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- OT3 or closer than family bond
- Tremaine Finds Out 'big reveal' about their powers
Fandom: The Champions
Characters: Craig Stirling, Richard Barrett, Sharron Macready, William Tremayne, assorted foes
Gen, c. 6000 words
Deadly Vacation
"Your turn to fetch the drinks," said Richard, his languorous tone suggesting that he was on the verge of sleep. He followed the words with a deep yawn, as though to illustrate the point. On her sun-lounger just to his right, Sharron peered at him with one eye, over the top of her sunglasses.
"I got them last time!" she protested. He rolled over onto his back, staring up at the cloudless sky.
"True. But I'm very, very tired, and you're very, very kind."
"I'm also very, very psychic," she reminded him. "At least where you're concerned. And you're not tired, you just don't want to move."
A small smile stole its way onto his face. "Same difference. All right, we'll send Craig. I don't think he believes in being tired." He lifted his head slightly, the better to give him a wider view around the pool. "Where is he, anyway?"
"Can't you tell?" It was an obvious dare, delivered with a faint, teasing smile. Never one to resist so tempting a challenge, Richard settled himself back on his towel, hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. It was not hard to focus upon Craig. They had been close even before their Himalayan saviours had joined them together. A moment of concentration, a moment to focus upon the missing member of their team – and suddenly there he was, in a corridor painted blue, stone tiles cold beneath feet still bare from the pool. A smile of triumph lit Richard's eyes as they reopened, and Sharron allowed a little laugh to fracture her usually perfect composure.
"Tell him to fetch some more drinks on his way back," she suggested, and Richard pictured the message in the back of his mind, ready for its wordless delivery. He paused. There was a woman walking down the corridor towards Craig. He could not see her exactly, but a notion of her drifted across his senses as she hove into Craig's view. He got a distant, crumpled impression of blonde hair, the scent of exotic flowers, and a very small dress in splashes of orange and pink. Somewhere in his head, Craig smiled, sending Richard the equivalent of a wink. Richard winked back, struggling to coalesce the not-quite-a-picture inside his mind, in the hope of seeing the young woman for himself. For a second he did – a glorious, close up image of hazel eyes in a tanned and smiling face. Then, suddenly, something stabbed sharply at his leg. He let out an involuntary yelp, hand going to a thigh that he already knew was unharmed. It was not his leg that had been stabbed – by the long, needle-sharp point of a dart; he knew that even before a greyness began to wash across his brain – it was Craig's. Startled from their secret contact, Richard was staring up at the sky again, the vast stretch of blue, and the scent of chlorine above the sea air, drowning out the echoes of Craig's consciousness. Craig's drifting, sinking consciousness. Richard sat up, shaking his head to clear it. The drug that was sending his friend into a deep and forced sleep was pushing its way into his own mind too. He could not give in to it. Beside him Sharron had also sensed trouble, if from rather more of a distance. Their eyes met as she started up from her sun-lounger, worry making her mouth fall open in a soundless gasp.
"Craig?" she asked him, although she already knew the answer. Richard was on his feet in an instant, catching her hand to pull her into action.
"Craig," he confirmed, his voice as hard as the tiles that clicked so sharply beneath his sandalled feet. Once again, trouble had come their way, destroying their hard-earned rest. Somehow it seemed that it always did.
**********
A million miles away, or so it seemed, the sun had ceased to shine. Craig opened his eyes, well aware that he was alone. His sharpened senses, so much stronger and more defined than those of any ordinary man, had swept the vicinity even as his mind was dragging itself back from unconsciousness. He looked around. It was no great surprise to see the blank, featureless four walls of a cell. Curiosity led him to look around more closely – there was always something that was unique to each new place. Searching out such small details, he could map the locale in his head, discover its likely weaknesses – and, even if he could not make use of them himself, with luck broadcast the lot to Richard and Sharron.
"Mr Stirling." A voice, disembodied and slightly tinny, barked into life above him. He looked up, noting the position of the loudspeaker, and also its make and model. Small. Cheap. This was no vast operation of limitless resource then, despite the neat and obviously well-planned method of his capture.
"Hi." There was no point in being churlish, he supposed. Generally the chatty type, Craig had developed something of a habit of greeting enemies and captors with a smile and a friendly line in conversation. Often it worked in his favour, putting them off their guard – and besides, he was not nearly as good at surly glowering as Richard. Better to leave that to the expert.
"You are no doubt wondering why you're here." That was quite the understatement. Craig offered the room a genial smile, expecting there to be a camera somewhere to broadcast it. He spied it a second later, and turned the smile up a notch as he looked straight down the lens.
"Is it a surprise birthday party?" he asked. There was a pause.
"Your file does not state today as your birthday, Mr Stirling." The voice was so endearingly serious that Craig could not help but smile further.
"Hence the surprise," he pointed out. There was another pause, as though his unseen host were collecting his wits. A moment later there came a sharp intake of breath.
"You are here, Mr Stirling, because your organisation—"
"Nemesis," offered Craig helpfully. Again there was a pause, and again that sharp intake of breath. Somebody, it appeared, had rather a short temper. That was something worth remembering.
"Yes, Nemesis. Rather a frivolous name, do you not think? But anyway. It has recently been giving me something of a difficult time. I have lost trusted associates. Vital funds have been seized. I have decided that the time has come to register my displeasure."
"We do have a complaints department," deadpanned Craig. He didn't think that it was true, but one never quite knew with Tremayne. He certainly did like to see every ‘t' crossed and ‘i' dotted, in perfect military fashion.
"Be that as it may." The words raced out in a rush of pure acid. Craig could almost imagine steam pouring from a pair of unseen ears. This time he stifled his smile. There was a breath, and the words came again, more equitable this time, almost honeyed. "Be that as it may, I have decided to send your organisation a message that cannot be ignored, and you, Mr Stirling, have been identified as one of its top agents. A favoured one almost. I'm told that your record is really very impressive indeed." A beat. "My congratulations."
"Thank you," Craig told him, and meant it. He was proud of his work. It made no difference that the compliment was an ironic one, and came from some tinny voice blaring from a black box. "I take it this message isn't the kind that I hand over to my boss in a nice white envelope?"
"It is not." Another pause, this one, by the sound of it, used purely for dramatic effect. It told Craig that he wasn't going to like what came next. He wasn't wrong. "It is the kind that you deliver in blood, Mr Stirling. At the end of a long and illustrative death."
**********
"Ah, Richard. Sharron." Tremayne was just hanging up the phone as they entered his office. If he was annoyed by their failure to knock, he did not show it. "You're back early. Monaco not up to its usual standard?"
"Something like that." His tone of voice somewhat bitter, Richard strode quickly over to stand before the big, broad desk dominating the room. He had sat on it more than once during prior briefings, enjoying the chance to give their boss a gentle teasing. Today he was all business. "Sir, as you know the three of us were having a few days off together, and Sharron and I are..." He hesitated only briefly, his quick mind running over the best ways to phrase it. He mustn't be too certain. It was a perennial problem given the secret that the three of them shared. "It's very likely that Craig has been abducted. There was a woman."
