Submerged

Chapter 07: Past Shadows

"You want to tell me what's bothering you?" Ashley asked.

"What?" Melvin questioned in return. "You mean besides the armed gunmen trying to kill us?"

"Ever since we ran into Paul Reese, you've been distracted," Ashley pointed out. "Distraction can get us killed, so out with it. What's wrong?"

Melvin paused at the next branching of the corridor. He looked both ways and the way they had come, but no immediate sign of their pursuers was visible.

"I wasn't always a janitor," Melvin explained. "Three years ago, I was one of a two man bomb disposal team. We were called in on the worst ones, the kind the regular bomb squads couldn't handle. On my last assignment, I made a mistake, and the bomb went off. I survived, my partner didn't."

"Sorry," Ashley said softly.

"After that, I didn't want another partner," Melvin went on. His gaze was locked on the floor, refusing to look at her while speaking. "I wanted the only life being risked to be my own. When the department wouldn't allow it, I quit. Took a job as a janitor where I could work by myself, at my own speed with no interference and no lives depending on me to make critical decisions. And yet, here we go again. I'm not teamed up with someone for more than an hour before someone gets captured and is probably going to be tortured for information."

"What happened to Paul Reese wasn't your fault," Ashley argued.

"Wasn't it?" Melvin shot back. "I helped you call in reinforcements. That submarine carrying the extraction team came here because I showed you how to signal them. Now, the sub is destroyed, its crew is dead, the extraction team is dead, and the last survivor has fallen into the hands of the enemy. They never would've even been here if not for my choice."

Melvin leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

"Why couldn't I have been a 'nobody' janitor?" he asked. "I didn't need a cloaking field generator before because I was already invisible. No one saw me, and as long as the place stayed clean, no one cared if I was even alive."

"Melvin," Ashley began gently. "Over the years, I've lost people too. It's one of the reasons I also like to work alone; plus it's easier for one person to slip past security than a team of twenty. We have a chance to do some good here, to save lives."

"What happens if I screw up again?" Melvin demanded, opening his eyes and glaring at her. His grief was turning to rage, twisting into a fiery knot in his stomach.

"You think you might make a mistake?" Ashley shot back. "Welcome to the human race. People make mistakes and other people die because of it. It happens. If you think those people on the submarine are dead because of you, then don't you think you should do something so their deaths won't have been for nothing? Brett Emmerson isn't going to stop with one submarine, a board of directors, a janitor, and me. One doesn't kill so many only to halt. He's planning something bigger and is getting rid of everyone is his way, so more deaths are going to follow. You can count on it."

"What do you expect me to do?" Melvin asked.

"I want you to help me stop him," she answered. "We might not be able to, but we have to make the attempt. If he kills more people because we didn't even try to stop him when this chance was in front of us, that blood will be on our hands. If someone's going to die, I want to know I did everything I could to prevent it. What about you? Are you willing to let him kill more people, or do you want to help me stop him?"

"We'll need to know what he's planning if we want to counter it," Melvin suggested after a moment of careful thought.

"There should be records in the central computer," Ashely informed him.

"I can get you there," Melvin offered, waving a hand toward the left hand tunnel.

Ashley nodded and followed Melvin toward their new objective.