Algernon - Part Five

Just when Ryan, Valerie, and Moose start to relax, things quickly go from bad to worse when Ryan's past starts to catch up with him.

The Shadow of the Past

 

3014

Bullets whizzed by with a low hum, chipping off pieces of wall as they sailed past Ryan’s hiding place. Privately, he wondered how he had gotten himself into this situation.

Then again, he wondered this every time he was in situations where he was clearly outnumbered, which in his line of work happened quite often.

In the momentary lapse of gunfire, Ryan came out from behind the wall and fired a few return shots before going back behind the wall.

“I thought you said this was going to be easy!” a female voice yelled over the gunfire from somewhere near his ankles.

Ryan sighed and looked down at Valerie. Her short black hair had managed to stay in place amidst the fray of running and gun fighting, a smattering of blood like a grotesque handprint was splashed across her cheek.

“It WAS going to be easy!” he shouted back.

“Then why the hell has this gotten harder?”

“Because you just have one of those faces, I guess. I have no f*****g idea.”

“Somebody could have tipped them off.” Moose yelled from the opposite wall.

“We were the only ones who knew about this hit! It was over EVA airspace!” Ryan yelled to Moose, who stepped out into the array of bullets and returned fire. While Moose reloaded, Ryan returned fire and then stepped back behind the wall.

“EVA airspace is actually public, you know!” Valerie yelled.

“Not that public! The government doesn’t know about it!”

“Well, they sure as hell do now!” Valerie leaned back and fired haphazardly.

Ryan sighed and reloaded silently, thinking hard. He bit his lip and stared up at the ceiling, wondering where they had gone wrong.

Three days earlier…

 

Ryan walked down the hall toward Valerie’s room, listening to the echo of his footsteps on the metal deck of the ship. He looked down momentarily to make sure he had loaded the gun correctly.

He could have done so without looking, but he was so tired, he wasn’t sure his aim was the greatest.

He looked up and continued down the hall until he reached Valerie’s door. He opened the door quietly and made his way to the edge of her bed. Aiming carefully, he fired two shots close to her head.

Feathers erupted from the hole he had blown in the pillow and Valerie stirred. She was so used to Ryan’s gunshots alarm clock that she hardly noticed the fact that he was shooting at her anymore. Taking the sheet up around her top, she sat up on her knees and turned to face Ryan.

“Get up,” he said gruffly.

“You’re in a bad mood,” Valerie yawned. “Couldn’t sleep again?”

“More like still. Put a shirt on and come get some breakfast.”

“Okay,” Valerie yawned again.

Ryan turned and exited the room, walking back down the hall towards the mess in the main hold.

Moments later, he heard soft, staccato footsteps behind him and turned towards Valerie. She was sporting short hair, longer in the front, shorter in the back, wearing white socks, white heels, pink leggings that reached the bottom of her yellow short shorts, and a yellow top that tied under her breasts and exposed her stomach.

He noticed that this morning, the clasp on her shorts appeared to be broken and she had added suspenders to her outfit.

“What’s with the suspenders?”

“Broken zipper,” she said simply as she stretched.

“Can’t fix it?”

“Not when the pull tab comes off.”

“Do I want to know how that happened?”

“Probably not.” Valerie stretched her arms and linked her hands behind her head.

“Then I won’t ask.”

“I will say this though: as un-enjoyable as this job is, the sex is the most un-enjoyable part.”

“Nobody said you had to take the job.” Ryan turned to face her.

She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “You made it sound like I HAD to take it.”

“So now you’re thinking the other option was better?”

“No….” She paused. Ryan turned around and started back down the hall. “But,” she continued, “I don’t see why I have to fulfill the male fantasy to get information.”

“Well,” Ryan shrugged, “I’m not going to do it and neither is Moose. Therefore, that responsibility falls on you. It’s not like we do nothing around here.”

“It sure seems like you don’t do anything. At least Moose cooks and cleans."

Ryan grunted and continued down the hall.

Moose turned from his work as they entered the mess and sat down on the stools at the table.

“Morning, sleepy head.”

“Morning, Moose.” Valerie yawned again.

Moose looked at her curiously as he brought small servings of scrambled eggs and placed the plates on the table in front of them.

“What’s with the suspenders?”

“Broken zipper.”

“Can’t fix it?” Moose asked, sitting down next to her.

“Not when the pull tab comes off.”

“Do I want to know what happened?”

“Probably not.”

Moose grunted, wrinkled his nose, and started in on his eggs.

“At least Moose knows when to stop talking,” Valerie said looking up at Ryan.

“Years of practice,” Moose sighed, taking a bite of eggs.

