The Defectant

Philip pulled into the driveway of the neat, well-kept house belonging to Alyssa, a young lady he had been in an unsteady relationship for nearly three years. The previous evening, he had finally proposed, but Alyssa had been very silent, and finally asked him to come the next day for her answer. Now Phillip had come for the answer.

A white van was parked a little way down the street, and Phillip saw a young man sitting on Alyssa's porch, tinkering with a box with wires coming out of it. Obviously a repairman of some kind, Phillip thought as he stepped onto the porch and knocked on the door.

"Alyssa's inside," the man with the device said, nodding at Phillip. He wore blue coveralls and denim cap. "She's in the basement. Go right on in, she gave me instructions to let you in." He resumed working on the box with wires, and Phillip shrugged and went inside.

The basement door was open, and the lights were on. A quiet ticking noise could be heard. "Alyssa? Are you down there?" Phillip descended the stairs, but there came no answer. As his eyes adjusted to the dim lights, he saw Alyssa. She was sitting in a chair, her eyes closed and a strange sort of look on her face. Her wavy black hair hung down her backside. Phillip approached her, and then he saw. "Oh, shit!"

Next to the chair was a metal rack with a bag hanging from the top, and a clear plastic tube ran down to Alyssa's wrist. On a desk across from her was an empty bottle and a used syringe. The ticking came from the small box on the other side of the chair. The ticking, in fact, had dissolved into a steady humming. Phillip reached out to touch Alyssa, but she was already cold. He had come too late to save her from death.

"I see it's all over," came a voice. Phillip turned and saw the man from outside. He had the bow of wires in one hand, a gun in the other. "Step aside, if you'd be so kind. I've work to finish here."

"No," Phillip said. "First you're going to tell me what the hell is going on, here. Who are you, and what happened to Alyssa? I want some answers, and I want them now."

"Fair enough," said the other. He lowered the gun. "You may call me Nauls. I'm a clean-up man who takes care of company defectants. Alyssa was a defectant. I did my job to make certain no information would ever be leaked."

"Clean-up crew? Defectant?" Phillip frowned at Nauls. "What the hell do you mean? Alyssa defected? From what?"

"You must be Phillip," Nauls said quietly. "Alyssa told me all about you. You should know your lady was not all that innocent. You perhaps know what she did for a living?"

"Yeah, she sold insurance at a firm."

"No, she didn't. The firm was a front for her real job. Her real boss was Salone Fisher. He's well liked in the underground. He deals in drugs and shady business. Alyssa worked for him. She helped him hack into banks and transfer money into Swiss accounts. He made a fortune with her help. Alyssa and I were close for a long time. When she decided to defect, she told me, not her boss."

Phillip looked incredulously at Nauls. "You gotta be out of your mind, man. Is that why you killed her? She decided to defect? Is that any excuse to kill her?"

"She got a much kinder death than she'd have gotten ordinarily, ok?" Nauls looked at the corpse and his own heart smote him. So much had happened between him and that lady than this smug guy ever dreamed. "Ordinarily defectants get a lot worse than this. Torture first, death last. That's just how it goes, ok?"

Phillip said nothing. Nauls went over to the body and lifted it in his arms. "Let's get her upstairs, ok? And look here, you'd be killed ordinarily for knowing anything about this. I could have killed you easily and never gave you the time of day, but I didn't bother. I'm going to let you live. Take what you learned from me and do as you like with it. Alyssa said she wanted to leave her past in the past and find redemption somewhere else. Maybe she will."

They took her upstairs and laid her on a sofa. Phillip remained silent. Then he asked, "Is that why she wouldn't answer me when I asked her last night? How long ago did she decide to defect?"

Nauls shrugged. "Hell if I have that answer for you. She had wanted to defect a while, I know that. We had happiness together, and we loved each other, too. She told me about you, but it didn't really matter. You were no one to the company. Maybe she was no one, too. Who knows?"

Nauls returned to the basement and came back up a minute later. "Look here, man, get out of here whilst you've got a chance. I set up a bomb to go off in ten minutes or so. What you decide to tell other people is up to you, ok? I'm letting you live cos I loved Alyssa that much, ok? Just be careful about whom you deal with in the future. Good luck to you, man."

"Aren't you gonna leave, too?"

Nauls shook his head. "Nah, I gave up my job and defected, too. I'm finished with making people miserable in the end. It just ain't worth it. Leave now, and live. I'd rather be here with Alyssa, and get what I deserve."

Phillip nodded and stepped outside, closing the door behind him. He got into his car and drove away, thankful for his own life, and thankful to Alyssa, too. He drove away, and never saw the explosion, the cries, the tears, the fire in the darkness.

Fin.