The Radical (Unity Vol.1) (7 page)

Camill
e must have taken him out. Their biggest asset handler was dead. He must have been, I never saw or heard of him again.

Eve was quiet and distant for most of that visit. She always held my hand, wherever we went. She squeezed it so tight sometimes I could see my knuckles turning blue. The thought of me in danger irked her continually, I knew. She would say,
‘Come back to York, come with me. Stay with me.’ I always had to politely refuse.

After we got over that near-catastrophe, Eve seemed to calm slightly and we spent
evenings having meals at the Plaza, one of the last old world places not to have automated service. I shared her suite and we stayed up late every night, talking and reminiscing. We ordered bottles of Guinness because that was the only alcoholic thing she would drink, arguing, ‘Purely for the iron.’

Ev
e left behind a number of bizarre and retro outfits for me to keep, most of which never got an airing and remained hanging in the closet. We said farewell with so much regret. I remember waiting at the airport with her until the bitter end, desperately hoping her flight would be cancelled or she might decide to stay a bit longer. We promised each other we would try to meet again soon, but life got in the way, and that was the last time I ever saw her in person.

B
ack at the bridal house, Camille hurried me in and locked the front door. She went behind the reception desk and pressed a button underneath, dropping the iron shutters outside and initiating an infrared detection system.

‘We’ll soon know if anyone tries to break in, but I don’t think they would dare now anyway.’

‘Camille, even I wouldn’t dare touch you!’

She
led me through to the back to check nobody had snuck in, before testing the industrial backdoors.

‘I think we are safe, Seraph. Let’s go down and I’ll show you where we carry out our work.’

We walked past a gallery containing several mannequins on which hung various bridal designs, all lit up against some expert backlighting and yet more pink wall decoration. There were gowns of varying shades, lengths, styles and sumptuousness. Huge glass windows shielded them from harm and I recognized Eve must have erected such a space to showcase her work as well as give people something to come and see for free.

Once past the gallery, we
went through another door to enter a cold, windowless workshop of sorts. Camille flicked a switch and large spotlights overhead sizzled into life, revealing exposed brickwork and thick terracotta floor tiles. The room housed dozens of boxes of materials stacked up on high metal shelves, along with various heavyset worktables, on which sat industrial-sized Singer sewing machines. At the end of the room, a grey metal door carried the sign
Fire Exit
. Camille moved toward it and I followed, more curious with every passing minute, watching as she leaned forward to the retinal scanner.

‘
ID verified. Welcome Camille Honoré.
’

The door clunked as it unlocked and after Camille heave
d the entrance open, we entered a dark corridor. As the door closed with a thud behind us, hidden lights illuminated the brick tunnel we found ourselves in.

‘It was either a stroke of genius or pure luck that Eve obtained these buildings, which used to be butchers shops many years ago. Because of this, they all have underground cellars, and we’ve set up our
fortified headquarters in them. We also have rooms like these in many other cities across the world, quietly watching those who think they are beyond surveillance.’

I felt pure excitement as I prepared to enter my
aunt’s secretive HQ. My heart pounded in my chest and I tried to prepare myself for what I was about to see. I followed Camille along the corridor and down a set of well-worn stone steps, hearing hushed voices in the distance, plus tapping on keyboards. We rounded the corner and found ourselves in a vast underground facility. The walls were covered in digital whiteboards with profile shots and various documents overlaying each other. Members of staff bounced up to touch screens and shift items around as they went about their work. There were three long rows of desks and each had piles of papers, equipment and garbage littered all over them. The team had probably been on high alert, eating whatever they could as they worked all hours. Presumably because of my arrival, I realized guiltily. I recognized most of the workers as members of the bridal shop staff I had met the day before. There were a few other male and female faces too that I didn’t recall meeting.

‘
But all this activity?’ I offered.

Camille rapped a knuc
kle knowingly against a wall, ‘Six inches of synthetic soundproofing, with our own-brand Pyros-D compound woven in. You could fill this room with lava and still emit no heat trace. And I assume you noticed the faint hum of our generator in the corner? How’s that for you?’

