Chapter 36: The Call
Casey found Simon in the alley outside the bar, sitting on a concrete step with the medical kit open beside him and the jacket pressed to his forearm.
"Given the circumstances," Casey said, crouching to look at the wound with the professional efficiency of a man who had seen considerably worse, "I'll request a supplemental payment. Above the standard rate."
"Appreciated." Simon let Casey take over the cleaning while he held still.
"Quarter inch to the left," Casey said, working, "and we'd be having a very different conversation."
"She didn't aim for anything vital," Simon said. "I don't think she was trying to kill me."
"Or she's an exceptional shot," Sarah said.
"Both can be true."
Casey applied the closure strips with practiced efficiency and wrapped the forearm. "We'll have someone look at it properly tomorrow. In the meantime, keep it clean."
Chuck was sitting on the hood of a parked car nearby, processing the evening with the expression of a man whose worldview was being revised in real time. "Are we done for the night?"
"We're done," Sarah said. "Our people will handle the cleanup. Pan will wake up in a facility and have a conversation with people above my pay grade."
"And Mei Ling?" Chuck said.
"She's a priority collection target," Casey said. "That doesn't change."
"Can someone take me to my car?" Simon said. "It's at the Buy More."
"I'll drive," Sarah said.
In the car, once Chuck had been dropped and the night had quieted to just Sarah at the wheel and Simon in the passenger seat, Simon leaned back and addressed the system.
Open log.
The notifications arranged themselves in sequence:
[ Significant character from Chuck franchise subdued. Skill awarded: Weapons Proficiency (Advanced). ]
[ First-time arrest bonus: reward doubled. ]
[ Weapons Proficiency upgraded. ]
[ Current status: Weapons Proficiency (Expert) — MAX. Level cap reached. Cannot be upgraded further. ]
Simon looked at the log for a long moment.
He hadn't considered this. The system responded to check-ins — daily, proximity-based — but it also, apparently, responded to events. Meaningful interactions with protagonists that went beyond standing next to them. Subduing a significant character in an active story arc was its own trigger.
Which meant the system had more dimensions than he'd mapped.
He filed it. Closed the log. Looked out the window at the city moving past.
Expert Weapons Proficiency. Maximum level. The practical implications were significant — he'd been operating at Intermediate, which was functional but required deliberate thought. Expert meant the gap between intention and execution compressed substantially. Master would mean it disappeared entirely. But Master required either a same-tier merge or a self-driven breakthrough he didn't yet know how to engineer.
One problem at a time.
The next morning at five AM, he ran Meg through her second session.
She was moving better already — the first session's confusion had given way to the early stages of pattern recognition, the form starting to live in her body rather than just in her conscious intention.
Simon taught the second section of Siu Nim Tao, corrected her elbow position eleven times, and called it at six forty.
"Consolidate what you have," he said, handing her the water. "Don't move to the next section until the first one stops requiring active thought. That's the test."
Meg drank, leaning against the park fence with her hair sticking to her neck and her color up from the work.
"Are you free later?" she said.
"Work at nine. Then afternoon's open."
"Beach?" She looked at his forearm — the bandage visible below his rolled sleeve. "Can you—"
"Not in the water," he said. "Arm's still healing."
She reached over and lifted the edge of the sleeve, careful, looking at the wound. He'd explained it the previous day as a garage accident — sharp bracket, careless moment. She'd accepted it without pushing, which was either trust or the decision to ask later.
"We could just sit on the beach," she said.
"We could definitely just sit on the beach."
She dropped his sleeve and settled back. "Movie first?"
"Movie first," he agreed.
His phone buzzed.
He stood, moved a few steps away, and answered.
The voice on the other end was Doc's. Unhurried, as always. The voice of a man who found urgency beneath him.
"Tomorrow morning. Eight AM. Same location."
Simon was quiet for a moment.
"I'm going to have to pass," he said.
