Chapter 16
V had known Evey for a year but only recently realized his tastes had dominated everything. It was appalling how little he had done to accommodate her in an aesthetic sense. It also made his current task much more difficult. He did not know what Evey liked.
Did she like bold colors? Did her preferences lean to the modern or the classics? She herself was small and delicate, but did she like the objects around her to reflect her petite beauty? Why had he never paid attention? What if she loved themes? Or, heaven forbid, country kitsch straight from the crafts shop. French country would be better…
Perhaps I was gay Before. Who else would worry about something like this? V chuckled at himself, taking advantage of a rare moment of humor at the expense of a forgotten past.
He checked the time, knowing he was wasting it in contemplation. He only had until seven o’clock. Three hours. Butterflies consumed his stomach and he felt ill. The moment of truth was nearly upon him and his courage was dwindling the closer it came.
He could not think about it. Instead he pushed his thoughts back to the question of aesthetic tastes. Deciding not to decide, he chose instead to limit himself to the barest essentials.
When he first began to attack the supply trains he had been looking for very specific things. Anything not fitting his requirements had been piled into storerooms without a second thought. He could not remember ever having gone back through his enormous collection before.
There were cases of wine, a box of caviar tins, a cask of Irish whiskey now thirty years old, and a myriad of other things V had no use for. Most of the large crates contained weapons. He probably had enough to supply a small army for several months. It occurred to him Evey’s group might need them and he vowed to offer them to her.
Mixed among military essentials and vices, V found gifts Sutler had intended for one of his many mistresses. There were dresses, shoes, jewelry and an assortment of larger household items. These were the things V had hoped to find.
There was too much to choose from. Far too much. People starved while Sutler wined, dined and waged war. V had attacked less than one percent of Norsefire shipments. How could so much be wasted on so few?
V recognized the burning heat rising in his blood and had to remind himself the culprits were dead and their government on the verge of collapse. As he always had, V would use their wealth to his suit his own purposes.
Considering whether or not rocket launchers were appropriate Christmas gifts, V began moving the piles in the hallway to his staging area where the next phase of Operation Gifts for Evey would take place. By the time he was finished it was time to begin getting ready for her arrival.
V showered and dressed quickly. Running a comb through the wig V watched his hand shake in the mirror. He repeated the motion willing his hand to be still, but it refused. The butterflies returned, filling his belly and threatening nausea. It will all be over soon, he told himself.
That was the problem. Either way it worked out, it would soon all be over. Either way his life would be completely different. The direction his life would take hinged on reactions he could not control.
Unable to sit still, V leapt to his feet and retreated to the comfort of the kitchen. Though he felt as if he would never eat again, he knew Evey would be hungry. Trying to distract himself he artfully crafted a fruit and cheese tray. It did not take as long as he hoped. Time slowed to a crawl as V tried to find something else to occupy himself with.
VEV
Evey wished she had not worn the dress. Burdened by so many bags she felt like a pack mule, Evey had begun to perspire. Though her new flat was by the entrance to the tunnels leading to the Shadow Gallery, there was a kilometer distance from one door to the other. She wished she had a miner’s hat with a lamp in the center. Holding a flashlight while attempting to navigate a series of ladders as she moved deeper underground was hard enough. Doing it with a bag of breakables over each arm was nearly impossible.
The journey took longer than she thought it would. Looking at her watch in the lamplight, she knew she was ten minutes late and still at least ten minutes away.
He probably thought she wasn’t coming.
Considering the options Evey dropped nearly all of her bags and jogged the rest of the way. It took five minutes to get there and a couple more to catch her breath and wipe the sweat off her brow. She had wanted to look confident and together when she pushed through his door, but there was no hope now. Her face was flushed red, her hair was damp and salty, and her coat had not protected her dress from the dirt of a fall.
Oh well. Taking a deep breath she pushed open the door to the Shadow Gallery.
The scent of Douglas fir and cinnamon greeted her and the first thing she saw was the huge tree standing where the piano had been. There were boxes of ornaments and other things in a neat pile next to it indicating V was not yet done. Perhaps he wanted her to help.
As she took step inside she wondered aloud where he was, “V?”
“Here.”
She took a step to the right and saw V standing calmly next to the couch. Overjoyed to see him again she bounded across the room and flung herself into his arms. He caught her easily and did not let go for a long, glorious moment.
