Home?

Ultimately, the plan was easy. And again, Janice took care of it. She was a miracle in practical solutions. She coordinated with the teambuilding organisers to rebook the fight seat from Julian-me to Marie-me. She contacted the border police to confirm if the declaration of the French police about the loss of my identity card was enough to let me pass. Which luckily, it was. Guess it helped the borders weren’t entirely closed between us and the EU. There was still some trust left.

My lies were biting me… Big time. My friends had arranged to let me stay with Crystal for the next two weeks. Apparently, she lived close by the branch I claimed to be from. I would have to take public transport, but it would only take 15 minutes.

Horrible plans! It would mean I wouldn’t be able to see Mark and Shana again. This was not a good idea.

“But I can’t just ‘disappear’! That will end up with the wrong people searching for me!” I countered. “Give me some time. If I get back to my home, I can make arrange to move to a safer environment without rising suspicion. Especially with the help of you guys! I will not draw attention that way.” I felt sick. The lies were killing me. But no way I could come clean now! My stomach was hurting me, and I had a constant feeling of acid in my throat. My body was punishing me for my morally questionable decisions.

“And I’m quite certain Julian will protect me. Especially if I tell him I got abducted and that they were asking questions about him and that I didn’t tell anything. Protecting me, will mean protecting himself.” I said. “I don’t want to rely on him, but on short term, this is a good solution.”

They looked at me, thinking.

“Ok.” Crystal said. “I think you have a point here. We have a way to get you back, and then you just go to your home and tell everything to Julian. Also tell him you made friends. It’s harder to dispose of someone who has friends.”

“And I will make a group chat for us, and you post a message in it every morning and evening.” Caro smiled. “I don’t want to worry sick.”

She was such a nice girl! I hugged her on that remark. “I’ll do it. Just let me create a new FaceChat account for this. I was already planning on ditching my old account. There are no people worthy to be connected on that one and the pictures I want to keep, I have on my laptop anyways.” I was partially lying again… Julian didn’t have many FaceChat friends or even friends in general. And Marie even didn’t exist at all a week ago. It was easy to ditch a non-existing account.

After a few minutes, the account was created, and we exchanged friend requests and the group chat was set up. I configured the security settings for my account to my friends only and posted the pictures I had taken this week on my newly made account. A clear breach in tradition. Julian never posted pictures of himself of his family online.

We walked in group to the nearby metro station to get to the airport. I was towing a brand-new purple suitcase with some colourful butterfly art on it. Everything went smoothly and soon we were aboard the plane. The troublesome border control I needed to pass was on the other side of the Canal. I was happily seated next to Caro. It was only fitting that she would be the last to sit next to me, since she was the one who drew me into the group.

Soon enough we were standing in the customs area, ready to pass the border guards.

“I’m nervous.” I whispered to Caro. Confessing it helped calm my nerves. She put her arm on mine. “Don’t worry. You won’t have any trouble,” she whispered back with a broad smile. Meanwhile the rest of the gang joined us, and happy chitter filled the area.

Flora and Janice were exchanging predictions for when they were reunited with their husbands. They were telling exaggerated stories about the state their houses would be in after a week of absence.

I surely hope the stories were aggerated… It got us laughing loudly more than once.

I presented my papers to the border guard and briefly explained my situation. He was studying them slowly. Then he looked up at me and I gave him my brightest smile. He got a slightly unhinged look on his face. He looked down at my papers in a bit of a confusion. After a few seconds, he took a note, scribbled something on it, and give me my papers back with the note folded inside. I smiled broadly again while accepting my papers back and he threw me a look that wouldn’t be misplaced on a helpless puppy.

“God, Marie, what did you do?” Crystal said when she joined me. “You broke that guard with your smile. That guy will be out of it for the rest of the day!”

I looked back at her in complete confusion. “I did what?”

“You BROKE the guard.” She repeated.

“You threw such a brilliant smile at him that he’ll divorce his wife the second he comes home and will set up camp at your door for the rest of his days just to get a glimpse of you.” She added.

I stared at her dumbfounded.

