The Mello Code

Linda marched down the corridor, banging on each door in turn. "Arse out here. D\'s organised dinner." It was repeated after each knock, until she reached the end and returned to the main living area. Double doors were thrown back to reveal an ornate dining table set for fifteen. Origami shapes sat alone on the plates of five of them, each one different. As people emerged, they sat, identifying the origami, then trying to to break the code of which related to which absent peer and why. She had removed both seats from the head of the table. They were expected to sit in rows, on either side, facing each other. Linda took off again, demanding the presense of those still not out of their rooms. Deontic watched and smiled as they all finally took their seats.



"Isn\'t this cosy?" Fenian tutted, as he sat, the last to take his place. He noticed the empty space across the table. "What\'s that?"



Century replied. "The Siege Perilous." He smiled. "Well, one of them."



"It\'s Nathalie." Mello smirked. He indicated the other seats with short flicks of his finger. "And that one\'s Hollow. Jonny is beside Linda. There\'s Mairoo and there\'s Lamond." Around the table, there were one or two creased brows, but the majority kept their expressions strictly neutral. "Am I right?"



Before Deontic could respond, Near entoned, "Nearly right. Jonny and Lamond were right." One hand rose languidly, the opened cuff of his white pyjama top dangling dangerously close to a lit tea-light. "That\'s Nathalie. That\'s Hollow. That\'s Mairoo." Near lowered his hand and returned to playing with his cutlery. Silence descended upon the room, as minds rushed to work out the patterns that Mello or Near had seen.



Deontic closed her eyes, her lips set. Matt didn\'t look up. "No. Mello\'s right. Sorry, Near."



Deontic sighed. "Really, it..."



"Ok, I give up!" Fenian sat back in his chair, his arms folded. "What\'s the fucking pattern?"



Near sounded bored. "There isn\'t one. Deontic just set them out to give us something to puzzle over, when we sat down."



Mello bit into his chocolate. "Probably to occupy our minds, so that we didn\'t squabble the second we entered the room."



"Oh, for fuck\'s sake." Chrissie sighed. "In which case, Near stop causing trouble." She had her sleeping baby strapped in a carrying wrap around her front. "Is it me, or have things actually gone downhill since we last met? It was almost friendly the morning after we got Matt back, but now it\'s as bad as it always was."



Deontic rose and reached beneath a serving table for a case. She opened it to reveal a compact chemistry set. "I have cooked some of the food myself. Linda has been in the kitchen with me the entire time. The rest was sourced by Mr Georgiou, from the Watari Network. However, there is no trust in this room. It will be too chaotic if everyone was to individually test for poisons. Might I therefore suggest that Luigi does it. This is, after all, his favoured field of study."



"Poisons?" Mello smirked.



"Sciences." Linda replied, a warning edge to her tone. "D, I need nothing testing. If anyone else does, then I\'ll have a mouthful of all of their meals. It would save having the smell of bleeding chemicals all over the place. Sitting here with Century\'s aftershave in my mouth is bad enough."



They all looked at her. One or two smiled. Century blushed. "Oh?" Chrissie grinned. "How have you got Century\'s aftershave in your mouth?"



"Oh!" Linda bit back the retort that she had been about to make. "He\'s sitting next to me and I\'m breathing it in."



Century shrugged. "I could move."



Near looked up in interest. His eyes unblinking as he stared at Linda and Century. As they returned the gaze, he just smiled. "Yes." Mello commented. "Where would you go? Because we\'ve all sat according to some psychological profiling that Deontic probably worked out days ago. If you study it, you can see the factions amongst us. In fact," Mello paused as he leaned forward, taking his time to look around as if he hadn\'t already memorised everyone\'s positions, "yes, you can also spot the perceived threats and vunerabilities. Quite fascinating really. But the upshot is that Century can\'t move, because he and Salvo are flanking Chrissie and the baby. You\'ll have to move, Linda. Though I don\'t know where, unless you shift a ghost." He indicated a space diagonally opposite himself. "Swop places with Mairoo. You\'ll only be facing Matt then and he\'s stupidly perceived as inoffensive." Mello stopped and blinked. "Oh! Clever, Deontic! Really clever! You set the absent places strategically! Let\'s see..."



"Mello." Deontic sighed. "Please don\'t read too much into it. Give your brain a rest for thirty seconds, please." She walked into the kitchen and began bringing covered plates through. Luigi immediately rose to help her, as did Linda, but Deontic bade them sit. "I prefer to do this alone." All eyes were instantly on her and there was silence as she filled the table. She shifted the chemistry case and replaced it with a bowl of steaming rice. "Our meal is in honour of Lamond and in memory of absent friends. Please help yourself to food."



