Choke On It
The poem for this story is Milk for the Cat by Harold Monro
AN: Written for the SpyFest January-April fic exchange. I hope you enjoy!
Nobody looked at the blond teenager entering the patisserie. Nor, indeed, did anyone watch as he approached the counter. Eyebrows were raised, however, when he leapt up onto it. When he pulled out a gun and began to shout, all eyes were suddenly glued to him.
"I'm sick and tired of subpar bienenstich! They're either soggy, or dry!" Meanwhile, his eyes flickered imperceptibly towards the entrance of the bakery. "And mille-feuille – what's up with that?"
"Maybe," piped up one brave man, his guileless face trepidous, "Maybe you should move away from custard-based pastries."
Alex looked at him and waved his gun – it was fake, unfortunately – at the ceiling. "Alas, my passion is like a vindaloo – it may burn, but it draws me irresistibly." Was that too far?
Fortunately, it didn't matter, as his quarry – a woman, who was surprisingly lithe in her floor-length dress – opened the door with her delicately-gloved hands. "Ah, Alex," she said, noticing him on the countertop, "Please get down from there, would you?" To the room she said, "I'm terribly sorry. I'll have him out of your hands soon so you can enjoy your cakes in peace."
Concerned about the attention shifting away from him, Alex stamped his foot, and then cringed as the shock resonated up his leg bones. "Make me." He jumped down, and ran towards the little conservatory to the side. "Out, everyone, out!" Having not thought this through properly, he had to make room for the panicked crowd to exit via the solitary door.
As the woman pursued him, Alex positioned himself at the far end, on the other side of a giant pile of flour bags he guessed was some sort of decoration. He beckoned and tried to flutter his eyelashes in a 'come hither' sort of way. Judging by the way she cocked her head, he failed, but she shook off her confusion like a bull pestered by a fly, and narrowed her eyes as though they, like a long and slim gun barrel, would provide a good passage for a bullet.
As she visibly tried to decide whether to move left or right around the flour, Alex huffed and took a pot-shot at the flour bags. His gun may have been fake, but it sprayed rice – maybe Smithers had got the idea from a wedding – and at such close range, it was enough to poke a few holes in the bags, which began to leak slowly. He took aim again, but as he did so the woman suddenly feinted right, and then lunged to the left – sinistra.
Alex ran neither left nor right, but ran straight at the flour bags, and then upwards and over, and he propelled himself towards the door just as the woman reached where he had stood not a minute ago, now turning, desperately, to face him again.
The flour bags, disturbed by his motion, had toppled over and were now spilling their contents more rapidly, the flour rising like a mist. Alex watched as the shadow of the woman raised her gun and, just as she fired, he threw himself out the door, and dove for the ground.
The glass of the conservatory didn't stop the bullet, which he felt graze over the top of his head. A millisecond later, he felt a wave of burning heat and heard a momentous crash as the flour, ignited by the sparks emitted when the woman fired her gun, exploded into a massive fireball, blowing up the entire conservatory.
"And then I said, 'Baking is da bomb.'"
Tom shook his head. "That's terrible! What sort of a spy are you that can't even come up with a semi-decent quip? At least tell me you walked away with sunglasses, not looking at the explosion."
Alex opened his mouth and closed it again, feeling inadequate, and then indignant for feeling so. "Would you rather I missed even more school because of third-degree burns covering the entire back of my body?"
His friend shrugged. "How come you aren't even somewhat charred, anyway? Or completely shredded by glass shards?"
"A vest and long johns from Smithers. And laminated safety-glass like you get in cars."
"Don't they only use glass like that when they're expecting people to crash into it? Why would a bakery…?"
Now it was Alex's turn to shrug. "It was a patisserie. I guess they get rowdy customers."
Tom shook his head once more. "I wish we got to blow up flour in Home Ec. The closest I've ever come to that is a baking soda and vinegar volcano. Or Mentos and Coke. I was looking forward to making fireworks in Chem when I got to year ten, but then someone went and blew up the science lab and now they've shut it all down!"
"I said I was sorry," said Alex. "I'll give you something that explodes next time I have leftovers after a mission."
"That isn't the same! It's too easy – I want to prepare it myself!"
Alex sighed. "How about I try to get Smithers to supervise you when we do work experience? You can say you did your work experience in the bank."
Judging by Tom's face, that had been his end-game all along. Sometimes Alex wondered whether Tom would have made a better spy.
Mr Grey, Alex's tutor and a teacher from Brookland, came to his house at 3pm. He smiled at Jack and politely refused a plate of biscuits, before thumping down a large pile of printed sheets on the dining table. "Well, Alex – not too much this time. I take it your illness was only a brief spell?"
Alex grimaced, but could only be thankful that MI6 had indeed sent him on such a simple mission. These days, they seemed to be leaving him alone, with only occasional domestic missions – to keep his skills up to scratch, he imagined.
His teacher was sorting through the papers. "Hmmm… acid-bases, probability… Let's start with something simple, alright, Alex?"
