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“Sir, you are making a great mistake,” Ryland says, as he turns slightly to eye the man behind him. The man, who presses a gun between his shoulder blades.
“Hands where I can see them!” the man commands. Ryland takes his empty hand out of the pocket of his vanilla-colored hoodie and lifts the other, which is holding a plastic bag containing their takeaway dinner.
“Can I help you?” he asks lightly, looking around the stairwell. He should take this to a more private place. Not that he had heard much movement in the building in the last two days, but he doesn’t like to risk civilians. Also, he doesn’t want eye witnesses when things go south for his new friend.
“You will help me,” the man states, pressing the gun further. Ryland leans away a little. “You’ll let me into the flat like a good boy.”
“Okay,” he agrees, thinking he can’t be that lucky. “Just so you know, that’s a very bad idea,” he adds.
“Not with you as my hostage, pretty face.” Ah, Ryland should’ve approached the man with Colt’s style, then. Too bad he tried to be polite instead of flirting.
“Can I walk up the stairs now?”
“Slowly,” comes the order, so he starts to climb the stairs, slowly, the plastic bag dangling in his hand and the weight of the gun at his back reminding him of its presence. He keeps his shoulders tense and his neck thight, his empty hand trembling slightly. Ha has to fake the ragged breath too.
They climb to the second floor like this. In the corridor, Ryland takes a deep breath and says: “My keys are in my back pocket, can I–? Hey, at least invite me for dinner first, man!” he hisses, as the man grabs his keys and shoves them in his free hand.
“Shut up and open the door! No sudden moves, or I’ll put a hole in you despite them only want one of you dead.” Hah, the man is not the flirty type, either. He’s just an asshole.
Ryland opens the lock then the door. Under the gun he steps inside slowly and heads towards the living room with steady steps. A second later, the door closes behind them and the gun disappears as the man struggles in Court’s iron grip. Ryland turns towards them, but the gun drops onto the carpet with a muffled thud, and the man follows, making a bone-snapping sound, before Ryland can let down his hands. Well, Court’s style can’t be matched.
“You okay?” Court asks quietly.
“I bought dinner,” he answers.
“Is this your guy?”
“Positive.” Court nods, then he turns and locks the door. Ryland relaxes his muscles, then crouches down next to the man. He quickly searches through his clothes, but only finds a knife and a microphone. They look at each other suspiciously, why would someone put a microphone on the man and not pair it up it with an earpiece? Whoever is listening in already knows their man won’t be going back.
Interesting.
Or at least unusual.
“Should I make a bath for him?”
“How long does that take?”
“Four hours tops. Unless you want to use the bathroom first.” Ryland blinks up at Court rapidly, who nods again.
Neither of them touches the microphone yet.
“You okay?” Court asks again. Ryland looks up at him and frowns. Court looks back with that expression which means he would say his name like Ryland if they were alone.
“I just woke up with one of my moods,” he shrugs.
“We can leave,” Court offers quietly. “You know that, right?”
“And what would we do?” he asks, letting the confusion in his voice. What’s the plan here? “We can’t just act like we’re back in society like that.”
“We can figure it out,” Court promises. But Ryland shakes his head. He knows what could happen if they stopped watching behind their backs anymore. They’ll get caught one by one and imprisoned in three different countries, if they’re lucky.
“I don’t want to be alone again,” he whispers, genuinely upset. Court looks at him with his softest expression, reserved only for them. He doesn’t want to leave them either. So why is he talking such nonsense? Why does he want to make the listener think that they are considering of a way to get out? He’ll have to wait until he can ask him about it in private.
“I won’t let that happen.”
“Okay.” Ryland nods. “I’ll run the bath.”
He takes one last look at the man, calculating how much alkali he needs to mix into the water to finish the job in two hours. He will probably have to use all his resources. He sighs and pulls up his sleeves. He’ll probably have to get rid of the hoodie. It’s been only two days. He wants to get rid of his jeans, too. He hates handsy guys. He takes a deep breath, then frowns. There’s something in his back pocket where his keys used to be.
