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fellowshippers2007-05-31 09:13 pm
pecos.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2007-05-31 09:13 pm
Beyond Design Limitations 21: Brought Together
Hello my sisters and brothers around the globe! My best wishes to all under this gorgeous full moon. For those who’ve been following the Beyond Design series, I’d like to point out that there’s an incredibly cheesy ‘reality’ show airing here in the USA right now called “Pirate Master”, and it is hosted by none other that that stunning and studly hunk Cameron Daddo, Mr. Rollie Tyler in the flesh. For my Aussie friends, you’ll already know about the Daddo boys, but there may be some in the Northern climes who’ve not yet been exposed. Look and lust, my sisters and brothers!
Now, if I may be allowed to entertain you, here’s
TITLE: Beyond Design Limitations
CHAPTER: Twenty-one: Brought Together
AUTHOR: Pecos – PecosPhil@sprintmail.com
WEBSITE: http://www.chimerafic.com
BETA: Gloria Mundi (all sing her praises!)
RATING: Varies by chapter. This one is NC-17
DISCLAIMER: I don’t make the toys, I’m only
playing with them. No money made, nor
disrespect intended. This is FICTION
WHAT IS IT?: RPS / AU
Sequel to ‘Prophecy: Destiny & Design’
which can be found on my website
WHO’S IN IT?: Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom,
Johnny Depp, Viggo Mortensen and other
actors from ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Pirates
of the Caribbean’, ‘Hidalgo’ and others
FEEDBACK: remember the golden rule, (please!)
NOTE: Please forgive any intentional or
unintentional abuse of facts or history.
Story takes place in early 2002
NOTE 2: All blame for dodgy poetry falls to me.
Pluto tried to help, but I’m hopeless
Beyond Design Limitations
Chapter Twenty-one: Brought Together
Mickey
Swimming up from unconsciousness in small, reluctant steps, he finally managed to get his eyes open, confirming the thing he’d feared the most. Bright light made his vision blur and waver, but he could tell that he was on his back, in a bed, and several standard bottles of fluids hung above him. Mickey worked his dry mouth, trying to loosen a tongue that had grown stiff and thick. A stranger moved into view, and he rolled his eyes to examine the man’s clothing and demeanor.
“Fuck,” he breathed at last. He would know what this guy was doing anywhere, at any time. “Fuck…” Mickey mumbled again. “Have I been shot?”
“No, sir,” the suit said.
“Am I dying?” Mickey asked, trying to get some degree of strength into his raspy voice.
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Then get me a damn nurse.”
The suit’s face remained frozen, but he did reach for the call button. Mickey’s eyes drifted shut of their own accord, and he was gone again by the time the nun came through the door.
Orlando
Johnny’s partner, Vanessa, was flying back to Los Angeles with them on the charter plane. She was sitting with him in the front, whispering and laughing as the small jet climbed away from the sparkling green and blue of the Caribbean Sea. Orlando smiled wistfully at their intimacy. He wondered what it was like, this pulling apart, with always a guarantee of coming together again. Must be really nice. Vanessa was so pretty and sweet, and she clearly completed Johnny’s vagabond soul.
Jerry Bruckheimer was on the plane too, eager to get back to oversee the final construction of the sets. He was busy with paperwork and his laptop, spread over several seats. Geoffrey was taking a slower route, with complaints that he hated little planes, and Gore was staying for another day to re-shoot a scene with Pintel and Ragetti. Keira’s entourage took up too much room, so that left Orlando alone in the last two seats.
He shifted around, watching the beautiful sea disappear beneath evening clouds, and then reached for his bag. He rummaged for the book buried under his few clothes, giving the Orli-Bear a squeeze, and pulled out the photo collection of southern Africa Viggo had given him when he’d last visited. It was written in several languages, not one of which Orlando could read, but that was all right. The whole point was to look at the pictures. He opened the volume to a page at random and found himself smiling at a gang of meerkats. They looked so tiny in such a vast and potentially cruel landscape, clinging to each other and standing tall, many eyes making lighter work of the endless search for enemies.
Sighing, he thumbed through the book for another picture to fall into. Instead, he came across a sheet of paper tucked between the pages. Viggo’s artistic handwriting slid across the page like it had spilled from a glass, a few words scratched out, replacements tucked in, and whole lines excised to literary oblivion. Pictures of leaves decorated one edge, and a little drawing of two hands. ‘Come into my House’ was written at the top, tucked into a scribbled box.
Come into my House
My house was warm
my artificial life
felt so full and complete.
Through a cracked window
I saw you
beautiful
bruised and battered by life
standing, looking in.
With empty hands outstretched
your open heart, a void.
Unlock the door; it stuck in the frame
and made a creaking noise
You looked to me
as to a friend
“Come inside,” I said
and you did.
You came inside
And your hands were full of gifts
Only then did I know
how empty my house had been
Mickey
The next time he woke it was with less pain. He focused on the window, seeing a sea of rooftops stretching away in hazy daylight. There was a faint noise and the same man who’d been there before moved into Mickey’s line of vision.
“Not shot?” Mickey asked.
“No, sir.”
“Where am I?”
“Hospital, Rome.”
Rome? Memories suddenly crowded him, jostling for position in a sticky, drugged brain. The man would be an agent, probably CIA, from the American Embassy. Once Mickey’s identity had been established there would have been a watcher placed over him, even in the operating room. It wasn’t to ensure the quality of his care – it was to make absolutely certain that he wasn’t compromised or questioned about sensitive material. The watcher would have intervened if Mickey had started babbling confidential information. It was a ludicrous and outdated practice, but one to which the CIA and other high-level government agencies still strictly adhered, especially in foreign countries.
So, they knew who he was. Then they knew that he was officially retired. And yet they still felt the need to keep an eye on him like this. Interesting. He’d have to figure out what he’d been privy to in the past that still had someone somewhere worried. But for now…oh yeah. Rome. What had he been doing in Rome? It came back suddenly.
Mickey tried to pull himself up in the bed, but a stab of fiery pain reminded him of the protruding ribs. He let one hand go to investigate the repairs while he asked, “Where was I found?”
