//------------------------------// // Chapter XLVI: Gathering Together // Story: The Conversion Bureau: Setting Things Right // by kildeez //------------------------------// It seemed ridiculous, going to Tae-Bo when the world was supposed to be ending, but Lisa knew that keeping your chin up in a crisis situation could depend on something as mundane as a routine. She just felt lucky to have found a Tae-Bo instructor in the city that felt too “zen” to let something as “simple as the destruction of his physical form on a single plane of existence” keep him from his duty (his words, not hers, of course). This was something the Service had taught her: routine wasn’t just a distraction, but it gave one an outlet, a way to clear the mind even in the worst of situations. Still, that didn’t make the rest of the class any less empty, or the studio any less dusty from lack of cleaning staff. She sighed as she pulled her bag filled with street clothes out of her locker, rapidly suppressing the memory of the shower stalls. You’d think at least one guy would stick around to get the scum off the shower drains...she usually showered at home, but tonight she’d had to do it here, simply had to. London’s streets weren’t much better than the floors of her Tae-Bo studios. Where there wasn’t someone covered in piss, deep in a days-long bender, there were discarded condoms, liquor bottles, and whatever else the few still-working garbage men hadn’t gotten from the overflowing trash bins. London had never been a particularly clean city in Lisa’s experience, but now you could tell: the people were giving up any pretense of keeping appearances. When she opened the door to her building, a naked man ran gibbering out, down the sidewalk and around the corner, screaming something about his pants in eternal flames. Lisa sighed. Shit like that had become all too common, mostly from the people who figured: “Well, the world’s ending, why not run naked down the sidewalk?” Then of course there were the people who decided to try crystal meth for what would be the first and possibly last time without any idea of where to get it from or how to handle the high, not taking into account mountains of really bad stuff hitting the streets with the rest of the world having the same idea and demand going sky-high. She stepped through the grimy lobby and walked up the stairs under flickering lights. Couldn’t trust the lifts these days, God no. Still, when she reached her floor, her thighs straining, she couldn’t help but let out another long breath. “Please, oh God, please…” she whispered, stepping out onto her floor. Her heart leapt into her throat with nervousness. If she was wrong...if things weren’t as well as she hoped… She turned a corner, heard voices from her flat, and heaved a sigh of relief, hurrying to close the last of the distance and rush in through the unlocked door. “You came!” She gasped with relief. Akshat, who was adding the finishing touches to a basic tikka masala sauce on her oven, looked up at her in surprise. “You...didn’t think we would?” He asked with a smile carving through his thick beard, his spoon smacking at Chen’s hand as it moved to add a dash of onion. “Actually, we didn’t come yet, but give us a few minutes and your bedroom and we can fix that!” Andre shouted from her living room, a loud smack informing her Francis was here too. She didn’t care about decorum, she just instantly slumped across the kitchen floor, half-stumbling until she could wrap Chen into a deep bear hug, her bag still lying forgotten in the foyer. Chen, for his part, returned the hug, taking a sip from his beer behind her back as he did. “What else was there to do? Might as well see things through with friends.” He informed her with a smile, then a frown. “Though it was odd to find the place empty and unlocked…” She giggled, pulling away. “Sorry, Tae-Bo. I was so nervous I couldn’t just sit here and wait for you all.” “So you left your apartment unlocked?” Akshat gasped, looking up from his pan. “Nobody’s breaking into flats anymore, not when the stores are all open-season.” She giggled, wiping at her eyes. “Besides, I’m pretty sure any man who tried would find he’d made the biggest mistake of his life.” “Right,” Chen chuckled, then noticed her looking around and sighed. “We are still missing two.” Her smile deflated. “Ah.” “Felipe didn’t respond to my text, and David…” his eyes softened. “I...found him in a pub downtown. He looks like he just crawled into a bottle after leaving the ship and hasn’t crawled out since. He’s special to me too, Lisa, but we can’t wait on him.” “Well, cheer up then!” Andre insisted, having appeared from the living room and trying to smile despite the immediate drag the mood in the room had taken. “All that means is we need to save the world twice as hard so he has time to make himself better, right?” “Speaking of…” Francis poked his head in. “You still haven’t actually gone into detail about how we are supposed to do that, fraulein. It seems silly to expect that from a group of people who are only avoiding a messy court martial by virtue of the rest of the world being in flames.” “Well, to put it simply, it’s based on one fact,” Lisa looked around the small room, tensing. This was