"Isn't there always," observed Tremayne dryly, although clearly he registered their concern, switching to a more sober approach immediately. "You're sure? He hasn't just decided that he prefers her company to yours? Unimaginable though that might seem."
"We always stay in touch, sir," said Sharron quietly. She was obviously subdued, which did not go unnoticed by Tremayne. He nodded.
"Yes. Yes, you three do seem to maintain particularly close ties these days. If you think that something is amiss, then fair enough. Do you have any leads?"
"The woman was blonde, sir," said Richard, painfully aware that this amounted to not very much at all. "And it was a neat job. He was definitely targeted."
"Very well. I'll have his case files gone through. There are sure to be a few blonde women in the records, but something might give us a clue. Could you give us a proper description?"
"I can draw you a sketch if you want." He could call her image to mind, and did so now, considering her far more carefully than he had when he had seen her for that fleeting instant before. He was sure that it was a useless exercise. He didn't recognise her, and if she was anything to do with a past case, he would surely have done. There were few enough cases that Craig had worked on during his time with Nemesis that Richard had not also been a part of. Anything prior to that would come under the auspices of the CIA, and would be untraceable. Tremayne, unaware of his theorising, nodded briskly.
"Good. Good. That's certainly a start."
"Is it?" asked Sharron, a little more sharply than was usual when speaking to their boss. "She's nobody that we've encountered before."
"Craig did have a career with us quite some time before you arrived, Sharron," Tremayne reminded her gently. Richard felt her frustration. She could hardly admit that she had registered Richard's certainty about the woman, and knew it as her own. Richard began to speak up himself, but Tremayne raised a hand to forestall the objections. "And even your memory isn't limitless, Richard." He steepled his fingers, eyes narrowing into thoughtful, distant slits. "Hmm. Well, you get on with that sketch, and I'll alert Operations. We might as well get some boots on the ground in Monaco. There could still be some clues to pick up there. Don't worry. I have no intention of allowing anything to happen to one of my agents. Not if there's a single thing that I can do about it."
"Thank you, sir," mumbled Richard, as much because some sort of response seemed required, rather than through any real feelings of gratitude. "If it's alright with you, Sharron and I would like to get out into the field, and see what we can come up with ourselves."
"Yes, of course." Tremayne regarded them both very seriously for a moment. "Do the two of you have any leads? I've never asked, but..." He waved a hand, in illustration of a hundred unspoken suspicions. Richard did not look at Sharron, but in his mind's eye he threw a glance her way. Somewhere inside herself, she gave a brief nod, and drew back within her mind in search of their missing third. They had tried sporadically since his disappearance, but when he was unconscious it was too hard to establish any kind of a link. She hoped fervently that this time he would be awake.
"We don't have any leads, no," Richard was saying, although she knew him well enough to be sure that he was working on something. In point of fact he was replaying that brief glimpse of the young woman in his mind. There was something, perhaps? He tried to focus as surreptitiously as possible, all the while engaging Tremayne in pointless conversation. Mediterranean scents, borne on a long-passed breeze; a hint of warm air drifting across a body of water. It might be something. Sharron mulled it over as she continued to work on contacting Craig. There were a lot of lakes in the world, but if the scent of it still lingered on the woman's clothing, she could surely not have travelled so very far. It was something to think about; a distraction to help her to deal with her worries as she continued with her efforts. By the time the answer finally came, she had already narrowed down the possibilities to three likely sites through simple knowledge of geography.
~Hi,~ came Craig's voice, somewhere inside her head. ~Long time no see.~
~Craig!~ She was so relieved that she almost spoke his name aloud. ~How are you?~
~Uncomfortable. Annoyed. A bit embarrassed.~ She could hear his familiar smile in his thoughts, and inwardly she smiled in response. ~Sorry. I thought I could hear you calling me a little while ago, but I was bit preoccupied. I've had a lot of visitors. I'm kind of a celebrity around here.~
~Trust you to land up somewhere cushy. Where exactly are you?~
~Lake Maggiore,~ came the answer. ~I don't think I'm supposed to know, but I got a bit of a look around when they moved me to a new room a few minutes ago, and I recognised a few landmarks. It's actually a nice place. We should have come here for our holiday.~
~Be sure to ask for a brochure.~
~I will. They'll be back any minute. Doing the usual menacing interrogation bit probably, so I can't talk for long. Sorry to break up the party, by the way. Tell Richard I owe him a drink.~
~Never mind that.~ She shared a look with Richard, seeing the irritation that sizzled in his eyes. Lake Maggiore. It was no great distance away, but in returning to Geneva they had flown in the wrong direction entirely. She sympathised. Reporting in had been a priority, particularly with nothing to go on, but it was a blow to their pride that they had not been able to find Craig themselves. She wanted to commiserate with him, but she knew that he would be in no mood to listen. Nobody expected more from Richard than he did. He was sure to blame himself for this.
"Richard?" asked Tremayne suddenly. Richard had to drag his mind back from the darkness of his frustrations. Clearly something had registered on his face, giving concern to his boss, but for all that Tremayne was an understanding employer, he could hardly explain what it was. Certainly he could not admit to the unease eating at the back of his mind, or the ferocious beating of his heart, that had come with Craig's long overdue message. Perhaps Sharron had missed the dark flickers, all but hidden by their partner's easy-going tone. Richard was not so easily fooled. He threw a sharp question Craig's way, but was met with nothing but silence. Something was going on, and whatever it was, it clearly required the better part of his old friend's concentration. That in itself was cause for concern.
"It's nothing, sir," he said in the end. He could name Lake Maggiore, certainly. He could very likely even come up with some pseudo-scientific reason for how he had 'guessed' it. But what then? Better to keep this new piece of information to themselves, so that they could mount a rescue alone, using their powers without fear of discovery. Inside his head, Sharron was agreeing, albeit with a little concern. It seemed straightforward enough to Richard, and nothing that they had not done before. Craig should be able to look after himself for a few hours, whatever was going on, whilst they travelled across the border to Italy. They closer they were, the more easily they could establish his position; and then it was merely a question of attacking the enemy's headquarters. With their abilities that should not be a problem. His thoughts served to reassure Sharron, although he might have wished for a little more reassurance himself.
"We should get going," he said, to nobody in particular, and offered Tremayne a brief nod of farewell. Their boss need not know that they had left the country. By the time he was in a position to ask, they could have Craig back, and could shrug it all off as another of their remarkable successes. Tremayne didn't seem to care, as long as they were winning. Others might ask awkward questions, but they could ask away. Just as long as Craig was safe. Sure enough, Tremayne made no protest as Richard turned around and headed for the door, Sharron by his side. Richard could feel the man's speculative gaze; could sense the unvoiced questions; the shrewd brain turning over in a wise and experienced head. Let the questions remain unasked for another day – that was all that he hoped for. It was all that he ever hoped for, under that sharpest of stares.