Camille walked over to a woman sat at a control panel, a wall covered by several screens featuring
images produced by CCTV.

‘Are they dealt with?’

‘Yes, we took them to our safe house and are keeping them there until further notice.’

‘Good. I don’t want their employers to know we’ve got them. Get their chips removed, put the safe house on high alert, and
get them re-civilized. Those two could be handy once they’ve had all the rubbish pumped out of them.’

Camille turned to me with a fire in her eye; this was her domain, her true occupation
. I knew then, this was what she lived for. She was someone very much like me.

‘Officium use drugs on their
emissaries to make them more pliable. On the odd occasion we come across these creatures, we try to normalize them and give them a chance to start afresh. It’s not always their fault that they ended up leading such lives.’

I
nodded in understanding, secretly wowed by the facility that had been set up, especially as it was beneath slipshod old buildings that once sold meat. I peered at the screens and saw the two emissaries tied up in an empty room, seemingly knocked out by sedatives or perhaps still reeling from the effects of Camille’s handiwork.

Camille clapped her hands together
and everyone in the room, perhaps around 20 people in total, stopped whatever they were doing and stared in her direction.

‘Everyone, you all know Sera
ph, Eve’s niece. Two emissaries followed her, so we all need to pull together to ensure they don’t get a second chance. From Birmingham to Glasgow, get word out to everyone on the street, and I mean everyone. Our efforts need to be concentrated here, especially for tomorrow.’

The team looked at me warily
, as if I was the fly in the ointment, but Camille reiterated, ‘Snap to it, get to work. Most importantly don’t forget to monitor the perimeter of this building.’

Camille went to speak to some members of her staff qui
etly, leaving me to observe the scene. The staff rattled off messages here, there and everywhere. I wondered whether they would hook themselves up to their workstations if they could, intravenously drip-feeding information down the networks instead. I watched these people and realized they were elite professionals, a small band of geniuses who read the outside world via their quick ability to process tons of information. I had some notion of being smart myself but these others were… technical minds. So, no, this was no amateur band of resistance fighters. These people had form.

The
y had highly-sophisticated xGens hooked up to enormous monitors in front of them, while their devices had scrambling sticks to prevent Officium tracking their communications. A lot of the staff also wore tiny earpieces to be able to talk to not only each other, but anybody they decided to call up with the touch of a button. As each flicked between audio hackware, documents, messaging, GPS tracking and websites, I felt dizzy. It would probably take years to work out their practices.

‘Seraph, we need to talk. Now you’ve seen in here,
let’s go up to Eve’s flat.’

I
nodded in a daze of compliance and followed Camille as she led us back out, gesturing to the operatives that she was going upstairs if they needed her.

We climbed the rickety spiral staircase to the top floor of the bridal house, where Eve’s living quarters were exactly as I had imagined. Humble but tasteful. Dark, solid wood beams punctuated the mostly white ceilings and walls. The rickety wooden doors had old-fashioned metal latches and the ceilings were so low that I almost had to stoop. The furnishings were antique, but very well-kept. The living room was a mixture of block pastels and flowery prints. At its centre sat a large, cream, high-backed Victorian sofa with brass feet, covered in large cushions. The furniture, most of it solid oak, was tasteful and elegant – pieces not found so readily – the collection of a true fanatic. In front of the sofa sat a chunky coffee table constructed using railway sleepers.

There were rows
and rows of books, every space of wall available was used to hold a bookcase full of reading material against it. A huge oak writing desk resembling an accountant’s workstation was pushed up against one wall under the room’s windowsill; bits and pieces of paper poked out of multiple drawers both on top of the desk and underneath.

In the bedroom
an iron-framed bed was positioned at one end and at the other were huge wardrobes stretching across the entire length of the L-shaped room. The curtains were pink and a sturdy rocking chair sat in one corner. The spare room was similarly decorated with a simple single bed and flowers in the window.

