Author Games Compilation [Cycle 2]

Task 4: The Better Part of Valor [HE]

I know I'm rather harsh on Hayes at times. I know I doubt his capabilities, his competence, his decisions. I know he's not the easiest to get along with, or even the easiest to carry on a simple conversation with at the rate he goes, shooting along with the expectation that everyone will understand his motives or the core of what he's saying. However, I've found that over the past few days, I've come to enjoy the conversations with my host. Turns out, there's something therapeutic about finally being able to speak and be heard after twenty-some years of sitting in silence with the knowledge that you'll spend another sixty the same - if your host is a healthy one, of course, which I cannot say Hayes is.

He is, however, more reserved these days, and by extension, more sneaky. We're sat squeezed into the furthest corner of the helicopter, flying smooth and true, a headset wrapped around his ears and a yellow notepad pressed to his lap. His head is bent down, and I know it hurts him because I can feel the faint ache at the back of his neck, but he wants me to see what he's jotting down. It's our new thing, y'see. So we can communicate without people staring at him like he's a lunatic who talks to himself. Technically, I already know what he's thinking, but for his sake - and to give him a chance to pick his words carefully - I don't let him know this.

I consume his careful handwriting. So you've seen everything I've done? My whole life?

Yes.

He furrows his brows, then scribbles down a few more words, discontented with my response. Well that sucks for us both then.

Yes. It has been quite uncomfortable. Don't even get me started on your birth.

He's quick: Ew.

He glances up, awaiting my retort, but his gaze falls to the window, and he gets caught up in the sights below. It's one thing entirely, being so far above the ground; one fallacy in flight and down they all go, plummeting. It's another thing to see what they may very well plummet towards: the great city of London, all colors and gloss in the photos, but flushed with neutral tones and grey plumes in reality. His mouth parts slightly at the havoc, processing very slowly that this is havoc he's about to be right smack dab in the middle of. In those streets, choking on air tainted by rioting. In those streets, defending his own front, back, left and right. Not that he doesn't do that already, but now there's a valid reason for his paranoia, for him to keep checking again and again and again for the taser strapped to the left of his belt and pepper spray on the right.

I'm gonna die today, he writes, glancing up timidly now and then to see how much closer they've gotten to the ground since the last time he checked.

Not if you're smart.

Like I said, I'm gonna die today.

If I had eyes, I would roll them, which is ironic considering my origins, but his fears aren't exactly unwarranted; I sense the rush of it in everyone in this helicopter once we finally settle on Westminster Bridge (cleared and blocked off the moment SHADR sent word of their involvement). It's a subtle stiffness we catch in the pilots, and it's a slight twitch in the shoulders of the combat team as they roll them, preparing for the worst.

"This is it, folks," one of them says, tone peppy but too stiff to be real. He swings himself halfway out the door before plastering a tight smile to his lips, nodding at the others. "Let's do what we signed up for."

Hayes watches as the others file out and gingerly places the notepad and headset on the now empty seat beside him. He won't need it out there - if he needs to tell me something, he can pass it off as some holler at a rioteer. "Technically, I didn't sign up for this much," he mutters. Still, he follows suit, and soon he's standing in the middle of Westminster Bridge, shielding his eyes from a sun that's still bright behind the clouds and smoke, and shielding his eyes from the little bits of debris floating in the air. He watches specks of it land softly on the road and blow away, drifting down where it'll get caught in the river. He kicks away a paper that catches on his foot. "They'll need one hell of a clean-up crew after all this."