GFP 039: Dinner Party

Spencer eyed the puffer fish in the waiting room aquarium. It swum nonchalantly without giving way to any sense of menace. Just a humble yellow creature with black spots. Innocent. Harmless, even, until threatened. And at that very moment, Spencer felt like the fish as he sat straight-backed and stiff on the chair just outside Mr. Doyle’s room, waiting for his interview. Outside the spare concrete room, beyond a door slightly ajar, the barracks hummed. Young privates rushed to-and-fro, some training and others playing handhelds, passing time. All ambitious teenagers, eager to make their mark. All of them single, untethered to commitments and spouses and kids. No loan payments. No aching backs and mending feet and burnt minds. Not yet, at any rate. Give them another two years or so, Spencer said to himself. I lasted twenty. An anomaly. He watched them with envy and sadness. Jealous of their hunger, but irrefutably tinged with pangs of pity for their naivety as well, as if watching men boasting of past glories inside trenches in the quiet moments before ordered to go up top and towards indiscriminate machine guns. The survivors would become heroes, the dead and injured forgotten and deserted in no man’s land. These were the risks of warren walkers, the rangers of the underdark who gave safe passage for a price. Spencer knew the risks and he was a survivor. He had survived and had been paid handsomely for it over the years. And yet, here he was again as if he were some 17-year-old young buck looking to get blooded. Thrilling for an adventure. But he wasn’t. He was old and tired and hated being here again. But he had no choice. The comfortable retirement had not lasted. His wife’s medical bills had piled up. He knew of no other work.

Mr. Doyle’s door swung open dramatically. Spencer pivoted quickly, to demonstrate his speed and alacrity. And when a young man with an impossible gleam of white pearls and bright red curls popped out at an angle, they locked eyes immediately.

“Phillip Spencer?” Doyle asked brightly, his uniform immaculate, his youth exuberant.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Of course you are!” Still smiling. “You’re a legend. Come in.”

Spencer got up briskly, agile, even after decades of escorting the well-to-do and the lawless through the underdark, fifty-six engagements with the enemy under his belt, 287 kills confirmed. A legend, indeed. A beat-up, washed-out legend. But a big, hulking 6’4 legend nonetheless. He towered over Doyle. They shook hands firmly and the shorter one, with unwavering smile and unblinking eyes said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you”, while the older one said gruffly, “Likewise.” Their hands clasped and pumped vigorously for a few minutes longer than civvies would. It was a contest, or simply a test. Doyle broke contact first. Spencer felt good about that.

Doyle led him into his small office. It was plain. A simple wooden desk with three plastic chairs, no windows. A recruiter’s desk, temporary and transient. Doyle here today, someone else tomorrow. My god, he’s so young, Spencer thought. He stifled a sneer and further coloured commentary. He saw his resume siting idly at the corner, crooked. That bothered him. It was small acts of carelessness like this that got you killed in the underdark. Not double-checking. Not following procedure. Not keeping everything square and neat. He didn’t trust Doyle at that moment. He would not go on a mission with him.

“Please, sit.”

Spencer sat. The plastic chair was hard and small and uncomfortable. An old tactic he’d used many times when he had sat on the other side of the table. It had no effect on him.

“So, Phillip Spencer,” he said as he swiped up his resume and hid his eyes behind it. “Twenty years in the field. Top agent. Previous experience with Koch & Chandler, five years with Black Falcon and final years with Abdul-Matin Forces.” He peeked out from behind the resume, twenty years of missions and accomplishments reduced to a paper wall between them. “A legend, as we’re both aware already. Honoured by presidents and world leaders. What can I do you for?”

Spencer estimated it would take him exactly 0.07 seconds to reach across the desk and slam this pretty-faced redhead into the desk like a lever, after which, stunned, he could knock his teeth out as well with two quick jabs to his shit-eating grin. “I need a job.”

“We’d be delighted to have you on board. I can’t imagine the experience you’d bring to our staff. You’d make a wonderful coach and mentor. We have a training deficit right now, too many agents and not enough old hands like you to —”

Spencer interrupted, “I’m not looking to teach.”

He knew Doyle knew this and yet he feigned surprise, taken aback. “Oh! Oh, I see.”

“Listen. Let’s cut the bullshit. You and I both know that warren walking’s a young man’s game. There’s an 80% casualty rate inside five years, and another 80% die off five years after that. And yet, I survived two decades of it. It’s unheard of. And I can do it again. I know all the nooks and crannies of the major routes and I can’t imagine the migration patterns to have changed much. I can still wrestle one of them to the ground with my bare hands if I have to.

“Am I older? Shit yah, I am. But does that mean I can’t handle myself? Hells no. You put me up against any one of your new guys out there, I can take them down. I’m still just as alert and can fire accurately within a 99.8% parameter while running. Give me a job, even a low key one, and a team. Hell, I’ll even do the first one on-the-house. You can keep my commission, or distribute it to my team members, I don’t care. I will deliver.”

Throughout the entire pitch, Doyle stared intently at him, face unmoved. A poker face. He was either listening intently or plotting a gentle way to refuse Spencer. But if that was the case, why did he even get an interview in the first place? A favor? An excuse to meet a hero? After he had finished, Doyle sat there silently, perhaps judging him, or dealing with the emotions of seeing a legend made human and desperate.

“It’s not that I don’t want to give you a job, Spencer. I admire your work. I’m in this business because of you. Everyone out there is here because of you. You single-handedly changed warren-walking. The tactics, strategies and procedures. Everyone’s read your book.”

“Then stop with the fake formalities. You called me here for a reason. And it’s not to train your kids.”

Doyle laid his resume flat on the desk and picked up a pen. He began to write in the margins, but without breaking eye contact. “There’s an elephant in the room. Can we address that?”

Spencer glanced quickly at the marks Doyle was making on his resume. He couldn’t make it out. But he caught on to the situation. “You mean the Prague run.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve read the after-action report.”

“Yes.”

“But you want me to tell you in my own words what the fuck happened when I showed up at the St. Vitus portal with both Princess Lissette’s legs broken and none of my men and none of hers?”

“That’s right, I do.”

Doyle was buying time, Spencer knew for sure now. He didn’t know why, but he played along. “As I had said in my report… I had expected the byway between Goddodin and St. Vitus during that time of year to be quiet. Demonic activity is usually low during the summer months in that sector. But that didn’t mean we went in underprepared. In fact, we had three combat sorcerers and a thaumaturge with us, our IFV was reinforced with Kelley’s protection circle with Lissette inside three of her men, three of mine, my core squad outside were experienced men I trusted.

“We made good time with zero threats. We had scouts in all four directions. Both radio and telepathy contact were up the entire time. Nothing. When we got to Ekeren point, we took a short break. That’s when they came. Fast. They somehow got around my flank scouts undetected. Six of them. Two Andras and four Ardads. My gunner spotted them first. He took out… [unfinished]