“An alley near the Piazza di Spagna, Colonel Kostmayer.”
“Just Mickey, okay? There was a young man with me….”
“You were brought in alone. You didn’t have a weapon on you.” That seemed to puzzle the watcher.
Mickey winced, and not from the presence of the drain tube and thick bandaging over his lower ribcage. “I need every single detail. Interview the ambulance driver, the paramedics, any witnesses. Wait, there were other men…two, maybe three.”
“Two men were found dead at the scene, sir. We assumed…you didn’t dispatch them?”
“Dead? Jesus…get me those details now! Identities on everyone!”
The watcher was programmed to respond to orders. He hurried out the door to fulfill Mickey’s demands, squeezing to one side as a nurse came through. She already looked angry to see Mickey sitting up, clearly awake and agitated.
“Oh, God,” Mickey moaned to himself. “Nuns. Nuns…again.”
Orlando
Their plane landed in a tremendous thunderstorm. Los Angeles lay under a thick blanket of clouds, lightning cracking against the hills and thunder crashing around the valleys. It was the middle of the night, and the airport swam under yellow sodium lights in the torrential rain. The airplane pulled near to an open hanger, but it proved impossible for the passengers to escape the elements. Everyone got fully soaked in the short distance between boarding stairs and the waiting vehicles. The customs agents were tired and grumpy, and seemed rather disappointed that Johnny Depp and his pals didn’t have any contraband.
There was a car waiting to take Orlando to the hotel Disney had chosen for him – the high-profile Chateau Marmont. Vanessa kissed him goodnight, and he blushed. She and Johnny had made happy, noisy love in the toilet on the plane. You couldn’t keep something like that private when there were only four passengers to start with. The co-pilot had winked at Orlando when he’d showed him where the pillows were kept. Apparently that sort of behavior was just expected.
Orlando allowed himself to be shuffled around like so much extra baggage, checked in by the driver, and finally deposited in his room with a general air of relief. The door clicked shut, sealing him into a cocoon of luxury he didn’t feel interested in or worthy of inhabiting. Stripping naked and laying damp clothes around the bathroom to dry, Orlando retrieved his bag and rummaged out the book with Viggo’s poem.
He sat in bed and read it again and again, and he cried himself to exhausted sleep.
Viggo
Jesus…movie producers were just so dense sometimes. Who’d thought that Moroccan culture would be best represented by belly dancers? It boggled the mind. At least the bistella was delicious and the tagine had lots of prunes. At his age, prunes were always a good thing, he joked to himself. The end-of-shoot party had taken over the biggest hotel, and everyone who’d had anything to do with ‘Hidalgo’ was present, and – with the exception of the Muslims – most likely drunk. Frankly, Viggo was surprised they hadn’t brought TJ in and let him stand around munching couscous and shitting in the lobby.
But to be perfectly honest, he was enjoying the belly dancers. One of the girls was particularly appealing, undulating like a bangled wet dream. Viggo tore himself away from the spectacle as the phone he was carrying trilled. He slipped quickly through the crowd of waiters, cast, crew, and locals, and found a quieter spot in an alcove, talking as he walked.
“Mortensen here.”
“It’s Jim, in D.C. I’ve got your trace done, Viggo.”
“Okay. Give it to me.”
“Sorry it took so long, but like you’d thought, it was a cell. Tracking the towers gave me a location to within a few blocks. He was moving, and changed over once….”
“Yeah, I don’t need the details. Just tell me where the call came from.”
“Los Angeles. West Hollywood.”
“Jesus,” Viggo muttered.
“Is this bad?” Jim asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, it could be. Thanks, Jim. I’ll get back to you.”
“Right, good luck.”
Viggo leaned against the cool tile wall and willed himself not to panic. Orlando would be all right. The kid wasn’t stupid. He’d be fine….
It wasn’t very convincing, even to Viggo. He quickly dialed a familiar number, but it went straight through to voice mail. He didn’t leave a message – there was no point in scaring Orli. Viggo turned to the wall, hoping not to attract any attention as he dialed another number. The bill on this satellite phone was going to be a serious issue for somebody. His call was answered on the other side of the planet.
“Mr. Brown,” Viggo said flatly. “It’s Viggo. I’ll be arriving on the 3:20 pm flight tomorrow. Can you have a car waiting at the airport?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Mortensen,” said his associate.
“Great, and Mr. Brown, I’m going to need a tin star.”
The tiniest of pauses. “Certainly, Mr. Mortensen. A big tin star, or a little one?”
“Little, I hope.”
Another pause, like he was writing down the instructions. “I didn’t think you liked them, Sir.”
“I don’t, but I’ll need one as soon as I land.”
“Taken care of. Please ring us when you’re two minutes from the curb.”
Viggo signed off and rubbed his fingers through gritty hair. He hated guns. Hated them with a passion. But he’d carry one if he had to – and it was starting to sound like he would have to. Omega was in Los Angeles, and so was Orlando. Viggo would be on his way on the first flight out of Morocco in the morning. That suddenly seemed like far too long to wait. Someone yelled his name and he turned to go back to the party, pausing to lift a chilled glass of mint tea from a passing waiter.
The cute belly dancer cut him off near his table, clicking castanets under his nose and giving him a very inviting smile as she danced for him alone. He gave her his best ‘aw, shucks’ smile, and said “Hi, I’m Viggo.”
“Anna,” she told him, in perfect English, not even out of breath. “I’m a librarian, from L.A.” They’d imported the belly dancers! Setting aside his tea, Viggo joined her sinuous dance…although his thoughts were still a very long way away. They wove through the crowded ballroom in a bubble of movement and sound.
People cheered and clapped, and Joe held up a dollar bill. Viggo tossed him back his phone and told the director to keep the tip.
Mickey
He roused from his unintended nap to the sound of voices near and far. The agent from earlier had been replaced by a poorly suited middle-aged man with white hair. Desk jockey, most likely. “Colonel Kostamayer, you have visitors. Are you expecting Sean Bean? His ID ran clean.”
“No,” Mickey stammered, utterly surprised. “But let him in! Wait, what’s the date and time?”
