Episode 3: Remember Me
Part 2
Red Jewel breezed down the corridor, arms laden with paperwork. Updated medical records for some of the staff, a report on the conditions of two agents who had been injured in training the day before, and a clean bill of health for the newest recruit. All to be given to Agent K, who kept track of such things.
On the way to his office, she passed Mr. Lancybassy, Nick’s secretary, who shared her fondness for the tall, blond agent. “Hey, Lancy!” she greeted him.
He did his best to wave, despite trying to juggle a stack of mail, a large package, and a cup of coffee. “Red, darling! Just the lady I was looking for!”
“Oh, were you?” she asked in surprise. “What’s up?”
“Well…” Lancy tried unsuccessfully to reposition his armload of stuff. “Mind if I drop by a little later to pick your brain?”
“Sure,” she replied with a chuckle. “I’m just running some stuff to K’s office, and then I’ll be back in mine. Come on by.”
“Oh, fabulous! Tootles!” Lance beamed over the top of his package before sashaying away.
Suppressing a smile, Red went ahead to K’s office. She felt the familiar feeling of intimidation as she stood outside the door, picturing the large, lavish office behind it.
K was all class, his quarters decorated in furniture of the finest leather and gleaming mahogany, with polished marble floors and plush oriental rugs. Not only was it the nicest office she’d seen; it was also the cleanest, never a thing out of place. She may have spent most of her time in a sterile medical ward, but even she could not imagine being as tidy and organized as K — her own office was quite cluttered.
But that wasn’t all that intimidated her. K himself made her slightly nervous. She wasn’t exactly sure why, for he’d always been perfectly nice to her, but she supposed it was that he always seemed closed off, uptight, and hard to get to know. She had never heard him raise his voice above the mellow, subtle Southern drawl he spoke in. However, she’d also rarely seen him smile, and for someone who smiled often, that fact made him intimidating.
She knocked tentatively on the closed door and waited. She heard muffled voices beyond it and hoped she wasn’t interrupting anything important, but a moment later, the door swung open.
“Oh… hi!” she exclaimed, surprised to see Agent Jay standing there. “I’m just here to give these to K.” She held up her stack of papers. “Is this a bad time?”
“Nope, it’s fine; I was just leaving. Come on in, milady,” said Jay chivalrously, holding the door for her.
“Why thank you,” she chirped in reply, smiling at him as she passed through.
Her smile faded when she saw K standing behind his large desk, his expression more grave than usual. She wondered if this was a bad time. She was about to apologize, but then K said, “Come on in, Red.”
Red Jewel deposited the stack of paperwork on the edge of his desk. “Just the usual,” she explained, briefly going through the papers to show him what they were.
“You’re a jewel; thank you,” said K, and one of his rare smiles passed briefly across his face at the pun, accompanied by a wink.
Red smiled back, relaxing. “No problem,” she replied automatically, but then she couldn’t help but ask, “Hey, is everything okay?”
K pressed his lips together and was quiet for a moment, seeming to survey her. She wondered what was going through his head. How much to tell her and how much to keep to himself, probably. K kept a lot to himself, from what she could tell. But this, apparently, he could not keep. “It’s Drums. He’s back.”
Red felt her eyebrows fly up as she thought of the former Agent 009, who hadn’t been seen since his… accident. “He’s back?? Here?”
“Not here. In Vegas. Nick and Diamond met up with him there. He’s changed… and not for the better.”
She drew in a breath. “What do you mean? Is his head still-?”
“He’s on the other side now,” K interjected, his voice curt and grim. “The enemy’s side. He’s part of a terrorist organization known as FANS, who tried to sabotage the Global Idol competition.”
“Oh no,” Red sighed, her heart sinking.
She didn’t stay in K’s office much longer. As she walked back to her own, she couldn’t stop thinking about Drums. They’d never been close while she was here, so it wasn’t as if she’d lost a dear friend with his departure, but just knowing what had become of him made her feel guilty.
If only she’d been able to fix him…
She stood, ready and waiting, in the infirmary. The padded table in the center of the room was cleaned and ready to hold a patient. A stainless steel tray of instruments was assembled nearby, as was a cart full of medications. Not knowing what she would need, she had set up everything.
As she waited, her stomach churned with nerves, making her feel almost sick.
The call from Jay had come several hours ago from somewhere in the Middle East. She remembered his tone better than his words, but some phrases jumped out in her memory. “…toxic chemical spill… Phoenix Suicide… hospitals won’t know what to do… like nothing I’ve ever seen before…”
It had unnerved her to hear Agent 003, third in command at HimTak, sound so shaken. He’d babbled everything to her, and all she had been able to get out of it was that there had been an accident during the mission he had been on with Nick, Drums, and Pearl. A dangerous chemical, potent enough to be considered a biochemical weapon, had leaked and injured Drums. She didn’t know the nature of the damage, just that it was serious. She had prepared as much as she could, hoping she would know what to do when they jetted him back to headquarters.
