Two

A Chapter by Darius Greeves

The making of a man

Seven. Oscar thought. Supposedly by aged seven your entire life has pretty much been decided. Obviously there was no way to tell what exactly had been decided, some teacher had told him, but by aged seven, your education, your parents’ wealth, your experiences, your personality and your natural born talent had all evolved such that a path had been set out for you, one which you could not escape. Bollocks. Oscar knew this couldn’t be true, there was no way at aged seven anyone could have told him he’d be sitting here, in this office, understated for its importance, waiting for an interview for a reason that was unknown to him. But then that was the key wasn’t it? There would be only one reason his recruiter couldn’t tell him what the interview was for. Oscar had a pretty good idea what had brought him to their attention too. Normally a standard physics university student would be overlooked by these organisations, but he’d recently lost his parents. They were effectively his only family and with them gone he was almost completely isolated. A bomb blast on a tourist bus in France. His parents had taken to lavish holidays since he’d gone to university. What a f*****g mistake, was all he could think. Then, interrupting his thoughts, a tall man with stubble that reeked of long nights and too much coffee burst in, seemingly not noticing Oscar.

‘Oscar Redding, is it?’ The man’s accent was clearly a London one, but not posh, very understated.

‘Uh, yes.... sorry I wasn’t actually told what this was for could you....?’ The man held his hand up interrupting Oscar effortlessly. He had an air of authority.

‘We’ll get to that don’t you worry’ The man looked up, right into Oscar’s eyes for the first time ‘Mitchell Salmon, very nice to meet you’ He held out his hand which Oscar hesitantly shook.

‘So...Oscar...’ Oscar noticed the pause, it seemed almost forced, which he was confused about. It reminded him of those long pauses which came when people were pretending that they didn’t remember a name, which in turn made Oscar think that this man knew his name very well indeed. ‘I’ll cut straight to the chase shall I? First of all I’d like to ask you how much you know about where you are, what we do etc...’ Oscar raised an eyebrow, which the man clearly noticed. ‘It’s not a trick question’

‘Well not an awful lot to be perfectly honest. In fact I’m not even too sure how you were able to get me here. I was just sitting at home, minding my own business and I opened this letter, something about intelligence, it was all very vague’, Mitchell laughed

‘Yes they always are’

‘So to answer your question’ Oscar went on ‘Pretty much nothing, is this part of the government, MI5 or something?’ At this Mitchell became very serious, Oscar couldn’t place his finger on what exactly he’d said, but noticed the acute furrow of his brow and intake of breath.

‘Before we get to that’ Mitchell said, still somewhat more serious than his previous easy going exterior had suggested. ‘I have just one question to ask you for this interview’, again this led Oscar to raise an eyebrow, one question? He thought what kind of interviewer only asks one question. ‘I told you at the start of this interview that my name was Mitchell Salmon, but this is not the truth. For the past 20 minutes you have been sitting in my office waiting for me. You have had my entire office to look at. Do you know my name?’, Oscar was taken back. He hadn’t known he was supposed to nose around this man’s office. He knew the right thing was just to be honest " to tell him he had no idea, that he was too polite to nose in the way he seemed to be suggesting. But that just wasn’t Oscar. He hated to be wrong, like an elephant hates bees, because he knew being wrong was how people got in trouble. And so, against his better judgment, Oscar looked at the man and did his best to guess the name.

‘Well, John, I have to admit I wasn’t able to find your second name before you came in’, the man smiled and wrote something down with a pen Oscar hadn’t seen him get. He couldn’t believe it - had he actually guessed right?

‘Oscar.... I would like to tell you what we do, who we are, but we are of such significance that we need you to commit before I can actually tell you any of that, you understand?’

‘What?!’ Oscar was somewhat angered by this ‘How can I commit to anything without knowing what it is I’m getting into?’

‘This is where I sell it to you’ the man let out a hint of a smile, ‘We are the future, Oscar. Believe me when I say the world is in our hands. All I can say is that there are cogs turning, far beyond you and I, but that if you commit we can become part of the greatest achievement in human history and I believe this is your calling...’, Oscar was again taken back by the man’s directness,

‘Is this legal?’ Oscar knew the time wasn’t right to crack wise, but he just couldn’t help it, it was in his nature. Then the man, letting out a small grin slid a paper and pen towards him

‘Yes, I assure you this is very legal’. Oscar looked at the pen and paper for a moment, but he didn’t know why. He knew he was going to sign, Mitchell knew he was going to sign, god even the f*****g receptionist who’d shown him in had known he was going to sign, the only question left was what was down the rabbit hole. He picked up the pen and signed the dotted line. Mitchell smiled,

‘Now...let me show you the future’.

‘One thing before you do…’ the man raised an eyebrow ‘Is your name really John?’, this time the man really smiled ‘Of course not - it’s Mitchell. Mitchell Salmon’.

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