There was a pause, no-one wanting to be the first to stand. Fenian frowned. "That\'s a bit sick, isn\'t it? A meal in honour of Lamond."



"Fenian!" Chrissie breathed. She cast him a look which forestalled any response. Linda said nothing, just rose with her plate in her hand. She piled food high onto it and, as if her actions created permission, others followed her to collect their own food.



"Did you see that?" Deontic asked, once they all had food and had regained their seats. "Mello and Fenian, I don\'t know if you have ever sat opposite each other before during a meal. You both have the same custom. You bow to your food before eating."



The two men exchanged glances. Mello murmered, "She means saying grace in our heads."



Fenian nodded, answering more loudly. "I know he\'s Catholic. There\'s nothing I can do about it, short of writing to the Pope in protest."



"You love me, Fenian." Mello smirked, eating chocolate despite the meal in front of him.



Fenian met and held his gaze. "I really don\'t." He sat up a little straighter. "I\'ll go down holes to fetch you out. I\'ll be civil to you at meetings and, if it helps lighten the atmosphere, I\'ll fucking have the craic with you. But I don\'t like you, Mello. Either of you, the truth be known."



"Oh, come on." Linda began, but Deontic raised her hand.



"Let them have this conversation."



Mello nodded. "Exactly what me and Matt thought would happen. Let me state my position before you all line up. I know that I am the big, bad villain in the room. You should also know that I don\'t actually need any of you to like me. I don\'t need any of you on my side. If I seriously thought that any of you were out to kill me, or in any way harm me or Matt, then I\'d take you out in an instant." He met every eye in turn, except those who would not look up. "That said, I am still here. Matt and I might not end up staying the night, but if taking it in turns to say your piece to me means that we prevent the next unnecessary death, then by all means go ahead." He gestured magnamiously. "Take your pot shots."



No-one spoke. The only sound was the scraping of forks on a couple of plates and that died down as the silence went on. Salvo nodded, then looked along the table. "Did your parents speak to you about the war?"



Mello\'s eyes widened slightly, the chocolate hovering halfway to his mouth. "Domovinski Rat?" He waited for Salvo to nod. "I warrant that I was a lot younger at the time than you were when it happened to Zaire. I don\'t recall too much about it before..." Mello paused and the chocolate completed its journey, but he didn\'t take a bite. He just held it there against his lips. One arm dropped beneath the table and it was obvious to all that Matt had just held his hand. "I can only assume that my parents tried to keep me out of it. I remember a happy home, loving and fun. I remember my mama as carefree, lavishing attention on me. Each memory of have of her, she is talking to me or playing with me. It\'s only with hindsight that I know that she must have been worried sick. I remember less about my papa. He always seemed to be out at work or sitting in front of the television exhausted. But no, until it happened, I don\'t believe that the Domovinski Rat made it into my life." Mello looked back at Salvo. "How about you?"



"I remember it." Salvo gave a half-shrug. "I was seven when the first one kicked off. Well, I had my eighth birthday during it. My maman was not as calm about it as yours." He smiled, but they saw the sadness behind it. "With reason. There was nothing easy about her situation. I\'m not saying it was easy for you, but," Salvo bit his lip, "England was a serious culture shock for me. My père died before I was born. A mine shaft..."



"My papa was a miner." Mello stared.



Salvo smiled. "We appear to have a lot in common."



"Sorry, I interupted you."



"A shaft collapsed and he was killed. My maman raised me and my older brother. They were shot dead by MIBA. The guards. At the mines." Salvo\'s story petered to a stop. Chrissie rubbed his arm. For a moment, everyone thought that he was going to cry, but Salvo rallied. "So you see, it wasn\'t the war at all. Not directly. I lived through them both, but it was the mines that killed my family. There is nothing left for me in Congo."



Tension rose in the air as a palpable thing. Each of them hearing the stories and both reliving their own and fearing that they would have to tell them. Linda said, "This is a fine conversation topic for a gang of orphans," at the same time as Century muttered, "My parents were shot dead. That\'s all I want to say about it." He punctuated his statement by getting up to refill his plate, Century being one of the few actually eating. Chrissie tried to reach for him, but he moved beyond her.



Deontic addressed her response to Linda, "Yes. It is a conversation. It is one thing that we can be sure that we have in common."



"It\'s morbid, D." Linda countered. "And the last people on earth whom I want to tell about it are sitting around this table."



Fenian took a deep breath. "It was a car crash. Nothing as exciting as war. I was twelve years old and I was in the fucking car at the time. Bucketing it down with rain, my Dad lost control, fucking thing turned over. They died, I survived."



"Chlorea." Deontic said. They all waited but she didn\'t elaborate.



