Chapter 87: Eighty-seven: Excellent bait

<p>The door of my room opened while I had been resting on the bed, still trying to adjust to the feeling of wearing underwear again. Someone had found me a pair of shorts to wear under the dress as well, but they were a bit big and felt strange after I'd worn nothing down there for such a long time.<br/><br/>"Hello, Miss Wallace," said a familiar dry voice and another cheerful voice that I didn't quite welcome so much.<br/><br/>"Alistair! And um, Mr Cooper," I smiled, sitting up to shake their hands. I slowly swivelled my wretched legs over the side of the bed to sit on the bed edge.<br/><br/>"Bevan," said the man, smoothing his hair back and sounding only slightly less cheerful since I had forgotten his name, but remembered his partner's. "My name is Bevan."<br/><br/>"Yes, Mr Cooper," I replied and felt a little wriggle of satisfaction at his dissatisfaction. I'd forgotten why I disliked him, but then it came back to me. He was an actor that didn't care about little people like me.<br/><br/>"Jean," Alistair shook his head, while he gave one of his rare smiles and sat on the edge of the bed with me to my right, while Bevan took the only chair.<br/><br/>"It's good to see you too, Alistair," I said and Alistair's eyes twinkled at that. "You're both looking well."<br/><br/>"Looks like you've been better," Alistair gestured at my crutches and skinny looking shrivelled legs.<br/><br/>"Yes," I grimaced, looking down at myself. "I'm the result of a sandwich between floor and ceiling when a building collapses. I've only really just started to pick up again. The war doesn't really give a person time to get better before something else happens."<br/><br/>"No, it doesn't, does it?" Alistair gave me a sad smile. He pointed at the file Mr Cooper was holding. "You've been growing a legend, Miss Wallace. It might grow to mythic proportions before the end of the war."<br/><br/>"I hope not," I grumbled. "I don't much like being infamous on both sides."<br/><br/>"They reckon you've been working with the Boskies from the beginning now," Alistair said. "And someone let the cat out of the bag regarding your secret."<br/><br/>"Alistair," Mr Cooper complained.<br/><br/>"Shut up and just take notes, will you, please, Bevan. I'll conduct this interview, if you don't mind. I think Miss Wallace would be a lot more comfortable with that."<br/><br/>Mr Cooper scowled when I nodded emphatically, but pulled out the recorder and opened the laptop.<br/><br/>"The network's down. The internet isn't working either."<br/><br/>"That doesn't bode well for us. Take handwritten notes and let's hope they get everything back up and working."<br/><br/>"I suppose you'd like a report on everything since we last saw one another," I said, rubbing my face. It had been a long day and I was so tired.<br/><br/>"You look tired," Alistair observed. "Perhaps we should get this done another time?"<br/><br/>"It's been a long day," I sighed. "Let's just get this over and done with. Who knows what might happen next? I just can't promise you all the details. A lot of things happened and my memory is fuzzy in places."<br/><br/>"Just do your best, Miss Wallace," Alistair encouraged me.<br/><br/>I recounted most of what happened since I had last seen him at the hospital when I was going through withdrawal. There were some little details that I left out, which weren't important. The most important thing was that I kept the two agents engaged and interested for as long as possible, while outside, the soldiers I had once seen as my own countrymen tried to re-establish control of the Compound and bring as many people in as they could, before the trap was sprung.<br/><br/>Would Alistair be upset when he found out that the trap was of my own making? Or would he be proud of me? Would he decide to change sides? I doubted it. His loyalties were not easily swayed. But I think he might understand me. I hoped he did. He was a good man and I hated to think I might lose a friend.<br/><br/>A friend. Interesting that I thought of him as that. We'd gone though stuff together and I trusted him. He'd kept my secret for me before the Barrel let it out. Yes. A friend.<br/><br/>My eyes began drooping while I talked and he let me lean against him.<br/><br/>Then there was an explosion outside and I was startled awake. I fumbled with his hands in mine, grabbing him out of my fear that the ceiling might fall on me again. Outside, the sounds of a firefight and battle could be heard and I whimpered. It was still scary, no matter how many times the battles had swept over me. Any moment a bullet marked with my name could find me. A bomb might drop on me.<br/><br/>"We should take her and go," Mr Cooper said, packing everything up in a hurry.<br/><br/>"You heard the soldiers. She can barely walk. We won't get far with her," Alistair said.<br/><br/>"We need all that information. She hasn't even told us where Alfred Barrel is hiding or if she knows what the Boskies are planning," Mr Cooper waved his arms as he packed, pulling me up onto my feet and shoving my crutches in my hands. I fell back onto the bed, when he hurried me out of balance.<br/><br/>"I'm afraid," Alistair gave me a long sidelong glance, "that this might have been their plan all along and that we just got played. Miss Wallace does make for excellent bait."<br/><br/>"Then we should get out of here. We just brought in a whole bunch of specialists. We've got to get them out," Mr Cooper said, pulling at his collar. He was sweating. "Or get out ourselves."<br/></p>