Meatloaf Day

“Pretend that I’m her.” Sergeant Martin Murphy waggled his ginger eyebrows and raised his voice to a flirtatious squeak, “Hello, Sergeant Wiseman. Do you have something to ask me?”

John stared fixedly at his half-completed mission report. He wouldn’t rise to the bait—not this time. “You’re not my type, Murph.”

“I’m everyone’s type,” Murph scoffed derisively in that same too-high pitch, causing a cold shudder to run up John’s spine. Somehow, Murph was able to duplicate the exact exasperated tone that Hope so often used, and John was thrown by hearing even a satirical duplication of her voice coming out of his burly supervisor.

“After all,” Murph continued, “I’m a single lady diplomat with killer red lipstick and a sassy, no-nonsense attitude just waiting to be asked out on a romantic date by the big, strong Ment of my dreams.”

“You realize that she’d shoot out your kneecaps for that comment, right?” John asked mildly.

Murph abandoned his imitation of Hope’s voice. “The lipstick remark was a compliment,” he said. “Seriously, how long are you and her gonna keep dancing around each other? You’re like two Manakins mid-mating ritual.” He shrugged at John’s arched brow. “I like birds.”

“So buy a parakeet.” John forced his attention back to the mission brief on his desk.

He tapped his pen against the paper’s edge, contemplating how to best describe his team’s breach of the Northeastern blockade. It was difficult to articulate how their plan had evolved mid-mission using words, but Hope hadn’t appreciated his last Lego diorama, calling it “unfileable”. Nor had she been swayed by his argument that the 3d visual was the only accurate way to show how he issued telepathic commands on the field without needing verbalization (each of his teammates were represented by their own Lego figurine, wiggly smiles hand-drawn onto yellow heads by Murph with a black sharpie).

No, Hope wanted description, even though it took two-thousand words to communicate what Legos could depict in fifty bricks.

“You have that look on your face again,” Murph said. “Like you’ve swallowed a slug.”

John sighed. Slug licking would be preferable to this paperwork. “I get that the UN wants their new Ment division supervised, and I’m fine with you and Zhou being our babysitters. No offence,” he added at Murph’s bemused smirk. “You’re a great Norm nanny. But the way I give orders . . . when we’re out on field, I’m linked with the other Ment soldiers. Decisions are discussed and carried out at the speed of visual thought. Putting that into words is near impossible.”

Murph leaned back in his chair, its hinges squeaking and echoing throughout the large tent that served as their temporary ops center. “You wanted the military to have designated Ment units, Wiseguy,” he said. “That means following the same rules as the rest of us.”

“Those rules don’t work for the way Ments operate!” John exploded. He waved the paper at Murph. “This bottom portion asks me which directives I gave. They want me to choose from a list of hand signals and verbal directives, none of which even begin to describe the ten-second telepathic conversation that Perez and I had in field.”

“You must’ve known spearheading this whole ‘Unity’ initiative wouldn’t be easy,” Murph said. “At least the UN sent in a Ment to oversee you guys.”

“Hope’s a Telemetrist,” John grumbled. “She sees far, but she doesn’t see in.”

Murph blinked. “I thought you liked Hope.”

“I do like Hope.” Too much, if John were being honest with himself, which he resolutely wasn’t.

“Then what’s the issue?”

John blew out a slow breath. Murph was a great guy, but he had a way of assuming that everyone was exactly like him, even when it came to thought patterns. He could no more comprehend telepathic field commands than he could grasp the fact that not everyone loved Meatloaf Day at the Caf.

“There’s no issue, Murph,” John said, suddenly tired. “I just hate paperwork.”

* * * *
 Hope had been set up in a beige tent at the far end of the compound. Her tent was smaller than those belonging to most of the other paper-pushers, but it had two large plastic panels on the roof that let in sunlight. Today, however, heavy rain streamed down the clear panels, making John feel like he was trapped beneath a waterfall.

The thought of waterfalls in association with Hope brought to mind tropical vacations and barely-there bikinis, a visual which John futilely attempted to banish from his brain as he waited for Hope to finish going over his latest report. Thank God she wasn’t a telepath. To keep himself distracted, he idly poked at the Jack Skellington bobblehead that sat at the corner of Hope’s desk.

Hope glared at him over the folder, and he stilled Jack’s nodding head with one finger. She was scary, but John kind of liked that about her.

“It’s better than last time,” Hope announced after she’d finished reading. “You can cut back on the jokes, though.”

John allowed one side of his mouth to twitch upwards in a half-smile that his mother called charming. “Yes, Ma’am,” he drawled. “I’ll be all business from now on.”

“Good.” Hope’s lips tightened together in what John optimistically thought might be a repressed grin. Murph was right about her lipstick.

“Any news about Target Alpha?” he asked, referencing the North Korean resistance’s current leader.

Hope shook her head. “She’s still in hiding. Those people we’ve interrogated either don’t know where she’s holed up, or they’re unwilling to say.”

“Probably the latter,” John said. “I still can’t believe it took us so long to realize that she was an Empath.”

Hope’s mouth tightened further, this time in anger. “Ments who abuse their abilities make life more difficult for all of us.”

Hope was always careful with her language, even when upset. It was always “abilities,” never “powers,” when she talked about psychic talents. John couldn’t blame her; people treated most Telemetrists as if they were little more than peeping toms, and it was a minor miracle that she’d managed to rise in rank at the United Nations. Most the soldiers on base assumed that she was a spy, including the Telepaths under John’s own command whom John thought really should’ve known better than to jump to Pollard-based conclusions.

“We’ll take Target Alpha into custody sooner or later,” John promised.

“We sure as hell better,” Hope said grimly. “Project Unity is on the chopping block unless we prove that we get can results. The longer this op takes, the more my superiors threaten to . . .” she broke off, looking embarrassed. “I shouldn’t complain.”

John wanted to reassure her, but the angry glint in her eyes told him that his efforts wouldn’t be well received.
 “What do you think about Meatloaf Day?” he asked instead.

Hope looked taken aback by his abrupt change of topic, and John internally kicked himself. He was usually smoother than this (too smooth, some of his exes had claimed), but Hope made him feel like a tongue-tied seventh grader handing over a Valentine’s Day card to his first crush.

“I’m not a fan of mystery meat,” Hope answered after a too-long pause that left John with sweaty palms.

“Of course not,” John said, “but would you want to—”

Hope held up a hand. “I’m stopping you there,” she said. “I’m don’t date subordinates, Sergeant Wiseman.”

John leaned forward, placing his hands at the edge of her desk and smiling in what he hoped was a rakish fashion. “Who said I was asking you on a date?” he asked, giving an internal fist pump of victory as Hope’s mouth opened and then closed without a comeback. He righted himself and gave a sharp salute. “Ma’am.”

Final word having been achieved, he turned to leave.

“John?”

He paused at the tent’s exit. “Yes, Ma’am?”

“Earn a fucking promotion already.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”