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~8000 wds
First Impressions, #1
Broken Reeds
by Allie
With a squeal of brakes, Bodie peeled into the parking space just ahead of a motorcycle. The biker looked startled and affronted. Bodie’s mouth tilted up at the frustrated, angry flash of green eyes.
Bodie climbed out of his car, favouring the rival wannabe-agent with a triumphant smirk, and strode into the training centre while the other man was backing up his bike and heading for a new parking spot.
It was never too early to start competing. Bodie was in competition with every other man here, to earn his right to join CI-5.
#
A man named Cowley gave them a talk, striding up and down the line of them, looking into faces here and there, halfway smiling, except when he was serious and grim. He spoke about the importance of CI-5, saying that the men had all been chosen as prospective agents for their excellent skills in areas where they had worked, but that less than half of them would make the final cut.
“You are now untested springs, weak links, and broken reeds. We will lean on you, and some of you will break. It won’t mean you’re less than you were before, simply that you’re not good enough for CI-5. I’m putting you into the hands of an elite group of trainers. You’ll be tested and tried. It is not simply a test of your physical capabilities, though that is important, too. Your minds, your reactions, your ability to listen to orders yet think for yourselves. In short, we’ll be testing you for all the things that we can’t tell from interviews.
“You’ve been through several of those already and had your glowing reports sent in. No doubt you all think you’re quite something else to have made it this far.”
Cowley paused, surveying the men with a knowing look, as if weighing each of them up. Bodie, standing stiffly and blankly at attention, felt amused on the inside. Of course he was one of the best. But the old man needed to make his speech.
Cowley waited for his question to sink in, then answered it. “Well, you’re right! And that’s the last compliment you’ll receive from me, for the rest will be hard work. If you pass, it will be the hardest job you’ve ever had. You won’t get thanks or public acclaim. The pay isn’t even very good. But you will be doing some of the most important work in all of England—keeping our shores safe. If, that is, you pass the tests. But most of you won’t. You’ll go back to your sleepy little lives, pretending to yourselves that you never wanted to join CI-5 in the first place, not really. Some of you will even convince yourselves of it.”
It was almost fun to listen to. Bodie was looking forward to breezing through the exams they set. A man who’d lived through wars and rumours of wars as a mercenary and a soldier shouldn’t have difficulty with any of this. And if he did—well, Bodie had always loved a challenge. And the old man had a sort of dangerous sparkle in his eyes that hinted of hidden depths. Perhaps these tests would be more difficult than any he’d faced so far in training.
Bodie felt a tingle of excitement down his back at the thought. To be pushed to the very edge and make it back, stronger than ever! It sounded good. Not as much fun as a night drinking and carousing, but that got dull after a while. Sometimes you wanted to fling yourself at the world and test it and yourself and see which would break first.
So far, Bodie had never broken.
He snuck a look down the line, moving his eyes only when the old man’s back was turned. The motorcyclist was there as well, standing more loosely. He had a ragged look about him and a mass of too much curly hair, now visible without his helmet. All that hair emphasised his head, made the rest of him look smaller in comparison, like something a rag-and-bone man should’ve dragged off years ago.
He wouldn’t make it through the tests, surely.
#
After Cowley’s speech, the day began with shooting. Bodie excelled at them all, of course—except for Rag-and-Bone, who won at handguns. Only slightly, but it made Bodie’s competitive instincts burn white-hot, that the man who looked like nothing could outshoot him even a hair, even with one weapon. Well—perhaps even more than a hair.
He moved on to the next course, the obstacle course, determined to prove his superiority. He knew he was superior to all of them—he’d lived it, hadn’t he?—but one still had to prove things, to let others know it.
When the course began, he loped ahead, vaulted the wall and slammed into mud, sinking thigh-deep. His face stony, not even giving in to a grimace, he waded out with no wasted motions. See the golly do that!
Bodie spared a glance back to see one of the other hopefuls wallow deeper into the mud, cursing. Not the golly, someone else. Bodie allowed himself a brief smirk, before redoubling his speed and concentrating on the course. Amateurs!
Bodie continued breezing through the course, ahead of them all, sensible of a burning in his muscles and euphoria growing at the burst of exertion it demanded from him. Behind him, he could hear them—most of them falling farther behind, but one nearly catching up. He didn’t bother to glance back again; it didn’t matter who. Long as it wasn’t the golly.
BANG! A man popped from behind a tree and fired.
Instinct took over; Bodie dropped and rolled. Shelter—weapons—counterattack. The automatic countdown in his head began, but there were no weapons, they hadn’t been sent armed on the bloody obstacle course. The madmen would kill them all if they didn’t stay back.
“Stay back!” Bodie roared, crouched in the mud behind a log structure, part of the next obstacle. His warning and the gunfire must’ve worked; no one else appeared.
The madman was large, almost ridiculously hulking, and he fired with purpose: now towards where the others would’ve appeared, next towards Bodie, keeping him pinned. He finished with one gun, tossed it in the grass and raised a second in his other hand.
Bloody Cowley ought to make certain his course was safe before sending raw recruits out here. Ought to be guards or something. Now what could Bodie use for a weapon?
He realised he didn’t know where the man following him, rather closely by the end, had gone. Had the gunman got him? Probably, because whose reflexes were faster than Bodie’s? And he’d barely reached cover without being shot.
He looked around and glimpsed what looked like the end of a disembodied brown mop, lying over nothing but mud. Bodie grimaced. Stupid golly. Shouldn’t have been following Bodie so closely, poor sod.
But—wait—he was moving. Maybe he’d survive, if he got medical attention fast enough.
No—he was moving with purpose, crawling forward. The man was coated completely with mud, blended exactly into it, except for that ridiculous mop of hair. He wasn’t moving like he was injured. And unlikely as it seemed, the idiot appeared to be camouflaged by all that mud.
“Stay back,” snapped Bodie, from behind his pillars of wood. He’d think of something, or Cowley’s men would arrive, but this was ridiculous—suicide, really. Rag-n-bone ignored him, though the rest of the recruits held back. They’d probably go for help, if they were sensible.
If Bodie were to provide a distraction, he could at least give Rag-n-bone more of a chance. He backed away behind the pillars, seeking, seeking past the mud and in the grass. Rocks! He grabbed some and began to fling them. “Here, you lot!” He whistled between his teeth and then crouched back behind the pilings, as another shot sounded.
He timed his flings of rock, keeping cover but throwing hard enough and fast enough to get near the madman. If he got any closer, Bodie would be forced to back off for better cover.
Something round, hard, cold and familiar pressed against the base of Bodie’s skull.
“Gotcha,” said a deep voice. Bodie straightened slowly. Hard to fight a man with a gun against your head. His mouth tightened, his heart thumped. Caught, just like that, think you’re safe in Her Majesty’s service, running an obstacle course and enemies of the crown stepped in, probably to shoot all they could catch, stop the creation of more CI-5 agents.
Such a stupid end for a man who had survived as much as Bodie already had.
Around the corner of the piling, he glimpsed the golly erupt from the mud, surge forward with preternatural speed and—Bodie heard the final sound of another gunshot.
“Dead! You’re dead. Amateurs!” roared the blond maniac.
Bodie swallowed, hard. Shame about that. But Bodie had to worry about himself. Since the man who’d caught Bodie hadn’t fired yet, he might yet have a chance of escape.
“Walk,” said the deep voice, nudging the gun harder against his skull. Bodie stepped forward reluctantly. If he could ‘trip,’ get the man off balance for a second, grab the gun and grapple—
The golly was writhing on the ground, holding his leg. He wasn’t dead. Another vicious kick from the villain, and a yelp emerged from Golly. Gunshot and tortured, was it?
Bodie dived under the gun, driving an elbow viciously into ribs, found them not there, rolled and grabbed very long legs and brought down the gunman with him. The gun fired—how many rounds, how many?
Now he saw: his opponent was a black man, dangerous, huge and fit. Bodie’s blood ran cold. He’d faced some ugly things in Africa and he sometimes still associated dark skin with evil. For that was what stuck with him, far more than anything else he’d seen and participated in in Africa: evil.
Fear lent him strength and he slammed a fist into the black man’s neck, wrenching at the gun with his other hand.
The blow was well aimed; the man’s hand slackened and Bodie got the gun. He whirled and fired at the blond man.
And... nothing happened.
His aim had been true, even that fast. Even with a pistol. Another shot—BANG—couldn’t miss. But nothing happened. The blond man looked at him, a wicked, triumphant smile growing on his face. “Still alive, eh?” He kicked one last time at the fallen man and strode forward over him. “Get him, Towser.”
And strong, dark hands grabbed Bodie round the neck and squeezed.
He was blacking out. He brought the gun up behind him, aimed the useless weapon yet again, without seeing—and squeezed, trying to get off one—last—useless—round.
“Stop!” rasped a Scots-accented voice. “Far enough, Macklin. You needn’t kill them in the process. Towser!”
Hands loosened and Bodie dropped to his knees, gasping free, sweet oxygen, one hand travelling to his neck.
Bodie looked up to glare at the approaching, faintly scolding Cowley. He looked clean and precise in his suit, even walking through the filthy obstacle course.
“All a test, sir?” Bodie croaked, his voice hoarse from bruising, black fingers.
“That’s right, Bodie. The bullets are blanks. And if it hadn’t been a test, you’d both have been dead. Shabbily done, gentlemen. Shabbily done indeed!”
Cowley strode away from Bodie and moved to stand over the writhing, mud-covered rag-and-bone golly. “On your feet, Doyle, if you can move. The obstacle course isn’t over.”
The others were appearing now, cautiously, past the last barrier. Cowley whirled to face them. “And you, men, have done worst of all, for you didn’t do anything! Now finish the course—and report for debriefing, all of you.”
Jogging, casting frightened glances at the downed men, the other recruits ran past, most of them quite muddy and all uninjured.
Bodie dragged himself to his feet. Towser had moved to stand behind Cowley—which was fortunate for him, as Bodie would have gone for him in an instant otherwise. That had been a rotten trick.
But as he thought, he felt his blood cooling already. It had been clever, but he should’ve seen through it. No bullets had struck the wooden barrier, had they? Ah, he must be getting soft, not to notice that missing, familiar sound—bullets striking your cover.