“I really missed you.” She sighed, basking in the warmth of his embrace. He had not backed off, not flinched, not let go. Progress had been made.
His arms around her were tight as his chin came to rest on the top of her head. “I can see that. I’m glad you’re back.”
VEV
“I love you,” she said.
“Then I am the most fortunate man to have walked this earth,” V replied, hoping by the end of the evening he still was.
He could feel her smile against his chest. “And I’m the luckiest girl.”
“Ah,” he sighed, squeezing her tighter before taking a step back. As much as he wanted to avoid it, the time had come. He could put it off until she asked, but the way his heart was pounding he thought the suspense might kill him.
V looked over at the coffee table and the diary sitting atop it, daring him to open it and reveal himself. Turning back to Evey and her pensive expression he said, “You might not think so when we’ve finished.”
She shook her head and took a step toward him, “V…”
He cut her off. “Is qui diligo credo.”
“Huh?” She blinked, reminding him she did not speak Latin.
He translated. “He who loves, trusts.”
She looked away from him, clearly considering something. When she turned back to him her eyes were moist. “V, I didn’t mean…”
“No. You made a request and I shall answer it. Perhaps it is for the best.” He cut her off again. He had already resolved to reveal everything to her. She had asked him for his story and even if she let him off the hook now, it would haunt him. If he gave her only a piece of the story she would ask again. It would come out in short painful bursts, each worse than the one preceding it. Better to get it over with all at once.
Evey tried again. “I don’t expect…”
He reached out and took her hand. “The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore. [16] No more shadows or illusions. No more walls or obstacles. You shall know and then you will decide.”
She stepped into him, putting her arms around him again. “I’ve already decided.”
Evey you are making this harder, stop please, he thought as he said, “A decision made in ignorance cannot stand.”
She pulled her head back and looked up, brown eyes earnest. “I just wanted to know when you birthday is.”
He let his hand rise from her waist to her cheek. It felt good to touch her, to feel the subtle increase in pressure as she leaned into his hand. He was tempted to procrastinate, but unwilling to prolong the pain. He dipped his head and pushed away from her again. “I know. But then you would want to know something else. There would always be another question, Evey. It is better to just be done with it.”
“I don’t know what to say.” She mumbled.
V went to the coffee table and picked up the book that contained either his liberation or his damnation. Turning it over in his hands he wanted to rip it in half and disavow the past again. Once he had forgotten. Could he not forget again?
The spiral into rage began, but he could feel her stare burning into his back. With effort V pulled himself away from the anger and turned to face her. The expression on her face was guilty.
This is not your fault, Evey. You are not responsible, but I am. Please do not judge me too harshly. God will see I am punished for all I have done.
Taking a deep breath he thrust the book toward her saying, “Here.”
She walked over to him surveying the coffee table behind him as she did so. She was seeing the light meal he had prepared for her, the box of tissues and the blanket from her bed. “What’s this?”
V had done the best he could. There was still time to change his mind, but looking at her face as she comprehended the comfortable nest he had prepared for her, V knew he could not witness her grief. It appeared a kindness, but it reeked of cowardice. “O, what man within him hide, though angel on the outward side.” [17]
She cocked her head and smiled. “You’re no angel, V.”
“And I fear I will appear even less so when you’ve finished reading.” He said, gesturing for Evey to sit. Once she had settled he stepped back feeling like the most pathetic life form on earth, but he could not face it. Choking back the tears he knew were about to overwhelm him he turned and walked away.
“Where are you going?” she called after him.
V stopped and took a deep breath. “Those words are razors to my wounded heart. [18] It pains me to abandon you to a past so closely tied to your own, but I cannot live through it again. Though old, the wounds are still too fresh. I’m sorry, Evey."
Without waiting for her to reply he fled the room.
VEV
Evey watched him go feeling as if her body had turned to lead. Her heart followed him into the shadows but her body refused to leave the couch. In her hand she held the small red leather bound book he had given to her.
“I don’t want to know.” Evey said aloud trying on the lie she would have to live if she did not open the book. The trouble was she did want to know, especially when he claimed his past was so closely linked to hers. How could that be?
She looked at the coffee table again. Fruit and an assortment of cheeses, some chocolate, a pitcher of water and a glass, a box of tissues, the type infused with aloe and thus softer on the nose. She half expected a teddy bear and footie pajamas, but instead found her blanket from when she was a child folded neatly over the couch arm.