Waiting was the hardest part, even worse than not knowing. Despite her nervousness, it was almost a relief when she finally heard footsteps and voices entering the medical ward. She hurried out of the surgical room to meet them and did a quick mental inventory as her eyes swept across the four of them: Nick, holding his shoulder with a pained look on his face; Pearl, looking pale but otherwise perfectly fine; Jay, also unscathed and helping to support Drums, who had his head down and one arm thrown around Jay’s shoulder.
Her first reaction was one of relief when she realized that all four of them were standing. That was a good sign; if they could all walk, then no one could be hurt too terribly.
Then Drums lifted his head, and when her eyes moved upward from his legs to his face, she gasped, unable to suppress her shock.
His head was massive, having swollen to nearly three times its normal size. His once-blond curls were dyed crimson with the remnants of the chemical. The stains continued down the right side of his face, where the chemical appeared to have splashed and run off of him. His eye on that side was also bright red and bulging out of its socket. It was a gruesome sight. For a moment, she could only clap her hand over her mouth and stare, horrorstruck. She had never seen anything like it.
At first, she froze. Then her doctor’s instincts, well-honed through her years of training, kicked in, and she snapped into action. “Bring him over here,” she directed Jay, motioning to the table. “Help him onto the table.”
She snapped a pair of latex gloves on, pulling them up over the sleeves of the surgical gown that covered the rest of her body. Then she pulled her surgical mask up over her mouth and nose and a pair of chemical goggles down over her eyes, not wanting to risk getting any of the Phoenix Suicide on her bare skin. Especially not now that she’d seen what it had done to Drums.
“Mah head,” he moaned in agony, his hands flying to his oversized cranium in panic.
“Don’t touch it,” Red instructed, pulling his hands back down. “I need to have a look.”
The most important thing with any chemical burn, she realized, was decontamination and pain control. She had Jay and Pearl gown up to help hold him down while she started an IV, pumping him full of painkillers and antibiotics. But even as she did this, his skull continued to swell. She realized she needed to find a way to reverse the effects of the chemical.
She had no antidote for Phoenix Suicide — the reason it was such an effective biochemical weapon was that there was no known antidote in existence. So she tried to wash it off him first, dousing his head with water, flushing out his eye, scrubbing the side of his face.
His head continued to swell.
She gave him a high dose of steroids to reduce the swelling, then packed his head in ice. The inflation seemed to slow, and her attention moved to his eye. The water hadn’t worked; it was still bloodshot and bulging, under so much pressure from the swelling that she was afraid it might burst.
She reached for her penlight and held his eyelid open as she shone the light in, allowing her to get a better look. “Can you see my light?” she asked, moving the light back and forth.
His dilated eye followed it, though sluggishly. “Sorta… it’s all blurry and red, though. Fuck, it hurts; can’t you fix it?” Justin moaned miserably.
Her heart ached for him. “I’m trying,” she promised. “I just need to–”
And then, in the middle of her sentence, it happened. There was a soft splat, and she found herself looking through a film of cloudy, reddish-tinged liquid that had exploded onto her goggles. As she hurriedly wiped them off with her sleeve, she heard Justin scream and knew, even before she could see, what had happened.
“Mah eye! Mah eye!” he wailed, his voice shrill and hysterical. “I can’t see! Fuck, I can’t see!”
In a way, it was a relief that he couldn’t, for she could see, and the sight of his ruptured eyeball, dripping with blood and vitreous humor, made her stomach churn. Bile crept up the back of her throat, and for a moment, she thought she was going to be sick.
And still, he wailed, in a voice that would haunt her dreams, “Mah eye! Mah eye!”
She could still hear that terrible scream, still taste the acidic burn of the bile in her esophagus. Her eyes had closed as she relived the memory, and when she opened them, they were filled with tears.
If only I could have saved his eye… I could have saved him.
But she hadn’t. She hadn’t saved his eye, she’d barely stopped the swelling, and it was because of her failure that he was gone.
My failure, thought Red Jewel, swallowing hard. My only failure…
***
“Hiiiiiiiiiii, doc!! Here I aaaaaaa-am.” Lancybassy walked in with a grin on his face, holding a cappuccino and carrying his Louis Vuitton bag — which K only approved because he had never actually seen it. But when he walked up to Red Jewel, who was sitting behind her desk, he noticed she was trying to hold back tears. “Why the sad face?” he asked as he put down the bag and handed her the cappuccino.
“Thanks, Lancy…” She took a sip, after which she forced herself to smile. “It’s nothing.”
“And pigs can fly. Come on, honey, spill it,” Lancy said as he sat down on her desk. “Tell Lancy what’s wrong.” He got a tube of Clarins hand and nail cream out of his bag and carefully put some on his hands as he talked. “That guy — what’s his name — David, hasn’t he called yet? Because I know what that’s like; Alex hasn’t called me in aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages. I tell you, darling, men are pigs, whether they’re straight or not. Men are just pigs, or worse, they’re maggots. They eat off of you, use you, and then just turn into flies, fly off, and you never ever see them again.”
