Suddenly, Grandfather shoved her out of his lap onto the floor, and stood up with a start. For the first time since Lena had met him, he seemed unnerved… angry, almost. He was fidgeting in place, tightening and re-tightening his hands as if they had gone numb, “What in the hell?” Lena boggled to herself, “What’s the big deal??”
“You…” he started anxiously, “You… you have to be absolutely certain.”
“Certain of what?” Lena asked honestly.
“Don’t toy with me right now!” Grandfather yelled. “Answer my damn question! It’s a great sin to lie to an elderly person. Are you absolutely certain you have that name right?!”
“Y-yes…” Lena responded, suddenly afraid, “Marcus Collins.”
“Oh no, no, no, no, no,” Grandfather said as he began to pace. “Oh this… this is… oh why? Why did… but he… there’s no way… when did I… it’s unbelievable! It’s preposterous!”
“Grandfather, what’s…” she started, before being interrupted by an increasingly manic Grandfather.
“Shut up, you brat, and don’t interrupt old people when they are trying to remember things! What with senility kicking in, it’s too hard as it is!”
“I’m sorry,” Lena said, on the verge of tears. He had never treated her like this before.
“This… but… oh, Lena… you have no idea… if…”
For some time, Grandfather paced and sweat, tightening and re-tightening his fists, rambling like a gibbering idiot. Lena didn’t know what to expect next, but it wouldn’t have surprised her if he suddenly punched a wall, or set something on fire, or began hysterically laughing or crying or… suddenly, she realized that a nervous Grandfather was far more unsettling than anything Dragon Lady had ever done.
“Alright,” he said, after some time. “Alright. This… no. No, that won’t work. But… no, no, that certainly won’t do, either.”
“What won’t work, Grandfather?” Lena asked, trying to be helpful and not annoying at the same time.
“Lena, please don’t take offense to this, but you will have to find a way of entertaining yourself for the rest of the night. I have to think. This is very important, and I can’t be bothered to be particularly Grandfatherly tonight. One thing is very certain, though: you will be going back to West Berlin, and you will be playing a show with Matt fucking York!”
Das Verdickungsdiagramm
The night was cold, and filled with a mist that threated rain at any moment. The ground was wet, with little puddles and streams meandering through the cobbled ground. Vivika, who seemed to be the only one out at this time of night, walked into the phone booth wearing thick black sunglasses. The glasses made it hard to see; but it was better this way. Occasionally, she would reach a finger up behind them to nurse her poor eyeball. It had swollen terribly, and she could barely see through it. Carefully, she checked to make sure the door was closed behind her. Then she checked to make sure that no one was about that could see her, before pulling out her key-chain.
Fumbling through the few keys on it, she handled a particularly nondescript one that was heavily tarnished. Considering it for a second, she placed a finger roughly half-over the gripping end, and the small hole drilled through. Then, she quickly dialed a few digits on the phone box’s keypad, listening to make sure the tones were correct, before blowing into the hollow tooth-side of the small key to phreak out the final tone of the number.
“Zero, zero, five, seven, two, nine…” the automated voice on the other line began. She knew that this was a random series of meaningless numbers that would go on forever, just in case the Stasi became wise to the secret line. No doubt if they did figure out how to listen in, they would spend months meticulously annotating gibberish, before sending it to the highest-ranking members of the Soviets so that they too could puzzle over it.
“I’m sorry, wrong number.” she said into the receiver.
“Five, three, zero, two, two…”
“I’m sorry, wrong number.” she said again.
“Zero, nine, three, nine, zero…”
“I’m sorry, wrong number.” she said one final time, before hanging up. She sighed with relief, glad to have that business over with.
Looking around to make sure that she was still alone, she left small phone booth. She took one final irritated swipe at her assailed eyeball, before slowly shuffling down the street. The night’s fog clung to the asphalt and buildings alike, making them glisten with the dampened streetlights. It definitely smelled like a long rain forthcoming—just like her mood. She resigned to walk off the funk, hoping that the exercise would somehow improve her outlook. It wouldn’t, though. Just like her black eye, she knew this from experience. Still, she might as well give it a try.
She walked past a series of meaningless structures, and a scant few meaningless cars parked right next to them. Occasionally, a meaningless statue or gilding would barely catch her attention, before she decided it wasn’t worth the effort to look. Every single windowsill, cobblestone and lamp-post was unoriginal and devoid of life; a relentless onslaught of copying and half-hearted attempts to meet the demand of the GDR’s slowly-expanding population. As she walked, she realized—for perhaps the thousandth time that week—her lone super-power: her ability to see the future. Repeating the same routine day and day out does that for you.
“Every day is exactly the same.” she sighed to herself drearily.
Another streetlight; another set of cobblestones; maybe a few more idle doorways with the same type of people behind them, sleeping and ignorant, happy in their lack of variety. Vivika felt both sorry for them and jealous at the same time. “They have no idea how complicated things can get.” she despaired, “Thank god they never have to.”
A lone figure walked her way from off in the distance, wearing typical evening attire of a long coat and dark fedora. Nothing about him was remotely interesting, and that was precisely what he had in common with everyone else—complete lack of originality. Like everyone else she encountered, however, there was a chance that this one would serve some small purpose in her life. Why not? Why not ask? As the man approached, tunelessly humming some inane nonsense to himself, Vivika called out to see if he had what she needed.
“Excuse me, Sir,” she asked, as the man kept on walking right past her. “Excuse me, Sir!”
“Yes?” the man stopped to face her. “What do you need?”
“Do you have a cigarette? I’m all out.” It was a lie of course. Vivika was never out of cigarettes—she simply refused to pay for them. Why pay for cigarettes when she could procure them from nearly anyone in the GDR? By now, she had a litany of random strangers she could corner on nearly every local block for one. Sure, she was probably annoying; but she more or less enjoyed that fact. It was the small price she made them pay for their blissful lack of variety.
“Yes, yes, sure,” the man said, annoyed, as he reached into his pocket and pulled one out, before promptly speeding off.
“Thanks.” she absently called after him. She didn’t really mean it, but why not say it anyway? It probably increased her chances of getting one from him next time around.
Happily, she put the cigarette in her mouth, lit a match and then lit the tip of her smoke. While the flame cast a bright light on the cigarette, she noted the small message written on it, committing it to memory. Once her cigarette was finished, the message would be gone forever. Satisfied with her small part, she continued her stroll down the street. She only had one more errand to run before the night was through, and then she could deliver her message to Codename: Rahab. Yet this was by far the worst of her errands. They included him, which meant they included her once again being little more than a piece of meat.