The Modern Cocktail

Amnesia

The 27th of June, 2015

Eggsy was the first to open the door to the room that Harry was in, Nicolette following close behind.

Harry turned to look at the opening door.

"Harry," Eggsy said, his smile in his voice, as he walked towards Harry, arms open for a hug.

"Hello," Harry said simply.

"Hello, mate."

When Eggsy went to hug Harry, he swatted off Eggsy's hug.

This caused Eggsy to take a step back.

Merlin stepped forward ahead of Nicolette and Eggsy, offering his hand for a handshake.

"Harry," Merlin said, his voice calm.

"How do you do?" Harry asked, returning Merlin's handshake. When he released the handshake, he asked another question, "Have we met before?"

Nicolette stood with a slight look of shock on her face.

"Harry, it's okay. It's fine. They know that we know you," Eggsy said, likely convinced that Harry was putting on a farce.

"I think there must be some mistake," Harry said, looking from Eggsy back to Merlin.

"It's been such a long time, Harry. I need to get my brogues resoled," Merlin said, using one of the phrases Kingman agents use to discreetly acknowledge that they know the man, or woman, that they are speaking to from Kingsman.

"Yeah, and my oxfords are done in as well," Eggsy said, using a short-hand version of the phrase.

Harry looked down at Merlin's shoes, then down as Eggsy's as they spoke.

"Why are you telling me about your shoes?" Harry asked, looking back up at Eggsy.

There was a brief silence in the room.

"Pardon me, Harry, but, what is your profession?" Nicolette asked, speaking for the first time since she entered the room.

"I'm a lepidopterist," Harry answered with a small smile.

"You're a what?" Eggsy asked.

"He studies butterflies," Nicolette said, looking down at her feet for a moment as she pointed to the walls, which were covered in images of butterflies.

"Well, you wanted to do that before you joined the army, but," Merlin trailed off for a moment before stepping towards Harry, "Harry, look at me."

Merlin then held up his hand with one finger out and moved it for Harry's eyes to follow. Seeing that Harry seemed cohesive, Merlin gave Harry a pat on the arm.

"It's good to see you," Merlin said, taking a step back from Harry, "We'll be back soon."

With that, Nicolette, Eggsy, and Merlin left the butterfly lined room and returned to the room they were in earlier.

"What the fuck have you done to him?" Eggsy asked as he, Nicolette, and Merlin stood in front of the three Statesman agents they had met.

"Nothing. Only tried to help him," Ginger Ale said, empathy in her tone, "He's got retrograde amnesia. Now, we knew from his eyeglasses that he was intelligence, we just didn't know whose."

"How did he end up here?" Nicolette asked, briefly motioning to Harry behind her with her head.

"About a year ago, I was doing some typical monitoring of the area when my scanners started to show a spike in a set of low frequency waves. I had Tequila here escort me to where the source of the low frequency waves seemed to be coming from. When we arrived, we found him shot in front of South Glade Mission Church. I applied alpha gel to his head while Tequila searched the church."

"'Alpha gel'? What's that?"

"We developed our alpha gel technology for our own agents in the event of a head shot. The gel protects the brain. Then, in the lab, we use nanites, micro-bots, to repair tissue damage."

"Fascinating," Merlin muttered.

"There are side effects. Partial amnesia, regression to the younger self. With no idea who he was, there was nothing we could do."

"But, since y'all are here now, we may be able to get his memory back," Moonshine said as she loosely crossed her arms.

Eggsy and Nicolette both turned to look over their shoulder at Harry.

Nicolette let out a sigh before she spoke, "And how exactly are we supposed to do that?"

Ginger Ale was about to speak when there was a soft ding in the room.

Moonshine pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on and was silent for a moment. She then took of her glasses as she started to speak,

"Well, I'm guessin' Ginger let Champ know who we have here," Moonshine said as she started to stand, "He wants to talk to the Kingsman agents."

"Now?" Tequila asked.

"Yeah, now. And the two of us," Moonshine said as she moved towards the door. She then stopped and turned around to look at the Kingsman agents, "What're y'all's names, by the way?"

"Merlin, Galahad, and Guinevere," Nicolette said quickly, pointing to each agent as she named them, "Strategy, Field, and double specialist. And, Harry was once called Galahad before we presumed he was dead."

"So, one of y'all has a female codename?" Tequila asked.

"Because of the nature in which our codenames originate, yes. However, Kingsman agents aren't all men," Nicolette said as she walked towards Moonshine.

"But you look like a fella," Moonshine commented.

"Some spies you are," Nicolette said barely above her breath with a chuckle, "It's called looking androgynous. Makes it easier to play either role in the field."

Eggsy let out a small chuckle as he started to walk towards Nicolette and Moonshine.

Tequila stood up from his seat, but Merlin and Ginger Ale stayed put.

"You coming along, Merlin?" Nicolette asked.

"As you noted, I don't typically handle field work. I'll stay here with Ginger Ale; try to help Harry," Merlin said with a small nod.

Nicolette returned Merlin's nod.

"So, we're just gonna be bringin' you two then?" Moonshine asked.

"Looks like it," Eggsy said simply.

"Right, follow me then," Moonshine said before leading the group out of the room.

It could be seen from behind that Moonshine was putting her glasses back on.

"Champ, we're bringin' two of the three Kingsman agents with us; Galahad and Guinevere," Moonshine said simply.

The four agents then climbed into the elevator that would lead to where Merlin, Eggsy, and Nicolette first ran into Tequila. Moonshine stood next to Eggsy and Nicolette stood behind him beside Tequila.

In Nicolette's opinion, Moonshine seemed to be standing rather close to Eggsy, or at least closer to Eggsy than Nicolette was standing to Tequila.