"You know what happens when you—"
"I'm working for an intelligence agency," Simon said. "Contracted. They have eyes on me. My schedule, my movements, my associations." He kept his voice flat and factual. "If you want to bring me in right now, I can't stop you. But you'll be bringing federal attention with me. That's the calculation."
Silence on Doc's end.
Not the silence of a man deciding whether to believe him. The silence of a man who was very good at assessing risk and was currently assessing it.
"I'll verify," Doc said.
"Verify whatever you need to," Simon said.
"If you're lying—"
"I know what happens if I'm lying," Simon said. "I'm not lying."
The line went dead.
Simon stood in the park with the phone in his hand for a moment, then put it away and walked back to Meg.
"Wrong number," he said.
She looked at him with the look she used when she'd decided to wait.
"Later," he said.
She nodded.
They walked back together, and Simon thought about the specific architecture of the gamble he'd just made — Doc was meticulous, thorough, not easily fooled. He would verify. And when he verified, he'd find exactly what Simon had told him: a contracted relationship with a federal intelligence operation, GPS monitoring, regular contact with field agents. It was all real, all verifiable, and all exactly the kind of thing that made Simon a liability rather than an asset to someone running Doc's kind of operation.
The gamble was whether Doc's calculation would land on cut the liability loose or eliminate the complication.
Simon had bet on the former. Doc was efficient. Killing Simon created exposure and gained nothing. Releasing him created space and cost nothing.
He believed that calculation was correct.
He also, for the first time in months, kept both Glocks loaded and within reach.
The Buy More at nine was the Buy More at nine — floor traffic, display arrangements, the specific low-grade entropy of a retail space in the hour before it found its rhythm.
Simon clocked in, said hello to Big Mike, and was halfway through his first customer interaction when Chuck appeared at his elbow.
"How's the arm?"
"Fine." Simon demonstrated by lifting a display box with both hands. "See?"
Chuck exhaled. "Good. I felt responsible."
"You're not responsible. Go away and let me sell this woman a soundbar."
Chuck went away.
Simon sold the soundbar.
Casey materialized behind him thirty minutes later with the specific silence that Chuck had never adjusted to and Simon had.
"Home theater room," Casey said.
Sarah and Casey were both there when Simon and Chuck arrived. The display screens that were normally showing demo content were dark.
Sarah looked at Simon. "The man from last night. The one who was taken."
"I assumed Pan had leverage on someone," Simon said. "Wrong place, wrong time."
"He was a consular official," Sarah said. "On the official Chinese government payroll, operating in an above-board diplomatic function. Pan's people grabbed him as leverage for a territory negotiation." She paused. "The intervention last night prevented a diplomatic incident that would have been — complicated."
"I was just in the alley," Simon said. "Wrong place, right time."
"That's a pattern with you," Casey said, which might have been a compliment.
"I'd prefer you didn't have that information about me," Sarah said. "But since you do—" She stopped.
The display screens came on.
Not demo content. A video feed. High definition, clearly not local — the slight compression of a satellite connection.
Two people in the frame: a woman in a general's uniform, posture and expression suggesting someone who was accustomed to having the authority her rank indicated. Beside her, a man in a dark suit, the kind that said agency rather than department, with the specific stillness of someone used to being in rooms where decisions were made.
Casey and Sarah came to attention. Not ceremonially — just the involuntary posture adjustment of people recognizing authority.
"General," Casey said.
"At ease," the woman said. "You're Simon Lewis."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes, ma'am," Simon said.
"I'm General Beckman. This is Director Langston." She looked at him with the direct, assessing attention of someone who had reviewed a file and was now calibrating it against the actual person. "I've read what Casey and Walker have reported. I've seen the footage from the hotel. I understand your arrangement."
She paused.
"I'm going to ask you a question, and I want a direct answer." Beckman leaned slightly forward. "Are you interested in something more formal than what you currently have?"
Simon looked at the screen.
He thought about Doc's call. About the Intersect loading one percent at a time. About the world he'd landed in and the direction it kept pointing.
"Define formal," he said.
Beckman almost smiled. "Good answer," she said. "That's the right question."
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