The agent told him. It had been about 50 hours since the ‘accident’, so Nu had been missing for two days. Thank God Sean had arrived!
“Finally!” the actor complained, coming into the room and glaring at the man who’d obviously prevented him from doing so earlier. Rho was right on his heels, the kid’s eyes wide with trepidation.
“Have you been waiting on my beauty sleep?” Mickey asked him, unable to suppress his grin. Rho was dressed like a Mariachi musician. It was actually a really nice surprise to see them again, and to hopefully get some help in what had become a major cluster-fuck. “You can leave, agent,” he told the unwanted intruder.
“I have instructions to….”
“Close the door behind you. And make sure the nuns don’t sneak in. I have business with these gentlemen.” The man nodded, doing as he was told. Apparently the name Kostmayer still commanded respect in the field offices. Retired or not. Someone had been snooping into his files, most likely. He made a mental note to expurgate those more fully in the near future. Sean shook his hand, while Rho darted over to kiss Mickey’s forehead.
“I was so scared!” the clone whispered. “They wouldn’t let us come in to see you!”
“This room is undoubtedly bugged,” Mickey warned them. “Either by the good guys, or by whoever it was that decided to take me out…maybe both.”
“So it was intentional?” Sean asked.
“Oh yeah. I was careless. I don’t know who it was yet – something to do with my old career, or maybe something to do with the new one.”
Sean nodded. “You had him with you?”
“Right at my side. He’s a good kid, from what I could tell. Messed in the head, for sure, but most of them have been.” He glanced apologetically at Rho. The clone took no offense. “We were on our way home, as it were. The opponents could have followed us from the airport. I wasn’t being cautious enough, concentrating on the kid. I let my guard down.” He looked at the sterile white bandages covering his broken ribs. “I’m getting too old for this game.”
“Seems I recall that your mentor, McCall, was twice your age,” Sean reminded him, “and you told me that he was the most dangerous man you’d ever met.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t quit the job and go off to run a dive shop, did he?”
Sean shook his head. “Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself. I’ll figure the drugs for that, and cut you some slack. But if you talk like this when you’re on your feet I’m gonna slap you a good one.”
Mickey smiled, knowing that Bean had zero chance of ever getting the drop on him. But that was enough chitchat. They had to get started on recovering Nu. If the medicals had him he would at least be safe, for a while. He was worth far too much to them alive. If it was one of Mickey’s foes, there could be other factors that would raise the risk of losing him. “We’ve got to find the ‘new’ kid. All I could determine was that he’d been involved in some kind of serious fight after I passed out. No witnesses, but the ambulance drivers may have seen him walking away from the accident scene as they arrived. Once they spotted the bodies, it got a lot more exciting there, so the local polizia are undoubtedly looking for him too, even though I seem to have gotten credit for the deaths.”
“Nu is here, in the city,” Rho told him quickly. “He’s been scared, but I don’t think he’s been captured by anyone.”
“You know this how?” Mickey demanded.
Sean rolled his eyes and pointed at the ceiling, like he was indicating that Mickey was being stupid on purpose.
“Oh, of course,” Mickey said with a gasp, as pain surged suddenly from his side. Oddly enough, the pain – a familiar friend – helped him clear his mind. “So, you two came to find him. You’re probably our best hope for that. How did you find me?”
“Easy…someone got back to me from your cell phone. One of your minders, I’d guess. They were very interested in who I was and why I was trying to reach you.”
Mickey decided that he’d need to get that phone back as soon as possible, and destroy it. “They wouldn’t have told you anything.”
“Didn’t have to. We knew you were in Rome,” he glanced at Rho, “and we figured that if your phone was out of your hands you were either hurt or dead. I’m kinda a natural optimist, so we went with hurt. It didn’t take too many calls to find out where the American tourist had been admitted to hospital. Just your bad luck that it would be a Catholic hospital, Mickey. I know about your thing for nuns.”
He snorted. “Yeah, thanks. The ‘new’ kid’s name is Nicky, okay?”
“I like that,” Rho offered, squeezing closer to run his fingers up Mickey’s arm, as if he was looking for something. Sean pushed him back, but not unkindly.
“We’re going out to see if we can find him,” Sean told Mickey, to the agent’s immense relief. “And yeah, we’ll be really careful.”
“Do that. You actors have all the survival instincts of….”
“Says the bloke in the hospital bed. Shut it, Mickey. We’ll be back before night, with a status report if nothing else.”
Chastised not at all, Mickey nodded. “I’m sure I’ll be out of here tomorrow. I’ve got them cutting the pain meds back now, and the drain tube can come out if the stitches in my lung sack are holding okay.”
Rho blanched, and turned away to aggressively admire the view. Sean snorted. “Thanks for the ‘too much intel,’ Micks. We’re off to look for Junior.” Mickey watched them leave. His minder ducked back in, only long enough to be told in no uncertain terms that Mickey wanted his cell phone back, now, and that he was expecting baby sitting to end immediately after. He was exhausted, but he felt so much better after that.
Nu
He huddled into the space he’d found between stone and wood, making himself invisible. There were still a few sounds echoing around the huge building, but no one came near to his unlit corner, and he figured that he would be okay there for the night. He wished that he had a blanket to hide under – even the smelly old threadbare one from the hospital would have been better than nothing. He pulled at the collar of his shirt and tried to hide his face in there, but then a draft ran up his back. He scooted further under the bench and pulled his legs into a tight ball. His hand hurt, and his feet throbbed and bled from the blisters. But he still had his shoes on, because they were his.
Rome was so loud. The streets were a constant cacophony. People and machines and crashing impacts of things he couldn’t guess at. Voices in so many languages, people laughing and yelling and running…it had overwhelmed him more than once. And there was so much to see. He had to constantly find places to stop outside of the human traffic, little corners where he could stand for an hour or more and just look at everything around him. After he had left Mickey Nu had wandered the streets in a state of shock. No one bothered him, and he was left to find his own way. Night came and he had moved from place to place, napping for a few minutes on a set of steps, or hiding under the bushes in a tiny park. It was cold, but he didn’t dare go inside any buildings.
