New commission - "The Change" - Part 3

They’re not going to rush. At least, they’re not going to look as though they’re rushing. They won’t panic. They won’t, frankly, act like headstrong teenagers. These teen agents, in the final analysis, are all much older and wiser than they look.

Out by Christmas, Luke said, according to Rachel. Or by Halloween if we have to.

Luke’s job, as well as helping Katie stay clear, is to learn more from Valerie. That’s his weapon, after all, his kisses and charisma. He will learn what’s next – and who - for the treatment they gave Katie.

And the girls? First, they need the tech. They will need a device to progress the cub agents back to their natural age. The type of technology that the Parkdale Parenting Association keep securely locked away.

Second, they need the agent records. Some of those agents may not even know their proper age.

This is what is playing on Jessie’s mind when she comes to see Dr Sucette, at the doctor’s own request.

“Doesn’t anything here work anymore?”

It’s asked with a smile. Jessie sits on armchair in Sucette’s office, while the good doctor is behind her desk. As long as Jessie isn’t asked to sit in the treatment chair, she doesn’t mind where she sits.

Sucette frowns. Maybe she’s not in the mood to be teased. Is she ever?

“Sorry,” Jessie says. “It was just a surprise, when the device misfired.”

“You’re trained for contingencies,” Sucette says. She’s typing something on a keyboard; Tesco shopping list? Latest chapter of her memoirs? Or maybe just a repeated phrase.

Let’s do Jessie next let’s do Jessie next let’s do Jessie next let’s do Jessie ne-

“I took care of it,” Jessie says, feeling a prickle of defensiveness. “But it got messy. I’m glad I got out of there in one piece.”

“Well, that’s why you’re here,” says Sucette. “To make sure you’re clear.”

“I didn’t get any on me.” Jessie shifts in her seat. “I feel fine.”

Succette stops typing, looking directly at Jessie. “That’s why the compound in the device is so effective. Even when someone’s been sprayed, they still think everything is okay.” She goes to the sink and begins to wash her hands. “They think everything’s perfect, even when they’re being put in a nappy and given a rattle to play with.” She dries her hands with a shake and then with a paper towel. “So, forgive me for making sure that one of my favourite agents is unscathed.”  She sounds sincere, she sounds like she really cares. Because Dr. Sucette is an excellent liar.

She brings over a metal trolley and gestures for Jessie to roll up the sleeve of her school blouse. “Let’s test that blood of yours.”

Jessie does as instructed. Giving a little blood is okay. Blood is blood. Just make sure the needle is taking away, not giving. And for God’s sake, Katie had warned, Don’t eat the sugar cube.

No sugar cubes on offer this morning, as Jessie feels the cool dampness of an antiseptic wipe on her arm. Not even a Biscoff biscuit.

Perhaps the PPA have cut down on their catering budget.

Don’t eat the sugar cube. Don’t inhale the gas. And of course, Don’t wear the helmet. Katie has described what happened last Christmas when Parkdale had decided that her time was up. A mental regression process masquerading as a retirement chat, Katie only rescued from the thoughts of a little girl by Luke’s intervention, planting a restorative kiss on her lips and pulling off the hairband that sustained the mental regression.

"I know things have been a trifle uncertain recently,” says the doctor. “I expect you have some questions.”

It's a mild surprise – just the vaguest of head-scratches – when Dr Sucette puts down the hypodermic needle and pulls up a chair, sitting opposite to Jessie.

Jessie wrinkles her nose. “Oh. Are you…” She laughs softly. “Are you going to answer them?” This would be unexpected. Jessie’s job isn’t to get answers this morning, merely to seem as though she wants them. Jessie is not the one digging for information. She is little more than a distraction, a plan that solidified last night, a plan agreed to with a brandy snifter.

Sucette smiles. “Only one way to find out.” She stretches her arms above her head, and the stifles a yawn. “Funny, I’m a bit sleepy this morning.”

Jessie mirrors the yawn. She’s the one who was up late last night, talking with Katie and Rachel. She was the one considering the finer details. And she was the one lying in bed, staring at her bedroom ceiling, wondering if she could confide in her father. Where does Dad stand on all of this? Which side is he on? Katie couldn’t trust her parents, they seemed delighted with her infantile outcome, and Rachel had kept the plan from her own mother. But Jessie wasn’t about to just skip town without speaking to Dad.

Sucette nods. “Yes, I’m a little bit sleepy.”

Jessie finds herself copying the nod. Copying Sucette’s lazy smile.

“So,” says Sucette, “what have you been wondering about? Hmm?”

It’s here that Jessie considers the difference between what she can ask the PPA’s doctor, and what she definitely cannot. What would be an innocent question, and what would be suspicious.

Jessie imagines flicking through a filing cabinet, looking through papers and deciding which one to read about. Which one to hide inside her school blazer.

