Our Last Echo

16

Singleforth City

It was familiar scene, but Thomas could not help feeling disappointed when he entered the cabin. A bottle of vintage wine, open but not finished and left uncorked. A woman's dress on the floor. The unmistakable smells of sex. Master Bruce, barely awake, sprawled on the bed and the sound of the shower running.

"Coffee, Master Sutton?" He offered dryly as he removed his coat.

James raised his head from the pillow. He saw Thomas and sat up, pulling the sheet up to cover himself before Thomas was forced to look away. "Morning, Alfred."

Thomas found the cork and began to work it carefully into the neck of the bottle. "Will it be breakfast for two, sir?"

James came toward him with the bedsheet wrapped around his waist. "Just coffee. I let Hanna take the shower first because she's in a hurry. We both slept a bit late."

Hanna? That was unexpected. Thomas had assumed someone from the previous night's party... He caught himself, reoriented his thinking and placed the wine bottle back on the table. "I'll make it the Italian blend, then. I recall Miss Thornbill prefers it."

"Alfred, could you go through the intel from last night? I meant to do it myself but..." James gestured toward the bed with a smile that Thomas hadn't seen for many years. A smile he was glad to see again.

"Of course, sir." He headed into the kitchen to make the requested coffee. If James were alone, he would have followed Thomas into the kitchen and continued the conversation. If the woman were one of his casual affairs, he would have rushed through the coffee and escaped, leaving Thomas to explain the ways of the world to the woman.

Instead, Thomas prepared a tray: the silver coffee service and fine china. Although Master James had refused breakfast, he served croissants with the coffee and carried the tray to the dining table, hastily clearing away the remaining detritus of the night before. He returned to the kitchen to fix a more substantial breakfast for himself: if he was going to spend the morning in The Suttoncave he wanted to be well-fortified. It could be very cold down there.

He was finishing his first cup of tea when Hanna appeared in the doorway. "I have to hurry but I can't go without thanking you for breakfast. It was lovely. I'll see you later?"

"Most welcome, Miss Thornbill," he answered.

She offered a dazzling smile, and was gone. An instant later he heard her car leaving.

By the time James was showered, shaved and dressed, Thomas had the cabin tidy: breakfast things cleared, bed stripped, wine back in the cellar.

James came into the kitchen as Thomas was giving the silver coffee pot a final polish. He slumped back against the kitchen worktop. "What, no lecture?"

Thomas set the coffee pot on its shelf. "Lecture, Master Bruce?" he said with mock-innocence.

"Yeah, this is the part where you complain about me emptying my own wine cellar, or my debauchery. Come on, give me your best shot."

Thomas smiled to see him happy. It was a long time since he had seen the boy he raised in the cynical and embittered man he had become.

"No lecture, sir," he said. "Miss Thornbill is good for you." Then, unable to resist, he pointed a finger at Bruce's chest and said sternly, "Don't mess it up."

James laughed.

Metropolis

There were four alien vessels, that they knew of, on Earth during the invasion. Two were Scyro's ships: the first of them destroyed Metropolis before literally disappearing, apparently into a black hole above the city. The second, Kovalan destroyed over the Indian Ocean. What was left of that ship was a huge hunk of dead metal, a new island in the sea. The third vessel was the one that brought Kovalan to Earth. Little more than a pod, yet it was the one that somehow created that black hole, and like the first, was now gone forever.