Nu had walked for hours the next day, back and forth, no goal in mind. Then he came to a huge river and that sight had stopped him in his tracks. The water was heavy and thick and moved around things. There were flowers and bottles and trash floating in the water. Birds were flying around and under the bridges, and there seemed to be birds sitting on top of the water, moving around somehow. He had thought that maybe he was getting the hang of the outside world, but birds that stood on water? That was really just too much for him. He had to turn away at last, overcome with amazement.
That morning he’d seen a lady putting little cans of food down on some stones for the wild cats which he’d spent so long trying to touch. He watched the cats, and he watched the woman, and when her back was turned he had grabbed two of the cans and ran away with them. He felt bad about taking the food meant for the cats, but he was so hungry, and most of the cats seemed to be less thin than he was. The food was bland to his tongue, and made him thirsty. He found glasses with water in them on tables outside a restaurant, and he even managed to grab some food from an abandoned table before a man came out and yelled at him.
Nu tried to suppress all the new memories and images crowding his overtaxed mind, and concentrated on staying invisible. A new, sharp stab of pain came from his hand, and he grunted, pressing on the flesh with his other hand. The rag was damp again. One of those bad men from the car had stabbed him with a knife, while he had been defending Mickey. The knife had gone through his hand and stuck. It had hurt worse when he pulled away than when it went in. He’d been hurt lots of time in the hospital, and sometimes the people there would help him. Sometimes they were the ones doing the hurting.
This world outside was proving to be every bit as tricky as inside, but he was still glad to be where he was. He wondered again if he’d done the right thing letting the people in the loud truck take Mickey away. He had been afraid that Mickey would die there on the street, and then it would be his fault. Nu hadn’t minded before when people died…he wasn’t sure why it was different with Mickey.
A woman’s voice startled him, and he jerked. He wasn’t invisible anymore! She spoke again, and he slowly moved his head out from under the wood. She was staring right at him. She had many dark clothes on, and they covered everything but her face and hands. She looked at him for a long time, speaking to him with words he didn’t know. Then she gestured for him to move. He gradually came out from his hiding place, wondering how she had found him when he was hiding. She moved back, and gave him room to stand up. He started towards the door, ready to run back onto the street, but the big doors were closed. She touched his arm, and her face was very strange, but kind. She wasn’t going to hurt him.
The woman gestured for him to follow her, and he did so, with no idea who she was or where they would go. Her clothes smelled faintly of smoke from the air of the big building, and Nu guessed that she belonged there. The building was so large and complicated and it was decorated all over with stone people and pictures and shapes. They went to a door he hadn’t noticed before, and it was less fancy inside that hallway. She led him down steps and across a small courtyard, into another part of the building. He smelled food cooking before they entered the room where several more women, and two men, laughed and talked and worked at making a meal. Nu was trembling inside, but he tried to look small and non-threatening. He would be invisible if he could, but it was impossible with the woman’s keen eyes constantly flicking back to look at him.
Another woman showed him to a place to sit, and there was lots of conversation. Then the first woman pulled up a chair in front of him and gestured for him to show her his hand. He slowly extended it, wondering if these were doctors like they’d had in the hospital. There weren’t any drugs or medical tools around that he could see…just a couple of small knives that wouldn’t be much good for fighting. The woman unwrapped the rag he’d twisted around his damaged hand, and the cloth stuck where the skin was cut. Someone else brought a bowl of warm water, and they put his hand in it to soak. Then there was food for everyone, and he gratefully ate some, hand going slowly numb in the warm, now pink water.
The food was amazing, the best he’d ever had. Even better than the food Mickey had gotten for them, because this food was not from money. That was a good thing, because Nu didn’t have any money. He only had the few things he’d picked up from the hotels and restaurants and the streets. But maybe that was what he should offer these strange people. He used his good hand, the dry one, and took his things out of his pocket, putting them on the table and spreading them out like he was selling items in a store. There were two pens, one of which was white. There was a bottle cap with a sharp, crinkled edge, a round stone that looked like an eyeball, a feather from one of the water birds, a tiny bit of red cloth and a small brass buckle that had probably come from a woman’s shoe. He also had the top of a saltshaker and three different colored packets of powder that tasted sweet. One of the men nodded at his things and then pushed them back towards him…so this really was food without payment.
He smiled shyly, and they gave him even more food. Then the woman took up his hand from the water, and now the cloth came away from the torn skin. They all looked at his hand, and there was more talk, and then clean pads went on the top and the bottom, where the knife had gone through, and a clean white bandage was wrapped round and round. One of them brought out a bottle of pills and shook two out for him. Nu smiled and took the pills with the offered water. He drank the water, and spat the pills out when no one was looking. He was an expert at doing that.
After a while he was shown to a room with a door into the courtyard, and there was a mattress in the corner and some piles of books. One of the women brought him a blanket, and even though it smelled strange and sort of dirty he took it gladly. They left him alone then, and he was able to disappear under the blanket. He slept very hard for a while, and then woke up while the sky was still dark to slip away into the city streets again. He wanted to take the blanket, but he thought that they had already been so kind to him and they would need that blanket for other people who might hide in the building. So he folded it carefully, and left the feather as well as a sign of thanks.
It was cold in the early morning air, but he took his shoes off and carried them. His blisters had broken open in the night. He could smell bread baking, and the city started to stir with a collection of new noises.
Orlando
He woke up groggily, muscles aching and throat parched. The unfamiliar opulence of the hotel suite threw him for a few minutes, and then he found his suitcase and remembered where he was, and why he was there. He turned on the television just to hear voices, and then took a hot shower. Lambda enjoyed sniffing the variety of shampoos and soaps laid out for his pleasure. When he came back into the bedroom the alarm was buzzing, and he had a hard time figuring out how to make it stop. He tried to find his cell, but then the room’s phone rang and he grabbed it eagerly. It was his agent, Aileen. She wanted to come see him before the car arrived to take him to the studio. God…he had to do filming again. He told her yeah, sure, and then he hung up the phone and slumped.
Orlando suddenly wanted to kill himself.
