Chapter Two

But how does one walk away from an armed criminal organisation and stay alive? Gary chose to stay where he was and see what happened. He was sure that he would regret that more than actually leaving and being shot down like a dog.

Of course, by the end of the evening he felt that it might have been better if he was working for a criminal organisation. The risks were probably lower.

The car stopped in the hills outside the city and Alice stepped outside, armed with a gun that someone with her frame should have had trouble carrying. But she managed somehow. David could see the look on Gary’s face.

“Don’t worry. I don’t envisage any real problems.”

That was comforting.

Gary managed to get out of the car because it was obvious that David and Belinda were not going to get out before him. He looked very nervous seeing Alice armed. She could tell.

“David, are you sure that he was the right guy?”

David got out of the car and was followed by Belinda.

“You said the same thing about Belinda!”

There was an awkward silence. Belinda looked at Alice. “Did you?”

Alice said nothing and smiled slightly.

“Bitch!” was all Belinda said, but they both laughed.

“What the hell’s going on?” Gary asked.

Belinda handed him a gun. He didn’t take it

“Somebody tell me what’s going on?”

“See, an inquisitive mind. That’s exactly the type of person we’re looking for.”

Gary spun round to look at David. “I have an inquisitive mind, do I? You’d have to be a fucking vegetable to not be a little inquisitive about what’s going on here.”

David seemed a little taken aback by this.

“David doesn’t really like swearing”, Belinda told Gary, as if that managed to explain the whole thing.

Belinda offered him the gun again and he shook his head.

“Gary, I’m afraid that if you don’t take that gun you can’t come with us. I don’t think I made a mistake with you. I’m pretty sure you want to know what this is all about, and that you will want to be a part of it when you find out. If you don’t want the gun, you can stay at the car and we will speak no more about it. You will have to appreciate that if this is the case then I will not be able to keep you on my staff.”

“Of course I want to know what this is all about. I’d just rather know instead of being handed a gun and being told to follow you into… whatever this is.”

“Trust me”, Alice said. “You’d rather not know. If you did know you wouldn’t come. But once you’re there you’ll understand that you had to come.”

Belinda handed him the gun and this time, Gary took it.

He could still see David’s smile as he led the way from the car, unarmed.

Gary learned a lot that night and had no idea why David lived this life but knew there was also programming to be done too. He wondered if there was a link somewhere. If there was then he could not find it.

Gary, bless his heart, decided recently that he should tell his girlfriend about his new life before she starts to wonder why he sometimes doesn’t come home until the early hours of the morning. God forbid she would start thinking that he was having an affair.

He wonders what she will think? Would she believe him? Would she ask him to quit?

Gary hopes not because, for the first time since he was a kid, he is having fun. Of course everything has its bad points. Since Gary had started this job he had seen more death than he cared to mention. Luckily it has not been anyone that Gary knew. Not yet, at any rate.

He does not know at what point exactly he starts to worry about the fact that she hasn’t come home. But it comes. They have a mutual agreement that if they were tired they would not wait up for each other. Gary can feel his eyes going together but he is never able to go to bed without her – not unless he knows that she is going to be away all night. He has always made an excuse when she comes in and sees that he is still up; he had just got up for a glass of water or something. He knows that she never believes him.

It is not even that late when he begins to worry. It’s just because of the line of work he is in now that he is thinking this way. He knows what can sometimes be lurking out in the dark. He has wanted to tell her all about the things he has seen. If she were to walk in the door right now then he would break down and tell her everything.

But she doesn’t.

3.

Tuesday 27th April 2010

00:07

Robert Alloway is David Oswald’s newest recruit and he is also trying his hardest to be noticed more by him and considered part of, if not the defining member, of the team. He knows in his heart of hearts this will never happen – at least not while Alice and Belinda are there. Or Robert and Edward for that matter.

One of the problems he is currently having – a problem that all of the members had to face with the exception of one – is that he cannot come to terms with his normal everyday life outside of his new line of work.

He used to try and go out with his friends every night (money willing) just because he didn’t want to lose touch with the people that he grew up with. He had managed to do this all the way through University (which had been tougher than he thought) and had realised that it would probably be easier to do it in a work situation too.

He has been very wrong on that count.

A lot of people stop seeing friends so much when they start working because they are simply too tired. Friendships simply cease because the people change, getting used to going to bed that bit earlier because of the stress they had to induce during that day of work. They still acknowledge each other in the street and say, “We really have to meet up soon”, but it just doesn’t happen.

Robert has a different problem. Work is just so cool. He has seen so much in the short time that he has been in David Oswald’s employ. The people he works with are cool, especially David Oswald, who seems like he can do anything. He also really likes Gary Ingalls, who is simply a frame of reference. He can’t be like David Oswald – why not try to be like Gary?

He still remembers the exhilaration when Gary handed him a gun. Everyone looked so comfortable holding one with the exception of Edward. David never seems to carry one but Robert was sure on that first night that he was packing one. There was no way that you could walk into the situations they did and not have more backup than your bare fists.

But, boy, he has seen David improvise.

They had gone to a warehouse that first night. Apparently there was a lot of activity in a collection of abandoned buildings around this way. Robert had first thought that they were a secret crime-fighting organisation. He wasn’t really that far wrong when it came down to it.

He found out later on that he had taken the gun with a lot less fuss than Gary and Edward had. He had been proud of this fact for a little while until he thought more about it. Surely that made Gary and Edward better people than he was. He would have to work on that

He doesn’t like thinking about things like that for too long and puts it to the back of his mind. This is not the type of work that let you get away with self-doubt.

They had gone into the warehouse. Things seemed to be very quiet. Robert was not a great fan of clichés but things did seem to be too quiet.

That was when the trouble started. A group of cloaked figures came in wielding knives. Their stances seemed to denote that they were guarding something and were willing to die for it.

Fair enough.

Robert raised his gun. Nobody else did.

David looked at him and coldly said, “Put it down.”

Gary helpfully told him “they might be human.”

Of course they were human, what else could they be?

David ran forward and started to fight with them. There were too many for him and the other joined the fray. Robert did not like the idea of fighting armed people with his fists when he had access to a gun.

David seemed to be doing the best. He managed to disarm a few of them and knock them into unconsciousness. Alice and Belinda also seemed to be quite skilled in this. Robert, to his disgrace, did not manage to subdue any of the cloaked figures. He looked a little ashamed.

Once the fight was over, David made sure that none of them were going to wake up any time soon. He removed their knives from them and put them in a bag that Alice was carrying.

“Why didn’t we threaten to shoot them?” Robert asked confused as to what was happening.

“It’s an empty threat!” Edward answered for him.

“They don’t respond to it. They’re willing to die for what they are protecting.”

“And what are they protecting?”

Nobody answered. They were obviously not willing to spoil the surprised for Robert. Why should they? Nobody had spoiled it for them.

“So can somebody clear something up for me?”

“What?” Belinda asked.

“Just why do we carry guns then?”

She smiled but didn’t answer.

Robert found out what the guns were for a short time later.

Going out with your friends after you have done some of the things that he has been a part of recently seems really boring. If anything, Robert has even more energy since he started. But he simply cannot be bothered with the hassle of pretending to be interested in his friends’ lives any more.

He thought this way for a little while but, of course, he eventually noticed that working for Progression Software had turned him into nothing more than an arrogant fool. It was good that he was able to notice such things and it was better that he noticed now instead of when it was too late to change what he had