Another Story
Here's a little bit that I did up for a challenge, and then changed my mind about.
It's a one-off, post-Fifth, action/adventure type of thing. Some might have problems with how I resolved some things in the second act. Please comment anyway. I like feedback.
length: approx. 5000 words
rating: PG for violence, swearing
disclaimer: as always, I'm playing around with someone else's material. it's all in good fun and, no, I don't consider these people my property in any way.
The Master’s Voice
“And if I only could
make a deal with God,
And get Him to swap our places…” - Running Up That Hill, Kate Bush.
London could still be a beautiful place at night. High above the streets looking out over it’s grand edifices and slums all crowded together in the sepia light, it almost seemed like we were all in it together. Dictatorship and civil rebellion had ruled these streets by turns for centuries: the buildings still stood, the markets still sold goods, the people still grumbled about the endless rain. In the end, we were all just people trying to survive as we always had. Weren’t we all in search of the same thing? A sense of belonging? Stability? A bullet whizzed by Evey’s ear and brought her back to her very dangerous reality. Clearly not, she thought as she focused her eyes through the Fawkes mask on the police contingent scrabbling across the rooftops behind her.
“Dammit! They’re persistent tonight.” She griped to herself aloud.
It’s not like you haven’t given them cause, Evey. V’s voice echoed inside her head.
She hated when that happened. After all, she was alone out there left to outwit and outrun former Fingermen who had a personal interest in capturing and killing the “terrorist” that felled their leader. After Creedy was killed, the department of the Finger was integrated into the London Police Force as “the will of the people”. No more discretionary detentions or forceful interviews were permitted. Their power to intimidate had been severely compromised and the individual perks that went along with that had evaporated overnight. These were not subtle or reasonable men and if they could find a way to exact revenge for their loss of status by throwing a suspect off a building without the benefit of due process, you could rest assured that they would. Evey hadn’t killed Creedy but it would make little difference to them: she wore the cloak, mask and tunic of the terrorist. They foisted all of their hatred onto the figure that she cut just as she had pinned all of her hopes and fears for the future, like many Londoners, on the same cold, unchanging mask. She wondered idly where they had gotten their guns from, as handguns were also no longer permitted as per the re-instated New Scotland Yard policy that echoed the regulations of the late 20th century. She was prepared to fight if she must but guns weren’t her thing. If this was the shade of police confrontations to come she might have to rethink carrying V’s beloved knives. All the more reason for the necessity of tonight’s mission: deposit a carrier transmitter on New Scotland Yard’s standalone server. All police files and internal email were contained on that server, but as per an old Ear imperative, no outside access was granted to the system. No wireless hacking could do the job either due to the elaborate renovations made to the building that kept outside signals out and inside signals dampened. The security of information remained paramount. If Evey wanted to know what the cops were thinking she’d have to walk right into their lair and ask.
“Do you have something helpful to add to the situation?” Evey asked the voice aloud. “Or are we going to go over your disapproval of my plan again?”
You know my objections, as I know your reasons for action. Debate, at this point, would be merely academic as well as inappropriate. I can tell you that 500 yards to the south, you will find a fire escape to the street. I suggest that you take it and use the street shadows to your advantage.
“Thank you, that was helpful after all.” She wheeled and allowed the cape to billow and thus throw the gunman’s aim off as she headed directly for the fire escape. She leapt over the side as if dropping 5 storeys to her death, but managed to grab a hold of the steel railing and slid most of the way down with her feet gripping the outside of the handrails. Falling artfully the last several feet to the sidewalk from the ladder’s end, Evey recognized that she was easily 20 blocks from the nearest underground access to the Shadow Gallery. “Bugger!” she muttered. She could hear the cops behind and above her. They were lost: they couldn’t see her in the shadows below but they couldn’t see her body either. They wouldn’t give up, but she had bought some valuable time.
Evey, you must be sure that you’ve lost them before returning to the Gallery. - The voice sounded concerned.
“I realize that, V. I won’t risk the Gallery.” Short, curt sentences conveyed her distress. V had never appeared unsure outside of the Gallery. His actions, even when improvised, had an air of practiced confidence about them that must have come from years of experience in covering his own ass. Evey was highly skilled and confident in her own right, but was a different predator than V. Worry sharpened her edge but it also colored each venture outside of the Gallery with uncertainty that V, in his day, would’ve found unacceptable.
Evey. - The voice was softer, gentler and more intimate than before, like he was next to her whispering in her ear. She could almost feel his breath. Not fair, she thought. I’m running for my life here! Emotional baggage will just have to wait.
Evey, I’m not worried about you giving up the Gallery’s location. I’m worried for your safety. You have accomplished your mission and planted the transmitter, but it will all be for naught if you die in the process. - The voice took on a bitter edge as it pronounced the word “die”. - That is why I had objections to your plan. There had to be a safer way to obtain this information. You are too important to risk so cavalierly.
Evey rounded a corner and found herself alone on a major thoroughfare, V’s sensible yet possessive voice bouncing around her cranium. “Really, V? I’m too important to risk? Did you think about that before the Fifth? Didn’t you think that this city needed you afterwards? I needed you but you wouldn’t hear it. Now I’m out here playing you for the betterment of others. So, if I die tonight, you can re-visit your risk assessment but don’t forget to put yourself down as a variable in that equation.” She was breathing hard running full tilt. Four blocks away was an abandoned factory that would provide good cover if she needed it. She could run another ¼ mile before her muscles started to complain but her mental debate was exhausting her faster than any physical obstacle could. She wished that she hadn’t sounded so hurt and angry when she spoke. She felt that her role in assuming V’s mantle was her destiny, but clearly part of her still yearned for a simpler path. Perhaps part of her resented this life and pined to have a 9-to-5 job, a boyfriend, and nights down at the pub with friends. She doubted it, but it was possible.