Luigi coughed and they all stared, none of them expecting him to speak at all. "As far as I know, mine are still alive." There were a series of gasps and incredulous looks. "I was given up into care, but I was ill as a child. A little child. I went through a lot of foster families before I wound up in Wammy\'s House."



"Ok!" Chrissie sighed. "Cancer took my mother, when I was six. My father fell into a river, drunk a fucking skunk, when I was nine."



Century returned to his seat and received a quick, one-armed hug from Chrissie. Fenian chuckled once it was clear that no-one else was sharing their tragedy. "Look at the peer pressure growing. Matt, Linda and Near, all trying to work out if it\'s safe. Oh no! The fucking world might end if we aren\'t the last to say!" He tapped a pen on his thigh. "Or is that we are the stupid ones? Oh look, giving away ammunition on a plate to people who have a track history of trying to fuck us up."



Matt looked up. "Well, as far as we can make out, mine\'s similar to Chrissie\'s."



"It is?" Mello frowned, looking at him.



"Yeah. My papá was drunk as well, when he accidentally got shot dead by the Spanish army. My mamá disappeared off the face of the earth after blowing up half of France." Matt met their stares with a grin, then picked up his fork and started shovelling food into his mouth.



Fenian looked from Matt to Mello. "I think I speak for us all, when I say that some elaboration is clearly necessary."



Mello tutted, "There\'s a lot of uncertainty about Matt\'s origins."



"So he was cloned in a lab then." Fenian smiled. "Joke."



Fire flared into Mello\'s gaze. "Do not joke," his voice rose rapidly, "about Matt\'s origins!" Even Matt leapt, startled by the suddenness with which Mello angered. Everyone else leaned away or, in Luigi\'s case, looked ready to flee.



Matt held his husband\'s arm. "Hey, chill, man. It\'s all good."



Near\'s voice rose languidly from the other end of the table. "I was taken into care also." All attention swung towards him and Mello settled back in his seat, glaring at Fenian. "My momma was fifteen. She didn\'t say who my father is. My momma couldn\'t cope with me."



Mello\'s mouth opened and closed, but he said nothing. He picked up his chocolate again and sucked on an edge of it. No-one was feeling comfortable with this conversation. It was Chrissie who commented. "We all have our tragedies. We do tend to forget that. It never occurred to me though, before now, that there were children at Wammy\'s House who weren\'t technically orphans. Luigi and Near, I don\'t know what to say to you." Her hand was held over her son\'s back, fingers spread. "It must have been really hard for any parent to give up their child. There must have been exceptional circumstances."



"No." Luigi had a hard boiled egg. He was eating it layer by layer. "She hated my father and so she hated me."



"I\'m sorry to hear that." There were murmers of agreement all around the table.



No-one actually looked at Linda, but she squirmed anyway. She shook her head, then exhaled loudly. "You know what\'s quite impressive here? No-one is trying to pull a \'I\'m more tragic than thou\' act. Just the stories being told, though there\'s no guarantee that anyone is telling the truth." She shrugged. "Both of my parents were in prison. That\'s how I initially ended up in care. My father died in there due to complications with his diabetes. My mother had a shorter term, but she cracked up and ended up in a different institution. They were both in there for the euthanasia of my grandmother. Happy now?"



Century put his arm around her. "I doubt that happiness comes into it."



Deontic nodded. "Thank you all. I feel like I know who I\'m sitting around a table with now. A bunch of children grown up, who still carry this hurt inside. Was it any wonder we lashed out at each other, given the encouragement to do so?" She bowed slightly, to no-one in particular. "The heart inside me feels sorry for the hearts inside you all."



"Gira ubuntu." Salvo muttered. He lifted his fork and began to eat. "Thank you for cooking for us, D." He glanced up. "Pek Wan."



"You are very welcome, Kamwala."



Chrissie looked from her baby to the plate. "I think I was the only one who got away with it earlier. When Mail was spewing out names. I\'m Lilac Sharise DeGaneau. I\'m Canadian."



Fenian leaned forward to see her properly. "You look Gaelic. I always secretly thought you were in mine and Century\'s gang."



"I think there\'s some Scots in my ancestry. If I prove it, can I have honourary membership?" She laughed and he did too. The sound seeming to break a spell around the table. "Is that it?" Chrissie asked mildly. "Can we go home now?"



Linda broke open another bread roll, buttering it as she interjected, "It\'s amazing how they found us all, when you think about it. None of us are from the same country. Four different continents. How about the other five? Did we cover any more continents with them? Jonny was from Estonia. We\'re unlikely to get anyone from Antarctica, but any South Americans or Australasians do we know?"



Matt took out a cigarette and started to rise from his seat. "My lot invaded South America. I\'ll claim it if there\'s a continent going spare." He met Mello\'s gaze. "Going for a ciggie."