A small smile graced Red’s face at Lancy’s rambling, which just went on and on and on in the background. She’d better say something, or else he’d be coming up with an idea of how to get even with David (who had not called). The smile faded as her thoughts went back to her conversation with K.
“Hellooooooo, earth to Red!!”
She lifted her head and met Lancy’s worry-filled eyes.
“Sorry, Lancy. Um, what were you saying… right, men are maggots. And yes, David hasn’t called, but that’s not it. He was too short anyway. I’ve got bigger things on my mind right now.”
“So? Gonna share?”
Red sighed, not knowing if she should tell him. Well, K didn’t say it was classified information. And if she didn’t tell him, Lancy would find out soon enough through one of the other secretaries anyway. Nothing remained secret for a long time if it were up to them. Nothing non-classified that is.
“Drums is back,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“What?!” Lancy shrieked. “Here?! That can’t be. I mean… Oh my God, oh my God… that-”
“No, he’s not here. He’s in Vegas,” Red answered as she set the now empty mug on her desk. “He’s… he’s changed.”
“How? Tell me he has not changed that cute hairdo of his. Oh girl, the fantas-”
“Not his hairdo, Lancy!” Red cut him off.
“Sorry, sweetie. Go on. I’ll keep quiet. I promise. I will really, really, really… Oops, I’m rambling again, aren’t I, darling?” This time, it got him a stern look from Red. “I’ll shut my mouth now,” he said as he started to blush. “See, I’m zipping my mouth closed and throwing the key away! Faaaaaaaaaaar away! See?” Lancy simultaneously acted out his words, then crossed his legs and listened to Red’s explanation about the whole ordeal.
Half an hour later, Lancy walked back to his office, still occupied with what Red had just told him. Drums… The whole thing was such a tragedy, but to think that he was now on the side of the enemies. Lancy slowly shook his head, still in disbelief about the whole situation. Things had started so perfectly back in the days. So perfectly fine…
Lancy had a perfect view from where he was standing… well, hiding. Agent Grasshopper had just told the newest recruits about the day’s training schedule. They now tried to improve their martial arts skills by implementing the instructions he had just given them. ‘Some of them didn’t make any sense, though,’ Lancy thought.
He had been Grasshopper’s secretary for about two years now, and he still spent most of his time trying to figure out what it was that Grasshopper wanted him to do. Since his boss was busy, Lancy figured it’d be okay to take an extra coffee break and keep an eye on the young recruits, just in case they’d need… well, anything.
Two men in the first row especially caught his attention. And not just because they were trying to kick each other to the ground. Right now, Lancy was mostly interested in their physical appearance and was silently comparing the two, using his S.M.I.L.E. system. Silently he gave them points in a range from zero to ten. He had come up with the ranking system himself and used it quite frequently. S.M.I.L.E. stood for ‘Sexy Manly Impulsive Likeable Ecstasy.’ Of course, Lancy liked his men to be sexy and likable, and since he was quite feminine, he needed his man to be very manly. The secretary loved to be surprised, hence the ‘Impulsive’ in S.M.I.L.E. (oh, and he couldn’t come up with another cute word starting with an ‘I’). And last but not least, he loved the experience of being high on feelings of love and arousal.
Lancy liked the fact they were both blond. He knew firsthand that blonds also had more fun between the sheets, in the shower, and at a LOT of other places. Since he had no idea by what cute name both boys walked through life, he gave them nicknames for now. Curly and Spiky, after their hairdos. Curly came to a total of 38 points, and Spiky got himself 40. They both scored a nine for Sexiness, an eight for being Manly, and an eight for Ecstasy. Spiky appeared to be more likable, but that was solely based on the fact that he smiled a gorgeous smile every time he managed to kick Curly to the ground. And since he also used some techniques Grasshopper hadn’t mentioned, he got himself a seven for being impulsive, where Curly only got a six. Spiky had won the first battle.
Of course, the two young men had no idea that they were being judged on anything other than their fighting skills and so they had nothing other than winning on their minds. They were both very competitive and were thinking of nothing but letting the other one taste the dust. Lancy was enjoying the view of two muscular, sweating bodies when he saw Grasshopper walking up to them. Lancy didn’t want to get caught (again), so he hid behind one of the concrete poles, praying Grasshopper had not seen him.
“Stop, young hedgehogs. While fighting, always stay focused. You never know when your opponent will blossom and kill your inner tree by drinking its water.”
Lancy frowned, trying to make any sense of what his boss had just said. As usual, he couldn’t. And so, he allowed himself to dream about the sweating, naked bodies of Spiky, Curly, and himself performing mischievous, steamy activities on the gym mats, in the dressing room, the shower, and a LOT of other places in the HimTak-building.
Yes, things had started so perfectly back in the days. So perfectly fine.
***