The voice remained silent as she covered the last few blocks and came upon the battered hulk of Active Surplus Distributors - a condemned industrial lot containing a massive warehouse with many separate bays, lofts, and foot walks to lose oneself in. V used to bring her here for training; to force her to adapt to and use her environment to her advantage. She loved its dilapidated grace; it’s scarred façade that begged to revel its story to her. But, like the man that introduced her to it, it remained silent about its history. Roaming it’s architecture still afforded her comfort but it was like having a friend that would never truly put their faith in you, and that made her feel lonely. This place was like a physical incarnation of V’s interior world. It made the voice come alive again.
Ahhhh, Active Surplus. I always liked this place. I tried to remember it full of people and industry: the cacophony, the sense of purpose! The way the light streamed through the clerestory windows in mid-winter was like a poem. - The voice was soft, golden and full of memory. It wasn’t talking to her, it was riffing on it’s own. - It’s a good place to make a stand. You will have the advantage.
“I’m not planning to die here, V.” Evey felt compelled to point this fact out as much as to wrest her interior dialogue back to the task at hand. “You’re a tad too romantically fatalistic. I just need to be certain that my way home is clear.”
Oh, of course, dear. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. - The voice purred at her in a way that was highly distracting. She really wished that he had half as much sense of the current environment as he used to drill into her during her training. After a brief moment, the voice continued, while Evey found a pile of debris to squat behind with good sightlines. - Do you really consider the Gallery your “home”, Evey?
She breathed in and out once. “Of course I do, V. I haven’t had a real home since I was eight years old. It’s quite a thing to feel safe somewhere after losing everything.” She thought that she heard footfalls on gravel and made herself still as a stone. Heartbeats lengthened themselves into minutes of calm rhythm within her. She focused entirely on the art of hearing what wasn’t there. It’s the notes that you don’t hear, V once quoted cryptically. It’s the rush of air before the blow falls, it’s the dead calm before the dizzying blur of the storm, it’s the moment between the stem breaking and the leaf falling. Noises of the night expanded and surrounded her in this new auditorium of the minimal. A light breeze whistled through the broken windowpanes. The crabgrass and junk weed of the overgrown lot bowed lightly with late-night condensation and the slight scurry of brave autumn insects. Dust eddies picked up by the cross breeze of the open interior space swirled and danced through dappled urban glow drawn in from the streetlights. Then the faint crackle of broken glass caught in rubber shoe treads scraped across the subtle canvas that she had created like a discordant trumpet blast. Her eyes sharpened and focused in the gloom to see the shadows shift almost imperceptively.
At the moment that her gaze sifted, the voice growled. - 2 o’clock, 200 yards. There are 7 of them. - 7 were more than she anticipated. They were good: they had tracked her and they had gotten a lot closer than she would’ve liked before revealing their position. These men were good little killers. She might die there tonight after all, she thought as she hissed out a ragged breath.
No. I won’t let that happen. - The voice had steel in it. - You will come home again. Focus, Evey.
V might have assailed the enemy head on and simply fought through them, but Evey favored more guerrilla tactics. She palmed a soft handful of debris and scattered it behind her and to her left. The scuttling caught their attention and they split into two groups heading for the site of the noise from both sides in a pincer movement. This greatly increased her chances of reducing their numbers before they had a chance to see her or use their weapons. She pulled two knives from her belt.
The ones furthest away go first. - The voice was in sync with her strategy.
The knives sliced through the night air in deadly arcs making almost no noise whatsoever. The tandem snick and thud sounds assured her that her aim was true as she rushed the closest assailant, a third knife in hand. He was distracted by the noises of his cohorts crumbling behind him. As he turned to face Evey’s direction again, she was on top of him muffling his mouth and slicing his throat in one uninterrupted movement. The sickly gurgle of drowning on one’s on blood while trying to call out with a useless windpipe was a sound to which Evey would never become accustomed. She tried to ignore the man’s last few frightening seconds of life and moved fluidly past him to retrieve her knives from the bodies behind him. The four remaining cops responded to the sounds of their fallen brethren as Evey quickly camouflaged herself in the shadows surrounding the access to an upper foot walk. She climbed quickly sacrificing stealth for speed.
You are at greater advantage on the ground, Evey. - The voice was trying for neutrality and only half succeeding. - The narrowness of the foot walks may nullify their remaining numbers but you could be easily cornered.
I know that, she thought fuelled by adrenalin. “Too much open ground on the floor. Too much light.” She whispered between gasps of air. “The shadows up here will make aiming difficult.” Less criticism, more concentration she chided to herself instead of the voice. The voice was miles away and right there, passively, at the same time - she was the one who was on the line now. Whatever she did now or didn’t do, she would end it by herself. She heard the four cops ascend the ladder. One let off a shot that, predictably, only hit shadows and ricocheted away never putting Evey in harm’s way. “Stop it!” cried one cop to another. He then furiously signaled for the one to follow him while the other two circled around them and behind by another foot walk. As the first two cops barreled after Evey along the foot walk she vaulted over the railing and landed in the middle of another that crossed beneath the first. It was a 12-foot drop to a narrow platform, but she had done it many times before. The two cops wouldn’t give up that easily and followed her. The sudden weight of Evey’s lithe frame and over 400 pounds of angry killer cops strained the rusted rivets holding the walkway aloft, and it moaned and jostled laterally to make it’s complaints known. Meanwhile, the other two cops had dropped down a level as well and were heading to cut her off as she made her way towards a T-junction that intersected the walk that she was on. She made it to the T before the cops did and the original two were only a heartbeat behind her. A moment’s hesitation while she judged their respective distances sealed her fate.