“Well, is it possible for you to instill any of your inherent wisdom on your fellow male partner? He has this problem with being unable to shut his mouth at the right time.” Valerie took a bite of her eggs.

Ryan stabbed murderously at his, sending small pieces flying onto the table. Moose said nothing and continued eating.

 After they were finished, Moose cleared the dishes and went about washing them while Valerie and Ryan made their way to the makeshift living room to check the networks.

Valerie sprawled on the couch while Ryan turned on the T.V. and then sank into a chair.

They sat in silence for a while until Valerie spoke.

“Did you get what you went after last night?”

“Kind of. It wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“You went in to grab a file. Files are normally just full of papers. It’s not like you found bombs or something.”

“Actually, I did.”

Valerie sat up on the couch, drawing her legs up on either side of her, jaw dropped.

“The file was full of bombs?”

“The file was full of bombs. Or, more correctly, the file was bombed out.”

“Bombed out?” Valerie raised an eyebrow.

“The cabinet where the file was supposed to be was bombed out and there was no file left,” Ryan explained.

“Goddamn fire proof cabinets.”

“No, actually, you should be glad.” Ryan folded his hands behind his head. “If the cabinet wasn’t fireproof, we could have been inside the building when the bomb went off and then the building could have collapsed from the fire and we wouldn’t have gotten what little information we did.”

“So, if you didn’t get the file you were looking for, what did you find?” Valerie asked, placing her hands on her knees.

Ryan looked toward the counter, got up and threw Valerie a thick stack of papers bound crudely with zip pulls. She caught it and began to flip though it while Ryan sat back down in his chair.

She looked back up at him. “What does this mean?”

“It means we’re close.”

“Close to what, exactly?”

“Close to hitting the bottom.”

Valerie wrinkled her nose and flipped through some more pages. “Don’t you mean the top?”

“We have to go down to come up.”

Valerie bobbed her head and pursed her lips, deep in thought. Closing the book, she tossed it gently onto the table and fell back on to the couch, legs stretched out in front of her.

 Moose entered the hold moments later and Valerie moved her legs so that he could have a spot on the couch.

His eyes fell on the book on the table. “You showed her what we found?”

“Yeah,” Ryan mumbled absentmindedly.

“Well?” Moose asked, turning to Valerie. “What do you think?”

“Did better than I did,” she grunted, staring up at the ceiling.

“But you did get something, didn’t you?” Ryan asked.

“I got a name, but I don’t know if it means anything.”

“Names are good,” Ryan nodded. “We like names.”

“Oh, now you’re nice to me.”

“Names are better than confounded reports about bullshit legislation.” Ryan leaned forward in the chair.

“What was the name?” Moose asked, lighting a cigarette.

Valerie continued to stare at the ceiling and sighed heavily.

“What. Was. The. Name?” Ryan asked slowly.

Valerie looked at him disgusted and sat up slowly on the couch, rubbing her temples.

“Ayn. The name was Ayn.”

Ryan’s breathing slowed and his heart pounded loudly in his ears. He hadn’t heard that name in years.

Almost six years, to be exact.

“It was a pretty common name, which is why it didn’t stand out to me, but…Ryan?” Valerie stopped when she saw Ryan’s eyes go wide and his jaw drop. She looked at him quizzically. “Ryan? You still here?”

He waved his hand dismissively, gesturing for her to continue.

Please don’t let it be who I think it is, he prayed silently.

“Like I said, it was a common name so it didn’t stand out to me and then I remembered a case that I read about a few years back at…I think it was a police academy…involving some covered up deaths and one of those was Ayn somebody.” Valerie waved her wrist in small circles. “Don’t know if it’s the same girl though.”

Ryan put his chin in his hands and pursed his lips tightly.  If it was the same Ayn he was thinking of, she should have been dead a long time ago. She was supposed to have been his partner’s other contact for an inside job in the Mountain Zone six years ago, but it was rumored that the government had found her and killed her. There was no way she was still alive.

Dead women didn’t generally stay on the records, nor did they still walk among the living.

“Do you have something you would like to share with the class?” Valerie folded her arms and crossed her legs. “Did you know her?”

“Her who?” Ryan asked.

“Ayn. Did you know her?”

Ryan lit a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully for a moment before he answered.

“She was my inside contact for something that we were working on about six years ago. She’s supposed to be dead.”

“Well,” Valerie said thoughtfully, “She’s obviously not.”

“Obviously. That bothers me.” Ryan inhaled and exhaled the smoke through his nose. “How did you get a hold of the information about that? It was stolen.”