It’s a crumpled piece of paper with numbers on it. He takes his glasses out of his pocket and looks at the paper again. Not just numbers. Coordinates.
“We’ve got an invitation,” he announces to Court, who taking apart the man’s gun next to their dinner in the kitchen. He places the paper in front of his brother and heads toward the living room. He returns with his laptop and enters the coordinates into a map. “It’s not far from here. An unused military base.”
“The guy shouldn’t have been hostile just to deliver this,” says Court, thinking about the possibilities.
“So much for laying low,” Ryland murmurs. He leaves the laptop and puts Colt’s dinner in the fridge.
“We can go the opposite way,” Court suggest, and again, since when does he talk like this?
“Guys, what’s a dead man doing on our doorstep?”
“Go back to sleep, you have one more hour,” Ryland calls back.
“Yeah, not gonna happen.”
“If you’re already there, stop the water, please.” The water stops and Colt steps through the door.
“Seriously, guys, this is not one of the neighbours, right?”
“No,” is all Court adds before putting a finger to his lips. Colt nods, and shuffles away from the door as Court starts to go back to the landing.
“Food is in the fridge, the coffee machine is ready, take a look at this,” says Ryland, pointing at the laptop.
“You’re such a Care Bear in this hoodie,” Colt grins at him.
“Thanks, now I have to destroy it,” he answers, rolling his eyes. But he turns and pats Colt’s shoulder twice. “We’re leaving in four hours so wake up.”
“I’ve taken the bug out,” Court announces from the living room.
“I’ll take my food out of the fridge,” Colt adds from the kitchen.
“And I’ll take the dead body out,” Ryland answers with a sigh as he steps in the entry. He really would have loved nothing more than to spend his sleep time in a bed and not in the back seat of a car, but that wish was over when the man came closer than he had in the last two days and followed him into the stairwell.
Court helps him undress the body and leave it in the bathtub. Then cames the alkali, which means that only Ryland is allowed in the bathroom. After starting his timer on his watch, he leaves too.
“I don’t understand,” he ruminates, back in the kitchen. “He said he wanted to kill one of you, but not me.”
“Maybe you did look innocent,” Colt guesses between two bites.
“Nothing about this is innocent, and he watched us for two days. Then you came along with your talk of leaving,” says Ryland, looking at Court.
“What talk?”
“I only gave them something to chew on.” There’s no reason not to trust him, so Ryland leaves it at that. They have more pressing matters, anyway.
“Okay. Here’s the plan: Colt leaves through the roof, and goes to the car; Court leaves through the back door; you two rendezvous at the first meeting point; then I leave through the front door, and you pick me up at the second meeting point. We’ll stop at point three and leave the city. We have one hour and fifty-four minutes to eat and pack. Any questions?”
They could leave without a trace in three minutes, minus the body in the bathtub. But whoever is watching them, hasn’t dared to come close until now, and whoever sent the man either has to move a taskforce or just leave them to be.
“You two, take a nap, I’ll collect the trash and do a search,” Colt offers, taking the laptop. Ryland nods and goes into the bedroom, but instead of sleeping, he spends thirty minutes reading the news on his phone, trying to channel his thoughts. He’s not anxious, per se, this is probably just a job that someone thought they could do. But they usually don’t send a man to his death, and that’s bothering him.
He starts another timer on his watch and sleeps for exactly twenty minutes. The whole building is quiet when he wakes up, he can hear Court’s deep breathing on the other side of the bed, and the soft typing noise from the laptop keyboard. Colt is sitting next to the door in the living room, keeping watch while they rest. Ryland moves slightly towards the middle of the bed, his back gently touching Court’s, and he lets himself lie like this for two more minutes. It’s the safest thing he can get. One of them is on guard, and the other is in close proximity. He doesn’t care if he has to spend his life like this. He would fight to spend his life like this.
They are leaving the flat two hours earlier than they had discussed in front of their listeners. They stop at a container storage facility, in a few minutes they change into tactical gear and take what they deem necessary. After that, Ryland folds Colt’s jacket under his head and sleeps four hours uninterrupted on the back seat.