Evey! - The voice roared at her with such force that she thought that the cops themselves could hear it. - Move! Now!
Instead the first cop behind her leapt over the railing and vaulted himself to the T section walkway behind and to the right. Now she was trapped with two cops on one half of the T, another on the other half and one directly in front of her. She had to remain silent but one word begged to be released: shit.
The cop behind her on the upper T section reached for her with his gun hand and she wheeled and responded by slicing it at the juncture between his thumb and forefinger. He yelped, dropped his gun and jumped back as if bitten by a snake. The gun clattered to the factory floor below. Well, he won’t be shooting me at least, she thought. The victory was short-lived as the cop in front of her, the leader, tackled her. He twisted her body sideways and quickly kidney-punched her twice and then whacked the mask with the handle of his pistol. The mask was lined with steel so she didn’t feel the blow but the kidney shots brought searing, sudden pain that temporarily blinded her vision to white hot. She groaned as she fought the will to collapse.
The voice took over. - Right hand to the carotid. Rip down and to your left. Put your shoulder into it! - Blinded by pain she followed the orders unhesitatingly. Soft, wet sounds and a fleshy resistance said that her aim had come through again even if her sight had not. She felt his weight as he went down and the walk way rattled its complaint again. - Turn, 3 o’clock. Crouch. Right hand jab. Discard. Bulls eye the forth. - Evey’s vision was starting to clear again but her left side was rigid with pain. She had one cop wounded and disarmed, one down and two left to deal with. She silently prayed for a quick end for whoever was going to die here tonight. She squatted suddenly in front of the approaching officer, as ordered, and rammed her knife deep into his abdomen using his forward momentum to do half the work for her. Summoning all of her remaining strength she tilted his skewered body over her and lifted him straight up and to her side over the railing. Letting the knife in her right hand go, she continued to propel forward with her left hand and rammed a second knife into the forth cop’s chest collapsing a lung. Without encouragement or hesitation, her right hand reached for another knife and slit his throat before his body hit the foot walk. She checked the first wounded cop who was beating a hasty retreat holding his bloody hand. Evey threw the knife that had just been baptized in his brother’s blood and nailed him right between the shoulder blades. He went down like a slack of wheat.
Evey doubled over and breathed in ragged chunks. There is no reason why she should have survived that, she thought. She felt her left side and winced. All she could focus on was the sound of blood rushing in her ears and the dark motes that floated in front of her eyes when the pain changed.
Evey. - The voice floated to her from miles away as if it was being carried across a lake. - Evey, you must return. Now. Evey, listen to m-
Her cape suddenly yanked Evey backward; her feet shot out from under her. The leader - she had attacked him blindly and never checked to see if he had been completely subdued. And, she stood with her back to him. Rookie mistake. She landed on top of him with a crash that rocked the walk way loose of several of its rusted moorings. The walk began to swing from side to side in a flexible way that metal should not.
Evey!
Evey struggled to raise herself up but the cop’s hands grappled her throat from behind as his fingers, slippery with his own blood, tried to pry off the mask. His hands were massive. Just one was clutching her windpipe and cutting off all access to air. She bodily thrashed him from one railing to the other and back again hoping to loosen his grip for an instant. Each moment that ticked by was a moment’s less oxygen. She grabbed a knife from her belt and began stabbing wildly behind her hitting only air. Her energy was ebbing quickly.
EVEY!
At last, she dropped the knife and with her final ounce of rational thought hooked a foot around his leg and pushed backward with all of her strength. Both of their bodies slammed into the foot walk causing the rivets at the south end of the T to break free. The free end of the walk way descended 4 storeys and stopped just short of the factory floor as it’s opposite end twisted and bent painfully but wouldn’t break loose. Evey tumbled head over feet past the cop sliding down the horizontal walk way now suddenly turned vertical. Her left hand reached out and snagged a rung of the railing, halting her descent as quickly as it had begun. The cop followed past her an instant later and caught hold of her cape. The two dangled there for a moment, but the weight of the cop on her cape was quickly choking Evey once again. Her feet began to thrash wildly as she fumbled at the cape’s clasp. Enough of this! she thought as she scrabbled at her belt, raised a knife in her right hand and stabbed at her neck. Her left hand slackened and they both fell into darkness.
EVEY! NOOO!
-----------
The steel door to the Shadow Gallery bore out a low moan as it opened reluctantly. A bloodied glove curled around the frame and willed it’s master forward into the gloom of the gallery hallway. Evey leaned heavily against the door after it closed behind her. She didn’t realize that she had dropped her knife belt or the bloodied and banged mask until she heard them hit the stone floor. She closed her eyes as she tried to balance herself: she had twisted her ankle and probably cracked a rib during the 4-storey fall from the walkway. The only thing that had prevented further injury was the cop’s body itself. He broke nearly every bone when he hit the factory floor, but she only hit him and therefore, he saved her life. The irony was beautiful. Evey laughed softly thinking about it now for the first time and allowing a layer of anxiety to evaporate from her. Then she felt the rigidity of her left side kick in and the gash along her throat sting with pain. Okay, it’s funny, she thought, but laugh about it later.