it. This would be where she found out if she had a team or a lonely suicide mission. “That our salvation is currently in UN custody.” To her surprise, the group only shared a round of nods. “We all know that,” Akshat said. “Hell, most of the world knows it. Unfortunately, the only one who doesn’t seem to know it is the UN.” “They’re shit-scared.” Chen scoffed. “After Tokyo, the world is watching everything going on with the Illustrious for even the smallest sign of incompetence. That, and they don’t wanna lose their one bargaining chip with Equestria...” “Is that what you brought us here for?” Now Akshat turned back to his cooking with a scoff. “Because even if there is a way to stop the apocalypse, one can hardly expect five former soldiers to do anything against an aircraft carrier.” “Seven,” Lisa crossed her arms stubbornly. “There will be seven former operators here.” “Not my point.” At that, Lisa smiled. “You didn’t ask what else we could expect.” There was another knock. Lisa perked, turning to open the door, and heaving a sigh of relief as Felipe stepped through. Akshat’s and Chen’s eyes widened. The Brazilian shrugged at them both. “What?” “Nothing, just…” Akshat smiled. “Glad to have you back, my friend.” “I’m just here because I was curious to see what insanity Lisa dreamed up to get us all killed.” He shrugged, heading for the living room in his shoes. “Whatever she’s got must be better than waiting for the meteor.” Nods circled the room, and a few minutes passed where Akshat could cook in silence. Finally, he sighed. “And then there was one…” “He’ll be here.” “He didn’t even bother going home after they dropped us in London. He was too determined to dive into a bottle,” Akshat turned fully to meet her gaze. “The man you knew is drowning in a lake of whiskey, Lisa.” “He’ll be here,” she insisted, but even she held an unsure look as she gazed at the door. After some time, Chen sighed and brewed her a cup of coffee, which she accepted gladly. She was still sipping at it when another knock sounded at the door. Lisa was up in an instant, racing across the kitchen floor, socks sliding on the tile like a kid expecting a package seeing the mailman walk by. She twisted the knob, the door opening slowly, so slowly, revealing… An empty hallway. “Ahem.” Her eyes slid down, and when Akshat, peering past her legs, saw who was waiting, he nearly dropped his curry, Chen having to rush to right the pan as it clattered from his hand. Lisa, for her part, allowed a moment of disappointment on her face before it lit up again. “King Shining Armor,” she said, stepping aside to allow the stallion to trot past. “So glad you could make it.” “Oh, don’t worry, it took some finagling but I was able to free a spot within my schedule.” He shrugged, trotting to the kitchen table under the shocked gazes of everyone inside, his heavily-accented voice sounding like a baritone in the kitchenette. “King…” Akshat gasped, Chen now just standing aside with the pan still suspended just over the burner. “Please, it’s just Shining now,” he shrugged, placing a briefcase on the table. A small chain ran from it to a cuff on his hoof. “Seems silly to consider titles during the apocalypse, if you ask me.” After a few more moments of staring, Shining cleared his throat. “So...Miss Townshend…” he said, turning to the owner of the apartment. “While I appreciate seeing your home, I do have to ask when we should start...going over things.” “In a moment,” she insisted. “We’re waiting for one more.” His eye searched over the room, frowning, his mouth about to open to ask the obvious, but a quick look at the frantic gestures from Akshat to ‘zip it’ as it were told him perhaps a bit of patience was called for. “Sure...though if your friend is much later, I would have to ask if we could perhaps get started without him and just fill them in when they arrive.” After a long moment, she let out a despondent sigh. “I suppose that’s not unreasonable...” Around then, Chen stood away from the counter and handed the pan off to Akshat. “You know what? I need some fresh air,” he sighed, stepping for the door. “Okay...do hurry back!” Lisa insisted, to which Chen just raised a hand as he slipped on his shoes and walked out in the hallway. It made it all the more a surprise when he turned to the stairwell, wondering where he could go that could at least give him a few extra minutes’ break from the apartment, and saw David’s face pressed to the glass in the door. “David…” Chen breathed. Somehow, a few nights had done little to help the American since Chen last saw him. If anything, it was obvious he’d only gotten worse: the bags under his eyes that much deeper, the stubble coating his chin and neck that much thicker, and Chen just knew the scent of whiskey would be clinging to him. On top of that, Chen could see the coat that had been used as an ashtray, a burn mark here and a sweat stain there telling him it had been even longer since Dave had even thought about laundry. The pair stood there, David’s long, empty gaze meeting Chen’s, not staring him down, not making eye contact, but looking right through him. How this was the same man who had survived with Akshat during the attempted kidnapping here in London, and later