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Velocity
More of Elyse's work. Read it and well, I hope you don't weep but if you want to...
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Do you remember the day your world crumbled? Was it the day when the football captain dumped you? Or was it the day you were laid off from your job? I doubt you’ve ever had your world crumble. Really. Where all the ruble is lying at your feet, and all you can see is the smoke… feel the dust, smell the sweat? Have you really had your world crumble?
I thought I had had my world crumble. My fiancé was killed. It left me heartbroken; left me to pick up the pieces. It wouldn’t have been bad if I wasn’t the murderer. I might have well pulled the trigger. It was me. To find out I had been working against my government for the last seven years, that I had been lied to like a naïve child still holding hopes of a perfect world. A perfect world exists in the land of white knights and shining horses. Not on this world. That too, had made me feel like the world had dissolved and left me to roam through the churning acid.
She couldn’t remember the funeral. The two stones, each marked with a cross, engraved with their names, the dates of their lives, side by side in Arlington Cemetery. She didn’t remember moving in with the Durands’, she didn’t remember them adopting her, she didn’t remember having her name changed, all traces of her past wiped away.
Any day starts out normal. Take a shower, brush your teeth, domesticated things. It wasn’t like there were lights flashing. It wasn’t like someone was there telling me my world was about to crumble. I wasn't on a game show, playing for a gift. No one was there to stop in the middle of the climax, telling you to tune in tomorrow to find out what would happen. I couldn’t turn back time. There was no consolation prize for losing what I wanted.
Walking into SD-6 was never a fun event. But today, today it felt different. It’s like those signs you get before you become sick. Your back hurts, it feels hot. The next day you’re lying on the couch with a fever of 104 and waiting to get a stick jammed down your throat to test for Strep. That was how I felt. Something was wrong, something was off. And the stick got jammed down my throat, and it choked me. I still can’t breathe.
Sitting, smiling, they were all lies. The jokes were fake, dry. Sitting at that table, pretending that I didn’t want to jump across the table and kill Sloane, it was a job. It took energy, focus, and it left me drained. I never knew that I needed to save that energy.
The mission wasn’t anything different than before. Ironic that when you look back, the most ordinary days turn out to be the worst. September 11th. Who would have guessed that we would be attacked? I mean, really, were you prepared for that? It was that way, we weren’t prepared. A normal day. At least it was. But now, just like September 11th, April 7th will be burned into my memory for the rest of my life.
I should have known something was going to go wrong. In reality, I actually did. I mean, I remember writing the date on something and thinking… well isn’t that odd, it’s April 7th. 4/7. As in 47, Rambaldi’s favorite number that always seems to represent bad things. But I didn’t think much of it. I wasn’t going to worry.
I was wrong. I remember the second I felt the ground shake. 11:46. I heard the enormous blast. And I knew, at that second, today was not going to be a normal day. Normal days were for normal people. And I did not fall into that category.
Within minutes of the blast, most of the office had managed to either make their way in front of a television turned to CNN, or had made their way outside to observe the large plume of smoke rising from the heart of LA.
We interrupt this broadcast. Funny how four words can always mean one thing. Bad news. Every time you hear those words, your heart runs cold. I'm sure each and everyone remembers where they were on April 19th, 1995. When they first heard about the Oklahoma City Bombing. That’s sure to get your attention. We interrupt this broadcast has become something I dread.
We were worried about what was going on. Why was a building on fire? And at the time being, the reporters on CNN didn’t have many answers. Of course, within the first few minutes of a breaking news story, they don’t have that much information. Just stating the obvious until they get some rumors. So we were told that after a loud explosion that rocked the ground, a building in downtown LA was on fire. As if I couldn’t see that on my own.
The paper. Anchors are always handed papers from off camera. Those papers hold the bad news. And what that paper had to say made me sick.
The LA department of the CIA had just been bombed.
Forget a normal day. No normalcy here. It took me about five seconds to register that the CIA had just been hit by a bomb. I mean, really, when you first receive bad news, doesn’t it take a little bit to sink in? Everyone in the building looked stunned. Maybe it was because they thought they too worked for the CIA, maybe it’s just a natural reaction to bad news. I think it’s a little bit of both.
Standing there. Looking at that building. It was collapsed. It was on fire. And Vaughn was in there. I jumped up, pushing the people out of my way. I knew what I had to do.
Running down the streets was hard, people standing in shock, staring in disbelief. I bet half of them didn’t even know that the CIA had a department in LA. And none of them had been in it. Or worked there. Weren’t double agents. Weren’t alone in the world. Weren’t in love with their handlers.
I don’t know how long I ran. Five minutes, five hours, all I know was that I got there. I stood looking at it. I could see the firefighters, helping those who were left in the area that hadn’t completely collapsed out. They were everywhere… pushing the crowds back. But I had to get in there. I had to find Vaughn.
It was simple, really. Grab an extra uniform from out of the back of the fire truck, and walk in. Calling. Screaming. My throat was raw from shouting ‘Vaughn’ over and over again. I felt someone touch my shoulder. I thought it was him. I thought he was there. But when I turned around I saw his friend, Weiss. Bloody and battered, he was alive. He told me that if I wanted to fit in with the rest of the firefighters that I shouldn’t go around yelling an individual’s name. His smile didn’t warm me. I was cold. The fires burning around me, and I was numb.
I don’t remember when we felt it. I just remember falling to the ground. I remember the screams, overcoming the sound of the second explosion.
I wasn’t watching CNN, I couldn’t see the paper getting handed to the lady, but I was positive what it said.
And sure enough, minutes later the walkie-talkies attached at our belt loops came alive. The voice on the other side broke up, it squawked, but the message was clear. Credit Dauphine had been bombed.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew it wasn’t coincidence. It wasn’t an accident that the CIA and SD-6’s headquarters had been bombed. But I turned my attention back to the job at hand. I had to find Vaughn. He was my guardian angel. We were meant to be together. I had to find him.
Seconds, days, weeks, months. It all passed by in a blur. I don’t remember much. I remember the day they found his body. I remember how much his mother cried at his funeral. I remember the way she held me tight, and how she had told me that she loved me. She told me Vaughn had told her all about me, how he had loved me, but was afraid to tell me. For once in my life, I was glad he hadn’t broken protocol. I don’t think I could have survived this long if he had told me he loved me.
I had always wanted something to look forward to after SD-6 was taken down. Vaughn was that thing. Ironic how the day SD-6 is taken down, he dies. Maybe I’m just bad luck.
I don’t remember what I was doing in the alleyway when she found me. I do, however, remember the way her eyes lit up when she saw me. I knew that she was the one to do it. She had killed Vaughn, she had killed them all. She had killed the man I loved. We had the same blood running through our veins, she had given birth to me, and yet she would stop at nothing to hurt me as much as she could.
Remorse. Not something my mother showed often. She certainly didn’t show remorse for the hundreds of lives she took, all to get back at me. Her daughter. She killed hundreds of people to hurt her daughter.
I guess she thought that she hadn’t done her job well. That if I hadn’t killed myself, that if I was still functioning, that she hadn’t succeeded. I guess the ultimate crime was easier than trying to figure out how to hurt me more.
She didn’t even bat an eye when she pulled the trigger. There was no change in her facial expression when I fell to the ground.
But she didn’t hurt me. She only helped me. Because now I’m with my guardian angel, and nothing can ever take him away from me now.
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