He was a little over six feet tall, with close-cropped blonde hair and sky-blue eyes. A youngish man in his mid-twenties, he moved uncertainly (as would perhaps a newcomer to urban living) as he wove his way through food carts, pedestrians, and medium-heavy traffic through the heart of Washington DC. Apart from being an obvious fish-out-of-water, he seemed as ordinary as all the other nameless people passing each other on the way to the rest of their lives.
The young man wound up in a less traveled side-street with the walls and doors adorned with what was once ornate wood trim painted a lustrous green, but now after many decades of obvious neglect were decaying and sad. He rapped on a door in the middle of the alley and a small panel slid aside. Wary eyes regarded him. “Name?” demanded the man behind the door.
“Chauncey Gardiner”, the blonde youth reluctantly replied, as though the name bestowed upon him was one he put up with rather than embraced.
The man behind the door appeared to be checking a list. “Sponsor?” he demanded.
“Mathew Colton”
The man consulted his list again, making it clear he was in no hurry. He scrutinized Chauncey again, took a beat, then cracked the door open. “Come on in and be quick about it!”
Chauncey slipped inside, and the dull green door immediately slammed shut behind him again as the sound of locks re-engaging were clearly heard.
The door guard, a burly and ill-mannered man, gestured down the dimly lit corridor. As Chauncey headed in, the guard sat back down on a stool in the corner, staring at Chauncey’s back as he went out of sight into the shadows.
The hall continued forward, with perhaps a slight bend to it and a gentle descent. With no side doors or hall crossings, the young man had no choice but to follow it forward. Eventually it emptied out in a large and once opulent space, a room that once had perhaps been a grand ballroom in better days. Hooded figures carrying citronella torches for illumination walked to and fro in small groups, speaking in hushed voices, never great in number.
One figure, also in a dark green robe, was standing apart from the rest, and upon seeing the hood-less young man enter the space, strode forward to greet him. “Hale fellow traveler, how go things on the surface?” The voice that emerged could have been from a man or woman.
Chauncey replied as if by rote, “These are strange times, that a man is not always a man.”
“Well met, brother.” The ritual passcodes exchanged, the robed figure reached out to shake Chauncey’s hand. “Come with me.”
They traveled deeper into the complex, through a maze of corridors and hallways, always descending. Finally Chauncey was led into a medium-sized cozy room with a fire burning in the grate, a flue leading the smoke elsewhere. The robed figure gestured to a pair of comfortable chairs in front of the fire; Chauncey sat down in one, his companion in the other. Then the hood was pulled back and lowered.
The face that was revealed was pleasant enough, that of a woman in her mid-thirties – not exactly pretty but striking in a more handsome way. Shoulder-length dark, almost black, hair hung ruler-straight, and her complexion was very fair, almost translucent. Lips neither overly generous nor thin smiled at Chauncey as she settled back into the overstuffed chair. “Hi. You can call me Jane, it’s my movement name, not my real name, of course. I know your real name is Chauncey Gardiner, but if this conversation goes as well as I think it will, we’ll be coming up with a movement name for you too, soon enough.”
“How does this work?” inquired Chauncey.
“I interview you. If I like what I hear, we’ll do great things together. Let’s begin: Why do you want to join our cause?”
Chauncey snorted. “I don’t yet know if I do. Let’s say I’m interviewing you also.”
Jane smiled. “That’s entirely appropriate and the mark of a thoughtful individual. Let me ask instead, what is your interest in us?”
The young man glanced over, straightened his shoulders, and responded. “I guess there’s no beating around the bush about it. I used to like superhero movies but Stonefall changed all that. Superheroes in real life aren’t cool or fun, they’re terrifying. On that day, ordinary humans became obsolete second-class citizens of this planet. I’m not a bad guy, really, I’m not, but with what I’ve seen it’s clear as day that if we don’t stop them, Quantums will rule us, and soon. I have nothing against them personally, and I know it’s a horrible to say and worse to really mean, but the Quantums have got to go.”
“Go?” asked Jane softly.
