Chapter Text
“Fall in.”
They’re the words he’s been waiting for. Hands behind his back, Harry steps into line with the fifteen other proposals. A subtle glance over his shoulder takes stock of them. Some look to have come to life from the brochures of Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds. Others look prepared for a rock-&-roll concert on a quad somewhere. He wonders which will be his future colleague.
The old man who gave the order, ruddy and silver-white haired, sporting elbow-patched tweed, comes two paces forward. He adjusts his black-rimmed glasses, folding his arms over his burdened clipboard.
“Gentlemen. My name is Arthur,” he begins. “I welcome you to the interview process; very likely the most extreme interview process in the world. Have no doubt of that.” Pausing, he lightly clears his throat. “Now, ordinarily, as per the Kingsman tradition, these trials are overseen by our resident Merlin.”
Merlin the Wizard, Harry thinks. Tech wizard. The agents’ handler. His smile is hard to repress.
“However. Circumstances being as they are, may our dear friend rest in peace, I will be testing the lot of you myself.”
In the back row, there’s the faintest snort, and fainter muttering; Harry picks up something to the effect of how this ought to be cake, then. Arthur’s caught it as well. He levels a halfheartedly-scathing gaze, but moves along.
“If you’ve taken notice of your company, which I hope to God will never again need be asked of you, you will have counted sixteen applicants in this room. On this rare occasion, we are seeking to fill two positions. The very same incident that claimed the life of our Merlin has also laid to rest our dearly missed Agent Galahad.” The old man studies them, his eyes demanding postures of stone. “If any of you are perturbed by the possibility of someday greeting the same fate, this moment will be your final chance to leave.”
Harry waits, still as a pond. Nobody moves.
One brusque nod from Arthur. “Good. In that case, I look forward to finding out which two of you, and only two of you, will become the newest members of Kingsman. I wish a great deal of luck to you all.”
Hardly necessary, Harry thinks.
“Now then.” Arthur’s pen points out the perimeter of the room in a slow circle, and the candidates’ eyes follow. Against the walls are bunks beds, four to the left, four to the right, a metre or so between each. “In a moment, you will go and find your name on an index card attached to one of these bunks. These designate your assigned sleeping arrangements. On your cot, you will find one of these.” He points his pen at the nearest lower bunk, sporting a lump of thick canvas. “Can anyone identify this item?”
Ten or so hands go up. Arthur lights on the nebbish thing to Harry’s immediate right, already sweating through his ill-fitting sport coat.
“It’s a sleeping bag, sir?”
Snickers blossom around the error. You twit, it’s a body bag.
“It’s a body bag,” says Arthur. “Lyle, isn’t it?”
Lyle gives a quivering nod, Adam’s apple plunging. Arthur makes a note. Well he’ll be gone by the week-end.
“At your station, you will write your name on the bag provided. You will also write the names of any and all next-of-kin. This represents your acknowledgement of the extraordinary risk you are about to face, as well as your very binding agreement to our incredibly strict confidentiality policy. It is your contract. Should you break this contract at any time, I regret to say, and hope you understand, that the names on your bag will henceforth, and without fail, become its inhabitants.” Like the army, then. I’ve read about this. “Have I made myself clear?”
Fifteen heads bob. The outlier is at the far end of Harry’s row. He’s a slight thing with a close haircut, wearing a coat of blue and green tartan plaid. From the look of him, he can’t possibly be out of secondary school. His arm is raised.
So is Arthur’s eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Isn’t that an army technique, sir?” The question comes in a Scot’s brogue.
“Beg pardon?”
“The army. God save the Queen.” Even with his eyes forward again, Harry can hear repressed amusement in the words, albeit not repressed very hard. “Is it not typical for army recruits to be given the same exercise as a scare tactic?”
A look passes Arthur’s face that suggests how very much done he is with all of them. The young man goes without an answer, not that he seemed to be too seriously curious in the first place. Arthur pokes the bridge of his glasses, turning away.
“Fall out.”
Harry waits until he’s gone, then sets himself upon the nearest bunks with the famished eyes of a wild man.
His name isn’t on the first frame, so he moves left. It isn’t on the second, third, fourth, or fifth, either. It’s on the sixth. Only his card is there; his bunkmate’s has already been removed, leaving behind a bent thumbtack.
“Hope you don’t mind I had my heart set on the top bunk,” comes the brogue.
Harry looks up, only to retrace his visual steps as the young man above him hops back to solid ground. A grin comes over him—Yes, this will do fine, I’m sure this will be interesting—and he proffers his hand. His fellow recruit accepts, and he shakes enthusiastically.
“Harry Hart.”
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
The silence that follows outlasts the handshake. Harry blinks. He chalks the missed cue up to possible excitement or nerves, at least until his companion turns away with an amicable nod, retrieving his body bag like nothing else is happening.
“Aren’t you going to tell me your name?” Harry asks.
The thought must be genuinely foreign to the lad, going by the way his brow serpentines. “Why would I do that?”