He got up, shaking his head, blinking away the last of the black spots and began to jog slowly on. Last place now, but for the ragdoll, who probably been kicked too hard to finish, anyway. Bodie didn’t look back to find out—or to stare at his enemies. But he wouldn’t soon forget that gun to the head.
This wasn’t going to be much of a game after all.
#
He saw the golly again at the end, after he passed the last obstacle and looked back. Golly was stumbling like a wounded colt, completely coated in mud, looked like he could barely stand, but he was weaving his way forward. He made it past the end and slowly collapsed.
“You a soldier, then?” asked Bodie. He gave the man’s slim frame a frank look. Even plastered thick with mud, he still didn’t look like there was much to him. “You don’t look like a soldier, mate. You look like a sodding fool, trying to sneak up on a gunman.”
Tired green eyes sparked weary anger up at him. “Least I didn’t let anyone sneak up behind me.”
For one vicious second, Bodie wanted to pull back his foot and threaten to kick the man lying in the mud. He wouldn’t do it, only threaten, and then laugh when Golly flinched.
Instead, Bodie turned and began a slow, aching jog back to report to Cowley.
After a bit, he heard the other man struggle to his feet and follow.
#
They were all muddy, nobody escaped from it. Bodie was covered from his wrestling with Towser and the rest of the course. Golly—name of Doyle, it turned out—was mud all but for a few stray curls. Nobody had escaped the mud, except for Cowley. Macklin and Towser had disappeared.
Cowley started up again. “Gentlemen, I’m disappointed. None of you passed that test, not a single one.” He looked them over as if seeing into them. He seemed to see right through Bodie to his angry core, even with Bodie’s blank face on.
Cowley continued down the line. “Now, up next, you’re abseiling and then you can go home and to bed. Be here first thing tomorrow at five.”
He walked away. Bodie watched, letting his jaw tighten and loosen just slightly, one tiny release of tension. He hurt quite badly, and then to be told he’d failed— Well, he would pass the rest of their stupid tests, see if he didn’t. And when he’d passed with the highest scores of any agent, ever, then he’d tell Cowley what he could do with his precious CI-5.
The ragdoll collapsed again during abseiling and Bodie didn’t really expect him to get back up. He watched with mild interest when Doyle did.
At last the day was over and Bodie drove home—getting his car filthy, of course, as he hadn’t thought to bring any cloths to cover the seat, nor a change of clothes, more fool he. He grabbed some newspapers and laid them down, but they only did so much against thick mud.
On his way out of the parking lot, he saw the mud-covered motorcyclist Doyle streak past, raising one casual finger as he cut into traffic, cutting off Bodie.
Bodie’s mouth tightened and he gunned his engine, sending his car leaping forward to put a right fright into the man.
It didn’t work. The zippy bike simply swooped in and out of traffic, into smaller spots than Bodie’s car could fit, leaving him far behind.
#
A shower, a drink, a huge meal and a good long sleep left Bodie feel refreshed and philosophical. Yesterday was wearing off; he could feel his competitive instincts roused, replacing most of his anger about Macklin, Towser, and Cowley. Bodie wouldn’t be giving up, nor letting his temper get the best of him.
He dressed, regarding himself and his tough demeanour in the mirror, psyching himself up for the worst Cowley could offer. He remembered to bring fresh clothes and rags to cover his seat in case it was needed.
And he got there early. Cowley thought he could psych them out with a tough schedule? Well, not this soldier.
He still hadn’t found out what the golly was, but Doyle probably wasn’t military. He didn’t stand at attention very well, for one thing—more like a slouch. And there was that hair. Doyle was fast, a real sprinter, but so dreadfully thin, never would’ve held up to army training.
Then again he did seem to be a tad indestructible....
Bodie reached the parking lot at twelve minutes to five—only to find a certain familiar biker pulling in as well. With an evil grin, Bodie gunned his engine and once again, cut off Doyle from the parking space he was heading for.
This time, Doyle had to brake roughly and turn aside, almost falling off his bike to avoid a collision.
“You—maniac!” choked the curly-haired man, tearing off his helmet and flinging it to the ground. He dropped his bike sideways, strode forward and yanked Bodie’s car door open.
Bodie was appalled to see green fire in those eyes, like a madman’s eyes, temper flaming and dangerous, instant and all-consuming.
He’d pissed off a madman.
One hand grabbed his shirt to haul him out. Bodie covered it in his own, grabbed the man’s arm and yanked down to slam his head against the top of the car. With a slippery move Bodie couldn’t quite see, but that felt like some sort of karate, Doyle slipped his grip and jerked free. A heel-palm met Bodie’s head and it rang.
Bodie jerked back and raised a foot, kicking. He caught the man mid-attack, right in the chest and Doyle staggered back, the whole way to the ground, sitting down hard. Bodie surged from the car and prepared for counter attack, but nothing happened.
The man on the ground leaned forward, gasping in loud breaths. Ah. Knocked the wind out of him. With satisfaction, Bodie locked his car and sauntered into the building. Still a few minutes early.
#
When he caught sight of Doyle later, the man acted (same as Bodie) as if nothing had happened. That fierce explosion of violence between them might as well have happened in a different lifetime. Doyle looked fierce and pissed off, but the raging fire, the almost inhuman fury, had gone out of his eyes.
They finished this day’s trials at first and second place, again. Bodie was first (of course), but the wiry Doyle was constantly almost catching up to him. It made Bodie push himself even harder than the tests pushed him, to stay ahead.
Several of the wannabe CI-5 agents had disappeared overnight. Probably let that maniac Macklin and Towser, scare them off—and Cowley. Well, more of Bodie’s opponents gone. Now if only golly-head would join them.
Once again, Doyle on his motorcycle managed to cut Bodie off out of the parking lot on the way home that evening, but this time, Bodie didn’t bother to give chase. The ragdoll wasn’t worth it.
#
Three days of Cowley’s worst. More men dropped out. Then the training changed. They weren’t to go home. Not even to pack fresh clothes. They’d stay here, in a barracks, to be wakened at any hour, sent out on ‘missions’ with little information or backup and few clues, their weapons varying from nothing but fists against paint guns—to paint guns against bigger paint guns and paint bombs. And always with Macklin eager to dole out blows to anyone he caught off guard and assure them that they were “dead.”
At first they were deployed as a group—all on the same job, wakened from the few hours of dreamless, exhausted sleep they’d fallen into. Filthy men, with barely a chance to shower, to eat—sometimes one or the other, not both. There wasn’t time for rivalries. Wasn’t even time to think, really.
Bodie recognised, dully, the tactic of breaking men, like army training. Only, somehow, they were supposed to maintain their ability to think throughout it all. And if you didn’t—if the bomb went off in your face, or you lost your head against gunmen—then more than likely, the next day you wouldn’t be there.
The group grew smaller, but tenaciously, Doyle stayed at second place, ever right behind Bodie in speed, skill and overall rankings.
Bodie caught glimpses of Doyle here and there, with a giant bruise on his sullen face, or a look of defiance, his voice raised at what he felt was a ridiculous order, actually shouting back to Cowley. The man had guts, at least, no denying that. Fools and madmen—he wasn’t kicked out for it. Bodie glimpsed another flare of his temper when Doyle punched a wall and walked away, his hand dangling at his side, dripping blood.
The rumours passed around: he was a Copper and his old partner had died because of his negligence. He was at CI-5 seeking redemption, or death, he didn’t much care which.
Much as rumours fascinated him, Bodie knew not to believe more than half of what he heard—if that. He happened to overhear some of what they were saying about him, too. He had to put on his blank face for a while afterwards. Not that he cared what some bloody losers thought of him, what horrible things they thought he’d done. But who would really think Cowley would consider hiring a hit man?
#
Then the time came when they were teamed. It was hardly fair, Bodie thought, for Cowley to team him and Doyle. They didn’t get on. Simply because they were the top two, consistently—
No, he knew. That was part of the test: the fact that they didn’t get on.
He hadn’t yet seen Doyle’s murderous look aimed at him a second time. Doyle seemed to hold no grudges, no wish for revenge, his anger gone as quickly and mysteriously as it appeared. You could tell, because everything showed in that expressive face. There was a lot of pain, bitterness and a lack of trust for anyone or anything—but the anger came and went. There was no calculation, no grudge-holding, no seeking revenge.
Bodie was quite willing to let it drop as well, though he certainly wouldn’t trust this man as far as he could throw him. Not nearly that far! The very impersonality of the anger, the short fuse that you could never predict what would set off, was somehow more unnerving than if Doyle had set out to be his personal enemy. The rag doll’s occasional distrust and disgust were unpleasant, but the knowledge that he could blow his top any second made Bodie’s back crawl when the two of them went out on patrol together.
(No telling what would attack today—a herd of machine-gun toting gerbils? At this point, Bodie wouldn’t put anything past Cowley, he really wouldn’t.)
Doyle was surprisingly silent, not making a noise as he followed Bodie’s footsteps in the woods.
Bodie wished the bloody man would trip, or at least step on some leaves so he’d make a sound, so he didn’t move so like a ghost. Doyle couldn’t be a woodsman, as well as everything else he was good at; he must simply be copying Bodie.
Or else he was so light, he just couldn’t make a sound. Like a little cloud of nothing but hair left, floating along. The thought made Bodie smirk.
“What are you laughing at?” growled the tense voice behind him. Bodie turned, astonished.
“You read minds now, Copper?”
He’d taken to calling the man Copper, a mild euphemism from him, as he never had liked the boys in blue. Didn’t trust any of them: either bent or little Hitlers. Or maybe it was just the trouble he’d got into when he was a lad. At any rate, Doyle hadn’t corrected him, so Bodie assumed that part of the rumour was true, at least.
“You duck your head a little when you laugh.” Doyle stopped walking, as Bodie had, too. For the first time, Bodie saw the stark lines of that face, how thin Doyle had got in the face, bone-white and halfway-dead looking. A weariness greater than the outward had this man of fire and ice in its grip.
“So share the joke, then, soldier-boy,” Doyle said. “Could use a laugh, couldn’t I?” He leaned against a tree. His continual slouching irritated Bodie. Though perhaps he was just too tired to stand straight and grabbing any excuse for a moment’s rest.
