1999: Things Man Was Meant to Know

Part I: The House of Steel
Long Island, 1999

   The houses along the quiet suburban street looked as though a giant, mobile mother-house had come along and laid dozens of eggs in nice, symetrical rows. Carrying the analogy through to its ultimate end, Kent Masefield found himself wondering what the young would look like. Something like an inside-out house frame, probably.

   Long ago, he would have thought that this sort of neighborhood -- in the loosest sense of the word, since he couldn't feel much neighborly spirit -- was the perfect camouflage for any sort of covert operation. Of course, since everyone else in the business of planning covert operations felt the same way, the cover had rapidly lost its value; people expected it, and everyone knew better than to try it.

   Which only made it ideal cover once more. In his more ironic moments, Kent had found himself continuing that sort of thought chain through thousands of reversals. Still, as far as the two field agents of the United Nations Special Talent Agency in this area knew, this particular "nest" was clean.

   He realized that he'd almost walked past the correct address, took a step back, and headed up the driveway to 23 Hannigan Street, a louse like all its brethren, distinguished only in its red roof and blue and yellow siding. He pressed the buzzer beneath the number and waited.

   A moment later, the door swung open to reveal Joel Kent's somewhat startled face. "By God, it *is* you," his old friend said, and Kent suddenly found himself enfolded in a bear hug. Joel, he noted somewhat critically, was beginning to put on a few extra pounds. Married life obviously agreed with him.

   "Hey, Joe," Kent said as Joel released him. "I'm in town for a day, and so I thought I'd drop by and surprise you."

   "Well great!" he enthused. "C'mon in!"

   As soon as the door was shut behind them, Joel gave Kent an exasperated stare. "`I'm in town for a day'? No one who might be watching you is going to buy that!"

   Kent shrugged. "I'm fairly sure I'm not being watched. And you're one to talk, `Joe Kinnison'."

   Joel grinned ruefully. "It was either that or come up with some variation on Carthoris Carter, and we didn't have the time." He raised his voice. "Lyta! It's fearless leader!"

   A blonde woman poked her head out of the kitchen. "So I see. Mr. Masefield," she greeted him politely. "Can I get you a drink?"

   "A ginger ale would be nice," Kent said as he took off his brown trenchcoat and hung it in the hall closet.

   Lyta flinched as she stepped into view, holding a baby with a thin cap of red hair in her arms. "We're out of ginger ale. Joel, could you --"

   "-- pop on down to the Seven Eleven and get some?" Joel finished her sentence. "Sure, no problem." He seized a jacket out of the closet, pulled it on and was out the door in a flash.

   Kent and Lyta turned to stare at each other for a long moment of silence. Finally, he spoke. "You and I aren't going to be friends, are we?"

   "I doubt it," she replied frankly. "Would you like to hold Elayne?"

   "That's the reason you called me here," Kent replied as he held out his arms. Abruptly, he frowned. "Elayne? I thought she was named Kara."

   Lyta eased the sleeping infant into his arms. "We decided to break the pattern with her code name. If anyone finds her birth registry, the change will confuse them enough to give us a chance."

   "And since insisting that a growing child use one name at home and another name outside would be sure perscription for trouble, you've decided to raise her with the code name." Kent didn't look up from his patient study of the baby's face as they walked into the living room. She noted with some surprise that he was quite at ease holding Elayne.

   Finally, he let out a quiet sigh. "I'm not detecting any sign of extraordinary psychic activity. However she did what you claim she did, it wasn't with psychokinesis. Is it all right if I wake her up?"

   Lyta nodded shortly. "The Nelsons said something similar when I called them in. They couldn't see any signs that she was using magic, even unconsciously. So I --"

   "Hi there," Kent said quietly. "It's old uncle Kent. Remember me? Of course not, we've never met before this."

   Elayne was smiling sleepily at him.

   "But you know that you're being held nicely, and the funny face in front of you is speaking quietly and soothingly, so of course you're not afraid. Considering your parents, I'd be more concerned if you were. Now," he added, slowly bringing his left hand's pointer finger up to where she could see it, "here's something new. My face is too far away to reach, but the finger ... ah, yes, that you can reach if you --"

   He broke off abruptly as her tiny hand wrapped around his finger with a grip the equal of a grown man. It was not painful, merely surprising.