She almost fell down in fit of laughter at my expression and shared the story with the rest of the group who were soon joining on the laughter and adding even more jokes. Flora and Caro were leaning against each other standing with tears smeared over their faces from their hysterical laughter.

The longer they continued the more I blushed. I think I was transforming into a red stoplight…

“You girls are evil!” I mumbled. It only made them burst out in another round of giggles at my expense.

“Seriously, girl, you should be aware that your looks are a deadly weapon for even a coldblooded male. Use it with care! Unless you want to collect an army of free servants.” Caro explained me. They all nodded seriously.

“You can even get most of the girls to fall for you with your smile and looks, you know.” Flora added. “Just smile, put a hand on her, give her a kiss and she’ll melt in your arms. It doesn’t matter that the girl you target never was into girls, you’ll conquer her anyways. Just extrapolate that effect to hetero males and you’ll understand how deadly you are.”

“Ahh, so it WAS Flora who said that in my hotel room.” I thought.

“Hmm… I’ll try to be careful.” I smiled seriously. This bit of information was extremely disturbing. I never was the centre of anything and was hardly capable of getting someone interested in me. And now I was more or less capable of the opposite without even trying.

“Miss Keenan?” I heard a male voice ask. I saw my friends pale in front.

I slowly turned around to face the voice. Three heavily built, suited-up males were standing in front of me, the middle one looking at me with the question on his lips. I glanced around I saw at least ten other people in similar clothing spread out in the arrival crowd.

“Yes?”, I answered with a small voice.

“We want you to come with us,” the centre piece of the male testosterone buildings said in a friendly voice without giving any leeway for a no. “Please follow us.”

“Hey!” Janice called out. “You can’t force her to come with you.”

“We know. That is why we ask nicely. We know she got into a lot of trouble, and we can offer her protection. We belief she is worse off on her own.”

I turned back to my friends with eyes big of fear. This was bound to happen. I didn’t think I could keep on escaping this all. “It’s ok. This was bound to happen. At least these guys aren’t threatening or sedating me. Remember our FaceChat.” We gave a nice warm group hug. I tried hard but couldn’t keep my eyes dry. I tore away and waved shortly. I turned around and immediately started to follow the leader. From all sides, suits converged on our course and soon I was hidden from sight by a wall of them.  For better or for worse. I made my choice.

They lead me to a waiting caravan of SUV’s. “How cliché!” I thought. The door was kept open for me as if I was some kind of VIP. The gorilla that looked to be in charge, entered the front passenger seat.

After a few hours of an uneventful drive, except for my livid imagination doing its best to scare the living daylights out of me, we arrived at a house in the middle of a very large estate. Fields, hills and forests granting the estate complete privacy. I started this trip hopeful, but after a few hours, I was already seriously doubting my decision. And when in doubt, always assume the worst!

“Now I did it,” I thought. “This time it’s the end.” I was filled with regret and peace at the same time. I was never going to see my kids again. I was somewhat comforted by the thought that their mom loves them and will take good care of them. Even if she is a bit unreliable now and then. She will never allow any harm to come to them.

When I was escorted in, I got a better look at the house. It was a small castle. It looked almost as big as Warwick castle. Simply huge! It wasn’t built on a motte and didn’t have fortifications but still, it was very impressive. It could be a luxury stay or a prison. I was fearing ‘prison’.

Inside, it was state of the art. A modern touch in an old sturdy building, giving it an astonishingly beautiful contemporary look.

I was escorted to a room with a few large couches, a wall of books and three reading desks. A man was standing at a window, silently looking outside. Two men positioned themselves at the door and the rest left silently. The windows had decorated iron bars in front of them, making it look very tasteful. A tasteful prison with a stunning view. Impossible to escape. Impossible to break in.

The man turned to me. “Take a seat.” He gestured to one of the sofas. I did as I was told. My hands were clammy from nervousness and dread. I had a feeling I looked like a scared little rabbit.

“Miss Keenan, I guess you are wondering who we are and why you are invited to come to this place.”

“Invited? They call that ‘invited’? I indeed choose for myself between going and going.” I thought wryly.