What matters? Nothing really, because Jessie is merely a decoy. And yet, she does have questions.

“The thing that happened to Katie,” Jessie says finally. “Could it happen to me?”

Sucette blinks in apparent surprise. “Oh. You’re worried about last Christmas.” She leans forward in her chair, looking intently at Jessie. “That was a terrible accident, but it was down to uncharacteristic carelessness on Katie’s part.” She sighs, and doesn’t she sound sad, doesn’t she seem cut up by regret?

Katie was more than clear last night that what happened was no accident. And she has seen so much this year. The staff have grown careless around her; after all, who is going to worry about what a mental nursery-schooler sees and hears? Her head is filled with rainbows and unicorns!

Security is lax. She doesn’t even have a receptionist right now. Either they’re out of money, or they’re running out of people they can trust.

And so, Jessie can talk to Sucette this morning, keep her busy, while Rachel can be in the records suite across the hall, digging for information on the PPA’s plans. And maybe, just maybe, she can earn Brownie points by grabbing a piece of age progression tech, something to help the cub agents get their years back, before they leave Parkdale en masse. Like innocent rats leaving the sinking ship.

“Yes, poor Katie,” says Sucette, with a mournful shake of her head. “Such a careless girl. But she’s perfectly happy now, at least. Hmm?”

Jessie stares back at Sucette. Or at least she tries to, but her eyes are too tired. Because she’s sleepy, just like the doctor. She’s yawning. Except, Sucette doesn’t seem tired anymore. If anything, she seems on high alert.

Jessie feels the first pinpricks of anxiety.

She nods. “I get it. I know…it was an accident.”

“Katie’s parents take good care of her,” Sucette says, continuing to look intently at Jessie. As if examining her. As if testing her. “She’s very well taken care of, because we’re a family here in Parkdale, a big family. It’s not just her mummy and daddy, is it. There’s you, and there’s Rachel. And Luke. What a lucky girl Katie is!”

The doctor nods, and of course so does Jessie. She looks down at her arm, where the blood hasn’t been taken. The skin cleaned by the antiseptic wipe glistens. It isn’t drying. It looks sticky. Jessie is tempted to touch it, poke it, see what happens.

“We’re a big family,” Sucette says, and she lifts Jessie’s chin with a finger of her own, looking into her eyes. “And we need everyone to be good, everyone to be on their best behaviour.”

Jessie nods. “Yeah…you know, I don’t really have any questions.” She stands up. No, she gets half-way there, before Sucette is gently, firmly, pushing her back into the armchair.

“You should rest,” she says softly. “You’re much too tired today. All that working, and then of course, making that mistake last night, with the device.”

Jessie blinks blearily at the doctor. She didn’t make a mistake. Did she? Wasn’t it a malfunction? She can’t just leave, because there’s a plan, there are bigger things going on in the building. And yet, Jessie needs to go. Because her mind feels open. Because Sucette has done something to her, with or without a sugar lump, and if Jessie stays much longer, she is going to give the game away. “I’ve got double-history. There’s a test. I should really- “

“You don’t need history,” Sucette says. “How many times have you taken that class, how many years. You must have memorized it by now!” She makes a clucking sound with her tongue. “Best to stay nice and comfy, have a lovely little chat with me.” Sucette smiles. “And then you have a nap!”

Jessie’s head feels heavy, to go with her eyes, to go with her brain. “What did you…” And here, she does touch the sticky skin on her arm. “What did you do?”

“Just medicine,” says the doctor. “I’m here to make sure you’re healthy.” She wags a playful finger that Jessie does her best to follow before she stops, feeling queasy. “I worry about you, Jessie. Those late nights, up late chatting with friends. That’s why you’re so sleepy, darling. That’s why you’re making mistakes!”

Jessie shakes her head. “I’m not up late…it’s…a school night. I didn’t…” She shakes her head again. “I didn’t get it wrong last night, I really didn’t. The spray just…it got loose, it went everywhere, I didn’t mean it.”  It wasn’t a mistake. But there’s something in her head that says she should agree with the doctor. That it will be so easy to agree. Just like she copied the yawn, copied the sleepiness.

Jessie understands, even as she produces another yawn, that she is in serious trouble.

“Tell me about last night,” the doctor says, leaning forward and taking Jessie’s hands in her own. “Tell me about your chat with Luke, and then you can curl up on that chair – just like a sweet little kitten-cat! – and go to sleep.”

Jessie frowns. “I didn’t talk to Luke, I talked to Rachel.” And then she covers her mouth with her hand, like a small child who has been caught out by a grown-up. And she looks towards the door, imagining Rachel in the room across the hall. Has she found what she was looking for, or has all of this been an epic waste of time?

Sucette doesn’t look smug. Instead, she nods. “Rachel, right, of course.” She tilts her head. “So, what did you talk about?”