***
“Unused, my ass,” comes Colt’s voice through the comms. “Three vans’ worth of agents in suits. I can’t see a badge on any of them. A few more black SUVs. Guards at the entrance. There’s light from the hangar. There are no patrols, though. They’re lighting up the ground and first floor of the building. I can’t see any movement on the rooftops.”
“Is there anything outside of the perimeter?” Court asks.
“Negative.”
“Walk us through it again.”
Ryland closes his eyes and imagines the military base. There’s a hangar and a four-story building next to each other. There are concrete runways and a parking lot. A communication tower. A few smaller buildings, but not enough to accommodate a large crowd. Wire fence all around. A confused night porter. The nearest village is twenty-two miles away with no direct connection to major roads.
Colt starts again with vehicles and numbers, counting people and their movement. There are no visible weapons. Handguns, they sure. But handguns are manageable.
Still a bigger welcome than usual. And these people belong to the government. And for some reason, they are not guarding the perimeter. Colt didn’t meet anyone out there.
“Wait, something is happening.” Ryland opens his eyes and looks at Court next to him in the car. “They put a table in front of the hangar. One chair, and three on the other side. There’s also a document holder. And there’s a woman. She’s not wearing any protective gear. She just… sat down. Like she’s waiting for something. She’s typing on a tablet. There’s coffee. An agent standing behind her, but that’s it.” There’s quiet rustling from Colt’s side, and after a few seconds he continues, “I can’t read the holder or the tablet from here. Should I change position?”
“No, we’re going in,” Court orders.
“This is some government-type shit and I really don’t like it,” Colt murmurs while Ryland starts the car.
“This is just a job,” Court counters.
Ryland still doesn’t know what to think of it, but he leans towards Colt’s opinion. But he trusts Court, too. It’s okay. They refused before. It only added a little gunfight to the mix.
He parks the car outside the gates.
“No movement in the windows or on the rooftop,” Colt assures them.
“No visible weapons,” Court says, and Ryland nods and leaves his gun under the driver’s seat.
The agents at the gate don’t move as they walk through. The two of them move in sync, with the same rhythm in their steps, same expression, they cover different sides visually while closing in on the woman with the tablet.
She looks up, seemingly unbothered and unsurprised.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” she greets them. “Where is your third?”
There are some questions that will never be answered, and this is one of them. She doesn’t ask again, and her eyes quickly move from one of them to another, trying to list the differences.
Ryland knows what she sees. From afar, they look very similar. Colt can even move like Court if he wants to, but Ryland can’t copy them. During their years apart both Court and Colt broke their noses, and sometimes Ryland thinks he should faceplant himself for the vibe. Other days, he thinks that the matching tattoo under his watch is enough. Otherwise, they are built slightly differently, Court is a bit taller, Colt is broader, and no matter what Ryland tries, he can’t match them in those respects. He can copy their mannerisms, though. Which is useful, because when the woman speaks again, his mask nearly slips.
“Which one of you is Dr. Grace?”
None of us, he wants to say sharply, but that would be too revealing.
“We don’t operate with surnames, ma’am,” Ryland says for the first time.
“You did in the past,” she says, her accent says Europe. “Eva Stratt, Petrova Task Force. I would like to talk to Dr. Grace.”
Petrova, like the Petrova Line between the Sun and Venus. The dots that make the infrared line in space also eat the sun. Ryland’s newsfeed has been full of them since the ArcLight probe launched. Mostly speculation, though.
He’s got a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“It was your alias, right?” Colt whispers in their ear. “What does she want from you?”
“If you want to talk to ghosts, we’re not your men, Ms Stratt.” Stratt looks at him again, more intently this time.
“You must be the one who’s been called Yellow by my team,” she says slowly. Yellow, like the hoodie he had left in a trash can before getting into the car.
“If anything, I’m grey,” Ryland says with that cold confidence he learned from Court.
“I hope I’m Blue,” chirps Colt in his ear.
“Next to you is Black, and the missing part is Red.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Are you the leader, Mr. Yellow?”
