33
INTERNMENT
LANDON’S HEAD SPINS and throbs. He finds himself in a hotel room of the budget kind, with steel-framed beds and tiled flooring. Beyond the window he hears the vehicular traffic of a small street. The sunlight is white. It feels like lunchtime. In the background, to a light instrumental accompaniment, a songstress sings:
When Landon finally feels up to it he rolls onto his side and closes his eyes until the vertigo eases. He opens them to the sight of Hannah seated on a chair, her tilted head pressing forlornly against a wall. The music flows from a touchpad on the table. Beside it an omnicron gleams in the daylight.
“I love that song,” Hannah says, looking at a spot at the ceiling. Her smile is wan, and Landon thinks he sees the remnant of tears in her eyes. “It’s a nice lyrical dream.”
He throws his leg over the edge of a bed, shakes off the somnolence and hangs his head between his shoulders. An information card on a nightstand reads: Come Inn! A haven for all streetwise backpackers and budget travellers! Free wi-fi!
The moment is surreal. Not all his memories have returned, but enough to thread some sense across the disparate fragments. The object of his quest now sits before him, flexing her feet and tucking strands of hair behind an ear. He finds himself remembering every detail of that gentle face, every line, every contour. They affirm recognition and kindle a radiant warmth in his chest. At last he musters sufficient confidence to speak.
“So what do I call you now? Clara? Hannah? Or another name I don’t know about?”
His tone is mordant, but Hannah does not appear to have taken offence. She goes on looking at the ceiling, now aloof and distant. “Whichever one you want.”
Assailed by her effrontery Landon almost succumbs to a fit of rage. If not for his spinning head he would’ve stomped up to her. “Don’t get all sassy on me. I’m beginning to remember all that I ought to.”
It does not impress her. She blinks and swallows a nub of emotion in her throat. “Pansy died last night,” she says.
“Your pet?”
“A little girl with HIV.” Her voice, hard and indicting, stills the air in the room. “An orphan who’s lived out the first half of her life in an institution and the other in a hospice. I loved her as a daughter.”
He would’ve liked to believe her. But he opts for caution, staying silent.
At last she lowers her gaze and looks at him. “How’s your head?”
Landon presses on his temples. “Still swimming.”
“It’ll go away,” she says. “Nice seeing you again, Arthur.”
There she is, after five decades or more, youthful as ever. The reality of it settles, calcifying in his head, almost inuring it to the fascination of it all. For an instant it feels as though she had left him just yesterday, and the intensity of it renders him speechless. It’s easy to forget that she might well be out to murder him.
“What are you doing here?” he manages, with only a slight stutter.
Hannah moves over to the bed and Landon leaps to his feet in a feeble attempt to get away. Straining against a spinning head he staggers over to the table and collapses into a chair. She takes her place at the edge of the bed and tilts her head and regards him with something that could be discerned as fondness. “Keeping you hidden.”
“Don’t lie to me, Hannah. My bodyguard’s filled me in quite a bit.”
“Still so sweetly naïve,” she says, her eyes squinting in a smile. “You don’t realise there’s no such thing as a bodyguard.”
Landon doesn’t reply. He crosses his arms snugly over his chest, as if to warm himself from a bitter cold.
“He didn’t tell you about Internment?” she asks him.
“No.”
“Well, here you are.” She lifts her palms and brings them back between her knees. “When all possible information has been fished out of a Chronie the investigation concludes and the Tracker keeps him under full surveillance while he awaits the order—all done under the pretext of round-the-clock scrutiny, which explains the gizmos in your house.”
Spot on. Landon grits his jaw. John is a darn fraud.
“Your friend is a Tracker, just as I am,” she adds after a thoughtful pause. “When he receives the order you’ll be on your way to a safe place where they calm you like a heifer and milk you of the Serum before the slaughter.”
A wince puckers Landon’s face. “Milk? Me?”
“That’s the way it’s done on his Side.” Hannah’s gaze hardens. “And that where we differ—they milk the Serum and destroy the host but we destroy both Serum and host. Who knows what would happen if it falls into the wrong hands?”
The intrigue wears away and mortification takes hold. Landon holds his head. If it has to be he’d want it quick and painless. “Might as well do me now,” he said.
“There’s a slim chance the order won’t come. I’m hoping against hope for that because I really don’t want to kill you.”
“What have you done to my life, Hannah?”
“I’ve been hiding it,” she says. “After Amal died I made sure no one found you. I hooked you up with the operatives after you killed Khun, had you exiled to London and masked your signature so you wouldn’t be tracked. I had to make sure you stayed clear of the system.”
“And why would you do that?”
“Because I think you’re a good man.”
The response forces a sardonic laugh out of Landon. “It’s been an entire century so don’t tell me we got nothing going between us.”
Hannah’s head lists. “You’d feel better if I said it was because of love?”
Landon glowers. He so badly craves for the courage to confront her and shake her up because he is sick of her shrewd little remarks that always leave him no room for retort.
“Between the both of us, it’s official,” she adds soberly. “You messed up that surrogate-stunt at the hospital and someone assigned you to me.”
“To stalk and then kill?”
She looks down at her feet. “I’ll work something out.”
“How?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Cheok and John…” Landon says haltingly. “They’re dead?”
Hannah rises from the bed. “It’s complicated.” “Where’re you going?”
She opens the door and steps outside. “Don’t go exploring.” She lifts a sententious finger. “You never know who else might drop in.”
The order arrives just before nightfall. It comes through the omnicron in code while Landon is sleeping away the vertigo. It is past 11pm when he wakes, having at last been completely purged of the effects of the powerful tranquiliser.
Hannah fetches him a hot cup of tea. She is smiling, and his spirits lift.
“Does that mean I’m off the hook?” he asks. “At least from your side of the picture?”
“No,” she says. “Directive four-eighty-seven means they are thinking of reviewing you. We’ll rendezvous with an Agent who will assess your case. I could exert some influence.”
“When?”
“I’ve sent in our coordinates. They’ll have an Agent contact us soon.”
Landon puts his tea on the nightstand. “I’m hungry.”
The remark amuses Hannah and makes her feel motherly all of a sudden. “There’s a supermarket across the street. We might even finish the dinner we never had.”