(no subject)

[kayip]

July 13, 2007

Behrooz wakes up from another dream of light.

This waking is abrupt, so much so that he shakes slightly as he pulls himself up on the couch, rubbing his left eye, very much aware that he shouldn't have nodded off here. No one seems to have noticed, though – Malik and Firuz were in the corner, looking at Malik's laptop, Yasir was turning on the television and flipping a few channels before settling on CNB. Behrooz dimly blinked at it as he gathered himself up a little more, hoping no one had noticed.

" – vandalism has also been reported at synagogues and Sikh temples across the nation –"

His eyes go to Firuz and Malik, trying to listen to what they're saying – but they aren't speaking at all, just looking at something. Yasir seems distracted enough by the tv, so Behrooz stands up, and walks quietly over to the corner.

Abruptly, he recognizes the sound of a small fan, a machine running, the blue light off Malik's face, and realizes their looking at a computer. He glances back at Yasir, then takes a few more steps forward, until he's reached a spot where he can make out the screen between their shoulders. He only sees it for a few moments, though – it's something that looks like a schematic, but Behrooz has no way of recognizing it – before Malik snaps the computer shut, and Firuz turns. Behrooz's eyes go to the ground.

"Looking for something?"

He's focusing on his shoes when finally, it comes through to him – what to says, how to feel, how he –

He would feel.

He looks up. "Yeah. What I'm still doing here."

Firuz looks at him directly now, taking a few steps closer to impose his height, though there's really not much of a difference. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm tired of sitting around here, doing nothing – is that what just is? Just watching other people, because I –"

Behrooz does have the sense to shut up when Firuz snatches his elbow and shoves him against the concrete wall. He doesn't have much time to dwell on the way his head is throbbing now, as Firuz's hand is on his collar and Behrooz knows, right now, he has to meet his eyes.

"You're working with us -"

"I serve Allah," he snaps back, "- and I can find another way to do it." Firuz looks at him for a long moment, and it takes a lot of work for Behrooz to not lower his eyes, but he doesn't. Subconsciously, he realizes he's focusing more on his breathing, steady, onetwo -

"Yasir," Firuz turns, calling out to the man on the couch. Yasir's already watching, though. "Get out. Go find Ahmed." He hesitates for a moment, but turns off the tv, stands, and heads out of the room, slamming the door as he leaves. Once he's gone, Firuz leans away, and walks back toward the corner.

"What are you –"

Firuz just nods Malik off, and Malik stands, stepping a few feet away, so that Behrooz can see now the folded laptop that's sitting on top of what looks like a large, silvery briefcase. But there's something inside his stomach that's already twisting, as Firuz waves him forward.

"It's not complete yet – Malik has been helping with that, and we've had other - sources."

Malik removes the laptop, and kneels down next to the suitcase, carefully adjusting something and Behrooz can hear the locks click.

"This is it, Orhan – this is how you will serve God."


It's a half hour later, when he's alone, and driven a good ways off, when he finally allows himself to start shaking.



*


"But – that's not where it usually is?"

Behrooz stares at them for a far too long moment. "It was a nucl-"

"It's unfinished, though – and most of those parts are the ones easier to come by," as hard as she must be trying to sound calm and reasonable, Behrooz doesn't need a particularly powerful sense of smell to see right through her.

"What more can I do? You need to just arrest them now -"

"And if they're keeping it somewhere else, and that'll just tip them off?"

"I don't –" he falls back, hearing the truth in it but really, really not wanting to – "I can't keep doing this."

"Even that wouldn't have been as bad as your own parents' attack, would it have?"

Behrooz's eyes snap up – they very rarely brought up his parents. It's the man who's said it, but it's not spat out like an insult as it would usually be. If anything, it's as though it's supposed to be reassuring.

"There could be others…"

"And we don't want to tip them off, either," the woman says, sounding like it was a point she'd honestly rather not make. "Behrooz – this just – has to keep going a little longer."