“We don’t work like that,” he shakes his head.
“Let’s get to the point, I want to talk to whoever among the three of you has a doctorate in molecular biology. I need his help. I’ll pay him in money or in resources for his time. The other two can stay while he works.”
Ryland should say something in return, to buy time and make sure there’s enough information for Court to decide if this woman is worth their time, but he can’t. He can’t move the conversation forward.
“Go,” Court says quietly.
“I’ll keep my eyes on you, Ry,” Colt whispers.
Ryland takes a step from their formation, and he sits obediently on the middle chair. Now, they both sit with a guard at their backs. If things go wrong, though, the guy doesn’t even have a chance against Court.
“May I call you Dr. Grace?”
“If you must,” he agrees reluctantly. He actually liked the name. Grace was their mother’s maiden name, and he felt it was fitting to use it during his university years.
“Did you write this?” She opens the folder and shows him a stack of printed documents, the top one is titled…
“‘An Analysis of Water-Based Assumptions and Recalibration of Expectations’”, Colt reads now through his sniper’s scope.
“Ms. Stratt, are you aware that my entire academic presence was staged by my bosses? You are asking about a man who never existed in the first place.”
“Did you learn or not learn what they taught you in your classes, Dr. Grace?”
The answer is, he knew half of it by heart when he walked into his first class.
“I did.”
“Do you stand by it?” she asks again, waving toward the paper.
“Physically, no; academically, I couldn’t care less; personally, yes.”
“I need your help.”
He looks at her without conviction.
Depending on whom you ask, the story goes something like this: there were three brothers. One of them was older and the other two were twins. In their short lives first came tragedy, then terror, and whatever came after reshaped them with blood and fire.
Poor Courtland who only ever wanted to care for his younger brothers, is forced to be stoic about most things. The only time he allows himself to show his caring is when he’s sure they’re completely alone. Every other time he pulls the trigger without question.
Poor Colton who only ever wanted to be careless about himself and run faster and climb higher and jump farther, is now forced to do these things, and the only thing he can do about it is cling to the adrenaline and to his brothers with all his might.
Ryland, who was soft and cried so easily about everything, later found out that he probably inherited their father’s rage. With this realisation came guilt because, if that rage had manifested itself earlier, Courtland probably never would have had to pull that first trigger. He would never had to live with that feeling. He did protect his brothers, but at what cost?
Surprisingly, though, it was fine, for a few years. They were together, they woke up together and fell asleep together, and maybe didn’t train together, but at the end of the day, it felt okay. It’s so easy to make a child’s brain relativise things.
That is, until the longest mission of their lives came along. They were separated to cause confusion in whoever was the enemy. All three of them listened to the name Sierra Six, and most people never realised that under that name, three not so different person worked. It was as if Sierra Six were all over the world: one day a mission in the States, the next somewhere in Asia, and a little later in Australia. It made the enemy look over their shoulders twice and emblazoned the name on top of lists.
They knew Ryland was smart and that his special knowledge could expand Sierra Six’s range, so they tasked him with getting a science degree between missions. Later, Ryland learned that Colt had been enrolled in an engineering program, and that Court had studied psychology at university level. Initially, Ryland was excited, but he nearly broke the first guy’s jaw when he called him Ryland after his introduction. That name only belongs to him in a closed context of three, and hearing it from someone else made him feel exposed, vulnerable and so angry. After that, he added ‘call me Grace’ after every introduction.
For the first time in his life he had free time, and he hated every minute of it. He was so lonely, that there wasn’t a word in any language they made him speak to describe it. He wasn’t allowed to try to reach his brothers. He was anxious every time he picked up his phone, what if Fitzroy called him with bad news? It never happened, but he was always on edge for years.
After Denmark, he received a message from an unknown number containing only an address. When he walked in the apartment, two men were sitting on the couch with his eyes. Their faces didn’t look the same anymore since Court and Colt had both broken their noses over the years, and Court’s hair was slightly darker, and Colt’s was slightly lighter. Despite the circumstances, they were both okay. Ryland did the only thing he could think with his finally easing stress inside him: he sat between them without a word and fell asleep in less than a minute.
