Cleo Hart: Intelligence by Default

(Retail) Therapy

The hospital where they kept Luke and Jason was much the same as the one I had found Luke in the last time he got shot. White walls, white doors, practically empty. At least the receptionist was less of a pig. She silently lead me to a door down the second corridor. I stepped in. Jason and Luke lay parallel to each other, both unmoving, unconscious. A doctor walked in behind me, clicking her pen and standing patiently. I walked over to their beds and sat silently between them.

The doctor coughed a little, before flipping over a page of her clipboard before glancing up at me cautiously.

"They're both relatively stable at the moment. We're sedating Jason to allow his body to recover a little. We took Luke of the sedatives after we gave him more blood, but he hasn't woken up yet... It's possible that his brain suffered oxygen deprivation resulting in damage... But he's been through a lot of physical trauma with his injuries from being shot two separate times, internal bleeding from.. my file says 'Peter?'... It's unclear if or when he'll wake up. I'm sorry." She dipped her head slightly and slunk from the room.

I swept Luke's tousled hair from his forehead and stared down at him. A tube ran from one ear to the other, pumping air into his lungs through his nose.

"We'll be okay," I whispered, burrowing my head into his neck.
I stayed there for a moment, enjoying his warmth, a reminder that he was still alive, before swivelling around to squeeze Jason's hand and standing up.

I was due for a psychoanalysis with Dr. Tom in an hour, and had some stuff to do before then. I clicked a few numbers into my mobile and waited as it buzzed.

"Hello?" John said through the phone.

"It's cleo, how're you doing? How's Alice?"

"I'm alright, except for the constant badgering from your company as to what I know and whether I'll be recruited. I'm presuming that in the end I won't have much of a choice. Alice is back with her family, her dad and her brother, that is. She is pretty shaken up, probably really angry... She won't return many of my calls. Any improvement on Jason or Luke?"

A tear slipped down my cheek, "Unfortunately not."

"Sorry to hear that, speak soon Cleo."

"Yeah, soon."

I hung up the phone and walked outside, along the pavement. I climbed onto my bike, which was now coming out of my pay check, and drove back to mine and Luke's apartment on the ISS base. It was how we had left it before the mission, if a little tidier. I glanced in the mirror. My hair was a mess, I was covered in scars and bruises, and my clothes were tattered. I walked to the reception area, where a different receptionist to the one I had knocked out months ago stood, thankfully.

"Do you have a clothes shop? Or a hairdressers? And do you know how I access my pay?"

She paused for a moment before nodding and walking through an office door behind her.

"Name?" She called through the wall.

"Uh.. Cleo Harper."

She returned with an envelope.

"Here's your new debit card. Your PIN number should be in there with the card. Your superiors monitor your purchases as always, and it says here that you're paying monthly for a purchase of a bike?"
I nodded and took the envelope.

"We have a clothes shop here but it's pretty bad unless you're into plain black uniforms, and there's no hairdressers except for people in mission prep, but there's a town ten minutes away, it's left on the main road."

-

The town started at a stony bridge over a stream, then slowly got a little more industrialised, but was two streets long at most. The hairdressers, 'Blu' was on a corner. I found an ATM and typed in the pin written on a post-it in my pocket. I hastily clicked check balance, but had to lean my head on the wall for a second when I saw the money. Turns out I was payed pretty well, pretty well being it put lightly, I could probably pay off my bike in one go and still have some left over if I wanted to. I pressed done and took my card, heading into the hair dressers. The man was dressed in a sharp uniform, and smiled professionally at me when I walked in, even though my clothes were scruffy and my hair was crazy with split ends and knots.

"Are you here to get your hair cut?" He asked, typing something into the Mac on his desk. I nodded, and he handed me a magazine with different hairstyles in it and told me to wait on the leather couch. I browsed through the different cuts, mentally drawing a line through any that were impractical, wouldn't suit me or would require any form of upkeep.

"We're ready for you madam, have you chosen a style?"
I glanced down at my choice before nodding and showing him the picture. He raised an eyebrow and smiled.
"I think this will suit your face perfectly."

It's difficult to make small talk with a hairdresser when your job is a secret, your hobbies are a secret, your friends are a secret and your life is a secret, which is why I was incredible grateful, if a little surprised, when the man, Nick, offered me new earphones in a sealed bag and an iPod to listen to while he worked. I nodded gratefully, before I realised that this was pretty much the only town in a 30 mile radius, and that most of the agents at the ISS probably visited here when they needed a trim. I laughed slightly, imagining multiple people a day walking in here with nothing to talk about, and half of them looking like they just survived a war.

-

"I'm done." He smiled.
I looked up from the iPod, a massive grin spreading across my face.

"I love it."

I looked down at the floor to see the chunks of long hair, before looking back up at myself. It had been stripped to its natural dark colour, the sides and back of my head were now short, probably a little shorter than Jason's in fact. The top of my hair was longer, standing up slightly in wavy whisps, which I was assured only needed a tiny bit of wax to maintain. It was perfect.

"Thankyou."

Nick stood back to admire his handy work, before helping me out of my cloak and leading me to the desk to pay.

After buying new clothes, I sat back on my bike and slipped my helmet over my head. It fit easier now, and my hair didn't itch my ears. I picked up my phone which was buzzing in my pocket.

"Hello?"

"This is Dr. Tom, I believe we had an appointment an hour ago? Would you like to rearrange?"

I swore. "Uh, maybe yeah... Could you call back a bit later? I'm just about to bike home."

"Of course, speak soon."

I slid the phone back in my pocket and drove home, thinking about how much I didn't want to rearrange that meeting.