“We are a government recruitment agency on the look for new talent to join our ranks. In you, miss Keenan, we have found something unique,” he continued without waiting for a response.

“An information request was sent to us from the French police and after a walk through the bureaucracy, your file landed here. It got us very intrigued.”

“We watched the footage of you during the riots and we got reports of a kidnapping and escape. The footage was … special. Especially for someone without any training. Then you got kidnapped, and the forensics of the crime scene was also very informational and confusing. On top of that, YOU DON’T EXIST!” the man concluded dramatically.

I did my best to keep my cool but couldn’t prevent myself from looking pale in an instant.

“It’s not only that your name doesn’t exist. It’s also that your DNA and fingerprints don’t exist. Most people assume that, since they never encountered a crime, we don’t know their DNA or don’t have fingerprints, but that isn’t true. Which makes you, miss Keenan, an extremely interesting woman.”

“As bloody cherry on the bloody cake, your DNA deviates from normal DNA even more than chimpanzee DNA differs from the homo sapiens DNA.”

“Wait, what? I wasn’t even ‘human’ anymore? What was in that vial?!!” I thought astounded. If possible, I looked even more pale.

“At this moment, we are still in doubt to classify you as an asset, a danger or a harmless anomaly. So, I think you know now why you are here…”

My first warmup question is: “Who are you?” the man said.

“I’m Marie Keenan.” I selected the only possible answer for this situation.

“I doubt that, but ok. Next question: Which country are you from?”

“The UK.” I answered.

“Fantastic! The first answer was obviously a lie, you waited a fraction too long, your voice wavered a tiny bit and so on. But the second answer seems to be the truth.” He was glancing at a tablet that was on the table before him on a stand.

“Ok, I’m going to refrain from answering too much.” I thought, “This can go wrong very fast. I have the feeling that tablet shows if I’m lying or not. This is scary high-tech…”

“Were you born in the UK?”

“Yes.”

The man looked at his tablet and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Was he shocked I told him the truth?” I thought with a slight smirk.

“Are you part of an espionage network or effort?”

“No.”

“Did you ever get combat training?”

“No… well… yes… In Paris at the venue, I got some lessons in self-defence.”

“Where do you live?”

“I don’t have a home.”

“Interesting,” my interrogator said, “That was a partial truth.”

“Please sir, I don’t want to be here. Can you let me go? I have no ill intentions. I’m not dangerous. I don’t want to hurt people and I have an invitation from a friend to stay at her place. If I’m not going, I’ll miss out on that. And my friends are most probably freaking out at the moment. This conversation is scaring me.” My doubt and imagination were winning from the promise of protection.

“You are obviously targeted and hunted by some groups. It is very unlikely you will survive without protection. Protection we can give.” He said dismissively, ignoring my question to leave.

“We have a test for you,” the man said. “If you succeed, we will offer you a unique opportunity, safety, a wealth of information on the people who are currently threatening you and a job offer with an extremely royal wage.”

I raised my eyebrows briefly. Totally failing to keep my expression neutral.

“If you fail the test, we will put you back on the street without telling you anything. Not even who we exactly are. I doubt you are going to last more than a month or even a week without help. I know this is harsh, but everything has a price.”

Ok, that was sounding an ‘intriguing’ threat. The time limit on my survival rang much too close to truth to leave me comfortable.

I sighed. “I admit that my life is not going smoothly and that I can use help. Can you tell me more about the test? You guys scare me but being left out alone scares me more.” There was no use in denying. These guys just knew too much about who and what was after me. I was quite sure that even reverting to Julian won’t make a difference, since Julian had an even larger bullseye painted on his back than me. “I do have some conditions. I want to be able to go ‘home’, see my friends and maintain some privacy.” I added.

A broad smile appeared on the man’s face. “Ah, I guess you aren’t dumb. You can call me Max. The test takes place in another room. For the conditions, you haven’t passed the test yet. Please, follow us.”

Max got up and the two guards escorted us into the dungeon-like layout of the castle. After about 10 minutes, we arrived at a large training room. We had passed a lot of door beeps with matching electronic locks. There were a few people waiting.