Not so long after, the CIA ended the Sierra Program when their bosses retired and handed them over to very different people. That wasn’t okay at all, so they made quite the exit with some information that would keep most agencies at bay, as long as they didn’t get too close either. That’s how they end up in these situations nowadays.
“No, you don’t. You just need a guinea pig who’s expendable, like your messenger was.”
“We realised too late that the messenger was a double agent,” Stratt says matter of factly. “As I heard, he only caused a minor disturbance.”
“Do you or your men know anything about his other motives?”
“Is that bothering you?”
“We should send his remains back where he came from, you know how this goes,” he says lightly. But honestly, he personally wants to end the man’s boss. How dare they threaten his family.
“I don’t and I don’t wish to know. Can we talk about this?” she waves to the papers.
Ryland lifts one hand.
“Guys, do not freak out, okay? I just need my glasses to read!” he announces louder and he reaches for his pocket. Nobody tries to shoot him or Court, which is nice for once. “What do you want to discuss?”
“This section here…”
“The Goldilocks Zone Is for Idiots, I remember now,” he nods. Colt snorts in his ear.
“Could you elaborate on that?” Ryland looks at the paper through his glasses for a second. He doesn’t like that his most miserable years are shown in his face like this, but he begins to gather his thoughts. This woman tracked him down and definitely went to great lengths just to talk to him.
“I’m just saying, there’s nothing magical about hydrogen and oxygen. On Earth we need them for life, yes. But that’s where the significance ends.”
Ms. Stratt nods. Not impressed, but not disappointed.
“I hope you know about the Petrova Line.”
When people around the globe first made the connection between the Petrova Line and the dimming sun, he remembers thinking that Court always says he wants to retire somewhere with palm trees. He remembers thinking, Colt actually likes surfing and short sleeve shirts. But if the world’s temperature drops by fifteen degrees in the next thirty years, there won’t be a chance for palm trees and nice waves. He remembers thinking, eventually they’ll have to fight tooth and nail for resources. They are good at fighting with armed and trained people, but would they do it with panicking, starving, desperate people?
“I read a few of Irina Petrova’s posts on forums, yes. You sent the ArcLight probe, which showed the dots, and it should be back like… in any minute?”
“It splashed down thirty hours ago. I want you to tell me what’s inside.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Colt asks in a low, suspicious voice.
“Hah, you really want to hire me to be your test run with the suneating sample from Venus,” Ryland says and he can’t decide if he’s offended or excited. “What did you fill the container with?”
“Argon.”
“I hope you have a nice, tight hazmat suit, then.”
***
By the third day, Ryland feels that this is the biggest thing he has ever done in his life. He also starts to worry about things behind his front thoughts, such as when he has to wait a few minutes for a result. He knows that Colt will usually start to feel bored after four or five days. During his spare time, he imagines Colt climbing up to the communication tower without safety ropes. Or starting to poke around the agents and provoking a fight. Ryland knows that Colt isn’t this reckless. He doesn’t do these things because he wants the situation to crash down like a landslide. He’s just addicted to adrenaline, and given his background and lifestyle, he can’t be blamed. They all have problems like that.
On the third night, Ryland sits on his bed, cleaning his glasses with his t-shirt, and says, focusing on his task at hand, “You guys stay if this takes longer?” There’s a heartbeat of silence, which feels too long, so he has to fill it. “I mean, I’m pretty sure by now that Stratt won’t order one of her goons to put a bullet in my head after she took my idea for the dots’ name and fed it to the president, so. A lab coat offers better protection than any armor right now.”
This doesn’t sound bad, right? His safety and importance are ensured, at least until Stratt lets other people run tests on the dots – on Astrophage – and someone gets better results and answers. That’s fine, he can leave and catch up with the two of them afterwards.
He puts his glasses back on and finally looks at his brothers, who are looking back at him with very different expressions. Colt is flabbergasted, and Court is just… sad.
