More than just a pretty face - 24
“Amy?” Vine asked timidly through the headset. “Howard, what’s wrong with Amy? Howard? Howard, I can’t breathe.”
Howard understood the feeling. He couldn’t draw breath, couldn’t seem to make his lungs and throat work, couldn’t even seem to move, let alone speak and relieve some of Vince’s anxiety. Amy was at her desk, just as Howard had hoped she would be, but she didn’t turn her head at his entrance, didn’t swivel in her chair, didn’t smile, didn’t acknowledge his entrance in any way. Howard approached her with caution, taking in how pale her lips were, as if the natural cherry red had faded from them and the way her eyes seemed to glaze over between slow blinks. Her hair was still a beautiful, glossy cascade of black curls but her shoulders were slumped and, when Howard finally came to stand in front of her desk he discovered that around her wrists were cuffs.
Amy had been chained to her desk.
“Amy?” Howard asked gently, and tried to feel some hope when she looked up at him, but it was Vince who spoke as Amy raised her head, her blue eyes welling with silver tears.
“Oh god, Howard, help me. I hate myself,” Vince said in a melancholy tone, followed by a dense pause. “I don’t know why I said that out loud just now.”
“I think,” Howard said thoughtfully. “I think Amy was trying to talk to us. I think that was her.”
“But,” Vince gasped in a frightened voice, “but she’s not supposed to be the negative one, is she? I thought that was some other bloke. Amy’s supposed to like me!”
Howard could hear Vince’s shuddering, panicked breaths through his headset, loud and harsh in his ears, but Amy just blinked again and stared at him like a woman who hadn’t slept in too long.
“I’m so sorry, Howard,” Vince whispered, and Howard was sure that his voice sounded more like Amy than Vince if that were possible.
She lowered her head and typed listlessly at the keyboard in front of her and Howard became aware in the silence that Vince’s breathing, which had sounded like he might have been edging toward tears, now seemed to be calming slightly. Even in her almost comatose state Amy was attempting to do her job and Howard smiled, albeit sadly, at how brave she and Vince really were. Something on her cheek caught his eye, a sudden shine as the walls sparked around them, and Howard took another step toward the desk to see what it was. A wave of light went past again, highlighting several other points of light on Amy’s skin and at first Howard thought they might be tears but then recoiled in horror when he realised the truth.
They were sequins. But they weren’t the normal silver sequins that Vince so loved to stitch on to his clothing to add a little sparkle, and which inevitably found their way to every corner of the flat (and occasionally into Howard’s hair, and once into his breakfast). No, these seemed thick, hard and metallic. And embedded in Amy’s skin.
“Vince?” Howard asked softly, watching as Amy typed something in to her computer, one hand able to move enough to answer the phone and adjust the screen, the other chained so close that it could reach the keyboard and no more.
“Yeah?” Vince asked nervously, and Howard could imagine him fidgeting in anticipation of the question, the shifting of his feet and twirling of his hair matched in rhythm with the pulsing of the walls.
“Vince how do you feel about yourself right now?”
He heard Vince hesitate, heard the hitch before he spoke, saw Amy’s eyes begin to glaze over, her hands stilling above the keys.
“I...”
“Vince?” he urged.
“I sent you in there,” Vince mumbled. “In me, in... And now you’re sad and angry, I can tell! And, and you’re gonna hate me, cos I’ve even ruined Amy!”
Howard wanted to calm him, to reassure Vince that all would be well but held his tongue instead and kept his eyes on Amy. Just below her left eye something was happening. As Vince babbled and apologised and spiraled deeper into his self-loathing Howard watched the metallic sequin erupt on Amy’s pale cheekbone.
“... and I can’t get nothing right! And... Ow! Ow, my head! I’ve had this headache for weeks and weeks and it won’t go away! I can’t even get rid of a headache! And last week I got butter all through the jam jar and jam all in the butter and you hate that! And-”
“Vince,” he finally interrupted gently. “I don’t hate you. Something is wrong with Amy but she isn’t ruined. At least, I don’t think she is. But I need you to stay calm, alright? Can you do that for me? Your moods affect Amy and this whole place, or this place affects your mood,” he reasoned before pulling himself back on track.
Vince couldn’t cope with philosophical pondering right now. Now was the time for action and he was going to be a man of action if it killed him. Or at least wounded him. Or left him with a nasty headache.
“My mood?” Vince sniffled.
“Yes. It... messes with the lights. I need you just to try and stay calm for me, ok?”
Howard heard a muffled crackling that he took as a nod from Vince and a moment later Amy blinked her eyes and echoed the movement, her fingers returning to the keyboard, and the walls to a more regular rhythm of pulses and flashes of light.
“Well done, LIttle... Ones,” Howard said with a nod of his own.
It was hard to turn away from Amy. What he really wanted to do was to hold her and comfort her and try to find some way to remove the shackles from her wrists but knew deep down that nothing would be gained by that. For all he knew the cuffs were alarmed and any attempt to remove them would bring the NSP and brain security down on both of them. At the very least it would just increase the distress of all three of them but that didn’t make it any easier to simply walk on, knowing that Amy was suffering. He settled instead with reaching his hand out to brush delicately against Amy’s cheek. She seemed to lean in to the touch, eyelids fluttering in a manner that Howard took as a good sign, but when his finger accidentally touched one of the sequins that marred her skin she recoiled violently, causing Howard to jump back and pull his hand away.
She didn’t look at him again, even when he whispered her name, and Howard knew that his first instinct had been right, that even those few seconds of contact had hurt Amy, for he could give her nothing more, except a promise that he would journey onwards and try to find a way to right what had gone wrong.
With that in mind he steeled himself for action, removed his oxygen tank and his scuba flippers, for greater ease of tip toeing, and walked to the door to the NSP’s domain.
