Triptych (7 page)

“Kalp sold us out,” Gwen said back, a bitter, chiding reminder.

“He didn’t, you
can’t think
 — ”

“Can’t think
what?
” Gwen hissed. “They
knew
that we started training the microsecond after the first assassination.
Somebody
told them what kind of training we were doing.
Somebody
was selling them information.”

“That doesn’t mean it was Kalp —”

“Well
who else
?” Gwen snarled. She pressed her hands against his shoulders like she was trying to push him away, but he wouldn’t let go. He fisted his hands in the fabric of her shirt. “There was the letter. And that…that
thing
you used in the Flasher to get us here. All that time he was with us — ”

“No.”

“All that time he was
in our bed —
”

“No, Gwen.”

“All that time he talked about
units
and
‘it’s the person, not the plumbing.’
He made us look like
fools.
” Basil kissed her temple, the top of her head, her cheek, silently, with desperation. “The Institute stood up on
international fucking television
and condemned the protesters for being such racists, such goddamned homophobes,
for him,
defended what we had
for him,
and he…
he
…”

She buried her face in his neck again, and her shuddering grief was palatable in the night air. Evvie imagined she could taste the salt of Gwen’s unshed tears, feel her daughter shaking against her own hands. Basil reached up, brushed the pad of his thumb across Gwen’s forehead, tracing the scar.

“He did that to me. It’s his
fault
,” Gwen said.

It sounded to Evvie like Gwen was trying to squash whatever affection Basil still clung to.

Enough
.

Evvie left the window, gathered Gwennie up and put on a new bandage and some antiseptic cream. The baby protested with a dozy whimper, and Evvie went to put her down in the nursery. Mark was already there, standing beside Gwennie’s open window, staring at the backyard, clutching the teddy bear he had bought Gwennie before he had ever met her.

For a moment they stood together, suspended between the dark of the room and the sudden dawn of understanding.

“I don’t hate her,” Evvie confessed, quietly, as she set Gwennie down in her crib. “It’s not hate, it’s…” How could Evvie hate her when she was suffering just as much (more) as Evvie was? “But I’m
scared
of her. What she’s brought with her.”

“Reckon she’s scared, too,” Mark replied.

***

Twilight, and Mark went out to the barn to do the last of the day’s milking. Evvie went upstairs to check on Gwennie and wake her for her feeding. She didn’t expect that either she or Mark were going to sleep any time soon, but the little rituals of the world didn’t stop just because two strange people had dropped out of the sky. Evvie found Basil standing in the dark at the foot of Gwennie’s crib, staring, watching silently as the baby slept. It should have made Evvie uncomfortable — instead, she found it strangly endearing, though still mostly creepy.

Evvie shifted from foot to foot in the doorway, then made a decision.

“Do you want to hold her?” she asked.

He raised his head slightly, not surprised by Evvie’s sudden question, and she realized that he had probably known Evvie was there the whole time. He was (scary) special ops trained.

“Don’t want to wake her,” he said.

“She’s going to wake herself in about five minutes.” Evvie padded across the wooden floor to stand beside him and stare down at her child. She held out the bottle. “I’ve discovered that if I do the waking, she’s less cranky than if she does it on her own.”

Basil took the bottle with another small, crooked grin. “That’s truth for the next twenty-nine years, too,” he admitted.

Evvie reached down into the crib, rubbed Gwennie’s tummy gently until she cracked a sleepy, hopeful eye.
Food time, Mom?

Basil chuckled. “I know that face. That’s the
where’s-my-damn-coffee
face.”

Gwennie suffered Evvie scooping her up, offering nothing more than a gummy yawn when she transferred Gwen to Basil’s arms.

“Mind her head,” Evvie said softly, and obviously needlessly; Basil already had a large, gun-calloused palm cradling her expertly.

He lifted the bottle to her mouth, hummed a bit when she took the nipple without protest, and smiled. “She looks like a tennis ball. Just like my sister’s kids,” he said.

“You have a sister?” Evvie asked, seizing on the tidbit of information; wanting desperately to make (it right) conversation.