There it is. Jessie looks back down at her arm. The sticky residue remains, something carrying a chemical through her bloodstream and to her brain. To make her agreeable? To make her gullible? To open her up.

Jessie spills a lot of the beans in just two words.

“About leaving.”

Sucette nods, her face filled with empathy, as if she’d also love to leave this town. As if she wasn’t a key reason for its very existence.

“You’ve had enough?” asks Sucette.

Jessie nods. “It’s not safe here,” she says, more words spilling out. Her head is swimming, she is about to drown in stickiness. She tries to fight it, but she is so tired, because Sucette told her so.

“I understand,” Sucette says. She gets up suddenly, making Jessie feel dizzy as she watches the doctor. “There have been mistakes, there have been disagreements at the senior level.” She smiles down at Jessie and glances to her office door, as if about to reveal a secret. “We’re not aligned about the best way forward.” She shrugs. “But that happens sometimes. Even in a well-functioning team like ours, you get the occasional glitch.” She takes the metal trolley away. No blood test. Maybe the sticky residue is all Sucette needed. Now that Jessie has confessed that she and Rachel want to leave, perhaps Sucette will be satisfied.

“I think you just need a rest,” Sucette says, returning to the armchair and crouching down in front of Jessie. “Sleepy girl, I think you tired yourself out. I can help with that. I can help you stop worrying all those…big girl worries!” She beams at Jessie. “You can be free,” she says. “You can be just like Katie.”

Jessie’s eyes widen. “But…” And there’s so much to say, and the words are ready to tumble from her mouth. The truth of Katie’s condition. The plan that was agreed last night.

“I don’t want…” Jessie looks blearily (so sleepily) at Sucette as the doctor goes to her equipment cabinet. “I can’t…I can’t do this anymore.” And those words are okay, aren’t they? She hasn’t given the plan away.

Sucette comes back with something in her hand. “We’re a family,” she says. “Nobody’s leaving.” She nods, decision made, decision probably made months ago. “Good girl,” she says, and the words echo in Jessie’s head. “Good girl.”

Jessie nods. She is a good girl.

“Open wide,” says the doctor.

Jessie does as she’s told, and she only flinches slightly as the doctor puts a white cube on her tongue. It’s sweet, it can’t be something bad, even as the lights in the room seem to get brighter, it’s not blinding, it’s beautiful.

“Soon, you’ll see rainbows,” says Sucette mildly, ushering Jessie to her feet. “You’ll be just as happy as Katie. You’re a little ahead of schedule, but that’s okay.” She nods at the girl. “Your daddy will understand.”

Jessie blinks and frowns as she is led over to the treatment chair. She thinks of her father; did he sign her up for this? Did he agree? She can’t believe that he would do something like that. “I don’t…please…I don’t wanna…”

“Rainbows and unicorns,” says the doctor briskly, sitting Jessie down in the chair. “Think of the fun you’ll have playing with Katie!” She smiles, and her face is all Jessie can see, the doctor looming over her. “Maybe Katie will let you play with her dollies, hmmm?”

Jessie smiles. The rainbows are appearing at the edges of her vision, even before the helmet is lowered over her head. Rainbows are pretty, there’s no denying it. But she has something important to tell the doctor.

“Katie doesn’t like dollies,” she says, her tongue heavy but the words emerging intact. “She thinks dollies are silly.”

The doctor’s smile thins. The helmet stops just above Jessie’s head. “Pardon?”

Jessie nods solemnly, and then giggles as the rainbows jiggle at the corners of her eyes. “Silly dollies…Katie’s not silly!”

The doctor’s mouth opens. Perhaps to ask another question. Something serious. Something about Katie. Because the doctor isn’t stupid. Jessie stands by, rainbows sparkling at the edges of her vision, ready to answer anything, like a little girl in class with her hand up.

But the doctor’s next question comes out as a muttered, mumbled mess.

Jessie watches, looking through the prism of rainbows, as something happens Sucette’s own eyes. A slow-blinking glassiness, the doctor’s mouth hanging open.

And then Jessie frowns as Rachel appears behind her, a black box in her hands, aiming at it at Sucette’s head.

What’s going on? Jessie asks. But the words are still in her head, unspoken, as she watches Rachel push the doctor away and into the armchair.

The doctor protests, vaguely, arms clumsily batting at Rachel. The doctor, if Jessie is honest, is doing a very poor job of anything right now.

Jessie sits and watches, in rainbowed slow-motion, as Rachel lifts the helmet out of the way and removes the wrist and ankle straps.

“Jesus.” Rachel stares into Jessie’s eyes. “I get here in time or are you away with the fairies?”

Jessie frowns. “I’m not…” She exhales. “I ate a sugar lump, but it was by accident. She…” Jessie points at the doctor, who is slumped in the armchair, hands folded in her lap, looking at nothing. “She twicked…tricked me.”

