his hopelessly stained suit.

Alice smiled back at him, her expression satisfied and benign, her cheeks streaked with tears that had left a trail behind them in the ash and dust that smeared her face. Chris clucked his tongue, fished a handkerchief from his inside pocket, and proceeded to wipe Alice’s face an approximation of clean. Alice simply allowed this to happen, grinning cheerfully up at him.

“You ready?”

Chris examined his handkerchief sadly. For a moment, he looked as if he was going to return it to his pocket, but then he thought better of it and tossed it aside.

Alice nodded and stood up, brushing the front of her coat absently.

“Of course, Chris,” she said quietly, patting him on the shoulder and then walking past him. “This is the best part of the job. You’ll see.”

After a moment, Chris followed her across the ruined entryway, around the charred remains of the front desk, and up to a bank of shining brushed metal elevators.

“Probably,” Chris agreed glumly. “I never actually wanted to, though. Are we really just going to take the elevator up?”

Alice shrugged and pressed the call button.

“Why not? They must know I’m here, and who I am. I did announce myself and my business,” she said, gesturing at the remains of the security cameras.

“Quite,” Chris said dryly. “This isn’t my usual stock in trade. Alice, dear, I don’t know how much good I’m going to be able to do you.”

She looked over at him briefly, the dreamy smile fixed on her face, her blue eyes smoldering.

“I have a pretty good idea how much harm you’ve done, Chris,” Alice said brightly. “So I’d suggest that trying to do me at least that much good is probably your best strategy right now.”

Chris straightened his tie with thin, white fingers, and smoothed his hair in the reflection of the polished brass that framed the elevator, frowning slightly at his appearance.

“Very well. If that is how it has to be. I warn you, though, that this is an ineffective, and in all probability, wasteful use of my services.”

Alice nodded, tapping the toe of her boot against the brushed aluminum doors of the elevator, leaving small dents in the surface.

“You’re probably right,” Alice agreed. “But, I don’t have any virgins I need attacked in their beds at this particular moment.”

The elevator chime rang and then the doors slid smoothly open. Inside, the elevator looked like a narrow brass bullet, all contoured lines and burnished metal. Alice walked in and Chris followed, and a moment later the doors slid shut behind them, with a sound that was oddly like a protracted sigh.

“Actually,” Alice said thoughtfully, as the elevator began its almost imperceptible assent, “if I did, I’d probably take care of that one myself.”

Chris attempted to buff his cufflinks, and then gave up in despair when he realized the one had already been completely lost.

“That’s the problem with you,” he grumbled. “No sense of when to delegate.”

Alice chuckled, and then they were silent for a while, watching the slow climb of the red numbers in the LCD screen mounted above the door.

“And when we get to the top…” Chris proffered, looking at Alice warily.

Alice smiled back at him smugly.

“You kill everyone we find up there,” Alice said, her tone cheerful. “Don’t worry, I’ll be watching your back for you, so you can concentrate on convincing me that your little dalliance with our enemies was, in fact, accidental.”

Chris stared back in horror.

“You still don’t believe me? Why would I have approached you, then, I wonder?”

“So I’d look to you to watch my back, silly, and then you could stab me in it,” Alice said, cutting him off. “And you’ve had your hand in enough black ops to do it, too.”

Chris shook his head.

“This is insane, Alice! I’m not like you! I can’t do this,” Chris pleaded. “You’re going to get me killed.”

Alice took him by the shoulders and rested her forehead against his own, her eyes huge and, he couldn’t help but realize, quite mad.

“No, I am trying to bail you out,” Alice said, her voice calm and firm. “You were dead the moment you set us up, Chris, no matter what your intentions were, and you know it. Now, I’m not just making an exception for you here, I am making a huge, once-in-a-lifetime, never again to be offered exception.” Alice lowered her voice. “This is the hugest favor you’ve ever gotten, Chris, like fucking and winning the lottery at the same time, you know? You are the luckiest man — or whatever — on earth. And I don’t want to hear any more bitching about it, alright? You’ll make me change my mind about giving you the benefit of the doubt.”