Evey pushed herself forward and tried to walk further into the hallway but her ankle gave out and she fell into the opposite wall sliding to the floor instead. There she remained deciding to allow her ankle its moment of painful triumph. She sat, her back against the wall, one leg bent, the other stretched out before her throbbing. Her hands lay palms up at her sides too tired to be adjusted any other way. She still had the Fawkes wig on despite removing the mask, and out of her left ear dangled a clear ear bud like the Secret Service used to wear in those old American movies. She looked like an abandoned rag doll. “Home again, home again. Jiggedy-jig.” she said softly to herself. She heard it in a movie once and liked the childlike nonsense of it. Christ! She felt like every inch of her was a bruise! She fingered the small compartment inside her vest that contained the receiver for her transmitter on the Scotland Yard server. It was still blinking merrily. Thank God, she thought, it wasn’t all for nothing. Now, all she had to do was link it up to the system in the Gallery and she could know exactly what the cops were up to at all times.
But first, maybe a bath, some medical attention, and a righteously deserved cup of tea.
Evey?
It was both a question and an incredulous statement. Evey didn’t move. “I’m here.” she whispered. She knew that he’d find her soon enough. There was a low, rolling sound approaching her, then his mask loomed out of the darkness of the hallway floating towards her like a phantom. He stopped just short of her outstretched leg. In the darkness he had almost run over it with his chair. His mask seemed to glow in the low light, but Evey could still make out the rest of him: powerful and sinewed except where his body left off and his wheelchair began. He leaned forward, hands still gripping the angled rims of his sports-designed chair. The frame was light, minimal and maneuverable but it did not make up for the loss of his legs taken by a misplaced charge that dispatched Creedy and his Fingermen hordes on the Fifth. He stared at her not speaking for a full minute. Evey wasn’t certain, but she thought that he was shaking.
It’s been two hours since your last contact, Evey. I was certain that - He stopped momentarily and started again, more controlled this time. - I was certain that you were dead.
“ The mask was damaged during the fall.” She pointed to the scarred Guy Fawkes staring up from the floor. The enamel was scraped down to the steel frame beneath. Large dents marred the forehead, nose and chin, disfiguring its usually smug grin, and the lower half was black with dried blood. “Those pinprick cameras aren’t meant for heavy wear-and-tear like that.” She said, referring to the small digital transmitters that were mounted just above the eyeholes of the mask. “It doesn’t surprise me that you lost the signal. My earpiece must’ve given out at the same time.” V stared at the broken mask; his body still fixed in it’s rigid, disbelieving original position. “It’s not all my blood.” Evey added hastily.
V’s head snapped back towards her. - Not ALL? Let me look at you. - He wheeled closer to her and she attempted to lean towards him. Lightening flashed across her mid-section as her kidneys and her ribs joined forces and let her know that movement was a bad idea. The vocal gasp escaped her before she could clamp it down - there was no way to hide the extent of her injuries from him. She grabbed the sides of his chair and tried to will herself into silence while raising herself up, but once again, her ankle sidelined her and she collapsed in front of him. “Dammit!” she hissed.
V grabbed her hands to steady her, then took one hand and tilted her head to the side revealing the long slash along her throat just under the jaw line. It wasn’t bleeding anymore and wasn’t deep enough to need stitches, but it looked painful. It’ll make a pretty little scar, V thought, a little too intimately. “It happened when I cut the cape free. I was choking otherwise I wouldn’t have been so careless.” The last thing that she wanted from him was a knife safety talk. Given everything that had happened tonight, he might just be clueless enough to end the evening with a lecture instead of something more congratulatory. V tilted his head silently asking: what else? Evey sighed. “I took a few kidney shots. I think that I cracked a rib or two during the fall, and I twisted my ankle.” She felt like an apprentice listing her mistakes to her master.
V’s hands traveled to her torso and gently prodded until she gasped and winced, then they softly scanned the surrounding area. Once satisfied, his hands moved around her to her left and probed where she had taken the body shots. Her head lay on his shoulder as she buried her face in his wig. When he found her tender spot, she tightened and hissed into his ear, which made his heart leap unexpectedly. His hands dallied a little longer than was necessary around her waist and back, and then he straightened up in his chair again, forcing her head away from him. - You appear to have deep tissue bruising on your left side. It’ll be unpleasant for a few days, but you’ll live and sport a spectacular shade of purple, no doubt. One rib is cracked, but not broken, on your right side. Nothing to do but bandage you up tightly and hope that it doesn’t get any worse. Once again, you’ll bruise, but violet suits you. - He smiled knowing that she couldn’t see it. - I can’t ascertain the damage to your ankle. I can’t bend down that far. - He added self-consciously.
We should get you cleaned up. - He tried to reverse his chair, but Evey lay her head down in his lap, stopping him. Her one hand rested on what was left of his right knee and her left snaked around his back and gripped his tunic. She let out an exhausted sigh. It was not a romantic gesture; it was an intimate familiarity that she needed to express in that moment. She came so close to never making it back, to never having this again. She needed a moment to feel thankful.
“I almost didn’t make it home.” she said finally.
You were right, Evey: you weren’t meant to die there. You are made of stronger stuff than that. I wish that I could have been there with you.
“You were, remember? My eyes and ears…” She looked up at him. “By the way, when the Fingermen found me in the factory, when I saw them, I thought that I was going to die. You said that you wouldn’t let that happen, but I hadn’t said anything, so how did you know what I was thinking?”
V took her bloody chin in his hand again. - Sometimes it’s the notes that you don’t hear, Evey.
She smiled at him. Then she showed him the blinking receiver. “Shall we go play with our new toy?” she winked at him mischievously. Oh, this girl was worth her weight in gold, V thought as a warm affection flushed his body. His gloved hand brushed her cheek and pulled off her wig. If he had been a different man, he would have kissed her joyously in that moment.
