Yesterday's Hero by Jonathan Wood

Author:Jonathan Wood
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Titan

43

It’s difficult, I find, to fully hold in my mind something enormous. Even something like an elephant. Ears, trunk, tail—I have to break them down into small manageable parts.

Time itself, unstuck in time. That’s enormous. I can’t… I give it one more try. No, I can’t quite grasp that.

“Bits of the world.” Aiko shakes her head as if trying to clear it. “Bits of everything. Some moving forward in time. Some just in stasis. Some slipping back. It wouldn’t… You couldn’t live in a place like that. It would be the end of everything.”

A phrase of Clyde’s slips into my mind. “Standard end-of-the-world scenario.”

There’s silence at the table. Around us the pub patrons carry on drinking, and laughing, and talking about lives, and loves, and all the petty bullshit that we seem to fit in between the important moments. And it seems briefly wondrous because it suddenly seems so fragile, so close to not being.

“I don’t want to be a total downer,” Jasmine breaks the silence, “but, like, a lot of your stories seem to involve the Russians kicking your arse.”

I shake my head. She’s right. “We can’t take them alone,” I say. I know the enormity of what I’m going to ask them. “We need more people. We need MI37. I need you to help me prove to them that this is real.” And I have to remember that this was my plan all along. This shouldn’t seem so daunting. Nothing has changed. Except the stakes.

“And why,” Malcolm rumbles like the warning of an earthquake to come, “would they listen to us?”

“Evidence,” I say, earnest as a preacher man. “Undeniable evidence.”

Malcolm isn’t done. “And why,” he says, “would we want to work with them?”

“Because,” Jasmine answers before I can, “they’re totally awesome.”

Malcolm does not appear convinced. But instead of answering him, I look at Aiko, the tie-breaker.

“What are you thinking, Agent Arthur?” she asks me. This time I think less of a Cheshire cat and more of a sphinx.

“We need them,” I say. “You saw what just two Russians did at the British Museum. And there are so many more.”

“And what,” she asks, “makes you think that MI37 will want to work with us?”

And that’s the million-dollar question, in the end. “If you’re the ones that go to them with the evidence,” I start, “undeniable evidence—”

“They’ll cut us out.” Aiko finishes for me.

“I won’t let them.” I’m defiant.

She smiles, a little sad, a little sweet. “If you had that much pull, you wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

And she’s right, of course. I massage my temples. Suddenly it feels just like being back at MI37. “So,” I say, “we let the Russians win because of pissing matches?”

Aiko lets out an exhalation of amusement. “No.” She shakes her head. “We’ll fight with you, Agent Arthur. But if you’re planning to lead on this one, I’d rather you had your eyes wide open.”

And, God, I could kiss her.

Except… well, I totally have a girlfriend. Just a figure of speech. Nothing else.

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