“What the hell is this place?” I asked, spinning around slowly to take in all the books, shelves, and other odds and ends in the room we entered upon leaving the elevator. I had never seen anything like it before in my life; and I had to admit, I found my curiosity piqued. I was torn between continuing to follow Reese in order to meet his boss, and snatching a book to plop down and read right then and there.
John turned slightly from his position in front of me, continuing to walk down the hallway lined with bookshelves as he spoke,
“It’s sort of like headquarters for us. Everything we do is managed here; and the beauty of it is, no one else sees this building as anything more than an abandoned relic.”
“So what is it that you do, exactly?” I asked him, stopping abruptly as I allowed my focus to be distracted by a huge volume on the shelf to my right entitled “Stress Fractures in Titanium.” I lifted it down from the shelf, hefting its weight in my right arm once or twice as I returned my gaze to John.
“Has anyone ever told you that curiosity killed the cat?” he asked, fighting back a laugh as he rolled his eyes and gestured for me to continue following him.
Reluctantly, I returned the book to its place on the shelf, following him as instructed; and grumbling internally to myself about how I had, in all likelihood, never met a more frustratingly evasive person in my entire life. As we finally reached our destination at the end of the long hallway, however; I was forced to abandon my internal complaints, instead stopping short to take in the shocking sight before me, and nearly walking into John’s back in the process.
If I thought I had seen hi-tech gadgets while in Snow’s company, that was nothing compared to the numerous computer monitors and other gizmos sitting on a desk in the center of the room I was now standing in. I moved around John in a daze, walking slowly up to the desk and the technological oasis it contained; fighting with all I had not to reach out and graze a hand against the shiny monitors to assure myself that it was real, and not just a figment of my overactive imagination.
I had never been much good with computers myself, having had an unfortunate knack for persuading a computer to crash just by going on Google. But that didn’t mean that they, and those who could actually use them, didn’t fascinate me. As I continued to walk slowly around the desk to stand directly facing the screens, I lost the battle to keep my hands to myself; reaching out to carefully touch the center screen. Before my fingers made contact, however, the sound of a clearing throat caused me to yank my hand back as I looked up to see where the noise had come from.
Looking over at John to see if had been him; I found an expression that was halfway between laughter and uncertainty on his face as he looked not at me, but at a spot on the wall to my left. Turning to see what had him so enthralled; I jumped back as I realized that he was not looking at the wall, but rather at the man who had appeared in the room from a door at the other side.
He was a smaller man, about the same height as me; with mousy brown hair and black-rimmed glasses that reminded me of some of the nerds in my high school algebra class. Unlike those “nerds”, however, he was dressed to the nines; with a three pieced suit that almost put Reese’s outfit to shame. But it wasn’t the physical appearance of this new acquaintance that had me quickly retracing my steps back to John’s side as though I was a toddler running behind the other parent when they had just been caught going at the cookie jar. It was the look that he was fixing me with; a look that held so much distrust and horror that I was almost convinced I had committed an atrocious crime right in front of him.
“Mr. Reese, what did I tell you about associating with people who tried to kill you?” the mysterious stranger said, limping (why did he do that, I wondered) over to the spot where I had just been standing and setting a steaming mug of something down on the desk before taking a seat himself.
As he sat down, he briefly fixed John with a scathing look before turning those eyes back towards me. I could literally feel the disapproval rolling off of him in waves; and I had to fight the urge to shrink back into the corner and curl up into a ball on the floor under that piercing gaze. Fortunately, my pride prevented such an undignified action; and I stepped forward just a hair in an attempt to address him and tell him the circumstances of my involvement in the “almost-murder” of his colleague. Before I could make an attempt at justifying my presence there, however, John stepped in.
“She was just as much a victim of Snow’s deception that night as Carter was, Finch” he said, his voice taking on a deadly, “no nonsense” tone as he leveled an intense gaze at the smaller man sitting in the chair. “I have no reason not to trust her; and neither do you, Harold.”
Once again, I found myself touched at just how far it appeared that John was willing to go to defend me when I had done nothing to deserve such a gift. It was as though he thought that my innocence to Snow’s true intentions was enough to absolve me of my involvement in such a scheme; no matter how much I, and apparently “Harold” wanted to disagree with him. I also found myself beginning to wonder exactly what he meant by Carter being a victim as well; but I supposed I could see the sense in her being just as deceived as I was. She had appeared uneasy during the entire encounter that night; and I could hazard a guess that it was because she, unlike me, could sense that something was slightly off about the entire affair.
I came back to reality as I heard Harold muttering something about John having allowed me to see a “Machine”, likely the computer set in front of us, I surmised; which apparently was supposed to have remained a secret from all but the two of them. He cast another disdainful look in my direction before returning to the hushed conversation between himself and John; and I stepped forward then, deciding that I had had enough of being argued over. Clearing my throat, I addressed the two men before me; saying
“Look, if it’s easier, I can just leave now. I hate to be the one causing a rift between whatever it is you two have going on here; and I have no intention of disclosing the location of this place or whatever it is you’re hiding in it.”
The man called Harold eyed me as though he would like nothing more than for my statement to become a reality; but it seemed that John had other ideas.
“She stays, Harold, and that’s that. I think she can be just as useful as Carter is; and you should know that Snow is after her as well. Why would he be hunting her if she was still working for him? Think about that before you waste too much time passing judgments, Finch” John said; an icy tone of determination in his voice as he addressed his “boss” on my behalf.
