There was a large pub at the end of the road, and it seemed a fairly popular venue as we pushed our way through the crowd to find a table towards a quiet corner at the back of the pub. I settled down and waited for Clio to come back with our drinks.
‘How are you boss? I made them put a cherry in it.’
Clio didn't always master the local customs, and I found myself looking at a pint of stout with half a cherry balancing on top of the foam.
‘He asked if this was some new hipster trend. I said it was. Did I get it wrong?’
‘A cherry on top is one of those sayings, although you do get them on cupcakes, knickerbocker glories, and I think babychams. It's not usually associated with pints, but maybe you'll have started a trend. No harm, no foul. Not like when you ended up convincing half of medieval England that a scented pomander could keep the plague away.’
‘That was a joke. How could I know they were going to take it seriously?’
‘People get a bit desperate when facing mass death. You need to remember a bit of subtlety. Speaking of which, you kicked Julius a bit hard?’
Clio scowled. This was as close as the two of us came to reprimands and neither of us liked it particularly. I was by far the better fighter, but she was no slouch. If anything she was too enthusiastic, preferring to finish a conflict to the point of long-term incapacitation. I much preferred that my assailant simply got out of my way. She preferred that they were so far out of the way as to be in another continent or coffin. Her kill count was about the same as mine. Her figure bothered her less than mine did. I know that deep down she considered herself the better fighter for this exact reason. By Beta standards, she'd be right.
‘He wasn't permanently injured.’
‘No, but he was injured to the extent that he was hard to manoeuvre off the field of play. A little more finesse next time.’ I smiled, taking the sting out of my words, and ate the cherry, which was surprisingly nice with the stout. Maybe she’d started something new after all.
‘Clee, I think we've got a serious problem. I think there's a second Alpha team operating here and I don't think they’re on our side.’
I watched as Clio took a sip of her drink, never once breaking her eye contact with me. She put her glass back on the table and let out a big sigh.
‘I agree. It's the only explanation that makes any sense, other than we've got a rogue member within the team, and that's a non-starter.’
I nodded. Like her, I had considered it, though I then discounted the idea.
‘So how do you want to proceed?’
‘I'm going to instigate Level Three precautions.’ Not total overkill, but enough to keep us alert.
‘Not Level Four?’
I shook my head. Level Four would include stepping a team member back to Alpha. The last time that had happened had been twenty years ago, when the team had accidently got caught up in a civil war and a roadside bomb. Not everyone had made it back, and the team leader had been publicly censured for not preventing the loss of life. I didn't feel the situation here was that precarious, but something was wrong. And if I was honest, it wasn't just on this side that I thought things were going wrong.
‘Is there something else you're worried about?’ Clio asked. ‘You've got that look?’
I'm pretty certain I didn't have a “look”. We work hard on not having “looks”. That said, Clio was at the top of her game and we had known each other for years. I remember the first time we had met. She had been so bristly, ready to fight anyone that looked at her funny. She thought I had, so we ended up fighting to a standstill, both of us with bleeding noses, broken fingers and black eyes. We'd been put on a week's hard labour and become instant best friends. If I truly had a “look” she'd be the one to spot it. The only person that knew me better was Ramin.
‘I'm going to get Ramin to send the angel tomorrow as well. Let Sam know our problems.’
Clio narrowed her eyes. Deploying an angel was a serious step. The problem with the Q Field was that it was almost too sophisticated to use. We couldn't just send stuff through it like messages or artefacts; they left, but they never arrived. We still don't know what happens to them. Maybe there's a universe somewhere that keeps receiving stuff, although mostly we've stopped now. It was getting tiresome.
But we still needed to be able to communicate with Earth Alpha, even if it was only one-way. Generally one of the first things a team would do would be to identify an angel. This was usually an old person with a terminal illness and no relatives. We would approach them, and explain the benefits, a full cure, and the drawbacks, this was a one-way ticket. Once we had convinced them we weren't talking about heaven — and you'd be amazed how often we had to rule that out —