They were halfway to the door when Sharron stumbled. Richard reached for her by instinct, knowing that she was going to fall almost before it happened. Even so, he failed to catch her. As her legs gave way, he stumbled too, staggered by a pain that ripped suddenly through his body, stealing the air from his lungs, and causing his head to reel. He called upon all of his strength to fight it – one of their talents was the ability to block out pain – but it required a level of concentration that right now he could not summon. Dimly, beneath the fog of the pain, he heard Tremayne's chair scrape on the carpet, and the padded thudding of his feet as he hurried to their aid. Richard sucked in a long breath through his teeth. Excuses. He needed excuses, and good ones. Anything, any explanation that he could give. It was Sharron who managed it, finding her feet again, her perfect composure restored. Richard could almost have smiled. Good old Sharron. Nobody had a cooler head when the situation called for it.
"I'm so sorry," she was saying. "I tripped on something. Richard, are you alright? I think I must have caught you with my heel."
"Yes. Thank you." His voice sounded rough, and he knew it, but he struggled on regardless. "Those are quite a set of weapons you've got there."
"They actually are weapons. I was given them by the armaments division to try out. I really shouldn't wear them around the office." She was smiling, just about, the strain showing only around the edges of her eyes – and only to Richard. He managed a shaky nod.
"Well, I think we can call them a success. My compliments to the armaments division. Now, er... shall we go? Places to, um... and people to... to..." It was no use. The pain hit him again, and he grabbed involuntarily at his arm. Electricity. He knew the feeling – he had been through torture like that once himself, and had heard later from Craig all about how it had felt from afar. Now he was the one at a distance, their psychic connection leaving him feeling as though he had been punched by a sixty foot giant. Tremayne took his arm, leading him back to the desk, and the refuge of a solid chair. It was the last thing that he had wanted, but at least his legs were no longer responsible for holding him up. He was quite sure that it was a responsibility they had been about to shirk.
"Richard." There was great meaning in Tremayne's voice, but Richard ignored it. Instead he sought out that quiet place within himself that would enable him to make the pain bearable at least. When the next wave came it felt less intense. He hoped that Craig was managing something similar. For a moment he struggled to find some connection – to send a message of reassurance that help was on its way – but his old friend was too distracted. He could sympathise. Finding a calm place inside oneself whilst being tortured was no easy task. Abandoning the attempt to communicate, he looked up, and found himself staring straight into the concerned – but determined – eyes of William Tremayne.
"I make a point of not asking too many awkward questions," said Tremayne, his expression somewhere between wary and kind. "But if there were something that you wanted to tell me..."
"We should hurry," said Sharron, as though she had not even heard him. Richard nodded, but even as he did so, a white hot pain ripped its way through his head. Sharron had gone deathly pale, and he saw, as though in slow motion, a bead of bright red blood well up where she had bitten into her lip. It hesitated for a moment, then trickled its way slowly down her chin. She did not wipe it away. She was too intently focused elsewhere.
"It's Craig, isn't it." Tremayne had been to and from his drinks cabinet before Richard had even realised that he had moved – which spoke volumes to him about how distracted he had become. Regaining his composure again, he accepted a glass of whisky, and took a small, rather grateful sip. As expected it was excellent – a fine, smooth single malt that felt like velvet on his tongue, until the fire kicked in at the back of his throat. It burned brightly then, like an echo of Craig's terrible pain. Sharron was already launching into their second desperate excuse of the day, and he was momentarily impressed by the agility of her thinking. Tremayne didn't look as though he believed a word of it, but he listened politely enough, whilst Richard merely tried to stay sitting upright. When yet another wave of pain washed over him, he had to fight a suddenly weak hand, in an effort to set down the whisky before he spilled it. Tremayne came to his rescue, taking the glass before it could fall, with his other hand expertly checking Richard's pulse. And then, suddenly, the pain was gone. It ended as though with the flick of a switch, and in its place... Richard blinked. He felt as though a wall that he had been leaning against had been removed, twitched aside in an instant. Had he been standing up, he was quite sure that he would have fallen.
"Craig," he said quietly, and his eyes sought Sharron's. She was pale – so very pale – her eyes big and wide and round, and oddly dark against the pallor of her skin. At some point a strand of hair had come loose from beneath her hat, and was sticking out, giving her an unusually unkempt appearance. He wanted to smooth it down, to lend her some support, to put some colour back in that unnaturally pale face. He couldn't even think where to begin.
"He's just... gone," she said, and he nodded. He had been so tense in his battle against the phantom spasms that his muscles were now objecting for all they were worth. Just that simple movement was painful; but nothing like as bad as the pain that he now felt inside. Was Craig unconscious? Or worse? He didn't want to think about that, but his mind churned over the single thought, tormenting him with his own impotence. He was too far away. There was nothing that he could do. He could not possibly get there quickly enough to make a difference. All those plans to sneak away to Lake Maggiore, to stage a rescue, to be in and out before Tremayne found out that they had gone – it was all a pipe-dream now. Craig needed help right away. His usually calm head a-buzz with worry, Richard sank back into his seat. He knew what he had to do. There really was no alternative.
"You asked about Craig," he said to Tremayne. Sharron gave a start, but whether she did so openly, or just somewhere inside, he had no idea. Sometimes it was easy to forget whether they were speaking privately or aloud. It was all becoming one and the same.
"Richard..." she began. He smiled at her, then stood up, very gently wiping the trail of blood from her mouth.
"Do you remember a couple of months ago, when Craig was interrogated?" he asked. He felt her pain then as surely as he saw it in her eyes.
"Of course."
"And we did nothing? Said nothing? To protect ourselves, and our secret, we stood back and let it happen. Sharron, you know something of what he's going through now," If he's still alive, his treacherous brain supplied, although he didn't say it. She picked up on the thought anyway, he knew. Of course she did, and he cursed himself and his imagination for it. "Do you really want to risk taking the time to go out there ourselves? We have to ask for help this time." She stared deep into his eyes, and her head gave the tiniest, stiffest of nods. He smiled, hard and cold, without even the faintest vestige of humour.
"Then we're agreed." He turned away from her, looking back towards Tremayne. Their boss had remained mercifully silent, treating them both with a grace that Richard greatly appreciated.
"You know where Craig is?" he asked now. Richard nodded.
"Lake Maggiore," he said, in a voice that was uncharacteristically hoarse. He felt drained, more so than he could remember being in a long while, and the worry over whether he really was doing the right thing weighed heavily upon him. Sharron reached out and took his hand, her fingers pressing gently against his. He squeezed her hand in return, and drew a short breath. There had been images, coming to him in fractured bursts during those agonised moments of connection. Now that the pain had gone, the weird silence that was left in his head allowed him to concentrate, working out what was what. What might help, what could not. There was a white building within sight of the lake, in a large garden of olive and lemon trees, set all about with azaleas in full bloom. A large, white marble fountain in the shape of a lion. A hedge trimmed into the shape of a long and sinuous dragon. There was no name that went with it, but a place like that could not be hard to find. Tremayne was already reaching for a phone, dialling a number from memory.