Let’s put you to rights first. There will be time for playing around later.
It's a one-off, post-Fifth, action/adventure type of thing. Some might have problems with how I resolved some things in the second act. Please comment anyway. I like feedback.
length: approx. 5000 words
rating: PG for violence, swearing
disclaimer: as always, I'm playing around with someone else's material. it's all in good fun and, no, I don't consider these people my property in any way.
The Master’s Voice
“And if I only could
make a deal with God,
And get Him to swap our places…” - Running Up That Hill, Kate Bush.
London could still be a beautiful place at night. High above the streets looking out over it’s grand edifices and slums all crowded together in the sepia light, it almost seemed like we were all in it together. Dictatorship and civil rebellion had ruled these streets by turns for centuries: the buildings still stood, the markets still sold goods, the people still grumbled about the endless rain. In the end, we were all just people trying to survive as we always had. Weren’t we all in search of the same thing? A sense of belonging? Stability? A bullet whizzed by Evey’s ear and brought her back to her very dangerous reality. Clearly not, she thought as she focused her eyes through the Fawkes mask on the police contingent scrabbling across the rooftops behind her.
“Dammit! They’re persistent tonight.” She griped to herself aloud.
It’s not like you haven’t given them cause, Evey. V’s voice echoed inside her head.
She hated when that happened. After all, she was alone out there left to outwit and outrun former Fingermen who had a personal interest in capturing and killing the “terrorist” that felled their leader. After Creedy was killed, the department of the Finger was integrated into the London Police Force as “the will of the people”. No more discretionary detentions or forceful interviews were permitted. Their power to intimidate had been severely compromised and the individual perks that went along with that had evaporated overnight. These were not subtle or reasonable men and if they could find a way to exact revenge for their loss of status by throwing a suspect off a building without the benefit of due process, you could rest assured that they would. Evey hadn’t killed Creedy but it would make little difference to them: she wore the cloak, mask and tunic of the terrorist. They foisted all of their hatred onto the figure that she cut just as she had pinned all of her hopes and fears for the future, like many Londoners, on the same cold, unchanging mask. She wondered idly where they had gotten their guns from, as handguns were also no longer permitted as per the re-instated New Scotland Yard policy that echoed the regulations of the late 20th century. She was prepared to fight if she must but guns weren’t her thing. If this was the shade of police confrontations to come she might have to rethink carrying V’s beloved knives. All the more reason for the necessity of tonight’s mission: deposit a carrier transmitter on New Scotland Yard’s standalone server. All police files and internal email were contained on that server, but as per an old Ear imperative, no outside access was granted to the system. No wireless hacking could do the job either due to the elaborate renovations made to the building that kept outside signals out and inside signals dampened. The security of information remained paramount. If Evey wanted to know what the cops were thinking she’d have to walk right into their lair and ask.
“Do you have something helpful to add to the situation?” Evey asked the voice aloud. “Or are we going to go over your disapproval of my plan again?”
You know my objections, as I know your reasons for action. Debate, at this point, would be merely academic as well as inappropriate. I can tell you that 500 yards to the south, you will find a fire escape to the street. I suggest that you take it and use the street shadows to your advantage.
“Thank you, that was helpful after all.” She wheeled and allowed the cape to billow and thus throw the gunman’s aim off as she headed directly for the fire escape. She leapt over the side as if dropping 5 storeys to her death, but managed to grab a hold of the steel railing and slid most of the way down with her feet gripping the outside of the handrails. Falling artfully the last several feet to the sidewalk from the ladder’s end, Evey recognized that she was easily 20 blocks from the nearest underground access to the Shadow Gallery. “Bugger!” she muttered. She could hear the cops behind and above her. They were lost: they couldn’t see her in the shadows below but they couldn’t see her body either. They wouldn’t give up, but she had bought some valuable time.
Evey, you must be sure that you’ve lost them before returning to the Gallery. - The voice sounded concerned.
“I realize that, V. I won’t risk the Gallery.” Short, curt sentences conveyed her distress. V had never appeared unsure outside of the Gallery. His actions, even when improvised, had an air of practiced confidence about them that must have come from years of experience in covering his own ass. Evey was highly skilled and confident in her own right, but was a different predator than V. Worry sharpened her edge but it also colored each venture outside of the Gallery with uncertainty that V, in his day, would’ve found unacceptable.
Evey. - The voice was softer, gentler and more intimate than before, like he was next to her whispering in her ear. She could almost feel his breath. Not fair, she thought. I’m running for my life here! Emotional baggage will just have to wait.
Evey, I’m not worried about you giving up the Gallery’s location. I’m worried for your safety. You have accomplished your mission and planted the transmitter, but it will all be for naught if you die in the process. - The voice took on a bitter edge as it pronounced the word “die”. - That is why I had objections to your plan. There had to be a safer way to obtain this information. You are too important to risk so cavalierly.
Evey rounded a corner and found herself alone on a major thoroughfare, V’s sensible yet possessive voice bouncing around her cranium. “Really, V? I’m too important to risk? Did you think about that before the Fifth? Didn’t you think that this city needed you afterwards? I needed you but you wouldn’t hear it. Now I’m out here playing you for the betterment of others. So, if I die tonight, you can re-visit your risk assessment but don’t forget to put yourself down as a variable in that equation.” She was breathing hard running full tilt. Four blocks away was an abandoned factory that would provide good cover if she needed it. She could run another ¼ mile before her muscles started to complain but her mental debate was exhausting her faster than any physical obstacle could. She wished that she hadn’t sounded so hurt and angry when she spoke. She felt that her role in assuming V’s mantle was her destiny, but clearly part of her still yearned for a simpler path. Perhaps part of her resented this life and pined to have a 9-to-5 job, a boyfriend, and nights down at the pub with friends. She doubted it, but it was possible.