The door was not shut, not entirely, and Howard peeked around it, hoping that his nemesis wouldn’t actually be there, but not sure what he next move could be if he wasn’t. He put his head around the door, trying to see as much of the room as he could without revealing himself, but not wishing to seem like some sort of vaudevillian character in the process, aware of how absurd his head might look appearing in a door way, eyes shifty and moustache bristling. He needn’t have worried, because while the NSP was in the room, he didn’t notice Howard in the doorway, he was too busy yelling down a large, orange, 1970’s looking telephone and glaring at a wall of computer screens.
“What do you mean, there’s been a breech of security?” the glittery berk shouted, looking from screen to screen. “Where? The arm? The arm? You think I care about a sore on his arm? Just send the immune system! This whole body is so stupid sometimes it’s barely worth my time!”
Howard tried to get a look at the screens, which all appeared to show different parts of Vince’s body and different incarnations of Vince, all looking at the NSP like they had no idea what he was talking about.
“What do you mean, ‘sightings of an unknown entity in a blue scuba suit’? That look went out of fashion months ago! That’s ludicrous! What? The Immune system are telling you ‘No Comment’?! Christy I am sick of this body! I swear, I’ve had it up to here. You’re all so stupid it hurts! Get those overgrown silver fish on the screen now!”
The NSP’s voice was a shriek by the time he made his final demand to whoever was on the other end of his systemic phone line and the ferocity of his tone, and obvious hatred for the body he was part of, made Howard cringe. This was where the thoughts were coming from and no mistake. And this, Howard was certain, was the source of the silver sequins that were appearing on Amy’s skin and seemingly leeching her of whatever it was that gave her independence and life.
The NSP had gone back to yelling, demanding to speak to the head cell of the immune system because he wasn’t buying any story about the intruder in the body being a ‘private immunology matter’ and was so engrossed in his rage that he didn’t notice a movement at the opposite end of the room, but Howard did. Someone was peering around another door, much the same as Howard was, and when they saw him, they put out a hand and gestured for Howard to come.
Howard saw the white, Vince-like face of the head white cell of the immune system flash up on to the screen, capturing the full attention of the NSP, and made his move, creeping carefully across the room, thankful that he was doing so in his slightly damp socks and not his flippers. It wasn’t a huge room but it felt impossibly large as Howard began his delicate passage, and he stopped several times when he feared that he was about to be discovered, but Vince’s Negative Self-Perception was too busy becoming hilariously outraged by the answers being handed to him by the leader of the immune system.
“That, my good glittery sir, is a matter of immune system confidentiality and not to be discussed with anyone outside of the department or below at least a junior management level.”
“Confidentiality!” the NSP screamed. “Management! I’m in charge of this body, pal! There’s no higher management than me, I’ll have you know, and I’m demanding that you tell me what’s going on in that arm!”
“Head of the brain department you might currently be, sir,” the white cell countered, “but this body is a collective, last I checked. Systems working in collaboration, as it were. And this was a matter that concerned the immune system and no other. It was an internal matter and was brought to its logical and satisfactory conclusion, and there’s an end to it.”
Howard continued to inch his way across the room, past the half-way point and biting hard in to his lip to stop himself from laughing at the NSP’s frustration. He chanced a look at the screens and saw a flicker in the eye of the leader of the immune system as it saw Howard and grinned. Howard smiled back and gave a subtle salute and then redoubled his efforts to remain silent as the white cell continued to bluster and misdirect and keep the NSP focused on the screens and away from Howard.
“Tell me what is going on in that arm!” the silver sequined brain cell demanded, banging his fist on the control panel in front of him. “Tell me now!”
“Nothing,” the white cell replied, somehow managing to shrug despite the fact that he had no shoulders or neck. “I can honestly and truthfully tell you without a word of a deception or a lie that there is at this moment nothing at all amiss in either of Vince Noir’s arms. Of which there are two. And nice arms they are as well. If I do say so myself. Which I am. With my mouth. Right now. And that’s all I have to say on the matter. So I shall bid you good day and get back to my job now. Once I stop talking. Which is now.”
The ridiculous cell continued babbling until Howard was through the door and had given him a thumbs up. They were able to close the door without notice because, upon realising that the immune system was not going to give him a straight answer, the NSP began to throw the worst tantrum Howard had ever heard. With the door shut behind him Howard felt it was safe to tut at such behaviour, but stopped when Vince whimpered in his ear.
“Just try to block it out, Vince,” he said into the microphone comfortingly. “I know your brain is telling you horrible things right now but whatever they are, they are not true. Believe me, Vince. They aren’t true. Alright?”
Vince only whimpered again sadly in reply but Howard knew that there was little he could do. He needed to focus on the task before him, and the Vince before him as well. For that was who she was.
“Thanks for your help there,” he told her, turning his gaze to the diminutive figure before him. “I’m Howard Moon, I’m here to save Vince. Can you help me?”
She smiled at him. A small, yet hopeful, crooked tooth, Vince Noir smile, and Howard felt a strange flutter in his chest at this new incarnation, this facet, of Vince.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I remember you.”
Howard blinked in surprise. He wasn’t used to being remembered, especially not by understated, kindly, attractive women but then he recalled what Amy had told him, what seemed an age ago, when they had been lying on the warm sand, watching Vince tread happily through the waves, on the perfect day out at the beach.
“You’re Vince’s Long Term Memory, aren’t you?”
The Vince smiled again, wider this time but as she did Howard noticed that she too was marred by several silvery sequins in the skin of her face and neck.
“I think so,” she told him. “I don’t quite remember. But you are Howard Moon, I remember you. You save us. Always. Are you here to save us again?”