008 First Romance

More prose again. I dunno. A poem about romance just seemed a little... blah. This is another backstory exploration, for a character from a much older idea. It also has pretty much nothing to do with FIRST romance. Or even romance. I dunno. Fuck it. >_>;

This is also another piece in first person but slipping to past as she reminisces. *shrugs*


Bridget sits in the soft light of a table lamp and watches him sleep. On the couch, half on his side with one foot propped up on the armrest. Artemis, the former stray, is draped over his hips. From experience, Bridget knows that a night on that couch will lead to a hellish stiffness come morning, but that's probably irrelevent now.

She clicks the safety off her Beretta M9, its suppressor already in place. The quiet pop won't even disturb the cat. She knows that from experience, too. The gun waits, heavy in her lap as she contemplates the clueless man sleeping before her. It won't matter if she kills him here, in the apartment. She'll be gone by morning, the cleaners ducking in from wherever they come from, a cover story spreading through the news. It'll probably be a motorcycle accident, complete with a look-a-like body. She doesn't want to know where or how they get that. What matters is everything's ready to go. It's her call if tonight is the end, if she thinks this is the most she can do with the mission. It's already gone further than she imagined, thanks to the man before her.

Hidden in her bedroom is a memory stick, brimming with data secreted out of the bowels of P-Gen. He brought it to her willingly, arriving unannounced in the medbay and stepping unnaturally close, especially for someone who normally respected personal space. His hand found hers, pressing something small and plastic against her palm.

"Maybe we could get a bite to eat," he said. "After work. If that's not too forward."

Her thumb ran over the object as she slid it surreptitiuosly into a pocket, and she agreed, if only to buy herself some time. A man she had considered naive, who buzzed around her like an over-friendly housefly, had clearly caught on to her. Had she under-estimated him? Was he ambitious enough to blackmail her, cruel enough to toy with her? Her mind was steeling itself all day. She expected demands of money, sex, something, but no, he only wanted dinner. Sitting on a park bench, eating burgers, ironically having the most privacy in the a public space -- where no cameras had been installed to watch them.

"I didn't know what you wanted," he said, referring to the information. "So I took a little of everything."

"How did you know?" There was no need to elaborate, especially since she wasn't sure how much he knew.

"Why else would you be trying to sneak in?"

Trying was the important word there. P-Gen had stricter security than anyplace she'd ever been, and though her mission had been to cripple the facilities and retrieve data, she increasingly felt her only option would be to sacrifice herself in the labs' destruction. That was no option at all. She had no taste for martyrdom. This man, the unassuming biologist who blackmailed women into picnics in the park, might be the last chance for success.

He's doing it out of misguided affection. She knows that. He looks at her like she's a beauty queen, and she wonders if his glasses need a stronger prescription. He's sent her flowers and sweets and then fruit baskets when she grumbled about the calories. As if they aren't in the middle of espionage, risking discovery and death at every moment. More than that, events unfolding around them might shape the fate of the world. Centuries of policy, of success or failure, might be hinged on the information he so casually trades for a burger and a few kind words.

She pities him, in a way. Hates him, too, for the way he smiles, even in the photo that came with her latest instructions. 'Caleb Birmingham. Priority asset of Price. Value of Elimination: Very High.' She burned the message immediately. It took no time to memorize a face she saw every day, a face which keeps telling her its free for dinner, if she'd like to, not that there's any pressure. It isn't a matter of liking, which is all for the best. She doesn't know what she wants, anyway.

Come-ons, they still happen, though less frequently than in her youth. Now they're mostly made in passing by men a little older than herself, men who think a thirty-seven year old woman is actually a catch. Thankfully, they've been playing the game long enough that a growled "piss off" makes them flee in search of more submissive prey. Nobody wants an opinionated bitch, especially not one who works with needles and scalpels, rides a ___ and knows her way around a firearm. It's been a cold life that taught her these things, but in the end, they're worth a lot more than romance ever was.

She's much too old for romance, or rather, she's too old to believe in silly, Hollywood fantasies. She believed at seventeen, even when her boyfriend tried to force himself on her. That was a fluke, a flaw of teenage nature. Everyone told her 'Boys will be boys'. So at twenty, she thought she was smarter, hooking up with a pre-med professor who praised her mind instead of her tits. A year later, she'd met the three other girls whose minds he also praised, and they all decided to keep quiet. Scandal would follow them forever, and they still had careers to think about.

Halfway through med school, the bombs fell, and she somehow found herself trailing into the service after a rugged ox of a man who promised they'd go to Paris someday. He seemed noble, competent, a true leader, and like any romantically-inclined heroine, she felt certain that being with him was the right thing to do, even when the first slap came. She doesn't remember anymore when the feeling changed, when it shifted from 'we can work this out' to 'please, let this deployment end so I can never see him again'. But they were not a typical unit in a typical war. They were research support, cataloging slides and bottling samples in-between blasting the undead to smithereens.