Why on earth would you ask a thing like that? “I…well, I told you mine.”
“Yes, and I appreciated that. It’s very pretty. I like alliteration.”
Harry follows him around the other side of the bunks as he goes about searching for a pen, utterly bewildered to be having this conversation. “So you aren’t going to tell me yours? That doesn’t seem very fair. How should I know what I’m meant to call you?”
“When you think about it, do you really have to call me anything at all?” He pulls the cap off a felt marker. “I’ll know it’s me you’re talking to if you’re looking at me. It’s a basic measure of respect, eye contact. Very valuable in many situations.”
“Oh, come now, don’t be ridiculous.” Harry’s tone is still brightly convivial, which he’s rather proud of, considering he’s rapidly approaching a state of active frustration. “Just tell me your name.”
“All right, fine,” the other one exhales. “You can call me Merlin, if you like.”
Merlin. “Merlin.”
“Yes.”
It’s too preposterous to abide. “But you don’t know that you’ll get the position! You’re no more Merlin at this point than anyone else in this room.”
The young man flips a shoulder, looking blasé. “It’s only a matter of time. And it’s not like the last one’s still using it. He’s dead, what does he care? Seems up for grabs to me.”
The marker squeaks across the cardstock on the body bag. Harry attempts to read over his bunkmate’s shoulder, but the stubborn little shit’s concealing it from him. “You’re certainly quite confident, aren’t you?”
“Well, I don’t like to brag.”
“Please, now, come on, I insist you give me something to call you other than Merlin. What if one of us gets a position and the other doesn’t? I’d like to think we may be friends by the end of this; how will I keep in touch with you?”
Would-Be Merlin chuckles to himself, not unkindly replying, “If one of us gets a position and the other doesn’t, something tells me there won’t be any keeping in touch. Matter of fact, the loser may be unlikely to remember any of this. Have you seen those amnesia darts yet?”
“Oh yes, they’re brilliant.” Briefly he feels the thrill of this afternoon again. Hundreds of gadgets, dozens of all manner of vehicles, all hidden below the earth while regular people go about their lives, walking dogs, pushing prams, shopping at Tesco… He shakes his head. “That’s not the point.”
“All right, all right. You can call me…M.”
M.
“M. M, as in, M from the James Bond films?”
“Yes. M as in M from the James Bond films.” He caps the marker, holding it out. “If you wanna use this, I’m all through with it.”
Harry takes it, but makes no move toward his bag. He stares at M-Not-Merlin for a few moments, standing there as unmoved as he is, squared off with him. Unblinking. Assured. Something calmly challenging in it, almost. And his body bag over his arm with the card on front obscured conveniently to the underside.
The conclusion’s a slap in the skull he should’ve picked up minutes ago. “You really can’t stand your name whatsoever, can you?”
“No. No I can’t.”
His grin returns for having won the prize. He walks around him. “If it’s all that traumatic of an embarrassment for you, why not go by something else?” His palm braces the index card for writing on. “Or have it changed entirely, for that matter. I’m sure it couldn’t be very complicated.”
“Oh, couldn’t it, then?”
“Ah. So you’ve thought of that.”
“More than once, believe you me. It’d kill my auntie.” The lad’s climbing back up the ladder now, the frame creaking after him. “Raised me from a boy, that woman did. Christ knows why she loves the hideous thing, but it’s a family name.” He parks himself at the foot of his cot, legs swaying just slightly. “So I’m a bit stuck with it, y’see.”
“Yes, I do.”
Tilting his head, Harry admires the careful scrawl of his mothers’ names. Contrary to frightening him, he almost wishes he could cut out this patch and frame it, along with perhaps mailing them a copy. Imagine how a thing like this would look next to my nursery school handprints.
“Well then.” He, too, smoothly folds his bag, cheerful as he looks up. “I suppose M is as good as anything. Lovely to meet you, M.”
“Much appreciated. And likewise.”
Harry extends the marker. “You can have this back now. Thank you very kindly.”
“Oh, no skin off mine.” M points to bunk seven. “It’s his.”
Perspiring Lyle is flitting around the bunk adjacent, upending his toiletry kit, quite plainly frantic. It’s difficult to contain a laugh as Harry taps the poor sod on the shoulder with a “Pardon me,” then slips the marker into his clammy hand. “Take this one. All finished.”
The relief from the poor thing just about rattles the woodwork. “Oh—oh good, thank you. Thanks very much.”
“Not at all. Happy to help,” M contributes.
Good God, it’s a toss-up who’s the cheekier shit between the two of us. “Come on.” It’s time to get out of here before their neighbor wonders what’s funny. “Let’s go and find out where to hand these in, shall we?”
M hops down again with a grunt. “Every time I sit down.”
The body bags go in a heap on a table in the corner. Once there, Harry watches with some mild degree of amazement as M begins to separate them, unasked, glancing only fleetingly at each card, sorting out a new pile by alphabet.
He makes a mental note to get to know M better in the coming days. Already, it seems the wisest investment in the room.