New Commission - "The Change" - Part 2

It’s not Ariana Grande or Selena Gomez when Jessie arrives. She rolls her eyes at Rachel. “Jazz and brandy? You and Luke a thing now?”

“No things,” Rachel replies. “We don’t have time for things.”

Jessie sips from her glass. “Me neither, I suppose.” She looks over at Katie, who after greeting her with a hug at the front door, is sitting on the rug with a doll in her lap, brushing its hair.

Jessie considers Rachel and herself, both in school uniform, and then Katie, formerly the most senior of teen agents, in a Peppa Pig nightdress. Because it’s nearly bedtime for little girls, after all, even though Katie is fifteen years old. A physical fifteen. Fifteen on the label. There’s Rachel with her pixie cut, and Katie with her pigtails. Months between them in physical age, but mentally, a world apart.

Rachel sits down beside Katie and beckons for Jessie to join them. When they’re together, she taps her phone and the piano and trumpet get louder. Jessie sniffs with recognition; Dave Brubeck. Maybe they’ve all been spending too much time with Luke.

Jessie takes Katie’s hand and squeezes it, earning a smile. And isn’t it funny, even nine months later, to think that Katie isn’t wearing her pendant. As if she is naked, despite Peppa Pig. Katie definitely isn’t bullet-proof, given that she’s had the vocabulary of a four-year-old since the accident. Since the misfire that’s kept them all on edge.

“So,” says Rachel, looking at Jessie. “You have to promise not to be cross.”

Jessie frowns. “What about?” Her frown deepens. “What have you done?” Because Rachel has been on her best behaviour, the last few years, since the incident with the boy at the bookshop, but everyone knows – Jessie certainly knows – that Rachel and rules don’t fit. She squeezes Katie’s hand tightly, and her old friend says, “Owie!”

Jessie gives Katie a pained look. “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry.” She lets go of her hand. “That’s a pretty doll,” she says. “You making her hair all nice and shiny?”

Katie nods. “Uh-huh. Molly’s my fav’rit.” Katie turns her attention back to her doll, seemingly disinterested in the big girls’ talk.

Jessie looks back at Rachel. “So, are you going to tell me?”

Rachel nods. “Okay, but remember, don’t be cross.” She leans in for a moment and says, “I think they’ve bugged our homes.”

Jessie doesn’t ask who. But she sips her brandy, a bigger sip this time, and notes the taste of dried fruit and citrus zest on her tongue. She can see how people get hooked on stuff like this.

“Jazz is best for these types of conversations,” Rachel says. “So says Luke, anyway.” She tips back her own glass and drinks, as Joe Morello introduces the percussion for Take 5, and Eugene Wright gets busy on the upright bass.

Wouldn't it be better
Not to be so polite

“Planned on telling you outside, surely they haven’t got listening devices outside, but after tonight…”

Jessie groans with frustration. “Just tell me.”

Rachel looks to Katie. “Come on, it’s now or never.”

Jessie frowns. “What’s…”

This time, it’s Katie who takes Jessie’s hand, dropping her doll in the process. “I’ve had to do a little acting.”

“You what?” And then Jessie she looks intently at Katie’s face. Her expression. Her intelligence. Those sparkling eyes, even without the pendant.

She looks again at Katie’s outfit, Molly the doll still lying in her lap, and she turns to Rachel. “She faked it?” She stares at both girls and her voice rises. “The whole time?

“Hey, dial it back a little.” Katie shakes her head. “It’s complicated. Luke didn’t know who we could trust. It made sense to keep the circle small, until we had a plan.”

Jessie pulls away from both girls. “I thought you were gone,” she whispers, jabbing a finger at Katie. “I’ve been grieving for you ever since the accident. Every job, I’ve wondered if it was going to happen to me.” She scowls. "There wasn’t an accident, was there. Why would you pretend like that? That’s mad!”

Rachel makes a hushing gesture and then beckons Jessie back with a curled finger. “None of us are safe,” says Rachel. She looks down, fussing with her pleated skirt. “What the PPA promised us, what’s in our contracts? They won’t deliver. They can’t.” She looks up at Jessie.

Jessie feels anxiety in her chest. She reaches for her glass and finishes the brandy. It doesn’t have the burn of whisky, but she knows that it’s not nothing. She could have a couple more; they could have a serious conversation.

“What are you talking about?”

“The whole thing’s a mess,” Rachel replies, “and now they’re cleaning house.”

Jessie looks at her friends. Friends? She thought they were. But maybe not. Maybe it’s all just secrets and lies. “What are you talking about?”