"We have agents on the Italian border," he said, his voice brisk and businesslike. "They can be at Lake Maggiore before you two can even get in the air. Anything more precise?" It was Sharron who answered, repeating the information that Richard had just been thinking, adding a few little details of her own. Tremayne answered with a nod, then repeated the lot to some unseen contact on the other end of the line. Only when the business was done did he look back to Richard and Sharron.
"I've long suspected," he said quietly, and rose to his feet to fetch himself a glass of whisky. He did not drink it, but stood with it half-raised to his lips. "Although if I'm honest, I've never been quite sure what it was that I was suspecting. The three of you have such an unusual bond. You have done for some time. Something... unnatural."
"I can assure you, sir, that it feels perfectly natural to us." Richard held the other man's gaze, watchful and cautious, unable to guess quite how this conversation was going to proceed. Tremayne nodded slowly, then took a quick drink.
"Some sort of... psychic connection?" he asked, as though he could not quite believe his own question. Sharron nodded.
"It's not really as unlikely as it sounds," she told him. "There's been a good deal of research into the abilities of the human brain. I've been studying the subject myself since we acquired our abilities."
"And when exactly did you acquire them?" he asked. "Not to mention how? It's not something that you've always had, I'm quite sure of that."
"That has to remain a secret," Richard told him. Tremayne might be his boss, but he put enough authority into the words to make it clear that this was not open to discussion. Tremayne hesitated, then took a second sip, and nodded.
"I suppose I can allow you that. Although any abilities that you might have, were we able to replicate them..."
"It doesn't work like that, sir." Sharron linked her arm through his in order to guide him back to his chair, certain that, if nothing else, simple charm might prove to be an ally. "We've studied ourselves very closely. We've analysed every possible aspect of our condition. It's not something that we can replicate, nor pass on to others. And besides, we're not really so very special."
"You're a lot more than just psychic," Tremayne pressed. Richard managed a wry smile. Their boss was no fool, certainly. It made him an excellent leader, but at times – certainly now – it could be a disadvantage. By way of illustration, and because he felt that the man deserved at least that much, he reached out a hand, and lifted Tremayne's huge desk by one of its stout legs. The one-handed grip, and the complete lack of effort, spoke a thousand words. Tremayne swallowed hard.
"Good God," he said – then, to their surprise, he smiled. "Well, that does answer a few questions. Your recent success rate, for example."
"I do like to think that some of that is down to natural talent," protested Richard, but he did return the smile at least in part. Tremayne took another quick sip of whisky, then set the glass down on the desk, as soon as it had been settled once again upon the floor.
"Will you know when Craig has been rescued?" he asked. Richard nodded. So did Sharron, returning to his side, and fidgeting slightly as she stood there. He knew the reason for her unease, but he didn't voice it. He didn't even want to think about it. The possibility that it might all be too late, and that this ghastly emptiness inside them might be permanent, was not something that he wanted to consider. He certainly didn't want to speak it aloud, and make it any more than a gnawing dread. Tremayne nodded as well, blissfully ignorant of their discomfort.
"I'd appreciate an update," he told them. Perhaps he meant it as a field test of their abilities. Perhaps he just genuinely wanted to know when Craig had been found. It didn't matter. Sharron, still fidgety, retrieved Richard's whisky, and drank most of what was left.
"Thank you," Richard told her dryly. "I needed that." She smiled in reply, a thin, needle-sharp smile, but one that nonetheless showed as a flash of warmth in her eyes. "Are you doing okay?"
"Yes." She was successfully restoring that characteristic poise that he knew so well. He could see it coming over her again even as he watched. The message was clear. They had shared more here today than she was comfortable with. She was not going to share any more. Not whilst Tremayne was present; an alien interloper; a spy in their private world. "And you?"
"Oh, you know. A headache. A neck ache. An everything else ache. Nothing too bad. Sit down, old thing. There might be a bit of a wait."
"I suppose." She sat on a corner of the desk, fiddling briefly with her bright orange hat. "I feel that I should be doing something useful."
"You could go and help out in one of the labs," he suggested. She shook her head. He understood. She would want to be searching inside her head, just as he did, looking to reconnect with Craig. It would not be easy to have spectators around, either if their friend did wake up, or especially if he didn't. Having chosen to remain where she was, she sat erect, radiating frustrated purpose.
"What happens now?" she asked. He shrugged.
"We get Craig back. We look after him. We find everybody responsible, and we put them out of business."
"No. I mean..." In her head she spoke the word ~Tremayne~, but outwardly she left the sentence unfinished. Richard glanced over at their commander, currently watching the pair of them with a guarded scrutiny. He had to admit that the man was showing a remarkable restraint. Certainly he was known to be a considerate employer, for the most part, but Richard appreciated his reserve now more than he had ever done before.
"Nothing happens next." Almost as though he too had heard Sharron think his name, Tremayne spoke up, although he remained staring at the glass of whisky on his desk. "I haven't seen either one of you today. The tip about Lake Maggiore came from an old and trusted informant who needs to remain anonymous for their own protection. I..." He smiled, eyes distant when finally he looked up from his contemplation of his glass. "It's alright, both of you. Although I trust that it will never again be mentioned by any of us, and certainly not outside of his room, the three of you are the best that I've ever seen. I saw potential in all of you, even before you... before you changed. Now you're simply in a different league. I admit that I have had my suspicions, and once I let that suspicion go too far. Craig paid the price. I assure you that I will never allow anything like that to happen again." His eyes narrowed, bringing a new meaning, a new seriousness, into his words. "Just as long as the three of you remain on the side of law and order, this information will never go further than my ears, and you have my word on that, as a gentleman." He smiled, and finished the glass of whisky in a quick gulp. "More than that, I hope. You have my word as a friend."
"Well, for our part I can assure you that we have no intention of going rogue," said Richard. Under any other circumstances he might have made a joke out of such a statement, but this time he remained quite serious. Sharron nodded, clearly adding her assent. Tremayne nodded as well then, looking from one to the other of them.
"And... Craig?" he asked tentatively. Richard drew in a breath, wishing that he could give an answer. Wishing that that missing part of himself were here to give his own reply. In the back of his mind, like the ghost of an old memory, something stirred. Sharron gave a start, her carefully restored composure falling away as she jumped to her feet with a gasp. Richard smiled at that – at that and at the soft, hesitant blinking, going on somewhere deep inside his skull.
"Rest assured, sir," he said, as the hesitant movement inside grew stronger, more certain, more alive. It felt as though somebody had put a comforting hand on the shoulder of his soul. He could not help but smile broadly; he could almost have cheered. "We do speak for Craig as well." And looking up at Sharron, he saw the smile in her eyes, and knew that she was feeling the same. It was like being completed. The danger might not be over, but now he felt sure that it was surmountable. Their being was whole again. The rest could take care of itself.