He wanted to climb back into the bed and never move again. He wanted to go far, far away, where no one would know his name or recognize his face. He wanted to escape the world he’d worked so hard to get into. He was lonely, and he was tired, and he just wanted to be…invisible.
There was a knock at the door, and he heaved himself up with a sigh.
Now, if I may be allowed to entertain you, here’s
TITLE: Beyond Design Limitations
CHAPTER: Twenty-one: Brought Together
AUTHOR: Pecos – PecosPhil@sprintmail.com
WEBSITE: http://www.chimerafic.com
BETA: Gloria Mundi (all sing her praises!)
RATING: Varies by chapter. This one is NC-17
DISCLAIMER: I don’t make the toys, I’m only
playing with them. No money made, nor
disrespect intended. This is FICTION
WHAT IS IT?: RPS / AU
Sequel to ‘Prophecy: Destiny & Design’
which can be found on my website
WHO’S IN IT?: Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom,
Johnny Depp, Viggo Mortensen and other
actors from ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Pirates
of the Caribbean’, ‘Hidalgo’ and others
FEEDBACK: remember the golden rule, (please!)
NOTE: Please forgive any intentional or
unintentional abuse of facts or history.
Story takes place in early 2002
NOTE 2: All blame for dodgy poetry falls to me.
Pluto tried to help, but I’m hopeless
Beyond Design Limitations
Chapter Twenty-one: Brought Together
Mickey
Swimming up from unconsciousness in small, reluctant steps, he finally managed to get his eyes open, confirming the thing he’d feared the most. Bright light made his vision blur and waver, but he could tell that he was on his back, in a bed, and several standard bottles of fluids hung above him. Mickey worked his dry mouth, trying to loosen a tongue that had grown stiff and thick. A stranger moved into view, and he rolled his eyes to examine the man’s clothing and demeanor.
“Fuck,” he breathed at last. He would know what this guy was doing anywhere, at any time. “Fuck…” Mickey mumbled again. “Have I been shot?”
“No, sir,” the suit said.
“Am I dying?” Mickey asked, trying to get some degree of strength into his raspy voice.
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Then get me a damn nurse.”
The suit’s face remained frozen, but he did reach for the call button. Mickey’s eyes drifted shut of their own accord, and he was gone again by the time the nun came through the door.
Orlando
Johnny’s partner, Vanessa, was flying back to Los Angeles with them on the charter plane. She was sitting with him in the front, whispering and laughing as the small jet climbed away from the sparkling green and blue of the Caribbean Sea. Orlando smiled wistfully at their intimacy. He wondered what it was like, this pulling apart, with always a guarantee of coming together again. Must be really nice. Vanessa was so pretty and sweet, and she clearly completed Johnny’s vagabond soul.
Jerry Bruckheimer was on the plane too, eager to get back to oversee the final construction of the sets. He was busy with paperwork and his laptop, spread over several seats. Geoffrey was taking a slower route, with complaints that he hated little planes, and Gore was staying for another day to re-shoot a scene with Pintel and Ragetti. Keira’s entourage took up too much room, so that left Orlando alone in the last two seats.
He shifted around, watching the beautiful sea disappear beneath evening clouds, and then reached for his bag. He rummaged for the book buried under his few clothes, giving the Orli-Bear a squeeze, and pulled out the photo collection of southern Africa Viggo had given him when he’d last visited. It was written in several languages, not one of which Orlando could read, but that was all right. The whole point was to look at the pictures. He opened the volume to a page at random and found himself smiling at a gang of meerkats. They looked so tiny in such a vast and potentially cruel landscape, clinging to each other and standing tall, many eyes making lighter work of the endless search for enemies.
Sighing, he thumbed through the book for another picture to fall into. Instead, he came across a sheet of paper tucked between the pages. Viggo’s artistic handwriting slid across the page like it had spilled from a glass, a few words scratched out, replacements tucked in, and whole lines excised to literary oblivion. Pictures of leaves decorated one edge, and a little drawing of two hands. ‘Come into my House’ was written at the top, tucked into a scribbled box.
Come into my House
My house was warm
my artificial life
felt so full and complete.
Through a cracked window
I saw you
beautiful
bruised and battered by life
standing, looking in.
With empty hands outstretched
your open heart, a void.
Unlock the door; it stuck in the frame
and made a creaking noise
You looked to me
as to a friend
“Come inside,” I said
and you did.
You came inside
And your hands were full of gifts
Only then did I know
how empty my house had been
Mickey
The next time he woke it was with less pain. He focused on the window, seeing a sea of rooftops stretching away in hazy daylight. There was a faint noise and the same man who’d been there before moved into Mickey’s line of vision.
“Not shot?” Mickey asked.
“No, sir.”
“Where am I?”
“Hospital, Rome.”
Rome? Memories suddenly crowded him, jostling for position in a sticky, drugged brain. The man would be an agent, probably CIA, from the American Embassy. Once Mickey’s identity had been established there would have been a watcher placed over him, even in the operating room. It wasn’t to ensure the quality of his care – it was to make absolutely certain that he wasn’t compromised or questioned about sensitive material. The watcher would have intervened if Mickey had started babbling confidential information. It was a ludicrous and outdated practice, but one to which the CIA and other high-level government agencies still strictly adhered, especially in foreign countries.
So, they knew who he was. Then they knew that he was officially retired. And yet they still felt the need to keep an eye on him like this. Interesting. He’d have to figure out what he’d been privy to in the past that still had someone somewhere worried. But for now…oh yeah. Rome. What had he been doing in Rome? It came back suddenly.
Mickey tried to pull himself up in the bed, but a stab of fiery pain reminded him of the protruding ribs. He let one hand go to investigate the repairs while he asked, “Where was I found?”
“An alley near the Piazza di Spagna, Colonel Kostmayer.”
“Just Mickey, okay? There was a young man with me….”
“You were brought in alone. You didn’t have a weapon on you.” That seemed to puzzle the watcher.
Mickey winced, and not from the presence of the drain tube and thick bandaging over his lower ribcage. “I need every single detail. Interview the ambulance driver, the paramedics, any witnesses. Wait, there were other men…two, maybe three.”