“We have to end them. End them all. As soon as we possibly can. So we can stop our home from sliding into some unrecognizable future. It’s a horrible truth, but it is what it is.”
“It is what it is…” Jane repeated. A small yet profound silence fell, which Jane then broke. “We couldn’t agree more. A small tragedy to prevent an enormous one. The very fate of humanity rests on what we do, and we must act before we’re too late.” She regarded Chauncey, studying him.
She came to a decision. “Let’s give you a trial run, Mr Gardiner, let you prove yourself a little – how does that sound? Or do you not think we’re the right fit?”
Chauncey considered a moment. “Let’s call this a two-way trial, and we’ll both see how we fit?”
“Again, a sensible idea. If that is a habit with you, you’ll fit in just fine. As it so happens, your profession as a freelance writer is ideal for our purposes.”
Chauncey gave a surprised laugh. “Really? How odd. I figured I would be pretty useless and you would have to train me to handle weaponry or something. But if having me write anti-Quantum stories is what you think will help, I can certainly do it.”
Jane shook her head. “No, we already have sympathetic journalists to insert our stories when necessary, plus if you wrote one anti-Quantum piece after another, you’ll just be lumped in with all the antis and ignored by everyone else. No, we want you to keep writing the articles you have been, and would ask you to not raise the ire of Quantums, because we don’t want anyone scrutinizing what you will really be doing.”
“And what will that be?”
“You’ve traveled all over the nation, and to various other countries, in the pursuit of interviews and stories for your articles. You would make a most excellent courier. We can’t trust the internet. And we need to move encrypted information between our separate cells, so we can coordinate. You have the perfect cover to do so.”
Chauncey heaved a deep sigh. “I’m sorry, Miss Jane, but while I want to help you and I think I could be really good at this kind of mission, there’s a problem. Believe it or not, I’m a pretty straight arrow. I believe in law and order, like, really believe in it. That’s really the main reason the Quants have to be stopped, they erode the fabric of the law itself. So I’m not going to smuggle stuff and break the law myself. I mean it would be one thing if these were like officially sanctioned secret government missions instead of just a civilian group, then I would at least know I was actually not a law-breaker, just a secret agent and stuff.”
Chauncey stood up. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time. I’m really sorry this didn’t work out, I think now that you guys maybe are the real deal, and probably our best hope to stop the Quants, but like I said… Sorry.” He went to shake her hand, but she remained seated, thinking.
Jane looked up into his face. “How do you know we don’t have official government backing? Did you really think the United States was going to stop with Mayfair?” She stood, facing him. “I’m not at any liberty to furnish you with proof of course – but if you join us I’m sure you will rise through the ranks and see for yourself soon enough. In the meanwhile, I’m asking you to take my word that our charter is indeed of the highest legal pedigree – but more covert than any such relationship ever has been before, for very obvious reasons. Will you take my word and join us, Mr. Gardiner?”
Taking a pause and a deep breath, Chauncey locked eyes with Jane, thinking, and came to a decision. “Yes, I will.” he breathed.
She took his hand in hers, “Welcome to the Resistance.”
Jane led him back out to the corridor that led back to the street. “Stay in town,” she directed, “We’ll have a package for you to deliver soon. Getting our courier network up and operating quickly is our highest priority right now, so be ready to move.”
“Yes ma’am.” Chauncey nodded, “I will be.”
“We’ll be in touch.” She reached out to clasp his shoulder. “We will prevail.”
He gave her a brief nod, and returned along the corridor where the same unpleasant guard let him back onto the street. Finding his way to mass transit, he returned across town to his apartment, a tasteful though not ostentatious large loft in a brownstone in a quiet and somewhat nice part of DC.
Now that I was safe in my apartment, I dropped the Chauncey body (and act) and popped back into my own normal form, while turning to Domino, who was still yammering away, “Will you put a sock in it?!”
I astralled directly to our new HQ to meet with my Council of Advisors. I looked forward to telling them that the Resistance had just recruited their number one enemy.