I know I haven't called or written in a while. The job got a little hairy, mom and dad. I know you're going to fret when I say this, but I did get a minor injury. You might have seen that Indonesian pirates have gotten active around Singapore. We had a little run in with some of them two weeks ago. Mom, don't worry, I didn't get shot or anything. I fell from a part of the superstructure to the deck. Fortunately it wasn't all that far, but I still fractured my right leg. I've been healing up. I knew you guys would worry, so I figured I'd write this letter explaining things. The company has been really good about seeing to my needs. Good people.
Frank Calhoun sighed at the letters he'd written on the piece of notebook paper. Tapping a borrowed pen against the paper (which was resting on a clipboard, also borrowed), he glanced around his surroundings for perhaps the thousandth time during his now seventeen day of imprisonment.
Hard concrete floors, walls, ceiling. Cold steel bars, reinforced with warding magic. Bunkbed, mattress that had about as much give as boron carbide armor plating. Blanket that was probably about as thick as the sheets, which was to say not very thick at all, and a pillow that might serve well as an improvised bludgeoning weapon.
Forty eight square feet of Templar justice, administered by the Inquisition.
Actually having a broken leg from working a close protection detail aboard a merchant ship would have been a relief. It would have meant he was a free man.
Hazel eyes flickered back down to the page. His parents, of course, didn't know about his involvement with the Templars. Or the fact he was anima-infused, and thus more than human now. And something less. They certainly didn't know he'd been imprisoned by that same organization, along with losing his current rank and pay.
They had to receive something, though. Some explanation that didn't sound like a dodge or a lie. Or more of a lie than he was already telling them; they believed he was working as a private military contractor with a shipping group known as Orion Logistics. Orion Logistics had a very nice webpage. They had a number you could call, even several offices around the world you could visit. To an interested mundane, Orion seemed to be exactly what they appeared.
To those in the Secret World, Orion Logistics was a company that specialized in shipping and receiving hazardous, occult materials or artifacts. As far as most people knew. Even that was a lie.
Frank reached for the Styrofoam cup of water resting on the floor next to the bunk, and took a sip. Orion Logistics was a front company maintained by the Templar spy organization formerly known as ARTEMIS. Formerly. He'd been part of the events leading to their deconstruction. A humorless chuckle escaped him as he rolled out his neck, sore from the 'discipline' labor he was performing each day. It wasn't quite a chain gang detail, but it was close.
Putting the cup back on the floor, Frank started to write again. It had been Mihaela Bereza who suggested he write to his family. They'd be worried, she argued. And while he couldn't tell them what was really going on, he could at least let them know he was alive.
And alive he was. At this moment there were few sureties in his existence. Imprisonment had taken him out of the field, the organization that had employed him no longer existed (though he knew Tova Stolt was already overseeing the Temple Hall enforced 'restructuring' of the group), he would certainly lose his apartment in Finsbury, and just what the Hall would do with him once his month of incarceration was up was unknown.
The two things he knew for sure was that, indeed, he was alive, and that he was locked up.
Frank grunted slightly, and worked one of his arms in a tight windmill motion.
Three things. He also knew he was pretty fucking sore from hauling construction materials and swinging a sledgehammer. When he got out of here, maybe he needed to consider using a hammer in battle.
He snorted, briefly cracking a grin.
Hell with that. That up close shit was dangerous.
Pausing again, Frank set the clipboard and the pen on the edge of the bed with a slight frown. Augmented senses keyed as he heard the approach of booted feet long before a mundane human would. Pair of guards. A third set of footsteps, too. Softer shoes. Sneakers maybe. Swinging his legs off the bed, Frank rested his sock covered feet on the bare floor, wondering who was approaching.
He arched an eyebrow in surprise as he saw two Inquisition guards, impassive in jet and crimson, escorting a former coworker.
“Doyle?” He queried with a grin. The mousy haired woman waved at him with a smirk.
“Hey, Bluegrass. Figured I'd visit your dumbass in prison.”
To say Kelly Doyle was all rough edges and sharp points wasn't really an exercise in hyperbole. The pale young woman seemed to Frank to be all elbows and misanthropy at times. Whereas Evie Kensington had always tempered her hectoring and insults with advice and encouragement on how to improve oneself, Doyle just generally hated humanity. She'd told Frank so, many times.
“You know why I hate everyone, Frank?” She'd ask.
“Because everyone's an asshole?” He'd reply, knowing the answer from experience.
“That's right. Everyone is an asshole. You'll be two percent less asshole if you go grab me a cup of coffee though, you redneck goof.”
Perhaps 'two percent less asshole' accumulated over time, because in two years Doyle had apparently decided Frank was one of the people she hated the least. When he'd left for his temporary assignment with the Pathfinders, she'd actually been the only person from ARTEMIS to tell him goodbye.
Well. She'd told him not to be a fuck up and get himself killed. Close enough.
“Whatcha doing here, Kelly?” Frank asked from the bed, resting hands with new callouses on the rock hard mattress.