"It does make you wonder how they did it." Linda continued. "How they found us. The network must be vast. To even get into Wammy\'s House is quite an achievement. They were looking all over the world and ended up with just fifteen of us. That\'s mind-boggling, when you think of it."



"I\'ll come with you." Mello slipped out his seat, keeping hold of Matt\'s hand as they passed between their peers and the serving table. They all watched them go.



"That\'s quite sweet." Chrissie smiled. "It\'s hard to tell with Matt, but Mello is so in love, isn\'t he? You\'d have thought it would have worn off by now."



"That\'s not in love." Fenian tutted, rising to go and have a cigarette himself. "That\'s them going to confer to ensure that they\'re winning whatever game we\'re playing right now."



Linda frowned. "It\'s not a game. Not any more. That\'s kind of the point."



"No, it\'s in love." Chrissie nodded towards their abandoned seats. "Just watch the little looks that Mello keeps giving Matt. Matt only has to twitch in his seat and Mello\'s turning to see what he\'s doing. Then there are the little smiles. I think it\'s, well, it\'s not the Mello I thought I knew."



"I\'m going for a cigarette." Fenian brushed past and left for his room.



Linda watched him leave. "In the spirit of today, Matt should have asked Fenian to go for a cigarette with him."



"Yeah." Agreed Chrissie.



Century shook his head. "Fenian would have told him to fuck off and then all the camaderie would have been shattered. Baby steps."



Deontic found Near staring at her from the next seat. "Yes?"



Near looked away, a finger twirling a lock of hair. "What is Deontic\'s goal? She is arranging things so everyone likes her." He peered at her again. "You want to be the new Watari after Hal\'s contract runs out."



Deontic\'s eyes widened. "I can quite assure you that I don\'t. I don\'t even get on with children. They\'re noisy."



"Ok.



"Near, just enjoy the moment. Be yourself. This is not a game."



Near frowned and returned to stacking peas on his plate. "Yes, it is. It\'s always a game."



Deontic\'s eyes filled with tears again. "Near, please."



Century stood to collect the plates, carrying them into the little kitchen. "Did anyone ever see \'The Running Man\'?" He called back, then gasped. "Is this dessert?"



Deontic wiped her eyes and rose. Disappearing into the kitchen too. "Yes. I should bring them through. Cen," she began, then corrected herself, "Iestyn, wasn\'t it?"



"Matt pronounced it wrong. It\'s Iestyn." It sounded like \'yes-tin\' from his lips. "Funny. It hardly feels like my name at all anymore."



Chrissie called through to them. "Is this safe?" She looked towards Near. "We\'re sitting in this room, shedding names and personal information like it doesn\'t matter. Yet Mr Wammy evidently thought that it did. If all of these safeguards were so important then, why are we just disregarding them now?"



"Iestyn, there is a box of lollipops on the side there. Help yourself." Deontic picked up the first of the desserts and carried them out to the table. She paused once she realised that she hadn\'t cleared the serving table first.



Near smiled, "Don\'t you know, Chrissie?"



"I can think of a dozen reasons why it\'s sensible to have the pseudonyms. I can only think of one reason to destroy them now and that\'s because we\'re getting carried away." Chrissie glanced up as Salvo left the table to help Deontic. "Are we that starved of tribal instincts that we would risk our lives now?"



Near frowned. "There is no good reason to give away information now. One person started and then we were bound by honour to reciprocate in kind. Information for information, it\'s how it\'s always worked."



Chrissie, Linda and Luigi all stared at him. Linda rubbed her face. "Ok, this is really freaking me out now."



"If people know about us," Near continued, "then that person could pass information on to anyone who asks for it."



Linda flushed. "Near, I..."



"Linda acted with emotion and not logic."



"No." Linda glared. "There was plenty of logic, thank you. Where were you Near? They were police officers. What...? They were supposed to be our allies."



Near flicked his tower of peas. "No. Linda acted foolishly."



"Fuck you!" Linda roared. She pushed back her chair and raced to her room, yelling back from the entrance. "I\'m sorry, D, I...." Then she was gone.



Chrissie watched, wide-eyed, "What was that about?"



Near began to restack the peas. "Linda gave information about Mello and I to Kira."



"Shit."



At the table, Salvo pulled Deontic into a hug. She resisted at first, then allowed it. Salvo whispered into her ear, "I\'m sorry that it\'s turning out like this. I know you wanted to create harmony."



Deontic shook her head. "No, it\'s ok. This is what has to happen. Until we see the wounds, how can we treat them?"



"So it\'s all going to plan."



Deontic shrugged, "You act like I\'ve got a plan. I\'ve got a goal. What\'s the use of having a strategy here?"