“Mm,” he said, nodding once, slowly. His eyes never left Gwennie’s face, mesmerized, probably looking for the woman he loved in the baby fat and button nose. Evvie had done the opposite earlier. “Two. Older. Right horrors to grow up with — teased me for years. We got close after they both got married, and I realized how…empty my life is. Was.” He smiled softly, and Evvie knew he was seeing things, people behind his eyes, that she could never know. “Used to be.”

Another question danced around the room, and Evvie ignored it, even as she felt it crawl into her mouth.

“What’s a Kalp?” She asked instead, frantic to keep the sound of voices in the semi-dark, or she might forget that he was human, might forget that they had saved her, might forget that he was hurting, might forget everything but her own irrational fear and that these people were strange. And that she (pitied) loved Gwen anyway.

Had to love her because Evvie couldn’t hate her.

“Who,” Basil corrected glumly. “He…he was killed by, uh…another Specialist. He was…he was smart. He was…” Basil swallowed hard. “He used to mean a lot to Gwen and me. Before…well, before.”

He looked up, eyes finding the silhouette of the corn against the darkening sky, seeing people and shadows and things that made the corner of his crooked mouth pull down. “Kalp lived with us. We were a…an Agl — a team,” he said, correcting himself before he actually made the verbal slip, mindful of his audience. He gave a little huffing chuckle. “We shared a house. Kalp wanted to get chickens, ‘cause the people in the movies always have chickens. British gardens and estates and all that. He devoured movies, liked the way the hum of the electronics felt against his skin. Never mind that we only had a small garden. A fox got at one, and Gwen had to strangle the poor thing with her bare hands. I couldn’t bear to watch, but the sound was enough. Kalp made mushroom sauce and I refused to go into the kitchen until its eyes were gone. Gwen thought it was the funniest thing…”

He frowned again, trailed off, closed his eyes.

Basil seemed disinclined to say anything more.

The other question weighed heavily on Evvie’s tongue, pressing until she would suffocate from it if she didn’t ask: “How can you love her?”

Basil looked up, really looked Evvie in the face for the first time, and stared at her with cold, firm eyes. “Do you think I would still be with Gwen if I didn’t? Especially after Kalp?”

“I didn’t mean — ”

“Yes. You did.”

The loud sucking pop of Gwennie smacking her lips off the nipple startled Evvie, and she bundled her close when Basil passed her back, lifting Gwennie to her shoulder to rub the baby’s back. Evvie wanted to run, out of the room, out of the house, out of this strange “Twilight Zone” episode that was suddenly her life, but Gwennie needed burping, needed tucking in, and Mark would want to wash up, then Evvie had dishes to do, bottles to prepare…Too much.

“I should be working,” Basil said. “We need to get back.
Fix
this.”

“What about the other people?” Evvie asked. Already Gwennie’s eyes were getting heavy, but Evvie wouldn’t put her down until she had belched. She patted Gwennie’s back encouragingly, perhaps a bit too vigorously.

“What about them?” Basil asked coldly.

“Aren’t you worried that other people are ceasing to exist all over the place?”

Basil sighed, rubbed his eyes with the thick pads of his fingers. “Not to be callous, but the only people I’m worried about right now are me and Gwen. The other people, the babies being murdered? Well, I don’t know them. They never grew up, never became Specialists. The world shifted and someone else took their place, and those someone elses are my friends, aren’t they? I never knew them, so if they die I don’t — I
won’t
care.”

“That
is
callous,” Evvie said angrily, pulling Gwennie tight against her chest. Gwennie responded with a little
urp!
in Evvie’s ear. “You may not know them, but they’re still
someone’s
child.”

Basil looked at the floor. “Look, the machines only have enough power to Flash every few days, which doesn’t really mean a lot when it comes to time travel, but it’s a better hope than anything else. So if we can get back there before they go off again, then we’ll do what we can, okay? I don’t want people dying anymore than you do, but I also have a duty to the Institute. “

Evvie stared at him, tasted her heartbeat on the back of her tongue. “Will they come back here?”

“They probably know that their assassin failed by now. So yeah, might do. Which,” he ploughed on, interrupting her next question, “is why I must go and make shiny, complicated things now. You have tea?”

“Lots — in…in the cupboard next to the fridge. Six kinds.”

