The Bodyguard ("Grace" story #73)

GRACE
by Michael Kroetch

The bodyguard is against a wall. Flat as a sponge. He’s ankle-deep in black fluid and his forehead is being thumped against the bricks. Reddish wet echoes boom all around. He cannot proceed. The passage so deep beneath the city has been sealed. But there’s no going back—that way is not allowed. It’s not in the plan. The risk would undo him. He knows he’s being monitored and his actions now will determine his advancement within his organization, permitting him to rise even further in importance and responsibility. So he readjusts his dark glasses and continues the thumping until the most terrible thing happens. It’s so awful that at first he cannot believe it. His wire has slipped out of his ear.

He falls to his knees and peers into the dreary soup. He wants to hold his nose to block its smell, but instead splays out his fingers and makes circular motions with his hands, searching for his precious device. It would be easier if there were light. But then, he wonders if this all might be part of a trial. He knows too well without the wire he is nothing. Could its loss be yet a further pre-ordained test of his devotion to the group? Could it be that the wire’s plummet was not at all accidental, but something intended to happen at this particular time and place? The bodyguard smiles in certitude. He’s so eager to show his nothingness in the face of the elite force he is a part of that he lowers his head and takes some of the dark fluid into his mouth, swallowing it fast before letting himself gag, cough, feel its sting, or make the least bit of noise. To his surprise, it is at this very same moment that his fingertips are graced by the touch of the lost wire.

This series of happy events proves too much. Before he can stop it, before he even realizes it’s happening, something gets free beneath his tinted glasses, trickles down his cheek and is lost in the ooze. A tear. Terrified it’s been detected, he looks around at the bricks.