“All right,” said Bodie. “I was thinking there’s nothing to you, you’re like a cloud—a little ‘pouf’ of hair and hot air.” He smirked.
And then he wished he hadn’t said it, because the man just absorbed it, like another body blow he was too tired to flinch from—if he even cared anymore.
“You’re a bit suicidal, aren’t you?” asked Bodie.
The words just slipped out.
Doyle snorted. “No. Are you? I don’t give up. Ever.” He straightened and brushed past Bodie, this time taking the lead.
At least Bodie had the satisfaction of hearing his steps crunch now. Golly really didn’t know how to make a trail, anymore than he knew how to pace himself.
#
As time passed, Bodie’s instinct turned to conviction that Doyle was going to kill himself. He seemed to have no self preservation. He’d doggedly do whatever he was told, no light in his eyes anymore. He didn’t flare up as often and when he did, it seemed hopeless, like a tiger snarling against a stick poked through his cage. His anger only wore him out further and somehow Bodie was starting to hate the sight of Doyle’s fruitless anger and the way he was wearing down.
When Bodie saw a recruit named Smythe trying to wind Doyle up and sharing jabs and jokes about Doyle with his friend (how did you make friends on a course like this, anyway?), Bodie felt his jaw tightening and loosening a few fractions of an inch, warning bells telling him that he was angry, that he had better control it. He did, and fortunately, Doyle just turned to the wall and ignored Smythe and the laughter.
Later on, Bodie “tripped” Smythe in the hall, supposedly an accident, but he made sure Smythe knew why. “Copper’s my business,” he said, a low snarl in the ear as he grabbed an iron grip on the man’s upper arm, squeezing hard and ‘helped’ him up.
Yanked onto his feet, Smythe stared at Bodie for one freaked out moment before trying to bluster. But Bodie ignored him and moved past. They’d think twice. It was bloody tiring seeing the golly go off like a rocket. Maybe things would calm down now.
#
Bodie no longer thought of the course being over now, because he knew it never would. They’d always belong to Cowley, to be broken and reformed and shaped and moulded into men who would do whatever he asked, bleeding skeletons, but somehow, impossibly, alive.
The one-on-one fights with Macklin were...instructive. Better than fighting with Towser, because somehow Bodie let Towser scare him every time and lost sooner than he should have.
Bodie wasn’t scared of Macklin, just careful and pissed off. He learned something every time, lasted a little longer every bout, though he came away feeling broken as an old chair.
It was also instructive watching the rag doll fight. He’d fight warily, protecting his core, hanging back and waiting for an opening, moving smoothly but almost mechanically—unless you pissed him off. Then it was that flurry of those karate moves, a violent storm erupting that even Macklin seemed hard pressed to overcome.
Then one day, Bodie and Doyle were finally matched for a fight. He’d been looking forward to it, looking for openings he could use, eager to test himself against Doyle.
He was also a bit concerned that Doyle might explode like he had in the parking lot. If he did, Bodie thought he could still handle it. But he wasn’t absolutely certain. He’d been lucky, knocking the wind out of Doyle. He might not fare so well next time.
Doyle was certainly becoming one of the most interesting things about the training. The man was an enigma wrapped in danger. And Bodie was quite ready to test himself against that danger again, even if he never figured out the enigma part.
The match started off well. Bodie got in a couple of good hits before the fire started, snapping green in those large, dangerous eyes. Doyle began to bob and weave at a frenetic pace, as though anger made him faster. He had a fierce, wild fighting style—a mix of the precision and control of karate and the explosive danger of a street fighter. And yet he hadn’t lost control.
Bodie accepted the blows that got past his barriers and kept delivering his own—when he could land them, slippery golly! He began to get into the zone, absorbing his opponent’s moves, feeling everything else slip away in the supreme concentration and focus of fighting.
Doyle’s moves were quick and dangerous, but Bodie figured he could take a few blows if it let him get past Doyle’s guard. But that guard was quite difficult to get past!
Sweat rolled down Bodie’s face, slicked his clothes. Still they fought on. He had no concept of how long; time had slipped away.
The golly’s hair bobbed this way and that. He was so fast! He’d be a great boxer, never letting anyone hit him.
Doyle was tiring; Bodie could see that. But Doyle was too stubborn to slow down more than a fraction.
Bodie had the feeling that one good body blow would flatten Doyle at this point, if it had enough power behind it. The rag doll’s face was tight and white. His punches and kicks didn’t have as much power behind them now. They were still landing with frequency, though, and Bodie couldn’t still get in a good hit.
They had an audience by this point. Now Macklin stepped in as well. He told Doyle to stop and put a hand on his shoulder. Doyle whirled, ready to take on Macklin and the whole wide world at once, even as exhausted as he was. Bloody hell the man had spirit!
“I said, that’s enough. It’s a tie. Back off, Doyle,” ordered Macklin. And Doyle stopped, though his hands were still clenched, his stance still ready and wary, his chest heaving. He looked as though he barely knew where he was, but was still ready to keep fighting.
Bodie halted as well and let his hands fall to his side. He realised he was grinning, he was happy, it had been such fun. He hadn’t won, though he would have; Doyle was wearing down faster than Bodie. Ah, but what a nice, long fight that had been.
Doyle turned and rather mechanically thrust a hand out at Bodie. Bodie gave it a quick shake and slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re not bad for a string bean!”
Scowling, Doyle knocked the hand away. “Who are you calling—”
“Oh, relax, it’s a compliment.” Bodie strode away, grinning, still buoyant, feeling energised by the fight. He wanted a nice drink and a hot shower and then another round.
#
Macklin had stopped their bout, but he kept up his own rounds with Doyle in the following days, pushing Doyle a little further each time. If he could piss Doyle off, it was usually over quickly—but not without Macklin taking a few hits first. Macklin seemed as fascinated by that as anything and kept doing it.
And it was harder to warn Macklin off harassing Doyle, wasn’t it? Bodie had nothing against hard fights, but it seemed wrong to try to get Doyle to lose his dangerous temper every time. Doyle obviously worked hard to keep from blowing his stack, so why keep pushing?
Bodie wanted to just tell Macklin to fight fair. But of course, that wasn’t in Macklin’s nature. He wanted to keep you on the hop all the time, keep guessing and he didn’t care what methods he used.
Macklin kept pushing harder and harder to get that rage to the surface. Doyle seemed so tired, getting closer to a skeleton every day—and more and more closed off. He was getting harder for Macklin to provoke.
So Macklin finally pushed that button. It wasn’t enough to take jabs at his size—it had been, at first; apparently Golly was sensitive to the fact that many people considered him a lightweight. Then his scarred face and chipped tooth, how like a street thug that made him look and his clothing, how it didn’t fit....
Each time it had made Bodie’s jaw tighten and loosen in that distinctive way that told him his anger was building. He had plenty of his own criticisms about the golly, but it was wrong to pick on a—a dying man like that. Because something about Doyle was definitely on the downward spiral. He was pushing himself to the brink and Bodie was quite certain he meant to go over it. Whatever it was and wherever it led.
And now—
“Is that how hard you fought to protect your partner?” asked Macklin, with a sneer in his voice. “No wonder he died.”
Doyle went nuts. One second it was a general spar, with the other students standing around getting pointers, or going to it with Towser, or training or trying to grab a few moments rest, preparing for their bouts. The next moment, the wildfire man was loose, that green-eyed berserker, screaming and having at Macklin.
Bodie had no doubt at all that Doyle would’ve killed Macklin in a second if he’d been able to. Instead his rage, leaving him unfocused, allowed Macklin to pin him, shaking, up against the wall.
Blood ran down Macklin’s face. No one yet had achieved that.
Hard as Doyle was shaking, he hadn’t stopped fighting and it seemed to take Macklin’s full force—and he was a lot bigger—to restrain Doyle.
“You see, that’s what happens when you let someone provoke you. I use your anger against you.”
A stream of cursing came out of Doyle’s mouth. His voice had gone all high and cold and cracked, didn’t even sound like him anymore.
“It’s a weakness,” said Macklin firmly and made a sudden move that Bodie couldn’t quite catch.
Doyle howled in pain.
Bodie wasn’t conscious of moving. Till he was behind Macklin and ready to take him apart with his bare hands. Protectiveness for the golly, or rage at injustice? He didn’t know and it didn’t matter now, because Macklin had released Doyle. Bodie stopped in his tracks. Doyle was on his knees, holding his arm at a funny angle.
“Huh. I seem to have dislocated it,” said Macklin in a surprised-sounding yet dispassionate voice. “That’s all right, soon hurt, soonest mended. Towser—” He turned and saw Bodie. “Ah, you. Hold him still, I’ll—soon set it right.” White showed at the top of his forehead, above the tan line. Even Macklin could be shaken.
Bodie still wanted to punch him in the jaw, but Doyle’s distress was too palpable and immediate. Dislocated shoulders were no fun at all. The golly was getting ripped apart by this place and he shouldn’t be here, but all Bodie could do right now was hold him still so the hurting could be stopped. By Macklin, the man who’d created it.
Bodie knelt and caught Doyle in a death grip. He’d need it. Doyle’s heart beat under his alarmingly palpable ribs, like a frantic sparrow trapped in a cage.
“Hold still golly,” he said, and was surprised to hear the uncertain level of his own voice.
Macklin got a good hold—
Doyle’s scream rent the air, almost covering the sound of his shoulder popping back into place.
Doyle slumped forward, still trembling but now silent, moving his shoulder freely. He gulped great breaths of air and Bodie released him quickly, feeling as if it had been a violation of something wild and hurt, to get that close, to restrain Doyle—even for his own good.
Doyle stayed gulping on the floor like a broken thing. Then he stumbled to his feet and started for Macklin again.
“No you don’t.” Bodie caught his arm and swung him towards the exit. “You’re leaving, mate and that’s all there is to it. Enough of this—torture.” He spat the word and looked back at Towser, who had stopped sparring and Macklin in disgust.
“You can bloody keep your bloody CI-5 because he’s going. Try and stop it.”
He shoved the Copper ahead of him. Doyle tried again to head back for Macklin, but Bodie was remorseless. Still woozy from the pain, or else realising it was for the best Doyle went, allowing himself to be steered.
As soon as they were outside, Bodie said, “You’re not staying here another second. Go back to your job, go anywhere but here. They’ll bloody tear you apart, mate and you’re half dead already.”
