Blue Monday

Interlude 2 - I Swear To God, I'll Have You De-Balled

Leah Riordan - she'd decided to use her maiden name as her official cover upon returning across the Bridge to Heaven - pulled up to the apartment she'd rented high up in the hills of San Castiel. If she looked out the window, she could almost see her husband's new house, way down the hill. Did he remember that this was the same neighborhood where she'd grown up?

As soon as she was safely inside, the door locked and the shades drawn, Leah sat at the dining table and pulled out her burn phone. Before dialing the number, though, she paused. At what time did the boss say something about being unavailable today? Was it the seven o'clock or eight o'clock hour?

She checked the clock on the wall. Seven-thirty. Should she wait?

She decided to wait. And during this time, she was able to observe a solitary figure flying into the neighborhood down the hill. Was it her daughter? In the fading light, it was hard to tell, but Leah was reasonably certain it was her Daniela.

After five minutes, Leah had enough of waiting, so she opted instead to try calling her boss. She'd also had enough of thinking about what had happened in that restaurant the previous day. She'd seen her daughter for the first time in just over a year, and her daughter hadn't even acknowledged her. That day, Daniela looked very different. She was wearing masculine clothes that showed off her muscles, and as Leah overheard her talk with her father, she had a noticeably deeper voice. She couldn't believe Adam had bought into Daniela's lies about being a boy trapped in a girl's body. How long had she spent trying to make her daughter see the truth?

But now was not the time to reflect on the past. Right now, Leah needed her instructions. So she placed the call.

Luckily, her boss was available. As soon as she heard the click of the call going through, Leah said, "This is Lima Charlie Lambda reporting."

"Romeo Whiskey Alpha, acknowledging," said the voice on the other end, which was scrambled with one of those robotic filters. "State your business."

"Subject Five is back with her father," Leah said.

She could almost hear Alpha's nod. "Excellent. Let him sit pretty for the next week." Leah's lips twisted at Alpha's display of political correctness. She felt like she was being mocked. "Come Sunday, he'll wish he'd stayed back on Earth with you."

"Believe me, Alpha," Leah said with a laugh, "I do too. I was hoping I would never have had to do this."

"I would have called you in anyway," said Alpha. "We'll need all hands on deck for Blue Monday."

"Of course, boss," Leah said. "So what should I do until then?"

"Sit tight, Lambda," Alpha said. "Keep an eye on your family. And tonight at midnight, go back across the Bridge with Tau. I'll give you further instructions then. They'll be waiting in a car on the other side."

Leah wrote these details down on a notepad, holding her phone between her chin and shoulder as she did so. "Tau? Did I hear that right?"

"Is there a problem?"

"What? No. No problem." Leah rolled her eyes. Tau was a nuisance. Dead weight. He'd been a bored, lonely young man when he was recruited, and the only reason why he went along with their plans was because he seemed to think he was in some kind of real-life movie.

But they needed his skills. He was surprisingly persuasive when he wanted to be, especially for a socially awkward geek. They hadn't even needed to come up with a character for him - he was already a character in and of himself.

"That's what I thought," said Alpha. "Tonight at midnight. Be there. Romeo Whiskey Alpha out."

"Lima Charlie Lambda out." The connection ended, and Leah let out a long sigh of relief. She hated dealing with Alpha exclusively over the phone; the two had never even met face to face. She had no idea what her boss looked like, even after all these years. Was Alpha a man or a woman? Black, white, or something else? A relatively young specimen or an old crone? She quickly squashed these thoughts, though. Because she could never be sure that Alpha wasn't somehow in on her every thought, even from however far away he or she truly was.