“They also never found the culprit and the file was recovered a few weeks later,” Moose said lighting himself a cigarette.

Valerie laughed. “Supposedly recovered, if you recall. I know for a fact that they never got the whole file back, mostly because I stole it.”

Ryan looked up at her, the cigarette halfway to his mouth.

“You stole the file?” he asked, slightly surprised.

“Why do you think I’m wanted for robbing the birthing clinic? The file contained not only the information about the incident, but also information about this drug they were testing on the women in the academy. I went to steal the drug.” Valerie threw her arms over the back of the couch.

Ryan continued puffing absently at his cigarette. “Why do I care?”

“I’m thinking the name of the woman who invented the drug is related to this Ayn that you knew six years ago.”

Ryan tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette and swore quietly under his breath. She had caught him.

“Ayn was helping me look into that rumor about drug testing, but in the end, she played me for a pawn.” He inhaled deeply, exhaled a stream of smoke, and looked over at Valerie. “That was helpful, thank you.”

“Does this mean I get to choke a b***h?” Moose asked, exhaling out his nose.

“If this works out, we may do more than choke her, Moose,” Ryan smiled.

 He looked up at the T.V. for the first time since he had sat down and motioned to Valerie to turn up the volume.

“Here’s a new hit out for you adventurous types!” the T.V. blared. “The Hall of Records will be fair game in three days due to a banquet in honor of the mayor’s birthday. Files regarding the police academy cover-up have been moved to this building and are primed for the taking! Get out there and take advantage of this one time opportunity!”

Valerie turned off the T.V. and sat back down on the couch as Ryan stood up.

“Where you going, cowboy?” Moose asked.

“I want to take this hit,” Ryan said.

Moose cocked an eyebrow.

“Sounds like our kind of thing.” Ryan shot a glance at Valerie and then looked back at Moose before he went out, down the stairs to his room and flopped onto his bed, glad to be alone at last with his thoughts.

 

Two successive shots were fired into Ryan’s pillow, close to his head. He woke with a start and sat up quickly.

“What the hell?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“You’ve been asleep for two days.”

“Two days?”

“We decided it was best to let you sleep,” Valerie mused sarcastically, folding her arms. “Since you don’t ever get enough sleep.”

“Then why didn’t you let me keep sleeping?” Ryan yawned, falling back onto his bed and closing his eyes.

“There’s someone here to see you. She says she knows you.”

Ryan opened his eyes and sat up again, but Valerie was gone.

He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and got up off the bed.

Walking down the hall, he heard hushed whispering coming from the hold. As he entered, Moose and Valerie stopped whispering and turned to look at him.

“She’s on the deck.” Moose motioned up the stairs behind him.

Ryan grunted, stuffed his hands in his pockets and made his way up the stairs. The woman’s back was to him as he walked toward her on the deck. Something about her presence made a chill run down Ryan’s spine as he approached her. 

Ayn, a former Catholic nun, had been a very good friend of Mirielle’s back before May and Ryan decided to fight the government. She had attempted to maintain neutrality, but had agreed to help EVAs fight for justice and to aid in the investigation of the new fertility drug. It was rumored that she had been a casualty in the Mountain Zone incident six years ago; Ryan had refused to believe it, convinced that she had faked her own death.

“36068, I presume.” Ryan stopped a few feet behind her, calling her by her former identification number. People that went into any sort of government profession, of which church workers such as priests and nuns were included, were given an identification number that was branded on their forearm.

The woman turned to face him. She was a slim short-haired brunette with a round face wearing a thick coat and holding a cigarette in her hand. She smiled at him and walked toward him. Ryan vaguely remembered her hair being longer when he first knew her, but he was bad about recalling that sort of thing.

“You never were one to keep your vows, sister,” he continued.

“You never were one to keep out of things, Mr. Stone.”

“Oh, ouch. That hurts sister. I’m offended.”

“Quite frankly, so am I.”

The woman took a puff of her cigarette and offered it to Ryan, who turned her down. She shrugged and took another puff. “Did you really expect me to die that easily?”

“No, simply the false hope that you would go quickly and quietly.”

“And to think,” she said taking another drag, “you almost got your wish.”

Ryan stared at her stone faced, putting his hands deeper into his pockets.

“What do you want, Ayn?”

“The same thing you want, Ryan. I want to make things right again.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“What if I help you? Will that make it possible?”

“You helped last time and it turned into a bloodbath.”

“Most unfortunate,” Ayn smiled, “but unfortunately it was necessary. May knew too much. We had to silence her.” She inhaled and exhaled from the cigarette. “Most unfortunate.”