“Everybody is here.” Max said with an expecting smile. “We can continue.”

“Your test consists out of three parts. In the first part, mister one and two will attack you. If you succeed in beating them or reaching the small flag over there in the corner, you win.”

“…” Was he going to let me fight? Why?

“Begin!”

I hadn’t noticed that my guards and Max had distanced themselves already. On the begin the two guys approached me carefully. They moved very controlled and fast.

“How?!? How am I going to escape those two?” I thought panicking. “The only hope I have is when I succeed in slowing everything down and avoiding all their moves.”

I stood there. Frozen.

“Remember, succeed or we will just throw you out to the wolves.” Max reminded me.

This was strangely motivating me. I didn’t trust them. They scared me. But the lure of safety was very strong. I really wanted to know who was chasing me. I really wanted to be able to stop looking over my shoulder, like I was doing since I got abducted.

Mister One lunged at me and I narrowly avoided the attack. But the move brought me dangerously close to Mister Two. On some inexplicable reflex I lashed out with my left arm, blocking and dodging an incoming punch.

They quickly backed up again, closing any opening to sprint passed them to the flag. I felt the world slowly disappearing and a calm descending upon me. I saw they were slowing down with every passing second.

I began walking to the flag. I went left of where they were standing, and they immediately reacted. Mister Two, who was closest by moved on an intercept course. Mister One fell back a bit to avoid being taken a surprise sprint.

As Mister Two moved to grab me, I dodged just enough to make him miss. When his arm was passing me, I stepped in, pivoted and gave him a push on his shoulder while sticking my leg between his legs. He started stumbling.

I immediately crouched and spun around. I guess in my peripheral vision I saw Mister One trying to punch me without even registering it consciously. The diagonal crouching move while pivoting, positioned me with my back to Mister One with his fist a bit above me, to the right. I continued pivoting while grabbing his wrist. I increased my momentum and continued with my spin, pulling him along. I swung him around for almost 360 degrees like I was slinging a hammer and left him flying toward Mister Two who was somewhat recovered from his stumble.

The two collided violently into a meat heap and I walked to the flag. I reached it before they could catch up again. I didn’t even run. I thought. I had no idea how fast I went since everything went in slow-motion for me.

Max started clapping. “Extraordinary! Clearly untrained improvised random moves that shouldn’t have worked but did. The precision and speed are spectacular. Congratulation miss Keenan.”

“Thank you.” I said dryly. I rolled my eyes mentally. “What are those guys actually trying to achieve? What do they want from me?” I thought.

“Now, for the second test.” Max announced enthusiastically. “You will wear a piece of body armour and Mister Three will try to hit you with an arrow. Your goal is to try to avoid the arrows. The arrows aren’t pointy, but they hurt a lot on impact and can easily break ribs or bones upon a clear hit.”

“Are you nuts!” I shouted. “That is insane.”

Mister Three had a large wooden bow with a quiver with some arrows hanging at his hip. The quiver pointed a bit backwards and looked extremely efficient to quickly draw arrows from.

Max smile at me. “Maybe. But you said, ‘it’s insane’ and not ‘it’s impossible’. Somewhere inside of you, you think you can pull it off. Which is what we suspect also.”

“Shit … he’s right. If I can slow everything down again, this is might be doable.” I thought.

What I was thinking must have been readable on my face because Max immediately remarked with a smug smile: “See, you do think you can do it.”

I turned around without a word and went to one of the guards, who was holding a heavy shirt and something to put on my head. A bit like what boxers were wearing when sparring.

I returned and I saw that the archer was already in position. He took a shot at a target behind me. I followed the arrow and saw it hit the bullseye. The archer didn’t look surprised. He just went on to flex his muscles a bit more.

“Ok, this guy is definitely not gonna miss… This is unsettling…”

“Begin!” Max shouted.

Again, I was startled and frozen for a second. But then I saw the arrow already being pointed at me. I did the only thing I could think of. I let myself drop to the floor. Just in time. The arrow flew past me. It missed me by centimetres.