   For a moment, neither of them spoke. When Lyta did finally find her voice, it sounded near to breaking. "How? How did this happen? I'm half an amazon, at best, and Joel ... that damned rock was supposed to stop any of his children from developing powers, either. Why is this happening?"

   "I don't know, Lyta," Kent answered simply. "Increasingly, I find that I don't know enough. I don't know why the world is getting weirder. I don't know why, with all the ghost-busting and vampire-slaying that goes on, more people don't believe in magic. I don't know why a glorified snuff film was one of this year's biggest box office draws." He looked down at the child again, with a vague frown. "And I don't know why she has red hair."

   Lyta's mouth twisted. "Probably from my grandfather."

   He frowned, trying to call to mind an image of General Trevor's father, but only recalling sepia-toned photographs of a light haired man.

   "I meant on the other side," she interjected, guessing the course of his thoughts.

   That statement only added to his confusion. "Lyta, I don't know your mother very well, but according to the story I was told --"

   She said a naughty word in the Greek of Odysseus' age. "Divine intervention is no more common among my people than it is among yours. What actually happened was that my grandmother went out into the world around the turn of the century, and that was the story she told when she came back with my mother in her arms. Nobody questions a queen under those circumstances."

   Kent gently handed Elayne back to her mother. "And you have an idea who the father might have been."

   Her eyes were bleak. "Sure I do. Red hair is said to be one of the marks of --"

   "Stop," Kent interrupted firmly. "I know the one to whom you refer, but daemons are summoned by the sound of their names. Just rest assured that if I have any power, *he* will get nowhere near you or your daughter."

   Lyta made a half-hearted attempt at a smile. "I thought you said we weren't going to be friends."

   "I asked. You're the one who confirmed. And even if I'm not your friend, you are mine." He directed the last phrase over her shoulder.

   Lyta slowly turned to look behind her, and was not all that surprised to see Joel standing in the doorway of the living room. For a few moments, husband and wife just looked at each other.

   Joel turned to Kent. "You drink Canada Dry, right?"

   Kent nodded.

   "I can explain," Lyta said quietly.

   "That's good," Joel replied.

   "I didn't tell you about ... any of this, because ..." She seemed to search for the words for a long moment, then collapsed in on herself. "Joel, the last few years have been bad enough. You lost your mother, your father's out there --" Lyta gestured vaguely at the ceilling. "-- somewhere, there was that last mission in Serbia ... I didn't want to add to all that with *this*!"

   "So who helps *you* deal with it?" Joel asked, slowly walking toward her. "I'm not as dumb as I look! I knew that something was wrong, I just wasn't sure what."

   "Why didn't you ask?" Kent asked quietly.

   Joel looked startled at the interruption, but Kent pressed on. "You've both made mistakes, and looking at it from the outside, neither of you is more sinned against than sinning. You," he said as he turned to look at Lyta, "were afraid of stressing your husband out, while you,' he directed at Joel, "didn't want to seem distrustful of your wife. In short, a remarkably common domestic disturbance for people at this stage of a relationship. Can you please just accept that you had what you believed to be each other's best interests at heart?"

   For a moment, the irony of the situation -- one of the secret masters of the world called upon to act as a marriage counsellor -- threatened to overcome him, but he restrained his hysterical impulse, and watched as the two of them slowly came together. That sight threatened to unleash his melancholy impulse, but he'd had practice restraining that one as well.

   After a few moments and some whispered endearments that Kent carefully did not hear, he decided to speak up. "Now, the problem at the root of your difficulties remains." He gazed at Elayne, who had fallen asleep despite all the kerfuffle. "What to do about super baby."

   Lyta nodded. "The past few years have been exactly what I needed. Unless a major emergency comes up, I don't ever want to go on active duty again, and the thought of sending *her* --" She broke off, and while Joel said nothing, it was clear that he agreed with the sentiments.

   "You're quite right. Isn't it wonderful, then, that your daughter is completely unremarkable in every way?"