Evey reached out and picked it up. A neighbor had saved it along with a few other things and returned them to her when she was released from the JRC. It had been lost after Jordan Tower, but V had returned it last Christmas and she had wept with gratitude. It was the last remnant of her childhood.
He wanted her to be comfortable. It was an ominous sign. Worse was the short stack of medical reference books sitting on the couch beside her and thus within easy reach.
“I don’t want to know,” she said again, feeling terrible for having ever asked in the first place. He hid this from you for a reason, but you had to be nosey didn’t you? You had to know and now you’re hurting him. Well, get on then. He can only go through this once.
She opened the diary and read the first page. It was not quite twenty years old. Diane Stanton, MD, PhD. A doctor wrote it, a woman. Who was she?
Evey turned the page.
VEV
V sat on the roof willing the chill air to enter his soul and turn his heart to ice. It would be easier if he could convince himself he did not care, but as Evey sat far below reading V found he could do nothing else.
She was reading the journal, something he had never managed to do. He had not known it existed until he saw it on Delia’s nightstand. He had not had time to read it then, only time to skim and rip out the pages detailing things he never wanted anyone to know. Finch could leap to conclusions, and surely had, but he did not know.
V had never destroyed those pages, a coincidence requiring him to tape them back into the diary before giving it to Evey. He could have omitted them and had spent a great deal of time waffling on their inclusion, but in the end decided he wanted to get it over with. She would have asked about them anyway.
Soon Evey would know what had been done to him. She would know what had been done through him. She would see her brother’s death in a new light. She would see the brave futility of her parents. She would see her life abominated with his blood and she would either hate him for it or she would love him in spite of it.
V could do nothing but wait and worry. If by some miracle they made it past the book there was still the body to worry about. She had asked for access to his past. She now had it, but she also wanted access to his body. She would have that as well. It would all be over soon.
How long should he stay away? The worst shock for Evey would be the end when she realized the purpose of Larkhill. She would be angry at them certainly, but probably also at him. Despair built up like a wave, threatened to crash over him and V urgently sought a diversion, but found none.
Sitting alone in the cold dark, V began to drown in memory.
VEV
Oh god, repeated over and over in Evey’s head becoming a background chant as she read. She sat in a tiny ball, every muscle squeezed tight, surrounded by a sea of used tissue. Her eyes were blurred with tears, her throat raw from her sobs and her heart broken inside her chest.
She was little more than half way through the diary. V had not been mentioned. No one had. The forty-eight victims were completely objectified, not people at all but numbered subjects. They were nothing more than lab rats.
Diane was so cold. Her words were nothing but clinical notes, the sufferings of her victims described in the most unfeeling way. She ran tests on them. Countless tests. Baselines she called them, finding out if they were healthy before she made them sick justifying it as the best way to track the disease pattern.
On the same day she injected forty-eight people with the same nameless disease.
Daily examinations followed along with experimental treatments which seemed to be worse than the disease itself. The suffering of her victims was chronicled with cold disappointment as people began to die.
The similarities to St. Mary’s made Evey’s skin crawl.
Despair began to soften Diane’s notes. Not for the men and women she was killing but for the failure of her project and her fears over continuing funding. Her lack of progress was weighing on her pride, but not her conscience.
Out of the blue, Diane mentioned the man in room five. Five. V. Diane’s spirits had perked up when his disease did not progress as the others. As the others dropped like flies and he grew stronger he became the object of her obsession.
At last Diane had what she wanted. A survivor.
It was a cruel blessing. All her attention focused on V and he was subjected to a host of new tests each worse than the one preceding as Diane tried to figure out what made him different. She had to be careful with him however because he was the key to all her plans. She started talking to him.
Diane noted V claimed to have forgotten who he was. Reality smacked Evey full in the face. He cannot tell you his birthday because he does not know. It made sense. Why else would he have kept something so trivial secret.
Evey had to put the book down. For a long while she allowed her tears to flow unbridled. They may have only buried forty-seven bodies but they had taken forty-eight lives.
Eventually Evey gathered herself enough to pick the diary up again and continue.
The conversations Diane recounted reminded Evey very much of the V she knew. She described him as charisma personified and like a moth to the flame, Diane could not stay away from him. She claimed she found him ugly, but her words belied the fact she was attracted, if not to his appearance then definitely to his strength.
It was the same attraction Evey herself felt.
