Of The Infinite
Laith broke the contemplative silence with a personal question, looking directly at the passenger giving them this epic thought test. “Do you live like that? Thinking foreign thoughts, hyper-aware, and caught in a spiders web of the infinite conscious decisions?”
She laughed, but everyone else seemed suddenly serious, looking at her differently as if they could see crazy on her, or something. After clearing her throat to chase the surprise amusement, she answered. “Not exactly. I do, in that I am aware, but it’s like walking through air to me. It just is, in all its complexities, I don’t usually have to think of it in these specific terms.”
“This all for our benefit then?” Ace asked, sounding a little disgruntled once more.
“Well, yes, you misunderstood, and Klepic asked.” The passenger responded, recalling what began the unlikely conversation about consciousness and infinity.
“I asked,” Klepic chimed in unhurriedly, “because you have no formal secondary education, no specialized credentials, no security clearance, no drivers license, place of permanent residenc-“
“You wanted to know what qualifies me for your detail?” The passenger asked without letting him finish the list of reasons she was, on paper, a nobody.
“Yes, and when you mentioned slivers of infinity and thought projection… well…” He confirmed, evenly, watching her like he meant to read the unspoken answers in her chi even as he let his sentence trail off unfinished.
“No one told you why I’m needed in audience, did they?” When she asked the question, it almost sounded like she not only knew the answer to that question, but also the ‘why’ question.
“No, they didn’t.” Klepic responded honestly, if also cautiously.
No one else in the subway car dared to jump into the conversation, but she glanced at them anyway, unable to hide her smirk, before leveling her eyes on Klepic. She gave no answers, but asked another question. “What did they name this mission, your… goal of secure and escort the woman in question?”
Klepic wasn’t the only one who laughed at the way she worded that, some of them shaking their heads while the man in charge hummed back his amusement. “Mmm. Well, we certainly don’t call it that, but you’re right, we were handed the name of the mission as sure as the goal. It’s called ‘Operation Flamingo’…” and even Klepic couldn’t say it with a straight face.
There was a soft applause of chuckles around the subway car, but all of their eyes centered on the passenger in an appropriately neon pink hoodie, plus the bloodstain reminders of the old book cover proverb.
“Operation Flamingo?” The woman repeated with a laugh in her voice that didn’t give way to the bubbling roar of hilarity built up inside her from the way he’d said it, to the way they all reacted to it. Still, she didn’t let them confirm, she knew the answer; who would lie about that? “Okay… assuming they didn’t know I’d be wearing the hoodie G-ma gave me today, it’s either arbitrary, has to do with why me specifically, or what someone like me is needed for.”
“The Commander isn’t arbitrary.” Laith rumbled with a note of ‘I should know.’
Klepic gave a nod of agreement while everyone else remained silent.
“Thinking about your previous missions, uh, operations, were the names related to the target of the mission or why the mission was deployed in the first place?”
“Both” Laith, Klepic, and another voice she didn’t pinpoint rang out in unison. Klepic adding, “It’s not usually one word, the first word usually relates to the reason of deployment, as you worded it… while the second relates to the specific target.”
Ace barked in an unhappy laugh of words while he palmed the beanie on his head “Listen to you guys playing Watson to her Sherloc-“ but he got an elbow to his exposed underarm and it cut-off his retort and made him choke on his own words at the same time.
“He’s still sour, carry on.” The gunman tripping on infinity said oh so calmly as he pulled his elbow back and dared a wink at the passenger. Then, he squared a cautious look at Klepic that turned relieved and grateful in the same span of a heart beat.
She smiled in return and shook her head to clear the irrelevant thoughts and get back to the subject. “Flamingo’s get their color from the food they eat; it’s their most known feature. Those who get the lion’s share of food, have the best color… so, considering the insight of our previous conversation, am I the mental-food to color your brain-feathers, gentleman?”
Though she’d asked them all, her eyes were on Klepic. He’d initiated the conversation and his men weren’t the only ones wondering what he knew that they didn’t. Even so, it was Laith who answered, and her eyes were torn from their leader to meet the giant’s.
“We’re not likely to see you after we deliver you to our Commander so, we’ll likely never know the answer unless we ask during debrief and are cleared NTK.” His eyes were honest, grateful, if also veiled with an anticipation of longing.
Was he going to miss her already? She curled half a smile in Laith’s direction before she stopped herself, lest the rest of them think she was flirting. Was she? Nevermind, don’t answer that. Before she could re-direct her thoughts, someone decided to clarify for her- as if the acronym hung her up.
“NTK, need to know.”
“Thanks, Kwon.” Klepic replied immediately, but not all that gratefully, naming the gunman contemplating infinity.
“Thank you, Kwon.” She repeated more heartfelt, and sincerely, not just for the unneeded clarification, but for not shooting her earlier, and taking a moment to consider the other possibilities. It was something she hadn’t done in the very beginning and it was eating at her every time she saw one of their bruises, dried blood, or… poor Frankie’s face.
Noting another stop zipping by, her eyes went back to Klepic, her mind warring with the physical feeling of a tether between her and Laith and not having a way to peel it off without being obvious. Ignore it. “How far is this train going?”
“End of the tracks. We get you off, the train returns down the rails to let everyone off at the-“
“We’re blowing by all the stops?” She interrupted him.
“Yes, that is what the end of the-“
“I know what it means, I meant… do you know how much time you’re stealing from how many people, in addition to altering their available decisions with this Operation Flamingo? Why didn’t someone just say ’hey, we need your help, can you meet us at x-location?”
“And you’d have just said, ‘yeah, I’ll meet a bunch of strangers for an unknown reason at public place,’ right? And then followed us no-questions asked to a non-public place?”
“Not in so many words,” she cracked a smile, quick to add, “but yes. On a variety of levels, I’m not exactly defenseless.”
“It’s done, and we couldn’t take any chances.” Klepic returned her smile but also put an end to the conversation.
From across the car, Frankie’s muffled voice brought some unexpected enlightenment. “Just think, if this infinity stuff is real, we did all that in some slice of cheese, right?”
Everyone, including Klepic and the Passenger laughed, an abrupt orchestra of chuckling, giggling, and belly laughing reaction that shook off the tension and enjoyed genuine amusement at the delivery of intelligence awakened in Frankie.