“Yes, it was unfortunate. It was just unfortunate enough to be convenient for you. In fact, if anything, it was almost too convenient,” Ryan said bitterly. His hands curled into fists in his pocket, and it wasn’t from the cold.

Ayn took another puff of her cigarette.

“You loved her, didn’t you?” she asked looking over at him.

“Who?”

“May. She was your lover.”

Ayn laughed, exhaled a stream of smoke through her nose and continued. “It’s usually convenient for the government when rebels are killed. Especially rebels that have no place in our society. Rebellion is a thing of the past. You EVAs need to embrace the future with open arms.”

Then that’s what had happened to her – she had faked her own death and agreed to help the government hunt down and capture anyone who would go against them. His ears were beginning to feel hot and he gritted his teeth in frustration.

“We aren’t going to embrace something that hurts us.”

“Tsk tsk, Ryan. I thought you were a better man than that. Shame on you, proving me wrong. I had such high hopes for you.” She blew smoke rings in his face, but got no reaction, so she continued. “I have always held you in such a high standard, agreeing to take a side. Unfortunately for you, it was the wrong side.”

“I didn’t pick a side. I’m not willing to be on anyone’s side because nobody is on my side. I disagree with how EVAs do things sometimes, but I disagree with the current power more, and for that, I’m being lumped into one group or another.”

Ayn let the hand holding the cigarette dangle at her side and smiled at him. “I see you haven’t changed in the last six years.”

“Neither have you.”

Ayn laughed and blew smoke at him again. Ryan reached over and covered her mouth. She choked and Ryan removed his hand.

“I would appreciate it, if you kept your smoke to yourself.”

Ayn coughed again and glared at him. “You know I can turn you in any time I want.”

“And yet, something is holding you back.”

“I think it’s fair to say that you’re the one holding me back.”

“I hold you back?” Ryan asked, folding his arms. “That’s so like you to shift blame.”

“Not shifting blame, dear, simply giving credit where credit is due. You see, if I turn you in, there is a risk of being killed by none other than yourself.”

“There’s not a chance of that happening even if you don’t turn me in?”

“Oh, there is, but the risk is much higher if I give away your secret. And if I did turn you in, they could conceivably trace you back to the incident in 3008 and boom.” She blew smoke rings into the air. “Chaos erupts. You don’t want that to happen do you?”

“I could care less. The government is full of monsters that the country needs to get rid of. Few things you do make sense, and even fewer things you make legal for your own personal amusement.”

“You hurt me, Ryan. That’s mean of you. How do you feel about hurting an old friend?”

“I feel fine; better than I’ve felt in ages.”

Ayn reached over and patted his cheek, smiling, and walked away. “I hope you continue to feel excellent. I’d hate to find you in poor health.”

Ryan glared at her retreating back for a moment and then turned to stare out over the water.

I should have gone after her when I had the chance, he thought as he watched the waves lapping quietly on the barnacle-encrusted hull of the ship. She’s far too valuable to simply have been killed.

But that was the only way, wasn’t it? That’s the only way to let go, to get out, to give up…

Hours later, Ryan was still standing up on the deck of the Algernon staring blankly into the fading light of the sun, hands in pockets, deep in thought.

He heard the familiar staccato click of heels behind him and he turned to see Valerie in a red coat, jacket draped over her arm, holding two cups of something hot and a pack of cigarettes.

“It’s getting kind of cold.” Valerie remarked coming to stand beside him.

She held out her arm, offering him the coat. He smiled and took it off her arm, put it on, and then took the cup of steaming liquid from her and sipped at it.

Taking two cigarettes out of the carton, she lit both of them and offered one to Ryan, who took it and smoked it thoughtfully while they stared into the sunset.

Ryan sipped his coffee and took another drag of his cigarette. “Are you familiar with the Fertility Act of 3006?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, glancing at him sideways. “What about it?”

“Are you familiar with the woman who wrote it?” Ryan asked, taking another puff of his cigarette.

“Mirielle Dante. She was an assistant in the police force for a number of years but then she disappeared…” Valerie trained off. “She disappeared about five years ago after the incident at the police academy in Mountain Zone that was hushed up.”

Ryan nodded silently and took a sip of his coffee.

Valerie regained her composure and continued. “What do you have against Dante?”

“She killed a close friend of mine.”

“So it’s personal?”

“You could say that.” He paused, trying to find a way to change the subject.

“May. That was the name of the EVA that got killed. That’s why it’s personal, isn’t it?” she asked.

“It’s between me and Dante,” Ryan said after a few minutes of silence. He took another sip of his coffee.

“Are you afraid of death?” Valerie asked quietly.

