Reunion (Pt. 2)

They’d sat there on the stairs next to each other without speaking for perhaps ten minutes when Marcel entered.

The door at the rear of the room eased open, and he slid past it. With a few quick strides, he situated himself at a desk in the corner of the room. He spoke to them from it, his voice surprisingly clear and audible considering he sat around fifteen meters away and faced the corner.

“Well?” he asked. That was it.

Ken glanced over at Irina. She stared into the room, eyes dead with exhaustion. The word didn’t trigger a response from her.

“Irina?” Ken whispered.

She turned her lifeless gaze to him, blinking a couple times. It looked like her eyes might just droop closed, but they always popped back open.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

She sighed deeply. “I need help.”

“With stopping the extirpations?”

“Hopefully.”

“What does that mean?” He furrowed his brow.

Irina didn’t answer, instead saying, “How far have you gotten?”

“Uh, with the folder?”

She nodded.

“Maybe… five pages?” And even that is being generous, he thought.

Her eyebrows raised slowly, her mouth hanging slightly open, frozen in place just before her next word. “That’s it? Five?”

Ken felt a brief bubbling of anger in his gut. “Yes, Irina, it’s the densest, most incomprehensible text I’ve ever read. I mean, I have to look up half the words or more, and your marginal notes are written in Russian!”

Though her expression didn’t change, Ken felt the annoyance radiating from her.

I suppose her ego is intact. He smiled internally, but made sure to keep his face stone so as to avoid seeming overtly mocking.

“It isn’t as though it’s code,” she finally grumbled. But she glanced over at him, finally begrudgingly adding, “Though I see how someone out of practice might have… difficulty.”

Ken pressed his lips to a line, nodding and looking into the room. “Not the… nicest lab you’ve worked in.” Ken mustered a close-lipped smile as his eyes scanned the room.

It was quite the decrepit place. Damp, dark, and dusty. And though she’d set up shop here, it didn’t make it feel any homier.

She was nodding slowly as his eyes turned over to her. “I suppose not.”

“It was the best space available on short notice, for next to no money,” Marcel noted from the corner. He was working away there, typing furiously on a laptop, though Ken hadn’t heard him begin.

“Who…?” Ken gestured limply to Marcel.

Irina’s eyes followed his hand, nodding. “My assistant and security. The government, for whom I worked until quite recently, was misapplying his talents.”

“You worked for the government?” Ken asked.

“Yes, for a time,” she sighed.

“Sounds like quite the story.”

“Maybe, but for another time.” She stared wistfully at the nothingness at the back of the room.

Okay, I suppose I’ll accept that for now, Ken thought, shrugging. “So, let’s get this moving: what do you need from me? I don’t want to keep the girls waiting.”

“As dedicated as always,” Irina remarked, though in spite of the sarcastic nature of the comment she was as deadpan as ever as she said it. “I need a fresh perspective. And I need to share my work, so someone else understands.”

“I’m not sure I can give you those.” He leaned forward and folded his hands.

She shook her head. “You need to. I need to share it, in case I’m indisposed for any reason down the road.”

Ken’s face twisted in confusion. “What does that mean?”

“I meant nothing in particular by it; just a precaution—a would-be apocalypse standard, I think.”

Ken just stared at her now, face neutral. “...When did your English get so good?”

She didn’t respond to the query with her body or words. “So? What do you say?”

Ken took a deep breath, placing his chin in the palm of one hand, his elbows resting on his knees. “I don’t know…”

“You would be saving the girls.”

He let the words wash over him, staring at the ground. “...And if we fail?”

She was silent and still. He got the feeling that she’d said her piece, simple as it had been.

He turned the proposition over in his mind. Would he really be doing the girls any service by being here? Toiling away in this glorified cave while the world shuffles along toward its end?

Irina’s voice pulled him from his pondering. “I loved your mindset. Your willpower…” she finally said under her breath. “…You’ve changed.”

Ken stared at her. Those words…

Memories came flooding back. Happy ones—the ones that kept him awake at night; away from his work in the day. The ones he’d repressed in an effort to leave her in the past. Memories of joy and laughter, working together in the lab, making mistakes together, arguing playfully over every trite detail.

“I don’t…” He trailed off, the memories churning. “Can’t you find someone else?”

“Ken, I need you.” Her expression was quietly pleading. It was all too familiar to him—he’d seen it countless times when they worked, in her lowest moments. “No one else is good enough.”

He recalled her defeatism. And the times she called him her crutch—the times she said his will was what held her up. The times he wiped the tears from her face, dragging her back to the lab benches for another try.

“I…” he began, turning to her. But as their eyes met, the positive thoughts swimming in his head forced a single word from his mouth: “Fine.”

Irina took a deep, satisfied breath, posture collapsing slightly. “Good. We’ll begin tomorrow.” she smiled at him with warmth he’d forgotten.

And that, frankly, he’d hoped remained lost to him.

Now, as the smile illuminated her tired face, its warmth radiating to him, he couldn’t help but smile in return. But even as he smiled, a sense of unease crept into his heart, as if awoken by these memories. It was the same unease he’d felt those years ago.

But he pushed it down.

And kept smiling.