slipped right into the belly of the beast in Tokyo with his head held high and little more than a gigantic set of balls to protect himself, would later confound and terrify Chen. These weren’t the eyes of that man. Somehow, David had been transformed into someone who knew he had a few decades on the street ahead of him, and didn’t care if those decades were cut short. After staring at each other way too long, Chen finally reached for the doorknob, allowing the door to open and for the scent of a dozen stale downtown pubs to waft in. “Thanks…” Dave rasped. “Door must be jammed.” “Yeah...rest of us got in just fine…” Chen breathed, still trying to reconcile the image of his former coworker with the wreck of a man standing before him. “Eh...guess I shouldn’t’ve been late,” Dave shrugged. “There uh...booze in there?” After a moment of thought, Chen nodded slowly. “We found some whiskey in a cupboard.” “Whiskey girl, eh?” A wry smile crossed David’s face. “I always knew there was something I liked about her. But on a fundamental level, y’know? Not just the smokin’ bod and the fact that she can kill a man from a mile away.” After a moment, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a lone cigarette, the ending all bunched up and the tip burnt off already, and it occurred to Chen that it might have been plucked off the sidewalk right outside. My God, he’s gone full classic American hobo, hasn’t he? Just wúyèyóumín, straight through and through. For an instant, he fully expected Dave to turn to him and ask if he had a light like some stereotype in a Western action movie, but thankfully after patting himself down David managed to produce a cheap Bic lighter, from which he managed to produce a sputtering little flame. “David…” Chen started. “You look--” and then immediately cut himself off. Fucking shit, why did he go with that!? What was he supposed to say!? “I know,” David chuckled. “I doubt Ralph Lauren’ll be returning my calls anytime soon.” He held up his hand, showing off the cheap metal claw he’d apparently chosen to replace it. “And here I thought I had a real chance at being a hand model for ‘em. Or wait, is that even a thing Ralph Lauren does?” Chen averted his gaze. “S-sorry…” “Don’t be. I know what I’ve done to myself.” Dave shrugged, took a drag off the cigarette. “Whole party’s inside?” “Yeah...Lisa too,” Chen whispered, let out a breath. “David, I…” “Chen, don’t.” David held up a hand. “Jesus Christ, spare me the niceties, alright? Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Don’t tell me you wish things’d been different. You know as well as I do that shit doesn’t help anyway.” They finally approached the door, David just pausing short of the frame. Chen stopped with him, slowly looking the other man up and down, at the worn-out look in his eyes, the dirty, stained clothes he wore. He snorted out a laugh. “I mean, there are worse ways to die than surrounded by friends,” he said with a shrug. “Yeah,” Dave sighed, still staring vacantly into the peephole. “You could slit your wrists in a bathtub in a Holiday Inn Express.” Chen snorted out another quick laugh, forcing it out. Dave didn’t join him, just kept staring ahead with that same expression. Trailing off, something dawned on Chen. “You’re speaking from experience, aren’t you?” David said nothing, just kept staring ahead, and in doing so told Chen everything he needed to know. It hit Chen just how warm it was outside: far too warm for the heavy jacket and gloves Dave had on. Almost as if he were hiding a few things. Slowly, the wide-eyed, dawning surprise transformed itself. Chen’s eyes blazed as his teeth grit. In a single motion, his hand whipped out and grabbed David’s filthy, stretched-out shirt collar, not quite hoisting him up, but certainly making him a little lighter on his feet. “You son of a bitch,” he hissed. “You don’t give a shit about anything in there at all, do you!? You’re only here because you figured out you didn’t have the balls to pull the trigger yourself! Hoping a UN goon will get the job done when you can’t!?” The hollow look in David’s eyes was all the response Chen needed. “You fucker…” Chen hissed. “If this is just one drawn-out suicide, couldn’t you have the decency to do it where we can’t see!? Or what about Lisa!? Does it bother you at all someone who actually gives a shit about you might wind up seeing you die!?” In his ranting, Chen hadn’t noticed the shaking in David’s remaining hand as it clenched into a fist, or the look that came over his eyes. Not until it was too late. He raised a hand to Chen’s shoulder, and suddenly, bucked forward. Surprise came over Chen again, and for a second his training flew out the window as David wrapped himself around him. He tensed for a blow. Only it never came. Just soft, quiet sobs as David’s shoulders rose and fell with long, shivering breaths, his hands wrapping around the other man as desperate tears soaked his shirt. Chen stood there for just a second, then his grip finally released David’s shirt, his arms coming around to return the hug as he was clung to like a piece of driftwood next to a drowning man. “David…” he whispered, his eyes drifting shut as the soft buzzing of the flickering fluorescents drowned out the sobs.