The End
- OT3 or closer than family bond
- Tremaine Finds Out 'big reveal' about their powers
Fandom: The Champions
Characters: Craig Stirling, Richard Barrett, Sharron Macready, William Tremayne, assorted foes
Gen, c. 6000 words
"Your turn to fetch the drinks," said Richard, his languorous tone suggesting that he was on the verge of sleep. He followed the words with a deep yawn, as though to illustrate the point. On her sun-lounger just to his right, Sharron peered at him with one eye, over the top of her sunglasses.
"I got them last time!" she protested. He rolled over onto his back, staring up at the cloudless sky.
"True. But I'm very, very tired, and you're very, very kind."
"I'm also very, very psychic," she reminded him. "At least where you're concerned. And you're not tired, you just don't want to move."
A small smile stole its way onto his face. "Same difference. All right, we'll send Craig. I don't think he believes in being tired." He lifted his head slightly, the better to give him a wider view around the pool. "Where is he, anyway?"
"Can't you tell?" It was an obvious dare, delivered with a faint, teasing smile. Never one to resist so tempting a challenge, Richard settled himself back on his towel, hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. It was not hard to focus upon Craig. They had been close even before their Himalayan saviours had joined them together. A moment of concentration, a moment to focus upon the missing member of their team – and suddenly there he was, in a corridor painted blue, stone tiles cold beneath feet still bare from the pool. A smile of triumph lit Richard's eyes as they reopened, and Sharron allowed a little laugh to fracture her usually perfect composure.
"Tell him to fetch some more drinks on his way back," she suggested, and Richard pictured the message in the back of his mind, ready for its wordless delivery. He paused. There was a woman walking down the corridor towards Craig. He could not see her exactly, but a notion of her drifted across his senses as she hove into Craig's view. He got a distant, crumpled impression of blonde hair, the scent of exotic flowers, and a very small dress in splashes of orange and pink. Somewhere in his head, Craig smiled, sending Richard the equivalent of a wink. Richard winked back, struggling to coalesce the not-quite-a-picture inside his mind, in the hope of seeing the young woman for himself. For a second he did – a glorious, close up image of hazel eyes in a tanned and smiling face. Then, suddenly, something stabbed sharply at his leg. He let out an involuntary yelp, hand going to a thigh that he already knew was unharmed. It was not his leg that had been stabbed – by the long, needle-sharp point of a dart; he knew that even before a greyness began to wash across his brain – it was Craig's. Startled from their secret contact, Richard was staring up at the sky again, the vast stretch of blue, and the scent of chlorine above the sea air, drowning out the echoes of Craig's consciousness. Craig's drifting, sinking consciousness. Richard sat up, shaking his head to clear it. The drug that was sending his friend into a deep and forced sleep was pushing its way into his own mind too. He could not give in to it. Beside him Sharron had also sensed trouble, if from rather more of a distance. Their eyes met as she started up from her sun-lounger, worry making her mouth fall open in a soundless gasp.
"Craig?" she asked him, although she already knew the answer. Richard was on his feet in an instant, catching her hand to pull her into action.
"Craig," he confirmed, his voice as hard as the tiles that clicked so sharply beneath his sandalled feet. Once again, trouble had come their way, destroying their hard-earned rest. Somehow it seemed that it always did.
A million miles away, or so it seemed, the sun had ceased to shine. Craig opened his eyes, well aware that he was alone. His sharpened senses, so much stronger and more defined than those of any ordinary man, had swept the vicinity even as his mind was dragging itself back from unconsciousness. He looked around. It was no great surprise to see the blank, featureless four walls of a cell. Curiosity led him to look around more closely – there was always something that was unique to each new place. Searching out such small details, he could map the locale in his head, discover its likely weaknesses – and, even if he could not make use of them himself, with luck broadcast the lot to Richard and Sharron.
"Mr Stirling." A voice, disembodied and slightly tinny, barked into life above him. He looked up, noting the position of the loudspeaker, and also its make and model. Small. Cheap. This was no vast operation of limitless resource then, despite the neat and obviously well-planned method of his capture.
"Hi." There was no point in being churlish, he supposed. Generally the chatty type, Craig had developed something of a habit of greeting enemies and captors with a smile and a friendly line in conversation. Often it worked in his favour, putting them off their guard – and besides, he was not nearly as good at surly glowering as Richard. Better to leave that to the expert.
"You are no doubt wondering why you're here." That was quite the understatement. Craig offered the room a genial smile, expecting there to be a camera somewhere to broadcast it. He spied it a second later, and turned the smile up a notch as he looked straight down the lens.
"Is it a surprise birthday party?" he asked. There was a pause.
"Your file does not state today as your birthday, Mr Stirling." The voice was so endearingly serious that Craig could not help but smile further.
"Hence the surprise," he pointed out. There was another pause, as though his unseen host were collecting his wits. A moment later there came a sharp intake of breath.
"You are here, Mr Stirling, because your organisation—"
"Nemesis," offered Craig helpfully. Again there was a pause, and again that sharp intake of breath. Somebody, it appeared, had rather a short temper. That was something worth remembering.
"Yes, Nemesis. Rather a frivolous name, do you not think? But anyway. It has recently been giving me something of a difficult time. I have lost trusted associates. Vital funds have been seized. I have decided that the time has come to register my displeasure."
"We do have a complaints department," deadpanned Craig. He didn't think that it was true, but one never quite knew with Tremayne. He certainly did like to see every ‘t' crossed and ‘i' dotted, in perfect military fashion.
"Be that as it may." The words raced out in a rush of pure acid. Craig could almost imagine steam pouring from a pair of unseen ears. This time he stifled his smile. There was a breath, and the words came again, more equitable this time, almost honeyed. "Be that as it may, I have decided to send your organisation a message that cannot be ignored, and you, Mr Stirling, have been identified as one of its top agents. A favoured one almost. I'm told that your record is really very impressive indeed." A beat. "My congratulations."
"Thank you," Craig told him, and meant it. He was proud of his work. It made no difference that the compliment was an ironic one, and came from some tinny voice blaring from a black box. "I take it this message isn't the kind that I hand over to my boss in a nice white envelope?"
"It is not." Another pause, this one, by the sound of it, used purely for dramatic effect. It told Craig that he wasn't going to like what came next. He wasn't wrong. "It is the kind that you deliver in blood, Mr Stirling. At the end of a long and illustrative death."
"Ah, Richard. Sharron." Tremayne was just hanging up the phone as they entered his office. If he was annoyed by their failure to knock, he did not show it. "You're back early. Monaco not up to its usual standard?"
"Something like that." His tone of voice somewhat bitter, Richard strode quickly over to stand before the big, broad desk dominating the room. He had sat on it more than once during prior briefings, enjoying the chance to give their boss a gentle teasing. Today he was all business. "Sir, as you know the three of us were having a few days off together, and Sharron and I are..." He hesitated only briefly, his quick mind running over the best ways to phrase it. He mustn't be too certain. It was a perennial problem given the secret that the three of them shared. "It's very likely that Craig has been abducted. There was a woman."
