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There was a face, reflected on the glass window of the underground train. Every single
part of that face that wasn't brightly illuminated was completely black, giving way to the darkness of the tunnel. It made
up for a really mangy face, half of a reassuring old man, with the other half, casting its complicated edge over the image,
was pitch black and inscrutable. It was his own face. Well, not really. It was Keystone's. He got off the tube, went hrough
the glass and metal passages, and stepped out into the street. The New Waterfront had been one of the most ambitious projects
of Maud Terrence's administration. It was all mirrors and steel tubes, and brushed metal dripping with the rain. Keystone
bought a newspaper from the lady out of the station and started on a path he knew by heart. The only moment he stopped was
to give way to a group of children leaving the playground of a primary school. Only then did he take the time to throw an
eye around, always indirectly. There were seven adults in sight. One, reflected on the window on the other side of the street,
was the schoolteacher. Two of the others he knew Jenkins and Downd. Good chaps. Jenkins had took up smoking again, he noted.
They were in an unremarkable grey car, and Keystone could see their images in the rear view mirror. Of the four that remained,
one was on a bicycle and had already left, two of the others were lovebirds he observed through the mirror of his own wristwatch
and even well-trained agents impersonating a couple weren't that
engrossed in their groping and kissing and the last one
Hmm. The last one.
The group of children left. Keystone resumed his walking, and rapidly attained a largely unnoticed
door that opened for him. Inside a small room, he identified himself with the state-of-the-art computer. Everything was state-of-the-art
here. The retinal scan, in particular, was always somewhat scary. He could see his own eye being filmed, and then the frame
froze, and he saw his eye still and unmoved like that of a great animal, very alien to what he thought of himself like. He
didn't like seeing such a part of himself so rigid, so hieratic, so unable to react to the constantly changing world out there.
It always gave him the elusive feeling that natural selection was coming to get him. When the automatic door let him through,
he finally entered a world that hadn't changed for years. His own
office. Oh, it had moved, sure, to here from Kirkwall
Street, and from the Ministry of Defence before that, and from a lot of other places before, but it had always remained the
same. The scent of his own pipe tobacco. The golden lampshades. The red velvet on the walls, and the glossy photograph of
Caroline and the kids on his desk. All that was essential was still there.
A voice spoke from his desk.
- Sir?
Your appointment is here.
- Let him in, Mrs. Quid. Oh, and take note, for the local
surveillance service: there is
a dealer on Wilburn Lane. Have him removed.
- Yes, sir.
Keystone sat in his leather armchair, preparing for the
first meeting of a long and difficult day, as was every day in this office.
*****
It had all begun with what
was now called the Incident. Back then, he wasn't Keystone yet. He was Special Agent Seymour Philips, Royal Aerial Army Lieutenant,
War Cross, B.C.C., A.P. He was already the most prestigious agent of the newly born Security Bureau, Avalon's first attempt
at an organized secret service. He was a legend to other operatives worldwide, the dashing agent with always a witty remark
to make in dire situations, a habit of seducing his enemies' mistresses and his own special cocktail recipe that bartenders
all over Theah were starting to know. He moved through the smokes and mirrors, the half-guesses and the half-hunches that
were the world of international espionage right after the war, and always kept his head
by going through every little
detail that could separate the reflection from the real-life model.
When he had been assigned to tracking a murderer
nicknamed "The Ghost" by the Bureau, he'd known from the start that this would be very different. It just felt that way. Seymour
was a very analytical man, and harbouring such a gut feeling troubled him. So he had started by analyzing all he could about
the mission. The victims were high-profile officials from every country, highly protected and very difficult to reach. The
murders were quite disconnected, except for one fact: no escape routes for the murderers were ever present. The killings always
took place in very secluded and guarded areas, as if they wanted to prove nothing stopped them. "They", because the first
thing that Seymour realized is that there had to be at least three murderers. Finally, he identified them. Always standing
in the background of photographs or videos, a few days before the killing. They were very meticulous about their reconnaissance
missions. Just as Seymour was.
He managed to locate their base just in time. Even the tightly controlled press of the
height of the Staredown between the UWP and Ussura could not be controlled for long when the hounds smelled the blood. He
infiltrated the camp, a remote place in the Molhyna region, more than a little afraid. His opponents had numbers for them,
they were at least as highly trained as him, possibly more competent and certainly out to have his blood.
What he found
was much worse than all that.
*****
Mrs. Quid sent John McBride in and Keystone raised from his chair to
greet him.
-Seymour! It's been ages! You know, when you called, I really felt old. Our days at Bedegrane are so far
away! Now what can I do for you?
Keystone took a moment. He had a world of difficulties putting the young McBride's
promising, intense, purposeful face on that sad and tired excuse for a smile. Then he said, in the most polite and respectful
voice:
-Resign.