Ryan regarded the question for a second and then said slowly, “I never really thought about it, actually.” He took another puff of the cigarette, tapped the ash off the end and it landed on the deck. “It’s funny how much things can change, just by meeting that right person.” Ryan said quietly, tossing the smoked cigarette on the deck. He mashed the light out with the tip of his shoe, turned and went down the stairs to the hold.

Moose looked up as he came in and smiled.

“What was all the whispering I heard before?” Ryan inquired.

“Not a whole lot. Just discussing things. The best way to get into the Hall of Records, all that jazz,” Valerie said nonchalantly.

Ryan laughed. “We have a hit, so why don’t we get a move on?”

 

“I thought you said this was going to be easy!” a female voice yelled over the gunfire from somewhere near his ankles.

Ryan sighed and looked down at Valerie.

“It WAS going to be easy!” he shouted back.

“Then why the hell has this gotten harder?”

“Because you just have one of those faces, I guess. I have no f*****g idea.”

“Somebody could have tipped them off,” Moose yelled from the opposite wall.

“We were the only ones who knew about this hit! It was over EVA airspace!” Ryan yelled to Moose, who stepped out into the array of bullets and returned fire.

While Moose reloaded, Ryan returned fire and then stepped back behind the wall.

“EVA airspace is actually public, you know!” Valerie yelled.

“Not that public! The government doesn’t know about it!”

“Well, they sure as hell do now!” Valerie leaned back and fired haphazardly.

Ryan sighed and reloaded silently, thinking hard. He bit his lip and stared up at the ceiling, wondering where they had gone wrong.

They had gotten into the Hall of Records just fine, but while he had been looting through the cabinets, a guard came in behind Moose and held them at gunpoint. Valerie, who had not been in the room, took the cop out as he stood in the doorway, but not before he got a chance to call in some backup.

But no one knew we would be here, no one knew we were coming…

And then it came to him.

“We have to get out of here, pronto!” Ryan yelled to Moose.

“What about…” Valerie protested.

“We have to get out of here! Don’t worry about it! We already have plenty of information without that! Now, let’s go!”

Ryan moved into the line of fire and shot off round after round while they made their way to the exit.

Once outside the building, they found their way down the alley to the street where the group was greeted with more gunfire.

Ryan and Moose returned fire while Valerie covered from where they had just exited. They were backed into a corner and they knew it.

Moose managed to make a gap in the line on the street and the three ran, shooting over their shoulders as they went. After what felt like hours of running, they finally reached the shipyard where the group found shelter behind a stack of old crates. Ryan looked up at Moose and Valerie, all three panting heavily.

“Who could have known?” Valerie asked after she had caught her breath.

“I think I have a pretty good idea,” Ryan replied.

Moose looked up at him. “You know who did it?”

“The same person as last time.”  It had to have been Ayn, who else could it be?

“Great, this makes things so much more fun!” Valerie input sarcastically.

“Back off, b***h.” Ryan waved the gun at her warningly.  Ayn’s face hovered like a fuzzy hologram where Valerie used to be standing. She had the smile of someone who had known all along that the plan would never work, and now she could say, “I told you so.”

“Ryan, this isn’t her fault.” Moose said, grabbing the end of the gun and pointing it upward as Ryan fired it off. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

Ryan stared at Moose for a moment before loosening his grip on the gun and letting Moose take it from him. His palms and his face were greased with sweat; he blinked and Ayn was gone. He had been pointing the gun at Valerie.

“Well, this has been fun, but I think I’m going back. You two can follow whenever you’re done with your pow wow,” Valerie said gathering her jacket around her and starting off in the direction of the Algernon.

Moose grabbed her arm with his other hand.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The ship is being watched, more than likely, if Ryan’s hunch is true.”

As if on cue, there was a large explosion somewhere south of their hiding place. Clamoring quietly on top of the crates, they looked out over the shipyard towards the cloud of smoke rising into the sky.

Beneath the cloud, lay the remains of the Algernon.

Ryan swore under his breath.

“Well, I guess that answers our question,” Moose remarked cheerfully.

Ryan jumped down from the crates and started walking in the direction from which they had come.

Moose turned around; Valerie was too shell-shocked to move. “Where you going?”

“She wants to fight. I’ll give her a fight,” Ryan yelled back to him.

Moose grabbed Valerie’s arm and dragged her down from the crates making his way towards Ryan.

“It’s not going to bring her back, you know that right?”

“Yeah, but it’ll make me feel better knowing there's one less scumbag in the world.”

“Where will we go? What do we do?” Valerie wailed.

“We’ll know when we get there, princess.” Ryan said and the three disappeared into the night.