Simple was good. Alex enjoyed learning, but going from running around and trying to uncover secrets, to schoolwork was an exercise in and of itself. He glanced over the papers himself. Organism names, historical dates…
"English is just a five-hundred-word essay about an experience you've had," suggested Mr Grey. "No analysis or anything too complex, just getting you into the habit of writing."
"Sounds good." Grudgingly.
"Alright," Mr Grey slid the assignment task sheet out, and pushed the rest to the side. "Well, this one won't really require my presence, so if you want I'll leave you to it. Get Jack to call me when you've finished and want to move on to the other tasks."
Alex nodded, and absent-mindedly read the trigger.
"What is your most memorable meal? Describe and explain (500 words)."
He looked up. Mr Grey had left.
"So, ah, Tom, did you do that English assignment?"
"Which one?"
"The um, the food one."
"Yeah, why?"
"No reason."
"It was a pretty chill assignment…" Tom looked at Alex and a slow grin began to spread across his face. "You don't know what to write, do you?"
"Of course I do! Why wouldn't I? I've had tons of memorable meals."
"Methinks thou dost protest too much."
"Just because English is your best subject, you, you – anyway! What did you write about?"
"Not telling!"
Alex glared at his friend. Soon-to-be-ex-friend. "I'll let you teach me better puns to be a good spy."
"I already gave you that book of puns for your birthday."
"I'll film a bit of my missions for you."
"Are you that self-centred?" Tom stretched his arms behind his head like a cat showing how much it doesn't care that you're offering it a dish of cream. Alex thought the cat should bloody well be grateful for what it was offered and cream was a luxury he knew it wanted and most cats didn't get cream and –
"What do you want?"
"From life? Many things. From you? Nothing really."
"Okay. Okay…" Never let it be said Alex was inflexible. Sometimes he could be like a gas – so flexible he conformed to the shape of his container, and could even be compressed. "Can I just brainstorm in front of you? Throw some ideas at you? See what sticks?"
Tom waved a hand. "Storm away."
"Fire. You mean 'fire away'."
His friend's gaze, previously hovering between far-away and infinitude, switched to look flatly at Alex.
"Never mind. Storms it is," said Alex. He wracked his brain. "Do they mean 'memorable' for the food, or 'memorable meal', as in the event itself was memorable?"
Tom shrugged. "If it's not specified on the task sheet, then I guess either is fine, as long as you write it well."
"They didn't say anything about it in class?" He found that hard to believe.
"You think I listen in class?" Okay, more believable. "I just had both – food and event – in the same meal."
"Okay," said Alex. It was a start. "Most memorable event where I ate something good. Jeonju, I guess."
"What happened in Jeonju? Why haven't I heard about it yet? And where is it?"
"South Korea. And hush. Let me think…"
"You gotta try this drink – it's called moju!"
Alex tried to focus on said drink as Eagle waved it around. "What is it?"
"Some sort of traditional rice drink. But moju is like the local Jeonju version – it's spiced and tastes like Christmas!"
That didn't sound too bad. And Eagle sometimes had good taste in food. Sweet food, mainly. Sometimes too sweet.
"Alright," he said, "I'll try it." He took the drink bottle from an approving Eagle and took a sip. Blinked back the sudden visions of sleigh bells and reindeer and warm, crackling fires with chestnuts roasting. The images disappeared, leaving only a perky Eagle in a snowy, old-time Korean village. "It tastes nice."
"What's with the surprised tone?"
Alex took another drink, and then another one. He felt the warmth settle over him, and his muscles felt strangely relaxed. "Where are the others?"
"In the palace grounds already, I think."
Feeling strangely placid, although maybe it was due to Eagle's never-ending cheer and the unfamiliar lack of danger, Alex followed the soldier, still drinking.
"What's wrong with Alex?"
Oh, it was Fox. Ben. They were inside the palace grounds. Now that he thought back, he remembered walking through the ticket office. But now he was paying attention again.
"Nothing! Hey, Alex, nothing's wrong with you, right?"
"I don't think so…" but now that they mentioned it, he did feel a bit disconnected… Out of habit, he lifted the bottle to his lips, but it was empty. He felt a giggle bubble out of him. When had that happened?
"Hey, Cub, walk in a straight line for us." Snake. Snake was telling him to do this. What a nice man he was.
"Why?" he asked, as he followed the instructions though, strangely, doing so seemed more arduous than normal.
"He's drunk!"
"What did you feed him, Eagle?"
"I didn't feed him anything!"
"Did you know, primitive pygmy horses used to get drunk because they were so small they ate fruit off the ground, which was fermented from rotting?"
"Shut up Fox, or think of something to help."
"I was just trying to lighten the mood. Look, he's in no immediate harm. Let's just find somewhere to sit and he can recover in his own time. We were going to have lunch, anyway."
"Are we leaving, then? After we paid to explore this palace, and everything?"
Alex felt he should speak up. "I like the palace. I mean, I think we should look at it because we paid. I can walk." He took a few steps to demonstrate, trying to appear as steady as he could.
"You're over-compensating, Cub."
"Oh, let's just go, then. He doesn't have to walk straight to see everything."
"I can see," Alex said.
"That's great, Cub."
He smiled, and followed agreeably.