The voice remained silent as she covered the last few blocks and came upon the battered hulk of Active Surplus Distributors - a condemned industrial lot containing a massive warehouse with many separate bays, lofts, and foot walks to lose oneself in. V used to bring her here for training; to force her to adapt to and use her environment to her advantage. She loved its dilapidated grace; it’s scarred façade that begged to revel its story to her. But, like the man that introduced her to it, it remained silent about its history. Roaming it’s architecture still afforded her comfort but it was like having a friend that would never truly put their faith in you, and that made her feel lonely. This place was like a physical incarnation of V’s interior world. It made the voice come alive again.
Ahhhh, Active Surplus. I always liked this place. I tried to remember it full of people and industry: the cacophony, the sense of purpose! The way the light streamed through the clerestory windows in mid-winter was like a poem. - The voice was soft, golden and full of memory. It wasn’t talking to her, it was riffing on it’s own. - It’s a good place to make a stand. You will have the advantage.
“I’m not planning to die here, V.” Evey felt compelled to point this fact out as much as to wrest her interior dialogue back to the task at hand. “You’re a tad too romantically fatalistic. I just need to be certain that my way home is clear.”
Oh, of course, dear. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. - The voice purred at her in a way that was highly distracting. She really wished that he had half as much sense of the current environment as he used to drill into her during her training. After a brief moment, the voice continued, while Evey found a pile of debris to squat behind with good sightlines. - Do you really consider the Gallery your “home”, Evey?
She breathed in and out once. “Of course I do, V. I haven’t had a real home since I was eight years old. It’s quite a thing to feel safe somewhere after losing everything.” She thought that she heard footfalls on gravel and made herself still as a stone. Heartbeats lengthened themselves into minutes of calm rhythm within her. She focused entirely on the art of hearing what wasn’t there. It’s the notes that you don’t hear, V once quoted cryptically. It’s the rush of air before the blow falls, it’s the dead calm before the dizzying blur of the storm, it’s the moment between the stem breaking and the leaf falling. Noises of the night expanded and surrounded her in this new auditorium of the minimal. A light breeze whistled through the broken windowpanes. The crabgrass and junk weed of the overgrown lot bowed lightly with late-night condensation and the slight scurry of brave autumn insects. Dust eddies picked up by the cross breeze of the open interior space swirled and danced through dappled urban glow drawn in from the streetlights. Then the faint crackle of broken glass caught in rubber shoe treads scraped across the subtle canvas that she had created like a discordant trumpet blast. Her eyes sharpened and focused in the gloom to see the shadows shift almost imperceptively.
At the moment that her gaze sifted, the voice growled. - 2 o’clock, 200 yards. There are 7 of them. - 7 were more than she anticipated. They were good: they had tracked her and they had gotten a lot closer than she would’ve liked before revealing their position. These men were good little killers. She might die there tonight after all, she thought as she hissed out a ragged breath.
No. I won’t let that happen. - The voice had steel in it. - You will come home again. Focus, Evey.
V might have assailed the enemy head on and simply fought through them, but Evey favored more guerrilla tactics. She palmed a soft handful of debris and scattered it behind her and to her left. The scuttling caught their attention and they split into two groups heading for the site of the noise from both sides in a pincer movement. This greatly increased her chances of reducing their numbers before they had a chance to see her or use their weapons. She pulled two knives from her belt.
The ones furthest away go first. - The voice was in sync with her strategy.
The knives sliced through the night air in deadly arcs making almost no noise whatsoever. The tandem snick and thud sounds assured her that her aim was true as she rushed the closest assailant, a third knife in hand. He was distracted by the noises of his cohorts crumbling behind him. As he turned to face Evey’s direction again, she was on top of him muffling his mouth and slicing his throat in one uninterrupted movement. The sickly gurgle of drowning on one’s on blood while trying to call out with a useless windpipe was a sound to which Evey would never become accustomed. She tried to ignore the man’s last few frightening seconds of life and moved fluidly past him to retrieve her knives from the bodies behind him. The four remaining cops responded to the sounds of their fallen brethren as Evey quickly camouflaged herself in the shadows surrounding the access to an upper foot walk. She climbed quickly sacrificing stealth for speed.
You are at greater advantage on the ground, Evey. - The voice was trying for neutrality and only half succeeding. - The narrowness of the foot walks may nullify their remaining numbers but you could be easily cornered.
I know that, she thought fuelled by adrenalin. “Too much open ground on the floor. Too much light.” She whispered between gasps of air. “The shadows up here will make aiming difficult.” Less criticism, more concentration she chided to herself instead of the voice. The voice was miles away and right there, passively, at the same time - she was the one who was on the line now. Whatever she did now or didn’t do, she would end it by herself. She heard the four cops ascend the ladder. One let off a shot that, predictably, only hit shadows and ricocheted away never putting Evey in harm’s way. “Stop it!” cried one cop to another. He then furiously signaled for the one to follow him while the other two circled around them and behind by another foot walk. As the first two cops barreled after Evey along the foot walk she vaulted over the railing and landed in the middle of another that crossed beneath the first. It was a 12-foot drop to a narrow platform, but she had done it many times before. The two cops wouldn’t give up that easily and followed her. The sudden weight of Evey’s lithe frame and over 400 pounds of angry killer cops strained the rusted rivets holding the walkway aloft, and it moaned and jostled laterally to make it’s complaints known. Meanwhile, the other two cops had dropped down a level as well and were heading to cut her off as she made her way towards a T-junction that intersected the walk that she was on. She made it to the T before the cops did and the original two were only a heartbeat behind her. A moment’s hesitation while she judged their respective distances sealed her fate.