“Not my keeper,” rasped Doyle, his voice hoarse. Wobbly legs tried to head back to Macklin. “I’ve got to bash his head in, see?”
“I know, mate, but not today. You come back when you’re feeling better. Maybe a year or two.” He successfully corralled the escape attempt and marched Doyle towards Cowley’s HQ, a grip on his arm none too light.
The trembling in those tight, dangerous muscles had almost completely disappeared when they reached HQ. For a foggy, vague second, Bodie wondered what he was doing. You didn’t—Bodie didn’t, anyway—interfere like this. Something had snapped in him, as wild and crazy as Doyle’s sudden bursts of anger. He’d just known he couldn’t let another person beat the life out of this man. Even if Doyle wanted them to.
#
“Do NOT let him out of your sight,” said Bodie sternly, glaring at the man guarding Cowley’s room. “Doyle, sit there and don’t move.” He shoved the now-unresisting man into a hard-back chair, shoved his way past the guard and knocked on Cowley’s door.
“Who is it?” asked an irascible, distracted voice.
“Bodie, sir. It’s about Doyle. It’s important.” He couldn’t keep the respectfulness out of his voice, even angry as he was.
“Come in and shut the door,” burred Cowley. He looked up irritably and then something in Bodie’s face seemed to catch his attention, because he looked almost pleased. He put down his papers and gave Bodie a smile. “Something important, I see?”
“It’s Doyle, sir. You’ve broken him and you have to send him away before you kill him. Preferably somewhere with a good psychiatrist because I think he’d walk off the first bridge he saw in this state.”
“I see. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Bodie took a deep breath. Feeling very much as though he was tattling to Father—both the guilt of telling and the relief of getting something off his chest—he began. “Macklin said something awful about Doyle’s dead partner, sir and then dislocated Doyle’s shoulder. He put it back and I brought Doyle here. It’s not on. He can’t go on this way, sir. You’ve got to send him somewhere they can help him.”
“Ah,” said Cowley, with immense satisfaction. The old man’s eyes seemed to be alight and alive—triumphant, as if he was thinking “Aha! I’ve got you!” and perhaps even, “You’ve passed my biggest test.” Only that wasn’t possible, was it? Not possible in the least, especially as Bodie was ready to quit over this.
Cowley said, “I can’t fix Doyle. The most I can do is try to turn him into a weapon that cuts outward instead of inward—one that I can use and that won’t destroy itself.”
Bodie kept his face arrogantly impassive, though he felt confused as a child facing long division for the first time.
Cowley smiled. “Would it be better if I passed Doyle through, made him a CI-5 agent and he had that gaping raw wound that could be so easily turned against him?”
Bodie struggled to make sense of it. “No, of course not, sir, but he’s not— That was dirty. Macklin fights dirty. You shouldn’t use him against someone like Doyle. Just discharge the Copper instead of half killing him. I want to beat him, but not like this, not when you have to let Macklin half kill him first.”
Another smile came and went on Cowley’s secretive, stern face. “Macklin has his reasons for being ‘dirty.’ And everything you learn from him you won’t have to learn the hard way, with real casualties the cost. You and Doyle could both learn a lot from Macklin. And you will, if you stay on. I’ll not release Doyle unless he wishes to go. I’ve too great a need for men who can do the jobs I’m asking of you both and I won’t give up one of my strongest resources because you don’t happen to think he’s strong enough. I believe he is.”
Bodie realised with a faint surprise that Cowley sounded as though he was saying they were both in—if they wanted to be.
“I’m starting to believe even you might be,” said Cowley.
Bodie blinked. But hadn’t he just said...?
Cowley turned back to his papers. “It was you against the world when you first arrived here, Bodie and now you’re willing to risk your spot here to protect another person.” The disconcerting gaze was back on him, seeing to his backbone, straight through him. “I’ve need of weapons, Bodie and you’re one of the finest made. But a selfish weapon is no use to me. I’ll be calling on you every day, to fight and possibly die for civilians who will never know your name or appreciate your sacrifice. There’s no room for glory or ego in that. And if there is even one person you would fight to protect, then there might be hope for you in CI-5 yet.”
Bodie felt uncomfortable. When had this become about him? And just what did those papers and tests say about him? That he was a loner? Cold and arrogant and careless of whoever he had to step over? That he cared for nothing and no one?
Well, he’d wanted to join CI-5, hadn’t he? That organisation of danger and intrigue and goodness—of a sort. That meant he wanted to do something good for a change, didn’t it?
Or had he just wanted the next challenge? He realised that the old man hadn’t known, couldn’t know until he revealed himself somehow. And that, in a special sense, Bodie hadn’t known for certain either.
It was a raw feeling, to see this about himself, to realise that he’d been on trial more than anyone and in a different way. And that he’d been on trial with himself, too. The Doyle thing—trying to intervene—had been right, somehow, a test he hadn’t passed for many years and now suddenly and unexpectedly, had.
Instead of saying anything about this, he said, “You’ll want to see him, sir. It’s no good, I’m afraid.”
Cowley raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it? By all means, show him in.”
Bodie strode for the door, glad of escape. It was like staring down a lion or a dragon, talking to Cowley in his lair.
“Doyle, you’re up.”
Doyle was bowed forward in his seat, staring unseeingly. A pluck at the sleeve and he looked at Bodie, as if seeing him for the first time.
“Old man’s ready to see you,”
Doyle rose. He still looked drained—something more than drained—but less like a dead man and more like a runner pushing through his last layer of exhaustion, his last reserves of energy and, somehow, going on.
He went in like a sleepwalker, light on his feet even now. Bodie was almost afraid of him, this otherworldly man who’d proved something about Bodie, without even trying.
“Not you, Bodie,” said Cowley. “Shut the door.”
So Bodie shut the door. Then he sat in the chair, scraped it around, moved it till the guard looked annoyed and shot him a look. He grinned at the guard, leaned insouciantly back and—now in the best spot—listened....
“I couldn’t save him, sir.” Doyle’s quavery voice sounded half broken, like a teenage boy’s, vulnerable and hopeless, even through walls.
“No, Doyle, you couldn’t. But will your dying as well accomplish anything? Or do you owe it to him—and to yourself—to stay alive and help as many people as you can? Your unique skills and determination—and the fact that you care about people—is something we need, desperately. Not just in the police force, though you can still do some good in the world if you decide to go back there. But here, you can help protect not just a patch of land, but all of England. From bombers, maniacs, drug runners. Everything that destroys every innocent who dies because no one is there to protect them. Doyle, you can walk away now, or stay and know you are a part of that.”
“I’d like to stay, sir. I would. I just can’t—forget.”
“You don’t have to forget, lad.” Cowley’s voice was lower now, harder to hear. (Bodie held his breath, listening hard.) “You don’t have to forget. In time, it will ease. It will stop plaguing your every thought. You’ll be able to laugh again—and you haven’t, have you, not in years?”
Compassion, gentleness: Bodie never thought he’d hear such things from Cowley.
“I could’ve—I should’ve done more,” said Doyle.
“Yes, we all should have done more. There are times in every man’s life, when he looks back and says, ‘If only I’d known.’ But you don’t, no one does, and you have to accept that bad things happen and you’ll never stop them all. Stop the ones you can, with CI-5, and I promise you, your life will not be lived in vain. Even if it feels like it now, you will one day look back and say, ‘I’m glad I decided to live, glad I made a difference.’”
A long silence. “I don’t think I’ll ever say that, sir. I don’t think I ever have or will.”
“Och, that’s the darkness talking, lad. You’ll find your way past it. Now, you’ve to see the doctor. He’ll check you over. I can’t quite like the look of you. When that’s through, you can talk to the psych doctor and if he passes you, you can sign your papers. I’ll have you talk to him regularly, mind, till you’re feeling better. There’s no shame in that. Oh—and Doyle?”
“Yes?” said the Copper, sounding bewildered—as though he were trying to take it all in.
“Have you any objection to Bodie?”
“Bodie?” he sounded surprised. “No, he’s all right. Why?”
“I thought I might team the two of you. I think you’ll balance each other.”
A very long silence.
Bodie realised he was holding his breath again and let it out slowly. He didn’t need the golly for a partner. Weight around his neck, more like. Bodie’s hands had tightened on the chair; he released them.
“I—I can’t have a—another partner,” said Doyle in a strangled voice, like a choking, drowning man.
“Och, not a partner, exactly. Just a temporary team.” Cowley could sound so reassuring, when he chose. “Someone to work with for the time being. It’s especially important to have someone to watch your back and to look after his, when you’re first out of training. You catch each other’s mistakes.”
“But only temporarily?”
He’d certainly latched onto that part. Well, it was quite enough for Bodie, as well. He didn’t want to be permanently saddled with—anyone, really.
“Yes, Doyle. Temporarily. I have teams, but I also have agents who work alone. You’ve no need to worry—I won’t make you stay in a team you’d rather not. Only for the beginning.”
“I guess that’s all right, sir.”
Bodie thumped the front feet of his chair down on the ground and realised he was grinning, he was going to join CI-5, and that it was a good day after all.
End "Broken Reeds"
====
Title: Broken Reeds (First Impressions, #1)
Author: Allie
Slash or Gen: Gen
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: If you wish, of course....
Author's Name for Archiving (if different to above): same
Disclaimer: These aren’t my characters. Except Smythe; I guess he’s mine, though who would want him? I didn’t intentionally copy anyone’s work. I did read some excellent meeting fics recently, though, and was surely inspired to do duel POV fics by reading both LRH Balzar's Bisto Kids series, and Jacien’s recent “Touched Silver” and “White Marble.”
Notes: This is a series. The second story is from Doyle’s POV, with many of the same incidents as this story. The third story is shorter and tells some of what happens next. In the fourth, we have Cowley’s POV as he watches the men settling into CI5 and interacts with them and watches their partnership grow. I don’t know how quickly I’ll get them all finished, beta’d, and edited, but I have the rough draft of the next two, and am in the midst of working on the last one. I’m hoping to at least get Doyle’s POV posted in time, for those interested to read. The others might end up on the safehouse if they take longer.