The last she remembers seeing the Ox, it was in the Berlin quarantine zone, and he was driving the butt of a rifle into her face. He'd taken their best samples, the last bit of gas and their only working jeep. In the heated argument before the strike, he made it clear that he was leaving her and others as bait. When the hit to the head didn't fully knock her out, he shot her in the leg, saying the wound would distract the gathering Walkers. Then he drove off, leaving her in the middle of the uninterested undead. They weren't sharks. They didn't frenzy at the smell of blood. All this time, and he still didn't know that. It was then she realized her noble Ox was nothing but a self-absorbed idiot. Limping back to base, knowing the Walkers could go berzerk at any time, for any reason, she found herself laughing. At least that was the last time the bastard would hit her, but what a hit it was.

By the time an extraction team arrived, she was the last one left, on her third day without food, wedged into the rubble atop an unsteady building. She somehow came through the psych evaluations with a clean bill and felt only a little disappointed that they never asked, 'Do you still believe in love?' All thoughts of romance and settling down had left her head. She knew too much about this war, this 'accident', this world. When her military service ended, she went directly to Camp. Maybe it was rebellious, or just nihilistic. Nobody sought terrorists of any stripe because of happy feelings. It was simply a path she had to walk, because only they could provide

There she met Brandy, the twenty-something woman who came across like a teenage boy, praising her looks and prancing around her like a spring buck. She was quick-witted, a jokester, nothing like the serious, masculine type that Bridget liked, and maybe that was why she finally relented. The resulting affair, the orgasms and massages and long talks, made her re-evaluate everything she thought she knew about sexual identities, about whether anything was set in stone or if people just poured the concrete around themselves and pretended it was out of their hands.

She never found an answer to that question, but somewhere amid the bombings, raids and general anarchy, she did find a sense of peace. Not with Brandy -- the woman was too goddamn irritating to be around for long -- but in a general sense, one she'd been desperately needing. Brandy proved the problem was not her. It was no flaw of character that drove people to use her, that turned good men bad. At worst, it was her choices she couldn't trust, and that was simple to fix, wasn't it? She simply gave up on romance and devoted herself to more important matters, like ending Price's reign of corporate terror. That was supposed to be the end of it.

And now there's Caleb Birmingham asleep on her couch. Caleb, who spends most of his free time in the basements of P-Gen, staring at spiders. Caleb, who smiles like he's ten years old and getting a new bike. Caleb, who sends her flowers and knows she works for Camp and is still oblivious to the fact that he is scheduled to die.

She looks down at the Beretta, its grip warm from being held so long. There'd be no point in hiding it, even if he were awake. He's already seen it once, pointed at his face, yet he never hesitated to get on her bike, to enter her apartment or fall vulnerably asleep with his back wide open. Maybe he thinks since she didn't shoot him once, she won't ever. Maybe he's right. Maybe she's gotten soft.

Why this man? Just another researcher toiling away for the Empire of Price, a biologist with a touch of schizophrenia, a sheltered man with a bit too much innocence. What in his mind could possibly be so dangerous that he has to be buried with it? Those probably aren't the kind of questions Bridget is supposed to ask, but she didn't join a group of anarchists to practice blind loyalty. This mission, this call, is still hers to make.

Artemis stirs, readjust her position before stretching and kneading his leg, claws piercing easily through the fabric. Caleb twitches in his sleep, rolling to escape the sensation and falling right off the couch. The cat bolts as Caleb wakes with a start, sitting up and peering around in momentary confusion. Then he laughs, a sound so natural and innocent she'd think he was stupid if she didn't know his IQ. When he finally notices the gun, his face gets more serious. "Are you guarding me?"

The question surprises her. Is it really that hard for him to understand? Yes, it probably is. Their worldviews are complete opposites. Bridget has learned over and over to distrust anything until it's proven itself while Caleb considers the whole world his friend, until it hits him, and even then...

A shiver suddenly passes through her, and for a moment, she sees herself in him. She sees the young girl smiling naively at a professor's attention, growing hot beneath the gaze of a well-muscled man in a uniform. Though he's two years older than her, emotionally Caleb is vastly her junior, and that means she -- she has become the professor, the Ox, the one about to destroy another's innocence for her own purposes. The realization makes her sick to her stomach.

"Bridget?" He rests a hand on her knee. "Are you okay?"

"No," she says quietly.

"Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?"

She closes her eyes and shakes her head.

"I'll make some, anyway," he says, sounding strangely cheerful. "The aroma might change your mind."

As his feet shuffle across the carpet, she calls out, "Coffee. There's coffee in the cupboard."

He acknowledges the comment, and moments later, she hears the cupboard clicking open, followed by Artemis mrowing in hopes of a treat. Looking down at the Beretta, she pushes the safety back on. Camp has been wrong before, and if the value of elimination is very high, the value of conversion must be astronomical. It's a matter of tactics, she tells herself, nothing to do with childish regrets or romantic silliness. If he wants to waste money on flowers and get sore sleeping on couches, that's his business.

Anyway, the cat likes him.