Evey! - The voice roared at her with such force that she thought that the cops themselves could hear it. - Move! Now!
Instead the first cop behind her leapt over the railing and vaulted himself to the T section walkway behind and to the right. Now she was trapped with two cops on one half of the T, another on the other half and one directly in front of her. She had to remain silent but one word begged to be released: shit.
The cop behind her on the upper T section reached for her with his gun hand and she wheeled and responded by slicing it at the juncture between his thumb and forefinger. He yelped, dropped his gun and jumped back as if bitten by a snake. The gun clattered to the factory floor below. Well, he won’t be shooting me at least, she thought. The victory was short-lived as the cop in front of her, the leader, tackled her. He twisted her body sideways and quickly kidney-punched her twice and then whacked the mask with the handle of his pistol. The mask was lined with steel so she didn’t feel the blow but the kidney shots brought searing, sudden pain that temporarily blinded her vision to white hot. She groaned as she fought the will to collapse.
The voice took over. - Right hand to the carotid. Rip down and to your left. Put your shoulder into it! - Blinded by pain she followed the orders unhesitatingly. Soft, wet sounds and a fleshy resistance said that her aim had come through again even if her sight had not. She felt his weight as he went down and the walk way rattled its complaint again. - Turn, 3 o’clock. Crouch. Right hand jab. Discard. Bulls eye the forth. - Evey’s vision was starting to clear again but her left side was rigid with pain. She had one cop wounded and disarmed, one down and two left to deal with. She silently prayed for a quick end for whoever was going to die here tonight. She squatted suddenly in front of the approaching officer, as ordered, and rammed her knife deep into his abdomen using his forward momentum to do half the work for her. Summoning all of her remaining strength she tilted his skewered body over her and lifted him straight up and to her side over the railing. Letting the knife in her right hand go, she continued to propel forward with her left hand and rammed a second knife into the forth cop’s chest collapsing a lung. Without encouragement or hesitation, her right hand reached for another knife and slit his throat before his body hit the foot walk. She checked the first wounded cop who was beating a hasty retreat holding his bloody hand. Evey threw the knife that had just been baptized in his brother’s blood and nailed him right between the shoulder blades. He went down like a slack of wheat.
Evey doubled over and breathed in ragged chunks. There is no reason why she should have survived that, she thought. She felt her left side and winced. All she could focus on was the sound of blood rushing in her ears and the dark motes that floated in front of her eyes when the pain changed.
Evey. - The voice floated to her from miles away as if it was being carried across a lake. - Evey, you must return. Now. Evey, listen to m-
Her cape suddenly yanked Evey backward; her feet shot out from under her. The leader - she had attacked him blindly and never checked to see if he had been completely subdued. And, she stood with her back to him. Rookie mistake. She landed on top of him with a crash that rocked the walk way loose of several of its rusted moorings. The walk began to swing from side to side in a flexible way that metal should not.
Evey!
Evey struggled to raise herself up but the cop’s hands grappled her throat from behind as his fingers, slippery with his own blood, tried to pry off the mask. His hands were massive. Just one was clutching her windpipe and cutting off all access to air. She bodily thrashed him from one railing to the other and back again hoping to loosen his grip for an instant. Each moment that ticked by was a moment’s less oxygen. She grabbed a knife from her belt and began stabbing wildly behind her hitting only air. Her energy was ebbing quickly.
EVEY!
At last, she dropped the knife and with her final ounce of rational thought hooked a foot around his leg and pushed backward with all of her strength. Both of their bodies slammed into the foot walk causing the rivets at the south end of the T to break free. The free end of the walk way descended 4 storeys and stopped just short of the factory floor as it’s opposite end twisted and bent painfully but wouldn’t break loose. Evey tumbled head over feet past the cop sliding down the horizontal walk way now suddenly turned vertical. Her left hand reached out and snagged a rung of the railing, halting her descent as quickly as it had begun. The cop followed past her an instant later and caught hold of her cape. The two dangled there for a moment, but the weight of the cop on her cape was quickly choking Evey once again. Her feet began to thrash wildly as she fumbled at the cape’s clasp. Enough of this! she thought as she scrabbled at her belt, raised a knife in her right hand and stabbed at her neck. Her left hand slackened and they both fell into darkness.
EVEY! NOOO!
-----------
The steel door to the Shadow Gallery bore out a low moan as it opened reluctantly. A bloodied glove curled around the frame and willed it’s master forward into the gloom of the gallery hallway. Evey leaned heavily against the door after it closed behind her. She didn’t realize that she had dropped her knife belt or the bloodied and banged mask until she heard them hit the stone floor. She closed her eyes as she tried to balance herself: she had twisted her ankle and probably cracked a rib during the 4-storey fall from the walkway. The only thing that had prevented further injury was the cop’s body itself. He broke nearly every bone when he hit the factory floor, but she only hit him and therefore, he saved her life. The irony was beautiful. Evey laughed softly thinking about it now for the first time and allowing a layer of anxiety to evaporate from her. Then she felt the rigidity of her left side kick in and the gash along her throat sting with pain. Okay, it’s funny, she thought, but laugh about it later.