Read the second one (Doyle's POV) here: http://discoveredinalj.livejournal.com/207802.html
inlovewithboth for her help.~8000 wds
First Impressions, #1
Broken Reeds
by Allie
With a squeal of brakes, Bodie peeled into the parking space just ahead of a motorcycle. The biker looked startled and affronted. Bodie’s mouth tilted up at the frustrated, angry flash of green eyes.
Bodie climbed out of his car, favouring the rival wannabe-agent with a triumphant smirk, and strode into the training centre while the other man was backing up his bike and heading for a new parking spot.
It was never too early to start competing. Bodie was in competition with every other man here, to earn his right to join CI-5.
#
A man named Cowley gave them a talk, striding up and down the line of them, looking into faces here and there, halfway smiling, except when he was serious and grim. He spoke about the importance of CI-5, saying that the men had all been chosen as prospective agents for their excellent skills in areas where they had worked, but that less than half of them would make the final cut.
“You are now untested springs, weak links, and broken reeds. We will lean on you, and some of you will break. It won’t mean you’re less than you were before, simply that you’re not good enough for CI-5. I’m putting you into the hands of an elite group of trainers. You’ll be tested and tried. It is not simply a test of your physical capabilities, though that is important, too. Your minds, your reactions, your ability to listen to orders yet think for yourselves. In short, we’ll be testing you for all the things that we can’t tell from interviews.
“You’ve been through several of those already and had your glowing reports sent in. No doubt you all think you’re quite something else to have made it this far.”
Cowley paused, surveying the men with a knowing look, as if weighing each of them up. Bodie, standing stiffly and blankly at attention, felt amused on the inside. Of course he was one of the best. But the old man needed to make his speech.
Cowley waited for his question to sink in, then answered it. “Well, you’re right! And that’s the last compliment you’ll receive from me, for the rest will be hard work. If you pass, it will be the hardest job you’ve ever had. You won’t get thanks or public acclaim. The pay isn’t even very good. But you will be doing some of the most important work in all of England—keeping our shores safe. If, that is, you pass the tests. But most of you won’t. You’ll go back to your sleepy little lives, pretending to yourselves that you never wanted to join CI-5 in the first place, not really. Some of you will even convince yourselves of it.”
It was almost fun to listen to. Bodie was looking forward to breezing through the exams they set. A man who’d lived through wars and rumours of wars as a mercenary and a soldier shouldn’t have difficulty with any of this. And if he did—well, Bodie had always loved a challenge. And the old man had a sort of dangerous sparkle in his eyes that hinted of hidden depths. Perhaps these tests would be more difficult than any he’d faced so far in training.
Bodie felt a tingle of excitement down his back at the thought. To be pushed to the very edge and make it back, stronger than ever! It sounded good. Not as much fun as a night drinking and carousing, but that got dull after a while. Sometimes you wanted to fling yourself at the world and test it and yourself and see which would break first.
So far, Bodie had never broken.
He snuck a look down the line, moving his eyes only when the old man’s back was turned. The motorcyclist was there as well, standing more loosely. He had a ragged look about him and a mass of too much curly hair, now visible without his helmet. All that hair emphasised his head, made the rest of him look smaller in comparison, like something a rag-and-bone man should’ve dragged off years ago.
He wouldn’t make it through the tests, surely.
#
After Cowley’s speech, the day began with shooting. Bodie excelled at them all, of course—except for Rag-and-Bone, who won at handguns. Only slightly, but it made Bodie’s competitive instincts burn white-hot, that the man who looked like nothing could outshoot him even a hair, even with one weapon. Well—perhaps even more than a hair.
He moved on to the next course, the obstacle course, determined to prove his superiority. He knew he was superior to all of them—he’d lived it, hadn’t he?—but one still had to prove things, to let others know it.
When the course began, he loped ahead, vaulted the wall and slammed into mud, sinking thigh-deep. His face stony, not even giving in to a grimace, he waded out with no wasted motions. See the golly do that!
Bodie spared a glance back to see one of the other hopefuls wallow deeper into the mud, cursing. Not the golly, someone else. Bodie allowed himself a brief smirk, before redoubling his speed and concentrating on the course. Amateurs!
Bodie continued breezing through the course, ahead of them all, sensible of a burning in his muscles and euphoria growing at the burst of exertion it demanded from him. Behind him, he could hear them—most of them falling farther behind, but one nearly catching up. He didn’t bother to glance back again; it didn’t matter who. Long as it wasn’t the golly.
BANG! A man popped from behind a tree and fired.
Instinct took over; Bodie dropped and rolled. Shelter—weapons—counterattack. The automatic countdown in his head began, but there were no weapons, they hadn’t been sent armed on the bloody obstacle course. The madmen would kill them all if they didn’t stay back.
“Stay back!” Bodie roared, crouched in the mud behind a log structure, part of the next obstacle. His warning and the gunfire must’ve worked; no one else appeared.
The madman was large, almost ridiculously hulking, and he fired with purpose: now towards where the others would’ve appeared, next towards Bodie, keeping him pinned. He finished with one gun, tossed it in the grass and raised a second in his other hand.
Bloody Cowley ought to make certain his course was safe before sending raw recruits out here. Ought to be guards or something. Now what could Bodie use for a weapon?
He realised he didn’t know where the man following him, rather closely by the end, had gone. Had the gunman got him? Probably, because whose reflexes were faster than Bodie’s? And he’d barely reached cover without being shot.
He looked around and glimpsed what looked like the end of a disembodied brown mop, lying over nothing but mud. Bodie grimaced. Stupid golly. Shouldn’t have been following Bodie so closely, poor sod.
But—wait—he was moving. Maybe he’d survive, if he got medical attention fast enough.
No—he was moving with purpose, crawling forward. The man was coated completely with mud, blended exactly into it, except for that ridiculous mop of hair. He wasn’t moving like he was injured. And unlikely as it seemed, the idiot appeared to be camouflaged by all that mud.
“Stay back,” snapped Bodie, from behind his pillars of wood. He’d think of something, or Cowley’s men would arrive, but this was ridiculous—suicide, really. Rag-n-bone ignored him, though the rest of the recruits held back. They’d probably go for help, if they were sensible.
If Bodie were to provide a distraction, he could at least give Rag-n-bone more of a chance. He backed away behind the pillars, seeking, seeking past the mud and in the grass. Rocks! He grabbed some and began to fling them. “Here, you lot!” He whistled between his teeth and then crouched back behind the pilings, as another shot sounded.
He timed his flings of rock, keeping cover but throwing hard enough and fast enough to get near the madman. If he got any closer, Bodie would be forced to back off for better cover.
Something round, hard, cold and familiar pressed against the base of Bodie’s skull.
“Gotcha,” said a deep voice. Bodie straightened slowly. Hard to fight a man with a gun against your head. His mouth tightened, his heart thumped. Caught, just like that, think you’re safe in Her Majesty’s service, running an obstacle course and enemies of the crown stepped in, probably to shoot all they could catch, stop the creation of more CI-5 agents.
Such a stupid end for a man who had survived as much as Bodie already had.
Around the corner of the piling, he glimpsed the golly erupt from the mud, surge forward with preternatural speed and—Bodie heard the final sound of another gunshot.
“Dead! You’re dead. Amateurs!” roared the blond maniac.
Bodie swallowed, hard. Shame about that. But Bodie had to worry about himself. Since the man who’d caught Bodie hadn’t fired yet, he might yet have a chance of escape.
“Walk,” said the deep voice, nudging the gun harder against his skull. Bodie stepped forward reluctantly. If he could ‘trip,’ get the man off balance for a second, grab the gun and grapple—
The golly was writhing on the ground, holding his leg. He wasn’t dead. Another vicious kick from the villain, and a yelp emerged from Golly. Gunshot and tortured, was it?
Bodie dived under the gun, driving an elbow viciously into ribs, found them not there, rolled and grabbed very long legs and brought down the gunman with him. The gun fired—how many rounds, how many?
Now he saw: his opponent was a black man, dangerous, huge and fit. Bodie’s blood ran cold. He’d faced some ugly things in Africa and he sometimes still associated dark skin with evil. For that was what stuck with him, far more than anything else he’d seen and participated in in Africa: evil.
Fear lent him strength and he slammed a fist into the black man’s neck, wrenching at the gun with his other hand.
The blow was well aimed; the man’s hand slackened and Bodie got the gun. He whirled and fired at the blond man.
And... nothing happened.
His aim had been true, even that fast. Even with a pistol. Another shot—BANG—couldn’t miss. But nothing happened. The blond man looked at him, a wicked, triumphant smile growing on his face. “Still alive, eh?” He kicked one last time at the fallen man and strode forward over him. “Get him, Towser.”
And strong, dark hands grabbed Bodie round the neck and squeezed.
He was blacking out. He brought the gun up behind him, aimed the useless weapon yet again, without seeing—and squeezed, trying to get off one—last—useless—round.
“Stop!” rasped a Scots-accented voice. “Far enough, Macklin. You needn’t kill them in the process. Towser!”
Hands loosened and Bodie dropped to his knees, gasping free, sweet oxygen, one hand travelling to his neck.
Bodie looked up to glare at the approaching, faintly scolding Cowley. He looked clean and precise in his suit, even walking through the filthy obstacle course.
“All a test, sir?” Bodie croaked, his voice hoarse from bruising, black fingers.
“That’s right, Bodie. The bullets are blanks. And if it hadn’t been a test, you’d both have been dead. Shabbily done, gentlemen. Shabbily done indeed!”
Cowley strode away from Bodie and moved to stand over the writhing, mud-covered rag-and-bone golly. “On your feet, Doyle, if you can move. The obstacle course isn’t over.”
The others were appearing now, cautiously, past the last barrier. Cowley whirled to face them. “And you, men, have done worst of all, for you didn’t do anything! Now finish the course—and report for debriefing, all of you.”
Jogging, casting frightened glances at the downed men, the other recruits ran past, most of them quite muddy and all uninjured.
Bodie dragged himself to his feet. Towser had moved to stand behind Cowley—which was fortunate for him, as Bodie would have gone for him in an instant otherwise. That had been a rotten trick.
But as he thought, he felt his blood cooling already. It had been clever, but he should’ve seen through it. No bullets had struck the wooden barrier, had they? Ah, he must be getting soft, not to notice that missing, familiar sound—bullets striking your cover.