There was another silence.
-Excuse me?
-You heard me quite well, John. I want you
to resign. To resign from the Royal Industry Commission, from the Nobility Council, and most importantly from your job as
CEO of Highland Petrols. From now on, you are to live only from your acquired funds, which I know are more than sufficient
to keep you living the way you are.
MacBride got up angrily and leaned on Keystone's desk while shouting:
-This
is outrageous! I will not be treated this way by someone I
Keystone's voice got icily cold as he answered.
-You
will be treated the way I damn please, John. Just how long did you think you could keep your links with the Highland Liberation
Front hidden from us?
McBride abruptly sat back in his chair.
-I'll tell you how long: about one second and
a half. We always knew, John. We preferred to let you act because we thought we could keep you on a leash, and we could keep
an eye on the HLF through you. But this has gone too far. This morning, at 6:50 AM, a commando broke in the offices of the
Kirkwall Royal Police, claiming to fight for the freedom of the Marches. They killed two superintendents and at least
six
agents before they were shot. A journalist was there to interview Commander O'Reilly on his methods for fighting terrorism.
McBride
was suddenly very white. For an instant, just a quarter of a second, Keystone thought he saw in front of him the face of a
dead policeman, taken by his memory from the photographs he had seen. In a feeble attempt to raise his voice, McBride said:
-The
Prime Minister will hear about this, Philips. He will hear, and
-Just who do you think asked me to talk to you, John? I've
got Avenger teams all over your possessions right now, reviewing exactly how much you were connected to the Front. This is
going to be on the front page of every single newspaper in the country by tomorrow, from the respectable ones to the bloody
tabloids. How long do you think they will take before they get to you? We are giving you one chance, and one chance only,
to get out of this mess with a fresh face. Resign, hand us your demission right now and you can retire, see Melanie and William
finish their scholarships, and move in a highland cottage with Laurie. We'll talk to the press, say you're not a high-profile
target anymore, give them a few bloody tidbits to chew on. If you don't sign this paper, John, I can assure you the only way
you get out of this building is handcuffed and in a police car.
McBride took a pen out of his pocket and started reading
the document produced by Keystone.
*****
The Ghosts were not ordinary murderers. They were sorcerers. Up until
then, Seymour very analytically disbelieved the existence of sorcery. But he was analytical, not stupid. What he saw was a
training camp for shape-changing assassins. He saw people shed their skins in a bloody metamorphosis, only to re-emerge as
dark, malevolent and dangerous beasts. He saw them train in combat and infiltration, and escape flying on leather wings or
slithering on dark scales.
There were, in the camp, three senior agents, thirteen trainees, one communications officer
and a young girl who soon revealed herself to Seymour as Sergeant Tatiana Gassilieva, agent of the Seventeenth Office, which
would soon become the OWL. Gassilieva had heard of Pyeryem in her youth, but it was an imperialist propaganda designed to
reinforce the power of the oppressing higher classes, and
furthermore, it was the blessing of the holy Matushka, who would
never give her benediction to such ugly transformations. The fact that Matushka was also an imperialist propaganda designed
to reinforce the power of the oppressing higher classes did not seem to bother her.
It's at that point in the conversation
that they had been discovered.
The battle had been an horror, a very horror visited upon them by Legion itself. It
lasted all night, in which they were tracked down several times, managed to kill their pursuers, sabotaged the camp, and feared
for their life every second. When the sun rose again, finally, the last of the murderers had been eliminated. Seymour had
been wounded at the right elbow he would never again be as fast as
before, and this was likely to be his last mission
in the field. Tatiana was dead.
*****
Sometimes, in moments like this one, he tasted again the taste of
blood and ashes that the burning camp had filled him with. During today, he had stripped an old friend of all he had, ordered
a secret assault on a base in Kardobia that might harbour terrorists, announced to a mother that her hostage son's ransom
would not be paid, and arranged a sect leader to be assassinated. He had gone right through the mirrors, faced the harsh light
of reality in the eye, like an eagle stares into the sun, without any of the comforting shades of lies everyone lived with,
and he had shaped those shades. But he himself was no eagle, and while he left through the back door again, he really wondered
what on Earth could possibly bring him to his office again the next morning.
He was still thinking about this when
he felt a slight bump on his leg, and he heard a tiny little voice say "Ow!".
The tiny little voice belonged to a tiny
little girl in a tiny little raincoat, waiting outside the school playground. The rain on the playground played tricks with
the light, rearranging constantly in strange patterns.
-You should watch out, mister! You could hurt someone!
-Oh,
you're right. I should watch out, and make sure you won't get hurt again. All right?
-Oh, it's all right. My mum'll be
here soon, and I'm safe here.
Keystone looked up. Not a dealer in sight. Of course.
He looked back at the little
girl. Of course.
Of course.
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