Evey pushed herself forward and tried to walk further into the hallway but her ankle gave out and she fell into the opposite wall sliding to the floor instead. There she remained deciding to allow her ankle its moment of painful triumph. She sat, her back against the wall, one leg bent, the other stretched out before her throbbing. Her hands lay palms up at her sides too tired to be adjusted any other way. She still had the Fawkes wig on despite removing the mask, and out of her left ear dangled a clear ear bud like the Secret Service used to wear in those old American movies. She looked like an abandoned rag doll. “Home again, home again. Jiggedy-jig.” she said softly to herself. She heard it in a movie once and liked the childlike nonsense of it. Christ! She felt like every inch of her was a bruise! She fingered the small compartment inside her vest that contained the receiver for her transmitter on the Scotland Yard server. It was still blinking merrily. Thank God, she thought, it wasn’t all for nothing. Now, all she had to do was link it up to the system in the Gallery and she could know exactly what the cops were up to at all times.
But first, maybe a bath, some medical attention, and a righteously deserved cup of tea.
Evey?
It was both a question and an incredulous statement. Evey didn’t move. “I’m here.” she whispered. She knew that he’d find her soon enough. There was a low, rolling sound approaching her, then his mask loomed out of the darkness of the hallway floating towards her like a phantom. He stopped just short of her outstretched leg. In the darkness he had almost run over it with his chair. His mask seemed to glow in the low light, but Evey could still make out the rest of him: powerful and sinewed except where his body left off and his wheelchair began. He leaned forward, hands still gripping the angled rims of his sports-designed chair. The frame was light, minimal and maneuverable but it did not make up for the loss of his legs taken by a misplaced charge that dispatched Creedy and his Fingermen hordes on the Fifth. He stared at her not speaking for a full minute. Evey wasn’t certain, but she thought that he was shaking.
It’s been two hours since your last contact, Evey. I was certain that - He stopped momentarily and started again, more controlled this time. - I was certain that you were dead.
“ The mask was damaged during the fall.” She pointed to the scarred Guy Fawkes staring up from the floor. The enamel was scraped down to the steel frame beneath. Large dents marred the forehead, nose and chin, disfiguring its usually smug grin, and the lower half was black with dried blood. “Those pinprick cameras aren’t meant for heavy wear-and-tear like that.” She said, referring to the small digital transmitters that were mounted just above the eyeholes of the mask. “It doesn’t surprise me that you lost the signal. My earpiece must’ve given out at the same time.” V stared at the broken mask; his body still fixed in it’s rigid, disbelieving original position. “It’s not all my blood.” Evey added hastily.
V’s head snapped back towards her. - Not ALL? Let me look at you. - He wheeled closer to her and she attempted to lean towards him. Lightening flashed across her mid-section as her kidneys and her ribs joined forces and let her know that movement was a bad idea. The vocal gasp escaped her before she could clamp it down - there was no way to hide the extent of her injuries from him. She grabbed the sides of his chair and tried to will herself into silence while raising herself up, but once again, her ankle sidelined her and she collapsed in front of him. “Dammit!” she hissed.
V grabbed her hands to steady her, then took one hand and tilted her head to the side revealing the long slash along her throat just under the jaw line. It wasn’t bleeding anymore and wasn’t deep enough to need stitches, but it looked painful. It’ll make a pretty little scar, V thought, a little too intimately. “It happened when I cut the cape free. I was choking otherwise I wouldn’t have been so careless.” The last thing that she wanted from him was a knife safety talk. Given everything that had happened tonight, he might just be clueless enough to end the evening with a lecture instead of something more congratulatory. V tilted his head silently asking: what else? Evey sighed. “I took a few kidney shots. I think that I cracked a rib or two during the fall, and I twisted my ankle.” She felt like an apprentice listing her mistakes to her master.
V’s hands traveled to her torso and gently prodded until she gasped and winced, then they softly scanned the surrounding area. Once satisfied, his hands moved around her to her left and probed where she had taken the body shots. Her head lay on his shoulder as she buried her face in his wig. When he found her tender spot, she tightened and hissed into his ear, which made his heart leap unexpectedly. His hands dallied a little longer than was necessary around her waist and back, and then he straightened up in his chair again, forcing her head away from him. - You appear to have deep tissue bruising on your left side. It’ll be unpleasant for a few days, but you’ll live and sport a spectacular shade of purple, no doubt. One rib is cracked, but not broken, on your right side. Nothing to do but bandage you up tightly and hope that it doesn’t get any worse. Once again, you’ll bruise, but violet suits you. - He smiled knowing that she couldn’t see it. - I can’t ascertain the damage to your ankle. I can’t bend down that far. - He added self-consciously.
We should get you cleaned up. - He tried to reverse his chair, but Evey lay her head down in his lap, stopping him. Her one hand rested on what was left of his right knee and her left snaked around his back and gripped his tunic. She let out an exhausted sigh. It was not a romantic gesture; it was an intimate familiarity that she needed to express in that moment. She came so close to never making it back, to never having this again. She needed a moment to feel thankful.
“I almost didn’t make it home.” she said finally.
You were right, Evey: you weren’t meant to die there. You are made of stronger stuff than that. I wish that I could have been there with you.
“You were, remember? My eyes and ears…” She looked up at him. “By the way, when the Fingermen found me in the factory, when I saw them, I thought that I was going to die. You said that you wouldn’t let that happen, but I hadn’t said anything, so how did you know what I was thinking?”
V took her bloody chin in his hand again. - Sometimes it’s the notes that you don’t hear, Evey.
She smiled at him. Then she showed him the blinking receiver. “Shall we go play with our new toy?” she winked at him mischievously. Oh, this girl was worth her weight in gold, V thought as a warm affection flushed his body. His gloved hand brushed her cheek and pulled off her wig. If he had been a different man, he would have kissed her joyously in that moment.
Let’s put you to rights first. There will be time for playing around later.