He got up, shaking his head, blinking away the last of the black spots and began to jog slowly on. Last place now, but for the ragdoll, who probably been kicked too hard to finish, anyway. Bodie didn’t look back to find out—or to stare at his enemies. But he wouldn’t soon forget that gun to the head.
This wasn’t going to be much of a game after all.
#
He saw the golly again at the end, after he passed the last obstacle and looked back. Golly was stumbling like a wounded colt, completely coated in mud, looked like he could barely stand, but he was weaving his way forward. He made it past the end and slowly collapsed.
“You a soldier, then?” asked Bodie. He gave the man’s slim frame a frank look. Even plastered thick with mud, he still didn’t look like there was much to him. “You don’t look like a soldier, mate. You look like a sodding fool, trying to sneak up on a gunman.”
Tired green eyes sparked weary anger up at him. “Least I didn’t let anyone sneak up behind me.”
For one vicious second, Bodie wanted to pull back his foot and threaten to kick the man lying in the mud. He wouldn’t do it, only threaten, and then laugh when Golly flinched.
Instead, Bodie turned and began a slow, aching jog back to report to Cowley.
After a bit, he heard the other man struggle to his feet and follow.
#
They were all muddy, nobody escaped from it. Bodie was covered from his wrestling with Towser and the rest of the course. Golly—name of Doyle, it turned out—was mud all but for a few stray curls. Nobody had escaped the mud, except for Cowley. Macklin and Towser had disappeared.
Cowley started up again. “Gentlemen, I’m disappointed. None of you passed that test, not a single one.” He looked them over as if seeing into them. He seemed to see right through Bodie to his angry core, even with Bodie’s blank face on.
Cowley continued down the line. “Now, up next, you’re abseiling and then you can go home and to bed. Be here first thing tomorrow at five.”
He walked away. Bodie watched, letting his jaw tighten and loosen just slightly, one tiny release of tension. He hurt quite badly, and then to be told he’d failed— Well, he would pass the rest of their stupid tests, see if he didn’t. And when he’d passed with the highest scores of any agent, ever, then he’d tell Cowley what he could do with his precious CI-5.
The ragdoll collapsed again during abseiling and Bodie didn’t really expect him to get back up. He watched with mild interest when Doyle did.
At last the day was over and Bodie drove home—getting his car filthy, of course, as he hadn’t thought to bring any cloths to cover the seat, nor a change of clothes, more fool he. He grabbed some newspapers and laid them down, but they only did so much against thick mud.
On his way out of the parking lot, he saw the mud-covered motorcyclist Doyle streak past, raising one casual finger as he cut into traffic, cutting off Bodie.
Bodie’s mouth tightened and he gunned his engine, sending his car leaping forward to put a right fright into the man.
It didn’t work. The zippy bike simply swooped in and out of traffic, into smaller spots than Bodie’s car could fit, leaving him far behind.
#
A shower, a drink, a huge meal and a good long sleep left Bodie feel refreshed and philosophical. Yesterday was wearing off; he could feel his competitive instincts roused, replacing most of his anger about Macklin, Towser, and Cowley. Bodie wouldn’t be giving up, nor letting his temper get the best of him.
He dressed, regarding himself and his tough demeanour in the mirror, psyching himself up for the worst Cowley could offer. He remembered to bring fresh clothes and rags to cover his seat in case it was needed.
And he got there early. Cowley thought he could psych them out with a tough schedule? Well, not this soldier.
He still hadn’t found out what the golly was, but Doyle probably wasn’t military. He didn’t stand at attention very well, for one thing—more like a slouch. And there was that hair. Doyle was fast, a real sprinter, but so dreadfully thin, never would’ve held up to army training.
Then again he did seem to be a tad indestructible....
Bodie reached the parking lot at twelve minutes to five—only to find a certain familiar biker pulling in as well. With an evil grin, Bodie gunned his engine and once again, cut off Doyle from the parking space he was heading for.
This time, Doyle had to brake roughly and turn aside, almost falling off his bike to avoid a collision.
“You—maniac!” choked the curly-haired man, tearing off his helmet and flinging it to the ground. He dropped his bike sideways, strode forward and yanked Bodie’s car door open.
Bodie was appalled to see green fire in those eyes, like a madman’s eyes, temper flaming and dangerous, instant and all-consuming.
He’d pissed off a madman.
One hand grabbed his shirt to haul him out. Bodie covered it in his own, grabbed the man’s arm and yanked down to slam his head against the top of the car. With a slippery move Bodie couldn’t quite see, but that felt like some sort of karate, Doyle slipped his grip and jerked free. A heel-palm met Bodie’s head and it rang.
Bodie jerked back and raised a foot, kicking. He caught the man mid-attack, right in the chest and Doyle staggered back, the whole way to the ground, sitting down hard. Bodie surged from the car and prepared for counter attack, but nothing happened.
The man on the ground leaned forward, gasping in loud breaths. Ah. Knocked the wind out of him. With satisfaction, Bodie locked his car and sauntered into the building. Still a few minutes early.
#
When he caught sight of Doyle later, the man acted (same as Bodie) as if nothing had happened. That fierce explosion of violence between them might as well have happened in a different lifetime. Doyle looked fierce and pissed off, but the raging fire, the almost inhuman fury, had gone out of his eyes.
They finished this day’s trials at first and second place, again. Bodie was first (of course), but the wiry Doyle was constantly almost catching up to him. It made Bodie push himself even harder than the tests pushed him, to stay ahead.
Several of the wannabe CI-5 agents had disappeared overnight. Probably let that maniac Macklin and Towser, scare them off—and Cowley. Well, more of Bodie’s opponents gone. Now if only golly-head would join them.
Once again, Doyle on his motorcycle managed to cut Bodie off out of the parking lot on the way home that evening, but this time, Bodie didn’t bother to give chase. The ragdoll wasn’t worth it.
#
Three days of Cowley’s worst. More men dropped out. Then the training changed. They weren’t to go home. Not even to pack fresh clothes. They’d stay here, in a barracks, to be wakened at any hour, sent out on ‘missions’ with little information or backup and few clues, their weapons varying from nothing but fists against paint guns—to paint guns against bigger paint guns and paint bombs. And always with Macklin eager to dole out blows to anyone he caught off guard and assure them that they were “dead.”
At first they were deployed as a group—all on the same job, wakened from the few hours of dreamless, exhausted sleep they’d fallen into. Filthy men, with barely a chance to shower, to eat—sometimes one or the other, not both. There wasn’t time for rivalries. Wasn’t even time to think, really.
Bodie recognised, dully, the tactic of breaking men, like army training. Only, somehow, they were supposed to maintain their ability to think throughout it all. And if you didn’t—if the bomb went off in your face, or you lost your head against gunmen—then more than likely, the next day you wouldn’t be there.
The group grew smaller, but tenaciously, Doyle stayed at second place, ever right behind Bodie in speed, skill and overall rankings.
Bodie caught glimpses of Doyle here and there, with a giant bruise on his sullen face, or a look of defiance, his voice raised at what he felt was a ridiculous order, actually shouting back to Cowley. The man had guts, at least, no denying that. Fools and madmen—he wasn’t kicked out for it. Bodie glimpsed another flare of his temper when Doyle punched a wall and walked away, his hand dangling at his side, dripping blood.
The rumours passed around: he was a Copper and his old partner had died because of his negligence. He was at CI-5 seeking redemption, or death, he didn’t much care which.
Much as rumours fascinated him, Bodie knew not to believe more than half of what he heard—if that. He happened to overhear some of what they were saying about him, too. He had to put on his blank face for a while afterwards. Not that he cared what some bloody losers thought of him, what horrible things they thought he’d done. But who would really think Cowley would consider hiring a hit man?
#
Then the time came when they were teamed. It was hardly fair, Bodie thought, for Cowley to team him and Doyle. They didn’t get on. Simply because they were the top two, consistently—
No, he knew. That was part of the test: the fact that they didn’t get on.
He hadn’t yet seen Doyle’s murderous look aimed at him a second time. Doyle seemed to hold no grudges, no wish for revenge, his anger gone as quickly and mysteriously as it appeared. You could tell, because everything showed in that expressive face. There was a lot of pain, bitterness and a lack of trust for anyone or anything—but the anger came and went. There was no calculation, no grudge-holding, no seeking revenge.
Bodie was quite willing to let it drop as well, though he certainly wouldn’t trust this man as far as he could throw him. Not nearly that far! The very impersonality of the anger, the short fuse that you could never predict what would set off, was somehow more unnerving than if Doyle had set out to be his personal enemy. The rag doll’s occasional distrust and disgust were unpleasant, but the knowledge that he could blow his top any second made Bodie’s back crawl when the two of them went out on patrol together.
(No telling what would attack today—a herd of machine-gun toting gerbils? At this point, Bodie wouldn’t put anything past Cowley, he really wouldn’t.)
Doyle was surprisingly silent, not making a noise as he followed Bodie’s footsteps in the woods.
Bodie wished the bloody man would trip, or at least step on some leaves so he’d make a sound, so he didn’t move so like a ghost. Doyle couldn’t be a woodsman, as well as everything else he was good at; he must simply be copying Bodie.
Or else he was so light, he just couldn’t make a sound. Like a little cloud of nothing but hair left, floating along. The thought made Bodie smirk.
“What are you laughing at?” growled the tense voice behind him. Bodie turned, astonished.
“You read minds now, Copper?”
He’d taken to calling the man Copper, a mild euphemism from him, as he never had liked the boys in blue. Didn’t trust any of them: either bent or little Hitlers. Or maybe it was just the trouble he’d got into when he was a lad. At any rate, Doyle hadn’t corrected him, so Bodie assumed that part of the rumour was true, at least.
“You duck your head a little when you laugh.” Doyle stopped walking, as Bodie had, too. For the first time, Bodie saw the stark lines of that face, how thin Doyle had got in the face, bone-white and halfway-dead looking. A weariness greater than the outward had this man of fire and ice in its grip.
“So share the joke, then, soldier-boy,” Doyle said. “Could use a laugh, couldn’t I?” He leaned against a tree. His continual slouching irritated Bodie. Though perhaps he was just too tired to stand straight and grabbing any excuse for a moment’s rest.