I would never use him like this though. I would never hurt him, she told herself even as she recognized the lie. She had hurt him. She had made him relive this. But I love him and she didn’t. I’m lancing the wound, not creating it, she told herself, but the justification felt hollow.
She returned to the diary. The next entry was elated. Diane believed she was close to a cure in rats and felt the key was in V’s blood.
Evey shuddered.
V became a living blood farm. They fed him better. They gave him more opportunities to exercise. They let him out of his cell. Anything to make sure he produced more blood.
As his health improved the situation at the camp deteriorated. It did not matter how close to a cure Diane was they would not give her more funding. There was none to give. The war was sucking the nation’s coffers dry and she did not have the cash to finance more human trials. She spent over a page complaining about supply shortages and threats to close the facility for good.
Several entries later told of the solution V had offered and they accepted. He began to garden and, like everything else he did, V did it very well. Soon the staff at the facility was eating better than they had before the shortages. What cash they still had could be pumped into financing Diane’s project. She was ready to begin human trials and soon after to start synthesizing a drug for mass production.
They gave V more freedom and as she read Evey knew this was a mistake. V was resourceful. Giving him access to a computer and the ability to buy garden supplies was unbelievably stupid.
Shortly afterwards V began to withdraw. He stopped talking to Diane. He stopped looking at her. He went mad, painting his cell in strange designs made from the chemicals he had ordered for his garden. Diane was perplexed, but Evey knew what he was doing.
You blew yourself up, didn’t you? You wanted to take them all with you.
The entry for the fifth of November was exactly as she expected. Explosions rocked the camp. Hundreds died, but Diane cared only for her precious research. All her work was lost and Evey triumphed in the evil bitch’s sorrow.
Then she turned the page.
VEV
It had begun to snow.
Soon everything would be blanketed in pure, virginal white until the city woke from its slumber and cut foul tracks through pristine beauty.
V wondered idly why beauty was so fragile, why anything worth having was. It seemed a cruel irony. Anything you might want to hold would fall to ash under even the gentlest touch.
His mind continued to wander as a street light far below blinked out. V looked at other streets, some well light and others nothing but shadows. He thought about painting and how black pigment could absorb huge amounts of a light color and remain dark, but white could be tainted by the smallest drop of color. Why should it be so? Why did darkness always suck the light down in a vortex of shadow? Why was light so fragile?
Was he never of the light? Did he deserve what had happened? Was it karma? Was there no redemption to be had? No saving grace?
V shook his head. He wished he could let go of the questions he knew he would never answer. Everyone who could give him the information he wanted was dead, including the man he had been once.
Evey would ask about Before. How could she not?
She would know from the diary that he could not answer. Delia had immortalized his moment of self-rejection. It had fascinated her and she had tortured him with questions. A tantalizing anomaly for a scientist, how does a man kill himself without dying? If even he was curious, Evey would wonder too.
How would he tell her he was not as strong as Valerie? She was never broken. V broke. The morning he woke and had no idea where he was, who he was, or why he was there, he had given up the last inch.
Valerie’s letter had reached him too late to save his inch, but her words had given him the will to take it back. He had been trying ever since, but no matter how hard he worked, what was lost would never be restored.
V had given Evey Valerie’s letter earlier than he had received it. He wanted her to identify her last inch before she lost it. He wanted her to have the chance to fight for it and it had heartened him to see her do just that.
Thinking of Evey, he began to wonder how much time had passed. V looked out over the London skyline, but Big Ben was no longer there to tell him.
V sighed. Two of the most historically significant buildings in London had been razed to the ground. It was a necessary sacrifice, he had told himself. Neither served the purpose for which it had been built anymore. Both had been corrupted long ago and V had felt neither could be restored. Better to start over. In retrospect he wondered if his point could have been made through other means. Too late to second guess. Better to hope.
So much was now riding on hope.
VEV
It was religious extremists. Muslims using biological warfare meant to divide us. It was! It had to be.
Even as she thought it, Evey knew it was a lie. Just another lie she had swallowed. Mere propaganda they had used to isolate and dominate their subjects.
We were all rats in a cage to them. Lab rats in their great power experiment. Oh God, how could we have been so stupid?
Not everyone was. Her parents had not been. They had known. Not the specifics, no one knew what Evey now did. But they had understood the corruption. They had seen what was happening and they had fought back.
I hated them for it.
She broke down into sobs again, sending prayers for forgiveness heavenward hoping her parents could hear her.