"Isn't there always," observed Tremayne dryly, although clearly he registered their concern, switching to a more sober approach immediately. "You're sure? He hasn't just decided that he prefers her company to yours? Unimaginable though that might seem."
"We always stay in touch, sir," said Sharron quietly. She was obviously subdued, which did not go unnoticed by Tremayne. He nodded.
"Yes. Yes, you three do seem to maintain particularly close ties these days. If you think that something is amiss, then fair enough. Do you have any leads?"
"The woman was blonde, sir," said Richard, painfully aware that this amounted to not very much at all. "And it was a neat job. He was definitely targeted."
"Very well. I'll have his case files gone through. There are sure to be a few blonde women in the records, but something might give us a clue. Could you give us a proper description?"
"I can draw you a sketch if you want." He could call her image to mind, and did so now, considering her far more carefully than he had when he had seen her for that fleeting instant before. He was sure that it was a useless exercise. He didn't recognise her, and if she was anything to do with a past case, he would surely have done. There were few enough cases that Craig had worked on during his time with Nemesis that Richard had not also been a part of. Anything prior to that would come under the auspices of the CIA, and would be untraceable. Tremayne, unaware of his theorising, nodded briskly.
"Good. Good. That's certainly a start."
"Is it?" asked Sharron, a little more sharply than was usual when speaking to their boss. "She's nobody that we've encountered before."
"Craig did have a career with us quite some time before you arrived, Sharron," Tremayne reminded her gently. Richard felt her frustration. She could hardly admit that she had registered Richard's certainty about the woman, and knew it as her own. Richard began to speak up himself, but Tremayne raised a hand to forestall the objections. "And even your memory isn't limitless, Richard." He steepled his fingers, eyes narrowing into thoughtful, distant slits. "Hmm. Well, you get on with that sketch, and I'll alert Operations. We might as well get some boots on the ground in Monaco. There could still be some clues to pick up there. Don't worry. I have no intention of allowing anything to happen to one of my agents. Not if there's a single thing that I can do about it."
"Thank you, sir," mumbled Richard, as much because some sort of response seemed required, rather than through any real feelings of gratitude. "If it's alright with you, Sharron and I would like to get out into the field, and see what we can come up with ourselves."
"Yes, of course." Tremayne regarded them both very seriously for a moment. "Do the two of you have any leads? I've never asked, but..." He waved a hand, in illustration of a hundred unspoken suspicions. Richard did not look at Sharron, but in his mind's eye he threw a glance her way. Somewhere inside herself, she gave a brief nod, and drew back within her mind in search of their missing third. They had tried sporadically since his disappearance, but when he was unconscious it was too hard to establish any kind of a link. She hoped fervently that this time he would be awake.
"We don't have any leads, no," Richard was saying, although she knew him well enough to be sure that he was working on something. In point of fact he was replaying that brief glimpse of the young woman in his mind. There was something, perhaps? He tried to focus as surreptitiously as possible, all the while engaging Tremayne in pointless conversation. Mediterranean scents, borne on a long-passed breeze; a hint of warm air drifting across a body of water. It might be something. Sharron mulled it over as she continued to work on contacting Craig. There were a lot of lakes in the world, but if the scent of it still lingered on the woman's clothing, she could surely not have travelled so very far. It was something to think about; a distraction to help her to deal with her worries as she continued with her efforts. By the time the answer finally came, she had already narrowed down the possibilities to three likely sites through simple knowledge of geography.
~Hi,~ came Craig's voice, somewhere inside her head. ~Long time no see.~
~Craig!~ She was so relieved that she almost spoke his name aloud. ~How are you?~
~Uncomfortable. Annoyed. A bit embarrassed.~ She could hear his familiar smile in his thoughts, and inwardly she smiled in response. ~Sorry. I thought I could hear you calling me a little while ago, but I was bit preoccupied. I've had a lot of visitors. I'm kind of a celebrity around here.~
~Trust you to land up somewhere cushy. Where exactly are you?~
~Lake Maggiore,~ came the answer. ~I don't think I'm supposed to know, but I got a bit of a look around when they moved me to a new room a few minutes ago, and I recognised a few landmarks. It's actually a nice place. We should have come here for our holiday.~
~Be sure to ask for a brochure.~
~I will. They'll be back any minute. Doing the usual menacing interrogation bit probably, so I can't talk for long. Sorry to break up the party, by the way. Tell Richard I owe him a drink.~
~Never mind that.~ She shared a look with Richard, seeing the irritation that sizzled in his eyes. Lake Maggiore. It was no great distance away, but in returning to Geneva they had flown in the wrong direction entirely. She sympathised. Reporting in had been a priority, particularly with nothing to go on, but it was a blow to their pride that they had not been able to find Craig themselves. She wanted to commiserate with him, but she knew that he would be in no mood to listen. Nobody expected more from Richard than he did. He was sure to blame himself for this.
"Richard?" asked Tremayne suddenly. Richard had to drag his mind back from the darkness of his frustrations. Clearly something had registered on his face, giving concern to his boss, but for all that Tremayne was an understanding employer, he could hardly explain what it was. Certainly he could not admit to the unease eating at the back of his mind, or the ferocious beating of his heart, that had come with Craig's long overdue message. Perhaps Sharron had missed the dark flickers, all but hidden by their partner's easy-going tone. Richard was not so easily fooled. He threw a sharp question Craig's way, but was met with nothing but silence. Something was going on, and whatever it was, it clearly required the better part of his old friend's concentration. That in itself was cause for concern.
"It's nothing, sir," he said in the end. He could name Lake Maggiore, certainly. He could very likely even come up with some pseudo-scientific reason for how he had 'guessed' it. But what then? Better to keep this new piece of information to themselves, so that they could mount a rescue alone, using their powers without fear of discovery. Inside his head, Sharron was agreeing, albeit with a little concern. It seemed straightforward enough to Richard, and nothing that they had not done before. Craig should be able to look after himself for a few hours, whatever was going on, whilst they travelled across the border to Italy. They closer they were, the more easily they could establish his position; and then it was merely a question of attacking the enemy's headquarters. With their abilities that should not be a problem. His thoughts served to reassure Sharron, although he might have wished for a little more reassurance himself.
"We should get going," he said, to nobody in particular, and offered Tremayne a brief nod of farewell. Their boss need not know that they had left the country. By the time he was in a position to ask, they could have Craig back, and could shrug it all off as another of their remarkable successes. Tremayne didn't seem to care, as long as they were winning. Others might ask awkward questions, but they could ask away. Just as long as Craig was safe. Sure enough, Tremayne made no protest as Richard turned around and headed for the door, Sharron by his side. Richard could feel the man's speculative gaze; could sense the unvoiced questions; the shrewd brain turning over in a wise and experienced head. Let the questions remain unasked for another day – that was all that he hoped for. It was all that he ever hoped for, under that sharpest of stares.