“She’s not tricking anyone else,” says Rachel.

Jessie points at the black box, the rainbows fading from her vision. “Whadi…” She rubs at her jaw and then tries again. “What did you do?”

“Looks like some kind of intelligence zapper,” Rachel replies blandly, sounding as if she doesn’t care that she just took down the fearsome Dr. Sucette in a matter of seconds.

Jessie gets out of the treatment chair, pins and needles in her legs. She stamps her feet. “Is it permanent?”

Rachel shrugs. “How would I know?” She pockets the device. “I picked the box off the shelf and hoped for the best. Got here just in time, from the look of you.”

As the rainbows fade from Jessie’s mind, there’s plenty of room for anxiety and fear to form a knot in her head and chest. “What do we do now?”

“We move fast. We move today. I’m going to the school to pick up Nicole.”

Jessie frowns. “Why are you starting with that one? She’ll probably give you the most trouble.”

Rachel shakes her head. “I think she’ll be easiest, actually.”

That doesn’t make sense. Nicole is a famous cub agent, her mentally regressing powers contained in her skin and hair. One innocent hug from Nicole can reduce adults to a simpering, naïve mess.

Jessie is ready to ask, when her attention is taken by Dr. Sucette, mumbling into her lap, as if she knows something has gone very wrong but can’t quite work it out.

Jessie goes to the armchair and crouches in front of the doctor. “You got all soupy, didn’t you,” she says, using the sympathetic tone she typically reserves for her targets. “It’s all just sticky glue inside that big ol’ brain of yours.”

She turns to Rachel and finds her friend examining the controls of the treatment chair. “You want to use that on her?”

Rachel shakes her head. “We’re not in the regression business anymore.”

“So, what are you doing? “

“We can use the chair to progress Nicole.”

Jessie blinks. “You want to do that here? Are you serious?”

Rachel turns to her with open hands. “The chair is the only thing I’m familiar with, I’ve seen Sucette use it a bunch of times. All the gear in the supply room? I don’t know how to work it, and I doubt there’s a bunch of YouTube videos that will help us out. Whatever I take from there might do the trick, or it might make their little heads explode.”

Jessie looks at the doctor. “You could’ve killed her.” She feels short of breath, like she might just expire herself.

Rachel shows her teeth. “I don’t care.”

“You swatted her!” Jessie cries. “It’s beyond swatting. She looks brain-dead.”

Rachel folds her arms. “She was about to give you the Katie treatment. Did you expect me to sit her down with a cup of tea and negotiate?”

“You’d have brought me back, like Luke did for Katie, and I could have pretended.” She groans. “What if she’s the only one who knows how to give the cubs their ages back?”

Rachel glares at her. “I just told you; we’ll use the chair.”

“Except, now you took out Dr. Sucette, you think the PPA will let us pop and out? With a bunch of their agents?” Jessie rubs at her temples. “Last night, we had until Christmas, or at least Halloween.” She points at the doctor. “Now, we’ve got nothing. We need to get out of here today because you probably just murdered their top scientist.” She adds slowly, “I think they’ll notice.”

Rachel holds up her hands. “We never had long. I checked the records, found their plan.”

“Why? Who’s next on their list?”

Rachel puts fingers through her blonde pixie cut. “All of us.”

“Shit. When?”

Rachel makes a backwards gesture with her thumb. “Whenever they get the chance.”

Jessie thinks of their plan, so beautifully drawn up last night, and now in pieces. “What about Luke?”

Rachel groans. “I tried calling, no reply. I couldn’t chance texting him; I don’t know who has his phone.” She takes the black box from her pocket and hands it to Jessie. “Stay here, and if the doctor starts making any sense, zap her again. I’ll go get the cub.”

Jessie looks at Sucette. There’s something deeply unnerving about the doctor’s expression, with virtually nothing going on behind those eyes. Jessie’s nose wrinkles. “Why don’t I get Nicole?”

Rachel huffs with impatience. “Because you were seconds away from letting Parkdale put that damn helmet on your head and I don’t think spending quality time with Nicole is a good idea for you right now.”

Fair point. But as Rachel heads for the door, Jessie asks her question from before. “For real. Why are you starting with her? Why not the twins? Or Lottie?”

Rachel stands in the doorway. And she looks as though she’s never been in such a hurry. “I checked the records, and Nicole didn’t start off as Nicole.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember in the bookshop, remember when it all went pear-shaped with the toy rocket?”

“So what?”

Rachel sighs. “They regressed him, and then they changed his sex.”

Jessie scoffs. “They can’t do that.”

“They did. Nicole’s my baby brother. And I’m not leaving Parkdale without him.” She turns on her heels and walks out, leaving Jessie with the device in her hand and a look of astonishment on her face.