“All right,” said Bodie. “I was thinking there’s nothing to you, you’re like a cloud—a little ‘pouf’ of hair and hot air.” He smirked.
And then he wished he hadn’t said it, because the man just absorbed it, like another body blow he was too tired to flinch from—if he even cared anymore.
“You’re a bit suicidal, aren’t you?” asked Bodie.
The words just slipped out.
Doyle snorted. “No. Are you? I don’t give up. Ever.” He straightened and brushed past Bodie, this time taking the lead.
At least Bodie had the satisfaction of hearing his steps crunch now. Golly really didn’t know how to make a trail, anymore than he knew how to pace himself.
#
As time passed, Bodie’s instinct turned to conviction that Doyle was going to kill himself. He seemed to have no self preservation. He’d doggedly do whatever he was told, no light in his eyes anymore. He didn’t flare up as often and when he did, it seemed hopeless, like a tiger snarling against a stick poked through his cage. His anger only wore him out further and somehow Bodie was starting to hate the sight of Doyle’s fruitless anger and the way he was wearing down.
When Bodie saw a recruit named Smythe trying to wind Doyle up and sharing jabs and jokes about Doyle with his friend (how did you make friends on a course like this, anyway?), Bodie felt his jaw tightening and loosening a few fractions of an inch, warning bells telling him that he was angry, that he had better control it. He did, and fortunately, Doyle just turned to the wall and ignored Smythe and the laughter.
Later on, Bodie “tripped” Smythe in the hall, supposedly an accident, but he made sure Smythe knew why. “Copper’s my business,” he said, a low snarl in the ear as he grabbed an iron grip on the man’s upper arm, squeezing hard and ‘helped’ him up.
Yanked onto his feet, Smythe stared at Bodie for one freaked out moment before trying to bluster. But Bodie ignored him and moved past. They’d think twice. It was bloody tiring seeing the golly go off like a rocket. Maybe things would calm down now.
#
Bodie no longer thought of the course being over now, because he knew it never would. They’d always belong to Cowley, to be broken and reformed and shaped and moulded into men who would do whatever he asked, bleeding skeletons, but somehow, impossibly, alive.
The one-on-one fights with Macklin were...instructive. Better than fighting with Towser, because somehow Bodie let Towser scare him every time and lost sooner than he should have.
Bodie wasn’t scared of Macklin, just careful and pissed off. He learned something every time, lasted a little longer every bout, though he came away feeling broken as an old chair.
It was also instructive watching the rag doll fight. He’d fight warily, protecting his core, hanging back and waiting for an opening, moving smoothly but almost mechanically—unless you pissed him off. Then it was that flurry of those karate moves, a violent storm erupting that even Macklin seemed hard pressed to overcome.
Then one day, Bodie and Doyle were finally matched for a fight. He’d been looking forward to it, looking for openings he could use, eager to test himself against Doyle.
He was also a bit concerned that Doyle might explode like he had in the parking lot. If he did, Bodie thought he could still handle it. But he wasn’t absolutely certain. He’d been lucky, knocking the wind out of Doyle. He might not fare so well next time.
Doyle was certainly becoming one of the most interesting things about the training. The man was an enigma wrapped in danger. And Bodie was quite ready to test himself against that danger again, even if he never figured out the enigma part.
The match started off well. Bodie got in a couple of good hits before the fire started, snapping green in those large, dangerous eyes. Doyle began to bob and weave at a frenetic pace, as though anger made him faster. He had a fierce, wild fighting style—a mix of the precision and control of karate and the explosive danger of a street fighter. And yet he hadn’t lost control.
Bodie accepted the blows that got past his barriers and kept delivering his own—when he could land them, slippery golly! He began to get into the zone, absorbing his opponent’s moves, feeling everything else slip away in the supreme concentration and focus of fighting.
Doyle’s moves were quick and dangerous, but Bodie figured he could take a few blows if it let him get past Doyle’s guard. But that guard was quite difficult to get past!
Sweat rolled down Bodie’s face, slicked his clothes. Still they fought on. He had no concept of how long; time had slipped away.
The golly’s hair bobbed this way and that. He was so fast! He’d be a great boxer, never letting anyone hit him.
Doyle was tiring; Bodie could see that. But Doyle was too stubborn to slow down more than a fraction.
Bodie had the feeling that one good body blow would flatten Doyle at this point, if it had enough power behind it. The rag doll’s face was tight and white. His punches and kicks didn’t have as much power behind them now. They were still landing with frequency, though, and Bodie couldn’t still get in a good hit.
They had an audience by this point. Now Macklin stepped in as well. He told Doyle to stop and put a hand on his shoulder. Doyle whirled, ready to take on Macklin and the whole wide world at once, even as exhausted as he was. Bloody hell the man had spirit!
“I said, that’s enough. It’s a tie. Back off, Doyle,” ordered Macklin. And Doyle stopped, though his hands were still clenched, his stance still ready and wary, his chest heaving. He looked as though he barely knew where he was, but was still ready to keep fighting.
Bodie halted as well and let his hands fall to his side. He realised he was grinning, he was happy, it had been such fun. He hadn’t won, though he would have; Doyle was wearing down faster than Bodie. Ah, but what a nice, long fight that had been.
Doyle turned and rather mechanically thrust a hand out at Bodie. Bodie gave it a quick shake and slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re not bad for a string bean!”
Scowling, Doyle knocked the hand away. “Who are you calling—”
“Oh, relax, it’s a compliment.” Bodie strode away, grinning, still buoyant, feeling energised by the fight. He wanted a nice drink and a hot shower and then another round.
#
Macklin had stopped their bout, but he kept up his own rounds with Doyle in the following days, pushing Doyle a little further each time. If he could piss Doyle off, it was usually over quickly—but not without Macklin taking a few hits first. Macklin seemed as fascinated by that as anything and kept doing it.
And it was harder to warn Macklin off harassing Doyle, wasn’t it? Bodie had nothing against hard fights, but it seemed wrong to try to get Doyle to lose his dangerous temper every time. Doyle obviously worked hard to keep from blowing his stack, so why keep pushing?
Bodie wanted to just tell Macklin to fight fair. But of course, that wasn’t in Macklin’s nature. He wanted to keep you on the hop all the time, keep guessing and he didn’t care what methods he used.
Macklin kept pushing harder and harder to get that rage to the surface. Doyle seemed so tired, getting closer to a skeleton every day—and more and more closed off. He was getting harder for Macklin to provoke.
So Macklin finally pushed that button. It wasn’t enough to take jabs at his size—it had been, at first; apparently Golly was sensitive to the fact that many people considered him a lightweight. Then his scarred face and chipped tooth, how like a street thug that made him look and his clothing, how it didn’t fit....
Each time it had made Bodie’s jaw tighten and loosen in that distinctive way that told him his anger was building. He had plenty of his own criticisms about the golly, but it was wrong to pick on a—a dying man like that. Because something about Doyle was definitely on the downward spiral. He was pushing himself to the brink and Bodie was quite certain he meant to go over it. Whatever it was and wherever it led.
And now—
“Is that how hard you fought to protect your partner?” asked Macklin, with a sneer in his voice. “No wonder he died.”
Doyle went nuts. One second it was a general spar, with the other students standing around getting pointers, or going to it with Towser, or training or trying to grab a few moments rest, preparing for their bouts. The next moment, the wildfire man was loose, that green-eyed berserker, screaming and having at Macklin.
Bodie had no doubt at all that Doyle would’ve killed Macklin in a second if he’d been able to. Instead his rage, leaving him unfocused, allowed Macklin to pin him, shaking, up against the wall.
Blood ran down Macklin’s face. No one yet had achieved that.
Hard as Doyle was shaking, he hadn’t stopped fighting and it seemed to take Macklin’s full force—and he was a lot bigger—to restrain Doyle.
“You see, that’s what happens when you let someone provoke you. I use your anger against you.”
A stream of cursing came out of Doyle’s mouth. His voice had gone all high and cold and cracked, didn’t even sound like him anymore.
“It’s a weakness,” said Macklin firmly and made a sudden move that Bodie couldn’t quite catch.
Doyle howled in pain.
Bodie wasn’t conscious of moving. Till he was behind Macklin and ready to take him apart with his bare hands. Protectiveness for the golly, or rage at injustice? He didn’t know and it didn’t matter now, because Macklin had released Doyle. Bodie stopped in his tracks. Doyle was on his knees, holding his arm at a funny angle.
“Huh. I seem to have dislocated it,” said Macklin in a surprised-sounding yet dispassionate voice. “That’s all right, soon hurt, soonest mended. Towser—” He turned and saw Bodie. “Ah, you. Hold him still, I’ll—soon set it right.” White showed at the top of his forehead, above the tan line. Even Macklin could be shaken.
Bodie still wanted to punch him in the jaw, but Doyle’s distress was too palpable and immediate. Dislocated shoulders were no fun at all. The golly was getting ripped apart by this place and he shouldn’t be here, but all Bodie could do right now was hold him still so the hurting could be stopped. By Macklin, the man who’d created it.
Bodie knelt and caught Doyle in a death grip. He’d need it. Doyle’s heart beat under his alarmingly palpable ribs, like a frantic sparrow trapped in a cage.
“Hold still golly,” he said, and was surprised to hear the uncertain level of his own voice.
Macklin got a good hold—
Doyle’s scream rent the air, almost covering the sound of his shoulder popping back into place.
Doyle slumped forward, still trembling but now silent, moving his shoulder freely. He gulped great breaths of air and Bodie released him quickly, feeling as if it had been a violation of something wild and hurt, to get that close, to restrain Doyle—even for his own good.
Doyle stayed gulping on the floor like a broken thing. Then he stumbled to his feet and started for Macklin again.
“No you don’t.” Bodie caught his arm and swung him towards the exit. “You’re leaving, mate and that’s all there is to it. Enough of this—torture.” He spat the word and looked back at Towser, who had stopped sparring and Macklin in disgust.
“You can bloody keep your bloody CI-5 because he’s going. Try and stop it.”
He shoved the Copper ahead of him. Doyle tried again to head back for Macklin, but Bodie was remorseless. Still woozy from the pain, or else realising it was for the best Doyle went, allowing himself to be steered.
As soon as they were outside, Bodie said, “You’re not staying here another second. Go back to your job, go anywhere but here. They’ll bloody tear you apart, mate and you’re half dead already.”