They murdered children. Innocent children. They murdered my brother. They killed my family. Realizations went off in Evey’s head like cannon fire. Each blowing huge holes in walls she did not realize she still had. Brainwashed. Indoctrinated. A fortress of lies built in her mind, a prison she didn’t even know existed.
V had sought to free her in that cell so like his own, but he had been too kind. He had not let her see the real horror. He had tried to shield her from it instead.
V was a part of this. An unwilling part, but a part none the less. No wonder he fought. Of course he did. What choice had there been?
What they did to him was monstrous. What they did through him was infinitely worse. If he had died like all the others, my brother would not have died. My parents would still be here. I would have a family if he had just fucking died.
For a long moment she raged against V and his determination. She hated his unnatural strength, his speed, his intellect, his self sacrifice. She wanted to turn back the clock and kill him herself. She wanted to kill them all. It was not fair he had lived nor was it fair he had taken the pleasure of killing them all and leaving none for her.
Well fuck that. There were some left. She had fought so hard to save the lying, murdering bastards too. Well to hell with them. Straight to hell with them.
Evey threw the diary as far across the room as she could and then leaping from the couch tore her mobile from her bag and made for the lift to the roof.
VEV
Determined footsteps rang out on the flagstone floor and the next in a series of dreaded events began for V.
He met her at the lift.
Her mobile was clutched in a white knuckled death grip and her face was so contorted by rage it was actually ugly.
V had wondered what she would do when she saw him, but he had not expected her to walk right past him as if he weren’t there. Evey’s focus was completely set on the roof where her phone would work.
V knew what she was doing and it cut to the quick.
I have stolen vengeance from her, so she will make war on the innocent.
“They didn’t know, Evey.” He said softly as she stepped into the lift.
She ignored him and slammed the door closed. Pushing the button her face turned skyward. When nothing happened she pressed the button again. Still nothing.
“Fucking thing! God damn it!” She whirled on him, “Why isn’t this working?”
“It’s broken.” V lied. He had disabled it fearing she would do exactly what she was trying to do. She was reacting without thinking. She was allowing her rage to control her rather than channeling it.
She let loose a string of curses foul enough to make a sailor blush before she turned on heal and stalked toward the door leading to the tunnels.
He followed her and as she reached for the door handle he leaned his weight against it so she could not pull it open.
“Back off, V.” She snarled through clenched teeth as she pulled the handle with all her might.
She is not strong, V thought as he held the door fast against her. “I’m sorry Evey. I can’t do that.”
“Like hell you can’t. Let me out of here!” She gave up pulling and slammed her fists into the door. When she pulled them away she left spots of blood on the door. She had hit it so hard the skin on her hands had split.
In the face of her rage V found himself growing calmer. Rage he could work with. It was despair he was afraid of. “Why?”
She turned on him again, brown eyes sparking yellow flames. “God damn you! You know why.”
V put his hands on her shoulders, attempting to calm her as he had when she emerged from her imprisonment. “Which is the reason this door and every other is closed until you calm down.”
She slapped his hands away. “Calm down?!? They murdered my brother! Do you understand that, V? They killed him!”
V folded his hands in front of him and nodded. “I understand and I am sorry. All those responsible have paid, Evey, all but one.”
Her expression took on a rabid eagerness. “Who? The bitch with the diary?”
“No. Me.” V whispered.
She stopped dead in her tracks. “You?”
“Me.”
The tension seemed to melt from her body and Evey slumped to the floor. She looked at the phone in her hands.
Not wanting to stand over her like a victorious beast, V went to his knees and waited. Whatever she said next would seal his fate.
After a long moment of silence she looked at him. “Should I hate you for not dying?”
“I cannot say.” V said unable to meet her eyes, not wanting to see.
Evey crawled a little closer to him. “So you would blame the lab rat.”
I was a lab rat. Now I am a cesspool. How could she forgive me?
She came closer still, stopping right in front of him careful not to touch. “The only reason this isn’t Valerie’s fault, or any of the other forty-seven is because they died? Is that what you think?”
Without meaning to V reached for her hands. “It doesn’t matter. If…”
“If, but, should have, could have, would have, fuck, V.” She choked, leaning forward and burying her head in his lap. She started to sob. Long keening wails echoed off the arched ceilings and surrounded V in a thunderstorm of grief.
~~~~~
[16] Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
[17] William Shakespeare - Measure for Measure, Act III
[18] William Shakespeare - Titus Andronicus