“Lovely. Really. Another sleepless night for the amazing Doctor Basil Grey.” The corners of his bright eyes crinkled slightly with a small grin. “I tend to do the not-sleeping thing a lot. Lots of close deadlines. Sort of come to live on the adrenaline rush. Drives Kalp and Gwen
mad
when I crawl into bed at dawn — ” He made a sour, choking face. “Drove.
Bollocks.
” He shook his head once, viciously. Then he sighed, low and long, like a tire leaking. “There’s just me, and they literally have time on their side.”

“I don’t hate her,” Evvie blurted, apropos of nothing. “I just don’t understand.”

Basil didn’t even blink. “So go
talk
to her,” he said. “God knows what she needs is more trust issues right now.”

***

Gwen was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark.

She was leaning back in her chair, the front two feet raised above the linoleum, wavering with each indrawn breath. Her knees were braced against the edge of the wooden table, and in her hand was a mug of milky tea. Her jacket and her heavy vest were piled artlessly on the end of the table, leaving her in a black tee-shirt that revealed well-toned arms.

Did the musculature come from lifting books or bullets?

Her feet were bare, and Evvie could see that under her military tightness she still had a bit of girl left — Gwen’s toenails were a fun but elegant purple. Her hair was down, half flattened in the back where she had presumably been lying on it, unsuccessful in her attempt to catch a few minutes of sleep, and she still wore the little black piece of plastic in her ear.

Is it permanent,
Evvie wondered,
can it even come out?

Gwen heard Evvie walk in. Evvie didn’t make a secret of it, didn’t want to be spying on her daughter (except not her daughter) in the night. Gwen looked down at her mug, the remnants of a wistful smile ghosting across her mouth before it flattened again. “Chamomile tea, with a splash of hot milk,” she said, holding the mug up slightly before letting it drop back into her lap, and wrapped both hands around it to leech on its warmth.

“That’s what I drink,” Evvie offered, “when I can’t sleep.” Evvie turned on the light. Gwen didn’t wince.

“I know.”

Yes, of course she did.

Slowly, out of respect for Gwen’s bone-deep weariness and her high-strung paranoia, Evvie moved gently and deliberately around the kitchen to fix herself a matching mug. When Evvie had tea of her own, she sat in the chair opposite Gwen and sipped.

Evvie had questions. Obviously Evvie had questions. Hundreds. Millions.
What was your first word, who was your best friend, when was your first kiss? What were your grades like? Did I buy you the prom dress you wanted? Do you get on with your Dad? How long have you been with Basil? Have I met him already? Do you love (hate) your mother?

Did Evvie like Kalp?

Did Evvie (approve) ever meet him?

Are you happy?

Evvie wasn’t going to ask them, because then where would the little joyful surprises of her life come from? Evvie had already hurt Gwen (herself) enough with her carelessness and curiosity, and judging by what Basil had said, someone else hating her was the last thing Gwen needed right now.

“You know…” she said slowly, and almost so softly that Evvie didn’t hear it. Evvie stilled, let Gwen chew on her thoughts like she was chewing on the bottom of her lip, peeling at a little flake of dry skin with her teeth.

“You know,” Gwen said again, “those movies where the aliens come to Earth, and they…I dunno, they try to steal our natural resources, or create a nuclear winter so they can turn the Earth into slag, or they melt the polar ice caps and New York is under fathoms of water, or they clone us for slaves, or create terrifying bioweapons and wipe us all out and use our cities for farmland, or…all that stuff?”

Evvie’s heart trembled. She could taste her pulse and her fear, thready and metallic on the back of her tongue. “Yes,” she said softly. (Please, no.)

Gwen looked up. “It was nothing like that.”

Evvie let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, forced her shoulders down, away from her ears, exhaling the (terror) stale air.

Gwen sat forward, and the legs of her chair landed with a soft thump. She set her mug down with a muted
thock
. Then she looked up, eyes Evvie had known for only eight months meeting eyes that Gwen had known for twenty-nine years. She folded her fingers on the table top, stretched them out like a fan, curled them in again. Evvie waited.

“They were refugees,” Gwen went on softly, out of deference for Basil toiling so diligently down in the sub-basement with his clinking tools and muted cusses, for Gwennie, asleep upstairs, for the ghost cast by Mark’s absence. “Their world, it had gone out of whack. You know about centrifugal force?”