Mister Three was already nocking a new arrow while I was getting up. My eyes widened. I knew things already were slowing down, but that guy was crazy fast. I adjust the movement of getting up into a fall backwards, curving my back. I was scared to fall on my face and planted my hands on the floor. The whole movement and the speed of the movement further flung me backwards propelling my legs up over my head. The entire move resembled more or less a back handspring. The first in my life. Ever.

The arrow passed without doing harm and I found myself back on my feet. I turned towards the archer just in time to see the third arrow leave the bow.

In total panic, I tried to slap the arrow away. The arrow slowed down and so did my hand. It was quickly turning into a race. What would be first? My hand or the arrow. I tried to force my hand into moving faster and I felt pain starting to radiate from my arm. My hand sped up and passed the point the arrow would pass. My hand had won. But the arrow wasn’t there YET. I moved my hand down and flicked with my forearm towards the arrow and bounced the projectile upwards. The arrow grazed my shoulder but otherwise passed me.

I grabbed my upper arm which was hurting at this point. I think I strained a muscle.

“Spectacular!” Max exclaimed. “You really live up to my expectations. You were hit by that last arrow, but since you deflected it a bit, I won’t count it as a hit.”

I just stood there looking at him with unbelief in my expression. “I was shot at. Shot at by a crazy fast and excellent bowman with every intention to hit me and I didn’t take any full hit and he was whining about the last arrow grazing my shoulder??? Jerk!”

“For the last test, you will fight one on one with miss Four. You will fight on the training mats. If you leave the mats, you lose. If you give up, you lose. If she gives up of leaves the mats, you win.” Max explained.

The training mats were a large square of 15 by 15 metres. A lot of room for movement. The guard helped me out of my body armour and presented me some ribbons. I looked at it dumbfounded.

“What do I do with that?” I asked.

“It is to protect your hands and strengthen your wrists.” He replied.

“I have no clue how to use them.” I looked at my opponent and I saw her fists and wrists were wrapped in the same type of ribbons. “I see how they are used now, but I still don’t have a clue how to put them on and what they will do for me.”

“Let me help you.” The guard said rolling with his eyes. “Not that you’ll need them.” He muttered silently.

I pretended that I didn’t hear that and stuck out my hands. Miss Four was half a head taller than me. She was wearing a sports bra and tight sport pants. She had an amazing figure with clearly defined muscles without giving of a male vibe. A nice six-pack was visible at her abdomen. She wasn’t beautiful but I reckon she had her share of suitors to choose from. A powerful woman.

After a few minutes I took my place on the fighting ground. “Do I really have to do this?” I asked Max pleadingly. “I don’t want to get hurt and I don’t want to hurt anyone. She’s obviously trained so I’ll lose anyway.”

Max looked me in the eyes, smiled deviously and shouted: “Begin!”

So much for having mercy on me. It seems that I would have to fight. I didn’t want to fight.

She came at me with her hands high before her face, nimbly dancing on the balls of her feet.

I just stood there and watched in awe. She moved so fluently! “It might be a good idea to mimic her pose, more or less, even if I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m sure it’ll do me more good than just standing here.” I thought.

I brought my hands up too and stood on the balls of my feet. I tried out a few steps and small hops. I saw she always had a leading foot and she switched while approaching.

I corrected my pose to have a leading foot too. “This actually feels more stable,” I thought. “Still don’t know why she does this.”

Then, out of nowhere, a punch came flying to my head in a curve. I moved sideways and the fist missed but connected to my forearm. My arm was punched away, but my head was still fine.

“Auw!” I said. That actually hurt. She really hit hard. Image that it would have been against my head. I would be down already.

She had backed away and was already advancing again. She did the exact same move again. I dodged again, but this time I pulled my arm out of the way so she wouldn’t hit it again.

A fraction later I flew aside with a burning pain at my ribs. I saw a foot retracting.

She kicked me! The punch made me move my arm away and while my arm was out of position, she used that opening! I understood directly what she had done. The evidence was clear and unmistakably. My side was burning, and I was lying on the floor!