Seeing that Harold was, at least for now, ceasing his protestations over my existence inside their secret hideout, I turned to give John a small smile of thanks before returning back to my original position a bit further back from the desk; figuring that the best way to make an attempt at getting past Harold’s defenses was to keep my distance and let John do the talking for now. As the taller man moved to continue speaking, I resolved to do my best at making myself invisible so as to avoid reigniting the tension that had flared up between the two men before me.
“So what’s the next plan for Ms. Gutierrez?” John asked, changing topics and moving to sit partly on the desk next to Harold as the smaller man began typing away at his keyboard; occasionally taking the time to cast wary glances in my direction while John continued speaking:
“Those men that were after her last night will probably take another go at her; and I want to get ahead of them, if possible.”
Reese cast a brief but meaningful glance in my direction while he was speaking, and I bit back a jolt of shock as I realized that this “Ms. Gutierrez” that he mentioned was none other than the woman that I had encountered on the streets last night. As the two men continued their conversation about the young woman from the night prior, I began listening with a new interest as I attempted to sift through the numerous questions sparked by my discovery. Had he known that the woman was in trouble before the incidents of the previous evening had even occurred? Was that how he had arrived so quickly? If so, how had he known that she was in trouble? Did the “Machine” that Harold had so briefly mentioned have anything to do with it? And what reason did they have to suspect that this woman still required protection? I fought to tamp down my curiosity as I registered Harold speaking once again; and I inched forward just a bit to pay better attention to the conversation at hand.
“I’ve set up an appointment for you to meet with her; under the guise of suing your boss” he replied, and I thought I caught the faintest of smiles cross his face before he returned his focus to the screens in front of him. “You’re set to meet her in around an hour; so you’d better figure out something to do with your new friend while you’re working the case.”
I flinched as I heard that tone of disapproval directed at me once again; as though I was incapable of taking care of myself for a time while John was otherwise occupied. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t been given the impression that my presence was undesirable on other occasions; but to have someone who barely knew me despising me already…that cut deeper than I would have liked to admit.
Before I could waste too much time mulling over my wounded ego; John’s voice cut into my thoughts as he said:
“Actually, Harold, I was hoping she would be able to stay with you until I finished things up with Ms. Gutierrez. I’m not entirely comfortable having her roaming the city alone; as she seems quite capable of attracting trouble in ten seconds flat.” He cast a small smirk in my direction; and that was all that kept me from misinterpreting his statement to mean that he too found my presence troublesome.
“Though I’d love to hear your take on why I’ve all of a sudden become a wonderful choice for a babysitter Mr. Reese, I have an appointment that I absolutely cannot cancel” Harold replied with some amount of cold disdain; his eyebrows flying up, likely in shock at the thought of being saddled with me for an afternoon. I had to admit, given the man’s reaction to me; I was none too thrilled with John’s choice for my afternoon plans either, and I turned slightly to look at him before saying:
“Really, John, I can handle myself. I’ll just…go back to my hotel I was in before you met me last night. And I’ll actually stay put this time. I don’t want to be a bother to…” I cast a glance Harold’s way, unsure of what I was supposed to call him, “Mr. Finch; and he clearly has somewhere else to be, so...”
John reached up a hand, motioning for me to stop talking as he turned back to face his employer.
“Finch, you need to understand, I’m not doing this to pawn her off on you. If I had more time to explain what it is that we’re doing here, I’d just take her along with me. But I don’t want her out wandering the streets alone; not with Snow out there. So just do this…for me, Harold” he said, almost seeming like he was pleading with the smaller man to see the reason behind his decision.
A minute or two passed while John locked Harold with as intent a gaze as I had ever seen; before the mysterious little man nodded curtly, standing stiffly from his chair and flicking a switch on his “Machine” before hobbling around the desk to stand beside John and address me.
“You understand, Miss…” he trailed off, looking expectantly at me; awaiting my answer.
“Gerard” I supplied, in a voice that was a bit too shaky for my own liking.
“Right. You understand, Miss Gerard, that what we do here is of the utmost secrecy. Absolutely no one can ever know anything about what you learn here. To the rest of the world, you know nothing about us, about the Machine, about any of it. Do I make myself clear?”
I could only nod in agreement; wondering how someone who was very obviously…limited in terms of physical strength could have intimidated me so thoroughly without even making an overt threat. I gave John an apprehensive look as Harold limped past me, but upon seeing only a small smile that was likely meant to be reassuring; I turned from him to make my way back down the hallway behind his boss.
Walking behind Harold and pondering what on earth I had gotten myself into now; I stopped short when I heard John call my name.
“You may want to take this, just in case” he said, picking the gun from the back of his suit and walking towards me to hand it over. He fixed me with a level gaze as he continued speaking “You see Snow out there, you shoot like there’s no tomorrow, understood?”
Looking from the gun in my hand, to him, and then back to the gun; I stowed it safely in the back of my own jeans, taking care to cover the top of it with my sweater. I gave him one last nod of thanks; awed yet again at the lengths he was taking to protect me, before turning back and following Harold once again to wherever his “appointment” would take us.
As Harold and I moved out into the brilliant sunlight of a New York afternoon, I reached behind my back to the top of my jeans; once again ensuring that the gun was stowed securely within reach as we proceeded to walk down the street. Maintaining a careful watch over our surroundings, I made a promise to myself that, no matter what it was that this mysterious man with the limp was involved in, or how much he tried to evade my curiosity; I would find some way of gaining his trust, if nothing more than to try to figure out what lay behind that guarded outer wall he was so adept at erecting.
And if curiosity did end up killing the cat…well, I’d deal with that when I came to it.
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