“Two men were found dead at the scene, sir. We assumed…you didn’t dispatch them?”
“Dead? Jesus…get me those details now! Identities on everyone!”
The watcher was programmed to respond to orders. He hurried out the door to fulfill Mickey’s demands, squeezing to one side as a nurse came through. She already looked angry to see Mickey sitting up, clearly awake and agitated.
“Oh, God,” Mickey moaned to himself. “Nuns. Nuns…again.”
Orlando
Their plane landed in a tremendous thunderstorm. Los Angeles lay under a thick blanket of clouds, lightning cracking against the hills and thunder crashing around the valleys. It was the middle of the night, and the airport swam under yellow sodium lights in the torrential rain. The airplane pulled near to an open hanger, but it proved impossible for the passengers to escape the elements. Everyone got fully soaked in the short distance between boarding stairs and the waiting vehicles. The customs agents were tired and grumpy, and seemed rather disappointed that Johnny Depp and his pals didn’t have any contraband.
There was a car waiting to take Orlando to the hotel Disney had chosen for him – the high-profile Chateau Marmont. Vanessa kissed him goodnight, and he blushed. She and Johnny had made happy, noisy love in the toilet on the plane. You couldn’t keep something like that private when there were only four passengers to start with. The co-pilot had winked at Orlando when he’d showed him where the pillows were kept. Apparently that sort of behavior was just expected.
Orlando allowed himself to be shuffled around like so much extra baggage, checked in by the driver, and finally deposited in his room with a general air of relief. The door clicked shut, sealing him into a cocoon of luxury he didn’t feel interested in or worthy of inhabiting. Stripping naked and laying damp clothes around the bathroom to dry, Orlando retrieved his bag and rummaged out the book with Viggo’s poem.
He sat in bed and read it again and again, and he cried himself to exhausted sleep.
Viggo
Jesus…movie producers were just so dense sometimes. Who’d thought that Moroccan culture would be best represented by belly dancers? It boggled the mind. At least the bistella was delicious and the tagine had lots of prunes. At his age, prunes were always a good thing, he joked to himself. The end-of-shoot party had taken over the biggest hotel, and everyone who’d had anything to do with ‘Hidalgo’ was present, and – with the exception of the Muslims – most likely drunk. Frankly, Viggo was surprised they hadn’t brought TJ in and let him stand around munching couscous and shitting in the lobby.
But to be perfectly honest, he was enjoying the belly dancers. One of the girls was particularly appealing, undulating like a bangled wet dream. Viggo tore himself away from the spectacle as the phone he was carrying trilled. He slipped quickly through the crowd of waiters, cast, crew, and locals, and found a quieter spot in an alcove, talking as he walked.
“Mortensen here.”
“It’s Jim, in D.C. I’ve got your trace done, Viggo.”
“Okay. Give it to me.”
“Sorry it took so long, but like you’d thought, it was a cell. Tracking the towers gave me a location to within a few blocks. He was moving, and changed over once….”
“Yeah, I don’t need the details. Just tell me where the call came from.”
“Los Angeles. West Hollywood.”
“Jesus,” Viggo muttered.
“Is this bad?” Jim asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, it could be. Thanks, Jim. I’ll get back to you.”
“Right, good luck.”
Viggo leaned against the cool tile wall and willed himself not to panic. Orlando would be all right. The kid wasn’t stupid. He’d be fine….
It wasn’t very convincing, even to Viggo. He quickly dialed a familiar number, but it went straight through to voice mail. He didn’t leave a message – there was no point in scaring Orli. Viggo turned to the wall, hoping not to attract any attention as he dialed another number. The bill on this satellite phone was going to be a serious issue for somebody. His call was answered on the other side of the planet.
“Mr. Brown,” Viggo said flatly. “It’s Viggo. I’ll be arriving on the 3:20 pm flight tomorrow. Can you have a car waiting at the airport?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Mortensen,” said his associate.
“Great, and Mr. Brown, I’m going to need a tin star.”
The tiniest of pauses. “Certainly, Mr. Mortensen. A big tin star, or a little one?”
“Little, I hope.”
Another pause, like he was writing down the instructions. “I didn’t think you liked them, Sir.”
“I don’t, but I’ll need one as soon as I land.”
“Taken care of. Please ring us when you’re two minutes from the curb.”
Viggo signed off and rubbed his fingers through gritty hair. He hated guns. Hated them with a passion. But he’d carry one if he had to – and it was starting to sound like he would have to. Omega was in Los Angeles, and so was Orlando. Viggo would be on his way on the first flight out of Morocco in the morning. That suddenly seemed like far too long to wait. Someone yelled his name and he turned to go back to the party, pausing to lift a chilled glass of mint tea from a passing waiter.
The cute belly dancer cut him off near his table, clicking castanets under his nose and giving him a very inviting smile as she danced for him alone. He gave her his best ‘aw, shucks’ smile, and said “Hi, I’m Viggo.”
“Anna,” she told him, in perfect English, not even out of breath. “I’m a librarian, from L.A.” They’d imported the belly dancers! Setting aside his tea, Viggo joined her sinuous dance…although his thoughts were still a very long way away. They wove through the crowded ballroom in a bubble of movement and sound.
People cheered and clapped, and Joe held up a dollar bill. Viggo tossed him back his phone and told the director to keep the tip.
Mickey
He roused from his unintended nap to the sound of voices near and far. The agent from earlier had been replaced by a poorly suited middle-aged man with white hair. Desk jockey, most likely. “Colonel Kostamayer, you have visitors. Are you expecting Sean Bean? His ID ran clean.”
“No,” Mickey stammered, utterly surprised. “But let him in! Wait, what’s the date and time?”
The agent told him. It had been about 50 hours since the ‘accident’, so Nu had been missing for two days. Thank God Sean had arrived!
“Finally!” the actor complained, coming into the room and glaring at the man who’d obviously prevented him from doing so earlier. Rho was right on his heels, the kid’s eyes wide with trepidation.