I looked at her with eyes wide. She was already closing in. If it wasn’t that everything had slowed down a bit for me, I would never have had time to get away. I evaded her move by rolling away and got back on my feet. I immediately jumped backwards, because she did some fast twist, and a foot came at me at high speed and force with clear intent to reshape my abdomen.

She retreated and began advancing again, nimbly dancing on her feet.

“Give me a break, will ya!” I thought! “I’m clueless! I’m just reacting and improvising! At least give me a second to think and to come up with something!”

This time she launched a flurry of attacks at me head and the weak spots of my body. Everything was moving at slow pace, but the continuous onslaught left me with no option to defend. I deflected blow after blow. But steadily I was getting out of position, each time I tried to deflect I had to make wilder movements and I helplessly saw I was creating openings.

After a few seconds, I saw a blow incoming to my head and my hands were nowhere near the right spot to defend. I panicked and tried to jump away clumsily. I landed a bit unsteady only to receive a kick against the side of my knee, causing me to go down, wildly flailing with my arms. While going down she hit me with her fist against the side of my head.

I think I lost consciousness for a fraction because next thing I remember I had rolled a few metres away and was lying on my side. I heard her closing in fast.

“NOOOOOOO!” I screamed mentally through a fog of pain. Everything in front of me was blurry.

I rolled and swept with my feet in her direction in the hope of gaining some precious seconds. I got on my feet again in a low crouch. She had dodged and was already closing in again.

“You got to be kidding me! This is hopeless!” I was devastated by the unrelentless attacking. I was hit three times already. First time was minor, but the hits were getting worse every passing moment.

Even with everything moving in slow motion for me, she just didn’t leave any opening and she was easily abusing my lack of skill. It didn’t matter that I was faster, she was still winning by a large margin. She wasn’t even sweating or breathing heavily. She was just a hyper focussed punching machine.

I just started jumping away, basically running around the floor hoping for inspiration. But even that didn’t work. It didn’t take long before I was locked away in a corner.

My eyes widened in fear. I switched to the only thing I hadn’t done yet. Attack. I stepped forward and swept my leg sideways to hit her in her side with all the strength I could muster. I saw a smirk forming on her face that immediately changed into a look of surprise and pain. She had moved her arm downwards in a block to deflect my kick. The moment my kick connected, her arm was pushed against her side, and she was thrown of balance.

I quickly moved out of my corner, basically switching places with her. I was apparently a lot stronger than her if I wanted. And I desperately wanted to be stronger and faster than her. That was the only way I could ever win against her skill.

She advanced again. A bit more careful this time. She was sparing the arm I hit a bit. I guessed it must have hurt more than I assumed.

She again launched a flurry of punches at me. This time, when I blocked, I didn’t just block. I tried to hit her arms, hands and wrists as hard as I can with my blocking movements. Or I used every piece of strength I could summon to keep my arms immobile in a block.

I saw her eyes widen and a hint of pain and fear appeared. In the slow motion I saw an opening to punch into her stomach.

The hit connected and she led out a scream. She was lifted of her feet and flew a bit backwards where she landed on her back. She was moaning in pain. I immediately rushed forward.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that to happen! I’m sorry!”

A hand pulled me away. “Let the paramedics treat her,” I heard Max say. “Don’t worry about her, she had worse, and she’ll get over it.”

Two persons with a red cross on their sleeves, rushed in with a stretcher.  A third person, carrying a big black bag, quickly kneeled aside her, immediately inspecting her heartbeat and pupils. After some examination, they injected her with something. I assumed it was a sedative or a painkiller. They moved her onto the stretcher and carried her out of the room. She was still moaning, and holding her stomach, her face twisted in pain.

“You passed the tests.” Max said. “Will you follow me?”

“What happens to her?” I remained standing still.

“She is moved to the sick bay where she will get the best possible medical care. She is not of your concern.” Max said, while continuing moving to the door.

I looked around and I saw one of my guards motioned me to follow Max. He looked at me with a bit of awe, fear and extra caution. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was a bit unsure if he could win a fight against me. I didn’t know either. I had no intention of trying it out.