“What, I can't just come visit? I do nice things occasionally. Not fucking often, but occasionally.”
She folded narrow arms across a sparse chest, glaring at him balefully. Frank put his hands up in a placating gesture.
“S'true, y'can. I'm obliged.”
She snorted.
“You're all sorts of things.” The guards had left them alone, and she took a step forward, canvass sneakers scuffing the hard floor as she gripped the bars of the cell with thin fingers.
“I...actually came...to say thank you.”
“You're welcome hon. Wait. For what?”
The audio analyst's lips twitched slightly in a brief smile at Frank's momentary confusion.
“You know, for coming down to HQ when everyone was turning into shit eating monsters and speaking in fuckity fuck gibberish and everything? You helped get us out of there.”
Frank nodded, remembering. He'd been the lone agent to respond to the Coventry Protocol. As he'd discovered, other agents approaching ARTEMIS headquarters on Rivington Street saw Grey's retinue moving in and had scattered.
“I mean, that immortal old guy with the axe and Stolt did most of the work. You helped though. Some.”
Frank flipped her the bird, giving her a wry look. Doyle took her hands off the bars to slow clap for him.
“Wow, your IQ moved up? I'm proud. Seriously though...I appreciate you came back for us. I know we weren't 'high value' assets. You could have just ditched us and got Stolt and left. Well, Stolt and that girl with the dreams or whatever. Green? Think her name was Green. I guess she's thirty one flavors of important, because she's already been released.”
“Not surprised,” Frank grunted back in reply. “She's got th' Sight. Remote viewer and more besides. That an' th' advocate argued she was all young an' impressionable an' shit and really didn't know what she was doin' so shouldn't serve as long a sentence.”
Doyle nodded back, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jeans.
“I think I'm happier without super powers like hers. I don't like the idea of being a hockey puck that gets slapped around between people because I'm 'Talented' with a capital 'T'. I guess she could do worse than end up under Stolt again. She'll at least try to make sure she survives all this shit because she's useful.”
“So she is with ARTEMIS again? Or...whatever they're gonna call it now?”
“Yeah.” Doyle leaned against the bars, still keeping her hands in her pockets.
“Since we're such horrible fucking people they had to restructure us, and had to drop the name, but we also happen to be kinda effective along with being horrible fucking people. I've already been told I still have a position with them. So yay. I can keep buying ramen and anime.”
Frank grinned over at her.
“Any idea what th' new name is gonna be?”
She shrugged bony shoulders.
“Fuck if I know. Maybe something less dramatic than ARTEMIS. I already suggested Hydra, but no one thought that was funny. Philistines.” At Frank's blank stare, Doyle sighed heavily and shrugged her shoulders.
“Jesus, you just don't know anything important.”
“Guess not.”
Doyle rested her forehead against one of the bars.
“So, uh...you're demoted.”
Frank chuckled without much humor.
“Yeah.”
“And they took away some of your pay for the year.”
“Again, yeah.”
“And so, in a secret society driven by appearances and proper protocol and hierarchy and shit, you're like, totally fucking screwed.”
“Gee, Kelly, thanks for pointin' that out...”
“I'm not done talking! Let me finish.”
Frank cocked his head at her as she paused.
“Uh. You probably can't stay at your apartment in Finsbury now. So, when you get out, until you can figure things out financially...you can stay with my roomie and I.”
Frank blinked at her for a few moments. She let loose an exasperated sigh.
“Don't look at me like that! I didn't say I wanted to savagely fuck in the shower! Just...hey, I owe you, okay? I can't make Temple Hall not be a super capacity bag of dicks, and I can't give you your rank back or whatever, but I can make sure you have a place to stay. It's not the Savoy, but, you know, it's got a roof and there's a couch, and a microwave, and all that important shit.”
Frank smiled at her, shaking his head in surprise.
“That's...really kind of ya, Kelly. I...I dunno what's happenin' next, but I'll definitely keep it in mind. I'm obliged. Really.”
Doyle nodded gruffly, looking down the hall.
“Looks like everyone's favorite goose steppers are coming back. Guess visiting times over.”
“Kelly Doyle, they've got th' place wired for sound...”
The young woman stared back for a moment, then looked at the ceiling.
“Did I mention how much I love red and black as colors?” As she turned to meet the guards, Frank waved a hand.
“Uh, Kelly?”
“Yeah, Bluegrass?”
“...did you clear this with your roomie? The one you was fightin' with th' night all this started?”
Doyle coughed into her hand.
“Yeah, well. Sorta. Mostly. In a vague...theoretical way.”
“I'm a theoretical now?”
“Yes, Frank, you're a fucking theoretical. Don't get in fights with guards or anything stupid.” Smirking at him, Doyle walked away.
Rolling his eyes, Frank picked up the clipboard again.
Don't fret, mom and dad. I'm okay, and I'm surrounded by good people. I'm going to be just fine.