   "But," Joel stammered, "the rules --"

   "Sometimes the rules don't work." Kent shrugged. "You can teach her how to keep whatever talents she manifests hidden. It won't be that hard -- as I suggested to Lyta, people tend to ignore what they don't want to see. I'll look into ways that you can keep things under control, if you have to, and more importantly I personally guarantee that neither I nor anyone I approve to follow me as head of UNSTA will use Elayne for anything."

   He smiled then. "And I'm not going to let them give the job to someone I don't approve, no matter how I lose it."

   Slowly, they returned his smile.

   Dinner consisted of microwaved cheese sandwiches and random conversation, although all three observed the unspoken rule against "shop talk" during meals. Instead, they spoke of absent friends and equally absent foes. Five years after that dark day in Oklahoma City, Joel still couldn't quite bring himself to believe that Steve was truly gone. Kent wasn't quite prepared to close the book on the matter, but even the absence of a body didn't give much hope in this case.

   For her part, Lyta brightened the mood with her account of a brief meeting with her old boyfriend Hector, who had begun studying sorcery under the Nelsons' supervision. What had been uncomfortable at the time became quite funny in retrospect. "I really don't know what I ever saw in him," she concluded. "I mean, I *know* ... I thought he was dreamy when we were dating, but in retrospect he just seems so soulless."

   "Whereas I'm soulful."

   She mock-glared at her husband. "No, Kent's soulful, you're just complex." Turning to Kent, she frowned. "So how about your love life, fearless leader?"

   He sighed. "Secret masters of the world don't have time for love lives."

   Lyta rolled her eyes. "Come on, what about that DelaFontaine girl? From what I remember, she seemed pretty hung up over you."

   A short spasm of pain crossed Kent's face at the mention of the name. "Nothing's going to happen there."

   "Funny, that's what I always used to say --"

   "Nothing's going to happen there," Kent repeated, a bit more firmly than necessary. "Setting aside the fact that she's young enough to be my daughter, we have to work together. Since no one else in the world can do what she does, I can't afford to jeopardize that relationship for a sexual one. It's just that simple."

   A decidedly frosty look had settled in Lyta's eyes. "No matter what she wants?"

   "She's a teenager. She doesn't know what she wants."

   He suddenly checked his watch and let out a hiss as he quickly stood up from the living room sofa. "I've got to go. Meeting with the popinjay in about an hour."

   "He's not that bad," Joel protested as they followed him out to the door.

   Kent fixed him with a glare. "He was that bad when he was just their best agent. Now that he's the head of the whole Network, he's approaching insufferable. How Kuryakin ever put up with him ... anyway, I must dash."

   "What are you doing tomorrow? We could --" Joel broke off as Kent shook his head.

   "I fly out to Novenia tomorrow afternoon. Something's come out of the Transylvanian Alps, and since no one's heard from His Serene Highness in over a decade, the government asked us to take a look at it." He paused, then continued without a change in tone. "And I'm having breakfast with Melissa."

   Lyta watched as Joel stopped dead before he could begin his farewells, but right then didn't seem the time to ask what was wrong.

   Kent pulled on his coat, and turned to look at Joel. "You know, I don't think i've ever told you this, but even if I have, I haven't done it enough. Thank you for standing with me, all those times. I wouldn't have made it through half the missions we've been on without you, and even aside from that, thanks for all the good times we've had between missions. I don't think I can ever thank you enough, but I'll try."

   "Right," Joel said weakly, looking still more profoundly shocked.

   "I hope to see both of you again, soon," he concluded and headed out the door.

   Lyta waited until the door was closed firmly behind him to turn a confused expression on Joel. "What?" she demanded. "Who's Melissa? Why do you look so stricken?"

   Joel slowly shook his head. "She was his nanny, or something like that. They had a fight over something right after his mother died, and he always said it'd be a cold day in hell before he ever spoke to her again."

   "So hell's frozen over, you should be used to that happening by now. What else?"

   "It's nothing he said," he explained slowly. "It's just the way that he said it. The way that he thanked me, it almost seemed that he wasn't sure if he'd ever see us again. Add that to breakfast with Melissa, and I get the feeling --"

   "-- that he doesn't expect to be around much longer?" Lyta guessed, saying the words in a hushed tone.

   Joel nodded. "And anything that can get him thinking like that scares the *shit* out of me."

To Be Continued

Next: A Walk in the Park
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