The Twilight War: Ali

The Twilight War: Ali - After Shock

(22-november-99)
"Ron? Ron? Are you there? Damnit Ron, pick up the damn phone.....It's Ali. Give me a call."

Alison slammed down the phone and dropped her face into her hands. She was sitting at a desk covered with file folders and post-it notes. The desk was indicative of the rest of the Office. Gear was haphazardly piled in corners. Great mounds of other people's ration packs and bulletproof vests were sprinkled with discarded soda cans and crumpled coffee cups. The half walls of the cubes now had drying towels thrown over them with the occasional white shirt. It was an absolute mess. Alison was a very neat person; she hated the mess.

When she had entered her cube and looked at the desk she now shared with two other Agents, she could not see the surface at all. It was covered with manila folders and scribbled, half written reports. She had picked up the files that Agents Riley and Johnson had left and she had slammed them down, moving them to the side and making a satisfying bang with each displaced pile of paper. Agents Riley and Johnson were both the half trained cadets that she had been five years ago, called into full action before they were ready. C.A. Johnson had fed the trainees a week of sleepteaching and grouped them into a unit. He had them out doing raids with the synthetics, leaving the more experienced agents free to do the detective work that took judgment.

Once the desk was clear enough to sit at, Ali turned on the computer terminal. When she sat down to use it, crumbs glared up at her from the keyboard and the screen was covered with fingerprints. Her fists had clenched - it was nearly too much - but after a slow count to ten, they had relaxed.

She had called Ron on a whim. A fellow Curie alum, her year, and more importantly, a fellow Agent in the Enforcer division of the New World Order, she had thought she could talk things out with him. He was based in San Fransisco where things were a bit saner than Boston these days, but not a lot. He didn't answer his cell phone. That could mean anything, of course. Most probably it meant that he was on a case, in the field. Whatever. Maybe he'd call back.

She lifted her face from her hands and searched out a piece of paper. She wrote a note, in large block letters, and left it sitting on the middle of the desk.

I WILL BE GONE UNTIL 11/14.
I RANK BOTH OF YOU. THIS
CUBE HAD BETTER BE CLEAN.
-JONES
A bustle of agents passed by her cube, dragging a beat up man in a lab coat towards the interrogation rooms. Not all the acquisitions had gone so badly as hers had. The hall with the interrogation rooms was bustling with action. There probably wouldn't be enough chairs to go around.

Alison stood, flattening her wrinkled black suit with her hands as best as she could, and cast a wistful look down the interrogation hall. Interrogation was not her specialty but she would have liked to have had a crack at Karen. She would have liked to know when the lies began. Ali's fingers tightened into fists again and she headed out, pausing only long enough to sign herself out on the white board. She took the elevator to the basement and spent the next several hours on the firing range.

At ten, Ron had still not called back - he was probably on a stake out. Ali's hand and shoulder was numb from the pounding she'd given it. Wearily, she put her toys away. The range was silent. Everyone else was probably collapsed somewhere asleep, or up having fun with the collection of traitorous Progenitors they had rounded up. She kicked at a spent casing and sighed, heading for the door.

She didn't know where to go; she didn't want to be with the other MiB and she certainly couldn't go home. Those who she would have once called friends in other Conventions, she couldn't imagine trusting right now. And all her civvie friends would ask about Karen and she didn't have the strength to lie about that. She could wander the streets - she had the ID to be out after curfew - or she could break into one of the abandoned offices in the building and crash here.

In the end, she chose the last option. There was a law office on the third floor that had had marginal ties with the Order before the fires. So far as she knew, the lawyer had been killed in either the fires or the riots. Now, it was just an office with a spare couch.

Sleep was not easy to come by. She tried calling Ron again, but there was no answer. She paced most of the night to a litany of "Damn you, Smith, for doing that to me. I failed your fuckin' test. Happy? DAMN YOU..."

The phone rang in the small hours before dawn. She was standing by the window, looking out at the bleak remains of the city. Large areas were just dark. No fires, tonight, at least. No riots. She jumped when the phone rang and then fumbled with it, her fingers thick and tired. "Jones."

"Is this Agent ... umm ... Alison Jones?" The voice was unfamiliar and male. It sounded like he was checking notes.

"Yeah." she said as she collapsed on the couch. Psych ops. Great. "Whaddya want?" Get on with it, she thought. Tell me where to show up and I'll do it. I'm not going to fight you.

"This is Johnson. Ron Howard's C.A.. You left him a bunch of voice mail?"

Ali's hand clenched around the phone. Of all the...the surveillance grated at her. She did it to others, all the time, but she hated being reminded that she got the same treatment. "Yes." she answered stiffly. "What do you want, sir?"

"I'm sorry to have to tell you like this but Agent Howard was killed in the line of duty two days ago."

Ali stared across the room, duly. "Oh."

"We are short manned and I guess the local deviants figured that out. They struck us hard. I'm sorry Agent Jones. You can read the report..."

"That's okay."

"He was a fine agent."

"Yes....yes he was."

"Good night, Agent Jones. Sorry for waking you." Ali said nothing, and then the line went dead.

Four hours disappeared and found her sitting in the same position when her phone rang again. She stared at it, dumbly, trying to figure out why it was making that noise. After a minute she got it working.

"Jones."

"It's Ryan."

Ali closed her eyes and sighed, leaning back. "What is it, Mr. Kelley?"

"Leigh called. They are ready to release her from the hospital. Can you come pick me up?"

It would get her out of the building. They were deviants, but they believed in protection and service as she did. They were not sane by any clinical definition, but sanity was getting to be a disadvantage in this insane world.

"I'll be there in half an hour, Mr. Kelley."

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Last update 14-dec-99