Cleo Hart: Intelligence by Default

Waiting

"Why are we so far away from everything?" I asked quietly, pulling twigs from the wheels of Luke's chair. We were sat under a great oak tree, far away from the pavements and near the hedge that lined the borders of the campus. He closed his eyes, bathing in the sunlight that streamed through the leaves. He opened his eyes and looked down at me, before subtly pointing to a gap between two chunks of bark at a low point on the trunk. My eyes followed his finger to where he was pointing, spotting a small black recording device, flickering slightly. I stepped over and pulled it out from where it was wedged, before crushing it between my fingers and throwing it into the distance. Looking back at Luke, I noticed a bead of sweat sliding down his forehead. I frowned, it was a cool day, and glanced at my watch. I needed to get him back to the apartment soon.

"So," He began, wheeling around to face me. I sat down in front of him and leant against the bark. "Alec knows I plan to leave, but because of my current state," he gestured to where he was bandaged under his shirt, "they're under the impression that I will be under constant observation by nurses, and on bed rest, for the next week or so." He let out a forced breath when he had finished, before panting for a few seconds.

I thought over his words, "So he won't have his eyes on you for that time, because he won't expect you to be doing anything drastic whilst in your condition." 

He nodded, looking thankful that he didn't have to elaborate too much. I stood and wiped the sweat from his brow with my jumper. He coughed painfully, keeling over into himself and groaning.

"We need to get you back." I said, moving round to the back of his chair, before wheeling him out from the shade and back towards the pavement. He began to protest, but found it short lived when he had to cough again. 

When he could breathe again, his words came out in hurried, hushed tones, trying to fit in all the information before we came back into contact with the CCTV and recording devices dotted around campus. "We need to get all of our savings out of the bank accounts. In the town three miles from here there's a kind of chubby guy called Joe. He does this kind of stuff without asking questions. Put it somewhere safe for when we leave," he coughed again, "we're taking your bike when we go. I need you to find the trackers they have put on it, bear in mind there will be more than one. Try to get the money out in relatively small intervals. They don't have to be tiny amounts but only get out, say, ten percent at a time-"

He stopped short as we neared the pavement, gesturing to a flashing bug on the ground. I nodded and wheeled him back to our apartment.

-

It was a scorching hot day, the heat sticking to the tarmac floor. I wiped the grease from my hands on my tank top, and looked down at my bike again, subconsciously grinding my foot further into the ground, trying to crush the one and only tracking bug I had found into even tinier pieces. 

I groaned and went back to work. I was cleaning the bike and looking for the bugs, whilst at the same time tweaking it to be ready for after the funeral. I muttered a short celebration to myself as I yanked another device out from between two pipes. I crushed it between my fingers and threw it behind me.  I could feel the sun burning the back of my neck, as it had been doing for the past two hours. I would have been feeling slightly more optimistic if I knew how many bugs I actually had to find, but I had no idea, and so would have to go through the whole bike's exterior, and probably interior, before I could know for sure that I had found them all.

Two hours and four bugs later I was finished. I downed the rest of my water, wiped my brow and walked back to the apartment.

"Are you okay?" I asked Luke, handing him a cup of tea in a thick mug. He held it under his face, allowing the steam to warm him, before taking a sip and setting it down next to him. He only had a couple of drips in his arm now, but the constant beeping of the heart rate monitor and the breathing tube that lay under his nose gave away his condition. Most of the time the nurse sat in the living room reading magazines, going to check on him every half an hour. 

He nodded slowly, lying back down on the bed. "I feel better."

It wasn't convincing. 

I slung my bag from over my shoulder onto the end of the bed, pulling out a few wads of twenty pound notes to show him. He half smirked and picked the mug back up, blowing on his tea. I dropped the money back into the bag and picked it up. The door clicked open behind me. For a split second I expected to see Jason walk in. The nurse looked slightly confused in the doorway, and I realised I had been staring at her. I shook the pain from my chest and smiled, moving out of her way into the living room and through to my bedroom. I hastily threw the red drawstring bag to the corner of my bed, before kneeling to move the rug on the floor and pull up a plank. The shoebox that sat underneath was already half full, wads of fifties stacked in rows. I took the money from today's bank visit from the bag and put it with the rest, before replacing the plank and rug, and moving to sit on my bed.

The dull beeping of Luke's heart rate monitor travelled through the apartment. It was soothing in a weird way, a reassurance that he was close, which I could hear at all times. I attempted a smile and looked out of the window onto the campus. There was a training exercise in the field, people dressed in black doing tedious amounts of squats without complaint. A ginger supervisor in a smart, blue suit was walking down the pathway towards the office buildings, talking in a hushed,  monotone voice to a woman next to him. If I squinted hard, I could see the road that lead off campus, I sighed and sat back, fiddling with my fingernails. Only four days. Four days until freedom.