They were halfway to the door when Sharron stumbled. Richard reached for her by instinct, knowing that she was going to fall almost before it happened. Even so, he failed to catch her. As her legs gave way, he stumbled too, staggered by a pain that ripped suddenly through his body, stealing the air from his lungs, and causing his head to reel. He called upon all of his strength to fight it – one of their talents was the ability to block out pain – but it required a level of concentration that right now he could not summon. Dimly, beneath the fog of the pain, he heard Tremayne's chair scrape on the carpet, and the padded thudding of his feet as he hurried to their aid. Richard sucked in a long breath through his teeth. Excuses. He needed excuses, and good ones. Anything, any explanation that he could give. It was Sharron who managed it, finding her feet again, her perfect composure restored. Richard could almost have smiled. Good old Sharron. Nobody had a cooler head when the situation called for it.
"I'm so sorry," she was saying. "I tripped on something. Richard, are you alright? I think I must have caught you with my heel."
"Yes. Thank you." His voice sounded rough, and he knew it, but he struggled on regardless. "Those are quite a set of weapons you've got there."
"They actually are weapons. I was given them by the armaments division to try out. I really shouldn't wear them around the office." She was smiling, just about, the strain showing only around the edges of her eyes – and only to Richard. He managed a shaky nod.
"Well, I think we can call them a success. My compliments to the armaments division. Now, er... shall we go? Places to, um... and people to... to..." It was no use. The pain hit him again, and he grabbed involuntarily at his arm. Electricity. He knew the feeling – he had been through torture like that once himself, and had heard later from Craig all about how it had felt from afar. Now he was the one at a distance, their psychic connection leaving him feeling as though he had been punched by a sixty foot giant. Tremayne took his arm, leading him back to the desk, and the refuge of a solid chair. It was the last thing that he had wanted, but at least his legs were no longer responsible for holding him up. He was quite sure that it was a responsibility they had been about to shirk.
"Richard." There was great meaning in Tremayne's voice, but Richard ignored it. Instead he sought out that quiet place within himself that would enable him to make the pain bearable at least. When the next wave came it felt less intense. He hoped that Craig was managing something similar. For a moment he struggled to find some connection – to send a message of reassurance that help was on its way – but his old friend was too distracted. He could sympathise. Finding a calm place inside oneself whilst being tortured was no easy task. Abandoning the attempt to communicate, he looked up, and found himself staring straight into the concerned – but determined – eyes of William Tremayne.
"I make a point of not asking too many awkward questions," said Tremayne, his expression somewhere between wary and kind. "But if there were something that you wanted to tell me..."
"We should hurry," said Sharron, as though she had not even heard him. Richard nodded, but even as he did so, a white hot pain ripped its way through his head. Sharron had gone deathly pale, and he saw, as though in slow motion, a bead of bright red blood well up where she had bitten into her lip. It hesitated for a moment, then trickled its way slowly down her chin. She did not wipe it away. She was too intently focused elsewhere.
"It's Craig, isn't it." Tremayne had been to and from his drinks cabinet before Richard had even realised that he had moved – which spoke volumes to him about how distracted he had become. Regaining his composure again, he accepted a glass of whisky, and took a small, rather grateful sip. As expected it was excellent – a fine, smooth single malt that felt like velvet on his tongue, until the fire kicked in at the back of his throat. It burned brightly then, like an echo of Craig's terrible pain. Sharron was already launching into their second desperate excuse of the day, and he was momentarily impressed by the agility of her thinking. Tremayne didn't look as though he believed a word of it, but he listened politely enough, whilst Richard merely tried to stay sitting upright. When yet another wave of pain washed over him, he had to fight a suddenly weak hand, in an effort to set down the whisky before he spilled it. Tremayne came to his rescue, taking the glass before it could fall, with his other hand expertly checking Richard's pulse. And then, suddenly, the pain was gone. It ended as though with the flick of a switch, and in its place... Richard blinked. He felt as though a wall that he had been leaning against had been removed, twitched aside in an instant. Had he been standing up, he was quite sure that he would have fallen.
"Craig," he said quietly, and his eyes sought Sharron's. She was pale – so very pale – her eyes big and wide and round, and oddly dark against the pallor of her skin. At some point a strand of hair had come loose from beneath her hat, and was sticking out, giving her an unusually unkempt appearance. He wanted to smooth it down, to lend her some support, to put some colour back in that unnaturally pale face. He couldn't even think where to begin.
"He's just... gone," she said, and he nodded. He had been so tense in his battle against the phantom spasms that his muscles were now objecting for all they were worth. Just that simple movement was painful; but nothing like as bad as the pain that he now felt inside. Was Craig unconscious? Or worse? He didn't want to think about that, but his mind churned over the single thought, tormenting him with his own impotence. He was too far away. There was nothing that he could do. He could not possibly get there quickly enough to make a difference. All those plans to sneak away to Lake Maggiore, to stage a rescue, to be in and out before Tremayne found out that they had gone – it was all a pipe-dream now. Craig needed help right away. His usually calm head a-buzz with worry, Richard sank back into his seat. He knew what he had to do. There really was no alternative.
"You asked about Craig," he said to Tremayne. Sharron gave a start, but whether she did so openly, or just somewhere inside, he had no idea. Sometimes it was easy to forget whether they were speaking privately or aloud. It was all becoming one and the same.
"Richard..." she began. He smiled at her, then stood up, very gently wiping the trail of blood from her mouth.
"Do you remember a couple of months ago, when Craig was interrogated?" he asked. He felt her pain then as surely as he saw it in her eyes.
"Of course."
"And we did nothing? Said nothing? To protect ourselves, and our secret, we stood back and let it happen. Sharron, you know something of what he's going through now," If he's still alive, his treacherous brain supplied, although he didn't say it. She picked up on the thought anyway, he knew. Of course she did, and he cursed himself and his imagination for it. "Do you really want to risk taking the time to go out there ourselves? We have to ask for help this time." She stared deep into his eyes, and her head gave the tiniest, stiffest of nods. He smiled, hard and cold, without even the faintest vestige of humour.
"Then we're agreed." He turned away from her, looking back towards Tremayne. Their boss had remained mercifully silent, treating them both with a grace that Richard greatly appreciated.
"You know where Craig is?" he asked now. Richard nodded.
"Lake Maggiore," he said, in a voice that was uncharacteristically hoarse. He felt drained, more so than he could remember being in a long while, and the worry over whether he really was doing the right thing weighed heavily upon him. Sharron reached out and took his hand, her fingers pressing gently against his. He squeezed her hand in return, and drew a short breath. There had been images, coming to him in fractured bursts during those agonised moments of connection. Now that the pain had gone, the weird silence that was left in his head allowed him to concentrate, working out what was what. What might help, what could not. There was a white building within sight of the lake, in a large garden of olive and lemon trees, set all about with azaleas in full bloom. A large, white marble fountain in the shape of a lion. A hedge trimmed into the shape of a long and sinuous dragon. There was no name that went with it, but a place like that could not be hard to find. Tremayne was already reaching for a phone, dialling a number from memory.