It was some time later, as they were taking a group photo in front of the emperor's throne, that Alex realised exactly what had happened.
The camera flashed, catching the instant in which Alex's fist connected with Eagle's body. In the background, the five mountain peaks, sun, and moon were silent witnesses.
"First of all, it's not really a meal, is it?"
"And secondly?"
"I think you know," said Tom. "How are you going to explain why you were with a bunch of grown men, one of whom got you drunk? It's not really helpful to fixing your reputation."
"I could change a few details…"
"It's still sus. The major part of it being memorable is what you have to change. Just write about an actual meal. Like you said, you've had tons of meals in your life! How hard can it be to think of just one? Did you have any on your last mission?"
"Well –"
Alex wasn't sure if it was the gentle rocking of the boat – no amount of money could go up against the might of the ocean – or that, in an effort to ignore the hunger he'd had for the past he-didn't-know-how-many days, his stomach had become accustomed to being empty. Or maybe it was the man he was facing that put him off his meal. Even though it was completely dark outside, he felt the presence of the towering limestone islands scattered about the bay like silent sentinels.
"Eat," the man gestured to him with his gun. "The crew caught the seafood fresh today when we were talking."
Knowing that didn't help Alex's stomach, which flipped at the thought that if he'd kept resisting, much the same thing as what had been done to the creatures before him would have, instead, been done to him. He tried to calm himself by keeping his eyes on the ice in the bowl underneath the food instead.
Alex didn't know what felt worse: the impending doom from his failure, or the guilt of negotiating with the enemy under duress. Even if that had been the order MI6 had made so clear to him – don't be a hero, they'd said. They needed him for other things, and in the grand scheme, it wasn't like the entire world was ending. He was just so tired. He couldn't sit there and take the awkward geniality from this man who'd been mocking him the night before under unrelenting white lights that had kept Alex awake for days. It felt too quiet, this reprieve from the unremitting white noise, punctuated by bursts of ear-splitting dissonance. He wished for someone who acted colder, more… more like Yassen Gregorovich. Efficient. No unnecessary 'creativity' for the sake of the assassin's enjoyment. It might even have alleviated some of the sickness Alex felt.
Because there had been no choice for Alex. Because MI6 would let this man go. Because Alex had failed. He had been too weak.
In the silence, the chef brought out a steaming casserole of unidentified meat in a gravy teeming with giant chunks of chilli. There looked to be more chilli than meat. He looked up, saw the man's face. Reluctantly, he took a giant spoonful.
"Szechuan bullfrog," said the man across the table with terrible cheer. "Specialty of my hometown. In Vietnam I cannot find such food, so my chef makes it for me on special occasions." He gestured again. "Take some more."
Alex took another spoonful.
"Eat."
Then, bracing himself, he shoved the food in his mouth, and chewed. It was food, which Alex desperately needed, even if he knew it would make him sick and burn his wounds. The man's smile widened and the light glancing off his teeth reminded Alex of the knives from last night.
The thermal heat hit first, potentiated by the sharp warmth of the chillies. Then came the tingling numbness from the peppercorns, until it felt like he had stuffed his mouth full of frozen vinegar. The phrase 'white-hot' came to mind. A rage, white-hot, came to his mind.
He threw his bowl with all the force of his hatred across the table.
The man jerked back, covering his eyes, but too late. He doubled over in pain. Alex stood and crossed to the other side of the table. With an efficient strike of his hand, he knocked the man out as he fumbled for his gun.
Alex grabbed the bowl of half-melted ice, and strode from the room.
As Alex passed the kitchens on the way to the Bridge, he heard a yell. He turned to see the cook about to hurl an empty glass dish straight from the oven.
Alex threw the icy contents of his own bowl, and dodged behind the wall. He heard the splintering of the hot glass rapidly contracting and exploding, and then the screams of the cook.
"And then I said 'that's what you get for messing with spice – spice, like spies, right?"
For once, Tom wasn't smiling. "I didn't know."
"Didn't know what?"
His friend shook his head violently. "That they made you do stuff like that. Like get tortured."
"I wasn't really tortured. And no-one made me," said Alex. "I pretty much promised him what he wanted straightaway. I was just waiting for MI6 to come to my rescue."
"How did you know they were coming?"
"I think they were going to do him a favour in reciprocation for my freedom. I'm sure they would have."
Tom was silent. Then he wrapped an arm around Alex. "I'm glad you're still here."
There was a lump in Alex's throat.
A week later, Mr Grey reviewed Alex's essay.
"Well," he said. "It's unusual, to be sure."
Alex opened his mouth.
"But not bad, not bad at all. Definitely memorable. It's just that most students chose fancy restaurants, things like that."
"I guess for me, the best meals are the ones at home."
"Very well done, Alex."
"Thank you, sir."
My most memorable meal is the time my friend Tom and I tried to make a spaghetti cake for my guardian Jack, for her birthday. Then we decided it would be even better if the cake exploded…
Well, I hope you enjoyed the story! When I read the prompt, I felt like it was a more comedic kind of thing, and this story started out that way, but then I wanted to show different facets of 'memorable' and, well, you saw what happened…