“Have you been waiting on my beauty sleep?” Mickey asked him, unable to suppress his grin. Rho was dressed like a Mariachi musician. It was actually a really nice surprise to see them again, and to hopefully get some help in what had become a major cluster-fuck. “You can leave, agent,” he told the unwanted intruder.
“I have instructions to….”
“Close the door behind you. And make sure the nuns don’t sneak in. I have business with these gentlemen.” The man nodded, doing as he was told. Apparently the name Kostmayer still commanded respect in the field offices. Retired or not. Someone had been snooping into his files, most likely. He made a mental note to expurgate those more fully in the near future. Sean shook his hand, while Rho darted over to kiss Mickey’s forehead.
“I was so scared!” the clone whispered. “They wouldn’t let us come in to see you!”
“This room is undoubtedly bugged,” Mickey warned them. “Either by the good guys, or by whoever it was that decided to take me out…maybe both.”
“So it was intentional?” Sean asked.
“Oh yeah. I was careless. I don’t know who it was yet – something to do with my old career, or maybe something to do with the new one.”
Sean nodded. “You had him with you?”
“Right at my side. He’s a good kid, from what I could tell. Messed in the head, for sure, but most of them have been.” He glanced apologetically at Rho. The clone took no offense. “We were on our way home, as it were. The opponents could have followed us from the airport. I wasn’t being cautious enough, concentrating on the kid. I let my guard down.” He looked at the sterile white bandages covering his broken ribs. “I’m getting too old for this game.”
“Seems I recall that your mentor, McCall, was twice your age,” Sean reminded him, “and you told me that he was the most dangerous man you’d ever met.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t quit the job and go off to run a dive shop, did he?”
Sean shook his head. “Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself. I’ll figure the drugs for that, and cut you some slack. But if you talk like this when you’re on your feet I’m gonna slap you a good one.”
Mickey smiled, knowing that Bean had zero chance of ever getting the drop on him. But that was enough chitchat. They had to get started on recovering Nu. If the medicals had him he would at least be safe, for a while. He was worth far too much to them alive. If it was one of Mickey’s foes, there could be other factors that would raise the risk of losing him. “We’ve got to find the ‘new’ kid. All I could determine was that he’d been involved in some kind of serious fight after I passed out. No witnesses, but the ambulance drivers may have seen him walking away from the accident scene as they arrived. Once they spotted the bodies, it got a lot more exciting there, so the local polizia are undoubtedly looking for him too, even though I seem to have gotten credit for the deaths.”
“Nu is here, in the city,” Rho told him quickly. “He’s been scared, but I don’t think he’s been captured by anyone.”
“You know this how?” Mickey demanded.
Sean rolled his eyes and pointed at the ceiling, like he was indicating that Mickey was being stupid on purpose.
“Oh, of course,” Mickey said with a gasp, as pain surged suddenly from his side. Oddly enough, the pain – a familiar friend – helped him clear his mind. “So, you two came to find him. You’re probably our best hope for that. How did you find me?”
“Easy…someone got back to me from your cell phone. One of your minders, I’d guess. They were very interested in who I was and why I was trying to reach you.”
Mickey decided that he’d need to get that phone back as soon as possible, and destroy it. “They wouldn’t have told you anything.”
“Didn’t have to. We knew you were in Rome,” he glanced at Rho, “and we figured that if your phone was out of your hands you were either hurt or dead. I’m kinda a natural optimist, so we went with hurt. It didn’t take too many calls to find out where the American tourist had been admitted to hospital. Just your bad luck that it would be a Catholic hospital, Mickey. I know about your thing for nuns.”
He snorted. “Yeah, thanks. The ‘new’ kid’s name is Nicky, okay?”
“I like that,” Rho offered, squeezing closer to run his fingers up Mickey’s arm, as if he was looking for something. Sean pushed him back, but not unkindly.
“We’re going out to see if we can find him,” Sean told Mickey, to the agent’s immense relief. “And yeah, we’ll be really careful.”
“Do that. You actors have all the survival instincts of….”
“Says the bloke in the hospital bed. Shut it, Mickey. We’ll be back before night, with a status report if nothing else.”
Chastised not at all, Mickey nodded. “I’m sure I’ll be out of here tomorrow. I’ve got them cutting the pain meds back now, and the drain tube can come out if the stitches in my lung sack are holding okay.”
Rho blanched, and turned away to aggressively admire the view. Sean snorted. “Thanks for the ‘too much intel,’ Micks. We’re off to look for Junior.” Mickey watched them leave. His minder ducked back in, only long enough to be told in no uncertain terms that Mickey wanted his cell phone back, now, and that he was expecting baby sitting to end immediately after. He was exhausted, but he felt so much better after that.
Nu
He huddled into the space he’d found between stone and wood, making himself invisible. There were still a few sounds echoing around the huge building, but no one came near to his unlit corner, and he figured that he would be okay there for the night. He wished that he had a blanket to hide under – even the smelly old threadbare one from the hospital would have been better than nothing. He pulled at the collar of his shirt and tried to hide his face in there, but then a draft ran up his back. He scooted further under the bench and pulled his legs into a tight ball. His hand hurt, and his feet throbbed and bled from the blisters. But he still had his shoes on, because they were his.
Rome was so loud. The streets were a constant cacophony. People and machines and crashing impacts of things he couldn’t guess at. Voices in so many languages, people laughing and yelling and running…it had overwhelmed him more than once. And there was so much to see. He had to constantly find places to stop outside of the human traffic, little corners where he could stand for an hour or more and just look at everything around him. After he had left Mickey Nu had wandered the streets in a state of shock. No one bothered him, and he was left to find his own way. Night came and he had moved from place to place, napping for a few minutes on a set of steps, or hiding under the bushes in a tiny park. It was cold, but he didn’t dare go inside any buildings.
Nu had walked for hours the next day, back and forth, no goal in mind. Then he came to a huge river and that sight had stopped him in his tracks. The water was heavy and thick and moved around things. There were flowers and bottles and trash floating in the water. Birds were flying around and under the bridges, and there seemed to be birds sitting on top of the water, moving around somehow. He had thought that maybe he was getting the hang of the outside world, but birds that stood on water? That was really just too much for him. He had to turn away at last, overcome with amazement.