"We have agents on the Italian border," he said, his voice brisk and businesslike. "They can be at Lake Maggiore before you two can even get in the air. Anything more precise?" It was Sharron who answered, repeating the information that Richard had just been thinking, adding a few little details of her own. Tremayne answered with a nod, then repeated the lot to some unseen contact on the other end of the line. Only when the business was done did he look back to Richard and Sharron.
"I've long suspected," he said quietly, and rose to his feet to fetch himself a glass of whisky. He did not drink it, but stood with it half-raised to his lips. "Although if I'm honest, I've never been quite sure what it was that I was suspecting. The three of you have such an unusual bond. You have done for some time. Something... unnatural."
"I can assure you, sir, that it feels perfectly natural to us." Richard held the other man's gaze, watchful and cautious, unable to guess quite how this conversation was going to proceed. Tremayne nodded slowly, then took a quick drink.
"Some sort of... psychic connection?" he asked, as though he could not quite believe his own question. Sharron nodded.
"It's not really as unlikely as it sounds," she told him. "There's been a good deal of research into the abilities of the human brain. I've been studying the subject myself since we acquired our abilities."
"And when exactly did you acquire them?" he asked. "Not to mention how? It's not something that you've always had, I'm quite sure of that."
"That has to remain a secret," Richard told him. Tremayne might be his boss, but he put enough authority into the words to make it clear that this was not open to discussion. Tremayne hesitated, then took a second sip, and nodded.
"I suppose I can allow you that. Although any abilities that you might have, were we able to replicate them..."
"It doesn't work like that, sir." Sharron linked her arm through his in order to guide him back to his chair, certain that, if nothing else, simple charm might prove to be an ally. "We've studied ourselves very closely. We've analysed every possible aspect of our condition. It's not something that we can replicate, nor pass on to others. And besides, we're not really so very special."
"You're a lot more than just psychic," Tremayne pressed. Richard managed a wry smile. Their boss was no fool, certainly. It made him an excellent leader, but at times – certainly now – it could be a disadvantage. By way of illustration, and because he felt that the man deserved at least that much, he reached out a hand, and lifted Tremayne's huge desk by one of its stout legs. The one-handed grip, and the complete lack of effort, spoke a thousand words. Tremayne swallowed hard.
"Good God," he said – then, to their surprise, he smiled. "Well, that does answer a few questions. Your recent success rate, for example."
"I do like to think that some of that is down to natural talent," protested Richard, but he did return the smile at least in part. Tremayne took another quick sip of whisky, then set the glass down on the desk, as soon as it had been settled once again upon the floor.
"Will you know when Craig has been rescued?" he asked. Richard nodded. So did Sharron, returning to his side, and fidgeting slightly as she stood there. He knew the reason for her unease, but he didn't voice it. He didn't even want to think about it. The possibility that it might all be too late, and that this ghastly emptiness inside them might be permanent, was not something that he wanted to consider. He certainly didn't want to speak it aloud, and make it any more than a gnawing dread. Tremayne nodded as well, blissfully ignorant of their discomfort.
"I'd appreciate an update," he told them. Perhaps he meant it as a field test of their abilities. Perhaps he just genuinely wanted to know when Craig had been found. It didn't matter. Sharron, still fidgety, retrieved Richard's whisky, and drank most of what was left.
"Thank you," Richard told her dryly. "I needed that." She smiled in reply, a thin, needle-sharp smile, but one that nonetheless showed as a flash of warmth in her eyes. "Are you doing okay?"
"Yes." She was successfully restoring that characteristic poise that he knew so well. He could see it coming over her again even as he watched. The message was clear. They had shared more here today than she was comfortable with. She was not going to share any more. Not whilst Tremayne was present; an alien interloper; a spy in their private world. "And you?"
"Oh, you know. A headache. A neck ache. An everything else ache. Nothing too bad. Sit down, old thing. There might be a bit of a wait."
"I suppose." She sat on a corner of the desk, fiddling briefly with her bright orange hat. "I feel that I should be doing something useful."
"You could go and help out in one of the labs," he suggested. She shook her head. He understood. She would want to be searching inside her head, just as he did, looking to reconnect with Craig. It would not be easy to have spectators around, either if their friend did wake up, or especially if he didn't. Having chosen to remain where she was, she sat erect, radiating frustrated purpose.
"What happens now?" she asked. He shrugged.
"We get Craig back. We look after him. We find everybody responsible, and we put them out of business."
"No. I mean..." In her head she spoke the word ~Tremayne~, but outwardly she left the sentence unfinished. Richard glanced over at their commander, currently watching the pair of them with a guarded scrutiny. He had to admit that the man was showing a remarkable restraint. Certainly he was known to be a considerate employer, for the most part, but Richard appreciated his reserve now more than he had ever done before.
"Nothing happens next." Almost as though he too had heard Sharron think his name, Tremayne spoke up, although he remained staring at the glass of whisky on his desk. "I haven't seen either one of you today. The tip about Lake Maggiore came from an old and trusted informant who needs to remain anonymous for their own protection. I..." He smiled, eyes distant when finally he looked up from his contemplation of his glass. "It's alright, both of you. Although I trust that it will never again be mentioned by any of us, and certainly not outside of his room, the three of you are the best that I've ever seen. I saw potential in all of you, even before you... before you changed. Now you're simply in a different league. I admit that I have had my suspicions, and once I let that suspicion go too far. Craig paid the price. I assure you that I will never allow anything like that to happen again." His eyes narrowed, bringing a new meaning, a new seriousness, into his words. "Just as long as the three of you remain on the side of law and order, this information will never go further than my ears, and you have my word on that, as a gentleman." He smiled, and finished the glass of whisky in a quick gulp. "More than that, I hope. You have my word as a friend."
"Well, for our part I can assure you that we have no intention of going rogue," said Richard. Under any other circumstances he might have made a joke out of such a statement, but this time he remained quite serious. Sharron nodded, clearly adding her assent. Tremayne nodded as well then, looking from one to the other of them.
"And... Craig?" he asked tentatively. Richard drew in a breath, wishing that he could give an answer. Wishing that that missing part of himself were here to give his own reply. In the back of his mind, like the ghost of an old memory, something stirred. Sharron gave a start, her carefully restored composure falling away as she jumped to her feet with a gasp. Richard smiled at that – at that and at the soft, hesitant blinking, going on somewhere deep inside his skull.
"Rest assured, sir," he said, as the hesitant movement inside grew stronger, more certain, more alive. It felt as though somebody had put a comforting hand on the shoulder of his soul. He could not help but smile broadly; he could almost have cheered. "We do speak for Craig as well." And looking up at Sharron, he saw the smile in her eyes, and knew that she was feeling the same. It was like being completed. The danger might not be over, but now he felt sure that it was surmountable. Their being was whole again. The rest could take care of itself.
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