Will Hill - Darkest Night

Natalia picked up a pair of trays and slid them on to the first counter. “Perhaps it is better that way,” she said. “Perhaps it is easier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Inside the laboratories is science. There are problems that need solutions. Outside there is blood and fear and everything is life or death. Perhaps thinking about that would not help.”

Matt nodded; he knew exactly what she was saying. Not thinking about the consequences of Lazarus undoubtedly made it easier to get up and go to work every morning, whereas dwelling on the ramifications of each day that passed without the discovery of a viable cure would likely be crippling.

“How are your friends?” asked Natalia. “I have not seen them since France.”

Matt shrugged. “Truthfully?” he said, placing a cheeseburger on his plate and piling the remaining space with fries. “I’m not sure. It was bad when they got back, after what happened to Cal, and so many others. Bad for everyone. I don’t know how they keep going, to be honest with you.”

“Because they have faith,” said Natalia, as she filled a small bowl with salmon salad. “They believe we will win in the end.”

“They did believe that,” said Matt. “And I’m sure some of them still do. Not all of them, though. Not any more. That was their best shot, as far as a lot of the Department is concerned. And they missed it.”

“So it is all down to us,” said Natalia, and smiled at him.

Matt grinned. “Then I guess we’re screwed, aren’t we?”

He lifted his tray and led Natalia across to an empty table. He attacked his burger as soon as he sat down, and within three bites half of it had disappeared. Natalia picked delicately at her salad with a fork, a smile on her face as she watched him eat.

“Sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. “I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. It’s like you’re so deep in work that you manage to forget you’re even hungry, then you remember all at once.”

Natalia frowned. “Why did you say sorry?”

“When?”

“Just then. You said sorry, then that you hadn’t realised how hungry you were. Why were you sorry?”

Matt shrugged. “I saw you smile at how fast I was eating,” he said. “It’s just what people say.”

“Perhaps you apologise too often,” said Natalia.

Matt sat back in his chair. “What makes you say that?”

“I hear you say sorry many times. But you are a brilliant scientist, and a good friend, and you have nothing to apologise for. I wonder if you know that.”

Matt grimaced. “It’s hard for me.”

“To do what? Believe in yourself?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Matt. “I felt like a disappointment for a long time. It’s a hard habit to shake.”

“Because of your father?”

His eyes widened with surprise. “I … yeah. Maybe. I think I always felt like I should apologise for not being the kind of son he wanted.”

“If you are not what he wanted, he is an idiot,” said Natalia, and smiled fiercely at him. “He should have been proud every day to be your father.”

Matt felt heat rise into his cheeks. “Thank you,” he said. “I think he is now. But I wish we could go back in time and have you tell him that.”

“I would tell him.”

He smiled. “I know you would.”

Natalia smiled back at him, then frowned as a shadow fell across their table. Matt looked up and saw an Operator he didn’t recognise standing over them, his helmet under his arm, his face set and solemn.

Oh shit , he thought. We’ve been here before. Why are neither of my super-powerful vampire friends ever with me when this type of crap happens?

“Can we help you?” asked Natalia.

The Operator glanced at her, shook his head, and fixed his gaze on Matt. He put the helmet carefully down on the table and extended his hand towards the teenager. Matt took it, a look of profound confusion on his face, and was almost jerked out of his seat as the Operator pumped his arm up and down.

“I’m Tom Johnson,” he said, in a thick American accent. “You’re Matt Browning, right?”

Matt nodded; bewilderment had robbed him of the ability to form words.

“Awesome,” said Johnson. “I just wanted to tell you that me and the rest of Intelligence heard about what you did in San Francisco. Driving into a brick wall on purpose to take out a double agent? That’s insane, dude. Seriously.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Matt saw a smile spread across Natalia’s face.

“Thanks,” he said. “That’s good of you to say. I didn’t really plan it, to be honest.”

Johnson laughed. “Probably a good thing,” he said. “You might have had second thoughts. Your neck all right?”

Matt touched his fingers to the foam brace. “Getting there,” he said. “This comes off tomorrow.”

Johnson nodded. “Glad to hear it. And apologies for the interruption, I just wanted to say hello. You two look after yourselves, all right?”

Matt nodded. “Thanks. We will.”

Johnson turned and strode across the room to where a group of Operators were waiting for him. They exited the canteen, and Matt turned to Natalia as the doors swung shut behind them.

“Well,” he said. “That was different.”

Jamie walked along Level B, concentrating on keeping his feet on the ground.

He wanted to fly down the grey corridor as fast as he was able, but he shared Larissa’s instinctive reluctance to demonstrate his vampire abilities inside the Loop. It was not that his colleagues were unused to seeing such powers – the Blacklight base was one of the few places in the world where they might be considered unremarkable – but rather that they felt like something that separated him from the ranks of Operators, a sensation he took no pleasure in.

Jamie had flown back from Brenchley as the eastern sky had begun to purple, reaching the hangar minutes before dawn broke over the horizon. After Larissa had departed, he had spent the rest of the long night deep in thought, his mind churning as it sought answers and explanations. His anger had eventually given way to a profound sense of loneliness, of having everything that he most relied on ripped away from him, and that loneliness had in turn been replaced by self-pity and bitter tears, as he silently raged at the unfairness of it all. He did not deserve the lies he had been told and the betrayals he had suffered; he had always tried to do the right thing, and had received only heartbreak in return. The eventual drying of his tears had been accompanied by a burst of self-loathing at having acted like such a child, like a spoilt brat who believed the entire world revolved around him.

Finally, as the darkness began to soften and lift, determined clarity had settled on him. The intermingled issues of his father and Frankenstein could wait, as could the decision about what, if anything, to tell his mum.

What could not wait was Larissa.

As soon as he touched down on the concrete floor of the hangar, he had sent her a message asking if she was awake. He had received no reply by the time the lift had carried him down to Level B, so he had walked quickly along the corridor and knocked on her door. There had been no response, and his supernaturally sharp ears had detected no sounds of movement from inside her quarters, so he had gone reluctantly to his room and slept fitfully, his mind whirring with worry. He had climbed back out of his bed barely two hours later and pulled a clean uniform on, trying all the while to quiet his increasingly frantic brain.