That morning he’d seen a lady putting little cans of food down on some stones for the wild cats which he’d spent so long trying to touch. He watched the cats, and he watched the woman, and when her back was turned he had grabbed two of the cans and ran away with them. He felt bad about taking the food meant for the cats, but he was so hungry, and most of the cats seemed to be less thin than he was. The food was bland to his tongue, and made him thirsty. He found glasses with water in them on tables outside a restaurant, and he even managed to grab some food from an abandoned table before a man came out and yelled at him.
Nu tried to suppress all the new memories and images crowding his overtaxed mind, and concentrated on staying invisible. A new, sharp stab of pain came from his hand, and he grunted, pressing on the flesh with his other hand. The rag was damp again. One of those bad men from the car had stabbed him with a knife, while he had been defending Mickey. The knife had gone through his hand and stuck. It had hurt worse when he pulled away than when it went in. He’d been hurt lots of time in the hospital, and sometimes the people there would help him. Sometimes they were the ones doing the hurting.
This world outside was proving to be every bit as tricky as inside, but he was still glad to be where he was. He wondered again if he’d done the right thing letting the people in the loud truck take Mickey away. He had been afraid that Mickey would die there on the street, and then it would be his fault. Nu hadn’t minded before when people died…he wasn’t sure why it was different with Mickey.
A woman’s voice startled him, and he jerked. He wasn’t invisible anymore! She spoke again, and he slowly moved his head out from under the wood. She was staring right at him. She had many dark clothes on, and they covered everything but her face and hands. She looked at him for a long time, speaking to him with words he didn’t know. Then she gestured for him to move. He gradually came out from his hiding place, wondering how she had found him when he was hiding. She moved back, and gave him room to stand up. He started towards the door, ready to run back onto the street, but the big doors were closed. She touched his arm, and her face was very strange, but kind. She wasn’t going to hurt him.
The woman gestured for him to follow her, and he did so, with no idea who she was or where they would go. Her clothes smelled faintly of smoke from the air of the big building, and Nu guessed that she belonged there. The building was so large and complicated and it was decorated all over with stone people and pictures and shapes. They went to a door he hadn’t noticed before, and it was less fancy inside that hallway. She led him down steps and across a small courtyard, into another part of the building. He smelled food cooking before they entered the room where several more women, and two men, laughed and talked and worked at making a meal. Nu was trembling inside, but he tried to look small and non-threatening. He would be invisible if he could, but it was impossible with the woman’s keen eyes constantly flicking back to look at him.
Another woman showed him to a place to sit, and there was lots of conversation. Then the first woman pulled up a chair in front of him and gestured for him to show her his hand. He slowly extended it, wondering if these were doctors like they’d had in the hospital. There weren’t any drugs or medical tools around that he could see…just a couple of small knives that wouldn’t be much good for fighting. The woman unwrapped the rag he’d twisted around his damaged hand, and the cloth stuck where the skin was cut. Someone else brought a bowl of warm water, and they put his hand in it to soak. Then there was food for everyone, and he gratefully ate some, hand going slowly numb in the warm, now pink water.
The food was amazing, the best he’d ever had. Even better than the food Mickey had gotten for them, because this food was not from money. That was a good thing, because Nu didn’t have any money. He only had the few things he’d picked up from the hotels and restaurants and the streets. But maybe that was what he should offer these strange people. He used his good hand, the dry one, and took his things out of his pocket, putting them on the table and spreading them out like he was selling items in a store. There were two pens, one of which was white. There was a bottle cap with a sharp, crinkled edge, a round stone that looked like an eyeball, a feather from one of the water birds, a tiny bit of red cloth and a small brass buckle that had probably come from a woman’s shoe. He also had the top of a saltshaker and three different colored packets of powder that tasted sweet. One of the men nodded at his things and then pushed them back towards him…so this really was food without payment.
He smiled shyly, and they gave him even more food. Then the woman took up his hand from the water, and now the cloth came away from the torn skin. They all looked at his hand, and there was more talk, and then clean pads went on the top and the bottom, where the knife had gone through, and a clean white bandage was wrapped round and round. One of them brought out a bottle of pills and shook two out for him. Nu smiled and took the pills with the offered water. He drank the water, and spat the pills out when no one was looking. He was an expert at doing that.
After a while he was shown to a room with a door into the courtyard, and there was a mattress in the corner and some piles of books. One of the women brought him a blanket, and even though it smelled strange and sort of dirty he took it gladly. They left him alone then, and he was able to disappear under the blanket. He slept very hard for a while, and then woke up while the sky was still dark to slip away into the city streets again. He wanted to take the blanket, but he thought that they had already been so kind to him and they would need that blanket for other people who might hide in the building. So he folded it carefully, and left the feather as well as a sign of thanks.
It was cold in the early morning air, but he took his shoes off and carried them. His blisters had broken open in the night. He could smell bread baking, and the city started to stir with a collection of new noises.
Orlando
He woke up groggily, muscles aching and throat parched. The unfamiliar opulence of the hotel suite threw him for a few minutes, and then he found his suitcase and remembered where he was, and why he was there. He turned on the television just to hear voices, and then took a hot shower. Lambda enjoyed sniffing the variety of shampoos and soaps laid out for his pleasure. When he came back into the bedroom the alarm was buzzing, and he had a hard time figuring out how to make it stop. He tried to find his cell, but then the room’s phone rang and he grabbed it eagerly. It was his agent, Aileen. She wanted to come see him before the car arrived to take him to the studio. God…he had to do filming again. He told her yeah, sure, and then he hung up the phone and slumped.
Orlando suddenly wanted to kill himself.
He wanted to climb back into the bed and never move again. He wanted to go far, far away, where no one would know his name or recognize his face. He wanted to escape the world he’d worked so hard to get into. He was lonely, and he was tired, and he just wanted to be…invisible.
There was a knock at the door, and he heaved himself up with a sigh.
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Poor Nu! And what in the world is going on with Orlando?!! Very much looking forward to the next chapter!
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