“That’s it,” Colt says, huffing out his breath loudly. “He spends all day looking through that damn microscope and he’s going nuts.”
“Do you want us to leave?” Court asks quietly.
“N-no, I don’t. Never. I just… this is boring, right? I mean, this is the middle of nowhere, and… There’s not much to do, and… I’m in the lab for twelve hours, and I can’t stop think about it, and…”
“Ryland.”
Court says his name so gently, and it somehow makes things worse. He sits frozen on the bed, his fingers digging into the mattress, everything in him tight. He’s so scared, but he doesn’t know what of. He wonders if he is showing symptoms of PTSD right now. If is this something his mind has made up, because he’s still too soft, he’s still too anxious to being alone, he’s still too… “We’re not going anywhere without you.” Court says it like matter of factly yet so softly.
“And it’s not boring at all,” Colt adds. “I really liked it when you explained the effect of gamma radiation on the dots by comparing it to shooting a sheet of paper with a gun and nothing happening. Okay, maybe I’ll climb the building from the outside in a few days, but hey, nobody’s shooting at us. That’s a change for sure.”
“Nobody is shooting at us, because you’re important to Ms Stratt. And you’re doing something good.”
“Maybe with her, we don’t know about that.”
“Colton, we were talking about privacy,” Court says in his stern voice, while Ryland is gaping at them.
“I’m not- How could you… I mean, when- I’m not talking with any of you!” he basically shouts, then turns towards the wall and pulls the pillow over his head aggressively.
Colt laughs loudly behind him, as if this is just hilarious, but a minute later, the mattress moves under him and Colt lies half on the top of him. He’s heavy, but not in a crushing way, more like calming and soothing. Ryland feels his stress melt away.
“Give me your glasses.” After sniffing under the pillow a few times, he complies. “Now tell us why you are upset.”
“Am not,” he replies, his voice muffled by the pillow.
“Try again,” Court asks, his voice is close, he’s probably sitting with his back propped against the bed frame now.
Ryland takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He moves the pillow so that he is actually not suffocating himself. From the corner of his eye, he can see Colt’s face. He looks worried, but more importantly, he’s here. He sees one of them when he looks at his periphery, always.
“I just keep having these thoughts. I’m spiralling, I guess? About you guys leaving me. I know it’s not logical. It’s not an accusation. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re trying to self-sabotage,” says Court gently.
“What?”
“Oh, I know, you’re doing something good, but you can’t cope, so you want something bad to happen because that’s familiar.”
There’s a silence after Colt’s words.
“What?! I read shit too!”
Court laughs at this, and it’s so rare that Ryland feels his world is complete for a second. He moves, and Colt lets him turn towards them, then he leans back on the top of him. It’s comforting. He thinks about the palm trees and the ocean waves. It has to be okay.
“We can find you a therapist or counsellor if you want,” Court offers. “You can talk to them online.”
“I can see the Reddit posts about that,” Ryland answers without a beat. “Is my client a hitman, or is he just weird?”
“Both is good,” Colt adds happily.
“I really should sleep right now.”
“Think about it.”
“And get some sleep, because I’ll wake you up in the morning for a run,” Colt promises with a grin.
Everyone knows he hates running. He buries his face in the pillow and whispers, “Are you not mad at me, right?”
“No,” Court replies simply.
“No, but you can’t get out of running with your sad voice,” Colt answers empathetically and Ryland sighs, but smiles at him.
“At least I took my chances.”
“You little piece of…”
“Colton.”
“He started it!”
“Go to sleep,” it’s all Court says, and the room falls silent, the only noise is their breathing. Colt stays on the top of him, he’s probably planning to stay there until he falls asleep, and Ryland won’t complain.
“We should go to a beach after I’ve finished here,” he suggests. “You two can enjoy the palm trees and the waves.”
“What about you?”
“I’m buying some books to read.”
“He’s going to make us bankrupt,” Colt announces to no one in particular.
“Let’s go and see palm trees.”
“And waves.”
“And books.”
Ryland smiles as he falls asleep, because he likes it when they agree on a plan so easily.