In the kitchen,
a great surprise awaited me. This was one part of Eve’s flat that was modern, with completely white units, white tiled walls and flooring. Everything about it was generic, in keeping with contemporary living. Not even Eve could keep a kitchen spic and span for decades without having to have it replaced, and this style is probably all she could find. Eve hadn’t managed to keep the new world out of her home entirely.

While I sat
in Eve’s sturdy, studded-leather desk chair, I surveyed the living room and watched as Camille pressed for a glass of water from the drinks unit in the kitchen.

The Frenchwoman sat on the sofa
opposite and waited for me to start asking all the questions she knew were buzzing around my journalistic brain. However, for once I was stunned, totally shocked into silence. I started laughing in disbelief.

‘What is it?’
Camille asked calmly.

‘I should have
realized when she came to New York that time, but I could never have imagined she was that person. I mean, it never entered my mind. I always viewed her as a sort of simple spinster who had somehow managed to make a success of herself. How wrong was I?’

Camille opened her hands.
‘Seraph, I don’t think you realize how close you came to getting yourself into trouble with Reiniger. He used that vile outfit to put us off the scent. Eve of course watched your movements over the years… she had an instinct something was going on for you to be stealing all your time tracking him. One mark and no other? It didn’t sit right with her. You have no idea how much it pained her to have to make that trip.’

‘What did you do with
Reiniger?’ I asked.

Camille looked up at me from beneath hooded eyes and swiped a hand across her throat.
‘You don’t need to know how.’

‘
Okay,’ I accepted. ‘As for Eve, I hardly know what questions to start with, perhaps you ought to tell me everything you know about my aunt. About how she could have ended up doing,
this
?’

Camille st
ood to look out of the window. She avoided my gaze and revealed, ‘Eve would have preferred it if you never found out about her secret life. And if she ever thought you needed to know, she would have wanted to be the one to tell you herself.’

‘So, what does that mean?’

‘She made provisions to bring the truth to your attention. I believe the will might reveal more.’

‘I can’t wait for that Camille. You’ll just have to tell me yoursel
f. I’m goin’ out of my mind… I loved her more than anyone else I’ve ever known!’

My
hands went over my mouth because I was struggling to contain this constant, uncharacteristic outpouring of mine.

‘I loved her too, Seraph. She was my best friend. But there were things she never even disclosed to me. There was a reason behind her role as the
Operator
, quite a devastating one, and it will not be easy for you to hear.’

My
mind drew a few conclusions. Unable to hold the bile down, I rushed into the kitchen and heaved into the ceramic sink, the acid burning the back of my throat as it spluttered out of my mouth.

Camille
held my hair back and waited for me to finish, passing over a towel when I was done.

I
struggled to hold my body up let alone speak as dread washed over me. I managed two words quietly, ‘My parents.’

Camill
e nodded reluctantly, but I sensed there was more to it than that. I just didn’t know if I was braced for anything else.

‘I need a drink Camille, a stiff one
.’

She led me to the couch and offered, ‘I
’ll go downstairs for some sherry. Wait here.’

I listened to every step
Camille took as she descended the stairs, counting them until I realized my entire body was shaking. Whether it was because I had just thrown up, or whether it was the shock of everything, I wasn’t sure. I grabbed a woolen blanket draped over the back of the couch and pulled it around myself.

I wanted to start crying. I thought I m
ight cry forever if I allowed emotion to get the better of me. The surroundings of the room vanished as I got lost deep in thought… my dear mom and dad, Eve, all these coincidences even I never anticipated.

Without
me realizing it, Camille arrived back in the flat and brought me a tumbler from the kitchen containing a large shot of sherry.

I snapped
to with her sharp words, ‘Seraph, here, you, are. Take it, but drink, slowly.’

I
saw the comforting liquid and swallowed it in one go. I held the glass back out toward Camille, gesturing for more.

Camille shot
a disapproving glance but would I take no for an answer? Camille refilled the receptacle and I took a sip, plucking up the courage to ask, ‘How did you meet Eve?’