This time, it’s Katie who speaks. “I was supposed to be retiring, last Christmas. But they weren’t letting me go.” She purses her lips. “Because they can’t.” She stares intently at Jessie. “Our ages are stuck. Parkdale can’t have us just leave, because then the secret is out.” She takes Molly, clutches the doll to her chest as if she really is a four-year-old, and then she sighs. “So, retirement from the PPA means what they tried to do to me.” She taps the side of her head. “Regressing my mind and making me forget everything. The accident wasn’t an accident. Sucette, Miss Brown, they planned it.”

“But it didn’t work,” Jessie says softly. She points at Katie. “You’re just pretending.”

“It worked until Luke intervened. And what they did to my head…” Katie bits her lip. “I can feel it, trying to make me forget, make me simple. My mum’s at it every day, treating me like a silly little girl. Every game, every song. Without Luke’s help, without Rachel, I’d be long gone.”

“Can you get out of here?” Jessie asks. Can you escape? The question she’s been trained to not even think of.

“With a little help from my friends,” says Katie, and she laughs. “But this place, it’s no good for any of the agents. The ones who have been here long-term, we’re probably all stuck with the ages we have now. And it’ll happen to the other eventually.”

“There’s no way out apart from the one we make ourselves,” Rachel says.

Jessie thinks of the work she’s done in Parkdale, she looks back on her career. This is how she’s paid back? “I believe you about last Christmas,” she says. “But all the rest, taking us all down?” She looks at Katie. “Maybe your mum just made a deal with them, wanted her little girl back and all that.”

Katie shakes her head. “She did want that, but it’s everyone.”

“How can you know that?”

“Luke. He seduced a senior agent.” Katie nods. “He’s with her tonight, actually.”

Jessie stares at her. “He what?”

Rachel nods. “You know his powers, one kiss and he’s in your head, and you’d want to put his poster on your bedroom wall. He got a senior agent and now he gets intel straight from headquarters.”

It’s another newsflash, but Jessie can believe it. If anyone could charm their way like that, make someone fall head over heels for him, it’s Luke. But she has a big question. “Who?” The possibilities race through her mind. Someone less experienced perhaps, like Miss Everett. Or someone who seems lonely, like Miss McKay. And then she bursts out laughing. “Oh God, is it Miss Anderson?”

Katie shakes her head, smiling. “I’ll give you a hint.” She holds her hands in front of her as if she’s cupping the biggest of breasts.

Jessie laughs through her fingers. “Oh, wow.” She mouths the name: Valerie. Katie nods. The curviest, sexiest senior agent, who has male, and some female, targets eating out of her hand.

“And he’s safe?” asks Jessie. “She’s not playing him?”

Katie shakes her head. “He’s the one in control. Valerie’s got some assets, but Luke’s more a leg guy.” All three girls giggle. And in this moment, it’s the old days, it’s back when this job felt like a worthy cause, or at least not rotten to the core.

Jessie rubs the sides of her head. Tonight is an information-overload with some good news, some awful.

She groans. “Look, I believe Luke, but it’s all just so…extreme. Why would they go so far?”

It’s Rachel’s turn to roll her eyes. “Hon, what happened tonight with your target?”

Jessie frowns. “The spray backfired, went everywhere.” She groans. “You should have seen the wardrobe, there were no spare outfits. Bit of a shambles, really.”

Rachel holds up her hands. “Because they didn’t think any of that would matter. Because the device was designed to fail. And then it would have been classed as another tragic accident. And you would’ve been stuck playing with your doll like Katie.”

Jessie’s mouth falls open. “Or maybe…” She imagines falling under the spell of the spray, confused and silly, and then putting her hands on the doorknob. There would have been two individuals left drooling and incomprehensible.

Is that really what Parkdale wanted? Is that what Jessie’s father wants?

No. Impossible. Dad loves her. And the PPA higher-ups, Miss Brown, they have been mentors to her. Tears well in Jessie’s eyes. But she blinks them away. Because the idea of being reduced to mental childhood, to Katie’s supposed status or even to what happened to Toby tonight, it reminds Jessie that Parkdale has never been about being fair. It’s certainly not about being honest.

“We can’t trust them,” Katie says gently. “They got things wrong, and we’re the ones who are supposed to pay for it.”

Rachel nods. “We’ve only got each other.” She gets up to refill their glasses.

And then Jessie listens. To the sound of her heart, beating in her ears. To Dave Brubeck and his quartet. And to a plan laid out by a girl in school uniform and imagined by Luke and a pigtailed girl wearing the latest fashions from Peppa Pig.

We’re going to steal an age progression device. We’re going to fix as many of the younger agents as we can. And then we’re gone.