“Not my keeper,” rasped Doyle, his voice hoarse. Wobbly legs tried to head back to Macklin. “I’ve got to bash his head in, see?”
“I know, mate, but not today. You come back when you’re feeling better. Maybe a year or two.” He successfully corralled the escape attempt and marched Doyle towards Cowley’s HQ, a grip on his arm none too light.
The trembling in those tight, dangerous muscles had almost completely disappeared when they reached HQ. For a foggy, vague second, Bodie wondered what he was doing. You didn’t—Bodie didn’t, anyway—interfere like this. Something had snapped in him, as wild and crazy as Doyle’s sudden bursts of anger. He’d just known he couldn’t let another person beat the life out of this man. Even if Doyle wanted them to.
#
“Do NOT let him out of your sight,” said Bodie sternly, glaring at the man guarding Cowley’s room. “Doyle, sit there and don’t move.” He shoved the now-unresisting man into a hard-back chair, shoved his way past the guard and knocked on Cowley’s door.
“Who is it?” asked an irascible, distracted voice.
“Bodie, sir. It’s about Doyle. It’s important.” He couldn’t keep the respectfulness out of his voice, even angry as he was.
“Come in and shut the door,” burred Cowley. He looked up irritably and then something in Bodie’s face seemed to catch his attention, because he looked almost pleased. He put down his papers and gave Bodie a smile. “Something important, I see?”
“It’s Doyle, sir. You’ve broken him and you have to send him away before you kill him. Preferably somewhere with a good psychiatrist because I think he’d walk off the first bridge he saw in this state.”
“I see. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Bodie took a deep breath. Feeling very much as though he was tattling to Father—both the guilt of telling and the relief of getting something off his chest—he began. “Macklin said something awful about Doyle’s dead partner, sir and then dislocated Doyle’s shoulder. He put it back and I brought Doyle here. It’s not on. He can’t go on this way, sir. You’ve got to send him somewhere they can help him.”
“Ah,” said Cowley, with immense satisfaction. The old man’s eyes seemed to be alight and alive—triumphant, as if he was thinking “Aha! I’ve got you!” and perhaps even, “You’ve passed my biggest test.” Only that wasn’t possible, was it? Not possible in the least, especially as Bodie was ready to quit over this.
Cowley said, “I can’t fix Doyle. The most I can do is try to turn him into a weapon that cuts outward instead of inward—one that I can use and that won’t destroy itself.”
Bodie kept his face arrogantly impassive, though he felt confused as a child facing long division for the first time.
Cowley smiled. “Would it be better if I passed Doyle through, made him a CI-5 agent and he had that gaping raw wound that could be so easily turned against him?”
Bodie struggled to make sense of it. “No, of course not, sir, but he’s not— That was dirty. Macklin fights dirty. You shouldn’t use him against someone like Doyle. Just discharge the Copper instead of half killing him. I want to beat him, but not like this, not when you have to let Macklin half kill him first.”
Another smile came and went on Cowley’s secretive, stern face. “Macklin has his reasons for being ‘dirty.’ And everything you learn from him you won’t have to learn the hard way, with real casualties the cost. You and Doyle could both learn a lot from Macklin. And you will, if you stay on. I’ll not release Doyle unless he wishes to go. I’ve too great a need for men who can do the jobs I’m asking of you both and I won’t give up one of my strongest resources because you don’t happen to think he’s strong enough. I believe he is.”
Bodie realised with a faint surprise that Cowley sounded as though he was saying they were both in—if they wanted to be.
“I’m starting to believe even you might be,” said Cowley.
Bodie blinked. But hadn’t he just said...?
Cowley turned back to his papers. “It was you against the world when you first arrived here, Bodie and now you’re willing to risk your spot here to protect another person.” The disconcerting gaze was back on him, seeing to his backbone, straight through him. “I’ve need of weapons, Bodie and you’re one of the finest made. But a selfish weapon is no use to me. I’ll be calling on you every day, to fight and possibly die for civilians who will never know your name or appreciate your sacrifice. There’s no room for glory or ego in that. And if there is even one person you would fight to protect, then there might be hope for you in CI-5 yet.”
Bodie felt uncomfortable. When had this become about him? And just what did those papers and tests say about him? That he was a loner? Cold and arrogant and careless of whoever he had to step over? That he cared for nothing and no one?
Well, he’d wanted to join CI-5, hadn’t he? That organisation of danger and intrigue and goodness—of a sort. That meant he wanted to do something good for a change, didn’t it?
Or had he just wanted the next challenge? He realised that the old man hadn’t known, couldn’t know until he revealed himself somehow. And that, in a special sense, Bodie hadn’t known for certain either.
It was a raw feeling, to see this about himself, to realise that he’d been on trial more than anyone and in a different way. And that he’d been on trial with himself, too. The Doyle thing—trying to intervene—had been right, somehow, a test he hadn’t passed for many years and now suddenly and unexpectedly, had.
Instead of saying anything about this, he said, “You’ll want to see him, sir. It’s no good, I’m afraid.”
Cowley raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it? By all means, show him in.”
Bodie strode for the door, glad of escape. It was like staring down a lion or a dragon, talking to Cowley in his lair.
“Doyle, you’re up.”
Doyle was bowed forward in his seat, staring unseeingly. A pluck at the sleeve and he looked at Bodie, as if seeing him for the first time.
“Old man’s ready to see you,”
Doyle rose. He still looked drained—something more than drained—but less like a dead man and more like a runner pushing through his last layer of exhaustion, his last reserves of energy and, somehow, going on.
He went in like a sleepwalker, light on his feet even now. Bodie was almost afraid of him, this otherworldly man who’d proved something about Bodie, without even trying.
“Not you, Bodie,” said Cowley. “Shut the door.”
So Bodie shut the door. Then he sat in the chair, scraped it around, moved it till the guard looked annoyed and shot him a look. He grinned at the guard, leaned insouciantly back and—now in the best spot—listened....
“I couldn’t save him, sir.” Doyle’s quavery voice sounded half broken, like a teenage boy’s, vulnerable and hopeless, even through walls.
“No, Doyle, you couldn’t. But will your dying as well accomplish anything? Or do you owe it to him—and to yourself—to stay alive and help as many people as you can? Your unique skills and determination—and the fact that you care about people—is something we need, desperately. Not just in the police force, though you can still do some good in the world if you decide to go back there. But here, you can help protect not just a patch of land, but all of England. From bombers, maniacs, drug runners. Everything that destroys every innocent who dies because no one is there to protect them. Doyle, you can walk away now, or stay and know you are a part of that.”
“I’d like to stay, sir. I would. I just can’t—forget.”
“You don’t have to forget, lad.” Cowley’s voice was lower now, harder to hear. (Bodie held his breath, listening hard.) “You don’t have to forget. In time, it will ease. It will stop plaguing your every thought. You’ll be able to laugh again—and you haven’t, have you, not in years?”
Compassion, gentleness: Bodie never thought he’d hear such things from Cowley.
“I could’ve—I should’ve done more,” said Doyle.
“Yes, we all should have done more. There are times in every man’s life, when he looks back and says, ‘If only I’d known.’ But you don’t, no one does, and you have to accept that bad things happen and you’ll never stop them all. Stop the ones you can, with CI-5, and I promise you, your life will not be lived in vain. Even if it feels like it now, you will one day look back and say, ‘I’m glad I decided to live, glad I made a difference.’”
A long silence. “I don’t think I’ll ever say that, sir. I don’t think I ever have or will.”
“Och, that’s the darkness talking, lad. You’ll find your way past it. Now, you’ve to see the doctor. He’ll check you over. I can’t quite like the look of you. When that’s through, you can talk to the psych doctor and if he passes you, you can sign your papers. I’ll have you talk to him regularly, mind, till you’re feeling better. There’s no shame in that. Oh—and Doyle?”
“Yes?” said the Copper, sounding bewildered—as though he were trying to take it all in.
“Have you any objection to Bodie?”
“Bodie?” he sounded surprised. “No, he’s all right. Why?”
“I thought I might team the two of you. I think you’ll balance each other.”
A very long silence.
Bodie realised he was holding his breath again and let it out slowly. He didn’t need the golly for a partner. Weight around his neck, more like. Bodie’s hands had tightened on the chair; he released them.
“I—I can’t have a—another partner,” said Doyle in a strangled voice, like a choking, drowning man.
“Och, not a partner, exactly. Just a temporary team.” Cowley could sound so reassuring, when he chose. “Someone to work with for the time being. It’s especially important to have someone to watch your back and to look after his, when you’re first out of training. You catch each other’s mistakes.”
“But only temporarily?”
He’d certainly latched onto that part. Well, it was quite enough for Bodie, as well. He didn’t want to be permanently saddled with—anyone, really.
“Yes, Doyle. Temporarily. I have teams, but I also have agents who work alone. You’ve no need to worry—I won’t make you stay in a team you’d rather not. Only for the beginning.”
“I guess that’s all right, sir.”
Bodie thumped the front feet of his chair down on the ground and realised he was grinning, he was going to join CI-5, and that it was a good day after all.
End "Broken Reeds"
====
Title: Broken Reeds (First Impressions, #1)
Author: Allie
Slash or Gen: Gen
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: If you wish, of course....
Author's Name for Archiving (if different to above): same
Disclaimer: These aren’t my characters. Except Smythe; I guess he’s mine, though who would want him? I didn’t intentionally copy anyone’s work. I did read some excellent meeting fics recently, though, and was surely inspired to do duel POV fics by reading both LRH Balzar's Bisto Kids series, and Jacien’s recent “Touched Silver” and “White Marble.”
Notes: This is a series. The second story is from Doyle’s POV, with many of the same incidents as this story. The third story is shorter and tells some of what happens next. In the fourth, we have Cowley’s POV as he watches the men settling into CI5 and interacts with them and watches their partnership grow. I don’t know how quickly I’ll get them all finished, beta’d, and edited, but I have the rough draft of the next two, and am in the midst of working on the last one. I’m hoping to at least get Doyle’s POV posted in time, for those interested to read. The others might end up on the safehouse if they take longer.
Read the second one (Doyle's POV) here: http://discoveredinalj.livejournal.com/207802.html
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